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cinderella-ish · 6 months

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My evolving thoughts on who Yuki should've ended up with, and fanfic's role in changing my mind

So, I want to talk about Yuki Sohma.

Yuki is the member of the main trio in Fruits Basket with whom I most identify. I have little in common with both Tohru and Kyo, and it took me several watches and read-throughs to start to understand their characters/arcs. (I love them, don't get me wrong! I just didn't fully appreciate the depth of their characters/arcs until maybe my third time through the series.)

Yuki, on the other hand, not only had many external qualities in common with me, but the way he grew mirrored some of the ways I changed in early adulthood. His arc felt true to my life, and so he was my favorite character from my first exposure to Fruits Basket.

When I started reading fanfic, I initially limited myself to canon compliant or limited canon-divergence fics, but eventually, I dipped my toes into some alternate pairings. Interestingly, while I truly can't see Tohru with anyone but Kyo, and I can only see Kyo with someone other than Tohru in very specific circumstances, Yuki seems to work with almost everyone he gets paired with. I mean, Yuki and Machi are my OTP, yet I have probably read (and bookmarked) every Yuki/Kakeru fic on Ao3, and some of the most beautiful fanfic I've ever read is Yuki/Kyo.

This confused me at first. Deeply. If Yuchi is my OTP, why do I devour every Yukeru and Yukyo fic?

Well, I think that's because Yuki's arc is, among other things, one where he rejects compulsory romance. This is made explicit in the Cinderella-ish story (why yes this is my favorite part of Fruits Basket, why do you ask?), where he quite literally rejects the role of the prince - the role that's been put onto him by others through the series. I think his arc would have been complete without him ending up with Machi, but there are things about their relationship that make his ending so much more satisfying. In stories where he ends up with Kakeru or Kyo, Machi almost always appears as an important friend for him. I think, for him, having strong bonds outside the Sohmas that he forged on his own was the point, rather than ending up in a relationship.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the five most common Yuki pairings on Ao3!

Yuki/Machi

Yes. I love them. 1000/10.

Okay, so the one criticism I have of Yuki/Machi is that Yuki is strongly gay-coded throughout the series, and it would've been awesome to see that play out in the way it was set up. I think that's a huge part of why I connected with Yuki - his arc definitely reminded me of my own experience coming to terms with my own queerness. For more on this, see this exceptional post by @yunsoh

But there are so many moments between them that make me swoon. The chalk scene, first and foremost. I used that scene to talk to my partner about how to support me when my OCD or ADHD is bad. Then there's scene where Yuki figures out why Machi destroys things, then asks to make footprints in the snow together (and tells her he's proud of her! and sees how hard she's worked!). The way he bought her Mogeta memorabilia or figured out she likes red or understood her intent when she chased him around the school to give him a flower and just ended up getting angry at him. The way he understood she bought Tohru a bath set because it's what she would want, just because Kakeru made a similar remark. The way he lit up when he saw Machi's trashed apartment - "the sea of despair."

And the way Machi understood and empathized with Yuki. The way he lit up and started laughing when she called him an airhead. The way she said it took someone like him to notice someone like her. The way she opened up to him and always sought him out. The way Kakeru shipped them. The way he knew she would miss him if he were to disappear, and the way being a support to her was something he needed for himself. The way she accepted him as he actually was, and not the way he thought he was supposed to be. The way she broke the door down with a chair when Yuki was trapped in the storage room. The way he teased her!

They've both been put in seemingly desirable positions within their families, yet those positions are responsible for so much of their pain and trauma. They get each other at a deep level. There's a mutuality to their relationship that Yuki desperately needed. I love them so much!

PS: if you also love Yuki/Machi, come find me on Ao3! I'll be posting some Yuchi content later this week!

Yuki/Kakeru

They have a fantastic and fun dynamic, and they are always touching each other. Kakeru is Yuki's confidant and someone who makes Yuki feel safe in being himself, flaws and all. They help each other grow - Yuki helps Kakeru be more empathetic, and Kakeru helps Yuki become more comfortable with himself. I think this pairing would have also been a satisfying end for Yuki, full stop. I love them, and I will read all your Yukeru fics, please and thank you. (Also, lots of Yukeru writers are just really good writers, so there are some gorgeous works for them.)

Yuki/Kyo

So, I didn't get why this ship was so popular at first, but then I was reminded that Yuki's first thought when he met Kyo was "pretty!" They both secretly admired each other, they're written as foils for each other, and there's a reason enemies to lovers is so popular (and it's called sexual tension).

There's a Yuki/Kyo fic that I'd credit with showing me what fanfic can really do - especially in the ways it expanded the universe, found its own way of handling the curse, and developed the relationship between the two boys in a way that also grew their characters. That fic is The Pursuit of Repeating History by @mistergrass

I do think that Yuki ending up with someone outside the Sohmas is more satisfying for his character arc than someone from the Sohma clan, but his relationship with Kyo is such a key part of his arc that this could be satisfying in its own right.

Yuki/Haru

I absolutely love the relationship these two have in canon. I love how Haru looks out for Yuki, and I love how he drives Yuki a bit crazy. I love how Haru tells Yuki the things he needs to hear, like that it's okay for him to focus on himself for a while, and I love how Yuki braves the Sohma estate to check on Haru. I also love the way Haru can read Yuki like a book.

Haru's words to Yuki about finding someone who will appreciate his fragility and kindness are always so touching. Haru is almost a mentor to Yuki, in a way, or a fairy godmother. (Or a long lost sister?) The fact that he was the one who got Yuki out of isolation at the hands of Akito, or that he was the one person who would check on him just speaks to the strength of his loyalty to Yuki.

I take Haru's statement of "Yuki was my first love" seriously, because he tells Yuki he is serious when Yuki warns him people will take him seriously when he says that. I know there's an argument to be made that Haru is just being his weird self, but that gives me and they were roommates vibes.

Unfortunately, most of the Yuki/Haru fics are dubcon with Dark Haru, which is not something I enjoy reading. What I'd really love to read is an AU where they're together in high school or later, or something that explores Haru's early feelings for Yuki, or just something that explores interesting sides of their characters that are brought out when they're together.

I don't think this would be a terribly satisfying end for Yuki, but I do really love their dynamic.

Yuki/Tohru

Okay, so, full disclosure: I was #teamyuki when I first watched Fruits Basket. Yet now, they're the only pairing on this list that I don't like. Why? Well, as I said above, Yuki's arc is much about rejecting this specific compulsory romance.

Compulsory how? Well, from the beginning, the series seems like it's setting up a love triangle, but kind of tells us (more and more explicitly as the series goes on) that things are not what they seem.

I think the series does a phenomenal job of making the reader/viewer complicit in placing this compulsory romance onto Yuki. A brief aside, making the reader/viewer complicit in the thing a story is criticizing is one of the most effective ways to criticize something, IMO, because it doesn't let the reader/viewer off the hook. We don't get to say, "Look at them, they're so foolish!" We're forced to examine our own expectations and acknowledge that we were made a fool of, too.

I totally got tingles at the spa scene (pictured above), even though upon rewatch, it's obvious how much of an act it is on Yuki's part, and how uncomfortable it makes Tohru. In fact, many of their most "romantic" moments, where the shojo bubbles appear and everything, are when Tohru is acting in an explicitly motherly way to Yuki, and he awkwardly tries to flirt because he's either misinterpreting his feelings or in denial about them.

I also thought his line, "that isn't what I want!" when he tells Kakeru about his true feelings for Tohru is one of the most powerful moments in the series. It's the moment he's finally letting go of being the Princely character and choosing to be himself, for himself, because he deserves to be known and accepted - something he'd never fully believed until that moment.

I think part of why I was initially #teamyuki was because I came to Fruits Basket through the anime first, where much of the development of his relationship with Machi was cut. Also, as I said above, I didn't really get the characters of Kyo and Tohru right away, and I think that prevented me from seeing the power of their romance. The True Form arc was a key moment that I truly didn't understand until several viewings/readings later.

