#it took way too many edits to get the emotional arc where i wanted it to be
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Part 2 "You've Done This Before" now up!
(tw: drugs)
Eddie’s never one to stay the night, so he stumbles up the stairs to his studio a little after six. His hair is still damp from his shower and his sweaty t-shirt sticks to his newly scrubbed skin. He’s at the far end of the time loop. The come down and the crash before everything starts again tomorrow. It’s been a week or two since he and Robin had that fight at the bar. Or maybe just a couple of days? Something gentle and golden courses through his nervous system. Whenever he goes out, Eddie tends to choose up instead of down, but he can make do in a pinch. He had a good fucking night, hasn’t thought about… He had a good fucking night and he’s about to have the best sleep ever. It’s gonna be so fucking good, he just knows it. He can already tell. He turns his key in the lock on the first try and kicks at the door. The overhead lights are still on and Eddie could’ve sworn he turned them off. He pushes the door open all the way and finds a whole person hunched over his sink. Golden shoulder blades and moles like confetti scattered on the floor of the bar. Brown hair and bare feet. Steve? He’s in just boxers, back turned, brushing his teeth over the shitty sink. “The fuck?” The words leave his mouth before he can think about it, not quite sober enough to restrain himself. Steve’s shoulders tense. His hair sticks out at strange angles. It’s bedhead, no doubt about it. “What are you doing here?” Steve yelps. He looks caught.
All the lovely comments really meant the world to me! Super excited to get the second part out! We're delving a bit deeper into Eddie and his self destructive tendencies.
#steddie#steddiebang23#this chapter was the bane of my existence while I was writing it#it took way too many edits to get the emotional arc where i wanted it to be#im really happy with it now though#this version of eddie might be my favorite I've written so far#he's a complex and hypocritcal mess#he has very little awareness of how other people see him#which was really fun to write#<3
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what’s Gray Wing and Sparrow Fur’s relationship going to be like?
Ohhhh Sparrow Hearrtttt
Honestly Sparrow Heart has become so different that sometimes she pulls at the "stick close to canon" leash. She's a baby in the Free Reign Arc of DOTC and can't do much, but by the time of TBC she is an ancient spirit who is SO tired of being nice
But anyway. BB!DOTC.
She had three parents, Turtle Heart, Bumble, and Gray Wing. Gray just has this amazing way with kids, they take everything seriously and break everything down into terms they can understand. Some of Sparrow's and Owl's earliest memories are of Gray Wing bundling them up in their tail and showing them the stars, explaining the constellations, pointing out the ones the Sun Trail Cats used to navigate by night.
They taught her how to trust, to look for the good in things. She was an adventurous kit, and Tom took advantage of that. He lead them right away from their home, and when Sparrow tried to stop because she was tired, Tom taught her the first lesson about cruelty.
Dragged to a strange house by a man she doesn't know, a painful bruise forming, she was terrified. Gray Wing, Lightning Cry, and Acorn Swoop arrived to rescue her, only for her to learn that Turtle Heart died because she left with Tom. Bumble tried to comfort her kids in that moment, but more than ever, they were clinging to Gray Wing. Xey were their savior, in that emotional moment.
Bumble was hurt, they were ALL hurting, but she understood. A kid's grief shouldn't be a performance, it should be about them. What THEY need to heal. Right?
But the next thing that Sparrow Heart learned was that support is conditional. She loved Bumble, that was her OTHER mom, and Tall Shadow called for her exile. Gray Wing agreed. It didn't matter that she screamed and cried for her, tried to bargain she'd hunt for her (when she was still too young to have caught anything in her whole life), they sent her away.
Powerful people can take anything they want from you. They can make you do anything they want you to do.
And you are a commodity that can be bargained for. Gray Wing had to leave the kits behind when they charged off with reinforcements, and Tall Shadow used Sparrow Heart and Pebble Heart as leverage.
Tall Shadow: "You disavowed us, but these kits are still our clanmates. How am I supposed to trust that your group will be able to care for them?"
Gray Wing: "a kit belongs with its parents, Tall Shadow. You are honorable, you would not keep them from us."
"I don't need flattery, I need proof. Proof that you are capable of providing for them."
Thunder Storm: "what, payment? You want to make servants of us?"
As Sparrow Heart grew, the more she became aware of these things. But you know who doesn't get traded like a dead mouse? The one around whom the world revolves?
Skystar.
Sparrow Heart loved her family, all three parents, her brothers, and her friends. But she grew tired of being scared, losing people, being powerless and begging for an audience. She eventually became Skystar's deputy, turning her hungry eyes towards leadership...
And that is where her tale ends, for now. I know where I'd go from here, but I want to know what canon does first. I'm looking at that upcoming super edition with judgemental anticipation.
But for Sparrow Heart, Gray Wing will always be many complicated things. A father. A childhood hero. A traitor. A savior, again, who reunited her and Pebble with Bumble. She will always love them; but they taught her that even the people you love the most can make choices that hurt you.
#BB!Sparrow Heart#Me when I get to write fucked up girls :000000#BB!DOTC#Better bones au#I <3 you fallenleaf I <3 you spotty I <3 you sparrow heart#tw abuse#tw child abuse
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saw your recent reblog about feedback and, though I’ve been occasionally gushing in tags, you deserve to hear what I tell my friends! In general, your writing style is perfect at capturing the timing and delivery of the show itself. I’ve never read a fic i’ve been able to visualize more clearly than this one. You write each character so well that between chapters it feels like i’m right back where i used to be, waiting for new episodes again. I do think you haven’t *quite* solved your side-character-ification (applejackification?) of Dipper problem yet, but other than that you’re doing an astounding job at balancing all the characters and their interactions with each other and with bill in a way that feels natural (plus with these more recent chapters i’m seeing lots of good dipper stuff so you’re definitely getting there with him too! besides, it is nice to see Mabel get the spotlight after all these years anyway. healing, even.) You know exactly how to control an audience’s emotions, you know when to drag something out and when to shut it down, you know when to cut off a conversation and when bring up the fact it was cut off later. Little foreshadowings like the loose tooth are well-planted and plot beats like lucid dreaming are dropped and picked back up delicately and with precision, like pressing piano keys. i don’t doubt for a second it’s all a part of some grand instrument, though i wouldn’t be surprised if you told me most of it was improvised - another way you’re just like the show was. you’ve done the episodic-and-serialized thing better than at least half of all silver-age cartoons that have attempted to do so! I adore the way you show kindness to all characters in your scenes, from gideon’s characterless mother to the little freak himself. It truly feels as though you pick no favorites, and that’s something you do better than the show did tbh. Not that TBOB needed to hook me in with a marketing campaign, but hypothetically, in a universe where I didn’t own a hand-sewn bill cipher throw-pillow and yet somehow still found this fic, I would definitely be excited for it after reading! you’re gifted, and i hope this does numbers on AO3. I truly cannot stand hazbin hotel, but I may go back and read your other works once this one’s over, just to hear your narrative voice. it’s a voice worth hearing, and may it be forever amplified.
oh WOW thank you so much??? 😭 this is SUCH a sweet comment and it means so much to me that you took the time to write all this!!
APPLEJACKIFICATION... that made me laugh. Dipper will get some serious development before the end of the eclipse plot and he's key in the next plot, so I think that'll help him make some progress. But yeah—he's not gonna be as important as Mabel, but I do want to make sure he has a plot that stands on its own, smaller though it may be.
It's 2/3 planned, 1/3 improvised. 😁 I've got a lead time of about 15 chapters between what I've posted and what I've written, so I can do stuff like write the poppet chapter, write the tooth fairy arc, edit the poppet chapter, realize that as long as I'm giving him a bloody lip maybe I can loosen his tooth, edit the tooth fairy arc, have him mention that that tooth was loose. And many chapters I haven't written or outlined yet I have loosely planned in my head so I know how to aim toward them.
Wanting to show kindness to all the characters and wanting to give as many of them an internal life as possible is so important to me, and I'm so glad that's showing through so far!
And honestly I think "I hate [xyz] but I'll read it if you're writing it" is the highest compliment. 😂 All my hazbin fics were written pre-season 1 when all we had was the pilot, a couple comics, creator comments, and some Helluva to go by; but idk maybe you'd consider that a plus lol. (If you're interested, on ao3 I've also written Transformers, Godzilla, some Pokémon, and a smattering of other things.)
Thanks again for sending such a nice message!
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Make it Right 2
I have so many thoughts and feelings about this show that I'm struggling to decide where to start. I guess the best place is my overall impressions, which haven't changed since I finished the first series: I LOVE THIS SHOW AND I WILL DEFEND THESE CHARACTERS TO ANYONE. Fight me!
Now real talk, does this show have high production quality, smart writing and plotting, sharp editing, scene construction, and overall narrative consistency and coherence? No, it does not. It has none of those things, and a lot of them have gotten markedly worse from the first season. But all that barely phased me because the characters just hooked themselves right into my heart and wouldn't let go. This show is very very messy, but in the most lovable way ("LIKE GAY PEOPLE" - @bengiyo).
There were three main storylines that I was invested in for this second season. I will talk about them in order of least to most emotional investment. @waitmyturtles @wen-kexing-apologist @manogirl tagging you to come back to this later after you finish your watches because I want to talk about ALL OF THIS. For anyone reading - major spoilers from here on out!!
Yok & Lukmo
Boy, I did not expect this romance, and I really liked it. Which came as a surprise, because I did not care much about Mo in the first series. I was more invested in Yok, but in season 1 he felt kind of removed from everyone else, which was of course by design. He felt apart from the other boys because he is different. And it was just really really lovely to see a femme gay character get to embrace who he is and be loved for it. I like that he was wary of Mo and tested him for awhile before he let him in, and that Mo did waver a bit when he was first challenged on whether he really was okay being in a gay relationship. That felt authentic to me, and only made it feel more solid when they came back together with Mo more confident in what he wanted. I also liked that in the end Yok's mom stepped up to take her kid's side and express her acceptance of who he is and his relationship - it was very sweet.
I do have to deduct some points here for that very tonally bizarre sex scene that got tacked on to the end of their story. The way that scene was directed, shot, and edited just didn't feel in line with their dynamic at all, and I spent most of it thinking we were in some kind of weird dream sequence. I did find it amusing though that these two were better with physical intimacy in their one scene than the leads ever managed across two full seasons.
Frame & Book
My beloveds!! They were my favorite part of season 1, and I still loved them here, though I think the show faltered a lot on their storyline in season 2. The ideas behind their arc - Book working through some past relationship trauma, dealing with the fallout of Book's public violation, Frame struggling to hang in as Book pushed him away - were all good. But the execution was pretty spotty. The entire arc needed some clearer storyboarding and a pacing and sequencing revamp. The choppy editing this season felt most evident to me in this storyline, where I often felt like scenes came abruptly out of nowhere or felt out of sequence, and emotional swings happened too fast to be believable. And I didn't love where the show ultimately took some of the resolutions with the ex-boyfriend (and the teacher who was apparently inviting his students for group sex parties??) but I can't say they aren't in line with this show's overall forgiving attitude toward whatever these boys get up to.
All that said, at the core of this storyline was Frame and Book struggling to endure a traumatic event together, figuring out how they need to show up for each other in those moments, and learning from their mistakes to become better communicators. All of that worked and fit the characters really well. I believed that Book would totally shut down and push Frame out in the face of public humiliation and deep shame. I believed Frame would try and try and try to get through to him but also experience moments of weakness where he would be tempted to just say fuck it and go back to the easier path of casual hookups. And though a lot of the journey to get there was sloppily executed, I believed that they would ultimately come out of that mess more committed and in love than before (I could have done without all the wedding talk though, they are 16 people!).
Fuse & Tee
And here we come to the arc that frustrated and thrilled me in equal measure. FUSE YOU ABSOLUTE WANKER I WANT TO YEET YOU OFF A CLIFF AND ALSO GIVE YOU A GIANT HUG. I was deep in my feelings about this story all season. Fuse made me so mad, Tee made me so sad, and they both made me so happy in the end when they finally figured out their shit.
Fuse's storyline feels very familiar to a lot of early Thai bl. His inability to let go of his shitty girlfriend and his constant wavering between Jean and Tee was reminiscent of Phun in Love Sick (and would also be a dynamic repeated in other shows like Together with Me). The key difference for me, and what made it comparably more upsetting than in Love Sick, is that unlike Noh, Tee did not have his own other relationship to deal with or any ambivalence about whether he wanted to actually be together. Tee only wanted Fuse, and wanted commitment and fidelity from him, and watching Tee get increasingly depressed as he tried to be happy just getting what he could from Fuse, caught in a cycle of getting hope and then being rejected again, was so painful. And while he might not have been fully aware of how selfish and cruel he was being at first, eventually Fuse definitely saw how this was affecting Tee and came to understand he was the cause, and he still didn't stop fucking with him! I was so angry with him around the midpoint of the season, I just wanted Tee to dump him and start dating his little friend.
What made it all so much harder to swallow is that Jean and Fuse's relationship was so mild. THEY DON'T EVEN LIKE EACH OTHER. Fuse does not want to touch or kiss her - that was established way back at the beginning of season 1. They go long stretches where they don't even talk to each other until one of them remembers the other exists. Jean has a whole other boyfriend that she seems to have a much deeper relationship with. And this is where the show kind of pissed me off, because the way they turned Jean into an evil manipulative woman stereotype with her pulling this elaborate scheme to pretend her boyfriend was her brother so she could parade around town with him (and even brazenly bring him in front of Fuse!) just felt so false and over the top to me. Why would she bother to do any of that just for the sake of stringing along this boy who isn't even interested in being her boyfriend in any real way? @bengiyo mentioned that his reading of it was she is insecure in her relationship with the older boy and so wants Fuse as a back up, which I could buy to a certain extent, but they really lost me with the lengths she went to. Jean is a very pretty girl who will no doubt have another boyfriend in a week; all this just to hang on to Fuse? I didn't buy it.
And that's a problem because it made it harder to understand why the hell Fuse was having such a hard time letting go of her, and why he was willing to hurt Tee so much in the process. I think if he genuinely liked Jean and had a deeper relationship with her, that would have worked better for me. As it was, he just seemed like a coward, and the way he kept rejecting Tee and then still trying to have his way with him after was infuriating. When he told Tee he was breaking up with him and staying with Jean, and then still tried to get him to sleep with him after, that's when I was ready to strangle this kid. And some of this I can rationalize as him not being ready to firmly commit to being out in a gay relationship and needing Jean as a kind of shield and safety blanket, but if that was the intent I think the show muddied the message a bit by having literally everyone already know about Tee and Fuse. That horse was long out of the barn before Fuse finally did something about Jean.
To the show's credit, it knows exactly how awful Fuse was throughout this entire debacle, and the last segment of their arc is all about Fuse recognizing it himself and atoning for his behavior with Tee. I love that we saw him apologize to Tee with increasing sincerity. I love that we saw him finally be the one to pursue Tee and make his feelings clear, and that Tee actually made him work for it. I loved that we had multiple episodes of Fuse trying to work up the courage to ask Tee to be his faen, and that Tee knew what was happening and enjoyed watching Fuse flounder. My absolute favorite scene was Fuse finally breaking down and confessing to Tee at the beach (with a little help from best bro Lukmo) - that he knows he was wrong, that he knows he was selfish, that he understands what Tee means to him now, that he loves him and wants to be with him and he's ready to commit to that. And Tee, because he is a kind and generous person who has been patiently waiting for this all along, immediately forgave him and responded in kind. It was so emotionally cathartic and satisfying, and felt very much earned after that loooooong journey through the mess. More than anything else I felt so proud of Fuse, and so happy for Tee, and I believed they would be solid from that point on. I didn't even need the sweet little epilogue to feel that way, but I was delighted to get it (and a direct homage to Love Sick with Fuse putting his hand over the camera lens as he leaned over to kiss his boyfriend).
Final thoughts
As I wrapped up my watch I have been reflecting on why this show is not as beloved in fandom as something like Love Sick. Why does it not seem to have the same nostalgic pull? Why don't people (other than @absolutebl and @bengiyo) talk about it as much as other classic Thai bls? And the only thing I can think of is that it's too raw for most of the bl audience. And I mean raw in every sense - the production, the acting, the emotions, the inexperience and naivete and even the physicality of the characters. Nothing particularly sophisticated is happening here, and nothing is smoothed over. If you want to love these characters, you have to love them through all the bad decisions and fucked up choices and flaws run wild. You have to love them when they're ugly as much as when they're beautiful. And I think that's hard for a lot of the audience that just wants to see sweet love stories. But I am here for it and so glad I finally got to watch this.
