#this was what me and my bestie thought of!! this is just our interpretation

[alongtherubyford]

giving the dc batfam houses in game of thrones

bruce - house stark

alfred - house targaryen but he’s a maester for the starks (think maester aemon vibes)

dick - dorne/house martell

jason - house stark or house mormont or house bolton

cass - house mormont or house bolton

tim - house tyrell

steph - house tyrell

duke - house tully

damian - dorne/house martell

[thewisecheerio]

Messmer's actually terrible at his job. (affectionate)

Messmer is a fascinating villain, because he is strangely compassionate. I would go so far as to argue that this same compassion that is so at odds with his villainy is the very thing that drove him to become that villain in the first place. Hang with me; this is a long post.

Spoilers for Elden Ring DLC. Obviously.

Messmer tells us himself that his purpose is to purge all those stripped of the grace of gold. "Yet...my purpose standeth unchanged. Those stripped of grace of gold shall all meet death...in the embrace of Messmer's flame." We can piece together who gave him this genocidal purpose from his armor set's description, which tells us directly that he's working on his mother's behalf *and also* taking all the blame for it.

So he's playing war criminal on Marika's behalf. And I do mean playing. I'm not downplaying the fact that he is a war criminal; he has murdered on entire people. But here's the thing: he's *terrible* at playing the sole part of the spiteful, hateful overlord. He's *awful* at reveling in war and its victories.

Why? Empathy.

Messmer is strangely empathic for what could have otherwise been a cut-and-dry villain:

1. His relationship with Gaius, an Albinauric: We learn from Gaius's Remembrance that he was Messmer's bestie. We also know that Gaius was an Albinauric both from his armor as well as the location "Albinauric's Hut" in the direction he comes from at the beginning of his fight. Albinaurics are despised by the Golden Order, but Messmer didn't seem to care. In fact, he cared so little that he gave Gaius command of either a huge chunk or perhaps his entire army, second only to him. And what is given as the basis of this friendship? The fact that they were "both cursed from birth", i.e. a mutual understanding of what it is to be despised. They're trauma bonded because they have empathy for each other's predicament.

2. His relationship with the Jar people: Even though the Jar people were used as weapons of war against his own people, he doesn't seem to resent them. How do we know? There is a hospital where the Jars and their innards are being cared for in the Storehouse, a stone's throw away from where Messmer spends all his time. There are even a few baby Jars running around in it. Strange thing to do to what is essentially an enemy of your people, unless you consider them to also be victims of the same conflict.

3. His relationship with his soldiers: Messmer shares his own flame with his army. Yeah, that absolutely could be interpreted as a utilitarian move for the sake of war. Power up the troops, boost your chance at victory. But it's a strange choice when he could have just armed them in the traditional way of handing them sharp, pointy objects and pointing in the desired direction of stabbing. Instead, arming your soldiers with your own power could also be interpreted as something you do when you care about their survival and are potentially working directly with them to ensure it.

4. The mourning of people who betray him: Speaking of his soldiers, Messmer gets betrayed by at least a few of them. We learn this from the ashes of Andreas and Huw. Huw's ashes further tell us that Messmer *mourned their loss* as brothers-in-arms. Weird thing to do to someone who has betrayed you, unless you care very deeply about them to begin with.

5. The implications of the Storehouse: Even though he is actively genociding Hornsent on Marika's orders, he somehow has preserved an entire library of their history. At first, I thought this was maybe just British Museum vibes: steal all the artifacts and refuse to give them back. (And that could still be a correct interpretation.) But in context of the rest of these points, if you're truly hellbent on erasing a culture, why would you bother to preserve any of it? Would you not burn the libraries along with the people? It's a fairly common thing to do in our world's wars--destroy the art and history to ensure full erasure. And yet, it seems he can't even bring himself to avoid some small amount of sympathy for the people he was explicitly tasked with killing. If you really *think* about the basis for his sympathy for Marika, this does make a lot of sense. Messmer is following Marika's orders because he knows about what the Hornsent did to the Shaman. Wouldn't it then also be the case that once Marika's reign became nothing but genocide, i.e. an exact reversal of what was done to her people, he would have the same kind of sympathy for them? Perhaps this is a form of harm reduction in the only way he could square with what he thinks is his purpose.

6. His own self-hatred: Messmer despises his own flames, which we learn from the Messmer's Orb description. If you were happy to be Doing a Genocide, would you not celebrate your weapons of war? Wouldn't you take pride in them as tools of power? Unless, of course, you're not actually as happy as we think and maybe having regrets and come to be filled with severe self-hatred. Woops.

So then, if Messmer is this guy running around with a lot of Big Feelings (and probably a deep need for a Prozac prescription), why does he even agree to this genocide in the first place? Isn't that an *odd* choice for someone who seems to care pretty deeply about people, even people despised by his family's governing order? Why does he carry out these orders even to the point of developing a deep self-hatred?

This is where Messmer's sympathy, one of his best aspects, also becomes his fatal flaw.

I mentioned above in 5 that Messmer has access to information about both sides of this conflict. As much as he might have sympathy for everyone around him--including weapons used against the Shaman like the Jars--that means he *also* has sympathy for the Shaman. So if you have sympathy for the other side and sympathy for your side, and you are raised by your own side, then what is the natural outcome? Your side wins. If you must choose a side, then you fight on behalf of Child Soldier Fostering Mother Marika. She raised you, after all. It's inevitable.

In the end, that same sympathy he seems to extend to others also is what causes him to do war crimes. Out of an abundance of sympathy for what happened to the Shamans, he agrees to take up arms.

At the end of the day, he's still a villain that needs to be stopped so that he'll stop oppressing an entire people on behalf of his mother's misguided attempts at revenge. But making his reasoning to agree to become that villain in the first place *empathy* of all things? Fascinating.

[2econd2ight2aver]

Are Gojo and Geto gay?

Well it's complicated. Let's set some things straight, neither of them have been confirmed nor denied anything, and a romantic relationship is not expicitely stated, as their relationship is different according to each person interpretation of their interactions.

That said, it's completely fine if you watched the show and thought of them as completely straight and platonic besties. But we can theorize and speculate for fun!

Spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen

Firstly, I'd like to mention the fact that they both died in the same day. December 24th. That in it of its self isn't romantic, it's just showing us their connection. But in Japanese culture, Christmas eve is considered to be one if the most romantic days of the year. It's kinda like a Japanese Valentines day, where people celebrate love by eating KFC together.

No, I'm not kidding. KFC is seen as a Christmas tradition in Japan, and also a love symbol. And where did our little guys have their little break up infront of? A KFC.

I can't find the real picture so this all you get.

It surely wasn't just a design coincidence, since it was both in the manga and the anime. Gege must've put that intentionally, and I must admit it's funny as fuck.

Also, that scene in Jujutsu Kaisen where GoJo gives Yuuta (fuck that bitch cunt whore I hope he dies thatt little emo fucker killed my fuckung husband because he promises to fuck his monster girlfriend later, fuck him and 60 family generations) his lost ID that Geto found. And Yuuta (the sheer audacity of this man to exist makes me want to forcefeed him fentanyl and chop his balls off) thanks him, to where Gojo responds "I didn't find it, my best friend did. No, my only friend."

I found that weird because why did he call Geto his only friend when Shoko also was his friend? Maybe they had a deeper connection neither of them wanted to admit?

My bitch ass in that scene:

When talking about Gojo and Geto relationship you have to mention that even if Gege wanted to make them gay he couldn't since Japan, ironically is a homophobic country. Many people get canceled for making characters gay and many shows don't get aired in Japan because of the homosexual characters. And imagine what would happen if Gojo, arguably the most recognizable anime and manga character in all modern media was made out to be gay. The reaction that would have.

Gojo also stated in his death that the only regret he had is that Geto wasn't there to give him a pat in the back. (I'm not crying, you are)

The opening of the hidden inventory arc which is Geto and gojo when they were younger has a certain song which if you read the lyrics can actually tell you a lot about their relationship.

The song is Where our blue is:

If you read into the lyrics you'll relative it's mad from the perspective of Satoru talking about Suguru. I will now put some translated lyrics:

There's nothing to block the front of my eyes.

Your silence... it becomes...inaudible

Even if these days fade away

Even if I've come to know your scent,

different from mine,

In the depths of eternity, left behind.

It's like a quiet love in the summer,

Like colours running down my cheeks.

The words that curse you are stuck in the back of my thoat,

Will we meet again?

A voice that cannot be heard.

We were supposed to share everything

But since that day, little by little

The curse of me being different than you grows

The sorrow behind your smile,

Regretting from what I had overlooked.

To you, who blooms and scatters

Like transient flowers,

Goodbye.

Okay, I don't know about you but I personally don't refer to my platonic bestie as a "quiet love in the summer" or "transient flowers".

