#he always has such a far away look
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link-sans-specs · 10 months ago
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His weird, little, adorable goblin face. 🤭
GMM870
Testing the Concert Poncho
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mariocki · 16 days ago
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A fleeting appearance by Gareth Thomas as Briggs, running a car hire service (but not delivering customer satisfaction) in Public Eye: The Man Who Didn’t Eat Sweets (5.9, Thames, 1971)
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youngpettyqueen · 10 months ago
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do you ever think about Garak waking up and seeing Julian in that chair, uncomfortably crammed in and slumped over asleep, and wonder how he must've felt when he realized Julian wasn't going to leave
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childrenofthesun77 · 11 months ago
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...okay, so I'm probably not the first person to notice this.
But gear's earing that he points towards when he says that he did the same ritual he wanted to help kuro with already on himself before:
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actually looks pretty similar to the pieces of the necklace the count used to create the servamps:
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The different pieces of the necklace seem to contain one demon each and the count used them to create the servamps.
So...did the count either learn this technique from the werewolves or is he possible even originally a werewolf himself? It would explain why he's immortal, that's why I'm wondering about this.
Gear says that the ritual is used to remove spirits, could it be that the count removed his own sins using the werewolf ritual and created the demons this way? But he went too far and removed too much unlike gear who only removed one part of himself? Him removing the sins from himself would also explain why he's so weird and doesn't understand other beings. As the sin demons say, they are a natural part of being a human and we have seen multiple times that denying their existence is harmful, removing them all from you would probably lead to you not being able to relate to other people anymore.
Maybe removing all these parts of himself is also why he has no appearance. Without his demons he's not a person anymore.
The count originally being a werewolf would also explain why he has magical abilities (gear can also use magic) before other magicians existed and why he's so anxious about certain people dying. Gear talks about how his immortality makes him sad because human friends do die, but unlike the count gear seems to accept death, grieves in a heathier way than the count and is able to move on and make new friends. Could also explain why his magic and creations are all strongly tied to the (full) moon.
Another similarity is that while werewolves apparently can't reproduce gear was able to have descendants by sharing his life force (it's mentioned in chapter 135 which isn't translated yet) with a woman and through her human children tsurugi is related to gear. Sigurd explained to nicco that the magicians came to be because the count let humans drink his blood, three survived, got magical ablities and became the ancestors of all human magicians:
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Maybe the count is more of a werecat though. He and the sloth demon do seem to have a closer connection, even though the count's appearance changes depending on the person looking at him he does usually keep his tail and the tip looks exactly like the one of kuro's cat/lion form and similar to the the one of inner sloth's non-human form.
It was also stated multiple times that the sloth demon is the strongest. I wonder why that is. Servamp comments on the fact that being lazy is often actually a sign of depression/anxiety through kuro's arc, so maybe the count was depressed and that's why the sloth demon is the strongest? Basically the demons strength depends on how much the count suffered from the different sins? It would also explain why melancholy is so strong, I assume kuro refusing to see him no matter how many siblings he sent his way to tell him to come looking for the count made him extremely sad and probably even made him come up with the plan to have himself be killed and then put in the same body as kuro through the ritual.
I assume he was behind C3 ordering the servamps to kill him because he's the one who created the magicians and thus C3 and lily who is kind of working for him was probably the one who put the idea that the count needed to be killed into the head of his eve (aka a member of the alicein family who hold a lot of power in C3 basically since the beginning. I explained this in more detail in another post). The people from C3 even said that the count can only be killed if he wants to and yeah, kuro didn't truly kill him, but he did destroy his body and kuro seems to have met little resistance when he attacked the count. Which probably means the count wanted this to happen.
