#im a shitty writer

[escespace]

Lancelot: How have you been? I feel like you recently acted a bit... strange

Merlin: I have no idea what you're talking about

Lancelot: So nothing is happening? Something for which you act like this?

Merlin: No, no, a lot of things happen all the time so I have no idea what you mean by "recently"

[arson-09]

the average acotar fans r so boring. like wdym you have no concept of media literacy or complex characters. Why does everything have to be spelled out for you? I have never seen such a flat and lowkey boring male character receive so much love (rhysand) when he does the bare minimum and also. SUCKS.

[unrelatedghosts]

These shits own my brain, one of them more than the other.

Looking at you Augustine. Get out of my head. /j

[vintagepascal]

alfajores

AN - the poll I put up the other day won out with fluffy pedro/reader and I'm working on a request I got for it but it's taking me a hot sec, so have this one that I already have written to hold you over :) hope you enjoy!

word count - 2,900+

rating - teen

content warnings - no warnings, just fluff!

summary - you decide to surprise pedro for his birthday on set with some help from bella (ao3 link if you prefer, it's titled pedrito over there :) )

----------------------------------------------------------------------

you worry too much

You hit send, tucking your phone quickly between your thighs as you tried to relax, eyes trained on the window outside as the plane started to pull back from the jetbridge. You were never much of a liar, but you hoped desperately that you could pull this one off somehow. 

Your phone buzzed. A text from Pedro, no doubt.

Mi amor, that’ll be four shifts this week. You need a break :( 

You couldn’t help the smile that it brought to your face, knowing that he had no idea that you’d be seeing him so soon. 

I’ll survive. Busy is good. Now go film some cool shit, tell Bella I said hi. I’ll text when I can. I love you

Love you more. and no hi for Bella, they ate all my bday cookies. 

You chuckled to yourself and quickly clicked your phone over to airplane mode. You’d paid for the inflight wifi so he wouldn’t suspect anything if he happened to have enough breaks in filming to text you - he was a worrier at heart, especially when it came to those he loved, and an undelivered text would be enough to put him into a panic. 

With everything set into motion, you settled back into your seat and reviewed the plan.

You’d had it in the works for a month. All behind the scenes of course, but you’d gotten everyone in on it that you could. Neil, Craig, Bella, Gabriel - anyone who would be around set. The filming schedule was insane, but you knew that they’d want Pedro’s birthday to be special, especially since he wasn’t able to come home and spend it with you.

In the years that you’d been dating, you had learned he loved a good surprise, though he would never admit it. And even more so, he would never, ever , let anyone make a big deal out of things for him. Even if he played it off for the press about loving the attention, when it came to those close to him he would much rather celebrate those around him than be the one in the spotlight. 

It was no surprise that they were one hundred percent on board with throwing a bit of a surprise party, with you being the main surprise. The next part of the plan was simple - getting a few days off work had been easy enough, considering Pedro had insisted that you went part time and only worked when you wanted to once he landed another job. It was a luxury that you allowed, considering it meant you got to spend so much more time with him when he was off filming, and even go on the occasional press tour with him. 

Once the flight was booked and everything else had been arranged, the hard part came - keeping the love of your life in the dark. Pedro was the type of person that you wanted to tell everything to. From the simple things, like the dog in the rain boots that you’d seen on 2nd avenue that morning, to how much you wished you could be together all the time - any thought you had flowed off your tongue so easily to him. He was your safe space, and you were his, which was a cornerstone of your relationship from day one. 

Thank god you’d only finalized your plan a few weeks ago, or you weren’t sure you would have made it. 

As a cover up, you found a highly rated South American bakery in Vancouver to send some of his favorite cookies and sweets to set, just like the ones his mom used to make when he was young. You sent some flowers too - hydrangeas, spray roses, gerberas - something to warm up the cold Vancouver set he’d been dealing with. He’d called you that morning from hair and makeup, so grateful and excited. You’d promised him there was more to come when you could see him in person, which he thought was in three long weeks when there was a small break in scheduling for something Bella needed to do back in London. That seemed to be enough of a birthday present from afar to satisfy him.

