#god maybe this is some milquetoast shit

[moderatetoaboveaverage]

.

[chaosroid]

I am once again lamenting how neglected resist!Durge has been for months. The final climactic scene to their arc is met with some of the most milquetoast companion reactions I've ever seen.

We literally die.

Like Durge just stops being alive. Where's the angst? The emotion? None of this half-assing shit, give us the shock and denial. Hell, give us weeping! Make it unflattering, because loss can be ugly.

I wouldn't even be opposed to Withers not showing up immediately? Maybe they have to physically drag Durge's dead body back to camp. Show us Gale using the only revival scroll he has and his face falling when it doesn't work. Shadowheart being the healer, desperately expending all her energy to bring you back to life as a last hail mary. Minthara not caring that Bhaal is a god, vowing to make him pay. Lae'zel threatening you to wake up, and the devastation that follows when she realizes you won't. Wyll thinking of bargaining his very soul to Mizora just for the chance she could bring Durge back. Astarion and Karlach praying to whatever gods they can think of even though they don't believe in them anymore.

Show the grief, the exhaustion. Then Withers appears.

As it stands, the emotional weight of what happens to Durge gets resolved so quickly, there's never a moment for any of us to really react to it.

It's an issue all across the game tbh. Why do the companions have no reaction to Kressa's reveal that she tortured Durge? Why are there no consequences to your relationships when they find out you were behind the Absolute plan? Outside of Astarion, the other romanceable companions have very little unique interactions with Durge, which is a shame because there are plenty of them who share many parallels to Durge's experience of being used by a god/higher-power.

I feel like I'm playing the world's smallest violin when I complain about the lack of resist!Durge content because good god, Wyll and Minthara are fighting for their lives over here. But man, it really sucks knowing that patch 7 is allegedly Larian's last big content patch. Like if there was ever going to be an update where this sort of thing was added, it had to be this one. But it doesn't seem like Larian has any intention of closing the content disparity gap.

[1800duckhotline]

i feel u with the parasocial lesbian artist enemies like theres this one artist who all she really does is draw milquetoast dehydrated buff women which isnt a crime itself and its more than most people but she gets REALLY insulted every time a trans woman likes her characters or people even lightly ask "oh are some of these characters maybe trans women" to the point where she used to make posts about how she was trying to "figure out how to disprove these ideas" but like... everyone reblogs her shit and doesnt care. i dont get it!

God the sad thing is i can think of at least 3 or 4 artists like this. i need to know the name though so i can be a hater (obv if you want to share i wont publish the ask publicly lol) but yeah like more often than not these artists also have super transmisogynistic tendencies and more often than not pretend to be trans allies but never make the effort of drawing trans women let alone acknowledge them, and also are super fucking bioessentialist

[renardtrickster]

"Irredeemable Media" lists are incredibly funny because it's typically just "[literal baby show], [literal baby show], [media I've never watched and only have it on here cause I dislike a fandom trend], and [literal baby show]"

The subject matter of who gets called Irredeemable Media is pretty interesting (especially when you ask why Steven Universe or Undertale or other implicitly or explicitly progressive stuff gets marked but not shit like Family Guy or South Park which frequently do pretty sketchy stuff), but I think I'm also fascinated with the question of why it is. 'Cos looking at stuff like that list, I think there's basically four categories for why the carrd carriers would call stuff irredeemable.

It is a Literal Baby Show or something equally milquetoast/okay/apolitical but it was made in the late '90s or early 2000s so there's something kind of sketchy in there. And instead of leaving it as a historical curiosity that you handle responsibly and critically a la "hey isn't it kind of fucked up that in early Scooby Doo you could just have the gang run into a bunch of Native Americans who wear feather caps and speak broken english that wouldn't fly today" they toss the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe poor taste acts like wine in that it festers over time and a faux pas, given enough time, turns into They Murdered My Family.

It's okay but made with the expectation that a mature audience will handle it and not a terminally anxious teenager so "here is a fucked up thing I have enough faith in you to understand that this is fucked up" gets construed as "oh my god they're just endorsing it".

A variant of 2 and 3 where it's explicitly progressive, made by and for gay people, or something similarly Really Above Board, but the terminally anxious teenager in this case operates under some sort of moon logic or has impossibly high standards but only for progressive and queer people I wonder why that lets them see "groundbreakingly progressive work of fiction that raises the bar for the entire industry and spurred a positive personal or political journey for thousands" as "nazi propaganda".

Variant of 1 and 3 where there's literally nothing here to get mad at but mind-meltinginly eldritch and esoteric discourse has caused some sort of warping to occur. This is rare I think but it's the only explanation for a Bizarre Take I once saw, where someone played Yume Nikki, did a "Madotsuki as a trans man" reading, interpreted the game as being transphobic in light of this reading, and then accused the creator of being transphobic even though 100% of that legwork was entirely on the person doing the reading.

[danieyells]

I was reading Leo's affinity lines and his max affinity line has him making a bet with PC about who falls for whom first.

What if PC said something like "Jokes on you, I am already in love but it's not you", and the rumour spreads and now all the ghouls are thinking whom it might be , while Leo is just ... Leo

It would be even more funny if it's just an NPC they are in love with or even better if it's the janitor 👀

Lol I feel like Leo's reaction would be very 'this isn't about someone else you might be in love with this is about me' like. What's it matter if they like someone else? Do they think they're the only person he likes? NOT THAT HE LIKES THEM-- the bet still stands. They can love other people all they want but that doesn't mean he won't be among them.

On the other hand he probably wouldn't believe them when they say it's not him U: like yeah okay of course you're not in love with me. You'll admit it eventually.

But yeah I think if a rumor that the scholarship student was into someone got out people would start speculating. . . .and Leo would wanna know who it is and try and find out or get them to spill. Because he loves gossip and tea and being nosy. And he'd probably judge your taste unless it was like. Jin or Romeo. Or him, obviously.

You like Tohma? That fake ass guy??? I don't think you'd be worth faking love for for him.

You like Kaito? You'd be a terrible influencer if you fall for your simps that easily.

You like Lucas? Well that's just hopeless.

You like Alan? He sees the appeal in a good himbo at least but the guy's just as hopeless as Lucas.

You like Sho? Ha. Good luck with that. Sho's kind of a heartbreaker. Good luck with not falling for Leo too when they're basically a package deal!

You like Haru? The guy too busy to even attend to himself? Have fun pining I guess. Pretty pathetic.

You like Towa? Your taste is fascinating they should study you in a lab.

You like Ren? Yeah Ren probably doesn't like you. Pathetic.

You like Taiga? Are you some kind of masochist? Oh he's heard of this you're into vore aren't you. Freaky.

You like Subaru? Pretty boy with the perfect life and submissive personlity? That's about as basic bitch taste as you can get.

You like Haku? Again, fake. You like guys who make the first move and who're probably gonna cheat on you.

He doesn't know Zenji exists(maybe??? Maybe he could hear him with his stigma????) but. He wouldn't even know where to start with how bad he'd think your taste is for that.

He probably doesn't know about Ed either but he'd absolutely judge you for being into a vampire. Like is your fyp all gross booktok romance shit?

You like Rui? Hopeless. Maybe he can put you out of your misery lol

You like Lyca? Again, judging you for being into werewolves.

You like Jiro? Laughably hopeless! Jiro doesn't like you for sure.

You like Yuri? Once again you should be studied in a lab, but maybe you'd enjoy that too much.

You like Cornelius? Jokes about calling the cops.

You like Moby? You're a pervert with a tentacle fetish. Also you'll always be second to whatever group or whatever he's simping over.