Also, I wonder that if the lyrics that said :"The words that curse you are in the back of my throat. Will we meet again? A voice that cannot be heard" Refers to when Getos death, Gojo said something we as the audience cannot hear, a voice that cannot be heard and Geto responds to that "Now in my death the least that you could do was swear me with some curses" the words that curse you are on the back of my throat.

Now, I could talk about the airport scene but I would start hysterically crying so not today. But they did meet again. In death. Someone kill me I cannot do this today

So, in conclusion, It depends on your interpretation, but you if want the answer to the question I'll respond that Gege wanted them to be gay but since he can't do that due to the Japanese culture, so he just heavily hinted at that.

[noodle-made-a-mistake]

A short list of things that bother me about the Magisterium canon:

Forgive me in advance for rambling, I have to get these thoughts out of my brain lmao (also it's been a couple years so correct me if I'm wrong! (I really hope I’m wrong on some of these :’) )) Spoilers ahead obviously!

● The lack of Calron :(

● Not taking the opportunity to develop Tamara's character and keeping her static until she's randomly just different. Strong female characters aren't just skilled and perfect until their one flaw (usually it's having feelings like any other human being) is revealed shockingly (that's just sloppy characterization), they should be crucial to the plot and not overlooked in favor of developing other characters (from what I remember she literally was my favorite while reading the series until she just got annoying (??) after a while, of course that could just be because the story is told through Call's perspective but still)

● The entire school system that I need more info on bc it sounds so unthought out and not like something that has existed for hundreds of years

● The forceful nature of making people serve as masters?? That makes no sense? Like, “Congratulations on not dying during your schooling or in the war(s), your prize is forced labor 👍.”

● Also THE COLLEGIUM WAS MENTIONED AND NEVER ELABORATED UPON

● TGT. Least favorite book. Get out. Tgt truthers how do you do it??

● The Maugris plot twist. It destroys the meaning behind the past four books. It's just so uncalled for and frankly just sloppy ig? I love the idea in a way, but only if it's foreshadowed from the beginning. Also I'm too attached to the complicated dynamic of Alastair raising his possible ex-bestie for it to end up like that

● The fact that the iron trio is out of school for half the series, I'd like to know what's normal, y'know??

● THE LACK OF ELABORATION ABOUT THE FIRST GEN I WANT TO KNOW MORE I HAVE TO KNOW MORE

● They did my man Constantine especially wrong, give him some ✨️character✨️ aside from E V I L and problematic (trademark) and charming (???)

● AND ALASTAIR GOD TELL ME MORE?? He's characterized as distant and obviously traumatized with his hate of his magic involved past but I just need to know what that past was like. Like who was he before his dead wife syndrome?? Idk but I'd of liked any excuse to know more about it just so I can understand him more??

● Please give me a single character trait of Declan's?? Like he was mentioned a handful of times and that's all we got. He was just some guy and I am hating it !!

● And Sarah. Like. She was a mom and liked peace as a concept but she also made a cool ass knife. That's a lot of things left up for interpretation. And I know Call wasn’t allowed to ask questions for plot reasons but god i wish he had more information about his own dead mother for Christ's sake

● Also other than a victim, who was Jericho? I need to know who this kid who drew scribbles in the margins of his very important journal while writing about how he was slowly being killed was. What was his relationship really like with his brother if he was so scared to say that he was dying or what gave him the impression that he didn't care?? It's fascinating and I need him under a microscope immediately

● Also the lack of queer representation until the last two books. AND THEN IT WASN'T EVEN ANY OF OUR MAIN CAST. Literally the saddest L ever :(

● AND AARON WAS NEVER CONFIRMED QUEER LIKE WHAT THE FUCK JUST L O O K AT HIS CHARACTER AND INFACT ALL OF OUR CORE CAST IS AT LEAST BI LIKE C O M E O N (ik they're like kids but even I knew I was not straight when I was like 11 and i lived in the most conservative non-LGBTQ-friendly town known to man)

● Low key, callmara was so bad, like I love them but not the way it happened, horrible set up. Tamara deserved so much better and to not have her entire character destroyed by becoming a love interest. I wish they thought about her as an independent character instead of the means to implement a romantic subplot in tgt, they did so good in the first books with that

● Also there's no elaboration on what chaos is. It's the mystical 5th element. Wow! Let's go girl, give us nothing! You'd think that if Makaris were so exceptionally rare and special that we'd get some explanation on how they come to be and what it is exactly that they can control but we're just left to assume it's the special "chosen one" type of thing. Idk it bothers me for some reason :/

That's just off the top of my head and it's been years since I read the series all the way through (I should do a reread soon). For the most part I adore this funky series and I hate to bash it but I felt the need to ramble about it's shortcomings because I'm not crazy, right?? It had so much potential! Anyway, I'm sort of glad for the blanks in the story despite complaining about them because it leaves room for fics and fan interpretations that I always love to see, but on the other hand, I'd like for the story to feel finished and not like a last minute science fair project.

Thanks for sticking around for my late night rambling lmao

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

For the pairings can you talk about The Prototype and Angel? Your interpretation of them has me in a choke hold lol

I'M SOOO HAPPY I ALSO HAVE YOU IN A CHOKEHOLD, THESE TWO HAVE CONTAMINATED ME WITH THEIR SILLINESS.

They're parallels and mirrors of each other. Angel could have become the Prototype, and the Prototype could have become Angel, if only the circumstances were different. They share similar grief and a deep feeling of alienation: Proto for being the first one and the only one that's as crooked and weird as he is, and Angel for being both an immigrant and a queer person in the USA. Grief for losing loved ones, Angel with their friends/coworkers and the Prototype for seeing his loved ones become nothing but experiments of a company he made from scratch. I could go on and on about their similarities and differences, but in the end the conclusion is the same: They KNOW each other. They KNOW how similar they are and they just Get each other, and to me this is sooo fun to explore and think abt whenever I talk abt them!

Also like. They're literally the parents of a household with almost 90 kids (numbers will prob grow once we get the official Chapter 4, but alas). Sure that it takes a while for Proto to be promoted to parent #2, but DANG, THEY ARE THE PARENTS. Two best friends who decided the best course of action was to get legally married bc this would provide some extra protection for the kids if anything bad ever happened to Angel!!!!!! AND SPEAKING OF BEST FRIENDS.

Angel loves annoying the Prototype and the kids. Their love language is being a menace (just ask their parents and Miguel about it), and after a while Proto both gets used to it AND starts annoying Angel back. What is a friendship but an excuse to be awful in an affectionate way. Angel will forever bully the Prototype for not realizing the critters were all alive, and in turn he's literally going to drag them to random places so they can stop working for ONCE. They have the same dad humor, by the way, much to the horror of some of the kids. They're besties!!!! I have said this a thousand times but they are besties!!!!! Only Proto knows some of the shit Angel went through, only Angel knows the things Proto went through. The torture the scientists made him stand, what he did and thought and felt the decade after the Hour of Joy, everything. Angel tells him about how sometimes they think they aren't enough for the kids, or how they fear they're being either too harsh with them, or how awful their last nightmare was.

Also to me the funniest phase of their relationship happens after Angel realizes that, unfortunately, they want a QPR with the Prototype. Like. They're all "I can't fucking believe this, I doubt he would accept the offer if I explained I may want something more but not the romance part of it" and "how the fuck do I explain to him that I value our friendship more than anything and I think it's something different than all of my other friendships without it sounding weird as fuck". Because Angel DID tell him what a QPR was, but they doubt Proto would want something like that. And then it cuts to him like "hm I think there might be something else to this friendship, but not romantic in nature. We may have achieved a deeper bond than anything I have ever had before, friendship-wise". Disaster of a human person vs scientist DESPERATELY wanting more affection. It's SO funny to me.

also like. Post-officially-becoming-a-QPR-couple. HILARIOUS. They pull the "we're partners" thing whenever it's convenient even if it involves pretending to be a romantic couple. They have no idea how it works. These two 100% do the "ask your other dad" thing in order to annoy one of the kids into going back-and-forth between them until said kid goes "stop doing that!!!" and then Angel has to control their laughter. Nothing really changes post-that except that now Angel sometimes gives him a kiss, they got too used to using Proto as a giant teddy bear by the point the QPR happens. Proto, however, now has excuses to just grab Angel and give them a hug without feeling weird for doing so [he's awkward when asking for affection in general].

[intuitive-revelations]

Legend of Ruby Sunday live notes

Obviously spoilers below, recorded as I watched. Definitely gonna watch again though. I think I might do a seperate write up about 'what to take away' because oh my god does this episode throw a lot at you!

"Uncle"!!

We're definitiely getting a UNIT spin-off aren't we? I recognised the soldier guy straight away (tbh, when I first saw the 60th trailers he looked so odd in the shots used I thought he was cgi/deepfaked). If we do get it, I do hope they go for the military vs science conflict like I imagine - he'd be a good 'antagonist' for Kate in that regard.

