#tbf a lot of it i can’t post here

[mxaether]

when someone digs out and starts RTing some really old art of yours and it’s just like.

where did you get that?? put that thing back where it came from, so fucking help me — no, wait, WAIT, it’s BROKEN CONTAINMENT COME BACK IVE GOT NEWER ONES. THEYRE PRETTIER. WAIT —

and also the sensation of like, having a spotlight turned on you in a dark room.

[skhardwarevers1]

sorry for saying I was going to do things and even starting them and then disappearing from this website entirely for three days. It will happen again

[machveil]

Simon “Ghost” Riley Fic Recommendations Pt 2🎀✨

this post will contain sfw and nsfw content - nsfw below the cut! please support the writers!! they deserve a lot of love for sharing their fics with us<3 comment, reblog, and like their posts - gonna be real, I’d just binge their blogs because let’s be honest… everything they write goes incredibly hard

SFW:

starting strong with @tojisun! hugs and kisses, have coming home to… Simon? and some subspace

can’t not include @gremlinmodetweeker and their Ghost Icks post

@simonsrileyhusband is up next with Teen!Simon helping Teen!Reader come out to their parents

a fan favourite, @khioneee’s fic about Simon’s instinct to protect

the start to a series that has ruined me, @majinbangus’s fic about Johnny getting you a ‘dog’

from @themotherofhorses, holding Simon while he cries

@simonbrain gave us Simon being good with kids

@chaosandmarigolds was fantastic and wrote Traditional!Simon Riley

@midnight-shadow-cafe, and their big, beautiful brain, served up Closer Than You Think

our lovely @xoxunhinged wrote about Simon taking you out and Simon being clumsy

aah!! @dante-mightdie is serving up some angst with Simon and BlueCollar!Simon Riley

@puff0o0 was so, so sweet and gave us kissing Simon’s gun and Simon with a cold partner

@fishsinsareacknowledged wrote about Simon destressing with you and hugging Simon

love this from @i-love-you-just-the-same, telling Simon “we’re getting married”

hi, dmitriene actually posted this as I was finishing up the masterlist so… it’s fresh!! Simon letting himself rest

and, from @leafavleo’s wonderful blog, push ups with Simon

please make sure to read content warnings (CW) and/or trigger warnings (TW)! your comfort comes first, check the fic before you read it<3

NSFW:

is it really a masterlist if I don’t include @codnasties? thought so, we’re indulging in a little Dom!Ghost taking care of his princess and CNC with Simon

@k6tzie gave us some CoD 🌽!links and Sub!Virgin!Ghost

we’re going to round back to tojisun! I might have a bias for their fics… maybe. listing them off in no particular order: DadBod!Simon Riley, Biker!Simon Riley, Simon bullying into you, Simon Riley’s breeding kink, loving sex, oral fixation, practicing for Simon and a follow up post - toji!!! love you, pookie<3

a GN! and Male!Reader writer, our beloved simonsrileyhusband again! Loser!Simon Riley x Older!Reader, Loser!Virgin!Simon, Loser!Simon Riley, Older!Simon, size kink, and sucking off Simon

hello, hello @simonrillleyyysss, we love Ghost on your period and (tbf it can be read as sfw, but it’s in nsfw just to cover my bases) sucking on Simon’s nipples

@simonriley09, smooches, Inexperienced!Simon Riley x Virgin!Reader and (specifically held off on reblogging just to put it in here first) public sex with Simon

back to simonbrain, Simon’s depraved and Simon and his harmless bird

OKAY. dante-mightdie popped off with Butcher!Simon Riley - can we make that clear? okay, Butcher!Simon Riley being a little gross, Butcher!Simon Riley taking you in the break room, camping with Butcher!Simon Riley, and Butcher!Simon Riley needs a hand

@yawnderu wrote a wonderful sex pollen fic

guess what… another sex pollen fic from @shotmrmiller

@lxvvie made my brain blue screen with grey sweatpants, little Lieutenant Riley, and it’s yours

we all clap and cheer, it’s @evilgwrl with Simon’s too big

@ghouljams… thanking you every day for Cerberus!Ghost

b-b-b- @bi-writes! mwah, Ghost doesn’t take his mask off

another one from @navybrat817 where Simon fucks you with the mask on

did someone say @dmitriene? I did! collaring Simon, Simon being gentle, and rough sex with Simon

big brain moment from @theorist-fox, Simon’s not a stallion in bed and I’m unwell for this

speaking of unwell, @lovelyghst wrote about his Jacob’s ladder

@lvrsrequ3st gave us Simon edges you

@girlyteengirlcore’s overstim with Simon fic, wonderful

Subtle Thirst by @blingblong55, tasty, yummy, scrumptious

@maskedbyghost’s fic where Simon recites his vows is so very good

so, we’re back to majinbangus… oh boy. Simon gets a bath and pulling Simon’s collar, but like, read through the series, I’m begging you

@nighttimealone wrote some humping with Simon, love to see it

“do you think you'll kill for me one day?” from @cherie-doll

@thedivinetexts gave us Simon sharing you with the 141

@khioneee wrote about Simon being too big and Simon’s voice

@beloveds-embrace wrote a little something, too heavy? never

@musouie wrote about how Simon begs

@konigsblog served up some Bull!Simon x Cow!Reader oh my god

and, last but certainly not least, an oral fixation from @fictionismyreality3

[forestleavescat]

Moominvalley: Or Not at All

A long post about Moominvalley through the different seasons. Planning, potential, promises, and outcomes.

This won’t go super far into detail about season 4 but it will talk about a certain outcome as well as handling of characters and relationships. If you don’t want any spoilers or info on the fourth season steer clear

(I’m not the best with titles)

I watched season 4 of moominvalley last night and I was pretty dang disappointed in how certain things were handled. Don’t get me wrong. There was some nice stuff. But it still felt like it was largely missing what made me love the show so much from the start. As well as things I had been looking forward to from the books. Above all else, I feel like their handling of the fandom’s favorite pairing was bad. I can’t even begin to put into words how upset I am since gutsy and by extension moominvalley felt like a company that wouldn’t do this. I want to put my thoughts on paper so to speak. 

It’s insanely disappointing to know that this company has been queerbaiting since day one. This show is a huge comfort to me and it was nice to watch since it helped me feel more at ease with my own sexuality. But now that feeling has been largely reversed because I know that those moments were manufactured to sell the show only for them to drop them by the end. So let’s look at things

Queer coding has existed for a long time. It’s helped creators give hints and nods to a character’s identity or hints of a relationship when times and places don’t exactly allow for it. There are many stories that have queer coding and give this beautiful subtext that those in the community can enjoy. Even though it would remain ambiguous whether a character was gay or two men or women were dating, the coding allowed it to be suggested even when it wasn’t allowed given the time period. 

Queerbaiting is almost the opposite of this. Queerbaiting comes about more from existing in a time or place where it is accepted but instead of giving genuine representation, a person uses the desire to see that representation to sell a product. Moments between characters that are clearly more than friendship only to disappear - often replaced by a hetero pairing. (Tbf the character who was implied to have feelings for someone of the same gender would still be bi or pan but it stings when the idea of something between two people of the same gender was suggested but removed) Queerbaiting has been an extremely frustrating thing to experience in fandom spaces. Series like voltron, sherlock, supernatural, etc. You get invested in these characters. There’s a possibility and every moment that suggests it could be more gets you hooked. Similar to how miraculous viewers became invested in the romance that’s hinted since day one. If you put the time and effort into using that for a story and draw people in with it only to take it away it’s bordering false advertising. It sucks because you spent time caring about it and waiting to see how it would play out. 

I mean just look at this. The moominvalley team did this deliberately. I mean, they included that one scene in the teaser which made it seem like more snufmin. It felt like a taste of what the season would offer but in reality it was one of few crumbs. And I mean crumbs. Because compared to the other seasons there was hardly anything. Their moments didn’t have this underlying feeling that they usually did. Every other season felt like it had underlying feelings to be explored. But here it became hollow. And snufkin took a backseat to a lot of the action this season

 But they definitely knew that the fans were interested in this pairing. It’d be tough to get into the moomins without knowing about this part of the story and community. And they acknowledged this idea of moomin and snufkin multiple times in interviews and qnas. 

And voice actors aren’t the ones who decide but there were more than just vas discussing this.

This series started off with their relationship. Episode one ended with the first mention of snufkin who’d be returning to the valley in the very next episode. That entire second episode gave a clear look into how their relationship would develop throughout the series. Moomin waiting for snufkin longingly while snufkin took his time until showing up felt right all while missing moomintroll. This episode has a sort of sense that there could be something more to them. Especially seeing as moomin is more focused on snufkin than snorkmaiden, his love interest. The following episode gives us this:

And while moomin wants the dragon to be his loyal pet, we know that “And just promise me this, that you'll give me all your kisses Every winter, every summer, every fall”

is referring to somebody other than that. This leaned much heavier into the potential for something beyond friendship between them.

