#which was basically the only plan i had going into it

[carlossainzlusciouslocks]

Just us ~ Max Verstappen X Reader

Synopsis: Max wins his fourth world championship title and decides to throw caution to the wind

Warning: None. This is basically just fluff lol

Word Count: 638

I’ve had this idea in my head for MONTHS and finally decided to write it. This is my first ever fanfic ahhh! I hope you all like it! I would appreciate any comments or criticisms and feel free to request anything you would like me to write!

He had done it! Not that it was really a surprise to anyone. Everyone knew that it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when in the season would he do it.

He had won his fourth consecutive championship title and you couldn’t be prouder of him.

You had never enjoyed being in the spotlight. Only a few people at RedBull knew that you were Max’s girlfriend and not just a fan that was there to watch the race. Which is why when Max’s race engineer, GP, had convinced you to watch Max’s celebrations from the pit lane alongside everyone else from the RedBull garage, you made sure to stand off to the side of the barrier. Far away from prying eyes but still close enough to see Max drive his car up to the number one spot. You watched in awe as he stood on top of his car and held up four fingers to remind everyone of his most recent championship win.

The laugh that you let out when he ran and jumped on top of his awaiting mechanics, was lost in the noise of the fans. Max walked up to anyone in a RedBull shirt and hugged them, sharing his record breaking win with them. He saw GP and Christian Horner stood at the forefront of the makeshift barricade and made his way over to them, his helmet still firmly on his head as he was in no rush to take it off. Instead choosing to celebrate with his team first.

You watched as Christian hugged him and congratulated him on his amazing win. You couldn’t stop the smile that crept into your face as you watched Max interact with his boss. You then watched in slight confusion as GP interrupted Christian praising Max to point at something over Max’s shoulder. Max turned around slowly, unsure of what he was supposed to be looking at until his eyes locked with your own.

Still stood firmly in place, Max ripped his gloved off of his hands and shoved them into GP’s chest. He then started walking towards where GP had pointed, walking towards you. Every single camera present followed Max as he raced towards you.

He pulled frantically at the strap of his helmet, undoing it quicker than you thought was humanly possible. He pulled the helmet off of his head with the urgency of a man being hunted. He ripped his fire-resistant balaclava off of his head and threw it, along with his helmet, onto the floor behind him. It didn’t matter where it went. He didn’t care.

Max raced up to you, coming to a stop in front of where you were stood. He gently placing both of his hands on either side of your cheeks and feverishly pulled your face to meet his own. Your lips crashed together in a hungry, race-win fuelled kiss.

He kissed you like he was starving and you were the only thing that could stop his hunger. He kissed you like you were air and he couldn’t breathe. He kissed you as if he had never been allowed to before.

He kissed you in front of all of his engineers, all of the press. None of that mattered though. Every single camera was turned towards the two of you, catching the intimate moment and broadcasting it to people worldwide. It wasn’t something either of you had planned, you definitely didn’t expect Max to be the one to expose your relationship to the world but despite you wanting your privacy, you didn’t mind that he had kissed you in front of all of these people. You didn’t mind that he had so openly declared his love and commitment to you. You didn’t mind because the world finally knew that Max Verstappen was yours and yours only.

Note: I apologise for any mistakes!

[nouveau-nymph]

I like to think Ak!Jason would use the phrase "the moon is beautiful, isn't it," and any variation until he is ready to actually say, "I love you." He would come across randomly on the internet one day (cause I think that's how we all found out about it tbh) and then use it as a way (or well.. one of the ways) to express his love for you and get his feelings out without actually saying the words cause he still isn't sure he's mentally ready for that kind of commitment. Plus, it's not a commonly known phrase for a love confession, so there's a pretty high chance you don't know what it actually means, which relieves him from the worry of making you uncomfortable by dropping the L-bomb.

But what if you do know what it means and you decide to play along and pretend to not know it because even though you do love him back, you want him to be the first one to say it cause you don't wanna push anything onto him and make him uncomfortable.

"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" He would ask.

"Yeah, it really is, especially full moons cause they look kinda like pearls. Oh, or better yet, moonstones!" You answer.

Until one night, you slip up. You forget to reply normally because now, whenever he says it, your brain automatically corrects to him, actually saying, "I love you."

"The moon is so beautiful tonight," he says.

"I love you, too," you mindlessly respond.

"What?"

Shit.

"Fuck. Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. It just came out. I didn't make you uncomfortable, did I?"

"You know what that phrase means?"

"Yeeeaaah."

"For how long?"

"I've kindaaaa... always known. Okay, well, not always, obviously, but I did learn what it meant like a long while back, so when you said it the first time, I kind of, maybe knew immediately what you meant. I just didn't want to respond with saying, 'I love you, too,' cause I didn't want to push anything onto you cause I know you don't feel like your ready for big stuff like that so I pretended to not know as to not make you uncomfortable."

Jason just stares blankly at you for a short moment. A short moment that's juuusst long enough you to start worrying that maybe you had made things uncomfortable and now he doesn't want to be around you anymore. That is... until he starts laughing a tiny bit, a slight smile grazing his face as he leans his head down.

"Soooo, I'm guessing I..... didn't make you uncomfortable?"

"You didn't. Don't worry, you didn't," he says as he composes himself and lifts his head up.

"I... really don't mind if you answer back with 'I love you, too.' Honestly, I actually kinda like it. It's just... It's gonna take me a while to be able to say the actual words."

"That's okay! I mean, that's also kinda why I've been pretending cause I wanted you to be the first one to say cause you know consent is key and everything. I didn't want to go when there wasn't a green light."

Jason smiles. It's a sweet, soft smile. Like one of relief or contentment.

"Thank you. Thank you for... for being so patient with me."

(I swear I didn't mean for this to turn into basically a fluff one-shot. This was only meant to be just a little like a headcannon thing. I wasn't planning on going on a full tangent. I'm so sorry. I'm also so incredibly sorry if this is written poorly, and if the reader dialogue doesn't fit your personality, I don't write often, and I only know how to write nerdy, awkward characters.)

[axxxx13]

Theo is Liam's anchor, okay? It's basically canon, right? But can we talk about how absurd the reason is?

I mean what happens is literally this: Theo, after basing his entire life plan on triggering Liam's rage, comes back from hell, looks at Liam, looks at his IED, looks at the pack having trouble controlling him and is like "well maybe continuing to push violence on a kid who's been abused his whole life isn't the way to control his violence" and surprise, surprise, HE'S RIGHT.

Like, that's pretty much Liam's story.

1. We don't know much about his childhood but it's likely that he was abused by his biological father (seriously how often do we see Liam interact peacefully with a grown man? Maybe Coach and partly David but nothing more).

2. There are several things that suggest that Liam has always had social/relationship issues: it is clear that he had behavioral issues well before the diagnosis (the fight with Hayden) and that he was often excluded (his only friend is Mason) and maybe even bullied (his comfort zone is literally a team sport made to vent aggression in a healthy way and at the same time bond with other people).

3. Brett. Briam or not, whatever happened between them is as toxic as Chernobyl: can we talk about how tragic the zoo scene is? It is literally physical, psychological and emotional violence all together in the only space that Liam considered safe, which was lacrosse.

4. The management of his IED. This is probably a detail but I have always found the risperidone thing absurd because usually this kind of disorder is treated with a lot of psychotherapy (especially in young subjects) and drugs are a kind of safety/stabilization net. From the way it is told in the series instead it seems that Liam went to a psychiatrist who gave him a sheet with a diagnosis and a blister of pills and Liam spent weeks (the time of transfer from one school to another) like a zombie. They really literally inactivated him as if he were a bomb.

5. Liam's transformation was perhaps one of the most traumatic (of those we see). When he tells David that it was his fault that Scott broke his ankle? The scene on the roof? When they trick him into going to the "party" at the lake house? When he says that his parents will see him as a monster? When Mason tells him that he is ignoring him and Liam can't tell him why? It is so heartbreaking that I could cry.

6. After the transformation Liam doesn't have a second to rest or understand what he has become and how to deal with it: first he literally develops a form of PTSD because of the Berserkers with nightmares and hallucinations (AT 14 YEARS OLD) then he is put on a list where his death is worth 8 million dollars (the printer scene is horrifying) and finally he is thrown into a well by one of his teammates (another crack in his "safe place") with the knowledge that he has a wound that will kill him. ALL THIS WITHOUT HE BEING ABLE TO TALK ABOUT IT TO ANYONE BECAUSE MASON DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING.

7. Theo (and yes, unfortunately we can't rule it out). Theo turns Liam into the monster he's afraid of being, literally, and if Liam doesn't kill Scott it's just for a series of completely random circumstances. And obviously the consequences of this are devastating both for the treatment he receives from others (justifiable of course) and for his own mind which obviously doesn't help him process what happened.