So, all of that is why I don't care for this pairing. I get why people do, but I do feel it undermines Yuki's agency and his character arc. It's a pairing that makes me sad when I see it, as if this character I love has taken a step backward.

(Incidentally, I've been wanting to write a fic where the True Form arc plays out differently and Yuki takes longer to realize the nature of his feelings for Tohru. I truly wonder how he would've come to that understanding without witnessing her running after Kyo. Would he have tried dating her? Would it have been a total disaster?)

Other pairings and larger relationship structures

Out of the other pairings I found, the only one I'm genuinely curious about is Yuki with Saki Hanajima. I'll have to go read those fics. They are each the "cold" half of a "hot/cold" duo (the "hot" halves being Kyo and Arisa, who are basically the same person). I'm very curious what led people to pair them in the handful of fics about them!

(Interestingly, I think it's possible to read Saki and Arisa both as having a bit of sexual tension with Kyo, but not with Yuki.)

The others include Akito, Ayame, Hatori, and Shigure - all pairings that would have a noncon/dubcon element due to Yuki's age, and that's before you get into the specific traumas that these characters have inflicted on Yuki, or the inherent power dynamics between them, or the close familial relationship with Ayame, etc...

The trio relationships are all intriguing and full of possibility. Yuki/Tohru/Kyo? Obviously. Yuki/Kakeru/Kimi? Potential for lots of wackiness. Yuki/Kyo/Haru? Could be the next Mabudachi trio.

(No shade to anyone who enjoys fics with the pairings or tropes I don't like! This blogger believes in "don't like, don't read.")

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neechees · 11 months

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about the whole preoccupation w incest thing amongst white people on the internet i haven't really noticed it? i am white and find it intriguing (i was incestually abused as a child and so i find it interesting how it develops in families, how people respond to it, etc (it's kind of been part of my healing process)) but i don't really see anyone being obsessed w it? maybe pointing out themes of it in media but that's kinda it? some of my mutuals, idk if they're white, but they have also been abused the same way i have and find discussing it or finding media with incest in it to be a part of exposure therapy/dealing with the trauma. id love to hear your thoughts on it :)

I've talked about this a few times in the past, but I'm posting again to make my views & boundaries known that 1. Dni if you're a "pr0shipper" & enjoy shipping incest, I do not want you here, 2. Fiction does not exist in a vacuum. Im going with the assumption that anon is not a proshitter & they're asking this in good faith. Just putting a readmore because this got long and also for anyone who is triggered by this topic

The conversation I think is surrounding proshitters ("shippers"), but I think the conversation also goes deeper into things like "incest" & "step family" being popular porn site searches that very often feature white actors, as well as those things showing up in film, book, and TV, but in romantisize/sexualized/downplayed ways written by and featuring, again, white people. So I believe generally the "obsession" part means White people who are overly preoccupied with seeing incest quite often, especially and specifically in sexualized, fetishized, and/or romantisized ways. Because personally (& I believe other nonwhite people can attest to this as well, and that's what the other posts mean to say) a lot of the people who have this overkeen interest in incest are White.

Like it's not talking about people wanting to have nuanced depictions of incest, why it's bad, how that affects people & can be extremely traumatizing, and then approaching that topic respectfully (because it should be, that's a terrible thing and showing respect for victims of it & ensuring its not, accidentally or not, endorsed or shown as "okay" or normalizing it, is important. Execution as well as intent are important & should be done with tact.) The people who are mentioned as being "obsessed with incest" as these pr0shippers who find incest "sexy", want to see it, actively search it out where it is both romantisized/sexualized/fetishized, and will apply it in fanon interpretations even when it doesn't exist in canon or this interpretation wouldn't/doesn't make sense anyway, specifically because they enjoy seeing it. They find it titillating. Quite a few of the popular users on this site who have famously defended incest (and/or pedophilia) both in real life AND as proshitters have been... White. And racist.

I think there IS a correlation between White people, proshitters (who are usually people who defend romantisized depictions of things like incest), and liking incest, because I very often seen proshitters be racist (and other types of bigoted tbh), and ALSO defend things like racist depictions of nonwhite characters, things like slavery AU's featuring Black characters, or colonizer AU's, and the like. It's a common joke (not so much of a joke tho tbh) that the more White people that exist prominently in a fandom, then the less fun it is, specifically because of racism that will then exist in that fandom. So there's this huge overlap of White fans being racist but ALSO there being a lot of fans who enjoy seeing incest in their fave medias, because of the proshitters, who do both. There was also that whole thing where a bunch of popular white users on here (many of whom ALSO defended incest) defended sexual raceplay & then called any nonwhite person (ESPECIALLY BLACK USERS) "homophobic" or "transphobic" for rightfully and correctly calling this racist.

Lots of White people like to do this thing where, if they are marginalized in some way, then they'll weaponize that marginalization against anyone who criticizes them for something (most often racism), even if their marginalized identity has nothing to do with the topic or was brought up. White women who happened to be gay called me "homophobic" and "misogynist" (even though I'm a bi woman but you know) because I talked about the nazi associations & racist inclinations of cottage core. I saw multiple White lotr fans call a specific artist "homophobic" because that artist asked that their art not be tagged as an incest ship, and that incest ship is very popular (and their art piece was depicting them as just family), but this incest ship isn't even canon, and the artist wasn't actually homophobic or against gay relationships in general. So they essentially just called this artist "homophobic" for no reason. Because they didn't want their art piece of two family members to be incorrectly interpreted as incestuous. Im even reluctant to draw fan art of some of my favorite characters who are family members, because I dont want people who ship incest to interact with it or tag it as that, and the fact that so many artists even have to ask people NOT to do this is insane.

Like it's one thing if someone analyzes media with it or might find comfort in certain characters in books or TV etc because they feel seen in their trauma, and yet can acknowledge that this isn't for everybody and not everyone processes their trauma this way, and that seeing it (incest in media) can make trauma WORSE for many people, AND that not all representations are made equally, and none of those are free from being available to criticism in approach of that representation anyway. But very often there's White fans (many who aren't even incest victims themselves, so they don't have the "I'm coping" excuse) that are offended that other people don't like seeing incest at ALL, that people will (understandably) not want to interact with them if they're a pr*shipper, and hate being reminded that treating incest like its a fun little interest that shouldn't be handled with care just because it's being featured in a fictional situation (or even sometimes when it's NOT) is pretty fucked up and even disrespectful & insensitive to incest survivors, and then chalk up any criticism of the amount of sexualized/romanticized incest as "censorship" even though that's not what's happening, and again, very often self victimize themselves and often are also racist.

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theimaginatrix27 · 9 months

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I've been in the Star Trek fandom spaces long enough, time to talk publicly about a thing that I am injecting into every fic where it is relevant

So if you've been paying attention to my blog the last couple months, you will know I am a huge fan of @enbygesserit 's work. They write the absolute best Dominion lore and fic I have ever had the pleasure of reading/encountering, and I eat up each new piece like my favourite confectionery.

What I am about to discuss predates any exposure I had to their work by at least thirteen years.

And the ship it surrounds was my DS9 OTP for two entire decades (before I discovered the O'Brien polycule and now my DS9 otp is a "One True Polyamorous tangle", but moving on).

That ship being Kiraodo. My heart broke when Odo confessed his love to an apparently dying Kira, she said she loved him back, and that was the clue for him to realise she was not Kira at all. And then when the Female Changeling Voice of the Link told him Kira would never love him because he was a Changeling, I was a tiny sad twelve-yo who thought, "But I love him!" And then I wanted it to be a thing.

And when I found out it was a thing in canon but they had to part ways at the end of the series, I was happy and sad at the same time.

I was a teenager, I didn't know the relationship felt awkward to some (though to be fair I still hated Children of Time and what the alternate/Gaia Odo did, but I address that in another fic so it's fine). I just wanted the sad Changeling and the fiery Bajoran to prove the mean Changeling wrong.

But also, I acknowledged to myself, even in 2009-10, that it would not be fair to Odo at all to make him leave his people again so quickly. I felt sympathetic toward the Changelings/Founders even as a teenager who had not and would not see DS9 in its entirety (curse you, cable TV! You with your reruns and exorbitant prices making it so hard for us to keep you for more than a few months at a time!) Anyways, I knew even then that I didn't want to take Odo away from his people again, even for him and Kira to be together.

