#we love to see consistency across decades

[whirlpool-blogs]

callum turner + 🖕🖕🖕

[samcarter34]

Since people seem to once again be having trouble remembering the order of operations, let me just remind everyone:

The ability Laudna possesses to feed Delilah is Hunger of the Shadow. In the fight with Bor’dor, Laudna used that BEFORE Orym’s head nod. Bor’dor attacked them and her response was to do the thing she knew would give power to Delilah. Matt even makes the sound of Delilah’s heartbeat.

The spell she used after the head nod? Whither and Bloom. The same spell she later attacked Orym with, which isn’t even a warlock spell.

And speaking of the head nod, you want to know what’s it’s prefaced with? ‘Laudna you can do whatever you want.’ And Marisha responds by saying that Laudna is ‘barely present’ because she’s having ptsd flashbacks to all of the times something horrible happened to her and she couldn’t do anything about it. So she kills Bor’dor because it makes her feel in control of the situation.

And yeah, the 4SD where Liam says Orym thought Delilah might come back. Except y’all somehow took that and made it seem like he’s the one who shoved Laudna over the edge when what actually happened is that Laudna flung herself off it because betrayal is triggering to her.

And the sword. The sword which apparently wasn’t triggering enough that Imogen contemplating whether the Vanguard were good guys didn’t cause any reaction. Or for that matter, make her object to Ashton’s ‘this is permission statement.’ But she saw Orym wearing it, got uncomfortable and then all it took was one sentence from Delilah for her to decide to steal it. Delilah, who mutilated her, murdered her, has been possessing her for decades, and who basically held her soul hostage when BH wanted VM to resurrect Laudna. But what Delilah didn’t do? Tell Laudna to steal the sword.

I wasn’t around for campaign 1, but in campaign 2 I definitely noticed a trend that people who were all ‘I love women! Female characters rock!’ would, the second one of their alleged faves did something controversial (or just something they didn’t like) would find a way to shift the onus onto someone else so she could remain blameless. And that is definitely continuing this campaign, and if anything is getting worse (which, not to get into speculation, but I wonder if it’s because all of the female characters this go round are more traditionally feminine than last campaign.)

I think the reason Orym’s been getting raked across the coals so hard by certain parts of the fandom is actually because of this. Because Imogen’s repeatedly gone ‘what if the Vanguard have a point’ and Laudna agrees with everything she says, whereas Orym’s been pretty consistently ‘no, the murder cult that murdered my family are bad guys.’ And well, can’t go around admitting that our faves did something wrong.’

And so we have a situation where Laudna attacks Orym, but somehow that’s Orym’s fault because the possibility of Laudna doing something wrong ruins people’s lesbian cottegecore fantasy. But the thing is, that whole thing was all Laudna. She chose to listen to her first murderer when Delilah said ‘maybe it’s cursed’ and then she chose to blanket the room in magical darkness (sorcerer ability, not warlock) chose to cast an area of effect spell to destroy the thing Orym was using to sheath the sword (sorcerer spell, not warlock) and, upon hurting Orym, chose not to drop said darkness, which meant Orym couldn’t see who attacked him. And when she got caught, she tried to downplay what she did, tried to say that because she didn’t mean to hurt him it didn’t count, refused to apologize for actually hurting him, kept shifting her argument (and even low key got called out on it by Imogen when she asked Laudna why she’s want its power inside her if she thinks it’s so evil.)

There is an alternate universe where Laudna wakes Orym up and they have what probably would have been an intense discussion about the sword (and that might even have been what Marisha was aiming for before Delilah got involved) and THAT truly would have been the ‘both sides are equally right’ scenario, but that’s not what we got. And you can say Orym shouldn’t have taken the sword unilaterally (but somehow Laudna’s allowed to unilaterally steal and absorb it?) or that she’s being manipulated by Delilah, but the fact is that Laudna’s an adult and is responsible for her own decisions. Yes, Delilah is a powerful and malign presence that they all downplayed/ignored, but, to use Marisha’s addiction metaphor, making amends with those you’ve harmed is a part of recovery for a reason. Because ultimately, you are the one who did that. Yes, it does immensely suck for Laudna that she’s been handed the cards she has been, but it’s up to her to make the best play she can.

Wow this got long, but my overall point is that Laudna is a character with her own agency and makes her own decisions (well, Marisha makes them, but at this point y’all should know she’s not conflict averse and is willing to have her characters make controversial character choices). And really, take all that away, what’s left? How much onus can you take from a character before you might as well go look at a painting?

[general-fanfiction]

Hopes And Fears Part Three. (Wally Clark x Reader)

Summary: Y/N’s death is traumatic. So traumatic in fact, she can’t even look at Wally without reliving what happened to her.

Word Count: 2.4k

Gif Not Mine. Requests Are Open!

Warnings: Mature Language

I’ve grown fond of the early mornings whilst stuck at Split River. The first glimpse of the sun shining over the gardens, a warm hue welcoming the day. With no students roaming the halls, all I hear is the quiet sounds of nature. On the odd occasion, I’m even able to spot a rabbit or deer, grazing gently on the acres of freshly trimmed fields surrounding the school buildings.

It’s become a habit of mine, each morning I find myself lounging besides the flowerbeds. Allowing myself to feel each blade of grass that delicately brushes my skin. For a while, I forget that I’m no longer alive. I can simply exist.

It’s not uncommon for Wally to join me. Sprawled on his back, gazing up at the clouds. Pointing out different shapes and imagining different backstories for all of the cloud animals he sees. Besides that, neither of us speak much. Only enjoying one another’s company as we relax in the morning light.

Spending this time has given me the opportunity to process everything. Wally helps me to work through my emotions and thoughts. Nothing ever being too much for him to listen to, though I’m still afraid to divulge everything. I’m sure he can sense that I’m holding back, yet he doesn’t pry. Content to just listen. In all honestly, I truly believe that these moments with Wally have helped me more so than Mr Martin’s support group has. Despite attending every session since my memorial, I consistently leave the group feeling unfulfilled. Unsatisfied. In fact, it doesn’t seem as though the teacher wants us to discuss the past, our lives and our deaths. Only wanting us to focus on the present, the state we are confined to. I find myself struggling with this a lot.

“What do you think you would be doing if you hadn’t died?”

Pushing myself up on my elbows, I look over to Wally, who is resting on his stomach, absentmindedly plucking grass from the ground.

“I was supposed to go to college, play football. Hopefully make it pro, that’s what the plan was anyway.” He tells me, full of confidence yet his tone of voice suggests that’s not the pathway he would’ve chosen for himself.

“What about like outside of a job though?” I pry, the boy has my curiosity heightened. “Like, surely you have other things that you wanted to do?”

His eyes focus in on the pieces of grass that he’s now twisting together in a makeshift sort of chain. Deep in thought, I can see the cogs working in his brain as he tries to think of an answer for me. I’m sure it’s not something he’s necessarily thought of before, following the path that his mom set out for him upon birth.

“You’re gonna laugh, but I always wanted to get married and have a family. I know that times have changed and you lot don’t really believe in marriage and stuff that much anymore but I’m a family guy. Always have been.” He admits, finally looking at me and I see the honesty written across his face. “It just sucks that I’ll never actually get to experience it.”

My heart aches for him. One fatal accident and his entire future was stripped away. Never getting to experience the things he always dreamed of. It breaks heart, knowing what he could have had.

“Wally, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s no big deal, really, I’ve spent the last few decades accepting my fate and it’s not so bad here.” He tells me, a sadness shining in the brown of his eyes, trying his best to cover it up with a soft smile. “What about you? Other than taking over the world with your best friend, what was the plan?”

Giggling slightly as he references Abby’s speech, I start to wonder what my life would’ve looked like. Truthfully, I have no idea. My life revolved around dancing and cheer, other than that I have no clue as to who I am. Up until my death, I didn’t believe I was worthy of love, the one chance I took was with Spencer and look how that turned out.

“I suppose I wanted to leave Split River, Abby wanted to go to New York so I figured I would study there.” I reply, knowing New York was never my dream. I just couldn’t bare to part with her once high school ended. “It would be quite nice to live on a farm. Out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by animals, I think that would’ve been my dream.”

“Now this makes sense.”

Crossing my legs underneath me to sit up properly, he’s unable to hide the bright smile on his face. Clearly finding some amusement in what I said.

“What makes sense?” I ask, to which he laughs quietly. Pulling a clump of grass out of the ground, I launch it in his direction. “Hey, you dickhead, I didn’t laugh at you, so you can’t laugh at me.”

“No, no. I’m not laughing at you.” Wally speaks through chuckles, rolling on to his back. “It just makes sense now why you like to sit out here.”

His arms are thrown across his face, shielding his eyes from the sun. I can’t help but stare as his muscles flex, admiring the sight in front of me. Following his body, I find myself biting the inside of my cheek as I notice his top has risen up his stomach ever so slightly. Highlighting the small trail of hair that dips below his shorts.

“Did you have a girlfriend?” I blurt out, before I even realise what I’m saying.

Slapping my hand across my mouth, embarrassment floods my body, eyes wide as Wally smiles. Eyebrows raised as he looks over to me. Sly smile making its way on to his face.

“No. No girlfriend. Why?”

“I was just wondering. I mean, star high school quarterback, you must have had girls queuing up for your attention.” I’m able to stop myself before I begin a long-winded rant. Helping to ease at least a tiny amount of my embarrassment.

Wally rolls his eyes at my comment. “Well in that case you must’ve had boys queuing up for your attention. What with being head cheerleader and all.”

“Ha ha. Okay, I know it was a stupid question.”

