#nickie words

[nickiemoot]

randomly i am thinking of a game me + friends played a few times as teens, which i don't know if we ever had a name for. it goes like this: two people sit across from each other on the ground, about 10-15ft apart. a third person starts at one end and, without standing, must get to the person on the other side. the person who is on the side they start on is trying to prevent them from doing this.

things i have seen during this game:

a much larger person simply grabbing the runner and sitting them in their lap, which they are too small to do anything about

someone desperately army crawling to victory while someone desperately clings to their back

someone sprint-crawling unnaturally fast like a gremlin as soon as the blocker person gets dislodged or loses grip

pants coming off because the blocker person had a good grip on the runner's pants but not the runner themself

wrestling matches steering the runner away from the goal, and they somehow go surprisingly far in the wrong direction

allowing two people to team up on the biggest guy in the group when he was the runner, which sometimes didn't even work because he was actually a literal tank

[legendofnickie]

it's really funny to me that

gerudo consistently reject link in both botw and totk. they're just not interested in him.

zora are into link, in more than one game. two different zora princesses have literally proposed to him.

something about link is unattractive to gerudo beauty standards and really attractive to zora beauty standards. i think gerudo women aren't into twinks, because they often comment on how short or skinny link is. so now the question is... what does link have that fish people are so into lmfao???

[evgar]

some domestic agathario for the soul

[thensson]

Thinking of you, even now

Darling, I Left the House, by Joseph Brodsky || Nickie Zimov || Faces in the Crowd, Valeria Luiselli || Garden of Words, Makoto Shinkai || Love, Alex Dimitrov || This is Not a Love Poem, Caitlyn Siehl

[falafels]

pt.11 !! <pt.10 pt.12>

taglist for @andrewsleftarmband @blurryhour @you-know-i-get-itt @notexactlythatgirl @strangeoffputtingrat @tessasilverswan <333

[thoughtkick]

You can't change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

Nicky Gumbel

[100hearteyes]

I can't get this canon divergent headcanon off my mind: Nicky isn't marked for death at birth.

Instead, when he's born, Rio is right next to Agatha. Not because she has to take him away, but because she wants to be there.

Hours later, Agatha and Rio sit together under a tree, shoulders pressing and foreheads almost touching. They are mostly silent. When they speak, it's all hushed tones and lazy smiles.

Nicky is on Agatha's lap. The exhaustion of pregnancy and labour sits deep in her bones, elated and heavy and hungry, and she knows she will need to feed later. For now, though, she just wants to watch Rio play with their baby's tiny fingers and tickle his tiny feet, Death and new life so entranced with each other.

Agatha is at her most vulnerable, at her most open, her most comfortable and carefree and free. Her voice doesn't even carry that edge, the lilt and inflection that carries so many lies and masks so many truths. Here, with her two loves, Agatha Harkness is all awed whispers and tender smiles.

"We made this," Agatha breathes out, still in wondrous disbelief. She catches Rio's eyes, brimming with tears just like her own, and smiles, before planting a gentle kiss on the baby's forehead. "You and I, my love. We made him from scratch."

And Rio, gentle and loving like she only ever is with Agatha, can't hold in a soft smile as she takes in the flower of their love, so much like the ones she gives Agatha every time they meet — but this one has little toes and chubby fists and big brown eyes just like her own and he lives and he breathes and he smiles.

She wonders how she can be a mother to this creature, this miracle boy, when her job, who she is, already keeps her away from Agatha too much. How will this child grow up healthy and kind when one of her mothers kills witches to live and the other lives to collect their souls? It clutches her black heart, claws digging into it and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing.

Until she looks up and finds Agatha already staring at her, and the claws loosen their grip with a sigh and a smile. Today, she can stop thinking. She can just feel the joy of her miracle.

Rio kisses one of baby Nicky's cheeks twice, "One for me and one for your mama."

Tomorrow, when Agatha has sated her hunger and Rio needs to leave, she will kiss her son's rosy cheek twice more.

Today, however, Rio looks at this boy and she can't even make sense of the immensity of the love she feels for him. And she thought that her black heart would not have space for more, what will how full it already was with her love for Agatha — but maybe it has doubled in size, because what she feels for Nicky is just as big and it somehow still fits.

Even as the terror of absence threatens to crawl its way back into her heart, Rio takes comfort in knowing that many days after tomorrow, she will return to her family and she will twice kiss her son's cheek again, "One for hello and one for the next goodbye."

The weight of Agatha's head on her shoulder pulls her back to the present. Rio takes the baby from her love's arms and holds him close to her heart.

Mother and son sleep peacefully, now. Rio presses her lips to Agatha's head, remembering all the hello's and goodbye's they have collected over the decades, and it makes her feel a little more sure that they can do right by Nicky even through the death and the hunger and the absence. Love perseveres.

