#it was super random in the grand scheme of things

[lets-try-some-writing]

Me to my brain when I joined the TF fandom: No oc's, got it?

Brain: Yep, got it. No oc's. Just canon characters.

Me: That's right because oc's are cringe and we don't need any!

Brain: *less than six months later holding two oc's like the most precious gems in the world*

Me: What. Are. Those.

Brain: *proudly showing them off* These are our oc's! I made them to be super cute too! See look! This one is named Error and he records data and is a minicon and is super nice and had all his kin slaughtered by the Quintessons-

Me: Wait hold on-

Brain: And this one is Delirium and she's a medic who is also a minicon because minicons are cute, and she wears a medical mask all the time because she lived during the rust plague and watched everyone she ever loved die so now she's scared of germs-

Me: Two minicons?

Brain: Yeah! Cuz minicons don't get enough love. Anyway they are also going to eventually fall in love because they are the perfect foils for each other-

Me: *suddenly really invested* Really?

Brain: *nodding enthusiastically* Yep! It's real bittersweet too because Error constantly needs to get his memories wiped in order to not lose his mind and so its super cute as he falls in love with Delirium over and over again every single time!

Me: Dude...

Brain: I love them. We are keeping them... right?

Me: *already coming up with drawings, reference sheets, and a whole fic outline* Absolutely.

[mecachrome]

#i wish it weren't taboo to talk about how 814 are literally just an audhd couple... could discuss this for days. does anyone want to

actually yes i would like nothing more this is lowkey all i think about sometimes

HLSDKFHLH i was about to publish my own post but now i feel enabled to write a Longer Response 🧡 thank u guys

2 me 814 is Girl who is so classically adhd it's comical (overt hyperfixations + poor executive function + basically arfid + time blindness) coexists beautifully with Misunderstood autistic girl (too straightforward for other people + pretended to be a car as a child + sensory issues through the roof + consciously masking in every interview) while everyone loses their minds because they should Hate Each Other and be at each other's throats??! and yet they don't because their neurodivergent swag transcends petty team politics 💗

like honestly i think they interact easily because they're both weird & particular in their own ways but their priorities are ultimately the same so why would any of that matter you know? and they try to accommodate each other when they're able to even if it's little things like oscar not eating salmon around lando anymore lol 😭 (i say this as audhd guy with extreme sensory issues and many other Problems and Issues... that is in fact romanze to me. also little stuff like the No Name Drop? moment because yes it's small in the grand scheme of things but to me it's special because it's like... THEIR inside joke and oscar is proving he does enjoy it and cares about maintaining it :') and then when lando was feeling down post-race in brazil he pulled out landinho all on his own <3)

like this is so random but i was just rewatching the logan sexed bit earlier and it's so funny how oscar is just like ??? WHAT. and somewhat annoyed at being grilled about it because in his head he's thinking "it's literally just a show title why are you Willfully Misunderstanding me idg why that's so funny to you are you 5." but with lando there's so much less... idk laughing At each other as if there's some big joke one person is missing out on and more just giggling together because oscar thinks every little thing lando says is funny and because they're equally charmed by each other's particularities. like oscar doesn't mind that lando is super fidgety and respects that he has Depths (saying that lando is a mix of sarcastic/dry, excitable, and serious) while lando has joked that oscar is somewhat robotic before but obviously still revels in wheedling genuine reactions out of him :') like you can see from how they get caught up in their little world while in parc fermé or doing their f1 media duties that they're capable of just focusing on Each Other without a care in the world for other people and they aren't talking just to have content for the cameras...

and like again the whole point of f1 is that it's a media circuit that needs overextended drama to survive as a consumable product but in the end neither of them care to sustain these artificial demands because it's just antithetical to their personalities and how their brains operate... their job is literally just car 🏎

also another thing is how people talk about 814 always twinning but what adds even more dimension to it is basically oscar admitting and being conscious of his mirroring lando's expressions 😭 and the fact that he's always choosing him for interview questions/copying his answers during games! like i think it's sooo compelling that oscar unintentionally latched onto lando as a young teenager in the uk and never really strayed from that because you have a very expressive, larger-than-life lando who is prone to being misrepresented because people don't really understand the manifestation of adhd and then level-headed oscar who is also poorly read because he doesn't express himself "conventionally" taking one look at lando and being like Hmmm yes. i'll mold myself after that. and lando being so happy and open to that dynamic 🧡 does it not move u

[turtleblogatlast]

Thinking about the Don Suave scene and what it means in terms of LGBTQ+ representation because my brain does nothing if not torment me with random topics to ramble about on the regular.

Anyway, I just wanted to ramble about why I like the scene but to get it out of the way - the scene can very easily be interpreted in so many different ways, and all of them are valid. I personally see it as Leo having at least some attraction to a man. And the following is an explanation of my own interpretation and thoughts on it and what it means especially for Leo’s portrayal in the grand scheme of things.

Long-winded interpretation under the cut!

Now, to start with, it’s important to me that in the scene Leo looks at Don Suave in the very beginning and then for the entirety of the rest of the time the man is on screen, Leo’s eyes are closed. Yet, in the end, he is still visibly enamored with Don Suave, happily cuddling up to him as he’s being carried away.

You can very easily interpret this as Leo being spellbound and that’s honestly super valid and I believe he likely was at least somewhat in the beginning, but considering how fast he looked away and how he never looked again, I personally think it makes more sense to read it as Leo just finding the man attractive, at least somewhat. (For the record, I personally headcanon Rise Leo as bisexual with a heavy preference for men, but I want to be blunt when I say that any interpretation is valid. Literally any. Ace, pan, gay, bi, none of the above or a mixture of something new literally all of it is more than okay and fair. Hell you could even interpret this entire scene as more romantic attraction than physical and it would still work. Anything goes!! Don’t bother people, guys, really.)