Fortunately for me, I’m saved from making a fool out of myself even more by the sounds of cars entering the parking lot. In unison, we both turn to face the sound. Observing the students that have started to filter into the building, chatting loudly amongst one another as they do so.

My vision locks in on Spencer and his gang of hooligans. They’re jumping all over one another without a care in the world as they make their way into the school. Trail of awestruck girls following behind in the hopes of garnering the smallest amount of attention from one of the jocks.

If only I was able to tell them what they’re really like. Perhaps they wouldn’t make the same mistake that I made. Perhaps I’d be able to save them from the same fate that I suffered.

“So I was thinking we could have a pool day. I think Charlie would be up for it, maybe not Rhonda, but it could be fun for us all just to chill out. You haven’t really spent much time with anyone else apart from in our sessions with Mr Martin.”

Wally’s words echo around my head though I’m not paying any attention. Despite, no longer being able to see the group that I was fixated on, I’m still closely watching the area that they had just previously been walking through.

Two weeks later and Spencer and his friends still evade justice. Police presence at the school has increased drastically with crime scene investigators cornering off the old toilet block. Maybe I’m impatient, but it feels like they’re getting away with it. Receiving no consequences for their heinous actions.

“Y/N, are you listening?”

Wally’s words finally drag me out of my thoughts and I meet his eyes. “Yeah, pool day, sounds good.”

“And we’re inviting Charlie and Rhonda.” He states, eyebrows raised as he knows I wasn’t truly paying attention to a word he said.

“Oh, no. They’re nice but can we just do it alone? I’m not sure I feel up to doing a whole group thing.”

Wally nods, though his eyes narrow. Sensing there’s something off with me. He’s good at noticing whenever my demeanour changes, or whenever something is bothering me. It’s part of his nature.

“Yeah of course. We should probably head to group first though.” The athlete pushes himself off the floor as he speaks, waiting for me to stand as well which I reluctantly do, not before releasing an annoyed groan. “You know, one of these days, you might actually enjoy the sessions.”

Rolling my eyes, I follow Wally towards the gym. He holds the doors open for me as we enter the building, his small act of chivalry makes me giddy. I make no effort to show this however, politely thanking the boy as I walk through.

“Ah here they are! Took you two long enough.” Charlie jokes as we enter the gym, taking our seats. I sit between Dawn and Rhonda with Wally seating himself between Charlie and Mr Martin.

“No guesses what they’ve been up to.” Rhonda comments, lollipop hanging out the side of her mouth as she does so.

“Thank you Rhonda.” Mr Martin chimes in, stopping the conversation from escalating any further. “So today, I figured we would get to know our newest member. Y/N you’ve been here for a couple of weeks now and we still don’t know too much about you.”

“I’m sure Wally could tell us all about her.” Rhonda remarks under her breath. So quiet, I almost don’t catch it.

“I’m sorry, is there something you want to say?” I snap, my tone harsh and confronting.

She laughs in response, the annoyance on my face evident as I glare at her. Her snarky and sarcastic nature hasn’t proven to be a problem for me, though I think that may be about to change.

“Y/N, tell us about your death. We’re all dying to know what happened. No pun intended.” The teacher interjects, attempting to diffuse the tense situation yet I still feel on edge.

“No thank you.”

“Oh come on Y/N, none of us are going to judge you. You know that.” Charlie tells me, offering me a reassuring smile.

“No, she’d rather just listen to all our trauma. Isn’t that right cherry pop?”

Rhonda’s words strike a chord within me. I’ll admit, the other ghosts have been very open about their deaths with me. All discussing in detail what happened to them to result in this fate. Sure, I haven’t divulged into the details of my death as of yet, but it’s for good reason. Not only am I still trying to process it myself but I don’t want them to look at me any differently nor do I want them to take pity on me when they learn the details.

“Do you have a problem with me or something Rhonda?” I ask, swinging around in my chair so that I can face her directly.

Upon doing so, I take note of how Charlie and Wally are quick to sit up straight. Feeling the anger radiating off me and awaiting any possible confrontation that may be about to occur.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” The girl retorts, crossing her arms over her chest before she continues speaking. “You waltz in here and make no effort with any of us besides Wally. Who, let’s not forget, you made to feel like a piece of shit on your first day after that unreasonable outburst. You listen to all of us recounting our deaths, the most traumatic things that could’ve happened to us and still none of us know what happened to you. It hardly seems fair.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry Rhonda. I’m sorry that i’m still processing what happened to me. I’m sorry that I’m not ready to discuss it with a group of strangers. I am so sorry that I’m not getting over everything as quick as you would like me to.”

My voice is raised as I speak, hurt that she would even think that my choice not to share what happened is a personal attack on the group. No matter how hurt I’m feeling, the anger completely outweighs it. Angry that she can’t see that I’m still struggling and angry that my murderers are still attending this school. Instead of being locked behind bars for the rest of their life, like they deserve to be. Nobody can understand what I am going through and that makes me so astonishingly angry.

“Boo hoo. You’re still processing, we’re all still processing. Not to mention the fact that we’ve barely seen Wally these past couple of weeks because he’s been trailing around after you, trying to make you feel less threatened by him. He’s even taken off that stupid football shirt that he loved so much! I hate to break it to you, but he was here first.” She argues, tears well in my eyes as she mentions Wally. I lock eyes with him and see his downcast expression. Was she right? Was he only spending this time with me to make me feel better and less scared? “You should do everybody a favour and fuck off back to the old toilet block where you came from.”

“Rhonda!” Charlie exclaims, clearly shocked by her words.

“Is that how you really feel Wally?” I ask hesitantly, the dejection evident in my voice.

He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. Nodding slightly, I understand completely. Pushing myself out of the chair, nobody speaks as I make my exit from the room.

“Lovely chat.” Rhonda shouts, one last attempt to get a reaction from me. Even as I shove open the doors with an obnoxious slam, I don’t look back.

The entirety of my body feels heavy as I drag myself down the hallways. Nobody comes after me, not even Wally. I feel truly alone, hurt and confused. Death was supposed to be peaceful and yet here I am. Suffering more than I ever did when alive.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Tag list:

Please just ask if you would like to be removed. :)

@p-rspective @criesinlies @bath1lda @prettyplant0 @backtotheshitshow @emrysaf @lyn-soso @agentsofwhat @stumacherisalive @xyzstar @ellatitanium @nymwritespoetry @katdahlali @fruityfrog505 @kaiyahs-wife @callsignwidow @hufflepufffangirlqueen @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @blissfulxsins @stainedstardom @pearlsyeaaa @sisterslytherinog @random-simper @highpriestessfae @softbabybunnyysstuff @alexayoonlee @marvelsbitchh @urchubbygirlpen15 @frogmanfae @okitrine @brairslair @tommyriddleobsessed @correlance @pinkstrawberryflower @ameliamarie50 @esmerayxx @caprisunsister @aesthetic-lyss @jupiterscove @3hufflepuff3 @kikookii @maggiecc

[fantasy-frog]

To anybody who might see this, July in the states is disability pride month. As someone who’s past decade plus has been a journey towards understanding, accepting, and advocating for my psychological and physical disabilities and my whole life, aiding disabled family members, I want make it known that: the way many of us feel you can help us the most, is not by “pretending” we’re abled, like we’re just like everyone else, because we’re *not*

When disabilities are ignored, or treated as just “uniquely abled”, it falls on the disabled to maintain abled people’s comfort; to make our disabilities small, to not advocate for equity and the bettering of our lives in a supposedly equal society.

Equality is not equity.

Differences must be acknowledged, understood, and worked around *by abled people* for any true progress to be made.

Most people think this is government related. I know abled people as individuals can’t change that there’s little to no wheel chair access in their bustling city, that the sidewalks are cracked and filled with lips. An abled person can’t make public schools treat autistic kids with humanity, or children with memory-relates disabilities able to always have notes for their exams. They can’t make the employers stop firing us, or the government give us our right to marriage when living under SSI.

What I’m asking for is Empathy. True empathy. The kind that informs your beliefs, and actions. Talk to disabled people. Get to know them. I promise you, you have a disabled person in your family or social circle. Really be inquisitive about their experiences, struggles, and frustrations.

Acknowledge your privilege. Your ease of access to the world. Really sit in it. Absorb it. Your empathy will only grow. And when enough abled people do even just this, the world for us becomes less hostile. It becomes more livable. We become no longer burdens, but cherished by our communities, our families and friends. And trust me, even though the world is not built for me, and I have to consistently jump through 10,000 hoops to achieve even the smallest of victories for an abled person, and my body hurts and breaks down, so I get in a chair on wheels, or get out my cane, or put on my noise cancelling headphones, and just come across obstacle after obstacle -

The majority of the pain comes from the stares. The glances. The questioning. The points when you see the patience leave the eyes of the one who you thought loved you unconditionally, and you remember your place in our collective culture. And fuck man. You recall how workable all the bureaucracy and hurdles felt, how manageable it was to push forward (it’s what you always do) … before you were reminded of where you sit on the totem poll, and how conditional worth is in our society.

Disabled people are worthy. We are valuable. But we need you to believe it, or nothing will ever change.

[fanficsformyfaves]

I Tolerate It, So Don't Blame Me

Loki Laufeyson x Fem Ex!Reader

WARNING: SMUT 18+, ANGST, Hickeys, Marking Kink (R Receiving), Oral Sex (R Receiving), P in V Sex, Exhibitionism, Rough Sex, Body Worship (R Receiving), No Protection (This is fictional, you are not, WRAP IT UP) Mentions of Break Ups, Turbulent Relationship, Confrontations, Insecurities

PREFACE: You were not only the God of Mischief's ex and the mother of his child, you were also the love of his life. So, it should've come as no surprise to you when his new girlfriend showed up to your apartment building, angry after finding out he was still in love with you

A/N: Flashbacks In Italics!

