#holy shit tumblr killed the quality for real

[qualityrain]

im coping too close to the sun but its ok because ive had clown make up on since 2021

[khaotungsfirst]

khaotungsfirst’s 2023 BL recap

Alright, I know I'm late but it’s the time of the year again where I post my favorite BLs of the year even though no one cares about my opinion lmao. Buckle up cause this is gonna be long...

Top Thai BLs

I Feel You Linger In The Air

What a breath of fresh air this was! Not only was the romance top-notch, I was also really invested in the plot and what was happening to other characters. The wlw sideplot felt natural and not shoehorned in and was what we all deserved. I'm just so happy to have experienced this masterpiece!!

Only Friends

Came for SandRay, stayed for BostonNick (and SandRay). Though it had its ups and downs I can't help but love it. There was so much messy drama that I was LIVING for every single week and experiencing that along with the rest of BL tumblr was the best thing. We desperately need more shows like this in the BL world.

Laws of Attraction

Ridiculous SFX could not deter me from loving this show. It's dramatic, it's over the top and it's ridiculous at times but it's crime so of course I liked it. Bonus points for cutting from the villain being killed in prison straight to the main couple's wedding. We love to see it!

Top Korean BLs

Our Dating Sim

This was my last watch of the year when I was looking for something that I could squeeze in without many expectations. How could I have guessed that it would turn out to be my favorite Korean BL of the year? Though the story is nothing new or groundbreaking, I enjoyed the main actors chemistry so so much. Korean BLs, to me, often feel a little stiff but they managed to make it feel so real and easy, I loved it.

The Eighth Sense

Oh, this was something else... High quality cinematography and high-quality story-telling. In the end I went into it with expectations that were too high to meet but still, such a touching BL that will definitely move you (maybe even to tears).

Why R U? (KR)

A show held together by three pieces of duct tape but enjoyable nonetheless. I don't think it's comparable to its Thai original. Yes, the plot is more or less the same but you gotta see it as its own thing. I do love me a panicked gay/confident gay pairing so it already had me from there. And let's talk about the kisses cause !!!

Top Japanese BLs

Tokyo in April is…

Friends to lovers my beloved!!! The PINING, the ACHING, the YEARNING! YEARS OF IT!! How can I not love it? Yes, this was a bit of a heavier BL but it was done SO WELL and the payoff from all the trauma was so satisfying.

My Personal Weatherman

What can I say? Japan just knows how to do it. In any other show the miscommunication between the mains would be annoying as hell. But the chemistry between these two was just off the charts. Nothing more to say.

I Cannot Reach You

Friends to lovers my beloved!!! the sequel. This time less traumatising but just as sweet and moving. A cute and innocent watch.

Top Taiwanese BLs

Kiseki: Dear to Me

The way I IMMEDIATELY knew ChenAi were gonna be my new hyperfixation as soon as I saw them in episode 1... They just have that je ne sais quoi, that special 'make me fall to the floor and bite my fist' quality to them. BZY and FZR also had their insane moments and in combination with everything that ChenAi were doing this show just hit the right spot. Can't wait to rewatch it.

Stay by My Side

Was it ridiculous? Yes. Was it cute tho? Also yes. Nothing I would rewatch but it did make me laugh a lot so there's that.

Top Chinese “BL”

Stay With Me

It’s not like we have much of a selection regarding Chinese BLs (cries in when will Eternal Faith, Immortaily and Winner is King be released from the dungeons?) but HOLY SHIT did they deliver with this one. I didn't know this was specifially made for international release when I went into it so I was in for a few surprises here and there. And I'm gonna say it: it's better than Addicted Heroin. The way their love story developed just has me screaming internally I LOVE THEM SO MUCHHHHH!!!

Top 3 overall

Kiseki: Dear to Me

Stay With Me

I Feel You Linger In The Air

Top pre-2023 BLs (that I watched in 2023)

The Eclipse (2022)

Can you believe that I only just joined the FirstKhao nation this year? I completely skipped this show last year NOT KNOWING what a masterpiece I missed out on. Finally a highschool BL with a capital P Plot! And the enemies to lovers was so so good!!! AkkAyan you will always be famous!

Love Mechanics (2022)

I'm not a fan of cheating stories at all but DEAR GOD these two!!! It's the YinWar magic that pulled me in and will never let me go. The constant back and forth did get a bit annoying at some point but I won't complain when we also got things like the shower scene...

Roommates of Poongduck 304 (2022)

Can ZB1 disband faster so Jiwoong can return to BL acting please? I jest, I jest... kinda. I loved the relationship dynamic in this one so much because they both held power over the other (and both were petty bitches about it lmao).

My Gear and Your Gown (2020)

The girls that get it get it, the girls that don't don't :) Falling for MarcPawin during Dangerous Romance and THEN realising that they're the mains for this show immediately put it on top of my watchlist and I'm not ashamed to say I liked it. It's very 2020 but sometimes that's all you need.

Favorite currently airing BLs

I did not want to consider these for the final rankings because they’re still airing and could theoretically still pull a Game of Thrones S7 on us but I have really high hopes for them.

Cherry Magic

HELLO???!?!? I LOVE ACHI SO F U CK ING MUCHHHH!!! And the way Karan is in love with him so gently and so deeply I- AAAAAHHHHHH. This is gonna be my new obsession I can feel it!!

Last Twilight

At first I didn't even plan on watching this because I didn't think JimmySea were a pairing I would enjoy (Vice Versa has been on hold for over a year lol). But GODDAMN did they prove me wrong! So soft, so precious... P'Aof you did it again!

The Sign

What a hodgepodge of genres... One second you're chasing a murderer, the next you're having sex fantasies about your coworker and then you're having visions about your past life with your soulmate (who is also said coworker). Love it!

Most disappointing BLs

Be Mine Superstar

I was so excited for a new JaFirst series as I really enjoyed Don't Say No, and Remember Me didn't quite quench my thirst. But this... if this was a BL then why did we spend SO MUCH TIME on the beef between the agents?? Shit was annoying af. Moreover, I really could not deal with Ja's character. I know a lot of people liked his innocent puppy-like behaviour but it was just too much for me. The only redeemable thing was the side pairing but even that turned into a hot mess quite quickly. Had to drop this at some point after I started watching it on 1.5 speed and realized that I'm torturing myself.

Low Frequency

Exciting concept but stiff acting and a plot that dragged on. Dropped halfway through.

Bon Appetit

It's not bad but just straight up boring. I finished it but it didn't leave any lasting impressions. I know you can do better, Korea...

Most anticipated QLs of 2024

Vampire Project (BOUNPREM VAMPIRE BL!!! I CAN DIE HAPPY ONCE THIS IS FINALLY ON MY SCREEN)

Jack & Joker (War finally getting his villain role let's fucking goooo)

IFYLITA Season 2 (PLEASE GOD MAKE IT HAPPEN P L E A S E also special ep WHEN????)

Spare Me Your Mercy (i will always be a slut for crime BLs)

23.5 Degrees (give it to us!!! LET US INNNN!!!)

My Love Mix-Up TH (istg if gmmtv doesn't learn from this whole cherry magic debacle...)

Eyes on you (even more spy/mafia/crime BL yes and thank you!)

Uranus 2324 (the production?? the story?? the cinematography??? I need it NOW)

Red Peafowl (this is either gonna be really bad or really good and I'm curious to see which one it's gonna be)

(I had Stay With Me S2 on this list until it was announced as cancelled on Jan 1st 😭😭 I wil never recover)

2023 Superlatives

Most iconic intro: Only Friends (long live First's thighs)

Quickest drop: Middleman’s Love (i was rooting for you Jade!)

Best supporting character: Tin's grandma - Laws of Attraction (sweetest lil supportive grandma who didn't deserve any of this)

Best Worst character: Jaewon's girlfriend - The Eighth Sense (I think this is the only bitchy ex-gf of the entire year and I'm glad about it)

Best side pairing: ChenAi - Kiseki: Dear to Me (do they even count as a side pairing anymore? If not then I'd go with GuyNawa - Dangerous Romance)

Best could have been if the writers wanted us to: NameSaifah - Dangerous Romance (no it was NOT enough!)

Biggest green flag: Win - Between Us (asking for consent is so sexyyy) / Yai - IFYLITA (he's the softest, most caring boy who's so so in love)

Biggest red flag (affectionate): Hira - Utsukushii Kare (my boy highkey needs therapy but Kiyoi wouldn't want it any other way so we'll let it slide) / Lom - Wedding Plan (the way he went about things was... questionable but I understand his reasoning behind it so I can't hate him)

Biggest red flag (derogatory): Boeing - Only Friends (bro just wanted to fuck with - literally and metaphorically - every and anyone and I respect that but dude...)

Most iconic kiss: Lee Won/Ji Oh - Why R U? KR (this was so fucking unexpected but they ate and left absolutely no crumbs)

Most iconic makeout scene: YangJai - Love in Translation (IN A GROCERY STORE?? FINGERS IN MOUTH??!)

Most iconic sex scene: TopBoston - Only Friends (oohhh the DRAMA of it all… truly gagged everyone with this)

Best unhinged horny scene: Jom - IFYLITA (I will never be able to look at massage oil without thinking about this...)

Best gays on a bike scene: Stay With Me (like… facing each other…. grinning at each other.... give me a minute)

Newest addition to the poor lil meow meow collection: Ai Di - Kiseki: Dear to Me (my feral murder kitten I LOVE YOU SO MUUUUUUCHHH)

And there we have it! What a year it's been... I can't wait for 2024 to be just as wonderful, unhinged, crazy and amazing. If you've read until this point I wanna thank you for enduring all that and also for supporting me and my edits throughout this year. Whether we're moots or not I truly appreciate every single person that interacts with me on this hellsite 🫶❤️

[sanguine-salvation]

*slides over a 🗣 for amity*

[ Send '🗣' + a character to hear the mun's opinion about that character. - ACCEPTING ]

Gonna be real, I had no idea who Amity was as a character before tumblr, and I still have plenty left to learn. But boy, am I just absolutely head over heels for her.

She has such a powerfully terrifying presence and I fucking love it. She is what was left over when the last flame went out under her; hurt, anger, and a lot of pent up revenge left to give that has spiraled out far further than her killers could ever imagine. She's as much the fire that killed her, she is a consuming force, and perfectly encapsulates the 'fine, I'll be your monster' so so well.

But also, I am tickled by the smaller more casually menacing she does, like prodding the inmates or having conversations with them. I think it's fun to have such spooky characters have their smaller moments, and they always feel delightfully natural despite being so very supernatural. Look, a girl has to get bored hanging around that long.

Also, the quality. Holy shit. The drabbles about her relationship with Alienor? Fuck me right up with that, I will have another twenty servings, please. Beatrix? Fucks me up! The continuing pursuit of Olive (who I really should read more of, too)? Oh my gods, fucked up. The batting average is simply immaculate. Amity is an aching old wound that never healed, her rage just festering and eating at her for all the long years.

And congratulations, if you're ancestors are on this fun little list she has, now it's your problem, too!

For real I really feel the love put behind Amity's portrayal, and not just as a fellow lover of the more niche characters. I heavily suggest giving Amity a look if you haven't because she is such a treasure trove of a character.

Also please I am so fucked up over her an Alienor. I have been given the brain worms.

Also also, I have so much fun with her just continuously spooking Viktor because the idea of people not being freed upon death gives them the fuckin' existential willies adfgjhadfkh but then she's gone and turned out kind of interesting in a weird way so they kind of tolerate her existence in utter confusion. Like poking a bruise because it feels funny.

[somethingsupwithdrac]

Ahh, 16 May, wherein our good friend Jonathan meets the Sisters and encounters terrifying heterosexual urges ....Okay, I joke but really, this is where the real horror shit starts to kick in and things get harder to laugh about. Nebulously weird vibes, a bit of casual wall-crawling, yeeting a mirror out a window because foul bauble of man’s vanity? That’s all kid stuff. Now we’re getting into some real unsettling horror shit.

It’s morning and Our Good Friend Jonathan is still Going Through Some Shit. ‘I’m going mad here, everything is terrible, this place is full of nightmares, oh god I’m going to die. Somehow the Count is the least terrible thing here and I hate that, and I know I’m only safe as long as I’m useful to him and I AM NOT OKAY OH GOD HELP ME’ My poor guy is having a breakdown in real time here, just trying desperately to calm down and taking a moment to say ‘Okay, yes, I am losing it, I need to take some time here and write this down so I can focus on something besides how terrified I am and retain a shred of sanity.’

Jon still frightened of the Count’s warning (as he should be) and ending up worrying and writing himself into exhaustion. :( YES GOOD JON YOU HOLE THE FUCK UP IN THE NICE SAFE DUSTY ROOMS AWAY FROM THE TERRIFYING OLD MAN. Just stare out the window at the pretty landscape and don’t think about anything right now except the much less creepy vibes and the long-ago ladies pining for their men who went off to war, Just get some sleep because my friend, you are going to need it if you intend to live through all of this.

“I was not alone.” CHILLS. God, that line is horrifying no matter how many times I read it. Going to sleep thinking you’re safe and hidden because obviously there isn’t anybody else around, and then suddenly discovering that actually someone was there the whole time and now they’re here for you is such a great horror trope when it’s used well, and I love it here. Jon, baby, remember that warning that frightened you so? THIS IS WHAT IT WAS ABOUT.

GOD THIS IS SO CREEPY. Three ladies appearing out of nowhere, casting no shadows, being all otherworldly and predatory, beautiful and terrifying to our poor Jon. (They’re going to eat him, and not in a fun sexy way.)