The main reason I take this scene to be at the very least LGBTQ+ adjacent isn’t just because of how it’s portrayed, but because of who Leonardo is. Not in terms of Rise of the TMNT, but in terms of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™️ franchise.

Leo’s a character who, while changing with each iteration, has still at his core been around for decades upon decades as “the blue one”. One fourth of the team. He’s the one most are going to look at as the Leader, and oftentimes he is the one closest to having the title of Main Character. Not to say the others aren’t just as important, but Leo’s presence in the A plots of basically all TMNT media is often something very main character-esque.

And that’s very, very important to note. Here we have a Main Character of a prolific and decades long-running franchise distributed by a children’s television network. You can play around with his and his brothers’ characters all you like, but there is always going to be challenges to dodge around, especially since this was still in 2018-2019.

For example, you can play around with their designs so long as they’re color coded turtles, but their sexualities? Now that’s tricky.

“But what about Hypno and Warren?” Not main characters and also they’re Rise originals. They have a lot more room to play around with than a character like Leo does. But even talking about main characters in the franchise, you could arguably have an easier time playing around with Donnie or Mikey’s sexualities than Leo or even Raph, as (unfortunately) the former two tend to get more B plots, so they’d likely have had a little more leeway (still not a lot though.)

So, where does this leave us?

It leaves us in a place where outright stating and/or showing undeniable proof of Leo’s attraction to men is very, very difficult. So, workarounds!

Workarounds like the entire Don Suave situation.

To be honest, as left up to interpretation and lowkey and deniable as it is, this whole scene means a lot to me because of who Leo is as a character. It’s just nice when we get so see even the bare bones of representation with characters that have been such a large part of pop culture for decades, y’know? Even if more would be so much nicer, this is better than I thought we’d ever get for these boys.

And, again, literally nothing I’ve said is the only way to interpret it, I’m more than happy when people interpret media on their own honestly, it’s just something I’ve been thinking of lately and I was wondering if others felt the same way.

Whatever you think when you interpret this scene or Rise Leo as a whole, I just thought this would be interesting to think about, even if it was ramble-y, haha.

[descendant-of-truth]

When are we gonna acknowledge the fact that the whole "Sonic is super cheerful around Shadow who finds him annoying" thing only started in Shadow the Hedgehog and that this isn't, like. their default

You wanna know what their original dynamic was? Sonic getting ticked off by Shadow's very presence, who would stop in the middle of anything no matter how urgent and time-sensitive it was just to mess with Sonic.

(He got sidetracked from his own mission to save Rouge from THE EXPLOSIVES THAT HE SET because the urge to make fun of Sonic was too strong. what is wrong with him)

And it's Sonic who starts their first fight, by the way. He was clearly taking Shadow much more seriously than the other way around; he genuinely wanted to fight, while I'm pretty sure Shadow just wanted to have some fun and show off. (AS THE BOMB IS STILL TICKING)

But at the same time, most likely because he was having fun, he seemed to be hoping that Sonic would prove himself to be something more than just... Some Guy. Why else would he seem disappointed that Sonic could be killed? And so impressed (dare I say proud) when it turned out that he survived by using Chaos Control with a fake Emerald?

All of the animosity was on Sonic's end - Shadow was the one who wanted someone to rival him. He never disliked Sonic, or found him annoying to be around. If he did, he wouldn't have spent so much time around him to begin with.

And they were somehow like this in Heroes, too. Despite his amnesia, Shadow once again listens to Sonic talk for a few seconds and immediately decides that he needs to taunt him. Searching for the answers to his identity can wait, he just thought of a great comeback and needs to style on this random hedgehog for a bit

Then you've got the absolute whiplash of Shadow's game, where all of a sudden Sonic is Super Friendly towards Shadow, who's having none of it. Even if you try to make the argument that Sonic is trying to be friendlier on purpose because he wants to bond with Shadow more, the game portrays it as if this is just How Sonic Is.

Sure, I'd expect him to be picking fewer fights with Shadow when they're working together to save the world, but he's like. borderline giddy all the time. it's kinda funny but so, so confusing in the grand scheme of things.

Sonic 06 gave a much more sensible portrayal of how the two would talk to each other after they're done being enemies, I think. There's a little bit of rivalry in there, but it's not born out of them conflicting with each other. There's no hesitation to work together, no grumbling from Shadow, and Sonic isn't being uncharacteristically excitable about it.

(Plus they retained the silent communication thing they had going at the end of SA2, which is nice)

Unfortunately, 06 was the first and only time that we would see the two of them written this way, as friends who maybe don't "hang out" but aren't the type to bicker or turn everything into a competition at the expense of practicality.

There was no hesitation to the respect they had for each other, either, which is easily the most baffling part of their current portrayals. Not even their Boom counterparts had any hangups about that, and they were legitimately antagonistic towards each other most of the time.