[joejhang]

my aftg hot takes

most of these are pretty lukewarm but i'm gonna get flamed for them anyway but whatever. spoilers ??? ahead ??? idk read at ur own risk

i don't think andreil ever say i love you to each other; i feel like the discourse about this is virtually endless ever since nora said it but honestly her explanation was so valid??? they're such a show not tell couple it just makes so much sense for them to show the "i love you" in their actions than ever saying the words out loud. esp bc neither of them have ever really heard those words and have them mean anything real or true or actually loving. personally i think their little percentages and the "i hate you"'s and kisses and keys mean more to them than an "i love you" ever could. i'm not a purist on this tho i do think i could visualise it happening maybe somewhere along the road i just think nora's explanation for this is very very in line with canon andreil.

i don't hate thea muldani; i've made a post abt this but basically my thoughts around her are literally just: she's a human being, and she's never gonna be perfect. i also find it very...interesting how the fandom likes to flame thea (an explicitly stated woman of colour) for being "problematic" and a "terrible person/character" when she doesn't act all that different from andrew, neil and kevin (white men) ??? idk it seems a little strange to me bc she seems pretty on par with them on whatever moral compass this batshit crazy fandom has decided to impose on these fictional and very much morally ambiguous characters. anyway go check out my post i go a lot deeper into thea's character and why she does a lot of things wrong but i don't rlly think she's deserving of the insane amounts of hate she gets in the fandom.

i don't think andreil ever get married; this MIGHT be me projecting bc the idea of marriage is just a very complicated and rough concept in my mind but also just i feel like there's something so beautiful about andreil never really putting a label on their relationship??? like they never define it by calling the other their "boyfriend" or "husband" they just are. they have nothing "concrete" binding them like a marriage certificate but they choose to stay with each other through everything. idk it's real to me but again i'm not a purist people can do whatever they want.

i've said it before but i'll keep saying it till enough people hear me: the aftg fandom mischaracterises literally the main fucking characters; i'm mostly talking about andrew and ESPECIALLY neil here bc neil is not a sweet, sunshiney, oblivious, blushy softboy and andrew is not a cold, unemotional, stoic, "conceal don't feel" stone. since i've already bitched on and on about neil's mischaracterisation let's just talk about andrew for a sec. i think andrew is actually a deeply emotional person and is fully aware of the feelings he experiences. does he vocalise or express them often? no but more often than not they show themselves anyway. him crashing out after neil was kidnapped, letting himself get walked like a dog by neil for three books straight, choking allison for slapping aaron, idk i could go on. but yeah you get it.

i don't actually think neil is that oblivious; before people come at me like "but nora said!" or whatever yeah, i know she said he's as dense as a brick when it comes to people flirting with him. considering how much of the ec the aftg fandom likes to disregard allow me to disregard this little bit of it, yeah? this isn't me tryna impose my own projections onto nora's characters, this is lit just me tryna explain how i understand neil josten (he's my bsf btw). he literally clocks his feelings for andrew in trk (after his deep convo™ with nicky) but he just files it away for later bc he doesn't consider attraction or romantic interest anything to be thinking about considering he's got the mafia and his serial killer dad on his tail. i also don't really blame him for not catching onto andrew's feelings earlier (tho doesn't he get pretty fucking close during that one convo they have in exites in trk???? someone correct me if i'm wrong but) bc dude andrew was out here sending fucking mixed ass signals like bro was saying "you are a pipe dream" and "i hate you" in the same fucking conversations like??? neil has always taken andrew at face value and he's not about to question him now. he's also never confused or uncertain about nicky or marissa and what their comments about him meant, he just genuinely does not gaf about them so he doesn't acknowledge them or pay them any attention in his narration. i truly truly think his dismissal of all the advances made upon him in aftg were borne out of indifference, not obliviousness.

have already said this in detail but i don't think andrew's actually a misogynist; the wording doesn't feel right. i'd probably describe andrew's distrust of women (esp. those in motherly/mother roles) as a similar ingrained wariness that neil has for older men. this is something borne out of trauma and shitty experiences that takes time and trust to unlearn. nora says a lot of things the fandom disregards and for me, this is one of those things i'm a little iffy about. misogyny actually isn't reflected in andrew's actions at all, i'd say. does he respect women? no. but he doesn't respect anyone unless they've actually earned it. and among the people he does respect and care for there are women (renee, bee). he doesn't treat women any differently and obv doesn't think they're any weaker than men are (considering renee wipes the floor w him their first sparring sesh). andrew's an equal opportunity hater and i don't think he actually has any sexist or even misogynistic tendencies. i think what is there is just a slightly biased worldview of disliking/mistrusting mother figures, given his bad experiences w tilda and cass (they've left him w more long-term emotional damage that's probably rlly difficult and complicated for him to work through esp considering cass did love??? him and he did want her enough to be willing to suffer dr*ke to be close to her; there's more to it but for the sake of word count i won't go into it) but honestly it doesn't actually show that much??? if people wanna say he hates women, sure, but for one, he doesn't hate a lot of things he's just very indifferent to them and two, he holds a pretty similar apathetic distaste for most people and things, so it's not like a very big distinction. i also think the whole "no girls" thing w aaron was very much a personal thing, and his mistrust of katelyn probably came from aaron's past (apparently negative) experiences w other girlfriends and friendships in general. and if i remember correctly the deal wasn't even "no girls" it was just "family only" which is why aaron didn't make friends w the rest of the foxes either. i digress but i don't think saying "andrew isn't a misogynist" is robbing him of any nuance as a character.