You like Nicolas? You've got the most bland milquetoast taste in men he's ever seen.

You like Hyde? That is hilarious and he is going to text Sho right now oh my god. Hyde's a weirdo so maybe you have a chance there but Sho is never gonna let you live this down.

He probably doesn't know the janitor--at minimum he'd concede that he's a good looking dude--but if he did know him he'd probably have similar criticism to Haku. The guy feels fake and like he flirts with every cute girl he sees. Also, gross. Yeah Darkwick is pretty clean, not a ton for him to maintain, but still. And he'd probably have a similar "well I guess NPCs fit better together" reaction to the janitor or a general student lololol

[vvatchword]

So I have been writing BioShock fanfiction since the second week of November and I have not stopped. And I mean. I have not fucking stopped. People think I have died. My mother has called me absolutely frantic on more than one occasion because I have stopped looking at my phone and cut off 90% of social media. I wrote 43,000 words in two weeks during November and I wasn’t doing NaNoWriMo.

So you should know if you haven’t been my friend for over a decade: back in 2010 I started working on a BioShock 2 fix-it. And two years, 38 chapters, and 250,000 words later I looked at it and realized it was complete and utter bullshit, then cried for a week and played sad Minecraft and debated whether I should continue writing at all. I even considered deleting the whole thing.

Jesus, I’m glad I didn’t.

I looked at it again last year around this time--just out of morbid curiosity. Most of the novels I wrote between 2008 and 2018 were just... jesus fucking christ. So fucking bad. It’s not uncommon for me to start one of them just to start squashing down into a Shame Puddle. But this thing? There was something so good twinkling in there. Something real and sad and full of yearning, something that ALMOST captured what I find most enchanting about BioShock as a series.

Anyway, I just want to leave this small note here for Future Self, who will definitely be intent on beating up Past Self: remember that you wrote something like 20-22 novels in that ten-year period and honestly? Thank god. Thank god you were okay with sucking for an entire decade. You figured it out. I mean, sure, it took us an unbelievable amount of time but I feel like we flopped out onto a mountaintop, sat up, and were like: wait. Wait a fucking second. How did I fucking get here? I mean I’m very glad I’m here but what the fuck?

It turns out that writing constantly, finishing all kinds of bullshit, being okay with being shit, not taking myself all that seriously, and suffering incessantly are the magic ingredients. So you did good Past Me. Good. ILU.

Anyway. I’m at 166,000 (acceptable) words and this shit is turning into something magical. I kid you not. It’s like magic. It feels like I’m unfolding an endlessly complex vista, and woven throughout is every heartbreaking expression of every agony I’ve ever wanted to scream about, and at the same time it’s full of how much I love human beings.

Of course, I feel like I should just be honest and admit that I just wrote the hottest fucking sex scene I’ve ever done and I’m now furious about it because the story is NOWHERE NEAR finished and I still have to read SO MANY BOOKS and research SO MUCH BULLSHIT so no one is going to be able to see it and maybe it’s not really that good anyway because I’m almost certainly in a honeymoon period. And also maybe I’ll die before I finish it. I hate feeling like I’m sprinting Death. We all know who wins, it’s just, can u just not for like,,,,, three years or so

Anyway, there are five parts. I’m working on the Topside part right now. The character I had thought was milquetoast has turned into something truly special and now I’ve got some Grade A Commentary going on.

Oh, another reason nobody is going to see this: while I’ve been just coasting along doing fuck all, the Internet has turned into Two Acceptable Ratings: G–PG-13 and NC-17/MA. So not only am I going to write something for a nearly-dead fandom, I quite literally have almost nowhere to post this fanfic now roflllll fuck everything

But since I’m nowhere close to being finished, and that’s a case of counting eggs before they hatch, I’m trying to focus on building the Story Bible and reading. The best thing about building a story is the part where you read All the Things and watch All the Documentaries. I’m going to parse the mobilization of America in WW2, research How to Psychiatry in the late 1940s/early 1950s, look up what richies wore in the late 40s/early 50s, and re-read Ayn Rand. I nearly asked you to pray for me but then I realized we should really pray for her because she’s dead and burning in hell if there’s a god. Actually we shouldn’t pray for her as she and her lackies are why we live in substandard hell now. What did that guy on TikTok say? “These people make me wish we could livestream Hell on Twitch”?

[rametarin]

Another day..

Another stupid instance of witnessing people talk about Andrew Tate the way some bloviating megachurch televangelist jokes about rock singers being embodiments of Satan.

Just, switch out "icon of sin" with, "the fathead icon for the disaffected male to school shooter pipeline." Same stupid Satanic Panic, different bad guy that somehow represents a clandestine conspiracy for everything wrong in the world outside their control.

Tate is a moron and the manosphere a shallow and pathetic corner to sulk in, but my god some of you act like he's a J-RPG boss where if you just defeat him, evil will evaporate from the world, and, holy fuck. No. That's not how it works. That's not how men work. That's not how anything works. He has the same destined footprint as all those 80s self-help gurus. Do you remember them? Nobody does. They were popular and influential for all of a window of months before people abandoned them like last May's fashion.

Maybe I'm just sore but, I was in highschool when there was panic about the "Trenchcoat Mafia." Where students got stigmatized as potential school shooters because they had big, heavy coats where, WHO KNEW, MAYBE THEY WERE SPORTING A FIREARM BENEATH THEM.

But everybody fucking knew what was coming. The people looking for "signs" someone might be a potential school shooter, which meant scrutiny against boys specifically, any signs of "antisocial thoughts or behavior," which meant conform to what they looked for as 'good people' extra hard or be put in the Potential Shooter category to watch and get way too clumsily involved in their home lives with.

And with the not so quiet grumbling by radical feminism making Mars Panic a thing, insinuating there's some connection between any organized vocal resistance to anything Radical Feminism wants and automatically associating it with this chimerical ball of everything they're opposed to (as it must all somehow link together, even if it doesn't make sense) suddenly that means Andrew Tate existing means of course some angry gradeschooler called out for his racism or sexism is going to get so pouty he shoots up a school or something. Because clearly, "that's how men's brains work in THIS society", right?

But you point out how some demographics are acceptable to be ignorant towards, and trample on their civil rights just because they're a majority, and you get back, "LOL YALL WANNA BE OPPRESSED SO BAD . :^)" from Class Struggle Theorists. And you cannot have Radical Feminism without characteristics of Critical Legal Theory or Class Struggle Theory. Take the socialist shit away, you take the heart of radical and academic Feminism away- it just becomes general egalitarianism and actual drives for equality, untainted by arbitrary socialist relations rhetoric.

So we get Duluth models of criminal justice and domestic violence policies that obligately treat the man as the aggressor and person to remove from the situation, the woman to give the house, and red flag laws that target men to remove their firearms because someone else, "doesn't feel safe." And them arguing this is "perfectly okay, not at all a violation of their civil rights," because men.

Some of you project so hard and see Tate as such a threat, because he's that guy you wish you could anthropomorphize The Patriarchy into just to have a boss fight. And.. he's just not that. He will never be that. He does not represent that. He never did. He never will. He's an idiot that disaffected milquetoast losers watch, and he's not even anywhere NEAR as popular as you people think he is.

Just because you aren't a bleating member of a church that dimly just does whatever the fiery charismatic preacher steers you to think and do on the basis of God, don't think you're free of the faux pas of acting like a grazing sheep, when you bleat and eat the grass. Many parents hated rock and metal music because they didn't represent the sorts of axioms and values that they wanted to see reproduced in behaviors and thoughts by shallow parents into their kids.

