#idk. in my experience i have a lot more fun with books when i know there isnt a fandom for them

[orcelito]

Never played a Fate game or watched any of the animes really. But I started playing Fate/Samurai Remnant bc I wanted to play a hack n slash kinda game & it got generally good reviews (unlike ffxvi, the other game I was looking at for this wish of mine, which ppl continuously said was pretty but kinda shallow writing-wise)

I've been enjoying it. I've already learned some things about 1600s Japan. It's pretty neat!

[elucubrare]

What are your biggest turn-offs when reading/watching historical fiction or retellings of myths?

this is really complicated - i can put it in two boxes, both of which are packed very full.

disconnection from the material reality of the past

when characters display a very specifically modern mindset (about social issues especially, but other stuff too)

(I also get bothered by some kinds of modern language - I don't mind it when, idk, an author uses "sensible" with the modern connotation of "practical" and not the 18th century "emotional" or "empathetic", but "yeah" or "okay," or even, as i found out when someone used it in medieval fantasy, "holy shit" will get on my nerves.)

there are modern things where (made up example!) a character who's supposed to be a cook will talk about making caprese salad for a fancy restaurant in December, and someone snarking on the book will say "yeah, right, they should know better than to make something that depends on a fresh summer vegetable!" and even with greenhouses, that's pretty fair. and that's even more extreme in the past. it's 1650 in Verona, it's December, you cannot obtain fresh tomatoes. i don't think this means that people in the past were, necessarily, more emotionally or spiritually in tune with the cycle of the year, or the labor it took to get clothes, or furniture, or any other material item, and of course wealth can insulate people from some of that difficulty, but it does mean that the seasons had more direct impact on people's lives. It's possible to, for example, buy clothes ready-made, but for anything fancy, it's more likely that it'll be made to fit if it's new, or altered extensively and painstakingly if it's not. that means that tearing or staining a fancy dress isn't just an issue of looking bad - you can't just replace it, and you probably won't throw it out - you figure out how to reuse it. those concerns of access to material goods are just a lot closer to the surface of the world than they often are now.

my objections to modern attitudes about the world are not that people in the past 100% accepted the views of their contemporaries - there were always people who didn't, and it makes sense that a protagonist would be one of them. but people wouldn't phrase those objections in the same way that modern people would - say your main character doesn't want a woman accused of being a witch burned. "God's power is such that the Devil cannot give this woman the ability to sour milk" is most likely going to be more persuasive to the crowd than "witches aren't real." and sometimes that's rough - it's not super fun to read about a Roman with Roman attitudes about provincial wars, or slavery in the city, but I put something down because a Roman character said (in internal dialogue) that he was disgusted to see that a man had been tortured because "Romans simply didn't do that." Historical Romans did do that, routinely - a slave could not testify in a law court unless they had been tortured. Even with distasteful things like that, I'd much rather it just be glossed over than to have them say the "correct" modern thing. It just makes it feel too much like the theme park version of the culture.

Both of these are because of specific things I come to historical fiction for - I want that sense of alienation, the gulf of experience. I hate that most historical fiction (and fantasy set in semi-recognizable periods) characters don't really care about Honor, except as a joke, because I love when characters organize their lives around arcane rules and systems that cause tiny things to escalate into blood feud. I just think they're neat! I like it when people's worldviews are shaped by their lack of scientific certainty about what causes crops to fail! If I wanted to read about people who thought and acted like me, and had lives that were mostly similar to mine, only cooler, I'd just read contemporary fiction.

[strniohoeee]

I NEED a pregnancy reader x matt smut

Gravid

Pairing: Matt Sturniolo X Female Reader

Synopsis: Y/N is pregnant and yearning for Matt after reading mommy to be books, and learning about her libido spiking….will he give in?😙

Warnings⚠️: SMUT BABES, it’s nothing crazy just sex while pregnant? Idk shit bout being pregnant, so I tried my best LMAOO

Song for the imagine: Baby Love- The Supremes

⚠️This is an 18+ story, so minors do not interact, or do??⚠️

Matt and I had been dating for a good four years. We were both 21 now, and he and his brothers were super famous on YouTube. I always had a feeling they’d get bigger than they thought. I was there for every milestone, and when they hit 5 million subscribers we were so fucking happy

I was occasionally in videos, I preferred to stay out of them as those were his brothers lives, and not mine. However I would pop out here and there since we were 18. At first most fans thought we were friends until we were 20, and finally came out to say that we had been dating since we were 18. We got the expected comments half loving and half hating, but I didn’t care I was secure in my relationship.

However, Matt and I’s anniversary was a while back, and we had fun, LOTS OF FUN consisting of sex, sex and more sex.

But after two weeks I started to feel sick, and sore and just not right, so I decided to go to the doctor thinking it was the flu, or covid. What I didn’t expect was to find out I was pregnant… A WEEK AND A HALF PREGNANT.

I was shocked, but I also knew I wanted to keep this baby, and Matt and I weren’t always the most careful when it came to having sex. But he always told me if I got pregnant he’d take care of me with no questions asked.

I was currently 14 weeks pregnant, and I was showing, but not enough to really make people think. Especially since I dressed to hide my bump, and posed specific ways

The fans suspected nothing, and we didn’t want to say anything till I was almost due. Chris and Nick immediately jumped for joy and were always by my side if Matt couldn’t be. His parents and their brother Justin also supported me.

Mary-Lou and Jimmy would fly out like once a month to spend a few days with Matt and I. They were so excited to be grandparents.

I was reading a lot of what to expect when you’re expect type of books to prepare as best as I could. I was genuinely shocked at all the new information I was finding out

What I did read was starting at 14 weeks women experience a spike in there libido, and I kind of had a feeling because anytime I saw Matt I wanted to jump his bones

It’s called baby brain….we become different, and feral

Matt was out filming with his brothers and I was at home just doing nothing. I heard Matt come home, but I only heard him

He came into the bedroom

“Hey baby” he said putting his stuff down on his desk

“Hey Matt. Where’s Chris and Nick?” I asked

“They went shopping. They said that they wanted to buy some things for the baby” he said walking over and rubbing my little baby bump

“Aww that’s so nice of them. They don’t have to” I said looking up at Matt

“Yeah I know, but they wouldn’t budge they said there’s so many things they want to buy” he said sitting down to take his sneakers off

“They’re too nice I love them” I said as I rubbed my baby bump

Matt came over and laid next to me resting his head on his left hand while looking at me

“What’s my pretty lady been up to?” He asked

“I’ve just been reading these mommy to be books” I said pointing to a stack of books on the nightstand

“Find out anything good?” He asked

“Actually yes, our sex drive spikes at 14 weeks” I told him

“How far along are you?” He asked smirking

“Exactly 14 weeks today” I said winking at him

“Oh well then this must mean one thing” he said smiling at me

“It means you look so fucking hot all the time, I’m ready to jump on you when you walk through that door” I said

“Oh really?” He asked jutting (ew) his bottom lip out while pondering

“Oh yeah, and when you wear those whore outfits looking fine asf. I lose all self respect” I said giving him a kiss

“Oh baby, I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself” he said kissing me

“So don’t. I want to fuck, and I want it now” I said sitting up

“Won’t I hurt the baby?” He asked

“Matt….. be for real right now. Do you think the baby got his hand hanging out of my cervix ready to high five your dick?” I asked laughing at him

“You’re such a weirdo with your explanations” he said laughing at me

“You will not hurt the baby. It actually says sex is usually more enjoyable when the woman is pregnant” I told him

“So then let’s find out” he said grabbing my cheek and kissing me

Matt laid me back down as he hovered over me kissing me, and then slowly going down to my neck leaving sloppy kisses

“Matt I missed this” I said sighing

“Me too baby” he said coming back up and kissing my lips

He removed his shirt and his pants, and then took my shirt, and shorts off

“You look so fucking hot pregnant” he said gently rubbing my bump

“Maybe after this one we can have another” I said winking at him

“Oh baby I’ll have as many as you want” he said kissing me

Matt had slid off my underwear before coming back up to kiss me, and massaging my breasts lightly because they were a little sore

As he was kissing me, he slowly slid his hand down to massage my clit

“Fuck baby you’re so wet, and I haven’t even done much” he said looking into my eyes

“Matt when I tell you everytime I see you, I need you…I mean it” I told him

“Fuck baby” he said before going back to rubbing my clit, and slowly inserting two fingers inside of me

“Oh fuck Matt that feels so good” I said moaning at the feeling

He kept pumping his fingers in and out of me, before finally removing them, and placing his dick at my entrance

“Ready baby?” He asked

“I’m ready” I said, and slowly Matt slid into me completely bottoming out

“Fuck baby please move” I moaned out to him

Within an instant Matt was thrusting into me at a good pace, not too hard and not too soft. It felt amazing, and his pelvic bone was rubbing against my clit allowing for extra stimulation

“Oh baby I’m going to cum soon” Matt said as he thrusted into me while kissing my neck

