#mostly i would want live action because i like good acting and i think those characters and scenes would really bring it out of the actors

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

The All For the Game series is a product of its time. If it did get an adaptation things would have to change (personally I'd hope they make Kevin Irish-Japanese). But I wouldn't want them to sanitize the Foxes much either because the point is that they're all rough, violent, imperfect victims and they still deserve second chances and understanding. I like how all this is through the feverish lens of a university sports anime plot that took a mafia turn because the absurdity helps you breathe through some of the heavier themes.

Too, I love how unreliable Neil is as a narrator. It's really well done and shows that Nora is a good writer. He's so viciously brutal, especially in the first book, but it's softened by the reader being inside his head and understanding his threads of logic. Andrew, as the only one to see through him from the start, must've felt like the single sensible person left in the world, "Why is nobody else seeing all these massive red flags!?!?" No wonder why he thought he hallucinated Neil.

[cum-aside]

Ok it’s not like I go here really, but I’ve been reading a bunch of DPxDC recently because it’s very good, and I had an idea that won’t go anywhere

The various gangs in Gotham have callsigns/uniforms or something right??? If not, they should, and imma say they do. Anyway. Redhood I think didn’t think too hard about what people in his gang on his turf should wear for identification purposes, but they sure did. And what they came up with was Red.

Wearing red in the vicinity of the ‘Bad Part’ of Gotham?? Part of the red hood gang. Generally head gear is the preferred method of wearing red. Red hats and beanies, red head scarfs and hijabs, red headbands, red masks. The idea has been communicated. To a certain point, wearing red even if you aren’t officially part of the gang is a great way to get an in with them, or be under protection if you’re the right age in the right area, as long as you’re willing to risk getting roped into low stakes gang activity, which can range from working the counter at money laundering sites to community service (guarding clinics and shelters and volunteering) to making deliveries to destroying certain hostile architecture. (Hood saves the real jobs with cops and shootings and turf disputes for actual members, that he knows the names faces and skills of, and who are at least above 18, but preferably over 20, and who wear real gear he supplies them with, not just whatever’s in their closet that’s red) (this does not entirely stop the smaller ‘members’ from getting into their own fights with the cops and turf wars, but Jason has found that giving them Something to do that feels like direct action helps curb those tendencies. And it’s not like those things aren’t things that don’t need doing, so it’s a win win. Mostly)

Danny, bless him, does not know any of this. But has been staying in the sketchier areas of Gotham because that’s where people don’t care how old you are or if your papers are real or not, and he absolutely does not want people looking into how old he is and wether his papers are real or not. He is also wearing an inadvisable and vaguely conspicuous amount of red. His converse are red, his signature baseball tee is white and red, and his hoodie is also red.

Clearly, this kid (he’s like 17) really wants in with the hood gang.

And eventually, they oblige him.

Random people will approach Danny and ask/tell him that them and a couple others are going somewhere to do (insert vaguely/definitely illegal job or act of community service here) and Danny, who is deeply directionless in life currently, and also pretty assured in his ability to eat danger for breakfast, and has never met an institutional authority he doesn’t disrespect at least a little bit, is totally down for some civil disobedience and chaotic good shenanigans.

And then it spirals from there. Like. A worrying amount.

It takes Danny actual months, almost a year, to realize that he’s been low key slow cooked into the criminal underbelly of Gotham, and like… he’s not really mad about it?? Honestly if he had a choice when he came to Gotham, he probably would have picked the redhood gang anyway. He just seems to vibe with them on a… Spiritual Level…

Hm

Anyway

Years go by, and while Danny doesn’t have the most going for him in terms of a normal person life, vis a vis higher education, official employment, health insurance, dating life, or any other benchmark one uses to measure the trajectory of their lives— Danny’s feeling pretty good! Jazz, Tucker, and Sam have all finagled their ways into Gotham, (Tucker has a WE internship, Jazz is working/doing work studies at Arkham, Sam does what she likes now that she is a legal adult and has her inheritance, and what she likes is environmental activism, and occasionally being spotted with fellow activist Damian Wayne, and someone who may or may not be poison ivy, sources differ) and Danny finds his obsession suspiciously well served as a hood goon. Hood hench? Redgoon? Hench hood?? Name pending, who cares.

Danny is also suspiciously good at, well, his job. One of the best runners, even when he gets caught and frisked they never seem to find the goods on him (they never do check IN him, but then why would they) very well liked at every volunteer spot they have, patient, kind, funny, good with old people, kids, bitter people, addicts and the homeless, the sick and injured. And yet also very competent in the field, when they finally let him do actually dangerous things. Act as protection detail to the working girls in the red light district, he’s very respectful, and very good at intimidation, de-escalation, and when push comes to shove, excellent in a fight. Knows when to keep pressing his advantage and when to make a retreat with whoever he’s guarding. Not afraid to fight scrappy, and presses through pain and fear like a true gothmite.

He gets so good at his not really a job job that he becomes essentially, Redhoods right hand man.

The rest of the bats are skeptical of this for several reasons. Because generally speaking, the people in Jason’s turf are not fans of the bats, but Jason does a lot of coordinating with them, and someone so close to him is going to pick that up eventually if they’re half as sharp and useful as Danny is. Other than that, secret identity issues, plus pit rage, plus the fact that Jason trusts pretty much nobody. But Jason has great feelings about this guy, he always feels more clear headed and even keeled when he’s around, and he helps Jason remember the community he’s trying to build, and the community he serves. Also he delegates and mother hens like nobody’s business, but Jason just really can’t seem to work up too much irritation about it.

It is around this time, however, that the past, and shady government organizations come knocking.

Perhaps the GIW has also noticed how ecto-contaminated and lawless Gotham is and decided that they could start doing research and experiments with its live and undead denizens instead of amity, where the portal has closed, and ghost activity is down since phantom disappeared. Or maybe the GIW has finally located phantom specifically and is interested in what they’re always interested in. Or maybe it’s various ghosts harassing Danny to take up the throne, which he’s been avoiding successfully, but having settled into a life routine that suites him his core has finally ‘settled’ (halfa cores fluctuate more than other cores due to the transient nature of being alive, but halfa people settle into lifelong patterns and relationships quicker than other people because of the static nature of being dead) he is mature enough by ghost standards to assume the throne, or at least begin preparing for it.

Regardless, danny is being tracked down for his childhood baggage’s extended warranty, and brings the entirety of the JL and almost all associated sidekicks, hero group spin-offs, and organizations into the thick of it.

Idk. I just got through Secretary Danny by DeathlySilent13 on ao3 and I thought man oh man wouldn’t it be neat if Danny got to be Jason’s second in command instead??? That could open up a lot of avenues I haven’t seen yet. I’m also just very curious about how the Jason’s runs his gang according to the fandom, and I think that with all the ACAB energy Danny has been assigned, he should have a little bit of community focused organized crime. As a treat. Like I said I don’t go here thou, I just needed to put this somewhere and see if it vibed with anybody besides me

[thyfleshc0nsumed]

how do you find public spaces to fuck (re:the rooftop + dyke)?

sincerely, horny lez

Good question, I will answer it in this response eventually, but first, you have to sit through me intellectually jerking myself off for a moment because I think it may provide some useful perspective.

Public sex has been part of my life for as long as I've been having physical sex at all. As an adolescent it was mostly out of necessity, but these days it's mostly out of convenience. The vast majority of the sex I've had in the last year or two has been public.

I think it's important to clarify that for me at least, public sex is not an act of exhibitionism. If there's any sort of philosophy behind it besides sheer utility, I'd say it's something like not allowing our society's mores and hangups around sex and privacy dictate the terms on how and where we (especially as gay people) engage with our sexuality.

I think there's this gut impulse many people have--including many gay people--around public sex, and I think it speaks to the reactionary view of human sexuality that is unfortunately the stock standard in these times. For many, the idea of people having sex in public gives them some sort of 'ick' that they can't seem to articulate.

Often discussions around public sex are framed like this: "if I walked in on people having sex, it would make me uncomfortable, I didn't consent to that, so people should not be having sex in public." It would be fairly reasonable to experience discomfort in this imagined scenario--in fact, I think most people probably would--and that discomfort isn't a problem. The problem is that the premise assumes a few crucial points, notably that 1. Walking in on public sex is a common occurrence and/or the desired outcome for those engaging in it 2. Discomfort is a form of harm 3. Exposure to (non-hegemonic) human sexuality is capable of causing some kind of nebulous psychic damage to the witness.