And projecting every irritated, disaffected boy as a potential mass murderer just because they disagree with you and what you believe to be the sum total of human civilization and culture and moral rightness, just because you believe it's more valid than religion, is extreme church sheep behavior.

[shr0mwzrd]

Bestie, with all due respect:

A) nobody wants Genocide Joe, and this is empirical fact. Not only does he have the incumbent disadvantage, but MANY of his policies and actions are immensely despised by even the most milquetoast liberals, let alone the frothing-at-the-mouth Republican voter base. Buddy is sitting at 37.3% approval and a staggering 57% disapproval per fivethirtyeight: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/

B) "how bad things could be" fails to account for how bad things are NOW and how much worse things have become *under Biden.* It fails to account for the long list of promises he's failed to keep. It fails to account for the continued erosion of rights for trans people, people of color, pregnant people, homeless people, immigrants, and every other marginalized group. Genocide Joe is GLEEFULLY spending billions and billions on genocide and ethnic cleansing abroad, but can't be bothered to enshrine the rights to abortion, trans healthcare, education, free access to information, freedom from government surveillance, environmental protection, or any other damn thing at the federal level. Best we can get is $1400 of the promised $2000 and now we trannies can get drafted too 🙃 like I hate to break it to you but 99% Hitler wants us just as dead as orange 100% Hitler, he just uses different words to justify the same ends. Genocide Joe will not save us, and neither will any Democrat with enough institutional power to be considered as a replacement for Joe on the ballots. Even after the Supreme Court decided that the president is indeed some kind of god-king, genocide Joe gets up to talk about how we won't use that power to do good things because he "follows the rule of law" (lol. Lmao, even)

C) there are other options than 99% Hitler vs 100% Hitler and I am so, so tired of seeing other nominally leftist queers succumb to this false dichotomy. Doing electoralism business-as-usual style got us where we are now. Neither of the two mainstream parties stand for anything good, so I'm simply not voting for them. THIS POST DOES NOT ADVOCATE AGAINST VOTING - IF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT, FUCKING VOTE! Just like, maybe consider voting with your conscience rather than knowingly voting 99% Hitler as a form of lesser-evilism. Voting 3rd party can 1) get one or more of these parties access to the federal election funds our taxes already pay into if they can get >=5% of the popular vote and 2) actually sends the message that the actions and policies of the Dem party over the last several decades did not inspire confidence and we will not continue to support them. Y'know, "pushing them left" like all the libs on here are sooooooo convinced will happen if we all just shut up and Vote Blue No Matter Who and elect the same genocidal fascist one more time then he'll DEFFO do all the shit he promised the first time, ahahah! Voting 3rd party is unlikely to result in a 3rd party president getting elected *this term,* but again, if we can get out there and show some support for parties that actually align with our values, we can give them a significant leg up for the next round while ALSO sending the message that major party bullshit is unfavorable and the people want out. You simply cannot convince me that my life as a disabled trans woman, the lives of other marginalized people I know and love, and the lives of people abroad will be "better" in any way under Genocide Joe than Traitor Trump. I simply do not buy it.

And before anybody starts complaining about the Spoiler Effect as if it's actually of consequence, look at the fucking pie chart baby

Sweet lord what the fuck has Joe been getting into.

Dude get your head straight. I spend a couple months trying to find love and we go from "Joe biden is gonna wipe the floor with trumps stupid face", to "should the democrats find a new candidate"?

Democrats shut the fuck up and get behind Joe Biden. Comedy shows, seriously, this shit ain't funny. Stop focusing on how bad things could be, YOU'RE MAKING THAT FUTURE HAPPEN.

Tell us what's really going on, give us some funny shit that's happening with Biden that gives people hope, and ASSUME BIDEN IS GONNA WIN

Because he is.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

adventure time wizard city liveblog

 well here we go

my last adventure time liveblog, i havent actually done one of these in MANY years... probably not since 2014

this takes place at the same time as obsidian?

DID-- DID CHOOSE GOOSE JUST DIE

DID BUFO JUST KILL CHOOSE GOOSE

yeah i know that’s bufo, they only made it enormously obvious, tsk tsk

@spaceacepearl​ joked about us seeing choose goose get sent to hell but i diDNT EXPECT IT TO HAPPEN

This music is i assume by one of the many musical artists Adam Muto listed on twitter, it rocks. It’s not as hardcore as Obsidian’s intro, but it’s suitably chill for the scene. 

“get offa my bus kid”

Those wizards in the left and far right groups appear to be new! 

OH MY GOD--

HELP?????? NEW PROFILE PIC TIME

HAHAHAHAH

THE MUSICAL CON DID ME GOOD, I DID REALLY LOUD AUDIBLE LAUGHTER

i bet hanna and co had fun making these signs

my favourite is the cat with “FAMILIARS HAVE RIGHTS”

cadorka..... wow

We’re not even four minutes into the ep and peppermint butler has already killed someone in front of a large group of witnesses

“this smells of DARK MAGIC” “yall kids know thats illegal right” peps watches the other kids nod before later joining in, LOL

i cant believe pep started the great gum wars and got killed by golb

SOMEONE has been playing Overwatch... 

i-- i still cant believe choose goose is fucking dead

how long was he stuck in hell for, or was that recent to together again after new death showed up 

i have to admit im not a big fan of spader, too perfect, and not in that funny way either. i hope they give him some characteristics that make him stand out. 

im getting flashbacks to OK KO and Owl House here...

Cadebra using music is a reference to Abracadaniel’s love of interpretetive dance in Play Date. 

“they only laugh because youre different” “i know” “SO STOP BEING DIFFERENT” oh my god it’s like talking to my own parents cadebra is actually... a LOT like me, less in her hyperactivity but more in her nonchalant enthusiasm and almost acceptance of the inevitable bullying because it means more time in people’s consciousness

ahhh - it’s quietly revealed here that she is responsible and a skilled magician, she is just bored of magic! i like that she parents abracadaniel instead of being downtrodden by his ramblings. 

PEP NO--- oh i see the problem, he hasn’t got his Bug Milk... sorry Martin Olsen fans, no Hunson today. At least we get one more Phil Face for the road! 

candy people in their natural habitat

Ahhh that’s Doctor Calidoneus! The voice actor was at the recent Distant Lands panel alongside Pep and Blaine’s actors. 

“pretty sure hes just trashcandy” - i like you, sassy antler lady

the mystery of how he gets clothes

and once again spader is proving to be the most irritating distant lands character of the lot, there is no subversion here. where is the subversion?  

NANI

what is going on here? are pep and peppermint the same person or not? im sure they must be, but there is something going on here with peppermint butler’s soul being trapped in the body of his child self who hasn’t got the same memories. 

OH, HYNDEN WALCH DID A NEW LINE yes this is what im here for, special over 

peppermint butler cursed himself... of course he did - Shado was correct!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUCK

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

ROCK STUDENT, BLESSED ROCK STUDENT, WAS THAT POOR GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE A JAWBREAKER

love the reference to astral plane, of course pep cant astrally project because cursed pep is still inside of him 

wow, blaine, wow

they have a crush

LITTLE DUDE! COLE SANCHEZ!

i love the dynamic between cadebra and abracadaniel, imo so far it’s the heart of the special. im not really gripped by peppermint butler’s school troubles. i imagine someone else probably will be but i want to run past that shit as far as possible. 

