#two characters who are so prominently connected to each other + their relationship is so heavily foreshadowed

[fromtheseventhhell]

The only good thing about TWOW not being out is that it lets me be delusional about Arya being the third head of the dragon 😁😚

[theduckeminence]

I can’t stop thinking about Eddie Dear y’all.

First off, the probable reason behind what had occurred to him is most likely due to him being scrapped/taken off the script of the show is just both saddening and dreadful on his part. Like he exists within the realm of the Neighborhood, but considering his absence throughout the recent update, aside from him giving the viewers a decoder + clips of him throughout the Home-warming ad compilation, its safe to say that Playfellow Workshop had most likely taken off him of the show, or at the very least, lessening the amount of screen time he receive (in this case being the ads/commercials).

And now onto the actual possible reason why Eddie Dear would be taken off script. Now thinking back to the fact that Eddie & Frank being a couple is canon, it’s also safe to say that because of their connection in the show — even though Playfellow Workshop attempts to have them be distant or lack any sort of significant interaction onscreen — Eddie & Frank’s relationship, or at least Eddie’s love for Frank, could certainly be the reason why the he was taken off script.

After all, if two male characters are shown to be gay for each other in a kids show from the 1970s, chances are Playfellow Workshop would rather scrap the homosexual (derogatory) mailman character than have Welcome Home be taken off the air entirely just because of said mailman character.

Furthermore, what’s more interesting and ironic about Eddie being a prominent character who became intensively aware of his situation is the fact that he first appears to be a character who could be considerably perceived as“insignificant” or “irrelevant.” Of course I don’t actually think he is, but from the way Playfellow Workshop and the Homewarming commercials are framed Eddie, it can be interpreted that Eddie is seen as a rather character of little relevance.

It is partially due to him being taken script, but it’s also the fact that his only thing going on for him is being the mailman for the neighborhood — as well as a bit of a comedic relief. Eddie said himself in the Homewarming video from the secret site — if I’m correct, he feels that nobody appreciates him enough for his work (though correct me if I’m wrong). And that since there’s no one there to ask him to deliver something, or call, or check up on him, he feels as though that — somewhere inside of him — he feels both left out and “irrelevant.”

His one role is to be the neighborhood delivery man, and without that, then what exactly would he be good for?

(this could further be emphasized when Sally told him that they made the deliveries for him to give him a day off — even though no one told him that, and chances are this is perhaps Sally trying to reassure him when in reality, he was just scripted out of Homewarming hence why no one came to talk to him. Getting lil off topic oops—).

Recircling back to the original topic, yada yada yada Eddie just being a mailman and besides that he views himself to be irrelevant so on and so forth.

One thing I would like to mention, relating to Eddie being the probable first of the group to become aware other than Wally, is that I find it surprising that Eddie Dear IS the probable first to become aware like Wally.

To tell y’all the truth, I didn’t think he would play such a significant role in the Narrative (and thus probably doomed by it too). I would have least thought Frank or Julie would have been next to become the more Self Aware.

But Eddie Dear? Our loveable, friendly, and reliable mailman — Eddie Dear? Suddenly depersonalizing right on the spot with a pea plate and becoming aware of both his sentience, the weirdness of his setting overall, and how he could hear Home’s heartbeat? How he knew that the moment he comes to this revelation of self-awareness, he can’t go back? That everything he has ever known is most probably not real and/or all a lie?

It just has me stopping for a second on why and how him, but after thinking about it furthermore, alongside reading analysis posts, it would make sense for him to be next on why he had become Aware.

And I can only assume that from here on out, things are bound to change. And I for one fear these colorful lil puppets — particularly Eddie in this case.

Lets just hope the existential dread doesn’t drive all of them over the edge.

[h0neysp1ce]

༊*·˚ Aʅԋαιƚԋαɱ

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹ Character Parings : Alhaitham, Fem! Reader Constellations: Head canons + Scenarios Warning(s): Spoilers for Sumeru Archon Quests, Alhaitham's Character/personality?? Tags: established Relationship, Fluff?? A/N: Hey guys! I'm new to Tumblr and writing head cannons and maybe even fics later on. I figured I start writing today! (Edited) ⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

Word Count: 396

⋆.ೃ࿔ :･🌱⋆.ೃ࿔ :･ ⋆.ೃ࿔ :･🌱⋆.ೃ࿔ :･ ⋆.ೃ࿔ :･🌱⋆.ೃ࿔ :･⋆.ೃ࿔ :･🌱⋆.ೃ࿔ :･

᯽- Alhaitham is certainly the kind of man who is straightforward with you. He’s a rather blunt individual, so you should expect him not to sugarcoat things. He always takes a logical approach, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

᯽- Alhaitham's most prominent hobby is reading, and he enjoys it when you take the time to sit with him while he catches up on his books.

᯽- His primary love languages are Acts of Service and Gift-Giving. He’ll take care of tasks without you even asking—from cooking meals and handling all the chores to cleaning the entire house.

᯽- "It was my turn to do the chores today." You glance over at him as he reads a book. "And?" he trails off. "I figured since you were already asleep, I would take it upon myself to do all the cleaning."

᯽- He wouldn’t admit it, but he didn’t want to wake or disturb you. You looked quite peaceful while you slept, and he didn’t want to ruin that for you—perhaps it’s also out of respect for you.

᯽- Pet names aren’t something he uses. He’d rather refer to you by your name.

᯽- You knew each other through mutual connections. You are his and Kaveh’s childhood best friend.

᯽- Although Alhaitham isn’t the type to be very physically affectionate, he loves cuddling with you. He wouldn’t admit it at first, as he found romantic gestures like that a bit excessive, but over time he grew to appreciate and love them.

᯽- On mornings when you both have to wake up for work, it might go something like this:

᯽- You were already awake before he was and about to get out of bed when you heard him ask for just five more minutes. Was he sick? This was out of character for him. He seemed to be half asleep and half aware. You ended up cuddling for another five minutes, with him whispering and cooing while holding you in an embrace, expressing how he wished the cuddling session could last forever but sadly couldn’t due to work.

᯽- You might also get a few kisses and pecks from him during these moments—nothing but sweet and wholesome between the two of you.

[my-mt-heart]

Dissecting Zabel's Inappropriate Comments

I shared my initial reaction to the Games Radar article, but now that the original SFX article is also out, I want to dive a little deeper into what David Zabel said. From one source to another, the meaning doesn't change.

Regarding Daryl's and Carol's relationship, he says...

Whereas with Daryl and Isabelle, he insists...

Zabel thinks he's shedding light on his male hero's two most prominent relationships [with women], when in actuality he exposes a lot more about himself and what kind of showrunner he is.

He has no interest in the flagship show nor its acclaim.

Had he actually watched TWD in its entirety, tracked the progression of Daryl's and Carol's relationship from S1 to S11, and researched their fanbase as well as their media coverage from over the years instead of just pretending to, he'd see that nothing about their relationship is "obvious" or "easy." Trauma and self-esteem issues hardly ever explored in TV couples—let alone TV couples in their 50’s—have always complicated things, creating obstacles for them to take their relationship beyond intense feelings and helping them grow closer together, feel safer, understood, and loved to a degree nobody else can measure. There are 12 years and 11 seasons of sexual tension, smoldering looks, vulnerable moments, meaningful conversations, and romantic subtext at Zabel's disposal. The natural thing for him to do, the only thing that furthers the narrative already being told is to confirm that they're "in love" and make them "a couple."

If he wants to talk about a "TV book of tricks," he should re-evaluate the tricks he uses to justify a romantic connection between a well-established, unconventional, fiercely loyal man with intimacy issues and a blonde nun who’s only been around for a few months (and 6 episodes from an audience POV). Zabel tries to project what draws Daryl to Carol—broken until the world ended—onto Isabelle. He forces Daryl and Isabelle into intimate situations straight out of fanfiction—bathtubs, bed-sharing, cleaning wounds in hard-to-reach places—and uses other supporting characters like Losang to tell Daryl and the audience that it's romantic. That's not "seeing what happens," that's repeatedly trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and expecting everybody to think he's a genius. On the contrary...

He's completely tone deaf.

If he's calling Daryl's and Isabelle's relationship "mature," then he clearly doesn't realize how deeply problematic it is for a character to gaslight and lie to another character with a history of childhood abuse in order to get something from him, whether it's to help her find their new home or father a boy he just met. It's also triggering for fans who have survived abuse in their own lives to watch their hero fall back into the cycle without it being acknowledged or resolved in a way that helps him (and the fans) heal from it.

A dynamic between Daryl and a nun definitely could've been an "intriguing" dynamic to explore since they're both supposed to be emotionally unavailable. We'd get to see that Daryl's heart belongs to Carol and Isabelle is "married" to God. We'd get to see them bond over the idea of loving someone and/or something so infinitely and unconditionally that it's frightening to feel disconnected from them, whether physically or spiritually, and we'd get to see them help each other keep their faith, whatever that means to them. That's interesting. That's fresh. A romance between Daryl and a nun, regardless of whether or not she dresses like one, is not interesting. Not intriguing. Not edgy. Not sexy. It's disrespectful on multiple levels.

He calls Daryl and Carol coming back together only to realize that they've "changed" the more interesting story to tell? I call it sad. Sad and out of character for Daryl to feel anything other than elated to realize that the woman who represented everything good to him for over a decade crossed a damn ocean to find him. Sad that after "everything she's done" to find him, she finds that he's replaced her and their family back home.

He views the female perspective as irrelevant.

Saying he "respects" Caryl shippers only to invalidate them and then pour salt on the wound shows an air of superiority that is very typical of white male showrunners and executives. Granted, plenty of men ship Daryl and Carol, but it is also true that the majority of their fanbase is female and because of that, Zabel thinks he can mansplain the relationship to us. He tells us that what we want is cute, but he’s the one with the skillset to write a "good" story for the characters. He either doesn't care about our viewership because other men like him are his "real" audience or he assumes we'll come to our senses because he's right and we're wrong.

It isn't about shipping or romance at all though. If it was, he wouldn't just kill Isabelle off after insisting on this wild chemistry nobody sees but him (and Greg Nicotero). It isn't that Carol can't be a love interest either. It's about catering to the male gaze. Carol can't be the love interest for the white male hero that Zabel wants the fanboys to identify with and glorify. She doesn't fit their biases. Not young enough, not blonde enough, so on and so forth. Ignorance like that is generations-long and it doesn't just go away the more time he spends with Daryl and Carol. It only gets worse. Caryl may go to Spain alone, but there's plenty of new shipbait over there for him to introduce.

In what Zabel is actually quoted as saying about romance, which is all that counts, he only vaguely brings up a conversation with Norman, one I suspect is a lot more nuanced than he wants us to believe, but that's beside the point. He doesn't say "Melissa and I talked about Caryl's relationship" or "Clemence and I talked about Daryl's and Isabelle's relationship." Why not? Would the former disapprove of being treated like a sexless intruder in her "friend's" nuclear family? Would the latter hate to feel like a plot device for the brooding hero's manpain? What do the women have to say about their side of this oh so "interesting" emotional arc, Zabel? It's a rhetorical question obviously because if I really wanted to ask, I'd ask the women directly. The only thing is, they aren’t allowed to talk about it so openly and honestly, are they, Zabel? And you took advantage of that, right?

He's vindictive.

He may treat us like a bug on his windshield, but he isn't unaware that Caryl/McReedus have an active fanbase. He isn't unaware that AMC's promo strategy has centered on Caryl/McReedus. He's competing with it. He's aggressive in these articles because he wants to tell a particular kind of story that AMC, plus all of us unhinged shippers, won't let him. Taking a firm stance is how he takes control again (or so he thinks). The way he positions Carol as an intruder in "Daryl's" story, despite a sorry attempt to put a band-aid on it later, also presents itself in the SDCC trailer where everything, including Carol, has to revolve around the main hook: Daryl making a new family in France. For Zabel, it's true to life because he had to fit unconventional Melissa into his outdated "interesting" formula when that wasn’t what he was hired to do. To paraphrase what Melissa said, she was the newcomer who had to be careful not to disrupt a system already put in place before she arrived. What, or who, made her feel that way when she had already been playing Carol for over a decade?

To watch or not to watch

That is not the question. You can choose not to give AMC your money for Zabel's bullshit or you can choose to help the ratings go up for Melissa/Carol. Both are the right choice. The real question is, how will AMC know to blame Zabel and not Melissa if the ratings drop? How will they know that Carylers still need canon and...wait for it...good storytelling if they watched just to remind them how valuable Melissa is to the franchise? I know I sound like a broken record here, but this is why it's so important to be vocal. Use whatever platform you have (and are comfortable with) to specify what's bothering you whether it's the shipbaiting or Daryl's suspenders. Say what you love (Melissa is the correct answer) and what you want more of or what you want to change in regards to performances, relationships, and storylines. For me, I wanted to see both Daryl and Carol make every effort to get back to each other. I wanted to get the payoff I've been waiting for after a god-awful S11 that kept them separated and angry at each other the whole time. I wanted the story to center on Daryl's and Carol's relationship while everything else revolved around them. "To find home is to find each other." Where did that story go? I want it back.

No matter what we say, egomaniacs like David Zabel, Greg Nicotero, and Scott Gimple will spit on us, punch us in the gut, and kick us while we're down (though I guess only the first one is stupid enough to be so literal). If Zabel understood the first thing about Carol or Caryl, then maybe he would've realized that their fans know how to push back.

