#do you guys think mom or rose would own more queer stuff

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

TT: I went to the store with my mom and said I wanted the lesbian candle. TT: She looked at me and said, and I quote; MOM: u have enouhg lesbian shit already how bout getitng a gf for once thag's pretty lesiban to me TT: During pride month, too. Like, Mom???

TT: Can you guys stop rebubbling my worst moment ever?

[craziestfangirl98]

My thoughts on Love, Victor season 2 cause I have too many feelings and I need to talk about it.

Disclaimer No. 1. This has massive Love, Victor season 2 spoilers so pleaseeeee leave if you have not watched it. Also if you do not want to engage with it.

Disclaimer No. 2: This is my opinion on the season so if you don't agree please leave. Don't come for me. I don't mind having proper discussions but I don't want unnecessary arguments so thanks.

There are a lot of unpopular opinions so as I said earlier if you don't want to be respectful, please leave.

I absolutely adoooooooored this season. I think it met its potential quite well and I liked how it panned out. I felt it was brilliantly done. I know a lot of people don't agree with me but I actually saw that it was gonna be an acquired liking but yeah.

THIS POST WILL BE GETTING TO THE MORE MAJOR PARTS OF THE SEASON. MEANING VICTOR, RAHIM, BENJI AND VENJI.

Let's start with individual breakdowns.

Right of the bat we see that this season is gonna deal with Victor with the rest of the world. The first season was very internal and dealt with his own stuff in his own head. We very minutely see his interaction with different people and how that internally affects him. This season was more of how the outward world dealt with him. His intersectionality of being a Queer POC that plays sport really adds to the discussions within the queer community and the sense of being outcasted within the community. I liked how he was able to talk to Andrew about the whole being 'the most non gay gay' and also not being 'gay enough'. It was really nice and I loved that interaction. I also liked the fact that they discussed the whole aspect of being stressed about the first time and such.

I liked the full cabin sequence in terms of his anxiety about having sex for the first time. That too with an experienced gay. It all just makes sense and makes me glad that it was addressed.

I loved him as the 'mentor' for Rahim and the fact that they could relate to each other about being POC with religious parents I think was the exact push needed for the discussions to move forward.

I think his conversation about his queer experience as a POC with Rahim was something I have been waiting for since the first season. He definitely should not have revealed Benji's secrets without talking to him and that was a mistake on his part and something that will affect Venji in a long while. But the fact that Rahim and Victor relied on each other was not surprising.

I am going to address the rest of the aspects of Victor with regards to his relationships with each of them after their individual breakdown.

Now moving forward to Benji.

I know its gonna be a hard truth but I think his character was the one that I liked the least. And this is specific to the fact that his motivations are hidden from us. He is not really open to talk to us (through victor). I had the same problem with him in the first season and was hoping he would be fleshed out more. We only see him as an extension to Victor and just his boyfriend. Even then, we barely see him communicating with Victor or anybody else all through the time. Also, that being said, I have seen a lot of people say he was OOC but I think he was actually not really OOC. The way he reacts to Victor's mom's reactions although they come from a place of wanting better for Victor, he doesn't really think twice about why Victor must not be reacting or doing so subtly. He feels very unsympathetic on many occasions and that is a pattern we see from season 1.

I'm not saying he didn't have any troubles of his. Cause he definitely did. We know that with the drunken driving episode and the AA meetings and the strip club story. They were all awful, but that doesn't excuse him from trying to understand where Victor is coming from. Maybe having a little more context and communication about him would make us understand him and his motivations better.

This season specifically, I actually found him to be very token-ish of a gay guy which is weird because it has two other gay characters (or 5 based on the multiple cameos).

Now getting to Rahim.

I LOVED HIM. He is, I think right behind Victor in my heart. I fell in love with him barely minutes into the episode. His coming out retelling was the most wholesome of all things. I loved the friendship Pilar and him shared. I'm surprised we didn't get a scene with Pilar teasing him about his crush on Victor but I think that was because the writers didn't want to make it obvious. I felt he had a character of his own that was explored more than just coming in between the main couple. The one episode where they skip school we found out more about him and it was intriguing to say the least.

He is a Muslim gay boy who likes to put nail polish and fashion and believes that his parents will not accept him. It is soo refreshing to see this theory get denied and the parents being completely okay with it. Next, Victor and him have an interesting relationship between the two. When victor needs his mind to be taken off of things or talk to, Rahim does just that and when Rahim needs some advice or just some support Victor does that.

NOW VENJI.....

I think this is again... a little unpopular right now, but... their relationship was not that great this season. And I.... kinda expected that to happen. That is for multiple reasons. They spent 50% of their time making out, 40% of it fighting and 10% communicating. Were they flawed? Absolutely and I get that. They had massive miscommunication problems. Trust issues and everything under the moon. It is to be expected especially cause they are teenagers and they are not mature enough. That being said, flaws are not when you are dismissive of your boyfriend's issues because he doesn't fit your ideal gay stereotype. Flaws are not when you say your boyfriend is too much for you to handle and say something like you are the only one taking care of them. That's manipulation. Flaws are not when you don't realise that the context your boyfriend comes from is very specific to himself and if you want to do better you need to be open to listen to where he is coming from instead of getting offended by him saying you are white when you don't get the specifics. You need to understand that by saying you are white, he is not dismissing your experience with alcohol addiction and with your father taking you to strip clubs and shit. He is just saying you don't get where I am coming from. The reason I say I saw it coming is because even in season 1 we see Benji go ahead with what he wants to do instead of thinking about the consequences. Case in point the kiss on Victor's birthday. Victor told Benji that his grandparents are homophobic and still he kisses Derek. Because it is fiction and a teen drama the consequences weren't dire and it came to be a growth point for Victor but just imagine if the consequences were different. If it ended up being something worse, what then. I feel this season we are especially able to see Benji out of the rose tinted glasses that Victor had last season.

That being said I admit that Victor was also not entirely good. He did breach Benji's trust. I don't see how they can go back from there. He didn't communicate from his side as well, but just think of it like this if someone says you are too much to handle would their partner actually be willing to communicate what's bothering them?

The things about Isabelle walking on sex. If it was my house anything remotely sexual, irrespective of the gender would have been met with shame and anger just as Isabelle did. They are 16. The little brother was right next door. In any way whether it is straight sex or gay sex it would still have been met this way I feel.

So yeah as much as they are supposed to be the main star couple of the show they lack in almost every aspect. So yeah...

Now coming to VICTOR X RAHIM

Straight off the bat, I don't know if I watched the same season that others did because I actually felt the chemistry between them was actually more than Venji had in scenes other than the make out ones.

Also, they come from similar backgrounds. They understand each other much better than any white dude could ever understand them. They actually talk and communicate.

Rahim and Victor on the other hand are both new to this whole being gay, out and proud thing and I feel they would understand each other better. I think a big problem people have with them is that the writers fall back on the love triangle trope and stuff but I like it in this instance. It made sense to me.

Why? Because they are teenagers. Also, the gay pool in schools are so small and people are bound to explore. Like Victor said, what are the odds that you end up with the first person you start dating?

Also, regarding the wedding. Benji said he would not come, so I don't think he has the right to question who he came with. It was completely innocent on Victor's part because he did invite Pilar first. I guess it is the whole first slow dance that was the betrayal and as much as their chemistry was palpable I feel Benji should have allowed to here him out. I don't know maybe you all feel different about it but I feel that is not a betrayal on Victor's part. What could have been a betrayal was the kiss. I know it is once again a repeat of the cheating stereotype and I had hoped that the showrunner's did it a bit differently but well it has happened. (But again the chemistry in that kiss!!!)

What do I want to happen next. I definitely ship Victor x Rahim more than Victor x Benji. I would love for it to be Rahim behind the door but it feels unlikely that the showrunners will actually do that so my hope is even if they get together, Benji and Victor realise just how much they don't fit with each other and break up amicably and then Victor x Rahim gets explored and slow burn happens.

I don't want Victor to be the only one apologising if Venji do get together again. For whatever small amount of time. I need them to communicate better.

So yeah..... this was long and what I thought of the main portions of Love, Victor. It's really ironic how people love everyone other than Victor in a story about him and care for all the stories other than him.

[mercuryonparklane]

An attempt at objectivity on the topic of Tayliz/a summary: Part 2

(Kind of...)

I’ve been busy with irl stuff the last week, so I haven’t been posting much lately. I finally have a day where I have nothing else to do and I’ve been considering making a post about where I currently stand on Tayliz/Gaylor in general for a while, so I thought now would be a good time to do that.

Disclaimer: I don’t know any of these people personally and this is all my own interpretation of publicly available information. I apologize for the length of this post...

I’ve been a Taylor fan since 2006 and a Gaylor since at least early 2009 when I was posting fanfics on LiveJournal (I stopped writing rpf a long time ago, btw). I’ve been in and out of the Gaylor fandom since then. I’ve created and deleted multiple blogs/accounts in the past 12+ years. I was mostly active between 2009 and 2015, but I did a lot of lurking during that time and only engaged when I felt I had something to contribute. 2015/2016 was a crazy time and I was going through some of my own stuff, so I stopped following Gaylor as closely for a while. I listened to reputation and Lover, I read the Gaylor theories, made a couple comments, and moved along. When folklore was released it drew me back in.

I created this blog in September 2020, before I even had an inkling that Liz might be more than just another name that has been thrown into the potential exes list, along with Claire C. and Kellie (I don’t believe either of those two had anything beyond friendship with Taylor). I had never looked into it too much because it seemed like there was not as much information as there was for the main 3 (Emily, Dianna, and Karlie). Now, after researching Tayliz for 5 months, I believe there is at least as much, if not more, to go on as there is for the main 3.

As for Taymily, I believe that, at the very least, Taylor had a massive crush on Emily. I don’t like to get too in-depth about that because there is a very suspect age gap. I’m not saying that those things don’t happen, but I will reiterate my statement from an earlier post that I am not comfortable essentially accusing someone of committing a crime when all that can be deciphered is that Taylor seemed to really care about her. I do think there are multiple songs about Emily.

I also believe that Taylor did date Dianna and possibly had some kind of relationship with Karlie. I think both of these possible relationships are long over at this point. Taylor may have been looking back on those relationships (along with others) in her last few albums. 

I still personally think it is possible that Taylor is a lesbian, but there are reasons to think she might be bi and I understand why people think that she is. I don’t really talk about the guys Taylor may have dated, but I will say that, to me, all of the boyfriends she had after high school seem like beards. I could be wrong, of course. There are way too many signs that she is queer for me to not think that she is at least bi.

There have always been sapphic themes in Taylor’s music, even in early songs like “Me And Britney” and “Angelina”. Her entire discography is littered with sapphic themes. In recent years, she has seemed to hint at being some form of queer in other ways as well. This has all been examined by others, so I won’t get into that in this post.

Anyway, on to Tayliz…

There is some compelling “circumstantial evidence” suggesting that there may have been something beyond friendship between Tayliz (a lot of this was covered in my first post and all of the information has been mentioned at some point on my blog):

They met multiple times between December 2006 and February 2009, when Liz first performed with Taylor, but it is hard to tell how well they knew each other at that time. Based on the information available, I actually think they might have even been close, or at least friendly, before Liz was hired, but I could be wrong.

