#in that I liked her a lot last year but she’s shown a ton of growth

[grantmentis]

I don’t think they’d be able to sign SPA’s without going to the draft at least twice (or being successfully drafted the first time and released or signing with that initial team) but I’m curious if once the SDHL season wraps up that some players will come over on reserve roles, particularly the North Americans - I can’t see the Europeans especially ones on national teams coming over for like a month before worlds. Emma Seitz is a player that’s significantly raised her draft stock for me this year in the sdhl and has been phenomenal on transition and a lot of teams could use her

[darknight3904]

All Too Well

Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Summary: As Valentine's Day approaches you and Joel grow closer with the help of one motor-mouthed teen who is unable to keep a secret.

Warnings: Language. Vague reference to SA.

Word Count: 2.5k

Previous Part / Series Masterlist / Main Masterlist

February 2024

As it turns out, friendship with Joel isn't so bad. You do your patrol shifts together, brushing Turnip and Pepper out in the stables afterward. Some days, Ellie will be there, waiting at the stables for you and Joel.

Ellie and Joel's relationship makes your heart squeeze. The days with her in the stable almost feel like you're looking into a window that leads to the past. The curly brown hair and warm laughter of Sarah consume your mind as Ellie tells another bad joke.

You had mentioned Sarah one day, casually while Ellie had her focus pinned on Shimmer. Joel had clammed up, refusing to even meet your eyes at the mention of his daughter.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry, about Sarah."

Cold air shot up your nose as Joel's eyes fixed on Turnip's mane.

"Tommy told me, years ago...I'm so sorry, Joel."

You watch how his hands squeeze the brush until his knuckles are white. A stuttered breath escapes his lips and he shakes his head.

"Don't want to talk about it."

You open your mouth to speak again, but Joel shoots you a glare that sends a shiver down your spine and you drop the topic entirely.

It'd been weeks since then. Valentine's Day was approaching and parts of Jackson were bursting with old decor that had been scavenged.

"So what's the point of this holiday, exactly?" Ellie asked you as she sat on top of your kitchen counter.

The fourteen-year-old seemed to be obsessed with being around you even when Joel wasn't. Twenty minutes ago, she'd shown up at your front door claiming that she was bored and Joel was napping.

"Uh, I guess to show appreciation for people you care about." You say, trying to think back to the Valentine's celebrations you'd witnessed years ago.

"Well, I appreciate you." Ellie says, "Does that mean I gotta bake you something?"

"No, it's more like...romantic stuff." You say, "It's really marketed to couples. Us single gals are out of luck."

You pour a mug of tea for yourself. You'd give Ellie some but last time she had spat it out and deemed it to be "warm piss."

"Well, you could always ask Joel, y'know." She says casually.

You nearly choke to death on your tea at the idea.

"Joel? Joel's got the romantic composition of well...a constipated elephant." You cough

Ellie laughs in agreement, "I just thought....you might have to make the first move with him. He spends a lot of time looking out the window, just staring at your house. Like it's gonna blow away with you in it one day."

You think about how Joel and Ellie live directly across the street from you. Was Joel seriously peeking through his curtains hoping to see you on days neither of you were on patrol?

"And how do you know so much about romance? You read tons of cheesy novels in your spare time?" You huff

"No! He just seems into you!" Ellie groans, "And I've only read a few romance books..."

The next day at the stables, Ellie asks Joel what his outlook on Valentine's Day is. Ever the gentle soul, Joel voices his opinion.

"Just a day for big-shot companies to make even more money."

Ellie glances over at you with big eyes, "You said it was about romance and appreciation of others."

"It is." You defend your opinion while looking at Joel and his stupid greying beard. Why was he like this?

Joel scoffs and looks over at the two of you, "Appreciation of someone else's wallet you mean."

"So negative, Joel." You huff, "I've never experienced a real Valentine's Day, sorry if my unrealistic views bothered you."

Joel watches as you finish brushing Pepper before stomping off in the direction of your house.

"Looks like you're in trouble," Ellie says from his left.

"Just saying my thoughts. Not my fault she's mad." Joel dismisses

"Well considering I told her you're into her, I bet that Valentine's wallet comment wasn't what she wanted to hear..."

Joel spins around to look at the brown-haired girl who has turned to baby talk Turnip and say that Joel smells worse than the stables themselves.

"You did what?"

Joel hasn't felt this embarrassed in years. Where did Ellie even get the nerve to just spill his secrets all over town?

Joel wasn't even sure how he felt about you and now he had a child trying to set him up with you. Ellie didn't know a damn thing about the past and here she was running her mouth. Honestly if Joel didn't care about her so much, he'd hang her upside down from Jackon's flag pole and leave her there for a few hours. Damn kids, always getting into shit they weren't supposed to.

"And Ellie told her? About your window watching?"

"It's not funny."

Joel's eyes snapped up to his younger brother, whose eyes were swimming with amusement.

"It is." Tommy shakes his head

"Not if she thinks I'm some...freak." Joel sighs as he looks down at Tommy who has made himself at home on Joel's couch.

"This is the same girl who used to cry when she got drunk and then openly tell you about how hot she thought that Wolverine guy was? Trust me, Joel she doesn't think you're a freak." Tommy dismisses Joel's fears.

Joel sighs, Tommy doesn't get it. You'd been unreachable in Joel's opinion. Sure, the small talk and patrol shifts were nice but it wasn't real. Anyone with half a brain could tell you were holding out on Joel.

"She was here in Jackson when you showed up, right?" Joel asked

"Yeah. I didn't even know she was here until Maria dragged her over to see me one day."

Joel nods, "She ever tell you how she got here? I mean it's a long way from Texas to Wyoming."

Rigid silence settles around the brothers as Tommy looks at Joel, the amusement from earlier gone.

"I don't know all of it...but I can tell you what I do."

There are few comforts left at the end of the world. Of course, you should never discount the fuzzy feeling of a new book and clean sheets can bring a person. Freshly showered, your hair pulled up by a towel, you've just settled in for the night when a loud knock at your door rings out through your empty home.

The knocks continue as you groan and plod down the steps. It had to nearly be 9:30, who could be bothering you at this hour? If you opened that door and Ellie was there, you were going to march her back across the street and tell Joel to put a leash on his kid. You liked her, but there was only so many puns you could take.

You swing the door open and your voice sounds more like a hiss as you speak, "What?"

To your surprise, it's not Ellie but Joel who stands there. The soft glow of your porch light makes him look a bit younger. His jacket is zipped up to his chin and his hands are stuffed in his pockets.

"Can I come in? We need to talk and I'm freezing my ass off out here."

You sigh loudly, "I was getting ready to go to bed."

"Won't take long, I promise." Joel's sincere tone says

Begrudgingly you step out of the way and let him in. He stomps his boots out on the welcome mat before entering, at least you won't have to clean up little water puddles when he leaves.

"What's up? If Ellie's asking about baking cookies again, tell her I still need to get more sugar and butter."

"It's not about cookies." Joel says, "Can we sit down?"

You take his appearance in, in better lightening, you can see how disheveled he looks. His hair is out of place like he's been running his fingers through it. His face is solemn, serious, and missing the soft edge it normally has whenever he goes on patrol with you.

"Fine." You sigh, pulling the towel from your hair.

You settle in the armchair that sits across the couch he's made himself welcome on. Your wet hair drips cold drops down your back and you squirm a bit, regretting your choice to let it down.

"You went back to my house?" Joel starts off, "After outbreak day?"

You look at him in shock, how could he possibly...Tommy. That fool couldn't keep a secret for shit.

"I did..." You say slowly, unsure of how much he knew

"Why?" Joel asks

"I dunno...I guess I thought you might come back. Plus, I didn't know where else to go. I uh, stayed in your basement for a couple of months. Thanks for finishing it, by the way, made my stay way easier."

Joel looks at you, his face unreadable, "Tommy said you ended up back in Pittsburgh, in the QZ til it fell in 2017."

"Yeah, I got back home to see if my parents had made it. After I saw my home had been burned down, I ended up in the QZ."

Joel nods, "I'm sorry for all the questions, I'm just...trying to figure out how the hell you ended up here."

You dismiss him with a wave of your hand, "I wish I knew, I'd credit it all to good luck though..."

"Tommy won't tell me how you got out west, said he didn't know." Joel prods

Your blood runs cold, it's true, Tommy doesn't know. You'd told the younger Miller brother that you'd traveled with a group before Maria found you. Technically you hadn't lied.

"I um...um..."

You hadn't told anyone about your time with Adam, the Walrus, or any of the men in that group. You tried not to think about it, blocking it out as if it had just been one bad dream.

Joel surprises you, leaning forward and taking your shaking hands in his. His skin is just as warm as you remember, a bit rougher than the last time you'd felt it twenty years ago.

"There were...these men. They found me somewhere in Illinois I think."

Your throat feels dryer than the fucking Sahara Desert right now. You want to push him away, throw him outside into the snow, and slam the door in his face. Yet you can't even bear to pull your hands from his, you focus on the way his thumb rubs circles on your palm.

"They took me further out west with them...used to make me..."

You squeeze your eyes shut, unable to look at him right now. Your tongue fumbles in your mouth, unable to tell him what happened to you. Warm tears fall past your eyelids and Joel's deep voice is soothing you,

"It's alright, sweetheart. Don't gotta say anymore."

You open your eyes again to look at him. Sadness lines his features as he looks at you. You sniffle, trying to keep your nose from running,

"I escaped one night after tricking one of them into loosening my restraints. A couple of weeks later Maria found me out by the dam starving and hallucinating. She brought me in and then helped make sure I didn't die."

Joel nods and squeezes your hands in his, "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault." You whisper, a shaky breath leaving your lips

"I should've gone back for you. Took you with me to Boston. None of it would've happened." He says sternly

"It's too late to wish about what could've happened, Joel." You remind him

"I know that...I just, I wish things had happened differently." He sighs, "Never would've broken up with you if I'd known what you were gonna go through."

"No one knew the world was going to end." You point out

"You needa quit makin' excuses for me." Joel shoots you a glare that you can tell he doesn't mean, "Yell at me a bit, woman."

You rest your forehead against Joel's, not intending to do any of that.

"I don't yell at people I'm friends with. We can save the fight for another day."

The front door slams open and a gust of freezing cold air whirls in. Ellie stands in the doorframe, a thick purple coat sits on her body as she rushes in.

"Joel? What the fuck? You lock me out of the house and then go off to make out with your crush?"

You jump away from Joel, mourning the way your hands feel cold without him around them.

"Ellie, what are you doing here?" Joel sighs like just her presence exhausts him.

"I went to that movie night that Maria runs, remember?" Ellie says, closing the door and tossing her coat onto the hooks by the door, "We watched one of the Star Wars movies. I think Maria said it was episode 4, I don't really know what that means though."

"What'd you think?" You ask, hoping she doesn't mention you and Joel's earlier position. You're eager for Joel's attention to be off of you.

"It was fine. I liked that little droid Luke has."

"You mean R2D2?" You ask

"Yeah, his scream is funny."

"Always liked Obi-Wan." Joel muses, thinking of the movie.

"Which one is that again?" Ellie asks

"He's the old guy, Luke calls him Ben at the beginning, Joel probably likes him cuz' they're both old." You explain

"Hey." Joel nudges his foot to yours, apparently not liking your insult.

You listen to Ellie give you and Joel her full review of Star Wars. Joel smirks at you when Ellie mentions something about the possibility of Luke and Leia dating. Oh how shocked she's going to be.

"Let's get going, kiddo." Joel's voice is soft as he interrupts her when he sees your eyes droop shut.

Ellie huffs a sigh of frustration but goes to slip back into her coat. Joel reaches out and gently pats your knee, he wants to let you know he's letting himself out.

Unresponsive and clearly tuckered out, you're dead to the world as Joel says your name. He sighs and turns to Ellie, tossing her the keys.

"Get ready for bed. Brush your teeth." He says to the girl

"Yeah, yeah." She shrugs him off before walking off, shutting the door behind her

Joel sighs and pushes his arms underneath you. He can't let you sleep in this armchair, you'll wake up with an ache in your back.

He carefully goes up the steps, you in his arms bridal style as your head rests on his chest. A soft wheeze escapes your nose and Joel feels his mouth turn up into a small smile.

A warmth bubbles up in his chest as he lays you down in your bed. He pulls the soft covers up your body and picks up the book you'd left on the other side of the bed.

Joel runs a hand through your still-damp hair, taking in the hint of greys that weave through it. It's as soft as he remembers and smells like oranges.

He lets his heart take over as he leans down, ignoring the slight pinch in his back as he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead. He pulls away and looks at your sleeping form again. The soft light of the lamp on your nightstand gives you a youthful glow.

His hand slips down your face and he runs a thumb across your cheek. The feel of a faded scar there has a frown etching across his features and in the moment Joel decides to make a promise, a promise to himself as well as you. Here in the warm glow of this lamp and the secrecy of your bedroom, he promises he'll never let anything hurt you again.

Next Chapter

Shorter chapter but...

I PASSED ALL MY FINALS!!!

Somehow survived another semester. I'll be updating more frequently now :)

Comment to be added to the tag list. This tag list is not chapter by chapter, I carry the tags over to each part.

Tags:

@lunaticgurly  @orcasoul  @snowlycanroc  @freythecrazyfae

@person-005 @greenwitchfromthewoods

@elli3williams @iinaths

[ladyloveandjustice]

My Favorite New Manga and Graphic Novels I Read in 2024

I read 114 manga volumes and graphic novels last year! Here’s a link to my Goodreads year in books, which tallies one book from each manga series ( I've arranged it so the manga/gns at the beginning, the novels start with Red, White & Royal Blue) and my storygraph wrap up.  

I have a post for my favorite books of 2024 you can read here! I also have a post on my top 12 anime for 2024 and you can read it here! (Also, since a lot of this is yuri, check out my broader yuri manga rec post here!)

Now let's get to all the new manga, with a little check in on ongoing titles at the bottom!

Love Bullet by inee

When someone who never had the chance to experience love meets an untimely death, they're given a chance to become a cupid. If they help enough people fall in love, they earn the chance to have another shot at life. Koharu meets her end after her best friend, Aki, confesses her love to her, and she becomes a cupid...

