#sorta. in the subtext

[cogneartive]

slightly awkward time slip situation

[brainworms-all-night-long]

> 【Maika】 The Things I Deserve 【Original Song】 GHOST

Alas, the story never changed for the better end It's sad to say The damage done lives in my blood And I walk the way unharmed Maybe another day I get what I deserve

[fukia]

Bruh

[chaotic-neutral-ferret]

Hear me out- Tamaki with wavy/curly hair. just a slight curl, not super curly but obviously not straight. He doesn’t put in tons of products just because he likes them, he has to actually maintain it in a way the other host club members don’t. He can’t leave it air dry, and putting product in and brushing/styling while still wet is a must.

The boys look at him a bit funny when all his hair products get thrown away at the airport and as soon at they get to the hotel in whatever humid place they’re staying, he loses it just a little. It’s humid and his hairs already getting frizzy just from being outside a little, and all his hundreds of dollars worth of products are gone. They probably don’t even sell his products here, he has to special order them at home. Kyoya does his best to calm him, but the whole trip Tamaki feels like shit. He thinks he looks unkempt and messy, and the twins keep poking fun at his frizzy hair.

When they get home he locks himself away in his room until he can get his hair fixed, and only lets Haruhi in to help him. She’s really sympathetic about it, they know how much of a pain in the ass hair can be to maintain. And while Kyoya is his best friend, and is trying to be supportive, he just *doesn’t get it*. Honey and Mori make the twins apologize when Tamaki and Haruhi finally get it all back to normal.

Anyways, I just think he’d be cute with curly hair :)

[lottieurl]

frankly and i'll say it. s2 of arcane sadly made it feel a lot more like she-ra with better animation than adult animation the way s1 did feel

[hopecomesbacktolife]

I don’t have the words to articulate this more fully without getting way too into the contextual plot and subsequently giving away so many spoilers, but I think José Tyler in The Rift by Peter David just saw their future post-transition self as an out and proud trans woman?! good for her honestly ♡

source: this convo José has with Pike on pages 36-37 (in this edition at least) (convo begins w/ “there was a chime at his door..” ends w/ “come on. let’s greet our guests”)

[grimalkinmessor]

Sweets with afofa ♡

We did horror last time, so let's do something a little fluffier this time :3 (It's more hurt/comfort but what can you do with these two really)

AFOFA/???/Sweets

———

Yoichi crouches on the stairs of a decrepit apartment building, hiding half behind the railing as he waits to hear a familiar set of footsteps. He's a little sore from holding his position so long, but there's truly no other way.

He hears a door open somewhere below, and he holds his breath on instinct.

Footsteps, quick and heavy, begin tramping up the stairs towards him. The ones he's been waiting for. Yoichi goes deathly still. He waits ever so patiently until the footsteps are just around the corner—

"BOO!" Yoichi shouts, launching himself out from around the corner in a flurry of white sheets. He finds himself caught around the middle fairly quickly, hefted off the ground and twisted upside down in a quick, inhuman movement.

Yoichi yelps, his sheet falling off and his shirt draping into his face. He looks up at his brother with a pout, hair swaying just a few centimeters off the ground. Takashi smirks down at him. "Nice try."

"You're no fun," Yoichi complains, squirming in Takashi's grasp. Takashi is nineteen now, and he's already unfairly tall—hanging upside down so far off the ground is making Yoichi dizzy. "Put me down!" He flails.

"What are you all dressed up for?" Takashi prods, ignoring Yoichi's request and spinning him in a circle just to make him squeal. "Aren't you getting a little too old for ghost stories?"

"You're never too old for ghost stories," Yoichi proclaims, wiggling harder. "Besides, it's Halloween! I know you didn't forget; it's your favorite holiday."

"I don't have a favorite holiday," Takashi sniffs.

Yoichi gives him a deadpan look, which really isn't as effective as it would be right side up. "Uh huh. Just like you don't have a favorite color."

