#i don't talk about fandom stuff much here since i don't really get involved with it

[halfbit]

i am getting started on productivity for the night but haven't figured out yet if i want to write or art first and there's also the tiny part of my brain that just wants to stare at kabru until it is ok to stop staring at kabru

[absolutebl]

Top 10 Best BLs on Gagaoolala

My Beautiful Man AKA Utsukushii Kare

Japan 2021

One of the most Japanese BLs to release in the last decade, as weird and as messed up as any 2000s yaoi: emo af and hella warped, entirely true to itself with no attempt made to modify its POV for modern sensibilities or current BL fandom. It used seriously old school problematic and kinky tropes, like whipping boy, for a truly uncompromising piece that also manages to hit up themes of communication, consent, and self acceptance. It’s a wonderful BL but uniquely dirty and harsh, in the best possible way - Japanese cinema, uncompromising.

I lost my ever loving mind over the ending. This show won the Grand Prix “My Best TV Award” at the 16th Galaxy Awards.

Minato's Laundromat AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry

Japan 2022

A classic age gap romance where a high school student pursues the man of his dreams (who runs a laundromat). This BL is so steeped in yaoi nostalgia, not to mention a classic romance arc, that it will overload some, but those of us who love this genre for its DNA will adore it. It made me very happy because it did everything I want a BL to do - there’s not much more I could ask of a show than this. It’s the closest Japan has come to perfect live action yaoi since Seven Days (and I never make that comparison lightly).

Squee watch-along here.

My Ride

Thai 2022

Thai BL grew up with this pulp (the first ever to make my end of year top 10). It’s a truly lovely and special little show featuring the extremely rare pairing of sunshine/sunshine (AKA a cinnamon roll couple) plus mature explorations of relationships using one of the softest, sweetest, and most innocent friends to lovers vehicles. Kindly, overworked doctor meets broken-hearted motorcycle taxi driver in an “other side of the tracks” slow burn romance. The support cast is excellent, making for great friendship groups and family dynamics. With honest queer rep that adds to, but doesn’t impede, the story, and genuine conversation about the nature of class, wealth, and classism, not to mention communication, honesty, and respect for boundaries, you can’t go wrong with this show. In other news, I am a sucker for a single dimple.

Takara & Amagi AKA Takara-kun to Amagi-kun

Japan 2022 I gnawed on my knuckles and squealed a lot with this BL. Reserved cool kid who must learn to communicate to keep the tiny disaster nugget he’s madly in love with. It is beyond charming: soft and gentle, packed with cuteness and high school angst, thirst, & yearning. Was there plot? Not really. Was it emotionally tense and paced well enough for me not to notice? Absolutely. Did I enjoy the hell out of it? Oh yes.

Kiseki: Dear to Me

Taiwan 2023

The plot is totally ridiculous and slightly unhinged, but that’s normal for Taiwan. It involves all the tropes under a very casual framework of gay mafia gangs + food = love. Absolutely every character is queer. There’s a gum-ball machine of cameos, elder gay rep, great chemistry from all pairs, and a KILLER side couple. As a result Kiseki is a poster child for Taiwanese BL, and I happen to love Taiwanese BL. Bonus? They also managed to END IT WELL, which we cannot expect from Taiwan.

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho

Japan 2023

This style of live action yaoi really only works from Japan. Basically: boys who fell in love in college end up living together but both are so repressed they actually don't realize they're in love. It's higher heat than we usually get from Japan's HEA stuff, and that part is also very well done, but it leaned into the "why don't they just talk for fuck's sake?" trope which is only exacerbated into undiluted frustration by the fact that they're already fucking. It's great, but watching requires more patience than usual, even for Japan.

Our Dining Table AKA Bokura no Shokutaku

Japan 2023

A lonely salaryman and talented cook gets accidentally adopted by a college kid and his little brother. I was always gonna love this show if they stuck to the manga (which is very dear to my heart). And they did, paralleling it almost exactly. It’s a quiet & cozy little parable of found family alleviating loneliness. Possibly too slow for some but definitely high up there for me as the best of what Japan can do with softness (like Restart After Come Back Home). It’s only flaw (if I dare say such a thing) is that it is not really “romantic.” Lovely & sweet but the romance beats are being used to build a family relationship, not just couple intimacy, but that's OK with me. This is a very safe show for anyone to watch.

Step By Step

Thai 2023

This was Thailand’s answer to The New Employee, and everything I loved about that show I loved about this one. This office romance between a stern boss and sweet subordinate felt more authentic to cubical work than previous Thai BLs of this ilk. That authenticity added tension to the narrative and its characters development (how novel). I also really enjoyed the charming side characters and the brothers' relationship to each other (although I could have done without that brother's side BL).

Long Time No See

Korea (Strongberry) 2017

Catfishing assassins on either side of a turf war who fall in love not knowing they are on opposite sides. Or do they? Suspenseful plot, good fight sequences, mature characters, hot sexitimes and even hotter beating the shit out of each other and kissing while covered in blog (this came from KOREA?), plus an HEA. One of the hidden gems of the BL genre.

About Youth

Taiwan 2022

A truly lovely little coming of age high school BL with a classic YA low drama but high angst and an earnest depth. I didn’t even mind the singing, and that’s saying a lot. A weak seme/uke dynamic but tons of BL tropes (both rare in a high school setting but common for Taiwan) makes this one feel both sweet and colored by real world authenticity and grit.

Some of these shows ALSO appeared on Viki or iQIYI, but these BLs will appear only once on these round up posts (here for Gaga), not on the other platforms top 10.

(source)

This list updated Spring 2024, not responsible for cool stuff that aired on Gaga (or was taken off the platform) after that date.

This is part of a series more here:

[aitadjcrazytimes]

It's been a good run

But it's time to bring this to a close!

The saga is over, C, T and I are all together. T and I are in the swing of it, C approves as much as it is possible for him to approve of anything, everyone knows about the blog and is chill.

C is back at his rightful place of walking his sister down the aisle.

I'm getting everything I want, and we're all free to make each other miserable until the day we die.

I'm not going to be updating this blog anymore! Nobody else involved with the situation will be submitting any more AITA posts either, because they are either not on tumblr or agreed it would be annoying.

I will say that there is some stuff on here that I've alluded to that isn't necessarily 100% in the spirit of things, so I've included some stuff below the cut for the folks who have caught onto that. I would not suggest reading it if you like how all of this played out and want to keep it that way. I know that's incredibly vague, but I'm not sure how to phrase it without making it weird?

Thank you all for listening and talking to me over the past few days! That's where I'm leaving it!

...

...

...

...Is everyone who wants to keep believing in the disaster polycule gone? Yes? OK!

So, this was fake. I made up the whole thing. TK and C and T and everyone else are fictional characters. Did I lie? Yes. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Q: All of it? Even the og AITA post? The followup AITA post? The screenshots?

A: All of it.

Q: Wh... Why did you do this...?

A: Well, first this all started as a Red vs Blue fanfic for the ship Chexer (Church/Tex/Tucker)-

It started as a fanfic for Chexer. However, I was already working on a different fanfic for RVB that was totalling about 15k words at this point (+ at least 90k to go), and I knew I would never have the time or energy to write this one. I thought: yknow. this would be really funny as an aita post.

Q: It was a fanfic of a Halo fanfic series.

A: Yep!

So, I submitted Tucker's perspective. I did not expect for it to get more than maybe 100 notes at most. I totally thought someone would call it out right away.

The funny part is, if I'd dedicated all this energy to a fic instead of this blog, I'd probably have about 15-20 thousand words of fic already, but whatever, can't ruin my personal day!

Also, I wanted to see how many people would figure it out/how long it would take for it to become too obvious that this was a fandom thing. I was dropping names and RvB lore since the beginning. A few people did figure it out, and I DMed them in private to let them know.

Q: But why make the blog then?

A: Because I love to lie and be a nuisance to the general populace! <3

It was always my intent to wait until Carolina's perspective got posted (i am honestly still shocked i got away with "Carey/Georgia/West Virginia/Alabama/Miss Louisiana 1988"), let it simmer for about a day, then come clean. Which is what I'm doing now!

The reason I'm coming clean now instead of dragging it out is because I don't want anyone to feel stupid or like they got duped. You're not stupid! You were a part of this story! This was, as one anon said, a creative writing project. It was a collaboration! Thank you so much for helping me!

That said, I'm sorry to anyone that finds this disappointing! I had a blast doing this, but I will not be doing it again. I have gotten my fill. I have had my taste of being an influencer, and now I can go on with my life without ever feeling like I need to start a youtube channel.

Q: How did you keep up with a consistent timeline?

A: I didn't, especially at first. But in my time as a liar who lies about things, I have found that usually people are willing to believe you when you say "yeah, i lied about that".

Q: Wait, what about the thing with your kid?

A: Yeah, I fucked up on this one. In the other fic I was/am writing, Tucker was around 33. So, when I was saying what Junior's age was, I subtracted it from 33 and got 18. It wasn't until I was showing my partner the blog and they said "Wait, he had his kid at 13??????" that I realized I had fucked up. Oops!

Q: Was it really ALL fake?

A: For the most part. I will say that I did actually drop chocolate cake all over my tits that one time and had to shower by myself like a fucking loser. That one was true. I did also get my nails done for the first time ever, which did actually affect my typing. And I am in a band (but so is Tucker, canonically)! There are a few other things as well, but I don't want to list all of them.

Q: DID you ever read homestuck?

A: Nope. And I never will.

Even the title, though I will say that the title I came up with was "Leonard "Alpha Bitch" Church's Decidedly Not Lo-Fi Beats to Get Nasty and Get Clean To: The Movie"

Q: So there was never a combination sex/bathtime playlist?

A: Maybe! But perhaps more accurately: the combination sex/bathtime playlist was inside of you all along. You can make it. There are only three songs on there that are canon to the lore of this blog. Those are No Children by The Mountain Goats, Take It Out On Me by Thousand Foot Krutch, and one unknown song from the album Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV by Coheed and Cambria (Yep, the call was coming from inside the house, I gave Church my music taste). I had intended this to be Wake Up, but it's out of my hands now. The rest is yours to fill in.

Q: What's your main blog, so I can follow you?

A: Hi, this is aitadjcrazytimes. You're not getting that.

