#tbh it's complicated to answer a lot of this when I'm actually working with so many characters I don't do stuff with in P1 and P2

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

I’ve been a lurker for a little bit and I love your stuff, could we pretty please get some Headcanons for Charon or Gob. I’m on my knees over here they have like no fanfic or content 😭

What a coincidence, I literally just posted headcanons for Gob here (NSFW), and our favorite bouncer is next. I also have long-form works for both in the pipe, but the Charon piece already has some serious work done on it.

Charon's writing frustrates me endlessly tbh. He's so intriguing (and fuckable, obviously), but there's so little there in the canon to answer the questions you naturally have about him. So, I may be taking a few liberties here.

Charon (Fallout 3) NSFW Headcanons

I firmly believe he's prewar, and I think he's been enslaved/"under contract" since he became a ghoul. Regardless of how the whole contract thing works, he has the same issue as Gob where he hasn't been allowed to have desires or boundaries, just in a different way (Charon is obviously able to defend himself physically, and even technically has some manner of free will, but he knows that there are often unpleasant consequences for failing to obey his contract holder). The man IS a slave, but a strangely complicated one. If you want meaningless sex, he'll give it to you. Whether or not he actually wants or enjoys it, you'll never know without a real connection or a long, long time of studying his general behavior. He's incredibly hard to read up front, agreeable but not really warm or open.

His contract is supposed to entitle the holder to his labor in combat, so he's not really required to do anything else, as far as I can tell, including have sex with them if they ask, but I think he would use it as a sort of excuse to do so if he was already inclined.

You can't give him the contract or otherwise "free" him from his enslavement in the game, but in my opinion, that's silly. Sure, I think it would take a long time of him getting used to the idea of it, but I also think he'd certainly WANT to no longer be a slave at some point. Eventually, the contract is moreso an excuse. He never takes it from you when you offer it to him; he's following you because he has nowhere else to go, because he wants to. Eventually, he's following you because he's in love with you in his own way. But as long as you physically hold that piece of paper, he has the excuse.

If he does care about you, he will resist your physical advances, at least at first. He believes he's protecting you, as he always does, by sparing you from the social consequences of choosing to be with a ghoul. However, at the end of the day, he wants you, too, and eventually he won't be able to deny himself, especially if he knows you won't deny him. Even then, he'll kind of hate himself for being too weak to not fall in love with you, and he'll feel insanely guilty and selfish for not letting you go like he should. He's a fairly morose man overall, and I think he'd spend a lot of time pondering what the consequences of you two choosing one another this way will inevitably be.

Even with that under consideration, he'd still be happy with you. Keeping you safe and happy is pleasing to him (even if he likes to feign annoyance at your little peculiarities and your choices sometimes), and you'd get to slowly, painstakingly slowly begin to see him sort of begin to become his own man again. Over time, he'll talk more, but it's still almost always to ask about you, to remark about something that isn't himself.

Speaking of which, once he begins to "wake up", so to speak, become more aware of his newly-granted autonomy and his desires, as well as your own, he's gonna be rearing to go all the time. Slowly, he's gonna become fully cognizant of the fact that you really do want him as much as he wants you, so...why shouldn't you be fucking right this second, again? Doesn't really matter where you are. Who's gonna stop him from fucking you? Who's gonna succeed if they try? What I'm saying is this: I hope you're ready to basically be a free-use pocket pussy for this big-ass ghoul.

Some ghouls, like Cooper Howard, were once pretty serious ladies' men who've developed some hard edges over their long lives; despite this, that charisma often remains buried somewhere deep inside them, waiting to jump out at the right person. Charon is not that. This man had zero game before the war and he has less than none now. If you want traditional romantic gestures from him, you are going to have to specifically explain and request them, as unromantic as that may sound on its face. He wants to see you happy, but he's never really had to think romantically, so it doesn't come naturally to him at all. He knows about foreplay as a concept, but lacks patience and finesse when it comes to getting things started. Lots of shoving his hand up your shirt, down your pants sort of awkwardly in the beginning. Roughly groping you to signal he's in the mood to the point where it sort of hurts.

You know what they say about men? The dense ones fuck the hardest. Charon IS that; he's not unintelligent, just a very straightforward thinker. But he's obviously great at following directions, including when you beg him to fuck you until you can't stand.

He's just as quiet during sex as he is normally, save for a few grunts and growls and occasionally asking if you're okay, but you may notice over time that he's more physically affectionate. Likes to stroke your face, pet your hair, pepper you with kisses in a way he usually doesn't. I think he would see you being distracted by him rearranging your guts as an opportunity to be slightly more vulnerable.

Big fan of cockwarming. Already likes to just hold you in his arms while you both do something quiet, but he likes it even more when you're doing whatever you're doing slid down on his cock. His favorite is when you climb up into his lap, naked from the waist down, sink down on him, and immediately take a nap on his chest.

[thechy-fychannel]

hi i am a chase adorer and as such would like to know your opinions on that weird little himbo

it is my belief that chase has/had a rather strong crush on house, probably influenced to a large degree by his severe case of the daddy issues (fawning subtype, in contrast to house's fighting subtype). i think that combining this with his lack of self-esteem (see: voluntarily working for house for ~7 years) would make him INCREDIBLY vulnerable to house asking him for sexual favors. like even if it was a joke i think chase would just kinda go for it and probably freak out house a little, but i digress. do you see my vision?

anyway my point is i am a chase lover and chouse shipper, do you have thoughts on my blorbo or my ship?

hi anon i'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get around to answering this!! honestly it took me a WHILE to put my thoughts together about chase bc I have a lot of em!!

first of all, chase is SUCH a weird little himbo, he's incredibly complicated and accomplished and tbh I feel like the show never took him seriously enough until the very end when they were setting him up to take over for house. there's something about that catholic guilt and the constant need to be the specialist boy in the whole world while NEVER succeeding at being treated like the specialist boy in the world that's just lick your fingers delicious when you break his character down. he's filled with so much need and desire and is any of it ever fulfilled? No. As are many such cases.

anon, I see your vision SO MUCH and it's exactly how I feel about them too. while I don't necessarily ship chouse in a positive sense, I also dig the very unhealthy dynamic they would have as this gross unbalanced hookup situationship where chase is like "🥺 he wouldn't keep propositioning me if he didn't actually like me, even if he won't admit it 🥺" and house is like "damn, he looks pretty on his knees, maybe i should follow him into the bathroom" alfjalfklakfld.

I was just rewatching clips from when chase's dad visits and house genuinely feels so bad for chase bc he sees the amount of hurt his dad caused him and he definitely sees a lot of himself and his own daddy issues there. (bonus points for house calling him "robert" in this soft way that I rly love) I could definitely see this being the catalyst for something happening between them, chase is sad and broody with those sad watery eyes and house has a real moment of vulnerability with him, says something nice to him and then tries to cover it up by saying something inappropriate. As a joke. Obviously. but chase takes it literally and makes a pass at him that house initially rejects, but then chase gets even more sad and embarrassed and house actually feels bad for the guy— that poor pathetic blond puppy with wet eyes and a pretty mouth... and he rolls his eyes and tells himself he "lets it happen" while being a very active participant in whatever comes next.

the first time could be written off just as two repressed men taking comfort in each other in a moment of father-induced vulnerability... but the rest of the times are definitely an unfortunate combination of chase's lack of self esteem and house's selfish, manipulative nature. chase is just so much prettier (and cheaper) than the male hookers available in the tri-state area and he's just as easy. chase isn't stupid by any means, he knows what house is looking for when his eyes drag up and down his figure and make some comment about his pretty lips or girlish waist or "chase in his little short shorts." but poor chase is just so eager, so hopeful, so romantic. he could easily convince himself that they have something deep and meaningful when it's really just bj's in the sleep lab or the very occasional late night booty call.