Takashi's ears turn pink, but he scoffs. He heaves Yoichi up and around, practically flipping him over his arm to set him gently on his feet. Dizzy, Yoichi stumbles and falls onto his butt with a soft 'oof!'. Takashi drops the fallen sheet back over Yoichi's head, deliberately setting the eyeholes backward so Yoichi sputters, blinded. "Espèce de jolie et déraisonnable chose... What exactly was your plan, hm? Scare your one and only brother down the stairs so you can become the sole heir to the Shigaraki fortune?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who gives off Count Olaf vibes," Yoichi retorts, pulling the sheet around so he can stick his tongue out of one of the eyeholes. "I still can't believe you laughed when their Aunt got eaten by leeches."

"It was funny!" Takashi insists indignantly.

Pulling off the sheet, Yoichi shakes his hair out of his eyes and smiles. "Besides, you're too late. My plan has already been enacted!"

Takashi raises an eyebrow at him, watching curiously as Yoichi scrambles to his feet and darts back around the corner of the stairs to retrieve his prize. This building is old and grimey, barely up to maintenance code, but their apartment is the sole one on the top floor, so they have it all to themselves. It's their first real, legally obtained home.

Grinning to himself, Yoichi pokes his head back around the corner and demands, "Okay, close your eyes."

Takashi closes them—

"And no using a metapower to peek!"

He groans, shoving his hands in his coat pockets and scrunching up his nose. Yoichi giggles.

Sidling up in front of his brother, Yoichi peers at him, just to be sure, before stealing one of his hands from his jacket and pushing a plastic handle into it. "Okay, now look."

Takashi opens his eyes, immediately zeroing in on the orange bucket in his hand. His brow knits, and he yanks the bucket close to his face, audibly jostling the candy inside. Eyes snapping up to meet Yoichi's, Takashi demands, "Where did you get this?"

"I went trick-or-treating!" Yoichi bounces on his heels a little, enthused. "I know you've never taken me because it's too dangerous but you always bring home candy for me on Halloween, and I wanted to give you some for once. I tried to get a lot of chocolate because I know you like ch—"

A hand clamps down over his mouth, an arm cinched tight around his waist as his brother hauls him up and practically teleports them into their apartment, slamming the door shut and pressing Yoichi against it. Furious crimson eyes glare down at him, and Yoichi is bewildered, his gut churning with sudden unease. This is...not the reaction he was hoping for.

"I've told you not to go outside without me!" Takashi hisses, his forehead pressed to Yoichi's as he holds Yoichi's thin wrists tightly, like he might try to run. "You know how dangerous it is out there with the political situation the way it is—what if someone saw you? What if they had called the police and I had to come home to an empty house because you got sent to one of the damn camps!?"

"No one saw me!" Yoichi protests, pushing back against the instinctive urge to make himself smaller. Takashi isn't usually one to swear; he's been breaking the habit for the past few years. It's only when he's really angry that it bleeds back into his vocabulary. "I was really careful, and I used a full body costume so no one could see my hair or eyes! I'm not stupid—"

"I beg to differ when you pull stupid shit like this," Takashi snaps back.

Indignant, eyes tearing up, Yoichi rears back and shouts, "I can't do anything! Everything I do is useless and stupid to you! I try to do something nice for you, to give you the same thing you've given me just once, and you can't even—I can't...I can't even..."

Takashi blinks.

Yoichi turns his head away, sniffling. He hates how easily he cries, how any sort of negative emotion has his eyes watering and his throat closing up. It's awful, and just one more thing that makes him difficult to deal with. Takashi says he gets it from their mother.

Yanking his wrists out of Takashi's grip, Yoichi buries his face in his hands, frustrated. "You give me...everything, Takashi. You've always given me everything I could ever need or-or want, but I can't do the same for you and I hate it. I hate that I can't do anything for you, I hate that I just sit here and struggle to even breathe by myself while you're off doing things that are actually important. I just wanted to show you that I can do things! That I can give you things too, because I love you and I don't want you to think that I don't because then you'll just get sick of me one day—"

"Hé, hé—ne pleure pas, trésor," Takashi blurts, dropping to his knees on the floor so he can hold Yoichi's arms again, pulling them away from his face. Brow furrowed, Takashi gently brushes away Yoichi's tears with his thumbs. "Where's all this coming from? Yoichi, you know I could never get sick of you. Hey—look at me."