Q: Your AO3 handle?

A: Nope, not that either.

You will never find me. And that's the way I want it. You will see me in every blog. Every new follower. Every stranger you meet on the street. You will look into your discord kitten's eyes, and you will absently wonder if he was the one behind aitadjcrazytimes. And you will never know for certain.

Q: But-

A: Let me live on in your memory. The only person who knows both who I am and the fact that I did this is my partner, who is not into RvB or commonly on tumblr. I am not a RvB blog. I am not a writing blog. I am a nobody on the fringes of tumblr society who's been here long enough to know how to remain in the shadows.

And, even if you do manage to find me, against all odds:

No one will ever believe you.

I am closing my askbox. I am also closing my messages. If you have anything to say to Tucker or Me (tumblr user aitadjcrazytimes), you are welcome to do so in the replies or reblogs, but you will not be receiving an answer. I'll keep this blog up for anyone that wants to go through after the fact and do a deep dive or what have you.

Thanks to everyone who made this into the wild ride it was! Live long and get fucked or whatever! Xoxo <3

[syn4k]

hello!!! as you are the resident miante person in mcyt (there might be another one but in my opinion it's you) I have a question: if I wanted to watch mianite how would I go about that/where do I find it? I know it's a youtube thing but I don't know which channel it's actually on and I am. Extremely Curious about it & want to watch it but I have no idea where to do that /genuine question

(also, I know it's got multiple POVs, is there anyone you'd recommend I start with?)

hello! thanks for the ask!

mianite has four main POVs that remain in VOD and episode form on the creators' channels, they all have a playlist for it and you can find them pretty easily by looking up "[creator name] mianite s1" on youtube.

i recommend starting off with jordan captainsparklez' POV like we did, as he is involved in mostly everything in both s1 and s2 and his episodes are edited down to only really have the important bits. if you decide to watch back through the series later from another perspective, tom syndicate's POV is another good one to watch as he's kind of on the opposite side of everything happening in s1 and it puts a lot of his actions in context that jordan left out of his episodes.

if you don't want to watch through the series in its entirety (which is completely understandable), fern @voidandradiance has made a playlist of the important lore moments in both mianite s1 and s2 that she'd be happy to share :]

also it's really funny to me that we are the resident Mianite Guy to you when we've only been here for like, six months. this series turns ten years old today and there are people in this fandom who have been here since the beginning of it or at least who have been here for way, way longer than we have.

if you do end up sticking around here, i cannot recommend these people enough:

@kiwibirdlafayette - AMAZING artist who has been here in the trenches here since 2014. syndisparklez enthusiast. his art-only blog is @grailknightmonty and he also posts Hermitcraft stuff occasionally :3

@transandor chase my good friend chase!! resident Jordan Captainsparklez Guy. brilliant writer, also happens to be fistfighting The Horrors, you know how it his

@voidandradiance i already tagged him before and i'll fuckin do it again because this bitch's writing is stunning beyond words and xyr brain is HUGE. if you like the style of the stuff we write, you'll LOVE fern's work. its so beautiful that i physically cannot overhype it. its so good, y'all. its so fucking good.

@syndianites is, as far as we're concerned, the mouth of god himself when it comes to Tom Syndicate SynHD. there is nobody on this site who understands this character better than she does. they consistently leave the most galaxy brain objectively correct tags about him on our posts and she never fucking misses. this bitch Gets It and i am very lucky to be her friend

@coolcattime's blog is more of a general purpose one, like ours is, but she carries the f/f ships in the Mianite fandom and is also a great writer! she's written a lot of neat AU ideas and although we haven't talked with her much she definitely lives up to her url- she's one cool cat :]

@cactusprisms is also someone that we see around a lot in the notes of our mianite posts, although we unfortunately havent talked much. also more of a general purpose blog but worth following anyways. shes vibing.

hope this helps! <3

[whatswexceles]

I’m really tired.

This is I guess my big long official response to everything that's going on in the rainworld fandom

Since Tuesday I've been recording all my thoughts about this whole thing daily. This is something of a consolidation of all of that plus more. the original abridged version will be posted in a reblog.

I’d like to preface this with a few things

Firstly: This is a criticism of people’s ideas and philosophies. Not them as a person. I don’t despise anyone involved really either, I’m still friends with people on both “sides” of this dispute. I’ll try my best to avoid name dropping regardless

Secondly: if you DARE to harass anyone involved in this you are worse than everyone I’m talking about here

Third: I know there’s lots of misinformation floating around on this and I know I alone can’t clear it all out of my judgments. So if you spot anything I say that is blatantly wrong, I encourage you to tell me. Same goes for criticism, if you disagree with anything i say I wouldn’t mind being told RESPECTFULLY. If you just start attacking me I won’t really bother. I do want to have a conversation here

A few days ago, it came out that the single piece of evidence used to harass the biggest and most influential rain world artists off the internet was faked and spread with little thought or effort. And people have been scared that misinformation will be spread about them, or they’ll make a mistake and get harassed for it. Myself and my friends included.

My goal in this specific essay-post-ramble-thing is to give my thoughts and to write about how I believe to move forward In a way where that doesn't hurt people further, because I honestly don't hold a grudge against anyone who has spoken out against pansear or unwillingly spread misinformation in an attempt to help, or even people who wrote harmful stuff while angry or emotional.

There is, however, one individual who I will not spare sympathy for. I’ll get to them later.

Something I don't see being talked about that much is that misinformation about pansear and the shipping container have been spread since the initial post made calling out SC. The claim was thrown around that “SC is full of zoophiles and groomer defenders” which needless to say, is extremely false. Not only did nobody in the server know of the allegations until they went public (no hypothetical groomer defender would even know of a groomer to be defended), SC also had one of the strictest “no NSFW/suggestive material” rules of most servers I'm in. it was so strict that deez nuts jokes were off limits.

Was this a purposeful attempt to cause a harrasment campaign or just emotions clouding judgment? The answer doesn't really matter because this sentiment was doubled down on and hurt a lot of people, including myself

Why am I bringing this up? Because this misinformation had a similar, smaller effect to what we’re seeing now. People affiliated with SC were worried that they were going to be harassed for being affiliated with something everyone disliked. Today there are dozens of examples of people being worried about being harassed because someone might not like them and might spread misinformation. Let's hope this time we prevent this from going even further…

But, If it does. If the methods used to persecute pansear become the norm, then that hurts everyone, including the people spreading it. To quote myself from the past:

“…looking at how pansear was being nitpicked for problematic behavior, It just looks like the start of a cycle… …because if you foster a following that finds faults in normal behavior, what do you think will happen as soon as *you* make a mistake, or even a mistake you already made gets dug up. well then you’re gonna get nitpicked to oblivion. If You set the norm to be needless criticism that's what will be employed at your trial. People will try to erase your impact.”

A common sentiment I see being thrown around is that “although the main piece of evidence turned out to be faked, pansear is still deplorable because [X]” and while I personally think pansear has made their fair share of mistakes, a lot of things people put in that X factor is just… silly and can be chalked up to either coping mechanisms, panic attacks or just normal people mistakes. And every time I see that there's always a question in the back of my mind: “Is this an echo chamber?” And I'm inclined to say yes, but I also recognize I'm not exactly an authority when it comes to this, so I’ll leave it up to reader interpretation.

There's one specific person that I have a few choice words for, and that is the person who made the fake image that started this whole damned thing. And although we don’t know who you are, I know you are deprived enough to be reading this. I hope you don’t have a good ending, I hope you don’t have a bad ending either, I hope you’re FORGOTTEN, I hope nobody ever utters your name again. I hope you never leave the swamps of irrelevance. I hope you can see the people you’ve hurt thrive more than you ever will.

With the trash out of the way, how do we even move forward? my hope is that we can do it with forgiveness. Not all apologies need to be accepted but we should at least extend our sympathy to each other, it’ll be easier for all of us if we do. We should think about what we all did correctly and what we didn’t, and how to do better next time. We should think about how we all got taken advantage of with this misinformation and how to prove evidence next time. Does it even matter if pansear was deplorable or not when we’ll all likely never see them again? Can we all work on setting our grudges to the side? If we don't like someone we can just not interact with them.

Us as a community have a responsibility to think through all this and figure out our priorities moving forward. We all have a responsibility to coexist with each other. We all have a responsibility to treat everyone with the benefit of the doubt.

I think I speak for everyone in this whole situation when I say that we are ALL tired of this

[weaselbeaselpants]

Legit Bad-take/Bad-Faith Helluvaverse critics you should not trust if you see them

Interpersonal squabbles within the critical tag are irrelevant, sorry. This here is a genuine warning against users you should keep your distance from in regards to any VivziePop drama-discourse because their names may come up and you should know what it is that crossed the line.

Starlatte/Starvader/HonestHazbinCritiques/OhGodDude and Woomycritiques/RaySquid - Serial harasser(s). Long story incoming. Starlatte was/is a Vivcritical who got involved in the fandom back in 2019/2020 when she was a minor and didn't tell anyone. Her blog on tumblr was HonestHazbinCritiques where she made some good points but also managed to find/be a part of everyone else's takes in the critical community. Her relationship with several criticalblogs turned sour when she started lashing out, talking over people, being accused of faking her age, and doing stuff like arguing with irl sexworkers abt how they should feel about Angel Dust. Whatever her age actually was at the time, she was also sending her own rewrite scripts and fanwritten episodes to Spindlehorse in order to 'fix' Hazbin. In 2021 Star returned to Tumblr under the name "Oh-God-Dude" w/o disclosing to new people who she was while also starting shit. When said new ppl found out her past and got mad at her, she proceeded to block-backtalk every one of them.

Woomycritiques (twitter handle: Raysquid) is a critical blogger who stans Star and calls everyone else in the critical community an obsessed stalker while lashing out herself. She accused others of racism (unfounded), her friends of predation just for being proship (not the 'cest and underage is good'-kind, the "I like some problematic stuff in fic-context"-kind), and heckled Dirgentlemen over how much they should hate Helluva, and more.