The “official” story is that Liz met Taylor at a meet and greet in December 2006 and again in July 2007. She asked if she could sing for Taylor and Taylor gave her advice, including suggesting that she enter a talent contest and that she should move to Nashville. Some accounts say that Liz sang for Taylor in her dressing room, but I have never found a source for this part of the story.

Taylor wrote the following sentence about Liz in her blog on February 5, 2008, after performing on the competition show that Liz was a contestant on: “It sounds strange, but there was always something different about her that stuck out in my mind”. That is super suspect to me...

Taylor was the only musician to perform on the show, btw (although they did have the touring cast of HSM on the next week). Taylor allegedly said, during the interview portion of her appearance, that she knew Liz and that Liz had gone to “all” of her shows and meet and greets… whatever that means.

According to Liz, she moved to Nashville in June 2008 and sometime within the next 6 months she received a call to audition as a backup singer, but did not know for which artist she was auditioning. I feel like it would be an incredible coincidence that Taylor suggested she move to Nashville two years earlier, they met multiple times after that, and randomly Liz got a call to audition for Taylor without knowing it was for her within 6 months of moving there. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too skeptical, but it seems almost more of a reach to say that Taylor didn’t somehow have a hand in her getting that audition.

Liz already seemed very comfortable around Taylor in that picture with George Strait taken on the day of her first show with the band in February 2009.

At the one-off shows after Liz joined the band, there was a little skit between Taylor, Liz, and Grant during YBWM, where Grant played the love interest and Liz played the “Cheer Captain”. There was even a talking bit. During the Australia one-off shows, there was a talking bit before F&A where Taylor introduced Liz and they had a little conversation that ended similarly to the one Taylor has with the interviewer during the Fearless Tour. After this, they rarely interacted on stage. 

Taylor seemed to allow Liz’s input during the auditions for the Fearless Tour dancers, two months after she joined the band, and Taylor ended up hiring two of her friends.

Liz went with Taylor to visit Abigail at her university in Kansas two months after joining the band.

Taylor took Liz with her to see Britney Spears’ Circus Tour show in Chicago right after the Kansas trip.

Taylor said in an interview for Oprah’s website, released in May 2009, that Australia and Lawrence, KS were her two favorite places to visit, which just so happen to be two of the places she had recently been with Liz.

The fact that they shared a hotel room in London a few months after Liz joined the band. Caitlin, who had been in the band for a while at that point, and her mom were both there for that trip. Maybe Taylor was just happy to be able to hang out with another woman around her age. It seems strange, but it could be a completely platonic situation.

Taylor and the band, including Liz, recorded a cover of “American Girl” by Tom Petty (one of Liz’s favorite artists) in front of the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon in May 2009. The secret message for “Sparks Fly” is “Portland, Oregon” and she mentions the Rose Garden in “The Lucky One”.

Taylor mentions going to dinner with Liz, seemingly just the two of them, in her vlog from May 29, 2009, which was around Liz’s birthday (May 27).

The amount of Liz content in the vlogs. Plus, the choice to put the line “I like where you sleep, when you sleep next to me” right before showing Liz sleeping on a couch (this was the trip where they shared a hotel room, which does make that fact more suspect, imo) and including the song “She (For Liz)” in another vlog, in which she dedicates a whole section to Liz’s habit of falling asleep “All. The. Time.”

In fact, in both of those vlogs, which were posted a year apart from each other (May 2009 and April 2010), Taylor wears a black dot shirt, in clips that include only her and Liz, that is similar to the one she wore in the IKYWT mv. 

Honestly, just go watch the video she made for Emily and then watch the vlogs after Liz joined the band… I just get a similar vibe in the clips she chose to include of both women.

They went to a Paramore concert together the weekend before Taylor hosted SNL in November 2009. At the concert, they were filmed by other attendees dancing next to each other on the balcony. One of the songs they were filmed dancing to is “That’s What You Get” and Taylor asked Hayley to perform that song with her (and the band, including Liz) at one of the Nashville shows on the SN Tour in 2011. In November 2019, Liz released her own song called “That’s What You Get” that sounds like it could be the opposite side of the relationship much of Red is about (and a couple other Taylor songs from other albums).

In Taylor’s Glamour interview published on 10/5/2010, she mentions that she designed the two guest rooms at her Nashville condo with Caitlin and Liz in mind. 

After tweeting about attending the Katy P. concert in Dublin with Taylor (and Grant and Caitlin) someone asked Liz what her favorite KP song was and she responded “Thinking Of You”. This is suspect because at the time Liz did have a bf, but she may have just liked the song and didn’t necessarily relate to it personally.

There are tweets from people who are either not really well-known or aren’t in the industry at all that mention Taylor and Liz hanging out outside of touring. They are mentioned together in quite a few tweets actually. They seemed to have a good number of mutual friends during that time (spring/summer 2009-fall 2012). After Liz left the band, Taylor stopped hanging out with most of those people, while Liz continues to maintain some of those friendships to this day. This could be explained by the fact that Taylor began spending less time in Nashville.

One such friend is the photographer who Taylor hired for Red. She is actually a longtime friend of Liz. Supposedly she took some photos of Liz that Taylor saw and Taylor hired her after that. There are some pictures from Taylor’s Red photoshoot that are similar to Liz’s photos.

There are rumors that Liz was fired, but the “official” story is that she left to pursue her own music.

Liz did not wish Taylor a happy birthday on twitter in 2012, which she had done in previous years. She did not tweet @ or mention Taylor for almost a year. Taylor didn’t respond to any of her tweets or mention her until October 2014.

Some of the songs Liz released in late 2012/early 2013 have similar lyrics/themes to Taylor’s music and may be about Taylor.

The lyric video for Liz’s song STFU&HM includes polaroid pictures with the song’s lyrics written on them and neon signs, which is basically the 1989 aesthetic. The actual mv has some potential parallels to the IKYWT mv. (side note: Liz specified in an interview that the kind of “sour candy” she is singing about in the song is Watermelon Sour Patch, which Taylor mentioned in the June 2008 issue of Teen Vogue was something that she “couldn’t live without”)

The love interest wears a key necklace in the STFU&HM mv and Taylor wears one in the IKYWT mv.

The bridge of IKYWT is very similar to lyrics from a song by Patty Griffin called “Nobody’s Crying”. Liz once said that Patty is her favorite singer (this was when she was still in Taylor’s band) and has mentioned her and that particular song multiple times over the years. Side note: Taylor mentioned last year that another one of Patty’s songs was the inspiration for “betty”.

Liz played the other woman in the mv for TSOU and in the photoshoot for SN. At the end of the mv for her song “H8U”, Liz interrupts her love interest’s wedding and kisses his tall, blonde, curly haired bride.

This one could be a crazy coincidence, but Liz recorded the backing vocals on a song called “Dear John” that was written by the backup dancer who came out to Taylor during the Fearless Tour. Btw, by no means am I saying DJ is about Liz because that would make zero sense.

Liz’s birthday is on one of the board games in the “Lover” mv that reference “Cruel Summer”. Most people think CS is about Karlie and that makes sense, but it also seems to reference “Love Story”, which was potentially written sometime around when Taylor performed on the show Liz was a contestant on. I don’t know if LS is about Liz and I am not trying to claim that, but it is interesting. Even if it’s not, they performed that song together a lot and Liz helped out with the onstage costume change during that song. CS could be about her experiences with both Liz and Karlie. Or it could just be about Karlie and the date in the “Lover” mv has nothing to do with Liz’s birthday.

In “the 1” and “dorothea”, Taylor potentially references Liz’s song “Never Know” and by reference, I mean that she essentially uses the exact same lyrics: “I guess you never know, you never know” = “I guess you never know, never know” and “I guess I’ll never know” = literally just the same line. Not to mention in “dorothea” Taylor also sings “Do you ever stop and think about me?” and in NK Liz sings “I wonder if you think about me” right before the line “I guess I’ll never know”. I am not saying that either of those songs are about Liz, but it is interesting, especially since Liz tweeted about “the 1”, which was the thing that really sent me on my deep dive into Tayliz.

The “cardigan” looks like the cardigan she wears in the first vlog she included Liz in. It could be nothing, but it is interesting because I have a theory that Liz is the first woman she had a “relationship” with and that “cardigan” is about Liz, Dianna, Karlie, and possibly some other women she might have dated/been with.

These are just some of the highlights and are more focused on the facts as opposed to some of my more tinfoil hat, fun, crack theory stuff or just some of the things that are loosely related to Liz or might involve a little (or a lot of) reaching to connect them to her.

Everything I have mentioned could just be a series of strange coincidences, even though there appears to be quite a few of them. Whether anything ever happened between them or it was just one of those intense, romantic friendships that some women tend to have, I don’t really know. Based on what I have seen, I tend to think there was something going on there beyond friendship, but possibly it was never anything official.

Liz seemed to have a boyfriend most of the time that Tayliz were working together/hanging out, which is one of the main things that makes me question my own theory. Of course, it is always possible that she had something with Taylor, while she also had a boyfriend. There are many reasons for that (poly, closeted, etc.), so that does not exclude the idea that she may have actually been involved with two people at one time and one of those people could have been Taylor.

If they were together in some capacity, while Liz also had a boyfriend, it could explain the messy relationship that Taylor seemed to write about during that time. I think it is possible that Emily was just a crush and Liz was her first actual experience with another woman where the feelings were reciprocated to some degree. OR they could have just been really good friends and I am utterly, completely wrong. 

Maybe Taylor is just a straight girl, who doesn’t realize that she’s been sending signals that she is queer for years. Whenever that thought crosses my mind, I think about all of the things she has said and done that imply she may not be straight and I just can’t help thinking that it is intentional. I don’t think she is queerbaiting or unintentionally signaling that she might be queer. I think she is queer and has dropped multiple hints to suggest that over the years.

Anyway… Liz has a bf right now and seems to be in a good place, so let’s let her be, please. I hope we get some more new music from her soon.

As far as researching Tayliz goes, I’ll probably keep looking into it when I have time, but at this point I think I have seen pretty much all there is to see (of the content available online currently). I’ll be waiting for the songs from Taylor’s “vault” to drop to see if there are any potential connections there (at least in the “vault” songs for Fearless, Speak Now, and Red).

In conclusion (TL;DR)...

My personal opinion is that there is enough “circumstantial evidence” to include Liz on the list of Taylor potential exes. For me the Gaylor timeline looks something like this:

(Fair Warning: this is all total speculation based on song lyrics and other information that is publicly available)

Summer 2006-December 2007: Taylor develops a crush on Emily. Emily possibly finds out somehow and it doesn’t go over well (OR it does). She is fired from the band AND maybe she is paid off to pursue other interests…

2008/2009- Spring (Summer? Fall?) 2012: Taylor has an on/off relationship with Liz, while Liz also dates men. The relationship may have even started developing as early as the first time they supposedly met back in December 2006, but Taylor definitely was feeling something by the time she posted that blog in February 2008. It’s complicated and non-exclusive. Maybe Taylor wanted more of a commitment and maybe there were promises made that things could/would change, but they never did. By the time she started hanging out with Dianna she was ready to move on. So, she ended things in March/April… but still met up with Liz a couple times after (possibly as friends). 

Taylor may have also dated Julianne H. at some point in 2008/2009.

Spring 2012-Fall 2013 (?): Taylor has an on/off relationship with Dianna that may have ended, in part, due to interference from Taylor’s team. Maybe it is the one relationship with a woman that could have actually developed into something more concrete, but maybe that also scared Taylor a bit.

