#the gays also love fucked up romance so really it’s the perfect package

[jasontoddsmommyissues]

In retrospect it’s pretty cunty of Todd Phillips to make a gritty, Taxi Driver-esque movie about the Joker, and then make the sequel a movie musical starring Lady Gaga. 10/10 he absolutely served with that one.

[queer-and-dear-books]

Title: Beating Heart Baby

Author: Lio Min

Genre: YA Fiction | Romance | Friendship | Music | LGBTQ+

Content Warnings: Transphobia | Homophobia | Mentioned Abuse

Overall Rating: 9.9/10

Personal Opinion: There is so much to love in this book. The diverse cast, the chosen families, and the sweet romance of reconnecting with someone you had once lost. If you don’t fall in love with this book then there’s something wrong with you. Although it can be hard to keep up with and differentiate the friends at times because there are so many of them. But overall, I really enjoyed this book.

Do I Own This Book? No.

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- Diversity win! Pretty much the entire cast is in some way a person of color, queer, or both. We have Black kids, brown kids, Asian kids, trans kids, gay kids, non-binary kids, and so many more. But best of all, they are all thriving. We have Cola Carter, a Black lesbian who is a top star and creating new stars that are queer and POC like her. Aya is Latina and queer too and she gets to live her dream making music and even inheriting Cap’s legacy of leading the Sunshowers. Suwa and Santi are both gay Asians and they are in love. Suwa is a rising star making music that matters to him and Santi is just living his best life painting and teaching art to kids. Everyone is thriving and I love that for them.

- Found/chosen family is just so important in this story. Santi and Aya are not blood related but they care about each other very deeply. Aya is so cool too, giving Santi enough freedom to explore while also being heavy-handed enough to discipline him when he needs it. Suwa, on the other hand, lives with Cap, who took him in when home became unsafe for Suwa. He even refers to Cap as “Dad” sometimes and that is so cute to me. Cap is honestly the best, he really cares for all his students and wants the best for them. Even after retiring, he still wants to give students a love of music. I love that.

- But we also have so many friends! Every single one of them are so kindhearted and cool. Mira, Octavian, Ari, Reva, Feli, and I’m likely forgetting someone but they’re all good people. They care for Santi and Suwa and the way they plot to get them together was hilarious. But I just love how easily they accept Santi into their group and how easy it is for them to forgive Suwa for leaving them for a year and a half. They’re ride-or-dies, really good friends.

- The scene where Suwa goes (to his dad’s) home after that interview just makes me tear up. Especially when he went into his old room to get the hanbok his dad gave him. It was just so precious to see his relationship with his dad mending. Even though it’s far from perfect and his dad was abusive in the past, I love seeing them both grow.

- Mira was absolutely right, Santi is a hunk. He’s clearly athletic and he’s covered in tattoos so that already makes him physically hot. But then he’s also an artist and a chef! A perfect package! Not but seriously, when Suwa messed up in the kitchen and Santi jumped in to help him, I felt my heart grow three sizes. The love was still there! The care was still there! The domestic tenderness was still there!

- Suwa being Memo was not at all surprising but it was also enough of a twist to really have an impact. By which, I mean, I was also rationalizing to myself like “No, it can’t be.” But when it was confirmed, I was like, “I fucking knew it!” It’s good, like a loose end being fixed.

- I also love all the references in this book. Mainly the Agumon bobblehead. Digimon is one of my favorite animes so of course I was going to love that. But also, Mugen Glider. The way they describe it in so much detail made it sound like an early, Showa-era Ghibli-esque show. I genuinely thought it was real! But it’s not! But it sounded so real and that’s what I like about it. I just wish I could watch it.

Dislikes:

- One thing I don’t like? Suwa abandoning his life in LA for Japan for a year and a half after dumping Santi. Bruh. I just, it was so bad. Suwa was acting so toxic too when he came back, reeling Santi in while also keeping him at arm’s length like Santi was the poisonous one. But at least Suwa apologized for his behavior. Because otherwise, I would not have wanted them to stay together. And I hope he does get serious about therapy again like he said he would.

[spockandawe]

What are your favorite chinese webnovels? What are some of the differences youve noticed between cnovels and other types of novels?

That second question is really, REALLY interesting, and I really want to answer it well, and I am REALLY sure I’m going to do a bad job of answering it, so let me just noodle about that first question for a minute while I try to think XD

I went through some of my TOP-top favorite novels in more detail yesterday, but generally speaking, mxtx and meatbun are both at the top of the pack. They’re really good at writing compelling main characters and balancing piles of angst with plenty of humor and pulling everything together into a very satisfying ending (which is something I don’t alwaysssss see, even in some of the novels I really like). After them, The Disabled Tyrant’s Pet Palm Fish (transmigration, ancient chinese prince falls in love with pet fish) and Golden Stage (ancient chinese gay arranged marriage between bitter enemies(?)) are two novels that I love a lot, which both have very cute romances and go a bit lighter on the main character suffering front, and which I broadly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the genre. They didn’t end stick the landing QUITE as hard as an svsss or tgcf, but they still were very nice.

Then, let me see. I’m trying to remember which books I’ve read in the last year, and am doing a terrible job, haha. I will say that a book I enjoyed for like... eighty percent of it and then the ending let me down terribly was The Dreamer In The Spring Boudoir (modern day career woman transmigrates into barely-fantasy ancient china novel as the disliked primary wife of a nobleman), which is also the only straight webnovel I’ve read so far. The main character and romance were delightful, but that ending... haha, wow, I felt betrayed. But I did like the first half very much!! I’m idly contemplating a deliberately-partial reread. Then I’m currently like two chapters away from catching up with the current translation of The Wife Is First (ancient chinese prince lives out time travel fixit fic, determined to treat his spouse better this time around). I’m also catching up on Heroic Death System (transmigration, across MANY universes, where the goal is to die heroically in each one, and also maybeeeee to find his boyfriend in each one. this shit gets fucking bananas. in one of them, he emotionally seduces his boyfriend while he’s a dolphin. in another one, he’s a sentient mushroom. i’m in the middle of a section titled ‘I Am An Evil Pen’. yes, like a writing utensil type of pen. this is the weirdest book I’ve read so far). Oh, and Thousand Autumns (righteous sect leader gets sabotaged and loses a fight, wakes up blind and amnesiac, demonic sect leader is like ‘lol i bet i can turn him evil’ and accidentally catches feelings along the way).

What else... I’m keeping up with (but behind on) some others. First, there’s How To Survive As A Villain (modern terminally ill CEO transmigrates into stallion novel, wakes up as villain, accidentally seduces hero). Then, we’ve got Transmigrating Into The Body Of The Heartthrob’s Cannon Fodder Childhood Friend (only modern webnovel I’ve read, young man transmigrates into beginning of gratuitous whump book, back in high school, and is determined to protect the protagonist from all the canonical suffering). Then there’s Pulling Together A Villain Reformation Strategy (guy transmigrates into story as the hero’s childhood friend who will eventually become his enemy and get killed, successfully acts out his part and dies, completely fails to realize he’s broken his friend’s heart in the process... and then wakes up in another character’s body). And then there’s The Villain’s White Lotus Halo (a transmigrator keeps bouncing from universe to universe as a cannon fodder villain, who gets like half a line before being killed. he tries to purchase an upgrade package so he can be a COOL villain instead, but accidentally gets sold a ‘white lotus halo’ package instead, so that no matter what he does, everyone is just DEEPLY moved by his appearance and is positive he did nothing wrong). All of those are EXTREMELY delightful. You may notice a running transmigration theme, which....... yeah, I think there are a TON of delightful stories in the webnovel scene that deal with this genre, which seem so rare in English language media.

Which makes a good transition point to what’s different about the cnovel scene! I’ve seen hardly any transmigration stories in English, and I’ve got a couple go-to examples for when I’m trying to explain it, but like. Only a couple. Which is such a shame! Like, there’s the default idea of ‘I was reading this book and then I woke up inside the book!!’ but it’s clearly such an established genre that people are playing with it in all kinds of interesting ways, like in The Villain’s White Lotus Halo or Heroic Death System setups. It’s kind of wild to me, because it seems like such a gimme for a nice easy story structure? Whatever kind of world you want to present, there’s no need to introduce it to the reader from the ground up, or find a good way to hook them in. Either the main character read the book in question and can explain the premise and why we should care in pov, or the main character is new to the universe too, and trying to find their own footing. I enjoy it a lot! I’ve sampled transmigration books that didn’t grab me, but I’ve sampled way more that did. 

And then, the one semi-technical answer I thought of to this question was the way that these novels tend to handle pov. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule that regular novels are restricted to one pov, or that pov can only change at hard breaks in the story, but if I saw a bog-standard american novel glide from pov to pov the way these novels regularly do, I would tend to wonder if it was sloppiness or a mistake, or I would grump to myself about how I don’t like omniscient third person pov. And I still don’t know exactly what I think about this, or why it’s different in here, but I’m pretty sure I like it a lot, especially for stories where the romance tends to play a large part :V 

I used to read a lot of Books About Writing, and read plenty of stuff about why you don’t DO this, but.... I like it! In dtppf, Jing-wang can’t talk, and when Li Yu is a fish, he can’t talk, and drifting from one of their perspectives to the other gives me lots of useful information about how they’re both feeling. Could that be conveyed through restricted pov? Maybe! But I’m typesetting the svsss extras right now, and I’m in the bing-ge vs bing-mei section, and we get a few brief flashes of bing-ge’s thoughts, and it’s so NICE. It’s information I would not have otherwise received, because Shen Qingqiu sure wasn’t going to notice it. But early in the story, that pov was withheld from me, which also made sense (or hua cheng’s pov was withheld from me FOREVER, which makes me so sad ;u;). There don’t seem to be any hard and fast rules, which makes me really nervous about writing fic and trying to match the style, but I do like it a lot! 

