#i think that's the only time a character did smth like that

[armandsfangs]

Arun is the only name he has that is a connection to his ethnic origins BEFORE he was bought and sold as a slave. When he shares his backstory he says he's not sure if that was his name, he doesn't say that the brothel renamed him as Arun. In contrast, we know with 100% certainty that Amadeo and Armand are European names that were forced on him by Marius and Santino respectively when he was under their manipulation and abuse. Amadeo and Armand are far more associated with his enslavement and loss of autonomy. Especially in the context of this scene, they're talking about whether he wants to continue being coven leader with the whole Santiago problem. Armand is the name that is tied to his torture by the cult of darkness and being forced to take a leadership position that he explicitly said he did not want. Before this line, Louis is literally saying that it should be up to Armand to decide whether or not he wants to continue being coven leader or do something else. He is very explicitly making sure that Armand knows he has a choice in the matter this time, unlike before. I think the whole conversation has to be taken into account, not just the one line, because the whole thing is doublespeak for negotiating their bdsm relationship (introduced by the umbrella) up to the point Armand confirms that he wants Louis to be his coven leader ("Yes Maître"). Also the line itself being framed as a question lends itself to being interpreted as Louis checking in for consent. If he made a statement like "Listen to me, Arun" I would agree that it's forceful. But it's already established in s1 that Louis feels guilty about being a pimp, so I think it makes sense that in this scene, he's trying to make sure this power dynamic is consensual. (I do think that loumand devolves into reliving their trauma in the pimp/slave roles by Dubai, but not at this point in Paris.) Louis never forces Armand to be submissive to him before this, he's like "if you want me, I'm out here in the streets" which is leaving the choice up to Armand whether or not to pursue him (and it struck me as the inverse of Lestat saying "Come to me") so I don't think it's consistent with his character up to this point to suddenly force Armand to do smth he doesn't want to do. Face down in the coffin happens later after they establish the relationship, and even after that Louis doesn't force Armand to change Madeleine when it's clear that Armand is upset.

Also I just wanted to add the umbrella was put away when Louis was with Dreamstat, not when he's with Armand, so to me that was clear symbolism of Louis deciding to let go of Lestat and handing the umbrella to Armand is the expression of his desire to start the relationship with Armand.

Anyways I already went into a lot of detail in an earlier reblog and I feel like I'm repeating myself so I'll just end it here.

"Are you sure this is what you want, Arun?" is THE most romantic Loumand line to me because this is Louis, knowing that Armand has suffered a life of abuse, of being bent and broken and reshaped to his captors' will, knowing that he has a complicated relationship with his own sense of self from the history he has shared, taking care to ask I want to know if you actually want this as yourself, not as Amadeo, the Maestro's perfect muse, not as Armand, the fearsome coven leader, but as Arun, the real you, before you were forced into those roles against your will. Arun, who did not have a choice then, you are free to make the choice now. Are you sure that you want this?

Which makes it extra unhinged that Armand's response is basically "yes daddy"

[oneverydelululemon]

SXF MANGA SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Hi! It's me again!

I want to thank all of you wonderful people who have read the first fic I did, The Conversation. I love and appreciate every single one of you! <3

Since that post gained a bit of traction, I decided to write down the prequel, aka how Damian even realised Anya can read minds. (Un)fortunately, this fic got a bit long so I'll be posting the first part for now. I hope you enjoy!

The Revelation - part 1

Damian was sitting on his bed in the dorms, his legs crossed. He had spent almost the entire day studying in the library, his nose in the books until Ewen and Emile dragged him out. After forcing Damian into the dorm, the boys went to get something to eat. Since Damian wasn't hungry, he chose to go to their room instead and have some well deserved rest. However, once he snuggled into his bed, he couldn't fall asleep.

Damian had been struggling with insomnia for a while, and the causes of his lack of sleep were always one of two things. If he wasn't stressing about his academic status, his mind liked to drive him crazy with all the memories he has about that shimp-haired commoner. The latter frustrated Damian to no end. He hated his own mind for toying with his heart in such a manner, for having chosen to give so much of its precious attention to someone so undeserving of it. If he'd paid as much attention to his studies as he did to Forger, he'd have already become an Imperial Scholar. A part of him wished he would come to his senses, but a small part of him hoped it could be like this forever.

So Damian did what he always does when he needs to relax and stop thinking about that girl - he took one of the many "The Serpent's Orb" comics he owns and began rereading it.

