#which is why their relationship improved so much when they spent a bit of time apart!!

[hishima]

bro just. god this movie is SO in my brain now i am never recovering from this. anyway i'm just thinking about how it's the fundamental differences in HOW nozomi and mizore love and want to be loved that lead to their conflict and how it's so perfectly illustrated in the confession scene.

mizore notices and loves the small and mundane details of nozomi, her confession parallels what the cinematography has been showing us that she notices. for example she says that she loves nozomi's hair, and her footsteps, which are both explicitly drawn attention to through the pov of mizore throughout the movie. and she wants nozomi to notice those kind of things about her too. because despite all her talent, mizore doesn't base her worth on how well she plays oboe.

meanwhile nozomi DOES. she doesn't want people to notice the mundane details about her, because she's terrified of being anything less than brilliant. she's put so much effort and hard work into her flute (which is seen in the anime too), that discovering that mizore outclasses her and that she's been holding herself back this entire time is heartbreaking. she wants mizore, and everyone, to love her for her talent. so she tells mizore that she loves her oboe, because that's the thing that nozomi wants to hear the most, and the one thing mizore didn't say

[beggars-opera]

Hey, so we don't talk enough about A Christmas Carol as being at least a little bit about not continuing a cycle of abuse and neglect, both against others and yourself.

In the book little Scrooge is left languishing over the holidays in a boarding school for some never-explained reason, but it is made very clear that this is miserable and unfair, and that his father is doing this on purpose. His sister specifically comes to tell him that "father is so much kinder now than he used to be, that home's like heaven." This also reflects a bit of Dickens's own childhood when his father went into debtor's prison and little Charlie was forced to support his family working full time in a shoe-blacking factory at the age of 12 (which is also why so many of his books seem to have a moral of "hey, kids are people too and maybe we shouldn't make them work in the mines.")

Whatever family reunion happened after didn't work out, because Scrooge continues believing that no one is coming to save him and pulling himself up by his bootstraps at the detriment of all other social relationships is the only way forward. And the more he lives by that philosophy, the more miserable he gets, because obviously he pushes away anyone who has that hope that he lost. They threaten to break down the walls he's built and teach him that a big pile of money doesn't have to be the only thing that he can rely on, if he'd just let himself be vulnerable and have a relationship with people who care about him, because they're out there even if he's ignoring them.

There is a certain type of person still very much out there who thinks this way. "I've never been happy in my life, so no one else has a right to be either. I was abused in my childhood so it's only fair that everyone else suffer as well." We see this in parents who still try to use corporal punishment, and in wealthy people who ignore the social factors keeping others down and scream that everyone else is just entitled, that only those who suffer and scrape deserve happiness. And they especially hate the people like Fred who represent the past that could have been, who have maintained hope for the future, and seem to be rubbing their optimism in your face, when in reality they're just maintaining hope because it's the only way you can survive.

It's so important for Scrooge to actually see the impact this thinking has on both himself and multiple generations. Rich people have this weird hangup about this story because they think Scrooge is bad because he's rich. He's not, he's bad because he's a horrible person and a miser - he doesn't use his money to better anything, including himself. Salting the earth, everyone suffers here, including him. And he learns that he's going to die old and alone without ever having spent or enjoyed his money, and that his family feels sorry for him, and that the nameless masses of poor people out there that he decries so much are in fact living, breathing people, including tiny disabled kids who don't deserve to suffer just because you decided life isn't fair.

In the end he takes responsibility for actually uplifting the people in the next generation who are trying to make the world a better place and no longer punching down, because it doesn't have to be this way. So many people out there just give up hope because things are hard and they think trying to improve things is a pointless exercise that makes them look dumb. How dare you grow a year older and not an hour richer! How dare you marry for love! That's the only thing more ridiculous than a Merry Christmas! When in reality, there are plenty of people who would love to see them happy if they just had a chance.

It's really sad that, while the language used to describe it has changed, these problems still persist. That people feel so wronged and isolated that they spend their days ensuring everyone else will be as well. That they fail to see their fellow humans as fellow humans who are just as deserving of love and kindness and a roof over their heads. I don't care what time of year it is, we should all be lifting each other up rather than tearing each other down.

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[vexis-world]

“You can't seriously be that dumb..!”

💗 Clarisse la rue x daughter of Apollo!reader one-shot 💗

Authors note: hi reader!! This is my first fan-fiction post so I'd love any constructive criticism to help improve my writing for the future! This is not beta read so it's far from perfect - but I hope you will still enjoy it nonetheless :)) Ty for reading! 🫶

Short summary: Clarisse has some doubts about your "relationship" and seeks you out to speak about her worries.

Word count: 940ish words!

Clarisse’s mind was swarming with thoughts; it always does when she trains alone. She thinks best in the training arena, it's in her blood after all. You and her had been in a relationship for almost 3 months now and hadn't kissed yet. Which isn't a big deal! Clarisse doesn't mind, at least that's what she tells herself. But this is her first relationship, and she doesn't have anyone to unload this onto. To ask advice without having to reveal too much about herself, and her most private fears. She knew that you wanted to take things slow. Although it was not confirmed by words, Clarisse could (in her opinion) read her ‘girlfriend’ well. However when was slow, too slow? Were you having mixed feelings all of a sudden? And if so why had this not been brought up? Clarisse believed that you two were close, as ones in a romantic partnership should be; but perhaps not as close as she had originally thought.

Clarisse took large and fast steps, speed walking over to you. People moved out of her way, they could tell it was urgent and that they shouldn't mess with Clarisse at this moment. Or any moment for that matter.

“Hey Clarisse!” you spoke enthusiastically, finishing up a patient in the infirmary. “Pretty girl, explain something to me.” Clarisse's words make you blush, faintly; you had mainly gotten used to her flirty remarks these past few weeks, but she always manages to catch you off guard, every once in a while. “Ok.. what's up?” you asked, in a nervous tone. You could clearly see the distressed look on the girls face. “It's sort of private, can we speak in the back?” this added to your nerves, clarisse was usually never this off. “Of course, is everything okay?” but before you could finish your sentence, clarisse had already walked over to the back of the infirmary and into the supply area.

The supply closet was cramped with the both of you in there. Clarisse had to push up against you with an arm over your head for you two to fit somewhat comfortably. “Clarisse, is everything okay?” you asked again, this time hoping you would get a straight forward reply. “Do you.. Have you um..” clarisse stuttered avoiding your concerned gaze. “Have you lost feelings for me or something?” she finally mutters. You spent a minute gathering up your words, to find a way to reply. You bit your lip with furrowed brows, before the words fully processed and then said. “What..?” Clarisse had a strange expression on her face. “It's been three months and we haven't kissed or held hands in public. We don't go on proper dates. I feel like you don’t like me” she says quickly with an eye-roll included. “Clarisse, what are you on about..? Why would we kiss?” you asked hesitantly. “Why wouldn't you? Were in a relationship, isn't that kinda the norm?” This left you frozen. You were shocked, obviously but also majorly embarrassed. Had you been in a relationship without even knowing it? And to your crush no less. Fuck. “.. relationship?” you said nauseously, with butterflies in your stomach. “Clarisse, is this some sort of sick joke..?” you added, with shallow breaths. The room was getting stuffy and suffocating. “What do you mean sick joke? Have I ever lied to you? Are my feelings a joke to you? Is that it? Forget it. If I make you this fucking sick then good thing you're in the infirmary. I'm leaving, let's not talk for a while, 'kay?” she pushes past you. since you two were practically melted into one another, you could feel how she'd gotten warmer and how her heart rate had gone up significantly. You try to go after her but just as you do, your brother, Will asks you to tend to another patient that had just come in. He calls over his shoulder. “trouble in paradise? Gonna have to wait, I'm afraid - I need some help over here!” leaving you even more puzzled.

An hour or two goes by since you spoke with clarisse, and she’s consumed your thoughts entirely. You decided to speak to her at dinner and try to resolve whatever happened earlier.