Winter 2013/Early 2014-Fall 2016: Taylor has an on/off relationship with Karlie, while Karlie is also involved with Josh (hence my comment about how CS could be about her experiences with both Liz and Karlie because they may have been similar circumstances, where sometimes they were single and other times they had a serious bf). 

Fall 2016-Present: There are at least a couple potential girlfriends within this timeframe. I lean towards Tily being a thing from at least fall 2016-Summer 2019. I am open to Zaylor and I do find it interesting, but I’m not as sold on that one. I personally do not think Taylor is with Joe nor do I think that Joe is WB.

The straight explanation could be that Taylor gets into really, intensely close friendships with other women and eventually they grow apart and move on with their lives. 

The funny thing is that I remember Taylor once saying something about how after a breakup, she completely cuts that person off. That fits with her relationships (whatever the nature) with Liz, Dianna, and Karlie. With each of these women, Taylor shared a friend group with them, but Taylor seemed most interested in them. She has had a few friendly/cordial interactions with them, but she seems to have completely separated her life from them after their “friendships” ended. In fact, she moved to entirely different cities on opposite sides of the country (and in one case a different country, with a whole ocean in between) after she stopped hanging out with them.

That’s where I stand and it’s not really much different from where I was back in October when I posted my first summary on Tayliz. 

Although, I do have more information now than I did then that leads me to think something was going on. 70% of the time I am convinced they had a relationship beyond friendship and 30% of the time I think they were only ever friends. 99.9% of the time I think I am a clown.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am inclined to believe that Tayliz is more likely to have had some sort of relationship than Taymily and is slightly less likely to have happened than Swiftgron and Kaylor. Other Gaylors might think they were only coworkers or friends. I’m not out to convince anyone. I am just presenting the information I have found and I don’t mind a friendly discussion/debate if anyone wants to talk about it.

[angerissuesandrews]

Hello! Welcome to the Reddie Fic Rec!

 Please make sure you read all tags on fics before reading! 

 Have fun and enjoy :)))

Created by Evan (@iwannadie4000 on tiktok)

And special thanks to Charlie (@hippityhoppe on tiktok) for helping!

 *CLICK HERE FOR THE GOOGLE DOC REC LINK!*

  1. ON POINTE

by tossertozier (rednoseredhair); Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519724

“Eddie was a freshman at Boston University of the arts, majoring in dance with a concentration in ballet. He went to sleep early, woke up earlier & took nothing for granted. He fucking hated his dorm neighbors, loud, obnoxious idiots who got drunk all the time. They didn't even know where the library on campus was. He didn't have any idea how the three of them, especially the one with curly hair, even GOT into that school.

  2.  BRIGHT AS YELLOW

by speakslow; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12786678 

Highschool AU, Richie’s loud Eddie’s annoyed what do you expect

3. WONDER VIOLET

by belby; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179045

Eddie’s friends with Richie’s sister ,,, you know what happens

4. GO WEST

by ssstrychnine; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327069

“1996: Richie and Eddie finish school, drive to San Francisco, change their lives ft. hair braiding, a fake las vegas wedding, waterfalls, bumper cars, and approx. 3300 miles.”

5. I LEFT MY UMBRELLA AT HOME

by hippityhoppy; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775233

“By 1996, the Losers are well into college. As they often do, life and time have distanced them in more ways than one. Richie, in an attempt to cling to the normalcy of the past in what feels like a steep slope into a downward spiral, ends up on an unfamiliar doorstep of an all too familiar friend. As if Eddie didn't have to deal with enough on his own plate. The both of them, they quickly come to find out, are unprepared for the storms to come.”

6. LOVESONG (A SERIES)*

by WaxAgent; Mature-Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/852234

“They're all connected, sure, but nothing comes close to the iron bonds between Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak; they have their ups and their downs, but they always have each other. A look at their lives from leaving Derry to being dragged back by a promise than both of them had long forgotten.”

*(OKAY EVAN HERE!!! I LOVE THIS FIC/SERIES SO MUCH BUT IN PART 2 IT HAS A STRANGER THINGS CROSSOVER WITH MIKE AND EL BUT I SAY SKIP THAT AND GO ON YOU DON'T MISS MUCH AND WE ALL KNOW IM SO ANTI-CROSSOVER OKAY BYE)

7. WHENEVER I’M ALONE WITH YOU

by stellarbisexual; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182691

“Losers in college. Richie's in an alternative rock band, and Eddie has flung himself into the queer scene.”

8. SAY THAT YOU’LL STAY

by speakslow; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474044

“Richie works at a shitty amusement park for the summer and meets some new friends. Set in 1997”

9. STAY FOR THE STORM

by inoubliable; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442848

“Richie and Eddie had become friends almost on sight. Since they met, most of Eddie's time in Los Angeles has involved Richie in some way.

It's a little different, now that they're both famous.

It's a little different, now that they're sleeping together.

Well, to be fair, they've been sleeping together for a long time, but. No one knows, not even their friends. Eddie has been very careful about that. It's just not the sort of publicity he needs.

So when Beverly calls him that sunny Thursday morning, the last thing he expects her to say is, ‘You're fucking Richie?’”

10. COFFEE AND CARNIVAL BEARS

by StarshipDancer; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12325209

“‘Eddie Kaspbrak knew how many germs were in a person’s mouth, and he would only swap spit with his fucking soulmate.’

Finding your soulmate should be pretty straightforward, but not for Eddie. Not when there were two possible candidates, and he had no idea which one it fucking was.”

11. LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY(S)

by Kandakickas; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372279

“In which Richie and Eddie go to different colleges, and all of their friends are curious about their unnamed significant others - right up until those significant others come to visit and everyone is both shocked and confused.”

12. MEET ME HALFWAY

by ShowMeAHero; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20667038

“‘Richie,’ Mike says sharply. “Who are you with? Why are you in Derry?”

‘Tell him,’ Eddie whispers again.

‘Is that Eddie?’ Mike asks.

‘Tell him, Richie,’ Eddie says again, louder.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Mike says, and Richie snaps, throwing his phone hard at the kitchen wall opposite them. The back smashes and the battery falls into a bowl soaking in the sink. There’s a beat of silence where Eddie and Richie stare at the battery floating in the soapy water.

‘Good work, Kobe,’ Eddie says.”

13. DREAMBOAT

by weepies; Not Rated

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14073438

“‘What are you? A third grader? What the fuck is this?’ Eddie asks. He looks at Richie, confused.

‘A list of fun stuff to do, duh. Can’t you read? I thought you were studying creative writing.’ Eddie glares at Richie, who raises his hands in surrender as he chuckles. ‘Okay, okay. Hear me out. Your professor tells you to write what you know, and you said you don’t know anything. Well, sugar, here’s your opportunity to learn something about yourself.’

Dumbfounded, Eddie cannot tear his eyes away from Richie, his mouth agape. ‘You’re insane,’ Eddie says.

‘And proud,’ Richie replies.

...

In which Eddie Kaspbrak is a writer with no ideas, and Richie Tozier is a coffee shop employee bursting with creativity.”

14. TO THE GUY AT THE BUS STOP:

by Ragno; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809109

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, especially if the other side of the fence is Ireland and the grass is Eddie living his own life for the first time ever away from his mom. An International Students Exchange Program is what he needs to finally stand up for himself and doing what he really wants. Who cares if he won't know anybody there? Who cares if he'll be alone in a foreign country? Who cares if he won't have his car and will need to take the bus to go anywhere?? Okay, maybe Eddie does care about that last one…But, hey, at least the real grass is really greener there. Right?”

15. CLOSER THAN MOST

by tozierbraks; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14934062/chapters/34598660

“Richie was panting slightly when he reached out an arm and grasped the man’s shoulder a little too hard. He spun rapidly, stumbling backwards away from Richie, his deep brown eyes wide in shock.

‘Eds.’ Richie breathed, his stomach twisting.

Eddie’s wide eyes narrowed in confusion while his brows knitted downwards. He pulled his shoulder out of Richie’s grip

‘Sorry, do I know you?’

college au + forgetting!eddie fic”

16. SIGNED, SOMEONE

by roughentumble; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096380/chapters/50195051

“A secret admirer/love letter AU. Richie starts leaving anonymous love letters in Eddie's locker.”

17. CLUE(LESS) 

by endversed; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12468440

“Every person on this sorry planet wakes up on their seventeenth birthday with a soulmate mark somewhere on their body – but it’s not always easy to figure out. It’s not their name, or their first words to you, or even some kind of matching shape. It’s not anything clearly indicative; nothing concrete (at first).

No, all this mark gives you is a clue.”

18. FOR BLUE SKIES

by sunsetozier; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13978821

“Just as he’s beginning to shake himself out of his daze, his phone buzzes in his hand, a notification popping up at the top of his screen that makes his entire body freeze, reading and rereading it to make sure his eyes aren’t playing a trick on him. When the words don’t change, his jaw drops, an anxious excitement tingling just beneath his skin.

@trashmouthmusic followed you back!

[In which Richie posts anonymous covers on Twitter and Eddie is instantly infatuated with his voice.]”

19. OUR HOUSE, IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR HOUSE

by orphan_account; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458046

“Whatever song your soulmate has stuck in their head is resultantly stuck in yours. Eddie, long suffering through mattress commercial jingles and old rock hits, imagines he would kill his soulmate if he had the chance. Or, he would, if he didn't think revenge was a better answer.”

20. MAYBE, MAYBE

by lisscor; Not Rated

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12841593

“The light was on again. The one in room 307. Richie wondered, not for the first time, who was up there.

Maybe one day, he would find out.

*

In which two insomniacs who have never met find comfort in the last place they would think to look - each other.”

21. MOST BELOVED

by idaemilia; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160854/chapters/27598224

“‘But he had eyes like rain

and hair like waves

and a soul as vast and deep as the ocean

and I guess I didn't mind drowning in him’

-xvaniex on tumblr

Eddie keeps pining for Richie who is too blind to see it. But maybe he already knows.

*previously named Philtatos*”

22. TO WHAT WE MIGHT DO 

by MacksDramaticShenanigans; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709897

“He looks scared. More scared than Eddie’s ever seen him before. He looks nervous, too, and Eddie didn’t think it was even possible for Richie Tozier to get nervous.

But there he is. Looking like he's going to shit his pants or throw up all over himself. Eddie would be more worried about that if he still thought Richie was drunk.”

23. CROOKED HEARTS

by killerqueer; General Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13093371

The Monday before Christmas break, Eddie comes to school to find a yellow rose and a letter from a secret admirer taped to his locker. He's convinced it's a prank until the same thing happens the next day and then continues the rest of the week. He's determined to find out who is doing this, even though he's convinced himself that there's no way it could possibly be the one person he really wants it to be.

24. THE THIRD DATE RULE

by tinyarmedtrex; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13059960

“Bev drags Eddie along for her tattoo session, telling him that her artist is sex on a stick. She's right, Eddie likes him immediately- if only he wouldn't talk so much.

AU where Richie is a tattoo artist and Eddie pretty much just wants to work in HR and be left alone.”

25. PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION (PTA)

by reddiebitch; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13773060

“In which Eddie is Richie's kid's first grade teacher.”

26. FAKING IT 

by domino1234; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18023273

“The obnoxiously pretty boy with the filthy mouth across the hall manages to convince Eddie to spend spring break pretending to be his boyfriend at his family’s lake house. Can Eddie put his unrequited crush aside to play up the charade for a week or will his feelings inevitably get in the way?”