#make it right#make it right 2#thai bl#i wish more people would watch this#hit me up if you need help finding the right links i am here for you#shan shouts into the void
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in celebration of finally publishing bail organa time travels (it's been SO MANY MONTHS) i wanted to look through the fics i've published this year and talk about how many had been languishing in my WIPs folder during the Years Of Burnout
i've published 18 fics this year (!! already ??). of those, i'd say that... 4 were written "in one sitting", as in, the bulk of them only required editing after the first session of writing. those were yeah me too, good and steep, sit there in your heartache, and be amazed by the sky. these were all super fun to write, and i want to do more of this!
i think about 4 of them were written in what i consider my "normal" timeframe -- work on a draft for a few days or weeks, let it sit for a few days, edit, post. those were showed me love was all around, i got your back (and you got mine), you've come to shake my hand, and oh, how was i to know. they were all started this year and it was really satisfying to take a longer period of time to work out where their emotional cores were.
6 of this year's fics (roots run deep, round and round, motherless child, miss atomic bomb, things end and caterpillars) were adapted and/or edited from writing pre- or during-hiatus that i didn't initially plan to publish.
adapting those into fics that i felt were "complete" was a really interesting exercise -- round and round and caterpillars really just needed style/pacing updates and happened in one sitting each, but neither motherless child or miss atomic bomb even had coherent emotional arcs, so they both took me multiple months after i picked them back up (in january iirc). things end started life very incomplete but it wrote itself in like two days -- i blame my ongoing love affair with jadzia dax, lmao.
that leaves -- if i've done my math right -- 4 fics that i started PRE- or DURING-hiatus intending to post and then it took me multiple years to finish them. sure enough, we've got don't wanna see you go, something out of a dream chapters 2-3, all we can do today, and finally but the verse is sweet. i'm proud of getting these done! it was a really cool experience to watch these fics grow and change as i grew along and changed with them.
oldest wip of that list was probably all we can do today, which i started all the way back in january of 2021 and published in july of 2023. actually, never mind, something out of a dream was published in october of 2020 and i only posted the last chapters in may of 2023. whoops.
so it's been a really cool year of writing so far! you can find all the fics mentioned in this post here.
(okay, but like honestly, [collapses into a heap] please no more multi-year wips, future essbie)
#sb and l rambles#sb and l is writing#i say that like i haven't been working on eponine de bergerac for like a year and a half at this point#but AFTER that i don't think i have any Non Abandoned wips that are older than this year!#......aside from the fsk rewrite but that fic exists in a quantum state of hiberation#also it's about the same length as all the fics i've posted this year combined so. it doesn't get grouped like the others lmao#(also hi TL if you're reading this <3)
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Ml Meta analysis: Adriens current absents, season 4 structure and theory on whats to come
Here I am back again with my endless rambling.
I'm just as worried for our cat son as everyone else (maybe even more) which is why I tried figuring out for my own sanity why he is so absent currently.
Upfront I wanna warn yall that I wrote this post in one rush this night and therefore had no time to do alot of editing. So things can probably get a bit more messy than usual but I tried to write it clearly, while writing 2 other ml essays as well. This is the one drawback of having so many episodes in such a short time, I have no time to write my posts x3 I had another theory planned for before Optigami airs but I don't think I can manage before tomorrow.
But let's not waste any more time. Grab a snack and here we go:
It's 2am right now but I think I just realized why Adrien/Chat Noir is being sidelined so much recently.
Sure, yes, it'll come into play in the very obviously set up Ladynoir drama later on but what I wanna talk about now is more the structure of how s4 is most likely written in terms of both Marinettes and Adriens side of the story. And then deep dive a little on why I think so.
You see season 4 is now reaping what has been built up from s1-s3, but this also includes that you have to take the time now to properly recreate the new possibilities out of the loose pieces of the broken status quo.
Seriously, season 4 has to handle and reinvent ALOT. The show got now officially announced to have 7 seasons, which is exactly the amount of seasons Astruc said they have story for. I couldnt find the official tweet from Thomas himself but I one from another source:
And now look take a look at the possible shows structure:
- s1-s3 was the first status quo and built up everything so now they can pay off after pay off while...
-... S4 is now the transitional season where the old status quo gets left behind as we work towards the new one.
-I have nothing to proof this of course, but in the same sense it would now make sense that s5-s7 where/are planned to play out under the final status quo. If I'm not wrong at first the show was under contract for 5 seasons, which would mean that after the transitional season 4 there was only 1 season of the final status quo for sure. Still, done right it could have been worth the wait. But this isn't where Miraculous will end. The show actually got the 7 seasons the creator wanted and THIS is how I think the long term plan makes the most sense. Nothing all too complicated but still hella effective in its execution.
But now back to our two main characters, because Marinettes and Adriens development are the two aspects that will raise the show to the intense heights of the s5-s7 status quo.
From s1-s3 Marinette was the active player but she was hardly involved with the actual PLOT of the show, since most of the plot and backstory of the show lies directly with the Agreste family. She only started to get her own plot when she literally created a new one by getting involved with the miraculous lore, because the closest Marinette got to the Agreste plot was "The collector".
Adrien in the other hand was always literally right in the middle of the plot but he wasn't enough of an active player to bring us further either.
Season 4 is now going to add the missing parts for both of them and as the very beginning of the season showed us: there are going to do it SEPERATLY.
This is why "Truth" and "Lies" have been structured the way they are (One Marinette-centric the other Adrien-centric). Yes, Marinette and Adrien are meant to end their story victoriously together, but they are simply not the people they have to be to become such a powerful team. Certain aspects of their journey they have to do... basically disconnected from the other one. The "Miracle Queen" endcard shows it quite nicely as well where they are heading now: away from each other.
Obviously the season started with Marinette growing into her new guardian status including everything miraculous related, since she is the main lead and because the new ways the episodes can now utilize everything Miraculous need to be established first before we deep dive into the messed up Agreste mystery.
So while I totally agree that it is annoying to get so little Adrien/Chat Noir content currently I also understand the practicality behind it. As I said, before s4 Marinette was the active main character who mostly didn't really have her own plot. So now adding her plot aspect and have her ACTIVELY figure everything needed out means that right now Marinette/Ladybug is the active focus main character who is solving a huge part of her s4 character arc. That simply drowns out Adrien as the currently still mostly-inactive secondary main character who, yes, may be right in the middle of the shows emotional + villain plot/lore/backstory, but that side of the story simply isn't in focus at the moment.
And I gotta say, I'm kinda glad they're doing it this way. Because I'm gonna be honest, when the season starts giving us Adrien/family Agreste episodes like "Lies" and "The collector" (in this case "Gabriel Agreste" for example) again, I don't want the narrative to be forced to spend time with something guardian lore based just because they didn't took their time to do it earlier.
So, as we see on the s4 episode raster "Gabriel Agreste" is episode 9. Honestly, I expect most of it (especially the ones near the beginning, so ep. 5 included) til that episode to be Marinette based the way everything else til now did (besides Lies obviously and Guilt trip didn't hardcore focus on Marinette/Ladybug either and that's because it's after "Gabriel Agreste") in the spirit of "Truth". It's just the needed set up from Marinettes side of the story and I can live with that.
Because we actually saw the change after "Gabriel Agreste" already in "Guilt trip".
I don't know why some people pretend like Chat almost cataclysming himself after hearing how guilt-eaten Nino is for Adriens sake isn't a huge indicator that the episodes afterwards will not only acknowledge but also DEAL with Adriens/Chats situation and problems. Remember, we are talking about CHAT NOIR here not Adrien Agreste. The show has always portrayed and acknowledged ADRIENS issues very straight forward and with the proper seriousness (especially when it comes to his family), whereas Chat Noir was often mostly used for comedic purposes with some exceptions of his problems being properly delt with (since Marinette/Ladybug was mostly oblivious to them, since Adrien keeps them hidden so well). But now in "Guilt trip" LADYBUG was confronted head-on with just how much negativity Chat has inside and how quickly and extremely he drowns in it.
Sure, correct, the episode also has his negativity "washed away" rather quickly by Ladybug opening up to him on how important he is to her
But this is in character for both of them as "Lies" very clearly showed us that the way BOTH OF THEM behave here is where the problem lies. There Ladybug was freaked out after Chat threw his life away once again but quickly accepted Chats very direct avoidance of the confrontation, since he seemed to be alright to her.
Something I also find noteworthy here is that Ladybugs dialog is "Seriously, you need to stop doing this to me!", which is.... a VERY Marinette-centric way of acknowledging the problem.
It completely shifts the issue away from Adriens extremely alarming self-harmful/suicidal tendencies and instead only calls out how it affects Marinette (whose feelings here are definitely valid, don't get me wrong!). It showcases perfectly how unaware Marinette still is of her partners inner tumult at that point and also parallels how Marinette called Adriens life "perfect" at the beginning of the episode (This is no shade towards Marinette, in general the entirety of "Lies" is about showing us just how harmful Adriens Chat Noir persona actually IS to him so these two moments of her being oblivious to Adriens and Chats immense problems very much fits into that episodes narrative and sets up what's about to come. I still have an entire essay in the making for "Lies" but, guys, it's just getting longer and longer. I suck xD).
So the fact that an episode after "Gabriel Agreste" brings this scenario back, just a little different but ALOT more revealing of Adriens immense problems to his partner, is VERY telling. Besides other things it tells us that this happens at the beginning of the arc that deals with (at least) Chats issues since Ladybug is still way too quickly too ready to accept her partner as "completely fine" again just because Chat makes it seem that way (while some negativity increasing guilt bubbles still to stick to him.).
And yet, others have already pointed it out that Ladybug IS noticing what Chat wanted to do and reacted accordingly...
she just didn't speak of it the way it is because it overwhelmed her, which calls back to Ladybugs "You have to stop doing this to me!" dialog.( For a great breakdown of her dialog HERE is a link to @flightfoot post)
In "Lies" Marinette was way too stressed by her new guardian role to even consider Chats side of it and therefore only spoke of her own, but in "Guilt trip" she's already past that stressful arc. So here she is immediately able to recognize Chats suicidal action for what it is, come to his (much needed) aid and lift her partners spirit the best she can by emotionally opening up to him (which is something we KNOW is incredibly hart for Marinette).
The difference between her reaction in "Lies" and in "Guilt trip" shows that Marinette has her guardian role already mostly handled and is now mentally able to be there for others again, so the extremely Marinette-centric "Truth"-like episodes are mostly passed. Now the episodes can bring Adrien/Chat Noir more into the game again and even shift to "Lies" - like episodes because MARINETTE can pay more attention to him again and isn't faced with something new, important and overwhelming Miraculous related every step she takes.
And THAT is extremely fair from a narrative standpoint.
---
I really need to stop elaborating so much on these posts because I'm only NOW actually getting to the point of where Adriens journey will disconnect for a while from Ladybugs. Sorry guys.
Okay, to understand where I'm going with this I will have to quickly explain how I always saw Chat Noirs place in the Ladybug+Chat Noir vs Hawkmoth war ever since s1.
Because here is the thing: Adrien wasn't able to truly leave the battle field ONCE since the origins. Marinette was completely out of Hawkmoths and Gabriels reach once she detransformed, which balances out her basically being the personification of the good sides force. And Gabriel literally decided whenever or not the battle is even ACTIVE right now! Besides that he is in complete control of his own actions and environment, which gives him all the necessary time, safety and downtime he needs to act as the personification of the evil sides force.
Marinette and Gabriel always knew when they were safe and off the battle field, but ADRIEN never had that and it left him LITERALLY right in the middle of both Ladybugs and Hawkmoths sides.
You see, because before Adrien became Chat Noir he basically was part of Hawkmoths side just by default. He was born into this family, that's his father and lost mother and everything he knows. Adrien didn't/doesn't even have to KNOW that he is part of Hawkmoths side, he's his son at some level he just IS! And I'm not saying this as anything negative, Adrien coming from Hawkmoths side is literally the reason why he became Chat Noir!
Because whereas Gabriel is having the time of his damn life as evil terrorist, created out of tragic and sinister circumstances, ADRIEN on the other hand couldn't handle his families environment and very same circumstances anymore and accepted the role as Paris' hero to escape his heritage for a while.
Keywords being: a WHILE.
Something unique about Adrien I always loved is the fact that he is the villains abused, isolated and overworked SON, who becomes a hero to escape his depressing life and YET it was never Adriens intention to LEAVE IT. Adrien merely wanted to use his time as Chat Noir to let of some steam and breath freely while doing some hero work so he can go back into his civilian life and try to one day successfully ment his broken family. He couldn't handle the current situation anymore but he still always saw worth in his family/father. I have SO MUCH respect for that!
But him not intending to leave his family and instead regaining strength as Chat Noir to continue to hold onto it came with the downside of him not being able to fully become part of the good sides people/force either. Hence why Adriens/Chats place always felt so lost in comparison to Ladybugs and Hawkmoths clear positions. He's caught in between their extremes trying to balance out BOTH at the same time. What an impossible task!
So he couldn't put in the same focus as Ladybug into being the good sides force because he is literally burned out from his civilian life on Hawkmoths evil side. But he also couldn't be involved as an ACTIVE member of his fathers evil force, because he chose to find refuge in his friends and as a hero on Ladybugs side.
Adrien unknowingly is part of BOTH the shows two extreme moral sides of good and evil and this season we will see Adrien/Chat Noir grow into his own within BOTH sides as well.
Because he simply couldn't have done so right away in s1. Now after 3 seasons Chat Noir is more than solidly established as one of Paris Heros and his time with Ladybug, the other heros and his normal friends helped him greatly to find his place on the good side. "Lies" set this up as Chat Noirs arcs starting point that now he has to stop connecting "being heroic" strictly with following Ladybug (as Marinette is the STAND IN personification for the good side, she's still a flawed human being like everyone else and not the ultimate force of perfect and good. Big difference.) just as he has to start looking past his fathers sympathetic moments/qualities to see that Hawkmoth isn't a 100%, inhumane monster just because he is the stand-in personification of evil in their fight, but the man he calls Father and still needs to be taken down. (I talked about this in more detail on THIS post)
Adrien has to seperat himself from Ladybugs path and focus on his family and I believe it'll start with the much dreaded (but expected) Ladynoir fight.
Funnily enough, what I'm talking about was actually already set up in "Frozer" I just didn't remember that for a bit. In "Frozer" we saw Ladynoir having a fight which caused Chat Noir to go his own way in the episodes battle.
I always found it interesting that the episode didn't had Chats decision, to not follow Ladybugs lead here, turn out to be a huge mistake. Almost every other show would have done so but now I think I understand. This episode and s2 in general SET UP the s4 conflict, s3 LEAD UP to it and now s4 DELIVERS it.
So what happened in "Frozer" is a direct parallel to what about to go down:
Ladynoirs fight will cause Chat Noir to not simply follow Ladybugs side anymore the way he used to, but note, he DOESN'T leave the good side AND they make up again in the end after Chat saves Ladybug from the akuma. He just does things on his own because he isn't on great terms with her for a while. "Frozer" showed Chats decision to not only NOT be a mistake but also a necessary part of defeating the akuma, just the way it'll be in s4. Damn, Adrien breaking away from Ladybugs side, the way she (unintentionally tho) did at the beginning of the season, to focus more on himself and his family will be the game changing factor, when Adrien will have his completing arc where he goes from "not active character within the villain/backstory plot" to "ACTIVE character within the villain/backstory plot".
And we already saw with Marinette how many fast breakthroughs we get through these completing arcs. Which is also a reason for why Adriens/ Chats arc comes later in the season, because BUDDY. Once Adrien starts to actively uncover his families mystery and fathers secrets Gabriel is SCREWED! Adrien will gain the needed inside knowledge that complements Marinettes Miraculous power; and reunited they can take on whatever the hell kind of scale the Agrestes plan actually is.
So how to end this post? My biggest intention was to raise hope for everybody (myself included lol) who is right now very concerned and upset about how side-lined our boy is at the moment. But I prefer doing so in a way that actually works with canons context instead of sugarcoating what I don't like. And Adriens/Chats current position I definitely do NOT like but accepting it as realistic outcome from s1-s3 and set up for the escalation for both Ladynoir and his home situation gives it the proper purpose and pay off (narrative and character wise) that it SHOULD have.
Basically, the endcards of "Truth" and "Lies" show it perfectly.
It looks like ShadowMoth is turning a blind eye towards Adrien/Chat Noir because of Ladybugs new guardian status and "greater importance". But Gabriels tunnel vision on Ladybug will leave him vulnerable to his own sons secret actions against him and Gabriel won't see it coming until its already too late.
#Miraculous#Miraculous ladybug#ml theory#ml analysis#ml season 4#ml show structure#Adrien Agreste#marinette dupain chang#Gabriel Agreste#Chat Noir#Ladybug#Hawkmoth#ml forshadowing
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Guardian Angel
Izuku Midoriya X Guardian angel reader
Edit 7/22/21: This was previously for an event with a user I no longer would like to be associated with. I will be keeping this up because it is my work and I own it, but I am no longer associating myself with that event host
spoiler warnings: Recent manga spoilers starting from around volume 26-present events, essentially the war arc and current events.
massive trigger warnings: Death, Intrusive thoughts, suicidal thoughts. If you are struggling with these, please seek help. Your life is valuable and precious, and there are so many amazing things worth seeing in this world, I promise.