‘I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth.’ Oh, Jon. :( Still thinking of Mina and how you love her and don’t want to hurt her even when in imminent danger of being eaten. My sweet, sweet cinnamon roll. I could make more jokes here but tbh I love this whole section so much that I don’t want to. There’s such a surreal, languid, dream-fading-into-nightmare-sleep-paralysis quality to all of it-the beautiful ladies, both strange and familiar to Jon; the simultaneous fear and desire for them, the latter of which might well be something imposed as much by their obviously inhuman influence as his own mind and which he can do nothing about and feels incredible guilty for; the whole sequence where he can only lie there frozen with fear and anticipation while they discuss how there are enough “kisses” to go around, and then as one of them actually moves to bite him and-

the surreal bubble he’s trapped in is quite abruptly burst by the Count. This whole scene is incredibly effective, because there the Sisters are, about to kill Jonathan and there’s absolutely nothing he can do, utterly trapped in the moment and experiencing all of these conflicting feelings, and then in comes the Count, who he’s also terrified of, just to make everything that much more nightmarish.

I'm going to leave other reactions to “This man is mine" to the rest of tumblr and just say that holy shit that is terrifying from the lens of ‘mine' as in “my prey to kill/do with as I please", and that this entire paragraph where we really see the Count lose control and display his inhuman nature in front of Jonathan rather than make any attempt to pretend to be a human is great.  

That whole argument between Dracula and the Sisters, about love and whether he is capable of it, all while nearly hissing at each other over Jon like he’s a prime cut of steak is very. Eugh. Repulsive in the best way because it makes it super clear that they are not human and they do not care about Jonathan for any reason other than when he can do for them: for Dracula he’s a useful tool to get to England and settle amongst a whole new population of unsuspecting, unprepared prey, and for the Sisters he’s fresh meat to feed on, and the only quibble here, really, is who gets him first.

“Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done.” I like that this line makes it well and truly clear that Jonathan is disposable and he’s only safe as long as the Count finds him useful, and once he’s outlived that usefulness, he’s gone. He actually twigged pretty quickly in the beginning of all of this to the fact that something was off about his client, that feeling only grew, and now he’s just pretty much heard outright that he’s going to die. 

And then the Count feeds the Sisters a goddamn baby because this is Dracula and they’re all literal monsters.

And poor, sweet Jonathan has finally hit his limit and passes out, waking up back in his room and realizing that, if the entire experience wasn’t some horrible nightmare, the Count must have carried him back to it. Annnd there he goes again, straight back into the land of coping mechanisms, because okay, I don’t have proof this happened, I need to approach this calmly and rationally and look for evidence, and dealing with the new knowledge that as bad as it is to be here in his room where’d he previously been so terrified of being trapped with the Count, it’s comparatively safe and secure, and really not so bad because what’s out there in the rest of the castle is worse.

Also, the thing I couldn’t mention until now because spoilers: I like the contrast between Jonathan’s thoughts yesterday about this room as having once been a soft, comfortable place where sweet, presumably chaste noblewomen lived and dreamed about their beloved beaus, and the current day reality where it’s occupied by this dangerous corrupting force in the form of the Sisters, who are noblewomen in physical appearance only and in reality are decidedly not chaste, delicate, or innocent in any way. 

Jon, please write again soon, hopefully saying that you’ve found a way out of that terrible place. We are all very worried about you.

[stars-in-my-damn-eyes]

O-Ophelia 💙*hands under chin* tell me all about Ophelia

OPHELIA MY BELOVED of course i can tell you about Ophelia

EDIT 2024; OUTDATED INFO THIS IS ALL LIES NOW

First of all, some Basic Information about her:

- She uses she/they pronouns, with a preference for she/her

- She’s 24 at the start of the story, and her birthday is on the 15th of June. Since the story begins in September 2017, this makes her birth year 1993

- Her birth name isn’t Ophelia Harrow, it’s Rhian Vaughn. She changed it after her father and brother fucked off from the GA after being accused of treachery, in order to sever links between them, as Ophelia was fairly important within the GA. However, she does regard Ophelia to be her ‘real’ name, rather than an alias - basically, a name change.

- They’re the deputy leader of the GA’s Division IV - the Division that deals with research and development, as well as creating and upkeeping the GA’s tech and buildings and all of that. Div IV is mainly known for the cool weapons and advancements in medical technology, but they’re also in charge of shit like washing machines and roof leaks and architecture.

- Incidentally, she has a gf, Alice Kingsley, who’s also the proper Head of Division IV. If this sounds like a conflict of interest, it probably is - but Alice didn’t choose them as deputy head, and the GA runs on 60% nepotism and 40% the weirdest meritocracy you’ve ever seen, anyways.

- Following on from that, Ophelia specialises in bioengineering. In a way, it can be argued that a substantial amount of the plot is, as a consequence of this, her fault.

More, less basic info is under the cut:

I actually wrote a backstory snippet about her in March of last year (shortly before I started writing witcher fic, and the jump in writing quality between this short and DttD can be mainly attributed to @/chaoskirin telling me not to be so overly reliant on the past perfect tense (thank u!!).

Since then, i have overhauled most of the details of their backstory, but the broad strokes stay the same - mum died/was killed, got scouted for being a Sciencey Gal and moved to Central, met Alice, befriended Alice, worked together with Alice to help her dad and brother escape the GA (tho the details of this have been COMPLETELY changed simply because i did not vibe with how it happened in OiaSoM), she changes her name and becomes the deputy head of Div IV (AS AN ADULT THO HOLY SHIT 17-YEAR-OLD ESCHER I THOUGHT YOU WERE BETTER AT ASSIGNING ‘GROWN-UP’ AGES TO PEOPLE JFC), and then gets assigned to covertly assassinate Kite Jansen, an architect-turned-Problem, who they later befriend.

Anyhow, the old version can be seen here: Ophelia is a State of Mind. I’m going to rewrite this at some point, to reflect her updated backstory, and with approximately 90% less use of the past perfect tense.

Also OiaSoM kind of sucks as an Ophelia primer because it also leaves out some of the most important elements of their backstory, but that was done on purpose because I do actually plan to write the damn thing as a comic/webcomic eventually. Subsequently, I figured it was kind of stupid to have major plot twists floating around on tumblr tagged with their character name, so unfortunately you don’t Quite manage to unlock all of Ophelia’s tragic backstory here. I mean sure, it’s still full of spoilers because you’re not *supposed* to immediately know that Ophelia used to be with Div IV, but given that even the characters treat it as an open secret in-narrative, i think it’s an okay “spoiler” to give.

Moving on, some less plot-relevant facts about Ophelia:

- Her favourite colour is dark blue or indigo, her favourite food is strawberry jam sandwiches, her lucky number is 13, and her favourite weather is thunderstorms.

- They doesn’t own pets and can’t see themself doing so, but if they did own pets, they’d want a goose, a lizard, a snake, and a few mice. Maybe a turtle.

- She is very intelligent and capable in her chosen field, but she has no ambitions for herself beyond what others tell her to do)

- She’s Welsh and she speaks with a sort of combination mainly-Welsh-but-also-fairly-noticeably-Estuary-English accent due to the fact that she moved to Central, which is populated mainly by the English, when she was 10, which influenced her accent.

- Despite being very book-smart, she’s not overly savvy-smart. Think of her as a high-int, average-to-low-wis sort of character.

- They’re not really a people-person. Despite this, they do manage to accidentally adopt five children (Vixie, Jack, Kaede, Max, and Beanie) once they’re placed on the same Team as them.

- Her gf, Alice, is Max’s older sister. Max also doesn’t like her very much at ALL initially, however, they grow less cold towards each other throughout the story, and eventually get to a point where they can tentatively consider each other friends.

- They, for some reason, are trusted fairly intimately by Mark Grey. It’s concurred upon that part of the reason for this trust is that Ophelia is a fairly shitty actor and thus, to his mind, can be trusted on the basis that it’s pathetically easy to catch her out. However, this information is fairly outdated - during their time in Div IV, they learnt how to put on an excellent poker face. More likely, a greater part of the reason that is trusted by him is that she’s one of the highest-ranking people in the goddamn Alliance (hence their status as ‘“former” Div IV member’ being an open secret) and that position isn’t given to just anyone.

- They suffer from insomnia, and gets regular nosebleeds. The two probably aren’t related.

- She used to smoke, but quit due to the fact that it worsened her insomnia as nicotine is a stimulant. She also abstains from alcohol and caffeine - the first because she dislikes the taste of alcoholic beverages, the second due to her insomnia.

- Ophelia is attracted to women and describes herself as sapphic or wlw. She’s currently questioning whether she is bisexual or a lesbian, having identified with both labels in the past.

- In terms of gender, Ophelia would call themself a demigirl/demi-woman who prefers she/they pronouns.

- Ophelia also has joint hypermobility. She is One Bendy Girl.

Anyways this has been Misc Ophelia Facts with Me, please feel free to ask more questions if there is something that I mentioned here that you want me to elaborate on and THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING 💚💚

[revchainsaw]

The Crow (1994)

Alright Cult of Cult. Do I really need to introduce this one? Let's get all 90s and gothy and maybe brace ourselves for a bit of cringe, but like in a fun way. It's the Holy Grail of Hot Topic, 1994's the Crow Starring Brandon Lee.

Sermon

Apparently before the auto industry totally crashed Detroit was already a total fucked to death pile of burning shit, or at least that's what the crow would have you believe. Sorry Bruce Campbell, and other people from Detroit, but mostly Bruce Campbell. According to the Crow the city of Detroit is the kind of place where gangs of warlock anarchist arsonists will bomb buildings, and murder and rape whoever they feel like and then walk around bragging about it the next day with absolutely zero consequences. Funny then that if Detroit was so bad they had to go to film this movie in Wilmington North Carolina which is definitely a fucked to death pile of burning shit. I can say that, I'm from there and I got the fuck out. My brother is going to kill me if he ever reads this. (It's okay, these are all jokes people). Did you know they also filmed the Super Mario Bros movie there ... also cuz they needed a really shitty looking distopia. Moving on ...

The ludicrous criminality of the Crow's Detroit is particularly on display on Halloween. In Detroit (apparently) Halloween is known as Devils Night and it's legitimately just a night of pure lawlessness and chaos and kids aren't even safe to get candy, except later when we do see trick or treaters. Eric Draven, hunky goth rocker who sort of looks like he could be Bruce Lee's Kid and his fiance are murdered by a gang of vicious criminals. One year hence, Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow (that is actually a Raven), to exact his revenge on the gang that murdered him.

He paints his face like sad Alice Cooper and refuses to listen to Joy Division, just covers. He murders Tin Tin (a knife guy) just for his long gothy duster, he murders Fun Boy and forcibly ejects heroine from her arms and tells her "Go be a good mom now" which actually works. (have I told you about our Lord and Savior Sting? He gave me the strength to get off drugs), he blows T Bird up dick first, and then comes for Skab? Scraap? Scooby? in a meeting of all of Detroits villains and just about kills them all.

He is supported by the most 90s little girl to have ever graced the screen, and I am here for it, and Officer Albrecht, who's played by Ernie Hudson but I like to call him Zeddemore: The Most Underrated Ghostbuster. The leader of the bad guys, who I cannot beleive wasn't played by Brad Dourif or Tom Waits, is pretty interested in the occult. He keeps his witchy girlfriend around and she makes him fun dishes like smoked eyeballs, and her main use is that she knows that the Crow is the Crows weakness. They set Tony Fucking Todd on the bird, and I guess you just have to hurt the bird and not kill it, and Eric loses his healing factor and other macabre undead powers.

The Crow, Jimmy the Raven, pecks out Dr. Girlfriends eyeballs, I honestly forget how Tony Todd gets offed, and Top Dollar gets Gargoyled (that is impaled on a gargoyle). Funnily enough that is more Gargoyle related impaling on screen then in the actual movie Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness where a Gargoyle is supposed to have impaled a guy.

The Benediction

Best Feature: Injustice League

In the Crow we have not only a set of super memorable villains but they are played by the bad guy all stars. John Polito as the most lowly of the bad guys as a kind of sleazy pawn shop owner who buys ill gotten gains. Tony Todd, who's size is really on display here, the freaking Candy Man is in this movie. T Bird is the head of Top Dollars goons and is played by David Patrick Kelly, you might know as the "Warriors Come Out and Play!!" bottle guy from the Warriors, or as Jimmy Horne from Twin Peaks, and of course Top Dollar himself is played by Michael Wincott. Wincott is not a particularly celebrated actor but has played villains effectively in Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, and Dead Man.

Best Set Piece: Detroit Style Hot Dogs

The Set design of the Crow is perhaps one of it's most fantastic features. It's very moody and ethereal. It's just real enough to not take you out of the film, but fantastic enough to set mood and theme above realism. From Eric Draven's apartment, to the church where the final battle occurs they are all fantastic. I think that's why I really wanted to shine the spot light on a very minor set piece that would get nary a mention but just as effectively represents the qualities I was just talking about and that is the Maxi Doggs Hot Dog Stand, where a lot of the films exposition for audience surrogates takes place.

Worst Effect: Freeze Frame

At a few points in the movie the film makers made a strange decision to do these freeze frame transitions. I only noticed it twice in the movie where it was particularly stupid. I'm sure the film makers at the time thought it was a moody and atmospheric choice that highlighted the suffering that Eric Draven was going through, but it didn't age well. If you don't have the sensibilities of a goth girl from 1994 then it's very very hard not to laugh at just how self involved the movie is about it's super sadness.