27. Nightmares

by MargotCelvin; Teen and Up Audiences

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15515028

“Richie Tozier is trying to start over in New York. He left California behind and wants to leave his old life there as well. The only thing holding him to his old life are the nightmares that have plagued him for so long. But is there something in New York that can cure him of this disease?”

28. FREAKING OUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD

by bearkwans; Explicit (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19342543

“Richie thinks that this is what being a father is like. He sure fucking feels like a father, dropping all of his plans to take care of his pet, making very specific google searches and running around his apartment like a madman, grabbing toys and a blanket and a few mice in a tupperware bowl. He knows logistically that everything he’s grabbing is useless and what he really needs is a chill pill and maybe some whiskey to soothe his shaking hands, but Richie can’t help the way his paternal side wakes up and takes control of his mind.

“[or: richie's pet snake is sick and he goes to see vet eddie ;) ;)]”

29. SUGAR, HONEY, HONEY 

by thefutureisbright; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376344

“Eddie works in a bakery. His life was finally simple. He loved his job, he loved his friends, he loved his shitty little apartment with its shitty little balcony. He loved the plants he kept on his balcony. He loved that he could see the New York skyline when it was an especially clear day. He loved that he lived nowhere near his mother. Eddie loved his quiet, simple life.

Until he met Richie fucking Tozier, and his life was never simple again.”

30. THE BLIND BOX

by tinyarmedtrex; Mature (18+)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13728915

“Eddie works at Gamestop and a dark haired stranger comes in and starts flirting with him. Eddie doesn't think much of it until they keep meeting.

Another College AU! Because why the hell not”

[janiedean]

(1) Can I just say I hate all this Freddie Mercury biopic wank with a passion? Like, this hellsite went from "Queen is one of those boring 'classic' bands all whites are obsessed with bc they won't even consider new music by diverse artists u.u" to "WWRY is clearly a song about rebellious queer youth, cishets don't touch Queen u.u" after someone pointed out Freddie's ethnicity and sexuality, to "why aren't they making Freddie gay in the biopic!!!11" and... whatever they're whining about now.

(2) And I HATE looking at all this bs and thinking "fake fans", bc I'm pretty damn sure that by most standards, *I* count as a "fake fan", too. I mean, most stuff I know about the band's history is actually stuff about Freddie, thanks to a few documentaries centered around him and my mom, the long-time fan with a big crush on Freddie who introduced me to Queen when I was a kid. Hell, I couldn't even name all their albums or anything needed to be considered a "true fan". But ppl on here... ugh. (3) It's like they're really embarrassed bc they were called out on mistaking "woke" stuff for "unwoke" stuff, and now they have this desperate need to prove their ability to discern wokeness by getting offended about something they don't even care all that much about, as loudly and dramatically as they can.

HAHAHAHAHA.

okay so, tldr: I hate this discourse and I honestly hope that it dies within two weeks out of the biopic for a whole lot of reasons amongst which the ones you said, but like, this discourse actually highlights a shitload of issues with the usual tumblr discourse which I will gladly go into now because I’m fucking tired and this movie isn’t out yet.

now, premise: while I don’t think that true fans are a thing - at most there’s casual fans or in-depth fans but I mean, a fan is a fan so I don’t believe in the *fake* fans thing..... the problem here isn’t that they’re fakes. it’s that they aren’t fans. period.

other premise: from what you’ve said you’re a casual fan which is normal and you DON’T count as fake I mean if you like them and listen to them and know something it’s basically being a casual fan same as I am with idk the rolling stones, I like the famous stuff, I have the fundamental records and I like them when they’re on but that’s it.

but, yours truly is a Not Casual Queen Fan in the sense that a) I got into them when I was seventeen and I’m thirty now so thanks it’s been a while, b) I own all the records, c) I own a decent portion of roger taylor’s/brian may’s solo records (and I have listened to all of them that I couldn’t buy), d) I went to see them live once (k it was with paul rodgers but nvm guys not my fault if I wasn’t born in time for freddie) and I love queen’s music and I’m also fucking cishet and you know what? these people Are Not Fans and they should stop pretending they are and just stop making themselves look like assholes.

SPECIFICALLY:

the movie’s not out yet and I’ve had to see FIFTEEN ‘FRIENDLY REMINDER TO ALL CISHETS THAT FREDDIE MERCURY WAS GAY (at least a couple said he was bi and they were less asshole-ish) AND POC AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOU’D BETTER LEARN NOW HAHAHAHA YOU THOUGHT HE WASN’T. spoilers: every fucking casual queen fan who has bothered to buy three records knows that. yes, also the cishets. like, as someone who went from VERY CASUAL (ie: I know three songs) to NOT CASUAL in the span of two months I can 100% assure you that before getting into queen the usual preconceptions are that freddie was gay and that queen = freddie + three other people. the first three things you learn when getting into queen are (more or less in order but it can change) that a) the band was actually brian may + roger taylor first, b) that roger brought freddie in because they knew each other already, c) that mary austin was a fundamental person in freddie’s life and that she was also brian may’s ex and knew him first before they got together, d) the members’s backstories including where freddie was born, so like...... this idea that CASUAL CISHET FANS wouldn’t know that freddie was a) not heterosexual, b) poc is just something a NON-FAN would say because guess what, most queen fans even at a casual level are 100% aware that freddie was a) not heterosexual, b) not ethnical british. and saying that OMG CISHETS DON’T KNOW it’s ridiculous because guess what, everyone knows and if they have no idea they do, though luck, we did;

(spoilers: I also am 99% sure that those ppl have no idea that roger and brian actually sing on the records and composed a shitload of the music and queen =/= ONLY FREDDIE but okay)

they have no idea that rock music in the 70s/80s was not so heteronormative and was not the cishetmalething they think it is. like, please look at led zeppelin (ie THE PEOPLE WITHOUT WHOM YOU WOULDN’T HAVE HEAVY METAL) and tell me they were heteronormative. like, you saw robert plant? yeah, me too. and the thing was that queen were revolutionary in the sense that they brought an operatic/theatrical approach to the music that no one tried before but guess what, the point is that they made it sell. the thing that I would like tumblr Woke People to grasp is that what made queen groundbreaking as far as Wokeness goes is that they managed to sell and become the monster-moneymaking group they were (while keeping things quality) with a frontman who was Not Heterosexual, Did Not Try To Pass For Heterosexual One Day In His Life and Never Shied Away From It. like, idk if people are aware that while the scene was way less heteronormative than they think it still wasn’t the most openly talked about topic around (I mean guys elton john did marry a woman at some point X°DDD), but going around in the seventies flaunting your non-heterosexualness around and selling millions of copies making your stage persona a selling point of your music wasn’t exactly common. like ffs one of the most famous queen songs has a video where for 3/4 of the time they’re in drag and the other part has freddie performing with the royal ballet (and guess what the song was actually written by john deacon and the idea of doing the video in drag was roger taylor’s and none of them as far as we know is Not Heterosexual, but never mind giving the rest of the band some credit when it came to Not Caring About Heteronormativity) and fine, that video was banned/controversial, but it still was a huge british hit and it’s in the top five queen songs Everyone Knows. and tbh I’m terrified of that video being shown in the biopic (which it should since the works was from ‘84 and they stop at ‘85) because I’m 100% sure that those people have no idea it exists and when they find out how long is it gonna take them to decide that IT’S PROBLEMATIC? I mean, Woke Kids on here think the rhps is problematic, I’m shuddering at the thought of what they’d think of the i want to break free video;

actually a lot of us cishet queen fans might have had a wake up call including, er, finding out certain preferences, thanks to either their music or their shows or their videos (*cough* I 100% assure you that watching roger taylor in drag was what made me realize crossdressing was my thing for good like I knew before but I didn’t actually put two and two together until I saw that video and went like ‘............. AH WELL SHIT THEN THAT’S IT FAIR ENOUGH’), and a lot of us cishet queen fans who weren’t, like, strictly playing to heteronormative rules back in the day found a lot to relate to in their music even without being queer ourselves and guess what I’ve never met a single queen *fan* who could give less of a damn about freddie’s ethnicity or orientation (as in: everyone was a-okay with it) regardless of their background. that was what made them groundbreaking and extremely important as well, because they managed to be that kind of record-selling records-breaking band while not shying away from having a Not Heterosexual frontman AND Not Heteronormative Heterosexual Band Members Who Also Didn’t Give Two Fucks About Their Lead Singer’s Sexuality so going like OMG NOW WE’RE GONNA TEACH YOU THAT FREDDIE WASN’T HETEROSEXUAL BECAUSE WE’RE WOKE is ridiculous because dearest susan, we already knew and we already were woke about that and to us he was the frontman of a band we liked for a bunch of reasons;

also I don’t think people realize that freddie was a role model/example for the entire next generation of rock bands frontmen even in genres that had zilch to do with him - I mean guys AXL ROSE had a hero-worship for freddie and sang bohemian rhapsody at the freddie memorial concert WITH ELTON JOHN and grn really aren’t the same exact sphere as queen jsyk, but if you look at axl on stage esp. when he was younger? guys. it’s obvious. like you can see the influence. but lmao, now ALL the very cishet(-ish) singers who OPENLY SAID FREDDIE INFLUENCED THEM DIDN’T KNOW ACCORDING TO TUMBLR DOT COM?

LIKE, fuck’s sake, one of freddie’s major accomplishments in that sense was to ending up being a role model for younger singers in a genre where heteronormativity is way less common than everyone thinks BUT where not many people esp. back in the day would be open about their sexuality because it still was a taboo-ish thing -- like, gender roles were a lot more blurred but you wouldn’t hear many of those people admitting openly they were bi or gay or Not Heterosexual and the entirety of the rock scene especially mainstream but also not was entirely fucking aware of it, do these people think THE FANS wouldn’t?

also, we will rock you was WRITTEN BY BRIAN MAY AND IT WAS ABOUT A FUCKING ENCORE WHERE THE FANS SURPRISED THEM AT ONE SHOW IN LIKE MID-SEVENTIES which already shows that They Know Nothing because if they think freddie wrote all the queen songs then it’s already obvious they have no fucking clue about how queen worked as a band because all the members contributed something (guys john deacon wrote at least two of their major hits, roger taylor sang on all the records along with brian may and if you hear the back harmonies on ‘39 he goes way higher than freddie and a part in seaside rendezvous has both him and freddie mimicking other instruments with their voice and you wouldn’t know if no one told you first, brian may wrote a SHITLOAD of music for queen and it was an all-four effort, not just freddie + three other generic british dudes for fuck’s sake) so like, anyone saying that is already giving ample proof that they have no idea;

now of course you can interpret it as whatever the hell you want, but assuming that all of queen’s music that might relate to queer issues was written by freddie ABOUT QUEER ISSUES (this when freddie’s main topic of interest was... not really discussing his sexuality especially in the seventies like again, I want to break free is one of the queen to-go songs everyone brings up when it comes to that topic and IT WAS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE ELSE and the video concept was THANKS TO SOMEONE ELSE) just shows that a) you don’t know shit about the band’s history, b) you’re not a fan because you didn’t even bother to look it up on wiki, c) you’re trying to look woke at all costs;

they have NO FUCKING CLUE that most people in the 70s/80s/90s in the business were NOT politically correct according to their standards LIKE LITERALLY NO ONE WAS;

goes unsaid they probably haven’t listened to one full queen album from beginning to end not even the greatest hits.

tldr: I hate that they don’t seem to realize that things existed before 2005 and that music in the 70s/80s COULD and WAS diverse and *woke* already before they were even born, I hate that they decided that ALL CISHETS DIDN’T KNOW when thank you I think even my damned parents know and they don’t listen to rock music, I hate that they decided that queen APPARENTLY DIDN’T HAVE A FANBASE BEFORE THEM (lol) or that that fanbase didn’t understand them (triple-lol), I hate that they’re reducing freddie to his sexuality when he didn’t want that in the first place, I hate that they’re falling into THE MAIN MISCONCEPTION AROUND ABOUT THIS BAND as in THAT IT WAS FREDDIE + THREE OTHER PEOPLE and not an all-around group effort of people who were friends and deeply loved/respected each other and put the same share of work into it, I hate that they moment they see the movie and are introduced to the actual music/the actual story they’ll MOST LIKELY find problematic things to wank about because like hell they wouldn’t and I hate that they’re basically pretending to give a fuck about a band that I love and have loved dearly in a very non-casual way when they actually fucking don’t.

fucking hell please never let anyone make a biopic about either springsteen or led zeppelin or other people I actually like because this is bad enough, I don’t even want to think of what tumblr ppl would say if they knew anything about any rock artist of medium-large fame back in the day. peace.