Regardless of if you believe Woomy and Star are the same person, which ppl do, they are both -by now- adult persons who have been asked to stop and DIDN'T, which is why people don't trust them. Star and Woom were asked to tone it down, stop making accusations and even asked by many criticals to leave and stop talking about Helluvaverse as she/they seem to have nothing good to say about it. To put that into perspective, cuz I know some HH/HB fans are gonna be reading this: the people who've self-styled themselves antis and criticals begged this person to leave cuz she had nothing nice to say and was being a nuisance. I know the stans think that's all of us anyway, so let that sink in.

LincarRox aka ToyTaker - Creep. Nasty jealous stalker freak who got kicked out of Helluvaverse servers and Aminos for saying nasty shit like how he "wants to put a baby" in Viv. No really. He took his shit and grievances to BadWebComics wiki under the name TheToyTaker while also seemingly trying to get work at Spindlehorse in order to have access to Viv directly and to 'fix' her show. He did so by faking his animation portfolio. BWW did eventually catch on and kick him out but yeah....bad. May or may not still be going under his old pseudonyms, but regardless if you see someone talking weirdly sexually abt Viv while saying they were "let go" both by SH and BWW, get out now. That's probably him.

Animation Call-Out - Bigoted shitlord. Twitter user who rags on Vivz' controversies w other people but also hates gays and BIPOCs. Admitted to submitting one of the anonymous reviews against Spindlehorse "for fun" amidst legitimate ex-employees. All of the reviews, even the ones that seem the most validating/believable should be taken with a grain of salt I believe especially since they are coming to us anonymously, but when a racist person admits to def being one of those fake reviews for "Lolz" sake, that's def when shit's hit the fan.

DoodleToons - Also bigoted creeperlooser. Altright white kid who hates BIPOC existing in anything and admits to hating Viv's stuff for their LGBTisms and 'demons'. Yes, there legit are bad-faith critics who are homophobic. Just because Viv and her crew have a way of saying that's EVERY critic of her work doesn't mean there aren't shitty people out there.

[bekolxeram]

No, OMG! I'm so sorry if my ask came off this way. I was genuinely curious if there was any way this could work, hence the question. I used to believe it was Tommy who flew the plane, but once I saw your explanation, I actually subscribed to your view. It does seem more believable. I wish it was Tommy, but I think you're right, it wouldn't make much sense. I was just curious if Tim and the writers were to confirm in the future that it was indeed Tommy who flew that plane, whether it would be at least somewhat believable. That was the purpose of my ask. I didn't mean to disregard your theories. I'm sorry. I LOVE your aviation analyses; I even sent you a coffee from the Kinley cafe 🫣 I hope you don't stop. Whenever I see you posted something, I have this huge smile on my face because I know I'm about to read a banger of a post. It's all so interesting!

Noooo, it’s not you. I actually really appreciate your asks. And thank you for the Kinley Café order, you have no idea how happy it made me.

I don’t get asks often, but since the 8x02 title reveal I’ve gotten a few, all aviation related. I’ve been… honestly, elated. I have the chance to yap about my passion and do deep dives on stuff that never crossed my mind before. Sometimes I get carried away, I’m very much incapable of being normal about planes. Ever since I saw those planes in bts photos, my brain has been bustling with ideas, and at times I click rb/reply before thinking because I get too excited. I would worry later that I might’ve forced my theories on others without being asked about them. But it’s not like they’re harmful rhetorics or antagonistic hot takes, just an info dump about a lot of planes. So people can ignore and I’ll move on.

I especially enjoyed doing research on that C-130 in 2x14, I learned a lot about aerial firefighting in the process. I didn’t pay attention back then, but I noticed the lack of airplanes when Tommy was giving Buck the tour in 7x04, so I went back and found the line from the TV reporter saying it was CAL FIRE.

I suspect that line was shoved in there last minute, because some technical consultants told them firefighting air tankers are never used in an urban environment, the weight of water/fire retardant can flatten cars, houses, it has gotten multiple people killed. I can think of more instances where the emergency seems unrealistic at first, but then there’s a passing line making it kind of possible, just exaggerated. I know we always joke about Tim writing soap opera level surreal emergencies, but I feel like all the other people involved in the making of this show don’t get enough credit, especially those designing the opening big disasters.

I’ve noticed multiple times that shortly after posting stuff about Tommy’s pilot career, a post would pop up in the tag asking people to stop obsessing over timeline. I paid them no mind before, they were probably not personal I thought, a subsection of the fandom does have the habit to use Tommy’s age to call him a predator. But this time, well, my theory was mentioned by name, so they were talking about me.

I can handle bad takes or even attacks from the toxic part of the fandom, I don’t value their opinion at all. Seeing rb after rb from people on our side of the fandom, some of whom I admire, basically telling me to stop being so obsessive over realism, being compared to fans who nitpick certain actors’ accents, tattoos, grooming choices, that one stings harder than I thought.

I know I’m being thin-skinned, I’m making everything about me, I’m fully aware that I’m a disaster. But I find myself hesitating to answer the other aviation related asks in my inbox, one of them particularly asking about the possibility of certain scenario in real life. I’m just not sure my input is welcomed here. I have this fear of unknowingly annoying people with my over-enthusiasm. I feel like that kid who keeps yapping about trains at school that everyone secretly hates again.

I just really, really love aviation. I thoroughly enjoy uniting these 2 things that I love and maybe learn new things from it. I don’t mean to impose. I was very excited this morning when I received asks in my inbox, but now it feels like being slammed back onto the ground, and it’s not a good feeling. I don’t know, maybe it’s time to uncouple these 2 things.

[platoapproved]

I read ur lesmand porn with plot and its lovely!! So lovely, the most in character thing i could ever hope for and also painful and hot and amazing :) However! I did not read the book and did magnus really…? Like i had NO idea that rape was a part of lestat’s turning bc its just not talked abt ig? Anyway im shocked and horrified. But you wrote about it beautifully, so that was fun

FIRST OF ALL, thank you so so so much anon, I'm very glad you enjoyed the fic! 😭 It makes me so happy knowing that people are getting something out of it 💚.

I'm going to answer your question under a read-more. It got pretty long... also, is this not a thing people are talking about? I have no idea, I'm just in my little fandom corner. But if anyone hasn't read the books and wants to know more - I'll get into it. Content warning for discussion of sexual assault and some upsetting book passages:

SO. It's surprisingly tricky to answer this but I'm going to do my best. Bear in mind I've only read like half of the books...

The surface-level simplest answer is no. In The Vampire Lestat, Magnus does not rape Lestat. In the books, vampires do not become aroused or have sex - like as a rule, biologically, they just can't. (Now, there is nuance here as well, because vampires DO still have sex in the books, it just involves them performing sex acts on humans with their mouths/hands/etc). This is a big change they've made in the show.

That being said, turning someone into a vampire non-consensually IS compared to rape throughout the series. Like not just in the case of Magnus and Lestat but elsewhere, too. Here are a couple examples of this from Prince Lestat (which I HAVEN'T EVEN READ YET I just looked these up because I knew Lestat's turning was discussed) talking about Lestat's turning:

Important to remember also that Prince Lestat was published in 2014 whereas The Vampire Lestat came out in 1985. It's nearly a 30 year gap; the first few books in the series are way way way less explicit and direct especially when it comes to sex.

So, there is that aspect of things. But most of all the language used in the passage around Lestat's turning is just... I obviously cannot speak for most readers but of the people I've spoken to and seen discussing it, it's fairly obvious the whole thing is written as a metaphor for rape. Like I feel like this is not an uncommon reading at all. Hey any other book readers who made it this far back me up on this.

A few passages in support of this. These are going to be wildly out of order but since I did a kind of re-telling of this scene in my fic, this is Lestat talking to Nicki about his turning:

Can't resist including a classic 'Nicki what the FUCK' moment.

As for the scenes with Magnus themselves! A lot of the stuff in my fic is just... straight up dialogue or actions of Magnus' lifted right out of the book.

-

I feel like that's enough to give you a sense of the general tone of the scene. There's other aspects that are imho meant to evoke sexual assault: Magnus puts Lestat on a bed and climbs on top of him to turn him, Lestat tries to fight him off, he tries (and fails) to resist the physical pleasure reaction humans feel when vampires drink from them, etc. I'd include more quotes but honestly at some point I'd just be copy-pasting the whole thing.

So... my answer is yes and no. I have no idea how they are going to handle all this in the show. Like it's a really pivotal moment for The Vampire Lestat and for Lestat as a character. I will honestly be shocked if in the show they don't change the metaphorical rape into a non-metaphorical one. Certainly it seems to me that the way Sam Reid has handled the acting any time Magnus comes up (Claudia asking questions, Armand mentioning him while Lestat is on stage, the tower scene in the season 2 finale, etc.) to me reads like they're going to take it that way.

Anyway wow fuck this is so many words sorry. I'm sure there are other people who have been book fans longer than me who could speak much more eloquently on this but I've done my best to answer. 😔

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober Day 14 - Left for Dead

title: a boy falling out of the sky

fandom: limited life smp

this is a follow-up to my day 6 prompt fill, exit 73. you don't need to read it to understand this :)

cw: blood and injury, implied/referenced abuse

~

Jimmy doesn’t stop fighting.

He never does. Always been a fighter, his mother used to say.

Doesn’t know what’s good for him, his boss says now.

He isn’t well liked among TIES, he knows that. He’s been running with them for about four months, and they still won’t give him the chance to prove himself.

He usually spends his time manning the front with the same group of five, all of whom have been involved in TIES for years, all of whom see him as nothing more than a kid who needs to shut up and pay attention to them. They don’t like that he has ideas—probably because they’re better than whatever they could think of.

They report him to Impulse when he says that last bit. Impulse takes Jimmy aside and reminds him that the only reason he’s here is because he begged them, and that if he wants to prove his worth, he can do it by following orders.

It’s stupid. It’s so, so stupid, because he knows what he’s doing! He learned how to shoot when he was four years old—he doesn’t need someone telling him how to hold his gun! He knows how to sneak around—he used to do it every night to get to his sister’s room, trying not to anger their father. He knows how to steal, he’s been doing that since he was seven, slipping snacks into his shorts at the grocery store.

He knows how to do everything that the higher-ups ask of the others, but nobody wants him to do it. They keep him on menial work—delivering mail, manning the front, occasionally being sent to peacefully threaten someone. Nothing interesting. None of the really good-paying stuff.

