#not for the gay i mean for posting the same picture every damn time

[serashalala]

Wings for a Tail || Elina x Nori

This fic is brought to you by:

@twbmccevent

Today, Elina lays on one of the wider reefs, the surface wide enough to support her weight. She lies still, facing up, and her eyes look longingly at the surface of the water where the sky rests. The girl, once a fair, now a mermaid, can’t help but feel a sort of melancholy.

She’d lost her wings, a year ago today. Elina had been counting. 

While the people of Mermaidia had been more than welcoming to their new resident, it didn’t sit right with her. She loves the tail, it’s beautiful, but she wasn’t a mermaid. She’s a fairy.

For so long, she’d longed for wings, and she’d gotten them. 

She’d lost them, though. For a tail.

While she mourns the loss of her wings, she wouldn’t change it for the world. She would always decide to sacrifice them to save Mermaidia. Or maybe that’s not quite it. Maybe it wasn’t Mermaidia on its own. 

Saving Mermaidia had been collateral, she thinks. 

Elina is a good person, but even she had some extent to her selfishness. That much of self-awareness is warranted, after having spent a year wondering what made her decide that it was worth losing her wings.

“Elina!” She hears from a distance.

She sits up, and she looks away from the blue sky to take a glance at who had called her. She sees someone just as worthy as the sky she’d lost. The fairest trade, just as beautiful as the clouds she’d owned, once upon a time, and just as wonderful as air.

Swimming towards her is Nori. 

Elina smiles back, and she waves. Nori speeds up to greet her, and she circles around Elina playfully, as if in greeting. 

This prompted Elina to giggle. Nori had been fond of skinship, since they’d grown closer. This included the playful taps of the tail, and embraces, and her head on Elina’s shoulder.

And just like now, when Nori would sink to her side, leaving little to no space between them. Elina had grown accustomed to it, had even grown to love it, even. 

“What brings you here, Nori?” Elina asks, and she can’t help but draw her eyes to the sky. Still, she’s sat up.

Nori hums. “I could ask the same to you,” She says, but she grabs Elina by the chin and tilts it down to face her. There’s a sad smile on her face. “But I already know.” Nori’s voice is soft. 

Her hand returns to her side, 

Elina feels herself mourn at the loss of it too. But that doesn’t last long when Nori rests her head against the crook of her neck. “Elina,” She starts, but before she can continue, Elina cuts her off.

“No, Nori. It’s okay. I’m okay.” She insists voice amused. “I’m okay, Nori.” She repeats.

She could tell that the mermaid wasn’t convinced. 

“I know what today is, Elina." Nori tells her, like she's sharing her grief. "If I could, I’d give you back your wings.” Nori says, and she sounds sorry. Apologetic. “I wouldn’t have you sacrifice your wings, not when that damn fruit wouldn’t have worked.” There’s a heavy sigh.

“Nori,” Elina says. She shifts her weight, pushing onto her side so that Nori is prompted to shift her position. She faces the blue haired mermaid, and she holds both of her hands. 

Elina looks down, seeing the hands in hers. Elina is not a mermaid, not when her hands are much smoother, much more different than Nori’s scaled ones. Elina doesn’t have her own scales, yet, but she can feel them growing in the longer she’s a mermaid. She feels herself entranced by the blue scales on her skin, shimmering. It almost looks like the sky. No. It does remind her of the sky.

She looks up at Nori, her blue eyes staring back at her green ones. Elina smiles, and she raises her hand towards Nori’s cheek. 

Elina feels Nori lean towards the hand, and she feels the small bouts of scales over her cheek. “I wouldn’t change anything for the world.” She says.

It was Nori, above it all. Even the sky.

#serashalala writes #barbie mermaidia #barbie fairytopia #barbie elina x nori #they are so fucking gay your honor #im so sorry for my followers #not for the gay i mean for posting the same picture every damn time #but im chasing clout for my team so suck it up /lh

[thrashkink-coven]

I was debating even making a post about this because I’m not sure if anyone will believe me, but fuck it who cares.

My bf, some friends and I went to this gay dance party at a bar tonight. It was really fun, very good vibes. My friend was sitting at a table all the way in the back of this pub and beside him were these really really old books. They were decrepit, falling apart at the seams. Mostly just dictionaries and encyclopedias. I don’t think they’re regularly handled (obviously because it’s a bar and there were people dancing instead of reading books) I think they were for decor.

And? Idk why but I got the strong urge to open one up and read it. This encyclopedia thing called the World Book from A to Bee or something along those lines. Anyways, I open this book to a random page and there lying in, the first thing I read: “Astarte”

And a short definition on the meaning and origin of the Goddess. I almost felt compelled to take a picture but I didn’t wanna have to explain why I was taking a picture of the book- you get it. It was just a little thing that made me go “oh wow”, but I left it at that.