To the first point: in my decade or so of regular public sex, I can only think of one instance where I was actually walked in on. It was an alley off of a major road and probably only at around 1030p. I mention this because we absolutely would have chosen a different, more secluded location/time if we were doing anything other than fully clothed kink and maybe some kissing, because again, the goal for most is not exhibitionism; no one really wants to be walked in on, so we choose locations where it is less likely that we will be.

To the second point, I have little to say besides that it simply isn't. Discomfort is an everyday part of life and is something all people experience regularly without calls to stop every potential source of it. So what is it about this topic that makes people react this way?

This leads us to the third point: non-hegemonic modes of sexuality are treated as degenerative and caustic and therefore must be hidden (or eradicated) entirely from the public sphere. It is the classic double standard; think of things like the "Don't Say Gay" or "DADT" laws or more broadly the attempt to remove even the mention of the existence of gays from curriculum. Most of the people who fight for such measures likely don't take the same issue or action with a 48 foot billboard for the local strip club or with a heterosexual couple kissing on screen.

And while the spot that people place the line may differ greatly, this ire against public sex still draws from the same well of reaction against perceived degeneracy that the fascist draws from. If this is not self evidently a negative thing to you, I have little I can say to convince you.

Some may be thinking 'okay, even if it is not harmful or degenerate, why do public sex?' To me, it is just as strange that so many keep their sex lives confined to the home and I could posit the same question. Neither way of doing things is any more natural or unnatural than the other, one is just the societal default. If it would bring you joy, why not engage in public sex?

The world is large, and if you know where to look, there are countless spaces you can carve out and stake the pervert's claim to. Alleyways, parks, bathrooms, rooftops, and beaches are the first to come to mind for me. To answer your question directly, you find them by making them and taking them.

Time is a large factor here as well. A given spot in a park at 9p may not be suitable, but might be more so by 11p, and even more so by 1a. My experience is that the later it gets, more spots become viable with less heavy precautions.

Another factor is coverage. An open field is riskier than behind a tree. The middle of an alley is riskier than behind a dumpster. You want to limit the amount of vectors through which you could be exposing yourself. I value coverage from sight lines over seclusion.

Something else you want to think about is whether or not you are on private property. If you are, it's possible that there are security personnel sitting in a car somewhere nearby or a resident who notices you. At that point, the issue is not even the sex, it's the fact you're there at all.

Finally, you always have to be ready to dip. Be aware of your surroundings as best you can, listen for cars and people, don't get too caught up in the moment that you're blinded. You gotta be ready to pull your pants up and walk quickly away. I'd rather be safe than sorry. If something's not right, get outta there. If you can't, well, don't have your dick out at least.

Anyway, all that to say go out and have fun. Good luck and enjoy yourself. The world has room for you to fit yourself into.

[grandline-fics]

Not My Job Description

DESCRIPTION: "Dear Diary, my brother is an idiot" - journal passages written by Rosinante, documenting his observations between Doffy and Reader

WARNINGS: none

CHARACTERS: Rosinante , Doflamingo(technically)

WORDS: 1,685

A/N: The winner of the poll was Rosinante's diary entries giving a brief glimpse into his thoughts and observations between Doffy and Reader. This was a bit different from my usual way of things but I hope you all enjoy ☺️

*REQUESTS ARE OPEN*

DIRECTORY | PROMPT LIST | KO-FI

———————

Rosinante had remained steadfastly by his brother’s side for his entire life. Through the worst and best of times, the two were each other’s support. They were both acutely aware of how differently their lives could have gone had certain choices been made but fate directed them to this life; saved at the right moment and brought under the wing and tutelage of the Marines. The whole situation benefited both brothers extremely well. For one thing they got to stay together. For Rosinante he got to help people and do good while also being happy to be with his only remaining family member. For Doflamingo, his need for power, to be stronger than others and wipe out those that got in his way were all hungers sated by being in the Marines, his targets were the pirates that sailed through his waters like they owned them. It was very clear had things gone the other way, Doflamingo would have been a very difficult enemy to handle. 

From childhood Rosinante always felt that writing his feelings out, to make the emotions and thoughts that circled his mind tangible through paper and ink it made them easier to deal with and voice. This habit continued through his years and soon it became more of a document of his life with his brother; their struggle, their training and ascension through the ranks in the Marines. Rosinante’s entries tended to be general day-to-day goings on and idle thoughts, hardly anything exciting, mostly written out of what was now a life-long habit. Those standard entries soon became a thing of the past though when you joined the base as Doflamingo’s second-in-command.

DATE: XX-XXXX   

Dear diary, word on the base is the new Captain that will be serving under Doffy will be arriving today. This will be his eighth Captain in the space of three months. I know he’s reluctant to have a subordinate he isn’t familiar with after me being his second all these years but I still feel guilty. He’s acting out now and I feel partly responsible because I’m now a Vice-Admiral too but he needs to give them a chance. It’s a relief the base is so large that the two of us are able to run it because if I had to transfer to another location? I fear he would have destroyed Marine Headquarters until only a crater remained. 

There’s so much tension in the base today. Everyone is doing their best to give the new Captain a positive experience, at least enough to balance out the negative treatment and havoc Doffy will throw at them. I’ve tried my best to convince Doffy to give the new Captain a chance but he simply grins the way he does and says this is merely his way of ensuring he won’t have a weakling  in his base. If anyone else said it I wouldn’t question things but because it’s Doffy I know his actions are being fuelled by slight cruelty and a lot of pettiness. 

————

Well the Captain arrived…I don’t want to speak too soon but I think they’ll actually stay. I think Doffy doesn’t want to admit he’s impressed and that’s annoying him more. It’s a promising sign.

DATE: XX-XXXX 

Dear Diary, the unthinkable has happened. Today was the first time I was able to walk into Doffy’s office and not get blocked by paperwork blocking my path. The last time I was able to do so was when Doffy first took the role of Vice-Admiral. It was so strange to be able to walk those few steps with no visible obstacles, I almost thought I was imagining things. From the look on Doffy’s face I know his new Captain is the cause for the sudden care for the administration side of working for the Marines. It was clear he was hating every boring second of the work he’d literally let pile up for months and months but most of his complaints that I heard were more for the tedium and pointlessness of the task.

If I’m being honest I’m slightly annoyed at my brother. Today’s shown he’s capable of doing the paperwork-I’ve always known he can- but for years and years I’ve begged him to just sit down and do it to avoid HQ pestering him, he’s ignored my pleas. Yet this Captain, who’s only been here a month manages to get him to do it? Now I’m curious about what the Captain did or said to convince Doffy to do his work. Perhaps Doffy will let it slip later on?

DATE: XX-XXXX   

Dear Diary, as you know I’ve been off base with Law and my own unit for the last two months and in that time I’ve been feeling uneasy. Every day I’ve been using the mission to distract me from letting my thoughts go back to the base and fear what chaos Doffy’s been getting up to. Since the Captain joined our ranks six months ago, I’ve still been around on base to assist with Doffy’s unpredictable mood and whims. While the Captain has found their feet at the base with relative ease, this was the first time they’d have to attend to their duties and deal with Doffy completely on their own. 

I don’t entirely know what I was expecting on our return but the atmosphere I walked into after leaving the ship? It wasn’t that. The subordinates seemed in good form, not tense or nervous as if they were expecting something bad to happen. They welcomed us back as they normally would but I didn’t sense any overwhelming relief at our return either. It was strange but not entirely unwelcome one. There was still no clear sign of the Captain or Doffy and worrying no sign of raised voices or panicked calls. Eventually I found the Captain in the training yard with the subordinates. 

The sparring showed them why they were deserving of the rank of Captain and that the others had a lot of training ahead of them should they wish to get to their rank someday. They moved effortlessly and beat every other Marine that stepped into the sparring ring. I know Law is my second-in-command and is a difficult enemy on the battlefield but if these two Captains were to face off against the other it would be too close to tell who the winner would be. Something else came to me in the training yard, something just as unexpected as the calm atmosphere that had greeted me; Doffy’s reaction to the sparring. 

Through it all he merely observed from the sidelines, arms folded and usual grin- nothing out of the ordinary right? Wrong. I know my brother and even with that practiced smile, and lazy stance I know when he’s looking, really looking. Whether he was just sizing up the Captain, analysing their technique and spotting areas to refine, or simply enjoying the show one thing is for sure. He liked what he saw.

DATE: XX-XXXX 

Dear Diary, something is going on. I don’t know what this something is but I KNOW there is something happening. Have I seen anything suspicious? No. Have I heard anything to prompt this thought? No… Has Law told me I’m just a paranoid younger brother? Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. The Captain has been on the base for over a year now. It’s crazy because it feels like they’ve always been here but at the same time it feels like just yesterday they arrived on base. Slowly things have been stirring in the air and it’s little things, individually insignificant things but I just know there’s more to it all. I mean what other reason is there for Doffy’s attitude around them?