He needs the money. He really, really needs the money.

But he can’t get the money when none of these morons trust him to do even the most basic of tasks!

Jimmy spends a lot of time frustrated. He spends a lot of time hanging out in the alley behind their front (a self-storage business), kicking at the gravel and smoking, letting the tobacco calm the anger.

That’s where one of the leaders finds him, one day.

“I bet your fifteen minute smoke break is up.”

Jimmy glances up—Tango. That’s Tango, one of the bosses of TIES—Jimmy’s so low on the food chain that he’s never actually met Tango before, just seen him in passing. Jimmy’s under Impulse’s command, technically (though he almost never sees him, either), and Impulse and Tango’s commands rarely interact.

Tango probably expects him to be starstruck at seeing one of the kingpins, or ashamed at being caught an extended break.

Jimmy just rolls his eyes, takes another puff. He doesn’t know what Tango’s doing here, and he doesn’t really care.

“Are you even old enough to smoke those things?”

“I’m not a baby,” Jimmy growls. “I’ve seen just as much as half the people here, and more than the other half. I know what I’m doing.”

“Whoa, that sounds like a disproportionate response to my joke,” Tango says. He doesn’t sound mad, which is good. Jimmy’s not all that skilled in the art of keeping his mouth shut. “Who said you didn’t?”

Jimmy gestures vaguely with his cigarette. “I don’t know. Everyone. Why else would I be stuck at the desk all day? I can shoot. I can sneak. I need a mission, not this.”

Tango’s quiet for a moment. Jimmy looks down at what’s left of his cigarette, takes one final drag, then drops it to the gravel, grounds it out with his heel.

“Do you need a mission?” asks Tango. “Or do you need money?”

“I—does it matter?”

Tango shrugs casually. “Not to some people. Most people are here for the money. That’s fine. It’s pretty easy to guess what for, too. Debts, treatments. . . .” he squints at Jimmy. “You look like your mom has cancer. Yeah?”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” Jimmy snarls, sudden rage flooding his chest. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Tango laughs. “Dude, I know more about you than you know about yourself. What, does your dad beat her—gak!”

Jimmy cuts him off by grabbing the front of Tango’s shirt, shoving him up against the wall. He can’t—nobody gets to talk about his mother like that, he isn’t going to stand her name being dragged through the mud—

“Don’t you dare,” he hisses. “I don’t wanna hear—”

“One of my men has a gun trained on you right now,” Tango says calmly.

The breath freezes in Jimmy’s lungs.

He lets go, steps away. “I—”

“Shut up, I don’t have time for apologies. You wanna prove yourself, kid? You wanna get the money to get your mommy safe? Fine. Tomorrow. Six in the morning, all right?”

Jimmy’s hands clench into fists, but he nods shortly. Tango, his cool demeanor soured by irritation, rolls his eyes.

“Chill out, dude. The world’s not gonna end tomorrow.”

“You don’t know that,” grumbles Jimmy. Tango shrugs.

“Sure. You should chill out, anyways.”

-

“Canary, take the right with Eagle. Vulture with me, to the basement. Hawk and Blue Jay, you’re on left.”

They’ve gone over the plan a hundred times, so Jimmy knows that he’s going right without the Cardinal telling him which way to go. He rolls his eyes, but turns down that way, pulling his mask up a bit higher on his nose.

He fiddles with the earpiece that they’d given him—it’s a bit clunkier than everyone else���s, but he’s trying his best not to argue today so  he doesn’t bring it up. If he wants Tango to consider sending him out again, he has to be perfect.

“Listen to me,” Eagle says harshly, the moment they’re out of sight of the others. “You’re going to do everything I say, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Jimmy mutters. Eagle backhands him across the cheek; Jimmy freezes, clenching his fists.

He’s not going to fight. Even though fighting is all he knows how to do, he’s going to lay low and wait for his time to come. He can prove himself. He will prove himself.

“Don’t talk back,” says Eagle. “I’m in charge. You’re a kid if I say you’re a kid. Now—you’d better do everything I say, you hear? No mouthing off, no assuming you know better—because you don’t. You don’t know anything. Got that?”

Jimmy nods angrily. Eagle raises an eyebrow at him (and Jimmy just knows he’s smirking under his mask, the little—), then continues down the hall.

They’re infiltrating the main headquarters of a rival, though nobody will tell Jimmy who or why. He’s just there to clear the building, as out of danger as he can be. It’s not the highest position on the team, but it is on the team, and Jimmy’s doing his best to feel grateful about that.

This is a dangerous mission—a very dangerous mission. Tango had offered to let him back out around five times, his eyes glinting with something like self-satisfaction, but Jimmy had stubbornly remained and now he’s going to prove that he’s earned his place on this team. Not just on this team, but in this family. He belongs in TIES, and he’s going to prove it.

Despite its danger, it still surprises Jimmy when they walk straight into a firefight.

“Eagle to Cardinal, we need back-up! Anyone—we’re on the second floor, it’s—there’s already a fight—”

Jimmy doesn’t know what’s happening or why guns were firing before they got there, but he throws himself back around the corner with Eagle and readies his own gun, aiming it in the direction of the massive garage that they both just fled from.

“The Bad Boys are here, too, looks like—they must’ve gotten the same intel,” Eagle hisses into his earpiece. A moment later, Jimmy’s own crackles with a painful spark.

“Cardinal to all. Evacuate and regroup, sunglasses are here.”

Eagle nods, motions for Jimmy to follow as they creep back into the hallway they’d come from, into view of the garage again.

Jimmy pauses to look—it’s a quiet moment in the fight within, everyone hiding on opposite sides of the room, occasionally darting out to fire at one another.

The garage is massive, its ceiling vaulted high above the hall, and Jimmy scans the room as quickly as he can—and he spots what he’s looking for.

“Who are the Bad Boys?” Jimmy whispers. Eagle grabs his wrist, tugs him along.

“Another gang.”

“Are we enemies? Because—look—”

He points up across the room, toward a window set into the wall near the ceiling. “There’s a room up there. We could go up and snipe both sides, easy.”

Eagle sighs. “Bad Boys aren’t our enemies, not right now. Etho apparently gets along pretty well with one of their higher-ups.”

“Then—why don’t we join them, help them out?”

“Just because we aren’t enemies doesn’t mean we’re friends. We don’t want them to get the package any more than we want these guys to have it.”

Jimmy doesn’t know what this so-called package is, but he nods. Sure. It’s not like this was his one chance to prove his worth to Tango. Now—

One of the Bad Boys—he’s got a leather vest on, a green streak through his hair, no mask (the mask might be a TIES signature, Jimmy thinks, but he isn’t sure)—rolls out from behind a car, aims his gun—

But he gets hit before he can pull the trigger. A pained grunt tears from the man’s lips as he falls, a bullet piercing his calf, blood splattering out onto the concrete below him.

Jimmy looks over, sees the man who shot the Bad Boy cocking his gun, aiming it at green-hair’s prone body, and acts before he can even think.

Well, not really. He does think, but all he thinks is, maybe if I save a Bad Boy, Etho will like me.

He knows how to shoot a gun. There’s only a couple of things Jimmy knows how to do really well, and one of them is standing between the injured and their abuser and the other is firing a gun. This is both of those, so he reckons he’s pretty much in his element.

Jimmy ducks into the garage proper and fires.

He lands a shot on the man who had risen up from behind a barrel, gun aimed at the Bad Boy. The man falls with a cry, and Jimmy only has a moment to acknowledge that he just pulled that reckless stunt before he turns and runs.

That was probably really stupid, now that he takes a moment to consider the consequences.

“You—idiot—” Eagle snarls, quickly overtaking him. Jimmy hears pounding footsteps behind him, and Eagle—

Pain tears through his chest—

Jimmy’s on the ground before he can so much as blink. There’s—there’s so much ice-hot fire burning through him from his chest, all of the sudden, and he pushes himself up onto his elbows before it overtakes him and tries to make sense of what’s going on around him. How did he end up on the ground? Why did Eagle stop running?

Eagle stands frozen in front of him, gun trained on something behind Jimmy. Jimmy hears a voice behind him—

“They’ve got back-up, get the package and get out—”

Then Eagle, into his own earpiece—

“They’re taking it and running, this is a bust—”

Then his heartbeat, loud and heavy in his ears.

More footsteps behind him, as the person there runs back the other way.

Jimmy’s lips move, but nothing comes out but a long, whistling wheeze.

He was shot.

He was shot in the back, and now his chest feels warm with blood as it runs down the inside of his shirt. He was shot. Is he dying?

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to move. He’d propped himself up on his elbows before it really came over him, but now he feels frozen there, limbs locked up, unable to even roll out of the middle of the hallway. He’s been hurt before, he’s been beaten almost to the point of death before but it wasn’t quite like this, because he can’t move or speak or anything. Is he in shock? That must be it. He’s in shock.

He blinks up at Eagle, not entirely sure what he’s trying to convey. A plea for help, probably. As much as it hurts his pride, he can’t do anything else.

Eagle stares down at him, face expressionless. Then, his hand touches his earpiece again.

“Canary’s dead. Let’s get out of here.”

“I—” Jimmy manages, because he isn’t dead, he’s still here and sure, it hurts to breathe and he isn’t sure how to move, but he’s still alive.

Eagle doesn’t say anything. He turns away, jogs down the hallway, and eventually out of sight.

Jimmy wishes he could feel the rage that he longs for, that’s always so close to the surface.

He hurts too much for that, though.

A tear slips down his cheek and he curses, the words pained and broken. He can’t die here. If he dies here, who will protect Lizzie?

He promised to get them their own place. He promised to get her away from him. If he dies here, she’ll be left to face him alone, stuck with him forever, no escape in sight.

He can’t let that happen. He won’t let that happen.

Agony lances through his chest as he forces his locked limbs to move, shifts until he’s on his side, head bumping lightly against the wall of the hallway. There’s still gunshots coming from behind him, but he ignores it. Embarrassingly high-pitched whimpers escape his firmly-pressed lips as every movement jars his chest, but he eventually finds himself kind of sitting up, slumped against the wall.

His shirt is soaked through with blood. The grey with which he’d been outfitted shows how the blooming bloodstain had spread, out from the right side of his chest, down his stomach and up his shoulder. There’s a long smear of blood on the floor from his maneuvering, shockingly bright against the dirty tiles.