Love Bullet is a brand new yuri with fun characters and a cute art style that feels a little charmingly retro. The concept of modern day cupids using firearms and behaving like sharpshooters in an action movie is so fun, but there's also a beating heart behind it. The tragedy of Koharu's life being cut sort and the bittersweet arc where Koharu tries to help her living best friend deal with her lingering trauma over her sudden death...it's touching and well written. All the cupids already have a really great dynamic, and as befitting a yuri, the way the girls approach their jobs is casually queer, with the "targets" often shown to have both guy and girl options.

It's a story with great potential that seems like it could go a ton of interesting places. It's a little different than the rest of this list that it's not officially out in English yet. The reason it's here is because the author sent out an SOS that the first Japanese volume is struggling in sales, and the international yuri community, excited about the awesome story they've seen so far, rose to the challenge and bought out the first volume in Japanese! So far it's been successful! If you end up reading it (you'll have to rely on scanlation but they're easy to find) or even if you just simply want to support a cool story. I really encourage you to do the same. Here's a document on how to buy the Japanese version. Hopefully, the grassroots support will mean we get an official English release soon!

The Summer You Were There by Yuama

All you lovers of tragic lesbians, this is for you. The manga follows Shizuku, a deeply depressed girl who is so guilty about something in her past she's got some serious suicidal ideation going. But when Kaori, a girl in her class, reads her writing and guesses what's behind it, she challenges Shizuku to a bet where she has to write a novel about a romance between the two of them. Now they're suddenly spending a lot of time together, and Kaori is helping Shizuku unpack her guilt. However, Kaori is struggling too. She's actually very sick, and though she hides it, it's getting worse.

The manga is a heart wrenching meditation on grief and redemption. For very different reasons, both girls think they don't deserve love and both girls are shown they're very, very wrong by the other.

I like how Kaori tries to be the manic pixie dream girl who fixes all of Shizuku's problems, but then Shizuku very firmly says "what the hell. no. You need support too" and they're both allowed to be full characters who find solace in each other. Shizuku's backstory is also really interesting, and it hits hard. It's just a very touching, but very sad read.

Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

Barefoot Gen is a semi-autobiographical manga by Hiroshima survivor Nakazawa Keiji. Nakazawa said the story is taken not just from his life, but those of fellow survivors he talked to and lived with.

The story follows a boy named Gen, depicting how most of his family were killed by the atomic bomb, and how he struggled to survive in a post-war Japan, while surrounded by the horrible effects of radiation poisoning, economic devastation, and American imperialism.

It sticks out from other animanga I've seen about WWII bombings in that it's very critical and angry at the Japanese government, to the point that Gen even calls the Emperor a war criminal. What stands out even more is how direct it is in denouncing of Japan's war crimes against Korea and China, as well as condemning Japanese racism against Koreans. It makes sure you know that Korean POWs and forced laborers also died and suffered because of the bomb, and that the Japanese doctors discriminated against them, forcing Koreans to wait on receiving medical treatment until every Japanese person was treated.

It does a stomach churning, effective job depicting the horror of radiation poisoning and war, and its message is extremely firm: Its the common people who suffer in the wars while those in power exploit them, that war and violence are an endless vicious cycle we must break free from, and nuclear bombing must never happen again.

Though it puts a lot of blame on the Japanese government for entering the war and on citizens for supporting it, the story is also critical of America's cruelty and imperialism, depicting lot of things America did to Japanese citizens post-war we don't get taught-- like soldiers sexually assaulting Japanese women, like getting Japanese labor activists and protestors removed from their jobs, like literally torturing Japanese leftists, like luring Japanese citizens to treatment centers with promises of medical aid for radiation sickness, only to collect the data and send them off with no help...

Though the manga is brutal, there are moments of comradery and kindness (and a lot of silly humor). Gen helps a lot of people along the way, and his resilience and his message not to give up is the heart of the manga. It's educational and very direct about subjects that both sides don't want to acknowledge-- both Japanese nationalists and American nationalists do not like it (you can learn more about that here). Despite extremely gruesome content, it's aimed at kids, so it's very blunt and direct in its messages and dialogue. But that can be kind of refreshing.

 It can get a little repetitive on occasion and storylines and characters tend to be introduced very abruptly, but it does keep you rooting for and feeling for the characters all the way through. I think it's an essential, highly informative and unforgettable read, and everyone should read at least a little bit. Or at the very least, read this interview with Nakazawa. If you can't handle the gruesome imagery of the comic, he describes his experience pretty in depth here, and there's a lot of other insight.

This Monster wants to Eat Me by Sai Naekawa

Hinako is a depressed girl who survived a terrible trauma and has been searching for death ever since. One day she gets approached by, Shiori, a mermaid who wants to eat her…but the thing is, this monster mermaid is a gourmet who wants her to be as delicious as possible, which means she’s going to make Hinako happy first before she eats her (as apparently that enhances her flavor). In the meantime Shiori has to fight off all the other monsters who want to snack on Hinako.

This is TOP TIER yuri horror and a must read for any lover of monster girls. It was custom made for a freak like me, who thinks a monster girl covered in the blood of her enemies seductively telling the protagonist she wants to devour her is the stuff that dreams are made of.

Shiori, the woman-eating mermaid in question, is a fascinating character right off the bat, always having a hint of menace and inhuman mystery, but showing some potential for genuinely caring for Hinako someday. There's an ongoing mystery of why monsters are so attracted to Hinako that's a good hook, as is the irony of Hinako starting to come alive thanks to a girl who wants to kill her. It's good stuff! And it'll get an anime soon, which I'm praying is worthy of such a cool story.

The Guy She Was Interested Wasn’t a Guy at All by Sumiko Arai

The green yuri! This web manga finally gotten a physical release this year! It tells the story of Mitsuki, a girl who works at a record shop. Her classmate Aya wanders in. Aya doesn't recognize Mitsuki with a face mask and hair hidden by a cap and immediately assumes Mitsuki's a guy. They bond over their mutual love of rock music and slowly start to get closer…and Aya finds her heart is fluttering not only over this mysterious boy, but her female classmate that seems a lot like him...

Despite it's clunky title, this manga makes a premise that could have been painfully cliche and, in the worst case, extremely uncomfortable and makes it work. It never swings into homophobic or transphobic territory imo. It helps that Aya is clearly catching feelings for "girl" Mitsuki along with "guy" Mitsuki from the beginning, subconsciously knowing they're the same person.

The focus of the story is the way their relationship develops through a shared love of Western rock music and it really captures the joy of finding someone who can share your interests and the affection that can spring up for that. The characters are very likeable and cute, the art is absolutely gorgeous, and the story as a whole has this laid back, naturalistic feeling while still developing at a good pace. I just really enjoy kicking back with my green yuri, and it's good reputation is well earned!

Maus by Art Spiegelman

This comic about Spiegelman interviewing his father, a Holocaust survivor, and learning his story (with Nazis being represented as cats and Jewish people as mice) is, of course, incredibly well known to the point it feels almost redundant to talk about it. But I did read it cover to cover for the first time last year, and unsurprisingly it's a great piece of art and an important story for anyone to look into.

The parts recounting the Holocaust were heartbreaking and horrifying as expected, and I'd expected that. But the things I hadn't heard as much about was how much the book explored Spiegelman's complicated relationship with his father, and his anxieties as an artist and whether he was the right one to tell this story. It was fascinating to see him struggle with those things, and it added a lot of layers.

The Moon on a Rainy Night by Kuzushiro

One rainy night, Saki runs into Kanon and is immediately infatuated with the other girl. When she sees Kanon at school, she discovers Kanon is hard of hearing. Kanon is understandably frustrated at the ableism she tends to endure. But as Saki reaches out and gets to know her, Kanon starts to open up. And Saki, having gone through struggles related to her sexuality in the past, starts getting anxious about her feelings for Kanon...

The Moon on a Rainy Night is just... REALLY good. Kanon is just a great character, and as a lover of stubborn, prickly girls I just find her so charming. She has a lot going on with her, like her interest in music and relationship with her family and various quirks.

One thing I really like is how narrative allows her to be frustrated about the stuff she goes through, allows her to have complex feelings about being disabled, and pays attention the little details. She has to clear up misconceptions she can't hear anything, she points out that only 20 percent of deaf people use sign language (but starts using it when she really relates to a movie and the way the cute actor uses it, which is such a teenager thing to do), the lip reading isn't treated as some magic thing, Kanon has to remind people to look at her or she can't hear them, and she misreads things a fair amount.

I'm not hard of hearing, so I'm far from the authority, but most examples of deaf and/or hard-of-hearing female characters I can think of in anime (okay so there's only two I can think of, can't say that qualifies as a pattern) are depicted as shy, super sweet and socially naive, so it's refreshing to have a character who brings some variety.

Saki is also super compelling as she wrestles with her insecurities.I really related when she was learning sign language and got bummed out by the heteronormativity of one sign (using "man" and "woman" for marriage). I also like that Saki finds an adult lesbian who gently supports her and mentors her, it's all very sweet. It's just a fantastic romance and character study, and I hope the upcoming anime does it justice.

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

Wash Day Diaries follows four best friends and their daily lives through interconnected short stories. As the official summary states: "The book takes its title from the wash day experience shared by Black women everywhere of setting aside all plans and responsibilities for a full day of washing, conditioning, and nourishing their hair".

The comic makes a great use of color to reflect the characters' moods, and the girls are drawn vibrantly and distinctively. The peek into the characters' daily lives feels like getting to know some good friends, and there's a great attention to detail, especially with the comic's beautiful step-by-step depiction of how each woman does her hair and what it says about her.

 The comic touches on topics like depression, dementia, and homophobia. Just like real life, these things aren't neatly resolved, but the story does offer some hope and catharsis. It's a pretty quick read, but it's packed with good stuff.

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. by Yu Aoki

I'm going to give myself a little break and just reuse my entry for the anime. (The only difference between them is that the manga flows a bit better than the anime, moving at a faster pace with huge panels suiting the art style and the action!)

Being a magical girl is no longer the domain of teenagers, and has evolved into an actual career dominated by adult women. Kana becomes a magical girl for a scrappy start up company, and tries her best to navigate working life.

It’s the magical girl story about adult women I’ve been craving for years! Magical girl media often explores the struggles of adolescence and growing up, and this show takes us to the next step by using magical girls to explore what it’s like to be a young woman entering the working world. The focus is one Kana struggling to grow her confidence and accept support from her workplace, but it also has a lot to say about companies exploiting their workers, prizing efficiency and growth over actually taking care of their customers, and it shows how the world could be better than what it is right now. Check out my review here for more detail!

I Married My Female Friend by Shio Usui

A pair of best friends enter a platonic marriage they both agreed to with the promise they’ll divorce if one of them falls in love. But one woman has decidedly not platonic feelings for her wife, and is trying to repress them...

This is a sweet, laid-back story from the creator of Doughnuts Under the Crescent Moon. It has a very slice-of-life feel, with the characters feelings and conflicts developing subtlety. There's a focus on domestic life and the compromises and struggles one makes along the way. It's set in a world where gay marriage is legal in Japan, which is cool to see. If you liked Doughnuts, or are just looking for a chill yuri, I'd check this out!

Himawari House by Harmony Becker

 Himawari House follows the story of Nao, a half-Japanese woman who immigrated to America when she was young. She's now returning to Japan and feels a feels a deep sadness from how disconnected she's gotten from Japan's language and culture. While in Japan, she lives with two other girls, Hyejung and Tina, who are from South Korea and Singapore respectively. They form a friendship as all of them struggle to get used to Japan and deal with language barriers.

We get the interconnected stories of all three girls, and all of them are really interesting in their own way. This story does a lot of cool things with language, for example, showing words fading out when someone can't understand them, giving the reader the same experience the character is having trying to understand the language. It was a fascinating experience. The book does an effective job exploring Nao's feelings of alienation from both America and Japan, while having a lot of other interesting plotlines that made all the characters feel rounded and developed, such as struggles with independence and expectations from parents, trying to navigate romances, and dealing with homesickness. The art is beautiful as well. This is a well crafted and insightful story, that you might find especially great if you're interested in languages, cultures, stories about identity, and stories about Japan.

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl by Canno

Kiss and White Lily follows multiple lesbian relationships, with its main storyline being about two academic rivals, where one is determined to rank first in class, and the other is an effortless genius who becomes intrigued at the possibility of someone beating her.

The main couple have the kind of messy combative sexual tension I wish we’d see more often in yuri because it’s so good. I just love the drama and mixture of rage and attraction. The manga follows other couples too and while some stories are stronger than others, they're all usually entertaining in some way and its fun to watch the characters grow. The art's also very cute and the characters are vibrant. The ending is really strong too, putting a perfect cap on the story of the main couple especially.

However, big warning for some nonconsensual kisses in early volumes, with Kurosawa being especially pushy. There's also a storyline with...well it does leave you a little wiggle room on whether it's actually incest between a minor and an adult portrayed romantically??? but um. the implication is strong. Fortunately, that's mainly contained to the seventh volume--you can just skip any stories about the sisters.

When the manga is good, it's really good, and that makes up for some of the questionable elements for me, even if I wish they weren't there. You might agree or disagree!

Ongoing and ended titles:

Here's a look at some of the ongoing titles I've been following! You can look at this post for breakdowns of what they're all about and why I recommend them.

I Think My Son is Gay and I Want to Be a Wall both wrapped up with fairly open endings but remained good reads over all. I finally got around to finishing After Hours, a yuri about a girl who gets ditched by her friend at the club, only to meet a cool punk girl who introduces her to the world of DJ-ing. It's a very charming three volume tale, and I love the playful vibe and more natural-sounding dialogue, especially for the cool party-girl love interest.

There are several manga that just stay the course as far as being excellent go: Otherside Picnic (which is finally at some of the best parts of the light novels! It's getting real!), Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, Witch Hat Atelier, A Man and his Cat, How Do We Relationship, March Come in Like a Lion, The Summer Hikaru Died and She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat.

For Yuri is my Job, I have to warn for a intense predatory sexual assault scene between an adult antagonist and one of the underage main characters. It's even ambiguous whether the underage character in question got raped for a few pages (but she wasn't). It's completely framed as a an evil, bad act by the antagonist, but how it was handled was SO intense and kind of weird I'm not sure how I feel about it. Yona of the Dawn has gotten incredibly intense lately and continues extremely slowly but surely approaching the finale. Maybe we'll get it in four years or something.