[kujo1597]

Fall @amedotweek Day 1: Halloween

(This is my tattoo artist and florist AU)

This is kinda long compared to my usual submissions so under a Read More it goes!

Or you can read it on AO3.

Peridot knocked on the door to the beach house. This was her first Halloween with Amethyst and they were going to take Steven out trick-or-treating. Pearl opened the door and gave Peridot a quick once-over with a raised eyebrow.

“Good evening Peridot,” Pearl greeted her.

“Hey Pearl,” Peridot returned the greeting.

“Amethyst and Steven will be ready soon. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

“I think I’ll stand, I’ve never worn a tail before.”

For Halloween Peridot had decided to dress up as a werewolf. She had her mohawk styled somewhat similarly to a pompadour and even allowed the sides to grow out a bit in their natural light brown. She wore an open flannel shirt, the only thing keeping her from exposing a bunch of kids to sideboob was the faux fur she wore on her chest which matched several other patches on her body to help sell the look including some fearsome looking gloves. Thanks to diligent research Peridot had learned how to make covers for her ears to make them look pointed and furry, and to top it all off she wore a fake wolf’s nose and put some fake fur in patches around her face.

Pearl looked at Peridot again. “Do you realize that your shirt’s not buttoned?”

“Yes Pearl, I do realize that,” Peridot replied with a roll of her eyes. “All of this is intentional.”

She didn’t get much a response just a “hm.”

Amethyst stepped out of Steven’s room wearing her own werewolf costume. Hers was a hoodie over a t-shirt that said “bite me” and old torn blue jeans. Amethyst also wore gloves but they lacked the sharp looking claws that Peridot’s had, which would come in hand if Steven needed any help. As for her face, Amethyst was also wearing a fake nose with whiskers painted onto her cheeks along with some dark brown drawn to look fur-like. 

When she saw Peridot Amethyst cracked a smile. “You look like the gayest werewolf to ever live.”

“Thank you, I’m glad somebody understood my vision,” Peridot said and gestured at Pearl.

“I’m just not sure how appropriate you look for taking a five-year-old our for Halloween,” Pearl said with crossed arms. 

Amethyst made a dismissive noise. “C’mon P, not like you can see anything. Besides, Peri’s costume’s way tamer than most stuff in the adult’s section.”

“Fine,” Pearl gave in, she didn’t feel like arguing, especially since she was missing such a special night. Barb roped her into coming to a Halloween party, nobody can decline Barb.

“So where’s Steven?” Peridot asked. 

“Little guy’s just about done,” Amethyst replied.

Sure enough, Steven stepped out of his room.

Peridot clasped her hand to her mouth and did a poor job of hiding her gasp. “Steven! You’re adorable!”

Steven for his costume decided to dress up as a werecat, he wore slightly torn clothes with fake fur poking through all the holes, the fur was pale blonde, like Lion the stray maine-coon. Steven’s curly and poofy black hair was unstyled and nestled in it was cat ears. Amethyst had painted Steven’s face in a similiar way to her own but didn’t draw as course of fur. And the cutest little fake cat nose and partial muzzle sat on Steven’s nose.

Pearl made an extremely maternal noise as she took pictures of her son. “You look so wonderful Steven!” 

Then she got a bit teary-eyed, Rose would have loved to see his costume.

Amethyst fondly patted Steven on the head. “Little guy wanted to be a werecat because he likes cats more.”

Steven ran up and gave Peridot a hug as he made a cat noise. “I’m so excited to go out with you!” He bounced up and down. “First Halloween with Peri!”

This brought a huge grin to her face. “Yep, our first Halloween!”

“We should get going soon,” Amethyst said after she checked the clock. “We can’t be out too late.”

“But first, I need to take a photo of you three together,” Pearl said, she coached them until they were in-frame then she took what felt like a couple dozen pictures. 

“Kay, now that we’re all blind, let’s get going,” Amethyst led the group out the door ignoring Pearl who was on the verge of becoming a pile of blubbering mom-mess.

“Trick or treat!” Steven loudly recited at the door as he held out his candy bucket.

Despite it being their fifth house, Peridot was still feeling antsy. 

“Dude, calm down, Steven’s practically a pro,” Amethyst whispered as she held Peridot’s hand.

The door opened revealing an elderly woman. “Oh well aren’t you cute?” She said with a warm chuckle. “Are you a werewolf like your mom and dad?”

Peridot’s face clearly showed her confusion and Amethyst tried her best to not burst out laughing. 

“I’m a werecat,” Steven cheerfully corrected the woman then did a “fearsome” meow, he was too wrapped up in the excitement of the holiday to notice the other mistake she made.

“We love our werecat son, don’t we wifey,” Amethyst nudged Peridot with her elbow.

Which somehow got her even more confused. “Yeah, we love him.”

The woman gave Steven a few candies and he waved at her. “Happy Halloween!”

“Happy Halloween dear,” she waved back.

The trio started moving on to the next house, Steven walked ahead of Amethyst and Peridot. 

“I get that I look masculine, but I thought in a butch way,” Peridot quietly ranted to Amethyst.

“Ah, she’s old, probly doesn’t know lesbian fashion,” Amethyst also quietly spoke. “It was pretty hilarious if you ask me.”

“It is funny looking back on it, but with a town as queer as Beach City you’d think she’d have figured it out by now.”

Amethyst chuckled. “Truth.”

Steven rang the doorbell and did his usual excited bouncing as he held his bucket out in anticipation.

While watching him Amethyst and Peridot would always huddle together with smiles on their faces. 

It was a wonderful evening, even when Amethyst and Peridot took turns carrying Steven home after his feet got too cold and sore to continue.

[semi-imaginary-place]

fe3h blogging 5 because I’ve been posting on discord and I can’t remember what number I was on oct-feb???

So I'm doing another no recruit run and realizing how much planning I need Me: why do I do this to myself  Specifically its SS usuing none of the black eaglea So Byleths going to be soloing until I can recruit all the church staff... or flayn comes along... 

Lambert and the death knight have the same voice actor. Lambert=death knight. Mystery solved

Loog was only able to gain faerghus independence because the emoire was already weakened from its failed invasion of dagda

Also its part if the seiros canon that a great evil darkness came out of the north. That couldn't posaibly feed into racism

The greatest sin this game has commited was giving gilbert a redemption arc

if only the devs weren’t cowards...

Why does dorothea even have A supports with guys? Her head is filled with only girls. has she ever shown interest in a guy?? Beyond a I want to be financially secure and tolerate your presence. everyone else is bi/pan[ Except caspar Hes just an idiot 

I'm gonna post hot takes for the sexuality of each character and yall cant stop me

Edelgard: lesbian Hubert: Edelgard Ferdinand: pansexual Linhardt: grey spec pan but prefers men+ Caspar: too stupid to evaluate Bernadetta: "I want friends" Dorothea: big lesbian Petra: pansexual

Dimitri: confused and repressed Dedue: gay Felix: swords redheads Ashe: pansexual Sylvain: pansexual prefers women Mercedes: pansexual prefers women Annete: lesbian Ingrid: pansexual prefers men

Claude: Demi pansexual/romantic++ Lorenz: ~~noble obligations~~ pansexual and repressed Raphael: grey ace/aro+++ Ignatz: pansexual prefers women Lysithea: pansexual++++ Marianne: pansexual Hilda: pansexual but usually dates guys Leonie: grey ace

+Linhardt feels romantic/sexual attraction but not strongly. He feels romantic love but he doesn't get crushes. ++Claude is the type to fall in love slowly after an emotional connection has already been formed and then get a crush after they've been going steady for 10 years. +++Raphael feels romantic/sexual attraction but not strongly and usually prefers queer platonic relationships ++++more to do with the individual than gender, but girls are cute

Game crashed and I lost like 4 hours of progress TT^TT

I'm on SS (which is the only route I haven't played) and hnnnnng I miss claude its been like 3 months since I played VW. Also I need to write down a time line some time but the stuff the agarthans have been pulling feeds the world builder in me. especially hyrm

as nice as the idea of all the lords getting along and talking things out is, it wouldn’t work out in canon, Edelgard has tunnel vision. Dimitri is irrational and would rather listen to his hallucinations that evidence. And no one trust Claude enough to believe him

Hilarious really how Edelgard will call for Hubert to carry you despite her massive strength and how hubert looks like a gentle wind will blow him over

Macuil/Indech:  Shun society. Run off into the wilds. Have vaugue legends be told of you. Be a crpytid

linhardt is such an unrepentant bastard

I had a dream where I could make male units pegasus knights. And then I woke up to cruel reality

Alois is growing on me. At first I was like uuuggg another bumbling idiot. But you know what? Fuck Seteth for not giving Alois more vacation time to see his family

Cavalry units be like: crushes a watermelon with their thighs

Some of the knights were bullying Alois. Who was it. I will bring them untold pain.

Reason #??? to punch Gilbert: he saw this poor child struggling to control his strength and went this boy doesn't need to learn how to control his strength, what he needs is more strength training.  I mean absent emotionally distant and all over shitty father to annette is reason number 1. But dimitri is reason number 2.  Oh let's make this kid lift rocks and run around the moutains at night in full armor in winter. Instead of being able to pick something up without breaking it and you know be able to perform basic daily tasks.  Let's make a human shaped weapon instead of a functional person.  Gilbert single handedly ruined AM for me because he just wouldn't stop messing up everyone else's lives

Each character's recruit requirements are what they admire/respect in a person

I forgot hubert becomes unavailable in month 2. and now I'm stuck with his stupis razor

Hot take. BotW Link and part 2 Ingrid have the same haircut

I'm on my last route (SS) but i hate rhea so much...

why do you think maurice/the beast's crest was used to make aymr?

