#nothing to see here folks'

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Please forgive me for interrupting, but when I saw this post I about screamed it's my time because. That is one of my favorite event stories, and it's among the most uproarious things I've ever read in my life. Basically in one of the Boys Talk New Years series, Mozart, Sebas, and Comte are doing exactly what's enumerated above, and then Comte out of left field is like:

And my friends. When I tell you I screamed so loud when he said this. It's even funnier because iirc Sebastian is like "lmfao so he basically just wants a Theo-type MC" AND COMTE DOESN'T DENY IT. I need to find the whole video again but it was amazing; my life was before and after that moment. Mozart's disgust is hilarious too

A related addendum, since I never got around to posting it (spoilers for Boys Talk 2023 jpn):

There's another Boys Talk for 2023, and in this one Theo and Isaac are disheartened by a party Comte invited them to attend. Basically all the women there met them and went "lmao I want him as a pet, boyfailure" and "omg????? I want to support him and his research, I need to protect that smile" respectively, and they're both mortified at the perceived emasculation.

So they bring it up to Comte, and then insist that he teach them how to be charming/woo women properly. Two absolutely HILARIOUS things ensue from this. The first being ->

For the better part of this whole thing Comte is just so openly amused. (The sense I get from him is legit "fools that you are, everything women do is a serve." AND I SCREAM. The way he reminds me of IkeSen Shingen in these moments.) Eventually he tells them both to improve themselves and/or work on their own charms (we stan a king, that is the correct response) if they want women to take them seriously. Then Theo and Isaac start laying it on thick that he's a master class seducer:

Theo: Oh, that might be a good idea. But then of course, it’s your specialty. You’ve seduced hundreds of women in high society, haven’t you? Isaac: Then now is the time to make the most of a vampire's years/achievements. Tell us of the skills you've cultivated over hundreds of years of seduction. Comte: Would you mind not telling me that I spent my long life idle and dumb…? (Vernacular translation: Would you stop making it sound like all I’ve done is chase skirts all these years…?)

And I just. The way he's so "aight listen you little shits, I May Be S t u p i d" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I love that he has zero defense but he's still lowkey peeved to be exposed

2. The second funny part, and the one more pertinent to this reply, is that Comte does something unhinged and supremely goofy. He agrees to do a lesson to help them learn to escort MC/women properly, but the absolute madlad has them practice. ON EACH OTHER.

Comte: Let’s give it a try so that you both have a better sense of what it looks like in real time… Comte: Isaac will try to woo Theo, Theo will try to woo me, and I will try to woo Isaac. Theo: What Isaac: What Comte: Let’s begin, 3,2,1--

I love the fact that Theo and Isaac get so carried away they just go along with it. But notice that Comte chooses Theo to seduce him 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm going to add the ensuing madness that results mostly because it makes me lose my shit laughing literally every single time:

Isaac: Oh…your sea-colored eyes are so beautiful. I always want them to reflect only me. Theo (O_O): Isaac… --- Theo: You belong to me, Comte. For every bit as long as a pureblood’s forever… Comte: Theo… --- Comte: Your blush/cheeks are the same cherry-blossom as your eyes, Isaac. Did your thoughts dye you such a lovely pink? Isaac: Comte… --- [All three of them]: ……………………. Isaac: Nonononono, was it really necessary for us to practice with other men!? This is embarrassing!! Theo: I'm horrified…just horrified…it turned into an unbelievably perverted space… Comte: I thought I could curb my persuasion skills according to the situation, but I see the mental damage was too great... Theo: Guess it was on us for asking… Isaac: I just wanted to show MC my manly/sexy side…now I’m going to be traumatized… …Nights like these must be kept a complete secret from MC.

Okay - so I forgot which event it was, but I know Le Comte and Sebastian and somebody else were talking in a bath or something (I know, terrible explanation) and they start talking about S or M (shirt sizes, but Comte makes them think it’s about BDSM) and Comte literally says that he would like to see MC as an “S” and would like to “see her dressed in latex”, so all I’m saying is that it’s canon.

😂😂😂😂 Comte, LOML, I would trust him to be down with anything she wanted to do in the bedroom. He’s such a lovable deviant for that and I love and support it all the way 🤣💕

[strawbbfluff]

I think i need someone to tickle me and be just a little bit mean about it

[rocketbirdie]

YOU. You are correct about Cloud Strife. Everything you say about him is CORRECT

Hi I'm going to use your ask as an opportunity to go on an unhinged tangent about him below the cut.