You hoped he was still in the dark as you watched the small plane flit across your screen, taking you mile by mile closer to him. 

It was a long flight from New York to Vancouver. You spent the majority of the time doing something you didn’t get to do often on flights - watch something Pedro was in. Majority of the time, if you were on a long haul, Pedro was right beside you and in his true almost 50 year old fashion, he’d break out his headphone splitter and want to watch something with you. You’d only recently got him to agree to airpods. Obviously, that meant anything he had been in was off limits, so you took the rare chance to go back and watch Narcos - you were only in season two, and you were loving how much screen time Pena was getting. 

It made you smile hearing Pedro getting to show off in both Spanish and English - he’d taught you quite a bit in your relationship, and you caught quite a few words throughout the episodes that you recognized, though most of the time you were too busy watching him to pay much attention to anything else. God, you would never understand how you’d gotten so lucky. 

Halfway through an episode, a text popped up on your phone.

This is gonna be so good dude, he is proper clueless. 

You laughed as you read it in Bella’s voice. A picture came through next of them holding a small cookie and running away, with a blur that you assumed was Pedro in the back.

Also, pls send more alfajores before he kills me

By the looks of the photo, they were shooting outside of the city still, which was what you had planned for. Pedro had begun a habit of sending you a picture each morning of the set for the day, a way of keeping you involved from afar. It seemed to be the same beautiful landscape as earlier - you hoped he had been having a good day so far.

The rest of the flight went off without a hitch. You texted Pedro once, feigning that you were on break at work, unsurprised that he wasn’t able to answer right away, as you knew he was busy. 

The excitement really started to set in when you touched down in Vancouver. You shot a text to Craig once you landed - it was 7pm local time, and you had about an hour and a half drive to get to set. To your surprise, the crew had insisted that you got the celebrity treatment by association, and had sent you a driver who met you outside of the airport and immediately got you on your way. 

You made small talk with her until the first and only hiccup of the plan appeared - Pedro’s face popped up on your phone, an adorable picture of him from last summer on your vacation to Hawaii - an incoming facetime call. Of course. He usually called you in the evenings, but it wasn’t always a facetime. As much as it killed you, you let it ring through, waiting about five minutes until you returned it with a regular call.

“Hi mi amor , everything okay? You off work?” He picked up on the first ring.

“Yeah yeah, I’m good! I’ve got a headache so I took a shower and got straight in bed, sorry I didn’t pick up.” It felt so wrong to lie, but you knew it would pay off. 

“Oh no cariño, did you take some medicine? Did the shower help? There’s some of that tea I made you last time in the cabinet still, in the purple box.”

“I’m fine love, just need some sleep is all. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not there to put a damper on your birthday fun,” you teased, grinning to yourself. Your driver let out a tiny chuckle that you caught in the rearview mirror. 

“Wish you were here, headache or no headache,” he sighed. “I miss you.”

“Miss you more.”

“ Mentiras. ” He said. “Lies,” he translated when you didn’t contradict him. “I won’t keep you, just wanted to see your pretty face. We can talk in the morning when you feel better, okay? Call me if you need me. I love you.”

“I love you too. Happy birthday Pedro, I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Bye amor.”

You hung up, letting your head rest back and your heart flutter as the city began to fade away behind you. 

One hour later, and you were frantically texting with Bella, attempting to find the best way to surprise Pedro as you arrived on set.

Have your driver drop you off by my trailer, and I’ll sneak you into production stage. Meet you there in five.

You relayed the message and sure enough, Bella came scurrying around the corner, practically tackling you in a hug once they found you. You’d met them the first time you came to set with Pedro, back in the beginning stages of production during some team bonding time, and you knew how important their relationship was to the both of them.

“Do you think he has any idea that I’m here?” You asked, following Bella as they led you around the back of a large temporary structure that you assumed was production stage. 

“Not a single fucking clue. Craig and I have been playing it off all day long, talking about how fun it would be if you were here,” Bella grinned. “I think Neil is bringing out a cake, c’mon, we gotta hurry. He’s probably in his chair, just hang back and sneak up behind him.”