TRDGFYGHJH

WE

WE MADE  A PREDICTION THAT WAS JUST LIKE THIS

PEPPERMINT BUTLER GETTING TURNED INTO THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF PEPPER MINT BUTT LURE WAS IN THE WIZARD CITY PREDICTIONS ART DRAW THAT HASNT BEEN POSTED YET

ILL SHOW YOU WHEN NICK POSTS THE VIDEO and then ill tell you who made the prediction because i... think it was nick himself, insanity 

who plagiarized finn’s signature???

turns out pep really DID take over wizard city!!!!

i love this band

i understand your pain peps

you probably have a bit too much in common with your mother, and i imagine it isn’t easy being turned into a kid and not being able to do stuff that came so easy. you’re disappointing yourself! (he’s literally disappointing himself)

I’m less than halfway through the special, what the fuck. I wasn’t wrong when I said Wizard City had a lot on its plate. It’s noit that I’ve been particularly gripped up to this point, though to be fair I didn’t pause at all during the other specials barring Obsidian. 

that... that poor kid is still a rock

and then the preview happened and bufo casually revealed to the audience that, yes, he killed choose goose

i dont know whats happening with pep but it seems he needs to be exorcised of... pep. which is a shame. i hope they learn to coexist. 

i have to say the background work in this special is really good! like, really damn good. 

WH

WHAT

DID SPADER JUST DIE

IS THIS WHY PEOPLE THINK PEPBUT KILLED HIM 

oh thats right - abracadaniel is cadebra’s uncle! this must be abracadniels sister. sorry, folks, he doesn’t fuck. 

Where are they? Is this anywhere near Wizard City? It’s an unpopulated prewar wasteland. 

THESE ARE JUST HUMANS

OF COURSE SHE WANTS TO PERFORM TO MILQUETOAST HUMANS

my child

is this an art style choice or did they get the people from that one studio to make this

HANNA FINALLY GETS TO FULFIL HER DREAM OF INSERTING KANEDA INTO ADVENTURE TIME

the red jacket he wears and his head pill shape is a big kaneda reference actually, which i suppose makes sense considering he’s a rival to our protagonist, but it’s a bit on the nose

bufo killed one of his own students? but why????

“MY UNCLE’S A COP”

“no one likes a rat”

i actually really like blaine, though im confused. did their VA change halfway through the special?

HOW NATURAL, NO WASTE, IT IS AN ENDLESS CHAIN

did doctor caledonius steal the trophy,,,? 

EVIL SNAIL EVIL SNAIL

MONMSTER HUNJTER DISCOVERY NOISE, this time it’s a tetsucabra

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I HAVE QUESTIONS

god i wish this is what this special was about, i miss adventure time

these remind me of the comics with their art style :) i wonder who designed them? the one on the right with pb and pep, in particular, very comics-y. 

fdgfhgf because he’s like 500

“pep can be kind of a jerk but he wouldn’t kill anyone”

sorry, cadebra, i have news for you

is doctor calednoius the true villain? if bufo’s out of the picture, she MUST be, 

ANTS

oh no, he might gbe stuck in wizard city :( 

HELP

the writing on the wall...

SPADER LITERALLY FUCKING DIED OH YM JESUS CHRIST

PEPPERMINT BUTLER’S OWN CULT????

THIS IS JUST OK KO NOW

okay im not surprised all the teachers at wizard city are cultists in worship of peps, maybe they killed spader and bufo because they bullied peps T_T

wait no, they thought spader had the potential, but sadly not

HE FUCKING KILLED HIMSELF

sorry, i was distracted by the pretty dope fight sequence and now the special is over????

fucking jesse, hes probably at least partly responsible for the cult nonsense

This credits art is by Maya Petersen!!!! Holy shit it’s adorable!

LRETGFDRGTFGMHGFHFG

LEAF MAN

DO YOU THINK THEY PUT HIM IN RETROSPECTIVELY

DO YOU THINK MAYA PETERSEN DREW THIS AND ADAM PUT IT IN THE EP RETROSPECTIVELY

HE LIVES

MAYBE THIS IS WHY CHOOSE GOOSE WENT TO HELL

okay, it’s over :) 

first thoughts out of the way: not a big fan of this special. it’s like watching a completely different show. it’s not got the PZSHAHH of the normal wizard city stuff and there weren’t a lot of funny jokes or even hearty moments in the thing. 

it suffers from a lack of invested character interactions, much like BMO did. there was not a single main cast member in the whole thing! and like i said before, much of peppermint butler’s character in the show is based on his very sweet relationship to his mother, princess bubblegum, so when they showed a single (hilarious) photo of them together it made me sad we didn’t get any scenes with them together. it would have STOLEN this episode. and they teased the hunson golf photo, and death!!! and jake appeared in a photo T_T last jake appearance. 

it also suffers because Peppermint Butler is clearly not himself, imo he was way more entertaining in the Together Again special, where we seem him back to his “normal” self. 

i dont think peps being a dark wizard was something to “kill off” exactly. i wonder what was going on there? was that actually peps, or was that a spirit he cursed himself with based on himself? we at least know in the future he does become a dark wizard again, and even princess :) this special didn’t answer those questions but lol. 

THE GOOD STUFF, because yes, there was a lot of good stuff! 

God, I’m with Aracle and Maya on this - I LOVE Cadebra and her relationship to Pep. I wish she was even in more of this - I would love to watch the adventures of Cadebra and Pepbut in their first year of school, like in the end credits.

That, imo, is where the heart of the special lay - Peppermint Butler’s attempts to impress himself, versus Cadebra’s self acceptance and desire to follow her dreams of being a goofy goober, no matter what other people thought of her. 

It turned out that Cadebra is a responsible student and family member. I really liked that. Her scenes with Abracadaniel were, somehow, my favourite in the entire special! 

I like that theres a lot of cool magic towards the end of this special, and a lot of HORRIFYING DEATH. It wouldn’t be adventure time if you didn’t randomly kill off child characters. Poor Spader, I hated you but damn, what a grim fate. 

I like that Bufo and Caledonius had this crush/hatred thing going on, but they were part of the same cult in the end. 

I didn’t like the giant peps scene at the end, the monster was extremely milquetoast compared to the madness we usually get in AT. Obsidian, for example, had the awesome Larvo design. Nemesis had some INSANE dark magic!!!!  I wish they drew more from that episode. 

Considering how much Steve Little appears in this special, I do feel bad for Mace (little Peps). He said he would have really benefitted from coaching, but recieved none. He had to re-record his lines 3 times! Judging from his description of events, Wizard City was a hard time for him. 

The wizard school did remind me, heavily, of both The Owl House and OK KO. Personally I was hoping AT would offer me something more insane, but I do love both of those shows, and I know Wizard City was on a really tight schedule. 

I think they should have spent less time on the school bullying plot, and skipped straight to MURDER. 

We did have a cold opening, not on par with Together Again’s at all, but damn!

I am wondering where I would put this in the watch list? I do think it should sit after Obsidian as the third special. The intro scene makes it clear this takes place at the same time as Obsidian!!!

Well, that was it, the last ep of AT for the next few years at least T_T

i think together again was the better finale, definitely. but wizard city feels pretty detached from AT for me, despite the familiar characters it tonally isn’t like the show other than the awesome brutal death scenes. I thought the last 11 minutes was easily the best in the special! Which, honestly, is how it should be, though I do wish it gripped me more. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for Wizard City? It feels like something I would find very compelling if I was a bit younger! 

[crimeronan]

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good

[itonje]

i accidentally unfollowed you trying to send this ask... thats the anti anti song of achilles agenda trying to hijack me. anyway i dont know anything about greek stuff and ive never read song of achilles but i love drama, whats wrong with it?