So what was my solution?

Here were the canon points I considered at age nineteen (I was creating the bare bones of the Galactic Warp AU at the time and also had a strict must-adhere-to-canon policy for any fanfic ideas I'd had at the time):

The Great Link turned Odo into a solid.

The baby Changeling in The Begotten turned him back, at the cost of its life (but maybe not if it hadn't already been dying).

Therefore, it is canonically possible for a solid to become a Changeling.

What if Kira had been Changelinged?

WHY IS THAT NOT CANON?

I have this as a significant plot point in any Kiraodo content I'm going to write, so if you see Kiraodo becoming a thing in any fic, expect to see Changeling Kira show up somewhere.

"But wait!" someone yells. "You just said you didn't want to take Odo from his people, and Kira's Bajoranness is a huge part of her identity! And you're gonna just take that away from her?"

No, actually. You think the Prophets give a shit whether or not Kira's corporeal form is solid? Fuck no, they're not corporeal and time is not linear for them! The Kira is always the Kira. The Kira is always of Bajor. The Kira is always beloved of the Prophets.

This holds true in every single fic in which I have inserted this. Kira doesn't always become a Changeling full time (some of my AUs have magic), but more importantly, She never stops being Bajoran in the ways that really matter.

Which, if this had been a canon episode, would have been emphasised by the Prophets themselves and I am not taking critique on this.

"But the Founders would never do this in canon!" I hear you cry. "They hate solids and the Voice doesn't like Kira especially!"

First of all, the convoluted love triangle between Odo, Kira and the Voice was stupid.

Second of all, it doesn't even have to be them who do it, we got other more powerful entities around! Q was basically banned from DS9, sure, but what if Kira and Odo weren't on DS9?

Here's my idea for how this could have happened in canon, if the writers had really wanted to sell us the ship.

Odo and Kira have been away on a mission together (doesn't matter where, they just have to be off the station). It's sometime in Season 6, post the Dominion occupation of DS9. When the runabout returns, Odo coms the station and says he needs to give them warning about something, and they're going to have to take him at his word, however hard that may be.

"What's wrong?" Sisko asks. "And where's Major Kira?"

In response, Odo holds up his bucket. There is a Changeling in goo form inside.

"There was an—incident while we were returning from our mission. It was successful, by the way."

Sisko stares at the screen intently for a moment.

"Are you saying," he asks slowly, "that Major Kira was replaced by a Changeling?"

"No, Captain," Odo responds. "I am saying this Changeling is Major Kira."

Cue opening theme!

And possibly this would be a two-parter! I feel that with the whole theme of DS9 being nuance, and with the Dominion being such a big deal, it deserves to be!

Basically the plot would first involve a flashback to Q popping in while Kira and Odo are arguing about something Changeling-related or whatever, going "You know, I've been watching you and yours for a while now—from a safe distance of course—and frankly, I've been surprised by the lack of nuance with regard to the Founders."

And Kira's all, "Oh come on, don't you start with this high-and-mighty attitude! I read all the records about you after your last visit to Deep Space 9, you don't have any room to talk!"

"And neither do you," Q fires back. "You think your terrible acts were justified, don't you? Oh, you know they were dreadful, the fact that you could be so violent distressed you so! But when it comes down to it, you can sleep at night, because you helped drive out the Cardassians and set Bajor free. But when the Dominion imposes their order on their part of the galaxy because they used to be oppressed and were traumatised, you sit there on what moral high ground you have and pass judgment on them!"

"I don't need to hear this! Especially not from you! Sisko made you stay away from the station—from us! Now get off this runabout and leave us alone."

"Oh, you do need to hear it, Nerys. But if you insist on me leaving, let me do so on my terms. Don't worry, my little firework, I'll make sure you don't need my help undoing this." And he snaps his fingers and disappears.

And Kira's form begins to melt and she barely has time to call Odo's name before she dissolves into Changeling goo.

Back on DS9, everyone's a bit frantic after seeing the runabout footage, which confirms Odo's story. He links with her and is able to help her reform after a little time, during which we get to hear panicked Kira thoughts and some cool visuals of what the link is like for her. We get a scene after she's able to shift back into herself where Jadzia quips that she's got purple hair and Cardassian neck ridges or something, which is not amusing to her at all.

Then there's a whole discussion on how they're going to fix her before the rest of the Federation finds out, because "Are they going to believe the testimony of one rogue Changeling and the footage from a runabout computer? What if they decide Kira's a threat and take her into custody?"

And the answer is pretty obvious, especially after Julian examines a sample of her matrix and discovers traces of her dna are still in it.

They have to take her to the Great Link so she can be restored to solidity. The Founders are rather good at genetic manipulation, after all. It'll be fine!

Except they're at war, and the Voice does not like Kira, which forms the majority of the conflict, as they have to convince any Dominion forces they meet that "Seriously, we are not here to fight, please don't blow us up, we just want to help our friend, yes we mean it, don't fire!"

And in the end Kira has to pretend to be a Founder just to get the various ships to leave them alone, and it's weird as fuck for her but she makes it to the Great Link and the Voice is there and doesn't believe her at first until they link and she gets proof from her memories.

Which leads to Kira finding out about the morphogenic virus early, and being incensed, because "Look, I don't like you, but that's crossing multiple lines! I'd never have signed off on that if it were up to me, and I know Sisko wouldn't either! Doctor Bashir's brilliant—he can help you, I'm sure of it."

"Even if we did not help you right away?"

"I can wait, if I have to. I'm kind of getting used to this whole thing. It's been—an interesting experience."

And after another link to confirm that yes, she means that and it's not even in a bad way, the Voice consents to help her regain her solid status and she goes into the Great Link, gets a small taste of the Founders' collective trauma and is deeply moved by it, bursting into tears when she emerges, once more humanoid. There's a whole final scene about how she wishes more people in the Federation could have experienced what she did, and then she goes to write a log entry on the whole thing or something.

But this would absolutely change the trajectory of the war because that's how DS9 works, so it wouldn't just be handwaved away. in subsequent episodes, Julian is able to find a cure—possibly with help from within the Dominion itself because the Founders would very much like to not die and Julian is being Julian at them and they're taking a real liking to him.

And the galaxy is saved because Q did a thing! But also Kira understands Odo better after this and their relationship is all the richer for it.

*Starts chanting* It should've been canon, it should've been canon, it should've been canon, IT SHOULD'VE BEEN CANON!

#Kiraodo #Dominion Tag #Changeling Kira #IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CANON DAMN IT!

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bloomingdarkgarden · 8 months

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Hello beautiful! I have a question and it’s okay if you aren’t willing to answer!

What’s your opinion of Azriel and Gwyn together?

I know you love Elain and I do as well. I love Azriel too, and I like Gwyn for the most part. She’s definitely a more notable side character and I like what she brings to the table. I, however, couldn’t see her with Azriel? Like I could, but I feel like Azriel and Elain is a more compelling story.

It’s totally okay if you don’t want to answer! I’ve been a fan of everything you write for a while and I was just wondering your opinion!

I am going to vaguely answer this at the risk of being burned at the stake.

If Gwyn were to get a story, I would want it to be a tale of self // scholarly discovery long before any romance. My headcanon would be to see her fall into a portal via some magic book and discovering far off lands and people and coming into her own?! Having a fling or flirty relationships with strangers. Getting more experience with a range of people and places.

I totally understand why folks are smitten with the idea of her and Azriel. It's quirky and fun. It's rife with mutual healing. It's so... Vax and Keyleth!

I personally don't chime because i want gwyn to live before falling deep. Sjm loves to make her women codependent on men for healing and training and all the rest and it's sort of my biggest gripe with her. I'd love for gwyn to just get out of the singular library she always returns to and gain more confidence as an individual. Her and Az having a deep romance at this point feel really claustrophobic to me, mostly because Gwyn has had such limited exposure to any other males or places of the world that are positive.