Jimmy stares at the blood, his heart pounding in his ears.

How is he going to find the strength to get up? He was barely able to make it to this point.

Once he does get up, how is he going to get out?

Will he walk out of here on legs that won’t cooperate? Will he manage to call for a taxi to take him to a hospital? Will the hospital turn him away without insurance? Will they call the cops?

He licks his lips, cracked and dry.

Every breath feels like another bullet pushing through his chest.

He isn’t getting out of here.

He clutches feebly at his shirt with his left hand, as if he has the strength to strip it off, as if he could ever manage to bandage the wound.

His hand is stained with blood, snaking through every crack of his palm.

It feels wrong to die like this. Alone in a corridor, his lifeblood slipping between his fingers. 

Last time he thought he would die, he wasn't alone. Lizzie was holding him, frantically trying to dress his injuries, muttering nonsense about how everything would be all right and how she was going to call an ambulance and he would be fine.

Jimmy still remembers how the musty carpet smelled like smoke under him, how he couldn't make his eyes focus on Lizzie's face, how his entire body morphed into blurry pain.

It was different.

But one thing is the same—the anger that usually burns in the pit of his stomach has been replaced by cold, disgusting, creeping shame.

He failed her. He failed the only person who means anything to him, and she's not even here for him to apologize.

It hurts even more to breathe. It feels like there's a shard of glass pressing into his lungs, each breath digging it deeper.

Another tear falls, trails down through his lips. His tongue darts out to taste the saltiness, and it tastes like failure.

“We got it, that's all that matters.”

“No, what matters is that you get medical attention. You don't get shot and just walk it off, Joel—”

For a split second, Jimmy thinks wildly that perhaps Lizzie is here, is on her way down the hall to find him, but that isn't her voice. Lizzie isn't here and nobody is coming for him.

They abandoned him.

Two men enter the hallway—one is the man who got shot, his green streak of hair falling into his eyes as he limps out, supported by another man. This man is dressed in a red shirt with a leather jacket, sunglasses stuck into his messy hair.

They're bickering—

“Can't believe we have to take the back way out—”

“It's your fault, shouldn't have gotten injured—”

But they both freeze when they see Jimmy.

“Wait—Grian, it's that kid,” the green-haired one says. “He shot the guy that was going for me. Is he still alive?”

“Yeah, he is,” Grian says, his face twisting. He lowers green-hair to the ground carefully, propping him up against the wall a foot or two away, then kneels at Jimmy's side.

“Hey, kid,” says Grian, lifting Jimmy's chin to meet his eyes. “What happened?”

Jimmy resists the urge to cough, squeezes the wet fabric of his shirt. “Chest,” he manages. “Not—not a kid.”

“Talk to me,” Grian instructs, flipping open a pocket knife to cut through Jimmy's shirt. “Who are you with? Is someone coming for you?”

“He's with TIES, look at his mask,” green-hair interjects. “Classic Etho, looking out for me.”

“Let him answer, Joel.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy breathes, nodding in Joel's direction. “TIES. They—they left me.”

His eyes burn with tears at the admission. Grian frowns, hands dancing across Jimmy's chest. “Really? That's not like them. They usually take care of their own.”

But Jimmy isn't really one of them, is he? He made an enemy of everyone he talked to. He made it clear that he wasn't in it for friends, he'd fought tooth and nail over every little thing, so does it really surprise him that they left him to die here?

He’s dying.

“I failed her,” whispers Jimmy. He hisses in pain as Grian presses on his chest, right up against the burning bullet wound. He swallows back a cough, refusing the pain it would surely bring.

“Went clean through, looks like. I'm gonna move you, look at your back.”

Jimmy actually cries out when Grian shifts him forward, letting him slump against his chest.

“Keep talking.”

“I-I'm gonna die. I failed her. He's gonna kill her.”

“Who is she? Tell me about her.”

“M’ sister,” Jimmy mumbles, biting his lip as Grian prods at the wound. “She—he'll kill her, I'm gonna die and—and nobody—”

“What color is her hair?” Joel asks.

Jimmy blinks, more tears spilling down his face. “P-pink.”

“Pink? That's a weird color.”

Jimmy sniffs. “He—he hates it. I told her not to dye it—” he cuts off with a strangled gasp, one that makes his chest seize with pain, as Grian presses his hand down firmly on Jimmy's back.

“Throw me the spare ace bandage,” Grian orders, holding his hand out to Joel. Joel digs a roll of bandages out of his pocket and tosses it to him.

“How old are you?” Joel asks. “What's your name, how old are you?”

“Jimmy,” he barely manages, as Grian wraps the bandage around his chest. “I—I'm—seventeen.”

Grian curses in Jimmy's ear. Joel’s face darkens.

“Told Etho they need to be better about checking ages,” says Joel angrily. “A kid shouldn't be part of a dangerous op, for goodness sakes—”

“We don't have time for this,” Grian says firmly. He ties off the bandage and arranges himself to be side-by-side with Jimmy, loops an arm under his shoulders. “Joel, can you call in back-up? Kid, can you walk?”

“We don't need back-up, I can walk—”

“Absolutely not—”

“We'll help Jimmy between us, all right? Then he can lean on both of us and I can lean on him—”

Jimmy’s next few moments are a blur of pain and nausea, but he somehow finds himself standing, one arm slung over Joel's shoulders, one arm over Grian's.

“Just take a step,” Grian grunts, and Jimmy stumbles forward, just trying to breathe the best he can through the stabbing pain.

Do they think he’s going to survive? They wouldn’t be helping him if they didn’t, right?

“How far to the car?” Joel asks tightly.

“If we take a left, we should hit the stairwell soon after.”

“Right. Stairs. That’ll go great.”

They make their slow way down the hall, Jimmy’s exhaustion growing with each step. They stop frequently, adjusting their positions so that Jimmy can rest easier on the two of them. Then they keep going, one painful foot forward after the other. 

After what feels like ages of the hall tunneling in front of him, Grian shifts them both left, toward another hall, identical to the first (but a good bit shorter).

Joel is breathing heavily, occasionally making small, pained noises under his breath. If Jimmy had enough space in his chest for more emotions, he would feel guilty that he was making Joel go to all this trouble for him.

He doesn’t have room for that. Just the shame.

There’s a door at the end of the hall, and all three of them are gasping for breath by the time they make it. Joel leans against the wall and Jimmy leans against him. His feet are practically deadweight, his shoes feeling like cinder blocks.

“We go up one level of stairs,” Grian tells them, voice a bit raspy. “The door out should be there. The car’ll be . . . probably a short walk from there. Good?”

Joel flashes a thumbs-up. “Can we . . . all right if we take a minute, first?”

Grian checks his watch, worries his lip between his teeth. “I don’t think we have time. We should go.”

Joel huffs, but he pushes himself off the wall, readjusting Jimmy’s arm around him.

Jimmy just swallows, then finally gives in to the urge to cough.

Apparently, it’s the wrong decision to make. The cough instantly makes the pain skyrocket, so much worse than it’s been so far, and Jimmy can barely keep standing\. He tries to breathe through it—but barely any air seems to be entering his lungs, it’s like there’s hardly room for even half a breath.

He falls to his knees, another weak cough escaping him, one that only serves to drive out what little air he’s managed to collect. He can’t breathe. It hurts too much, and he can’t breathe.

“Jimmy? Jimmy, stay with us—”

“Stay here with him, I’ll go grab whoever’s in the car—”

Jimmy barely registers the sound of running footsteps as he falls further, leaning on his hands. He gasps fruitlessly, in and out and far too shallow. He can’t do it, he can’t manage it.

He’s dying. He was shot in the chest and he can’t breathe. He’s dying right here, after everything, abandoning Lizzie and everything he’s been fighting for his whole life.

He’s so scared.

He’s terrified, the fear even colder than the guilt, because he doesn’t want to die, but he can’t breathe long enough to even say it.

I don’t want to die, he thinks with all his might. I don’t want to.

He’s always been a fighter. That’s what his mother would tell him, as she spread numbing cream on his bruises and kissed his forehead good night. He never got to hear her last words, but every day before school she would ask him to watch out for his sister (even though she was three years his senior) and he thinks she would have said something like that if he was there when she died.

He’s failed her, too. He couldn’t save his mom, and he can’t save Lizzie, even though it was all she ever asked of him. He’s let them both down, and he can’t even get enough breath for an apology.

“Jimmy, listen to me,” Joel says, his voice sounding as if it’s underwater. The man sits on the floor in front of him, adds his hands to Jimmy’s shoulders to try and keep him somewhat up. “Listen. Can you see me?”

Through tear-blurred eyes, he can just manage to see Joel, discern the worry etched into his face. Jimmy nods, just barely.

“Good. Calm down, okay? Breathe slowly. Slow and deep, okay?”

Jimmy shakes his head. He can’t. He can’t breathe slowly, he can’t breathe deeply, he can barely breathe at all. His arms are trembling, and it’s only moments before they give out entirely. He slumps against Joel, noticing vaguely that his fingers are numb.

“Bullet probably hit your lung,” Joel mutters, adjusting Jimmy in his arms so that he’s sitting, Joel’s legs around him. “Do you smoke? Or, did you smoke, I guess. You won’t anymore.”

The room is going out of focus, and not just because of the tears. Jimmy tries desperately to hold on to consciousness, licking his lips and flexing his fingers compulsively.

Joel tilts his head back, peering into his eyes. Jimmy wonders if he can see the fear there, if he looks as scared as he feels, heaving for breath.

“It’s okay,” Joel says, voice considerably softer than it’s been this whole time. “Geez, you’re just a kid. Killer aim, though. Where’d you learn to shoot?”

My dad taught me, Jimmy wants to say. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have enough air.

He’s going to pass out. Jimmy’s been beaten to unconsciousness too many times to count on one hand, so he knows what it feels like when his head starts to fuzz over, goosebumps breaking out over his entire body.

He swallows, squeezes his eyes shut.

He’s going to die.

He failed.

-

He survives, somehow.

His lung had collapsed after being punctured by the bullet, which was life-threatening, but didn’t claim him this time. Jimmy woke up in an unfamiliar library-turned-medical wing, an oxygen mask taped to his face and an IV stuck in his arm.

