#that's just an example but it's the kind of nuance I wouldn't have thought about

[wallabywannabe]

My sister works in non-profit fundraising, and her biggest complaint is that donors (admittedly, mostly big donors that like strings attached and their name or company promoted) want their money to make a "direct" impact. Which sounds good, but they don't think about the operating costs it takes to distribute that impact.

It takes more than just food to run a food bank. It takes space. It takes people working full-time jobs that need to make a living wage so they can distribute the food, reach out to donors, run the finances, manage volunteers, make the food accessible to the people who need it. It takes people doing publicity and keeping websites running, and other things that I can't think of immediately but are still vital to the mission.

There are charities that are sketchy out there and you should do a little vetting before donating, but all charities have operating costs that are not optional. And almost no one working at a nonprofit does it for the money, since wages are always lower than for the same job at a for-profit company.

Doc, what are the top five items food banks LOVE to receive? I'm doing a collection soon and want to ask for specifics.

MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY

That aside.

 I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome. 

1) Canned chicken and beef 

looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins. 

2) Fancy nut butters

Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)

3) Canned or packaged tuna

You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend. 

4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like) 

Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry. 

5) Shelf-stable juice

This is one people never think of! But if you show up with a bunch of (preferably reduced sugar stuff) bottles of juice at my door, oh man, you are gonna get so many check mark and okay hand emoticons. This stuff is great for kids, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened, so it works great for food drives. 

[musical-chick-13]

I hate when something looks like it would be RIGHT up your alley and the cast is pretty stacked, but there's one person in said cast who is just. Genuinely a horrible human being.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Your most recent post about how you would(n’t) use Lila was interesting, because after I read how you’d handle a Chloe redemption I thought Lila would make a good counterpart to Chloe for Adrien, an object lesson about how some people can’t/don’t want to be redeemed.

Start out before or near the beginning of the redemption arc with Chloe as the bully with a long history of misdeeds to make up for, and Lila as (Adrien and the audience thinks) a nervous newcomer who told some lies for attention/popularity. Adrien might even think of her situation as Easy Mode or good practice for helping Chloe. Then time goes on, and as Chloe shows signs of improvement, Lila gradually reveals her true nature.

(Chloe post and Lila post for context)

I don't totally disagree. There are versions of canon where Lila and Chloe would be good choices for a nuanced discussion on redemption. For example, if canon was all about the teenage characters and had no adult villains, then Lila would be a great choice for damnation! The problem is that canon didn't take that route or really any route where Lila feels like a good addition to the cast, let alone someone worthy of being Chloe's counterpart in a lesson about the nuances of redemption.

The main plot of Miraculous should have been Gabriel's reveal and downfall. The point of Chloe's redemption should have been prepping Adrien for said reveal and downfall. Through her, Adrien first learns how to cut off someone you love and then learns how to decide if you want to bring that person back into your life. That is a full and complete lesson. Trying to repeat the lesson or supplement the lesson with Lila feels unnecessary for the same reason I don't like her as the new main villain: she's no one. A total rando with no close ties to Adrien or anyone else. Adrien wanting to help her is fine in theory, but hard to see as a valuable addition because she doesn't matter to his character. We have his father, his close childhood friend, and a random girl he barely knows. One of these things is not like the other. That lack of depth removes most or even all of the emotional impact that a failed Lila redemption would have on Adrien. It's not going to have much of an impact on the audience either unless you make some serious changes to Lila.

One of the show's biggest flaws is that Lila is not a functional character. She has no clear motivations, backstory, or even a strong tie to the main plot of seasons one to five, making it hard to care about her. To have her damnation have any sort of emotional impact on the audience, you need to give her those things and have her develop actual relationships. Without that depth, she's an incredibly weak addition to the story who is only here to be a two-dimensional villain. The audience doesn't want her to be redeemed. We want to see her go down! Those are the wrong emotions for a lesson on failed redemption. Failed redemption should be a tragedy if you want the lesson to hit properly. It's easy to give up on people we don't really care about. It's hard to give up on people we love.

Add in the facts that Miraculous already has too many characters and that Chloe's redemption would be a subplot amidst everything else that's going on and I just don't see Lila being worth the screen time it would take to let her have a proper damnation when you're already giving Gabriel a damnation. Plus it's kind of depressing to have one redemption against two damnations and I like to keep the sad elements limited so that they really pop. Damning Lila and then Gabriel would make Gabriel's damnation feel less powerful.

Even if the plan was to redeem Gabriel, I still wouldn't use Lila as our damnation case study. I'd use Nathalie. She's far more interesting and has an actual tie to the overall plot, making her super easy to involve. Her and Gabriel share the screen constantly, making it very easy to contrast them as the story goes on. You can't really do that with Lila and Chloe because Lila and Chloe would never team up in a story where Chloe gets a redemption arc. Canon had to add Chloe's Marinette obsession to make the Lila & Chloe plot work and Chloe's redemption doesn't work if she hates Marinette to that extreme. I don't think that version of Chloe is beyond redemption, but I would never redeem her into Marinette's friend group. Seasons-four-and-five Chloe needs a fresh start with people she hasn't hurt. I don't know if she could ever be friends with Marinette and I don't particularly care to see it.

I love a good redemption, but part of writing those is knowing that there are lines that a character can't cross if you want them to be forgiven and accepted by your core cast later on. It's that whole romanticizing the cycle of abuse thing that I've discussed before re enemies-to-lovers stories and the general concept of redeeming Gabriel. I get why people like it, it's a wonderful fantasy, but for me it's an incredibly hard sell. My suspension of disbelief almost always breaks, leaving me feeling sad and unsatisfied.

[fictionkinfessions]

Ok so I've been annoyed about this for fucking ages, so now I'm going to complain about it. This isn't prompted by some ask sent in or whatever I've just decided that Today's The Day.

There's been a lot of talk about the difference between fictionkins and fictives on here; a lot of "how can I tell if I'm a fictionkin or if we have a fictive", and "this character is a fictionkin'type but they might be a fictive/I'm not sure if they're a fictive/I might be a fictive", etc. And there's been a not-insubstantial amount of people responding to that in a way that we feel is pretty close-minded. So we're going to complain about it now.

There is a lot of responses to those kinds of questions and thoughts that are all just "There's actually a huge difference between the two and you'd know right away". This is incredibly fucking annoying to us, as a system with a lot of fictionkintypes. This may shock you, but there's a nuance to this, which nobody seems to care about.

