#i love him i love how he’s being an adolescent gay disaster

[loserboyfriendrjl]

“Don’t worry your pretty head, Moony,” Sirius said, stretching his arms upward, his shirt riding up and exposing his lean body and the trail of hair starting at his navel and disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.

Remus flushed a rather deep shade of red.

[your-turn-to-role]

If you were to put the M9 in order of how feral they are, what would that look like?

i can absolutely do that!

it's also worth mentioning here that ages back one of my friends asked me to rank the cr characters (both m9 and vm) by how likely they were to eat a pickle out of a pond? (i may post that later if people are interested bc it was fun to write) (edit: posted!)

and i feel like this list is gonna end up being similar, but not entirely, because while fjord would absolutely do that under the right circumstances, he is, as established by freckledmccree, Not Feral. but here we go:

1 - nott

we have a clear winner, and it's love of my life feral child mrs veth brenatto. becoming a goblin didn't make her more feral, it just gave her an excuse to stop being beholden to social rules, and dear god did she take it. i'm honestly struggling to cite specific moments here because just, everything she does, has such strong feral energies?? (though i mean, fluffernutter. that's all that needs saying really). but like??? is an accomplished alchemist and uses it to make exploding crossbow bolts? will threaten to kill anyone as a joke just because she feels like it? very few people get its a joke because when nott the brave runs screaming at you you get out of the fucking way?? stole a gun?? used it to shoot her friend to win a race up a tree?? i can keep going. she's so weird and so wonderful and absolutely feral and i adore her

2 - caleb

now, you'd think given that caleb is perfectly capable of acting with dignity and professionalism would make him rank lower on this list. but no. caleb is perfectly capable of acting with dignity and professionalism and chooses to be feral. and the mere act of making that decision immediately boosts his feral points by like a mile. no amount of loyalty or adherence to literally any system, political structure, or set of social rules? turns into a giant ape in combat? has, multiple times, chosen to cover himself in dirt? liam in this outfit???

this is a Feral Wizard.

3 - yasha

now, definite points for a childhood/adolescence spent wandering the wastelands the gods abandoned (literally), fighting other kids and eating giant spiders. yasha is like the textbook definition of feral. but also like... she's soft. you want to give her a hug. she's still intimidating as fuck, but unlike caleb and nott she's not trying to be feral. she's just out here doing her own gay thing. i love her.

4 - jester

now, jester does not have a feral appearance, so i was on the fence for a bit as to where on the list to put her. feral constitutes a certain amount of not caring what you look like or what people think of you, and jester definitely wants to be pretty and wants to be seen as pretty and has quite a few walls in place when it comes to letting people realise she can have negative emotions. her background as a rich lonely kid is also far from feral.

however. have you met her. jester lavorre is on the surface as far from feral as it is possible to be, and then you hear her talk. honestly, growing up alone with only an archfey for company pushes anyone up the feral scale. see also: going round tattooing members of an enemy ship without their permission just 'cause. the pranks. the destruction. the sending spells. jester lavorre is what happens when feral decides to be fucking aesthetic. also she literally made a god so like, no power on this earth can stop her.

5 - beau

beau, like caleb, grew up extremely Not Feral and then actively chose to cultivate the feral within. her introduction literally describes her as "looks like she put on makeup maybe two days ago, and was like 'yeah, it's still fine'". disaster lesbian. Will Fight Anyone And Anything. however, she's more rebellious than she is specifically feral. never stopped giving a fuck about her image or her principles, she's got the underlying feralness of any punk but she's a bit too put together to rank any higher on this list.

6 - caduceus

caduceus is incredibly calm and patient and at least a little bit prim and proper but also like... the dude grew up in a cursed forest talking to plants and bugs and probably eating weird mushrooms. he has no respect for the laws of any society mostly because he doesn't realise they exist and he's SO valid. i also think the fact that we mostly see him with the m9 doesn't do justice to his actual feralness bc like... caduceus gets ten times more feral with his siblings. cad amongst the clays is way higher on this list. but cad in the mighty nein is mostly just here to be chill. god knows they need someone to be.

7 - fjord

the reason for this post. fjord is the opposite of feral. since freckledmccree brought up the subject, i'll also link this thread, if you want a lot of elaboration on this. but for real, fjord is incapable of being feral if you held a sword to his throat, which incidentally is probably the closest to feral he's ever gotten, back in episode 13. but like... the boy has so many internal rules. so many. he had a panic attack over a hat. someone give him a hug and tell him it's okay to just like, do things. he doesn't need 15 separate completely watertight reasons why.

(also we don’t know molly quite as well as the others since he was only in 26 episodes, but he’s pretty damn feral too. somewhere between yasha and jester i think)

(vox machina)

[forsomeonessake]

Slow Snippets

For @mia-ugly ...

Hey! Fixomnia here, radioing in from my GO!Sideblog. This is the simplest way I could think of sending a longpost your way.

I think you know how deeply your Slow Show has resonated with me. It’s been a rare delight to anticipate each chapter. These are just some random fluffy clouds that drifted by as I was reading (and re-reading) that I thought I’d share. Feel free to take them as a compliment, mere reflections of the light you’ve sprinkled about – or do what you will with them!

Having the kids down to the cottage to give Sarah and her husband a weekend to themselves now and then. It’s awkward at first, but Anthony turns out to be a wicked kids’ cooking teacher. He somehow doesn’t mind icing sugar all over his black jeans while holding forth on Meringue Technique.

Even the eldest teenager opens up to him, feeling weird and lonely and nothing like the rest of the family. Anthony knows an adolescent anxiety shrub when he sees one and takes the kid for a walk. He nearly teaches him to smoke, but doesn’t. God help him, he teaches the kid pranic breathing and sensory grounding tips by the river, like some hippie guru.

Uriel and Beez genuinely loathe each other, but the two of them are grudgingly in awe of each other, and they realize they’re each holding half of a goldmine if they can handle working together. Because Beez suddenly has Anthony, Avery, Anathema and another half dozen variously non-conforming young actors on their list and everyone wants a piece of them.

Beez has to deal with being regarded as a Safe Space and a confidante. Jesus wept. Eyes could not roll any harder. It’s not tough love they practice so much as battlefield foxhole tactics to keep everyone alive another day, but it works. Mostly. Beez gets so wrung out that it’s Anthony’s turn to talk her down from a fugue state score now and then.

Anthony and Avery manage to escape their first Christmas with The Families. Avery’s not ready to deal with being Uncle Avery and Uncle Anthony quite yet. (Sarah’s youngest came up with Uncle Az and Aunt Tony, which shows signs of sticking.)

Anthony is tempted to bring Avery to his parents’ New Years All Day Champagne Brunch out of spite. Who better to parade in front of their noses than Avery Class Act Fell? Because Anthony knows that whatever quotes his parents’ publicist released, they aren’t exactly proud, even if they generally wish him well. Vera and Reginald knew they’d be crucified in the press if they were anything less than supportive of their famous gay son’s prodigal return to health, love and career success, but they will never understand how they could have a son like Anthony.

Avery’s dad, unlike Anthony’s, does get to meet “that actor chappie friend of your’n”, before the big wedding. They have nothing in common except for a working knowledge of Vera and Reginald Crowley’s film career, but it’s enough. They both love Avery deeply. And Anthony’s scones don’t hurt.

During the visit, the Garrity lads’ teenaged kids come round to ask for autographs, to the Garrity brothers’ chagrin. Pints together down at the local doesn’t cancel out the hard years. (Anthony insisted on accepting the invite, with a sharkish grin, and threatened to femme out completely, though he settled for sparkly diamond earrings and a scarf. Totally demure by London standards.) But it’s worth something to see the younger Garritys teaching their elders about simple appreciation of different kinds of folk.

After that, Avery seeks out Daniel, to finally have that talk. It turns out Daniel had known instantly what Avery was going through, when they were kids. He’d kicked himself for nudging Avery too hard towards an admission when he wasn’t ready. They were both painfully young and inexperienced at the time. Unlike the Garrity situation, this one ends in a genuine friendship that just skipped a few decades. Daniel and his family are delighted to attend the wedding.

Tracy and Shadwell are actually married-married within a year. Shadwell looks like he doesn’t know what’s hit him, but it’s definitely good. Trace doesn’t go off with the ladies for a long while after, preferring to find jobs on film sets near Shad, wherever he’s working. After keeping Avery going for so long, she’s a natural actor’s PA. And part-time psychic. It starts as an improv in someone’s trailer, showing off her old persona, but Madame Tracy Draws Aside the Veil soon turns into her popular party thing.

Turns out Anthony can sing. Properly sing. He used to have a decent New Romantics croon, back in the 80s, but it’s mellowed into a Nick Cave-ish I’ve-seen-some-shit baritone when he wasn’t paying attention. Avery catches him singing along to some afternoon piano junketing, and prods him into an actual duet. Avery has a stage-trained lyric tenor, self-conscious, but sweet. (“Trace was always the one for singing in the car or while she was doing the hoovering. I just hummed along. Bit of a metaphor, really.”)

Getting Avery to let out his full powerful singing voice becomes something Anthony can actually help him with, something they can work at together. You can imagine how many buttons that pushes for both of them, the sensitive ones and the good ones.

Oh, God, and Beez gets wind of their musical interludes, and next thing they’re signed up to do that Christmas charity CD. And then a West End Panto, one Christmas season when Sir Patrick and Sir Ian are both away filming in America. Avery was made for Dame roles, and Anthony for the Evil Magician. It becomes an annual thing.

One of Beez’ young clients, kicked out after coming out to his parents, ends up billetting with Avery and Anthony for a while. Then he gets into Central for drama school, and it’s decided he might as well move properly into the bottom floor (technically the old servants’ quarters of the London townhouse Avery and Anthony bought together) with a classmate till they’ve finished their course.