“Me too. This feels so fucking good” I moaned out to him

Sex with Matt was always amazing, but I think because of my hormones it felt extra fucking good. I was so fucking wet like the sounds coming from me were insane

Matt kept thrusting into me, and I couldn’t stop clenching down on him

“Fuck matt I’m going to cum” I said clenching down on him harshly

“Come on baby, cum for me” he said thrusting into me and rubbing my clit

“Oh fuckkk” I yelled out as I came so hard all over Matt, my whole fucking body was shaking and my breathing stopped

“Oh my god” I said coming down from my high breathing heavily

Matt soon pulled out, and came all over my lower stomach. He came down from his high, and immediately ran to get a wet rag

“Sorry…cumming on your baby bump feels wrong” he said laughing, and I laughed with him because he’s such a weirdo

“It’s okay you weirdo” I said laughing at him and sitting up

We cleaned ourselves up, and got dressed, and in queue we heard the front door open

“Look at that perfect timing” he said getting up from the bed, and we both walked out to the living room

“We’re BACKKKKK” Nick yelled as he walked in with a ton of target bags full of baby stuff

“Guys what is all this” I said looking at the bags

“Well we have to spoil our unborn niece or nephew” Chris said bringing in more bags

“YALL THIS IS CRAZY” I said as my eyes fell on at least 12 bags of baby stuff

“Listen we’re so excited you have no idea” Nick said

“Hmm” Chris suddenly stopped and looked at Matt and I

“What?” matt said

“I know what was going on here” he said smirking at us

“The fuck are you talking about?” I said

“My poor niece or nephew was getting scrambled….yall was fuckingggggg” Chris said

“The fuck?” Matt said

“Well…..y/n your hair?? And Matt your shirt is on inside out and backwards” Chris said laughing

“MATT” I said smacking him

“OH MY GOD” Nick said laughing

“Uhh sorry?” Matt said getting all shy

We just laughed at this awkward interaction, and then Chris and Matt gave me a haul of what they got me while explaining every single item, and how either they will use it, or how I will use it

The End

Once again I hope yall enjoyed, and for the person that requested this I hope I didn’t disappoint 🥰 also I would like to do a/n at the end of my stories, so if you have any like personal questions, you can ask them here, and I’ll answer them in the next stories endings or as a separate thread 🤭🤭

-J💅🏽

[genderfluid-culture-iss]

for the baby genderfluid tips!!

this could just be me lmao, but DO NOT donate your fem clothes if you feel masc for longer than usual. or vice versa.

keeping a gender journal is something that can be really helpful to actually look back on and see how it changes (and also have proof of fluidity for when you begin to think "hmm actually im just a trans girl. nothing else." no, you probably aren't. you felt completely boy/nonbinary/etc just a month ago, and thats okay.)

basically it can be really hard to embrace that your gender is not static, especially if your gender stays stable for a slightly longer period. it took me so long to stop rotating between "im a girl always" "no, im a boy always" "actually, im nonbinary always" to just admit im genderfluid.

also, make genderfluid content. you don't have to show it to anyone, but sometimes it can really help to make poetry or art or write a story about being fluid and your experience in particular. i have an easy avenue for this since i write fanfiction (haven't published any of it yet lmao) and i just hit my favorite characters with my genderfluid beam and go nuts

follow people who are genderfluid, read genderfluid books, maybe join a genderfluid discord server (there are barely any, so actually maybe make one), try to make genderfluid friends. you are not alone, even though it sometimes feels that way.

if you have plushies or anything similar, make them genderfluid. i have a genderfluid squishmallow who i use she/they pronouns for, and a little husky that switches between he/she. idk it just helps sometimes lol

some of us change gender daily, or multiple times a day. some of us change gender only a couple times a year, or even less. we're all different and that's fine.

tips for presentation:

if you have a day when you can't figure out gender, go neutral clothing-wise

take little things to ease dysphoria if you switch when you're out somewhere (ex. lipgloss, eyeliner, leather bracelet, etc)

if you can, get pronoun pins. seriously, get pronoun pins (or a colored bracelet for subtlety or if you're not out). you can wear multiple at a time, you can switch them whenever you need to. you aren't a burden if your pronouns change. you don't have to stick to they/them to be easy for people.

if you can, get a versatile hairstyle that you can make suit your gender no matter what. if you cant, try to get a hairstyle that makes you the least dysphoric overall.

if you are organized enough, separate your clothes based on gender/what you feel comfy wearing on different days. do not pressure yourself to fit stereotypes. some people can only feel comfortable in skirts when theyre boys, so they only wear skirts on boy days. do what works for you.

it's kinda complicated, but if you can expand your vocal range to sound more fem or masc depending on how you feel, it can help. alternatively, vocal train to make it more androgynous.

keep makeup wipes with you in case you need to take it off part way through being out. basically, make it as easy as possible to be able to change/tweak your presentation if necessary.

this could just be me, but having lots of hoodies in different colors and styles will save your life

sometimes you might have "blender days", which is what i call it when your gender feels like its in a blender in a bad way and you can't tell at all what it is, everything feels wrong, it's changing like every 10 minutes, etc. tbh on these days all i can do is put on sweats and a hoodie and feel dysphoric. listen to music if it helps. do a hobby.

non-clothing items can help a lot. a blue tshirt and jeans can be whatever you want it to be based on what you wear it with. (ex. sneakers/ballet flats, leather bracelet/sparkly necklace, baseball cap/eyeliner)

and lastly: YOU ARE AMAZING. keep being you, keep being incredible, and know that being genderfluid is a gift. be proud to be who you are, have fun, know that you are unique and special and wonderful!! we're ever-changing, and that's awesome. you are precious. i love you.

🩷🤍💜🖤💙

dont wanna link my tumblr, but my name is kiley if you want to attach a name to this!

Okay this is a lot more than I was expecting LMAO /pos

Thank you so much for this Kiley <33 I’ll start working on a masterpost with links to all this.

[your-unfriendlyghost]

I have two things to ask:

1.-Can we be friends?

2.-Do you have any Outsiders headcanons (or any that you haven't submitted yet)?

I mean sure?? Idk who you are since you’re on anon, so not REALLY, but I’m always down to talk!

2. Yeah lol- tons. Too many. Here’s a few (okay like 25 oops) off the top of my head lol, some serious/angsty and some lighthearted/kinda stupid without any real order. (Lotta ‘em are about Steve tbh -there’s so little to him in canon that I have the freedom to hc pretty much whatever I want)

Steve Randle’s nearsighted and has no idea, which is why he’s literally always squinting. (I’ve had that one for like months but only recently mentioned it on here lol.) Steve thinks his vision is completely normal

Dally and Sylvia genuinely cared for each other, but they were both so horrible at having healthy emotions that they just made each other worse. In a bad way, not a fun way.

When Steve gets kicked out, sometimes he hangs with Johnny in the lot. They don’t really talk about anything important like their shared experiences of having lousy parents. Instead they talk about cars, girls, music, school…lighthearted stuff. Sometimes Johnny will find Steve crying, which he never mentions- he’ll just sit down as per usual, which Steve appreciates. Steve almost never finds Johnny crying though. Johnny doesn’t cry much.

Okay tangent- I love how Steve and Johnny are low-key foils. Like Steve always seems tough but then cries when pushed to his limit, while Johnny always seems skittish until he’s under a bunch of pressure- in which case he suddenly is confident. (Not necessarily thriving obviously, but confident yk? Like grinning while saving those kids in the fire.) I know SE Hinton probably didn’t intend that at all, but it’s just such an interesting detail to me. One of these days I’ll put it into words better

Johnny’s jeans-jacket is a hand-me-down from either Steve or Two-Bit. (I can’t decide which lol) (obviously Dally would make sense too, but honestly I think it’d add more depth to flesh out Johnny’s relationships with the other members of the gang)

After the events of the book, Two-Bit starts hanging around the Curtis’s place even more. At first the gang assumes he’s trying to lighten the mood. It’s only after he gets sent to the cooler for a month due to drunk driving that they realize he was actually hanging around so much because he was trying to keep his kid sister from seeing him so drunk…

Two-Bit likes to joke that he keeps failing junior year so that him and his sister can graduate together. Which is a very bad idea since his sister is a year younger than Ponyboy.

Sodapop often feels like he’s only good for looking pretty and not all that useful or interesting otherwise. He likes himself, but when he stops to think about it too much, he starts to wonder if he really has anything going for him at all

My H/C for Steve’s home life is that his Mom is sick w/ like cancer or something. Before she got sick, Steve’s life was pretty alright for an eastsider- he and his dad fought, but they always made up for the most part. They weren’t perfect, but they loved each other. But after she got sick, she wasn’t there to mediate between Steve and his Dad anymore, and the fighting got worse and worse. And then Steve’s dad started drinking more and it was pretty downhill from there. Steve’s Dad still loves him, but sometimes Steve wishes that he didn’t. If he didn’t, then he could hate him. But his dad does love him, so he can’t get himself to.

