#we do not however!!!! live in a vacuum!!!

[fangsandfeels]

>Ok but he doesn't. He thinks he does. He thinks he has Rook all pinned down. It's why he doesn't expect Rook to escape the Prison of Regret but Rook does. Solas is convinced that all of his manipulation to get Rook to drown in regret is enough to keep them trapped in that prison. In his pride, he doesn't expect Rook to escape. He once again doesn't expect Rook to see through his final betrayal about the veil. He also doesn't expect Rook to have enough cards by the end to stop him (which is conditional based on what you do in the game)

I don't think that Varric was thinking that far ahead when he was hiring Rook. Hiring someone who can make decisions during high-risk situations and face the outcome is logical - you know that this person has the resilience necessary and won't back away from a challenging task.

However, to hire them because they're unpredictable and can potentially outsmart or outwit Solas? I don't think they were aiming that high or planning that far ahead. They just needed reliable people to hopefully intercept Solas before he sets his plans in motion.

Also, it's not uncommon for Solas to underestimate people. He woke up and decided that the beings living after the Veil deserved to go extinct because he saw them as terminally disabled due to their disconnect from the Fade - and only later was he forced to acknowledge them as people, which didn't dissuade him from his goals, just made him feel bad about what he was going to do.

He had flawed opinions about dwarves, Qunari, humans - and he still has them, but recognizes the Inquisitor as "one of the good ones" on High Approval. So, his pride has always been his weakness and the reason for his hubris.

The Inquisitor would have gotten out of the Prison of Regret, just like many other determined and strong personalities Solas knew personally - because they made as many, if not even more hard decisions as Rook did, and they didn't let regret stop them.

>Cassandra also spent time in the Hunterhorn Mountains north of Orlais, where she worked to rebuild the Seekers. For a time, the new Seekers remained reclusive, showing no interest in worldly affairs and working to a purpose few outside their order could guess.

"For a time" doesn't necessarily mean "for entire 10 years". Also, Seekers seeming reclusive and working to a purpose few outside their order could guess makes sense in the context of the Trespasser - if Cassandra decided to use the Seekers to assist the Inquisitor with searching for Solas, she isn't going to tell everyone and their mother about it.

Nobody knows what exactly Seekers are working on because nobody needs to know. Cassandra did learn a lot, and she learned how to be subtle. At least, had she been included in the plot of the Veilguard, there wouldn't have been any disconnect between the epilogue and her actions.

As for her not showing up in Southern Thedas due to political reasons, it would have been understandable, especially if there was a particularly intense geopolitical situation (I'm elaborating on this in the final paragraphs below). However, since Solas could be anywhere because of the Eluvians, she still can help in the regions she can go to.

>With Corypheus gone there is a power vacuum. A cult of fanatics don't just say "oh well, guess we'll go home now." According to Tevinter Nights (which the franchise being a mixed-media franchise has it's own problems), while a lot distanced themselves from the Venatori there were still a good number of loyalists who remained active. This leads to Aelia trying to fill in that role. She does gain a decent amount of support for it. Even when she's "captured" she has enough sway to escape prison and cause problems. Why? Because the Venatori's ideology is appealing to a lot of people in Tevinter even if they don't directly associate with the cult. However, with her "failure" we have another power vacuum present - so why is it "lazy writing" to have the emergence of another powerful mage that speaks like Corypheus and offer power similarly to what he did fill that?

First of all, yes, telling the story of the game in bits of other media is a horrible practice. Not all people are going to read them - so, it should be explained in the game. Not just by codex entries, but by the characters. I had no clue who Aelia was and why she was bad news - and Neve's vague explanations didn't make it any clearer.

Second, without Corypheus the Venatori lost their competitive differentiation, so to speak- their ideology wasn't any different from the general ideology of Tevinter, just a tad more honest and aggressive.

Yes, Tevinter is obsessed with the idea of its supremacy. Yes, it believes it deserves to rule the world and is working towards this goal.

Venatori are just too loud and messy about it, especially without an ancient god/demigod backing them up. So, if the Venatori can't serve the Tevinter's cause meaningfully or at least fall in line, the Tevinter's power would have either dismantled them (either forcefully or by destroying them from inside), just so they would stop causing so much ruckus and getting unwanted attention.

Alternatively, Tevinter would have exploited their zeal and fanaticism (for instance, encouraging their unethical magic research or even agreeing to finance their search for magisters like Corypheus) because despite being absolutely despicable Tevinter isn't stupid and it knows an opportunity when it sees one.

What I mean to say is that the game tries to show that the Venatori are the main reason why Tevinter is corrupt and not getting any better instead of showcasing how deep the problem goes and how it's much more complicated than "defeating a group of bad guys with an evil name"

>The supremacist ideology of the Venatori embody everything you're saying here. The examples you're giving are all part of the supremacist mindset. Hedonistic and power-obsessed ruling class? Yep. "Slavery is bad" and "we should treat non-mages as people" Those two concepts are directly against the supremacists ideology. We also do get some notes from Dorian doing just that Veilguard. The Venatori isn't just one shade of ugly, it's the embodiment of everything wrong in Tevinter. It's the supremacist ideology given form.

Then why make such a focus on the Venatori if the entire Tevinter is built on the ideas of supremacy? Why?

By making the Venatori solo bad guys of Tevinter, the writers washed their hands off the entire corrupt system of Tevinter established in the previous games - see, guys, magisters aren't that bad and the entire Tevinter society doesn't need a wake-up call, it were the Venatori all along. The Venatori are bad, Tevinter nobles practice slavery just because they're misunderstood and confused, and I guess Danarius, Hadriana, and all the slavers from Tevinter you had met before were just the Venatori in trench coats.

The reason why Tevinter refused to acknowledge the Venatori in the Inquisition was because of their cultish obsession with Corypheus and unsubtle aggressiveness, which didn't look good for their long-term ambitions and plotting.

It would have made more sense if the Venatori either became an official ruling party by the events of Veilguard (no coup needed) because a) they didn't meet any resistance from Senate or the people of Tevinter, b) they brought proof of ancient magisters actually existing, which gave magisters a huge ego boost and added quasireligious delusions to the Tevinter's program, c) Par-Vollen officially started its invasion (like it was promised in the previous games) by attacking Antiva, giving Tevinter the opportunity to be more active and aggressive (infiltrating Antiva by offering it "protection" from the Qunari, reintegrating Kirkwall under the guise of defensive measures), preying on the neighbor's desperation and vulnerability to its influence.

But instead, they're shown as that malicious cult that is officially opposed and rejected as if Tevinter somehow had an issue with their philosophy.

>Varric is the one tasked with forming a small team. It's his responsibility to form that team and onboard people and vet them. With the way it's framed in "The Missing" Varric had full authority to bring on whoever. He didn't need approval. They kept in touch via Charter and sent correspondence to the Inquisitor but there wasn't any need for approval.

That's the problem, especially considering that the group was going against Solas with his immense abilities and his network of spies. Bringing on whoever is dangerous. There should be at least reporting to the Inquisitor about new recruits because otherwise Varric had been putting himself in a stab-me-in-the-back situation for Solas' spies all that time.

>Given Varric's line to Neve at the beginning, Varric is upfront with the information: "I also told you he was an ancient elven god." Whether the person believes them is dependent on the person. Rook has been tracking Solas with Varric for a year or so. I think by now they've witnessed enough to believe Varric's information.

Having the information doesn't mean being prepared to face Solas - a guy who has been manipulating and doing psychological warfare long before the the Veil. Also, Varric gives a very one-sided perspective on Solas because he only knows him as his former ally. The Inquisitor gets to know a lot more about Solas - after all, they're the one he rants to during his High Approval scene at the balcony, they're the one he subtly confirms his chosen course of action with, they're the one who sees him leave after the Orb is broken, and they're the one to meet him again in the Trespasser. Varric doesn't have this information, he didn't see that side of Solas, so whatever information he gives to Rook is incomplete. Rook doesn't know what they're dealing with. Moreover, Rook doesn't need to know that Solas is sentimental - Rook needs to know that Solas is very good at lying and deceiving people and that he is ruthless.

It all could have been addressed within prologue dialogues, but all we got was Rook asking "So, when we find this Solas...then what?" - which sounded as if Rook joined the group just yesterday. As a result, Rook sounds woefully unprepared.

>You think they wouldn't let that stop them. I think they're smart enough to not continue to play an active part if any information they get or send off is information Solas is spoon feeding them. If their continued involvement would cause more harm then good then yea, I think they would take a step back. I think they would hand off the reigns to others.

The problem is: who are these others? The entire "there is a real elven god walking around and he wants to destroy the Veil" story is very hard to explain to anyone who hadn't been around during the events of the Trespasser. Dismissive and derogatory attitude towards the elven culture aside, people don't respond to the "gods are among us" claims well without proof. It's not the Blight, which is super hard to ignore. It's something new - and it's so challenging to everyone's religious ideas that engaging new allies would have required some thoughtful wording and messaging.

There is a reason the guys who believed that Andraste reincarnated into a dragon were considered lunatics in the DA:O. To find others who can handle Solas (while knowing what he is and bracing themselves for a tough challenge) would take time and effort - meanwhile, both Leliana and Josephine have the burden of knowing the threat, knowing it's coming. I can't honestly imagine them sitting on their hands and hoping that the Inquisitor finds someone.

Now, there could have been a wonderful way to keep them busy and not as involved without making it look odd. For instance, if Par Vollen officially declared war and started invading Rivain and Antiva.

In that case, Josephine would be fully committed to doing whatever she can for her country, while Leliana's presence will be crucial for a) the morale and safety (if Divine), b) working against Ben-Hassrath and gathering intel (if Sister Nightingale).

>They do find new allies through their journey.

We don't see them in the game.

>They do find people who have ample knowledge of magic and ancient history.

We don't see them in the game.

>This idea also continues to play out in Veilguard. We find someone who has connections.

There is only Neve who is more of a investigative journalist/freedom fighter who never dealt with gods, ancient magic or anything like that. She herself admits that she is way over her head.

>We find someone who has ample knowledge of the fade since that's what Solas was directly trying to manipulate.

Aside from Emmrich, there is nobody else available - and Rook employs him after Varric is out of commission, leaving Rook desperate for help and clues because they have nothing. That's the issue: there are no tangible results after the 10 years of search. Rook starts from the ground zero - even though they aren't supposed to.

>I do not think it implicitly means what you've interpreted it to. I think that's how you interpreted that and I think that's a valid interpretation of it. Unfortunately that's not where they took it. That's also now how I interpreted it. I think a lot of the fandom interpreted this in different ways and that leads to disappointment if their interpretation wasn't correct. I think that's what's happening to you here. I don't think Bioware not catering to your interpretation means "they don't care." or anything like that. I think it's just that what you predicted or assumed based on the information provided ended up being incorrect. Other people predicted it correctly. If anything this just means that the marketing team could have done better at setting expectations and making sure everyone was on the same page.

From my point of view, there are things that are meant to be interpreted differently by players, and that are part of worldbuilding that isn't up for interpretation. For example, the Warden can be absolutely merciless and cruel in their decisions - and their motivations depend on the player's interpretation (trauma, anger due to oppression, refusal to be kind to the world that screwed them over, simple assholery). Similarly, the Warden can be heroic and selfless - why are they like that is still up to the player's interpretation. However, the end goal doesn't change: Kill the Archdemon. It doesn't matter how evil or how kind the Warden is as long as they get the job done. They become the Hero of Ferelden regardless.

All the threats created or hinted at were never up to interpretation. Blights are extremely dangerous. The Mage-Templar war caused massive destructive disruptions across the Andrastian regions, leaving mages and templars particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The death of the Divine led to hysteria and massive crisis of faith, while the Breach and the rise of Corypheus led to the emergence of the Venatori and red lyrium zombies. And the characters always responded accordingly to the threats -- either because of their rank and calling or due to them having exclusive understanding of the problem and needing to be in the loop.

The ending of Trespasser implied that Leliana and Cassandra were sticking around, working with Inquisitor and following the Inquisitor's decisions (and certainly taking note of how easily Solas infiltrated their networks). For them to just bow out without any explanation or reason isn't the problem of interpretation - the game didn't deliver its own buildup.

>But Bioware can't just make whatever they want. Bioware is owned by EA (not just published through them. OWNED by them). Bioware has to pay people to make the games. They need to get the funding and approval from EA to do so. This means that no matter how passionate the team is, there's only so much they can do and EA gets a huge say in what that is. EA who explicitly stated earlier AFTER BG3 released that they don't think single player story based games are worth investing in. WHICH IS INSANE TO ME. EA had them start developing the game one way. EA had them change development midway. EA had them remove all multiplayer pieces. EA cut funding to Bioware forcing them to make cuts in staff.

I admit, I don't know whether it was Bioware or EA who decided to completely dunk on the elves and their entire arc in the Veilguard, make a clown show out of Qunari, destroy Loghain as a character and erase nearly the entire Southern Thedas - and then naively hope for Dragon Age series to get the next game.

I don't know whether it was the Bioware's love ruined by the EA (which definitely played the part in it because I know how soulless and greedy management can fuck up the production) or Bioware writing it all out of spite and then releasing the artbook so people could pay $75 to see the content and the story that never happened and will never happen.

The outcome is the same: there is no reason for me to give them money. If Bioware can no longer make it's own creative choices, I will no longer buy its games because it means rewarding EA for its abhorrent practices.

There is no point in believing in Bioware anymore and support it because if this is where EA is taking it, I'd rather let my favorite series die and be put to rest than see them twisted into the parody of their former selves.

I understand your point, but IMHO, the problem of Veilguard isn't that it's not perfect - it has been actively hurt by the choices and management, which is why it's the pale shadow of what it was supposed to be.