#servamp#...if the servamps/demons all came from the count and the magicians are all basically the descendants of the count#does that mean this truly is all just a huge family conflict#since basically everyone involved is somewhat related to the count?😅#Sigurd says he's related to one of the three people who drank the counts blood#I'm still wondering if mahiru is special because he might have the blood of all three bloodlines#and C3 has a rule in place that forbids all three bloodlines from crossing#probably put in place by the count or lily#and that's why akira told nobody who the father of her child was#I still like my absolute crack theory that because mahiru might have “more” of the counts blood in him that he has no fixed appearance eith#But because he's so normal everyone perceives him as normal so nobody noticed until now that mahiru looks slightly different to all of them#honestly it would explain/excuse some questionable choices made by characters who as far as we know should be good people#Like why akira didn't tell anybody who the father was#why tooru tried to avoid being seen with mahiru in school by always saying he's to busy#Why tooru told mahiru not to tell the secret to anyone else#and why mahiru was raised as mundane as possible and as far away from C3 as possible#even why tooru kept his work for C3 secret from mahiru even after mahiru made the contract#and why he still didn't tell him the name of his father#If people know your relatives they start comparing you to them#If people knew that touma was mahiru's father they might expect mahiru to look like him#If people only knew mahiru was related to akira and tooru they would expect him to look like them#If people at school only knew mahiru but never met tooru before mahiru's appearance to them might be too different from tooru#Touma saying mahiru looks exactly like tooru doesn't disprove this crack theory either btw#Touma sees mahiru as tooru 2.0 and he's not 100% convinced he's actually mahiru's father so mahiru appearing as a copy of tooru makes sense#Just like mahiru would perceive himself as looking like akira and tooru because those are the only close relatives of his he knows#Sorry but I'm having too much fun with this crack theory#the twist that raising mahiru as the “ordinary high school student” was all a plot by his family#to keep people from noticing that they don't actually agree on what he looks like is too funny to me
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sentientcave · 26 days ago
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Mace of Bakes
Read on AO3
Contains: Non-canon character death (cancer mention), Reminiscing about the army and merc work, Mace deciding on a new path for himself, Community building through food, Self-discovery time for Mace. x Single mom reader (eventually, she's not really in this part) Basically fluff with some sad stuff at the start.
~3.6k - SFW
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"Are you happy, Mason?"
His mama looked all wrong, laying in a hospital bed. Mace had never known her to get sick. He'd never thought that she'd get old. In his mind, she was still young the same age as when he left home. It startled him to realize that he was the same age she'd been when he left home. Thirty-eight.
She wasn't even sixty now. Too young to be laying there, all the warmth drained out of her skin, too young for her tightly coiled hair to be grey, too young to be dying.
He itched to get up and do something. Anything. But he'd already done everything he could think of. He'd brought her sunflowers, chocolate from that fancy little place down the block from the house he'd bought her the moment he'd been able to, brought her pretty stationary and a pen so she could write letters to her friends in shaky but still clear script. He'd even prayed. Gone to church and sat down in a pew and bargained with god. The world would be better with her in it, and him gone. If there was one thing he'd learned from his years as a soldier, it was that violence only begat more violence. Put down one enemy, and another popped up in his place. But people like his mother made things better.
She was no saint, of course— Hard to be, in her position, raising a headstrong boy furious about losing his father in some far off conflict he couldn't understand— but she was good. Patient. Dedicated her time to helping her community. Helped kids like him make better decisions than he had. She always picked up the phone when he called, no matter what time of day it was for her. Better that she live, and he die.
But god made no bargains with sinners, it seemed.
"Mason," she repeated, reaching for his hand. Her grip was weak. "Are you happy? Are you living the life you want?"
Was he? Did he even remember what it was to be happy?
The trouble with wearing a mask is that you become more of an idea than a person.
It had been years since Mace really thought about himself. He'd just been a kid, angry and afraid, desperate to get out of his home, out of his city. He was smart, but his grades weren't good enough to get any kind of scholarship. He was athletic, but he wasn't much of a team player, so there was no college team that wanted him either, no matter how big and strong he was already at eighteen. The army was just about the only thing he could use to drag himself up, so he gripped that uniform and held on tight, until his knuckles creaked with the effort. He should have known better, after what happened to his father, but maybe he just wanted to see something of his dad when he looked in the mirror.
(One of his drill sergeants had called him a fighting dog. Mace had grit his teeth and taken it, because as much as he wanted to bite back, it would just be proving the man right. And Mace would take a lot worse than that if it meant showing the whole damn world how wrong they were to dismiss him outright, to decide his fate before he'd taken his first step. But that was the way things were. The way they still are.)
But the thing about the army is that people notice when you're good at what you do. He'd moved from regular army to the rangers by the recommendation of that same sergeant. He earned respect. He'd joined an international task force and met someone who reminded him far too much of himself. Funny how someone from thousands of miles away could look him in the eye and see the things he thought he'd buried. Simon Riley, Ghost, more an idea than a person. And Mace put on that mask, same as Riley's, and they were like brothers.
Until they weren't.
Mace kept the mask though. And the lesson.
He left the army. Joined the Shadows. Joined the Jackals. Worked his ass off anywhere he went. He was efficient, brutal when he needed to be, bold and creative, one of the best.
And now…
Graves had offered him a spot with the Shadows again. But in truth, the soldier's life was wearing on him. He'd bled for his country, bled for money, bled for his homeland.
None of it had made him happy.
The words caught in his throat. "No. But I'll try to be."
"That's all I ever wanted for you."
Things got worse, and she didn’t get better, but he held her hand while she slipped away. Held it together to plan a funeral, shaking hands with everyone who came to pay their respects. It twisted something inside him painfully. All these people that knew his mother better than he did. That loved her, laughed with her.