And that it! I'm going to happily keep reading all these manga, as well as continue checking out some new ones, like Akane-banashi! I hope you enjoyed these recs.

[xamiipholia]

Since it’s been a year since Burning Shores came out, some thoughts on Seyka:

TL;DR: Great character, really happy with her as a love interest for Aloy. They do some really interesting things with her that I never really see addressed so I wanted to talk about them.

She is tangibly shown to be much more of a match for Aloy through gameplay. Compared to other npcs, she solves things faster, does more damage, is a much more formidable melee combatant, faster climber - she even has a fucking Valor Surge using her Focus that does pretty significant tear damage to large machines like Slaughterspines. Environmental storytelling- Seyka’s skiff has at least 2-3 Tiderippers’ worth of parts, meaning she’s been out on her own killing the things to build boat motors, and she has some ambient dialogue that strongly suggests she’s fought and killed Slaugterspines before. Is some of this npc tech advancements in Burning Shores? Maybe, but it feels intentional. 

Seyka has a natural probing curiosity about the old world that for the most part Aloy’s other companions didn’t have without some significant hand-holding from Aloy to get them started, and some of her close friend (but not base team) characters just don’t have at all. I don’t mean this as a moral judgement, everyone is different and has different strengths and priorities , but it’s absolutely critical that a partner for Aloy have that kind of curiosity - it’s such a big part of her character. While she lives in this new world, she’s never going to be entirely a part of it. Like she says, she finds belonging in individuals, and not really the tribes. I don’t really see Aloy settling down in Meridian or Mother’s Heart. She needs to have a life of exploration and discovery and Seyka seems cut from that cloth too, whether she was always that way or being marooned gave her a fresh perspective.

Seyka did risk death using the focus and decided to do it anyway- in Rheng’s notes he calls for capital punishment for her. The threat is never *too* present but honestly I think that’s a broader critique of the series and pretty consistent with the writing of conflicts in Horizon. I agree they could have played up the dramatic tension a bit, but this is a person who weighed the risk of a military execution by a totalitarian state and immediately decided it was worth it to save her sister and others. I think Aloy can intimately relate, given what she went through for Beta.

Even though it’s a DLC, she has a TON of screen time, probably comparable to Kotallo in HFW, and Horizon does SO much storytelling through gameplay and ambient dialogue. I think she’s given a LOT of narrative space to breathe. She’s also has her own musical cues and leitmotifs that do a ton of foreshadowing work through the DLC - in terms of musical cues and framing she’s very associated with the acoustic guitar, and the flute melody in ‘Her Sky, Her Sea’ has for Aloy and Seyka the same function that ‘It Can’t Last’ does for Ellie and Dina in TLOU2 - next time you play Burning Shores, listen for it. That and the guitar cues from ‘The Idea of Home’ and ‘For His Entertainment’ do a lot of emotional work. It’s great stuff.

Okay and lastly- YMMV on this one - I’ve def talked about it with friends before but I don’t think I’ve said it on Tumblr. I’m a firm believer that meta narratives and the way that stories are situated and created in our own world matter and that art deserves to be taken seriously and dissected. I love Horizon, but it, and Aloy as a protagonist, are absolutely drenched in white savior and colonial storytelling tropes. Every time I play Frozen Wilds, all I can think of is Jack Sparrow going “and then they made me their chief”. There’s a lot of iffy stuff in the games, as much as I absolutely love them. We’ll have to see how H3 goes, but Burning Shores is MUCH better about this and honestly Seyka is a huge part of it. The story centers itself on a queer woman of color who is pretty tangibly presented as Aloy’s equal with her own strengths and weaknesses throughout the story and takes the lead just as often if not more than Aloy does, which I find really refreshing. It doesn’t entirely fix Aloy’s white savior issues but I think it’s a really good move for the narrative that continues the themes found in HFW about community and connection.

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds (2017)

[pointyhatspointyears]

Then & Now: OCs & Gposing

Tagged by @sparrowsong-7 @l3ylines & @lynxden (thank you <3)

This'll be long and all over the place because I took a very different direction with gposing this years and it's been very uh educational. Learned to use posing tools less than a year ago and it's really given our characters more life and made a world of difference. Old embarrassing screenshots incoming.. (but the point here is to show ~Growth~ and I hope it motivates you to keep improving too. and push through all the bugs and that existential ennui hit when your game crashes before youve taken a single screenshot ;-;)

-

Random sentimental observations first, going through old folders..

My gurl aged. But the older she got the happier we both were. We discovered ✨boundaries✨ together.

Her fem elezen Era of 2013-2014 had a bit of both Gabriel & Theneras in her. Nerdy elf and grumpy elf were always there. Never realized. (also apparently we've always had that annoying light/shadow shimmer effect and it's not just a post DT lighting thing)

Apparently I've been wearing the same outfit since 2018. Sometimes you just put on a hat and your character says Yup. That's me. Forever. You'll just have to find a way to squeeze under. (sorry for +6 years of clipping, sweetie, but it was your gift and I'm never taking it off)

Gabriel and @pocketyoukai's Yuusei were besties since 2016 before they were RP characters. and he'll always be a loving doting dad retainer to her sister.

2020- Goose & Amalthea were girlfriends before we realized they were girlfriends. The ship sailed itself.

2018: discovered GIF making. Tried to put it to good use..

…but I just kept making shitposts. which didn't last long thankfully.

..And I'm glad it was short-lived, because when I focused more on telling stories through gposing, especially this past year, it's like my brain got rewired to view this world differently, through the eyes of a little sprout again. If I was going to use screenshots only and no words, I had to take shots/gifs of different things to set my scene and experiment with angles I wouldn't otherwise have considered (and fail 50% of the time and try something else. timing is so tricky😭)

..not to mention, when you're thirsty and need to work around censorship you also get creative with angles and visual subtext

It's 10x more fun and rewarding, albeit challenging especially if you don't want to use any crime tools. But doable. And just as fun and rewarding. And I want to do more of this (and fail and keep experimenting) next year and see you tell more of your stories your way too. and be inspired by and fall in love with your characters.

..I was very much 100% vanilla, as in not even shaders, until early 2020. And started using posing tools about a year ago. When you say "your characters have more character!" (you know who you are) I know exactly what you mean now and that makes me very emotional ;-; it really wasn't the case until less than a year ago. a lil criminal activity goes a long way.

Also vanilla kisses were so hard to gpose and turned out so funny. Note to self never to /puckerup for kisses. ever. But we did our best and learned a lot. A ton more kissing next year for sure.

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A little late so not sure who hasn't done this yet. Tagging my new favorite gpose storyteller @quiethealer , @squidzure (you've shown us Rhea's glow-up but where is Birdie's glow-up!), partner in storytelling & crime @pocketyoukai & @pumpkinmagekupo

and if you're seeing this and are happy with the growth you've done lately... doeet. Show me your embarrassing shots and the shots you're most proud of this year.

[onemustalwaysbecarefulofbooks]

Why I Dislike Rhysand, Part 2: #NotMyHighLord

Part 2 in the rant I have suppressed for the past several years. Rhysand Stans, be warned, this is not for you. Be prepared to see critiquing of SJM’s writing as well. Proceed at your own risk!! 

I feel like this section of the rant is going to be the one that most people have seen, heard, or expressed themselves already. I myself have seen many posts and takes on this before. There will probably be the least amount of original ideas in this post. Nonetheless, I can’t turn down an opportunity to finally say it in my own words. 

In Part 1 of my rant (and many other posts), I discussed how Sarah J Maas blatantly has an insane sort of obsession with Rhysand. It is impossible not to notice and acknowledge if you read the series from start to finish. All it takes is about 2 minutes listening to her speak about anything related to him for you to see it as well. He is unequivocally Her Favorite and she has demonstrated that by deeming him to be THE MOST of many different things, especially in comparison with others. I made a post last summer about how I really struggle to define what I think of Sarah as an author overall. She has given me some of my favorite fictional characters of all time, written scenes and exchanges between characters that I carry in my heart and soul and overall provided me with an endless amount of entertainment. On the other hand, a GLARING fault I find there to be with her is that she often writes in an extremely puzzling and contradictory way: beating us over the head with something about a character she presents as being true, verbally stated through the dialogue of characters or through the narrative of the story, while having these characters act and behave in a totally OPPOSITE way to the way they are being described by everyone. And this obviously contradictory behavior is never addressed by anyone in the story--or if it is, the ones calling attention to it are vilified and shown in a negative light, even though they are providing commentary on actions carried out canonly by these characters. 

In the simplest form, it’s like this: The author creates a character who others routinely say is the most kind, unselfish, loving, and generous person to grace the planet. An opportunity will NEVER be lost to state these things, through the narrative and through the dialogue of other characters. The fandom comes to accept these things as totally canon traits. You hear the author repeat these same beliefs. The character becomes a favorite of the fandom, who praises him/her for being so kind and selfless. You get excited to read about such a character and open the book yourself. . .only to find scene after scene where the character acts in a way that is cruel, selfish, and arrogant. All while everyone else continues to laud them for being so wonderful. There is a direct contradiction between what you’re seeing and what you’re being told. Tons and tons of readers seem to find nothing unusual about this. You’re left with the feeling that you’re in some kind of insane asylum where nothing makes sense but no one questions it. 

This is the feeling I get whenever I hear about what an amazing High Lord Rhysand is. 

As we’ve established, SJM is obsessed with Rhys. Therefore, she automatically makes Rhys the best at whatever he does. One day I’d love to do a drinking game where we take a shot every time someone reminds us that Rhys is The Most Powerful High Lord In Prythian’s History (he should really just get that phrase trademarked at this point). But in addition to that, we are also often reminded about what a good, just, fair, and progressive beloved ruler he is. 

Rhys as High King: he could think of no other male he’d trust more. No other male who would be a fairer ruler than Rhys. And with Feyre as High Queen. . .Prythian would be blessed to have such leaders. (Cassian, ACOSF, page 451) 

There are a lot of ACOTAR lines that provoke actual visceral anger and disgust in me. This is probably in my All Time Top 3.

Yeah, Rhysand is SUCH a great High Lord!! Didn’t you know. . . there are no slums in Velaris!!

There’s just, you know, female mutilation going on in the mountains!

Where to even BEGIN unloading? 

I guess I’ll begin here: One of the reasons I strongly dislike Rhysand as a character is because he’s a terrible High Lord.

(And what makes me infuriated and passionately dislike Rhysand is the fact that we are beaten over the head by what an exceptionally wonderful High Lord he is despite the glaring faults shown in the text). 

I really really fail to understand how anyone can believe any differently, when it is canonly stated that two thirds of Rhysand’s court are hellish and terrible places. Women are oppressed and mutilated, people who are brutal and cruel are basically given free reign to do as they please, there is not an ounce of respect given to their so-called true ruler. 

And Rhys, “The Most Powerful High Lord in Prythian’s History” has done. . .nothing. Nothing to truly change either of these places. 

Let’s start with Illyria. 

We all know how horrible life is for Illyrian females. They are forbidden to train, are viewed as vessels for breeding, and have their wings clipped at a young age so they can’t fly. Cassian’s mother is raped by an Illyrian warrior and then worked to death, when her body is dumped off a cliff. Azriel’s mother has her young son taken from her by the male who sired him and relies on his mercy as to when he can be released from his literal prison cell to see him. Rhys’s mother was starving herself so she wouldn't get her period, which is when her wings would have been clipped when she was saved from her fate by his father’s mating bond. Emerie and her mother are horrifically abused by her father, resulting in her mother’s death. Emerie tells Nesta and Gwyn that he would slam her head into walls, crunch her fingers in doors, and that he broke her fucking back. Like most females, her wings are clipped so she’s unable to fly. Upon her father’s death, she gains control of his store much to the displeasure of her male family members who frequently harass and threaten her about it. 

It’s plain to see that these are not randomly occurring isolated situations. Abuse can happen anywhere, with anyone, but there is CLEARLY a cultivated system of abuse and oppression among Illyrian females. Rhys tells us that he has banned the clipping of Illyrian female wings and is slowly working towards implementing changes that will allow women to have more freedom and choices. He tells Feyre that the Illyrians are “slow to change” and that it will take a long time to completely undo the way they’ve lived their lives for centuries. 

I’m sorry, I call BULLSHIT.

The attempts we’ve seen towards this so far in the story have been half-assed at best. Rhysand makes these laws but doesn’t put anything into place to actually enforce them. In ACOMAF, we get this from Devlon, the war lord who rules over the Windhaven camp:

“Another inspection? Your dog,” he jerked his chin toward Cassian, “was here just the other week. The girls are training.”

Rhysand’s strategy to prevent female wing clipping: Tell the violent sexist males with all the power in the camps that it’s banned. Send Cassian in once a week to check up on it. 

That’s it. 

Allow me to demonstrate how utterly ridiculous and contradictory this is.

In ACOMAF, we have the scene where the IC visits the Court of Nightmares (oh don’t worry, we’ll touch on this place in a bit). Right before their departure, Keir insults Feyre and calls her a whore. (Sidenote: no one should ever be called a whore and I am no way in the SLIGHTEST defending Keir but honestly, I don’t know what Rhys expected. It’s like when Rhys goes out of his way to act evil and do evil things and then everyone takes offense to people calling him evil. He dresses Feyre up in skimpy revealing clothing, has her sit on his lap on his throne, and proceeds to basically finger her in front of an entire throne room of people. It’s stated a million times that fae can sense and smell arousal, and both her and Rhys are both completely turned on by this. Feyre calls HERSELF his whore: “The High Lord’s whore. Who I’d become Under the Mountain--who the world expected me to be. The dangerous new pet that Mor’s father would now seek to feel out.” Like. . .buddy, you have her play and act the part of “The High Lord’s whore” and make a public scene in front of a man who has no respect for women, and then are enraged when he calls her a whore. What did you think he would do?? How did you think he would respond?? It’s almost like he was purposely trying to goad Kier into a reaction so he could punish him for it, honestly). 

ANYWAY. . .Keir calls Feyre a whore. And Rhys loses his shit:

Night exploded into the room.

