#related to a person I want to forget with my entire existence

[i-secretly-wanna-kms]

Today is a dreaded day…

[itsalwaysdark]

tangentially prev i literally used to get stressed out when i was a kid bc like i knew animals had different lifespans than people and id lie awake and id be like . if a deer was born in the wild at the same moment as me itd probably be dead by now . and id get so stressed out abt it

[ceilidhtransing]

I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of “lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

[jburrgf]

About You I — The Love Trope Series.

“Do you think I have forgotten about you?”

◦pairing: ¡lsu! joe burrow x ¡ex situashionship! reader

◦summary: second change trope, college relationships, slow burn love, right person wrong time.

◦description: you and joe had a thing months before, but the things ended in a bad way. now, you see yourself stuck in something that requires you to be close to him every single day.

◦playlist: About You - The 1975, Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Golding, Like Real People Do - Hoozier, I Bet You Think About Me - Taylor Swift, Called You Again - Lizzy McAlpine, Tolerate It, ImGonnaGetYouBack, Clean - Taylor Swift

PART ONE: CLEAN.

There are certain moments in life that seem impossible to forget. The second I walked onto LSU’s campus, I knew my life was about to change. But not just because of the classes, the social scene, or the crazy football culture.

When I started in LSU, it was supposed to be a clean slate. A chance to focus on my career path and prove to myself that I could thrive in a bigger pond, surrounded by people just as driven as me. Advertising and Public Relations wasn’t just a degree—it was a strategy. A way to blend my creative instincts with a business-minded edge.

What I didn’t expect was LSU’s football program to be the centerpiece of everything.

LSU football wasn’t just a sport. It was culture, identity, and religion rolled into one. By my second semester, I was interning with the athletic department, brainstorming marketing campaigns and filming promos for the team. I was good at what I did—so good that I convinced myself it didn’t bother me when my work bled into my personal life.

Everything started to go wrong when I met him. Tall, blond, American aesthetic, and so, but so kind. That was Joe Burrow, the youngest transferred from Ohio State to the south. New just like me.

Joe was Joe —calm, collected, and infuriatingly charming. He wasn’t flashy like some of the other players, but the air shifted when he walked into a room. Everyone noticed him. And the first time we crossed paths, I did too.

We met my junior year at a party, back when he was just Joe—a talented quarterback with a quiet intensity and a way of looking at you like he could see straight through every mask you’d ever worn. I hadn’t planned on noticing him, but it was impossible not to.

And since then, I'm haunted by his face, his smile, his smell, his body. Every little thing that made him Joe, it was inside my head like a bad song that you can’t stop singing. I didn’t want that, not in the beginning.

And now, I'm running from him like the plague. Every place he might be, I'm not going. Every little encounter or party, or dinner, or what else, I wasn’t going.

It was a party I didn’t want to go to. Maddie had been bothering me for weeks to go to this party, and honestly, I didn't feel like going. Simply no desire.

"I'm serious, Y/N. You work too hard," Maddie, my best friend at LSU, said to me. We had just left one of our classes together, and were walking around the campus, heading towards Maddie's car. "You're missing the entire college experience."

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m here to build my career, not get drunk at frat houses.”

“Even Beyoncé has to relax,” she shot back. “I’m picking you up at eight, tomorro, no excuses. But now, we’re going to Malone’s.”

[…]

I didn’t want to be here.

Malone’s was Maddie’s favorite spot, a college-town bar where everyone gathered on weekends to drink, laugh, and pretend their responsibilities didn’t exist. It was the kind of place where the sticky floors were part of the charm, and you couldn’t walk two feet without bumping into someone you knew. Normally, I’d avoid it like the plague—especially on a night like tonight, when Maddie’s sole mission was to convince me to go to that stupid party tomorrow.

“You’re being dramatic,” Maddie said as I slid into the booth across from her, the sound of the bar’s chatter and faint music drowning out half her words. “It’s just one party. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I rolled my eyes, pulling my coat tighter around me despite the warmth of the bar. “You say that like you don’t know me. I don’t do frat parties, Maddie. I don’t want to spend my Saturday night elbow-to-elbow with drunk people I barely know.”

“That’s the fun of it,” she countered, her grin far too smug for my liking.

“You’re impossible,” I muttered, reaching for the drink she’d already ordered for me.

“I’m persistent,” she corrected. “And don’t think I didn't notice that you didn’t actually say no.”

I groaned, leaning back in the booth. Maddie had been trying to drag me to this party for days, claiming it was some can’t-miss event that would somehow make my life infinitely better. I wasn’t convinced, but I’d stopped arguing because, frankly, I didn’t have the energy.

I was checking on the bar from above my shoulders when It happened.

Joe Burrow.

The last person I ever expected to see here, especially tonight.

My chest tightened the moment I spotted him standing by the dartboard, his tall frame impossible to miss, his blond hair was slightly disheveled, and the faint scruff on his jaw made him look older than he had when we’d last spoken. Joe was dressed casually, jeans and a hoodie, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world, and was laughing at something one of his friends said, the sound cutting through the low hum of the bar like a knife.It wasn’t just the way he carried himself or the fact that he was Joe Burrow—LSU’s star quarterback—but the way my body reacted, as if it had its own memory of him.

I hadn’t seen him in months—not since we’d ended things without really ending them. And now, seeing him here, so casually present in my space, felt like a slap to the face. Work Out from J Cole was playing, and everything felt like a movie scene.

It wasn’t like we had history. At least not in the way most people assumed. We barely knew each other. But there had been that one night at a party a while back, and another one after a game, and another one at our friends house, and another one… and the tension between us had never fully died down. I could still remember the way his eyes had felt on me, like he was measuring me in some silent way I didn’t know how to interpret.

“Y/N.” Maddie’s voice snapped me out of my daze. She followed my line of sight and groaned. “Oh no.”

I shook my head, panic setting in. “I can’t do this.”

“You don’t even know if he saw you.”

“I’m not sticking around to find out,” I said, already sliding out of the booth.

“Y/N—”

But I was gone, weaving through the crowd toward the back hallway where the bathrooms were. I needed to breathe, to get away from the overwhelming weight of his presence.

The bathroom at Malone’s was about as glamorous as you’d expect—a narrow space with flickering fluorescent lights and graffiti scrawled across the stalls. I locked myself in one of the stalls, leaning back against the door as I tried to steady my breathing.

Of all the places to run into Joe, it had to be here.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about him. I had—more than I cared to admit. But thinking about him was one thing. Seeing him, knowing he was just a few feet away, was something else entirely.

I couldn’t face him. Not now, not here.

The bathroom was quiet, the kind of eerie stillness that felt out of place in the chaos of Malone’s. I leaned against the sink, staring at my reflection in the smudged mirror.

“Get it together,” I whispered to myself, taking a deep breath.

I didn’t even know why I was reacting like this. It wasn’t like we were still together. We weren’t anything anymore. And yet, the sight of him had thrown me completely off balance, dredging up feelings I thought I’d buried a long time ago.

But I couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever, either.

I opened the bathroom door and nearly walked straight into him.

Joe was leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom, his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze fixed squarely on me.

I froze, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice low and steady, a hint of amusement curling at the edges.

Nope.

Without a second thought, I ducked back into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

I paced the small space, my mind racing. He’d seen me, which meant he was waiting for me. I couldn’t hide in here forever, but the thought of facing him felt impossible.

Eventually, I forced myself to take a deep breath and opened the door again.

Joe was gone.

Relief flooded through me as I stepped out into the hallway, my eyes scanning the crowd for any sign of him. But instead of Joe, my attention was drawn to a small slip of paper pinned to the corkboard on the wall next to the bathroom.

It wasn’t there before.

Curious, I stepped closer and pulled it free. The handwriting was unmistakable—slanted and bold, with a certain sharpness to the letters that felt uniquely him.

“Go to the party tomorrow. Please.”

I stared at the note, my heart pounding for an entirely different reason now.

My fingers tightened around the paper as Maddie appeared at the end of the hallway, her eyes wide with curiosity.

“What’s that?” she asked, gesturing to the note.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, shoving it into my pocket.

She raised an eyebrow but didn’t push. “Ready to head back? I don’t think Joe’s here anymore.”

I nodded, though my mind was miles away.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I would go. Maybe I wouldn’t.

But one thing was for sure: Joe Burrow had just made sure I wouldn’t forget this night.

——————————————

part 2: About You II (The Love Trope Series) — All Over Me.

hey guys! this is the beginning of my Love Tropes Series. The first part, About You, it’s going to be launched in four parts! stay tuned :)

[muletia]

Need to cum in obsessed!Orion so much u can hear it sloshing around in his forge. I want him to walk happily into the base and everybot to hear what I did to him. My precious cute boy<33 I want to make u full n dumb with the idea of carrying my sparklings ^^

anons as always being relatable because GOD DAMN THIS IS HOT AND WHAT I WOULD GIVE TO DO THIS TO HIM

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 ⋆. 𐙚 ˚

headcanons

cw: valveplug, dom!reader, sub!orion, creampie, breeding kink, overstimulation

word count: 400

Orion is wonderful in the sense that you can do whatever you please with him, and he’ll still thank you for it, because attention from you is sacred to him, and he intends to savor it like the finest energon. The only issue is that once you spoil him and an idea firmly takes root in his processor, Orion forgets how to hit the brakes. Or worse, he gets rid of them entirely.

By turning him into your personal cum tank, you’re introducing him to a new narrative path — one he’ll want to repeat endlessly. Especially once he accepts that being sparked is essential to his existence and starts dreaming of carrying a sparkling within him. And since he’s a yapper who won’t stop talking during interfacing, you’ll hear about it constantly; deep in subspace, he’ll even start telling you what your future sparklings will look like and that they’ll surely have your eyes. How sweet. It’s just a shame you can’t understand a word he’s saying because after a while, the only sound escaping his mouth is incomprehensible, garbled nonsense.

I think he’d even start urging you to fill him with as much cum as possible. Until he can physically see how much he’s taken in and hear the sound of your fluids moving inside him, ready to create new life. And he’s so heartbroken when he can’t hold it all, when the mixture of his transfluid and your juices spills out of him because his valve is already overflowing. He’d probably cry over it, devastated by the thought that what he couldn’t keep inside might have been the key to creating your sparklings. He’d even try to push it back in, even though his valve is completely wrecked, swollen, and overstimulated, with every touch only riling him up further.

And afterward, after the entire process of aftercare, when the high has worn off and he’s ready to return to his comrades, he’d dare to tenderly caress his abdomen, content with the feeling of fullness, warmth, and being stuffed with your love, patiently waiting for your sparkling to come into existence <3. (Did I mention he’s delusional?)

Then, of course, it turns out you’ve stuffed him to his absolute limit because one of his teammates eventually points out that he’s fucking leaking from the interface panel… and it ain't pure transfluid...

[cobaltperun]

Darkest Part (2) - Narcissistic Cannibal

Astrid Deetz x female Reader

Summary: You will never, in life or afterlife, if such a thing exists, meet anyone as infuriating, rage inducing, entitled, or frankly awful, as Astrid fucking Deetz. There isn’t a single thing you’d like more than to never be around her, but as your luck would have it, you just can’t stay away from her.