He heals up nicely, according to the doctor, and once he’s cleared to walk (on oxygen, pulling a portable oxygen canister behind him), he starts exploring the manor he finds himself in.

It’s massive, dozens of rooms and chandeliers and fancy carpets, and plenty of people always coming and going. He spends a lot of time sitting in a cushy chair outside of the library, looking out at the main entrance, people-watching everyone who comes through. He gets strange looks, sometimes, but he’s ignored for the most part, and for the first time in a long time he feels almost relaxed.

Not quite. A nagging voice in the back of Jimmy’s head reminds him of Lizzie, of the hell he’s left her to face alone, and he knows he has to do something soon or the guilt and anger will overwhelm him again, but he tries not to think about it and just focused on recovering.

Grian and Joel show up on the fourth day, when he’s finally released from using an oxygen cannula during the day.

“How are you feeling?” Grian asks awkwardly when they approach his bedside, hands stuck in his jeans pockets.

Jimmy shrugs. “Good,” he says. “I mean, like I was shot in the chest. Good, given the circumstances.”

Joel snorts. “Well, yeah, duh.”

“Good enough to get going, soon?”

Jimmy blanches. He’d been dreading this conversation. “I . . . actually, I was wanting to ask. . . .”

They know what he wants before he even suggests it.

“Absolutely not,” Grian says. “We don’t take on kids. It’s not—”

“I turn eighteen in six months—”

“—super dangerous, and—”

“I think he should stay,” Joel says helpfully, settling into an armchair far too grandiose for what should be a hospital setting. Grian glares at him.

“You know we don’t bring kids into this.”

“We can’t send him back to TIES, can we?” Joel says. “We can’t turn him loose on the street, or else they’ll probably try to take him out, just in case. You don’t just quit TIES and walk away.”

“I don’t want to go back to TIES, if it helps,” Jimmy adds. “They left me to die back there.”

Joel waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. Etho said you’re welcome back, if you want. But you don’t, so we don’t need to worry about that.”

“But he’s—”

“I’ll do anything to stay. I’ll—I’ll even just work the front, I just—I need it,” Jimmy says, glancing between the two of them.

They don’t know how desperately he needs it. They don’t know that the only reason he has for living is saving Lizzie.

He’d tried getting a normal job, but no place that paid enough was willing to hire someone underage full-time, much less someone without a high school diploma. TIES was the first place to offer him more than seven dollars an hour with the promise of one day making more.

He needs this kind of money to get an apartment. And he needs an apartment more than anything in this world.

Grian bites his lip, looks over at Joel.

“We can say he’s eighteen,” Joel suggests.

“I’ll get my birth certificate changed,” promises Jimmy. “I just—” this is it, he has to convince them— “I have to get my sister to safety. Please.”

“I—look, you can’t tell anyone, ever,” Grian stresses, running his hands through his hair. “You’re eighteen, all right? And don’t expect to get any ops—”

“Do expect to get ops, you’re a decent shot—”

“Joel and I are your only friends, don’t trust anyone else—”

“Do whatever you want, we aren’t your dads—”

Jimmy lies back on the bed, propping the pillows up under him. Relief tastes sweet on his tongue, after the building guilt he’s been feeling over the past few days. So . . . he’s a Bad Boy now? Would he get a leather jacket? Or sunglasses?

That doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that he’s already become friends with two people here after being a member for less than two minutes, and that’s way closer to getting Lizzie to safety than he ever was with TIES.

He can keep his promise.

And one day, when he’s got enough rapport in the Bad Boys, he’s going to call out a hit of his own. And he’ll fulfill it on his own—he’ll hold the gun that he was given on his sixth birthday, the last gift he ever received, the one with his father’s initials messily carved into the hilt—

He’ll take that gun and shoot his dad in the head, and they’ll finally be safe.

[hfjonewiki]

Hi! I hope this isn't a strange thing to ask but could you tell me more about ii-critical? I'm writing a research paper on the ii community and I wanna gain more insight to what that part of the fandom was all about.

My main questions are: Why did it exist? Why were you apart of it? What were the posts like? What was the biggest drama? Hell, what platform was it even on??

I wasn't that deep in the OSC when it was up and running (only really got into the community in ~2018) so a lot of community context from that era is lost on me. If you have any other object show oldhead insight for ii you wanna share, please do! I find fandom fascinating and would love to here more stories.

hoooo boy...... cracks knuckles. i went over it a little bit in a previous post but i'll try and give more info this time

(also this should go without saying but please don't try and seek out anyone mentioned or involved its been like 6-7 years since all this happened. also most of us were mentally unstable teenagers hence the. everything)

ii-critical originated as a tumblr blog created by someone named mira (i have no idea if they still go by mira or what their pronouns are now. i'm just gonna stick to they/them for convenience) as a way for them to discuss their criticisms towards the show's writing. the blog was created in mid-to-late 2017, during a time period where "(media) critical" was becoming a common tag. the trend was started by "su critical", a tag created by steven universe fans to discuss the show's faults in response to the show being in a rut of making some VERY dubious decisions (i believe it was started around bismuth's introduction, which was heavily criticized at the time for MANY reasons). the "critical" tags were often created for fandoms who tended to be hostile towards criticism of the media they were based around. the inanimate insanity fandom didn't really have that issue, thankfully. and so, the blog "ii-critical" was born.

at the beginning, the posts were about mira going through an episode beat by beat, and pointing out things they both liked and disliked about it. occasionally, there were posts analyzing a specific character. i'm kind of speeding through the "what were the posts like" section because that is by far the LEAST interesting part of the ii-critical mythos

i found the blog very shortly after its creation. it caught me at a good time, because i was at a point where i was becoming disillusioned with the show (episode 11 was the most recent episode at this point, and i really disliked it due to it being at the peak of ii's melodrama era. the show just felt miserable to watch. s2e11 sucking butt is still an opinion i stand by today Lolzor). mira and i started talking and i was brought on as the blog's other moderator, and i wrote my own analysis posts.

the blog was decently successful and didn't actually get that much hate. most people agreed with our criticisms and were, like, normal about the concept of a thing they liked being flawed. at some point we had a decent amount of followers and made the ill-fated decision to create a discord server for the blog. for added context: at the time of the server's creation, mira was 13, and i was 14. we were NOT old enough to be running a public discord server that at least 50+ people ended up joining.

the server had a lot of problems, mainly in regards to the channels. since we were both at the age where you are hormonal and stupid, we decided to make the nsfw channel accessible to everyone, and didn't even ask for people to include their ages in their intros. a concerning amount of people assumed that mira and i were both adults, or at least older teens until we said otherwise. we also had a blacklist and vent channel, which, word of advice, you should NOT have in a public server. shit gets out of hand SO fast. i vividly remember there being at least one guy who posted in the vent channel on a near-daily basis about pretty serious stuff. trust me when i say that people shared some HORRIFIC information in there. also, we had an emoji that was just a drawing of donut from bfdi with his whole cock and balls hanging out because we thought it was funny. i'm pretty sure there wasn't a "please don't post the donut balls emoji in non-nsfw channels" rule anywhere either.

i could go into more detail about various happenings, but that delves too deeply into interpersonal drama that frankly has no business being shared publicly. one of the most concerning things that happened, however, was this one guy who would come in vc, barely say anything, and fuck around with his gun the whole time. and yes, you could hear it. eventually we got reports of him being predatory towards a younger member of the server, and he was banned. i think that was the first thing that made mira and i go, "oh, we might've fucked up". there was also another incident where somebody was leaking information from inside the server (yet another reason why the vent channel was a HORRIBLE idea), and we banned a bunch of inactive people until eventually realizing somebody had stolen the username and pfp of a real user and impersonated them to stay in the server. this whole ordeal lasted like, two weeks. and again!! we were just BARELY no longer preteens at this point!! and we still thought, yeah, we can handle this. we're super capable. at one point we hired two other moderators (one of whom was 14-15, and the other was an actual adult for once. having an adult moderator led to us FINALLY locking the nsfw channel off to minors, since we had somebody who could moderate it for us), but this was towards the end so most of the damage had already been done

i was removed as a moderator on the blog after a large amount of interpersonal nonsense that, again, i'm not going to get into. it was mainly just because i was spending too much time in the server instead of posting on the blog like i was supposed to. a couple weeks later, i was suddenly banned from the server and mira had blocked me on everything. again, interpersonal nonsense and both of us being mentally unstable, not anyone's business. we reconciled a few months after and both apologized for being dumbasses, so we at least ended things on better terms.

another notable thing is that sometimes, crew members would pop in and out of the server, and they were surprisingly chill about the blog's existence. it was mainly justin and sam from what i remember, and resulted in this legendary image:

i don't remember this bit, but at some point taylor may have responded to one of our posts and was Not Nice about it? again, i don't remember this, take it with a grain of salt. but knowing his history with getting into shit with fans for no reason and how it got to the point where it was cited as a reason he was removed from the team, yeah that tracks

talking about ii-critical is strange, because i don't know where to draw the line between "infamous blog from the early days of the tumblr osc", "stupid pointless infighting between teenagers", and "genuinely horrible decisions and moderation that caused real damage". i'm trying to stick to just the first one and giving info about the last one when necessary. i'm aware a lot of this is gonna paint my past self in a VERY unflattering light, but that's who i was and what i did when i was 14 and i just have to accept that.

ii-critical was just a facet of the tumblr osc circa 2017. a lot of what happened can be traced back to larger issues with the fandom, especially when it came to restrictions on nsfw content. remember, this is pre-tumblr porn ban. i knew an ALARMING amount of people who had nsfw blogs, and even posted nsfw art while they were minors. i don't wanna seem like i'm making excuses for fucking up when it came to moderation and keeping our members safe, but it's important to know that the blog and server were very much a product of a specific point in tumblr history. we saw minors casually posting nsfw on a regular basis and thought, "yeah, it should be fine to have the nsfw channel open to everyone, right?" and like i said, we didn't originally require ages upon introduction. people didn't realize how badly we'd fucked up until the damage had already been done.