People cried out. And when the darkness cleared, Keir was on his knees.

Rhys still lounged on the throne. His face a mask of frozen rage.

“Apologize”, Rhys said. My heart thundered at the pure command, the utter wrath.

Keir’s neck muscles strained, and sweat broke out on his lip.

“I said,” Rhys intoned with such a horrible calm, “apologize”.

The Steward groaned. And when another heartbeat paused--

Bone cracked. Keir screamed.

And I watched--I watched as his arm fractured into not tow, not three, but four different pieces, the skin going taut and loose in all the wrong spots--

Another crack. His elbow disintegrated. My stomach churned.

Keir began sobbing, the tears half from rage, judging by the hatred in his eyes as he looked at me, then Rhys. But his lip formed the words, I’m sorry.

The bones of his other arm splintered, and it was an effort not to cringe.

Rhys smiled as Keir screamed again and said to the room, “Should I kill him for it?”

No one answered.

Rhys chuckled. He said to his Steward, “When you wake up, you’re not to see a healer. If I hear that you do. . .” Another crack--Keir’s pinkie finger went saggy. The male shrieked. “If I hear that you do, I’ll carve you into pieces and bury them where no one can stand a chance of putting you together again.”

Keir’s eyes widened in true terror now. Then, as if an invisible hand had struck the consciousness from him, he collapsed to the floor.

Rhys said to no one in particular, “Dump him in his room”. 

Now. . .does this in ANY way, shape, or form seem like a man who has trouble getting people who are opposed to him to do what he wants them to do?????????

Rhys doesn’t even move off of his throne and he has Keir groveling on the floor with his arm shattered into pieces. It takes no effort whatsoever on his part. He is, after all, The Most Powerful High Lord in Prythian’s History, in case you’d forgotten. He later laments to Feyre about how ashamed he is for her to see “that side” of him. Feyre says:

“You’re my friend--and I understand that you’re High Lord. I understand that you will defend your true court, and punish threats against it.”

DO YOU SEE THE RIDICULOUSNESS AT PLAY HERE.

Sarah. You can not have it both ways. You can not have Rhys claim that he is “doing all he can” to defend the Illyrian females and protect them from the violent males in their lives and then simultaneously give us this scene. Keir hates Rhys’s guts and I’m sure would gladly not only refuse every order he gave him, but also run him through with a sword. Does it seem like any bit of this matters in this moment? 

One of the responses to this I stumbled across on Reddit literally floored me. Someone brought up this very argument, that Rhys had more power to control the situation in Illyria if he really wanted to, and I saw several people respond with: “Well, if he literally tried to control them, either through physical intimidation or mind control, then he’d be a tyrant, and that’s not who Rhys is. That’s not who he wants to be. Is that really what you’re suggesting?? You want him to be a tyrant who controls people???”

Um. . .YES???

Like. . .do these people hear what they’re saying??? Do they understand the concept of “context matters”????. Do I want Rhys to walk around flaunting his power over innocent law abiding citizens of the Night Court who are minding their own business and not hurting anybody? Obviously no. But do I want him to use his power in a meaningful way to punish people who are physically mutating and beating women to death??? Hello??? The lengths some people will go to to defend this man is incredible.

What is the POINT of Rhysand having all this power if he doesn’t use it to defend the good and the innocent??? What is the POINT of him being “tHE mOsT poWERful HiGH lORD in PryTHIAN’S hIsTorY” if he sits on his power while innocent people in his court are being abused under his watch???

Spoilers for Queen of Shadows: To me, this is like someone saying Lysandra shouldn’t slit Arobynn’s throat in his sleep because it would make her a murderer. Is that what I want??? For Lysandra to be a murderer?? Does the average person deserve to have their throat slit in their sleep?? No. But does Arobynn?? YES. 

These Illyrian males, if they are behaving in the ways we hear about in the story, DESERVE to have their asses handed to them by Rhysand! They DESERVE whatever punishment comes their way! Don’t want your arm shattered into a million pieces?? Don’t fucking mutilate and beat your wife!!! Easy as that!!

For real change to come about in the Illyrian camps, there needs to be a zero tolerance policy, with public punishment and humiliation, to send a message to everyone that this kind of thing will no longer be tolerated under any circumstances. There needs to be trustworthy people from Rhys’s court stationed there at all times to actually enforce this. I’m not saying that there wouldn't be things that slip past the enforcers, or that Rhys and the Inner Circle have the power to actually change the will and opinions of the males who do this kind of thing. They almost certainly won’t gain any respect from these males. But at the end of the day, it’s very simple. You don’t have to like it, or us, but you WILL stop partaking in this behavior. If you don’t, your consequence is going to be so severe you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it. 

One might ask, This seems pretty straightforward, why hasn’t Rhys attempted anything like this already?? If these males are willing to commit such evil deeds, why even waste his time at all with them? Who CARES if they go rogue and refuse to fight for him anymore? Could it possibly be because he needs the Illyrian soldiers as the main component of his armies? He doesn’t want to outwardly anger these war generals so strongly that they no longer cooperate or associate with him? 

So, what you’re saying is. . .Rhys turns a blind eye to female abuse in his court . .because he needs the might from these people in his armies.

If I’m wrong and you have a rebuttal, I’m all ears. But I’m not really sure what other conclusion I’m supposed to arrive at. Rhys CAN control, humiliate, and intimidate powerful people who go against him. But he’s choosing not to do it here. . .why? Because controlling and intimidating people is bad?? Even if it’s directed towards those who are killing and mutilating innocent people?? I don’t understand and I don’t think I ever will. 

Honestly, I thought the reason Illyria was being left as such a mess was deliberately done, because that was what Nesta’s story and arc was going to revolve heavily around. When they announced in that teaser way back in 2018 that she was going with Cassian to train in the Illyrian mountains, I was fully convinced that that was how she was going to “find herself”, by changing the lives of the Illyrian women and empowering them. I thought she would be a major catalyst in whatever happened there. And. . .that’s not what happened. Maybe that part of the story is still yet to be told, maybe she’s saving it for Azriel’s book or something. . .who knows. For the time being, I guess it’s just there for aesthetics, so the Bat Boys can have a tragic backstory. Still, even if it DOES change in later books, I would still be left wondering why Rhys, who Sarah claims is as different from the other High Lords as humans are to fae, didn’t do something about it sooner. 

On the subject of Illyrians, let’s talk about Feyre and her shape-shifted Illyrian wings for a minute. I’m sure everyone knows what I’m going to say, and you might argue that this is a critique of Feyre’s character and not Rhys’s. I both agree and disagree with that and to explain my reasoning, we’re going to have to back up a little bit. 

I made a post a couple years ago about how Feyre’s title as High Lady holds no real weight in the ACOTAR world and is nothing more than a fancy title and a sign of respect from her husband. Which is admirable in it’s own right, but it’s not truly what all the stans make it out to be. It’s stated as canon fact in the series that the High Lord is determined by whoever this mystical force (is it supposed to be The Mother? I don’t even know) in each court chooses. It’s not a monarchy. If I don’t like my High Lord, I can’t go out and kill him and declare myself the new High Lord. The magic of the court decides who it is. That’s how you end up having people like Tamlin, who have no desire to be High Lord become one. 

Anyway, all of this means that Feyre is NOT equal in power to Rhys, no matter what title he gives her. Let’s pretend their dumb-ass suicide pact doesn’t exist and Feyre can live on if he were to die. If Rhys were to die, Feyre wouldn't continue on as the magical High Lady ruler of the Night Court, while they all just did without a High Lord. The magic would select someone else to be the High Lord, with no regard for her. Feyre is only “High Lady” because Rhys says she is. She has no magical tie to the Night Court. She is a ruler in title only.

Don’t like it? Doesn’t sound very feminist?? Yeah, I’d agree. And for some insane reason, TAMLIN is blamed for the lack of High Ladies in Prythian rather than, uh. . .the woman who created the magic system that made it this way!!! 

(Seriously, the fact that Tamlin is shit on for telling Feyre there are no High Ladies is asinine. Tamlin is not giving personal commentary, he is stating fact. Remember how shocked everyone is when the IC shows up to the High Lord’s meeting in ACOWAR and Rhys announces that Feyre is High Lady? There AREN’T any High Ladies of Prythian! But in ACOMAF, SJM has Rhys tell Feyre that there absolutely are. This is what I mean when I say SJM makes Rhys say and do completely nonsensical things simply for the sake of inflating him as a character. Logic doesn’t have to enter the conversation, if it makes him look good, that’s all that matters. Even if it directly contradicts something SHE wrote!!! It’s mind blowing, honestly). 

Wow, I got REALLY side tracked!! Anyway, you get the point: Feyre’s role as High Lady is really just a fancy title with no true magical tie behind it. But despite this, she is still Rhys’s wife, and therefore a certain level of respect is expected to be given to her. 

And if I were an Illyrian female, I’d find it REAL hard to conjure up any of that respect. 

In my opinion, SJM is guilty of not truly writing these characters with the scope that their immortality entails. Feyre is physically mature and an adult by human standards. But what constitutes an “adult” by fae standards? The IC is collectively thousands of years old. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't have a hard time seeing someone in their early twenties as someone super young and naive. Especially if this someone wasn’t born a fae and was only transformed into one within the past couple years. 

Think about it. . .how many times have you had a conversation with someone who is older than you, maybe by generations, maybe by just several years and they’ve made comments about how young you are, or how “one day you’ll feel differently” or “one day you’ll understand”. They speak with a wisdom that they claim comes from simply existing longer and going through phases of life you haven’t reached yet. 

Now imagine somehow being over 500 years old and interacting with someone who is 21. They’d be an infant to you!! 

My point in saying this isn’t necessarily to say that I think Feysand’s relationship is creepy because he’s so much older than her. It’s really to say that, as I’ve stated, you can’t really hold Rhys and Feyre accountable in the same way as far as being high fae leaders goes. She hasn’t been alive even a fraction of the amount of time he has and she wasn’t born a fae. This isn’t her fault and I don’t think it’s something she should necessarily be disrespected for. She’s definitely smart and capable of making her own observations and decisions but at the end of the day, I don’t think you can really argue that it falls back on Rhys to help to guide and navigate her through this political life they lead. Rhys had been leading a country for 500 years by the time Feyre was shitting in diapers. Their experience is NOT the same. 

So at the end of the day, I think that Feyre’s use of Illyrian wings says as much about Rhys as it does about her. 

Imagine the pain and the anger you would feel as an Illyrian woman to see your so-called “High Lady” flaunting the wings you were born with and using them to escape to the freedom of the skies, something you had been denied of against your will. She knows nothing of the trials and tribulations you face each day, the abuse you endure. She was not born into your culture, nor does she take the time to try and help you, or get to know you, or learn about you. But she shifts the Illyrian wings onto her back and takes to the sky to do really important things like have sexual intercourse with the High Lord above the most populated city in the court, while you remain trapped on the ground. Imagine the anger you’d feel at your so-called High Lord, who allows his new wife to flutter around Velaris on perfect un-maimed wings, while claiming he wants to advocate for and protect you but does the bare minimum. 

To be clear: I most certainly hold Feyre accountable for this thoughtless decision. She is more than capable of deciding for herself what she feels is right and wrong. But as I’ve stated, I have a really hard time not also putting part of the blame on Rhys here. As I established, Feyre was not born into fae culture and she is a child compared to most of the fae living in the Night Court. Rhys, on the other hand, is over 500 years old, has Illyrian culture in his bloodline, and has been living among these people, leading them, for almost his entire life. I’d like to think he’d have the foresight to pull Feyre aside and explain to her that while she may not have initially considered it, it could be viewed as disrespectful and offensive for the Illyrian women to see her gallivanting around with Illyrian wings when most of theirs have been clipped. 

If I were an Illyrian women, I think it would be nearly impossible for me not to feel a strong bitterness towards Feyre and Rhysand. One could make the argument that Feyre is young and naive and doesn’t truly understand Illyrian culture. The same argument could NOT be said about Rhys. 

So thanks, High Lord, for flapping around shiny happy Velaris with your wife and her fake Illyrian wings, having kinky Illyrian wing sex, while doing the bare minimum to help and protect the women who were actually BORN with Illyrian wings. 

Alright, moving on from that mess, let’s touch on the Court of Nightmares. 

Now, a lot of what I have to say here is going to be the same as what I said about Illyria. But honestly, I feel like this place gets the even shorter end of the stick. 

One of the most truly bizarre things to me in the ACOTAR series is this idea that the people of Hewn City/the Court of Nightmares are somehow just all evil malicious wicked people who are happy to live sequestered in this underground kingdom. This is a super weird notion and I’m not sure at all how Sarah validates it. Especially when a character like Mor exists. You’re telling me she was the only “dreamer” born into the Court of Nightmares? No one else is suffering the way she was? I don’t get it. 

I’ve heard the argument made before that it’s quite possible that this kind of wickedness is specific only to Mor’s family. I’ve heard people say that we’ve never really seen anything in the Court of Nightmares other than the household she grew up in. So it’s actually quite plausible, people say, that the rest of the court is just a normal court, there’s no evidence to suggest that this kind of abuse is happening among the entire group of people. (They claim we are “reaching” for things to blame Rhys for). 

Yeah, NO. Sorry, that’s just a willfully stupid take. Here’s what we hear about this place from ACOMAF:

“The nobility of the Night Court fall into one of three categories: those who hated me enough that when Amarantha took over, they joined her court and later found themselves dead; those who hated me enough to try to overthrow me and faced the consequences; and those who hated me, but not enough to be stupid and have since tolerated a half-breed’s rule, especially when it so rarely interferes with their miserable lives.”

“Are they--are they the ones who live beneath the mountain?”

A nod. “In the Hewn City, yes. I gave it to them, for not being fools. They’re happy to stay there, rarely leaving, ruling themselves and being as wicked as they please, for all eternity.” 

That was the court he must have shown Amarantha when she first arrived--and its wickedness must have pleased her enough that she modeled her own after it. (pages 175-176)

Not enough to convince you? Here’s Mor explaining it in her own words:

“In the Court of Nightmares,” she went on, that voice falling soft and a bit cold once more, “females are. . .prized. Our virginity is guarded, then sold off to the highest bidder--whatever male will be of the most advantage to our families.”