I believe that EVERYTHING about Cloud Strife as a character makes total sense once you realize: it's autism.

Here's a character whose entire arc revolves around the erosion of his identity and his desperate attempts to adhere to an ideal image, at the expense of his own wellbeing; and how self acceptance is the thing that brings him back from the edge of despair.

Youtube theorycrafters waste hours of their lives trying to piece together Cloud's psyche, when the answer is just... autism. It really is that simple. I will die on this goddamn hill.

In Trace of Two Pasts, we learn that even as a toddler, Cloud really was just... like that. Unemotive and awkward. And the entire lifestream sequence in the OG shows us a young Cloud who behaves in baffling ways. Tifa and her friends invited Cloud into their group, but he rejected their friendship while simultaneously harboring a seething jealousy. How the heck does that work, huh?

Viewing this through the Autism Lens™️, his approach make way more sense. Fearing his own inability to read and reciprocate their intentions, he pushes them away, and the resulting loneliness crushes him. He mistakes that loneliness for anger. He turns that anger outwards and gets into fights. Because the other kids don't understand him, Cloud sees them as stupid and immature. It's the perfect recipe for disastrous distrust. The tragic result is that, when Tifa gets into her accident, Cloud is immediately blamed by kids AND adults. He's seen as inherently dangerous and unpredictable, even though he did nothing wrong. It's like they were already looking for the perfect excuse to hate him.

The worst part is, because he struggles to articulate his own thoughts and feelings, he starts to just... accept what other people say about him. He's a pain in the ass. He's a selfish brat. He could try being a bit nicer. Any attempt that he makes to argue, backfires and proves their points even more. He's being childish. He needs to get his shit together. Nothing's ever good enough for him. He stops fighting it and lets people drag him around and violate his boundaries, because no matter how loud he yells or how intelligently he argues, nothing he says ever reaches their ears. He trims away more and more of himself to try and appease others and nurse the constant emotional pain. (And that's not even addressing the entire traumatic *waves hands* everything that he's gone through by the time he reaches Midgar! That would have to be its own tangent lol.)

It's hard to watch as a player; the secondhand embarrassment of Cloud's social blunders is immense. Some people don't like Cloud as a video game protagonist, which is perfectly valid. But a lot of times, they justify their opinion by perpetuating the same damaging language. He's an asshole, he's a weirdo, he hates people. The irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so frustrating. I know Cloud is just a fictional character, he doesn't need to be defended from harsh criticisms. But I can't help but wonder what these players think about the "weird people-hating assholes" that they meet in real life.

It also makes me wonder if they were even paying attention. I think the games make it pretty damn obvious what's going on. He's an asshole because other characters treat him like one before they even get to know him. He hates people because he doesn't understand them, and they don't even try to understand him. He's a weirdo because he has a strange way of showing how deeply he loves and cares, and he's afraid that his love will be misinterpreted like every other emotion he's ever dared to show.

The autism is everywhere. It permeates his entire being. It's in his silly responses when he takes things too literally. It's in his painfully practical way with words. It's in the stiff expressionless look and the flat tone of voice. It's in him constantly adjusting his gloves, shifting his weight, looking down at his feet. It's in his questionable idea of what you're supposed to do with your body at a yoga session. It's in the half a dozen flustered high fives, it's in the motion sickness. It's in the contagious eagerness with his special interests in SOLDIER and materia and chocobos.

It's in the moments where the facade crumbles and we get to see the real Cloud, the one that Aerith knew was in there— the one that Tifa finds in the lifestream— the one that Zack gave his life for— the Cloud that cherishes the whole world. He's got so much of everything inside of his heart, and he doesn't know how to get it out. You'd be a weird asshole about it, too.

[yukipri]

feelin kinda sad so eating an obscene amount of pasta

[wes-laye]

Do y’all see my vision hahaha

I will also say I have lost steam painting…. Once again…..

[zukoupy]

imagine living on nevarro and seeing your high magistrate (aka your leader and the most esteemed man on the planet) kneeling on the ground in his expensive clothes yelling into a hole in the wall because it's actually making me laugh so much. greef karga you're so silly i love u

[neptune-scythe]

they were insane for this

[heart-wit-strength]

Agreed that fandoms get less lively once the show is over, but also perhaps sometimes people just need to look past old content creators that have moved on from their interests, and begin showing support to new folks that are still engaging with the media

Almost like dead fandoms don't happen when people move on, but when people refuse to acknowledge creators still here once the Big Blogs are gone

[nmbrrr77]

🤨🫵🏳️‍🌈

[see-arcane]