As you rounded the corner, you heard the hum of voices inside and noticed the chairs. Bella gave you a quick thumbs up and hurried around so they didn’t draw any attention to you, coming in from a different angle and taking their chair next to Pedro. You spotted Neil first, walking very carefully with a large chocolate cake alit with candles in the general direction of the chairs. 

Crew began to gather around and you swung to the right so you could blend in but still see Pedro’s face as he realized what was happening. They all began to sing and you watched the adorable blush spread across his cheeks. Bella was filming beside him as he smiled and blew out his candles to the applause of all of the cast and crew - it warmed your heart to see so many people celebrating the man you loved.

They took the cake to a nearby table and began to cut it, passing Pedro his piece first. In all the noise, you seized your opportunity to sneak up behind him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and squeezing gently. 

“Can I have a bite?” 

His eyes blew wide as he craned his neck to try and see who was behind him. You leaned back to help him out, laughing at the pure shock on his face.

“What!? What the fuck are you doing here!? You’re in New York!” He discarded his cake to the side, roughly pushing his chair out of the way to get to you as he stood up all in one move, wrapping you up in his arms. You could vaguely hear applause somewhere behind you but you didn’t care. It felt too good to be in his arms after so many weeks, your brain didn’t have much space to process anything else. 

When he finally loosened up it was only to kiss you softly twice on the lips, then once on the forehead before he leaned back and grinned at you.

“You sneaky little thing.”

“Guess I’m not in New York,” you teased, popping up on your tiptoes to kiss him one more time before you disentangled from him, leaning over to give Bella a fist bump. 

“Oh you knew about this? Huh?” Pedro asked.

“Of course I knew about it, I’ve known for a month man!” Bella grinned. 

“Oh you see if you make it through a single take tomorrow kid,” he threatened, but they were both laughing. 

“Actually, as a birthday gift, tomorrow is a rest day. Everybody can thank Y/N for that one!” Craig announced, which was met with whooping and cheers from everyone, with a few yells of your name. Pedro pulled you up against his side. 

“I assume that means you’re spending the night then, eh?”

“Nah, figured I’d just pop in for five minutes and then catch the next flight out,” you grinned, rolling your eyes at him. “I’m here for three days, two nights.”

“Not long enough. Never long enough, but I’ll take what I can get,” Pedro sighed, kissing your hair. “Now get some cake so we can go home.”

Home in Vancouver was a nice apartment that Pedro was renting downtown. After cake was had, final birthday wishes were given and hugs were distributed, Pedro changed back into his own clothes and led you to his rental - an Audi, of course. He opened the passenger door for you and climbed into the driver’s seat, holding your hand as he sped off of set and back towards the city.

It didn’t matter that you had just done this drive - he held the back of your hand up to his lips, pressing soft kisses there as he drove down the highway and you couldn’t have been more content.

“I cannot believe you’re here right now. I thought I wasn’t going to see you for weeks,” he said, shaking his head. He hadn’t stopped smiling since you had appeared behind him. 

“I couldn’t leave you alone on your birthday,” you sighed, leaning over and resting your head on his shoulder. It was late New York time, and the adrenaline of the day was beginning to wear off now that you were with your man. 

“You can sleep cariño, I’ll wake you up when we get there,” he murmured to you.

“No, no I'm okay,” you reassured him, but it was already garbled. 

The next thing you felt were soft lips on your forehead. 

“We’re here mi amor. C’mon, let's get you upstairs.”

He helped you out of the car, the lobby lights of the building helping to wake you up a bit as you made it to the elevator. The driver from earlier had put your suitcase in Pedro’s car, and he managed it with ease as well. You stayed tucked up to his side as you headed up to the top floor. He unlocked the door easily, keeping one arm wrapped around you even as you walked through the door, rolling your suitcase into the corner. He kicked off his boots and tossed his keys somewhere, and then he was scooping you up, making you squeal a bit when your feet left the floor. 