‘I was born stronger than anyone in my family. Even the males. And I couldn’t hide it, because they could smell it--the same way you can smell a High Lord’s Heir before he comes to power. The power leaves a mark, an. . .echo. When I was twelve, before I bled, I  prayed it meant no male would take me as a wife, that I would escape what my elder cousins had endured: loveless, sometimes brutal, marriages.”

“But then I began bleeding a few days after I turned seventeen. And the moment my first blood came, my power awoke in full force, and even that gods-damned mountain trembled around us. But instead of being horrified, every single ruling family in the Hewn City saw me as a prize mare. Saw that power and wanted it bred into their bloodline, over and over again.”

Is everyone sufficiently convinced now? Okay great. 

And Rhys, by his own omission, allows them to “rule themselves” as a reward for not being foolish enough to challenge HIS authority.

But do they REALLY rule themselves?? Take a second and scroll back up to read the excerpt I already included where Keir calls Feyre a whore and Rhys absolutely wrecks him. Who does it seem like is really in charge here? 

I’m sorry, I get viscerally angry over this. In the Court of Nightmares scene, Keir is written 100% completely and totally as Rhysand’s groveling little bitch. He is literally nothing compared to Rhys. Rhys is total power and domination. Seriously:

He led me the few steps onto the dais--to the throne. He sat, smiling faintly at his monstrous court. He owned every inch of the throne. These people. (page 409)

Before Rhys, Keir was nothing more than a sullen child. Yet I knew Mor’s father was older. Far older. The Steward clung to power, it seemed. 

Rhys was power. (page 411) 

This entire scene honestly disgusts me and is so stupid. Rhys swaggers in and the entire throne room drops to one knee in submission. It’s told over and over that he exudes raw power that no one there can even hope to compete with. We’re told he “owns” the people, that Keir is nothing more than a child compared to him. He snaps his fingers and orders Keir to bring Feyre wine and he does it! Mor calls Rhys “Your High Lord” when speaking to Keir. Keir “grovels” when Rhys suggests that the wine he brought them is poisoned. And then the ordeal where he starts shattering bones in his arm one at a time, forbidding him from seeking any healing on pain of death, eventually knocking him out. 

SO IF THIS IS THE CASE. . .WHY. TOLERATE. KEIR. AT. ALL????????????????

If this is how easy it is to control this man, why on EARTH is he given one INCH of control in this place???? The whole scene loses its meaning entirely. . .why do they need to STEAL this orb from him?? In ACOWAR, why does Rhys need to BARGAIN with him about the use of his armies??? (at the expense of Mor’s feelings and security!!!!) Why are these people ALLOWED to treat females the way they treated Mor??!? 

There are two answers here and both of them are shitty:

Option 1) SJM just wants to write scenes to fulfill her dark!Rhys fetish. She needs the Court of Nightmares for her Rhys aesthetic. That’s where the true reason for scenes like this begin and end. She wants to write scenes where we all marvel and swoon at Rhys’s “raw power”. We don’t need logic, it has no place here. We’re supposed to ignore everything else and just swoon over Rhys, as usual. We’re not really supposed to think too hard about Keir because he’s literally just a prop that is there for the purpose of having Rhys flex his power. It’s the epitome of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. She wants all aspects of what makes Rhys sexy and doesn’t care how she makes it happen. She wants the hot, powerful, wicked High Lord we got to see in ACOTAR, but she also wants the saint she made him out to be in the rest of the series. So we’re just supposed to ignore the fact that in making it plainly obvious that he is able to control these people means that he should be able to apply this to making innocent people’s lives better down there but isn’t. 

Option 2) Rhys is deliberately allowing the wickedness and evil behavior to continue to put on a front for the rest of the world. He says that the Court of Nightmares is the version the outside world gets to see of the Night Court. It’s how Amarantha came to design her own court with it as an inspiration. It’s why everyone has such a negative view of the Night Court. Rhys is praised by the IC and pitied by much of the fandom for the “sacrifice” he makes in putting on this evil front and lets the world believe of him, in order to protect his “true” court--the Court of Dreams, the City of Starlight. I’m sorry, what sacrifice???? What is Rhys sacrificing of himself by doing this? He sits on his throne in total control and power while others grovel at his feet. I’m supposed to feel sorry for him that his reputation is being tarnished by the rest of the world seeing this while people like Mor are having nails driven into their bodies because they went against their family’s wishes regarding their virginity and marriage??? No, I’m sorry. The only people I feel sorry for are the people he is doing this on the backs of. Because the fact of the matter is: Rhys needs an evil court to put on this show for the rest of the world. And you can not have evil people without evil deeds. And you can not have evil deeds without victims. Evil people are evil because of their actions to other people. 

So Option 2 is. . .Rhys is allowing people to be abused in the Court of Nightmares and not putting a stop to it because he needs an “Evil Court” smokescreen to protect his REAL court. 

Again. . .do you see why I have such a hard time liking him???

Also, after ACOMAF the whole world knows about Velaris anyway. So there’s no need for a smokescreen evil court anymore. But has anything changed?? NOPE. 

Not only that. . .but if this is the face he puts on for the people of the Hewn City, this is who most of the people there probably believe him to truly be. If another female, or anyone else really, is in a horrible situation like Mor’s, what would make them think that Rhys is someone they could approach or reach out to for help? They're probably terrified of him! The whole situation is just so fucked up and awful. 

What’s also fucked up and awful is the fact that while all of this exists in both Illyria and the Hewn City, Rhys has a shelter/sanctuary in Velaris for abused women. Sorry, get your fake feminism out of here. You can’t stick that detail into the story and expect it to erase blatant abuse of women happening in two thirds of Rhysand’s court. . .under his watch!!!!! When he has the power to stop it!!! 

I’ve heard many people try and make the claim that Rhys is written to be contradictory in this way to prove that he is a “morally gray character” and to that, I call total bullshit. For one, allowing the blatant abuse of women when you have the power to stop it isn’t “morally gray” , its borderline irredeemable. And two, I’ve said it before. . .listen to SJM talk about Rhys. Read the ACOTAR series. This woman is so far up his butthole, I’m wondering if he somehow offered her her own riverfront mansion. She honestly believes him to be God’s gift to humanity!! 

So again, we’re back to my same age-old question: Is SJM a good writer or a bad writer?? I don’t really think it’s as simple as sticking one word on her writing to label it one way or the other. As I said, I’ve gotten immense enjoyment out of some of Sarah’s work and have been blown away by the places she takes her characters and stories. But in this case. . .it’s objectively awful. You’re giving me this character who you’re constantly telling me is good and righteous and incredible, beating me over the head with the level of worship he gets by the narrative, but then you’re making him do things that are like really blatantly terrible. And he faces NO accountability for it! Like???? You are the author??? You can control the things he does?? If you really believe that he’s that great, why don’t you just write him that way??? Why beat us over the head with how great he is, only to make him do awful things and then completely ignore them?? I’m telling you, it’s almost bizarre. . .like she’s seeing just how far she can go with what people will excuse. It's mind boggling!! 

(Honestly what’s even more mind boggling is the sheer number of people who lap this up and accept it completely. For the life of me, I can not understand how people are so blind to this stuff!) 

You can’t have it both ways, Sarah. You can’t tell us Rhys is the most powerful high lord ever born and expect me to believe that there’s nothing more he can do for Illyrian females and the “dreamers” of the Court of Nightmares. Especially when we’ve seen him demonstrate otherwise! Like I said earlier. . .if he’s not using his power for good, what is even the point of it?? 

So, to sum up: We are told over and over again how utterly powerful and incomparable Rhys is as well as what an honorable and giving High Lord he is. We see raw power displays from him where he swiftly and forcefully exerts brutal punishment on those who offend or go against him without so much as breaking a sweat. Despite this, he adopts a passive view on the Illyrians, banning wing clipping and the mistreatment of females but not doing anything to really enforce it, and continues to allow females in the Court of Nightmares to be abused and brutalized because he needs his evil Night Court aesthetic to protect the IC and Velaris. 

My Ick Factor is OFF THE CHARTS. 

And let me just end by saying….try and picture our Queen and Savior, Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius allowing the mutilation and abuse of women in Terrasen because “change is slow to happen”….and she needed some armies. AELIN WOULD NEVER.

It is a dream of mine to see her humble Rhys.

So, yeah. . .Rhys is a terrible High Lord. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Part 3 is probably my most highly anticipated rant---we’ll call it “Let’s Talk About Tamlin”. Coming soon! 

[grace-williams-xo]

I have but three things to say to the anti Penelope crowd. (Neither of which directly defend many of her worst offences as Whistledown).

ONE: Some people have pointed this out but I think it’s really important we remember that she is 17 s1, 18 s2 and 19 s3. She is high school age. Girl did not have a fully developed brain by any stretch. Is that an excuse and free license to be a dick? No, of course not, but I think y’all should remember some of the stupid and regrettable things you did in high school. Now again, think of the way society operated at the time and then imagine, just for a moment, what if teenage you had an anonymous and unfiltered Twitter/Insta account that was keenly followed by everyone in your town/city/community—most people you’ll interact with in your life. You would do DUMB SHIT. It’s not just ‘she’s young’ it’s ’she’s young with an unrestricted megaphone to everyone she’s ever met’.

TWO: The Whistledown moment that sticks with me, as perfectly capturing who Whistledown is and what she does, is not anything read by Julie Andrews but what Eloise talks about in the very first episode. She talks about how LW is discussing a countess who, despite looking like her season last year was good, lives in depressing solitude miles away from the earl she married. This stays with me for a few reasons. First, it shows that—right from the start—she has access and information and connections that we do not and will not understand. How does a 17 year old know the living situation of a married woman in the countryside? Maybe she overhead servants gossiping, we really have no idea. Second, it shows her equality in reporting. Like any news outlet, she reports what people want to read, but this passage sets up a precedent and example that she doesn’t just report on people from her block in Mayfair. I always watch shows and movies with the knowledge that what I’m seeing is never the characters entire day or life. Similarly, we never hear an entire LW issue—only what is plot relevant to the Bridgerton’s and that episode. I think this was shown well again in the opening of s3 when she comments on several of the other debutants.

THREE: On Marina. It is not Penelope’s fault that Marina attempted an abortion and nearly died. We are not responsible for other people’s reactions. At no point did she wish or encourage harm on Marina, she just wanted to stop a loveless marriage. I hear you saying it’s not her responsibility to stop it, but teenage girls have big emotions that they deal with badly—and many have an overwhelming and misguided sense of justice. Marina was in a fucking awful situation but Penelope did not cause it, and it was at several points exacerbated by Portia the actual adult. I’ve just started a rewatch of s1 and my anger at Portia (and Varley bc wtf there are some really unnecessary comments) about the way she treats Marina from the day she arrives is raging. Portia was bullying Marina at every opportunity because she was jealous Marina was more desirable than her own daughters.

I am very aware that intent does not diminish impact, you can hurt people accidentally, but I do firmly believe that Penelope a literal child and did not act out of malice.

All that being said, I don’t think the relaxed and forgiving reaction at the end of s3 from the queen and the ton was in character or proportionate at all but also we didn’t really get to see much of their reactions so will be interesting to see how s4 plays out.

TLDR; Penelope was a literal child in s1, and nothing can ever convince me that she didn’t write about lots of other people in the ton beside the Bridgerton’s. That’s just not relevant to a show called Bridgerton. Most of Marina’s problems are on Portia, not Penelope.

[breakandbuildfiction]

Another Rant About DPxDC Tropes

I didn’t write out all my thoughts on everything in the DPxDC fandom last time, so I decided to write this follow up with some more of them. This time I will primarily be focusing on how people go about using specific characters and their inter-character relationships.

Watering Down and Glorifying Female Characters:

I’ve noticed that this is a theme across a LOT of not only DPxDC fics and prompts, but across a lot of the fanworks for the individual franchises. People will ignore the flaws and shortcomings of female characters and overblow their positive traits purely to make them look more badass or scary compared to the male characters or to make other characters relient on them. Here are some examples:

Poison Ivy: People like to write Poison Ivy as some cool bad girl bent on environmentalism, that she’s pricily but full of ‘cool aunt’ energy. But they ignore the fact that her entire thing is drugging, mind controlling, sexually assulting, and murdering people in the name of environmental terrorism and in some itterations global genocide. She is not by any means someone a hero should be chill with outside of absolutly desperate situations, and even then she should be the second choice after Swamp Thing.

Harley Quinn: She is literally a psycopath suffering from an obsessive love disorder– that she has done a great deal to overcome– who has no problems maiming, crippling, and killing anyone who gets between her and whatever it is she wants at the moment. At her most ‘restrained’ she is working with Batman to hunt down the Joker– with her intent being to kill him– or is on the Suicide Squad taking some weird comfort in being around equally fucked up people and being assured in the knowledge that her murderous tendencies are being used for some level of ‘good’. She was also a very shitty psyciatrist who in many itterations slept her way into passing college and didn’t even last a full year as a lisenced practitioner before joining the Joker. Yes she is trying to be a better person, but she is NOT by any means a good person.

Black Canary: I think the thing I dislike most about how people treat Black Canary is that they hyperfixate on the pseudo-mom characteristics and emergency therapist role she was given in the Young Justice cartoon. I’ll admit that I haven’t read a ton of her comics, but I HAVE read some and I have watched the Justice League Unlimited cartoon as well. With that in mind I feel like people are tragically focusing on the wrong parts of her personality. She is shown to be stand offish, headstrong, confrontational, brash, and manipulative. She isn’t hero-mom coded, she is a femm fatal back street brawler who is fully open to playing off her allies ego to make them do what she wants if she can and leveraging her power and skill at violence to get what she wants. Yes she is a hero and yes she has a softer side, but god damn!

