#like no one that I’ve personally interacted with has made me uncomfortable or anything you guys have been so sweet!

[ask-modern-patrochilles]

out of context where are you? :(

[ Hi! 👋🏼 I didn’t plan on taking another break but it sort of just happened for multiple reasons. I’ll be putting it under the read more tab because boy it’s a Lot ]

[ First off, there’s been a lot of hate going on in the fandom tags, and while I usually just block and go about my day, it’s really exhausting to see so many people hatefully criticizing something you love especially the way you interpret these characters (how they look, how they dress, body type, etc.). It’s made me feel very unwelcome in this space because I’ve seen so many people complaining about how they can’t stand ‘certain interpretations’ of these characters which is almost exactly how I draw and write about them. Every time I go to draw them, I just feel bad and it sucks so much because I still love them!

Second, the racism and elitism which I think speaks for itself. As a person of color (I am Puerto Rican), seeing racism consistently happening in classic fandom spaces is exhausting. My version of Patroclus is Black (with a mixed background), and it’s infuriating and so discouraging and disgusting to see so many people say that Greek mythology characters can’t be Black, despite the historical evidence that says otherwise. The rampant racism, and people making excuses for it, has been very hurtful and discouraging me from creating as well.

Lastly, and less related, I’ve been having a lot going on irl, my cat’s been hospitalized for a week and in process of recovering so I haven’t really had the time to draw these past two weeks even if I felt I up to it.

I’ll probably be back soon, I do have some big plans for this blog! And like I said, I still love tsoa, I love these characters and I’m still writing my fics over on ao3. However, I can’t lie, I’ve been feeling very discouraged from engaging in fandom because of the reasons above. It’s exhausting to see these things, and to post something you worked hard on only to see people being racist and hateful towards it in the end.

But I want to be very clear, there are still so many nice people in this fandom and I am very grateful to those who support my work and are very sweet with their comments in general.

So I hope this little break helps me get that passion for creating back, until then thanks for sticking around! I hope to update again very soon! In the mean time, you are more than welcome to send asks, I might answer a few with text responses if that’s okay with you guys 😊❤️ ]

[grassoftunnel]

I Love You For Psychological Reasons: George and Shannon as a matching pair of gendered insecurities

let me start right off…this is NOT a shipping post (for MANY reasons..), and is not structured in any particular way its just half awake rambling but I feel like George and Shannon’s relationship is super compelling in terms of what they are looking for in each other, and how they define themselves using each other as props.

the title is from the song I Love You For Psychological Reasons by They Might Be Giants which is kind of a cute romantic song but i think can be applied to them as a sad and cynical song about their relationship. I’ve also just thrown lyrics from this song into the post not for anything deep really but bc it made me think of them. Like I said, this is just rambling but I’ve divided it roughly into 4 ways they’re similar:

1.

Hard to explain, but it's plain that I love you for psychological reasons

The root of their decisions to pursue each other have nothing to do initially with an actual interest in the other on their own merits. For George, he was driven by wanting to make Shannon turn away from Battler and look at him that way instead, and for Shannon, george was her way to settle/move on from the heartbreak of Battler.

2.

Lately, I've taken to vacantly making repetitive movements. Mistakenly seen as improvements

They are both deeply insecure about their abilities to fulfil certain gendered expectations, and both seeing each other as pathways to successfully performing those gendered expectations. For George, he was bullied so much and unable to be “strong” and “assertive” or even defend himself, and feels like he’s not a real man because of it. For Shannon, she has her hangups about her androgynous appearance first, and then her intersex body later. See also, their awkward, and at times uncomfortable/forced miming of their ideas of how a man and a woman in a relationship “ought” to act. For George, this can sometimes veer into really uncomfortable ordering around of Shannon…and as for Shannon herself…she learns to react in specific ways to his artificial negging. Both are trying to follow the “script” for how George thinks these types of couple interactions should go/what he thinks Shannon wants based on his distorted perceptions of her past relationship with Battler.

They are both also well aware of the inexperience of the other in relationship matters, so they are able to kind of do a training-wheels version of an actual relationship (most notable with George, but for Shannon like as much as she eventually slowly grows to like George…kind of…any boy who was nice/showed interest would have done the job).

Nearing perfection but wisely electing To shun my reflection, preferring instead shoe inspection

Even then, they’re both twice shy due to their own neuroses so their relationship kind of stalls until George resolves to marry her.

3.

They are also both desperately wanting to leave their old/current self behind, in favour of remaking themselves in order to reach a certain type of future, even at great personal cost. For George, this is his desire to go all out in marrying Shannon, even to the point of throwing away his family if he needs to.

Under the table, unwilling, unable, the torture's medieval The dream is a fable with feeble wings

For Shannon this is her murder-suicide bomb plot deathwish that will wipe away all traces of the truth of her cage of flesh (of the body which makes her “unable to love” in a physical sense..and also a genetic one..since it taints the romantic relationships that were so important for her with incest) ,and make real the possibility of her relationship with George being a True, Uncomplicated Love. They differ greatly though in what this commitment to this relationship means emotionally….for George it’s triumphant but for Shannon, while also triumphant in a way…it’s a bittersweet death march.

Why does the mouse share the house with the louse? They won't say, but they feel their feelings

It’s also worth noting that both of them see the other as “above” themself, and as attaching themself onto someone better in order to improve themself (regardless of whatever the actual reality of their class and age difference is…)

4.

I'm ashamed to admit I'm afraid of assuming the blame For my lame abnegation of braveness and fame Brain in a jar in a car in reverse, I'm rehearsing the way I'll replay how to say how to be where you are

In pursuing this relationship, they both want to prove to themselves that they are capable of achieving these things that they’ve wanted for so long (performing their gender, remaking themselves). They are both constantly trying to plot out their future and like do a “good job” of hitting milestones in their relationship rather than being carried naturally from one stage to another.

Anyway I have no way to wrap this up lmfaoo this is just my loose thoughts! These two are really interesting! Their weird falsely-mutualistic relationship where theyre simultaneously both getting something but also not really getting something of actual substance since its all performance. The selves they present to each other within the context of the relationship are curated specifically to exist in the relationship. And of course this relationship “succeeding” crystallises Sayo’s resolve to undertake the murder suicide…the win condition for both of them is so drastically different haha…

[treluna4]

Fan fic saved my life

TW: emotional abuse, coercion, control, intimidation, homelessness, psychological abuse, DV.

Today, I (through an attorney) served my abuser with a protection order. I entered the apartment I’ve been banned from for the last four years, took back what was rightfully mine, and left.

I’m free.

My life is mine again.

I never thought I would have to do something like this. Now that I have, I’ve come to realize that I’ve learned a lot of really hard life lessons from this fucked up experience. Here are a few of them:

What I’ve learned as a survivor of DV:

DV doesn’t just happen between family members or romantic partners. Your abuser can be a lifelong friend. Someone you have a shared history with. Someone who has helped you, supported you, loved you in the past.

Your abuser can be a disabled person.

Your abuser can have a chronic illness.

Your abuser can be financially dependent on you.

No abuser starts out that way. There’s a shift that happens over time, so gradually that it’s hard to know it’s happening until it’s too late.

My abuser gaslit the fuck out of me. She labeled me a monster, a villain, a sociopath, an abalist, because I didn’t empathize with her enough. No matter what I did, it was never enough for her. I was never enough.

And I believed her.

She convinced me that there was something deeply, inherently wrong with me. Something I must fix and change and grow from in order to be a good person again.

She convinced me she alone could fix those monstrous parts of me.

She convinced me that everyone else could see those parts too. That all my friends and family thought there was something deeply wrong with me. They just never said anything. Because I was an angry, violent person and they were all too scared to say anything. She reminded me, constantly, of all the ways which I was a failure.

Her relentless judgment and criticism changed me. It changed who I was and how I interacted with the world. I was scared of my own shadow. Scared of anyone in a position of authority. Terrified of ever doing anything wrong.

Trapped as I was in my circumstances, I became bitter and angry. Gone was the bright, happy person I’d been my entire life. It was wrong to be so happy, she said. No one is that happy all the time. It was time to grow the fuck up. Be an adult. And I agreed.

Caught up in my new mentality, I said things, did things, thought things that I will deeply regret for years to come. I was cold to people who didn’t deserve it. Rude for reasons I didn’t fully understand. I was trying to grow, just like she said. Trying to change. Convinced as I was that she was right. This is what it meant to be an adult. After all, no one is that happy all the time.

My newfound bitterness only proved her point. Of course I was a terrible person who never knew how to love people. Here’s the evidence! Obviously, what I thought was love had only ever been manipulation. She was right, after all. She was always right. I’d never truly loved anyone or anything.

I really was a monster.

It got to a point where I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I didn’t even want to look at my reflection. I didn’t want to face the broken shell of a person I’d become. I didn’t want to see what the rest of the world had always seen.

I stopped my spiritual practices. I didn’t want to face that uncomfortable truth that I was a failure. I was bad and wrong and terrible. So I hid the best parts of myself, to keep them away from the cruel person I really was.

I downplayed my queerness. I wore muted clothes and became a muted person. I fled from anything that might draw attention, anything that would warrant a comment. After all, she couldn’t attack something that no longer existed.

She made me question everything. Every single aspect of my life. She convinced me everything I’d ever known was a lie. I’d never actually done anything with a pure heart or good intentions. Everything I’ve ever done was a manipulation. A way to get everyone around me to do what I wanted them to. I was incapable of true, genuine love. What I felt was not love. It was a lie. Who I was, was nothing but a lie.

She told me I was a bad caregiver, and that I only ever made tough situations worse. She told me many times that I was emotionally unstable and should never be allowed to work with vulnerable populations. As someone who spent her life working with children and caring for others, this devastated me.

Despite all of this, she said she loved me. That she cared about me. She was simply telling me all of this for my own good, because it was her job to fix me. I had to stay with her, I had to continue to support her, until I could prove to her that I was mentally sound. Then and only then would she let me go. After all, she said, It wouldn’t be safe for her to let someone like me out in the world. It was her job to make sure I was healed first, so that I wouldn’t hurt anyone else the way I hurt her. That’s why I couldn’t leave her. I had to stay. I had to help her get better, since it was my fault she was ill in the first place. If I had been more emotionally stable, we wouldn’t have been in this situation and she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. So the only way out (for both of us) was for me to fundamentally change.

She constantly turned her abuse around on me. Whatever terrible things she said to me were justified. After all, she didn’t say anything worse to me than I once said to her. And since I obviously never cared about her, why should she care about me now? She was just matching my energy. Playing my game. I was actually the one controlling things here, and any misfortune was my fault, really. Any of my accomplishments were solely because of her, and all the work she put into making me a better person over the course of our decade + long friendship.

And I believed her. Always. Why wouldn't I? She helped me all those times before, right? Whenever I was at my lowest, she was the person I’d always turned to. She was always right back then, why should this time be any different? She was a good person. Kind. Brilliant. Not like anyone else is ever known. Surely that had to count for something.

Right?

Turns out, it’s not that simple. Just because someone helped you out before doesn’t mean they’re helping you out now.

If I could go back seven years, this is what I’d tell my 30-year-old self; fresh from a break-up. Lost. Scared. Vulnerable.

Write it down. Whatever she says, whatever she does, write it all down. You might not want to face it. You might not want to see how bad it really is, but write it down anyway.

A person who feels they have no control over their own life can find comfort in controlling yours.

No one ever anticipates finding themself in an abusive situation. There’s no planning for it or preparing for it. Even if you know the signs (and I knew all the signs), it can still happen to you.

If you don’t feel comfortable speaking up for yourself, if you can’t somehow say “no” to someone, it doesn’t mean you are a weak person, or that you’re doing anything wrong. It means you don’t feel safe around them.

Anything done “For your own good” rarely is.

You cannot be bullied into feeling empathy for someone. But that doesn’t mean you’re incapable of feeling empathy.

