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#i'm just using everybody else's posts as reference
luckyarchivist · 4 months
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Ais v. Leander: NSFW HCs
Basically I was trying to get into Mhin's head while writing my aismhin fic and was "forced" to ask myself, "How would fucking Leander be different from fucking Ais?" so here are my thoughts.
Or, uh, they're down below the divider. Don't wanna scandalize anyone just passing by. What if you're in public or something?
General position/dynamic
Leander is, generally, a sub. He'll top, sure, but you can still order him around even if you're receiving. You should really top him, though; he can hit all kinds of high notes.
I should clarify, I'm talking about normal Leander here. "Unmasked", fatal-flaw-revealed Leander would want to stake his claim on you, to convince himself that you'll never leave him, to convince you that he is the only person who knows what you need—and he'll use any methods he knows to keep you under him as long as it takes to do that 😇
Ais is more solidly vers and switch-y. I think he probably leans slightly dom/top, but he definitely likes to bottom and he would love for you to prove that you can get him on his knees.
Being lazy
Ais will sometimes be a bit of a pillow princess. He doesn't wanna do anything but lay there and let you do as you like with him. And why shouldn't you treat him like the absolute treasure he is? If you don't I will!!
Leander is NEVER a pillow princess, he is a sex WORKER okay. PILLOW PROLETARIAT. The real reason you tie him up in bed is because otherwise he will spend the whole time trying to make you feel good when you are trying to make him feel good.
Foreplay
Ais does foreplay for himself. He likes the foreplay. If you tell him to get on with the fucking you, he will say no.
He won't say it in so few words, of course: he'll probably accuse you of not being able to handle a little light teasing. Meanwhile it's been 45 minutes and you're either on a razor's edge and willing to do anything if he will just fuck you or begging him to stop because you've cum twice already.
Leander does foreplay for you. You are his little sweetiebear and he wants you to be comfortable and aroused and relaxed and everything. If you tell him to get on with it, he will do exactly as you ask—if you don't, he's willing to indulge you for as long as you like.
I do think Leander likes seeing you get desperate for him. Normally, this isn't enough to stop him from treating you the way you want to be treated. But push him, and he might just make you cry, until you beg for him and only him.
Why fuck you, even?
For Ais it's about pleasure. He feels good, he's making you feel good: he likes that. Easy.
He would never admit it, but for Leander it's about control. I think he enjoys manipulating your pleasure, and he likes that you can do the same to him. Maybe he even believes he'll have stronger sway over you because you've slept with each other.
How they treat sex / how you'll feel
Ais thinks sex isn't a huge deal. It's fun, it feels nice, you get that workout feeling afterwards. But when he's fucking you, guaranteed, you'll feel like you're the only one. You'll feel valued. You'll feel seen. You'll be asking "What are we", and he's gonna be like, "What," cos he's putting his shoes on to leave and thinking about what he's gonna bring Princess as her little weekly treat.
He'd definitely fuck people again if he liked the experience, though; he's not the type to have one-night stands just to break hearts. So, if you're good enough in bed, you might have a repeat visitor on your hands, and maybe that'll develop into something more. If it happened to Vere, it can happen to you!
Leander acts like sex isn't a big deal to him, but he's also the type who will ask one-night stands and casual flings on dates because he "really felt a connection". He is truly not built for this modern hookup culture 😞
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schizopositivity · 4 months
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To all the people telling me "I'm in your walls" is a harmless meme and "if you are sensitive enough to be triggered by it you shouldn't be on the Internet", please read this and then tell me it's a meme that has nothing to do with schizophrenia, it's a harmless meme, and if me and other people with schizophrenia get 'triggered' by it we are too sensitive.
It was literally made to purposely trigger people in psychosis/ people with schizophrenia specifically. Me and many other people who post about our schizophrenia/psychosis online get spammed with this type of thing, I get anons pretty regularly. I actively try to avoid it but it doesn't matter. I can't think of any other popular "meme" that purposely triggers people online who are already vulnerable. It is blatant sanism/ableism.
There is no way you can divorce the "joke" from its original intended purpose. And why do you guys fight so hard to justify this "joke"? It's not ever funny, it's not clever or creative, it's just bullying a minority, that's literally it.
Those of us with schizophrenia/psychosis deserve to be on the Internet just like everybody else. It's not our fault that there is a popular meme made specifically to target our vulnerabilities. Even if we try our hardest to avoid these types of jokes, people will seek us out and harass us regardless.
Notice on the Know Your Meme page, all the other related searches that are more "memes" meant to trigger, harass, or make fun of people with psychosis/schizophrenia. A lot of these memes have only started/become popular in the last few years. And yet no one seems to be speaking up about how fucked up that is. Not even neurodivergent/mental illness awareness online. And when those of us with schizophrenia try ourselves to call it out, guess what kind of comments we get 🙄
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So like, it's okay to be good and nobody is born evil and anyone can change the path they're on, yadda yadda yadda, but I actually think one of the biggest lessons Megamind learns over the course of the film is the shocking revelation that actions have consequences.
I'm not even kidding. When you put aside the whole 'evil' thing, one of Megamind's biggest flaws is his entirely screwed up notion of cause and effect.
Like, the whole reason the plot happens is because it apparently never occurred to Megamind that 'carrying out elaborate plots to kill Metroman' could ever result in 'dead Metroman'. Nor that creating a new hero with the specific motivation of defeating him, Megamind, could lead to negative consequences for him, Megamind. Or that riling said hero up into a murderous rage could have the unforeseen consequence of that hero raging around murderously.
Dude spent at least a few years kidnapping Roxanne, threatening her with alligators and lasers and various other villainous knick-knacks, only to disguise himself as somebody else and lie to her until she fell in love with this fake identity he'd created and is genuinely shocked when she is upset upon finding this out.
Not just that she did find out, but that post-her finding out he is unable to talk her into continuing the relationship.
“We don't judge a book by its cover or a person by their appearance… we judge them based on their actions.”
“Seems kinda petty, don't you think?”
Megamind may be a genius when it comes to inventions and evil plans, but he's a fucking idiot when it comes to predicting and anticipating the obvious results of his actions.
And thing is, it makes total sense why he would be like that.
He spent his childhood being consistently punished by the adults in his life, often for no reason that he could understand or even for no reason at all. As a result, he stops viewing punishment as a consequence of his behaviour and starts seeing it as a consequence of him being 'evil', which of course leads to him leaning into his evil persona and eventually becoming a supervillain.
And, as a supervillain, ironically enough, he's completely sheltered from consequence by his greatest enemy, Metroman.
Megamind doesn't need to worry about his evil plans hurting any citizens, because Metroman will use his powers to save them. Megamind doesn't have to worry about the damage he does to the city, because Metroman can fix it.
Megamind does in theory have to worry about social consequences for his behaviour, but the social consequences are being locked in prison and having everybody hate him which is like, the default status quo of his existence since he was a baby.
He literally calls the prison as 'home', a word he does not use to refer to his Evil Lair or indeed anywhere else in the film barring his home planet. Going there is an inconvenience, maybe, but it's not really a punishment. It's where he lives.
Metroman's 'death' changes all that.
Not only does one of Megamind's evil plans finally destroy something that (seemingly) can't be fixed, but he's then turned loose on the city with no superhero to run around after him cleaning up his mess.
Now, if he steals all the artwork in the gallery, then Metro City will no longer have artwork in it's gallery, and people (Roxanne) will miss it and be upset. If he doesn't take care to clean the streets then the streets… will be dirty, and people (Roxanne) will be negatively affected.
If he gives a random, unstable, person superpowers and then goes out of his way to piss that person off, then that person can't be guaranteed upon to “play the game” just because that's what Metroman did, and people (Megamind… then everybody else) will be negatively affected.
And the flipside of this is that, by the end of the film, he wins the battle because he realises "hey, I can change this". If his negative actions have negative consequences then he can choose to do the positive thing instead and save the city.
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coexistentialism · 3 months
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Finding Your Identities: Figuring Out Your Alters When Your Alters Aren't "Distinct" "People"
I have been wanting to make this post for a very long time now.
I have talked countless times on this blog about how a lot of the "how to figure out your alters" lists do not and cannot apply to me, or systems who may be like me, for a variety of reasons.
We do not have distinct senses of selves, we don't feel like our own distinct individuals, in any way whatsoever. There is no specific, unique, distinct "cue" or feeling or anything that tells me I've switched, or tells me that a specific, distinct alter is fronting who is different from any other alters. There is no specific, distinct THING that tells me "okay yeah that was very obviously and specifically and undeniably a different alter."
It's easy to deny you have alters when your alters are not distinct individuals who know they are their own unique, separate selves. It's easy to deny you have alters when it always feels like "you."
If you don't experience your alters as distinct 'entities' where you can obviously and distinctly refer to them as "that is (that specific alter) and that is not (these other alters)", it can be nearly impossible to figure out your alters at all.