"The Serpent's Orb". Oh, how he adored that comic. He started reading it during the Dark Preschool Ages. He would read it whenever the halls of his mansion felt too empty and the rooms too big. Damian cringed thinking about the time he spent reading and reenacting the story to Jeeves. He cringed even harder when he remembered he would sometimes tell the same story to his old plushie whenever he'd be too scared to sleep at night, believing there were monsters in his closet. By the time he moved into the boys' dorm at Eden, he already knew every line in all the volumes, every episode of the show. Damian was ecstatic to hear Ewen and Emile were fans of the show like him, but they were never as enthusiastic about it as he was. He never blamed them for not loving it as much, though. For them it was just another cool show, but for Damian, "The Serpent's Orb" was a lifeline.

He took one of his favorite volumes from underneath his bed and began reading the first page. He usually reads through an entire volume in the matter of minutes, but he found it hard to concentrate during school break. His mind had been too occupied reliving the last time he saw that peanut-obsessed stalker. He did his best to call the night of the gala anything but magical, even if he did spend a good portion of it arguing with her.

Damian rubbed his eyes in hopes of erasing images of Anya dancing with him. He reread the page he stopped on. The main character read the mind of his best friend to find out what happened on the planet he visited. Damian hadn't really found this scene as interesting as many other fighting scenes up until that moment.

Mind reading, huh? - he pondered. It reminded him of the joke that dummy made at the gala. Damian knew better than to believe such an ability exists. This is the real world, not some cartoon or a comic.

I mean, imagine what life would look like if telepathy was real. You would know exactly what the other person thinks. If i could read minds, I'd have perfect grades! I would win every game of Old Maid and excel in every quiz! There's no one I wouldn't beat in every single football match! Bazooka Bill would fear me!

He kept daydreaming, chuckling to himself.

Until it hit him. He felt his stomach sink.

Didn't Anya make Bill cry when she dodged his every single throw, as if she knew what he was about to do? Didn't she know about some of the most embarrasing moments in Damian's life, like when Max pushed him into a pond on accident? Wasn't it Anya who won the first round of Old Maid, before she agreed to play another round because it seemed like she cheated? Didn't she somehow find out the bombs around their necks were fake in that damned bus, despite nobody ever hearing any of the terrorists say it?

Damian's mind was racing, going over every single interaction he's ever had with Forger. He stared wide-eyed at the pages in his lap, his face turning paler by the second. He dropped the comic from his hands as they were too shaky to hold it anymore.

In that moment, he was rethinking his entire existence. Is this life real? Is Anya real? Is he real? Is this all just a bad dream or some sort of a fictional simulation? Does he live in an actual cartoon?!

Damian didn't sleep that night. He barely managed to sleep every other night after that, counting the days before the beginning of the second semester.

He had some investigating to do.

And that's it for this one! I heard somewhere Damian imagined he's on a planet in Dragon Ball Z when he was "training" for the dodgeball match, so I took that fun fact and ran with it. That being said, I've never watched the anime or read the manga, I just searched up if it involves any telepathy. It's why I tried to keep it vague. I hope I didn't get anything wrong but let me know if I did!

I'll make a part two that will revolve around Anya finding out he knows.

Let me know what you think! Any feedback is appreciated! And thank you once again for reading my delulu little stories! Love you to the moon and back!

Byeeee <3

[luck-of-the-drawings]

so REVENGE, HUH? or justice, if that makes you feel better. it tastes the same when cooked just right. 'I REALLY WANTED A BROTHER.' such a shame to burn a bridge you so desperately wanted to keep, especially when it wasnt even you who started the fire. especially when you hope that not a single fragment of that bridge ever washes ashore.[MAY IT ROT FAR FROM MY SIGHTS] an unfortunate loss! atleast he has his friends.

[averlym]

litany of the martyrs (click for better resolution!)

[mintjeru]

sometimes i make myself sad thinking about the kvthm fallout text is lyrics from "who knew" by p!nk

open for better quality | no reposts

[matsui-sinclair]

i saw the lotr musical on wednesday with my brothers!! i didn't know it even existed until like two weeks before we saw it (and didn't have any plans to see it until like two days before we saw it lol) but overall i had a good time!!