Loki was recruited into the Avengers and Sylvie is his new girlfriend in this A/U!

Sylvie deserves better :,(

And yes, this is combining 2 Taylor Swift songs cause it goes so well…all too well

I had just put my son to bed, when his tired little voice asks me something.

"Mama, is daddy coming this weekend?"

I look up from tucking him in with surprise.

"Um, I'm not sure"

I was...or I thought I was. Loki and I were together for over a decade and had our son four years ago.

Our relationship wasn't perfect, but we made it work. In spite of the long nights that consisted of screaming matches and the other going to bed angry, we would eventually talk it out and get right back to normal. Was it easy? No, but we knew that we made each other better people. Nothing in life that's worth keeping was gonna be easy.

Our main issue was him not making enough time for me and our child. I understood splitting his time between working with the Avengers and going back and forth from Asgard would take up a lot of his days, but we always got through the rough patches together.

You miss a couple dinners and forget some errands, sure, I could forgive that...but the final straw was when he'd forgotten our son's birthday.

Long after the party was over and everyone had gone home, I still sat in the living room in tears, after having had to put my own crying child to bed.

"He forgot. He really forgot", I thought to myself.

Just then, I hear the front door open and in walks Loki, making his way towards me on the couch.

"Hi, darling", he kisses my cheek.

That's when he noticed the popped balloons and confetti scattered all across the floor.

"What did I miss?"

"What did you miss?", I repeated,

Standing up.

"Loki, do you know what day it is today?"

"Friday"

I close my eyes, sighing before wiping my eyes.

"October twenty-third"

He takes a moment to think, when the realization hits him.

"Shit", he whispers to himself,

"Yeah...shit"

"(Y/N)-"

"He was so excited to blow out the candles with his dad", my voice shakes.

"I know-"

"Do you?"

Not having anything else to say for himself, he simply muttered.

"I'm sorry"

"It's not me you should be apologizing to", I say,

About to walk off, when he takes my arm.

"I'll make it up to him-"

"You always say that, but you never stick to your word. Look, I'm tired of being second place to your job, we both are. Do you even remember the last time we had dinner together? Or even tucking him in for bed?"

I could see the tears beginning to pool in his eyes. I shake my head, before pulling my arm away from him.

"Time got away from me, the team-"

"I don't care about the team! I care about us! Our family!", I yell,

Catching him off guard.

"I've stood behind you on everything and this was the one thing that I needed you to show up for. I've put up with your shit for too fucking long and I can't do it anymore. All we do nowadays is fight and I can't tolerate being taken for granted over and over again. I won't"

"What are you saying?", he whispered,

"I'm saying I'm done", I shrugged.

His gaze softened and his shoulders dropped.

"(Y/N)-"

"You need to go", I sob,

"Please, don't do this. We can talk about it, we can work things out, I promise, I will do better-", he tries pulling me into an embrace,

Only to be pushed away.

"We tried and nothing's worked, even if we go to bed now, I'll still feel the same way in the morning-"

"I don't want to leave-", he says,

Wrapping his arms around me, as I kept trying to push him off.

"Loki, go"

"I can't"

"Please, go, I can't do this again"

"I can't!", he cried,

"GO-"

"I CAN'T!", he shouts,

Slowly falling to his knees, as he held onto my legs and hid his face in my stomach.

"I can't", he wept.

My hand goes over my mouth to muffle the sounds of my sobs. I eventually pull away from him and walked back towards our once shared bedroom. It was the hardest walk of my life. Knowing I was walking away from him.

"When I wake up", I say over my shoulder,

"Don't be here"

It's been almost a year since then and it still hurts to think about. It didn't help that our anniversary was coming up either.

I often fall back into wondering if I'd done the right thing. Did I? Would I ever know?

"But, I promise I'll ask"

"Does daddy not love me anymore?"

It shattered my heart to hear him say that.

"No! Baby", I say,

Softly cupping his cheek.

"Your father loves you so so much. It's just his job that keeps him busy"

He sticks his pinky out, making me chuckle. I intertwine mine around his, after wiping away a stray tear.

"Never think for one second that we don't love you"

Just as I placed a kiss atop my son's head, I hear someone yelling outside my apartment building.

"(Y/N)!"

I recognized that voice. It was Sylvie. What was she doing here in the middle of the night?

"Mama?"

"Shhh, go to bed, baby, I'll be right back", I shushed,

Leaving the apartment and locking the door behind me. The elevator takes me all the way down to the lobby and I made my way outside.

"Sylvie-"

"What did you tell him?!"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play stupid with me, what did you tell Loki?"

"Nothing! I haven't spoken to him for weeks!"

"Horse shit"

"I haven't!"

She sighs, holding her forehead.

"Why? What happened?"

She sniffles and using her sleeve to wipe away her tears.

"Sylvie, I know we aren't friends, but you can tell me"

She scoffs, looking back at me.

"You can", I reassured.

She shakes her head, taking a seat on the curb. I let out a deep exhale, before joining her.

It was tense. I could tell she was holding something back and it only added to the anxiety that was making my stomach turn. After a few deep breaths, she finally breaks the uncomfortable silence.

"He said your name in his sleep"

I'd never felt my heart drop so fast. My eyes widen, as I turn back to her.

"What?"

"Last night. I heard him", she nodded,

"Sylvie", I exhaled,

Shutting my eyes, whilst shaking my head.

"So either that means he's been sneaking behind my back with you or-"

"He hasn't, I swear"

"...Then what I'd been suspecting is true", she muttered her breath.

My eyebrows meet in confusion, wondering what she meant by that. She finally turns to meet my gaze and in the street lamp's glow, I could make out her defeated tired eyes looking back at me.

I knew that look. I had that look not too long ago, which meant what she had to say was nothing short of painful.

"He still loves you", she wept,

Causing me to shake my head.

"No-"

"Then why?", she shrugs.

How was I possibly meant to respond to that?

"You know...whenever he tells me that he loves me, I would be so overjoyed...but for some reason, in the back of mind, I never truly believed him", she confessed,

"And then I thought to myself 'Well, why would I? She was his first love and the mother of his child. How could I ever compete with that? She's beautiful and smart and strong'. Deep down, I always knew that what we had wasn't real, as I am still fighting the ghost of you that will forever live in his memories"

I was speechless. To hear her say all of this was gut-wrenching. She didn't deserve this and I knew that.

"I am so sorry"

"You have nothing to apologize for", she says,

Getting back on her feet, as I did the same.

"Sylvie, I assure you that whatever we had was over the moment we broke up"

"Maybe...but not for him", she smiled sadly,

Giving me a tight embrace, before walking away.

I couldn't just go to bed after that. I had to talk to Loki myself. Whatever he did to us was one thing, but Sylvie didn't deserve this. I went back up stairs to get my son, not bothering to get dressed and dropped him off at my parent's house on the way to the Avengers Tower.

I submitted my personalized key pass, which allowed me inside and took the elevator all the way up to Loki's quarters. I pushed past the double doors and find him standing at the floor to ceiling windows.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?", I spit,

Walking up to him.

"I'm assuming you heard", he says,

Without looking away from the city.

"Sylvie didn't deserve that. She loved you!"

I was met with nothing but silence. All I could do was sigh in frustration.

"Why?! Why did you have to ruin another good thing for yourself?! She was perfect-"

"But she wasn't you!", he snapped,

Turning to face me.

"You of all people should know that no matter what happens, I would always choose you"

I could feel the tears gather in my eyes.

"I tried to let go, but I couldn't", his voice goes quiet,

"Despite my best efforts and even while being with someone else, all I found myself doing was wishing it was you"

I shake my head, as a lone tear made its why down my cheek.

"You should've thought about that before you took me for granted"

He cups my face, resting his forehead against mine.

"That was my greatest mistake...and I will never forgive myself for it"

"Loki-"

I couldn't stop myself from growing weak at his touch.

"I love you. This has always been true"

"I never knew what I had until I'd lost it", he added,

"You hurt me...and you hurt our son", I wept,

"And for that, I am so sorry. I will never stop regretting the things I'd done to you both and if given the chance, I'd change before it was too late, but I am begging you now. I will never forsake your hearts again, please", he pleaded.

There were so many emotions coming at me from all directions. Anger, sadness, confusion...but also a sense of solace. Solace in knowing that he had finally recognized his mistakes.

"If you'll have me...I will never hurt you or our son ever again"

"How can I be sure you mean it this time?", I questioned.

In that moment, the God of Mischief pulled away and kneeled before me, placing a hand on his heart. I couldn't help but feel a strong sense of Deja Vu.

"I meant every word", he reassured,

Taking my hand into his.

"I've lost you once. I will not make that same mistake again"

I searched deeply into his eyes and all I could find was sincerity. For the first time in a long time, I was finally sure.

"Loki"

I pulled him back onto his feet and cupped his cold face.

"I love you too...I don't think I ever stopped"

He chuckles slightly in relief.

"That's all I've ever wanted to hear", he says,

Before pulling me in by the waist and pressing his lips against mine. The kiss started off mellow and soft, but it quickly grew heated. He picks me up by my thighs and effortlessly wrapped them around his waist. He ended up

My fingers sneak into his black locks, grasping at the roots and causing a delicious groan to escape him.