This has been a horrible aspect of my denial since essentially the beginning. I mean, when everything online tells you that DID involves a distinct sense of "not me" to it, how can you know if you have it if it doesn't feel that way to you?
Now obviously I DO have that feeling of "not me"... It's just not described using those specific words. I was taking it all way too literally (thanks, autism NFKDSFDKJ).
It's more like "I don't really feel that way anymore" or "yeah I felt that way, but not anymore."
Or "I don't really relate to that anymore" or "I don't really like this as my identity anymore" or "I don't like this name anymore."
Or "this feels like someone else's life" (but more of a feeling, it's not like I just suddenly don't know anything in my life anymore. I know my girlfriend and love her still and I know I live in this house, etc.)
I'll feel like I am attending therapy because I have to, or I'll feel like I'm relaying information that I know factually, as if I was told a story of things that happened and I have to relay that information to someone else.
Or just generally a weird feeling that something is off.
And that's the thing - dissociation (for me personally) is less like "things aren't real" and "I'm not real" and more like just a vague feeling that something is OFF, and you don't know what, and you can't explain it.
I remember as a kid feeling like I'm the "only conscious being" or "feeling like I'm in an anime" or "acting out a dramatic scene in a movie." Now all three of those descriptions still fall under "feeling like things aren't real/etc." but I never interpreted it that way, because of how literally I take things, I didn't make the connection, because I never used the SPECIFIC wording of "feeling like I'm not real/feeling like the world isn't real/etc."
I straight-up told one of the first therapists I saw for a DID diagnosis that I "don't really dissociate at all" because I don't really experience the "nothing is real/I'm not real/etc."
This, too, brought me a lot of denial, because people only describe dissociation as "things don't feel real", "you don't feel real", "you feel like you're floating", "you're watching yourself", "you're watching the world through fog/glass", etc. And because I never really used those specific words to explain my feelings and experiences, I figured I wasn't really experiencing any dissociation, or at least just very rarely and mildly so.
That's a key thing here - the WORD CHOICES being used to describe alters, systems, CDD experiences, etc. don't really match up with my experiences at all. I take things extremely, extremely literally, and when everybody describes their alters and refers to them as distinct, different people, it's hard to feel like your experiences are the more common experience, especially when people around you might continue to reinforce that denial, by assuming you must not have alters, or you have a different disorder, etc., because you are "always awake and present no matter what alter is fronting", etc.
Your personal interpretation of your experiences matters a LOT when it comes to CDDs, figuring out if you have a CDD, and it also plays a large role into how your system might present/feel/look/what alters you have/etc.
For example, many people interpreted their alter experiences and switches as creating characters. That, then, might become a huge aspect of figuring out your alters - you might realize that many of the characters you've made (or all of them) through the years were actually alters. With that lens, you might, then, be able to have a lot of knowledge about your alters based off of that alone - those "characters" might have specific characteristics, lore, designs, etc. that you then realize were all a part of that alter.
You might also, then, find that each time you find yourself making a "new" "character", it's actually just a new alter forming/splitting (or perhaps them just finding out their own identity).
The way you personally interpret your experiences, your feelings, your life, memories, etc. all impact your alters and your system - the way your alters identify, the way it FEELS when alters front, the way your system presents, etc.
I grew up believing I was making things up and lying for seemingly no reason, for attention, because I liked being cool and special. Or that I was purposely acting out a fake, dramatic movie, just to add more drama.
In reality, I was experiencing alter switches and dissociation, but because I interpreted it in those ways, we now have a very difficult time trying to accept and believe that these are real feelings, real experiences, outside of my control, instead of me just saying things for attention and acting dramatic just because.
I also very much grew up feeling like "nothing ever sticks, so why bother taking anything seriously." Now, pretty much all of us still have this attitude, this feeling of "why bother coming up with a name, why bother taking (my feelings, etc.) seriously when it's just gonna go away and not come back."
I would feel confident in a decision or an identity or a name change and so on, only for me to change it the next day, or the next week, and so on.
This made things like questioning my gender identity and wanting to change my name extremely difficult and impossible because I could never be sure if it was going to actually STICK or just be a temporary, fleeting "phase." I became upset (and still become upset and distressed) every time everything turned out to just be a "phase" instead of a real, actual thing. I still have trouble with this. If I want to cut my hair or dye my hair or get new clothes, I will never be able to know for sure if I'll still like it in a different state. If I want a name change, I don't know if it'll be long-term or if I will change my mind the next day.
DID is more like this, and less like "I'm a totally different person with a distinctly different personality and a different name and I am not ("host")."
And if this is relatable to you, this post may very much help you figure out who your alters are.
A lot of things online that try to give suggestions and ideas for figuring out your alters in a way of "ask (your alters) these questions."
For me, I can't really do that, for a variety of different reasons - our dissociative barriers are too high, there's no inner world, and there's no kind of "distinct voices" that I "hear" speaking to me that are coming from a distinctly different "person." And since we as alters do not experience ourselves as distinct individuals where we just know who we are and know we are our own distinct individuals, it's less like asking my alters these questions, and more like asking MYSELF these questions. I want you keep that in mind going into this post.
When it comes to figuring out alters, what helps me is trying to keep track of patterns of changes in my behaviors, likes, dislikes, hobbies/interests, and more.
The following is a TEMPLATE of things you can ask yourself at different times, during different moods, modes, self-states - whatever you wanna call it.
I tried to make them as general as possible in order to hopefully make the questions apply to a general audience/a wide variety of people, instead of being too specific where they might not apply to most people.
You do not have to ask yourself all of these questions! If you don't know the answer to a question, and/or you don't want to answer a question, it can be important to write that down too! You can skip any questions or change them in any way you like.
If a question feels unhelpful to you, feel free to change it into something that might feel more helpful to you personally, and/or just remove it altogether.
Feel free to expand upon these questions! For example, if a question seems helpful to you, you might have further ideas to expand upon that question into further, more specific questions. I actually totally encourage other people to expand upon these questions and come up with more questions that could help others! Definitely share your thoughts in reblogs if you want.
I want to make it clear, first, that this post is NOT trying to make people OBSESS over this!!!! These questions are meant to help figure out alters, but don't obsess over it!
The purpose of these questions is to simply try and keep track of possible patterns of behaviors, etc., not to obsess over figuring out your alters, not to obsess over figuring out what alter you are, not to obsess over making sure your alters are "consistent all the time" or something. It doesn't matter about knowing "who" you are so much as it matters to let yourself exist as you are, at any given moment. It's to allow yourself to exist and see if there is a pattern of emotions, opinions, preferences, likes, dislikes, interests/hobbies, behaviors, and more that crop of every so often - this is what alters are for a lot of people. Like I said, it's less like "distinct, separate person" and more like a recurring pattern of the same/similar emotions/behaviors/traits/etc. that crop up every so often, oftentimes in response to things, such as topics that you may find triggering (for example: feeling like an angry wolf every time the topic of physical abuse comes up, or feeling like a scared child when you feel like someone said something upsetting), or even positive topics, such as feeling like you become a girl whenever the topic of fashion gets brought up, or feeling like you're 13 when the topic of a childhood beloved TV show comes up.
While "feeling like (xyz) in response to (xyz)" does not necessarily mean you have a CDD, this post is specifically about those experiences under the context of having a CDD. If you relate to anything I wrote in this post, it does not necessarily mean you have a CDD! Similarly, if you DON'T relate to anything in this post, it also doesn't mean you DON'T have a CDD! I am sharing this post with the assumption that the people reading it already know they have a CDD, and/or strongly suspect it.
Questions to ask myself for figuring out alters:
Month day, year. Time (or whatever way you want to write down the month/day/year/time).
What name(s) do I like?:
This doesn't have to be names of specific alters (by that I mean, you don't have to go through your list of alters with specific names to figure out if you like one of them). You can write a vague idea of what name/names you might like (such as "a name related to plants" or "a name that reminds me of the ocean"). You can write down multiple names. You can write down no name. You can write down that you're indifferent. Anything!
What pronouns do I like?:
Again, you can write down anything. If multiple sets of pronouns vibe, write that down! If nothing vibes, write it down! If you don't have any strong feelings/if you're indifferent, write that down too! If you don't know, write that down!
Are there any particular labels I feel drawn to/feel I identify with?:
It can be an LGBTQ+ label (bisexual, demiboy, aromantic, lesbian, etc.), or a label related to something else
What kind of color(s) am I drawn to?:
Darker colors? Pastel colors? Neon colors? Light colors? Etc.
What do I want to do? What would I do if I had the resources (time, money, 'skill', motivation, energy, etc.) (for example, maybe you wish you could play guitar, but you can’t play guitar, don’t have a guitar, etc.)?:
Similarly, is there anything that I might normally be interested in that I find myself no longer wanting to do?:
-- Listening to music: What songs? Am I singing along? What are the songs about? How do I feel about the music? Are there any songs I dislike? Any particular common genre/theme with the music I find myself liking right now?