Masterlist / Previous Part / Next Part

Word count: 3.9k

-And you're so cynical, narcissistic cannibal-

Of all the ridiculously asinine things that could have ever happened to you, of all the ways your day, no, forget day, your entire week could go wrong, it just had to be related to the one person you despised. And it was such a nice day as well, sunny, warm, but not hot, pleasant breeze, perfect for doing anything you wanted, but no, no, you just had to spend it with her.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this with you,” the chihuahua said through gritted teeth. Even like that her voice just got on your nerves, all soft and tender and pleasant to the ear. If only it didn’t belong to someone like her.

“I’d agree with you, but that would just make me sick,” you spat, packing the promotional material that would be used for Delia’s day long art workshop at Astrid’s high school. Perks of donating a whole damn building to the school!

Astrid glared at you as she wrapped the figures Delia was going to bring along. It was Delia’s brilliant idea, to basically force her granddaughter to help through her and Lydia’s influence over the principal. And you had to admit, she hated being here for more than one reason. Which made you feel a bit better, because you hated being here for only one reason, that reason being the girl on the other side of the room. So, by some ridiculous logic you had it better, since you had fewer reasons to hate being here. “Wouldn’t that make my day,” she said under her breath, without a hint of remorse.

“Right back at you,” you didn’t even try to whisper it, no, you made it clear you heard her and wished the same thing upon her.

“Being sick would make your day? Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” she actually smirked at you as you blinked, rewinding the last exchange and closing your eyes.

Fuck!

“I didn’t- that’s not- ah, fuck this,” you cursed, giving up arguing about this. She was so freakishly smart you figured you’d just be wasting your breath arguing about it.

Astrid had that ridiculous, satisfied grin on her damn face and you just, you just threw your hands up in the air. She got you there. And you hated the feeling, you hated it so much you nearly got into an argument with her just for the sake of your pride. Only to remember she’d likely throw an entire thesaurus at you and confuse you because that was just what she did!

Somehow you figured it was worth it.

You firmly believed there were some things that were just plain and simply true, and one of those things was that you and Astrid Deetz could never, under any circumstances, peacefully coexist. Everything between you was too volatile, too prone to explosive arguments or constant negativity.

Right at that moment the door opened, preventing you from restarting the argument, and Delia bounced in, all pumped and happy, and almost too pleased. Those rarely ended well for you if you were being honest. “Astrid! How nice to see you came to help me!” oh, this woman was either the most oblivious, self-centered woman you’ve ever met, or she just loved pushing everyone’s buttons. You’ve been working for her for some time now, and that was still the unsolvable mystery.

“You could have at least spared me from working with her, but no, it’s not enough that I have to be here,” Astrid complained with a deep scowl on her face, the previous satisfaction long forgotten. She didn’t even pause packing the figures to greet the woman.

“We apologize, your majesty, for keeping you away from your important business,” you mocked, only to be met with a fierce glare. Astrid most definitely glared at you, a lot, but never like this, never with this much intensity and anger.

She opened her mouth and then very obviously changed her mind, dropping her gaze and focusing on the task in front of her. “Not like you’d care,” she muttered under her breath. “Either of you.”

Delia, who was getting her mug, clearly heard that. “There’s a climate change conference coming up in a few months and Astrid here is heavily involved in preparations, some of which happen to be today,” you abruptly turned when Delia said that and then turned toward Astrid, who now had an even deeper scowl on her face.

You frowned, perhaps for the first time properly looking at the girl. You very passionately hated her, so you rarely took notice of the little details, but you could see her lower lip, slightly swollen from chewing on it, probably since she was so frustrated and angry. You saw some blisters on her palms, and the way she winced, they were probably caused by the tree planting you attended a few days ago. You hated her, but you didn’t hate her that much. “Go bark orders at someone else chihuahua, I’ll wrap this up,” you still didn’t have it in you to openly tell her to go and do what she cares about.

She froze, looking at you with unconcealed mistrust and disbelief, as if you just grew a couple of heads on your back and torso. That’s how bizarre you were in her eyes right now. She studied you, not saying a word, or even moving. How could she be so still?! It was unsettling! And her gaze was way too intense! “Tch, barnacle,” she scoffed but still grabbed her things and rushed outside.

“Forget chihuahua, she’s a whole damn zoo…” you could feel your eye was twitching as you watched the closed door. Were you expecting a thank you? No, not really. This was Astrid Deetz after all. You still expected something more decent than an insult!

“You do know this is a job for two people and that now you’ll be working overtime, right?” Delia asked as if she was asking about the weather, and not if you knew you were in for a long day. And you knew, of course you fucking knew.

You just, well you were passionate about climate change as well, and even you could tell Astrid cared about it. It was for the greater good! Nothing else. “I’ll get it done,” you sighed, doubling your efforts to at least try and get it done in reasonable time.

“Hugging trees won’t do much though,” Delia commented as she finished making her coffee, more to herself, than to you. “The sooner she focuses of something else, the better for her,” that was something you noticed about Delia. She was fairly supportive of green architecture, figuring it was a good thing to be interested in, blending the good intentions and profitable career together. She disagreed with Astrid’s approach, strongly believing that if Astrid didn’t come from a rich family, she wouldn’t be able to be so idealistic about her activism.

You closed the box and carried it to the side before grabbing a sticker and writing ‘promo material’ on it. “She’s a chihuahua,” you slapped the sticker onto the box and said, just like you did when Delia first told you her opinion on Astrid’s climate change activism.

Delia laughed, long, loud and genuine laughter filled the room as she sat at her laptop. “Or you could just for once admit that you have a tiny soft spot for my granddaughter and firmly believe that she is so stubborn she would still be doing this even if she wasn’t rich enough to not work a day in her life and had to life off of tree hugging salary,” she spoke complete and utter nonsense. The most ridiculous, outrageous, misinterpretation of your words.

“Bullshit, respectfully, bullshit,” you denied it, having no idea how anyone could see anything but hatred between you and that chihuahua. Tiny soft spot? Ridiculous! The only soft spot you had for anything related to Astrid was reserved for her mother who had the misfortune of having Astrid for daughter.

Nothing else!

Not now!

Not ever!

~X~

You were hunched over a small empty table in the library, shading your latest drawing with utmost focus. It was a detailed drawing of the Colosseum, and it was a fairly good drawing if you could say so yourself. Summer vacation would soon end, and you that meant one thing! You would soon be free from the chihuahua! Hopefully by the time she comes back or comes to visit her grandparents you’d be gone, never to see her again!

“Oh, I’m going to celebrate when she leaves,” you actually giggled, you felt giddy at the mere thought of never seeing Astrid Deetz again.

“You sound like you won the lottery,” Alex sighed, genuinely puzzled by your excitement over Astrid leaving. You, on the other hand, disagreed with him, you didn’t sound like you won the lottery, you were fairly sure you if someone offered winning the lottery and never seeing the damn chihuahua again you’d take never seeing her again.

A dumb choice, backed merely by the reasoning that no one would ever make you choose between the two, but still, that’s why you could so casually say it.

Alex though. He was blind. Blinded by her… something you wouldn’t even dare to think about.

“I’m not blinded by her beauty, by the way,” he pointed out, as if reading your thoughts, and you, as startled as you were, flinched, your hand pressing down, causing you to pierce the paper with your pencil and tear through it. “Shit, I’m sorry about that, Y/N,” Alex quickly apologized when he noticed the drawing was ruined.

You watched the torn paper for a few seconds, mind completely blank, as if you couldn’t properly process what happened to hours of work in mere seconds. “I was just practicing anyway,” you sighed, tossing the drawing into the trach can before patting your guilt-stricken friend on the back. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll just take a ten-minute break to stretch a bit.”

“Sure,” but he still looked at the drawing on top of the trash.

You knew you’d need to cheer him up, but first you really needed to go into the storage and stretch a bit, you’ve been sitting for hours. The storage room was big, as every library storage room should be, you kept spare copies, some books that were more difficult to come by, and things like that there, and there was still plenty of space to just stretch a bit, do a couple of exercises and walk, just to get the blood pumping. So, you did just that, bouncing lightly on your feet followed by a couple of basic stretching exercises.

“There, that feels better,” you muttered to yourself, feeling the tension in your muscles somewhat fading.

When you came back you saw her… the one indirectly responsible for the mistake you made. Standing here, talking to Alex, all angry? At Alex? Since when did that happen?

“She’s so…” Astrid seemed to be trembling with rage as she glared at some piece of paper in her hand. You doubted she got that enraged at anyone but you.

“I’m so what?” you walked back out and she looked back, about as startled as you were when Alex basically called her beautiful. Her cheeks turned red from the anger, and she shoved the paper into her bag.

“Vexatious!” she actually yelled and stormed out of the library.

“Another word to Google?” Alex snickered like the troublemaker he was. Whatever happened while you were on a break lifted his spirits and it looked like he was no longer grieving over your drawing.

You sat down and glared, you wanted to know what he did or said to cause that kind of reaction, but you would rather be locked in a room with that chihuahua than ask him. You still Googled the stupid word Astrid threw at you. “Tch,” you cold feel your eye twitching; she just called you annoying.

~X~

Annoying. Pain in her ass. The most frustrating person she ever met. The only person in the world that infuriated her more than her own mother, and a year ago she would have thought that was impossible!

And, as much as she despised admitting, a damn good artist.

Astrid stared at the slightly torn drawing, hating herself for noticing it. She went to throw her coffee cup into the can, and there it was. A detailed, drawn entirely by pencil and perfectly shaded, drawing of the Colosseum, just lying there. She was drawn to it, drawn to the precise lines, the chosen perspective gave the historical building a larger than life feel to it, and the lighting only enhanced that feeling.

She wanted to see more of them. More of the works whoever drew this made. She wanted to talk to them, find out what inspired them to draw this.

And then Alex made her desires shrivel up and die.

It was you.

Of course it was you.

"Barnacle," she muttered, now cursing you for ruining something like this with a moment of carelessness. Astrid leaned back on her chair, for a moment glancing at the framed photo of her and her dad, her most treasured possession. She looked so happy back then, they had so many plans, yet they never got the chance. He would have told her to do as her heart demands, and she hated what her heart was demanding right now. She carefully flipped the drawing and taped it together, making sure the tear wasn't visible.

You just... annoyed her so much she couldn't stand it.

~X~

When you came to work at the library tomorrow you saw your drawing on the table. Fixed.

"What the?" you looked at Alex, confused, hoping maybe he had an explanation.

"Your chihuahua," was all he said, and you just stared blankly at the fixed drawing. "And she knew it was yours, by the way," Alex had a shit eating grin on his face as your trembling fingers picked up the drawing.

Why couldn't your fingers stop trembling?

She just... she fixed it. You could see how much care she put into lining the paper up, making sure the tear was as concealed as possible. "What the fuck? The fuck did she do this for?" you asked, bewildered by her decision to do this knowing the drawing belonged to you. Hell, if anyone asked you ten minutes ago you would have willing to bet anything on her actually tearing it apart.

Okay, maybe that was harsh of you. But you were certain she wouldn't care about it, wouldn't even spare a glance. Yet she fixed it! "I need to thank her," the words you spoke felt foreign, your throat dry, it all felt surreal.

Alex had this look in his eyes, like he was sorry for something. "Tough luck buddy, she went back to school, she's gone."

Fuck! Where were cliche tropes of catching someone just before they leave when you needed them the most?!

~X~

Months passed since that day, since Astrid left for another year at her private boarding school. Your life returned to the way it was before you met her, same old routine, two jobs, art classes, taking care of your mother. You still didn’t dare to go to college, to take the chance without any safety net. You were nervous, worried that you weren’t good enough, that you’d try, end up being disappointed and you just couldn’t risk it. Not yet.