The usual papers start to get slimy about them moving a pair of young gay men into the house, but they tackle it head-on with a blistering interview about the rates of homelessness, depression and suicide among LGBTQ youth without support. Avery speaks powerfully about setting himself up for a life of hidden abuse and self-loathing while Anthony manifested his on the outside, and how close they both came to disaster.

The response is so great they find themselves doing something of a speaking tour, working to publicize youth support networks and self-resilience campaigns. It’s not what they’d expected to become Their Social Cause, as actors, but once Avery sees how they’ve been able to help even one young man, it’s as if his shackles have fallen away. (Anthony can’t stop grinning through it all, because people keep congratulating his parents on having such a son.)

Thirty years later, they both somehow end up with Knighthoods for Services to the Arts, a few years apart, and a couple more major industry awards each. The recently crowned King William V recalls watching Avery as the conflicted missionary St. John Rivers in a mid-90s BBC-1 Jane Eyre, with his mother Diana, which makes Sir Avery tear up.

Sir Anthony too. Big Diana fan, him, after all.

[eyeslikefoxglove]

Episode 14 - WangXian are a (v soft) Battle Couple & Foxglove is hella mad

Hi! Welcome to episode 14. I should be studying. It’s day two of morning runs, so my soul has left my body already, send help. Yesterday I went to buy plants with my mum and got so excited I just whacked on a bunch of eyeshadow because I haven’t seen the outside in weeks, I’m also wearing makeup today, because I have nowhere to go, but I really need to finish this bb cream before it goes bad, so my parents are getting my full fresh faced “woke up like this and put on mascara” routine (which is a fucking lie because I’m wearing at least three blushes and two highlighters). I’m determined to get this bitch down in under five minutes so I can have another five to do eyeshadow, I have way too much eyeshadow to not wear it (I have way too much everything except maybe mascara and eyebrow stuff).

Yes, if y’all were wondering I am in fact a makeup magpie. ANYWAY BACK TO THE ACTUAL THING WE ALL CAME HERE FOR.

(Btw further down I discuss once again how shitty I think the Yunmeng sibs’ parents are if that causes an issue for you)

Ok ok ok, so I was talking with damnpoe-2187 here about how we found that sometimes WWX crossed from gremlin into asshole when he tried to get LWJ riled up. Like in the Cold Springs, putting our shippers hearts aside, that was a dick move and he should have stopped undressing the second LWJ went from annoyed to incredibly uncomfortable. I find this scene the complete opposite, a show of character development if you will. It is kind of similar in that they’re both hurt, and alone (although this time is much more serious) and there was some undressing going on; however WWX here behaves like a fool in love considerate person and knowing how uncomfortable LWJ already is tries to make it easier for him. They’re also super soft and I’m weak.

A brief interlude from my one track mind: That pond is full of corpses isn’t it? Or at least the remnants of the Murder Turtle’s meals I suppose. Damn right WWX should not have gone into the water with an open wound, but think no one should go swimming in there without a full hazmat suit tbh (I want to pump them full of antibiotics at this point ngl)

So I love this tiny montage (is it even a montage) of the, getting themselves ready to kill the Murder Turtle.

Teamwooooooork.

Listen, I have read a few fics in which their mind-meld stays in place due to reasons and I need me more of those.

Ok, turtles don’t work that way, but then again, giant murder snake-Trex-turtle so that’s low on my list of priorities. What’s not low is the fact that this guy is knee deep into pretty much a mass grave and I want to take a few showers just watching him.

Yeah, I know exactly what he’s smelling and suddenly I hope I don’t have meat for lunch today tbh.

The screaming sword has always been fucking creepy and does LWJ’s fist clench mean that he’s also hearing them?

BATTLE COUPLE! BATTLE COUPLE! BATTLE COUPLE!

So I know killing the thing took them something like six hours. And while it feels quite a long time in the show, I think that, if they cut the scene with idk, JC running towards Lotus Pier, then back to them, then back to JC, but now the sun is in a different position, back to them, but now the blood from LWJ’s hand has dripped down his arm; and so on a so forth it’d convey more clearly how long it took for the Murder Turtle to die. I know fuck all about cinematography tho so feel free to ignore all this if it is in fact an abomination.

Tiiiiiiny interlude here to say that Yiling Patriarch!WWX is probably one of my favourite character archetypes. He’s slightly creepy, slightly amoral (smiling while torturing and murdering bad guys is still amoral ok), more than a bit on the Dark Side, cocky, smirky, a bit of an asshole a BAMF, a rebel with cause and yet he will still do the right thing, not despite his nature, but because of it. He’s kind of like a Chipped Spike? But you know, he doesn’t need electroshock to behave.

I just want a fic where he’s this Dark Lord of Evil in everyone’s eyes however the ‘good guys’ take a break from trying to off him because a bigger threat just popped up and they have no choice but to ask for his help. He agrees, keeps being his charming self while also saving everyone’s asses, LWJ is smitten.

TL;DR: The Necromancer is hot. Oh and nobody dare deny LWJ has a Yiling Patriarch kink.

Oh my, this is the part when I always get teary eyed.

WUJI ON A CELLO? DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?

“Why hasn’t Jiang Cheng shown up and rescued me yet?” THIS IS ALL THE PROOF I NEED THAT WWX IS THE BABY SIBLING.

“Lan Zhan sing me a song”

IT IS HAPPENING, STAY FUCKING CALM EVERYBODY (I’m crying)

That slideshow of their best moments set to WuJi is a masterpiece, and also, it kind of drives home the point of “how tf did we go from flirting during summer camp to this mess”?

(Btw if that’s YiBo humming he’s got one hell of a deep voice)

Ok ok ok, so this moment had me spitting up my tea the first time I watched it. Believe it or not my dumbass thought these people were actually serious with the censorship and we’d get scraps of their actual relationship. Lots of charged moments like in some other western tv shows I’ve seen when two dudes have chemistry but “they’re not gay”, no longing glances, no tender touches, no being unbelievably soft with each other; just you know, amped up, because if I’m not mistaken you can be arrested in China for “promoting the gay”. I mean, they changed the beginning when people insult MXY’s sexuality to insulting his mental health; no one would think “ah yes, the gays are good” when they hear it used as a slur, but they still erased it completely. One of the things I thought they’d fully take away was WangXian, I mean, the into/outro is named Wuji, which, you know, still a mishmash of their names, but not their ship name. It is such a significant part of the story with all the “what’s the song name? Figure it out yourself” that if something were going to give away that they’re married with a kid it would be that. I thought we’d get an artful fade to black BEFORE LWJ would say the name not after. And also, YiBo is enunciating it so clearly that, even with the sound muffled and the blurriness I, who don’t speak Chinese, can make out the two syllables. That’s deliberate, I can say “WangXian” loud and clear without moving my lips too much. At this point in time I must assume someone in charge of looking for censorship violations in the show is a fan and just ignored it.

Censorship person 1: dude, isn’t that a bit too gay, maybe you shouldn’t greenlight it.

Censorship person 2: shut the fuck up, sit here and watch.

*a full rundown of the whole of CQL later*

Censorship person 1: oh my god they’re so in love and they deserve to be happy.

Back to the commentary: I’m sorry but I have a mighty need of a WWX & Peacock friendship ok? This might be me just wanting WWX and LWJ to make other friends besides each other but I think that the Peacock is just bitchy enough to not take any of WWX’s bullshit.

And the Yunmeng bros timing for banter strikes yet again.

That’s terrible quality fake blood btw.

@ Yunmeng disciples: STOP SHOOTING FUCKING KITES PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Oooof even with a change of clothes our boy is still looking rough as hell.

MY LOVELY YUNMENG SIBS BEING SOFT AND HAPPY WITH EACH OTHER.

It hurts my soul that the second JFM starts praising WWX for surviving the Murder Turtle our boy’s knee-jerk reaction is to start praising JC in return. It is instinctive, how many times must this have happened for him to know his brother won’t even get scraps of praise? (Seriously fuck their parents)

It was going so well, I mean, JFM had a point warning him to not say things in anger. But I thought he was going to tell him that it is because sometimes he’ll hurt someone without wanting to, yet, this asshole decided to, once again, remind his kid he thinks he’s a failure.

And here comes Mme Yu who I can only assume had a servant posted at the door to warn her when WWX woke so she could throw some verbal abuse at him. I mean, she must have been missing it.

And JFM’s misogynistic bullshit strikes once again, because why defend ALL your kids when you can insult your wife.

(Every time someone berates WWX for “intervening” I want to scream. I mean, seeing this I can believe why the society as a whole thought genocide was a good idea.)

I love how they use their kids as props in their fight, I mean it’s not like they have feelings or anything. This woman is gaslight-y as hell too “you don’t love your kid because I gave birth to him”, you can’t tell me saying that in front of the son she’s supposed to love isn’t going to hurt him. And she knows it, I mean, besides the Wen attack I’ve never seen her hit the kids (although I very much doubt she hasn’t), so a good part of the abuse must be verbal. There’s no fucking way a person who regularly uses words that way won’t realise where she’s aiming those arrows. Which means to her (to both) the kids are collateral.

But FR, the barely-out-of-adolescence disaster bi necromancer PTSDing all over the place and living in a mass grave was a better parent than any of the current adults in this thing.

Which brings me to another point, Shijie is textbook “the oldest sibling is just another parent” and I’m making myself very angry.

[this is when I start frothing at the mouth and itching to write a modern-girl(and friends)-dropped-in-CQL because someone has to be a positive adult influence in these kids’ lives and it sure as shit ain’t the ones in the actual show.]

CAN WE STOP BRINGING PEOPLE’S DEAD PARENTS INTO THE FIGHT?

*deep breath*

I am going to feed JFM & Mme Yu each other’s spleens. Look, listen, look and listen, let’s first talk about how calmly they lay out the facts of their lives, one is only loved because he’s been brought up in the shadow of his dead parents, the other knows with certainty his father dislikes him and his mother uses him as leverage in marital disputes. When have these two not exploded their emotions all over the place? Fucking never. Yet here they are, talking about this bullshit like some bout of inconvenient weather. They’re used to it!

