#my faves. they are both insufferable bitches

[pondslime]

meeting ur narrative parallel like

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 49 – Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Introduction

I forget who initially recommended me this book, but I owe them an incredible debt. Really the only disappointing thing is that I hadn’t heard of it even sooner, as this really is just perfectly tailored to appeal to me specifically. First science fiction/fantasy novel I can remember reading in a long time that I actively wished was longer. As a testament to how much I liked this book – this review is long enough to need subheadings.

So! Some Desperate Glory is a space opera, following Kyr (Valkyr, technically), a 17-year-old cadet and genetically enhanced ‘warbreed’ golden girl of Gaea Station – that being the quasi-fascist statelet of militant dead-enders who fled to a desolate planetoid in a dead system to continue the war after aliens destroyed the earth/most of humanity. After she gets assigned to Nursery (read: breeding the next generation of soldiers) instead of a combat wing and has a crisis of faith, she talks herself into running away to help her brother on the suicide mission terrorist attack he was deployed on. With the help of one of her brother’s friends and a captured alien, she manages it, discovers that her brother had absolutely no intention of actually following orders once he’d made it out, and take it upon herself to do her own, better, terrorism. From there the plot gets weird, and I’m going to spoil it shamelessly talking about it, but if you value surprises when reading at all just stop this review and go read it.

The Heroine

Kyr is, and I say this lovingly, the most insufferable bitch of a 17-year-old military brat I’ve ever spent time in the head of (at least at first). Even compared to the other indoctrinated child soldiers she’s the cop nobody likes. She then spends the first third to half of the book unlearning this indoctrination, by which I mean very arduously and painfully reaching a point of ‘the fascist cult was a corruption and black mark on the good name of the death cult vengeful crusade, I’ll do it better’ and ‘it’s probably okay to not, like, personally hate aliens who were too young to have been alive when the earth was destroyed. Torturing them for no reason is wrong, like abusing animals was, back when there were animals’. She spends the entire book expecting on a bone-deep level to get herself killed for the cause, and at the end of the book is only like 10% of the way better (one of the last beats in the entire story is, standing with one of her only friends and sure they’re both about to run out of life support, offering to snap their neck for them because ‘asphyxiation’s a nasty way to go’). Whenever she is confronted with the idea that some people aren’t constantly aware of the possibility of physical violence or get to live their lives as something other than a bullet in the gun seeking vengeance for a dead planet she wants to scream and smash things at the unfairness of it all. I adore her.

Honestly my only real complaint is how quickly she starts mellowing out in the second and third acts of the story. There’s extenuating circumstances (whole extra life of memories, time loop bullshit, forcibly confronted with what she said she wanted and what it looks like, etc), but past the one real big hump it did rather feel like her character development suddenly became a bit smooth and easy/. This is one of the things I’m talking about when I say I wish the book was longer – everything after the first big climax and the time travel/universe editing felt kind of rushed and abbreviated.

As far as being a #problematic fave goes, Kyr was also very carefully kept from being, like, directly personally culpable for anything really unforgivable. Which I do understand why from a wanting people to sympathize with the racist homophobic fascist child soldier, but like – you’ve already introduced time travel and retroactivity. C’mon, don’t get cold feet now. Let her and Avi really share the ‘killed trillions in a universe that retroactively never happened’ credit.

Also, and entirely tangentially – you know how in a lot of action shows, the hero has incredibly emotionally tense rivalries and/or camaraderie with other guys, and then also an extremely conventionally feminine girlfriend off to the side somewhere who does like two things in the entire story and mostly seems to exist to prove he’s straight? Kyr has that, except she is textually gay (if incredibly repressed about it and like 90% of the way to asexual in terms of libido). Sorry Lis, but you are literally barely a character. Cleo’s right there, and already has a personality that’s more than two bullet points and is actually involved in the plot in ways beyond ‘love interest’.

Gaea Station

The shitty fascist asteroid habitat that Kyr grew up on is (if barely) the primary setting of the story, and as far as portrayals of incredibly unbalanced and fundamentally broken society just full of cultlike and ultranationalist neuross. I kind of love it as a dystopian setting, though I feel like the author kind of over-egged the pudding on it by the end of the book.

Society is organized into what feels like an intentional parody of a lot of YA dystopia setups, where you live in a tightly integrated mess all through adolescence (each with their own heraldic animal to idenity with!) but then at 17 your exams determine the branch of society you will be assigned to for the rest of your life to do your duty for humanity. Of course, unlike most YA dystopias, the System isn’t the result of some leviathan-state ruling the fates of millions or a tradition that’s going back generations upon generations – it’s a ramshackle mess that can barely consistently feed its warrior elites enough protein slop to take advantage of their genetically engineered hormone levels for muscle growth. It’s all so clearly and intentionally artificial and fake that it loops around to feeling extremely realistic.

Also do love how the elder generation all have names like Joel or Ursa or Elena, while the younger generation are all Valkyr and Magnus and Avicenna and Zenobia. The only really surprising thing is that they don’t specifically call out how children are raised in common and without individual families as following Plato’s Republic – it’s exactly the sort of attempt to create a grand unifying mythology for all of Earth’s true and vengeful children.

I really do wish Tesh had trusted the reader a bit more about it, though. Like, we can tell that almost all the names of the younger generation are either historical figures form the Mediterranean/Greco-Roman world or Norse mythology (with a few exceptions like Avicenna who fit the general aesthetic if not those exact conditions), which puts a bit of a lie to the whole ‘pan-human’ bit. It’s a clever bit of characterization through worldbuilding! You don’t need to call it out twice in dialogue between characters and then again in an in-universe scholarly essay excerpt at the start of a chapter. I can’t complain too badly though, she’s really not even close to being the worst for that I’ve read recently.

One thing I did like especially because I don’t think it was ever called out and brought front and centre is just the sort of, like, perfect irony of both Kyr and her brother Magnus – ‘warbreed’ engineered supersoldiers with physical capabilities beyond any baseline human, blonde aryan ubermensch, the golden children and eugenic future of Gaea Station/true humanity – both being queer and totally unsuited to their assigned gender roles. If it was, like, specifically brought up in a big monologue as disproof of the Gaean ideology or something it’d feel much too on the nose, but as just a set of facts underlying the characterization of the protagonists I liked it quite a lot.

Trio Dynamics

They don’t actually have all that much pagecount spent together, now that I think about it, but as far as I’m concerned the absolute heart of the story is the dynamic between Kyr, Avi (Avicenna, genius-level hacker and cynical rat bastard discontented Gaea Station restaurant) and Yiso (young and rebellious Prince of the Wisdom, taken captive by Gaea when they’re personal ship came too close and then liberated/kidnapped by the other two in their escape attempt). It’s peak trauma-bonding in that the first time it involves a) Avi torturing Yiso to force the alien supercomputer to let him access it and b) Kyr shooting Avi in the head after he uses access to the supercomputer to wipe out 90% of galactic civilization as payback for the whole ‘destroyed Earth with an antimatter missile’ thing (she got a case of morals when confronted with what ‘winning’ would mean. Also her brother shooting himself.)

By all rights they should absolutely hate each other and after two temporal recursions and oceans of retroactively unspilled blood on all their hands they’re the only people who even slightly understand each other. At one point Kyr tells Yiso ‘just so you know, I don’t really care about you as a person,’ and then immideately thinks ‘that was a lie. Why did I say that?’ Avi and Kyr both deprogram themselves from the cult that raised them but only the ‘loyalty to the cult’ bits and not the ‘alien race war vengance death cult’ bits. Yiso meets Kyr in an atemporal training simulation and gets retroactive Stockholm syndrone even though the first time they actually meet she breaks their ribs for repressed teenager reasons. They all drive me absolutely insane and I absolutely adore them. Even if Avi’s redemption felt waaaaay too rushed and unjustified in the final recursion, willing to forgive it here.