There are the usual moments that could go either way, with focus between them and close contact.

This is more similar to other adaptations where they have a clear, close relationship. But in most of those you could come to love the pairing but you generally know they won’t do something unambiguous. Just the occasional scene that could be read as potentially romantic.

Moominvalley doesn’t strictly stick to this though. It feels similar to the original works where there is something ambiguously there. Then it further implies that there will be something important between them storywise. You get Tooticky saying that there are other lost souls waiting to be heard before the camera cuts to Snufkin leaving the valley alone.

And this didn’t really get fulfilled in any real way. Yet it implies that the future of the series will go in a direction where moomin is the one to help snufkin in some way. That part isn’t even romantic, but it goes to show that they stopped focusing on this important connection between them.

Their relationship in season 2 continues very beautifully. Moomin immediately wants to go make sure snufkin is okay when the volcano’s gonna erupt. There’s an entire conversation that highlights their difference of perspective with loving vs possessing in regards to the ruby and the hobgoblin. Something that is linked to their relationship and things they need to figure out. Then when they have to leave the valley, moomin wonders if he’ll ever see snufkin again. On top of that, he and snorkmaiden have their break up.

Which I want to talk about their relationship a bit. A majority of the episodes that feature them as leads do it with a wedge between them. Their relationships is honestly not great going both ways. They clash and are generally unhappy. And usually moomin has to apologize for something that doesn’t exactly feel is entirely on him. Little My I get. I mean he didn’t think the note would get to mymble but this was still a genuine mess up on his part. But he ended up on a rock in the middle of the sea over the ghost episode. And snorkmaiden spends much of their time making a home together getting angry because he misses his family and hasn’t come to terms with saying goodbye to them. There are times they’re together where he’s selfish and she’s just angry at him. They don’t feel like a happy couple to cheer for. Back in 90s moomins I actually did like them. They were cute. I was a bit divided between that and snufmin because there were these moments that really did count for a lot and had such a wholesome feeling. But moominvalley honestly made me cheer for a break up. Meanwhile, he and snufkin have this relationship that they’re navigating in moominvalley. They don’t argue much even when they have different perspectives. Moomin admires snufkin and in some ways tries to emulate him. But all while still being his own moomin and figuring himself out.

The two are still given parallels in little moments such as zooming in when they take each other’s hands.

So back to season 2 and how it handled snufmin. When moomin leaves the valley we see snufkin dealing with that absence for a change. He begins to understand how moomin feels when he’s gone. While he’s at the moomin house he seems pretty in his element for the most part. He seems happy to play along and give toffle an idea of what the moomin family was like. But in that there are scenes where he’s looking for a note. We see bits of how much he misses moomin and wants to know where his friend has gone and when he’ll be back. This is the beginning of a shift in their relationship. Because snufkin gets to feel what moomin feels like. And when he hears that the moomins are coming his face lights up the way moomintroll’s would.

They’re often portrayed in a way that shows that they’re the most important person to the other. There’s this sort of soft undertone that seems to suggest feelings. And all while their relationships grows and changes and they become all the better for it.

Also there’s this

Season 3!

Season 3 felt like there was a change in direction. I feel at this point that there was deliberate queerbaiting but I also know that there was a shift somewhere around season 3. We got the music cut. The voice actor for moomin changed. There were some adjustments with the writing team. But they still deliberately put in scenes with this duo. And with romantic framing. I could be convinced that season 1 and 2 were made with the idea of them as endgame in some capacity. That the queerbaiting wasn’t from day 1 and that it began here. There were really great moments with them. But it feels like they shoehorn snorkmaiden in as a romantic interest again. A lot of episodes with her here don’t exactly make it explicit but there are some that nail it in. They reunite and it almost feels like they’re back together again without a full conversation. Especially with the final episode. I feel like the narrative would’ve been richer if they hadn’t done that considering the way they’ve been building snufmin up.

But I’ll focus on moomin and snufkin for now. When snufkin sees moomin again moomin goes for the greeting he’s been used to but snufkin gives him a hug. That description alone won’t do it justice though. The music rises as it zooms in on their eyes as they make their way to each other. When snufkin hugs moomin you can see the joy from both of them. It shows how their greetings and by extension their relationship has evolved over the seasons.

And then it cuts to snorkmaiden.

This becomes a notable pattern in season 3. It’ll give a really meaningful scene that pushes snufkin and moomin in a more romantic light only to undercut it by reminding you that snorkmaiden is here. It’s at this point where it feels like they know a ton of fans are here for snufmin. They include the pairing. But they also seem to be reminding us that snorkmaiden is here to stay and in a more romantic way. But there’s still this hope, especially if you recall everything from seasons 1 and 2 and the way that they felt. Especially if you rewatch them right before watching season 3. And the show very clearly uses that and makes it feel like there’s a chance. Makes the viewers hope and stick around to find out.

So let’s go through season 2. Moomin and snufkin make some progress on their relationship. They’ve switched positions now and have more of an idea of how the other feels when one of them leaves. And from there they communicate that. Especially moomin. This is shown to a degree in the episode with the fairgrounds. Again in lonely mountain. There are also little nods here and there about their relationship. But again. Lonely mountain is the big one. It starts with little my getting on moomin’s case for worrying over his ‘precious snufkin’

As usual moominmama also seems to act like she knows there’s something more to his relationship with snufkin. Papa remains oblivious though. There’s a parallel between the parents and snufmin too. But the most well known part is this

look. there’s nothing remotely platonic about this. This is one of those things that someone straight and homophobic could detect. The point where they’d stop arguing ‘they’re just friends’ because there’s no way that’s all. I mean just listen to moomin’s “yes” when snufkin goes to add something. There’s so much hope and feeling in that word that I would love to get my hands on the script to find the voice direction for that. I mean come on

And better yet it ends with an interruption so we know they’ll have a whole heart to heart later. A conversation where they lay out their feelings. The feelings that were clearly present here.

Except they don’t

Anyway the season goes on. Moomin, snufkin, and obligatory third wheel sniff go on a journey to take the sun back after it was stolen. They get it back and the season ends with a beautifully queer scene that promises more to come from these two.

Except that a few minutes prior snorkmaiden calls moomin her soulmate and they have their usual thing. And even after snorkmyden really did get some good content this season.

Look, I know that snorkmyden was probably not on their minds throughout production. There’s a difference between the way they handle snufmin and the way they handle snorkmyden. Both duos get great development in their relationships but while there are a ton of cute moments between snorkmaiden and little my, it never feels like there���s a focus on making that endgame. It feels more like snufmin did in some of the other adaptations - something with cute moments and a genuine bond that could be seen as romantic but it’s highly unlikely it won’t be. I want to say this since this series didn’t feel that way for snufmin. It felt like the first chance of it working out fully. I put a lot of scenes in here showing it but the first two season really show it in a way clips and gifs can’t. There’s just so much there and it’s beautiful and sweet. It feels hopeful for them.

Until season 4. Season 4 feels like the team shrugged off all of it. They step even further away. It’s like season 3 but without any of the scenes between them. Suddenly, you’re looking at scenes between them where they talk and have physical contact but the deeper feelings are completely gone. It’s like the anime. Where you can smile about it and think ‘aw them’ but you know it won’t happen. They heavily lean to snorkmaiden and moomin instead. This is the final season. They know people will watch to see if moomin and snufkin go anywhere romantically. And even if people don’t finish it, they’ve got people paying for memberships just to see if it happens. So it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t happen. Because they’ve secured the views and the money.

I do want to say that when I refer to it as becoming canon I don’t know if they’d call each other boyfriends or even kiss. But I would expect them to acknowledge it as there being something more. Like the series ending with them having a discussion about how much they mean to each other. Something that shows they’ll go into the future and continue to get close. Physical closeness like a hug or one putting his hand on the others or even just leaning against each other. Whatever it would be I’d expect more than this. Because they very clearly built these two to be inseparable in that one required the other to undergo their full arc. The show starts with a promise that their relationship will be close to the story. But then season 4 hardly shows snufkin at all

This is what queerbaiting is. And I never expected it to happen with this series. Not after the team talked about it with care. It’s such a gut punch after waiting for five years to see how it’d turn out. I don’t know if they always intended it to be a way to bring in customers. Maybe it was initially going to work out but they changed it between season 2 and 3. I don’t know. But this. This really is queerbaiting. We live in a time where gay relationships are more accepted. They show up in the media more. We’re finally at a time where this relationship could be made more explicit instead of having this ambiguously romantic subtext. And if someone made a new adaptation of moomins and didn’t do that, that would be perfectly and completely fair and okay. If they didn’t consistently imply that there could and even would be something more. But here they used a very old and well loved pairing to gather fans and make money only to never have it come to fruition. Season 4 of moominvalley felt like companies on july 1st. I literally can’t think of a better comparison for how it feels. The first video starts with the quote “The Spring Tune is where we say that this series is going to be different. That you’re going to have to wait and give it time and just be patient. And wait for the story to unfold.”