Life is very short. So short, in fact, that we rarely appreciate it while we have it. We get over 70 years of life, if we're lucky, and most of it isn't appreciated.
Izuku Midoriya knows better than anyone else in this world how precious a life is. He knows how important it is to make every moment count, to soak up every drop of emotion life has to offer. He only knows this in hindsight, of course. Because he had only 2 years with you before you died. And he didn't appreciate those 730 and some days enough.
You died because of him in some twisted away. There isn't a day he doesn't think about that. It plagues his mind in a twisted series of ideas. There was no real way he could have saved you, but he could have tried. If he could have traded your life for his, he would have in a heartbeat. You were all that was good in this world, all Midoriya did was cause problems.
If he was still at UA, he would do his morning jog to your grave to pay respects and eat breakfast with you like he used to. It was comforting, to think your spirit would be eating with him. He just missed you, really.
He just really missed you.
Of course, now nothing is normal. He isn't at UA. You would have chewed him out for dropping out. But, it was his fault you died so none of that mattered. It was his fault you and all of the class were in danger. Loosing you was the last straw. Loosing you was the thing that made Izuku Midoriya, the supposed "next number 1" become a run away hero. A vigilante. The kind of person society spits on. The kind of person you and him were supposed to protect everyone from. But, if he couldn't protect you, how could he protect anyone. He wasn't a hero, he was never supposed to be a hero anyways. He didn't deserve this fucking quirk anyways, not if he couldn't use it to save you.
He thought, maybe, just maybe, there was a way to fix it. Because, it was his fault you were dead, and you died because of the war started by All For One, and he is the one All For One is after in the end, so if he could kill All For One then he could fix it, and you could die in peace, and then all is well, he wouldn't be some stupid waste of a quirk.
But here he was, laying half dead in a street. He couldn't do it. He couldn't take down All For One. His eyes flickered shut, his body slipping in and out of consciousness. Parts of his life played over in his mind. He remembered the first time he saw All Might, playing with Kachan, when he received One for All, when he met you. God, that was comforting. There were so many good memories with you. The night you kissed him, the time you wore matching pajamas with him and his mom to watch an All Might documentary, the time you both fell asleep together in his dorm- the time he held your bleeding body as you took your final breaths, the time Iida had you pull him off your body because there was no time to grieve. There had never been time to grieve. He never would move on. Midoriya would always be stuck in denial. He would die here, never fulfilling his goal, never finding peace with your death.
And then it was white. He felt alive though, like he was in a white room. He looked around, wiggling his fingers in front of his eyes. He must have died, because this wasn't where he just was.
"You didn't die, 'zuku."
His head jolted up, knowing your voice anywhere. There you were in front of him, dressed beautifully in white.
"You just are stuck right now. But you didn't die."
"Its really you?" Midoriya scrambled to his feet, trying to run to you, but he couldn't move.
"I'm me, but I'm not real. I'm sorry."
"I miss you." tears brimmed in Midoriya's eyes. He always wondered what it would be like to see you again, what he would say. He had a whole monologue in his imagination, but in the moment he was speechless.
You smiled that same soft smile, the one that radiated more warmth than the sun could ever dream. "I miss you too, Izuku. We'll be together someday."
"Now. I want to be together now. Y/N, I can't stand living without you. I-I dont know what I'm doing anymore!"
You held his face in your hand. Your hands made his face feel warm, but you felt like nothing more than a warm breeze. "It's not your time yet. You'll find a reason to keep going without me."
Tears poured from his eyes, wetting his cheeks. "No, no, I want to die. I can't live anymore. There's no point in it. You aren't there and I'm never going to be a hero-"
"Shh, hush with all that." You brushed tears from his face. "You can't die, 'Zuku. I won't let you."
You leaned in closer to him, whispering into his ear. "I'm your guardian angel Izuku. I'm always with you, okay?"
Midoriya gasped for air, looking for the right words but falling short. You were his angel, his precious and beautiful angel.
"Keep on living, keep on saving people, okay?" You pulled back, looking into his eyes. He smiled, brushing past the last of his tears.
He nodded, "I promise."
The white walls around him started to fade, turning darker. Your glow started to dim. Midoriya grabbed at you hand in some attempt to pull you back, even if he knew it wasn't possible.
He called out your name one last time before it was black again, and he was back in a life without you. But now, he had a reason to keep going.
#oligbia original#izuku midoriya x reader#izuku midoriya angst#izuku midoriya fic#izuku midoriya x reader angst#izuku midoriya x you#[☁] SENT FROM ABOVE
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MAJOR SPOILERS FOR TODAY'S EPISODE OF HELLUVA BOSS. ALSO FOUL LANGUAGE USED IN THIS EDIT. IF EITHER OF THOSE THINGS AREN'T FOR YOU THEN THIS POST WON'T BE FOR YOU EITHER. THIS EPISODE RUINED ME AND I OH SO BADLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
Okay is everyone gone? Excellent!
"Look I'm hard on you because I know what you're capable of Mox. You care too much about what everyone thinks, except for you know me because my opinion is correct, but just keep doing a good job.
Okayyy I've had one too many emotions for today. Guys let's fuck these fuckers up!" (Blitzo Helluva Boss.)
Throughout much of my life I've been known as that one "sweet" and "innocent" friend. But in my humble opinion everyone has a dark side. My dark side happens to reside in dark cartoons. Invader Zim, and anything that Viv makes. Helluva Boss took me almost completely by surprise. In fact, in some ways I prefer it to Hazbin Hotel. I love the bonds and relationships between the character and I'm going to be talking about one character in particular, Blitz.
When I first started this show last year after the first episode came out, I almost immediately loved Blitz. He was interesting, but most of all he was funny. Probably the funniest character on the show if you're asking me (I still do his "got the book, got the book, got this fucking heavy book" sometimes because I was laughing so hard I cried.) He also had this protective edge to him. He cared about his workers a lot more than he let on and we got confirmation of that today. He so clearly would do anything for the three people that matter more to him than anybody else.
The major strength in this show is Blitz's relationship with everyone and with himself. From his relationship with Stoliz finally getting some nonsexual development, to his adorable father/daughter relationship with his hellhound Luna, to his individual bond with Moxxie and Millie. Before today's episode I thought that he was overly cruel to Moxxie for really no sensible reason. I knew that there was some deeper hidden issues to why he acted that way because it's Blitz there's always deeper issues. Even though their interactions before this episode were genuinely hilarious I couldn't help but look at their relationship differently after all this episode entailed. Blitz is the protective dad that is always looking out for both his subordinates and his daughter. He also clearly cares about Stolas more than he lets on. That's another thing that I loved about the character development done with this episode (we'll talk more about Stolitz later on).
When you really think about it, everyone in Blitz's life has either let him down or left him at some point. This obviously left him mentally and emotionally scarred in more ways than one. He decided eventually that he should use his smart mouth to push everyone away from him. That way he could never get hurt again. That's actually one of my favorite character tropes other than the goofballs. And Blitz is a goofball but he's also foulmouthed, guarded, a little bit more than a bigoted asshole but it's not without reason. If we get to learn more about how Blitz's life really started. There was so many good character moments in this episode for him and I think that it really helped move his arc forward.
My favorite relationship thus far after this episode has to be Blitz's relationship with Moxxie. I'm so looking forward to where this friendship goes. Obviously they are both musical theater geeks who have that part of their lives in common but I think that after this episode they'll be so much closer. (Can I just talk about theater both of them pls that would be so fun! Just to compare notes about favorite shows. I have the same opinion about Cats Blitz btw highly overrated show.) But my second favorite has to be his relationship with Millie. Their relationship is just so cute and funny how he's always knowing exactly what she needs and offering her water in the middle of the battle and guns when she's using that halberd scythe style weapon. I love looking at the platonic relationships for Blitz because in my opinion they are just as important if not more so important than the main relationships. This entire show is about the element of family. Family can come in every shape and size and that's something that I love about this show. It's not just about a murdering group of imps that are killing people and swearing every five minutes. It's about a group of characters that love and rely on each other for various reasons. It's about the elements of family even if it's broken and bruised that is still your family.
The relationship between Stolas and Blitz to me was a bit of an anomaly before today. I thought that they were funny together but that it wasn't exactly consensual. That was until today's episode. Watching the one that came out today, I found that I was taking a different stance on their relationship. When Stolas came to rescue his Blitzy (never piss off Stolas okay that's just a warning because that shit was terrifying), for the first time I saw a relationship that was consensual on both ends. We saw Blitz actually flirt with the owl prince and it was hilarious to see Stolas go from most terrifying thing in all existence into absolute sub for his lover. I'm looking forward to seeing where this relationship is going because I'm a huge fan of both characters.
Helluva Boss is one of those cartoons that has changed my life over the last year. It's a show that never fails to make me laugh so hard that my sides are aching. My parents are always like what are you laughing at every time that there's a new episode. It's just such a ridiculous show but at the same time my heart broke seeing Blitz in pain. I know that we're going to to definitely see him suffer a lot more since he's going to be the angst development for the show. I'm dreading it but at the same time I'm looking forward to seeing it at the same time. I hope that Blitz does eventually get his happy ending with Stolas and the rest of his found family.
#helluva boss episode six spoilers#helluva boss spoilers#helluva boss#helluva boss blitzo#helluva boss found family#stolitz
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My Future in Fic
Yeah, so, the 100k fic that I’ve been working on for the past six months? The one that was going to be uploaded to AO3 last week?�� Yeah, it’s accidentally getting published...
Where do I start?
I suppose with a massive thank you to anyone who’s clicked on any of my fics over these past two years. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I never ever thought about writing as a career. I’ve never written anything prior to my Harry Potter AU Compartment 451. I didn’t even take an English class in undergrad or grad school. I genuinely just had an idea for a fic I wanted to read and since no one had written it, I had to do so myself. Since then, I’ve written every single day for 2 years. I left my job in the entertainment industry, got accepted to one of the best creative writing programs in the world on a scholarship, and now one of my stories is being considered at Harper Collins. Yes, the Harper Collins. It’s the longest shot in the world, but for legal reasons I was not allowed to upload the fic version on any website prior to submission. Even if they don’t pick it up, I’ve been advised to continue to shop it around to agents.
What I can do, however, is share the premise.
If you’ve been following my tumblr and watching my tags - I SEE YOU ALL OUT THERE - then you’ll know that this fic was meant to have Zayn with his signature undercut hairstyle and one more little thing...
Someone sent me an ask a while back about what this fic was supposed to be about. I believe I said something about it being an adaptation fic, but not from a film/tv show/other piece of literature, from a song. This next fic was meant to be an adaptation of the song Younger by Ruel. Later on, it also took shape with the help of Remember by Liam and a few others that you can find here.
The miniature summary is as follows:
When his father suddenly passes, twenty-nine-year-old Liam Payne is brought back to the Sydney suburbs where he grew up. He doesn’t plan on seeing his childhood best friend, Zayn Malik, at the burial service. They haven’t spoken since going from brothers to strangers one fateful day fifteen years prior. But Zayn puts an end to this when he approaches Liam after the burial, offering his condolences and asking if Liam can help his archaeological research team with photographing their newest project. The unexpected closeness forces each man to wade through uneasy emotions. For Liam, a mixture of grief, lost identity, and confusion over why he’s willing to interact with the one person he swore he’d never forgive. And for Zayn, a tidal wave of anxiety that comes from finally facing a part of himself he’s always chosen to deny. When We Were Younger is a story heavily rooted in blurred identities and exploring what loss can look like in two different scenarios: death and friendship.
For obvious reasons, their names will be changed. Liam, to Hutton. Zayn, to Cairo (his ethnicity will also be changed to Egyptian). As you can see, it was meant to be my big ‘enemies to lovers’ fic. Technically, it’s ‘best friends to enemies to lovers’, but you know.
Right, so what does this mean for me going forward?
I still have so much inspiration when it comes to writing Zayn and Liam as characters. I don’t plan on putting a complete stop to writing them, but with my career taking this large of a turn, I do have to prioritise my time. That said, as of now, I can’t afford to write long-form fic any longer.
Soon, I’ll be starting a PhD program where I’ll be writing another full-length novel for mass publication. For fun, here’s a little insight on the two ideas that I’ll be pitching:
1. Underground boxer (loosely based off Liam) falls in love with arms gang leader (loosely based off Zayn). Throughout their love story, the latter has to outrun the psychological trauma his father (the leader of Zayn’s rival gang) still throws his way.
2. Cold War AU. Paris, circa 1950/51. Ambassador’s son (loosely based off Liam) befriends new student (loosely based off Zayn) at the international school. Paris is a ticking time bomb; war is about to break out at literally any second. The two clearly have feelings for each other, but can’t act on them because homosexuality in the 1950s...yikes. When war does break out, the two are separated, and as Liam’s character goes out to find Zayn’s, he learns a secret of his that changes everything.
Whichever I don’t write for the PhD will be the novel I write following it.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to write (and edit) like crazy. Ever since I randomly wrote C451, there hasn't been a day that’s gone by where I haven't written something. It may have only been a paragraph or two, but never zero. This is how you get better. This is the equivalent of going out and shooting free throws for 30 minutes a day. You have to put in the work in order to get better. I'm very lucky that I'm incredibly self-disciplined and I've been able to crank out as many stories as I have over the past 2 years.
That said, I’ll be writing shorter little oneshots. I have several ideas that I’ve been sitting on, but haven’t ever thought to write because I HATE writing short stories. Little ideas that don't have huge plotline/climax potential, but that I want to just see on paper, I'll probably end up writing. If I had to guess, I'd say they'll come out to around 10-15k. Also, sequels? Prequels? Haha, you never know...
I’ve also got a series called “Sleep Drabbles” that are, yes, you guessed it, a series of drabbles based around one theme: sleep. I also have a few scenes that I want to write which are based on ziam’s kids, not actually ziam themselves. If there’s enough demand for that, I can upload those too, but they’re quite niche, so I don’t think the general fandom would be very interested.
As far as frequency for all of this, I have no idea. I’ve always done things at my own pace and written stories that I want to write, for myself. That won’t ever change, so I don’t want to commit to one drabble a week or one short-length fic per month. It takes me weeks (months for this last fic) to research and interview the necessary people to get character arcs correct/believable. I love that part of writing, and so if I have a little story that I want to write that may only be 10k but takes me ages to put together how I want, then so be it. I will always be around to answer asks/messages and please, continue to tag me in your writing tag posts! But please, no prompts.
So, that’s my future with fic.
Again, I cannot say thank you enough to every single one of you. Every single thing that people tag me in (@malik-payne , @zqua1d , @zentiment , @liamisthesun , @redyellowberry I’m looking at you), I appreciate and love! The recommendation lists that people have put me on, THANK YOU! It’s wild to think that I used to look to rec lists for years and now I’m on them. @ziamfanfiction THANK YOU for always having my back with exposure! @paynefulperiods , my beloved beta reader, THANK YOU for always encouraging me and putting up with shit first drafts. @march-z5 , THANK YOU for always being on call for ideas and listening to me bang my head against the wall at 4 am.
Now, might fuck around and make a fake picspam for the fic that never was...
Also, all of the behind scenes pages for each of my fics are now public, so feel free to check those out here.
I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making this journey possible. I know people say that a lot when they gain a following of any sort, but I truly truly mean it. You have to have talent in order to be an author, but you also have to have people who want to read your stuff. Proof of concept is a real thing.
So thank you a million times over.
Speak soon my friends.
#ziamhaze#my writing#ziam#ziam fanfic#ziam fanfiction#not sure what to tag this#also gonna be reblogging for a while bc I know people are going to be curious about where the next fic is and won't have seen this
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hi so i know im sending too many asks and i swear this is gonna be the last one today, you can take ur time answering them :D
i just finished the tenjiku arc :)))) i am not okay :)))))
first of all - izana?? and kakuchan??? see, i knew toman would win but im sobbing pls izana's death was so sad T-T and kakuchan??? he was with him till the end and it was snowing and they held hands. and then kakuchan went and visited all the places they played together im sobbing pls 😭😭😭
and SECOND of all oh my god kisaki fr what even is he- if he's not a time leaper, he just heard takemichi go on about time leaping and was like "oh ok this checks out. doesnt change my plans tho haha die" like. ????? where did he even get that gun from?? he's a fricking middle schooler- and he's just. gone now?? so,,, anticlimatic?? mean girls edition???
(also. damn i kinda knew he liked hina cause u told me but still wtf he didn't even know hina was into delinquents, takemichi just wanted to become one so he too?? became one?? wtf shit motives are those dude get a life)
(also damn angry really took out 50 guys with a broken hand and foot i love him sm)
!!!! and then mikey saying "you created the new era" to takemichi!!!!!
lowkey, i thought he was gonna offer to have takemichi lead toman but he disbanded toman?
like. i get that that's the smartest thing to do but ik there's like a 100 more chapters left,,, where's the conflict gonna take place now?