Time Loops

The big twist of the story is that, having fucked up and enabled Avi taking vengeance for Earth by doing the same thing to every other alien species, Kyr jumps into the alien supercomputer time manipulation buisness wholesale and goes back to prevent the destruction of Earth. Which then fast forwards to her being a newly minted officer in the Terran Expeditionary Fleet that is the imperial power dominating the known galaxy in increasingly high-collateral damage ways as time goes on. Yiso, in this timeline the beating heart and soul of the main alien resistance group, seeks her out and restores her memories and they go back to try and hijack the alien supercomputer before the government office whose hijacked its crippled remnants (as helmed by the alternate-timeline version of Gaea Station’s great leader, now a fleet admiral of the ‘Providence’ division) manage to literally destroy the universe.

It is mostly down to all the fanfic I’ve read, but I really, really adore timeline divergences that ropagate out and leave all the major characters different but similar people in alien yet appropriate situations. I also adore time travel stories about someone turning the timeline into swiss cheese trying to brute force their way to the one and only golden ending. So I adore this whole conceit. Really my only complaint is that there were only two (one and a half, really) recursions. Not that I’m demanding a full groundhog day here. But, like, it’d have been nice. And Kyr/Avi/Yiso continuously bumping into each other in different configurations and usually ending up at gunpoint would have been ann absolutely amazing bit.

Space Orcs

I can’t be sure Tesh actually had any exposure to the whole online meme of ‘humans as space orcs’, but I do and it’s really impossible to read the book as anything but an examination of the idea. Compared to every alien species ever encountered, humans are tall, heavy, muscular, impulsive, and violent. In a one-on-one confrontation they’ll snap any other species’ neck. The very first pages of the book are an excerpt from an in-universe text writing for an aliens about how actually really humans are very intelligent, and then talking about how threat displays and ‘human culture’. In the original timeline they even fit into the usual social niche of orcs in a lot of fantasy these days – the scattered and diminished remnants of a brutal empire that was defeated and mostly-exterminated in their attempts to conquer the universe.

The book’s handling of this doesn’t really have a point, as far as I can tell – the worldbuilding’s sufficiently divorced from anything real that trying to call it a commentary on racism or genocide or conquering empires is a stretch. (It is after all a fundamental point of the book that the obliteration of earth and extermination of the vast majority of humanity really was the only way the Wisdom could prevent the Terran Federation from conquering the known galaxy. Which is I’m extremely sure not something the author intends to be a historical analogy.) I found it a fun bit of worldbuilding and interesting subversion of normal space opera tropes regarding humanity’s relative abilities, anyway.

Theodicy

Is an incredibly pretentious way to title this section, but also in a sense kind of the core of the book’s plot? In an interesting way, and I think it’s really the book’s greatest weakness that it doesn’t explore or grapple with it enough.

Which is to say – the Wisdom is at the heart of galactic civilization. It’s an alien AI with vague but vast (though limited) reality-warping and precognitive powers. It does not rule the civilizations that accept it, but guides them as a benevolent god towards best, happiest outcomes with whatever support they ask for or need. To determine what ‘best’ means, it creates its Princes, vat-grown heirs to the dead species that created it, with a lifespan of millenia spent going through simulations and interacting with the world to provide the data and decision-making it requires to make that sort of strategic decision.

The Terran Federation’s attempt to reverse-engineer or hijack the Wisdom put it in a situation where the only solution its princes could find was to destroy the better part of humanity and even more of their industry and culture. Through the plot of the first acts of the book, Kyr and her genius-level-hacker friend hijack a node of it and Kyr convinces/forces it to accept her decision-making instead of its prince (who they just killed). This results in an explicitly colonialist human empire ruling over aliens as oppressed subjects, and using the half-wrecked and poorly understood Wisdom to eliminate threats before they occur (shunting the reality backlash off to alien worlds they don’t care about). The next acts of the book mostly resolve around fixing or reverting this, and end with Kyr diving back into a node and having another conversation with it.

A conversation which is basically it giving up. It reverts things back to the human-genocide timeline, then shuts down its infrastructure and goes dark, leaving the entire mostly pacifistic and loosely governed galactic civilization it had protected suddenly on its own. Humanity were such assholes we found a loving god and then convinced it to kill itself.

Which, like, could 100% totally work. As far as high concept short story prompts go its incredible. But as far as actually driving the action goes the Wisdom is the one who makes the most important deciisons in the entire book, and determine the entire shape of the plot. For it to land, it really really needed more than two and a half short conversations on screen, at least to me.

TL:DR

Good book, lesbian doing space atrocities, should have been longer.

[polarisbibliotheque]

Recently found your work both on Tumblr and A03 and your writing is so good!! Easily one of my fave writers. I especially love how you write Vergil 💗

Def looking forward to reading more of your work in the future (esp your Halloween series if you're planning to continue it this year :3)

Thank you SO much for such kind words!! I'm always happy when someone finds my writing and extremely honoured to be held as one of the fave writers! It's the very best compliment, really. Thank you, wholeheartedly.

Who would've known Vergil would be such a star here HAHAHAHA if I told that to my teen self - who viscerally loathed him while playing DMC 3 for the first time on PS2 because he was an insufferable bitch - she would be completely and utterly dumbfounded. I am the testament that life comes back to bite you in the ass HAHAHAHA

Think Lizzie and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, but with swords, trying to kill each other

I'm glad you like it, though, I love this man now.

And thank you so much!! Hahaha yes, the Halloween series is a thing in this household, I always make a little (not so little anymore) Halloween special, at least with both Dante and Vergil! Last year, it took me forever and I finished posting a few months ago 'cause I have no shame so this year I'm probably gonna start writing it earlier to post it all on schedule.

Honestly have been thinking about starting it next month, so I'll be prepared for October xD

I'm glad to have you on board!! Hope you enjoy what I write meanwhile and YES we will have Halloween shenanigans this year too! You can look forward to that! ^^

[captainbobbin]

For the ship ask game: Marluxia/Saïx, please! 💜

(referring to this ship ask meme)

Its threading the line between Makes Sense, Compels Me and Doesnt Make Sense, Compels Me tbh!

this got long so uh under the cut to save your dashspace lmao

okay. okay. Marluxia/Saïx

listen. Horrible bitchy power-hungry usurpers that hate everyone and have cotton-candy hair and will do everything in their power to be snide shitty and get their way while also covering up a deep and intimate loss of a formative female figure in their lives I get it I get it these two should AT MINIMUM go get coffee together or something fr.

My chat and I talk CONSTANTLY about Marluxia being so peanutbutter and jealous over Saïx being Xemnas' fave special boy and being big mad because does he want to be in Saïx's place or does he want to be Saïx or does he want to be WITH Saïx god he's a mess and he's going to go sit and talk to a potted plant until he feels a bit better. Why is that stuck up moon prick so pretty and insufferable and whats his deal and is he free of Friday night? of course he wouldn't be UGH he's such a dickhead nevermind but he's so cute tho

I think. They would have amazing chemistry if for the love of god they just pulled their heads out of their asses and sat and had a normal convo however my take on these silly little disneyanime guys is far removed from canon ajsdhask hence why it both does and doesn't make sense. Like absolutely they're both self-serving (to an extent) jerks who are narrow-viewed and focused only on their own gain and its physically impossible for either of them to care at all but. Man. If they had a little more time to just chill and hang out and discuss things like normal people I think they'd have a lot in common and would actually get along and be civil and hell can you imagine them working together poor Xemnas wouldn't stand a chance against his two fave bitch prettymen coming for his throat arm in arm