As for AMC, they don't care about the characters or the relationship or our feelings either, but they do care about their bottom line and these articles threaten that. Keep reminding them.

[gorgxoxus]

Ranking the Bridgerton books:

1. The Viscount Who Loved Me - 4 ⭐️. Kate and Anthony’s book is number 1 because the characters were true to themselves throughout the book, I understood their motives and that made them amazing characters to follow as they fall in love with each other. It’s a great rivals to lovers, and seeing their love grow is beautiful. It made me giddy with happiness, kick my feet, cringe and made me almost cry. The angsty first time sex scene was everything I needed it to be. Season 2 was amazing, and the book is almost better!!

2. ⁠When He Was Wicked - 4⭐️. Side note before I get into it: I loved Micheal’s familial relationships in this book, as he grew up with his mother and Johns mother as parental figures, and I consider those two lesbian icons.

I loved reading Francesca and Micheal’s story. When you meet them before their story begins in earnest you see their friendship, and they immediately jumped out of the page as two people who have a fun and interesting connection as friends and ‘cousins/ family’ (they’re not actually cousins, Micheal is John’s cousin). When you meet them four years after John’s death, they have to work to become friends again. In the midst of that you see that Micheal respects Francesca as the countess of Kilmartin as he left her in charge as he left England for four years. Because Michael and Francesca are technically family (Micheal becomes the new Earl of Kilmartin when John dies) and share some residencies the lack of propriety is expected so they are alone together. It brings them together and it lets them do wicked and sexy acts to each other, especially when the story moves to Scotland and they are alone together in the Scottish country-side ( and Francesca’s been married, the power dynamics in the bedroom were 🥵🥵❤️❤️). It was beautiful to see Francesca experience love and desire after loss, and after expecting to get married again just to produce a child (and also keep the Kilmartin name and estates she’s run for years, and her connection with Micheal and John).

3. ⁠ It’s in His Kiss - 4⭐️. Hyacinth and Gareth are the most well matched characters in the series. Hyacinth is such a riot and never shuts up and Gareth is her match. The banter between them is amazing. Hyacinth and Gareth have a shared goal in the book which makes it interesting and gets them into all kinds of trouble. As Hyacinth is a person who knows who she is, that also translated to the best first kiss and first time, as she was taking as much control as she could. There is some dodgy lines of consent in this series, and I appreciated the full and out loud consent Hyacinth gave at all steps. They’re great characters to read about, and Lady Danbury plays a prominent role which is so much fun.

4. ⁠Romancing Mr Bridgerton - 4⭐️. Colin and Penelope’s story ranks fourth because Colin is one of the worst men in this series, with his anger and resentment and hurt he causes Penelope both emotionally and physically were hard to read. I love Penelope in the book, 28 year old her is quietly confident and has some of the best lines of the whole series. This book also highlighted friendship, between Pen and Lady Danbury, Pen and the Bridgertons especially Eloise and Hyacinth and Pen and Colin. I also appreciate this book as the Lady Whistledown plot running parallel to the love story gave it intrigue and drama, and made up for the fact that the romance was very middle of the road.

5. ⁠To Sir Phillip, With Love - 3⭐️. I was nervous about reading Eloise and Phillip’s love story because I had heard bad things about it, but it was fine. Phillip is a bad man, but all the men are in this series. I appreciated that Phillip knew he was bad and wanted to change himself and started to make changes in the small amount of time we had with him in the book, I respected his growth. Eloise is great, of course, speaks her mind, is talkative and interesting. I don’t think they are the most well matched couple but I had an enjoyable time reading the book and I think when they did communicate it did work. Phillips kids from his first marriage are a riot and very well written as children in my opinion. I do read Eloise as queer in the books, she literally runs away from home to a guy she’s never met because Penelope, her bestie she was planning to grow old together as a spinster, got married.

Side note: Penelope, Eloise and Francesca (to Micheal) get married in the same year and month in the books, poor Violet.

6. ⁠On the Way to the Wedding - 3⭐️. Gregory and Lucy had an interesting story (there was action, twists and turns, guns, blackmail, a gay character), but I don’t think they are well matched. Gregory believes so much about true love after watching the rest of his family marry for love, and Lucy values looking after her family and order. They didn’t convince me they were meant to be, they clearly loved each other but was it enough? I was definitely getting jaded near the end of reading the series. And I kept thinking that Lucy is like 17 (she’s the youngest of all the wives by a few years) and Gregory is 26, their age gap really took me out of the story.

7. ⁠The Duke and I - 2.5⭐️. Just watch season 1, the book is almost the same with a little less characterisation and less exciting and beautiful sets and costumes. I respected Simon’s hold on his values, but it definitely conflicted with Daphne’s. I wanted to smash their heads together to communicate. As with the show, the best part is when they are fake courting.

8. ⁠An Offer from a Gentleman - 1.5⭐️

Benedict and Sophie’s story ended up being my least favourite. I actually think Benedict and Sophie are well matched, but some of the things in this book really annoyed me. Benedict is the worst Bridgerton man/ sibling because of inexcusable actions he made in this book. I respected and enjoyed Sophie until she did something totally and completely out of character and then I stopped respecting her. My favourite part was when they met, my least favourite part was almost everything else.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 伪装者/The Disguiser.

The Disguiser is a 2015 spy drama set in Shanghai, 1940. It follows the adventures of four wealthy siblings, all of whom are to some degree engaging in coordinated espionage, subterfuge, and other general acts of sabotage against the brutal occupying Japanese force.

I need to mention the Nirvana in Fire connection up front, because yeah, if you've seen that, you've probably noticed some familiar faces already. And the comparison isn't unwarranted! The stories are completely different, but they're both character-driven, complex, subtly cheeky adventures that manage to keep that tense intrigue going throughout the narrative. Like Nirvana in Fire, the Disguiser's on the heftier side -- 48 episodes -- but they go by at an incredible clip, so that it never feels long.

I have done a rec post for this before, and I stand by everything I said there. However, I figured it deserved its own for-real rec post, so here we go with five specific reasons I think you should give it a try.

1. We're all comrades in horny jail

This is an intensely horny show, starting from -- but absolutely not stopping with -- the main quartet.

These are the four Ming siblings. Only the elder pair of them, Ming Jing and Ming Lou (both on the passenger side of the car), are blood-related to one another. Ming Tai (also in the back seat) got adopted into the family when he was young enough that Ming Jing's relationship to him is very maternal.

Meanwhile, Ah Cheng (driving) was somewhat less thoroughly adopted when he was around ten, meaning that he's always weirdly marginal when it comes to who actually counts as part of the Ming family. He's a brother, but also he's a servant. Sometimes he's in the family photos, and sometimes he's left out of them. His name is legally "Ming Cheng," but basically no one ever calls him that.

What this means is that you've got four incredibly attractive people who are all legally but mostly not genetically related to one another, keeping secrets both with and from one another, yelling at one another, running headlong into danger for one another, sleeping in one another's beds, and occasionally demanding some members of the family spank the others. Is it hot in here, or is it just them?

And it's not just that these are pretty people up in each other's business. Nearly every interpersonal interaction among all the main characters is at least background levels of horny, because of how high the stakes are. The tension running throughout the show is intense -- and of course it is, because these are spies in life-or-death situations, trying to keep their cool so they don't get killed. So many of the relationships are built on lies meant to charm and seduce their targets, which is of course going to be sexy. But when they're built on honesty, they're all the more intimate for that disclosure, because being open with someone about your real identity and allegiances is putting your entire life into their hands.

To be clear: When I say the show is horny, I don't mean that it's erotic or salacious, or that you're going to get a peep of anyone's naughty little comrade, or anything like that. This is the horniness of lingering glances and shouting matches and power imbalances and guns pointed at chests. It's a combo platter of smouldering Victorian yearning mixed with action-movie adrenaline. It's the delicious, redirected horniness you get when sex isn't on the (canonical) table, so all that fraught energy has to go somewhere.

Get to the part in Episode 6 where Ming Jing gets out the short whip. You'll be glad you did.

2. Bad, bad bitches

Some of the baddest bad guys in the show are ladies. In fact, I can't even tell you about all of them here because of spoiler reasons. There are two, however, who deserve special mention.

The first and most prominent is Wang Manchun, member of the Japanese-controlled government's intelligence service, who is one of the best antagonists I've seen in anything. Perfectly coiffed and devastatingly intelligent, she's a member of a powerful Chinese family who has chosen to work for the Japanese-controlled intelligence bureau. She can be genuinely warm and sweet, almost girlish even, when she's around someone she likes. She can also torture a dude to death without smudging her eyeliner.

Her fatal flaw is that she's so in love with Ming Lou -- and so mistakenly convinced that Ming Lou is in love with her -- that it makes her make some extremely bad decisions. When was the last time you saw the handsome gentleman be a honeypot?

I feel okay spoiling you about the fact that these two do not end up together. Ming Lou does not see the error of his ways and start returning her feelings -- which is what I was damn near certain was going to happen for almost two-thirds of the show. I was braced for the show to come in singing the praises of the redeeming power of heteronormativity! NOPE. She's crazy and she needs to go down.

(I do have some issues with how she goes down, but ... well, you'll understand when you get there.)

The other baddie, Nantian/Minamida, is a stark contrast to Wang Manchun. There is nothing delicate or femme about her. She gets given the worst hairstyle and the most unflattering outfits. The actor's features are already strong, and the way the show makes her up doesn't allow a single inch of softness to slip out. There is one point where she gets to dance with Ah Cheng, and she's painfully wooden. It'd be funny if she weren't so dangerous.

As the section chief of the Japanese forces in Shanghai, Minamida is a formidable foe. She's smart. She's mean. She's incredibly suspicious of all these smiling Chinese people who surround her, because she doesn't know which ones are legitimately sucking up to her and which are just waiting to drive a knife into her back. Just plain killing her would be easy. Killing her and getting away with it? That's what's going to need a plan.

The actor is also Japanese! In fact, they've gotten a fair number of Japanese actors to play the Japanese characters, but she's the only one who also speaks Mandarin competently and doesn't need to be overdubbed by a native speaker. She's scary and intense and kinda makes your skin crawl. It's great. She's great.

And while we're talking about bad girls, I'm also going to shout out Yu Manli in here, because while she's not a villain, she's absolutely a morally grey character -- and I love her to itty bitty bits. She's about three inches high and weighs about five pounds soaking wet, and she will murder the heck out of you. Baby girl.

3. It's queer in here

The original novel is not danmei. No boy-kissing has been censored, because there wasn't any in the first place. The author/screenwriter is a lady, but not one who dabbles in BL. This does not merit the "Censored Adaptation of a Same-Sex Work" tag on MyDramaList. Censorship didn't do anything to this one. It was never gay.

That said, the show is massively queer, in that it lauds textually the normative experience of getting married relatively young and having lots of children -- and then gives you so many characters, both heroes and villains, who don't do that.

I mean, we've got:

Adult unmarried siblings living together

A grown woman who has intentionally remained unmarried in order to manage her business and family interests

Two adult brothers, both bachelors, who basically live in one another's back pockets

In fact, plenty of people who seem to have forsaken marriage and children in favor of their various active patriotisms

"Life and death partners" who have to fake-date their way through a couple spy missions

A teenage girl sold into sex work who offers to marry the man who saves her and is politely turned down for her own good

The same teenage girl pulling a black-widow routine and using multiple other marriages as a pretense to murder dudes

A couple whose marriage is forbidden by their families, except they do not end up together

A guy who has to break up with his real girlfriend so he can pretend to be with the spy colleague he lives with

A single woman who adopts a child

Two orphaned young adult siblings who adopt two children not that much younger than they are

A heterosexual relationship between people who are functionally equals in their various underground organizations (which don't want their members having romantic relationships with anyone)

A note on that last one: There is a cishet normie love story that runs the length of the show. A lot of people dislike it; I think it's cute and fine! But no matter what you think of it, you have to note the sharp contrast between this prescriptive tale of young love and everything else that's going on around them. There's a lot of lip service paid to how their marriage and the children they will presumably have someday are the ideal, but it's certainly not the only way people live, or even live well. In fact, everybody else treats their romance a little bit like oh, thank goodness he's doing this so we don't have to.

Other aspects of heterosexuality are similarly praised in concept, but not really shown in the best light. There is a lot of filial devotion involved here, but overwhelmingly toward parents who are dead. Living parents, by and large, either are absentee or just plain fucking suck. The show even has very few married characters anywhere in its principal cast, and most marriages that even get so much as mentioned either are portrayed as scummy (because the husband sucks ass) or ended because one of the partners died. Even the very idea of marriage, while praised in theory, doesn't thrill most of the characters. At one point, when Ming Jing brings up the idea of Ah Cheng's getting married, Ah Cheng cannot extract himself from that conversation fast enough.

What this really does mean is, when it comes to heteronormative ideals, the show frequently says one thing and does another.

Do I think the show is queering things on purpose? Absolutely not. This is instead one of those situations where there's such an underlying assumption that heterosexual desire and family unit construction are universal constants ... that the show barely actually gets around to portraying those things as good.

What you get instead, then, are a lot of powerful interpersonal ties that cannot be satisfied by marriage. The most intense loyalties in the show are between people for whom heterosexual pair bonding is not a social or narrative option. Therefore, those intimacies form along different pathways, many of which fall way outside the socially acceptable parameters of marital respectability and reproductive obligation. People love one another fiercely in sometimes unconventional ways. It doesn't get much queerer than that.