(i do hope there's like some wholesome panels with them being kids without all the gang stuff)
and then mikey saying "i'll protect everyone here, so u dont have to worry" pls TT-TT
istg if takemichi goes back to the future and hina still dies i will riot nothing can go wrong now
(also ch 191 my beloved <333 we get chifuyu being wholesome and hinata and takemichi being cringe middleschoolers in love <3333)
well anyways, it's 11:15 on a school night i was supposed to be asleep but eh it's just revision tomorrow
hope u have a nice day too TT-TT
hii! u silly i told u it’s ok to send as many as u like (>︿< ) i look forward to them :))) i hope u had a good day at school :D
izana & kakuchan....yeah....these tragic duos really play with ur emotions right </3
lmao told ya none of these would’ve happened if kisaki knew how to handle a rejection 💀💀💀 i wouldnt call it love, it’s just obsessive behavior ://///
ANGRY GOING BERSERK MODE!!!!!!!!!! one of my fav moments istg 🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️
ah yes it felt kinda personal when mikey decided to disband toman, i was too into it all lmao. but yeah... maybe he wasnt wrong, like theyre gonna leave with good memories :(((((((
i tHiNk the real deal starts after then. if i remember right, next time takemichi travels back to future, everyone’s alive and happy so no hina doesnt die again sigh. but everything still goes wrong in one way.......... evil mikey go brrr 🙃
#sorry for the late reply i was busy doing absolutely nothing#have good night ❤#louvely mutuals#asks#tokyorev spoilers
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LOTR (films) Review
So I finally watched the LOTR films (20 years later). I’m super excited to review these because I read the books very recently so I feel at least a little prepared to voice some opinions. Overall I loved the films, here’s a very long (but by no means exhaustive) compilation of my thoughts, which are of course, totally subjective:
(Warning: a lot of me saying “well, actually, in the book...”)
THINGS I LIKED
- Casting! not much to say here, I thought the casting was great. One of my favorite actors that I didn’t think i’d have a huge opinion on was David Wenham as Faramir. I was kinda ambivalent on him when I saw pictures but i thought he did a great job. he showed his quality.
- Music. so much has been said about the films on the music front. I can’t offer too much original insight but when a bit of the Shire theme started to play as Frodo tries to make his way up Mount Doom I cried a little.
- Boromir and Aragorn. I liked the scene where they interact a little in Rivendell. I also like how Aragorn saves Boromir in the Moria battle and gives him this little nod of friendship. I think the films did a great job portraying the dynamic they have where Aragorn is clearly suspicious of Boromir’s motivations but grows to respect him to the point where he doesn’t even blame Boromir for being corrupted by the ring because he understands that, at heart, Boromir is a good person.
- Sam and Frodo in Osgiliath. I expected to be kind of annoyed with the way this plot point played out (I knew ahead of time that it strayed from the book), but I actually liked it a lot. As I’ll say later, there’s some gripes I have with the way the films extremely play up the disagreements between Frodo and Sam, but I loved the scene where Frodo pulls the sword on Sam and then seems so defeated when he realizes what he’s done. I was pleasantly surprised by how emotional this scene made me. It’s admittedly A Lot, but it was done nicely, especially in conjunction with Sam’s “there’s good in this world” speech.
- Treatment of the ending. I almost think I should dislike the ending as it is in the movies, but my heart is soft and I like that they sugarcoated it a bit. I know the whole point of the Scouring of the Shire and Frodo’s depression conveys a lot about war and trauma and I think that is important, but after watching these things for twelve hours I just wanted Frodo & co. to be happy and I was kinda relieved that they cut the Scouring. Does that make me weak and perhaps bad at film analysis? yes. do I care? no. I was also very glad that the movies didn’t portray how depressed Sam was about losing Frodo in the end. Yes, he cries, but when he walks home to his family he seems happy and in the books that scene came off so much bleaker. I definitely liked the lighter tone.
THINGS I WAS NEUTRAL ON/DIDN’T LIKE
- Arwen. (Neutral) I don’t hate her, I don’t love her. I think the story she and Aragorn have is compelling and I 100% get why the filmmakers decided to add it to give her character more depth, but it felt misplaced at times. maybe it’s just because it was the only storyline I didn’t know in depth, but the scenes with the Arwen/Aragorn flashbacks felt a bit confusing and disorienting. Don’t have anything against Arwen as a character though, I think she’s pretty alright.
- Gimli. (Complicated thoughts) I want to start off by saying I don’t dislike Gimli. I like him a lot! I just think the movies did him a bit dirty. He had some good movie-exclusive moments, but I think his character really fell into this place of being the butt of too many jokes. Would have liked to see some more serious Gimli development, especially with his relationship to Legolas. Their friendship felt too much like subtext here, whereas it’s explored far more in the books.
- Two Towers Pacing. (Didn’t really like). The pacing of TTT was...weird. maybe I’m going into this with a closed mind because of the books, but it was odd to have the movie begin with Frodo and Sam and then have them only appear for a few rapid scenes after that. I think the fact that a WHOLE LOT of what happens to Frodo and Sam in TTT is moved to RotK is what makes it feel that way? In the books, Two Towers ends with Sam discovering that Frodo isn’t dead from Shelob’s sting, and I was surprised by how long it took the movies to get to that part. However, I will give the films a little leeway because I think they needed Frodo & Sam content for RotK, since most of what happens in that book is them walking through Mordor basically starving and dying. Doesn’t make for great cinema I guess, so they had to put the whole Shelob/Cirith Ungol saga into the final film. Still, I think there’s a weird lack of Frodo and Sam’s presence in TTT.
- The go home/missing bread arc. (Full of rage abt this one) yeah. so. my criticism of this is gonna sound pretty tired because people complain and complain about this part of RotK. but I’m gonna complain some more!! I don’t think the split between Frodo and Sam does anything for the plot. I really don’t. I guess it emphasizes the fact that Sam doesn’t understand how much Frodo is projecting onto Gollum, but it’s just. unnecessary angst? They had enough angst in the Osgiliath scene! Which I actually liked! And it simply doesn’t make a lot of sense for Frodo to suspect Sam of eating the bread when Sam had already offered Frodo his own food and made it clear that he would very much starve if it meant making sure Frodo could eat. But what I hate most about this scene is not that Frodo gets mad and tells Sam to go home. No. It’s that Sam actually... thinks about doing that? he actually? goes down the staircase? emotionally this is bad because Sam clearly cared enough about Frodo to follow him this far, to nearly drown for him, so why would he leave now. Practically this is bad because 1. how would Sam get out of Mordor alone and 2. where would he go. He turns around almost immediately, yes, but what was his plan. where was he going. why.
THINGS I LOVED
- For Frodo! This line, and every other shoutout to Frodo. In the books, they didn’t really actively talk about/worry about Frodo (and Sam) as much as they do in the movies. I like that they talk about Frodo more in the movies! I like that they’re thinking about him! I know it was implied that they were in the books, but I really like how it’s shown here. I think it gave a more complete picture of how much they all care about him on a personal level in addition to just needing him to succeed from a pragmatic standpoint.
- Merry and Pippin! I feel like Merry and Pippin were so well rounded in the films. I’ve heard criticism about them being turned into comic relief characters (which they always were a little bit) but it honestly didn’t feel that way to me. They had a bit of a rough start because the films didn’t make their motives for going with Frodo as deep as the books did, but I think that by TTT they were absolutely amazing characters in every scene. In RotK their respective arcs hit really well and the scene where Pippin is singing to Denethor? *chef’s kiss* poetic. beautiful. sad. idk man I just feel like I have such a newfound appreciation for Merry and Pippin.
- Parallels! people have pointed out the parallel of Frodo and Sam’s hands before (drowning scene/mount doom scene) and I love how the movie did that. Just stunning. Also! The moving of the Smeagol & Deagol scene to RotK surprised me because in the books it was like,,,at the beginning of Fellowship, but I think the placement of it in the movies really helped emphasize the similarities between Smeagol & Deagol and Frodo & Sam (and how much Frodo fears this similarity.) There were a lot of other well done parallels between storylines and a few bits of dialogue that were repeated with great timing, but I can’t remember all of them at the moment.
Edit: here’s one I remembered! when Frodo wakes up after being rescued and sees Gandalf, he says Gandalf’s name in a very similar tone to the one he used at the very beginning of Fellowship. It was a nice little subtle connection.
- I can’t carry it for you...alright this is self-indulgent. everyone knows I love this line. I’m just so glad it made it into the movie intact. Sean Astin’s delivery was amazing. I cheered. My mom cheered. It’s a raw line and it makes me feel secret emotions...like if shrimp colors were feelings. that line makes me feel shrimp feelings. idk i’m so tired i just watched twelve hours of movies this review is decreasing in quality by the minute but i’m about done for now anyway
Various silly afterthoughts
- I would have liked to see Sam kiss Frodo’s hands at least once. This happens 50 thousand times in the books, they could have given me one scene. one little extended edition scene. Please Peter Jackson I’m dyin’ out here
- They literally made Gollum so hateable. kinda the point yes, but I was so on board with Sam’s murderous rage. I know why Gollum’s a profoundly complex character, I know why Frodo pities him, I know why murder is bad, but I too would throw hands with that creature. also he literally body shamed Sam so much what was that skdjksdjksd. Sam is lovely. let him commit a small homicide.
- the scene where merry and pippin drink the tall boy juice (as someone once referred to it in the tags of one of my posts)... not accurate to the books (since they don’t ever drink it with the end goal of getting tall) but so accurate to life. if I found some water that made me taller than my friends? let me at it
- Frodo panicking when he falls into the spider webs. so real bestie. i felt just as panicked watching that. i am terrified of spiders and Elijah Wood did an amazing job doing exactly what i’d do in the situation. yelping a lot and falling down.
- I feel like it’s never stated that Sam’s a gardener (or at least that he’s specifically Frodo’s gardener) until he tells Faramir he is. Did I miss this. Or do they really never say. are you just meant to know. are you just meant to pick up gardener vibes from him.
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This has been a very chaotic lotr movie review. Thanks for reading.
#lotr#lord of the rings#lotr movies#vee watches (!) lotr#fellowship of the ring#the two towers#return of the king#Frodo baggins#samwise gamgee#gimli#arwen#boromir#aragorn#gollum#merry brandybuck#pippin took#veesaysthings#long post#seriously SUCH a long post im so sorry#had to get these thoughts out though#im SO tired
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Giants of Thai BL AKA The MOST ANTICIPATED THAI BL SHOWS FOR 2021
It's weird to think that the year 2020 has ended. This has been a journey in the past year, on the surface everywhere you looked it looked like there was no place to be happy and excited because of all the things that happened. It was suffocating at times, tiring at best, and it was just astonishing how many things could go wrong in only one year. That being said, one genre/demographic that grew even stronger this year, took some time to impress and improve on its tropes, its ideas and concepts and that's BL. Which also took some of us by surprise, for the ones who've been watching BL since the first oldies, to the new people who joined and also became in love with the genre and have stayed since then. BL has been an incredible, interesting journey, and I am so happy to say that it looks like 2021 isn't letting go of that energy. So to celebrate entering 2021, a year hopefully for a release from all the worries in 2020, a year to restart, refresh and keep getting better, here are the Giants of Thai Bl making their way in 2021. We have so many insane ones, from more mafia dramas to new unique non-university storylines, to og actors, and new powerful ones, to interesting pairings and new channels producing shows for 2021 to many many more countries joining the fight to be the top of our affections and energy. Thai BL is not going anywhere, and you know what that's perfectly fine with me.
GMMTV
I already did a whole squeal about the shows upcoming from GMMTV here: But after careful consideration here is my top 3 most anticipated: Enchante, Not Me, Bad Buddy. I know Enchante beat out ATOTS, but for me, I'm obsessed with the way the writer plans secrets and meta to unveil, and I keep repeating it's by Theory of Love director and production team. I'm so excited. I just hope they put in the same energy and effort they used in theory of love for this you have so many potential incredible actors that can take over this genre if you give them a good script and hard work. Hopefully, GMMTV intends to do so for not just their royal couple shows but also for rookie actors because Book and Force in this trailer? Looks fantastic.
Studio Wabi-sabi
When I hear about Studio Wabi-Sabi, you see two juxtaposed reactions from me, one you see anticipation and excitement from seeing my most loved actors off-screen; however, you also hear a groan from me. I'm sorry I didn't use to be this way, I used to be so ready to embrace every show directed and created by New Siwaj; in 2020, New was one of the directors I kept having headaches about because of all his shows in 2020? What exactly happened? Why did they flop so hard? Why was he so slow? I'm hoping that it's because he had too many projects to handle at the same time since fair enough LBC was filmed same time as GMMTV My gear and your gown and maybe that was too much to handle? But the reason why I like News choices usually are because they're emotional, impressive with their plot lines and have good character arcs and couples we end up falling in love with. He could be an iconic director because he has so much talent in his company, so I'm hoping he uses his lessons and grows and becomes better in 2021. But Let's get to the shows announced so far for 2021 because they both have the potential to take over 2021. I said what I said.
Between Us
Genre: Friends with benefits, Romance, Comedy, PTSD, Angst,
Ahh, this is incredible. I'm so happy. Win and Team are from a great tv show already with Until We Meet Again and not going to lie, but seeing Buon as Win and Prem as Team? Perfection. Like guys I actually fell so hard for this couple despite their low screen time. Buon stole the scene each time he appeared, with his little smirks, and mischief, with flirty bad-boy energy and their relationship, was precisely what I live for passionate and full of chemistry. They're great, which is why it's so exciting to see that Between Us is getting its own show, the show based on these two love story in a parallel timeline to Until we meet again. I screamed. The book sounds interesting; we're getting some conversations about PTSD, some healing relationships, and angst and more passion. I'm so excited about this since I first saw BuonPrem. I knew they were going to get known enough to bring their own show. And they deserve it, let's hope we get an interesting script that keeps us invested, enough opportunities for these two to have softer and profound moments whilst still holding on to their passion, and let the drama not be stale but addicting. Please New, don't let this show also be slow-paced, I'll lose it if another show is ruined by directing from you.
Ratings: 4/5: BuonPrem, they leap off the screen, their chemistry is that great. From hearing about the plot I'm also excited to a more in-depth look into Team's insomnia and his past and psychological scars, and I'm hoping to see a deeper reason for why these two should be together.
Love Mechanics 2
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Angst, Drama, Friends with benefits, Unrequited love,
That's the thing about Wabi-Sabi; they have amazing actors that steal our hearts away. This shows cast is no different, it's YinWar and it's a collab with Channel 3. Like What? It's everything. YinWar from Love Mechanics trended with millions of people obsessed and wanting the show to be extended and actually appropriately done. In came Channel 3 and we have this gem coming on April. No words. YinWar on screen is thrilling; War is just outstanding as Mark, his nuances, his glares, his looks of pain and longing, man I was absorbed into it. Although LM's writing is toxic and really left me feeling confused and uncomfortable with the details pushed aside, it was hard to ship VeeMark when Yin's character made terrible decisions and was awful even in the book. I'm the queen of analysing damaged flawed characters, and I don't run away from toxicity as long as there is a growth and change later on, as long as there's a good reason we needed to see that. For Vee's character, his actions were unnecessary for us to know about his character; they were just messy and upsetting. That's why I think seeing more depth for his actions and seeing Mark regress and also make mistakes like him will even out their relationship and make me feel more understanding about how these two flawed characters came to be and why they should be together. Let's hope with funds from Channel 3, more effort and energy put into the show, it'll be great because with actors like War this show can be just as big as it was when it had errors. Maybe even better.
Ratings 3.5/5 Love mechanics messy storyline makes me worried about this, but I think I might have a great time watching and analysing Mark's revenge after being heartbroken. The angst and drama of it all just sound interesting.
Channel 3
2020 brought a new surprise with Channel 3 deciding to invest in BLS. BLs have always been not on mainstream channels, so seeing Channel 3 in Thailand decide to make their own shows, a collab with other companies, and bring some directors and writers and actors known in the BL world already, shows they are serious. This may be because of the success of 2gether and other breakthroughs in 2019 taking over the scene. But I can see that Channel 3 did not come here to play, they are researching, looking for ways to make a great BL with the information provided on the past BLs and they want to make it big. And you know what with shows like GEN Y showing up last year, I want to believe that Channel 3 is a competition for GMMTV and others. They invest in funds and have longer minutes for their episodes, and they also pay attention to international fans by streaming on new places like Iquiyi and others. It's exciting. Channel 3 has already dipped their toes with Love Mechanics, and in 2021 they have even more shows to give us:
Teddy Bear Miracle
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Supernatural, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Fantasy, Mystery, Lakorn
What a weird title for a show. What an odd premise. What a bizarre book. But you know what I'm so excited about this; this is meant to be a lakorn series that is BL. Like wow, it has a good cast, known faces in the Thai acting scene and a director/screenwriter who has won awards for his own script. That's even more exciting. But the best thing about this is that it's a fantasy and has supernatural themes, yep it's weird we're dealing with a magic system where teddy bears come to life, and other inanimate objects talk? But I'm so excited to see what this brings; we have a man transformed from a teddy bear with amnesia who's searching for his past and how he ended up as one and his owner who's not yet ready to let his comfort go. It's so interesting, with family history and drama and of course, a romance that will probably touch my heart. I'm excited for this zany, wacky and dramatic show. Normally, I shy away from the crazy because I don't like crack humour, and it just means a bunch of many irritating sound effects and editing choices. But I want to trust the whole team from Channel 3, from the behind the scenes the show looks great, the couple has chemistry, and I'm excited to delve into the mystery at play and see what this story is meant to become. So excited honestly.