Steve and Dally taught Johnny to drive when they were all like fourteen-fifteen-ish. Johnny is a very reckless driver. He loves speeding.

Johnny also loves fast roller coasters and stuff.

Dally doesn't ‘cuz he’s low-key scared of heights- he likes riding broncos and rodeos, but put him at the top of a roller coaster and he’s convinced that it’s gonna break and he’s gonna die. He pretends he doesn’t mind. The only people who know he’s scared of them are Johnny, and before she died, Mrs. Curtis.

Steve has a napoleon complex. Johnny, who is shorter than him by a few inches, likes to bully him for it sometimes

Ponyboy and Cherry don’t interact much in the school year after the book, but in the summer after, they start to hang out. Eventually they become pretty close. They fangirl over Paul Newman together

Ponyboy still doesn’t let Cherry read his theme though until years later

Marcia and Two-Bit re-meet a few months after the book. (Two-Bit is really scared that she’s embarrassed to be dating him, and Marcia is really scared that he’s embarrassed to be dating her. Neither of them are embarrassed. They both adore each other.)

Two-Bit likes to watch Marcia barrel racing. One time while he’s there, he runs into Ponyboy watching Cherry barrel race and immediately tells everyone much to Pony’s chagrin

Evie knows a little bit about cars, and she sometimes helps out at the DX during summers. Steve is so whipped for her lol (and Soda too Steve has two hands)

Evie and Sylvia are besties, but Steve and Sylvia hate each other. They act civil in front of Evie, but as soon as her back is turned they’re growling at each other like dogs. (Well Steve is. Sylvia just acts condescending as hell. Sometimes it goes over his head, so Steve knows she’s insulting him but isn’t sure what the insult is/means. Which makes Steve kinda want to kill her.)

Steve and Soda are low-key co-dependent. (Steve more so- Soda has his family at least, while to Steve, Soda and Evie are his whole world pretty much) It’s probably not super healthy, and both of them are vaguely aware of that, but are trying not to think about it too hard rn

Ponyboy’s friend group in high school consists of Curly Shepard, Mark Jennings, Scout Jenkins (from the tv show), and eventually, in her senior year, Cherry Valance. (There’s others too but those are the main ones.)

Pony dates Cathy Carlson for a while too, idk if they’re good for each other or not- I kinda like the idea of them being a sweet couple tbh, but no one else on here seems to care about them so I haven’t really explored the idea much lol

In a Dally lives au, Mark Jennings and Dally end up spending a bit of time together through Pony, and at some point they realize that they’re half-brothers lol. Mark is a deeply obnoxious little brother to have, and he drives Dally nuts on purpose. Weirdly I think Dally’s a relatively good influence on him, as much as someone like Dally can be. And Dally does care for Mark, though not as much as he cares for Johnny- Mark is, in his head, not exactly his responsibility.

Well I have (so many) more, but I think that’s enough for now lol. Point is, even though I haven’t drawn in a minute, I love these characters and their romanticized version of 1960s Tulsa so much and I think about them way too often lol

(dw once i get more into the swing of school I’ll be doin more art!)

[thewayuarent]

Clothes in Only Friends

And how it let us know everything we need about Ray’s choice

God, do I love costume department working on Only Friends. There is so, so many fun and interesting things to notice - “talking” t-shirts (especially Boston’s), and Sand with yellow, and how TopMew started as “striped” couple - but one is vertical and the other is horizontal (is it about them being misreading each other? or is it about them crossing each other’s lives? idk), how Boeing appeared and we immediately see TopMew vibes all over him. How we can easily indicate each character individual style.

But my favorite thing is how the series uses style shifting to show what’s going on with characters without telling it out loud.

We have Nick, who was so obsessed in his jealousy, that he started to copy man he knew Boston was interested in. We see him coming back in terms with Boston, but we also see him learning to accept himself again - the way his style got back to his usual one, with green and blue colors and more boyish vibes. He’s not the same, because his experience changed him, but he is who he is, not a shadow of someone else.

We have Mew, who adapted Ray’s style and behavior because he was hurt, and he chooses to numb his pain, and he gets to the only person he thinks can help him with that. He’s coming back to his senses by the end of episode nine, but he’s still very Ray-coded, because he still didn’t figure out who he is or what he wants and he’s in the middle of his journey (I’m so waiting to see how it will turn out).

And we have Ray, and his example is so fascinating. Because if you look at Ray’s choices of clothing in episodes 8 and 9, you can actually predict everything happens. (I will exclude scenes from university cause, well, uniform)

His style screams Sand most part of the time, but it’s absolutely not about him wanting to adapt Sand’s life or look. It’s about him choosing Sand since the very beginning of his and Mew situationship. Because while Ray needs his time to realize everything about him and Mew and him and Sand, we know he already subconsciously made his choice. As well as we know Ray and Mew will never work out way before they are ready to admit it.

The talk. There a lot of things were said out loud for the first time in this scene that are every important. But this is also about what was shown to us - that the first time we see Ray and Mew as a “couple” is also the first time Ray chooses to wear something Sand-coded. Specifically something very similar to what Sand picked for him.

And there is something about Ray saying “I’m so happy when I’m with you” (can he hear himself? no, but really, it’s been two weeks and I’m still like, bro, for real?) while he stays here, wearing this shirt that looks like the one he wears at the night they were happy, and the night their relationship was damaged hard.

The bookshop. Here we see Ray way closer to his usual style, but not exactly. Ray is always extravagant, and attention grabbing, and using patterns, and lip gloss, and he is just that kind of person. But here he’s quiet. And monochrome. No make up, not patterns, no usual brightness. Mew looks more like Ray than Ray himself.

And this is indicating why their relationship with Mew is wrong - Ray is not fully himself, he adapts in a way Mew never asked him, actually, but he knows makes his presence more tolerable. He seems like himself, sure, but he doesn’t feels like himself.

The party. I made a post about is already - it’s just great example of Mew and Ray thinking they are on the same page while they are actually not even from the same book.

It’s all about toxicity, and pain, and dragging each other down instead of helping each other to stand.

The fight. This is my absolute favorite one. Because this whole conversation - absolutely unhealthy and terrible it is - is actually both of them realizing they will never work out.

And they try so, so hard. And I believe it’s really frustrating for both of them to accept they failed. And of course instead of talking it out they blames each other, and hurt each other. And of course they will manage thing well later - but this is their breaking point, right here.

And of course Ray, who is attentive enough to recognize Mew’s feelings for Top has no fucking idea about him spending this whole time with Sand written all over him. While Yo knows, and Mew knows, and everyone including my grandma knows - he himself is just not ready to allow himself to admit it.

The river. So, this scene, as well as next one, Ray wears not just Sand-coded clothes, but actual Sand’s clothes. But there is a difference.

Because this is the scene where Ray finally admits his feelings - but he’s able to do it only after Sand admits his. Because Ray is incredibly insecure, and incredibly drowned in self-hatred, because Ray always reaches towards people who give him attention and love. Because he can’t allow himself to go for such risk without assurance.

And he’s sitting here with Sand, and Sand is in bright blue color, while Ray is in his t-shirt, but dark, and black, and with “You Only Live Once” and he’s admitting - to Sand and himself - his feelings, but he doesn’t admit to himself that he’s already made his choice until the very next scene.

The choice. And they are sitting again, and that’s only two of them again, and Ray wears Sand’s t-shirt again, and this is very different.

Because this is not just occasional t-shirt. This is the one we saw Sand wears. This is the one that was on him the very same day Ray made an attempt to move on from Mew. The very same day Ray said “I want to know you better”, the very same day he invited himself in Sand’s life. The day they were probably very happy, even if way far from well communicated, the day that could become an indication of something new for them.

And he wears this t-shirt when he says something cheesy about “I will handle everything while I have you” and “Let me be the part of your dream” - the very same dream Sand told him about the very same day.

And it’s just painfully obvious that there is nothing about Mew on the picture anymore. Sand told him “I won’t wait for you” and Ray was like “You don’t need to, I’m already here”. Oh they’ll fuck it up so hard, won’t they?

The comeback. And like that, Ray’s style is back. Because Ray’s clothes don’t tell us story about trying to be someone else, but a story about wanting someone else.

And when he and Mew have this beautiful adult healthy conversation that I love the most we know that Ray is already accepted his choice - the one that Yo knows, and Mew knows, and everyone in this world actually kind of knows. And this is how we know that this painful arc of Ray and Mew being toxic disaster is finally over even before they say anything out loud. Just because Ray wears his style again.