Moreover, I don't even know what the writing team thinks because they either lump reasonable criticism together with elon musk fanboys whining, which is downright insulting or carefully pat themselves on the back for the job done. I understand that EA may have made them sign some kind of BS contract that doesn't allow them to speak ill of EA and its decisions for 100 years or so, but even refraining from comments would have sent the message.

Right now, both behaviors create an impression as it's the players fault for having expectations and wanting the proper final of their story, instead of just consuming the content.

And that's just sad.

Bioware writing team has a comfy, sheltered life and it shows

I'm sorry, but how come that the only people Inquisitor sent to look for Solas were Varric and Harding? How come that the only people recruited in 10 years of pursuing Solas were Neve and Rook? Do the writers understand that this is NOT how a serious effort looks like?

What about Leliana? Divine or not, she is still Sister Nightingale with an immense spywork. You'd think she won't mobilize everything she has to track Solas and his followers?

What about Josephine? What, she decided "nah, I'm done" and didn't use any of her diplomatic talents and connections to let the Inquisitor's agents have access, permissions or information they need?

What about Dorian? As a political figure, you'd think he will be the first Minrathous contact for the Inquisitor allies, the one arranging things and providing insights?

What about Cassandra and her Seekers? Isn't she interested in stopping another world-ending threat?

What about Sera and her sabotaging potential? If she organized the group of people for performing vigilante acts, people who are her eyes and ears, how come nobody from her group is helping with the effort?

I get it why Varric takes part in it - he knew Solas, the Inquisitor trusts him and his judgement, but for the game to imply that all the responsibility was lumped on Varric's shoulders is fucking disgraceful. I get it writers, Varric is popular character, and you would use him as bait to your heart's content, but the context you've created implies that Varric might have been the only one to take the threat seriously, while the Inquisitor and the rest were doing God knows what.

Varric should have been handing the Rook information on all the contacts they can recruit, all the useful agents, all the people to work with, not tell them to ask Neve because she might know someone because detective (Neve is a good character, but the fact that people who were supposed to spend 10 years chasing Solas look up to her for finding them contacts is appalling).

"Oh, but all these people were in the previous parts and we don't want to mention previous parts because muh new players" - well, you shot yourselves in the foot. Maybe, just maybe, you should have AT LEAST cared more about the choices made in DAI.

Congrats.

[menlove]

okay actually no I'm NOT done bc so many people on here will hear someone say "men are an oppressive class who hold social power and privilege" and SCREAM bioessentialism but literally no part of that is bioessentialism in fact it's LITERALLY the opposite. like no men ARENT biologically oppressive and evil or whatever. they aren't biologically superior or stronger or more violent or anything. SOCIETY put them in a position of power and based all our gender norms around that. this is such basic shit it's actually exhausting.

everyone wants to parrot "gender is a social construct" until you actually start talking about what that means and who that construct is benefitting and why

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Mordecai probably lives in an apartment or something, but my first thought when you brought up the Caves on that post was that he won’t tell us because he’s been living in the Caves the Whole Time. Even tho he’d hate the slime mold.

yeah a Whole Damn House would be a bit much, and probably not as useful for the nightly bootlegging related goings on: see, freckle needing to stand around waiting for a ride before he can go shoot people. whereas mordecai can show up to the maribel hotel on foot, or at least have started out somewhere he could get a cab or whatever....and this is probably the closest to any relevant Living Situation Glimpses

someplace with a bed, and one with an art deco headboard....a modern style, so it's neither Antique nor unfancy enough to have less identifiable stylings at all. like just by guessing surely he lives in some apartment that's unassuming enough to live unassumingly in, with whatever alias, so something large & fancy would be unhelpful....plus if he's gonna be fairly rigorous in his domestic upkeep, it wouldn't really help to have a huge place, even if for the same reasons it wouldn't be too small (or old or otherwise unpleasant; hard no to slime mold, slime, or mold....) and like re: the rotating aliases, maybe he moves places fairly regularly for good measure, been at this like, a decade....tl;dr probably has some apartment/s that's roomy but not huge, nice but not Fancy fancy, at the nexus of practicality, resources, and preferences

but it's important to think about "what if mordecai's been living in the caves the whole time" b/c that's funny lmao

[baphometsss]

I don't wanna sit here and act like I'm a professional or anything, because I'm not, but as someone who has had to do a lot of work to overcome trauma and reconfigure my brain more or less from the ground up, there's a lot I have to say about Solas's mental state

We know that Solas was essentially used and abused by Mythal for millennia. Even if he wasn't under a geas, he was twisted from his purpose by being made to fight, and then created the Wolf's Fang which was used to make the Titans tranquil and started the Blights. He made those choices himself, but it's important to understand that no choice is ever made in a vacuum. She took advantage of his vulnerability when he was given a body after however long as a spirit semi-existing peacefully in the Fade, and moulded him into a weapon.

He is broken, because Mythal broke him. I'm not incapable of seeing why she did what she did because like I said, no one makes choices in a vacuum and I could write about her for a long time too (in a similar way to how I have had to do myself in my own life in understanding why others abused me). He was so traumatised by everything that happened and he was trauma bonded to Mythal pretty much from the minute he gained a body. Trauma bonds are not about love. He definitely interpreted it that way, as most people do, but that's the weapon abusers use to keep the victim under their control. Abuse abuse abuse show a scrap of love and then abuse some more. If I just take it, I'll get the love/attention I need. I will earn it, because love is suffering, and I have to suffer to earn getting my basic needs met from my family/friends. Mythal, as his creator, was the one who he would've attached to in a similar way to spirit Cole/human Cole.

Trauma bonds are pathological. Mythal made him believe that if he did as she asked, and kept supporting her, then eventually he would gain her favour and they would be able to free all the elves, and he'd be able to live according to his true nature, which is one where he doesn't have to fight. (Remember his personal quest in DAI? He actually kills the rebel mages for corrupting his friend--another Wisdom spirit--into Pride.) In reality, she was just using him. She always kept the bone just out of reach for her lapdog. The line from Rook where they say (paraphrasing here) 'you know, I was actually excited about getting your approval... That's how you do it, isn't it? Keep giving little scraps of approval to keep someone loyal, and then you turn around and betray them' is so telling too.

Where--or from whom--do you think he learned to do this?

It literally reeks of a pathological trauma bond and honestly, with how isolated, 'grim and fatalistic' Solas is, it is not a surprise that he's so broken.

Solas, essentially, is little more than a lap-dog to Mythal. He followed her like a lost puppy, because especially in his early days, that's kind of what he was. You have to remember that most of the insight we get about Mythal is from Solas's perspective, and he is not a reliable person when it comes to her after so long being repeatedly terrorised and twisted and manipulated. There are several instances where he describes being betrayed by her, and mentions some of the things she did, but he never quite holds her fully accountable and ends up directing his rage elsewhere. (The parallel between Mythal/Solas and the rebel mages/Wisdom is important here.)

This awesome post by @mythalism only reinforces this. He is so messed up in that scene, he is broken, he is holding the Wolf's Fang up, trying to give it to her because it symbolises the burden he has carried for thousands of years trying to avenge her death. He never wanted the Fang, like he never wanted a body. Mythal just stands over him, fully aware of what she did to him, and only getting him to stop because Rook petitioned her successfully, and the reunion with the more benevolent Mythal within Morrigan tempered her anger. She was a goddess, with the unequal power dynamic, right to the end.

As a side note, on the potential romance element between Mythal and Solas, I read an excellent breakdown of it on Reddit a while ago about how out of character it would've been for Solas to keep something like that from a romanced Lavellan, especially in Trespasser when he comes clean about his plan/past. I can't find it now because it was pre-Veilguard release, but it made a lot of sense to me. Solas and Lavellan never have a love scene in DAI because Solas didn't want to 'lay with them under false pretences'. Lying about who you are when sleeping with someone is nonconsensual. You can't consent to sleeping with someone if you don't know their true identity, and someone who knowingly lies about who they are to get into your pants is a sexual predator. For someone who led a slave rebellion (no doubt many of them being sex slaves), and a former spirit of Wisdom, Solas would've been well aware of this. In the unsent letter from Solas to Lavellan he says he came so close to breaking and desperately wanted to stay with them as Solas, with the implication being that that is where he planned to sleep with them once he'd come clean. But because he stops, because he's still unable to forgive himself or release himself from his trauma bond with Mythal, he breaks away, and they never have sex.

Bottom line: Solas would've been honest about it. Especially that. As the Inquisitor says, he can't lie about his heart.

And it's why the Solas/Lavellan romance is so powerful because quote, 'you change everything'. Solas thought he knew what love was, that love was loyalty, devotion, worship, etc. It's not just his plans or worldview that Lavellan changes. Lavellan sees him for who he is, without the mantle of Dread Wolf, and because of that he's able to express his true nature to her, even if he's not being totally honest in Inquisition. Lavellan got much closer to the real him than most, as he says, and changed his understanding of love completely. Unfortunately, he has unfinished business, an unresolved trauma bond, and his crushing sense of duty to the past is what keeps him from taking that final step towards letting go of it entirely. Trick also says Solas doesn't think he deserves love, which tbh is kind of a hallmark trait of people who have survived abuse.

And honestly? Call me a simp but I think he really was trying to get the Inquisitor to stop him. He saw himself being unable to let go because he was so broken and burdened by his guilt, and knew he couldn't save himself--was too proud to admit that he couldn't, because how pathetic does it make him look? And how could he stop now without rendering all the damage he'd wrought pointless? Yet here was someone who had changed him right down to his core, who understood him in a way few people ever had, whom he trusted, whom he loved in a way he hadn't loved anyone else before. It took him 'centuries' to build up rapport with the members of his rebellion. The man does not know how to form attachments without trauma, and suddenly he forms a strong one with someone who loves him completely and without condition. It's a jarring change.

Lavellan says that maybe they're being prideful themselves, refusing to see their own folly. But I think in admitting that they might be wrong, that it might be wishful thinking borne from misguided love to a truly terrible person, they've rendered the point moot. It shows self-awareness, which isn't folly.

If anyone can make Solas understand true love, it's Lavellan. Lavellan loved him when he was being his true self. Lavellan loved him after his betrayal was revealed. Lavellan loved him when his guilty conscience and terrible actions almost destroyed the world. Lavellan loved him because they knew the real him, and knew that his heart and spirit were broken, and knew that their love would endure, that their love would heal him.

And that's exactly where they end up. Healing the past, soothing the Blight, and loving one another completely.

[iid-smile]

toji would...

if you were dating them series.

stare at you a lot. not in a weird way, but just to see if you would notice and look back at him (he won't hold a grudge. don't worry, your life is safe). according to his calculations, you pretty much never do, which is predictable. however, there was one time that you did and he wasn't expecting you to, and you smiled at him in a way that genuinely had his heart beating in a way that he didn't know was possible. thank god you were oblivious to it, otherwise he doesn't know if he could handle what may happen next.

take you on cheap, but enjoyable, dates. we all know toji is addicted to gambling, and though his addiction does improve slightly, it's still apparent. with the little money he has, he would take you to a fast food place, or window shopping around town so he knows what to buy when he does have money. if he does have a little extra money, or if your pleading is good enough, he'll let you get a dessert, like taiyaki. he has to take a big bite of it though.

never finish what he starts. sometimes he'll try to help you out around the house, but when you check on what he's doing, it's always half done. the dishes? half are still in the sink. vacuuming? he did the living room, but not the bedroom, or any other room for that matter. taking out trash? he forgot to do the recycling trash as well. changing the sheets? doing the mattress was hard enough, the duvets aren't necessary. you appreciate the effort. sometimes.

do pushups with you on his back. or just use you as gym equipment. he can do squats with you on his shoulders, pull ups with you clinging on to him, deadlifts, floor press, anything. he'll have heavier weights that you bought him as a gift, and still insist to use you instead. it's the worst when he teases you, acting like he's going to drop you and listening to you scold him. it's also the worst when he doesn't warn you before hand. he'll scoop you off your feet or wherever you are, no matter the time of day, and (sarcastically) thank you for helping him all the time and being such a sweet partner.

be a "where my hug at?" guy just to piss you off. he probably doesn't even like hugs that much (or atleast normal ones). he'll drop you off at work, and refuse to leave until you give him a hug. it's always on purpose, to embarrass you in front of your coworkers, and he knows you hate it. however, if you do like hugs, then he'll make them extra tight for your sake. maybe even pick you up slightly.