HI also this has happened thrice with my mutuals once with claudio and once with ramon everyone unfollows me whilst trying to send asks anyways uhh i think the song of achilles is a poor iliad adaptation that kind of makes the characters either really milquetoast or really caricaturized beyond belief (the one character i think they did...relatively less awful with briseis just because for ONCE. for ONCE an adaptation didnt make her in love with achilles and actually leaned into her relationship with patroclus more which i really like as in the iliad the one time she speaks its not even about achilles lol. but she still only rlly exists to augment the achilles and patroclus relationship and also she dies in a really awful way which i HATE). like if a character is not made like wildly evil (agamemnon, thetis, neoptolemus and the latter i find funny cause hes just as bad as his dad is in the iliad and iliadic related content) theyre declawed to all HELL

and thetis being evil makes me so mad when she has a good relationship with achilles, maybe one of the most important relationships with achilles in the iliad, his best loved one other than patroclus, and its implied she cares for patroclus as well as shes the one to preserve his body and keep it from rotting but in here shes just. the homophobe mom who only exists to keep achilles and patroclus apart bc she hates patroclus which is SO stupid because it goes against one of her biggest character traits which is ‘she loves achilles so much and would do anything for him’ as well as so many of the women in this story only being a wedge between achilles and patroclus’ relationship (like deidamia) which is so misogynist and pisses me off SO much because theres so much more you could do with that! like i understand making the gods more distant and abstract and cold to humanity but there are canonically cruel ass gods in the iliad and thetis is not one of them!!! 

and going back to my declawed comment objectively the worst characterization here is patroclus. in the iliad patroclus is known to be very friendly and likeable among the greeks, he weeps when he hears of them being beaten by the trojans and one of his epithets is even ‘amicable’, as well as briseis saying he was the sweetest to her when she became a slave (because yes she was a slave she literally was a slave and no one acknowledges that because god forbid achilles and his men could be the the BAD guys here). 

 but hes not just nice lol! hes known to be a fantastic fighter and when he dons the armor of achilles and goes to fight the trojans he has the highest kill count of any iliad character! he tries to mount the walls of troy because he wants to destroy shit so bad he may be nice to the greeks but hes also an incredibly formidable and violent fighter (and he killed a guy at the age of 12 by the way hes just wild i love my crazy boyfriend soooo much) and tsoa just makes him. incompetent lol? so that achilles can like rescue him all the time which is so silly...lean into the warrior boyfriends dynamic you want to have warrior boyfriends who are crazy and kill people in your books SOOO bad 

also the song of achilles doesnt even lean into the kind aspect of him yeah hes nice to briseis and the women but where are his friendships w the greek men lol? what about him and menelaus?? theyre really good friends in the iliad, menelaus getting upset over patroclus’ death is heartbreaking too. 

but patroclus isnt an active character, everything that happens to him is just that-it happens to him. he makes NO active choices at all the only thing he does is ask achilles to let him fight for the greeks. hes just a witness to EVERYTHING he does NOTHING of genuine importance or active choice and i know that it was written like this so it could make achilles seem more important, (as well as leaning into the ‘oh we have no choice when it comes to how the gods play us’ but i would argue in the iliad whilst a theme of us being victims to our grander fate is there, the iliad also says that even though we cant control our ultimate futures we CAN control the choices we have in front of us, achilles giving back hectors body wont bring back pat or make him. not die eventually but he still does, and its still important. maybe the MOST important choice he makes. but thats... another thing lol) it is tsoa after all, but patroclus is also a main fucking character lol? and as important as achilles is to patroclus’ character so is patroclus’ to achilles! 

also even achilles seems like hes strung around first by his mother and then by the war and god it all seems like this is all here to absolve achilles of responsibility, to absolve him of wrong doing when in the iliad achilles does many many many things wrong as well as just being a bit of. an emotional hotcase (lol), and thats what makes him interesting! but no hes just whitewashed so that we dont have to feel bad for liking him and we wont find patroclus morally dubious for just going along with all of achilles’ shit out of love (when patroclus, like i said above, also does bad shit cause thats just how these characters are...most of the greeks do awful wretched shit in the iliad lol and they still are heroes with compelling characters cause like. moral ambiguity baybee) 

anyways this is all to say as an iliad adaptation it sucks. as a gay love story though. its fine lol? again. not my fav dynamic for these two but. this book isnt meant for people who are like hardcore achilles kinnies or whatever the fuck or have been reading and fixating on greek myth since they were baby like me lol. i know there are lgbt kids who read percy jackson or whatever or are vaguely familiar with greek myth who are going to read this book and see themselves in it and be happy and content with the rep and thats wonderful. i recognize this book isnt really supposed to be for readers like me who are hardasses about adaptation and its okay for people to enjoy it as less of a greek myth interpretation and as the romance it actually is. the writing is very beautiful and yes it inspired some (positive) emotions out of me regardless. 

however if youre looking for gay greek myth content that actually has pretty interesting and compelling characters, with various heartbreaking stories and fascinating themes about divinity, fate, humanity, and love well. just read the iliad. 

[catboybiologist]

Okay. So a bit more thoughts here. Hopefully this is as articulate as I want it to be, but honestly I'm just rambling.

A question that's been burning in my brain ever since I started HRT is this: "why did I wait so long to start transitioning?" This isn't a rhetorical thing, it's a question I'm genuinely trying to answer for myself. I'm born, raised, and lived my entire life in literally some of the gayest, most accepting areas of the country, and shit, even the world. I knew I was probably trans sometime when I was about 11 to 13 or so. And yet I didn't start HRT until I was 25. Even now, I'm still tepidly dipping my toes into my transition. I'm still presenting as a man day to day in lab and on campus, presenting femme only in social contexts and just letting HRT do its thing until about the 1 year mark.

What am I afraid of? What was I afraid of before starting HRT?

Cuz even in the most accepting of environments... There's still the faggots. The gay software engineer is gay first. The trans professor is trans first. And so on.

Good or bad, that changes how people perceive you. I've seen so many well intentioned milquetoast, center-left democrat voters go into weird, awkward, hushed tone conversations about how "of course I'm okay with X person, they're Y! And we all love Y! And I have to say that out loud and uncomfortably dance around every other aspect of them as a person, while making jabs at how they shouldn't be living quite the kind of life that they are!"

And of course, all that does is leave room for the louder queerphobes to jam themselves into the conversation.

I don't think I truly realized how much that percolated into my brain over the years. The idea that any aspect of my personality, including pursuing science, made a kind of "image" that was incompatible with being one of "those people". So I repressed. Deeply. Because I didn't want to be one of the "others".

The societal solution, of course, is visibility. Loud, proud, faggoty visibility. And hey, if I can add to a bit of that by still loving my science career by day, and being my exhibitionist tgirl ass at night, then maybe I can be that tiny bit more sure of myself. I'm a very, VERY small part in any kind of societal change, of course, god knows my faggy early career scraping-by grad student ass isn't making any splashes... But idk. Maybe just living my life is enough. Maybe that's the reality of being a special little zoomer snowflake. If I'm one special snowflake in the blizzard, maybe we can coat the ground with an inch or two of acceptance.

That was a stupid analogy. Shush, you didn't see that.

I think that the "Pete Buttigieg is just a faggot" essay by @vaspider , which Matt Bernstein reads towards the end of this video, pretty much encapsulates what I'm trying to be. It's an amazing piece of writing that I keep coming back to, because I find it very applicable to thoughts that race through my head. I've commented a couple of times on I shouldn't have to get my PhD to validate myself. I already have my MS, and again, to the world I'm still a faggot.

