#maybe what makes one of those two finally learn to use a real weapon...

[bigkurosmash]

Fuck it, I'mma revive this blog with more than just art 'cause I saw The Dare (2019) and I need to ramble somewhere.

The Dare is not at all the type of movie I expected it to be. I went in thinking it would follow the usual slasher formula only to see it absolutely wasn't. There were familiar slasher elements, but the story had twists I don't typically see in slasher movies and I loved it.

From the environmental story telling to the set details and how the main antagonist's story unfolds between present actions and flashbacks intermingled was a delight for me. I love a good backstory and The Dare told a wonderfully bitter one. The Dare also did something so many other slasher films just never do- It humanized the antagonist and made him so real instead of hollow or so othered they're no longer 'human'.

Dominic is so complex with his conflict and, in various twisted ways, he is merciful.

vv Spoilers under cut as I go deeper vv

Dominic was not running on pure revenge if context clues are to be followed. Dominic was taught 'letting the evil out' was a good thing, a mercy, something that needed to be done. Did he feel good hurting those that hurt him? I wouldn't doubt it, but there was more to it. He was upset when Paul didn't survive and so broken when he admitted that he failed to 'let the evil out' of the last 3.

That shows there was definitely more there than just seeking revenge, at least in my opinion it does. How he instead begged for Jay to kill him even though he held all the power in that situation and could so easily kill Jay but chose not to. Dominic is well aware his upbringing has made it impossible for him to live a normal life and he laments this, wishing deeply to have it but knowing his best option [at least to him] is to be killed- put out of his misery; a mercy.

But Jay refused to kill him, meaning Dominic would have to continue living in his solitude surrounded by the memories of the horrors he went through as a child. That right there is why I assume he attacked Jay and threatens Jay's family in the hopes that would be what gets Jay to kill him. If Jay won't kill him when he begs, maybe he will to save his own family. Dominic is smart and he knows how to find what makes people tick; how else could he have such control over several people enough to put weapons in their hands and be so comfortable doing so.

Growing up in two different abusive homes, Dominic likely had no choice but to learn how to read people, figure out where the line was drawn and how to choose his words carefully to avoid abuse as much as possible. Begging, pleading, using placating words even if he didn't mean it. Which means he also knows how it feels to be the smaller/weaker person and what makes them bend when he's on the other side of it.

He's also smart and resourceful enough to track down 4 random people he only knew for 2 days 20 years later all without any of them knowing. He got his hands on 20+ year old photographs, their names, their addresses, tailed them long enough to know where they would be and when so that he could snatch them. Again, all without any of them knowing. This makes Dominic even scarier than just 'ooo big bad' and I personally love the unknown and psychological element mixed in here. Personally, I would've loved if they showed more of that as well.

Dominic is a wonderfully interesting character and The Dare shows that in so many different ways from backstory to body language. The acting is also incredible in how you can feel the victims' fear, Dominic's included, and how you can literally see the moment Jay realizes whatever plans he had were crushed the moment he finally saw Dominic coming through that doorway. 🤌

Also yeah, huge scary masked beefcake who could break you in half but also can cry is hot.

[stacotto]

*Inhale for four, exhale for four* Alright, let's get into it.

Guess we'll just start at the start, Asticassia is far more wrecked than we could see at the end of episode 20, death count is probably in the scores if not hundreds, and the survivors are basically in a refugee camp. Earth House and Suletta out here doing their best to make everyone comfortable, which automatically makes them the GOAT house. Petra's alive...ish! Mio's President now, for whatever that's worth, Quinharbor is a bombed-out crater, and those slimy Peil crones somehow managed to once again pull the "we didn't know this unethical thing was being done right beneath our noses" card (even if they really didn't know until someone else told them, I wouldn't put it past them to want a piece of that pie). More on them later.

The meeting between Earth House, Guston, and Belmeria is a perfect example of what I like to see in an infodump; nothing is said that characters in the room should already know, everything is news to someone. I really really dig now Suletta handled relaying her nature as a clone, and maybe feeling a little smug that my headcanon that those flashes of Eri's memories of the Vanadis Incident really were a full memory share between the two. And of course, Suletta understanding that there is probably no reasoning with Prospera, but no unnecessary angst beyond that. I like it, it's refreshing. Also hot damn, we've been theorizing about a "Caliban" Gundam for months and this is not what any of us expected but I'm not complaining; it really is thematically appropriate that Prospera's creation would be piloting the machine named after Prospero's servant.

Now to the real spectacle of the episode: The Space Assembly League charging headfirst into something they should know could not possibly end well. To paraphrase what I've been saying about Quiet Zero ever since episode 16; "You may have your guns, but I control all the triggers". You literally cannot fight against it with any conventional weapon. The only way to fight against the QZ Data Storm network is with a Gundam of your own, and Sophie Pulone showed us exactly why even that is a toss-up. The more I think about it, the more I feel we're building up to a reveal that Suletta may have actually inherited her sister's affinity to the Data Storm, it just might need a little push to fully manifest.

Miorine really cannot catch a break here. She may be President, but that pales in comparison to the world falling apart around her. Quinharbor is in ruins. Her father is still in a coma. The League has popular support to dismantle the Group by force. It's really telling that Sarius is the one telling her "Look, I'll take the L on this, you keep the Group together" but she completely refuses to sacrifice anyone else, one of my favorite tropes when done well. It'll be interesting to see what her next move is.

Ah, Elan Ceres Number 5. Curious as to how he went from Ur's cockpit to sneaking around Asticassia but that's neither here nor there; he's finally given up the act (and genuinely apologized to Suletta, that was good) and is joining up with the heroes for the final act, which I appreciate. He says "no Gundam" which does pique my curiosity as to how he's going to contribute - Enhanced Persons are no doubt chosen by the Peil AI for piloting skill, so I doubt that he won't be piloting period - but I do get the distinct feeling that he's going to pay the CEOs and Elan Prime a visit...with bullets.

Welp, guess we know who's piloting the Schwarzette whenever that comes up now; Lauda about to follow in the infamous footsteps of one "Graze" Ein Dalton. I do kinda hope that someone can snap him out of it before it's too late; most likely candidate is probably Petra if she can wake up soon, given that A) He's definitely going to try and kill Miorine, so that knocks her out, B) there's no way he's going to listen to Guel after learning he's the one who killed Vim (even if it was by accident in self-defense), and C) Suletta is still the "Mercurian Wench who ruined everything" in his eyes. If he can't be reasoned with, Guel's probably going to have to kill him, I'll put my chips on that.

We in the endgame now.

[weerd1]

ENT Rewatch Starlog, 27 April, 2024, supplemental: Episode 3.22 “The Council”

While Degra, T'Pol, and Archer plot to figure out how to approach the Xindi council, they realize the Spheres are networked by an artificial intelligence network. That memory core might provide more information on the Builders, whom Degra says are all but worshipped by many Xindi, particularly Reptilians.

The Reptilians meanwhile have learned Degra destroyed a Reptilian ship to protect Enterprise. 

T’Pol, Reed, Mayweather, and a MACO (read that as “Redshirt”) go on a mission to retrieve a memory core from a Sphere while Degra’s people and the Arboreals escort the NX-01 to the Council planet, and Archer and Hoshi enter the chamber built into a structure that was built millennia before by the now extinct Avian Xindi. The Reptilians, specifically their leader Dolim rail against Archer’s presence, but after some talk, they agree to hear more.

Degra goes back to NX-01 where he will help make a hologram of the Sphere Builder from Phlox’s records they had on board who was testing the environment. He also tries to help Tucker with some power cells, and after a small altercation, they begin to cooperate, Trip finally seeing past his loss to what Degra is risking in helping them.

The Sphere expedition retrieves one of the memory cores, but a defense system kills the MACO in the process, leaving Reed reeling from the loss of yet another crewmen.

After the new visual presentation begins to sway the Aquatics, Dolim has a change of heart and agrees to hear more evidence. Degra tells Archer he hopes this is the beginning of a new future, but Dolim has been talking to the Sphere Builders and plan to steal the weapon and attack Earth with the Insectoids; but first he goes to Degra’s room and murders him. The Xindi Primates warn Archer just as the weapon launches and the NX-01 joins a flotilla of Primate, Arboreal, and Aquatic ships in an attempt to stop them.  In the battle, Dolim beams Hoshi Sato off the bridge of Enterprise as the weapon and Dolim’s fleet enter a subspace vortex.

Things are coming to a head now in the story, and it’s nice to see Archer truly stepping into his role of peacemaker, a great contrast from when he spoke with Daniels earlier in the season. Gratifying to see the progress he’s making, which makes the death of Degra and the launch of the weapon a real jolt when the story pulls that rug out from under us. 

I have to admit, I am still looking a little askance and the fact the species with the mammalian heritage—Humans, Primates, Arboreals, and Aquatics—ally together while the Reptilians and Insectoids are the violent hold-outs. There’s a…xenophobia of some kind layered into that writing I think, and I might suggest it would be a little more “Star Trek” in its way if either of those two species were swayed. Maybe that’s just me. 

Reed makes mention of 23 deaths in the crew, which is pretty significant for a group around 80-90.  It is nice to see he as completely accepted the MACOs as comrades now.  

Not having rewatched these since the initial airing, I have to admit I had completely forgotten about Dolim taking Hoshi, and I am genuinely excited to find out where that story goes…thanks to my old-man brain, it’s like a whole new Enterprise story for me!

NEXT VOYAGE: The weapon is on its way to Earth, and Archer faces a “Countdown.”

(Images taken from the main website for @trekcore; I am happy to remove the images if asked.)

[forthedancingandthethriving]

"What if.. I.. gave up!"

"Valeria, what?" Bedelia looks at the rebellion leader, confused. "Why are you saying that?"

"Child soldiers, Bedelia!" Valeria swims over and grips her second-in-command's shoulders. "The empire has child shoulders — they're fucking 15!" The fins on the sides of her face lower. "15..."

Bedelia looks at Valeria with a frown. "I know, but those two are safe with us now. We'll start treating Celeste and see what Lexi knows."

The rebellion leader sighs, closing her eyes. "Yeah, that.. that sounds good." She releases the other's shoulders and looks at her apologetically. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten so overworked."

"It's okay!" The SIC shakes her head. She giggles a bit. "Just surprising to see you the nervous one."

Valeria nods. "I know.. It's just.. heartbreaking. Learning the extent of the brainwashing that's been done to these poor children."

Bedelia nods in agreement, but before she can get another word out, a siren is swimming up to them, his eyes wide. "Valeria! Bedelia! You need to head to Ghost's Crag now!"

"Why?" The two are instantly on high alert. "What's happened? Did someone fall in?"

"No!" The siren shakes his head. "I-Its worse! There's a group of people trapped down there!"

○●○

Valeria had never swam faster in her life, with Bedelia right behind her. They soon got to Ghost's Crag, a giant crevice in the ocean floor. It was said to be caused by a fight between Empress Moria and a siren who could shape-shift.

Apparently, their fight lasted for eight days and eight nights, and Moria emerged victorious, and with the infamous Storm Trident in her possession.

She shudders as she remembers the lightning it could summon. The typhoons it made with a single wave.

"Down there!" Bedelia snaps her out of her thoughts, and the two swim further down.

Ghost's Crag was given its name due to the toxic fumes that came from small vents. They were small but numerous. The fumes made you hallucinate, see things that weren't there. Those who lived purely in the sea had evolved to not be affected, but those above land tended to be badly affected.

But people being trapped? How could that even happen?

In a flurry a bubbles, Valeria's weapon appears. She was blessed to have one that changes like the water, and she let's it shift to that of a large war hammer. "Bede, get ready to move and use your whip to grab them!"

"Got it!" Bedelia nods, her whip appearing in a flurry of bubbles as well.

The two dive deeper down, and she can hear voices. Discussing, talking, wondering where they are.

"Hey!" Valeria shouts once she gets to the thinnest rocks. "Hey, can you hear me?"

"Hello?!" A male's voice calls out. "Is someone there!"