Using his godly strength, he lifts me up higher into the air, now throwing my legs over his shoulders. With a flash of his magic, I was now completely naked up against the glass.

"People will see", I say out breath,

"Let them", he grinned,

"Let them envy the way I ravish your beautiful body, knowing they will never get the chance"

I could feel myself grow wetter at his comment.

"By the looks of it, you don't seem to mind either", he teases,

Before kissing the inside of my thighs, slowly making his way towards where I needed him most. He wrapped his soft lips around my bundle of nerves, making me gasp at the sensation. I was being tasted like I'd be the last thing he'd ever have. A man on death row, savoring his final meal.

"It has been to long", he mumbled against me.

"It has", I whined,

As his skilled tongue drew circles over my clit again and again, till the knot in my stomach began to tense. I missed how easily he made me melt.

My fingers snuck into his hair once more, holding on for dear life. His own rubbing up and down my slit, before slipping themselves inside and pressing against my sweet spot. I could feel him grin at the wanton cries and moans that spilled out of me.

It was more the obvious that I was already about hit my peak.

"Close already?", he teased,

Continuing his ministrations.

"I must taste your release at once. Come for me, sweet girl", he demanded.

That was all I needed to hear.

I came with a moan so loud, I was thanking my lucky stars the walls were sound-proof.

Still, coming down from the euphoric high, he lets me down gently. Firmly holding my weak frame to steady me. Once he realized it was going to take a while for my legs to calm from there incessant shaking, he picked me up and laid me down on the sofa.

"Tonight, I will make up for lost time", he mumbled against my lips.

"I will show you just how deep my everlasting devotion for you lies"

With the help of his magic once again, he causes his trousers to disappear, along with his boxers.

His hard cock aching for attention.

"Do you see what you do to me? How desperate and needy I am for you?", he growls in my ear,

Causing my skin to raise in goosebumps. He takes the tip and rubs it up my already throbbing entrance.

"I've missed this so much", he confesses,

Before thrusting into me and ripping a cry from the depth of my chest. Without giving a moment to adjust, he began pounding into me at a merciless pace.

By this time, the sun had already began to peak from the horizon and the room smelt of sex and sweat. It was now his turn to yank at the roots of my hair, exposing my bare neck for his hungry teeth.

"I will mark you and claim you as mine once more", he mumbled against my warm skin,

As he repeatedly slammed into my g-spot. It didn't take long for my next orgasm to build, as my legs were already threatening to snap close and all I could do was scream out his name again and again like a fallen prayer.

I could tell by the rhythm of his hips faltering that he wasn't far behind either.

"Meet me there, darling. Come for me", he groaned,

As we both were thrusted over the edge. He spills himself inside my clenching walls, letting his head fall back at the overwhelming pleasure. Out of breath and well-spent, he collapses on top of me and wraps his arms around my waist.

We lay in the comforting silence for a moment, till he found the strength to pull out of me and lay me atop his chest.

"Yours"

I look up at him, as he brushed away a hair stuck to my forehead.

"Always"

[topaz-mutiny]

I think the fans are underestimating how differently people can process things.

I am consistently seeing posts say "Ashton/Tal were repeatedly warned the shard was not for them/will 100% kill them", when this was absolutely not the case, and, more importantly, it is very likely for groups of people to completely misinterpret the warnings. Even if they've known each other and loved each other for a decade.

I certainly thought the warnings were not clear or frequent enough so I was shocked like lightning in the latest episode that they were meant to be absolute death flags.

Please note that I'll mostly refer to the fictional characters, I don't want to bring the people behind the characters too much into this.

First, I would like to point out, the show takes place over weeks and months with plenty of breaks and interruptions. That is plenty of time and opportunity for memories to get faded, muddled, crossed-over with other memories, etc.

The "warnings" happened two weeks to a month ago. And even when they were fresh on the cast's mind, here are the warnings verbatim (bold is my emphasis):

But be warned, holding the strength of the two in one vessel might sunder it. You bear the dormant strength of the empress. Find and bestow the might of the emperor.

- Evontra'vir, episode 74, aired October 5th. The conversations move on to unrelated things with no followup.

Ashton: He also said it might be dangerous for these two shards to intermingle. Or he didn't say dangerous, he said that-- it could destroy me. Orym: --A chance the vessel could break. Laudna: --The vessel <air quotes> could break. Fearne: Wasn't there something if you put them together with the right thing that it'll be okay? Ashton: It might come together and be okay, yeah. -- Dancer: Maybe if it were to meet one of its own ilk, it could awaken. Allura: What you said as a point of warning likely is true. To have both within a singular vessel, it's possible one could survive, but it's also highly possible that it would rend you into a thousand pieces. -- Allura: We're in a strange area of experimentation and unknown knowledge. -- (after finding out Ashton has a fascimile of a Luxon beacon in their brain) FCG: So he's got two things in him or them? Allura: It would seem, which is why I'm a bit--Well, you're either the greatest weapon we could hope for in this time, or will be our end. I couldn't tell you. Orym: Boy, maybe we don't add a third thing. Ashton: I was put together by bits and pieces. This was not an intentional thing and it, I honestly shouldn't have survived it. It was, literally, I was put together with junk. Allura: In an odd way, your fragmented nature might be what keeps all of this in check. ... Perhaps we don't put another powerful entity within your form.

- Various, episode 76, aired October 19th.

To me, these warnings were not clear in the slightest.

To me, these warnings were interspersed with so many words like "possible", "might", and "chance" that I completely misinterpreted the situation as "For Ashton it is dangerous but doable" instead of "The Game Master is telling you Ashton's character sheet will be ripped up."

This is the problem with using in-character voices and using descriptors that imply chance or flexibility. They can drastically weaken the meaning of a phrase such that people like me will mistake it for something else.

Because that's how my brain works. "May", "chance", "perhaps" suggest to me a reasonable set of odds for an action and does not come across as the grave warning a game master would want.

And as a reminder, these muddled warnings were weeks apart and weeks away, which can make remembering the meaning even worse if you've already misinterpreted them. That's why I was 100% on board with Ashton taking the shard. It seemed reasonable but dangerous, so when Matt said "I warned you." in that grave tone and with that grave look I was thrown for a loop. I went "oh no! those were serious warnings!?" and the panic started setting in.

Also a contributing factor was the pressure and lack of communication from Bells Hells.

Fearne did not want the shard, and finally stated that thought aloud to Ashton. For Fearne and Ashton, that meant the only choice left was Ashton, because, for one reason or another, the 5 other people in Bells Hells repeatedly assumed and pushed the shard onto Fearne and wrote themselves out of the equasion. FIVE characters absolved themselves of being active participants. Once the idea of Fearne came to mind and this Emperor Fearne/Empress Ashton/Callowmoore shipping dicotomy, Bells Hells just stopped talking about it and never once considered if any of them should take the shard should Fearne refuse.

So... yeah that's how my brain works.

[mickstart]

Hi! I don’t know if you still take Formula 1 asks but I was wondering after watching the Senna documentary, WHY ON EARTH everyone deems Senna better than Schumacher?!

Everyone always talks about Senna as the greatest, but he can’t be better than Michael Schumacher right? Or better than Fangio or Vettel, and definitely Hamilton.

Which I know Verstappen always says you can’t compare different eras but I can’t understand the hype around Senna,

I mean, personally, I prefer Prost because of how Jenson Button describes his driving style.

But I would like to understand though. I always like your input, so that’s why I’m asking. Thank you!

Have a lovely week!

Hey! yeah F1 will always be a part of my life so I'm always down for F1 asks. Fdfsjfdsghjds as for this it's a... complicated question. There's a lot of stuff going on.

So fair warning, this is going to be a long fucking answer.

For me personally, I totally agree with the argument that you really cannot compare different eras. Like, Max for example having more wins per season means Nothing when there are statistically more races per season. But then does this mean Fangio's statistic of winning the highest percentage of races per season is the real meaningful record, and it means he's better? Well, not in a way you can meaningfully prove, because fewer races per season means fewer chances to lose, or to have a mechanical problem, or a freak accident.

So you see really quickly how comparing different eras is like. Almost meaningless, because the skills needed in each era varied so much. It's not like a lot of other sports where the rules and structure were already consistent more than a hundred years ago and so it's easier to compare across a few decades. The physical demand an F1 race places on the body today would have been absolutely unthinkable to those drivers in the mid 20th century, even in the late 80s. They'd think it was a different sport entirely.

Like to me, The Greatest in F1 is about how they impact you personally. Michael is The Greatest and I don't feel any need to justify that by comparing his stats to others. It's about what he makes me feel in my chest, not his numbers.

And I think that's the crux of the issue w/ Senna. LOTS has been written about his driving style, his accomplishments, his determination. When Michael was peaking people were doing NASA level calculations to explain why Senna would actually always be better than Michael in numbers still. But I think some of that is people's personal attachment to both of them. Michael is a godlike figure to the tifosi and in German motorsport, and Senna is arguably an even more religious figure to Brazilians. Like I don't even feel right explaining here how much Senna means to some Brazilians because I know it is that deep of an emotion he brings out. He was a big donator to charities, he was a public figure representing Brazil on a global stage at a time the country was recovering from various crises. His funeral was enormous because he was arguably the biggest celebrity in the country.

And that mythical status spreads into motorsport as a whole. First of all because of his success, then because of how he himself weaved his religion into his racing - allegedly talking to god during the race and claiming God chose him to be a racer - then because of his rivalry with Prost, and then, finally, because of the impact a champion dying in an F1 race had on safety in F1 and across motorsport as a whole. Today we don't really appreciate how insane it was that F1 went from the death toll it had before Senna's death, to immediately going 20 years without a grand prix race killing a driver.