Who would come to his funeral, if he died right there? A few old war dogs, if word got to them in time. He had few friends. No one would care about his passing the way they did his mother’s.
He stood in the graveyard for a long while after they buried her, staring at the gravestone. Kendra Ward, 1966-2024. She was the best of us.
It wasn’t enough. But what could be?
Her estate was easily settled. Mace still owned the house, on paper, and she didn't have that much else. No matter how much money he sent her, she didn’t like to spend more money than she needed to. He gave the house to his cousin Jessie, since she had four kids and a too-small apartment, gave the car to his aunt, let them split what little jewelry she had between them. He kept her wedding rings, and his father's, since she'd told him that she wanted him to have them, and he took some of the photo albums. He couldn't bear to look at them now, but maybe someday he'd want to.
He thought about staying. It was nice, for a few weeks, to spend time with Jessie's kids, get to know his family again. He'd thought it would be hard to talk to children, but it really wasn't, in the end. It was easy, because all he really had to do was listen, and let them win any games they played.
Still, there was another brother out there he needed to make peace with. One that wouldn't so readily accept that he had changed.
So he went to England.
He didn't expect to see Riley for a long while. He wasn't sure that the man lived in Manchester, if he ever even left base anymore. They'd both become the mask over the years. It wasn't easy to start being a whole person again.
He tried a few jobs on, but they fit like an off the rack suit. He couldn't stand the noise of most trades, didn't have any patience for customers or desk work. Maybe he could move out to the country and be a farmer. The thought appealed to him somewhat, although he knew deep down it was just the fantasy of the life that he wanted. He didn't particularly care for getting muddy, and he didn't know the first thing about animals.
He was walking home when he noticed the Help Wanted sign in the window of the bakery near his apartment (flat, as the locals called it). He liked the place, in part because Sharon, the older woman with graying curls that worked the counter reminded him a bit of his mother, and partially because the smell of bread baking wafted in through his window early mornings, and it was hard to resist the siren’s call.
The little bell above the door jingled pleasantly as he walked in, head nearly brushing the damn thing.
"Hi, honey," Sharon said with a smile, popping her head out of the kitchen. "We don't usually see you so late."
"I saw the sign in the window, ma'am. Thought I might as well ask you about it."
“Our baker quit in the middle of his shift. I’ve been running back and forth all day.” She pursed her lips, taking in the broad and tall expanse of him. “You’re interested?”
“Yes ma’am. Was a soldier for a long time, and I’ve been having trouble finding civilian work that suits. At the very least, I know I’d respect my boss.” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a bit sheepish. It wasn’t as if she had time to train a raw rookie, but… “Don’t know dick all about baking, but I’m good at following orders.”
Sharon thought about it for a moment. “Can you promise not to quit in the middle of a shift?”
“Figure nothing you throw my way could be worse than desert warfare.”
Sharon grinned. “No, we only do dessert warfare here.”
Mace barked out a laugh despite himself. He’d always loved a bad joke. “Got a bakery rival?”
“Of course. Where d’you think my baker went off to?” She shook her fist at the far wall, laughing. “You’re hired. Can you start now? If I’ve got to mop the floors after the day I’ve had… Well, I don’t want to. Better the young do the heavy lifting, yeah?”
“Can do, ma’am. Just show me to the mop closet.”
He wiped down the little cafe tables and stacked up the chairs so he could sweep, mopped the cafe floor, emptied the display case and bought the wire trays to the kitchen to run through the dishwasher. Sharon was portioning out dough and quickly shaping it and putting it into baskets. He watched for a moment, and then went back out to finish cleaning up the front of house.
When he returned again, Sharon beckoned him over. “Wash your hands well,” she ordered. “I’ll show you how to shape these loaves. This dough’s a little sticky, so you’ve got to be decisive.”
He did his best to mirror her movements. The dough was really sticky, but there was a slight resistance to it, and once he got the hang of the consistency, he was able to produce a ball that Sharon didn’t have to reshape a little before it was tucked into it’s little basket to rise overnight. Each one was better than the last.
It felt nice to use his hands for something productive. This wasn’t much like anything he’d done as a soldier, and it was a relief that he was still able to learn new tricks. That he wasn’t so busted up by everything he’d been through to do something good.
Each basket went on a tray with three others, and then onto a wheeled rack, and soon they’d filled two. Sharon covered them with a plastic sheet (to keep humidity in) and they slid them into the big walk in fridge.
There were a few more things to do, cleaning up the kitchen, but soon enough Mace was hauling the trash into the dumpster behind the bakery while Sharon locked up. She handed him a box of leftovers from the display case, which he accepted gladly.