-- Art: - What kind of art (Digital art? Doing makeup? Sculpting? Knitting? Painting? Woodworking? Photography? Any art counts.) - What is my art style like/what tools am I using? (If digital art, what program am I using? What brushes am I using? Etc. (Different alters might prefer to use different art programs and different art brushes!)) - What does the artwork depict? (Vent art? Are there themes of trauma? Dissociation? Fanart? Something else?)
-- Playing a game: - What game? - What am I doing in the game? Are there different game modes? If so, what mode am I playing? Is my character customizable, and if so, how does my character look? (Some alters might prefer to change the way the character looks to match how they might feel inside!) - Are there any games I don't currently care for?
-- Watching YouTube: - What is the topic of the video? (Is it about a hobby I like? A TV series? A video essay? Something else?)
-- Playing an instrument: - What instrument? - Am I trying to learn a specific song/songs? - Am I making my own music? Are there lyrics to go along with it? - If it’s a specific song (either writing your own, or trying to learn how to play a certain song on an instrument), what is it about? Any specific themes that stick out?
-- Writing: Poetry? Working on a book/short story? What is it about? What genre? (Romance? Non-fiction? Etc.) Is it fanfiction?
-- Reading: What am I reading? What is it about? What genre? (Romance? Non-fiction? Etc.) Is it fanfiction?
-- Something else…
What am I thinking about?
What am I talking about?
How am I feeling?
Did something trigger me to feel this certain way?
If something triggered me to feel a certain way, do I know the reason(s) why? (For example, if you encountered something that brings up trauma-related feelings, etc.)
You might describe your feelings in ways other than a simple “sad”, “mad”, or “happy.” You might be more specific, such as “I feel like white noise” or “I feel like a dog” or “I feel like an ocean.” This is completely valid and an important thing to keep note of as well. You can even write down that you feel tall, or you feel a different age, or you feel like a certain character.
There are many more questions that you could ask 'yourself' to get to know 'yourselves.' This list is not exhaustive, and like I said, you can simply you this template to bounce off ideas of what questions you, personally, would find most helpful!
I'd love to hear anybody's input, and I hope this post helps anyone. :] If not, feel free to share around anyway, if you want!
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fallinglikemagic · 2 months
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Okay, now that everybody's had some time to process and gotten some of the doomposting out, here's my thoughts on the whole situation.
First of all, I'm not really worried about whether or not RWBY will continue in some capacity. It's uncertain, sure, but no more than it was already. In February we got the update that they were talking to potential partners about getting volume 10 made, so clearly they weren't just relying on Rooster Teeth and Warner Brothers for it - maybe one of those companies will pick it up, maybe a different company will, either way I'm sure it *will* be picked up by somebody and unless they get real unlucky, the show won't be much worse off than it was before - if anything it might be better off, considering that WB have been shitty about animation for quite a while now (if you're not already familiar and you're up for some extra research, I recommend looking into the Coyote vs ACME situation that's been going on recently for a great example of WB's bullshit). And while it's unclear exactly how much involvement the original crew will have in the show's future, I'm pretty optimistic about it. I doubt the writers are going to let go of creative control without a fight, if for nothing else then for Monty - I don't like focusing too much on the whole Monty's Legacy stuff in general, but I do think that the crew are going to want to keep their friend's work alive and authentic and as accurate to what he wanted it to be as possible. None of this is a certainty of course, but I think RWBY is gonna be fine, things will just be kinda rocky for a bit.
With all that being said, while this may end up ultimately being a blessing in disguise for RWBY as a franchise, it sure ain't one for everybody who worked at Rooster Teeth. This entire situation is still horrible - so many people being fired on the spot, effective immediately, with no warning and with several of them only finding out by seeing articles about it being posted on Twitter, it's fucked. I know Rooster Teeth wasn't exactly lacking in controversy and problematic behaviour, to put it lightly, but there were still plenty of amazing people there who are now in a really shitty situation. On top of that, while again this isn't exactly anything new, especially for WB, it is the latest instance of a huge problem in the animation and entertainment industries. So no matter how things pan out for RWBY, we should still be really fucking mad about this.
And we definitely shouldn't be celebrating. I've seen some posts saying "good riddance" and celebrating RT's downfall, not just from people who hate RWBY (I mean don't get me wrong I'm sure the hatedom is out in full force but that's not the kind of thing I'm referring to right now), but people who like/used to like the show and just hated the company. And don't get me wrong, I didn't like a lot of things about the company either, I've actually been wanting RWBY to separate itself from RT for a pretty long time (be careful what you wish for I guess 💀), but there's a time and a place and this certainly ain't it. Plenty of people who have worked there have said that they loved their jobs, plenty of others said it was horrible and toxic and nightmarish, but either way a job is a job and in this industry work isn't always easy to find, especially in recent years. Celebrate in private if you want, but now is not the damn time to be bringing out the cake and confetti.
TLDR; I'm cautiously optimistic about RWBY's future, I'm pretty sure it'll be fine and they'll be able to keep the core crew to at least some extent, but this is still a really bad situation for everybody who just lost their jobs, don't be a dick.
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adventuringblind · 7 months
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I didn't know if you take requests but I have been thinking about this for a while. You are Scotty James younger sister and you meet Daniel while they are hanging out and you both like eachother and him and Chloe set you up. At first Scotty didn't agree but Chloe showed him that both of them are actually in love. I'm kinda seeing this with something with age gap, about 8 years (sorry if the grammar is not right, English is not my first language and I'm very tired because of school and stuff)
Atermoiememts
Genre: Fluff, Spice
Summary: Daniel is pining after his best friends younger sister. Drunken confessions lead to a black eye.
Warnings: drinking, sexual innuendo, and references, alluded to smut, Scotty throws hands
Notes: Sorry I haven't posted in a few days! I've been working on my master list, and I've had work and school to attend to. I can't believe I posted first daily since mid-July, and now I've finally slowed down. I'm so sorry for requests taking longer!!
Masterlist
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Scotty James. Professional Snowboarder and protective older brother. Well, protective isn't the word he would use. Maybe loving? A wall between his sister and men who have poor intentions?
Chloe loves his sister. She is great friends with Lance. She gets along great with Daniel, his best friend, maybe better then he would like at times, but it's whatever.
She's the one who drags Scotty to more then half of the F1 races. Given he has time. She's obsessed.
Yet, Scotty can't help but think it's because of somebody specific on the grid. He's yet to figure out who. Max? Charles? She gets along with them well enough.
She spends to much time clinging to Daniel that it is probably scaring away the boys she actually likes! Not that Daniel is intimidating or anything. The guys smile is infectious. But it probably doesn't help her at all with getting the attention of the drivers her age.
~~~~~
Y/N James. Professional F1 enthusiasts. Sister to Scotty James. Annoying younger siblings to him but shy to everybody else.
She would like to add girlfriend of Daniel Ricciardo in there somewhere, but the backlash from her brother keeps her from saying anything. Plus, she's probably to young for him. A nine year age gap maybe isn't his thing. But he could help her out a but and stop flirting with her.
She knows it's teasing. It's sarcastic like with all of his friends. It's not like she's special or anything.
Her reason for wallowing in her thoughts? Chloe had just made her a third drink. The two are sitting on the couch in her and Scotty’s hotel room post qualifying. Daniel had a good session, so him and Scotty are out having mocktails.
"I see the way you look at him." Chloe wiggles her eyebrows suggestivley. Her legs are crossed on the sofa and she continues to take small sips of whatever she's drinking.
"And how would that be?"
"Like you love him."
The younger James eyes her suspiciously. How could have possibly outed her by just watching? Is she really that obvious?
"So what if I do? Not like anything is gonna happen." She shrugs.
"But he likes you too? I see it. His flirting is different with you."
"What? That fact he can and will describe in detail what he would do to me?"
"Don't lie!" Chloe shouts and playfully hits the younger on the shoulder. "You totally like it."
She can feel her face heating up but the alcohol has made her filter disappear.
"He really could do whatever to me. I'd let him."
"What if he wants you to call him daddy?" Chloe starts cracking up laughing.
"... I would."
~~~~~
Daniel Ricciardo. Formula 1 driver. Lover of Texas. The honey badger himself. Cannot for the life of him fix this stupid crush on Scotty’s younger sister.
He personally doesn't care about what the media has to say. But he does care about her and the backlash she would get. He'd hate to see her hurt just because he couldn't keep his feelings to himself.
And it really doesn't help that Chloe has been trying to get them together for weeks now. Months even. It's driving him insane. How is he supposed to keep up his playful flirting at this rate?
She's been shoving them onto awkward scenarios and leaving them alone together (much to Scotty’s dismay). Scotty picked up on something after the fifth encounter like that.