I feel like they'd be that kind of couple that are either like cat and dog and fight constantly and bicker and spit vitriol and no one knows why the fuck they're together because PATENTLY whatever this is isn't working (when actually no one *gets it* except the other and they have a strange and corrosive bond) or its just like. They just click. Theyre seamless with one another. there's a flow, an equilibrium, they both want the same things and can look at something and process it the same way. I think they'd be absolutely despicable together as Nobodies, Literally cataclysmic levels of insufferable cunt and snide violence and god poor Axel would never know peace. However I am very very much of the view that Any And All Nobody-based Romances are doomed to fail by the narrative so. Maybe it should be kept to a sordid little affair more than anything else. That would probably be the for best. You just know Saïx would be so super bent out of shape abt it tho lmaoooo

I'm a sucker for XemSai (as I'm sure everyone knows well by now) but I'm also a big sucker for LauriEven/MarVex and one of my big headcanons for the latter is that post kh3 when things have settled down, Lauriam and Isa hang out. Isa is friends with Even more than Lauriam but. I really really like the idea of Lauriam perhaps approaching Isa and just being normal around him? They go out on coffee runs and just talk, they meet up every so often to catch up, talk about how Lea and the kids are and how Radiant Garden is coming together again and yes the flowers here are so nice and I understand why you would want to live here and I Just! Really Like! Isa being a supportive character towards semi-dad-figure Even and now that everyone is cool and not wanting to murder each other Lauriam is actually really civil and dare he think it even good for dear old Even and Isa just kinda! Likes him! They become friends. Like friends with no baggage, no pressure, just hey if Isa swings around RG way again do you wanna get lunch and catch up? Theyre just normal guys now with a lot in common and a future ahead and its just comfortable having someone similar a phonecall away that is happy to listen and provide a fresh outlook on daily things, yknow?

I think. all the time. About a LauriEven marriage where Isa is asked at the reception to dance with them both because he's like. Even sees him as 'one of the kids he saw grow up' and they bonded over their work and they've always gotten along, surrogate son and dad relationship, and Lauriam, softened and approachable with his new heart just as Isa is, feels able to reach out and know that Isa is ever-reliable and genuinely wants things to be better for everyone. I just think that they'd make really really nice like family-friends who platonically love and appreciate each other once they have hearts..... as Nobodies, maybe not so much ahsdgahskd

I know my take on isa is generally very soft and doting but just let me have this asdhaskjdj

anyway this was a rambling splurge of words and I will be thinking about this for the rest of the evening thank you I love this I am going to go sit in my bathtub and think about the symbolism of moonflowers a lot.

tl;dr: I love them as a platonic ship but there is def potential there and I love them both separately (and with others) so so much

[rachelfoleyisntdead]

Thoughts on MK1 girlies:

Sindel - she's such a mom. I don't even mean it in a disparaging way. Moreso that watching her interact with Mileena was like watching my own mom and big sister fight. She is stressed™. I mean, her husband(and apparently love of her life, since she seems torn to shreds over him) was murdered,with seemingly no rhyme or reason as to why. Then Mileena goes and catches Tarkat. Now she's got people in her own court trying to threaten not just her rule,but her daughter's rule as well. Sis is going through It™. But outside of that, I enjoyed her.

Mileena - my insufferable girl rep. I just know she used to terrorize both of her parents growing up. Borderlines on bratty as hell at times(rather that than the weird childlike behaviour they had her going for in prior games). Also this game proves how love-starved Mileena was in prior timelines, because look at how she blossomed in a healthy home environment with people that love her. Don't love how she treated Li Mei, but like.......she thinks that Li Mei's getting away with murder,literally. I would be spicy too if the person that appears to be responsible for my father's death is just waltzing the streets with seemingly no consequences.

Kitana - best girl™. Literal sweetheart. Low-key spoiled as hell, but sweet despite it. And she's very clearly a daddy's girl(her little reunion with Ermac/Jerrod was very cute). Would have been really nice if she actually had something to do.

Nitara - This is one case where I think she was better in her OG game. That's one thing MK:DA did pretty well. Give Nitara something to do, I beg. Also, OG Nitara would have never agreed to work with Quan Chi. She would have sat down, plotted and planned and gotten shit done on her own. Let her be a self-serving bitch in peace.

Ashrah - surprisingly quite fun. I really enjoy her and she seems to be having a good time,which we love to see.

Tanya - give this woman something to do, part 3. Her and Mileena were cute. Wish we got more than just meaningful looks™, but we ball.

Li Mei - deserves so much more. Where is this woman's apology? Half of the female cast,plus the Umgadi needs to apologize for how they treated her. I mean the groveling kind of apology, not just a quick sorry either. That's Kitana and Mileena's pseudo-auntie that y'all did like that.

Yeah I mostly agree with this.

While I hate how Sindel treated Li Mei (and let's be honest, Mileena and Kitana were just following her example), I did love seeing her yank on Shao's leash. I think everything she did to help Mileena is actually fine and her story overall was fine... except for the ending. Lame. Also the love story between her and Jerrod is kinda boring. I don't know why the game is investing in romances involving dead NPCs instead of ones that have chemistry and history.

Li Mei and Ashrah are long time favorites, so I'm thrilled to see them shining. But Ashrah has some messed up perspectives that I want them to explore more (killing your own kind to purify yourself? Sis???). I get a heavy self loathing vibe that I want them to lean into. Li Mei deserves several thousand apologies, girl literally did nothing wrong and if she had heel turned I would've supported her. She's literally best girl, my beloved wife. Ashrah and Syzoth are random but kinda cute, I won't lie. AshRep and Mileenya > Jerrod/Sindel and Kuai/Harumi

I sorta disagree with you about Kitana. In real life, I would probably like Kitana fine but as a character in a story, she doesn't do it for me. She's just kinda boring, in my opinion. The scene of her stroking Mileena's face was so sweet though, one of my fave moments. I do like her new dynamic with Mileena.

Mileena's story needs more detail. I have no idea why people were supposedly supporting Kitana over her??? I get that Mileena had a lot going on between the Tarkat and the forbidden romance with Tanya, but they said that and then like. never followed up with details about why people didn't support Mileena pre-Tarkat. She confirmed has the support of the Empress, the Constabulary and Umgadi, and there's nothing to indicate that she didn't have Shao or Rain's support prior to Shang Tsung showing up (and they wouldn't have supported Kitana anyway)... so like??? Who was against her???

100% agree about Tanya. Also Liu Kang bragging that 'his Tanya' was much improved was really weird.

Nitara definitely has potential, they just did nothing with her. She brings up a great point that just bc her people need blood to survive does not mean they deserve to be exterminated. She's just kinda there bc Quan Chi needed lackeys.

I can't wait for Sareena to show up, her interactions with Ashrah, Nitara and everyone from Earthrealm are gonna be so good.

[epickiya722]

💣 PROTO!KATSUKI ����

If Horikoshi went with his prototype personality for Katsuki, I feel like Katsuki would still be an unlikable character. Even more so, a little less popular than he is now.

Look, some of you tend to look at the nice characters and think they're "boring".

Koda, Shoji, Iida, Yaoyorozu, Ojiro and some other characters don't get as much attention from the fandom because they are nice. Let's just put it out there.

I see why those characters don't get as much screen time in the story because THEY ARE JUST MINOR CHARACTERS. That's a thing in story telling. Minor characters are there to just fill in the space, push the story along, give us a full cast. At the end of the day, Midoriya is the protagonist, the story is about him.

Speaking of the green boy!

Some of you think Midoriya is boring because he is kind and even as far as saying he's whiny and a crybaby because he shows his emotions. If he's not showing angry or being snarky like many other protagonists, he's not a good character. What the fuck ever.

If Katsuki was "nice" be honest, he wouldn't be seen as interesting.

If there's one thing I hate is when male characters show emotions, other than anger, and people call them "crybabies". That makes me mad.

It really does suck that it's deeply rooted in society that men and boys are weak for crying or wanting to hug their love ones everyday, etc.

That's not weak.

That's being human.

But I digress.

If Katsuki was "the nice guy" I also feel like a lot of shippers would be like "He's in the way of my ship". His kindness towards Izuku would be "just for show, he's really faking it, he's actually a possessive insufferable prick who is overbearing".