Case in point, I think it's very easy to look at their designs and put them into stereotypical little boxes where Sonic is the ray of sunshine while Shadow is too edgy to find him anything but annoying, but that's just. not how they are at all, and the actual ways their personalities used to bounce off of each other was both funnier and more interesting in my opinion

[rocicrew]

clarissa mao !!

send me a character and i’ll list

favorite thing about them

she's the definition of poor little meow meow. i love her complexities and flaws. she's a rich spoiled heiress, she has enormous family issues. she tried to kill the family she would die for. redemption arcs in my opinion are not always well written but clarissa's does it for me.

she doesn't shy away from the fact that she has done terrible things for selfish reasons (when you look at it in the grand scheme of things). and while the way her father treated her explains her motivations, they are not excused by it. it is her who decides the person she was is gone, and she's going to spend her second chance making up for the things she'd done. it's honest and raw, and her arc shows that people do improve and change when they receive external support and build meaningful relations. while at the same time it says, some things cannot be amended. you can never bring someone back, but you can try to be good.

she is the subversion of the redemption achieved by one last good Deed or Sacrifice. by the time that happens, she's made peace with herself, with the consequences of her actions and it is a choice for the people she loves while she stops delaying the unavoidable.

least favorite thing about them

i find the lack of not revisiting her complicated relationship with julie a Crime. what do you mean after fighting alongside and joining the crew that found her sister, she would not understand her sister's motivation or want some closure re her death?

(tv wise: girl you Have the worst timing in s6. holden is falling asleep on the railing and you think ah a great time to revisit the horrible acts i did to kill him)

(additional sidenote: nothing more meaningful comes to mind at the moment, at least not something i can articulate well so...)

favorite line

Which meant Naomi had misunderstood. Clarissa had meant, I'm not afraid.

10000000/10 on the pain scale this line continues to haunt me. what an epilogue for her im-

(also her exchange with erich on the shuttle about letting people in their tribes without demanding that they prove they need them, and ending it with her prison sentence,,,,,,,,,, i'm rolling on the floor each time)

brOTP

is there any other answer between clarissa and amos ? i personally cannot see their relations as anything other than platonic with deep devotion. they saw each other's worst parts and decided there's good in there even if they can't quite see it in their own selves at times.

they're mirrors but also kind of foils at the same time ?? amos is never afraid while clarissa is all the time,,, let's not be monsters together,, i want to be there in your last moments,,, ah yeahh

OTP

i do not truly ship her with anyone. i can speculate about romantic dynamics, but it's not super far in the Shipping category. i do think she and bobbie would make out in the roci tho

nOTP

is kind of answered in the previous two ? i do not see her and amos' relationship being romantic (except maybe in the roci polycule kind of thing, which i'm still more drawn to the idea of her and bobbie or a complicated relationship with naomi)

random headcanon

i'm not sure how random it is, because it is a nickname she has in canon. but i personally hc that the roci crew over time begins to call her claire after babylon's ashes. peaches is primarily amos' nickname for her and it feels a step too far to use it. so claire is still a way to signal her new path.

i also believe she's a lesbian tbh

unpopular opinion

i have not seen too many opinions on her. i know a lot of people were put off of her in s3, (i have to say she grew on me later as well) but i can now say that she was Unhinged (in a compliment way)

also i think that there's a tendency for her to be portrayed a bit meek in the time after she's joined the roci crew which is the last way i'd personally describe her. she's quiet and reserved, yes, insecure about her place in that family, but she's also blunt and takes risks and has been shown to be incredibly intelligent and capable. and i think it takes away from her character with all her flaws.

song i associate with them

nothing comes to mind rn, i am also terrible at this kind of associations. always one or two lyrics throw me off.

favorite picture of them

the scene she's introduced, first up close and then the shot of her from behind with the navigation map of the maintenance shutte does thinks to the gifmaker side of me (if only the lighting wasn't so yellow)

[starlight-eclipsed]

Any Sky or Warriors thoughts you want to share?

Lemme think...these are more general, not really specific to any particular story of mine.

Sky:

Before his journey, Sky didn't really care much about anything at all--he'd do what was asked of him. Nothing more, nothing less. He has lots of natural talent so he never really had to try at anything. Just the kind of guy that floats through life.

Obviously, this changed on his journey. To me, Skyward Sword is a story in which Sky learns to care. He starts off as someone who has to be constantly led around and told what to do. By the end, he's charging in and learning all sorts of new things and doing sidequests of his own initiative.

Iirc, the game's sidequests only really open up once Zelda takes her long nap. I kinda see this as Sky finally slowing down from chasing after her and working to help others who he encounters.

Overall, Sky's character arc is about building the habits of a hero, and becoming someone who is more 'grounded' instead of losing track of time daydreaming his life away. He still has to actively make the decision to be kind...but it's becoming his default.

Heavy footed. While his swordsmanship is swift and among the most technically skilled in the Chain, Sky doesn't watch where he steps. Do not take his ass bug collecting unless you're prepared to grieve for some lost little lives.

On a related note, he'll knock down hornet nests on purpose. He can catch all the hornets buzzing around him while scooping up any larvae within a minute. Without getting stung. It's terrifying.

Does not know how to pace himself. It's all or nothing with this guy for everything he does. His stamina isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, but he tends to overdo it and has to take regular breaks as a result.

Warriors:

Was not drafted into the military--he signed up because he wanted to protect his home. Warriors has mostly forgotten this. It's hard to remember that he willingly joined in order to help people after discovering that he's the 'reason' the war started in the first place.

This man has so many trust issues. Not just from the various traitors he encountered during the war. Most people in his era only think of him as the hero, and will act accordingly (often with their own interests in mind).

Which is particularly tragic because he is a romantic at heart. He would love to be in a relationship, but every tentative relationship he's started post-war has ended when the other person slips up and reveals a hidden motive behind getting close to him.

Pretty much the only people he fully trusts are the other playable characters that consistently fought alongside him during the war. Which is a shame because that meant that most of his support network vanished post-war. Zelda and Impa are the people he's closest with nowadays (though the Chain are rapidly becoming like family to him, he's realistic about the fact that he'll have to say goodbye again).