He seems calmer when they are around. Yes, he’s same old Doffy, looking for any excuse to mess with others and toy with them but with the Captain around there isn’t as much as an edge to his words and actions. I’ve tried to subtly inquire with both of them on the status between them and have only been given confused looks in response. The Captain also asked if I’d hit my head when I fell down the stairs earlier in the day because ‘I wasn’t making sense.’ I’m not making sense? They’re not making sense and I don’t care what Law says, I’m not paranoid. It might take a while but I will be proven right about this…whatever it is.

DATE: XX-XXXX   

Dear Diary, he left! He just up and left! Admiral Akainu is visiting the base tomorrow and he left! For the last couple days he’s been scatterbrained and letting his paperwork build up again. His mood hasn’t been terrible but it’s been better and I know the reason is because he let the Captain return home for a few days. Doffy had me fooled, I thought he was going to stay on base and deal with Akainu as best he could-which for Doffy would be to ignore anything he said and wave him goodbye-but no, our subordinates spotted him fly off this morning. Had he been waiting for our guards to drop and wait until the last second before disappearing? 

I know Akainu is going to blow up over this ‘clear lack of respect’ and insubordination but what are we to do? Doffy will only come back when it suits him and if my guess is right it’ll either be when there’s no Admiral invading his personal space or when the Captain is on their way back. Either way it’s going to be a very long week.

——Also I need to remember and buy Doffy a new pair of gloves…and submit a request for extra uniforms.

DATE: XX-XXXX

[This passage is filled with hastily written scrawls, scored out and written over beyond comprehension, attempt after attempt made to voice frustrated but coherent thought only to fail and repeat over and over. The entry is only made of a single sentence, exhaustion permeating the bottom of the ink filled page.]

Dear Diary, my brother is an idiot and his Captain isn’t any better.

——————————————-

TAG LIST (If I’ve missed anyone or if you want to be added just let me know) @3v37773, @tsaaps , @i-am-all-love-puns-and-lazy , @fiery-captain-spider-santa, @kabloswrld , @atanukileaf , @ane5e , @stuckinthewrongworld , @cloudysunset04 , @chillerkiller , @sin-namonroll , @decayingpizza , @liesatemyocean , @ace-for-ace , @nerium-lil , @destynelseclipsa , @dreamcastgirl99 , @my-name-is-heartache , @iamn1ya ,  @yunho-leeknow , @hinata7346 , @h0oouwlss , @missrandomdreamer , @sleepykittycx , @ddawn111 , @jaygrl22 , @sylum , @acehyacinth , @resident-cryptid , @treelogirl , @maellem , @thulhu , @appalost , @dindjarins1ut , @irumawife , @laidenbreecatchall , @redwolfxx , @jevoislesbrasdemer , @schanwow , @pao198391 , @glitchtricks94 , @nina-ya , @48daisies , @rosemary-lungs , @sagyunaro , @artemis162534 , @thecraftywriter , @rorozorolover

[ddejavvu]

I would let Jango Fett (and any clone, to be honest) call me up when he's planet side, fuck me, then leave without saying goodbye and I'm tired of pretending I wouldn't

🧘‍♀️🧘‍♀️🧘‍♀️ mmmm i had to close my eyes and clench my thighs reading this. jango i think would be more callous and rough w it, whereas some of the clones might be more sincere. because i'm merely a series of holes for them to use I'll just talk about multiple. feel free to request others if i missed someone you'd like to hear about.

jango's rich and highly skilled at his job, notorious to those who know him and invisible to those who don't. it's not hard for him to get you in bed, nor is it hard for him to keep stringing you along, knocking roughly on your door, not because he couldn't get in by picking your lock, but because he wants you to hear that sound and know that it's a precursor to his own behavior: rough, fast, demanding. jango uses you for pleasure and not company, kissing at your mouth instead of letting you talk, smothering you with his broad shoulders and considerable muscle until all you're doing is wrapping your arms and legs around him, your actions solely reliant on his own. he loves pulling back to look at your flushed, sweaty face, your heaving chest as your lips perpetually part just to suck in air that he'd stolen from you with the heft of his body, your limbs weak and limp as he watches you. he's proud of the way he affects you, he's respected and feared in all endeavors he undertakes. he tortures you by never letting you know when he'll be on coruscant, and it means you wait eagerly in your apartment each night, longing for his gloved fist to pound on you door. you let him in every time, and you always will. he lets himself out every time, and he always will.

rex keeps in mostly good spirits with his team and his men, so when he shows up outside your door it's for companionship. He wants connection, he's mollified with claps on the shoulder from general skywalker but camaraderie can't replace intimacy. he nudges his face into yours, his nose bumping the space between yours and your cheek. he breathes your air, he presses himself to you like the space between you might kill him. he's proud to be in your bed, with you, kissing your skin and committing it to memory for late nights out in the cold vacuum of space. he holds you tenderly, his palms always pressed to your flesh to drink you in, and he lets you act as an outlet for his longing. being with you rejuvenates him, but watch out because if he's too happy the day after, his men are gonna know he got laid. general skywalker is all too proud to cover ahsoka's ears when he congratulates him for being in such good spirits

wolffe is so fucking stressed. truly he has to put up with so much bullshit and he's infinitely grateful for his general because if he had skywalker like rex he'd shoot himself. he knocks on your door to pin you to the bed and slam the headboard into the wall, he uses your cunt as a punching bag and he bites vivid, stinging marks into your neck and chest. He kisses them afterwards, letting his post-orgasm tenderness through, but he tires himself out before he ever croons at you. maybe it'd be different if you lived with him, but he's not on coruscant all the time, so frantic rough sex and an empty bed in the morning is what you'll get.

hunter bad batch finds it hard to get time away from his team because of their status as, uh, well, runaways. it's rare that he can let his guard down enough to spend a night in your bed, but that's why he leaves without saying goodbye. he slips out as soon as you're asleep, and departs coruscant before you even wake. you're his, 'be back in a few hours, i've got one last thing to do'. you're left wondering if he has go-tos on every planet, or if you're lucky. you're lucky, but he won't tell you that. he will, however, leave something to hold on to until the next time he sees you. probably a bandana, pardon the cliche, but it's the one he tied your wrists to the headboard with last night, so you keep it with you.

wrecker would genuinely feel terrible not saying goodbye i'm sorry. he might rock your shit and leave you numb but he'll always get all mushy when he's gotta go. he definitely tends to be one of the more romantic ones, he's a big softie and probably wouldn't treat you so callously even if combat was wearing on him. he prides himself for being in your life, and he'd assure you every time you got together that he wasn't just using you for pleasure. he'd comm you semi frequently if he was able.

fives is a little shit who might possibly fit into the scenario described. while i think he'd feel guilty for using you and treating you like he's using you, i can see it happening and just being a poor decision of his that he's not too proud of, but that he can't stop regardless. i can see him playing into a fuckboy persona and trying not to think about it too hard or else he might feel bad. he sweet talks you into letting him in every time and you can barely catch your breath before he's suiting up in his regulation blacks again and heading out the door. he doesn't do it because he's stressed, he doesn't do it because he's desperate to connect with someone, he does it because he's horny and wants a pussy to fuck. he wants to sink his aching dick into a warm body, and that warm body is you.

[ccrypticcorvidae]

RE: Mouthwashing, Curly

I wanna talk a bit abt Curly's so-called "punishment" because I like the symbolism an immense amount and I think his character is really complex.

Before the crash, when Anya tells Curly that she's pregnant, he feels like he's powerless to bring her justice because of the circumstances. Jimmy was his best friend, who he believed to be a good person despite his past mistakes, and who he was able to get a decent job by having his employers look past the criminal records. The team is stuck on the same ship without locks in the sleeping quarters for months, and he wants to do everything in his power to keep the peace so that everyone would make it out of the less-than-ideal situation mostly unharmed. As the captain, he's protective over his crew, and he's already failed one of its members directly by inviting a dangerous man to live amongst them without room for the potentially severe repercussions he would face in society (i.e. "take responsibility"). When he does confront Jimmy, he sees his true colors, having expected him to take responsibility for his actions instead of covering things up. Curly is kind to a fault - sees the good in people - and for this, he takes the brunt of the ship's crashing due to his own selflessness in trying to save as much of it as possible.