“Clarisse, can we talk? Again..” you whispered, almost begging. “Kinda busy. We’ll talk later.” clarisse brushes you off to finish scraping her offerings into the fire. “Please clarisse. I need to speak to you. Just for a second.” you plead. “Two minutes. Two, that's it.” clarisse says, her eyes finally looking up from fire to the now very interesting sky. “Thank you.” You sigh and lead her away to a more secluded area as she had done with you. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. And they're not a joke to me. I'm just confused. What did you mean by relationship?” Clarisse replies by saying “what do you mean, what do i mean? We're dating, aren't we?” you take a pause, dumbfounded for the second time today. “Since when? Don't take this the wrong way but.. I don't remember you asking me to be your.. Um.. girlfriend.” your voice is wobbly and uncertain, you try your best to make your words seem kinder, as to not offend clarisse again. “Well, I guess I never asked but.. Oh.” Clarisse's words end as she parts her lips. She's realised her error. And so had you. You let out a breathy chuckle and say “maybe this time you should actually ask me.'' Clarisse looks at you with much more confidence now, her infamous sly grin back on her perfect face. “Maybe that would be best, sweet girl.”

[inkwolvesandcoffee]

First Times (Poly Relationship w/ John & Ghost Headcanons)

I spent the morning exploring Hackney, which is rich in breweries. While wandering about, I got to thinking, what if…

John starts working at a brewery when he retires from the army?

OR!

He starts a micro brewery/pub with Simon, who retires around the same time.

🍺 The two men set to work immediately to acquire the proper licenses and a premise. Fortunately for the both of them, they’re quite handy and so know how to create a lovely, albeit very manly, space without too much interference from contractors. After all, why hire others for work you can do yourself?

🍺 Honestly, the business is a dream come true for John. Owning a micro brewery was his Plan B should things not work out with the army. However, it’s because of his former employment, he’s become a better business owner. It’s through the development of his leadership and risk-assessment skills he managed to secure the rank of captain.

🍺 For Simon, the brewery is an unexpected ambition, a new dream to follow. While he lets John do most of the marketing (because Simon can’t be arsed with social media… being social in general), he’s mostly pre-occupied with the creation of new and improvement of the already existing craft beers.

🍺 The business steadily grows as word gets about town. Soon, it’s not only the local Hackney residents who pop by, but also people from other boroughs.

🍺 Including you.

🍺 Come from Inner London, the people of the area find you somewhat of a posh puppy, a bit of a toff. It’s this view of you which makes them wonder what on Earth you’re doing in East London, this artsy and not as affluent part of the city.

🍺 Nevertheless, you’re a sight for sore eyes if you ask Simon, who’s your old neighbour back from the few years you lived in Manchester after moving there with your parents.

🍺 Though gruff and distant in the beginning, Simon gradually warmed up to you. Despite never opening up emotionally, you two did develop a strong amiable bond. Maybe because you were the only one to greet him on the street, to ask about his career after catching a glimpse of the dog tag around his neck, to welcome him back each time he was deployed.

🍺 To show sincere interest in him.

🍺 Your parents weren’t a fan of you socializing with the giant in the skull balaclava, but they never told you off for it since you two always seemed to have a good time. Moreover, they rarely saw you smile unless you were with him. So they let it slide, prioritizing your happiness over their prejudice.

🍺 It was only in the spring before you moved without telling him where to and he was deployed yet again, Simon realized he had feelings for you. Nonetheless, he put them aside or, rather, suppressed them until they numbed. He had nothing to offer, fifteen years your elder and terribly haunted.

🍺 So imagine his surprise and absolute delight when you stand in front of him, prettier than he can remember. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

🍺 “Y/N,” it’s the only thing he can say, finally out loud after years of uttering it in silence.

🍺 “Who’s this fair lady?” John slides up next to Simon, arms crossed as he takes you in. His sea blue eyes darken when they meet yours. “How can we help, miss?”

🍺 The way he practically purrs the words sends a pleasant shiver down your spine. Yet, you conceal the effect he has on you behind a steady voice. “I saw the notice on the window, about the open position. Has it been filled in the meanwhile or can I still apply?”

🍺 “She’s a good one, John. Hardworking, trustworthy, kind. Fast learner too,” Simon says pensively.

🍺 “Got experience in the field?” John asks.

🍺 “Studied psychology, during which I mostly focused on the effect of marketing on the human psyche. Also run a food blog and Instagram”

🍺 “Thank Simon properly before you leave. I trust his judgment and seeing he knows you best, I’ll take his word for it.” He slaps his business partner on the shoulder. “Drop by tomorrow and we’ll discuss your contract. I’m looking forward to working with you…”

🍺 “Y/N.”

🍺 “Y/N...” John repeats thoughtfully. Then he hums and heads off.

🍺 Thus begins a series of firsts and connections as you settle down in Hackney.

🍺 Over the course of a few weeks, the locals come to see you as one of their own as you show them you simply aren’t some girl with rich parents, a spoiled princess, but a young woman trying to make a life for herself with her own hard-earned money via helping at the counter and striking up conversations.

🍺 John and you grow closer too. He admires and respects your eye for detail and aesthetics, though sometimes he feels a little awkward when you’re trying to direct him for the occasional TikTok. Nevertheless, it’s your creativity that keeps drawing him in, igniting the need to keep getting closer to you. What also helps is you bringing him coffee or reminding him to take breaks (both with a kiss on the cheek later down the line).

🍺 Loves to review the content you create together, especially when you’re in his lap while doing so.

🍺 On your mutual days off, John drags you all over London to visit bakeries and cafés. Never had you thought him a foodie, though it’s a pleasant discovery since there’s always something new to experience on the food scene. Moreover, he loves helping you out with your own blog, not just the one you created for the brewery.

🍺 These days, you’re teaching him photography and are taking baking classes together. Although, you might as well go on your own to the latter because he’s a terrible baker (unlike Simon, who’s self-taught and surprisingly good, like, sale-appropriate why-doesn’t-he-have-at-least-a-micro-bakery good).

🍺 Your bond with Simon mostly rekindles via being his guinea pig. He knows how brutally honest you can be in your feedback, which he thoroughly appreciates. Outside work, the two of you frequent bookshops, have picnics in the major parks in London, and visit the city’s oldest cemeteries. The latter is a bit of a morbid idea of a nice outing, but you appreciate the silence and romantic sense of decay in the air.

🍺 It isn’t long before you take up residence in the apartment the two men share, which leaves the other residents of the building wondering about your relationships to one another. Although, they can guess at the nature of it seeing the “noise” at night. As I said, lots of first including a relationship with two men older than you.

🍺 But aside from the plethora of sensual moments, there are also plenty of tender (and domestic) firsts. For example, Simon accompanies you to your first tattoo appointment. When, the next day, you’re struck by tattoo flu, he takes care of you. Of course John doesn’t force you to come to work nor Simon for that matter, who you clearly need at the moment (despite claiming otherwise). Henceforth, you’re both granted PTO until you’re back on your feet.

🍺 Speaking of the former-captain, John is your very first kiss. You and him went out for pizza (Simon preferring to stay home and read). On the way to Hackney Wick, beneath a bridge heavily decorated with graffiti and sheltering a few barges, he put his hands on your cheeks and crashed his lips into yours. He tasted of tobacco and white wine, laced with the sweetness of tomatoes and basil. That night, he made love to you.

🍺 Another first.

🍺 Simon prepared breakfast the next morning, serving food to ensure John and you wouldn’t succumb to exhaustion later in the day. Nor him, for that matter, because while he doesn’t get jealous and loves sharing you with his best friend, he sometimes wishes you wouldn’t go at it till early in the morning when the next day is an ordinary work day.

🍺 You’re there for them when either of them suffers from night terrors or combat stress. Simon is more prone to the former, whereas John is to the latter.

🍺 You accompany Simon to therapy too after he’s been diagnosed with PTSD. At first he didn’t want to go, refused it even, until he finally relented after another episode of flashbacks and coming to his senses while shaking in your arms.

🍺 Life with John and Simon isn’t always easy nor romantic.

🍺 But bloody hell, do they make it better.

[breadlover64]

BINGQIU VS LIUSHEN/ANY OTHER SHIP WITH SQQ PART 1

BEWARE I HAVENT READ SVSSS IN A WHILE AND I MIGHT’VE MISSED SOME STUFF! Feel free to correct and give your opinions about this.