Wonder Woman: This actually goes for all Amazons of Themyscira but here it goes. Wonder Woman grew up in an extremely isolationist, xenophobic, and misandrist (Even if you ignore the run that said the island’s inhabitants are all literal murdering rapists who drown babies. I don’t think that run has been canon for a while anyways.) island nation that was literally blessed by the gods to never have to deal with things like political upheavals, drought, famine, foreign relations, or any other complexaties that real countries have to deal with. Now, to her credit, Wonder Woman isn’t NEARLY as bad as some of her countrywomen, but that doesn’t mean her upbrining hasn’t influenced her worldview and she certainly has never condemned the policies of her nation. She doesn’t treat men as scum outright by any means, but she DOES ignore the shortcomings of women and sees most if not all the troubles of the world as being the fault of the male sex. Just because the woman is empathic does not mean she isn’t a bitch. Also, base Wonder Woman would and has been dogged by base Superman many times. She is maybe the fourth or fifth most powerful JL member goes by base state abilities behind Superman, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, and maybe the Flash. That said, there are forms of Wonder Woman who would make all other base state JL members look like preschoolers pretending to be tough.

Jazz Fenton: Jazz is not a good psychologist or therapist in her teenage years. If you want to age her into her mid-twenties or later after she goes through a proper program, then by all means make her better at helping people with mental and emotional issues. But as a teen she is god aweful at those things. There is a grand total of ONE instance where she showcases actual skill at being able to pin down and identify someone’s issues and that was with Freakshow, whom in that very conversation she admits to having grown up with many of the same feelings he did regarding envy of ghosts and the attention people in her life give them. She never figured out Danny was a hero due to her skill at psychology or determining the cause of his stress, she stumbled onto him transforming after days or even weeks of forcing herself into his business and him asking and then demanding her to leave him alone. Not only this but, and I feel like this should be a very big thing with how much people love to shoehorn in trans-Danny stuff, she routinely calls people by the wrong name even when corrected by others and is told to her face by the people she is misnaming that she is wrong. Some of her names are even dehumanizing like calling Skulker ‘Ghost X’ like he’s nothing but a test subject!

Also, while I’m pretty sure she would qualify as a skilled CQC fighter, I don’t think she ever improved her aim. So while having her judo throw someone or deck them in the schnoz is good, she would probably miss if she had to shoot anyone with a Fenton Blaster at anything further than point blank range. And no, the Peeler doesn’t count, that shit was a full on mechsuit and shots that had a margin of error bigger than a car.

Valerie Grey: This one is a big one for me and probably the big reason I wanted to write this entire section so here it goes:

Valerie Grey ain’t SHIT as a hero.

Now, as a character, she is perfectly fine. She has a full arc with reasonable and understandable reactions to various events that shape her growth as a character. Granted these events make her into a shoot-first, speciesist, possibly slur-throwing, self-righteous, asshole for a while (you know how the ACAB movement sees cops? That was Valerie for a long time, just without government backing and with an oligarch sponsor instead.) but she did eventually get better after the whole thing with Dani and finding out that Vlad is Plasmious. So again, as a character she is good.

As a HERO however, she is really freaking bad. We never really see her do anything major after her revelation with Dani and before that she never actually wins any fights. Danny is always so far out of her league in fights that the only reason she isn’t dead is because he knows who she is under the mask and holds back because he doesn’t want to hurt her. He was capable of blowing up her original suit in a single blast for crying out loud! And even in her second suit he barely had any trouble keeping pace with her WHEN HE WAS ACTIVLY TRYING NOT TO HURT HER! We also never see her defeat any named ghost, I barely remember her even fighting anyone other than Danny, and she is overall just fodder as far as combat goes.

She isn’t scary, she isn’t intimidating, she isn’t the type of girl who could ‘kick Danny’s ass’, she is at best a pissed off woman with a lot of guns and fancy gadgets who thinks she's hot shit despite never winning a significant fight. 

Heroes are friends with all the Rogues… Except Joker:

Just… why? Why do people want the heroes to be friends with mass-murdering nutjobs? Be it Danny with Ivy who is basically Undergrowth with tits and a pulse, or Tucker with Technus, or Tim Drake with Harley Quinn it doesn’t make any sense! This isn’t a case of ‘Oh, when they aren’t on the job they are cool people’ like with Flash’s rogues. Nor do they have admirable moral codes or anything else. That kind of stuff is exclusive to Flash’s gallery. Why does everyone write hero or retired Danny as being friendly with villains and thinking they are cool people?! Killer Crock has a tragic backstory but he EATS PEOPLE. Scarecrow makes stuff you could call ghost drugs but he conducts routine chemical weapon attacks on civilian populations! Deathstroke is a pedo or groomer in at least two major timelines! Ra’s runs a cult that kills its OWN MEMBERS whenever they fail near-impossible tasks! Just because they aren’t as full on 24/7 creepy fucker murderers doesn’t mean they are any better than him!

On that note, why do people insist on having Sam idolize Poison Ivy or Jazz admire Harley Quinn? I don’t have a high opinion of Sam and how she goes about her activism and forcing her lifestyle and beliefs on others, but she doesn’t go around drugging people, stealing their money, forcing them to ruin their families, and then killing them! And I like to think that even if Jazz isn’t a good psychologist she would have better taste than to idolize someone who broke a very basic tenant of mental health professionals by getting too attached to her patient and went on to COMMIT MASS MURDER and help TORTURE PEOPLE in an effort of turning on her psychotic boyfriend! 

Hating Superman on Kon-El’s behalf:

I get that this trope stems from season 1 of Young Justice, which I will freely admit is an amazing season of a very good show, but I think people forget a few things: 1, Superman’s hatred/distrust of Conner manifests in avoiding him at all costs, not being rude or badmouthing him or anything of the sort, he just doesn’t want to deal with him and what Conner represents. 2, Superman grows out of his hatred/distrust of Conner in like, a year. It was an initial kneejerk reaction paired with extreme awkwardness and distress, but his stance on his clone-son with Lex does get better. And 3, the one who actually hates clones is Supergirl, Kara Zor-El. She straight up gave Conner his Kryptonian name and told him TO HIS FACE that it meant ‘Abomination in the House of El’. She basically named him a slur and said that was all he was. And as far as I am aware, she never apologizes for this nor does their relationship ever really improve beyond ‘we will work together if we absolutely have to’.

Dani and Dan call Danny ‘mom’ ((CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of SA!!!)):

Okay this one is a bit weird for this rant because I will freely admit that depending on if certain other tropes are used concurrently to this one, it makes sense, but by default I say it doesn’t. Ignoring how Danny is by default and in most cases male, his contribution to the ‘conception’ and gestation of Dani or Dan’s clone body (if you ignore A Glitch In Time and have Dan in his original body, Danny still didn’t do any gestation or anything, but things are admittingly different) only went so far as providing some DNA. Vlad did the whole cultivation thing and making sure the decanting happened safely and all that good, very important, stuff. So wouldn’t Danny be the dad in this scenario? Since the equivalent to a regular birth here would be Danny hitting and quitting with Vlad (que barfing reflex at the thought of Danny/Vlad stuff) purposely getting a baby made without Danny’s knowledge for his own benefit and desire for a child? Even if you go by the more accurate real life correlation to SA, Danny still played a male role here because he didn’t carry/grow the baby/clone.

The only reasons I can see for Danny to be labled the ‘mom’ in this situation are; Danny is more nurturing than Vlad– which by a sexist standard means he’s the maternal one–, Danny was the victim in the unauthorized baby making and is thus in the female role– again, a sexist standard–, or because people think ‘single parent’ and immediately assume ‘single mother’. (To be clear, I know that statistically women suffer all forms of SA far more often than men, which is beyond terrible, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen the other way around as well.)

Now, to be fair, if you are also doing trans-man Danny, none of this holds weight and them calling Danny ‘mom’ could stem from that, or because saying Vlad had a kid with a teenaged trans-man makes Vlad look SO much worse and by calling Danny ‘mom’ they are trying to imply that kind of narrative. Which is not a terrible way of writing a story where Danny, Dani, and Dan all hate Vlad, go for the throat and make him look as bad as possible if that’s your goal. I’m just saying that in the default state of Danny being male and Vlad being the one who looked over the cloning pods, Danny is the dad and Vlad is the mom.

[real-total-drama-takes]

https://www.tumblr.com/real-total-drama-takes/776688454248611840/i-gotta-be-honest-bowraj-isnt-lasting-another

Im not even that big of a shipper of Bowraj (I do ship them I just like a lot of other reboot ships more) but yeah gonna jump to defend them

I do think that yes, the fact that they’re the series’s first canon gay couple does factor into their popularity a little bit but at the same time there’s a ton to love about the ship. For one, the buildup. You claim that there’s not much emotion but did you happen to forget season 1? It’s established pretty early on that Bowie finds the hockey bros attractive (episode 1 where Wayne says to Raj there’s a lot of hot people on the FoD and Bowie jokes about him being the subject of the convo) which is followed by Bowie slowly getting closer and closer to him. There’s the scene at the beginning of episode 3 where Bowie and Raj are chatting and Raj accidentally gets food on Bowie’s shirt and Bowie makes it really apparent that he finds Raj’s actions cute. Then there’s episode 4 with Bowie pushing Raj out of the way of an oncoming boulder and them both clearly showing feelings without wanting to admit them just yet, and the short convo they have at the end of episode 5 about Raj being relieved that Bowie is alright after that extremely dangerous challenge. It’s capped off in episode 6 with Bowie going out of his way to save Raj from drowning when they were in a challenge where every second counts and normally for Bowie he would not want a distraction like that preventing his team from getting the win. The kiss they share is really sweet and the convo they have about it in the following episode is not only a good message about consent (“I should have asked before kissing you”) but also about communication. Bowie recognizes that he wants to win but also cares about Raj’s feelings & doesn’t want to have to break his heart over the money so he’s straightforward about how he really wants the relationship to work but also understands the nature of the game and Raj is understanding. As someone who’s currently in a relationship, imo being straightforward and communicative about concerns you have is *key* to ensuring your relationship will last, and it’s really nice to see that displayed in Total Drama of all things.

Season 2 is a bit more rocky (gonna admit this now, I was waayyy tooharsh on s2 when it first came out) however it takes place roughly a year-ish after the end of season 1 and Bowie and Raj are still going super strong, showing that the relationship has had no issue lasting a year already. S2 is where Bowraj has its first major conflict which imo def could have been handled a lot better but still, it showed that this relationship can overcome obstacles. Yes Bowie lying to Raj about continuing to cheat in challenges with Mkulia wasn’t the best thing but he makes up for it by teaming up with the hockey bros to teach Julia, MK and Ripper a lesson despite his disagreements about the morality of cheating in challenges. They’re completely fine and happy to partner with eachother for the canoe challenge by the next episode and when they have to face off against eachother Raj is actually happy that Bowie doesn’t hold back. Bowie is eliminated this episode and Raj is genuinely upset over it but Bowie encourages him to keep fighting strong. Yes Bowie has shown moments of disgust with Raj before but like (yes this is rich coming from a coderra shipper) thinking that your partner is a perfect human completely incapable of having flaws or screwing up sometimes isn’t healthy. Raj doesn’t go after Julia yes but the teams have merged by the time that Bowie is gone so getting a powerhouse like her out is much easier said than done when you’ve gotta convince all the remaining contestants that she needs to go, plus Raj isn’t really the smartest or most strategic character anyways (not saying that that’s a bad thing, moreso that petty targeting just really isn’t in character for him)

Tbh, I feel like a lot of the criticism of Bowraj is unfair. Is it the most well written, healthiest ship in the show with the greatest buildup ever? No. Does that make it unworthy of having the fanbase and love that it gets? Also no. I hate to get political on this blog but we’re living in an era of late stage capitalism where the ultra wealthy are so desperate to put the blame for the world’s problems on anyone but them they’ve successfully convinced millions of people that even *mentioning* lgbt topics around children is “grooming” and we’ve already seen big studios who care about viewership counts above all else (because profit) order production teams to tone down or straight up remove lgbt themes in kids movies or TV shows altogether. The fact that we not only got a canon queer relationship but one between two POC where they kiss on screen more than once and have a storyline tied to it about the importance of allyship is *incredible.* I do agree it sucks that Chemma and Axeripper could makeout nonstop on screen without issue while Bowraj only got a few kisses, but again just the fact that we got any sort of queer rep at all is amazing and needed in this day and age.

Not to mention, fuck the criticism that it’s bland and cliché. Yeah there’s clichés in the writing and it might not be the most exciting storyline ever but I’ll take watching Bowie and Raj’s arc 100 times over having to sit through Gwent or Gidgette’s arcs again just once. This isn’t just me going “reboot good gen 1 bad,” legitimately several straight ships in gens 1-3 + RR have 10x the cliché of Bowraj and have much, much slower and less interesting buildup. It lowkey feels kind of homophobic that I see this criticism get slapped onto Bowraj constantly but not nearly as much onto straight ships from previous TD seasons. There are couples that I think have funnier or more interesting stories than Bowraj (hence why I like axeripper more) but that doesn’t mean that Bowraj is nothing but bland slop.

-🐈

[issues-oclock]

Casino cups headcanons and general cuphead headcanons

Casino Cups takes place in 1933, the soul collecting crap took place 3 years earlier in 1930 when the cup bros were 15.

Mugman owns a few more guns than just the shotgun shown in his closet. 

Mugman occasionally goes out as Tallulah and has a group of friends who also enjoy cross dressing. 

Mugman has definitely dated and had crushes on quite a few people even if it was just for a short while. How do you think he realized he was bi?

Cuphead is the better at cooking out of the two brothers. Mugman could get to his brother's level if not better but he never really practices.

Cuphead isn’t very picky with food at all and will eat almost anything. Mugman is picky but will often just force the food down anyways.

Cuphead has great potential with instruments he’s just never tried because he thinks it would be too hard.

Paimon and Cuphead are great friends and bond over how they don’t like people bugging them about relationships. (I headcanon that Paimon is aro ace). Paimon also knows that Cuphead would be really good at playing instruments and keeps offering to teach him. Though Cuphead doesn’t really wanna learn. Though still Paimon nags him about it and knows that he’d be great at it. Which is a surprise to most others since Paimon is very picky about who she picks for her band (I headcanon she has a band who sometimes plays at the Casino or just in hell for money and for fun).

Her plan is to get Cuphead good at at least one or two instruments before she starts his other plan to nag the Devil about letting Cuphead work for her.

His camel isn’t a huge fan of Cuphead though (or anyone really).

The Inkwell Isles are in the Mediterranean Sea just somewhat west of Greece and used to be considered a part of it. 