I'm also going to put the phrase "the inherent eroticism of letting someone who loves you shoot you with a sniper rifle" right here and walk away. Perhaps it will intrigue you. Perhaps it will intrigue you extra to know this happens more than once.

4. Jin Dong in menswear

That's it, that's the selling point.

Okay, wait, I do have something to add: In a sea of strong performances, his is arguably the best. He absolutely nails this tone of quiet, competent exhaustion the whole way through, making his Ming Lou this perfect gentleman on the verge of collapse.

You learn (somewhat confusingly) in the very first episode that Ming Lou is an important minister for the economy under the new (Japanese-controlled) government in Shanghai -- except, no! He's actually secretly the captain (codename Viper) of the local KMT division, working to undermine the occupying Japanese forces -- except, no again! He's actually -- and this is the real one this time -- head of intel (codename Cobra) for the Shanghai CCP underground.

(I bring up the codenames because my first time through, I didn't fully realize that they were attached to his different identities, and I just thought the occasionally spotty translation couldn't agree on which English word to use for the same snake.)

Living this three-identities-deep life is taking its toll on Ming Lou, but you know what? He's also a damn professional. He comports himself in exactly the manner he's supposed to behave at all times. And Jin Dong sells it beautifully, this carefully restrained exterior that houses a passionate heart.

This to me is the reason his relationship with Ah Cheng is so precious: Ah Cheng is the only one who understands, because Ah Cheng is living the same life of nesting-doll secrets. It's easier on Ah Cheng, though, because he doesn't have to be the face of it all; he just gets to smile and do whatever his da ge tells him to. They are each tasked with taking care of the other in ways great and small. I'm not going to spoil its context, but one of the most powerful moments in the show is when Ah Cheng says matter-of-factly that he knows his life is worth less to Ming Lou than other people's are, and Ming Lou, to put it mildly, pointedly disagrees.

So yeah, this is The Ship.

If you consider their relationship entirely fraternal, theirs is an incredible dynamic of trust, dependence, vulnerability, and sacrifice. If you consider it fraternal and spicy, well, it's still all that, but also enjoy picturing them tenderly removing each other's really nice suits piece by expensive piece.

5. You gotta spy hard!

Imagine the spy media spectrum where at one end you've got James Bond and Mission: Impossible movies (sexy, glamorous, high-tech), and at the other end you've got the Rebel and John LeCarre novels (grueling, well-reserched, realistic). The Disguiser is well toward the latter end of that continuum. It's got a bit of a Hollywood gloss on the whole mechanics of spywork, but man, not much of one.

Despite what the title suggests, most of the spies in this show are exactly who they say they are. Ming Tai is the only one of the siblings who assumes temporary false identities as part of his spycraft, and even he really can't do that anymore once he's back in his native Shanghai, where he's the recognizable youngest son of a prominent family. They all have to be spies in plain sight, which is equal parts a hindrance and an asset. You've got to see Ming Jing do-you-know-who-I-am her way out of some shit. It's great.

There are some legitimately tense scenes and escapes, and I like that most of the threats are overcome by quick thinking and very good acting. The schemes that our heroes pull off work because our heroes understand what makes certain people tick, and other people can't pull that shit on our heroes because our heroes have one another. It's smart spywork that stops short of being grandiose. Even the big plans that involve several steps rely less on supernatural feats of timing, and more on just trusting human nature.

The show is definitely spinning a propaganda yarn about how the noble Communists saved the day during the '40s, and in doing so it takes some pretty entertaining liberties with history. Even so, the particulars of the political philosophies are absolutely secondary to the conflict. You're never going to get a scene where two guys excitedly detail just how much Mao rules. At best there's some blah-blah about freedom and love of country that could be transposed onto any nationalist ideology without a lot of work. If you asked me, based only on information provided by this show, to explain the difference between the KMT and the CCP, my main answer would be, one group uses a code name that's one kind of snake, while the other uses a code name that's a different kind of snake.

And honestly, it's kind of nice. All you really need to know is that the Communists are cool, the KMT are okay but definitely less cool, and the Japanese and anyone who works with them fucking suck. I can do that! I grew up in a sports-watching family. I'm used to being sat down in front of the television and told, we want the guys in the blue uniforms to beat the guys in the white uniforms. No sweat.

The plot does fall down more than a little bit in the final act, due to a combination of intentional obfuscation on the drama's part, a couple things that probably should have happened onscreen instead of off, and a sudden rash of stupid-ass decisions made by one character in particular. But by that point, you're invested enough that you might as well see it through to the end, right? The dismount's a bit shaky but ultimately satisfying, as the genre goes.

I'm going to say the same thing here I said in the Nirvana in Fire rec post: This show is not for everybody, but if this is the kind of thing you like, it is a fantastic example of that thing.

bonus: And speaking of Nirvana in Fire...

Here's the full set.

Basically, if you watched Nirvana in Fire, you owe it to yourself to see the Disguiser. It’s another smart, character-driven drama, and you get to see a lot of your favorite actors in radically different roles, costumes, and relationships. (And speaking of costumes, both shows apparently have the same costume designer? That's range.)

Going to give this one a shot?

It's unfortunately a little hard to find. In my region (i.e., the US), KissAsian and YouTube are as good as it gets, both of which have their drawbacks. Some others among you may be lucky enough to be in a region where Viki will show it to you (which is where the KissAsian subs come from in the first place). There's a horrible set of machine translations running around out there, so beware of those; you'll know immediately you've tripped over those when they don't translate any of the onscreen text crawl at the start.

And speaking of the subtitles: Both extant sets, to put it politely, leave something to be desired. You can generally tell what's going on, but there are times you'll have to work for it. This is definitely more annoying when you're trying to follow a smart spy drama than it is when you're breezing through a low-intensity fuzzy xianxia mess. You actually have to pay attention to this one.

As a bonus, pretty much the whole thing was filmed in Shanghai Film Park, so if you're missing Dragon City, well, here it is! This was in fact the first Republican-era show I saw after watching Guardian, and I spent a lot of time going, hey, I know that street! ...like a nerd.

You can feel the brotherly love.

[jeongyunhoed]

When the Night is Over

Pair: Garreth Weasley / OC Word Count: 3901

Summary: A Halloween Party in the Three Broomsticks. Garreth and Norah make an unlikely arrangement that may change their dynamic forever. My entry for the Garreth Weasley Fest 2024!

T/W: References and mentions of sex, kissing (a lot of it), alcohol, heartbreak, friends with benefits, all that jazz.

FYI: Characters are aged-up to make it more subject-appropriate. I purposely tried to describe some spicy things as vaguely as possible.

A/N: So...Here it is. I got the "Modern AU Halloween Party" prompt but I feel like I didn't really stick to the "AU" bit and just put the entire story in the modern day timeline. For visual reference, the picture above are Garreth and Norah's costumes because of that very movie, haha. I hope you guys like it.

The songs mentioned in the fic are "When the Night Is Over" by Neon Trees and "You Knocked Me Off My Feet" by Sondre Lerche.

It was one of the rare times that Hogwarts students sought to celebrate Halloween outside the castle. What better way to celebrate what muggles saw as the spookiest time of the year than in the Three Broomsticks, with its owner Sirona Ryan happily accommodating droves of witches and wizards to have fun in her establishment that would be closed off to the rest of its patrons for the night. The entire pub was decorated in twinkling lights and flag garlands in the usual purple, black, and yellow colors. Enchanted portraits were placed front and center, all of them also taking part in the festivities while also expressing relief that Ferdinand Octavius Pratt was no longer part of their circle. 

The Three Broomsticks was the one place that night that was buzzing with students, who decided to wear an assortment of costumes, from angels and demons to prominent witches and wizards like the Hogwarts founders – this didn’t go too well with Helena Ravenclaw when she saw some people of that house dressed like her mother. Others, however, decided to dress as famous characters in the muggle world. 

For Garreth Weasley, he was dressed as a knight in armor. Or at least an attempt at wearing some semblance to armor – the knights in the school wouldn’t allow him to try them on. But it was partly because Norah Lee – the Slytherin girl, the so-called Hero of Hogwarts, Order of Merlin First Class recipient – told him about a movie she saw with her squib parents as a child. It was a modern take on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with Romeo dressed a little like a knight, and Juliet like an angel with her white dress and wings. 

The two of them agreed on going as the pair after a tea-filled conversation in Steepley and Sons one day where they expressed their relationship and intimacy woes to each other. A moment they had while climbing back toward the One-Eyed Witch Passage – Garreth expressed his curiosity on kissing her while Norah agreed in a fit of giggles only for him to reject it – fueled what seemed like a very unconventional friendship ahead. 

They were getting tired of their relationship troubles. Norah was coming to terms with the fact that Ominis was too scared to do something for himself and too determined to end his family’s legacy and that included not falling in love. While she wasn’t one to easily give up, she knew Ominis was stubborn and that wouldn’t change anytime soon.

Garreth, on the other hand, was getting tired of trying to pursue Nellie Oggspire, who happened to be a former lover of Norah’s best friend Sebastian Sallow. They both found a kind of comfort in knowing their frustrations seemed to be connected, but it was mostly because they were all in the same year and had the misfortune of taking all their classes together. 

It also didn’t help that sex was now constantly on the minds of many of their peers. They’ve heard stories of pairs going into certain broom closets for a quick romp, while others sought other places outside the castle to do it. Garreth and Norah also found themselves trying to understand their urges just as much as they wanted to suppress them. Sadly, it only made those wants worse that for a moment, in that same conversation at Steepley and Sons, they nearly considered having a go with each other. 

Of course, both of them, especially Garreth, knew it shouldn’t happen, as he stood by that night close to the bar, refilling his pint of butterbeer while everyone else seemed to dance, mingle, and have fun. Leander, who was dressed like David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona with the jagged face paint, was proud of his own costume and tried to show off to some of their fellow Gryffindors, many of whom were impressed by his costume choice. 

“You’re oddly quiet, Weasley,” the Ravenclaw Duncan Hobhouse commented. He was dressed like a court jester. “The Slytherins haven’t arrived yet, you know. I think some of them aren’t even coming.” 

The mention of the house made Garreth look down at his shoes for a moment. “Are you looking forward to seeing someone from there?” He raised a brow. 

“Look who’s asking,” Duncan teased before walking off to rejoin his fellow housemates in the festivities. “Spike that butterbeer with some firewhisky, will you? You need to liven up, it’s a party!” He called out to his red-haired friend. 

Garreth laughed, now compelled to join everyone in the dancing and socializing. It was really his way of keeping himself preoccupied while Norah hadn’t arrived yet. The disco ball hovering above them seemed to reflect all the lights in many directions, further livening up the atmosphere. Lucan Brattleby, Crossed Wands Club leader who was dressed as a 1950s greaser, was trying to show off some moves he learned from the movie, to the cheers of everyone else around them. 

This wasn’t that different from the other parties students have thrown in Hogwarts over the years he’s studied there. It was different this time, considering his budding friendship with Norah since the very day she got him Fwooper feathers in Potions. The more he got to know Norah, the more he was seeing a side of her that he had a feeling she rarely showed to others, even to her own friends. 

The doors of The Three Broomsticks swung open and closed, signaling increasing attendees, or as Duncan put it, the Slytherins. Always having a reputation for arriving fashionably late, and were almost always the ones who were the last to leave. To quote Imelda Reyes, the party didn’t start until the Slytherins came in. 

Among the crowd, Garreth saw, was Norah, dressed in a white cocktail dress with some angel wings on her back. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders that had hints of glitter and sparkle. The same could be said of the makeup she wore, which caught the light in the right places. She practically looked glowing even in the midst of the light reflecting off the disco ball above. Unsurprisingly, she was flanked by Sebastian and Ominis, both of whom were dressed as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson respectively. Anne also made a rare appearance, after some convincing from the three of them, dressed like cupid, with a red dress, red lipstick, and sparkles. 

“Be careful, cupid’s here,” Sebastian hyped his sister up as they greeted those they passed by before arriving at the bar. 

“Anne, so lovely of you to come,” Sirona, sporting a white, flowy, Princess Leia look, said as she noticed them. “Sebastian, Ominis, I wouldn’t have expected anything less for the two of you,” She teased. 

“It was his idea,” the blonde Gaunt pointed out. “I was originally going to come as Tuxedo Mask.” 

“But Tuxedo Mask has dark hair, my friend,” Sebastian had a shit-eating grin on his face. “Maybe the Phantom of the Opera, but not him.” 

Norah and Anne laughed, nearly spitting out their drinks. “You’d look so handsome with that half mask,” Norah grinned, a hint of sadness in her voice as she said it. She was at that point where she was having difficulty trying to maintain her friendship despite the heartbreaking reality of it all. It wasn’t like Ominis didn’t know it either. He too was trying his best to maintain the platonic dynamic they long had before the feelings came along, but he understood if Norah wanted to be away. 

Anne, who was aware about all of this, nudged her. “Have fun tonight, you deserve it,” She assured her friend. “Besides, you’re in the way of my arrows of love.I plan on setting people up.” 

Sirona, having overheard them, nodded knowingly while sliding a pair of keys toward Norah. “If you’d like to be alone in case anything or anyone overwhelms you, the private room’s yours. Just, don’t make too much noise?” 