Ooh... just pointing out the anagram in-universe....huh.

"TARDIS technology." Oh she's doomed this episode, I can feel it coming.

Oh! And we're doing the Susan mention?! Ok?!

AND THAT'S THE END OF THE PRE-TITLES WHAT? WHY?

Must be a redirect, though, surely? 'Susan' is not much to go off. It's silly they're jumping to this straight away in-universe, even with the TARDIS anagram.

"Well, except the obvious." "We'll get him." Is that a Musk slam?

Mel!

"Call me Sue" that's a bit of evidence against. Though if it is somehow Susan, her actually being 'really nice' would be cute.

Ruby Rose besties! Ruby Rose besties!

Hm. If this is somehow Susan, we are so going to dissect that thing about Sue Triad's parents.

Donna mention. :)

Oh my god, I've just realised. The TARDIS is a central part of this mystery, and that's exactly what Mrs Flood claimed to recognise...

Uhh.... what's up with Flood?

"HE WAITS NO MORE."

We're really settling on the Susan thing, huh.

"He never mentioned a granddaughter." Five Doctors fans keep losing.

"If you've got a granddaughter, that means you've got kids." "Well, not quite. Not yet." OMG WE'RE DOING THIS?

(Also...he definitely HAS had kids before - and not just Jenny and Miranda. But wild that we're implying Susan isn't the child of one of them.)

"I bring disaster. What if I go back and ruin her?" Hmm... so far kinda compatible with To the Death?

"Especially the Prime Minister." lol.

"N-dimenionsal time", thanks, I'll absorb that into my interpretation of time, time tracks etc. in the whoniverse.

Mel lost her family. Is that a reference? Doesn't immediately bring something to mind.

I like the way the lights are fading up and down, very TARDIS-y.

Ooh, the VHS-y environment.

"The greatest power of all: memory. Time is remembered. Memory is time." MEMORY TARDIS MEMORY TARDIS.

"What is the memory of a time machine?" No way.

Ok, getting ready for a twist. RTD said where people were is important.

...or not?

The one who waits?!

Well there goes the colonel. No surprise.

Hmm... the description "it's everything" sounds a lot like the Void ship from Doomsday.

"It's the Beast." Not that 'Beast' surely?

"It's so old. It's been waiting. It's been waiting for so long." So those "one"s are the same, confirmed?

"It's the TARDIS" AHHHH.

It's groaning again! "It's made that noise before."

"What if it exists around the TARDIS now and we just can't see it?"

I don't think this is our Susan, but if she somehow is I'm really enjoying her dorkiness.

...that's two "no more" drops so far. Hmm...

"AND I THINK WE CAN SUCCEED" Hello?!

It's woven into the TARDIS? Some sort of parasite maybe? Didn't RTD say something about the splitting in The Giggle being important?

"He has hidden in the Howling Void. He has hidden within the tempest." WAIT I WAS RIGHT?! It's Void related. The Eternals called it the Howling didn't they?!

"All this time, he whispered and delighted and seduced, and the vessel did obey. For none should be more mighty and none should be more wise than the King himself." UHHHHH.

HARRIET F*CKING ARBINGER (and she said she was born for this... of course)

WAIT THAT'S SAXON'S THEME WTF

"I dream of worlds with orange skies." HUH? I guess that could be from Boom, but you know what I'm thinking

"There is the Toymaker: the God of Games. There is Trickster: the God of traps." I f*cking knew it. The 'Pantheon' is the Pantheon of Discord!

"There is Maestro: the God of Music. There is Reprobate: of Spite. There is the Mara, the God of Beasts, and the three-fold deity of malice and mischeif and misery." Ok Mara mention... BUT also, "three-fold" that's deliberate right?! Like the Six-Fold God?

"The mother and father and other of them all."

SUTEKH!

"Did you think I was family, Doctor?" Phew...

And it's Gabriel Woolf voicing him! That's good.

Wait... he also voiced the Beast... huh. What does that mean with the reference this episode?

[skeren]

So like! I was tagging a cute post which I will state for the record has nothing to do with anything here and promptly leaped off the deep end all about my personal interpretation of ABO in the SVSSS universe. I quickly (after about ten long explainy tags) realized that these had nothing to do with the post at hand, so here I am, sharing with all of you instead.

Bonus! This, in many ways, fits very well with my whole Liu Mingyan is Liu Qingge's nascent soul and Ning Yingying is Yue Qingyuan's whole dealio that I made a post about a couple weeks ago. I will now explain.

First up, a little vocabulary for those who haven't gone researching the intricacies of ABO terminology in other languages. I'm gonna say though, I like the meanings of the ABO terms in Chinese better okay? So, quicklike, this is what me and my friend found when we went looking:

乾元 qianyuan = alpha 中庸 zhongyong = beta 坤泽 kunze = omega

I also linked the literal translations of the characters used for them for the curious. I do not, in fact, speak Chinese, before anyone comes for me. But back to the matter at hand now that everyone's on the same page! Sort of!

I already had my own ABO system but the version I went 'hey universe feel free to use this' is more of a general use case that I based initially on Marvel. My version for SVSSS has some similarities but I threw down some changes because, well, Shen Jiu.

I will explain. Basically, I do a crazy amount of RP in this fandom. I don't actually post much fic or anything for it, but I do a lot of stuff okay? It means me and my bestie have experimented. We've settled on some baseline stuff. One, PIDW is (most often) actually ABO from the get go because Airplane thought it was hilarious to get one over on his audience, since everyone has dicks. Everyone. All the genders have dicks. Male and female in this version of things only really exists for animals or the odd really unusual kind of demon.

Airplane just has a lot of really busty people with dicks, because while everyone has dicks, they also have the other half of that too. Everyone also has a vagina. See? Easy for him to play his readers if he just never mentions the dicks.

Anyway, Shen Jiu. In this nebulous situation we have a lot of overly elaborate backstory that's vaguely horrifying for Shen Jiu, because we love him and yadda yadda, things. Basically, he's a qianyuan who is 100% convinced he's a kunze because he had a baby (all those flowers that let ANYONE have babies still exist) but said baby very quickly died, in part because he really really didn't have any of the properly working infrastructure for that to actually produce a healthy child. The other half being that just because he was pregnant didn't mean he was treated any better. Thanks for nothing Qiu Jianluo, you are an awful awful person.

What did Qiu Jianluo do in this situation? Basically, our ABO folks don't actually get labeled with a gender officially until puberty. They can't. They have a facsimile of everything they need to be any of the three genders, after all, you can't just tell by looking! You have to wait!

Side note: People often do not wait and then get mad when their perfect son turns out to be a kunze, or their perfect daughter turns out to be a qianyuan. How dare you not conform to what I need for an heir/political marriage/whatever the heck other social plans some idiot might have wanted!! Also note, because of things like this there's a whole system in place for marrying off your foot bound qianyuan to a battle trained kunze to maintain an heirship in the intended line and stuff. It's awful but it is what it is.

Side to the side note: Three person relationships are considered the ideal, one of each sex, but harems still exist, obviously. It's PIDW.

Back to the point though! Qiu Jianluo, being unwilling to wait and risk -gasp- Shen Jiu possibly being a qianyuan, got his hands on some plants that would force a presentation. Namely, he wanted to put a baby in that and did his best to make Shen Jiu's body conform. It only worked... kinda. He sure looked more girly and things did their best.

Trauma all around.

But years later, this whole situation means that Shen Qingqiu is convinced his ruts (utterly debilitating, leaves him laid out and utterly completely miserable for days in horrible pain which is not normal for anyone) are heats. He is always jealous of kunze whose heats come and go just being overheated and sweaty, honestly. He always thinks he's going to die. Due to Reasons, in verses like this he often spends these with Shang Qinghua (who by our default is actually basically always Airplane with wildly divergent System/memory issues) who he at least trusts not to try anything. Up until he's mad at him for never trying anything. You're a healthy zhongyong! Disrespect him!

Spoiler: Shang Qinghua very rarely in these verses ever disrespects him without outside intervention. Does this cause problems with Mobei-jun?! No, not really, since to him Shen Qingqiu is a perfectly normal (if extreme) qianyuan for his zhongyong and he's a healthy kunze. That seems very balanced and fortuitous to him. (He's less pleased when some other kunze swoops in and steals march on him though.)

So, that's the Shen Jiu side. Which let me tell you, is hilarious when Shen Yuan comes in to take over and be Shen Qingqiu because that guy doesn't even notice he's got a vagina for... a while, typically. And once he does he's just 'huh, this explains so much' and just assumes what he's got in his pants is the weird stuff. However, this also makes Binghe's life both easier and harder at least because Shen Yuan's forever misogyny at least works with him for once. Kinda. Vaguely. In an awkwardly 'I want to shake Shizun' kind of way.