The Inkwell Isles turned out a lot like America due to the Isles being seen as a good place for immigrants to start anew.

Every once in a while religious groups try to come to the Isles to convert the Isles and spread beliefs. They usually die to gangs or demons pretty fast.

Prohibition still happened on the Isles (this is confirmed by an image about the Tipsy Troops childhood) but it ended after only a few years and didn’t last till 1933 like how it did for America.

Speaking of the Tipsy Troop they had a horrible childhood. Their parents were poor and their mother nearly died having them (they’re triplets). The Troop nearly died a ton of times as children and were put into harsh work environments to make ends meet as children. The reason they keep to the sidelines of the casino is to avoid the risks of getting too involved with casino business despite having worked at the casino for a long while. Their parents died when the troop were around 13. 

Ginettes olive just kind of appeared there one day and she never questioned it. Sometimes she nibbles on between shifts.

Hocus Pocus only became an anthropomorphic rabbit due to an accident with a circus magician he used to work with. Said magician was also the one to teach Hocus most of his tricks and is Hocus’s main inspiration. That magician was like a father to Hocus and was the one to give Hocus the opening to escape the traveling freakshow. Hocus still misses that magician but madness is making him forget more.

Pip and Dot were sold to the freakshow by their parents who never wanted kids, Hocus was just a random talking rabbit the freakshow owners picked up off the street.

The 4th isle still exists but not many people live there and it's considered dangerous due to constant feuding between the Moonshine mob and other smaller gangs. Along with the fact that the island is mostly used for military training (aka The Howling Aces). The 4th isle also has a huge smuggling business with the Moonshine Mob making alcohol to ship to the other isles and other countries. 

Chef Saltbaker also made a deal with the Devil to be the best baker in the land. Then proceeded to steal the contract and burn it with some hell fire he got his hands on. His original wish was to have control of the astral plane but that type of thing is out of the Devil's power and even if he did have that power he would not give it to Chef Saltbaker. The Devil and Chef Saltbaker have a massive hatred of each other and Saltbaker stays on the 4th Isle to be away from the Devil.

Chef Saltbaker and Porkrind were friends a long time ago. Though once Saltbaker started studying powerful magic for nefarious reasons Porkrind split away from him and dislikes him. Though he still hopes that one day Saltbaker will give up on the astral plane crap and go back to the good person he used to be.

Esther Winchester and the Salon are located in a small town on Isle 4 in the desert. The only reason the Moonshine Mob haven’t been disbanded yet is because Esther only works in that area. She’s a very competent sheriff and great at cracking down on criminals.

On the other hand though the Ant cops are the opposite. They actually have deals with the Moonshine Mob and are pretty corrupt and incompetent. Another reason to not go to Isle 4. 

A lot of the members of Mortemer Freeze’s cult were created by Mortemer himself though he denies it. The more members the more imposing the cult seems. The ant cops are aware of how bad the cult is yet refuse to do anything about it due to being afraid.

The librarian owl hates his job

The reason that all the buildings look so cramped together on the isles is because of the high tides. Cala Maria and the large fish she has make huge waves when they swim around the Isles. Also the closer the Earth is to the moon and the fuller the moon the more the tides rise. When Hildaberg transforms into her moon form the tides get very messed up due to how close she is to the Earth even if she is in crescent shape. Go to the beach at your own risk. BrinyBeard is grateful to be alive.

Dr. Khal lives in the junkyard in the house and lab he made there. He lost his previous job due to concerns of him being insane and using lab materials for personal projects. Cuphead was right about Khal planning to use Mugman for some sort of experiment but Khal was waiting for the right moment. He waited too long though.

Pachinko is quiet not only because it's just part of his personality but he’s from Japan and isn’t good with the isles languages. Also he literally skates around the casino on those wheels he’s got. He’s fast and efficient and often zooms past fast enough that no one really gets to see him or talk to him. He also has a teensy crush on Mugman, just hasn’t realized it yet. 

Pirouletta is fully aware of Pachinko’s crush and actually introduced Pachinko to Mugman because if she didn’t Pachinko would be too shy to talk to him.

Baroness Von Bon Bons candy realm from the show is still here but the rules only apply to those who go in deep enough. That’s why the cup bros were able to eat some of the sweets from there without issue.

I have more but I'll type them out later

[leveloneandup]

Tobin Heath is stepping into the spotlight at long last to redefine a sports media landscape where 'I never felt like I fit in'

In her 15 years as one of the most electric stars on the US Women's National Team, Tobin Heath always seemed content to fly under the radar.

The crafty winger was never one to volunteer to speak during press conferences or regularly post a ton on social media, and insights into her personal life were few and far between. Beyond her exceptionally expressive style of play on the pitch, Heath shared very little of herself with the public.

That was by design.

"I'm a stubborn and passionate person, and I wanted to be known as a footballer full stop," Heath told Insider. "I believed that that's where I wouldn't be distorted and that's where I could get the most amount of respect."

"I did a lot of talking with my football for a long, long time," she added. "I'm really proud of that."

But now, in the twilight of her professional soccer career, she's ready to speak up outside of the white lines. Heath wants to help "reimagine the way women are seen and experienced in sports," making a "very narrow and very specific" sports media landscape where she "never felt like I fit in" more accessible to women who love sports.