“God you don’t know how many times I’ve thought about you being here lately. I’ve missed you like crazy baby.” He carried you down the hallway and into the kitchen, sitting you down onto the counter. Without asking, he turned and made you a glass of ice water. “Drink. You’ve been on a plane all day.”

You listened to him, grateful for the cool liquid on your dry throat. 

“I need to go get all this makeup off, but I’ll be ready for bed in five minutes. Meet you there?” 

“I could go with you,” you offered, but your words were garbled by the long yawn that immediately followed. Pedro chuckled, kissing your nose. 

“I don’t think I can hold you upright and wash all this grime off at the same time love. Go climb in bed. Stay awake for me, I’ll be there in just a minute,” he instructed, taking you by the hips and placing you on your feet. He didn’t let go until he was sure you were steady, and then he disappeared to the bathroom. 

You didn’t even bother going for your suitcase. Instead, you moved to your boyfriend’s drawers, finding his old Lakers shirt. It smelled so much like him that it made you smile as you stripped out of everything but your underwear and pulled it on. 

You climbed into bed, making yourself sit up so you wouldn’t fall back asleep as you listened to the water run in the bathroom, then turn off. Pedro was humming a song as he got ready, and you couldn’t help but grin when he emerged only a few minutes later in just his boxers, hair damp and a matching smile on his face. 

He wasted no time in climbing into bed next to you, immediately reaching over and pulling you right up against him. His hands splayed out underneath your shirt, finding skin as he sighed, pressing his nose up to your neck and breathing you in.

“Ahh, mi deseo,” he breathed.

“Translate,” you whispered, eyes closed as you melted into him, trying to get your skin onto his everywhere that you could. It lit a familiar fire in you that began to burn deep.

“My wish,” he said. “I wished for you. Today, but also for so long.”

“I’m here. Right here,” you breathed, hands slotting into his hair. His fingers found purchase against your hips, pulling you over and on top of him. 

“Happy birthday Pedrito.”

“Happy birthday to me,” he grinned, and got to work.

[snakes-of-the-undercity]

Vi is gifted kid burnout but in the english major way

[birdmans]

[reyolfx]

destiel fic excerpt - claire kinda tricks dean into going to pride with her

okay i've been in a massive block lately for any writing whatsoever but i'm TRYING to get back into it. mentally i'm just not really anywhere but i would like to be anchored back down into writing mode.

so here's a little bit of the destiel fic i have in progress. it's a dean focused post-15x19 (lol what finale) fix-it that deals a lot with dean's grief. this particular excerpt is quiiiiite a ways in, cas has been dead for almost a year at this point (happy destiel ending guaranteed fam). dean is still absolutely grieving but he's been doing a lot of work.

(warning dean does use the word queer here in a way that's like, halfway between accepting and internalised homophobia - it's not made out to be a big deal in this but i thought it would mention anyways)

***

"I'm not a parade guy, Claire, and I sure as hell ain't a flag waving queer. I'm not - I'm not this." Dean gestures vaguely to the revelry and upbeat atmosphere around him. He feels like a fish on a bike.

Claire shrugs with her whole body. "I don't give two shits what you think you are or aren't, grandpa. Every baby gay needs to attend their first Pride, it's like a right of passage or whatever."

Dean gawks at her. "What the fuck," he sputters. "Baby- did you just call me grandpa and a baby gay in the same sentence? What the fuck is that?"

Claire rolls her eyes like Dean's a fucking idiot. He feels like one right now, in his jeans and flannel with a knife tucked into his waistband, surrounded by rainbow everything and kids making out in those weird napkin tops that don't pass their navels.

She says, "exactly what it sounds like, loser. You're old, but you finally had your big gay realization, it's fresh and shit, erego, baby gay. Reborn a queer, hallelujah."

Dean stares at her like she's speaking another language, but he latches on to one bit that's plain. "Ain't that fresh," he mutters.