─────────────୨ৎ─────────────

[mushroomates]

the fellowship as roommates:

frodo: probably one of the best roommates out there. keeps to himself, tidy, does his laundry quickly and doesn’t leave it in the wash for a week. the company he keeps inviting over are weird though and you wish he’d stop obsessing over his jewelry. there’s a ring dish by the sink he’s always being funny about.

sam: he has to stop bringing plants home. the amount of dirt where there shouldn’t be is getting ridiculous. will make bread for the household though, and that makes up for it. does his dishes and all the dishes in the sink frequently and genuinely enjoys the task. took over the decoration and homemaking instantly.

merry: has a massive candle collection that would be fire safety issue. it not, however, a fire safety issue because merry never lights them. he has discontinued yankee candles and various limited edition scents. it’s his pride and joy and he doesn’t ever want to burn them because he wants to keep them forever. once pippin lit his maple-bacon soy wax triwick 1998 and merry went nuts. aside from that, pleasant company.

pippin: his parents pay for his rent because he couldn’t be bothered to pay it on time, and the tooks really, really wanted their son out of the house. do NOT go in his room. has not done laundry ever and does not plan to. keeps dirty dishes in his hamper and under his bed. keeps buying new forks thinking you won’t notice.

boromir: pays his rent a day early. handles the bills and finances and just tell you how much you owe. very respectful about your space in the fridge. does his best to be quiet past 9pm. he does, however, carve wood over the carpet and splinters have become an issue. he vacuum’s but it’s seriously becoming a problem. also keeps inviting these weirdos over who try and eat all your food.

aragorn: keeps tanning hides in the living room. is never home because he’s always at his girlfriends place. brought a dehydrator into the mix and the house always smells like meat because he’s making jerky. he will share it though, which is nice:

legolas: is mildly afraid of the bathroom. keeps clogging the drains with copious amounts of shed hair. uses your shampoo when he thinks your not looking. eats all of the good food, and small bites out of pretty much everything. tracks dirt all over the carpet and has a thing for fairy lights.

gimli: historic weaponry is NOT home decor and why the hell would you keep it over your bed. he has to have his own bathroom which he keeps very specifically (the amount of products he uses for his beard is unreasonable). generally tidy, gets weird about organizing things by color and type and would rather you let him do it.

gandalf: hardly a roommate. sometimes you wonder if he still is living with you and then he’ll show up after months of ghosting you with a random horse and a new-differently colored hat. and he will explain more about the hat than the horse. no, gandalf, we can’t keep a horse in the bathroom. our landlord will find out. please shut up about your new hat.

gollum: fresh fish keep being left on your counter on the first of each month. they’re very much someone’s goldfish that keep going missing. once, a parakeet was left in your sink. your lost socks keep reappearing on your couch. sometimes shiny rocks and coins are placed next to your phone at night. four months in there’s a scratching in your walls and this fucker pops out. he’s been living off of your scraps for nearly a year and thinks you two are best friendsies! <3 he tries to plea that he’s being paying rent. someone call the cops. (sam comes over and shoo’s him out with a broom. it’s frodos weird friend from college.)

[pluckyredhead]

“I have larger thoughts about how DC has kind of written themselves into a hole with Jason and now he's stuck in this limbo that's unsatisfying to everyone which is why so many Jason fans are mad all the time, but that's for another ask.”

🤓 Do tell…

Okay, let's see if I can do this in less than a thousand words!

So Jason, at his core, represents a challenge to Bruce's ideology, right? Bruce's #1 rule is No Killing, and Jason's basic idea is: "That doesn't work. Some villains are bad enough that they have to be killed for the greater good." (There's something very funny about Jason, famously undead, thinking killing stops ANYONE in the DCU, but we'll leave that aside for now.) This is a really interesting ethical quandary to throw Bruce's way, and by having it voiced by his beloved son, his greatest failure, his second most profound tragedy, it becomes a deeply thorny emotional problem as well as an ethical problem. That's all great.

The problem is, DC can't allow Jason to be right, for two reasons:

Batman must always be right and must always win.

...I mean, come on. They can't actually publish a story advocating for a traumatized 19-year-old with assault weapons to be the arbiter of who lives and who dies, that's nonsense. I love Jason but really.

The problem with that is, Jason is a major recurring character.

UTRH works great in a vacuum. But if Jason is showing up in a comic every month, or even just a few times a year, this central conflict has to be addressed, and the options for doing that are limited:

Bruce and Jason fight and Jason wins. DC will never let this happen. (And what would "Jason wins" even look like, honestly? He's not going to kill Bruce.)

Bruce and Jason fight and Bruce wins. They've done this a bunch (sometimes with Dick in place of Bruce), but Jason fans don't want to see him repeatedly getting his ass kicked while being lectured, and frankly it doesn't make Bruce look great either.

Bruce allows Jason to kill people. This can't happen either; it would be wildly out of character for Bruce, not to mention literally everyone in the Batfamily. They are all canonically pretty opposed to murder.

Jason continues to operate however he wants, but outside of Bruce's reach/jurisdiction. As wretched as RHATO was, I actually think it was a smart decision to keep most of the action outside of Gotham, because then we can pretend Bruce doesn't know what Jason's up to, just like we pretend Clark couldn't super-hear everything in Gotham and save Bruce's ass every single night without breaking a sweat. The problem here is that it means Jason is unavailable for the kinds of casual team-ups and crossovers that fans of all stripes crave - plus, every time he comes back to Gotham, he and Bruce have to relitigate their entire relationship AGAIN.

Jason compromises and agrees to follow Bruce's rules in order to have a relationship with the Batfamily. This is basically where DC has landed, and I understand why they did, because it's the option that allows them to publish the most comics with Jason in them, which they want to do because he is an immensely popular character who makes them money. However, it leaves him in this awkward position where instead of being a tragic villain/badass antihero, he's just...the sassiest member of the family, while simultaneously always being available to be treated like shit because he's Bad. He gets punished without even the fun of doing the crime anymore.

So what's the solution? I don't know. Theoretically, DC could try to do what Marvel does with the Punisher. People always get mad when I say Jason is DC's Punisher, but he kills pretty much indiscriminately in UTRH and RHATO, for pretty much the same reasons. ("Dudebros think it looks cool.") And Marvel heroes inexplicably let Frank just kill however many people he wants unless they're appearing in a Punisher comic, at which point they go "Frank, you naughty boy, I shall stop you!" and then Frank kicks their ass and makes them look like an idiot. DC is never going to let Jason do that to Bruce, plus it would put a real damper on the Wayne family Thanksgiving dinner.

Alternately, they could make him a Nightwing villain. Dick has spent 40 years fighting inconclusively with Deathstroke; he's much better suited to go endless rounds with Jason without either of them Always Triumphantly Winning than Bruce is. I don't personally want this option because I just don't care that much about Dick, but it could be really interesting, though it would limit Jason to fewer appearances and primarily in Dick's book. (Jason would have made a superb Red Robin villain 15 years ago for similar reasons.)

My vote, I think, would be for a really good (god, if only), really thoughtful Jason series where he has reason to seriously reevaluate his philosophy towards crime - something that reshapes him into a character who can still challenge Bruce's entrenched ideas without being so diametrically opposed to them as to make him a villain. He needs to be close enough to Bruce's rules to appear in crossovers, but far enough and specific enough that he's not just Meaner Nightwing. Jason is a passionate character; DC needs to find a new way to let his passion work for him, because right now he doesn't have anything driving him, and it's satisfying no one.

(900 words, BOOM!)

[sillysillygoofygoose]

Older! Toji Headcanons x Fem Reader... Part 3!

Househusband! Toji! MDNI 🙄 slight nsfw at the verryyy end.

Househusband! Toji, who never imagined he'd be in the position he's in. He assumed that if he ever were to settle down, he'd want a more traditional route for his family. A pretty little wife, all done up, taking care of the babies and somehow always pregnant. However, that 1950s fantasy came crashing down on him one night after getting home from a particularly rough "assignment."

Househusband! Toji, who confessed to you about his less than ideal career choices after a hard night and three glasses of Jack Daniels on the rocks. Honestly, you were not at all surprised. However, you were not at all pleased either. You thought he was money laundering, not assassinating people. The creeping fear of losing him upset you much more than the gut-churning crimes themselves. The ordeal turned into a screaming fight, leaving him to sleep on the couch.

The next morning, he wakes up to you, standing over him, twisting the sizeable twelve carat diamond on your left ring finger. The ring that is connected to your heart.

"Jesus Christ, sweets. Trying to give me a fucking heart attack?" He grumbles, voice low with sleep.

"Quit your job. I'll take care of everything, you can stay at home. Just quit." You have no time for his sarcastic antics, blurting out a dismissive, unrelated response to his moody tone.

He laughs. You're standing over him with a pout dancing on your pretty lips... and he laughs?

"You know I can't do that. It's dangerous and... we need the money." He attempts to bribe you, bringing in the financial aspect of him being unemployed to distract you from your unshakeable request... well, demand.

"No. No, we don't. I just got that big promotion. You're quitting. I'm really not asking." The more stubborn he becomes, the more your dainty features are contorted with anger. He's genuinely amused at you putting your foot down. Don't get it twisted. You're no pushover... but you find it hard to stand your ground when Toji gives you that look.

"Uh-huh surrreeee. You really can't make me quit, princess." Really, he's just antagonizing you. He likes to push, likes seeing you roll your eyes in annoyance. Instead, your response is not as gratifying as it usually is. You simply shrug your shoulders, turning your back to him on your heels.

"It's me or the job, Fushiguro."

Fushiguro. Your shared last name dropped off your tongue with the same venom of a black mamba.

Playing dirty. Being cruel. Even a pinch manipulative. However, it scared him enough, his sly smile immediately dropping as you walked away.

Househusband! Toji, who was dead set on the fact that he could never be domesticated. Yet, life seems to always shock him as he realizes he's standing in the kitchen, hands on his wide hips, skimming through a cookbook, picking out what to make his beautiful wife for dinner.

Househusband! Toji, who basically runs up to you like a lost puppy when you get home, gathering your smaller frame up in his big arms.

"How was work, pretty? Missed you all day. Come, I made your favorite."

Househusband! Toji, who unironically wears the "Queen of the Kitchen" apron that you bought him as a gag, proudly hanging it up after a long day of preparing food and spiffing up the living room.

Househusband! Toji, who leaves on trashy reality TV reruns while he tends to the house, furthering his Kardashians obsession and getting him hooked on 'The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills'. When you come back from a particularly uneventful day, he resites the drama he overheard while vacuuming.

Househusband! Toji, who built and grew his own garden, stating that he wanted fresh vegetables to incorporate in his recipes.

"Nothing but the best for you, baby."

Househusband! Toji, who runs purely off of your praise. A kiss on the cheek when he welcomes you at the door, an adoring stare directed at his jerry-built garden bed, a hum of pleasure while digging into a new recipe. His favorite form of praise, however, is when you let him rest his head on your chest, kissing him and thanking him for all of his work around the house. It's nice to be appreciated.

Househusband! Toji, who can't shake the thought of bending you over and breeding you after you teased him about how good of a stay at home dad he'd be. Taking care of the family from inside of the house might not be as bad as he originally thought.

Hope you enjoyed! Xoxo

[lilislegacy]

Ok guys this is somewhat of a controversial take on Jason Grace’s powers. You can tell I was nervous writing this out because I used capitalization lol. Please read till the end

I want to start by saying I love Jason Grace. He is such a cutie. I adore him. And he is a very, very powerful demigod. And he is totally capable of very evil things, just like Percy. This take concerns a certain ability that a lot of people seem to think he has, but I don’t think people realize how unrealistic is. (I mean people can still hc whatever they want, it just doesn’t mean it’s canon.) Okay, here goes

There is absolutely no evidence or reason that Jason Grace would be able to control the electricity in our bodies. And here’s why…

I know so many of you really love that idea, and justify it by using the logic that percy can control people’s bodily fluids, so since jason can control lightning, he could control neurons and action potentials. But here’s the thing: The reason percy can control bodily fluids is because bodily fluids, like saliva, blood, and tears are largely made up of water, so he can manipulate the content of those substances that is water. And water is water. H2O is H2O. Percy directly controls all water. That’s his power.

Jason, however, controls weather. Which means he controls clouds, thunder, wind, rain, and yes, lightning. But just because lightning involves electricity does not mean he controls ALL electricity. He controls rain, right? Rain is water. But jason does not control all water. Just rain. Because it’s weather. And before you completely ignore what I just said about rain, and argue “but if he can control the electricity that causes lightning, he could control the electrical signals in people’s brains and muscles,” I see where you’re coming from, but the electricity in lightning is NOT the same electricity in our bodies. Unlike water, not all electricity is the same. Water is a basic chemical compound, in all its forms. Electricity, however, is the flow of electric charge through conductive materials, which produces energy. And those materials and types of energy vary. There are different types. The two we are discussing here are static electricity and bioelectricity.

Static electricity is the accumulation of electric charge on the surface of an object. Did you ever do that experiment where you rubbed a balloon on your head and your hair stuck up? Static electricity causes lightning when there is a buildup of electrical charge in the atmosphere during a storm. When the charge difference between clouds, or between a cloud and the ground, becomes too much, it creates a sudden discharge of electricity, which we see as lightning.

Bioelectricity involves chemicals. It refers to the electrical signals and currents produced within living organisms. It works through the movement of charged particles, called ions, across cell membranes, which allows for communication between cells, nerve impulses, muscle contractions, and various physiological processes.

So here’s the thing. Even if Jason could control ALL static electricity, which likely is NOT the case, it’s not even the same type as the electricity that makes neurons fire. And like I stated, Jason/Zeus has control over weather and storm elements, which may involve electricity, but does not mean he controls all electricity.

Okay besties, now before you show up in my comment section aggressively defending jason and assuming I think he’s weak, let me clarify: I am not saying Jason is not powerful as hell, or that he could not do some creepy ass evil things. He definitely could. For instance, he’s shown through his control over wind that he can manipulate air currents in various ways. MEANING he could create a vacuum effect, and suck all the air out of a person’s body. Like… HELLO? He could collapse their lungs. Deprive their brain of oxygen. He could repeatedly suck the de-oxygenated air, aka CO2, out of their lungs, and then force it back in. Which would be torture. Death by slow suffocation. So using his control of wind and air currents, Jason could be terrifying as hell if he wanted to be, and could do unspeakable things to human beings. I’m simply saying that his ability to summon lightning has absolutely zero connection to the hypothetical ability of being able to control people’s neurons. They’re not even somewhat related processes.

Please don’t yell at me. I love Jason. I think he could be very very scary and evil if he wanted to. Him as a villain would be catastrophic, and I’m not doubting that in any way.