and house can be so gross about it too, especially when he learns that he can be gross and it doesn't deter chase— actively holding his job over him in such a teasing and casual way that chase convinces himself there's no way he'd ever get rid of me, look at the way he throws the threat around if I stopped giving him what he wants, it's all just a joke to him. And then house fires him :) and oh boy would chase have a meltdown and reevaluate his entire life bc what do you mean he's not house's special boy? he was supposed to be his special boy. but he isn't, and he never will be bc he's doomed to be daddy's little disappointment forever, just like house :)

[thesehandsfic]

Hi! You do not have to answer this question if you don't want to, but I was curious why you chose to portray Niall as an abuser in Tenebroso. There is no CSA in canon, so I wonder how you came to that? No pressure to reply :)

hi sure complicated question but definitely worth answering.

it's my opinion there is actually subtext in canon to support this (this being: ronan as a victim of csa). other people have talked about this, i know i'm not the first to think this and i won't be the last. i don't remember specifically which authors/bloggers have discussed it, but it's an interpretation of canon that i've definitely seen before.

when i first read the books as they were released, that's what i thought ronan's Deal was going to be; like i remember genuinely thinking that's where the author was going with it, and i turned out to be wrong, but the subtext is there.

this portrayal isn't based on things we know about niall (since we don't really know that much about niall tbh), but instead, it's based on things we know about ronan. some examples:

- something bad happens to ronan at night that he's not allowed to talk about

- ronan's father refuses to explain or educate him regarding what is happening to him at night

- he is isolated from the outside world by virtue of his "secret" and by nature of his upbringing

- he has fraught relationships with his siblings, particularly the older sibling, who "knew" about "the secret" and was not as understanding/helpful as ronan might have liked/needed regarding "the secret"

- he's weirdly attached to his father and holds him in strangely reverent regard

- he's an alcoholic, has a tendency to self-harm, he acts out for attention, is depressed, misanthropic, and "othered" from his peers

- nightmares/sleep related trauma/sleep paralysis/kills himself in his dreams/monsters appear to him in his dreams and hurt him

- he has a pretty notable reaction to adam's choice of material for the greenmantle plot; csa is the absolute worst thing adam could think to pin on this guy, and ronan is (in my opinion) triggered by it

- he hates himself/sees himself as "wrong" or "alien"

- he is destructive towards his personal property and is triggered when he returns to his childhood home/is reminded of specific things that took place in his house

- he has a deep seated compulsion/desire to please/conform/succeed

- unable to attach/bond in a healthy/regulated manner

- strange relationship with his brother, particularly interesting is that he often refers to them as a married set of parents; he refers to himself as "daddy" and himself and his brother as "mommy and daddy"

- he has a problem with authority, specifically with male figures of authority, especially those who try to "parent" or "teach" him

all of these things are not necessarily ironclad, but i spent a lot of time discussing this with @neurosses at the time of writing, trying to decide if this was a path i wanted to take or an interpretation of ronan & niall that i felt was correct, so possibly she will have something to add since this is a topic we discussed/hashed out/worked to ground in canon.

i have said before that it's my belief if you are taking away ronan's magic, you have to give him something else; there must be a wound of some sort. this doesn't HAVE to be child abuse, but if you remove the aspect of magic from the things i listed above, you have a pretty solid foundation for an alternative interpretation of his canonical trauma.

specifically regarding tenebroso, i chose not to give declan that shared experience, but there is some basis for it regarding declan as well:

- niall turned him into his "work wife" when his own wife left/his dream wife wasn't designed to be smart/useful/a true equal

- he is parentified, almost by force (assigned guardian in the will)

- strained relationship with his siblings, particularly the one that still genuinely loves their father/doesn't see father's faults

- bears resentment towards younger sibling that he perceives was "preferred" or the favorite based on the attention paid to him by their father

i don't expect everyone to agree with me and i don't expect this interpretation to become widely accepted, but i do believe there is basis for it in canon (the entire lynch clan has serious Gothic Family vibes but that's a whole 'nother essay), and i really am not sure i have anything else to say about it; it is easier for me to explore these things in fiction/character study than it is for me to sit and expound upon it through meta. so i hope this is a satisfactory answer for you!

[sleepymccoy]

2024 fics

I didn't realise how many I'd posted this year! I'd've thought it was two lol. So, have a list. They're all spones <3

An Intimacy, A Surprise

This follows a FWB relationship that morphs into proper dating and then marriage. Very TOS compliant. Skips along through time with each chapter being one scene that either moves the plot forward, or that I just wanted to write. The chapters end when they kiss, but I still managed to sneak some sex scenes in (sometimes they argue instead of kissing lol)

A long, complicated path

This is a direct follow on from the previous fic. That one ends with Bones following Spock to the aos universe, so then I was like, well, how would the aos guys handle that. Well, I think one person commented asking that and I was like... oh no now I have to think about it and write it! And the answer is by weaponising a marraige certificate that has their names, and then falling for each other. My main memory in writing this one is that I was finishing my masters in the same month and this was a total stress relief fic that I can barely recall lol. I should read it some time, it's probably quite good

Nice and Vague

Very short a cute fic to get me writing. Established married spones with Spock using McCoy to further his diplomatic work. Ends with long distance phone sex fade to black

Two Thirds of a Whole

I completely forgot this fic exists, but now that I've reread the summary omg I spent so much energy on it. This was in response to a lot of people on tumblr who talk about Bones like he's third wheel that doesn't really matter to Spock and Kirk, which rankles me. So I wrote Bones going to a parallel universe where he never joined the Enterprise. I think the main point of the fic kinda got away from me halfway through tho and it really just ends up being a spones fic, with parallel Spock hitting on him, then Bones going back home and hitting on his Spock. But yeah, I think if I did this again I'd pay more attention to the Bones is important message

Oh Commander Mine

This one is all fun. Intended to be a dubcon fic, but I ended up shying from that a little. There's still some dubconny elements, so read the tags and feel free to ask me specifics if you're concerned but wanna try reading. Bones has to be Spock's vulcan sex slave, and he kinda gets into it in a way he didn't expect. They get together afterwards, with some bad communication skills, but overall it's a healthy sorta ending. It was me trying to write my kinks without shame, but unfortunately I did pull my punches a bit. Maybe I'll write my kinks properly in 2025!

On that, writing aims in 2025

I'm iffy on the trying my kinks again really, but I do have a vague nugget of an idea so if that fills out in a way I find interesting I will. I think writing dubcon is really hard to do honestly without the story getting overwhelmed with shame, which I don't feel about my kinks! So, it's hard to write a solid, genuine story that actually reflects what I wanna read. Commander Mine is a pretty good approximation really

I really wanna redo An Even Number of Souls. It's a great premise but I wrote myself into a bit of a corner and didn't know where to go so it's sitting there unfinished. But I think the story is really strong and I wanna do it. I've restructured and rewritten some scenes, so it's got a good chance. Just need to get the buzz for it again and really settle back into it. Unfortunately for Souls, tis the season of plot bunnies for me rn and I keep having new ideas that are so fun to write instead

I won't have too much trouble writing and posting the odd fic here and there. I've got three active wips rn, one is Spock getting bullied, one is mcspirk, one is a christmas fic I'm probably gonna let stay unfinished tbh. However, I am keen to write some more og fiction than I have been lately. I've got some great stuff in the works!!