Yoichi doesn't want to. His surprise has been ruined and now he's made a fool of himself. Takashi doesn't give him much choice, however, because he cups Yoichi's jaw and turns his face to meet his eyes. Takashi searches his face intently, looking a cross between bewildered and amused. He pets his thumb down Yoichi's pulse before drawing him into a hug. "I'll never get sick of you. And I'll never, ever leave you—I promise you that."

"But I'm—" Yoichi starts, a thousand ways to finish that sentence flashing through his mind. Sick. Frail. A burden. Useless. Deadweight.

"My one and only little brother," Takashi interrupts, carding his hand through Yoichi's hair. "My family. Mon coeur. And I don't need anything else from you other than for you to be here; alive, where I can hold you."

Yoichi buries his face in Takashi's shoulder, hands fisting in his brother's thrifted black trench coat. He smells like dying embers and ozone and the most caustic types of sugar. Yoichi closes his eyes but doesn't say anything, unable to quite make himself believe it.

Sighing, Takashi shifts back and plops down on the floor, taking Yoichi with him. Then he hauls the plastic candy bucket between them, the poor orange pumpkin trapped, squished, between their arms.

Rifling through Yoichi's haul, Takashi fishes out a king sized Hershey bar and tears off the top of the wrapper with his teeth. Then, when half the bar is bare, Takashi waves it temptingly in front of Yoichi's sullen face. "Share it with me?"

Yoichi can't help the wobbly smile that tugs at his lips then, rolling his eyes. After a moment, he nods. Takashi snaps the bar in half and hands a piece to Yoichi, still half wrapped around him on the floor. They eat their chocolate together, before dividing the rest up between them as they always do.

It's nice. It's sweet.

"But really, Yoichi. If you do something dumb like that again, I'm going to start locking you in a dog crate before I head to work in the mornings."

....That's...about what he expected.

[gayofthefae]

The way the subtext varies from "I didn't say that/how do I convince you" 'NO! neverrrr' to "okay now that's bullshit and you know it"

mike lying vs mike telling the truth

"You think I'm a monster too."

*high pitched, animated facial expression* "What?!"

vs

"What about us?"

*firm, but quiet. solid eye contact* "What?"

"Yesterday. The way you looked at me. . .you were scared of me."

*head shaking, rapid blinking* "No, no- *scoffs* that's not- that's- that's not true."

vs

"What, you're mad that I didn't talk to you? Seems like you've made it super clear you're not interested in anything I have to say."

*firm, solid eye contact, no stuttering* "That's just not true."

i still can't believe people called finn a bad actor because of this

FINN WOLFHARD??? BAD ACTOR???? PUH LEEZ

MIKE is a bad actor, not finn

[monsterblogging]

"I know JK Rowing is a terrible person but her books are so good-"

You sure about that?

I mean, just for a start, have you taken a good look at her fantasy creatures lately? A whole bunch of them are straight-up based on malicious and dehumanizing stereotypes about actual people.

Remember the werewolves? And being a werewolf was made into a kind of metaphor for having AIDS?

And you know how AIDS was first associated with gay men? And how conservatives back in the day were claiming gay men were preying on children in order to convert them to gayness?

Remember how Fenrir Greyback preyed on children in particular? Yeah, she put that subtext in there. She was an adult in the 90's. She knew damn well what she was doing.

Remember the house elves? Remember how most of them loved to serve and needed to have a home and a master or else they just wouldn't know what to do with themselves?

Did you know that's literally what slavers in the American South said about the Black people they kept enslaved? Go look up the happy slave myth.

Do I even need to get into the goblins and the antisemitic tropes they're based on? No, folkloric goblins were not gold-hoarding bankers waiting for their chance to stab humanity in the back.

"But the characters are so good!"

Are you kidding me?

Most of her characters are pretty one-dimensional, including Harry. Her idea of making a morally complicated character is giving a tragic past to a bully. Numerous characters are little more than stereotypes. (Looking at Fleur right now.) Literally anybody, including you, can easily make dozens of characters just as good, if not better. (It doesn't exactly take a lot of character designing skill to go, "hey, actually, having a sad backstory doesn't make it okay to bully children" or "hey, maybe I should not base a character on the first stereotype that pops into my head.")