I think I'm mostly over the respectability aspect. This online persona has slowly become my own internal backlash to that, and while I'm not completely doxxable, it's why I've slowly become more blaisé about it. Either people are going to accept me for all of me, including my science, my queerness, and my weird ass online presence... Or, I'm just a faggot. In all aspects.

I'm still keeping to my planned timeline of coming out, mostly just for practicality and comfort at this point. Initially, I felt that waiting a year before socially transitioning would reduce the "awkward stage" of being extremely visibly trans in the super early HRT phases. I've stopped caring about that as much, but I def think the time I have planned is easier. I def wanna have a retrospective on this once I've been visibly trans in academia for a while, though.

Rant over. This is what you get for following an adhder that likes to type unfocused, poorly thought out rambles after their meds have worn off for the day.

Good podcast here.

I think my only problem with it is that it's 100% gonna be preaching to the choir in this crowd. Even so, this is still a mentality that I struggle with lot internally- not judging others, but struggling with the extent I should be "acceptable". I'm gonna collect my thoughts in that for a moment and write a bit more I think.

[ultfreakme]

I don’t think MCU knows how to write romances, which is why Steggy just fell flat after CATFA and I have a hypothesis. 

MCU’s target audience is everyone. Mass appeal to really get the cash flowing. But this is a franchise based on comic books and there is this stereotype that cishet men and boys are the ones who predominantly consume this stuff. Also superhero movies have some specific expectations and roles they should fulfill, like epic fight scenes, being toTalLy mAcHo, saving the day, saving the damsel, whatever. 

Female characters aren’t exactly....characters in these films(at least at the start), they are props and ideas to be sold. It took 10 years to make Black Widow a character, an Avenger in her own right rather than side character. The aforementioned mass-appeal thing means any sort of romance needs to meet some criterion so little to no one gets uncomfortable(according to MCU standards)

Romances are heterosexual

They need to be obvious to viewers

Neither of them can engage in anything more than kissing. 

Okay it needs to be the milquetoast thing ever. The heterosexual romance falls flat because one of the people in the relationship doesn’t have a character. The ‘love-interest’ who is often female and just something the hero is guaranteed to have doesn’t inspire any sense of tension because literally everyone knows how the relationship will go. 

Weird thing is the female characters are actually well-written enough before they become a love interest. When they are put together with the male character they are supposed to love, any defining personality trait just gets dulled down. 

Peggy is pretty badass on her own, but the second she’s made to interact with Steve, she goes from character to prop. Something like that happens with Jane in Thor- she’s this well-known astrophysicist who is smart as fuck, kinda dorky and awkward but she like....she just fades into the background whenever she’s with Thor. Why would she be interested in him after about 2 days of knowing him? Why would she love him for 2 years and wait around after knwoing him for such a short time? How does that work? I get a passing friendship and worry but romantic love is going to take way more. 

Thing is the second a ‘love-interest’ is assigned, the relationship escalates so quickly it doesn’t feel real. For some reason they HAVE to kiss if they even just look at each other. There’s no place for a slowburn where an actual dynamic is built.

And this is where they accidentally create very compelling male relationships. Steve and Bucky’s relationship spans over all 3 Captain America movies and is there even in the Avengers movies. It takes a long, long time- we get time with them, we get to see how the relationship influences each other- how it changes each other. That’s what makes it so compelling. 

I think the same can be said for Stony too(though okay I don’t ship it but I’m sure them going from begrudging allies who sorta hate each other to friends over the span of multiple movies with various ups and downs is what makes them so cool to witness). And less popular, but ThorBruce- they aren’t love interests but they start of with a tenuous alliance, which becomes friendship and eventually a strong friendship where they count on each other. SamBucky too(hating each other-> friends with the same guy and having the same cause -> friends and this also happens over multiple movies and a TV series)

They are allowed to be friends first, their relationships develop naturally because they are allowed to be characters first, their traits and existence are not compromised to shoehorn in any relationship. 

And they’re all SLOWBURNS. 

Jane & Thor would’ve been more compelling if in the first movie, they were allies on the verge of friendship, in the second their friendship becomes more established and it was slowly built up throughout the avengers movies. That way there’s more weight in the break-up, in the struggle of long distance and dating a god.

Same with Peggy and Steve. The thing with Steggy though, is that the franchise killed any potential for it with the time travel and burned it down in CATWS and AoU(Peggy says you can’t go back to the past to Steve and says he needs to live in the present- a present which she can’t be a part of. And Steve says whichever part of him that wanted the white picket fence and family died 70 years ago). Steggy set itself up to be a past Steve needed to leave behind for positive development. 

The Steve-Peggy relationship was opened and closed by CACW and they opened up Steve’s relationship with everyone in the 21st century. 

Sharon Carter doesn’t work because it’s Steve clinging to the last of his ties with Peggy(also that is PEGGY’S NIECE MAN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING). Also we don’t know shit about Sharon at that point. They should’ve kept her an ally and friend and maybe built up a friendship between the two based on their grievance over the fall of SHIELD and Nick Fury. Steve would’ve worked better as a mentor figure to Sharon tbh. 

okay rant done

[distortiondyke]

so imagine you’re this rich freeloader who got into oxford on nepotism alone and spent like 97% of your time there stoned out of your fucking mind (and the other 3% sleeping) and graduate w a degree in philosophy that you absolutely did not earn in any capacity.

and now that you have a fancy degree you get a job at this stuffy research institute that’s a bit of local joke because they research like, ghosts or whatever and take it dead seriously - like fr, maybe the place is a front or something haha, no idea who’s giving them money - and your job application asked about the health of your organs, which was kinda fucked up, but no drug test, which was good. and your co-workers are. weird. but it’s all chill because you’re just alone filing shit in the stacks most of the time so you can continue to be fully blazed 24/7.

so you work there for a solid amount of time, and you don’t make friends or try to get a promotion or anything, but ur fine financially since ur dad basically dumped enough money to kill god in your pocket after college and told you to do whatever the fuck you wanted as long as you didn’t move back in. and everything is pretty normal for a while.

and then one friday evening you decide to go reward yourself for working late (you forgot what time it was) by hotboxing this weird little sub-basement you accidentally stumbled across the other day. and you’re having an EXCELLENT time and then suddenly your fucking boss appears out of nowhere and tells you you need to come with him and ur like “OH FUCK, I’M ABOUT TO GET FIRED”

so you follow him into this weird tunnel and he’s talking but everything he’s saying is going completely over your head and you think “yknow he probably couldn’t fire me if i just made a run for it” and IMMEDIATELY after you think that he turns around and tells you that’s a bad idea and you’re like “OH FUCK, IS MY BOSS PSYCHIC?” and then you’re like “DAMN, I’M WAY TOO HIGH RN” and then he’s saying something else but you don’t process that either bc ur tryna work out the logistics of whether it’s like possible for psychics to exist or not, and you’re having a goddamn. classical socratic debate in your head abt this. and your boss is fishing around for something and you should PROBABLY respond bc he looks righteously pissed off. oh fuck what if he asked you something? shit godd-

and then your boss, who’s just some milquetoast-looking scrawny dude in his 60s, fucking POUNCES on you like a goddamn jungle puma and starts coming at your face with a melon baller like REET REET. wyd?

[docholligay]

Seiya, You think you’re funny, do you?

This is not a drabble I am bad at things

“You think you’re funny, huh?” 

“I do, actually.” Seiya snickered. 

It was so easy that it was a game she’d be better off not playing. What was she doing, trying to run circles around a kid at Candyland? This was immature in the extreme, and Seiya Kou knew it. Even if she hadn’t, Taiki was only too happy to let her know every single time she did it. 

She also didn’t care. 