And I’m definitely not able to articulate this in the way that I would like to, or speak with any real authority (I’m not that widely read in the cnovel scene, and i’m not very genre-adventurous in english), but there’s something about the role that the romances play in these stories that’s different from what I’m used to expecting, and it’s VERY tasty to me. I only rarely read romance novels, because I’m not often interested in the romance as a primary plot driver, but the romances in these books play a more substantial role than I’m used to expecting. And I’m into it! It’s a balance closer to what I’d expect from, like, a shippy longform fanfic. Which covers a lot of ground and is NOT a precise measure, but there’s more emotional weight given to the romance than I would expect, but without the romance carrying ALL of the emotional weight, and it strikes a perfect balance for me in a way I’m not used to encountering. Now, some of this could definitely be due to me not finding the right authors, or right subgenres, or whatever. But in the genres I inhabit, it’s a subtle difference, but one I find compelling.

Oh, one last thing. The cultural differences, duh :P I’m only familiar with things like, say, ancient chinese court etiquette through a lens of fan-translated novels like these, and I didn’t grow up steeped in the culture in a way I’m used to the trappings of something like medieval european courts. But there’s a distinct flavor to the social dynamics of these novels, from the formal levels down to the casual, and I know it’s super intricate and detailed and that authors play with differing degrees of historical accuracy vs fictional fun, and I wish I was better equipped to speak to the nature of any of this. But I find it really compelling! I recognize that it’s only new to ME because I didn’t seek out chinese media before now. And, the point that I originally wanted to get to before I got super distracted: the flirting. The flirting and teasing are a very different flavor from what I would expect in most english language media, and I love it, even if I can’t speak to how much of that is purely cultural, and how much of it is like... the conventions of How Fiction Is Written varying by culture, if that makes sense. I adore seeing what flirting and affection and indulgence and attentiveness look like in different settings, and these books, with their heavy romantic focus, absolutely deliver.

[minimitchell]

5- “I thought we were friends.” please ☺️

Ben has four good friends in his life; the kind you tell all your secrets and keep for the rest of your life.

Him, Jay and Lola have always been friends; they’ve grown up with each other and have known one another since they were kids. Frankie on the other hand is a newer friend, who has joined their little ragtag group of people after Ben met her when he was helping out at an after-school club; she’s teaching other students sign language and they’ve immediately bonded over that.

And then there’s Callum.

They’ve been friends ever since Callum rocked up here in Walford with his weird older brother and even weirder dad a few years ago. They clicked immediately, easy banter and teasing flowing freely between the both of them, and it took no time for him and Ben to become really close.

Callum’s home life isn’t exactly the best so he spends most of the time after school at Ben’s house, or they’re hanging out with the others at the park or somewhere else around here. They become sort of like a package deal - where one goes, the other soon follows.

Things are damn near perfect until that one day - the night of Callum’s birthday party.

He’s finally eighteen, the last one of their little group to finally become an ‘adult’, and they’re having a party for him at Ben’s house. Partly because his own birthday was only a couple of days ago so it’s the perfect opportunity for a joint do and partly because Callum’s dad would never allow him to throw a party at their flat.

It took a lot of convincing and begging for Ben’s dad to agree to this but fortunately for them he had in the end - under the condition that they would get the house clean again before he comes back that Sunday.

Ben doesn’t want to toot his own horn but the party is definitely a success. Half of their year is here - singing and dancing and getting increasingly drunk. He takes a no doubt regrettable amount of shots with Frankie in the kitchen, presses in close to grind against Lola on the makeshift little dance floor in the living room and gets roped into a game of beer pong against some of the guys from their year.

More importantly though, he makes sure that Callum is happy. There’s a big grin on his face that hasn’t left all night, even if it got progressively less sober and more dopey as the night went on, and he seems to have the time of his life, laughing and shouting lyrics to cheesy pop songs with all kinds of people here.

He’s happy and that in turn makes Ben happy as well.

It’s all he could ever ask for.

When the last people eventually leave it’s close to four in the morning. Their friends are long gone and Ben can’t wait to fall into his bed and sleep, he’s that exhausted. He’s already dreading tomorrow’s hangover.

Callum is spending the night, not just because this is his party as well so they both have to clean up the mess tomorrow but because it’s just what he does. What they’ve done a million times before.

But there’s something different happening today.

Today, right there in the dark of Ben’s bedroom, where they’re both already tucked in under the cover, on the night after his birthday does Callum finally spill his biggest secret to Ben. The two little words hang in the air between them for a long moment while Ben thinks of what to say in response.

I’m gay.

It keeps replaying in his head; Callum’s careful, hushed voice now ingrained in his memory, probably forever.

Callum knows that Ben is gay as well. He’s been there for most of his figuring out, knows all about him fooling around with guys at parties and the casual dates he goes on sometimes. Ben always had a hunch, an inkling, that Callum was into guys but he never said anything about it, not wanting to push Callum in case he wasn’t ready to face that yet.

Apparently, all he had to do is wait him out and let him figure it out on his own.

It could be perfect as well. He could just tell Callum he understands and that it’s okay, that of course it doesn’t matter to Ben. And there’s that little, hopeful voice inside his head, he’s tried so hard to suppress over time, that whispers that maybe this crush simmering away inside his chest could be something more now one day.

Only, it doesn’t quite go that way.

He does say all the encouraging things to Callum, gives him the support he needs and deserves right now. But because Ben is just so fucking stupid and there’s still massive amounts of alcohol swimming in his veins, he also does the worst thing he could possibly do - he leans forward and kisses Callum. His best mate. And even worse, when Callum’s hands start wandering and tugging off his clothes he does nothing to stop him.

.

The next day is horrible.

There’s a pounding in his head that doesn’t seem to lessen even after he’s taken two Aspirin and drunk a large mug of coffee. The house is a mess and Ben is more than thankful for the fact that his dad isn’t coming home until later tonight. He probably knew what would greet him otherwise.

Ben got out of bed the second he was awake enough to do so, leaving Callum behind to sleep the rest of the alcohol off.

He can’t believe he was stupid enough to sleep with his best mate; stupid enough to get caught up in the moment and damn any consequences. Terrible consequences at that.

Because how can they stay friends after this?

How can they go back to how they were before when Ben knows how Callum feels now; how he sounds and what he tastes like.

He doesn’t want this to ruin their friendship, because it undoubtedly will. They’ll maybe decide to give it a try, Ben will ruin it like he always does and they’ll never want to speak a word to each other again. Or, they become something and in the end, Callum leaves because that’s all they ever do. No one ends up choosing Ben.

He doesn’t want any of that to happen.

Callum is the first person who completely gets Ben, in and out, often without saying anything at all. He trusts him more than anyone, more than Jay even, and Ben doesn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have Callum by his side.

And of course he went ahead and fucked it all up.

He has already cleared the cans and bottles from downstairs, starting a load in the dishwasher, when he hears the stairs creaking and footsteps coming closer. It sets off panic in Ben’s chest because now is the time to decide whether he wants to outright tell Callum he’s at least a little bit in love with him or ask him to forget about the whole thing.

In a fit of pure panic, he does neither. He pretends nothing ever happened at all.

“Hey.”

Callum’s voice is hesitant, barely audible over the low hum of the radio Ben turned on in a desperate attempt to drown out his own thoughts. He looks over at Ben like he’s some wild animal he’s trying to approach, obviously wanting to gauge his reaction to what happened between them.

Ben doesn’t dare to look at him, can’t bring himself to face him right now, so he busies himself by getting another big trash bag from underneath the sink, avoiding Callum’s eye as much as possible.

“Nice of you to finally join me. You can get started in the living room, do some hoovering maybe. There’s crisps everywhere.”

Yeah, getting Callum into a different room, putting some much needed space between them, sounds like a good idea. At least, until Ben can figure out what to do to get out of this situation unscathed and with his dignity intact.

“I thought we could maybe get some breakfast? Talk a bit?”

Ben doesn’t answer immediately, mulling his words over in his head. He wants to say yes but he’s too afraid of what could happen if he does. Is this Callum wanting to let him down easy? Telling him thanks for this experience but I’m not interested in anything more?

He couldn’t even blame him really. Callum should go out and explore, figure out himself and what he’s into without being chained to someone else. Ben is glad he could give him a good first time - at least he thinks it was good for Callum, because it was pretty incredible for himself - but he’s under no impression that he won’t be just one of many for Callum.

As he should be. Because Callum is funny and smart and gorgeous in a cute way and he deserves to have a lifetime of romance and adventure. He deserves a line of guys falling over themselves to be with him. He deserves better than Ben; better than someone who already has quite the reputation for being an easy lay at school.

“I thought we were friends. Friends help other friends clean up before their dad gets back and yells at them for leaving the house in a state.”

It’s a flimsy deflection. Ben is all too aware that Callum knows his dad isn’t coming back until later. And although it’s close to midday already, they still have all the time in the world to clean up. There’s no reason they shouldn’t stop to have a hangover breakfast first - except the fact that Ben is a giant coward, of course.

“Are we?”

“What?”

Ben finally meets Callum’s eyes across the kitchen table and it’s immediately obvious that he’s said the wrong thing somewhere along the way. Because Callum’s face is hard, his expression unimpressed and mouth a thin line. There’s something softer in his eyes though; something sad or pleading maybe, betraying the thunderstorm clouding his face.

“Are we just friends? ‘Cause I don’t think friends do what we did yesterday.”

Ben blows out a breath, hand coming up to scratch at his face in a nervous habit. Apparently, they are talking about it now. This will all end in tears, Ben’s sure of it.

“Technically it was today.”

“Ben!”

They’re quiet for a long moment; the only sound in the room the whirring from the dishwasher and the radio playing some old song about heartbreak that hits a little too close to home right now.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Cal.”

The tone of their conversation seems to shift then. Callum’s face shifts from mad to something that looks a lot like defeat; like he’s not even considering this having a good outcome anymore. It makes Ben pause somewhat because it means there was hope there sometime before.

He’s trying hard not to latch onto that hope, because what if he’s mistaken?

Callum takes a deep breath, like he’s racking up the courage to actually say what he’s about to say, and Ben is scared but ready at the same time to cling to every word.

“I want you to say you don’t regret it. Because I don’t, not at all. I know we’re mates but I always hoped it would happen. I always hoped that when I was finally ready, it would be with you.”