So she and fellow USWNT veteran Christen Press launched "The RE—CAP Show," an extension of their RE—INC lifestyle brand, to offer their own authentic analysis of the 2023 World Cup and the world of women's sports at large.

~~~

[S]he believes "the Tobin who first started on the US Women's National Team would be proud" of her efforts "to speak about other things than just football and to be shown in a different way."

[shinycozytwistedglam]

Onyx Storm RECAP ch43

Bex decided to channel her inner Aaron Sorkin here so we get a chapter that's just...people talking. (Free fanfic idea: Xaden & Ridoc doing a White House walk & talk, with dick jokes, you're welcome.)

This chapter almost certainly contains a ton of FORESHADOWING that I may or may not have captured for your attention.

WTF is happening in ch43?

Quest squad regroups after the encounter with the irids.

Violet says there's no point in visiting the last inhabited isle, Loysam (dedicated to Loial, the goddess of love), because that island doesn't have an army. It's time to go back to Basgiath and see what's happened while they've been gone.

Will skipping the last isle be important? Is the secret to saving Xaden actually on Loysam? Or was this isle quest just getting too long? Guess we'll find out eventually.

Violet & Ridoc walk into the woods so she can come clean about the fact that Xaden has been venin for months. Ridoc says all the things a reasonable person who isn't in love with Xaden would say about the situation. (He's bonded to a powerful dragon, he's the Duke of Tyrrendor, AND he's a dark wielder. Great.) This is a fantastic moment for Ridoc and also a moment that makes me think he's doomed (sorry).

Violet admits she's selfish when it comes to Xaden, and maybe a little self-destructive these days. She says there's no rider alive who could stop Xaden even now, and admits that she won't/can't hurt him. (I feel confident that this will be put to the test eventually and it fills me with DREAD.)

Ridoc pushes Violet to define "the line" where he's not Xaden anymore, and Violet draws it at all the bad stuff we hope Xaden never does—kill civilians, hurt a dragon, hurt Violet. Ridoc seems satisfied, and gives her another round of "the four of us (Vi, Rhi, Ridoc, Sawyer) are stronger together."

Xaden is waiting for them and acquiesces to Ridoc's demand that the Scooby Gang be brought into the Xaden conspiracy to help protect Violet. He says that if it's between him and Violet, he chooses Violet every time, and to "kill the other guy I become." 😬

Ridoc leaves and Xaden tells Violet that he feels responsible for fucking up the conversation with the irids, that maybe if he hadn't been there things would've turned out better. (I'm never going to forgive the irids for calling Andarna the thing that they abhor so...fuck them.) Xaden is clearly full of guilt and self-loathing, and says he's the worst possible thing for the mission, for Tyrrendor, and for Violet.

--

Quest squad heads home but everyone's in a shit mood, especially Andarna.

Warm welcome on the flight field from Rhi & Sawyer, but of course General Aetos has to appear and ruin the moment. He hands Violet a letter from Theophanie, which is full of her usual creepy stalker vibes.

Chapter ends on a downer: while they were gone, the capital city of Poromiel, Suniva, fell to the dark wielders.

Queen Maraya is dead. That means Tecarus is king...for however long it lasts.

So, what did we learn on this adventure to the isles?

Violet stepped up as a leader on this journey, making decisions and setting priorities.

Xaden had a lot of good Wife Guy moments, including 2 that almost seemed like...a marriage proposal.

Mission to get allies = success. 40,000 troops from Zehyllna.

Mission to recruit the irids = failure.

I'd like to remind everyone, once again, that dragons aren't necessarily good or trustworthy, even the special ones.

Pay attention to the fact that we were shown, repeatedly, that less color=less magic, and more color=more magic

Unnbriel wants dragons. It's almost certain that they were the isle who helped the Krovlish rebels 200 years ago, then abandoned them when they didn't produce the promised dragons.

We got some good clues about Violet and the meaning of her silver hair. More on that soon!

Xaden's mom isn't a venin, but she sucks in an entirely different—and very human—way.

Asher Sorrengail knew a fuck ton about the isles, enough to write 4 (!!) books, one each for Deverelli, Unnbriel, Zehyllna, and (we assume) Loysam. How did he manage it??? When did he find the time?

[exo-raskreia]

hi i'm the anon who asked that question about jjk wasted potential and i totally!! agree with your points. I am so disappointed about the wasted potenial of jjk hidden lore. If only I came up with this idea of jjk and write a roller coaster ride of a story. i strongly believe about utahime being the main adult girl of the series. i was thinking how she could have been a great role model to maki and even gojo students while he was sealed. Utahime where were you in the culling game i need dm you

Yes!! I totally agree that Utahime could've also been a great role model/mentor to Gojo's students in general while he was sealed. She could've been shown being worried for them & checked on them from time to time, maybe teaching a class or two, giving an encouraging speech & stuff. Oh, God, the potential 😫...!!

(I also like the HC that maybe Gojo had asked her to help him with the Fushiguro siblings at times. And what about Utahime inspiring Gojo to become a teacher? Those could be nice reveals...😔)

I've actually had all these as ideas for a fic, if I ever get around to it...

Despite her lack of screentime, Utahime is surprisingly the 3rd most popular female character in the Japanese JJK fandom behind Nobara & Maki, as according to last year's 3rd character popularity poll, she ranked 14 (formerly at 15, so she went up a rank from the previous poll even though she had been absent from the main story for several chapters; the 3rd poll was conducted right before her reappearance with Gojo 👀). Her power 💅...

(Wonder where she'll rank this time in the upcoming 4th poll, esp now that we've got her CT reveal 🤔)

A lot of her fanarts on Twitter, for example, garner tons of likes & some dudes see her as waifu material, lol. Just imagine if she had more screen/panel time... If Gege cared to flesh her out more, give us her background... How much more popular would she be? 😩

Not to mention, GjHm is the most popular JJK straight ship in Japan as well, according to Pixiv. If GjHm had more interactions... It'd be such a powerful ship, like I know, I know more people would be onboard with it if they just had more interactions, more Utahime screentime... 😫. I find it funny when I sometimes see non-shippers, esp dudes, consider Utahime as Gojo's love interest or make jokes of something going on between them (triggering antis in the process). It's like they see her as the most likely to end up with him 🤣👀.

Some people have come out of the woodworks to say they like the ship but were afraid to say it (in their circles, at least) for fear they'll be attacked by antis. How many more are secret GjHm fans? When will people learn to just ship & let ship? 😮‍💨

And yes, where the heck was Utahime during the Culling Games? What was she doing? Her CT would've been useful. And wasn't one of the rules that any sorcerer who didn't enter the games would be stripped from their CT? How did she manage to not to be affected? Was she under protection? It hasn't seemed to have affected anyone so far, though? Did Gege forget?

But anyway, yeah, if only Gege had cared enough to flesh out his characters more... 😮‍💨

[daisyswift3]

Meet Me at Midnight—The Complete Guidebook

So I just had several epiphanies at once…..I think Taylor might’ve given us a guidebook for her entire plan this yr (and possible coming out?) several months in advance w the release of Midnights (very mastermind of her). Looking at the vinyls and bejeweled mv again this becomes evident. I’ll explain (Also please see this excellent analysis as it provides lots of context and evidence that aligns w this theory).

The moonstone vinyl is obviously related to bejeweled and is a light blue representing the 1989 era. Others have pointed out the numerous 1989 references in the bejeweled mv: rising to the 5th floor, 2013 vsfs aesthetic, lots of light blue, short hair, NYC vibes, her ghosting the prince and living her best single life, etc.

Moonstone symbolizes light and hope and new beginnings. These things have been shown symbolically in the recent pap walks. Light and hope: the sunshine rings. New beginnings: 🦋 on the jeans and no beard. There’s also the connection to the feminine: the girl squad. Cyclical change: her returning to the 1989 era w her squad boyfriend-free; the tides, moon, and sun also undergo cyclical change (blood moon lunar eclipse?).

A clock can also be thought to undergo cyclical change and Taylor chose to use this as the main symbol that represents Midnights. Taylor has said multiple times "It's a clock, it can help you tell time" which now I'm thinking means it can literally help you know when she's gonna make certain moves, like dropping the beard and returning to the 1989 era for example. TN posted this during the Midnights promo. The clock is split into 4 quarters. The moonstone/bejeweled vinyl is the first quarter which I believe we have just exited and I'll explain why shortly. This vinyl contains the numbers 12, 1, 2, 3 which could be related to "exile ends in 3...2..."

Going clockwise we end up in the 2nd quarter—blood moon or glitch. If the 12 hrs represent 12 months, then each vinyl or quarter of the clock would represent approximately 3 months (Jan-March, 1-3 for the moonstone vinyl which adds up bc the toe breakup was said to have happened mid March). I know the pap walks were done in April so this might be more of a rough outline for events. This means a “glitch” would happen roughly April-June…A blood moon represents chaos, disruption, and change, hidden information rising to the surface (gee kinda sounds like what’s happening right now 🧐). The lavender vinyl is also in the 1st quarter and seeing that it’s a song abt bearding it makes sense. But it also seems like this vinyl is supposed to be completely separate from the main 4 vinyls so it could have a different meaning. There are a bunch of great posts analyzing the blood moon/glitch, see here and here.

Sidenote: More on the bejeweled mv numerology and symbolism—she enters the moonstone vsfs-esque room on the 3rd floor. The clock Taylor’s sitting on is pointed at 3. There’s a ton of speak now easter eggs bc 3rd album. There’s 3 step sisters instead of 2 like in the original Cinderella story. The Queen Pat scene shows multiple motifs we’re all familiar w—angels, lions, a queen/royalty, an eye?? There’s probs a ton I’m missing. But yeah all that to say it seems she’s trying to connect bejeweled/1989 era 2.0 to the number 3 or March and to one leo VS supermodel angel woman. So it’s almost as if KK was still a part of this new 1989 era despite being absent from the pap pics.

Next vinyl is mahogany which would presumably take place from July-Sept. The last date scheduled for the eras tour is in Aug which would fall in this quarter. Strength and resilience are needed during this time? There have been a ton of exile, 8/3 references lately.

The last quarter/vinyl is jade green (Oct-Dec). It represents serenity and tranquility, perhaps symbolizing the peaceful acceptance of any ensuing consequences of making a life altering decision? Dec would be the 12th hr on the clock. So could New Years be the “last page” where we finally meet the real Taylor? I mean it is one of the most important midnights of the yr. In that post I mentioned earlier others pointed out how the Cinderella story fits into the general themes of Midnights. I think Taylor keeps using Cinderella imagery bc once the clock strikes “Midnight” on New Years the facade will be gone—“Shred my evening gown” // “Dappled w the flickers of light from the dress I wore at midnight leave it all behind” // “Spring breaks loose the time is near…moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time” // “You know when it’s time to go” // “If you wish to romanticize the woman I became then say you’ll remember me standing in a nice dress.” She’s telling her fans that the Taylor they love is a carefully crafted persona and the real her is not nearly as pretty and will be disillusioning to look at.

Furthermore, Taylor has really emphasized that she rejects the notion of a picture perfect 1950s life. "She would've made such a lovely bride what a shame she's fucked in the head" // "He wanted a bride I was making my own name" // "Picture perfect shiny family holiday peppermint candy" // "All they keep asking me is if I'm gonna be your bride.” Also think of all the wedding imagery she has used lately. "The bride was willing to risk it all." This video of her in a wedding dress singing champagne problems. The countless speak now easter eggs which would be overkill if she was just simply trying to tease a re-record. "Don't say yes run away now." I think she's saying that she's going to shred her wedding dress and the heteronormative fantasy swifties want for her and burn her house, a symbol of her life’s work, past selves, and closet, to the ground. Bringing it back to the serenity/tranquility symbolism, others pointed out in this post that in the eras tour wildest dreams visuals she looks perfectly content, peacefully sleeping while the world burns around her. She’s finally ready to shatter her glass closet and break free from her cage.

Jade is also the “Gem Supreme”: king of my heart; “Jewel of Heaven”: angels roll their eyes, no rules in breakable heaven, halo hiding my obsession, etc you get it; stone of the heart: again king of my heart, lover. This vinyl could be related to snow on the beach—“I searched aurora borealis green….your eyes are flying saucers from another planet.” Perhaps a reminder that she’s setting off but not without her muse?

With all this in mind I think it’d be good to revisit the Midnights prologue.

Of course this could be completely wrong and if she tours internationally and into next yr then it wouldn’t really make sense to come out yet. It could also be the case that the clock is meant to be read a different way or represent a 2 yr period rather than 1 yr. And maybe sometimes it’s meant to be read backwards instead since there have been some references lately to things being reversed? Idk what do you all think? Please feel free to add onto this !!

[theanticool]

My top 10  most anticipated fights of the weekend (7/31/2024-8/5/2024). In no particular order. But also, bonus stuff cause there's more stuff going on I'm happy to see.

Terence Crawford vs Israil Madrimov - Terence Crawford is arguably the best boxer on the planet. He went undisputed in 2 divisions. He absolutely picked apart and tore up an elite welterweight in Errol Spence. And now he’s got his eyes set on Canelo. But that means trying to bridge 3 weight classes. So he’s moving up to super welterweight, where he will challenge WBA champion Israil Madrimov. And while the Boots fight is the one boxing fans wanted to see, Crawford is a 36 year old moving up a weight class to fight a young undefeated world champion. Nothing to sneeze at. Madrimov is a more than capable world championship level boxer and there isn’t a ton of tape out there on him because he’s still relatively young in the game. The table is set for some magic.

Cory Sandhagen vs Umar Nurmagomedov - UFC on ABC 7 - First time we will see Cory Sandhagen in almost 11 months after he tore his tricep mid-fight against Rob Font. Crazy to see how quiet it’s been for Sandhagen, even with the injury. The constant flux of the 135lb division has had him lost in the narrative. With O’Malley becoming champ, his weird rematch with Chito, Yan finally getting the bounce back win, Figs moving up to 135lbs, Cejudo coming back, and now Merab finally getting his title fight, I feel like Sandhagen is an afterthought. But nothing will boost your career like putting an L on a Nurmagomedov. Umar has done his part of adding to his father and brother’s family legacy, winning 5 straight inside the UFC to stay a perfect 17-0. The interesting part of this one is Usman has a propensity to strike with his opponents, far more than his brother did while Cory has shown he is susceptible to a heavy, aggressive wrestling game. We’ll see how it shakes out but I’m super excited for this one.   

Chito Vera vs Deiveson Figueiredo - UFC on ABC 7 - this one has stinker potential. I like Chito, but the man spends 95% of every fight just walking forward throwing nothing. He’s got huge potential for violence. He finished that otherwise one sided beating of O’Malley by hurting him with a bad knee to the body. But he will just let you circle if you want for 15-25 minutes. And I feel like that is a lot of what Figueiredo has built his game around at 135lbs.He’s not the huge powerhouse bulldozer anymore. He’s just a really fast, accurate puncher who can leap across distance. I can see this being a fight where rounds are decided by like a handful of exchanges. But still hyped as I like watching both fighters fight when they’re at their best. 

Elves Brener vs Joel Alvarez - UFC on ABC 7 - Brenner is fun. Alvarez is fun. Alvarez is a 6’2 freak at 155lbs who likes to use his size to set up submissions (he’s won all 20 fights by stoppage, 17 by sub). Brener is a Chute Boxe fighter. Nuff said. Should be electric while it lasts. And I don’t expect it to last terribly long.  

Dakota Ditcheva vs. Jena Bishop - PFL 7: 2024 Playoffs - I’m not sure if this fight will be competitive. Small sample size but Dakota Ditcheva really looks like the goods. But Jena Bishop is an elite jiu jitsu player and if you’re going to get exposed for your lack of grappling skills as a striker, she’s the type you lose to. Ditcheva is a fantastic striker who has shown some tremendous finishing ability against lesser competition. Jena Bishop will be the best fighter she has fought thus far and it’ll be interesting to see if the knowledge of her grappling skills causes Ditcheva to forego some of her tools to avoid possibly being taken down.

Taila Santos vs. Liz Carmouche - PFL 7: 2024 Playoffs - A weird fight. Feels like with a different bracket, this is the final. This has stinker potential too tbh. Carmouche is not historically a fun fighter and Santos is someone who is more known for giving Valentina Shevchenko a hard time rather than a fun fight. But the interesting thing for me is which version of each fighter shows up. Santos is so content to grapple, wrestle, etc with a lot of her competition and when forced into that type of fight, can prove to be incredibly difficult to handle. Carmouche is someone who theoretically will try to take her down and beat her up with elbows from inside the guard/half guard. But we’ve also seen instances of Carmouche getting an opponent who she will decide to strike with, because the idea of extended grappling sequences seem too much or too risky. I’m interested in that dynamic, even if it makes for a hard 15 minutes to watch  

Andy Cruz vs Antonio Moran - It’s Andy Cruz. Of course I’m interested. The rush does not stop. Cruz has fought competition high above the benchmark for guys just starting out their careers. He’s fighting former world title challengers at the very start of his pro career. And working with Bootst team in Philly shows me he’s serious about become not only a world champion but a big player in the sport. He gets a spot on the undercard of Crawford-Madrimov. Matchroom is positioning him for big lightweight fights. And while Antonio Moran isn’t a world beater, he is a guy who is 30-6-1 and been a step up fight for fighters like Devin Haney, Arnold Barboza, and Jose Pedraza. 

David Morrell vs Radivoje Kalajdzic - David Morrell was the scariest fighter at 168lbs. HUGE power out of both hands with some really crafty set-ups thanks to that Cuban amateur background of his. But with the politics of the division revolving around Canelo, he decided enough of that and has moved up to 175lbs is search of a big fight. Radivoje Kalajdzic is a fine 175lber in his own right. Not a world champion level but a fine first fight in the weight class with some pop himself. And considering how hard it was for David Benavidez when he made the jump against Oleksandr Gvozdyk, we’ll see how much of Morrell’s power really carries upwards. 

Nabil Anane vs Felipe Lobo - I don’t know as much about Nabil Anane as I should but from what I have seen he is 6’7 fighting at 145lbs. A true Muay Thai Sebastian Fundora. And I’m here for it. Lobo is always a fun fight, win or lose. Nabil has won 3 straight in ONE and looked like a killer in the process. What’s not to love? 

Dedduanglek vs Nakrab 2 - A rematch of a fight I remember really enjoying the first time around. 

Honorable mention: 

Caroline Dubois vs Maira Moneo - I had a secret 11th fight I wanted on here. Rare in recent weeks seeing as a lot of folks are taking off for the summer. Caroline Dubois is emerging as a true elite talent at lightweight. With Katie Taylor up at 140lbs, those LW titles are potentially floating in the ether. Dubois is looking to grab the interim WBC belt in a fight against a very game Maira Moneo. Haven’t seen much of Moneo but she has a win over an old but game Erica Farias. Can’t put this in the top ten because I don’t know Moneo like at all but I’m always excited to see Caroline Dubois. 

Olympic Wrestling - Olympic Wrestling starts on Monday, August 5th. And to me, it’s by far the most fun combat sport at the games. You got so many fantastic wrestlers competing this year. Akhmed Tazhudinov, Stevan Micic, Rei Higuchi, Hassan Yazdani, Amir Zare, Geno Petriashvili, etc. Mijaín López is looking to become the first ever 5x Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman, cementing himself as the greatest Olympic wrestler of all time. Yui Susaki is looking to etch her name as the heir to Kaori Icho and Saori Yoshida and lead the Japanese Women’s Wrestling team into their next era of dominance. American Amit Elor is the future of the US Wrestling team and after capturing 8 gold medals at the world level in the last four years, she’s looking to add a gold medal. Speaking of Americans - Kyle Dake, Spencer Lee, Zain Retherford, Kennedy Blades, Aaron Brooks, Kyle Snyder, Mason Parris, Dominique Parrish, Helen Maroulis, Kayla Miracle, and more. It’s a great squad. They’ll definitely bring home some medals. Looking forward to it!

Feel free to show what has got you all excited this week in the world of combat sports.

[ut-versotale]

Update Time, Update Time

Welcome back, everyone. Hope you all had a very happy New Years! I come bearing a late present for you all: A Versotale update!

Game Progress

As I anticipated, I needed to take a break around the middle of November so I could focus on schoolwork. Now that we've been on break for a little while again and will continue to be for the better part of January, I've already gotten a sizable chunk of stuff done. Still not as much as I would've LIKED to have completed - There are still like only three fully-completed rooms at the moment, and even then they have a ton of WIP assets and first-pass dialogue and all - but, that is the way of coding a game solo, mostly from scratch, and with the occasional glances at Undertale's code, isn't it?

Unfortunately, while I really want to share stuff with you guys, it's all in some way a spoiler that I don't want to spoil for the people who'd rather experience everything fresh for themselves.

...

So, if you DO wanna experience everything fresh for yourself, feel free to bow out of this post here. If you're sticking around, enjoy some mild spoiler-y content, some character designs, and some fun vague allusions to things I still really wanna talk about! I need to give you guys SOMETHING after this long wait, right?

Game Progress: Slightly Spoiler-y Edition

The OPENING CUTSCENE you saw a while back has been tweaked slightly to make Hercine more likable, and so the dialogue can flow a bit more naturally.

Two new cutscenes have been added to the beginning, albeit with some rough visuals. These three all flow into each other, and if you're speaking through each line of dialogue, they only take up about six minutes total. Still, it is a TAD bit too long for my liking without any gameplay behind it, so there's a chance I might cut a cutscene or switch the order of things around so there's a brief gameplay section before the last one. Who knows.

Undyne has been redesigned. Undyne now sports some less bulky armor that combines aspects of her canon casual and armored forms. If she's gonna be there the entire game, she may as well have a visually-interesting design rather than the blob of bluish-grey her armor used to be. I'm sure some people will consider this a downgrade, which is always the risk you run when you redesign a character you've already shown off... but I personally just can't stand working with that old design any longer. The colors barely pop, it looks messy, the armor's boring and flat-colored and almost even blends into her scales, etc.

You didn't get to see the outdated Frisk design I had for this iteration of the project, and I'm glad you didn't, because upon writing more of their scenes and reconfiguring their personality, I HAD to redesign them again. I don't anticipate this one changing ANY time soon, but, as with Undyne, no promises.

Next up, some important human characters in the first area that AREN'T Frisk! You'll meet them later on, and I really hope you all end up liking them and the story behind them! In the meantime, here, have their designs. Again, they might change, but I'm comfortable with these for now.

That's all I feel comfortable showing off for the first area at the moment! I'm hoping to record everything up until the first save point and post it on YouTube at some point before the end of January (Again, as I must reiterate, in its very unfinished form), but no promises!

While that's all for the first area, I have been poking around with redesigning some of the later characters you guys have not even seen yet. Particularly, the primary antagonist of the new Cold West. I have to admit, I was a little worried that, if I didn't switch up his design, people would start comparing him to Clover since Undertale Yellow is still fresh in a lot of our memories right now, but... I think you guys will really like "The long scarf of the law." He's a fun character.

Alright, that's all from me! I hope you guys enjoyed this brief little peek at some mild spoiler-y content! I hope to be back soon with some neat stuff for y'all to see in action!