"Yes, I'm real!" She assures the voice. "Listen, I'm going to smash this rock in, which is gonna flood in water. You'll need to hold you breath. My friend is going to grab you with her whip to get you guys out as fast as we can, okay?"

After noises of agreement, Valeria swims back. With a low grunt, she swings the hammer, slamming it into the rocky wall. It crumbles like paper, and Bedelia acts quickly, her whip shooting out and wrapping around many wrists.

They begin to swim, swim as fast as they can.

When they breach the surface, Valeria finally gets a good look at them.

And she feels her heart skip a beat because she's sure that she's seen those faces before. But from where? A mural, maybe?

○●○

Lexi prides herself in being very, very sneaky. You don't become a Tigerfish from brute strength alone. No, you sneak and around and figure things out on your own.

The purple octoling peers her head around the doorway, red eyes glancing around. The room she was peering into was large and open air, with what she presumed to be magic, making a dome overhead, keeping the water of the outside out.

In the center, on a pedestal, was a crown. It wasn't anything grand. It was a blackstone crown, floating in a bubble. Two rings of water circled around it, like a protection.

Lexi narrows her eyes. That must be what's keeping their base hidden. With how big this place is, it makes sense.

She looks around with a huff. The room being completely devoid of water surprised her, but she guessed it made sense. Mermaids and sirens could transform to have legs if they so wished.

Sparing one glance back towards the crown, she rushes off. Completely missing the mural in the back, show casing a giant siren wielding the Storm Trident and fighting against what seemed to be a.. younger Moria.

[lockpicnic]

Birthright

“Febaaaaail?” The youngest Yngvi rocks back and forth on her heels, looking up at her brother with a smile that could only be described with one word: guilty. “…What’d you do now, Patty?” He doesn’t even bother to look over at her, continuing to fiddle with the strings of his bow. “Eh!? I didn’t do notin’! I just wanted to ask a question!”

She climbs onto the bed, and her brother doesn’t even give her a moment to be a menace before he lowers the bow onto his lap, turning to face her with a sigh. “What is it— Patty!” She wraps her arms around him, pulling him into a hug. “Can ya tell me ‘bout ma again?” “What? I already told you everythin’ I know, now buzz off!” But she doesn’t let go, only holding on tighter.

“Then tell me all of it again! Pleeeeeeease, Febail?” His sister hits him with those stupid puppy dog eyes she’s learned from her time begging on the street. Thankfully he’s built an immunity by now. “No, Patty— can’t you see I’m busy right now? If you leave me alone maybe I’ll tell ya a bedtime story or something.” Finally she lets go, turning to face the wall with a loud and exaggerated huff. “Fine!“

The room is quickly plunged into relative silence, only interrupted by the sounds of Febail working away and Patty shifting and squirming in place. She had never been very good at sitting still, especially when she wanted something so badly. “Why do ya fix up that bow everyday, anyway? Do ya keep breakin’ it?” He pauses again, sighing even louder. “No. Ya gotta make sure your bow’s always in good shape, that’s the secret to gettin’ the arrow to fly farther and land right where ya want it.”

Her hand slides closer, trying to touch the bow for herself. “Can I fire it when you’re done?” The thief’s eyes shine at the sight, continuously amazed by the fact that such a powerful weapon had been entrusted to her brother. “How many times am I gonna say no to you today? No, Patty— this was ma’s. I ain’t letting you get a chance to break it before I can give it back to her…maybe when you’re older.”

“Aw— no fair…”

— — — — — 

Back then she hadn’t known that Febail was a hitman, taking in money in exchange for shooting people down with their mother’s bow just to feed her and the other children. Even if she didn’t like the idea of it, it wasn’t as if she was any better. While she took from the rich while they were still alive, he took their lives.

Maybe the two of them really were good for nothing orphans, only destined to cause trouble. Even with her Holy Blood their mother had become a criminal as well…so it was only natural.

But that was all she had ever wanted growing up— to be the spitting image of her mother inside and out. That was why she had always been desperate to pick up the Yewfelle and fire it herself…and though the bow currently in her hands was nothing more than an iron bow, she fixed it the same way her brother had with his birthright.

“I’m older now, big bro…would ya let me fire it if ya saw me now?”

‘No, he probably wouldn’t. He was always really careful with it…but he’d still be proud.’

She raises the bow up high, aiming it slightly towards the sky. The target was completely out of sight— she’d have to use her instincts to land the killing bow. ‘The way ya fought back in the army…was that how ya used to take out your hits too?’

Mimicking his stance, Patty finishes lining up the shot…and lets go of the bowstring. The arrow soars, flying farther than ever before— until it embeds itself perfectly into the bullseye…her target neutralized.

“…Guess I’m a real Yngvi now, huh?”

Assassin Class: Mastered!

[lairofdragonagelore]

Comic: Deception

This post belongs to the series DA comic. The main intention is to collect the basic story of the comic and highlight any potential lore concept that may be of interest and may be explored later in the game series.

This post has the following points:

Story

Relevant Details

Characters: Two con artists that try to trick Tevinters in order to earn money and leave the city before the Qunari attack.

There is no relevant lore in this comic. We only learn that Ventus has fallen under Qunari invasion. This is a very forgettable comic in terms of lore.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Story

In this story, the group follows the lead of the piece of Red Lyrium to Ventus/Qarinus, where there are rumours of an incoming Qunari attack.

This is a story about two [irrelevant] con actors who are trying to scam some people in the city to get enough money to leave before the Qunari attack. They end up sabotaging each other’s work and later competing against the other. It ends up in a more comical situation than in a serious story. Dorian appears in the process, showing that he knows they are scams. They end up involving two young people, Francesca and Florian Invidus, falsely accusing them of being Venatori, when in fact, Florian and his father are involved with the Venatori.

Meanwhile, Dorian, Ser Aaron Hawthorne, and Vaea are investigating the Qitana state in order to look for the red lyrium track they were after in the previous comic. Somehow, they manage to bring these two con actors into their mission, who unintentionally get Florian killed when they use a pair of Antiva Crows in a diversion. When Francesca finds her brother’s body she swears vengeance.

When the group manages to enter the Qintana state, they discover that there is no magister family called Qintana. In their place they find a non-mage elf who uses pyrotechnic to emulate magic. He is another performer, working on this une the command of his magister master. This story is filled with performer chars.

The elf claims that their lead is not a mere piece of red lyrium but a weapon imbued in red lyrium [good, because it made no sense to track a piece of red lyrium when the whole south is covered in it and Venatori were cultivating it in Emprise du Lion]. They finally learn that the weapon went to another place: The fortress of House Danarius, former master of Fenris.

They decide to go there [next comic], but before they can leave the house, the Qunari invade the city. Only with the sacrifice of one of the actors, they can escape. They bring Francesca with them, after dealing with her rage for getting her brother killed.

This comic is not strong neither in lore nor chars. It’s more about the nature of the people and how the expectations on them are different things to what they truly are. It follows the moral that was created around Ser Aaron Hawthorne’s legend in the previous comic, where characters from tales are more inspiring than the real people from which those tales were based on. Furthermore, it’s a story that wants us to reflect about human nature, unreliable narrators, and how life is a grey thing despite people wanting to see it in white and black, making it look shinier in tales of taverns.

Relevant details:

Why the title? It’s titled that way because many characters in this story are performers: they pretend to be what they are not. The whole series of comics from the Knight Errant on seem to focus on that narrative concept.

Time: After defeating Corypheus and [maybe] after the DLC Tresspasser. I assume this because Varric is Viscount of Kirkwall.

Characters: We have repeted information about Vaea, Ser Aaron Hawthorne, and shallow information about two irrelevant con actor chars. Nothing truly important to say here.

Concepts : There is no lore-content in this comic. What we can squeeze as such is that Ventus has fallen under Qunari invasion.

[ailelie]

a collection of characters for a story that does not exist

Aoife lives in a secret room within the Library that she found as a young child on a very cold, wet day. Even in those earliest days, she spent some time daily learning among the shelves. Now, in her late teens/early 20s, she is every academy student's secret weapon. She offers tutoring in exchange for money or food or pretty things she can wear or sell. Aoife has an agile mind that picks up concepts quickly and makes connections effortlessly. She instinctively knows how to break difficult ideas down into building blocks others can grasp. If she does not know a topic, she requests time to learn it. Everyone assumes she is Someone--maybe an older student working toward a mastery, maybe a librarian in training, maybe a noble tutor. She has become very good at letting people make up their own stories about her.

Jules is an Academy student working toward his Mastery in Botany. At least, that is what everyone thinks. And he is, but he also isn't. Jules is the son of a noble household's chatelaine. He and the real Jules look very similar. Both have thick chestnut curls and brown-black eyes. The real Jules' curls are often limp with sweat, though, and his eyes dull. His skin is pale and he lacks the freckles that dot Jules' nose. Jules first pretended to be the real Jules when he was only three years old. He is both needed and despised by the family and disliked by the other servants for his weird place in the household. His mother is the only one who still remembers his true name, but even she never uses it. Jules studies botany at his lord's command, but is secretly working toward a second Mastery in Magical Theory. Someday he will be discarded by the family. When that happens, he will finally be free to live his life on his own terms.

Caoimhe never gets enough sleep. Three different Academy Masters have claimed her as their personal assistant and she darts among them, from task to task, at all hours. She grades papers, locates citations, runs errands, keeps schedules, and cleans classrooms. In exchange, she receives room and board and is allowed to audit any class she can fit within her schedule. With incredible efficiency, she manages to audit at least two every semester. Caoimhe always has a smile and a bit of gossip for everyone she meets, but has managed to also maintain a reputation for keeping important secrets safe. Her academic knowledge may be eclectic, but no one else knows the Academy as well as she does. Her job gives her free reign of even restricted areas and her perpetual friendliness and memory ensure she knows nearly every secret there is to know.

Ruairí is the highly intelligent but seemingly lazy son of an Academy professor and a Librarian. Many scholars within the Academy dislike him for seeming to squander his since-birth access to knowledge. His parents, despairing over his prospects, require he attend at least three courses per semester until he decides upon a life path. He chooses his courses at random and sleeps through many of his lectures. No one realizes that Ruairí spends his nights obsessively researching a once-banned and now long-forgotten magic created by the controversial Sáerlaith whose presence was almost completely erased from history.

What the four do not know... Sáerlaith created the secret room Aoife lives within and developed, under a friend's name, the foundational theories Jules studies. She helped found the Academy Caoimhe knows so well and was cast out for her opinions on its greatest secret--The Prophecy of Desolation. Ruaridh studies so broadly to catch any glimpse of her that he can.

How they meet... Caoimhe has always known of Aoife, even if she isn't sure who Aoife is. She knows the theories, but is irritated she doesn't know the truth. Still, when Jules and Ruairí overhear two kids discussing magical theory in a way far beyond what they ought to be learning, they demand answers. The kids, not wanting to lose Aoife's help over spilling her secret, run away. Caoimhe witnesses this and offers a name in exchange for a true answer to a question from each in the future. She points them to Aoife (also hoping a bit that they discover who Aoife really is). She is later drawn in by them discussing hidden rooms in the Academy. If the Academy has any secrets, Caoimhe will be the first to discover them.

The four join forces and learn more than they ever wanted.

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[imtooscaredforthis]

Unknown Caller

Ghostface x Reader Smut

Summary: Late at night, you start getting texts from the serial killer and your stalker, Ghostface.

Mentions of: Threats, Death, Stabbing, Sexting, Phone sex, Knife play, Oral Sex, Voyeurism, Recording w/out Consent and Danny being super horny

Word Count: 2.4K

With an exhausted groan, you collapsed back onto your bed, letting the mattress suck you in. It had been yet another long, shitty work day, leaving you mentally drained and wanting to sleep.

The only thing that kept you from sleeping was how gross, sticky, and sweaty you felt from walking around in that shitty waitress uniform. It was a summer day in Florida, after all. Of course you would be burning your ass off. And somehow, the urge to take a shower overpowered your fatigue.

So after an extra moment or two of laying down, you got up, grabbing your phone and a towel, heading into the bathroom and locking the door behind you, just in case any unwelcome visitors came in. You knew exactly who that visitor was.