He ate a chocolate chip cookie on his way back to his apartment, humming. That felt like the right kind of work. Busy enough, quiet enough, and he wouldn’t have to be the one dealing with customers. It was going to be a hell of a learning curve, but he liked the idea of being a baker. The sort of career that his mama would be proud to see him in
He ate a cold sandwich and several more pastries for dinner, then showered and went to bed early, setting his alarm for four am. He stared at the ceiling for a little while, arms tucked behind his head.
Yeah. This would suit him just fine.
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The next morning had Mace out in the pre-dawn chill, waiting beside the bakery. He'd ended up watching a few videos on bread shaping while he ate breakfast, feeling a strange apprehension, like a student desperate to cram as much information as possible into his head before a big exam. He really wasn't qualified. He didn't know shit about cooking or baking-- He'd eaten mess hall meals and MRE's for the majority of his adult life. He knew what good food tasted like, but making it was a whole other beast.
He was pretty sure he'd gone into war zones less nervous than this.
Sharon waved at him when she turned the corner a little ways up the street. "Showed up after all, did you? The early mornin' didn't scare you off?"
"No ma'am. Said I'd be here." He followed her down the alley, hands in his pockets.
"An honest American," she said, faking a look of shock as she unlocked the door. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"You just dealing with tourists? Or do you have a vendetta I should know about?"
Sharon laughed. "Vendetta. An American woman stole my son away to Florida. I hardly see him now."
"I've got friends down that way. You say the word and I'll have them ship him back to you."
"Tell them to bring my grandkids too!"
Mace soon found out that Sharon was a great teacher. Funny, when she wasn't bone tired after a long day, and especially now that he wasn't a customer anymore. That polite customer service smile that he had gotten used to was replaced by a wicked grin, and she swore a blue-streak as she gave him instructions and gossiped. He learned more about his neighbourhood in a few hours than he'd found out in his months of living there.
Sharon's husband, Veer came in to open the storefront so Sharon could stay in the kitchen to train Mace.
"Had to take a week of vacation," he said when he brought two mugs of coffee back for them. "So you'd better be worth it! She makes me wear a beard net when I work the front counter." He winked at Sharon.
Sharon just rolled her eyes, her own hair totally secured by a bonnet. "You never wear the beard net, you just wear a mask."
"Perhaps. 30 minutes till open, anyway."
Mason started loading loaves of bread into the baskets that sat on the shelves behind the counter, and Sharon got started on assembling pastries. By the time he was putting out the last basket, the first customers were entering the store.
The display case filled, and then the sourdough for the next day mixed (Sharon said she'd portion and shape it closer to close), and the day was over before Mace knew it. He wasn't certain he knew what to do with himself for the rest of the afternoon (it seemed very strange to get off work by 1pm), but it seemed that he could stand to work on his baking skills at home too.
He went to the shops to buy everything he could think of to stock his cupboards, since they were rather bare, and made cupcakes when he got home, lamenting his lack of a piping bag when it came time to frosting them. They didn't look quite as impressive as he'd hoped they would, but they tasted pretty good-- One of the tips in the recipe's comments recommending "blooming" the cocoa powder with a bit of hot water seemed to be a neat trick. He wanted to try combining it with another tip about coffee bringing out the flavour of chocolate too.
Next time.
He cleaned up and made dinner, and offered cupcakes to his neighbours, feeling strangely shy. He was a grown man, he'd been shot more than once, but somehow knocking on the door of the college girls next door and the old man across the hall and the young mother by the stairs made him break out in a cold sweat, stumbling over his explanation. Why was it so much easier to kill people than offer kindness? There had to be something pathologically wrong with him.
(The part of him that knew he had to be kinder to himself too whispered a reminder that it was just unfamiliar ground. Hadn't his hands shaken the first time he held a rifle too? Hadn't he slunk off to puke his guts up and cry after the first time he'd killed another person? It was just so long ago that he'd forgotten.)
He outran the nerves that evening, as the sky turned dark, and put himself to bed early, ready to do it all again the next day.
The routine was good for him. Weeks passed, and he settled into an easy rhythm, waking early for work, joking with Sharon while he worked, setting himself up with a new project every other day.
(He would have made it every day, but while he was growing very fond of cooking and baking, he didn’t love doing the dishes.)
It gave him time to start going to the gym again, at least. He’d started putting on a little weight around the middle, which he didn’t hate. He kind of liked it, especially when he heard the college girls giggling and whispering about his dad bod. Still, he didn’t want to have to buy new clothes, and he wanted to stay in good shape, and he found he still really liked lifting weights, especially now that he did it for fun and not out of necessity. Even better, lifting weights meant that he got to eat more. So it worked out nicely.