i like nicky and honestly feel similarly towards him as i do about thea; he isn't perfect and never will be and i think while the way he acts towards neil and others (see: matt, kevin) is pretty untoward and inappropriate, i also do see where he's coming from, esp after aaron's explanation of it. that it's a defence mechanism coming from someone who's experienced a lot of prejudice and harm because of his sexuality. obv i think everyone can agree his assault on neil was fucked up but i think nora was right in saying that nicky was high and drunk and not rlly in his right mind at the time, and he does apologise and i'm pretty sure she also said he and neil work it out privately anyway. he's a messy character and definitely not perfect queer rep but again, he's pretty realistic, and i think he's honestly a rlly well-written and complex character.

[neil-minyard-josten]

RIP Andrew Minyard, you would have hated Sabrina Carpenter's new song

[ciricegh0st]

show armand has the rage that only a girl at 16 can feel, but the vampire lestat's armand has the biblical fury of a 1950s housewife on the strongest dose of vallium

[nickiemoot]

BIRFDAY 🎉

[legendofnickie]

gonna post an opinion but not gonna tag it because fuck that im too old for fandom wank. but i love ranting

lady yona is not there for "forced hetero relationship because of sidlink shippers". what are you all talking about. her existence has nothing to do with the sidlink ship. why are we assuming the games writers thought about noncanon fan ships literally at all? i say this as a huge shipper that adores sidlink btw. you guys need to step back and look at things from perspectives other than the deeply entrenched in fandom pov.

lady yona is there because it was planned for sidon to inherit the crown, and he needed a queen. obviously they had to give him a fiance before he became king. thats how royalty works. like there is no reason to assume malicious intent when there is a very simple explanation like this.

and i have no issue with her being from another domain. that's not unusual for the series. previous games have had different clans of zora before. i remember when there was a distinct split between freshwater and saltwater zora even within hyrule. and obviously a world exists outside hyrule, its just one kingdom. and important one, but still.

tldr: please calm down and actually think. yona's existence is not a threat to you.

[aigoos]

The Starry Tatooine Night Art

I have died and gone to heaven.

Seriously, when I commissioned @nickytess a couple of months ago, I knew she was talented, but holy !@#$%!@#$% shite, this artwork went beyond my expectations. When I presented my idea to Nicky, I did emphasise that this would be a background heavy request. And when I presented my entire idea, I was stoked that Van Gogh is one of her favourite artists! What a happy coincidence!

I had envisioned this scene of Anakin pointing out Tatooine's three moons to Obi-Wan during their visit to Shmi and the Lars family. The AU of them being a happy couple visiting Anakin's childhood home with "The Starry Night" scheme wouldn't leave me alone, so that was when I reached out to Nicky . . .

And she delivered beautifully. This is such a breathtaking art. I'm so blown away by this piece. I'd planned on making a photo tile of this finished work, and I will definitely move forward with that idea.

Thank you so much, Nicky, for working with me to bring this amazing art to life. No words can fully express my awe and gratitude with this gorgeous piece.

[ghost-bison]

a christopher eccleston appreciation post

i will never say this enough because i don't know enough words, nor do i think such words exist, that could even begin to summarize how much i love christopher eccleston, but... i love christopher eccleston. and, more importantly, i have a deep-rooted respect for that man.

i started doctor who as, let's be honest, a sci-fi hater, forcing myself because i was obsessed with david tennant, and i was kind of dreading the first series because of this. but i was dead wrong.

he broadened my mind, gave me so many laughs, and so many cries, and i'm not the first to say that whenever eccleston is on the screen you just can't take your eyes off him, even when he's not supposed to be the main focus of the scene.

the way he can switch from silly goose to traumatized soldier in a matter of seconds will never cease to amaze me. or how he can play with both like he's on a swing by balancing it out with sarcasm?

i think whoever doesn't give him the title role in their shows/films is either an idiot, or they know the main character just isn't always the best.