You tried to shake the thought of the masked murderer, not even daring to think his name. The last thing you needed tonight was having him come around. Maybe he would just give you a break for once and leave you alone. Maybe…

Sighing, you tapped at your phone, playing some music and stripping down. Stepping into the shower, you turned the heat all the way up, letting the hot water pour down onto your skin until it turned red. You washed off all the stress and trouble from the day, finally being able to relax.

Once you got out of the shower, you slipped on a black lacy bra with matching panties, using a robe to cover it up. You had grown used to spending the nights alone, with no one to take home, no friends to speak with.

You lost them all, since they all thought you were being crazy and paranoid about being stalked by Ghostface. Even after one of your dear friends died, (the only one who believed you) they still thought you were crazy. In fact, they thought you killed him. And the cops were no help either, thinking all the threats were just some prankster or copycat.

So now, here you sat on your bed, scrolling through social media, when you got a text.

Unknown: Evening, gorgeous

You stared at the message blankly, feeling your heart drop in your stomach. It was him.

You cast a protective glance over at your bedroom window, which had the curtains drawn and the blinds shut, as an attempt of giving yourself some sort of privacy from the stalker. Was he out there? Waiting outside the window to peek, or behind your door to jump out at you. Even though he’s been doing this for a while, you’d still never get used to it.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you began to type up a message to respond to him. You learned the hard way to answer his texts and calls.

(Y/N): What do you want to torture me with now?

Even though you were still quite afraid of the killer, there were times where you found him a complete nuisance, and got the guts to told him. This was one of those times.

Unknown: C’mon, don’t be like that. I have fun with the games we play. But I want to try something different tonight.

(Y/N): Like what?

Unknown: Like how I can see what you’re wearing and can’t help but wonder if you put all of that on just for me

You felt your face go a bright red, looking around and grabbing the hem over your robe, moving it over, attempting to cover up your body.

Unknown: There’s no use in covering it up now, I’ve already seen everything and it’s gotten me so hard

Looking at the text, you blinked a few times, making sure this was real. Maybe it was just some weird sex dream. You pinched yourself. Nope. This was real. The feared serial killer of Roseville was sexting you.

Unknown: You look so cute like that, all surprised and scared, it makes me want to cut you up and fuck you until you can’t walk.

Unknown: You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

Your mouth went dry as you tried to think of something to text him back with, your body running hot with arousal. You can’t believe this is turning you on. It really shouldn’t be.

Unknown: There’s no need to be so shy, (y/n). You know we can be honest with each other.

(Y/N): Yes I would

Unknown: Good girl

Unknown: My cock is just throbbing thinking about how nice and tight you would be, how good you would squeeze me, how I’d love to fill you up with my cum. And you’d love every second of it, wouldn’t you, baby?

(Y/N): Fuck yes

You rubbed your thighs together, feeling how drenched you were getting, a silent moan leaving your lips, not even realizing he was paying attention to every little detail.

Unknown: Shit, that was so hot. I’m really turning you on, aren’t I?

Unknown: You want to touch yourself don’t you? Want to get off on the dirty things I’m telling you? Well you can’t. Not unless you beg for it like a good girl.

You would object, but you knew you were too far in to stop yourself. It had been quite a long time since you had done something like this, and a part of you felt desperate. So, you did it. You begged.

(Y/N): Please, Ghostface. Please let me touch myself.

Unknown: Good. Go ahead, but take off that robe. You won’t be needing it.

Moving your arm out, you shrugged the robe off your shoulders, spreading your legs ever so slightly. Might as well give him a show.

You ran your hand down your stomach, moving it down to your hips, and then your thigh, while your other hand stayed high on your chest, running your finger over your clothed nipple. After a moment or two, you dipped your finger under the fabric, running it up and down your drenched slit. You played with your clit, leaning back and moaning softly.

Unknown: Fuck, I just want to run my knife all over the curves of your body

Unknown: Put two fingers in

You did as told, pushing two fingers into your opening, thrusting them in slowly. You didn’t even notice the distant flash of a camera recording you peeking out from behind your window.

You shut your eyes, biting your lip and arching your back, as you began to pick up the pace. The sound of your phone chiming managed to make you open your eyes, and snap out of your little fantasy, looking down at your phone.

Unknown: You look so fucking hot right now, I want to come in there and ruin you

(Y/N): Why don’t you?

Unknown: It’s tempting, but I need to do one thing first.

Unknown Number is calling…

You picked up, slowing your fingers. “Why’d you- why’d you stop?” He questioned between groans, his voice strained. So he was touching himself too.

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to-”

“Keep on going. Don’t stop. Add a finger.” He instructed.

An image of Ghostface stroking himself popped into your mind, making you pick up the pace. A string of mewls and whimpers left your mouth as you went even faster, feeling yourself grow close.

“You sound- shit, so nice babe. Makes me want to- even more-”

“Fuck, I’m g-going to- ah” Your body froze up, feeling yourself clench around your fingers.

It seemed like he was close too, considering how much he was panting, low groans and grunts. There was a brief silence on the other line, and you wondered if he hung up on you. But then, he spoke. “I’m coming in.”

He ended the call and you felt your heart leap in excitement, calming down from your high, and preparing for him to come in. You looked from the window to the door, wondering where he’d be entering.

A few minutes went by, and he still hadn’t shown up. A part of you wondered if this was some sort of sick game to humiliate you. If he was just going to leave you all alone.

“Miss me?” A familiar voice whispered into your ear, making you jump.

“Jesus don’t scare me like that.” You muttered, turning to face him.

“Why so grumpy? Is it because I kept you waiting? So impatient, so needy. I love it.” He grasped your chin, tilting your head and making you look up at him. He ran a gloved finger over your lips, tracing your cupid’s bow.

You felt your body grow hot at the contact, your thighs clenching together. He noticed, moving his hand away to finally give you what you so desperately craved. Grabbing your shoulders, he pushed you down on the bed, straddling you.

Slowly, he ran his knife over your skin, tracing it from your throat, down to your collar bones, and to your chest. It seemed he was being merciful tonight, because you could barely feel the blade against your skin, only a light tickle.

Moving his weapon to the middle of your chest, Ghostface sliced open your brassiere, splitting it in half and revealing your breasts. Well, there went your good underwear.

He ran his finger over your nipple, watching it harden under his touch, pinching it softly. The killer studied your expressions closely, taking in every single detail. The way your lips parted slightly, the way your cheeks heated up, and the way your eyebrows knitted together. God, you were so adorable.

Ghostface shifted his attention to your panties, cutting them off on the side, and pulling them down to your ankles slowly. He moved his hand back up to your opening, running his finger up your wet slit, feeling how soaked it was.

“So wet, all for me? I must’ve really left you waiting. Guess I better get to it then, huh?” His voice was smug, low, and full of mischief. You knew he was playing with you.

He rutted against his hips against you, making you whimper slightly. You knew he wouldn’t do anything, until you said it. “Please, fuck me, Ghostface.”

“Danny.”

You felt your eyes widen at his words. “What?”

“Call me Danny.” In all the time that you had known him, you never got a name out of him. But he was telling you it now. Why? Why was he doing this?

You were too busy processing what just happened to notice the sound of his buckle clicking, and his knife dropping onto the floor, while he was now holding his phone instead. The flash of a camera burned into your eyes, making you look up at him and snap out of your thoughts.

“What’re you doing?” You asked, squinting at the light and covering your eyes with one hand trying to hide the glare.

“Makin a little movie.” He grabbed your hands with his free one, moving them from your face and pinning them above your head. “And you’re the star. Aren’t you excited?”

“I- shit-” Before you could even respond to what he was saying, you felt his cock press up against your soaked folds.

He moved his camera down to your breasts, watching your chest heave, before moving it back up to your face. “Now what’s the magic word? C’mon, you know what to say. You’ve been saying it all night.”

“Please, Danny.” You begged, bucking your hips up against his hardened member. “Please what?”

“Please just fuck me.” You rolled your head against the pillow. He was driving you crazy at this point with how much he was teasing you and making you beg.

Finally, he gave you what you had grown desperate for, entering you with a rough thrust. It was painful at first, the killer not showing any mercy, but you forced yourself to grow used to it.

You moaned out, the feeling of fulfillment overcoming your already sensitive hole. You arched your back, grabbing onto his forearm, digging your nails into his muscle under his robe.

Tears began to stream down your face as you babbled, incoherent words slipping from your lips. It was too good, and you couldn’t think of something, anything, to say to describe it. He was fucking you stupid.

He zoomed in on your tears, watching as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. “Damn, baby. Is it really that good? Do you love getting fucked by my cock that much?”

You didn’t speak, not even sure if you could. He pinched your nipple, making you yelp. “Y-yes! Its- it’s so g-good.”

Danny moved his free hand to your clit, thrusting even deeper, until he hit just at the right spot. You cried out, clenching around him. Moaning out for him to please never stop, to keep going.

“Oh baby, you think I could stop? Not with the way you’re clenching around and calling out my name, begging for- shit.” He grunted, feeling your walls begin to massage him, you were getting close. And so was he.

He nestled his head into the crook of your neck and shoulder, pulling his mask up his face, and biting down, breaking your skin and drawing your blood, his movements growing even harsher. While you dug your nails into his back, reaching your orgasm, Danny not too far behind.

The half-masked killer wiped the blood from his lips, grinning down at you. “There, I marked you as mine. You’re my little slut, got it? Say it.”

You nodded, eyes still shut, your mouth open with only moans and gasps escaping. You forced yourself to speak, voice all hoarse and raw. “I’m your slut, Ghostface- Danny- whatever, I’m all yours.”

“That’s it. Such a good girl. Fuck-” His thrusts grew sloppy, and he rubbed at your clit even harder, making you climax once again with him. He pulled out, releasing on your stomach, and ending the video.

He pressed a rough kiss to your lips, before readjusting his mask, cleaning himself off, and fixing his clothes up. All the while you laid there, nude, panting, and coming down from the intense high you just had. You felt another flash blind your eyes, and the sound of a camera clicking, knowing he just took another picture.

Moving aside your curtains and blinds, Ghostface unlocked your window, pulling it up and stepping through. “This was fun. Let’s do it again sometime. See you soon.”

[lemonlurkrr]

@aureateart​ ok. My favourite parts of twilight princess  (and some other random thoughts about TP sprinkled in there) taken from my monster TP word vomit google doc :

Link lmao

Ok but for real, I like this incarnation of Link :)

I love Ordon (it just seems like such a chill and cozy village)

ALSO love how easy it is to interpret Link as being a sort of older brother figure to the Ordon kiddos. It’s just,, super cute? AND GHHH nice nice good thanks nintendo for giving me characters to care about/characters that I can imagine Link caring about

He didn’t sign up for any of this (tbh, none of the Links really signed up for this jshdjsd). But I mean like, dude was just going to take a trip to castle town, drop a gift off for the royal family, and come back. But haHA oopsies he did get to castle town eventually but definitely not the way he expected hsjdhsd

He’s just a little dude?

AND FUCK. HE REALLY HAD NEVER BEEN OUTSIDE OF ORDON UNTIL ALL OF THAT

everything is new for the player AND Link

Midna

She’s cool :)

she really just

*teleports into your jail cell* hello whore.

I am no master at writing but AYYYY she do got a character arc!!!

She was actually pretty helpful sometimes, I ALWAYS checked in with her before turning to a game guide

Other NPCs

NICE

Love all of the TP character designs (ASHEI’S ARMOUR??? AOWOAOAOOAO)

Saving Zelda and all of Hyrule was important yea but thinking back maybe it was more like, the Ordonians and the kids were what was pushing Link to keep on going

I like the Resistance members :) Very video gamey of them to have one NPC assigned to each dungeon but hey!!! Kinda cool getting to see a little glimpse of each of em

Idk, it’s just fun to imagine Link popping into Telma’s bar after each dungeon and taking a little rest :) (or to celebrate? maybe just chat, idk, give this man some downtime!!)