For certain people, the difference between a fictionkintype and a fictive could be really clear, and they'd immediately know "Oh okay we have a new John Egbert fictive, neat" and "One of us is a fictionkin of N from Pokémon". The problem is though that for a lot of people (ourselves included), it's not that clear at /all/. For example, we have previously had a lot of issues trying to figure out where the line between kintype and fictive was drawn, due to the way we function. We're very homogenous, in a lot of ways, for a lot of reasons. Ergo, sometimes, it'll take days, if not WEEKS, of deliberation to figure out who is what.

People also seem to forget that terms exist that, obviously, point to this not being nearly as clear-cut an issue as it's thought of. Fableing, for one, being an identity which / someone who is both a fictive and a fictionkin of a particular character at the same time. Or kinforms (a kintype-turned-fictive), or Kin systems (https://pluralpedia.org/w/Kin_System), or median systems or monoconscious systems. Etc. If it was as simple to figure out as it's portrayed; these terms wouldn't be there to use, I feel like. Am I making sense so far?

And while we're here; not the biggest fan of how. Medicalist, I guess, the responses tend to feel. Gesturing at the close-mindedness I mentioned. The very black-and-white view on it gives off Bad Vibes, we'll say. Not a fan.

Regardless; sorry for the essay. Just that my patience has worn thin on this and I'm so, so sick of it.

-#sharkfeed.

2

[funnywormz]

I think this shitshow with Toshiro stems from the trend of people INSISTING that interpersonal conflict must be a moral failing. Like I think there's something to be said about how people afford so much less patience to people who are autistic in the "wrong" ways, but also Laios and Toshiro just clash on a fundamental level that has nothing to do with that. Hell, you could read Toshiro as autistic as well. People related to Laios' side of the argument but instead of getting any nuance out of it they started projecting their experiences with ableist people onto Toshiro.

AGREE AGREE AGREE. i think that Fandom Brain gets people very used to thinking of conflicts in terms of "who is the bad guy and who is the good guy", so when they encounter a more nuanced conflict they don't really know what to do. i don't think toshiro is a bad person at all, in his conflict with laios he's just exhausted and starving and has been pushed to the limit and from his perspective, laios doesn't even seem that emotionally affected by the situation. i don't think what he said was right and it was pretty cruel, but i don't think he's a villain or deserves to be permanently hated as a character just bc he fucked up this time lol

also yeah you could definitely read him as autistic, and i think that highlights an issue in the autistic community in general bc like....... a lot of autistic people have conflicting needs which can lead to conflict between them/make them unable to stand being around each other. and it's not because either of them are neurotypical or bad people, they're just incompatible. like autistic people who loudly stim vocally and autistic people who meltdown when they have to be around loud noises, for example. it doesn't mean either of them is bad or not autistic, just that they have conflicting needs

i 100% agree with the last part too. i disliked toshiro at first myself bc i had been (and still do ngl) projecting onto laios hard and the conflict they had reminded me of times when people have been mean or angry at me irl for social blunders i've made unintentionally, or when someone i thought liked me/was my friend turned out to actually hate me. it's a common experience for autistic people and that scene resonates with that! but i think it also helps to take a step back from projecting our own traumatic experiences onto the scene and just look at it objectively. laios isn't perfect either and he's the one who actually starts the physical fight by slapping toshiro (i feel like i don't see many people mention this lol). i feel super bad for him in that scene but he's not a perfect victim and has done things wrong himself too

as an autistic person i've also been in situations where i can relate to toshiro too lol, like where someone is overly physically and emotionally familiar with me when we don't know each other well and i've wanted them to back off but haven't been sure how to say it without hurting their feelings. this kind of conflict is far from just being a "neurotypical vs neurodivergent" thing as a lot of people portray it in the fandom

idk i just wish people would think a little more deeply about the scene and put their own emotions and experiences aside to instead consider the conflict with the added context of the individual characters and their respective cultures + the situation they're in. people don't have to like toshiro but i wish they wouldn't paint him as a villain or make up awful shit about him just to justify their feelings when he isn't even that bad of a dude in canon yknow 😑. also we literally see him at rock bottom struggling and freaking out and i think that's important to remember. in a different context i doubt he would have ever said those things to laios

[thesophistiicate]

im not trying to act all high and mighty, im just genuinely confused by this... i truly dont understand girls who allow themselves to be put in degrading situations the same as the last anon? surely its glaringly obvious that man just wanted a body to use? i know i sound so mean but im genuinely actually confused whenever i hear or read girls talking about experiences like that i find it very hard to understand what would make them give the most undeserving men access to their bodies and souls like that... i can kind of understand if you sleep with a man for the first time and he treats you badly after but what i dont understand is going back again and again and expecting a different result. at that point maybe youre a little to blame as well? why would you even sleep with someone who youre not even in a relationship with? im just very lost i thought by now we all know better than to give just anyone our time. i see this even in my girl friends, theyre all so beautiful and intelligent yet they date terrible men that shouldnt even be allowed to breathe the same air as them and when they inevitably cheat or hurt them they genuinely get heartbroken and then they start to tell me about things the man has said to them and show me their text conversations and in my head im like "hes telling you right there in that message that he doesnt care about you..? what did you expect..?" sometimes it feels like girls get into situationships and relationships just to get themselves hurt on purpose because, and this is gonna sound so mean but i dont know how else to word this, but theres no way people can genuinely be this blind and stupid. i just find it so hard to feel sympathy for girls who numerously get shown and told theyre only being used for sex and still stick around for a different outcome. is that what love supposed to be? am i the one with the twisted understanding of love? am i missing something? i hope im not coming off as heartless or conceited, im genuinely confused i just dont know how to express or word it well

i'm happy to hold space for expressing thoughts imperfectly or even harshly, so long as we are willing to find understanding and not stay stuck in judgement 🤍 i would say the challenge for you here is learning to stay out of judgement (it is all right to acknowledge that's not how you would act, but attaching value statements and labels like 'stupid' don't help you be kind and don't help anyone else thrive either), and leaning into empathy (finding understanding when someone acts in a way you wouldn't, rather than judgement and frustration).

i say this as someone who used to be really judgemental, not to tell you off, but because it's so good for the soul to learn this growth. judgement and labels are easy, it's far more difficult to build the emotional intelligence to hold space for nuance and complexity, to extend compassion and nurture even when somebody is making imperfect decisions.