Until I flipped the page again, and what do I see? “Amon, Amun-Re”

I know that’s not like mind blowing but it surprised me as soon as I saw it. Just coincidentally two Gods that I happen to work with. These are books filled with hundreds of words across hundreds of categories. They aren’t about religion or deities. Just an interesting coincidence.

So I start poking around the other books and notice there was another edition of the same encyclopedia, this one was for the letter H.

2 times shame on me. I can accept silly coincidences but 3 times? That’s a sign.

The first thing I read in this book, “Hecate”.

Okay…

I shut the book and shuffle to a random page again, “Hel” and then again, “Helios”

Seriously. I need to stress again that these are not books about religion or mythology. These are just hundreds of definitions of seemingly random words from Hamburger to Hawaii. On nearly every page I flipped to there was a God I worked with.

“Hermes” was last of all, and this was very interesting to me. Hermes has dodged me in the past, he very blatantly rejected me and I think he probably had good reasons for that. I might just not be at the point in my life to work with him “professionally” just yet, but I do give him grace and worship his divinity, even if he’s not in my tool belt. I admire him. The definitions the books provided were pretty in depth and I actually learned something about each God when I read them, except Hermes, it said “See Mercury, referencing the “M” edition of the encyclopedia, but that edition was not present at the bar. A and H were the only two encyclopedias there. Huh.

I honestly considered asking the staff if I could buy the books but I didn’t wanna be weird or annoy them and my social anxiety got the best of me.

It’s just wild to me that I randomly got the urge to read these books at this bar of all places… flip to these very specific pages… and see those names. Like… I actually don’t know what to say. That was so wild. Damn.

#magick #witchcraft #occultism #pagan #demonology #paganism #witch community #witch aesthetic #witchblr #grimoire #hellenic devotion #devotee #deity work #deity witchcraft

[sn4pozu]

how Richard Trager uses Instagram (yes, he would use Instagram):

this is Pre-Engine Rick because realistically post-engine Rick would have other things to worry about besides instagram

30 stories a day, from dawn till dawn again this man is addicted to the layout

doesn't use stickers because hes a grown man BUT HE DOES HAVE A BITMOJI THAT HE USES RELIGIOUSLY

its half office reels, half food pics, and a quarter just rants

overuses tags to hell, even randomly mid sentence , example: "#Amazing day today at @MurkoffOfficial ! this #Work ain't doin itself 📋��👍🏻 #Workday #Monday #Officeday #ADayInMyLife #Job"

sometimes thinks that Murkoff should totally have a social media account, he knows its dumb but he cant help wanting more followers 😔

"Suns out guns out! #Sunday with my bud @JeremyBlaireOfficial" and its a picture of them in a golf cart holding champagne (not gay, just besties)

Not to sneak in my RickJer agenda but in my minds eye they signed eachothers golf clubs

tags the location if he could he would

username is something obnoxious like 'RichardTragerOfficial' like nobody know u lil bro 😭😭😭

buys likes and followers to feed his ego

4k followers thats like 85% bots

" @McDonaldsOffical Never fails 😂😂😂 #hangovermeal #NoRegrets" and its a fish fillet with the most inhuman bite you've ever seen taken out of it

WOULD POST A SWEATY GYM MAT AND TAG THE GYM AND IT'D HAVE A DUMB CAPTION LIKE "Workout Wednesdays! 🏋🏼‍♂️💪#Wednesday #Gym #Exercise #GymPic #Muscles" HE LACKS SELF AWARENESS DONT LAUGH

would 'ironically' comment "Hot! 🔥🔥🔥" on a mans gym pic and would slutshame a womans gym butt pic

"he hurts every woman hes ever met because his true soulmate is a man" - Sock-rates

he would unironically use hashtags in a sentence for fun, also urges Jer to be more active on Instagram

imagine the most white grown man, now add curly blonde hair, uhuh now give him a gay sweater, now make him homophobic & gay, yep .thats him officer

HAS gotten scammed on instagram, he threathened legal action and got his money back and deleted their account after a week tho

weekday streaks exist to him, no hes not a middle schooler hes actually 30

look at me in the eyes and tell me he wouldn't make fun of feminism in the comments section of those LibzDunked accounts

his Close Friends stories are just aftermaths after nights out, its either him drunk posting or filming himself talking to the camera about his hangover

its just Jer and a few other friends but it has the same intimacy of homosexuality

theres one video where hes drunk and actually tripped and fell so comically its been 7 months and Jer still makes fun of him for it (laughs along but actually hates it like viscerally)

he has 3 phones, both iphones and one is a samsung flip (he wanted the hype), a work phone, home phone, and his normal phone, why does he need so much? why is he not robbed yet? we will never know....