Which brings me to Binghe! Oh Binghe, you early bloomer you. We make him a kunze. Because he's a half demon kunze, however, his day to day bodily presentation is more masculine. Demons have that whole 'the girls are bigger than the boys' thing going on like birds do. They guard the home territory while the qianyuan go out and fight things. Kunze are supposed to be bigger and have a better body for carrying babies after all. Gonna fight real good. Also, big dicks to subdue a rowdy qianyuan putting up a fuss about this or that so that the kunze in question can get their way? Perfectly sensible.

Anyway, little Bunhe starts having heats at twelve, and due to him being ten when his mom died, did not actually get a proper explanation on how he can tell what the heck is going on. Ning Yingying is the one who finds him and explains, and then proceeds to keep it a secret because she only ended up on this peak at all because Shizun's last kunze student was sent off to Qian Cao by the sect leader. No, she has no idea why. She was a Smol.

Everyone knows about it though. Shizun was very upset and it's how he got Ning Yingying in trade, after all. Which relates back to the Yue Qingyuan Nascent Soul thing because he put her on his Xiao Jiu's peak at the first opportunity and look! He kept her! (Nevermind how possessive this man is. He'd keep anything and fight for it too whether he liked it or not.)

Anyway, so Ning Yingying, liking Binghe very much, kept this a secret. Bunhe didn't realize the woodshed had scent suppressors from his Shizun's time there (generational trauma for everyone) but he did know that it sure the heck felt safer than trying and failing to sleep in either of the dorms.

Though, it got increasingly rankling when years later Ning Yingying started coming around on his heat days to try to get him to let her in. What with her being a qianyuan and all. He was Not Amused. He wanted to marry Shizun and he didn't care if it made him super gay! (It would not but it's not like he had any reason to know that).

Anyway, years later, Sha Hualing does her thing! Sha Hualing is very quintessentially a demon qianyuan! Pretty, flashy, light on her feet, smaller and faster than a kunze would be! She wants very much to impress all the pretty kunzes! She's got the spirit but doesn't realize most of the people she thinks are kunze are human qianyuan. She's a demon used to demons, she'll figure it out eventually.

Side note about that: A lot of the reasons demons seem to kidnap men so often is because they think they're kunze. there is a lot of confusion and rancor on both sides about all of this. Also, zhongyong are the most highly prized among demons as they don't really have many. That's mostly a human thing.

Of course, the other 'qianyuan' she fights is Liu Mingyan! Who is... actually a kunze, so sorry, you'll figure that out eventually too, dear sweet confused demon girl. All in all, a very big day for a young demon Saintess.

It should be noted that due to how gender and sex works in this situation, and the inability to tell the sex of a child who might go to Xian Shu, people there are less 'all kunze' so much as 'all feminine.' You will commit to the lifestyle or you don't get to live on that peak! Be pretty, be fabulous, be graceful, and above all, learn the feminine arts! Have issues growing a nice bosom? We'll teach you how to dress to hide that and fill it out.

Anyway.

Circling around and around again to that Nascent soul thing. Thought I forgot didn't you? Liu Mingyan is a kunze. So, well, doesn't it just track that by that logic so is Liu Qingge? Which means that he's a pretty slender person who mostly bounces off to the wilderness so that everyone continues to assume he's a qianyuan and doesn't try to stick him in a box and guard him like they keep trying to do to Shen Qingqiu. Noooo thank you very much. He'll never have a heat where any of you people will hear about it, that's for damn sure.

But, you know, all in all, just some thoughts, nothing detailed, about my take on SVSSS ABO. Questions, comments, additions? I'm curious.

[frozenjokes]

grian jokes about leaving them for mumbo tho. splayed dramatically across mumbo, who came over and is trying to read his emails on his phone, attempting to ignore the fact grian is rolling around him like he’s a human jungle gym

a note from future Elsa: I started to ramble. None of this is coherent. Thanks for being a vessel to allow me to yap though.

I do actually find it silly to think about eventual cumscarian. maybe more. like the polycule just keeps growing. all of our friends, into the pot. it’s the most monstrous QPR/actual romantic mix you’ve ever seen, none of it is labeled, none of it makes sense, and then BOOM. hermitcraft.

(In an eventual future) anyway Grian probably would do this. And then he’d realize he wasn’t joking. And then they’d all have to have a conversation MDNDNDNDNND. but yeah if mumbo doesn’t want to be treated like a jungle gym maybe he shouldn’t be so tall and lanky and a pushover.

Genuinely though Mumbo has a very interesting dynamic with all three of those losers and I think it would be fun to explore each of their relationships /platonic/ separately from each other because they’re all very different. Idk if this will actually happen or if I will have moved on to something else, but here are my thoughts.

Obviously, Grian and Mumbo are besties. Estranged for a while, but their relationship now is pretty healthy with Mumbo setting very firm boundaries that Grian understands and follows (besides occasional instances of forgetfulness or not thinking, but as time passes and old wounds scab over, it matters less and less). I have zero planned major conflict for these two and I don’t imagine that ever changing. Just a steady, healthy friendship.

Mumbo and Cub are interesting to me as mutual friends of Grian who never quite Clicked despite living together most of their college years. Cub makes Mumbo a little bit nervous because he’s so difficult to read a lot of the time, but I don’t imagine Mumbo has ever really gotten Cub in a place where they can talk about shared interests (of which they have quite a few!), an environment that Cub would have a lot more energy to bring to the table. Cub likes Mumbo, but He Can Tell that Mumbo can’t really relax around him most of the time, and since he’s not a very outgoing person he kinda just. Doesn’t try to do anything about that. He’s very used to being regarded as cold and thinks it’s too much effort to try and change minds. Cub I think also has misinterpreted Mumbo’s perception of him though, probably not realizing that Mumbo would like to be closer, he just doesn’t know how to go about doing it. (Cub often assumes most people would rather not bother with him, not necessarily in a self deprecating way, more neutrally toned) Cub doesn’t know either. They would both feel awkward about it. I think the ideal way to put them together would just be to drop them in an escape room or something. Give them a puzzle. Let them problem solve together. I imagine they’d butt heads a little in their Autistic Fervor to PUZLEPUZZLEPUZLLEPUZZLE SOLVEOLEVSOLVESOLVE BE VERY STIMULATED but in the end they’d appreciate the input of the other person in places they got stuck and really respect each other in that way. From there they could move forward.

Scar and Mumbo is tough here because Scar is a little bit obsessed with him and in that obsession just continuously breaks Mumbo’s boundaries like he’s crashing through drywall and Mumbo is just Tired of him. Scar is a Pest. While Mumbo and Grian could bond initially over their distaste of Scar, I imagine as time went on Grian would start to realize someone needs to pull Scar aside and tell him straight up he’s being an asshole, because Scar doesn’t always Get It. What is to Mumbo and Incredibly Annoying inconvenience is interpreted by Scar as a back and forth fun game, and he doesn’t understand that Mumbo is serious, that the way Scar is acting isn’t fun for him. It would take a bit for Scar to understand. Scar’s outlook and interpretation of the world around him is pretty stubborn and he isn’t the most empathetic person and struggles sometimes to connect that the way He would feel about [blank] isn’t universal to everyone. But he would get there. And when he’d apologize, he’d mean it. Mumbo would know it, and I don’t think this au Mumbo could hold a grudge to save his life. Too much energy. So the turnaround on his and Scar’s friendship would be pretty fast; neither party going out of their way to talk to each other, but with so many mutual friends it’s pretty inevitable. And it would probably be nice. A little weird getting to know each other for the first time after years of (forced) talking, but they’d jive. I bet they’d both be into board games. They could be weird about them together.

[justwinginglife]

Not a request!! 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

Okay what should I call you? Wing?

But I really wanted to share something..

Like I wanna feed my delusions after having a brainrot of this anime called Windbreaker because I gotta sip a Soshiro content or two before I continue dealing with people and all but yes I have said enough.

HAHAHAHAHA BUT LIKE... A TS SONG. EY

The Alchemy is so on hit when Olympics is a hype but what about applying that song to Soshiro?

Cheers chanted, cause they said There was no chance, trying to be The greatest in the league Where's the trophy? He just comes running over to me Touch down Call the amateurs and Cut 'em from the team Ditch the clowns, get the crown Baby I'm the one to beat

Like what ifff Soshiro finally promoted as a Vice-Captain while y/n or reader or you, is like been supporting him in his cadet and officer years. He's been training with others and himself to the bone, working hard just to meet the expectations of Mina. Like we know that's his lifeline and he's working and working and working. Of course there will be some breakdowns and self doubts but like you're there and cheering him in your ways. When his suit finally hits to 90%+ of unleashed combat thingy, he didn't know that at first. Maybe he's too focused on fighting? Like what he did with his number 10 and hitting 100. Even he got told that he did, there could be a voice inside of him telling that he's satisfied with his Platoon Leader role as long as he can serve Mina. Soshiro knows that he's a candidate for Vice-Captain but self-doubt here and self-doubt there. There are a lot of Platoon Leaders and capable of having that Vice-Captain role so like he's "Ih I don't know about that..." But when Mina marched her way to him and announced that he's going to be Vice-Captain, he's just waiting for the captain to finish telling what he's going to do, announcing his feats and that. When she did, Soshiro just instantly running towards you and hugged you. Like a typical kdrama romance thing or smth, he spun you around and whispering sweet murmurs of thank yous while you're there, confused. You've been supporting him despite those criticisms or with his up and down self-esteem either you know his struggles or not completely and it's like he's running towards to his wife giddy and telling her that he got promoted and stuff.