i think that you're someone with a really good level of self worth and self respect who cares about others too. that's so amazing! the best thing you can do is continue to hold your standards and lead by example. you aren't the one who has it wrong at all. healthy, respectful relationships aren't like this! keep your standards high, show your friends examples of high standards. as much as it will feel like they aren't listening, sometimes a simple, fairly neutrally toned: "wow, you deserve better" or "geez, i wouldn't put up with that" or "that's not normal" will linger and have more long-term impact than you realise.

i know it's easy to look in from the outside and say, can't you see it?! he just sucks!! or to look at the end of a crazy story and be like, girl, there was SO many red flags wtf!! (lol me at my past self!) but when you're in the middle of it, it's actually really hard. these people are master manipulators and they know how to keep their victims hooked. love bombing, mixed signals, disrespectful treatment to lower self worth... it's a wild ride inside the storm, you simply cannot see clearly because they are committed to obscuring the view.

at the core women get themselves into these situations because of low self worth. it's why i talk about it ALL THE TIME, it's SO CRUCIAL. when you don't value yourself, you put up with being disrespected. the more you are disrespected, the lower your self worth drops and the more bad treatment you accept. it's a toxic cycle. it's the exact same dynamics as in any abusive or domestic violence scenario (even if the relationships aren't abusive and he's just casually disrespectful - that is the beginning of abuse), and it's pretty well researched why women stay, how they get in those situations, why they find it difficult to leave, why the cycle keeps repeating with new partners. i'd highly recommend researching it if you want to understand it better. every woman should be educated on this topic.

you are right to some extent: if you want to get out of the cycle you do have to take responsibility for your own behaviour. you have to ask why you're accepting being treated that way. what led you there. why you are obsessing over their behaviours but not questioning your own.

but to confront all this is very difficult and painful and often related to trauma and neglect. yet another reason why so many can't escape the cycle, to face all of that can be more painful than putting up with a shitty guy who just wants sex without commitment... the crap treatment is easier to face, until it isn't.

it is a form of self-harm, a kind of self-destruction as a way a broken mind and spirit tries to cope with trauma. to end the relationship would be to limp out and finally confront how broken you are. when you stay in it you can stay delulu. it's a form of escape.

of course, to a healthy person it doesn't make sense. why would anyone ever willingly hurt themselves? and yet, it's a psychologically observable phenomenon and unfortunately the solution and path to healing is far more complex than just not doing that or getting into those situations. if only!!

but the way out DOES involve making a decision that you deserve better. which is why we need to keep talking about these things, bringing them to light, being compassionate, creating safe spaces for women in these relationships to talk about what they're experiencing without judgement, shame, being called stupid or asking for it etc 🤍

i could speak for a long time on this, but i'll leave it there for now... it's all right to not understand it. i actually think that's a good thing in a way, it means you're in a good place. but certainly if you really want to understand it, the research is there!

[annabtg]

Anna, you’re so right(i love you). It’s so annoying that all these woke yaoi-shipping sjws have taken over the fandom. You cannot put characters like James and Sev through modern lenses(“Snape was a child abuser” teachers were allowed to hit students with rulers at 90s british schools but being a little mean to a troublemaker makes you satan🙄) and understand them fully. You also cannot make James Potter into a bisexual adhd-having MOC and keep true to his character(everything about him relays on him being very privileged in society)

Love, an old man.

I don't know how you can read this post and conclude that my problem is "woke, yaoi-shipping sjws"? My problem is, like I said, the complete lack of reading comprehension skills, of creative and analytical thought and of the ability to empathize with the characters.

Indeed, modern social media seems to favour performative activism, but that's not what fanfic suffers from. I've engaged with fandom enough to understand that the prevalence of non-nuanced takes comes from younger fans who have grown up in a world massively different from the one I grew up in as a millennial with boomer parents.

Nevertheless, I don't think you're doing it right either, my love. Teachers might have been allowed to hit students with rulers in the 70s (they weren't allowed in 90s Greece, though, and I have been informed neither were they in the UK) - and an example of a strict but good teacher in the books is Minerva McGonagall, who would dole out harsh punishments and use her sharp tongue on students, but still gives you the feeling that she cared about them and loved them. That kind of "tough love" was how boomers took care of their kids. Not Snape, who had beef with a student because he didn't like his father. That's fucked up. But the thing is that Snape is supposed to be unlikeable and mean and come off as the villain, to make his arc all the more surprising and impactful. He's supposed to be a fucked up dick who works for the side of good, because the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters.

As for James, I don't think his portrayal as a bisexual ADHD-having MOC is inherently incompatible with his character, even if it's not the authorial intent (indeed, James is supposed to be the picture of privilege). For instance, one aspect of HP I find fascinating is how being a POC doesn't descend into racism in the books - I think there's one single instance of it, where Pansy tells Angelina she's got worms on her head, but that's obviously Pansy being a dick, and other than that there is no casual racism thrown about to people like Dean or Lee or Cho or the Patils. Whether their portrayal is nuanced or stereotypical is a different discussion, but I think it's obvious that we're supposed to take out that if you're a racist wizard, it's not colour that matters, it's blood. James Potter could reasonably be a POC and it wouldn't matter at all in the world he lived in.

That he would struggle with ADHD or sexuality is also not implausible, and in fact I think it makes for very compelling portrayals of him to be going through that in an era-adequate way. Have people around him be annoyed because he just won't sit still, show him confused by his attraction to Sirius and downplaying it with semi-homophobic remarks. I'm personally not so much a fan of a Hogwarts that reads like you're at Pride, but it was the era of hippies, after all?? I think that Hogwarts would be on the conservative side of things, but at the end of the day it *was* the time when queerness started to gain visibility and I understand how people feel at liberty to use that. Everyone seeks to connect to these characters through fic to some degree; for me, who grew up as a gifted (and probably undiagnosed autistic?) kid in a conservative society, the canon portrayal of people like James and Lily and Sirius at Hogwarts resonates enough to keep me intrigued.

I don't lament people trying to project their own struggles with queerness or mental illness or idk just the fun conversations they have with their friends on the Marauders and Hogwarts; what bugs me is when it's being done in a way that cancels canon aphoristically, and you're suddenly idk toxic for shipping Jily because "James was an abuser and Lily had Stockholm Syndrome" - that's not what happened. Showing off like a peacock was the men's standard flirting technique, and playing hard to get was the women's standard flirting technique, and even with that Jily contains a LOT of nuance - and frankly, even through a modern lens I find it very difficult to miss if you have the first idea of reading between the lines. Which is why I keep saying: lack of reading comprehension skills and critical thinking beyond understanding straightforward text messages and cheap quips is the bane of these readers' existence (or, you know, our existence, for having to put up with it).