His neighbours started talking to him more, everyone more than a little interested in getting on the list for receiving little treats. Everyone had sort of avoided him on principle before, unsure about the giant American loner that settled into their building, but now everyone knew him by name. They asked him for help when they needed heavy things moved. The girls down the hall asked him to make them a birthday cake (Which he was more than happy to do. He was getting better at decorating all the time).
The old fellow across the hall, Percy, turned out to be a veteran too, and he invited Mace out to drinks a few times with some of his old air force buddies, and he got to listen to the old men swap stories and complain about young people these days and the price of groceries (and drinking with old men was ideal, since he could still be in bed early enough to get plenty of sleep before work). The college girls were Morg and Corrie, and often Kailee, who didn’t actually live in the building but was there so often that she practically did. They were possibly the silliest girls he’d ever met, but he at least partially had to attribute that to the fact that he understood only about fifty percent of what they were saying at any time, between the giggling and the slang he didn’t understand.
They tried to thank him for the baked goods by inviting him over for dinner once. A valiant, but ultimately bland effort. He’d eaten worse, but not in a long while, and they spent half the meal flirting shamelessly. He made a promise to himself in that moment that he would never date a woman under thirty.
The single mother, Tammy, was a lot more sensible, but not as single as he’d assumed. Her friend that came over often turned out to be her girlfriend. The kids were funny, especially the younger two, who took every opportunity to talk his ear off about school and dinosaurs and some youtube video game streamer with a silly name. The oldest kid was in that awkward teenage phase of thinking his own interests were cringe and looking for a new identity that was cool. He seemed baffled by Mace, like he couldn’t quite connect the dots on why someone who looked and sounded like a soldier would be spending his free time doing favours for others and baking.
Mace wasn’t sure if it were his place to say anything, but he hoped the kid would come to understand that what Mace was doing now was a hundred times better than being a soldier. A thousand times more meaningful.
He felt like a new person. Born again, like the last twenty years could be chalked up to a bad dream.
(It wasn’t as if he were ashamed of it. Maybe he should have been. But he’d always been principled about his work. Not everyone agreed with his actions, he’d found himself down-barrel of a once friendly gun more than a few times. But that didn’t mean he would stop doing what he thought was the right thing.)
He was sure that this contentedness was what his mother had wanted for him. He wished he’d listened to her a long time ago.
Of course, as it so often happens, pleasant routines get shaken up. For Mace, it was on an otherwise ordinary day in late November, when Sharon was buzzing excitedly about her daughter moving home.
(Divorced, and with a three year old she would have to take care of all by herself. She’d probably come work the front counter, so Sharon could be in the kitchen more for the busiest season. Didn’t it work out so nicely?)
And the timing did seem good. Mason was glad for anything that would give Sharon more time off. He worried about her overworking herself, and she always complained about not seeing any of her grandchildren enough.
Still, he found himself stopping short, nearly dropping the tray of cookies he’d been carrying when he came out of the kitchen.
“Oh, wonderful,” Sharon said, grinning. “Mason, come meet my daughter!”
And you smiled at him, sticking your hand out. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Nice didn’t even begin to cover it.
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Title Card made in Canva ~ Image Credits: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 ~ Dividers by @/cafekitsune
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superm4ks · 6 months ago
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Kit do you not rep Charles anymore 😭
Of course I do he’s prime I just need a break from his team and that fucking dog
#ask#binottos gone. his bones are gone. sainz on his way out. the evil has been DEFEATED#we did it. we found everything that was wrong wid Ferrari and put it in a box and sent it far far away where it cant hurt us anymore#finally a clean slate for elkann and a blank cheque for vasseur to rebuild il cavallino the way enzo wanted. pure italian excellence#and a semi italian boy to lead it all. vasseur FINALLY recognizes leclercs potential as n1 and turns him into the central piece of a new er#they get him hamilton. biggest media event in f1 history#a proven winner. an upgrade in every way. bigger than ferrari? that wont be a question he'll need to answer#binotto is bones. f1-75 is dust. next year sainz will be nothing but a bad memory and the rusting crux of all their PAST problems#this is vasseurs vision now. his holy plan. his sf-24. his personnel. wid elkanns blessings and his deep. deep pockets.#2 years later. the monster's gone. vasseur is here.#and what has vasseur done?#the garages remain the same. no big poaches from rivals. nothing to prepare for hamiltons arrival.#maranello follows a dev path that comes from the same wind tunnel as haas. haas' data correlates. their upgrades work. ferrari's dont.