Theres gonna be two parts to this bc tumblr can’t take all my writing sooooo 😛

In the SVSSS fandom, I’ve noticed that compared to other mxtx’s novels, the mc gets shipped with half of the cast more often and is more widely accepted in the fandom compared to the tgcf and mdzs fandoms (if you ship Hualian or Wangxian with anyone, it will get you death threats, istg ���). However, with Shen Qingqiu, while of course he gets shipped with his love interests, another really popular one is him with Liu Qingge and many other characters in the novel. I do think this also has to do with the fact that the fandom is more chill than the other two fandoms. Shen Qingqiu in general is just VERY shippable. But why? Why do some people like liushen more than bingqiu? Obviously, I know this is simply a preference, but why do people prefer it more than the canon couple? Well, I have some speculations. First, while I love Bingqiu, I can admit that their relationship is not for everyone; even for me, they’re my least favorite main couple of the three (it's just my opinion, DONT ATTACK ME🙏) because their dynamic can be seen as somewhat toxic. Luo Binghe is very obsessive and kind of yandare like in the novel, and yes, he does have character development and regrets his actions and never really wanted to hurt Shen Qingqiu. I personally don’t feel like we see as much of this development until the very end. At least for me, I feel like we should’ve spent more time with a changed Luo Binghe, and I KNOW he was influenced by Xi Mo. I still didn’t feel completely satisfied with the Luo Binghe arc. I do think we see more of his development in the extras, which is what made me like Bingqiu a lot more, but I just wish we could’ve seen this in the main story instead of optional extras because I think the extras really show Luo Binghe’s growth and his love for Shen Qingqiu in a healthier way. I am aware this boy is very mentally ill. While I’m not a writer, as a reader, I think mxtx could’ve done more for him because he can end up more dislikable for some people and just less appealing of a love interest. I personally LOVE Luo Binghe and how chaotic he is, but again, that is not for everyone, so I can definitely see why some people don’t like him as much. With Shen Qingqiu, this is a bit different. I felt that by the end of the novel he had massive progress and huge development for his character; even if he still has his flaws, you can really tell he has changed and grown throughout the story, but he’s still himself if that makes sense. I felt wayyy more satisfied with his arc than Luo Binghe's; however, I will say that Shen Qingqiu has this sort of shame. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it internalized homophobia, he does have this sort of stigma towards gay people and him being gay himself. And while it can be funny, if you really think about it, even by the end of the novel and in the extras he still has this shame of sleeping with Binghe and showing basic affection, but I won’t really criticize this much because he does improve in this a lot by the extras. By that point, it really feels more like shyness than the shame he felt at the beginning when he first discovered Luo Binghe's feelings. So I will argue that Shen Qingqiu arc is pretty well done and concluded by the end of the book; at least to me, it really did feel like he changed. Okay, so the second reason is because Bingqiu got together when they were both still ‘not at their best’. What do I mean by this? Well in tgcf Xie lian had to endure a lot of torture and experience several traumatic situations and almost released face disease and killed a bunch of people with it. He was clearly very mentally unwell! And for Hua Cheng, he also went through a lot of trauma with his mom dying when he was young and the abuse he went through from his father and the kids who made fun of him to the point where he wanted to end his life, and then later he became a ghost with his parasocial attachment to a god. We see these characters at their worst, but when they get together, they are already 800+ years old and have lived a long life and matured and learned from their experiences.

[maxdibert]

How do you think Severus would relate to a child of his own, if he had one? What kind of father do you think he would be?

There are so many possible answers to this question because it would really depend on the context in which Snape became a father (before or after the War), his child’s personality, and, of course, what his partner would be like. But, let’s assume we’re talking about a post-War Snape in an AU, because honestly, I can’t imagine canon Severus being a father in any way—it would literally be suicidal. Having a child would not only endanger his mission as a spy but also give his enemies perfect leverage to use against him. And he’s already suffered too much in life to throw in that level of angst. So, starting from a scenario where there’s no war and Severus can focus on being both calm and depressed (because he’d still be depressed, especially if he no longer has a clear purpose keeping him going), I don’t think the idea of fatherhood would really thrill him at first. It’s not like he’s someone who’s ever thought of having children, or at least he ruled out the possibility long ago. If he had a partner who wanted kids, I think he’d agree, but with a terrifying sense of dread about fatherhood because 1) his parental role models are terrible, and he never had a functional upbringing, and 2) he’s never really liked kids. It probably wouldn’t occur to him that maybe the issue is that he doesn’t like other people’s kids, but his own would be different. That’s why I think his partner would be a fundamental factor in this—supporting him throughout the process and keeping him grounded about his own traumas.

That said, I imagine him as a strict but supportive father, one who sets rules and commands respect but without using violence or verbal attacks on his children. He’d especially try to spare them the awful childhood he endured with his own father. But I still see him as the kind of dad who has rules and expects them to be followed, the classic type who cares a lot about grades and school behavior (he was a teacher for 18 years, after all). He’d probably see certain grades as failures if they didn’t meet expectations. He’d likely be a bit awkward with affection, although he’d find his own ways to make his children feel loved, valued, and accepted. He’d be a present father but would struggle to be fully emotionally open, though he’d likely improve this over time and with effort.

I also see him preferring to have daughters, or at least finding it much easier to bond with a daughter. I’ve always thought that it’s simpler for Severus to relate to women (Lily was his first friend, and the other person he spent time with as a child was Petunia, also a girl. As much as he picked on Hermione, he wasn’t as harsh with her as he was with Harry, Neville, or Ron. He seemed to have a fairly close relationship with Narcissa, etc.). Basically, most of the men in his life have been abusers (his father, the Marauders, Dumbledore manipulating and blackmailing him, Voldemort...), so he’s more at ease, or maybe just more himself, when he’s around women. I can see him thinking that he might not fully understand “girl stuff,” but that it’s better than having a son who’s into Quidditch and facing the prospect of not knowing how to deal with a boy who represents all the typical “boy” interests and behaviors that Severus doesn’t really embody. He’d probably have some anxiety over this—something common among men who don’t fit into stereotypical norms associated with their own gender.

Still, whether he had a son or a daughter, he’d try to provide them with a functional and stable home, where there’s affection and respect, allowing them to grow up with the security he never had. I don’t see him as an “easy” father because he has too much baggage, but he’d be aware of that baggage and try to address it when he realizes he’s messed up. He wouldn’t do that for others, but he’d do it for his children.

[butchsophiewalten]

For the character opinion bingo can yuo do felix..

This fucking guy. I have such a torrid relationship with this character. I've spent a lot of time joking about actively hating him, just because (especially back in 2021, when I first got into The Walten Files) there was such a gross oversaturation of these terrible, bland, thoughtless interpretations of the character. Like so many people saw this really interesting sort of character, and watered him down into something that was more personally palatable and sympathetic for them.

I don't know. Felix is so uninteresting when you don't hold him accountable for anything. I remember a lot of people trying to pin the responsibility for his actions onto the other people in his life, chiefly Jack, because they sympathized with his personal struggles and wanted to woobify him into a character who had never really done anything wrong. Which is such a shame, because that sort of wishy-washy attitude a lot of the fandom had taken towards his actions really soured me on him for a while. And that's not fair, because he's a genuinely fantastic and really interesting character.

I've always loved Felix when it comes to canon depictions of him, y'know? Because it's so free of that kind of Fandom Baggage. Even the good fandom Felix content has to bear the burden of that baggage a lot of the time, and it's worsened for it. But it's like, man, I always forget how fucking fascinating Felix is until we get some Fun New Canon, or someone in the fandom writes or draws something really good, and then it all comes back to me. I'm dying to see more of this character. I really want to get further into his head. I want to see exactly the depths of depravity he's willing to go to save his own skin, and I want to see how he justifies it to himself all the while.

I think a lot about his Formerly Positive relationships with other characters, too, because I think even before things went bad, Felix was always pretty self-centered. Very upbeat and overfriendly to the point where it seems, very obviously, like he's compensating for something. I think he cares a lot about what people think of him, but doesn't necessarily value other peoples' opinions. I think he very genuinely thinks of himself as the smartest person in the room, but is chronically resentful of everybody else in his life for outsmarting him. I really love the idea of everything with him being this sort of paradox. He's so self-deprecating, thinks so little of himself, but would move hell and high water to avoid actually changing and improving anything about his life. He's always so sorry, when he does something wrong and it blows up in his face, but the last thing he'd ever be willing to do is try and do better next time. He treats every tragedy that befalls him as some terrible innevitability he's subjected to, instead of the natural consequences of his own, controllable behavior.