i could go on about the dozens of other ways i fucked up, but that would start to dive into the interpersonal side of things. i think i covered everything that actually mattered. i don't plan on talking about ii-critical to this extent again any time soon. everyone who both ran and was part of the blog and server have moved on, i don't wanna keep dragging people back to what's probably a very unpleasant period of their lives.

that said, if prompted, i will talk about the 2012-2014 deviantart era + "dark ages" of the osc AT LENGTH if prompted. i swear i have wisdom beyond the shitty blog i ran with my friends as a teenager. you dont even know about the Ball OC Discourse

[maggotfagg0t]

Introduction 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

Hello' I am Tobias or Toby, he/him you can call me ether one I don't mind. I am very talkative person, so if you'd like to just ramble to me about stuff that you like/interested in I'm always hear to listen, or if you just want someone to speak with. I try to be active on here, but you can also contact me on the other socials that will be listed below of course. I really like car seat headrest just a warning

Fandoms 𓆨

Some fandoms that I am in are

- Marble hornets

- everymanhybrid

- darkharvest00

- smiling friends

- rick and morty

- superjail

- Car seat headrest

- creepypasta

- Moral orel

- homestuck

- clone high

- bojack horsemen

Etc

Other interests 𓆑

Some other interests that I have consist of

Drawing

Bugs

Writing

Urban exploring

Filming

Horror

Rp

Adult cartoons

MUSIC 𓆦

I listen to alot of indie rock, my favorite band is car seat headrest, it's one of my biggest hyperfixations at this moment. I am very car seat headrest coded. I also listen to alot of local metal, and punk bands that play around where I live, I go to alot of concerts and am very much involved in the punk scene and am punk myself as someone who listens to the music and follows punk Ideology.

Socials 𓆣

Discord: maggotfagg0t

I do have other socials such as Instagram and snapchat, but will not be listing them here due to privacy reasons, but If you'd like to reach out and ask for my insta or snap I'd probably give it to you. Just don't wanna list it here for the whole of Tumblr here.

DNI 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

just a basic dni, I won't not talk to you if you are in any certain fandoms since I know that alot of fandoms are toxic but that doesn't make it so all of the people in it are bad and I find it a little dumb when people say DNI if you like a certain Fandom, unless it's something where the source itself is problematic that I understand that. So almost anyone is welcome on my page.

unless of course you are a pro contact ped0, z00, or anything or that nature. Then you aren't welcome here, and if you are someone who shames people for their, gender identity, race, abilities, etc then DNI. I do not hate people who suffer from paraphilles if you are actively working on getting help, + have never hurt anyone nonconsently then you can interact,

What am I? 𓆈

I am a male, I go by he/it

@ssunsear I love you no homo i guess 😔

So yeah I'm pretty friendly and will just mainly just ramble about stuff on this app so talk to me if you like I'm really just here to meet cool new people :D

[jichanxo]

sooooo... *twirls her hair* how many asks should i send until kuwagami art. jk as well. the real question will be: does it happen often that someone else’s art inspires you? in fandom spaces specifically

well you see it’s like a loyalty card program, every 10 asks or so you get a complimentary kuwagami

just kidding you can just breathe in my direction and I’ll be tempted to draw them. kuwagami blast! (you've caught me on a... just okay art day lol)

(people still like kabedons, right?)

anyway for my actual answer: in terms of direct inspiration, it doesn't really happen much? the last two times i did art directly based on someone else's work is probably this one from this fic, and also that time i drew art of someone else's judgment au. oh! and there's that moriohpsycho art based on this comic! (filthyguts' work is so very. hgngngghh. very good.) nothing else really comes to mind, and when i think of the other things i've been into recently there hasn't been as much opportunity for that to happen...

flex and herds = strong fixation but lmao. almost nobody else made stuff about them. nobody is surprised umineko = surprisingly i don't read much umineko fanfiction? and in terms of illustration, i certainly picked up imagery and indirect inspiration but nothing concrete enough for me to give an example... now that i think about it, i did once draw andromalius from redaction/sunny, but that was years ago, and also mostly because i was acquainted with the writer. ...i don't have that artwork on hand right now death note = didn't really get involved with the fandom + i enjoyed my own ideas well enough! ...i can't recall if i drew long-hair-L art before or after seeing other artists do it. and as for everything else the same kind of reasoning applies. didn't really get involved with the fandom or wasn't really compelled to make art in response to stuff i saw, or i just don't remember anymore.

buuuuuuut if we're opening this up to just... pulling ideas from other people? then yeah, all the time, though that kind of goes without saying when you have a creative hobby. ...it's probably going to be hard to come up with examples of this since it's more ambiguous.

there's uhhhhhh... kuwana listens to nickelback which was a @/four-white-trees invention, wasn't it? (EDIT: and @/overdevelopedglasses!) (not tagging in this post so he doesn't feel obligated to read my big ass ask responses 💀) as of writing this, it's not posted but i did end up making kuwagami art based on a nickelback song so. yknow. there's that LMAO

for sawashiro and arakawa, i do sometimes go reference @/todayisafridaynight 's art to help me with my own. ("how did he draw this part of the suit? oh, like that huh? hmm" <- this kind of thing)

and um. i'm not trying to pander to you (at least not this time), but genuinely it's one of the few examples that come to mind at this moment. but when i was writing my first kuwagami fic, i could feel the influence of the ever-changing on my brain... was turning over some of your ideas there...

you remember this? (you even pointed it out in your comment on my fic, and i should've said something then, but whatever i'm saying it now)

that was absolutely because of this

(obligatory poke at anybody else reading this post that you can read passthroughtime's fic here.)

so, um. yeah. not really sure what else to add to that. pretty self evident i think. (i'm always talking about the ever-changing but i don't think i can overstate the impression it left on me at the time)

anyhow there aren't really any other examples off the top of my head! these are all recent examples so they're not so difficult to recall, but there are probably others i've forgotten...

[belong2human-kind]

Hey guys, Clara here!! How are you??

I'm here to talk about something more serious right now. But don't worry!

As someone who is deeply in love with the SW Rebels saga since even before the first airing and someone who has accompanied all of the development of this amazing expansion of the Star Wars' universe, I want to say that this is one of the most diverse community I've met, and this makes me really happy about how so many different beings share the same interest and passion for this show as I do 🧡

So.. my profile won't lie huh? I'm down for a ship of this show so so bad, and if you, person on the other side reading this, still don't know what I'm talking about, let me tell you: I'm a biig sabezra shipper and fan! Since the first time I saw these two interact, I feel in love with their dynamics. And as the show continued, the sentiment that they could be one of the healthiest pairings of the entire saga only grew more. I love both characters individually, Ezra and Sabine, and also love them as a couple.

Joining tumblr and being active here about them, I entered the community and even dared to share my weird thoughts and stuff and own creations about this universe I love so much. I was so so so motivated by amazing people who gave me support to show my little creations, and I made truly wonderful friends here on the ship community that I'll cary for life. I won't lie that I am very eager about this ship so whoever I see engaging in Sabezra, I tend to follow XD (I hope this isn't too weird heh ^^)

I'm here to talk about two things.

1. I am very thankful for the friends I've made on the ship community and the series community as a whole too. Also, the majority of people I interact with are absurdly amazing, kind and sweet, and as I said, it's really touching and heartwarming to me to know that such a different and diverse community is united by one specific passion about SW. You guys are amazing, stay awesome 🧡💜

2. This being said, unfortunately, things can get a little heated up about some topics, specifically the ones involving pairings. So, I'm here to talk/ask, all of the people who, like me, are part of this community, to just remember that, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who you support your character with or without: we are still united by the same interest, this one being the love for those characters with such deep, unique and touching stories.

The Ghost Crew is a family, and we, the fandom, are kinda like a big one too. So what I'm here to ask is: Hey, be kind to each other 🌻 Different opinions exist, but this is not only fine, this is amazing. It'd be boring if everyone on earth loved Rebels or even my favorite ship, sabezra, because if everyone did then it wouldn't be something so unique and especial, and it is. As I said before, this community is so diverse! We can enjoy different things, we actually should do that! But, by the end of the day, we're just a bunch of people who love star wars. I think we can all agree on that ^^

That being said, I also apologize. I try to not engage with any hate spreading messages, and I know that there are quite a few here on both the shipping communities and the entire community too. Nothing can really justify being mean to someone (at least that's what I believe and try to hold myself on) but I know that we never know what's really happening behind the screen for someone, even if they share. Life can be tough, I know this myself. So I apologize for all of my friends and community colleagues that might have hurt on others, and also, apologize on myself as well if I did let this happen too. As much as I try always being kind, I'm still a human, with ups and downs and one that can make some mistakes too. I try my best to make people around me (physically and virtually) to feel comfortable and embraced because I think everyone deserves that. But at the same time, we can hurt people intentionally and unintentionally so easily :( So yeah, I apologize for that. And I hope we can interact with each other with kindness and respect. I think this is one of the most important things to do as a human: be gentle to others and the nature around you.

Uhh I speak so much :'n It's 2am now and I have class tomorrow, my adhd brain is still running on circles on my head LOL so I'll be off for now. Keep awesome guys! And stay safe 🌻

[starrysnowdrop]

Okay like...I'm not a huge Hermes fan because of what happens later with him but..I can tell you are very excited about him and your stuff involving him and you're afraid no one will like or ask about it. I like to encourage people to chase what they love and inspires them so...

I am asking. Lay it on me! Give me all the Hermes stuff that makes you excited! (If you're comfortable doing it.) Headcannons, thoughts, um..I don't AO3 but if you have links to stories with him...whatever you want to share! Go for it!

First of all, can I give you the biggest virtual hug?!?

Thank you so much @pinxli for your kindness, your encouragement, and your support for us all here!! You are an amazing friend and I’m so grateful. 🥹💖

Onto your actual ask, which is just a chance for me to blab about Hermes for a bit, which I know will end up way too long, so I’ll put it under a cut.

So, I want to start by saying that you are absolutely right Inxli-mun in that it’s been difficult for me to talk about Hermes, for multiple reasons, but a big one is that so many in the fandom seem to hate him. I mean he is the one that is easy to point to and say that he caused the final days in the first place and that he’s to blame for literally everything that happened afterwards. So I get it, I really do. But it also means that it makes me really anxious about even talking about him, let alone gpose or write about him. So hopefully this will help me in doing so in the future.

