#for a variety of reasons obviously

[constellationcrowned]

((Honestly I'm still hoping to see the Tigla-Dera scenes with Kariom in them rather than Roui being his memory stand in.))

[lagunaseca2013]

How do you think Marc takes the brews Val is pregnant with his baby?

excellent question, anon! I'm not really sure if this is about reverse omegaverse or post retirement so I'm gonna go w post retirement bc I've been daydreaming about torturing that old man w pregnancy so buckle up!

I mean honestly I think marc is pretty happy! I actually don’t know if he’s talked about it before but he seems to want to start his family after retirement (rosquez soulmatery strikes again) when he can focus on it 100 percent. in this universe I don’t think marc is going to be like suddenly ready to retire just bc he has the ninth and vale is accidentally pregnant, but I think the fact that vale is at least retired and can be fully there for the baby would probably be enough for him to be okay with the situation. vale is also at least tangentially obligated to be at a lot of motogp races by virtue of owning a team and mentoring half the grid so when the baby is old enough he would get to see them a lot more than is maybe standard in this sport. (idk I could be wrong about what’s standard here I got into this like a month and a half ago)

if you’re asking how I think the actual reveal goes, well……..I think it doesn’t go as bad as it could. vale is a fucking mess when luca leaves him home alone to wait for marc. but he’s also like—relieved? at least a little bit, I mean the poor old man has been out of his mind horny and nauseous for weeks at this point and fully just thought he had some kind of mystery terminal illness. a baby isn’t a death sentence. also, he’s already decided he’s keeping it. the doctor tried to hand him an abortion brochure and the idea of it made him sick to his stomach.

obviously none of this was planned so he’s maybe coming at it from a staunchly solo angle of I’m keeping it you can be there for us or go to hell type of thing. marc is completely delighted tho so that doesn’t become an issue. I think they probably don’t have the serious conversation about it that they realllly should (remember marc came to the ranch for the explicit purpose of hammering out the reconciliation bc they’ve just been having tender intimate sex and not discussing it) and instead, you guessed it, have crazy romantic sex. marc is like fully ready to let vale fuck him, gets on his hands and knees at first and vale is like wait, and turns him over and he’s like all I’ve been thinking about for weeks is having you inside me again.

and then marc fucks him in missionary and there’s a lot of breeding kink and possibly saying I love you (rosquez be normal challenge absolute fail) and it’s RAW so marc’s come is like dripping out of him around his cock (he is cockwarming marc soft for emotional reasons). they probably do a lot more fucking, vale sleeps more than he has for the last two months that week (with or without marc inside him teehee) and marc gets to fuss over him and take care of him which is a brand new dynamic for them! pre divorce they didn’t exactly take care of each other, but if anything in the rare moments it was vale taking care of marc by virtue of being fourteen years older etc.

they order every prenatal vitamin that amazon carries and like a billion different baby development books. vale is high risk bc of his age but the ultrasounds and blood work said the baby was healthy and everything looked okay so they don’t have to worry about health stuff quite yet. (keep in mind vale got pregnant at his age on the first try; let’s just say his body has really decided to be equipped for a baby idk none of this has to be real or scientific lol) marc can’t exactly cook but he tries his best and either vale elbows him way from the stove when necessary or they order in and feed each other in bed like disgustingly in love people do.

I think they push the serious conversation off for as long as possible and just sort of live together for as long as they can get away with it. vale knows it’s probably early enough that he can still ride but he’s petrified of something happening to the baby so when they go to the ranch he just watches marc go wild by himself and shouts pointers at him that marc playfully does not listen to. marc is also feeling rather delicate about his health wrt being alive and well for his future baby so he’s playing it pretty safe out there too.

they’re basically having a babymoon phase of only seeing each other, fucking constantly, and lounging around. I have this awesome image of them watching a bunch of pregnancy movies and when they get to juno vale, under full influence of first trimester hormones, sobs through like half of it. marc is bewildered and amused and secretly really happy to be big and strong for vale who he has never seen before vulnerable and soft like this, even before everything. it’s domestic bliss until marc starts getting increasingly annoyed calls from ducati about preseason obligations and vale has also been fending off Uccio and the academy and a billion other people who don’t believe him when he says he’s not sick anymore and just needs some time—omg wait maybe 100km gets canceled, that would be crazy juicy—and the motogp community and media in general thinks vale is dying.