Also all the nameless backgound characters have brown hair but of the main cast, its only dorothea and claude

Annette’s handwriting: Neat and cute.  Linhardt writes in cursive because he cant be bothered to lift his pen Sylvain has nice handwriting. Ingrid's is very functional, felix's is half way to chicken scratch lots of sharp angles. Dimitri cries on the inside at the thought of picking up a pen. as a kid Dimitri has terrible handwriting and breaks a pen every 5 min. He practiced so hard. Most of what people think is his handwriting is Dedue's (neat and pretty) because dedue writes most of his letters for him

me playing azure moon: I want out. get me off this death train

Finally getting alois's support and wow he's like a human shaped puppy in the sahpe of a middle aged man.  Always falling over himself. Ridiculously happy. 100% all the time. Running and barking everywhere

Fact of the day: dorothea hates eating fish

Alright. Seteth and Flayn's descriptions of her mom are very different.  Where is the truth???  Seteth was like shes demure, quiet, pious, and honest. And Flayn's says she's like Judith

game is forcing me to flirt with Alois? Can I not please!

I keep saying it but Lorenz grows on you like a fungus. He has excellent supports

 i want to weave gold thread into claudes hair

Under rated character development: Dorothea. Every one of her lines in part 2 makes me want to cry.  "every rose has its thorns" -> "only thorns left on this rose" Her character development is that she just gets worn down by the war and I want to bundle her up in a blanket and give her a cup of warm milk.  Dorothea is so full of love. So she feels the sorrows of the war so intensely.

FE3H needs better dads. I mean even jeralt and seteth aren’t great dads. They're just not down right horrible.  Jeralt is emotionally distant with an alcohol problem that byleth had to clean up after him. But there are worse dads Alois seems decent but he needs to spend more time at home. Seteth should have given Alois more vacation time.  They aren't terrible dads. But they aren't getting medals either.  Love their kids but have flaws of their own.

ANNETTE DESERVED BETTER THAN GILBERT Burn him at the stake No wait. He’d want that

My loathing for gilbert is beyond description.  He hurts everyone around him, then doesn't listen to what they have to say, and then keeps continuing his existence as a sad sack of shit.  1. Emotionally distant, strict, and often absent father. Clearly cared about his work for than family.  2. He then straight up leaves with out a note or telling his family anything.  3 knows that annette is looking for him and avoids her.  4. Annette just wants her dad back. That's what would make her happy but he denies her that because he's a selfish bastard.  5. Then he goes on and on about his man-pain while not helping anyone. he self flagellates and blames himself a lot but he never tries to change and so he stays there, is this cycle of self pity.  "Ohhh I have sinned and can not be forgiven" .and I'm like why not do right by the people you hurt? And he's like "no no I have sinned. I cannot see them" or some other bullshit.  He also gets some bullshit redemption arc that I want to scrub clean from my memory because he doesn't deserve it.  Annette's support is all about oh i forgive you. And it puts all the emotional labor on annette and just makes me real angry. And i am going to stop thinking about that disgrace of a human now.

Seteth is controlling. Wont let flayn have friends. Boys arent qllowed to talk to her.  She can't go out. He has to know where she is 24/7. Seteth really is suffocating Flayn. Early in the game Flayn compares herself to a hot house flower, confined to a green house, doomed to die outside it. It bring up the question which is better, to live a long life in constant fear and isolation (remember flayn is very much a people person), or to live a short fulfilling life. The answer of course is that it should be flayns choice. But Seteth denies her autonomy. Flayn is not quite an adult, but even discounting the decades* that she has lived, even a teenager should have some say in the direction of their life. Time and time again Flayn expresses her will and Seteth ignores her. She is allowed little existence outside of him.  Its also hilarious how bad their cover story is.  Its true they love each other but Seteth causes Flayn a fair bit of suffering. Its played for comedy sometimes. And Flayn to some degree tolerates it because she understands that he does it for her sake, and she understands the real danger she is in. They just disagree with what is an acceptable degree of risk. Seteth tolerates no risk which at that point can't be called living. Flayn accepts the danger and believes it is worthwhile to enjoy life and help people despite it. the counselor box also reveals that seteth has been stalking her and think her talking to dudes is bad despite that having nothing to do with the danger of the agarthans.

A fun thing to think about is if Flayn was born of 2 nabeteans, she's a human halfie, or someother sothis bullshit.  I reviewed the sea nd sky paralogue recently looking for answers and there were some hints? Maybe? nothing definative. all we know for sure is that flayn’s mom died in the nemesis war.  Also I have a hypothesis that flayn was in a regenerative coma for most of the 1000 years so she's been active less than 200 years which is why Seteth treats here like a waylaid toddler.

the flayn seteth c support is great Seteth.exe crashes and then reboots right in front of our very eyes

Catherine has such big wlw energy. I didn't quite realize it until I got her supports but hooboy.  Saw a lady so pretty she forgot she almost died pfft.  And this is just with rhea.  The catherine-shamir supports themselves are gold.

Catherine: ever see a woman so beautiful you forget you almost died and decide to devote your whole life to her?

Catherine->Shamir: i get worried when you go out on missions on your own. I'm not there to protect you. I'm scared of you leaving me behind. I never want to leave you side. Between my life and your life i'd choose your life me: ! Shamir: i don't know what the future holds, but let's get married me: !!!!!!!!!!!!

Also catherine/christoph was a thing in the past. Highschool sweethearts. Before she executed him for treason

Ahahahhha this is great! And by great I mean hilarious. Dimitri dies even more offscreen in SS than in VW.  Ghost dimitri in ss made me laugh but  do we ever get an explanation for ghost dimitri or it like the cf finale? Themetically significant. Sure lets go with that

I'm really starting to see where the parts of vw and ss were smushes together

Embarr has the best night life

Recruiting sylvain into the gd feels mean. I'm taking away the only one with 2 braincells to rub together

Under all the noble bullshit, Lorenz really is a great guy

Do you think every demonic beast looks unique and its only that the devs didnt want to make more models that they dobt look different in game?

Recruiting sylvain into the gd feels mean. I'm taking away the only one with 2 braincells to rub together in the blue lions

Sylvain is warm

I wish we got to explore derdriu

PETRA DESERVES BETTER WRITERS. and give her a fluffy coat. She's gotta be cold in garreg mach

Count Varley is at the top of the hit list

Add alois onto team i'm scared of ghosts (lysithea, ashe, annette)[5:44 PM] That's it. I'm kidnapping alois from the church's clutches and taking him home. The church doesn't deserve him. And he hates his job

W h y  i s  everyone from faergus so eager to give up their personhood

Does faerghus seem really backwater to anyone else? Faergus reminds me of like 900's europe while leicester and adrestia are more like 1600's europe.  they still have that germanic warrior culture thing going. This is deep in the dark ages. I will accept the later half of the dark ages though since its post introduction of christianity. Leicester and Adrestia feel more like 1600-1700s They feel not quite french revolution, but getting there.  Yeah like the old institutions (crown and church) are still there but the cracks are showing.  Also the clothes

I thinki talked about this before. But when I say dorothea deserves the world. DOROThEA DESERVES THE WORLD. she’s been through so much

I need to go compare this with the verdant wind scene, but I was under the impression that sothis was in a regenerative coma after the war with the agarthans. But nope according to ss she was straigt up dead huh

i know I'm suppose to be fighting but I spent the last 30min exploring shambhala again

Damn it Shamir! Why'd ya have ta crit. I was trying to get dialog!January 2, 2020

gatekeeper > you < gatekeeper's identical twin brother who's on the opposite side of the war Its a sandwich

Oh wow the church really was up to some bloodborne level stuff

I turned every single one of the black eagles into a brigand (except linhardt and hubert).  Brigand gang brigand gang

The devs knew Claude and Lindhardt would just be too powerful. They had to be separated. thats why they dont have a support chain.  Sylvain and Claude has more energy but Sylvain has the conscious that Lindhardt lacks.  I mean Lindhardt singlehandedly lock picks  the holy tomb and disables rhea's magic mechs all while complaining he's sleepy.  Sylvain can be bullied into doing things and I love him for it.  Ah. I want both support chains

After Jeralts death both Claude and Edelgard both tell you that the world will continue spinning regardless of what befalls you personally but they do so in rather different ways. Edelgard phrases it like pull yourself together or the world will leave you behind. Claude phrases it like personal tragedies are such a small thing in the face of the world. You may have suffered a loss but there is so much to the world beyond that. There are still worthwhile things in the world. Both of say the world doesnt stop for you but mean different things.  And both are trying to motivate you to pull yourself together.  Whereas dimitri is like: you want vengence? You should go for vengence. I'll help you rip them apart. I'll kill for you.

Edelgard is socially awkward and blunt. She's also very practical minded so she doesn't know how to won't say something comforting when she can say something useful.  She's trying in her own way  To motivate byleth to start picking up their life.  Edelgard doesn't get people. Social interaction is a total mystery to her. She's just too stubborn to realize it.  At a couple points you can tease her and she thinks you're threatening her. She's not good at the people thing.  While she can come off a little rough because she doesn't understand how other people work. Hubert understands other people rather well and is an asshole anyways. List of characters who have threatened byleth: dimitri, hubert, sylvain, jeritza, catherine

Was sothis one of the divine dragon tribe? a lot of the other divine dragons had green hair especially the ones worshiped as gods (duma, mila, naga, tiki). But not fae or nowi.  I always got that dragon stones were like a dragon's essence sealed away so that while in human form they could stave off dragon degeneration. But what are crest stones. Were they made by the agarthans (artificial dragon stones) or are crest stones a natural part  of the nabeteans and the agarthans just harvested them. Or... ARE THERE BOTH. But the pov characters cant tell the difference.  This one group has messed with how many nations now?? SS has an interesting tidbit that's  been stuck in my head:  In the final map of SS its revealed that all high ranking church officials recieve Seiros' blood and a crest stone shard. WHERE ARE THE SHARDS COMING FROM. DAMN YOU SETETH YOU CANT JUST SAY THINGS LIKE THAT AND LEAVE ME. because if they are seiros crest stone shards that neans crest stones are not an Agarthan invention. But that condridicts VW where rhea says creststones are made of nabateab hearts. tldr: I'm confused. where are those fragments coming from??? Wait. This is all assuming a nabetean needs their heart inside them to live. Given how violently rhea reacts to losing even 1 crest stone I don't think she used the ones of her brethern. Which logically leaves only one weird possible answer. That rhea took her own heart/crest stone and has been giving out fragments. I mean she probably retrives the fragments when the priest dies.... this also means that nabeteans can survive with their heart outside their body... like a litch.... which I mean given sothis isn't too suprising? ??

VW and SS have such wacky endings. Let's go fight the cyberpunk mole people now!. Zombie invasion?  : check Weird bloodborne stuff and then we fight rhea?: check

Yeah VW was my first route and whew that was a wild ride. AM is so tame is comparison. but SS and VW lack the setup to pull out twists like that.  If this was like Nier: Automata where you get endings sequentially, it might have worked. But on their own the last 2 maps don't have anything at stake

hmmm  switching the final battles of verdant wind and silver snow? What would make a better story and why?  rhea kinda works because SS is all about rhea and saving her from herself as well as a revival of the church. But Nemesis also brings closure to Rhea's arc. She's been stuck for the last 1000 years to to fight the man who killed her most important person for good is like also really good thematically. VW is all about something new. Doing away with old structures and what better than to kill the pope? But facing the 10 elites also works for VW because that's the begining of the crest/nobility system you are literally killing.  I just like recruiting everyone and then killing the 10 elites with their own weapons wielded by their descendants.  its symbolic

Byleth is an excellent brigard. Went beigand and then wyvrn and their strength was higher than dimitri's

Claude: Rule? Nah. Gonna go be a scholar in an isolated mountain range. Books

Sylvain is a himbo wannabe

I should recruit annette and let her kill gilbert...  The one thing I'm worried about is that it'll hurt her more than it'll hurt him ... can I get crusher in crimson flower? If I were to recruit everyone and then get them all killed, what route would that be best in? Guess I'll be doing a death pact AM run some time in the future

Also koei tecmo and intsys are cowards for gender locking classes.  From a gameplay perspecrive too some characters are locked out of their ideal classes (war master for catherine and gremory for lindhardt). And then there's the in lore significance. Let hubert ride a pegasus.