"Do you even like her like that?" He'd said while that ate dinner. It was just the two of them and Chloe.
"He definitely does!"
"I really don't want to talk about it anymore."
"Chloe, my sister would be into guys her age."
"And if her and Daniel did get together?"
"Then I owe you a date for being right and I'd punch Daniel."
The conversation left Daniel feeling both relieved and terrified. Scotty had made a valuable point, though. She's around the same age as Max and Charles. Two good-looking and kind men who he trusts. It wouldn't shock him if she went after one of them instead.
But if that's the case, why has she spent the entire night dancing with him? The music is blaring, and their cheeks are pink from the alcohol. Yet the feeling of her hips up against hasn't left since they got here.
His impulse control is lacking, and he doesn't know he's doing it until after. Doesn't know what he's implied or how she'll respond.
"Do you wanna get out of here?"
He mentally slaps himself for asking such a thing, but it's too late now. He can't take it back.
"That sounds nice."
And oh, how he melts. Her smile is his everything. Though with her reply, his is definitely bigger.
Daniel drags her back to his hotel room. Is a flurry of pent of emotions. Hands and lips explore to the point where their driver is probably annoyed.
In the hotel room isn't any better and they are both definitely under the influence.
"Maybe we shouldn't-"
"When was your last drink?"
Daniel thinks back. Already straddled over the top "two hours ago I think?"
"Same, i stopped when you did. So please don't think to hard about this. If I only get to do this once then I want to enjoy every damn second of it."
Something between love, adoration, and confusion passes through him. "What do you mean by that?"
"This is a one night stand, no?"
"It doesn't have to be."
"Not sure my brother would like me having a friends with benefits type of deal with his best friend." Her eyebrow quirks up in the lamplight.
"Fuck that's - that's not what I mean." Curse his lack of filter for heat he's about to say. "I love you. I have for so long but I didn't want to say anything."
She freezes, likely due to the shock of the statement. "I love you too, also for awhile now."
Yeah - every ounce of restraint he had before is gone. Clothes are shed in record time. He doesn't hold not one damj thing back.
"Let me show you how much I adore you."
~~~~~
To say Scotty is staring at Chloe is an understatement. He's glaring at her. "I've been played."
"Do you wanna go punch him now?"
It's eight in the morning and Scotty is throwing off the covers and marching to the door of their room. Sharing a wall with Daniel definitely wasn't the best idea.
He knocks aggressively. "Daniel! Open up!"
There's a bit of shuffling then the door swings open to reveal a sleepy eyed Australian. His eyes get wide when he realizes who it is.
"Look Daniel, I know you'll take good care of her. You're a good friend and a better boyfriend. But I swear to you if you ever hurt her I will not hesitate to knock your teeth out."
Daniel's shoulders sag in relief. His body relaxs. His sister standing in the entry way also does.
Then scotty swings.
But hey! If one black eye is all it takes to convince Scotty not to stalk Daniel's every step to protect his sister, then he'll take it.
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alatismeni-theitsa · 8 days
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https://x.com/CorenLaVolpe/status/1787971755027612092
As much as a Greek enjoyed the Hades game having people literally taking for granted the designs of the gods as legit is problematic.
No Hermes isn't Asian coded. He's Greek like every God. Literally what does the word Greek next to Greek gods mean to them? An accessory? Give me a break
I got a few asks like this, so I will try to answer them here. This is the post the asks are referring to, and this is the post that started the whole discussion afaik:
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This is a whole phenomenon that has lasted for decades in the US, first with USians presenting the gods as North Europeans and now as "everything but" North Europeans to combat the previous racist trend. However, they are still completely tone-deaf, self-absorbed, and privileged because while they do this "correction" they're ignoring actual Greeks, and Greek depictions (and depictions of Greek gods in various areas in the past). Westerners might not be aware of this, because they don't know how badly the Greeks have been treated by powerful countries in the past (including their US, thank you for the Junta and our recent fighters' deaths, honey) but the protests about the gods' design are anti-colonialist.
I want you to imagine this trend with whatever pantheon you want from Africa, Asia, South America etc. Imagine that for centuries they are presented as super White North Europeans by certain powerful nations. Now the same nation who did this racist shit in the past comes around and does more racist shit, by NOT presenting these ancient gods as their people view/viewed them but they present them as everything BUT the appearance they had in all their depictions by the locals. All the while NEVER listening to what the people of this culture tell them, all the while comparing the locals to these gods and finding them uglier and savage. Why would this be acceptable? And why are people so comfortable to forget their cultural sensitivities when it comes to Greece?
(I am aware the US racism also expanded to other pantheons but it didn't happen in this exact way so all I'm asking is to walk in our shoes for a bit, to experience a different flavour of colonialism)
This blog stands for absolute equality and it's heavily anti-racist and anti-fascist, with various resources and support links for minorities in Greece. Everyone is welcome here. This blog believes that if you are of Chinese, Pakistani, Nigerian, Roma descent in Greece you must have the same rights as everybody else and the way you look is not "lesser" than anybody else. I just ask people to consider - especially if you are an immigrant - how you, your parents, your grandparents would feel when seeing your important cultural figures treated like this by the US.
As you have understood by now, changing the depiction is not suddenly okay when the Greek gods now have the palest skin with blue eyes and blond hair. No, that's still racist, and Greeks have been repeatedly told that they are lesser for not looking like the beauty ideals these northern countries projected onto our gods.
Asking for accurate god depictions is a matter of wanting your culture to be treated like.... not a prop, for once. Everyone is free to interact and relate with the Greek culture but when you take the Greek culture and its depictions out of the equation, then the whole thing becomes "playing with dolls", and a fandom (as is the case already for the US).
The Greek gods have been used by Westerners in the past to promote White supremacy, and today they are used by Westerners to combat it; but it still happens in the most divorced sense from the Greek culture. USians are still sooo hesitant to REALLY look at another culture that they'd rather lose common sense (aka, depict gods as the locals see them for millennia) than not white-knight for their fellow Westerners. It's actually infuriating that progressives in the US still miss the mark when it comes to combating US neo-colonialism, and whatever elements left in their culture from colonizing European countries.
And how can we tell the Greek gods are used as props in this US political climate? Simple. They themselves will tell you "It's okay to depict those gods however you like because 1. They can transform 2. They have been worshipped by people of different appearances 3. Greeks can have more than one appearance 4. They are not real. " Then, you tell them "Then why don't you depict Chinese, Indian, Nigerian pantheons whoever you like today? These pantheons all have the above four conditions apply. (No. 4 depending on your beliefs)" And when you strip those first layers, they tell you the actual root cause: "But Chinese, Indian and Nigerian people are still oppressed. Plus, non-white people need to see themselves in media, so here is the chance!"
So, they admit that their only guide for how disrespectful they will be to one's heritage figures is actually the oppression status of that minority (just!) in the US. (Which shows they still don't give a shit about Greeks, cause otherwise they'd still know that Greeks still face bigotry in the US for how they look, how their names are, their customs) . To POC in the US: The moment your oppressors believe your oppression is gone, expect your pop culture to forget (again) all respect for your ancient gods and treat them like cool "new" products for their capitalist game.
And the above discussion paints the Greek culture and Greek figures as a culture-less empty slate, that can be made to represent every person in the whole world. It's US culture, even! But Greek culture is hideous actually, and the Greeks are racist brutes who get in our hair the whole time. Fuck the Greek people and their ancestors' depictions. Greek mythology is a product of no culture, actually, and we can treat the gods like self-inserts in our favorite fanfic. And this is totally not a colonialist mindset! Greeks are not robbed and genocided anymore, and we gave them "white" status in our country a few decades ago (but these ethnic hairy people are still not the same as us, obviously!), and the strings we pull to control Greece are not visible anymore to our own people, so we're good 😊
And, just to be clear: Greek gods are ethnically Greek, as every other [insert cultural descriptor] gods are from that certain culture. The Greek people consider themselves literal progeny of those gods. The first Greeks were born of the gods. Even today we call ourselves Hellenes because one of the first Greeks, the man Hellen, who was born of the gods. If the Greek gods don't express Greek cultural norms, and POVs, and ways of thinking about the world, and are not part of Greek history, what the hell are part of?? Cantonese culture? Do they represent Scandinavian ancient values perhaps....? Do they follow the philosophy of a First Nations tribe?? (This is more a matter of culture, not appearance since various people can be part of a culture. However, it needs to be said, because Westerners are willfully blind to common sense at this point.)
See this video from a Greek Canadian on Greek gods being ethnically Greek
To address one last thing: One person said "why didn't you say anything about how the gods were designed in the first game?" Well, I had made a post about it but some told me "noo they didn't change their race, they just have different colors like green, blue, pink, dark brown, and grey for an artistic touch". I was like "whatever, nobody knows, I have a life to live" so I deleted that post and didn't dwell too much on it. But the anti-colonialist message was the same as in this post, so that's another chance to highlight it.
