#whats more gay? a real gay couple or whatever the fuck these two have going on though the series?

[clockworkreapers]

That one scene from vol 4

[lesbianrobin]

we are playing in the “tommy asks buck for an open relationship” sandbox rn. just go with me on this. ok? ok. he is entirely asking for his own purposes (perhaps trying to hook up with eddie perhaps not who’s to say!) but he frames it like well YOU deserve to experiment and be with other guys :) and so buck agrees despite being a diehard monogamist bc he's desperate to be loved and make this relationship work and tommy makes it sound reasonable.

so for a few weeks tommy like casually hooks up with a few people while buck hangs back uncomfortably and eventually buck is like SIGH well i guess i SHOULD get more experience with guys. and he asks eddie to come with him to a gay bar and buck absolutely knocks it out of the park like he's Killing it he and eddie r having fun and he hooks up with someone new every weekend and unlike his buck 1.0 days he's actually just having fun with it bc he isn't looking for emotional intimacy w these people that he'll never find! he's just letting himself explore things and be happy! meanwhile tommy is going for like shitty grindr hookups that don't even show up half the time. he tries asking eddie to Hang Out and eddie leaves him on read. like he is Not doing too hot.

and i think that buck is completely oblivious to the fact that tommy is not having fun like he is. but eddie does know and he's fucking Thrilled. he's just gonna let this shit play out. eddie knows that he loves buck at this point, but he's watching buck actually enjoy himself and kinda revise the terrible relationship he has with sex and find something liberating in it so eddie's okay with sitting back for awhile and letting buck have this while also laughing at tommy. maybe eddie is also finding hookups when they go out maybe not who's to say.

so after a couple months of this buck and eddie are hanging out and buck is like sigh yknow this open relationship thing was fun for a while but i just don't know if i see this thing with tommy going anywhere... like i don't really care when he hooks up with other people and i don't think it's because i'm cool and polyamorous i think it's because i just don't like him that much. and eddie's like well you shouldn't settle for a relationship where you don't really love your partner. yknow he does his sage advice thing. and buck is like yeah you're right...

and later buck goes to tommy and he's like hey man you're really great and i do like you but i think this just isn't really working. i think we both deserve something better. and tommy's like it's eddie isn't it. and buck's like huh? and tommy's like you were with eddie last night. and buck's like oh well yeah he and i were talking and he said- and tommy's like evan stop bullshitting me we're grown-ups you can just say you're dumping me for him. and buck's like sorry Huh. and tommy's like oh come on he was just "wingmanning" all those times you two went out? and buck is like ...yeah?? he's my friend?? and tommy's like sure. whatever fine. this was fun. have a good life evan. and buck's like what da hell...

and then when he tells eddie about the breakup, he mentions it and eddie's like ha 🙄 and buck's like oh haha yeah like that's crazy right! and eddie's like 🙄 as if you'd still be with him if we had been sleeping together. and buck's like . what. and eddie's like i mean. well it's us. we wouldn't... not as some side thing. if it was us, it'd be real.

and buck's like oh. yeah. do you, uh. think about that? if it was... us? and eddie's like ...once or twice. and buck's like ...once or twice? and eddie's like yeah. each time lasts a few years though. and buck laughs and he's tearing up and eddie grins at him and he says so. us? and buck says yeah. yeah, us.

and then they are in love and get married and are happy forever and ever the end 🫶🏻

[blahpanblah]

Here’s my opinion on some of my favorite Sonic ships. I don’t have a controversial ship here, sorry not sorry.

Surgamy: Look, I really like ships about a nice and loving person with a someone who is the opposite. And Surgamy is just that but the goodest. The moment I saw people ship it, I saw the potential immediately, and it just flourish even further. This might be my only Amy ship that I full time ship all times. Sorry Sonamy, Blazamy, Shadamy, Metamy, etc shippers, I like this one more. Sunshine/grumpy Sapphics go hard.

Shadamy: Alright admittedly this isn’t my FAVORITE Shadow and Amy ship, I don’t even fully ship it. But I get it now. I used to think people who shipped this was the cringiest part of the fandom. BUT I SAW THE LIGHT AND THE POTENTIAL AND I AM ON BORED. I mean, kinda… I still see them more as friends. But yo, anytime I see y’all make ship art or something, i’mma be like “Yo dog I get it. Sunshine and grump, that shit go hard!”

Metamy: METAMY SHIPPERS PLEASE CALM DOWN! I haven’t stopped shipping them, it’s just the fire has died down. I just, started to see them less as a couple potential and just more as friend potential. Like, I just think the idea of Amy, being the ultimate friend maker she is being besties with a clone of her crush that has to kill her like 20 times while he’s going through a existential crisis is cute, funny, and full of potential that doesn’t have to be romantic. And I’ve just started to see them in more of that light.

Knuxrouge: According to the shipping wiki this is one of the more popular ones, and this is one of the only BIG ones I actually ship fully. IDK dog, I just think it’s cute and funny when a character’s reaction to be flirted with is “W…W…Women pretty.” They be cute.

Bigfinite: BLAME THIS ON @bbgatile 1000%. For those who don’t know, they made a bunch of crackship art a few years ago, which they now since deleted, which please don’t hate them for its their art, they can do what they want with it, if you want to find it, just google the ship name on google you’ll find some reblogs. But I saw that shit and I’ve loved this pairing to death since. I love dog/cat pairings! I love calm/extreame pairings! I love villains/that one side character pairings! It’s just a good ship and it’s BULLSHIT that there is only like 4 works of it on AO3. Best believe my next STH fic is gonna be about them.

Whispangle: Do I even need to say anything? Pretty sure this shit practically IS canon! Whatever! Lemur and Wolf sapphics goes hard AF.

Shadknux: This like my only Shadow ship. I think this is real good soup. Although, if I had a preference, I prefer the Boom! Iteration of this ship more. IDK Dumb himbo with enough Twink is extremely cute. I really like these two. I admittedly don’t read a lot of Sonic fics, but I wanna know if there’s some good ones with this pairing.

Jetilver: I understand why one wouldn’t ship them together, but I think the idea of Silver learning how to ride extreme gear, even though he can fucking fly, cute. And listen, these two is just a gay middle school couple to me. Jet is a closeted gay teen who is CONVINCED they are straight, and they just wanna be seen as cool but they come off as cringe. And there’s Silver who is just openly himself and can probably blow you up with his mind yet he finds Jet riding on extreme gear and finds it rad as shit. They cool and cute, and they deserve more attention.

[jimpagne]

the worst thing v gets is being called a leech and attention seeker which is what tkkers had been calling jm FOR YEARS. while disliking v because of shippers is petty it’s incredibly interesting how many jikookers had been defending v in the last few weeks while it’s complete silence within tkkers, youll never catch any of them defend jm

That's because a lot of Jikookers don't need to falsify reality in order to represent a certain agenda. Jikookers can be the bigger person if they need to be.

As someone who is truthfully OT7, I don't sit here hoping that hate trains form around someone that I see to be a "threat" to my ship. If I'm being completely honest, I think trying to consume Are You Sure?! from purely a shipping point of view is entirely counterproductive and not a good way to enjoy content. I think it's fun to gush over certain moments, but if you're only parked outside Disney+ or whatever streaming you're allegedly pirating it from just to see your ship in action... you're opening yourself to form biases and bitter feelings toward things that might not be directly encompassed within your ship's boundaries.

This is why I made a call out post whenever certain jikookers resorted to bullying Taehyung whenever they saw that he was going to be a guest on the show. Though I already hear people coming, saying "Oh, but taekookers are bullying Jimin to hell and back, so why can't we?"

Well maybe you shouldn't because it shows that you have the representative IQ of a toad. So let me get this straight, people who are NOT Taehyung bully Jimin... your first course of action is to... bully Taehyung? I think reciprocal hate is incredibly stupid and unwarranted. If I'm going to shit on the behavior of taekookers, guess who I'm gonna take it out on? That's right, I'm going to take it out on taekookers -- not Kim Taehyung.

Taehyung is currently serving in the military, so I doubt he's logging onto Twitter or Tumblr or whatever to say nasty things about his BEST FRIEND. I think people tend to forget that Jimin and Taehyung are tied at the hip and have an entire song where they wax poetry about how much they care about one another...