Dorothea spent the entirety of their paralogue hitting on Ingrid. And then the RING at the end??? and they can’t support. Also Ingrid should have gotten an A support with Mercedes. They get along so well

Edelgard got the best designs in the game but Dorothea got the next best

Its canon. Edelgard thinks Claude grew up to be hot. Edelgard acknowledging that Claude is hot but but that she’s going to kill him anyways is just so good ....aaaaand one again I'm a coward who couldn't bring themself to kill Claude. But the completionist in me really wants to. The scene after sparing cluade between him and edelgard has kept me up too many nights.  What are the emotions here? My first guess was loss, grief. Someone else has interpreted it as aggtession though. And maybe we are both over thinking this but to me Claude's lines here say "I have failed"

Dorothea deserves a dragon

Caspar is actually real good for bernadetta. Its like talking to a sack of potatoes and doing so forces her to communicate better, firmly express herself, etc. Caspar has such great supports with all the ladies really

I really am just linhardt. I too disregard authority and despise being woken up...

I feel like we should all appreciate dorothea more. Death to the haters

ingrid equipping the duscar cavalry battalion is like  "I can exploit their labor so it’s alright"

I found felix was my solace in AM just because everyone else goes full death cult. despite how much i wanted to punch him when he told ingrid to go get a husband.  Also I should note I'm not sure felix whole heartesly believed what he said to Ingrid. I got the impression he said the thing he knew would upset her the most.  Not necessarily what he believed. That said he may actually believe it too.  Ingrid and felix remind be of squabbling siblings just saya the worst stuff to each other.  Unless felix has actively confronted the notion of faerhgus patriarchy he probably has internalized some of the beliefs. We all do. Thats why theyre so hard to dig out

Since we talk a lot about dads. Let's talk margrave edmund. tldr: complicated and interesting relationship with marianne.  What we know: he adopted marianne some time after her parents died, before she enrolles into the officers academy. Marianne says he's usuing her as marriage bait to marry up and increase the standing of house edmund.  This tracks with what others say about edmund: he's politically ambitious. And he's good at it enough to have gotten house edmund a seat at the round table.  In pretty much all her endings, he tutors mariannne until she's a political savant.  He forbid her from leaving the monestary in part 1.  Now let's go in between the lines. In part 1 marianne seems nervous of margrave edmund, but she also seems nervous of everything is part 1. In part 2, along with being more comfortable with herself she seems more familiar with him.  After the end of part 1 she likely returned to house edmund despite the attack being the perfect cover to disappear.  We don't get get much on edmund's personality buy he comes across as ruthlessly practical. The sort that goes "I can and will use everything to get what I want".  He likely adopted marianne not out of charity or compassion but so the house could have a crested heir and so he could use her as a bargining chip to other houses. But he sees enough potential in her to train her to be the next head of house. I think what started out as "ah another piece i can use" transitioned into a more friendly relationship as marianne began to assert herself and margrave edmund came to acknowledge her as more than how she could benefit him. I don't think he ever got over the "how can i use this" mentality but I'd like to think that after some years they came to get along. Ah yes I meant to do a hyrm thing and put it off for months. The Agarthans had long been infiltrating the empire and slowly increasing their influence on the government. In an attempt to stop this emperor ionius ix attempted to gain more power for himself to counter them by centralizing the government and taking power away from the nobles. House Hyrm attempted to defect to the leicester alliance with the help of house ordelia. In retaliation the Agarthans under the guise of the empire killed the members of house hrym and took control of hrym and ordelia. Also in response to ionius' move, the top ministers of the empire backed by the Agarthans began the insurrection of the seven where all political power was taken from the emperor. The Agarthans than experimented on ordelia and the royal family to implant crests while usuing hrym as a base of operations. After Emile killed that scrumbag baron bartels as well as the rest of the bartels family. Edelgard thought he could be useful as a piece not already controled by the Agarthans, and with their helped fabricated him a new identity as jeritza von hrym since hrym was a puppet for the Agarthans. Lord Arundel (Thales) then ensured jeritza a spot at garreg mach so he could act as an inside agent.

Anyone know the significance of rhea's mech's names (wilhelm, iris, etc.). past friends?  lol would it be messed up or what if its powered by his corpse 

Jeritza really is an acquired taste... wow

... I wonder sometimes if I like making things hard for myself... like I'll make rules like 4+ units have to attack an enemy before I kill them... or certain units can't be next to each other or just other abitrary rules. Anyways I'm just complaining because I did all this on the final map while under leveled last night (?) and am now just going "...why" at myself

Also, I wish we got the option of keep class headgear.  Some of it looks really cool and some of the classes (bishop??) look incomplete with out it.  Let me have my little hats!  Like mortal savant gets an oni mask which looks rad. And warlocks get flowery witch hats! Just finished crimson flowers again with warlock and then gremory dorothea and was like hmmmm.... she needs flowers in her hair

Also if you look up dimitri's dancer skirt you'll see he's wearing black short shorts

Team heretic: edelgard, hubert, petra, claude, leonie, linhardt in the closet: lorenz

So for those of you that keep up with my rambling... remember how i said the funal cf cutscene makes no sense? Did sothis self terminate? If she dud than why arent there records of other crest stones disintigrating? Or is it a sothis specific thing? Its possible sothis’s consciousness is stored in her creststone/heart but then how can you still s support her in CF? i've been trying to logic and reason this for several months and i cant get it to all fit. But on a symbolic level its like the coming of a new age, sothis' hold on the world (and her influence on byleth) disappears. Live on without dieties (literally in byleth's case). The new age of humanity and all so byleth becomes a normal human, no god powers yada yada. I think claude is the only one that knows byleth has no heartbeat?? (Maybe? I cant remember) since claude reads jeralt's diary. Thematic significance > narrative consistency. There's also that rhea goes beserk in SS and not VW, when the same stuff happens to her in both. Which doesn't add up for me. And Nemesis ...is he still sitting there in the other routes... Where did he get an army anyways? I assumed the agarthans just had a whole army frozen...But then why didn't they use it earlier? And can you imagine just a whole city of cryo pods underground. Just there.

Anyways I'm off to kill all the blue luons and solo with dimitri on maddening!  Can I get gilbert killed in AM or is he too plot important. I've been playing on casual like a coward so far

Ah ashen wolves shadow cinders looks edgy. I wonder why they have 4 kids in a dungeon. Theres that npc that talk about hiw garreg mach needs the abyss to survive. I wonder why they keep this system

I dont keep up with english VAs but it'd be funny if yuri was voiced by yuri lowenthal

anyone with a crest has less of a chance of  demonic beasting than someone with no crest in lore. In gameplay you can use any crest weapon as long as you have any crest. You just wont get the added benefits of that specific crest

Yuri is very pretty and I’m weak for beautiful long haired men.  But i kinda wish the nintendo would let us have BEEF

If only i could have 300 save files...

Yuri really just is Leon with amnesia. Down to the red eyeliner...

Who let balthus into a highschool

I have that insistent desire to punch the writers for putting dorothea and mercedes through all that

Manuela. Has. So. Much. Love!  And her line about how [as teachers] we cant lose the students to violence or cowardice

The head of felix plopped onto a generic brawler body will always be funny to me

Yeah... sylvain really treats you different when male.  There was a reason were many reasons I really wanted to punch sylvain when I first started playing. namely the misogyny

male Byleth just looks really good as a swordsmaster

From a gameplay perspective I think divine pulse should have been removed for maddening.  From a story perspective they did a pretty good job integrating time mechanics as god powers

I wonder if Jeralt reminded Rhea of Wilhelm

i love giving bad advice for the advice box

why is tea time is the hardest part of the game

Seriously. How does garreg mach even work? Fail school and you get sent to the dungeons for life. What.

Sylvain would totally be one of those dudes with too much money dolling out patronages

Let hilda be warmaster

Hmmm edelgard... fatalism....

Please mod gilbert out of the game Lorenz has got a good heart. But the words that come out of his mouth sometimes...

Oh yeah you know that rainbow flash dream sequence right at the begining of the game? Is it me or did I see skyscrapers in it

The inside of byleth's head is a smash tournament

Seteth can die and I'll kill him.  (Ok ok I don't actually hate the guy. But I don't like him either. He's the type I'd tolerate working with but want nothing to do with outside of the professional setting)

Caspar and linhardt really are THAT comedy duo. I need a whole book dedicated to their paired endings

Sylvain's dick is still the funniest joke on the internet

The weirdest part of part 2 felix's hair isn't even the aggresive side sweep. That can be explained by having stiff straight hair. Its the limp pony tail. If your hair is that stiff, any ponytail that length is going to stick straight out like as anime character. I have this hair type. I've succeded in replicating the side sweep, the ponytail doesnt work

give mercedes a gun cowards

Marianne with a cute bob. Marianne with short hair. very home of phobe of intsys not to make marianne like an actual werewolf or something

devs should have let Bernie learn how to beat her dad to death with her bare fists

I've returned home to my boy. I love Claude!

Mortal savant ignatz. I mean strength in swords and budding talent in reason. Youre going to ba a magic samurai ignatz!

I had forgotten how much gd plays like a mystery game. Also, whatever I said earlier I take it back. Lysithea has a crush on Leonie

I keep trying to imagine an adrestia that isn't tropical (because why else would they wear heavy coats), and failing...

I really love raphael. He's so good

Claude's this interesting mix of cynical and idealistic yeah. He has a number of strong ideals and believes in the potential of humanity to do good, to grow and learn, to come together and built. But he also struggles because at the same time he also believes humans will usually choose the easier path of ignorance and hate. People are cruel and don't care.[5:30 AM]He's really cynical about what people are actually going to do

Sylvain's just layer upon layer of unhealthy coping mechanism

I don’t really like the ingrid/claude ship. ingrid tends to fixate on one shallow quality in a person and then ship them shit about it. and that’s the support. and the writers don’t have her ever acknowledging the rest of the character’s personality or admitting her first impression might have been incorrect.  that especially doesn't pair well with Claude who hides so much of himself. Out of all the characters Claude can A support Ingrid's the only one I where I went "whyyyyyyy"[10:02 AM]It really felt like the typical C-B support. Of i cant stand you because of 1, 2, and 3. To hey maybe you aren't so bad

i can't help but think the empire and alliance are incredibly stupid for making lorenz a cavalier. He's terrible at it.