review under the cut bc i'm incapable of being concise :)

i knew beforehand that it was telling the whole trilogy in the one musical, so i was prepared somewhat for what the pace of the story would be, but for some reason i was still caught off guard whenever they skipped scenes and stuff - more so in the first act since it was less condensed than the second, and by the second act i was just along for the ride at that point yknow. i don't think it felt rushed necessarily, but my familiarity with the story made me take a second to get used to how they were telling it. i did laugh out loud in the first act when gandalf is captured by saruman and then the next time we see him he's completely fine and is just like 'oh yeah i escaped off stage don't even worry about it'

on the other hand, i think knowing the story beforehand probably helped me follow along with what was happening. my brother's girlfriend came with us and she hadn't seen the movies or read the books, and there were parts she was confused by - she didn't realise that when gollum got the ring at mount doom that he fell into the lava and died, she thought he got the ring and won lol. i will say that the ring getting destroyed was probably the moment that i felt the most let down by, and felt the most like it was rushed. it felt like it didn't have the emotional impact it should've had, unfortunately

i was also lowkey disappointed bc when boromir died i had a brief thought of 'omg they're gonna have the same actor who played boromir to play faramir that's gonna be sooooo cool' and after a second of thought i was like yeah there's no way faramir's gonna be in this lol. and lo and behold he was not. i understand they had to condense it like crazy but i was so sad they cut out faramir and eowyn and like half the shit merry and pippin did!! faramir and pippin are two of my favourite lotr characters 😔

ok but speaking of pippin, when i went he was played by natasha dumlao, which means that 3/4 of the main hobbits were asian!! i don't really have anything to add to that i just liked seeing asian people in lotr who weren't anonymous evil people from the east LMAO. but also seeing a filipino actor play my favourite hobbit felt very special to me personally 🥰

anyways!! my focus with lotr has usually mostly been on merry and pippin (and faramir) and like ofc i love sam and frodo but i think it took this musical for me to really latch onto their story. bc it cuts so much else out and makes them the main focus, i really like zeroed in on them for the first time, and was always itching for the story to cut back to them whenever the rest of the fellowship was on stage doing other plot stuff. rarmian newton and wern mak had incredible chemistry as frodo and sam!! i loved their interpretations of the characters and i wish i could see fan content of their versions!!!

anyways other miscellaneous stuff i liked:

i really liked the baylor/balrog/the thing that kills gandalf idk i haven't read the books and i can't remember what the movies called it. i thought it was a fun design :]

for some reason i liked that frodo had the same accent as the other hobbits?? idk accent names but i thought it was fun he wasn't talking in fancy british talk

i REALLY liked the costume design for the elves and the fact that they were colour coded according to which group they were lol

also really liked gimli's costume design and thought that conor morel's scottish accent was v good v pleasing to my ears

jeremi campese (merry!!). just love jeremi campese in general like i feel like i've seen him in 10 billion productions and he never misses but i especially loved seeing him play a cello that was the size of his body lol (also had no idea he could sing!! or play the cello for that matter)

stephanie caccamo (arwen) had the most beautiful fucking voice omg?? every time she sang it felt like i was ascending

SHELOB???

bro SHELOB????

NOW AND FOR ALWAYS!!! i've been listening to it on repeat for the past two days!!!! fuck!!!!!

the choreography in general but the choreography in the cat and the moon was so much fun!!

during the performance there was an INSANE fucking storm happening, so much so that my friends were talking about it the next day and my dad said he'd never seen a storm like it his whole life, and i didn't see any of it bc i was watching this fucking musical, BUT the thunder was so loud i legitimately thought it was just part of the play and was like 'wow really good sound design' until it kept going in parts that didn't make sense for there to be thunder and i realised it was just an actual storm outside jhgfdsfghjk

i'm adding this just bc my brother thought the opposite and it pissed me off but i like that it included the aftermath of the scouring of the shire at the end, i think it helped end the story on a really hopeful note and had a really good emotional impact to see life persevering!! and i don't think it was pointless at all, robert!!!

so yeah. after i saw it on wednesday i probably would have given it 3.5/5, i liked it well enough but still had some issues with it. but then. i just. couldn't stop fucking thinking abt it

(hence the playing of now and for always on repeat for the past two days)

the same exact thing happened with kingdom of the planet of the apes btw, i saw it and was like 'that was fine i guess :)' and then COULD NOT stop thinking about it, then saw it in cinemas six more times :/

so. hehe. i um. you know. on friday night, a whole two (2) days after seeing the musical, i, at one in the morning, impulsively bought a ticket to see it again (i guess i'm not trying to save money??) and i'm seeing it again on wednesday :) this time i'm gonna be in the stalls bc we were in the mezzanine and couldn't always see when the actors went into the crowd :(

but yeah sometimes something that you don't even think is like super mind blowing will just latch onto your brain. augh. i wanna rewatch the movies so bad but i'm waiting until after i watch the musical again

also no shade to hannah buckley i'm sure she's great as pippin but i really liked natasha dumlao and i hope she's playing him again when i see it this week! filipino pippin is actually something that can be so personal!!

i'm excited to see how/if my rating will change!!