I've got a poly story about a cyborg, a doctor, and an engineer. It's kind of about ownership of your own body. It's also about being trans. It's about showing the difference between aromantic and asexual people. It's mostly about writing insanely kinky sex, though. Cyborg guy is gonna get a bluetooth connected detachable dick eventually!

Also got a great story that's always on my mind, it's got two swapping povs. The world is very catholic, set far in the future. One of the povs is a plumber on a spaceship who start to secretly fuck a priest (secret gay style, secret cos it's catholic). The other is a cop on an asteroid investigating the murder of an important church guy. She loses her job around halfway, which is when you realise the priest the plumber is fucking is definitely the murderer. She then jumps in a lil ship with some guy willing to give her the lift, to try and arrest the murderer and get her job back, but instead is just stuck in a tin can with a hot guy (who turns out to be trans) and wants to fuck him (but she has to drop her bigotry before she can)(cos he's trans and has a vagina, theres literally no other barrier for her). At that point the plumber's pov picks up the murder mystery story. So it's kinda like there's two stories, one romance and one murder investigation, and they swap half way who is living which. The characters are very fucked up and fun to write. The murder, btw, is morally okay imo. The gays get a happy ending. Not sure the cop will, we'll see if she's willing to let go of her expectations in the second half of the book. I've written like 2/3s of the first half already!

Anyway that's me on my stories. I'm procrastinating writing the Spock getting bullied story rn by posting this post! So maybe feel free to ask me questions and I can respond instead of writing lol

[atoriv-art]

Hihi!! So so sooo sorry if this is a random question, but ur art style is so insanely inpirijg and beautiful to me, so do u have any tips on how u learnt? Like any specific stuff u tried to learn first, specific websites u used, etc? If ur not comfortable with answering this im so sorryy😓😓 YOUR ART IS GORGOUS!!

i don't mind answering, dw!

my learning process is very random to be honest, i usually get a little obsessed with trying to learn one particular thing and end up focusing on that for a bit. the most recent one was trying to learn how to draw better clothing folds :P

the general journey i took isn't really much different from what looks to be what most people do tbh, you can never go wrong with figure drawing (there's many people who can explain it better than me but it's just drawing from reference — preferably in-person, but i've never done that LOL — in short amounts of time trying to get the key elements down. the big website for this that i know of is [line of action])

i also use [these] [websites] for references, i think it's important to know at least the gist of how the human body actually works, how the muscles stretch etc, but you will affix all of that information in your brain much faster if you actually see them in action. for proportions and such i think 3D models are completely fine (and i use them. so much) but when it comes to drawings muscles or fat you will have a much easier time if you've actually seen how they work and look. it'll make you better at shading them too!

there's a bunch of resources for anatomy but my favorites are the [anatomy for sculptors] book (they post tidbits of it on social media, they're geared towards 3D artists but that's just a plus for me imo because you can understand the form you're trying to achieve much better) and the famous morpho: fat and skin folds book (i don't have a link but just like. google it it's the first one that pops up)

i alsoo tried studying color theory a lot but honestly it's rare that i find something i like enough to share KSJDKSJ once you get past the basic "what is an analogous, complimentary, tertiary palette" stuff it gets a little harder to find meaningful stuff online, but if i were to offer any advice it'd be to study light-dark values bc a lot of the time the hue doesn't matter, it's the contrast that does

relatedly (at least for me), for composition i'm still getting the hang of it (orz) but what has worked the best for me so far is this [youtube channel], he's a traditional landscape painter and yet i still find his insight very useful :P i also really like his book on composition but i dunno how available it is.. but essentially any source on composition will just tell you it's an arranging of shapes, the tricky part is how to construct those shapes (via color, contrast, etc) and how to make them convey what you want them to convey.

speaking more broadly and not just what websites/books i use, what i like to do is to save any and all images that look appealing to me, even if i don't feel like doing anything with them at the moment... i do this with pictures, paintings, literally any image that i like lmao pinterest is an easy place to do this in but you could do it wherever, i also have a pureref file full of just Cool Images That I See Online. whenever i feel like i'm stuck i look at the things that inspire me and usually i get the spark to try to do something

i also do this with poses i find in the websites i mentioned earlier, makes it way easier to find a reference for what i want ^^

you'll notice my "style" sometimes fluctuates a lot and it's usually because i saw one particular artist / style of illustration that really inspired me and i wanted to try something similar KSJDKSJ for example the more painterly stuff i've been posted is heavily inspired by aleksander rostov's art for disco elysium!

also i would feel like a liar if i didn't mention this. using "cheats" is completely fine LMAO it's very common that i do some more complicated angles / structures / lighting in 3D with blender to heavily reference them afterwards 😅 i also like environment texturing so in a few cases for my backgrounds i'm painting over a render i made. but you don't have to go that far LOL i'm just saying there's nothing wrong with stuff like that so long as you're not stealing from someone else.

and if you struggle with motivation for studies i'll just say, you can cheat a little and make the studies about something you actually like LMAO like when i was trying to get better at clothing folds i just drew a bunch of naruto characters and paid more attention to the clothing. it's silly but it works :)

[all-pacas]

okay so i've been trying to make sense of what drew cameron and chase together enough to get married. sex i get. they're friendly at work, they're attracted to one another, okay. but marriage? then i thought, hmmm. i wonder whether it was like a house&wilson situation in some ways where cameron, who's seen as the nice and caring one, can be mean sometimes without chase thinking the worst of her. i'm not sure it works as well on chase's end since we don't see her observing or commenting on the moments where chase shows he cares, but she knows he went to kutner's memorial despite not really knowing him, etc.

on the one level, i don't think it's that complicated: in their hearts, cameron and chase are very boring people who crave normalcy, and 'normal' couples get married after a couple years of dating. i'd argue they were very much not ready for marriage on one level, but they… were a pretty functional couple tbh. in a pure "this is the next step" way, it made sense they would get married.

cameron tends to define herself by her relationships and seek love; in a weird (slutty) way chase is the same, he is the neglected kid who craves and is terrified of connection. they're both also guarded people, and hurt people, who want similar things from a partner. and i think they did get things from the relationship.

chase actually alludes a couple of times to admiring cameron, which i can very much see: his fondest memory of her is her yelling at her father (i laaaaaaaugh), he angrily tells dibala she's a good person, she's also mountains of caring and affection and he is massively starved for both. even in their s1-2 friendship era, he's actually surprisingly prone to defending her ideas to house; i wouldn't call him protective of her exactly, but chase doesn't exert himself for a lot of people, and he's pretty consistent in sticking up for her. he's also unusually good at seeing through cameron and reading her like a book, which maybe isn't unique to chase but is probably unique to cameron: the last person to see through her was house on their date and he used it as a list of reasons to dump her; chase meanwhile calls her on her bullshit but always in a… positive context, i care about you, i'm not giving up on you, i want you.

cameron has the habit of cutting and running when she feels too vulnerable. foreman says she's afraid of commitment and he's 110% correct, but it's not the dating and loyalty and acting the part of a good girlfriend she struggles with; it's opening up and trusting others. cameron is terrified of loss, terrified of loss of control, struggles to make decisions, to commit. (although once she finally does she is ride or die for her cause) chase actually spends most of their relationship acting as a very reassuring figure for her: "i know you're acting this way due to your issues, and i am giving you space, but i need something from you" is essentially his answer in the itch, he calls her bluff with the sperm, and he is………remarkably forgiving of her in saviors lmao. it's the same thing he does in s3: he sees through her "i have no feelings for you" excuses and is willing to wait her out. cameron… needs that. she gets to have her freak out and push and be demanding and, yes, a little mean, a little unkind, and chase tolerates it. accepts it. i honestly think he was a huge source of support for her. she's afraid of loss, and she cannot accidentally drive chase away. you know?