That seemed to provide Norah with some relief, not wanting to smudge the makeup she had on. She downed the rest of the butterbeer she had and looked around, suddenly spotting Garreth, who was eyeing her from where he stood. Norah waved at him and he waved back. She turned to Anne. “Will you be alright?” 

“Of course,” Anne eyed Garreth as well, and waved at him in greeting. Garreth also waved back. “You have fun, dance with Garreth or something. I’ll be here trying to rein these two idiots in,” She gestured to the two boys next to them, who were still bickering. “Let me know if you need contraception potions or something.”

The mention of such potions made Norah nearly spit out her drink. In a rare occurrence, Anne laughed out loud, helping Sirona clear up the mess on the bar. “Sorry,” Norah muttered, carefully wiping her mouth with a napkin. 

Sirona shushed her. “Go, off with you, go dance and have fun, you have more than earned it,” She waved her hand at her dismissively. 

Norah waved at Garreth again and the redhead moved through the crowd to approach her. “You did it! You dressed up as Romeo!” She laughed, impressed by how good he looked. “You look good, dare I say handsome?” 

Garreth looked just as impressed, if not, a little in awe. “You look just as good yourself, Norah Lee,” He held out his arm as the music shifted to something upbeat, yet made the crowd split up into pairs and cheer. “May I? Romeo dances with Juliet after all,” He grinned. 

Norah linked her arm with his with zero hesitation as they danced together. She realized what the song was, her face lighting up, which Garreth couldn’t help but admire. “I know this song! I love it!” 

When the night is over It feels like we’ve been here before This deja vu, got me missing you Yeah, when the night is over The struggle that we always do‘ Cause we need somebody Yeah, we need somebody 

Garreth laughed as they swayed in their places in front of each other. “This feels familiar, you and me dancing together at a party,” He teased, mouthing the lyrics along with her. 

Norah smiled. “Yeah, the Gryffindor party. The drinks you kept giving us were really strong,” She replied. “I’m amazed you didn’t serve anything this time.” 

“Oh I would’ve, if I had known it would actually take ages to perfect another keg of my brew,” Garreth said dryly. His expression softened as they took another step closer to each other, getting out of the way in time when Astoria Crickett fell over from dancing with Hector Jenkins. The two of them laughed. “How are you holding up?” He asked. 

Norah looked over at the bar, where Ominis, Sebastian, and Anne were busy talking. They weren’t really ones to have fun the way she did, something she noticed from the very first house party she attended in Hogwarts. “Better today. You?” 

It made Garreth look over to Nellie, who scaled up the mantel of the Three Broomsticks fireplace in her disco outfit that nearly matched Leander’s rockstar ensemble. Arthur Plummly, dressed like Michael Jackson, was among those who was cheering her on. “Better today too. We’ll get through it.” 

“We better, we’re here to have fun and fun is what we shall have,” Norah eyed him, suddenly humming the song as they danced in their spot, not realizing that Anne and Sirona were watching them with amusement. 

“A few galleons says they’ll be upstairs,” Sirona muttered to Anne. 

Anne grinned. “Deal. A refill, please,” She tapped her pint, which the barkeep refilled. 

Party poppers released confetti all around as the music went on, Norah and Garreth laughing as they let the tiny pieces of colorful paper land on their heads. The song had hit a crescendo, making everyone sing along. 

‘Cause I can never sleep no more Give me soda mixed with aperol We’re not getting any younger, don’t you know

The entire Three Broomsticks was full of cheers, laughs, pints and mugs clinking, and singing. Thinking about what Sirona told her, she had more than earned a night to have fun, several nights in particular. “Hey,” Garreth said, making her snap out of her thoughts. It was also a reminder to himself as well, to focus on his friend, who was dancing in front of him, in a costume that definitely made her look as radiant. He too needed tonight to keep him in the present. 

“What?” Norah smiled. “No one’s from any rivaling family, by the way. Tybalt and his gang are busy,” She teasingly referred to the two Slytherin boys who were deep in conversation, this time with Grace and Nerida joining them. 

Garreth laughed, understanding the reference. He had been reading about the play ever since Norah told him about it. It made him think about that conversation in Steepley and Sons again. From the look on her face, it seemed like she was thinking about it too, and she was. Norah looked into his eyes, studying his expression curiously. He leaned closer. “Want to go up? I need to talk to you about something,” He said near her ear. 

Norah glanced at Anne and Sirona, feeling the key to the private room in the pocket of her dress. “Sure, it’s getting too loud anyways,” She joked. 

Garreth held out his hand and she took it, following him up the staircase, which didn’t go unnoticed by Sebastian, who smirked to himself as he went back to his conversations with their fellow Slytherins. In the corner, Anne was grinning from ear to ear. “Finally, she’s having fun for once, and I’m happy to concede,” She passed a few coins to Sirona, who slid a bowl of pretzels and nuts for her to snack on. 

“Let me,” Norah stepped forward when they arrived at the top of the steps and at the door. The two of them managed to slip past several of their schoolmates in the second floor unnoticed as most of them were already sitting in various corners, nooks, and crannies, making out with each other. Garreth snorted when he saw Leander’s makeup coming off at the mouth as he was deep into the moment with someone. 

“You got the key?” Garreth raised a brow at her as she opened the door with ease. “Well this changes everything,” He teased, swallowing when he realized that they were still holding hands as they stepped inside. 

She closed the door behind them and pocketed the key. The loud music was still playing from downstairs, but it was naturally quieter in the space the two of them were now in. “So, what did you want to talk about?” She cleared her throat, her cheeks turning a darker shade of pink when she let go of his hand. 

Garreth looked up, trying to find a way to say what he was thinking. “Well, remember that time we hung out at Steepley and Sons?” He asked. 

“Yeah, oh, we were both getting horny,” Norah laughed out loud upon remembering, yet the blush on her cheeks seemed to say what she was feeling. 

The redhead took a deep breath. It’s now or never. “How about we take each other up on that offer?” He blurted out. 

The brunette stared at him. “What?” 

“Yeah, I mean, we uh, we’re friends, and if we’re feeling it, we can…do it,” He suggested with a shrug. “This doesn’t mean we’re going to date or anything, just, you know, if you or I were ever curious or feeling it, why not do it with each other?” 

“So like friends with benefits?” A sly grin slowly appeared on Norah’s face. “...Fuck buddies?” 

Garreth’s already ruddy cheeks got redder. “Yeah, that kind. No one has to know, not Ominis, not Nellie. Besides, neither of us have done it before, why not get it out of the way? No judgment, nothing. We’re both on the same side,” He explained, wondering how in Merlin’s beard was he able to say something like this. 

Norah crossed her arms as she tried to think about it. “Wouldn’t it feel like we’re taking advantage of each other?” She asked. 

“Not if we both agreed to it,” Garreth shook his head. “We can set some rules, you know. Maybe a safe word if things get too much?” 

“You’ve thought it out, haven't you?” She couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Well, you getting soaked from falling in the water while we used the One-Eyed Witch Passage was an image I admit, I couldn’t stop thinking about, and when we got tipsy and I wanted to kiss you…” Garreth recalled, the two of them getting flustered the more they thought about it. 

“So we’ll be each other’s firsts, then?” Norah tilted her head at him. The idea was becoming compelling, and it was definitely making her look him up and down. “...Alright.” 

It was Garreth’s turn to stare at her. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, I mean, you’re curious, I’m curious, we can get through our first time without judgment,” She nodded. “But before we make it official, let’s set some rules.” 

“Alright,” Garreth said, a little too eagerly. 

“We do it in the Room of Requirement,” Norah explained, the freckled male nodding. “Lights out.”

“Lights out?” Garreth was curious. 

“I’m honestly not confident about the way I look, and I think it’s hot, at least from how the movies show it,” Norah said quietly. “What do you think? Or at the very least, candlelight?”

“Candlelight is good, we should at least see what we’re going, and where we’re,” He was fidgeting in his place. “You know.” 

She did know. “If your aunt, and I hate to even think it, if she ever comes in the Room while we’re both there, we tell her we’re studying,” She added. 

This one, Garreth was surprised to know. “Hang on, she knows about the room?” 

“She showed it to me in fifth year, yeah,” Norah nodded. “But if she also asks why we’ve been seen together a lot, we don’t tell her we’re…casually fucking.”

Garreth shuddered to think about that possibility. “Got it.” 

“There has to be a steady supply of those contraceptive potions on both of us, so we brew those in the Room too, and no hickies or visible marks,” Norah looked down at her hands, and then back at him. “What about you? Do you have anything to add to this…whatever this is going to be?” 

There was one thing, Garreth thought, one thing that might seem small but would have a big effect on this arrangement in the long run. Did he want to bring it up? Or did he want to cross that bridge if they ever got there? There was only one way to know. 

“The feelings clause,” He blurted out. “How do we decide to end it? What if we…I don’t know, what if one or both of us suddenly want something different?” 

That was the tricky part, yet was important to know if ever something happened that involved the matters of the heart. Garreth felt that Norah usually had an answer to everything. But even this got her stumped. While it crossed her mind ever since he suggested the idea of a friends with benefits relationship and even during their one butterbeer-filled visit to Hogsmeade, Norah never really thought about how likely it might be between her and Garreth. She never even thought she was Garreth’s type. 

“I guess,” Norah tried to think about it some more. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens as we go. We’re not really dating, so I think it would be painless, you know?” 

“You’ve got a point, yeah,” Garreth hummed in agreement. “Oh! Right, safe word, what do you think should that be?” 

Another silence ensued between the two of them, save for the music that was playing downstairs. If they listened closely, they would’ve heard a faint moaning coming from outside, close to the room they were in. “Creamsicle,” Norah suddenly said. “What about creamsicle? We don’t say that a lot, we don’t have that a lot either, except for ice creams in Diagon Alley. What do you think?” 

“Brilliant,” Garreth nodded. “If any one of us feels like it’s getting too much while we have sex, creamsicle and we’ll stop.” 

Norah hummed. “And we’ll have an actual creamsicle afterwards,” She joked, making him laugh.

“I also think we should have some kind of signal, to let each other know that we’re in the mood for it,” The gears in his head were moving in overdrive. 

“Fwooper feathers,” Norah was quick to suggest with a chuckle. “If we ever utter fwooper feathers, within context, that means we’re horny and want to do it. It also reminds me of our first ever conversation too.” 

“Oh right, fwooper feathers,” Garreth laughed. “We could use that, yeah,” He held out his hand. “So, will you, Norah Lee, be my fuck buddy?” 

“Will you, Garreth Weasley, be my fuck buddy?” Norah recited the question back to him, the two of them exchanging knowing looks. 

“Yes, I will,” Garreth said. 

Norah held his hand to shake. “Yes, I will.” 

The two of them emerged from the room, a little taken aback when they saw one particular couple nearly getting it on despite their costumes still on, in one corner table. The song was now a slower number, and they hurried down to see people in pairs once again, arms around each other in a slow dance. 

I never thought of heaven as a relevant spot I never questioned any of the tears or the raindrops I was a bore, surrounded by doors that all lead to some other floor And I who I thought there wasn’t more

For a moment, Norah and Garreth felt like the only two people in the room. They felt that there was suddenly a different air about each other after they made an agreement they knew would drastically change their friendship. To their surprise, or perhaps not, Sebastian, Anne, and Ominis had already left, likely for Sebastian to drop Anne off at the train station and to St. Mungo’s and for the blonde to recharge his social battery back in the castle. 

“Anne was feeling some pain again so Sebastian had to bring her back,” Sirona explained. “They said they’ll be back in the common room if you need them.”

As much as Norah wanted to be disappointed that they hadn’t stuck around, Garreth leading her to the place where the dancing continued made her focus on what was currently happening once again. He too, had also spotted Nellie dancing with Adelaide Oakes after she had a turn with Mahendra Pehlwaan. 

You knocked me off my feet You knocked me off my feet Heaven is from where you have come Now I know

Norah put her arms around his neck, and Garreth wrapped his arms around their waist as they started to sway. “I guess this means you can help me with my Potions homework from now on,” He chuckled. “I’d ask Amit, but then he doesn’t have any fwooper feathers to lend me.” 

She stared at him and shook her head. “Already?” 

“I was kidding,” Garreth snorted. “But we really wasted an opportunity up there.”

“Creamsicle” She narrowed her gaze at him, and the two of them burst into laughter. 

[sapphoswh0re]

recap post: star lords

(warning: lots of spoilers, old and new theories, personal rants ->this is going to be really long, maybe I should split it?) While we wait for the end of the hiatus, I decided to share a thing I've been working on for a long time, on par with the new releases.   It's not exactly a #theorypost because even if there are some theories, this is more of a personal guide to have a summary of events/characters and my thoughts about it all together (it also makes it easier to find them in the manga).

⭐ Who are the star lords? ⭐

They’re mentioned for the first time in chapter 110 with the beginning of the Blue Cult arc and the introduction of the ‘stars’, but only in chapter 115-116 the existence of "special" individuals inside the Sphere Music Hall is made explicit.

In the same chapter, we understand that the 4 stars are connected to 4 figures (Sirius, Vega, Polaris, Canopus)

->why do I only say 4 and not more? In fact, in later chapters, when the star lords' rooms were shown, some fans had doubts that some stars (like Sirius or Canopus) could be represented by more individuals/twins. In my opinion, however, it's already clear from 116 that they could only necessarily be 4 people. Nina is the one who takes care of their clothes, it's true that she didn't take the measurements in person (so she didn’t see them), but she’d have noticed if she had to create pairs of the same article for a single "person". I think it would have been suspicious, something easy to notice, instead she only talks about 4 people.