Worst Feature: Tragic Accident

Solely based on the film itself, it is that very gothic and dated sensibility that hurts the Crow. The little sarcastic dance he does when he flees the police, quoting Edgar Allen Poe, and bowing to Albrecht. These affected behaviors that I'm sure seemed snarky and right on to the target audience only serve to make Eric Draven seem like an unbearable neck beard edgelord and not the troubled dark soul he's supposed to be. I'm sure at the time it seemed unique and gothy but that shit went out of style for good reason, people could see through it. It's a shame that the Crow himself was some of the cringiest parts of this movie now that I'm seeing it as an adult and not a 13 year old middle class boy with no real problems.

This however is not the low point of the movie. It's not news now and if you're reading some dudes review of The Crow on Tumblr then you probably already know the story. The worst thing about The Crow is that Brandon Lee was horrifically killed on set while filming this movie due to some negligible prop malfunctions. A series of unfortunate events that lead to the actor spending 6 hours in surgery fighting for his life before eventually passing. It was not a quick or painless death and it's really impossible to watch the movie without an appreciation for the fact that this kind of fun dark adventure was going to be a vehicle for Brandon Lee's career wound up taking his life. He was 28. I really wish I could have just bitched about the goofy goth stuff and moved on, but that's not the world we live in.

Best Effect: The Gargoyling

Maybe I should have called this best kill. But I'm not sure which it is. The slaying of Top Dollar at the Climax of the film was just super effective. The pointed wings impaling his chest and that horn coming out of his mouth, it was morbid and excellent and just fit the tone of the movie perfectly. I mean how many other movies can you say Cause of Death: Impaled on a Gargoyle.

Best Bird: The Raven

I tried very hard to look up the name of the bird that primarily performed in this movie and could not find anything. There was a Raven once upon a time called Jimmy the Raven, but that was in the 50s and I don't think birds live that long. There was a team of Ravens performing as the crow, they were chosen over crows for their larger size, and more imposing silhouettes. I just think it's so wonderful to see these often maligned birds get a chance to show off their talents. Corvids of all kinds are incredibly intelligent creatures. Im a sucker for animals, if you haven't already figured that out. I really liked seeing the ravens hit their marks, particularly the one whos job it was to drop the wedding ring into Sarah's hand at the end of the film. You can see that greedy little bastard do his trick and then look of camera at his trainer like "treat please!". It's very cute.

Best Actor: Top Dollar Performance

I'd love to take this opportunity to just put praise upon Brandon Lee, he truly gave everything for this role, but unfortunately with what was put to film we actually have very few character moments with Eric Draven. Stuff happens to him, and he does killings and fights. There's definitely some personality, but I felt like I walked away knowing almost nothing about who Eric Draven was. He was clearly a good dude but that and a few hobbies and a relationship and you don't really have a character yet. He's unfortunately not given a lot of acting to do, instead just relegated to stunts and action sequences. That were notably cool.

The bad guys in the Crow have a lot more character and among this who's who of character actors, Michael Wincott takes the cake. Hell he was standing next to Candyman himself, Tony Todd and still stealing the scenes.

Best Character: A Few Good Apples

Is the best character in The Crow really going to be the cop? The commissioner Gordon stand in? yeah, it is. Not to be political, but I don't like cops, but I guess in a world with magical birds and eyeball smoking I can suspend my disbelief and let Ernie Hudson be #1 cop dad. His character is really the heart of the film, since all Eric can do is brood and fight, we have to care about someone in this movie.

Best Sequence: Halloween Party

The best sequence of the movie is of course the scene where Eric Draven busts in on the Devil's Night party planning commission. I think Top Dollar brought Scrappy Doo there just so he could lure out the crow, knowing the baddest assholes in all of Detroit would be gathered it was likely that somebody was going to kill the beast, or if they couldn't at least Top Dollar could get a feel for his enemy. It's a bullet flying action sequence with a ton of weight. I can't put my finger on this all to common weightless third act problem that big budget super hero and action flicks have nowadays, but whatever that issue is, the Crow does not have that issue. From this point on the Climax feels earned and I am invested. For that reason, The Crow is honestly better in spite of its awkwardness, than many of the super hero movies out today.

Worst Sequence: My Guitar Gently Weeps

Speaking of brooding or fighting. The best sequence was fighting, the worst is brooding. I get that Eric was in a band or something, but didn't he have shit to do. It seemed like it was a cool idea for a shot, but for like a whole seen, watching somebody play an 80s guitar solo, that stood out so brazenly from the choices of music in the rest of the movie was extra corny. It felt like someone's( dad trying to relate to their kid. Oh you like Music. The Dresden Dolls eh? Oh man, then you're going to love Slash's Snake Pit!

Summary

The Crow is dated. It is iconic but I wonder how many of the people that hang that poster on the wall have watched that movie since they were kids. It's interesting how what i've liked and disliked about this film have changed so much sense I was a kid. It's a cheeseball fiesta. If you have matured at all beyond thinking that being sad is the same as being deep then you're going to like it a little less than you did when you were younger, but it is still solid. There's not much to hate on. I'd watch it over and over again. I was really afraid it would not hold up at all, but returning to The Crow was a completely positive experience.

Overall Grade: B

[karaslluthor]

supercorp fanfic masterpost pt.2

this has been in my drafts for over a year so here ya go and hasn't been updated since then but if u haven't read these then ur welcome. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

its literally a big ass list jsyk and i did all the tumblr tags back then so idk if they are still the same users but hopefully lmao. 

original part 1 is here boysss

MULTI FICS

somewhere i have never travelled (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9268886/chapters/21008012)

kara and lena visit all different places lenas lived and then they find a home together and its super cute and fluffy I cry

Paranoia Incarnated - @justmickeyfornow

mickey is my fucking supercorp spiritual guider with the best fucking fic and ive read it about 322934 times and still is sooo good. Also the whole heartbeat thing KILLS me. SO MUCH ANGST but literally its worth the death u go through trust me

Transcendent Interactions 

Kara and lena share this bond thing from birth and can feel each others emotions and they finally meet and its so great like im actually fucking in love with this fic and kara gets herself off all the time thinking lena doesn’t know idk just read it u wont regret I stg

Closer and Closer (Until We Collide) - @hallow777 

Im a slut for bed sharing tropes and this is so CUTE like lenas all freaking out because she keeps waking up cuddling kara and alex is oblivious to everything and its just soooo good

So, This Happened?

Drunk kara leaves drunk alex for a more suitable cuddle buddy aka lena lesbian luthor and lena sleeps in a supergirl t shirt bc of course

Sojourn 

Holy mother of fuck as if this fic didn’t absolutely ruin my fucking life??? Lena has to go to London for a month so she invites kara to come with her and lena has a gay awakening and realises shes in love with kara and its SO FUCKING GOOD

just one wrong move (baby, baby)

lena is having karas baby from this alien tech accidentally! And lena is so loved and its so cute like honestly and obviously they fall in love bc duh

hold me, my dear (and don't let go)

kara is a professional cuddler and lena hires her services bc shes a sad touch starved young lady and deserves to have some hugs in her life hello fluff my old friend discovering the moon 

alex and lena brotp and holy fuck does it deliver!!!! Alex is like a wingwoman we all need and kara and lena just need to communicate tbh but AMAZING

Focus on Something You Love, and Breathe

Lex is a little shit as always and wants to kill lena bc he thinks shes in love with supergirl (which she is) so kara says she can stay with her and obviously the angst is juicy and ruined my life. So. Good. Read. It.

Offstage 

College theatre au but like literally one of the best college aus ive ever read!!!! Lenas just a big lesbian and karas confused and they bang secretly and its glorious

it's a boy!

lena takes in a super powered alien baby that falls from the sky and gets a weird neighbor in the form of kara danvers and theres not many chapters yet so im not sure whats happening with kara yet but im super excited for this!!!

Break My Fall 

Kara dates monel but kisses lena as supergirl and its angsty and smutty and all round a good fucking time

carefulness can be damned 

Post 3x7, literally smut with some plot need I say more??

A Foolish Wit - @seabiscuits-us​

if you haven’t read seabiscuits fics are you even a supercorp fan?? Lena needs a husband and Clark Danvers is positively charming and also actually disguised as a man, I mean.. quality content

In My Veins

im soooo excited for this fic because the lena/alex brotp is written so well!!! Basically lena and alex become really good friends bc they both deal with their issues by drinking obvs and kara thinks they are secretly dating and gets upset and im SO READY FOR THIS ANGST

Would You Catch Me If I Fall For You ('Cause I'm falling) 

This is absolutely amazing and so captivating and I was honestly on edge the whole time kudos to the author!!!!! Kara goes back in time to warn lena about her dying on the venture and lena falls in love with her but she disappears and then when real kara and lena meet, kara doesn’t remember knowing lena and ughsalkdhsla its so good.

We Need a New Song

Oh my good golly gosh this fic ruined my life. Ballet au that has barely any ballet and an abundance of GAY and I had to take a moment after reading this to collect myself tbh

and stick it into someone else's heart 

Rhea infected lenas boobs in a cage dress with some weird alien stuff and her and kara have to bang or THEY’LL DIE pretty much but they love each other

The Laws of Fate 

soulmate au where everyone has a red string and lenas points to the sky and shes confused af but it’s a gay slow burn and the angst is good for ur soul

My Sun 

Lena gets into a car accident and kara thinks she died but lex is a maniac and wants lenas help and fdjsaklfs it’s a rollercoaster let me tell you

Mercy on Me 

lena falls under black mercy and in order to bring her back karas has to break her poor little gay heart bc lena thinks her and kara are in looooove AWWW heart shatters

Be your own Hero 

Collection of supercorp one shots!!!!!! Quality content lemme tell yaaaa

pick a blossom and hold it to your breast (honey, you know that’s my love bursting loud from inside) 

kara and lena rely on their late night phone calls with each other and get the feels and go on a date and they are just cute adorable dorks that are nervous  

your voice is pretty, baby (but i’d rather have your pretty skin instead) 

part 2 of pick a blossom ^^^ still adorably cute and a smut chapter I mean come on, treat yoself

Firsts 

kara and lenas first told in the cutest wayyyyyyyy

Whispers 

lena works with lillian to save supergirl and its oh so angsty and kara always believes her girl bc that’s canon

My personal Santa in heels 

Kara loves Christmas almost as much as she loves lena, almost

Timer 

Soulmate AU where everyone can have a device installed to tell them the time until they meet their soulmate, kara and lena love each other but kara cant have a timer installed obvs kryptonian skin and its so cute and soft and angsty

The Fatal Flaw 

Super cool and different fic and keen to see more chapters from this!! Kara doesn’t have her powers (yet) and she meets lena at a party at college and then clark tells her shes actually an alien ooooo im keen

Stay the night 

Lena inherits the national city womens basketball team and star player kara danvers is a muscly babe and they try not to fall in love BUT ITS JUST TOO HARD BECAUSE THEY ARE SOULMATES also I love jack in this such a wingman

1865 

MATTTTTTTTEEEE lena is the daughter of the governor and shes a little rebel. She falls in love with kara but her family has arranged her marriage to monel BUT LIKE THEY JUST LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH btw they are aliens but like in 1865 so cool. Pls update I love this so much

All Our Bodies in the Grass - @seabiscuits-us​

fuckkkkk this fic honestly, amish au and lena knows nothing but kara is down to help her out while also sharing lovely girl mags ;)

B.F.F.W.E.B

Kara and lena are friends with benefits but feels get involveddddd, lenas a useless lesbian

All the little lies 

Kara comes to earth and falls in love with lena but she has to go back to krypton and breaks lenas heart in the process, but she comes back and its only been like 7 months but its been like 3 years for lena!!! (I cant remember exact dates don’t judge me)

half melted m&m's 

lena needs a fake wife to stay in the country so kara is ever so helpful and agrees to be her wife, oh I do love a fake wife trope and this delivers!!!!

The Wrong Superhero 

Lena gets saved by batwoman and supergirl thinks she is super jealous because of superhero-related reasons but shes just in love with lena

We'll Take on the World 

College au, just useless fools in love that need to communicate and make out more

And they call me from beyond the stars 

Omg I LOVE THIS FIC SO MUCH ok so kara is a ghost (still from krypton and stuff) but no one can see her except lena so lena works on trying to get her back into the physical plane of existence so she can find alex but they FIND LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER oh my god so angsty let me tell ya be warned

Wait for me to come home 

https://lostariels.tumblr.com/

idk where to even start on this fic honestly, im pretty sure most people have read this bc it’s a rite of passage but fuck it gets me everytime!!!! Army au and there is so much angst and I love it

An Unexpected Surprise 

supercorp baby au!!! Kara and lena bang and kara ends up preggers. Iconic  

Days in a Lifetime 

Kara and lena grow up together, massive slowburn but worth the wait!!!!! ACTUALLY GO AND READ ALL OF STENS BECAUSE I JUST REALISED HOW MANY I PUT IN HERE AND THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GREAT

Do you wanna (like you know I do) - @seabiscuits-us​

another seabiscuit, I couldn’t not put this in!!! CAPE COD and sharing of bunk beds!!! Pls update this my soul is withering away

Purple and Black are my Favorite Colours 

Kara gets in contact with kryptonite that makes her gp! And her and lena b a n g    

ONE SHOTS

danishes and other sweet treats 

oh my fuck this is so cute and its like a long one shot so I mean get on it because kara and lena go to a conference and share a hotel room need I say more  

Sun Kissed 

Kara takes lena on a roadtrip to the science museum for her birthday and my good golly gosh its so cute I could ascend to heaven

Only Human 

A one shot with two chapters in different POV but lenas jealous of monel and then supercorp bang and its all angsty and lena protects kara and tbh they need to communicate but happy endings and love all round

The Right Thing 

Lena freaks out because lex knows her and supergirl are dating and does the most dramatic thing (of course) by distancing herself from kara and did I say angst???/ also I cried multiple times in this

funny how the stars crossed right 

Kara and lena keep meeting at parties and have super dorky costumes and fall in love (literally love anything written by you btw, im going to go ahead and say I would have all yours bookmarked so everyone just check them ALL out)

Accidental Text

kara accidentally sends a love confession to lena and its short and cute!      