I've already said I think Jack was a bit of an emotional anchor for him, in a way where Jack was this sort of representation of a Successful, Fulfilled man, so Felix really craved validation from him. He would always try, with varying degrees of success, to be on Jack's good side, because having Jack tell him he had done a good job made him feel that much closer to being the Pinnacle of Success he imagined Jack to be. And in this way, Jack was sort of dehumanized by Felix from the very beginning. Jack, in many ways, stopped being Felix's friend, an important person in his life, and started being this idyllic representation of a Good Man that Felix both resented and desperately clung to.

I think about this idea a lot when rewatching Guilty and hearing Felix try and justify his actions to himself through the lens of how Jack would feel. He had to bury Edd & Molly, because Jack would be devastated to see them like that. He could never do that to Jack, his best friend. Jack would be devastated. That's why it has to be a secret, why Jack can never know. He's doing good, he's protecting Jack's feelings. It's such a fundamental disconnect from the reality of the situation, and it feels to me a lot like he's projecting this imagined idea of Jack Walten onto the circumstances to soothe himself, and in the process is denying the real Jack Walten his autonomy in the situation. Jack doesn't get to be told what happened and decide for himself how to feel, Felix gets to decide how Jack would probably feel, and act on that instead.

Imagine for a moment, this same situation, but involving something much less terrible and serious. Maybe Jack has a nice vase in his house that he likes and is important to him. Maybe one day, Felix comes over and, when Jack is in the other room, accidentally knocks it on the floor, and it shatters. Felix, imagining how upset Jack would be to know his favorite vase was broken, sweeps it discreetly into the garbage, and plays stupid when Jack asks about it later. Now, Jack: 1. Never gets the closure of knowing that happened to this thing that he valued so dearly. He never knows if it was stolen or misplaced and is in one piece somewhere out in the world, or if it really was broken, and he should give up trying to recover it. 2. Never gets to decide what should happen in the aftermath of this vase being broken. Maybe he, too, was just going to sweep it into the garbage. But maybe, beforehand, he would take the opportunity to mourn this broken thing before it was out of his life forever. Or maybe he'd try to glue the shards back together. The point is not what he does, but the fact that he was never given the chance to decide what he would do.

I'm worried that last paragraph might come off as pretty patronizing. The point I'm trying to make is just that I don't think Felix really considers Jack as an autonomous person, and that's a really interesting part of their dynamic to me that I think is relatively really underutilized.

Apparently I have a lot to say about Felix Kranken. There's a lot more I could say, but this post is so fucking long already, holy shit.

[lovevalley45]

#fictober24 - day sixteen

"No, I'm not okay."

fandom: dc's legends of tomorrow

word count: 790

If Behrad had been given more of a chance in the matter, he would’ve preferred not being sent to a boarding school across the country. But the alternative had been staying on Keeping Up With The Tarazis, and if some moment taken out of context became another meme, he would do something he’d regret. 

So, Hunter Academy it was. 

There were some perks. His parents had enrolled him under a fake last name, Tomaz, which meant he’d flown relatively under the radar. Especially since he’d spent most of the last year hiding from the cameras in every inch of their house. The current rumor the gossip magazines were pedaling was that he’d been sent to rehab which - okay, he was a bit of a stoner, but he’d never done any “hard drugs”, or whatever. He didn’t even drink. 

The other perk was Astra Logue. 

When he’d arrived to Astra, she was one of the first people he’d met outside his roommate, Gary. She was beautiful, smart, and a little bit of a mean girl - exactly Behrad’s type. So maybe he’d immediately become smitten with her. 

 He was supposed to meet her to study for their physics exam during their free period, but instead he ran into her while she was talking to Ms. Moirae, the academy’s classics teacher. The two of them were right outside the empty classroom they’d planned to lampoon to study in.

Behrad felt- no, knew he shouldn’t eavesdrop. Whatever Astra’s relationship with Ms. Moirae was, he didn’t know for sure. But she complained about her - Lachesis - often enough that it certainly wasn’t just a student-teacher one. 

“I don’t like you hanging around that boy,” Ms. Moirae was saying. “It’s not a good look for you, Astra.” 

His blood went cold. Had she figured it out? Or was she going to bust his ass for being a stoner? 

“All we’re doing is studying,” Astra replied. “You really do think so little of me.”

Ms. Moirae scoffed. “Just studying. Sure. This is your junior year. If you want to get into a good college, you can’t waste your time with slackers." 

Now that he was offended by. Just a touch. He definitely was a procrastinator, but if his parents suspected that he wasn't putting enough effort in, he had no doubt that they'd drag him back to LA for KUWTT. 

"He does better in physics than I do," Astra replied. "God forbid I want to improve my grade before Dr. Stein gets on my ass-" 

"Then find another study buddy." 

"Gideon had to jump through hoops just to meet your high standards. It's not that easy." She rolled her eyes and glanced down the hall. When her eyes landed on him, he jumped. Behrad really didn't want to get in the middle of this. 

But Ms. Moirae didn't seem to notice him as she went on. "See, I don't see why you can't just study with her. I know there's the time difference, but she's much better suited." 

"You know what? Behrad, I see you hiding over there," Astra said. With a huff, she stomped away from Ms. Moirae - and towards him. "We better just come clean." He barely had time to react before she was leaning in to kiss him. 

It was a brief peck, but it was enough to answer his burning question of what it'd be like to kiss Astra Logue. Her lips were soft against his, even in that brief moment. She smelled nice, like lavender. To pull him close, she'd taken a fistful of his school-mandated button down, and her touch lingered even as she turned back to face Ms. Moirae. 

"You caught us. We're dating." 

Behrad could almost see the steam coming out of Ms. Moirae's ears as she looked at him. Shit. He was so going to get expelled. 

But she merely said, "We are going to talk about this later, Astra," before she turned and headed out of the hallway. 

Astra let go of his shirt and stepped away. "Sorry. I knew it'd startle her so much she'd get off my back." 

That confession hurt, just a little. "Oh." Behrad shoved his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do with them. "Are you… okay? I kinda heard a lot of that." 

"No, I'm not okay." She huffed. "But… if you're worried about having to pretend to be together, she'll force me to break up with you this evening anyways." 

"I wasn't worried about that," he said, though he absolutely had been. 

Astra readjusted her bag, looking as if she was finding words to say. Finally, she said, "Come on. Let's go study."

She walked off before he had time to answer. Behrad took a deep breath. "Yeah. Okay." 

[purplebass]

I always find it amusing when in A gathering of shadows, Kell doesn't know that Lila is back, yet he senses her presence and thinks his sight is playing tricks on him. He thinks he's probably being delusional because he just misses her so much and has a strong desire for their paths to cross again, so he is seeing Lila in all the things that remind him of her. A black coat. Dark short hair. A lean body. Their little time spent together had such an impact on him, that he craves for that to happen again, to see her again. I like that Kell and Lila's encounter after four months apart begins at the Night Market. Lila paid her debt to Calla and Kell just missed her by a couple of minutes. Lila pretends to be Stasion Elsor and attends the party at the palace and sees Kell, who thinks he reminds him of Lila, but he believes he is deluding himself again. Then they fight in the Essen Tasch. He is Kamerov and she is Stasion, and both are wearing a mask (literally and figuratively). Kell loses, and thinks Lila will leave again, her pretense discovered by the person she was running to and from. And then the story repeats, but differently: Lila goes back to the first stop, Calla's shop, and goes to the second place where they've crossed paths, the royal palace. It is yet another side of Lila who faces Kell. A Lila who is wearing a dress and who even accepts to dance with him, only to go back to being Stasion for the final match, which she loses. Along with her loss, it is Kell who also loses his patience and finally snaps. There are many reasons to why he does this, and one of those is affection. Love. Kell fell in love with Lila and he sure doesn't want her to get hurt because of her recklessness. Rhy tells Lila that Kell wears two faces: one for the world at large, and one for those he loves. Rhy is accustomed to his "love" face because Kell loves him. But after being bound to Kell and feeling what he feels, Rhy realizes how much Kell cares for Lila too. How he can't keep her there if she doesn't want to -letting go is also an act of love- but also how she disregards her life and the life of others in order to feel the thrill or whatever she wants to feel, which Kell can't do as he is not a free man. And I think Kell is attracted to Lila because he envies her freedom and a bit of her recklessness. He might be a prince but he is bound to the crown (he literally ends up in jail after he runs away in AGOS) so this is why it is important that by the end of the trilogy Rhy lets him go and Kell and Lila's relationship -which is complicated- seems to have improved much after ACOL and they are still together in TOP

[maxwell-grant]

SF6 Comic Thoughts:

(Spoilers) For those wondering at home why the dude became homeless in SF6, Ken Masters got suckered into a crypto scheme and is tanking his company and a developing country’s budget and his relationship with his son at the same time, and he almost gets politically assassinated by the end of this.