8. In all of this what everyone does to block his fits of rage is using further violence (which could be linked to having actually suffered physical abuse). Scott and Stiles push him into the shower multiple times (and we clearly see him hit his head), Derek picks him up by the neck in the locker room, Brett tackles him on the field, Theo knocks him out at the zoo (5 times), etc...

Liam has lived in a spiral of endless violence practically his entire life and Theo after TWO times of seeing him have one of his outbursts (the Brett shirt scene and the scene with Nolan at the zoo) understands that violence does not calm him down or help him but is only a temporary defuse that actually adds to the spiral. Theo watches Liam TWICE have a tantrum and then manages to calm him down only by talking to him about how to cover up a murder.

Theo literally knows nothing about the world except death and fear and violence and yet he goes to Liam and manages to give him an ALTERNATIVE. Theo goes to Liam and is like "just because violence is what you're used to doesn't mean it's your only option". Theo is the only one who somehow manages to find a flaw in Liam's system that pulls him out of that spiral of violence instead of pushing him into it. Theo who is literally the apotheosis of violence in all its forms is the only one who manages to treat Liam with kindness.

Theo is the only one who can always treat Liam as if he were someone fragile instead of something unstable.

[wowgrim]

Yes and no? I think this is probably true for a lot of internet dialogue. And I do think that it takes a lot of work to undo this kind of indoctrination. But I think that people who are just casually getting into it and think there is an obvious right side can be swayed. I know, because I used to be one of those people!

I met someone involved in doing relief work in East Jerusalem in the West Bank who likes to throw around the word "apartheid." And since I didn't know much about the situation other than what he told me, I thought, "oh, that makes sense." And I started to use it.

Back then I worked in international aid in human rights. I ended up *going* to the West Bank and found things to be a lot more complicated than he described. Not sure what he was experiencing to make him come to his conclusions about "apartheid," except perhaps he was less familiar with South African history and the nature of apartheid then I was, so he may not have actually known what apartheid was.

Anyway, when I was there, the job was to document human rights abuses by the Israeli government. Like, technically, the job was to document any human rights abuses, but the thing was, while it was very obvious there were also human rights abuses being carried out by Hamas and other Palestinian factions against Palestinians, there were huge barriers to documenting them--language, staffing, people wanting to frame the narrative, and the risk of getting killed by those factions, or my coworkers getting killed, or the group never being able to work in the West Bank again.

(Let's face it. If i wanted to document human rights abuses being conducted by the Israeli government, there might be some challenges along the way, but they weren't going to kill me.)

So yeah. I documented human rights abuses. But there was another issue, besides only focusing on human rights abuses conducted by the idf or Israeli government. It was determining what is actually a human rights abuse. Because my organization basically told me to assume that everybody who got arrested or had their house rated etc etc was a civilian.

That makes a huge difference when identifying what is a human rights violation. Somebody raiding your home to intimidate you is a human rights violation; somebody raiding your home to look for weapons or war plans that you are likely to have is not. And while I could always be fairly certain that a three-year-old living in an apartment was not a Hamas operative, I had to actually have context for the situation to determine whether any of the household adults might be, and that context was not always forthcoming.

So we were reporting things as human rights violations without actually knowing if they were human rights violations. That's a huge problem, and something to think about when you read about human rights violations in the territories.

Okay. There's some of the context for my deprogramming. Now let's get to the particular question of apartheid.

Checkpoints were one of the things that this guy I had met had used as evidence of apartheid. We had a lot of checkpoints to go through in the West Bank. They sucked. Sometimes you'd have hundreds of people stuck at a checkpoint, and just from statistics, you could figure that most of the folks stuck there were just trying to get from point A to point B and live their lives.

But also from statistics, it was likely that somebody was going to try to get through at some point who wasn't just trying to live their life, but has the goal of making sure that others don't. (In case that was too vague, people regularly crossed checkpoints with the goal of killing Israelis, and often succeeded.)

Which means checkpoints are not apartheid. The point of checkpoints was not to keep Palestinians, as a class of people, coralled in townships or to maintain them as a servant class of another ethnic group (two purposes of apartheid). The point of checkpoints was to protect Israeli citizens from being killed.

Because that's the job of the IDF. To defend Israel and the lives of Israelis. That's the job of any government and any military--to protect its citizens. So the IDF is not going to let people into their country or near their citizens without vetting them first.

There is a legitimate security reason to have checkpoints. Is it possible to abuse checkpoints? Sure. But their existence is not evidence of apartheid--a system of discriminating against most citizens for the elevation of a small group of citizens. Both for the reasons I stated above, and also because the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens, and most don't want to be.

Back then, all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank were under the protection of the Palestinian Authority. And most of the Palestinians who spoke with me about this would say that if the PA could clamp down on the people attacking Israel, or if various Palestinian groups would just stop attacking Israel so the peace agreement could move forward, the checkpoints would go away.

Which is interesting. Because the narrative I most often hear in the United States these days is "we can have peace in i/p if Israel stops doing [xyz]." But what I heard from many Palestinians was "we can have peace in i/p if Palestinians and Arab countries would stop attacking Israel." Certainly, these Palestinians would also say "I wish Israel would stop doing [xyz]." But they also realized that Israel was in an untenable situation and would keep defending itself as long as it kept being attacked, and that the real solution to getting Israel to stop defending itself in ways that harmed them was for the attacks on Israel to stop.

Even after all this, I *did* continue to use the word apartheid after returning to the United States. But I knew it wasn't apartheid, which was the first step.

The next step was looking into why people were calling it apartheid. It was thinking critically about communication and propaganda. It was looking more deeply into the history of the conflict and the rhetoric surrounding it. And it was realizing, in part to patient people who pointed it out to me, that Israel was consistently held to different standards than any other country in a similar situation.

From there, it didn't take long to make the connection to antisemitism. Thank goodness, I already thought was a bad thing (I fear for this generation), or it would have been an even longer journey to enlightenment.

I hope this doesn't make it sound like the cure for being in the cult is going to Gaza or the West Bank. I think my mind could have been changed even before I went, if I had done more research and spoken to people with less polemical viewpoints.

And going doesn't necessarily get people out of the cult, at least not in the short term. I have a friend who is a lifelong member of the Catholic Worker movement (lay group of social justice oriented Catholics) who went to the West Bank with an affiliated group once, and now goes back frequently. The work she's been doing with it is, in my opinion, actually good work and generally helpful. But some of the words that come about out of her mouth (keyboard) are insane. And I would really like to get a chance to sit down and talk about it with her, let her decompress, help her unwind what is logic and what is PTSD--but now she's started to go back volunteering with other groups that are doing stupid and harmful things (at least in my considered opinion), so she's never back in the States long enough to actually converse and think about the hard things.

(I see this behavior, and the behavior of a lot of activists, as a PTSD cycle of doing more things and more dangerous things because that's the only way she knows how to give her life meaning now. It's one of the signs of activism tipping into cultiness.)

Well, that was a much longer reblog than anyone wanted or asked for, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately and had the opportunity to barf it up here, so now I've done so. I hope it helps someone, or at least is the start of me being able to put words together in a way that will help somebody someday.

“Israel is a colonial ethnostate that practices apartheid” - tell me you don’t know what literally any of those words mean. It’s easy to criticise a country without just blatantly making up shit.

[rekino2114]

Makima and her husbands reaction to Nayuta’s first school drawing and Nayuta making Makima a drawing for Mother’s Day saying she loves her and she’s the best mom ever! I also based that happy birthday mistake on one I made as a kid, when I gave my mom a birthday card instead of a mothers day one (I also tried my best to replicate children’s drawings, also-also I must admit I went on a bit of a children’s art spree, making what I think would be Nayuta’s representation of many of the other CSM characters in this AU, so uhh, if they’re ever relevant stay tuned for that!) have a good weekend!

Celebrating mother's day with makima and nayuta

Pairing:makima x male reader

A/n:Can this be considered the first art someone has done for my posts? Because I will actually start crying if it is 😭 IT'S SO CUTE AND ADORABLE I LOVE IT THANK YOU SO MUCH! Like not only do you make some absolutely amazing requests but you also took time and effort to draw those for me!? That's actually insane thank you so so much. Also I fused these requests again cause they were both great and happy mother's day to everyone

The moment you picked up nayuta from school that day, you could tell something was different. She was constantly looking around as if she was afraid of someone noticing her, and she didn't even run up to you and hugged you like she always did so needless to say you were worried

"Yuta, what's wrong?"

She glanced around again with her ringed eyes and gestured for you to get closer. When you did, she started whispering in her your ear

"Is mommy here?"

"No....she's at work"

"Daddy....do you know how to keep a secret?"