(Sidenote but I wish Ratzenberger's death didn't go ignored so often in this legacy and I can't talk about it without mentioning him for the sake of not letting his name go unsaid. Imola as a whole sparked change, not just Senna. It was too much tragedy in too short a timeframe for them to ignore it.)

Senna being "the last death" for such a long time only made his mythical status bigger. The religious wording he'd used about his own career, the way F1 (Brundle) tends to 'valorize' risk and danger, his popularity in Brazil, the mourning his death produced, it all pulled together to create something that's more legend than man. It became less a historical record of a real racer with numbers to his name and more a story about a doomed hero who died too young. When I was watching F1 as a kid - before Jules' death - Senna to me had this image of a martyr now guarding the racers in death and protecting them. That was sort of the 'vibe', I guess, that F1 liked to push.

(There's really something to be said about how Ferrari and Brazil and Italy and Catholicism shaped F1 into a religion with saints of its own I guess.)

Like, I wasn't alive when Senna was racing. I don't consider myself a spiritual person. I don't really even care about Senna, and frankly I know his personal life includes essentially an arranged marriage to an underage girl. But still, I hate it when we go racing at Imola. The whole track feels eerie to me, like it should be left alone, like we're disturbing something. I know that IS superstitious and I never let that feeling out, but it's in the back of my head. That's how strongly F1 has pushed Senna on the fans as a legend beyond questioning, and how it effects even someone who doesn't consider him the greatest and never has.

This ties back into people comparing him to Michael, I promise. I think a lot of the reason people do that, is actually that they're mourning that they never got a definitive answer to the question "Which one is better?" because Senna was killed before the championship could be settled. They try to find other ways to give an answer, to prove it, so they can feel satisfied, so they feel there WAS some sort of resolution to the question and it was just hidden.

But death isn't neat and tidy like hypothetical answers. It just happens. That's natural, and so is resisting the truth of it and the questions it leaves unanswered, or the gaps it leaves in our lives. Senna is framed like a story - F1 is framed like a story - and human nature is to give a story a conclusion with meaning that answers all of our questions - Senna was the best, Michael was the best, Lewis is the best, Fangio is the best, etc - not... nothingness. Not a sudden and abrupt ending to a young life that had nothing to do with the story he was carving out. So Senna's death becomes the turning point for safety in F1, the answer to the question of 'the greatest' becomes something that has already been given, and we create whatever proof we needed to simplify these things down.

In reality, F1 went 20 years without a death from a grand prix because of luck, swift action, and the tireless work of many, many individuals. Stewart, Watkins, Lauda, the drivers who reformed the GPDA after Senna's death and had it up and running by the next race, the people who redesigned Imola to be safer, the FIA circuit grading system, the track marshalls, the medical staff, and hundreds more.

In reality, there is no definitive greatest, and if there is, if we can somehow prove it via mathematics, very few statistics are on Senna's side.

But like. For all that we live in reality, that doesn't inform how we perceive it. When Michael equalled one of Senna's records he broke down crying, and for the rest of his career he always said Senna was the greatest without pause. I'm pretty sure Lewis himself still holds Senna up as the greatest. Because at the end of the day that title isn't something that can be 'proven' to some people, me included. It's not actually about records or statistics or proof. It's about who makes you feel like an awed little kid watching a very brave man in a very fast car.

People don't like to admit that though. People like to be right, and they like it even more when the thing they're right about makes them part of a group. (Senna Fans, Schumi Fans, Hamilton Fans.)

For me personally though, I never like to argue or debate about who is the 'best'. I know nobody will ever change my mind about Schumi, and frankly I don't want to change anyone else's mind about who the 'best' is, and as soon as the conversation starts it always ends up becoming about doing one of those things. I don't see the appeal of it. If someone out there is convinced Maldonado would be a 10 time WDC if he had been in a good car then fine, fuck, sure. You keep believing that.

Sorry. I've rambled a lot and this became more a general treatise on What It Means To Be The Greatest and How Sport Becomes Folklore than an answer to your question. I just didn't feel I could answer without Getting Into It. I hope I've kept this respectful to the drivers of the sport, and it hasn't felt like me lecturing you when I just got super carried away with my theories sfdghfsdhg

TL;DR - I don't think Senna is the greatest, but I think it's purely because of his legacy and myth.

[meanbossart]

A long over-due ask compilation (Art & Music)

It's vaguely based on a short story from the book "The Consumer" by Michael Gira, specifically "The Boss". I think it came up in conversation with a friend or something when I was picking a new username, so that's how we arrived at it - this was almost a decade ago so, my memory on it is a little hazy!

{MORE UNDER THE CUT]

HAHA thank you so much!!! Glad you enjoy what I do 😎🍻

I BELIEVE this little guide I put together over here might be helpful to you, also! I touched on pretty much everything you brought up.

As for reference material when it comes to facial expressions, I have a mirror next to my desk which I glance at often and make weird faces at LOL and for consistency, it's really a matter of learning to dissect and remember facial structure. It's just something you end up developing an eye for when you've done it for long enough! Naturally, if we're talking about drawing existing characters, it's always helpful to just look at some pictures of their mugs and take a minute to define what features about them make their faces recognizable - I touch on this at the link above as well!

I do plan on making a "drowstarion" (love that, by the way LOL) playlist eventually, life's just been kicking my ass and I hardly have the time 😭and when I do, I just wanna draw.

Otherwise I don't have any other playlists floating around at the moment, BUT the one my boyfriend made for his Vellioth comic can be found here, and it might scratch a similar itch!

Thank you! I believe this was in reference to this post. Something like that takes me about... An hour??? If we're talking just the colors, at least. Though that's a really rough estimate because I take a lot of breaks, so my sense of time when I work ends up pretty skewed. Even if the application of the colors themselves took less than 20 minutes I probably spent 2 hours just staring at it LOL.

My friend, I have no idea. I'm in a constant battle between "I want to draw more realistically" and "I want to simplify my art so I can draw more/faster". What you see is the result of that ongoing brain-tug-of-war.

Also, just the way I assume everyone else develops theirs - they see stuff they like and emulate it until their art is Frankensteinish enough to be it's own unique thing!

I'm far from a Type O Negative buff, BUT I'm happy to share some of my favorites with you! They're quite scattered across a couple of their albums so I'm not sure I have a favorite, but I would say October Rust is a good starting point.

In no particular order, these are my most listened tracks of theirs: -Love You to Death -Black N.01 -Haunted -She Burned Me Down -Can't Lose You -I Don't Wanna Be Me -Be My Druidess -September Sun -Tripping A Blind Man

Alas, I was one of those people who was already drawing in kindergarten 😅 though I would say I only started taking it seriously when I was around 15-16 years old. As someone who has tried their hand at several other hobbies since reaching adulthood, I get what you're saying that it can kinda feel like... You missed the wagon? I've felt that way about all kind of things lol

That said, I've seen adults managing to develop their art skills extremely fast and effectively before. Understanding where and how you need to improve, and how to follow lessons/guides best is something that is vastly improved by maturity and knowing how to best hone your time, attention, and resources - and those are skills we completely lack as children. So, I sincerely believe that as long as you commit yourself, you can definitely get to a point that you're happy with in a couple of years if not less.

JUST DO IT BUDDY we are all just people looking through a screen and you won't ever see, talk, or meet 99% of the folks who ever clap eyes on what you post. Whenever you start getting nervous about sharing something, take a minute to ask yourself why you're nervous, and if none of the reasons have any genuine substance besides being afraid of what people "might think", just go ahead and post it. You're no mind-reader after all, and if you are, I doubt you can hear what a guy from Argentina or wherever is thinking about the art you made.

Point is, nobody online can touch you 🤷and if someone doesn't like what you do, they can simply choose to not interact with it, and if they do you can block and move on. There are zero reasons for you to feel "bad" about putting up a doodle when our experiences on the web are so easily curated nowadays.

[darklinaforever]

Targaryen antis might try to make claims about their inherent role as antagonists while denying every subsequent piece of textual and logical evidence that proves them wrong

Mainly, that GRRM who has been working for over a decade to finish the main series now, would spend his time (even if it was written linear to Winds of Winter) writing a villain origin story not for the Others but for the Targs is - well, a bizarre fool's errand?

As opposed to the reality that he wrote this entire history in support of his protagonists (Jon & Dany) who are both foils of their ancestors and fulfillers of his series' main storyline (and imo prophecy). The fact that George consistently parallels the fall of the dragons and the fall of the Night's Watch because they are both detrimental to the fight against the Long Night. That Aegon I modeled the King's Guard vows after the Night's Watch's. Aegon supported the Night's Watch and later Alyssane and Jaehaerys had a very impactful experience visiting the wall and showed even greater support. The New Gift was no trivial patronage it was actually a great contribution to the wall. It isn't until after the Dance and death of the dragons that we see a major decline in support of the NW. However, the Targs had their focus on reviving the dragons at that time. Still after that, Bloodraven goes to the wall and becomes Lord Commander, again no doubt on the importance of his character to the story. Or that Jon would become Lord Commander. All this to say it is almost impossible to say that the Targaryens are not important protags, if not vital, to the endgame of the plot. Why would George make the "villains" the heroes in the end, as much as he loves to twist tropes and exploit loopholes, it just doesn't logically ad up. The fanatical Targaryens obviously commit heinous acts and some of them come to tragic ends for their fascination with the prophecy of ice and fire but if it was just a tool to show their fallacy ... why would George continue to write it so emphatically across the series?