And so many people did. But then it turned out like this. And I don’t know if that was always the intention. Because it feels like that interview was suggesting that it would go in that direction. But heck. The whole series up until season 3 felt like it would go in that direction. And then it didn’t.

Gay representation is something that has a huge positive impact on the lgbtq community. Even more so on the world overall since it allows people to see these relationships and shows that it’s okay for people to be gay. And it would be even nicer for a series that started off with that subtext got the full representation now that we’re in more accepting times. And it felt like it would be even more meaningful with recent treatment of gay stories.

Our flag means death was cancelled, shadow and bone, the owl house had its final season drastically shortened, good omens is only getting a single episode for their finale

Many are just getting dropped and in a time where this community needs them more than ever. These are shows that make people feel seen. Shows that bring a feeling of joy and comfort and acceptance. And it’s even worse to see that there’s still queerbaiting now. This could’ve had such a beautiful ending and likely would’ve been loved for many years to come if they committed to what they’d built up all this time. How could someone take a series created by a woman who not only added subtext in her original stories but was bi, and use it to build up a romantic story just to bring in money and then toss all that development away. I don’t know what else to say other than this is queerbaiting. And the gay community deserves better. I really did believe that moominvalley would do better by us.

[yamayuandadu]

1. What are some aspects of Huli Jing (Chinese Fox Spirits) you feel deserve more attention in fictional media featuring them? 2. What are some subtle differences between Chinese stories about them vs Japanese ones that most people don't pick up on?

Tbh I don’t really like huli jing as the default term, not least because there’s an argument to be made that due to the modern metaphorical use it might lead to the misconception that it describes a being who can only be female (tbf, that IS a common misunderstanding already), which is entirely unwarranted, as male fox stories were abundant at least before the Ming and Qing periods (side note: wiktionary incorrectly claims huli jing is specifically a term for the nine-tailed fox which is… deeply puzzling to say the least). It’s not really the most commonly used in academic literature either, huxian seems to be the #1 option and it also has the bonus of being the most common - default, even - designation for foxes in the Qing period already according to Xiaofei Kang. I’m not really sure if huli jing is all that more common than huwang (I really like this one), humei (another favorite; not least because its derivative humei gui is a rare translation of dakini and can probably be directly credited for the development of Dakiniten in Japan), huyao, huguai, hugui, husui and so on. Ultimately given that plain hu is hardly uncommon in stories dealing with supernatural foxes, and the fact that the idea was very much that every single real specimen possesses at least some supernatural powers, I also see no strong reason to avoid simply calling a fox a fox.

Linguistic considerations aside: what’s missing is what was originally at the core. I don’t really get the impression that most modern media with foxes in them does much with the fact that the classic stories often used foxes to represent The Other. And while obviously “Tang period stereotype of a Sogdian” is not exactly a character archetype very relevant today, you’d think that if anything this would overall be a topic of even more interest to modern audiences. While the historical examples typically deal with The Other defined by ethnicity or class, it’s not like the framework can’t be adapted to deal with other matters.

A related but not fully identical aspect of many of the original stories which I personally don’t see much is that the average fox character appears to often be driven by assorted neuroses and paranoid fears, which, similarly, you’d think would if anything be even more interesting to modern audiences. Obviously, this often reflects the anxieties of the original compilers - such as low level officials from humble backgrounds who struggled with navigating the hermetic world of hereditary nobility. However, some of them are universal - it’s not like a sense of alienation is rare today.

I think a lot of media with fox characters is too preoccupied with superficial fox aesthetics (terribly sorry to disappoint everyone but I’m not aware of any historical precedent for “human with fox ears” depictions) over actually exploring who or what did the fox represent. I genuinely can’t stomach any of these tiresome meme posts on here related to that. As for the second question, at least before the Edo period, the Buddhist component is arguably much stronger in fox literature in Japan than in China. While a foreign monk is one of the default human guises of foxes in Chinese literature, this is not quite the same prominence. Meanwhile, in Japan the medieval explosion in the popularity of fox literature can be directly attributed to Buddhism and new ideas about enlightenment, reinterpreted as tied to an innate “Buddha nature” present in all living beings - I wrote about this in more detail in my Tamamizu article some time ago. It’s not accidental that the original version of Tamamo no Mae is basically a weird twist on Sutra of Humane Kings and involves a lengthy debate over esoteric religious matters. As far as I can tell, the kuda-gitsune type “fox or superficially fox-like animal as a familiar” stuff with foxes as agents of sorcerers is limited to Japan too. There is the famous notion of Daoist formulas meant to control ghosts and foxes, but these are more exorcistic in nature. There are specific cases of sorcery scares specifically linked to claims foxes are performing it, though, fwiw (see Cult of the Fox, p. 19).

[wallet6464]

HI Punch out community here is The CarDon image! I had another planned (just ask I’ll probably post it) but I liked this one so much more.

Anyways I’m gunna do some rambling about them so here:

Don and Carmen will always be such a couple to me I don’t think I see it any other way and I have a few headcannons about em

-Don and Carmen frequently go on dates to spas and they both LOVE the mud baths

-carmen does all of dons make up; not because he can’t but because she loves doing it

-as we can kinda tell don will brag about her CONSTANTLY he is so proud of her (and tbf I would be to)

Anyways thanks for reading and and an amazing valentines! I hope you get lots of chocolate!

[beanghostprincess]

I have this thought for quite some time, coming mostly from my twitter and Reddit interactions.

I kinda love the amount of hate I see towards Buggy. People hate how Oda loves this clown and keeps bringing him up, how he is getting more connections to story, how he gets that high bounty. They hate him because he doesn’t have powers, or isn’t smart.

And the fact that so many of them try to cope by putting Mihawk in place of Buggy is incredible. Mihawk is not some lost friend who is having insanely deep contention to shanks, BUGGY IS.

But I guess he’s not “cool and powerful” enough and they don’t get why shanks could be friends with “someone like that” (actual take I saw a lot).

I can’t wait for buggy to be more important just to see everyone lose their minds. If he gets to laugh tale, the best day of my life. And I’m not even that big on Buggy

These takes make me so angry because they're just??? Not true at all??? Most of these opinions come from the general audience and dudebros who don't take the time to analyze Buggy and just accept his character the way other characters see him. Instead of stopping for a second and thinking about why he does what he does and why Oda likes him so much, they just assume he's the lame clown everyone in the OP world thinks he is. Which is, in my opinion, extremely sad. And you don't even have to analyze shit?? Like, okay, I get it. Chapter 1082 is crucial for his character and perhaps if you don't read that you might think he's useless and Oda uses him too much for what he actually does for the story (bullshit, by the way, I'm just trying to find a reasoning behind their shitty takes). But after reading 1082??????????? Okay???? Whatever. Buggy haters get on my nerves, not because they don't like Buggy, but because they don't understand him.

Saying Buggy isn't smart is uhhh. It's just not true. The fact that he's constantly placed next to the biggest, most feared, and strategic pirates in the world just doesn't help him at all to prove that, tbh. I'd be scared af if I had gone through all the things he has, honestly. Like- People- People just ignore Water 7 and the whole thing with Usopp being a coward but wanting to be more than that because of his dream and that being scared doesn't necessarily mean something bad??? I think people just forget entire arcs and scenes to post these things. Buggy might not be the bravest but he understands the pirate world better than anybody and he's genuinely smart, he's just constantly placed in situations that force his character to be scared af (for obvious reasons) and everyone looks down on him for that. Which makes total sense for his character because his whole thing is feeling inferior and being compared to others when he has many talents himself. He isn't dumb, he just has the worst luck in the whole fucking world. Or the best. It sort of depends.

I think he lost his bravery and sense of adventure when he gave up on his dream, but now that he's being more confident in the fact that he could achieve it, we will see him using his full potential. And I am so, so excited for that. The speech he gives in chapter 1082 changed my life and it's easily my favorite chapter from the whole manga. I really, really hope they do something with that. I want him to have all the wonderful scenes he deserves.

And, okay, about the Mihawk thing: I don't agree with that that much? Like, okay, I can see people often making Mishanks relationship more than what it actually is, but tbf, Mihawk is barely a character here because Oda hasn't given him screentime of his own. He's always there for another character (Shanks, Zoro, Cross guild, etc). What we do know about him is that he went all his way to find Shanks and tell him about Luffy?? Like. Okay, babe, I know what you are. What we do know is that Shanks and him have something going on and I would really like to know WHAT exactly. I'm not even a huge Mishanks shipper but I completely understand why people like it. I prefer other ships like Shuggy and Cross Guild but, well, I don't think they use Mihawk to take over Buggy's place. I think they just want Mihawk to have some story because Oda barely gives him one. But I can see where you're coming from, though. I can see a lot of people using Shuggy's dynamic for them sometimes and it bothers me because these two have their own thing and they could easily just?? Ship both things??