"Yeah what is it?"

".......but what if you tell mommy and everything gets ruined!"

"I promise I won't tell mom, what is so important anyway"

"Pinky promise!"

"Huh?"

"Pinky promise! You'll definitely tell her if you don't!"

"I already promised.....whatever I pinky promise I won't tell mom whatever secret you have"

"....hm!"

"......so what is it?"

Nayuta raised her hands dramatically and started speaking

"My teacher told me today you celebrate your mom and so we have to do that for mommy!"

"Oh you mean mother's day, yes I was already planning on celebrating, but I wanted to tell m-"

"NO! NO! DON'T TELL MOMMY! IT HAS TO BE A SURPRISE!"

".......why?"

"Cause mommy never gets surprised, I wanna surprise her!"

You couldn't deny that your wife had a weird habit of always knowing basically everything, especially everything concerning you two, probably because of her devil powers, so you understood where nayuta was coming from

"Hmmm, ok I get you, alright I'll help you"

"Really? Thank you daddy"

"Don't worry about it, I want to see mom happy too so we gotta make this awesome"

"Yeah it'll be awesome"

You and your daughter fist bumped and smiled at each other before deciding how to prepare for this mother's day

You had an advantage, which was the fact that makima didn't really know much about human traditions and festivities, so she probably wasn't aware of mother's day and you had more chances to make it a surprise

You started by decorating the house together, with you having to carry nayuta to make her reach all of the high places.

You also started to bake a cake for her. You really did treat this like her birthday for some reason, mostly because nayuta was so excited and you loved seeing her like this

You eventually asked nayuta what gifts you were going to give to her mother since you had already bought her something and she gasped and went over to her bag to grab something, a drawing of her and makima with a heart around them saying that she was the best mom ever

"Oh that's adorable"

"My teacher told me to do it for mother's day, will mommy like it?"

"Yeah I'm sure she'll love it.......but why did you write happy birthday at first?"

She blushed and immediately raised her voice

"I-I though it was mommy's birthday"

"......really?"

".....b-but everyone else in the class did the same mistake!"

".....d-did they?"

"........................yeah?"

You could tell she was lying but didn't want to make her feel even more embarrassed, so you just pat her head and giggled

"Well mommy doesn't really have birthdays"

"....uh? But you told me everyone has birthdays"

".......it's....uh.....very complicated, anyway I'm sure she'll love the drawing it's great"

Nayuta smiled, showing you all of her teeth and immediately hugged you

"Thank you daddy, I can't wait to show mommy"

"Me too, so we still have to finish everything, but mom is coming soon so can you distract her when she comes?"

"Yeah I'll do it, I'll be the best distracter ever"

You smiled back at her and you two broke the hug before you heard the familiar sound of keys jangling and opening the lock on the door, so you two got worried started panicking and ran towards the door that makima was coming out of

"I'm hom-"

"MOMMY! I WANNA GO TO THE PARK!"

"Huh?"

"I WANNA GO! I WANNA GO!"

"But I just got-"

At this point nayuta started to push makima out of the door so that she couldn't see all the decorations and yell louder

"I WANNA GO! I WANNA GO! I WANNA GO! I WANNA GO! I WANNA-"

"A-alright, come here, sorry darling, it seems nayuta is really eager for some reason, do you mind staying alone for a while?"

"Don't worry it's totally fine you two have fun and take all the time you need

"All right, l love you"

"Love you too"

Makima and nayuta walked outside and closed the door behind them while you breathed a sigh of relief and continued decorating and finished baking the cake

[Timeskip brought to you by chibi nayuta and chibi y/n playing with their dogs]

After a while you finished setting up everything right in time for your wife and daughter to come back

When the door opened, you saw makima walk in the room with nayuta on her shoulders, who was covering her mother's eyes with her hands

"Oh hi-"

"Did you know mommy is super good at walking without seeing? She didn't bump into anything"

"Yeah well she......has a lot of special abilities"

"May I open my eyes now?"

"Are you ready for the surprise?"

"Oh? You did something for me? I wonder what it is, of course I am"

Nayuta then removed her hands form makima's eyes who instantly opened and widened once she saw all of the decorations

"SURPRISE!"

After she yelled that nayuta descended from her mom's shoulders and ran off to go get something

Makima calmed down and smiled but then tilted her head in confusion

"Don't get me wrong I really adore all of this, but what is it for? I don't remember anything special happening today"

"It's mother's day, it's when all of the moms of the world are celebrated"

"Ah I see"

"And you're the best mom ever!"

Suddenly you both turned to see that nayuta had come back with the drawing she showed you before, she held it out for makima to see who grabbed it and looked it over

".........you did this.....for me?"

"Yeah obviously you're the best mommy ever!"

".......you really think so?"

"Yeah you're super awesome and incredible, you're the best"

The little black haired half devil then immediately went to hug makima, who snapped out of her trance and smiled brightly before hugging back her daughter

"I love you mommy"

"...I.....love you too"

The two stayed like that for a few seconds before breaking the hug. Nayuta then went over to the kitchen to try and grab a slice of the cake you had baked while makima stood up and looked at the drawing again

"Is every alright?"

You put a hand on her shoulder and she turned to look at you

"Oh, yes, sorry I guess I'm still not used to all of this"

"It's alright I understand, do you like the drawing?"

"Yes....it's amazing....nayuta made this just because she genuinely loved me.....it's truly wonderful I love it"

"I'm really glad, do you want to hang it up on the fridge?"

"Absolutely, I'd love so"

"Alright then, we should also go and start eating the cake too"

Makima nodded and smiled before realizing something

"Oh by the way, is there a celebration like this for fathers too?"

"Yes father's day, why?"

"That's great, I just wanted to know when was the day me and nayuta could celebrate the amazing dad you are"

"Oh thank you, but I'm just doing what any good dad would do, you're the amazing one like nayuta said"

"Well I guess I can't go against my daughter, so let's say that we're both amazing alright?"

"That works for me"

You two shared a brief kiss and looked into each other's eyes for a while

"....but......seriously, this is all because of you, I can never thank you enough for being in my life"

"You always say that"

"Because it's true, you're a wonderful father and husband, just thank you y/n, I want to keep living this life forever....with you and nayuta"

"Of course, I'll stay with you forever too makima, i love you"

".....me too"

You kissed again, and you held your wife's hand as you started walking towards the kitchen too

"Well I think that's enough reminiscing for now, we still have a party to celebrate and I don't want to keep nayuta waiting"

"Yes of course, I can't wait either"

And so you went to celebrate mother's day makima being happy that her daughter considered her not only a good mom but the best in the world, that truly made her incredibly happy and made her feel...truly loved like she always was around her family

[alexanderlightweight]

okay so this is a super short article and definitely isn't the best one but basically, there is a Turkish language that originated for long-range communication in the mountains of Turkey. Which I realize is random but:

this is really cool and interesting and also there sadly aren't many people left who speak it (as often is the case with older and ethnic languages and dialects since colonialism AND capitalism both stamp out culture and individualism etc)... anyways.

so perhaps nephilim have slightly different vocal cords and their version of enochian (I do have a fic planned for them being able to speak and read in an angelic language but thats different) or a demonic language is in fact, through whistle/chirp/singing noises that are both ideal for battles, but also while they're in the air since wind and movement makes it hard to decipher words (i'm looking at you house of dragon fanfics where the dragonriders can communicate just by talking (not even shouting) across DRAGONS. i'm sorry you can hear over the sound of the wind and their breathing and their wingbeats and the feel of their heartbeat that probably can be felt even through the leather of a saddle? one of my partner's (say because i'll throw them happily under the bus) has several special interests from star wars (obi-wan) to GOT/House of Dragons/TSOFAI (basically both literature and media) along with a bunch of other stuff.

so yeah. anyways. yes most things I see in RL get filtered through a 'can I make this malec' lens. most of the time its 'yes' whether I like it or not and sometimes it's 'this is garbage and not worthy of turning into malec'.

because of say loving got/house of dragons did I mentally figure out exactly how malec would exist in that universe? yes. do I feel pretty silly about it since I'm not planning on writing it? no, because I had to do something with all the trivia knowledge I learn from the background noise of Say watching lore videos and since i'm not going to waste mental time plotting without malec involved... so basically any time I see something interesting I use it as malec inspiration fodder instead

Nightshade is really mad at me (and when I say mad I mean he's upset and a little angry and the only way he knows how to deal with that is to either throw a tantrum (barking and zoomies) or sulk. Currently he is just out of reach. like, if he moved his nose it would touch my toes or I stretched my leg out (which I can't do because bad leg) I could maybe touch his ear but otherwise he's next to me but just out of reach and he's like 'see. we could be cuddling but you don't love me enough to move the laptop so... here we are. together but apart.'

i need people to understand how melodramatic this dog is. the moment I finally concede and move the laptop, he will be in my lap and 'forgive me' for my sins and the travesty of not giving him the highest priority in the lands.