"I'm a Vice-Captain now.", "Oh wow holly sh' you deserve that." Like dang we don't need our spouses to become an athlete or sort to have this "These chemicals hit me like white wine" moments. Our bae have goals to achieve and instead of "This happens once every few lifetimes", there's a lot to come when it comes to Soshiro. What if your strict parents finally give her blessings to him? Ey? Ey.🤺🤺 I mean— Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

Hope you have a good day luvie!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Omg hello again bestie! I go by Hannah. Also, I always love hearing your thoughts! This was a very sweet interpretation of the song, which btw is one of my fav songs on the TTPD album, I totally have The Alchemy stuck in my head now that we're talking about it! LOL. And I love the idea of Soshiro just running up to us any time he has an achievement, like it's the first thing he does, and it's so adorable. I want to shower him with love so bad, I wanna tell him he's enough, I wanna tell him I'm proud of him and he did good. Like my baby needs to hear that, he needs to know he's done enough, he's done his best. Sweet baby Soshiro, I love you. Thank you for blessing me with your thoughts.

[dream-this-nightmare-over]

Joe Cole imagine

This one is for @shelundeadxxxx (i see you bestie), and @fckyeahjoecole (wake up bestie wherever you are, its been 5 years since we heard from you yet your posts are curing my new obsession), and @moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown cause you are hoe for this man just like me.

You can find more of my imagines in my book Imagines on wattpad.

Hope you enjoy as much as I enjoyed getting lost in this daydream and eventually sitting down to write it.

Text came on 21st of July out of nowhere when y/n already thought it will be another cold summer.

'You me 9pm screening'

Joe never forgot his friend and deal they made on one of Ed's dinner parties or was it on some other occasion they gravitated almost always toward each other naturally pulled through people who's attention never brought peace like that of a friend in mischief. They would find each other and leave the crowd or stick to each other making rounds settling in corner with champagne and micro cupcakes making up what they taste like cause trends all seem to be tasteless left to one's interpretation, making fun of pumpered faces who only knew to call them out for being themselves.

They were going to see Oppenheimer together, on opening day. It was pinky promise sealed with smiles that even from shadows put candlelight to shame.

They meet outside, under glow of newly installed Barbenheimer titles at entrance, when heat died down a bit, and dusk rushed to its paintbrushes coloring hastily sky in purples and blues, overneeded relief in scenery. 'Hey you!' Joe excitedly greets coming toward y/n. As she was watching him come closer, mental image appeared and it grew bigger until he was in his full John attire walking John walk spreading his arms sassy and coy, feisty edges softened to gentleness and consideration irl. Perhaps this is why its so easy to fall for actors: they can be anybody they can play into any role we think of in our heads, its easy to imagine them following another script, no one knows who they really are, a mold for imaginative minds, perhaps even they don't recognize the reflection without all the makeup and pretence, it's easier to look at world through anyone's eyes but your own. They share their significant handshake, he doesn't part but pulls her in quick hug and they fall in easy chatter of laughs and jokes. It was hard to believe y/n will see any of the movie cause his eyes held her whole world and attention and thoughts captive. No imagination could compete with real thing. Drown me in you, for i am sinner.

In one incredibly brave moment during movie, Joe looked over at his friend, in darkness he can let go of his shyness social restraints loose it's okay to give air to your feelings and appreciate the moment indulge in secret admiration he will mask with smile when caught; from blue shadows playing on her face thought arose flickered into wonder what would cillian think of them together, if maybe he had it already figured out, he wondered if it's possible to love without flexing about it, if anything can survive without going through ordeal of condemnation, and he was pained to conclude this friendship is too sacred for world to touch it with their critical prejudicial opinions. But then she smiled at him quizzically and he knew he thinks too much. Love finds a way. It curves like river changes environment reshapes the world until it finds its freedom.

Neither wished for night to end. It was too late to chase one masterpiece with another, so they decided to meet tomorrow at same time to see Barbie.

They walked from cinema aimlessly wandering through town, hoping they never run out of pathways that lead to merging point from where no goodbye needs to be said again.

He held her hand never letting go laughing as she laughed at stars, pulled her back and spun her around in the middle of street under street lamp, slow danced night away, until sudden rain sent them running opera reaching its crescendo. They stood under his jacket he kept overhead covered stage them main characters , everything is funny if company is non judgemental, pitter-patter matching musical of hearts clock ticking midnight, y/n was lost in haze from when he put his arm around her in the dark and kept it there through breaks and credits as she showed him reaction memes that were already pouring Internet and they compared their experience with 'same. Omg so true. He killed it. Omg yes that part was something else'

She stayed the night, on his couch. He left the door open so they never feel too far away, he didn't want to keep walls when around her, he was tired of feeling forced separation from what he wants, forced pretence forced silencing of hapiness found.

On brink of slipping away, he realised he didn't kiss her. There will come time for that. Right words aren't born yet. But it's all in the making.

They went to show love for their friend Cillian but it was all masterly planned and excuted excuse to show love for each other.

In the morning, they checked the earliest showtime for barbie and went cause they were too excited to wait and there was no real reason to, since yesterday turned into tomorrow, friends turned to I never want you to go, time was theirs to make or break but they were way ahead of doubt it can't catch them now. Joe only smirked when y/n pulled bright shade of pink lipstick form her bag and offered it to him with innocent mischief written in her eye, he smirked cause her knew he will love her for the rest of the time they have together. He wouldnt check even if he had chance. Destiny can't be manipulated, so what's the point of knowing the outcome, you can't enjoy the ride if you only worry about the the end. End comes whether we try to fight the current or go with the flow. So why not relax and enjoy?

It was y/n's couch from then on.

[hermit-frog]

Hey its not on you because the trial would have happened with or without lestat.

It's not on you because the coven wanted revenge not lestat

Lestat did not contact the coven did not orchestrate the trial

You think he wanted claudia killed or louis to suffer and also possibly killed at the trial then why mourn afterwards? Sociopaths don't close themselves off from the world living in a shack for years mourning the ones they loved and lost. During the trial he looked like he didn't wanna be there and afterwards he was a shell of himself.

Lestat was ashamed the trial went the way it did because his plan was not just to save louis,which he did, but claudia too.

That's why he didn't tell louis I saved you not armand because it's too little too late and he knows it.

He's in the tower where he was tortured because he feels tortured by guilt for claudia. Too little too late yes but to insinuate he is this complete villain who does not love deeply to the point of destruction who cannot be anything but a one dimensional interpretation is a gross mishandling of anne rices work.

People can empathize with the worst of them within the anne rice universe, so they can definitely root for what ultimately is the protagonist of the series.

Also interview with the vampire was meant to present lestat in the worst light possible, but like all actors and writers and showrunners have been saying this is not the real version of the character.

Season 3 will show us who this character truly is.

i will start this by pointing out (what i thought was obvious) that my post is just me basically shaking my bestie Louis back to his senses. i think we all had/have someone like Louis in our life (when it comes to abusive relationships). that feeling of hopelessness when you try to help them without prevail is very frustrating, to the point you want to crawl the walls. the fact that when Louis learns about Armand's involvement, he also realizes that Lestat knew, and yet he still gave Louis to Armand, not saying a word (out of pettiness and different layers of punishment), ...and nevertheless Louis goes straight to Lestat to make amends. kill me, please someone. i'm accepting this scene for Louis and Louis only (even tho this line makes me wanna bash my head against the wall), if he wanted to leave it all behind and go further then so be it😘 but Lestat did not deserve any of that

i am once again repeating myself, my problem with this line is the certain crowd's reaction, plus, how Dre had pointed out (in the the reunion part), the tone of the scene. if you got at least one working brain cell, you will understand that this scene is all about Louis, and who he is, how he reacts, how he acts. it's his closure, him moving forward. still don't like the vibe of that scene

its not on you because the trial would have happened with or without lestat. It's not on you because the coven wanted revenge not lestat Lestat did not contact the coven did not orchestrate the trial

and where have i said that? did you even read my post? or was it the 1st line that had sent you straight into my ask box? deadass had to reread my own post lol

Lestat's internal guilt regarding Claudia might come from the fact that it was an indirect kill, by making them flee from his abuse. consequences of his actions. if you had actually read my post, maybe you'd understand the chain reaction i was talking about. that's why my heart bleeds for Louis when he says “it's not on you”. yes, Louis did bring Claudia home, yes he took part in the damage, but it was Lestat's direct actions that had pushed the events. even if they were a happy family, sooner or later she'd want to probably travel, maybe, okay, sure. but there's no if, this is what we got. happiness is unachievable with Lestat.

you know, whenever i start thinking about Lestat, digging deeper and, potentially, finding him interesting, y'all ruin everything. the worst part about Lestat, as a character, are his “fans”. i can't even call you his fans because the way you talk about him, that's not Lestat. you think i log in to tumblr dot com to shame people for liking Lestat? i'm an Armand enjoyer for fuck's sake. why do you want to make Lestat so dull and one dimensional?