People saying they don't understand why Shanks would be friends with somebody like Buggy is so funny to me, because we barely know anything about Shanks either, lmfao. He's the cool and powerful role model of the main character. He's literally the most cliché thing in the whole wide world, shut up. And I absolutely love him and he has wayyy more personality than these types of characters usually have, but I am tired of seeing takes like this as if Buggy wasn't one of the most interesting characters in this manga. But, also, Shanks would just?? Kick these people's asses for this shit. Saying you don't understand why Shanks would be friends with Buggy is just admitting you think the same way people in-world think about him, which is just admitting you don't understand his character. At least people in-world think that way because they don't know Buggy's story. You know Buggy's story. You should know why Shanks is friends with him and cares so much about him. But also?? Even if Buggy truly was a fucking loser with no talent and no dreams. Saying Shanks needs a reason for being friends with him is so dumb. Have you considered that... Sometimes... Most of the time... People don't have a reason for being friends with somebody and you don't need to find a reason for somebody's love?? Like- Perhaps Shanks just fucking loves Buggy because that's his childhood friend and he doesn't care about his abilities or talents. Perhaps he just loves him for who he is. I don't think it's that hard to understand, honestly.

You're not that big on Buggy, but I am. I really am. He's probably getting a tragic ending with Shanks but I do not care. If he ever gets to Laugh Tale or- Or if he ends up believing in himself finally. If he gets closure with him (which he will get, because Oda loves these two too much to leave them without closure). I will be the happiest person in the whole world. My mind and body say "Luffy king of the pirates!!" but my heart cries of happiness every time I think about Buggy being the king. I love him so fucking much.

[ln4wins]

i feel you so much on the struggle, you're really not alone in this. it sucks how i used to really enjoy going on tumblr, looking at stuff connected with the sport and interacting with people. now, it's like operating on a minefield trying not to run into negativity and insane hatred. i feel like forcing myself to scroll here or on twitter is messing with my head so much it could be classified as borderline selfharm

and it sucks so much that 90% of people don't use anti/negative tags, because that means i have to choose between having tons of this shit on my dash and unfollowing a bunch of people, meaning i stop seeing lots of content i do want to see:(

yeh like i think ive also lost a lot of interest in any of the other drivers too, like most of the time my only concern is where lewis and lando are and the others i just dont care enough to check, dont get me wrong im extremely happy when some of them, for example este and yuki this weekend, do well but on the most part im just so much more detached. like it used to literally be part of my morning routine that when i would wake up id come and scroll on tumblr for a bit and it would bring me joy but its just not the same anymore and i really hope that joy comes back.

tbf i can’t really jump into the conversation of not tagging anti posts as i too don’t tag but anyone who i make an anti post about i don’t want their fans following me so either they can suffer reading it or unfollow. but the tagging as anti first last name is so dumb like just don’t bother at that point.

[atopvisenyashill]

Every time I think of Game of Thrones and shipping I go a little bit insane because of the fact that Jon and Dany are supposed to actually love each other according to the script and have ZERO on screen chemistry meanwhile Jon and Sansa have such good on screen chemistry and it amounted to nothing. The thing is that I could get behind either ship under specific circumstances but the show didn’t really offer my preferred circumstances for either and it completely fumbled both in different ways. What do you mean we’re supposed to believe Jon still loved Dany even to the end? What happened here?

okay let’s rant about the show acting.

the thing about kit is he needs a STRONG scene partner to kick it into gear. a lot of the early night’s watch scenes are awkward as shit bc the other guys ARE good but they’re not strong enough (whether that means less confident or less seasoned, take your pick here) to herd him into good acting all the time. when he gets to the wildlings, i think he hits a high point bc he has some strong scene partners - rose leslie, ciaran hinds, Kristofer Hivju, i think they just brought out something a bit deeper in him. i haven’t watched the meli scenes since they aired so i can’t speak to that one yet but i do think this carries into the winterfell story arcs. sophie is just a very good scene partner for him! and tbh, i thinks this even fits with jon’s character a bit - kit is so much better at the Stark Aspects of Jon and of course he is, because imo the overreaching arc of jon snow is him defining himself as a son of house stark in character if not in name. it would have been nice if they cast someone who didn’t need to be herded as much as kit tho aksjdjd

the thing as i see it with emilia is…..i have no fucjing idea how to get a good performance out of that girl aksjdjd like her good moments are even more fleeting & hard to pin down. tbf her writing is also consistently bad from the jump. you know how skai jackson posted her audition tape for gossip girl and she was doing the exact sort of disney channel snarky delivery & it was like well That’s why u didn’t get cast. somehow, emilia got cast (and AIDEN I DONT UNDERSTAND IT HE ISNT GOOD ITS GIVING PREMINGER FROM BARBIE OKAY CONLETH SMOKES HIM IN EVERY SCENE). i think that scene where she puts the egg on the brazier & irri walks in is p solid. the scene where she slaps the fuck out of viserys is solid. the final shot of s6 where she’s on the ships is solid. the battle of the bells scene is excellent. her two big dothraki speeches (i think it’s middle of s6 & the last episode?) are very good. everything else isn’t even like, cringe, it’s straight up bad. i think she had good chemistry with iain jason peter & for those 5 seconds elyes, but there’s also a stark difference in acting there that jars me that doesn’t jar me out of say, the “if we die we die” jonygritte scene. but again, can’t overstate how ass her writing is. they’re relegating her to screeching at people & smirking, they very notoriously use emilia’s body a LOT for sexy tiddy scenes so much that once she blew up as a character she leveraged her new found pull not for more money but to not have to show her boobs anymore. that’s just not an added stressor that kit was dealing with.

anyways so, what happens when you get two actors who aren’t very good at acting on the screen is that you just don’t get a lot of good acting. and when there’s no good writing to speak of, well, that’s how you get the romantic story lines of later game of thrones. the one that actually goes canon is just perplexing in how it’s written and badly acted. the one that stays non canon is well acted but also perplexingly written & it doesn’t even get solid pay off at the end? not even expecting them to kiss, like, there’s no focus on how they’re feeling about the events of the final season they just hug once and dip. not that the canon one gets pay off either skdjd like these are just very stupidly written arcs for these three. the only people that won were jon/tormund truthers and even then they flanderized tormund so bad that it’s like eh.

[qiriex]

Why do DnP have such a large transmasc/lesbian following?

Hi! So I put out a general feeler post about this, and it seems like y’all are interested in a big ass post about Dan and Phil’s relationship with their LGBT audience. Click on the read more for a bit of unhinged analysis.

I have… a lot to say on this matter, and tbf I warned you it would be long. This will mostly be focused on the wlw (specifically lesbian) and transmasc experience with DnP. Before I get into it, I wanna state that I am NOT transmasc. I’m a he/they afab lesbian, but I am in no way talking over any transmascs who have differing experiences. This post will mostly deal with the AFAB experience, as I am not AMAB and can’t speak for our lovely transfems/enbies/cis men! I love you guys, and I would love to hear about your experiences too, though! I’m going to be using as much non-gendered language as I can, however I’m talking about some pretty gendered topics so bear with me. One more thing to note is that when researching this, I found a lot more examples of Dan shouting exact communities out. This is a post about them both, as they are both extremely important to queer communities! It’s just that Dan has generally done more press runs relating solely to his sexuality, so there is more content there. I’m sure I’m missing a lot, though, and if anyone has more Phil focused clips/screenshots I would love to link them here. This is very much a work in progress post, I’m sure I’ll be adding more later and if you have screenshots/clips/anything, my dms and my submissions are open! Okay, done with disclaimers for now, I think. This post will be split up into a few sections: DnP talking about the LGBT community (both pre and coming out), how they empower their wlw following, how they affirm transmasc identities and what they mean to the LGBT community as icons. I would like this post to be free of any in-fighting drama, both from the Phandom and LGBT side of things. We are all awesome! 

Dan and Phil are both queer men who came out after acquiring a large fanbase that was predominantly AFAB (love you transfems and cis dudes going strong btw). However, a community that started out as a common “fangirl” fanbase over the years has shifted into a predominantly LGBT fandom with a disproportionate amount of specifically transmascs and lesbians. The word fangirl was often thrown around as an insult to people like us back in the day, but I think it makes perfect sense that a group of disenfranchised, young, queer AFABs would be drawn to DnP. Both of them were, for obvious in hindsight reasons, vocal supporters of the community. I can’t find an unedited version of the clip, but this clip from 2017 is a great example of that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but not a lot of non-out YouTubers educated their community in the way that Dan does in this clip.  I think sometimes it’s lost to time how bad YouTube used to be, that 2013-2017 time period was peak anti-SJW era. As basic as what he said was, somebody with his level of influence taking the time to educate his audience on queer issues as a presumed straight man was very meaningful. This not only created a safespace for young, queer AFABs but also made their specific audience more saturated with us than your typical “straight” YouTuber of the day. Their audience shares more demographic similarities with someone like Tyler Oakley than someone like Zoella, which makes sense in recent years.

