#is there a ship name for the four of them?

[contemplatingoutlander]

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he plans to restore the names of seven Army bases that once honored Confederate leaders, relabeling them after soldiers who share the same last names.

“We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts, it’s no time to change.” [...] A congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about closed-door policy talks, said Trump was using a “thinly veiled attempt” to get around the law that directed the Pentagon to remove the Confederate names by finding veterans who “just so happen” to have the same names as the Civil War leaders. The Senate overrode the president’s attempted 2020 veto of the law at the end of Trump’s first term.

The Trump administration insisted this year’s redesignations were in line with laws that prevent the Pentagon from naming bases after Confederate leaders or battles. But Ty Seidule, a retired Army brigadier general who was the vice chair of the Congressional Naming Commission — tasked with relabeling bases and U.S. military assets — said that Trump’s decision went against the spirit of the new rule enacted after the George Floyd protests in 2020.

“The bottom line is he’s choosing surname over service,” said Seidule, who’s now a visiting professor at Hamilton College. “It is breaking the spirit of a law that was created by the will of the American people through their elected representatives.”

Seidule said that the commission, which was made up of three Republicans, one Democrat and four retired flag officers, spent 20 months seeking input from the public and got 33,000 responses to change the names of Army bases and other installations and assets named after Confederates, including Navy ships.

This is just despicable. It would be like the Germans renaming military bases with the names of German soldiers who just happened to have the same names as prominent Nazis.

[d-criss-news]

How ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Overcame a Shaky Start and Won Big at the Tonys

[UHQ] Helen J Shen and Darren Criss, the stars of “Maybe Happy Ending,” celebrated with its director, Michael Arden, after the musical won six Tonys. (Credit...Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times)

“Maybe Happy Ending” had a very unhappy beginning. The show’s triumph at Sunday night’s Tony Awards, where it won six honors, including best new musical, capped a remarkable turnaround for a small production with a baffling title and a hard-to-sell premise that was seen by industry insiders as dead on arrival when it began previews last fall. But in the wee hours of Monday morning, as the quirky show’s performers and producers partied with their creative team and investors at the Bryant Park Grill, the celebrants finally allowed themselves to acknowledge that their against-all-odds show is breaking through.

[UHQ] Shen and Criss play robots in a story about isolation, memory and love that received overwhelmingly positive reviews. (Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times)

“We didn’t know if this show would even open,” said its star, Darren Criss, who won his first Tony for playing Oliver, an outdated helperbot who strikes up a life-changing (well, shelf-life-changing) relationship with a robot across the hall. Criss, an Emmy winner (for “American Crime Story”) and “Glee” alumnus, is also a member of the show’s producing team. “We didn’t have the luxury to dream about a scenario like this,” he said. “This was definitely the little show that could.” How bad did things get? Last summer, the show’s lead producers, Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold, postponed the first performance by a month, citing supply chain issues, which the producers insist were real (there was a delay in the availability of digital video tiles from China), but which many thought was a cover story to hide financial problems.