"But the rest of the worldbuilding!"

Sorry, but her worldbuilding is just as basic as her characters. Magical castles and secret passages are stock tropes. Magical people who keep their true nature secret from humanity is the premise of pretty much every White Wolf TTRPG. Most of her fantasy creatures are just common European fairy tale and folklore creatures with shitty stereotypes projected onto them.

I'm not saying "basic worldbuilding bad." I'm saying, you could do just as good, if not better, with minimal effort.

Also there's her magical bioessentialism, where only Harry's abusive blood relatives could provide him with supernatural protection from Voldemort. Rowling thus effectively declared that non-biological family isn't quite real family, and that abusive biofamily can give you some essential thing that a loving, supportive family that isn't related to you just can't.

The Hogwarts houses are one of the most insidious elements of her worldbuilding. The idea of being sorted gives you a little dopamine hit because wow now you have a li'l niche where you belong!

But the actual function of the houses and sorting system and the House Cup is teaching children to see each other as rivals, and ensure that the most toxic views of the upper class get passed on to every new batch of kids sorted into Slytherin.

Hogwarts effectively prepares children for a dystopia where magic serves to distract its citizens from how nightmarishly awful it is. Economic inequality is so bad that people like Arthur and Molly Weasley can barely afford to put their kids through school, casual sadism is just an accepted norm in everyday society, and non-humans are second class citizens. Rowling sorta acts like she thinks this is a bad thing with certain lines she gave to Dumbledore, but in the end, her special boy protagonist becomes an auror; IE, a defender of the status quo. So.

If you've never seen it, Lily Simpson's video goes into even more detail on how the worldbuilding of Harry Potter is actually incredibly fucked up, and how it betrays small-minded attitudes on Rowling's part. There's no separating the art from this artist, because Rowling's rotten values pour out of nearly every page.

Yes, there are many things in Harry Potter that evoke feelings and inspire people, but there's absolutely nothing in it that this series has a monopoly on. You can find those same experiences in much, much better media.

[billiewena]

FOUR YEARS SINCE NOV 5TH, 2020, as summed up by Supernatural

past recaps: year one / year two / year three / year four

full context and sources below:

various explanations + resources/sources/extra reading on this year's recap:

balls deep: misha collins says the quiet part out loud at Cross Roads 8 Supernatural Convention, saying "if the CW wasn't so homophobic dean and cas would've been balls deep for sure" at a con (x) (x) (x)

garthbenny canon: supernatural actors DJ Qualls (who played hunter-turned-werewolf Garth Fitzgerald) and Ty Olsson (who played the vampire Benny Lafitte) reveal they're married, delighting crack shippers like myself everywhere (x)

spn spooky picture book: official supernatural children's picture book is released, retconning things like john winchester as a happy father figure and castiel being their cowardly childhood friend who sorta hangs around (x) (x)

boop button: tumblr introduces a feature people enjoy for once for april fool's day and halloween and allows users to boop each other, spn bloggers re-awake like sleeper agents to use it in full force (x) (x)

bedlund speaks on destiel: former spn writer ben edlund goes on a tweet fest replying to fans, talking about destiel multiple times including this profound tweet (x)

clear text, not subtext: jensen speaks out again on the confession at Purcon 8, this time taking a more open stance on how the relationship was textual, his take on dean's feelings about cas's feelings, and how the scene with cas deserved a resolution (x)

bury your gays: famed author chuck tingle (known for his plethora of highly specific and delightfully inclusive, if strange, indie erotica novels) publishes his second mainstream horror novel, inspired by TV network studios' infamous history of censoring LGBT relationships and openly killing off queer characters. In a non-subtle nod to supernatural fans, the main character is named misha. (sidenote: did end up reading this and this book is actually really good commentary on the industry in general and really good, 10/10 recommend) (x) also someone got the book signed by misha, to further break the fourth wall (x)