And now let’s talk about yet again siblings-are-just-extra-parents, with an added pile of WWX’s terrible self awareness that, to the man who brought him up, his worth is due to his dead parents. Again I’m extrapolating, but with the amount of times Mme Yu brings up his parents in such a negative light I refuse to believe JFM hasn’t made all the “you’re so much like your parents” comments to him every time WWX does something right. I mean, telling an orphan about their parents if they ask is a good thing, but WWX seems starved for stories about his them, which leads me to believe JFM refuses to talk about the topic except to make those little comments. What a fucking stellar way to give someone all the trauma if you ask me. May also explain a lot of WWX’s self worth issues if the biggest praise he’s ever heard is that he resembles dead people, yes, people who were loved, but they’re dead, and it doesn’t look like any adult has bothered to go and differentiate WWX from ZSSR&WCZ.

I’m just really mad, despite all the silly anecdotes I put in here my parents are fucking great at parenting, so I know what good parents should look like, and this ain’t it.

Ok, so I made myself angry and I don’t know if I should move onto the next episode now or wait till tomorrow but thanks for reading!

[betsypaige22]

This is such a great interview....god, I miss Bobby. I’ve posted this because otherwise you need to be a subscriber...

I have to be honest, picturing Bobby doing this particular yoga pose makes me need to take a cold shower, lol. The part about his kids asking if he’s going to leave them is heartbreaking ....😭😭. I do love that he’s still baking...

************************

Every Sunday morning the actor Robert Carlyle grabs his mat and heads off for a session of “restorative yoga” in the Canadian port city of Vancouver, where he lives. There is one particular pose — called a “chest-opener”; you lie back, arms supported by bolsters, and release stress and feelings through the abdomen — that has produced remarkable results.

“You hold the pose for up to nine minutes and it releases emotions,” he says. “Out of nowhere I remembered this old lady leading me through the streets of Drumchapel in Glasgow when I was about seven years old, to go to see some wrestling. I hadn’t remembered her since I was a kid. I just lay there crying.”

Carlyle was brought up by his father, Joe, after his mother, Elizabeth, walked out to be with another man when he was four. His father was a painter and decorator, and the pair lived an itinerant existence around the UK in communes, shared houses and even tents. They lived in almost 100 homes. The old woman was his grandmother, Jean, who stepped in to help sometimes.

“That’s what set me off,” Carlyle says. “The realisation that this old woman was my dad’s mum, born in 1895 and survivor of two world wars. And here she was in her seventies, looking out for me when my dad was struggling to get to work.”

Carlyle left school at 16 and followed his father into painting and decorating. Aged 22, he discovered acting and, without formal training, appeared in The Hard Man, Tom McGrath’s play about the notorious Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. After this he was encouraged to enrol at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

In the early 1990s he made a name for himself in the ITV detective series Cracker, as well as playing Begbie, the charismatic psycho in the screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting. Carlyle was lauded as a raw talent able to articulate a new “dirty realism”, although it was his role in the 1997 stripper comedy The Full Monty and as James Bond’s ex-KGB nemesis Renard in the 1999 film The World is Not Enough that catapulted him to international stardom.

“I went through a stage of being very angry about my mother, and that helped to fuel some of those roles,” he says. “As for Begbie in Trainspotting, that was partly me and partly the odd genuine psycho I had encountered in Glasgow.”

At the height of his fame in the 1990s Carlyle was at the centre of Cool Britannia and simultaneously friends with Damon Albarn from Blur and Noel Gallagher, then in Oasis (Carlyle appeared in the video for the single Little By Little). Tony Blair even recommended him for an OBE in the 1998 new year’s honours list. And yet, while at drama school Carlyle feared he might never get work because he wasn’t “posh”.

Now he has come full circle because he is about to play the fictional British prime minister Robert Sutherland in the new six-part Sky drama series Cobra. “Before I opened the script, I actually thought it was about a snake,” he says. “That’s what living away from home does to you.”

Cobra in fact refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, the government’s crisis centre where national emergencies from terrorist attacks to natural disasters are handled. In this case the threat comes from a geomagnetic storm resulting from a solar flare that is threatening the worldwide electrical infrastructure. Kettles stop boiling. Cities go dark. Planes drop from the sky.

Carlyle is rigorous in his preparation for roles. When cast as a bus driver in Ken Loach’s 1996 film Carla’s Song he qualified as one. “For a working-class guy from Glasgow, being a prime minister was always going to be challenging,” he says. “I listened to tapes of posh Scottish MPs like [the former foreign secretary] Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He’ll sound like a Scot most of the time, but there are certain turns of phrase when you think, ‘Are you sure this guy is for real?’”

Keen-eyed viewers will have seen Carlyle in the BBC’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds as the “potentially gay” astronomer Ogilvy. But perhaps only true aficionados will have spotted him as John Lennon in the Beatles tribute film Yesterday. He appeared as a counterfactual, 78-year-old Lennon enjoying his dotage in a bungalow by the sea. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr approved, but Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono wasn’t happy. “She didn’t like the idea of people seeing John get old, which I understand, but [the director] Danny Boyle argued that John is revered public property,” Carlyle says.

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

Lennon’s relationship with his mother, Julia, was fractured too of course, and after a turbulent adolescence and having reached the top of his professional game, Carlyle came to yearn for a family. “I could go anywhere and have anything. [The 1990s] were an extraordinary time. But even then, I was quite a shy person, and I wanted kids and a home and a wife. Every day I am thankful that I found the most fantastic woman to do that with.”

Carlyle met his wife, the make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, while working on Cracker, and they have three children: Ava, 17, Harvey, 15, and Pearce, 13. After ten years in Vancouver, where Carlyle was making the US series Once Upon a Time, his children consider themselves Canadian. Sometimes they ask about his upbringing, an era referred to as his “black and white years”. “‘Dad, tell us about the black and white years,’ they say. It’s pretty heavy telling children about your mother leaving because they look frightened and say, ‘Are you going to bugger off as well?’ When I’ve reassured them, they just look sad. So I say to them, ‘Don’t be sad for me, I got all the love I ever needed. I don’t feel angry or aggrieved. It was her that missed out.’”

Carlyle’s father died of a heart attack in 2006, and in an attempt to work through his grief Carlyle embarked on a tour of the homes they shared together. “That tour was about confirming I had lived that life,” he says. “I’ve been honoured at Buckingham Palace. I’ve done a Bond movie. But I’ve also slept rough with my old man under Brighton pier. It can mess with your head. Going back reminded me where I’m from. I sat in the car weeping.”

For now the family remain in Canada while the children complete their schooling. At weekends he takes them to football, bakes bread (Carlyle taught himself after discovering that Lennon was an accomplished home baker) and the family sometimes go for walks in a local forest.

He celebrated New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his old friend Robert del Naja from Massive Attack and, sooner or later, the family will return for good. It’s striking that Carlyle has not lost his accent. “You don’t lose the accent unless you want to,” he says with a smile. “I love our life in Canada. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. But I only have to do a couple of yoga poses to know I’ve got a lot of Britain still inside of me.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football

[pinchtheprincess]

Every Sunday morning the actor Robert Carlyle grabs his mat and heads off for a session of “restorative yoga” in the Canadian port city of Vancouver, where he lives. There is one particular pose — called a “chest-opener”; you lie back, arms supported by bolsters, and release stress and feelings through the abdomen — that has produced remarkable results.

“You hold the pose for up to nine minutes and it releases emotions,” he says. “Out of nowhere I remembered this old lady leading me through the streets of Drumchapel in Glasgow when I was about seven years old, to go to see some wrestling. I hadn’t remembered her since I was a kid. I just lay there crying.”

Carlyle was brought up by his father, Joe, after his mother, Elizabeth, walked out to be with another man when he was four. His father was a painter and decorator, and the pair lived an itinerant existence around the UK in communes, shared houses and even tents. They lived in almost 100 homes. The old woman was his grandmother, Jean, who stepped in to help sometimes.

“That’s what set me off,” Carlyle says. “The realisation that this old woman was my dad’s mum, born in 1895 and survivor of two world wars. And here she was in her seventies, looking out for me when my dad was struggling to get to work.”

Carlyle left school at 16 and followed his father into painting and decorating. Aged 22, he discovered acting and, without formal training, appeared in The Hard Man, Tom McGrath’s play about the notorious Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. After this he was encouraged to enrol at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

In the early 1990s he made a name for himself in the ITV detective series Cracker, as well as playing Begbie, the charismatic psycho in the screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting. Carlyle was lauded as a raw talent able to articulate a new “dirty realism”, although it was his role in the 1997 stripper comedy The Full Monty and as James Bond’s ex-KGB nemesis Renard in the 1999 film The World is Not Enough that catapulted him to international stardom.

“I went through a stage of being very angry about my mother, and that helped to fuel some of those roles,” he says. “As for Begbie in Trainspotting, that was partly me and partly the odd genuine psycho I had encountered in Glasgow.”

At the height of his fame in the 1990s Carlyle was at the centre of Cool Britannia and simultaneously friends with Damon Albarn from Blur and Noel Gallagher, then in Oasis (Carlyle appeared in the video for the single Little By Little). Tony Blair even recommended him for an OBE in the 1998 new year’s honours list. And yet, while at drama school Carlyle feared he might never get work because he wasn’t “posh”.

Now he has come full circle because he is about to play the fictional British prime minister Robert Sutherland in the new six-part Sky drama series Cobra. “Before I opened the script, I actually thought it was about a snake,” he says. “That’s what living away from home does to you.”

Cobra in fact refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, the government’s crisis centre where national emergencies from terrorist attacks to natural disasters are handled. In this case the threat comes from a geomagnetic storm resulting from a solar flare that is threatening the worldwide electrical infrastructure. Kettles stop boiling. Cities go dark. Planes drop from the sky.