Honestly it was just kind of nice that Link wasn’t entirely alone. I mean, I know Midna was there the whole time, but I am always for giving Link a big group of friends (see my love for hyrule warriors, age of calamity, and LU LMAO)

Hero’s shade, very very cool, kinda sad he died with regrets but HEY. He got to pass on his knowledge eventually

AND the connection to OoT?? AND assumed to be related by blood too????? GOOD SHIT

Ilia, I REALLY really wanted to like her (er, it’s not like I dislike her, she’s just,,, kinda there for me).

It definitely seems like Nintendo was pushing to make her the romantic interest, but GHHHHH they really threw that out of the window for me by having her lose her memories

I saw a text post a while ago that said it would have been interesting if Ilia was Link’s sister instead and YES!! That would have been cool too :0

Wish we got to know Zelda a little more

I feel like we barely know anything about her

Idk man, like I said earlier, I never really had any sort of drive to save Zelda during my playthroughs

She obviously knows Midna, so maybe if they gave us just a little bit more of that relationship I’d be more interested in her?

TP WORLD BUILDINGGGG

Botw has good world building too, but each race felt kinda,,, isolated? I absolutely love the different architecture and vibe each town has (and all the the weapons too) but ghhh yea everyone felt so separated. As far as I can remember, we don’t see tooo much of the races interacting with each other? Now that I’m typing that out maybe that’s to be expected because of the calamity but KLSJDKJFD ANYWAYS THIS IS ABOUT TP

The world feels nice and alive, love how populated everything is

Castle town I like castle town a lot, it feels dense and busy and I really like how you can’t talk to every NPC you see

Very cool very fun that we got to see the Gorons hanging out in multiple spots

kinda wish we got to see the Zoras a little more (I guess they are a bit limited since they need water but GHHHH the tp zoras are so prebby,,)

BUT HEY, I do remember seeing a zora or two hanging out in the hot springs around death mountain after beating the lakebed temple (I think, might have been a different dungeon) 

but aaaa would have been nice to see them in at least a couple of other places. I think it would have really added to the “congrats Link!! You’re restoring peace to Hyrule” feeling you get from seeing the Gorons hanging out in Kakariko and Castle Town

ORDON

Love how chill it is and how it’s kind of separate from Hyrule proper

They really do seem to be doing their own thing apart from the rest of Hyrule

Just kinda adds onto the “he’s just a regular dude minding his own business” kind of vibes I get from TP Link

Also I like Ordona :)

THE LIGHT SPIRITS,,

Love their design

And love how they’re not exactly like a pure white?

Different spirit representing each aspect of the triforce my beloved

But yes hi I think Ordona is very cool

Who are you, how did you get here, which goddess do you represent? Do you even represent one of the three golden goddesses? Do the Ordonians know about you? Have any of them ever SEEN you??? Do they worship you? Does anybody even know about the existence of the light spirits?? FUCK so many questions but ghhh I like how they broke the status quo a bit by throwing in a fourth spirit :)

I feel like this one is kinda weird but I like that voice sample they used in the light spirit music. It’s spooky and pretty at the same time :)  

cutscenes mmmmm

Ok ok, the spooky lanayru cutscene is very good

BUT THE “Link, Chosen Hero! Lend us the last of your power!” CUTSCENE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM LOVE IT SO MUCH

IT just

Idk man

It just hit different

I like the music

And seeing the light spirits swimming around in the light juice water whatever it is

Summoning the light arrows?

AND HHHHH “Lend us the last of your power!” THIS IS IT. This is the final battle.

Seeing Zelda bow down, and then Link putting his hand out 👌👌👌

Link: ok bud, let’s do this together :)

Connection to OoT (did I already mention this? Maybe., Whatever)

Very cool nintendo :)

I love seeing connections between all the diff zelda games.

Because like, on one hand, they’re all separate from each other because of yknow, individual hero stuff. BUT ALSO, they’re all connected because of the reincarnation stuff

Grrrr walking through the sacred grove and going “The Hero of Time walked around here a long time ago” FUCK THATS SO COOL

Is the Hero’s Shade watching me? What does he think of me? DIsappointed? Proud? The Hero of Time went through HELL so this timeline didn’t have to deal with any of the shit Ganon was gonna pull with the triforce, better not fuck this UP Link!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Midlink is cute

Kinda hurts that she smashed the mirror but that was probably so Nintendo didn’t have to worry about people going “but what about the twili??????” for any of the other games LMAO

BUT ALSO LIKE SKJDKLJFJ There are some pretty massive plot holes in TP anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whatever it’s fine we’ll just use this for angst because GOD do y’all like angst

So is Shadlink

Honestly don’t know where this ship came from but it’s cute so whatever

THE MUSIC??

Love Midna’s theme and how they referenced the dark world theme from ALttP (I remember trying to learn the dark world theme on the piano and doing the Leonardo DiCaprio point meme at the little jingle I recognized from Midna’s theme)

Hyrule field theme SLAPS.

Apparently references a couple of the other over-world themes from the previous zelda games (I got this from 8-bit Music theory’s video on the over-world zelda themes, he talks about TP at around 11:40 but def recommend watching the whole video if you’re into music analysis stuff)

So there’s this bit of the Hyrule Field theme, I don’t know the official name for it but I remember seeing somewhere it being called the “at an advantage theme” since yeah, you hear it during the boss music whenever you expose their weak points. FUCKINGGG LOVE THAT. Didn’t notice it during my first playthrough, but hearing it during my second was like a little easter egg for my ears every time :)

Midna’s lament is very pretty (and fun to play on the piano)

COURAGE THEME.

I didn’t care for it too much when I started playing the game but hearing it in ZREO’s arrangement of the Hyrule Field theme literally makes me turn into a puddle of emotions. Also hearing it around and of the Ordon kids (I think it plays after Link saves Colin) AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Orchestra piece #1 and #2 HOLY SHIT???????????????? 

Literally, the first time I listened to those I just,,,, plugged in my headphones, volume 100, layed on the floor/against my desk and silently vibed. I don’t know what the hell it is, but those two just fit so well with TP?? I still avoid listening to them nowadays cause if I DO I definitely will get overwhelmed with the “god I love this game so FUCKING MUCH” kind of feels.

Wolf link sucks at singing

the first time I heard him howling Zelda’s Lullaby I lost my shit because LKSJLDKSGLKJFSKG god that was.,, Bad. Anyways, hearing him howl some of the songs from OoT was cute :)

TP STAFF ROLL??? 

VERY GOOD. IT’s like 10 minutes long and GOD do I love every single second of it. It doesn’t have the same energy as the skyward sword staff roll or the orchestra pieces but GOD does it hit good??

Nice and calm after that big exciting adventure. Maybe it would have been more fun or emotional to have a higher energy piece but it was really nice getting to sit back and watch the camera fly around Hyrule. Seeing like, the Gorons and the Zoras having a good time, the kids returning to Ordon? GOOD SHIT.

and AAAAA that end, when you hear the main Zelda theme and see Link riding off out of Faron woods on Epona… good shit. It gets you thinking, where the hell is he going? What is he doing? Off ot do more adventuring? Going to help out the resistance or something? Going to help Zelda? Or maybe he’s trying to figure out a way to restore the mirror of twilight? Whoooo knows.

hhHHHHhhh it’s just that final reminder that YES!!! YOU JUST PLAYED A ZELDA GAME. JUST ANOTHER STORY APART OF THE WHOLE EPIC OF THE ZELDA SERIES AS A WHOLE

I also want to acknowledge the instrument/samples they used for all the twili stuff.

They’re all just so unique and contrast SO well with the rest of the TP OST. LIKE FUCK!! Anytime I hear the screech from the Twilit Kargarok? Sends a shiver down my spine. I associate those sounds SO strongly with the twili realm. (Like, the same way you associate the BSHEWW VVWWMMM sounds with light sabers)

I love it so god damn much

literally any time there’s a certain sound or motif associated with something I lose my shit

Sacred grove sacred grove sacred gro-

lovely lovely lovely so much fun playing that on the piano. AND again, I did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme when I heard the theme from the lost woods come in GHHHHHHHH

shoutout to TP Faron Woods for helping me study and get through all of my schoolwork

BLEGUUHHH can you tell that I really love music?

and also yea I guess TP is kinda cool too :\

IF YOU READ ALL OF THAT THANKS I GUESS

[user21340]

my only exception

(i don’t own this gif or any of the characters in this fic)

summary: you and nat are separated when in the Red Room. you both are reunited. after holding onto a couple things to give her for a couple years you both realize love is well and alive.

warnings: violence, abuse, swearing, lil angst, fluff

pairing: natasha romanoff x fem!reader

word count: nearly 1.8k

a/n: omg i don’t know what to say! thank you for all the support on the stuff i’ve released so far. it’s super crazy seeing some of my favorite writers following me. thank you so so much for 30 followers! much love 💕💕

(italics in dialogue mean the person is speaking russian)

sorry for any mistakes i wrote this at 3am and have to get up for school at 6 😪 no bueno

It was a cold and stormy night as the power in the Red Room continuously flickered on and off even with the help of a high powered generator.

You and Natalia had been waiting for an event like this to occur so you could break out. Even though both herself and you lived only a small bit of life outside in the real world before you were taken in and trained to become a weapon, both of your humanly morals knew right from wrong. The Red Room’s treatment definitely being a wrong.

Madame B and the other monstrous staff at this facility put all you girls to bed roughly an hour ago. Nat and yourself undid your cuffs connecting your wrist to the metal bedframe so you could pack the few things you both owned before you made your escape. Both of you had talked this plan over through and through so you both were on the same page as soon as you saw that flicker of a power outage surge though the site.

At the moment you both were eighteen years old meaning both of you had proven yourselves worthy enough to hone a spot at this academy and had graduated a couple months prior.

GAME PLAN

Some information you had gathered which the staff weren’t aware of was every time the power flickered off, it disarmed and unlocked the exit door/s for nearly five seconds. The weather has been dry but cold lately not making this discovery too useful. The plan was to sneak over to uncuff yourselves in the middle of the night when these brief power outages were occurring, pack your items, and as you were about to escape bang on the wall of the large room where the girls kept at the academy would sleep to create enough of a distraction before you were out and free for good. Easy right? How wrong you’d be.

When it was time for the distraction, Nat stood by the door waiting for the next surge of lightning of whatever broke the electricities stability as you walked to the far side of the sleeping quarters where you were sure you’d have enough time to bang on the walls and sprint out of that door.

You heard a crash of thunder so you knew your escape chance would be soon. As you were about to start banging on the walls you see a door knob parallel to Nat but far away none the less start turning.

BAM

Lightning strikes, what seems to be right outside of the building. You sprint for the door only to have your arm caught by one of Madame B’s henchmen.

Just like that the power flickers.

five.

Without much thought you break away from the man’s grasp lunge at Natalia who happened to be at the door.

four.

“We’ll meet again Natalia.” you speak softly

three.

You shove her out of the door with all of your might.

two.

You use all of your remaining strength that you can muster up to slam the heavy metal door closed.

one.

Click

The door locks once again.

“You stupid little bitch. Get over here NOW!” the man practically growls.

You slowly and steadily walk over to the man as he gruesomely pummels and kicks you.

Sure the beatings, mind torture and manipulation hurt, but you’ve never experienced any kind of pain on the same caliber to what being separated from Natalia feels like.

Madame B is more than disappointed, enraged and annoyed with one of her ‘star students’. You receive daily beatings and long, tiresome training hours for helping Natalia escape. Although everyone is ‘replaceable’ in the minds of the staff as well as Madame B, they just lost Natalia so they couldn’t afford to lose you as well.

Months later the beatings finally slow down to a couple a week which you are able to endure. Madame’s mission now is to make a monster out of you by pushing you to and past your limits when training.