Anyways.

A lot of Taekookers live in another facet of reality, so in order to make half of their agenda true, Jungkook has to dislike Jimin, the company has to be forcing their fanservice, Jungkook's mother had to have been sent a script beforehand to ask about Jimin, Taehyung was lying about only seeing the trip details a few days before departure, Jungkook was holding Taehyung's waist in this screenshot (but don't look at the footage where it shows otherwise!), Jungkook only acts "cold" (if being humorously bratty is considered cold) toward him in certain scenes because the producers want Jikook to appear more real, HYBE has some joint contract with the South Korean military to put Jimin and Jungkook together in order to hide the real gay couple that is Taekook--

The more you dive into their rhetoric, the less it makes sense. Taekookers also argue with LITERAL KOREAN PEOPLE about translations in the show. Also it's super funny to see them shift from the narrative that she show is scripted to suddenly saying -- no, it's not scripted, to then saying this part is scripted, to then saying, no the whole thing is scripted again, to then saying, actually at this time stamp they went off the script and--

Fucking crazy.

I think what I noticed the most about a lot of taekooker's rhetoric is that in order for something to be true, they need to create a lie or insult the intelligence of both Taehyung and Jungkook.

So you're telling me that two grown men have to lie about who they're with and what they're doing in order to make your ship real? You're telling me that Jungkook and Taehyung are not intelligent enough to negotiate their contracts or what type of "fanservice" they have to engage with on the regular? You're telling me that Jungkook lied about who he saw on his birthday in order to protect Taehyung? You're telling me that after ten years of being in the same group, Jungkook is actually uncomfortable with Jimin but still decided to get a matching tattoo with him and all the other members? You're telling me that the homophobic country of South Korea is willing to hide a gay couple by endorsing a manufactured gay couple? In the military? Where gay people are famously treated well?

That's sarcasm, for anyone who might lack reading comprehension.

Taekookers are the literal embodiment of that one post where the person is like "source(s): trust me bro" because half of what they spit out makes no fucking sense and is actually insulting to Taehyung and Jungkook. Like y'all constantly insult their intelligence and their free will and make it seem like they're trapped behind bars and don't have enough money or power to negotiate what THEY want. I've even seen certain taekookers become Jungkook antis after Are You Sure?! came out because they think he's being mean to or bullying Taehyung.

God, the lights are on but nobody is home.

[fourmula1]

thinking about a maxiel take on good luck, babe! by chappell roan where daniel is scared to commit to max despite the fact that they’ve been sleeping together for like, a couple years at this point, and that includes actual sleeping. spending the night. ordering food. laying on the couch together. 

but it’s not SERIOUS, right. it’s convenient. they travel the world for work and it’s just easier this way to have someone always there to take care of each other’s needs. it’s just blowing off steam and getting a primal need met. that’s all. right? a person needs to be touched and they’re such good friends as it is and it’s just easy to translate that to the bedroom. the hotel room. the private jet. 

and max has kind of tried to broach the topic a couple of times now. putting a label in this. exclusivity. they have such incredible chemistry in and out of the bedroom and max is ready to make this more serious than it’s been.

and Daniel’s like ‘ahh maxy you’re so young don’t settle down this is all good fun yeah?’

and max has heard daniel say something along those lines so many times and each time he just brushes it aside and carries on because it’s really nice to fall into bed with daniel and forget it all when they’re sweaty and spent and basking in the afterglow.

but it gets to be too much at one point, doesn’t it? max doesn’t want to break up (can he even call it that if they were never together to begin with?) but like. they have been. label or not. so he tells daniel that he doesn’t want to keep sleeping together if that’s all it is (and he knows that isnt all it is but daniel is scared and ashamed of himself and it used to be sad but now max is over it). 

so he cuts daniel loose. but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see and hear things. they run in all the same circles and he’s heard stories about daniel sleeping around and driving to Nice to hit up gay bars and kiss and fuck all kinds of pretty boys and it fucking hurts every time max hears another anecdote but that’s life, isn’t it?

and max minds his own business and eventually he meets a really nice guy in monaco who isn't involved in racing at all. he’s just normal and nice and into max and going on dates and cooking dinner for him and happy to welcome max home during time between races and it’s good! it’s good. max is happy (as he can be. he’s pretty sure daniel is always going to be the one who got away but that’s just it, isn’t it? daniel wanted to get away and max had to let him).

so it’s two years later and daniel retired a year ago and fucked off to australia and max hasn’t seen him since and he hasn’t really thought of him in months either because: he’s getting married to his nice normal boyfriend who tells max he loves him openly and happily (something he never got from daniel). max is retiring the end of this season and though his boyfriend has been an open secret he’s officially come out for real in the sports illustrated story about his retirement and what he’s planning to do (“lots of eating good food and wedding planning!” and the journalist asks how that’s going and max says “always he asks me about this flower or that colour palette and I anyhow don’t care so much but it’s nice to look forward to the day”). 

and daniel of course hears about the one little pronoun, the “he” heard ‘round the world and he gets obliteratedly wine drunk on the farm and he calls max at whatever ungodly hour it is in australia and it’s he first time they’ve spoken in over a year and max didn’t expect to hear from daniel ever again really but now he’s suddenly stuck trying to talk him off a ledge basically and max, bitterly, tells daniel “there was a time i wanted to be doing all of this with you and you always with the excuses ruined it" and daniel chokes on a sob and max reels back a bit when daniel says “I know” because daniel admitting that was never on his bingo card ever.

but max knows, too. daniel did this to himself. to them. 

and max is getting married next month on summer break and daniel’s going to see pictures on instagram and throw his phone against a wall and be alone and hating himself for hating himself so much that he lost the only man he ever loved and no amount of regret is going to change the way max’s beautiful fucking face was lit up in a brighter, happier way than daniel’s ever seen in those fucking photos of his wedding day, kissing his husband in front of their friends and family and the fucking world.

and daniel is a world away in australia. drunk. and crying. and alone. staring at the dusty dirt road and into the horizon - vast and empty. just like him, now.  

[pinkkop]

Day 43 - 15 Days BL Challenge (part 3)

Day 43 - Let’s get delulu, which branded pairing should just get married already? (Note: this is all for fun and giggles, we’re not actually speculating on anyone’s sexuality or relationships.)

Edit: Fair warning, this post got away from me, so here's a tangent about BL pairs first. I won't get offended if you just skip to me talking about BillyBabe.

When it comes to BL pairings I'm very much someone who won't 100% believe that a BL pairing is actually dating as long as there's any financial gain from them pretending to be a couple. (Which is almost all the time for a pairing who's last show was together or that has an upcoming show together or anything vaguely like that)

So as long as there's even the smallest chance that actors are aware of the camera filming or taking pictures of them, then I view their interactions through the lens of fan-service.

This is not to invalidate the love that's between some of these pairings or say that any fan, who does think a pairing is dating, is lying, but since fan-service is a big part of BL, we're always going to have pairings acting it up and I think leaning into the idea that pairings are dating is a slippery slope.

When we decide we think a pairing is dating, we suddenly have a lot more stake in the pairing and it opens up for so many possibilities for people's feelings to get hurt and hurt people are more likely to lash out.

We've already seen it a good handful of times when it comes out that an actor in a pairing is dating someone else or that the actors in the pairing really aren't very close. When that happens fans feel deceived and hurt, get mad and lash out. "Fans" get nasty and start treating the actors and/or their real life partners horribly, because "how could they deceive us like this?"

This could really be applied to anything we believe to be true about an actor. Sexuality, personality, friendships etc. as long as it's something personal to the actor.

And if you're reading this and are thinking "I wouldn't do that!", then I'm sure you're right, I'd like to think this about myself as well, but some fans would and have done exactly that. And it's just hard to know exactly how you'll react until it does happen. Maybe we won't lash out at the actor but we might still turn our back on the actor and help fuel the fire of hurt and anger in the fandom, even if the actor really never did anything wrong, we just assumed.

Bottom line: I'll happily engage in fan-service but as long as a pairing's working together in some way then I'll never be 100% convinced the pairing's actually dating and I think keeping the actors and their personal lives at an arms length is good for both the fans and the actor in the long run.