[utilitycaster]

(you don't need to publish this because a) it's not a question and b) I don't want that maybe you're getting attacked/vagueblogged over it) I just wanted to say, that I originally came to your blog because of your nuanced, deep and really really good Caleb meta and that Imogenfans are missing out big time. I think, if Im/odna fans wouldn't have acted the way they did and talented people hadn't stopped writing meta about them, at least I would have warmed up to the characters way more....

Hi anon,

I hope you don't mind me publishing it anyway just because it's a good opportunity to elaborate on a few rather fanwanky feelings in one brief-ish statement.

I don't really care if people vague me and I think people who don't like being vagued are valid, but people who don't like being vagued, whine about it, and then continue to vague others are, understandably, idiots making the situation worse. Most people who had issues with being vagued re: the above simply stopped writing meta, which is why there's not much of it. Also a lot of what people call vaguing is just meta that disagrees with theirs, to be honest. I mean I do vague, a lot, and I'm very good at it, but I've also written 100% good faith meta about things I was thinking about the narrative without consideration of other peoples' opinions and it was called vaguing because I used aggressive tactics like citing my sources.

I've covered the fact that Imogen was actually treated very similarly to Caleb with the key difference that people who wrote meta about Caleb were treated badly by his haters, whereas people who wrote meta about Imogen were treated badly by her then-supporters who are now mostly defending Ashton and Dorian because Imogen started saying things they don't like and don't want to address. I just want to reiterate that if someone ever says that The Male Characters Played By White Actors Never Receive Hate you should just block them and stop taking them seriously. The hate is obviously not motivated by bigotry against real people, typically (though some criticism of Veth was certainly misogynistic even though Sam is a man, for example) but they still did receive pretty intense hate. It is kind of telling, personally, re a certain lack of backbone that people will bring up the horrible things people said about Liam or Travis or Taliesin in their own defense and then turn around and willingly engage with the people making these accusations they clearly know to be false, but you know. Unsurprising.

I tried to write something longer that really dug into the outline of events but it really comes down to this: a lot of the direct harassment (not vagueing) of meta writers, especially with regards to Imogen or Laudna, occurred during episodes like...20-50 of this campaign, and I think those doing the harassment either thought this would somehow make meta writers go "oh my god you're so right about the thing that you said I should die for not agreeing with, I'm going to write meta for you now" or that this would shut them down but wouldn't make other meta writers say "oh this environment has become hostile", which obviously it would. Coupled with the fact that this is when a lot of meta writers realized the campaign pacing was fucked and the party wasn't clicking in the same way past ones had and it really turned into a case of high risk of unpleasantness for a not really worth it reward for many of the meta writers who were around in earlier campaigns, and that in TURN meant that it's harder to have a good conversation without having existing chats so it's a less pleasant place for new fans. Anyway uh. I think the lesson here is that those C2 meta writers ARE around for Midst and Candela Obscura so it's also kind of a waiting game in the event that there is a future campaign (and if not, they will still be here for Midst/Candela/Possibly Daggerheart or future EXUs); they're just not here to write about Imogen or Laudna because it's not worth the trouble.

[kerizaret]

Keep in mind it's just the opinions of the people I've been exposed to haha. The Generic Elitist type™, there's definitely more classical people who like or at least neutral at pop music and are more open-minded in general. But being in the industry does inevitably come with biases and thought he is not fully in that black and white mentality I do believe Harumichi is a rather severe case.

Does he consider Saki's career choice as better than Toya's and set her as an example?

In the terms of her hanging out with more "straight-laced" people, maybe. Musically, probably not by much, if any. I think Harumichi is more preoccupied with the kind if music Touya played rather than if he was successful, so a lot of it ties in into classical being superior to other genres. Leo/need is (irrc) a pop-rock group which isn't that much better that street (a mix of freestyle, rap, and seemingly pop - keep in mind that street music is either only a genre in-universe or isn't meant to be a genre as much as the style of performance, so it's kinda hard to tell what they mean by Harumichi hating street music. Kohane's solo from KIUAN is pretty much just pure pop).

Does he value the keyboard and think of it as a worthy instrument like a classical piano or would he think she should've sticked to the latter?

Synth/keyboard isn't even considered a "piano" in classical circles, per se. Which does have it's reasoning, as the key weighs, spacing, and the technique is very different from "acoustic" piano and a lot of finely-tuned skills from piano playing won't transfer to keyboard and vice versa. It's kind of how classical violinist don't usually consider electric violinists worth their salt because acoustic anything is much more unforgiving in terms of technique than the respective electric option (but also provides additional challenges that acoustic instrument don't have, especially depending on the genre. Not one option is inherently better or worse unless we're going into specific situation at hand in which a preference might be discussed). So, we can safely say Harumichi doesn't respect keyboard, either at all or at least as much as he would a piano.

What does he think of the music she plays, since it's not classical?

A wide spread opinion is that all pop music sounds the same, basically. Pop music, including rock, rarely diverts form 4/4 time and common chord progressions. It doesn't need to, because what it can't express through complicated music, it compensates for lyrically. However people heavily immersed in classical lyrics, which typically doesn't have lyrics and voice, find music with lyrics redundant in a way. Which is also among the reasons why so many classical musicians are actually not fans of opera. So there's both no appreciation for the instrumental which is likely not impressive to them and no desire to dig into the lyrics. This is something that is held against the genre overall rather than individual artists. There's some nuance for this in (pop)rock and I think some classical elitists are actually willing to give rock music a pass, especially one that's innovative and creative with their instrumental part, but Leo/need probably wouldn't be one of them all things considered.

Has he actually ever listened to leo/need?

Unlikely. He doesn't even take the time to listen to Touya's work until he literally begs to. This is somewhat explained in-universe, but I do think his prejudice goes deep enough that he'd not willingly engage with Leo/need, if he was even aware if their activity, except maybe out of politeness.

I'd be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong though. Like I said, I think there's more to him than his character archetype of overly strict classical musician dad.