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

I Think Hypmic's Portrayal of Gender Roles is Kinda Refreshing: An Essay A.K.A. I'm Procrastinating on a Weekend Deadline :)

Hypmic's talking points on gender are hamfisted, corny, and melodramatic. "Maybe...we shouldn't have a wage gap," is not the hottest of takes. However, like most things in Hypmic, the writers have a lot more to say about gender and gender roles in the framing of the story itself that's much more nuanced. And honestly? It's kinda refreshing.

It's also something that went way over my head when I first became a Hypmic fan. Sure, I read manga and played Japanese video games--usually translated into English first--but I didn't have enough exposure to hundreds or thousands of pieces of untranslated Japanese media. I'm going to guess that most Hypmic fans don't either, which is totally fine and normal. We all exist within our respective cultural communities wherein we're bombarded with messages constantly telling us how to act, think, and speak. We tend to absorb these messages on subconscious levels and reflect them in the art we create and stories we tell, either by reinforcing them or challenging them. Thus, our stories don't exist in a vacuum, and divorcing stories from their cultural backgrounds can suggest the artist is the original thinker of a larger concept or hide their specific point of criticism. That is, if I wrote a story about a man who chooses to not catch fish, drink beer, and drive a Dodge Ram pick-up truck, we should be aware that I'm not the person who conceptualized the stereotype of dudes who catch fish, drink beer, and drive pick-ups. I wouldn't deserve the credit for dreaming up that exact image, and at the same time, it would be incorrect to read that as me targeting those three things randomly. The choice to not drive a Dodge Ram pick-up is not a commentary on Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. It's a stand-in for the notion of masculinity.

Thing is, we're hit with messages about masculinity, femininity, and other gender-related concepts on a daily basis. No matter where you live or what language you speak, every person on Earth is inundated with messages saying, "This is what you are, and consequently, this is how you should act." Our relation to these messages is complicated, and this complexity is compounded by different cultural communities preaching different messages in their stories, marketing, and human interactions. For instance, the US's massive global cultural influence means that those outside the US can still easily recognize what I mean by catching fish, drinking beer, and driving enormous American pick-up trucks. But the location and cultural differences may add or subtract nuances. A person living in, say, Munich is unlikely to have Dodge pick-ups advertised to them the way a person in rural Texas would. Our fictional Munich person does not feel the same social pressures to buy a Dodge and represent their masculinity with a Dodge the way our imaginary Texan would. In turn, the Munich person likely sees a Dodge with an element of absurdity--who the hell needs such a big truck in a European city?--and foreign Americanness. The Texan wouldn't have that concern--why worry about navigating your enormous truck down narrow streets when you live in the countryside?--and sees Americanness as their local default, thus removing any element of foreignness.

That is to say, gendered messages aimed at people (especially women) who live in Japan don't affect me the same way as they impact those who do live in Japan. Like, it's not my dog in the fight, and there are plenty of people who are directly affected who write their own stories and commentaries on gender roles in Japan. Japanese women don't need a random guy in the US to stand up and say, "Damn, your gender roles are fucked!" 1) They already know. 2) They're already saying it. So I come at this from an angle of someone who already has deep, primary frustration with the gendered messaging in my culture and secondary frustrations when similar messages appear in other cultures. I don't have a bone to pick with Japanese media in particular. Plain and simple, reading and working on hundreds of pieces of Japanese media is what I do for a living. It's in my face constantly, and as a result, I am also perpetually bombarded by messages about gender roles in Japanese media.

It's not a hot take to say that Japanese media, like the media of every single other culture around the globe, has a lot to say about gender. There's a lot of slotting people into boxes and telling people what to do. It's chafing, as we see all across history in art produced in reaction to gender roles. In the past couple of decades, global shifts in gender roles have caused media to shift the messages they're pushing, but it's not controversial to say that Japan has lagged behind other countries like the US.

Many, many stories push arbitrary notions of how to be a girl or how to be a boy that don't necessarily come from the author themselves. The authors probably aren't even fully conscious that they're making these choices. If an author writes a story about a library and makes every female character a romance fan and every male character an action fan, it's likely a reflection of endless messaging that says action is for boys, romance is for girls. In turn, this story becomes yet another reinforcing message. If no fictional girls like action, and no fictional boys like romance, it becomes alienating for real girls and boys who don't follow these same rules. These rules are everywhere and have so much to say about gender that it's hard to know where to begin. Girls must like cute things. Boys can't like sweet food. Women must not express sexual desire. Men can't be shy. On and on and on.

Which is why, when there's a relative lack of this in Hypmic, it's kind of a breath of fresh air.

Wrong Ways to Be a Man

Actually, Hypmic does have a few moments where characters claim there are certain things men or women should do, but the writing always frames these messages as incorrect.

Take Samatoki, for instance. After Kuukou and Sasara leave MCD, Samatoki tells Ichirou, "Men shouldn't cry when they lose their friends. Men should only cry when they lose a family member."

(TDD chapter 10)

This line usually appears via Ichirou's perspective. In the stage play, it's told during a song Ichirou narrates, and as shown above in panel 3, the manga frames the line from the angle at which Ichirou sees it. In such moments, the audience is meant to read this as a cool line from a strong mentor figure to Ichirou. That's how Ichirou sees it, and he's a seventeen-year-old with too much on his shoulders who idolizes Samatoki. He is incapable of seeing how much pain Samatoki struggles with.

However, when the manga focuses on more intimate moments of Samatoki's life, we see that Samatoki does struggle quite a lot.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 6)

This isn't a cool, attractive figure meant to be idolized. While Samatoki's cigarette usage and aggressiveness are often framed as sexy or enticing, the juxtaposition with dirty laundry, overflowing ashtrays, and empty bottles make him a sympathetic and struggling figure. Therefore, we should understand that his notion that men don't cry is flawed. It's a means to distract himself from emotions he doesn't want to feel.

Later, as Samatoki begins to process his emotions and open up to his teammates, the unhealthy coping mechanisms recede. Samatoki is more confident, mature, and happier as a result of being more emotionally vulnerable.

We see a similar transformation with Kuukou. As a teen, Kuukou is reluctant to accept help or truly let anyone in. In a conversation with Hitoya, he says (and I am still completely unable to take this seriously), "A man's got to wipe his own ass."

(DH/BAT chapter 4)

However, over the course of his character arc, Kuukou learns that he cannot exist as a good leader or individual without the teamwork of his newfound "family." Only rejecting this classical and toxic notion of masculinity brings Kuukou joy.

In fact, most of the first-line characters have very similar arcs. At the start of the story, Ichirou is insistent on doing everything himself. He has to learn to be able to rely on other people (Kuukou, Samatoki, Ichirou and Jirou) to be happier and unlock his true strength. See below, his final attack and Ability use in the 2nd DRB, which is only possible when his brothers figuratively and literally support him through it.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 25)

Sasara struggles with emotional honesty and trust in favor of using humor to gloss over discomfort. It takes multiple heart-to-hearts with Roshou before he can let humor take a backseat and say how he really feels. Ramuda has difficulty trusting other people and being honest with his emotions when faced with stressful scenarios. Only through Fling Posse is he able to open up and ask for help instead of driving people away when the problems are too big for him to face alone. Jakurai struggles to connect with other people, work through and acknowledge his complicated feelings, and not place himself on a pedestal. Through Matenrou, Jakurai is able to ask for help, be more open, and ultimately be less hard on himself.

The second- and third-line characters follow similar arcs, and this repetition creates a core message for Hypmic: Trust and rely other people. Be open with your feelings. There's a wrong way to be a man, and that's to hurt yourself and other people.

Right Ways to Be a Man...Are Infinite!

But with that being said, there is a surprising lack of commentary on how else to be a man. Hypmic as a whole doesn't do much to constrain the male characters in terms of gender roles.

Sure, some characters do fit into more traditionally masculine roles--Ichirou, Samatoki, Riou, etc. The messaging makes it clear that it isn't wrong to play into masculinity provided it doesn't become toxic. (See above.)

Even then, however, these especially masculine characters are associated with less masculine traits that are either portrayed positively or not portrayed as a joke. Riou is an avid cook, but the joke is never that he wears an apron and knows his way around an outdoor kitchen (tee-hee, men don't cook!). It's that he cooks with horrifying ingredients. Samatoki is a fashionista, but the joke is framed as a counterpart to Ichirou's nerdiness.

(DoD chapter 1)

Here, it's funny that neither of them can shut up (the ペラペラ/blah blah SFX, the long bubbles filled with lots of text that's cut to indicate they kept going for longer), but the object of their attention--a model toy and a pair of jeans--are treated in the same neutral light. It's very common for stories to touch on, even defensively, the social taboo of men being into clothes. Hypmic doesn't even acknowledge that such a taboo could exist.

This is subtle but extraordinarily effective in giving characters the same consideration and weight. The more feminine characters are always treated just as sincerely (or, if there's a joke to be made, irreverently) as the more masculine characters. Take Ramuda, for instance. In Japanese media, a love of sweets is often characterized as feminine and will often be remarked upon, even in LGBT+ media, as atypical for men. Again, there's zero acknowledgement of such a thing in Hypmic. Whenever other characters talk about Ramuda's food intake, it's always framed as a concern about the lack of nutrition.

(FP/M chapter 11... I don't have the source lying around on my computer, so here's the old-ass scanlation lol)

It's also given the exact same weight as anyone else's junk food habits. Here, MCD goes out for burgers (a neutral to masculine-coded food due to the meat and high calorie count) while Ramuda opts to try a sugary Starbucks-esque drink. The parallelism in the comic's framing suggests that the two objects are functionally the same, and there is no comment that a sugary drink is feminine and therefore "inappropriate" for Ramuda. There's also no indication that MCD's preferences are in any way better. They simply happen to be the characters' personal preferences. The punchline is two groups splitting up, only to awkwardly run into each other again moments later.

(DoD volume 4 bonus comic)

Similarly, Ramuda's interest in clothes or fashion is never treated negatively--in fact, the discussions of clothes as a means to find identity and happiness make it a positive!

In ARB cards and promotional materials, Ramuda sometimes wears dresses. It's, again, portrayed in parallel to other characters wearing more masculine clothes and is never commented on as something "unusual." It's just who Ramuda is.

Hifumi is another interesting case. Like Ramuda, his playful personality often doesn't as stereotypically masculine. (To be clear, I read much of this as "gender neutral with a strong emphasis on youth" versus "feminine" in a way that I'm not sure has a good US equivalent...metrosexual/yuppie men's fashion, maybe? In the sense that it's a youth subculture that defies some masculine gender roles but is still focused mainly on men. I wish I was more well-versed in Japanese men's fashion and could give an exact term, but I'm what I'm thinking of is definitely an established thing--young, trendy dudes whose styles focus on poppiness vs. the rugged manly man or "idk, I'm just some guy" subcultures. It's a thing that pisses off old Japanese conservative men in the same fashion as people getting up in arms about "the gayz!!!1!" and their androgynous clothing lol.) Their personalities are often the butt of jokes, but only in the same way that Dice or Doppo are--that is, that they're exaggerated and over the top. There's no commentary on masculinity or lack thereof.

There are also moments when Hifumi, Gentarou, or other characters play feminine characters in roleplay moments, which is usually (but not always) not the sole joke. The audience is supposed to find it funny, but the humor is almost always centered on the absurdity of the scene as a whole. For instance, in a moment where Hifumi and Doppo are pretending to be two drunk karaoke-goers, the humor comes from the composite set-up of Hifumi's hair twirl, Doppo's untucked shirt and tie, Doppo and Hifumi's exaggeratedly flirtatious poses, the spotlights and sparkles, and the same font as used on classic karaoke machines.

(FP/M+ September 2022 oneshot)

Hifumi and Doppo do not perform traditional gender roles in their homelife, and while it's easy to see and often commented on in the English-speaking fanbase when it comes to Hifumi, I find it just as prevalent on Doppo. It's true that Hifumi is taking a feminine role by doing the majority of the household's cooking and cleaning, but if we were to assume Doppo has the masculine role in the household, he would have the breadwinner duty. However, he isn't the main source of income for their household, and he's just as unassertive in finding a (female) romantic partner as Hifumi is. Japanese men are bombarded with media messages stressing the importance of taking an active role in career and romance. That Doppo does not would, in many stories, make him the butt of a joke for not living up to masculine gender roles. But he isn't; instead, Hypmic portrays him as a sympathetic character. It's tough, Hypmic says, for people to get good jobs and maintain friendships/relationships as an adult.

Similarly, it's noteworthy that Hifumi's self-appointed term "Gigolo" is consistently portrayed as a good thing in Hypmic. The meaning of the English term aside, the Japanese word ジゴロ (jigoro) is almost always used as an insult for a man who is financially dependent on one or multiple women. In the strictest sense of the term, Hifumi is a jigoro in that his income derives from his female clients. However, there is never any shame associated with that, and as a whole, Hifumi's career as a host is shown to be a positive thing. I can't express enough how rare that is in any sort of semi-serious media. Certainly, Hypmic acknowledges that his job requires too much drinking (Doppo's verse in Hoodstar), but the overall portrayal is overwhelmingly positive. Hifumi and his coworkers are never treated as uneducated, boorish, or pathetic for "failing" to find other work that does not require flirting with and entertaining women. (This is partially due to the overlapping judgment with sex work.)

All the various harmless preferences and personality traits of the male characters are treated equally with no judgement over what's masculine or non-masculine. Within the broader context of Japanese media, this absence of judgment stands out and reinforces one of Hypmic's core themes: Differences make us better, not worse. In the end, Hypmic suggests, there's no one right way to be a man.

Right Ways to Be a Woman...Are Just as Infinite!

But what about women? This series is, after all, marketed mainly towards women, and while female audience members can no doubt extrapolate the lessons learned from the male characters, it's worth taking a look at the female characters too.