[aingeal98]

I haven't read any comics w Jay in them, but all I hear about it is that they're a bland nothing character made only so they can advertise Jon as queer. But since YOURE a fan of JayJon and one of the realest people on this site, i dont think that's v accurate (the bland part, at the very least) and I'm curious about what they're like :3 (also the panel they chose for the poll is not flattering at all T.T why does Jon look like that)

Awww thank you! I can't promise they're everyone's taste, and I understand people's hesitation due to the double whammy of Tom Taylor and Jon Kent, and initially when Jay was introduced I didn't have any interest in them at all. What got me intrigued was the ongoing Secret Six run, which is a book absolutely chock full of messy gay drama. And that got me to go back and deep dive into Jayjon.

The basic summary that I can give as propaganda is that Jay is a seventeen year old anarchist who successfully convinced Jon Kent to go along with his plan to overthrow a dictatorship. He's much more active a partner than a generic love interest, and in a lot of ways he's helping Jon define who he is outside of "Superman's son." Despite being created by Tom Taylor, the more comics Jay appears in the more it becomes clear that he's not a two dimensional sweet supportive love interest. That boy is a Hater. It's literally one of my favourite things about him.

(And also I think people saw Tom Taylor's name, Jon Kent as the protagonist, and Jay's pink hair and made a whole bunch of assumptions about him and Jayjon that lumped them in with Tim Drake and Bernard under the "DC doesn't care they're just throwing these heroes with random boring gay love interests" take. Which I disagree with especially when it comes to Jay tbh.)

But to understand my own personal love for jayjon, as someone who doesn't really care about male characters in general, you gotta understand the third part of this messy triangle: Nia Nal aka Dreamer. Spoilers for everything involving the three of them below.

Her backstory is written in Bad Dream: A Dreamer's Story but basically Nia is a half alien trans girl who grew up in a hidden alien sanctuary in America, until her powers manifested and she left and after some drama and tragedy, she became a hero. She shows up in Jon's Superman run to help Jon and Jay out because of future visions she had in her dreams. Why? Well now we get deep into Jay.

Jay Nakamura is a refugee from Gamorra, an Asian Island nation located in the Pacific. His mother used to be president of Gamorra, but when her successor was elected he turned the island into a dictatorship and began experimenting to create metahumans. Jay was tortured and experimented on, gaining the power to turn intangible. He fled and made his way to America, where he began running an underground news site attempting to expose the news mainstream media ignores, such as the Gamorran refugees. Jon during this run is struggling with the weight of being Superman and what kind of hero he wants to be, and decides to help Jay and the Gamorrans. They fall in love, kiss, and end up saving Gamorra with Nia's help. It's very Tom Taylor as in the ideas are interesting but he's limited to everyone getting an uncomplicated happy ending. Luckily, the characters aren't limited to his run. So instead of being a simple happy ending, things get a lot more complicated.

Then comes the one two whammy of Suicide Squad Dream Team and Absolute Power, which is a terrible comic for Amanda Waller but a great comic for Jon, Jay and Nia. Really enjoyable if you pretend Waller is possessed by an evil magic force the entire time. In Suicide Squad, Waller assembles a team in order to infiltrate Gamorra and take control. She blackmails Nia into being a part of the team first by threatening to expose her hometown of aliens to all of America, and later on by holding the life of her family hostage so that she does Waller's bidding. This leads to Nia using her powers to get the Suicide Squad into Gamorra, where they then assassinate the president.

... Aka Jay's mom.

Nia does end up flipping sides and helping Jon in Absolute Power after he's possessed by Braniac, but despite that Jay still despises her, and understandably so! Jon is caught in the middle between this girl he likes who he knows is a good person, and the boyfriend he loves who understandably hates her. And on top of that his fear of his powers being used to harm others came true and he is NOT coping well after his first time being possessed. And also Nia seems to be crushing on him.

So we come to Secret Six, which three issues in is just gay drama from top to bottom. You've got Deadshot and Catman for old man yaoi, Jon Jay and Nia all forced to work together and full of messy emotions, and Black Alice who was also part of the team who killed Jay's mom but is far less openly remorseful compared to Nia.

And thanks to all that, I've grown very fond of Jon/Jay/Nia. Trans girl who's OK with killing certain assholes vs Anarchist gay guy from a discriminated minority vs Jon Kent liberal flirting with leftism while also dealing with superpowered trauma. It's a powder keg and an entertaining one!

Bonus reading list by bobbinalong on twitter. And bonus extra fun panels.

^^ Guy who is definitely doing OK and his boyfriend who definitely does not feel personally responsible for calming him down

They're very gen z and the Tom Taylor does shine through at first but I still enjoyed them a lot. Secret Six is one of the current ongoings I'm loving and need more of. Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but definitely mine!

[refracting-light]

“Well the truth is fairly boring. It’s all about power. Trade routes. And basically…” Lora starts.

“We don’t know who started it. But whoever it was made a bunch of clones. Which the Jedi have taken in. And they’re helping us protect people.” Obi wan adds.

“But this isn’t what we’re supposed to do. We aren’t supposed to fight. And using the clones isn’t right.” Lora argues.

“Sometimes fighting is the only way to protect people. Sometimes fighting is the only way you don’t end up dead!” Obi Wan exclaims.

“Excuse me… I’m going to go check our arrival time…” he stands up and runs a hand through his hair before leaving the room.

Lora arches a brow and looks at Anakin. She’d ask him about that later.

“You know. When Master Windu said I’d be sharing a master with the chosen one I had mixed feelings too. You can’t be everywhere at once Anakin. You’re the chosen one and a general. The Jedi have bigger plans for you than the empty title of a master.”

“Do you really want to sit and argue with the council all the time? I had Master Windu as my master for a bit and believe me. He’s not a fun man to argue with.” She smiles a bit nudging his boot with hers under the table.

@i-like-fluffy

Lilo and Stitch wander around what Lilo can only describe as a space airport. She wasn't supposed to get off the ship during refueling, but she had Stitch and the air was breathable and the council woman was boring anyways. Its not like they could leave without her, she was pretty noticeable when shes there and when shes not. She's loud and annoying according to most grown ups

Lora was talking to a shop vendor when she felt something bump into her leg. She looked down at the small girl.

“Hello little one. Are you lost?” She asks looking around for the girl’s parent.

[technicolor-algae]

hi, at this point after reading chapter 86, i have what feels like a solid qifrey theory. this has all probably been said elsewhere, but i need to write it all out anyways.

contains spoilers through ch. 86

1.) silverwood seeds look like eyeballs.

2.) a creature eats it.

3.) the silverwood tree overtakes the creature.

the brimmed caps are seeking to reverse this.

1.) qifrey's eyeball is taken.

2.) it is put into a silverwood tree.

3.) silverwood tree is overtaken by the human body that was originally used as the tree's host.

must there be a catalyst for this transformation to take place, analogous to true hope/happiness/safety being the stimulus for the silverwood seed to germinate?

if so, what is that catalyst?

is it also hope, comfort, peace?

i believe that qifrey's left, intact eye, has somehow been magically linked to his missing right eye, conferring his experiences to that missing eyeball where it has been placed in a tree, wherever that is. and i wonder if the brimmed caps intentionally left him for the party of pointed caps to find and nurse back to health. then, qifrey would go on living his life, eventually reaching a point of true peace. when this happens, qifrey becomes the host and is overtaken by a silverwood tree, meanwhile the tree containing his missing eyeball is restored back to the form of its original human host. the brimmed caps are seeking knowledge of the lost magic they wish to reimplement, and their goal is to restore an ancient witch who had this knowledge and became a silverwood tree.