Unspoken Promises

supergirl and reign battle and lena finds out about kara being supergirl and supercorp are just obliviously in love

Green (Kara loves it and hates it in equal measure)

Im a sucker for a jealous trope and boy does this deliverrrr. Karas hella jealous of lena having other friends but realises its because shes super in love with her

Crush

Karas jealous because lena is flirting with supergirl but lena knows kara is supergirl so shes actually flirting with kara, nice!

My Donuts

Karas really jealous of sam and lena spending heaps of time together and then kara walks in on them having donuts and she fucking loses it because its their thing duh.

when we get there 

Lena invites kara to her beach house to chill and they obvs fall in love because they are cute af

Have a Break 

Lena is determined to work out how to use a vending machine to get kara her candy and kara and winn are watching it all unfold via cameras in catco, basically lena vs. the machine (himym singing voice)

Self doubt and comforting talks 

Drunk kara, comforting lena fluff and adorableness

Shopping carts and a beautiful girl 

Kara crashes into lenas car in a shopping cart and they go on a date and its SO CUTE

Distractions 

lenas oblivious to kara being supergirl even though kara slips up all the time!!! #nicehalloweencostumekara

Lip Bites & Long Gazes 

lenas a big gay flirt and kara gets frustrated and flustered and calls her out and they make out

Off the Record 

kara spots lena at a gay club and they dance and make out *lizzie mcguire voice this is what dreams are made of*

Not so secret 

the superfriends take a weekend away and kara and lena bang pretty much smut but its cute

come be my lover, be my getaway car 

How many amazing tropes can you fit into one fic (aka the fic that made me lose my fucking mind oh my god its so good, had it include)

A one time thing

Kara and lena end up banging in a motel and kara has an internal meltdown its great

This is Home 

Listen here, this is the most adorable thing my two eyes have ever witnessed. Lena doesn’t really have a home kara the sweet soul she assists her in finding a home with her (aka its kara, kara is her home get it)

Her Biggest Fan 

lena is apart of the supergirl fandom, aka shes me

Drunk Puppy

kara being a drunk gay mess wanting to hunt seashells with lena

Act Natural

kara and lena have hickies and try to hide them on a beach trip with the gang  

Like a date, date 

kara asks lena on a date and lena has a gay panic attack pretty much

Datable 

everyone thinks kara and lena are dating so they just start dating? Amazing

Stop following me, creep 

Please clarify 

Lena tries to tell kara she loves her and wants to date but karas an alien and just doesn’t get it, so cuteeeee

Fate is Written in the Ink (part 1) 

Fate is Written in the Ink (part 2)

Soulmate au!!!! Any ink on your skin appears on your soulmates and omg its so cute like kara draws all this art on herself and lena gets to see it too!!!!!

Muddle my heart (then add a dash of lime) 

Kara keeps going to the bar because punk/bartender Lena is a babe and she has a big lesbian crush on her

be hopeful, don't get broken (stay caught up in the moment) 

angsty dog au and I mean PUPPIEs and SUPERCORP need I say more?

The makings of a family 

Clark is the one who arrives after being stuck in the phantom zone and kara has to look after him and lena helps her out and wow new baby for supercorp

Let Your Guard Down 

Lena in a DEO uniform sparring with kara and its so angsty because lenas mad at kara for not telling her the supergirl secret and then they bang and did I already mention lena in a DEO uniform???  

Do you not like the service here?

Thirsty kara and waitress lena, lenas jealous of alex l o l

here is where time is on our side (part 1) 

our corner of the universe (part 2) 

long oneshot but fuck me its so good. Post daxamite invasion/mon-el coming back and both are healing from everything and go on a roadtrip just wherever the map takes them and oh my fuck its so cute and everything u want in a fic. Part two is the follow up

The Uncanny Valley 

cadmus replaces real lena with a robot version and kara didn’t know but then kara finds lena and its cute  

put these battered bones to rest 

soulmate au (you should know by now im a sucker for a good soulmate au), lena has a foreign name on her hip (its kara btw)

pain

another soulmate au hhehehe soulmates feel each others pain obvs both these babies have a lot of paiiiiiin in their lives

Love is Garbage 

Literally a garbage truck au, im not even going to say more

i know you're out there somewhere waiting (i know the stars can hear us praying) 

Whats this??? Another soulmate au!!! Classic lover one arm, enemy on the other, honestly lena deserves more and just waits for kara to love her and I love this fic, also they help sam!!  

Monster in the Mirror 

Supercorp reveal in the middle of the lena/edge poisoning children episode oooooooh so angsty but happy love ending

Safety 

Supercorp first ever sleepover!!! This is so cute stop

Please Clarify 

Lena tries to ask kara out in every single way possible and kara is an oblivious alien

love is a flower, you gotta let it grow 

Unrequited love makes u grow flower petals in your lungs but when ur love is returned it clears up, this was dope and I love ur work

where our hands hurt from healing - @seabiscuits-us​

its seabiscuit do I need to say more?????? I will tho. Alex and lena match on tinder and become besties and I live for alex/lena brotp so….

blessed be (the mystery of love) - @seabiscuits-us​ 

*dj Khaled voice* ANOTHER ONE, look I love every single fic this one does not disappoint and nothing like a good light hearted first date fisting hahahahahaha

The Luthor and the Super That Saved the World 

Fit it fic for the season three finale where there is more supercorp and less shit writing, LOVE STENS WORK

Kara Danvers and the Brown Belt of Lesbianism 

Karas gay brown belt that she always wears that makes her look like a big ol lesbian drives lena mental bc she so gay

SIN

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING BY JAZZFORDSHIRE IM NOT FUCKING JOKING LET YOURSELF FALL INTO THIS SMUTFEST AND LIVE UR BEST FUCKING LIFE AND IF YOU HAVENT READ THE CAMPING AU UR NOT EVEN A SUPERCORP STAN

Pleasure 

like sweat dripping down our dirty laundry 

What Happens in the K Room Doesn't Stay in the K Room 

green-eyed monster

Kara shows Lena what makes her Super 

Supergirl, Kara, and a Luthor walk into a bar... 

Late Night Heroics 

Good Vibrations 

Two Lena Luthors and a blonde walk into a bedroom... 

Her perfect match 

Girls' Night 

Happy Halloween, Supergirl 

What She Wants 

make the rules then break them 

an animal within an animal 

THE WILDEST THING IVE EVER READ, STRAP THE FUCK IN (youll understand my pun when you’ve read it)

[keyofjetwolf]

Bonus Question Answers! (anime heat 3)

I asked a silly question! You gave me incredible answers. SO VERY MANY INCREDIBLE ANSWERS. If yours is listed below, you’ve earned an entry in a random draw to win a GIFTENING liveblog OF YOUR CHOICE

SURPRISE EVERYONE WHO ANSWERED THIS ONE GETS AN ENTRY (with extra entry if you pulled a specific line). This has been such a struggle for me for the past ... you know, million years or something, and each of you made me feel so good, thank you. ♥

—

Q: This is reaching back into the memory a bit, I know, but what's your favourite of my fanfic? (BONUS BONUS ENTRY if you pull a specific line!)

*  i cannot remember a specific line off the top of my head but i remember the post-S series dealing with usagi's trauma from pharaoh 90 (sound of silence?) was a gut punch and a half --  anewconstellation

~~

* "Blue shirt. Pearl buttons." I think this was the first time I read you writing the Outers, particularly Neptune and Uranus, and, uh, holy shit. Absolutely note-perfect dialogue and dynamic, particularly for that period of Sailor Moon S when Michiru and Haruka used intimacy of speech and gesture as an instrument of distancing and obfuscation (of their goals to the Inners, of their hearts to themselves and to each other, of the heli-pad to the staff at Mugen Academy, etc). It was so clear, and so clearly *them* that I could actually hear the intonations of their respective seiyuu. And then to deploy such spot-on character elements in combination with the stakes and the maturity the anime never reached for, my WORD, are you trying to kill me??? The pacing, the restraint! What an absolute gift. You're a wonder. (also your drabbles are fuckin peerless, and the BTL concept is such a clever series framework)  -- @rasiqra-revulva​

~~

*  This was so hard to pick from, but I finally settled on "Cause and Affect" - it's such a heartbreaking story, but the juxtaposition between the clinical lines of information from the computer to the memories Ami is dealing with to the horror of the visuals around her... it's so bright and sharp and PRESENT.  It keeps me in the story, that mix of tones and feelings.  And the final line?  Perfection.  "Number of regrets: none"  What an amazing take on Ami and how she processes information and how she deals with the situation she is in.  I still get chills up my back when I read the story.  -- @amberlilly​

~~

*  I love your Between the Lines series, it's how I found your Tumblr and liveblogs back in the day -- @amboato​

~~

*  Author Alert.  “So never, ever, going to live this down.” -- @crunchbuttsteak​

~~

*  "Of her word" quote "But for all that, it remained sand. Rei erased it with one swipe."  -- Dei

~~

*  Between The Lines. Adding further character/emotional depth to canon is YES PLZ. I really liked the whole idea of Usagi having trauma post-Pharaoh 90 and all the chapters that hit on that. On a less serious note Chibs' circus-related PTSD and freaking out when Hotaru wants to go to the circus kills me every time. ("But your precious dreams Hotaru-chan!")  -- forgottenfae

~~

*  This is probably the obvious choice, but "The Sounds of The Silence" has haunted me in all the best ways since I first read it. The way you write Rei, Usagi, and Rei and Usagi hits me right in the heart every time. This particular fic, with Usagi so traumatized, and Rei being as soft and gentle as Usagi needs, will always stick with me. I pulled up the fic to try and narrow down a single line, and ultimately there's no real debate. "She would never stop trying to do more, but for now, she simply did this." That line is, at its core, the essence of Rei Hino. And it is perfection.  -- gatorsandglitter

~~

*  I don't expect this to win at all, just sharing,, but I just super fondly remembered the goggles and all the amazing content, meta, and fic those inspired, both from you and others  -- @goosebytrade

~~

*  "You Win or You Die"  my favorite line is "She and Rei WOULD have The Moment, they WOULD get their thousand years of bliss, and they WOULD be making out after all this was over. Like, SO HARD."  -- @i-needa-nap-please

~~

*  I'm always really bad at answering questions like this because my mind has pretty much become a goldfish in my old age and I have a hard time remembering specific fics; it all sort of starts to jumble up in my brain and things get lost. But I have always loved reading your writing, it's what got me onto this godforsaken website in the first place -- it was just before Crystal dropped, and we were all foolishly full of hope and excitement, and you were going through the Moon Pride video and waxing poetic about the FRIENDSHIPS and I was like, "YES! Finally! Someone who understands why I love this stupid kids' show!" I think I sent you an ask saying this before, (but who knows if you ever got it, Tumblrs being what they are - indifferent) but I tried reading fanfic and even published novels based on properties, like the Buffy novels and Star Trek and Star Wars novels, for a long time, and mostly found it frustrating and annoying and just... wrong. It always had this awkwardness and clunkiness to it that didn't do anything for me and just constantly screamed "THIS IS A FANFIC IT IS NOT REAL WRITING" at me. Didn't like it. But, I liked yours. Yours didn't feel awkward or clunky. You have never written any sentences like, "Rei watched the blonde stand up" where "the blonde" is Minako, and I don't know why fanfic writers think that calling characters "the blonde" or "the redhead" or whatever is sexy or cute but it ain't (sorry, pet peeve tangent). So, when you were writing stuff more, I would read it like it was going out of style, and you led me to Doc's writing, which had the same natural, "this is real writing" quality, and I loved hers, too. Anyway, my favorites of yours have always been the Between the Lines stuff. I just love the "hidden" moments that we didn't get to see. The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead bits of Sailor Moon (speaking of fanfic that actually works) that bring so much depth to characters we know and love already or to characters we see only briefly. Also, the Shadow Senshi, because FUCK. Just... Kill Me. In any event, I know that writing has been difficult for you of late, and I know how that feels, so I hope that people who are actually able to answer this question have given you some places to go and draw strength from so that it can become part of your life again. TBH, I've been using the bonus questions on your Giftening surveys and Doc's 8 Days surveys as an excuse to try doing some small bits of quick, no pressure, nobody's gonna see it unless you or Doc actually LIKE it, don't think about it writing, and it has been helpful. I hope you can find something that gives you the same opportunity. Now that I've written you a novel that doesn't even answer the question you asked (goldfish, remember? *sigh*), have a gorgeous Tuesday!  -- @incorrecttact

~~

*  The one with Pluto and Queen Serenity, where Serenity is selfish in a very Usagi way, but her arrogance combined with that selfishness makes it a fatal flaw? I liked that one a lot. -- Jules

~~

*  the bit you wrote to 'fill in' a gap for why during r did mamoru act like a distant jerk. My favourite parts were Rei coming to see the same dream, and despite being the one to have the biggest reason to believe in these kinds of prophetic visions, Rei still doesn't believe fate is set in stone. -- just... a fan. a well-baked one