Ratings: 4.1/5 The wacky magic system scares me not going to lie, but I have faith for some reason in Channel 3, so I think this might shock us all. I think we'll get good acting, and perhaps good directing too. The mystery might also make me want to analyse. We shall see.
Lovely Writer
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Angst, Drama, Acting/Writing Industry, Haters to Lovers,
Did you say Kao and Up and P'Tee the director of TharnType the series? Sign me up I'm there; I've been screaming a bit since I heard about this series. From the first time, it was announced that Channel 3 was turning the book into a show, I was like this sounds unique again? And it has an interesting plot, I guess, and it's also going to have drama. I'm hopeful then. When I heard about the whole team and watched the trailer, I got into it even more. Lovely Writer sounds right up my alley, to be honest, we have this introverted writer who is determined to write a masterpiece and stop his company from making him produce BLs for the hype only for his next project to be a BL show which leads him to his new sneaky, sly, wolf in sheep's clothing roommate. Kao played his roommate from Until we meet again who won my heart as Korn and made me cry buckets. So, of course, I'm excited, Nubsib (Kao) may have some tricks up his sleeve to get next to Gene, but I think things will be more complicated than he thought, I'm ready to explore the world of the film industry and dating scandals that Gene and Sib will fall into the more they fall for each other. The angst and drama. Can't wait. Also, TharnType is one of my favourite series, and one of the reasons is because of Tee so... That's even more reason to see Gene and Sip's love story develop. Will it be as angsty, passionate and filled with plot twists? From what I hear maybe.
Ratings: 4/5 I just think this is an excellent team for a BL backed by Channel 3 and also has an exciting plot filled with ups and downs. I'm excited to see what happens and from the behind the scenes they released in the new year I think it'll be right up my alley.
NADAO
It had to be mentioned that I'm still in shock that Nadao is investing more into BL's. I don't know why, it just feels too good to be true, after giving me show after show that's perfection and quality I'm starting to have high expectations and hope for more, despite my weary heart not wanting to trust that this is real. I'm dramatic, I know. Anyways Nadao has gifted me twice with two shows that have shocked me and made my jaw fall in awe. I'm just like wow, they really did that. Every single piece of work that comes from them is art. Every single script is exceptionally written. Every single show is acted beautifully, and every single director and producer makes me inspired by the way they create. This is when focusing on their BLs because Great Man Academy and I told sunset about you are masterpieces in their own way, they deserve to be praised and never forgotten. It's just incredible that with a company like Nadao, everything falls into place, even when we think it won't because of past experiences. Nadao has shown up and decided to create unique pieces each thoughtful. Deep and breathtaking. Why won't I be over the moon when 2021 announces that we're getting another part from them with I told sunset about you getting a sequel. You bet I haven't stopped screaming and looking at the time to hurry up, so we get to March 11. I'm serious.
ITSAY PART 2
Genre: Romance, Angst, Drama, University, Coming of age
And that's because of what ITSAY was to us in 2020. It was something that can't be explained concisely. It was everything. To hear that we're getting the second part of the story of Oh and Teh, I feel like I am already preparing my heart and mind for another invasion, last time I was a mess because of this show, I was all over the place because of this show, and I was incredibly happy for a moment because of this show. To relive that again would be everything. It's slightly worrying that Teh and Oh finally getting together and fighting through the odds to stay together will run into more obstacles. Are you kidding me? After all, we went through to see them together?? It makes me worried, I have this real distrust for sequels of BLs, and it hasn't changed despite 2020 producing some okay follow-ups. Sequels never meet the expectation set; sequels are always reduced in quality because the focus is now on popularity and fame, sequels lose their integrity of the characters we've come to know and love and sequels hurt. They make me sometimes give up on a show that is my love, and it hurts. It's a painful realisation that I can't take away or forget the sequel events, so these characters are now ruined infinitely for me—looking at Together with me next chapter. It's scary. But Nadao hasn't failed yet, I mean it when I say their scripts are like works of art, I mean it when I say you can tell they put blood, sweat and tears to create their shows, why would ITSAY part 2 be any different? These two shows I mentioned before are coming together because the director of GMA is joining the team of ITSAY to produce whilst Boss becomes the producer. As long as he's there, I'm fine, as long as we still get hard work, energy, effort and thought put into it. I'm fine. Because it translates on screen, I'll try to lower my expectations, but I can't wait to see BilkinPP as TehOh again. I can't wait to fall in love with the show all over again. Let's hope we all end up satisfied.
Ratings: 4.5/5 The being a sequel is what's deducting the 0.5. I can't come here and be a fool; I must guard my heart against disappointment somewhat, despite failing already to do so.
Other Affiliates
We have our other shows. These were a pleasant surprise. With all the growth of new BLs, it's starting to get crowded and saturated, but as much as it's hard to see which shows stand out above all the noise, some make you see it. These shows are the ones that stand out for me out of the rest in 2021. I don't know what companies they're from, all I know is the information given to me and past experiences.
KinnPorsche
Genre: Romance, Mafia, Angst, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Haters to Lovers, Bodyguard trope
AHHH. Can you hear me AHH. Okay, I'll calm down. But no really, KinnPorsche is finally preparing for filming and the cast has been set and I'm screaming. KinnPorsche was the book in 2020 that was announced as the most coveted; I remember so many fandoms wanted their actors to be chosen as the main cast. The reason? Because this is meant to be the first Mafia/Crime BL. Yes, you heard us, no more universities and engineers we're doing bodyguards and spoilt gangsters. I'm... But just knowing this, you just know that the show will also have angst, angst angstttt for days, drama, and a romance that probably involves haters to lovers, passion, and character development. We're coming in with guns blazing, with many side couples that look just as good and interesting, and many actors that look perfect for their roles. I cannot wait for KinnPorsche, especially when one of my favourite actors is going to be in it as a second lead Jeff Satur! Have you seen the posters, the character introduction, who they're casting for the rest of the show? This looks amazing, it seems well put together, and the whole team looks determined and ready to give us a great show. I'm honestly so excited, but I've also heard things about the book that I will have to wait for the show to be a judge of before saying. All I can say is quality of a show also includes the themes in the script, we're trying to evolve past the toxic plots and ideas in BL, so I'm hoping if there is any we cut it real quick and change that part. It's the producers and directors' choice to keep parts in that could be edited or removed. I haven't read the book, so I'm going to be wary about it for now, but from the whole cast, teasers, and posters I really think this show could be a favourite if appropriately handled.
Ratings: 4?/5 The question mark is for the rumours I've heard about the book. I can't lie that I want this show to be great and become one of my all-time favourites but with angst and violent personalities and passion comes leeways to toxicity and more and that's just not cute or needed.
My Engineer Season 2
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Angst, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Haters to Lovers, Unrequited love, University,
Okay, this is it, folks. My Engineer came in 2020 and knocked our socks off; it's the most underrated great show in 2020 (apart from why r u) in my opinion. It was brilliantly constructed with enough screen time and plot for every couple of the show. My Engineer is a great show; it didn't make it to my favourites because I had issues with the main couple, but it was my most enjoyed when it came to the side couples. Because we had KingRam, TharaFong, and MekBoss. (Sorry to BohnDuen Fans). These were some of the most exciting, heartfelt, loving couples in 2020, KingRam was just chef kiss. And to hear that we're getting a sequel based on them? Well you know what I did, I screamed. I loved both KingRam and TharaFrong they were done so well, acted so well, and they made me laugh and laugh and then squeal and blush. They were too cute. The ending of my engineer left both these couples on a cliff hanger; we had a depressing bro zone with TharaFong as Fong came to realise his feelings, we had a wait what moment with Ram telling King he wasn't drunk when the kiss happened which is essentially a 'we need to deal with this new situation' text. And it's got me so excited to see what happens next. The first part of this was excitement. The second part is sigh, sequels. I told you didn't sequels are just urgh. I couldn't stop my excitement about KingRam, and I went to read the novel, and I usually don't mind it, but I don't think if the sequel is based on their story that I'd like them in season 2. And that's ridiculous because they're finally the main couple of season 2, and TalayPerth is impressive to see on screen. Sigh. I wasn't happy when reading the book; there are specific actions and choices made that just shifts the dynamic of the first season into the opposite. And I'm not particularly excited to relive those moments. Let's just say I still have high hopes for My engineer mostly cause I don't know what's happening to the other couples; I really hope there's a change in the script, maybe more information, more reasons for the characters to act the way they do, more depth? Because I want to like this show, I want it successful, but I'm not a clown I can't pretend it will be if it's based on the books. We'll see if I'm proved wrong. I hope I am.
Ratings: 3.5- Why did I read the book why?? I should have come into it blind I would have given it a 5/5 just for KingRam. Sigh
Love Stage
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Gender Bender, Friends to Lovers, Childhood friends,
This was a shock. Thailand has started to remake mangas from Japan, and it's all the most loved ones. In 2021 we already have Antique Bakery being remade by GMMTV (Read my GMMTV Giants of 2021) and now we have Love Stage which is also getting a Japanese Movie remake out in 2021. It's a great manga, anime and it's going to be a fun show. I enjoyed the characters, and I liked the storyline. But what I'm the most excited about when it comes to this is Kaownah and Turbo finally, after years of waiting have a new series. YES. Kaownah plays Long in TharnType our villain, and he was incredible in that. I heard he and Turbo were meant to be in the show My Umbrella, but it was cancelled and forgotten which was disappointing. These two are so cute, they're known for their fanservice and their chemistry and friendship. And I like them a lot. I can't wait to see Love Stage. I think they'll kill it. Can't wait to hear more about it let's hope this time it sticks and comes through on our screens.
Ratings: 4/5 It's a fun storyline, and it has an excellent acting couple. I'm excited.
If 2021 already sounded brilliant because of GMMTV 2021, 2021 sounds even more exciting with these new shows; there's so many coming out, so many breaking stereotypes, so many unique plotlines, and so many great actors showing up. It's going to be a great year. I'm just glad BLs are growing, things are changing slowly, things are starting to have meaning and improve, international fans are being listened to, LGBT voices is also being listened to, we are getting there, not yet there but closer, every single time someone makes a choice to create a great plot and story that is more than just two guys making out, a show filled with heart, messages and essential representation with the good actors that also want the shows to mean something or are willing to put their all in it, every time someone chooses to make a good BL, you're paving the way for change and for the meaning of BL to change as well, for it just to be seen as something more in media. And that's needed for so many people who want shows like this to be respected and created for voices that need to be heard and displayed. Let’s see more with excellent quality in 2021.
#thai bl#bl series#bl drama#gmmtv 2021#between us#love mechanics#itsay#i told sunset about you#my engineer#lovely writer#wrpup#2021
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BNHA - STOPPING, OR SAVING DABI?
Here I come with theories!
DISCLAIMER: I do not condone abuse, may it be emotional, physical or psycological.
Now, as I’ve stated in the tags and the meta on chapter 325, I like the whole Todoroki family. Aside from Shouto and Enji, they may seem like minor characters, but they are actually well enstablished and deep and their reactions and reasoning after Endeavor begins his atonement arc are very nuanced.
I’m sure you already know what the point of view of every family member is: Rei won’t forgive him, but she’s also watching as he stones for his past awful deeds; Fuyumi is probably the one that wants to forgive Endeavor the most in order to have a semblance of a normal family; Natsuo righteously hates him to the moon and back, and Shouto is still on the fence but willing to work alongside his father on a professional standpoint. At times, Shouto also calls him “Father”, but only in certain circumstances and very rarely. And then...
Then we have Todoroki Touya, Enji and Rei’s firstborn.
I won’t be talking about Fuyumi, Rei or Natsuo much on this post; I’ll concentrate on Touya, Shouto and Enji. They are, at least from what the narrative seems to be building up, the focus of the Todofam arc.
Let’s start with Touya, or at least I’ll write how I’m interpreting the narrative here...You can disagree, people have different ways of reading the same text.
He wants his father to go down, burn in hell, HARD. And he doesn’t really care if it takes to kill Shouto, whom he sees as his replacement, or put Natsuo’s life in the crossfire: anything that makes Endeavor suffer is justified. He even goes as far as killing innocent people and being an accomplice and supporter of terrorism, and bringing his family’s trauma and situation out in the public without their consent: one may argue it was correct to expose Enji, but in my humble opinion the approach was wrong. Touya wanted his father to suffer, without realizing or caring enough that his family may have traumatic reactions to the reveal as he did it, or may not be ready for it. He also isn’t doing it out of genuine feelings of justice, in my opinion: he’s weaponising the narration to bring down his father and the heroes.
Touya, at times, accuses Endeavor of killing the innocent people HE killed with HIS fire, because Endeavor’s grave neglect and irresponsible behavior towards his situation caused Touya to start hurting himself to the point of burning up at Sekoto Mountain, before vanishing and becoming a Villain because of, presumably, all the unresolved pain and feelings pent up inside of him.
Shouto is saved by the deadly fire embrace of his brother by Midoriya, that agrees with Touya about the fact that the past never dies, and as much as Endeavor will change, the past won’t; Midoriya admits this while saying that the actual Endeavor is trying to change, and Dabi isn’t Endeavor: which means that Dabi can’t fault Endeavor for those he killed and his uncaring behavior towards those that suffered his same trauma.
As some argued, during the war Touya is shown as an ensemble of Endeavor’s worst traits, which is important as it signifies that his behavior originates from the way Endeavor raised him.
Now, onto Shouto.
Shouto, who we’ve seen being on the fence when it comes to forgiving Endeavor, actually seems to be trying to empathize with Touya during their fight, various times, really, as can be seen by his expressions. He also takes it upon himself to stop Touya before his family reunites in the hospital and opt to stop Touya together, with Endeavor and Shouto as the focal point.
Sorry I have to go.
I will finish this tomorrow I swear--
EDIT: Expect this to be over tonight. I'm currently busy.
EDIT: I'll reblog this and complete it later.
EDIT:
Here we are once more. Sorry for making you guys wait.
As I was saying...
After Shoto extends his hand to his father in the hospital, and some months (I don’t remember how many, sry) after the press conference where the Top 3 spoke to the public, the Top Three throw themselves after Midoriya, that as abandoned UA, trying to track AFO and his followers down.
And Shouto...well, he isn’t happy, much like the rest of Class 1A: they are majorly upset and preoccupied because Midoriya is missing, but Shouto is also angered by the fact that his father is following Midoriya around instead of concentrating on how to convince Touya to stop hurting himself and others and thus STOP/SAVE HIM. This is what, presumably, Shouto and Endeavor’s goal is regarding to Touya: stop him from being hurt and hurting others with his flames, which will save him and give them a chance to repair the strained relationship.
Endeavor, Hawks and Best Jeanist’s mission to follow and support Midoriya in the meanwhile is failing splendidly: they endeavored (I’mnotsorryforthepun) in this mission because they wanted to compensate the lowering number of heroes active, hunt down villains and find AFO at the same time, all by profiting from Midoriya’s Danger Sense ability. The plan di per se wasn’t that bad, but Midoriya was going too fast for even Hawks, the fastest hero, to follow him; a reminder of why: Midoriya has a lot more Quirks than the top 3, and he was way more desperate than them to find AFO, trust me...the heroes, that also started to include Mt.Lady, Edgeshot, Kamui Woods and others, try to support him from the sidelines, but they are, at the same time, becoming a burden to Midoriya, as Endeavor recognizes before entering UA in chapter 325.
Also, the students mentored by the top 3 try to reach out to them like crazy, because they want to know what the fudge they’re doing and where Midoriya is: Tokoyami called Hawks, Bakugou tried to contact Best Jeanist and Shouto called Endeavor, without receiving exhaustive answers. Endeavor, in particular, doesn’t really want to sideline Shouto, after all they’ve been through, but when he missed the call, he was probably also feeling uncertain on how to deal with Touya, while at the same time worriyng on how to stop AFO and make sure the chaos the country is in doesn’t become worse. When he’s called to UA by Nezu and played a trick by the students who have now started figuring things out, he receives a wake-up call by his son.