You are allowed to leave. You are not obligated to stay in a toxic situation, regardless of your past. And you are not a heartless monster for leaving someone, even if they are sick. There is nothing wrong with putting your health and safety above all else. That doesn’t make you selfish. That doesn’t make you a monster.

You’re allowed to be a full, entire person. You’re allowed to make mistakes. That doesn't mean you’re incompetent, or manipulative, or fucking ablist. It means you’re a person. A human being. And regardless of whatever mistakes you’ve made in the past, you don’t deserve to be treated this way.

We warn children about the dangers of keeping a secret. That doesn’t just apply to children. Do not keep her secrets. Do not keep her silence.

Isolation comes in many forms and each is toxic.

Do not isolate yourself. Talk to the people in your life. Let them in. Even if you think what you’re going through is not a big deal, even if you don’t wanna burden them. Even if you have trouble saying the words out loud. (Especially if you have trouble saying it out loud) Tell someone. Let your friends in. Let them help you.

You are not a burden.

Luckily for me, I have two incredible friends who helped me get out. Two people my abuser never knew about, because she told me to stay off of all social media. She told me fan fiction and fan spaces were bad for my mental health. It was childish for a grown woman to still be writing fan fic. Or acting in plays. Or listening to musicals. Or doing any of the many things that brought me so much joy, in my life before her.

Thank god I didn’t listen. At least, not for long.

Because two of my pocket friends that I met ON THIS VERY HELL SITE are the reason I’m free today.

@celeritas2997 and @statueinthestone . None of this would have happened without you two. I love you both so much.

Cee taught me what it looks like to support someone who is not ready to leave. When I finally worked up the nerve to tell her what was going on, she listened. She didn’t judge. Instead, she gave me the resources I needed to get out and encouraged me to seek help, without ever once shaming me for not being ready.

And it took me a very long time to be ready. But she never once demeaned me for it. She waited SO patiently, and listened whenever I shared new details of my abuse with her. She continued to suggest I get help, and when I chickened out again and again, she was still there. She never gave up on me. When I finally took her advice and reached out to the resources she suggested and started the process of leaving my abuser, she celebrated with me. She never once said “I told you so”.

Thank god I finally listened to her.

Jesi. Fuck. Jesi helped me in so many fucking ways, but none more so than this: she taught me that not everyone shows love the same way, and that’s okay. Just because the way I show love is different from what others expect or demand from me, it is in no way less valid. Thr way I love is valid. The way I love is enough.

I am enough.

Beyond the emotional lessons, this experience taught me a whole host of other things as well. For almost four years now, I’ve been homeless. I’ve been living in my car while my abuser lived in my apartment. I paid for her rent, food, medications, clothes, household items, streaming service subscriptions. (Streaming services I was forbidden to use, by the by. Because. You know. Mental health. I didn’t listen to this either. 😂)

And it was no big deal! It made sense, really, to do all this for her. After all, she was sick. And she was my best friend. She had already sacrificed so much for me. She was a good person who’d been dealt a shitty hand. She’d NEVER take advantage of me.

Right?

And anyway, I wasn’t really homeless. I CHOSE to live in my car. It was the right thing to do. That apartment was so tiny and she was so, so sick. And I’d always wanted to live a nomad lifestyle! I got bored living in apartments. That’s why I moved around so much in my life before her. Living in my car just made sense. It’s what I wanted.

Right?

Being homeless has taught me so much, not just about myself, but i e picked up a lot of car living life hacks. Here are a few of them:

You can work two jobs and still be homeless.

Like abuse, homelessness can look like many things. It’s not just that one stereotypical image that pops in your brain when you hear the word. To this day, my employers have no idea I’m homeless, and I’ve been working for them for two years.

Battery powered anything is a godsend.

Public restrooms are an absolute necessity for all of society. I will forever and always be grateful for them, especially for public park restrooms that are open all year round.

There are certain places where sleeping in a car is legal, and many places where it’s not. Familiarize yourself with your local laws. Be safe.

There are at least 20 different meals you can cobble together from the prepared food section at any grocery store with about $10 and a little creativity.

Quarantining with Covid sucks. Quarantining for 5 straight days in a car sucks absolute dickhole. (That said, doordash will deliver directly to your car and leave the bag on the hood, if you ask nicely)

Wet wipe showers are 100% a real thing and are a good solution in a pinch, but NOTHING beats a hot shower. Absolutely nothing. (I can’t wait to have a bathtub again.)

Stuffing 4-6 Hot Hand packets in the bottom of a thick sleeping bag will go a long way to keeping you warm on subzero nights.

For curtains: crack open a window, stick the edge of a sheet through, and close the window again. Repeat as necessary.

For sleeping, if possible: remove the headrest from the front passenger seat and lower it completely until it reaches the back seat for an impromptu L-shaped bed.

Try not to sleep in the same position every night. Your body will thank you later.

Always keep at least one window open a crack, even in the winter. Condensation leads to mold.

If you take a second job working nights, know that it is fucking impossible to sleep in a car on a hot fucking summer day when you can only open the window a fucking crack (for the sake of safety). You will wake up in the afternoon gross, smelly and drenched in sweat.

Gym memberships are an absolute must.

Beyond that, I’ve also learned the importance of setting boundaries, and that not only is it okay to say “no” it’s essential. I’ve learned you’re not selfish for wanting to leave a toxic situation. I’ve learned that freedom can be taken from you, but that you can take it back. And above all, I now know one thing with absolute certainty:

You cannot be broken.

You. Cannot. Be. Broken.

No matter what happens to you, no matter how they try, they will NEVER break you.

Abuse can lead you to forget, for a while, who you are, and you might need to lock up certain parts of yourself temporarily for the sake of your own survival.

But one day.

One day.

You will hit the point where you have had enough. And on that day you’ll find that she was always there. With you. The whole time. The person you truly are was with you all along. She never left. She’s simply been waiting for you to need her again.

And on that day, that glorious day when you truly wake up, your entire life will change. Even if you can’t leave yet, when you realize the full weight of what is happening to you, when you realize the truth, you let the hope back in. And every step you take toward your goal from there on out, every step toward your freedom, will be all the sweeter for it.

You will doubt yourself, of course. Even after you choose to leave, even as you prepare and plan, you will doubt yourself.

She’ll be so angry if I go. So hurt. Can I really do that to her? She’s sick. She needs me. She doesn’t have anyone else. Can I really hurt her? I’ve hurt her so much already.

What if it’s not actually as bad as I think? Maybe I’m just being dramatic. Maybe I should try harder. Be better. Maybe I can save us.

She’ll come after me if I leave. She said so. She’s going to make me pay for what I’ve done to her. What if she makes good on her threats? What if she makes my life hell?

What if she was right?

What if she was right?

Can I really do this?

It’s natural to second guess yourself, especially on the “good” days. The days after a big blow up. When it seems like she’s moved on and conversations between you are normal again. Or as normal as they’ll ever be. Especially in those moments, you’re going to doubt yourself. That’s okay.

Doubt yourself. Do it anyway.

And in those particularly low moments, reach out to the people who truly love you and try to believe their reassurances, even when that feels impossible. Seeking help from your friends is not manipulation. There’s nothing wrong with needing guidance or validation. Especially not now.

I’m free. I’m finally free and I feel elated and giddy…and also scared. She told me multiple times in no uncertain terms that she was going to spend the rest of her life getting back at me for all the pain I caused her (and that was before I left).

But I’m also, surprisingly, sad. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to get to the point where I would have to press charges against my former best friend in order to escape her. I loved her. I never wanted to hurt her. This is her absolute worst nightmare and I take no pleasure in making that happen.

But I have no regrets. I am a fucking human being with a good heart, free will, and some semblance of self respect. I don’t deserve to be treated this way. I have the right to protect myself and she’s made it clear, this is the only way I can do that. It’s sad, yes, but it had to happen. And after all, she has been threatening to do the same thing to me for years!

For at least two years now, she’s been saying that if I didn’t start giving a shit about her, she was going to have me arrested for abuse of a disabled person. She was going to have me placed under a conservatorship, or admitted to a psychiatric facility due to my mental and emotional instability. She said she was going to tell everyone I once loved what a terrible person I am, spread my secrets far and wide, among so many other threats, all intended to keep me in line.

It was an effective strategy. For a while, at least.

Leaving is painful. And scary. And sad. And quite possibly the most difficult thing I've ever had to do.

But it was necessary. And it was worth it. Oh my god it was SO fucking worth it!! I’m free. And my freedom is worth fighting for.

There’s a lot I still don’t know. I’m going to need a lot of time and therapy to feel like myself again, but in spite of all this, as I look at the boxes of my belongings I managed to rescue from the apartment I haven’t been allowed to enter in four years, I feel like I won.

I won.

I got my life back.

As hard as this was, never have I felt more hope for the future as I do right now. There is so much I want to do! So much I CAN do now! I have incredible friends I want to make things for. I have a beautiful cat (Vayda) I need to meet one day.

I’m going to get that haircut I always wanted, but never got for fear of ridicule (too queer). I’m going to get another tattoo, I’m going to travel, and soon, I’m going to have my own place again. For the first time in almost a decade. A small apartment just for me. A sanctuary.

I’m going to have a real bed again. And a kitchen. I’m going to take bubble baths and bake cookies and keep a toothbrush in an actual toothbrush holder and clothes in a real dresser instead of in a plastic tub in the trunk of my car. I’m going to have an herb garden and hang a bird feeder outside my window.

Hopefully one day I’ll even get a cat myself. A pet I can pour all my love into because I have love to give. I have so much love to give and the freedom to truly give it now.

My life is bright and full of possibilities again and none of that, not one single shred of the happiness I feel now would have been possible without fan fiction.

Fan fic gave me a community, when I was forced into isolation.

Fan fic gave me refuge on the long days when I couldn’t escape her relentless criticism.

Fan fic kept me warm when my windows were crusted over with frost.

Fan fic gave me lovely comments from lovely readers that kept me going. Words that told me maybe I wasn’t so worthless after all.

Fan fic has been my home, my one remaining source of joy, my tiny act of rebellion.

I’ve spent a lot of time already reminding myself of what is true and what isn’t. There’s a lot there left to sift through. But the greatest truth of my life is, and I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this:

Fan fiction saved my life.

[ripplestitchskein]

Thinking about this anti idea that the show switched gears on them. I don’t understand it. I’ve never understood it. I’ve already talked about how it’s pretty clear from the writing and show setup in the first few episodes what the focus would be but what baffles me is that it’s also just not true that the character’s issues are purely centered on and only expressed via the romance aspect. They are pretty good at applying the character’s issues to all aspects of their lives and interactions. Especially with Blitz because he is the main character.

Blitz, to put it simply hates himself, plain and simple. We all know this. He creates scenarios to force others to see him as he sees himself. He is a textbook case of someone who self sabotages due to extreme self loathing. He’s not sabotaging his work or his life in general though. We can see Blitz is hardworking, he is ambitious, he has his life together from a material perspective. He had a roof over his head, clothes on his back and food in his fridge. He provides these material things for a whole other person as well.

Where Blitz self sabotages is his relationships. It’s made clear from early on in the show it’s NOT just romantic relationships, it’s ALL of them. Blitz targets what he thinks will drive people away the fastest. I need it to be super clear that he does this to everyone and its ongoing even if sometimes it’s less prevalent. The show is about Blitz and Stolas, whether you like it or not they were the two characters who were focused on in the first few episodes. And the plot is driven by their issues and always has been, what gets disregarded in these arguments that the show is only about Stolitz now is how we see these issues manifest outside of the romance aspect of the show consistently and regularly just maybe not in entire episode long plots, it’s a through line.