Anyways, now lets talk about a specific BL pairing because I guess that's what the prompt was actually about...

Billy and Babe!

These two!

I know I already said that I view BL pairings through the lens of fan-service whenever they're in front of a camera but what the fuck are these two doing?! It's like they're doing fan-service on speed!

Making one after the other of really intimate vlogs where they put up a camera and show the fans exactly how close they are. Like some of the things they're sharing in the vlogs are honestly too intimate to share with strangers on the internet if you ask me. Like:

Straight up cuddling in bed in probably just their underwear(?) before getting out of bed in the morning 🤯

Being domestic AF in their hotel room just in robes and underwear (?) 🤯

Whatever it is Billy finds funny about Babe saying that he "Slept so well" 🤯

And finally them being the antitheses to 'two bros chilling in a hot tub, 5 feet away because they're not gay' here 🤯

Apparently their company has come out and said that they don't control any of the things that BillyBabe film in their vlogs and Babe has also recently said he isn't single. Like what the fuck, guys?!

I honestly really hope that this doesn't give any other BL pairings ideas because I don't want this to push the boundaries of what's normal for fan-service. Because this isn't something you just do with your bro and if they aren't actually dating and are instead just playing the part of dating, I think they're taking it too far.

Anyways, I'm mostly just curious to see how this evolve and what happens when they aren't working together anymore.

Maybe they're dating, maybe they're fuck buddies, maybe they're just the best of friends, or maybe they are none of those. Either way, it's none of my business! I just hope they're happy.

The original challenge is here, part two here and part three here.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

pt IX good omens on livestream, i'm not ok: S1E4

You did it, Good Omens fandom, my dear maggots. You broke me in every way. Now I'm here, and where I once spent my day peacefully being sad about normal things, I'm now sad about a random fact about nightingales I learned on a British ornithology site and this is just... the brainrot. It's real. Raise brainrot awareness. Prevention is better than the nonexistent cure.

Well, I've procrastinated this post by like 48 hours by drawing fanart and being mopey over Crowley and generally being asleep because I'm still on antibiotics and ill. So let us not procrastinate further. First, episode 4. Tally, hoes!

In preparation for the stream, I gathered two emotional support oranges, only one of which was gaseous, and an apple. This was so that rather than waste an orange on being gay for Crowley I'd use the apple for that, symbolic of his temptation in the Garden of Eden etc. I didn't know how badly this plan would go.

On Discord, our collective loins girded, I noticed with no small suspicion that everyone was muttering about the bookshop and whether I'd be okay. When I demanded frantically what happened to the bookshop (I THOUGHT EVERYTHING WAS IN S2) everyone shut up and told me the bookshop was in tiptop shape and it was all tickety-boo and nothing would happen at all in episode 5.

Spoiler alert it is not all tickety-boo.

We start with Aziraphale going for a jog to keep uh fit for exercising with Crowley, and he is interrupted by Gabriel, who is not Jimbriel, and is not naked, that is, we cannot see his arse yet, but we can see that he is an arse.

We then see not-Newt the deliveryman with his wife Maude and they are the only straight couple that the people on the chat care about. Calling him not-Newt is going to pose problems for me.

Crowley is being a smart baby, and researching astronomy. Poor Crowley. I love Crowley. Do you understand? I LOVE CROWLEY.

There is a lot of talk of spoons and forks and such innuendos. I make a joke about scissors being missing. The chat does not notice. I am disappointed in the gays.

I am so engrossed in the way Death says "deeAaaAAthHHhh" that I fail to notice Not-Newt get killed delivering a message to Death. This is going to pose problems for me.

I forgot about the apocalypse plotline till the horsepeople arrive. This is understandable. I care not for this 'world' ending, my new world is Crowley. I love Crowley.

Duck aliens fucking descend. This is not a joke. There are duck aliens, and they are supportive of trans people. Newt does not count their nipples.

The Shad guy doesn't care Newt found aliens. He is upset that Newt didn't find witches. If Shad was mowing his lawn and found gold, he would toss it aside because he is focused on mowing. I can respect that. People make jokes about Newt eventually finding a witch.

It is suddenly a Christopher Nolan movie. Someone corrects me and says it's more like Jerry Bruckheimer. I do not know what that is.

Someone says Crowley destroys the Bentley but for whatever reason, like a lot of people before, makes it a black box that you have to click to read. I don't mind that, I like clicking.

Aziraphale bought out a theatre for Crowley, like a Kdrama where the rich CEO buys out an entire theatre for his working class girl.

Adam goes through what I went through with OCD. It is not fun.

It is now a horror movie. Adam floats in the air. That was not a symptom I had with OCD.

Crowley asks Aziraphale to run away with him to the stars. Aziraphale says no. Crowley is upset and my baby Azi looks so sad and confused about everything he believes in. Great. I'm totally fine, I think as I start stuffing my emotional support orange into my mouth.

It is now a Home Alone movie. Crowley in gloves is sexy. Mmmmmmm yes. Crowley does great advertising for plant spray bottles as he murders and threatens demons.

I point out that the GO book says Crowley can do "weird things with his tongue" as I learned from the GO scent guide company page. It was after all the most relevant take-away from that page.

Disco Tony arrives. This is not a safe space.

AZIRAPHALE KEEPS TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND IS FAILED BY HEAVEN LEAVE MY BABY AZI ALONE WTF GO AWAY. THE ANGELS WALL SLAM HIM TOO. THAT'S CROWLEY'S THING YOU BASTARDS.

Newt and Anathema are cute. I DON'T NOTICE BECAUSE IM SO UPSET HE'S CHEATING ON MAUDE AND WONDERING WHY THE CHAT IS OKAY WITH IT BECAUSE I AM A FOOL WHO CONTINUES TO MIX UP NEWT WITH NOT-NEWT AND THEN THE CHAT TELLS ME NOT-NEWT DIED AND I'M CONFUSED.

Newt and Anathema are having sex. As an aspec person, I am very alarmed at the visuals.

Azi is failed by heaven and the metatron. Shocker. Fucking get away from Azi. Azi is miserable and looks like he wants to cry.

AZI IS EXORCISED AND THE FUCKING FLAME CATCHES IN THE BOOKSHOP AND THE EPISODE ENDS.

TAKE MY PAIN MOTHERFUCKERS. I WILL POST THIS AND THEN WRITE THE EP5 PART.

[the-everqueen]

wip tag game

tagged by @two-hands-toward-the-sun. i have...more wips than i remember at any given time, and i just peck at whichever one when the spirit moves me (usually when i'm procrastinating actual work). currently there's eight active in the rotation, with another handful that are more conceptual/bits and pieces i want to come back to later.

Sandman

Lucienne takes the Corinthian for walkies: this is in response to a Valentines day prompt @two-hands-toward-the-sun sent me, "going on a platonic date and being mistaken for a couple." Dream weaponized his sad wet eyes at Luce to make her take some PTO and also provide some enrichment for his recreated masterpiece. they go to the MOMAT

As though attuned to her thoughts, the Corinthian hangs back at a respectable distance—not out of sight, but perhaps out of mind, if she wished. When Lucienne frowns at him, trying to discern whether this is some kind of trick, he makes a show of fiddling with the audio guide, head turned away as he hooks the piece over his ear.

does your husband know the way the sunlight gleams on your wedding ring: Corinthian/Calliope fic in the period between Orpheus and Calliope & Dream's divorce. once again, a woman takes Coco out for her idea of a good time and proves literally anyone else would be a better owner for the Corinthian than Dream.

He means to retreat. He doesn’t think she’s noticed him, and he wouldn’t impose on her privacy. Calliope was always nice to him. But grief smells like weakness, and a Muse’s grief smells different from that of the humans he stalks in dreams, wearing the faces of their long-departed. His mouths water at the scent, unfamiliar but delectable. For a fleeting moment, he wonders what her eyes might taste like, what he’d see if he took them in his own.

gay coworkers: words are HAPPENING in the next installment!