#last 2 upgrades failed because the very concept of the car was wrong. 2 months behind at least.#((took merc almost 2 and a half years to deal wid the damage of an incorrect baseline and correct course))#ferrari came into the triple header 2nd in the standings and left wid 50 points TOTAL. baby mclarens-first-wcc run behind by 7#out of those 50 points none was sharls#sharl has scored 1 point in 4 fucking races#vasseur's ferrari has turned a generational qualifier into a kid whose idea of making pole is running experiments in q3#because who cares anyway if the car is setup for races except it aint setup for that shit either#so quali has to work ((it doesnt)) sunday has to be flawless ((never is)) but to point fingers is a worse crime than this approach to gp's#last gp. silverstone. as representative as it gets. sharl fails to make q3#bouncing around in a setup that hadnt been previously tested on either fp but wud surely make it worth their sunday#sunday: sharl gets lapped#ik sharl better than this#but idk what im looking at rn#I ignored the influencer milestone special helmet because I expected a performance that wud make me forget it#I need him to be a racing driver#he says 'he cant find the words anymore' bro I rlly need him to find them#I'll always ALWAYS root for sharl but to keep it 💯 idk what I'm rooting for anymore
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just-sp-in-inginthevoid · 3 months ago
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You know how girls have this sixth sense or guts feelings about a guy having ability to be dangerous person or like 'oh this person can be fucked up' . Do you think this is what happen with those 20 girls rejecting shinichiro sano? Like if it was 3-5 I can say bad luck ? But 20? I know most of the fandom say the girls are blind or shinichiro flirting skills are well bad enough making him desperate or it is him being a leader of the gang in Japan where it is seen in negative image. But c'mon universally teenage girls love a bad boy image. I don't think out of those 20 girls didn't find shinichiro sano attractive with all these qualities. I love Shin but 20 rejection in reality straight up a red flag?
20 appears as a funny hyperbole at first, and it sure was used for comedic effects but I agree Shinichiro has unsettling flaws (to say it nicely). Transposing the number '20' to real life could appear off.
Shinichiro is indeed a delinquent (and the leader of a whole gang of them, who reached Japan's number 1 spot - that's not nothing) and is seen by all the characters we know as an endearing idiot with a heart of gold. And yet no girl fell for it. Good for them, they deserve better than making the experience of being with Shinichiro. They wouldn't have known what they'd have signed up for..
Shinichiro is a red flag in himself once you see pass the 'perfect brother, perfect friend' mask. He is a 'good person' but only because his life didn't make it so he saw a point to doing 'mean things' - he's not against the idea, we know about Original Timeline. 'It's because he didn't have Mikey anymore!' I don't think one's morals should be dependent on another's well-being. (I eat that shit up everytime in fiction, and I love messed up characters, Shinichiro fits both and I love that, and i love him, but it'd be daring to say he's a good person knowing everything he did - and knowing we ignore a lot more stuffs). Sure he was a 14 y/o but he still named his gang after an irl ultranationalist organization (knowing how Japan hides and denies its past, I wonder how he knows about that), he brought his 8 y/o brother to a gang meeting when he was 18, his idea of bonding with Izana was showing him how to act like a delinquent, etc. Original Timeline makes him even more of a red flag but considering the additional factors behind his behavior at that time, it's possible to think (and whether it's right or wrong I don't know, interpretations vary and sometimes Shinichiro is very hard to grasp, I have troubles with him at times) his behavior there wouldn't ever manifest had it been not for this exact situation of losing Mikey (and what was left of his family on the way).
And yeah, Shinichiro would never be as violent, impulsive and hostile as when Mikey dies - but those things didn't stem from nowhere. There's definitively crumbs of it even when Mikey's doing well. He's got trauma he refuses to address (parents' death, parentification, ...) which.. I can see as cradle for some toxic positivity - being portrayed as perfect, good and kind until OG timeline, we only ever see him smile until he loses Mikey. And when he tries therapy it doesn't work.
One thing you can't take away from Shinichiro though, is that he's earnest, he has not an ounce of malice in him. If he deceives people (by making them believe he's perfectly imperfect) it's not intentional because he himself sees himself as the image most see him as. That's worse in some way, because he really is unaware of how harmful he can be - he's a red flag but he sincerely thinks he's good, he never purposely intends to hurt anyone. He loves to help out his loved ones and he'd probably do the same to strangers, but he also sucks at assessing their pain or any kind of repercussions in any given context (ex: treating Haruchiyo's 'slashing his friends because they badmouthed Mikey' incident lightly, abruptly disbanding Black Dragon and seemingly not doing anything for Takeomi's distress, downplaying Sanzu's scars, ...). He's an enabler, too. If a loved one were to say '[x] makes me happy!' then he'd let them to [x] even if it actually harms them - he wouldn't see how that can be wrong, since they're happy.