This rules.

Yeah this was great. Completely forgot this was even an Udon thing until I started writing this because this had like, a story, and dramatic tension, a major character facing consequences and minor characters getting attention, things happening besides boring basic pretext for fanservice and special moves which has basically never happened in an Udon Street Fighter comic. I like a lot that this is keeping things in limited scope so far.

Even Bengus’ art is pretty good here. I’m really not a fan of how Bengus’s art style looks nowadays, but the black-and-white heavy shadow palette really works here (seen some scans in color and, yeah just doesn’t hit as nicely), the stylization and paneling’s pretty great, idk man, it’s Bengus with a marginal budget and time to work on his art and having interesting material to work with. This has gotta be a breath of fresh air for the dude after years spent in the SFV mines.

Oh thank heavens the character in the poster isn’t Laura, sweet lord mercy I never want to see Laura again I know she’s coming back at some point but we’re good for now thanks

I’m really liking Mel as the other protagonist here. They’ve been sitting on Mel havin an expanded role since SF3 and here he’s given quite a lot more personality than I expected, lonely and frustrated by a sheltered upbringing and biting back against his father’s indecisiveness and immaturity, a pretty great foil for idiot manchild Luke to bounce off.

Mel Masters as he’s presented here is a frankly pretty terrific idea for a Street Fighter protagonist outside the games: someone who couldn’t be less impressed by street fighting but is bound by blood and circumstance to be a part of this, the anti-Sakura. An introspective kid who really just wants to go hang out with friends his age and play Pokemon, but who’s getting dragged through wolf-filled mountains and putting up with hyperactive fireball-tossing buff dudes because his dad is one of the greatest among them.

I like Luke quite a bit here. Not gonna touch the private military contractor thing here though, I feel like that’s a can of worms to unpack later, but if nothing else, Luke gets a lot more tolerable and even enjoyable when he has someone to bounce off even just visually, whether it’s Ryu or Jaime or the player character or Mel here. I think SF6 in game and here has settled Luke into maybe the best niche they could slot him in, described as “someone who likes to fight  but with no intention of getting stronger”. As in, the New Generation but not necessarily the protagonist, but rather the coach who’s showing the ropes for the protagonist, getting you used to the controls or pumping you up or teaching Mel how to improve his camping skills and etc (and in that context him being visually and personality-wise reminiscent of videogame streamers and E-sports celebrities is, a more logical and less grating decision, if nothing else, since those are the guys people go to nowadays in order to learn and improve at competitive videogames).

Curious as to what is Kalima’s deal given she’s making her debut here and what is her dynamic with JP, because I don’t think they’re quite retreading Kolin and it’s unclear as of yet how much is JP masterminding everything.

Zero clue as to who decided to have JP talk like a German cartoon here when he’s Russian and otherwise has little accent in-game. Would love it if they just revealed this was part of the ruse he was pulling on Ken and would even be in-character, since JP’s so far been defined as a duplicitous gamemaster, a brutal crimelord masquerading as a benevolent oligarch and someone who quite literally hides his winning hand the whole time he’s fighting you. I could buy that guy putting on a fake accent to trick a foolhardy American into underestimating him just enough to sweeten the pot.

In what is already a multi-layered scheme to ruin this guy and involves weaponizing the public spectacle of Street Fighter tournaments to leverage viral fame and, having a tragic child king beg Ken to fight in the tournament right in the middle of the guy having the worst time trying to manage his relationship with his son. JP is ice cold, I’m loving it. I’m loving this role he’s having as Ken’s biggest personalized enemy.

I’m loving having a Street Fighter villain who actually does have to take the slower route of planning and masterminding and backstabbing his murderous fighting tournament plots instead of just brute-forcing calling the fighters to take shots at him. JP seems significantly underpowered by fighting game villain standards, and this might make him dramatically more interesting as a villain proper.

I’m really liking the lengths that this is taking to ground Street Fighter in the here and now. IV and V took the Alpha route and moved the series onto a sort of comic book fantasyland where they’d never have to grapple with dates and timelines and so they could slide things into prequel territory, where as this seems closer to SF3 in that it wants to place Street Fighter firmly in the Now, with modern concerns and styles and changes to the world shaping the whole thing.

Almost didn’t think Street Fighter would ever bother telling a story with Ken that was actually about Ken and not just his relationship with Ryu. I’ve gone to bat for the guy before but this is easily the most interesting he’s ever been fucking ever, just this massive reversal of fortune grounded entirely in him finally not getting to have it both ways. His lore said he was facing “accusations of orchestrating a criminal plot” but little did we suspect he really DID assist in a huge criminal plot by sheer negligence. Bison would have pulled some ridiculous super brainwashing plot, but all JP had to do was just get Ken into crypto and hook him into a Nigerian Prince scam.

Ken wants a lot of things, he HAS a lot of things to deal with, and he can’t commit to any of them. He wants to be there for his son, but he can’t be there for what his son actually wants to do in life, so he drags his son into an anciliary role in his life instead. He wants to do right by the family name and company, so he blindly follows lifestyle mottos his dad used and tanks a billion dollars into a humanitarian project while constantly rejecting everyone who asks him to slow down or reconsider what exactly he’s sinking that money into.

He wants to use his privileged position to help those in need, so he funds a project intended to help a developing nation by, what else, a fighting tournament, and funds a nation into speedrunning through technological revolutions. He very clearly desperately wants to be a fighter in his prime again and do more than just fight “with paperwork”, and in the whole comic he only really comes alive when he gets to spin kick a drone, and he has this brief little moment when he has to will himself back into Business Mode to complete a deal with the least trustworthy man of all time, and the whole time he’s patently unsure about what he’s doing and the comic calls him out on it.

It calls him out on just how selfless this idea is and how much is it really about him wanting to help Nayshall’s uncertain future, and how much is it him desperately just trying to achieve something, or even deep down how much does he just want to fight again and feel good about something the way he does when he’s fighting, and the comic makes it clear it isn’t just one or the other. Ken has always been the guy who had everything, who had everything Ryu didn’t. In at least two games his plotline is “things are going great for Ken in his home life and company as usual, but he heard Ryu is showing up at the tournament so he’s dropping literally everything to go fight the one guy who makes fighting worthwhile for him”.

This is what happens when Ken’s character catches up to reality, of what it’s like for Ken Masters, immature carefree good-hearted fighting hothead, to try and manage being himself against being a global titan of philantropy and industry (and having had this entire thing thrust onto him from birth) and being a wholly attentive family man all at the same time. Something’s just gotta give. You can’t be as wealthy and connected as Ken and be irresponsive and impulsive and immature, no matter how well-intentioned or good you are. I’m frankly shocked that this went there at all after the trailers mostly implied Ken was just framed injustly.

Street Fighter has never ever even so much as gestured into the idea of Ken’s position and money as anything other than a point of contrast between him and Ryu, so to go from that to this where the whole thing’s predicated on the idea that Ken, while every bit as well-intentioned as ever and certainly a lot more mature than he’s ever been before, fucked up badly and is doing some real damage to people he cares for? That he tried to have everything and now stands on the precipice of having nothing? That’s good shit my dudes.

He hears “You said you were doing this for all the people in this country. So...haven’t you already decided?” and solidifies his decision, while the panel focuses very clearly on him clutching the red headband, the object that’s always been strongly associated with both his and Ryu’s trajectories, the thing that he gave Ryu all the way back in the Alpha series as a reminder to stay focused and not give in to the Satsui no Hadou, the monstrous thing that was tearing Ryu apart and costing him every ounce of concentration to stave off, a thing that’s come to represent their friendship as well as Ryu personally. The thing that he now clutches to stay focused in his decision, before everything goes wrong and he pays the price for it no matter what his intentions were.