Oh bitter bitter irony

Bile below

I started out afraid that Eggers would over-Coppola his Nosferatu--he didn't! :D--only to run into a growing dual tide of fans who are either

A) actively trying to Coppola his Orlok and Ellen into lash-batting forbidden romance bodice ripper cliches ("He backhanded Knock for daring to suggest he steal Ellen! uwu He brought a plague and attacked her loved ones just to be with her! uwu She clearly wanted to be with Orlok all along, fuck Jonathan Thomas, the useless stuffy loser! uwu Orlok just doesn't want her to deny herself! uwu Every word he says should be 100% taken at face value, he would never use the Classic Abuser Playbook to victim-blame his target into compliance, just do murders and choke slam her for saying she doesn't like him, ignore the long-distance repeated psychic rape since she hit puberty, it's fine it's fine uwu")

or

B) going full pearl-clutch about the very concept of Orlok being an icky evil unpretty mustached corpse monster (with all the abuse and assaults being tacked on in the aftermath to Prove~ this is Not a Proper Ken Doll Dracula)

like

guys. we're sinking into the deep ends of two very different nuance-free pools here

Yes, there is a disturbing fucked up but Actually There connection between Ellen and Orlok. There is attraction, there is a core spiritual likeness that led Orlok to her as a girl. But that does not obliterate the fact that he is monstrous to her and to everyone she cares about. He is a rapist. He is a manipulator. He abuses her and the covenant connection--which he point blank tricked her into without any warnings to what she was agreeing to as a teenager--for years. And then, when she dares to fall in love with and wed someone else, he throws a murder-tantrum until she agrees by her own will* (*under duress) to be his. Not his equal in anything but suggestion, but his property. His owed Affliction. And it is meant to be horribly fucked up that Ellen has even a thread of positive feeling for him, regardless of what supposed matching darkness she has in her. Just like many victims in her position will feel for their own sexual and romantic abusers.

This is not Count Gary Oldmanacula and Winonmina Harkryder. This is not star-crossed tragique kissy kissy Francis fanfiction. It does not call for mental gymnastics to take the fangs and blood and violation out, to excuse the monstrosity Eggers harvested from the actual source story or--and I am putting my head through the wall about this--taking anything Count Orlok says at face value when his entire MO, from the first assault on Teen Ellen to the trick document he makes Thomas sign to sell her away to the full spread of mind game horseshit he says to Ellen's face or puts in her mouth to puppeteer a fight between the Hutters, IS TO MANIPULATE AND ABUSE EVERYONE AROUND HIM

Fuck, even Knock got ripped off via Orlok's bullshitting and he made a literal full Faustian willing contract with him

And on the flip side:

Stop stop stop stop STOP wringing your hands over the presence of gothic horror monstrosity being in the gothic horror monstrosity film.

Bela Lugosi and Gary Oldman? They looked impressive. They looked charming and elegant and polished and, obviously, iconic. The legion of pressed and bleached and chiseled Dracula Lites after them, less so. But they are pretty!

And none of them have looked like the Count who Bram Stoker made or what his inspirations would ever have recognized as a vampire or a boyar. Robert 'If I do not personally graft the actual time period of this movie into place with my own two hands I Will Die' Eggers actually did his research in putting his Orlok together and, being a Horror Film Writer and Director, actually remembered to put the horror into the famous vampire horror story.

Attraction, sensuality, romance, and assault all have their place in it too--it is Nosferatu: "Dracula, But the Focus is On a Dracula Trying to Make the World's Worst Nightmare Threesome Happen"

And, shock of shocks, in Murnau's film, as in Stoker's book, the main couple--Harkers, Hutters--have the loving couple intimately preyed on by the same monster. While Mina/Ellen ostensibly 'allow' themselves to be preyed on, in both scenes it's done out of a desire to protect Jonathan/Thomas from the Count.

Mina keeps silent and allows Dracula to feed on her and force-feed her his blood to kick off a magical enslavement-undeath, lest Dracula follow through on his threat to bash Jonathan's skull in

Ellen sends Thomas away and offers herself as bloodbag and bride to Orlok specifically to keep him from killing Thomas and finishing off all of Wisborg

Would these magically have become 'better' setups if only Count Dracula/Orlok were hunky clean-shaven bishounen sexyboi doms there to ~liberate xoxo~ the already-married already-fucking already-skirting the lines of propriety gender role-bending young woman?

Because if that's the case in your eyes, click here. Scroll on through almost 130 years' worth of film and TV and plays and books and a thousand other spinoffs where Dracula is perpetually sandblasted into your cape-swishing hickey-nibbling knockoffs of choice. All yours.