The fact they were so much makes me doubt of the seriousness of his feelings I have to admit. While he has a lot of love to give and is genuine in his interactions with others (unless they're twisted by denial, ie: OG timeline Shinichiro acting happy and fine), it appears as if he's just desperate to have a girlfriend - without caring who it may be. It seems very shallow, does he even know the girls? If they don't know him it'd explain a bit why they didn't accept. If we restrain those love confessions to his Black Dragon years he has confessed to five girls each year - almost one for each season, one every 2 month and a half or so on average. That's fast lol.
After that we could talk about the possible reasons why he was so eager to have someone; ranging from 'typical teen wishing to acquire relationship experience' to 'thinking he needs to provide his little siblings with a mother figure because he can only fulfill the father figure role' by way of 'needing to save the family's face after their father's cheating get spread' but.. I don't want to develop them more, and they aren't really the topic at hand here.
Another issue that could arose from a relationship is that he'd put Mikey and his family first before anything else - that's a hard true and that needs to be accepted quickly too, no girl could ever be his number one priority no matter how desperate he sounds to have one.
One may say his inability to get girls is a difference between him and Takemichi — the fact Takemichi got Hinata as a girlfriend because she fell for him, got Emma to almost sleep with him, and got Yuzuha to have a crush on him. But we're used to comparing those two silly guys and thinking they both function the same way and by so, Takemichi being an idiot but still good at heart, Shinichiro can't possibly be a red flag. It's the kind of thing the story doesn't make you instinctively overthink, I think. We have clues on how Shinichiro is as a person once we scrap the surface of TR and starts to dig, but we really have nothing about how he'd be in a relationship, how he'd act toward a significant other - and picturing him as another Takemichi is just something that the story makes us do throughout the entirety of it so it feels logical for a time to give Shinichiro the same traits.
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seeking-elsewhither · 22 days ago
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Thinking of Hunter and his squad of six-feet-tall ad'ike
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turtleblogatlast · 9 months ago
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My rambling is always cut off by the tag limits 😔
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tenojan-in-tevinter · 3 months ago
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I cant stop thinking about how when Kaidan first meets Raien Shepard he's slightly confused because the man in front of him, the man supposed to be his new xo, looks like a SOPPING WET RACCOON with how little sleep he gets. He's like "are they sure he's fit for duty after Akuze??" but Shep passed his psych eval, and seems to function fine so.... And over the course of their relationship Shepard progressively sleeps better and better and eventually he looks somewhat normal again, until HE DIES and then he never gets another good night's sleep until after the reaper war.
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seventh-district · 8 months ago
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not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go
(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)
#today's gone Badly and i'm upset but instead of venting abt it i'm gonna channel that energy into doing a bit of tag rambling abt Boothill#well. less abt Him and more abt uh. self-analyzing my anxiety surrounding contributing to fandoms. he's just today's catalyst#like. i know it's mostly a me thing. i'm hypersensitive to criticism and very conflict avoidant + socially anxious + perfectionistic etc.#so I'm the one that keeps myself from posting more stuff out of fear of being criticized or called-out for what i've made#bc inevitably Someone's gonna see it and think its OOC or a problematic take or they'll misread my intent. etc etc what have you#but like. that's inevitable. there's no way to communicate every single thing with all of the nuance required to avoid misunderstandings#and other times it's not a misunderstanding it's just a difference of opinions and that's Fine!! there's no accounting for personal taste#there's no accounting for several things actually. taste‚ bias‚ lore-knowledge‚ differing levels of chronic-online-ness‚ etc#so this isn't me complaining abt the state of fandom culture (although i do think. sometimes. ppl take shit a bit too seriously)#but anyways all of this is mostly just anxiety-fueled. it's not like i very often actually even receive negative feedback or anything#if anything ppl tend to tell me that i'm overthinking it and killing my own fun and worried that my stuff is more OOC than it is#which like. yeah. Yeah u right :) but that's just the way that i am! always losing the idgaf war i suppose#anyways what's Boothill got to do w this ur wondering. well. i've been thinking abt the quickly emerging concept that he's illiterate.#and it just. has me feeling a lot of ways. and watching ppl disagree over it has me feeling some Bad ways. bc it's def a loaded topic!#if you'll pardon the pun there. and i don't rlly have anything new to add other than that i'm conflicted abt it.#like yeah i saw the leaks days ago. of him mentioning 'not hitting the books' much as a child when we ask him why he sends voice messages#or voice Transcriptions ig. ykwim. and like. *braces for impact* ...i liked it? like. it doesn't feel right to call it endearing#i'm not trying to infantilize him. ok that's not the right word either but ugh. you know? what i mean?? who am i kidding even i don't know#it's not quite right to say that it feels like Representation either. but it's something close i guess#as a southern person myself who didn't receive a 'complete' education due to factors that weren't to do with my intelligence#the concept of seeing him as a capable force to be reckoned with and respected who also happens to have not received much formal education#i like that. i do. but there's so many issues w it at the same time. like. as i said‚ being southern myself has me Wary of the way Hoyo is-#writing him. as well as of the way that the fandom is taking the bits of his lore and running away w them. and i'm Very aware of how ppl-#will see a southern character and be All Too Eager to agree that they're lacking intelligence based on our Redneck™ stereotype#sigh. and before we even go too far with this. it's not even confirmed that hes completely illiterate. which is a valid criticism i've seen#there's Multiple reasons that could make him prefer voice to text. but regardless. i'm just worried that ppl will misconstrue my intentions#like. example: that edit i made the other day of him saying 'no thanks i can't read'. wasn't me playing into the stereotype of-#'haha dumb country boy can't read!' it was. in my eyes. something he'd say as a joke to make light of a potential insecurity#like. i think there's far more depth to Boothill's character if ppl could look past the surface. and i dont wanna contribute to the problem#but sometimes ppl Will have stereotypical traits and i wish the same could apply to characters as long as it's done Thoughtfully.
