#or essentially one the politics in this are clearly weird

[autumnrory]

what is this fic doing making louis of all people some super serious asshole

[writingoddess1125]

Hi, I love Morticia and Gomez Effect universe, and I have to say it. I'm the only one who thinks that if she ends up getting pregnant, it would be a girl. How would Mihawk be as a girl dad. Or, would they have twins or triplets?? They want an army, after all.😏😉

I like your thinking! MWHAHAHAHAHS

Morticia and Gomez Effect - pt. 3

Creating an Army

Mihawk x FemReader

Previous <<

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• It seemed all that really had to be done was speaking the wish for a child- In less then 2 months you found out you were pregnant. Much to the delight of Mihawk and yourself.

• Mihawk was very protective of you, essentially a helicopter. He needed to make sure you were safe and healthy, cooking all your meals, making sure Perona was as respectful as possible and didn't dare to cause a fuss while you were pregnant.

• Which she didn't in truth. Perona had been actually excited at the idea of a baby, flooding the place with more stuffed animals and 'cute' onsies.

• While for you, the pregnancy reminded you of the sea. At times calm and cool, while others it was like a raging storm in your body. You were fortunate that Mihawk was like a massive ship that could ride through the calms and battle thr storms, Rubbing your back when you puked- Whsipering sweet words when you cried and wiping away the discomfort that settled on your bones as the baby grew.

• It was a normal day, you were 6 months along in your pregnancy and Mihawk had gone out to train. Leaving you to the peace of your favorite fruit tea and some cakes.

• Delightful

• As you tucked into your new found treats you heard the door open and the sound of chattering. Knowing that it wasn't Mihawk you reached for the blade you kept tucked to your side under the large blanket you were under.

• Till you saw young familiar faces.

• The young Pirates, The Strawhats finally had return it seemed. With your necklace in tow as they looked like they had been through quite a journey and back. The scorch marks upon their clothes also being a amusing sight.

• Zoro stepped forward, bowing respectfully to his teacher. The other pirates also coming to greet you and hopefully stay in your good Graces.

• "Madam Dracule, We have your necklace" Zoro said with calm respect.

• He watched you stand and his eyes and the eyes of the young pirates all went to the same thing that had been obstructed by the thick blankets. Your rounded stomach-

• "Thank you Zoro, I do hope it was able to help in your journey" You say calmly as you take the necklace from him- Seeing how their faces went to that or horror and shock at the sight of your clearly pregnant stomach.

• The blonde one, with a weird eyebrow was the first to break "THATS NOT FAIR!? HE GETS A HOT WIFE AND GETS HER KNOCKED UP!?" He screamed in shock which surprised you before the rest of the crew decended on him like hounds to shut him up. Zoro still just standing there shocked till a random foot seemed to hit him and he joined the fight-

• Of course Mihawk hurt the commotion and quickly went to find you, coming to a sight he didn't know what to deal with first.

• There the strawhats were all fighting each other. The two women of the crew speaking to you calmly and touching your rounded stomach with your blessing as you held your ruby necklace and A passed out Reindeer at the foot of the fight..

• Deciding the fighting was the first thing be wad quick to knock out all the boys and toss them out his home. The reindeer he just stepped over since it was useless- he also make quick work to ask the women to leave which they did after giving polite goodbyes and congratulations.

• That leaving Mihawk to then scoop you up and bring you to bed. Having found that it was bedtime-

• Possessive as ever...

• In the coming months, the house was prepared for your birth. Mihawk having brought in a medical team for you- You assumed they were paid well but terrified.

• It had been after dinner, 3 weeks early when your water had broke. It seemed your child wanted to make their grand entrance early.

• It was like the world had stopped when you felt a rush of water down your legs when you went to stand to get some juice- Mihawk and you both just staring at the floor under you were the water was

• ....

• "..Hell" Mihawk muttered first, shooting back his wine in a effort to calm his nerves before rushing over to you and quickly escorting you to the labor room. Summoning the doctors quickly as well who got you prepped and ready.

• It was slow at first- But as the hours ticked by you the pain increased. Mihawk seated next to you as he tried to guild you through the waves of pain that wrecked your body.

• While labor is hard, He knows you are quite strong and will survive. You have to... You can't leave him

• "You alright darling?" He ask softly, holding your hand as you suffer with bringing in the next Dracule in the world.

• You give a weakened smile "It is painful- But it's a is not worth dying for" You say playfully, Earning a smile from Mihawk who kissed the back of your hand.

• The poor Doctors are uncomfortable by the whole situation. Especially with how calm you were during God Damn Labor!-

• It was near twilight of the next Morning did the labor finally come to an end. A shrill cry piercing the cold morning air as new life was brought in.

• "It's a Girl!" The Doctor said cheerfully as the crying child was liftwd and placed on your chest carefully and beginning to be cleaned with a towel.

• You and Mihawk seated next to each other staring wide eyed and in awe at the little girl screaming on your chest.

• "Looks like I had nothing to do with this at all" You mused, seeing how your little daughter looked so much like her father it was unfair. Even with her face pink from crying and her rounded face you could clearly see Mihawks genes had dominated yours.

• The thin layer of black hair onto her head also not helping. Mihawk chuckled as with a gentle hand he touched his daughters hair.

• "She is beautiful" He says softly, his own eyes getting misty as he stared at the little girl.

• Is actually quite pleased their first child is a girl and the only. It couldn't be better in his mind as he remembers his youth around the children that Gol D Roger would bring onto the ship. The boys were the most troubling.

• "She is.." You say softly, Watching as she settled down and yawned. Reaching out her little arms randomly, her little pudgy fingers wrapping around Mihawks finger. You practically saw the hearts in his eyes when she did this-

• In less then 4 minutes the baby girl has already stolen her father's heart and has him wrapped around his finger.

• "Dracule Marya" He whispered. Kissing your cheek as he smiled down at his daughter. You swore you saw tears in his eyes.

• Mihawk is a absolute girl Dad, Truthfully a good father overall. He enjoyed cleaning up after her, helping with feedings, choosing important items for her development.

• He does have one poor habit however-

• You stand there with your arms crossed under your bust as you raise and eyebrow at your husband. "Mihawk hand her over my love- She needs to learn to sleep in her crib" You explain.

• Marya was 4 months old and Mihawk had grown used to Marya sleeping in the bed between you two. So you had finally decided to put the smaller crib to use, pulling it into your twos shared bedroom so she could no longer sleep in the bed with you.

• But here she was-

• Your husband holding your half asleep daughter in his arm carefully while finishing some paperwork. This had been the 2nd time that night you had placed Marya in her crib to sleep on her own and everytime she cried in less then 10 minutes it would stop and you'd fine Mihawk holding her again in his study.

• "She was crying" He said calmly, setting down his pen to pat her back to comfort her.

• "That's the point Darling- She needs to learn to sleep in the crib" You stress, seeing Mihawk scowl at this and hold her closer to his chest.

• "She doesn't like it" He said stressing- This making you sighing at his dramatics.

• "Fine- But you'd have stay in the nursery with her since she can't sleep in our bed anymore" You said with a sigh.

• He slept in the nursery, on the floor next to the crib with his hand resting ontop of her- for 3 nights before you finally kicked him out and strong armed him to let her sleep in the crib in the bedroom.

• Besides Mihawks constant want to hold his daughter and carry her everywhere he was perfect. And in his eyes so was she-

• Mihawk sat there watching you, feeding little Marya and cooing softly at her as she watched the world around her, her eyes matched yours the only thing that you seemed to give to the little girl since she was such a clone of her Daddy.

• "Darling" Mihawk called to you waving you over, making you look up from your task at hand. Marya pulling from your breast full from her meal.

• Walking over Mihawk gently took Marya from you, beginning to burp her as you pulled your shirt back to place. He smiled as his yellow eyes gleamed

• "What is going through your head my Love?" You question. Knowing that look all to well. Mihawk shrugging slightly to keep from shifting Marya too much.

• "We should have another-"

Tag List- {Sorry I forgot to put it!}

@who-the-hockeysticks @vexladin @iraaiitz

@stellasloth @yuriwk

[suguru-getos]

| Bully! Gojo Satoru x F!Reader | Part 1 |

Summary: You had just transferred schools, and your first day was an encounter with your new bully. He’s mean, terrifically hot & absolutely a menace. Though there’s more to that personna.

Warnings: Mean!Satoru, he calls the reader worthless, public!humiliation. Etc. The reader ain’t no pussy either by the way. They fight back.

New chapter every week | Comment down if you want to be tagged. ^^

First day of school, High-school… you had jitters and excitement both, just thinking about it. When your alarm beeped, you couldn’t help but smile at the thought alone. Quickly rushing to the rest-room, washing your face, brushing your teeth, doing your skincare & taking your sweet time thinking about how your first day of school would be.

Your parents, thankfully have recently shifted to Tokyo, you don’t really have any bad memories from where you lived previously, and assuming the best should be the solution to everything in life, right? You had picked what to wear previously, knee length socks on a mini tennis skorts, patched up with a white full T-shirt with gloves for your thumb.

You rushed downstairs for breakfast, sitting with your family & then quickly rushing out. Your mom small talked about your excitement along with your brother, you nodded, grinning wide. “Yeah, yeah… really am excited!” You chirped, getting all the makeup essentials and school essentials ready in your bag.

Once you were out and about, reaching the highschool premises on time. You were awestruck, there were people swarming all over. Focussed on what they’re wearing, focussed on exclusive friend-groups, some of them were vlogging, some of them patting face powder on their faces. Oh damn… they were just being problematic it seemed. You weren’t close to being a conventional teen at all, not that you weren’t a teen at all. You hummed, managing to diverse your attention towards the highschool building, it was huge. So many people, so much…

“Oop- sorry” you bumped into someone… tall. Eyes traversing through his form as he looked down at you, nudging his black glasses down and smirking. Oh fucking hell… he had the prettiest blue eyes you had ever seen. The way he smirked, looking at you as if you’re a tiny, minuscule creature at his mercy. You weren’t used to that kind of a gaze at all. “Your name?” He said as if he’s conquered you. You hate people who talk like that.

Taken aback and batting your lashes at him, you mumbled… “Y/N.”

He smirked, licking his lips with his teeth. “Satoru Gojo, your senior. My dad’s a trustee of this school & I am pretty much the second owner.” He leaned in, bending over to get to your eye level as you cowered at the weird vibe & introduction. “Say sorry that you bumped into me.” He smirked, tucking a stray strand of your hair behind your ear.

“It was by mistake — I don’t see why I should say sorry to you.” You managed to speak clearly, ensuring you were polite. The people/minions surrounding him laughed at your audacity. No one tells him shit. This was something new… apart from Suguru Geto; his best friend. Satoru Gojo’s words were the law. He has no problem beating the shit out of people who don’t listen. There’s a rumor that because of him, someone had tried to commit suicide. Just because Satoru didn’t like them, so… nobody else did.

Satoru raised a brow, smirking. “Ah, you’re new. I’ll let this one go. Let me rephrase, okay sweetheart?” He leaned in, hand touching your face with one hand. “C’mon, use that worthless mouth for something good & say sorry. Right. Now.” His jaw twitched, the hold not tender in any way. You flinched, why was no one stopping him! Where were the bloody teachers! Your pupils vibrated as you glanced at his blue eyes. You want to tell him to piss off so bad. Yet, you can’t really do that because of the way he’s puckered your lips up. Neither can you apologize.