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artfulacrostic · 11 months
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had my second high definition viewing of atsv in the theater today and here are my favorite details that i missed due to being overwhelmed on my first viewing:
LONG AF POST:
-gwen is literally wearing a rainbow shaped trans pride pin on her jacket with her prom outfit. she's soooo so canon trans <3
-captain stacy HAS A TRANS FLAG PATCH ON HIS POLICE UNIFORM JACKET?????? when i'm telling u my eyes popped out of my head 😳 SHES SO CANON TRANS!!!
-poster outside miles's guidance counselor's office reads: "visions sciences: telling you your story".
-parallel of miles's and gwen's dad kicking things out of general exasperation towards the beginning and end of the movie respectively
-when miles as spidey is talking to his dad and giving him advice (for himself) there's a reference to miles possibly reading vonnegut? (maybe in class??) "if this isn't nice what is" is a collection of kurt vonnegut's commencement speeches. (literally subtitled "advice to the young". the writers were extremely clever for this reference. if not reading it in class, miles has been searching up life advice on his own)
-i barely caught this but i'm PRETTY sure that in miles' room near his door there's a MICHELLE OBAMA presidential race sticker??? was president obama in the earth-1610 dimension michelle obama?? iconic if so
-fedex on earth-1610 is REDEX
-gayatri seems like they took elements of both gwen (police dad) and mj (young model) for her background as i believe i caught her visible on a "zomato" ad billboard (which appears to be the earth-50101 version of ubereats)
-i spent all of hobie's scenes trying to pick up the details of his many pins; but the only one that i could really make out with the quick shot changes besides the union jack pin was the one right above it, which is a three-leaf clover. i wondered if maybe it had some kind of significance to maybe irish independence or smth but i couldn't find anything online that backed that up so not sure what it means. if u know pls drop it in the replies.
-hobie's boots are definitely NOT ladder laced. i KNOW there is concept art and poster art of him with ladder laces but in the actual movie they are 100% crossed. also unlike the poster art, both boots have blue laces, not one blue, one yellow/orange. i wanted to be all on board the ladder lace code train but i'm pretty sure they just made his laces blue so that they could contrast against the red boots and be spidey colors. they probably abandoned the ladder lace part of the visual when someone realized what blue ladder laces meant in lace code. "HAS hobie killed a cop," you ask? given his comic backstory i'd say the odds are HIGH. but i would bet they didn't want people to think that since he's gone through canon event asm-90 ("a police captain close to spider-man is killed by falling rubble during a battle with a nemesis") that there's any possibility THAT was the cop he killed and he's proud of it (since it's supposed to be all abt character development from the ✨trauma✨ of the event)
-during the whole "intervention" scene, while all the other spider-people are facing directly in towards miles and miguel from wherever they are standing in the circle, hobie is the only one whose back is turned. he watches most of the scene over his shoulder. also, during a couple shots facing miles before the entire society of spiders show up, hobie is separated in the shot from all the other main spiders (Peter B, Gwen, Jess, etc) BY MILES. he is visible over one shoulder and everybody else is visible over the other. these two details are great signals of hobie having already MORALLY turned his back on miguel's authoritarianism, as well as giving a nice inverted "devil/angel on the shoulders" nod.
-peter b asks miguel to take a picture of him and mayday since it's her first chase; miguel brushes him off but mayday understands and uses her webshooter to click the camera button on peter b's phone and take a selfie without him noticing 😂😂😂 shes everything to me
-when miguel is pinning miles to the train, after gwen and peter b have caught up, there is a very fast moment when miles calls for help ("PETER!!") and peter doesn't reply to him, but calls out to miguel to calm down (smth like that) instead 🥲 peter for the love of god step up your mentor game and look out for this kid i can't handle it anymore
-when gwen takes the watch hobie made her out of the box, the screen is briefly visible and reads "project botleg". bootleg -> bot -> "botleg"; I SEE YOU HOBIE. people think he's so cool (and he is!!) but he's also just as much of a dork as all the other spiders. what a goofball
-in miles-42's room, a speed bag/speed ball/maize ball is attached to his wall near the door. there are other substantial differences to their rooms, but i think this is clearly a reference to uncle aaron-42's large presence in miles-42's life, given the association from both movies of aaron with the punching bag and miles getting guidance from him/looking to him for support.
-in addition to all the miles-1610 vs miles-42 prowler vs spidey reflection imagery in the end credits, guess who else has several moments of flashing from spider-man colors (red and black at least) to prowler colors (purple and green)?? miguel, that's who. miguel and miles-42/uncle aaron-42 team-up in beyond the spiderverse? or just an extra parallel for the antagonists sharing goals/possibly methods?
OKAY ANYWAY if ppl want i can try and dig up images of some of these but i figured that would make this post long af so that's all for now folks!! go see across the spider verse again and marvel at how much more fine detail you find like me 🕸🕸🕸
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kimberleyjean · 26 days
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Why are there Infinity Loops or Möbius Strips in Good Omens?
The infinity loop, it's the idea of something that is unlimited and endless, you know...
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In this post, I'm going to explore some of the symbols in the show that I think relate to this concept of eternity. For example, have you noticed that the infinity loop shows up amongst the symbols at the start of Season 1? While God's narrates about her "ineffable game" of her own devising, here it is on screen:
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Why do we see so many infinity symbols here? Where else can we see this same symbol?
Read on for the places I've spotted it in both S1, S2 and the book. I’m hoping you’ll let me know if I missed any, and what you think it all means!
Eternity in Good Omens
In the book, when Crowley is explaining the concept of eternity to Aziraphale, he uses the idea of a bird which flies every thousand years to the same mountain to sharpen it's beak. Here's the conversation, with Aziraphale's interruptions edited out (pg. 55 - 56 in my hardcopy):
“Just you think about it," said Crowley relentlessly. "You know what eternity is? You know what eternity is? I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird—” “Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies—" "flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak—” “Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back—” “And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.”
This story originally came from a folk tale called the Shepherd Boy. It's very short and you can read the Brother's Grimm version here. (Update: The Annotated Pratchett also thinks this may be a reference to James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).
If we take Crowley at his word, then eternity in Good Omens is represented by repeating the same thing over again, whether that's flying forever to the same mountain, or having to watch the Sound of Music "over and over and over and over and over and over and over" into infinity.
The Infinity Loop
The common symbol for infinity, ∞, was invented by the English mathematician John Wallis in 1655. Being an extremely popular symbol, it shows up in a lot of places, including the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Several other uses are detailed on the wikipedia page.
So, where does it appear in Good Omens? In addition to God's monologue, we also see it during the S1 baby swap sequence as part of the Satanic nun's costumes. Here it is on the upside-down watches they wear:
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Here it is again on Newt's belt buckle in S1:
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Here's another possible infinity symbol on Newt's computer screen, when he's working at United Holdings:
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Outside of the show, it also appears on the merch released post-S2 (though a little bit disguised in the form of the snake wrapped around them). Included is the tagline of "The end was just the start".
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There are also two references to infinity in the book. Here's the first very near the start (pg. 14 of my 2015 hardback edition):
“He [God] plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, [ie., everybody.] to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
And here's the other, closer to the end, at the airfield (pg. 363 of my edition):
“Adam glanced up. In one sense there was just clear air overhead. In another, stretching off to infinity, were the hosts of Heaven and Hell, wingtip to wingtip. If you looked really closely, and had been specially trained, you could tell the difference.”
So, Good Omens makes a few references to infinity, which I find interesting in itself. But wait, there's more!
The Ouroboros
There is another symbol which also appears in Good Omens and also suggests a form of repetition - the ouroboros. The ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail and depicts an eternal cycle of renewal - an end which comes back to the start again. I recommend taking a look at the whole wikipedia page, which is quite fascinating:
Now, this would be a rather abstract representation, but I think this appears on the wall of Nina's cafe. Unfortunately, in my image Terry's name has been cut off, but it does say Terry and Neil within those segments of the loop:
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So we have the infinity symbol, the ouroboros... anything else? Well, yes, there is a third symbol for us to ponder over.
The Mobius Strip
Closely related to the idea of the infinity symbol is that of the mobius strip. To oversimplify things, the mobius strip is a object which is a continuous surface in a loop. At first glance, it appears to have two sides, but these are indeed all part of the same side (maybe we should call this "our side"?). As shown in the below gif, an object traversing the surface of the strip can repeat in a continuous loop.
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Where does the mobius strip appear in Good Omens? Well, it appears in the book. Here it is being used to refer to Anathema's broken bike wheel (pg. 92 in my 2015 hardback edition):
“Behind the Bentley a bicycle lay in the road, its front wheel bent into a creditable Mobius shape, its back wheel clicking ominously to a standstill.”