[kindlespark]

this is gonna be SO long and rambly sorry anyway i saw a post abt how babel does queer characters and it got me thinking abt why the tropes it uses would usually turn me off other stories but didn’t here

MAJOR BABEL SPOILERS //

i feel like i’d be more mad abt how robinramy ended up in babel if it marketed itself as queer lit at all or if its fans were going “WOW AMAZING QUEER REP” abt it. but no one told me any of that, so finding out they were gay was just a fun little bonus surprise to me. i get why ppl are eh abt robinramy not getting together/technically still being subtext (which i dont think is really true btw like the book literally says “robin was falling in love” but idk i guess if you were stupid you might’ve assumed that it was falling in love with oxford given how romantic some of the other language is (WHICH IS ALSO THE POINT bc i think robin’s friendship with ramy blurring into romance is why he romanticised like all his friendships/experiences in oxford BUT IM GETTING OFF-TOPIC)). i just think robin’s repression abt being gay was intrinsically tied to his attitudes on imperialism (wrt refusing to acknowledge anything that complicated his life until it was too late) and i don’t consider it a cop out or queerbait. like i genuinely don’t think robinramy could ever have gotten together without drastic alterations being made in terms of plot and character. plus i think it’s clear that kuang didn’t want to write a story with any kind of focus on romance at all, because it’s not that kind of book. there’s no successful het romance either, so it grates a lot less. the only reason romance is included at all is to show the ways in which white entitlement manifests. so the tragic way robinramy played out just made sense to me.

and i speak as someone who accidentally spoiled myself on You Know What in the middle of reading and i was like ugghh boooo dreading it the whole time expecting to roll my eyes when it happened but then when it did i was like. wow im actually not that mad LMFAO 😭😭😭 actually thematically the book sets it up so well that i believed that this was unfortunately the only way it could’ve gone. babel is about the loss and tragedy and grief that colonised people experience. it’s about the lengths people will go to to uphold empire and the lengths ppl will go to to tear it down like idk 😭 i guess it is bury your gays but it didnt bother me this time because i thought it fit thematically ❤️ i enjoy tragedy as a genre a lot and i would’ve made it gay anyway you know. thanks rf kuang for doing it for me so i didnt have to.

WHICH IS ALL TO SAY that i guess if you’re going into babel for the queer rep without appreciating that the story is fundamentally a tragedy it would feel like it’s just reusing tired tropes….. but i think the choices kuang made were rly deliberate and not in a way that feels like trauma porn or shock value. the book is fundamentally about the struggles of poc so the layer of queerness that was introduced felt like a subtle extension of the experiences of characters of colour in the book, and i enjoyed and related to it as a queer chinese person who kind of realised they had to prioritise their fight for the liberation of poc over queerness mainly because the idea of western queer liberation cannot be dissociated from imperialism and many aspects of homophobia as we know it was an export of christian european empire into our colonised countries in the first place and FUCK THIS IS A WHOLE OTHER TANGENT ABOUT HOW I THINK RAMY AS A CHARACTER IS EMBLEMATIC OF THE TENSION AND STRUGGLE THAT QUEER POC DIASPORA HAVE BETWEEN OUR IDENTITIES GODDAMNIT OK FORGET IT POST CANCELLED i just rly think babel’s handling of queer characters is fine and makes sense and i like it personally and maybe i will make a coherent analysis about it one day but that day is not today byeeeeeee

[rad-batson]

THIS IS FOR FANS OF CASSANDRA CAIN! PLEASE READ! I WANT YOUR THOUGHTS

(skip to the bottom if you just want silly headcanons about her :D)

Hello! So first, I want to thank everyone who read the Wayne pilot I made :) I appreciate your feedback, and I love you all.

As I'm preparing to post it on AO3, I decided to make a few (admittedly small) changes to the script, primarily around Cassandra Cain, because I haven't quite fleshed her out yet.

I don't have much experience with writing Cass, so I decided to do a bit of research on her yesterday, and wouldn't you know? I fell in love. 10/10. She didn't play a huge part in the pilot, but she will have a bigger one in the second episode, and there are a few things I think can or should be added so she doesn't feel too one-note.

There wasn't anyone who told me this, by the way. (In fact, I actually got some nice comments about her so thank you.) I just had it in the back of my mind while writing, and now that Cass is getting more screen time, I'm finding that my lack of knowledge might lead to mischaracterization.

SO TO COMBAT THIS, I MADE A GUIDE FOR MYSELF ON HOW TO WRITE CASS

Is this overkill? Probably Think of it as a silly headcanon list for my version of her. And I'm posting it here because I want your feedback before it's set in stone. (I know Cass isn't written well a lot, so this is my attempt to right these horrid wrongs.)

If you're going to give criticism, please be constructive. Tell me what you like or don't like. I'm all ears. Have fun :)

Writing Cass

(Btw I still gotta read Cass’s first Batgirl run by Kelley Puckett)

Has some sass, has a lot actually

Used to be awkward in social settings. she’s better at it when she’s with people so she can match their energy but she still prefers to just dip

Speaks in short-ish sentences, trying her best tho

I WILL BE ADDING THIS INTO THE PILOT, I JUST WANT TO KNOW TO WHAT DEGREE?? OR IS IT REALLY FINE

Mostly just relies on body language though

I WILL BE ADDING THIS INTO THE PILOT TOO, ESPECIALLY WITH THE ASL SCENE (BUT IT’S NOT REPLACING THE ASL)

also yes i know her using ASL isn't canon, it just works best for the scene, it would have been written the same whether she was in it or not, it is still a cute nod to fanon tho

Steph and Cass are extremely close BUT ALSO HAVE SEPARATE LIVES (I HAVE BEEN TOLD TO STRESS THAT AND I AGREE)

Messy, low-key gross. Bad-ish hygiene but she’s good at looking put-together so only those close know this about her (this is just my headcanon)

Often forgets bigger words so she occasionally uses the wrong one, she ALSO mixes up proverbs but no one corrects her because 1: it’s cute and 2: they don’t want to discourage her from speaking with them more casually (also my headcanon)

Cass: So I pulled the door off its…*makes motion with hand*…metal books. Steph: Do you mean hinge— Cass: Metal books.

Dick: Well that was a surprise. I didn’t know The Penguin would be here. Cass, nodding: Well life gives you grapes Dick: Wut Cass: You make grape juice. Get on the same book, Nightwing

I'M ON THE FENCE ABOUT ADDING THIS ONE BECAUSE IDK LET ME KNOW PLEASE

Is a cinnamon bun AND a little shit, it’s a balancing act

Production: She’s Wayne’s darling Princess Cass: *will break your fingers*

She does appear behind the camera crew to scare them on purpose, she thinks it’s funny, she likes seeing them freak out

She is super competitive, but she's always like "Oh I'm not that competitive" *proceeds to be very competitive*

Because she isn't super confident in her writing or speaking (or just uncomfortable communicating without seeing the other person's body language) she prefers to Facetime or simply reply to texts with selfies of her reaction. It is a thing now. when you need an honest opinion about an outfit, text a photo to Cass. She will either give back a photo of a thumbs up or a photo of a grimace and some not-so-flattering emojis

Her princess persona is her public cover persona in this show, parallel to Bruce’s “Brucie” and Dick’s “born for the cameras” thing

Is surprisingly vocal (and sometimes snippy) about her distaste with things but she mostly gets a pass because her morals align best with Bruce’s

Is most snippy when her family uses methods other than violence when violence is clearly the faster option, god they're such pacifists

Tim: *trying carefully to pick a lock* Cass: Just break through the wall? Tim: We can’t do that. We’re trying not to be noticed. Cass: Wimp

Bruce: Cass, why did you have to dislocate that man’s shoulder? Cass: I put it back. Bruce: That’s not the point. Cass: Fine, I’ll dislocate it again.

Is the best fighter, none of this “oh she’s the best fighter so when people do win against her, it makes them look cooler” thing, shut tf up, she could break their bones (not important to the show ofc but I need to add this because it is important in general)

Horrible at drawing, wretched (again a headcanon but I did see someone else mention it somewhere)

Also bad at writing, refuses to study to improve out of principle (i.e. she told Babs she doesn’t need to and now she refuses to admit Babs was right)

(AND SIDE-HEADCANON IF SHE IS HORRIBLE AT WRITING AND ACTIVELY HATED STUDYING HER ALPHABET THEN WHAT IF LIKE ONE DAY SOMEONE SAYS “hey can you grab me one of these files from last week’s case, it’s under M” SHE’S LIKE “fuck you, how could you do this to me” WHILE SEARCHING FOR M OR MORE SIMPLY *throws something at them*)

That's all I have right now. If you'd like to give me any recommendations, please do. I can't promise I'll add in every single one because this show is still about the whole Batfam, not just her, but I want to do her justice, and that definitely involves more fine-tuning on my part

OKAY THAT'S ALL LOVE YOU BYE

[eerna]

Omg the way Eloise is written as a feminist character BOTHERS me. I can’t always put my finger on why, but a thing that sticks out to me the most is how she just says the most blatantly basic (for us 21st century viewers) things and idk it’s supposed to seem revolutionary… but it’s never clever. And it is never deep.

Anyways I saw your tag on the Eloise/Cressida post and I was curious to hear any elaboration of your thoughts on her feminist portrayal? (But no pressure!)