The antis hate it and they can continue to cry about it but George has never supported their beliefs. If we ever see A Dream of Spring I have no doubt this will all be made clear. Even in his latest dragon related blog post I believe we will have more evidence in Winds of Winter as well.

As I have always said, the antis have no form of logic.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 3

Propaganda Under Cut

Suzi Q

This article is incomplete; you help by expanding it

All she's literally ever done is have a few cute exchanges with Joseph and be a sweetheart in the short time we get to see her following her minor introduction, clearly cementing some sort of playful attraction between the two and without fail she's consistently bombarded with extreme mischaracterization to make her seem vapid and cruel (and occasionally homophobic but like in a Completely Oblivious Dumb Blonde way), that she's nothing more than a gold digger who wanted to marry rich, that Joseph only married her because "he lost his actual soulmate and had to settle for her", and that it was HER fault that Joseph cheated on her decades into their marriage. Frankly, everyone who makes jokes at Suzi Q's expense regarding the cheating scandal aren't as funny as they think they are!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Literally all she’s ever done is be adorable and marry the hero and people either dismiss her completely or demonize her. She’s often ignored or made to play wing woman for the hero/sidekick ship OR she’s a horrible gold digger who only wants the hero for his money and/or she was only ever just a consolation prize for him when he couldn’t be with his sidekick. She also gets blamed for her husband having an affair. People like to say that she wasn’t good enough for him and could never replace his sidekick and that clearly he never REALLY loved her and it’s her fault for never measuring up. Her husband’s infidelity aside, she stayed married to that man for at least 60 years and canonically says she always believes in him and trusts him to save the day and yet people wanna say she doesn’t care about him. Or call her stupid for never imagining that her husband would cheat on her. The victim blaming gets really gross. 

Gwen

She stands in the way of Merthur, by far the most popular ship in the fandom. I haven’t seen it as much in recent years, but back in the days of fanfiction.net she got slut shamed so badly for having been romantically interested in three of the male characters over the course of the show, which is just... normal straight woman behavior, meanwhile Merlin crushed on pretty much every woman who even looked at him in the early seasons of the show and got no hate for that whatsoever. I barely even read Merthur fics (not because it’s m/m, just because certain aspects of their relationship don’t appeal to me) but the “Gwen is a slut” attitude was so pervasive across the fandom, even fics that weren’t explicitly anti-Gwen would “jokingly” call her a slut. I even saw a few fics demonizing her for having an affair with Lancelot despite the fact that SHE WAS ENCHANTED when that happened, and surprise surprise, Lancelot (who was also under the influence of magic) got none of that hate, and neither did Arthur, who got enchanted to fall in love with multiple women over the course of the show.

Canonically Arthur Pendragon's love interest and an important and interesting character in the show who's completely shoved aside and ignored in favour of the medieval bbc yaoi ship. At best they put her and Morgana in Lesbian Timeout (ie make them get together and then reduce them to wingwomen at best because god forbid we focus on the medieval bbc yuri). Justice for Gwen right now!

She is prince Arthur's love interest (eventually wife). Arthur is MADLY in love with her. He tells his tyrannical father he would give up his crown to be with her (she's a servant in the series). He forgives her cheating on him with Lancelot (!), which in the show is caused by an evil enchantment, but the characters never find out about it. He chooses her time and time again. His love for Gwen is literally never put into question. Many fans insist to this day that there was no chemistry between Gwen and Arthur compared to Arthur and Merlin. Arthur isn’t even particularly nice to Merlin most of the time! The funny thing is that Merlin himself ships these two so hard and does everything he can to help them get together!! Gwen & Arthur are adorable and too many fans were drunk on the yaoi fumes to see it. ARTHUR WAS A SIMP FOR GWEN.

[givepie]

Hm! I feel a rant coming on! Everyone duck!

MY THOUGHTS ON THE HYPERIA STORY AND ITS THEMING. ALSO A GENERAL RANT ON COASTER THEMING.

Let start with a general question: what counts as theming?

To me, theming is the set pieces, pre-show, and anything laid out in a rides area to help develop a story. Most of the time this helps world-building more than anything. To me, even music can be a piece of theming because it helps to set a tone. For example, when riding Smiler, the laughter sounds almost manic and it makes you realise straight away that something is off, before you even step foot into X-sector.

Anything that DOESN'T fall into this classification such as website and app pages, falls into "storytelling". In a theme park, it is almost impossible to tell the entire story from one repeated instance inside of said story. To tell a complicated story like that of the Smiler, it would take so much exposition, which is very much not the point and would take away from the experience as a whole.

So storytelling isn't a bad thing, it's how they handle it.

To me, there are three behemoths of theme park theming and storytelling worldwide. That I know of.

Baron 1898, X-Sector post-Smiler, And Forbidden Valley post-Reborn.

Baron 1898 is pretty easy to grasp while you're there, even as a non-speaker of the language. You're going on a mine tour and 3 ghost ladies are PISSED that you're going down there. The actual theming is downright impressive ans I would love to see it in real life. You can then look up the story to find out who the ghosts are, who the Baron is, and how the mine came to be. Really good treat for people who decide to look.

Forbidden Valley has a story that has remained relatively consistent throughout the years. It has wondering actors that establish the world in a realistic yet entertaining way rather quickly. There are an official operation; there are people opposing the operation so there is something sneaky going on; there is a tour group taking advantage of the centrepiece so the Alien is a tourist attraction in this universe, too. Just little things that help put together a bigger picture.

Of course this starts coming apart a little bit when the audio starts explicitly telling you what is happening, but it still holds. You see someone's office, a crashed helicopter, weapons for warding off the alien. All things to help build up this universe you are now ankle-deep in. And then there's the 3 pages on the Internet that break down the story for you, which can also be seen in the shop.

Finally, of course, there's X-sector. It doesn't usually have roaming actors, and the theme suits better that way. Without the roaming actors, you see that the Ministry are secretive. Trying to stay out of the limelight, except for the skeleton crew they send out to keep the coaster safe and operational. It shows a tone.

However, people casually wondering what this is about can never get an easy answer. Cause the answer is spread out across what remains of a decade-old marketing campaign. Fun for people who want a deep dive, not so fun for people who are just lightly curious. The website barely tells you anything either.

But, on a positive light, the story is so complex it keeps a fandom. Not many coasters have that. It's an insane accomplishment.

And I have a theory as to why. Now, stay with me here I think I'm about to upset some people:

It has aspects of social and political commentary. "Not everything is political" ALL GOOD ART IS A COMMENTARY ON THE TIMES AND CIRCUMSTANCES YOU WERE RAISED IN SIT YOUR ARSE BACK DOWN.

RIGHT, so, Smiler is a story about the government dedicating an organisation to keeping people artificially content to keep people compliant. What are Brits notorious for doing, in comparison to the French?

Doing fuck all. This wasn't always the case. We would riot, we would strike. Now we strike but while the other half of the country complains and just tells the strikers to sit back down and take the mistreatment. We are miserable, we complain, and we go about our day. And that's the joke. Its funny. So why bother changing it?

And if we can't be bothered changing something cause it's funny, what happens if they make everything purposefully funny? They'd never have to deal with the strikes in the first place.

The government functions off of our social compliance, which can come from making jokes at our own expense. We even see it now with our drowned-rat-faced PM as he continues to make a fool out of himself so he's funny. If he's funny, we want to see him more. That's a valid strategy nowadays.

Smiler. Is about how Keep Calm And Carry On is a stand against progress.

Smiler. Is a political and social commentary on the people of Britain. You're welcome.

Anyway!

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE NEW WORLD-STAGE COASTER IN STAINES?

The problem is: it doesn't. Instead of taking inspiration from its sister park, Alton, Thorpe decided to take inspiration from Icon and its shoebox station.

Where is Fearless Valley taking place? When is Fearless Valley taking place? What point in the story are we looking at here? The issue [only issue, really] with Hyperia, is it entirely relies on storytelling and a few bits and bobs in the queue.

Remember the shortcoming in Nemesis? Where you can get a good grasp of the story without it being blasted in your ear? Yeah here they straight up tell you the story, too. The theming has BECOME the storytelling.

Next question: what is Hyperia, the coaster, supposed to be? Yes, we know the story is that a goddess called hyperia overcame her fear of the sea by building wings and escaping the island she was trapped on [for some unspecified reason. Is hyperia evil?], but what IS the coaster supposed to be?

Smiler is the Marmaliser, the machine that transforms you into a smiling advocate. Nemesis is the tentacles of the monster overtaking the metal that pins it down. Baron is the track the drill takes to get into the mine.

What is Hyperia? Are we following Her as she soars, were we stuck with Her; the Icarus to her Daedalus? Are we following in her footsteps as part of a ceremony Her followers reenact for her blessing? Are we supposed to be Her? It's never really specified.

The station is chocked full of a last-ditch attempt of theming, which in comparison with the whole lotta nothing you get from the queueline? It feels cramped. It feels cheap. It barely feels like it belongs on a stage alongside Taron, Velocicoaster and Voltron Nevera. If they didn't have the budget to do the storytelling and the theme, they should've gone for theme.

Any story with no theme feels cheap and artificial. Any theme with no story still stands out and has breathtaking scenes. If they focused more on the white-gold colour palate and maybe had a few statues around and about they could pass it as some sort of pantheon, like climbing Olympus.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm disappointed in all aspects of the Hyperia theming. It feels lazy, tacky and underwhelming when you consider Swarm is a 5 minute walk away. I'm hoping it improves at some point.

