#he did in fact play a role in me realizing im ace

[fruitisthenewvegitable]

Reblogging this again because I came to the realization that I’m ace a little bit ago :]

reblog to scare the aphobes

[jemmo]

pat is indeed a very gentle and caring and affectionate person and that's amazing, but I was rewatching ep 9 and I realized that he also carries with him an intense primordial rage that I haven't seen anyone address both here and in the show..

like during the rugby match when he was fighting with wai and his friends had to pull him back multiple times and then again at the bar when he was confronting that other guy, his eyes were full of anger, they genuinely scared me, and then I remembered that he had the same rage-filled expression during the fight scene in ep 5 when he was yelling at wai "this is between me and him"

but despite the anger in his eyes he's never the one to initiate physical violence, and any other person would have, it's amazing how he controls himself

anyway idk where this is going or if you understood what I'm trying to say lol, I just wanted to put this out there cause no one has discussed this and I would love to hear your thoughts, cause I love your takes on the series!

anon bless you first of all for caring about my dumb opinions lol and secondly for giving me the chance to rant about something that always slips my mind but i've so wanted to rant about.

bc i have a couple of things to say regarding this. and the main one is something i've discussed with a couple of people before, and of all things it arose from a chat with @thecookiemonster77 about pat being a cloud guy. no not clouds in the sky, but as in he saves stuff to the cloud whereas pran prefers physical usbs and hardrives, bc he likes to physically hold them and be reassured and know his stuff is safe. pat on the other hand, its like things just work out for him. not to say he's coasted through life on autopilot, he's more just the guy that can miss some lectures and do his homework late but still ace a test. its a combination of natural talent and an ability to think on the spot and kinda bullshit your way through stuff. and we do see this in the series, im thinking of the whole bus stop thing where in the meeting he comes up with an idea on the spot and it works out.

this is also mixed with the fact that pat is not a consequences guy, bc he's never had to face them before. he acts impulsively bc he doesnt think ahead. yes pran leaves him when he gets transferred but pran is the one facing immediate consequences, and you can argue this might be a turning point for pat in that he faces consequences later realising how lonely he is, and this will add to my point later. all this is to say that pat has had things relatively easy, especially is you subscribe to my idea that, after pran got transferred, he kinda accepted and fell into the role his dad was laying out for him more so than he did before, taking engineering at uni, doing the sports he wanted, and most importantly to this point becoming more violent, becoming more focused on respect and reputation, and that manifesting as him fighting a lot to maintain that, which gave him the rep we hear about in ep 1 (also maybe a way to cope or an outlet for expressing his anger at pran being transferred??)

rewatching ep 1 was kinda a trip for me bc pat is so very different in his violence. bc we see him in violent settings all through the series, but he has a different air to ep 1. bc in ep 1 he is fighting for stupid reasons, reasons he doesnt believe in. but that changes afterwards, and thats when we see him in the state you described. and thats down to pran. bc in all the examples you gave, he is fighting for pran, directly or indirectly. he fights wai in ep 5 bc he's getting in the way of the two of them, he fights wai in ep 9 bc wai is being a baby and not working with him, and bc he's frustrated with wai for ignoring pran, and he fights those guys in ep 9 bc he wants to protect wai for pran's sake, as a way to offer a hand of reconciliation. thats why, compared to ep 1, he's so much more serious in these fights, bc finally, after going through life playing his part, doing what his father wants, putting in minimal effort to get rewards, finally he's found something he wants, something he cares for, something he's willing and ready to fight for, to put effort into in order to achieve. and thats pran, thats his relationship with pran. he's finally found whats important to him, so all that untapped energy and drive and passion is finally unlocked, and it manifests in so many ways such as him relentlessly going after pran after they kiss, him wanting to be in prans space all the time, hes cuteness and displays of affection and his want to be loud and open, and one of them is in these fights, where he sees the thing he wants being challenged and disrupted and ruined and he just cant stand it, its not right, its not how it should be, and he just has to fight back.