With Moxxie Blitz insults him, he makes comments to make him uncomfortable. He targets little insecurities he has with himself. As we’ve gone along and they’ve developed he does this less, he compliments him more, he gives him responsibility. I think we see a good subtle example of Blitz’s influence in Moxxie on Full Moon. The Welcome to Hell, Bitch line was pure Blitz. His comfort with saying “So fuck him good sir”. These are the kinds of little things that slowly and carefully drive the changes in their relationship.

For Moxxie and Millie as a couple he inserts themselves into their relationship. He makes sexual jokes about them both. He mentions having a threesome with them. He follows and stalks them. It’s an odd and imo off putting behavior, one I think we’ve theorized about a lot and that’s lead to some interesting takes on his character and his view of monogamy in general. I don’t agree or disagree on the reasonings, I don’t have any info to make an informed decision on it but after Apology Tour it was kind of cemented for me that this behavior was also a pretty effective way to test them and drive them away. They are a very loving and committed couple, if I were a serial self sabotager faced with pushing away a couple to prevent them from getting too close, what is the best way to drive them away for good? Obviously, be the toxic third, have them join the Blitz Exes. He’s not going to admit that’s what he’s doing of course, so he approaches it in earnest like he does most things he is deluding himself about. Go all in on denial.

Blitz only ever tests the fence about them though, he never makes any serious moves on it, and he has largely stopped doing it at all after Chaz and Ozzie’s. I think that episode, how he felt after sleeping with Chaz, was the turning point for him when it came to them. It remains to be seen though.

I think GhostFuckers will be the place to explore it if there is anything left to explore about that. We seem to be getting a Millie based flashback and that might shed some additional light.

What also saves Moxxie and Millie from the full force of his self sabotaging behavior is that there is a built in buffer by them being his employees. He always has a way to keep them at arm’s length if there is a power dynamic he can fall back on.

With Loona she is a very closed off, anti-affection person. With her, the tact Blitzø takes is give her too much attention and show too much love. Smother her in affection no matter how many boundaries she sets and how much she protests about it. In Queen Bee he’s too in his head over Stolas to bother with that, and it’s sadly probably the most in sync they’ve ever been until the end. I pointed it out before but in Full Moon Blitz treats Loona very differently. He imitates her and actually snaps back at her when she says Stolas is dropping him, it was a very different interaction than earlier episodes and I think another subtle sign that how he feels right now is changing him and he’s making efforts. He hasn’t simpered at her for awhile. And he obviously is giving her a more active role in the day to day.

These are ongoing threads and they are all part of of the larger picture of Blitz’s growth and change. Just because a romantic relationship is helping drive that change doesn’t meant other things aren’t, or that the only changes or growth we see are only about the romance.

The fact that that there are two episodes focused entirely on Fizz speaks for itself.

[cmyk-anaglyph-honeycomb]

Helluva Boss S2E9 blind blogging

[did the minimum about of editing and half of it was done while I was at work, so please excuse any grammar mistakes.]

(Mostly relating to the last episode)

Again, Stolas refuses to just talk. He was walking away and teleported Blitzo out of the building but now, after ignoring texts, he gets pissy cuz Blitzo wants to talk. 100% of this is because Stolas doesn't want a conversation. Blitzo misunderstands his intentions and jumps to conclusions, but when at least 3 opportunities to talk are given, Stolas shuts down.

Also where was this desire for a real relationship months ago after Blitzo admitted that he didn’t see their relationship as anything other than Stolas wanting to sleep with him. THAT is when they should've had an honest talk not mouths of avoiding each other.

(Okay now this ep)

God they made Blitzo so obnoxious to prove a point.

Veronika is a famous popstar, wtf does she care enough to throw an anti-Blitzo party? They have barely interacted in the show, never once in this season, why is she suddenly so pissed at him? How does she know Stolas is an ex, that happened recently.

If Stolas is that ‘done’ with Blitzo why doesn’t he just teleport him off the property again?

"Im UnCoMfOrTaBlE wITh HoW yOuRe SpEaCkInG tO mE nOw" fuck off. You had no problem going on a rant about all the dirty shit you wanted to do to him while he was being fucking gun down but now that shits uncomfortable. 

Stolas said whatever he wanted to Blitzo whenever he wanted and the second he doesn't feel like it, talking like that is breaking a huge boundary. Jump off a bridge.

Where did he get the impression that Blitzo and Striker were friends? Besides the games he never saw them around each other. Gives of the ‘these kids are near each other so they must be best friends’ energy. Like, no, they just met.

"You knew someone was trying to assassinate me?" 🥺 Yeah your wife was screaming about it two feet from your face. If it wasn’t important then, it isn’t important now.

I'll give Stolas the Striker thing and immediately take it away cuz it wasn’t like Stolas sounded afraid or even concerned during the phone call. How tf was Blitzo supposed to know royals could get hurt? Striker only had one angel weapon as far as IMP knew.

"Why would I allow everyone to see how much I like you? How I’ve tried to try so fucking hard to show I like you, to support you."

Fucking when? Where? Name literally one time. That shit at the harvest moon festival doesn't count because if Stolas actually cared he would've paid attention to how uncomfortable Blitzo was with him shouting pet names directly into the microphone. He’d know that him and Striker aren’t friends. Blitzo using the book was an arrangement for sex that Stolas offered. That is not support.

The one and only time their relationship was called out by others Stolas hid his face. Anything after has been in private and not where anyone, not even Blitzo was a witness. Ozzie is the only other person Stolas has openly confessed his feelings for. And he's with his own imp, so of course he isn't going to make a big deal about it.

“That was still the gayest thing I’ve heard all day!” Ignoring the actual line, why is he going feral? Wtf is this scene for? It's so out of place for what’s going on. This is something Loona would do.

“I don’t own you dick.” He’s right tho. Stolas tried to change the relationship without giving Blitzo a heads up or even communicating properly and then got butthurt when he didn’t get the answer he wanted and that was before Blitzo went off on him. And that’s after months of avoiding each other. This talk about changing their arrangement should’ve happen after Ozzie’s. Or at least hinted in Seeing Stars.

Why is the murder family wife getting an apology like she didn't try to kill IMP too ?Why does Blitzo know where she lives. DHORKS shouldn’t get apologies either, kinda ruins the point of Blitzo doing this ‘my name is Earl joke’ if he's apologizing to these people he had the right to hurt. I wonder if Moxxie got an apology.

The party has no music, making it the funniest scene in the series.

I knew they were going to make Veronika the bad one but good lord what is this. Are she and Stella drinking the same crazy juice? That made her Lute levels of crazy. 

You're telling me that ALL these people are Blitzo's exes? That insufferable ass? Is he supposed to drop dead gorgeous and the crew didn't tell us?? cuz no way this annoying man can pull that many people.

How did Blitzo get that far into the party and no one, all of which are there because of how much they hate him, didn't notice? Did he sleep with that many people or just date them? Why are any of these people wasting their time like this? Blitzo isn't important, he doesn't do anything. He is another asshole in hell, a place filled with assholes. Wtf is Blitzo's shitty behavior so out of place?

Oh look another situation where Stolas being in a relationship with an imp is not given any levels of importance or notice. 

So Tex is just mouthing the words right, cuz no way his voice is just blending in like that. Why is he here? 

Did they recast Stolas's singing actor? This song is bland. The singing is okay, but the music might as well not be there.

He's whining about still wanting Blitzo but refuses to speak with him or attempting to get him to have a serious conversation. He has no idea what Blitzo wants and has never asked once.

Stolas is drunk now? He only had a few drinks. In the circus he downed an entire bottle and was fine. Now a few drinks of spiked punch and he's wasted?

They throw this party every year!? You are shitting me. Why? He has signs posted everywhere. His crew is three other people, just kill him if he's that big of a problem. 

The creators cannot convince me that all these people care more about Blitzo than the oppressive society they live in, a member of which Stolas is.

Stolas's drunk rant kinda reveals that he wants to be loved and less that he wants to be in a loving relationship with Blitzo specifically. Interesting.

Seconds later Stolas is flustered by some random guy just asking to dance. Interesting.

How does Verosika know about the apology tour? He walked out on her when she said I love you, okay that's bad, but after spending so much of the episode making her look like a crazy ex, it gives off the impression that he dodged a bullet. At the very least Blitzo is actually in the wrong and it isn't some misunderstanding like with Fizz.

Glad they addressed that Blitzo being bad at relationships is a weird thing to focus on but it isn't explained. Unless he is extremely abusive, many people should not care about him / still be angry. These people live in an environment where they can be murdered at any time and almost no one would care / do anything to help. Compared to all that, a shitty boyfriend is kinda nothing.

I’m glad Verosika wasn’t completely shat on during this episode, especially in the last bit. We probably won’t be seeing her again but at least she got to leave with grace. 

I like the ending song.

Final thoughts. This episode worked overtime to make Blitzo the bad guy. It pulled maybe 100 people out of nowhere to justify Stolas’s anger and for what? The way he was so quick to hook up with another guy, shows he doesn’t care about Blitzo, he cares about the idea of a good relationship. That’s fine on its own, but the first part of this episode and the end of the last was about Stolas making his shattered pipe dream Blitzo’s problem.

Out of all the episodes that do not have a B plot why is it this one?

[rowsdelusions]

Flatline (Luke Hemmings/reader)

Flatline (Luke Hemmings Imagines)

Title: Flatline

Rating: None

Pairing: Luke Hemmings/Reader

Word Count: 2116

Warning: Language

Summary: You're the guy's tour manager for their new tour

Author's Note: I am entirely grateful for all the love and support my last story got!! >_< It means the world to me that people like my stories! I hope this one is to your liking as well. I've got a few ideas for the other guys so don't worry!! I'm in the making of a few but wanted to ask if anyone is up for a series of imagines based off of their songs?! I did my Older one and this of course is Flatline, but just wanted to ask if people would like that?! Again, thank you so much for the support!!!

⋆ ★⋆ ★

“You guys are on in 5 minutes. So do any last minute touch ups and rituals; and if you need me for anything I’m always here you just have to get me.” I say smiling at the group of 4 men who I have grown to love over the short period of time I've been their tour manager. Their personalities and them as people just make it so easy to fall in love with them. Except for one; Luke. Anytime I would try to be close and nice to him like the rest of the boys I am not even given the cold shoulder I just get a blank stare or just a nod yes or no. It’s like he’s numb. If he had given me the cold shoulder I would at least know he just doesn’t like me, but I just get a blank stare.

I’ve asked the guys if I did something that offended him and why he didn’t like me, and they would just look at each other with the same look they are having right now when they see I’m waiting for a confirmation from Luke after I announced they had 5 minutes left and I got nothing back not eve a blank stare this time just nothing. He doesn’t look at me at all. Not looking up from putting his makeup away into his makeup bag even with the uncomfortable silence that wafted over the dressing room once everyone knew he wasn’t going to respond back.

It was like he was in an entirely different world that no one else was privy to except for him. But his face didn’t show the bliss that you get when you're daydreaming. It held nothing but concentration. Not knowing what had him so concentrated that made him look like he was about to explode into a million pieces, I walked over to him to see if there was anything I could do to help him. He might not like me, but I'm still his tour manager and bottom line I will do anything to make this tour more magical than the last even if talking to him has me on an edge of a cliff from nerves.

“Luke, is there anything I can do for you? You guys are on in a little less than 5 minutes.” I said to him softly, barely over a whisper looking at him with so much sincerity that a tour manager probably shouldn’t have for the lead singer of the band she is managing, but I couldn’t help it. Even with all the blank stares and nods. I couldn’t help but fall in love with him, going beyond the platonic love that I have for the other guys. He was just perfect with all his flaws, although I don’t think he has any he might be standoff-ish with me, but I can’t help but see how he interacts with the other guys, the crew, the fans during a show or in general, and his family when they come to some of the shows.