i don't know that cameron was ever sitting around going "that chase, he's so nice" lol. although: they do get along, she is the least likely in the office to make fun of him (and usually only when he picks on her first -- her famous "you'd be done already" sperm sample line does only come after he's been joking about the patient fantasizing about her), she is definitely the least likely to accuse him of being dumb or useless. and like. cameron is a silly guy! she likes joking around, she likes messing with people a little, i don't think she was as drawn to chase's inner kindness as much as the fact they just can be silly together. she knows he cares about people, she's trusted him as a friend for a long time (never forget her going to chase with her romantic problems in s1), it's not like she doesn't like him. it's also not like they have no problems bickering or arguing, which i am going to frame as a positive: they're really not afraid of one another, they don't idealize one another. when chase annoys her, cameron lets him know. it doesn't have to be perfect!

obviously, they still had major problems. cameron really doesn't seem to have pegged onto the fact that chase is a hot mess of abandonment issues, and his freezing her out in s6 triggered her flee response (although, cameron worked very hard to stay with him, she was jumping through every hoop possible to handwave his murder), and chase's own avoidant habits mixed with her obliviousness can also lead to problems, as we saw in s5: when cameron avoids issues, he feels shut out and abandoned. when chase avoids issues, he stews and cameron putters on oblivious. the two just… have no idea how to communicate about Real Issues. but on a day to day basis? for the little things? i think they got along great. i think it was all smooth sailing until the moment it wasn't. they were always going to crash and burn and failmarriage, but it says something it took a literal political assassination to trigger the issues that tore them apart. they probably could have coasted on for years easily, because deep down they want to be happily married (with someone, not even necessarily one another even), you know?

the house and wilson parallel is interesting to consider, because even though chase is house's baby successor and cameron and wilson are often paired up even in the show… i think it works better the other way around. cameron and house are much more similar than they're given credit for, being driven and stubborn and filled with a sense of outrage and injustice (that they manifest in very different ways); they both want to pick people apart and understand them, to understand as a way of control. they both push people away and are afraid of loss. chase, meanwhile, falls handily into the role of cameron's top supporter, with what he gets out of the relationship sometimes a little unclear — but what he gets is normalcy, to "be himself", to open up to someone and trust them. he enables and supports her, and she sometimes struggles to reciprocate. something there for sure.

[utilitycaster]

The answers Marisha gave in this 4SD felt a lot more realized than in the past, which is good! But it still makes me feel like this character concept is incredibly ambitious and when juxtaposed with the various "I don't want to think anymore"/"go with the flow" statements I'm not sure she realized that.

The biggest example is that Laudna has two conflicting traits: she is extremely sensitive to betrayal, and she is very quick to trust even after experiencing a number of betrayals in her life. And when I say "conflicting" I mean that they are in conflict with each other, not that it doesn't make sense for a character to be a complicated person with traits that frequently work against them; in fact that's in my opinion a fantastic way to create a compelling character. But it feels like the why is only just starting to get explored in any capacity, and because of that even good choices raise more questions: why is this only coming out now; why so young a regression; why has it peeked out so weirdly and inconsistently in the past; why haven't the repeated betrayals in the past two months affected her mindset and made her more closed off. It once again makes me really wish we'd gotten a sustained outburst after the party reunited, because that would have made far more sense - a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me situation.

I agree with the opinion that Laudna conceptually just fits far more with being an actual child herself - her desire to befriend children frankly comes off slightly weirder (not line-crossing or anything, just a little off) than it would had she died younger, as does her approach of dolls, and her failure to do anything with Delilah would make a lot more sense if she was at an age to be much more reliant. It would also make her inability to just blend into a city much more reasonable; no one is going to rent to a lone 11 year old. It really does feel that when the creepy child idea was rejected - which is a valid choice - it wasn't reworked sufficiently to fit someone who died in her late teens or early 20s.

I also don't really get the idea of her childlike nature being without malice. A pretty consistent theme for the various traumatic childhoods the characters of Bells Hells (and, tbh, past parties as well) has been the cruelty children are capable of - Ashton even says it in 3x78. Delilah being stuck with someone without malice would honestly lead to a situation in which Laudna was very trusting of her, which isn't the case, which again goes back to the conflict of betrayal as a trigger vs. being so quick to trust. Given that Laudna was frequently bullied and rejected as a kid, one would think she'd be aware of this. The specific example of Delilah calling Ashton a child and Laudna making him a doll still works wonderfully, but the overarching theme falls apart in places.

I think things have been on an upswing as of late, but ultimately we're at a point where, without some retcons I don't think Laudna will ever truly make complete sense because it's just such an intensive concept that did not get the work that required, and still feels reliant on a now-rejected premise.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

which solo songs by the beatles would you say are their "best"? as in, great production, great structure, it shows off their strengths as musicians, etc... although i get it's totally subjective, which ones would *you* pick?

this is SUCH an interesting question, thank you so much!!!!

My Sweet Lord is genuinely like my favourite George song, but given its semi-plagiarizing and how simple it is, I think I can't call it his best outright, although it's his most iconic slide guitaring for a reason. A very strong contender would be Isn't It A Pity, which I think is absolutely gorgeous lyrically and incredibly effective musically. I've also always loved When We Was Fab as a Beatles pastiche and think it's amazing melodically and production-wise. I'd also say Run Of The Mill, which is emotionally and lyrically incredible and rhythmically very interesting. It keeps switching time signatures!!! I also kind of wanna say Someplace Else but I can't fully defend it, though. I'm also super partial to Who Can See It though I don't find that a typical George song at all, so I'm not sure it fits your criteria. (also bear in mind I haven't reached Brainwashed yet!!)

For Ringo, tbh I am going to say Vertical Man. this is a GREAT song that I feel really captures his character so well, the light whimsy and the dark undercurrent. It also really works for his voice and the drumming rocks. It's still not on my Spotify!!!!! KMS!!!!!

For John, I think the three songs I'd say my three favourite songs are (in no particular order) #9 Dream, Nobody Loves You (When You're Down And Out), and I'm Losing You (okay and also (Just Like) Starting Over) and I think those all demonstrate John's different lyrical strengths – the dreamy imagery, the sad resignedness, the bitterness – incredibly well, while all having quite excellent production. I think John is kind of underrated as a producer and a lot of the stuff he's credited on (and Spector is not credited on lol) has a great vibe and shows a lot of vision. I also might throw in Scared which I think is super overlooked and to also add a more stripped back song, I'd go with Isolation, which to me is kind of the core of Plastic Ono Band.

Paul has my definite favourite solo career, so it's hard to narrow it down fully. Band On The Run is probably my most basic answer but I do think it's just that good and definitely one of his most effective suites. I would also say Junk, which I think is pure poetry and musically perfect. Tug of War is probably my (co-)favourite Paul solo song but I've seen a lot of people call it too melodramatic. I sort of see what they mean, but I love the central image so much, how complicated it is. I also think Here Today is one of his strongest songs lyrically, actually. Okay, let's throw out a few more: My Brave Face is like peeeeeaaaak upbeat but sad breakup song and I love it to bits. It'll definitely end up on my spotify wrapped. I also think Distractions is one of Paul's most gorgeous melodies and the production is so cool to me. It also feels so sincere and romantic idk. ALSO, circling back to Tug of War the album, I wanna say: I think The Pound Is Sinking would 1000000000000% be a universally recognized masterpiece had it been on a Beatles album. It is the absolute sweet spot of Paul's abstract yet impactful lyricism. I also kind of wanna say Heaven On A Sunday though I find that, like Who Can See It, not that typically Paul per se. It and Warm and Beautiful are perhaps my favourite songs about Linda he wrote.