bc this plays into another element of pat that i headcannon, which is that he sees the world very simply in that he doesnt understand why theres such difficulty and complexity and limits around his relationship with pran, bc what he sees is two people that love each other and therefore they should be together. but when there's all these unwritten rules forbidding it, he just doesnt understand, it doesnt sit right in his brain, and thats why he has this urgency and need to fix it and fix it now.

and im glad you brought up him not initiating violence, bc i feel like apart from ep 1, he doesnt initiate any violence. like yes he may throw the first punch with wai in ep 5, but he doesnt start that scene with violent intentions, they only rise to the surface when wai is actively hostile and provoking. similarly in ep 9, the fight is initiated bc of the dude in the bar being a dick. he may kick him first, but the guy comes at him with a group so he's outnumbered after facing off against him in the bar. thats them initiating hostile behaviour, not pat. and i think this works so well, bc comparing ep 1 to now, you can see that pat has softened bc of being with pran, and that his softer side comes out around pran. but he's still pat, he still jokes around with his bros and he's still gonna have that violent streak, its just that now its more subdued and only reaches its max when something infringes on his relationship with pran. and it also makes sense that pat maybe does have this slight hero complex, not in a negative way, thats just part of his personality. we see it in the way he self-sacrifices for pran many times, losing the bet, laying out his feelings on the rooftop, letting go of things that make him upset like the guitar, being willing to break up so that wai will speak to pran, sitting out of the game so that wai can play etc etc. and its why next ep he's gonna make his big confession to the architecture faculty, bc he just loves submitting all that he is and everything he has to pran, and while that speaks of his love and devotion, its also a little selfish, bc he gets to look cool, he gets to be the knight in shining armour, he gets to be the hero. and that part of him filters in to his violent side. he'll always want to step up when things arent right. pran said it in the hospital, he just has to play the cool guy.

and i could ponder for hours on where this confidence and pride comes from, but ive also rambled enough so i hope that answers your question in a not-so-concise fashion. there's a whole other thing i could rant about with respect to you saying him holding back, and how its indicative of him not actually wanting to hurt people and being reflective of his innate ability to gauge boundaries, both emotionally with pran and in these scenarios where he can gauge just how provocative he can be without stepping over the line and becoming the violent force he only wants to oppose. but this is way too long already so we can all take that idea home and think about it as homework ok class??? anyway thanks for giving me the chance to rant its like my fave thing to do

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Wano (Part One)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

shirahoshi seeing the sun for the first time is really a relatively minor and understated thing, among all the chaos and revelations of reverie, but it strikes me as one of the most meaningful little moments in the arc. 

i LOVE the luffy fanclub. i love that a meeting of the world leaders winds up being a who’s-who with assorted friends of one of the world’s most notorious criminals, and it brings me SO much joy to see them meeting each other and being able to connect. i feel the same way about coby and rebecca meeting.

in general, and i think i said this at marineford too, i love that the one piece world is developed and interconnected and alive enough to allow for these sorts of interactions. 

fucked up that this was almost a hundred chapters ago and we still have no clue what the fuck was up with this, isn’t it? 

i do find the introduction of im fascinating. up until this point we’ve had two presumed final villains- blackbeard and akainu- who were first established pretty far back at jaya and enies lobby (in robin’s flashback) respectively. meanwhile, im isn’t even seen until chapter nine hundred and something. it feels very late-game, but at the same time, their existence doesn’t contradict anything previously established, and in fact jives pretty well with a lot of information more recently revealed in dressrosa. 

in any case, when in doubt i do trust oda knows what he’s doing when handling his story, and i’m very excited to see what he does with this.

wano is SO PRETTY. i mentioned this before in fishman island, but i think wano is definitely the prettiest setting in the series to date. i think it’s obvious oda was both very excited to draw it and put a lot of work and research into his depiction of it, and wow does it pay off. wano is so bursting with life and detail, and frequently looks like an ukiyo-e painting come to life, and just- wow wow wow.

i love zoro and luffy’s reunion so much... i love how happy they are to see each other. it’s only been, what, a couple weeks in-universe? but luffy is pulling the full tackle-hug like he did for sabo at dressrosa. i love them.