Because. Because it's not like Dean never had an inkling he was into dudes as well as chicks before. Not like he never had any tiny lightbulb moments while drooling over Doctor Sexy or being 16 and watching a hunter in his 20s clean a gun in front of him. It's just that every time that lightbulb flicked on, Dean had been very quick and very thorough in burying it 6 feet under like it was a body in a grave after a salt'n burn. Expert, even. Like he was was with real graves. He could go years without that lightbulb resurfacing, and he could forget. He could flirt with women and forget, kiss women and forget, take women back to his motel room when he was 24, haunting small towns all alone, and forget. It was easy. Because women's waists and women's hair and women's voices made it easy. When they pitched their words low and came on to him with confidence and a shadow, a daintier echo of violence than what he was used to, it was easy. What would have been the point in—in anything else?

Nothing. No point.

Until his best friend told him he loved him and his graveyard of buried lightbulbs was flooded, upturned, exposed. Electrified. He sees the bones of every man he ever desired like they're cartoons sticking their fingers into sockets.

Bzzzt. That hunter with his rolled up sleeves, exposed forearms, cleaning his gun while chatting easily to John. Dean sitting there, trying his best to be a part of the conversation, puff himself up like he belonged at the table, 16 in a too-big jacket, a real hunter, a real man, dragging his eyes away from the hunter's hands again and again until he could unfocus them entirely with the beers his dad let him sip.

Bzzzt. A shop teacher of his, once, during a 9th grade stint somewhere in Nebraska. Mr. Callaghan. Showing the class how to use a circular saw, sparks flying, Dean's eyes wide, mouth a little dry.

Bzzzt. Benny in purgatory. Slicing and hacking his way through monsters to get Dean to Cas before they could escape. Dean's weird, twisted up, sickening feelings of - I love you because you know my secret. Because you know I love someone else even though I won't let my own self know. I love you because you have big hands and a big heart and an appetite for blood and because I can bully you into staying, searching, endlessly, for the one. The one I love the most. I love you until I find him and then I still love you a little because you helped make that possible and because you did it for me.

Bzzzt. Cas. Castiel who walked into a barn, sparks again (maybe men are electric and women are grounding, or - fuck, who knows, maybe sparks are just hot) a few days after Dean rose from the dead. Castiel who walked towards him with steady eyes of blue fire and withstood every act of violence Dean could commit against him (or so he thought). Castiel who saw into his soul, maybe not even into it, just the whole scope of it, macro and micro. Cas who shoved him into walls, laid hands over his mouth and a knee between his thighs (accidental?), Cas who spoke to him vulnerably one moment and then disappeared the next, Cas who stared into his eyes and made Dean's chest feel molten, his tongue feel heavy. Cas who wore a stupid trench coat, even when given a fresh start, an opportunity for reinvention. A trench coat Dean grew to hate because of the sheer amount of times he imagined pulling it gently off the angel's shoulders. It always stayed. Dean could burn that fucking coat.

He kept that coat. He carried it. He misses it.

Dean comes to in the middle of a fucking pride parade with the desperate, overwhelming urge to press a coat that he no longer has into his nose. He needs—

"Earth to fuckin' Dean Winchester," Claire is saying, eyebrow cocked kinda like Cas, which is weird because he doesn't remember Jimmy ever doing that. He guesses he didn't know Jimmy very long though. Maybe he's just seeing Cas wherever he can manage it.

"Sorry, kid," he says lamely. No follow up. He feels the hole and it aches and aches and he needs to get a hold on it before it engulfs him.

"Dean," Claire says gently, and she sounds like she knows where he is. Like she can find him back here among his grief that is so far removed from, and unrelated to the situation.

He looks at her and forces a grin that cracks his face. Painfully. Half rolls his eyes.

"C'mon kid, show me the ropes then," he says. He's here now. Probably wont ever be again, but he's with Claire.

And he loves Claire. Because she reminds him of his not so long ago self—young and angsty and passionate and angry and full of mistakes past, present and future—and because she reminds him of Cas. Her face, her independence, her stubbornness, her smile. Because Cas loves (loved, Christ) her, even if her feelings towards him might be more convoluted.

She doesn't let him off easy, a trait she kind of shares with both of them.

"Dean... I miss him too".