“Technically—" “C’mon, a memory wipe is hardly better—" “I’m not defending his actions, I’m simply pointing out—" “Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” the Corinthian snaps. Matthew and Lucienne exchange guilty glances. “You could at least wait until you’re back at the palace. Doing it in my house, that’s just fucking rude.”

la guard dog literal: Morpheus recreated the Corinthian as a (sort of, semi-eldritch) dog because surely that will fix his behavioral issues. Daniel still rehomes him with Rose Walker.

Jed twists around in his seat. The Corinthian snuffles obligingly at the hand he offers, gives the fingertips a quick swipe with his tongue. Jed’s face splits into a smile. That smile makes something warm unfurl in the Corinthian’s belly, prompts him to worm closer with a thready whimper. No threat. Which is maybe the biggest lie he’s ever told and he didn’t even speak it in human words, but in the moment he desperately wants Jed to believe it, and not just so he can sink his teeth into that vulnerable neck still soft with baby fat.

what if we made those daddy issues literal: semi-period accurate 1920s fic where the Corinthian is Dream's troublesome ward and Matthew is the tutor Dream hires to bring him in line. is this because i'm obsessed with Assad Zaman's outfits in hotel portofino? yes.

“Dream’s not my father.” “I thought—" “He’s my guardian. Keeper. Master. Whatever.” “He—" “Of course he’s benevolent. Can afford to be, I suppose. So long as I perform well.” “Does he—?” “Not how you’re thinking.” Cori barks a short, humorless laugh. “That wouldn’t be conducive to his long-term plans, would it? Breaking his toy before it can be of any real use.” “That’s—" “Good? Yeah. Sure.” Something shutters in his expression. “After all, what would become of this poor orphan child without some generous benefactor to mold him into a productive member of society? Why, then he might just be a scoundrel or, worse—an inconvenient corpse rotting in the road.” “I—" “Well. No use speculating, right?” He flashes a grin that makes Matt think of a dog baring its teeth. “I’ll see you after lunch.” Matt, dumbfounded, watches him walk away.

Logan/X-men

rehome that animal: sequel to the dog crate fic

Mendez isn’t sure what he expected to find in the Wolverine’s hideout. It certainly wasn’t this. This being his former boss, presumed dead after A-T’s last (as in latest, as in final) attempt to retcon its X-23 project several months ago. Mendez didn’t recognize him at first, but he thinks he’d be forgiven for the slight: the Donald Pierce before him looks a lot different from the Reaver commander who’d swanned around in a leather duster and tinted sunglasses, barking orders. Now he’s mostly naked and washed-out looking like maybe he hasn’t seen much sun. His once carefully groomed beard has been shaved to expose sharp cheekbones and a delicate chin. All his muscle and fat is gone, so the jut of his ribs and spine and pelvis show with every small twitch. There’s a lot of twitching, like his body can’t decide whether to prepare for fight or flight.

horse is a one-trick pony and the trick is Werewolves: if you didn't foresee me turning the Reavers into a (literal) wolf pack...well, that's on you at this point.

The pack leader is keeping an eye on him. Not quite staring: casual flickers of his attention between Donald and whatever is happening on the laptop. Mendez’s eyes shine almost green in the bluish screen light. His face looks sharper. His lip twitches and shows the barest glimpse of fang.

...tagging @evenmyhivemindisempty, @cosmictapestry, @aisalynn, @crimeronan, and @stellerssong. no pressure, i just like seeing what people are working on.

[anonymous-dentist]

Quite frankly some of y’all are getting too parasocial again, especially with the ‘LGBTQSMP’ stuff. By y’all, I mean the fandom at large, but don’t think I haven’t seen some weird stuff on here too.

Last night on Quackity’s stream, one of the first donos called him a “fruit loop”. And like okay, whatever, that’s bad, but then I managed to find the dono’s twitter literally by accident going through my twitter feed and here’s their reason why they did it:

And that’s really fucking weird! You all see why this is weird, right? And all of the replies to the clip of the dono I found (where I found this person) were all in agreement that this was a funny and totally normal thing to do. But, as I’m sure everyone is aware, this is not, in fact, normal. It’s parasocial as fuck, and it’s weird at best and harassment at worst.

Donation etiquette posts are something that go around the fandom every couple of days, and for good reason. Some people are too goddamn parasocial. You don’t know these people, and they don’t know you. It’s like if you walk up to the cashier at McDonalds and call them a “fruit loop” because you saw her talking to another girl earlier. That’s fucked up. At best, it’s fucking weird to do. At worst, it’s outing/harassment. (Not that I think Quackity is queer or anything, that’s none of my business, and it’s not anyone else’s.)

I’ve seen some weird stuff on Twitter recently. Truthing, really, and that’s something parts of this fandom have struggled with for a really long time. But take this tweet by the same person as above as an example:

There’s a difference between jokes about “haha the qsmp is just a gay dating show and jaiden”, but some people are taking that way too literally. I’ve seen truthing on both the English side and Spanish side of the community recently, and you know that I’m not searching it out for the sake of drama because I don’t speak Spanish. I’ve seen multiple Spanish accounts on Twitter telling people to stop being weird in chat because it’s gotten to the point there that the mods are getting involved (I was watching Roier’s stream last night, and I’m pretty sure I saw this myself in chat.)

Jokes are fine. Fandom jokes are fine. But that’s where the jokes should stay- in the fandom. Yes, Quackity made a joke on day one stumbling over his words and “accidentally” calling everyone his boyfriends. Yes, the Spanish creators are a lot more chill with shipping content than the English ones. That doesn’t mean anything irl. Calling it the first bisexual smp is fine as a fandom joke, but people seem to be considering it truth when, as far as I’m aware, there’s only one actual bisexual on the server, and there’s, I believe, only two LGBTQ+ members. While the default shouldn’t be straight, it isn’t cool to just assume people’s identities, and especially not from what they do in minecraft roleplay. That’s called acting, not real life.

Truthing is dangerous. Anyone older than 16 probably remembers the way Markiplier and Jacksepticeye stopped interacting online entirely, and it’s because truthing and shipping actively damaged their friendship. Dan and Phil struggled with this, too, with them actually being gay but being unable to come out until years after they were popular because of all the truthing going on with them.

It’s dangerous! It’s weird as hell! Not everyone is dnf. Even if their boundaries don’t mention it specifically, it should be common sense not to openly speculate on a cc’s sexuality. It should be even more common sense not to call them a literal slur in their text-to-speech donos because you think it’s “telling the truth”. For a straight person, it’s just uncomfortable. For a queer person not out, it could be dangerous.

As a whole, the fandom has been behaving. We’re just under a week in as of today when I’m writing this, so I guess we’ll have to see what happens next. But please remember to be normal. These people aren’t your friends. You don’t know them. You barely even know their characters right now. So calm down and touch some grass before someone actually gets hurt.

[never-forget-viva-la-pluto]

To the SPN fans that are hating on good omens rn bc of the leak, I hope you choke. I've seen some really nasty shit today from some of my (now unfollowed) followers whom I followed for spn content. So let's make one thing clear from actual posts ive seen today:

-Saying that the "wrong angels kissed", is...homophobic. I was with destiel from beginning to end and yeah we were completely shafted, but it's not okay to then say that other gay couples in media aren't allowed to kiss just because they aren't the ones you thought were hot. Jesus christ didn't think I needed to write that one down for ya-bo burnham

-I saw so much fatphobia about how Castiel deserved a kiss more than Aziraphel bc "he has far more sex appeal." Wtf wtf wtf. How do you live with yourselves saying that shit?You can pry Micheal Sheens body type Aziraphel out of my cold dead hands, you CW brainwashed morons!

-hate against the author for some reason, no one is willing to give specifics about it, but I think the majority of them maintain that GO is not good rep because they didn't kiss and now they are claiming pandering or something? Honestly that guy has only ever stood with the writers guild and queer people his whole career from what I find so I don't think it's fair whatever hate they are spouting. He isnt even saying he is upset with fans that saw or shared the video. Hes being super nice about it!