I geniunely think the stone head of Collosus is much better than anything in Fearless Valley and its inconsistencies. The Black and gold buildings feel very sleek and out of place for a story ultimately about a goddess who forged. She forged her own wings. She forged her own bravery. Shouldnt the building look a little home made? Where are the bolts? The soldering? I want to see her anvil and hammer pride-of-place, not shoved in the corner of the station.

Cmon thorpe. Get your arse in gear.

[realcatalina]

King and his mother?!

In Christ's College Chapel, Cambridge is 16th century stained glass window, a rare example which survived nearly intact. It is thought to be done in 1505. On left is Henry VII. And the woman on right is Margaret Beaufort. In the most unexpected outfit.

Read further for more.

In middle is St. Edward the Confessor,

on left King Henry VII wearing his armour and crown, already grey-haired.

i just love the silvery part of his armour and also these portculises.

Green behind him probably has to do with tudor colours-green and white.

But it is the female figure on right which caught my attention. It is said to be lady Margaret Beaufort, who was very involved with Christ's College in 1505. Hence it is very logical to asume it is her.

However if you play with image a little bit to see the woman's outfit a bit better...you will realise woman is dressed extremely sumptuarily.

The cloak is held in place by white rope ended by tasle-standard design for female cloak of the time. But this vivid blue colour could be one of blues made using snails as dye...very expensive, on par with purple. The pillow beneath her feet is in same colour, cloth before hr crimson-also very expensive.

So what is the golden part? Her gown+wide sleeves of that gown.

Her headwear seems to be plain black, but otherwise it is pure sumptuousness...not at all what we would expect lady Margaret to wear.

Thus i questioned whetever or not it might be Elizabeth of York instead, however i doubt it because of the shape of coronet. It doesnt match Henry's crown and we have depictions of CoA in crown matching her husbands. Plus these wide sleeves are more consistent with 1510s, they wouldnt become part of English fashion until at least mid 1500s, after Elizabeth died. (As far as i know.)

But then Margaret and the college were in 1505, so it makes sense.

Yet I always imagined that her simple outfit we know from portraits had something to do with her swearung celibacy in 1499.

Can somebody please check records of her wardrobe? Because this is way after and she is depicted truly lavishly. But you know-she got her son on throne after years of struggles and worries. Which one of us wouldn't then want to enjoy her golden years?

You know we had similiar thing with Margaret of Austria. She had so many portraits of herself in simple outfit, looking like true mourning widow and didnt want to remarry after two dead husbands. So people mistakenly think that is all she wore all the time, even though it was not so.

Unfortunately the image is also bit dirty and scratched or worn of in places. I imagine that originally it looked more like this:

I know that at the very top we have lines consisting with white chemise, then black line which could be black kirtle, then line of large pearls(maybe ment to sit on edge of black kirtle) then golden line is probably edge of golden gown...but right under it imo is edge of ermine surcoat.

Which obviously would not be showing over lower parts of golden gown.But normally there is no band running across in middle of the chest-imo that is damage.

Then obviously her blue cloak is held in place by pieces of white rope(typical of the time)-ending in tassel.

That is how i interpret it and this is the best version i could come up with:

One more thing. I do not know which one of these is correct:

With or without u-band.

U-band on forehead occurs in gable hoods of 15th century. After 1505, the vast major women would long since have abandoned it. Like a decade prior.

Yet she was over 60, so i cannot rule out that granny who nobody would have dared to criticized-because she was mother of the king- would have gone around in something way out of fashion.

But then...she has no visible paste and that is consistent with 15th century too. Yet the gown is strongly against it.

So this is bit of contradiction, based upon just this small detail.

But who knows, maybe it is simply dirty in the most unfortunate of the spots and conicidently looks more like u-band, while it might be bit of hair showing.

I hope you have enjoyed this and tell me what you think.

[olderthannetfic]

I love seeing all the gripes about booktubers and YA authors on here as someone who works in publishing. A lot of the problem from these two spheres has to do with the fact that publishing, especially YA, is suffering right now. There was a boom in YA around a decade ago wherein we saw many YA novels and series received live action adaptions as TV series and movies. This was when YA books were the most profitable for authors. This was a relatively new genre-demographic (technically a demographic, but because there are stylistic and thematic similarities that are consistent across all genres of YA fiction, I will call it a "genre-demographic," "G-D" for short), and publishers were willing to take risks on acquiring more titles because they were valuing quantity over quality. They wanted to fill up shelves with YA novels as quickly as possible. However, this was a problem because they created an entirely new G-D based on a trend. The thematic and stylistic simplicities that were previously overlooked in YA became more well-known. YA began to lose popularity among the masses, and the oversaturation of the market has resulted in increasing competition among YA authors and more YA authors trying to branch out into other realms that will sell better, like "adult" books and middle grade.

Initially, YA was mostly read and purchased by/for teenagers, the intended target demographic. Then, these teenagers grow up, but their tastes did not. Most YA readers are women 26 years old and up. Publishers know this. The readers know this. Yet, the YA readers on book twitter and booktubers continue to push for changes in these books to better suit their needs as they age (slightly older/college aged protagonists, more sex scenes [unless they're sex scenes they don't like], more mature themes [as long as their authors properly prostrates themselves to the readers, of course], etc). They think of YA books as their safe place they can use to mindlessly consume, consume, consume, and anything more complex than an episode of Buffy threatens this veneer of control. The result is YA author Twitter drama. 

Even though all the authors are adults (also: most of their customers are adults, and an increasing amount of teenagers have begun skipping over YA alltogether and reading books for adults), they will fall back into purity culture and use "think of the children" which necessitates we prioritize the metaphorical innocence of the child (read: the adult YA enjoyer) over art, which unfortunately results in the consumer-led sanitization of the G-D. The YA readers are doing this for typical anti-esque reasons: control, moral postering, etc. The YA authors are taking part for two primary reasons: 1) they want to appeal to their consumer-base and the author-as-internet-personality-for-marketing demands this, and 2) they are eliminating their competition. The authors are using purity culture to demonize their fellow authors and victimize themselves. This is what led to the redefining of OwnVoices. It went from being a simple hashtag to help authors get more eyes on their work to being a requirement of YA authors, lest they want to risk persecution from their peers and customers. Publishers are aware of this but do not do much to combat this because it’s free marketing for them, and they don’t want to alienate the only people who spend money in that G-D. Publishers use people like me to follow YA authors and YA consumers on socials to keep track of their comments, as well as how they review books—assuming they actually read the books at all, which we know many do not. This has led to more book hauls are speed reading challenges among reviewers and booktubers, but that’s another thing for another time.

This is the last thing I’ll say before I go. This briefly cut into the mainstream consciousness last year. Book twitter drama (think Isabel Fall, Amélie Wen Zhao-Kosoko Jackson, Sarah Underwood, etc) is outrageous and insipid, but it seldom gets on the radar of those outside these circles. Last year Barnes and noble announced publicly they wouldn’t stock hardbacks of new books, something that was already in practice, to be honest. Cue disgruntled YA authors screeches. This wasn’t an issue and was very understandable. Paperbacks sell more. Hardbacks are larger, more expensive for buyers, and more time-consuming to produce. publishers were notified of this change over a year in advance. None of the authors with upcoming books would be affected because their publishers already knew to print paperbacks, unless their publisher decided to ignore B&N’s warning. People in publishing knew this, but the public did not. YA authors fell back into self-victimization mode and guilt tripping to strategically sell more copies of their books. However, publishers and agents alike noticed this, and some authors were punished behind the scenes. Those same authors then went on Twitter after the fact to target more of their peers in hopes of selling more books. [There are other factors influencing their behaviors, of course, but this ask is long enough.]

That’s all it is, really: YA authors are people in a failing G-D within a failing industry where they constantly need to eliminate their competition and compete to see who’s more moral than the next in hopes of selling books because their publishers don’t market them and give poor advances. YA readers in book twitter/booktubers are functionally conservative anti-intellectuals. (YA authors are also anti-intellectuals if it means they believe they'll sell more books. See the plethora of pathetic Twitter threads around back to school season: "The classics are all boring and bad and spread x ideas. School libraries should purchase more YA. Students should read more YA in class instead, like my book.") If you’re following any of them, please consider stopping for your own sanity. If you see them make or signal boost call out posts, always be skeptical because every other professional with repute around them already is.

--

Back in my teen years in the 90s, the term 'young adult' existed, but the only books I remember seeing were a few Judy Blume titles about realistic teen problems or something. I went straight from kids' books to plain old genre fiction for adults. It's amusing to hear that current teens are going back to that.

A lot of YA boom fallout feels to me like every other time something was a brief blip but a brief blip just as a person came of age: they spend forever waiting for "the normal status quo" to reassert itself and wondering why it does not.