i really like the outfits in wano, too!! zoro’s ronin look in particular i think suits him very well, and i also love luffy’s patchy yukata and robin’s geisha getup and they’re just very cool. this also applies to the non-strawhat wano characters, for the record, and kind of ties back to what i was just saying about wano being so full of detail. it has a very specific look, and everything from the outfits to the way things like the fire and the waves are drawn folds very neatly into that aesthetic. 

as i’m writing this i just finished on the paramount war posts, so with that fresh on my mind, i have to say i really like the way ace (or rather, his memory) is incorporated into wano. he’s not really a major presence- that is, the fact that he was there before luffy has no real bearing on the plot. but there are people who knew and cared about him and remember him fondly, tama and yamato, and it just really helps add to this feeling that ace was a person and his life and death had real and lasting affects. 

and it adds, too, to the fact that even if it took ace way too long to realize it, he was so thoroughly loved everywhere he went. 

i have a lot of thoughts on the intersection of food and heroism in one piece (i keep trying to compile a coherent meta post on the subject and mostly failing). but i’ll settle for saying that in wano luffy is a hero by his own definition, as someone who shares food with others, and i doubt he realizes that, but i think it’s really interesting. 

i know luffy’s fight with kaidou is kind of controversial in fandom but i love it, personally. it feels like a logical outcome for luffy to get his ass kicked the first time he tries to go up against a yonkou singlehandedly! he got wrecked when he tried to throw down with a shichibukai the first time, too, and this is just the next logical step from that. 

luffy’s always been an underdog starting from nowhere and working his way up and up and up, and i love that for him. of course he’s going to get messed up the first time he tries punching an entire order of magnitude above his weight class. and then he’s going to get up and try again, and again, and again until he wins. 

the act structure of wano is really neat, i think. it helps such a long and complicated arc feel a lot more structured and less interminable than it might otherwise, and it also gives specific breaks where we can cut away to the story happening on the outside world. 

honestly i really like the whole udon prison segment. it’s fun! i like it for similar reasons i like the colosseum mini-arc in dressrosa, honestly, which is that there’s no real stress because we know luffy is the scariest person there by a country mile so we can just watch him go ham, and that’s fun. it consistently cracks me up that absolutely nobody is worried luffy’s in jail. they’re all just like “yeah, he’ll be fine.” and they’re right! he’s having the time of his life!

wano’s cast is fascinating, because almost nobody is who they first appear to be. almost everyone is wearing masks, whether literal or not- fitting, for an arc structured after a kabuki play. everyone is playing roles, from hiyori to denjirou to kanjurou to yasuie, and everyone lies. 

this entire sequence at orochi’s party is one of my favorites in the whole arc- in fact, it was my favorite, until we reached a certain part i’ll get to in the next post. everything from komurasaki standing up for toko and slapping orochi to denjirou “killing” her to robin getting caught by the oniwabanshu and dissolving into petals to nami calling down a massive lightning bolt to cover their escape- it’s really good. 

i’ve written extensively before about the smile fruits and the themes of smile and laughter in one piece and how important the freedom to feel and express emotion is. suffice it to say that for all the atrocities orochi commits against the people of wano, it’s feeding the smile fruits to the people of ebisu town that is his greatest crime, and the revelation of just what happened to those poor people ratchets up the tragedy of wano tenfold.

i do think it’s interesting to think about how if denjirou had been just a little less committed to his role, zoro would’ve killed orochi right here. it really drives home that orochi is nothing- he’s weak, he’s cowardly, he’s just lucky and clever and cruel enough to be able to get much more powerful people to do his work for him. 

it’s infuriating that someone like him has been able to hold such power over the lives of the people of wano and ruin them so thoroughly, and that’s exactly the point. 

wano is the arc where oda says you Will care about the supernovas and i’m like yeah

hey, another of my all-time favorite luffy panels!! i honestly just think this one sums him up as a character in a line more than almost any other- “i’m always free.” 

just look at the detail on kidd’s metal hand holy shit holy shit. on occasion certain panels jump out at me that remind me that oda really is just, a genius at drawing on a technical level, even setting aside his writing and storytelling chops, and this is one of them. 

oda is really, really good at creating the sense of a darkest hour- a time when all hope seems lost. the other best example in the series is in water seven, when the crew seems to be falling to pieces, merry is marked for death, robin’s gone, and the aqua laguna is coming. here, too- nobody comes to meet the akazaya nine, and the one chance they’ve waited twenty years and staked their lives on seems in danger of slipping through their fingers-

but the point of making it so all seems lost is so that when hope does appear, it shines all the brighter, and feels all the more triumphant. it’s always darkest before the dawn, and we all know how wano has been waiting for the dawn. 