“Can’t speak?” He shook your face to a nod, getting his own answers, while you groaned. Red hot embarrassment flushing on your cheeks. “Are you a little dumb bitch?” He forced a nod again, everyone laughing. “Aww, I know you are. So honest.” He chuckled, just having a little fun out of you. Frankly, he never knew why he was so mean… or just stomping everyone. Maybe he has this inherent habit of being worshipped & a problematic intolerance towards people who don’t.

Your eyes prickled with tears, and he finally let your face go, a little push to his hold. “Should’ve just apologized, don’t like bein’ mean to pretty girls.” He winked, walking away.

You felt daggered by multiple, hot & burning judgemental gazes around. Kudos to your first day of Highschool. You excused yourself to the rest-room. You needed a breather… and you wanted to cry, and kill him…

“That was a little too much.” Geto hummed, walking alongside him with his usual close-eyed smirk. Satoru waved his hand dismissively. “Eh, her eyes were so rebellious I hated that.” He growled, scoffing. It was true… but you didn’t know how much that’ll land you in trouble in future.

The class was good, teachers yapping and teaching & you taking notes was the perfect scenario for you to distract yourself. Then, came lunch time.

There was a pink-haired girl, gorgeous and happy-go-lucky looking… you decided to approach her and wave. “Oh hey!” She glanced at you and smiled. “Hey! You must be the girl who pissed Gojo senpai off.” She chuckled, though you sense no malice in her tone. Wow, so that’s become your new identity eh? You hate this… “yeah, Haha… that’d be me.” You decided to own that, “I was thinking if you wanna join me for, uh, lunch?” You perked up a little. You were upfront enough to ask a few others and they decided to have lunch with you.

You hate eating alone, and you were one of the new folks. The others just got promoted so it was hard to mingle. Luckily, your confidence might help.

You took your food, and walked back to the table, this time… someone again collided with you. The gravy of the food spilled all across their crisp white shirt.

“Oh shit oh I’m so sorry-” you looked up to find the familiar face who waxed you this morning. Did he collide with you on purpose? You definitely think so because you’re not so air-headed.

“Oh you just want to be an idiot all day huh?” Satoru sighed, one of the girls glaring at you and brining out a tissue, inching to clean him up. “Did I ask for that help sweetheart?” He smiled at her, indicating her to stop touching him. “Think you’ll earn brownie points and be popular?” He didn’t stop until she fully backed off, cleaning himself up.

It was like everyone had only one job, glancing at you two & waiting for you to suffer. Fucking hell!

“So, do you know how much this shit costs?” Satoru smirked, walking closer to you, you instinctively stepped backwards. “N-no I’m sorry I just didn’t think- it also felt like you bumped into me on purpose-”

“On purpose?” There was a chuckle laced with disbelief on his lips. “That’s too high and mighty of you to think. I don’t even let girls who look like you grind on my shoe, honey.” He emphasized, slapping your delusion. Or you can say, shoving the truth away.

People didn’t laugh this time, because Satoru looked genuinely pissed. Well, so were you. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” You held your plate close and purposely, drenched him even further in gravy. “Looks just as filthy as you deserve.” You teared up, gosh this was humiliating. “And by the way, I don’t even look at guys like you either. Who think the world revolves around them because mommy & daddy just stuffed their ass with money.”

You walked away with that… but was that the right thing to do? You just dug your grave deeper.

[txttletale]

can you elaborate on the reasons ? what criticisms do you disagree with?

criticisms i disagree with:

"they character assassinated jane" amiguita there was no character to assisnate.

"they character assassinated dirk" dirk is at his most interesting and likeable ever and is just about the only redeeming thing about these

"they were just written to spite the fans" if true tht would have been Epic, and Based. but they very obviously werent

"its too violent and sexual for cheap shock humour" did you. read homestuck, the web comic? what were you Expecting... also like it or not the sexual content isnt just random or gratuitous it is obviously trying to be a conclusion to the whoel coming-of-age theme of homestuck as a work.

"so-and-so is out of character" homestuck characters are malleable little dolls that can be rearranged to suit the narrative at a whim. this is true about all fictional characters ofc but it is like explicitly textually metaphysically true in homestuck

my criticisms:

the heavy-handed political messaging is fucking tedious and awful and so profoundly of its time in a bad way. its clearly a reaction to trump but it doesnt have anything interesting to say about him or fascism or racism or anything, really, except, um. Cheeto in the white house?. the whole Evil Jane plot is too stupid and contrived for the sake of the satire to take seriously but also its awful satire written by liberals who think fascism as invented in 2016 by the orange man

god can we fucking talk about how fucking embarassing the obama shit is. jesus fucking christ. for a start it's a callback to a running jhoke in homestuck that is straight up just super racist. and they decide to pivot from the joke being 'its funny that theres a black president', which is good, but they pivot it to 'obama seems so heroic and magical now that we're stuck with the Orange Man', which, admittedly, is better than Being Racist, but also sucks shit. he killed people amiguitas.

'post-canon' is cheap bullshit. like, the work makes a big deal about tryng to talk about What Canon Is, without ever acknowledging the concept of, like, IP law. claiming to just be a non-canon continuation like any other when it's made by people with the Official Exclusive Legal Rights just feels hollow and detooths any liberatory/deconstructive potential there. unironically my opinion of it would go up like tenfold if it had been actually published in AO3 instead of just joking about it.

in general i think that all of the attempt to deconstruct fiction or storytelling is rooted in a really weird and flawed model of storytelling. a lot of it seems to be taking an extremely long route to writing something bad on purpose and then saying 'see, if you wrote something like this, it would be bad'. Okay. i like deconstructive collapsing narrative shit in e.g. if on a winter's night a traveller because i think calvino has trenchant and interesting insights about literature and storytelling. i do think hussie also has those but they essentially dropped and explored all of them in homestuck and the epilogues just seem like an attempt to connect ohomstuck's disparate and contradictory approaches to Narrative into one overarching schemata and then crtiique that schemata, which i think is a doomed project that results in little of interest to me.

[starcurtain]

Hello! Wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed your analysis on Aventurine’s theming - and yea big agree that part of the charm of the guy is that he’s a weird paradox (he got everything one should technically want, and he also lost absolutely everything he cares about) - and also I like your comment that he is, as a character, actually pretty obnoxious (it’s an odd character charm point to me)

Also your post on the way he interacts with the ladies in the cast kinda reminded me - I know folks tend to focus in Ratio’s note but I ended up zoning in on his convo with Acheron more than anything else - because a lot of Penacony is Aven butting heads with other aeon-touched people (Acheron, Sunday) - but Acheron seems like a fun foil because she also has a pretty double-edged metaphysical blessing that is associated with losing everything she loved, but she ironically hasn’t given in to full meaninglessness.

I think one of Aventurine's defining character traits is that he "tests" everyone he encounters to judge whether they are trustworthy or whether they are a danger to him (I guarantee you, he has some kind of mental ranking scale for how likely people are to dislike or mistreat him), and I think his being obnoxious is actually a direct offshoot of this.

Kakavasha clearly was raised with manners; he knows how to be polite and to tone down his responses to social situations as appropriate, which means that, in every other scenario, he is actively choosing to be obnoxious, even in situations where it seemingly won't benefit him (like talking back to the slave master or being too forward when first meeting Sunday, for example) because it allows him to gauge exactly how others feel about him and exactly how much they will let him get away with.

People who play along are potential allies (Robin, the Trailblazer) and people who act grumpy but actually tolerate the obnoxiousness are safe (Ratio, Sparkle, most of the rest of the Express Crew), while people who respond poorly (Sunday, basically everyone else Aventurine dealt with in the past, etc.) are forced into showing their true colors. If minor obnoxious behaviors can provoke them, then it means their core response to Aventurine is likely to be one of dislike and disrespect. He's just forcing that response from them out into the light sooner, rather than later, by being obnoxious from the get-go.

(And, to a certain extent, I think he also just finds it fun to be a bit obnoxious. Like, he's free to say and do whatever he wants now--who is going to stop him from being a brat if that's what he feels like doing?)

But on to Acheron... Yes, I do think there are a lot of parallels between Acheron and Aventurine (came from a doomed people, lost everyone, both determined to hold out against nihility and live just for the sake of living, "blessed" by aeons), but I think narratively speaking, the story puts Acheron in a different position when her tale entangles with Aventurine's: the surrogate big sister role.

Acheron's a very good parallel to Aventurine's sister in numerous ways: First, she essentially sacrificed herself to defeat the evil threatening her people, but is ultimately unsuccessful, resulting in the permanent loss of all she knew.

This loss also resulted in Aventurine's sister actually dying, while Raiden Mei experienced a symbolic death, taking on the name "Acheron" to evoke the Underworld, getting a ghostly, bleached white form, and prowling the river of nihility like a wandering spirit of the dead.

Second, the philosophy Acheron espouses is nearly identical to Aventurine's sister. When even as a child Kakavasha was doubting the value and meaning of life, his sister was the one constantly reaffirming that life has meaning, despite its hardships, and that continuing to exist is the way to honor those who have sacrificed for you. Just as Aventurine's sister expresses that people must hold on to faith, Acheron reminds everyone she encounters to cling to the last bit of color and light in their lives.

This ends up being echoed by the role of guidance that she plays for Aventurine, with him both directly relying on her for his continued survival:

And turning to her in his moment of greatest emotional need:

(Sound familiar? It should. This is the exact same question Kakavasha once asked his sister.)

But there's also a very, very nice visual parallel that goes on with Acheron and Aventurine's sister: the dusk rain that accompanies her.

For Aventurine, the rain has complicated emotional connotations. For the Avgin, it was desperately needed, life-giving water, and thus was considered a direct blessing from Gaiathra. Rain on Aventurine's birthday was the sign of his being favored by the aeon, and yet it also rained on the day he lost everything and had to flee from the only home he had ever known (conveniently also his birthday, dude this guy's life sucks).

Meanwhile, the rain for Acheron is equally complex--rain can bring life, the renewal of barren, lifeless lands... But we also see the rain accompany Acheron through her worst loss, the final collapse of her planet:

It also is said to rain constantly within the shadow of nihility, a lightless gray that washes away all that people wish to cling to.

For both Acheron and Aventurine's sister, the rain accompanies the end of their "lives," the backdrop to their ultimate sacrifices.

Yet it is also in the rain that they both send Aventurine onward, escaping from the cage of his destiny into a "better" life. From beneath the shadow of the storm, they both bid him to go and not turn back, freeing him and permanently changing the course of his life.

The rain that took everything from both Aventurine's sister and Acheron is ultimately what saves him.

It's all a very tidy and well-written parallel.

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part twenty-eight

summary: you were back in the capitol, and you would be damned if you didn't try your hardest to make it worthwhile.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 3.3k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, depictions of mental illness, also she's is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: ahh hiii sorry i went ghost on yall i have been BOOKED and i am so sick and just,,, yeah. life is catching up to me omg

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist

Coryo must have been running a few minutes late today, since he hasn't come to get you from your class yet. It was eating into your lunch, which you didn't mind, but still- it was outside of your very structured routine.

Looking down the now almost empty halls, books held against your chest as you wait for your boyfriend.

'Boyfriend'.

The term still felt weird, but you can't help the giddy feeling that manifests into a small smile on your face as butterflies flutter their way into your chest. Still, though, there was no sign of this boyfriend of yours.

"Y/N, hello." Your name pulls you out of the internal mantra, and you look up to its source; a boy who had just walked out of your class after staying back to speak to the professor. He had short hair, styled up the same way Coryo's was day to day now- but it wasn't nearly as blonde. This boy has kind eyes, and it relaxes you from the unexpected interaction.