-I will say, non of us SPN fans have a fucking leg to stand on when it comes to hating something bc of the authors, OK. I saw someone saying the writing for spn was better and I can say you did not watch the show. I loved spn but don't do the late Terry Pratchett like this. He did nothing wrong

-on that same ish strain, as an ace person who thrives off queerplatonic relationships in media, maybe they kiss, I dunno. I just have to wait until the season comes out. Not 1 SPN fan gets to bitch about GO asexualty rep when SPN never even tried that route with any of its characters. But also ace characters are allowed to kiss, so you can write them that way of you want and interpret them that way if you want still. This is your viewing experience.

-this leak is truly not the same as the SPN yo a ti leak, solely bc the episode hasn't aired yet. "None of you GO fans would have survived the yo a ti leak." No I think you wouldn't bc the spn leak was clinging to an already mangled straw, while the angel's in GO are queer already. Queer queer queer and no amount of kissing or lack thereof is going to change that. We have no idea what happens in that episode of GO, but we saw the creators butcher the only moment in the show that could have meant anything real for queer viewers in SPN.

-"SPN crowly was kissing dudes first so this one is not that impressive". I see two cakes. One was made with the intent to make gay people look evil, but over time got kinda funny and a little better bc gay people liked it, and the other was about telling an interesting story about how love is so important, especially at the end of the world, and gay people liked that one too! So for me it's YaY two cakes!

-again the anti aziraphel is so plainly just fatphobia. You have no excuses. Sorry you don't think someone who looks like a slightly chubby micheal sheen could ever get kissed by someone who looks like David tennant, but you are not only wrong, you are also childish.

OK I'm done. Go watch good omens s2 when it comes out for my fucking sanity please. Or don't if all you are going to do is try to rip it apart like you do to all media that tries to be better.

[smytherines]

Tumblr won't let me post this from my drafts, but @uhhhitsme this is me responding to what you wrote yesterday!

I think that's right though. This is a long distance relationship. They live an ocean apart, they only get to see each other when their countries deem it necessary to work together. They have to have their entire relationship in secret because it is illegal. And probably treason because they work for two different countries. It is super turbo illegal.

I mean, long distance couples who don't have all those additional issues, who can call or video chat or whatever every day if they choose to, who have support networks there for them to lean on, (who aren't gay spies in the 1950s), most of the time they still don't make it because the distance is just too much to overcome. But Curt and Owen made it work. Even if it was messy and they were both assholes and nothing about it was rational. They made it work.

We don't know how long Curt and Owen were together before the fall, but I'm guessing it was at least a couple of years? They work incredibly well together, they're bantering and giving these goofy lovesick grins to each other (they make me sick)

Even when they bicker it feels like an old married couple. And it has to be that way for the show to make sense. We get less than ten minutes to establish their relationship, and this little section of the show is what gives the staircase scene true dramatic weight. Because there is so much fucking chemistry in that first ten minutes, such a sense of intimacy between them, that when Curt says "the feelings we had" the audience is already there. We don't need to be convinced (especially queer viewers who clocked this shit right away) because yeah of course these two were together.

They were able to keep this thing going off of maybe a couple of days together every few months? Days where they were mostly risking their lives and killing people and getting shot/stabbed/tortured and then hooking up in a hotel room or safe house or whatever.

One thing I think about a lot is if they were able to be that close to each other, function that well together, be so fucking familiar and warm with each other with just those little scraps of time together, I can't even imagine what they'd be like if they actually had time to just be together. Time to learn to be in a relationship. There's a line from Black Box that goes like "a real relationship- the kind of thing with a permanent address," and that's what Curt and Owen never got to have, and its the kind of thing you have to learn, you have to practice.

That's tough though, because I also think Curt's inherent restlessness would make it very difficult for him to settle down into a comfortable quiet life away from everything. I think he's the kind of guy who theoretically wants the comfort and happiness of a happy little domestic situation, wants to be loved and wanted, but it would be torture for him to have to stay in the same place for very long. At least as a younger man. He wants the idea of it. He wants it emotionally, but couldn't handle it practically. What he truly wants is for he and Owen to eternally live out their glory days together as the world's greatest spies- constant adrenaline and pressure and excitement.

This is pure headcanon, but I picture Owen as the kind of guy who has never wanted any of that. Home is where he keeps his shit in between missions. He doesn't want a happy little domestic life, he wants to do the job he's good at until he dies. Until he meets Curt. Then he starts wanting all sorts of things he knows he can never have. He wants to keep Curt safe, wants to know that they'll be able to see each other whenever they want, they'd have control of their own lives instead of being controlled by their agencies. He wants to stop having to work so hard and think so much and constantly constantly plan for the worst.

So it's difficult to say, but in my heart I do think that if they had more time, both in the pre-fall relationship and, y'know, Curt not putting a bullet in Owen's head, I think they could have figured it out. I think if they were able to sustain the feelings they had for so long on so little actual contact, then it would be difficult and painful and even more messy than before, but eventually they could move on to something better.

I think they loved each other enough to try, but after everything they had each been through in their four years apart, after the ways they had hurt each other and broken each other's trust, they just... couldn't see that in the moment. Which is pretty tragic to me.

[armandyke]

Queer horror abound in this lot of reviews, for better or worse.

41) The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (DNF)

This is not a bad book, and I cannot stress that enough. I actually enjoyed the bits I read, but for some reason I just couldn’t stick with it. I started reading this book months earlier, then put it down and read several other books, then picked it up and read a couple of chapters, then put it down and read several other books. 

I will say that it was very slow, and I don’t think that’s just because I was taking month long breaks in between chapters. I was about 30% into this book when I stopped reading and I’m pretty sure the main plot had only just started to play out. I liked the writing style and the story seemed interesting, it just wasn’t for me. 

42) Wranglestone by Darren Charlton (3.5⭐)

Excuse me, I’m a horror reader, how dare you give me adorable tenderness. 

I actually really loved this. Sure, I would have liked a bit more gore from my zombies but hey, it’s YA so let’s not traumatise the kids. The story follows Peter, who has spent his entire life living in a tiny isolated community in the middle of a lake, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. As you do. 

The horror kind of takes a backseat in this one, it’s more of a coming of age story about Peter facing pressure from his peers to “become a man”, dealing with his crush (yes, it’s gay), and discovering that not everything he’s been brought up to believe is necessarily true. I really loved it, and honestly I didn’t even realise it was YA until I went hunting for the sequel. Yes, I kind of knew how the plot was gonna pan out, but the journey was fun and there were still some genuinely tense moments. If you’re looking for tenderness and also gross zombies, check this one out. 

43) Piñata by Leopoldo Gout (4⭐)

This is your classic “for the love of God leave that ancient religious site alone, you’re gonna get haunted!” horror story. Set partly in Mexico and partly in New York, the story follows Carmen, a single mother of two daughters who moves back to her hometown in Mexico to oversee a restoration project, transforming an old abbey with a very bloody history into a hotel, because of course. Naturally, things quickly go awry, and Carmen is forced to step down from the project and return back home, only to find that whatever they uncovered in Mexico has followed her and her daughters. 

What I really loved about this book was how much history and Mexican folklore was weaved into the story. Even though the foundation is a classic horror trope, it felt incredibly original. The pacing felt slow at times, and after the initial impact of the prologue it seemed to take a while to really get going again, but overall a great read. 

44) Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca (1⭐)

Jesus fucking Christ, dude. Unless you get off on reading graphic descriptions of rape with absolutely no bearing on any plot, and which subsequently get retconned anyway, don’t bother with this. If this book was on fire I wouldn’t piss on it.

45) Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (5⭐)

Chuck Tingle you beautiful genius. This man has the ability to take the most bonkers concepts and somehow make them feel real (if you haven’t read Camp Damascus, you should). 

This book follows Misha, a Hollywood script writer who is haunted by his past both physically and metaphorically. Heading into the next season of his most successful show, his producers give him an ultimatum: either cut the scripted gay kiss between his two protagonists, or kill one of them. Misha refuses, and quickly finds himself being stalked and threatened by characters from his previous scripts. 

If you think you know where this story is going, you don’t. I had no idea what was going to happen from one chapter to the next, but, somehow, it works. It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking, it’s relatable, it’s terrifying. Was it better than Camp Damascus? No. But they both got five stars. 

46) The Ghost Woods by C.J Cooke (4.5⭐)

If I had a nickel for every time I read a queer book about fungus, I would have three nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened three times. 