[jazajas]

okay so i finished love, victor a while ago and i saw some other reviews and thoughts about it here so now i've got a pretty good list on my thoughts and feelings.

tl;dr: it has some issues, yes, but im gonna hold out and hope it gets better later on because the same thing happened with the first few eps, i wasn't that into it but then it got good, and nothing is ever great with the first season, because at that point we're getting used to those characters.

⚠️caution: spoilers ahead (im on mobile, i cant get an under-the-cut)⚠️

1. while a leah on the offbeat movie would have been amazing movie sequel (even tho i havent read the book yet, im just here for the wlw content) i am kind of glad we got this instead. mostly because I've seen book series where one movie was good, so they decide to do the rest, turn out bad (hunger games? divergent? percy jackson? the hobbit?) because so much was cut from the book-to-first movie writing, that other scenes wouldn't make sense to future movies if they had those in while cutting others. however, i am sad that i didn't get to make the choice of deciding whether what was cut was wrong etc. about future movies, but i'll take what i can get.

2. LGBTQ+ POC as a lead! that's amazing! as a ace/bi lantina that's close to home (it also is great that victor's from texas and so is ya gorl) and even then it's a mixed latinx family! i think pilar mentioned that at least the grandmother left Colombia and i saw the Puerto Rican flag in victor's room. also the salazar's are definitely from small town texas, even without knowing the name. (church barbeques, the use of the words "such a diverse city" in regards to atlanta)

3. a lack of actual lgbtq+ main storylines (so far) is kind of sad for a show like this. i was getting serious bi/pan vibes (as a lot of other people) from victor from the beginning, and when it was implied that victor was actually gay (while great, not shaming) as it has been brought to my attention, there was a lot of looking at a lot of straight relationship problems (please let us know more about benji)- edit 6/18: upon further consideration, it very much is a show about questioning your sexuality, I'm speaking about the other straight relationship issues, not mia and Victor's, its just the first season.

4. let us talk about cheating for a sec. never okay, in any circumstance. i feel sorry for mia that she saw victor making out with benji and the fact that he was doing any of that in the first place. victor made a choice to lie about the espresso machine and then kissed benji at the hotel and then when benji was fighting with derek, basically confessed his love and mistakes, then proceeded to makeout with benji after he broke up with derek, he built that grave and now he must lie in it. i get having feelings for a guy when you are in a relationship with a girl, and not accepting yourself enough to end that relationship but you really want it to work so you can be "normal". really, he should have told mia after he got back from the trip tho. i get being in highschool and doing stupid stuff and making dumb decisions, but for a show aimed at teens i think we should also remind said teens to make good choices even if we have to lose some realism within the character choices.

4. pilar and her decisions based off her brother pissed me off. because i honestly think that if she'd kept her mouth shut about what she knew or confronted victor about it in the first place we could have avoided a LOT of mess. did she not learn from snooping around her mother's business about her relationships that going behind a person's back doesnt end well? i did, however, like the pilar/felix friendship and was really kind of hoping that they'd get together during their coffee hangout (although now im glad that didn't happen) because they had a deeper understanding of each other. same with wendy/felix, although they do seem to much alike to work out in the long run but i still feel bad for wendy.