He always gives anyone he’s talking to his full attention sometimes looking like a puppy while doing so but it’s endearing. It shows he cares even if what you're talking about isn’t all that important. I can’t help that when he does his makeup how beautiful he looks and the look of being alive and doing what he loves while he's on stage makes me feel like I’m in the presence of an angel. Suddenly getting caught off guard from my thoughts by the man himself. When he abruptly stands up pushing the chair he was generally sitting on while cleaning up his makeup. I back up not out of fright but more out of shock looking around for a moment noticing all the guys are not in the room anymore.

The look of confusion crossed my faces wondering when they left, but before I could get too far in my wondering, Luke asked, “Are you going to be on the side of the stage for this show?” Even more confused, I answer in an unsure tone.” umm… I guess?” It sounded like more of a question than I intended. I tried to recover from it.” I was going to get the schedule for our next stop situated during this show so I wasn’t planning on it but if you want, I can just do it after the show.” Not even a second passed before he answered me,” Can you do it after the show? It will be easier if you were by the stage tonight.”  I stare at him for a moment, questions in my head that I’ll never asks run through it before I ponder any longer on them though I see that he’s waiting for an answer looking almost nervous but I see on the wall clock that he has to be on stage in 2 minutes so leaving my questions in my head I answer him,” Yeah I'll be there on Cals side.” Without anything more said between us he leaves the dressing room leaving me with nothing but his presence and the questions in my head left unanswered.

By the time I composed myself in the dressing room and went to my designated spot on the side of the stage on Cal's side, the boys were already on their third song. When I got there, I was handed an earwig from one of the workers on tour so I can hear the tech crew and everyone else if there's a problem that needs to be fixed. Getting a weird look from the crew around me made me self-conscious, questioning why everyone was giving me that look on top of the questions I have from my discussion with Luke.

Putting all my focus back onto the show, I see that instead of Luke having his talking part first like usual it’s Michael who is doing his. Confused, I turned to the closest person on the crew besides me and asked,” Why is Michael doing his talking portion at this moment and why was I not informed by this?” The crewmate looked nervous when I asked, not knowing if it’s because there scared on losing their job or something else, I try to clarify more for them trying to ease their nervousness," I’m just asking because any new changes need to be made through me, you're not losing your job and I’m not mad I’m just wondering why this decision was made without at least talking to me.”

Seeing their nerves not lessening, but answering anyway in a rushed stutter manner,” The guys asked for this request and said not to tell you.” Turning towards them like they had a second head I see the crewmate walking briskly away stopping where a bunch of the other people apart from the crew where and talking heavily with them before they all stopped once they saw I was looking over them. Why is everyone being secretive about something and why did no one tell me about the last-minute change on the show.

I questioned myself, getting madder by the second once I saw that even more people were looking at me. Staring ahead after I get tired of the stares that are burning holes into my head every passing second, I try to focus on the show making sure it goes off without a hitch. Even though I see that each of the guys are going in a different order for their talking portions than what we’ve planned in the start of the tour, I see that after Michaels talking portion and a few songs, Ashton went next for his talking portion.

Why are they going in a different order than the one we picked even when there's a different order Luke always goes first so it’s easier on the guys and the crew to switch out guitars. Why did the guys not tell me about this or Luke when we were talking in the dressing room earlier. They clearly knew it was happening from what I’m seeing on stage and what the crewmate told me when I asked about it. Worrying even more, questions ran through my head that I was going to ask the boys once the shows were done. I didn't realize how much time went by with all of my worrying.

Until I heard Luke doing his talking portion missing all of Cal’s one, I tried to pay attention pushing the worry and questions till after the show. I hear Luke make a nervous laugh continuing the nervous streak while talking like he did with me earlier in the dressing room,” I know that you all have realized that we're doing things in a different order on this show and that is because… I have something special I'm going to do for this show.” he laughs at the end when he hears the fans screaming at the top of their lungs. “As I know how exciting this is. I need you guys to do me a favor. Can you do that?” 

He questions the fans in an exciting tone, the nerves still blatantly present though how much he’s trying to hide it from the fans covering some of it up. I've spent enough time with these guys to see all of their tell-tell signs. Coming back from the fans screaming yes. Luke laughs again, "okay, good so for our last and final song I would like you all to please be courteous because I'm going to be bringing someone out for this song and I would love it if you all sing along with me.”

Drowning out all the exciting screams from the fans I grab the closest crewmate to me,” What is he talking about bringing someone on stage?” I asked hurriedly. When I don’t get an answer from them, I hear Luke start to talk again this time with an almost desperate tone that you wouldn’t have catched if you didn’t know him well.” Now can I please get are ever so brilliant tour manager on stage please.”

Looking confused I see Cal walking towards where I am on the side of the stage walking towards him in an almost run. When I reached him, I asked in a hurried manner,” What the hell is going on?” looking down at me he says in a calm tone,” Everything is going to be explained but you just have to trust me and go on stage please.” Looking into his eyes, seeing them have a pleading look, I slowly nod my head.

Walking with Cal on stage was the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done. My admiration for the boys is growing. When we met Luke in the middle of the stage all the fans were screaming. Blocking them out I turned to Luke asking what I’ve been dying to ask him this whole evening. "What the hell are you doing and what the hell am I supposed to do up here?” Giving Luke my must baffled look and all I get in return is him saying, "Just please listen to the lyrics it will explain everything I promise and all you have to do is stand here looking beautiful.”

Before I can question him anymore, I see him giving a nod to the other boys, and next thing I know I’m hearing the strums of Cal's bass and Lukes's voice combining into their song Flatline. Hearing it before and loving it like any other song they release. I still don’t understand why I'm out here in front of 10,000 fans until Luke turns towards me walking, chest to chest singing the chorus of the song looking nowhere but my eyes, and all I can do is be hypnotized.

Not once looking away from him even when everything clicked into place. He likes me, that's why he has been acting the way he has. The man who made me hypnotized in every sense likes me, and I've never noticed. Without thinking I lean up to his face, wrapping both of my arms around his neck, my hands reaching into his beautiful blonde hair, curling my fingertips into the curly pieces I move his head down to my own. Looking into his eyes for permission but instead of him giving me one he grabs my hips and crashes his lips against mine. The kiss felt nothing like I’ve ever had before, like everything was aligned. Breaking apart when the fans' screams reached a new level, I looked into his eyes with the brightest smile on my face, “I fell the first day I met you.”

⋆ ★⋆ ★

AHHH, I hope y'all like this one because I do!!! and if you guys want to see the song series pleaseee let me know!!! thank you for the love and support!!!! >_<

[bubblybloob]

Hey, so this kind of turned into a vent. Be wary going in, but it’s important if you engage some with my stuff. I think I’ve been thinking about it more as btg has become more active, and wanted to get it all off my chest.

I’ve wanted to bring this up for a while now, after my popularity grew. I’m sure some people have noticed my lack of joy at the 500 followers milestone, and the 600 one, but it’s a bit more complicated than on the surface.

So, there was something I haven’t really mentioned. It wasn’t ever really a secret, I just didn’t feel it was important, and was always taught it was dangerous to talk about and to dance around the subject if brought up. But I’ve noticed that the people on Tumblr find this kind of important to know when interacting. I know people on here can get really hostile, and this kind of became a secret because of that. I don’t know if it’s bad that I haven’t said anything or not, but I thought I should still make a post anyway.

So, I’m, in my country, since I know it might be younger or older in other places, a minor.

Okay most important stuff first. Yes, I’ve said or drawn mildly suggestive stuff, that’s mostly because I’m very unaffected by it and find it more amusing (I might be a little ace idk), though I do purposely keep stuff I make mostly tame simply because like- still technically a kid. I’ve seen stuff far more suggestive from afar before and just nod and say “mm, yes, that exists” and indifferently move the hell on with my life.

Being part of the STP community has been really strange for me and not all in good ways. I hate hate hate people looking up to me, or being jealous, or having anxiety talking to me because- in my head- I’m just doing everything and talking to everyone I can because I like making stuff and talking to people, and I feel so uncomfortable up on this pedestal where I’m held so high, but if I make one wrong step I’ll have tomatos thrown at me. It’s a really claustrophobic and isolating position and feeling and it makes me feel sick, anxious, stressed, and really really scared.

I like the community I’m in and friends I’ve made, but I’m really afraid I’ll say something unusual or wrong or maybe even offensive since I don’t know everything I’m supposed to say or do. I don’t know how to act when someone’s depressed, I don’t know how people feel about shipping, or designs for characters who canonically don’t have a physical appearance, or what the opinion is on all of the nsfw content. I do the Homer Simpson bush meme whenever I see it pop up because if there’s something that I do know, it’s that people don’t want minors reading their blorbos being sexy with each other.

(Side note: The amount of times I’ve accidentally clicked on an explicit fic thinking ‘Oo what’s this’ and then seeing what’s going to happen is… not staggering, actually. But enough for me to laugh in hindsight. I scroll to the bottom to read the comments to confirm my suspicions, and get the hell out. Happened with the same fics multiple times too because I forgot they were explicit and that I’d encountered them in the first place, wondered why I never read them and then boom, flashback, I never read the description like the fool I am).

And there’s the thing isn’t it. Some parts of fandom culture, it feels like all I can do is mess up. I just don’t know how I can handle all the fear of this attention?

Like, I don’t hate it. I like interacting, I like that people love my art despite my grievances with parts of my style, I’ve been so motivated to grow and get better because of everyone. You can all look at my oldest STP post and newest one and see the differences plainly.

But it’s really so much, and I’m as grateful as I am terrified. I’m terrified of hurting someone’s feelings when I don’t mean to. Like, what if I follow someone and they get excited because I’m a “big name” and then I decide to unfollow for whatever reason I might have at the time? I might crush that person’s soul or want to interact.

Despite my willingness, I do have problems with some ships, but I can’t voice any because what if I start a big argument with a bunch of people involved instead of the normal discussion I wanted to have? People are more likely to take my side because I’m the popular person, and we all know popular people are always right about everything and we must regurgitate their opinions without any thought put into how you actually feel. And then I’ll make whoever I was talking to retreat for a really long time, and everything will be awful and terrible forever and ever.

I can’t do that to people! I’ve been those people! I’ve was told things by people I looked up to and would get so so so upset, because I’m really emotional. I don’t want to hurt someone who might be sensitive like me.

I really just wanted to get all these feelings off my chest. Sorry if it got pretty venty. I’m open to discussing it, I’m still really scared to post this, it’s my only ever vent post, but I’ll try not to just save it in my drafts and let it rot.

[restinpanic]

Okay so, I won’t share too many details because it’s my business but I wanted to ask for the main 3 walking in on their s/o (TW) self harming? If the request makes you uncomfortable feel free to delete it or DM me, I’ve had experiences like this in the past and recently have been feeling guilty so I wanted some comfort. :(

Hi, Gigi!!❤️ Since this request is made ESPECIALLY for comfort, I'll not mention Black Hat in this. I'll send his part privately if you want.

Also, if you're reading this post, the person who send me this request is doing commissions for the villainous fandom!! His writing is impeccable, and if you're looking for a amazing read for a reasonable price, check out @gigi-the-writer account!!

Have a good read!

-

✈️Dr Flug:✈️

It wouldn't take long for Flug to figure out what you were doing. He tends to be someone who is very attentive when it comes to the people he cares about. At first, he would be unresponsive. The shock of knowing you were doing something like that would certainly shake him up. His intuitive reaction would be to hug you. That's right, a hug. At a moment like this, he would forget all the villainy that takes part of his heart to simply hug you tightly. He would never see it as your fault, on the contrary, he would start to wonder if maybe he was doing something that was bringing you down, and he would start to feel guilty, even if he wasn't to blame. He would help you bandage your wounds, and beg you not to do something like that again.

Flug can be extremely clumsy in social interactions, but he would definitely try to make conversation to understand what is going on. Even though his time was short, he would try to show small, specific acts of affection to try and lift your spirits. The scientist may or may not have experience with self-harm, but you would know right away that he cares. He's trying to help you.