I'm interested in your thoughts, anon!! and what do others think?? does anyone agree or strongly disagree with any of my takes?

[yeehawpim]

HI UM i really admire you and your art and i was wondering --

so i really love the way you format your comics, its really straight-forward and lets the reader process every word with ease (which i think adds to the impact of the writing), and that one rue comic with the split colors for the parentheses... how do you do it without making it look so messy?? to bring up another example, the hide-and-seek comic- i love how subtle and genius the call back to hiding behind the door was, it blew my mind... i take a lot of inspiration from the way you format and lay out your comics but for some reason i cant wrap my head around how you do so much with so little (in reality this might just be the result of me wanting to add so many little details for others to find , while being conflicted on keeping it simple, and,,, AGH...) for context : im trying to make a comic about isolation, but i keep filling up the page because i want to add things - when really i know i should be keeping it simple... but other than removing unnecessary details, i want to know what else you do to make your comics so clean and simple yet it rips out the emotions from your heart and has you stare at it as it beats. like... i want that type of impact!! i want to affect others on such an intense level!! i want to induce emotions!!! but how?

(sorry this was long, HAHAHA i just want to drive my point home- again with the 'wanting to add a lot of stuff to prove a point' thing but i digress)

ok first of all that is a huge compliment and it means v much to me, thank you 😭🙏❤️❤️

tbh for me the answer of keeping things uncluttered is paying attention to spacing and eye direction. Spacing depends on timing, if you want an action to happen slowly for instance you can make the space between panels longer, or take more panels for someone to complete an action. There's tricks for directing your eye, if you ever read anyth about focal points (eg biggest contrast, triangular shapes pointing towards what's important), but really with comics I keep in mind you're reading left to right and top to bottom.

The ruehob comic is actually simpler than you think 😅 I already knew which text had to be on the left and right with august's text post. And after that the "lanes" were so narrow there weren't a lot of complicated things I could do, just make sure you still read left to right and saunter vaguely downwards.

when you talk about putting little details, that doesn't necessarily have to distract people. Like I honestly applaud you having the drive to do detailing. You just have to make sure your compositions allow for it. Like if you think about ghibli backgrounds, they're elaborate and beautiful af.

For smth about isolation, my first thought was that you can draw a person in a setting alone among a bunch of objects, for instance. If you keep the person small but surround them with a bunch of detailed objects, it could feel very lonely. Just make sure the person still stands out b/c they're what's important, so for example the background stuff is a less saturated colour, or the person is the least detailed thing on the page. I think that's the main thing, you just have to make sure the things important to what you're saying stand out. Clarity is rlly half the battle when I'm laying things out haha

In school our teacher called this "killing your babies" because it sucks when you work hard on a cool drawing and it just doesn't work out😂This also still happens to me, it's actually partly why I keep things simple so I can work fast and throw out less

Here is a timestamp from supereyepatchwolf's video about Chainsaw Man, which has some of the coolest fuckin layouts

He's got other stuff that talks about manga and how eye direction can work and what cool stuff has been done. Off the top of my head his vid about one piece and his vid about gantz have helped me understand how to cause Emotions. Also I think he has one about Junji Ito that specifically talks about how details can make you scared, if you're into that 😂

hope this helps!

[roenters]

Tbh, I rewtached fight club last night and I was so used to the Fandom being what it is I forgot how long the movie is and how dry some parts were, it's still one of my favorite movies, just funny!! The ending scene has my heart forever, though

YOYOYO‼️‼️‼️

I'm tryna work out if you meant dry humour or a drag. One of those answers results in a badly placed gun./j

I agree it's proper long!! I keep forgetting and I'm like hmm what if I rewatched it again but idk. I'm glad it is tho, allows it to tell the story properly. And more content for me so yk 😁😁

It is well funny, I don't get the people brad and Edward were on about that didn't find the film funny initially on launch and stuff. Idk. I think it's great. My sorta humour tho, I love sarcasm and stuff like that

The end scene is actually like OH MY GOD RIP MY HEART OUT WHY DONT YOU? TAKE IT!! Yeah no. Don't know if you've seen the post I made when I watched it first time round, but I was having a proper breakdown first time I finished it. I'm like, Tyler was a dick but I didn't want him to die jesus Christ bring him back 😭😭 and then rewatched it and I'm like, nah I still proper hate that guy. It's worn off again now, think if I watch it again I'll settle back into my put that man down ways. But yeh, the music, the building going down. My god. Beautiful. It was stunning. Him finally standing with Marla without wanting to tear her face off. God it was beautiful.

Also the fandom thing is so real lmfao

It's funny cause it's mostly soapshipping innit? Like supernatural is mostly destiel, but I don't ship destiel and I don't ship Tyler and narrator either lol. I don't mind it, and I see the vision but I just don't. I d'know I just find fandom funny. They're trying to convince me buttt idk. I like friends, don't erase them from existence 🛐🛐 don't even know if you can call them friends, they're a lot more complicated than that. Me when two men are FRIENDS?? Me when two guys just EXIST in the same house and beat each other up sometimes and are ridiculously close but one will abandon the other one for months and not say a word. Prick.

[no-nic]

im sooo intruiged by the konoha spin-off of that kakasaku au... and also by the actual au tbh. are sasuke+ naruto still in konoha? what role does rin play in konoha's politics? is she a jounin sensei? what was the team minato dynamic like without kakashi? how do sakura and kakashi's lives go? how weird is rin being about interpersonal relationships (if she has any)? and id be interested to hear pretty much anything about this au lol feel free to infodump :3

⭐️ i have. a lot to say ⭐️

point of divergence?

at first i wanted to swap sakumo with a kiri shinobi. then i realized, nothing ever changes. one man doesn't start or stop a war. he didn't change the system. fandom misconception: apparently sakumo gets blamed for a mission that started a war? what are timelines? who said that? i know that when one is writing a fic it's easy to conspiracy-brain this & say something like "root sabotaged the mission" to keep sakumo like... "perfect"? or that danzo for some reason staged his death? we're just adding crimes to the old man's portfolio huh sakumo's kiri existence leads to sakura's parents -- in this they are civilian merchants -- settling in the land of water and having a child earlier. let's say they are originally from around wave. they are fairly shinobi-positive: "our bloodthirsty little girl wants to learn to stab people? okay sweetie :)" ...sakura may or may not have younger siblings (who remain civilians) i'm keeping some fun sakumo & kakashi material to myself for now ^^

topics to explore in the future:

[story] sword legacies, expectations

[meta] girls with big weapons

[meta & story] lack of tragic backstory for sakura

meanwhile in konoha

let's be real, you're here because of rin. some of this is just my unwillingness to derail canon too much. rin follows canon kakashi's path: anbu, maybe a short stint in root, jonin, some more anbu work alongside visible jonin missions, and finally jonin-sensei! she doesn't spend hours staring at the memorial stone; she carries everything on her. she stares at people. all the time. sometimes hidden with genjutsu, sometimes just standing there like a statue. blink goes the sharingan. don't mind her. canon kakashi came to meet his new team late; rin was standing in the (ceiling) corner since early morning

don't worry, she still has terrible identity issues; the shared eyeball stuff really messed her up. "i will see the future through you" but twice. she is team 7 now. there's a monologue about team roles brewing in her head, you can bet edo tensei'd minato will hear it as soon as he leaves the coffin! hiroto (our hyuga oc; born to rage and die) & obito bring major "fuck the clans" energy.

rin sees the aftermath of eyeball politics:

fact: obito voluntarily gave a body part to an allied combatant (who previously lost an eye)

was obito's body his to give away? or does it belong to his village? or his clan?

decision: hiroto can keep the sharingan but he's on thin ice

fact: hiroto later gave the same body part to another allied combatant

fact: rin was part of the original team, obito's other friend, so she's someone who could have received the eye then if the situation was a tiny bit different

suddenly it's all "would obito want rin to have the sharingan?" and "we don't know that", obito's decision is now the law, not hiroto's, so please give it back to the uchiha

thankfully obito's dying words weren't "go be hokage"; she would burn the hat

decision: rin can keep the sharingan but can't even think about gifting it to anyone else, since her original team is gone (and minato doesn't want it)

when the uchiha die, rin's first thought is "who gets to keep the eyeballs?"