Carlyle is rigorous in his preparation for roles. When cast as a bus driver in Ken Loach’s 1996 film Carla’s Song he qualified as one. “For a working-class guy from Glasgow, being a prime minister was always going to be challenging,” he says. “I listened to tapes of posh Scottish MPs like [the former foreign secretary] Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He’ll sound like a Scot most of the time, but there are certain turns of phrase when you think, ‘Are you sure this guy is for real?’”

Keen-eyed viewers will have seen Carlyle in the BBC’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds as the “potentially gay” astronomer Ogilvy. But perhaps only true aficionados will have spotted him as John Lennon in the Beatles tribute film Yesterday. He appeared as a counterfactual, 78-year-old Lennon enjoying his dotage in a bungalow by the sea. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr approved, but Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono wasn’t happy. “She didn’t like the idea of people seeing John get old, which I understand, but [the director] Danny Boyle argued that John is revered public property,” Carlyle says.

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

Lennon’s relationship with his mother, Julia, was fractured too of course, and after a turbulent adolescence and having reached the top of his professional game, Carlyle came to yearn for a family. “I could go anywhere and have anything. [The 1990s] were an extraordinary time. But even then, I was quite a shy person, and I wanted kids and a home and a wife. Every day I am thankful that I found the most fantastic woman to do that with.”

Carlyle met his wife, the make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, while working on Cracker, and they have three children: Ava, 17, Harvey, 15, and Pearce, 13. After ten years in Vancouver, where Carlyle was making the US series Once Upon a Time, his children consider themselves Canadian. Sometimes they ask about his upbringing, an era referred to as his “black and white years”. “‘Dad, tell us about the black and white years,’ they say. It’s pretty heavy telling children about your mother leaving because they look frightened and say, ‘Are you going to bugger off as well?’ When I’ve reassured them, they just look sad. So I say to them, ‘Don’t be sad for me, I got all the love I ever needed. I don’t feel angry or aggrieved. It was her that missed out.’”

Carlyle’s father died of a heart attack in 2006, and in an attempt to work through his grief Carlyle embarked on a tour of the homes they shared together. “That tour was about confirming I had lived that life,” he says. “I’ve been honoured at Buckingham Palace. I’ve done a Bond movie. But I’ve also slept rough with my old man under Brighton pier. It can mess with your head. Going back reminded me where I’m from. I sat in the car weeping.”

For now the family remain in Canada while the children complete their schooling. At weekends he takes them to football, bakes bread (Carlyle taught himself after discovering that Lennon was an accomplished home baker) and the family sometimes go for walks in a local forest.

He celebrated New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his old friend Robert del Naja from Massive Attack and, sooner or later, the family will return for good. It’s striking that Carlyle has not lost his accent. “You don’t lose the accent unless you want to,” he says with a smile. “I love our life in Canada. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. But I only have to do a couple of yoga poses to know I’ve got a lot of Britain still inside of me.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football

[tourmalinedreams]

pls elaborate: "gay women are bloodthirsty animals and gay men are crazed murderers" sarazanmai is my first ikuhara anime

The thing about gay women refers to Yurikuma Arashi, where the characters Ginko and Lulu are actually bears pretending to be human. In the show, bears are shown to eat humans, and it’s no coincidence that they and the other bears are girls who openly love other girls. Yes, a few of them are villainous, but the bear thing isn’t meant to dehumanize gay women and isn’t literal; it’s meant to skewer specifically how society and the media portrays them (Predatory, unstable, etc.). In-story, bears are hated and feared for understandable reasons regarding their eating habits, but you can’t forget, this is Ikuhara Lord of The Metaphor.

It might be an uncomfortable watch for some viewers, which I understand, but it’s anchored by the love story between Ginko and Kureha. Kureha is a human, not a bear, but is timid about her love for other girls because of how she is shunned by her classmates. and had to hide her relationship with her first girlfriend. When Ginko comes into the picture, she is incredibly forward and constantly tells Kureha that she “won’t back down on love.” Most of the anime is dedicated to Kureha’s emotional journey toward accepting her feelings and in a more meta sense, denouncing the notion that lesbian and bisexual women are only good for the consumption of others.

As for the thing about gay men, a LOT has been made of Reo and Enta’s characters in Sarazanmai. They’re both incredibly flawed, and it’s mainly tied to their sexuality. Enta loves Kazuki and acts recklessly in the beginning because of that, while Reo will do anything to restore Mabu to the person he once was, hurting plenty of others in the process. A fuck-ton of hate has gotten dumped on Enta for not being a selfless angel but instead being lonely, jealous, and even spiteful. Plenty of people have already written some great stuff about how reducing his character to these flaws completely ignores the commentary on the pain of being a queer adolescent.

I don’t have as much to personally say about Reo other than how it’s completely unsurprising that viewers are more willing to hate the dopey teenage boy instead of the attractive grown man voiced by Mamoru Miyano even though he’s… actually killed people (I love this disaster gay too but let’s face facts). What I *will* do is direct you to this great Twitter thread about the most recent episode and how it directly attacks the anime industry’s aversion to non-BL anime letting a clearly romantic m/m couple actually explicitly state their feelings:

https://twitter.com/shipperinjapan/status/1139493502616604672

I know it doesn’t so much explain Reo’s actions, but it gives necessary context for *why* Reo is so angry in the first place.

WHEW that was a lot of typing. I hope I managed to make it a little clearer for you, anon! Ikuhara’s work is famously dense, so it really helps to be at least a bit familiar with his favored themes. If you’re interested, I’d really recommend seeking out interviews with him, along with writings by other people. I’d recommend Vrai Kaiser, Josei Next Door, and the website Anime Feminist for starters!

[antipthy-blog]

❝               you     punched     me     in     the     face          ,          you     made     me     walk     through     shitty     water          ,          brought     me     to     a     FUCKING     CRACKHOUSE          (          !          )          .  .  .          and     now          ,          i’m     gonna     have     to     kill     this     fucking     clown          .          ❞               

one.          ⤻          statistics.

full  name:  richard  james  tozier.

nicknames,  aliases:  

goes  by  richie  most  of  the  time.

rich.

trashmouth.

bucky  beaver.

a  slew  of  childhood  nicknames  bestowed  by  bowers  ‘n  the  crew.

age:  twenty - three.

date  of  birth:  march  7th.

place  of  birth:  derry,  maine.

current  place  of  residence:  truman  island.

occupation:  stand - up  comedian,  screenwriter,  occasional  bartender.

nationality:  ‘bout  as  american  as  you  can  get.

sexual  &  romantic  identity:  he’s  gay  !  totally  gay  !

gender  identity:  cisgender  male,  he/him.

hogwarts  house:  gryffindor.

source  material:  

stephen  king’s  it.

it:  chapters  one  &  two  (  2017,  2019,  dir.  andy  musichetti.  )

two.          ⤻          biography.

too  long,  can’t  be  fucked  to  read:  richie  has  a  normal  childhood  until  he  n  his  pals  (  he’s  kind  of  in  love  with  them  n  never  gets  over  it  )  get  attacked  by  a  clown,  suffer  the  repercussions,  and  then  he  ends  up  in  truman  and  he’s  fucking  pissed  abt  it.  has  all  his  memories,  wishes  he  didn’t.

sometimes,  when  i  write  my  intros,  i  get  stumped  over  their  childhood  bc  it  was  a  childhood   ????????   nothing  significant  happened  ??????????????  --- -   wonder  of  wonder,  miracle  of  miracles,  shit  ain’t  quite  the  case  here.

richard  james  tozier,  known  affectionaly  as  richie  or  trashmouth,  is  the  only  son  of  wentworth  and  maggie  tozier,  and  for  the  most  part  they’re  a  relatively  unassuming  family.  wentworth  is  a  dentist  whose  attitude  towards  his  own  son’s  dental  care  is  simultaneously  strict  and  lax,  and  maggie  makes  a  life  out  of  spoiling  the  fuckshit  out  of  her  boys  but  she  loves  it.  there’s  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  about  the  little  family  they’ve  built   ;   established  in  their  routines,  in  their  practices,  the  toziers  are  nothing  to  write  home  about.

richie’s  a  handful,  admittedly.  diagnosed  with  adhd  when  he  turns  four,  he’s   hyperactive, loud,  histrionic,  a  sarcastic  little  smartass  before  he  knows  what  any  of  those  things  are.  he  keeps  himself  entertained  with  comic  books,  drinking  in  their  bright  colours  and  their  intricate  storylines  and  develops  an  infinite  love  for  their  careworn  pages  and  their  impossible  tales.  they  keep  him  grounded,  strange  as  it  is   --- -   when  all  goes  to  shit,  as  it  inevitably  will,  he’ll  thumb  through  an  old  copy  of  uncanny  x-men  and  the  world  doesn’t  seem  so  heavy  anymore.  when  he  gets  his  first  pair  of  glasses,  thick - rimmed  plastic  frames  and  lenses  more  like  coke  bottles  than  actual  lenses,  he  spends  two  hours  spiraling  deep  into  the  familiar  world  of  his  comics.  when  he  gets  tripped  up  the  first  time,  when  he  gets  called  fuckface  or  four - eyes  or  worse,  he  swallows  back  the  lump  in  his  throat  and  legs  it  home  for  his  comics.  when  he’s  reading,  he’s  not  so  hyperactive   --- -   he  still  frantically  jiggles  one  leg,  but  he’s  quiet,  introspective   --- -   the  silence  is  rare  but  comforting.