The female characters do receive much less screen time than the men and are not the focus in the series; I'd argue that's less an issue of overt sexism and more that they fall out of focus in the story the writers want to tell. (There's a broader discussion to be had about inherent sexism in the writers' focus which goes hand-in-hand with rap industries across the globe favoring men and rap being an example of exaggerated masculinity, but that's a topic for another day.)

Even so, the framing of the female characters is interesting in a couple key respects. The individual character arcs and motivations of the main female characters are, in my opinion, some of the weakest parts of Hypmic--many times, Otome and Ichijiku do things because the plot demands them to, making them look incompetent or needlessly cruel for characters we're supposed to sympathize with. Nemu's story seems to be handled with more care and takes an interesting twist, wherein she openly acknowledges that she's disenfranchised as a woman in modern Japan but rejects the notion that she needs to find strength on either Ichirou or Samatoki's (male) terms. By choosing to be strong in "her own way" (whatever that means...it's not well-defined), the authors are using Nemu to reject the notion that strength and power are inherently masculine.

What I find to be far more interesting is the character design for the Chuuouku women, both in what is said and what is not said.

To begin with, the characters and their portrayals run the gambit from highly sexualized to completely non-sexual. Some characters (especially Ichijku and Honobono) have conventionally attractive, curvy body types and are often drawn in ways that highlight their bodies.

(FP/M+ chapter 4)

(FP/M+ chapter 14)

In some cases, especially Honobono's, the enticing nature of the illustrations is framed as the character's choice; in the above, her words indicate that she wants to seduce the off-screen listeners. The images included above are largely representative of these characters' raps, regardless of illustrator.

But on the flip side, other characters with large breasts or hips are never drawn in a sexual fashion. By way of comparison, here are two shots of Nemu rapping.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 12)

Even in shots with dynamic poses, no attention is drawn to Nemu's figure in any sort of provocative sense. Nemu touches her chest, drawing the reader's eye there, but the artist does not emphasize the size of her chest--they're allowing a chest touch to be no more than an emphasis of the self. At the same time, Nemu's body isn't downplayed. We can see in panel 2 on page 2 that Nemu has a small waist and wider hips, but once again, she isn't being sexualized. The action lines draw the reader's eye to Samatoki and thus put the action first and foremost. This creates the idea that not only can characters portray themselves sexually, but they can just as easily choose not to.

We see similar with Otome, who does not wear any sort of revealing clothing and is never shown in a sexual fashion. However, Hypmic doesn't equate revealing clothing to sexual portrayals either! While I wouldn't call Tsumabira's outfit revealing, she does have more visible cleavage than most Chuuouku figures. However, her bare chest is never sexualized like Ichijiku's.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 4)

Compare the non-emphasis on the chest and the power stance to any of the many shots of Ichijuku where her breasts are front and center in the camera. Speaking of power stance, Tsumabira remains confident in her power stance without being sexy--that is, no stepping on the camera and showing her whole leg.

Which isn't to say that Tsumabira is a sexless character. She's drawn visibly turned on by the male characters in such a way that is cartoonish but not, in turn, overly sexual. Were this supposed to be titillating to the reader, I would have expected to see a larger close-up on her face and tongue. However, the artist (who is no stranger to focusing on tongues!) devotes the majority of the panel to Tsumabira's body language (which, again, doesn't absurdly exaggerate any of her proportions or focus on her chest) and covers part of the mouth with text bubbles. Tsumabira is drawn as engaging in sexual behavior without being sexualized for reader entertainment.

(FP/M+ chapter 4)

The juxtaposition of such different views with little to no judgement attached to any of them suggests that it's perfectly okay to want to be sexy or not, to wear revealing clothing or not, to be involved in sexual situations without being the object of sexual interest, or to simply exist with an attractive body type without sex ever coming into the equation. Just as some characters choose to tie bodies to sexiness, some don't whatsoever--and either is perfectly fine!

The former idea ("I can choose to be sexy") may not sound especially revolutionary to US audiences, where sexuality is thrust upon women willingly or otherwise, but I find it fascinating because it lets the main characters embrace this idea without associated slut shaming. So much of Japanese media insists that women should be sexy but are also wrong for wanting to indulge in their own sexuality. Therefore, having characters who run virtually every iteration of take on the topic (I want to engage in sexuality and be sexualized, I want to engage in sexuality without being sexualized, I don't want to engage in either) with multiple body types (ie, Tsumabira isn't automatically not sexualized because she has a smaller chest; Nemu isn't automatically sexualized because she has a bigger chest) and no judgement involved feels like another breath of fresh air to me.

As a whole, I find the diversity of the Chuuouku uniforms and character appearances quite interesting. They're undeniably all feminine and relatively militaristic, but different characters wear entirely different wardrobes. Skirts vs pants, blouses vs dresses, high heels vs boots... Since every character has her own take on the common theme, it once again feeds into the idea that each character is her own individual and perfectly valid for defining femininity in her own way.

Haircuts, too, range from longer and more feminine hairstyles to pixie cut-esque looks.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 16)

Again, nothing of the framing suggests this short-haired woman is in any way different from her longer-haired counterparts on the edges of this screenshot.

Finally, while most Chuuouku women are conventionally attractive, I find it extremely compelling that Haebaru is a stereotype of an unattractive Japanese woman. To be extremely clear, I do not think these stereotypes should have weight, but the combination of chubby and/or muscular build, freckles, rounded nose, and non-glossy hair is often used as a visual shorthand for unattractive or otherwise undesirable women.

Sure, it's not fantastic that Haebaru is a scheming, two-bit villain. However, so is virtually every other female character in the series, and in particular, Haebaru is (the conventionally attractive) Tsumabira's counterpart. Both are treated with the same respect or lack thereof, suggesting that one's appearance has nothing to do with your ability to be a no-good baddie. Ha ha ha.

It would be lovely if the female characters were fleshed out further and given intelligent choices and diversity outside of the realms of physical appearance. However, I do think the writers' choices are limited by virtue of all women automatically being antagonistic side characters (which, again, is another discussion altogether). What the writers can and have accomplished is further reinforcing a celebration of differences. Just as there's no one right way to be a man, there's an infinite number of ways to be a scheming snake of a woman HAHA.

Intersection with LGBT+ Topics

Unfortunately, this is a very binary look at gender and gender roles, which, while largely representative of the current state of Japanese media, can be disappointing.

Hypmic appears to want to steer shy of LGBT+ topics as a whole, which is a bit of a shame. In a story so focused on gender and acceptance of diversity, it seems the natural next step to explore the notion of those who experiences don't align with a strict gender binary. Such stories are growing in popularity in Japanese media but have yet to be anywhere near the mainstream acceptance in US media (which is still in a fledgling stage at best). I would imagine Hypmic's writers are unable or unwilling to take a definite stance on these topics in the work due to fears of financial or career backlash. If nothing else, the sexuality of the main characters needs to remain in a limbo in order to have plausible deniability for both self-shipping and shipping with other characters. (Some deniability may be more plausible than others.)

The few instances in which Hypmic does wander into this territory are usually clumsy. I am no fan of the handful of scenes where male/male attraction is supposed to be funny purely by virtue of being male/male.

The inclusion of Urumi, the one minor character explicitly LGBT+, is not stellar either. I am hesitant to apply any definite label to her, as the real-life people her stereotype portrays self-identify as everything from trans women to cis men--or refuse to use these English labels at all! Still, we know from her profession (proprietor of a bar heavily implied to be a gay bar by the neighborhood it's in), appearance (poofy permed hair, exaggerated make-up), and demeanor (feminine speech style, a bit flirtatious) that she's AMAB and choosing to present herself in a feminine fashion. By writing Jirou to ask, "Aren't you a man?" in an exasperated fashion, the writers have put her gender presentation in a boke role--suggesting she's over-the-top, exaggerated, comedic. It's not great. I completely understand why readers find it offensive (and it is) even while I don't think the writers intended it that way. Ultimately, it would have been great to see other explicitly LGBT+ characters portrayed without the joking angle.

With that said, I'm not entirely unhappy with her character. She is a stereotype, but the authors have chosen to take only the visual elements of the stereotype and leave the rest on the cutting room floor. In other works of fiction, characters like Urumi are often hypersexual to the point of being in-universe creepy, especially towards underage boys. Other times, characters like her may be eccentric or off-putting in other ways. However, that's not at all the case here. Urumi seems to play a helpful big sister/aunt role in Jirou's life, and he's clearly comfortable enough with her to spend the night at her bar.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 17. "Sorry, but can I shack up here again tonight?" "Of course you can.")

While she seems to engage in some sort of a bohemian lifestyle, as evidenced by the alcohol and smoking, it isn't anything outside of what many of the other characters do. Additionally, while she isn't drawn in a flattering fashion in scenes where she's playing up her persona (which is par for the course with any character in this series, regardless of gender), there are plenty of neutral shots of her being serious. Finally, the art is never outright rude--that is, she isn't drawn exaggeratedly masculine or flamboyantly...snakey? I don't know how to describe this to anyone who's lucky enough to have never seen this--clearly LGBT+ AMAB characters drawn with noodly limbs and huge, overblown lips winding around male characters.

Maybe because I see so much worse continuing to be produced in this day and age, I feel like Hypmic could have done a much, much worse job with this character. She overall plays a positive role and is treated with much the same care as other side characters. It's unfortunate, then, that the writers have chosen to make her gender presentation the subject of a joke.

In other frustrations, I heavily dislike the unnecessary gender divide in background characters. All punks and other background baddies are male, whereas all adoring fans are female. (But Rhyme Anima has done an interesting job of subverting this!) The vast majority of other background figures fall into strict gender roles, which is likewise disappointing. It appears that diversity may be an accepted trait for none but a lucky few that form the main Hypmic cast.

All in all, I don't think Hypmic's portrayal of gender roles is groundbreaking, nor do I think it's fair to suggest that all Japanese pop culture plays into strict gender roles. There are certainly many Japanese works, popular or otherwise, with much more interesting things to say about gender. However, when compared to the vast majority of the titles that cross my desk on a regular basis, I notice and appreciate the level of care put in to Hypmic's commentary on gender roles. The work consistently reinforces the notion that it's okay to be your own individual, no matter how that plays into your gender, and I find that freeing. That's a message we could all do to hear more often, regardless of culture and language.

TL;DR: Oh no, my rapidly approaching deadline. :)

[sophaeros]

arctic monkeys for q magazine, june 2011 (x) (x)

ARCTIC MONKEYS: Inside Alex Turner's Head

Words Sylvia Patterson Portrait John Wright

The day Arctic Monkeys moved into their six bedroom, Spanish-style villa in the Hollywood Hills, where the first-floor balcony looked over the patio swimming pool, they knew exactly what to do.

"From the balcony, you could get on t'roof and jump in't pool," chirps the Monkeys' most gregarious member, drummer Matt Helders, in his homely Yorkshire way. "We looked at it and said, That's definitely gonna happen. So by the end, we did a couple of 'em. Somersaults in t'pool, from the roof. At night time."

In January 2011, as Sheffield and the rest of Britain endured its bitterest winter in a century, Arctic Monkeys capered among the palm trees, eschewing hotels for a millionaire's Hollywood homestead as they recorded and mixed their fourth studio album, Suck It and See.

The four Monkeys, alongside producer James Ford and engineer James Brown, lived what they called the "American man thing": watched Super Bowl on giant TVs, played ping-pong, hired two Mustangs, cooked cartoon Tom And Jerry-sized steaks on barbecues on Sundays, had girlfriends over to visit, all cooking and drinking around the colossal outdoor kitchen area featuring a fridge and two dishwashers. Living atop the Hills, they could see the Pacific Ocean beyond by day, the infinite glittering lights of downtown LA by night.

Every day, en route to Sound City Studios, they'd travel in a seven-seater four-by-four through the mountains, via bohemian 60s enclave Laurel Canyon, blaring out the tunes: The Stones Roses, The Cramps, the Misfits' Hollywood Babylon. For the sometime teenage art-punk renegades whose guitarist, Jamie Cook, was once ejected from London's Met Bar for refusing to pay €22 for two beers, the comedy rock'n'roll life still feels, however, absolutely nothing like reality.

NICK O'MALLEY: "It were really as if we were on holiday. When we came back it's the most post-holiday blues I've ever had!"

JAMIE COOK: "It's hard to comment on that. It were just really good fun."

MATT HELDERS: "We always said, As soon as things like that feel normal, we're in trouble. But it's just funny. You might think it would get more and more serious as you get older but it's getting funnier. We've done four albums now and I'm still only 24, I'm still immature to an extent. So who cares?"

Alex? Al? Are you there?

ALEX TURNER: "Yeah, it were good times. But we were in the studio most of the time. So there's no real wild Hollywood stories. Hmn. Yeah."

Wednesday, 16 March 2011, Strongroom Bar, Shoreditch, East London, 11am. Alex Turner, 25, slips entirely alone into an empty art-crowd brasserie looking like an indie girl's indie dream boy: mop-top bouffant hair which coils, in curlicues, directly into his cheekbones, army-green waist-length jacket, baggy-arsed skinny jeans, black cord zip-up cardigan, simple gold chain, supermoon sized chocolate-brown eyes.

Almost six years after I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor became the indie-punk anthem of a generation (from the first of Arctic Monkeys' three Number 1 albums), and nothing prepares you for the curious phenomenon of Alex Turner "in conversation". Unlike so many of the Monkeys frenetic early songs, he operates in slow motion, seemingly underwater, carrying a protective shell on his back, perhaps indie rock's very own diamond-backed terrapin. The most celebrated young wordsmith in rock'n roll today talks fulsomely, in fact, only in shapeless, curling sentences punctuated with "maybe... hmn.. yeah", an anecdotal wilderness sketching pictures as vague as a cloud. He is, though, simultaneously adorable: amenable, gentle, graceful, and as Northern as a 70s grandpa who literally greets you with "ey oop?".