🎸Demencia:🎸

The lizard girl would be extremely confused. She would never imagine that you would do something like that, and since she's not human, she would have difficulty understanding your reasons. This would be one of the few times where she wouldn't act like a complete lunatic and would actually try to listen to you, despite not being able to focus completely. Seeing you in this state, Demencia would feel worried, and would quickly try to alleviate your situation with her usual charisma:

"Sadness?? Pfft- Not while your wonderful girlfriend is around!!"

She would drag you with her to do fun things like: blow up an entire city, steal candy from little kids, kidnap a raccoon or even prank someone! Anything to help you distract yourself.

She would have no idea how to clean wounds like that, but as long as she was around, she would certainly bring a smile to your face. And in a romantic scenario, she would become overly affectionate (if that's possible). Don't get her wrong, she's just extremely protective of the people she's obsessed with... I mean, in love with. In the end, all she would want was your happiness by her side.

🧸5.0.5🧸 (PLATONIC!!!):

It's a consensus for us that 5.0.5 is naive about many things, but he, better than any experiment, would immediately realize that something was wrong if he noticed that you were gloomy. The bear can always see when someone is down, and it's his job to cheer them up when something like that happens, especially a friend!

He would start giving you more of his cozy hugs and make several colorful drawings of you and the rest of the organization on paper. Surely, the kid has done things like this before, but he would try to cheer you up even more when he sees that you are not in good condition. In general, his affection for you would increase even more in this situation, and he would help you to no longer feel lonely with his adorable affection!

[keys-hellscape-1020]

Gaz Headcannons

Damn y’all, sorry for disappearing for six months. I’ve been in and out of the mental hospital like a yo-yo, so uh, have some headcannons to make up for it ig.

SFW

Tw: Cursing, brief mentions of violence, (very brief) sexual themes.

I picture him as a night owl, but that doesn’t mean he likes sleeping in super late. He likes some structure in his day (a side-effect of being in the military) and if he’s not out of bed by 9 he starts to feel guilty, like he’s wasting the day.

Despite me saying he’s a night owl, he’s not truly a night owl so much as he just gets so absorbed in what he’s doing he looses track of time and next thing he knows it’s 2am.

From an outside perspective it would be easy to assume he has more trauma than the rest of the 141- but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He probably has the same amount for the most part, he’s just the only one who handles it in a healthy way. He’ll reach out for help if he needs it, has a therapist he sees regularly, and takes a low-dose of anti-anxiety medication (I want to say Zoloft cause that’s what I’m on lol). All said, he’s the only one who actually acknowledges it and doesn’t pretend it’s not there.

This man definitely games. He might play a first person shooter here and there, but honestly I don’t think he’d like them, they remind him to much of work and in his free time that’s the last thing he wants to be reminded of. I can see him playing Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Graveyard Keeper (it’s not well known but it’s SO good). The grim themes while still managing to be a cozy game really appeal to him.

His perfect date is you two ordering take-out and eating it on the couch while you play games together. He just absolutely adores being in your presence.

Despite this, quality time is not his main love language (although it is a close second). His first is words of affirmation. He loves how you get flushed and turn away from him when he compliments you out of nowhere. Literally you could just be in the same room, not even interacting, and this man would out of nowhere be like “You’re so fucking gorgeous. It’s a miracle I don’t drop to my knees every time you enter a room.” And then just causally go back to what he was doing.

On that note! This man is so into body worship. Just let him kiss, and lick, and suck, on you to his heart’s content and you will have one happy Gaz.

Also he just adores showing you off. He likes staying home sure, but he also likes taking you out on date nights and flaunting you (respectfully). He’s just so very proud to be in a relationship with you.

On the theme of bars, if someone gets close to you or touches you without your permission, this man is watching. He won’t say or do anything, he’ll just silently watch the person’s behavior. His years in the military have made him very good at reading people.

If he sees that they’re getting closer than you want, or otherwise making you uncomfortable, he’ll suddenly get very close to you. He won’t outright say anything, he knows you can handle yourself, but he’ll rest a hand on your shoulder. Both telling you that he’s there if you need him, and the creep to watch themselves.

If they back off without him having to intervene, great, you both can go back to enjoying yourselves, if he does need to get involved gods help the person his aggression is aimed towards.

He’ll take a few steps towards them, subtly growling (you know that one scene with price? Yeah that). He’ll tell them to back off, that you’re obviously not enjoying the conversation. If words don’t work, he won’t hesitate to resort to a fist fight. He won’t land the first hit however, he knows better. He might not be as physically strong as Ghost or Price, but this man has technique, and his opponent is knocked out in an heartbeat.

After that he is all over you, asking you if you’re alright, if you want to go home, etc. Whatever you need or want will be provided. He isn’t feeling jealous in that moment, just concerned. He wants to make sure you’re okay more than anything. After the fact, when he thinks back on it, he may feel a spark of jealousy, but it’s nothing he can’t quickly and easily reason away. After all, he trusts you completely.

NSFW

Tw: Body worship, nipple play (but no mention of breasts), biting, mentions of BDSM (in general), choking, slapping, Praise kink, minor degradation, quickies, aftercare

As mentioned earlier this man is the king, of body worship. He’ll work you up slowly, sensually. Kissing, licking, and teasing every inch of you before he even thinks of touching in-between your legs.

Your nipples will be sore by the time this man is done with them. He’s just enthralled by them, watching them get hard at he pinches and bites.

Speaking of bites, it’s not just your nipples. Afterwards you’ll find plenty of dark bite marks on your chest, neck, waist, and inner thighs. The feeling of your flesh under his teeth is just… exquisite.

Yes this man may be a tad bit… nippy, but he isn’t into anything that would truly hurt you. The farthest he would go would be choking you (after a long conversation and plenty of research), or a quick slap or two to your ass.

He also mixes degradation and praise together beautifully. Things like “such a beautiful little slut for me.” And “Damn, you’re such a good little whore.” He’ll sprinkle in a healthy bit of praise to. His main priority is your pleasure after all. <3

While he isn’t opposed to aspects of BDSM, I can’t see him being interested in the strict dynamics side of it, at all. Yeah sure he enjoys doming and subbing but I can’t see him wanting to bring them outside of the bedroom. And even in the bedroom, there’s no strict rules. He just wants to have fun with it, and he wants you to as well.

He isn’t opposed to quickies. He doesn’t partake in them often as I see him having a sex drive that is average to low. But if you both need to be somewhere soon and you just have to have him? He’ll get on his knees and make sure that yours are wobbling as you walk out to the car. Don’t worry about him darling, you can make it up to him later. Like I said, your pleasure is his priority.

When all is said and done this man takes very good care of you. He’ll insist on a shower or bath together (depending on if you can stand or not). He seriously enjoys taking a bath with you afterwards though. He’ll run a bath that is steaming hot, “To relax your muscles” he says. He’ll also add some lavender and sandalwood oil to the water, to relax and ground you.

He’ll take such good care of you. If your hair needs washed he’ll give you the best scalp massage you’ve ever had. If it doesn’t (or you just don’t want him to) he’ll put it in a remarkably neat bun on the top of your head so it doesn’t get wet. And if you don’t have a lot of hair/no hair? You’ll still get a scalp massage. It doesn’t matter how little hair you have, this man is rubbing shampoo into your scalp claiming “It helps keep you clean!” Just let him take care of you please.

After he’s dealt with your hair he’ll lather up a rag with a generous amount of soap and take his time gently cleaning off every part of you. He won’t ask you to, but his heart will melt if you return the favor and wash his body clean.

After you both are clean he’ll take his time drying you off with the fluffiest towel he can find. This man knows your skincare routine by heart and WILL make sure every step gets done in the correct order. Once you’re all clean and dry he gives you some of his clothes to wear. And you know this man wears oversized clothes when he’s off duty for the sole purpose of making sure they fit you.

If you’re hungry he’ll order your favorite take-out, if your not he’ll still insist you eat a granola bar and drink some water. You burned a lot of calories and sweat a lot! You need fuel!

If you’re somehow still awake after all this he’ll gently pick you up and bring and you to bed. Falling asleep in this man’s arms is a dream come true. <3

A/N: I’ve never written any kind of smut before, so constructive criticism is very welcome. I got kinda out of control with the aftercare part. I had to stop myself. Plz let me know if you enjoyed!!

[antimony-medusa]

Okay prompted by some conversations I’ve been having, but the comment has been made that it’s an unrealistic promise to have been made by a fandom, that if you google your name you won’t find anything you dislike or are uncomfortable with, and boy, does that feel more and more true.

Because like, setting boundaries for your specific circles where you are— twitch chat, your fan art tag, your instagram mentions, your discord— that’s absolutely fair and I support that. That’s healthy. Someone saying “if you comment on my tits I will not be responding and you won’t be welcome at my parties again”, that’s just healthy adult communication. Shutting down sexual comments, or saying you won’t be participating in talk about certain hot-button topics, or saying you won’t be speculating about disability or sexuality or mental health or gender— those are just good moderation techniques of a space.

But like, outside of those spaces that you are sort of in charge of, where people have the expectation that you’re gonna be there— Many of us have had the experience of walking into a room unexpectedly and hearing ourselves discussed, and while that is usually horribly awkward for everyone involved, the people talking about us were not necessarily committing a moral sin, particularly if we’d just done something to attract attention and make ourselves a subject of conversation.

I am not that famous, but I am weird in public, and I’ve walked into a room and heard people going “so wait is she straight or what”, I’ve heard people discussing my grieving process, I’ve heard people speculating about my dating life, and I’ve heard people discuss if I was just uncomfortable with my boobs based on how I dressed. I have walked in on people talking about my legs.

Were those my favorite social experiences of my life? No, but a) in most of those cases no one was doing anything wrong or impolite (one person in the grief conversation was being rude but everyone else was being even-handed), they were simply having a discussion without me in the room b) the victory condition for this experience for me is not to confront them and go “so you can’t figure out if I’m straight” while they stammer, or to vague this conversation later, it’s simply to back away silently and go get some water or something, and maybe text my friends like “guess what!”

The entire internet as it turns up if you name-search yourself is not a conversation that you’re in charge of, it’s a conversation other people are having without you there. And like— it’s most polite to talk about how attractive someone is not to their face! If you see an attractive person on the bus and text your friends about the incredible tits and tattoos on this person, that’s perfectly fine behaviour, while it would be rude to shout that at them across the bus.

I don’t know. Talking about a person, especially if they made themselves noteworthy in some way— ranging from local gossip to major celebrity— is just how human interactions work. This promise that we as a fandom have made to streamers that we will conduct every conversation we have about them like they’re in the room, and thus they will never stumble into awkward or horrifying conversations, is not realistic or sustainable and not how human interactions work with any other social situation. I don’t think it’s fair for the fandom and it’s not safe for the streamer either. I don’t know.

[the-violet-galaxy]

On the topic of Ruin

EDIT: Just for reference, with further updates a few of these opinions have changed, but a lot of the sentiment is the same. (I also hadn't watched everything from the show yet, so my knowledge of some of the lore was spotty).

-

So. We just learned a lot about Ruin, didn’t we? The big twist and who he was all along.

Let me say, I adore this show! The story has been incredible and I’ve been at the edge of my seat the whole time. It’s been fascinating going back and forth about Ruin, listening to the arguments about whether he was good or evil. And when he was revealed to have built Eclipse all along, it was a matter of whether he did so knowingly or not.

But. Now we know for certain that Ruin did it willingly, and he was 100% aware, and faking being nice the whole time; and even if I WANT to hold out hope for him, there keep being less and less ways for Ruin to somehow be good or redeemed at the end of this. It seems Ruin might be confirmed 100% to be evil through and through, no Jekyll and Hyde, second personality, or return of the virus, like a lot of us had hoped.

And… I don’t know if I like this twist.

… Sadly, I can't say I do.

And I’d like to give my thoughts why! I have a lot to say, both from the perspective of a Ruin fan and from a storytelling perspective. So there's lots of analysis and personal feelings mixed together down here!