"Hi there." You smile at the boy, trying to hide how furiously you're searching your head for his name. In classes of forty to fifty students, it was difficult for you to remember especially when you'd only heard their names once and never spoken to essentially all of them. "I'm so sorry," You say to the boy, smile shifting to apologetic. "You'll have to remind me of your name."

"Hilarius." He tells you, and seems to take it in stride.

"Yes! Oh, of course. My apologies." You laugh slightly, a force of habit pushing your hand out to shake his.

He grins as he takes it. "No worries." He adjusts his bag over his shoulder, looking past you and down the halls. "Are... are you waiting for someone?"

"Yes," You nod, and the confusion surrounding why you were just standing there clears from his features. "Coriolanus."

"Ah." Hilarius nods.

"Do you know him?" You ask, having that be your go-to for small talk with your new peers. So far, it's worked well. No one you've had the chance to speak to yet has said no.

"Yeah, yeah. I do." He rubs his jaw as he answers. "We've never been close, but we went to school together. He's in one of my classes now, actually."

"Really?" You smile. "Which one?"

"Poli sci."

"Oh, nice! That's his major. He knows an awful lot about it already- if there's any group projects he's definitely someone you would want working with you." You gush, adjusting your hold on your books.

"Yeah, he's pretty smart." Hilarius agrees.

"Have you decided on your major yet?" You ask. "Political science and English is a wide net to cast."

He shrugs. "Kind of, I don't know. My parents want me to go into business or politics, but I don't think that's what I want."

"The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream." You hum. "I think you should pursue what you want. Not what they tell you you should."

He tilts his head at you, a confused smile on his face. "You do really speak that way, don't you?"

"Well, yes." You laugh.

"I'll be honest, I thought you were playing us all for fools to try and get people to like you."

"Oh, no. I am not smart enough for a ruse like that." You giggle, shaking your head.

"Sure you are." He laughs. "I mean clearly, you are."

"I promise that's not it at all." You assure him quickly.

"Yeah, yeah I know that." He gives you a calm smile. "Hey, do you... do you have time before your next class? I have a little bit if you want to grab lunch together."

"I do, but I usually eat with Coryo." You explain, but he was fifteen minutes late by now. Maybe if you just went to the courtyard he would meet you there. "But we always eat in the courtyard between the buildings, so if we go there I'm sure he'll know where to find us."

"Then lead the way." Your new friend nods to you and you smile, heading off down the hall in the direction of the exit.

Coryo rushes out of his lecture hall as soon as they're done. How the professor had so little care for holding them back an extra twenty minutes just to "wrap up" on a lecture concept was unbelievable to him. Other people had other classes, and he had to get to you.

When he makes it to your building and your class, he assumes your professor must have done the same thing when he doesn't see you in the hall. Peeking into the classroom, he doesn't have the time to be relieved since another class has already started and you are not sitting there listening. He takes a step back and looks around, thoroughly confused.

Where did she go?

He doesn't know if you're comfortable enough here to be wandering off on your own, but you must be. Or you were with someone. Likely Sejanus, if you were to go off with anyone, but as far as Coryo knew Sejanus was in a class across campus right now. Or he was at least supposed to be.

Immediately he picks up his pace stalking through the halls. After ten minutes, it's clear you were nowhere in the building. He even ran the risk of checking the women's bathrooms after his second lap, scared that maybe you were sick or hurt. But no, you were just gone.

Okay, Coriolanus- think realistically about this. Maybe she just went to wait at our usual lunch spot.

That had to be it, so cursing himself for wasting more time, he heads outside.

Sure enough, he was right. He just wishes he had thought of that sooner- especially when he had neglected the possibility that you had been kidnapped.

"I do love it here, I really do." You smile, trying to be convincing enough to your new friend. "Of course, there is always so much to learn! I'm just really grateful for the opportunity." You say, covering your mouth with your palm as you speak and chew at the same time.

"Come on, Y/N. You can be honest with me." Hilarius says, raising an eyebrow at you. "That sounded extremely scripted. There aren't peacekeepers holding a gun to your head, so... just be honest."

You laugh nervously, looking around. "Okay... I mean, it's fine. I'm comfortable, and I love Coryo and everything don't get me wrong!" You defend quickly, and he just nods. "But... I miss my family and my friends, the music, the food... just, it's really not the same."

"I can imagine." He nods sympathetically.

"Here," You offer him your container of fruit in an effort to soften the subject. "Take some, it's far too much for me."

"Thank you." He agrees politely, taking a raspberry from the mix and popping it into his mouth.

"Please, though, don't tell anyone. I did that whole interview convincing everyone that I was happier than ever here and I just don't want to start any trouble."

"You have my word." Hilarius nods, holding out his pinky to you which you accept with a smile.

"Can I tell you a secret?" He says quietly, and you nod while you grab another strawberry from the glass in your lap.

"You kind of owe me one, now." You tease.

He laughs, but his smile fades quickly. "I feel like... Everyone here loves the games, but I hate them." He admits, taking you by surprise. "I want you to know that I think it's absolutely cruel. I mean, little Wovey... She was just the sweetest and- and I feel so guilty about it all. I wish I got to choose whether or not I wanted to mentor."

You nod, swallowing back the rest of the fruit in your mouth. Suddenly, the sweetness makes you nauseous. "She was." You agree quietly, closing your eyes for a moment and preparing for yet another distressing conversation. "I am sorry I couldn't save her."

"Don't be." He corrects you quickly, a worried expression greeting you when you looked at him again. "That's not what I meant, there was nothing more you could have done. You were a friend to her, she really liked you. She had someone, that's the best either of us could offer."

You nod slightly, chewing instead into your lip and leaving your lunch abandoned. "I-I..." You take a shaky breath. "If I could go back, I would have protected her more. She should have won." You choke your way through the statement, eyes burning from holding back tears. Every time you have one of these conversations it feels like you think someone else should have won. Never you.

"Don't cry, please don't cry." He pleads, placing a hand on your shoulder and you freeze under his touch.

"Don't, please." You say quietly, gently shaking off his hand. You couldn't be touched right now, but how was he to know that? This wasn't his fault.

"I'm sorry." Hilarius says, eyes wide as he watches you. "I didn't think, I shouldn't have said anything but I-"

"What the hell did you say to her?!" Your boyfriend's voice is the next one that rings in your ears, you look up to your right to see him walking over quickly, and Hilarius shuffles to get up.

"Nothing! Nothing, I- I don't know." He defends quickly. "I didn't mean to upset her, honestly."

Then Coryo is crouching in front of you, waving a hand in front of your face. "Hey, you're okay." He says softly, offering you a worried smile. "I've got you, alright?"

You nod a little bit, moving your things away from yourself with trembling hands. "I know."

"Is she okay?" Hilarius asks and you nod again, trying to smile in his direction.

"No. Get out of here, Heavensbee. I'll clean up your mess." Coryo spits at him, and he apologizes again quickly before grabbing his bag and disappearing across the grass.

"Coryo, he didn't-"

"Don't worry about it, love." Coryo smiles at you, suddenly less angry than he was a moment ago. "Just take some deep breaths for me, can you do that?"

"I-I'm fine." You breathe out, chest rising and falling quickly.

"Yeah, you're doing great." Coryo smiles, looking around quickly before adjusting so he's kneeling just in front of you. "Tell me about your readings. Anything good today?" He asks, already knowing the answer.

"I'm glad I went back to class today." You say cheerily as you climb into the car, your boyfriend right on your heels.

"Yes, I am too." He says as you buckle up in the middle seat and he closes the door before getting comfortable next to you. "You're getting so much better."

You nod, looking out through the tinted windows as the car begins to move into traffic. You weren't sure if "better" was the correct term- it didn't sit right with you. You weren't sick, not that you thought, anyway, but maybe he was right. The mention of the other tributes' names would have had you on your knees a matter of months ago; you would have been down for the count for days. Still, though, it felt unsettling to hear it said like that.

If getting better meant not being as hurt by their deaths, maybe it's best if you never recover.

"Hey, are you hungry?" He asks after a moment, watching your eyes glaze over as you stare across him and out the window at all the other young people walking by. "I was thinking we could go try that ice cream place I was telling you about on the train."

You blink away the disassociation, smiling up at him instead. "Yes, that sounds lovely."

"What kind do you think you'll get?" You ask, leaning into Coryo's side as you approach the shop. It was late afternoon, so it was a little busy, but really not all that bad. Crowds bothered you less and less, these days.

"I'm not sure." He replies. "Probably like... vanilla."

"Vanilla?" You giggle. "That's so boring! You said they have every flavour imaginable, and you're settling for vanilla?"

"Okay, well, what do you suggest?" He chuckles, pulling the door open for you as you step through.

"I don't know, I just think you should consider all your options first." You shrug, eyes already landing on the handwritten chalkboard menu that spans the back wall. "Oh, wow..." You say under your breath, eyes going wide.

Coryo watches you with a smile on his face, gently brushing his hand over your back. "Okay, I know what I want." You speak quickly, and he laughs.

"What? There's no way you read all of it just now."

"No, course not." You shake your head, eyes still locked on the board as the sound of people chattering surrounds you. "Coryo, what's white chocolate?" You ask, gently tugging on his sleeve and pointing to where you see it.

"Uh, it's chocolate, but white." He answers, really unsure as well. "Tastes a little different than regular chocolate, but hardly."

"Okay, yes. I want that. With raspberries, it says." You nod in finality.

"Yes, ma'am." He agrees. "Wait right here, love." He says and you nod as he walks over to the counter, and you get to look at the colourful paint on the walls and all the buckets of ice cream behind the glass barrier.

"You're Y/N, right? The victor?" A girl's voice asks you and you turn to instead give them your full attention, nodding with a nervous smile.

"In the flesh." You smile, tilting your head slightly. She must be just a few years younger than you, maybe Len's age.

"Oh, wow! We thought so!" She grins, nodding back to a group of other kids, all of whom are donning the same red uniform you always saw Coryo in earlier in the year. "It's so nice to meet you! Oh my gosh, you're so pretty in person." She gushes. "Not that you weren't on screen, but just- wow, I mean, sorry. I'm just nervous."

"Oh, please, don't be." You smile at her, trying to be reassuring as you press a hand to your chest. "I get nervous meeting people all the time. What's your name, hun?"

"Lexus." She answers with an excited smile and flushed cheeks.

"Lexus! What a beautiful name." You say, partially to fill the silence. "It reminds me of my little brother, his name is Lennox. He's about your age, too."

"That's really cool!" She smiles. "How old are you? I mean, obviously under eighteen, but I'm just wondering because I have an older brother so it would be funny if I was the same age as your brother and my brother was the same age as you. If that makes sense, gosh, sorry- I'm rambling..."

"No, no, you're alright!" You laugh slightly, honestly relieved that she was able to do most of the talking. "And I am eighteen. My birthday was during the games, actually."

Her eyes widen. "Really? That's so lucky! That must have felt so special. What a gift!"

A gift?

You almost choke on the air, patting your hand on your chest as you swallow it down. "Well," You clear your throat, looking over to your boyfriend while he's collecting change from the girl working at the counter. "Only because Coriolanus brought me an amazing gift."

"What did he give you?" She asks, and you still haven't torn your eyes away from him as he walks over, silently pleading for his help.

"What did who give you?" He asks, eyeing her as he walks back up to rejoin you.

"I was just telling Lexus that you gave me an amazing birthday present." You explain.

"Oh, well, no. It was very lame, I'm afraid." He shrugs modestly.

"No, it wasn't!" You laugh, swatting his arm before looking over at her again. "He gave me my favourite book, and his cousin even made me a cake. We had a little celebration just before the games, didn't we?"

"Kind of." He chuckles.

"No, hush. It was perfect, I couldn't have asked for anything better."