 You’ve been working overtime due to Delia’s newest idea, the human canvas, honestly you were looking forward to resting, since Delia promised a whole week off after everything was finished. After all, you did hell of a job with the logistics and promotion and all the technical stuff.

Delia was currently standing half a dozen feet away from you, getting ready for the next performance when her phone rang. Nothing new there, you were used to it and mostly tuned her out as she spoke on the phone.

“What?!” she screamed making you jump and turn to her, startled. It sounded like someone just published a harsh criticism of her work, but a single look at her face going as white as a sheet made it clear it was much, much worse. “No,” she swayed on her feet and you quickly set the pen you’ve been holding down and caught her just as she lost her balance and crumbled into your arms.

“Shit!” you failed to properly catch her and couldn’t get a firm grip on her, forcing you to lower her down to the floor and hold her up like that.

"Charles!" Delia screamed, loud, heartbroken, shattered by the news, and you didn't need confirmation to know what had happened. She dropped her phone and you just barely managed to catch it as she grabbed onto your shoulder and cried, her manicured nails digging through your shirt and making you wince as she bawled.

You let her hold onto you, silent as she cried, screaming for her husband and staining your shirt with tears and mascara. You didn’t know Charles all that well, having mostly worked with Delia, but you were sorry he was gone.

“He left me!” she shouted and you froze, looking down at the woman that was still crying.

“Left? Like a divorce?” you asked, now not quite sure if you got things mixed up. Wouldn’t be the first time it happened with Delia.

Delia stopped crying and pulled away from you. “That would be even worse! No, he’s dead, got killed by a shark,” she said it so casually.

“That would be even worse?” you couldn’t help it, you repeated her sentence, baffled as she screamed her late husband’s name once more. Him leaving would have been even worse? How? You just sighed, not even trying to wrap your head around this, seeing as thinking about it for too long might cause you to come to certain conclusions.

“Get ready, Y/N, we’re going to Winter River, we’ll be there for a few weeks!” Delia abruptly decided and you whipped your head in her direction.

“WHAT?!” surely she didn’t just ask that of you. You had another job here! A mother that needed to be taken care of!

Somehow she considerably calmed down, and much quicker than you anticipated. “You won’t leave a grieving widow to manage all of that herself, right?” oh, oh she was great at this emotional manipulation, and you were falling for it like a sucker. You went to speak, to reject this. You were her assistant for her art projects, not for funeral arrangements, especially if it meant leaving behind everything else for weeks to do it.

But she did just lose her husband… and she wasn’t a bad boss, just kind of self-centered most of the time. “One week, not a day more,” you offered, firm, unmoving, standing your ground. “Mom needs me,” you said before she could counter and demand more from you.

Delia thought it over and then, miraculously, nodded. “Good enough,” that actually surprised you and you watched her as she took her phone, likely to contact Lydia. “Go get days off, we’re leaving today.”

“Yes ma’am,” you nodded, already thinking of ways to get days off on an extremely short notice. And then a single thought popped into your head. You’d have to spend a week not only with Delia and Lydia, but Rory and Astrid as well!

“Fuck!” you cursed as you stepped outside, already dreading the upcoming disaster of a week ahead of you. As if Astrid wasn’t enough now you had to deal with Lydia’s manipulative boyfriend and all you could really hope for at this point was that you could ignore them.

~X~

The drive to Astrid’s high school was less of a torture than you anticipated. Rory mostly ignored you, like he usually did, and somehow he wasn’t a complete insufferable asshole. He was uncharacteristically silent, well, other than the bit about losing his grandfather 40 years ago. That was… classic Rory actually.

What you weren’t prepared for was Delia deciding to tell Astrid the news herself, when the grumpy chihuahua refused to answer Lydia’s calls. You watched from the back seat, horrified when Delia walked up, not to the front door, but to the side of the building where you guessed Astrid’s room was.

“Astrid!” your eyes widened, and you actually couldn’t believe what was going on as Delia screamed Astrid’s name at the top of her lungs.

“Oh, no,” Lydia whispered, shaking her head in disbelief as she watched the disaster unfold.

“Stop torturing your mother!” Delia yelled and you actually felt sorry for Astrid, you felt a real, genuine, empathy for the girl because the scene unfolding in front of your eyes was downright humiliating. Astrid looking down at Delia from her window while dozens of students looked on either from their own windows or from where they were in the front yard of the dormitory.

“Your mommy lost her daddy! You lost your grandpa! And I lost my…” Delia paused and you bit your tongue, hoping, despite knowing the woman, that she would just say her husband or something. “…horny handyman, Charles.”

No…

No!

She did not just say it like that!

“I’m so sorry chihuahua,” you whispered under your breath, just quiet enough for it not to be heard by anyone as Delia screamed Charles’ name once more.

~X~

Ten minutes later you were with Rory in the car as Lydia went to join Delia and Astrid outside and you found yourself looking at the girl. There she was, the menace. The bane of your existence. The very girl you despised more than anyone else in the world and who despised you just as much. Truly you were forced to admit that such mutual hatred was hard to come by. And here you thought her fixing your drawing would make those feelings fade a bit, but now that you were looking at her again you figured you were wrong.

You still despised the girl, and the random act of kindness did little to change that.

“There she is, the morbid freak,” Rory muttered under his breath. He definitely didn’t like Astrid, being the manipulator that was taking advantage of Lydia and knowing Astrid saw right through him must have infuriated him.

“Shut it,” you punched the back of his seat with enough force to make him wince and turn to look at you.

That sick, manipulative smile on his face was back. “Come on, Y/N, you hate her, don’t go complaining about me saying what you think,” he tried to appeal to you, to get you to agree with him just to get that sense of power and control. Your feelings for the youngest Deetz were your own, non-reliant on the way other people viewed her. You had personal reasons for disliking Astrid, and you had no desire to fuel his narcissistic tendencies. Not to mention, as much as you disliked Astrid there was something about his word choice that you couldn’t get behind.

And agreeing with Rory and giving him what he wanted would just make you feel sick, so that was yet another reason not to agree. “Only I get to insult that chihuahua, also, she is not a morbid freak,” you paused. “Okay, just freak. She is not a freak. She is morbid, but not a freak,” you corrected as you glared at the man. You might actually hate him more than you hated Astrid, and that was hell of an accomplishment.

Taglist: @alexkolax @osnapitzmel1 @bee-keeping @nebthetautora @lololauser

@nwestra @rroyale-109 @gemz5 @social-pomegranate @mirage018

@the-thing-withfeathers @hello-mtf @leafanonsforest

Masterlist / Previous Part / Next Part

[imagopirateversion]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales; Why It Shouldn’t Exist

Or how I invested time and energy into an analysis of a relatively dead franchise instead of doing it for my actual media analysis university course.

An essay by: a bitter and obsessed PotC fan since they were 7, with a lot of free time.

Lads, this is going to be long. You have been warned.

The Beginning

At the very beginning of the movie, we see a young Henry Turner looking for his dad.

Now, we're not talking about characterization problems or how likely it is that a ten-year-old child would risk his life to look for a man he technically only saw once; we're talking about plot problems, actual logical fallacies. My questions are:

How? The Flying Dutchman is a legendary ship, impossible to be found unless She wants to be found. The only reason we see Her in Dead Man's Chest is because Davy Jones himself is looking for Jack to collect his debt, and in that occasion the Dutchman's captain wasn't even doing what he was supposed to do, so he was most definitely in the living world. Will otherwise, he's doing the job Calypso gave him, so he's constantly in between. Is the movie trying to convince me that a kid was able to do something no one in the history of piracy was ever able to do? And even if he did, why hasn't anyone explained me how? He simply looks at a map and throws himself on the bottom of the ocean. How did he know The Dutchman was there? How did he know it would've come to surface?

Where is his mom? We got to know Elizabeth in the first three movies; we know she's a smart woman and we can assume she's an attentive mother. She didn't notice her son preparing himself for a trip in the middle of the ocean to go look for his dad? Was she distracted? Was she outsmarted by a 10ish-year-old? Or is she just not contemplated in this scenario?

Why does Will look like that? Will is doing his job, so... why does he look like he's slowly corrupting? That kind of corruption is the punishment Calypso reserves to The Dutchman's crew when the captain fails her, which isn't the case. Did they forget about it? Was the idea of putting algae on Orlando Bloom's face just impossible to resist to?

Alright, this isn't actually from this movie but it's bothering me, so I have to write it; also, it would make this whole movie unnecessary, so it's somehow related to it. Why (and I can't stress this enough) can't Elizabeth be on the Dutchman? Why can't they do the job together? Is it because she's not a pirate? I'm pretty sure se actually is. Is it because she's a woman? Last time I checked she was the KING. She wants to stay with Will forever, Will wants to stay with her forever, they can literally live forever on the same ship. Why aren't they?

Whatever the Hell Happened to Jack Sparrow

Imagine creating a character that is so iconic whenever you ask a person who was a kid in the early 2000 to imagine a pirate, they imagine said character.

Now imagine fourteen years pass and you decide to ruin that character by making him the most hideous, annoying, idiotic person in the whole saga, and we're talking about a saga that has Philip the Missionary in it. Why? Jack Sparrow is THE anti-hero. Never on the right side, but never on the wrong one. You can tell he's doing something morally questionable, but you still find yourself rooting for him. He's stupid enough to make you laugh, but he's secretly clever enough to always get away with it. Now he's just... drunk. And that's not even an excuse for this horrendous new characterization, because he was always drunk. The guy FORGOT HE WAS ROBBING A BANK, the same guy just one movie earlier was able to escape from the King of England's palace and steal a lady's earring (by pretending to be a literal slut) in the process. He just switched from the iconic drunk bi bestie everyone loves to my cringe uncle that drinks too much at Christmas parties and makes everyone uncomfortable. Please, if the risk is ruining an entire generation's beloved character, either don't make the movie or find a better explanation than "Bad luck dogs you day and night".

The Pearl in The Bottle

So... what you're telling me is that Jack Sparrow, the guy who was able to defeat Hector Barbossa, Davy Jones and Blackbeard thanks to his slyness, and who loves his Black Pearl more than anything else in the world, had said ship in a bottle in his pockets for FIVE YEARS... and he never thought about breaking the bottle to free Her. That's what you're telling me. This is the pivotal point upon which the entire Jack's plot hinges. I... I don't even know what to say. Was this supposed to be funny?

What an Incredibly Lucky Coincidence

A guy needs a treasure to save his father. To find it, he needs the help of a notorious and legendary pirate. He looks for him everywhere, sailing on dozens of ships just so he has the remote chance to stumble across the pirate. The last ship he's been on has sinked, he's the only survivor. He's been found in the middle of the ocean and someone brought him to the nearest city. Which city? I mean, the one that has both the pirate he was looking for and a lady who's the only person in the whole planet who's able to find the treasure he was looking for! And, oh my... he finds the both of them! In that same city! Without even LOOKING FOR THEM! A hell of a coincidence, if you ask me. Also known as lazy writing.

What's Wrong With the Guards?

Now, I know Pirates of the Caribbean isn't exactly known for its accurate historical reconstructions, but why are the guards in this movie acting like they're some sort of hellhounds ready to kill anyone in sight? Even pirates and traitors as Jack and Henry were supposed to stand trial before being sentenced to death. It would've probably been an unjust and barbaric trial, but there should've been one. We literally saw it, in the previous movie. Why's Jack been sentenced to death for simply existing here? He gave pirate vibes and they decided that was enough?