Okay, this one's a bit of a stretch so I just ask that you be patient: Warriors could have fallen for Cia if she'd approached him somewhat normally. Like I said, he's a romantic kind of guy. A powerful sorceress falling in love with a knight (or even just a commoner) is something out of a romance novel, and he would've been down to try being with her. No idea how that would've worked out since we don't know much about who Cia is without the whole darkness and desire thing, but if Lana is any indication then I think they might've had a chance. Unfortunately the war and the major creep factor and just everything has made it so that it is not even remotely an option anymore.

Random personal headcanon: he can knit. This guy is wearing fun patterned socks under his boots and nobody ever sees them because he's mastered a slight of hand trick to take off his socks along with his boots so that they're left inside. It is super against military dress code but he's been breaking that for years and nobody's called him out on it yet.

[jennyboom21]

It might seem strange, especially for those who only know Marshawn Lynch for his football career, to see the Super Bowl champ in a comedy about queer high school girls launching a fight club.

Bottoms (in theaters now) features the 37-year-old former NFL star in a scene-stealing role as Mr. G, a clueless teacher overseeing the feminist after-school club launched by Rachel Sennott’s PJ and Ayo Edebiri’s Josie. Even the film’s director and co-writer, Emma Seligman, admits she initially thought landing Lynch was a long shot.

“It was such a random movie for him to be in that I was so shocked that he even was considering it,” the Shiva Baby filmmaker (who goes by she/they pronouns) tells PEOPLE.

But the real reason for this unlikely casting is altogether more personal: Marshawn Lynch’s queer sister, Marreesha Sapp-Lynch, says he asked her whether to add Bottoms to a growing acting résumé that includes Westworld and Murderville.

“From the beginning when he read the script, he said that I came to mind,” recalls Sapp-Lynch, 34. “I was like, ‘Most definitely you should do it.’ I just told him, ‘It'll get you to understand, get more knowledge about the lesbian community.”

Like the characters of PJ and Josie, Sapp-Lynch has identified as a lesbian since high school. It felt easy coming out to her mother Delisa, she remembers — “She'll tell me to this day, 'I always knew you liked girls!'” — but brothers David, Marshawn and Davonte had a less straightforward reaction.

“They were understanding, but they didn't understand,” Sapp-Lynch tells PEOPLE. “Marshawn had a lot of questions and was thinking it was his fault: ‘What did I do?’ Because growing up he would always say I couldn't have a boyfriend, ‘You can't talk to boys.’ We’d go to a party and he'd be asking everybody, ‘Did you dance with my sister?’ But I wasn't attracted to boys, so I didn't dance with them!”

Her brother has accepted and celebrated her sexual orientation since those teenage years, Sapp-Lynch says. Case in point: Marshawn helped plan her 2021 wedding and walked her down the aisle.

“I asked him to walk me down the aisle because our dad passed away,” says Sapp-Lynch with a smile. “He cried the whole time,” she adds.

“He doesn’t cry — or I don't see him cry. The fact that he did cry and shed some tears, it meant a lot to me.” (Marshawn was so invested in his sister’s wedding, in fact, he urged the pair to reschedule it from 2023 to 2021. “He was very much involved in the whole planning... He called us at 5:00 a.m. talking about the cake designs and party favors.”)

But with Bottoms, a comedy produced by Amazon’s Orion Pictures and Elizabeth Banks’ Brownstone Productions, Marshawn had a bigger opportunity to honor his sister. Discussing the role of Mr. G with the footballer, Seligman, 28, remembers thinking there must have been “more of a connection here beyond him wanting to be in a funny movie or something.”

“In his words, he said he wasn't amazing about it when Marreesha came out in high school and that he felt like this was the universe giving him a chance to right his wrongs,” she adds. “He made it seem like that was really what was interesting him the most about it.”

Throughout the film’s shoot in New Orleans, Seligman says, “he kept on bringing up Marreesha.” Especially when Sapp-Lynch and her wife visited the set, she recalls, “He kept on being like, ‘That's my sister.’ In a way where it was like a proud parent [of queer kids] — a proud brother.”

And when Orion Pictures president Alana Mayo suggested Marshawn for Mr. G, Seligman says, she realized it might expand the moviegoing audience of Bottoms. “Him believing in these girls and getting to know them and getting to understand them means a lot in the grand scheme of things within the crazy conservative town that they're in.”

Plus, the story’s homophobic characters are obsessed with the high school football team, Seligman points out. “To have a legendary football player like him playing this character that's getting to know this subsection of this town, and see them as real people with valid desires and hormones and feelings — that's pretty cool that Marshawn is representing that kind of straight, male character.”

Sapp-Lynch agrees, and says seeing a movie full of gay characters like Bottoms while coming out in high school “would've helped me make me feel easier, make me feel better about me being who I am.”

“I didn't understand my sexuality in high school, so I actually think it might've freaked me out,” admits Seligman. “It would've excited me. Maybe it would've jumpstarted some things!”

Of co-writing the film with Sennott, she says, “I really just wanted to see my high school self in a stupid comedy.” She recalls a quote from Edebiri: “Being stupid is a political act.”

“Just having queer characters in something so silly and that's not serious feels subversive,” Seligman continues. “I don't think we're trying to prove anything political or have some sort of deeper message or meaning out of the movie. Other than ‘Gay people can be funny, sexy and horny, and that's normal.’ Sometimes just normalizing something is enough.”

“Marshawn in the movie,” she adds, “beyond him being a wonderful actor and improviser and a lovely human being, it is wild that it might be seen by so many more people who wouldn't have otherwise seen it.”