"I could think of a few better ways to spend your birthday-"

"You guys are really cute." Lexus cuts in before he can finish, and your cheeks flush pink as your attention is drawn back to her. You don't notice how his face pales.

"Oh, no." You laugh. "He's just a little stubborn sometimes, I think my birthday was perfect, and my opinion on it is the only one that matters, no?" You look up at him, raising an eyebrow.

Coryo collects himself quickly, raising his hands defensively with a smile. "Of course, you're right."

"I know I am." You smile, lifting your nose in pride.

He turns as his name is called, seeing the same girl with your ice cream cones waiting. "Did- did you want a picture or something?" He asks Lexus and she nods, cheeks red.

"If that would be okay, Y/N." She looks to you.

"Oh, of course it is!" You smile, following her back over to the table. Her friends were watching silently the entire time, eyes wide in awe. "Hi..." You say, suddenly nervous as none of them greet you. Lexus must have been the chosen one for being able to speak to you, and she was sent over because the others were too shy.

"Here," Lexus says quickly, moving her bag from the seat at the table and fishing a camera out of it. "Take a seat, I'll sit over here." She slides into her friend's lap across from you, making them all laugh as she holds the camera out to Coryo. "Would you mind?" She asks him.

"Not at all." He says, taking it carefully and turning it over in his hands to find the right button.

"It's that button on the top." She points vaguely and he nods, getting the gist of it quickly. "It comes in handy to be in photography right now, apparently."

You laugh slightly and lean over the table slightly, tilting your head as you smile.

"Ready?" Coryo asks and you nod, hearing mumbles of agreement as you raise your hand from where it rests against the table, holding your pinky under your thumb and raising three fingers.

The flash almost blinds you, but you try not to blink.

"Lovely." Coryo says as he passes the camera back to Lexus and she stands up to take it.

"What does this mean?" Her friend asks, mimicking the salute you did for the photo.

"Oh, we do it back home." You explain. "It means peace and unity, or something along those lines depending on context." Getting up from the seat, you shrug a bit. "Force of habit, I suppose."

"Oh, cool! I didn't know that." She replies and you just nod, eyes following Coryo as he quickly rushes over to grab your ice cream. "Well, I should probably go before that melts, but it was so nice to meet you!"

"Yes, of course, thank you!" Lexus grins. "Maybe we'll see you around!"

"I hope so!" You smile. "Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me." You wave, turning to go after your boyfriend.

"What's that from?" He asks when you reach his side, knowing your shift in tone.

"Hamlet." You answer as he holds the ice cream cone out for you and you take it happily.

"Ah." He chuckles, giving the kids a nod as he follows you to the door.

"She said I am so lucky that my birthday was during the games." You say as the door shuts behind you, and you resist the urge to look back in through the window.

"Oh, wow." Coryo laughs, shaking his head. "Yeah, I mean, kids around here don't get it. I don't think they understand what's really happening."

"Clearly not." You focus on licking up the drips that have begun to stray down the side of the cone. "This is really good!" You say excitedly, back to your normal self as you look up to him walking next to you down the sidewalk.

"Yeah?" He smiles.

"Yes." You hum, taking the first real lick off the top. "What did you get?"

"Vanilla." He chuckles, already knowing how you will react.

"Vanilla? Oh, Coryo, you need to expand your horizons a bit." You tsk, teasingly shaking your head at him.

"Hey, it's not my fault it's good."

taglist: @soulessjourney , @that-veela-girl ,  @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs, @maysileeewrites , @baybieruth , @kitscutie,  @fratboyharrysgf0201 , @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @drewsandsebastianswife , @niicole-87 , @queenofshinigamis , @innercreationflower , @nallasstuff , @iovemoonyy , @thatmarvelchick19 , @wearemadeofstardust0 , @regulusblackcore , @puredreamagination , @fantasticchaosthing , @becauseseaotters , @secretsicanthideanymore , @strawberryflavouredkisses, @cascadingbliss

okay suddenly tumblr isn't letting me tag more people than this so i just made some cuts unfortunately :') i just left the max amount of people i could whose users i recognized and see in my notifs all the time :) if you're not on here and you should be i'm so sorry!

also this taglist is closed now!! if you’d like to get a notification when i update, turn on my post notifications!! i promise i won’t spam y'all :,)

[altf4d3lete]

So are we gonna talk about how wenclair also makes the most sense in terms of Wednesday’s morals?

Wednesday is shown to be someone who cares greatly about outcasts and about their place in the world. She nearly sacrifices herself to fight Joseph Crackstone and save the school, she seems to be upset at the notion of being the reason people at the school are hurt. She’s very clearly enraged by the way Goody is treated and by the outcasts being executed in the barn.

Tyler: Tyler was raised with a very negative view on outcasts, and that was only fueled by Thornhill. He already hated them before Thornhill even came along, and now he hates them even more, to the point of willingly going along with a genocide plot. While we don’t know his true intentions, as of now they don’t make much sense together, given that Wednesday seems to hold the treatment of outcasts fairly high on her list of things she’s upset about.

Xavier: I have a feeling that because Xavier is a psychic and his father is rich/famous, he doesn’t have to worry about things that other outcasts have to worry about. Maybe this is just a writer thing, because I find it weird he wouldn’t be more fired up about it given that he was literally hatecrimed, but when Wednesday opens up to him about what she saw and is clearly upset about it, his response is essentially “so?”. He very clearly doesn’t care about things like the unfair treatment of outcasts unless it directly affects him.

Enid: Then you have Enid. A werewolf. She can’t shift, but she has claws that make it hard for her to visually hide that she’s an outcast. She’s one of the outcasts directly affected by the fact that she can’t hide who she is, one of the most likely to be hunted and/or hatecrimed as well, since werewolves would be viewed as violent creatures (probably why they have the Lupin cages). She’s more similar to Wednesday. Untrusting of normies, likely stemming from a fear of being hatecrimed or the dislike of them knowing that they have hatecrimed people in the past.

In terms of morals and senses of political justice, Enid aligns the most with Wednesday. Of course hate can be unlearned and a sense of justice can be taught, but as the three love interests stand, Enid makes the most sense.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk 🙏

[usedtobethelegendcreator]

This starts off weird, but hear me out.

Today, as I was watching a video, minding my own business, I heard someone call Sir Pentious, of all people, an Overlord.

That got me thinking. Specifically, thinking about that Overlord meeting in the third episode.

Because Carmilla doesn’t say it’s an Overlord meeting. She addresses the others as “Hell’s Sovereign Overlords”.

This is important, because in the pilot, Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust have a turf war with Sir Pentious. An Overlord, by Hazbin Hotel rules, seems to be defined as someone that owns other people’s souls. I don’t know if the Egg Boiz were ever people, but if they were, that would make Sir Pentious an Overlord. Technically.

But, of course, these itty-bitty Overlords are nothing compared to powerhouses like the Vees and Zestial. So, what if these little Overlords sold their souls to bigger ones? That would make the bigger ones…Sovereign Overlords. The biggest of the bunch, the powerhouses, essentially the ruling committee of the Pride Ring. It’s not like Lucifer was doing anything.

So, that would mean that there are, in total, nine Sovereign Overlords:

Carmilla Carmine, Zestial, Rosie, Zeezi, Alastor, the Vees, and that bluish fire guy in a suit.

Carmilla mentions that, together, they own millions of souls. Millions. These aren’t your everyday Overlords, these are the big boys.

You know what that means?

It means that, when Alastor became the hotel’s facility manager, the hotel got ultimate political protection. Charlie is almost never taken seriously by anyone, possibly because Lucifer never does anything. But Alastor? He’s a Sovereign Overlord. And, on top of that, he’s the Radio Demon. There are still posters up that say to not fuck with him. That might be one of the reasons Alastor kicks Mimzy out. He can’t have loan sharks showing up at the hotel under his protection, not without some complicated Overlord politics getting involved. It would also be a reflection on his reputation, and he can’t have that either.

The hotel has only been attacked on-screen four times in the whole show. The first three times, the attackers had no idea the Radio Demon lived there. Sir Pentious clearly didn’t know until after the coat-ripping (tentacles aren’t something the Radio Demon is known for, but the antlers are), and the loan sharks were after Mimzy. The fourth time was the Extermination.

This sudden decrease in violence in the most violent place in the universe seems strange, unless you take into account political protection. The Princess lives there (not that anyone seems to care), and no one wants the Radio Demon to fuck them up.

…Oh. Ohhh. THAT’S why Husk, an Overlord, sold his soul to a Sovereign Overlord like Alastor to keep his—ohhhhh.

Husk still has his card powers…which means he probably still owns some souls. If this is all true (I honestly have no clue, it’s all theoretical), then that makes what Husk tells Alastor in “Dad Beat Dad” even weirder. Because Overlords selling their souls to Sovereign Overlords isn’t usually a big deal. But he made the deal to keep his power. And he says “You may own my soul, but I ain’t your fucking pet.”

Husk had assumed he’d be mostly left alone, like other Overlords after selling their souls, to do his own thing. And, since Alastor seems to mostly be a loner, he probably was. I mean, when we first see Husk, he’s gambling—and he’s about to win the whole pot.

Right before Alastor summons Niffty and Husk, he says he could “cash in a few favors” to help out.

The favor Husk owes him is the deal Husk made with him to keep his power.

Oh my fucking god.

(EDIT: I can’t believe I miscounted the Overlords.)

[malaierba]

Remember that it was explicitly stated that Toshiro was trained in ninjutsu?

(HE WAS SIX. LIKE, BY THE WAY)

(the way he has that fucking flashback always sends me btw. I know my man felt the floor sink and everything)

And most of people trained under his family's residence are ninja-coded. Since his dad has those dark, ambiguous links with powerful people, so he's likely the same.

So why is Toshiro's attire and fighting style like a samurai's?

Strictly speaking, ninjas were essentially historical mercenaries, and samurai were nobles who fought under the shogunate without a fee. They were famously guided by the Bushido Code, while ninjas were expected to be shady and fight dirty.

Essentially opposites. Which makes me think that there's a few likely intentions behind that choice:

Maybe she just wanted to drive home more clearly the culture clash between laishuro. Like Toshiro just so happened he wanted to dress like a samurai in his adventure. Maybe he's trying to avoid being recognised? Could be, but I don't think that's it

Maybe Toshiro's training and general upbringing changed as his dad became more influential. Maybe there was a possibility that he could marry up, or get adopted into noble society, who knows, thing is there was a political reason that justified trying to raise Toshiro so he's more of a diplomat than his dad probably is. But then that'd mean that his dad regretted the switch when he deemed his son "a dull man"? I'm 50/50 here, there's always a possibility that in this fantastic alliteration of Japan has some overlaps between samurai and ninja, and maybe ninjas can be nobles after all. Feels too counterintuitive to be logical though.

Maybe it's meant to highlight how different Toshiro is from his family. So visually, it singles him out and associates a certain set of values with him; And then within the story, it lends itself to some compelling ideas like: Did he do it on purpose, was it somehow decided for him as a weird punishment or something? If he did it on purpose then that'd be the very first big decision he took for himself, to say "I want to embody this". Very bold of him since it sends a clear message to everyone. It'd be kind of cool if he made the switch after his father accused him of being dull. He could feel responsible for inheriting the family and having a lot of people to his charge, but at the same time he has such a negative opinion of the type of leader his father is that the only way to reconcile his conscience would be to become the new head of the family but also lead completely different to his dad. OR maybe it was a silent way to say that he never felt like being in that position of leadership anyway. Quietly quitting, in a way? Or maybe it didn't even happen consciously. Toshiro naturally seeked role models that embodied a type of man that he could actually look up to, and slowly molded himself to that standard, for better and for worse. Strong sense of responsibility and all that.