(i think there's something about the forest of thristas being a graveyard of sorts where, long ago, witches went to sacrifice themselves, knowingly becoming silverwood trees. that's a tangential rambling, though, and i feel there are some holes in that idea for which i haven't taken the time to seek answers)

we know that qifrey's left, intact eye began showing signs of trouble a few years ago. this seems perhaps in line with a time when his life was beginning to feel complete - he was feeling at home at the atelier, nestled in a beautiful and calm landscape; he was thriving on teaching and seeing his apprentices learn and grow, and probably pleased seeing himself grow as a teacher, the toils of which he seemingly loves above all else; he had his closest, dearest person right at his side everyday. he had a home and a family, two core, basic things that comprise human contentment; two things he'd never had before. and so inklings of the transformation began to emerge, manifesting as pain and degradation of his left eye.

qifrey has said that he ultimately must find and destroy his missing right eye. i wonder if, in doing so, the connection would be severed thus saving qifrey from actually being able to be happy without "treeing out".

qifrey has stated that he believes olruggio would help him on his quest to retrieve and destroy his eye, thwarting the brimmed caps' "plan" and saving himself. this is why olruggio cannot know anything about qifrey's "secret", because if olruggio were to aid qifrey, this would only add to qifrey's sense of family, of support, of contentment. he must press onward, keeping the transformation at bay by holding all of the crappy feelings that have arisen from not only having to go this alone, but lying to his dearest person and violating his trust.

phew, okay. let me know if you have anything you want to add, or any alternative ideas :)

[lotus--pond]

something I very much admire about bek's characters is their ability to be upset and angry in a way that while it may make the audience upset, it is fitting for their characters and ultimately makes sense from their pov

like: (using the bound guys as examples I'm sure there were times with Ari but I did not follow her lore as closely)

Sylph was very upset with Vast after she took his magic. and he had every right to be. Because, yes, while the audience understands that there was nothing she could have done because she was poisoned and could not have fought back, Sylph doesn't and unlike the audience, Sylph was permanently stripped of such a core part of himself and not only that, but part of his safety.

If the island fell, he wouldn't have been able to do anything, if he needed to get away from something he would have been basically helpless against another avian. and in a world and situation like his where the avicane was around and being a constant danger, that's fucking terrifying. And even if someone pursuing him couldn't fly, because of how weak his legs are, he's also at a severe disadvantage.

so yeah, I love Vast and I understand why she had to do what she did, more of her thought process, background that influences her decisions, and the whole context of the relationship between her and Viviana, but Sylph does not. I also understand that what she did harmed Sylph in such an intrinsic way that even if there was no worse option, that didn't mean what she did was good. Didn't mean that she was automatically forgiven or stripped of all responsibility.

and even recently with Vesper, her being distrustful of Aura, while it is obviously not true because we have audience privileges and can see from so many characters individual POVs, makes sense for her character.

she's been shown to be distrustful and not-particularly nice when Ev isn't around. She's also refusing to believe that there isn't a way off this planet. So when Aura says that their ship got pulled in by the gravity spike not only does that sound implausible because of what they know about Rionear and Rionear ships, but its scary because that means that the forces pulling them into this planet may as well be unstoppable with their current means. (I think it was mentioned in passing by Aura that the Cassion was running on an experimental core, which is why it wasn't able to get out of the gravity spike but my memory is shit so don't quote me)

Because if a Rionear ship with a starcore couldn't outrun it, how were they going to build a ship from scratch that could? Especially when most of the people there have no idea how to even start building a ship.

and (props to that other post where I talked about this I forget the name of the person but they were bringing up a good point like this) Vesper doesn't hold high opinions of many others (with the exception of Ev) and knowing Rionear ships she assumes Rionear should be confident and secure because they have like. the fastest ships. But Aura is not confident nor secure, and that seems strange to her.

And she's not wrong that aura is hiding something, she's just wrong about what star is hiding. She thinks they have this master plan or are hiding their true personality or crashed here on purpose, when in reality star is trying to hide Navi to keep it safe.

And star believes starself to be lying, star believes star is doing this and being nice and doing favors for people to bargain for protection for star and Navi. Which also probably makes Vesper think star is lying.

was Vesper in the right to go about it the way she did? no, she was being very rude and mean. Does it make sense knowing only what she knows? yes.

in both cases, is it upsetting? yeah. we know characters on all sides of the argument and have the full context of their lives and personalities and situations. Is it simultaneously fitting character wise? yes.

idk I just think its neat

[dilly-dahlia]

"if y’all want more on specific characters just drop an ask i will gladly answer because it forces me to think about it" Okay.

Vylad.

(please)

guys i’m being so serious but Vylad has actually been so hard for me to figure out because he has such a pivotal role in my rewrite (even if he doesn’t show up for the beginning part) and i need to get like. that good feel for him which I DONT HAVE 😭😭

anyways. as opposed to the more sure “this is Vylad” post like I did with Garroth and Laurance and Dante and whoever else, this is kind of gonna be me throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks. it’s also gonna be me going over some concepts i have for him, even if they’re ones i decided not to go with. you will see me connecting dots in real time. but i promise Vylad is so important and i want to get him to a point that feels right for me!!

okay so we keep the basic mcd lore. affair baby, shadow knight, brought Adelaide (Aphmau) into the world, all that. but i’m gonna start at the beginning

okay, affair baby. i very briefly entertained the thought of Vincent being his birth father, especially since I think the two could have some neat parallels and like obvious similarities yk. plus (and this is more minor) there’s the fact that like, all of the Ro’Meave kids have a name that starts with the same letter as their parents, so like… V and V. ykyk. i decided not to do that cause i feel like that’d be a useless plot line anyway. i’m thinking more like Zianna sort of had a fling with a maritime merchant that often visited O’Khasis

so it’s obvious that Vylad is an affair baby. not only because of his very different appearance compared to his brothers but also because Garte literally announced it and humiliated Zianna. i haven’t figured out the exacts of that but he publicly humiliated her to teach her a lesson

it’s also widely known that Garte hates Vylad. however despite this, Garte took Vylad in as a subtle manipulating “look how kind i am taking in a child that isn’t mine” kind of way yk?? and in the public, at least when Vylad is young, Garte seems to treat him like his own. but in private it’s clear that Garte does not see Vylad as equal to the rest of the Ro’Meave line and kind of shuns him. like he doesn’t give Vylad the same resources his brothers had, especially in academic fields. so Vylad is kind of pushed to the side. Zane kind of plays into that to appease his father

he spends a lot of time with his mother, and with Garroth when Garte allows. Zianna and Garroth actually taught him to read, which is something he’s thankful for because he doesn’t think he would have learned otherwise. Garroth was also the one that was always protecting Vylad from harsh punishments, and a large conflict for Garroth about going to the guard academy was leaving his brother to fend for himself

but Vylad and Zianna spent a lot of time together. their favorite place to frequent is Zianna’s palace garden, where she teaches him the meanings of all sorts of plants and stuff. and when Garte locks Zianna away for whatever “lesson” he’s teaching her, Vylad always finds a way in to keep talking with her. that’s how he got so good at sneaking around later as a shadow knight

okay so as he got older he was sort of excluded more and more from public events. his absence kind of solidified in peoples heads like “oh Garte DOES NOT like this kid…” but Vylad doesn’t mind because he wouldn’t consider himself to be made for these events like the rest of his family

okay so his death. it was something that was semi-planned?? so this kind of serves as a double purpose to also build tensions with Tu’la and all that. so what had happened is that a Tu’la spy infiltrated the O’Khasian guard. and that spy rose through the ranks and became one of Garte’s most trusted and Garte was eventually confiding in them that he wanted Vylad gone, even bringing up a premeditated assassination. the spy took it as an opportunity to kind of put O’Khasis against itself and took it upon themselves to kill Vylad. so his death wasn’t exactly planned, but it was on its way.

so Vylad died when he’s about 16. and he’s actually one of the reasons i have shadow knights age the way they do because I considered having him be like forever sixteen, but i didn’t really like that. i don’t remember why though because i think that’s a fire idea now i might change it…

anyway he’s 16 when he dies. that’s also another reason Garroth isn’t very happy about his marriage to Nicole, because she’s the same age his brother would be, but that’s another topic i’ve already yapped about

back to Vylad!! so he was turned into a shadow knight because it was known that he’s a Ro’Meave, or at least introduced as one. because of this, Gene and whoever else (i haven’t decided who’s in charge) resurrect him assuming he has the blood of Esmund the Protector. when they discover that he doesn’t, they also kind of discard him and hide him away

Vylad eventually breaks out. idk how. but he does. and the thing is he had devised this entire plan to start a new life for himself because he was getting tired of constantly being pushed to the side because he isn’t who people want him to be. so when he breaks out, he steals an orb and herbs that Gene had been working with to plant false memories in someone. Vylad steals this stuff, goes to the Overworld, realizes he doesn’t have a clue what to do, and goes into the sacred forest seeking the help of Hyria

his plan is to give himself a new slate. erase his memories and fabricate a new life for himself to live—one where he would never disappoint anyone or be tossed away. he asks Hyria to help him, and she agrees

before she does that, though, she starts talking to Vylad about the Divine Warriors, warning him about dangers that may come with the memory change. she kind of sort of manipulated him into instead reincarnating Irene, and she kind of used the fact that Vylad is a people pleaser that just wants to be Vylad to convince him to take Irene.