Be honest, be honest.

Don't lie because you already do it with Katsuki because he's mean and some of you do it with Izuku and Ochaco a lot, both who are nice characters.

Any Deku ship, Ochaco is the bad girl. "She's really just a bitch who wants Izuku for herself", which is so not true. I said it before and I'll say it again, any time she is just minding her business and doing hero stuff it's Mina who puts the idea of love in her head. I love Mina, but damn.

And with any Bakugou ship, Midoriya is the bad guy. "He's actually just clingy who stalks Bakugou and won't let him breathe". Again, so not true. Last time I checked, Midoriya isn't the one going around and listening in on people's conversations. Observant he is... WITH EVERYONE. That's how he learned to get creative with his moves. But a stalker?! For Bakugou?! No!

Both Ochaco and Izuku are often mischaracterize just for the sake of ships when we all know damn well they would be supportive.

Both put others before themselves. At best when it comes to relationships, they would want their friends happy. Concerned, hopes for the best, yes!

So if some of you act like this with Ochaco and Izuku, nice characters, I can definitely see prototype Katsuki being treated the same way.

Overall, just my opinion, either way how Katsuki's personality is, there would be little difference in some of this fandom. I know I'd like him, still would.

A lot of my faves do be nice characters.

[gideongriddle]

my most anticipated 2022 fiction releases, in order of current release date

tagged by @earlymodernlesbian

okay i “understand” that i am just supposed to pick “nine” for this and also that there is a picture limit here on tumblr dot com but jokes on you i am including a runners up list of considerable length after my main ones

dead silence by s.a. barnes (feb. 8): in space no one can hear you scream etc etc. the premise is very classic horror (exploring somewhere a tragedy took place and discovering there’s still!! something there!!) and it’s been blurbed by a lot of horror writers i trust. possibly gay? but i could be misremembering

last exit by max gladstone (feb. 22): max gladstone hive!!! empress of forever and this is how you lose the time war are both all-time faves so auto-buy. definitely gay.

end of the world house by adrienne celt (apr. 19): am i being sucked in by a great title and visually arresting cover?? very possible. but i’m (obviously) a time loop bitch and there’s a very good kristin arnett blurb so here we are. not gay as far as i know

siren queen by nghi vo (may 10): i have not yet read my copy of the chosen and the beautiful but i loved the empress of salt and fortune and old hollywood but with disquieting magic as a concept is catnip to me!! no idea if gay??

the final strife by saara el arifi (june 21): okay some author i really love was talking about reading an arc and loving it and i thought it was amal el-mohtar on twitter but now i can find no evidence of that so maybe i am losing my marbles. anyway this seems like it will be excellent company to the trio of meaty adult sapphic fantasies from last year, so i’m excited!! enthusiastically gay.

our wives under the sea by julia armfield (july 12): kristin arnett blurb strikes again!!! i love gothic fiction and have been anticipating this one for over a year. titularly gay!!

high times in the low parliament by kelly robson (aug. 9): this seems almost like a farcical cousin to the goblin emperor?? anyway i always want to read about fairies and politics and tor dot com has me in a chokehold. the inciting incident is gay!!

the old place by bobby finger (sept. 20): i am a who! weekly listener first and a human second so i am legally obligated to support. but genuinely i love stories about old ladies and texas settings and expect this to be both funny and tender. unclear if gay but seems distinctly possible?

the golden enclaves by naomi novik (sept. 27): thrilled and terrified to see the scholomance trilogy conclude!! cannot recommend these books enough as both genuinely nerve-wracking YA romps and deeply moving explorations of teens choosing compassion in an environment that actively discourages that behavior. side characters gay romance real, protagonist romance gay in my head

!!! releases i am thrilled about but i felt could not qualify for the main list!!!

fevered star by rebecca roanhorse (apr. 19): sequel to black sun, which i own but have not read yet! gay!

i kissed shara wheeler by casey mcquiston (may 3): have already read this and guess what?? it fucks!! about some truly insufferable girls (affectionate) and made me laugh out loud and also cry about growing up queer and religious in the south. multi-directionally gay!!

seasonal fears by seanan mcguire (may 3): sequel to middlegame, which i own but have not read yet! seanan mcguire hive never loses. i assume gay in at least some small way bc of her track record as an author?

the grief of stones by katherine addison (june 14): sequel to the witness for the dead, which i own but have not read, which is a standalone sequel to the goblin emperor, which i have read and am obsessed with. gay!

lockland by robert jackson bennet (june 21): final book in the founders trilogy which okay i do not “own” and have not “read” at all but amal el-mohtar has definitely glowingly reviewed the previous two entries in the series and i trust her with my life so i will be purchasing them all i fear. gay!

don’t fear the reaper by stephen graham jones (aug. 2): sequel to my heart is a chainsaw, which i own but have not read yet! not gay to my knowledge

the oleander sword by tasha suri (aug. 12): sequel to the jasmine throne, which i own but i am licherally going to start reading today!!! famously gay

nona the ninth by tamsyn muir (sept. 13): i am not bothering to write what this is a sequel to, you freaks!!! you know!!!! being unable to talk about this book with people keeps me up at night. the [redacted] of it all... september cannot come soon enough!!!! GAY

a restless truth by freya marske (nov. 1): sequel to a marvellous light, which i own but have not read yet! gay!

!!! general runners-up !!!

the thousand eyes by a.k. larkwood (feb. 15): sequel to the unspoken name, which i didn’t really feel needed a sequel??? but i am v happy to revisit these characters. gay!

extasia by claire legrand (feb. 22): i’m reading less and less YA these days but i loved sawkill girls and weird saint shit is always up my alley. gay!

dead collections by isaac fellman (feb. 22): eternally horny for new spins on vampires and also narratives about archives!! trans, idk if gay!

all the white spaces by ally wilkes (mar. 29): the terror-adjacent, with a trans protag!!! strong blurbs from other horror authors!! unknown if gay

sea of tranquility by emily st. mandel (apr. 5): i never got around to reading the glass hotel but i am a station eleven bitch. presumed straight?

when women were dragons by kelly barnhill (may 3): absolutely the sickest premise of all time?? unknown if gay

misrule by heather walter (may 10): sequel to malice, which i liked but did not love?? very curious if the duology sticks the landing. gay!

this time tomorrow by emma straub (may 17): listen any type of time travel or distortion is interesting to me!!! presumed straight?

yerba buena by nina lacour (may 31): have never read anything by this author but obvi know her excellent reputation! gay!

mistakes were made by meryl wilsner (oct. 11): own but have not read this author’s previous romance, something to talk about. this is being sold as “the milf book” so. gay!

ocean’s echo by everina maxwell (nov. 1): in the same universe of winter’s orbit which i loved!! gay!

even though i knew the end by c.l. polk (nov. 8): have not read any of this author’s work bc i am dumb but all her shit is extremely up my alley! noir AND vampires. gay!

[bisluthq]

Why are they so fixated on his whiteness? Like I do actually want to discuss this because it fascinates me//Because gaylors hate joe. When you hate someone, you will attack everything he has and there are no logics and reasons for it.

Sure but one still needs self-awareness even where one hates irrationally. I’ve brought this up before because it’s a good example but Anna Kendrick is legit insufferable to me, and not in a rational way. I actively dislike her face, her personality, her whole vibe. I have a few movies she’s been in I like but I think I’d like them better with other actresses like I like them because they’re great movies not because I like her. I don’t let myself stew in this irrational dislike and therefore avoid all Anna Kendrick content because legit even an Insta post can make me go “urgh not this woman” tbh. If she dated idk Nic - Nic would never because he’s such a basic fucking bitch thirst wise but like bear with me - I’d deal with her. I still wouldn’t like her but I wouldn’t be like “NICHOLAS WHY ARE YOU WITH THIS ANNOYING WHITE LADY?” because 1) both Nic and I and all the exes we know of for Nic except one Skins era girl are white so what even would the point of that “white” be 2) again it wouldn’t be my business which should be fave x happiness.