You think he wanted claudia killed or louis to suffer and also possibly killed at the trial then why mourn afterwards? Sociopaths don't close themselves off from the world living in a shack for years mourning the ones they loved and lost. During the trial he looked like he didn't wanna be there and afterwards he was a shell of himself.

again, where have i said he did want them to die on the trial? y'all will make shit up not only about Lestat, but also about other people's posts. truly fascinating. sociopaths? girl, that's a vampire. of course Lestat didn't want to be there, he didn't look presentable enough(((

was Lestat actually mourning Claudia as an individual apart from himself? did he mourn what she could've become? did he mourn Claudia's, lost at the last second, happiness? was Lestat mourning her when he gave Louis to one of Claudia's murderers, who not only had directed the trial, but also suggested that an extremely intimate part of herself would be passed among strangers as an act of violation, humiliation, and disrespect? or was he mourning himself?

Claudia was my dark child, my love, evil of my evil. Claudia broke my heart. And on a warm sultry night in the spring of the year 1860, she rose up to settle the score. She enticed me, she trapped me, and she plunged a knife over and over again into my drugged and poisoned body, until almost every drop of the vampiric blood gushed out of me before my wounds had the precious few seconds in which to heal. I don't blame her. It was the sort of thing I might have done myself. And those delirious moments will never be forgotten by me, never consigned to some unexplored compartment of the mind. It was her cunning and her will that laid me low as surely as the blade that slashed my throat and divided my heart. I will think on those moments every night for as long as I go on, and of the chasm that opened under me, the plunge into mortal death that was nearly mine. Claudia gave me that. Only Claudia had been the exception-my intrepid little Claudia, companion hunter and slayer of random victims- vampire par excellence. And it had been her alluring strength which caused her ultimately to turn upon her maker. Yes, she had been the only one who had been like me really-as they say in this day and age. And that might have been the reason that she was haunting me now. Surely there was some connection to my love of David! And I had failed to see it before. How I loved him; and how deep had been the emptiness when Claudia turned against me, and was my companion no more.

this compels me more, amazing how he connects this to David, but let's not go there:

I was trembling. I was weeping. To be human, I thought. To be human again. I think I said the words aloud. Then a sudden whispered laugh startled me. It was a child somewhere in the darkness, a little girl. I turned around. I was almost certain I could see her-a small gray form darting up the far aisle towards a side altar, and then out of sight. Her footsteps had been barely audible. But surely this was some mistake. No scent. No real presence. Just illusion. Nevertheless I cried out: “Claudia!” And my voice came tumbling back to me in a harsh echo. No one there, of course. I thought of David: “You're going to make another ghastly mistake!” (...) I thought again of her execution-the brick-walled air well, the approaching sun, how small she had been; and then the remembered pain of the Gobi Desert mingled with it and I couldn't bear it any longer. I realized I had folded my arms around my chest, and was trembling, my body rigid, as though being tormented with an electric shock. Ah, but surely she hadn't suffered. Surely it had been instantaneous for one so tender and little. Ashes to ashes...

y'all say how proud Lestat was of Claudia. was he proud when she had escaped, grown, learned, and came back home more independent and mature? was he proud of her books? that she fought and worked out her trauma? was he proud when she became smarter apart from his lessons? was he proud of her relationship with Louis? was he proud when she was learning and growing independently of him? was he proud that she had found love? when she broke the cycle and made her situation work? or was he proud that she had a resemblance to him? that she could and dared to defy him. that she played his game. that she got “stronger” because of him, of what he had done to her, of what he had done to Louis as she has to witness? what was it, a raging narcissist?

i hope that the writers push Ghost Claudia in every single episode, how they did with Lestat in s2. and since you care about her relationship with Lestat so much, i'm sure you will love it. + many, many flashbacks. you know what, double that, why don't we get two Ghost Claudias? from Lestat and Louis. every single episode, especially during loustat scenes. Ghost Claudia criticizing Louis' choices regarding Lestat (ridiculing the french), also representing Louis' guilt. Lestat's Ghost Claudia can point out all of his insecurities, let him project). wait, why don't we also get Armand's Ghost Claudia, i need to see her dragging his pathetic ass (but unfortunately he dgaf about her to be haunted, he was in the books but only because of his experementations. still mourning evil Armand🤞)

Lestat was ashamed the trial went the way it did because his plan was not just to save louis, which he did, but claudia too.

Lestat was trying to save Claudia? When? He didn't even apologize to her. Lestat went off script so many times, had the energy to teleport, and yet... crickets when it came to Claudia. where was his “enthusiasm”? She was right there when he was apologizing to Louis. Lestat knew what was coming, but he didn't even try. Just stood there and watched. yeah, sure, he felt it emotionally, oh boo boo(((, and as her maker. but he didn't try.

That's why he didn't tell louis I saved you not armand because it's too little too late and he knows it.

to say it was a very serious information to withhold is an understatement. Lestat gives!!! Louis to Armand (the big bad), like he's a freaking sack of potatoes. Lestat doesn't even questions his ownership over Louis, amazing. enjoy him, as he looks at Armand... I knew you'd figure it out, yeah, fuck that. classic.

He's in the tower where he was tortured because he feels tortured by guilt for claudia. Too little too late yes but to insinuate he is this complete villain who does not love deeply to the point of destruction who cannot be anything but a one dimensional interpretation is a gross mishandling of anne rices work.

yeah, and water is wet. already spoke about him mourning himself, i mean Claudia ops lol, above, nothing to add. who the hell is saying that he's the complete villain? are you watching marvel? y'all are the ones who try to paint him as a hero, which, ironically, makes him hella boring. “gross mishandling of anne rices work” please say sike, please.

Also interview with the vampire was meant to present lestat in the worst light possible, but like all actors and writers and showrunners have been saying this is not the real version of the character.

yeah, i can already hear Sam knocking on my door (i have only seen Sam to repeat that like mantra tbh, but then again i don't read/watch everything). you know, Lestat is terrible even in his own pov, so i can't even imagine the reality of that man lol

i am once again asking you guys this, when was the last time you have re-read tvl and the following books? Because he's just as abusive and insufferable, even from his own point of view (take a shot every time Lestat hits someone. not to mention his other “questionable” behavior)

you won't read any of this shit, anyway, peace and love ✌😉

[coquelicoq]

" & after they’ve left natori is like wtf matoba????? & matoba’s like well it’s what they all thought we were doing anyway" XDDDD im amazed u got these brainworms BEFORE special ch 17, anyways if u have any other bedtime stories to share i would be very invested in reading them hahaha

[re]

one of my fave horrible exorcist concepts is that they aren't together but everyone thinks they are and matoba likes watching natori squirm about it. just saying stuff that's technically true but which he knows will be misinterpreted. like somebody says "oh matoba-san, is this your boyfriend?" and he's like "well, since we're both the heads of our clans, neither of us can marry into another clan." like, okay, but that is sooo irrelevant to the question you were asked bestie. meanwhile natori is standing there seething but everyone just interprets it as anger over the unfairness of their situation 😌 or because of the groundwork matoba has laid, every time somebody asks natori about his relationship with matoba and he laughs it off or demurs, they're like oh i get it wink wink yes you're definitely not lovers, *whispers* don't worry natori-san you can trust me i'll keep your secret!

anyway yes reading special chapter 17 was such a trip because i was like wait a second. matoba curing natori of youkai illness/possession was canon all along??? classic. she's going for all the best tropes. they're constantly protecting or rescuing each other, they get the battle couple treatment, they get locked in a room together at one point for crying out loud. lay it all on me midorikawa-sensei. give me honesty curse, give me fake dating, give me arranged marriage. give me there was only one futon.

[lurksunderthebed]

Hi, I saw that you had a discussion about the queerness of our beloved characters. I really hope you’re not tired of that topic, because I wanted to add another point.

First of all I don’t really care. I really like the dynamic between most of the characters, especially Ghost and Soap, but I don’t care if it’s interpreted as besties or lovers. I think both is fun.