Even if the topic of blood and transfusions is there from the beginning, it's in chapter 117-119 that we're given the confirmation that each star corresponds to a blood type and they have different degrees of rarity:

Polaris = A

Vega = 0

Canopus = A

Sirius = AB

So, who are “those with the names of the stars”? Four people who need the collected blood, aka bizarre dolls (at this point it may seem trivial, but at that time it was still debated hahah).

Thanks to Sebastian in chapter 117 we can see the rooms of the star lords (from which they speak in 123).

Door with a star-> Sirius

Two stars-> Canopus

Three stars-> Vega

(the "infamous" double room that with the dialogue convinced some that Vega were two people) 

Four stars-> Polaris

SIRIUS ✨

Sirius is the first one to be revealed, and as the real Ciel who returns in 129-130 with the beginning of the Blue Memory arc. 

Despite being perhaps the most incisive figure among the 4, he's also the one on which there have been fewer conjectures since the “twin reveal” had been awaited by fans for years, so yes crazy but not THAT crazy.

The cover of 129 itself confirms this by showing the door of the “blue star” open.

However, why did Sirius, according to fans, have to be RCiel? 

Well, if you're desperate enough (like me), the clues can be found in the choice of the stars. From the article : “Sirius is a binary star consisting of a main-sequence star… termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion… termed Sirius B”, “A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other” -> twin theory (Ciel A/Ciel B) later also confirmed by the attempt to make OCiel another Lord Sirius for the police (two Lord Sirius?) “Sirius is colloquially known as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (the Greater Dog)” -> reference to the role of the Queen's Watchdog

Questions I still have about RCiel (some have been answered by now so I removed them)

is he a bizarre doll? Yes, but is he special in some way?

what is his purpose? Obviously it concerns his relationship with OCiel, but could it be just that? Actually, given the unstable personality he has shown so far it could really be just that -> clarification, RCiel's goals ≠ Undertaker's goals

how did his body "grow" to keep up with OCiel? Can BD grow or was he the exception thanks to some intervention from Undertaker?

what was it that Undertaker made him drink in chapter 108? An attempt to bring him back to life? (like a soul or something??? was the eye actually twinkling, or was it a scenic effect?)

what happened to RCiel's soul? We know it was used as a tribute to summon Sebastian, but did Sebastian absorb/eat it, or was it just lost as payment? The explanation was a bit too vague for my liking (they repeat a lot “price”, “payment”, ”paid” without really telling us where is it or if it still exist)

is his distorted personality an effect of being a BD, or is it something preexisting? (or something in between)

could his obsession with his brother really be a clue for theories about his role in the Phantomhive family tragedy??? This is one of the things that interests me the most, along with how BDs work (reminder: maybe add a post to remember pros & cons about the theory)

extra: was it RCiel who left the message on the wall or did Polaris carve it? (doesn't really matter, but I'm curious because the scene of Ciel who has to climb on the furniture to get up there made me laugh a lot)

CANOPUS ✨

Canopus is a character who, after many chapters of silence, was revealed as Doll in chapter 204.

First, what did we know about them?  The only information we had was the room, which was shown kinda bare, poorly furnished, with bloody bandages and what could be IV accessories -> we therefore knew that either they were patients (wounded, probably seriously?) or it was a blood drip for BD, or both options -> reanimated body of a person who died from a serious wound

The dialogue of chapter 123 for Canopus was almost useless, so at this point I tried to find clues by searching the actual star (like with Sirius) but in the article I didn't seem to find anything except this passage(?):

“In Greek mythology, Canopus… was the pilot of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta during the Trojan War. According to legend, while visiting the Egyptian coast, Canopus was bitten by a serpent and died.” -> some kind of foreshadowing about her future relationship with Snake? update post chapter: sorry Snake, I’ll pray for your return 😭

Questions about Doll (old and new)

is Canopus dead or alive (BD)? A reanimated corpse but injured 

was she chosen for this role because of her feeling of revenge against OCiel? ->do the other star lords have similar motivations, or do they collaborate for personal purposes? What is her goal now?

does each star lord take care of a main blood source? Why are only Vega and Polaris out to get “nourishment”? ->now we know Doll was just too injured to go, but then she went to the orphanage (orphanage reminder: create a separate post, too suspicious, too many questions, I don’t think the arc is really over)

others I thought of: Madame Red (died from very serious injuries, body prepared by Undertaker, forehead covered by bangs ->she could still come back though), Doll (and I got it right hahaha), a new character

VEGA ✨

On Vega we kinda had some clues (when my ramblings got confirmed I screamed with my friend for like 20 minutes) and in 187-188 is revealed as Layla/Al.

But before the sanatorium arc, what did we know about Vega? We're told that they're out to get blood and their room looked like the bedroom of a (or two) noble girl with childish tastes. The presence of pairs of pillows, stuffed animals and vanity led to the belief that there were two people (but in my opinion, the single bed and the clothes thing mentioned above only indicated one). Another passage that tried to be misleading but was actually a clue is the dialogue in 123 where we have two text bubbles that join together while saying the same thing -> this passage!!!

Layla is introduced in chapter 172 and to me (and Lau hahah) she immediately seemed suspicious, with characteristics that matched the few things we knew about the star lord:

-> too young to be a nurse, good manners like a noble and it could make you laugh but the thing that most caught my eye was her pair of bows because it reminded me of the pairs of objects in Vega's room. 

With Bard’s attack we got the proof she participates in the blood collection and that she is a BD but in 191 she pronounces a sentence that sounded too familiar to me -> it didn't seem to match at first but I found it so suspicious that (even if it's something I never do since I do not understand the language) I searched the Japanese scans of the two scenes and... it is the same!!! insert screams

Even in this case we maybe had a clue thanks to the star Vega:

“Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr.” ->Lyra/Lyrae=Layla and Alpha=Al?

Questions about Layla (they’re a lot but it’s because it’s a new character)

how did she get a death scythe?

why does she drink blood from other blood types? On the Campania the first BDs attacked people in search of the soul, Layla instead attacks for the blood?? -> why do transfusions to BDs follow the blood types? (connection to the orphanage?)

is Layla really a girl? Not so important but in the FOL Orphanage arc the categories that represent the stars made me doubt. The Collie Class is made up of children (almost all boys) dressed as nuns/nurses who do housework (and Oliver handles a knife) ->same dress as Layla even though they are boys -> could Layla be a boy?

how was she chosen as star lord? And why even though her blood is less rare than Canopus is she of higher rank? (room decorated as a noble) ->does she have more funds? Or did someone finance the project for her/to give her that role and therefore wanted to bring her back to life?

following the question above, who was she before she died?

Is it possible that she is the daughter of Baron Heathfield?

theory (not my only one, but this has more connections): in chapter 155 it's said that the baron lost his wife and daughter in an accident. (Obscured faces but the little girl has a bow on her head, light hair, short bangs, young woman from a good family) ->for this reason he looks for replacements for his wife (theme of the shape of the soul, could it be important in the future? reminder), but why not for his daughter? ->maybe the daughter was brought back to life by the Aurora association, for this reason he finances them and it’s an important blood collection site not directly managed by a star lord (he has a personal interest in the blood being sent to the Aurora’s labs and the research continuing). Disgusting detail ->can the baron's practices be reflected in Layla's sadistic attitudes (or is it a consequence of being a BD)?

Could she have witnessed or suffered something when still alive? ->Al is a second personality: (I tried to follow this article) said to be a disorder often caused by strong childhood traumas, the personality is born to protect the person from those painful memories and it allows to detach from them, just like Al does in 191.

POLARIS ✨

Polaris is currently the only star lord still unidentified, and he's perhaps the most mysterious. Having no confirmations yet but only clues I'll create a dedicated post about him with a link from here (definitely not because I've reached the images + links' limit and this became so long??? like when did it happen? opsie)

if you've read this far you deserve a prize 🎁

this was almost like a diary for me, so if you don't agree with some theories/comments/observations let me know, because I'm always interested in other opinions to expand this file, but please consider my heart of glass (jk just not too passive aggressive)

[rose-morose]

I've been on a superhero kick since finishing The Boys season 4 finale and I finally got around to watching the Harley Quinn animated series, or at least the 4 seasons that are currently out as of writing

a bit heavy on the meta comedy for my taste, but over all I enjoyed it, and I have some thoughts, so I'm here to bring you the amateur analysis nobody asked for or wanted

(very long Harley Quinn spoilers below cut)

(seriously it's so fucking long don't hit the cut if you don't want a wall of text on your screen)

at its core, Harley Quinn is a show about relationships, and I don't just mean romantic relationships, I mean human, and occasionally non human, relations of all kinds: family, friends, coworkers, lovers, enemies, nemeses, etc. it's an exercise in the concept of the social and how each person interacts with and relates to other individuals and groups

I think it would be fun to take a closer look at some of these relationships and analyse them from the perspective of a confused aroace loser with exactly 6 friends so here we go

the show centers on two individuals who, by the beginning of the show, have quite literally never had anything even remotely resembling a healthy relationship in their entire lives, which is not hyperbole in the slightest, and again is not just referring to romantic relationships, but relationships of all kinds

the focus is on DC's titular Harley Quinn, and her only friend turned best friend turned girlfriend (minor spoiler but not really) Poison Ivy, and the evolution of their relationship, as well as the relationships of many prominent DC characters around them, and also Kite Man

this is going to be quite a long one with many parts, so you'll have to bear with me for awhile or just give up now you have been warned

part one

the (toxic) insane clown posse (duo)

the show opens with the infamously toxic romance between Harley Quinn and the clown prince of crime, the Joker himself

episode one opens with a showcase of the well documented abusive relationship between Quinn and Joker and just how abusive the Joker truly is as he leaves her for dead yet again

Poison Ivy, powerful supervillain and only friend of Harley Quinn, goes to great lengths to help Harley see that her relationship with Joker is not as perfect as she believes

it's clear there is already a lot of love between Ivy and Harley, and despite the fact that Ivy is a well known misanthrope with a burning hatred of humanity, she has made a singular exception for Harley due in part to her tenure at Arkham as a psychiatrist during one of Ivy's stays

Harley spends season one attempting to escape the telltale psychological hold of a manipulative and abusive relationship, which is easier said than done and not simple in the slightest, but by the end of the first season she has made a considerable amount of progress

part two

emancipation, the crew, and new friends

of course breaking off her romantic relationship with the Joker does not free Harley of his hold, the process is far more strenuous and takes considerably more time, but now she has an opportunity to start some new positive relationships in her life to help her through, and that takes the form of her new crew which consists of Dr. Psycho, Clay Face, King Shark, and Sy and she befriends Ivy's plant Frank and the Queen of Fables as well

as I've mentioned Harley has no experience with healthy relationships, and her initial transactional attitude and emotional neglect towards her new friends is quite telling, but she is in the process of learning how to truly connect with people, a challenge her background in psychiatry seems to lend a foundation to help with

each episode of the first season follows her uncovering a new facet of how a genuine friendship is formed and maintained, all the while battling her own selfishness to be the best friend she can be

the friendships seem to fall out of touch over the course of the show, but there remains a rapport between the crew even after their professional split

the later seasons spend a lot less time exploring friendships, a decision I'm not too thrilled with, but the exploration of relationships continues regardless

part 3

Ivy, Kite Man, and the most baffling romance I've ever seen

I genuinely hate this relationship so much that I made an entire other post about it here

it's really god damn long, probably not as long as part 4, but fuck I just want to throttle Kite Man to death with my bare fucking hands

it's less the relationship I hate and more just Kite Man himself, he's not even necessarily a bad character he just fucking sucks and gets away with it every time and it pisses me off

though I do still hate the relationship

part 4

Harley, Ivy, true love, and possibly the best written romance I've seen on television

Harley's season 2 meeting with Mr. Freeze tells us a lot about what she thinks of love

she sees Mr. Freeze's affection towards his cryogenically frozen wife Nora as creepy and exploitative, and when Mr. Freeze gives his life to save his wife, Harley comments that his actions are 'insane'

admittedly Freeze's expressions of affection do seem very creepy, but Harley's subsequent outburst on how love is bullshit indicates that Freeze's behaviour isn't her real issue

Harley seems to believe that true love was a lie that the Joker sold her to keep her under his control, and, having no other experience, assumes that everyone is just like her and the Joker, and are only trying to get what they want from a relationship without consideration for others

but Nora's reciprocation of Mr. Freeze's affection when Harley unfreezes her quickly begins to cast doubt on her previous notion and challenges her perception of love itself

and then she finds her own true love and everything changes

enter the beautiful mess that is Harlivy

"I love you, in a very odd, hard-to-articulate way." - Ivy to Harley in episode 1

it seems clear from a writing standpoint that these two were going to be together romantically from episode 1 and on, the build up to which is noticeable yet sufficiently subtle, and I do think Ivy fell first and by first I mean before the show even begins, and if these two aren't the fucking definition of the fell first/fell harder trope

and Harley falls HARD

early on, her true feelings for Ivy, unexpressed, seem to take up every waking moment of her mind, and she struggles to avoid ruining her relationship with Ivy, while also desperately wanting to take a risk that could ruin it for good, after all, Ivy is marrying and committing to a hetero monogamous relationship with fucking Kite Man for some fucking reason