"People think I'm a miserable bastard," he notes, cheerfully, "but it's just the way me face falls." Still profoundly private, if not as hermetically sealed as a vacuum-packed length of Frankfurter, his fante-shy reticence extends not only to his personal life (his four-year relationship with It-girl/TV presenter Alexa Chung, whom he never mentions) but to insider details generally. Take the Monkeys’ Hollywood high jinks documented above: not one word of it was described by Turner. Before Q was informed by his other Monkey bandmates, Turner’s anecdotal aversion unfolded like this:

Describe the lovely villa you were in. AT: "Well... we certainly had a... good view."

Of what? AT: "Well, we were up quite high."

The downtown LA lights going on forever? AT: "I dunno. It was definitely that thing of getting a bit of sort of sunshine. Is it vitamin D? If you can get vitamin D on your record, you've got a bit of a head start. So we'd get up and drive to the studio."

What were you driving? AT: "Nothing... spectacular. But yeah, we'd drive up the studio, spend all day there and sort of, y know, get back. To be honest... we had limited time. So we spent as much time as possible kind of getting into it, like, in the studio.

So your favourite adventures were what? AT: "Well, they were really… minimal. We were working out there!"

Any nightclubs or anything, perhaps? AT: "You really want the goss 'ere, don't you?"

Yes, please. AT: "I could make some up. Nah!"

And this was on the second time of asking. It's perhaps obvious: Alex Turner, one of the most prolific songwriters of his generation (four Monkeys albums and two EPs in five years, The Last Shadow Puppets side-project, a bewitching acoustic soundtrack for his actor/video director friend Richard Ayoade's feature-length debut Submarine), is dedicated only to the cause – of being the best he can possibly be. He simply remembers the songs much more than the somersaults.

Throughout 2009, Arctic Monkeys toured third album Humbug – the record mostly made in the Californian desert with Queens Of The Stone Age man-monolith Josh Homme – across the planet. While hardly some cranium-blistering opus, its heavier sonic meanderings considerably slowed the Arctic Monkeys' live sets and on 23 August 2009, Q watched them headline the Lowlands Festival, Holland and witnessed a hitherto unthinkable sight – swathes of perplexed Monkeys fans trudging away from the stage. With the sludge rock mood matching their cascading dude-rock hair it seemed obvious: they'd smoked way too much outrageously strong weed in the desert.

"Heheheh, yeah," responds Turner, unperturbed. "That's your theory. You probably weren't alone."

Back in the Strongroom Bar, Turner's arm is now nonchalantly draped along the back of a beaten-up brown leather sofa. He ponders his band's somewhat contrary reputation…

"I think starting the headline set at Reading with a cover of a Nick Cave tune perhaps was a bit contrary. D'youknowhat Imean?! But to be honest, that summer, at those festivals, we had a great time. And I know some fans enjoyed those sets 10 times more. And you can't just do, y’know, another Mardy Bum or whatever. Because how could you, really?"

With Humbug, notes Turner, "I went into corners I hadn't before, because I needed to see what were there," but by spring 2010 he wanted their fourth album to be "more song-based" and less lyrically "removed". He was "organised this time", studied "the good songwriters" (from Nick Cave, The Byrds and Leonard Cohen to country colossi Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline), discovered "the other three strings" on his guitar, and wrote 12 songs through the spring and summer of 2010, mostly in the fourth-floor New York flat he shared with Chung before the couple moved back to London late last summer (the New York MTV show It's On With Alexa Chung was cancelled after two seasons). The result: major-key melodies, harmonised singing and classic song structures.

At the same time he revisited the opposite extreme: bands such as Black Sabbath and The Stooges ("we wanted a few wig-outs as well"); he was also still heavily influenced by the oil-thick grinder rock of Josh Homme, who is clearly now a permanent Monkeys hero. After four months' rehearsals in London, on 8 January the Monkeys relocated to LA for five swift weeks of production and Homme came to visit, singing backing vocals on All My Own Stunts. Tequila was involved.

"Tequila is probably me favourite," manages Turner, by way of an anecdote. "But it takes a certain climate... It's not the same... in the rain. Yeah. [Looks to be contemplating a lyric] Tequila in the rain."

Vocally, he developed the caramel richness first unveiled on The Last Shadow Puppets' Scott Walker-esque The Age Of The Understatement, finding a crooner's vibrato. "Everything before was so tight,” he notes, clutching his neck. "Probably just through nerves. That's just not there any more." Suck It and See contains at least four of the most glittering, sing-along, world-class pop songs (and obvious singles) of Arctic Monkeys' career: the towering, clanging She's Thunderstorms, the summertime stunner The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala, the heavenly harmonised title track and the Echo & The Bunnymen-esque jangly pop of closer That's Where You're Wrong.

Elsewhere, in typically contrary "fashion", there's preposterous head-banger bedlam (Brick By Brick, the rollicking faux-heavy rock download they released in March "just for fun", featuring vocals by Helders; Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair, and Library Pictures). News arrives that the first single proper will be Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair. Q is perplexed. Brilliantly titled, certainly, but arriving after Brick By Brick, the new album will appear to the planet as some comedy pastiche metal album for 12-year-old boys.

You've got all these colossal, summery, indie-pop classics and you've gone for... The Chair? AT: [Laughing uproariously] "The Chair! I'm now calling it The Chair, that's cool. Well for once it weren't even our suggestion. It was Laurence's (Bell, Domino label boss). And I were, Fucking too right! He's awesome. It'd be good to get a bit of fucking rock'n'roll out there, won't it? It's riffs. It's loud. It's funny."

If you don't release The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala as a single I'm going round Domino to kick Laurence's "awesome" butt. AT: "I think it'll be the next one!"

The record's title, meanwhile, could've been more enigmatically original than the un-loved phrase Suck It and See. The band, struggling with ideas due to the opposing sonic moods, invented an inspiration-conjuring ruse: to think of new names for effects pedals in the style of Tom Wolfe, Turner being long enamoured with the American author's legendarily psychedelic books The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, "cos that just sounds awesome".

"There's the Big Muff pedal," he elaborates, "That’s the classic. I've got the Valve Slapper. And there's the Tube Screamer. So we came up with the Thunder Suckle Fuzz Canyon. And… wait till I assemble it in me mind… em… it'll come to me… The Blonde-O-Sonic Shimmer Trap. So we were going for summat like that."

A wasted opportunity?

"Nah. Because some of those things ended up in the lyrics anyway. Suck It and See was just easier."

Alex Turner, rock'n'roll's premier descriptive art-poet, still writes his lyrics long-hand in spiral-bound notebooks. "Writing lyrics is a craft that I've practised a bit now," he avers. "In me notebook it looks like sums. Theories. There's words and arrows going everywhere. There's always a few possibilities and I write the word 'OR' in a square."

For our most celebrated colloquial sketch-writer of the everyday observation (all betting pencils, boy slags and ice-cream van aggravations) the more successful he becomes, the less he orbits the ordinary. "I'm not struggling with that, to be honest," he decides. "In fact I'm enjoying writing lyrics much more than I did. Stories. Describing a picture. Um. There's quite a bit of weather and time in this one. Which is probably not reassuring. 'Oh God, he's writing about the weather.' Maybe leave that out!"

There are also some direct, funny, romantic observations: "That's not a skirt, girl, that's a sawn-off shotgun/And I only hope you've got it aimed at me..." (from the title track).

Some of your romantic quips, now, must be about Alexa. AT: "Right. Yeah. Definitely. Well... there's always been that side to our songs, when we weren't writing about... the fucking taxi rank. It's kind of inevitably... people you're with." [At the mention of Chung's name, Turner is visibly aggrieved, head sliding into his neck, terrapin-esque indeed.]

It must have been very grounding being in a proper relationship through all this madness. Because if you weren't, girls would be jumping all over your head. AT: "Em. Hmn. Well, of course that helps you to... I don't really know.. what the other way would be."

Does Alexa wonder if the lyrics are about her? AT: "Oh there's none of that. Yeah, no, there's no looking over the shoulder."

She must be curious, at least. "Maybe."

Did you ever watch Popworld? AT: [Nervous laughter] "Em! Now and again."

Did you ever see the episode where she helps Paul McCartney write a song about shoes? AT: "Ah, yeah I think so, maybe I did see that."

Well, if I was you, I'd have been thinking, "She's the one for me." AT: "Well. Yeah... maybe that would've... sealed the deal! Hmn. But maybe that wasn't when i got the ray of light. When was? Nah [buries head in hands]. I might have to go for a cigarette..."

Q can't torture him any more and joins him for a snout. Turner smokes Camels from a crumpled, sad, soft-pack and resembles a teenager again. As early song You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me says, "Never tenser/Could all go a bit Frank Spencer…”

In January 2006, when Arctic Monkeys' Number 1 album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the fastest-selling debut in UK history, inadvertently redefining the concept of autonomy and further imploding the decimated music industry (& wasn't their idea to be "the MySpace band", it was their fans': the Monkeys merely kick-started viral marketing by giving away demos at gigs), the 19- and 20-year-old Monkeys were terrible at fame. They weren't so much insurrectionary teenage upstarts as teenage innocents culturally traumatised by the peak-era fame democracy.

To their generation (born in the mid-'80s) fame was now synonymous with some-twat-off-the-telly a world of foaming tabloid hysteria where renown and celebrity meant, in fact, you were talentless. Hence their interview diffidence and receiving awards via videos dressed up as the Wizard OfOz and the Village People. Which only, ironically, made them even more celebrated and famous. (“That were a product of us just trying to hold onto the reins," thinks Turner today. "Being uncooperative.")

Q meets The Other Three one morning at 11am, in the well-appointed, empty bar of the Bethnal Green, Bast London hotel they're staying in (all three live in Sheffield, with their girlfriends, in their own homes). First to arrive is the industrious, sensible and cheerful Helders, crunching into a hangover-curing green apple. He has recovered from last year's boxing accident at the gym, which left his broken arm requiring a fitted plate. Now impressively purple-scarred, the break felt "interesting" and the doctor couldn't resist the one-armed drummer jest: "D'you like Def Leppard?"

Currently enjoying an enduring bromance with Diddy, he still doesn't feel famous, "it just doesn't feel that real, there's no paparazzi waiting for me to trip up." He and Turner, during the four-month rehearsals last year, became an accomplished roast dinner cooking duo for the band. "I reckon we could have us our own cookbook," he beams. "Pictures of us stirring, with a whisk."

O'Malley, an agreeable, twinkly-eyed 25-year-old with a strikingly deep voice and a winningly huge smile, is still coyly embarrassed by the interview process. A replacement for the departed original bass player Andy Nicholson in May 2006, he went from Asda shelf-filler to Glastonbury headliner in 13 months and still finds the Monkeys "a massive adventure". His life in Sheffield is profoundly normal – he's delighted that his new home since last October has an open-hearth fireplace: "Me parents had electric bars." He has also discovered cooking. “I’m just a pretty shit-hot housewife, most of the time," he smiles. "I cook stews, fish combinations, curries, chillies. I made a beef pho noodle soup the other day, Vietnamese, I surprised meself, had some mates round for that."

Recently, at his dad's 50th birthday bash, the party band, made up of family and friends, insisted he join them onstage "for ...The Dancefloor. So I were up there [mimes playing bass, all sheepish] and it were the wrong pitch, they didn't know the words or 'owt, going, Makin eyes... er..." He has no extra-curricular musical ambitions. "I'm happy just playing bass," he smiles. "I've never had the skill of doing songs meself. It'd be shit!"

Cook, 25, is still spectacularly embarrassed by the interview process. He perches upright, with a fixed nervous smile, newly shorn of the beard and ponytail he sported in LA: "Rockin' a pone, yeah, because I could get away with it." With his classic preppy haircut and dapper green military coat (from London's swish department store, Liberty), he looks like a handsome '40s film star. (Turner deems Cook "the band heartbreaker" and had a word with him post-LA: "I said to him, Come on, mate, you've got to get that beard shaved off. Get the girls back into us. Shift some posters.")

His life in Sheffield is also profoundly normal. He still plays Sunday League football with his local pub team, The Pack Horse FC (position, left back), remains in his long-term relationship with page-three-model-turned-make-up-artist Katie Downes and "potters about" at home, refusing to describe said home, "cos I'll get burgled".

A tiler by trade, he always vowed, should the Monkeys sign a deal, that he'd throw his trowel in a Sheffield river on his last day of work. "I never did fling me trowel," he confirms. "Probably still in me shed." He's never considered what his band represents to his generation. "I'd go insane thinking about it, I'm pretty good at not thinking about it… Oh God. I'm terrible at this!"

Back in the Strongroom Bar, Alex Turner is cloudily describing his everyday life. "I just keep meself to meself," he confounds. He mostly stays indoors and his perfect night in with Alexa is "watching loads of Sopranos. And doing roast dinners".

No longer spindle-limbed, he attends a gym and has handsomely well-defined arms – "You have to look after yourself."

Suddenly, Crying Lightning from Humbug rumbles over the bar stereo. "Wow. How about that? I was quite happy the other morning cos Brick By Brick were on the round-up goals on Soccer AM. It's still exciting when that happens. It was like Brick By Brick is real."

He spends his days writing music, "listening to records", and recommends Blues Run The Game by doomed '60s minstrel Jackson C Frank ("who's that lass?... Laura Marling, she did a cover recently), a simple, acoustic, deep and regretful stunner about missing someone on the road.

Lyrically, he cites as an example of greatness the Nick Cave B-side Little Empty Boat [from ‘97 single Into My Arms ], a comically sinister paean to a sexual power struggle: "Your knowledge is impressive and your argument is good/But I am the resurrection babe and you're standing on my foot."