This is my second C.J Cooke book. I read the Lighthouse Witches last year and loved it, but I loved this one even more. The story follows the timelines of two women staying at a mother and baby home until they give birth. The owners of the house are strange and distant, the workers seem to be keeping secrets, and there’s something weird going on with the woods behind the house. 

It’s creepy and gothic and yummy, but what I’m coming to enjoy about this author’s writing is her ability to weave heavy subject matter into her stories in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the plot, but doesn’t get brushed aside either. She clearly takes a lot of care with her subject matter and it shows. Again, I won’t list the specific triggers in this review because it’s a reveal that comes quite late in the book, but if you do have certain things you need to avoid I would recommend looking up a list of warnings before you go into this one. 

47) Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (3.5⭐)

I read this for a book club and being so real I don’t remember much about it. It’s a sci fi thriller about the multiverse theory and it was okay. I do remember thinking that if I was in the protagonist’s situation I would have gotten everything done a lot more easily and efficiently, and that it started to annoy me a little how despite inventing a multiverse portal, he seemed to be kind of an idiot. 

48) Alice by Christina Henry (1⭐)

I don’t even know how to begin explaining what a mess this was. I sent a 20 minute voice note to my friend immediately after reading it, and even then I struggled to summarise what the hell I’d just read. 

It was bad. 

My god it was bad. 

And yet somehow it was still better than Good Girls Don’t Die.

49) The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton (3.5⭐)

Trigger warning upfront for a pretty graphic rape scene in this one that I don’t really think was needed or added anything to the plot. It dropped a star for that. 

Besides that this was a pretty standard Graham Masterton horror. I’ve read a few of his books now and while they generally follow a similar formula, I still enjoy them and continue to buy them. In this case the plot revolves around a house that has been left for a trio of siblings to take care of after the death of their father, but when they arrive people start to go missing and there are strange noises all around the house. 

I will say this was quite a fun twist on a haunted house. I won’t spoil things any more than that but even though it followed the usual haunted house formula I think the reveal and the explanation for what was happening was quite unique. 

50) All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes (4.5⭐)

As I’ve mentioned before, one thing about me is that I love when people are stranded in an isolated snowy setting, and things begin to go very badly wrong. 

This book has it all: strangely abandoned arctic research facility, slow descents into madness, botch job amputations, manifestations of grief and guilt, men having sex with each other in secret, AND the main character is trans. What more could a girl ask for? Well, obviously, cannibalism, which sadly we don’t get. The story follows Jonathan, who joins an arctic expedition after the death of his two brothers in the war. It’s a chance to honour their memory as well as a chance for the ultimate gender affirmation: spending months living in cramped, intimate conditions with other men. Naturally things go wrong and they end up stranded in the desolate wasteland of the arctic, and naturally something supernatural is afoot. My only gripe with this book was that we spent a lot of time following the initial journey, which then meant less time to spend seeing the supernatural events unfold. Other than that, I have no notes.

[tiofrean]

Oh boy... OH BOY... I was reading through comments and tags under that Flint vs. Stede post (and before that in Silver vs. Oluwande post) and OH BOY RANT INCOMING

Feel free to ignore. No, I'm prickly about this.

I LOVE how people are like "Black Sails fans are so mean why are they like that T.T ?" in the tags and comments.

LET ME TELL YOU.

So we have this show that has been marginalized and has been pushed to the side for years. A show that has excellent plot, wonderful intrigue, magnificent representation and well-written, 3D characters that are complex and relatable. You get your edgy queer men (whether you want to characterize Flint as gay or bi, doesn't change the fact that he likes dick whichever way), you get your edgy queer girls (Anne), you get your flamboyant whatever-the-fuck-Jack-Rackham-is (<3), you get sweet gays (Thomas), you get confused bisexuals (Eleanor, Silver), you get straight sweets (Miranda) and straight angery dicks (Woodes Rogers), and competent, edgy straights (Vane). Oh! A competent, master-of-the-house lesbian? Check (Max). You even have asexuals, or that is what I shall forever classify Billy as. You have a f/f sex scene in the first damn episode, ffs. You get threesomes (sexual, romantic), you get couples, you even have Silver in a brothel orgy.

But sexual representation is not ALL! You get goofy pirates (Jack Rackham), you get serious pirates (Blackbeard), you get balls of rage (Flint), you get chill, laid-back sea dogs (Gates), you get competent little weasels (Silver), you get incompetent rats (Dufrense). You also have marvelous extras and side characters (Beauclerc the marksman, Captain Fruit-Fruit, Idelle... OHMYGOD IDELLE <3333).

There's the political plot that's historically accurate, the story's plot that's Flint's big gay rage, there's the sociological context of being painted as a monster, there's the gold hunt, there are ships correctly operated by crews of more than five fucking people, there are guns, blood and realistic injuries. You get quotations and allusions to Shakespeare, Cervantes, Julius Caesar, Marcus Fucking Aurelius, a metric ton of other classical writers. You get so many tropes done right it's astonishing and too effing long to list them all here.

On top of that, there is the picturesque landscape, absolutely gorgeous ships and very accurate portrayal of how life looked back then.

We had to defend that show when it first came out, the actors had to fucking fight homophobic assholes upon the airing of season two (IMAGINE THAT), people who loved it had a hard time going around, although admittedly it's a "fandom" hard time, not a "real life" hard time. We persisted, we persevered, and now we're here, clinging to what's left of our fandom, because we are admittedly all over the place and we don't have "troops" on any one social media, which makes our numbers small in comparison to other fandoms, and makes fandom interactions very limited.

Now imagine that there aired a show... a pirate show promising a lot. And then the show turned out to be an office-type comedy with no lesbian/bi women representation (I may be wrong, but I did watch it out of curiosity, didn't see any, just guys). A show that the whole plot of is just a rendition of the Beauty and the Beast for pirate times with so many historical inaccuracies (couching your crew like a bunch of office workers? Plz. The way they speak and the concepts they talk of that weren't there? It's like they were sitting around a fire, holding hands and singing kumbaya). And don't get me wrong, there's place for those shows as well, and maybe it works for you (and great for you too!).

We tried to ignore it, really we did. We basically gave it the eyebrow-raise-huff-ignore thing that you do on the internet when you want someone to enjoy their stuff and are not interested in it yourself.

But you know what happened? Suddenly there were people on twitter tagging everyone and their dog from Black Sails with renditions of Flint/Izzy (Izzy who comes across as an extreme asshole at best and a homophobic shit at worst and you can't fault people for reading it like this). Let that sink in - our fandom babe Flint, who had his whole life ruined due to homophobia and homophobic assholes is suddenly being shipped with a guy who suspiciously fits the description a bit too much for our tastes. Wouldn't you get angry? Of course you would, we're all very protective of our babes. We are, you are, everyone is. We asked you not to do this, and while I admit that hurling curses your way might not have been the most polite way of asking you to stop, the message was clear enough. What does OFMD fandom do? They all double down. Double fucking down on fanfiction and tagging everything in BS again, pairing Flint and Izzy together, writing things way out of the realm of any possibilities because most of the writers didn't watch BS (I did read their comments on that. They weren't even sorry). If you take such character and throw him into a work of art that can and will be seen as controversial, you should at least have the decency to do your homework on the original work he comes from. Otherwise, to our eyes, you're taking the most wronged man from our beloved show, wronged due to his sexuality, and throw him together with a literal asshole just to see them fuck because they would look pretty (and that's an actual comment from one of the artists, I shit you not). Wouldn't you feel a bit angry about that? I bet you would.

What's worse, people loving Black Sails and not liking OFMD usually point out how narrow the representation is, how improbable the show is and how they're not remotely invested in the plot. It's a cheesy show for your average Sunday afternoon, don't make it into something it's not. It's not a political statement any more than Guess The Tune is.