Harumichi forced to listen to leoni by having tenpapa play the leoni soda advertisement 15 times in a row during a joint dinner sobbing his eyes out about how proud he is of his daughter /silly

But thank you!!! This is very insightful and really cool :0 all that is to say though it's moreso unlikely he'd be very enthusiastic about Saki's music. Tenma-Aoyagi dinners must be so funny what does this man even see in the Tenmas I need to know. Is it only tenmama and harumichi talking about classical 2 hours straight

Poor guy saw three kids with so much classical potential and one went to sing in the streets, the second switched to an electric counterpart and changed to pop and the last one decided being a clown is a better career choice. I'd be bitter too /silly /j

[williamrikers]

i love that you were right about mut and rak's kink dynamic only intensifying as the show progresses and how the show cleverly uses their NC encounters to further show how their relationship also progresses. for example, i love that the show has been building off of and using "eating meals at home" as an obvious metaphor for how they approach this new relationship.

mut has made a big deal about eating meals prepared at home instead of ordering food and rak has been embracing that concept because he is finding that food prepared by mut tastes better than anything else he can get.

now i don't speak thai, so perhaps the nuances of the language don't quite mean what the subtitles insinuate, but that new scene where mut confronts rak about going out only seems to hit it's big boiling point when rak says that he's going "out to eat".

it's clear that mut draws a hard line in the sand with that, and truthfully i don't know if mut's Dom signals were crossed that he thought rak was deliberately being a brat to get a rise out of him or if mut genuinely just got mad, but when he manhandles rak, mut is still doing his due diligence by checking in throughout this encounter to see if this is okay. OH BOY WAS RAK INTO IT LMAO.

it's so obviously a shift in how they've done things before and dear friend, i fear i could go on forever about this, but just know that i am simply unwell.

hello my dear anon 🤗

haha, i love being right 😌😌 but yes, i am so happy to see the show going in that direction and showing the two of them getting more comfortable in their kink dynamic—in all of their recent intimate scenes, mut started out by holding rak's hands down on the mattress and every time it made me so damn happy. these two know what they like! and they are very much compatible that way, which is just so much fun to watch.

about the "eating" thing: "eating" someone is thai slang for having sex with them. tongrak was blatantly telling mut that he was going out to find someone else to fuck him and that's what mut reacted to by telling him he would fuck him so good he wouldn't be tempted to think about anyone else 🥰

rak was confronted with mut confessing his feelings, tried to put more distance between them by going out and having sex with someone else and mut was absolutely not having it. i adore their dynamic because it's very easy to see that rak needs the kind of love mut gives him, that he thrives on it and that he's very much in love with mut as well (although not yet at a point where he can admit that), and it's just so much fun to watch rak's walls breaking down piece by piece 😏

[desceros]

Hi, you probably don't remember me, but I'm the 🪻 anon that sent asks once or twice. Still very much a nervous fan! Your work and the way you write about your experiences and feelings still positively stun me every time I read your posts.

I've been thinking about writing for the tmnt and rottmnt universes for a while now, but I'm still very uncertain about my own interpretation of these characters. If it isn't too much to ask, I'd like to know how you do it??

Your work has such fluidity and... sense?? I don't really quite know how to put it into words, but it inspires me very much! Anyway, I guess I'm asking for writing tips?? I know each interpretation is unique and our own, but I can't help but adore yours! I hope you're having a good day/night, Ms. Desceros!

Ps: English is not my first language, so sorry if my rambling aren't really coherent. (〒 u 〒⁠)

– 🪻

i do very much remember! and i'm so sorry i had this sitting in my inbox for forever and a day lmfaoooo i didn't want to rush the answer and instead give it proper thought/answer for you! :D

so it sounds like you're asking two different things here, which is 1) how do i establish strong characters, and 2) how do i construct flow in a fic.

characterization

for characters, it starts pretty simply with just consuming a lot of the character. for example, with the turtles, i've watched rise and bayverse both a lot. like, a lot a lot. enough that i can hear their voices in my head when i'm writing, because i've heard them so much.

specifically, i've watched it not just casually, but also with the ears of a writer. what words do each of the turtles use? how do they phrase things? when one of them gets annoyed, how does he communicate it? when they're scared, what do they say? how do they move their bodies? what do they do in the background of scenes where they aren't the focus?

once you feel like you kind of know the answers to those questions, the next step is just to write! i probably have about... hm... 30-50k of fic in my icloud that i wrote before i started posting things. the purpose of it was just to figure out how i liked the turtles to sound. because i write them as older adults, they sound just a little different than they do in the show. i inject my headcanons into their voices. these things change how they act, and i fiddled with it until i was happy with it. knowing i wasn't going to publish these made it really easy for me to get creative and push things, until i found the boundaries that i like and that feel good for me.

flow

so good flow is something that really comes with a lot of experience writing. it's one of those things you... pick up as you write a lot, so this part is going to be a bit more. hm. disconnected. nuanced. how you like things paced, how things feel good under your fingers; these are things you'll get better at as you go on. that said, it's something i've very consciously worked on myself, so i do have a few tips for you that'll hopefully speed up that process for you!

my biggest tip is to READ. find authors (fiction and fanfiction!) you like, and READ them. but again, we're not doing it recreationally, we're doing it as a writer.

read your favorite authors and think. think about the things they include and what they don't. what information do they convey in great detail? what information do they convey in exposition? what information do they leave for you to garner on your own? why do you like how they include things? why do you like what they don't? do you miss certain things? do you wish they wouldn't bother with others?

for example, i really love brining in the emotions of a scene. how something makes a character feel. basking in that is something i really love reading, so i have a lot of it in my writing. and i enjoy doing it without Telling you how someone feels. i don't say "donnie is sad." i tell you how his shoulders slump. how he gazes off to the side with a listless expression. how his eyes cloud over with uncertainty. these are things i've enjoyed reading, and so i've incorporated into my writing. i will slow down the flow of my fic, putting a bit of rubato on these moments, because i like how it feels.

i personally enjoy things to be very fluid, connecting from one scene to the next with as little a break as possible. think of french vs english. french is very fluid, english is very percussive. they're both languages, both good, they just sound different to the ear. part of constructing that, for me, means i write from beginning to end without skipping around. it's a style that has its pros and cons, but it allows me to have a single thread, unbroken, though the entire work.

ultimately, your writing is a stained glass of everything you love. the words you think are pretty, the turns of phrase that catch your eye, the verbs that bring action to life. this is the foundation of what people will call your "voice," and a large part of that is your flow, or pacing. i can't really... tell you how to create your stained glass. but this is how you can create your own, and make it something you find beautiful.