I just wanted to add that maybe all of the MW story feels so fucking gay, because we lack cool women? We have Farah and Laswell, but let’s be real Farah is basically married to Alex (I thought they were a couple at first) and Laswell is married to a woman. Now people go great lengths to ship the male characters with female villains, who only appear in a small fraction of the story and have no real chemistry. I mean they can do whatever floats their boat, but I don’t really see the point here.

Which leaves us with a bunch of man ‘flirting’ with each other vor comedic value. I think given this and the points you already said on your account, I think it’s even a bit intended that most of our characters might not be the straightest.

Sure, a bunch of straight men can exist without women and still be straight and the military still might not be the most women friendly institution, but I think having more girlpower would have been an easy way to make everyone appear more straight and the devs didn’t go that route sooooo… (I still would love to have more cool women, but that’s another topic)

Anyways, I hope you have a good day and I wanted to add that I really enjoyed your character analysis posts <3

Ahh thanks for enjoying my analysis posts. 💞🥹 Honestly, I'm still surprised people are reading them lol. (And asking me about it haha)

But yes, I don't think I'll ever be tired of the ol' queerness discussion. It's a fun topic to debate especially with these characters in this particular game.

Controversial take, but I actually don't think adding any extra female characters would've been helpful in making the 'gay' go away.

(gonna be a long discussion here, settle in if you want to read it haha 😅)

What we have to put in mind, is that this game wasn't made for the female audience. The vast majority of the people buying and playing it are going to be male. That's the facts. It's going to cater to men.

A game made for men is going to have a majority of those characters be male. Adding new female characters in a REBOOT series is a delicate task when a good chunk of the population playing have played the OG and want to see legacy characters back (which are all male—the OG was all men).

That means that when we look at why certain things are framed and why there aren't many female characters, and especially why there isn't much of any confirmed (het) canon romantic ships between any characters, it's because the game itself isn't focused on it.

That same vast majority of men don't actually care about ships in general and with people trying to be more progressive, any female characters introduced are painstakingly written to omit any overt possibility of romance. In one sense, it's a welcome change from the action movie style plot line where man + woman = relationship with the women being just side characters/window dressing to the MC.

Women here are shown to be tough, that they don't need a man at all. They have their own agency. It's pretty nice actually that they did that. None of the female characters are infantilised nor is there a sense of them being there to "check boxes" in the minority bag. They make sense in the framing the game has placed them in.

But we do have this interesting dynamic whereby removing the romance factor, but having female characters in a setting that most are conditioned to read as man + woman = relationship, it de-emphasizes heteronormality and actually emphasises the relationships between the core characters.

And with a game full of men, that means the relationships between men are going to be the focal point.

Adding extra female characters, wouldn't have changed any of this, because the writers have gone out of their way to not make romance a plot of any sort. (There's a whole other discussion on the flaws of trying to give women agency/proving strength of character, but by doing so, taking away their sexualities by removing any sort of romance, but that's beside the point)

I think there's also an argument to be had that meaningful relationships with others don't have to necessarily imply romance between characters. It's totally fair to be sick of always having romance injected in to these sorts of relationships. That's an extremely valid take.

But there most definitely is a double standard that everyone is operating on. And we see that when we compare Alex/Farah's relationship with Ghost/Soap's.

Alex's most meaningful relationship is with Farah. He sacrifices himself for her cause and loses a leg for it. He comes back and stays by her side. Most people assume to take it as Alex is in love with Farah. We never see any type of flirting between the two. In fact it's mostly Farah testing Alex and looking at their dialogue you can tell there's respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

Yet it's just assumed by virtue of Alex and Farah being man + woman, that they must be together because of how much Alex had sacrificed. Completely ignoring the possibility of Alex doing so because he believes in Farah's cause and was sick of being jerked around with no choice by higher ups who largely didn't care about the suffering of Farah's people. Suffering that the man had personally witnessed. But no, he must be in love with her. (If Farah was a man, their whole relationship would be read as platonic with Alex's beliefs as a focus, not him being potentially in love)

Ghost's most meaningful relationship is with Soap. Soap has changed Ghost's whole MO as a lone wolf, and has challenged his very notion of trust. Ghost tests Soap and is proven wrong when Soap survives despite the odds. We even see them have plausible deniability flirting/snark. They are framed as a unit and on the off times (off of missions in cutscenes), they are always physically together. There's definitely respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

By itself, their relationship seems innocuous, but looking at the context we see a very different picture. Context matters heavily in seeing how this relationship has changed Ghost/the importance of it to him. It's assumed that Soap is the first person in god knows how long, that Ghost is emotionally attached to. What constitutes a normal, albeit flirty and snarky, friendly relationship for most, is amplified for Ghost in the glaring fact that he really doesn't do this for anyone else ever. As far as we can tell for a man that appears to live his job, Soap is Ghost's most important person.

We can even arguably say that Ghost and Soap had a flirtier, friendlier, more emotional relationship than Alex and Farah ever had, yet it's assumed (by the male audience) to be completely platonic by virtue of them both being men.

For all those people who argue to stop shipping characters, those same people turn around and are completely implicit in the notion of Alex and Farah being a thing.

It's a really annoying take, because you and I know that it's not the romance they're bothered by. It's the idea of having a character that exemplifies the silent male loner badass archetype as anything but the pinnacle of masculinity. IE, totally and utterly straight.

I feel I could go on about all the ways Ghost surprisingly subverts his archetype, but I'll leave it there. This is prob already too long 😅

But yes, having new cool female characters is always good, but it still wouldn't settle any sexuality debate since they would most likely be written without any hint of romance between the core 141 group and that potential new character. Just like how Farah and Laswell, as you said, have been both removed completely from the romance/sexuality debate, any new female character would also be put under similar framework.

I suppose it would just make them appear more straight (and get rid of all the speculation) if they had a new female character added into 141, but I don't see the point of adding a new character for that sole purpose. And tbh, it would come across as insulting to women if they did for that one reason.

Given how little character development we had in the latest game, I heavily doubt they would introduce new characters at all when they barely showed anything of the current ones we have already. We need more development of the characters we have, adding someone new would arguably take away from building proper relationships/dynamics between the characters we do have currently.

But yeah, heh. I'll stop for real now. If you got this far in my latest Ted Talk™, kudos to you good sir 🫡, you have all my love ☺️

Hope you have a great day too nonny, and I hope this helps with the discussion. Feels like I went off on too many side tangents. 🤔🤔🤔

[bestworstcase]

I feel like (different anon) half of the fandom doesn’t even care about Salem in the sense that regardless of what Her goal is? To be fair in my corner I’ve seen more individual character hatred rather than “this plot doesn’t make sense” hatred. Or ppl just saying the plot sucks without offering why they think so which is the majority of rwby “criticism”. But Salem being the key to the end of the show has been very well telegraphed since the end of volume 3. She started as this faceless monster, a creature to hate, the one who killed their headmaster and plunged the world into war. Then we learned that Oz was also keeping secrets and outright lying, so that knocked him off of the Trusted Adult pedestal (tho he has always been kinda shady but in terms of story formula that’s what I mean). Volume 6??? The Lost Fable?? Still so amazing. Salem very literally gets humanized in the eyes of our characters. She still did all of those awful things but she’s a Person now rather than an Entity. Those moments of confrontation (Ironwood’s office with Ruby, Yang while in the whale, Oscar.” We get to see her talking to her Evil Guy Crew. We see her have emotions.

AND THEN THE BROTHER GODS once thought of as entities much like how Salem was seen by the cast in the beginning. Yes they are still gods but not in the sense that at least I was thinking. They came From somewhere. And yes Salem was the first to discover they were fallible but knowing what V9 told us helped me put it into perspective

So the last arch being about fully learning what Salem wants and then, probably possibly, deciding how to help alongside with it. I think ppl get upset bc they view that as “oh yeah all the ppl she killed and lives she ruined don’t matter she’s our bestie mow” kind of Joining with Salem. When im seeing it as a more Neo agreeing to work with Cinder type deal. If Salem wants to stop the gods, get revenge, make them humble, and the gods return and want to wipe out remnant For Good, I’d say that’s a common goal our kids can get behind.

rwby is a cool show with cool villains and I enjoy it a lot and also your thoughts about it sorry this is so long

the thing with salem and the, like, common fandom interpretation of her and where her arc is headed is that. at least since v9 it’s less about resistance to the idea that the final confrontation being team rwby vs the gods as it is the way folks assume salem fits into that, namely that most of the fandom still takes completely at face value the idea that she’s selfish, arrogant, and needs to learn her lesson about the value of life and death. so you get these wild takes that the gods were assholes who punished her out of proportion for what she did, paired with this implicit idea that salem does actually deserve this punishment because she Still RefusesTo Learn Her Lesson, and thus she needs to be redeemed by team rwby proving her wrong somehow.