(And of course, there is still more to be revealed, but this is how it stands now.)

My first point is that it loses the show of a very good character.

Ruin was a great character! He was so unique in his personality, traits, and mannerisms compared to the rest of the cast, and his interactions with others were tons of fun.

It also just made a ton of sense to have him around: he is basically Canon Eclipse from the Ruin DLC, so letting him be here is just a Big Brain move.

There was so much potential for where he could go, given his backstory. He was a person who had 50 years of his life stolen from him, his entire world and everything he ever knew was destroyed, HIS BODY was the tool used to do it; and here he was, waking up in a new world his evil self tried to destroy, after being saved thanks to the kindness of several strangers who had every right to kill him but risked so much just to give him a chance. And now, unmoored here, he’s just trying to rebuild anything resembling a life --

There were SO many things you could do with this, SO many interesting ways Ruin could have developed… the angst; the sheer guilt of having killed so many people and destroyed so much; the fear of what he would see, if his memories from his time with the virus ever got uncorrupted; the TERROR he feels that his virus self might not actually be fully gone, and the desperation to NOT turn back into his other self and hurt anyone ever again -- the feeling of being excluded by everyone in this new dimension, he stays out of their way because he feels somewhat responsible for his Virus self hurting them, being the Weird Person who tries to fit in but really has no place anywhere, just wants to have a new life and new family with these people… (His relationship with Solar in particular was so interesting to me.) Ruin could have made up with Sun, after a long time of Sun being uncomfortable with him.

He was just one of the most fun characters to have around, including his streak of doing weird things. (And this is just personal, but I’m autistic, so I read that into a lot of his mannerisms. I loved him.)

And he paralleled many characters too!! In a way, you could say he was similar to New Moon: Ruin was created when his Sun and Moon fused, meaning Ruin is technically an incarnation of them, but he’s NOT them -- the way New Moon is an incarnation of Moon, but he’s not Old Moon. Ruin and Moon could have had formed a connection through that, at some point.

(And in this new arc, if we go with the idea that Ruin is innocent and a second personality was the one doing everything, then Ruin would be a parallel to Eclipse himself!! Eclipse is fabricated and nothing about him is “real” – the same could be said for Ruin in this event, where his second personality is literally messing with his brain, making Ruin also a "fabricated" personality of some kind. There is a line Ruin says when Eclipse kidnapped him that I always found interesting, where Ruin offered to heal Eclipse’s mind like therapy, which Eclipse shot down… I always liked that idea, that Eclipse and Ruin could bond. If Eclipse learned RUIN wasn’t to blame and it was a second personality, then, well, it could have happened. Why would the writers throw that idea out if they knew they would never do anything with it?)

As it was, Ruin had an entire WORLD of potential. And his existence made sense on a meta level, with link to the DLC's Canon Eclipse.

But that’s all gone now. Ruin being 100% evil just loses all that.

I think they did too good a job of making Ruin an enjoyable character to have around, if they knew he was going to be evil the whole time and were going to kill him in the end. (At the same time, they also didn’t utilize him in certain ways, like how Ruin never got a therapy session with Earth and was excluded from some of the group events, which logically would have been good for covering his tracks.)

Could there have been both a Good-Ruin and Ruin-Remade-Eclipse-Twist at the same time?

I’ll talk more about it in the next point, but I genuinely think the writers could have had it both ways if they had wanted to. They could have let Ruin be a good and innocent person who can stay around as a member of the cast, while STILL having him be the rebuilder of Eclipse and the source of other evil things. How?

The Two-Personalities theory! It’s been a theory for a while that Ruin has more than one personality inside of him, the second personality usually theorized to be his Virus Self. When he slips up and says stuff like “OUR head’s spinning a little bit” when getting the memory scrub from Moon, for instance. Ruin would be innocent and unaware, while his Virus/Other Self takes over when he’s not mentally present and does the bad things.

(Or alternatively: Ruin as an innocent person WAS real for a while, but his virus came back at some point.)

If that is what happened, they could have their cake and eaten it too.

And I think that would have been a better utilization of the worldbuilding given to us. Elaborated further:

I feel they could have utilized the worldbuilding in better ways.

One of the most interesting parts of the Show is how it plays with the concept of identity for these robots. There are several characters that are new incarnations of previous characters, but are distinctly different people from their previous selves. Bloodmoon, Moon, Eclipse, etc. 

Look closer at Moon. Even if they are incarnations of the same person, Old Moon and New Moon are completely separate individuals. New Moon lost his memories and remembers nothing of being Old Moon, which is WHY he is a new person. It would be completely unfair to blame New Moon for what Old Moon did – New Moon did not kill those children, New Moon did not abuse Sun, because he does not remember it. Because he does not remember it, he shouldn’t be punished for those things, because HE did not do them. What this means is that MEMORY is one of the key aspects in a robot’s identity, and their identity can change depending on those memories.  

Now take that, and apply it to Ruin: how interesting would it have been if RUIN, the one we saw in the videos, was actually fully innocent and completely unaware of what his body was being used to do the entire time? Because his evil past self/second personality had been controlling him and literally editing over top of his memories while his body was building Eclipse and preparing the Arcade plan, so that Ruin had no idea anything was going on? For all these months, Ruin GENUINELY believes he is innocent, and doesn’t remember doing anything that brought Eclipse back; he’s in distress when suspicion falls on him because he “knows” he did nothing wrong, and he’s relieved when Moon scrubs his mind and finds nothing there; phew, now they can trust him. But then! Along with Moon, Solar, Sun, and everyone else, he would find out he WAS doing it all along. Ruin could be utterly HORRIFIED and aghast that his worst fear (turning back into his evil self) had come true. And imagine the angst for that too, “my memories have been messed with so much – I’m basically a fabrication of a personality, DO I EVEN COUNT AS TRULY EXISTING!?” 

This could even lead to an interesting moral conundrum for Sun and Moon too. Moon is already on the warpath and has less patience for Ruin’s life (especially with how much harm Ruin seemingly did to them), so would Moon be eager to KILL Ruin (or if not kill him, then at least give Eclipse permission to do it)? Or would Moon be talked through it, sort of realize “Ruin doesn’t remember any of it and didn’t do it himself. It’s not his fault. The same way Old Moon’s actions are not mine. It would be unjust to kill him because RUIN wasn’t the one who did any of it.”

Many possibilities.

...But no, none of that ended up happened.

Instead Ruin is a “was always evil, all along” kind of guy. Which is… pretty disappointing considering the other possibilities. It genuinely feels like “the most obvious option.”

Also, Eclipse has literal command orders built into his head.

So in theory, maybe the innocent Ruin could have had something like this too. Imagine: His second personality, doing things whenever Ruin is mentally asleep, also embeds Ruin's AI with those command prompts that force Ruin to do unusual things. Ruin builds his own body and he doesn't really have a good reason? The commands subconsciously forcing him to. He goes down into the bunker? He has this weird, pathological obsession with doing things with arcade machines he can't quite stop? THE COMMAND LINES, BABY.

Then when it comes time for Moon to memory-scrub him, the second personality could just. Corrupt the lines, hide them with the rest of them.

(Then OO DRAMA later on when everyone realizes Ruin's condition. Just as Eclipse knows he'll die if he differs from his plans, Ruin realizes he's being forced to do things and will die if he doesn't. Hey that's another connection the two could share.)

Eclipse has been right about everything, but this twist sort of invalidates a few of the things Eclipse has said.

Eclipse honed in on Ruin and was correct the whole time. But let’s look at a few episodes, to hyper-analyze some of the things Eclipse said.

The episode where Eclipse kidnapped Ruin:

Ruin: I was far too busy elsewhere to have any, uh, meddling with your being—

Eclipse: You see that’s the funny thing. I don’t think you realize what you’ve DONE. Or what you ARE going to do.

This implies Eclipse ALSO believes Ruin doesn’t remember his actions.�� So if Eclipse has been right about everything so far, why would he be wrong about THAT?

In the same episode, after Eclipse tells Ruin: "I'm going to torture you" and leaves, Ruin is left all alone. Because Eclipse has left, Ruin has no reason to keep up the facade of being scared any longer, and YET, he still sits there hyperventilating for a few seconds before saying:

"Oh GOD...."

why would he do that, if he knew he could drop the act?

There’s also the episode where he confronts Ruin, he says:

“What did you do, huh? Changed a bit of your memory? Wiped your whole brain with a magnet? What did you do, huh?”

And I still just feel if Ruin genuinely changed his whole memory and brain, that his entire Ego/Personality should change. 

There’s also just the amount of Eclipse’s “Are you terrified of me?” and scaring Ruin that whole episode.

If Ruin WASN’T in a different, innocent personality at that moment, Eclipse would know he’s not scared. If Ruin BUILT him, he wouldn’t be scared.

Ruin offered to “repair” Eclipse’s mind at one point, comparing it to therapy.

Which Eclipse shot down, of course. If Ruin was 100% faking and knew what he was doing the entire time, and he knew he was never going to do anything of the sort with Eclipse, why would he EVER offer this to Eclipse? Why would the writers throw it out if it was never going to go anywhere?

It loses a perfectly good redemption arc.

One thing about the Show is how its redemptions rarely stick, at least for long. Lunar is like, the only one who has gotten a redemption arc and stayed alive. Killcode died shortly after his redemption. Old Moon tried to change, really he did, but he died before he could ever make the changes he needed to.  Eclipse is currently being worked on in a way, but that is still a LONG ways off. Etc, etc.

Then we had Ruin, who was another successful “redemption”, and it was pretty good to see!! …Which is now ruined (hah) because he was never good to begin with.

LEADING INTO ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT:

It makes all that effort the other characters went through for nothing.

Sun and Moon tried so hard to help Ruin, they took a risk for him to cure him of his virus – but in the end, this was the Wrong thing to do.

The characters did the right thing!! And they are being punished for it!!

And elaborating on that further:

This is going to negatively affect all the characters going forward.

This entire arc, Moon has been dealing with negative thought patterns and paranoia, and a lot of that paranoia manifested when he was investigating Ruin. He acted pretty cruel to Ruin in many ways, especially during the interrogation. This is why I thought it was very good for Moon when he did the memory scrub, found nothing, and realized he was being kind of a jerk, so he apologized to Ruin and pulled back a bit. He didn’t STOP LOOKING INTO HIM, but it was a lesson for him, to not to let his aggression reign over him when dealing with people he was suspicious of.

(One of the most concerning parts of Moon’s paranoia was how he said he didn’t trust ANYONE. He says so directly to Eclipse: “trust is a FARCE.” Despite this, in some way or form, he DID let his guard down around Ruin and began to trust him just a mild amount.)

WELL NOW THAT’S ALL GONE! Moon will never trust anyone ever again. The last person he gave the benefit of the doubt to turned out to be a multiverse-destroyer. Moon now has every reason to double down on his aggression, his paranoia, his mistrust of other people; in the future I doubt he will ever be so kind or lenient with people. He would probably be more likely to “attack first” when seeing a potential threat. And Sun as well; Sun will have much less reason to want to be kind or to take a chance to help a villain, because one time he helped Ruin and it blew up in his face.

So… good job. :/

It just kind of feels like the most obvious twist that could have written with the pieces on hand.

It’s like… There are a million different moving parts for this mystery -- multi-personalities, the virus, ways to play with memories that change identities, command orders embedded into robot's skulls – and then they chose the most straightforward way to use them.

Over the course of the storyline there were SO many signs pointing to Ruin (one of the Thumbnails even had a Creepy Face hidden in the corner) that it felt there HAD to be some kind of twist involving personalities or memories or someone else controlling him. I don’t want to say bad writing, but….

It almost makes Ruin a little too powerful.