One night you finally drift off to sleep. You hate sleeping. It’s a constant replay of your last night with Nat. Only hoping that she made it to civilization safe and sound and is living a normal teens life. However, tonight’s dream is different. In this dream you see yourself shoving your packed-escape bag between your mattress and bedframe as you are bleeding out on the ground from the beatings. You wake up in a cold sweat and manage to kneel on the ground and slowly lift up your mattress only to find that same, small bag filled with the few, but important belongings of yours and Nat’s. You open up the bag forgetting all about what you both had packed. The most important items you see is a picture of Natalia as a toddler with alongside her mother and father, a small metal ring which you had made for her after stealing a small teaspoon at dinner, banging it against the concrete floor with a rock to flatten it out as you’d continuously bend it back and fourth so only the thinnest part is of the spoon is left which you bend into a ring before surprising Nat with it after you know she had a pretty rough day training, and lastly Nat’s papers containing important info about her such as her full name, birthplace, parents names, and birthdate.

November 22, 1984

November 22, 1984

November 22, 1984

November 22, 1984

You make sure you have this date burned into your head, latching onto any important information about her you can learn.

You hang onto those three items keeping them hidden.

Two and a half years later...

It’s late at night when you hear gunshots and fights breaking out throughout the facility. You quickly get up out of bed (once again undoing your cuffs) and grab those three items from under your mattress. You place them in your pocket getting ready to make a break for the outside world. As you reach for the door you turn back taking one last look at the place you’ve been living for pretty much the entirety of your life, only before a man in a funny red, white, and blue costume enters your view.

You bring your hands up ready for a fight.

“Look kid, I’m not here to fight you. We are breaking you out.” the man ensures

“Who even are you?” you sternly question

“Steve Rogers. But the public calls me Captain America.” his gaze settles on your figure, “Mind telling me who you are?” he pushes

“Names y/n, but look I’ve got places to be ma-“ you are cut off when Captain America’s jaw drops.

“No, we both know you don’t. But, you ARE coming with me.” you know there isn’t much room for protest but that won’t stop you from trying. You lunge at him and push him to the ground as you wave a small goodbye and sprint towards the door only for your body to fall on the ground limp. Realizing you’ve been stunned by something temporarily.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” you shriek, he only chuckles.

“God, Nat was right about you.” she shakes he head with a small grin on his face.

“N-nat?” you whisper as you vision fades black.

You regain consciousness and look around only to find yourself in a weird windowy, loud vehicle type thing. You see a group of people standing around you but you see one particular familiar face hovering directly over yours lightly combing through your hair with one one hand and gently outlining your jawline with the other.

“NAT!” you screech, your brain is feeling too many emotions to comprehend at the moment.

Once she sees and hears you are awake she pulls you into a bone crushing hug.

“Y/n/n I’m so sorry I left you and you had to stay in that hellhole for so long alone I don’t know how I would’ve help up it if that-“ you cut her off

“Natalia, all that matters is I’m here with you right now.” you reason.

After getting off of what you learned is a ‘plane’ you and Nat spend hours together clinging onto one another as if, as soon as you separate you will be absent in her life for another couple years, vice versa.

Months pass by. Even though you and Nat have yet to label yourselves as a couple your hearts belong to one another after being attached to the hip to one another for pretty much every activity or mission you both do. In this time you were also recruited as an Avenger due to your skillful hand to hand combat and your masterful types of fighting you have nearly perfected from your time in the room.

The date just happens to be November 22. You are pretty sure no one in the compound is aware of Natalia’s birthday, hell, you aren’t even sure if she’s aware.

Today is the day you decide to return the missing items from her bag that you recover after she left.

You wake up next to her and wake her up with a long, graceful, soft kiss on her lips to which she responds shortly after by kissing you back as you feel as tiny smirk against your own lips.

“Hey, what was that for?” she asks playfully

“Ohhh nothing. Just maybe it’s for my favorite girl’s special day today.” Nat blushes.

“H-how’d you know?”

“Oh honey, I know e v e r y t h i n g.” you reply

Before she can respond you pull her to sit up on your shared bed and hand her an envelope containing her papers as well as he one and only photo of herself and her family.

As soon as she sees both items she sobs into your chest. (more because of the picture, you really only included her papers so she too would know all the most crucial parts of her life pre-red room era.

“Uh, uh, uh’” you tut,”One more thing.” you reach for her hand slowly and tell her to shut her eyes. You slowly slide the makeshift ring on her finger.

“Open.” you instruct

To which she gasps at the sight and just like the day you both were reunited you hugged and kissed for hours on end.

“Nat, will you be my girlfriend?” you ask with a sheepish smile.

“Of course y/n/n, I thought you’d never ask.” she takes a breath,“I know love is for children, but you are my only exception.”

“Ditto.” Natalia chuckles, “That is what the Americans say, right?” you backtrack with flushed cheeks.

She holds you tighter and presses a soft kiss to your forehead.

“Sure.” she breathes out.

[albakore]

Brotherly Rivalry

Synopsis (request): I enjoy your blog maybe way too much, and I just thought of something… how Diluc would be if his s/o is close to Kaeya and vice versa ?? I think these two would be more jealous if their s/o is close to the other 🤔 so yup jealousy hc or whatever you’d like please ^^~

Characters: Kaeya, Diluc (gn!reader)

Warnings: a little angsty in Kaeya's, but there's fluff at the end. also not proofread

A/N: YES !! YES !!!!!! I was so excited to see this request as a diluc and kaeya enjoyer >:D also thank you for the compliments you’re too nice!!

Diluc

if you’re close with kaeya before you start dating him, he tries to block it out at first

he knows rationally that it wasn’t like you had to choose one brother or the other

but also knowing what he knows about kaeya, he does his absolute best to “warn you” about kaeyas “real self”

in his mind he’s only doing it out of concern for your well-being!

he knows kaeya will not have been honest about his background

absolutely denies being jealous.

“I’m not a child…”

glares at kaeya all night whenever kaeya decides he wants to hang out with you at Angel’s share, effectively stealing your attention away from Diluc

but if you ever go out with kaeya just the two of you? oh boy Diluc’s heart might just combust and not in a Good Way

“Hey, ‘Luc, I’m headed out for the day!” You called in the direction of his study as you sat down by the door to put your shoes on.

“Where are you going?” He asked as he emerged from the doorway, heavy footsteps making their way over to where you were sitting.

“Kaeya and I are going out calla lily picking.” You replied cheerily, not taking your eyes off your laces as you worked them up. You didn’t catch the way the man behind you stiffened immediately.

“Just you and him?” He asked tentatively, eyes trained on your back. His eyebrows had furrowed and his lips quirked downward. You let out a small ‘mhm’ before standing up finally and turning around to face him. His chest felt hot but he couldn’t quite put a finger on why, probably just out of concern for you.. yes, that had to be it. Was it always so hard to breathe in here? He crossed his arms over his chest defensively as he kept his eyes trained on you.

“Is something wrong?” You asked, reaching out to smooth over some of his unruly hair. He subconsciously leaned into your touch and let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“Just be careful, ok?” He had so much more he would’ve liked to say, so much more he would’ve liked to tell you to do, but he feared sounding possessive and controlling. He knew you could take care of yourself. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust you either, quite the opposite in fact. He would put the world in your hands without hesitation. So why did the thought of you going out with his brother seem to bother him so much?

“Of course!” You again flashed him a smile, then turned around and let your hand rest on the doorknob.

Before you could even twist the door open, his hand caught your wrist and he turned you around to face him. “(Y/N). I’m serious.” He murmured as he pulled you closer to him. Diluc rarely ever initiated any contact, so the embrace caught you off guard. It was only then that it clicked to you. He didn’t mean stay safe from the hilichurls or abyss mages, he meant from Kaeya. You’d heard a story or two about Kaeya making some questionable decisions in the name of getting the job done, like activating a ruin guard and putting his own men in danger, but he’d never put you in any danger thus far…

You wrapped your arm around Diluc and brought his head to your shoulder comfortingly. “I’ll be fine ‘Luc, promise.” You whispered to him. You could feel his racing pulse under your fingers as his arms stayed wrapped around you. “Say, are you perhaps… jealous?” You added in teasingly as you stroked his hair. He gave a small huff instead of a verbal response tightening his hold on you slightly.

A knock sounded on the door behind you interrupting your moment together. “Well, I better get going. I’ll be back for dinner, okay?” You finally slipped from his grasp as you walked back over for the door. His mind drifted as you greeted his brother, his only thought being how badly he didn’t want to leave you two alone. Maybe he could convince you to let him tag along…

Kaeya

bitter

that’s the best word to describe him

he can’t help but feel inferior to Diluc in a lot of ways, Diluc is rich and compassionate and handsome

not that Kaeya lacks any of those things anyway

well maybe he's not rich but he's definitely financially stable at least

so learning of your friendship, or even knowing prior and trying to pursue a relationship with you anyway

he often finds himself reviewing his actions, your actions, what you find appealing in Diluc, etc. trying to figure out what he should do more or less of to keep your attention solely on him

jokes about it all the time to cover up his true feelings about the scenario.

"Darling if I didn't know any better I'd say you were dating Diluc instead of me." chuckles to hide the pain

will be so absolutely hurt if he finds out you're honest with Diluc about things you weren't open with him about

"Why is he helping you with this instead of me?" Kaeya asked, defensively crossing his arms over his chest. He had learned through his other contacts that the Abyss had targeted you for some reason. They were sending you threats and other vaguely worrying messages, and the worst part is you went to Diluc to ask for help instead of your dear boyfriend! Kaeya had stumbled upon you two out in the wilderness fighting some abyss mages together when he pulled you away giving Diluc some vague excuse about how he needed to talk to you.

"It's not like that, Kae, I swear-" You quickly tried to put his ever racing mind at ease.

"I'm not sure what you mean by that, care to catch me up to speed?" He feigned innocence, wanting to hear you say outright that it looked a little suspicious to be running around with Diluc like you had. Kaeya wanted nothing more than to be able to place his utmost trust in you and for you to be able to do the same with him. This kind of treatment is the kind of thing Kaeya finds happening in his worst nightmares.

You sighed, "you know what I mean."

"No, actually, I don't. I asked a simple question about why he was helping you, I didn't insinuate anything else was going on. In fact, you were the one to bring up the notion that there was something more between you two. Should I be worried?" His eyebrows were furrowed, his gaze fixated on your reaction. His normal cocky smile was replaced with a rare but genuine frown of concern.

"Listen," you started, "the only reason he's helping me is because he got a letter similar to mine. They both asked us to meet our perpetrator at the same location, it was only coincidence on our end that we ended up running into each other." You watched as Kaeya slowly unfolded his arms and let his shoulders sag with a sigh. You grabbed his hand gently, rubbing soothing circles over the skin that peeked out over the leather.

"I was going to tell you at that dinner we had planned tonight." You continued softly, pulling a little envelope out of your back pocket and showcasing to him the Abyss's message to you. "I didn't want to pull you away from your work until I knew what was going on. I never meant to make you feel like I was sneaking around you. For that, I really am sorry." You brought his hand to your lips, placing a soft kiss over his knuckles.

He brought you into a hug and tightened his arms around you, pressing a kiss of his own to your temple. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have gotten so defensive." He whispered to you, a soft resignation that not many people got to witness from the usually cocky calvary captain. "If you ever have trouble with anything else, please don't hesitate to come pull me from my work, whether you know the full story or not." A pleasant breeze engulfed the two of you standing in the middle of the forest in each others embrace. Bird chirping and rustling leaves mixed with the sounds of Kaeya's heartbeat to make for the perfect ambience for you two to bask in whilst in each other's presence.

The sound of a branch snapping caused both of you to split apart and draw your weapons on high alert. To your chagrin, there stood and incredibly uncomfortable-looking Diluc just a few feet away from you two. He realized fast that you two had noticed him and he quickly cleared his throat. "Sorry, you two were taking a long time and I grew concerned for (y/n)'s wellbeing.."

[sky-berrie]

How would the batboys react to a female SO with Paranoid Personality Disorder?

Hi there!

Thanks so much for the ask. I hope this is okay :)

-Sky

Bruce

As a person living with paranoid personality disorder, you might be terrified that people are out to harm you. Your place of residence, Gotham city, does nothing but exacerbate your paranoid thought patterns, since criminals run rampant through the streets. It’s hard to distinguish between paranoid thoughts and substantiated concerns. Is that sketchy person with the full face covering one of Black Mask’s False Face Society members sent to abduct you, or are they just a conscientious citizen taking extra precautions to avoid contracting or transmitting the COVID virus? Being in a state of constant fear prevents you from living your life to the fullest. Luckily, your S/O happens to be Batman in his free time.