Ben doesn’t want to let himself hope, still stuck somewhere between denial and self-protection. Just because Callum wants him too, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t crash and burn and ruin their friendship in the process.

“Callum, you deserve better than me.”

Callum walks around the kitchen table, stopping only when he’s standing in front of Ben, placing both of his hands on either side of Ben’s face to get him to look up at him. He has to fight the strongest urge to lean into Callum; it feels too good to have him touch him again like this. He’s only felt Callum’s touch a couple of hours ago at this point but it already feels like he can’t breathe without it.

“No. I deserve what I want to. And I want to be with you. And I think you want that too. Let's just give us a chance, yeah?”

Ben tangles his hands in the fabric of Callum’s white shirt, using his hold to pull Callum a step further into him. The doubts are still there, and they probably will remain rooted in his head for a while, but they aren’t as loud when Callum is looking at him like he is now.

“Yeah. Okay. Let’s try this.”

It’s hard not to be infected by the bright smile taking over Callum’s face at that, Ben trying to hide his own smile by scrunching up his face and looking at the ground as best as he can when his face is still being held by Callum.

He’s willing to give his best when it comes to this; to be the best boyfriend Callum could ever have. Because he wants him to be happy, and more so he wants to be the one who makes him happy. He’ll try at least.

Callum’s thumbs brush over the skin over his cheeks for a second before he leans into him and presses a kiss to his lips. It’s just a sweet, short peck but it’s enough to send Ben’s heart into overdrive, hammering against his chest in such a wild rhythm he’s sure Callum must be able to hear it.

When they part, Ben presses his forehead against Callum’s, not ready to let him go yet. It’s paradoxical - this whole morning he’s tried to tell himself they don’t have a future together and now that it’s within reach, under his fingers and on his lips, he doesn’t want to be without it ever again.

“You think cleaning the rest of the house can wait?”

Ben breathes out a laugh, letting go of Callum’s shirt so he can reach up and tangle their hands together, pulling him along with him out of the kitchen and up the stairs again.

No matter what happens in the future, they’ll figure it out.

Together.

[moku-youbi]

Alright Untamed fandom, where do I submit and/or beg for my fic ideas? 

I DESPERATELY need a Leverage AU for this fandom (and for Word of Honor, too, but that’s going to be a separate post), you GUYS!?! Tell me you can’t see this:

Lan Zhan in the role of Nate--maybe as a detective of some fashion instead of insurance investigation. Or maybe he works as head of security for his very wealthy family. And for a while he’s so sure that he’s doing the Right and Honorable and Just thing, hunting down these criminals. And he’s got some serious angst over his friend Wei Ying who was head of security for the Jiang until he stole some huge corporate secret and sold it to their competitors before disappearing into the criminal underworld. And Lan Zhan’s seen him over the next few years, only very briefly, when their paths cross from opposite sides of a heist and Wei Ying says he’s been framed, but no matter how often Lan Zhan tries to convince him to come home and set things right and face punishment. Because even if he hadn’t done the original crime, he’s clearly doing crime (and being gay, but that is neither here nor there) and he has to take responsibility and Wei Ying’s like no thanks, bro. So then Lan Zhan finds out something that sort of shakes him to the core, like maybe some sketchy things his own family have done, or that they were in on framing Wei Ying along with the Jin, whatever, not sure on the details. But he quits and starts having guilt over the fact that he just assumed the worst about Wei Ying, and also, all these awful things that Wei Ying has done since? Are him trying to clean up messes made by the Wen and Jin and Lan.

After some soul searching, Lan Zhan starts digging into all the shit that these major corporations have been up to, and starts identifying the people who’ve been hurt by them and have been fighting back on their own, and decides to bring them all together. There’s:

* Meng Yao (fucked over by his father and out for revenge on the whole wide world, and who would be the perfect confidence man, lbr and very brainy, yes, but no where on the level of...) * Nie Huaisang (hacker extraordinaire, able to get any information on anyone or anything in basically 10 seconds or less, and able to use that to manipulate every scenario perfectly to his whims--he doesn’t NEED to steal, you’ll give him exactly what he wants without you even realising it...look, he doesn’t need to be doing this, but he is pissed over what happened with Wei Ying and the Wen are constantly flexing on his brother, and also, it’s fun!) * Wen Ning (who to everyone’s astonishment is the best hitter in the game, started helping Wei Ying shortly after his fall from grace, has issues galore with basically every sect, but he’s really only in this for his family and Wei Ying) * Wen Qing (who comes part and parcel with WN and WY because these assholes always end up needing to be patched up, and also, need a voice of sanity and reason) * Xue Yang (who just likes shiny things and fucking shit up and bewilders everyone over the fact that he can steal, like, anything and has warehouses full of treasure, but just squats in a ramshackle abandoned building and spends all his money on candy and baked goods) * A-Qing (who is Xue Yang’s thief and con-woman in training, and who will mercilessly use her youth and anonymity with the main companies to bleed them fucking dry)

And Lan Zhan can’t get ahold of Wei Ying at first, but after the team’s first job, oh you better fucking believe Wei Ying is interested now! (okay, he was interested as soon as Lan Zhan spoke to the Wen siblings, but he was waiting to see how things fell out and if this was some sort of trap that he’d need to spring them from). They’re in the middle of some elaborate heist and it’s all about to fall apart, and Lan Zhan is as close to freaking out as someone like Lan Zhan can be, and Wei Ying just strolls in and saves the day with his devastating smile.

So the gang saves the day and makes the bad guys pay, and then they decide you know, there are a lot more assholes out there pulling things like this, and we’re really good at screwing them over. 

I just want all the found-family feels, and the reconciliation, and the romance. How Yanli finds ways to send care packages to Wei Ying through Huaisang and trying to let him know she believes in him no matter what. And someday after the initial confrontation with the Jin/Wen/Lan, just stopping by the team’s headquarters on the regular to feed them when they’re so busy planning they forget to take care of themselves. The eventual confrontation of Wei Ying and Lan Zhan with their respective brothers and adoptive parents/uncle. Meng Yao getting the love and recognition he deserves after his father is arrested. The crew picking up new members here and there, like XXC and SL who are some sort of law enforcement, and...not so sure about this at first, but eventually end up looking the other way (and maybe adopting A-Qing and inexplicably becoming enamored of Xue Yang). Wei Ying and Lan Zhan rescuing A-Yuan at some point when taking on the Wen, and him being raised by his two dads and the craziest and most loving group of Aunties and Uncles.

Some of them go more ~legit after things fall out. Like Meng Yao is way more appropriate to run the Jin than his brother, and they both know it. And Huaisang has to keep an air of respectability about himself, and Wen Qing is a legit doctor, okay...but they still help out on the regular.

Look, I would write this myself, I WOULD. Except 1.) I know no where NEAR enough about Chinese culture to do it justice, and 2.) ever since I started my ADHD meds I’ve been...incapable of writing? (which goes hand in hand with 2 actually, because researching feels daunting). So *hands* someone make it a thing??

[everyothermouse]

Can I ask

What is generations about?

Yeah! It's basically a slice of life story following along the growing up of a group of 5 siblings (except one of them is being haunted by a ghost because this story was originally gonna be about the whole ghost thing, but then I made John and all of the sudden this became an ensemble cast story 💀 John favoritism real)

this is them and pls excuse them being in WILDLY different proportions, this isn’t an accurate height comparison this is just to show them

Phillip (also called P and Pip) is the oldest sibling and brother, he’s a music kid and is the one who’s had a ghost following him since he was like 5, with that ghost being Arthur :) Arthur died when he was 4 or 5 and made it his ghost mission to protect Phillip for his whole life since his unresolved thing that made him a ghost was never being protected. Yeah they’re besties, Arthur is the overprotective nervous nerd ass to Phillip‘s sunshine golden retriever boy who can’t take things seriously. They're dating by the ending but before hand they're already like, life partners, they have separation anxiety lol

Angelica is the second oldest and the only sister (but not really cus she actually has 2 others she doesn’t really know about.) She feels the need to be perfect and is kind of the joint family golden child, with Pip being the other one. She basically put all of her personality tokens in being a perfect girl but the one boy she ever actually liked rejected her (Carmen, he’s dating her little brother) so like oof for her. She’s the closest to pip, they play music together

Then there’s John existing in the middle point between Angie and Pip who‘s favorite sibling are each other and who are the can do nothing wrong best children, and James and William, the academically gifted younger siblings who also like each other more than him and who he doesn’t really relate to anyways. Add that to being the gay sibling in a conservative town and you got the whole John package baby B) he gets along with his older siblings fine and he loves them, but frankly the person who means the most to him is his boyfriend Carmen 🥰🥰🥰 John would probably be the problem child considering he does the worst in school and breaks rules the most, but honestly he only tries to be chaotic and rebellious cus he’s always been the soft sibling and his parents and older siblings always wanna treat him like a baby

I’m combining James and William because I don’t have a lot to say on William 💀 also bcus who cares about James and William Both of them are super close and like I mentioned in johns thing are the gifted children tm, except like, they full on go to a separate school in another state for most of the year and only come back for the breaks, it’s a whole thing. James is a pretty gifted writer but has a seriously bad like daydreaming dissociation problem (caused by gender dysphoria and family/school pressure) kinda fucks up her whole life, while William is the science nerd younger brother doing some stupid dorky gay romance with his roommate. Will is a stupid golden retriever boy like his oldest brother and as such takes way to long to realize James is like, Not Good Man

[alternislatronemhq]

Congrats, BEE, you have been accepted to AL for the role of DOLORES UMBRIDGE (FC:Olivia Taylor Dudley). OH MY GOODNESS, BEE! Your portrayal of Dolores was just stunning. I found myself laughing in places and gasping in others. You’ve really gotten into the head of a character that is just awful and played that out in a way that’s captivating. I can’t wait to see what chaos she brings to the dash! Please send in your blog (no sideblogs for first characters, please) in the next 24 hours and be sure to take a look at our new player checklist. Welcome home (once again), we’re so excited to have you join the family!