I guesssss it could be that Toshiro's family really is nobility, but they train their servants in all of those special skills as a private bodyguard force? Hien expected Toshiro to propose to her, would that union be allowed if Toshiro's family was nobility? It's even said in one of the art books that the reason why Toshiro's dad didn't marry Maizuru is because he met her after marrying his wife. Besides, why train Toshiro in ninjutsu too? And then there's those moments when it's hinted that he's familiar with some darker dynamics. I keep thinking about how he knew what Laios group had to do in order to lose the cops fkdkkd. Anyway I can see the logic in the argument, I'm just not sure Toshiro's family isn't hiding something sus. I see it as very mafia coded. Honestly, that might be just it

In any case, it does overlap some interesting elements on Toshiro. There's an expectation on him from his family, the way the household projects an image of strength but also some shadiness, that contrasts with how he presents himself, how he's treated by his charges, how the image he projects is of a mild mannered, stoic, diplomatic man.

[meringuehearts]

my extremely disorganized welcome home theory!!!

this may sound crazy but please hear me out

there are three main points to this, all of which ill elaborate on under the cut!

one of the companies, either marlo or playfellow workshop, clearly tried to make a lot of changes to the show. this includes heavy merchandising, forcing julie/frank to be read as a couple, and cutting eddie from the show.

i think that once a character no longer appears on the air, they are forced into a sort of subliminal bond with their own home, isolating them and making them essentially unable to leave. we see this with eddie's situation.

if all of this is true, i may have a very good idea for the direction in which the story of welcome home will lead.

quick disclaimer beforehand : obviously, our knowledge on this is constantly growing and expanding! this is not my "entire opinion" on the story nor do i think this is the cold hard truth. these are simply my ideas!

in general, i think the idea of the offness coming from anything internal of the show , like the characters or home, is a far stretch .. more likely, it's coming from the people making the show itself.

my theory is that either playfellow workshop or marlo was taking control of the show , probably towards the end of its run, and making massive changes in the interest of maximizing profit. first of all the commercials clips feel off in and of themselves to me, because we can see that they literally partnered with anything in order to sell it. this is most clearly Weird in the sleeping pills wally clip, but also all over - of course this could just be that it was a popular show and wanted to make bank, but personally i think it was one of the companies pushing for more brand deals and more merchandise and more money.

this, of course, leads directly into the eddie/frank situation. as many different people have stated, this was the 1970s, and if there was any ability in the show for them to be read as a couple this could get a ton of backlash. i'm willing to bet that the company tried first of all to push julie/frank to be more easily read as a couple, then later deciding on either diminishing eddie's role a TON or deleting him completely.

and like, think about it. unfortunately, most of the characters don't really harbor any huge friendship towards him, at least not in the clips we've seen. while having positive relations with poppy, julie, frank and wally, he doesn't have as much as an outright "gimmick" or thing to sell as the others.

julie's excitable, sally's theatrical, frank's stubborn, howdy's charismatic, barnaby's funny, poppy's sweet, wally's reserved but polite, and eddie. "talks a lot". if you're an executive and you're going to cut one character from a show, especially in the interest of Not looking like theres Anything gay in your show, which would you choose?

NOW for the second part:

my believe about home, and furthermore all the homes in the series - but more directly Home - is that i think they act as sort of devices that the company can use to manipulate the characters. my theory about the eddie situation in the recent update is that it takes place in the midst of when the company was attempting to cut him from the show.

and when we see eddie in the midst of his breakdown, he's VERY tied to the post office (his home basically). he's isolated and literally states at a point during it that he assumes everyone's outside and playing in the snow, but never makes any attempt to go out and check - as if it doesn't even cross his mind. he expresses some kind of paranoid need to stay at the post office and not leave, even for a moment, which he also talks about in the videos.

when he finally DOES leave for the party, (which, btw, he only does because sally literally grabbed him and brought him there) , he starts seeing all the awful shit he sees (as we know) . INCLUDING HOME. and towards the end of it, all he says to frank is that he wants to go [ to his ] home.

what does all this mean??? im so glad u asked. basically i think that creators' actions upon the show affect the world of welcome home in subliminal ways that the characters aren't directly aware of happening (until, of course, they are.) in this case, if a character is cut from the show or their screen time is limited, they experience being subliminally forced to stay in their own home. if they try to leave, they start witnessing visceral, terrifying things that they can't explain, persuading them to return back home. back where it's "safe".

wally's home in particular, i think, enforces this the most. home is sentient so the company can probably carry out their desires more directly with him than any of the other houses (which are just structures, pretty much). i DON'T think home harbors any ill will themselves, but moreso is just carrying out what "needs to be done."

more evidence for this:

this theory is also entwined with how wally interacts with us, the people on the site, because he mentions in places like the guestbook, etc that he hasn't seen other members of the neighborhood in so long. but that doesn't mean they're not there.

so if a singular being cut from the show means that they are forced to stay in their own home and not go outside, then the show being taken off the air would, in theory, mean that everyone would be forced to stay in their own homes. for decades. wally reaching out to us could very likely be a cry for help and/or last try after years of isolation. (it would also explain why he's so much more off putting/tired/different than his in-show appearances.)

one last thing!!!! i think if that's what's going, on it could explain this sentence from the summary, unchanged since the beginning. i've never really understood this line or what it could mean, but -

this is a HUGE far cry. but i think it's possible that, if i'm right, at some point down the line the characters (still in the neighborhood) will actually try to leave their homes, or they have already, which would cause the "distortion/nightmarish memory". i mean we definitely could describe eddie's hallucination(?) as that so .

yeah i hope you enjoyed 20 minutes of me rambling ... please ask questions if some (or all) of this didn't make sense cuz im not rly sure if this is coherent lol. this also isnt all the thoughts i have about this theory but this post is too long as is lol. thanks so much for reading this far if you have!!!

[sansa286]

Alysanne was especially weird about Viserra...she engages her to Theomore Manderly, who's much, much older than her, thrice widowed, and has many children and grandchildren. So, on the surface there is no political advantage to the marriage aside from vaguely putting a Targaryen somewhere buried in the Manderly bloodline. Alysanne says that she believes it's a good match because he's a good person, so some argue she was trying to "teach Viserra a lesson" about being less vain and valuing things outside of looks. To that I ask: she couldn't have done that with someone Viserra's age? Surely if Lord Manderly is a good person, he more than likely raised some good sons/grandsons. Engage Viserra to one of them instead. Maybe even engage him to one of his heirs, like his grandson Desmond, who eventually goes on to inherit White Harbor after his father (and even votes in favor of Rhaenys and Laenor during the Great Council of 101, so clearly he had some functioning brain cells.) But...no. None of that forethought is present in her decision and Jaehaerys being the antithesis of a girldad that he is, is just as dismissive.

Which brings me to the Baelon incident. Alysanne's reaction to Viserra's supposed flirty behavior around Baelon before the fact is pure projection. For one - Baelon is not even the heir at that point. Aemon is still alive, and may have more children that would put Baelon even further down the line of succession (under normal circumstances, Rhaenys would've inherited before him anyways). And second - a core part of her and Jaehaerys' entire reign is justifying their incestual marriage. They even came up with the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, which was widespread propaganda that stated that Targaryens were allowed to wed their siblings because of their supposed inherent superiority. And Viserra is the tenth child of thirteen children and born when Alysanne and Jaehaerys were getting up there in age, meaning that the DoE was well established by that point and a prime aspect of the culture she was growing up in. Her parents are siblings. Baelon literally married Alyssa who was also in contention to be Aemon's wife before Alysanne declared she was meant for Baelon. Viserra herself was briefly considered to be a wife to Vaegon. Actually, pretty much all of her sisters were at one point or another considered potential spouses for their brothers. Simply put: if Viserra did seriously desire Baelon (and I don't think she did, but that's a conversation for another day) it's literally due to the conditioning that's been a part of upbringing for as long as she's been alive.*

The specifics of Alysanne's reaction to the Baelon incident is not recorded. We're only told that she sped up the process of sending Viserra to White Harbor because of it. But she has no room to be angry. Viserra going to her older brother in the hopes that he will save her from a betrothal to an older man she does not desire was clearly inspired by the exact same thing that Alysanne did with Jaehaerys. Alysanne, like Viserra, was also extremely young (13 to Viserra's 15) and engaged to a man significantly younger than her, and when she found out she immediately went to Jaehaerys, and they then booked it for Dragonstone where they wed in secret. And what do you know? At the time they did this Jaehaerys was already the king, and their wedding automatically made Alysanne the queen. The man Alysanne was initially engaged to was twenty-tree, compared to Theomore, who was geriatric. This is why I argue that Alysanne claiming Viserra wants to marry Baelon because she wants to be the queen despite him not even being first-in-line for the throne - Alysanne is essentially saying that, at the very least, part of why she wanted to marry Jaehaerys is because she wanted to be the queen. Which is valid because in terms of political duty, she made the best of her position, but still, she was ambitious and is trying to crucify her daughter for potentially having the exact same ambition.

A lot of people seemingly hate, or at least, villainize Viserra because she said she was prettier than fan-favorite Alyssa, and while yes that is a crazy rude thing to say about your sister who died tragically, it also does not make her a supervillain. Baelon was widowed, so it's not like she was doing this while Alyssa was still alive. Men in Westeros are not just allowed to get remarried, they're expected to. Baelon remaining unmarried was the exception, not the rule. And also, she was 15 and was routinely praised for her looks in a society where the two main things women are valued for is their looks and ability to pop out children. Some love to make the internalized misogyny argument, and I don't disagree, but I also don't single-out Viserra for that because for one: Westeros is a society where it is extremely easy for women to be taught to be that, and two - Alyssa also had internalized misogyny if we're going strictly by the text. So if we're having a who's-more-hateable off based off of that alone, then that's a tie. Notice how people never throw as much vitriol at Vaegon despite the fact that he was ultimately more rude to Daella than Viserra was to Alyssa? Because I certainly have.

*No, I don't ship visaelon/baeserra.

[mamthew]

Some thoughts on Metaphor: ReFantazio. I avoid spoilers for the most part.

It’s maybe impossible to overstate how much I love Persona 5. It’s my favorite game of all time, and directly started me down the path to being a radical. It’s got some flaws – many of which were fixed in its rerelease, Persona 5: Royal – but it’s such a fantastic package in terms of story, gameplay, art design, music, and thematic resonance that it’s hard to fault it for them. I’ve played and enjoyed subsequent P5 material, but none of them are nearly as devoted to a political message as the original, meaning that even though they’re all good, they ultimately fall short of what I love about the initial game.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a 2024 RPG by a good number of the folks who made Persona 5, and you can immediately tell. It has a very similar art style, uses many of the same sound effects, has a similar battle system, and is built around the calendar/social links/social stats system that the Persona series is known for. It is essentially a Persona game, but set in a fantasy world rather than contemporary Japan, and without Persona’s emphasis on Jungian psychology and the tarot. It’s also thoughtfully political, but in a way that’s maybe less engrossing and blisteringly relevant than Persona 5. That said, what it does have to say is worth engaging with, as it uses its more traditional fantasy setting to comment on the ideological underpinnings of RPGs as a genre and games more broadly, as both an artistic medium and an industry.