Bruce eases your mind just with his presence. He’s probably the smartest, strongest, and most resourceful person you know and being with him makes you feel safe. Bruce is the kind of person who you’d blindly listen to during an emergency – if he told you to jump out of a burning plane, you’d do it without a second thought because he’s never let you down in the past and you’re confident that he never will in the future. If you’re feeling fearful in public, Bruce will grab your hand or put an arm around you securely and soothingly whisper in your ear that he’s right here and there’s nothing to worry about. Having paranoid thoughts means that it’s difficult to reason with you, so you probably aren’t convinced that there is no threat, but you do experience some relief from his soft touch and gentle words. He’ll ask if you want to leave and he’ll take you to your safe space. If you’re feeling fearful in private, Bruce will hold you close and rub your back to reduce your anxiety. If you’re by yourself and start to have those racing, panicked paranoid thoughts, you can always call Bruce. He’ll drop whatever he is doing and come take care of you.

Bruce will teach you self defense to help you feel more comfortable around people. He won’t arm you with any dangerous weapons because he doesn’t want an innocent person to get hurt if you get spooked. Bruce will ask if you want to move into the manor since it has strong security and comes with several vigilantes. If you would rather stay at your own place, Bruce will install a variety of safety systems to make you feel protected. He’ll even spend most nights at your place so you can sleep peacefully. Overall, Bruce is like your lifeline. He’ll know just what to do to help you through your difficult thoughts.

Dick

Dick is a social butterfly who’s had his fair share of romantic partners in the past so it’s natural for you to feel jealous when he spends time with other people. Dick will adamantly declare that he’s with you and only you. At first you might try to ignore the prickly feeling of jealousy because you don’t want to come off as a possessive S/O, but the clues accumulate and suggest that he’s cheating on you. For example, he’ll rarely spend the night with you. You’ll catch him sneaking into bed at ungodly hours of the morning. When confronted, he’ll make up an excuse that he just went to get a drink of water or use the bathroom. You’ll spot bruises scattered over his chest knowing you definitely did not leave those there. He’ll play it off as a gym injury.

When you raise your suspicions, Dick is hesitant to explain. You take this as confirmation of infidelity and you’re ready to walk out. At that point, he has no choice but to come clean about his secret identity as Nightwing. That sounds farfetched and you likely think he’s a pathological liar. Finally, Dick proves it to you and explains that he didn’t want you to be dragged into his dangerous nightlife. While you accept that as the truth, you’ll always wonder if he’s hiding more secrets. Furthermore, you’re probably pissed that he was gaslighting you. Dick will do everything he can to make it up to you. He’ll apologize profusely and in extravagant ways, be more transparent, and shower you with excessive love and affection. It might take a long time, but eventually Dick will worm his way back into your good graces.

It doesn’t take long for the green-eyed monster to rear its’ ugly head again. Now that you’re in the know, you’re hyperaware of the attractive vigilantes that Dick works with and it’s emotionally draining to be jealous all the time. You don’t want to be the type of person who tries to control their partner’s life, but when the suffering becomes too much to bear, you might ask him to stop seeing certain people. Dick will calmly assure you that there isn’t anything going on with any of his vigilante friends. If that doesn’t appease you, he’ll suggest that you hang out with the team and get to know them. He hopes that you’ll see that there aren’t any romantic feelings between them. Whatever you do, please don’t force him to choose between you and his hero life. It will tear him apart.

Jason

Trust is very important to Jason. He doesn’t trust many people as it is and needs a S/O who he can trust wholeheartedly and who will trust him in return. He believes that this relationship will fail if you don’t have confidence in each other. He’ll take it personally if you distrust him. Jason will get defensive and frustrated if you accuse him of being unfaithful, especially if you don’t have a shred of evidence to support your claims. He’ll be offended and deeply hurt that you think so negatively of him but once he’s had some time to cool off, he’ll be able to process everything more objectively. He’ll accept that you can’t control the way you feel. You’d explained it to him once that you do trust him, but there’s a separate voice in your head that tells you otherwise. Jason won’t give up on you though. He’ll come up with a proposition - he’ll agree to install a tracking app on his phone so you can monitor his whereabouts if you’ll promise to work on learning to trust him, whether it be via professional psychotherapy or reading self-help books.

On the other hand, if Jason is one of the only people you trust, he’ll be elated to know that you two have built such a strong connection. It’ll be easy to confide in him because he’ll gladly listen to your worried thoughts with no judgement. At first, he’ll reassure you that nothing bad is going to happen to you – he’s Red Hood and nobody is going to pull anything on you if they value their life. Eventually he’ll realize that trying to reason with you isn’t helpful so he’ll stick to active listening when you’re experiencing paranoid thoughts.

However, if Jason is fresh out of the pit and emotionally unstable, you two will probably bond over your mutual distrust and cynicism about the world. Although you and Jason will get along exceptionally well, it’s possible that your irrational thoughts may feed each other’s paranoia and exacerbate the feelings of mistrust and suspicion. If you find yourself unable to let things go, feel free to vent away when you’re with Jason. He is the king of holding grudges, so he’ll probably support you and even join in on trash talking that person with you when you’re angry. Learning to forgive and forget is something you and Jason can work on together. In a way, it brings you two closer together since you understand each other on a level that others can’t begin to comprehend.

Tim

Tim very compassionate and patient; however, he’s afraid of triggering you so he’s often walking on eggshells around you. He just wants to be the perfect supportive S/O for you and doesn’t want to mess up the relationship. His worst offense (in your eyes) is using ambiguous language that lends to multiple interpretations. For example, he might innocently compliment your clothes/hair/makeup and you might assume that he only likes you for your appearance or that he’s implying that you’re vain for wanting to look nice. The moment you shoot him daggers, he’s realized his mistake and starts to furiously backpedal. He tries to explain himself, but he usually ends up digging himself a deeper hole. Eventually, he gets better at expressing his thoughts carefully so that they can’t be misconstrued.

Tim diligently tries to learn your other triggers and how to help. When you’re stuck in a cycle of paranoid thoughts, Tim will get you to focus on what’s real instead of trying to make you see sense. He’ll help you relax by walking you through breathing exercises, playing soothing music, or whatever strategies you find helpful.

Tim isn’t proud of this, but he’s resorted to deceiving you when necessary. For instance, if you’re experiencing paranoid thought patterns and want to be alone, Tim will hesitantly leave, but he’ll probably secretly monitor you only because he’s worried about your safety. If you’re afraid that others are reading your mind, he might pretend that he invented an anti-mindreading helmet to ease your suspicions. He knows you would feel betrayed if you ever found out about his dishonesty, but he reasons that your safety and comfort are more important in the moment.

Damian

Arguments with Damian are brutal. No matter how insignificant the disagreement is, Damian refuses to back down when he believes he’s right. Paired with your own stubbornness and contentiousness, these quarrels generally result in an impasse. Eventually your anger subsides and the depression sinks in. You might assume that Damian doesn’t love you anymore and that fight was the end of your relationship. Maybe you start packing your belongings to move out right away. Damian comes up behind you and asks what you’re doing. When you tell him that you’re leaving because he doesn’t want you anymore, he’s instantly remorseful. He takes your bags out of your hands and proceeds to pull you in close as he tells you how much he loves you. He assures you that two people can disagree and still love each other.

Damian doesn’t want to argue with you and he certainly doesn’t want to see you upset so he’ll always excuse himself before the argument becomes too heated. He hopes that some time apart will allow you both to calm down and come to a compromise, but it’s never that simple. Most of the time, you’ll need a third-party mediator, like a therapist, to resolve your dispute. The act of seeking out a therapist will be a huge accomplishment for your relationship. Damian likes his privacy and doesn’t want someone else in his business and you might be afraid to share intimate information with a stranger in fear that it will be used against you. Nevertheless, you both want to make this relationship work, so you’ll continue to seek help.

Damian has a habit of being blunt. He doesn’t mean to criticize or insult you – in his mind, he is only stating the facts or his opinion for the purpose of helping you improve. Despite his goodhearted intentions, it’s easy for you to take his comments the wrong way and perceive it as a personal attack. If he sees that his remarks have upset you, he’ll acknowledge all the positive aspects of your performance. Still, you might cling to the disparaging comments and ignore the praise. Going forward, Damian will try to be more encouraging and constructive and will only express feedback if you invite him to do so.

[rheawritessometimes]

{ Childe x GN!Reader }

{ Summary } Childe gets an owie while sparing. Series Masterlist

{ Warnings } Violence, Swearing, Angry Reader, Injury, Physical Intimacy (Kissing).

{ Notes } Hurting Childe just a little because he refused to come home for me. Lost the 50/50. Reader is a sword user. Reader is suggested to be the Traveler. Self-indulgent again because all my writing is. This one is a real trainwreck but I didn't want to go too long without posting. Something better than nothing? Masterlist

{ Word Count } 2,404

Meeting Childe at the Golden House every week had been your routine for a while now. Right after you had defeated him the first time, he immediately begged you to train with him and you gave in, unable to bear those puppy-dog eyes. And the entire week he spent pestering you about it.

The whole fiasco with Osial had been put behind the both of you. It was probably true that you were too quick to forgive Childe, but he was just so charming. Not to mention he often paid for your meals, suggesting going out to eat after your sessions or if he saw you around the harbor. On a few occasions, you had been out eating with friends or on your own and found he had picked up your tab.

Since Liyue hadn't been destroyed and you got free food out of it, you really weren't all too upset about the situation. The Snezhnayan was actually pretty easy to get along with when Fatui matters weren't involved. He made you laugh too, so you supposed you could tolerate the once-weekly sparing sessions with him.

Childe called it sparing, but normal people didn't spar with actual weapons and fight like they were going to kill their partner. At first, you had tried to convince him it would be much better and safer for the both of you to use practice weapons instead of sharpened blades and arrows. He was quick to decline, saying something about both of you being competent enough not to get seriously hurt. You thought about refuting that on the basis that he had yet to beat you even once.

Even so, every week you found yourself pushing through the doors to the chamber Childe was always patiently waiting in. You'd never gotten there before him and wondered if he intentionally came early. You wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, he probably paced the room plotting his seemingly unobtainable victory.

The hydro vision paired with his combat experience and skill made him a difficult opponent, but he didn't seem terribly good at strategy. He might have been careless because it wasn't a real fight, but somehow you doubted that. He seemed the type to always give it his all. It could be that was his problem, since his loss usually came due to his exhaustion. Maybe if he didn't spend so much energy trying to show off he'd actually be a proper challenge.

"You're finally here," Childe proclaimed dramatically, voice echoing off the walls, "I thought you might have gotten lost on the way or something. Was starting to worry I'd need to go out and rescue you."

"I'm fifteen minutes early, Childe. How long have you been waiting?" you asked dryly, raising your eyebrow questioningly. You took a moment to shrug your adventuring pack off your shoulders and drop it near the door. You rolled your shoulders, relieved to be free of the weight.

"Ahah, anyways, we should get started. I have some business to attend to today," he responded, indiscreetly ignoring your question. It shouldn't have been very surprising that he didn't wait for your response before sending an arrow flying in your direction, but he'd always waited for you to signal you were ready before starting in the past.

Materializing your sword out of habit more than anything else, you raised it to block the arrow with the flat of the blade. The arrow bounced off the metal with a weak dink, clattering to the ground. If you'd reacted a moment later it would have pierced you.

You shot Childe a dirty look, irate from the cheap shot. He responded by grinning wider and taking aim again. You silently promised that he would face your wrath shortly.

Advancing towards him, you swatted the arrow flying your way with your sword. A bow would be less effective at close range, so you intended to close the distance. The redhead laughed, a hint of nervousness creeping into the sound at the pace of your advance. Or perhaps it was the building rage in your eyes.