Years ago, maybe even just months ago, Dean would have rolled his eyes and changed the subject. He would have deflected: "so how do you get on one of those floats" or "why is there so much mesh here" or maybe mouthed the words to You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) right along with the drag queens in the parade without even realising it.

But now—

"Claire—I can't. Not if we wanna— not if today's gonna be any good."

His voice sounds far away and raw and he feels tears in his eyes even still. Even still after all these months. He wants. Wants Cas back so hard it scalds his insides.

Claire's mouth sets hard and she nods once. There's a grim-feeling cloud around the two of them, a black hole in the middle of this rainbow candy-land ass street block on a sunny day.

And then Claire scares it away. Physically waves it off like she can see it and then plasters a grin on her face that's almost conspiring. She can rally, Dean'll give her that. It's not as if Claire completely fits here either—she looks more like him than she does most of the other revelers. Black tank top, red flannel tied around her waist, black shit kickers. Hunter get-up. But she grabs some stickers from a drag queen that's handing them out and slaps one on her chest - it says "I support gay rights and gay wrongs" on it and the circle behind it is striped orange and white and pink. Dean snorts. He doesn't know for sure what that means but he guesses it's probably for lesbians cause he knows everybody gets their own flag in this world. He's learned that through osmosis at group*.

She grabs his hand and slaps another sticker on the back of it. The circle is blue, purple, and pink, and he does know the bi flag, has figured that one out at least. The words in the centre say "oh no, everyone is so hot".

Dean rolls his eyes so hard he almost throws his neck out. "There's no way in hell you think I'm keeping this on," he says.

"You are keeping it on, old man, and if i see you've taken it off I'll take you to the face painting tent and make them give you full bisexual glam." The threatening tone of her voice contrasts too deeply with the contents of that sentence and Dean huffs out a surprised laugh.

"Oh yeah? How do you think you're gonna make that happen?"

"You're not the only one packing here, Winchester."

Dean keeps the sticker on his hand. Stares at it for a minute, then looks all around him, taking in the colour and the joy like a thing that's not used the sun would. A rodent or a worm. Maybe a monster.

"Don't get me wrong but this doesn't really seem like your scene," he says.

Claire shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe a couple years ago I woulda felt the same. Used to think it was all real frivolous and silly y'know?"

She pauses for long enough that Dean's pretty sure the conversation's over. Finally, she speaks again, just a bit quieter: "But, I kinda figure, I can be more than just one thing, right? I can be a hunter and still enjoy some of the nice shit in life. Frivolous and silly is kinda fun."

She's not wrong. Dean doesn't get a lot of moments to be frivolous and silly, but he takes them when he can. Feels like maybe if he'd been born in an different universe he could've known those feelings full time like they were an engrained part of him rather than just fleeting visitors.

Then Claire says, "you're more than one thing, y'know. You're lots of things"

Dean huffs a little laugh and shakes his head, not really sure what he's denying.

"Don't make me give you a whole rundown on your own personality dude. You're not just some workhorse hunter, you got other stuff. Like, gay shit like this doesn't have to be one of your things. But everything's worth a shot once, right?"

He wants to agree. Thinks maybe he'd like to be a lot of things, but everything is kind of blur right now, has been for a while. What are the things he'd like to be? Like to enjoy?

He shakes his head again, not so much denying as delaying.

"Okay Oprah, what got you so wise?"

Claire smirks. She nudges him forward to follow the parade and says, "the internet mostly."

[citruslullabies]

Why don't you like Jimmy or Jimmy simps??

Hey darling!

So I don't like Jimmy for.. obvious reasons, but I have nothing against Jimmy simps!!

Let your freak flag fly, I do not care. I just personally don't write for Jimmy as it is a personal thing, but I can always help direct people to writers who do!!