That being said, I'm a huge proponent of ship and let ship.

The acotar fandom is toxically obsessed with what SHOULD happen in canon and it's so weird. Like bruh. People can enjoy things regardless of canon potential. The obsession with canon evidence has ruined a lot of this fandom for me and discussion of characters.

Anyway i really want to write a story in which Gwyn gets swept into a bookish adventure in the summer isles and has a weekend tryst with Tarquin in a sea-kissed storm hehe.

#ehoney speaks

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fannyyann · 4 months

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Hey there, hope you're surviving the playoffs without being too stressed!

I basicially came to Mattdrai and hockey like a certain Maria to her child. I wanted rivals to lovers and got lost in the Mattdrai tag and then in hockey. I love the panthers. Love the team, a lot of the players. Love Matthew, or rather the persona he gives us in public as that's all we will ever get. So Canon! Matthew is amazing.

I struggle with fanon!Matthew rather often, he's portrayed way too often as a woobified cry baby with zero self esteem or skill and ugly on top (do people not have eyes??)

I really love fanon! Leon. Great guy. But I struggle so much to like Canon! Leon. Honestly I try to like the Oilers and him, try to root for him. I think his pissiness towards media is fun (like the stab against the canuck's baby goalie) but he genuinely seems like a bitter, and especially BORING guy. He doesn't seem like he has fun. (The dancing video was nice and helped a bit). (And it's not because he's German, I would know). He even looks good in a boring way. He's a skilled player but the stiff way he plays without bending the knees isn't hot. He slashes but doesn't fight, which again is mean but not hot or fun. Please help me find things to like about Canon! Leon! (It's not his dog, not a huge fan). What is there that I don't see? How did people jump from that to the way they portray him in fic?

Hope you don't mind the rambling, just ignore it if you do. Happy fifth panther's playoff day!

sorry i've been sitting on this forever! but the time to procrastinate irresponsibly on something else has arrived and i now have the motivation to give this a proper answer!

i feel you on the woobification of matthew. it neither compels me nor makes sense given everything we know about him.

as for leon, i think you may have fallen into a trap of not following enough leon fans? yes, leon can be a bitch, but that's what i love about him and matthew! that's what makes the ship so fun! they both love to talk their shit and taunt guys on the ice and it's fun to watch. i also tend to think a lot of hockey players skate mostly the same way (for instance evan rodrigues and matthew have very similar skating styles but you don't see most people talk about evan's form because he's marginally faster than matthew lol) so i don't really care if his skating is technically good if it gets the job done and facilitates what he is really good at. leon's an insane passer and phenomenal at shooting from impossible angles which is very hot!!!

and bitter is pretty much the last thing i would associate leon with. there are not a lot of people who could be put in connor's shadow and a) thrive the way he has and b) become such incredibly good friends with the guy people have set him up to resent from the very beginning.

and again, i think you may just be suffering from under exposure to leon, because i don't think he's boring at all. he's such a DWEEB!! he laughs at his own bad jokes, he's his teammates' number one hype man, he's really good with kids, and yeah, he is conventionally attractive—probably one of the most in the league by pretty much all western standards lmao—that he's really fun to look at

anyway, i was going to compile a handful of my favorite leon moments, but while going through ash's leon tag to round them up, i realized it's probably waaaaay more beneficial to just peruse that at your leisure to get a good idea of why he's so endearing :')

#leon ask

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banavalope · 2 years

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Thanks for replying. Not trying to be confrontational, I asked because I cultivate my online presence very specifically and want to nip that shit in the bud whenever I see it. Don’t really have the patience to deal with the intricacies of that or whatever, again why I asked straight to the point. And I can’t really read your about from mobile, don’t have any way to see that beforehand.

Completely understandable; I actually hadn't considered the accessibility of my blog on mobile so that's good information. I need to revamp it anyway.

And yeah I get that! I don't know you, absolutely zero concept as to what your life is like or even your age, but regardless I feel that everyone should carefully curate their online experience. We live in a fucking hellscape where there are no safe spaces for specifically adults to be away from minors, and vice versa, so you're being left with no choice.

The issue I take with trying to put people into boxes like "proship" and "anti" is just that though, I feel like it puts all the responsibility on art and chooses to end the conversation there. The least of my concerns are the kind of art people draw or the ships they have, what I'm concerned about is if they're entering fandom spaces with the specific intent of preying on anyone - in this case minors, but it can be anybody. Some people will do that, some people even go the extra mile and weaponize the parasocial relationships they form with their fans. It's not a tried and true formula, though.

No one should have to doubt my intentions solely by art or interest - of which are all very banal and far separated from what online defines as being proship, I guess I should note that in here to ensure my words aren't misconstrued. I shouldn't have to explain that to anyone based on a single reblogged post; I shouldn't have to detail out my history working in child care, dealing with victims of child abuse, and that being the cause of my having to quit because it was starting to make me so angry and hateful that there was nothing I could do, just to ensure people KNOW despite everything that I'm not a secret stealth threat, but online spaces have been curated in such a way by capitalism and influencer culture, the exposure of so many beloved creators as having abused their child audiences, what else can you do? What else are we left to do? I would think more than we're currently doing, or we'll be running in circles.

But those nuances are my responsibility to think about, I'm 31 after all.

I appreciate you being cordial. You allowed room for a conversation on the matter at the very least, and I appreciate that.

To whoever the anon was in my inbox that called me a cunt tho, lol.

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countessofravenclaw · 1 year

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Anchor imagery and Gastina

I don't know if anyone has noticed that Nina wears a weird amount of Achor patterns on her clothing.

Let me show you:

S1E78

S2E9

S2E36

S2E48

These are just the ones I remember. There might be more.

The interesting thing about these is that she wears anchors in a lot of scenes that have something to do with Gastón. Their first kiss, the scene where he teases her about learning to skate, and the scene with Xavi where Nina literally described her relationship with Gastón as "too intense".

Anchor biblically symbolizes hope and it part of the Faith, Hope, Love trio.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

- 1 Corinthians 13:13

Anchors are nautical devices that provide stability to ships during harsh storms, protecting them from being tossed around at sea. Throughout history, anchors have served as a much-needed device for sailors. In the Bible, an anchor is used as a symbol of our hope in Jesus which gives us stability and steadfastness in life. In ancient days, the anchor was used in artwork and engravings as a symbol of Christianity. Anchors appear in the Roman catacombs on the tombs of Christians, showing the Christians’ steadfast hope in eternal life.

I don't mean to get too preachy here and we don't even know the religious stance of DCLA, even when can just assume that everyone is catholic. That being said, I do Hc just a little bit that Gastón maybe grew up a little bit more religious than the rest, and I feel it first with his parents getting themselves out of poverty by a bunch of small miracles. This is not the point of this though.

Anchors symbolize hope and stability. Something that Gastón represents for Nina.

She is a divorce child from a broken home. She has been fought over by her parent for who knows how long, but long enough for it really to impact her mental health and self-esteem. She doesn't feel worthy of any love, because she has been fought over like an object with no free will for most of her life.

Gastón was probably one the first people to just love her unconditionally, without having some need to prove that he loves her more than someone else, and she herself was enough. (I don't mean to leave Luna out of this. We'll come back to her later) Gastón loved Nina for who she was, and who she could be for herself.

I don't think Nina has ever known a happy whole family life without her parent fighting. Gastón is from a nuclear family with two parents happily married (Technically my headcanon, but I think canon speaks for it very strongly). I think Nina was definitely taken into his family right away. His parents very possibly were one of the first exposures that Nina had to a healthy long-term marriage.

Anchor represents hope for steadfastness and security. We didn't see this much, but it is pretty fair to say that Gastón probably was quite protective of Nina, Gary would have not gotten even close to her in S3 if he had been around. He often provides her with stability, full-on physically by often having an arm around her shoulder or waist or just by emotionally. With him, she has a hope of a better future and life for herself with him

These are things she lacks in S3 a lot. She doesn't know what she wants to do, and struggles with clarity and writing, especially with the skating site. Her anchor is gone so to say, and she drifts off to sea.