he agrees. with the help of Hyria he created a fake life for this reincarnation to have lived and experience and hides those memories in the orb he stole. and then he starts his journey to find where to place her

now obviously we know he chose near Phoenix Drop. he chose this place because he had been scouting it out for a while beforehand and actually had the suspicion that the head guard was Garroth (who had faked his death at this point, but Vylad didn’t know). so he places the staff or whatever nearby and is absolutely appalled when a whole person just comes out of it. he panics and then she starts waking up and Vylad doesn’t know what to do and he remembers the orb and very quickly does the spell Hyria told him to do

and when she wakes up the first thing Vylad says to her is “Good morning, Adelaide. How did you sleep?” and he comes up with this whole story that she’s a mercenary and then whatever else i decided that i can’t remember now

and. Vylad named her Adelaide, and he named her that because it was a name his mother loves. she always said that if she had a daughter her name would be Adelaide, so to put some goodness into this new being he named her what the most good hearted person he knows would have

and until we get a proper introduction to him in my rewrite, Vylad will be a recurring motif. i haven’t decided what exactly he’s going to mean, but he will often come to Adelaide in dreams or Adelaide will often talk fondly about the person she travelled with before settling in Phoenix Drop

overall Vylad is very insecure. he has this looming fear that everyone he comes across hates him and in an attempt to get people to like him, he ends up being a people pleaser or quiet altogether.

and that’s all i have for him 😢 i wish i had more for you anon because i love Vylad so much and he’s so important to me but alas. i hope you enjoyed this regardless

once again if you wanna know about a specific character just drop an ask! if be happy to answer :)

[peanutheaddd]

hi! Would Petey possess dm again? Even though he can just possess him when ever bc of their (gay as hell lmao /pos) soul bond I get the vibes that he would still ask him first bc of the physical toll it has on dm

anon im smiling so huge bc i was literally thinkign abt this Haha.. Hahaha…

i think petey would actually offer to get rid of the soul bond once dm wakes up. and dm is like nah its ok i dont rlly mind . which is all just indicative of both a) peteys development compared to the beginning of the story bc if exposition petey had a soul bond w dm u bet ur ass he would rather die than let go of it and he would also abuse the hell out of it and b) dm lwk highkey trusts petey w his life now and he Knows petey would never possess him if he doesnt explicitly ask him to .

petey also would never be the one to ask dm abt possession . in their post climax relationship if theyre Ever talking abt possession then its bc dm brought it up first . the aftermath of the first possession event made it such that petey doesnt rlly wanna think abt possessing him again bc he gets scared

theres also kinda no reason for petey to possess dm after the first posession bc like i said both heaven and hell dont rlly fuck around w them anymore so theyre never in enough danger to warrant possession .

but ☝️ i reckon sometimes dm asks petey if he can possess him js for the hell of it LMFAAAAOOOOOOO 😭😭😭😭😭 especialy during their healing arc he probs eventually gets petey to agree to possess him and they kinda js walk around outside . and petey hauls ass once he can feel dms soul getting weaker (idt his heart could handle seeing dm in a comatose state again) and once he leaves yes dm is a bit tired but hes otherwise safe and fine . and hes happy . so peteys like Huh. bc up until this point his only experience with possessing dm has been Terrible . but this time it was fine. it was good even . so its like hes being subconsciously trained to remember tbat hes not inherently dangerous (all part of dms plan)

and also usually possession isnt . Supposed to be pleasant for the vessel . thats why it leaves the vessel weak . the whole Point of possession is that its supposed to eat away at the vessel until theyre js a husk of a human being . which is why peteys so against it .

dm is js kind of a freak tho bc he lwk likes possession LMFAO i think during the initial stage of possession before his soul goes dormant theres a level of like. spiritual closeness ? w him and pt that is Not possible if hes not possessing him . its like a level of connection . completely merging with another being . becoming One individual . and dms like this is actually kinda awesome

petey avtually does also like possession for the same reason its js that his fear of hurting him outweighs any of that positive feeling Easily LOL

i think the stronger a soul bond is the more a demon is able to feel what the vessel feels . i mentioned before that theres usually a level of disconnect between the vessel and the demon like a mecha and its pilot . but i reckon a stronger soul bond changes that level of connection . like a stronger soul bond = stronger feeling of becoming a single individual during possession .

most soul bonds are formed contractually so they arent very strong . demons also prefer this bc they dint care what the vessel feels and its actually better for them if they Dont feel what the vesel feels .

obvs dm and peteys sich is diff and over time as their souls get more time to exist within the same space amicably the soul bond gets stronger 🤔🤔🤔 so theres that

i reckon dm actually asks petey if he can possess him a Lot and peteys like STOP ASKING ME IDIOT bc like i said the soul degrades the longer possession lasts . since its not like a single long lasting posession but instead a bunch of little possessions the degradation of the soul is Basically negligible but petey is Nawt taking any chances . so hes reluctant to possess him if theyre not in a dire situation .

[klysanderelias]

Maybe the thing I hate the most about Critical Role's influence on ttrpg culture is the 'How Do You Want To Do This' shit - I hate it so much.

And like, y'know, there's a conversation to be had about the way it centers grotesque, over the top violence, and how it often produces wildly dissonant moments where a character suddenly goes wildly outside the bounds of who they are simply for a 'cool moment' or where it dramatically changes the tone of a fight and thus how I feel about it (and that's not even mentioning the way that players will do shit like that randomly - I will never not be upset about the way that Dim/ension 20 had the whole 'goblin up the asshole' thing)

And there's also something to be said for like, it's just a fun thing matt mercer wanted to do to let his players feel cool and give them the mic for a second to cut a promo, and it's definitely not the only thing that the show is about, but like...

It's like the GBBO Handshake, y'know? It's something that's Iconic, and gets this sort of following because it feels momentous or special, and suddenly all anyone cares about is getting it. Like, it is annoying to me how people will fall over themselves to get a handshake from paul hollywood but literally no one cared about impressing Mary Berry to the same extent. She didn't have a Thing and so her feedback was always rated lower than Paul's because the Handshake Mattered.

And I don't think it's Matt Mercer's fault the way I think it's Paul Hollywood's fault, exactly, but it is one of those things that I do have to assign blame to him as the originator of a thing that I hate.

Specifically because.

It creates this culture where the biggest moment you can get, the thing everyone wants, is to get the messy kill. It creates this culture where getting to describe an over the top Doom finisher is an ideal, and where it feels like it's the one moment where every GM is willing to share the spotlight a little.

And that sucks. For a lot of reasons, but primarily because it decenters like, any other agency the player can exert.

It sucks so bad when the only time you get creative agency as a player is to say how much you kill a thing. Throw out as many ideas as you want in the rest of the game, and get ignored or shot down, but this one guy? This rando bandit? This is your moment, brother.

And again, I don't think this is necessarily how Critical Role is run, but it's definitely how it's played, and how it models behavior for players, which is why it's so upsetting. I love listening to ACTUAL actual plays, where things are discussed openly at the table, because it gives people a model for how to handle things. Critical Role, all that stuff is discussed off-stream, all the backstory stuff is worked out ahead of time and all the major story beats are pre-planned, even if just in vague terms, and I think that's fine! IF you're doing a stage show, and not an actual play. Yes, players should discuss ahead of time whether they're interested in having their characters pursue a romance, and yes, if a GM is going to introduce a major plot arc based around a PC there should be discussion about it ahead of time, but obfuscating all of that just means that people listening don't understand how to DO it.

And what it means is that the big moment where players get to hold the reins for even a second, on-screen, is the kill.

And all the other stuff? Well, y'know, you don't need to ask the players for input. Just be a good DM, like Matt. Just tell a great story and they'll all sit in raptured silence and be so excited to follow the tracks to the next plot point, and the only time you need to check to see if they want to DO anything is when they roll a crit.

And it's just like, there are basically no 'how do you want to do this' moments in the HUNDREDS of episodes of Friends at the Table, and all of the memorable moments are players taking agency and pitching ideas. Like, there are big kills in Friends at the Table that fucking HIT, and none of them are because they're Doom Finishers. Hadrian in the Hieron holiday special fucking HITS because it's a meaningful, powerful character choice. Mother Glory in the other Hieron holiday special HITS because it's such a tragic, hateful thing to have happen. Hella killing [redacted] isn't cool or exciting, it sucks, and it plays directly into her 'I would rather destroy something than try to understand it' morality, so it fucking HITS.

And like, I could go for hours, and I couldn't tell you ANY of the 'how do you want to do this' moments from the 50-60 episodes of critical role that I watched, because they all suck. They're all just spectacle, just getting keys jingled in your face for a few seconds, and it's so frustrating that it feels like that's the only thing people have taken away from Matt Mercer's GMing (I have a lot of OTHER critiques about his GMing, so I'm not saying that learning from him in other ways is better, but I'm also a hater).

But y'know, they clip well for tiktok or whatever.