Now he's physically powerless; he can't be there to protect his crew mates, to act as a mediator between them via verbal communication as opposed to violence. He can't assist Anya in her deteriorating mental status due to the trauma she endured, and she's ultimately consumed by it - all while he watches on helplessly, wishing he had noticed her struggles sooner. He can't stop the fight between Jimmy and Swansea once Anya reveals to the latter what was done to her, and consequentially, the deaths that followed. The plight of his character is to witness the downfall of those he was supposed to lead and be the only one to survive in the end, continually tormented with the knowledge that Pony Express would likely sweep these horrid events under the rug the same way they did Jimmy's criminal history. If he is successfully rescued, Jimmy's framing guarantees he will be blamed for everything, without any real way to defend himself. In the end, he had no decision in whether he would live or die as the others did, his personal liberties taken from him. Curly is left alone and vulnerable, in parallel to Anya, the cycle of endless pain starting over once again. In the end, Jimmy would never truly take accountability for the pain he caused, and in one, final, selfish move, he sentenced his only real friend to live with it under the pretense of "fixing things."

[yoinkschief]

I did it - I finally did it, I made concept doodles of the different leaders

I've been meaning to do this for a while now, I've just kept forgetting to and then get distracted with much more pressing matters n shit so yk but I decided fuck it they don't need to be good so long as they just get my idea across,,, and then later on when I have the time, energy and patience to I can fully render them

These are all also leaning into who they are in my HCs, simply because I think it's kinda boring to just go "well what if we put person a in person b's body and keep everything else the exact same" like where's the nuance in that,,,

So all the same story beats still happen, just minor differences, like Tord still leaves and has the robot explode causing the damage (but different contexts now) and Tom is still possessed by the rage demon or whateva and Edd still gets powers and Matt still becomes a vampire,, they just are put in different plot points in the story

I don't like the idea of just reskinning characters, yk, if I were to change story beats for things like "instead of matt getting bitten by the vampire bite it was tord" I wouldn't want it to just be the same shit happens because Tord wouldn't react the same way to it as Matt would, yk ?? I don't wanna give the character's the others personalities, just their plot beats

But in this things stay relatively the same

Except in this Tom, in a desperation to live after failing to dismantle Tord's robot in an act of rage against Tord returning and pretending like nothing happened, makes a deal with his more demonic half and gives up part of his soul to live

Edd gets blown up trying to use Tord's robot against Tord's wishes and something something main characters can't die or whatever so he painfully finds out that his "poweredd" powers grant him a very fucked up version of immortality,,, I made it look goopy because I can and I'm madly in love with my partner and they've given me this idea so fuck them blame them if you want

Matt gets no lasting consequences for his actions because he's a vampire and they have MAD regenerative abilities, but he does still blow up but this time when him and Edd are fucking around in Tord's little office ?? whatever the hell it is he has stuffed in his room as a secondary room, yk when him and Edd are touching all those buttons they're not supposed to, that's what caused the robot to malfunction and Matt ends up getting the brunt of it - I mean so does Edd, and since this would be Tom's world that would probably why Matt and Edd's relationship grows sour since Edd got caught up in the blast too n whatnot I dunno I'm mostly spitballing here I haven't sat down and properly thought out these AUs yet so yk

take all of this with a grain of salt this is ALLLL subject to change in the future but for now this is what I have in my head for everything :p

[deadsetobsessions]

He doesn’t know how they got here, but Jason’s thankful for it. It’s not often that he speaks to Cass, when Jason’s passions are words and righteous murder and Cass’s passions are distinctly not that, but when they do speak, they manage to get along. Somehow.

“So, why don’t you kill?” Jason leans back on the couch, his favorite mug filled with Alfred’s hot chocolate.

Cass is curled against the arm of the sofa. She looks at him, head tilted. Jason knows she’s reading him, but he’s not sure what she’s finding. It’s humbling, and intimidating, to know she sees more than what he allows to show.

“I can see,” she says. “That one time… I killed. I saw. Pain. Fear. Desp- des- not wanting to die.”

“Desperation?”

Cass nods. One of her fingers fiddle with the material of the couch. Jason knows she’s allowing him to see the motion. He knows it’s her silent way of showing him trust.

“There is more. To dying. Like… like they see their lives-They think- remembers. Loves. Their life- regret, love, everything. It goes through-” Cass taps her temple.

“Their lives are flashing through their heads?”

“Yes. Good. Bad. Everything. I see.” Quieter, Cass adds “I know. I know them, then. I killed a life that I know. They love. Everyone, have something they love. I kill, I kill that love.”

“That must suck.”

Cass leans back. She nods, neck releasing their tension and eyes less hunted, more accepting.

“Yes. I don’t want to- I don’t want to be the end.” Cass swivels her shoulders towards him, now. “Why… why do you?”

“Me?” Jason… hasn’t thought about it for a while, nor too deeply. But this is Cass. And her honesty deserves an honest reply. “I kill because some people shouldn’t be left alive to hurt and kill others”

“Not about… Bruce?”

Jason took a sip of his hot chocolate. Cass settled more into the couch, her eyes clear and watchful.

“It used to be,” he admitted. “About him, I mean. It used to be about vengeance. But then I came back to Crime Alley, and then I saw the kids getting hurt instead of being protected. They’re innocent. And then, it wasn’t about Bruce anymore. Killing is just the means to an end now, for me.”

“Do you- not regret?” She makes a gesture at his leg, where on a normal day, his holsters would be.

“I try to make sure I don’t kill people I’d regret, no. Like, you know how sometimes you guys arrest muggers?”

Cass nodded.

“Sometimes,” Jason said, remembering the days of digging through trash for food and the lingering hunger that rumbled through his younger self’s stomach. “They mug people because they’re desperate. I don’t kill those guys. But people deal to kids? Who hurt sex workers? Rapists? They’re doing irreparable harm, with full knowledge of their actions. For profit, mostly. If they’re willing to ruin lives, then they should be ready for their own to be ruined. It’s justice, for people like me.”

Cass studied him. “Justice…?”

“The only kind us Alley kids could ever appreciate. Arresting an abuser, a threat, and having that stick is for the privileged. Having that threat removed completely is relieving.”

“Can’t trust the world to be fair. But death, is fair.”

“Yeah. I think if I saw as much as you do, it’d be harder to do. But I think I’d still kill, because one person’s suffering after a life of being evil is worth the safety of so many others. To know… well, I guess I’m glad I don’t know what that’s like.”

“I see.”

“I know you do,” Jason grins at her. “But not killing is an act of courage too. Even if B makes it seem like it should come instinctually.”

“Yes. He does not connect, with Damian. Does not understand, fully, how hard. To unlearn.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a while after that, listening to the sounds of their family clambering around in other rooms.

“Hey, Cass?”

Cass turned back to him.

“I would kill David Cain for you.”

He would. It makes the Pit seethe when he thinks about how much David Cain and Lady Shiva hurt Cass for her to get this insanely good at reading people. He hopes she sees the pure honesty and sincerity he feels at that declaration

Cass puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezed once. Twice.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“No objections?”

“… would not feel too bad.”

Jason snorted.

“Yeah. You and me both.”

He doesn’t know how they got here, but he’s thankful for it anyways, because he understands his sister just that much more now.

[utilitycaster]

So I alluded to this in tags but did not want to put this on someone else's post and so: I have been catching heat for calling various members of Bells Hells selfish since the start, and to be clear, I will keep doing this, because I have precisely no respect for the intellect of anyone doing this, but I want to underscore that it's not just that I find many of the party's actions profoundly selfish/self-absorbed; it's been a growing pattern in the people who defend them.

It is selfish to fail to take into consideration the perspectives of others and to act out of your own pain in a way that hurts other people. I categorically reject the idea that being traumatized, abused, or experiencing negative things in any way excuses you from having to consider how your actions can harm others. In fact, failing to do this makes you a worse person; to say "the world hurt me and I'll visit this pain on other innocents" is ultimately, an indefensible position on moral grounds. That doesn't, to be clear, mean I dislike it in stories, which should have conflict and moral grayness. But I do not find these characters to be people I consider to be good, if this is with any consistency the frame of reference from which they act.