~~

*  Make It To New Year's -- @kaleidodreams

~~

*  ahhh, where is a link to all of your fanfic? It's the series you started after S, with Rei comforting Usagi, because like you I was let down by the fact that they never followed up on what Usagi saw, or even how she dealt, with the end of S. runner up: the one where Usagi is about to give birth because everything you write with Rei and Usagi is amazing. -- kari

~~

*  There was a drabble/draft/something that you used one of my prompts for, and I prompted you with Usagi and Rei, but you did it from Luna's perspective and THAT WAS SO UNEXPECTED and it turned out SO GOOD cause like!!!!!! You made Sailor Moon both someone Luna cares for, because still the legacy of the moon, and someone utterly discouraging for her because *this should not be*, and wow what a way to make it both about Usagi herself and about her powers.  -- katrani

~~

*  I love the btl fics, they fill in the missing gaps, add depth to the story, and sometimes smooth over things (SuperS) when canon is just...blah. One line I really liked was: “I was listening, at first, but then I started thinking about how hungry I was, and how a pork bun would be really good right now, and then I wondered what makes a thing a bun, and like, if you put ANYTHING in a bun, does it become a Thing-Bun, so could you make a bun out of another bun and would it be a Bun Bun, and wouldn’t that be the greatest thing to– Rei?” It's a great run-on, stream of thought sentence that just really catches Usagi's voice, is hilarious, and such a natural progression. -- @kumeko

~~

*  “HUG,” Usagi demanded again, because dammit, she’d been promised a hug and SOMEONE was going to deliver. (The one where Michiru has the hiccups. Because it's fun HaruMichi stuff, because it weaponises Usagi in a useful way, because it manages to (gently) make fun of both perfect!Michiru and saint!Usagi without being mean to either character, and also because I get hiccups a lot and I haaaaate them.) -- nerdy-flutterings

~~

*  I can't remember a specific fic, but I LOVE your Shadow Senshi headcanons and they're the main reason I started writing my own Shadow Senshi stories. -- @notesfromtheidiotbox

~~

*  The Figuarts saga is the Sailor Moon fic I never knew I needed -- Raye

~~

*  Special Delivery is a delight. So much Rei Certainty (that ends up being misplaced). So much Usagi being The Most Usagi About Pregnancy. So much Comedic Hijinks, because why the hell WOULDN’T ‘the Senshi get blindsided when Usagi goes into labor’ end up going full screwball? There’s a lot of great lines there (Rei’s theory about Chibs taking control of the Gate of Time and manipulating things is fantastic, as is the ending,) but my favorite is definitely “Rei Hino if I give birth to my daughter on the side of the road I swear I will go back in time and tear all the pages out of your favorite coloring book! [...] I’ll break the crayons too, Rei-chan!” Delightfully specific and childish, especially since Usagi sticks with it, and that particular brand of comic specificity is definitely a highlight of yours. -- Regalli

~~

*  Fire on Mountain!!! When I got to “Her voice was deeper than most expected when facing the certainty of her. It was rough, sandpaper running over cherry. She’d been a singer, once. Nobody would have believed her.” I was like oh. OH! -- Sasha

~~

*  My favorite of your fanfic, one one of the first I read is 'Hard to Break'. And my absolute favorite line is Usagi's panic when Minako tries to smoke: "Minako who was almost certainly dying, the cigarette had spread its evil and killed her instantly oh god."  -- @shavedjudomonkey

~~

*  Tonight Ami would grieve, and wish she understood why.'  This Between the Lines about Ami getting her mini computer both haunts me and brings tears to my eyes.  -- @shonasof

~~

*  I can't remember the title, but it's the one where Minako realizes that Rei's been writing Sailor V fanfic under the name Red Bow -- Somariel

~~

*  You would think Mako-chan's Happy Ending, but nope, this one goes to Hard to Break (although I had to look up the exact name.) This thing is filled with such great lines. How am I supposed to pick out one? "[Watch out, boys,]" Minako said in smooth and entirely unnecessary English. "[Lady Super Cool is on the prowl.]" -- Ultrace

~~

*  I forget the title, but it's the 'last senshi standing' fic where Ami is reflecting on the battle that took the others from her. Detatched and cold as she analyzes Rei Minako and Mako and finally Usagi's death with a medical efficiency, going through her Visors readout and then reflecting that the clinical words were nothing compared to what she'd actually seen. following up the method of death of the senshi with a statistic in relation to her friendship with the girl. Number of milkshakes shared, number of conversations lasting well into the night, number of hugs, number of smiles that brightened the darkest of moods. Describing how Rei's heart was pulped in a monster's grip, Minako's once beautiful face smashed against the rocks, Mako's lightning that outlived its mistress as she and Usagi ran off, and then finally that one last attempt to protect Usagi failing as 'Cervical Fracture' flashes on her visor. And From there she just... accepts death. sitting beside where Usagi had fallen and waiting for the end. it's dark af but it's the first one that always comes to mind when i think about ur fics :>  -- Vega

~~

*  I am extremely predictable here with two of my choices, as you know that I am obsessed with Fire on the Mountain and Blue Shirt, two things you wrote when you "definitely couldn't write" (Sidenote: My new year's resolution is to be harder on your about writing) We all know why I love blue shirt, it's basically an underhand pitch to the face for me, but Fire on the Mountain has a quality of regret and longing that I really connected with, something that really struck me in a way that was powerful. It's different from a lot of your inners work, and I think about Mina posing as Rei, in her disguise magic in the woods, and all the reasons why, fairly often. Something that MAY come as a surprise to you, is I really wish we got more ofyour overwatch stuff, and maybe I'll just keep asking for this for my birthday for the rest of our natural lives, but I think of like, the one you wrote on 7/14/20, with Pharah longing to have a man to shoot in the face because that would be easier than the emotions around whatever's going on with her, and I'm utterly tantalized. And I loved that hurt/comfort you wrote for me, where Pharah had this single minded drive to find out what had happened to Angela, and Tracer's trying to, well, comfort her, on some level, and the way you described Pharah's "animal cry" was FANTASTIC, and as always I am deeply jealous of your Tracer voice and IF YOU WOULD WRITE IT MORE IT WOULD HELP ME. -- WRITE, BITCH.

~~

*  The one were Hotaru confronted Michiru and Haruka about how they had tried to kill her in order to stop the Silence. Such a good little moment =w= -- zorrito

~~

AND THEN THESE WERE UNSIGNED SAD FACE

*  Chosen. I like your Overwatch stuff but Chosen was a goddamn masterpiece.

*  Operation: Heart Angels. Senshi going after Mamoru for his bullshit was something I didn't know I needed.

*  The entirety of Beggars Would Ride, including every single line of Anya's dialogue.

—

I’ll be drawing for the bonus liveblog around the start of THE GIFTENING 2020 (currently looking to be Monday, 11 January 2021). Each bonus question is another chance to earn an entry! I CAN ABSOLUTELY AND SHAMELESSLY BE BOUGHT.

[farcryfuckmeup]

Hiya! Ok this might be a weird request so idk if you wanna do it. But I love imagining living with the Seeds as like an adoptive family member but instead of being a freaky cult they’re just a dysfunctional family trying to live peacefully in Montana after their troubled youths. But anyway, could I get like, headcanons on what reader would do with the each of the Seeds? Like John taking them on plane rides, or fishing with Jake? I like to think they have family dinners and bonfires some nights😄

Joseph Seed

joseph is the type of guy that loves to just have quality family time with the people he cares about.

he loves to bring back old board games that you guys had when you were children. things ruined by old man seed are things he’s determined to cover with good memories.

each time you come over or your family comes to you, he shows up with a new puzzle of a minimum 500 pieces.

he likes to stay/see you for a few days at a time, as often as life permits.

joseph will let you call him or sit down and talk about problems going on with your life, and try to come up with solutions if you want them.

Jacob Seed

jacob likes to cart the family on camping trips, no matter how much john complains about needing internet for work and loving his luxury brands.

he’ll invite everyone out to his cabin in the woods for winter vacations. there’s enough room for everyone and two guests to stay there.

you can call him up whenever you like if you need something, and he’s already halfway to your place. his ptsd from the war still keeps him up at night.

he’s a real handy-man and whenever you whine about something being busted or not knowing how to fix something, jacob will come over and try to fix it. 

jake will teach you little crafts like whittling and wood-working. he made you a table as a house warming present when you moved into your house.

John Seed

john likes to take everyone on vacations. jacob usually swipes his phone when john starts sitting on it too much.

you guys have been to various spots around the state, including going back home to Rome to check up on his recovery project. you didn’t leave each others’ sight for the next week and everyone was more touchy-feely than normal.

you have to constantly turn down his offers for money. he’ll offer to help you buy a new car, a house, clothes, ect. its his way of showing you affection and trying to make up for lost time.

you guys go out to dinner once a week and take turns paying, but when it’s john’s week you guys usually go somewhere nice.

he’ll bring gifts every now and then for everyone to have whenever he goes on business trips or just because he saw something and thought of you.

Faith Seed

faith will bring all the fresh produce and fruit for dinners and lunches when you guys get together and cook at home.

“holy shit these are so good. i wish i could garden as well as you.” “i could teach you if you’d like?” “oh my god really? i mean, i kill everything so i don’t know how well it would work.”

she’ll bring you and the boys flower arrangements from her florist’s store as little gifts and to add some color to your houses. jacob’s are always the first to die. joseph’s live the longest.

when you go on junk food binges, faith is the person you turn to for help with healthy recipes.

my first post since school started and my first submission for far cry 5 week! i hope you like it and i’m sorry it took so long! my masterlist can be found here and my archive is here! (i’m working on getting my ao3 up to date with tumblr) also!!!! i’ve hit 400 followers! check out this post to see what’s going on to celebrate!

[theliterarywolf]

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime  via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I... 

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub. 

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece. 

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse. 

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him. 

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these: 

Exchange 1 - 

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was... 

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

[acosmic]

thots on dolls, i'm curious abt how u got into them/what u like abt them

dolls are neat! sometimes you’re a fourteen-year-old kid with unrestricted internet access living in a town without art and a best friend who you hate as much as you hate yourself -- but this friend has good taste sometimes and oh no

they show you, or you find, this, and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. (taste is an acquired thing, i don’t know what i was thinking). and then there’s her (it’s been eight years and i’d still sell my soul for her) and her and these and these and even this hideous fucker has amazing detailed construction and tiny intricate details if you look closely even though he’s ugly as all hell (his owner and i are no longer friends, he was not a factor but i’m so glad i get to trash him because jesus christ what IS that). and you look into it a bit further and holy shit you can customize them, they come in one colour and sometimes in pieces and when you’re doing their makeup you’re actually pretty much adding their skin since they don’t have blood vessels or freckles or anything. and you can make their clothes and wigs and shoes (it’s way cheaper that way) and there are wildly different sizes and styles and levels of poseability and they only really became a thing in the late 90s so the older ones look simplistic and awkward but they still look sweet. some of them have intense expressions, or stylized ones, but most of them only come with one face and photographing them is like making postmortem pictures look lifelike.

they have this weird sense of personality to them, even the serene-looking ones. when i bought ada (third link above), it was kind of terrifying? she was tiny and fragile and the seller didn’t put her head on and she came in a pink child-size shoebox with all these tiny tiny clothes and accessories with her face painted on (here she is) and she was literally seventeen centimetres tall. i hate kids, i’m not a fan at all, but it was like seeing a new baby. and then she was a brat! she doesn’t like holding poses, her limbs snap around, her head lolls around on its socket, and she goes cross-eyed if you bump her slightly. she can’t decide on a hairstyle or eye colour, she hated her original face and she hates how i redid it, and she’s too tiny and delicate to take anywhere. i love her so fucking much. i’ve had her since i turned sixteen, and i’m twenty-two now. the reason i like lola so much isn’t just that hesitant alien is a kickass album, it’s because there’s this weird little creature and it’s you and it’s also not you and it’s your best friend and a strong critic of your every move and it’s cute and it’s fuzzy and it’s not real like a person but it’s kind of more real than that?

other dolls are cool too. i’ve spent more time with this $40 impulse purchase than i have with all $200 USD of ada, and i love her a lot too, but in a different way. some people use dolls to “shell” their characters, but mine tend to just happen, and ada’s character is more important than emi’s, no matter how cooperative emi is. one of my other oldest dolls is a pair of legs (because she’s the type you can buy as separate parts) and i keep putting off assembling her entire body because she feels like art and she’s kind of my favourite weird sculpture now. even the ones that don’t work out are really neat to have around -- most doll hobbyists sell members of their collection that don’t work, some are like revolving doors, others keep everything, so there’s always a secondhand market going that you can add to or pull from, or just look at for inspiration.

the customization aspect is really fun, too. some of them you have to reinvent from the ground up (i finally got a blythe and that’s what i’ll be doing with her as soon as my WIP list is at a better point), others you have weirder tasks on, like dyeing or repainting a body to revitalize it/suit a character (doing that to a unoa kit like the one pictured above) or modifying it to improve poseability or visuals (i’ve been hacking at a barbie body so she can bend her legs to fit in her wheelchair). sculpting your own dolls is a super-involved process, but i’ll do that eventually too (reading books about it is really meditative, especially since they tend to be in other languages so you have to inspect the pictures super closely. it’s like targeted dreaming). making doll clothing was a really strong draw for me for a while -- i wasn’t happy with how i exist in a body and it’s never the way i want, so i used dolls as kind of clothing horses for styles or designs i wouldn’t or couldn’t wear myself. now that i feel better about that, the dolls just kind of get what they want (and i’ve been neglecting them to sew for myself lmao but they don’t mind).

my phases run in weird cycles, so i’m really out of the loop on new developments relating to anything other than mattel inc. (the fashion doll community on tumblr is great), but it seems like the hobby is getting a lot more creative and a lot less stale than it was the first couple of times i was really into it. it’s this fluid, ever-changing thing that makes jumping back in really interesting (and a lot of work), but there’s still this comforting base to it that stays the same (use respiratory protection and high-quality materials when doing faceups, don’t buy recasts, volks/fairyland/alchemic labo are popular and cute). and if you swap doll types, there’s months/years more of entertainment. (i have big gay autism, or, like, adhd-autism crux/combination, and research is so fun)

dolls are great! they’re like muses, photography subjects, OCs, clothes horses, mascots, art projects, and (sometimes) investments all at once. whatever kind of phase i’m in, there’s something i can do with them. and they’re good company, and great for decoration and indulging your goth sensibilities and freaking out your visitors if you feel like it

random bag of onions to finish off: creepy and cute are accidental and if you deliberately aim for them you’ll get boring off-base results, what kayla said about s*x dolls applies to other types of doll too (if you try to put too many conventionally attractive features together you’ll just end up with something uncanny and grotesque instead of something really beautiful), toyetic design is for babies, doll hobbyists esp. forum communities still have a lot of unconscious biases esp. racism and homophobia to unpack, recasting is art theft and is killing the community via its artists but barbie/blythe/integrity knockoffs are basically a moral responsibility, and art dolls with huge hips are the new minifee chloes

[saint-patrice]

it’s time for another one, friends!! today we are loving and appreciating mr charles patrick mcavoy (i, personally, do this every day). this one is for @softboybradenholtby/@cheeksavoy​, thank you for encouraging my nonsense!