What's more, when I've seen attempts at people pointing out the obvious flaws in plot, in logic (how many people crew that ship exactly? How is he not dead after being stabbed clean through with a sword?), all we've gotten was "Oh it's not that type of show, OBVIOUSLY", "it's just a comedy, duh" and my personal favorite "you just DON'T UNDERSTAND IT BOOMER". (I'm a late Millennial, thx). Every attempt was chucked out the window. What got me most, tho, was the high praise of OFMD IS THE FIRST SHOW TO [insert whatever queer thing it did supposedly]. No, it's not. There was even a post on twitter that debunked all those claims one by one. I get it, you're happy that you got your gay pirates, good for you. But give credit where credit's due, otherwise you're gonna piss off a lot of people. People who watched our show struggle and crawl so that your show can run today and be fine and accepted widely.

And personally, I felt disappointed watching it because of the lack of representation. Disappointed that Ed turned out to be just as rainbowy as Stede. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against rainbowy, ultra-sweet characters that are big softies. I love them. But not everyone in the lgbtq community is like that. Actually, it's the minority. There are your sweets, there are your glittery rainbows, but the majority is on the more... inconspicuous part of the scale. And there are edgy people (like myself) who don't like glitter, pink, feathers, fluff and a shitton of other things this show had in abundance. You know what made me wince while watching? When I realized that the only person who I could remotely like for the way they weren't so glittery-rainbowy-sweet was Izzy, and I hated him because he was an asshole. Even Jim got the fluffy af oranges arch. So not my (and others') cup of tea.

So yeah, our recent anger and rabidity is not based solely on one post about an insignificant poll (that you're winning only because our fandom is significantly smaller and most people are dispersed between different sites). It's all those things combined and it's the result of them.

And no, I'm not going to finish it with a "please forgive us if we seem a bit angery, we're coping". Flint wouldn't.

[stenshale]

@a-gay-bloodmage GLADLY. putting it under a cut because the thoughts are Many

okay. lets say you're brosca. you're casteless which means everything is gonna suck forever unless you con your way into high society somehow. both your dad and you sister's dad walked out which means you're double fatherless. your best friend is kind of a dick. you and your sister are under the thumb of your town's fantasy drug pusher. and worst of all, your mother is an alcoholic who does not fucking like you even a little bit. she's mean, she sucks, you have to make sure she doesn't drink herself to death. she blames you for all of that. whatever. fine. that's life.

now let's say, through some real looney tunes bullshit, you manage to get out of dust town AND join the grey wardens AND ensure your sister and mother's safety and prosperity. great! this rules! the sky is fucking terrifying but honestly you can cope with that because you're out, dammit! you have friends that don't suck! no one up here cares that you're casteless!

you're living the high life for, like, two whole days. then you almost die, you almost die again, your cool recruiter dies, the fucking KING dies?, and the new acting king says you and your new best friend, the only other living grey warden in ferelden apparently, are public enemy number one. sucks. back to being a social pariah.

oh and there's a fucking blight and you have to kill an archdemon. also very cool. dust town isn't looking so bad right about now. lucky for you, because of some legal shenanigans (that, mind, you do not fucking understand because you have only been in this country for a week, and even in your hometown you weren't exactly rubbing elbows with the lawmaking elite), you get to go BACK to Orzammar. you get to visit home!

your sister is married and has a kid which is awesome. her husband seems to take good care of her. you can make him king if you want, because that's the influence you have over people now. deciding elections. weird! a couple months ago you barely had a say over what you had for dinner at night.

okay. now let's say you're specifically bosca brosca, and you want to be a berserker soooooo fucking bad. like so terribly awfully bad. you're back at home and you just want to hit things really hard with your big sword. you're also probably nonbinary but you've got too much on your plate to focus on that right now so it's not a concern. gather army first, then kill an archdemon, then gender stuff at some point. if you live. which is looking less and less likely the more you learn about surfacer bullshit.

there's a berserker dwarf in Orzammar who can teach you, though! cool! except he's mean. and he sucks. and you have to make sure he doesn't drink himself to death. and his relationship with his wife (who you come to hate for different, golem-related reasons) seems, to put it lightly, a fucking mess.

and you are not a hateful dwarf. no more than any other duster. living casteless for long enough, seeing the bigwigs in the diamond district, it turns anyone into a bit of a misanthropist, sure, but you're pretty tame, considering.

you hate oghren, though. from the MOMENT you see him. he's loud and you want to drown him, probably, and you had better get out of Orzammar quick because if you don't find running water to stick his head under, you're probably just gonna settle for lava. not a good idea. he still has to teach you berserking.

and so you do. and he does. he's good at that and drinking and not much else, and you kind of wish he was bad at the berserker part, too, so you could say the asshole never did a damn thing for you. but you can't.

and then he gets too drunk, even by his standards, and you haul him back to his tent, because that's what you do, you wait until the people you... know? are broken enough that you can sweep up the pieces and pretend you did them a service. you're not going to fix anything, but you can try and stop it from getting worse. you can make sure he rolls onto his side and sit by the fire, close enough to his tent to hear if he starts to get up in the middle of the night but far enough that you can pretend that's not exactly what you're doing.

and the healer, who drinks him under the table but does it in a quiet way that makes it hard to hate her about it, tells you that you're awfully gentle with him. it's a question and an accusation and you dignify neither. you don't even agree. it's not gentleness, it's necessity, it's maintaining a family team, it's what you do. you don't tell her that because she'll only give you that look she gets when she knows more than you thought you said.

if you knew who pavlov was, you'd draw some connections. if you knew who your father was, you'd draw some other connections. but you know neither of those men, so you hate him in a way that sinks its teeth deep in your chest and stays there.

and then you kill an archdemon and become a living paragon and raise house brosca out of castelessness and get married and act as the advisor to the king of a country you AREN'T EVEN FROM! and you think you're rid of him for good until you go on a grey warden mission and guess who fucking pops up.

[fagcrisis]

i read another bad YA book: when will my suffering end

my dear friend and long time training partner viki is obsessed with the arc of a scythe series by neal shusterman, and she forced me, literally at sword-point to read the first book. it seems that my fate is to forever read bad books about teenagers where nothing really happens

scythe takes place in a world where humanity has defeated death. nanotechnology allows people to stay young forever, or old forever if they so choose, and revives people from every kind of death if their corpse is recoverable. overpopulation becomes a problem though, as humanity cannot leave the planet, and so a special group of people called the Scythes are tasked with "collecting" people to keep the number of people down. scythe faraday chooses two teenagers, citra and rowan to be his apprentices, however there is a deadly challenge awaiting the two at the end of their apprenticeship. only one of them can become a scythe, and their first task will be to collect their fellow apprentice

*i read this book in hungarian so im translating a couple of things on the fly, if i mess anything up dont tell me i doubt any of you care about this book that much

THE WORLDBUILDING is bad. the initial concept is actually fascinating i can never get enough of a post scarcity society, and the way people grapple with a utopia. as a fan of ursula k le guin i think in many cases a real utopia and its ramifications can be a lot more interesting than a dystopic world, but you could have gone the giver route with this and revealed the rot at the core of a world pretending to be perfect.

well, scythe does absolutely none of that. despite the fact that everybody is LITERALLY IMMORTAL, people still work, mostly jobs they dont even like. children go to school and are raised by their birth parents, a man and a woman. gay people exist and so do sentient robots? but neither concepts really get explored deeper than a throwaway mention, and a joke. Now, i think it could be really interesting to explore a society thoroughly frozen in a 21st century late capitalistic state, but scythe does not do that. the book takes place hundreds, possibly even thousands of years into the future and Nothing Has Changed.

I have some lore based gripes with the book, the way the scythes and their reason for existing is just not explained at all, the offhanded genocide mention, and all that but in all fairness im yet to read the second book (i will have to viki is making me) so maybe they explain all of this then.

What really does bother me though, is why do death like this? People kill themselves for fun in the world of scythe, why not just let them die? scythes are explicitly forbidden from killing people who ask them to do so. this is a world where individiual choice has been completely taken away from people, except for a select group of a few hundred who have the absolute power of gods, and cannot even be controlled by the benevolent god-king-mother AI, the thunderhead. why not use the nanobots in peoples bodies to choose who lives or dies? why not limit the number of resurrections somebody can have? why let the scythes choose who they kill and how they kill them? why let them grant immunity to people?