[opheliajupiter99]

Random OUAW Thoughts: Gid Edition

//So, I'm feeling sick (again) which usually leads me to ponder in some form or another. This time, I've been pondering Gideon.

//I'd really like, at some point in the campaign, for Gideon to meet one of probably many, MANY illegitimate children his lustful escapades have produced. For multiple reasons, of course.

//The first being that we've seen through his interactions with Twig and Hootsie that he's much fatherlier than an outward look might at first lead you to believe. When it comes to children, especially children he knows personally, he'll lose his shit at the prospect of them being hurt (see the whole 'Hootsie with a cabinet' bit for a fantastic demonstration of that)

//The second being that I think deep down, despite his impressions of being super confident, he believes that if he were to die, it wouldn't really affect much in the grand scheme of things. Sure, people would be sad - I'm sure he's aware that it'd be devastating at least on some level for Kremy. But I think he'd imagine the world moving right along after he died, his friends being sad for a while but eventually just finding another loyal strongman and proceeding with their lives unaltered. After all, his father was slaughtered and he was kidnapped, all without the general population giving the smallest fuck, at least as far as he knows. Him discovering one of his kids would give him a situation where he would 100% affect the outcome by being alive.

//Speaking of that kidnapping, onto the third point, and perhaps the most important of all. The most likely way for him to meet one of his children, since they're in the Feywild and the Feywild produces quite a lot of creatures that like abducting/eating children, is for said child to have been captured by one of said creatures - it could be the hags, but really any creature would work. The child would either have been captured under their mother's nose or, even worse, their mother could've been slaughtered after trying to protect them. Then, the child would be left in this hopeless position, not knowing how to escape, and knowing that even if they did escape, there'd be no one out there to give a shit; just like Gideon before them. Except in -this- scenario, there IS somebody that gives a shit and can do something to save them.

//So yeah, just a lot of reasons in general it'd be awesome. And if I recall correctly, they said they were nowhere near done with the campaign, like I think they said like 6% of what they wanted to do had been done so far lol. So it'd be cool. Though honestly just about anything they do I'm sure will be good, or at least they'll find something cool to do with a weird choice later, they'd awesome at both.

[wraith-caller]

Just to round things out... Fia!

YES the gang's all here now!!

favorite thing about them: Her scheming and careful manipulation!! So subtle apparently a decent chunk of fandom thinks youre crazy for seeing it lol Just she's so precise in how she goes about her plans. She tests the waters to find who she can trust, but even then makes sure she holds all the cards. The way she withholds info, and even outright lies to us("these grand affairs are hardly my forte..." sweetheart you are PLANNING A CORPSE UPRISING dont play with me!). I also really love thinking of how her and Rogier may share this similarity where they see themselves as objects to please others first and foremost, and that they're both entering their 'actually my needs matter too' era at the very last minute lol it's so tragic.

least favorite thing about them: that she had to kill darian TT_TT but it's fromsoft, and, to quote the lizard king himself, "No one here gets out alive".

favorite line: "I wished to be a mother to those Who Live in Death. So it is that any loathing, any hatred that overshadows them, I must bear with my own flesh, as a matter of duty." It says a lot about her own dedication to her cause, and her willingness to sacrifice for it. But it also makes me a bit sad in a way? The whole 'as a matter of duty' taken with her being born a Deathbed Companion speaks to this deep conditioning that she's been instilled with this idea that her own purpose is to always put others before herself. She gets to claw at her own wants a little here in reaching her goal of choosing her own noble to lay with, but she still operates within the framework of being born into and brought up to perform this duty that she never had a choice in accepting to begin with, from the sound of things.

brOTP: Fia/Rogier. And this is one of the few brOTPs where I mean brOTPs with benefits lmao I guess it's more like a secondary OTP?? I don't think either one loves the other, and I think their relationship is super fucking complicated, bordering on toxic and unhealthy. But it's endlessly fascinating and as I said up above, I think they share enough emotional issues that they might bond over that. Once they get past the whole 'holding everyone at arms' length' thing.

OTP: Fia/Godwyn. She got to make her own choice, and chose him. There's a kind of bittersweet nature to the pairing since, well, he's an undead freak of nature. But she still is so devoted to helping him and giving him 'a new life', and is willing to die for that.

nOTP: Her with the twins is a hard sell for me. Her with Rogier in a 'it's genuine true love' way usually falls pretty flat for me too.

random headcanon: Given how secretive Darian is about Devin's existence, and that Lionel may have been the one to take the dagger from Devin, and in doing so, sustaining mortal wounds, Fia might think Darian is the one who killed Lionel.

unpopular opinion: She's not a sweet, defenseless, helpless victim who is utterly incapable without our aid. She is manipulative and deceitful, driven and determined, and acknowledging her moral complexity is not a sign that someone must hate her. In fact, I think it's worse to DIMINISH that complexity in favor of a damsel/surrogate mommy stereotype.

song i associate with them: Devil's Resting Place by Laura Marling Fall Into Me by Alev Lenz Streets on Fire by Lupe Fiasco Deep Green by Marika Hackman (fia and rogier)

favorite picture of them:

Another zlofsky pic lol I like the framing and while I know it's just the mechanics of the game's idle animation, she looks so poised and composed even while casting a spell.