Paul McCartney

This is not an actual point of the analysis, I just wanted to remind people that Paul McCartney is in this movie and that's the only valid reason to watch it.

Salazar

I am confused. Once again, I have questions.

El Matador Del Mar was so good at his job he had almost defeated piracy. "The last ones joined together to try and defeat me". The last what? Pirates? There were no pirates left? This happened when Jack was young, so a lot of time before the first movie, right? Where were, I don't know... Blackbeard? Davy Jones? Barbossa? All the other Pirate Lords? I might be wrong, but I guess Salazar didn't kill them, did he? Why weren't they there during that "last battle" in which "the last ones joined together"?

The Devil's Triangle. I just don't understand what's the logic behind it. So, this is a cursed place. Whoever enters there, can't get out. One would think it means that if you get there, you die; and Salazar does die, but he somehow also becomes a ghost whose only purpose is to find Jack Sparrow and have his revenge. So, do people become ghosts when they get in The Devil's Triangle? We have to assume people have gotten stuck in there before; otherwise, there wouldn't be legends around the place. So why isn't it like full of spirits ready to haunt people? Why are Salazar and his crew the only ones?

Poseidon or Calypso?

What's the Trident of Poseidon? Does Poseidon exist? Isn't Calypso the Goddess of the sea? Breaking the Trident, you break all the curses of the sea, so the Trident must be more powerful than Calypso, which leads to a question. Where is she? She IS the sea, right? So she must have known someone was about to find the Trident and brake all curses, including her one. She just decided it was okay? It really feels like someone decided to suddenly change the world's mythology without giving explanations.

The Compass

This is possibly the most blatant plot hole in the whole saga. Probably the most blatant plot hole I've ever witnessed, and man, I watched all the Harry Potter movies. In Dead Man's Chest, Jack meets Tia Dalma in her "shop" and he tells her he's looking for the Davy Jones' key. She asks him "The compass you bartered from me, it cannot lead you to this?", making another pivotal point of Dead Men Tell No Tales factually senseless.

That man couldn't have given his compass to Jack, because that wasn't his compass.

So either Salazar is lying while telling his tale or they forgot about that line in the second movie. Anyway, let's pretend that line doesn't exist; even if that captain gave Jack his compass in that exact moment, why would it be the key to free Salazar, exactly? How is the compass in any way related to The Devil's Triangle or to Salazar? In the movie, they try to explain it with a sentence: “if you betray it, your greatest fear comes true”. So, is Salazar Jack's greatest fear? I really doesn't seem right, Jack almost didn't remember Salazar when Henry mentioned him. To Jack, he's only a guy he outsmarted decades earlier. Also, Jack technically already gave the compass away, twice: to Elizabeth in Dead Man's Chest, to make her find the chest, and to Beckett in At World's End, when they're negotiating.

That's... That's Just Body Shaming, Mate

Let's talk about her. So, the woman's ugly. It can happen that a woman is ugly. Was it necessary to build an entire scene around some blatant body shaming? This scene wants to mimic the similar scene in Dead Man's Chest: Jack's on an island, running from the main villain, and he's forced to do things he doesn't want to do until someone saves him, then it was Will, now it's Hector.

Except in Dead Man's Chest it was LITERAL CANNIBALISM he was facing, and yet he looked LESS TERRIFIED and DISGUSTED. What's exactly the message here? Lads, is marrying an ugly woman worse than cannibalism? I don't know... that was just bad.

Justice for Hector Barbossa

If you know me (you probably don't, but if you do) then you know about my obsession with Hector Barbossa. I truly believe he's the best written character in the saga, and he's in my top five of the characters I love the most in all media. I watched The Curse of the Black Pearl when I was seven and I am autistic, so I had all the time to develop a literal relationship with these characters in my head. As much as Geoffrey Rush's interpretation was impeccable, as always, it really hurt to watch Hector in this movie. He just doesn't sound like him. First of all, why isn't he on the Queen Anne's Revenge? Why's he letting someone else sail around on his ships? He would've never. Why's he just sitting on a throne and shooting musicians instead of, I don't know... being a pirate? Being a pirate is the only thing that matters to him. He says it at the end of On Stranger Tides, and he even says it in this movie, to the witch. "I'm a pirate. Always will be".

So, why isn't he pirating? What happened to him? And what about the pact with the witch? He made her curse all his enemies; that's honestly the most out-of-character thing he could've done.

Seriously, watch this movie, and then The Curse of the Black Pearl and tell me he sounds like he's the same character. Then there’s his death... was it necessary? And I don't mean if it was necessary to the plot (it wasn't), but the way he died, did it make sense? He takes the sword and sacrifices himself to kill Salazar, but WHY? Salazar was back a mortal. They could've brought him to surface and then shoot him. What was the point of his death, Disney? I will never forgive you.

I would've preferred if they never showed him again. He's alive and living his best life in Tortuga, if you ask me.

How does Carina Smyth exist?

Let's do the maths. Carina Smyth has approximately the same age as Henry Turner, who was born around nine moths after the end of At World's End. At the end of that movie, Barbossa once again stole the Black Pearl (he's iconic we stan a legend), so we have to assume it is during that time (between the At World's End and On Stranger Tides) that he conceives Carina. He stays with this woman during the whole pregnancy, bacause he says he was there when she died. So nine months, at least, right? Except; Jack makes it clear that he and Barbossa met Carina's mom, Margaret, together.

When, exactly, did this happen? It can't be between On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales, because Hector himself says only five years passed between the two, and Carina doesn't look like a five-year-old;

it can't be between At World's End and On Stranger Tides, because we know Jack and Barbossa weren't together, and Hector was too busy losing a leg and planning his revenge by working for the King of England; it can't be during At World's End, because Barbossa was too busy rescuing Jack and then slaying (literally and metaphorically) Beckett's men to save piracy; it can't be during Dead Man's Chest, because he was dead; it can't be during The Curse of the Black Pearl, nor during the ten years before it, because he was... he was a skeleton, I hardly believe he could reproduce, despite what’s written in some fanficions; it can't be before, of course, because Carina would be too old. The only chance, but it's a stretch, is that Hector and Jack met this Margaret Smyth years and years before, and that at a certain point (while he was still busy slaying, losing a leg or planning his revenge), for some reason he decided to come back to her and accidentally had a daughter. That would mean that Jack remembered Margaret Smyth's name DECADES after he met her.

The Post-Credit Scene: What?

WHY'S DAVY JONES BACK? The Trident technically broke all the curses of the sea. He is THE cursed man of the sea. AND HE'S DEAD. The only answer I was able to give me, is that the moment the Trident broke the curses, the curse that said if you stab his heart he dies was also broken, so he technically didn't die, but it makes even less sense, because if the curses just aren't real anymore, then a man shouldn't be able to... carve out his heart and put it in a chest, right? (Which by the way, makes Will Turner being alive senseless as well). Even if so, Davy should've come back as a human.

My conclusion is that this movie should not exist, and we, as a community, should pretend it was never made. Hector is alive. Bye.

Imago

[buggachat]

To be clear, I goddamn hated the finale on first watch. I was withering in my seat. My heart had dropped to my stomach. I had no fucking idea what I was watching in that final scene lmao

and then Adrien said "when Ladybug gave me the rings—" and I was like— wait. LADYBUG? LADYBUG STILL EXISTS?

I THOUGHT THE ENTIRE TIMELINE HAD BEEN REWRITTEN 😭😭😭😭 I THOUGHT LADYBUG AND CHATN OIR DIDNT UFCKING EXIST uNTIL ADRIEN SAID THAT I WAS SO SO SO SCARED

and then I realized, oh wait. This isn't a complete utopian timeline rewrite. This is just a timeskip of a few months and Mme Bustier is just a kickass mayor. In fact, she's only mayor BECAUSE it's still the same timeline. And then I realized, hey, wait, if they didn't rewrite the timeline, then how tf is Emilie casually there with no questions?

And then I realized she was wearing black. And Félix was there. And I remembered Amelie exists.

Basically, I went into the finale chanting to myself "it's okay, it's okay... they probably wont bring Emilie back... they probably won't rewrite the entire timeline permanently.... right? please....", even though I didn't actually expect it to happen, but just because I was terrified that it could. And apparently that fear actually got to me so much that I misinterpreted the episode as being everything I didn't want it to be... when... it actually wasn't that at all

anyway, all of this is to say, everything in the episode happens so fast that it confused and terrified me at first. And when I realized what had happened, my opinion went from "my year is ruined" to "oh. well. okay. kind of disappointing, I guess". And then I kept thinking about it, and the ending, and all that is set up and rewatching the scenes and all the loose ends still in place and.... i realized I loved it?

like, every time I think about this finale, I love it more. every time i rewatch a scene, I get a little obsessed. this episode went from my nightmare to actually really really cool to me, and I'm still kind of reeling from it

Basically, this is why I've been kind of passionately defending the finale— not because I think people who don't like it are """dumb""" or anything, I don't blame people at all for that, and I totally get the confusion. I was confused too. And I know I'm not the only one who went in preparing themselves for the worst, or went in with very specific expectation on what will happen, because this finale has been long awaited for so long. I think everyone was shocked with how it ended. I think most people probably startled at Amelie's face (it's so easy to forget she exists....)

Anyways, I started this post basically as an apology for if I seem too aggressive or defensive about the finale. Because I get it! I get hating it! I get being disappointed or frustrated or confused! Part of why I'm so defensive is because I have all the arguments so ready on the tip of my tongue because I had the very same argument with myself already 😭 So I'm sorry if any of my posts came off as too aggressive and in advance for any future posts that might. I promise promise promise I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for having bad opinions on the finale! I just think this episode is really cool and the fact I related to a lot of the nay-sayers makes it easy to feel so impassioned about it.

But this post is getting off the rails and I'm just gonna let it, because some of my regrets w my participation in fandom is that I find myself chickening out of actually talking about my thoughts on episodes a lot. I get kind of overwhelmed and overthink everything after I've posted it and I'm a shy person. But my inbox is closed and this is the season 5 finale and I want to ramble and ramble so I will allow myself this

Basically, I went in with some very specific expectations for this episode. We all know about the Hawkmoth defeat story. Many of us have read it in fics over and over again, it was teased in Chat Blanc, we all know what we expect, we all know our favorite beats from it.

And what actually happened....... met virtually none of those beats. (For me, at least).

Like, Adrien wasn't there for the final episode. At all. He was completely absent from the confrontation. He never found out his father was Hawkmoth. He got his rings, but he never found out he was a sentimonster. He is living in the dark.

Ladybug confronted Monarch... alone. Which is sad, when so much of the series is dedicated to the partnership of her and Chat Noir. Them against the world....... and Monarch was "defeated" with nary a Chat Noir in sight.

The whole entire "Gabriel is known as a hero" thing. I don't think anybody was expecting that. Absolutely shocking.

The fact Marinette would lie to Adrien like that. The fact she's keeping so much from him. The fact everyone is. SO MANY people in Adrien's life (Marinette, Plagg, Nathalie, Felix, Amelie, Kagami, probably Alya, maybe more I'm not thinking of....) are just... lying to him, now. He is so in the dark. He knows nothing.

But.........

I kind of like that I didn't predict nearly any of this. I like that it caught me off guard. I love how this show just completely baffles me at every turn, how it will present concepts and ideas to me that I've never read a fic about.