And again, describing the discussions of the Them, while Adam is coming into his powers (pg. 229 in my hardback):
“Serve everyone right if all the nucular bombs went off and it all started again, only prop'ly organized," said Adam. "Sometimes I think that's what I'd like to happen. An' then we could sort everythin' out." The thunder growled again. Pepper shivered. This wasn't the normal Them mobius bickering, which passed many a slow hour. There was a look in Adam's eye that his friend couldn't quite fathom—not devilment, because that was more or less there all the time, but a sort of blank grayness that was far worse.”
Not only does the word "mobius" appear twice in the book, but Neil has continued to be interested in such ideas, releasing the song Mobius Strip in April 2023 (as brought to my attention by @embracing-the-ineffable). The song is a meditation on the nature of time, magic and how things tend to repeat. In the song, the grandfather shows the boy a trick to creating a mobius strip using paper, tape and some scissors. Here's how the song concludes:
"I'm... Somewhere on the strip We all are, walking the sign of infinity into the darkness And I'm looking for signs of a life, in a memory Reflected in the mirror I'm a mobius strip We all are We only ever see one face It's the twist that brings you back where you started"
If you're unfamiliar with the idea of creating a paper-based mobius strip, here's a video on how it works:
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Is the loop Aziraphale and Crowley?
To form a mobius strip, you need to cut the paper first, flip it, and then join the ends back together.
To me, this reminds me a lot of the S2 opening sequence, when we see the bridge disconnect, separating Aziraphale and Crowley on either side, only to then reconnect at another place.
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Does this mean the bridge, and perhaps the loop, represents our ineffable duo? This merch sure seems to suggest so...
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That could be one interpretation of this sequence, though I'm sure there are others. What do you think? Does the loop say anything about Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship to one another?
Put it all together and...
In summary, we have at least three different symbols signifying some sort of repetition in Good Omens - the infinity loop, ouroboros and mobius strip. So, what might they mean? Why do you think it's been included, and so often? Even more importantly, have I missed any? There's endless details to be mined from this show, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are more.
I have a few theories, but nothing concrete yet, so I'm really interested in hearing everyone's ideas!
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yuurei20 · 27 days
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Hi! Thank you so much for all your hard work compiling these posts for us! I would like to ask, is there a compilation of information regarding the MC/ Yuu? I'm referring to stuff like where they get their money from or any random details mentioned about themselves/ their home (Eg in the new White rabbit fest we find out that they can play the bugle of all things??) We know things like how their home is modelled off of earth with halloween and football but is there more information about themselves/ their personality? Just curious
Hello hello!! Thank you for this question!
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Concerning the bugle: the prefect's ability to play instruments varies by dialogue option ^^
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The same situation arises in Harveston!
Depending upon which option you go with the prefect can be either an accomplished bugle-player and/or flautist or just as poor at instruments as everybody else, and neither option seems to have any impact on the story ^^
The game-prefect is possibly being kept an empty slate on purpose!
This might actually be easier for EN, where things like personal pronouns (watashi/ore/boku/etc) are all "I" and anata/kimi/omae/etc are all "you," while which you opt to use in Japanese can portray a lot of information about yourself and your relationship to the person with whom you are speaking.
(It is very interesting that you mention football! In the second novel Yuuya asks Crewel if Spelldrive is similar to soccer or football and, while he is familiar with soccer, Crewel says that he has never heard of football before.)
Here is a small compilation of current information that I have!
・"Is it ever shown how the MC refers to other people?" (twitter link)
・Ace and the Prefect (pt1)
・Ace and the Prefect (pt2)
・Has the Perfect ever given gifts?
・Could it be that Idia actually considers the prefect to be a friend?
・Do Leona consider mc/yuu as friend or just a normal classmate?
・Grim and the Prefect
・Crowley and the Prefect
・Is the Prefect really like a counselor for the overblotters?
・How many people know about Yuu is actually from the other world
・I was wondering what yuuya does during the OB battles?
・is there anything in the novels where Yuuya going into a club is brought up?
・Does Crowley give the MC any allowance?
・Does blot not harm Yuya?
・Does novel Leona treat Yuuya differently compared to the game?
・Compilation of Ace/Yuuya (novel) interactions
・when Yuuya arrived in Twisted Wonderland, did he instantly understand the language there?
・With regards to the difference between the game and light novel is Yuuya more prominent in the novel than Yuu in the games
・Reactions to the prefect
・do you have any idea as to why the novel Yuu has severe social anxiety as opposed to the other Yuus?
・...what do you think of the idea that the game's MC is a Will'O the wisps Fae...disguised as a human... (twitter link)
・Did the novel talk about the effects of blot on normal people without magic?
・Yuu the ghost?
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prince-liest · 3 months
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Ok so I know you haven't officially trans anyone's gender in any of your Hazbin fics, but I lowkey get really trans vibes from Alastor in most of your fics?
Idk, it's a little hard go explain but what really tipped me off was his... distaste? Disfavor? Aversion? To his "male body" in one of the 666 fics. (I think the line was something akin to "the male body being what it is" in reference to Alastor getting hard fairly quickly).
There's honestly a lot of interesting things to speculate in relation to how Alastor views his body. Especially with his relationship with touch, and how he initiates touch and how he actively dislikes it (depending on the person).
Not to mention his feelings regarding his non-human features. How he doesn't inherently dislike them for being what they are, or rather, that they're "abnormal", but more so that they're not what they're "supposed to be", and not "what he was before" (though I do think that his dislike of his deer features is linked to his dislike of how he died, being viewed as something so easy to be put down - an animal).
Which also relates to how dressed Alastor constantly is. How he shields away his body using clothing, a customizable thing that he takes great pride in making sure is up to his standards (notice how when his coat is damaged he immediately goes to get it fixed, even though the ends of his coat is already damaged. He seems to have very complex opinions on how, exactly, his coat is supposed to be damaged)
I do think that Alastor's preference to being so dressed is linked to his dislike of vulnerability, but I also think it's a very trans(tm) move, lol.
(And I also do think that his dislike of vulnerability is tied to his transness, kinda in a weird "chicken and egg" scenario.)
I find it really interesting how Alastor's true feelings are revealed by his shadow, a being that can transform to look different, is mostly hidden, and is internally mysterious. Idk, it's just very trans(tm) to me!
I also think that Alastor's transness is linked to how he views masculinity, how he seems to automatically like woman, while automatically disliking man. How this is also tied to his parents. I've noticed in your fics (and could be completely wrong about) that Alastor seems to relate femininity (and his mother) with "safety" (how he compares the gentle touch in your last fic with feeling like his mother and his like of jambalaya).
I'm not sure if I would say that Alastor is a trans woman, but I also wouldn't say he isn't. Overall I think he has a very complex view of gender, but it's definitely something he doesn't put a lot into. Which relates to him not knowing what asexuality is.
I have a lot more Alastor trans thoughts, but this ask is already getting pretty long so I'm just gonna cut it off here. I hope I made sense, and that you're comfortable with me speculating on a character you've written about gender. (Totally valid if you're not though! If so, then please disregard this ask!)
I'll take "asks that made me realize I'm out here accidentally writing a character as nonbinary" for 300, please! Please prepare yourself for the mistake of letting me have a keyboard and talk about gender after 9pm, so sorry to literally everybody else.
You're gonna get a real fuckin' kick out of the first bit of the next 666 that I'm gonna post tomorrow. ;) It's definitely the point where I finally acknowledged to myself that I have a strong urge to inject some genderfuckery into Alastor in the form of him continuing to use his thing with Vox to explore his own relationship with, like, existing in his own body, and then also threw those feelings all over Angel Dust like a fistful of glitter while I was at it.
Like you said, I wouldn't say that I've ended up writing him as a trans woman, but I think I have seen him from the start as a character who is not exactly cis in a wibbly-wobbly way I have not previously defined but that I think I would perhaps characterize as "gender: monster condescending to play at humanity."
I don't think he eschews masculinity entirely, for what it's worth. He definitely strikes me as a person who aligns himself with the image of a smiling gentleman (if a hellish one) as the proper way for a person like him to be, and for whom that is an important, comfortable, and satisfying part of both his identity and how he relates to both his female friends and to men. However, he also strikes me as someone for whom that part of his identity is what he shows the world on purpose, presented as he would like it to be seen, rather than as something that reflects his bodily preferences. To put it another way, if he'd been AFAB, I think he would put just as much into his presentation, just in the direction of femininity, and it wouldn't make him any more or less comfortable with himself.
You're right in that I've definitely written him with a faint distaste for the mundane physical reality of his body, and a lot of this comes through in how he alternates between short moments of fascination with what new things his body is doing as he explores it and decides whether or not he likes it, and his much longer moments of utter disregard for the same thing. It also extends to the rest of his mundane humanity, though: his physical limits, his adrenaline-rush of fear, etc. He values the coat, the cane, the reality-bending static, the smile - but whatever he sees in the mirror when he gets undressed or whatever doesn't function to his purposes, he can take or leave.