None of this meant to say that she can't be her own independent woman, she absolutely can and is, but that doesn't mean that she can't consider the person she loves as someone who provides her security and stability.

Anyways, these are the reasons why Nina backtracks in character development. She still has Luna as support, but how I view her development is that she needs both, Luna and Gastón. Luna got her on skates in S1, but it was Gastón who helped her almost as much with it. He taught her how to stop and assured her that it was okay to fall and that nothing bad could happen to her. Luna was the one who Nina moving, but Gastón was her anchor.

When you view things like that, you alos notice how similar Gastón and Luna's backgrounds are. They are both from happy homes with two parents with healthy relationships. This can be also kind of applied to Matteo as well, since he is from a broken home in a different way, and why Gastón and Luna were the people for him too.

#Soy Luna #Gastina #Lutteo #Hope #Faith #Love #This imagery can't ba just coincidence #Hopefully you have missed my essays because they are back

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francesderwent · 1 year

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Hi I've never actually seen Gilmore Girls, because I didn't grow up with tV, that's not an exaggeration, but I recently started shipping Jess and Rory based off gifs alone, well I mean I guess it has been brewing for a while, but recently anyway predominantly from your blog, second hand exposure, you know how it goes, blorbo from not my shows but they're mine now anyway, honestly the show looks like a hot mess and something I would hate if I watched it properly, but in my two day sick hyperfixation on this ship, but mainly just on Jess, so far, I encountered a lot of interesting diskhorse, you know, the kind of horse shaped like a disk, surrounding Rory and characters around her having the freedom and sense of good self to call her out on her shit, and the jury seems to be out on a conclusive answer regarding this, and who does this, and therefore who is or is not good for her. Is Jess the only one? but he only did it twice or something, that's what they say, so is Logan better for her because he does it more often? But then why are so many of the same character traits and ship dynamics applied to both these pairings/men. like I said I have not watched this. I don't plan to either. Youtube clips don't count. I TOTALLY know what I'm talking about regarding these characters (I don't.) But please, do share your thoughts on this matter. I don't know why I'm down this rabbit hole...

this ask really got me thinking, because I had never considered the possibility that Logan was even a contender in terms of calling Rory out! but once I gave it some thought this is what I decided:

Logan does call Rory out—specifically when she has an unrealistic vision of herself, when she’s setting herself apart and failing to recognize her own flaws. Logan makes her face herself in the mirror and admit that she’s not perfect, and that it’s okay for her to be a regular teenager and enjoy the parts of her privileged life that any teenager would. he calls her out on her hypocrisy.

Jess also calls Rory out—specifically when she’s not living up to the best version of herself, the vision of her that he sees and knows to be true. Jess makes her face herself in the mirror and admit that she doesn’t like the person she sees, and that she’s gone down a path she doesn’t want. he calls her out, basically, on her corruption arc.

so there might be (probably are) more scenes of Logan standing his ground against Rory and making her reconsider her stance—but Logan’s only right to call her out about half the time. sometimes it’s really satisfying to see him coax Rory to let loose and let go of her anxieties, and sometimes it feels more like we’re watching him encourage her to wallow in meaningless hedonism which just makes them both miserable, and fighting her whenever she tries to rise above. Jess, on the other hand, always genuinely has Rory’s good in mind! if he challenges her you know it’s because she really needs it.

#asks

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screechthemighty · 2 years

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So I wrote most of this last night and then finished it today after some of the most agonizing 23 minutes of my life. How are y'all doing? Is everyone enjoying the horrors? Anyways!

Disclaimer: TriStamp is so far my only exposure to the franchise and all characterizations are based on that. I also definitely played fast and loose with the canon and sprinkled in some of my own bullshit for sake of the scenario but listen, it's a fanfic. Just pretend they got to get a good night's sleep before the horrors happened. AO3 link will be where it always is!

(does it ever really stop?) | a trigun stampede fic

Content Warnings: Discussion of Livio's suicide, suicidal thoughts, religious/cult trauma, general self-loathing and depression. AO3 version contains a self-harm reference in the fic description.

It wasn’t pretty normal for Vash to be awake at odd hours. He never seemed to need as much sleep as humans. Usually, he spent those nights in his room, reading, mending any damage to his things, maybe checking up on his siblings if he felt restless.

The nights that he spent wandering around his home aimlessly were the bad nights, the nights when he really, genuinely couldn’t sleep. It was usually his thoughts that kept him up, racing faster than he could keep track of, but that night it was two sounds. Two gunshots that wouldn’t stop echoing in his skull, overlapping in a chorus of destruction. Rollo lying dead in the sand. Livio…

Maybe his wandering wasn’t so aimless. Maybe he knew exactly who he was looking for.

He hadn’t seen Wolfwood in a few hours, but Vash had an idea of where he’d go. Smoking may not have been allowed on the ship, and they tried to discourage everyone from doing it, but realistically, they couldn’t stop it entirely. There were places to go when the conditions were right, and they also happened to be good places to be alone. Vash walked the halls barefoot, his red jacket swapped out for one of his blankets, the way he usually did. The Ghost of Ship Three, the scientists jokingly called him. He’d accidentally startled more than one person that way.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t do that to Wolfwood. That’d probably just get him a bullet to the face.

The first two spots were empty, but he could see a light at the third, and a dark-clad figure slouched against the railing. He had to go through an airlock to get to the maintenance catwalks; Wolfwood was still standing defensively when Vash emerged, one hand on his weapon. He barely relaxed when he saw who it was. “Where did you come from?” he asked roughly, pushing his sunglasses off the top of his head and back onto his face.

Too late. Vash had already seen his eyes: pink-rimmed close to tears, full of pain. Suddenly, everything Vash wanted to say was gone. “I couldn’t sleep,” was all he could manage.

Couldn’t sleep because of those gunshots. Livio’s frantic last moments still shook him deeply. He hadn’t just been in pain, he’d been in agony. He’d been terrified. And if it had affected him, how much more deeply must it have affected Wolfwood?

Don’t you have something you want to protect more than anything?

And that first gunshot. Rollo’s blank expression. Blood-stained sand. Gripping Wolfwood’s jacket and demanding to know why, why, why -

Mercy.

Vash stood at the railing an arm’s length from Wolfwood and stared out over the sands.

There’s no way to return his humanity. Keeping him alive is torture.

Torture.

Vash thought about vials of blue liquid, the weapon Wolfwood couldn’t put down, endless piles of cigarette butts. He thought about men who could kill with a smile on their face and men who couldn’t. Of course they couldn’t. How could they?

Bad men didn’t carry so much pain in their eyes.

That’s not for you to decide. He’d meant that. He stood by it. But he was starting to understand that it hadn’t been so arbitrary on Wolfwood’s part.

“I was just thinking - “

Wolfwood scoffed quietly. “That’s your first mistake.”

“Probably.” Vash glanced Wolfwood’s way. “Wolfwood, I…”

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, for whatever it was. You can tell me. You don’t have to keep carrying it around. It doesn’t have to be torture. You’re not…

You don’t have to…

He was seized with a sudden urge to grab Wolfwood’s gun and throw it off the ship. He doubted Wolfwood would let him, but he wanted to, so badly it made his hands shake. He clasped them tightly as he spoke. “...I’m really grateful that you trusted me back there. I know we haven’t always…”

“Don’t.” A cigarette butt bounced off Vash’s temple. Wolfwood was staring at him straight-on now, glaring more than usual. “Don’t bullshit me, Spiky. What are you really getting at?”

Okay. Fine. Vash looked him in the eyes, best he could with the layer of sunglasses in the way. “Do you think living is torture for you, too?”

Silence. Even the humming of the ship felt suppressed under the weight of the question. Vash couldn’t see Wolfwood’s eyes anymore, not in this lighting, but he could see other things. The sudden tightness in his jaw. The way one hand clenched into a fist. His shoulders straining against the seams of his jacket, bracing, bracing, waiting for…

What, exactly?

What did they do to you, Nicholas?