The bow dematerialized, now Childe held dual hydro-blades in his hands in anticipation of close combat. Once in range, he immediately swiped at you with a blade. You stepped back out of the way, quickly bringing up your sword to parry the next slash coming from the opposite blade.

Childe seemed encouraged by you backing away, a smug look crossing his face. You furrowed your brows, he was so unthoughtful. He insists on using real weapons, shoots at you before you're ready, and now he has the audacity to get cocky.

You raise your blade to swing down at him and he catches your sword on crossed hydro-blades. He lets out a little huff of air, not expecting you to strike with such force, but his arms hold steady. You swiftly draw your blade back to slash at him again. Thorough training has you swiping at him with practiced ease while Childe is forced to switch to the defensive.

It gives you a sort of satisfaction to see his expression change to one of worry, it was your first time seeing such a look on him. You had no intention of actually hurting him, but it was nice to scare him a little. Maybe after this, he'd take the dangers of sparing with actual weapons a little more seriously. But probably not.

You're hardly thinking when his hydro-blades finally fail to parry your blows, the flat of your blade slamming into the side of his chest resulting in a soft crack barely loud enough to reach your ears. A look of surprise crosses your face when he lets out a pained grunt, what had happened finally being processed in your mind.

Immediately you drop your sword, ignoring it as it clatters to the ground before dematerializing. You were internally relieved to see his hydro-blades dissipate too, it would have been terribly unsportsmanly of him to stab you now. Stepping forward on instinct, you pause as you realize you're not exactly sure what to do.

Childe clutches his chest as he coughs a few times and a flood of panic washes over you. If you broke his ribs, his lungs could have been punctured. That would be bad.

"Fuck, that hurts," he huffed out before he attempted to gingerly sit down, right in the middle of the Golden House. Childe winced at the movement, but he managed to settle, leaning on his arms for support. His breathing was heavy from the strain of sparing and you felt extremely guilty, broken ribs had a tendency to hurt terribly and pain would flare up with every breath. At least he seemed to be breathing okay, so his lungs were probably intact.

"Let me get something to ease the pain," you said hastily, jogging towards the door to grab your bag. Your first thought was to numb him up before bringing him to Bubu Pharmacy to get some proper help.

"Aw, are you actually worried about me?" he cooed teasingly, maintaining that signature annoying grin despite the pain that followed him speaking. It was easy to ignore him as you rummaged through your bag for something useful.

It crossed your mind that it would be exceedingly difficult to get him all the way back to Liyue if you gave him anything strong. That limited your options rather greatly, adding that on to your lacking medical knowledge and limited variety of resources left you with fewer options than you would have liked. He probably could make it back without any anesthetic but it would be slow and you'd feel terrible for it.

Even with your lack of selection, you were thankful to have some knowledge and materials for this sort of thing, adventuring made you better at improvising and you learned a lot along the way. Taking everything into consideration, you decided it would be best to go with something topical. You could make a salve to numb up the area and then hopefully drag him to Bubu Pharmacy.

"I'm really sorry, Childe," you apologized, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Oh don't worry about it, this isn't the first time I've broken my ribs. Probably won't be the last, either," he replied with a laugh, which caused him to wince. You only frowned at him as you pulled out some plants to grind up. A rock would have worked, but you kept a mortar and pestle for this kind of thing after realizing you'd be doing it often.

You were soon mashing some leaves and a few petals into a paste, with some water Childe so graciously provided. Having a hydro user around was rather convenient when practicing field medicine.

"Whatcha makin'?" Childe asks after a short period of silence, leaning over to get a closer look. You wonder if he's actually curious or if he just can't tolerate the quiet. It seemed the two of you were always talking when you were together, save for when your sparing got too intense to spare the breath.

"A salve to numb you up so I can drag you to Bubu Pharmacy," you responded, still mostly focused on getting the paste to the right consistency.

"What? No, I can't go. I've got work to do," he argued, moving to stand up now.

You were quick to grab his wrist to prevent him from getting up, furrowing your brows. Childe paused, waiting for your explanation.

"You have at least one broken rib, whatever you need to do can wait," you told him sternly, maintaining eye contact. He turned his gaze away from you to hum in contemplation. He knew well enough that giving injuries time to heal was important, but so was his job.

"Fine, I guess what I was supposed to do today isn't that important," he relented, leaning back into a comfortable position once more. Childe had a feeling that if he had insisted on working you'd have found a way to stop him anyway.

"Can you take off your shirt?" you asked, trying to sound as casual and not awkward as possible once you were satisfied with the consistency of the paste. You would have offered to allow him to apply it himself but you figured it would be less painful this way, plus you'd need to bandage his chest afterward, so it didn't make much of a difference.

"Oh my, you're not usually this bold," he teased, reaching to begin undoing the clasps holding his jacket together. His remark made you decide against offering your assistance despite the awareness that even just wriggling out of the jacket probably hurt. It's okay to be a little petty sometimes. As a treat.

Once his torso was bare you shifted your position to be a bit closer and examined his side. There was already the beginning of bruising, but it would get much darker by tomorrow. You ignored the scars and other bruises that were present, very aware of the fact the redhead would tease you for staring if you looked any longer.

"I promise I'll be gentle," you assured, "But it'll probably hurt a little."

Childe just hummed, waving off your warning, so you gathered some of the salve on your fingers. You silently wished you'd had gloves that weren't absorbent with you so your hands wouldn't grow numb later.

It was a quick process of spreading the paste over his ribs, but his eyes remained on you the entire time. You couldn't be sure if he was just interested in what you were doing, but it surprised you that he remained entirely silent.

"It'll take a little while to numb up. I'm going to bandage your chest for support. This will hurt more," you informed him, dragging your pack towards you to dig out a roll of bandages.

"Don't worry, I'm a tough boy," he laughed in response, and you could only smile and shake your head at him. You had faith in his strength, but that didn't stop the guilt you felt over being responsible for his pain. It did make you feel better when he started reminiscing on past injuries he'd sustained in battle once you began bandaging him. How he could look back on them so fondly was a mystery to you.

At first, you were mindful to touch him as little as possible while you were wrapping the bandages. They needed to be a little tight to provide support but you tried to ensure they put as little pressure on his ribs as possible. Unfortunately, your fingers started to grow numb and you hadn't realized you'd been bandaging too tightly until Childe let out a soft grunt of pain.

"Fuck, sorry," you apologized, quickly unraveling the last section of bandaging to rewrap it more loosely.

"Don't worry about it," he said, thinking for a moment before adding, "But, if you want to make it up to me, a kiss would make me feel better."

Pausing in your ministrations, you looked up to see a cheeky grin on his face. You raised a brow, giving him an entirely unimpressed expression. It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to flirt like this, trying to get a reaction out of you. But as you reached one hand up to gently grab his chin, it was his turn to become flustered.

Leaning up, you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek before moving away and releasing your hold on him. You patted his cheek twice, giving him an amused grin.

"You're welcome."

"Hey! That doesn't count!" Childe immediately whined, pouting at you. You could only laugh at his playful antics as you finally finished wrapping his chest.

"You're cruel, you know that?" the Snezhnayan grumbled, eyebrows still furrowed as he continued to pout. He really did seem like a spoiled kid at this moment and you laughed again, causing his frown to deepen.

You knew his demeanor was all theatrical, but as you stared at his expression you found yourself leaning towards him again. You gently pressed your lips to his, smiling into the kiss when his hands eagerly flew up to your face. You indulged in the kiss for a few moments, smirking when he followed you as you pulled away. Putting a hand on his shoulder, you halted his attempt to continue.

"You can have another kiss once you get checked out at Bubu Pharmacy."

-

If you read all that, I'm sorry lol. I wanted to spend more time on it but I don't want to take too long posting things. Anyways, if you have any better ideas for what I should write send them in. Please.

There's a part two now: Part 2

[makeste]

hello! I’ve seen some debate as to whether the 2nd meant allies in general would bolster izuku and although I do think that’s true (ofc any sort of support system that he lets himself rely on would bolster him) I feel like if that was what was meant it would’ve been made clearer? maybe instead of just katsuki showing up, the final panel would’ve had several students burst onto the scene. what are your thoughts?

agreed. and incidentally this is another big reason why it's not Toga. if it was her then Horikoshi wouldn't have devoted any time to OFA II's little hype speech. it just makes it kind of pointless, unless this whole time we've been sleeping on Toga's hidden ability to bolster Deku lmao.

but anyways, yeah. and I mean, Two's commentary here is really just acknowledgement of something we've long since known already. Kacchan is the one who will ultimately be able to reach Deku. we don't actually need a piece of dialogue to tell us this, because the manga has been showing it to us since day one. his resume is fucking stacked. I mean, let's go through it.

he is mean.

I love this you guys. I honest to god love it. because the thing is, if you ask anyone what Kacchan's absolute worst quality is, this would be the obvious answer, right? "he's an asshole" lmao.

but that's exactly what we need right now!! someone who's not afraid to tell it like it is, and won't try to sugarcoat things. someone who's not afraid to argue back and risk hurting someone's feelings. because right now Deku is walking all over anyone who can't do that. All Might tries to feed him lunch and he's like "nah I'm good, anyways bye." Endeavor tries to tell him to rest and he's all "I'm fine" and fucking hangs up the phone. nuh uh. enough of that. what we need is someone who will call him out on his shit. "hah!? don't tell me you're fine when it's obvious to anyone you can barely stand on your own two feet, dumbass."

he is stubborn.

kind of ties into the other thing, but yeah. right now we need a bullheaded asshole who won't take no for an answer if he thinks he's right. good luck trying to sweet talk your way out of this one, Deku.

he understands the situation.

this one is important, because in fairness, simply standing in front of Deku and saying "you shall not pass" isn't gonna be enough to actually accomplish anything here. ultimately he's going to have to be able to reason with Deku too. and so in that respect, it certainly doesn't hurt that Kacchan is someone who understands the OFA situation as well as anyone, and has always had clear judgment about it. he understands the threat of AFO ("they all died young"), and he understands the burden of All Might's legacy. he knows what Deku is dealing with, and that's going to give him an edge when it comes to finding that elusive-yet-critical talk no jutsu knockout blow.

he's been where Deku is now.

Kacchan knows a thing or two about burdens. granted, they've more often than not been ones that he's put on himself, but that didn't make them any less heavy. Deku right now is struggling not just with his feelings of responsibility, but also with all of the misplaced guilt that's feeding into it. AFO is targeting him. if innocent people get caught in the crossfire then that's on him. every minute that AFO stays out there getting stronger and causing more chaos is all on him, because he hasn't defeated him yet. and so on and so forth.

and Katsuki knows what that's like. because he blamed himself for what happened to All Might. that feeling of "if I'd only been stronger" is one that he's intimately acquainted with. that feeling of blaming yourself, of not being able to look someone you care about in the eye because you think it's your fault they got hurt. this is something he knows. this is a road he's already been down. and so if Deku tries to pull any "you don't understand" nonsense, Kacchan is uniquely situated to immediately shoot that shit right down.

he's immune to low blows.

lol I keep thinking of all the different counterarguments that Deku could make, and all the different ways in which Kacchan is perfectly equipped to handle them. anyway, so this particular thing is a very recent development, but very fortunately timed. so as we all know, Kacchan was a first class dick to Deku during their childhood. something which Deku, with his abnormally kind and forgiving nature, has never once confronted Kacchan about, even though he would have absolutely had the right. but anyway, so here's the thing though -- right now I fully believe that Deku can and will do or say just about anything in order to get Kacchan and the others to leave. and that includes hurting them in order to save them. so it would not surprise me at all if Deku goes as far as to throw Katsuki's old, cruel, selfish behavior back in his face as part of a last-ditch effort to get him to back down. desperate times and all that.

and maybe there was a time when that actually would have worked. but here's the other thing -- we know something Deku doesn't. namely, that Kacchan has recently leveled up emotionally and has finally unlocked his atonement quest. he finally understands that it's not all about him. which means that it doesn't matter even if Deku pulls out the big guns. he may hurt his feelings, but he's not going to scare him off, because Kacchan's focus right now is on atonement, not forgiveness. he's not doing this for a pat on the head. he's doing it because it's the right thing to do. and no amount of insults will be able to sway him from that.

he learned from the best.