To say "the gods did not give me things and therefore they deserve killing" is profoundly selfish and vindictive. Having no love for them is one thing; actively wishing harm on them is, in fact, self-centered in the extreme. But that's actually not what I'm here to talk about in regards to Bells Hells' selfishness, both because I've found trying to explain that the gods are living beings and murdering all of them is, you know, bad, to some of the fandom has failed for the reasons I'll discuss later in this post. And, granted, this is a hypothetical, and we may look back in a month or so when the dust clears at a party that defeated Predathos and say "ha, good job guys," but should Bells Hells release Predathos deliberately? That is a betrayal of the Exandrian Accord. If you want to side with the man who destroyed Molaesmyr (and make no mistake, there is no way to do what he was going to do without siding with him; intent only matters if Predathos escapes despite Bells Hells giving it their all, not if they have slightly different motivations for fucking over their allies), that's a valid story, but to take the job and choose to fail to deliver? That is selfish. Someone else could have taken the job. The Doylist excuse that these are the characters the cast happened to be playing at the time does not, in fact, hold water; they could in fact have rejected the Moon Plot, or chosen to become the villains of this story. I would have, in fact, enjoyed that as a story! But this idea that they're not just assholes who think more about themselves and the shitty things various people mostly unaffiliated with the gods did to them during their childhoods than the vast destruction wrought by Ludinus across all of Exandria, is not one the narrative has ever supported.

What's really struck me, though, is a theme of selfish defenses in the fandom. I think bringing up personal anecdotes can be incredibly helpful! I found that some of the people who spoke about their experiences with PTSD in reference to Caleb, for example, provided incredible insight. Notably, the people I'm thinking about were not the ones whose conclusions were "so he's in the moral right to do anything to anyone ever because of PTSD" (and indeed they were usually people who celebrated Caleb as kind of an asshole). But those anecdotes do not override the experiences of other fans. Or, to dredge up some tiresome arguments, Beau is allowed to get pissed off at Caleb's behavior, even if his actions come from a place of trauma.

The two things that really stand out to me (outside of the bizarre ambient noise of white southern ex-Evangelicals acting like they're an oppressed class on that basis that has clung to the discourse like the slime it is) are the recent defense of Ashton on the basis of "punks/leftists are allowed to do this and I identify with Ashton so how could you be so mean to me, a leftist punk and therefore a good person and therefore I can do whatever and you have to like me," and the defense of the various Vanguard members (sans Ludinus) as being victims of a cult and therefore the trail of bodies they leave is fine because various fans have talked about having family in cults whom they forgave. I will speak bluntly here. I'm Jewish, and your argument of "you should be nicer to cult members because a lot of white southern people fall into cults, like one of my parents" is, to me, a combination of insulting, horrifying, and makes me hope your cultist parent gets hit by a car before they hurt more people. Should you wish to forgive your family? Fine, it's your business. To act as though it is a failure of strangers that they are not more generous towards a fictional character because you are sucking your own dick about how good you are at forgiveness? That is a level of entitlement that goes so far beyond the pale I struggle to imagine how you function in society.

I don't think Bells Hells are doomed to this epithet - they have a chance to do the the right thing - and I believe that those entitled fans can change. But yeah man, they - and you - have been really fucking selfish, and the digging in of your heels is doing nothing to convince me you're capable of even hearing the perspectives of others, let alone considering them.

[gallusrostromegalus]

So how much are you willing to talk about Ulquiorra?

I will talk so much about him. There are so many things wrong with that man, but to make a brief list of his most notable features:

He's dumb as hell.

I say that with tremendous sympathetic affection. Ulquiorra barely thinks. It's easy for him to do nothing and go nowhere. He eats chocolate in the middle of the night in the dark. When he gets access to a garden, he often just stands around in it. He's often waiting for things to happen.

He just LOOKS smart compared to nearly everyone else in the fic because he doesn't have much to say, so he's not constantly opening his mouth to jam his foot down it.

Consequently, Ulquiorra starts off having little to no initiative of his own. Stuff just happens to him. Some of that is because he is colossally depressed, but he's depressed because the idea that he has control over his circumstances has straight up not occured to him.

The first person he meets that shows him that "You can just do whatever you want, forever" and the boundless joy it is to be a creature of free will is, unfortunately, Aizen. And Aizen left off the key corollary "-EVERYONE is allowed to do whatever they want, forever. We are all equal in God's dead, empty eye sockets."

So Ulquiorra wanders around trying out this "doing stuff" thing without any concept of ethics.

I realize I am infantilizing this character, but I am doing so in a twilight zone "hey, wouldn't it be fucked up to watch a fully anatomically functional person who is able to speak and blow stuff up with his mind go through the emotional development steps of a toddler?", because I think that's a fun high-concept premise to explore with him. Yeah, what if a toddler could speak articulately and also destroy you? How would he act? How does he feel, learning to have feelings?

It'd probably suck for him and everyone around him, and make him very easy to manipulate, for one thing.

So I don't think Ulquiorra is evil, because evil takes intent. He is dangerous to be in the general proximity of, though

Like a horse

lose

in a hospital!

I love that sketch as much as the next person but if an IRL horse got loose in a hospital it would be bedlam, but the horse would be mostly confused and probably willing to follow around the first person who looked like they knew what they were doing.

You know, like how Ulquiorra follows Aizen around because that's the first guy he's met who THINKS he knows what he's doing, and is good at convincing others he knows what he's doing!

So Ulquiorra's entire first character arc is being exposed to more and more people and realizing he does have control over his life, and that he can take actions, and that those actions have consequences.

Like being emotionally devastated by a teenage girl because he was an asshole to her and she's willing to scream at him about it.

Hm.

Consequences hurt.

He lives through the Las Noches arc, and decides to follow his own star!

He follows it right through a portal that was not meant for him and now he's sort of trapped in somewhere he's really, really, really, really, REALLY not supposed to be.

But it's a beautiful place

And nobody is forcing him to do anything.

And for a long time, he just stands out in the garden, waiting for something.

But then

Ulquiorra experiences a novel pair of emotions that he's recently learned from his new...

Orihime is too mad at him for him to call her a friend.

-but he did learn the names and therefore the experience of two new emotions from her: boredom, and it's natural remedy: curiosity.

So Ulquiorra's second character arc is him learning how to be himself without anyone telling him who he is and what he ought to be.

He's travelling up Maslow's hierarchy with the inscrutable but unstoppable instinctual drive of a salmon returning to its spawning ground.

This has lead to an important discovery on my part: Ulquiorra is terrific for comedy because he is the ULTIMATE straight man to everyone else's nonsense, because he's immune to nearly all nonsense.

He doesn't have societal taboos to be hung up on, nor any sense of what is "normal", so the sole thing he geta hung up on is a lack of internal consistency in others, meaning he can slip between straight man to the absurdist at the drop of a single scathing observation. Yet, he retains a sort of understated dignity that compels people to try to earn his respect.

Hence, I'm having fun turning him loose on the most absurd, internally inconsistent and frankly, insane batch of characters in the series:

The Royal Guard.

:)

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

pretty pleeeease tell me more about this and your ideas for a pjo show directed by you? 🥺💚💚

of courseee thanks for asking! most of the points were covered in OP's post but your ask has given me an opportunity to think more about it and expand it more so thanks again!!

(disclaimer: this is really long and I also wanted to say pjotv is a really good piece of cinema even though rick had no experience in film at all and if anyone doesn't agree about anything, don't be mean about it!!)

I mourned the breaking of the fourth wall in pjotv. when rick mentioned that the writing team were thinking of new ways to show percy's internal narration, I expected a LOT of fourth wall breaking. here is a few low effort doodles on how fourth wall breaking could work because I don't have coherent thoughts on describing it in words

When it comes to animation, ugh there are so much things I could say. imagine the funky expressions. Imagine the potential for it to look stunning like the animation for arcane and into the spiderverse. imagine the awards it could get for best animation.

Or i really really LOVE those little animations within live action like how the autumn leaves fly around Nick and charlie in heartstopper and it'd be really cute in pjo with,,like blue hearts from percy and grey hearts from annabeth ugh <3

I'm sure lot of people wouldn't agree but I felt there was wayy less of platonic percabeth in pjo tv s1. a lot of it was deep like all the sacrifices and all the romantic stares which everyone keeps making edits of and whatever. but there was no chance to show their proper development as friends. so in my pjotv there's mostly only platonic percabeth with the little sprinkle of hints of having a crush like how it is in the book.

There's full room for the show makers to do this in the coming seasons, but I love the idea of the characters starting out with a light palette (pale blues/greens for percy, for example) and then getting progressively darker and darker in colour (blacks/dark blues) throughout the seasons, because I love a good story told through fashion <3

No other changes to the plot except extra scenes for character development (sally/Poseidon/lil percy flashbacks), new character nuances (medusa/annabeth parallels aka the most genius thing to come out of pjotv).

speaking on the humour, I would trash seriousness and just give pjo lot of the elements of a sitcom. like you know how sometimes in between sitcoms they have little interviews where they reflect on what they're doing like

this also helps the internal narration aspect. bonus points if rick is the off screen interviewer

of course if it was animated, walker and leah could voice act, but it'd be weird for a black girl to voice a blonde white girl. but i really do love mixed canon annabeth and percy so the animated version of them would be annabeth with tinted blonde hair and well if you really like blonde percy we can have his blonde roots showing BUT ONLY IF WALKER AND LEAH ARE VOICE ACTING

THEME SONG!!! a banger with a silly montage that will send nostalgic memories rushing through your brain and make you sing along even after 10 years because ITS SUCH A CORE MEMORY

I don't know if you know the tlt musical but I would definitely make the campfire song from that as the pjotv campfire song and little good kid instrumentals here and there

also I forgot to mention you're the screenwriter because I really liked your screenplay that you posted

if you read this till the end, finley, honestly???congratulations!!