This is some primo shit and easily the most I’ve ever been ecstatic about a Street Fighter plotline in a very long time. Seems like they set out hardcore to undo Ken’s long-standing role as a secondary character to Ryu and not rely on their traditionally hackier stuff with superpowered dark sides or Shadaloo plots. Thoroughly impressed and I can’t wait to see more.

[mediocrelanguagelearner]

hello fellow bored at work human <3

can you talk about your language learning journey? why did you start learning each of your target languages?

Thank you so much for distracting me from my boredom!

But uff, what a difficult question :D This could get really long... I'll try to shorten it as much as I can :D I'm listing the languages in a chronological order.

English: (I used to not count English as my target language because it felt like a second nature, but after 3 years of almost not using it, I'm starting to feel like I should dedicate some time to improving it) I had to learn English at school, of course, but it wasn't until I was 12/13 that I started loving it. I discovered a youtuber I loved, watched all of his videos in one summer and on top of this I found a blog of a (Czech) girl I idolised. This girl was very stylish, was interested in japanese fashion, learned Japanese and loved English. She said she constantly thinks in English and so I started trying to do that too. After this one summer I basically became fluent and in love with English. Since that I've been the best and always bored in my English classes, up until uni. But I've barely spoken English in the past 3 years and I feel the command of the language slipping away. I still listen to some videos and podcasts in English, but I don't use the language activelly and I've been trying to give a lot of time to my other languages, so my skills just deteriorate.

German: My relationship with German was complicated. I was forced to learn it since I was 13 and I hated it. I didn't want to learn it, I didn't like the sound of it and I had these weird perjudices about German. It changed only when I found Timothy Doner's video where he speaks a ton of languages. I fell in love with the idea of speaking multiple languages (by that point I'd tried to learn Spanish and maybe Dutch? unsuccessfully). And I thought "well if I have to learn German for another 2,5 years, I could try to like it". I started listening to German music and fell in love with Cro and AnnenMayKantereit (still love them to death!) and I decided to sign up for extra German class (where everyone was way better than me) and to do my high school state exam in German. At uni had a bit of a break with German but eventually took some classes to try to maintain the language. I've learned German for so many years and I still feel very inadequate about my skills (I am especially very embarrassed to speak), but I'm glad I never gave up. German is the language of my country's neighbours and it's such a big part of my country's history, I feel like it's important to know.

Spanish: I've always liked Spanish, the way it sounds. I tried to learn it as a kid for a while but I wasn't really motivated or disciplined enough. Then in 2016 I had the chance to go on help exchange to Spain for a couple of weeks (I picked the country myself, probably because I wanted to learn Spanish anyway) and I started learning Spanish about 3 weeks before going. It was a really nice experience and I loved Spain. I think Spanish is such a pretty and useful language, I really want to know it well, but the grammar is killing me sometimes. I continued learning on my own and then later took 2 or 3 classes in Spanish at uni, mostly to get a better foundation in the grammar and to have someone to talk to, at least for a couple of minutes every week. In my Spanish learning journey I spent a lot of time talking to random hispanohablantes on tandem, which probably wasn't the smartest move because it made me not like the language that much anymore – or at least not be motivated to learn it. When you talk to a lot of people who don't interest you and with whom you have nothing in common, you don't feel like wanting to learn that language anymore. But my relationship with Spanish is better now? I'm trying to work with a textbook and just generally do things that seem fun.

Swedish: When I was young I liked the series "Vikings". They spoke Old Norse there and it sounded like the coolest thing ever so I wanted to learn it. Then I thought it would be smarter to learn a language that is spoken today – so Icelandic, the closest thing to it. But I heard Icelandic has pretty difficult grammar so I thought maybe it would be best to first learn a scandinavian language. I couldn't decide between Norwegian and Swedish, but eventually nice people on tumblr/discord, Jonna Jinton and the fact there was a Swedish teacher at my uni convinced me to try Swedish. That's what I thought going to the first class in 2017 – I'm just going to see if I like it. Well, I fell in love. My teacher was so funny and just a generally good teacher, I had to continue taking the class. I did 3 semesters of Swedish (now, don't think it's a lot – it's still 90 minutes a week with bunch of other people) and did a lot of work at home. I loved the melody, the feeling of the language in my mouth, the teacher, the different but similar culture, the nature... I was so sad I couldn't take another class (too few students signed up and we weren't allowed to continue). Since then I've been learning on my own. I fell so hard for this language and right now I just want to be good at it.

That's the end of my very long post! I bet you didn't expect this when you asked :D Other than these languages I tried to learn (unsuccessfully) Dutch, Croatian and Arabic, but for various reasons had to pause learning them. I still want to learn them.

What is your language learning journey?

[mad-hunts]

oh. well, i suppose it's headcanon time once more, because i have way too many ideas regarding barton haha — so this may be a bit of a shorter one, but i believe it's equally as important as the one's i've posted thus far, because it really says something about how barton interacts with the world and how his brain works. but let me just start by saying that although barton does appear to have a relatively healthy relationship with food... he does occasionally hoard it, like, subconsciously as a result of the part of his childhood that he spent with wesley ( his biological father ). and this is because he was very much suffering from food insecurity while he was with his bio father. this is because wesley had lost his job as a forester whenever barton was around the age of five due to him missing too many days of work, not only because of how much his bloodthirst was taking over his life, but barton's life as well. he was forcing barton to go along with him on the super twisted ' hunting trips ' that i have talked about before that he unfortunately had to learn to endure with him ( which of course, in actuality, he never should've been forced to do ) about three times a week at one point and so that didn't really leave much time for wesley to attend work as much as he should've been.

and from there, wesley struggled a lot with finding a new job + providing for barton and him, so whenever he had access to food, barton would hoard it underneath his bed or in someplace where he knew that he knew he'd be able to find it because he wasn't sure when he'd be able to eat again. which is... very sad to think about, to say the least. thus, i think in more ways than one, meeting winslow at eight years old was probably the best thing for barton. winslow not only had a stable job, after all, but was a significant improvement in regards to how good of a father figure he was to him. i feel as if he never quite got over this insecurity, however, and that's why he sometimes still does it even till this day; especially since, although barton is NOT a good father overall, there is one thing that he's done right in regard to them and that is making sure that they were always put first in regards to getting to eat something. so hoarding food for him is also kind of a ' safety measure ' in a way as well because he has always been of the mindset that him being hungry is less important than them being hungry because of what wesley put him through as a child.

but yeah, that's just another one of my two-cents about barton's situation and how his mind as a whole works. he will quite literally sacrifice something like that for his children one second, though the next, he is liable to do something that makes it seem like he doesn't care about them at all... which admittedly makes him kind of confusing BUT i think there is reasoning behind this and one of those being that he can definitely feel cognitive empathy towards people, but actually putting himself in their shoes? it's much more difficult for him and sometimes nearly impossible because of how skewed his mind is. i shall expand more upon that another time, however, and what the term actually entails. i hope this didn't bum y'all out too bad but i promise you that i'll try to post more ( semi?? yeah, perhaps that ) fluffy things in the future.

[stillwinterair]

Howdy kids

My name is Dee! It's not the name I went by for most of my years on Tumblr, but it's the one everyone knows me as. You might remember my url as nyriad, visovari... I went by a bunch of others too, but those are the only two I seem to remember now 😅

The last time I was on Tumblr, I was in the middle of a very difficult period of my life that I didn't really have the tools or support to navigate. But sometimes you gotta go a lil wacky and make some fresh new regrets so you can grow up a lil bit wiser and sexier

I quit the internet pretty much cold turkey for a while and it was one of the best things I ever did for myself. I spent a year pretty much focusing on nothing but my immediate surroundings, living in my own skin, learning how to love myself. I've gotten a lot more comfortable being myself, and have grown a lot more connected to the earth.