"I need a hobby," he suddenly decides. "I'd like to learn another language." Since his mum is a German teacher (his dad teaches music), surely he can speak some German? "I know how to ask somebody if they've had fun at Christmas." Go on, then. "Nah!"

Where Turner's creative gifts stem from remains a contemporary rock'n'roll mystery; he became a fledgling songwriter at 16, after the gift of a guitar at Christmas from his parents. An only child, did his folks, perhaps, foresee artistic greatness? "I doubt it!" he balks. "Cos I didn't. I wasn't... a show kid." Like the others, he doesn't analyse the past, or the future.

"You can't constantly be thinking about what's happened," he reasons, "it's just about getting on with it." The elaborate pinky ring he now constantly wears, however, a silver, gold and ruby metal-goth corker featuring the words DEATH RAMPS is a permanent reminder of he and his best friends’ past. The Death Ramps is not only a Monkeys pseudonym and B-side to Teddy Picker, but a place they used to ride their bikes in Sheffield as kids.

"Up in the woods near where we lived," he nods. "Just little hills. But when you're eight years old they're death ramps." The ring was custom made by a friend of his, who runs top-end rock'n'roll jewellery emporium The Great Frog near London's Carnaby Street. Ask Turner why he thinks the chase between his writing and speaking eloquence is quite so mesmerisingly vast and he attempts a theory.

"Well, writing isn't the same as speaking," he muses. "Not for me. I seem to struggle more and more with... conversation. Talking onstage... I can't do it any more. Hmn. I'll have to work on that."

The ever-helpful Helders has a better theory.

"Since he's been writing songs," he ponders, “It seems like he’s always thinking about that. So even when he’s talking to you now, he’s thinking about the next thing that rhymes with a word. Even when he’s driving. We joke he’s a bad driver, his focus is never 100 per cent on what he’s doing. Which is good for us cos it means he’s got another 12 songs up his sleeve. I think music must be the easiest way for him to be concise and get everything out. Otherwise his head would explode.”

The Shoreditch.com photo studios, 18 March. Alex Turner, today, is more ethereally distracted than ever, transfixed by the studio iPod, playing Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, a version of I’d Rather Go Blind. Occasionally, he’ll completely lose his conversational thread, “Um. I’ve dropped a stitch.”

The first to arrive for Q’s photoshoot, he greets his incoming bandmates with enormous hugs (and also hugs them goodbye). Today, Q feels it’s pointless poking its pickaxe of serious enquiry further into Turner’s vacuum-packed soul and wonders if he’ll play, instead, a daft game. It’s called Popworld Questions, as first posed by someone he knows rather well.

“Oh, OK. Let’s do it,” he blinks, now perched in an empty dressing room. He then vigorously shakes his head, “Um…I’ve gotta snap back into it.”

Here, then, are some genuine “Alexa Chung on Popworld” questions (2006-2007), as originally posed to Matt Willis, Amy Winehouse, Robbie Williams, Pussycat Dolls, Kaiser Chiefs and Diddy.

Why do indie bands wear such tight jeans? AT: “Um. I supposed they do. They haven’t always. When we first were playing I was definitely in flares. You need to be quite tall to get the full effect, though. So, that's why this indie band wears such tight jeans, cos we've not got the legs for flares."

What makes you tick in the sexy department? AT: "Wow. Pass. What do I find most attractive in a woman? Something in the head? That's definitely a requirement. Well... Hmn. I'm struggling."

Tell us about all the lovely groupies. AT: "No!"

If dogs had human hands instead of paws, would you consider trying to teach them to play the piano? AT: "Absolutely. I'd teach Hey Jude."

How many plums d'you think you can comfortably fit in one hand? AT: "They're not very big. [Holds small, pale, girly hand up for inspection] It's a shame. Probably three. Diddy only managed two? Maybe not then. I can carry a lot of glasses at once, though. If they're small ones I can do four."

Are you cool? AT: "Not as much as I'd like to be. There's this clip where Clint Eastwood is on a talkshow and he gets asked, Everybody thinks of you as defining cool, what d'you think about that? And he gets his cigs out, takes one out, flicks it into his mouth, lights it and says, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Here, Turner locates his Camels soft-pack and attempts to do a Clint Eastwood. He flicks one upwards towards his mouth. And misses. Flicks another. And misses. "Third time lucky?" He misses. "I'll get it the next time." And succeeds. "Hey. Fourth time. Don't put that in! So there you go. I'm four steps away from where I wanna be."

Thank you very much for joining me here on Popworld, here's my clammy hand again. There it is, let it slip, hmmn. You can let go now. AT: "OK! Were you a Popworld fan, then? It was funny. Cool. What were we talking about, before?"

Blimey, Alex. What must you be like when you're completely stoned out of your head? AT: "Stoned? What d'you mean, cos I seem like that anyway? Yeah. A lot of people... tell me I'm a bit... dreamy. But I like the idea of that. Of being somewhere else."

Two days earlier, Turner had contemplated what he wanted from all this, in the end. Many seconds later he gave his deceptively ambitious answer.

"I just wanna write better songs," he decided. "And better lyrics. I just definitely wanna be good at it. Hmn. Yeah.”

—

RUFUS BLACK: AKA Matt Helders, on his ongoing bromance with Diddy

Matt Helders has known preposterous rap titan Diddy since they met in Miami in 2008. “He goes, Arctic Monkeys! Then he said summat about a B-side and I was like, He's not lying! I just thought, This is funny, I'm gonna go with this for a while." Last October Diddy texted Helders, suggesting he play drums with his Diddy Dirty Money band on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, to give his own drummer a day off. “I were bowling with me girifriend at the time. In Sheffield, on a Sunday." On the day of recording, says Helder, "We had a musical director. That were one of the maddest times of my life. Next day Diddy said, Why don't you just stay? Come along with me. So I went everywhere with him." Diddy had "a convoy of cars" and made sure Helders was always in his. "He'd stop his car and go, Where's Matt? You're coming with me! So I'd get in his car. Just me, him, his security, driver." Diddy, by now, had given him a pseudonym - Rufus Black. "He kept saying, I don't wanna fuck up your image. And I'm, I don't think it's gonna do me any harm!" He stayed in Diddy's spectacularly expensive hotel. Some weeks later, Helders almost returned to the Dirty Money drumstool for a gig in Glasgow. "But we were rehearsing in London. I were like, I might come, how are you getting there? And he were like, Jet. Jump on t’jet with me. But I had to stay in Bethnal Green instead.”

Love’s young dream: Diddy (left) with Helders

[fantasywater]

Is Stolas actually cheating? Why or Why Not?

I've had some debates where I've been told that Stolas isn't cheating, and especially not continuously. However, I personally think that he is.

The not cheating crowd reasoning's are:

1.Only the initial act was cheating. Once Stolas screamed the morning after that he wanted a divorce than every sex act with Blitz afterwards was not.

2. Since the marriage was consentless, loveless, and abusive this means he was never cheating on her. This interpretation tallies with Stolas's words on the balcony and in Western Energy.

3. Divorce only takes one person's consent and Stolas called it so he's free to fuck whomever, whenever, and wherever.

My rebuttals:

1.It's still cheating until that balcony scene where he calls for the divorce and kicks her out.Because even after his petty moment of triumph he still tries to placate her, and she's still living in the house. She is also still eating dinner like a family while still very much pissed at what he keeps doing.

I also find it ironic that only when he finally stops being passive and goes through with the divorce is when he also finally stops sleeping with Blitz for good. He went backwards with it. Which means he absolutely would have kept blatantly cheating(as well as kept Blitz in the deal) if the dropoff wake-up call hadn't happened.

2. No one gets to redefine a word just because the character doing it is a fan favorite. Stolas is committing infidelity by the very definition of it. He's an adulterer and a victim of domestic violence. Both are true at the same time.

Basically Stolas as a character can think what he's doing is indeed not cheating,but this doesn't mean the narrative agrees with him.

Narrative disagreement: Stella and Octavia's call-outs in Loolooland. Asmodeus's call out in Ozzie's. Via's pain again in Seeing Stars. Andre's call out in Western Energy. Via yet again in the Sinmas leaks.

Out of all the people I've listed I think the narrative has been very consistent in using Octavia to drive home that his cheating was wrong, and therefore damaging, regardless of what he personally thinks about it.

3. Yes, he called for divorce, but he cheated to initiate it therefore breaking his daughter's peace and mental health in the process.

The Via angle will always be why despite his pain his cheating still makes him an asshole. As well as the fact that he kept doing it even after his daughter told him that it was negatively affecting her.

Do you all agree with the view that both parties need to consent if they want to have sex with other people during separation or divorce proceedings,and especially if one spouse still has feelings, is pissed, or sad about it?

I know for example celebrities very much sleep around when they're only separated or in the various stages of divorce though they're technically still married.

Other bits:

Anyone else think Stolas's take back my power moment against Stella was lacking?

I mean it didn't really hit because there was no strong buildup of her wronging him.

But there's plenty of him wronging her with his frequent and remorseless cheating, and therefore her negative actions are because of that inciting incident.

To me Blitz and Via's felt earned while Stolas's didn't.

We had a whole season(honestly Stars and Western as well) of Stolas wronging Blitz so when he so strongly lashed out in Full Moon it truly felt cathartic.

Same with Via. We have two full episodes of this man repeatedly neglecting his own child for his affair partner and breaking her mental health. So when the third time happened and she has her take back my power moment I cheered.

With Stolas however I should have been cheering, and in a vacuum it wasn't a bad scene,but then the buildup was pretty bad because he has been onscreen for a season, and the circus bedroom scene, very much wronging Stella not the other way around.

Thoughts?

[iluvangel]

🖇·˚ ༘ ┊͙[Cleaning with the Akatsuki] ! ˊˎ {Akatsuki x reader}

FT - ITACHI, SASORI, PAIN, DAIDARA

❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥

𝑰𝑻𝑨𝑪𝑯𝑰 🥀 :

⭑ would love to clean the living room, the scene when he chases the chicken while trying to make food imagine that but he’s running around the living room vacuuming

⭑ he would despise having to clean the bathroom it would gross him out

⭑ he would have a bad habit of trying to do everything multiple times to ensure it’s clean. After his first time vacuuming he would walk around staring intensely at the carpet to make sure he didn’t miss a single thing, and then even tho he didn’t miss anything he would still go over it again just in case

⭑ he would be a psychopath and not listen to music while he cleans, however; when he cleans with you he dosnt mind when you put on a calm playlist (he definitely loves classical music) - If you did choose to put on a playlist then after his vacuuming and and ur dusting or organizing he would take ur hand and spin you to face him. He would start to slow dance pulling you in to follow his lead

⭑ after intensely running around the living room and giving the carpet a good stare down, he would make sure ur done as well and help if needed - then you both shower or bathe whichever you prefer - finally you both can relax in bed and watch a movie or simple hold each other as you both drift to sleep

❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥

𝑺𝑨𝑺𝑶𝑹𝑰 🪆 :

⭑ he wouldn’t particularly like cleaning but he would enjoy organizing (his tools and such) when he does get into the productive cleaning mood he would need a body double. He would appreciate you helping him clean but he wouldn’t want you moving his stuff around so most likely he’d ask you to sweep or dust

⭑ as I said he wouldn’t really like cleaning so it’s not what he doesn’t like to clean it’s what he does and what he will actually be willing to do

⭑ he would have a bad habit of getting easily distracted, not in the worst way but when he cleans and organize his tools he would think of new ideas for his puppets and start working on that instead (thus why he needs you to be there as his body double)

⭑ he would enjoy having music on but it would need to be low so he dosnt get distracted by it, when cleaning with you he would let you put on whatever playlist you want as long as it’s not on full volume

⭑ after organizing he would ask if your done, if you say yes he would go right back to cleaning signaling for you to sit on his lap to keep him company as he enjoyed it while cleaning more than he thought he would. If you say no he would let out a sigh and ask if you need help and what he can do to make help you get it done

❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥

𝒀𝑨𝑯𝑰𝑲𝑶 (𝑷𝑨𝑰𝑵) 🪦 :

⭑ if he’s in the mood for it he would go ham when cleaning, he would love to clean the kitchen as he finds doing the dishes and moping calming, but only when he’s in the mood for it

⭑ there’s nothing in particular he would complain about when it comes to what he would clean but if he doesn’t want to he won’t. He is pain, after all. No one can really tell him what to do

⭑ his bad habit would be spacing out just randomly as he’s mopping he would just stare at the floor

⭑ he wouldn’t really like music in the background, he would let you put your music on tho. However, he would prefer listening to you yap about whatever came to mind, he would find ur voice easy to get lost in

⭑ after cleaning he would lean against the wall and wait for you to finish, then as your done we would take you by the arm and bring you to the bathroom so you both could shower. And finally he would go back to work allowing you to stay with him only if you’re quiet. If you asked, after showering he would agree to a small nap or one movie before returning to work

❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥

𝑫𝑬𝑰𝑫𝑨𝑹𝑨 👅 :

⭑ he would hate cleaning, no such thing as a cleaning mood for him. You would have to do a lot of convincing and nagging for him to help you

⭑ his least favorite thing would be the bathroom, which is why it would be the room you force him to do first

⭑ “eww EWW! I can’t do it! It’s too gross” his bad habit would be complaining about everything because he knows if he does it enough you’ll let him go do something else as long as it’s cleaning related

⭑ he needs music if he’s going to be cleaning he would love listening to your playlists and hearing new artists

⭑ immediately after cleaning he would drag you into the freshly cleaned shower. Then you both would cuddle in bed and watch whatever he wants “you made me clean now you have to watch what I want, it’s only fair”

❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥

Click here for 🎀 Part 2 🎀

[horoscope1078]

It was a night to remember. After a thrilling game, Gavi and a few of his teammates were celebrating a big win. They had gone out, danced, laughed and toasted to their victory. Much later in the night the party had calmed down. Instead of heading back to their homes Gavi and his friends ended up crashing at your flat, where you had graciously offered them a place to stay.