This tweet from Dan from before he was out displays my point perfectly. To my enby ass, things like this meant the world to me and I can imagine it’s much the same for my transmascs out there. Going back to the clip earlier, though, I think that how willing to break gender norms they both were had even more of an effect in attracting transmascs who hadn’t yet fully discovered themselves. This isn’t denying that a lot of transmascs who were already out were drawn to DnP! Most of my Phandom friends were actually transmen back in the day. However, I think in retrospect there’s a huge pipeline from going into the fanbase as a cis person to coming out of it as… not. It makes perfect sense to me that a generation of transmascs would be drawn to and model themselves after the two of them. Going back to the YouTube landscape of the time, even their contemporaries had a much meaner edge that DnP just never had. This unfortunately made them targets of their fellow “vaguely emo relatable YouTuber” scene; people like Shane Dawson and Onision immediately come to mind, at the time they would have been in a similar category but in retrospect are nothing alike. There was an air of cruelty that Dan and Phil never fed into, consistently remaining themselves. I think that as a baby transmasc, people who stayed loyal to their principals even when it wasn’t the cool thing to do was really empowering. In a time when my friends were all fans of LeafyIsHere, Dan and Phil weren’t afraid to be kind. To be soft, even with the context we have now of how scary that really was. After BIG/COTY dropped, it was easy to see why they were great queer role models.  But I’d argue that they’d always been this, even before we knew they were queer.

This one will be a little bit more personal, but I would like to start this section out with a personal anecdote. I grew up in a fairly liberal household, in which I was told being gay was just fine. However, my mother just so happened to use the word ‘lesbian’ as a descriptor for any woman she thought was “unsuitable”. Ugly, boyish, mean, it didn’t matter; to me, lesbian was an unmistakably bad word. I knew that the word didn’t mean that, but intrinsically I had never heard it as something positive until I heard Dan simply shout out the lesbians on a YouNow stream. Simple, right? Four years later, and BIG came out. I identified as a bisexual “who would never actually date a man ahaha” at the time, and it was life changing. Dan and Phil have frequently shouted out their lesbian fanbase over the years to the point where it’s developed into a bit of an inside joke. This is meaningful for a multitude of reasons, one of which being just how demonized not only the word but the group can be. Even when poking gentle fun, neither of them ever lean into hurtful stereotypes. I went to We’re All Doomed last November, and when Dan took his jumpsuit top off the audience screamed. He yelled into the mic “I thought you were all lesbians!”, to which the crowd screamed even louder. You can poke fun at each other without playing into things like the mean lesbian stereotype, for example, and I think it’s things like this which show that they have a genuine appreciation for their lesbian audience. I can only speak from my own experience when I say that I was originally drawn to them for their authenticity even in a hostile environment. I was a closeted lesbain who had grown attached to closeted gay men, because on a level I didn’t understand yet I related to them. It was a parasocial relationship that if I never had, I wouldn’t have come out. This section is a lot less objective than the others, because for me it’s impossible to look at this objectively. A lot of the reasons that transmascs would be drawn to DnP are why lesbians would, especially in a less than LGBT friendly era like the 2010s. They were never afraid to be perceived as weaker than their peers if that meant being kinder, and from a lesbian lens this wasn’t how I modeled my new relationship with gender off of but what I wished the world was like. I grew up with a deep, fundamental fear of men that is still there, but when I would watch actual sunshine Phil Lester and Winnie the Pooh ass Daniel Howell it made me realize that there are people out there who have your back.

I think this is where the conversation turns to now; we are mostly all adults, DnP have been out and proud for four years now. The pair have returned to YouTube (gloriously, might I add) and can talk openly about even the most mundane parts of being queer. Dan has been a very outspoken part of the community, doing a really lovely bit of standup about it. Watch it if you haven’t. I don’t think either of them are obligated to be spokesmen for the community, in a way I think one of the most powerful things they’ve done after BIG/COTY is to just continue living. Watching two queer people thrive how they have is incredibly important. They’re still just as great role models as they have ever been, just with nothing to hide this time. I think now that most of their younger fanbase has grown up, we’ve been very reflective of our past with the Phandom. Certainly not me (lie). It’s not a mystery to me, though, that two groups of closeted AFAB children would attach themselves to figures like DnP. The pair’s content encouraged a level of creativity, of believing in yourself against all odds that was and is unmatched to this day. We can moan about how much of a demonic fanbase we used to be, but the fact is that we turned out alright. People wonder why our fanbase feels like the most healthy parasocial family this side of Tumblr, and that’s because in a way we are. We were raised by these two British dudes to be how we are today; smart, funny and creative. All kids have a rough teenagehood, don’t they? It’s no wonder why queer kids would be drawn to a culture like this, one in which despite everything there is still hope that we will one day grow up to be our honest selves. Dan and Phil did, and so will we.

Thank you if you made it this far! I know this is a bit over sentimental, but they mean a lot to me. They did back in the day, and they definitely do now. Like I said in the beginning, feel free to add on. I would love to hear about this from a transmasc perspective, or any other perspective! I just love talking about these two lol. Love you guys.

[no-thoughts-only-soup]

yall didn’t like the recreyo ending? I definitely think there could have been more but what are your issues with it? I don’t mean this in a neg way btw, just want to hear other perspectives

Ok uhhhhh the reblogs in this post essentially contain most of our opinions but tbf it quickly devolved into “you know when you think about the Recreyo lore it makes no goddamn sense”

https://www.tumblr.com/datssokoolwhat/750599250631704576/i-trust-you-guys-to-take-the-voting-very

But to make a long story as short as possible: while we 100% understand the limitations the crew had (since y’know, suddenly we need to write an ending and yall) we’re mostly just disappointed in that it didn’t use most of its existing lore and instead introduced some last minute, barebones villain with some lore that somehow feels incredibly complex and incredibly confusing and meaningless.

The long story:

In my specific case: it didn’t feel like an ending.

A finale’s job is to be an end. Loose threads get tied up. The plot comes to a conclusion. The characters say goodbye.

And all of this could have happened if they simply gave an in-universe explanation as to why Recreyo can’t continue. I feel like they tried explaining that in part 2 with the entire “giving Ao’s energy back to the tears”, but it’s still way too vague and it doesn’t return in part 3, the actual ending ending (how does fixing the tears prevent them from opening a new portal, if Ai and Ao are the problem why are they a problem now ect) and there could have been a much more simple explanation: Maybe to defeat Ai, the plushies aren’t enough and they need to use the power of their portal creation to do it. Maybe Ao betrays them after defeating Ai and the only way to avoid the choice of which twin to keep empowering, they have to permanently seal the multiverse. Maybe the multiverse can’t be saved, and never opening a portal again after returning home is the best way to keep it from collapsing.

But there is nothing. And thus there is no in-universe explanation as to why the adventure can’t continue. And well “the adventure continues” can work well for some stories, it doesn’t work here, aside from teasing new things on their own channels (which still wouldn’t explain why Recreyo disbands in-universe).

And then there is the plot of the finale itself. Evil twin of former baddy who has up to this point never been mentioned before causes problems for reasons never explained or explored, said baddy is incredibly flat, has like 8 very generic lines and only actually appears in the last episode, where they are quickly defeated. The entirety of part 2 is just crack fixing, and the new lore is incredibly confusing.

All in all, it feels like they wanted too much for the finale, but there wasn’t enough time to properly use it.

I will admit there are a lot of great parts about the finale! The banter and humor is very fun, it’s great to see Ao and her awesome voice actress again (shoutout to Kowaitea), I love part 1 and how it feels everyone is participating in it rather than being it mostly Curt, I love the attempted scenarios, I just love it like Recreyo videos.

It’s fine as a Recreyo video. It just sucks as a story imo lol.

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

Batman and Robin (2009) has got to be the worst comic. The writing was boring and flat, and nobody seemed to have any identifiable character traits. The story overall was vague and jumpy without explanation, while simultaneously having characters narrate things word for word like a children’s book.

For instance, Jason’s explanation for why he suddenly has red hair. I won’t talk about all the unnecessary stuff Morrison did to Jason because there really is no point; it’s obvious he made his own OC, and there are no number or manner of complaints that haven’t already been made to death. The way he explains things in-story is laughable though because of how badly the characters backstories are introduced/explained. Again, narrating it as if the readers had grade-school reading comprehension and wouldn’t catch anything that was not explicitly stated:

I said this in my last post about BftC, but it’s a running gag at this point that anytime somebody tries to convince us Jason sux, they end up adding details to Bruce’s backstory that turn him into even more of an abusive/downright oppressive asshole.