his  sense  of  humour  is  sharp  as  anything,  practised  daily  on  his  poor  mother  and  father.  he’s  developed  a  slew  of  Voices,  little  impressions  that  differ  only  in  tone  and  intention,  but  wentworth  and  maggie  encourage  him  to  keep  working,  keep  building  on  them.  his  wit  gets  him  into  trouble  at  school,  and  numerous  teachers  have  written  in  reports  that  richie’s  got  a  bit  of  a  reputation  for  being  a  class  clown.   (   humour  is  a  desperate  attempt  to  grab  out,  to  latch  onto  a  friend  because  really,  he’s  so  fucking  lonely  it  hurts  and  he  just  wants  someone  to  laugh  at  him  and  entertain  his  endless  bullshit  and  be  there.   )

shouldn’t  have  wished  so  hard  for  friends,  because  they  come  along  in  the  form  of  the  losers’  club.  richie  moreso  stumbles  across  them  than  anything   --- -   knew  bill  denbrough  because  they  lived  on  the  same  block,  found  him  fuckin’  round  in  the  barrens  with  some  other  kids  and  hey,  it’s  like  they’d  been  best  friends  forever.  there’s  bill,  big  bill,  stuttering  bill,  de  facto  leader  and  richie’s  unspoken  idol.  there’s  stan,  preternaturally  neat  and  it’s like  he  came  out  of  the  womb  like  that,  already  a  coherent  amalgamation  of  smiles  in  his  voice  and  rolled  eyes.  there’s  mike,  with  his  killawatt  smile  and  good  intentions  and  comforting  voice  that  sets  ease  into  richie’s  perpetually  rattled  bones.  ben,  whose  creativity  and  quiet  reassurance  is  something  richie  pines  after  desperately.  beverly,  the  only  girl,  cigarette-scented  voice  of  rhyme  and  reason  and  rationality.  then  there’s  eddie,  and  richie  swallows  up  anything  he  can  say  about  eddie  before  the  words  come  out.

it’s  painful,  realising  you’re  in  love  with  your  best  friend.  it  starts  early,  a  quick  glance  here  and  there  that  lingers,  a  breath  that  catches  in  your  throat  when  you  see  him  smile.  you  try  and  push  the  feelings  down,  swallow  them  whole  before  they  can  infect  every  part  of  you  but  darling,  it’s  never  that  easy.  by  the  time  summer  arrives,  you  are  in  far  too  deep.  you  never  really  recover  from  your  pre - adolescent  tango  with  love,  and  it  develops  into  an  adolescent  waltz  with  it,  and   --- -   you  get  the  picture.

summer  brings   --- -   well,  it’s  been  years  now  and  richie’s  still  lost  for  words  that  fit  what  that  summer  really  was.  it  starts  with  a  few  kids  going  missing,  ending  up  dead  and  then  it’s  george  denbrough,  little  georgie,  one  arm  chewed  off  and  yellow  slicker  tainted  sticky  red  and  then  the  whole  world  seems  to  fall  apart.  bill’s  a  madman  on  a  mission,  and  richie  follows   --- -   follows  when  it  means  getting  taunted  by  a  demon  clown  alien  thing,  when  it  means  fucking  fighting  said  demon  alien  clown  thing,  snapping  eddie’s  broken  arm  back  into  some  kind  of  place  whilst  bated  breaths  are  held  back  in  case  it  hears.  they  beat  it,  and  richie’s  still  not  sure  how  but  he  knows  that  for  six  months  after,  he  can’t  look  at  a  clown  without  digging  bitten  fingernails  into  calloused  flesh  of  a  palm.  a  year  later,  he  still  jumps  at  too - loud  noises.  two  years  later,  he  starts  seeing  a  therapist  because  his  parents  have  noticed  he  can’t  sleep  in  the  dark  anymore.

high  school,  college  applications,  they  all  become  a  blur.  the  losers  spend  most  nights  together,  endless  double  features,  piling  into  cars,  growing  up  and  together  and  apart  until  the  first  one  of  them  leaves,  and  it  feels  like  taking  a  fucking  bullet.  slowly,  they  all  scatter  to  the  wind,  memories  firm  but  never  forgotten  and  richie’s  planning  california,  hot  summers  and  comedy  shows  but  he  ends  up  in  some  shithole  called  truman  and  honestly,  he’s  not  even  sure  how.

he’s  not  his  happiest  in  truman,  let’s  waste  no  time  in  establishing  that.  he  wanted  to  be  away  from  derry,  sure,  that’s  no  lie  but  fuck,  man,  he  didn’t  mean  here   !   everyone  seems  perpetually  too - happy,  too  bright,  too  naïve  to  the  ways  of  the  world  and  fuckin’  child - chompin’  clowns,  and   --- -   he’s  determined  to  get  out  of  here,  but  he  doesn’t  quite  know  how  yet.

three.          ⤻          wanted     connections.

a  string  of  unfortunate  exes   /   all  you  send  are  full  stops.  before  he  comes  out,  before  he  finally  stops  pretending  to  be  something  he’s  not,  richie  dates  a  few  girls  and  honestly,  every  single  relationship  ends  in  disaster  because  he  charms  them,  gets  them  falling  only  to  end  it  when  he  realises  he  can’t  keep  kissing  them  and  wanting  to  brush  his  teeth  afterwards.  he’s  got  an  unfortunate  string  of  ex - girlfriends  who  would  probably  rather  see  him  dead,  and  he’s  semi - okay  with  that.

an  attempt  at  a  real  relationship   /   you’re  looking  like  you  really  like  him.   richie  tries  to  date  for  real  when  he  finally  admits  that  he’s  not  as  straight  as  previously  believed,  and  it  works  for  a  while   --- -   it’s  comfortable,  familiar,  keeps  him  warm  when  he  needs  to  be  but  it  falls  apart  quickly.  the  other  can’t  deal  with  the  way  he  thrashes  during  a  bad  dream,  borderline  screams  names  into  his  pillow   --- -   bill  mike  help  help  help  oh  my  god  ben  bill  stan  mike  billmikestanbenbillbillmikestanstanstan  help  me  oh  fuck  eddieeddieeddieeddieeddieeddie   --- -   the  breakup  is  amicable,  and  richie  can’t  bring  himself  to  hate  them.

honestly im not going 2 subject yall to another 300+ words of my torturous writing if u want a kewl plot msg me and ive probably got one or i can whip up something bespoke !

[wendynerdwrites]

Random Rant about Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and Camilla

Okay, so despite being a gauche, socially progressive American who really doesn’t get why monarchies exist anymore, I am kind of a low-key royal watcher/follower. I was a HUGE fan of/admirer of Princess Diana when I was a little girl and am still a fan of hers in many ways.

But I’m also a fan of Charles and Camilla.

“But how???? Charles and Camilla ruined Diana’s life! They are eeeevil!!!!”

First of all, NO.

Diana Spencer had intense issues way before she hooked up with Charles, for one thing. Her parents had a bitter divorce and custody battle that basically ravaged her childhood. Seriously, at one point her dad was practically holding her hostage away from her mother during Christmas. You think the Wales divorce was messy?... It was. But it was basically just a sequel to Spencer family drama.

By Diana’s own words, she struggled with bulimia from her adolescent years and had severe abandonment issues.

Ever wonder why William’s pet cause is mental health? DIANA IS WHY.

She also grew up among a very specific “set” that included the royal family. She and her sister were playmates to Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. She grew up with the same weirdo aristocratic approach to marriage as them as well which was: pop out an heir and spare, then do whatever.

While she was young and naive and apparently did have a HUGE crush on Charles that resulted in her buying into the fairy tale narrative, she wasn’t the total shrinking violet/know-nothing people sometimes make her out to be. Diana thought she’d be the exception. She was wrong. But she DID enter that marriage with a shit-ton of pre-installed baggage that CHARLES HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH.

Second of all, ALSO NO.

God... This engagement and marriage was made of such crazy fuckery. But Diana was all in, hook, line, and sinker.

Charles, less so. And the situation was just... so fucked, you guys. And, no, sorry, it wasn’t all Charles’s fault. Or Diana’s fault. Or Prince Philip’s fault. But it went like this:

Basically, Chuck was pushing 30, was heir, and had yet to further the royal line, so to speak. It had been nearly a decade since he was formally invested as Prince of Wales. And the issue of him getting hitched had always been... there, but it really got serious as he neared the big 3-0. Especially since his younger sister, Anne, was already married and had a kid. But over the years, he’d had Richard Nixon try to set him up with his daughter and had been geared towards various COUSINS by no less than his “Uncle Dickie” AKA Lord Mountbatten AKA the guy who hooked Prince Philip up with Queen Elizabeth, who was basically Charles’s second Father.

Things got serious as Charles got older, though. Rumors were getting out that he might be gay (remember, this was the late 70′s/early 80′s and Charles is HEIR TO THE THRONE. One factor is/was that Charles is/was a surprisingly progressive dude even then and didn’t bat an eye at employing men who were OPENLY GAY IN THE 70′s. But the thing was, whether or not Charles was gay, if the public believed that, it could have potentially caused a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS BECAUSE ROYALTY IS ALL OF THE EXTRA)

Charles was into aristocratic blonds... Fine. Perfect... Except for the part where the aristocratic blonds he tended to go for were non-virgins (and therefore completely unsuitable according to his beloved Uncle Dickie)... also married.

...That’s not Camilla, BTW. Camilla was already married to Andrew Parker-Bowles at this point. The lady in the picture there is Lady Dale “Kanga” Tryon, a fashion designer and Charles’s other mistress who actually lived a really interesting life culminating in a super tragic death. We’ll come back to her later.

But basically, Charles had to marry a virginal aristocrat, and fast. So he entered into a sort of courting pool of eligible ladies, at one point dating Lady Sarah Spencer, Diana’s older sister. But Lady Sarah went, “Nah, my sister is WAAAY more into you anyways. Date her.”

Now, if this sounds SUPER CREEPY, ANTIQUATED, AND MESSED UP, EVEN FOR THE 70′S AND 80′S, THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS. THIS IS THE WORLD THESE PEOPLE OPERATED IN, HOWEVER. AND THE ONLY THING MORE INSANE THAN ARISTOCRATS WERE ARISTOCRATS IN THE 70′S AND 80′S. THE ONLY THING MORE INSANE THAN ARISTOCRATS IN THE 70′S AND 80′S WERE THE ONES IN THE 60′S. JUST ASK PRINCESS MARGARET. THIS SHIT IS TAME COMPARED TO THE SHIT CHARLES UNCLE TONY GOT UP TO. POINT IS, THIS WAS WEIRD FROM THE BEGINNING.