In my time away, I was diagnosed with ADHD, which even just the diagnosis has significantly improved almost every facet of my life. I've gotten so many new tools and so much new language to express myself and my needs. I've stopped feeling like there is something wrong with me and let go of a lot of shame that I held around myself, my work flow, my ability to focus, my needs for rest, etc. As I've met more people with ADHD, I've grown a lot more empowered and confident. I'm still figuring out what medication works for me (Adderall and Concerta are hell incarnate; Ritalin and Vyvanse are the bee's knees). It's been revolutionary and healing, honestly. Reading the book "Driven to Distraction" was an important first step that I recommend to everyone who's ever thought they might have ADHD, or if you were like me, always felt stupid and slow and always wondered why you never could quite get around to doing all the things you want to do.

I am also currently pursuing a diagnosis for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, as per my doctor's suggestion. I won't get into it too much here, but it is a chronic illness that has made the last year pretty difficult. I have a lot of severe chronic joint pain and lethargy, and it's been... a lot. I'm starting physical therapy soon. This part isn't fun to talk about, but it's becoming an important part of my identity.

I've also met the love of my life, my soon-to-be fiancee, Nathalie! We were inseparable pretty much from the day we met, and spent a year as best friends. And then after that year the sexual tension became too much to handle, and now another year later, here we are, stupidly in love, utterly obsessed with each other, turning every single day into a fun, wacky, new adventure lmao. We've built the most beautiful, trusting, communicative, intimate relationship I've ever experienced and I am so filled with pride and joy and love and happiness every day. We're still best friends -- no force on this earth could ever get us to shut up when we're in the same room. She just fills me with butterflies and glee and light. Nat has this burning desire to create in whatever the most tactile medium she can find is. She loves mechanisms and fibers and all of the ways different materials interact with each other. She inspires me every day to be more open and honest and to pursue whatever creative venture has caught my interest, and I do the same for her. We dance together, create together, and share big emotions and life goals and it's just the most beautiful thing I've ever felt, and this paragraph could go on forever if I don't end it right now

I've also finally started to settle into my writing flow. I've got a space opera that's really beginning to take shape and I'm pretty proud of what it's turning into :) I also have a fantasy saga that's following a few steps behind. Both are things I've been working on for nearly a decade in fits and spurts, but I've done more work on them in the last year than in all previous years combined. I've gotten into more artistic mediums as well: oil painting, photography, beading, and so on. And very into fashion, kind of. Y'all should see my wardrobe these days -- bright colors, crazy patterns, wacky silhouettes. I feel like I finally look like myself. I'm currently rocking a purple mullet and a mustache, so... yeah, I'm having fun with it

I'm not sure how many of my old friends and mutuals are still hanging around, but I wanted to say hey, track a few of you down, and give a little update on how things are going for me post-Tumblr. I am alive, and I'm pretty happy these days. Some days I miss it here, and while I'll never come back in the same capacity as I used to, I wanted to reconnect with some of my old friends that I used to talk to and hang around with every day! I'm gonna poke around over the next while and see who's still around :) honestly I still think about some of y'all on the daily, and I got too curious about how my old friends were doing.

If you want to keep in touch, I'm on Instagram as deehollandaise. I'm on Discord much less often, but if you want to connect there, shoot me a message and I'll share the deets. Warning that I am just straight up not involved in any fandom stuff these days. It's just not for me anymore.

I will be retiring this blog in the new year, setting the whole dang thing to private and probably starting a new one with which to share some of my creative projects. I'll let y'all know about it before that happens.

I don't know, this is all kinda word vomit, I guess I just wanted to let all my old friends know that I'm still here and that I'm finally figuring myself out. I've got a lot to be proud of and grateful for and I've barely scratched the surface, so I'll leave off with some recent photos. Have a hot & sweaty 2024, you sexy things 😘

- Dee

[the-irreverend]

Has the latest episode of Helluva Boss left you a little conflicted about Loona? Well, you’re not the only one.

There’s no doubt that this episode has had some of the best Loona scenes in the show. From her backstory of why Blitzo adopted her, to that goddamn scene with Octavia.

It's no wonder my supply of tissue paper has suddenly depleted.

But while there are plenty of sweet and touching moments involving our favourite hellhound, it’s also been overshadowed by some scenes that are a little more… bitter-tasting.

I mean, when you see Loona talk to Octavia about how she should learn to understand your father despite his flaws and then in the following scene get physical with Blitzo (twice) after he finds her, it would certainly leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. 

And don’t even get me started on what happened at the beginning.

You know, the part that tried to brutally maim Blitzo just because he wanted to talk to her about her work behaviour and spent more time complimenting her throwing skills than giving actual criticism.

Also, body-shaming Moxxie.

That's just not cool.

All of these scenes certainly make a tough pill to swallow for even the most dedicated Loona fan. But despite everything, I'm still gonna swallow said pill anyway, and I'll explain why (because, funnily enough, this isn't the first time I've written a post like this).

First of all, just look at where she was raised.

This isn’t an orphanage. It’s a goddamned prison (literally, because, you know, it's in hell). And it should come as no surprise that a place like this would be a hotbed of neglect and abuse, things that are not conducive to healthy emotional development.

So it should also come as no surprise that a person who was raised in an environment where care and affection are hunted to extinction would have difficulties processing care and affection as well as expressing it. So the fact that she can feel love and affection despite all the trauma she went through is nothing short of miraculous.

(Y'all remember this scene? Still a favourite)

And believe me, there are plenty of moments that show Loona does care for Blitzo, even if she doesn’t show it as much as she should. But I said earlier. There’s a lot more that’s holding her feelings back besides teenage angst.

But the real reason I’m still standing by Loona despite her problematic relationship with Blitzo is not just because of what caused the problems but that she is more than capable of resolving them.

Look at what happened with the relationship between Stolas and Blitzo.

Anyone paying attention to Helluva Boss knows that Blitzo’s relationship with Stolas is ANYTHING but perfect, as there has been plenty of questionable behaviour and unreciprocated love. Just look at the shit that went down in the finale of season 1.

Take a look at where we are now, and you'll see just how far these two have come.

Of course, their relationship still could use improvement, but rest assured, it is improving. And if the relationship between Blitzo and Stolas can improve, why can’t the relationship between Blitzo and Loona?

This is certainly not going to be the last appearance of Loona, nor will it be the only time that the show focuses on their relationship, which can only mean that there's gonna be plenty of opportunities for things to get better.

I know Loona (and Blitzo as he’s not quite a perfect father) still have a lot to get through. But they can get through. They are getting through. And they will get through.

Because as I said in a rant not unlike this one: sometimes when a character’s progress takes a step back it’s because it’s about to take a bounding leap.

So don’t judge a book by its cover...

...and don’t judge a character before their arc is finished.

P.S. Also, if you have your own thoughts and opinions to share about the episode or the characters, by all means, feel free to do so. I'm eager to hear what you have to say.

[b-rainlet]

Aegon would initially encourage Helaemond affair but then silently seethe in jealousy because he cannot believe Aemond does a better job at being a better lover (ffs, not in this too). Unironically, Helaemond would improve Helaegon relationship simply because Aegon would start a competition (solely existing in his head) of who can make Helaena cum more and harden which would indirectly bring Aegon and Helaena closer. And although I love an OT3 ending, Aegon would never want to share Helaena - he would be okay with extramarital sex, but Helaena loving Aemond more or even on the same level as him would never not trigger “omg mommy pls love ME” reflex in him. So he will taunt Aemond with their sister’s pussy but always remind him that she can never be truly Aemond’s. Ofc Helaena’s pussy is too addictive so he accepts and suffers in silence :) and Helaena is just a happy little bug in the middle getting extra dick every night :) :) :) Everyone suffers but her (as it should be)

This is so spot on, it may as well be what we would get if they made Helaegon vs. Helaemond canon lmao.

(This is gonna be looong so my rambles under the cut:)

Aegon absolutely cannot stand not being the center of attention and if he won't get any relief from his sexual obsession with his mother, then his sister has to be the next best thing.

At first it's like 'Why should I spent any time with Helaena, courting her or whatever, we're gonna marry anyway.' because Helaena was supposed to be his from the start so why even bother? Aegon is so used to Helaena being his mother's gift to him, he definitely takes her for granted. And there's no jealousy anywhere because nobody wants to associate with Helaena!

She's weird and she's a bit creepy with her bugs and her prophecies and any noble who ever was bewitched by her gentle nature and entertained the thought of courting her would've had second thoughts the moment Helaena would use a walk in the garden to start climbing into the bushes or digging in the dirt.