tracker: jensen ackles begins starring in a CBS show where he is basically csoplaying dean winchester, with the show featuring many non-subtle spn references (i.e. him pretending to almost get in an impala before going to his truck, characters wearing spn necklaces, etc.) (x) (x) (x) (special shout-out to clarice @youre-only-gay-once for expertly tracking the tracker show and these easter eggs, highly recommend their tag for their show)

cw's walker cancelled: fans rejoiced upon hearing the cancellation news for jared's post-supernatural show, walker, a remake of "walker texas ranger." in addition to generally being a copaganda show for the notoriously racist texas rangers, jared's inspiration for the show's direction caused much concern. the actor himself said the show was inspired by the US border crisis, not by the immigrant families affected by the separation and internment, but instead wanting exploring the POV of the law enforcement agents working at the border and the moral dilemmas they had to face (x)

pro-destiel Wonder Woman: Lynda Carter (aka the iconic and beloved original actress for Wonder Woman, not the z*onist one) says she could "go for some Destiel" when promoting #GeeksandNerdsforHarrisWalz and Misha's involvement (x) the rest of the spn cast and original Showrunner Kripke were also a big part of this event

chili's backfire: the chain restaurant chili's drags destiel while interacting with 9-1-1 bucktommy shippers on twitter, immediately gets backfire. notably, their stock takes a dip the next day. coincidence? maybe so, maybe not (x) (x)

samgirl voting fraud: "who is the gayest spn character" tumblr poll surprisingly gets heated, with a blogger straight-up admitting they used a bot on the "castiel vs. sam" poll to rig the poll in sam's favor, which they apparently also did for w*ncest in another poll in the past, and posting a guide on how anyone could do the same. luckily democracy wins in this one instance and castiel prevails anyways, leading to an also contested "castiel vs. charlie bradbury" round (x) (x)

pink pony jarpad: jared is spotted at lesbian pop star chappell roan's set at a festival, un-likely place for him to be (x) also may have been one of the "boring" people called out by chappell? (x)

pro-kamala castiel: in a last-ditch effort to get out the vote, misha uses the power of castiel photo ops to campaign for harris-walz and even shouts-out destiel. I feel depressed writing this sentence, if you've made it this long in your read and you're in the states I hope you're doing alright! maybe by the time I wake up things will be a little different though. (x)

[noxtivagus]

don't mind me just dumping in tumblr a lot 🫶🏼

[whentheynameyoujoy]

Yeah, honestly, this. It feels like the show took a look at rape victim no. 1, then rape victim no. 2, and decided that if they didn't like being with their rapists, then having what so far seems to be consensual sex with each other would be the height of hypocrisy.

Criston Cole is a knight of common birth in a medieval, feudalist world who rose to the highest position a knight could hold in the realm, who was pressured into sex with the member of the royal family directly responsible for his position as Kingsguard, resulting in him almost ending his life out of guilt for breaking his vow.

Alicent Hightower is a grown up child bride to an older king who was forced to perform her duties no matter the hour, who visibly disassociated during the act, who never had the luxury of thinking of her own desires at any point in her life, who birthed and raised her babies while still a child herself.

I would ask this show to explain how these two individuals overcame their sexual trauma and ingrained beliefs about duty and sex to start an extremely active sexual relationship but I know deep down that this is as far as the writers want to explore these characters in relation to this pairing:

[flowersintheimpala69]

Wincest subtext is so funny and if u rlly start looking u see it EVERYWHERE. Like wym each time they were separated they immediately find a romantic partner as if they’re replacing the other while they’re apart (dean with Lisa, Sam with ruby and Amelia)

The siren in season 4 where the siren is suppose to take form of what the victim most desires and for dean it takes form of basically Sam if he was more adoring of dean (which could be platonic but. Like all the other siren mirages were about sexual attraction)

The OBSESSION dean seems to have with Sam’s sex life in season 1. Like that’s not normal Dean. Why r u so obsessed with who ur bro is dicking down.

The way Dean left Lisa (the woman he loves and sorta built a life with) cuz Sam came back???

They’re semi-canonically/implied SOULMATES which could be platonic but like. cmon.