marc is like struggling bc he absolutely does not want to leave vale, in fact he never wants to be without vale ever again, but vale is spooked by the reminder of real world obligations and gets weird and cold. tries to push marc away and insist that he needs to go do his job (he is subconsciously testing marc; if you leave you FAIL) marc is having ptsd flashbacks to the last time he was in tavullia (hello ranch visit trauma) which involved. a lot of the same cold shoulder and manipulation tactics.

it’s a bad time for all! they get into a blowout screaming match where vale tries to kick marc out while literally clutching at his clothes, white knuckled, marc is sobbing and holding vale in a death grip whispering into his neck I won’t leave you please don’t make me go vale I can’t lose you again I promise I’ll do anything I need you both.

the insane “compromise” they end up with is (let’s say ducati make that skiing thing an annual trip) vale GOES WITH MARC to the event and stays with him in the hotel/cabin/whatever (even tho he literally has a house there) and they don’t even try to explain it to anyone in the team. pecco knocking on marc’s door the first morning so they can catch up over breakfast and vale answers, sleep rumpled, wearing one of marc’s tshirts and they both just stare at each other dumbfounded until marc returns from his shower and and smiles all fake at pecco like why are you just standing there weirdos :)) come sit and have an espresso, pecco I’m almost done getting dressed :))

vale calmly makes a nonverbal pecco an espresso and slaps marc’s ass when he bends over to rummage through the one giant luggage that they appear to be sharing. pecco is texting luca paragraphs under the table. it’s absolute fucking scenes when they have the big fancy team dinner with the long tables and marc shows up w vale as his plus one. and vale refuses a glass of champagne for the toast……..

[queerbauten]

the “missing the point” meme except it’s for the Interstella 5555 rerelease, and the point being missed is “of course the notoriously shambolic anime industry is using AI to upscale a film; Daft Punk were almost certainly unaware (or, at the very least, unable to do anything about it); none of this would be surprising if you were paying attention to the actual issues with AI and labour” in favour of “I can’t believe Daft Punk would use AI :(“

[serpentface]

What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?

It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.

They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.

So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.

Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).

The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.

The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.

So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.

Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.

[wizardsix]

I can't remember who said this but there was this one dev who said that when making romanceable characters they have to be attractive in some way (personality, looks, not too morally fucked up etc). and since I read that, the statement hasn't left my mind and I'm very aware now of whenever outside influence and modern discourse get to me or other writers. like just yesterday I found myself rewriting a scene to be more "comfortable" to witness, even though the point was to be emotionally charged and face a difficult topic the character had been actively lying about. but some things can't be glossed over. sometimes it's good when media grabs you by the shoulders and makes you face horrible shit. it's good when media makes you uncomfortable even if it's coming from a ~romanceable companion~. that means it's working. if you remain comfortable forever you learn nothing.

I bring this up bc the veilguard companions are the perfect example and victims of the "romanceable characters need to be attractive" mindset. they don't have ugly sides, they don't fight with each other--and I mean really fight--they don't have controversial opinions or do problematic things. they don't ever question your authority over their lives and why you're the guy in charge. they are nice and perfect and their problems aren't really that serious and can be fixed by simply having a therapy session w rook (bc being possessed or gaining new magic isn't a big deal in a world where previously such events are Very distressing and hard to control). they are further proof that trying too hard to make something attractive has the complete opposite effect if your brain isn't the size of a pebble.

it's overall very frustrating that big game developers continue to be so spineless and I'm not giving anyone a pass for shallow writing, especially from a franchise that is known to have complex characters. none of this is impressive after the first three dragon age games, which were well loved and dissected and debated for years after their release. that isn't to say these games don't have kind characters, having that balance is why I personally like dark fantasy and liked what the dragon age games offered (whenever the writing was good..). it's not dark for the sake of being dark (see grimdark), there's a reason why these things are happening, and in this world no one is completely innocent even if they have good intentions. most people like when their characters aren't always kind or agreeable, bc it's extremely rewarding to finally find that middle ground (of course I have to bring up larian, who made bg3 and proved just how much people appreciate flawed characters, see astarion). conflict is the driving force of a story, no matter what it is. even the most sickeningly sweet cozy slice of life story will have some kind of conflict. it's unavoidable. that's life. taking that away is setting yourself up for failure and all that remains is a boring story full of boring people. no one cares about characters who have their lives together.