In many ways, Metaphor is “Persona does Final Fantasy.” It’s clearly an homage to Final Fantasy at its core. It may have Persona 5’s battle system, but it’s got FFV’s job system, and it’s reworked the “one more” mechanic to feel more like the Brave/Default system from Bravely Default, or the Conditional Turn-Based system from Final Fantasy X. The job system is especially interesting. There are 14 basic jobs, with each job having 1-3 class change upgrades that unlock at specific Social Link levels with the job’s corresponding character. Every party member can use any job, but have very individualized stat spreads that make certain jobs more viable than others. For example, Strohl starts with the Warrior job, which hits hard and doesn’t do much else. He could use the Mage job, but his physical attack is like double his magic attack, so that would probably be a waste of his massive attack stat. That said, some players might opt to train him through Mage anyway, because at level 20, Mage gets a skill that increases MP by 15%, which they could equip to Warrior so he can use more of his big hits that spend MP. I, on the other hand, trained him in Pugilist, which has powerful physical moves that spend HP instead of MP. It’s a bit more risk/reward, but Strohl has considerably more HP to spend. And that’s one of the seven party members, each of which has their own unique stat spread.

That customizability is fun and rewarding, but limited by the use of a Persona calendar system. I’m less inclined to experiment and try training characters in weird directions when I only have ten in-game days to reach the end of the current dungeon and only have about an in-game year to reach the end of the game. Due to the FOMO brought on by the time constraints, I spent about eight hours just mindlessly bashing enemies in old dungeons in order to unlock all the jobs, which was pretty decidedly unfun, and I ultimately only got to play around with maybe half the fully upgraded jobs in the end. Persona’s time-management (which often translates to some occasionally brutal resource management in dungeons) has always ratcheted up the games’ tension and forced a level of deliberateness in decision-making. That works fine in Persona, but dampens the freedom of choice I associate with job systems. The calendar generally feels like a weird thing to keep. On one hand, the narrative and mechanics have been built around it, but on the other, part of what I enjoy about the calendar in Persona is the mundanity of it. The changing of the seasons, interspersed with real-world holidays, as experienced by a protagonist who is attending high school and therefore at the mercy of the calendar, all help to complement the familiar contemporary setting of a Persona game. In Metaphor, there are no seasons or holidays, the weeks have five days instead of seven, and the one-year cutoff for the action is arbitrarily enforced by a spell rather than by familiar societal norms, so the days tend to blend together. This calendar has all of the anxiety of Persona’s system with none of the novelty, and that’s not a great place to be in.

That said, what Metaphor loses in variety from the calendar it gains from its much larger world and its travel mechanics. Each chapter of Metaphor is set in a different city, and the characters must travel to each city using their gauntlet-runner, a land-based version of the classic Final Fantasy airship complete with a pilot who’s clearly Atlus’s take on a Cid. Each city has several dungeons, landmarks, and surrounding towns that the party can travel to and explore as side-jaunts to juggle as options within the time-management system. Some of these can take several in-game days to reach, but traveling has its own activities that raise social stats, craft items, or even develop social links with party members. In Persona 5, many of the side activities had their own unique content but wasted precious days to do, and travel-time feels like a way to alleviate some of that sense of waste, by limiting you to just “bedroom activities” like reading books, cooking, tending to plants, doing laundry, cleaning the floor, bathing, or inviting party members to hang out. You have to go to the extra dungeon either way, so you’re stuck on the gauntlet-runner either way, so you might as well raid the pantry, use the shower for a small Exp bonus, cook some fermented meat with Hulkenberg, do some laundry with Heismay, and then read a fantasy novel while you’re there. Much of the traveling system feels like an iteration on the central premise of Persona 5: Strikers, allowing the characters to go on a road trip and see a bunch of cities but without the dearth of things to do outside of dungeons from which Strikers suffered.

Metaphor is in most ways an improvement on Persona 5. It’s a much bigger game, with a more strategic battle system and prettier visuals. That said, its dungeons are generally a bit less interesting. They’re more straightforward, without the verticality that made especially Persona 5: Royal’s dungeons shine. They’re also less colorful, less surreal and – I guess a bit ironically – less metaphorical. That makes sense, since all the dungeons are actual locations within the game’s world and must therefore follow the world’s logic, but it’s weird infiltrating a giant fantasy airship and being struck by how much duller it is than Persona 5’s Diet building – a real-world place known for being boring. The music, too, is less interesting than Persona 5’s. It’s still technically solid, and there are certainly some bangers, but because the soundtrack is aping Final Fantasy in genre and instrument choices, it’s much less engaging than the acid-jazz of Persona 5. Metaphor also has less to do than Persona 5 or especially Royal. The game doesn't require that you grind up relationship points with social links, which cuts out a lot of the frustration of the social link system, but also means that there's no reason to take characters on dates or to the movies or to play darts. The world feels less varied because the activities are much more clearly laid out by which social stat they increase.

Both this game and P5 are punching way higher than their weight class in terms of budget and team size. They’re both essentially AA games that have been catapulted into the AAA space, and both are a generation or more behind in terms of actual graphical power. Both games made up for that discrepancy with stylish artistic flair, and while that papering over succeeds in both games, the stylizing of Metaphor feels less relevant to the game than with Persona 5. Persona 5’s intentional use of color and effects make it feel both pulpy and like agitprop material, which are two of its major artistic influences. Metaphor’s stylings, however, mostly make it feel like Persona 5, which clashes a bit with its more classical fantasy setting. I’ve seen a number of people complain about the game’s graphics being outdated, and I think the fact that it retreads so much stylistic ground is why the unimpressive graphics are more noticeable this time around, even though it’s much better graphically than any previous Atlus entry. The game’s reuse of many Persona sound effects aggravate this issue. Those sound effects feel punchy and contemporary, and work great in the context for which they were created: a game that turns rpg genre conventions on their heads by using a contemporary setting. Here, in a game that’s purposely leaning into more classic genre conventions, they instead feel lazy and out of place. The game clearly had great sound designers; there are plenty of new sound effects as well as the old. I wish they’d had those sound designers replace the reused sound effects as well. The game's localization, however, does set it apart from Persona 5. Metaphor is another JRPG to outsource its localization and English voice work to the UK, rather than the states. Most of the characters are voiced by UK voice actors, and they all do an outstanding job. Honestly, the weakest link voice-wise is the protagonist's voice, which was clearly directed to try to be fairly flat and unaffected. Still, I'm just so happy to have a voiced protagonist that I didn't mind all that much.

Metaphor opens by posing a question to the player: does a story have the power to change the world? I figured when I started the game that this question was referring to Persona 5, and the difficulties of creating a story with a specific, clear political message and having to deal with its audience agreeing with the message and longing for that change but not working to bring it about – or even worse, a chunk of its audience refusing to acknowledge it as political at all. While Metaphor was clearly inspired by that initial tension, it addresses a much broader question than that: why do video games – works in a medium that tends toward fairly radical political theming – seem to attract audiences that refuse to engage with their theming? Much of the game’s use of Final Fantasy elements is in service to this question, since Final Fantasy is sorta the seminal RPG. The game’s antagonist, whose name is frustratingly spelled Louis and pronounced Luis, represents in some ways the ideological underpinnings of Final Fantasy and is even designed to look like the FF1 Warrior of light, with long flowing white hair and curved horns. The main plot of the game involves a powerful spell that forces the kingdom to hold a democratic election. When the king is assassinated, his voice thunders down from the sky that the crown will go to whomever the most citizens believe in their hearts should be the next king in about a year’s time. The protagonist enters the race because he opposes the two frontrunners – Louis and the head of the very racist Sanctist church.

The protagonist often reads from a utopian novel and communes with the novel’s imprisoned author, a man named More, probably because he represents the demand that society improve and offer us more. The novel discusses the workings of an idealized version of our contemporary liberal democratic system, and all the party members fight in some way to try to realize that system. The novel itself was banned and all its copies burned, while More was arrested and sentenced to exile for writing it. While both the protagonist and Louis love the book, they had vastly different takeaways from it. The protagonist and his party see the book as calling for a society built around caring for its citizens, protecting and providing for those without the means to protect or provide for themselves. Louis, on the other hand, sees the book as calling for a society built on “true equality,” where all are forced to fend for themselves and only the strong survive. In both cases, the circumstances of one’s birth theoretically don’t matter, and leadership isn’t decided by a bloodline, which makes both visions look preferable to the world of the game: a heavily racially stratified monarchic theocracy. With the crown up for grabs, both characters have the opportunity to try to realize their visions of this utopian system, if they can convince the populace to back them.

This conflict is, deliberately, the conflict at the center of liberal democracy: is our system meant to be more individualistic or more collectivistic? Does the “liberal” mean that individuals must fend for themselves without a societal support structure? Does the “democracy” mean that the strongest must sacrifice the fruits of their advantages to provide for those without the same advantages? That the game takes the side of the whole over the part is unsurprising, given that it was made by the folks who made Persona 5. And hey, that’s the side I agree with more, so no skin off my back. But, using liberal democracy as the basis for its core theming makes Metaphor feel considerably less radical than Persona 5 did. Most of the oppressor/oppressed relationships in Metaphor are ones for which we have answers, which stands in stark contrast to the real-world-inspired conflicts in Persona 5, and when the characters look to the utopia of the novel for a solution, they’re looking to the answers we already have. And as Persona 5 already told us, those answers are insufficient.

That said, what feels backwards about the game’s theming becomes more interesting when we consider it instead as a metacommentary on the politics of RPGs. Louis, the villain who looks like the Ur-FF Protagonist, is an individualist to the extreme. His vision for a perfect world is one where all compete to live and only the strongest survive. That’s barbaric to most folks whose brains haven’t been poisoned by weird sectarian internet communities, but it’s also pretty much how RPGs operate: you keep fighting guys who are weaker than you to make yourself stronger until you’re the strongest, and then your character uses that strength to change the world the way they want. This is – crucially – also how this RPG operates. The protagonist might oppose Louis’s vision, but he still has to do so on Louis’s terms. It turns out that the conflict at the heart of liberal democracy is also the conflict at the heart of many power fantasies: we imagine ourselves being strong enough to make the world fairer, but in doing so, we engage with an individualistic framing. When looking at the metaphor of Metaphor, we can think of the protagonist as the story of a game and Louis as the narrative told through its mechanics; ultimately, what a story says is still constrained by what the game does. So the question of whether a story has the power to change the world is complicated by the introduction of the constraints placed upon a story by its medium. Why didn’t Persona 5 change the world? Metaphor implies it’s because its audience is primed to see its brand of power fantasy as apolitical – not even about the world to begin with.

I think increasingly often about a time I got into an argument with the admin of a Persona 5 Facebook meme page. He’d posted a meme complaining about people’s need to inject politics into Persona 5, an otherwise apolitical game. I found this absurd. The game in which you infiltrate the Japanese Diet building to stop a fascist from stealing an election is apolitical? The game where the personification of humanity’s tendency toward rebellion leads the party into battle to destroy the god of wealth at the center of a panopticon? It was beyond comprehension. But an art form that constrains most of its narratives to center around accruing power through conflict in order to elevate oneself as an individual has maybe inevitably attracted an audience that’s allergic to the idea that fiction can and usually does say something about the real world. And when I say “allergic,” I don’t simply mean “unwilling.” We’ve crossed into a political moment where the arbitrarily-defined level of “woke” in a piece of media determines whether a chunk of people will deign to engage with it at all, but based on my googling, Persona 5 is hilariously considered “not woke” (though Royal is simultaneously both “woke” and “anti-woke,” the remake of Persona 3 is too “woke” to bear, and Metaphor ReFantazio is under scrutiny but they seem to be leaning toward “not woke”). So the line in the sand is whether or not a game comments on the real world, but that line is drawn by people with shockingly low media literacy.