[absolutebl]

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

This is just me with my analysis hat on. 

1. 2023 = the year EVERYONE went outside their lanes

Everything went topsy-turvy this year in BL. 

For example, Korea gave us agonized yearning and outright queerness (The 8th Sense, The New Employee) while Japan served up soft office workers and tender family (Our Dining Table). 

The BL world went askew for a while, especially in the spring of 2023. 

Not that we still didn’t still get Korea’s soft angsty bubbles or Japan’s “what are you doing and why does it hurt?” kink-fests. But there were quite a few BLs that made us chronic watchers sit up in confusion and wonder if Korea was dabbling in Taiwan’s territory or Japan in Thailand’s. Then they fudged the kisses and we were like... okay, back in familiar territory. 

In contrast, Thailand stayed course-correcting for the damage they’ve done in the past with tropes (2022) and self referential meta criticism (2021), but also almost aggressively returned to their BL roots after last year’s series of shockers. Certainly, they are reexamining those roots, transplanting some, aerating others. But they really went back to classic Thai university and high school BL and pulps in a big way in 2023. 

Taiwan is always difficult to gage because they produce so few but they seem to have stuck with what they do best with no deviation while producing more this year than they have in ages. I’m happy for that, why change a good thing? But there is a tiny part of me that really wants them to hit it out of the part with a quality piece soon. For me, We Best Love still reigns supreme, but I would really like the HIStory franchise to give us that level but longer - like a happy version of Your Name Engraved Herein. I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit. 

I know, what a very odd thing for me to say. But if any BL is going to break into the mainstream American market, I genuinely think it’s most likely come from Taiwan. 

Vietnam and the Philippines are falling behind, in general. They just didn’t bring out very many shows in 2023, and what the brought out tended to fub the endings. This is forgivable in Japan (because of their style and quality) but not what watchers want in the lower production value propositions. In other words, if you do a pulp, you can’t mess up the ending (by romance standards). that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. 

2. The Office Romance Dominated

After years of Thailand serving us an endless (and slightly bland) buffet of university (and a few high school) BLs, this year Korea was basically like...

Ofiice. We like the Office. It’s cheap to film we can use grown up actors, acting (mostly) their actual age. 

And yeah... it totally worked. 

To be fair, Japan has always given us office live action yaoi from the beginning (they had the source material) but this year everyone else, including Thailand, seriously started playing in this setting. 

3. Boys Danced with Boys

The darling @heretherebedork​ was a big fan of this one, and I rather like it myself. Prior to this boys dancing together was very very rare in BL, but this year we got way more than our fair share. It was lovely. 

Never Let me Go

My School President 

Bed Friend 

The Day I Loved You 

Step by Step

Be Mine Superstar

Tie the Not 

Dangerous Romance

I think there were a few more. These are the ones I remembered to write down. 

4. Getting (even more) Meta With Tropes 

BL has been getting more and more meta over the past few years but this year they really focused in on tropes specifically. Calling out their own biggest and most favorite tropes in a massive way, especially Thailand and especially GMMTV. 

Like they tunneled in on damaging tropes with Bad Buddy and the like over the past 2 years, and now they are just having fun with us. 

I mean they just started the dancing trope and already they are calling it out? That’s like rapid-fire regurgitated meta there, GMMTV. 

5. Cameos are the norm now 

Taiwan has always loved cameos but in the past the other countries have been show and steady with only one or two a year. (Unless Japan does a parody.) 

This year Korea got in on the game.

Korea rarely starts trends but they do adopt smaller and lesser known existing ones and make them super popular. 

This year they did that with cameo couple appearances, even borrowing a few of Thailand’s pairs (TutorYim and MaxNat traveled north). They did it so much I stopped tracking. Love Class 2, Why R U?, and Jun & Jun were the heaviest hitters. 

Taiwan, of course, came back swinging. Kiseki was the gum-ball machine of pair cameos. (In Taiwan mafia = gay.) 

6. We are entering the cross pollination age

The number of remakes picked up or started this year was startling, not just countries revisiting their own content (Thailand, Japan) but countries revisiting OTHER countries stuff.

Lemme explain...

Korea has started remaking Thai content (Why R U?) alongside cameo'ing Thai pairs.

Thailand is doing Korean IP (My Dear Gagster Oppa) and has 2 Chinese ones slated for next year. 

GMMTV acquired a lot of Japanese IP (Cherry Magic, Ossen, and My Love Mix Up) - and then had problems distributing it. 

This is probably the most surprising trend for me. Especially the Japanese stuff. I would have thought these properties well outside of Thailand's price range (even GMMTV's) not to mention Japan’s legendary IP issues (I swear I typed this pout before the pulled TayNew’s excellent Cherry Magic). 

Also why not option some of the older popular manga instead? Bet that's much cheeper. (I did see a NEW Thai translation of Finder into Thai, which is 90s yaoi, so I have my fingers crossed on that front.)

I shouldn't be too surprised. 

Thailand is running out of y-novel content. Their publication industry is just not robust enough (I was just talking to a friend about this at length recently). But I didn't think they had the funds to option, especially from Japan. 

Perhaps the option deals are for peanuts?

7. Korea got cheeky

I’m not sure quite how else to put this. 

After finally figuring out boys can kiss, Korea started to do not just higher heat but playful higher heat, with more aggressive word play and linguistic innuendo, like they are entering their racy rom-com teenage years (Why R U? Love Class 2 and Jun & Jun in particular.) 

I guess: Welcome to your BL teens, Korea? 

It’s cute of them. I am very much enjoying it. 

And now that comedy is warming them up, we get to see them play with actual queer burgeoning physicality in shows like The 8th Sense. 

It’s nice. I like seeing Korea stretch its wings. They still stick to their bubble, but that bubble seems to be expanding. 

8. The Amnesia Trope is back

And I, for one, would prefer to forget about it. 

9. BL got trendy 

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this category but basically we started seeing a lot of “modern” romance trends out of the west (like a/b/o) show up in our BL. Not a ton and sometimes quite small, but there has a been a steady rise of things like: no seme/uke, femme gay, out gay, condom use, messy gay. 

We also got an increasing range of sub genre frameworks (like mafia, office setting) that’s moved BL pretty firmly (even in Thailand) out of school and into the workplace, whether actual working is involved or not. 

It’s not to the point where it feels like we get more non-school BL than school BL (if I include all countries in this assessment).

Japan, in classic Japanese fashion, quietly started moving in the opposite direction. It’s what they do. 

10. The Vampires are coming 

This is an announcement trend, which I don’t usually report on but it’s so CLEAR. 

So last year we had a spate of announcements of possible Omegaverse (2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from Thailand - the only one that’s happened). 

This year we got 5 Vampire (or vampire-esk) Thai BLs announced including one from GMMTV. 

Whether all 5 will actually get made is unlikely, but having had (basically) none prior to this (Kissable Lips), I’m pretty confident that we will get at least 2 of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one other country made one as well. (Side eyes Taiwan with interest.) 

Final thoughts

It feels like we are also seeing a decline in BL (both by quantity and quality) from Vietnam and the Philippines. As you all know, I don’t track or really watch either of these two very closely. But it feels like, now, no one else is either. 

I think we have likely seen the BL heyday already in both places and their industries are now on the decline. 

We might be witnessing a thinning in the players in the BL field. 

FYI we had approximately 

136 BLs in 2023

Previous Years

2022: 117

2021: 95

2020: 62

2019: 40

2018: 30 

2017: 44 (China’s last gasp)

2016: 27

2015: 17 (50% micro)

2014: 17 (50% micro)

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted any additional trends you want to call out.

Last year, 2022′s trend report

2021′s Trend report

Last Year’s Stats & Predictions

(source) 

[blorb-el]

hello, hope you have a good day!

i was lurking on your blog (mostly for your very (imo) based clark kent takes - he has been living rent free in my head for a couple of months now but im also not really familiar with older, pre-crisis comics and kryptonese in general, and also 'we shall be free we shall find peace' haunts me at least once a week and i have feelingsTM about it) and stumbled upon the posts about hoping and 'kaoshahrodh' came up as the tag for those, so i just wanted to know where that phrase came from?