[spatialwave]

just a random thought about my hunger games au but what are your opinions on gender-shifting jordan? it feels icky to me to completely remove it for the sake of male/female tributes because it’s important to me to not hide jordan’s bigender identity.

one thought i have… i wonder what it’s like for jordan to discover they’re bigender/non-binary as an amab individual? revealing their gender identity to marie in a heartbreaking scene because it feels like something so minuscule in the grand scheme of their lives. it’s a realistic approach to a non-super story.

or do i just say fuck it and gender shift jordan whenever i damn feel like it and it’s just something they can do. my only issue with this is that i get so anal about story telling and i need to know how this affects things… would it affect the reaping?

what are your thoughts? how would you like to see jordan represented in this au?

please help 😭

[ask-villegas-sides]

"Operation 'Get Riley to Sleep' = Complete Failure 😤"

Beckett: Okay, seriously, we’ve tried EVERYTHING. Gentle reminders, bedtime routines, relaxation exercises... nothing works! Riley just won’t go to sleep on time, and I am spiraling over this.

Lev: Honestly, we’re all worried. Sleep is super important, and you deserve rest, Riley! But somehow every night turns into, “Just one more episode” or “Let me finish this level.” 😩

Flint: This level of sleep deprivation is not sustainable. Sleep hygiene is essential, yet here we are—past midnight AGAIN, with you scrolling on your phone. We’ve discussed strategies. We’ve created schedules. None of it sticks.

Reese: And like, I totally get it—who wants to sleep when there are stories to write, shows to watch, and random ideas popping up at 2 AM? But still... even I think we need to chill at some point, dude. Your brain can’t art if it’s sleep-deprived.

Beckett: Exactly! And I mean—what if something bad happens because we’re too exhausted to deal with it? Like, what if we miss an appointment or forget something important? Like today, when Riley forgot to take Laddie out this morning to relieve himself and the dog sprinted to the door so fast he almost crashed? Yeah- not good.

Pride: Pfft. Honestly? At this point, it feels like Riley is deliberately testing how long they can function without proper rest. “Will it be catastrophic today? Let’s find out.” 🙄 We can’t function at our best if you keep burning out like this, Riley. You’ve got things to achieve, goals to crush, dreams to chase. But that all requires energy—and that means SLEEP. Rest isn’t weakness. It’s strategy.

Beckett: Exactly! I mean, what’s the point of trying to stay ahead of every possible danger if we’re all exhausted while doing it? 😵

Lev: We care about you, Riley. We want you to feel good, and that starts with rest. So PLEASE���tonight, let’s try getting to bed on time? For us? For Laddie? 🥺

Reese: Ooh, I’ve got it! If you go to bed by 11, I’ll draw you a custom doodle of whatever dream you have. Deal? Deal.

Flint: We’ve optimized every other part of the schedule. This is the last hurdle. Please cooperate.

Pride: Or not. At this point, what’s one more late night in the grand scheme of bad decisions?

Beckett: Why not send us some asks to keep us busy? We’ll still be here at 3 AM... if that’s how this goes. Just saying. …OH MY GOD, PLEASE JUST GO TO SLEEP!

[chickennugget5226]

Gender is weird because everyone experienced it differently like I can definitely simplify my gender experience to “sometimes I’m more masculine but sometimes my gender is null” or, even further simplified is “I’m a guy” but really I experience gender on. A very weird scale. My gender fluctuates depending on random vibes I feel throughout the day. Sometimes when I’m super neutral I can really only fully describe it as how you experience the world stargazing in the fall, laying on dead leaves and just. Looking at the sky and knowing that it’s all so expansive and knowing that in the grand scheme of things, your identity doesn’t really affect the universe. It just is. But sometimes it’s like the feeling when you’re a kid and at your best friends house late at night and playing Minecraft with them and it just feels like everything is how it should be. But then when I’m feeling more masculine I can describe my full gender as the vibes that objects give off, like cool knives or soft blankets. Idk though that might just be me

[wonkyreads]

Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews

2 out of 5 forest monsters

Don’t Let the Forest In follows Andrew as he returns to Wickwood Academy for his senior year. Everything in his life seems a little unstable, including his relationships with Thomas, who he loves, and Dove, his twin sister. Throw in Thomas’s parents’ disappearance and the fact that there now seems to be monsters in what was once their favorite place and it sounds like a real horrifying mystery might be afoot.

Unfortunately, this book just massively didn’t work for me. I fought it nearly every step of the way, which is a shame because I’d been so excited for it. Don’t get me wrong, the book has its merits, but they’re few and far between for me. I think this book needed a lot more thought and development just in general, to be honest.

I spent the majority of Don’t Let the Forest In trying to pinpoint what the message of it was and by the end I still think it’s way too muddy to make a lot of sense. Andrew has a hundred and two problems and it doesn’t feel like any of them get addressed. He’s struggling with his sexuality (but he is asexual which is some representation I’m always super excited to see), his relationships are shaky, he is anxious as all hell, and is trying to hide an eating disorder to top it all off. It just doesn’t seem like these play a particularly cohesive role in the story as a whole.

That does kind of bring me to Andrew as a character, though. I love an unreliable and unlikable narrator but he got under my skin almost constantly. Andrew constantly blames everyone else for his problems and the rare time he does take an iota of responsibility or takes a second to look within to fix their problems it’s shallow and surrounded by pitying ‘woe is me’ kind of speech. He’ll rant for full paragraphs about how despicable he is because he’s too anxious and weak and skinny and asexual for any given person or problem and a page later he’s whining about how Thomas or Dove are responsible for what’s currently wrong. I can understand the intent behind these character choices, but they’re maddening to read through. With a character like Andrew I expect some major character arc and self-reflection and growth, but here it just takes far too long and is way too little too late to make an impact. The way he treats people just never really finds the time to come up.