5. i don't know how i feel about lake and andrew, as people separate from each other. both seem to be the way they are from their upbringing (not confirmed why andrew is such an ass, but if his comment about his dad is anything to go by i bet it's got something to do with attention) but andrew seems to be less, idk, superficial? like he turned down mia because he didn't want to be a rebound, he didn't out victor, he actually stood up to early teasing the other dudes in the lockerroom were doing at victor (with teasing of his own obviously but that interaction had him on my nice list until much later). lake? lake. i honestly don't have an opinion of her? not really. i mean after hanging out with pilar i was hoping felix wouldn't go back to lake. is her name laken? i feel like her full name is laken. but they also played the "im only like this because my mom is really superficial about stuff and i do like the geeky nice guy but appearances" to "actually screw the norms im gonna makeout with him infront of the whole student body". i honestly thought she was gonna be bi because she kept hitting on mia when she was helping set up for her "date" and "big night" and there was one point where i saw her face fall at something mia said in relation to her and idk i was hoping she'd be bi (i figured early on that victor/mia wasnt gonna work and was like "oh mia/lake would be cute" but now idk.

6. okay on to the "big night", i have one word. NO. i didn't like the peer pressure into having sex. i agreed with felix when he said "your body your choice" but im also disappointed that victor made out with mia and when lake was talking to felix after victor left he didn't try to stand up for victor.

7. on to age gaps because i hadn't really thought of this at first. we'll start with benji/derek: WHAT GRADE IS BENJI?! because that determines my thoughts. if he's a sophomore that meant that he and Derek started dating benji's freshman year and thats eugh, don't do that, don't care if its a gay couple that shouldn't be happening because the maturity of the two characters is DRASTICALLY different (this is also a reason i am not a fan of cmbyn) but that would explain why they were so rocky. hoping the event at the gay bar was open to anyone not just for drinking, but not liking that fact that not one of the adults with victor were like: hey, this is a 16 year old, that's kind of wack when that dude was hitting on victor. that made me question some stuff. although i figure it might be making up for the lack of a gay bar scene in love, simon. but even then, in svthsa it's a restaurant with a bar that some people go to just to drink at, it wasn't just a bar, simon could be there but should NOT have accepted drinks from college kids, not matter how attractive.

8. i loved how bram and simon and their friends helped victor out though. i like how bram was like: hey i know my friends are a lot so here's a gay basketball league becaue there's no one way to be gay. i like how Simon talked about needing help himself just to help victor and how he said his friends were cool with it because it's a community. i like of justin(?) mentioned how being what his parents wanted was putting on a mask and pretending, not him doing drag. my favorite lines from that ep are: "and before you ask my pronouns are they/them/theirs" "'they're all gay? even that guy? he's like [insert really tall number]' 'yeah. you should see him in heels'" "or in simon's case: really unathletic" "and also because bram said that if i wore [the jean jacket] one more time he'd burn it". also katya was there. and the group hug too!

9. the back hand homophobia in relation to family is sad, but realistic and i sincerely hope his parents are kind enough not to be too harsh on victor because of it. anything they say that isn't positive or supportive of victor is bad but i hope they realize that there is more to him than that and that they can come to terms with it because it's not always that hard to be a part of that community and super religious. i am biromantic and catholic. and while there are some things i wont agree on my mom with, i know that it's more of a strike against God for kicking out gay kids from families than it is to be gay, because those parents were given trust by GOD to love those kids no matter what, and be good parents. so in the end, the parents are wrong and harmful and in the case of christians against jesus's teachings to love everyone.

10. this is fan speculation but dont think simon/bram are going through a rough patch? i honestly think it'd be a little cruel to the characters to have on of their actors be producing but then not have that relationship stay. and while it's not set in stone and obviously things happen in the real world, we have no proof script wise about there being a rift. all we have are bad photoshopped ig photos and scenes where two characters are never standing next to each other probably beccaue schedules never link up correctly for minor characters. who knows, maybe nick robinson was filming for a movie where is does have an even more major role than victor's gay guru in a series about victor so his filming time was around that. im gonna keep hope that things are okay.