Here’s the thing. From the beginning, I was in the “love to hate him” camp about Fandaniel. I was intrigued with his character and wanted to know more, but I wasn’t exactly excited about his total nihilism, especially in the Pre-EW patches when we first got a taste of him. He got a bit more interesting after the Amon reveal right before Tower of Zot. As a fan of Allag stuff, I liked the reveal and all, but I still didn’t know at all what to expect next. When we got to Fandaniel’s death when he became the heart of Zodiark, I felt like he was an interesting villain, but not my favorite in FFXIV, and I thought that was that. I didn’t think we’d get anything more about Fandaniel, let alone his Unsundered self.

Then came Elpis, and the more I heard and saw, the more I realized that I was going to fall in love with this character, or should I say the Unsundered Fandaniel anyway. The reveal that his name was Hermes got me so damn giddy already because I have always loved Hermes from Greek Mythology. Then when Hermes first spoke in Elpis, I recognized Jeremy Ang Jones’ voice, as he was clearly Amon/Fandaniel, but he spoke so softly and it just hit me with the feels instantly. I have no idea why, but I find a great voice to be a huge turn on, and Hermes just did it for me. His beautiful green eyes also greatly help in the sexiness department for me.

Seriously though, the more I learned of Hermes, the more I felt for him. His caring nature and compassion for all of the creations, his devotion and fatherly love for Meteion, and his kindness towards the WoL just made me love him so deeply. And he was so unique amongst the Ancients, with his love for all creatures, not just his fellow people, and not to mention that I saw a lot of myself in him with his depression, as I myself have chronic depression and anxiety. It all spoke to me, and way after I had finished 6.0, I still couldn’t shake him from my mind. Though I had no intention on shipping with him for the longest time, since it took me nearly 2 years to do so, he had stolen my heart, just as Aymeric, G’raha, Cid, etc. had done before.

So I don’t want this to turn into a full blown essay on him, even though I have already written so much already, but I wanted to talk a bit about why I love him, and that my love is very much for Hermes, and not as much for Fandaniel as the sundered ascian. I very much see Hermes, Amon, and Ascian Fandaniel as all separate characters, even though they all share the same soul whose trauma can be first attributed to the suffering that Hermes experienced.

Though I am still figuring out not only a canon timeline, especially with the newest short story coming in and wrecking a few things that I had planned, but I also have a few headcanons for the Modern AU with Urania x Hermes, and I also I do want to do a Happy Ending AU for Hermes, but I am not entirely certain if I could pull that last one off. So for now, I’ll give you a handful of headcanons for the Modern AU.

Hermes is a single father who adopted Meteion when she was a few months old, and she is obviously not a familiar in this modern setting but a little girl who wants her papa to find love. He is in graduate school working towards his master’s and eventually his PhD in Astronomy, but he still doesn’t earn enough to support himself and his daughter, so he is a barista at the local coffee shop. It is at the coffee shop where he meets Urania, who is a regular customer. They then bump into each other at the university and realize that they are in the same Astronomy graduate program. Some other hobbies that Hermes has is bird watching and cooking, along with spending his free time with Meteion as much as he can. I’m still figuring out how I want the romance to develop, but I’m very excited about this AU because it can just be a sweet love story and no big bad stuff happening like the Final Days.

With that, I think I’ll shut up for now. But thank you so much for this ask Inxli-mun!! I very much appreciate the opportunity to blab about this man who I adore very much. 🥰💖

[blorboazula]

Thank you got calling out the bullshit about w@nd@ and the gargoyle that's supposedly her son. I haaate that the show and fandom is getting overtaken by them. Like we have QWOC and older queer women and yall want to drool over the whitewashed abuser and her white boy mini me? People once again gushing for m/m crap with that twerp and his bf when we might not even get a kiss from the canon f/f couple due to censorship? Ugh. Not even touching people villainixong Agatha immediately again.

So, I try to not be as vocal as I can be about how much I don't like Wanda and her stans, but here we go. I won't even tag her and such so don't come at me (or come, if you want). Little rant:

Yeah, like, I really, really don't like the way I'm seeing way too many people talking about him as if he's the main character of the show.

Like, yeah, sure, be excited about a character you like. I was jumping in joy when Carol showed up in the post credit scene of Ms. Marvel. I was talking about it on Twitter a lot but I also talked about the other stuff. I used to have a MCU side-blog and the majority of my posts weren't about that one thing. (Even if lots of my theories involved her since 1. The Marvels a movie I've been waiting and 2. she was one of the main characters in the direct sequel to Ms. Marvel). I still enjoyed the show for who the show was about even if my favorite character of the 'verse showed up + the series was very much connected to it.

(In the same vein, you don't need to consume every media with characters you like. I didn't watch WandaVision even if Monica was there.)

Agatha is the main character of the show, it's in the fucking name of the show. Sure, it's a trilogy and whatever (or so I heard), this part isn't about fucking Wanda, for fucks sake. It's Agatha All Along, not Wanda & Her Spontaneous Creations All Along.

But I knew it was going to happen. I've seen people tearing apart every non-Teen-is-Billy theory to shreds as if those were personally offensive. I'm sorry some people liked the theory that Teen was, somehow, the protagonist's kid. You know, because the protagonist is the character in which the story revolves around and the protagonist is the most important character because she's the FUCKING PROTAGONIST.

Queer representation is important, yup, and they fucked it up before (Loki anyone?). And the one in Eternals is almost a blink and you'll miss. But even if I'm not a lesbian/sapphic myself, I'm here like "come on, let the lesbians have this for ONCE". It was going so well, the jokes about lesbian witches and their emotional support emo twink, it was going so well.

I knew the moment that we had the identity reveal, the Wanda stans would be even louder and ruin the enjoyment of the others. I genuinely liked Teen and I still think that he was a pretty nice character before that fucking episode end – even if I wouldn't be surprised that he was manipulating them all this time, an evil little bitch like his mom (and that would be fun if it wasn't 1. for the twisted morals & 2. the fact that I ended up really liking Agatha).

About how they talk about Agatha: only Wanda is allowed to be mean, bitchy, evil, cruel and blame it all on her trauma. Every other villain? They're just evil. It's the kind of thing Ms. Volunteer-to-be-Experimented-on-by-HYDRA believes, considering her bullshit line to Strange.

Like, Wanda stans are really the fucking worse.

[maleficore]

How many references of the same damn character can I make before I get bored?

Yes.

Some design and related rambles below because I'm in A Mood

There's uhh, selfharm mentions in there on top of the typical Durge shit. Just in case anyone needs a heads up.

I keep tweaking his design every time I draw him, but I think I'm decently happy with it now? It's mainly the burn scar that has been annoying me because I both want it to unique but still somewhat fit the game texture..

I wish I knew how to mess with texture maps to make him custom ones so that all the scars in game match The Lore, but ughh learning that is way too much work.

The scar run down so far:

THE BURN SCAR is a souvenir from Cania. It covers almost the entire upper left half of his body, but on his arm it ends abruptly at the elbow because the explosion that caused it took off his whole forearm so the limb is "brand new" and therefore, scarless.

Yes, he can regrow limbs like an axolotl. However here, I think healing magic was involved too. Just because of how extensive the damage was. I'm imagining his forearm blown off and what's left of his arm charred nearly to the bone. Same with his face, his cheek was definitely gone. An absolutely terrifying image and one that's for sure seared into Gortash's brain forever.

THE VIVISECTION SCAR is Kressa's work of course, but its shape is pretty atypical for how most of the fandom does Durge's scars. The arms of the Y incision don't extend towards his shoulders and go underneath his pectorals instead. It's mostly because his organs have fuck all to do with the tadpole Kressa was studying so I headcanon those experiments to have been done purely for sexual gratification, not scientific at all. Which makes cracking open his ribcage feel like too much of a hassle to me, she can still get in there for a rummage through his stomach after all.

THE SMALL STOMACH AND CHEST SCARS are all stab wounds. I like to think they would've healed fully long ago, but Ezra subconsciously keeps that from happening because they're like mementos to him. It was... a religious/masochism thing between him and Helena. A tad messed up, but he liked her a lot okay.

THE THIGH SCARS are self inflicted. Some are cuts, some poor, frenzied attempts at flaying the skin off to maximise the pain. They start to fade and heal post tadpole because he forgot about the habit thanks to the orinbotomy, but he used to pretty much selfharm his emotions away. Sad? Pain. Affectionate? Pain. Guilty? Nothing some more pain can't fix! It started in his youth when selfharm was his only way to get some clarity of mind when the Urge started to muddy his thoughts and it escalated from there to using it for everything.

THE HAND SCAR is also of the self inflicted kind, but that one is really old. He was around 12 when he stabbed his hand out of fear that if he didn't use the knife he was given to hurt himself, he was going to cause harm to someone else. It was pretty soon after killing his foster parents so the panic was understandable, got him banned from the kitchen for years tho. The scar never faded completely because he was really weak and sickly as a kid due to not feeding the Urge, which messed with his healing abilities (amongst other things) making it stick.

THE HEART SCAR is an another old one. It's from the wound he was killed with when he transformed into the Slayer for the first time. It's symbolic and one of those scars that don't heal because he doesn't want them to. It marks the death of the person he was before Bhaal and serves as a reminder of that whole event. The paladin who killed him (a close friend and mentor actually so that's fun) ran him straight through with a sword so there's a matching scar on his back too.

Those have all pretty much always been there and the only change is the lore of the stab wound scars, though. I just felt like talking about them because I like giving those things A Story.

And since I'm already babbling, I also added some stuff!

He didn't use to have his nails painted post nautiloid, but I had the bright idea of Shadowheart seeing the remnants of chipped off nail polish and because of that offering to do them for him at some point. Probably not until act 3 when they finally reach civilization, but still!

I once mentioned in passing that he collects rings and never implemented that into his design, but here it is now! It's mostly a case of him feeling like he should wear a ring out of habit and ending up going a bit ham with it.

Old wedding band mark :) only sticks around for a bit post nautiloid and eventually disappears, but I still included it anyway for the angst. You understand.

One day I'll do a proper colour reference and decent art of his clothing to go with it, but this will do for now. I just love him so much, he can fit so much lore on him and it's driving me a bit crazy. My beloved hairy bastard man.