It felt good to needle another person, and if she was so simple to set off, well, Seiya wasn’t responsible for whatever had made Haruka into a pile of dry tinder. She’d been that way from the day they first met. It was an easy thing to draw her out, to make her eyebrow twitch, to make her yell, to make her go even further than that and leave her looking like an asshole. Idiot. 

“Well, you’re not,” Haruka shook her head furiously, “You’re a fucking--jerk ass--son of a bitch.” 

Seiya leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself, Merriam-Webster.” 

Usagi had left with Mamoru. He’d swept in, to where she and Seiya were sitting and chatting. They were having a good time, and Usagi was laughing and her eyes were sparkling with that firework of joy she put off, and the way she smelled like cotton candy, and the way her cheeks puffed into two candy apples when she laughed, Usagi was a carnival in herself. Seiya’d bought her a big pink fruity strawberry drink. She loved it. Seiya knew she would. She’d almost forgotten about Mamoru, when he showed up. Then the laughing stopped. Then Usagi left with him. 

She hadn’t even looked back. 

Seiya leaned forward and grinned. “That’s a dictionary, Haruka.” 

“I know what it is!” Haruka spat. “I’m not fucking stupid!” 

It was just like popping a balloon, just a little bit of pressure, just a little bit of aim. 

“This manages to be both crass and childish, you know.” Yaten took a swirl of wine. Seiya’d forgotten anyone else was there. She was happy enough to keep acting like it was true. 

Seiya looked around. It was relatively peaceful in the bar, quiet except for the few people who were looking over occasionally at Haruka’s little outbursts. Haruka was clutching her beer close to her like a child with a bottle and for one instant, Seiya almost felt sorry for her. But why should she? She had MIchiru, who loved her, and who was rich, and so why should she give a single solitary shit about hurting Haruka’s feelings? 

“Oh please,” she took a swig of beer, “we all know Michiru’s uses for your tongue don’t involve intellectual stimulation. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a kept lover,” Yaten rolled her eyes and moved away from the table, Haruka’s face growing hot, “But you know, people get bored with--” 

That was enough. She hadn’t even finished. She had a whole bit about Haruka’s parents getting bored with her that she’d have to stick in a back pocket. 

Seiya had been expecting this, and Haruka still caught her across the jaw as they fell. She was long, and she was fast, and so Seiya knew she was at a distinct advantage in that way, but Haruka was also angry, and hurt, and these things turned her into a bull just waiting for a sword in its side. She managed to get a good one in the stomach and cuffed her in the ear before a group of men pulled Haruka off the top of her. 

If Seiya could have felt anything but a sense of cruel satisfaction, she might have felt bad, seeing Haruka get tossed out, her ear turning red, tipping her head up like that meant no one could see she was almost crying. Idiot. Seiya got up off the ground and dusted herself off, pulling a last swing out of her beer. It’d be stupid to go out the front, where Haruka was probably moping or slowly trudging her way home back to Michiru. If she were smart, she’d get some noodles or something and clean up a little first. MIchiru didn’t like it when Haruka got into fights. She might find herself as on the outs as Seiya. 

Maybe Seiya thought that was alright. 

She slipped out the back, leaving her yen on the table, and whistled as she headed back to the apartment. The pleasure of the victory began to slip away from her as she headed down the dark alleyway, small yellow lights of counters where they friend and grilled fish laid out in front of her. 

There was a very sudden and unexpected pain in her shoulder, and Seiya Kou quite rapidly found her face in close contact with a wall. She struggled to get out, but however she turned, the bright hot pain in her shoulder continued, or worsened. More humiliatingly, it felt like whoever it was wasn’t even trying. 

“Just stay the fuck still or I’ll fucking wrench it out of the socket.” 

Mina. Seiya didn’t often choose to clash with the leader of the Sol Senshi, who seemed to think her command extended to Seiya’s team and maybe the whole universe. People thought she was goofy. Seiya wasn’t so stupid as to fall for Mina’s trapdoor spider act. She knew cunning when she saw it, and so she avoided Mina when she could. 

Currently, she could not. 

“Fine. Fine! God.” 

“Leave her the fuck alone.” 

Seiya lifted her head up off the wall. “The fuck do you--” 

Her head slammed back against the wall as the hold tightened. “Did I fucking stutter, Seiya?” She leaned forward and hissed into Seiya’s ear. “If she gets arrested because of you, you’re gonna mess with me. You will not enjoy that.” 

She pushed Seiya against the wall one more time and backed up. Seiya whirled around to face her, wiping off her cheek. 

“It’s not my fault she--”

“Oh, we both know that’s bullshit. Take some fucking responsibility.” 

Seiya rubbed at her shoulder and shrugged. Mina shook her head and looked out toward the snack counters and smaller bars. 

“You think Usagi would love you for this? For poking at Haruka till she bleeds? For getting her thrown out? For making her cry? Don’t tell Haruka I said that, she likes to pretend she’s a rock and an island.” 

Seiya leaned against the wall, but said nothing. Usagi didn’t love her anyway. There was no point in trying to be the person Usagi could could love, because she was always just going to love that milquetoast rich boy because of destiny and fate and whatever. So who cared? 

“Haruka’s not competition for you, Seiya.” Mina was looking at her now, drilling into her soul with those sharp eyes. “She thinks Usagi’s like, twelve. She’s in love with Michiru. What’s your fucking angle here? You know what?” she tossed up a hand. “Don’t answer me, cause you don’t know. You fucking clown on Haruka for getting hurt and lashing out but what the fuck are you doing, exactly?”

She turned to leave, and looked back one last time. 

“She’ll never love you. Get your shit together and accept it.” 

Now it was Seiya’s turn to tip her head, and turn back into the darkness. 

Idiot. 

[moreaugriffins]

Let him wear what he wants

This one took longer than expected to write, but it is done! Finally. I hope it was worth it.

TW: panic attacks, maybe emotional abuse (just to be safe)

The first time he tried on a dress, he was five years old. Percival was a child driven by curiosity, always watching people around him. He noticed how some servants and his mum wore flowey cloth that looked different from the clothes he had to wear. What they wore looked light, and soft, and very comfortable, whilst the trousers he had to wear were itchy and annoying.

He wandered into his parent’s room whilst they were somewhere else, he wasn’t sure where, to grab the toys his dad took away from him, when he noticed something laying on his parent’s bed. It was the clothes.

With some struggle, he grabbed it, and tried to put it on. It clearly was too big for him, it was practically falling off his body, but he liked it. It felt as soft as it looked, and it made him feel like a pretty boy!

Percival smiled to himself, trying to take a few steps towards the mirror, but tripped on some of the cloth that touched the floor, and landed with a thud. After a few seconds of pain, he couldn’t help but laugh. It was fun! Maybe he could have one of these things, but smaller. Falling over wasn’t fun.

“Percival Milquetoast.” He heard his dad say with a booming voice. He looked towards the door to see that his dad clearly was not very happy. Had he done something wrong?

“I wasn’t taking the toys.” Percival tried to explain. Yes, he came in for the toys, but he doesn’t want them now.

His dad did not reply, but walked over to Percival, and grabbed his arm, pulling him out of clothes. Maybe it was the fact that his dad was gripping him too tightly, or the fact that his dad was angry at him, but he started to cry. He didn't understand.

“Men do not wear a dress Percival,” his dad took him out of the room, unaffected by the crying,”I expected better from you. Do not do that again.” Percival nodded, wiping away his tears. He didn't know it was a bad thing to do.

As a teenager, he made it his mission to piss off his father. Trying to grow his hair out, talking back to him, putting his feet on the table, speaking his opinions when his father’s friends are around, the list could go on.