“‘Course not,” Wolfwood said, looking away as he did. “My life’s just fucking peachy.” He pulled another cigarette out of the box. “Anyway, why do you care?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Most people need a reason.”

“I’m not most people.” Vash couldn’t help smiling. He wondered if the moon revealed the reaction in his eyes. His own sunglasses weren’t just for show, after all. “Technically, I’m not even people.”

Wolfwood waved him off before pulling out his lighter. He didn’t immediately light the cigarette, instead stopping to twirl it around. “I’m not gonna jump off here,” he said, “if that’s what you’re really asking. I’ve got shit to do.”

“And when that’s done?”

No answer. Just the click of a lighter catching. The small flame lit up Wolfwood’s face, though his eyes were still hidden. “You don’t have a right to ask. You and your fake smiles.”

Vash frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t smiled once since I’ve known you. Not for real. They’re all…” He used his index fingers to force his mouth into a smile. “...hollow. Just the mask you put on to convince everyone that everything is fine.” He let his hands drop. “What about you, Humanoid Typhoon? Is it torture for you?”

No one had ever asked him directly before. Or not that directly. People had danced around the subject, reassured him that it was okay to eat, scolding him for not taking better care of himself. But no one had ever come that close to asking if he…

But he didn’t. He didn’t really, not anymore. Not since the crash. It was just that…

It can be,” he said finally. “It can hurt. But…if me hurting means someone else doesn’t have to, I can live with that. And you know what? If I still deserve to eat and laugh, so do you.”

You deserve to live, too.

Wolfwood didn’t say anything. When Vash looked his way, the other man was staring into the distance. Vash could almost see his eyes in profile. They still looked so heavy. “You really piss me off, you know that, right?” Wolfwood said finally.

“Yeah, I know.”

It was quiet. Wolfwood didn’t ask him to leave, so Vash didn’t. It wouldn’t feel right to. The smoke from Wolfwood’s cigarettes danced out into the night air, snatched away by a breeze.

A sudden impulse seized Vash, driving him to scoot closer and snatch the box of cigarettes right out of Wolfwood’s pocket. “Oi - “ Wolfwood flinched back, then scowled. “You'd better not be trying to make me quit.”

“I want to try one.”

“Seriously? You’re how old and you’ve never smoked?”

Vash shook his head as he pulled out a cigarette. “It’s not allowed on the ship.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“Nope.” Vash put the cigarette between his lips, trying to mimic how he’d seen Wolfwood and Roberto do it, then held out his hand. “Light?”

Wolfwood stared at him for one heartbeat, two, three, before relenting with a heavy sigh. “You’re not gonna like it,” he said as he flipped the lighter, this time lighting it in one smooth motion before leaning over to light the cigarette for him. “And if this does some weird shit to you, they’d better not blame me.”

The cigarette lit. It occurred to Vash only then that he really didn’t know what he was doing. He stared helplessly at Wolfwood; the other man sighed again before making a show of taking a drag off the cigarette. Vash tried to imitate him and -

Regretted it immediately. It wasn’t good. He was just lucky he managed to get the cigarette out before the coughing started; it was still lit, and he wasn’t sure he wanted an open flame falling near the ship. Wolfwood started laughing immediately. “Told you.” He plucked the half-smoked cigarette from Vash’s hand before patting him strongly on the back. “Leave the vices to us humans, okay?”

Vash tried to talk, wheezed, then tried again. “Okay.” A few more coughs shook his body before he took a deep breath of cool night air. “Okay. Fair.”

Vash wasn’t sure the conversation had really accomplished anything. But Wolfwood’s jaw wasn’t so tight, and he was smiling. It was soft, and a little bit sad, and something told Vash it wouldn’t last long. But it was there now.

That was a start.

Wolfwood had spent most of his life under the thumb of a cruel god and his blood-stained angels. He didn't believe in any of that, of course, not in the same fanatical way Bluesummers did. But Millions Knives controlled every aspect of his life now. The Eyes of Michael never left him. For all intents and purposes, they were some cosmic force controlling his every move. The closest thing to a god that he could prove existed.

But it turned out that self-made god had a brother. A brother who was nothing like him, who was soft and kind and more like the words in those old Earth Bible than anyone Wolfwood had known since being forced into the Eyes.

And who was probably the dumbest person Wolfwood had ever met. Who the hell was he to come out there asking about whether or not Wolfwood wanted to be alive? As if he wasn't the one with a death wish? I can live with that, he said. Like fucking hell. How could he say that and still look so…

Wolfwood glanced Vash's way again. The gunslinger had taken to staring up at the stars, now that his lungs had recovered from his first and only smoke in 150 years. You could see the plant markings in his eyes when his head tilted at the right angle. At other angles, his hair looked much fairer. Almost white.

Wolfwood had to look away again. A sick feeling curled around his ribs, pain worse than what he’d felt when he was strapped to the table in that lab. All that blood, and what did it accomplish? He’s gone. You failed him. He’s gone and it’s your fault.

That made him a monster and a hypocrite. What had he said to Vash? That he was nothing but empty talk, all promises he couldn’t keep? If that’s Vash…shit, Nicholas, what does that make you?

Vash straightened up suddenly, his eyes widening. Immediately, Wolfwood scanned their surroundings, one hand reaching out to grab Punisher. "What?"

Vash didn't answer, instead turning to run inside the ship. "Hey! Spiky!" Wolfwood raced after him, because what else was he going to do, but he definitely wasn't happy about it. "Vash!"

It was a pain in the ass keeping up with him. This was Vash's territory, and he clearly still knew it well after all these years. Wolfwood nearly lost him around one corner, but caught up at a doorway just in time to see…

"...shit."

The Plant room.

The space was flooded by a soft blue light. Dozens of canisters lined the walls, all occupied. He’d never seen so many in one place before. For a moment, all the Eyes’ constant rambling and preaching froze him in place. He shouldn’t be holding Punisher in here. He shouldn’t be in here at all. He was too unclean, too unworthy, too…

The sound of Vash’s voice and the whir of machinery jarred him from his stupor. “It’s okay, it’s okay…shh, shh, I’m here. I’m here.” He dropped his blanket as he stepped up to the canister. “It’s okay.”

I shouldn’t be watching this. But Wolfwood couldn’t look away. The Plant wasn’t entirely unfurled, but he could see…hands, a face peering out from the winglike appendages that made up the bulb. It–she–pressed a hand against the glass; Vash returned the gesture with his flesh and blood hand. “See? Everything’s fine.”

The Plant stared at Vash for a long moment before her eyes darted over to Wolfwood. He was frozen again. Did she know? The thought was irrational, stupid, he didn’t believe like that, but for a horrifying moment, he did. He truly believed she could see him for what he was, that Vash would too the second he turned around. But when Vash did face him, he didn’t look bothered at all. “That’s just Wolfwood,” he said, beaming. “Don’t worry. He’s like Brad. Nicer than he looks.”

“Hey, don’t go lying to her about me,” Wolfwood said. At least his voice didn’t shake. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. It was just a nightmare, I think.” Vash turned back to the Plant and rested his forehead against the glass. “It’s been a bit much lately, hasn’t it?”

The Plant returned the gesture. They just stared at each other for a long time before her hand retreated back. “There you go. See?” Vash backed off, but kept one hand on the glass. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Wolfwood couldn’t look away again, but this time for completely different reasons.

He’d meant what he said earlier: Vash rarely smiled for real. It was so easy to see how it didn’t reach his eyes, how they looked so forced or exhausted. A weak lean-to against a whole sandstorm of shit. But he was smiling now, really smiling, as his face gently glowed alongside the others. And it wasn’t just the smile, either. The scene was so achingly familiar. He’d watched the bigger kids tuck in the little ones for years. He’d been the bigger kid tucking in the little ones. Being responsible for them was the easiest burden he’d ever carried. He’d just never realized that Vash carried it, too.

“Sorry I ran off,” Vash added apologetically. “I try to look after them whenever I’m here. The people here are kind to them, kind as they can be, but I’m the only one who can talk to them.”

“...’s fine,” Wolfwood said. What else was he supposed to say?