It's just one more goddamn thing I hold against 5e culture, but it's also so quintessentially AMERICAN - of COURSE we're going to want to spotlight a grotesque kill, have you watched ANY of our tv shows. Of course the only time that a player's input is needed is so they can narrate their finisher - that's EASY and it's FUN because we have no concept of the humanity of the people we kill. It's fun to climb up a monster's asshole because no one has to consider whether that COUNTS against a nonperson.

And it's just like, y'know, I feel like there's this glorification of violence as long as you can feel justified, and it's easy for us to feel justified, so you end up with people making zombie movies just so that they can sell fantasies of shooting your neighbor in his face for mowing the lawn too often, or you ignore any morality because someone hurting you in the past DEFINITELY justifies waterboarding them with isopropyl.

And like, I don't want to be too high-and-mighty because I do think there's a place for over-the-top violence, and for retributive violence, in storytelling, but I just don't think it should be as a highlight reel, and it shouldn't be a candy-coated reward for rolling good.

It matters, it's noticeable, how you as the GM frame the camera. It's obvious what you care about depending on what details you ask for. And y'know, it's obvious what you're not interested in when you don't ask.

And again, it should not be the only time you ask a player to describe something.

[sunsetsover]

am calling it now

sonic being off and secretive is the red herring for the real mole tony planted (my bets are still on chris being way. dean is too obvious. willy seemingly has his own agenda. quite frankly sonic being the mole makes no fucking sense.)

in reality the reason he's being secretive is bc he has a thing with someone back in france but he doesn't want anyone (esp north) to know. he's keeping it a secret bc he knows if anyone finds out it'll be a Thing and despite everything he's still in love with north so it's like. just messy. bc he's trying so hard to pretend he's unaffected/doesn't care/is over it but in reality he cares so much. and he doesn't want north to know bc despite everything there's still hope there. despite everything he doesn't want to hurt north that way. despite everything, it's still north.

SOMETHING happened between north and sonic before sonic left. which is why sonic is so standoffish with north and why north doesn't seem particularly surprised/confused about why sonic is acting that way. if this came out of nowhere/north didn't know why sonic was behaving like that, i'd expect north to react differently.

whatever happened, north did not react well. not that i think he reacted badly per se, but more like... he did not react the way sonic wanted/expected. maybe bc he knew sonic was leaving. maybe bc he was hurt that sonic was leaving. maybe he just wasn't quite there yet and needed more time to process how/what he was feeling. maybe he needed to experience the loss of it to realise what he had. idk yet but. SOMETHING happened, and north didn't react well, and that's why sonic has distanced himself and is so 'mad' now.

the whole 'quit hesitating/can you be clearer?' thing coming from sonic (i'm p sure?) in the trailer is kind of confirmation to me. it seems at some point north is going to try to meet sonic where he is and take that next step, even if in just a vague way. it sounds as if he's still unsure though (probably because he's scared), and doesn't give sonic anything actually solid to hold onto - i'd even be willing to bet that the kiss in the garage happens before the whole 'quit hesitating' thing.

bc it seems in character that at a certain point the tension breaks and north kisses sonic (as seen in the trailer) and sonic thinks they've finally made it and north has finally made up his mind. but afterwards north but then freaks out and maybe tries to act like it's no big deal or that it doesn't have to be anything bc sonic is leaving (it is something. it's everything actually but he's scared and trying to protect himself)

then and only then sonic is like 'i'm not doing this. i'm not playing these games with you anymore. stop hesitating. it's now or never bc i won't wait forever.' because sonic KNOWS that they have something and that north loves him (he would literally have to be legally blind to miss it) but he's over tiptoeing around their feelings - esp if he has someone back in paris already waiting for his return. he loves north, but he can't be expected to wait forever. maybe he even says it before a race as the trailer suggests (might explain why they both seem so sad in that scene). or maybe he even breaks the news that he plans on going back to school soon in that locker room. what reason does he have to stick around? (he wants north to be that reason. he wants him to ask him to stay).

ofc it's after sonic pins that pin (whatever it may be) on north's suit and basically gives him an ultimatum that things go wrong. the car that explodes in the trailer is the one that north is driving in ep 2 so it's likely he's the one driving it when it blows up. i'm not particularly worried abt it considering babe's car also exploded in s1 and he was fine so i have no reason to believe north would be any different (plus this show is hardly the height of realism so. what's a little engine explosion between friends).

however north being injured would be the PERFECT catalyst for northsonic to get their shit together. esp if sonic thinks its his fault for stressing north out before a race or smth (whether it's a legitimate crash or tony out here once again doing some fuck shit, it doesn't matter).

like think of the angst. sonic freaking out thinking it was all his fault. north in a hospital bed. maybe he's awake or maybe he's not. either way tears are shed and promises are made and apologies are given. almost losing each other made them realise that they can't and don't want to live without each other. because they love each other. they belong together. they're north and sonic.

whatever happens after that they face together. because they are north and sonic. they belong together.

they live happily ever after

the end

:-)

[forestryfae]

ON THE NOTE. of albedo being like "im good enough to be your assistant you trusted me to help you build the most powerful device in the universe why wont you trust me to wield it" and azmuth being like "its beyond you" like

azmuth IS right. we see in the Helix Trouble episode that albedos go to method for defeating malware is to destabilize him so much he straight up disintegrates, effectively killing him. albedo COULD have tried to make the helix work as it should have with the little time he had, it definitely wouldnt have been successfull given the helix wasnt finished, but he couldve tried and that might have hurt or toherwise fucked up malware but it would atleast have been an attempt

his go to method of defeating him was instead to explode him or whatever it was he did. overload. destabilize. the point is there was a crater left after he was defeated and it kinda looked like he died or disintegrated or blew up or something. it felt planned out with the way he explained it afterwards as well.

azmuth definitely saw that and when albedo wanted the omnitrix immediately went "oh fuck no". straight up denied him in the nicest way possible. "its beyond you". you dont have the ability to improvise or empathize and you choose the most violent way to win, but hes azmuth so ofc he doesnt say that, he just says its beyond him. which it is, given its meant to be a device to connect species together and promote understanding. albedos tendency to go straight to violence (crushing the forever knights, attacking and trying to kidnap ben, sending the actor aliens after ben and co, being totally cool w vilgax wanting to kill ben, invading and attacking galvan prime to get to azmuths lab even tho its very clear hes able to sneak in, etc) and his galvan superiority complex (im smarter than you therefore im better than you. now praise me or i will monologue about how smart i am for atleast two minutes) on top of him making a copy and risking the universe (i reject the canon of only one omnitrix can exist. like. look at the multiverse bens. look at kenny. theyre all in the same universe and theyre fine. hello?) instead of being like "what do you mean im not good enough how do i become good enough what does he have that i dont" which i can almost guarantee he did nto ask because he would never ask whats wrong with himself, there is nothing wrong with him and YORUE the fool for thinking there is hes perfect the way he is

i lost my train of thought lmao anyways. it all very much ties into basically "i did everything you asked and i was more efficient in defeating my enemies than tennyson ever would be" albedo proudly explains "you did exactly what i asked but my standards for impressive and capable of changing my mind are based on emotional maturity and compassion and empathy, not technological expertise every galvan has and certainly not how quick to jump to violence someone is. also you killed that guy over there so like." azmuth explains, disappointed. "but i know quantum physics!" albedo cries out, enraged. azmuth sighs.

like. azmuth definitely saw what he did to malware and went "i can NOT let this guy have the omnitrix" azmuth believes hes absolutely unhinged and will be terrible at using the aliens to their full potential. hell think like a galvan and believe that thinking like a galvan while being in another species body means hes better than the rest of the species. hes the perfect specimen not because the dna was taken from some of the most peak performance species, but because hes galvan. and thats not how the omnitrix is meant to be used

hes also very quick to jump to violence instead of conflict resolution. max comes barging into the lab demanding to see azmuth and albedo immediately jumps in and defends azmuth, which isnt a bad thing neccessarily, hes definitely loyal as fuck. just look at how he didnt blame hugh at all despite hugh being the main reason why he got fucked over. he jumps in however and starts to scold and bark at max (and winces when max gets closer cus hes all bark and very little bite because hes very very small), and when malware shows up he does admittedly try a more explanatory way to tell malware off, but like. he couldve been polite and calm when he told max and malware off. instead its more of a "how dare you speak to us that way dont you know who we are" kind of bark bark woof woof go away kinda deal than a "hey dude you gotta chill out well get it fixed just calm down and lets talk" kinda way

zero empathy, very low emotional stability, quick to anger, woof woof bark bark but very loyal and very willing to please the people he wants to like him. idk man i just think its so interesting and i def think it makes perfect sense why azmuth didnt wanna give him the omnitrix and i think that decision was very well shown off in Helix Trouble just based on hints and clues into how albedo acts and why he shouldnt be trusted with that kind of power

hes the kind of little guy who barks and woofs but is too pussy to chew on your ankles, unless his ankles are bigger than yours

[maladaptivedaydreamerlala]

To expand on my post here, about Gale, and how he became a blueprint for a certain type of character. I talk about the traits that were taken to create this character type and how they've been amplified, but I want to go a bit farther into the ranking.