YEEAAAH EXACTLY! I have the same issue, Eloise just says 21st century equality stuff without ever having read a single feminist pamphlet (this is canon, she doesn't start reading them or attending discussions until she's 18). Somehow she developed a perfectly uniform idea of modern womanhood when she was isolated and raised to be a traditional lady. Her opinions should be WAY more half baked and full of holes because this life is the only one she'd ever known. That's not even mentioning the inability to discuss feminism without discussing class, something Eloise has No Idea About.

Then comes the issue of writing. This is a stupid show. No one looks smart on this show. So when Eloise drops a "smart comment", it is cringe and dumb. She is supposed to be eloquent and witty, but most of the time she looks like a mean snob belittling everyone around her.

Another issue is that everyone else around her is a horrible sexist caricature. Yes, she is snobby, but my god every other woman only cares about men and marriage and gossip so I can't even blame her all that much for it. Her friends don't really care about what she has to say and will always leave her to go chase a man. And even SHE starts fitting the description the moment she falls for a guy - she lies to her friend and puts everyone in danger, and 90% of the reason is a man with only 10% being her self actualization. You can't write a proper feminist if everyone in your story has the same goal, which is to find a husband. It doesn't help that we know Eloise is headed for marriage and babies because every time a character expresses they don't want one or both of those things, they are proven wrong by the narrative.

And finally, my last thing making Eloise a bad feminist character, is that she is SO PASSIVE. Sure, it might be the point of the show as Pen calls her out for it, but we still don't know if they are gonna fix it so I am putting it here anyway. She only talks and complains about her lot in life, but never acts against society. I was happy when she started sneaking out and hang out with The Working Class Feminists TM, but that turned out to be a short failed romance subplot instead of a character moment and she gave up on it almost right away, so it doesn't count. And now in s3 she decided to embrace society and its expectations, so I am not sure we will ever get to see that kind of rebellion again - I sure hope so! But idk.

As a "well written Eloise" character, I'd like to suggest Felicity Montague. She is a character from a 18th century romcom, a noble lady, aroace and trying to go to med school when her gender prevents her from getting an education. She doesn't use her screentime for long-winded monologues about the unfairness of the world, she ACTS on her thoughts and opinions so we know what they are. She switches covers of romance books and textbooks so she can study without being bothered, she runs away from home to try make her dreams come true, she finds alternative solutions. Her thoughts are never lauded as One Truth, in fact she is often called out for the blind spots in her opinions since she too grew up a sheltered noble and can't account for all experiences. She is surrounded by women who challenge her ideas and make her into a better friend and person. AND she is funny and reading her is just plain fun. You CAN do a feminist who doesn't belong in her era, you just have to be careful to also make her a good character.

[myrquez]

Do you know what's dovquez relationship like currently? Ik marc has said (in preseason maybe?) that he wants to ride with dovi and they have a good relationship(but idk where is this from) also i saw a post where dovi said that he and marc have a "special" relationship but they aren't friends and he regrets it(in his book maybe) or maybe i'm hallucinating ( sorry i'm new to this)

HI AND WELCOME TO THIS WHOLE MADNESS ANON

Don’t worry, I got you!! This will be LONG but I hope it’s also gonna be helpful if you want to “dig” into their lore a bit more!!!

As for the two episodes you mentioned, first one was in the Gresini Team Presentation on January 20th in Riccione, and if you want to watch the whole thing its here!! They did ask Marc if he had any plans to go training in some of the motocross tracks in Romagna, like the 04 Park, while he was there. And Marc said that just that morning he thought something like, “Im gonna call him and ask him if he’s busy?”, but then he basically had no time so he couldn’t actually go. And then he said something like “I would still like it very much, especially to go riding around Dovizioso’s track, whom I have a beautiful relationship with!”. And then we all cried. (me, i cried)

As for the book! Yes, he did say that he would’ve liked to have relationships and connections with other riders in general, because there’s not many people in the world that have the privilege to share their same experiences. He spoke a lot about how the relationships work in the paddock, which he describes as a shark tank basically (literally says minefield). And he said it’s a shame he basically had no friends within the motogp environment, but it’s how it works, because in that world everything it’s about money and feral competition. About Marc (the book was published in 2018 if i’m not wrong, so as for their relationship in 2018 at least) he said they’ weren’t technically friends, but they thought highly of each other, respected each other, smiled to each other when one saw the other one! He spoke a lot about how the connection grew stronger in each one of their battle. How at the end of every race he felt like they just climbed a mountain and they arrived right at the peak together. “The connection has deepened. The relationship was preserved”. It’s one of my fave part of the book, maybe I’ll try to translate the whole thing!

And finally!, as for their current relationship, I’d say it’s still… very good? Dovi was in Mugello this year, and he had this beautiful interview with SkySport Italia where he praised Marc for his outstanding work. If you want to watch it, it’s here! He never stops showering that little menace with compliments. He cannot help it.

Apart from this, no new crumbs? FOR NOW!! Motogp will be in Misano for a few weeks since Kazakhstan got cancelled, so we basically have 1st race in Misano, Misano tests and THEN 2nd race in Misano again which means pleeeenty of time to go and have a bit of fun at the 04 Park i guess <3 manifesting this so hard anon

If you feel the need to have some more lore to dig and stuff, here there’s a beautiful post with some fun facts AND a list of people on the motogpblr that basically are the Dovquez scholars, so there you will find everything you need to know and even more. Have fun!!! <3

[ratwife77]

The Gang + Learning Types

Two-Bit

Interpersonal- he’s a people person and bouncing ideas off of others would help him. He’s very good at explaining his ideas to others

I feel like he’d also be hands-on, as a kid he used these thingies- he excelled in using the visual, something he could create, to explain his thoughts (but he’s good with words too)

Sodapop

He’s mainly good at making connections and noticing patterns- logical, but in a different way than Darry. He will relate anything to something else and it helps it make more sense to him. They may not make sense to other people at first, but he’s good at making ideas make sense to others.

Darry

He uses other information that he already knows to draw conclusions, logical. He also is good at writing and reading to learn. I feel like that makes the most sense for him because he did well in school, so he has to be used to the techniques used in school.

Dallas

Hands-on. Mostly because he’s had to learn a lot himself in the moment, in crisis situations, so he just has to figure it out. (Or he doesn’t want to ask) I’m honestly not sure what else but he has at least one more learning type probably

Johnny

Auditory, no question. He can read, but he’s found that listening is easier because he can also picture the things in his head, which is why he’s also a visual learner. If he can’t have a picture to go with words, it’s harder to understand. He also spends a lot of time just thinking by himself, so he’s a solitary learner. (He wasn’t great at school, spending more time thinking about things and learning in a deeper way, so I think he does that when he’s alone sometimes.)

Steve

Hands-on, but also reading/writing and listening. Firstly, hands on. When he works with new problems, whether they be cooking or trying to start a fire (idk) he figures it out himself by experimenting and seeing what works. Reading/writing and listening make sense because he does good in school where they are useful and also he’ll just listen to Soda ramble (and occasionally Two-Bit) and learn about whatever’s going on in town or with the gang, etc

Ponyboy

Interpersonal. He bounces ideas off of Cherry, Soda, and Johnny (and I feel like occasionally Two-Bit) and that helps him get his thoughts out and take other’s thoughts in. Also, reading/writing.. which is shown when he reads Gone With The Wind, writes the book, and the fact that he does well in school.. etc

I hope my ramblings were fun to read 👍

[validdisaster]

I Probably Won't Watch MisMag, But I Think I'm Glad It Exists?

I don't know if this is a valid feeling or some kind of misplaced trauma reaction, but when I hear American leftists/liberals joking about jkr or performing reparative or critical versions of Harry Potter, I sometimes feel a deep... I dunno, unease? I could be wrong, but I'm not sure a lot of international people really understand the kind of grip she has on the UK.

This is a country where transgender people were banned from the panels and review boards for the 2024 Cass Report that would define how trans children were treated in schools, the healthcare they have access to, and the support they have, then gave recommendations that will pave the way for making it more challenging for trans people as a whole to move through society with general dignity, respect, and essential medical care. Meanwhile, the new (leftwing) prime minister, who has refused to make any declarative claim about his beliefs on transgender people, made special time for a meeting with jkr in a bid for votes just a few weeks before the election to assure her he would do basically whatever she said to 'support women and girls' (whatever that means to a woman who has designated herself the arbiter of who is 'too masculine' for girlhood). Now, I'll be honest, that was before her descent into minor Holocaust denial and the Olympics bollocks, but long after she started paling around with people in far-right white supremacist circles. Her voice was considered more important than any medical professional who happens to be trans.