OOC

name — Bee age — 29 pronouns — She/her timezone — MST activity level — I have quite a bit of free time at the moment! I can usually manage being on for at least a little while every day and I’ll average a handful of replies a week at a minimum. any questions? —No questions per se, just a small disclaimer to let anyone reading know that I am a tolerant and open-minded individual, so while I’m excited for the creative challenge and entertainment of potentially writing an absolutely loathsome person like Ms. Dolores Jane Umbridge, anything offensive that she says or thinks or does IC does not reflect my own personal views!

IC Overview

name — Dolores Jane Umbridge—but my friends call me Lo, at least they would if I had any FRIENDS. -hold for laughter- Yeah, eat your fucking hearts out all you moronic lowlife swine. Hem hem. faceclaim — Olivia Taylor Dudley, Jenna Coleman, Mae Whitman age — 32 gender — Cis-female, and uncomfortably cutesy girly-girl for a woman over thirty. Hyperfemme caricature with BDE. Never met a shade of pink she didn’t just love.

sexuality — Outwardly, all Dolores cares about is locating the picture-perfect partner for the type of life she wants to be seen as having and lock them down, and in her mind that person is a man. She wants a husband with money and looks and brains and power, but not so much of any one that it would outshine her; she craves to be in the power seat of a power couple, and to get the attention she feels she’s always been unjustly robbed of. She’s got no interest whatsoever in romance and finds the whole concept a laughable waste of time. But for all she projects to the world, Dolores in reality harbors a deep, deep, DEEPDEEPDEEP same-sex attraction. She has thoroughly locked herself in that closet and a Norwegian Ridgeback swallowed the key.

patronus —Persian cat. This animal has all the appearance of being sweet and cuddly, but rub her the wrong way and those barely-retracted claws are coming out in an instant. Vain, independent, calculating, haughty, and very, very well-groomed at all times.

boggart —Stemming from her Napoleon Complex, Dolores’ boggart takes the form of herself shrunken down like Alice in Wonderland after sipping the drink me potion; her voice squeaks higher and higher into an undetectable range no matter how loud she yells and she can just barely avoid getting squashed beneath someone else’s disgusting, dirty shoes. Dolores as a person demands attention to function and she simply will not tolerate being made to feel literally small.

IC In Depth

personality traits —

tidy - Dolores is obsessed with beauty and perfection and symmetry in all things and nothing makes her skin crawl more than disorder—to the extent that after her mother and father split and she lived full-time with her father, Dolores developed OCD (though it hasn’t been properly diagnosed as such, and Dolores would immediately write off anyone who attempted to call it that to her face). In her mind she is simply particular; she has very high standards and she expects the world to rise to them, or else she’ll root out the filth around her weed by weed. She cut off the heads of her stuffies who stepped out of line at her toddler-age tea parties you’d better believe she’d do the same to you and care less about it.

passive aggressive - Dolores is well-known for her disconcerting calm in face of disagreements, her calculated cute-sweet demeanor and high-pitched voice. But make no mistake; Dolores is sugar laced with arsenic. In all likelihood she hates your guts and has already cooked up an in-depth five-year plan to chip away at you piece by painstaking piece. It’s a mystery how she manages to keep all that highly-pressurized rage simmering beneath the surface the way she’s somehow perfected, because she’s wound up so tight that it’s a wonder her eyes don’t pop out of her damn head and she’s about twenty-five seconds away from a full-blown psychotic break on a good day.

jealous - Dolores wants what she feels she’s due, plain and simple. When she sees others gain the things she wants while she gets overlooked, it stokes that ever-burning vindictive flame inside of her. It started in early childhood when her father gave attention to anyone or anything that wasn’t her, and it’s only gotten worse every day since.

intolerant - At this point in her life, her infamous intolerance is still in its earliest seed stages, but the seed is planted. One of the most interesting things for me about writing a character like Dolores at this age is to see how and why this mentality grows out of experiences she encounters in these formative years.

character biography —

Born ten pounds of spunk in a four pound, five ounce package, Dolores Jane Umbridge came into this world pink and perfect.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfectperfectperfect.

Even from a young age it was all Dolores cared about. Her father Orford Umbridge would whisper to Dolores what a beautiful perfect princess she was and Dolores believed it with every fibre of her being. Beautiful. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Then her mother Ellen gave birth to a younger brother who showed not the faintest trace of magic, and that was not perfect. The rift between parents and siblings grew into a cavern as Orford’s whispering words turned against Ellen; her fault. Worthless. Vile. Mudblood. Filthy Squib. Repulsive. Disgraceful. Wrong.

It wasn’t long before the couple split up, with Ellen and her son being banished to the Muggle world, and then it was just Orford and Dolores, together in their once-more perfect world.

And would that it could have stayed that way forever. Orford had always had wandering eyes and Dolores, desperate always to be the only girl in her father’s life, grew jealous and suspicious and hateful (and nonononono NOT anything else nope) for the beautiful vapid creatures that drew his gaze, threatening to upend what was hers.

Knowing nothing beyond her childhood of constant praise and adoration, Dolores went to Hogwarts expecting the world to cater to her every whim. So when people didn’t immediately kiss the ground she walked on, it made her angry. When all the girls and boys didn’t fall all over themselves to try and woo her, it made her furious. When the professors and adults didn’t sing her vast praises on high, it made her outraged.

How was everyone on earth too fucking useless to see how perfect she was?!

Dolores was a bundle of dynamite wrapped up in a pretty pink bow, just waiting to blow.

She went to the Ministry with adjusted expectations on being outright offered what she knew she deserved, and was proven right when she was overlooked by grotesquely unqualified superiors in favor of the sniveling ingrates all around her. But Dolores was prepared to play the long game and bide her time, just waiting for that one weak crack in the system where she could dig in her knuckle and crumble an empire with a smile on her face.

And she thought she’d found that perfect crack when she went to the Dark Lord. Surely he would see Dolores for all she was worth, surely he would bestow upon her all that power, finally, finally, finally. He was only a silly man, after all.

But the foul, imperfect world let Dolores down again. The Dark Lord gave his preference to some other detestable twots just like Dolores always feared Orford would, and then he paid the price for his idiocy when he fell from power (serves him right the arrogant swine), and Dolores returned to her long game at the Ministry with a newfound fervor to crush all who dared try to overlook her beneath her pink kitten heels.

Waiting for the next perfect move to present itself. And when it does, she’ll be ready.

plot ideas —

Girlsgirlsgirls. I would love an opportunity to unpack some of Dolores’ deeply rooted internalized homophobia. Maybe it’s an openly gay and proud woman who drives Dolores up the wall, maybe it’s a beautiful lady who despite all of Dolores’ efforts starts to get beneath her skin, someone she can’t seem to shake… This could go in so many directions and I’m here for them all!

Ministry Spats. Anyone she might have dustups with on her Ministry stomping grounds—Arthur Weasley, Alastor Moody, etc. Also anyone with pro-creature leanings and/or sentiments at this stage could greatly inform her later mindset and I would love to have them interact.

extra —

Headcanon: Dolores hates children; she thinks they’re disgusting tiny wastes of breath and absolutely looks down on anyone who has chosen the family plan for their life.

[metalandmagi]

Hogwarts Houses Anime Recommendations pt 2! Hufflepuff

A couple years ago, I made some posts with anime recommendations based on Hogwarts houses. And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s been a lot of new anime that’s come out in that time, and I’ve thought of some other things that I think people may have missed. And I was bored…So if you have ever wanted some anime recommendations with the same general themes and tones, maybe you’ll find something here.

In case you missed the first Hogwarts house recs:

Hufflepuff

Ravenclaw

Ravenclaw pt 2

Slytherin

Slytherin pt 2

Gryffindor

Gryffindor pt 2

Once again, I’m starting with HUFFLEPUFF, the house that embodies loyalty, dedication, hard work, patience and values friendship and inclusiveness above all else!

Tsuritama: When a boy with severe anxiety named Yuki moves to the island of Enoshima, he meets Haru, a bubbly alien who takes it upon himself to bring Yuki along on an otherworldly mission to rescue another alien…...by teaching him how to fish. It’s an incredibly funny found family anime with a plethora of unique characters, fishing, aliens, and a startlingly realistic look at anxiety. If you like things like Sarazanmai...but that make sense...this is the anime for you.

Tsuritama is one of the greatest examples of Hufflepuff style dedication and loyalty to your friends I’ve ever seen, and it’s just so sweet and hilarious that I keep coming back to re-watch it even all these years later. Honestly, this is one of my most favorite underrated shows of all time, and it’s a great watch for any Hufflepuff who wants something light but meaningful. Not to mention, it’s the epitome of a fun summer anime! 

A Place Further Than the Universe (Sora yori mo Tooi Basho): A group of four high school girls take on the seemingly impossible mission of traveling to Antarctica. That’s it, that’s the plot. It’s realistic, heartwarming, inspiring, hilarious, and devastating all at once. Each girl is so inspiring and charming while also being achingly realistic in different ways.

This was by far my favorite anime of 2018, and it’s an anime I think everyone should watch at some point in their life, especially if you are feeling down on yourself. This is the ultimate anime that proves anyone, yes even you, can accomplish something great through hard work, dedication, and a little help from your friends. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will blow your mind. Honestly, this show makes me wish I was a Hufflepuff, just so I could say I was more like the main character, because she’s the one of the best examples of a dedicated, earnest Hufflepuff out there.  

Iroduku-The World in Colors (Irozuku Sekai no Ashita Kara): Despite being descended from a family of witches, Hitomi Tsukishiro has not been able to see colors since she was a child. To rectify this, her grandmother Kohaku sends Hitomi back in time 60 years to 2018, when Kohaku was in school. High school adventures ensue while Hitomi makes friends and tries to come to terms with her magic along the way. At its core, it’s a story about art, romance, family, and coming to terms with yourself…kind of like a teenage drama version of Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Okay, this a really bizarre description, but it’s made by PA Works if that tells you anything about the emotional journey this show will force you to go on. Not only does it have some of the best animation from 2018, but it also has a great slice of life high school friendship story mixed with the perfect amount of urban fantasy to give its own unique atmosphere. I’d make the case that every character (aside from Kohaku) is a hard core Hufflepuff in their own way. Hitomi is quiet and dedicated without being an annoying protagonist, and her friends are all fun and supportive who are willing to ride or die with anything.