I see Alastor as someone who defines himself first and foremost as the radio demon: not a person, but a monster and an enigma. A voice and a personality. Everything else is more or less incidental, and he would prefer to keep it set aside, thank you. The occasional dysphoria isn't just about his sex, it's about the humanity of his body as a whole.
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prokopetz · 10 months
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My kind sir, I've clearly fucked up my previous attempt to explain what I thought someone else was saying, but: This stressing out function sure sounds like it'd do what you'd want to be able to do if your the sort of person who just wants to blow the heck up. Said person likely also has other explosive functions; that one is just - I blow up, and I'm no longer in the scene. Fetch me next one, since I'll be back.
(With reference to this post here.)
When it comes to evaluating the cost versus utility of abilities in a tabletop RPG, it's important to remember that, from the player's perspective, a character being removed from play even temporarily is a cost. It's arguably the most significant sort of cost that can possibly be imposed, insofar as it's a cost which imposes itself directly upon the player by removing their ability to participate in the game.
This means that occasions to make use of such an ability are likely to be rare for two reasons: first, because players are disinclined to use a ability when the benefit doesn't measure up to the cost (and the perceived cost of being removed from play is high), and second, because frequent removal from play naturally limits the player's ability to do anything, even if their character gets better later on.
Of course, you can offset the high perceived cost by making the effect of the ability very powerful, but that runs the risk of our ticking time-bomb of a character overshadowing everybody else; even if they don't use their self-annihilating "I win" button in a given situation, the knowledge that they could is going to warp everybody else's priorities.
This isn't to say that abilities which remove a character from play as a cost are impossible to work with. They're just a huge pain in the ass to get right, and they're so strongly self-limiting in terms of how frequently they're likely to come into play that it's rarely feasible to build a character around them.
Which brings us back to the central conceit of Eat God, where every player character is built out of exactly three rules toys. Asking someone to take up a third of their entire character sheet with the ability to blow themselves up isn't a winning play from a player engagement perspective, no matter how you implement it; either they use it rarely and a third of their character sheet is dead weight, or they use it frequently and spend most of the session removed from play. Neither is something I'm inclined to randomly inflict on a game.
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wing-dingy · 5 months
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Remember when I said I wasn't gonna post fanfics? I lied. I'm gonna post just this one as an excuse to have some Johnshi in my life but also because its rare I write a fic that isnt a self indulgent oc fic
This is just a lil fic where Kenshi comforts Johnny after a stunt on set leaves him with an injured ankle, mostly cute banter. Also sorry if the formatting looks weird, i dont normally post fics to tumblr so idk how to space my paragraphs like I do on google docs.
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Click. Step. Click. Step.
The Hollywood actor carried himself on his crutches across the room, from the door to his living room couch, where he saw Kenshi waiting in anticipation.
“Honey, I'm home,” Johnny announced in a parody of those old movies, how he loved his dumb movie references.
“Doesn't sound like good news. Are those crutches?” Kenshi asked, judging by the sound and the patterns of the sound. Though he usually relied on Sento for sight, he hardly ever felt the need to in a casual setting, so it rested in the mantle above the fireplace.
“Yeup. Doc says I'll need ‘em for a few weeks, a month at most.”
Kenshi crossed his arms and leaned back on the couch. “Was that stunt still worth it?”
Johnny snorted, “Totally, the shot came out perfect! You may not know this, but I do all of my own stunts. Impresses everybody when I tell them that!” He dropped a small paper bag of his prescribed painkillers on the coffee table and sat next to Kenshi, wincing as he lifted his ankle to rest it on the same table.
“Aren't stuntmen used so the real actors don't get hurt?”
“I mean- yeah. But don't worry, they're just gonna film everything else until I come back, which should be in no time. I'm just built different.”
Kenshi could just hear the cocky smile, causing him to shake his head in disbelief, but he couldn't hold back the small bit of laughter at Johnny’s pride and confidence. “Alright, but it looks like it's my turn to take care of you again.”
“Don't sweat it, Ken doll, I can take care of myself. You've already helped me enough, and you've got yourself to look after,” He noted all too seriously. Obviously there still rested some guilt in his heart over Mileena's rabid attack that day.
“That ankle needs to rest. That movie needs you and you need the money from it.” Undeniable. Johnny was still getting back on his feet (not literally now) after a messy and expensive divorce, he needed whatever work he could get at the moment. “You just let me know when you need something.”
Johnny sighed as he looked down at his injured ankle. These next few weeks were going to be the most boring while of his life.
Kenshi seemed to know Johnny wasn't feeling so good by the sudden quietness, not even a silly request from his offer. When Johnny of all people was quiet, there was a problem. “Johnny? You alright?”
“Yeah… I've just never been good at sitting still and doing nothing, you know? Now I can't even use my own pool in my living room,” He complained, as if having a pool in the living room was a normal thing.
“Come on, Johnny, you still have a whole mansion. Unless your attention span really is that small, you're not gonna get bored,” Kenshi lovingly poked at him. “It’s not like you're alone either.”
Johnny noded with a small smile of comfort. “That's right, I've got you, my best friend, boyfriend, and assigned FBI agent,” Johnny joked. Gods, not again with the assigned FBI agent meme. “And hey, maybe we can invite Kung Lao and Raiden over to hang out. You think Liu Kang would wanna drop by?”
Kenshi gave an amused smirk. “Probably not, but Kung Lao, might.”
Johnny looked down at the table again, spotting a marker. He groaned and wheezed as he leaned over to grab it, trying not to move his ankle off the table as his finger tips barely touched the marker.
“Johnny what are you-” Before he could finish his question, he felt a marker tapping against his hand.
“You wanna be the first to sign my cast?” Johnny offered, trying to play it off cool but his excitement was slipping past in his voice.
“You mean Hollywood’s megastar wants my autograph?” Kenshi teased. He took the marker into his hand, and Johnny guided his hand down to his cast. Confidently, Kenshi began writing his name.
“Not bad writing for someone who can't really see,” Johnny complimented, meaning it obviously and trying to make it sound like that rather than a mockery.
“I still know the motions of writing, that's enough to get by.” Of course Johnny hadn't seen Kenshi's messier writing at his job and maybe it should stay that way.
The real surprise was the small heart he drew right below his own name. Kenshi wasn't so into PDA, nor into cutesy stuff like that, so it caught Johnny off guard to see the small display. It wasn't like people didn't know they were dating, Johnny was way too into showing off their love and too loud to keep that secret, but it was rather that Kenshi was a more subtle lover when it came to their relationship, preferring to keep things behind doors. Still, it was a nice surprise, and at least now it made the cast way better to look at! Of course Johnny was already pulling out his phone to snap a photo of it to post to his socials.
“You're posting your cast, aren't you?” Kenshi reasonably accused.
“Gotta let the fans know production might be on hold.”
“Is that it? Or are you bragging about us again?”
Johnny snickered, meaning Kenshi was right. “Okay, you got me, but how can I not show you off? You're the coolest! A blind swordsman? Dating Hollywood's biggest hit? We're like a power couple!”
If Kenshi still had his eyeballs, he'd be lovingly rolling them, but admittedly it was kind of cute seeing how enthusiastic Johnny was about their relationship- and kind of funny to think about considering they were previously rivals over Sento.
Kenshi leaned in to press a kiss to Johnny's cheek, and he could feel the wrinkles of a smile under his lips. “Looks like you're feeling better about that ankle.”
“As long as I have you by my side, this injury is gonna be a breeze!” Now it was Johnny's turn to lean in, this time leaning to rest his head on Kenshi with closed eyes and a content smile. Kenshi reciprocated by wrapping an arm around Johnny to hold him. “Shit, that medicine they gave me is starting to catch up.”
“You get sleepy off of a couple Tylenols,” Kenshi playfully quipped, making Johnny laugh.
“Just saying it's a good excuse to nap on you! Unless you're gonna tele-fling me to bed again.”
Kenshi shook his head. “Maybe when your ankle isn't as broken. Right here is fine, just keep your ankle up.”
“Sweet,” Johnny happily murmured as he felt himself starting to doze off. Damn, Tylenol really did knock him out.
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redbayly · 4 months
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Had to do another rambling because some Antis got their panties in a twist.
After posting my very clearly tagged Zutara headcanons last night, I saw a post in the Zutara tag this morning where some Antis were ranting about their usual nonsense.
I would've just blocked and moved on, but something caught my attention about the post. I realized what they were talking about was very likely a reference to my post from last night.
I don't remember all the details (I did end up blocking them), but the crux of their complaint was that Zutara shippers steal Kataang dynamics or something. Specifically, they were calling out a recent post about Katara and Zuko traveling around helping people (which I talked a lot about in my post, so that's why I think it was me they were calling out) and that that is exclusively a Kataang thing that I stole and applied to Zutara. Also, someone in the comments had added that, if Zuko ever did go around helping people it would only be with Mai.