Personally, (and this is just my anecdotal experience) I've had family members, colleagues and even an ex-partner parrot lines almost word-for-word from her essay as an excuse to get away with some pretty nasty behaviour, despite never having read it and not knowing where that was where it came from - that's how much she has permeated British society. I have a difficult, strained, or nonexistent relationship with people who meant a whole lot to me and I don't know if that would still be true if J K Rowling hadn't decided to go off one day. People hurt me who might not have. She's able to use the fact that she's the writer of the Harry Potter books as a kind of cover to gain this legitimacy that lets people hand-wave away or not look closer at some of the most unambiguously bad stuff you can do and say. Again, I do have to say, I'm from a not-very-liberal area and the work I do is mostly manufacturing or call centre (so full of not-very-liberal people). Idk if other parts of the UK are different, but I sure as shit can't afford to live in them.

This might be a personal despair that I need to work through, but I'm just not sure any reparative stories set in echoes of Hogwarts can possibly do any good. She's still here, she's still hurting us, she still has more of a voice in British politics and discourse than the rest of us working together can possibly muster and her past seems like more of a shield to the bad things she's currently doing than something that can be reimagined correctively.

To be fully clear, I'm not criticising the mismag crew here, and I'm not criticising international folks (trans or cis) for not knowing the detailed minutia of what's going on in my very unimportant neck of the woods. I'm just trying to work through my feelings about a person who's done a lot of demonstrable harm to me and mine, and the kind of casualness that I feel like her impact gets treated with sometimes.

I get the sense that a lot of (particularly cis or non-british) leftwing circles treat her like such an obviously-bad punchline gremlin that they forget she's still a bogeyman to some of us, I'm still scared of what she'll do next. And it's weird to see people having fun in the funhouse-mirror version of her passion project. Maybe it's jealousy. I loved Harry Potter and Hogwarts for a long time. Maybe I just miss feeling safe there.

I hope there will be a day I feel safe enough to laugh about her. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that other people are there already?

[i-can-read-to-him]

The Wesper Fic Club's Author Spotlight is a post series that aims to feature two to three fic authors a month, randomly selected from a pool of names put forth on our server. The authors are then asked to answer three interview questions, select up to five of their fics for us to feature, and finally, recommend three fics by others in the fandom.

(Note: Our spotlighted fics are not limited to Wesper, though they tend to be a central pairing in most of our authors' featured works.)

This week, we are putting a spotlight on Lou's writing!

Socials: @waterloou (Tumblr) | hugharekillianmelou (AO3)

❀

Part One: Author Interview

Q: What do you consider your strengths as a writer?

A: I’m using these quotes from sparrow bc I’m gonna be honest and say I really don’t know how to perceive myself: “Off the top of my head, I would say you are very good at lyrical prose, imagery and atmosphere, thoughtful characterization, anddd I don’t know how to articulate this as cleanly, but like… the way you handle dark subject matter (like MCD) in a way that makes it feel... like something that should be dangerous to handle, but it is safely contained. Like one of those poisonous Victorian era books with the striking green colour [Scheele's Green] displayed in a glass case. Also, you maintain canon characterization even in AU settings, which is honestly a skill not everyone has. I love AUs, but some people lose sight of canon so quick and it ends up feeling very OOC.”

Q: What’s your favourite fic you’ve written for this fandom?

A: It’s called Lay Me Gently in the Cold Dark Earth and it’s from Wylan’s perspective when he’s 6 feet under and how he interacts with the earth around him and Jesper. Idk how else to describe it. 

Q: What advice do you have for those facing writer’s block?

A: My only suggestion is just to switch to notebooks and use prompt lists. I struggle with writers block far too much it’s hard for me to sit down and write something most of the time. 

Q: When did you first start writing? What keeps you going today?

A: Jonas Brothers YouTube imagines. I had a little flip notebook on a family vacation and lots of time to kill so I wrote my own imagines/fanfiction. It was also like not a self insert but like I’d insert someone age appropriate and live vicariously through them.  I have so so many ideas and only I can execute them correctly so obviously I need to keep writing. It’s a tough job but if I want the content I need to make it 

Q: Who is your favourite character? What do you love about them?

A: JESPER LLEWELLYN FAHEY!!!! He’s just so complex and loving and I also relate to him most bc of his sadness and feelings of inadequacy and using humor as a cover up. I saw the trailers before I read the books and then I read the books before I watched the show but that one clip of Jesper in those first trailers had me hooked ever since.

Q: If you could travel anywhere in the Grishaverse, where would you go?

A: Shu Han because it looks like I’d have the most fun there. 

Q: If you could be friends with any character in the Grishaverse, who would it be?

A: Tolya!!! He’s got a lovely disposition and it’s nice to have someone with similar interests.

Q: Have you had a chance to interact with the SAB cast? Tell us about your experience(s).

A: The only interaction I’ve had is Jack liking my drawing of him. Honestly tho even tho this cast is amazing I think I’d be fine never meeting any of them. There’s already all my questions answered and I’d probably make a fool out of myself if I met them. 

Q: What are some recurring themes you’ve noticed in your writing?

A: I am using more sparrow quotes bc my only answer was “Hozier coded” and idk if that answer was enough: “I think grief/death/mourning is definitely something that comes up a lot. Related to that... I want to say 'transcendent love,' if that makes sense. Definitely also strong platonic bonds, so friendship... Oh, balance and opposites (how the latter interacts and achieves balance)... sometimes with concepts like life and death, but also with people like Wylan and Jesper.” Ty sparrow ur iconic 

Q: What kind of music do you like to listen to while writing?

A: Hozier, lots of like folk or floaty type of genres. 

Q: Are there any songs you strongly associate with a favourite character or ship?

A: "half return" by Adrianne Lenker could be associated with either Wylan or Jesper and their childhoods. I do think it’s odd that this is the first fandom where music is not the driving force of my writing or associating with characters.

Q: What is one of your favourite scenes from the source material (book or show)?

A: Jesper’s introduction in the show is a classic and he’s just SO COOL.

Q: If could change anything about (book or show) canon, what would it be?

A: 😭 besides it being cancelled? Matthias’ fate. 

Q: What are some headcanons you have that you consider your personal canon?

A: MODERN AU: Jesper is an engineering major. Wylan is a chemistry major (hates it), switches to biology and music double major. Jesper makes and sells jewelry on the side.  REGULAR SETTING: Jesper lives for a long long time and Wylan reincarnates many times and they are together until they both pass. 

Q: Tell us about something in your fics that you’re proud of and wish would get more notice.

A: I do like the poetic flow they have from time to time! It’s nice reading something I wrote and being invested. This is a cop out answer but I think they’ve been appreciated an adequate amount! Everyone is so sweet reading and commenting!

Q: What’s something you haven’t written yet, but want to write in the future?

A: OH BOY I have a list: - This is written but mouse wylan  - sci fi au  - Hozier song wesper series  - human meat business crows serial killers  - Hellraiser au wesper  - whump wesper jesper shot  - Halloween series  - vampire crows au 

Q: What’s something you wish you could write, but don’t think you ever will?

A: Most of the ideas listed above. My brain just doesn’t want to write the ideas. Also Smut. Did it once idk if I could write it again

Q: How do you feel about your fics being translated into other languages?

A: Go ham. As long as it’s credited to me idc

Q: Apart from sight, what is your favourite of the senses to describe when writing?

A: Touch I love touch descriptions because you can get an insight into how the characters experience the world.

❀

Part Two: Selected Works

Two corpses we were, two corpses I saw

Not Rated | 275 words | Wesper Hozier coded, Decay, Burial, Happy Ending

Short diddy about knight/pianist wesper

Golden slumbers

Teen | 460 words | Wesper Grief/Mourning, Pre-Grief, Aging, Jesper-centric

Jesper would always be a mourner

Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

Not Rated | 388 words | Wesper Hozier coded, POV Wylan, Character Death, Happy Ending

Wylan needs Jesper, even after life

❀

Part Three: Author's Recs

without pity by demigodbeautiies

Mature | 21.9K | Wesper Non-Con Drug Use, Whump, Mild Gore, Angst with a Happy Ending

It’s 10 am on a Wednesday when Wylan Van Eck’s life crumbles around him. Which feels ridiculous, honestly, but that’s life, isn’t it?  - Jesper gets drugged with jurda parem. Wylan tries his best to deal with it. That, apparently, is hard to do when his life is falling apart.

A Lack Of Air Supply by Milkfrog

Mature | 106.7K | Wesper Past Child Abuse, Agoraphobia, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Wylan Van Eck

"Wylan Van Eck, until the age of 8, felt like royalty. Like the world was made for him, and him alone. He could do anything he wanted to. He could dream of a future so expansive he'd have to live multiple lives in order to fit everything he wanted to do. But Wylan Van Eck, at 22 years old, cannot even leave his apartment." (aka. Wylan has agoraphobia n Jesper moves into the apartment next to him <3)

Before Sunrise by @aphroditestummyrolls

General | 2.1K | Colm & Jesper, Colm/Aditi Good Parent Colm Fahey, Colm-centric, Baby Jesper

He’d like to say he expected it— it’s a well known fact that babies cry. The first months of parenthood are a tiring business. That was what everyone said, and the ones who didn’t say it were certainly thinking it. But, not all babies cried like Jesper Fahey cried. Just like every night for the past 2 and a half months, the second Addy stopped her gentle rocking and pacing, it started up again— first, as disgruntled fussing, huffing and puffing like a grumpy little bear cub. His downy fluff of curls pressed against his mama’s palm as he scrubbed his nose into her collarbone, tiny fist clenching in her night dress. Colm sighed. OR Jesper is a colicky little baby, and Colm just wants his poor wife to be able to sleep.