Hold the phone. Was jeralt a soldier in the leicester independwnce war? (On thw faerhgus side).  But thats 300 years ago. All we know is that hexs older than 100.  The almyra unvasion is another option. Its also possible that jeraly wasnt involved in any war

So I'm trying to get rhea killed on the last chapter of part 1 for GD and wow its really hard to lose the fight this way. Enemies will avoid her like the plague. I cant believe I'm struggling to lose a fight Rhea is unkillable. I have taken no actions for 15 turns are she is still not dead Starting to think its impossible to lose by rhea death in this battle Turn 31. Its only raphael and hilda left Yeah as long as you have 1 unit to keep enemy infanty out of the pink squares this map is inpossible to lose on hard mode  60 turns. All of Rhea’s spell and weapon uses are gone and she still wont die. I give up

I've been thinking of hilda dimitri hypothetical supports recently and i think they"d be halfway between her lorenz+ferdinand supports and her marianne supports.[1:48 AM]Hilda is the QUEEN of suckering people and dimitri is the biggest sucker in the game[1:51 AM]But like marianne's clumsiness, dimitri can't do basic tasks well so hilda hoisting her chores on him is sure to backfire hilariously. He also has that kicked puppy pitifulness that part 1 marianne has so hilda will end up feeling  sorry watching him struggle and help out[1:52 AM]But these 2 are both deeply compassionate so they could actually get along.  You know... i can see ferdinand and claude hating each other's guts. But there's such potential for personal growth...

Why is it that the agarthans have the most named npcs out of any factionJump

If gilbert is what it means to be an "exceptional knight". Then i dont want it. I dont want knights and i especially dont want execptional knights

I like playing on hard because i never have to worry about winning a fight only about how many style points I can rack up.

Why does fodland new year start on month 3.  Look i get that the japanese adopted the chinese calendar system of new year in early spring before adopting the gregorian calendar so "new years" events ended up split between month 1 (new years celebration) and month 3/4 (start of school). But that makes no sense for fodlan. In universe it doesnxt make sense. Why not have month 1 start in spring or have the new year in winter. Ok let's be real. The real reason its like this is that due to globalization and post ww2 american influence not to mention european colonialism, the gregorian calander is the one the world runs on. So its for us players benefit that month 1 is in winter and month 6 is summer. But in universe it doesn't make sense! Not unless you start making really convoluted excusrs[4:00 AM](Sorry southern hemisphere   No representation for you today) This only works for chinese new years because its 2 different calender systems being used at the same time. Which doesn't make sense in fodlan because why would rhea allow a new calander system in given her isolationist policy. Or if its a remnant of an old calender system, there's no way it lasted 1000 years

If jeralt hadn't been killed by kronya, he would have been consumed by the hivemind in SS and you would have been forced to kill him

The devs really went out of their way to give jeritza a unique class huh. He's a dark knight+swords. You can say it. He's just a dark knight. Yet they really went and slapped death knight on him[2:49 PM]Also as a pc his crit rate in underwelming

The s suport cgs are more stylized and its a little jarring

Is it only me than. Who get ways too many support points thant hey know what to do with.

We need a cats remake but its called rats and is dimitri in every role

I want a lysithea hilda a support[5:48 PM]Hilda's the only ine lysithea likes from the start[5:48 PM]They have mutual respect for each other[5:48 PM](Also side note. Wow lysithea is mean to ignatz. Poor baby)

Reminder that its Marianne who title drops vw

Did I miss something? Felix becoming the top advisor for all of fodlan seems like a bad idea. The only thing that comes close to showing he's competant is his ingrid support where it shows he's decent at tactics. Reason number 76 for why I'm worried for fodlan post AM. Along with ... ya know .. the Agarthans still running around.

One part of vw i didn't like was when the merchants went woohoo no regulations and free trade yay!Jump

I'll be honest. 7 year old me would have swindled dimitri out of his good halloween candy

[garden-ghoul]

return of the blog, part 9

“I don’t want to stop thinking about the space opera version of the legendarium...”

THE FIELD OF CORMALLEN

The moment Sauron gets distracted and begins to doubt himself, every single one of his solders feels the hand lighten up on the back of their neck and goes “oh fuck, what am I doing?” WAIT. SO THE WAY SAURON KEEPS HIS SOLDIERS FROM DESERTING IS CONSTANTLY MIND CONTROLLING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM? No, no, that probably only works when they’re all gathered together like this. Still, that’s a hell of a thing to be able to do. Think of all the stuff he could get done if he stopped spending 500% of his energy breathing down everyone’s necks!

Orodruin wheezes out a huge puff of black smoke. It’s Sauron, probably, or at least a metaphor for Sauron. He reaches out a threatening hand, but gets blown away by the wind before he can touch the Western Alliance. The people whose wills he enslaved are so confused that they start running around knocking into each other, tripping on their swords and dying, killing each other, they just do not know what is going on and it has massive casualties. A few of the humans who actually do hate the West hunker down and prepare to fight, but everyone else is running around like headless chickens. Gandalf asks Gwaihir to come fly him to Orodruin. Gwaihir is like “bro I am always here for you, I love you so much.” It’s very sweet and I want to hear more about their relationship.

Very jarringly, without so much as a section break (at least in my bootleg online copy) Frodo repeats his line from the end of last chapter, and then goes on to say some more extremely depressing things. Sam insists on walking a ways down the mountain, because what else are they going to do? But they fetch up in front of a huge pyroclastic flow so, no dice. Just as the eagles spot them, they both pass out. I really like how they each need an entire eagle to carry them, even though they are about a hundred pounds each probably, and I previously assumed these were giant eagles. Maybe they are... eagles that are only slightly larger than normal earth eagles?? Like, a condor and a half. Huge birds, but still of earthly proportion. Love it.

On April 8th, Sam wakes up again, and thinks he’s dreaming. This is nice and all, but they were literally starving when they were last awake several weeks ago (March 25th, Gandalf helpfully reminds us, which has now been declared new year’s day in Gondor). Unless someone invented intravenous feeding tubes while I wasn’t looking, they should be dead.

No. uh. ~~magic!~~

They walk outside (they’re in Ithilien, but Aragorn seems to be having his coronation here anyway? rather than in Minas Tirith?) and a bunch of people are shouting “PRAISE THE HOBBITS! PRAISE THEM WITH GREAT PRAISE! SAM AND FRODO HIP HIP HOORAY!” Which is extremely embarrassing. Even Aragorn, the guy of the day, takes their hands and shouts “PRAISE THEM WITH GREAT PRAISE!” This is starting to feel a little bit like a weird horror story, like where you wake up and the world has been altered in some way and everyone is acting Off and nobody will explain anything and it’s upsetting.

Sam, however, is just happy that someone wrote a song about Frodo.

They talk with everyone and feast and stuff for the whole day. Also apparently it’s Aragorn who kept them alive with his ~healing True King hands~. This still explains nothing. And I guess on May Day Aragorn is returning to Minas Tirith, for symbolism reasons. Waves a tiny flag apathetically. This was a very dull chapter because everything was summarized instead of told properly; we were supposed to feel happy, but it was like dutifully chewing kale. Except worse because I’m actually quite fond of kale. I can’t think of anything chewy. Gristle?

THE STEWARD AND THE KING

Heyyyyyy sounds like we’re gonna hear about Faramir! Fingers crossed for gay shit.

Eowyn is running around out of her bed when she shouldn’t be, because she’s as strong as a horse and bored bored bored. She picks a minor fight with the chief healer for saying maybe wars are bad and demands to know if there are any deeds to do. Gah I love her. Finally the healer, exasperated, takes her to the steward of the city so she can pester him instead. “Do not misunderstand him, lord,” says Éowyn. “It is not lack of care that grieves me. No houses could be fairer, for those who desire to be healed. But I cannot lie in sloth, idle, caged. I looked for death in battle. But I have not died, and battle still goes on."

Ugh. Eowyn is pulling a real Marius Pontmercy here.

“Make the healers let me go,” she says. 

“Have you considered... maybe they know what they’re doing?” says Faramir. 

“I WANT... TO GO TO BATTLE. I want to be like my father! Honorable and dead!” Okay why is Eowyn so set on being dead. I’m not entirely sure where this characterization is coming from. Has she always been lowkey suicidal and it just looked like she wanted to do glorious deeds? She sort of gives in eventually and accepts that this battle is already too far away for her to join in. Faramir doesn’t want her to be bored and antsy, so he asks her to hang out with him while they’re both healing. He also tells her she’s beautiful, and she’s like “Uhhhh sorry I’m too butch for this.” And leaves.

Faramir hunts down Merry to question him about Eowyn, and they loiter in the garden hopefully waiting for her to show up. She doesn’t. She does come later, and they start hanging out a lot. He gives her a super nice coat that his mom (Finduilas of Amroth!) used to own. Eowyn keeps looking toward Mordor and sighing and saying “When will he come back??” And it’s clear she’s utterly oblivious to Faramir’s gentle flirting. But she does hold hands with him without either of them noticing, so ???

AH. Faramir also makes a Numenor comparison as great plumes of smoke rise up from Mordor:

It seemed to them that above the ridges of the distant mountains another vast mountain of darkness rose, towering up like a wave that should engulf the world, and about it lightnings flickered; and then a tremor ran through the earth, and they felt the walls of the City quiver. A sound like a sigh went up from all the lands about them; and their hearts beat suddenly again.

‘It reminds me of Númenor,’ said Faramir. “The land of Westernesse that foundered and of the great dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills, and coming on, darkness unescapable. I often dream of it.’

Ugh I don’t even care about Hamilton but I think so much about that line that’s like “I imagine death so often it feels more like a memory.” It’s both how I feel about Faramir, and clearly how Faramir himself feels.

Just then an eagle flies by the city, singing the news. This is so goofy compared to Faramir’s congenital solemnity. Oh this is good though. After he takes up stewardship of the city Eowyn has an Angst. Faramir tries to be oblique about asking if she likes him, but she makes him come out and say it.

‘Éowyn, do you not love me, or will you not?’

‘I wished to be loved by another,’ she answered. ‘But I desire no man’s pity.’

I’m gay? oh haha,

'As a great captain may to a young soldier he seemed to you admirable. For so he is, a lord among men, the greatest that now is. But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle.’

Haha yes gogol was right

'Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn! But I do not offer you my pity. For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you.’

“I would love you even if you were happy” is such a fucked up thing to have to say, honestly. BUT, “I love you for doing great deeds and this is not a pity-date” is exactly what Eowyn wants to hear, probably.

‘I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’

Wait

I mean. This is a great thing, not killing people, and I have always associated becoming trans with putting down one’s sword, but this feels like. “oh finally she can be a real woman.” So Johnald thinks, but in fact Eowyn is trans and wants to be a gentleman/gentle man. So I’m putting my grubby queer fingers all over this and saying it’s really good that Eowyn is associating masculinity with peace and healing and growth.

Faramir asks Eowyn to marry him and she says,

‘Then must I leave my own people, man of Gondor? And would you have your proud folk say of you: “There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Númenor to choose?”’

For some dumb reason he interprets this as her being worried about his reputation, rather than her being worried about being asked to leave her entire family behind and be an item of curiosity as long as she lives in Gondor??

And then he kisses her. Ugh.

After this Aragorn and co come back, and Aragorn does a bunch of symbolic junk with symbols of office. He pardons everyone. The city is full of flowers and babies to kiss. Faramir becomes the prince of Ithilien. Eowyn goes home to Rohan to rebuild, but says she’ll come back when she can finally bring Theoden back and put him at rest in Rohan. That’s some good shit. Also Aragorn finds a Nimloth sapling just sort of hanging out on the mountain. Gandalf points at it and Aragorn is like “oh” 

“guess I’ll take this home then”

Then Galadriel and Elrond show up and Aragorn gets married. Either that or he and Arwen are just holding hands. Gotta say, I can not relate to any of this. Where is the trauma. Where is the trauma!