[s1utspeare]

Get To Know Me!

@foxofninetales tagged me in this ask game and since I LOVE HER i will now be doing it (i mean i’d do it anyway but now it will be filled with love for FOX i am not accepting CRITICISM ON THIS POINT)

Part I

name: Brigid! I’m named after the Irish goddess of like, poetry, healing, smithcraft, and protection, or the Irish saint (they’re both pretty similar it’s just whether or not you’re talking about Celtic religion or Catholicism). She’s very cool, and I think it’s a very fitting name for who I turned out to be!

pronouns: she/her

star sign: i’m an insufferable theatre kid of course I’m a Leo

height: 5'8″ babeeeyyy (172 cm). I’m not short like, at all, but all of my family members are over six foot, so I’m like. tiny in comparison. they all make fun of me all the time for it :(

time: 8:49pm! A delightful time of evening!!! 

birthday: July 31st, same day as Harry Potter lol.

nationality: american :P

fave bands/groups/solo artists: hnnnngggghhhh why would u ask me this I don’t KNOW jk i just have a lot uhhhhh all time faves would be Bastille and Mumford and Sons, but I’m SUPER into kpop right now, so my top groups are BTS, Stray Kids, and One OK Rock (who are technically jpop but I really like their stuff). I also am a Broadway BITCH (hello, theatre kid) so before this year all of my Spotify library was basically just show tunes. 

song stuck in your head: Get Away by VeriVery. I think they’re a pretty new group? idk i saw them on one of those tumblr promotional things and checked out the music video which is like??? really interesting conceptually? so I’ve just been listening to the song for a while lol. 

last movie you watched: Train to Busan! I’m gearing up to write a dmbj zombie apocalypse AU and so I was like “this is a popular zombie film! I’ll watch it for inspiration! :)” holy shit. holy shit i was so wrong. It’s one of the most viscerally affecting films I think I’ve ever seen, I was like. On the verge of an anxiety attack the entire time but in like the best possible way?? it’s a mastery of character introduction and action/horror and I cried for like the last ten minutes straight. SO affecting. I do NOT RECOMMEND IT if u are already made anxious by zombie apocalypse scenarios, blood, violence, and a Lot of Death. 

last show you binged: hmmm uh like I’m currently watching Mystic Nine but at like a normal pace, so the last show I probably binge watched was maybeeee The Uncanny Counter on Netflix? HIGHLY recommend that one, I made @cross-d-a watch it and I’m living for her liveblog reactions lmao. Idk most of my free time has been spent writing the past few months which. After months of only having the energy to watch shows is kind of really invigorating? the things u can do when u fix ur health I’ll tell you what

when you created your blog: in 2012 asldighalsdkfjladskjga i came on here to like burdge’s pjo fanart :)

the last thing you googled: "is it bad not to have an air cap on your tire” ALSDIGHALKDFJLADFJA FUCK ME (i learned that it’s not necessarily bad but it can get dirt and stuff built up in there so I went to the store after work today and replaced it)

other blogs: everything is here bc i am too lazy to create a sideblog! so sorry to everyone who does not follow me for cdrama content bc this is all I am now. 

why i chose my url: cause it’s my ao3 username and i wanted people to be able to find me more easily on tumblr! :) the long answer is because i love shakespeare and also i think that slut is a really funny word and concept for me especially because i am one of the most sexless people u will ever meet in ur life so slutspeare is like. an aggressively ace joke that only I think is funny. 

how many people are you following: 588

how many followers do you have: ah just over 200?!??!!? which is like. a lot for me. I think it was like 75 up until like last year omg 

average hours of sleep: my sleep app says I average around eight! which is very good for me! I do have to get enough sleep consistently or I will Have A Bad Time so my sleep schedule is pretty good and luckily I don’t have the Insomnia depression I have the Sleep Lots one which I am glad for bc idk what I’d do if I couldn’t Be Unconscious regularly. Die probably. 

lucky numbers: I don’t think I have lucky numbers?? my favorite number is 21 for no reason other than the vibes alone. 

instruments: i’ve played the piano for uhhhh.... eighteen years now? and I can play the ukulele and am surprisingly good with the recorder since I’ve had to play it in Multiple Theatre Performances. I was also an honor choir singer back in high school so I’ve done a lot of select ensemble stuff which was super fun! 

what i'm currently wearing: a Life Is Good long-sleeved t-shirt that says “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” that I got in a military surplus store like a million years ago and red Adidas athletic shorts that I found at the thrift store a couple weeks back

dream job: playwright! I just wanna be a playwright! playwriting is like drugs i literally go nuts for it

dream trip: I don’t know??? I don’t really like traveling tbh aslidhalkfdj umm I do want to see the grand canyon sometime before I die tho so maybe a road trip down there? I definitely like traveling solo so I’d probably just hang out with myself and drive and go to whatever places I want and see dumb tourist attractions and sing loudly in the car

fave food: CURRY i know i said eggs the last time it asked me this but I miss my local Indian restaurant I want to eat literal Platefuls of tikka masala at 12pm at the Indian buffet after my physics class again :(

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: hmmm i don’t know, actually! probably one where I have Powers and could do Cool Hand Motions and make Lights Appear. If I were anywhere with like. An Actual World-Dooming problem tho I would not be helpful at all. I would just die. Besides, I already live in fictional universes half the time, I’m a writer! 

Part II

last song: Basquiat by Pentagon! The music video is like. Very whumpy. So if you’re into that... the song’s also a bop

last stream: i don't watch streams very often, I just watch clips from them, cause those usually just give the best parts lol 

currently reading: mmmmmbbbaaaaahhhhh literally nothing? I’m trying to get caught up on the backlog of dmbj fic I haven’t gotten around to so Binding by @vishcount is next on that list! oh I guess I’m also reading Johnny Tremain with my kids (one of them SPOILED THE END and I forgot how it ended and now I’m big sad). 

currently watching: Mystic Niiiiinnnneeeeee! love those gay history bitches. everyone in that show is so funny. I just finished the Fuba Side Plot tho and now we’re back to Politics so i’m like >:( someone give zhang baby rishan a hug (and then i write angst about him what is wrong with me)

what is antipoetry to you: antipoetry??? what the heck is antipoetry hold on... uhhhh that’s just poetry. who came up with this term. i guess like lyrical fiction would be the technical correct definition but idk I consider anything to be poetry! like that’s the whole point! poetry is poetry is poetry as long as it’s focused on intensity and emotions it’s poetry! a haiku? poetry. the random one-lined mess of words on my phone? poetry. a literal drawing of a cardinal with the word “bird” written next to it? poetry. idk I’ve been trying to teach my kids that there are no wrong ways to write creatively; if you’re expressing yourself and making emotions, then you’re writing! also like half of my work could be considered antipoetry lmao. I love emotionally supercharging the mundane.

currently craving: i have noooo ideaaaasssss i’m literally just vibing. uh. water? ok i took care of that one my water bottle was right next to me. 

AH IF YOU READ THIS MUCH THANK YOU???? i love u 

uhhhh no pressure tags for @xia-xueyi, @nope4ever, @bookjoyworm, @elletromil, and @gaiahenshin, as well as anyone else who would like to give the full-rundown on themselves! :D

[therealcalicali]

Ok what is it with both Vikings and TLK where that absolutely HAD to make alfreds wife just the most massive “holier than thou” cunt on the planet?!? I swear to god both of them are just insufferable. (Though I think I wanna hang the one in TLK by her stupid chinstrap braids just a bit more.) honestly it’s just a theme in these shows to make the large majority of their women: stupid, manipulative, bitchy, slutty or my personal favorite, all of the above. They give us like a tiny sprinkling of actually redeemable female characters to cling on to and even then they’ll probably just end up dead (R.I.P helga you were too pure for this world) (also R.I.P lagertha you were a bad bitch till the end) TL;DR I do not understand why historical shows have to make their women just the fucking worst. (Also I just started watching TLK so no spoilers please 😅)

Hey hun.💛💘

Personally I don't think Historical Dramas suffer from this issue. After all they are reflecting real traits and such women do exist. I have proof within my own family. Furthermore, things are subjective when it comes to characterization.