Vash’s smile widened, all bright teeth and sudden enthusiasm, with the same mischievous spark Wolfwood had seen earlier when Vash nicked his cigarettes. “Come here.”

“I shouldn’t…”

“Don’t be silly. Come here.”

Wolfwood didn’t believe. He really didn’t. But it still felt wrong, wrong, wrong to follow the walkway to where Vash stood. “You can say hello,” Vash said. “It’s okay. They don’t bite.”

Say hello to the Plant! Sure! Why not?!

Wolfwood swallowed nervously, the gesture aggravating the harsh ache in his throat. Under Vash’s expectant stare, he reached out, hesitantly, and rested a hand against the glass. It felt cool under his fingertips. The Plant stared at him from her partially-retreated posture. Maybe it was his imagination, but she didn’t seem all that impressed. Not that she had any reason to be. He knew what he was and she must have known, too, she must have seen into his soul and found it wanting. She must…

The Plant reached out with one finger and tapped it against the glass, right at where his nose was, before fully folding herself back up.

…did she just fucking boop me?!

Vash laughed, not unkindly. “See? Not scary at all. I actually think she likes you.”

“Is that what that was?” It broke the tension, that was for sure. Suddenly, he wasn’t Nicholas the Punisher anymore; he was just another human oddity gawking from the other side of her fish bowl. She might not even remember him once he’d left. What the hell had he been freaking out for?

Get it together, Wolfwood.

“Do they have names?” he asked, trying to fill the silence before his thoughts got away from him again.

“Sort of? Not like…Nicholas or Vash or Meryl. It’s more like a feeling. I can’t give it a word.” Vash finally stepped back to the control panel, sending the canister back to its place. “Some of the scientists tried, but nothing ever fits.”

“They mean a lot to you, huh?”

Vash nodded. His smile faded, replaced by that sad, contemplative look. “I know what people must think. If I love them so much, why do I want to keep them like this? I know not all the humans are so…” He sighed and leaned against the control panel. “...gentle with them. It’s not…ideal. I just think there’s another way.”

“To save them both?”

He nodded. “I have to try. They both mean something to me. I can’t give up on any of them.” Vash met Wolfwood’s eyes. There was something desperate, scared in them. “Does that make sense?”

It did. That was the worst part. It was the thing Wolfwood had been gnawing away at ever since their talk on the balcony. If me hurting means someone else doesn’t have to, I can live with that. He’d tried, he really had, but he couldn’t dismiss it as Vash’s usual bullshit because…

That orphanage was the only reason he was still living. The only reason the weight of Punisher stayed on his back and he kept coating his hands in blood, over and over. Because he loved them more than he hated what he had to do. More than he hated himself.

But love and guilt were starting to become more equal lately. Every step took them closer to July City, and he knew what he knew must be coming for Vash when they got there. Gentle, stupid Vash, the only person left alive who thought Wolfwood was worth something. He wasn’t sure he could live with himself when this job was over. But he knew he couldn’t live with himself if he let anything happen to those kids. And that dissonance was suffocating him.

Damn it, Needle Noggin.

“Yeah,” Wolfwood said. “Yeah, I get it.” He turned back towards the entrance; he couldn’t bear to look Vash in the eyes any more. “Vash?”

“Hmm?”

“There’ll be something else after. More shit to do.” He left out the ugly parts–that it wouldn’t be anything good, that it would just mean more blood and pain and guilt, that the after would come at Vash’s expense–because Vash didn’t need to hear about that part. Not tonight. “For whatever that’s worth.”

He couldn’t see Vash’s face, but he could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke: “Okay. Good.”

It was one of the real smiles. He could tell.

It hurt. But maybe Wolfwood deserved that.

#trigun stampede

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theangryjikooker · 1 year

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Saw your username. Resonated with my current mood so I'm gonna vent at you. Sorry in advance✨️✨️✨️

I was just on Insta to mindlessly scroll, as you do, and within seconds I saw a reel about the whole "Tae recording at JK's". Which. you know. Cool. Sweet.

But I'm so tired and annoyed that this supposed collab (which why wouldn't they promote that?) has already more Army up in arms than Letter did. It's already stirred more goddamn shipping in the "neutral/ot7" spaces, perpetuating the same narrative, somehow. It's gonna create a whole new wave of Tkkers being self-righteous, after they dragged JM through the mud once again for a hpb picture.

Tae namedropping JK is just "more" to everyone than Jikook spending quality time together.

Letter could've been recorded at JKs or JMs for all we know.

And I know, I'm sounding like a petulant insane child, but I just wish sth would shut Tkkers up properly because they are insufferable and just everywhere. Jikookers are very over the top too (the wristwatch? Really?), but since they don't get exposure except to those already looking it up, it's not as in your face.

And, because I already am digging a grave anyway: what the fuck is up with it always being Tae that does something to further Tkkers. I don't hope he does that intentionally - he seems like a good egg - but his track record is irking me. Randomly mentioning JK in lives, starting a live in JK's home w/o him knowing, now this whole thing. Maybe I'm just annoyed that if Jimin did any of that, he'd be accused of every crime under the sun.

Tkkers really know how to take the fun out of shipping. At least for me. Most other shippers are just chill and a usual amount of delusional. Maybe because those not shipping tkk usually know what a real relationship between adults is actually like, while tkkers only know toxicity and love triangles and drama from shitty books and shows.

The fandom as a whole is comprised of a majority who bias Taehyung and Jungkook—not always together, but there’s significant overlap. That’s the overarching issue, with Jimin being the only other person in the group who has an equally substantial relationship with Jungkook, hence the artificial ship wars.

Personally, both Tkkrs and Jkkrs have taken the fun out of shipping. As weeks and months go by, I just don’t see how any of the recycled arguments and delusional takes that’s constantly peddled by shippers are worth my time or energy. None of what’s actually happening is the boys’ fault. If any of the BTS members want to drop names at random, they should be allowed to, but the people making it into a bigger deal than it should be are their fans.

I understand why people in the same boat as you get frustrated, but at the same time it’s all a bit silly. The less engagement I have with fandom and, specifically, shipping spaces, the more peace I have as a participant. You didn’t ask for advice, but I think it’s a solid takeaway for anyone already pulling their hair out at lame discourse.

#TAJ asks #anon submission #not jikook #bts shipping #bts fandom

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3rddimension · 2 years

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I’m going anon cause I don’t want to get harassed on my main blog for what I’m gonna ask here. Why is it so important to know if two celebrities are dating? I love Shayne and Courtney but I don’t ship them or any other real people cause to me it feels invasive, but I kinda would like to know what goes through fans who do need this kind of go out of their way to confirm that they are right. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really affect us and it probably makes the cast be overly cautious of what they post in fear of being misinterpreted or getting their actual relationship outed when they aren’t ready for it to go fully public.

Hey! it’s chill here. Most of the ask here is anon anyway. Let me start by explain a bit of myself first:

So I'm super recently know Smosh and both Courtney & Shayne. (I'll called them C & S) My first exposure to Smosh is on TNTL#106 (Released on Oct 26th 2022) because of Funhaus collab. Which I watched them regularly.

After that, I start watching others Funhaus collab and saw both C & S and instantly found that they have a very unique chemistry. So I decided to explore further more and start falling in love with them. At first, I thought that they're already couple until I found "Sucks At Dating" video series that make me realized they're singles back then. lmao

Then, I start follow C & S on their social to get to know them better and saw that C has YouTube channel and just restart posting vlog after 3 years hiatus. Of course I jump in and watch. After watching S's TikTok and C's vlog, I start seeing the same room all over their video. That's when I first realized that Shourtney might be real.

Let's explain the origin of proof post. I'm mostly using Tumblr as my fandom expression. When I arrived here, Shourtney tag is basically a graveyard. Not a lot of people rarely using it anymore. So I decided to create the post after I saw that Tumblr post:

At first, the post is just this photo and bunch of things that I noticed in their video. But somehow there's still people checking Shourtney tag and found my post. They start sending me to fans IG that post even more proof and stuff. (Which from my standpoint, I really don't like that they put it there because both C & S used IG regularly.) Then it became what the post is today. Which I will ONLY posting the photo or video that they're will to share.