;w; thank you!

kaoshahrodh is a word I've been mulling over for... I guess it's been multiple years now. It's Kryptahniuo - the fan-created conlang that became pseudo-official when the CW used it as their version of spoken Kryptonian. The creator maintains a website with information in it as well as the forms of Kryptonian used in the comics at kryptonian.info.

The literal meaning: shahr is the root of hope. (Shahrrehth is the noun form). Kao- is the imperative prefix, and -odh is the present simple verb suffix. From my understanding, the simple present in Kryptahniuo indicates a habitual state (ex. instead of saying "I am a runner," it's like saying "I run" to mean something similar). Except here it's imperative.

It's what I believe the S stands for.

You'll see Superman referred to, by DC and by fans and occasionally in-universe, as some sort of personification of hope. Usually this results in Superman smiling placidly and Midwesternly while giving a speech and then not lifting a finger to do something, or trying to do one (1) thing and immediately getting shot down so the writers can have someone else be useful, or maybe wringing his hands and being very Solemn and Sad over not being able to do something because he has to stay this ~personification of hope.~

I think this is bullshit, and bad writing besides. Hope, for Superman, is not a noun. It's a verb.

Hope is a command. You must hope. You must believe that the world can be a better place than it is right now. And you must believe that your actions can bring that better world closer. That symbol was what Jor and Lara wrapped their baby in as they sent him into the void of space. I don't usually headcanon Kryptonians as literally Jewish, speaking Hebrew, all that, but I think of it as a kind of echo of tikkun olam. Or at least my limited understanding of it, not having studied Jewish philosophy.

Hope is Action. I first understood the Idea of Superman six issues into Birthright. This goddamn comic, written in 2003, spoke to the sickness and the fury and the helplessness that I think all of us feel, sometimes, when we hear about school shootings; rereading it in 2022, it's amplified by the horror of repetitions in the intervening years. One minute ago, I saw a little girl screaming because she was staring down the barrel of a gun. She was nine, and she will remember it for the rest of her life. Doesn't that set rage into you, too? Superman breaks the glass, reaches for a gun, and shoots the gun seller. There's a fury in all of us, I think, when we see injustice. There's a kid in all of us that learned what fairness was and never forgot. When we're hurt, many of us, we want to hurt back.

Superman catches the bullet he fired an inch away from the man's face. Now you will, too. He doesn't kill the gun seller. With all his power, with all his rage, with the absolute clarity of his storybook moral compass, he makes the man understand, on a primal level, just what he has allowed to happen. He didn't fucking sit there on a cloudy sunlit throne of softboy feelgood platitudes and hope that people would be nicer. He acted. Hope is an imperative action.

(In a more... self-centered way, it's also a command to stay alive. There have been times in my life I needed that reminder. Sometimes you can't see. Sometimes you can't get yourself to reason that things will get better, that someday you'll feel like you belong, that people care about you. That's when you need the work of hope. To get out of bed. Someday, if you get out of bed enough times, if you pilot your body through enough days, keeping it alive, if you grope in the dark for help - you will be able to believe that you deserve to be alive.)

Elliot S! Maggin once said something along the lines of: writing a Superman story is very easy, and all of them (all of his, at least) come down to one thing. In any given situation, if you had all the power in the world, what would be the right thing to do? You and I, we're not Superman. We don't have all the power in the world. But we have some power. Kaoshahrodh asks: how can things be better? And how can we act to make it so?

superman: birthright #6, 2004, script mark waid, pencils leinil yu, inks gerry alanguilan, colors dave mccaig, letters comicraft

[communistkenobi]

ok my brother and I rewatched all the mission impossible movies and our new ranking is

1 > 4 > 7 > 2 > 5 > 6 > 3

2 is a lot more fun and good than I remember it being on first watch, and 5 was way more mid. Honestly 4 could take the top spot despite Jeremy Renner being in that one. There are a lot of fun physical props and gadgets and doohickeys in 4, and there’s a specific type of whimsy to the direction style that’s not in any of the other ones. You can tell the director had only worked on animated movies prior to MI4, there’s a specific type of fixation on small props and their specific trajectories and positions throughout each scene that is hard to describe but reminds me of how animated movies tend to be shot. Like there is a physical awareness of objects in space that makes sense for an animated director to have a preoccupation towards, and I think he pretty effectively translates those preoccupations to live action.

the first one has the Hollywood 90s charm, which is just firmly lodged in history now, like we are not getting that type of movie back probably because of 9/11. I kind of don’t really have anything to say about it other than it’s straightforwardly good and has some very funny horror-movie-style dutch angle shots in them. De Palma also uses split diopter shots a lot in that film, which I didn’t know much about but is basically when you split the lens of a camera to get two distinct focal lengths in a shot, but at the cost of essentially having a blurry line down the middle of the shot. It makes me wonder if that’s part of why they made the room Tom Cruise wires into all white, because they use a lot of split diopter shots in that scene and the white would conceal the middle blur well. Anywayyyy

MI2 is an undeniably John Woo movie, complete with motorcycle jousting and insane combat stunts, and also captures a bit of that same 90s charm. Also kinda don’t have a lot to say about this one. Nyah is definitely one of the best female leads in the series though, her actor is soooo good in this movie. Shame she never came back MI7 is also a pretty fun movie, you have now-geriatric Tom Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff and fun car chase scenes. He is really hot in this movie also. And “evil AI that takes over the world” is such an awesome stupid action movie plot, especially because it’s not tied to the more rancid tendencies some of the other films have (eg with 6 explicitly being about an anarchist who wants to nuke the world after defecting from his country’s government, etc). Like it’s goofy enough to easily shut your brain off to and accept.

6 and 3 are arguably the worst, with 3 edging out the bottom spot because of the amount of heterosexuality in that one. It’s not at the level of the spn blurrywife, but it’s close enough that Julia (Ethan’s wife) can easily be categorised as a blurrywife, just a smear on the camera meant to move the hero along and then scream and cry when she gets captured (although Tom Cruise is very good at screaming and crying on camera). This is also the beginning of where they tank Luther’s character, he used to be this Gucci-wearing hacking wizard guy and by the end of the series he’s just like a guy who’s on the computer. Like after the third movie we don’t get a line from Luther anywhere as fun or charming as “that punk put a hole in my Versace!” Simon Pegg is fine. I have no thoughts about him at all, he’s the comic relief and that’s as deep as it goes.

6’s plot is hard to stomach, it has fairly poor pacing, and they basically waste the HALO dive too early in the film, so there’s not really any big tension/plot stakes associated with it. The final act is extremely good though, and upon rewatch I like Henry Cavill’s acting a lot more, which is why I think it should be ranked above 3. Also 3 has like no stunts basically ! It’s so generic.

what is funny is that MI tends to become more “interconnected” as time goes on wrt returning cast members, but it’s mostly only dudes with like one or two exceptions, so there’s the funny undercurrent of like misogynistic disposability of women leading to intense homosocial bonds between men because they’re the only constant in the story. Like it’s Ethan Benji and Luther and that’s mostly it, just three dudes having fun. Unfortunately the dialogue/banter writing between them tends to be quite mid-to-bad in these movies, so they essentially are just really long time coworkers who constantly almost die in front of one another.

I don’t think there’s a bad performance from Tom Cruise in these though. He says a lot of dumb lines and does stupid plot bullshit but he manages to make it work basically every time. He seems to have pretty good chemistry with most of the female leads as well, which is the only time where there’s interesting verbal sparring/flirting/characterological tension in scenes. And then obviously he does all those insane stunts, which is a significant part of how much we enjoyed these films. I quite like the way he portrays Ethan during them too, as like this dude who is perpetually pushed to the brink to do insane impossible shit and is basically always having a bad day because of it. it gives the character a really nice human grounding and makes the stunts feel more believable because the character doing them is having the worst day of his life the entire time. He also frequently fucks up, falls, misses ledges, gets hit and almost dies, smacked around, etc. very fun to watch, great balance of cool action hero and guy who gets the shit kicked out of him for a living

anyway these are really fun movies. I feel like if you needed to fill a weeks worth of movie nights with friends these would be really fun to watch. I had a great time yelling at the screen with my brother. A very fun drinking game also is taking a shot whenever Tom Cruise starts running in a scene. That dude is just fucking zipping around everywhere, it made me realise how rare it is to see actors run in films because he does it fucking constantly. And like not short shots either, there are takes where he’s running continually at full speed for like 45 unbroken seconds. I know also from watching some behind the scenes videos about how they did some of the stunts that he always does like 10 takes for action sequences so he’s running an absolute shitload. Anyway these movies are good

[siggiedraws]

i come to you about new official content once more... new changes to the character bios on sonic channel, i wanted to hear any thoughts you had on it

https://x.com/Sephys00/status/1904938734480404664

the most outstanding one to me is "shadow doesn't care about good or evil" which feels like is directly contradicted by his actions throughout the games, even in shadow gens. i feel like calling his methods unorthodox or sometimes antagonistic, but still caring about doing what he thinks is right would be a better way to describe this?? lmk if im wrong though

Oh, interesting! I feel a little out of my element here because I actually don't see anything wrong with this, so the animosity towards it on Twitter is a little shocking to me. I hope I can try to explain well why I don't see anything wrong with the sentiment of Shadow not being interested in good or evil. Shadow is a character who's very focused around character development and I'm aware he's not the same as he used to be so I'll avoid using evidence from games like SA2 and Shadow.