There was also a lot of whining about seeing Zutara stuff when they were looking for Kataang. As if I hadn't clearly tagged my post as Zutara and even used the word within the first few sentences to let the reader know what the post was about.
(For pity's sake, moderate your tags or skip over something with a tag you don't like! It's not difficult!).
But back to the main argument that Zuko and Katara wouldn't travel around helping people together and that that is exclusive to Kataang.
That is absolute bullshit.
First off, it was a headcanon of mine and I can headcanon what I damn well please (as can everybody else).
Secondly, what even is that argument they were making? Did they completely ignore the fact that both Zuko and Katara are good-hearted, helpful people who are trying to make the world a better place? We see numerous instances in canon of them helping others for the sole reason that it's just their nature to do so. In fact, if anything, they are more likely to seek out people to help out of pure altruism than Aang, who usually just sort of stumbles across people in trouble and helps because it's his job as Avatar.
(I'm not insulting Aang. I'm just saying that he's more likely to goof off and avoid getting involved in something if he thinks it's not serious enough, whereas Katara and Zuko are more likely to leap at opportunities to be helpful).
A third reason this is ridiculous is that Aang doesn't own a monopoly on doing good or helping the world. Zuko was already planning to make changes to heal the damage the Fire Nation caused. He's an "idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor." Do the Antis really think he would sit around on his ass while there are orphans to feed and towns to rebuild and justice to be restored? Also, why would Katara not be out there doing her all to help the world regardless of whether Aang is involved or not? Katara "never turns her back on people who need [her]" so I doubt she'd let anyone decide for her whether she travels around to fix people's problems.
I could go on and on about why this Anti-Zutara argument was stupid, but I've addressed the main points.
So, I'll say this one last time. If you dislike Zutara, read the damn tags and avoid the post you don't want to see. Don't whine about it and make up nonsensical arguments for your faux outrage. Leave Zutara shippers alone and let us have our headcanons.
You already got your ship in Bryke's canon. Just let us enjoy our headcanons in peace.
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clara-maybe-ontheroad · 8 months
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Little musings on Gap (Drake), Only Friends ep 1 & 7
It's probably been said by someone already, but I'm appreciating the fact that the superposition between Boston sleeping with Gap in the first episode and Nick jerking off to his phone was such an announcement of what was to come.
-> The voyeurism of Nick going through Boston's phone for his sexual pleasure while (we now know) Boston was being filmed against his consent for Gap's sexual pleasure.
-> The revelation that this isn't just a one off and that Gap actually has a career with filming guys he has sex with and putting it on the Internet as porn.
Which begs the question though : was any of that first interaction between Boston and Gap real ? In episode 1, Gap says he has a boyfriend but that boyfriend lets him play with strangers sometimes. It's entirely possible that it's true, but in episode 7 we also learn that Gap has put so many sex tapes online that he isn't surprised that someone like Mew might recognize him from "his work".
(as an aside, I've talked in previous posts about how much "work" and "services" seem to almost exclusively refer to sex in this show, the trend continues)
Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if Gap lied to Boston in that first encounter, because everybody in this show and in real life lies, and also because he probably saw what would make him more exciting to Boston : being taken, unavailable, technically belonging to someone else yet wanting him. We all know that's Boston's type, and maybe Gap could tell. Gap was putting the ground work to see if Boston was daring enough and would make a good subject for his videos.
Edit : turns out I was misremembering and potential threesome guy wasn't Gap, so no lying on Gap's part there. Still though, the rest of the lying stands since Boston didn't know about the camera ; and maybe Gap justifies it to himself thinking that since he has a presence online, if people approach him it's their responsibility to know ? Or not his problem
Does Gap know who is going to put on the Internet and who he's going to keep for himself ? I don't know, but it seems like he didn't actually release the video with Boston, he tried to use the fact that he had it to get more sex out of him.
The show treats it as a bit of a bleep in Mew's revenge scheme, but we do see how many folders Gap has on his computer of sex tapes. A lot.
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Btw love how P'Jojo has to insert himself into everything haha, after the Twitter account now the sex tape folder
How many of these people knew they were being filmed ? How many didn't ? How many that didn't had their faces hidden in the shadow ? The example of Boston Vs Mew seems to suggest that when they do know, Gap's partners often prefer to have their face hidden in the shadows, while someone like Boston who is in the dark (ah) about what's happening will show their face on camera unknowingly.
Would that make those videos more valuable to Gap ? Collecting faces of men who didn't consent ?
The show does treat what Gap did as something had, but it's mostly there so Mew can have its revenge moment of threatening to Boston but keeping the moral high ground, showing he's better than everyone.
But the show is telling us everyone's moral standards are in the gutter. No one is truly shocked at Gap's behaviours, and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any consequences to that. It's just going to be a bump on the road, because there are shitty people everywhere like that.
And as said in other posts, the low level to high key shittiness of absolutely everyone in this show is what's making it gold.
(this is not high degree meta so I don't know if it's worthy of the ephemerality squad but I'd love to hear more thoughts on the Gap situation or to be pointed to more posts already written about him so tagging @waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @distant-screaming @neuroticbookworm @chickenstrangers @thatgirl4815 @wen-kexing-apologist )
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punkeropercyjackson · 30 days
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If Zutara is a feminist ship then it's absolute bottom of the barrel feminism SORRY like it's so downlow💀Katara's a fem girl with parentification trauma and open softness and Zuko's a masc dude who turned into a Team Dad to heal his inner child and break the cycle of abuse and high up walls so they're already a cisheteronormative ship based off that alone but there's also how while Zuko made up for what how he hurt Katara,his attacks and insults to her were racially motivated and that adds a thick layer of racialized misogyny AND directly goes against Katara's wishes to force Zuko onto her because she fought for a loooong time to break the mold of womanhood should only exist in 'what girls are SUPPOSED to be like' and frankly the emphasis on supposed 'realism' when it comes to girls and Zutara said by the shippers so often has transmisogyny underlaying it,if not then at least bioessentialism,with how cis and exclusive of unconventional girlhood it is and it dosen't help their case that they often feminize Toph when she gets older when in CANON she stayed gnc and ruthlessly talk badly of Aang because he's a boy who's feminine and gets hurt when bullied for it in-universe and he has a fucking right to even if he's cis!!!!They're making fun of him for being himself!'Fragile masculinity' my ass,if you saw a stud or a non-fully transitioned transfem you'd hurl and he thinks Katara's punk girl slay is the hottest shit ever and showed hints of crushing on Toph's butch ass too
But back on topic,this is why i can't stand Zutara man,there's nothing for me to relate to!I'm a punk femme woc like Katara and i headcanon her as trans,bi and autistic like me because i relate to her in some very important ways(though i hc her as transfem while i'm transmasc bigender)and this is also a big part of the appeal of Kataang for me because i'm the girl who had a crush on Aang instead of Zuko Zutara shippers always told you don't exist and i loved Taang because i was rowdy tomboy like Toph but i never had a beef with Kataang,i didn't see anything wrong with it!!!I minded my own damn bussiness and let Katara just vibe instead of making her some evil bitch!And while i'm in love with Zuko now thanks to the comics going into the Gaang's adult years,my canon self-insert ship with him is him and Ty Lee because i'm a super bubbly and optimistic pastel girl who's interests are considered 'stupid/silly/lame' by society and is high maintenance but nice to everybody instead of demanding and it turns out that me as a kid and me now are those ways due to autism and transgenderism!!!!
Zutara does nothing for the woc in me because Katara dosen't look like me since i'm black,i love her and Zuko as bickering found siblings,i have older sister/maternal feelings towards Aang like Zuko does older brother/fatherly ones,i see Mai as a comphet (trans) lesbian but love Maiko because she's weirdgirl rep and Zuko's in love with her and there's also black etchnic subgroups in each nation confirmed in Turf Wars so i don't got anything stopping me from making an Atlasona instead of ruining characters and dynamics!!!!!Zutara is such a less than nothing ship if you're 'not a normal girl' and the fandom's make it beyond crystal clear how they feel about us so that's why i hate it so much in addition to what ass is is!The only thing Z/k's were 'robbed' of is the ability to get a grip,a boyfriend,friends who think they're goddesses platonically like mine do to me and me them and media literacy seeing as Atla's title refers to Aang being the sole survivor of a genocide based off an irl one but they will do everything and anything to remove that out of the context in analysing him and the franchise as a whole
And not to diverge topics again but this is why i'm okay with shaming and mocking Zutara re Natla(and no i don't mean harrasing,i mean og posting)by me and anybody else,they deadass SHOWED PART OF THE AIR NOMAD GENOCIDE and ALSO ADDED 'TOKEN GOOD' FIRE NATION SOLDIERS and it's so beyond fucking racist and disturbing that they're trying to do any gotcha or praise of it involving their military war ship.You's grown and Zuko loves Aang the most anyway,you normie losers
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