❀

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[randomperson0k]

the evil thoughts got me fucked up and shit

OH forgot to mention: top 2 images are the final 'redesign', 2 images below are concept sketches i made for the 'redesigns'

tgs jekyll and hyde but they got evaporated by my evil headcanon beam and stitched back together by somebody who has no experience with using a needle and thread to the point where theyre more just like a seperate character

im sorry for my sins

PLEASE HEAR ME OUT BEFORE BITING A CHUNK OUT OF MY ARM. if anybody wants to read about my evil headcanon world all the stuff is below. wasnt really exaggerating when i said i ripped their character apart and stitched them back together though.

i do have a google doc full of everything i headcanon for tgs but some of that is embarrassing as hell so im just slapping the important stuff here

most of these 'headcanons' are here more because they make me happy than to actually make any sense. as a warning.

smokes fat blunt puffs it in your face anyways uh trans henry jekyll yeah (gets shot) ty person from the j&h community i was messaging that dragged me to the dark side and introduced me to the world of embracing my j&h trans headcanons. a true angel.

i really like more book inspired takes on j&h than the musical ones soo uhh.. yeah theyre the same person fully no j&h arguing thing. im soooorrrrryyy its just my preference for adaptations and i find it a lot more fun to play with story wise. also some other reasons but i wont get into those

polyamorous and bisexual (bi because... obvious reasons. poly because of that one couple they meet up with in the comic every now and then. my favourite ... ship (i think thats the right term?) in the comic. i love them.)

gas mask because it looks cool + chemical shenanigans ("oh but those didnt exist" shh. shhhhh.")

speaking of chemicals! they are much more into science. mostly does science-y stuff when theyre hyde though. they like to break into lodgers rooms and contribute to experiments.

facial hair. thats it. no further reasoning will be given

tried making jekyll in the concept redesign of him look older. failed SO bad im sorry i know its horrible.

hyde has pointy ears + pointer teeth (and green tongue because potion goop) + slit pupils because i am incapable of designing a human hyde. i have no idea why but i just cant.

earrings because 1: i have a bad habit of giving designs earrings and 2: i remember seeing a few headcanons of j&h with earrings and they were so tasty to look at so i had to do my own

bandage scarf thing from the beta tgs hyde design + newer tgs design that only shows up in the mind... world.... thing.

added the uhhh goggles from the old design too.

red and green hat because i couldnt decide if i wanted hyde to have the red hat from the old design of tgs hyde or the green hat from the current design. ripped it in half and chose both. great decision making i know

chunks of brown hair in hydes because why not. also red ring around one eye as like a weird variant of half heterchomia.

hyde has weird patches of green colored skin idk it just looked cool when i was fiddling with colors so i kept it

hyde has red scales in certain spots of the design. no further explanation

gave hyde black gloves to contrast jekylls white gloves + cmon. hyde probably touches the most gross revolting shit with the places they go to. they deserve some gloves.

changed their body type a litttttle bit just a smudge

i was going to give jekyll a cravat around the neck (a really bad designing habit of mine is to give characters cravats. not my fault they look so cool) both as a fancy thing + to hide lack of a adams apple buuttt the design felt way too clumped so im scrapping that. ignore the cravat in the drawing. grrr bARKBAKRABK

actually does sparkle visually/not just as a non-existent visual effect and people can actually see it. lanyon always swats them away because the sparkles get in his face.

hyde is more shorter than shown in the comic, more like book hydes height. like a foot or more shorter than jekyll. jekyll stays around the same height though. hydes probably the shortest one in the society.

permanent eyebags. does not sleep but cmon we all already knew that

hyde has a strong scottish accent instead of the other accent he fakes in the comic that i always forget the name of

has a cane like the og book. its a sword cane.... yeah i have a addiction, im sorry. (like half my own personal characters have sword canes)

i suck so bad at drawing shoes so hydes shoes look like ass but theyre supposed to be big boots since this guy probably walks through yucky mucky areas and stuff

i would totally write some oneshots or something like that of these guys going on adventures doing experiments and stuff yknow . (stuff like lodgers content and interactions, lanyon and hyde interactions because i enjoy secret identity and person said secret identity personal knows outside of their secret identity interactions, that one couple i talked about before interactions with jekyll/hyde and just in general random oneshots that make no sense) if i actually had any literacy skill

anyways im done my ramble. now you guys can shoot me

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood: a critically kind review from a femme acespec physicist <3

> scroll to the next section for my review on the physics academia content in this book!

First, a quick romance novel review!

spoiler: it wasn’t my favorite but I gave it a ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 because being a writer has made me a generally more appreciative reader + I am so starved of woman in physics rep.

the good

It just felt good to read about a woman physicist, who are still incredibly underrepresented in fiction, especially as protagonists. (I’ll go off about that in a minute.)

The romance is so swoony with shoujo manga vibes, I haven’t read straight M/F adult romance novels in a while and I just loved the flutteriness of it.

A couple of chapters were so soft with excellent pillowtalk. There was something about the ambience of the snow, the hypnotic sadness of failure, the prescence of a comforting person.

I enjoyed identifying the relatable parts about physics academia. Hazelwood clearly did a lot of research, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It definitely kept me reading!

the bad

The academia issues are so over-simplified it’s almost juvenile. For an adult novel, even one marketed as a romcom, I expect more nuance, more explanations, more explicit lingering in tight positions.

And then the romance tries to be complex (and has a lot of potential!) but not a lot of conflict really happens.

A fictional physics fued between theorists and experimentalists is a really fun (and actually not far off) concept, but I would have expected some things to be the other way around. (More on that later!)

Okay this is personal but the main couple both have terrible taste in movies. Twilight vs white male rage movies??? There is no lesser evil here

Elsie’s hardships aren’t put in a very serious light. Her diabetes and lack of access to health insurance is used as a plot device to engineer romantic momentum between the characters and/or comic relief.

Just overall, the book tried so hard to remain “light” that I think it fails to garner depth. Because adult lives really aren’t that light all the time, and a book can bring relaxation and joy whilst including real worldly negative experiences.

There were aroace and sapphic side characters, but I wanted so bad for Elsie to be demisexual. It's set up so perfectly only for it to be averted—As a demisexual person myself, Elsie’s feelings about attraction felt acutely familiar to me, and every other reader I've spoken to has agreed that the book took a dissapointing and unexpected turn. I understand Hazelwood may not feel equipped to write queer protagonists but if I were her editor, I would have flagged that and recommended she make it canon. It would have added so much more context and dimension to Elsie, and would’ve put hetero demisexuals on the map. </3

Following up on the above: The smut tries so hard to be meaningful but it ... really is icky, stereotypical, unrealistic allocishetero stuff. Think: the shy inexperienced girl vs the man who knows exactly how to advise her. The characters try to subvert the trope by calling it out, but it feels performative because all is forgotten in the next second. The PiV sex is weirdly conventionally idealistic considering the pairing’s size difference. I’m picky about smut but also forgiving when I do like the dynamic. I just didn’t here.

Following up once again: I was ready to ignore all the repetitive comments about how sexy Jack’s height and muscles were, because sure, I guess Elsie has a type. But the sex scenes solidified the redundancy of it all. I've read this same dynamic in countless smutty heteronormative M/F paperbacks. And I have also been made aware by every Hazelwood reader that all her books focus on this kind of physical build pairing. I just want more diversity, you know?

IDK, I just wanted more physics in here than complaining about teaching, glossed over toxic mentors, and using some quirky physics term in every other sentence. (More on that below!)

I just wanted ... more? It’s not an extremely short novel, but both the plot and the character development fell flat. The ups and downs were too fast and easy, and the placement felt off. I finished the book and wondered, “That’s it? That’s all that happened?” It just wasn’t fulfilling. The side characters aren't expanded upon, and don’t get enough pagetime. My other romance reads this year were Bellefleur's The Fiancee Farce and Mcquiston’s One Last Stop. In both of those novels, the drama was fleshed out with so much care and detail. In comparison, Love, Theoretically may mention similar social difficulties in passing, but failed to really, really show us.

Overall ... the novel was fun for being about physicists but I really don’t see myself picking up another Hazelwood book, especially considering this isn’t even a debut novel. The conventional white steminist vibe and the particular allocishetero M/F dynamic just isn’t my thing.

But perhaps a reader wanting more of a novel and its characters is a good problem to have. Never say never, I guess! I look forward to keeping tabs on what Hazelwood publishes in the future!