So, the way I'm interpreting this is that Shadow isn't interested in morality and what is seen as good or evil. When he acts, he doesn't care about whether it is considered a good or evil action. Shadow's bio brings up how Shadow is hard-headed and willing to do anything to achieve his goals, which plays into the "good and evil" bit. He will defy what is seen as moral or the right thing to do, with no boundaries on what isn't okay to do, and Forces actually has a good showcase of this in action. Shadow, with the goal of destroying Eggman's facility, kills the Jackal squad because they were hired by Eggman to defend the facility. Then, Shadow even makes a taunting remark after killing them. He doesn't feel any remorse for it. So, I think Shadow not caring about what is morally right makes sense. He's so determined in his goals that he will not compromise or pull any punches. They were in his way, so he killed them. Simple.

Shadow is amoral, yet he is also considered a hero because he does the right thing most of the time. Since we've established Shadow does what he wants to achieve his goals no matter the consequences, the reason why Shadow often does things seen as heroic is because his goals align mostly with the interests of those around him. As implied in his Wallpaper Cover Story and by Iizuka in this Anime Expo interview, Shadow's main goal is to protect the planet Maria loves. To elaborate on this, Shadow doesn't necessarily care about what happens to people. He doesn't care about helping others. He cares about the planet. When the planet is in danger, he will save it, which happens to also save people's lives. This may be what causes confusion about his morals, because he's often shown doing heroic actions that save other people, and the vagueness makes his morality hard to pin down.

(you can certainly make a case about how the word "justice" is unfitting for Sonic but the main point I want to focus on here is Shadow)

In Rivals 2, Shadow works with Eggman, which is an example of Shadow still aligning with evil after SA2/Shadow. Shadow explicitly teams up with Eggman because he is told that the world will be destroyed if he doesn't. If we established that Shadow's goal is to protect the planet, he will do anything to achieve his goal, and he is unconcerned with good and evil, then logic reasonably follows that he will align with someone seen as evil if he believes it will achieve his goal of protecting the planet.

In '06, Shadow doesn't care about the world seeing him as evil and persecuting him in the future. He will fight like he always has.

I can see where you're coming from with Shadow Gens and the narrative's focus on the dichotomy between light and dark, with Shadow being tempted by darkness (Black Doom) and ultimately turning to the light (Maria) at the end. Shadow's heroic actions and association with light can be seen as him caring about morality when I think that isn't necessarily the case with Shadow. Near the end of the game, Shadow reemphasizes that he is fighting for Maria's wish for everyone to have a chance to be happy, which fits in with his goal of protecting the planet, which is ultimately an action aligned with heroism and light. It is important to remember that Shadow does it not out of any moral sense of good or evil, more so that his goals happen to align with moral goodness. Maria's virtues have influenced the path Shadow has chosen to take in life, but Shadow isn't Maria. He will fight for Maria's wish via whatever means necessary.

I don't have as much confidence with talking about Shadow's character, but this is how I understand him to be. It's fascinating to consider his mind and way of thinking, and how that informs his actions! I also hope this explanation makes a little bit of sense. I'm more concerned with the "pure intensity" part of his character bio being removed, because I think that's a really good way to describe how Shadow acts and behaves. He's so uncompromising to the point of being dangerous, and I find it really interesting that it's described as "purity." Perhaps that includes being pure of any moral reservations.

Thanks for your ask!

[animeomegas]

Ideal Valentines Day - Omega! Aizawa, Mic, Toshinori, Dabi

A/N: For the anon who asked <3 I wasn't vibing with Shiggy today, so I left him off. I feel like these all ended up being home dates, but I think being a hero or villain makes those easier lol. There are hints of n-sfw, but it's non-descriptive and very tame.

Aizawa

Actions speak louder than words for Aizawa, and I think his preferred love language for receiving affection is Acts of Service.

He has no need for material items, and that goes doubly for anything covered in hearts. I don't think he's a massive fan of chocolate. And flowers are just another thing that he has to sort out and try to keep alive as long as he can. No, he much prefers practical care on Valentine's day.

He wants you to pick him up from UA after work so he doesn't have to drive, a warm cup of his favourite coffee, far sweeter than his image would suggest, ready for him.

He wants to go straight home of course. When he walks through the door, he would love to see the house sparkling clean and tidy. It lifts a burden off him that he didn't even know was there.

There's no fancy outfits with him. He wants to immediately get changed into the comfiest clothes he has, and he would love if you did the same.

Dinner should 100% be his favourite takeaway, eaten on the couch, of course.

I don't know why, but I don't get the vibe that Aizawa is that interested in sex on Valentines Day. I think he'd prefer the intimacy to come from a shared bath or a massage.

And ideally the night ends early, so he can face tomorrow well rested, for once in his life.

Mic

Hizashi loves cheesy romance, he lives for cheesy romance! He eats, sleeps, and breathes it!

I think receiving gifts is something he loves, so get him a pink teddy bear, get him a comically oversized chocolate bar, get him a sappy card filled with cheesy love poems (bonus if you write them yourself.) He loves it all.

He also wants to be at home, because he's worried about people recognising him and interrupting the date.

He would love, love, love if he came home to a trail of rose petals to follow, he's always wanted to do that!

I think he'd enjoy cooking dinner together, just making a mess, playing around, listening to music.

Please pull him to dance with you, he will melt.

Once the food is eaten and the mess left for tomorrow, I think he'd want to do some sort of activity. A board game, a video game, painting together, anything! He's having fun as long as he's with you.

And then... well he's certainly not going to complain if one of your gifts to him was lingerie or a new 'toy'. And it would be rude to not try them out 😏

Toshinori

His idea of romance is old school. He developed his taste mostly from films, rather than experience, after all.

He wants roses so badly. He can't decide if it's more romantic to get a dozen roses, or just one, so he'll let you decide.

I think something private would be more meaningful to him because he's spent his life in the spotlight.

He wants you to meet him at the door with a rose/bouquet of roses, and then lead him into the living room of your home, where you've laid out a fancy dinner.

He wants the fancy dinner table to be set to the nines, he wants candles, champagne, and some food that he can eat. He wants classical music playing in the background.

And then he wants you to pull out his chair for him and wine and dine him until he's completely smitten, not that that's hard.

He doesn't mind if you order the food, but he'd prefer if you either made it by hand, or had it ordered from a special place as opposed to just off a food delivery app. He wants everything to feel special.

The best way to finish the night after dinner is with a movie. One of his favourite films, probably a ridiculous American action film or terrible romcom.

He needs some good old fashioned cuddling at the same time of course.

And because he's getting old, he wants to spend the final moments of the day tucked up in bed, talking about feelings and the future, and all the fuzzy things you're both looking forward to in your relationship.

Dabi

Dabi is softer than he will admit, which means Valentines Day with him involved tricking him into feeling loved.

You can't do things that are too typical, because he'll get spooked. If he comes home and sees heart shaped balloons or dozens of roses, he will flee the scene.

Luckily, he is utterly weak for pizza, so if he comes home and you've ordered his favourite pizza and got a video game/film set up, he can't resist.

"This isn't some weird Valentine's shit, is it?"

"It's just pizza, Dabi, but if you don't want any, I'll eat it all."

"What? In your dreams, knothead."

Once you've lulled him in with pizza and games, you can start putting the moves on him.

He's almost always down for sex, so that part is easy. The hard part is stopping him from escalating it into something rougher, and keeping it gentle.

He gets frustrated at first that you're being too soft on him, and it's at this point that you start lavishing him in praise and body worship. His frustration turns into bashfulness and Dabi gets kind of shy.

Let him know how much you love him.

And then, right when you're both about to drift off, wish him a Happy Valentine's Day.