Carole and Tuesday: Did you think I’d make a list about shows with Hufflepuff core values and NOT include Carole and Tuesday? In case you’ve been living under a rock all year, this is a science fiction music anime about a rich runaway named Tuesday who meets a streetwise girl named Carole and immediately hit it off and start a band (and they’re super gay for each other). Together they work to find success in the AI dominated music industry….and also the whole thing takes place on Mars because it’s made by Shinichiro Watanabe (yes, the Cowboy Bebop guy).  

This anime hasn’t even finished airing yet, and it’s already one of the best shows of 2019. Both Carole and Tuesday are such Hufflepuffs it hurts. They care more about making music with each other and expressing their feelings in a fun way than clawing their way to the top. They work hard and are so loyal to their found family it makes me wish they were real people. Not to mention, both the animation and music in this anime are top notch. This show is the culmination of all things Hufflepuff all in one super creative package.

Fruits Basket: Okay, when I say Fruits Basket, I’m really talking about the 2019 version that’s actually following the manga, but a lot of what I’m saying applies to the original anime as well…it’s just not as good. That’s right, I said it. So, buckle up, because this one’s important.

For any younger anime fans out there who maybe haven’t been around since 2001, this is a slice of life show about a girl named Tooru Honda who has been living in a tent since the death of her mother, and eventually she’s taken in by the mysterious Sohma family who all harbor a dark secret…they can turn into animals from the zodiac when they’re hugged by someone of the opposite sex.

Hufflepuff is the most inclusive house there is, so I could write a thousand-page essay about why this show (and manga) is so amazing and what makes it a must watch for every single human being on Earth, anime fan or not. I don’t care what gender you are. I don’t care if you think “eh shoujo just isn’t for me.” I don’t care if you think you’re too cool for the purest, most wholesome show on the planet, you still need to watch it because everyone needs to learn to love themselves dang it!

I watched the original anime when I was just starting high school, and I liked it in general, but Tooru was kind of…a really irritating protagonist, and a lot of the messages it was trying to give just didn’t get through to me. As a young person, I just didn’t get why this show was so significant and formative for so many people. But now, as an adult with this remake, I can say that Fruits Basket and its core message is so ridiculously important that I can’t even describe it accurately. Yes, Tooru is a major Hufflepuff with her good-natured optimism and friendly hard-working personality. But it is so much more than a girl getting over her mother’s death with the help of a bizarre family. This is a show about love in every form imaginable. It’s about finding a reason to keep living even things are unimaginably difficult. It’s about how learning to love yourself as well as understanding that everyone is going through something, even the bad guys. Honestly though, this show (and more accurately the manga) is something I’d highly recommend to people thinking about suicide or going through severe depression, because it’s not exactly a light “forget about your problems” type of show. It’s more like…Dear Evan Hansen in that it addresses really difficult topics in a funny, clever way and you will feel like you’re worth something after seeing a few episodes. Anyway, please fucking watch Fruits Basket.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BISEXUALS MARRY? 

Do I have to choose sides?

by Jennie Gruber for A Practical Wedding (where this post first appeared)

[dropcap letter=”I”]’ve always been uncomfortable with the word “bisexual,” even when “equally attracted to men and woman” was obviously the kind of person I was, from mischievous childhood through horny adolescence and into my adult love life.

In retrospect, I am able to admit that my aversion to the word was based on a very ’90s mainstream conception of sexual orientation. When I was a teenager, my peers and the media told me that bisexual people were flaky sluts who didn’t really belong anywhere. Bisexual desire wasn’t real. Bisexual identity wasn’t legit. Sadly, I bought into those myths early on by reinforcing hierarchies: I might be attracted to everyone, but I wasn’t one of those bisexual people. I claimed I didn’t like labels, but I really just didn’t want to be judged.

Everyone assumed I was a lesbian before I could define my own identity, and I resented that. Both culturally, and gender-wise I was very queer, running with the theater kids and favoring Winona Ryder pixie cuts. Yet I took refuge in my potential for hetero privilege. I mostly dated, slept with, and loved cisgender men from my teens through the age of twenty-five. I was, frankly, being a punk ass, defiantly responding to everyone who assumed I was gay by demonstrating: “You think you can put me in a box! I’ll show you by sucking all the dicks!”

As a young adult, I chased sex, community, romance, partnership and adventure. 

I never, ever dreamed of marriage.

Around the age of twenty-six, I discovered the identity queer. Suddenly I had a word for what I was: an anti-conformist who desired relationships with people of all genders. In the mid-aughts Bay Area where I lived, queer was a word that could mean bisexual or pansexual or kinky. It was a term for iconoclasts, a term that welcomed sex workers and exhibitionists. It was the identity that declared: “Not gay as in happy; queer as in fuck you.”

I was thirty when I met my future wife, at Bluestockings, the anarchist-feminist bookstore in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Genderwise, she’s got it all. She’s a butch lady with a tie collection, who can hit all the high notes when she sings Cyndi Lauper at karaoke. A mutual sexual obsession grew into love, and then conversations about commitment; and then, a proposal in a gritty downtown park with a gold-plated cock ring, the perfect confluence of rational pragmatism and filthy romance.

We love to joke about the fact that homo means same, and that we’re not so much attracted to each other as women who love women, but as women who love people of all genders. A huge part of my attraction to my wife—who I married one year ago in a NYC civil ceremony—is a kindredness in queerness. My wife and I are both dykes who feel like gay men, butch-leaning women who love flamboyance and sparkly things and spontaneous disco dance parties. If I can explain why I knew I wanted to marry her after never wanting to get married, this is why: I fell in love with her but I also fell in love with the prospect of a queer life and marriage together.

Our wedding—which we are calling our Lovefest to try to banish words that limit us—is this month on a farm in Maine. It’s going to be a queer wedding, and it doesn’t confirm or deny our sexual identities. It just means we’re going to continue to grow in them together. It’s going to be a wedding with trans*, cis, and genderqueer guests, hetero couples and queer triads, and a gay officiant. A lot of our exes will be there. I’m going to wear a custom blue dress in the afternoon and a three-piece suit at night, because complicated genders require costume changes.

Being queer, and unquestionably anti-establishment, my wife and I have had to field a lot of questions about our decision to get married and what it says about our identity. Does this make us “officially” lesbians? Are we “over” our bisexual “phase”? Do we have to turn in our queer cards because we decided to “assimilate”?

Of course the answer to all of these questions is, “No and fuck you very much.” I identify as queer because I get to decide what it has meant and continues to mean to me. Committing to my wife does not mean abandoning my community. Sharing a bed and home with a woman doesn’t mean I’m abandoning my love of other genders.

If my wife and I decide to be monogamous, or if in our monogamishmash I never end up playing with another cis man, trans man, trans woman, or genderqueer person, I’m still bisexual. Or queer. Or whatever I am.

I didn’t stop being attracted to men or transpeople when I married a ciswoman. It’s also not a problem if I “miss” other genders.  I love my lady because she loves men and people of all genders too. I could never be married to someone who excluded an entire gender, socially or sexually. I can check a man out on the street and murmur dirty things to her—if she didn’t notice him first. That is more important to me than actually sleeping with anyone else—the ability to be honest about my erotic imagination, to be funny, to acknowledge attention and share fantasies. My wife is secure in our love, commitment, mutual lust, and she isn’t threatened by my male friends or the ex-boyfriends I’m close with.

Also my wife’s gender contains multitudes: A doting wife. A stern husband. A playful girl. A dirty pig. She’s a Gemini. In that way, she is the perfect match for a queer girl like me: she can be all the genders I’m hot for and wired to love, all wrapped up into a perfect package that I’ve been lucky enough to marry.

[supacutiepie]

I have headcanons... Head Cannons if you will

I thoroughly believe Bakugou is the type to bullshit his way around every little truth so honestly this shit might as well be canon bc he is Absolutely That Extra

- The new reveals told that: The reason we didn’t see his room is because it’s got shelves of romance manga.

-Therefor : Bakugou is a MAJOR BOOK NERD NESTER

-He has cookbooks, his trashy literature, his classics, his mangas, every school book he ever owned has been kept. 

-This includes shit he wrote himself

-Cookbook notebooks, its a full wall to wall scenario. He has books in every language and they make a librarian weep.

-The books he can’t read?? He has notebooks filled with translations he’s jot down after hours of scouring the internet and his OTHER books.

-TBFH his self written notebook collection puts “shitty nerdy fanboy deku” to shame

-Not only does he have this many books, they have consumed him. His room is wall to wall with them and they are so neatly organized to his mind that he just AUTOMATICALLY knows EXACTLY where every little page is. 

-However

-You may think, “Bakugou is the neatest of the students”

-Bullshit

-He understands his methods. You could never. I’m not shitting you, we have only ever seen his bed because its the only clean spot. He has piles of books, his closet is filled with his novelty t-shirts--

-Oh, he swaps out his wardrobe every season. Not because he cares per say but rather if he didn’t he’d drown in the clothes. His parents own a fashion line, every. single. month. he gets something new.

-Clothes mean jack shit to him. Sure, he gets it. He understands that clothes are “Expressions”... but to him its just bullshit extra merchandise that he gets in  packages once a month since he born. He long since left behind any attachment to anything that wasn’t some doofy bs novelty shit. His skull shirt collection is hideous and he loves it. 

-Bc he gets clothes so often, he just as often donates them.

-Everyone in 1-A has received a mysterious package of clothing. Everyone. And it’s always customized because like hell he’d just throw clothes at people puh-lease his father DESIGNS FASHION FROM SCRATCH

-It’s also ‘secretly’ his way of trying to put some kind of fashion sense in the heathens he lives with. 

-So his closet is full, his walls are lined with shelves and stacks and notes.

-But the rest of the “clear space” is filled with art.

- Drawings, Sketches, Designs. Little thing stacked up or tapped together. Prototypes over a desk thats STUFFED with pencils and erasers and extra paper and books. 