(answer: danzo. probably)

rin has a complicated relationship with being a medic. as in, she refuses to be called that anymore. when she meets tsunade it's going to get messy -- whether it's upon waking from the itachi mind torture special or not. “no medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon” <- all-consuming Rage 🔥

most of rin's relationships are... weird. people think she's weird; she agrees, but their reasons are so wrong. (someone misunderstanding rin? never seen that before...) however she has a best friend, who deserves a whole separate post. who is it? not that hard to guess, but very hard to describe what they have going on. that relationship is built. they could feature in any "siblings or dating?" game. the answer is obviously neither. (most adult interactions to be fleshed out later)

topics to explore in the future:

[meta & story] seals & flying thunder god jutsu

[story] what to do with a sharingan

[story] Not A Medic

[story] from terrible misunderstandings to mutual character growth

next generation

rin-sensei gets team 7: naruto, sasuke & third character (anime only, so not quite an oc). sakura is very lucky to Not Be There yeah, this too is getting its own post later. not much material yet

#pink tsunami au; the konoha spinoff is taking form

[wolfsbanesparks]

I'm curious and making a seperate post about the forgotten and older Captain Marvel characters from the past comics, but what are your thoughts on them? A bunch of them aren't even used anymore, but have so much potential to them if they're ever brought back.

Like Joane Jameson, apparently she was Billy and Captain Marvel's secretary at Whiz Radio, who knew of both of his identities and helped them. I really like this idea and think it would really be useful for a Billy Batson that's a street kid and constantly wary of adults who might want to turn him back in to the foster system, she provides a safe example for Billy to look up to and actually trust. Not just that, but she could also provide assistance for Billy/Captain Marvel on missions, things he may lack insight on or informing him of villainous attacks/incidents.

Are there any characters you wish to see be brought back to the present day comics or see them be included in fanfictions more? I also really like the idea of Dr. Sivana's children be brought back into the action more, especially Beautia, since she's actually a good person (from what I remember) and on good terms with the Captain

So it's taken me literally forever to answer this because every time I do I go down a mini research rabbit hole about older/unused characters because there are SO many that I would like to see more of.

My thoughts under the cut because it got long.

This isn't even everyone, but it's a lot of cool underutilized characters I'd love to see brought back.

Because of the number of characters, I'm splitting them into categories for ease of reading:

Civilians

Cissie Sommerly: Billy's girlfriend and the niece of his boss Sterling Morris (who also needs to used more tbh) She is a sweetheart who loves her little brother (Pete) and is very kind hearted. She didn’t get much development in the older comics, but she often had to deal with Billy and Cap’s shenanigans. I would love to see more of her!

The Sivana kids Beautia, Georgia, Thad Jr, and Magnificus: we recently got an adult Georgia in the New Champion of Shazam but I want to see the whole family together! And exploring their family dynamics with only half of them being supervillains would be so fun! They love each other but it's complicated. Georgia and Thad jr were basically parallels to Mary and Captain Marvel Jr and that was a fun balance. Meanwhile Beautia and Magnificus weren't really interested in their father's evil scheme though they gkt roped into them sometimes. And of course Beautia's crush on Captain Marvel causes problems but she's still awesome and even tutors Billy for school.

Sunny Sparkle: basically he was so universally beloved by everyone who met him that they just gave him things. Bank robbers would just hand him their stolen cash. Car jackers would give him the keys. He was gifted so much stuff every day that Billy had to help him donate and sell stuff regularly. In modern comics, I think it'd be cool if he was unknowingly a metahuman whose power was being hypnotically charming.

Freckles Marvel: she was Uncle Dudley's niece and despite not having powers, liked to tag along on adventures especially with Mary. She's a lot like Darla with her upbeat little sister energy. I can see them being friends in modern comics (or maybe even related since they both have the last name Dudley)

Dexter Knox: a child prodigy and inventor who was good friends with Billy. He's basically the smartest person in Fawcett and he loves showcasing his inventions to Billy.

Villains

Arson Fiend: an insurance salesman that uses extortion and threats of arson to meet his sales quota. He drinks a potion that gives him fire powers which he uses to commit arson against people who didn’t buy insurance from him. We've talked a bit about his connection to other Captain Marvel villains like Lady Blaze who healed him and gave him his powers back when he lost them. He's such a simply evil character that works really well for comics.

Chain Lightning: a teenager with multiple personalities and the power to control lightning. She has 4 personalities: Amy (the "main" alter), Amber (the more angry/volatile alter who protects the system), the Inner Child (no name besides that but encapsulates their child like wonder), and ID (the embodiment of their id, thus more impulsive than the others). She actually absorbs some of the Marvel’s magic lightning which allows her alters to temporarily have their own bodies. Amy is in love with Captain Marvel Jr because he saved her life, but the other alters are more wary of him, especially Amber. While any adaptation of Chain Lightning needs to be conscious of the ableism that happens when depicting a system, I think there's a lot of great potential with this character.

Sabina: she is technically from the Trials of Shazam not Fawcett comics, but I think she's cool. Basically she was raised by a cult called the Council of Merlin. She was destined to be 10th in line to receive the powers of Shazam so she starts killing those ahead of her in the order to ensure that once Billy was mo longer the Champion the powers would go to her. But when Billy was transitioning to become the Wizard he chose Freddy as his Champion, bypassing Sabina and the predestined order of things. So Sabina decides to kill Freddy AND the gods he was going to get his powers from. She's so evil and cool and I really like her design. I definitely think there's a way to bring her back.

Fawcett Heroes: there are a ton of fun characters that weren’t necessarily Captain Marvel characters but were part of the same world before he was a DC property.

Bulletman and Bulletgirl: literally Billy’s favorite superheros! He reads their comics and everything! They were very popular at the time, Whiz comics second most popular characters behind the Marvels. They are a husband and wife duo that gave themselves superpowers (strength, durability etc) which they use to fight crime, particularly supernatural villains.

Mr Scarlet and Pinky: Brian and Pinky Butler are a father-son vigilante duo. They were so good at their jobs that Brian barely had any work as a district attorney because of such low crime rates. They were basically a working class version of Batman and Robin. They're good friends with the Marvel family and when Mary got her first solo series, part of the advertising was having Pinky send her pen pal letters inviting her to have new adventures with him and the other Fawcett characters.

Ibis the Invincible: an Egyptian prince whose mummy was uncovered and brought back to life (by Shazam). He uses the Ibistick, an extremely powerful magical wand, to help people as he adjusts to modern life. He can do just about anything as long as he has his wand and often gets thrown in the middle of conflicts between gods.

Kid Eternity: aka Kit Freeman, Freddy’s long lost little brother with ghost powers! After dying in a boating accident when he wasn’t supposed to, he was brought back and given powers as compensation. He can summon spirits, turn invisible, and become intangible, though his powers shifted over time. He's such a cool character and he deserves more love!

Whew that was a lot! If anyone else has characters to add (and I know there are many) I would love to hear about it! And if any of these characters intrigue you I encourage you to check them out and sneak them into your fics!