“They put a fork in us,” said Allan Williams, the show’s executive producer. The production temporarily laid off workers, refunded tickets for the month of canceled performances and contended with a TikTok theater influencer’s suggestion that the musical might not open. “People started texting me with sympathy,” said Helen J Shen, Criss’s co-star, who plays a later-model robot named Claire. “We never really felt secure.” Some of those expected to help finance the show began peeling away, not wanting to put their money into a sinking ship. “We lost a lot of investors because of that TikTok,” Arnold said. “No investor wants to write a check and think that they’re not even going to get to see the show.” By the time “Maybe Happy Ending” finally started previews on Oct. 16, it had sold just $450,000 worth of tickets — woefully low for a new Broadway musical. “Maybe Happy Ending,” which did not finish raising its $16 million capitalization until the week of its opening night, hemorrhaged money through previews. Weekly grosses were under $300,000, which is well below the show’s $765,000 weekly running costs. The 973-seat Belasco Theater was about 20 percent empty. By the fourth week of performances, the show’s average ticket price had dropped to a disastrously low $45, partly because the producers decided to offer all tickets for between $30 and $69 in a calculated, but also desperate, effort to get seats filled and build word-of-mouth. Then there was a huge marketing challenge: How to describe a show with just four actors, two of them playing robots, that poignantly explores isolation, memory and love. The music is a mix of indie pop, American jazz and Broadway, and the design is a slowly unfolding spectacle that uses automation and projections to advance the storytelling. “Every time you try to explain, ‘Well there are these two robots, in a not-so-far-future Seoul, South Korea,’ people are just like, ‘This doesn’t sound like a musical to me,’” Arnold said. The show’s own website does not use the word “robot” when explaining what it is about. The director, Michael Arden, called the musical “a gentle, contemplative piece, in many ways, which isn’t an easy sell.” Shen said her preferred argument for the show was “Just trust me.” “It’s like describing a new color,” she said. “We didn’t know how to describe this piece to people.” Those who did see the show were moved by it, and they started telling others. “I think people liked being able to share a secret,” Arden said.

[UHQ] Criss, an Emmy winner for “American Crime Story,” accepting his first Tony on Sunday night. “We didn’t know if this show would even open,” he said at a party hours later. (Credit...Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times)

The show opened on Nov. 12, and the reviews by critics were overwhelmingly positive. “Ravishing,” wrote The New York Times. “A darling gem,” declared The Washington Post. But still, doubt remained. Broadway is a failure-prone industry, and shows can crash quickly — in late 2022, the musical “KPOP” closed just two weeks after opening and last year, the musical “Tammy Faye” lasted just three weeks post-opening. “We left town the morning after opening night, and we said these very emotional goodbyes to everyone because we thought it was going to be a very short run,” said Will Aronson, who wrote “Maybe Happy Ending” with Hue Park. The producers, heartened by word-of-mouth and the reviews, raised another $1.75 million to promote the show. A turnabout began. “It simply built incrementally,” Arnold said. “We were burning a lot of cash. But we could see that online sentiment was changing, sales patterns were changing.”

The week after opening, the show grossed $591,000. Over the Christmas holiday, it had its first $1 million week, and since then its grosses have exceeded its running costs most weeks. And the show has been basically sold out since the Tony nominations were announced in early May. It is still not clear if the show will turn a profit on Broadway. Rising production costs have made it nearly impossible for new musicals to make money in New York — over the past three seasons, only “& Juliet” has done so. But the Tony Awards should help: There are usually theatergoers who want to see the best musical winner. “Maybe Happy Ending” has an unusual history. Aronson and Park, who made their Broadway debuts with the show, are a binational songwriting team — Aronson is from the United States and Park is from South Korea. They have worked in both countries and both languages.

Park had the idea that became “Maybe Happy Ending” while sitting in a Brooklyn coffee shop in 2014. He heard the song “Everyday Robots” and started musing about the interplay between technology, isolation and connectedness. The show’s first commercial production was in Seoul in 2016; later that year, the writers presented the English-language version in New York, where Richards saw it. He has watched a lot of shows during more than 50 years working on Broadway, and captivated by what he considered this one’s “sheer inventiveness,” he acquired the commercial rights. The musical was on its way. The Korean production was successful, and has had several runs. There were also productions in Japan and China. In 2017 the English version, then called “What I Learned From People” and featuring only three actors, won the Richard Rodgers Award, which supports the development of new musicals. Richards set about helping to assemble a creative team, holding workshops and raising money. Arden signed on in 2018, telling Richards in an email that he found the material “devastating and beautiful and ultimately life affirming.”