There are characters everyone hates, like Joffrey (GOT), then there are fan-faves like Arya (GOT). Then you have tweeners like Lilltlefinger and Cersei (GOT). Characters people love despite them being obvious antagonists.

Honestly, I don't have any emotional connection to Lagertha but prefered Aslaug. I also didn't care for Torvi but was intrigued by Margrethe (simply because she was unpredictable).

As for Alfred's wives, TLK made her tolerable. Sure, she was overzealous, but also logical and more fleshed out than the Vikings version. And the actress was better, IMHO.

[simptasia]

character number ask game thingy!!!!!! let's do jack and or ana lucia and the numbers areeee 2, 4, 7, 11 (doesn't have to be a specific song just like. music genre or smth idk) , 15, 16, 24, 25. as always you dont have to do all or both charas just what you want :) OH bonus since we're both reblogging supernatural maybe a cheeky cas + 10, 15, 16

ooh wasn’t expecting jack and ana lucia (me making lost headcanons not involving the sci trio requires using at least 4 extra braincells, as you know)

thanks lisa!

[cracks knuckles]

jack

fave colour: blue

fave movie: the breakfast club (it was the first thing that popped into my head and i was like “...yeah, that feels right”)

fave pizza toppings: pepperoni and cheese

song they dance their ass off to: jack does not dance, he shuffles happily or awkwardly. you said i can do genre, so, like technically you can dance to anything but jack doesn’t dance to rock. he bops his head. jack “dances” to billy joel, some beatles songs, and whatever pop/punk/country music kate has put on

my first impression of this character: i can’t remember specific feelings about jack right away, i was sort of just cautiously judging the show (i didnt know it’d be good). i remember in his first proper scene, being taken back by his voice because it’s higher than i expected. i do remember early in the watch i didn’t like him though. i think that applies to most lost fans. i bounced back and forth between “okay i do feel bad for you” and finding him insufferable. i found his first centric episode REALLY engaging. this sounds all over the place but thats jack for ya

my thoughts on this character now: well it was a slow burn but over time i grew to like jack and then love him. i acknowledge he isn’t easy to love, but he got me. fucker got me. so love/hate? like i love him but when he’s bad it’s painful (and it’s worse because i know he’s a good boy!). even when i didn’t like him i always found him endearing and sympathetic. and my headcanon that he’s autistic really helped him make sense to me

are they a good cook or bad cook: technically he’s an alright cook, he just won’t ever flavour the chicken. nice omelettes and pancakes tho (in case you shouldn’t tell, i see jack as having the most generic taste in food and drink ever. it amuses me and hey its in character)

signature dinner dish: beef, macaroni and cheese. beefaroni!

ana lucia

fave colour: black

fave movie: i’ve decided ana loves action movies but the problem is i don’t, so i have no idea how to discern what would be a good pick for her. think stuff with shoot outs and car chases and explosions from the 80s and 90s... (MY fave action movie is con air, but i can’t just pick that, i dunno the genre well enough to know if she’d like that one)

fave pizza toppings: ham and cheese most of the time, sometimes a full on meat lovers with chili if she’s in the mood for it

song they dance their ass off to: i think its fair to assume this girl loves rock, yeah? guns & roses and bon jovi come to mind. i can see her screaming along to “living on a prayer”. beyond that, i’m afraid i find myself lacking in broader rock genre knowledge (like, how the kinda music an american puerto rican lady grew up with is probably different to the music i, a white australian, am familiar with or associate with Rock). i stand by living with a prayer tho because thats a good song to lose your fucking mind to in my opinion

my first impression of this character: its hard to recall. i’m not remembering any strong feelings one way or another, besides recognising michelle rodriguez from other things. i think i was neutral at first. i am happy to say i never went thru a “i hate ana lucia” phrase. oh its coming back to me, i was neutral but then i very quickly grew to like her. her tempestuous but secretly soft demeanour + her butch energy = <3

my thoughts on this character now: i fucking love ana lucia so much. it’s a shame she wasn’t around much, and i’ve started to notice that even in the one season she was in, she’d disappear for long stretches of time, which is a poor use of a new character [grumbles] i love her. i love her. she’s a bitch but she’s my bitch! (...more likely, i’d be hers...). last time i watched season 5, i knew ana’s ghost was gonna show up and i bit my knuckle to stop myself squealing ahead of time. i think i’d put her in my top five lost ladies. like the writing wasn’t perfect, i feel like they wasted her, but i still think she’s a great character anyways

are they a good cook or bad cook: she is, her mom made sure of that, but she doesn’t cook often, sticking to take out most of the time

signature dinner dish: i had trouble thinking of what she’d cook. so heres a little scenario instead: let’s say ana’s got a girl over for a date and she’s thinking “i like this chick, so im gonna actually make something for her” and at first she plans to make some sort of well prepared chicken-based meal and then she looks in her fridge and is like “ah...” so long story short she ends up making spaghetti bolognese (but she wants to try harder so she actually makes the sauce instead of using store bought)

castiel

do they like roller coasters: i thought about it and i’ve decided i like the idea of him not being as affected by roller coasters as humans so he’s like “huh. i don’t see how that’s supposed to be fun”. to which dean calls him a “friggin’ robot”

my first impression of his character: two things, “holy shit his voice??” (nobody prepared me) and “i ship him with dean”. literally the second he spoke to dean i shipped it. such a wham. yeah, as far as i recall, i’ve loved cas since the start. it’s an inherently interesting concept, and misha’s performance and oh my gosh the autistic energy off this bitch

my thoughts on this character now: cas is my favourite supernatural character and i love him so much. it’s hard to put into words, he’s just a really good character. eps focusing on him (or at least a b-plot are always are delight). now, i stopped watching half way thru season 8 and i’ve only seen chunks of season 9. but from what i gather cas has remained my lovely autistic-coded boy. tho i have noticed from the brief bits i’ve seen of later eps, he does emote a looot more. it’s a tad jarring but i’d adapt if i was like, actually watching the show. anyways cas good. love him. oh and the fact that he’s canonically queer brings me joy

[maiaphaelsource]

I was the anon who sent you the trans Raphael headcanons ask on your other blog, do you have any more? With some trans Maia thrown in too🥺 like Magnus being the best trans dad to his son and the love of his sons life and being supportive and loving. Raphael kissing Maia on the forehead and telling her how beautiful she is, you know? Cute shit like that

yes!!! hello!!! i hope you know i love you and you're my favorite person in the world!! thank you so much for this ask!

okay so i’ll begin with the specifics... magnus is absolutely THE trans dad to both of them. not only with practical stuff like offering to help them with glamours, magical transitioning, stuff like that, but just... being so supportive and understanding. he’s always there, and he has so many stories to share, so many people he’s met who had happy lives. he was there for stonewall, he’s met Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, and it’s just so heartwarming for the both of them to talk to him about that, you know? that feeling of not being alone in history, of knowing that there are and were other people like you, that you’ve always existed.... it’s just great

also in maia’s case since she also lives a partially mundane life he just solves all her documentation problems like deadname? gone forever. no registers. you’re welcome. the first time maia sees her document with her name she almost cries and she throws herself in magnus’ arms and magnus is so touched and moved and shocked you know? like the gratitude and the affection and she’s just thanking him and he’s so moved and raphael just watches with a little smile in his face because he knows that magnus is moved by the display, even if he won’t say it. and maybe he tells magnus that later? like, “your kindness means more to others than you imagine,” and of course magnus isn’t important just because he’s kind but he’s used to not being recognized for his services (ahem especially by CERTAIN people) and it’s nice to see that being appreciated, you know?