[infamous-if]

Is that why the members voted MC instead of Seven? Because Seven wouldn't let themselve be pushed around like mc does? They did both fought a lot about how the leadership goes 👀 and Seven is kinda everyone's problem too though. Iris said it herself. It's giving me mixed feelings for the band rn

No, the members voted strictly on what they thought was beneficial to the band. I may have worded my last answer wrong lmao but yes, Seven is everyone's problem, just not in the same way they are for MC.

We have to remember that the vote wasn't the only thing that broke them apart. It was also the following fight at the party, which was between MC and Seven only. It adds another layer of resentment between them two compared to the band. It's been three years; Iris, Rowan and Devyn are kind of over it by now. They're not very happy with Seven and would rather avoid Sev if they can help it, but they're not actively hating them the way MC can (optional), which kind of goes back to the scene in which MC says "you're being surprisingly forgiving" (or something like that) to Iris.

They're all adults, they're not going to kick someone out based on whether that person is a pushover or not. They've all had arguments before, even before the vote. Rowan and Iris* had their fair share of blowouts. (edit: I meant Iris, haha, but also Sev.)

The mixed feelings likely come from the fact that the nuances all change based on what type of MC you play. For example, an MC who hates Seven versus one who misses them etcetera etcetera. It's never really a straight-forward answer.

Also, the band have their own agency and do what they like so maybe you may not like what they do but they do not live based off the likes and dislikes of MC hahaha they're their own people.

Hope that kind of answers that! Sorry if it doesn't!

[eyeris-moni]

are jeff and raz.. kissboys..???!?!

This ask's wording had me DYING HELP

Forever adding that to my mental dictionary HAHAHA

I have to be completely honest with you, I myself have no hecking clue what their relationship is.

And I HAVE TRIED TO FIGURE OUT OK OTL

The TLDR is that I don't know!! and that you're welcome to HC and see them how you want as of now.

My own reins are loose and I just draw what feels in character (:

Thought-vomit below in case you want to hear my thoughts on it. It's long because i cannot for the life of me remember how much I've talked about before--

__________________

Most of the time I'm more focused on exploring the intricate, intimate feelings of their dynamic (something I just can't do justice with a couple of doodles here and there aughh).

Like--

Let's talk about the almost infantilized elements of Raz's repressed nature.

(Btw, this is not an issue to me - don't feel bad if you genuinely, or even on a meme level, refer to him as a baby. From Raz's perspective, that's how you're meant to, and in turn, that's the narrative I often draw. I draw him cute - he is cute!)

Every character, viewer included, is invited to see Raz as 'babi OwO', because that's a part of Raz's wants. When he feels threatening, he will literally make himself smaller, visually plead for you to see him that way.

Not because he is a tiny baby, but because he has learnt that doing so makes people nicer to him. He doesn't actually ever become a child. Instead he will look the part to spark care in others, and adapt a very simplistic worldview when needed. Not because he cannot grasp anything more complicated, but because it's too distressing to do so!

Like imagine how you might start thinking politics in term of simple 'bad' vs. 'good'. Not because there isn't nuance, but because it's stressful and exhausting and takes away your ability to be happy.

Sometimes Raz does that, but instead of it being politics, it's everything!

And I think it's genuinely interesting how Jeff kind of knows this and once he gets an idea of how it works, he doesn't coddle or treat Raz like a child.

In part because he's a stubborn asshole and kind of refuses to infantilize Raz beyond what is 'healthy'.

He learns to treat Raz as an adult, but obviously simplifies and helps out when Raz is overwhelmed. Example:

The rest of the times he and EJ do their best to help Raz learn how to be responsible and build healthier relationship. How to be self-sufficient.

And it's important because it's Jeff that's pushing for Slender to let him into the mansion, arguing that Raz isn't just a kid, but an adult that can take responsibility for his actions. He's pushing and arguing for Raz to be viewed the same way Jeff knows he can be, capable and responsible.

THAT IS ALL TO SAY I find it genuinely interesting and endearing how Jeff is able to connect with Raz (by being a stubborn asshole) and in turn helps Raz by holding him accountable. To see the glimpses of Ezca before they ever truly met, and how he shuts down Raz's unhealthy habits of making himself smaller, while idolizing everyone around him.

It's cool and I do think it makes their specific relationship special.

I mostly talked about Jeff's influence on Raz, but I could also talk for hours about how my version of Jeff slowly learns to be more patient and more emotional from Raz being around. (I imagine he lost a lot of his ability to be emotional ever since he entered a pact with Slenderman.)

I think their friendship is really cool and complicated and full of little intricate parts and having to label that is HARD GKDNDN

I wouldn't know if there's anything romantic in there - I've never drawn anything with that explicitly in mind?

But I draw them very close! Raz enjoys physical touch and closeness, and as they learn to work together, (especially post roadtrip together,) Jeff is kinda chill having Raz just laying/hanging/sitting around and on him.

Really the one concerned should be Raz because lord knows when Jeff last has showered and washed his clothes but i guess that's a benefit of being non-human NFKDNSJS

_________

I'm so sorry for the insanely long rambly answers!

I've been walking around with these characters in my head for years and it's HARD EXPLAINING STUFF

Also yall keep asking genuinely interesting question about them and the fan/nerd in me desires to make sure I cover my bases-

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

While "the network wants an episodic kids show, the authors want an epic dark complicated narrative" would explain A LOT about ML's problems, I'd still like to note that there are kids' shows that can do both, going full range from "mostly episodic with a sprinkle of narrative" (Kim Possible, MLP), to "heavily narrative but with episodic breather/filler episodes" (Gravity Falls, WITCH, the Owl House), with many variants in-between.

Even the transition from "fully episodic" to "more narratively-connected" that ML attempted to do can be done successfully - the aforementioned Gravity Falls and WITCH were more episodic in season 1 and more narratively driven in season 2.

However, I'd say there are a few other key problems that can be inferred from what we have:

The show tries too many things at once - as you have pointed out repeatedly. Magical girl and rom-com, single-hero, duo and team stories, wacky comedy and serious trauma, even trying to give several characters a redemption and a damnation arc at the same time (and failing with either). Apparently, it's not just TF vs writers: it's writers severely disagreeing with each other (see Thomas and Vincent's opinions on Chloe), and also trying to one-up the fans. Also, simply thinking too much of the work, which leads us to...