In retrospect, Chat Noir being absent from the final battle... makes sense. It actually makes a lot of sense, if I think about it, because... there is only one possible way that could've gone, right? Chat Noir would not be allowed to have the emotional implosion that he would have to have. This is devastating. This is SO devastating. This is the entire shattering of Adrien's entire world we're talking about, and Chat Blanc is the only real way for that to end. Adrien has an emotional implosion in front of Monarch, he gets akumatized, it turns into an emotion explosion, extinction event. The end. We've already seen it.

And........ even if it didn't end that way, even if he managed to avoid akumatization...... how could the finale satisfyingly end on that note? How could it end in any semblance of a "wrapped up" way, at the very start of Adrien's emotional breakdown? It couldn't. I wouldn't WANT it to. In retrospect, Adrien finding out his dad is Monarch and then.... what? The season ends on a close-up of him crying? The season ends with a time-skip to the new school year where they skipped his entire grieving period!? I would HATE that, actually. I would hate that. I thought I wanted it, but I would hate it. I would hate it so so so much.

What's kind of amazing is that the finale ended with Monarch being defeated.... but Adrien still has those realizations to make. He still has those betrayals to come to terms with. There is time for him to make these realizations, for him to come to these conclusions, perhaps one at a time, perhaps in a more controlled environment.... and that gets me far, far more excited for the seasons to come than an episode that tried to wrap it all up in the last 5 minutes.

Also, the reason Adrien didn't go to the final battle was because he feared becoming Chat Blanc. He didn't know the truth to it, didn't understand that literally, yes, that's what would have happened if he was there, even if he hadn't been under a nightmare curse. But he still knew. He still expected it. He willingly chose to sit it out, no matter how much he hated it, because he knew. And there's something kind of powerful to that, I think, of Adrien making a choice that is so unequivocally the Correct choice, even more than he realized. And the strength it took for him to make that decision...... damn.

As for the lies and the Gabriel statue? I... it's upsetting, but it's supposed to be. And I believe it. I absolutely believe it. I 10000% believe Marinette would keep the secret of Monarch's identity to herself to try to save Adrien the pain. I 10000% believe that the population could easily be led to believe a famous billionaire is a hero. I 10000% believe that Adrien would WANT to believe it. I 10000% believe Tomoe would take advantage of it.

And I can't wait to see that illusion crumble.

Also.... this is the beginning of The Lila arc.

And the Lila arc begins on........ Marinette telling the biggest, boldest face lie she ever told. The Lila arc begins on the most extreme city-wide illusion we've ever seen. It begins on such a huge fabrication and....

..... it's Marinette's lie.

............ and Lila knows that it's a lie.

I'm

!!?!?!?!

This is so fucking cool???? The irony here??? the deceit???? All these loose ends, all the possible confrontations, all the ways this could GO. I don't know where the show is taking this, obviously, because nobody ever can predict where this show is going apparently (and I love it for that), but oh my god. I'm imagining all the fics I could read about this. all the fics I could write. all the thoughts and scenarios that this finale has provided me with to daydream about as I go to sleep.

Adrien, going through the motions of life. Looking up to his father as a hero, despite the fact the last time he saw him, Adrien was sobbing, in tears, and cursing his name. Adrien, after all the abuse he was subject to, having to look up at a statue of his father and...... be forced to think that maybe he was wrong about his father. But he's not wrong. He WASN'T wrong. He just THINKS that he is. His father is going to continue to loom over his life in ways I never expected post-hawkmoth. Adrien's relationship with Gabriel has not ended, a new and terrifying and horrible new chapter of it has simply begun, and Adrien is still as manipulated by his father's ghost as he was by his father himself.

THAT'S. WILD!!!

also, Adrien now believes that MONARCH MURDERED HIS FATHER. Chat Noir now believes that his greatest nemesis KILLED HIS FATHER. CHAT NOIR, resident self-sacrificer, believes that HIS FATHER was a HERO who DIED FIGHTING MONARCH. Adrien thinks that maybe he should be more like his father— more like his father who died in battle. This is. Not Good. For Adrien.

And it's Marinette that started this. Well intentioned Marinette, who doesn't really understand the extent of the horrors. Marinette, Adrien's girlfriend, the person he trusts most. She did this.

And, I mean.... god. I totally get how this sucks for a lot of people, because it's objectively upsetting.... but I LOVE lovesquare tension. Season 4 is probably my favorite season for that reason alone (still mulling over if season 5 beat it for me). I love the relationship drama, I love that it's in character drama, I love how it fits everything we know about them sososo well, I love that it's horrible and it's terrible and it's awful and it's all because Marinette loved Adrien too much to want to hurt him.

I was worried no reveal would mean that season 6 would just be... what? adrienette fluff? not that I don't love that, but where's the drama? well. there it is. that's the drama.

I need to stop typing this. I know this is abysmally long and ranty and if you read all of this then I'm sorry. But I wanted to get some of my thoughts out.

But basically, I was expecting a lot of things for the finale.

In my best case scenario, it would somehow, miraculously tie up and address all the loose ends with Adrien's angst and character arc in two episodes.... and then end with me totally satisfied, ready to only half-heartedly watch season 6 like it was just a small dessert after the main course.

And I already described my worst case scenario (my first impression of the episode lmao)

But it wasn't that. I was expecting a series finale, but I got a season finale. And I love season finales. I love how they keep me wanting more. I love how excited I am for season 6, because in both my best and worst case scenarios, I honestly didn't expect to be. I love all the new ideas and thoughts and scenarios swirling around in my brain. And even if season 6 doesn't address some of the things I want addressed, I'm so excited to see the creative content in this fandom that DOES

[chilkookiepal]

Greedy

Pt.1

Pairing - lowkey yandere  Kim Taehyung x workaholic!Reader Kind of co-workers au Genres- yandere, comfort, angst, smut if you hold your breath

Summary ; co-worker Taehyung is the only person who makes reader feel safe in the office, he is the perfect gentleman that she falls in love with but what happens when the very trust you put in him is the one way ticket he will use to test your morals to their uncomfortable limits

note, miss gurl is terrible with summaries like I just end up spilling the entire tea whenever I try to invest into a summary 💀

Anyways This is going to be a mini series ,I pulled this one out of my 1am adrenaline and It feels like a personal attack Chile! Here's part one , I have no clue about the amount of chapters we're going to have

Word count: 900+

+. +. +.

MINORS!!GET OUTTA HERE OR IM CALLING YOUR MUM

he was daring…or unhinged who cares when the difference was all in the subtle shift in his set of behaviors towards you

the subtle way in which his dark eyes did not shy away from raking over every inch of you from head to toe

a once-over so subtle yet so affective on all parts of your being

it was as if his dark eyes knew stuff about you you had never shared with him , like the layer of clothes on your body were non existent in his eyes  , only his eyes in this room full of people

in this huge office where his girlfriend just happens to be the chippery conversationalist eager to form a friendship with you on regular work days

Hana ,she was the office crush

desired by half if not all men in the work building, she was hot , confident,outgoing ,friendly and she knew how to dress for the assets granted by her bloodline 

hell if you were a guy you'd line up as well

she was annoyingly perfect and new to your department ,endorsed by THE Kim Taehyung himself after a full year of running a different department brunch of the company , that is where the two met and formed a relationship.

YOU on the other hand had been acquainted with Taehyung the year before his initial transfer , you were an intern that year…he was your senior at work but on a dunken night you learned that you weren't so far apart in age

back then he was just your wonderful senior , he was always hot but you were never one to swoon over people who had no interest in you

so when did energies take this confusing twist?

you're not exactly sure but you can make out a vivid memory of when Taehyung took interest in the selfies you uploaded on your social media casually recommending you for image related tasks in boardroom meetings , you were pretty popular and adored around the office yourself

you were good at your job and rarely took off days , some would say you were a goodie two shoes and while you were beautiful your ability to handle hard tasks at work over shadowed your feminine value in the office .

you didn't  really know Tae out of his suit and ties while seemed to know a moderate enough about you not in a creepy manner ,he was attentive in a respectful manner that a friendly work senior would

the two of you felt far from friends hence you knew next to nothing about him

many of your male coworkers would try to make you feel less than or just attempt to reduce you to a bimbo in your early days but you had him , he was respectful and he spoke in your advocacy when it was necessary

you never felt ridiculed by him and maybe you began to like him ,

you were pretty obvious , warmed by his gentle gaze and the way he gave you all his attention , at other times you could swear you thought he felt the same and you would idiotically turn down guys to wait for him

for unspoken soft gazes sent your way by Taehyung

you're embarrassed for your pathetic self when you forget to transfer a file that needed to be reviewed over night in the office and have to go back after making it pretty close to home  

in your sweaty glory with your blouse stuck to your skin and your heart hammering in your ears you want to believe that your eyes are on a different level of tripping when you walk past the conference room where a nest of dark long hair hides the face of the woman being pleasured into moonlight and you are ready to tiptoe away when something about the man with his face hidden in the crook of her neck  keeps you rooted

and if you felt sick the next set of moments make you want to vomit projectile

the man raises his head eyebrows scrunched in concentration or pleasure…,damned dark eyes heavy with lone hairs from his usually gelled back jet black hair sticking to his forehead in a dangerous way that you did not need to know of , it's when he stares between himself and the woman in front of him that his lips curl in a heart wrenching smirk inflicting a mortal wound as his eyes meet yours that are getting teary for reasons unknown to you yourself .

….

to be continued.

[k-s-morgan]

I in no way mean to be disrespectful, I hope you and your family are doing well and I’m so sorry for the recent attacks. I’m just ignorant and want to know what would happen if Ukraine surrendered to Russia?

I hope you are safe from bombing and air raids 🙏🙏

Hi! Thank you <3 And don't worry, that's a good question.

What I'm 100% sure would happen in case of Ukraine's surrender, even under the most optimistic scenario:

We'd have to give up the entire country, not just a part of it. Russia always comes back for more. It's been following the same pattern with different countries forever. With Ukraine, it got a pretty decent chunk back in 2014. That land continued to belong to Ukraine on paper only - in reality, it was fully under Russian control, and no one really fought for it any longer. Was Russia satisfied with it? No. It kept preparing and then attacked to overtake even more land. It will never have enough, so to give up now means to acknowledge that the entire Ukraine will cease to exist as a country, whether right away or after Russia starts another war against us.

Ukrainian language, culture, and heritage would be destroyed completely in the coming years. Our history - and the history of the world children are taught - will be re-written. There is a reason why the majority of countries that were a part of USSR speak primarily Russian. Russia keeps carefully erasing other languages and culture, it's been doing it for ages. It's doing it right now on the occupied territories.

Pro-Ukrainian activists and people of note would be persecuted, kidnapped, tortured, and killed. This is also a pattern, it happens everywhere Russia invades. I know many examples personally.

We'd be gradually cut off of the outside world. Like, Russia has banned major fanfiction sites; it's trying to block YouTube and other platforms. The transformation into a semblance of North Korea would be inevitable.

Ukrainians would be treated as third-rate non-humans on their own territory. Again, it's been happening everywhere Russia barges into.

Ukraine would be used as a military base to attack other countries, and Ukrainians would be forced to become Russian soldiers.

As for the rest, it could go in several ways. Maybe Russia would want to show how 'amazing' it is, so it'd turn Kyiv into a second Moscow, creating different well-paid positions and opportunities to suck up to Kyiv residents and to prove its hypocritical benevolence.