Anyways, the two seemed to hit it off, but they were only dating a couple months when the press moved in and started making everything a hundred times crazier. Diana found herself hounded by the press, culminating in the papers slut-shaming her for LITERALLY TAKING AN OVERNIGHT TRIP ON A TRAIN.

This prompted Charles dad, Prince Philip, notorious for choosing his words poorly, basically sending a letter to his son telling him to basically shit or get off the pot before he ruined Diana’s life and reputation. Charles, emotionally stunted and basically terrified of his dad, took this to mean that he HAD to marry her, or he WOULD ruin her life. Keep in mind Diana was SUPER SUPER into him.

WHICH LED TO THIS DISASTER:

Charles went into this marriage feeling bound by duty, figuring Diana was game, that he could make her happy, that he was doing the right thing, and that she’d be along for the ride --- which included the model of marriages they were both used to.

He was VERY WRONG.

Diana went into her marriage completely in love, knowing that Charles had girlfriends, knowing adultery was the norm, believing she’d be a game-changer.

She was technically right, but NOT in the way she imagined. She fell for the fairy-tale Charles thought they were merely selling to the public. She was an emotionally unstable 19-year-old with severe family baggage, and Charles was an emotionally stunted prince with his head shoved right up his royal butt.

What a winner.

THIRD OF ALL, NO.

Remember that Kanga lady from the picture above? Lady Tryon was a business woman and fashion designer. And one of Charles’s mistresses.

She was Camilla’s rival. NOT Diana’s.

See that dress Diana is wearing at Live Aid? Designed by Kanga, Charles’s mistress. Yes, Diana knew who Kanga was and the nature of her relationship with Charles. At this point, Diana was cured of her delusions and was onto her own affairs. She and Kanga became friends and basically allied against Camilla.

At this point, Diana accepted that she and her husband would not be faithful to one another (it’s worth noting that during the early years of their marriage, both of them WERE supposedly faithful. Charles had his last run-in with Camilla the night before the wedding and kept away from both her and Kanga at least until Harry was conceived. But he also basically told Diana at that point that eventually, he’d be bed-hopping again. Basically, he knew Diana would have to be faithful until an heir and spare were produced and seemed to consider it fair play that he not indulge while she couldn’t. If that sounds completely fucked up THAT’S BECAUSE IT WAS). She gradually stopped caring about Charles cheating. She just hated that it was with Camilla. She very quickly embarked on a string of affairs of her own.

----And yes, Charles was a douche. He was also dealing with a wife he did NOT understand who had severe mental health issues.

Diana did things like call Camilla late at night to tell her that there was a man waiting outside, hired to kill her. She would also sometimes abscond with Baby Harry and William without telling Charles or anyone. Not a big deal in a normal family. But they’re royalty. So basically, she was happy to let her husband go into a panic about his sons possibly being kidnapped because he had no idea where the fuck they were. Keep in mind that Charles’s own sister was nearly abducted in 1974 by a gunman and that in 1982, THE VERY YEAR WILLIAM WAS BORN, a man had snuck into the Queen’s bed in the middle of the night carrying a shard of broken glass. So, yeah, Diana grabbing the boys and taking them to Windsor Castle without telling anyone, including her husband? SUPER SHITTY.

Charles tried to get Diana help, but she didn’t trust him whatsoever (because of course she fucking didn’t, no one would). Diana didn’t start getting proper help for her mental health issues until the separation. But she was prone to fits of extreme paranoia and rage, at one point culminating in her physically attacking Charles while he was praying.

Point is, she had a lot of troubles and instabilities. While Charles and Camilla certainly did not HELP, this was shit that went back years and years. Granted, that WAS exacerbated by royal life, but much of that was the strain of royal work --- constant travel, unending media scrutiny, a ton of fame all at once --- and the intense workload she was given when she became Princess of Wales did not help, either. Diana was young, troubled, and had a ton of issues.

BUT

Charles did not ruin her life. Nor did Camilla. Especially since Diana was kind of a badass.

(Pictured: Badass Diana badassing through her badass post-divorce life like a badass)

She wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar, but she was a freaking genius at handling the press and an unparalleled activist. And she got some terrific revenge on her cheating husband, too. She nearly bankrupted him in the divorce (Charles had to borrow money from the queen) and turned him into a villain in the eyes of the press.

Once out of royal life, she felt comfortable enough to get help. She got joint custody of the kids. She found great fulfillment in her activism and did some really fantastic things for causes like AIDS and land mines. She had a string of hot, rich boyfriends who spoiled the crap out of her and she was adored the world over by almost EVERYONE. That even included her ex-father-in-law, Prince Philip, who still signed his letters to her as “Pa.”

Charles nor Camilla could NEVER have hoped to ruin her life. She had too much of it. Diana’s life was ruined by a drunk driver, some paparazzi, and a traffic accident.

(And to those who want to claim that the royal family had her killed: kindly fuck off. Mohammed Fayed has had his case dismissed repeatedly despite numerous appeals and investigations. The only way Prince Philip would have had Diana killed would be if he REALLY REALLY wanted to end the monarchy. Somehow I don’t think an exiled prince-turned-royal-consort wants that. There was nothing the royal family wanted more than to see Diana married off to some rich guy and fade into the background. The LAST thing they would want is for Willam and Harry’s mother to die tragically young and cement herself as an eternal legend. Diana’s death was a fucking nightmare for the BRF personally as well as professionally).

Charles and Camilla, meanwhile?

Camilla kept her head down and did quiet work for osteoperosis research after her mother was afflicted with it. Since becoming Duchess of Cornwall, she’s done extensive work on behalf of rape and sexual assault survivors. Among her initiatives was developing “wash bags” consisting of soaps and towels for victims to use after undergoing their rape kits.

Charles spent years being decried as a complete kook for being all worked up over stupid non-issues you might have heard of --- things like “climate change”, “sustainable farming”, “organic foods”, “the ozone layer” and a supposed “housing crisis” in Britain. Oh, and his lifelong project, The Prince’s Trust, is only one of the most important charitable organizations in the Western World.

So yeah, if I have to hear one more comment about EEEEEEVIL Charles and Camilla ruining poor, wilting flower Diana’s life again, I’ll see red. It’s insulting to all three of them.

(Once again, for the record, I think monarchy is outdated and dumb, But if you are going to have one, your heir to the throne should be a Charles. Or a Victoria. But if you can’t have a Victoria, you should have a Charles.)

[jcmcisvu]

◤♛◢ — I N T R O D U C T I O N S. ✧ 

we’re back on our bullshit, laid ease ! lets mf GO !

ASTRAEUS ZOSIA.

crown prince of the dragons !

dragons have been hunted for centuries, almost to the point of extinction, due to the value and magical qualities of their scales ( or, in human form, their hair ! ), their wings, and, for some dragons, their horns.

it is because of this that the dragons are a very closed off, reclusive species. they tend to keep solely to themselves and each other --- they’re untrusting of most non-dragons, unless one has proven themselves to be worthy of their trust.

it is for this reason that astraeus is also perceived to be reclusive --- no one outside of the dragon society has ever seen the crown prince ( or so people think ! ) and, thus, no one knows what he looks like or who he is.

it is for this reason that astraeus is able to sneak out into normal society, concealing his identity by going only by “astra” and never mentioning his species, let alone his title.

he is very pampered, a bit of a spoiled brat, the prized possession of the dragons since he’s the heir.

on that note, he’s expected to be perfect --- prim and proper, absolutely captivating, and he is supposed to remain hidden away from the entirety of the remainder of the world ( the crown prince of the dragons is by far the most valuable, after all ! ).

thus, him venturing out into normal society is absolutely forbidden and he could get into worlds of trouble if he was ever found out.

when he does go out into normal society, amongst all of the other creatures and species, he takes on the persona of a witch, seeing as he practises both white and black magic in his free time.

his general persona and overall aesthetic, especially when he’s out in the world, is very soft, he has a very magical air to him, easily described as ethereal --- twinkerbell !

despite being so pampered and spoiled in the dragon society, all he truly wishes is to be treated as someone’s equal, as opposed to being praised and put on a pedestal for every little thing he does. he simply wants a companion ( dragons are intended to be very needy, affectionate creatures, after all ).

as much as he prides himself on being the treasure of the dragons, he also finds himself wishing that he and his subjects didn’t have to hide, but he knows how dangerous it may be for them to come out of hiding, so he doesn’t question it.

thus, he tends to live an extremely lonely life.

his scales are an iridescent purple !

his hair is an iridescent purple !

his left eye is gold and his right eye is purple !

ZARIN SEASONAIRE.

y’all know this b*tch !

crown prince of the demons !

he is half-demon/half-fae, which is an absolutely messy and dangerous combination ! he’s entirely op, uses his magic/powers for evil brought on my misplaced trust and ignorance !

he was brought up under the impression that he’s far better than everybody, including his siblings, in every possible way. thus, this caused a divide between him and pretty much everyone he could have possibly had a relationship with.

as much as his father insisted that he was important, a prized possession because he was the heir to the throne, zarin was also ... somewhat neglected for a lot of his life. he was raised solely to be the heir, solely to take the throne and to be exactly as his father is, so he lacks a lot of humane skills that he should otherwise obtain; proper morals, empathy for most people, a conscience.

his siblings died, his father didn’t care and insisted that he shouldn’t care either. thus, as upset as he was by the entire occurrence, he convinced himself that it was fine, that it happened for a reason, that he didn’t care.

he’s a bit ... fucked in the head due both to his upbringing as a whole and the death of his siblings. the years of trauma he’s gone through has absolutely done a number on him.

on that note, he’s chaotic evil ! but don’t worry ! literally someone just needs to ... convince him that he’s more than his father and that his title doesn’t define him ! and then he will be a soft pouty, but still chaotic babie !

he’s a bit forced to stay in ... whatever we’re calling the land of the demons, though he is occasionally allowed up to the surface to scope out whatever’s going on up ton per his father’s orders, and he sneaks up to the surface for his own enjoyment sometimes, as well.

he treats everyone like they’re his servants & playthings ! he’s the worst !

he’s the embodiment of sin !

in reality, though, he ... genuinely just craves affection, just wants to loved and cared for for real, but he would never admit that ! because hot take: he doesn’t believe he can love ! doesn’t even think he has emotions or feelings at all !

he’s ... messy. love him at your own risk !

he’ll bite you if you call him anything other than “zazzy” !

he teleports via smoke-travel !

his smoke is gold !

his hair is dark brown !

his eyes are bright gold !