[thechy-fychannel]

Do you have any thoughts on hameron? Like, did she genuinely love him or just wanted to fix him? Did he ever have feelings for her beyond thinking she's hot? What do you think about their "date"? Did she ever get over him? (Everytime I thought yes she did, she would do something like "I'm not in love with house" speech or her breakup speech with house in s6 so I'm not sure anymore)

such a great question!!!! I have lots of thoughts about them bc their relationship is both incredibly complicated and unfortunately simple. tbh I used to really dislike hameron and I still do when it comes to the early seasons, but I can also recognize that on some level, they really did love each other.

The unfortunately simple part of their situation is that they are both victims of the phenomenon of wanting someone who doesn't want you— because they don't want you. that's not all there is to it, but it's very much the basis of whatever was going on between them. cameron wanted house bc house didn't want her, she liked the challenge and the idea of being the person who could fix him. I always think about what house said to her in s1 about her working her pretty little ass off to become a doctor when she could've breezed through life on her pretty privilege. I think the same thing applies with house, she could have anyone she wanted easily, but she wanted to work her pretty little ass off to have him and fix him instead.

alternatively, house didn't really want her until she didn't want him anymore, or at least outwardly. once she left the team and was engaged to chase, his affection and longing for her became much more apparent and he even admitted on several occasions that he wanted her back. He missed her enough to admit it out loud which is huge for house, only to get hit with "I miss the job, I don't miss you." which was fully a lie, obviously. she was lying to herself bc she was engaged to chase and couldn't in good conscience admit that she missed a man she was in love with not all that long ago.

Even though they both fell for that cliche of wanting someone who didn't want them, I think their feelings for each other were very real. Neither of them loved each other for who they actually were, but they were both in love with an idea of what they could've been in a perfect world. She thought if she could fix him, they'd be perfect together. I think she left the team bc she accepted that there was no fixing him and the only way to start moving on was to not be around him 24/7.

I don't know if house was ever really in love with her, I think he was in love with the idea that she was in love with him, bc he wanted to be wanted and loved by someone as good as cameron. she saw the good in him, made him feel like maybe he wasn't all bad. that's what house was in love with and wanted once she wasn't around to shine her pretty, morally good eyes at him. I also think it's worth noting that house says cameron is just like his dad when it comes to morality and let's not forget the massive daddy issues this guy has, so I think that plays a role in his attraction to her. I think partially, he was driven to her in search of something he didn't get from his dad bc emotionally he connected the two of them (imagine having such bad daddy issues that you project it onto your female employee who is like almost 20 years younger than you??? insane.)

To answer your question about their date, I hated it. It was weird and awkward but I understand they were trying to do a spin on the whole "boss sexually harasses employee" trope, especially given that house has no problem sexually harassing his employees, cameron included. but what I do really like is the scene where he goes to her apartment and begs her to come back bc when has he ever done that for anyone else (besides his soulmate wilson)??? I think that scene alone told us that he had some type of feelings for her. It wasn't just a work thing, he could hire any pretty, smart doctor who will put up with his bs, but he wanted her. I'm not going as far as to say he was in love with her all the way back then, but I definitely think it proved that he had some type of feelings for her that made him really really pathetic about her. I think she recognized it too and that's why she made him go out on a date with her, bc she thought that romantic date setting would spark those feelings and start a fire, but it didn't. Ultimately, they were all types of wrong for each other and both knew it, but just because they knew that, didn't rly make the feelings go away, it just made them smart enough not to pursue it (kind of, cameron would've pursued it if house let her).

to answer your other question, no, I don't think she ever got over him. and it's a hard thing, bc when the divorce happened, I do believe a part of her hated house bc she blamed him for what chase did. she'd convinced herself that chase was different when in reality, I think she was only with chase because of how much he was like house. chase didn't kill that dictator because of house, it's who he was and it's what he was going to do regardless of house. I think that's why when chase asks her "did you ever really love me?" that she initially answers "I don't know" bc she never really knew whether she loved chase or she loved that chase was like house. but for so long, she convinced herself that chase was different and then he went and proved that he wasn't any different and she hated house for ruining the idea she had in her head of what their relationship was and ruining another relationship for her. being off his team wasn't enough anymore, she had to get far far away from him if she ever wanted to move on. But she came back for his funeral and I think that shows that she still had love for him, even if she wasn't in love with him.

thank you for the great question and letting me ramble my feelings to you!! feel free to ask anything bc I can go on and on and on about this dumb ass show indefinitely.

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Hello, can I ask what do you mean "in canon it's impossible for Sherlock to settle down with a woman"? Like, as a fan of Holmes and always read the books since middle school, I'm kinda confuse here, I don't mean anything negative. Sorry, do you think Poirot (from Agatha Christie) is also queer?

Maybe because I grew up with very religious mother and lived in anti-LGBTQ country, I'm kinda slow in picking up subtext. Like until now I'm still kinda confuse with my friend who have ships from any fandoms (but I still love to hear and read her headcanons or fics about those characters)....

I really agree with you, I've seen many Holmes' adaptations (cartoon, tv series, manga) but Yuumori is clearly the closest to Doyle's works. Do you think the mangaka also love to read Holmes' books?

Story time! (Welcome to "Hyper answers asks like an old lady going on an hour long barely-on-topic tangent at the slightest prompting.)

I totally get where you're coming from, I was raised in like...knockoff Southern Baptist churches. Growing up, homosexuality was presented to me as a sexual perversion incapable of involving real love. It's kind of silly, but it's true: a ship was a big part of changing that for me. I read Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle as a teenager, and Kurogane and Fai had something that was inescapably romantic and beautiful but never strictly sexual (tho the potential is certainly there). Between that and an online community of LGBTQ+ adults who were incredibly patient and kind towards me even when I was suuuuper ignorant, I started to open up towards queer relationships as...well, just relationships. Relationships that can encompass sex and also encompass love and friendship and communication and partnership and all those other things I'd been taught were exclusive to monogamous straight people. And then, even as terrified as I was, I was eventually able to face the fact that I'd always had crushes on girls just as often as crushes on guys. So yeah, there's a reason Kurofai is my ship of all ships, the actual One True Pairing for me. Because it cracked open a door just enough that I could slowly lever it open the rest of the way. There seem to be quite a lot of anecdotes like this: women enjoying BL/mlm ships is often seen as fetishy (which can certainly be part of it) but for some reason I can't fully articulate it also seems to sometimes be a means for girls and women to explore their own not-straightness.

ANYWAY. SHERLOCK HOLMES. Tbh I'm not gonna go too in-depth because I would bet good money that there are a bunch of scholarly articles on Holmes' queerness. People have probably done their doctorate theses on this! Much smarter and more well-read folks than I have already covered the topic. For me, it really boils down to: he never outright expresses sexual or romantic interest in anyone (we must resist the urge to assume his respect for Irene Adler is romantic just because he is a man and she is a woman). He's almost certainly on the asexual spectrum. But when he does exhibit symptoms one might associate with romantic and/or sexual interest (particularly romantic, imo), it's always towards men (usually Watson, of course). For example, notable flirt John Watson saying that Holmes blushes at his compliments the way a girl does is...suggestive.

The whole thing is complicated by Watson being (in my opinion at least) an unreliable and sometimes downright petty narrator. He keeps going on spiels about Holmes being cold and heartless, only to turn around and describe him greeting his friends warmly and being emotionally moved by music and baby-talking puppies and charming old ladies. It makes Watson sometimes come across as one of those allo people who are so unable to conceive of a life without romantic and/or sexual desire that they start dehumanizing those who don't experience it. Alternatively and maybe more charitably, he just has a big ol' crush on Holmes, is understandably alarmed by it given the time period, and gets bitchy and defensive when he feels it might not be reciprocated.