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namtanlovesfilm · 8 months ago
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around 2 or 3 times a year, I get irrationally angry about off's mistreatment as an actor, being constantly overlooked, etc. for weeks on end, until I see him be happy & celebrated enough for me to move on... I'm in one of these periods right now 🙃
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liamrrys · 3 months ago
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yapping about him again again but IN REFERENCE 2 THIS FIC, i imagine rame unclipping the silver charms in his braid to style ev's hair like it is in the screenshot
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skrunksthatwunk · 25 days ago
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classic scenario i fear
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🥳🎉HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM RIVERS🎉🥳
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phantajam · 5 months ago
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my hot take about descendants is that NONE of the core four were ready for a relationship until maybe like, the third movie (rant in tags)
#they were still adjusting to living life without struggling to survive#a girl should not be jumping into a relationship the same week she just tried her first piece of non-rotten food lol#thats not to say I don't like the canon ships#but mal married literally the FIRST man she met in auradon. at 18.#and even as far as in descendants 2 we see them still struggling to adjust in different ways (mainly mal)#in d3 they seem to have fully assimilated into life in Auradon (as much as a VK can anyway)#so it makes sense for them to THEN seek out relationships if that's what they want.#but disney ofc wanted to act like romantic love just automatically fixes a person's problems ig?? as if a relationship wouldn't just be#added stress given the position the VKs were in in d1#not to mention dating just like. wasnt a thing on the isle (mal even says this)#and I get that the kids are craving to be loved because their parents didn't gaf about them. But I wish the first movie focused more on the#finding that love in each other than romantically with outside people. a sort of “they had love in them all along” moment.#and then this fandom loves to argue about whether Jarlos/Janelos was 'rushed'. at least Carlos (and Jay +lonnie) waited a few months before#throwing themselves into the dating scene. Poor evie had her heart broken within like 3 days of being in Auradon. no wonder she was willing#to help steal the wand lol.#Anyway to wrap up this rant I didn't even mean to go on#I just think that kids who have spent the first 14-16 years of their lives fighting to survive and being put through continuous trauma on a#daily basis don't need dating right away. they need THERAPY.#if anyone here has seen stranger things its kinda an El and Mike situation were its like. the girl grew up in a lab and fell for the first#boy in regular society who was kinda nice to her lol. thats how I view Mal and Ben#same with doug and evie. he was nicer than chad but he still fell for her for her looks and she still fell for him because he was the first#guy in auradon to be genuinely interested in her. also evie had a whole “I dont need a prince” arc and ended up with a man anyway?#my problem with janelos was always that Carlos never quite worked out his mommy issues or his anxiety. I feel like he'd be afraid of hurtin#her even though that boy wouldn't hurt a fly. and we see Jane get pretty stressed out herself- have you ever been in a relationship where#both of you have anxiety? cause it either goes really well (you help keep each other calm) or REALLY terribly (you make each other spiral)#I actually really liked Lonnie and Jay (though I feel like it would've had a bigger payoff if she was in d3. not sure why she wasn't but I#wont dunk on that because it couldve been smth to do with her actress). I think Lonnie is someone who can 'handle' Jay well and match his#energy. And I like the idea of Jay finding someone he's loyal to after being commitment-phobic for 1 1/2 movies and the whole first book lo#and ofc I have to throw this in here: any auradon kid the VKs get with is never going to grasp even half of what they went through.#this doesnt mean they can't try to understand and be empathetic. but it will always cast a shadow on VK/AK relationships.
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