Shouto makes him notice how they had told each other they’d stop Touya together, but Endeavor had sidelined him and took it upon himself to find his eldest son and Shouto’s older brother, all while making an exception for Midoriya. I don’t think Shouto didn’t understand his father was also trying to find AFO, but he also didn’t want Endeavor to ditch him and instead wanted to be included. Endeavor seems to slowly understand that the plan he and the other top heroes were following REALLY wasn’t going for the best, thanks not only to Shouto’s wake up call but to Bakugou’s words as well. If All Might, or Midoriya in this case, are left alone with the full weight of their responsibilities heavy on their shoulders, they are going to hurt themselves tremendously. While Endeavor thought that the plan was a good approach, Bakugou clearly says that it wasn’t the best one. Endeavor gives up his phone and looks to be reflecting on many things.
When the class works together to help Midoriya and bring him back to UA, he finally realizes that letting the kids convince Deku was a good idea and tells his colleagues not to intervene, for the students are dealing with it just fine.
We later see him out of the UA barrier with Hawks and Shouto, listening to the citizens screaming at Midoriya to stay away, scared for their safety and mistrustful towards the heroes; not even Best Jeanist and Present Mic can keep them calm. Shouto is super frustrated: he would love to go amidst the civilians and protect Midoriya form their accusations, “put them at ease” like his original heroic goal was. The circumstances, however, don’t seem to be his allies; he still looks extremely relieved when Uraraka takes the megaphone and finally convinces the citizens.
And, here we are to the last actual moment of the STOPPING TOUYA TO SAVE HIM narrative: Endeavor, after recognizing what exactly was wrong with the top 3 plan, looks a bit shocked when Shouto addresses him as “father”. He also look very...sad, somehow: sorry that things aren’t working out as well as he’d have hoped them to go, and that the Touya situation is still unresolved. Shouto extends a hand to him again, by saying that this time they’ll save Touya together. The thought of Dabi’s haunting eyes crosses both of them. Endeavor is probably still afraid that stopping Touya may be a burden too heavy for Shouto when he says, his face a bit obscured, “yes”.
THEORY TIME!
The narration seems to be headed towards the redemption of Shigaraki, Toga, Dabi, Endeavor and mayyyyyybe Overhaul. We know that Shigaraki’s saviour may be Midoriya, Toga’s will be Uraraka, and Overhaul’s rademtion’s factor will mainly be if Eri wants to forgive him.
Endeavor’s redemption’s weight depends on how efficient he actually is at saving Touya at this point and Dabi’s redemption will probably happen thanks to Shouto with contribution from Endeavor. To resume: Endeavor and Touya’s redemption are tied to each other, and Shouto is fundamental to help them both.
How could Hori bring forth Endeavor’s redemption without screwing over Dabi’s redemption, and not screw Endeavor’s redemtion at the same time? I’ll be focusing on Endeavor and dabi here, because I really don’t know how the dialogue between Shouto may be written.
I have no clue. Sorry I don’t. There are some viable options, like Endeavor gets kidnapped or fatally wounded while he fights Dabi because AFO is also there, and could ultimately steal his Quirk. In this case, Endeavor could be alone or with Shouto.
There is also the option in which Endeavor dies while trying to stop Touya from burning up, while recognizing his mistakes, validating Touya’s harsh feelings and accepting to burn in hell.
Frick, they could both die as they burn up, both recognizing the wrong in their ways, but it wouldn’t be really satisfying now would it?
There are so many outcomes possible, but with everyone of them i feel like something is missing. I also feel like I’m the only one that wouldn’t find Endeavor’s death outrageous because “it’s sweeping things under the rug”, or counterproductive because “it would suck for Endeavor’s redemption arc, because everyone is tired of the redemption-by-death trope”.
Endeavor’s death could actually be the best moment of his redemption arc and what makes it truly valuable, depending on how well it is written. Maybe Endeavor isn’t sitting at that table in his dream because he died, and his death actually helped his family heal and smile, because while he had changed his views in the year before his death, it’s still relieving to be free from his presence. However, Touya isn’t present at the table as well, so really...the conclusion to both of their arcs could be anything. Some may say that making Dabi die would be wrong on an ethical standpoint: yet another victim’s death, that makes victims in the real world think there is no hope out of difficult situations; yet another unfair death, because abusers deserve death and not their victims.
Let me tell you why, exactly, I think, neither of their deaths would be useful; you are free to disagree.
Endeavor’s, Touya’s or both their deaths could make the future of the Todofam very traumatic, because the family wouldn’t really manage to find proper closure.
Which is why I don’t think Endeavor or Dabi will or should die, but they will both live with consequences: maybe Endeavor will lose his Quirk, and Touya may turn on AFO and protect Shouto.
I don’t know, honestly.
Plz. help.
All I know is that Horikoshi will surely try to make the outcomes as emotional and epic as ever, so I hope I won’t be disappointed, because so far I’ve been on board with seeing where Endeavor and Touya’s journey may bring them
Anxiously waiting for the next episode, and end of this volume.
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Imagine Levi Confessing his Love for You
A/N: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT PLEASE READ THE TEXT BELOW BEFORE PROCEEDING THANK YOU :))
HERE IS A TIMELINE / EXPLANATION / BACKGROUND INFORMATION BECAUSE CASE THE TIME SKIPS OF THIS STORY ARE CONFUSING: I’m sorry for that everyone, I know the dates are sloppy and as a whole this fic doesn’t make too much sense; I tried to edit this piece as best I could to make the story as easy to follow as possible, but seeing as I can’t unpublish part 1 or 2, the cleanup still leaves things bit unclear. These imagines were originally chapters of a longer Levi x Reader fic that I decided to discontinue, which is why there are so many loose ends. Here was my original intention for this story, broken down for the few who choose to read the Author’s Notes lol.
We are going to do this in the order of the 3 part fic (I also put attached all the links to the titles)
Part 1: Imagine Relating to Mikasa About Loving Someone in the Military
The scene is set during the events of SEASON 1 of Attack on Titan, BEFORE the Female Titan Arc. (Y/N) was also hand selected by Levi to be part of the original Special Operation Squad; she bit her hand at the dinner table along with Petra, Gunther, Eld, and Oluo to show their dedication and understanding towards Eren wayyy back in the beginning of the series. The Survey Corps is making preparations for their first attempt to go to Shiganshina since the Fall of Wall Maria and not only uncover the mole who killed captive titans Sonny and Bean, but also to get to Eren’s basement.
Part 2: To Love Another
The flashback and opening scene in the beginning of this writing piece (where (Y/N) and Hange are talking to each other) occurs shortly after (Y/N) wakes up in the infirmary room, before anyone breaks the news that she, aside from an injured Levi, is the last surviving member of Squad Levi after Annie killed the others in the Forest of Giant Trees in her female titan form. Hange’s intentions were to bring the (Y/N) and Levi together so they would be able to support each other during this mutual loss. But alas, (Y/N) accepts his rejection and the two suffer the aftermath of this tragic news alone. To read this arc for context/bonus content to get a better understanding of this mini series, see my posts (as a sort of prequel, if you will) Imagine Levi Finding you Injured on an Expedition and Imagine Being the Last Member of Squad Levi To Survive to fill that time gap :)
In real-time, all of Season 2 and Season 3 Part 1 have gone by with limited interaction between (Y/N) and Levi. This part of the story is occurring during Season 3 PART 2, (spoilers) after the Coup D'etat, and after Historia becomes Queen. (Y/N) is no longer an active soldier, having sustained injuries too severe to be reliable in combat. She remains useful to the Corps as a battle strategist, however, which allows her to stay. The Scouting Regiment is currently preparing to go to Eren’s basement in their second attempt, knowing Reiner and Berthold will be waiting for them there.
Part 3: Imagine Levi Confessing his Love for You (YOU ARE HERE)
This part takes place pretty much a week or so after the events of “To Love Another.” It is revealed how much (Y/N) has isolated herself in the months between Parts 1 and 2 from not only Levi, but Hange, the only one besides Mikasa who knew about her feelings for Levi prior to their falling out. (Y/N) confesses her feelings for Levi before the mission to Shiganshina in Season one, and the fic parallels itself and comes full circle once their final interaction occurs before the second and final mission to Shiganshina, for which, (Y/N) is unable to go for her death would be almost certain. She seen to be more valuable inside the walls, where she can carry on the duties of the Survey Corps should the entire regiment collapse during the mission. This is the final part :)
I HOPE THAT CLEARS THINGS UP!
requested by @a-single-uwo @dracq and @little-diva-gurl and a lovely anon who def isn’t the happiest that this took so long. Deepest apologies! Hope this was worth the wait. I also hope this post finds everyone safe and in good health during these crazy times <3
~~~~~
Dread bottled up in the bottom of your stomach, which threatened to fall down to your knees. Even Hange’s eyes brimmed with concern when she informed you that Levi requested your presence in his office; all of which was out of the blue, uncharacteristic, after months of him being accustomed to giving you your space.
Feigning annoyance, you stared at the soldier dummy two paces ahead, dented heavily with the marks of your punches. The sun was beating down on the early autumn day, and heat waves rose from the ground. It illuminated the glistening perspiration sliding down your figure, torso rising and falling in short breaths of exhaustion.
Hange watched you carefully from a distance. She noticed your tense muscles, clad in a sports bra and boxing shorts; the lack of attire made it impossible to hide the sudden tension and stiffness embedded in your lean muscles, a tell tale sign of distress. As a creature of observation and analytics, the Squad Leader could sense your discomfort as if it was written across your forehead.
The brunette watched you wipe the sweat off your forehead and yell in frustration, turning towards her direction and moving to land a kick at her head.
Unfazed and in possession of sharp reflexes, Hange took a step back, only to watch as you twisted mid-air and landed a 360 Crescent kick to the dummy-shaped bag, which broke open on impact under the force of the blow. Sand poured out of its opening and spilled onto the ground in a steady stream that grew less heavy as the seconds passed.
“I’ll have to admit, you are getting better, but (Y/N), don’t get your hopes up,” Hange cautioned. “The problem does not reside in your muscles. No matter how well you learn to fight like you used to, Annie crushed your ribs and threw you to the ground: it's your lungs that will never recover. You can’t come with us to Shiganshina tomorrow like this.”
Hunched over with hands on your knees, you regained a regular breathing pattern and began to feel the explosive pain in your chest. Airways blocked, you began coughing, willing the oxygen to enter your body.
“Let me humor myself, Hange-san. If I don’t try, I might go insane.”
It was almost tragic that such a young soldier was out of commission; you were full of promise, rivalling Mikasa in skill. Hange knew you were itching to do what you trained for your whole life: Coming to Shiganshina and putting it all on the line had always been your number one goal. You didn’t want to be left behind again, to die bitter and alone without the only people you cared about.
“Regardless, (Y/N), you’re stalling,” Hange smoothly shifted the topic of conversation back to what brought her to you in the first place. “He still has that power over you, huh?”
"It'll pass eventually," you sighed, hoping the words were true.
You bowed towards the tall female. She smiled in return, shaking her head softly.
Whilst pacing away, said person stopped you once more.
“(Y/N). For what it’s worth, I stand by what I said before. Don’t look so nervous, okay?”
Her words replayed in your head, a haunting ghost of the not-so-long ago past. Time was strange, that way. It seemed like everything happened yesterday yet in another lifetime, all at once. “He loves you, more than he’s ever loved anyone. Surely you know that.”
Stupid, you thought, how I might have believed it once.
As you made your way down the hall, numbness crept into your body once again. You were too proud to admit you were afraid, especially with the Section Commander’s radiating sympathy, but everyone knew the once friendly dynamic between you and the Captain transformed into one more distant and cold. With each step towards the door, you felt the icy chill grow and that fact alone shook you to the core.
But it didn’t matter, seeing as Levi was of superior authority. There was no way around it.
Your hand shook as it raised to knock.
~~~~~~
“Name and business,” Levi spoke, voice muffled by the closed door.
“It’s (Y/N), sir. I was hoping to speak with you.”
There was a pause, and in that time you considered the option of fleeing back to your room and retreating back to a life of emotional safety, normality. It wasn’t too late to forget.
It had been a week since you spoke to Mikasa on the rooftop, after realizing the deep shit your heart decided to put you in. You didn’t think Levi would notice the distracted nature of your behavior-- tried to make it as subtle as possible whilst you figured out what you felt for him.
But before you could explore other options, Levi muttered a stern “enter.” You knew with the first expedition back to Shiganshina tomorrow, and the prospect of death closer than it has ever been on a mission, it was now or never.
The room was dim, small, warm, and thick with building tension. Shadows danced across the Captain’s face, sharp features lit by an orange flame. Only candlelight, sourced at his desk, assisted your adjusting eyes.
Your nose was hit with the smell of tea and cleaning products upon entry. This fact made you smile despite your bundling nervous energy. It was a familiar place, filled with memories of late night conversations (granted, of mostly you speaking and him listening), witnessed only by the large piles of paperwork. It started here and resulted in a natural, growing fondness kept secret to all except you two and the moon looking in from the window.
This man was your squad leader, your commander, your trusted comrade. There was no need to be afraid-- Not unless of course, you held the potential to shatter such damn a delicate relationship.
And you did.
Was it worth it?
Your gaze gravitated towards the center of the room where the Lance Corporal sat. And in that instant, your smile evaporated instantly. He placed his pen down, gracefully resting his cheek on his fist and lazily tossing the raven locks out of his eyes-- they landed on you, piercing yet drowsy and indifferent upon first glance. He was beautiful, as always. The allure was nearly sickening; unfair to the rest of the world.
Looking closer, however, he was anything but relaxed. The observant eye could see his countenance stirred something different. He seemed sharp and focused, ready to dart out and wrap himself around your heart, squeezing tighter with every breath you took. And you felt it-- the heart palpitations, which got worse at the sight of him.
He seemed… different. Dangerous, like a storm stirring in the distance, and the inevitable downpour that comes with it. The dark circles under his eyes told tales about the insomnia; a fresh cup of caffeinated black tea even rested on his left, steam rising out of it. And whilst attraction was undeniable, your concern always came first.
Levi was never quite good at getting proper rest before a mission.
“(Y/N),” The word was breathy, yet his voice was rough.
You shuffled in your spot, your name on his tongue making your stomach churn with desire.
Levi seemed to pick up on your affliction, getting out of his chair and gliding towards you. Everything happened fast and slow all at once, starting off with a momentaneous rush of air and the collision of your back with the office wall. A small shriek filled the air, out of place against the silence; was that your voice? The pain should’ve been there, but it wasn’t.
Then the seconds dragged out. Levi was a new person, setting your skin aflame as he gripped your wrists and pinned them against the wall. His lips brushed your eartips, which turned red the instant the raven’s breath fanned over them. This normally reserved, disciplined man unleashed something you had never seen before.
“Finally ready to talk to me about why you’ve been acting so strange, brat?” he whispered.
This wasn’t supposed to be so dirty. He was angry, but the mood was established in layers: something more sinister existed beneath.
The scent of fresh pine filled your nostrils until your brain went foggy. Levi was close--so close, and with the fact that you’ve been avoiding him mixed in with the fact that you missed him for it, all bets were off: there was no stopping the words that came out of your mouth next.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” you whispered back, looking him dead in the eyes, no fear this time.
His grip on your wrist slackened.
“Hm?”
You took in a deep breath, ready to leave it all on the line, and spoke.
“I like you a lot, sir. And not in a comradery type of way. I-I just thought I’d tell you before, you know, we leave tomorrow.” Your gaze found the floor again, too timid for your own good. But the statement was said, and it was finite; there was no turning away from it.
The Captain’s eyes went wide and gleamed brightly at you. His chest felt lighter and as he looked down at you in speechless awe, staring at anything but his face in your adorable embarrassment, he realized exactly why your absent look irked him those days ago. Why your lack of enthusiasm and lighthearted-ness gave him a strange sense of frustration.
Levi never felt more awake, more hyper aware of his surroundings.
The feeling of your chest pressed against him, the heat of those rosy cheeks, the pounding within his ribcage, the moon hitting your pretty face. With your figure in his arms, after the blissful seconds passed, everything felt, for once, okay.
Until it wasn’t.
Gaining the courage to look back up at him, you all but tore apart at the scowl on his face as demons flitted through his beautiful brain and polluted the image of happiness. Levi grew more indignant by the second, all but throwing your arms he held back at your sides like they were poison to the touch.
Tears pooled in your eyes as the soft expression you didn’t get to see turned sour, disgusted-- the Captain’s lips curling into a snarl as he imagined what he could lose if he opened up his heart for this girl in front of him to take. The risk and pain of falling for someone, in the world the two of you lived in. And all the stoic man could think was how he allowed this charade to come so far.
No, he wouldn't allow it.
“Get out, (L/N)” he commanded, harsh and unforgiving.
You were trembling, body feeling detached from reality as it moved, convincing itself that it was simply a nightmare. Levi’s cruel demeanor all but shattered you as you looked wide-eyed and his anger grew, the short man pacing behind his desk and bringing a hand over his face. His free one crumpled into a fist, knuckles turning white as he slammed it on the wood, the loud bang making you jump; the fear, grief, confusion coming all at once until it choked you and your vision spotted black.