-Photographs of the places he’s been. So many different shots of Paris, mountains, rivers, lakes. He has a series of photo albums for the best and one is entirely dedicated to sunrises- another to sunsets.

-He has a map above his bedside. It’s the only spot big enough because it doesn’t have a big ass bookshelf on the wall.

-The map is big and delicately detailed. But it’s still just a map.

-The cool shit is that it is COVERED in tack-markers. Well, most of it is. 

-Europe is washed out by tacks. France has so many different colored tacks its an eyesore. Paris has a big ass push pin bc he’s been there so many times. Enough that when Aoyama starts mumbling obscenities at their classmates he has to stop himself from cackling along.

-He has a trail of pushpins along the Alps and Pyrenees. 

-The different colors mean things. But only he gets its.

* Black is Done. Been there, done it, no point going back.

*Green is Good. It’s a place he kinda liked, but its not somewhere he needs to go back to. Paris is a big ass green push pin.

*Red is for a place he wants to go back to. The mountains are a trail of red that grows inch by inch longer.

*Blue is for Potential. He marks his next trips in blue, but not his dream trips.

*Those would be his nice, doofy, silver tipped push pins. the classic “string on a crime board” kind. He has major cities plotted out with these. Theres a large mishmash over america filled with silver and blue. He has books and books and BOOKS on american mountain ranges and cuisine and he not-so-secretly plotted out a course all-might themed rest stops.

*Yellow is for his favorites. The first mountain he ever hiked, the onsen he found while his parents dragged him out to a business trip up north, the island they went on once for a family vacation. (He fell in love with the sunset. It was clear and bright and there were so many colors at once that its his ‘happy place’. He sat on top of a fucking volcano and it was AWESOME.)

-The map is obsessively picked over, the pins are carefully arranged, and the map itself its surrounded by his favorite snapshots of the places marked.

-His room is a mess. But he does know the exact inch everything belongs in.

-He may not seem it, but he is sentimental. He just doesn’t keep all the sentimental shit in the dorms. Those things are at home. On shelves and wall caddies and tucked between his even BIGGER collection of books and cd cases.

-He does have All Might merch, but again, at home. The few things he has at the dorm are hand drawn posters, so much cooler than the cheap shit you get in the store.

-He doesn’t have time for movies and shows, but when he does its either “cheesy romance serial” or “blood, guts, and glory”

-TBFH his FAVORITE movie is a bastard child of a romcom, an action, and a suspense thriller. It’s horrible, its audacious, its cheesy and the vgi is awful but its one of those Things he loves. (On really bad days, when his arms ache for hours and he didn’t sleep well the night before he lets the movie go on repeat just for the cheese. It’s a soothing ‘nothing really matters’ kinda Thing)

-Oh, lets not forget his arms.

-His quirk is DEMANDING. Its a needy little princess. He gets sick of it acting like a bitch. His arms will ache if he over does it, so he has a giant fucking box of tiger balms and compression wraps and weird fucking icy-hot concoctions.

-He DOESN’T have skin car shit. Surprise surprise, he doesn’t need it. He is soft. He is also, incredibly fucking annoyed.

-He has those super obnoxious spray colognes, some super expensive shit, and inbetweeners. Because otherwise he smells like he just rolled out a vat of butterscotch and step into a shower of caramel. But BURNT.

-Seriously, his room would be noxious from the nitroglycerin smell alone. He constantly has a fan going and the window open. And while the room is cluttered he CANNOT let it go uncleaned or he risks a build up of explosives. He has to change his sheets daily, he has a routine for covers and pillow cases, and he is damn near religious in clothes washing because otherwise he’s destined to explode Something he Doesn’t Want Exploded. (The books. The very flammable sometimes RARE books.)

-Oh, and he has MANY a blanket and throw. He swaps them out so he isn’t doing huge loads of laundry for the big shit. It’s mostly thin blankets anyways, but they’re super soft and cozy and he nestles up to read his books like a demented caterpillar. The blanket he sleeps with ALWAYS ends up on the floor. 

-He doesn’t like to think himself overly conceited. But he is cocksure and arrogant and he has an image to keep. So of course he has routines to make himself look good.

-This is just a Bakugou thing TBQH.

-More of a personal headcanon, but he’s definitely gay. Not in the super obvious way, but he’s definitely confident in it. He isn’t about to go plastering his walls with flags (as if they’d fit), and he isn’t jotting down crushes in a journal (he does have journals, they’re just... incredibly volatile and profane)

-He’s just, confident.  He has a single little rainbow picture, its a picture he took and its super cool and shit. A rainbow in the mountains, right after a shower. He keeps in in a frame in one of the bookshelves near his manga. It’s tasteful, and it’s subtle. He knows what its for, and the littleness of it feels nice and secure.

-He doesn’t shy away if asked. But no one asks. He’d be honest, if anyone did. It’s not something he will hide- that’d be cowardly...

-But deep down, it does give him pause. It’s something he wrestled into submission since he figured it out. He had this big dream of being N.1 and then one day he realized that, had society not advanced the way it did, he could have nothing. He’d never tell a soul but it scared him, to know that despite all his ‘perfections’  he had this one thing that would turn heads in a way he didn’t want.

-He realized though that it as just one more thing he’d own. So he noosed it, that fear, and he throttled it into submission. He’d be N.1, he’d be open, He’d pioneer that shit if he had too- but he didn’t have too. It ended up being something that added character if nothing else, and he was determined to make it a trait and not a flaw and to build his pride with it.

-That all being said, much like any self respecting gay- he does has a string of lights tastefully weaving over the wood of his bookshelves.

-Extras:

* He doesn’t get sick often. Just, doesn’t. He keeps a close watch on his health, is always good on hygiene, and in general doesn’t jeopardize his well-being.

* When he gets sick. It hits him like a FREIGHT TRAIN.

* He only gets fevers once in a blue moon and he’ll fight the damn moon itself to keep it this way because when he DOEs get a fever its like a putting a handful of firecrackers into a cooking pot.

* He pops when sweaty. He just DOES, It’s INCREDIBLY annoying but thankfully localized to the hands. But when the fever strikes, his whole body pops. He spends the majority of his fever curled up in something flame-proof to wait it out.

*If he’s sweating, and by some MIRACLe he blushes, he CRACKLES.

* He’ll kill you if you witness it.

* I said he’s confident, not that he can’t be flustered.

* On that note, he’ll take it to the grave, but he definitely made Kaminari discharge in front of the dorms that first day by kissing him. It was on the cheek though! And it fucking hurt. Touching Kaminari is like playing roulette and his finger tips smell funny afterwards so he tries to avoid it.

* Honestly, the same can be said for anyone with a quirk that can react to his.

*Fucking half-and-half actually worries him. For the sanctity of his clothing.

* That fight with Deku in ground-beta set off every nerve ending he had and for a solid 24 hrs afterwards he actually had trouble keeping his quirk under his skin. He can still vividly recall the arc of electricity over his face and it never fails to leave a lasting echo in his mind.

* Kirishima is good for this though. Ironically, he’s grounding. He’s the one person Bakugou has never worried about hurting or leaving damage behind. Likewise, he knows that Kirishima high-key needs the confidence boost that Bakugou drags with him everywhere, so he amps up his attitude when the red-head seems down.

* He has no earthly idea how to describe his relationship with Kirishima and it shows. He would never dare say it allowed, but he knows that the boy is his best friend and he’d honestly kill for him. But more so, he’d be willing to live and fight beside him.

* Kirishima is one of the VERY FEW who has a picture in Bakugou’s room. It’s from a hiking trip, and its really backlit so you honestly wouldn’t know at first glance, but its beautiful. A sunrise, right at the summit. A figure standing on a rock with a hand excitedly outstretched towards the horizon.

* The other people with photos, are his parents- and the Midoriya’s.

* It’s not as obvious this one. But he keeps a family photo on his bookself of the three Bakugous, and then theres an old photograph tucked away between some of his older school book collections.

* It’s a beach photo. He couldn’t be more than, maybe three? 

* It’s a whole other life. A time before his quirk. Before he knew he was destined.

*He’s sitting on a rock with a backsplash of salt and foam. He’s got an arm wrapped around a tiny Izuku. It was the only thing keeping the other boy from tumbling off into the waves. Their moms are sitting on either side, big happy faces all around.

*The boys were burnt, both heavily freckled, and smiling like the world was endless.

* The photo...makes him sad. He can’t explain it, not even sure what words could do so. It’s nostalgic sure, but something between the pixels of ink has him at a lost. It was such a different time, and the little boy in the photo is a stranger.

*Sometimes, rarely and in the dead of night when a nightmare finally gets him awake, he thinks about life. About how different it could have been, about the paths he chose and the ones he burnt. He wonders, he regrets, and he moves on before morning.

*Bakugou Katsuki refuses to dwell. He bottles and compartmentalizes and he tucks it away like a pamphlet in a library. Notes and subscripts to be lost in translation. 