It’s not just Andrew’s character that struggles, though. None of the characters seem to have any consistency besides maybe Lana and the bullies - and the bullies are Disney villain over the top evil for what seems to be no reason at all. Characters will get into throw down, blow up arguments over nothing and dialogue choices will follow almost no logic (I was reminded constantly of that ‘I’m so RaNdOm rAwR’ time period and it physically hurt, though that may be a me problem).

Plot-wise, it did a few things to build tension that almost always backfire. Keeping the reader in the dark while continuously hinting to this thing that happened just before the narrative started. A main character intent on not actually following leads the plot is throwing at them. It was frustrating to me because the book is so focused on fairytales and the power of storytelling and missed out on making the book itself follow fairytale rules and structure. There doesn’t seem to be a logic or real flow to what happens and it’s hard to string together why each plot point happens in the grand scheme of things. Fairy tales are tight, everything happens for a reason and there’s a moral to every piece of the story. A lot of this just felt like “and then this happened and then this happened next” just for the sake of the imagery and to bulk the story out further. Honestly, it didn’t feel like a lot of the emotional beats or plot points were there for any logical reason in-world at all so much as the author needed something to fill space between point A and B.

Sorry, I’m just so frustrated because this book has so much potential and so many people seem to have enjoyed it and I just couldn’t. I’m so tired of books not receiving the amount of editing and care they deserve.

There are things the book does get right, though, even for me. There are scenes in here, specifically some of the more action-based ones, that are absolutely heart-racingly good. They show the talent that Drews truly has in a way the rest of the narrative misses out on. If you’re into gore, this book is exceedingly gory. There’s body horror and creepy forest monsters galore. The imagery itself is super tight. Almost all of the description falls back to forest imagery or hunger or stuff like rib cages and eye sockets (I will say that it could be a little too tight because it did get on my nerves with how repetitive it felt at times). There’s also some decent queer talks as Andrew grapples with his asexuality.

So, Don’t Let the Forest In isn’t a book without its merits. I just think it could have been so much more in a way that makes the disappointment crushing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan Publishing Group for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[logicalstansadvice]

He's not going to stay single just because a bunch of strangers can't stand the idea that he's not there sleeping with them. 🥰//

I think if more people adopted the 'don't hate, congratulate' mindset, they'd be better off in the long run.

Look, I get it. People are jealous of AW. Sebastian Stan is an astonishingly beautiful man and by all accounts a really sweet, exceedingly talented person, and being jealous of the woman lucky enough to take him home is natural.

But here's the thing...there's no way he could ever be with everyone who wants him, even if he wanted to. The chances of any random fan ending up with him were always infinitesimal. Him being with AW, possibly for good, didn't change that. In the grand scheme of things, none of our lives have actually been affected. The odds are exactly the same as they were before. Let that sink in.

So sure... you may feel a little jealous or lonely, but accepting that he was never going to be with you, as harsh as it sounds, is the healthiest way to let go of all this. Annabelle didn't take your man. He was never yours to begin with. Slandering her isn't going to make it better, and it changes nothing. She's hugged up somewhere with Seb right now.

The only result of fans trashing this man's girlfriends has been his departure from social media. Yeah, there may have been other factors, but if you think he didn't see the insanity toward Ale and decided he wasn't going to allow that bullshit with Annabelle, y'all better wake up.

Being this emotionally invested in any celebrity's love life is super unhealthy. No amount of pretending your issue is you 'just want him to be with the right person' is going to help. Stop fooling yourselves.

Nobody knows the future. They may last, they may not. The important thing to remember is that neither outcome impacts our lives. Not in the slightest. If they do stand the test of time...don't hate, congratulate, and move on with your life. The sun will still come up tomorrow.

💄

[domesticated-whores]

hello, I've decided to do a thing that no one asked for, solely for myself. and that is heavily over-analyzing random bullshit about myself. starting with

over-analyzing the fuck out of my gender

get ready for so much useless information about the inner-workings of how I identify... longish post.

I think a lot (if not most) nonbinary/genderqueer people have a simplified gender that they publicly identify as and a different, more complex gender that they identify as internally or in queer-specific spaces.

I'm pretty open in general about being genderqueer. I don't really identify as nonbinary, it isn't my preferred term for what I am, but since I understand that it's a more common term that most people outside of queer spaces know at least at a surface level I'll use it sometimes. I don't usually get any deeper than that. I'll tolerate she/her pronouns (I'm afab and generally feminine, and I'm incredibly aware of that), if asked for my pronouns (rare, I'm very feminine presenting) then I'll say "I'm cool with anything, slight preference on they/them" because that's a lie, but it's simple and I don't care quite enough to fight anyone on it. I was out as he/him transmasc for a little while before it got to be not worth it to explain presentation =/= gender or trying to look uncomfortably masc in order to be taken seriously, so there are still people that use he/him pronouns for me irl which is nice, but I don't get *enough* dysphoria from being misgendered to try to get others to use them.

But I do have some specific shit for my gender, also. I've been studying the hell out of this shit for maybe 10 years. I'm autistic as fuck, I like researching and labeling and categorizing things, so I put a lot of thought and reflection into my gender and I really have no place to share it because no one really cares to have me deep-dive into the details for them.

First and foremost, I'm cassgender. In case you don't know what that is, it's when someone feels indifferent to their gender or generally feels it's unimportant. Different from something like agender because cassgender people still can *have* other gender identities, it isn't lack of gender identity, it's just that there isn't a super strong connection to it.