The finale isn’t even subtext like they share a heaven?? Their happy conclusion is being together cuz that’s what they want more than anything??? Dean’s final death scene where they press their heads to eachother. Like. Guys. Ur incest is showing.

^out of context the way dean looks at Sam here is so obviously charged with adoration that goes beyond brotherly.

This could all be seen as like a rlly strong platonic connection and I’m not saying u have to ship wincest but I just get a laugh out of the fact the writers inadvertently made strong incest undertones and then had an “incest wins” ending

[open-sketchbook]

my girlfriend is asking for where she can find your written works, she really likes the one post you made about your mindstate wandering w/r/t making porn stories and she'd love to support you & read your stories

Sure!

I write my (public) fiction on the website Sufficient Velocity, a sci-fi forum. Most of them are in the form of 'quests', interactive stories; my day job is an independent tabletop roleplaying game designer, so the two things go hand in hand.

I unfortunately am both very busy and kind of a mess mentally, so fiction gets picked up and dropped a lot, and I write less than ever these days due to the shambles that my life has become.

For my quests, the stuff I'm proudest of is...

Castles of Steel, a longrunning (though currently on hiatus) story set in an alternate world much like our own, but with radically different gender politics. It's about the first woman in the navy of a country a lot like 1910s Imperial Japan, and more generally about how state power and imperialism entangles itself with and recoups social progress.

A Splinter in your Mind, a retelling of the Matrix with new characters and reimagined twists and worldbuilding. It makes the trans subtext into trans dommetext, and I feel its some of my cleverest writing.

Suffer Not, and especially its sequel The Witch Lives. Suffer Not is a Warhammer 40,000 fic about an Inquisitor who abuses her powers to actually make people's lives better, and is the story of her slowly realizing it is not enough. The Witch Lives takes place ten years later, following the grown up psyker the Inquisitor adopted, and focuses much more on faith, history, and the little people.

The Spider-Liv Trilogy started as a silly and honestly kind of bad extreme-divergence spiderman AU, but its sequel The Amazing Arachne is, I think, genuinely really good, because it's about what happens when a superhero gets hurt and then doesn't get better.

I've managed to properly publish two pieces of writing, as in you can get them in book form, and I'm still really proud of both.

Whispers from the Deep is an adaptation of the quest that defined the setting of my roleplaying game Flying Circus. It's about a young woman who steals a plane and runs away from her abuser with her boyfriend, and then has to take up life as an aerial mercenary in a 1920s-themed post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Also, she's a fish person and her village is a Cthulhu cult!

Lieutenant Fusilier in the Farthest Reaches is a pastiche of the Richard Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell, moving the setting from the Napoleonic Wars to a bizarre future world where sentient, cheerfully productive robots were invented in the early 19th century and promptly took all the jobs, elevating all of humanity to the gentry and then to the stars. It's about a redcoated robot soldier who uses her immortality to save up and buy a commission in the Army of Great Britain and Beyond, a position normally occupied exclusively by humans, and then facing the fallout of her decision and the life choices leading to it as her first deployment spirals out of control. It's also, sorta, a parody of Star Trek; the Galactic Concert is a mechanized, Regency-themed Federation, and the back half of the book is basically about how the problems of a world cannot be solved by an away team of well-meaning people with stun pistols.

[allovesthings]

Outsiders (2003) in a nutshell:

Dick: Donna is dead my entire life is sorta falling apart and I'm going to isolate myself and never be on a team again because of my grief.

Roy:

Also Roy: Here is our emotional support team that you will get attached to because you not getting attached to a team is kinda laughable.

Also: ✨ homoerotic subtext ✨

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

i think both the series itself and the fandom were too quick to forget that the nightwings had an elaborate torture dungeon where they would subject rainwings to inhumane and brutal "experiments" in the name of research, all while justifying it because they believed that rainwings were inferior. it's not even subtext like this entire plot is right in your face for two books and you get to see how terrible it is. some of the prisoners starved themselves for possibly months so that they can finally escape through death. yet nobody after tds mentions it so we just sorta brush this plot point to the side i guess

.