I don’t really religiously worship Judd Winick the way most of fandom does because of his “Jason is wrong” ideology. However, because he kept a lot of Jason’s motivations consistent with his shifting perspectives during his interactions with Branneck and Garzonas to his eventual death and resurrection, he ends up writing Jason in a way that is accurate and follows a natural path, and consequently shows why he has a point and is also right, contrary to his personal beliefs about Jason.

As for Tony Daniel (BftC), while he did try to write Jason as a villain and very evidently misrepresented Jason’s time as robin, he still kept Jason’s ideology relatively consistent with what Winick established during utrh, so albeit it may not have many positive connotations, his writing ultimately still does not come off as repulsive or atrocious, and it’s hard to disagree with Jason regardless if that was the intention.

Mr. Grant Morrison. He really decided to go ham on making his own OC on Jason’s existing foundations. 90% of the time what Jason says sounds nothing like him, it doesn’t sound like any character actually. He doesn’t have any direction. Daniel before him established that yes, just as he was all about practicality in utrh, Jason is not big on symbols/branding and is mostly goal-oriented. Here Jason is suddenly constantly talking about click-bait-y headlines and branding for himself and Scarlet. WHILE saying Batman is just a brand. And again, he isn’t really doing anything remotely villainous. He’s still just a vigilante that kills bad guys, it’s just he seems to be undergoing a weird phase. (Can you blame him? He’s probably died about 3 times now).

Imo it’s a bad idea to write Jason as a villain because he’s fundamentally good even when virtually everything else about him has been changed. They just can’t get rid of that, but they simultaneously have no problem tainting other characters’ backstories in their efforts (which, tbf, All these abusive additions to Bruce’s character is just consistency at this point).

[useless-englandfacts]

Hey, sorry to bother you but did you know that your most recent post about Palestine and Yemen has the reblog feature turned off? I just found that weird 'cause when I went to reblog I couldn't

you don’t have to apologise for bothering us my love! but yes, the reblogs are off and it’s deliberate. lots of people in the notes were angry about my misrepresentation of the houthis which is my fault tbf — it’s a short tumblr post not a news article and so it doesn’t contain all the context and nuance that would be required if you were learning about the air strikes for the first time. and yes, it was a poor choice of words - that’s because i wasn’t focussing on the houthis as perpetrators; i was focussing on the actions and motives of rishi sunak/our government (this is a blog about england after all). and regardless of the morality of the houthis, unauthorised bombing of yemen is… bad! and i don’t think that’s a controversial thing to say!

whilst i did add that clarification on the bottom of the post, the earlier version had already been widely circulated and so i don’t know if many people saw it. when i first made the post i also assumed people would already be familiar with the bombing and with the wider context (including the houthis) because the bombing was headline news here the day after it happened, and the houthi blockade against so-called israel started in mid-december so it’s not new information. i honestly thought people knew who the houthis were. i was wrong!! and again they weren’t supposed to be the focus of the post! i didn’t realise how many people — alarmingly — learned about the entire situation from this blog and whilst i can’t force people to go and engage with ‘proper’ news sources (i know there are issues with media bias regarding israel but that’s not relevant here) i can at least limit the reach of a misleading post, regardless of its intention!!

many of the people arguing in the notes are on the same side too (i.e. that of palestinian liberation), and so i don’t know that it’s helpful to have our energy focussed on something like this if it can be better used elsewhere.

[onpyre]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the One-with-No-Eyes as a Psychopomp

We know that Yellowjackets loves its Greek myths (x/x), so I want to consider the Man-with-No-Eyes as a Psychopomp. I’ve touched on these things a bit from this meta post of mine regarding Tai being a tree, but in light of the most recent episodes, I wanna deep-dive into this enigmatic specter haunting Taissa.

The first time we see the One-with-No-Eyes (outside of the title sequence) is 1.03, The Dollhouse, when Tai is a little girl. It’s her dying grandmother who first sees him, and is horrified by him. This really fits with a Psychopomp guiding the souls of the recently dead, since her grandmother is preparing to transition.

Tai’s grandmother was calm about dying up until she saw him, even telling young Tai earlier that an angel would come for her. Psychopomps can be angels, demons, or any type of spirit in between, and I think it’s significant that the first time Tai sees the Man-with-No-Eyes is in the mirror, since mirrors have mythological associations with portals and spirits.

Mirrors are a sort of liminal object. They show you something everyone else sees but you can’t: yourself.. but in reverse. Looking at yourself is a psychologically loaded phenomenon, and considering Tai’s bifurcated self communicating with her through mirrors, it’s safe to say they reflect a truer version of the world than she’s willing to accept.

In Jungian Psychology, Psychopomps can also represent a guide between the unconscious and conscious realms. And the One-with-No-Eyes certainly bridges the gap between Tai’s conscious self and her unconscious doppelgänger self.

And conscious Tai *does* see him, despite denying the supernatural. We have textual evidence from 1.03, 1.05, and 2.03:

In 1.03, before the audience is introduced to him, Tai sees the the No-Eyed Man. She’s disturbed by something she sees in the forest. We’re shown a shot of what she’s looking at: an empty frame of trees. This is actually a shot from the show’s title sequence, except in the title sequence the Man-with-No-Eyes stands in the middle of the frame. We can safely assume Tai sees him here.

This same thing happens in ep 1.05, Blood Hive. Adult Tai is supposed to fold out of the political race, but looks into the crowd. Her eyes land on an empty space (44:58), and whatever she sees prompts her to double down and stay in the race. When she finishes her speech, at 46:25 she looks back to the same spot in the crowd that gave her courage, and there he is, just like the title sequence: the Man-with-No-Eyes.

In 2.03, Digestif, when Van accidentally wakes Tai from sleepwalking and asks her who the One-with-No-Eyes is, she flashes to the first time she sees him, with her dying grandmother, in the mirror.

The Man-with-No-Eyes is a guide through the mirror, through the looking glass, reflecting her desires and fears, if only Tai would follow. But, tbf, we don’t know what type of entity we’re dealing with. And when Tai’s grandmother sees him she does not take him for an angel. she screams:

Don’t you come over here. Stay away…. don’t let him take me! Don’t let him take my eyes!

This fear of getting your eyes stolen in this inter-generational setting feels very dense to me. It touches on generational trauma and reminds me of myths like Oedipus Rex.

This Figure-with-No-Eyes appears to Tai’s grandmother, who in that instant passes him to bb Tai. And then we see trauma perpetuated with adult Tai and Sammy.

In Oedipus Rex, the family is trying to avoid fate, but they cannot escape. Oedipus is told the truth about killing his father and marrying his mother by the blind prophet Tiresias. and once Oedipus finally “sees” the truth that he’s killed his father and married his mother, he plucks out his own eyes. He cannot unsee the truth, and he has clearer vision once blinded.

Tai, like Oedipus and her grandmother, usually refuses to follow the Man-with-No-Eyes. This is explicitly stated in the most recent episode, 2.03 Digestif:

Van: How do you know where you’re going?

DoppelTai: He shows me.

Van: Who’s “he”?

DoppelTai: The One with No Eyes.

Van: Is that who you always follow?

DoppelTai: Only when she lets me.

Van: Okay there’s a “she” too? Am I “she”?

DoppelTai:

Van: Then who is “she”?

DoppelTai: Taissa.

Van: Then who are you?

Conscious Tai refuses to let herself acknowledge the reality of the woods. Like Oedipus, Tai has hubris surrounding her ability to understand the world. She refuses to believe in the supernatural, despite it being up close and personal, always in her peripheral vision.

But the repressed part of Taissa, the one I call DoppelTai, who only wants her to survive, knows and accepts the Man-with-No-Eyes. This version of Tai is like Oedipus post-blinding. And like Tiresias, the Man-with-No-Eyes is a guide cluing her into the reality of the woods. Offering her not only survival, but power.

I want to point out all the little nods to this No-Eyed Specter surrounding Tai:

there’s the mirrors, which imply looking and reflection, as well as being the first time the One-with-No-Eyes is shown

Tai checking her grandmother’s eye sockets at the funeral to find they’re empty

the eye patches Tai makes Van and herself for the Doomcoming

DoppelTai removing one of the eyes from Sammy’s doll and putting it on her altar

I’ve talked about the mirrors and the grandmother’s fear of her eyes getting stolen, so I want to consider the other bullet points. The eye patches were created after the wolves maul Van, which is Tai’s fault, since DoppelTai stole the bone talisman from Van, the flare gun, and fucked off to the safety of a tree.

Van didn’t get an eye taken, but the eye patches invoke that imagery, and it does feel like some sort of exchange between the One-with-No-Eyes and DoppelTai. He was most certainly leading her in that moment, after conscious Tai fell asleep and let the fire go out.