But for fuck's sake.

Let the gothic horror be gothic horror. Up to and including the monster being monstrous. Up to and including, yes, a deranged connection and magnetism between Pretty Girl and Actually Freaky-looking Undead Rat Man. Up to and including, yes, the Human Lover not being the starched and stuffy blandman there to be thrown in a ditch to let Girl and Sexy Monsterman who truly understands her~*~* get together, and instead be a genuine romantic partner who is as adamant in endangering himself to protect his beloved as she is for him.

tl;dr:

Stop trying to retroactively Coppola this movie and using 'haha but I'm a monsterfucker' to side step the fact that the villain here is a villain and is using the rule book of actual abusive relationships to gaslight his victim(s) in a very human, very gruesome way

Stop wailing that your personal diet vampire fetish is being sullied via the presence of a mustache, maggoty corpse pecs and the horror of the Count not being a GQ model

Just stop

[lichqueenlibrarian]

I am sure there’s nothing to be read into Spock adjusting Kirk’s sleeves or the Romulan commander doing the same for James…

[mintedwitcher]

I love how Completely Normal we're all being about a gold tooth :)

[averageludwig]

listen there is a difference. TRUST..

[twistedappletree]

Just had an ‘accidental time travel’ thought where Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui suddenly wake up in present-day China but find out it’s only them who got sent to the future

and while LSZ keeps calm and lowkey gets excited about all the new things around him, JL straight up has a mental breakdown in public and all everyone sees is some weird kid dressed in ancient clothes, strapped up with a bow and sword and curled up in a ball in the middle of the street while screaming and sobbing for his “jiujiu”

[phantomsies]

literacy, empathy and nuance are dead fucking arts and there really is no coming back from it.

[mychlapci]

Some kind of fantasy AU where Ratchet is a newly graduated healer who got sent to help a secluded village of the and went missing after a while

Only to be found coming back home to iacon with a sparkling on tow, somehow the sparkling have a pair of ears and tail resembling a wolf

And let's say that the bitemarks on Ratchet's neck is adding the suspicion that he's been bred by a beast

Said beast on the other hand is waiting for his mate's return

Yes it's Deadlock's doing

Yes… Some kind of fantasy setting, entirely copyright free and unaffiliated. It’s Perfect. 

Looks like Ratchet met the big bad wolf of the forest on his way back <3 Everyone warned him to not stray from the mapped out paths, not even a slight detour would be tolerated. He has to go straight to the tiny village, and then straight back. Perfect first mission for a freshly graduated medic. 

They know Ratchet made it to the village, that he did a fantastic job helping out the local medics. But he never made it back. The message claimed that Ratchet was seen setting off down the usual path, but what happened after that is beyond them. Maybe he got unlucky and something was lurking around from the start, maybe he got turned around and got a little lost. Maybe, cocky and skeptical as he is, Ratchet decided to ignore everyone’s advice and tried to take a shortcut or pick protected herbs. Who knows. 

A few months after he disappeared, some of his old friends give him a small funeral, a little memorial to remind everyone that he was taken too young, too soon. 

Then, another few months pass and it’s a year. Give it a little more time, and Ratchet just. Walks back into the town. He looks a little ragged, a little worse for the wear, a bit grimy and wild, but he’s alive and surprisingly healthy. If that wasn’t odd enough, he came back with a little bundle of joy on his arm, a babe tucked tightly against his chest. He would not show it to anyone for a few days, always pulling the cloth over its chubby little frame, hiding it thoroughly from the rest of the medics. They just need to take a look at it, please, just to make sure everything’s in order! Is this why he disappeared? He didn’t want anyone to know he was carrying? It’s okay, no one is mad at him.

But Ratchet insists the sparkling is healthy and doesn’t need a check-up. They literally have to pry the sparkling out of his hands, almost dropping it when they get a good look at it. It’s a puppy. Their first instinct is that Ratchet just found it, that he was worried they might kill it if they see it, but then they look back at the bite-marks on his neck and ask Ratchet if he gave birth to it and. Ratchet doesn’t lie, just grabs his pup and tries to get out of the med-bay. 

You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was carrying another litter of pups already… he and Deadlock got quite busy once he’s warmed up to the beast-former, after all. All the medics are stumped. They can’t just let him… they cannot let him carry that small beast around! Or bring more into the world… They pity him for being bred by a beast, but they cannot understand why he isn’t willing to get rid of the offspring.