“I said GET OUT!”
The room stilled and Levi looked up to face you cowering near the door, a single tear rolling down your cheek. He stilled at the sight, the weight of his words dawning upon him.
“I-I’m sorry,” you gasped before racing out of the room.
Had you looked back, you would’ve seen Levi’s outstretched hand betraying his body, desperately reaching out for you, gray eyes filled with pain.
But you knew now you’d never be dumb enough to spare him that second glance-- and maybe that was the right call, seeing as his feet moved in the direction you left, only to shut the door left askew in your wake.
~~~
The Captain’s gaze was on you more than necessary, but it was clear the two of you had the same thought: You focused everything into this discussion, melting into the emotionally-detached soldier your duty commanded, just like Levi did. His words had no ulterior motive, no deeper meaning. They were monotonous and empty.
Or so you thought.
Levi stood up the second you came in, but your gaze fell to the ground in submission.
“Hange said you needed to see me, Captain?” your voice was small and weak; you kicked yourself for it. How pathetic.
“Damn you...”
The man said nothing more, brushing his fingers along your cheekbones and you everything hit you like whiplash, the memories. Levi ran them along your face, down to your chin to lift it gently, so that for once you’d let your eyes meet instead of looking at the ground like a coward.
When they did the man’s breath hitched in his throat, because although your (eye color) orbs were no longer as vibrant, they were still beautiful and entrancing; why hadn’t he ever appreciated them before?
"I missed you, brat," he spoke firmly.
You felt a churn in your abdomen as you watched his eyes study the details of your face and take in every feature, committing it to memory painfully slow. You were paralyzed, his face inches away from yours and forcing buried emotions to resurface as months of restraint came undone. He didn’t speak, holding you delicately after not being this close for far too long and discerning what he’s been missing.
“Um, Captain? What are you...?"
You bit your lip, feeling puzzled and confused as you remembered the hate in Levi's orbs the last time you saw him like this.
All you could see now was how quickly his emotions shifted from serenity to fury that fateful night, and as you recollected the way Levi lashed out, all chaos and fury, he retracted his hand.
And you flinched away.
The Captain froze.
“Don’t-- don’t fucking do that,” he growled, his urgency startling. “I would never hurt you, (Y/N).”
Your eyebrows furrowed, all inhibition thrown out the window the second Levi’s countenance flashed with hurt at your response to his touch. You let your fear go and emotions free at the irony of the raven’s statement. Your mind went into overdrive, recounting every instance you wanted to give up and leave, drown in yourself, give up on finding purpose in the aftermath of rejection and Squad Levi’s death and your permanent injury changing your way of life. Things you faced alone, because instead of rekindling any semblance of a relationship, Levi tossed everything away and berated you for feeling.
The man who resided here cut your heart expertisely like the countless swords he wielded then disposed. He did not have the right to look at you so kindly; did not have to right to fan the flames of false hope. But here he was, procrastinating until the very last day to take initiative regarding those actions.
“Why are you doing this?” you whispered, forgetting your composure.
“I’d advise you not to speak in riddles,” Levi spoke in a low and even voice, no real malice as he addressed you and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.
You took a deep breath and fought to remain calm, grabbing Levi's wrist to keep him from touching you.
“Please don’t toy with me, or mock my feelings like this. Why did you call me here? You made it plenty clear how you feel about me, Levi. What else is there to say?" you begged, the lack of closure driving you insane.
This was the first time you used his name, an unprecedented amount of spite and pain expressed through it, because you wanted Levi to remember this moment. It was over: that time of feeling sorry and ashamed of yourself for being nothing other than human. The remorse was gone, and the heartache was fleeting.
“Tell me, dammit!”
His was overflowing.
“You want to know how I really feel about you, (Y/N)!?” the Captain shouted, voice rising because for a man who relied on impulse and action on the battlefield it was fucking frustrating, watching the woman in front of him live this way for the simple reason that he was not good with words. "The thoughts that go through my head when you can't even bear to look at me?!"
"No, that's not what I asked. I already know that you don't--"
"--Fuck this."
Relying on instinct to guide him, Levi leaned forward and kissed you.
The second his lips met yours, you melted on the spot, knees giving out beneath you. Tongue sliding into your mouth, Levi simultaneously lifted you into the air, feeling lightheaded as you moaned into him, eagerly returning the kiss. His hands were everywhere, grasping at your waist, clutching the back of your head, running down your thighs. You were in such a state of euphoria that nothing else existed.
Your own digits threaded through Levi’s raven locks and pulled needily, emitting a growl from his throat as he bit down on your lower lip. He reveled in the feeling of your legs around his waist as your soft lips worked against his own, hungry and relentless. The kiss was passionate and you’d imagined it a million times over, but this-- Levi successfully ruined you for any other man.
The need for oxygen pulled you apart, Levi’s strong arms keeping you in the air as his eyes remained shut; he pecked your lips once, then twice, savoring the moment until it mournfully passed.
He was hesitant to break the silence, but you deserved it. You waited long enough to hear the truth, and he knew his time was running out; you weren’t going to wait for him forever.
“(Y/N)...” he began to speak, forehead resting on yours as he panted softly to catch his breath. “I dreamt of you last night. I have been for days.”
“Levi--”
“--Just listen,” he interrupted, unable to stop himself from kissing you softly once more. “Neither of us are running away this time.”
You fell silent as the man let you down, pulling you into his solid chest as you buried your face in his shirt, patiently listening. His calm heartbeat thrummed soothingly in your ears like a metronome.
“Isabel, Farlan, Oluo, Petra, Gunther, Eld. They all knew that what they meant to me. And I them."
One of the only things that made it easier to say goodbye, you thought with a bittersweet pang in your chest.
"With us, it's different. I died in every dream, (Y/N). Every one. And in every single one, you lived on believing I never loved you. Call me selfish, but I...”
You pulled away from the stoic man, searching his gaze as he trailed off. Shyly, you interlaced your fingers, his larger hand enveloping yours and you prayed to whoever was listening upstairs that all of this was real.
“I just can't leave until you understand...”
He clutched you impossibly tighter, eyes squeezing shut.
"...that you, are everything."
~~~ Extended Ending ~~~
A soft hum filled the air, the tune dreamy and sweet as you repeated the melody once again. You smiled warmly as hands wound around your waist, pulling you closer to a toned and shirtless Captain Levi, silken sheets tossed haphazardly on top of the two of you. His breath sent goosebumps on your neck as he kissed your shoulder gently, warmth deliciously intoxicating.
Giggling now, you turned around to face him, the man’s onyx hair ticking you softly. You captured your lips in his with one smooth movement and snuggled closer, taking in the small slice of heaven that was home in his arms, legs tangled together. Feeling unbelievably content, like your heart might burst, you leaned forward and rubbed your nose against Levi's.
Although he wasn't smiling, the look he was giving you revealed his own sensation of happiness.
“I never thought you’d be the cuddling type,” you remarked devilishly, scrunching up your nose as you teased him.
Though your tone was lighthearted, you were painfully aware that the moment was ending. You internally cursed the sun as it started to set, orange light peeking in through the window shades to signal the coming of night. Levi said nothing, looking deeply into your eyes, and like always, it felt as if he could read the contents of your soul.
But it wasn’t vulnerability you felt: on the contrary, you knew you would never find as safe a place as here. With him. Finally.
“Levi...” you swallowed, humor all but gone. “Now you have to come home.”
To emphasize your point you sat up on the bed, legs tucked neatly underneath you as you stared imperatively at your lover.
“Mhm. We’ve wasted enough time,” he agreed, taking you by the wrist to pull you back on top of him, to bask in this personal paradise if only for another minute.
#levi ackerman x reader#lance corporal levi#LEVI ACKERMAN#snk#shingeki no kyojin#AoT#attack on titan#attack on titan imagines#attack on titan x reader#snk imagines#Captain Levi#snk season 3#aot x reader#levi x reader#levi ackerman fanfiction#levi ackerman imagine
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A problem with the Tales Of Arcadia community
First and foremost, I’d like to ask anyone taking the time to read this to please read the post all the way through before commenting on the matter. There is a lot of dirty laundry to unpack here, and some points will be building off previous ones.
I’ll get right to the point. Most everybody in the Tales of Arcadia fandom will have heard of the blog imthegingerninja / ginger-le-gay. She is one of the most well-known ToA-centric blogs, after all. (If you’re wanting to avoid her on Twitter as well, her account is Margaret Bell, or @The_Book_Bell.)
This is your PSA, TOA fandom: Ginger is a toxic, manipulative person.
This is not a claim I like to make lightly, but it’s long overdue that this issue is properly brought up within the fandom.
I’ve seen so many people wonder why the Tales of Arcadia fandom is so small. Well, I and many others very strongly believe that Ginger is one of the main reasons for that, if not the main one. To make matters easier, I’ve tried to break this down into some main points. So let’s take a look at how Ginger falls under this category.
Disclaimer: Please DO NOT look at this post as an excuse to harass Ginger or any other blog mentioned here. This sort of behavior is NOT acceptable. The point of this post is to educate those who may not know the extent of her harrowing behavior, nothing more.
1. Dishonesty and Death Threats
[EDIT: Shortly after this post went up, she started blatantly lying about me to try to cover for herself. You can see those lies being easily disproven here]
Ginger has been kicked from at least three Tales of Arcadia servers, all for similar reasons of violence. While I cannot provide screenshots as I am no longer part of the servers they were in, there are multiple witnesses that can verify the disgusting behavior she engaged in. The one I saw specifically was her saying that certain members of the fandom should be gathered up and hunted for sport, among other gross things. (Elaboration of why can be found in point 3, though it still doesn’t excuse this kind of talk)
Here is some points made by another blog that also sums up similar issues with Ginger, though:
While there were multiple instances of her inciting violence towards others, this is unfortunately one topic I cannot provide specific screenshots for at this time. But I will add them in as I can find them. That being said, I want to move to the dishonesty, something I do have a screenshot for.
While you could argue that people sometimes notice the similar things, this is far too close together to be considered an “original find”. The reblog button is there for a reason, but she instead decides to steal the OP’s premise and present it as her own original thought.
There have been a couple other blogs that have confirmed that their theories and analysis posts were often stolen and presented as Ginger’s own as well, to the point where they stopped bothering even making such posts, as the above blog points out. (Out of respect for their privacy, I will not be naming these blogs. Say what you will about that possibly weakening my point, but if she’s willing to so blatantly steal from that person shown above, it shouldn’t surprise you that she’s so willing to do it to others.)
Theory-making and analysis posts aren’t as solidly “original content” as a piece of art or fanfiction, sure, but it’s still common fandom courtesy to give credit where it’s due. Ginger has intentionally avoided extending that courtesy far too many times.
2. Hypocrisy
Most of this is going to be about past Merlin vs. Morgana drama, though there are also words to be said for the incredibly shaky relationships she forms with “friends”.
But first let’s talk about those wizards.
This is a topic I’ve tried to approach with Ginger before, but she borderline refused to acknowledge any of the points I was trying to make, and when she did, I don’t know if I just wasn’t being clear or what, but it honestly looked as though she was purposefully trying to misunderstand what I was saying in her bizarre responses. (To be fair, I was sending messages out of anger because she vagueposted about a blog I admired, calling them a “disgusting creep” because of them simply saying they’d hoped Jim and Merlin would be able to actually bond at some point... Not really a justifiable reaction to such a harmless thought, in my opinion. But my point is, I recognize that the circumstances may have clouded my ability to vocalize my thoughts clearly.)
That aside, we should first acknowledge this post Ginger made to save face after having gotten some backlash about hate-train related things (Side note: I couldn’t find the original post, so this is a screenshot I got from someone else. I did not add the writing. The text underneath it should still be slightly readable, I hope.):
Taken at face value, this is a very reasonable post. I think everybody would and should be able to agree on it. Hate-meme him for fun, sure, but don’t actually harass or insult others over a fictional character. Simple, right?
Apparently not, because Ginger’s done loads of that to others. Probably why the “LOL” was added in, I bet.
This post confused me. First of all, exploring dark topics (”angst”, as you put it) has never been a rare occurrence, every fandom has that content, most in heavy abundance. I’ve noticed no staggering difference in volume of this fandom compared to others I’ve been in. People enjoy angst not because they think the character “deserves to be in pain”, they enjoy a fictional blow to their own emotions. There’s lots of different reasons people like angst, but it’s barely ever been out of a genuine hate for whatever character’s the focus, from all the things I’ve seen. Your own friends have indulged in Jim angst and body horror posts before, does that mean you think they’re awful people? I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain something like this.
Also, way to basically admit you think all Merlin stans get off on child torture. So much for “If you like Merlin as a character, you’re valid”, am I right? God, what a mess of a post. (It’s been very recently deleted, which makes me wonder if she got more backlash on it, but just... wow.)
Let’s look at another one.
Again. Vagueposting about someone specific, I’d wager, since most of the people I’ve seen comment on this topic either think both characters are morally gray, or hate both.
But of course, when it comes to Morgana, suddenly excusing bad behavior can be justified. Ginger can call someone a disgusting creep because they want a familial bond between Jim and Merlin, that’s just wrong, but pushing the Mom-gana narrative with the genocidal abuser and Toby is completely fine, folks.
(Note: I would like to point out that I really don’t care about what theories and hopes people have for Morgana. You should be allowed to love that character in any way you want, same as I would say for Merlin. My issue with these examples is the completely brazen hypocrisy in which these two characters are treated. You’re obviously allowed to love Morgana without consequence, but the same should be said for any character of the show, and yet it’s not.)
The most obvious instance of this double-standard is well observable here, I believe:
... I think this mostly speaks for itself. Sorry, but this is very blatantly trying to excuse Morgana’s actions, here.
Oh hey, remember that post about Ginger saying that liking Merlin must mean you want to see Jim in horrible pain?
Say anything similar about her with Morgana, and suddenly she takes issue with this line of reasoning!
I’m sorry, but if you can’t take this sort of thing, then you shouldn’t be dishing it out. One of your own friends is still getting hate over the simple fact of liking Merlin, and all this mentality is exactly why.
Let’s look at one more.
Fun fact! Morgana horrifically abused somebody for centuries, tried to kill multiple kids, took horrible advantage of Claire (probably traumatized her), and canonically wanted to genocide humanity, not to mention all the OTHER murders she's committed, both directly and indirectly.
But somehow pointing any of this out “doesn’t count”. This is why the fandom keeps saying more and more things like this:
And this:
I could be going through her constant hating on Merlin and people who like Merlin for days straight, but I hope you all get the idea by now.
Again, I would like to just reiterate: You can like whatever character you want for whatever reason you want. The problem with this case is the hypocrisy and mistreatment of others, not your taste in characters.
Now interestingly enough, she’s lately been singing a different tune about the guy, switching from the “I hate Merlin I hope he dies!!!” mentality to “Oh he should get a redemption arc too :)” sort of thing.
I’m highly convinced that the only reasons for this “change of heart” is because of the constant backlash she was getting for the obnoxious amount of hate posts being thrown around all the time, but also because Aaron Waltke keeps tabs on the fandom more lately, and has spoken himself about Merlin not being a villain.
I could go on about this point forever, but I think I’ll just leave the Merlin topic with this post going through the hypocrisy of the Merlin Hate Train. In fact, here’s two just for fun.
Now onto more real-world focused areas of hypocrisy. One such instance can be found in Ginger’s Janus Disorder server.
Just take a look at this post.
While the offender in this case isn’t Ginger specifically, it still takes place in her server, and she made no moves to enforce her “No discourse” rule. All over... what? A random kudos on a fanfiction that’s not even about anything controversial since all characters involved are adults? I immensely don’t understand the point of why this ever had to be an issue, or why nobody spoke up about how ridiculous this is.
I’d also like to point out a certain user called firecat17. For some quick context, waaay back in the Kung Fu Panda fandom (around 2018), this user had been harassing people and saying incredibly vile things, a person of which Ginger had a bit of a feud, but firecat’s anon threats had gotten to the point where Ginger ended up having to block their IP.
Obviously, the user firecat was the one in the wrong, here. (Also, the irony in this comment is through the roof...)
Interesting point there, Ginger. Sure would be nice if you practiced what you preached.
Why am I bringing this random old drama up, you may ask? Well, it just strikes me as strange that someone who was so vile to Ginger is suddenly on her okay-list again, sending her asks and getting casual responses as if nothing ever happened.
To be fair, there is the possibility that they worked out their differences in private. But given the severity of the kinds of words being exchanged, I would still find that rather suspicious.
When someone who’s said things so vile can be so easily forgiven, yet something as harmless as leaving a kudos on some random fanfiction is considered grounds for harassment, it’s obvious there’s no stability or room for trust among this group of people. Unsurprising when there’s been several instances of this “friend group” turning on each other.
If you think you’re somehow different, that your “friendship” with Ginger or the others is more valued than that, then I’m sorry to burst your bubble but it’s likely not true. She’d throw you under the bus at the hint of you doing something she deems problematic, as it’s happened to multiple blogs before you.