Note: a few people have said they like these posts, so i’m happy to take requests if there’s a particular player you’d like to see! see this page for details, and a list of ones i’ve done so far :)

is a young charlie mcavoy attacking his usa teammate with a hug not the best thing you have seen all day? perhaps not, but it has to rank pretty high, because it’s adorable. also makes for a good meme template, for example i would label charlie as “me” and colin white as “the bruins,” “my mutuals,” or even “charlie mcavoy”

(gif via @gaudreau) quick!! someone arrest him for Too Handsome crimes

(gif via @davidpastrnak) the only thing better than charlie mcavoy is charlie mcavoy with glasses!!! and that is a scientific fact. i’m not sure i can cope with how much i love him

there are so many pictures of our boys with pups and i appreciate that to no end. this one in particular

(gif via @werenski) this is the first gif of charlie i have saved on my phone and i think that’s very valid of me. are there any pictures of the rest of this suit anywhere? because it looks amazing - i love the blue on him!! he is positively radiant here, and that single loose corl improved my quality of life by 250%

(gif via @phillymyers) how can you not love him???? he’s just laughing his life away after his first career fight (against none other than pld), and then when he got out of the box he proceeded to provide an assist to get a gordie howe hat trick!!! fucking legend and a half right here. oh, and he was 19 at the time

“This kid's fucking jacked. Thick, dense, built whatever you wanna call him he's got it. Legs thicker than my chest, and shoulders wider than my wingspan. Making full use of his frame and with the golden flow to top it off. He dwarfed us all. Bonafide stallion.”  (if you’re currently wondering what sort of crack i smoked before making this post, just click the link)

if these 2 aren’t your favoruite d-pair you may need to re-evaluate your life choices. i just love them so much, and i love that every clip of cmac hugging zee just has him looking like he’s clinging onto a tree for dear life. heavy father-son vibes,, very adorable

how does he actually do it...how does he look this good all of the goddamn time. if i didn’t love him i would hate him for it yknow

every single photo and piece of video from charlie at world juniors is so premium - and he won gold!!! i’m very proud. i want to kiss his face so bad okay

don’t let his sweet face deceive you though, this is a “big boy” we are dealing with, to use hockey terms. and looking at this it is immediately obvious that he could kill me with extreme ease, so i am slightly afraid. luckily he only uses his v strong arms for good, like holding dogs and beating the living shit out of p*narin!!

this is such a mess of a photo and i love it. what the fuck is he doing. i showed this to a friend (non-hockey literate) and asked her to guess what height both of them were. i forget her answer but when i told her charlie was 6′ she had an existential crisis that only got worse when i told her how tall zee actually was. basically charlie is just our 6 foot baby long beach dman

LOOK AT THIS SHIT!!! HE HASN’T CHANGED A BIT

i went from learning that charlie had a tattoo, with a dodgy quality picture where it was barely visible, to then seeing this video and this photo in the space of 2 days and i think it’s going to take me a long time to recover from that having those revelations at such breakneck speed. this man is a mf Machine

(gif via @chuckersbean) okay i promise this is my last slightly self-indulgent inclusion of proof that this man is Lorge. i mean jesus christ just run me over already, i’m begging you

when i said earlier that the only thing better than charlie mcavoy was charlie mcavoy in glasses, i may have failed to take charlie mcavoy in glasses with a santa hat holding a 4ft teddy bear into consideration - my bad. this is very endearing and i am kin with whoever put the heart stickers on this photo 

bahhhhh look at this ridiculous man. who gave him the right to be this handsome in his coat and his glasses and his beanie?? he’s nothing short of amazing and i will not be taking questions on that opinion

(gif via @marchnds) baby! baby boy!!!! if you don’t cherish him i will appear in your room at 4am holding a large wordsearch book which i will use to beat some sense into you

(gif via @davidpastrnut) i included this gif in my top 5 chuckie post, but i love it to the moon and back, and this is my blog dammit, so i’m putting it in again. i cannot explain why but something about this is so goddamn cute it makes my heart do things and i just adore this boy and his backward cap and shitty beard so fuckin much okay

this is the cryptid i see in the corner of my room when i wake up with sleep paralysis in the middle of the night

looks like he has no idea what’s going on here and like,, me the fuck neither charlie

(this is an elusive gif that i can find no real source for despite trawling through tumblr for 20 minutes. google just says it’s from giphy. if it’s yours please hmu)

there it is folks!! the smile that brightens my day no matter what!!!! charlie really does have the most infectious of smiles though, you just love to see it (at least, i do) i am desperately hoping we make a move to keep him in boston this offseason. because, even with my emotional attachments aside, i think he is going to go on to do incredible things with his career, and i totally agree with people saying they think he’ll be wearing the C someday. i mean just look at what he’s already achieved by the age of 21 for christ sakes 

lmao 

(gif via @i-hate-hockey) i literally never want to see chuckie sad. ever. he is perfect in every way always. also what’s his skincare routine holy moly

(gif via @gaudreau) stunning!!!! magical!!!! ravishing!!!!! handsome!!!! gorgeous!!!! divine!!!!! and so much more! this whole interview with him is just delightful, tbh i always find his media stuff v enjoyable. he gives really genuine answers (not that other people don’t but like,, maybe he’s just young enough to not have had to revert to cliches constantly because he’s answered every question before idk), and i think his personality comes across well. he seems like a very fine young man

#ISaidYes

this is literally just every hockey player trying to use all 3 of their brain cells to come up with a sentence that doesn’t include ‘chip it in’ or ‘get pucks deep’. not that i can hold it against any of them, i only have 2 brain cells, and i use both of them for loving charlie mcavoy. his expression makes me laugh but i mostly included this because that suit he wore to the nhl media day is my favourite thing on the planet, and i’m glad there is so much content of him wearing it

tl;dr - op loves charlie mcavoy. thank you once again to @softboybradenholtby :)) as mentioned, i am taking requests for more of these, although i’m currently sitting on 5 or 6 in my inbox so it might take a while - feel free to keep em coming though! 

[aelinbitch-archive]

You've probably said this before but what's your favorite aspect of the TOG series? I've only read like ten pages of the first book lol

aaaaa thank u for asking!! this sort of leads into something i’ve been meaning to talk about for a while so i hope you’re prepared for An Essay No One Wanted By Me. anyway this is a two-part answer, read below:

1. Aelin. Celaena. The main bitch, whatever you wanna call her lol. Without her I probably wouldn’t have cared about the series at all and wouldn’t currently be trapped in ToG tumblr hell reluctantly stanning a racist and homophobic series, but unfortunately when I was like twelve years old or whatever and read the first book I literally imprinted on Celaena like a baby duckling. To the extent that she became, like, the default avatar for all my maladaptive daydreaming and If I Don’t Project On Her At All Times I Will Die. It’s not like she’s the only thing I like about the series (I loooove a lot of the other characters, especially the gals, and the writing can be really great and engaging and cinematic) but Aelin has always been the supermassive black hole at the center of it all for me. I wouldn’t know how to even begin untangling her character from my psyche at this point. It’s honestly a little disturbing. Anyway. 

2. Part two is a quality of the series that I feel was unprecedented in its strength in the first five books of the series (ToG-QoS plus the prequel novellas) and really really disappointingly weak in the last two books (EoS-KoA). Like I said above, Aelin has always been my main interest in tog so I read and enjoyed the last two anyway, but I definitely felt the loss of this - “this” being the detail and attention paid to all different types of relationships between characters, and how rich and unpredictable those relationships were as a result. 

That sounds like kind of a broad, vague thing, but what I mean is that (in my opinion) rarely are romances and friendships and rivalries explored with such nuance, complexity, drama, and realism in most YA as they are in ToG. I remember reading Cassandra Clare’s books (lmao.) as a pre teen and loving those as well, but totally being able to predict who was going to end up with who, and finding the character dynamics to be pretty cut and dry. 

In ToG that’s not the case at all. Like, you’ve got Celaena and Sam, a really complex example of enemies to lovers to….. Tragically Dead Boyfriend Whose Demise Fuels My Guilt and Self-Hatred For Seven More Books, Lysandra and Aelin, two girls pitted against each other by their abuser who team up a year later to unlearn their internalized misogyny and kill him, and Aelin and Chaol, who… how do I even describe the ups and downs (and downs. and more downs) of their relationship. 

And that’s just three pairs! Pull the names of two characters out of a hat and I can almost guarantee essays worth of material could be written about them. Arobynn and Aelin? Aelin and Nehemia? Chaol and Dorian, as much as I hate both of them and feel that their relationship as been widely mischaracterized? All fascinating!!! No two people in those first few books are just friends, or just lovers, or just enemies. It’s always more complex, there’s always a history or tension or competing agendas or viewpoints that Fuck Shit Up. 

And benefit of that is twofold: one, everything that happens between the characters just…. lands so well. The betrayals and triumphs and losses and victories of The Assassin’s Blade and Crown of Midnight and Queen of Shadows (especially TAB) are fucking heart-stopping. It’s great character-driven entertainment!! Gripping and engaging and vivid to the point of being painful. 

And two, there’s no way to predict where a relationship is going to go. Aelin and Lysandra teaming up in QoS instead of returning to their rivalry? Who would have thought! Ansel and Celaena’s summer fling (they were in love. fight me.) ending like That? Holy fuck. Nesryn and Chaol breaking up in ToD? Oh shit! I fell for it again! Rowan and Aelin ending up together after everyone swore they were brotp in HoF? Hell yeah! Chaolaena seeming like endgame and then ending forever, with Chaol and Aelin realizing that the rift between them that began in CoM was something that would never sufficiently heal? Unprecedented. Fucking badass for a YA book to curve everyone like that. Tween me was shook out of her mind. 

(Important to note, though, that the downside of this style was that SJM couldn’t tell where ~unpredictable relationships and characters~ ended and fridging began, and as a result, not one but two woc were killed off to make white characters sad and it sucked beyond belief). 

Aaaaaand then QoS, the peak of literature, turned into EoS, and SJM just… gave up on all of that. I remember the first time Dorian and Manon met, and I was like oh, okay. So they’re going to end up together. And I was right. I remember that on this site, before EoS came out, before Lorcan and Elide ever fucking MET, people predicted the existence of Elorcan!! And they were right!! Like how fucking boring? Everyone is just paired off into completely predictable heterosexual ships and those are now the only relationships we get to read about (with a few exceptions, like Aelin/Aedion, Aelin/Fenrys, etc.). 

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: my least favorite thing about Manorian is not that I find the relationship to be shitty (although I do, I really do). It’s that Dorian is suddenly the only character Manon gets to interact with in any meaningful way. 

Like, are you kidding?! I want to read about Manon and Elide, Manon and Asterin, Rowan and Lorcan, Aelin and Lysandra, Aelin and Nesyrn, even if it’s not romantically (although some of them, like Manon and Elide, absolutely should have been, and the fact that not only was that ship very thoroughly sunk, but also they didn’t even get to TALK after QoS, felt like a real slap in the face to gay fans, but I digress), because those pairings previously had hella complexity and drama. But we don’t get to. 

And this trend that’s so painfully present in the last two books Sucks for two reasons: one, every relationship that isn’t romantic (which were previously some of the most interesting ones) is abandoned so that more time can be made for The Hets™ and two, the relationships that are romantic, now the only ones left, are totally fucking boring and predictable!! If two characters are interacting at any point (if one is male and the other is female, of course) then you know for a fact that they’re not only love interests, but endgame. 