Just what did she get in the exchange? I don’t know. I assume DoppelTai had been eating dirt on her previous sleepwalking excursions for the minerals (worth noting you might eat dirt for iron deficiency, and we know the forest has a lot of iron in the ground), and maybe like those previous times, it was simply about survival: an exchange for safety from the wolves. But then I think about the most recent episodes, that the One-with-No-Eyes has been leading her to the symbols carved into trees. Could she have been looking for one of these at this time?

This leads me to her adult self and Sammy. Like the wolf incident with Van, adult Tai ends up in a tree at a loved one’s expense. As an adult, it’s her son’s well-being that’s in jeopardy.

DoppelTai ramps up that danger by breaking Sammy’s doll, removing an eye, and adding it to her altar. This invokes the Man-with-No-Eyes, as well as the half vision of Tai and Van’s Doomcoming looks. If Tai’s grandmother was scared of the No-Eyed Man stealing her eyes, what does it mean that Tai takes a proxy of her son’s? He clearly hasn’t been doing great.

If the payoff of this exchange is Tai winning the senate race, is the dog, doll proxy, and (Adam’s?) heart enough? Post-election, Tai is a mess, and her wife’s accident, with Tai drawing the symbol on her palm, says to me that the doll proxy isn't enough.

But enough speculation! Time to wrap this baby up: I view Taissa as a Seer (whereas I see Lottie as more of a Prophet). She has all manner of double vision, whether it’s blinding herself to the situation and her full self, or seeing this guide who leads her. Like Lottie, the supernatural elements in Tai’s life didn’t start in the woods, but the woods have accelerated, or amplified them.

The One-with-No-Eyes is leading her to the symbols, which are powerful if you’re willing to sacrifice a little blood. Whether functioning as a Greek Psychopomp, guiding her through this liminal spiritual landscape of the woods, or as a Jungian Psychopomp, acting as a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms, or something in between, the Man-with-No-Eyes is a player, different than Lottie’s relationship with the woods. And I am *so* looking forward to watching this unfold.

[wallet6464]

omg don't do all of these but i have like a billion faves in the game so::: do u have any headcanons for von kaiser, disco kid, great tiger, don flamenco, bald bull, soda popinski, or super macho man ?? LONG ASS LIST u can choose just one idgaf but i would love to hear about it :3 🩷

I WANNA DO ALL OF THEM NGL!

(Also having a billion faves is so so real)

——————————————————————

Ngl half of these are my favs so this will be really fun. Here are some I can think off:

Von kaiser:

-Since he is a little old for boxing he is thinking of jobs to do alongside being a boxing teacher. Him and king hippo have like little dad meeting about it and try to find the best job for kaiser

-In his prime I imagine he was in the major circuit and has befriended bear hugger (he already knows hondo from hondo's minor circuit days!)

-Loves watching movies to death (will never watch them around anyone tho) his fav genre is probably romcoms .

Disco kid:

-collects Barbies and has the most AMAZING dream house ( plays like little girls with Heike meaning stuff like Ken and Barbie divorce)

-has his whole garage as just a dance studio for him and his dance squad: like full on working disco ball, lights big ass stereo ect ect

-plays bingo with old ladies and then Goes to church with em (THANK YOU CAMI FOR FOR THIS ONE)

Great tiger:

(I have done so many tiger ones but I will do more)

-world's worst cook will blow up the kitchen and has gained a love for his local restaurants because of it!

-hondo took him to Japan he found ddr and that's all he did for a solid week (dw just him not clones)

Hondo is still better then him

-his bed is FULL of plushies and stuffed toys (60% are Tigers) his favourite tiger plush Sleeps right in the middle when he is at work

Don flamenco:

-is addicted to wearing those dad floral shirts you look in his closet and there is at least 15

-goes to THE MOST expensive spa place he likes twice a week (it’s MANDATORY no questions not exceptions)

-definitely vague posts about ppl online

Bald Bull:

-has a lot of creating pastimes as he is low-key scared the press can find stuff out about him from his phone (he not that wrong tbf)

–referencing the last one has gotten really good at clay models and makes little sets (for example a barn with bulls and cows)

-found out that vhs tapes can’t be tracked so watches various shows on those!

Soda popinski:

(OMG I HAVE ALMOST NONE FOR SODA WHAT? TRY MY BEST THO)

-a menace at table football no one has ever won again him

-definitely made bathroom supply potions as a kid (he still would don’t remind him that he can)

-makes the Russian soda company’s millions by existing that man is worth like what 100 mil?

Super Macho Man:

(My phone has his name autocorrected now lol)

-IRL LIVE STREAMER (don’t argue I’m right)

Does it on tik tok and is SOOO obnoxious sometimes definitely asks those dumb street questions

-can’t do basic maths like

“What’s 4 x 7”

Smm: “47”

And then would act as if he was right and start flexing (there is a reason he doesn’t manage his finances lol)

-on those fake reality tv shows so often and he wants to host his own for the wvba (foreshadowing a future post)

——————————————————————

I FINALLY FINISHED EM sorry I responded a bit late but here they are!! Thanks for the ask Buggy!!

(@oohbuggypie )

[shewhowantsmouseears]

Wizard Of Oz Disney AU plotpoints

Unexpected Free Time strikes, and so I decided to do this early.

So before we get started, this isn’t going to be a case of someone flying in from a new world, this is all staying in Oz, so no “it was all a dream” stuff. And there are gunna be skips and gap points because I haven’t gotten this fully fleshed out yet, and not heavily detailed so… ah well. Here we go.

Minnie Mouse is a Munchkin, and Munchkinland kinda sucks

Every day, everyone hands their job to someone else – being Special and Unique and Very Good at something is frowned upon, seen as very rude, why would you WANT to be different???

Minnie wants to learn magic – more specifically, she wants to be a Grand Witch, the ones who govern all of Oz and are the strongest magic-users. She wants to use this power to help people, and to see more of the world than her oppressive and boring Munchkinland

In order to do so, she has to enroll in a special academy all the way in Emerald City, but also needs the Mayor’s permission to do so – which isn’t easy when the Mayor changes every goddamn day

TBF the Mayor, Munchkinland and all of Oz is kinda going through it – The Grand Witch Of The West, Magica De Spell has begun an uprising/invasion/rebellion, attacking other lands, and trying to usurp the Grand Warlock Of The North, Scrooge McDuck. So even people who like Minnie are like “why would you wanna get involved in that?!”

But luckily in a few days they’re expecting a visit from the Grand Witch Of The South, Daisy Duck. Minnie hopes she can leave a good impression on her and maybe get a one-way ticket to Emerald City!

Also she has a dog, Pluto, our Toto

On the day of Daisy’s visit, Minnie keeps trying to meet her but Circumstances prevent it, though she does notice Daisy is Very Tired and kinda moody

That night Minnie sneaks out of her house to try and see Daisy one more time BUT DRAMA

A three-way-witch fight! The Grand Witch Of The East, Magica’s own mother, Evelina, and Daisy are fighting off Magica, lots of hateful accusations being thrown, lots of property damage

Minnie wants to help, and maybe this can prove she’s ready for Emerald City? So she tries some of the magic she’s been practicing in secret, Wind Magic!

It starts small at first but when the other three take notice, suddenly it winds up into a tornado

It picks up an empty house and down goes Evelina

Minnie, of course, is horrified as fuck and begins hysterically sobbing and apologizing, running to the house to see if she can maybe save the squished witch – who is wearing silver slippers

Daisy and Magica seem awfully OK with Evelina being dead

But once she’s close enough, MAGIC HAPPENS and now all of a sudden she’s wearing the slippers, and can’t get them off

Now Magica LOSES HER SHIT and demands the shoes, saying they are meant to be hers, threatening screaming almost crying, but those things ain’t coming off, and Magica finally leaves but not after making some vague warnings

Daisy does her best to comfort Minnie who has been through Some Shit in the last ten minutes, but she can’t get them off either. She suggests the one who can is Scrooge, since his magic is the strongest, and even offers to escort her there

But the shoes ain’t having it, they have a mind of their own, and insist on walking their own path – a golden yellow brick road which forms as Minnie walks

Minnie and Pluto head off, and Minnie swears she can hear a voice in her head thanks to the shoes, but can’t tell who it is

Meanwhile, Magica’s at her Castle, and her Three Familiars offer to snatch Minnie and the slippers, she gives some vague responses

Eventually they come across a scarecrow, but wait, that’s not a scarecrow! It’s a boy tied up to a wooden post with a cloth bad filled with straw stuffed over his head

His name is Mickey and he comes from a local village, he too wants to be a Knight, someone who guards witches and warlocks, but he’s failed the test so many times his schoolyard bullies tied him up like this

He has a short-term memory issue and sucks at testing, and laments he will probably never be able to take the test again since he’s failed it so many times (Brain)

Minnie suggests he come with her, surely if they talk to Scrooge he can give Mickey an exception and he can take the test again

During this entire conversation he’s been stuck with the bag on his head btw, and Minnie’s about to untie him when one of the Three Familiars attacks! The Crow Lady, who commands a small army of crows

Minnie doesn’t want Mickey to get hurt so she intends to shield him with her body, and that’s when the shoes “activate” – whole magical girl transformation sequence – brand new silver look, and she manages to use her wind magic in a more precise way with the “voice” guiding her

As they fight, Mickey frees himself, and he and Minnie get a good first look at each other

Instant dokidokis

But they combine their efforts and send Crow Lady flying, ha ha

They’re off to see the wizard

They arrive at a very technologically advanced city, Mortimer’s there and he hits on Minnie, boo

They meet Ludwig who is fascinated by the silver slippers and invites the two to stay at his place for the night

He shows them his latest project, an android that’s supposed to be as close to a person as possible… but it can also fly and shoot lasers because why not, Ludwig’s a nutter

Then the Next Familiar attacks, Wasp Lady, whose wasp army attacks the city demanding Minnie come out and fight

She does, but during one hit she lands on the button that activates the android, it’s Donald!