One element of the story that confused me clicked into place once I considered this angle. The game’s world is plagued by huge and brutal monsters called “humans.” In the game's world, the word “human” refers only to these monsters, while the sentient denizens of the game’s world call themselves “people,” or refer to themselves by their fantasy races. It’s bizarre to hear characters talk about “humans” and mean big weird giants that massacre towns and aren’t recognizably human at all. But when we consider this through the lens of a metacommentary on games, this choice comes to make sense. In an RPG, the player is a human roaming through a world of non-humans. They’re infinitely stronger than everyone around them, and in the end, only the human’s decisions matter. Everything exists to placate the human, and if the human refuses to engage with a story on its terms, then that pretty much destroys everything the story is trying to do. Those characters who exist solely to make the human feel something become fodder, to be ground up and discarded by the human. If we look at the relationship between art and audience from the perspective of the art, the audience becomes something like a kaiju, applying its own warped reading to the text, forcing it to submit to that reading. A story only gets to change the world if it first wins that battle with the human, and humans are getting increasingly combative. Obviously, there’s story reasons for the word choice that I won’t spoil here, but they align pretty nicely with my reading.

I really enjoyed Metaphor. It took me 110 hours, and I managed to complete all the social links, beat the extra boss, and unlock every class with the protagonist. A run that doesn't do those things probably could finish it in like 85-90 hours. Either way, it's shorter than Persona 5. I still prefer Persona 5; its politics are much sharper, obviously, but it also has a much bolder and more unique style. But anyone who really enjoys Persona or old-school Final Fantasies should give Metaphor a shot, since it's a pretty fascinating merging of the two, and it uses those associations to comment on the video game medium, the purpose of art in fomenting societal reform, and the shortcomings of liberal democracy. And if you haven't played either, it's a long, complex, standalone RPG in a new ip, which makes for a pretty good jumping-on point to Persona, from which it takes many of its mechanics.

[burning-academia-if]

I saw that RO ask and wanted to know if you can do another one because I like fluff, TO’s in crushing stage overhearing MC Talking to another student about how much they likeRO and wanna ask them out?

Somehow, this is x2 longer then the first one I think LOL

Also sorry, angst is just baked into Rook but the rest are a lot more on the fluff side!

Rook:

Normally, Rook is always at the wrong place at the wrong time. This time, lady luck has given him a break. The two of you had made plans to hang out, and for once Professor Miller let everyone out a little early. As he rounds the corner to where the two of you agreed to meet, he hears you before he spots you.

“I really want to ask him to go somewhere with me, but I’m nervous I’m going to scare him away.” He stops, searching for you just a little bit away. You clearly haven’t seen him yet, and on instinct he ducks back around the corner. He steels himself, searches his memory for anyone you might have mentioned being interested in, before he decides to stop being weird and just approach you.

But then your friend says, “I know Rook’s always been…Rook, but you guys normally hang out right? Maybe invite him out casually and test the waters to see if he’s more willing now to take things further?”

Like a dying star collapsing, his insides implode. It’s a symphony of feelings, all spilling out and biting at each other. The unbridled joy that, somehow, you want more despite everything. The headiness of wanting, tinged with the bitter aftertaste of knowing the fine line he’s forced to walk with you.

It takes a moment, a breath, to calm himself. Maybe this time he’ll be strong enough to take the leap. Maybe this time, he can allow himself a little hope.

For now, he pockets the moment inside like a lucky charm, before he fixes his smile into place and walks out to greet you.

Beck:

Beck’s surprised to get a text from one of your friends, asking him to join your guys study group. It’s half a plea and half a bribe, with a picture full of snacks and drinks attached as though they needed to do anything more than ask.

‘yea of course! just give me a sec where at?’

‘MC’s dorm!’

He finishes up what he’s doing before heading over. As he stops at the door, it opens up before he even has a chance to knock. There is something alight in their eyes that makes him wary.

It doesn’t stop him from giving his trademark polite smile and a tilt of his head, “Sorry I’m late.”

“No, you’re just in time.” They practically push him in before closing the door behind him. As he takes in the small living area, he realizes you’re not that, and based on the sounds, everyone’s hanging out in your actual room.

“—stop teasing me.” Your voice echoes, and Beck feels something in him go sharp. As his eyes slide back towards said friend, they dart away, and before he can ask you continue talking. “I honestly don’t know where I’d invite Beck out to. And you know how he is. He’s so nice to everyone I don’t know if I’m misreading the signs…”

There’s a round of voices all teasing, and Beck’s voice is as sweet and lovely as belladonna, “I’m hoping this wasn’t planned.”

“No! It was just perfect timing—”

Obviously, the others can hear the both of them. Beck tries not to sigh as he gives a light knock on the doorframe and peeking inside. You sit on the bed, surrounded by various books, notes, snacks, and other study essentials, with eyes as round as the moon. From mortification, surprise, or a mix of both is hard to say.

“Oh…hi Beck.” You look torn between looking away and maintaining eye contact. “Did…did you hear all that?”

 “Just the important part, I think.” He can’t tell if the other two friends with you were also in on this. By the looks of it, they seem equally as surprised. He decides to ignore them. “If it helps, we can start with going out to lunch first and figure things out from there.”

The resounding chorus that comes from his statement is one he thinks you’re both going to remember for a while.

Rhea:

Rhea sighs as she makes her way back to the Student Government room. They’d just finished their SGA meeting and she’d accidently forgotten her phone. Although she can sometimes be forgotten, she can’t help but feel like she’s been extra scattered brain lately.

Maybe it’s because you were there. Being President meant she had to focus, but the whole time her eyes had kept glancing back at you. You’d sat a little away from everyone else, eyes unfocused and staring out the open window as morning light bathed you in gold. It didn’t help that affords you’d said you needed something and it wasn’t something she could help with.

That hadn’t stung in the slightest.

Another sighs makes it’s way out of her as she finally arrives back to the meeting room, she opens the door without a second thought, only to be greeted with “—You have to know where Rhea might like to go on a date—”

Your voice cuts off and she stands there for entirely too long as the words you just said get decoded from nonsense to reality. Her ears tinge red and she feels the heat try to claw at her as it works it’s way through her head. A date. You were asking her Vice President on advice for a date. With her.

“Sorry for interrupting.” Her voice sounds cooler then the mess in her head.

Eloise, her Vice President as the biggest grin on her face which only grows wider as she looks back at you.

You only stare at Rhea, clearly at a loss for what to say, “No, it’s fine.”

“Right. I just forgot my phone.”

“Right.”

“My God you two,” Eloise snaps, but there is clear warmth underneath her tone, “Just go on a date already.”

Her fingers are trembling, and she straightens her back and clasps her hands behind her back. Her voice stays even, “Well, if you’ll have me.”

A smile warms your face, “Of course.”

“Ok, well. I have things to do, but we’ll talk about the details at a later date.”

“Ok! I’ll text you.”

By the time she grabs her phone and leaves the room again she is practically walking on air. It takes everything she has not to squeal in delight the minute she’s out of your sight as though she’s back in grade school.

The sun is bright, the air is warm, and Rhea can’t think of a better day in her life.

Zoe:

The thing about libraries is that people really shouldn’t talk in them. It’s not the inherent rudeness of distracting people trying to focus, or even the obvious disregard for other people. It’s that, even when you were trying to be polite and keep a conversation down to a whisper, people could still hear you, and you never know who could be listening.

In this case, it’s Zoe. They’re boxed away in the study booth, and they don’t dare to turn around and even look for you. They can hear your voice, and they didn’t only register it because they’ve memorized even the slightest of inflictions it takes on, but because you’d said their name. Multiple times.

“I’m still torn between an art exhibit or a museum. Or maybe a botanical garden? Those are all quiet, and I know Zoe doesn’t like noise.” It probably would have been best to make their presence known the moment they heard you, but at this point it’s well into the awkward zone.

“Hmm, a botanical garden might be too far but I heard there’s a good art exhibit the next town over.”

“Really? Maybe I’ll do that then.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh-huh. So are you going to text them before you back out?”

They sunk low in their chair, fingers tapping against the old wood of the desk and their concentration long since lost. A few minutes later, the light of their phone screen appears and they try their best to act normal and not give themselves away.

The text from you sits pretty on their screen, and they barely even need to read it to know what it says.

‘hey, I heard there was an art exhibit not too far from here and was wondering if you wanted to go?’

Even though they knew it was coming, their heart still did a strange little flip. They attempt not to think about it too much.

‘sure when?’

A minute later and they can hear your friend squeal and your desperate attempt to keep them quiet. They pray you never find out about this, for both your sakes.

‘whenever you’re free!’

‘I’ll lyk’

They flip their phone over before they can see the next message, press a hand to their face, and try to focus on their work again instead of the pleasant embarrassment still pumping through their bloodstream.

Lars:

The thing with Lars is, he’s never been good at keeping his mouth shut. He’s also never been the best at staying out of your business, even with how badly he wanted to at first. It’s why, as he’s heading to class, he hears your voice coming from somewhere below.

“Asking him out is a bad idea, right?” You say, and he stops and glances down on where he is on the raised walkway. He catches you with one of your friends, and you look like you’re in deep concentration.

“Considering you won’t even tell me who it is, I’m going to go with a ‘yes.’” You flinch slightly, and they lean forward. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

“I mean, he has his good parts! I just know he’s not always the best.”

Your friend narrows their eyes, “Who is it?”

“Well…”

“MC…”

“It’s not important.”

“Oh yes it is.”

“But—"

“Just say who the lucky guy.” He cuts in, leaning against the railing, one arm hanging over it. A picture of nonchalance.

“It’s Lars—” You snap finally, only to cut yourself off as you spin around and realize just who had asked.

His toothy smile was the equivalent of predator just finding it’s meal. Whether you withdrew because he never smiled or because he’s standing here at all was a mystery, but it only made it grow wider, “Friday at 8?”

“I—That’s—yeah.”

“Great, I’ll see you then.” He shoves himself off the railing, and continues on his way. Your uncomprehending gaze follows him all the way until he’s out of sight.

???:

“You must be interested in someone.” Your friend says as you walk back to the dorms together. “I swear you’ve hinted at it before.”

Anxiety slithers down your spine and you try to quell it, knowing it’ll only summon the one person who you don’t want to hear this conversation, “I mean, I am. But my romantic situation is a little…complicated.”

That’s to say, it’s hard to take the next step with someone when said person is a voice inside your head who won’t even share their name. Still, the longer the two of you were connected the more you felt a real connection instead of the manufactured one that had spontaneously occurred between you two.

“Ah, one of those.” Your friend gives you a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and you try not to let it get to you. “I’m sure things will work themselves out and if not? It’s not meant to be, right?”

“…yeah.” Perhaps sensing your feelings on the matter, your friend moves on, but your thoughts don’t. It slowly turns into a cloud around you and by the time you’re back to your dorm, it’s stuck in your head.

How are you supposed to even have these feelings towards the Voice when you couldn’t even be sure if they were corporal.

 ‘Don’t worry about too much, little moon.’

You jump, tugging at the connection, “You were there the entire time, weren’t you?”

They give a light laugh, ‘I try not to listen in, but when those feelings are towards me, it’s obvious I’d feel them through the connection.’

“Oh.”

‘I promise you this. One day we will meet and when we do, if those feelings remain despite everything, we can be with each other.’

“I’m willing to wait.” Warmth spreads through your chest and they’re feelings for you and your feelings for them become impossible to tell apart.

‘And I’ll be waiting for you, too.’