ML's total lack of self-awareness. Another famous case of a show that was almost entirely episodic is Phineas and Ferb. They use the same formula (the brothers build, Candace busts, Doof makes an Inator and is thwarted by Perry) over and over for four seasons. And by mid-season 1, the authors have been making fun of the structure, lampshading it, spoofing and twisting it, playing with "What if" episodes and never taking itself too seriously. When ML tries to be self-aware, it becomes either insulting to the fans (Animaestro), horrifically dark (Chat Blanc) or plain cringe (Simpleman). This is exacerbated by Astruc's arrogance and inability to ignore critics.

Is it possible to make a highly complex, genre-busting, yet kid-friendly story and succeed? Yes. But it needs to be better thought-out - if not from the start, then at the moment the network allows one to deviate from the formula.

And if all else fails and the story becomes too complicated and too repetitive at the same time... Well, self-awareness and the ability to make fun of one's own work can turn a sad mess into a hilariously fun disaster.

P. S. Love your posts as always, you are the main reason I'm still in the fandom!

Thank you for the kind words! I'm so glad that you're enjoying my stuff and I agree with all the things you brought up.

A big part of the reason that Miraculous is so fascinating to me is that there ISN'T a single cause of the issues. There are so many valid ways to discuss the show's problems. It's a masterclass in bad writing and what not to do!

It's why I'm able to run this blog. If it was as simple as, "here's the single reason why it's bad and here's how you fix that" or if the show never had any potential, then there wouldn't be much to talk about. But it did have potential and there is no single reason why it's bad. The causes are multitudinous as are the potential fixes! It feels like investigating some complex wreckage or an elaborate murder mystery in order to understand what the hell happened, which is really fun if you like talking about writing.

I find it much harder to discuss writing in an informative way if you only have good examples to draw from because that path risks stifling creativity. Just because a popular story did a thing well doesn't mean that story showed us the only way to do the things or even the best way to do the thing, but that's often the lesson people seem to learn. They see a thing that they like or even just a thing that audiences liked and want to copy it without understanding the full nuance of why they liked it.

A great example of this is Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. He was such a well-written and popular character that all these properties started copying him even though the properties in question did NOT have a setup that worked for a Zuko. Praising Zuko won't really tell you all the ways that Zuko could have failed. Meanwhile, a case study of Chloe vs Zuko or even just a general discussion of Chloe lets you actually talk about the various styles of redemption arc and what you have to do to make them feel real. It's also far more interesting than talking how Zuko could have failed because Zuko didn't fail so why are we even talking about this? It's also far more interesting than talking about a bunch of properties that did redemption arcs well because that would require you to have seen all of those properties. But Chloe is from a single property and she did fail and people understandably have wildly different feelings about what the failure was because the writing was so bad, which means that digging into her writing is way more likely to hold your interest and teach you something.

This gif really does sum it up perfectly:

[Image description: scene from the movie Knives Out where the detective Benoit Blanc exclaims "It makes no damn sense! It compels me though" to explain his feelings on an ongoing murder mystery that he's trying to solve]

As does the old adage, "failure is the greatest teacher." Of course, no one ever said that it had to be your failure!

[mystycalypso]

Can i just say how much i freaking love the work you two are doing, Holly hell this is some wild stuff as veteran of hello neighbor you two are making me proud of this small community that is running on tumblr!

Also i hope you two don't mind me asking two questions.

Firstly, If one of you two had the control over welcome to ravenBrooks show what will be some things you two will change.

Secondly, What are you're thoughts on the artstyle of the show considering that Man of Action is working on the show?

Okay to start, I know I say it every time we get asks like this but y'all are genuinely so sweet and nice and it's just really really cool to see people enjoy our stuff. Like- especially fellow old fans of the franchise. I know Kaydin also really appreciates how sweet you guys are but just idk it feels like my fandom dreams come true when people like things like our au and art for this series

As for your questions...

Personally, to start, and this is Jack being slightly particularly- idk nitpicky? But there are three things I'd want to just- fix immediately and all three of them are Nicky related.

Number one, his shirt. I'm sorry guys but I've been here since the alphas and I didn't even realize this was his Sharkotron T-shirt. It's- It's just an egg

Number two, I realized after intense studying of Nicky's- face that it looks really weird when he's front facing, but his nose is facing right. So scenes like this suddenly seem- off model for no reason? I've poorly edited the image below to fix both of these

Yes I am too lazy to edit them properly, sadly. Did make his shirt logo still one colour for ease of animation. Idk why but left facing nose Nicky just looks less weird. Just me and kaydin? Maybe.

Number three- uh... that hairline is atrocious /lh

I know he wears his goggles in the show like constantly but also- this is a 13 year old boy guys. I was 13 once and I have a very flat (minus a widows peak) hairline, but it did not stop my hair from falling all over my face, and I think it's fair to assume the same for the kid who's hair refuses to behave anyway

Just fluff him up a lil (again I'm sorry these aren't better edits lol)

You don't even have to have it show when his goggles are up because like a headband or headphones it pushes hair back, or otherwise

Although ironically while I'm explaining what I would change in the designs, I don't mind the art style at all, actually I kind of love it. Sure some things you kinda of have to get used to, like their ears being pretty low to the head, but in general I think it really fits the franchise. I know it didn't look too drastically different from the pilot, but there's so many little nuances in the designs that just make it better (especially when you look at characters like Trinity)

I've told Kaydin a dozen and a half times how I think show Nicky is the franchise's second best design for him. The first being this singular piece of art from Nicky's Diaries, like I have gone on for hours about why this rendering of him is just perfect.

Third being fan renders, followed by the book artstyle, the pilot and finally games

And while other designs I wasn't sure about when watching through the show the first time, really just lore hunting instead of caring about anyone who wasn't Trinity or Nicky ngl, when I started doing my expression analysis I realized just how nice the designs and individuality of the characters are. If you put Nicky's expressions oh Enzo or Ivan's on Trinity it wouldn't fit and that's something I don't think people would expect from a Hello Neighbor cartoon.

They also have things I can just appreciate as someone who's special interest is animation (but doesn't have the patience to animate TvT gotta love audhd) for example, just having shading even in shots where they could completely go without it. It makes it less drastic and a smoother transition when lighting gets intense. They're also now afraid to switch up camera angles and push the rigs for a more intense shot.

Also something I really appreciate

Smear frames!