I said this in another post a couple of weeks back, but yeah. Angsty Nomad Deku has nothing on early Kacchan in terms of pushing people away. early Kacchan was the motherfucking king of pushing peeps away. if you so much as LOOKED at this kid in such a way that SUGGESTED you might even be THINKING about possibly trying to save him, he would straight up throw a ten-year hissy fit lmao. Deku's "All Might, you don't have to tag along anymore"s ain't got SHIT on all of Kacchan's "STAY BACK DEKU"s and "I'D RATHER LOSE!!!"s and "OMFG HOW DARE YOU BE THE ONLY PERSON TO TRY TO SAVE ME FROM THIS RAMPAGING SLUDGE MAN WHO'S ABOUT TO SUFFOCATE ME TO DEATH"s. Kacchan is the undisputed goat here lol.

but anyway, so what this means is that he has accumulated a whole HOST of iconic lines and fateful parallels which he can throw back in Deku's face at a moment's notice. and the best part is that he learned it all from THIS EXACT MOTHERFUCKER, RIGHT HERE. what is Deku even gonna do!! argue against his own past actions?? "well, uh, I guess now that you mention it I should have just sat back and watched you die all those times" OH REALLY?? YOU DON'T SAY. THAT SOUNDS SO CONVINCING.

and so guess what, Deku -- if Kacchan was worth saving, then you're worth saving too. it's an ironclad argument. congratulations son you played yourself.

he always wins.

okay so real talk, we all know that what's really driving Deku right now is his fear of losing people. he's helpless against that. he saw Kacchan get stabbed right before his eyes and it fucked him up. he saw all these other people getting hurt and killed because he couldn't save them, and he straight up could not deal with those emotions at all. he's scared. he's more afraid of that happening again than of anything else. and AFO knows that, and that's why he's resorted to his current tactics, which have isolated Deku even further and caused him to push even All Might away.

what Deku is missing right now, and what he needs to have restored, is trust. trust is the antidote to fear. and when you're as scared as Deku is, it takes an extraordinary amount of assurance in order to ease those fears. basically you don't want to place your faith in anything less than an absolutely sure thing.

but Kacchan is exactly that. this is the exact type of situation that Kacchan's "aiming for the top" overkill confidence was made for. he's the one who never loses!! the hero who's going to surpass all other heroes!! Deku inherited All Might's compassion, but Kacchan inherited his determination. Kacchan is someone who brings reassurance. his confidence is unwavering. and in the end, I think it will be strong enough to pull even Deku back out from the darkness.

he is strong.

Kacchan is Deku's rival in every sense of the word, and I fully believe he's capable of matching him step for step even now. and so Deku can try to push him away, but Kacchan is capable of withstanding that force and staying his ground. Deku can try to run, but Kacchan still has him matched for speed. and as a last resort, Deku can even try to defeat him -- but Kacchan won't ever concede to defeat.

and all of this ties back into what I was saying about trust. because Kacchan is strong. strong enough not to die. strong enough to live. strong enough to not make others worry about him. and that's what Deku so desperately needs right now in order to finally let go of his fears. Deku needs someone who can get him to trust in others again, and to do that, he has to be able to trust in their strength.

and last but not least...

he has a secret weapon up his sleeve.

several, as a matter of fact. his hero name reveal. his apology, if he chooses to give it now (though I could see him waiting for a more sincere moment, rather than whipping it out now when it could be misconstrued as a manipulation tactic). but perhaps most importantly...

never underestimate the power of an iconic role reversal. because that's what I'm getting at here, if it wasn't clear lol. this probably would have worked better if I had a picture of him actually reaching out to Deku. but I mean, that's kind of the point lol. I don't have one because he hasn't done it yet. BUT CAN YOU IMAGINE. good luck withstanding that, Deku.

so yeah. look at all that. he really is a one-man Deku-saving army. which is not to say that the other kids won't have a part to play as well, or that it's not important for them to be there, because it is. but as far as the lead role goes, it's Kacchan. like that astronaut meme guy says. always has been.

oh and as a bonus he was smart enough to finally leave the mask at home today lol. LET DEKU SEE THE SINCERITY IN YOUR EYES. YESSSSSSS.

[swsequelsalt]

The Mehness of Obi-Wan

Now that I’ve seen the whole thing, the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series was... well, at times it was fine. And at other times it was very irritating. Overall, I’d say “mild miss.” 

It would’ve benefitted a LOT from being cut down to about two hours in length. Maybe two and a half. So: A movie. That could’ve been cool.

Sundry Thoughts Under the Cut:

- When they first announced that Vader would be in this and Christensen would be returning, I figured there was only ONE reason to bring Obi-Wan and Vader back together before their fateful meeting in Episode IV: You can finally explain that moment in Return of the Jedi when Vader tells Luke that “Obi-Wan once thought as you do.” In other words, you tell the story of Obi-Wan trying to save Vader’s soul and failing. It’s been the most infamous question mark hanging over the continuity of the OT since 2005. But guess what? This Disney+ series makes absolutely no attempt to address it. Which boggles my mind.

- You’ve probably heard by now that the real stars of this show are Ewan MacGregor as Obi-Wan and Moses Ingram as the new character of Reva, aka “Third Sister” in the Inquisition. And I can’t fault the performances on these two whatsoever. They do amazing work throughout. Both of them are clearly invested in these characters and completely bringing their best to the table. It’s just that the material isn’t always worthy of them.

- Obi-Wan spends half the series as a total fuck-up until the moment when he instantly, inexplicably isn’t anymore. 

Remember how, at the end of Revenge of the Sith, Yoda was going to tell Obi-Wan how to commune with Qui-Gon, and Yoda said Qui-Gon would then train him while he was in hiding? Well, when this series opens, we quickly learn that Obi-Wan hasn’t managed to speak to Qui-Gon even ONE time. He hasn’t seen him or heard him at all. And he also hasn’t trained whatsoever. For ten. fucking. years. 

This subsequently leads into him spending three and a half episodes just completely sucking. He doesn’t know how to successfully disguise himself, he doesn’t know how to keep up a cover story, he doesn’t know how to fight with a lightsaber or even use the force anymore. He’s total rubbish! Except, weirdly, when it comes to guns? He actually kinda kicks ass with a blaster now — you know, the weapon Obi-Wan always considered to be “uncivilized”? No idea when he started training heavily on those things, but ok. 

ANYWAY, this all reaches Peak Embarrassment when Obi-Wan confronts Vader for the first time. He draws his lightsaber, but then he gets scared and opts to simply run away. Or he TRIES to run away. Like a methodical slasher villain, Vader doesn’t even have to run to magically catch up. Eventually, Obi-Wan has no choice but to very poorly attempt to block Vader’s lightsaber attack. Without explaining the entire climax, suffice it to say that ol’ Ben gets REAMED.

But then the fourth episode comes along. Near the start of the episode, we see Obi-Wan trying to pull a small object towards himself with the Force, but he can’t do it. He can only bring it like halfway across the table with difficulty. But then his mission to sneak into an underwater facility begins, and... he just instantly gets his mojo back! He can use his lightsaber like a pro. He can deflect blaster bolts back at stormtroopers. He can perform mind tricks. It’s not explained at all; he just suddenly is great at everything again. And he continues to be completely badass at all things for the rest of the series without anyone ever trying to explain the shift. What the fuck is that?!

- Sadly, Reva isn’t all that well-written for a bunch of reasons. Moses Ingram is bringing her A-game, and they let her down. She’s got a cool backstory and awesome underlying motivations, yet her actions often make no sense. 

In the third episode, she somehow easily senses the exact building where Obi-Wan is hiding amidst an entire town - when even Vader himself didn’t sense it or find it, just walked right past it! And then she instantly figures out that this same building contains a secret door that leads to an “underground railroad”-esque hiding spot for Jedi - even though numerous imperials have been through here and seen nothing at all, and there are no people hidden within (so she can’t be sensing any life forms). 

In the fifth episode, she finally is given the opportunity to do what she’s been pursuing for most of her life. All of her careful planning has led to this. So she naturally waits until the worst moment and takes action as stupidly as possible. .... Maybe the pressure of having decades of her life lead up to a single moment in time just got the better of her?

The worst instance of all this, though, are the CRAZY leaps of logic she takes in the very last episode. Based on some broken-up audio she hears at the tail end of the fifth episode, she somehow figures out things that she should have no way of knowing. But of course, she’s completely right. And she then pursues an objective that makes no sense and is completely out of character for who she’s established to be. Until at the end of the episode, she suddenly stops and... I guess remembers what her motivation actually fucking was? God, it is INFURIATING. If she ever appears in this franchise again, I hope they can try to give us some sort of retroactive justification for her actions in that last ep.

- The show would be a lot shorter if it didn’t spend so much time spinning its wheels. Sometimes they just repeat plot beats and sequences in a new setting, presumably because they figure the setting will be enough to make it seem different.

In Episode 2, Obi-Wan must rescue little Leia from captivity and then evade a bunch of stormtroopers hunting them while they make their way to a ship to escape. In Episode 4, Obi-Wan must rescue little Leia from captivity and then evade a bunch of stormtroopers hunting them while they make their way to a ship to escape.

In Episode 5, Obi-Wan and the nascent Rebellion are cornered by the Empire, and Obi-Wan determines that he must appear to give himself up in order to serve as distraction that will let the Rebels get away. Ah! but then, in Episode 6, Obi-Wan and the nascent Rebellion are cornered by the Empire, and Obi-Wan determines that he must appear to give himself up in order to serve as a distraction that will let the Rebels get away.

- Speaking of the actors, Hayden Christensen does amazing work in the Vader suit. I know it’s basically just a form of mime, but his movements look so powerful and threatening throughout. He also gets to reprise pre-burn Anakin in some flashback images courtesy of some digital de-aging, so that was cool. And on the topic of Anakin/Vader, I can’t believe how outstanding James Earl Jones still sounds at age 91?! I saw some rumors online that he might’ve been digitally enhanced beyond just the usual Vader reverb, but... either way, holy shit.

- One of the best moments in the show is probably Ewan’s reaction when he hears that Anakin/Vader is actually still alive. But I must admit that I was confused that Obi-Wan would be stunned by this information. I mean... he sees that Palpatine was calling Anakin “Lord Vader” even before their Mustafar duel. Did he forget that name, or did he somehow just never hear about the existence of a “Darth Vader” terrorizing the damn galaxy? 

- I wasn’t too sure about Vivien Lyra Blair as Leia when the series started, but she establishes that she’s up to it fairly early on. I was ultimately quite happy and impressed with her. 

- Lola is an adorable design, and also VERY marketable. But if we’re going to be seeing droids hanging  around the Organa residence, shouldn’t we have seen R2 and/or Threepio... ?

- I definitely did not expect Owen and Beru to get some pretty badass scenes? And actually do some fighting? Unexpected, but the writers and fight choreographers made it make sense. Although both Owen and Beru are willing and capable of standing up for themselves, the show doesn’t try to make them secret warriors or anything. They’re still just a couple of people trying to defend a farm for their family’s sake.

- I can’t argue much with the final battle between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. It’s cool to see. It would’ve been much more resonant if they had used “Battle of the Heroes” or “Duel of the Fates” in the score somewhere, though.

- Before the final battle, Obi-Wan says this is it - this is where one of them will have to die for the other to live. And yet! When Obi-Wan kicks Vader’s ass, he just looks him in the eye and... leaves. He leaves this former friend of his, who he saw casually killing innocent civilians one by one back in Episode 3, to continue his reign of terror. Obi-Wan, you absolute fool. You’re now basically responsible for everyone Vader kills for the next ten years! You know that, right?!  You stood there and watched Vader walk down a line of innocent civilians’ houses as he killed them one by one in an attempt to draw you out. You KNOW what this dickcheese is capable of! Christ... if the writers didn’t have any logical excuse for why this would happen, they should’ve rethought the whole goddamn sequence.