i think it's downright idiotic and shameful that he gets rejected from ever playing some shakespeare just because of his northern accent (they're just posh elitist pos). now that he's older, and that times are evolving (i mean, i hope the world of theater is vibing with this evolution, but i'm not delusional), i hope we get to see him portray a character like leontes in winter's tale cause i know he'd be absolutely perfect for the role, and who better than shakespeare (this character especially, with his nuances and highs and lows and breakdowns and breakthroughs) to match acting like his?

saw an article where eccleston talked about how the moment he really knew he wanted to be an actor was when he had to wear mascara for a play, and had enjoyed it. i think he talks about it in his autobiography too (you should read it, btw, it's frankly affordable, and he happens to be a marvelous writer as well).

eccleston knows he is mistakenly type-cast, because of his background, as macho men and tough blokes in general. he's aware that it's kind of a big part of his culture. again, he talks about it i think in the very first chapter, how for instance he used to dress up as james bond, the pinnacle of "masculinity", which i think was a disguise in the metaphorical sense of the term, to mask his delicacy and femininity (or at least, that's my interpretation of it).

in his biography, eccleston talks about the differences between him and his dad, ronnie: he was surprised, as a child, whenever his father's affection manifested as a kiss or a hug, cause that usually wasn't his father's way of doing things. he compares it to how he, in contrast, has the habit of kissing his own son, albert, and telling him he loves him.

you can find it as well in how he talks about his anorexia, his body dysmorphia and, i think we can call it that, gender dysphoria. he's from a time when those concepts didn't even exist, they weren't a thing to the public eye. my father and my step-father, both feminine men in their own way, and both around eccleston's age, both told me about the struggle that it represented, not being the stereotype of the macho tough guy, and being surrounded by boys who didn't struggle with that issue. it made my dad a junkie, my stepdad a depressive artist, and, apparently, it made eccleston an anorexic actor.

i think it takes a lot of courage for people that age (the boomer generation as we call them), especially men, from whom we expect toxic masculinity, masculinity pushed to an extreme, to be able to openly call it out and dissect it into what it is: a ridiculous standard. but to be a PUBLIC FIGURE, in his 60s, and still find the strength to express it? damn. takes guts, i think.

most of us on this website, we're babies. most of us are at most in their thirties. the millenials and the gen z, and now the gen alpha, we take that for granted. or get offended and scandalized that being able to express oneself isn't yet a basic standard.

but then, i talk to my mum, and i realize that she had to stray from her catholic, sexist education, she had to make up her own mind about things in order for me to be born a free spirit. and that's just considering my mum's a cishet.

christopher eccleston expressed in other words that he doesn't fully consider himself to be cisgendered. i have mad respect for the way he talks about it, and for even talking about it at all.

then, there's his honesty. the more interviews i watch, the more it impresses me. he knows honesty goes hand in hand with dignity. i'm sorry but i'm tired of people who are nice all the time. you never know when they're being honest, and maybe some of them are, who knows. but i'm not stupid enough to think that so many people are just pure sunshine all the time (respect for tennant for lashing out publically about transphobia, i think he passed the test).

eccleston? he knows how to be both brutally honest and yet respectful at the same time. no ukulele apology from this man and holy fuck, it feels good!

i've seen him call russel t davies out for his lack of professionalism on the set of doctor who, and then list him amongst the great writers he's worked with. which makes me want to believe eccleston's side, because, if you're always either too polite, or too full of spite about eveything, who's to say you're not the problem? i've got way less trouble believing you if you can stay unbiased about a person you're having beef with than if suddenly everything said person does turns into shit just cause you don't like them. that's just maturity and wisdom.

one last thing i love about eccleston is that he is interested in other people's lives. there's a critic by marcus berkmann in his book that perfectly expresses my point: "you know what to expect from the autobiographies of most actors, i think: anecdotes, charm, more than mild self-satisfaction and faux-modesty by the bucketload. but christopher eccleston is not most actors".

and that's it. watch him in interviews and at convention panels, where he lets his younger co-stars speak before himself, and seizes the occasion when journalists ask him questions that are meant to make him talk about himself to praise his writers and other actors instead.

read his autobiography, which is both a love letter to his dad and a big let's-be-honest about the struggles of growing up poor and his personal struggles, because he thinks raising awareness is just as important as protecting himself.

look at his instagram posts where he unabashedly disses the monarchy and stays true and loyal to his background even after getting a taste of money. and his other posts where he shares his love for acorns and spending time with his kids.

i've seen him nearly break down in shame and regret on television for having stolen a kid's crisps in primary school. and not trying to find lame excuses for his behaviour. no ukulele apology, just facts, just christopher eccleston showing us what masculinity in its purest, most beautiful form should be about

[perfectquote]

You can't change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

Nicky Gumbel

[surqrised]

You can't change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

Nicky Gumbel