( He’s vocal, he’s vivid. He writes. He loves his book collection and he writes his own short stories. His imagination is as vivid as the rest of the class, and he jots down half finished ideas all the time. He has a memory that makes an elephant cry, so his school notebooks are tiny and his idea notebooks are scattered. The words he can’t get out into the air are sometimes trapped in ink. )

[moanbyul-yi]

k so @byulyi dared me to do all the flowers from this and my dumbass thought it was a great idea to accept the dare but my dumbass also fucked up and basically deleted the ask so here it is in a post lmao buckle up bitch!! (u really dont have to read it if u dont want its sm longer than i thought it would be) 

amaryllis - name an attribute of yourself that you are proud of. proud of my ability to find the shittiest and worst tv shows/movies and watch them religiously lmao

anemone - describe a time when you felt abandoned or betrayed by someone you loved. back in yr 8??9?? i had a super close friend (that i was also in love with but i didnt realise bc of compulsive heterosexuality) that randomly cut off ties with me and yike it sucked 

azalea - would you describe yourself as a patient person? in terms of simple things like waiting on a package no lmao but if its waiting for a person or smthn like ykno that deep shit then yeah 

begonia - describe anything you see as a “red flag” (something that makes you cautious about a new friend or love interest) straight up if theyre an asshole,, if they say something homophobic/racist/sexist etc just if theyre not accepting and nice to all people 

bird of paradise - do you like hosting parties, or do you prefer to just attend? i love hosting!!!!!!! i love making sure everyones havin a lit time and organising all the stuff 

bluebell - what keeps you humble? tbh idk how to answer this question just bc ig im not really in a position where i have stuff to flex so like i dont have a lot to be humble about ?? in terms of like achievements n shit 

chysanthemum - describe your idea of a perfect day.  this is kinda gay but honestly just a day i get to spend chilling with my girl whether we go out or just stay home and binge movies all day whatever it is,, just to have a chill day with her with no ‘you have to be doing this!!!!!!’ feeling 

spring crocus - describe your favourite childhood memory. the first one that comes to mind is me and my cousin when we were like 5yo running around the house with a cape on pretending we were superheroes

daffodil - how do you confess your feelings to someone you’re interested in? ive only done it twice, the first time was a complete Mess and the second time they initiated it so idk lol i wing it ig 

daisy - describe something that gives you hope when things seem bleak. honestly idk bc im the kinda person that just wallows in their sadboi but i guess something that helps is just talking to people esp my gf about whatever it is thats sucky

foxglove - when was the last time you told a lie? i told my parents i was going to the city for lunch with a friend today but i went to a dance class for love shot by exo lmao 

gardenia - have you ever had to keep a romance a secret? if so, why and for how long?  yeah bc we were both not out - had to keep it a secret from p much everyone other than a few friends the entire time we were tgt 

purple hyacinth - describe a time when you had to apologize to someone last year,, i had a fight(??) with my friend and yeah 

hydrangea - how much time do you spend on your appearance each day? not a lot i always look like a Mess 

white jasmine - what is something that never fails to make you laugh? !!!!!!!mamamoo !!!!!! 

lavender -  describe your oldest friendship, and why you think it has lasted so long. i have a primary sch friend and we’ve been friends sort of since kindy but properly for like 8 years???? its the kinda friendship where we dont have to talk often but we can hit each other up whenever and it isnt weird its just chill and gucci ( @akicchisano luv u binch no homo)

lilac - describe your first relationship or first love. yeet ok my first pROper rs?? lasted like a year and a half and it was a friend in high school,, uhh it was good while it lasted but im glad its over and i wouldnt go back lmao but it was definitely a learning experience 

calla lily - what traits do you find beautiful in others? in yourself? i guess imma be really typical and say kindness like the kindness in which u dont expect anything in return?? like the way people aim to make people happy and laugh and shit ykno (i just woke up soz this is terrible)

tiger lily - if you had to choose between doing what you love and making very little money, or doing a job you hate and making a lot of money, what would you choose and why? im assuming the very little money is still enough to get by?? but i would choose that just bc if i hated my job idk how long i would last in it but i dont think it would be very long at all. if i had people to provide for or something tho then definitely the second bc gotta get that dough for them 

lotus flower - would you say that you are a spiritual person? if so, what elements of spirituality are important to you? nah im not really  

magnolia - describe your favourite thing to do outdoors. probably just walking around ykno with nothing to do or maybe hiking?? sightseeing?? shit like that 

morning glory - are you an affectionate person? if so, how do you show affection? very lmao if i like you romantically or platonically ill be v touchy and cuddly if u reciprocate it,, i also will give random gifts like stuff ive made or stuff that reminds me of that person just random small things 

pansy - what is the most thoughtful thing that anyone has done for you? idk if this is the mOSt thoughtful bc i have bad memory but that one time the mvp @akicchisano bought me a smol christmas tree bc i kept talking about how i wanted one but couldnt find one that shit got me busting the phattest uwus

peony - describe the top three things necessary for a happy life.  a sugar daddy,, good food,, girls

petunia - what never fails to make you angry? when people borrow shit and dont put it back how they found it >:(

red poppy - what tips or tricks do you use to cheer yourself up when you’re down? i go for a drive (i cant drive so i make my brother lmao) or i watch smthn funny just get my mind off it somehow

red rose - describe your ideal date or romantic evening.  shit idk about ideal but itd be really nice to maybe get dinner and go star gazing like somewhere far where theres less light pollution and hella stars and then after that just coming home to binge movies and cuddle

yellow rose - do you get jealous easily? sO easily its terrible but most of the time i dont do anything about it

snowdrop - have you ever had a falling out with a friend or family member? not in such a way thats resulted in us not ever talking again 

sunflower - do you consider yourself a loyal person?  ye,, ya girl aint no hoe

sweet pea - describe a difficult goodbye you had to make to a friend or other loved one. probably saying bye to all my family bc they came to visit and having to send them off opened up some real emo hours :((((

violet - how important is loyalty in friendships and/or relationships? v important bc u gotta have someone to rely on but it should be loyalty and not blindly following 

wisteria - do you like poetry? if so, describe your favorite poem(s). yeah i kinda just like random poetry theres a lot from an insta acc called poeticpoison that i really like

zinnia - do you have any loved ones in your life that you miss and wish you could see?  yeahh my gorlfriend and all my family since they all live in different countries

[qualapec]

Favorite characters meme

@myheartgoesswimming tagged me in this!

“Post 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, in no particular order, and tag 10 people [if you want!] “

I’m a JERK who can’t help but rank my favorite characters,

Favorite male characters:

1. Jacob Frye Jacob had an absolutely unprecedented climb up my favorite characters list. He went from being this butch asshole in the trailers for AC:S to...I LOVE MY BI SON??? I don’t think I’ve purely identified with a character so much since Marian Hawke in DAII when I was a closeted 18 year old who didn’t think I’d ever come out. Like, I’m ultimately not too protective of my favorite dudes--I look at my list and I’m like, yeah, this is mostly garbage. Jacob is the one dude character who I have actually cried over people saying shit about him (I casually call Jacob garbage a lot, but not too long ago a good friend said “yeah, he fucks up everything. really everyone would be better off without him” and I cried harder than I thought I would).

I identify with Jacob because he’s a giant ADHD bisexual who messes up literally everything he does but still tries the best he can to be a good person and he’s someone who still legitimately cares about people who have hurt him deeply. At the same time, he’s not a queer character that wants to fully integrate with society either. He’s funny and loves his sister and she’s a better Assassin than he is. He’s a good person but his queerness isn’t clean--it’s rough and it hurts and it damages his relationships and it’s so real to me.

I’ve never felt happier about being bi and not totally good at things than the months after AC:S came out and Jacob was announced as canonically bisexual. Before that I’d been struggling a lot with the lesbians v. bi women thing, and Jacob just made me feel so good about myself and so hopeful. I love Jacob Frye.

2. Johannes Cabal I have never been more right about a character’s ultimate arc than I was with Cabal. He’s been on my list of faves for years, but the fifth book jettisoned him into second place among the guys. If he were canonically queer he and Jacob would probably be tied tbqh. I love this horrible man. I love his arc. Anyone who wants to write villains with a redemption should read these books. SPOILERS but I love how his arc isn’t about accepting things the way they are re: death. He never accepts the Bible, never goes to confession and gets his sins forgiven. He never gives up his desire for things to be changed and for the unfairness/injustice of death to be righted and his disbelief in religion as a savior. He never gives up his arrogance. He’s still really smart.

But by the end, he becomes a human who is worthy of having friends and is capable of doing the right thing and that means so much to me. I expected a giant Thing at the end where he did something truly villainous to show that he was Always That Way and Always Would Be, but it never happened. He slowly defeated evil within himself without even knowing it, and that matters to me.

END SPOILERS. The second trash wizard I ever fell in love with.

3. Loki (MCU). Oh, Loki. My queer rage analogue.

Some context: I saw Thor (2011) when my family was falling apart. I was mad, so mad. That scene when Loki confronts Odin was so profound to me--I read it as a coming out scene, and I know a lot of other queer folks did, too.

I’ve known I was bi since Dragon Age II, as dumb as that sounds. When I wanted nothing more than to romance both a dude and a lady. BUT I had planned to bury it. It was easier to just date men, so why not? When Loki was revealed as Canonically Bisexual, that was really when the word clicked for me. That was the moment I think I knew that word was truly inescapable for me.

Whoo boy. That scene in the Avengers when he shows up after creating a portal with the Tesseract and intends to tear the world apart...that’s the moment I realized how queer and angry I was. I was closeted and wanted to burn it ALL down. He would either win or be destroyed, and the fantasy of burning as I was was so satisfying to me--either way he was going to die as himself. I was sitting in the theatre and that was when I knew I had no choice but to come out. I was afraid. Anger was an easier feeling to have.

Loki. My reminder that I’ll take a queer villain over a Perfect Queer (TM) every day of the week and also for the rest of my life--I will never, ever care about a Perfect Queer, because that’s not what I am, that’s not the family I come from, that’s not the reality of my health or what I aspire to be. That rage gave me the courage to come out, and tbqh it gives me strength now.

4. Harry Dresden Harry is Trash Wizard Prime. I discovered him during a time when men were an absolute mystery to me--I didn’t grow up with many (any) good male role models. As a bi teenager, I started to notice men because that’s the thing girls attracted to men were socially supposed to do, and I realized I didn’t understand them.

I saw the cover for Dead Beat in a Barnes & Noble and I picked it up. He looked so dashing, so rogueish. And this chaotic good motherfucker is that. He cares about people and wants to do the best he can with his gift, even if he is imperfect, and that spoke to me as a teenager so much.

He was a male character who I felt safe with. Society hated him for his gift, and sometimes did its best to destroy him even while he was trying to be good (which, in retrospect, is one reason why I associate mages/wizards/witches with queerness). I felt like he was a man who would protect me as a girl who, at that time, thought of myself as het but who was very afraid of men (L O L. LOL. L      O       L. Biggest joke ever) and who had experienced trauma at male hands.

I felt deeply betrayed when, after Changes, he had intrusive thoughts about raping the women around him.

I don’t quite have words for how much that hurt. Cabal was never misogynist in quite that way, and Loki is a virulent misogynist, but in a way that strikes me as very real for some queer men (not okay, but A Thing That Actually Happens). And as someone with OCD who experiences damaging intrusive thoughts myself, I feel like should have understood.