His clothes however, he does not mess with. He would untuck his shirt, yes, and get his expensive trousers muddy, but walk around the house wearing a skirt? Or gods forbid a dress? That was not happening.

He actually liked wearing those.

He couldn’t buy any of them though, as people would talk, and his father would know. He couldn’t steal any because what if he got caught? So he learned to sew fabrics that he collected from around the house, and from his old clothes. Luckily, with the amount of times his father locked him in his bedroom, he had the time to practice, and soon enough he was able to make some decent skirts. Well skirts that did not fall apart after wearing them two times.

He hid them away at the back of his closet, out of sight. He knew that at some point, he would have to find a better spot to hide it, otherwise eventually a servant could find it.

He heard his door slam behind him, and waited until he could no longer hear the sound of footsteps, before opening his closet and taking out one of the skirts. He learned to love wearing his shirts and trousers, they were very practical, and could be comfortable to wear, but there was something about.. Wearing, not only skirts and dresses, but anything with flowy material, that was rather freeing.

Getting changed into the skirt, he played with the mismatched fabrics that made up the clothing item. Though it was not the prettiest thing he owned, he certainly liked it more than most of his clothes. Maybe it was because he made it. He heard that people tend to like what they've made themselves, more than something made by someone else.

With a small smile, he walked over to his shelf, and picked out a book on pirate history. He had been meaning to annotate the book, so he may as well start now.

He didn’t know what happened after that, other than he must have made it to his bed and fell asleep. He groaned at the sound of knocking, as he buried his head in his pillows, not wanting to deal with the servant.

The door creaked open,”Sir, your father requires your pres-” The servant fell silent.

“My father what?” Percy prompted, rolling over to face the servant, only to find them staring at him in horror. He frowned, confused. What did he do now?

It took a few seconds for the cogs in his mind to start moving. He started reading, then sat on his bed because it was more comfortable, but did he get changed before he fell asleep? One glance at his own clothes answered that question.

His heart rate skyrocketed,”get out,” He managed to say, feeling his throat close up. He had been caught, his father will know, he will know. Oh gods. He couldn’t breathe.

-

His father had not mentioned anything, and Percy dared not mention anything to him. He started to think that the servant had not told his father about the incident, if it weren’t for the fact that one evening, when Percy returned home, he found his father sitting in front of the fireplace.

That itself was not the thing that raised alarm bells, but it looked like something was burning in the fire, other than the logs.

He walked into the room, to have a closer look.

Was that..

“I must say, I was hoping that the servant was lying,” His father stated. It was clear that he was ashamed of Percy, he could tell, and disgusted. He didn’t even want to look at his child, instead, he looked at the fire,”But alas I found those hidden away.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, suck on the spot. He was too shocked to feel anything.

“I could tolerate your other… feminine behaviours, as i knew you only did them to get a reaction out of me. But this.. You wore them in private.”

“It doesn’t harm anyone.” His mouth was moving quicker than his mind, as the shock started to wear off. He burned them. He didn’t just confiscate his clothes, he was burning them to ash. To nothing. All because he wore them?

His father scoffed,”Doesn’t harm anyone? It harms our reputation,” he finally turned to face Percy, glaring at him,”If i had not paid them a considerable amount, they would have told everyone. They would have said you were not truly a man, that you are a sissy. People would lose respect for us.”

“Well, that only shows how ignorant they are. It’s just a skirt.”

“And skirts are only worn by females. You are my son. You do not wear those things!”

“You can’t fucking tell me what to do-”

“I am your father. I can do what I see as fit,” his father stood up,”It has been clear that I have been too lenient on you. From now on, a servant will keep an eye on you at all times, except when you sleep, shower, dress, so on.”

Percy’s mind was reeling from this information. It was utterly ridiculous. He wanted to scream at his father, about how unfair he was being, how he was already being too strict. He was burning his fucking clothes for crying out loud!

But he said nothing, he couldn’t.

He just watched the last pieces of fabrics disappear.

He hated himself for this. How many years has it been, since he ran away from home? He could do whatever he wanted, be with who he wanted, wear what he wanted. So why couldn’t he wear his dresses outside of his room?

He knew why. Everytime he tried to, he remembered the last time people saw him dress like this. He couldn’t risk that happening again. So it was his secret, nobody had to know.

He spun on the spot, watching the delicate fabric float and twist in the mirror. It never failed to make him smile. The clothes had become comfort items for him over the years. When everything felt like it was falling to shit, insecurities were getting the better of him, when he needed an escape, he would lock himself away, and do the things he wanted to do, without being ridiculed, or worse.

His hand ran over the neckline of the dress. He was glad that he chose a silk dress. It’s very breathable, so at least he wouldn’t sweat buckets in this dress, even if it was black. Plus it’s very smooth to touch and doesn’t irritate his skin, and it fits his shape very well.

Dare he say it, he looked fucking stunning!

“Hey Corazon, the others were wondering if-” Corazon’s head snapped towards his now opened door, which was where he saw Dob. Apparently, the half orc didn’t think that knocking was important.

Corazon’s heart started beating faster, and he slammed the door on Dob, before staggering backwards, as far away as he could. Of course this would happen. Why didn’t he lock the door? Why couldn’t his secret stay a secret, for once? His throat started to close up, as his whole body started to shake. Dob saw. He’ll tell the others. They will know. He’ll lose the people he cares most about. Oh gods, they’ll be disgusted, won’t they?

He sat himself on the ground, feeling too light headed to stay standing up. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think properly, all he knew was that he had messed up. Everything was fucked. The stupid dress didn’t even feel nice anymore. It made him feel disgusting. Why did he have to wear this shit?

“-azon? Corazon are you ok,” He heard Dob say, barely, it was hard to hear of the ringing noise. Corazon didn’t even try to respond, just trying to fucking breathe. He just needs to breathe,”Cor?”

It was only a few moments later when he heard the sound of wood snapping and the door opening. He could just feel Dob’s eyes on him, he hated it. He didn’t want him to see him like this, and give him more of a reason to ridicule him.

A few steps, and Dob crouched down in front of the pirate, looking rather worried. Well isn’t that great.

“Corazon, buddy, take some deep breaths, ok?” The half orc reached to put a hand on Corazon’s shoulder, but he pulled away immediately. He tried to take some deep breaths anyway, not to any major success, but at least he didn’t feel like he was being strangled anymore.

“Please don’t talk about this.. To the others.” Corazon mumbled, daring not to look at him.

“About.. The dress or the..”

“Both…”

“Of course.” It felt like some of the weight was lifted off of his chest. Dob has always kept his word, so he meant it, right?

They sat in silence for some amount of time, as Corazon started to calm down. He couldn’t say he was completely fine, he was still very much on edge, but he could breathe, he could think.

“So,” Dob looked for something to say,”switching up your fashion, hm?”

“I’ve always worn stuff like this.” He admitted, running his finger over the silk. He couldn’t believe he admitted that. Why would he do that?

“Oh? Why don’t you ever wear it,” Dob paused, probably realising maybe not to ask,”well.. I think it suits you!”

Corazon looked at him finally, raising an eyebrow skeptically. He tried to find any sort of sign that he was lying, because he must be. He has to be.

“..Really?”

“Yeah! You look very pretty in it.” Dob smiled softly, and Corazon couldn’t help but smile as well.

“Thank you,” he cleared his throat, feeling a little too emotional for his liking,”um, you should probably head back to the others now.”

“Oh! Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?”

‘I’m sure. Just, tell the others I won’t join tonight.”

“Ok then. Get some rest.”

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