AMBROSE SEASONAIRE.

y’all know this babie !

when he was alive, he was half-demon/half-fae ! now, he’s a ghost !

when the argenti first invaded, he and hestia went out to fight, thinking that they would be able to defeat them since they were op as hell demon/fae and all, but, alas, they were killed and now reside in the afterlife as ghosts !

it wasn’t surprising that ambrose died in the fight, seeing as he has never been all too keen on controlling his magic/powers.

while growing up, he was neglected by his father due to not being the heir to the throne ! he wasn’t necessarily treated badly by his father, but ... he wasn’t treated great by any means, either.

thus, due to the way he was brought up, he’s very ... messy, but in a soft way !

he has a stutter, he’s very shy and reluctant about everything, very awkward, overall an antisocial crybaby.

he was bullied when he was alive, ever since he was a child, due to his awkward and oversensitive tendencies. he was even bullied by his own identical twin brother at times !

he kind of ... tends to cling to his twin sister, which he feels bad for and does his best to stop doing, but he just ... feels safest and most comfortable when around her.

now that he’s dead, he simply tries to blend into the background as much as possible. he doesn’t want to be noticed, doesn’t want attention on him anymore; he seldom ever talks to anyone, especially people who are still alive.

he doesn’t see himself as anything special --- he’s not magnificent and popular like his sister is, he’s not powerful and important like his brother is; he can’t even control the way he speaks, let alone his own magic. there’s nothing special about him.

it’s because of this view of himself that he is ... a bit sad. he unintentionally takes on a melancholic air.

he doesn’t think he’s worthy of love or affection, he doesn’t think he’s worthy of much --- he somewhat feels like he deserved to die, just so that he wouldn’t be in people’s way anymore.

he’s just ... a lonely, messy, soft kid !

he’s also a gay lil twink ! doesn’t know he’s gay, though !

he just wants to be called “rosie” !

his hair is dark brown !

his eyes are a dull gold !

PARISA EAE.

a fallen angel !

angels are winged sky nymphs, formed from the fluffiest pieces of clouds and brought to life by the first light of day that the sun shines upon them on the morning of their creation, made with the intention of watching over earth and inspiring good and beauty.

parisa, however, was brought to life not by the light of a sunrise, but instead by the life of a sunset mixed with moonlight. this, unfortunately, skewed with the light and purity that she, as an angel, was intended to obtain.

despite her skewed purity, the other angels decided to make an attempt at teaching her the ways of the sky.

throughout her childhood and adolescence, she would try her best to follow the other angels in their good deeds, aiming to spread the love and light and beauty that she knew she was meant to spread and inspire.

all of her attempted good deeds, however, tended to end in disaster. if she tried to inspire love, it would result in hate. if she tried to inspire beauty, it would result in fear.

she never understood what was so wrong with her compared to all of the other angels, but she did her absolute best to be as akin to them as she possibly could.

when she turned eighteen, however, and her ability to inspire beauty and good still had yet to change, the angels decided that they could not afford to have her tainting all of their purity and hard work.

thus, they cast her out of the sky, deeming her a fallen angel.

ever since she has fallen, she has grown rather bitter about her fall, yet she also blames herself for it, as she still doesn’t know that her anatomy and dna was entirely skewed upon her creation.

she tends to be a bit reticent, not wanting to get close to people for fear of causing misfortune to them, as well.

since her fall, though, she has taken a love for modelling and fashion, taking on both modelling and fashion designing as her careers.

even though she knows she can do no true good, she still tries her hardest to inspire people through her modelling and designing and influence in whatever ways she possibly can.

she strives to know why she is so different from all of the other angels, but has long since stopped trying to find out.

she is ... vain, because she’s pretty and she knows it !

her hair is a peach/strawberry blonde colour !

her eyes are a silvery sky blue !

KINGSLEY LEVANE.

witch boy who spends all of his freetime on alchemy !

his mother died upon his birth.

upon the invasion, despite his father explicitly warning him not to get involved or go anywhere near the aliens or their infection, kingsley took an interest in the argenti, wanting to study them to find out more about their anatomy, their powers, their intentions, everything about them.

thus, he started collecting as much information on them as he could --- he even took samples of their slime when he came across it to do experiments on.

as a result of a chemical experiment with the slime gone wrong, kingsley nearly died in his laboratory one night, but, fortunately and unfortunately, his father entered the room just in time to shove kingsley out of the way before the slime could touch him and, in turn, took his place.

kingsley’s father died that night do to being overcome by the chemically altered alien infection, leaving kingsley an orphan.

on the same night as this occurrence, kingsley rushed out into the city, pleading for someone, anyone, to come help him save his dad.

everyone just thought he was a crazy kid, insisted that there were bigger issues at hand than some kid’s silly, little games and tall-tales.

thus, while, logically, kingsley knows that he was truly the one to blame for his father’s death, he is entirely in denial of the fact that he caused it and he can’t help but feel bitter and angry not only at the aliens for killing his father and all of the people who refused to help him on that night.

thus, he seeks revenge on both the aliens and on all of the people who he feels wrong him.

he spends most of his days cooped up in his lab, trying out different chemical compounds and mixtures in an attempt to find something that could even just harm the aliens and that he could use against those who refused him.

the only time he really ever leaves his lab is to try and collect more information and data on the argenti as a whole.

he trades potions and his inventions and such for information that anyone might have on the argenti !

essentially, he is just looking to get revenge on all who he believes took part in killing his father, even if he gets himself killed in the process, which he knows is entirely likely.

he is also looking for a way to resurrect his father, though he knows that, even if he is a witch, his magic is far too weak for such spells.

it is because of both his vengeful tendencies and his reclusive tendencies that he doesn’t have many friends. he insists that he doesn’t have time for close friendships and relationships, that he only has time for his alchemy and research..

truly, though, hidden beneath all of the anger and vengeance, he is just a sad and lonely kid. he never knew his mom, he essentially killed his dad, he has near no one to turn to for any type of comfort; he’s just sad !

before his father died, he was really sweet and bubbly, very soft, so that side of him is still buried down deep beneath the anger !

he ... wants friends lowkey, but he doesn’t know how to go about making them !

his hair is black !

his eyes are turquoise !

TOTO FLORENT.

imaginary friend ! boy with the horns !

he was the imaginary friend of a human boy who was absolutely obsessed with all of the magical creatures that there were around him. as a result of his obsession with all of these things, toto was imagined as a boy with magical horns.

toto’s horns are made of gold with magical qualities that even he, himself, isn’t quite sure about.

it was because of toto’s horns that he started getting made fun of upon the human boy telling his other human friends of his creation --- even if the kids who were making fun of him couldn’t actually even see him.

the endless teasing and taunting by these boys that his human boy called his friends eventually started getting to toto, making him feel discouraged, strange, like he was weird, an outcast.

it was for this reason that toto ran away from his human boy, even if he knew that, once he left, no one would ever be able to see him again so long as the human boy lived.

shortly after toto ran away, living his imaginary life wandering the suburbs and downtown areas, he found that people could see him, which he knew could only mean one thing.

the human boy had died. he had perished at the hands of the argenti no longer than a month after toto had fled from him.

this revelation absolutely devastated toto. knowing that his creator and best friend are gone, dead, and knowing that he hadn’t had said goodbye to him when he left ... it took a toll on him.

thus, the imaginary friend is a bit more melancholic than he once was.

he used to run about with his human, happy as could be and excited about absolutely everything, but now he has a sad air to him. he is no longer so happy nor excitable, but more depressed and despondent.

as an imaginary friend without a human or creature to be linked to, his existence is constantly wavering, even if more people are able to see him now. since there is no one (1) person who believes in his existence without doubt, he could cease to exist at any moment.

thus, he is on a quest for a new human/creature to be linked to ! all he asks is that they believe in him and do not make fun of or try to steal his horns !

as per usual, he is sad ... he just wants love and affection ... please ... love and affection him ...

his horns are gold !

his hair is dark brown !

his eyes are baby pink !

the rest of my muses will be added to this post tomorrow !