I feel it’s almost cheating in some ways. Ruin is able to edit/corrupt his own memories so Moon couldn’t access them…… but RUIN still know them? Why didn’t Ruin literally forget those things, himself? It feels a little TOO powerful, a little too unrealistic, for him to be able to fool all these scanners and all these people SO easily. ESPECIALLY because we know Moon and Solar (and Eclipse definitely) went snooping around Ruin’s stuff before and looked at his computers; how did they, two galactic supergeniuses, never find ANY hint that Ruin had tampered with the security camera broadcasts when they were doing it?

When Ruin is supposed to be acting, he sounds just a little too sincere.

This is more of a minor thing, but in some of the episodes, when something dramatic happened to Ruin, it doesn't feel like he's acting in-universe; he sounds very sincere.

Just some examples: when he's interrogated by Moon and sounds so sad about being threatened. When Eclipse menaces him several times he's so scared. And many just other instances just. (And again, since I'm autistic, I read some of his stranger mannerisms as just being through that lens. Even if he acted strange sometimes that doesn't automatically equal fakeness.)

And I dunno, maybe he should have had more instances where it didn't feel so sincere.

This makes Solar the only person from another dimension who is good.

Pretty much everyone else from the other dimensions is bad or evil in some way, (aside from like one Sun from the one-off dimension where Moon never existed.) And I love Solar, but for some reason, it just doesn’t feel RIGHT that he’s literally the only person who is totally cool with the Celestial family.  Does anyone else feel that way?

Minor thing: When Moon apologized to Ruin, they said they would make Ruin a bedroom out of one of the alcoves.

Then they didn't.

Petty reason: Ruin was my comfort character, my personal one.

Lol, lmao even, my poor heart. It's broken.

And there are some various other thoughts, but this is also really long, so I'm going to stop here.

At the end of the day, I was really passionate about this character, and I’m disappointed to see it go the route that it did. There WERE ways to have Ruin still be good while also being a villain, just by giving him a second personality. And giving Ruin a second personality, to play around with the worldbuilding of robot memories and how Ruin isn’t responsible due to his memories being different, I personally think would have been more interesting.

Is there ANY hope for Ruin still being around after this? I’m not sure at this point. It’s looking less and less likely that there is a way out for Ruin. It’s looking less and less likely that there are two personalities, or even that Ruin was infected to begin with. 

If he somehow makes it out I’ll be ecstatic, but until then, I have a feeling we might be saying goodbye to him soon.

I still love this Show very much! And the story isn't over yet. So we'll just have to see if it can pull something off with this. But as it stands, I just have to respectfully say I think a mistake has been made in the direction they are going with it.

[communistkenobi]

Now that Succession is over I’ve been reflecting more and more on the fandom that sprung up around it. When I made this post I had Succession in mind, but it was too large of a sidebar to get into, so now I’m making a separate post.

And before I get into anything, both in anticipation of being yelled at and so I don’t have to constantly inserts caveats into every paragraph: this is not a universal or comprehensive description of how people interact with Succession in a fandom setting online, but rather my experience with it on tumblr and the experience of watching my friends interact with it. Additionally, this diagnosis of a narrow slice of the Succession fandom is not a moral or intellectual damnation of anyone who ships characters or whatever. I am talking to myself publicly on my own blog and this post is a sequel to the post I linked at the top, and so the primary focus of this is going to be about the “methods problem” within fandom that I outlined in that original post. If anything, this is an invitation to reflect on your own experiences and extend/adapt/critique the arguments I’m about to make to your own contexts, not a condemnation of those experiences and contexts. If you feel the urge to say things like “you’re trying to censor me” or “let people have fun” I would rather you not do that because I’ve heard those things hundreds of times already and those complaints are deeply uninteresting. anyway

I think one of Succession’s strengths as a show is that it is a drama about a modern corporate empire that is shown entirely through the eyes of the individual Roy family members. There is a particular, deliberate clash between the intensely intimate drama of Shiv and Tom’s marriage, Kendall’s addiction issues and estrangement from his family, Roman’s sexual and romantic problems, Connor’s loneliness manifesting in him “buying a girlfriend,” and the fact that they are wealthy beyond comprehension. They are so far above material need that the only arena of conflict is their personal lives. This comes to a head in S4, when their father dies and their family drama becomes the primary battleground over who will take the throne. Yes, they are fighting over acquisition deals and legal issues surrounding their father’s company, this is the “material” component that has a direct influence on their wealth, but that is still secondary to their conflict as a family. Kendall and Roman deliberately attempt to sabotage the sale of Waystar, both because of their personal desire to “be the boss” and the constantly-cited desire to “do what our father wanted.” Their primary concerns are always either an attempt to appease their dead dad or their desire to replace him with themselves.

This is the most intensified form of bourgeois interiority in fiction - all material concerns are made invisible, shoved to the side to focus solely on individual emotions and relationships, because the Roys are part of the ruling class. Their material needs will never be part of their problems. The individual landscapes of their emotions, desires, and traumas are the only real site of conflict. The army of servants and underlings beneath them, the public that is only ever at the periphery, are part of the massive social, political and financial scaffolding that allows them the time and freedom to act out these hyper-intense psychodramas with their lovers, friends and family. The character-centric focus of the show is itself a commentary on their wealth - they don’t have to work, they don’t have to worry about money, they don’t even have to interact with public infrastructure, and so they are free to focus entirely on interpersonal turmoil and pleasure. This intense, indulgent look into their personal lives is predicated on their wealth, and highlights how ridiculous and out of touch they are. This is an integral part of how the deeply uncomfortable, second-hand-embarrassment tone of the show is maintained.

But this nuance doesn’t get translated into fandom - or is only translated haphazardly - which is likewise deeply character-centric. As a fan of the show for many years I have largely avoided the Succession “fandom” because of its intense focus on shipping and rooting for your favourite characters to win. This is how you end up with people deeply invested in Roman’s character, running cover and damage control for him as he becomes increasingly openly racist, misogynistic and fascistic as the show goes on. In particular, the way that misogyny in fandom intersects with this character-centric method of engagement is that a lot of apologetic discourse about Shiv is reactive, excusing or rationalising her behaviour to an online crowd who finds fault with her behaviour not because she’s wealthy but because she’s a woman. It’s how you end up watching people online defend the actions of a fictional billionaire girlboss, because the dominant mode of discourse in fandom is focused so heavily on the actions of individual characters that said actions become free-floating, divorced from their context. Shiv is not being defended on the ground of her wealth and power (or not always, lol), nor even really being defended from the fact that those things make her an objectively horrible person, but that popular fandom perception of her boils down to “man what a huge bitch.” It’s not that (necessarily) people want to log onto tumblr to apologise for liking a fictional billionaire - although again, that does happen - it’s that fandom misogyny is so individualistic that Shiv’s actions are always discussed at the lowest rung possible, commonly expressed as “she’s a bitch” or “she’s being unreasonable”, and so that is the discursive arena that discussion about this character remains in, never moving beyond the individual. It reminds me of the backlash against Skylar from Breaking Bad - it was impossible to talk about anything else about her character aside from explaining why she’s not the devil incarnate. Yes there are also unironic fans who love the fact that Shiv is a vaguely progressive rich white woman, those people absolutely exist, but even when you want to approach the show from outside of that uncritical angle, I think you oftentimes get painted into this narrow discursive corner anyway because of how stupid fandom discussion tend to be.

And yes it’s all fictional, it’s not real, and people “blorbofying” a Roy sibling or shipping Kendall and Stewy together are not remotely good indicators of their beliefs about the ruling class in real life. I am not making claims about anyone’s beliefs or political convictions because they enjoy a show about billionaires. I also enjoy the show. But the rhetoric of fandom is so intensely individualistic that “shipping” characters in a show like Succession is seen as a regular thing to do. The easiest way to tell if you’re in a “fandom” on tumblr is to see if people are writing ship fic or drawing shipping fanart. I enjoy Succession a lot and talk about it with friends, but I am not “in the Succession fandom.”

And at least with the people I follow who do engage in Succession “fandom,” there is an intense self-irony on display - people making fancam edits of Gerri, someone who is general counsel to a fictional version of Fox News, or AMVs of Stewy, a hot ruthless venture capitalist. It’s funny precisely because of the dissonance between the use of fandom aesthetic forms (ie fancams) and the subject being fandomised. Embedded into these behaviours is an ironic self-distance, a performance of fandom with a wink to the audience that you don’t actually believe in this, that this is a self-ironic indulgence, a way of articulating sympathy for these fictional characters while maintaining the air of being in-the-know, being a good person who gets what the show is “really” about. And I enjoy that! Those posts rule lol. If anything I am in the meta-fandom, I stay on the periphery with friends to enjoy posts about how stressful shareholder meetings are, to celebrate the tomshiv scorpionmarriage win, to know what the phrase tomstar gregco endgame means.

But that self-irony is only possible to express because of the fact that “doing fandom stuff” with Succession necessarily involves an intense and constant form of apologetics for your favourite character or relationship - it is this assumed, unstated default that this self-irony is engaging with. If you were just talking about the plot of the show or its themes, if you disavowed any desire to ship characters together, if you never got into arguments with people about which Roy sibling “deserves” to be CEO, you would hardly be doing “fandom,” or at least you would be doing it in a fundamentally different way, and crucially you wouldn’t need to be employing that self-ironic tone of “alright now we all know billionaires are bad. But isn’t Roman such a cute little baby? Don’t you just want to hug him?”

I remember a popular sentiment being expressed around when Succession first got popular online, saying that Succession pioneered new ways for people to talk about their favourite characters on the internet. “He’s my Disney Princess” “I want to put him in a Pringles can and shake him” “she is a bug I need to study under a microscope” and so on. And I think this is partially a result of 1) absurdist internet humour in general, 2) a memetic mirroring of the show’s brand of humour specifically, and 3) people’s general political instincts running up against fandom engagement, the desire to engage with Succession as a fandom-text without experiencing intense cognitive dissonance, producing ways of expressing love and enjoyment for characters that are fundamentally, irredeemably bad people, people who are direct reflections of and parallels to the ruling class of modern America. It doesn’t even give you the benefit of historical distance the way a medieval fantasy would, where it’s easier to “stan” a king because it’s taken for granted that everyone here doesn’t support hereditary monarchy. Succession is a direct, immediate commentary on contemporary American life in a way that is impossible to ignore, and so to engage with it on fandom grounds requires a certain kind of additional effort, a way of simultaneously performing your real-world beliefs while also letting loose. I know Succession is not the first show to be like this, nor is it the only thing that has impacted the way fandom operates online, but it has enjoyed a five-year popularity whose digital omnipresence has reached far beyond its immediate audience. Most people on twitter remotely engaged in fandom have seen a Kendall Roy fan edit, for example.

So, all this to say: even when it feels like a text is deliberately choosing a character-centric focus to comment on its themes and structures, I think what happens is that this character-centric lens becomes easily and instantly adopted by fandom, but the commentary gets left behind. Which is again what I meant in that original post I linked at the top - character-centric lenses are not inherently bad, or inferior, or lesser to other lenses, but that fandom only ever engages in a very narrow and particular type of character-centrism, a lens that is so adaptable that you can easily import shipping discourse and “x-character-did-nothing-wrong” style apologetics into a show like Succession. If you engage with Succession primarily as a vector to ship characters together, or to “pick your favourite character,” I think you are falling into this fandom mode. Which I’m not saying is inherently bad, I have also done this with Succession by calling myself a romangirl or whatever, I’m just trying to articulate the whiplash I sometimes get when watching prestige drama television about billionaires being murderers and sex pests and fascists and then going online and seeing hundreds of people expressing a desire to wrap Roman Roy in a little blanket. A lot of people are engaging with the show’s themes and also doing this “fandom” thing with it, so you don’t have to choose one or the other, nor am I saying that there are necessarily “low” and “high” classes of artistic interpretation that people permanently slot themselves into, but I do think these modes of engagement are at some level mutually exclusive, because they require the adoption of fundamentally different interpretive lenses when approaching a text

[your-queer-dad]

Hey dad,

TW//Transphobia//

Never interacted before, and I’m prob about 8 years older than most of the kiddos who do. But I don’t got queer fam (found nor from) to ask about how to adult as a trans person.