To me, I don't care if I'm misgendered really at all. I do have a preference on how I'm referred to, I do have a gender, but I also don't really think it matters in the grand scheme of things. If it's more convenient to me, I have zero issues pretending to be a cis woman. Am I? No. But I don't think much would really be different if I was, so I don't see why it really matters. I personally use almost all "gendered" words in a gender-neutral way (unless someone tells me they're uncomfy with it, where I still see the words themselves as gn but respect people enough not to use it for them), I understand gendered connotations but genuinely fail to see how they matter. Again, full respect that they matter to most people, but I personally don't see it so I won't act like I do.

Even when I did care more about my gender identity and being out publicly, it wasn't because of strong attachment to my gender. It was more of a sense of "I researched for so many hours finding the right labels, I'm going to use them openly dammit!!"

I'm also a transmasc femboy. I use he/him pronouns for myself and generally prefer those (though, again, I'm cool with any), but I'll use almost any gendered terms for myself interchangeably/by situation. For example, I tend to prefer feminine familial terms (I'm my cats' momma, I'd be an aunt if my brother had kids in the future, etc.) while I usually opt for more masculine basic terms (man rather than woman, masc pronouns, boyfriend if I'm in a relationship, etc.) and alternating on terms of endearment or authority (god/goddess, sir/ma'am, daddy/mommy, prince/princess, king/queen, etc.). If it's in lighthearted/meme terms, anything flies (girlie, "I'm just a girl," feminine urge, "girls don't want men, they want--" etc. isn't misgendering because it's silly and fun).

I'm afab, feminine as hell, and not really looking to transition medically at all, so I don't at all mind feminine shit because, uh, obviously. I wear dresses and eyeliner sometimes and have long hair and a petite, slight hourglass body and all that shit. My regular outfit is leggings and a crop top, it's a very titties out look tbh. I don't bind (use to, might start experimenting with it again when it gets colder but I can't with the tops I like for warm weather and I don't like using tape) or anything. If I could magically look more physically androgynous in the ways that I want, that'd be sick as hell, but I can't so I don't mind my body that much. I was on t for maybe 3-4 months and I got some minimal bottom growth and slight voice changing, but I was getting too many changes that I didn't really fuck with for my preferred brand of androgyny and a lot of things I wanted t didn't help, so I stopped. Like, if I could get free and easy top surgery or a reduction and somehow grow 4-6 inches in height that would be splendid, but one of those is too expensive to justify how mild my discomfort is and the other is literally impossible so I can live with what I have.

I also really think drag would be cool as hell for gender reasons, but unfortunately I'm something of a broke bitch and even being thrifty with it is out of my budget at the moment. Which is fine, I keep it on a back burner in case I have money to invest into a new thing that I might get burnt out on before it's even worth what I spent. I'm just not touching that when I'm struggling to do anything beyond pay rent and feed my cats. But it's certainly a gender thing that I put a lot of thought into.

I don't know. Again, I'm cassgender so I don't really care heavily about any of this, I'm just an overthinker so I know it because of that. It was just information sitting in my brain that I didn't know what to do with, so I'm dumping it here. I mostly want to deep-dive into my sexuality and romantic orientation, I just had to post this first because it is really connected to gender things. I have an essay-worth to say on my sexuality because I actually care a lot about that shit and I'm just at the end (I believe?) of still figuring it out, while I was pretty sure on my gender for a while and just had to settle on accurate labels for it mostly.

[nami-moittli]

Probably unpopular opinion about the PJO show

But I didn’t really like it, and I don’t plan on watching the second season when it comes out

If you like the show, fine. Great even! Like what you like, but to me it was okay at best. Maybe I’m just being a “book purist” but I didn’t really like a ton of the changes in the show to the books.

Like, minor detail that I feel like everyone forgets: Mrs. Dodds wasn’t a substitute teacher, she was an actual teacher at the school (Percy says he remembers that there was a math teacher before Mrs. Dodds, but not for very long) doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but that’s one that I wanted to point out even if I don’t have any real problem with it

Crucify me if you want but I had no idea what was going on with Medusa and I’ve grown to dislike her characterization (it’s actually a pretty recent thing that Athena blessed her, but even then Medusa hated Athena?? Also the version where she was r*ped was written by a man who has had a track record of portraying the (especially) female gods in a bad light. Please Rick, just go back to the original version, it’s so much less confusing)

It felt like Annabeth lost her love of architecture, yes I know she had that scene where she was rambling about the Arc, but to me it felt more like she was praising her mom which is why she liked it so much, I don’t think Grover even said anything like, “sorry about her, she’s super into architecture”. I feel like such a big part of her was slipped under the rug. And the thing at Hephaestus’s water park where Percy was trapped in the door felt less like she liked the architecture and more like she liked the machinery. Not to say she couldn’t like both, but I just don’t like it

And don’t even get me started on episode 7

I could very easily go on, but I don’t feel like it

Not to say I don’t like the actors or their performances! I just don’t like the directions and scripts given to the actors

I wanted an adaptation to my favorite book series, not a rewrite

Example: I love the musical adaptation of PJO, but it has changes and cut scenes, but I don’t mind because again, it’s an actual adaptation of the series!

And again, if you like the show, feel free to! I’m just a random person on the internet who feels like sharing their opinion.

(Also, side note, I recommend The Mythology Guy’s videos on the PJO series for a more critical view on the show. I don’t agree with everything he says and have some of my own opinions on things, but I agree with a lot of his views on things! I recommend them a lot)

So yeah, with the fact that we’re going to be getting a new character in the second season, I’m most likely not going to watch it (at least, by myself. Me and my mom watched the first season together, so if she wants to watch it together again then I will probably watch it. Probably won’t like it very much though 🤷‍♀️)

Anyway, like what you like and remember to boycott Disney