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 12

lets do itttt

I love nick roches art...he draws rodimus so twinky, its a delight

ohhh I forgot abt the non-linear storytelling this issue. bangin

rewinds feet don't even touch the ground hhhhhh tiny

i fuckgin love that panel of skids talking abt briefing vs debriefing, everything both he and rodimus say is just golden

I love hearing tailgate tell completely made up stories from his primal vanguard days, that slaps storytelling-wise

HHHHHH and the fact that tailgate’s happiest memory is movie night at rewinds ;_; gosh

lmao I love whirl kicking down the door 

OOOOH and then the time skip!!!!!!!!! I fucking love non-linear stories

jesus, swerves whole face being gone is still disturbing

magnus rlly is a grade A badass. I forgot he has missile shoulders

rodimus saying ‘wham, bam, in the van!’ is my fuckgin favorite hvbsdhhfbhdjkf that's my son right there

cd saying that rewind is allergic to ultraviolet light [eyes emoji] remember how UV light is the only way to see mnemosurgery marks? that little detail must be in there for that ‘cd did mnemosurgery on rewind’ plotline that jro didn't end up doing (thankfully) 

I love how mtmte came up with a name for cybertronian marriage :) that's the kind of lore I want baybe!

also rewind and cd hhhhhh they....the og canon gays...confirmed outright in issue 12, which is so early on, considering!...its a beautiful thing. I will talk about the representation in mtmte Extensively throughout my reread since this is, yknow, Just The Beginning when it comes to canon gays - which, again, what a beautiful thing!

actually I'm not done. thinking abt the fact that this issue came out in 2012 and also this is freaking TRANSFORMERS of all things - a long-running franchise whose primary audience is adolescent boys - is extra amazing. augh, the representation! it gets me man.

ok, so, the story! jesus poor cyclonus

chromedome riding on the trex guy hbhsjkfbjshdf dude. I choose to believe that that’s his go-to tactic here bc he’s probably pretty terrible at fighting. idk how canon that is but I just see cd as the type of dude who cant fight well at all, regardless of how many fights he’s actually been in

minibot squad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really interested in the little we see of general cybertronian attitude towards organics - obvs the decepticons think very little of them, and the autobots generally believe all life is important, but the post-war attitude seems a little more grey and I like that 

tailgate!!!!!!!!!!!! I love tailgate SO much. the way he volunteers to defuse a bomb that he has NO idea how to defuse, and the way he lies so quickly and casually? fucking love it 

and then he takes all of his bomb disarming cues from rewind, who ALSO isn't a bomb disposal expert by any means - like, tailgate risks both his own life and everyone else’s, just because he wont come clean about his real job - that's some [chefs kiss] characterization right there, I love it

augh I love how he prompts rewind, who of COURSE would have some idea about this as an archivist, for help, and rewind doesn't have any idea that tailgate’s even more clueless than him

but tg, being a generally good person, still tells rewind he should proooooobably stand clear - just in case!!!!! 

and then rewind whips out some marriage issues and tg is like ooookay then lol

cyclonus just stabbing people w/his hands....icon

whirl quoting the raw ass line ‘you, who are without mercy, now plead for it?’ nice

swerve. WHY would you point a gun AT YOUR OWN FACE. especially a gun made by BRAINSTORM. why did anybody let swerve handle firearms if this is how he does it. actually, why did anyone give swerve a gun after the thing w/rung. jesus yall. so not only are hipaa laws basically non-existent on cybertron, but gun safety is a rarely-taught thing as well. no wonder yall have issues

so cd must not like cyclonus bc cyclonus was the one who attacked kimia, where cd worked. right?? am I remembering tfwiki correctly? lmao 

OOOOF cd saying he was born w/out innermost....I cant remember, is it canon or just extrapolation that that isn't true, and rather it was that cd gave all his innermost energon away w/his previous husbands and whatnot, but he doesn't remember since he forgot about them? either way, oof

all the functionist history stuff is so INTERESTING...I could read an entire comic about just like, pre-war when the functionists were just taking over

tg saying he hates dominus - is that that tweet from jro where somebody asked him why tg said that, and jro basically said ‘he’s petty and jealous’ lol I fucking love it. I love how a character like tailgate, who is very ‘pure’/innocent, has flaws as well

cd has a good point - its hard to kill tfs. so, that makes it extra fucking depressing that cd was seeking out death to that extent

gahhhh the whole rewind-dominus thing is so INTERESTING - I love how vague things are...we only hear about dominus from other people’s perspectives; mainly rewind who clearly thought highly of him, but he’s obviously biased, so it’s hard to tell what dominus was REALLY like, especially with the unavoidable power gap between rewind and dominus...UGH its so interesting

oof, the whole dynamic of cd thinking that rewind cares more about dominus - dominus the ghost, and finding out what happened to him in general - than chromedome himself, is just so Ouch

and the fact that cd thinks that the SOLE reason that rewind is going into battle is so he can look for dominus, but tg makes a good point - rewind is likely also worried abt cd’s safety, especially after dominus disappeared how he did - rewind is probably terrified that the same thing will happen w/cd, bc rewind cares about cd just as much as he cared/cares about dominus, but cd cant see that. AUGHHHH the Complexity!! mannnn

HHHH and like I adore that this first gay couple we get isn't perfect, and that's OKAY bc they’re not The Gay Rep, we get plenty of other gays with their own 3-dimensional relationships....augh bruh it Gets me ok

AHHHHHHHHHH THE OVERLORD STUFF. AUGHHHHHH

who was that talking to cd?? I don't remember....it must've been drift, I think? or maybe brainstorm...

whirl :’) I mean, we find out later that its kinda his fault that rewind was blown up, but still, him putting his own life at risk to save rewind...aww

cyclonus be nice to tg, he’s trying to give you his cool baja blast innermost energon

CYCLONUS BE NICE :( :( :( 

we gotta have our slowburn, tho....OOOOUGH

hhhh and then cyclonus like, realizes how much of a dick he’s being and goes back to help tg.... ;_; 

cyclonus my man u are lucky that tailgate is so forgiving

and then we have whirl and cyclonus, which is another relationship i LOVE. their development is just...[chefs kiss]

cyc just grabbing tg by the head and YEETING him out the door...lmao

cyclonus’s extremely detailed threat to whirl came at like, the WORST possible time lmao 

alternatively, rewind unfortunately asked the worst two people for help at the worst time

also alternatively, tg defusing his first bomb ever based on instructions from another amateur was maybe not the best move

and of course whirl just deciding to lock cyclonus (and rewind whoops) in with a bomb lmao

the requisite to joining the lost light is that you have to be a complete disaster of a person, on some level 

cyclonus shielding rewind ;_; 

fucking love how they managed to have a cliffhanger w/the bomb going off, despite us seeing exactly what the outcome of that was earlier in this very issue. brilliant

ah, issue 12, the issue that officially canonized the gays and introduced us to a whole bunch of worldbuilding on cybertronian relationships. i love it! plus we have some fascinating backstory and some cool character stuff, and relationship development for tg and cyclonus. awesome stuff!

up next: humansona business! oh fuck yeah

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

The Book You Should Read Instead Of Binging Netflix, Based On Your Zodiac Sign

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/the-book-you-should-read-instead-of-binging-netflix-based-on-your-zodiac-sign/

The Book You Should Read Instead Of Binging Netflix, Based On Your Zodiac Sign

Unsplash / Aziz Acharki

Aries: March 21st – April 19th

Circe by Madeline Miller

“In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child–not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power–the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.“

Taurus: April 20th – May 20th

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

“By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and ‘retire’ them. But when cornered, androids fight back—with lethal force.”

Gemini: May 21st – June 20th

Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

“Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it’s the truth?” 

Cancer: June 21st – July 22nd

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

“Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.“

Leo: July 23rd – August 22nd

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor

“In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.

That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.”

Virgo: August 23rd – September 22nd

The Woman In The Window by A.J. Finn

“Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.”

Libra: September 23rd – October 22nd

Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Alberalli

“Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.”

Scorpio: October 23rd – November 21st

I’m Fine And Other Lies by Whitney Cummings

“Here are all the stories and mistakes I’ve made that were way too embarrassing to tell on stage in front of an actual audience; but thanks to not-so-modern technology, you can read about them here so I don’t have to risk having your judgmental eye contact crush my self-esteem. This book contains some delicious schadenfreude in which I recall such humiliating debacles as breaking my shoulder while trying to impress a guy, coming very close to spending my life in a Guatemalan prison, and having my lacerated ear sewn back on by a deaf guy after losing it in a torrid love affair. In addition to hoarding mortifying situations that’ll make you feel way better about your choices, I’ve also accumulated a lot of knowledge from therapists, psychotherapists, and psychopaths, which can probably help you avoid making the same mistakes I’ve made. Think of this book as everything you’d want from the Internet all in one place, except without the constant distractions of ads, online shopping, and porn.“

Sagittarius: November 22nd – December 21st

The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris

“When street magician Carter runs away, he never expects to find friends and magic in a sleepy New England town. But like any good trick, things change instantly as greedy B.B. Bosso and his crew of crooked carnies arrive to steal anything and everything they can get their sticky fingers on.

After a fateful encounter with the local purveyor of illusion, Dante Vernon, Carter teams up with five other like-minded illusionists. Together, using both teamwork and magic, they’ll set out to save the town of Mineral Wells from Bosso’s villainous clutches. These six Magic Misfits will soon discover adventure, friendship, and their own self-worth in this delightful new series.”

Capricorn: December 22nd – January 19th

Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land

“Milly’s mother is a serial killer. Though Milly loves her mother, the only way to make her stop is to turn her in to the police. Milly is given a fresh start: a new identity, a home with an affluent foster family, and a spot at an exclusive private school.

But Milly has secrets, and life at her new home becomes complicated. As her mother’s trial looms, with Milly as the star witness, Milly starts to wonder how much of her is nature, how much of her is nurture, and whether she is doomed to turn out like her mother after all.

When tensions rise and Milly feels trapped by her shiny new life, she has to decide: Will she be good? Or is she bad? She is, after all, her mother’s daughter.”

Aquarius: January 20th – February 18th

Every Day by David Leviathan

“Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.“

Pisces: February 19th – March 20th

The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero

“In 2003, an independent film called The Room—starring and written, produced, and directed by a mysteriously wealthy social misfit named Tommy Wiseau—made its disastrous debut in Los Angeles. Described by one reviewer as ‘like getting stabbed in the head,’ the $6 million film earned a grand total of $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Ten years later, it’s an international cult phenomenon, whose legions of fans attend screenings featuring costumes, audience rituals, merchandising, and thousands of plastic spoons. Hailed by The Huffington Post as ‘possibly the most important piece of literature ever printed,’ The Disaster Artist is the hilarious, behind-the-scenes story of a deliciously awful cinematic phenomenon as well as the story of an odd and inspiring Hollywood friendship. Greg Sestero, Tommy’s costar, recounts the film’s bizarre journey to infamy, explaining how the movie’s many nonsensical scenes and bits of dialogue came to be and unraveling the mystery of Tommy Wiseau himself.”