Basically I had to go to a few medical appointments recently and I’ve been transitioning for a while as a trans woman, but still got my same names/markers. There was this one doc who- they just stared at me for too long, after confirming my deadname with a out of place smile and just made me super uncomfortable. Just- I don’t do/say much cause I’m afraid of being labeled one of the “crazy ones,” and I don’t wanna make other trans people look bad. But I get to be upset at this right? It’s my reality but I’m allowed to hate that part of it right? They didn’t do/say anything else transphobic/hateful. They just made me feel like something to gauk at. How would you suggest handling it? I grew up really privileged- cishet white man upper class. And now I’m living such a radically different reality and there’s just so much i haven’t learned yet.

It’s not all been bad- I don’t wanna leave without positivity. Every other worker has been rrrreally nice and chill. I’m teaching myself but by bit how to present how I wanna present and it’s been amazing. How have you been holding up? Thankyou for helping everyone, and if you do, thankyou for helping me!! You’re being a really generous person, and I believe deserve the world.

<3

Hey kiddo! You're always welcome here, no matter what age. No-one is too old to need a dad in their life. Kiddo, of course you're allowed to be upset at being stared at. You're not a sole ambassador for the trans community and if people make assumptions like that it isn't your fault. And thank you so much kiddo!! You're always welcome here no matter what.

- dad x

[i-sveikata]

Hi author, I was rereading Graveyards (as I do quite often) when I noticed it. Vegas' pet hedgehog does not make an appearance in your fic and I'm thankful for that. Because the hedgehog in the show was so obviously a parallel to Pete being Vegas' "pet" which made me somewhat uncomfortable.

I guess I just want to know what are your thoughts on that hedgehog and was it a deliberate choice on your part to not include that in the fic?

Sending you love! <3

Hey anon!! Aw man no offence to the hedgehog but it was just that bit too cringe for me tbh and since I wasn’t interested in making their dynamic be solely about pet/master- at least with Pete as the pet and Vegas as the master (lol might be a bit of that dynamic the other way around in graveyards but more feral dog/ owner with Vegas putting the leash on himself) the parallel of the existing pet in pete wasn’t a point I was interested in making. So yes it was a deliberate choice!

Yeah I totally get it being a little uncomfy tbh (not everyone’s cup of tea which is fine) but yeah for me that was just the least interesting part of their interactions on screen. It was more about the relenting/ submission/ relinquishing of control or admission of buried pleasure that was fascinating to me. Obvs I’ve taken a fair bit of creative licence with some of the changes I’ve made so the choice not to have the (albeit cute and then very dead) hedgehog just came down to personal preference. I mean it was an interesting kind of metaphor for the scenario- if Pete is the pet then exactly like the hedgehog no matter how well Vegas takes care of him he still won’t survive in a cage- they couldn’t go on in the safe house forever like that not if they wanted either of them to survive.

I felt that Pete’s introspective POV easily covered that sentiment anyway so I didn’t feel like I was making a huge change removing the hedgehog tbh. Also different mediums means different restrictions!! So imo visual metaphors don’t have the same kind of vital importance in written works than they would in a visual medium. If they do it’s expressed in a different way.

But yeah if I’d kept it solely to only what was seen in the tv show (and I hadn’t heard fandom rumbles about the difference between that and what their relationship was like in the original novel) their dynamic would honestly have been less interesting to me.

Like if it was basically just- guy gets captured and abused- feelings get muddled between them when they fall into a master/ pet kind of dynamic and then he hooks up with his captor in a (dubious) heat of the moment thing and then the captor realises feelings, let’s him go/ he escapes. but then nothing truly significant in their dynamic/ statuses changes after that if anything Pete becomes more powerless and victimised in a way that leaves him with barely any agency. before they’re suddenly agonising over being on opposite sides in the coup and then trying to move forward before one almost dies. Then it was just an abrupt skipping ahead to domestic loving relationship in the end where the captor decided they wouldn’t be pet/ master anymore and they would try this for serious with Pete as Vegas’ most important person- I guess I just wanted a bit more depth to that than what I saw in the show- there really felt like a lot more potential for their relationship to grow in a way that felt genuine without sacrificing the significance of their pivotal interactions that we were outright shown. Also there was soooo much room for the cat/ mouse dynamic which I absolutely love to write especially when it’s mixed with romance and sexual tension. And as so much of how they started kind of ended up the opposite which I always find very narratively satisfying in a circular kind of way. I.e Pete starting out stalking Vegas, and Vegas has zero interest in him, to Vegas becoming obsessed with Pete after the time they had together and him being the one stalking Pete, desperate to keep his attention. That’s such a - beaten by your own game, fuck around and find out kind of element that I love to see in stories- and to happen to characters who think they’ve got it all figured out- when inside they’re afraid and insecure and desperate to be loved. Poor Vegas.

Tbh that’s why so much of my fic is kind of flipping their original dynamic on its head and why so much of their interactions are around power and control and how that becomes reversed because that element of it WAS the most interesting to me. Because everything should have changed in a way that neither of them can ever come back from!!! What they’ve done to each other has broken them in a way that ruined them for anybody else. Like at this point whatever freaky little dynamic they’ve got is a thousand times better than what they’d both be doing if they weren’t together lol. They really are the whole- wouldn’t want to inflict them on anyone else- dynamic but together they work as a full codependency/ high intensity, high heat relationship lol. this whole fic is just shameless character study, subversion of power and an in-depth exploration of repressed pleasure lmao. Whoops very long answer but basically yes it all was totally intentional sorry hedgehog!

[lemony-and-zesty]

Wasn’t gonna post anything about it, but I’m thinking about it again,,

Mostly cause one of my friends got hate for being friends with me.

But basically, I got banned from an all age-inclusive discord server for honestly insane reasons.

But in the end, they’ve essentially accused me of being a child predator and “posting nsfw in a server with minors.”

In reality I posted art with blood in it. Which the rules of the server said was allowed as long as it was spoilered and there were content warnings. I did this the handful of times I drew blood. Hell, I even said every time, “If I need to delete this please let me know.” They never did, so I assumed it was ok.

Anyways, here are my “crimes”

All of these things are things blown wildly out of proportion.

The “non-con” I drew was the two posts I made about Hitman’s boss.

The inappropriate conversations and interactions with minors from the server was actually just me being friends with one of the minors and letting them talk to me about their aus and talking to them about my aus.

And also being there for them when an actual fucking creep was in the server and the mods just let them be.

There was a person in the server who was talking about characters having sex *to a minor.*

And I helped bring this to the mods attention because I noticed just how uncomfortable this minor was in a voice call with this other person and switched to a private call to check on them.

I ended up telling a mod, who then told the other mods, who then decided to ban this person.

The real shocker?

This person was removed from the server with so much more respect than I was.

I wanna stress just how blindsided I was by this ban.

I got no warnings. I had no idea. No one had expressed discomfort with me whatsoever.

The only warning I ever got was for sending a link to the tumblr that has the Twitter drama Trolls AU where Floyd and Creek are super toxic and all that jazz. I sent it in the voice chat while on call with two people who are over 18. The link was deleted and I was asked to be more mindful. Which I agreed to.

Anyways, the point is, had I not been on call with two people from the server, I would have gone to sleep thinking everything was fine, and woken up to being banned without warning.

This is the only information I got.

The only reason I even know *why* I was banned was because I still had friends in the server who saw the aftermath.

I am not ashamed of any of my actions. I always did my best to make sure people were comfortable and I believed - mistakenly - that someone would let me know if they weren’t. If anyone had communicated with me *at all* this could have all been avoided.

At the end of the day though, I am sick of being treated like a child predator by these people when in reality I am just someone who wanted to post silly stuff about Trolls with people who enjoy Trolls.

If anyone has any issue with any claims the people from that server have made, I am willing to talk about and explain my actions - or hell, even apologize if it turns out I was in the wrong.

I’m not perfect by any means, and if I made anyone uncomfortable I truly am sorry.

But, I never did anything worth this level of contempt and disrespect.

Thank you for listening and sorry for the long ass post.

I just needed to at least give some insight into some of the stuff I’ve experienced lately.

Especially since this server was genuinely so important to me. It was helping me through some of my worst experiences and I’ve made some amazing friends from it. And for that I am grateful.

And finally, to whoever sent hate to my friend, don’t be a coward. Go off anon and talk to me. I have nothing to hide and I’m not afraid of you. Because in the end I know I’m not a child predator and I know I never intended to hurt anyone.

And if I still had access to the server I would have screenshots to prove it.

Goodnight everyone <3

[moreespressoformydepresso]

Heyy, it’s been a couple of days since I’ve posted, even longer since I’ve been consistent. I would say I’ve been busy but that would be a lie because I haven’t actually had less time than usual to post. Truth is some stuff’s gone down, partially on this very platform, and it’s made it very hard to post. If you don’t want to read a kind of venty angsty personal post the TL;DR is I’ll get back to posting semi-regularly once I’ve dealt with some stuff but I promise it has nothing to do with the people who interact with my blog. You’re the highlight of my day even if it’s “just” a like and I’m sorry for the recent dip in posts.

I don’t wanna go into detail because surprise! I don’t actually like going out of my way to create drama with people and one person involved has essentially harassed me on every platform we share. That’s why I haven’t spoken about this before, and I’m only saying this now because I realized I’ve forgotten to respond to several reblogs and I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m ignoring them or abandoning this blog or anything. Basically, I feel bad about leaving without explanation and also I kind of want to vent? So without getting too specific: A close friendship recently died a slow, torturous death over several months, slowly getting worse until the other person threw me in the trash like I meant nothing. Then he came back two weeks later and tried to guilt trip me for being upset at him for how he treated me.

In that two week period some stuff went down on Tumblr here and well… there’s no way to sugarcoat this, so I’ll be blunt: it’s made me terrified to post anything on here. Every time I want to post something I feel sick to my stomach with dread because what if it’ll happen again? Or, alternatively, what if I’m next? And it sucks because I’m not even 100% sure it was aimed at me, but it lines up a little too perfectly and maybe I’m paranoid and it’s all on me but maybe it’s not and if that’s the case… I’d rather be wrong, for once, but the problem is that there’s no way to know for certain. I’ve been stewing in this weird, complicated mishmash of emotions and confusion and I honestly have no idea how to deal with it. I thought time would help, as it usually does, but clearly this is a special case.

Before anyone says it, yes. I’m aware that this is a subtweet, which is not a cool or nice thing to do unless it’s a joke between friends. That’s another thing that made me not want to post this. I hate being mean to people who aren’t mean to me first, and as I said I have no solid proof from a trustworthy source without ulterior motives that this had anything to do with me (which is what I usually use as my standard for when to start hitting back) but I just can’t seem to let it go. Every time I have an AU I wanna share I get this creeping, uncomfortable, clawing feeling crawling underneath my skin and tightening in my chest and I hate it. I hate it so much I cannot even describe it properly.

It makes me wanna scrape my skin off with sandpaper and scrub myself clean from the inside out with an iron sponge. I wanna claw my heart out of my chest and shake it until it stops feeling like this and the only comfort here is that I’ve found some fancy new descriptions to use in my writing. Speaking of: I’ll post on AO3 again soon, hopefully today or tomorrow, but just like with my blog I’m so drained of energy and I feel so nauseous about posting I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it again, which sucks because I love posting on all these platforms! It shouldn’t feel like a chore but it does now and I don’t know if there’s anything that’ll ever make it fully go away. It’s become more manageable, hence why I’m posting this, so I’m clinging to the hope it’ll all ebb away at some point. Until then though my posting schedule is gonna be even more inconsistent than it usually is, so I’m very sorry about that. Hope you all have a wonderful day and I’m sorry about the venty post I’ve subjected you to 😅