The show’s American premiere, directed by Arden, was in early 2020 at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it “dazzling,” and the Times critic Jesse Green called it “Broadway-ready.” Richards had hoped to bring it to Broadway the next season, but then came the coronavirus pandemic. By the time theaters began to reopen, the momentum had been lost, investors were in high demand and theaters were booked. “We had to go back to the beginning,” Richards said. But there were positive developments too. Criss, performing in a production of “American Buffalo” that Richards produced, agreed to do “Maybe Happy Ending,” and his participation encouraged both theater owners and investors. “Maybe Happy Ending” needed a theater with a small house (the show is small-scale) and a big stage (the set is elaborate, and needs an elevator beneath its floor), and was unable to find one for several seasons. But finally, last fall, the Belasco became available.

The space worked, and also has a compelling history. Richards noted that in 1960, a play called “All the Way Home” had a near-closing experience there and rebounded, earning it the nickname “The Miracle on 44th Street.” Now, Richards said, “We are the 21st-century miracle on 44th Street.” Just before 2 a.m. Monday, the show’s Tony winners were still cradling their silver statuettes as they posed for pictures with well-wishers in an open-air dining room, celebrating how fully the awards voters had embraced their show’s fundamentals — it won for its score, its book, its scenic design and its direction. “You could feel the industry get behind it because it’s exactly the kind of theater that everybody in this business wants,” said Dane Laffrey, the scenic designer. “It’s heartfelt, it’s original, it’s innovative — it’s all of the things that are scary and are risky but ultimately carry the most reward if you can stay the course.”

[winters-on-the-wing]

hey! so this post is really fucking stupid!

let’s break it down.

1. nobody is saying that queer ships are misogynistic because of the absence of women. but when you take ships like wolfstar and ESPECIALLY jegulus, you can see that the female characters who have brilliant chemistry and incredible dynamics with these male characters are being shoved aside for the sake of a stale, cliche-ridden, practically pornographic dynamic that’s little more than a dramatized dom/sub pornhub relationship. i’m not saying all mlm shippers do this, but a vast majority of wolfstar and jegulus content is just senselessly erasing women from the story entirely, purely for the sake of fetishizing gay men. the same gay men you CLAIM to care so much about.

2. the issue isn’t gay ships. i love gay ships. i am a jily shipper but i also think prongsfoot is brilliant. the issue is that female characters are being used as a scapegoat within these gay ships in the fandom. tonks is turned into a jealous idiotic schoolgirl so wolfstar can happen. lily is turned into a bitch so jegulus can happen. and don’t deny that because it does happen extremely often. don’t do the “nonono we love lily we just made her sapphic!!” because shoving her romantically with some rando she’s never talked to is not love. it’s trying to get her out of the way. and that’s the average attitude with these gay ships in relation to women, and THATS the misogyny problem. gay ships are great. gay ships can and should exist. but the problem is when women are constantly treated like inconveniences. they get no personality, no LOVE put into their characters. and i’m not saying you have to care about all women characters but don’t pretend that you care about women when you don’t.

3. not a single person that i’ve seen in this fandom dislikes gay ships because they’re gay. i hate wolfstar because remus annoys the shit out of me and he has no romantic chemistry with sirius whatsoever. i hate jegulus because it destroys james’ character by shipping him with a racist fascist bigoted slave owning idiot. none of those reasons have anything to do with the fact that they’re gay. so you’re just making up problems so you can bitch and moan about how oppressed you are for obsessing over boys kissing and shoving girls aside at every turn.

4. why is it only gay men that trans/nb people feel comfort in? i’m genderqueer myself and the character i find the most comfort in is minerva fucking mcgonagall. stop trying to hide behind labels as an excuse for your misogyny. it’s not cute. also did you ever consider that there are trans WOMEN who find comfort in female characters? no. because all you care about are men and masculine people. that’s very evident in this post.

5. and now for the stupidest point you’ve made on this entire post: that gay men are more interesting than all these “cis white women”! that’s the stupidest fucking bullshit excuse ive ever heard, especially considering that your source material is HARRY POTTER. you’re using canon as a reference here so i will be courteous and use canon as well, and then i will use fanon in order to show you that your point is null and stupid in both contexts.

let’s use our thinking caps for a second.

can you name a SINGLE relevant male character in harry potter who’s not cis?