And that makes me not care even when there is drama between them. Elide giving Lorcan the cold-shoulder for three hundred pages, and Manon and Dorian arguing, and Aedion being cruel to Lysandra weren’t compelling narratives to me like they should have been, because the whole time I was just thinking “but it doesn’t matter. I know it’s still endgame. There are no stakes here whatsoever; it’s a done deal.” Whereas Chaol and Celaena’s devestating breakup in CoM felt like (and was) suuuuper Real. An all-in bet on the wrong person. Crazy shit. 

And not that I think two characters should never have a happy ending together (I really like rowaelin and nestaq and I would have loved malide!) but imagine how much cooler and subversive and entertaining it would have been if Elorcan, which seemed soooo totally cute and endgamey and borderline like fanfiction throughout all of EoS just ended forever right there and then on the beach, with Elide turning to Lorcan and saying “I hope you spend the rest of your miserable, immortal life suffering. I hope you spend it alone. I hope you live with regret and guilt in your heart and never find a way to endure it” - and BAM. She never speaks to him again. He’s dead to her. 

I mean, talk about shock value! (See, Sarah, you can have shock value without killing of a person of color to make a white character sad 🙃). And I totally get that relational twists like that alienate fans more than just going the expected route and having them kiss and make-up does (I mean, the ending of Chaolaena in QoS certainly did, Jesus Christ) but I, Bella aelinbitch, personally live for that shit, and isn’t it only fair that all media cater directly and specifically to me? Lmao. But seriously, I do think it’s objectively more interesting, and that it keeps readers on their toes (I was on my ASS in EoS and KoA. Like. I was flat on my back sinking into the Earth). 

And there are still sort of… glimmers of the old way she wrote in the first few books, but it just feels like a tease rather than something that’s really explored and indulged in the way it was before, and it just ends up being more frustrating (like what was the point of Manon and Dorian not getting married at the end of KoA if I would bet my life savings that in World of Tog it’ll be confirmed that they’re either married or still together) and sometimes downright problematic? Like to return to a previous example, I think all the drama between Aedion + Lysandra was a result of Sarah’s previous (good) instincts to shake stuff up and complicate the character dynamics, but it backfires because when they end up together, it’s not ever… worked out? Or addressed? If you create really intense drama between two people, then that needs to show up in their relationship, no matter how happy they end up together. It doesn’t just disappear.

And despite the fact that her understanding of that concept (that shit between two people doesn’t just disappear like magic) is one of my absolute favorite things about the first few books, Sarah even went as far as to use the last two books to retcon some of the original complexity away, which makes me want to rip out my hair!! Like Aelin at the end of KoA just going “Love you Chaol and Love you Dorian xoxoxoxoxox best friends forever!!!” instead of having, like, any type of mixed feelings about the way these boys treated her? I mean, come on! 100 pages earlier Chaol was openly saying she should die instead of Dorian! Why is everything just peachy-keen instead of fraught with tension!! (I know why. I know. It’s because she introduced way too many characters/POVs/storylines as the series went on and didn’t know what to do with them all besides sideline the nonromantic ones and pair off everyone else boy-girl boy-girl down the line). Or if it has to be peachy-keen, why is the peachy-keeness never critically examined as, perhaps, a repressive mechanism for Aelin to avoid dealing with painful truths from her past? Now that would be interesting. 

(My ideal World of ToG would be just a transcript of the characters’ therapy sessions where Aelin realizes that her insistence that “Chaol and Dorian Are Her Friends!” is actually a way to keep herself safe emotionally and that she has plenty of reasons to hate them, and Lysandra realizes she should divorce Aedion lmao).  

Anyway tldr: The variety, complexity, depth, and unpredictability of the relationships in Throne of Glass was simultaneously the most realistic (sometimes relationships of all kinds fall apart or veer off in unexpected directions and love is temporary and the boy you met in the first chapter isn’t actually your soulmate and it doesn’t mean he’s a villain) and the most gripping and dramatic (I would have been totally chill if maeve and erawan weren’t a thing and tog was just like a medieval soap opera, that’s how entertaining the character dynamics were) thing about the series, and to lose that in the last two books because of Heterosexuality (and introducing too many POVs and not knowing what to do with them all)…. kinda devastating. 

This ended up being waaaaaay more complaining than it was talking about what I loved, but the only reason it bothers me so much is because it used to be so good!!! So just imagine the inverse of all the frustration I just vomited into this ask and you’ll have a good idea of how much I loved the series when things weren’t this way.

[evotter]

jan, march, sept + one of your choice, love. have a great day, u icon

thank u kyra i adore u

january: what was the first fic you posted this year?

the first fic i posted this year TECHNICALLY was the epilogue of a different path. the first standalone was chewbacca (aka my introduction to the jily world once again and i have such a soft spot for it)

march: do you listen to music whilst writing? 

yes! pretty much always; if it’s not music, it’s a TV show.

september: share a comment or review which still warms your heart?

quite literally anything you’ve left on any of my fics BUT there are a few that i hold dear to my heart. i’ll post them under the cut cause they are LONG :’)

ancient: the first fic you ever posted online?

hahahaaaaaaa. it was my own version of rick riordan’s the son of neptune before the actual book was published. it was on ff.net, and the first chapter got 7 reviews, and i felt so good about myself after that lmfao. who knew i’d still be writing 8 years later?

ask me questions!

OKAY so i have 3 top favorites:

from a different path:

okay so i had seen this in someone else’s bookmarks the other day, thought it was an interesting concept—especially since i too love slytherin!percy and strongly subscribe to ofswordsandpens’ headcanons about it—but didn’t give it another thought until i was listening to a video about the cursed child and went: wait, there’s a percabeth hogwarts au that i saw somewhere. and immediately i hunted this down and i’m just in awe? i tore through it. belatedly, i realized that i made a mistake: i didn’t write down my thoughts as i was reading, which is definitely a disservice to you. however, here are a generalized list of things that i loved.

first of all, with hogwarts au’s, there are three main aspects that i look for: plot, characterization, and quality of writing. normally, fics of this size lack one or more of these key factors, but i was astonished to find that the plot is tremendously tight and intriguing (my lip bled from biting it so much because i’ve been stressed to the max), you write these characters with such distinct voices i can easily picture them saying everything—except, of course, now in a little british accent—and your writing flows so well, it feels almost like i’m reading an actual harry potter book, just with percy and co. you also do a masterful job of weaving together aspects of the pjo universe with the established canon of hp.

and there are so many specific things that i love. primarily, the way you write the relationships in this story; not just concerning percabeth (though i will get to that in a minute), but also with each of the interactions between all of the characters. i applaud you for how you handled luke/annabeth and rachel/percy, and the friendship among them all is just incredibly well done. i especially love how well you wrote connor and zoë and just, a lot of characters that i don’t often think about when i think of pjo. grover and percy’s friendship especially is heartbreaking, i just. he’s so protective because he loves his friends and holy fuck i also love how you wrote grover in this. but i just adored how you wrote annabeth/percy—the love between them, both platonic in its early stages and the romantic all throughout, was doubly apparent. i ached when they kissed each other’s cheeks, and i inwardly cheered when she kissed him in the locker room. there was just such a natural progression, to me, of their relationship. and man did i dig it. i’m excited (and maybe a little scared) to see where you take their relationship in the future.

boy, this is getting long. sorry. but some more just little quick things: loved the b99 reference, with both of their competitive natures playing out in a similar way to jake and amy’s. i kind of want to go back and see if i can find any other references that i missed because i was just too engaged in the story to catch them. also, zoë’s death killed me all over again, thanks for that. i like how you’re working the kronos plot in, and i can’t wait to see how the Final Battle plays out. what else? oh! professor hestia? beautiful. eventual maybe professor percy? outstanding. percy kissing the top of annabeth’s head? breathtaking. rachel being a quidditch commentator? earth shattering. (truly i cackled when i saw that.) mrs. o’leary being a cat? incredible. how you incorporated percy’s water powers? stunning.

ooh, this exchange was beautiful and had me cackling it was so in-character:

“None of us are dying.” Connor clarifies. “Not you, not me, not Annie, not the rest of us.”

“I might have to dispute that.” Annabeth says, from Percy’s other side. “Call me ‘Annie’ one more time, Stoll, and I’ll kill you myself.”

Connor only grins at her. “Sorry, love. No more ‘Annie’. Can I call you Beth?”

“No.”

“Anna?”

“No.”

okay, so i just finished chapter nine and i am blown away. sorry for how long this comment was, but a fic of this magnitude truly warrants it. i can’t wait to see what happens next.

i leave you with just two words: “holy shit.”

from a different path: 

god, oh my god, am i the only dumb bitch who didn’t get what the prophecy was??

anyway, i stumbled on this fic last year, patiently waiting for its completion, and now that i’ve rediscovered it, i’m so glad i finished it all in one go! i couldn’t imagine the tension of waiting for the next chapter, especially since the tension is so well-crafted!! i hardly noticed the tonal shift even as the story got darker and darker as it led up to the war, and in that way i was reminded of how extremely similar it felt to reading the hp books for the first time! you nailed percy very well i might say, and the awkward-yet-caring relationship he has with his dad. i daresay you gave connor and zoe more characterization than rick riordan himself, and the percabeth you wrote is perfect to the nth degree. i appreciate that you didnt bother with all the love triangle and unrequited feelings nonsense as well.

but i have to say, even as i cried at sally and paul’s wedding, or at dionysus’ quiet mourning for castor, what really struck with me most was the way you handled silena. for that, i have no words. that was a job extremely well done. thank you so much for blessing us with this fic.

from chewbacca (a comment from u!): 

A girl in a bright yellow hooded raincoat stumbles into the cafe on one of the slowest nights James has ever seen. Her coat is dripping all over the floor he’d just cleaned (but it’s fine) and when he leans over the counter he sees that her boots match the coat.

First of all!!! Thats the best opening line in the world and nobody can convince me otherwise. I want to become a publisher just so that if you ever write a book, I’d be able to publish it. ( like omg, what an honor??? )

She looks like sunshine, standing there with the amount of yellow in her wardrobe. Briefly, James wonders if that’s her favorite color. It’s got to be.

Im going to quote this whole fic but I really love these lines? Like, you have this distinct style of writiting that I aim to acheive and you’re literally such a rolemodel!!! These are my favorite kind of fics to read. Funny story but I was going through a ‘no thanks Jily’ mood (  a horror, i know !! ) but your fics are just,,,,exceptions? You could write about trash and I’d love it and ask for you to sign me up.

 “Say it again, but convincingly this time.”

ooof this dialogue??? let me breathe

This is the longest he’s stood still since he started working. It’s actually a miracle.

and the funniest person award goes to YOU. also, the most talented and cutest but thats neither here nor there.

james taking care of fleamont, switching off the lights gives me just a nice and realistic vibe? its so simple but i love how you added it.

honestly at this point, ive been sucked again by the fanfic. it feels less like a fic and more like a masterpiece that belongs in a museum but anyway.

“James is supposed to be helping.

James is on his phone.”

ugh i love ur mind. im rereading and its so nice and lovely. even if its like 1am and im exhausted, this fic is sustaining me.

“Do it off the clock, would you?”

PEAK HUMOR

have i mentioned how much i love that scene with euphemia? she seems like such a lovely mom. i love ur euphemia the most. and ahh, both of them just rushing to the hospital ? another 100% good scene.

“Euphemia smiles too, but looks at Fleamont rather than at her son. “Yes,” she says. “It really does.””

fic? or shakspeare? HMMM

A girl in a bright yellow hooded raincoat stumbles into the cafe on one of the slowest nights James has ever seen // “Get fucked.”

the fic!! has made a circle!!! i love how it begins and ends along the same lines. I really want to know how??? are you so talented im in love.

i just really love this fic, okay? i love how james is just the kindest, lily is allowed to have feelings, its just so soft and warm. and it makes someone feel loved, want love anyway.

the dynamic between the characters are just so real and great and im astounded, in short.

your sirius is everything. so many fics potray him as a dick??? which is first of all #rude and also, not at all true. you made me love these characters even more so i sincerely hope you never stop writing.

you’re such a beautiful writer and the way you string words together is just poetic and gorgeous and all the other good adjectives you can think of. i read your spiderman x reader too and i was a goner for you. EVERYTHING YOU WRITE IS SO GOOD. i read it so long ago but i can vividly remember peter whipping the mask off and she just going wtf stop on the window ledge. what im trying to say is that you leave this lasting impression on people that make them remember random scenes and words / prose long after they’ve read it which is a remarkable feat, i believe.

and im so sorry im not on tumblr rn bc i cannot keep recing this fic but i have told my friends about your writing and they loved it too. you’ve got like a million fans. when i do get back from my hiatus, im going to keep recing your fics and people will cry because their universe will shift thanks to the newfound joy of your presence in their life.

lastly, im more of a dog person and that, more than anything, should tell you how much i love this fic. i love u. and basee on your writing, i want to hug you, be your best friend and make you cookies bc again

WOW

[lostinsimsland-archive]

get to know me tag~

rules: make your simself and answer the 125 questions provided!

question time!