On the other hand, it could just as well turn the entire country into a concentration and extermination camp. Russia has been torturing, raping, degrading, and murdering our people everywhere. Stealing their homes, kidnapping children, etc. and etc. I have a huge number of friends, people I know, or their friends who shared their stories, and each of them has been absolutely horrific.

My Mom's colleague, for example, used to live near Bachmut. When Russians came in, they immediately began to hunt down anyone related to the police and the military and killing them or actually demanding ransom for them. They kidnapped this colleague's friends, a married couple, kept them in a dog's kennel, pissed on them, beat them up, and raped the wife repeatedly. At that point, the colleague managed to flee the area, and she has no idea as to what happened to them afterward.

This could very well be the fate of our country in case of our surrender since the world obviously doesn't care and wouldn't bat an eye at the millions suffering and dying, kind of like it's happening now.

So surrendering is dangerous because we might cease to exist, but perhaps we are just prolonging the inevitable. A tiny country with a pathetic level of support cannot win against a giant that has a ton of everything and whose allies keep sending it even more weapons of destruction. Oh, and let's not forget how Russia keeps producing more and more weapons because the US and EU keep selling it the parts it needs for missiles and other stuff, and how Ukraine, after seemingly getting help from these US and EU, is forbidden to use it to strike Russia back.

It's all a joke to everyone but us, so I honestly don't envision a positive outcome at all. In the end, as long as our heroes are determined to defend Ukraine, we'll keep trying to hold on. The future will show what it'll lead us to.

[cerastes]

I’ve gotten asks a while ago about my thoughts on those other games but I can’t find them so here:

Wuthering Waves: It has the same strengths and weaknesses as PGR in relation to Honkai: It wants to be Genshin With Good Gameplay so bad that it forgets about everything else. It’s got good gameplay, the systems, the feel, the Nioh 2-esque way you add monster attacks to your moveset, it’s really fun, with a dash of late PGR goodness, like parries (attacking the enemy in precise moments before they launch specific attacks) and cohesive stamina/economy of action balance. Unfortunately, the writing is just so immensely bland and the characters forgettable beyond their One Quirk + Loving The MC that it’s kinda hard to get attached to anyone or anything if you have any standards above No Standards, and it’s all delivered with the charm and prose of a wiki article. Worst offender is Yangyang, who spends the first 60 minutes of gameplay not shutting up about exposition. Devil May Cry if it was Wikipedia out of ten. Designs are pretty nice. Music is very mid, not bad, just mid, which is disappointing coming from the devs that brought us Narwhal. Overall it’s pretty ok and if gameplay is all you care about and you dig it, you’re going to have a good time.

Zenless Zone Zero: If it’s Hoyo, it’s got production values, and that is true for ZZZ, it looks phenomenal, and frankly, I had a pretty good time playing it, so congratulations to Hoyo for making the first game of theirs I don’t hate. Characters are pretty fun and dynamic, it certainly tries with how not everything is about combat, and delivers a pretty cohesive package, all things considered. Biggest complaint would be that it’s still Hoyo on the wheel, so they are god awful greedy with horrible rates on pulls and expensive top-ups. Second biggest complaint is that the main meat of the gameplay, the combat, is pretty barebones; it does a phenomenal job making it look stylish (and I mean that, it’s not a backhanded compliment) and cool, but combat all boils down to dps racing with very basic gimmicks, even if sometimes entertainingly skill demanding (Soldier’s just frame attacks, Alexandrina’s doll management). Writing is very charming, actually, the plot isn’t trying to be super Deep And Complex off the gate and wants you to get to know (thus, care about) the characters through smaller, simpler lead ins onto their bigger plot, and characters don’t exist entirely to tell you how much they love you and how you are the center of the universe, which is pretty cool. So, yeah, I’m actually saying something positive about a Hoyo game, pretty nice integrated package.

NIKKE: Nikke honestly blew my mind, it looks like a maximum coomer game — and in many ways, it is — but the plot twist is that it’s a charming maximum coomer game with plenty of other things going for it. It’s a game where “mixed bag” is used positively: The setting is as generic and braindead as they come, Things Were Nice Until The Threat Attacked, Only The Hottest Women Can Stop Them (And You Are The Only One That Treats Them Well). But then your starting crew is basically anime girls Ed, Edd, and Eddy, legitimately a really fun crew. Events either are — intentionally — simple but fun and low stakes character studies, or higher stakes storylines that usually land. The music direction is also REALLY good: Normal stages have very utilitarian music that is just a compliment to the sounds of combat, boss themes do a 180 and are full of personality and pretty memorable, Ominous Cross lives rent free in my mind. My only complaints is that I personally dislike models where you NEED multiple copies of a character to truly realize their gameplay potential, and Nikke sadly has this, the skill ceiling is pretty low and it all comes down to a numbers game/dps race, and non-boss enemies are pretty uninspired. In fact, battles are just… Really not fun, and where the game shines, boss battles, are really also not that good either. Honestly, the only thing that kept me from sticking with the game is the low skill ceiling, and in a world where Nikke had tighter gameplay, I still play it. On a more personal note, I sincerely love the designs, first and foremost Scarlet Black Shadow.

[realbubonicsword]

An Analysis of Shelly

I know what you're thinking. "But Toffee, you only ever post Goob-related content! What's with this sudden Shelly craze?"

Now, my one and only favorite character is and always will be Goob, but I have started to take an interest in Shelly's character lately. And hoooo boy, it has been one HELL of a rabbit hole. Plus, I haven't seen anyone else actively point this out, so I'm doing it myself.

Are you ready?

Let's begin.

(analysis below cut)

The first thing about Shelly that struck me as odd in the new update was her design.

Now, there is absolutely nothing bad about her design-I find it very good, actually!-but when I saw that she was a MAIN CHARACTER TOON (I wasn't keeping up with update news), I was shocked. Everything about her design, from the clothing she wears to the colors made her look like a more...out of the way character. A character meant to have one singular purpose, and then be brushed aside and forgotten. The fact that she was one of the main toons was....strange.

I mean, look at her compared to Teagan!

If you knew about Dandy's World, but didn't know about the update, which one would you guess was the main toon?

I found this...interesting.

Then, I looked into her dialogue on the wiki.

Average stuff, for the most part. She didn't really have anything that jumped out at me. In fact, she didn't show too much unique personality at all. The only thing she was really doing was helping others, or occasionally asking for things from others. Nothing else, really.

Although, there was one strange piece of dialogue that caught my eye, that actually showed a hint of what kind of person Shelly is.

Odd, but ok...

And then, I read the description for her twisted form after finally getting 50%....

And it all made sense.

See it yet?

Let me highlight it for you.

"The blatant ignorance of her existence by everyone around her has enraged her."

At first I thought that this had to be an exaggeration. Surely this friendly and helpful toon couldn't just be ignored like tha-

Oh.

They're right.

Every single bit of dialogue she has is either her helping someone or her asking for something. It's sort of like that person at a job you like being around, but you never really get to know. That's Shelly with basically EVERYONE.

Seriously, name ONE genuine friend that she has currently IN THE GAME (not counting Sprout) that she has had an actual conversation with where they bond and get to know each other as people.

The only time she had some sort of conversation was with Teagan, when she mentioned she was doing ok..."sorta-ish". That line in itself is interesting as well, as it shows how she feels about all of this. But still, they don't really seem to be friends.

We're dipping into a bit of headcanon territory here, but I believe it's rooted enough into Canon to include.

Shelly is someone who craves human (or in this case, toon) connection. She wants to be dependable, to be the one people can fall back on when they're feeling down, to be the one people rely on, and she has that, in a sense. However, no matter how much she does for others, no matter how much she helps them and supports them...

People only see her as..someone to ask for help on occasion. Uh oh, I dropped something, better get that fossil girl to help, since she's always so useful. And that is a part of what Shelly wants!

But that's it.

Useful.

A tool to use and then toss aside for the next person until they need her again.

That's all there is to almost every relationship she has.

And part of it is her fault.

You see, Shelly is so focused on helping people that she forgets to take that next step to forge true friendships, and unfortunately, nobody seems to ever catch on that she wants to take that step to forge genuine bonds with others.

She's non-confrontational by nature, and she doesn't want to ruin her perception of being useful, because then people might forget about her entirely, so she waits and hopes that someone will hear something that she will never say herself.

A good example of this is the strange dialogue I mentioned earlier between Shelly and Vee.

Vee asks if she's busy after they're done with going down the elevator. Shelly initially doesn't believe that anyone would ever ask HER of all people to...possibly hang out...and talk..like friends...

So she gets excited. She asks what they're going to do together (although notably phrasing it in a way so it seems like she is offering to help), and...

It was...just moving some supplies. More work. More reasons to be useful. This isn't a bad thing! It means that people care about her! That they have need for her, so they'll never forget about her! It's not like she hoped that someone actually wanted to take time out of their day to hang out with her, nope! She'd never tell Vee any of that! And besides, she's totally fine with this!

So why does it hurt so badly?

Shelly's greatest fear has been happening to her for years, and she refuses to agknowledge it. To her, it could be so much worse if she stopped helping people. As long as she's useful, people will like her. They would never even think to toss her aside and forget about her, right?

Except they have been for a long time now.

When people talk to her, she either has to initiate by asking for something, or they initiate only because they need something from her. She wants to tell them so badly, to ask them why they never seen to pay any attention to her, or attempt to even have a real conversation with her, but she will never be that bold.

Even with the cardboard cutouts on one of the maps, she's hidden in the back-present, but barely noticed by those around her. (this is more obvious in game)

No matter how much she tries, no matter how friendly or helpful or dependable she is, people never seem to see her as a person. Why don't they see her?! She's right here! She's here and she's endlessly waiting for connections that will never come to pass! It's fine though, really!

Keep being friendly, and people will like you more.

Keep being helpful, and people will have a reason to talk to you.

Keep being dependable, and people will have a reason to come back. They won't ever leave you alone. Right..?

Keep being friendly.

Keep being helpful.

Keep being dependable.

(That's all you'll ever be.)

Ironic that a fossils greatest fear is being forgotten.

[hrhmimieucliffe]

⚠️⚠️Another Mimi Rant Incoming (ik, not again) ⚠️⚠️

Love and Deepspace.

I love the game. I've met so many kind and wonderful people within this fandom. But no fandom is without its problems.

If you know me, you know what my page is all about and how I advocate for the inclusion of more Black women in different fandom spaces and consumable media. We are often either forgotten about, used as comedic relief, stereotypes, or as an antagonist who is loud, bitter, has an attitude, etc.

Cool, fine, whatever, over it.

But one thing I will address is the fact that some people in the LADS fandom seem to have forgotten one major thing about the game. Pertaining to the MC.

SHE IS FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE AND DOES NOT HAVE A CANON APPEARANCE.

Yes, I'm aware the devs use a 'base' look for her on some of the cards and in the previews of new battle mechanics/ five-star kindled scenes. But they're not how she canonically looks. She looks that way because Infold is an eastern based company with certain beauty standards, cool, not asking you to suddenly change her. I'm cool with that.

But people in the FANDOM seem to be forgetting that you can customize her yourself. Into an OC or a self insert, it doesn't matter.

So if you know this, why is it that people with a tan or dark MC receive hate and harassment for making fanart of their self-insert MCs who look like the real them with the MLs?