I felt really betrayed when Harry’s character took that direction. It caught me by surprise. It was actually triggering for me--the message I got was “every man will hurt you” and I’ve spent years trying to unlearn that. I remember shaking after a certain chapter of the book after Changes. I remember thinking that Men Will Always Hurt Me if Harry would.

Recent books revealed it was the result of a demon in his head...but it still hurt a lot. I discovered those books when I needed a man to look up to, and I still feel like that trust was betrayed.

I wouldn’t really recommend The Dresden Files to any of my friends now--I still want them to read them to understand a very formative text for me. I love Harry Dresden. He is part of what made me, of what defined my morality. I love him. I want him to be part of a better story.

Also I will be 100% honest and say that his super cis straight dude descriptions of wanting to sleep with women really spoke to me as a young queer chick. I was really into “vagazzled” btw.

5. Cullen Rutherford WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE OUTLIER.

Cullen has that Captain America vibe I usually can’t stand. He’s super lawful good and even upholds laws that he shouldn’t.

He’s also a drug addict who was deeply traumatized and needs his girlfriend to function (an ongoing theme with me). Even his very oppressive anger makes sense to me. It sucks, but I get it. That’s valid.

Also, I really hate it when people say his character arc made no sense. I’m sorry, those people flat out don’t understand narrative or think characters can escape their original packaging. Spoiler; that’s not an ‘arc’. Characters change, deal with it.

I think one thing I love about Cullen is that he was really, really tailored for women who are interested in men (note: not just Straight Women).

I think one of the biggest things for me is that he’ll do anything for the Inquisitor (his girlfriend). He was SUPPOSED to be bi via leaks from the company that made the game (if that was canon he’d be much higher on this list). But it does ultimately matter a lot to me that he was so specifically tailored to be a fantasy for women who are interested in men. He loves her. He will do almost anything for her. She helps him get over a serious addiction. Cullen taught (my bi/poly ass) about m/f narratives that I needed.

I guess I have a Thing for men who really need the women in their lives. Cullen gets the girlfriend role, and all the trauma that only men are usually allowed to have.

Honorable mentions:

Victor and Yuuri from Yuri on Ice. (If they had more canonical trauma, they would have lettered, and they may in the future. I love that Literally Wearing a Bi Flag Victor is a garbage human being who doesn’t understand feelings but still loves is boyfriend and doesn’t want that relationship to end. I love how Yuuri is an anxious gay baby.) Albert Wesker, a truly fine villain who was not done justice by those movies. Ned Wynert, who taught me a lot about writing characters from marginalized groups I am not a part of.

Favorite lady characters: 1. Marian Hawke. I almost don’t have words for how deeply formative Hawke is to me. She changed my life. I know she can be a different person no matter who plays her, but I think the things I fundamentally love about her are somehow universal.

For context on Marian Hawke--I was 18 and deeply closeted when I played DAII for the first time. I had committed to “never coming out” because I thought it would make my mom sad. I remember sitting in the uni library and thinking about Hawke and how bi aka queer (ADDITIONALLY poly) I was and I regret how that was the moment I decided I would only date men because it would be easier. That didn’t last. I didn’t know how much that would tear me up inside.

Hawke was the first gateway to my sexuality, but I thought I could avoid her message.  I knew I wanted to date both men and women.

Hawke herself is...me. Granted, you can control some of her actions as the player, but she still fucks up in a lot of the same ways no matter which version of her you play. She still tries to do the best she can (sometimes that’s a lot, sometimes not a lot, sometimes it’s oppressive). She cares. I can’t remember if she or Cabal came into the Trash Wizard (or trash mage) #2 slot, but she’s right up there on my fave trash magician list.

Because she’s so deeply formative, she’s another character I can’t be rational about. I HATE with every fiber of my being that she’s not static/unchangeable. I partly hate dude!Hawke so much because there are no female characters like my take on Marian that even EXIST. Soft butch, bi, diplomatic, kinda funny, kinda mad.

She tries her best, just like I think I do. She fails a lot, even when she means well. My Marian is bi as fuck. She changed my life. I don’t know who I would be without her (I mean, probably still bi as fuck, but still). I love Marian Hawke.

2. Evie Frye. I’ll just say it: Evie Frye fixed my ability to write female characters.

I was feeling a lot of pressure from other female writers (sadly, even particularly other queer women) to write WOMEN’S NARRATIVES. I felt like those had to be about rape and weakness and strength in spite of that. THAT IS A NARRATIVE THAT MATTERS, however I either struggle to identify with it, or I over-identify with it and I’m afraid to walk to my car.

Evie isn’t that.

She’s perhaps the greatest Assassin in history, short of Altair or Ezio, who made the brotherhood what it is. She lives and breathes that tradition. She’s most powerful when she is unseen, and in that way, I always feel safe with her. She’s the rightful heir to the entire series, so I feel like she will always be safe.

I learned so much about how to write myself and what I wanted and what I think a lot of other women want even if it’s not part of The Discourse, through Evie Frye. She defies stereotypes about what it means to be “woman”. She’s treated no worse than Jacob by the narrative, and she’s arguably treated as the inheritor of the Assassin tradition and like her skills matter just a bit more. The narrative could do without Jacob (as much as I love him) but it couldn’t do without Evie. She’s just as powerful as he is.

That we get to see her as both a new adult and a middle aged women is extra important. The fact that she spends her later narrative hunting one of the most virulent men in history (Jack the Ripper) means a lot to me. She is most powerful in her prime, while Jacob burns out later on, and that ALSO matters a lot to me. Shitty men are afraid of her, not the other way around. There’s no narrative where she lets the think they could rape her to win; she just wins. (Again, nothing wrong with female characters who use their femininity that way, but Evie just kills those fuckers, and that’s what I need in my life of believing in self defense).

I love her. She loves her husband, she loves her brother. She’s prim and proper and perfectly tailors her outfits and knows how to strike a killing blow. Evie is about a different kind of resistance than Jacob, but she’s still about resistance. She’s the first female character I’ve seen, in literal years, who is allowed to exist beyond her own femininity. She’s just allowed to exist and be really cool. Evie also means a lot to me.

3. Leonie Barrow This song really sums up Leonie Barrow for me. /They see you as small and helpless, they see you as just a child/ Surprise when they find out that a warrior will soon run wild/. She starts out as so?? Small?? compared to the overall narrative of the Cabal books, which are steeped in angels and gods and Lovecraftian abominations from whom the very foundations of the universe were forged. She’s the Innocent Girl at first. Her femininity, her innocence, does matter, but it’s not what I thought it would be. And by the end, she’s a shotgun wielding master detective, who Cabal CANONICALLY trusts to make the same logical decisions he would.

She is willing to kill to defend her friends even if she doesn’t like it. She will stand against the darkness and be afraid but she will smile.

She’s also almost /definitely/ canonically bi at the end of the fifth book, short of the actual word being used. It’s not a plot spoiler, but it gives me life either way. She’s not the girlfriend, she’s not the Woman, she’s something else and she matters in her own way. Her potential is limitless, and I’m inspired by her every single day. People talk about Stever Rogers as their human ideal, but I guess Leonie Barrow is my comfortable alternative.

Leonie Barrow saves people by her empathy--and she’s also willing to wield a shotgun. Outside of a magical girl narrative, she and Elizabeth DeWitt are the purest versions of the ‘weaponized femininity’ narrative I can think of.

4. Elizabeth DeWitt Oh, Elizabeth. I love her. I love her fucked up history. I love her fucked up present and her implied fucked up future. I wish she had a better ending. If I ever write fic, it will be to correct what has been done to her by canon.

Elizabeth is trying to escape her fate. Her ultimate arc may be about accepting a shitty end, but I don’t think that has to be the case, since I think so much of her story is about denying her future. Like her, I will always hope and strive for something better. She’s femme and hard and powerful and will break the world and make it whole again all with one wishing <3 .

She has the power of a god and the writers/developers/designers didn’t know how to handle that in an interesting way. I love her.

5. Talia (from Arrows of the Queen) SO

When you are reading about a clinically depressed character and you think, “I IDENTIFY WITH HER SO MUCH” that’s probably a sign. So many times, Talia tried to tell me how I was feeling, and it took me a very long time to listen.

I was easily clinically depressed when I read the Arrows of the Queen books. My uncle had just died without me coming out to him. I felt like a disappointment to my mom. My bachelors degree was on fire and it wasn’t totally my fault. There was nothing about myself that I didn’t deeply despise when I read these books, nothing that I didn’t feel the world would be better without. I didn’t want to die, since I have a very particular attachment to my mortality and no matter what, I’m attached to my life for my mom, but I felt so fundamentally worthless that it still hurts to think about. I haven’t been that low since then, and I hope to never be that low again.

I was depressed and I didn’t know it. I don’t think I was truly suicidal even then, even if I was experiencing almost daily suicidal ideation. I don’t think I would have died, but I still think Talia saved my life a little bit--she at least taught me that it’s okay to acknowledge my illness and seek treatment and that it’s okay to want to be happy. I’m so deeply grateful for that I don’t even have words for it, partly because, while I think I would have survived, I wouldn’t be happy.

Talia also got to fuck the most desirable male characters in the Arrows of the Queen trilogy. Even though she was quiet and was shy and was depressed. The message was this: I could have love even if I was mentally ill. I specify ‘male’ characters because Talia was straight, and also because a part of me feels less desirable to men than women, so that fantasy means a lot to me.

Talia is me at my most vulnerable. Talia is me when I want to reach into my own chest and tear myself apart. I love her. She matters. <3

Honorable mentions:

Pearl from Steven Universe (my favorite anxious lesbian, who got a great character arc that I never expected to be validating to both the lesbian-bi women dilemma and to her mental illness. I <3 Pearl). All the women in Overwatch. Sailor Moon and her soldiers. Tamora Pierce’s heroines. Lara Croft.

Tagging @swimthroughthefires @fakeandroid @doomquasar @amandaironic @strawberrylaugh @ghostofthemotif