1. what is your full name?: kaitlyn dawn! 2. what are your nicknames?: kait, katie 3. birthday?: october 14th! 4. what is your favorite book series?: the if i stay + where she went books! 5. do you believe in aliens or ghosts?: ghosts definitely. 6. who is your favorite author?: lauren oliver! 7. what is your favorite radio station?: i don’t listen to the radio lol 8. what is your favorite flavor of anything?: chocolate everything pls 9. what word would you often use to describe something great or wonderful?: idk but i say “holy shit” a lot 10. what is your current favorite song?: monster by dodie 11. what is your favorite word?: fuck 12. what was the last song you listened to?: monster by dodie 13. what tv show would you recommend for everyone to watch?: scream 14. what is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down?: shitty romcoms 100% 15. do you play video games?: yes 16. what is your biggest fear?: losing loved ones 17. what is your best quality, in your opinion?: i’m good at cheering ppl up i guess. 18. what is your worst quality, in your opinion?: i’m an anxious mess 19. do you like cats or dogs better?: cats. but my mom’s allergic smh 20. what’s your favorite season?: fall + winter 21. are you in a relationship?: does being madly in love with my best friend count? 22. what is something you miss from your childhood?: i’m still technically a child, but i miss literally anything i did with my dad. 23. who is your best friend?: if i told you, i’d be giving away who my crush is~ 24. what is your eye color?: hazel 25. what is your hair color?: dark brown 26. who is someone you love? @waterlily-sims is my only friend, and i cherish her. 27. who is someone you trust?: see 26 28. who is someone you think about often?: my dad 29. are you currently excited about/for something?: i’m gonna play dbh after this so i’m pumped 30. what is your biggest obsession?: detroit become human 31. what was your favorite tv show as a child?: ok look, blues clues was the shit. 32. who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone?: there’s this kid at my school named carter. he’s pretty cool i guess. (i’m kidding, we share memes all the time and it’s great.) 33. are you superstitious?: fuck yeah 34. do you have any unusual phobias?: not that i know of 35. do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it?: behind it 36. what is your favorite hobby?: writing and drawing 37. what was the last book you read?: before i fall by lauren oliver 38. what was the last movie you watched?: idk 39. what musical instruments do you play, if any?: i played viola in 6th grade 40. what is your favorite animal?: butterflies 41. what are your top 5 tumblr blogs that you follow?: everyone 42. what superpower do you wish you had?: i just wanna be an android ok. 43. when and where do you feel most at peace?: writing my shitty fanfictions in my bed. 44. what makes you smile?: seeing other people i love being happy 45. what sports do you play, if any?: what’s a sport? 46. what is your favorite drink?: sprite 47. when was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody?: probably sometime last year 48. are you afraid of heights?: yES 49. what is your biggest pet peeve?: people ghosting their friends 50. have you ever been to a concert?: yep 51. are you vegan/vegetarian?: i tried being vegetarian. that lasted 2 weeks 52. when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?: a youtuber (we’re talking 4th grade me who said i wanted to be a gamer lmao) 53. what fictional world would you like to live in?: the detroit become human world 54. what is something you worry about?: other people’s opinions of me 55. are you scared of the dark?: yes 56. do you like to sing?: i do, but i’m not great. 57. have you ever skipped school?: i’ve faked being sick, but i’ve never gone and left halfway through. 58. what is your favorite place on the planet?: my bed 59. where would you like to live?: detroit 60. do you have any pets?: 2 dogs 61. are you more of an early bird or night owl?: night owl 62. do you like sunrises or sunsets better?: sunset 63. do you know how to drive?: nope 64. do you prefer earbuds or headphones?: earbuds 65. have you ever had braces?: no but i need them tbh 66. what is your favorite genre of music?: indie pop / alternative 67. who is your hero?: my mom 68. do you read comic books?: no 69. what makes you the most angry?: everything 70. do you prefer to read on an electronic device or a real book?: both 71. what is your favorite subject in school?: art 72. do you have any siblings?: no, my mom isn’t available 4 commited relationships 73. what was the last thing you bought?: music 74. how tall are you?: 5′7 75. can you cook?: i can bake 76. what are three things that you love?: sunflowers, music, sims 77. what are three things that you hate?: stress, school, people 78. do you have more female friends or male friends?: female 79. what is your sexual orientation?: pansexual 80. where do you currently live?: texas 81. who was the last person you texted?: @waterlily-sims​ 82. when was the last night you cried?: who knows 83. who is your favorite youtuber?: vixella 84. do you like to take selfies?: sometimes 85. what is your favorite app?: tumblr 86. what is your relationship with your parent(s) like?: my mom is the best, and i haven’t figured out whether my dad ended up in heaven or hell 87. what is your favorite foreign accent?: british 88. what is a place that you’ve never been to, but want to visit?: paris 89. what is your favorite number?: 42 90. can you juggle?: nope 91. are you religious?: nope 92. do you find outer space or the deep ocean to be more interesting?: space 93. do you consider yourself to be a daredevil?: fuck no 94. are you allergic to anything?: dogs (but only the ones that shed) 95. can you curl your tongue?: probably 96. can you wiggle your ears?: no 97. how often do you admit that you were wrong about something?: pretty often, but it takes me a while to realize that i’m wrong 98. do you prefer the forest or beach?: beach 99. what is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you?: not everyone is as bad as one person who fucked you over. (we love my therapist) 100. are you a good liar?: depends on who i’m lying to 101. what is your hogwarts house?: hufflepuff 102. do you talk to yourself?: yep 103. are you an introvert or extrovert?: introvert 104. do you keep a journal/diary?: i try to, but it’s not going great 105. do you believe in second chances?: yes 106. if you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do?:  turn it in 107. do you believe people are capable of change?: yes 108. are you ticklish?: yes, but if you even think about tickling me, be prepared for war. 109. have you ever been on a plane?: yeah 110. do you have any piercings?: no 111. what fictional character do you wish was real?: the entire dbh cast 112. do you have any tattoos?: nooooo 113. what is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far?: letting go of old friends 114. do you believe in karma?: yes 115. do you wear glasses/contacts?: i’m supposed to 116. do you want children?: YES 117. who is the smartest person you know?: my therapist 118. what is your most embarrassing memory?: all of them 119. have you ever pulled an all-nighter?: fuck yeah 120. what color are most of your clothes?: black + moss green 121. do you like adventures?: depends 122. have you ever been on tv?: i got interveiwed on the news because somebody stole my special needs bike (i have a disease that affects how i walk) 123. how old are you?: 14 124. what is your favorite quote?: “you can’t kill me, i’m not alive” 125. do you prefer sweet or savory foods?: sweet

[paceunknown]

ummmmmm folks unless you’d like to know my entire “steve rogers is a god” theory please ignore this text post but if you’re @carolineshea then please continue. i’m pretty sure tumblr did away with read mores otherwise this would 100% be under one. my bad !

1. so this point is pretty irrelevant overall but I have to mention it. marvel has a thing about repetition, whether across multiple movies or to establish a motif in a single film (i.e. “we don’t trade lives” in aiw) and it’s interesting to me how in catfa redskull wanted to “harness the power of the gods”, he believed that he and steve had “left humanity behind”, I don’t remember zola’s exact line but I’m sure he said something about redskull that’s relevant my point just is that it’s interesting how often it was brought up when we have no idea what was in the serum

2. speaking of the serum , we don’t know what’s in it! other than potassium! and you can get that from a banana! and we’ve seen that cosmic entities can be harnessed to give powers, who’s to say erskine didn’t stumble across something from space and figure out how to make a serum from it! what if the serum activated something in one’s genetic code that makes them “godly” or just straight up turns them into a god! who knows!

3. alright so onto a1. now I know that the comics and the mcu are different universes with their own rules, but it’s worth comparing the changes. in the comics, steve’s shield is made of vibranium AND adamantium (the stuff in wolverine that made his bones/claws metal) yet when hit with mjolnir, it dents like foil. but in a1, we see thor hit that thing with all his might and steve doesn’t even waver, just holds it up and the forest around them gets knocked down? when in the comics his shield was STRONGER and it was no match for thor? so why make that change in the films? (this point is my jumping off to how steve and thor are constantly paralleled throughout the mcu)

4. so now aou! of course, there’s the scene where steve almost lifts mjolnir. now in the comics, pretty much every single character has lifted that thing at some point, like I think even loki and gamora have. but in the mcu steve is the only one who comes close? (yes I’m ignoring vision he’s a robot with a literal infinity stone) and then earlier, when thor has his little flask of 1000-year old alcohol that he says “isn’t for mortals”? yet he just hands some to steve like it’s nothing?? granted, I’m aware he was probably using hyperbole to be funny, but it’s still interesting how this is something literal gods drink and thor gives steve some without even questioning it. the man is just superhuman, he has a fast metabolism, is strong, and can heal quickly what about that screams “he can handle otherworldly liquor” I know I’m being nitpicky but they’re more parallels between steve and thor. why are they always being paralleled. during some fight scenes in aou we see more mjolnir/shield action and we all know how the shield is supposed to be a representation of steve why can thor kick everyone’s ass except steve’s it doesn’t MAKE SENSE IF HE’S JUST A JUICED UP HUMAN

5. so now let’s mosey on over to aiw, where the meat is. some basic things to get out of the way: yet another !! parallel between steve and thor in that they are the only two heroes to get “holy shit we’re saved” moments in the movie. which isn’t to say everyone else didn’t absolutely kick ass, but steve arriving at the station to save wanda and vision, and thor bringing lightning to wakanda are the literal only two moments in the movie where, once they show up, you feel like everything might be okay. PARALLELS. WHY. also, it’s worth noting that proxima midnight’s spear (the woman of thanos’ flunkies) is never supposed to miss it’s target. like, it was specifically crafted so that it Never Misses. so how was steve able to just side step that hoe and catch it? if you look at proxima’s face during that scene, even she is shocked! because it SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO BE DONE. HOW DID HE DO IT. lastly for the parallels, steve and thor are the only two heroes to stop thanos dead in his tracks (minus mantis but a major component of her ability is to knock people out so it’s expected of her to be able to subdue him). wanda slowed him down, but he was still coming for her through her whatever-it’s-called. hulk got his ass kicked and checked out for the rest of the movie. steve? caught his GAUNTLET. thor? spiraled stormbreaker into his chest and delayed the snap. PARALLELS. WHY.

6. now I’ll have to explain my soul stone theory. you don’t necessarily Need to know it, but it furthers one of my earlier points okay so ! idk how much about harry potter you know, but I think the soul stone operates similarly to how the sorcerer’s stone and elder wand did. in the end of hp1, there was a charm on the sorcerer’s stone that made it so only someone who wanted to find the stone but not use it could have it, thus ensuring harry got it where voldemort didn’t. now, I’ll admit during my second viewing of aiw I went to the bathroom during the vormir part, but I don’t think the soul stone placed itself in a situation where a living sacrifice had to be made in order to obtain it. and I imagine something like the soul stone, where it’s whole power is to see within, wouldn’t take kindly to someone awful wielding it who 1) killed a loved one 2) was going to use it for evil. I mean, every time he gets a stone he shows off what it can do, but when he got the soul stone he just said “cool onto the next” and we never got to see what it does? fishy. which brings me to the elder wand: in hp, wand loyalty is a big thing. any witch or wizard can use any wand, but if it doesn’t truly belong to them, it will never work to it’s maximum potential. long story short, dumbledore had the most powerful wand in existence, voldemort took it off his corpse thinking he then had control over it, but in a long and convoluted way, the wand actually belonged to harry thusly the elder wand never worked properly for voldy, enabling basically a fail-safe that allowed harry to kill him. and I’m sure you can see where I’m going already BUT I think another quality of the soul stone is that, since it doesn’t Want to answer to thanos, it’s seeking out someone wholly worthy (wow what a word.....) enough to actually wield it, and who are the two most “worthy”, righteous, good with a capital G characters in the mcu?

7. so my thinking is this: when thanos warped to wakanda at the end of aiw, he was using the gauntlet, knocking the avengers out the way left and right, but when he went to punch steve (WITH FIVE STONES AT THIS POINT!!!), homeboy just caught his fist? even thanos was confused, just like proxima midnight was confused. he had to use his literal other hand to punch steve and advance. and granted, I’m aware steve was a little distracted by the fact he was holding back the gauntlet, but I think the symbolism is interesting when you tie in the soul stone theory: the stone already didn’t want to answer to thanos but it recognized the greatness in steve, thus “submitting” to a potential “true master”, allowing steve to be stronger than the gauntlet in that moment. and thanos had to use his gauntlet-less hand to make contact with steve. HM. fast forward a couple minutes, and somehow thor is able to hurl stormbreaker at thanos through a beam of energy coming from SIX STONES and nearly kill the dude? come on. so I posit that, like with steve, the soul stone recognized the greatness in thor and weakened itself to allow thor access to thanos. a reach? yes probably. but if I were right, how telling is it that the soul stone only weakened itself for the two characters that have been consistently paralleled throughout their time in the mcu. I mean I know it was just a joke but they even had that moment about comparing beards....another parallel. Why. why continuously put steve on par with thor, a literal god.

8. (this one is 100% a reach I like to have fun!) in the comics thor has a half brother named balder who has a son that ends up being the god of justice. HELLO. I’m not saying steve is thor’s nephew, but I AM saying if steve were to be the god of anything that he’d be the god of justice. which is a character in marvel comics. that the mcu draws inspiration from. HM!!!!

9. also let’s talk about how worthiness is a constant theme in both thor’s and steve’s stories. worthy to whom ? the gods ? Steve’s one too bring in the dancing lobsters

10. I’d lastly like to say I don’t claim to have an idea what the serum did or what was in it, so I doubt steve’s actual, real god. like I don’t think he’s got some secret thor powers hidden, just waiting to be activated. but! I do think he’s definitely god-like (or hey we like to have fun maybe a demi-god we don’t know much about his lineage) and that his consistent worthiness that’s been consistently likened to thor’s means Something more than him just being a righteous man. I truly do think there was a deeper reason he was chosen for erskine’s serum other than his being scrawny, kind, and quick to fight; I just don’t know what that might be