[mizuhandpics]

So I want to drop my Modern!Akemizu Roommate AU ideas; I have the beginning of a drabble written but I wanted to post these to keep in one place <3

- Akemi needs a roommate. With the monetary support of her family, she doesn’t need one for financial reasons, but she’s spending way too much time by herself between work, school, and her boyfriend’s weird work schedule and she needs someone in her apartment to keep her from going insane.

- Mizu answers the ad. When Akemi meets her, her first impression is that the woman is polite, but not very friendly. She’s cagey, refuses to tell her what she does for a living, what she does for fun, if she has any friends, hell even if she’s new to the city or not. But Akemi has never been one to shy away from a challenge. She adds her to the lease, and Mizu is moved in only days later.

- The next thing Akemi notices about Mizu is that she has essentially no belongings. She fills the second room of the apartment with a single suitcase of clothes, a few books (that akemi will absolutely be snooping around in given the first chance), and a mattress and sheets that looked like they had just been purchased that day.

- Blessedly, Mizu fills Akemi’s one standard for having a roommate: she’s around during the day. The woman seems to disappear every night just before midnight and reappears in the late morning, but she hangs around the apartment like a sack of potatoes otherwise. Akemi forces her into conversation when she’s home working on her thesis or completing work for her online classes, sits her down to have tea and play board games in Akemi’s downtime.

- She’s not a great conversationalist. Akemi prods at her for conversation ceaselessly, and while at first Mizu seems reluctant to engage or flat out annoyed at Akemi’s efforts, eventually Akemi seems to understand that Mizu might just be… out of practice. Wherever the woman comes from, she clearly was not much of a socialite. Akemi convinces herself that she could be good for Mizu, the same way Mizu is meant to be good for her. And despite being a woman of few words, Akemi finds herself laughing like she seldom does with anyone else when Mizu kept her company.

- The next thing Akemi notices about Mizu is that she becomes extremely prickly when her boyfriend, Taigen, is around. The first time Akemi has him over on one of his nights off, the two of them froze and stared at each other with unreadable expressions for a concerning amount of time. Without a word, Mizu grabbed her wallet and a jacket and left, slamming the door shut behind her. Akemi interrogated Taigen, who insisted he had no idea who Mizu was. Akemi wasn’t sure she believed him, but it was clear he wasn’t budging anytime soon. She tried to text Mizu a warning every time he came over since then, and most of the time, she would be gone before he showed up.

- The most concerning thing Akemi notices is the frequency of which Mizu returns to their apartment the next morning looking bloodied and half-dead. When Akemi frantically takes her to the shared bathroom to clean her up despite Mizu’s protests, she demands to know what happened. Mizu refuses to meet her eyes and claims she’s in a boxing club. Akemi rolls her eyes at the obvious lie, instead asking if she needs to call the cops or an ambulance. Mizu’s EXTREMELY negative reaction to that suggestion quelled all thoughts in Akemi’s mind of involving the authorities in any future incidences. Her eyes went wide in the calmest expression of complete panic that Akemi had ever seen. She didn’t ask again.

- They began to fall into a routine. At least a few times a month, Mizu would return home battered within an inch of her life, and Akemi would play nurse trying to keep her roommate breathing. It was stressful, but a little exhilarating. Every time, Akemi would try to get answers out of Mizu, and every time, Mizu would say something like “it’s none of your business”, or “it’s better if you don’t know.” Assuming she was conscious enough to answer.

I have so much to add to this still 😭 so many thoughts in my BRAIN

[centrally-unplanned]

I don't want to say the above post by MR is false, most the points are individually "true enough", but I think this is a very unhelpful frame to pick. It is setting up the idea that Republicans and Democrats had, essentially, a clash of ideas, that was fought within the boundaries of idea-space, and that right now Republicans are winning, converting people to their side.

To that I say, first, have the "vibes shifted"? In elite internet discourse subcommunities, oh sure, but this is focused on broader political things. It is certainly true that Biden won election in 2020 and is on track to lose it in 2024. But that event is a "vibe shift" in ~5% of voting Americans in swing states! Elections in the US are just incredibly close and turn on the dime of some chucklefucks (affectionate) in Wisconsin. That ~5% swing can have gigantic effects on the composition of the government, but that is not the same as saying the "vibes of the nation" changed outside of the obvious way they always change when elections happen.

Now if that 5% swing was caused by Republicans "winning the war of ideas" then it would be a little different of a vibe shift, but you can salvage the idea. But I don't buy that. This:

1. Trump and his team understand that we now live in a world of social media.  Only a modest part of the Democratic establishment has mastered the same.

Or this:

8. Democrats and leftists are in fact less happy as people than conservatives are, on average.  Americans noticed this, if only subconsciously.

Are just weird explanations for these minor shifts, particularly when they shifted the other way in 2020. Were democrats...more happy in 2020? Say that sentence with a straight face.

Of course not, it's inflation and Biden's Too Old and all the typical flotsom of electoral politics, and also the fact that the electorate regularly swings between the parties because, to be frank, they are dumbasses and think "fresh air" will help or w/e.

In fact, I think Republicans - like Democrats - have done a pretty bad job of convincing their own voters of their own shifts in opinions. I don't have the ideal graph I was looking at (lost on mobile) but this one will do - while the Republican party has hard shifted against NATO, voter support has only increased:

This isn't a "vibe shift" in the electorate, voters just have never cared about NATO enough to vote for the "pro-NATO" guy over the things they have always cared more about (the economy & big pet topics like immigration, abortion, etc).

Instead of this blanket "vibe shift" model, you should instead view it an intra-party vibe shift. What the Republican party is "about" has changed a ton - not as a radically as people think, while it abandoned free trade and embraced authoritarianism it was always pro-life, anti-liberal, locally authoritarian, anti-immigrant, addicted to tax cuts for the upper class, etc. But it isn't like voters ever liked the free trade stuff anyway, they didn't change by convincing voters all that much. They changed internally, and voters are unmoved by those changes, they don't care enough or the system isn't flexible enough with its party binary to make "punishing" a change make sense.

Voters have of course changed some, this is all margins & degrees. I just don't think you can point to the causes listed in the post for the most as an explainer for polling gaps. You need a sharper model of how "manufacturing consent" works.

[chacusha]

The Orville thoughts

Okay, basically, most of my reaction to watching the first few minutes of this show is "How is this legal?!" Like, people weren't kidding when they said this show is more Star Trek than modern Star Trek...

(I haven't seen this many Star Trek alumni in one place since Disney's Gargoyles! :V Seriously, my face when I saw Penny Johnson Jerald!)

More thoughts:

This show really GETS the value of opening episodes with senior officers engaging in some wacky off-duty bullshit before getting called to the bridge.

This show also GETS the value of showing events happening in bright, clear lighting. Even if this makes the cheesiness of the costumes, locations, and special effects more apparent, it also makes for clearer action too, so very much worth it overall IMO.

It is so bro-y, though. So, so bro-y. I think I might have died during the "astrology sucks" episode.

Also, I feel like Kelly Grayson's character is like the embodiment of the Cool Girl archetype (bro version)? Effortlessly pretty, always willing to get drunk and party (never in an ugly or unappealing sort of way, though), always on Ed's (quite bro-y) level when it comes to humor and hobbies and interests (you know, except for that One Time She Betrayed Him).

Also, there is so much weird "women are emotional and men are logical" and other gender essentialism going on in this show that I'm not even going to go near that... Other than to note that a lot of the issues around the depiction of Moclan culture and the relationship between the Federation Union and Moclus in the show suffers from an ultimately patriarchal sort of approach to feminism.

I might be a bit feral for Claire and Isaac's relationship, though. A lot of the elements of The Orville seem to be a direct reference to Star Trek (especially TNG). As part of that, Isaac is clearly a Data expy (except with a robot superiority complex and therefore very much NOT The Nicest Boy, unlike how Data is), but I appreciate the differences here -- that they weren't afraid to give the Data expy character a romantic plotline (quite similar to the Data episode "In Theory," which ultimately shied away from having Data successfully be in a romantic relationship). I appreciate this plotline as the path not taken there!

Overall, I think this show is surprsingly good at doing sincere emotional moments (which is unexpected given Seth Macfarlane's oeuvre), but terrible at doing politics/philosophical debates/legal drama. (Like, some of the arguments made during these sci-fi issue debates are often so bad/shallow/missing the point, it's a bit cringeworthy.) Which is quite ironic given above-mentioned weird gender essentialism going on in the writing of the show!

That said, even though I would say the politics of The Orville is only OK (I would describe it as trying to live up to Star Trek but distinctly "Reddit atheist" in its aesthetic and political leanings), at least The Orville TRIES to do philosophical debate plotlines (i.e. episodes where the whole conflict/source of tension is an ethical puzzle and one that isn't a painfully easy "obviously good position vs. obviously evil position" ethical "debate" such as "is genocide good? please discuss" or "which is better: doing science or waging war? discuss"), which is something that modern Trek seems to have kind of given up on. And often the politics here, even if not particularly great, still have a distinctly progressive lean, which is better than shows like Picard, for example.

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell what in this show is meant to be a sudden change in creative vision, hastily executed, and what is meant to be a purposeful reference to TNG's (own hastily-executed) writing. For example, the black officer at the conn who suddenly gets promoted to chief of engineering? The show deciding they needed to switch directions with this character and give him more to do, or is John LaMarr a big reference to Geordi La Forge? The female security officer getting suddenly put on a bus -- a reference to what happened to Tasha Yar, or an indication of behind-the-scenes conflict? (Whatever the intention is, the writing here, while hasty, is still overall better done than those bumpy early parts of TNG.)

Another good thing about this show is that it has a good, very likable/charming mauve shirt cast, which it treats pretty well. Which, again, is more than what can be said about a lot of modern Trek, which either has very flat and boring mauve shirts, or kills them off for cheap drama (or, frequently, both, which is hilarious -- like, sure, maybe this mauve shirt dying would have some emotional weight on this show if they literally had a personality or were given anything interesting to do before this episode, but they weren't, so... 🤷).

I was looking at reviews this show got, and apparently it was quite poorly reviewed in the first season, but got better reception in later seasons. I guess this makes sense as the first season was kind of stuck in that weird area between irony-filled parody, fawning homage, and just trying earnestly to bring more Star Trek-type entertainment into the world. People seemed to think it found its footing by jettisoning some of the edgier and irreverent parody aspects in favor of straightforward earnesty, but I also kind of wonder if what happened was more like as Star Trek shows started getting worse around it (Discovery declining in quality; Picard just... being Picard....; Strange New Worlds being distinctively, like, just OK; Lower Decks being fine while avoiding serious/philosophical plotlines; Prodigy also being fine but for kids), having something that didn't shy away from the aesthetics, sci-fi worldbuilding + cosmopolitics, and self-contained plots of TNG felt refreshing? Like The Orville seemed to find its niche largely by just keeping going with what it was doing, while nuTrek failed to fill or offer anything in that highly-coveted niche aside from the perfectly passable but somewhat bland SNW.

So yeah, overall, this show falls quite short of meeting the bar of "more 90s Star Trek for you to watch," but it benefits from sincerely trying to be that, including not being afraid to do entirely new worldbuilding and political-balance-of-power within its own new universe. Or trying to create plots that tackle social issues not handled before by 90s Star Trek shows. In that sense, it keeps quite well with the original spirit of Star Trek even if it doesn't quite get there. There are some updates here as well due to being made several decades later, like more casual depictions of LGBT relationships, more variety in the alien designs, and more smoothness to the writing in general (like more coherent episode plots and character arcs). Overall, I felt the show very worth watching although quite "pointy" in quality (i.e. does some things really, really great, while doing others very poorly) and just very refreshing in the current nuTrek environment. (But with Discovery regaining its footing, maybe that will change!)