plus, maia makes it a point to pay him and magnus is all like “i couldn’t possibly take payment for something like that. it’s the least you deserve” so instead maia teaches him her secret sangria recipe. magnus is super pleased but he also jokes that now he has one less excuse for inviting them over. and raphael goes, super seriously, “you never need an excuse” and magnus just melts 

raphael kissing her forehead! yes! tbh i think they both love forehead kisses (as well as hand kisses and shoulder kisses) and sometimes when she’s feeling dysphoric or upset for any reason she likes just... lying down on raphael’s chest and letting him pet her hair and kiss her forehead and tell her that it’s alright, bella, te quiero

and YES he just makes it a point to talk about how beautiful she is constantly and kiss down her whole body (not sexually of course, just sweetly?) and she giggles and it’s fun :’) sometimes things get to her, especially after jordan’s constant transphobic/racist rethoric, and it’s nice that raphael always makes it a point to tell her she’s beautiful and amazing and he loves her. and he always does it in such a matter of fact way, but also intense, you know? he has her close and he says shit like “you’re the most beautiful woman i’ve ever met” and she melts

as for general headcanons!

maia figured out she was trans relatively early in life, and it’s the reason she always knew she’d have to run away from her parents’ house. she was basically only planning until she had enough to be able to survive without them. but also, jordan and wanting to be able to “be with her already” rushed her out of home when she was finishing high school 

raphael and maia are absolutely willing to throw down for each other if someone’s transphobic and that’s that on that. someone being transphobic to raphael? fine, he can handle his own, he’ll end them with his words and do it with a pleasant smile. someone being transphobic to maia? they’ll be met with the usual cutting sarcasm until they back down. but if the other catches you doing that? you’ll be thrown against the wall and threatened/punched in the face so fast you won’t even know what the fuck happened 

a lot of baby trans downworlders start coming to them! they’re already an iconic couple for many reasons, what with being a werewolf/vampire couple, a black/latino couple (we need more black/latino couples okay! desperately! and black/native and native/latino too! i want more poc solidarity and romance!), and an iconique trans couple. people just feel comfortable going to them because they’ve brought so much change and are so accepting you know? 

it still surprises raphael, even after years on end, that so many people come to him for help with that. he never thought that he would be seen as the kind of person people can go to, and yet here he is. after being told for most of his life that he was cold/unfeeling/threatening/weird... it’s nice to be valued like that, to be seen as someone who can be soft and provide comfort and love, too

same goes for maia, who’s also used to be seen as agressive/violent for just defending herself and her people, and just generally reduced to being a “threat”. it’s nice to know that many, many people see her as someone they can look up to, and who they feel safe it

that is not to say obviously that they just love doing emotional labor for other people but like... having other trans downworlders, especially trans downworlders of color, come to them, feels nice. especially people who are trying to figure themselves out and approach them with so much hope and admiration in their eyes you know? the way they always come with a “sorry to bother, but..” ready in their lips and look at them like they are heroes... it’s really something

taki’s slowly becomes a place for trans downworlders to hang out, especially those who don’t enjoy clubs and stuff like pandemonium (which is totally a queer club as well bite me. including for mundanes. with taki’s that’s trickier of course since they have like, blood on their menu lmao but a few trans minors have hung out there and it was cool) for whatever reason. it’s just a cool queer-inclusive space for people who want to hang out, you know? and they love that

the first time maia saw raphael lose his cool was when a shadowhunter made a gross comment about how it’s lucky he didn’t want sex, so she wouldn’t have to deal with that. he almost tore their throat off

raphael just.... loves maia’s shoulders. she was a little self conscious of them, she always made a point to have them covered, but raphael just loves peppering kisses on her shoulders and making her chuckle 

magnus gives maia a bunch of fashion tips similar to the ones he gave raphael, just how to better protect herself and figure out how people are reading her gender and stuff like that, you know?

they do the thing where they show each other pre-transition pics (once they’re comfortable with that of course) just to hear each other be like “*outraged gasp* i don’t recognize you at all” and “oh, look how much happier you are now”, and my personal favorite, “i can’t see a boy/girl in there, i just can’t” (like personally whenever i see pictures of my partners/friends pre-transition i’m just like... i realize this is pre-transition and that you’ve changed a lot but also i’m unable to see an [assigned gender] in this photo). it’s all like “how did people not notice you were a girl? unbelievable” you know. just that sweet sweet trans couple validation ritual

together they have like. all the insufferable pun-happy sexualities (bi[romantic], pan, ace, trans) and you will be hit with those constantly in conversation if you’re a friend of them. raphael in particular greatly enjoys making those puns with the most blase, straight face as he looks straight into your eyes and watches as your soul slowly leaves your body. magnus is so proud and also afraid he created a monster

raphael is that bitch who’s like. “i heard that broccoli has a substance that’s similar to testosterone so i’m now eating 5 bowls of it” and maia wants to tear her hair out because it doesn’t work like that and he’s like “can’t hurt to try. also i’m finally able to eat let me have this” 

maia never got to like... celebrate those small transition moments because she was all alone and felt like she was transitioning in such a rush, you know? and raphael makes it a point to point out the small changes that are still going on with her body, to take her shopping and encourage her to be as giddy about it as she wants to, you know? and it’s nice and fun and he also gets to relive those small gender reaffirming moments and it’s really nice

maia is a huge against me fan!!! like not to project but it’s just... their songs are so great and relatable even when they’re not about being trans at all and laura jane grace’s voice is so beautiful and maia for sure absolutely loves punk, so like. it’s one of her fave bands for sure

she liked them since before laura came out and when she did it was like. oh. oh. so that’s why i always related so hard to her songs. it just... makes sense

while punk is not as much raphael’s style he likes true trans rebel, especially the acoustic version, where her voice just sounds mwaaahhh imo and he can listen to the recording for hours because her voice in there is just... sensorial heaven and maia feels all giddy that raphael genuinely loves a trans woman’s voice so much 

raphael always makes a point to say that he loves her voice just as much, too :)

they are just very trans and really love each other the end

[kcnnarys]

least favorite choices LIs? feel free to roast them

HELL YEAH any chance to roast these bicth asses is a good one

1. do i have to say it ? dr*ke w*lker - i literally cannot stand his freeloading ass, complaining ass, horse faced lookin uggo ass, no personality ass, alcoholic ass, good for nothing piece of garbage i cannot stand him

2. 4 main ame lis - ad*m is the main perpetrator here because he was literally such a whiny bitch but they were all mad annoying and adding slater & bianca as lis as a hail mary in ame 3 was the only saving grace for that book

3. cassius - oh my GOD he is insufferable. he's sexy as hell but he whines constantly and is so stupid one of my fave scenes is getting to clown him at the end of the series while siding with antony. fuck it i might have to start censoring his name too

4. bartender from roe - he's literally a carbon copy of dr*ke in both looks and personality and he's one of the reasons i cant even think about roe without getting war flashbacks

5. chr*s p*well - a controversial one for some but i stand by this one. yall wanna talk about forced lis ? this man was the blueprint. also that one text post saying he committed hate crimes against gay women opened my third eye

[missjanjie]

Tynomi and Brooke. Enemies to lovers based on Tynomi’s response to Brooke’s warning about stepping up her game and I quote “Oh I don’t fucking care about that” 😂

listen one of my fave tropes is the ‘i hate you’ ‘i hate you more’ *makes out* and im not ashamed to admit it

-

Most people in the industry knew Brooke to be a tough choreographer. It wasn’t that she was mean-spirited, but her reputation for having the most elite dancers preceded her, and she had every intention of living up to that.

And for the most part, Tynomi did meet her standards, but it was undeniable that the two butted heads. She had been a performer for nearly as long as Brooke had, and while she respected her, she refused to put herself beneath her, even when she was literally working for her.