"You're here, and you're queer. Get used to it!" - Harley to Ivy after Ivy cheated on Kite Man with her

did Ivy already know that she is queer? based on her Catwoman anecdote, yes, and it seems like Harley was also aware of her own queerness, it is odd to see a queer relationship in media where no one involved is overtly struggling with their own sexuality or gender, it's not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it something completely new, it's just unexpected

unfortunately, we do have to talk about the giant kite-shaped elephant in the room, except, just kidding, no we don't, fuck that guy go back to part 3 if you care, his whole relationship was nothing but an obstacle in my opinion, but I should bring up the infidelity

in a monogamous relationship, when one partner engages in sexual or romantic pursuits with a third party without the other partner's consent or knowledge, that is categorised as 'cheating' and is widely seen as a profound breach of trust and a betrayal of the highest order, I think this is because monogamous relationships are built on exclusivity and trusting that your partner will not break their vow of exclusivity that they have sworn to uphold under any circumstances (sometimes there are exceptions I guess whatever)

to my understanding infidelity is often indicative of a want that falls beyond the boundaries of monogamy and is often not communicated properly for lack of courage, lack of will, or simple adversity to change

Ivy's want seems to be Harley, and her challenge seems to be adversity to change and a lack of self confidence/courage

from what I understand, it's the same as someone you thought you could count on more than anyone else in the world breaking an important promise that they made to you with utmost sincerity, and that shit sucks for anyone regardless of sexuality or circumstance

I have already spent way too much time on probably unnecessarily explaining adultery, but I'm aroace so I am just trying to work through it and understand it myself and am not actually certain if my understanding is accurate so please correct me if I'm wrong this is all third hand information

moving right along, we can finally watch the romance begin, enter the eat bang kill tour

Harley and Ivy have, up till this point, still not had a single healthy romantic relationship, and it really shows, but quite crucially they are improving every episode and trying their best to work it out

Harley, having never really experienced real romantic love before, is desperate to feel as loved as possible, and once she has felt it for the first time, she never wants to let go

she prolongs the eat bang kill tour as long as she possibly can, showering Ivy with gifts and doing crazy stuff that only serial killers would find fun, just trying to keep that high of the 'honeymoon phase" alive for as long as she can

Harley does not want to exist without Ivy if it means potentially losing the amazing feelings that she is experiencing for the very first time in her life

on the other hand, Ivy is very reserved and submissive, she has trouble voicing her true feelings to Harley and suffers for it, a similar pattern of behaviour that she exhibited with Kite Man

Ivy just can't say no, she also does not want to lose that high, but has a different approach to maintaining it

"A big part of being in a relationship is not always telling the exact truth. And that way, you can get what you need without hurting anyone's feelings." - Poison Ivy

this line is incredibly telling of Ivy's past relationships, and it will become a challenge that she must overcome if she wants any hope of actually forming a healthy relationship

and hey, maybe a little lie here and there isn't so bad for a relationship, that's not for me to say and I honestly don't know, but Ivy seems to use the technique excessively to her own detriment

but I mean, what would a compelling dramatic romance be without serious communication issues?

and all these little minor contentions and miscommunications finally build up to the first major conflict in Harley and Ivy's relationship, Edin

it turns out Harley and Ivy might not be on the same page about the whole extermination of humanity, and their failure to communicate that ends in horror as, despite Ivy's wishes, Harley makes a sacrifice that forces Ivy to choose between Harley's life and her own dream

Ivy chooses Harley of course, but this moment rattles their relationship dynamic dramatically and Harley panics, deciding that she wasn't being very supportive of Ivy, and still being desperate not to lose her newfound happiness, she lapses back into her behaviour from when she was with Joker, Harley goes right back to doing exactly what she's told without question and with great enthusiasm in spite of her own personal opinion, because that's how she has handled conflict historically, that's what has worked and she will do anything to hold on to that feeling she has had being with Poison Ivy

Ivy mistakes Harley's new found enthusiasm as genuine, and it takes the Joker himself to point out that she is doing exactly what he did to Harley so long ago, so Ivy asks Harley what she really wants

and now comes my favourite part, the very problematic Valentine's Day special

in spite of the many problematic events of the episode, there will never be a sweeter moment than Ivy sharing her favourite Valentine's Day with Harley, it just melts my heart every time I watch it

as for the problematic part there's nothing new, it's some standard self aware hijinks that affirms that the writers are aware of the unhealthy behaviours exhibited by the two leads and exploring that dynamic is all part of the story, mostly centering on Harley's fixation on being the best partner possible mixed with lasting psychological damage, all from her time with the Joker, but the resolution is adorable

I can't really describe Ivy's favourite Valentine's Day, you just have to watch it, it honestly is the most wholesome and genuine moment in the show, and I can hardly think of any other moment in any other show that can top it either

entering season 4, Harley and Ivy's latest challenge is to set up professional boundaries and segregate their own personal lives from their work lives seeing as they are now each working on opposing sides of a conflict

it's a struggle to be sure, and each partner is terrified that without their shared proclivity for villainy, a rift may form in their relationship

the fear is certainly justified, but despite the challenges presented by their professional split they manage to find other ways to connect

that's pretty much all I have to say on them so far, I think their romance is by far the best part of the show, and I personally believe it to be incredibly well written in spite of what others may think, but it's time to move on

"I mean man. You know me better than anyone." - Ivy

"You're easy to celebrate." - Harley

"And you're fun to celebrate with." - Ivy

part 5

found family vs blood relatives

"You people are not my family, and you know what? You're not even worth it." - Harley to her parents after they tried to murder her

there's no doubt that Harley's family fucking sucks, and you'll be hard pressed to find a family that doesn't anywhere in this show

Ivy's parents were abusive, Harley's were manipulative, Kite Man's are assholes, Batman's are dead, as are Nightwing's, Dr. Psycho is intentionally a terrible father and unintentionally a terrible husband, Sy locked his sister in a basement, Barbara's father is an alcoholic deadbeat and her mother left, King Shark hates his asshole father and killed multiple of his brothers, Robin's father is an emotionally repressed billionaire playboy and his mother is a sociopathic assassin that wants nothing to do with him, the list goes on

every blood family has fallen apart and some of the members have scattered to various found families

the show initially centres on one found family in particular, Harley's crew, but later shifts much of the focus on the bat family as well

both of these families are as dysfunctional as the next, but there is a sense of love and belonging that they bring to each member that families are known to have

what really makes a family? it's hard to say, I think it's like a sort of community that always has your back, even when you're wrong, and maybe you don't like each other all the time, but there is still a sort of love between everyone

families spend time together, but if they live together they're always trying to get away from each other, they support each other, but they will rescind their support if they think you're doing dumb shit that they don't like, they love each other, but may not often express it, sometimes they get along, and sometimes they don't, there is a certain dichotomy to a familial relationship that doesn't really exist in most other relationships

where as you might need to like your friends in order to stay friends, families can maintain a bond in spite of quarrels and disagreements, not everyone will like it, but it's what you've got

in this sense, families are the only relationship that you can never really seem to escape, Dick came back to Gotham, Robin left with his mother, Ivy tore the city apart to rescue Frank, Harley always rescues her crew, and they always rescue her

but the familial aspect does not define a relationship, other relationships will exist between family members that are not inherently related, you can be friends with your family, mere acquaintances, even enemies, or something else entirely

Batgirl and Harley are both new to the bat family, but despite their short tenure, both are given a sense of family from people they know very little about

in my experience, found family often comes from where you least expect it, Batgirl was probably the only person not absolutely shocked to their core to see Harley Quinn herself joining the bat family, and Sy was just Harley and Ivy's landlord before he sacrificed his physical body for them, Frank is a fucking plant, who would expect that their best friend would be a sentient fucking plant?

at some point Nightwing seems to heavily backtrack out of nowhere and stops treating Harley as part of the family, this, to me, seems to be just a poor writing choice seeing as Nightwing was previously very enthusiastic to have Harley in the family

while his concerns may be justified, it's weird that they are only just now being expressed

part 6

Nora Freeze, Batman, Bane, Jim Gordon, Batgirl, Alfred, Poison Ivy, and loneliness

Catwoman is the only lonely character that can tolerate being alone, she even prefers it

whereas Nora, Batman, Bane, Jim, Barbara, Ivy, and Alfred on the other hand each contend with their own particular brand of loneliness and each cope with it in their own unhealthy ways

Nora is grieving, Batman is reluctant, Bane is desperate, Jim is self sabotaging, Barbara is insecure, Ivy is traumatised, and Alfred is purposeless

but for this part I want to focus on Nora

in light of her supposed incurable disease, subsequent coma, and the loss of her husband, Nora has never been more alone

she has no one to turn to, and no one to support her as she grieves for all that she has lost, and I don't mean to imply that Nora's husband was what gave her life value or meaning, in reality it's only a small part of the life she left behind

Nora expressed that her fundamental life changes have left her alienated from all of her previous relationships, her friends and family all expect her to be someone that she no longer is

Nora seems to turn to drugs and alcohol for relief, she seems lost and doesn't know what to do, she just kind of eventually stumbles into her new job working for Ivy, and doesn't take it very seriously

she is understandably put off of serious relationships, and seems to just engage in sex for fun, which is not actually a problem though some characters may disagree

the people of this world have never been lonelier than they are now, and Nora is hardly alone in her isolation

Batgirl's earnest demeanor and nerdy vibe make it difficult for her to make friends, and her deadbeat parents don't pay any attention to her, though things seem to be even worse on the occasion that they do

Jim is married to the job as they say, though this is largely comedic he shows no signs of improvement

Bane is just not very bright and no one takes him seriously, though he does find someone in the end

Ivy hates humanity, but she still seeks companionship from those few she deems worthy, the only trouble is how few she deems worthy, and it's difficult to say whether this is her fault, or theirs, but she does find people she can connect with, and is definitely happier for it

why she deems Kite Man worthy will forever be a mystery to me

part 7

the Joker takes a stab at healthy relationships

after season 1 the Joker is presumed dead, but Harley and Ivy soon discover that he survived, as a basic bitch white suburban amnesiac with no memory of his true identity

his confusion provides the catalyst through which the Joker begins a romantic relationship with the totally unsuspecting Bethany, and by extension he becomes the step father to her two children

the relationship continues for a short number of months until Harley, in a desperate bid to save the city, violently reminds Joker of his true identity

this time around Joker remembers his own life as well as the life he had lived as an amnesiac and is immediately disgusted with himself

he breaks off his relationship with Bethany because she challenges his perception of his own identity and that scares him

however, upon realising how much happier he was as an amnesiac living with Bethany and her children, he decides that maybe he can give the whole true love thing a shot, after all, lots of dads are serial killers

and thus the true romance of Bethany and the Joker finally begins, it's honestly kind of surprising that Bethany still wanted to date the Joker and not the other way around, but I suppose it's understandable if you've already spent so much time together, plus Bethany and her kids were excessively eager when Joker announced to them his return to crime so maybe they were kind of into it the whole time

part 8

Jim Gordon and his (seemingly) one sided friendship with the Batman

Batman is self admittedly "not good with feelings" and by extension, personal relationships

he is incredibly insistent that he "work[s] alone"

he is dismissive of Jim's constant insistence that they are friends and not just coworkers, but in spite of this attitude Harley is able to convince Batman that Jim Gordon is not just a coworker, but might just be his one and only friend

the idea that they are friends is further compounded by the comedically timed screen saver of Batman's computer that shows him and Gordon together celebrating

after Harley's intervention their friendship remains very one sided with Gordon constantly seeking Batman's validation and approval, but Batman at the very least has acknowledged the truth of their relationship

part 9

can people change

can Harley become someone reliable and dependable?

can Ivy count on and trust someone other than herself?

can the Joker become a suburban dad?

can Psycho stop calling women cunts?

can Kite Man do anything right ever?

can people change?

according to the show, the answer is yes

Nora Freeze spent years in a cryogenic coma, and upon her revival, lost the love of her life

her friends all expected her to be the way they remembered, but the experience had a deep impact that spurred a fundamental change within her

she didn't just lose her husband by waking from the coma, she lost her entire life as well, she feels like an entirely new person, and it leaves her lost and lonely, but it wasn't her husband's death that left her all alone

Harley and Ivy are both forced to undergo changes in order to make their relationship work, but they don't just change for the sake of each other, they change for their own sake as well

these changes are what allow them to form all kinds of new positive relationships, but failure to change promises severe social consequences

Jim Gordon's failure to change guarantees the continuation of his misery, he could have had a loving family and admits that he loved being a father, but he ultimately decides that change is scarier than loneliness

part 10

Ivy and Swamp Thing, the end of friendship

"You never let me express myself, Ivy! This is why we stopped being friends." - Swamp Thing in a fit of rage

many of us have had that one friend that would whinge for hours on end about their problems, but would suddenly have something better to do when it was our turn to complain, unfortunately some of us have even been that friend

it can be incredibly frustrating for the listener, and the whinger often doesn't even realise that they're doing it

Ivy was that friend to Swamp Thing, and until now she never even knew the true reason they stopped being friends in the first place

it's tough to know when to give people a chance, and when to cut a toxic friend out of your life for good, Swamp Thing had to make that call for his own sake, and it seems to have paid off

their hiatus apart allowed Ivy the time she needed to grow, so that she could be a good friend for a change

it's also an example of the idea that the end of a relationship doesn't always have to be for good, people and circumstances change, and sometimes reconnecting can lead to a better relationship than you ever had before

so it's finally done, I have been writing this post for fucking ages now even though no one will ever read it, but at this point it's mostly for me anyway so no harm done, this blog is basically my diary as it is

I didn't even talk about everything I wanted to but it has been months so I'm finally just going to post it

[project-sekai-facts]

Okay, I’m about to go full Pepe Silvia on the August lims but here’s my insane prediction.