[astriferias]

listen i’m sorry yall didn’t get the endings you wanted for your ships, but ted was never going to stay in london. it’s been written into the show from the beginning.

a consistent theme throughout the show has been fathers, and what a lifelong effect they can have on a person. we see it with jamie, who built his entire career on spiting his father; we see it with sam, who has a wonderful dad that he misses desperately; we see it with rebecca, who both hated and loved her father.

we see it with ted. ted, who was 16 years old when his father made a tragic choice that removed him from ted’s life permanently. ted, who spent the next few decades of his life dedicating himself to every single person around him and their needs, at the expense of his own. ted, who made a choice to move 4000+ miles away from his own son to give his [ex-]wife the space she asked for.

london and afc richmond were only ever a stop-gap for him. he found a home, and a family, but new families can’t and shouldn’t always replace our old ones. he missed 3 years of his son’s life, of milestones they’d never get back. henry’s still a kid in the series, but soon he’d be aging into a part of his life where, if ted left, they’d grow apart. one day, he or henry would visit one another and he’d realize they’re strangers, that he lost his own son (and imagine the abandonment complex ted would develop, worrying over how he destroyed his own kid by moving across the world).

ted realized that, just like his own father, he had made a choice that removed himself from his son’s life, and that it was hurting them both and potentially destroying their relationship down the road. unlike his own father, he could go back and be there for his child.

i saw someone on twitter yesterday describe ted as mary poppins, and tbh this is the most effective character analysis i’ve seen yet. the entire premise of the show was built on this man, this coach, coming into his players’ lives, and for whatever short periods of time he gets them he works to make them into the best people they can be. trent said it in the total football episode: “you’ve done this over three seasons. by slowly but surely building a club-wide culture of trust and support through thousands of imperceptible moments, all leading to their inevitable conclusion. total football.”

and like. because of this, he was never going to stay at afc richmond. the show is, above all else, about human nature and the ups and downs of life. sometimes people come into our lives and make a huge impact, but it’s only for a little while. sometimes people grow, change, and move on. that frequently means going in separate directions. but it doesn’t lessen the impact that those people leave behind.

ted built a family and culture that would continue long after he left afc richmond. he made an incomprehensible impact on every player, every coach, every staff member of the club, and on the people in his community. and then he went home to the little boy who needed him the most.

[shrimpmandan]

I think at this point anyone who calls themselves a proshipper but is like, staunchly aggressively no-matter-what anti-RPF is either deluding themselves or thinks that the concept of "real people being reimagined as fictional characters" hasn't existed for decades at this point.

Everyone was fucking raving about Hamilton and Clone High barely a few years ago. A lot of extremely famous, influential movies are based off of real people, such as The Wolf of Wall Street. Every single fucking cartoon you've seen that references a real life historical figure like Cleopatra or Napoleon is technically doing RPF to some degree. THE MAGIC FUCKING TREEHOUSE IS RPF.

All this is ignoring how much we WORSHIP AO3, but-- but but, the founder of AO3 very much supports RPF. And by supports I mean they actively WRITE RPF. Tons of American Idol stuff that's all obscenely popular!

Now of course, there's gonna be some people who have a kneejerk rebuttal about how it's "different" with historical figures, that it doesn't matter because they're all dead, or that movies and books are different from fanfiction that may or may not be sexual. Except all of those arguments make absolutely zero sense when you think about them for more than two seconds.

Shouldn't the subjects being dead make it... more disrespectful, on a base level? You could made a valid case that with historical figures, nobody is left alive to mourn them. In comparison, people who have died relatively recently still have loved ones alive to mourn their deaths, and who would very likely be negatively mentally impacted by stumbling across an RPF fic. Understandably so--

but wasn't our whole argument that other people's feelings are their own to deal with, and not our responsibility?

You can make a similar case for serial killers, too. The victims of Jeffrey Dahmer still have friends and family that are alive. I would imagine they wouldn't want to see posts sexualizing or glorifying him-- but I doubt they're seeking out anything related to him /at all/, frankly. And then we're back to point one about how all that matters is that shit is consistently tagged and that people simply don't read what they don't like.

In my opinion, the sole, sound argument against RPF would be sexual RPF of minors. Even if no contact or even grooming is happening: that is still sexual content of a living minor. That is CSEM. That is a completely valid thing to be against. I honestly fail to see why sexual drawings of real minors are illegal, but not writings. Still, writings and drawings do not involve the same amount of /direct/ abuse as 'regular' CSEM and CSA, but making the argument of psychological harm is fair, especially when this is a case of a child being directly sexualized against their will.

But then we're still back to square one.

Don't like don't read.

Honestly, I'm neutral on RPF. I'm against anything that involves a sexualized depiction of a real child, and I'm generally not super interested in or comfortable with reading fics about real people, but it's also not a topic I can just disassociate myself from and say that it's somehow disconnected from proshipping. It isn't. Proship communities are built off of the backs of RPF shippers, like it or not. And honestly, I couldn't care less so long as the shipper in question is still respectful of the privacy of the subject(s) they're writing about. The version of the person they're writing is fundamentally not real, and that's a weird thing to wrap your head around. One could even argue my own reasons for singling out child sexual RPF is hypocritical or contradictory, and I wouldn't disagree. I think having mixed feelings on the subject is understandable. But being completely, over-archingly against it due to knee-jerk discomfort? It just seems a bit silly to me.

[ystk-archive]

[Translation] capsule in girls '60s magazine (Feb. 2004)

When I first saw their music videos, the striking visuals immediately caught my eye. Simplistic designs, vivid color schemes on the outfits and sets… I can't describe the style as anything other than '60s-inspired. For the first edition of our "Pick Up Artist" feature, it's one whose existence fascinates me — let's take a look at the charm of capsule.

capsule is a music unit consisting of Nakata Yasutaka, whom manages the sound, art direction, design, concept work and so on, and vocalist Koshijima Toshiko. Nakata directs the image, visual aspects, and songs while Koshijima performs it all, resulting in their unique style. - original interview by Aikawa Chisato, translation by ystk-archive -

The reason behind their '60s-inspired visual style

Nakata: To be honest, I don't have any particular attachment to the '60s. I just like unique and minimalistic things, stuff with interesting shapes and clean designs and whatnot. It started when I got into interior design, and at first I especially liked Space Age furniture.¹ That's changed a little recently — I like pieces made out of wood but still with that outerspace kind of vibe. Even when it's made from wood, it doesn't feel natural, it still has this sort of odd look. When it comes to the '60s, I like the plywood that they often used. But I'm intrigued by Karimoku furniture too (laughs).²

— So would you say you're more interested in space and not the '60s?

Nakata: Yeah, and I guess sci-fi movies played a part in that. In movies like Men in Black you often see Tulip chairs, though I don't think they were used to evoke a retro or '60s feel on purpose.³ With films like that I tend to focus more on the furniture and not the overall atmosphere; if anything, I see furniture along with fashion as objects that look nice when put into a scene you're taking in as a whole. I like to come up with unconventional settings. Women are usually depicted in sci-fi films as secretaries, all wearing identical wigs and uniforms, and I like that kind of weird atmosphere. So instead of me consciously liking '60s aesthetics, I wound up thinking they were cool without making the connection that they were from that decade. I also love clothes that incorporate simplistic, striking designs, since they're like spacesuits (laughs).

— How do you feel about wearing clothes like that?

Koshijima: I'm also not obsessed with the '60s or anything, but I like to play around with that era's clothing and makeup styles. It's more fun than just wearing normal clothes.

— Have you two had similar tastes all along?

Nakata: Our tastes used to be completely different. I feel like she's adjusted to match me.

— So Koshijima-san is committed to being a model?

Koshijima: Yep. I haven't changed my approach, ever since the beginning.

— Are there times where you feel like your tastes really are different?

Koshijima: I don't think so. If we actually were fundamentally different, I don't think we'd be working together. Strangely enough, when I look at the materials I'm given, I start to think they're cute. Nakata: When I get an idea, I suggest it first. Koshijima: But he doesn't show me clothes or anything directly, instead he shows me photos and videos… Like I'm being brainwashed (laughs). The more he introduces me to all kinds of cool things, the more similar we become. After I watched the materials he gave me, poses and dance moves just started coming naturally to me without even realizing it.

— Maybe you ran across something from the '60s that left an impression and that ended up coming through in your image.

Nakata: Yeah, there are a lot of easy explanations for it. I wonder if we're more like a new product with a retro design that would fit nicely in someone's living room, rather than something that could be found in an authentic '60s vintage shop. I think even if we intentionally collected oldschool aesthetics from that era and tried to copy those, it'd still turn out differently, because peoples' concept of the '60s and the real '60s are two different things. But if you take parts of that concept people have of that decade and use them, you wind up with something that has the right feel to it. For me right now, the concept I have in mind is the "style" of the '60s. Instead of making clothes or objects to match up with the '60s aesthetic, the styles are already floating around in my head, and then I make content that reflects that. There were a lot of useless shapes — like aren't record players from back then weird-looking? The technology of them and the half-dome shape are of that time, but the way they look on the outside is as if someone was imagining the future while designing them. It's interesting how these days it's the opposite: now the exterior designs of things are retro while the tech inside is highly advanced. And I like both (laughs). I even like things that seem out of place. I'm drawn to a sense of disharmony.

— Would you say the essence of the '60s is woven into your music?

Nakata: Not intentionally. I think the things I like tend to show through my music on accident. Basically I want to make any music, as long as it's cute.

— So do you feel like music is essentially an object?

Nakata: Music is something I started doing because I thought I could create it. It was right when I was in junior high school, they'd made a lot of progress with technology so making cassette tapes became fun. Part of that was because I liked the feeling of winding a tape up. I liked playing around with machines more than the music aspect itself and, when it comes to decorating, I even like the look of a tape deck sitting in a room. So that's why I want our CDs to be sold in regular stores along with other kinds of merchandise. I don't think music should be classified as something special and separate; it's good if it's just one part of the total amount of belongings in a space. Rather than wanting people to listen to our music seriously, I'd be happy if they enjoy the atmosphere it gives when they play it out in the open.

¹ Space Age design was characterized by "sleek, aerodynamic lines and geometric forms," "dominated by bright, bold hues" and was often constructed of manmade materials such as plastic. You can read more about it here. ² Karimoku is a Japanese brand of all-wood furniture boasting superior craftsmanship. You can read more about it and look at examples here. ³ This is the famous Tulip chair.