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[zoekrystall]

Got to all the dragon tear memories and noooo whyyyy did my guess with zelda doing it had to be right. More than dragon tears were shed oh dear hylia. Idk if I am just more emotional lately or if that close up with her dragon form crying got to me. She looks absolutely radiant as a dragon but whyyyyyyyyy. Idk if I like or hate it. It is interesting but my emotions </3 Let me at least get close to her as a dragon. I will fail but I will absolutely try to speed after her now.

[aria0fgold]

Okay like, I think it'd be too long to put in the tags of the last post so I'm making my own post but ngl that method helped me A LOT. It helped me unlearn So Much stuff by having that first thought, interrogating it, and replacing it. Cuz way back, the thing I'd do is have the first thought, hate myself for it, never try to have it again which isn't helpful At All. And then I reached a point in my life where it was like, have the first thought, avoid it, which is just as worse.

And then last year, when I realized A Lot of stuff bout me, I had to work on unlearning so much during then and like okay, this is like treading the territory of "you gotta be unwell a lil bit to heal" typa thing, like imagining your favourite characters Right There. But mine is like, a lil to the left. Cuz when I realized all the stuff I gotta unlearn, there wasn't any character from a media that can count for that just yet (I got hyperfixated on Cain months after the realization but if I've known him earlier he would've ngl took on the patron saint role in my life of unlearning unhealthy stuff)

So what I did was... used an OC. It wasn't Alec and Ray surprisingly enough cuz in my head they have their own lives and it was a lil harder for me to put them in that role. And it just so happens I have One OC that is specifically made with an awareness that makes it seem like he's a self-insert but not really. It's Alerik. The designated creator of the universe that is practically aware of the truth behind that universe and his own existence so it was easier to pull him. And it worked.

Cuz whenever I do the have first thought, interrogate it, replace it thing, I can't get it right in a way that when I think of interrogating Myself, my brain's immediate reaction is always "hatred" so then when I got Alerik to do the interrogation, my brain couldn't react immediately cuz it isn't just Me, there's Alerik now and he's both me and not at the same time, he's a piece of me. That I love. So my brain couldn't react with "hatred" towards a character I made with love, it worked. I could interrogate myself, figure out "why" I reacted the way I did, "why" I had that first thought, and what I could do moving forward without hating myself or avoiding anything. And I love it. Cuz after a year of just that, slow and steady, I managed to unlearn most of the bad habits and get rid of the self-hate. I love myself now! And the world! And everything just seems so much beautiful this way.

[spideyhexx]

i was literally just talking to my sister about rachel. like can josh fight!! she’s everything

she’s really so pretty like I find myself just in awe whenever I see a new picture of her, like just staring for a little

edit: sorry I had a lot of thoughts on the topic in the tags dbdbcbdbdnd but !! we support her here

[arolesbianism]

Sigh. Nikola why must you be one of the more interesting oni characters. I don't wanna think abt you with your stupid spiky blond hair and your unethical science that mostly just serves to make Jackie more shitty by proxy. But I do. Because you're kind of orbo blorbo. Fuck you Nikola I hope you explode again

[skrunksthatwunk]

god goromi really fucked my gender didn't she

[sege-h]

Its PPRIDE and its the FIRST EVER ARO VISIBILITY DAY, allowing me to unlock my powers to fire godzilla beams from my mouth and evaporate anyone that implies Sonic wouldnt save or try to save Shadow if he wasnt gay for him

WOULD YOU RESERVE LIFE SAVING TO YOUR ROMANTIC PARTNERS ONLY, AND LEAVE "ONLY" A FRIEND TO FALL FROM SPACE? BECAUSE THEYRE "JUST" A FRIEND?

PATHETIC

WEAK

IF I WERE SONIC ID SIMPLY SAVE EVERYONE WITH THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP ALONE--oh wait he already does that

😤

[bi-moonlight]

.

[fet1d]

fandom experiences i cherish and am glad i was there to experience:

Vocaloid (2009-2012) [aka the GOLDEN AGE OF FAN SUBBING]

Homestuck (2011-2013) [in it's original peak years]

Epic Mafia/Dangan Mafia (2013-2014) [Rooms were created BECAUSE of the DanMaf community]

Dangan Ronpa OC Community (2013-2015/2016) [better known as HELL]

Osomatsu-san (2016-2017) [directs everyone to my old ask blog @chorochan]