11. that being said: we need more mainstream wlw content, because someone said it earlier and it really does seem to be catering to straight girls. i'll admit i did freak out when benji played call me maybe which is something i associated with him and victor but then kissed a guy because who wouldn't? we get that serenade and sweetness and then it'a ripped from us. but i did mellow out. if i flipped later it was because victor was making dumb decisions and i had to give myself a moment of compsure before i continued.

in the end, i'd say that there is a lot of growth this series needs to go through, but i also know that some people just aren't going to like it and i get that. but i also know that sometimes the best of stories have rocky starts, nothing is ever perfect from the beginning. and besides, further seasons are on hold until we figure out this covid thing, which means that you bet they're gonna be looking at our feedback. they saw what we thought before, they can do it again

i really did like it but we need more ACTUAL lgbtq+ relationship stuff from this series and better decisions on what we are teaching the younger generations, as well as what we want to focus on and realism within characters. i'm giving it an 8/10, because there is always room for growth and i really hope we get better things out of this than what we have been given in season 2.

edit: someone mentioned it really seeming like it was meant for Disney+ and i felt that. also to anyone who reaches the tags agter reading ALL OF THIS: i am sorry

[yeehawgame4ever]

as promised: a List:

andy's basketball binder

that bit in ame where whats his fuck misgenders wren just so you know he's evil when he's already done everything else to let you know he's evil

two singular nonbinary characters with comparatively small roles

promises to make a nonbinary player character option which have since gone unaddressed and unfulfilled

the aisha situation

yes im going to mention genderlocked books because even if you hate trans men or gay men (bad look, by the way) nonbinary people who dont identify with women or a feminine presenting mc dont have good options either

hana being attracted to women but explained so poorly they had to ammend the statement later

hana being sidelined in trr including during her own personal storyline and in her own home

female lis in general being sidelined in books, acting more as accessories or closets for mc with fewer diamond scenes

'yeah shes a love interest and a close friend but wouldn't you know it, she lives in another city and cant come over'

female lis treating mc as Gal Pals (calling them Best Friends even in or after scenes where theyve literally made out)

victoria fontaine not being present for her own wedding preparation, or really at all for the entire book

hana and trr mc being asked if they were trying for a baby despite the fact that both are ostensibly cis women

female gender-choice lis like sam tna, ina qb, and whatever their default names were in trm etc etc getting a find and replace pronoun swap that isn't even very good and vague suggestive or explicit scenes because they didnt want to rewrite them

vanessa's series of lesbophobic events in moty

honestly a few female lis get some kind of homophobia storyline it's freaky and doesn't feel amazing

which you are allowed to forgive her for

the fact that while all non-genderlocked book love interests are bisexual nobody will Ever say as much and when other love interests of theirs are introduced they're the same gender as your mc because???? i literally cant think of a reason this just baffles me .

the Last Second Woman Love Interest who shows up in the last handful of chapters so you don't have time to get to know her before the book ends

Any forced li in a book with multiple, but you know it's always gonna be an overbearing man anyway and he's inescapable

if ur playing a book as a woman and are currently dating our single woman li whichever of these overbearing men is around will still try to get with you and he's inescapable

dont try to talk to me about gender choice love interests on the last point, we all know what they're meant to be

2:1 or 3:1 love interest gender ratio

2:2 love interest gender ratio but only in non genderlocked books, assumedly because there's more heterosexual potential???? dgmw i like this better but i can't think of another reason apart from the fact that you can be more het this way

background mlm or wlw relationships (mostly mlm ngl) and lg(b? idk can we say the b word?) ads for the game with no actual substantial rep or choice on the app , because we wouldn't want to offend the delicate sensibilities of the straight mothers we cater to with background wlw or actual gays

the whole ava mtfl thing where she's into women but we dont get to see her made this realization in any tangible way because we just never get to see her period

the fact that ava is technically marketed as an li but we never get to see her and get 2 lines every hundred chapters about how mc might feel Something before mc hops back on the But The Boys train.

mtfl mc could be and is definitely bisexual but we're not going to talk about her experience with discovering she's attracted to women either.

our single ace character. we love him but there's only one of him to go around

did i mention that we have four whole trans people and don't say the b word

no the word bitch is fine, the other one

ur welcome 2 add more because ive 100% forgotten things and havent read all the books lmao

pb really has no idea how 2 be inclusive of lgbt people list incoming but i need to sleep so fucking bad