Why is it that as non pale/fair skinned women, we are expected to always sit back and relate to a pale MC who has a personality that usually doesn't match some of us, either? If we can bear it for our entire lives, why is it a problem when we get a *small crumb* of inclusiveness in making the MC customizable to shape her how we want, it's not a problem until someone actually makes fanart of their MC with an ML and that MC is not the same pale/fair-skinned one?

How is that fair? It's like some people deliberately ignore it or are part of the problem. Especially those who make excuses like

"Oh, but they're not a western based company." I know that. Which is why I'm not aiming this rant at Infold themselves.

"Oh, don't bring politics into the game". First of all, how is the existence of dark or tan people politics? It's not "politics" when it involves someone who is part of the usual beauty standard, is it? Second of all, Infold themselves practically brought those said "politics" in by having tan/dark skinned options into the game in the first place.

Do you all see what I'm getting at, here?

This all came about because I'm part of (both) LADS subs on Reddit, and someone recently made a post about how they were attacked on Tiktok by LADS "fans" for her MC being dark in some *FANART* she made of her MC (based on herself) with her favourite ML.

Why can't we just have peace as women who don't conform to the outdated beauty standards? Why does it matter so much if MC is customizable?

What, do people think that as dark or Black women, we're not allowed to have certain interests? We're not allowed to like certain characters, games, movies, shows, etc? Why?

Wake UP and start calling it out when you see it!! You can't claim not to be a part of the "bad part" when you sit back and let it happen which makes those people get comfortable doing it.

Rant over. Have a nice day girls.

[foone]

weird thought: I think if I was a teenager now (or anytime in the last decade or so) I think I would have written (and read!) a lot more fanfic than I did in reality, where I was a teenager in the 90s.

See, I've never been hugely into fanfic. Never had anything against it exactly, but it just wasn't something I was into. But I think that has to do with an interesting combination of how my brain works and what time I was first really getting into being a fan.

I've got a "librarian" brain (I'm literally typing this from within a library, WHERE I WORK). It wants to know things like "what are all the works in this series/by this creator?" and "are they all accessible?" and "what info is available about how it was made?"

I'm the kind of person who will watch a show then go look it up on wikipedia to see how many seasons it has, who made it, if they're still making it, check tvtropes for any more info, etc. Or I hear a song I like by a band I've never heard of, so I go listen to their entire discography while researching them. I just focus on things I'm into that way, you know? I don't half-ass my interest. (this is probably related to my autism, of course)

So what does this have to do with fanfic? like, do I go read some fanfics as part of this process? No, and I think the reason for it is when I specifically first got into fandom, as a teen.

See, this sort of fandom-librarian was harder to do in 1997, you know? You couldn't just pull up the wikipedia for that new show and see how many episodes it had. You also couldn't just listen to the whole discography of that band! Forget Spotify or Google Music, even Napster didn't exist yet.

So my interest in fandom focused a lot more on very basic questions: How many episodes/albums/books/whatever are there? Where can I see/hear them all? Like, I remember getting excited because I found some fan magazine that had a list of all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. Just a list! Not even descriptions or anything. I finally could take that list and see how many I'd seen, so I'd know when I saw them all in late-night reruns.

So I'm focusing on these very basic parts of being a fandom-librarian and I stumble across some fanfic. I'm like "oh, is this a transcript of an episode I haven't seen yet?" and I realize it's not, it's a story written by a fan, and I get a knee-jerk reaction of "that's not helpful to my quest to know and find all the episodes". It's like I am on a quest for the holy grail and I found a fake cup. It's not helpful to me, and at worst it's a distraction from my goal.

And the thing is, I think the fact I had that reaction is entirely due to the time and situation in which I first encountered fanfic. It was in that environment of "I can't even find a list of the episodes, let alone a way to watch them all!" and that anxiety that colored my response to finding fanfic.

I think if I instead was first introduced to fanfic NOW, where those fandom-librarian drives aren't so difficult to fulfill, I'd be way more positive about fanfic. If I could get a list of episodes with a quick google search, and watch them easily on netflix/prime/whatever, I'd be less "THIS DOESN'T HELP! I AM STRUGGLING WITH THE BASICS HERE!" and more "yay, more content for the fandom I'm obsessed with!"

Like I said, I'm not anti-fanfic, I never have been, I just never got into it. From the beginning I had this reaction that was "this is not useful" and I never developed any real interest in it. Which is a shame, honestly. Fanfic is great. It just never became one of my interests, and while I've written it and read it from time to time, I imagine I'd be way more into it if I didn't have the weird reaction to it due to the worries of the time in which I first encountered it.

I don't know how many other people have brains that work anything like mine, but if they exist, I'm glad they're now growing up in a world where they won't have these problems. They can get into fanfic without this weird baggage caused by a lack of information.

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

I was going through my blog for the past few months when SUDDENLY

Truly I love when one of my posts ages like fine wine. Gourmet cheese, even. I have never felt more validated in my entire life XD Literally the only thing that was possibly disproven here was that, as @baldwinboy5ive has pointed out, Yasmine never confirms she actually likes bleunamis and we can't say for sure that that wasn't just Demetri assuming she did ^^;

"Ohhhhh it makes no sense Demetri cheated on Yasmine! He's obsessed with her! He worships her! Like I don't even like the ship but this is how he acts in canon!" Besties how do I explain to you that Demetri is not obsessed with Yasmine, not even a little bit. He's not even obsessed with the idea of her, although he might have been at some point. He SAYS he's obsessed with Yasmine, and he clearly wants the people around him to THINK he's obsessed with Yasmine. But his actions do not remotely indicate that, and never have.

If Demetri was actually obsessed with Yasmine at any point, we would know such things as what her hobbies are, what her hopes and dreams in life are, where she wants to go to college, what kind of job she wants to have, which school subjects she's okay at and which ones she struggles with, or literally like. Anything else that makes her a person. We as the audience don't know any of these things because Demetri, who should know a good chunk of this information if not all of it, has never made a single mention of anything Yasmine-related beyond the most obvious and surface-level details.

Unfortunately, throughout S6, Demetri forgets Yasmine's existence every time she walks offscreen. And even when there would be a natural opportunity to bring her up, i.e. when the kids are talking about college, Demetri does not make a single peep about her or how she factors into his post-high-school plans. Even in S4 and S5, Demetri only brings up Yasmine's existence a couple of times (once when talking to Eli about how karate helped him land a hot girl, and once when trying to give Miguel relationship advice for his own girlfriend). Neither of these are Yasmine-specific--Demetri talks about her like she fills the "girlfriend" role in his life and has no importance in of herself. Eli should get back into karate because karate got Demetri a hot girlfriend! Demetri is justified in giving Miguel girl tips because he has a hot girlfriend! It could literally be anyone and the way Demetri treats her and talks about her wouldn't change.

Moreover, if Demetri was as obsessed with Yasmine as he claims, they would maybe have one (1) conversation that wasn't about Demetri and his shit. Their relationship is all about him, and Yasmine revolving herself around him and his needs. She cares about karate because of him! She cares about nerd shit because of him! He plans their dates and orders food he assumes she will like without her actually indicating she will! And when, pray tell, has Demetri ever embraced, asked about, or indicated even minimal knowledge of Yasmine's interests???

Not. One. Fucking. Time. He barely ever talks about her and we have no proof he knows anything about her. That is literally the farthest thing from obsession. I can tell you as an ex middle school girl who was not immune to intensive and all-consuming crushes, I could probably write biographies for all my objects of affection solely based off of info they had mentioned to me or things I found out secondhand. I retained all of it, and I fixated on it. I talked about their lives nonstop and bored the shit out of all my friends. THAT is obsession. THAT is worship.

"But he calls her queen! He calls her goddess!" These are...not uncommon pet names for people who are dating. And in any case, pet names do not mean shit. Guys will call girls "baby" or "sweetheart" or "honey" and then abuse them and treat them like garbage. If anything, lavish, extra-ass pet names like "my goddess" can actually be used as a subtle manipulation tactic. Because hey, if I'm calling you something that implies I kiss the ground you walk upon, then maybe you won't notice that I never ask a single question or remember a single thing of substance about you, right? If I TALK like you're my whole world and then some, then maybe you won't notice that I am meeting your emotional needs at all because I do not actually know or understand you at all!

Now, I don't think Demetri is truly so much of a piece of shit that he's manipulating Yasmine intentionally. I think the over-the-top pet names are just one more thing he's using to sell the image that he is a Totally Normal Guy Who Is Thrilled To Be With This Hot Girl and cover up the fact he is not actually into or interested in her at all. More on this later.

"But it's because Demetri and Yasmine barely get any screentime! Demetri hasn't brought up any details about Yasmine because it's not relevant to the story!" And let's stop to think about why that is, eh? Demetri doesn't consider his partner to be worth a mention or even a passing thought in regard to...literally everything else in his life. And in S3, S4, and S6, Demetri gets plenty of screentime to maybe like. Say one (1) substantial thing about Yasmine. And the crazy thing is that it could incorporate seamlessly into the "comic relief side guy" role they are often determined to keep Demetri in. Imagine Demetri yapping at karate practice about designer fashion or nail salons or something else Yasmine talks to him about, and Johnny overhears and is like "ha! I knew he was a weird sissyboy!"Only to find out he got into these things by proxy via his incredibly hot girlfriend. Like it would NOT be hard to use this relationship for one-off jokes that would be on-brand for this show's humor, and yet. They don't. Instead of seeming even mildly interested in his girlfriend's existence, the showrunners have Demetri make pop culture references and situational snarky comments.

Now, you're probably wondering why someone like Demetri, who usually unapologetically does what he wants and doesn't give a shit if people don't like it, would initiate and stay in a relationship that he does not actually want to be in. And the reason, to me, is simple: He wants to fit in.

Demetri, from the beginning, has struck me as someone who doesn't have much interest in girls and dating, but wants people to think he does to appear "normal." Admitting he doesn't care about something most teenage boys obsess over would instantly "other" him and make him an even bigger target for bullying, which we know he's been dealing with for some time. And then, when Miguel and Eli both show overt interest in girls and get girlfriends, the pressure only increases. At this point, he's already worried they're going to leave him behind because of karate. The last thing he needs is something to cement to the two best friends embracing traditional masculinity that he's some kind of abnormal freak, and something they need to shed so as not to ALSO be seen as freaks.

(The why of Demetri's disinterest in girls and dating is irrelevant here, but for what it's worth, I think the simplest and most straightforward answer is that he's closeted and gay. If you don't see that, however, it's also possible he's acearospec. OR he just...is not impressed by any of the people he meets as dating prospects and maybe wants to wait until college to find a more meaningful connection with someone than just "they're hot and we have spicy make-out sessions." But in the world of high school boys--especially the toxic masculinity-obsessed world of Cobra Kai--this is NOT something you can ever outright say if you want people to respect you.)

Flash forward to Demetri getting with Yasmine, and attaining the safely unattainable. What is he supposed to do here that won't expose the "otherness" he's been trying to hide all along? He still has no real interest in her--he never did, and now he has to worry that might become apparent. Even when he (presumably) gets to know her, it's clear he's not too engaged or captivated, considering how he never demonstrates knowing any more about her than he did in S1. And he can't break up with her, considering all the unwanted attention that would bring. Because WHY WHY WHY would he give up every sane, NORMAL guy's dream??? Demetri's life may be in a more stable place--Miguel and Eli are his best friends again and he has a wider friend circle on the whole--but for all he knows, the only reason he was able to achieve this kind of happiness was BECAUSE he conformed. He got a hot girlfriend--the apparent ULTIMATE mark of social status in this dudebro-run universe--and if he willingly gives that up, he could lose everything. If he admits he doesn't want a girlfriend just for "having a girlfriend's sake," maybe Miguel and Eli will reject him. Maybe the rest of his friends and support system will, too. After all, so many of the people in Demetri's network are in relationships--Sam, Miguel, Robby, Tory, Eli, Moon. Hell, even his senseis! Johnny is dating Carmen, and Daniel is happily married. Being single by choice would make Demetri the odd one out. And after the abandonment issues he developed in S2, no way in HELL is he doing anything to jeopardize his support network.