(I think Helaena would be very aware of how she's supposed to act in company of others but since Otto only ever really came back into the picture when the kids were already 10-14 and Viserys didn't really care, the greens most likely had some freedom in regards to behaving like total weirdos.

I don't know how much sense that makes since Alicent is all about duty and sacrifice but the first time we saw Aegon getting scolded it's by Otto, so I am personally believing that Alicent let her kids get away with a lot. And that aside from Aemond, both Aegon and Helaena used that to just. Be the weirdos they are.

Until Otto came along of course and started grooming Helaena to behave like a proper lady of the court).

And that's 100% the only reason Aegon (and Aemond) haven't been in any fights over Helaena's 'virtue'. If Helaena would've been more like Alicent or Sansa or Margaery, there would've been a bigger line up of people looking for the princesses favour - potentially even after Alicent announced her children's betrothal because betrothed isn't married yet and a Targaryen princess bonded to a Dragon? Always a big plus.

(There probably have been suitors - I can't believe the Lannisters wouldn't have tried - but as opposed to GoT, HotD feels...smaller? Like, I don't see any other kids at court aside from Aemond, Aegon and Helaena and that absolutely cannot be, but I guess they wanted the show to be more of a family drama. But maybe the books mention that there was no other potential suitor for Helaena and idk that because I haven't read the books, who knows).

I mean, the moment Jace dances with Helaena (which he btw only does to spite Aegon, I don't know why people seem to think he did it to make Helaena happy? He doesn't really care about her, they didn't even seem to have any kind of relationship - positive or negative - as kids, so why would his motivation lie with her and not with the Uncle he used to obviously be fond of and who now keeps belittling him in front of his betrothed) Aegon looks stunned. Like he never thought of the possibility of another man even looking at Helaena twice.

I mean, why should he? Helaena is his by all means and her being unfaithful? Will never happen. She was raised by Alicent after all and all of them now that the things Aegon does and the freedom he has hinge solely on the fact that he's a man.

Aegon and Aemond even share a look like 'Are you seeing this? Are we collectively hallucinating? What is going on??'

And to just think about this scene a little more and view it through a shippy lense: Aemond is probably also stunned and even more angry because there he is, the second son, the younger brother, the one who is so used to wanting yet never receiving unless he takes things by force - and pays for it in blood - there he is, resigning himself to a life without Helaena at his side because she was born not for him, but for his brother, swearing to himself to protect them both as best as he can (and their children) because that's the only way he can show love to either of them without it being inappropriate and what does Jace do?

The bastard who's waiting for his turn to sit the throne once again takes something he isn't privy to, yet feels entitled to possess, dancing with a married woman in front of her husband and his own betrothed (and even if he just wanted to annoy Aegon, I think not dancing with Baela first is seen as a slight within Westerosi society) without any thought of repercussions or honour.

So yeah, it's actually surprising that neither Aemond nor Aegon started a fight sooner lmao.

But I am completely going off the rails here, my point was that Aegon isn't used to sharing Helaena and that he would absolutely hate it.

And the only way I can see Aemond being a part of the Helaegon relationship is definitely if it's clear that Aegon is the favoured one. He's the one Helaena calls Husband, he's the one who is allowed to be tender with her in public (which he would be more and more the moment Aemond would be involved with Helaena because Aegon is nothing if not mean and he likes to see the way Aemond tries so very hard not to look at them, failing spectacularly each time).

Helaena can 'indulge herself' but only if Aegon is present/informed, I would even go as far as saying that Aemond has to ask Aegon for permission before making Helaena come, because a wife's pleasure is her Husband's business.

It's also clear that all the children Helaena will carry will be Aegon's and in turn, Aegon makes sure that Aemond doesn't get married off (if it's a situation where Aegon is King anyway).

That way, Aemond can forever remain by his siblings' side, just like he wants to, and his loyalties will forever lie with his family, but it also means that he will have no children of his own and that he will view his niece and nephews as his, even if he can't be as affectionate as he may want to, so not to stir up any rumours.

(It would also be fun if Aegon kept dangling the possibility of Helaena carrying Aemond's child over Aemond's head, promising him that if he is good and if he pleases Aegon, he may be allowed to sire a bastard - and Aegon would definitely make it a point to call said potential child a bastard, only to make Aemond hate himself a little more, because he doesn't want to 'defile' Helaena like that, but he already lost any honour he may have had when he followed Aegon's invitation to join them in their chambers all those years ago and the thought of getting Helaena pregnant gets him off harder than he wants to admit to himself.

And if said possibility ends up being true - if Aegon decides he has enough male heirs which would sit the throne way before Aemond's kid would have the chance - then there's the added pain of finally having a daughter (because Aemond would definitely have a daughter and spoil her to death, I don't take criticism on that), yet having to watch her call Aegon 'Daddy' and giggle as Aegon bounces her in his lap.

Aemond would definitely be the most distant with the kid he sired because he would feel constantly watched whenever he interacts with his daughter, whereas he feels a little safer being affectionate with his niece and nephews and his child would definitely grow up thinking her uncle can't stand her while Aemond is absolutely dying to be tender with her).

Anyway all this to say that you are spot on anon, I love any and all interpretations of the greens and their incest obsession (for example Aegon offering Helaena up to Aemond as a way of apologizing for not protecting him from Luke all those years ago), but based on their canon characterization, if there was the potential of Helaegond (which I don't think would ever actually happen, Aemond is too much of a good catholic boy to even think about his sister while masturbating) then it would be similar to what you described.

Maybe Aegon would approach Aemond after the dinner - after he worked through his own feelings of jealousy and realized, hey, there's very much the possibility of somebody realizing how neglected Helaena is and just. courting her behind Aegon's back - especially if Otto somehow has his hands in it.

I don't know why I am so obsessed with this premise, but Otto actively looking for and intrducing noblemen to Helaena as a way of enticing them to pledge alliance to Aegon? Stunning. At first it's the possibility of claiming a Tagaryen princess for themselves, later on it's being in the Queen's favour - and there's definitely some underlying hope there to be the one to ease the Queen's loneliness👀👀

And Aegon would have none of that. So, maybe it's actually thanks to Jace and opening Aegon's eyes that he would approach Aemond and ask him to 'entertain our dear sister so her thoughts won't stray'.

And Aemond is definitely affronted on Helaena's behalf because their sister would never. But at the same time, he's only just a man and the flesh is weak and I mean, at first it's just things like, spending time with her and the kids and keeping Helaena busy enough, she doesn't have any time for noblemen and their sharp tongues and wandering eyes.

Which quickly morphes into him staying the night in Helaena's chambers - just to make sure she's safe and sound of course, watching over her like a good brother, making sure she's actually in her and Aegon's bed while is who knows where, doing things Aemond would never dare think about.

But of course the closer the proximity, the bigger the temptation and the more Aemond sees how dismissive Aegon is of Helaena, the more he feels like their Mother made the wrong choice not marrying Helaena to him instead. He would've been a good husband, he would've made time for his children, he wouldn't be out there siring bastards and fucking whores while slurring out their Mother's name!

So the inevitable happens.

Little does Aemond know that Aegon was counting on Aemond to succumb to his desires one way or another. Aegon isn't stupid. He knows that Aemond has wanted their sister ever since they were children and he has allowed Aemond's quiet longing because he knows that Aemond is too much like their Mother to ever act on it.

Not without a little push at least.

So now Aegon has seemingly solved his little problem, because he has somebody to keep Helaena satisfied so she won't do anything unbecoming of a lady with somebody else (because if anybody would get to touch his wife in Aegon's opinion it would be their brother. He is the only one Aegon wouldn't kill for it and that's only because Aemond came from their Mother too and Aemond came after him and Helaena and if Helaena was made for Aegon, than Aemond can only be made for Aegon and Helaena.

Just like Daeron was made for Aemond).

Plus, Aemond is so torn up about it, Aegon has complete control of him. Aemond would kiss Helaena for the first time and immediately report it to Aegon, on his knees like he's confessing the gravest sin. And Aegon would get to play the benevolent god, forgiving and Aemond and even encouraging him to keep sinning, but only the way Aegon allows him too.

And it's a perfect arrangement.

Until Aegon starts feeling left out.