…

oh okay. interesting.

can you name a relevant male character in harry potter who’s not white?

kingsley shacklebolt! yes! and?? oh, he’s the only one? right. right. and uh, is he involved in any of the gay ships you obsess over? no? oh gotcha okay.

now let’s look at the canon women in harry potter.

of course there’s not a single non-cis woman.

but when looking at relevant women who aren’t white? there’s cho, the patil twins, and technically lavender! it’s not much better, but the diversity is THERE where there’s almost none in the men. there is four times the diversity in women characters in harry potter. and yet you’re complaining about them being cis and white compared to the men.

and now let’s examine this from a fanon lens. see what’s widely headcanoned!

i myself am a james kinnie and i love that he has been widely headcanoned as a poc because i myself am a poc. but uh…anybody else? no? just james?

and oh! james is constantly reduced to a shallow rescuer trope or a borderline abusive daddy dom who’s only personality is how big and dumb and brutish and muscular he is? got it! that’s not a negative male poc stereotype that men of color are constantly trying to fight irl or anything! no way!

let’s look at the women!

who is widely headcanoned as poc?

dorcas, mary, and pandora are the big names that come to mind! though i personally also headcanon lily as poc in some aus!

look! poc! isn’t that the representation you claim to find comfort in? oh wait…you don’t pay any attention to these characters whatsoever except to make them therapists and caretakers for your male main characters? oh. okay.

so the idea that it matters to you whether the characters are “cis and white” is fucking bullshit. you just tacked those words on there to make yourself seem less misogynistic.

and don’t even talk to me about how the men are more interesting and fleshed out. lily has more canonical information about her than regulus, barty, and evan COMBINED. minerva mcgonagall’s lore is just as fleshed out if not MORE fleshed out than sirius’, james’, and remus’.

so yeah. you’re a goddamn misogynist and this fandom is misogynistic, and you guys are just getting worse and worse at hiding it and it’s frankly hilarious. yes you’re ALLOWED to like mlm ships. i’m not policing you.

but it pisses me off when you guys claim to love women so much but then shit on women every second you get, and blame WOMEN for every inconvenience. maybe you need to sit in your discomfort and accept that your taste is a bit or very misogynistic. instead of pushing it away and trying to blame everyone else.

I'm sorry to bring this up to you but a queer ship isn't inherently misogynistic. Prejudices towards women, following gender roles stereotypes and villainise femininity and female characters is.

First in line to criticise how fandom mistreats women and sapphics relationships but if you don't like a mlm fandom ship maybe you shouldn't be here at all.

NB and trans people find comfort in reading mlm ships because the depiction of those characters sometimes is way more complex and dynamic than a white cis fem archetypical female character could ever dream to be in published books, and since you aren't helping the community at all maybe you should let people enjoy what they like in peace.

[m0usekat]

Star gazing 💫

[echoes-of-courage]

It’s November 4th, Minish Cap’s release date, so happy birthday to Forge!

Gods, Forge, think before you speak. You’ll give Shadow a heart attack one of these days.

… how does one illegally officiate a marriage anyway?

Archive

[bitchywitchheart]

[cirr0stratus]

it finally stopped raining

[sodapopbuoy]

my bugs

[algernonagon]

nap time !

[virgoscringe]

certified loverboy christopher chow 🥰 largely dedicated to @atlasthemayor bc every time atlas shows up on my dash i think of polyfrogs hehe

my comms are opennnn <3

[drsantosgf]

buck and tommy and josh and eddie have weekly game nights together. just simple couple activities, double dates and such. they're innocent, light hearted nights. but josh has always felt something like looming tension between all of them.