God I love smear frames!!! It's another one of those things that It's like- knowing how much this cost Tinybuild, they could've easily cut it down to save money. But it just wouldn't have been as nice without it.

Sure there are probably people who look at the fact that Man of Action is working on the show and are disappointed by the art style. But I say this entirely genuinely when I say I couldn't picture this show looking any other way and working as it does.

Yeah, they could've used more realistic proportions for these kids, but it works so much better when it's pushed like this when Mr. Peterson is nearly double their height. He's visibly a hulking intimidating man who could lift a middle schooler and lock them away. You fear his build which contrasts his outfit best (really feels like they took the book description of him and just pushed it, as we know he doesn't have this same stature in the games)

Plus it feels like in general, they stopped focusing on that dumb "Oh we need to hide things in every frame" which- thank God. Sure they are still hiding little details, hell I have changed a whole chunk of theory about Theodore's relationship with his son because of something I found on accident

This photo of (seemingly) 12 year old Aaron Peterson.

I'm not gonna go into it here lol because this is already long and it's supposed to be about the animation.

Are they still building mysteries and people are still crafting theories? Absolutely! Not a day goes by that I haven't been thinking about whether or not Aaron will ever be seen in the series in the present day and if he is, what he will be like mentally.

But the point is, they're focusing on crafting something GOOD over just theory fodder. Both animation and story-wise, and I can appreciate that so much.

Like- this is gonna be a really hot Jack take here so be aware.

I enjoy this franchise and it's spinoffs much more than the FNAF franchise.

Sure, Hello Neighbor one is and will always be awful. But I am 100x more likely to play Hello Neighbor 2 or Secret Neighbor than I am to play any fnaf game myself.

When I make fnaf content it is almost entirely AU based. Because the idea of getting lore super wrong since I just can't be bothered to try and figure that convoluted mess out is annoying. Why even try to solve lore if I need to read more than 10 books for a minor detail that becomes a major antagonist? We can't even get a full confirmed backstory for the main antagonist!

But with Hello Neighbor they realized that people don't want to be jumping through 50 hoops for lore. Yes we want mystery, but one we can solve without dumb contrivances and plot holes.

Do I still love FNAF? Of course. My senior quote is from William Afton ffs ("You may not recognize me at first, but I can assure you, it's still me") but one of these franchises is growing to better itself and gain more love, while the other is slowly becoming more of something I enjoy without trying to understand, and I think the Hello Neighbor animated series is- the pinnacle of this difference.

I love Welcome to Ravenbrooks. I love Hello Neighbor. I can’t wait to see what comes next from TinyBuild, and how season two will be even better than season one. (As proven by the fact that Nicky gets to yell louder in that one teaser clip alone than anyone got to in season one lol)

[k-s-morgan]

Hi. It's probably a silly question but I can't help thinking about it. It's not exactly about ATLWETD just Tomarry in concept.

Tom is a really smart boy/man and he is the sort of person to love mind games, riddles, and playing people (maybe like Ciel), so how do you picture his relationship with Harry? Tom needs intellectual stimulation. Not to say that Harry is stupid and doesn't have common themes to talk about with Tom, but he is not that interested in books, toying people, politics, etc. So what does Tom see in Harry? What fascinates him? I know that Harry can offer Tom deep understanding and acceptance, but these two things alone do not make a long-lasting relationship

Sorry for rambling. I'm just a bit new to Tomarry fandom and I really try to understand all nuances

Hello! Welcome to Tomarry part of the fandom! Here's my take on this.

Tom and Harry are the kind of characters who can be described as different sides of the same coin. Both orphans, both unloved, both abused in one way or another, both having to survive on scraps and seeing magic as their salvation. They are both strong and stubborn, and very determined, but while Tom represents darkness, Harry represents light. Tom’s circumstances contributed to him being cold and full of hatred and bitterness. Harry kept his purity and his love. Because of it, Harry can understand where Tom is coming from, and in canon, he empathizes with him as a child despite everything Tom/Voldemort has done to him. This is something Tom can’t understand, which just makes the dynamic all the more interesting. They are so similar yet so different; they can relate to each other in some aspects and are prepared to fight to death over the remaining ones. There is passion, there is reluctant empathy and admiration.

Harry has the power to shake Tom exactly because of their similarities. A small personal example: if someone who never lived through the war tells me how I should perceive it, I'm just going to scoff. But if I hear it from someone who experienced what I did, I'm going to pay attention. Tom will never be able to relate to people who grew up in the wizarding world, who knew who they were from the start, who didn't have to fight to survive. But he can relate to Harry, and Harry is brave, stubborn, and strong enough to keep fighting him to get his point across. This kind of passion can lead to shouting matches where an unexpected middle truth emerges; it can result in attraction, which will lead to reluctant understanding and compromises. The struggle and the opposing moral values make their relationship challenging; the similarities make it profound and unique. Everyone likes being understood and seen, and there is no one better who could do this for each other than Tom and Harry.

Interestingly, you mentioned Tom and Ciel, and when I thought about pairing them, I felt like they'd be a terrible fit :D I think they are similar and different in incompatible ways. They are both cold and rigid - they'd freeze each other to death. Ciel needs some playfullness in his life to remember that existing is actually fun; Tom needs fire to burn him and to push him out of his self-created superior comfort zone. Ciel has some morality and Tom doesn't, so I think Ciel would see him as just another intelligent psychopath. Tom, in turn, would see Ciel as another spoiled heir of a rich family who never had to fight for anything and who's nothing without his butler.

Tom and Harry are the people who can stimulate each other to be better, to try harder; they have the power to influence each other and make each other view things from a perspective they wouldn't have considered otherwise. Harry might not be Tom's equal in intelligence or magic, but they are still both big league players. Harry can think on his feet; he's a leader and a sport-star, which equips him with skills that can come in handy and which Tom might lack. Harry doesn't seem to be interested in politics in canon, but I think he would be if he felt like he has a chance to change anything. He can give Tom unconditional love without losing his sense of self-worth. Tom, in turn, can give the kind of biting, fanatical, absolute devotion that Harry needs, which would keep him feeling loved but grounded.

These are the foundations of a potential life-long relationship. Depending on the circumstances, Harry and Tom can get attached to each other and start bickering over the small, less relevant things; they can study and admire magic together; they can work on changing the society in a way that they both would consider good; they can duel for fun and just enjoy the quiet. They have a huge promise - the rest depends on a world they are thrust in.