(the post is technically over but I wanted to put some final thoughts under the cut bc this got longer than I meant)

I want to go back to the statement real quick... like i do agree, it's true as writers we'll subconsciously (or consciously if you're insecure) try to make our characters appealing, but this is the common trap writers fall into by giving a shit about what others think and want from Their work (which btw I fully believe in writing what you want even if it's "bad" because something with genuine soul will never be as bad as soulless cashgrabs). romanceable characters can and should be as flawed as you'd make any other character, bc trust me there's an audience for everything. even a random npc with two lines will be attractive to someone.

the pressure of an imaginary audience is what pushes writers into a corner and prevents writers from writing and exploring what They want. it's the writer's story first, not the audience's. I think the romanceable companion trap can be easily avoided if writers just 1) grow a bit of a backbone and 2) ask themselves if this is even a necessary or insightful mechanic that will help develop a character further. ask themselves if this character even has the capacity to handle a romantic relationship bc everything else is subjective and it's impossible to appeal to everyone (which apparently this is a controversial take). I won't sit here and pretend that I don't appreciate a good romance, but sometimes all someone really needs is a friend.

obsidian is a good example of self aware devs. they tried to do romance for pillars of eternity 2 bc of fan demand, and it didn't work very well. now for avowed, they didn't explore romance bc they know it's not their strong suit and don't feel it's necessary for this story, instead that time and effort went to developing the characters in other meaningful ways. I have nothing but respect for such a decision bc they know what they want from their story instead of lying and trying to be everything at once. less is more as they say.

[projectjasper]

why would you remind us man... i miss them too though 🥺

[simptasia]

being gay or a lesbian doesn't shut down the reproductive organs, y'all lining up with 90s era homophobes with your "Gay People Don't Breed" bullshit

[bonestrouslingbones]

i gotta stop fucking thinking about ships for karma because oh my god they all make me laugh so so so hard. i just thought abt how napstasans would go and i think he'd try to compliment their music for like 0.2 seconds before they start fully collapsing and sobbing saying "ur uglyyyyy 😭😭" and they technically outrank him so he'd just have to stand there like ????? bitch ?????????

[frenchtwistresistance]

@trillscienceofficer

[chickenmcnuggies]

woag. golems

[shoechoe]

man i am glad i didn't get the tumblr layout update

[oswaldddavis]

(They think the other is a idiot)

[rotisseries]

thinking about loz byler au again (breath of the wild specifically rn) and my brain keeps going "oooh the party as the champions" bc it sounds like it works out PERFECTLY there are 6 people in the party there's 6 champions if we count link and zelda, who are obviously mike and will, and then I remember that this would mean 4 of them have to be dead for like. the entirety of the main plot

[dilutedapplejuice]

Tw: none

I live in my head a lot!

In the early years of my life (before high school) I was pretty oblivious. I spent a lot of time alone with my special interests (reading fantasy books, then later watching anime), escaping into fictional worlds for most of the day. I spent some time with friends at school, but I frequently forgot to make plans outside of school with them- and I liked it that way. I didn’t have lots of extra time or energy for socializing and opted to spend it alone in my head.

Near high school I developed some intense social anxiety and chose to spend more of my time and energy on social things. I went to therapy without knowing about my autism and learned to mask in many ways, one of which being hiding and repressing my special interests.

I lost interest in anime by sophomore year. Still, I am not built for constant social stressors. Rather than becoming outgoing and spending all my time with friends, I had moved to spending all my time on tumblr and YouTube while dealing with near-constant exhaustion and guilt from both social and academic stressors.

Junior year, I decided to give myself a break. I took easier classes and spent less time with friends. I developed a special interest in Kingdom Hearts and happily pursued it (even though it meant slightly ghosting I my friends for a few weeks). I found a much better way to live, even if it wasn’t conventional.

Now I know I’m autistic. I realize how suppressing my special interests harm my self-image and general mental health. I know that I still suffer the repercussions, despite only masking that part of myself for around a year.

But I also learned that it’s not good to live inside my head all the time. High school did help me a lot. I made closer friends who accept me for who I am. I became more informed about social justice and deconstructing the own stigma I’ve internalized. I’ve thought more about what my future will be like. I had to get out of my shell to do those things.

Now these two sides of myself coexist; I live in my head, but I relate to the world around me in my own way. It’s all in moderation Most autistic people DO need help with skill-building; even level ones like me. I got support even before my diagnosis. It wasn’t entirely the right kind of support but it helped me discover myself a bit more.

[lady-harrowhark]

welp my nurse hasn't called so presumably i am not getting my infusion today despite them pestering my doctor's office for the approval paperwork for over three weeks now

[welcometoqueer]

Also! Check the UVI for wherever you live as it gives important information regarding sun exposure and what to do to protect yourself.

Remember the sun is really just a giant, hot, angry, gassy baby that keeps burping up radiation that’ll make you very sick!

be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.