but like

salem did nothing wrong. praying to the gods was not wrong, reacting emotionally when they were cruel to her was not wrong, recognizing their fallibility and unworthiness was not wrong, rallying people against them was not wrong, vowing to keep fighting after they massacred everybody was not wrong, cursing them after they left and blaming them for ending the world was not wrong, jumping into the pool of grimm was not wrong, BEING grimm is not wrong, rejecting the divine mandate after ozma hid it from her for years was not wrong. frankly continuing to be a thorn in his side since then is, i would argue, also not wrong, because she’s made herself the immovable obstacle preventing him from summoning his genocidal god back to remnant to kill everyone again; it is laughably obvious that the ultimatum is not a game humanity can win. and then factoring in the part where ozma is obsessed with finding a way to destroy her, what else is she supposed to do besides live in exile. and of course if you close off every other door except violent rebellion you are eventually going to invite violent rebellion. 

so like. Salem Is Right, and seems to be taking what she considers the path of minimal destruction (the grimm held beacon but pull out of vale within a few days; her plan for haven was nearly bloodless and left mistral untouched; she made no move to attack mantle and began her siege with a grace period for her to leave in peace if the relics were surrendered), which means that she’s likely willing to negotiate methods if other less destructive paths are opened to her. her villain -> hero arc can’t turn on team rwby persuading her that she’s wrong, because fundamentally her position is “the genocidal divine tyrants do not deserve our obedience and we can and must defy them” which is, um, correct. but if they adopt that position themselves and then negotiate How i think they’ll find she’s a lot more reasonable than they’ve been led to believe, and i do not think the wider fandom is prepared for that whatsoever

[rahleeyah]

okay bestie, thoughts on tonight's episode, please?? i need your insight because you always have the best.

I love this so much actually, I think it's exactly what was needed at this time, and I'm impressed tbh with both the nuance of her stance and the clarity of it.

Olivia said he was her home. Olivia pointed out she didn't have a claim to him back then as if this was something she had to remind herself of often. Olivia says he's someone else's husband with a profound sort of presentism, as if his marriage is still ongoing even tho Kathy has been gone for a while now. Olivia said, out loud, that it's all possibility with Elliot and that the possibility is paralyzing.

Other people have said this more eloquently than me but what this does is it takes all of our interpreting of Olivia's behavior, all of our reading between the lines, all of our frustrated certainty that EO had something between them in 1.0, and it puts those words in Olivia's mouth. Olivia has confirmed, out loud, that this man was her home. We knew that, but to hear her say it is to take a great big step forward.

Now. I know someone else came in my inbox and asked about "he was my home but he left" and I know the antis are salivating over it, but I love that bc that is the complex, messy place where human emotion lives. He was her home and then he took that away and it's been ten years so of course he isn't still her home now, of course she hurts, of course she is afraid. That doesn't mean she doesn't want him to be. You can hear the longing in her voice, even when she says she's hurt. He was her home. He isn't now bc she had to learn to live without him. He could be, again. She wants him to be.

And that is the place where real love, not the stuff of romance novels and movies but real human love, lives. It lives in human, complicated people who are not perfect in the ways they treat each other every minute of every day, who sometimes say cruel things or make decisions that hurt others. If you love anyone, deeply, for more than a week, at some point one or the other of you is going to be hurt or upset or offended or frustrated; that's human. Love is what brings us to forgive one another our human failings. Love is what teaches us to apologize, and try to be better. Love is what shows how to give grace to one another. We love one another through difficult times, we love one another through our mistakes. We love each other, when we succeed and when we fail. We love each other, even tho we are not perfect, because we are not perfect.

And while Olivia was hurt by Elliot leaving she also understands she had no claim to him. She said that. It hurt her, but no matter what he chose someone would've been hurt and he was someone else's husband. He had to choose his family. Olivia is a grown-up. She has a son. She understands her heart was not the only one involved in this mess, she understands everything doesn't revolve around just her needs. She knows he did what he was always gonna have to do. What she needs now is to see him choose her, to come and stay and make her believe he will never leave again. And I think he will.

I'm especially moved by the end of the convo and the end of the episode. This whole episode has an undercurrent about how Olivia struggles with change, struggles to adjust, is constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, in all areas of her life. Olivia tells Amanda the possibility is paralyzing bc it is; it would be easier if Kathy was still alive bc then nothing would change and she wouldn't have to take a risk. Things are changing, now.

She wants Elliot. You can see it in her face, hear it in her voice, her yearning affect; she has always wanted Elliot. But if she reaches for him there is a risk she loses him. It would be easier, to stay where she is. It would be safer. But would it bring her joy?

Despite Olivia trying to hold to her life exactly the way it is things are changing, no matter what she does. Amanda's departure reinforces that. And if life is going to change no matter what, wouldn't it be better for her to take charge of it? She will lose Elliot if she doesn't reach for him, they will pull away from each other and drift apart and she will never have their previous level of friendship or a romance. She has to move.

She told Amanda not to postpone joy. I think she will, at some point, take her own advice.

Something is coming fam I believe it

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Ok cue my memory loss moment part 5 I can’t tell if I sent this reply in or not before so if this is a dupe I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE hsvshshs but anyways

OMG EVERYONE CHEER!!! Guys the moment is finally upon us…another mira banger about to drop….

LMAOO fwtkac was the gateway…once you start you can’t stop its just how the Karasu rabbit hole works! Bro hollyhock is actually so good…I can’t even put it into words properly but just the whole setting giving a new depth to a diff side of otoyas characters ugh so good

True!!! I’m ngl I’m a little surprised that for marketing sake they didn’t try to throw in some like popular character bait…maybe it’s because most of the actually popular bllkers are already out and as opposed to merch I guess book sales would be a bit diff? Like fans would buy to read even if their absolute faves aren’t in but yeah…the stories were fire though LMAO new appreciation for Barou fr

And IM ON IT o7 very happy to serve the miraverse and honestly it’s good for me too because if I wanna reference something quickly I can just go command f it or if I wanna read something fast I can just read my tl LMAO I also just like having my own TL/interpretations written down just for my reference too…which is part of the reason why I also ended up TLing Hioris too even though there was a TL already out! I remember reading the TLd version that got posted and some wording kinda threw me off so I was like let me just look at this myself…LOL Also I’m kinda a lore nerd so I wanna make sure I get to see any intricacies or in between the line messages that can get lost in translation! So yeah TLDR I will most definitely be here for tabieita LNs!!!

IM CRYING they’re gonna have to scroll through our manifestations and convos just to get to the chapter like imagine the link gets passed around and the first thing people read is us screaming about mariokart in yuki’s novel or anri getting done dirty (I clicked on the links just to see what they’d have to go through and oh my god chapter 2 LMFAOOO there’s like a whole minute of scrolling worth of convo before you even reach the LN part it’s so funny)

We’re truly just built different sorry this is exclusive content gatekept by the insanely long convos we have

-Karasu anon

HAHAH this time you did in fact send this in already 😭 but it’s okay i will delete the copy!! but no worries 😋

FINISHED ROUND ONE OF PROOFREADING!! heading to monaco for my mother’s birthday dinner soon hehe but once i’m back tn i will get on round two and hopefully i’ll be able to post it by tmrw!! lowkey idk how i feel about it but at least it’ll be out in the world after i’ve been talking abt it sm 😭

you came to my inbox and showed me the ways of karasuism and i’ve never looked back since 🙏🏻 jkjk but fr though i love writing him sm now he’s so good at the one sided pining thing which i loveee in a male lead 🤩 like YESSS be absolutely sick over this girl who doesn’t even know she likes you yet YESSS 🤤💖

hollyhock otoya is so fun i love him and i cannot WAIT to write more of him and y/n…idk if you’ve heard that one tik tok sound that’s like “you belong with me” from taylor swift and then it transitions into “you belong to me” from house of balloons / glass table girls from the weeknd but that’s literally hollyhock y/n + karasu’s dynamic vs her dynamic with otoya 😭😭😭 like with karasu it’s all sweet innocent besties (they are platonic soulmates coded eventually like they end up loving each other SOO MUCH but not romantically??) vs with otoya she’s literally like “i want you to belong to me” (exact quote from chapter 2: “you wanted this ninja to belong to you”) FHDKSJSJ man atp free otoya 😰🙏🏻 but he matches y/n’s freak so well he probably doesn’t even WANT to be freed

i feel like the people who would buy light novels would buy them no matter what + they probably thought barou would be popular enough to carry it?? who knows…agreed though the stories were all rlly good (well aryu’s was a little goofy but wtvr)

LMAOOO THAT’S WHAT I WAS THINKING people will be like “why are they freaking out over mario kart??” FJSJDJS but ykw if you want to read you have to go through the trials and tribulations of our massive convos 🤩 we are elite though…carrying the bllk fandom with our translations + fics 😋