But ultimately...do I think Arthur Conan Doyle sat down at a desk in the late 19th century/early 20th century and was like "I am going to write some ace queer representation for the tumblr girlies (gn)"? Obviously not. 😅 I do think he might have set out to create a character who very deliberately did not need to have the otherwise almost obligatory straight romantic side-plot. Holmes is never in any way set up as having a life headed towards marriage and children, in spite of how typical that was for the time. The companionship he does express a need and desire for comes in the form of another man. He's "lost without [his] Boswell." He sneakily buys Watson's practice out from under him so he'll be free to move back in and go on more adventures with him. He threatens violence when Watson is hurt. Etc etc. I think it's very fair to interpret it all through a queer lens, the quibble would be more in whether that queerness ever manifests sexually.

I definitely think the Yuumori creators have not only read ACD but also other fiction based on the stories, possibly even including some very old pastiches like this one. I love how seemingly nerdy they are about it haha! The series is full of easter eggs and callouts to other Holmesian works.

As for Poirot, I know very little about the character beyond a few episodes of the show I watched as a young'un, but that is not the mustache of a straight man (I'm joking I'm joking I have absolutely no opinion on that one! 🤣)

Thanks for the ask, and for actually reading this ramble if you got this far! 😅

[superfallingstars]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by any hc or trait can be justified if you frame it right in the narrative?

hoo boy sorry this took me awhile to get to. first off i should say i was definitely being a bit hyperbolic in that post lol. but i'm not completely rescinding my opinion! the point i was getting at is that i think any headcanon/trait should be secondary to its reason for existing. that is, if you can come up with a thematically satisfying reason for why a character might act in a certain way, even if it could be seen as ooc, then you can make it work.

it might make more sense if i give an example (i had a specific thing in mind when making that post, so i'll use that). so i've seen a lot of posts headcanoning snape as someone who barely takes care of himself (he doesn't eat well, he obviously doesn't take care of his hair, etc). i thought this was fine, it made sense with his character, but it wasn't really doing anything for me personally. but it got me thinking about snape's habits, and i ended up coming to the opposite conclusion, instead imagining that snape actually tries quite hard to take care of himself but just kind of fails at it. which i think works if he's not taking care of himself out of self-love, but instead out of a desire to distance himself from his impoverished upbringing and to fit in with upper class, pureblood ideals. and if we frame it that way, it's really quite tragic – his self-care habits (? idk how to word it lol) are just another reason that he'll never fit in with the purebloods whose approval he wants so desperately. i'm basically summarizing this post i made awhile ago and tbh i wrote it better the first time lol so for additional context check that out

so the point is, someone can headcanon that snape eats nothing but tasteless porridge and rarely washes his hair, and someone else (me hiii it's me) can headcanon that snape delicately prepares complicated charcuterie boards to eat alone in the dungeons and tries all sorts of tonics and tinctures to make his hair less greasy (to no avail)... and even though these opinions are opposites, they both work in their own way. there's an internal logic to each of them, even if that logic is different. it just depends on what parts of the character's personality you want to emphasize and what sort of story is compelling to you.

i know this was a lot lol but i hope this answered your question! :-)

[ca-suffit]

How do you rationalize the violence of the characters on this show? Imo, it's easier when it's self defense or when they're just killing to feed, specially the latter since most are just extras and we don't get to know or be attached to those characters. But there are more complicated cases, including physical and psychological abuse and literally everybody has been the abused and the abuser at some point. Not to/with each other, but definitely other people. There is power imbalance in all of the dynamics. Some may forget that since they keep jumping through timelines where things are perfectly okay or they're closer to making amends and making up. And also because the actors are friends and have chemistry on screen (speaking about the whole cast, not any duo in particular). But technically all main characters have abused each other. Nobody is "safe". So, where to draw the line? Psychological abuse? Physical abuse? The severity of the action (like continuously torturing someone who can't respond or match your strength is definitely worse than one punch, for example)? The frequency of the action, like, as long as it happened once it's okay? When a character is still redeemable/forgivable giving the fact they are immortals, so, in theory, they have eternity to better themselves and see if they can make it work? Or should they all be narratively punished (end up alone, suffering, locked up, dead etc)? What are your thoughts? Btw, I'm genuinely asking. I've become obsessed with this show recently and I haven't been able to talk about it with a lot of people, but I have these questions in my mind. Personally, the more I think about it, the less I know, tbh. It's part of why I love the show and I'm asking, btw. I want to see if I reach some conclusion lol. P.S. I understand if you can't/don't want to answer and I'm sorry this got too long. And if you do answer, feel free to make it long as well if you want, even if you want to make comparisons, add interviews etc. I love reading people's takes hehe. Anywa, thanks!

I don't try to rationalize it tbh. I think that's a goal of the show and the original books as well. What are u supposed to do if u have to "endure" each other forever? What still holds meaning if ur all immortal, how do u have relationships, hobbies, not get bored? Especially when everyone is born from trauma and sometimes that trauma was yesterday and sometimes it was 1000 years ago or 5000 years ago from a society u don't understand at all. How do u bring together so many ppl like that and not erupt on each other?

Trauma and mental illness and whatever else is not always pretty. Violent reactions to things are common and, at least in a society where punitive justice is the norm, we get used to putting these things in these boxes. "u did this bad thing so now ur going to jail / hell." The eternal question of the VC books is where do vampires belong, anyway? Where do they go when they die and for what reasons? Anne Rice never gives a v clear answer on this and it's not just bcuz she wasn't a good writer, the point rly is to just ask the questions. We don't have these answers as humans now, we can't confirm or deny if there's an afterlife and whether these things we do matter for a "soul" or not. We create social rules for many reasons but even those are not actually built on the back of "justice" the way ppl are made to think they are.

I don't think these stories are asking u to find a true "good" or "bad" character or characters. I think we're just meant to watch their choices and reflect on them, reflect on our reactions to them. The fandom's desire for Louis to have done something to "deserve" the drop is all about racism and nothing else. They blame Claudia for "manipulating" Louis into killing Lestat bcuz a black girl is never allowed to be a victim either. She's not even a girl to them anyway, adultification of black girls is another angle they use all the time ("she doesn't look 14 to me!"). They'll say look what Louis did to goad Lestat into fighting him more but they'll never say look what Lestat did to hurt Claudia and push her to that point, as someone who was acting as her parent for most of their lives together. That's always "ooc Lestat." What's happening on screen is a rorschach test for us as the audience and as individuals.

Like I wrote, I don't believe in punitive justice, so I don't think long term these stories are going to focus on that much. The trial was a sham to begin with and Lestat was never "rly" dead or meant to be gone forever. They're going to hurt each other and isolate each other in different ways, but if the show wants to focus on any real character growth, it needs to focus on ways the characters can learn to understand each other instead of banishing / killing each other. Relationships take real work like this too. Anne Rice could never write any of this but I'm hoping the show does. Seeing Lestat have awareness of the pain he caused Louis and the reasons he did it fr was a step in the direction I was hoping the show would go. The big question *is* how does a relationship recover from that? For immortals? How will it make others feel too, particularly Armand, if Louis and Lestat get back together? Will Armand reflect on his own abuse too? They all have a lot in common and they all want to be loved. If that's brought out into the open and treated with kindness and understanding, then the desire to maim and kill each other will greatly diminish tbh. Everything these vampires do to each other originates from a place of personal pain, feeling unlovable. "love is a monster" is one of the taglines for a reason.