Donald and Minnie team up to defeat Wasp Lady, but Donald reveals Minnie “woke him up” before all of his assets could be downloaded. He doesn’t have/understand emotions (Heart), and Ludwig’s out of funding to repair all the stuff that was destroyed during the fight

Minnie suggests maybe Scrooge will give Ludwig funding if they talk to him?

Ludwig is reluctant – once upon a time, Scrooge was Very Cheap and hated to spend even pennies. But he admits ever since Magica’s rebellion he’s been acting super strange and splurging money like there’s no tomorrow

Donald joins the group, we’re off to see the wizard

Check in with Daisy who has been telling Scrooge everything, he’s very cold to her and berates her and even hurts her a little, and Daisy physically cannot make any of this stop for Some Reason

Now they have to pass through a forest/jungle where they get captured by Forest Folk who accuse them of trespassing, but will leave the final judgement for their King

King Goofy isn’t really a king, really, since this isn’t a kingdom, and all the titles are made up, it’s a very silly and lawless land, but since his dad was leader Goofy is expected to be the leader now and make all the big decisions

Everyone’s gunna nutters there too, like Wonderland but with knives

Goofy is too cowardly to make any big decisions, and Minnie suggests maybe if they get Scrooge’s “permission”, he doesn’t have to be King anymore

Attack number three from Flying Monkey Lady, but during this attack it’s revealed Magica used to be adored and revered by the forest folk after she once stopped a deadly forest fire, and they don’t know why everyone hates her now, Flying Monkey calls them all traitors

With Goofy in tow, off to see the wizard

Yay Emerald City! They stop by the Academy, maybe Minnie can enroll after she gets the shoes off? She learns from an instructor that Scrooge and Magica were in the same classes and everything, some people thought of them as friends. Evelina was always interfering in Magica’s school life and was kind of a bitch

Daisy is there to escort them to Scrooge, Donald suddenly grabs her face and goes “Hey did you know you are symmetrically perfect?” because he Does Not Know Social Cues and everyone has to tackle him down to make him stop

Daisy thinks he was hitting on her and she is Very Okay With That

Off they go to see the Wizard. And it turns out he’s kind of a dick? Very condescending and rude and expecting everyone to follow his orders without question.

Can’t get the shoes off, and explains that Minnie has been cursed – it was likely Magica that made Minnie’s wind pick up the Killer House and then cursed the slippers to never come off.

Minnie like “… but she wanted them???” “Yes well Magica’s always been kind of stupid.”

Minnie realizes the voice she’s been hearing in her head/shoes is Scrooge’s! So Something Is Not Adding up

Scrooge says the only way to undo the curse is to kill Magica, so do that and I’ll grant all your wishes

Minnie and the gang DON’T WANT TO COMMIT ACTUAL MURDER WHAT THE FUCK MAN

Well too bad now it’s an imperial order, do it or else

Minnie tries to remain positive, maybe they can just capture Magica or something??? The shoes are leading her on as always

Daisy wants to go with them with Scrooge won’t let her

Off the gang go, and Daisy decides she’ll try to help anyway from the shadows

They encounter the poppy fields, and everyone but Donald falls asleep since, yeah, he’s an android, but he’s frantically trying to wake everyone up

The Three Familiars arrive and scoop up Minnie (and mickey too by accident)

The poppy fields come really alive and try to kill the remaining gang, but Daisy arrives to help them out

She explains she literally can’t tell them everything, but seems very Sure that Minnie and Mickey aren’t in danger

They’ll still go after them anyway obvi

Meanwhile, the mice wake up in Magica’s castle, in a cage, the Three Familiars all gloating and partying woo yeah we did it!!!

Magica arrives and is super pissed off, the fuck did you idiots do, I never said to capture the girl

She sounds all menacing and dangerous, determined to punish the frightened familiars, summoning a huge ton of magic to…

Lock up the fridge “NO DESSERT FOR A WEEK”

The three familiars begin throwing tantrums like small children as Magica goes on AND I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVEN’T BEEN BRUSHING YOUR TEETH, YOUR TOOTHBRUSHES ARE BONE DRY

Minnie and Mickey are...Very confused

Magica explains that while the Three Familiars have the bodies of adults they have the minds of children, cause magic, they very clearly see her as a mother figure

Magica doesn’t let them out now because figures they’ll just go tell Scrooge and he’ll twist it as something evil, and she’s Exhausted

That night the mice sneak out but Minnie’s shoes lead her to a locked-up room that contains an old diary

The shoes Activate again and suddenly she’s walking through memories of Magica’s life!

Evelina was a real bitch indeed, always trying to control Magica’s life like she was some kind of puppet, not letting her have friends or anyone to rely on. She forced Magica to enroll as a Grand Witch just like mom

It wasn’t until the academy days that she met Scrooge and hey Real Friend! Scrooge encouraged her to stand up for herself, and yes Magica did stop that deadly fire and even used her magic to save three badly burnt babes (the familiars)

Years pass and Daisy enrolls, and becomes biffles with Magica, and senses the UST between her and Scrooge even though they definitely deny it

Evelina wants Magica to steal Scrooge’s staff (Every Grand Witch/Warlock has a Grand Conduit for which their greatest magic is stored) but Magica finally has the stones to say no fuck you

Scrooge is the one who made the silver slippers, to be Magica’s Grand Conduit, to encourage Magica to “walk her own path” and there was definitely some crying and cuddling. But they’re not done yet, after they all become Grand he’ll give them to her, promise

But not too long after they become Grand, Evelina has a meeting with Scrooge and suddenly he’s an asshole, giving the slippers to Evelina, and calling Magica all kinds of terrible things

Magica decides fuck this noise and just leaves, but Scrooge and the others framed her for terrible crimes

The memories end and Minnie is just. Sobbing so hard for Magica, she can feel Scrooge’s genuine love for Magica through the shoes

She finds Magica and begs her to come with them to Emerald City, surely they talk they can all sort this out!

Ugh fine, but Magica and the Familiars have to pretend to be prisoners, off they go

They meet up with Donald/Goofy/Pluto/Daisy and explain things but Daisy goes NO FUCK YOU CAN’T COME BACK TO EMERALD CITY!! DO NOT!! And even fights them, but they win and Daisy flees

They go back to Emerald City anyway, and Scrooge wants to know why is Magica alive, Magica wants to know why he’s being an ass, Minnie approaches and just says “look can we just talk”

All the doors shut, Daisy’s there, and that’s when All The Big Reveals Happen

Evelina’s own special magic is Puppet Magic, all she has to do is slip a string into someone and she has total control over them… and she’s been controlling Scrooge and Daisy all this time

She faked her death (she used Minnie’s wind magic as a cover) because she thought Magica was close to figuring something out

But now she can’t let any of them live, not when world domination is so close at hand! So she sends her strings out to try and control all of them, all out brawl, and only Magica and Minnie are left to fight

Magica gets hit with a string, now it’s everyone versus Minnie, and she’s surrounded by strings

Minnie fights them all off as best she can, and realizes her True Magic wasn’t wind at all, but Gravity

She can make things float and crash back down, and make things heavy or light

Kicks ass, takes names

Frees everyone from the strings and ties Evelina up, making the strings so impossibly heavy she can’t get free

With Scrooge back to normal, the slippers can come off easily, emotional reunion, and Magica gets a fancy new silver outfit when she puts on the slippers

Mickey realizes he doesn’t need some test to be a knight, he can protect people all on his own and vows to never let anything like this happen again

Donald realizes he actually does understand emotions, and will spread the word making sure the truth of what happened is known by all

Goofy realizes it’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s better to work as a community than by one person making choices, and wants to have the forest folk work with other lands

Minnie gets to enlist in the academy, and one day take up the mantle that Evelina used to hold

Until then, Scrooge Magica and Daisy will work in unity for that missing piece, and all have great expectations for Minnie

Listen everyone loves Minnie, absolutely everyone, just as it should be

The end