The living room was dimly lit by a soft lamp, casting a warm glow over the cosy apartment. Gavi stretched out on the large couch. He was exhausted but happy. His teammates, Ferran and Pedri, were scattered around the room, sprawled on the floor with pillows and blankets. You, who had been part of their friend group for a while now, had retreated to your bedroom but had given them all a goodnight wave before disappearing. Gavi had always harboured a soft spot for you. He found you kind, funny and if he was honest with himself, incredibly beautiful. 

As the night deepened, the room grew quieter, save for the occasional shuffling of someone getting more comfortable in their sleeping spot. Gavi was nearly asleep. His mind was replaying the events of the night. He had been on cloud nine, winning the game, hanging out with his friends and being in the presence of you all in one night. What could possibly be better?

However once Gavi drifted into a deep sleep, the room wasn't as quiet as it once had been. (That video of him snoring loudly made me laugh so hard)

The next morning sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting soft beams across the room. Gavi woke up to the sounds of his friends stirring. He blinked groggily and sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to shake off the last remnants of sleep. Ferran and Pedri were already awake, sitting on the floor, sipping coffee that you must have made.

"Morning sleepyhead." Pedri said smirking.

Gavi grinned and stretched. "Morning. How’d you sleep?"

Before anyone could respond Ferran burst out laughing, shaking his head. Gavi raised an eyebrow, confused. “What’s so funny?”

Ferran exchanged a knowing look with Pedri who was struggling to hold back his own laughter. Gavi frowned, now fully awake and curious. “Seriously.. what’s going on?”

“Oh nothing.” Pedri said stifling a laugh. “You just.. had a bit of an active night.”

Gavi’s confusion deepened. “Active? What do you mean?”

Ferran leaned back against the wall as he’s wiping tears from his eyes from laughing so hard. “Bro.. you snore.”

Gavi’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What? No.. I don’t!”

Pedri nodded vigorously, his grin widening. “Oh yes, you do. Loudly. We’re talking chainsaw levels.”

Gavi’s face turned bright red. “You’re messing with me.”

“I wish we were.” Ferran said as he’s laughing again. “It was hilarious. At first we thought someone had started vacuuming in the middle of the night. Then we realised it was you.”

Gavi groaned, his face heating up even more. “Oh man. You’re joking.. right? Tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope.” Pedri said, his grin still in place. “Ask her.”

At the mention of you Gavi’s stomach dropped. “Wait… she heard it too?”

“Oh she heard it alright.” Ferran said as his eyes sparkling with amusement. “She came out of her room at one point to see what was going on. The look on her face when she realised it was you.. priceless.”

Gavi buried his face in his hands, groaning louder this time. “No…” he mumbled as his voice muffled by his hands. “That’s so embarrassing.”

Pedri patted him on the shoulder sympathetically though he was still grinning. “Don’t worry man. She thought it was cute.”

“Cute?” Gavi peeked out from between his fingers while his face still flushed.

“Yes, she just laughed it off” Ferran said. “She said it’s better than an awkward silence.”

Gavi, still mortified, sat back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. Of all the things that could’ve happened, why did it have to be snoring? And in front of you, no less.

Just then the door to your bedroom creaked open and you emerged, holding a mug of coffee in your hand. You smiled at everyone as you stepped into the living room, your hair slightly tousled from sleep.

“Good morning guys.” you said, your voice soft but cheerful.

Gavi sat up straighter, trying to compose himself. “Morning..” he mumbled trying to act normal despite the embarrassment that was still fresh in his mind.

Ferran and Pedri exchanged glances but didn’t say anything though they were clearly fighting back their laughter.

You, seemingly oblivious to the earlier conversation, looked at Gavi and smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

Gavi nodded quickly.. a little too quickly. “Yes yes. Totally. Great.. actually.”

You raised an eyebrow, clearly amused by his flustered state but didn’t push the topic. Instead you looked around at the group. “Coffee’s in the kitchen if you guys want some.”

Ferran and Pedri jumped up eagerly making their way to the kitchen, leaving Gavi alone with you for a brief moment. Gavi’s heart raced, he had to know.

“So.. um..” he began awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “Did I.. did I really snore that loudly?”

You bit your lip, trying to hold back a smile. “Well.. it was definitely noticeable.”

Gavi groaned again. His face was heating up once more. “Oh man.. I’m so sorry.”

You laughed softly, reaching out to lightly tap his arm. “Don’t be. It wasn’t that bad. Kind of funny.. actually.”

He glanced at you, still feeling a bit mortified but relieved that you didn’t seem upset or weirded out. “Really?”

“Really.” you reassured him with genuine smile. “Besides, everyone has something, right? It just made the night more.. memorable.”

Gavi chuckled, his embarrassment slowly fading. “Yes.. I guess you’re right.”

You nodded, your eyes twinkling with amusement. “Plus.. now we all have something to tease you about.”

Gavi groaned but couldn’t help laughing along with you. “Great. Just what I needed.”

As Ferran and Pedri returned from the kitchen with their coffees, they both shot Gavi teasing looks but he was too busy laughing with you to care. Even though the snoring had embarrassed him, your reaction made it all worth it. 

Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

Aussie Update

Hello dear friends,

For those of you who don't know, Australia had a historic referendum today for "The Voice to Parliament." This referendum was needed to change the Australian constitution so that an advisory body could give the federal government their opinion on matters affecting Indigenous Australians.

For the voice to pass, we need 51% of the country and 4 out of six states, and it's important to know that most referendums fail. The counting started at 6:00PM in every state, with one to go due to daylight savings. However, it has already failed.

This is not the outcome I wanted, but it is the outcome I expected. This referendum failure points to what POC have always known, we have a problem with racism in this country. We also have a huge problem with apathy and ignorance, the main slogan of the no side was "If you don't know, vote no," and people didn't take the time to educate themselves. I had many conversations with people who had no idea about The Voice or what it meant and all their fears were unfounded because of the missinfo campaign.

This didn't happen in a vacuum, the cost of living is insane, rent is unaffordable, and investors are buying up all our houses. This horrible outcome is just another log in a pile that disproportionately affects Indigenous Australians.

All we can do now is acknowledge the hard work and efforts of the Yes campaigners and thank them for what they did for the country. Hug your friends, give some a call if you think they're having a hard time.

13yarn 13 92 76 the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line.

13 11 14 lifeline.

These services may be very busy right now but there are people who are there for you. If someone is at immediate risk, please call 000.

[prying-pandora666]

On Alucard and Maria

Are there actually fans advocating for Alucard to be written as Maria’s father figure in the new season of Nocturne? Like that would be a good thing and not infinitely creepier? I don’t think they’ve thought this through.

Alucard is the single most popular character in the franchise. He’s also probably the most shipped character. And yet he has only had one canon love interest in the decades since he’s existed. It’s Maria. And you’re telling me that you think that because he’s 300+ and she’s 17-18 when they started living together in the games, that it would be grooming. However, somehow him inserting himself into her life at age 16 when she’s just lost both her parents wouldn’t come off like grooming!?

Does this man look like he should be picking up random children!? He’s literally terrified of his own cursed blood. Maybe LISTEN TO HIM.

I’m convinced fandoms have forgotten what that word means. Grooming has specific features. It doesn’t just mean “older guy and younger girl.” A relationship with an age gap or an uneven power dynamic can be exploitative or abusive without being a case of grooming. Grooming specifically refers to the process of forming a relationship with a child with the intention of leveraging that relationship and trust to train and prepare (aka brainwash) your victim for the harmful activities the groomer wants to normalize. The relationship Alucard and Maria have in the games is in no way grooming. You know what would be grooming though?

Coming into a 16 year old’s life when she’s vulnerable, traumatized, and recently orphaned only to insinuate yourself as a new father figure. This is so highly inappropriate and a huge red flag. Consider what you’re actually asking for here. These characters do not exist in a a vacuum. They have a long history together as each other’s only canon love interests. You cannot fully extract them from the games, art, interviews, audio dramas, animations, and more where they’re depicted as a couple. There are decades of this precedent and you are asking Netflix to knowingly take the characters with an established romantic dynamic that the audience is already primed to see as romantic and instead portray their meeting as him trying to be her new daddy?

“Oh look! Alucard and his… daughter? Yikes.” This is an official advertisement btw.

THAT is grooming! Think about the optics of this! It would be abysmal! No it would NOT fix the problem of their age gap to make him act like a groomer and get in good with her as a dad. You just cannot completely extract them from the legacy of their relationship in the source materials. It will be incredibly creepy and textbook grooming if you get your way.

Is this really what you want to associate with an “adoptive father Alucard”? Because the art we create doesn’t exist in a vacuum. All the old content—official and fanmade—is still going to exist.

What is so objectionable about the original dynamic anyway? It’s a pretty fun subversion of the tired and problematic vampire trope of “vampire man stalks teen girl and coerces her into being his”. Instead in their original relationship, Maria is the one who pursues Alucard! It’s the young woman who takes initiative and is given the agency to go after what she wants. She courts and woos him. That’s part of the fun!

Yes, Alucard is 300+. He’s also a fictional creature that doesn’t actually exist IRL and stays eternally young. There are no actual people who will ever have his problem of staying 20 forever so it’s rather silly to say he can’t date any humans because of course he will have an age gap with any of them.

The only real problem I have seen people bring up is Maria’s age, but from what I can tell, the show’s already fixed this. Check it out.

In The Games

Rondo of Blood: Maria is 12. She and Alucard do not meet. Richter is a brother-figure and not romantic.

There is then a 5 year time skip.

Symphony of the Night: Maria is 17. She and Alucard meet to save Richter. At the end, Alucard says his goodbyes and intends to return to a life of solitude. Maria goes after him because she has developed feelings for him and doesn’t want him to suffer a life alone.

Maria is given agency to pursue what she wants and prove herself even against Alucard’s resistance and hesitance to let another person into his life.

They spend a year together before we get the audio drama.

Nocturne of Remembrance: Maria continues to try to get close to Alucard. They end up saving each other’s lives and in the end he finally confesses his romantic feelings for her. She is an adult and perfectly able to make her own choices. She chose him. He admits he returns her feelings.

How fandom can look at a story about a young woman subverting the trope and chasing the vampire to get what she wants—basically an anti-Bella Swan—and still find a way to disempower her just so they can pearl clutch? I couldn’t tell you.

So now let’s look at what the show did.

In The Show

Nocturne S1: Maria is 16. She’s been aged up from 12, probably to give her a more active and believable role. But this also means she’s within a normal age to start feeling attraction and expressing her wants. Within her society, she’s even considered of marriageable age. However we are spared the discomfort of our modern values clashing with her contemporaneous ones because Maria in this season isn’t interested in romance. She’s interested in revolution, equality, justice. They’ve portrayed her with so much love and strength. There is no indication they’d betray her by writing her as the child victim of a male suitor. In fact she only meets Alucard in the final few seconds of the season and the two do not even speak a single word to one another.

Now let’s remember the games had a five year time skip. The show only needs two years to get Maria to the adult age of 18, but assuming the follow through with the timeline and go for the full five?

Maria will be 21.

21.

Fan concept for adult Maria. Credit:@esp-art

Are you telling me a 21 year old woman is not old or mature enough to make her own decisions? How is this not a total infantilization of women? Do you think a 21 year old badass vampire hunter needs protection from the ace depressed dhampir boy who just wants to sleep and has in no way tried to pursue her until after she expressed consistent and persistent interest in him?

It is not “grooming” to meet someone when they were younger and then meet them again years later as an adult. That’s a thing that happens! In real life! Adults can still make decisions for themselves! It is only grooming if Alucard behaved in a way that would manipulate teen Maria and put her under his control and authority before she can consent. There is no indication that Alucard in the show is going to do this. And yet the fandom is basically demanding it by saying he should make her “his baby girl”?

And what of Maria’s feelings in all this? She just lost her mother and was betrayed by her father shortly after discovering he even existed. She has lived her whole life without a father. She is in no desperate need of a new one. And if she does need a family member, she already has one! Richter is 19 and is her trusted adoptive brother. Why wouldn’t she go to him over a total stranger she just met and who is half vampire - literally a predator creature that feeds on humans!?

Yeah, hi, Richter Belmont still exists. He and Maria consider each other family. Why would you want her relying on a strange man she just met as a “father figure” rather than her trusted and loving brother?

Have none of you even considered how Maria would feel if Alucard even tried to fill the paternal role? He’d have to force it on her through manipulation and coercion. No way she would want to view him that way. Especially considering she is 16 and likely to be as attracted to the sparkly 20 year old looking sculpted marble beauty as anyone else!

Don’t mind the beautiful eternally young man who looks made of pure porcelain and light. No teen girl has ever been attracted to this, right? No way it could be exploitative and creepy for him to present himself as her new daddy, giving himself authority and influence over her as his child to mold as he wishes, right? Oh yeah, this is MUCH better than Maria pursuing him of her own volition once she becomes an adult, right guys?

We are truly in the stupidest dark timeline.

Frankly, I don’t care if Netflix has them get together or not. They would work just fine as friends too. I just sure as hell hope they’ll ignore the fans clamoring for a creepy daddy/daughter dynamic. Dressing it up as “concern” won’t hide that for some it’s a fetish, and for others they’re just useful idiots who haven’t thought it through.

I implore you to think it through.