josh knows eddie has had thoughts about buck, knows he's definitely had thoughts about tommy, has woken up in the middle of the night to eddie bucking his hips against the mattress and moaning their names enough times to know that eddie has plenty of thoughts. and he's pretty sure buck and tommy have whispered dirty things to each other while watching josh and eddie dance together in those dimly lit gay clubs they used to visit more frequently. he's pretty sure they're all on the same page about this but he's about to tear his damn hair out because no one's doing anything about it. they just keep having long, lust-filled looks over monopoly and connect four. so he does what eddie always accuses him of and he schemes.

it's 8 o'clock and they're hosting tonight. josh gets the drinks and makes the little platters and pays chris 20 dollars to ask if he can sleep over at a friend's house (which he finds out later he was already planning on doing anyway so now he's out 20 bucks and chris is lucky josh loves him). he makes eddie put on that pink button up that makes his arms look good and is very fun to take off (mi corazón, it's just buck and tommy, why am i not allowed to wear my sweatpants?" "they don't match the button-up" "okay so why am i wearing a button-up?"). he himself throws on his tightest pants and a ribbed polo (they get a little distracted and let their chicken burn but buck always brings over an extra dish anyways so they carefully deposit it into the trash and continue groping each other.)

when buck and tommy finally knock on their door, he doesn't miss the sharp breath that buck sucks in as he looks eddie up and down. he also doesn't miss the way buck's eyes refocus when tommy's hand comes around to pinch buck's elbow a little. they share a glance and tommy bites his lower lip.

they exchange their normal pleasantries as always, rib each other, talk about their shifts, a few hilarious calls, the delicious food buck brought over and politely ignore the burnt smell coming from the kitchen. josh makes a point to let his hand linger on tommy's shoulder for seconds too long and watches eddie's throat bob as he swallows. then the games begin.

it's some card game tonight that josh is half paying attention to. he decides when eddie brings back the third round of beers for the night that it's now or never. he suggests a light game of truth or dare. ("what are we, russo? 12?" "what are you, diaz? chicken?")

they start easy ("who was your first guy crush, buck?" "hm, probably my gym teacher from middle school, mr. hudgens" "buck's old person fetish strikes again." buck and eddie throw pillows at each other for a second, tommy feigns offense but pets buck's hair with a sickeningly sweet smile, josh is mentally high fiving himself.) he tries to gently guide buck and eddie away from childish dares to more adult truths. he locks eyes with tommy while buck and eddie argue over how many marshmallows buck could hypothetically fit in his mouth (not exactly what josh had in mind but they're going in the right direction here).

he knows he's been figured out and for a second thinks tommy is about to slap his thighs and say "well im beat, let's go before he can try to seduce my partner any more" but tommy squints his eyes, then raises his brows as if to ask for confirmation, and when josh nods, tommy licks his lips and nods back, turning back to watch the love of his life smile at him with spit and sugar falling out of his mouth (the answer was 20 marshmallows for those keeping score).

tommy lets josh guide them, but aids by steering the questions and dares in a leading direction and kissing at buck's neck every so often to keep buck flushed and blushing. josh decides to ramp it up when eddie chooses truth for the first time the whole game and josh pushes his foot up against eddie's leg and asks "what's the most recent sex dream you've had?"

eddie stutters and shakes his head. josh doesn't think buck realizes he's leaning forward or that tommy's hand is gently massaging his thigh. tommy's gaze flickers to josh with a nervous expression ("did we push too far? was it too much, too quick?")

"you don't have to answer, babe," except josh knows eddie, "you know, if it's too much of a challenge, of course, you can always skip it."

eddie's posture straightens and he eyes josh up a bit. it's a challenge, as always, a threat, a proposition, a loving exchange of harshness.

eddie clears his throat (good boy, josh thinks to himself, he'll tell eddie that later) and starts speaking. "well, obviously you were there."

"anyone else?" tommy asks, trying hard to sound bored and a little patronizing. (josh kinda wants to suck his dick about it, he knows eddie does too because he stutters a little and shakes his head and starts over).