3. Demonization of and insensitivity towards s*xual abuse victims
(This topic is one that’s hard for me to talk about, being a victim of CSA myself, so I’ve gathered some different sources to do most of the main talking for me. I tried to form more commentary on this myself, but I get too emotionally charged in my responses, and I don’t want that to cloud any reader’s perception of what I’m trying to communicate here, so I’ll try to keep most of my comments brief on this one.)
One thing recently brought to my attention about Ginger and her squad that especially bothers me is their rashness in labeling people p*dophiles and p*do apologists. If these claims were true, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
But these people are accusing others of these horrible things and threatening them on the sole basis of fictional content.
Now before you fly off the handle at me, let me be very clear: I absolutely understand that there are gross people out there who use the “It’s all just fiction” argument to hide their actual, pr*datory behaviors. (We’ve all probably seen at least one or two neckbeard memes of that caliber)
But like it or not, exploring traumatic themes through a fictional lens is something that has been studied and proven to be a genuine coping mechanism for some. It’s not something that works for me, but I knew a few people from past therapy groups that it worked surprisingly well for. Bringing a trauma into a controlled environment and processing it through fictional means can and does help some victims deal with what they went through.
It’s important to understand that not everyone processes their experience in the same neat, little boxes you have laid out as the only “acceptable” ways of coping. Trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy are commonly used by victims, and it does help some people, whether you like it or not.
I’m already dragging this on too much, so here are some sources for better-worded information on the topic (Warning: Most of these deal with highly sensitive themes such as gun violence and s*xual abuse.)
Source 1 - Source 2 - Source 3 - Source 4 - Source 5 (pages 61 onward, specifically) - Source 6 - Source 7 - Source 8 - Source 9 - Source 10 (and believe me, if those all don’t satisfy you, I can easily supply more.)
And this quote from source 9 I think sums it up best:
“Fiction works differently. My imagination gives me a framework to process the grief and terror and the consequences, even when I myself have not found any resolution. It allows me to enter my own traumatic experiences sideways and linger inside them, if I know I can give them to characters who might be lucky enough to find the antidote: love, connection, community, family. In other words, I can enter — and exit — the trauma loop through stories that are not exactly the same as mine.
This goes for the reader also. Recent studies periodically assure us that stories — literary fiction, hardcover books, even the simple act of reading — promote empathy. We rarely have identical experiences, so fiction is how we practice linking our similar or parallel realities so we can feel them. This seems particularly useful in our current society, where we are all so separated, and are working so hard to block the violence that keeps happening to us from our minds.
Fiction connects us, and it can also contribute to our healing. When we see ourselves in worlds we don’t live in, like The Handmaid’s Tale or The Color Purple, sometimes, that very different violence helps us finally process our own. Because as much as our memoirs and testimonies are brave and validating, fiction does not just mirror our truths so they are safe to experience; it also helps us endure the aftermath. Because long after the immediate experience is over, survival struggles onward, in every moment of our daily lives.”
While most professionals have in the past advised that victims keep their trauma-related works more private, to only show it to your trusted friends or family, the fast-growing use of the internet has led more people to sharing it in an online platform, which is not unexpected behavior.
I unfortunately don’t have the screenshot of the original post, but there was a post made some time back literally telling a fandom member to go and hang themselves over this garbage. A survivor of s*xual abuse, no less. And to top that off, one of Ginger’s squad @emmy-puff commented in support of that violent post, as well as blatantly misgendering the target of it. While, again, I was unable to get screenshots, there are multiple witnesses to this instance, one Anonymous even having called them out on it back when it happened. (I suspect that Emmy deleted that answer due to how bad it made them look.) If anybody reading this has screenshots of the initial post or the ask that came of it, please feel free to share.
I don’t care who you are or who you’re talking about, if you use misgendering someone as a way to hurt them, then you are an insult to the trans community. That is an awful thing to do, and you lose so much credibility if that’s the only thing you can fall back on when getting in a fight with someone. While this post isn’t about Emmy specifically, this is exactly the kind of hateful rhetoric that’s being encouraged in the environment Ginger’s made.
Another thing I would like to point out on this matter is an instance that happened in the ToA fandom a couple years back. I, again, don’t have screenshots available (I believe the original post ended up deleted) but the post in question caused enough of a fuss that I’m sure a few people must remember it...
A while back, there was an artist that posted uncensored, untagged r*pe art of Aaarrrgghh, Gunmar, and Jim in the main Trollhunters tag. As you can imagine, this infuriated many people. Many of which are among the list of those who’ve been labeled “p*do apologists”. Almost the very minute that post showed up in the tag with no trigger warnings of any kind, the fandom immediately got on OP’s tail about it, because they all shared that basic understanding of “This is a traumatizing subject for many people and they should have the ability to avoid it”. If the people you’ve labelled as pr*dator supporters were really as awful as you say they are, they would’ve jumped to that person’s defense, too. But they were completely against OP’s horrible lack of consideration of survivors, right alongside the rest of the fandom.
Am I saying you have to like trauma fiction? Absolutely not. Are there people that make trauma fiction that are actual pr*dators? I’m sure there are. But those people would be that way whether trauma fiction was out there or not. Gross people have existed and will always exist regardless of what media is out there.
I deeply understand the controversy, uncertainty, and stress that surrounds this topic, I promise you, I do. But the fact of the matter is, some people actually do use trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy as a way of coping, as has been observed in people even from ages as young as 5. To say otherwise is blatantly untrue. This isn’t a matter of opinion or morals, this is plain, studied facts that you cannot change about human psychology.
Nobody should ever have to go through something as horrible as s*xual abuse of any kind, and I know how deeply upsetting it can be to see certain images or stories with those themes in play. Those users with a sense of decency and understanding for fellow victims will tag their posts with the appropriate warnings. After that, it’s up to you to filter out what you don’t want to see. You curate your own internet experience, and it’s just plain irrational to try and harass everyone into conforming to your rules. While it’s an 18+ blog’s job to make sure to tag and label their content appropriately, it is your job to block the things you don’t want to see, whether you’re an adult or a minor. It is YOUR job to blacklist content that you know will upset you, because it is always going to exist on the internet, and any internet user needs to know and understand that. Multiple times I’d seen people going off about posts that were already appropriately trigger-tagged. If you don’t have those upsetting tags blacklisted by now, then the fault is mostly on you in that kind of case, not the OP.
Before I end this topic off, just one more example of blatant disrespect towards victims:
I’m sorry, but the absolute nerve of comparing some random fictional character you’re petty over to an actual pr*dator who’s terribly hurt real children is just awful. Imagine how insulted one of Onion’s victims would be if they saw that. Lord.
Ginger claims to care about victims, but she’s made it abundantly clear that she only cares about those that behave the way she think a victim should.
4. Ableism
I’m going to just show a couple posts here and let them mostly speak for themselves.
Just... my God. You looked at the definition of psychopath and decided that was enough to give you qualification to speak like this about it? Do you realize the extensive work and study of human psychology goes into the diagnosis and understandings of psychopathy? Not to mention, you just admit to thinking people deserve hate because of a mental disorder they legitimately have no control over? I’m sorry, but that is just cruel. Demonization of the mentally ill is not cute or funny. Next.
While I’m still annoyed with Emmy’s transphobic treatment of another user mentioned earlier, they make a very solid point in this instance. (The first post they referenced has since been deleted, but here’s the second one speaking out against the ableism.) I feel I don’t need to add much to this, as these points have already been argued very well by users better qualified to speak on the subject than I.
5. Manipulation tactics
This part is more observations of two kinds of abuse tactics Ginger appears to demonstrate, using the above as points of reference.
First, there’s DARVO.
Then, less formally, there’s this good point about online cult mentality.
Before you say anything, obviously I don’t think Ginger thinks of herself as some sort of deity. While it could be argued that she considers herself a point of authority within the TOA fandom maybe, I haven’t seen enough of this to say for sure how far that goes. So that point can be ignored, because it mostly doesn’t apply in this case. (The “Dictating parts of your online life” might also not apply, but I can’t say for sure as I haven’t gotten any confirmation of that sort of thing in Ginger’s group.)
But there are grains of truth in the other four points, especially that last one. Plain and simple, she’s made people afraid to speak their minds about even harmless things such as character analysis.
Ginger is someone who can’t seem to comprehend different viewpoints and life experiences. She’s extremely unsympathetic towards people she doesn’t understand, as can be observed in above examples. Assuming malicious intent from everybody you can’t understand is a dangerous and hurtful mindset to have, for both you and those who you unnecessarily scorn.
There are a few outcomes I’ve speculated should she ever come to see this post.
1. She will ignore this post completely, pretending as if it doesn’t exist
2. She will dismiss me as being some sort of horrible person, a p*do apologist or something of the sort (despite being a victim of that myself, clearly she doesn’t care about who’s actually been hurt by real p*dos or not if they don’t conform to her narrow worldview), and claim nothing I’ve said bears any meaning, despite the extensive evidence I’ve provided.
3. She will get people to try and attack me.
4. She will actually address these points in a tactful, mature, and serious manner instead of her usual act of trying to dismiss everything at the slightest hint of non-conformity. (The least likely outcome, but one can dream.)
I could add to this post all day, but it’s long enough as it is and my focus was on getting the main points out of the way. I understand that I lack some of the receipts necessary to back myself up in a few parts, but I know that many other fans have bared witness to those things, so I know there will be at least some people who’ll know what I speak of is true, and that’s good enough for me.
That being said, if anybody has screenshots of the instances I wasn’t able to provide for, it would be greatly appreciated if you could add them into the conversation.
!!!-If you have screenshots, but are too uncomfortable to get involved in this, then you can private-message them to me and I would be grateful and more than happy to add them in while keeping you completely anonymous.-!!!
(I've removed the section with all the tags, as I recognize it was probably going overboard. My goal was just to spread information, not to try and involve those tagged, but I understand how that may have gotten lost in translation and made people uncomfortable. Also, it apparently was showing up multiple times in people’s notifications when I only tagged people twice, so I’m not sure why that glitch happened, but I apologize for that annoyance as well.)
Now, to end us off, my responses to questions or angry comments I’m probably going to get:
You don’t even have all the evidence! How are we to know you’re not just lying about some of this?
Admittedly, I don’t have as much screenshot proof as I would like, that’s true. But for most of the instances I couldn’t provide for, there were other witnesses to her bad behavior. I don’t really have the need to lie when there’s already a lot of knowledge out there of the bad stuff she has done. Nor do I really have the emotional investment in this fandom anymore to lie for the pointless reason of causing drama.
Why post this on a throwaway account if you think people are on your side?
I just don’t really want my main blog associated with TOA anymore, to be frank.
You tagged a bunch of people, so you must be trying to get them to attack Ginger!
No. I tagged a bunch of people because I think this information should be heard on a wider scale, considering the position Ginger has in the fandom. I don’t want her or anybody else to be attacked, but her negative impact on this fandom deserves to be acknowledged.
Again, I don’t think Ginger or any of the others deserve harassment or cyberbullying or anything of that manner, that’s kind of what this whole post is against. And it just hurts the situation more than it helps it. What bothers me is how she’s never apologized for or even once acknowledged the gross way she’s treated people. While she might be more low-key about it now, she still treats people who don’t deserve it like garbage. There are still several people upset about the damage she’s caused to this fandom, rightfully so. I wouldn’t be so loud about making this post if I didn’t think it was something worth drawing attention to.
Thank you for reading.
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got tagged by @writingondaisies!
How many works do you have on AO3?
14 (there’s one I should move from ff.net soon, but it’s not there now)
What’s your total AO3 word count?
270,817
How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
In order of recencey... Dungeons & Daddies, RWBY, Red vs Blue, The Flash/Arrowverse, Danny Phantom, Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, (back into ff.net days, Kim Possible, American Dragon: Jake Long, a Percy Jackson one-shot... another thing... Warriors)
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Mind over Matter (Red vs Blue)
Fourteen, and four thousand, years old (RWBY)
Flying, falling, stand your ground (RWBY)
The Way Out (Red vs Blue)
Washin’Boose (Red vs Blue)
Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
I try to for long-running fics and for especially long or intense comments, but I’m usually just so nervous ;<; they all warm my heart tho, there is not one that I haven’t read more than once
What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
I’m typically allergic to straight tragedy, but... I think probably Put your Stampler in a box (D&Dads), since the whole thing is a hypothetical lead-up to a magic teenager going on a rampage. Mind over Matter has a really emotional ending, but I like to think it’s more bittersweet than straight angst. Fourteen, and four thousand, years old swerves into angst, but nobody’s dying or anything so... yeah!
Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?
Heroes Under Drinking Age is the incomplete MASSIVE thing which is supposed to ultimately crossover Danny Phantom, RC9GN, American Dragon, and Kim Possible. I hit a hard writing wall on the ADJL and KP side and just never got over it :( I still dream of finishing it
Oh I guess there’s also a TMA-D&Dads crossover I’ve put some thought into, where after s5 Jon and Martin land in Faerun to replace The Library, and they get to decompress in this strange world, meet the Likelys, and hear about the eldritch-adjacent beings from other worlds.
Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Nope! (knocks on all the wood) at least not if you’re not counting someone pointing out spelling stuff unsolicited or stuff like that.
Do you write smut? If so what kind?
n o p e
when I did Demons not sold separately (D&Dads) they kiss like two times and talk about the prospect of doing more, but it doesn’t go anywhere cause there’s kids nearby. I tagged it as “ace writing allos” just in case, cause boy howdy do I not know what I’m doing in that department ^u^’
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
not that I know of? I wouldn’t know where to start checking for that and if it’s happened, no one’s told me about it
Have you ever had a fic translated?
only in my dreams
Washin’Boose got a pod-fic tho!!
What’s your all time favorite ship?
I don’t ship too much and I slide around a lot when I do, but Clark KentxLois Lane 4ever
Whats a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
Heroes Under Drinking Age, my beloved...
I’ve also got a number of AUs for DnDads, some with enough written that I may as well post some of the stuff as one-shots to maybe expand on later. One is a high school au where Hen (14) comes to Earth early, another is an exploration of what it might be like to be a sort of demi-god descendant of a chaos entity with the Doodler Cult coming back (called Puberty, ????, and You). Idk if Done Sons and Dragons counts, cause that’d be a whole comic. I’d love to publish something of at least one of these
And then there’s a half-baked idea for Yet Another Oscar Time Travel AU for RWBY, that would take place starting after v8 and would feature Oscar and Emerald traveling back to the series start (on purpose.)
What are your writing strengths?
I’ve gotten quite a few compliments on my prose and scene pacing! I like writing prose like it’s the thought process of the character I’m following, and I often find myself getting a bit poetic about it. I’m a big fan of parallelisms and using repetition for impact.
I also put a lot into trying to match the original tone of the content I’m writing fic for, and have gotten quite a few compliments on my character dialogue. I just get their voices in my brain and they don’t leave. On only one occasion have they paid rent. The freeloaders.
What are your writing weaknesses?
I bite off more than I can chew and never finish
I worry a lot over making sure emotional beats connect, and that it doesn’t feel like I’m jumping from point A to point C, and I’m afraid that makes me over-explain point B. Like I was rereading HUDA: Alpha after I posted it to ao3, and I have a lot of grace for my high school self, but some parts of that fic could have been smoothed out quite a bit. Parts of Mind over Matter are a bit wordier than they needed to be, too.
What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I feel like it’s best done by people who are fluent in a language. Language isn’t just changing words from A to B, it comes with cultural connotations and altered meanings and layers that are only going to come across perfectly when it comes from someone who knows exactly what they’re talking about. so like if I were ever to use more than a few words or a common phrase in another language in a fic, I’d find someone who actually speaks it to help me out.
as for how to format it... if the meaning needs to be understood by the reader, you may as just put it in the fic’s main language and alter the formatting (like with itallics) or dialogue tag to denote that they’re speaking another language. If it’s small bits, I don’t super mind footnotes at the bottom or just leaving it untranslated, like a special bit for people who speak the language or are willing to look it up.
What was the first fandom you wrote for?
warrior cats! me, my best friend, and my older sister all had OCs and were part of RainClan, our OC clan. Their camp was made in the trunk and branches of a big willow tree that made a kind of sheltered dome. I didn’t even know what fanfiction was back then
What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?
Mind over Matter. Hands down. For one, it’s actually done. That would put it in contest with The Way Out, which is also multi-chapter and complete, but MoM is WAY longer and took SO much more work but was SO worth it. It started as just scratching an itch and then grew into something that helped me prove to myself that I can do a long-term project, including themes and foreshadowing and narrative hootenanny and character arcs and character relationship arcs. the html coding. It was a great time, I’m so proud of it, editing it helped build one of my best friendships, and there is nothing I would trade that experience for.
tagging @aryashi, @cinaed, @hedgiwithapen, and @glowstickia
#sorry i missed this for a few days!#takes me a while to check my mentions#tag games#about me#my writing#me talking
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