replies to those awareness posts about war in the middle east and goes like "damn.. thats unfortunate 💔 hearts goes out to them 🙏 @Chriswalker89"

most menacing instagram white man, cyberbullies as a past time and has 5 alts just focused on Harrassment+ Stalking people

he'd doxx which hospital your mother is staying in with no shame

"If you don't take that back I'm injecting your mothers spine with brain eating parasites" and he means that for real

would post corny atheist memes & misinformation

induces paranoia as a hobby "Yes ma'am i am a licensed doctor vaccines Do cause autism" as a treat

he fucks around too much one day his main gets suspended and he calls Instagram customer services

if you wouldn't think he'd try to hook up with an instagram influencer you are a liar

weekly self-help book recommendations that he doesn't read and actually just gets payed 7$ per link

im not saying he would make an alt to just hype up his own photos but he would.....do that.....

also gets blackmailed his own dick pic but whatever that was in the past

on a side note Jeremy does have a year old instagram account that only has 2 pictures (both just bar pics of him posing with a glass of wine like an idiot) and his entire Tagged section is just RICHARD TAGGING HIM IN ANYTHING

#richard trager #outlast #outlast fandom #outlast whistleblower #jeremy blaire #they are homophobic and gay #the straightest gay people

[mariaofdoranelle]