“Okay, what the fuck is up with you?” Brooke asked one day as things were wrapping up. “I know you can bring more to a rehearsal than this, where’s your head at?”

“My head is fine, thank you,” she retorted curtly. “I can still deliver without needing to act like I’m on speed.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Forget that, you act like you’re on sedatives.”

“Well, maybe if you engaged your dancers in a more productive way, you’d get more out of them,” Tynomi mused as she grabbed a bottle of water.

“You think you can tell me how to do my job?”

“I’m just saying your opinions aren’t facts.”

Brooke stepped closer to Tynomi, narrowing her gaze as she got into her space. “You’ve got a lot of nerve trying to come for me.”

And Tynomi didn’t back down, stepping closer with an equally serious expression. “Oh, honey, I’m all nerve.”

While the tension could have been cut with a knife, instead, it was cut by them suddenly gripping onto each other in a heated embrace. The kiss was messy and fervent, both of them fighting for control and neither of them completely winning.

When they came up for air, they rested their foreheads against each other’s, breathing heavily as their bodies already ached for more. “You’re such a bitch,” Tynomi muttered.

“You’re fucking insufferable,” Brooke retorted before they started kissing again immediately after.

This time, when they stopped kissing, it was only because they ran the risk of being caught. “I’ll see you at my place,” Brooke smirked.

Tynomi gave a slight nod as she bit her lip. “Fucking right you will.”

[bellamygateoldblog]

The 100 for the fandom ask please?

the first character i ever fell in love with:

finn, with jasper as a close second. i also really liked bellamy and octavia right away (”we’re back bitches” is iconic and im not accepting slander- you either lean into the cheesiness or you die a coward).

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not:

everyone (book 2)

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not:

i think for every ship i dislike there wasn’t really a point i ever liked it. but it was the fandom that pushed my hate for bellarke’s dynamic into 'over my dead body’ levels (god do i hate what it does to bellamy’s character. i also have plenty of other objections to it but none of them hold a candle to the cold takes this fandom has terrorised me with over the years).

and at first i didn’t care about clexa, i was really bored by it- but the retroactive and relentless rewriting of it of this grand love story that clarke was never allowed to get over that i think was never there really got on my nerves and still does. and rewatching knowing about this made the weak telling of clexa even harder to watch for me.

seeing it with all with more of an idea of how to interact with movies/shows and really deeply letting myself take in what was happening was what pushed me to actively dislike it due to some realisations i had with the writing of the rest of the show, especially surrounding clarke’s character, the telling us one thing but showing us another, and how fucking dumb and inept they both were. rewatching confirmed/reinforced my initial instincts and reactions to clarke and i never grew to care for lexa so it’s not that my opinion necessarily changed, it just got more detailed/justified.

like with most things in this show, the writing really let that relationship AND those characters down (i feel a similar way about lexa that i do about bellamy...and raven...and tbh most other characters- that clarke drags them down and they’re better off as characters when/if distanced from her).

but i feel like i can see where people (people who are being honest and not insufferable) find these relationships enjoyable to watch. it’s the fandoms that let them down imo- clexas and bellarkes have GOT to be THE MOST delusional, miserable and arrogant fucking fans i’ve ever come across, i resent them and all that space they took up and stole from the rest of us.

my ultimate favorite character™:

bitch king jasper jordan

prettiest character:

just so you know, to me “pretty” means something very specific about how someone looks. i want to say it’s jasper and/or josephine.

my most hated character:

clarke :*

my OTP:

i usually don’t look for things to ‘ship’ romantically (a lot of the time the pairings i like are just canon anyway) so i just call any dynamic i really love an OTP lol. so those would be finn/raven, jasper + monty/raven, any pairings between finn/murphy/bellamy/jasper, spacekru dynamics, the blake siblings’ whole mess, book 1 becho, echo/hope, clarke x dying in the s4 finale

my NOTP:

bellarke, clexa

favorite episode:

my memory isn’t great for this lol everything pretty much blends together.

saddest death:

finn’s made me stop watching the show for a year.

jasper’s made me quit the show completely until after much convincing from a friend, i gave s5 a try when there was nothing else to watch one night lol. that’s when i joined fandom to try to make it fun and take the edge off and ended up staying out of hope there might be something that makes staying worthwhile (there was: i won this whole show bitches).

on a different note- i was sad to see pike go, wasn't thrilled about every character (especially bellamy) being brutally murdered for clarke's sake in book 2, and the death (abandonment) of “the 100″ ruined the show.

favorite season:

1 and 2 for the delinquents <3 rip, and also for the vibes and the potential that hadn’t been completely bulldozed yet.

least favorite season:

6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate:

clarke, book 2 bellamy, lexa (don’t ‘hate’ her but she ain’t alla that - i did find her a lot more entertaining in s2 before she was softened/declawed and made so she didn’t belong to herself anymore...i don’t know how else i can describe that).

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave:

this is so typical but s1-3 murphy- i really loved him back then.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave:

me... i deserved better.

my  ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship:

i don’t think i’ve ever felt this way about a ship in my life lmao what kind of description is this?

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship:

memori. i don’t go that hard for them but they’re cute.

[crystallized-shadow]

For the character headcanon -Minato, Mito and Izuna.

Send me a character and I’ll tell you my headcanons for them!

Minato:

1: sexuality headcanon Poly - I recently fell in love with Minato/Kushina/Fugaku/Mikoto

2: otp Minato/Kakashi probably, if I’m just picking a couple pairing, otherwise my polyship I mentioned above.

3: brotp Minato & Sakumo, they are totally drinking buddies who lament over Kakashi’s antisocial tendencies XD

4: notp Don’t really have one, I haven’t come across a pairing of him I don’t like.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head He looks like a native ball of sunshine, but he totally understands every pass you’re making and will kill you with a smile on his face.

6: one way in which I relate to this characterI too make bad choices when the shit really hits the fan and I have to think on my feet (aka leaving Naruto in the hands of Sarutobi)

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this characterThe moment when he reunited with Naruto and was surprised to get punched; seriously what did he think would happen? Naruto would be happy that the man who basically ruined his childhood turned out to be his father?

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?Looks at that face, how can he not be a cinnamon roll?

Mito:

1: sexuality headcanon Pan - she loves whoever she wants and everyone else can just take their opinions and fuck off.

2: otp Hashirama/Mito, cliche I know, but I love them together!

3: brotp Mito & Madara, they are both married to a different Senju of course they are going to besties; who better to understand how stupidly insufferable your husband is being than the person who married their brother?

4: notp Mito/Sakura, I came across it once and I just didn’t like the thought of those two together.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head If you hurt someone she cares she will use every petty revenge technique in the book to fuck up your life until you beg for mercy.

6: one way in which I relate to this characterFamily comes first, or at least that’s how I see her.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this characterNothing - Mito is a badass bitch who gives zero fucks about your opinion, what’s there to be embarrassed about?

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?I don’t see her as problematic so cinnamon roll it is!

Izuna

1: sexuality headcanon Whore, he fucks anything that moves Seriously though I would say he’s omnisexual

2: otp Izuna/Kagami or Izuna/Itama, or in my most recent story with him I mashed all three together!

3: brotp Madara & Izuna, they are brothers after all XD Tobirama & Izuna when I don’t pair them together, because of course Izuna is going to keep his rival/brother’s lover as close as possible and say they aren’t friends even though everyone knows they are.

4: notp I haven’t found a pairing involving Izuna I don’t like

5: first headcanon that pops into my head You could stab Izuna and he’d let it go after kicking your ass, but if you so much as give Madara a paper cut, he’s going to declare war on you and your entire family for generations to come.

6: one way in which I relate to this characterA lot of the snarky things I have him say are my own thoughts in some way, shape, or form XD

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this characterNothing XD

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?He’s Madara’s little brother and therefore just as problematic as his aniki XD