Now, onto the physics!

First, most physicists, as good scientists, understand that theory and experimentation are fundamentally linked. It’s true that we each are often biased towards our own methods of research, but it is quite a stretch to imagine full professors so blatantly feud against others solely because of theory vs experimentation. Regardless, I was happy to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the plot that was framed in a genre-specific, lighthearted, humorous way.

Secondly, both theory and experimentation have sources of funding that are motivated in different ways, and Hazelwood's decision to have the theorists struggle with funding cuts due to declining interest in pop culture/the general public is actually quite credible. Experimentation garners a lot more interest from the application and engineering end of society, parts that are easily fueled by capitalism.

However, I think experimentalists in general are far less likely to be mean to theorists than the reverse scenario. Dr Fatima Abdurrahman has a great video essay about that called on her YouTube channel called “Quantum Physics, Feminism, and Objective Reality: What Physicists Don’t Want You to Know About Quantum Mechanics.” Dr Fatima outlines how old white men in physics have maintained this image of unwavering scientific objectivity in the name of rigor, despite studying a field that fundamentally is barely fathomable for humans. In simpler terms: Men, even in theory, pretend to be better, smarter, and more valid as physicists despite being in an infamously iffy field. And I would have liked to see that represented. It was just really hard for me to buy narcissistic grad students mansplaining Elsie about her field, and Elsie’s righteous feminine rage, when the field in question is … physics theory? It just didn’t make sense to me, when all of my personal experiences point to the opposite.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and having a woman theorist in a physics field that’s less popsci-oriented is actually … really cool. And having her love interest be a man in experimentation … sort of subverts gender roles and conventional media expectations.

Let me explain. The reality is that when women are represented in STEM, media prefers to put them in biology, like a nurse to a doctor, a people-oriented nurturer, a mere sidekick to the real “objective” scientist—often a mathematician or an astrophysicist who is always a man. And when women are placed in physics, they are automatically assigned to observational astronomy, which is dismissed as passive and easy. (This is wildly untrue—though styles of research in astronomy has interestingly allowed a somewhat more diverse array of researchers in history. Even today, you’ll see a higher frequency of women and queer people in every astronomy department.)

I think my ideal version of this novel would be retaining Elsie in theory, while also making theorists the overall bad guys in the feud. I would love to have her talk about the unique sexism she faces as a theorist. I would kill for a scene in which Jack gets gobsmacked by how fucking good at math she really is, compared to him (instead of, like, only making fun of it like it’s easy). I would love to read about her getting a tour of his lab, and just more physics content. But maybe I’m the only one saying that, because I’m a physicist. Maybe Hazelwood simplified it all to keep the book appealing to the general masses.

Still, it all read more like a girlpower!!! chant rather than a real commitment to represent a woman in STEM. I savored every moment Elsie or George would go off about physics. I loved Elsie’s conversations with Olive, a different STEM academic. (Monica was more complicated and actually quite interesting, and I wish we could have seen more of her. Heck, I wish we had actually been given any tangible info about Jack’s mom, even.) But I genuinely felt these instances were rare. Elsie referred to being a physicist a lot (and frankly, her mind is more physics-y than any IRL physicist considering the sheer number of physics-inspired figures of speech she uses … but I excused that as silly comic relief, a quirk in Hazelwood’s writing style). But she didn’t tangibly do physics on page. It was disappointing, considering women characters in STEM is what Hazelwood is known for.

And there are physicists who love teaching—even physicists who solely want to teach. Physicists who do pedagogy research. I know the book was mainly trying to criticise the adjunctification and dismissal of physics higher education, and it’s actually quite accurate in representing that most physicists in academia would prefer not to teach. But the excecution also ends up erasing physicists who aren’t in academia just for research. And I say this especially because the validity of teaching physicists as physicists is dismissed in real life. It’s used as justification to further force all physics academics to try to juggle between both research and teaching, whether they want to or not.

Which leads us to bad mentors. I’ve had a bunch of those. As Olive pointed out in an excellent quote, “Academia is so hierarchical, you know? There are all these people who have power over you, who are supposed to guide you and help you become the best possible scientist, but . . . sometimes they don’t know what’s best. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes they have their own agenda. […] Sometimes they’re total shitbuckets who deserve to step on a pitchfork and die.” And the thing is, the novel really doesn’t show us any of that (perhaps other than in Monica). We don’t fully get to know what happened to Jack’s mom, or Olive. We are not shown what Dr L’s agenda really was. Their final confrontation was so quick, when in reality shitty mentors are often sticky and entwined with your work, hard to cut off and scarier to talk back to even after you’ve finally realized they’re toxic.

Which isn’t to say the novel is just inadequate about everything. It’s correct in how goofy physics faculty are, and how white man-dominated the field is, how students try to mansplain women profs, how theorists madly work on their computers (as an experimentalist, I could never understand), how publishing is finicky (to put it kindly), and how tenured faculty fail to understand the reality of the job market in academia today. There are certain parts (like the quote above!) where I felt incredibly seen as part of a minoritized identity group in STEM academia. It’s rare to have a book written from this PoV, and as a first I think this novel will always be special for me!

If you’re interested in reading about more fictional women physicists, I would highly recommend skimming through this list I made on GoodReads (and feel free to add more!).

And if you’d like to support memoirs and science communication books by IRL women physicists, then look to further than this other list I’ve also made. (We’re actually currently seeing a boom in these which is inanely exciting to me, so again, contributions are always welcome!)

[muffant]

I got an adorable idea!

What if the animatronics in security breach played D&D! Now I'm not talking about the characters inside a fantasy realm I'm thinking what if a person left a players hand book at the pizza Plex and the gang devoured that shit up!

Id like to think Freddy would be a support roll, more the type to help the party indirectly. He feels like the most inclined to spell casting. Id put him as the type to do Wizard, Cleric, Paladin, or even Druid! Id say hed likely stick to the races in the players hand book, probably a human main. He's very into playing a character, even if that character is the same sweet person each time.

Chica is your major roleplay player, she would be all about getting into the mind of her character and really selling it. She plays any race, and class, and often is the one to pick her class race combo last so she has something to go off of, as a challenge. When she does choose you know my girl is Bard all the way. She's also the only one to actually read the history of the races and really get into the D&d lore.

Roxy likes playing a modified monk, (in fact as a over all rule they play with a lot of table rules!) or a rogue, she usually doesnt pick any other class, as well as loving being an elf. She's a little less on the roleplay side (but can't help but bounce off of the others when needed) she's more of a combat centric player. She loves winning encounters, loving puzzles, anything. She's likely to be the one min maxing her character. Which has lead to some fun experiences when Chica asks about how she became a Cleric, Paladin, Druid multi class.

Monty is exclusively a fighter dragonborn. He loves being allowed to smash shit up and have no *real* repercussions. However he's not actually combat driven, he's a roleplay player similar to Chica, only he expresses he can make 101 characters with out needing to change the mechanics of said character. It's scary how calm Monty can be when he's in the role. (Said calmness started to carry over to work life too!) That doesn't stop a burst or two which thankfully only results in a pouty gator. Monty loves exploring the worlds, it's his favourite thing. To picture landscapes and worlds completely different from his own. And then be able to interact with those worlds.

Sun and Moon are the DMs! Sun is a story focused DM, he loves crafting a narrative, playing NPCs, and developing the world's of his story. He's the one usually in the spot light for a majority of the time. The rest of the time is Moon. Moon is a challenge focus dm. He loves crafting riddles, puzzles, combats, and difficult choices at the party. When ever it's moons turn to take over the table all the lights go out and dark red ambient lighting fills the room. Moons challenges are to be feared as Moon takes death in the game as a real and possible thing. While Sun tries to avoid it happening all together. Funnily enough Moon doesn't like improf, he has his encounters planned almost to the T, including alternative paths the party takes, INCLUDING DEATH OUTCOMES. He is meticulous. Sun on the other hand has a half ass idea of what the session will be about related to the over arching story, have a few bullet points of required information, a few bullet points of optional information and just goes from there. He has a party who eagerly love to make their own decisions and discuss where to go and what to do.

I like to imagine that while one is running the work for the day, the other is planning out their portion of the session, always able to communicate and keep track of details together. While Sun is playing Moon is taking notes, more for himself really.

They play once a week on Sundays, seeing as that's their only day off. They play 6 hour sessions usually and go on many tangents. But they enjoy playing so much, after all its the closest thing they get to freedom.

Edit: I FORGOT DJ!!! Of course he would be allowed to play!! And the little DJ dudes too idk what their called. DJ seems like the kind of player to sit back and watch everything happen, communication is a bit hard but he's still included. I think he would play a bard (very classic) just so he could have an excuse to play sound boards during the game. Speaking of which they definitely play games in the west arcade, with DJ helping set the ambience with music and sound effects. I like to think he secretly downloaded files like leaves russling to add to it. DJ likes to work on theme songs for each character. He simply enjoys being included even if it's limited.