- Ever since the introduction of the two random lim reruns, one of the three reruns a month have had a character that ended up being on that month’s lim banner

- August’s reruns are cafe rec, Halloween 2022, and NY 2023, this means that one of the characters on the end of August lim banner should be Airi, Mizuki, Saki, Shiho, Kohane, Minori, Tsukasa, An, or Rin

- Kohane and Minori both have 7 lims so they can’t be lim

- Airi was lasts month’s lim so she can’t be lim

- Rin is on vs wl so she can’t be lim, and if Mizuki5 is MizuEna 4 stars, since one of them needs to be anni, the event would need to be directly after August lim, so she can’t be lim either

- This leaves us with Saki, Shiho, Tsukasa, and An as possible candidates for an end of August lim

With that, I’d say there’s two likely options for August lim:

- L/n hako lim - Most likely Ichika5, clpl has been obsessed with hako lims lately, between Saki and Shiho the one not lim here would be anni

- Tsukasa mix 3 - Clpl seems to be trying to get the leaders 3rd mixes done fast, also could be a easy explanation for the whole Kasa5 fiasco

I’d say An is much less likely since she’s 4 stars on the current event and has a chance to be anni, but there is a slim chance she could be August lim

Anyway that’s my prediction, I’m ready for clpl to completely destroy it, but they’re always really fun to make!

allow me to go full pepe silvia in return

the 'rule' you mentioned also applies just to the random rerun banners on their own, really seems like they're just asking for money from fans atp LOL. the only exception is July (intersecting melodies + CGO->ideal idol), though that's probably down to the fact they're running out of gachas to random rerun.

if we go based on the random rerun rule, then Tsukasa is indeed the only one who works. while he has one of the highest 4* counts in the game, it can easily be balanced by just not giving him another 4* for a while. he needs reward 2*s as well so you could easily just make him 2* on nene5 and call it a day. unless nene5 is october lim and then he has a good chance of being lim there instead of august. the characters we know can definitely be lim are mostly from wxs or l/n, so we've got connections there that make sense too.

alternatively yeah leoni hakolim is an option. i think the lineup is most likely to be ichika/saki/honami if this happens (or just generally though you could swap honami for a vsinger) mainly because saki cannot be reward card and leoni can't get another vsinger lim for quite a while, also this works to make shiho the anniversary lim. it opens up another opportunity to have another perm mixed event too since we skipped over a lot of slots that should've been perm mixed in order to balance unit events between WLEs. it'd be frustrating to have a fourth hakolim since april but if it happens it happens ig.

to go on a tangent (again) i've seen a lot of people predict rui/honami/mafuyu, which i think is an option but i feel like there's too much weighed against it. from a meta perspective it makes a lot of sense, like all 3 of them haven't had a lim in a while and are eligible for this gacha, plus storywise they all have connections, but that's about it. mafuyu and rui just had their kizuna and it still feels off to me that they'd give them that just before an event rather than after when they would have a more fleshed out relationship, plus honami and rui were both featured prominently in rise as one only a few months ago, and the game tends to avoid rehashing mixed event lineups so close to each other (i mean we did have minori/shiho on two mixed within 5ish months but shiho was only a small role in wedding).

yeah i think the most likely events will be leoneed hakolim or a lim banner featuring tsukasa (for money). or they could do the widely predicted rui/honami/mafuyu banner or totally pull the rug out from underneath us and do something like an ichika/nene focused event (you could probably still put tsukasa here tbh).

[vindicated-truth]

Han Kihwan was brilliantly written as the "final" vilain of the story—even if, in the grand scheme of things, he was far from the "biggest" villain, but in a way it had been fitting that he was revealed that way: that despite the posturing he had throughout the series, he was actually the least of them all—the most cowardly of them all.

As a character, he was brilliantly written in juxtaposition with the other characters in the story—and again, I will always praise Kim Sujin for writing characters with such nuanced complexity and depth that not everything is as black and white as it seems.

Han Kihwan and Han Joowon: covering up versus owning up

Nothing more starkly demonstrates how different father and son are than the motivations to their actions: everything Han Kihwan did in the story was to cover up his tracks, and everything Han Joowon did was to own up to his own mistakes.

In this they are the same: both father and son did thoughtless actions that led to someone else's death.

In this they are different: the father did everything in his power to cover up the victim's death and his direct involvement in it, while the son did everything in his power to make sure the victim isn't forgotten, even when he wasn't even the one who killed her.

Han Kihwan and Do Haewon: The father who couldn't care less versus the mother who cared too much

Han Kihwan and Do Haewon were two of the prominent parental figures in the story with living biological sons. Both had ambition: one to be the Commissioner-General, the other to be Mayor.

Both destroyed their own sons in the course of pursuing that ambition—yet fascinatingly, even though the outcome was the same, the motivations were completely opposite.

Han Kihwan sent Han Joowon away to boarding school in England soon after he directly killed Lee Yuyeon because he wanted to maintain that picture perfect image of himself in line with his ambition. Most of all, he didn't want his son to find out he was guilty.

Do Haewon locked Park Jeongje in a mental institution soon after she thought he had killed Lee Yuyeon because she didn't want Jeongje to remember. She was protecting Jeongje, above all, because she didn't want Jeongje to feel guilty.

20 years later, when both Joowon and Jeongje were beginning to finally uncover the truth, their parents' actions became entirely opposite: where Han Kihwan had been coldly distant all these years, he now becomes too insistently involved in Joowon's career in order to stop him from uncovering the truth; and Do Haewon, used to being far too involved in her son's affairs, suddenly pretends to be uncaring in the hopes that Jeongje will be protected.

Both had been toxic parents to their sons—but where Han Kihwan didn't love his son enough (or at all), Do Haewon loved her son far too much.

Everything in excess becomes toxic—even, as it turns out, love.

Han Kihwan and Lee Dongsik: The one who used everyone versus the one who saved everyone

All the characters in the story, while all have overlaps because of the complexity of their relationships and proximity to each other, can essentially be categorized into two: those in Han Kihwan's circle, and those in Lee Dongsik's circle.

(Han Joowon is the the fascinating Venn diagram that connected both circles.)

What's particularly fascinating in juxtaposing these two men is how they acted towards everyone in their circle: with Han Kihwan, everyone in his circle is just a tool to be used to further his ambitions and cover up his own dirty tracks. He doesn't hesitate to throw anyone under the bus if that person isn't useful to him anymore, or has now become a liability.

Han Joowon, his son, his own flesh and blood, isn't even an exception.

Lee Dongsik, however, did everything he could to save everyone in his circle, to protect them—even if it meant he had to resort to underhanded methods to do so.

Even if it meant he had to carry the burden all on himself—and all of the liability.

In this way, Han Kihwan and Lee Dongsik are the same: they didn't hesitate to break the law and resort to underhanded methods to get what they want.

But where Han Kihwan did it for self-centered reasons, all of Dongsik's reasons had been selfless.

Dongsik wanted to protect everyone in his circle; Han Kihwan only ever wanted to protect himself.

Han Kihwan and Han Joowon: the one who started it all and the one who finished it all

All roads lead back to the name of Han: all roads lead back to father and son.

Everything that happened in the show was because of Han Kihwan: all because of his selfish, cowardly actions that had him turning away from the body of the girl he had just killed, looked the other way as all succeeding killings happened and instead made sure to leave everything behind as he climbed up the ranks of his ambition—when all could've been solved, all could've been stopped, if he had only owned up to his mistake.

And 20 years later, it was his own son, Han Joowon, who finished everything his father had started: put a stop to the real serial killer, uncovered even further crimes beneath the surface involving bribery and corruption, incarcerated everyone involved (including Lee Dongsik himself), acquitted those who were innocent (also, fascinatingly, including Lee Dongsik), and finally brought justice to all the victims, even those the system has chosen to forget—all because Joowon couldn't forget Lee Geumhwa.

Because he didn't want to stop until he owned up to his mistake.

[bestworstcase]

any thoughts on team strq that you haven’t already touched on? like their relationships with each other and oz? you talked about how they’ll play a role in volume 10 but im wondering if you have any other insight into their characters

gestures vaguely in gretchen was the spring maiden and all things must die is about how raven feels abt summers betrayal <- related to whatever’s going to happen wrt team strq in v10 and onward because imo "what exactly happened to the last spring maiden?" and "what exactly happened to gretchen rainart?" are central narrative questions on the same level of importance as "what happened to summer rose?" just less obvious because gretchen/spring isn’t connected to any of the main characters the way summer is…

…but gretchen is hazel’s whole motivation, the last spring maiden’s death is what shattered raven, and in v8 the narrative specifically 1. informs us that salem herself personally tracked down hazel and let him kill her over and over again for HOURS before he tired himself out, and then started talking about his sister, and 2. asks why? why did she do that? why did she choose hazel, specifically? (the answer oz suggests is that hazel is just easy to manipulate, which isn’t really an answer at all. how did she even know about gretchen?)

and then like. the spring maiden vanished “over a decade ago” (so within the last 10-20 years). summer disappeared about 12 years prior to the start of v1. gretchen’s death is less concrete but 1. she and hazel were twins, 2. she died between 17-21 at the oldest, and 3. character ages are really hard to gauge but hazel seems to be in between cinder (mid 20s) and team strq (who must be at least 38 if yang was not born while they were attending beacon) which would make hazel… probably in his early thirties. if he’s 33 at the top of v4, then he and gretchen would have been beacon student age… 12-16 years ago.

interesting how summer’s disappearance, the last spring maiden’s disappearance, and gretchen rainart’s mysterious death on a training mission all happened right around the same time, isn’t it. 🤔

shrug. neither raven nor hazel are prominent enough characters for their respective "what happened?" bereavements to be so narratively important… but if gretchen was spring and she died in connection to summer’s last mission? all three big questions turn out to be really the same question. it clicks together suspiciously well.

assorted miscellanea:

i think both the ‘poly STR’ and infidelity angles wrt the tai/raven -> tai/summer drama are both a) pretty boring ways to interpret the known facts and b) working against the text itself. i also (with apologies to the rosebirds) remain unconvinced that summer/raven was ever… a thing, ravens doomed unspoken little crush on summer notwithstanding.

what DOES interest me abt that whole . mess is the turnover. i think its very unlikely that raven and tai dated through most of beacon (because of the whole "learning how to kill huntsmen" thing) and i would bet yang happened at most a year or two after the team left school. depending how long raven tried to stay that’s like, at most a 5-6 year long relationship that ended evidently because raven felt inadequate as a wife/mother. summer being the rebound, ruby being two years younger than yang, and summer leaving when ruby was about three would similarly suggest a relationship of at most 4-5ish years, by the end of which, as we saw, summer seems to have been very well-practiced emotionally masking around tai.

taking that into consideration with… everything we know about yang’s childhood after summer left, the very quick rebound from raven to summer, and tai’s… at best, insensitivity and emotional immaturity in v4 its kinda. well ok. he acts like this NOW, in his late thirties or early forties, and still thinks the really quite mean prank he pulled on his new roommate on day 1 at seventeen is fucking hilarious, he presumably was like this in his twenties too. raven left her relationship with him feeling deeply insecure and inadequate, summer did not feel able to emotionally confide in him before she also left him, and neither woman’s relationship with him lasted more than five years. interesting.

there’s a lot of speculation out there (mostly: summer/qrow and summer/raven secret parentage nonsense) that takes the very fast rebound and (since v9) the emotional disconnect between summer and tai in 9.10 as textual evidence for summer never having been romantically involved with tai at all, which to be blunt is an unserious and countertextual way to interpret the story, but like. gestures at raven. this happened TWICE with the same guy, back to back.

or there’s the somehow even more off the wall take that wah poor tai got strung along in loveless relationships by these cold-hearted women :( which. hello???

anyway i want to know how summer rose feels about him with fourteen years of hindsight because from where i’m sitting, with the facts we have available, it sure does look like tai is perhaps the common denominator. shot in the dark based on his characterization in the present and the way he talks about raven now? i’d guess charming, bit of a hopeless romantic, fairweather partner who deals with conflict by blaming the other party. tbh.

as for. qrow. his relationships with tai and summer are harder to get a read on than raven (with whom he has a fairly straightforward "siblings who both feel rejected by the other and deal with it by being prickly and jabby at each other" situation going on) ’cause like on the one hand qrow clearly admired summer a lot and he and tai have some… unspoken resentment under the surface but on the other i really don’t get the impression that summer and qrow were especially close and while tai seems to have a problem with him, the opposite doesn’t seem to be true.

qrow’s the one who stuck around and kept trying and wanted raven to come back, and his dedication is specifically because he felt like ozpin (not his team) gave him a place to belong. it’s. hm. between his semblance-related social aloofness and the romantic entanglements of the other three i get the impression that qrow tended to be sort of the odd one out but also the one who most wanted them all to be a real team. which i imagine fueled his devotion to ozpin.

what else…

oh the hero/monster complex with regard to summer and raven is SUPER interesting. the silver-eyed warrior and the bandit training to kill huntsmen. i think—this is very tentative speculation bc it’s based mostly on fractals and why i think summer joined salem—but i don’t think summer ever particularly bought into the black and white fairytale way of looking at the world except insofar as she felt the pressure herself. we know qrow stayed because ozpin gave him a place to belong; i think raven stayed because summer treated her like a person instead of a weapon.