And that brings us to Barcelona. Demetri got a significant confidence boost from beating Eli in the flag fight, and is starting to realize that he's more desirable to girls than he thought. Maybe he doesn't have to settle for Yasmine as a cover-up if there are other girls out there who could fill that role. Because that is all it is--a role. We have every reason to believe Demetri doesn't value romantic entanglements with girls for their own sake; to him, they're just a tool for showing off his coolness via "look! I get bitches!" as well as a means of fitting in with his peers.

So here comes Maria, offering Demetri a chance to show off just how cool and baller he is to his peers via giving him the ultimate thing men should strive for in this universe--girl attention. Demetri doesn't need Yasmine anymore. She's thousands of miles away, and there's a girl right in front of him who will help him project the image he wants. Why should he be concerned with a girl he only ever pretended to like to maintain appearances? Hell, maybe there's even some resentment there, if Demetri legitimately felt like he couldn't break up with Yasmine without subjecting himself to social scrutiny.

Add this to Demetri's falling out with Eli, and it gives him even more motivation to dance with Maria. Note how Eli is the one initially checking out Maria--enough so that Demetri slaps him like "you have a girlfriend!" And when Maria comes over, Eli feels like he has to say no out of principle. Demetri sees an opportunity to get under Eli's skin via dancing with a girl he's attracted to, and hey--it works, doesn't it?

Worth noting that Eli is ALSO a pretty shit boyfriend who knows basically nothing about Moon, but unlike Demetri, he has a more clear-cut feeling of "I shouldn't do this because it would be wrong." Demetri, meanwhile, is either so numbed out from the guilt of using Yasmine for his image that he wouldn't have any left to feel for cheating OR he knew what he was doing from the jump, in which case...why the hell would he feel even an iota of guilt for cheating, or hesitance to do so?

I suspect it's the former, since Demetri isn't like...a sociopath. But I do think he has been using Yasmine for quite some time now, whether he actively feels bad about it or not. And that's so clearly and obviously wrong that, in Demetri's mind, it dwarfs any "wrongness" of dancing with someone else when you're technically in a relationship. So might as well have some fun and make Eli mad, right?

"But you're biased because you ship Eli and Demetri!" Bizarrely enough, a lot of the complaints about the cheating plotline are coming from...other Elimetri shippers. At first I thought it was kind of funny (like...can't we just take the win and be happy, guys? Can't we celebrate the fact we've been saying Demetri doesn't give a rat's ass about his performative het relationship, and we were proven correct?), but now it's starting to get on my nerves. I feel like a lot of people in this fandom like Demetri not for what he is, but this like...kooky goofy funny wholesome comic relief guy they've built up in their head. Or people SAY they love his Villain Arc and want him to be a horrible cunt in Part 2, and then they flip tf out and claim he's OOC when he actually DOES do morally questionable things. The Demetri fandom apparently can't handle him being flawed if it's not in like...a safe and sanitized way where he doesn't act like thaaaaaaaat much of a jerk.

And what's even MORE frustrating is the way people are spazzing out over Demetri being flawed in a way that is VERY MUCH supported by what we have seen of his character for the rest of the show. Yes, he WOULD cheat, actually! Yes, it DOES make sense for him to cheat on a woman with another woman as a closeted gay boy (or something else significantly outside the cishet norm)--he has no real investment in his romantic relationships with women! the people around him seem to indicate that "getting chicks" is the ultimate mark of prowess, badassery, and success. Demetri figures "Hey, as long as I'm doing that, it doesn't matter who the fuck the chicks actually are. I just need to meet my Normal Heterosexual Quota before I go do something I actually give a shit about, like playing Dungeon Lord."

All this can be true, by the way, without Demetri being an absolute steaming shitpile of a person. We KNOW he has redeeming traits! He's incredibly loyal to and protective of his friends, and has been especially ride-or-die for Miguel, Eli, and Sam. He loves playing the entertainer, and he clearly eats it up whenever he makes Eli or one of his other friends laugh. He's sweet and loving with his female friends like Moon and Sam (which makes it all the more apparent to me that he...doesn't really care about Yasmine tbh. He has far healthier relationships with his platonic friends than his own partner!). He found it in him to forgive his best friend for some truly heinous shit, and probably would have been content for it all to be water under the bridge if not for the college debacle. Demetri is not unilaterally a bad person because he caved to the pressure to have a girlfriend and then...dealt with it poorly when he realized he didn't actually want her. His flaws and shortcomings are what make him interesting!

So often people see him in this really black and white way that really does his character a disservice. It's always "my Demetri is the bestest kindest gentlest most caring boy in the world and would NEVER cheat!" or "Demetri is absolute TRASH because he cheated on his girlfriend even though Miguel did too and we forgave he ass, and now nothing else about him or the context he did it in matters!" It's like no one wants to engage with his complexity, or stop and put some thought into his motivations and mindset before going "IT'S BAD WRITING BECAUSE I WANTED HIM TO BE A GOOD BOY AND HE'S A GOOD MORAL BOY IN MY HEAD AND THEY MADE HIM AN ASSHOLE >:(" Demetri can deeply love and fight for his platonic friends while treating the women he gets romantically involved with as interchangeable and unimportant. Both can be true. And if that makes you uncomfortable--GOOD! People are complicated, and characters that show that and force audiences to reckon with the multifaceted, messy, and often contradictory aspects of human nature are a positive thing. Especially in the age of purity culture writing characters off as The Epitome of Goodness or Pure Evil, I think approaching character analysis with nuance is more important than ever.

And finally...friends, I'm going to be so real with you for a second. I, the person behind this account, am a woman. I have dated and been in relationships with men. And frankly, it concerns me that it took cheating for a good chunk of this fandom to recognize Demetri is a shit boyfriend. And even now, with pretty infallible proof he's a bad boyfriend, I still see people in denial, saying "he wouldn't fucking do that to Yasmine! It was OOC! Why did they randomly have him decide to treat his girlfriend badly!" Ladies and gentlemen, have we been watching the same show??? He has never ever treated his girlfriend well, swinging back and forth between othering her as this larger-than-life Concept™️ and showing their relationship off like a prize. He uses her as a vessel to project what he wants onto and tell all his problems to. Just because Demetri isn't outright abusive and insulting Yasmine every 5 minutes doesn't mean he isn't toxic as hell. Their relationship has always been all about Demetri, and he only values Yasmine insofar as she can stroke his ego and fit the nebulous "dream girl" mold he's cooked up.

And I am pleading for women who like men to demand better than what Demetri Alexopoulos has to give. I mean, first of all, please get a better gaydar, because I have met an astounding number of irl gay men that remind me of that boy XD So if you meet a guy who's Demetri-coded to an above average degree...definitely double and triple-check he hasn't got you lined up to be his next beard before you get your heart broke ^^;

In all seriousness though, ladies. I know society is always telling us shit like "ohhhhh find a guy who's OBSESSED with you and WORSHIPS you and calls you a QUEEN!", but none of that means jack shit if a man doesn't want to actually learn anything about you and humanize you as more than an ideal. It's hard to be able to have good, thoughtful conversations with someone and be silly and goofy and relaxed and your most authentic self when you're constantly yelling down from the pedestal they put you on ^^; And please, for the love of god!!! I don't care HOW much you like a guy, you get the hell out of there if every single one of your conversations is about him. Romance is meant to be a partnership, not a girl erasing her entire personality and then some to cheer on a boy who does not even know where she's going to fucking college. Know your worth, seek better, demand better. Never settle for some dipshit who forgets about you every time you walk out the room because he called you "golden goddess."

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 🩵 TL;DR I fully support the Demetri cheating plot and hope it will eventually be the wake-up call people need to see this man was NEVER a good boyfriend to Yasmine Nolastname. I'm so happy she finally realized she deserves better than being some gayboy's beard cheerleader coolness trophy, and I wish her the best of luck in pursuing people who actually want to fuck women ♀️

[borderlinereminders]

Losing someone can be so beyond words. Here is some advice for losing a FP but it can probably be applied to losing someone in general!

Some things I like to remind myself are:

The feelings are temporary. They will pass. No matter how crushing they may be, you won't feel like this forever. Sometimes it can help to remember that what we're feeling is temporary because when we forget that and think it's how we're going to feel forever, it can make us feel so hopeless. So here's your reminder. This isn't forever.

You survived without them before, and you can do it again. I promise. It doesn't mean it'll be easy but it can help to have the reminder that we existed before then, and survived before them and we can do both of those things again.

Be kind to yourself. You are valid and you are allowed your emotions.

Healing is not linear. Grief isn't linear. And for a lot of us, when we lose our FP, it is something we need to heal from. It is something we grieve about. And it's okay if we feel ourselves doing better for a bit and then falling back. It doesn't mean you've failed or anything like that.

Some things I do:

Note that these are all personal things I do and aren't rules for how you should cope. I'm sure your own list will differ! But maybe my list will inspire you to think of ideas for your own list!

Focus on myself. Even when it's uncomfortable and I don't want to, I focus on my hobbies. I focus on finding new hobbies. Sometimes I make a list of different hobbies I've never tried, and then I go through it and try them at least once to see if I enjoy something. If not, it gets scratched off. These could be new shows, books, activities, etc.

Feel the emotions. Usually not all at once because it's too much, but my instinct is to bury the emotions. To turn my emotions off entirely ((I'm sure others relate to the turning them off thing. It's like a switch I can use). And it's uncomfortable, but sometimes I force myself to feel them. In bits as I can handle it. Allow yourself time to grieve.

Focus on my DBT skills like Urge Surfing for any urges that arise or Radical Acceptance for accepting my feelings.

Come up with a Crisis Plan in case I start to spiral. Here’s my walk through on that.

I diversified my relationships. I think this is an important thing to do. Even if you have a FP currently. Diversifying your relationships to have other people in your support system can be really good.

This is a personal choice, but I cut off all ties. I used to keep screenshots of messages they wrote assuring me they cared and stuff like that. I deleted all screenshots. I also made sure I couldn't look at their profiles and check on them. I made sure their numbers were deleted and anything else.

I like to do nice things for someone else. It's hard sometimes to get there, but there's a feeling I get when I make someone smile or help someone out that makes me feel a bit lighter. It reminds me that I am valuable as I am. This is actually a part of the ACCEPTS skill if you're interested in reading more about that.

Work on forgiving myself. Maybe you don't feel you need this, and that's valid. But I did. I had to learn to forgive myself for not knowing better, for making mistakes, and I always remind myself that I am human. In connection with this, I work on letting go of any regrets I have. It's easier said than done, I know. It's important for me to remember that I can't change the past, so dwelling on any regrets doesn't help me. What I can do is learn from them and do better.

I know it's hard. But it really does get better. I have lost FP's and thought the entire world was ending and that I would never recover. I still think about them sometimes, but it's such a dull ache that I barely notice it. It might always hurt a little, but it will be manageable.

Here are some other coping ideas.

You can do this.