As to my ranking of Least Bad to The Worst it goes:

Gale Hawthorne, Adam Kent, Dain Aetos, Maylen Orestsev.

Here is my reasoning and analysis on the varying levels of the traits noted in the previous post and why I think some of these characters are better/more redeemable, and don't deserve as much hate as opposed to others who deserve a lot more hate.

Gale: I actually think Gale gets a lot more hate than is just. Especially when compared to his counterparts, don't his list. He was a good person but had toxic traits. He wasn't the right person for Katniss, though, and I think he and Katniss had thought for so long that they would just be together cause there was nothing else in life, that it took them both a while to shake free of that mindset.

Also, Gale is the mouthpiece that Collins uses to show us the majority of the district's thoughts. And in the first two books, he's not really that bad, except when his jealousy of Peata goes a little overboard. It's in Mockingjay that things start to get worse. Back to my list of traits, he is a dutiful soldier who is blinded to the nuances of war. He only sees the black and white. He gets angry with Katniss when she pushes back against this mentality and is not understanding of her trauma, or only understanding to a degree. And I think we forget that he, too, mourned Prim. Katniss and Gale were kinda like family (which is another reason their ship was weird), and he looked after them when she was gone. Prim was already like a little sister to him. This si kinda what he's always talking about, where is "won up" on Peata. With Prim's death, he was indirectly responsible for it. He made an attack plan that he never knew would be used, but it was, and it got Prim killed. It was in design a sinister attack plot that preyed on sympathy. The real thing that makes me angry about it is how he reacts to Katniss about it, saying, "I've lost you." Even though I think this line is more him just coming to terms and accepting he lost his best friend, too, it wasn't the time, bud. Gale is basically he boyfriend that is super close and gets along better with the whole family than with the girlfriend. He definitely has his toxic moments, but overall, I don't think he deserves as much hate as he gets. (Also I think the movies kinda made him a bit more of an asshole.)

Adam: Adam Kent from Shatter Me is, for most of the series, an asshole (sorry). But he does have reasons for his behavior, which don't excuse how he treats Julluiette in books 2 and 3. The amount of emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and guilt-tripping is insane! Even once they've broken up, he is still insanely possessive of her. AND then he tells her that he would rather she was dead then be with another guy! (she was sucidial for years btw) Like excuse me, but fuck you!

I really didn't think there was any way to redeem him, and he hasn't been entirely in my mind. Adam was a kid who was horribly abused by his father, lost his mother at a young age, and had to care for his younger brother, was inlisted into the army, and was almost killed by his secret brother, then accidentally gets roped into joining a rebellion by his friend. Book two and three he is just a class A douchebag for the entirety of both. Upon books four and five, we can slowly see him start to change, and then in book six, he just goes and does something stupid again. But we can see him starting to grow up in the novellas and in the snippets of the new book. It doesn't excuse its actions, but we can see it trying at least. I appreciate that the author had him recognize his horrible behavior and try to learn and start doing better. (And it seems that by the next book she's publishing, he's been able to grow and heal, and he and Juliette or on good terms??) He's still not off the hook in my book, though.

Dain Aetos: I've only read the first book in this series. Again, we see all of the traits that I mentioned before; all these love interests have an extreme level of possessiveness and almost an patronizing sense. Dain chooses to betray his friendship over and over again, and almost gets his best friend killed, because he refuses to reshape his way of thinking. He doesn't trust Violet and constantly crosses her personal boundaries over and over, violating her mind. Yet he expects Violet to understand and still care about him and frankly he is just annoying and extremely emotionally abusive. If someone doesn't have the decency to respect the boundaries of your own mind all while considering you a friend, they are, in fact (guess what) not a friend.

And lastly, we get to Maylen Oretsev, the single most toxic character I have ever read.

Mal displays all of these traits: codependency, gaslighting, guilt-tripping, emotional abuse, possessiveness, jealousy, (and the perfect soldier trait.

Mal starts out okay, but only okay. In the first book he has little interest in Alina as more then a friend, and honestly not much at that either, she's more his connection to an old life.

When he discovers she's a Grisha, he is very taken aback and feels betrayed for some reason. The next time we see hi is the winterfete in which he is a complete asshole to Alina. He is angry and yells at her, slut shames her, is pissed off that she's health and not being tortured. In book two, his behavior is on a level that even straight-up villains in books usually aren't on. Every scene he is in, he is emotionally abusing Alina, guilt-tripping her, and making her feel bad about herself and everything she's doing.

He gets pissed off when she doesnt want to get physical with him and makes fun of her for it before leaving her, and gojng a sleeping with someone else. He then later accuses her of cheating on him. He is incredibly passive and controlling of her, her choices, and is constantly making comments and trying to dictate her mind and even what she wears.

It is so insanely toxic to a level none of these other characters show. In the third final book, the author does a complete 180 to try to fix her mistake, and Mal is left as a very hollow character. Seeing as his inly personalty for the last two books was being an asshoel when she took that away he didn't have any personality left and what we got was a soogy cardboard character, who barley talks to alina, when he does its a fifty fifty between moping and trying to act heroic, and then SOMEHOW the end up "happily ever after."

(It should also be mentioned that Mal is incredibly bigoted toward Grisha, and states multiple times that he wants to "carve out" Alina's powers, which for Grisha are like a piece of your body, your lungs, or soul. This is again why if Alina had kept her powers, it never would have worked, and she never should have stayed with someone who all they ever did was tear them down instead of build them up. Every scene with Mal, especially in S&S, you can see the emotional drain on Alina, that is not the kinda person you marry.)

Yes Mal was an orphan, yes he grew up in a war torn world, and was inlisted in the army. So was almost every other character in the entire series and yet they do not act this way.

I think what makes Mal an even worse character is that so many people from in the books to the fando do not hold him accountable for his actions, even though he is the single handdidly the most toxic character (not even love interest just character) I have ever read.

So yeah thats a bit of the breakdown, I could go into more detail, but I think I did enough. And if you wan tot look at the list of traits I analyzed you can go see my previous posts.

I think that these characters to me are such red flags because these are the kind of toxic people you will find in real life. The chances of you finding a dark shadow lord you want to rule the world in are rather unlikely. The chances of you having someone pretend to be your friend only to manipulate and abuse you, gaslight and guilt-trip you into being in a relationship are very likely, and these are the types of people to do it.

I also waana add that after looking at all of these I hope we can all see that, yes, Gale was the first, he is by far the best of the "bad" he's not even remotely on the same level as some of these other characters, he simply began the trend. Authors used the "traits" to build there own mini "Gales" but just make them way way worse.

So sorry, Gale.

The more YA/NA books I read, the more I realize that while Gale is the blueprint for the 'toxic best friend love interest,' he is not the worst of this character type and by far the best out of the grouping.

So why is he so famously known as the worst? It's because he was kinda the first of this toxic childhood romantic interest, and made it popular. But each example I see of this character type has taken these toxic aspects and amplified them to a level that makes Gale look like an angel.

So what are the elements that Suzanne Collins and Gale created to make the "worst love interest" character?

The first thing all these character types have in common is that they were friends with the FMC when they were children. Often living through similar childhood circumstances, where they were usually their only friend. This sets the whole codependency issue, the "it's us together against the world. We'll stick together through thick and thin" mindset. Usually they have to survive whatever similar circumstances they are in together, relying on one another. (So far, none of these traits are very bad, mind you.)

Another trait all the characters share is that they are "the perfect soldier." There is usually a war taking place in these stories, and the male is usually a dutiful soldier. Never questioning orders, following commands, and doesn't look at things from other sides. While our FMC (usually) questions things.

They also usually tend to display (to very degrees from lowkey sus to blaring red sirens) all of the major red flags in a person or relationship. Being incredibly controlling and possessive. Having anger issues and guilt tripping, gaslighting, and emotionally abusing the main character on varying levels, etc.

Characters that I have found fit this blueprint of this character type are:

Gale Hawthorne from The Hunger Games (the first, but by far the best of them)

Adam Kent from the Shatter Me Series

Dain Aetos from Fourth Wing Series

Malyen Oretsev from the Shadow and Bone Trilogy

And if I were to rank these characters on how awful they were, from not so bad to the worst, it would be:

Gale < Adam < Dain < Mal