That's about it from me! Let go to your question. Imma go by Q&A bullet point here:

Q: Why is it so important to know if two celebrities are dating?

A: So, after spending time in this fandom. A lot of people here just loved their chemistry and their interaction together and want them to be happy. But in the back of our mind, if they're not dating we should respect their decision and just appreciated those moment that we can see in the video. So when we finally know that they're really dating, we just happy that they're happy and looking for more thing that they're willing to share with us. (Which they recently do btw)

Q: I love Shayne and Courtney but I don’t ship them or any other real people cause to me it feels invasive.

A: Yeah at first we don't really do shipping because real people shipping is MOSTLY IMPOSSIBLE to happen and we want to respect them. But if you watch old SmoshCast. There's a discussion about Shourtney shipping that they talk about. Synopsis is below:

They basically doesn't care if anyone ship them and C was also in shipping situation also. Also, if you're watching C anon Q&A that just released recently. She answered the question that is Shourtney fans annoyed her or not. Which she answer that it's not. (There's also a comment about cyberstalking which happened before my time here. I can do some recap from what I know if anyone interested.)

Q: I kinda would like to know what goes through fans who do need this kind of go out of their way to confirm that they are right.

A: After spending time in the fandom, you will find people who love Shourtney but they don't know that it's real and I hope my post can be of help in this fandom.

Btw, there's also a Shourtney denier. Which they cannot accept that they're really together. They lurked around social and try to shutdown the discussion about them. Even if they start not hiding anything anymore.

Q: At the end of the day, it doesn’t really affect us and it probably makes the cast be overly cautious of what they post in fear of being misinterpreted or getting their actual relationship outed when they aren’t ready for it to go fully public.

A: Yup, it doesn't affect me or others. Which is why we're chilling here and not like think about them 24/7. (There's some shitty people ask that cross the line before and I just shut them down immediately)

Also, they start to don't give a fuck about sharing now. Like last 2-3 weeks. She started posting their selfie like 2-3 photos in the photo dump and another double date selfie with Shelby and her boyfriend. If you look back to last year. You will NEVER see this kind of content from them ever.

Finally, If you watch her community Q&A. There's a question about if she's willing to share her dating life or not. She answered that she's mostly an open book but right now she's on her own pace and everything that she post is for the reason. So you can get that she start to get comfortable to share with us now.

That's pretty much it! If you have anymore question you can send through the ask. I don't care if it's anon or not. Happy to answer the question.

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katieskarlette · 1 month

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Reactions to spoilery cutscenes

Curiosity got the better of me, and I watched all the cutscenes that WoWhead posted from 11.0.

Spoilers and rambling below.

[Disclaimer: These are just my poorly-organized thoughts after watching cutscenes online without much context. Take them with a grain of salt.]

First, the prematurely-gray elephant in the room: Khadgar. I really enjoyed him as a character and I will miss him. Was it a fitting sendoff for such a huge lore figure? Not in my opinion. It was basically copying Rhonin's death (although at least this was in game and not in a novel). And Atiesh got broken, too. As a mage main, that made me cringe, and the destruction of my home city didn't feel good, either. The visual effects of it blowing up in a void explosion were impressive, at least.

Moving on... From what I've seen, I like what they're doing with Moira and her son, and their dynamic with Magni. Talk about a redemption arc, going from the Worst Father of the Year to doting grand'da. Aww. I'm not sorry to see the diamond shell go away. It was stingy of Azeroth not to give him any armor to keep, though. Harumph.

As for the new short folk...I love their blue gryphons, but otherwise they're not my cup o' tea, aesthetically, and I feel like the mechanical motif should stay with the gnomes and mechagnomes. Also, dwarves without Scottish accents seem so wrong. I know that's a ridiculous thing to say because why the hell did that get to be a thing anyway, but it's what we're used to. (Incidentally, exposure to WoW dwarves helped me do a killer Scottish accent when I want to. My best friend does a great Irish accent, so sometimes we'll greet each other in our respective fake accents. Maybe you have to be there, but it amuses us.)

ANYWAY...

Warcraft has always had a vaguely cartoony style. In the last several years the quality of the character models has improved noticeably. I feel like Blizzard is struggling to find a happy medium wherein it still has that signature Warcraft vibe while taking advantage of the improved graphics. Which is a long winded way to say that I find Anduin's detailed eyelashes and the M.C. Escheresque intricacies of Alleria's hair distracting. Anduin's facial structure, stubble, and the under layer of his hair look somewhat realistic, but the top layer of his hair and his vividly blue eyes look like they're from a different universe.

Speaking of Alleria, I don't understand the need to completely redesign her character. Funky winged eyeliner and an asymmetric cape, a totally different color palette, her hair all over the place...it's like she's a completely different character. Sure, a real person can have a major makeover and that's totally fine, but when you're dealing with a fictional character who has a distinct "look" to them, you should have a very, very good reason to throw away the familiarity/recognition you've already established. I felt a little bit that way when Jaina got her makeover for BFA, but since she's by far the most prominent human woman in the franchise it was easier to adjust. We have how many rail-thin high/blood/void elven women now? A lot. They could have done some cool, subtle things with slowly changing her Legion-era outfit to be more void-themed over time, but I suppose that would require extra modeling work that would deprive the playerbase of a raid tier...

I have no idea who Aelric Leid is, but I'd know Jim Pirri's voice anywhere. I'm glad he's still around the franchise after Nathanos was sent off to live happily ever after in a quiet corner of Ardenweald with his true love after she rescued him from the maw and you can pry that headcanon from my cold, not-undead hands killed off.

So we have a Wrynn not climbing about the fleeing ship with his allies but instead jumping down to fight the thing trying to destroy said ship, even knowing it will probably lead to his death. GEE, WHERE HAVE I SEEN THAT BEFORE?! Okay, I have to admit that did give me some feels. There's a fine line between poignant, thematically significant callbacks and gratuitously echoing past imagery while screaming, "Look! It's the thing! You remember the thing, right? Here it is again! Isn't that cool?" I'm looking at you, tons of Arthas parallels they pushed on Anduin in BFA and Shadowlands. Ahem. So yeah, I see what you did there, Blizzard, and I don't hate it. Let me conjure you a mana cookie.

Ansurek looked SO much cooler before her void power-up. She looks creepy af with all those red eyes and the stuff on her head, yet she's got a normal human mouth and a cutesy nose. WTF? Come on, let the creepy spider queen be monstrous! Trust me, people will still want to fuck her. Source: I've been on the internet.

"With our renewed strength, our kingdom shall be reborn." Zzzzzzz... Huh? Wha'? Oh. I'm sorry, I could have sworn I've heard this schtick about 874 times already.

Is Alleria really stupid enough to think she can kill (the equivalent of?) an Old God with an arrow? There's no way a shapeshifting being of the void could possibly put up an illusion or teleport away at the last second! /facepalm (Although soon after she was able to gut-punch Xal'atath to make her back up, so maybe it wasn't such a dumb strategy... I dunno. I'm just judging a bunch of short cutscenes out of context.)

A Windrunner sister gripping her bow so tightly we hear the leather squeak. Never seen that before, either.

I do like Xal'atath so far. She's got the sultry voice of Azshara, the (over)confidence of Lich King Arthas, and the creepy wrongness of her Old God pals. Voice aside, she's not as sexualized as a lot of her predecessors in the franchise, which is a relief. (I love Azshara to bits but she must have used massive amounts of double-sided tape and/or powerful magic to keep her boobs in that dress back in her pre-naga days.)

So yeah. I watched the in-game cinematics. There was some good, some bad, and some stuff I like to clown on but wasn't actually that awful. I can't say that it made me reconsider my decision not to play the expansion, but I'm glad I know a little bit more about what's going on.

Now, since they so rudely destroyed Dalaran, I'll have to picture my mage curling up in the library in Stormwind Keep, instead. Because that's what I imagine she does when I'm not playing the game. ;)

#TWW spoilers #is a tag I guess I'll make #rambling about wow

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