"obviously, you were there, josh. of course. um- and, you know it was just a dream but-"

out of the corner of josh's eye, tommy starts to kiss buck's neck again. buck tilts his head to give him more room, closing his eyes and gasping when josh assumes tommy sinks his teeth in a little. he doesn't look, he's too busy watching eddie watch them.

"uh-" eddie starts again, and josh takes that opportunity gently run his fingertips along the back of eddie's hairline, which always gets him purring.

josh is starting to think maybe eddie needs a little push, so he leans in close and bites his ear, turning his soft traces in eddie's hair to a firm tug in buck's direction. he points, "was he there, baby?"

eddie nods, cheeks flushed red, "buck and tommy," his knee jerks and his legs fall open, "they were both- and we were all-"

tommy's hand moves from buck's thigh up to palm him through his jeans, buck's eyes are half-lidded and glazed over as he watches eddie struggle to explain.

eddie looks over to josh, finally, and josh doesn't know what good deed he's done to deserve the look eddie gives him but he'll thank whatever god deemed him worthy of it.

eddie whispers low and quiet, just for them, "baby, you know i wouldn't- you know you're it-"

josh kisses him sweetly, trying to say "you don't have to explain, you don't have to justify anything when you're with me, we can love each other and love other people and come home to each other every day. our house can just be filled with love, not obligation or rules. just let yourself enjoy this, you're so beautiful when you enjoy yourself, you're so beautiful when you let yourself be loved."

but that's a lot of emotion and there are far too many things to say that he just doesn't have the vocabulary for and he thinks that if he tries to say any more than three words, he'll burst into tears and not in the sexy way. so instead he rubs his thumb over eddie's cheek and says, "i know, love."

eddie nods and looks back to tommy, "i think it's buck's turn, now, right?"

buck, dazed out of his mind, wrinkles his forehead, "huh?" is all he gets out while tommy continues his attack on his neck.

"truth or dare, baby." tommy supplies.

buck smiles, "jesus, okay, so we're doing this. uh, dare."

eddie gets on his knees and shuffles forward until their nose to nose, he briefly puts a hand on tommy's neck and there's a small exchange that passes between them. something like permission. josh makes a mental note to revisit that. tommy bites buck's ear once last time and looks up at eddie through his lashes, resting his chin on buck's shoulder.

"what's it gonna be, eds?"

"kiss me."

josh watches buck and eddie take out seven plus years of tension and emotion on each other, biting each other's lips and digging fingernails into each other's waists. tommy pets buck's hair and rubs his back until buck turns and kisses him quick and dirty, whimpers out "daddy" which makes eddie's jaw drop before leaning back and out of the way so eddie has full access to his partner. buck beckons josh over while eddie and tommy wrestle each other on the ground. he slides between his legs easily and when josh tastes him he suddenly understand why tommy's always walking around, looking like he's got his heart outside of his body. they get lost in each other, the four of them. they get lost in their mouths, skin, and heat; lost in their love and friendship and romance.

they collapse together on the floor of eddie and josh's living room.

"so, uh, game nights?" tommy comments, tracing over buck's ribs.

"hm, yeah i like this game." josh adds.

"same time next week, right?" buck turns to face josh and eddie, but josh gives the floor to eddie.

eddie licks his lips, "can't wait. but, uh, you guys are hosting next time."

[willthemicrowave]

I made Four and X pins a while ago but forgot to upload it anywhere so behold, the gay Ikea pins on my bag

I had to fight with the super glue when I attached it to the actual pin part

[vaguely-humanoid-form]

I have naut posted art in here in like. a hot second so have arasolfefnep doodles because they are very near and dear to my heart

edit: don't mind the numbers I was counting how many times each character appeared on the page so I'd be able to balance it out

[miratho]

Had a lot of feelings and had to get them out - they're at the club

[bubble-beee]

A bit old and messy but it’s iidamei so it’s okay

[justa-moth]

dead boy detectives textposts pt 6 :D

pt 1 - pt 2 - pt 3 - pt 4 - pt 5 - pt 6