Like for example, and these two are on the top of my head because 1. I love their work and 2. They actually have commented on one of my posts earlier so they're first writers that come to mind

@/jambalaya-enthusiast and @/curly-my-beloved are good ones!! I don't write for Jimmy, but last I checked these two do!! They're amazing writers and you guys should check them out

[britney-rosberg06]

halfbaked and basic landoscar fic concept where Lando tends bar at a struggling pub recently passed down to Logan and Alex, who reaches out to Logan’s childhood friend Oscar to help save the bar and over the course of several weeks/months/however Oscar and Lando grow closer trying to do their best to save the pub while Sargbon try to set them up

[wa3jetisbestpony]

revstar fans we need to put on the best talent show this towns ever seen and save ReLive!!

[saintadeline]

Ohhh I am trying so hard not to get mad at people online you have to believe me but that post about bloodborne liking women is driving me a little bit crazy not gonna lie. We can all so clearly see and point out misogyny in ds (um. Im hoping at least) so why can't we ever do it in bloodborne? Even though its the same people? What about bloodborne makes you think theyre feminists all of a sudden. Because it talks about women? Okay, but that's not how that works, a work that disregards women is misogynistic, that much everyone knows, but a work that does talk about women but portray them in a weird light can also very much be. Also whenever people say bloodborne is about women or femininity, a huge chunk of the time what they mean is bloodborne is about motherhood and pregnancy. Which is true, but thats... Not what womanhood is thats not what women are about you can't just reduce women as a concept to birth. And motherhood. And being caretakers. Almost every woman in bloodborne has less agency than their men counterparts, most of them are more strongly abused, shown as complacent and weak and only exist to serve. Even maria has no agency and is constantly driven back to the fact she was gman's apprentice and following he and laurence's orders. She has little identity outside of them in written down ingame lore and the one time she did something outside of them, is the one time she became a caretaker (because all women are it seems). The fact the og lady maria npc even exists is even worse on that part. I'm using her as an example because shes the one people most often take as an example of bb being good about women (look theres a strong female character!) but it's obviously much more than just her, just look at arianna and adella for more than one second. The only npcs i can think of that i would consider Actually Good And Normal About Women are eileen and fauxsefka. And i mean actual npcs im not counting bosses that we dont know much about on a personal level (like rom and amelia)

What I'm trying to say is, i think it's awesome when people have feminist interpretations of bloodborne and i think its a good thing to take those female characters for yourself and its a good thing to make the game as transgender and gay as you want it to be, and its perfect soil for that too, i do it all the time and find many many themes in it by myself, but we can't keep lying to ourselves that it was any good at it on its own. It's soulsborne for fuck's sake it has Always been Really Weird about women and minorities just look at ds look at firekeepers and gwyndolin and many other examples. Bloodborne isnt exempt from that just because men are writing about pregnancy as horror.

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[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.

[ramblingsfromthytruly]

Desperate Dog - original poem

Trying to appease my one-track mind

It's got a bone to catch

It's rough, gentle, a caress of sharp teeth

Slow slippery hope

Hanging by a noose

Crippling me

I would crumble at your animosity

So please never leave me

I can be the flowerpot you tend to under-water

You'll be mine, that I tend to obsess over

Write stanzas and sonnets for my one true love

Ink stains permanent on the hands you hold

Cold winter nights

Swallowed by your warmth

Slow summer highs

Gazing in your eyes

Do all lovers feel,

they've created something new?

Is this why I feel,

so damn confused?

Novelty felt so right and familiar

Cruelty by your hand, seen as no matter

Food I cannot eat, as I look at you and wonder:

Was this always,

fated in the stars?

Was I always fated,

to fall this hard?

[gojuo]

ewan has been consistently saying in interviews that aemond still holds love for aegon that their relationship is complicated but they're still family so he is still loyal yet none of that is actually shown or written to be like that on-screen.... am kinda convinced that ewan hates the aemond betrayal at RR just as much as we do 😭😭😭

[dark-concerned-moony]

i am one (1) mention of that ridiculous season away from busting out my 10+ years of fanfic writer and my film degree and rewriting the whole last season of TUA into something little child me expected when she first read the comics and that adult me put HOPE into the WRONG PEOPLE APPARENTLY to make it come true [eyelid frantically twitching in barely contained rage] do i have the time? absolutely not. will i do it anyway? perhaps. 99% chance.