I think much of this book is politically uninteresting and borderline stupid at points, especially the thunderhead. the way its completely unquestioned and thought to be benevolent and perfect above all else is just absolutely crazy, but lets run with it and say it does absolutely know what is best for humanity. why let people do the killing? maybe the second book will pull some insane twist on me that explains everything but i highly doubt it will

one note about the worldbuilding that annoyed me but isnt really significant: shit is just europe and america and whatnot with stupid fucking names. lazy as hell. if u just wanna keep shit as it is, do that. dont call things EuroScand or whatever. Also the racial dynamics are so bad in such an uninteresting way, like the book literally goes "race doesnt exist anymore everyone is like suuuper mixed except for this black dude who is evil and this mystical asian man. but everyone else. super racially ambigous"

THE CHARACTERS are bad also. rowan is so completely uninteresting i skimmed his chapters for lines where anybody else spoke, citra has a tiny bit more depth but not by a lot. their romance just so completely does not work, and listen. i am ready to accept that they were into dying for eachother after hanging out for like a month and kissing one time. i love unreasonable unstoppable romance. they had NO chemistry. they hated each other when they first met, for no reason at all, and then suddenly they were in love. barely spoken to each other for 2 months and then rowan is making a vow to die for her.

scythe faraday and scythe curie are much more interesting people, but scythe faraday goes away for 2/3rds of the book and curie isnt allowed to be anything interesting before citra basically ditches her. the fact they were involved doesnt come out of nowhere, but i would have appreciated a little more on that because it was way more interesting.... why arent the scythes allowed to date each other anyways. seems like an incredibly stupid rule. theyre immortal. theyre not jedi. yet another nonsensical worldbuilding detail

goddard and his crew were one dimensional and boring, it would have been great and interesting if he was actually charming and charismattic and succeeded in winning rowan over, but instead of that happening the book tells you that he is charming and charismatic while only shows him being awful and unpleasant. volta was kind of fun and interesting but his suicide didnt hit hard enough due to the fact that he and rowans friendship barely existed, neal shusterman is bad at writing character relationships jesus christ

THE PLOT AND WRITING were really fucking bad. virtually nothing happens for the majority of this book. citra fleeing the scytheguard should have taken up way more time than it did, as it was one of the only fun and engaging parts of the book. instead of that we get endless scenes of rowan seeing goddard be evil, citra walking around doing nothing and generally things not happening. way more time spent on training sequences than was strictly neccesary, and too little time spent on explaining anything that was happening or characters spending time together.

The chapters didnt flow extremely well, the pov switches were annoying and would happen multiple times on one pages, sometimes in the same paragraph. too many important worldbuilding details were glossed over in favour of scenes of rowans man pain or just kind of random irrelevant bullshit. there were a ton of characters who didnt really end up mattering, because the book was so badly spaced out. i would have loved spending a bit more time with scythe mandela for example who ended up mattering actually a ton for the final couple chapters, but no because rowan needs to be tortured again or something!

Every plot complication and twist was resolved instantly, leaving you no space to try and figure it out for yourself, no tension or anything. the ones that werent were so easy to figure out that it also left you with no tension. scythe faraday dead? no he isnt! citra is cornered by a scythe on the bullet train? dont worry, she has help from a random guy. even the ending was like this. will rowan die because citra was chosen to become a scythe instead of him? dont worry, she gives him immunity and this has no consequences for her whatsoever. they were talking about putting her in forever jail just 5 chapters ago, but its fine she is allowed to become a full fledged scythe. will they at least jail rowan until his immunity is up? dont worry, he is batman now and hes fled due to his perfect skills in everything he is so sexy you guys

VERDICT: dont read this book its bad. really bad. i will be back with the second one though, because viki is making me

@chevengurian ik u enjoy my sufferings here u go

[summers-art]

🎵Song #2 Puppet Boy by DEVO 🎵[Full playlist]

Gonna answer this ask on this blog for consistency :] Thanks for asking! This is a fun one, it's one that I first discovered on this Billford playlist by Mikimuun which is what inspired me to start this playlist in the first place! This isn't the only song these two playlists have in common hehe, find music I like? I'm going to yoink it unapologetically

I absolutely love this song as a sorta theme for Metal Sonic. Metal Overlords theme is much later in the playlist so we get this instead at the start followed by Sweet Passion for Amy as number 3. I find it super funny to have this come directly after Digital Love, which is all about this adorable dream full of gay longing and yearning (we love to yearn here) and then the first line of this song is just WAKE UP, in the Eggman Empire we don't have time for that sorta nonsense it is time for business as usual; aka being a pawn for Eggman in his schemes

LYRICAL BREAK DOWN BELOW 👇

Wake up puppet boy

I literally just explained this, but it's funny so it's worth pointing it out twice. WAKE UP PUPPET BOY!!! ⏰⏰⏰

Get up puppet boy You've got a job to do Even so you're free to go Where your master tells you to

The job in question? Literally whatever Eggman tells him to, of course! But it most likely will involve destroying nature, disturb the peace, and attacking mobians and if it's a really good mission it involves trying to kill Sonic (and his friends). ALSO, gotta love the illusion of free will. Eggman programmed that into him

Listen puppet boy Before you disobey Consider that the strings attached Could make a big change in your ways

UHU... Eggman sure gotta be tired of his robots rebelling against him, maybe treat your creations a bit better? Nah... that couldn't be the issue. It's the robots at fault, better program any disobedience out of them instead. Anyway, I'm sure that the programming installed in Metal from his previous adventures won't come back to bite us in the ass later down the line 🙂 (looks into the camera)

Puppet boy It's the little things that count Little problems little minds Little points of view Puppet boy It's the little things add up Getting bigger pull the trigger Little things like you

ITTY BITTY YOU 🤏🦟 I like the HC of Eggdad, but I also think Eggman haven't been treating anyone that well for the last couple of uuuh, years? Not until Sage showed up that's when he started to actually seem to start caring (I haven't read any of the Sonic comics so going off game canon here). And I'm sure given that amount of time to grow and fester resentment towards your creator will DEFINITELY not blow up in his face later, trust 🙂‍↕️

Stand up puppet boy Time to start the show You'd better do some brand new moves They paid a lot to watch you go

Oh boy here we go again! Brand new moves would imply that Eggman would still give Metal upgrades, which would be awesome to see I want to see my little robot guy have more appearances and be allowed to be a scary enemy to fight in the games SEGA, PLEASE.

No! what's that puppet boy? Don't tell me what to do What's that puppet boy? I'm not a freak like you What's that puppet boy? I'll move when I want to I can't hear you puppet boy! Now dance dance dance!

HAH, you are so funny little puppet boy- you think you have a say in the matter? That's cute, come here I'm gonna pinch your cheeks.

Stay out of bed Unless you wanna get wet I'm a boy not a toy And I'm not through yet

You keep fighting your fight lil guy. Also uuuh what was that about not being a robot copy toy and actually being a Real Boy?

Stay out of bed Unless you wanna get wet Now wake up puppet boy

This matches the beginning very well again. Stop being in bed dreaming of a better life and go do your JOB. Sonic fucking hates water but is Metal waterproof? I actually haven't looked this up, considering all the electrical shit throwing water at a robot sounds like an actual death threat.

Listen puppet boy You're not a robot slave Consider that no strings attached Could ever make you misbehave

YEA? THE STRINGS ATTACHED TO YOU? THE WIRES PULLING YOUR MURDER ROBOT PROGRAMS? THOSE COULD NEVER MAKE YOU MISBEHAVE? BECAUSE YOU AREN'T A ROBOT SLAVE? SURE!!! (just don't look at song #10-12)

All jokes aside, these lines are like- the foundation to upcoming songs, like the prev ones mentioned. Strings and wires are a big theme, especially with songs like #13 Wires, #22 Two birds and #29 Black Sheep. Notably, those three mentioned are all from Amy's POV, I suppose it's easier to see the wires when you aren't the ones being strung along. These aren't the only ones, I was on the hunt for songs that had to do with strings, crossing lines, losing minds and pulled by wires but if I list all of those then well (gestures at playlist) I'd be listing almost every song LOL.

(chorus repeats) Now wake up puppet boy!

I love you Metal but you also make me so incredibly sad. I simply have to shitpost to cope 💔💙