[sapphicnaturalrights]

here are deep dives for each of the prompts for the week! if you have any more questions, our asks are open! as always, feel free to combine as many prompts as you like, just try one, or pay them no attention at all

day 1: heaven & hell / bury your gays

one of the juiciest binaries in the supernatural lore, you could start off the week with getting to grips with the angel and demon sapphics, from ambriel to abaddon. you could focus on heaven and hell together or pick one. or maybe these aren't places, but instead states of mind?

there's a lot to be said about supernatural as The Bury Your Gays show, and now it's time to focus on the sapphics! as jess moore says, "i was dead the moment we said hello". this is a chance to focus on the women the show killed off and how viscerally and violently it did so. you could reclaim that violence, get revenge, or find new meanings in it. you could also explore women in horror, and maybe bury some gays in fun new ways...

day 2: pink / chappell roan

an iconic colour on many a pride flag - the sapphic, lesbian, bisexual, pan, trans flags to name a few - pink holds a lot of symbolism, and for a lot of women, some baggage too. from the barbie fans to not like other girls, what's the first thing to come to mind when you think of pink?

imagine it: what if we had chappell roan on 2021 spnblr. what would you have created then? maybe the most prolific sapphic icon of the present moment, get inspired by her songs, her lyrics, or her wonderfully camp aesthetic.

day 3: came back wrong / monster

you can bring back the gays you burried, but are they still the same? an iconic trope which occurs in the canon of the show, but has endless potential for other women characters too - what if amara brought back [insert dead sapphic here] instead of mary? what is so 'wrong' about how they've come back? women characters are often fridged - killed for men characters' plot development - so how do these resurrected women get their agency back?

what makes a monster a monster? feel free to play with the good/bad, right/wrong, human/monster dichotomy. what about that fraught, tense, intimate relationship between a hunter and a monster? what if you love that monster; what if the monster loves you...

day 4: butch & femme / disabled sapphics

two iconic terms for queer women, butch and femme play with gender identity and presentation. traditionally, butches '...prefer masculine signals, personal appearance, and styles', and femmes '...prefer behaviors and signals defined as feminine within the larger culture' (x). we've all heard of butch!jo, but how many other supernatural women can you experiment with?

for some more reading on the roles of butch and femme in sapphic communities, here is an article by queer studies scholar gayle rubin.

when you hear 'disabled supernatural sapphic' it is all too easy to think of eileen and pamela. but we invite you to get crazy with disabled headcanons too! you could explore how sapphic hunters cope with disabling injuries, how angels and demons learn sign language for each other, or the effects of learning disabilities and neurodivergency on your favourite spn women.

day 5: lavender / one episode wonder

another colour day! as a variation of purple it is another popular colour on pride flags, and as a flower lavender has all sorts of symbolism in sapphic communities. from 'lavender marriages' between lesbians and gay men, to the lesbian 'lavender menance' movement of the 1970s, we invite you to dive deeply into the varied meanings of lavender with this prompt.

one episode wonder is for the women who only graced our screens for a single episode! they are a prominent theme in supernatural and now we get to ask - how are they doing? are they dead or flourishing; how did their experience with the supernatural world affect their connection to the hunting life? did they get into it like charlie? are they still trying to make sense of what happened? undoubtedly they met other women because of it...

day 6: new & niche / gaslight gatekeep girlboss

we all know sapphicnatural is brilliant for rarepairs, and this prompt is a chance to celebrate that! we challenge you to come up with new pairings which have never been conceived before, and get funky with them. you could also find a 'niche' pairing which is not often talked about within sapphicnatural and contribute to growing their sapphicnatural following!

for some inspiration here, check out @mrcowboydeanwinchester's sapphicnatural statistics sheet. pulling from the fics in the sapphicnatural collection on ao3, there is info about how many fics are written about each ship. you could pull from a ship near the bottom of the list, or create your own!

gaslight gatekeep girlboss is the final prompt of the week and it's time for a fun one. here at sapphicnaturalrights we support sapphics' rights and sapphics' wrongs and think you should too!!

day 7: free day

this day is a free space! go wild! you can catch up with something you wanted to work with during the week but didn’t have time for, or just explore something else completely

that's it! make sure you tag all your creations with #sapphicnaturalrights so we can see and reblog your gorgeous work!

[pzychojinx]

the thing about the greens' family dynamics is we could have so much more. and that's a recurring issue. most prominently shown in 2.01, for sure - but a recurring issue nonetheless. helaena loses a son in a horrible, unspeakable way. first of all, give us more time with her prior to this tragedy. make us connect to her. then show us her relationship to the kids and simultaneously to her own mother. show us the lines that connect motherhood, girlhood and grief. show us a line of generational trauma. make it a parallel to rhaenyra and jace's scenes over lucerys. show us alicent, whose own relationship with motherhood has been complex and pivotal to her character, alicent whose marriage and pregnancies were political, alicent who was thrust into motherhood as little more than a child, having to witness her daughter watching the murder of a son. scratch whatever that was with cole. give us alicent facing the brutal madness of war, the consequences of it all on her daughter's face. show us aegon, who's known helaena all his life, fundamentally speaking a different language than her. do not dismiss it with 'the queen is an enduring mystery'. he knows she's a prophet, even if he doesn't get her. they're headed to tragedy. it's coming for them. show us two people who are familiar with each other but don't understand each other and are ultimately unable to help each other when the blow hits. give us a failmarriage. and aemond, for fuck's sake. ewan and tom have been saying aemond is aegon's attack dog. gorgeous. show it to us. he gets a pass to the council, sure, why? we don't get to see their bond, we should get to see what ties them together. we see him dismiss alicent's feelings and she dismisses his, but where's the confrontation? where's the complexity? they're mother and son. there's some bloody history here. don't treat them like people who just so happen to live in the same fucking palace. there is so much to say. there is a potential intricacy here that would be so compelling if they just tried a little bit harder and it starts with otto and it goes all the way to the murder of jaeherys but we just don't get to see it. 2.01 did a good job both with aegon's deep necessity to be liked which was already explored in s1 as well as with the issues he carries from viserys and we see it with the smallfolk as well as we see it with his treatment of his kid. that's good, that's compelling. give us more. team this vs team that, gonna be real, who cares. this is a very brutal story, and for the viewer to get this brutality we need to be able to connect with these characters. otherwise it falls flat. b&c was no red wedding because they took helaena's choice away. the potential in these characters and dynamics is there but it needs to be explored or it all falls flat.

[ericmicael]

Does ElsaMaren have a real chance of being canon considering how Disney treated ValCarol and is treating WolfWren?

VALCAROL

In the first Captain Marvel film, the fandom created a strong shipp between Carol and Maria Rambeau. A certain headcanon that has emerged is that Carol is the stepmother of Monica, Maria's daughter, and in fact the three seemed to live as a family with Monica having two mothers.

The first time Valkyrie and Carol met on screen was in "Endgame", and even with just quick glances the fans shipped, we are like that for sapphic shipps. But the most interesting thing was that Brie Larson (Carol) and Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie) really embraced the shipp, although Brie didn't abandon her shipp with War Machine (Carol's canon romantic couple in the comics), but it was always interactions about the ValCarol shipp on Brie's part were much louder.

I consider that Valkyrie was a replacement for Maria, Maria was the main shipp, but as she died Valkyrie seemed to be a good candidate for a replacement since the headcanon of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel being a lesbian was always very big and Valkyrie is canonically bisexual. And if you want to compare it to Frozen: the Queen of Summer Marisol with whom Elsa seemed to really have a connection would be Maria, but as she couldn't go to a film Honeymaren was the replacement even with much fewer scenes as Valkyrie.

And what was ValCarol's conclusion? "Captain Marvel 2/The Marvels". Valkyrie was indeed included in the film, gave Carol a kiss on the cheek with a certain flirtatious air and left. But it seems that it wasn't just that, and that Disney actually asked to cut a conversation between them that would reveal that Carol and Valkyrie actually had a romantic relationship in the past, but that it ended and they decided to just be friends.

WOLFWREN

Shin Hati, the original villain of the "Ahsoka" series and Sabine Wren, one of the heroines and a character with almost 10 years of existence. In the series they are rivals and face each other a few times, with Shin almost killing Sabine herself in the first fight by piercing her belly with the Light Saber. But although this beginning Shin never really seemed to hate Sabine, she fought much more on impulse than anyone else. Shin even questions orders regarding Sabine's elimination when a promise was broken. At the end of the first season, after once again failing to kill Sabine, Shin realizes that she has lost everything, was abandoned by her master and is isolated... in the same place that Sabine is. I summarized a lot.

A standard “enemies to lovers” shipp, but a sapphic “enemies to lovers” shipp, which is already better than the traditional ones. And it gained a lot of prominence in the fandom and especially among the actresses who play Shin (Ivanna Sakhno) and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), and also among the other actors in the series. But in addition to the cast, the “Star Wars” pages began to promote the shipp by making official editions with the actors, reinforcing this magnetic connection between Shin and Sabine.

What will be the future of WolfWren? We need to wait for the second season of "Ahsoka", it may just be queerbait after all, although "Andor", another "Star Wars" series, has an official lesbian couple: Vel and Cnta, but who so far have not kissed and you have to pay close attention to the dialogues and interactions to realize that they are a couple.

ELSAMAREN

What could all this mean for ElsaMaren? That Disney is at least willing to give crumbs to fans of the sapphic shipps, especially when the actresses are very supportive. Rachel Matthews (Honeymaren) is an avowed ElsaMaren shipper and likes to tease the shipp's fans sometimes, Idina Menzel is more neutral on the subject, but Idina is very supportive of LGBT causes and is proud of how Elsa, Elphaba and Maureen were embraced by the LGBT community, even officially just Maureen being part of it. If ElsaMaren is confirmed you can be sure that Idina will speak with great excitement about the couple.

But Disney? Even when she tried to hug ValCarol she was cowardly at the last moment and if we think about Bob Iger's last statements things become even less hopeful. And even if my theory that in fact Honeymaren was created to be Elsa's love interest but this arc was reduced to just concept art and two scenes is real, that unfortunately doesn't mean it can be returned. But I still bet on interpretative crumbs.

[renthefox]

What makes Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi canon even though there's no vocal confirmation or a kiss on the mouth?

{BECAUSE I NEED MY SANITY AFTER FOLLOWING S2}

First of all, for whoever doesn't know, it's illegal to show gay "sexual practices" in China. As a result, the creators, even if they wanted, they are restrained by laws. It has to be expressed as strong subtext.

First of all, we have the name of the series itself, where "shiguang" means time and is created by taking our boys' names and compounding them into one: Cheng XiaoSHI + Lu GUANG. It's obviously also related to their front shop cover business as photographers, but this is what one would also call this pairing ship.

Secondly, as I've noted in previous post, the posters show them with yin & yang colours. But even the clothes used in the doghua imply their relationship is something more; CXS's bomber jacket combines both yellow/orange (his signature colours from the promos) and blue (LG's signature colour). Doesn't it have the same vibes like a girlfriend wearing her boyfriend's shirt?

Thirdly, in the chibi show, LG is a cat and CXS is a dog. I'm not Chinese, so I'm not 100% sure on this one, but many cultures will associate cats with femme fatales or with female characteristics, while dogs with masculinity as guards. In Japan, that's an actual gay lingo, with neko being the "bottom" partner, not to mention similar manga depictions in BL manga and doujinshi.

Fourthly, we are granted a short where our two protagonists are entangled in red string, while playing string ladder. Red string is a very prominent symbol for fated lovers in East Asia.

Last but not least, can we all acknowledge the "irony" of them being roommates? This has become such a meme, especially withing historical context, that I doubt it's not intended. As for the bunk beds, they're a matter of lack ofspace and money, not to mention the concept of "saving face".

Anything else comes directly from the dialogue or parallel scenes and the characters' interactions. See below.

In ep2, s1, the scene is most likely a reference to Lady and the Trump, where the couple shares a plate of pasta and somehow end up being connected by a single noodle. We don't really see the boys eating, but the arrangement is the same, and CXS even names the dish the "male dormitory's bowl" much like the women had named theirs the "female dormitory's bowl". And the ladies, not married until their early 40s, starting a business together, using ingredients of emotional significance to each other... they are definitely together as an item.

I think this one is pretty straightforward. They almost had a fur baby together.

In another chibi episode, LG and CXS are meant to fight one another as training, and both are unwilling to badmouth each other as a fight starter. Even the immature CXS, who one would guess could be the guy to make a laundry list of complaints, uses his own flaws and secrets to provoke LG. And by the way, two things are revealed: a) CXS basically confessed through a fake account, and b) LG protected CXS, putting the blame for breaking the cups on himself.

I don't know about you, but this sounds so very gay flirting to me.

The personal space these two share is very tight many times, beyond just friends who care for each other or shy people who feel embarrassed by admitting what they like in their "friend".

I don't know that many male friends who would rub against each other in an effort to charm the other into persuassion...