Wedding Break

Masterlist

I really hope you’re in a modern royalty/runaway bride mood today

Warnings: only language I think

Word count: 2,1k

~~~~~~~~~~

“Which Whitethorn do you think is the hottest?” Aelin said a millisecond before shoving her phone on Aedion’s sight.

Her cousin playfully slapped her hand away. “Shouldn’t you be preparing for your speech?”

“It’s either this or hearing about carbon monoxide one more time for you.”

As beautiful as Queen Maeve’s castle was with its tiny streams and walls of pale stone, Aelin just wanted to fast-forward to when she actually got to do her first official task, or at least forget about it until it was time. For someone who have begged for a more active role in the government for years, she was feeling too much like a deer in the headlights.

Muttering something unintelligible to himself, Aedion zoomed in the picture with everyone from the House of Whitethorn and quickly assessed it.

“Tattooed Whitethorn.”

Aelin looked at the picture and bit her lip. “Agreed. I think his name is Ronan or something.”

“They could’ve picked this one for you to marry.”

Frowning, she asked, “What do you mean?” Aelin knew she’d have to marry someone eventually, but she didn’t even like to think about the nightmare it would be. Being crown princess, every formal step of her love life needed to be approved by her dad and the Royal Council, and she had enough battles of her own with them for now.

Aedion cackled, not sensing her distress or maybe because of it. “Didn’t you open Twitter today? The tabloids are saying you’re engaged with Prince Endymion.”

Gaping at her cousin, she was somewhere between laughing and frowning at this new piece of information. “Isn’t he gay? I know we both dated Dorian.”

“I’m pretty sure he is, too.” A beat. “God, I wonder how they came up with this one.”

They kept scrolling on their respective couches, sometimes chatting about things they saw online, but something about this rumor was bothering her. Aelin blocked her phone and rubbed the back of her neck, brows creased in thought. This wasn’t the first, neither would be the last false rumor about her love life. It was so common she didn’t mind anymore. What was irking Aelin was where their attention was. She was here to bring attention to carbon monoxide. Greenhouse effect. Global warming. Not to have her outfits and love life scrutinized by Doranelle’s tabloids.

Aelin cleared her throat, gathering Aedion’s attention.

“Don’t you think these rumors kinda undermine the real reason I’m here? It makes people forget the purpose of my trip and—“

“You know you’re only here because Rhoe’s boys’ club don’t give a fuck about the environment, right?”

Aelin flinched, hating how sometimes Aedion could see right through her. He straightened his posture and gave a long-suffering sigh.

“I’m sorry, Ace. It’s hard to get over this. You keep running around the castle, waiting for kernels like a damn pet—“

“I’m not a pet!” Aelin shouted, tired of having the same argument with Aedion for the millionth time.

He raised both hands in surrender and left, banging the ancient wooden door.

With a pounding heartbeat, Aelin got up and started pacing around the room. He would never get it. If she couldn’t get her voice heard in the council because of her position as crown princess, Aelin would work until she earned that spot. And it was already happening. Her dad put her in charge of Terrasen’s environmental policies as a 21st birthday gift, and there she was. Months later, only beginning to kick ass with her new task.

Aelin did a quick breathing exercise to calm herself down, too consumed by these thoughts, the gossip, her fight with Aedion and probably every single moment of the past months that led her to this. Aelin couldn’t post online without her PR’s approval, so she decided to ask Nox, the head of the team, to deny the rumors on social media. He saw her text almost immediately and left it on read, but Aelin’s shoulders still dropped in relief by the sight of it. He’d fix it soon.

~~

Doranelle’s weather was so hot Aelin took her first cold bath in months, and it was as refreshing as it could be. Honestly, she felt like a new woman, or at least in a new day. She had a tiny headache and her jaw felt sore, but it was fine. She was fine. If Aelin didn’t think about today’s previous events, she wouldn’t feel any kind of residual anger or bitterness. If she was still mad. Because she obviously wasn’t.

Choosing a pale blue dress for lunch, Aelin was finishing her makeup when her mom barged into the room.

“Why are you dressed up so early? Lunch is in more than an hour.”

Aelin sighed, feeling the weight of her shoulders quickly come back. “I needed the bath.”

Evalin smiled at her. “You look gorgeous, honey.”

Just like that, her mother’s words felt like sunshine making its way through dark clouds. Aelin beamed up at her mom, proud of herself because—

“But what happened to your hair? You can’t have lunch with the Whitethorns looking like this.”

Aelin’s cheeks burned, but she held her chin high to answer her mother. “I saw it on TikTok and decided to try. Everyone’s wearing it, it’s really no big deal.”

She gently caressed her daughter’s hair and held her chin for emphasis. “Not everyone is Terrasen’s heir, dear.” Evalin made a show of analyzing Aelin’s hairstyle before saying, “It looks interesting, just make sure the royal family doesn’t see you in it, okay?”

Nodding, she just let her mother talk her ears off until the endless reminders about that visit ended. When Evalin was about to leave, Aelin reminded of something.

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?” Evalin asked from the threshold of Aelin’s assigned bedroom.

“Can you ask Nox to deny my engagement rumors? I asked him too long ago and maybe he forgot.” Both of them knew this was a nice way of putting that the PR team was busy, and Aelin’s requests weren’t a priority.

The sight of Evalin taking a deep breath and coming back in, closing the door, was enough to give Aelin heart palpitations. But nothing prepared her to what she’d hear next.

“Fireheart, I’m afraid your engagement rumors are true.”

Just like that, Aelin’s body, mind, her whole world came to a halt.

No, they weren’t. They couldn’t be. Aelin started feeling light-headed and leaned the palm against the wall. Her mom had promised that when the time came, they’d make the decision together. They’d let Aelin choose.

“You’re joking.”

“I know you’re upset now, but you know Terrasen’s going through a crisis, and Queen Maeve was kind enough to—“

“What about you letting me choose?” She shouted.

Evalin took a deep breath and plastered a forced smile on her face. “Like I was saying, we reached another countries too, to give you a choice, but Queen Maeve had a better offer, so—“

“So you sold me to the highest bidder! Is that it?”

Her mother’s silent confirmation made Aelin shut her eyes closed, a poor attempt to keep her tears at bay.

“When are we going back? I need to speak with dad,” Aelin said in a strained tone.

“We’re staying until the wedding, which will be in less than three months. He’ll come to the ceremony, though.” Evalin’s voice sounded more gentle now, but Aelin couldn’t see her expression because of the tears blurring her vision. She just heard her mother’s heeled footsteps and the sound of the door closing.

Aelin’s muscles went limp, so she collapsed on the floor, leaning against the wall, and didn’t bother doing any exercises to control her quick breathing.

It was hard to feel time moving when she was overwhelmed with so many questions running through her head. How could her family do this behind her back? Since when was this going on? Was her first assignment just a ruse to bring her to Doranelle?

With a caved-in chest, Aelin probably looked miserable crumbled on the floor like this. She felt too tired to do anything, but what got her up was the thought of what would her mother say if she saw Aelin’s tear-stained make up. Still, cleaning herself up sent a spark of something through her veins.

Maybe, if she talked to her father, they could figure out another way together. Aelin knew part of being queen was abdicating, but maybe they could meet halfway in this. Finishing her new makeup, Aelin held her chin high as she made her choice.

She was going back to Terrasen to talk with her father.

Leaving her bedroom, it was easy to get lost in this castle’s long halls. She had no idea how one place could be so open and look so much like a labyrinth at the same time. However, Aelin released a small breath in relief by the sight of what looked like a small gate.

The guard curtsied. “Your Highness. Good afternoon.”

And did nothing more.

After a few stretches of silence, she said, “Can you open this for me, please?”

His hand hovered over his earpiece as he asked, “Where to?”

“Out.” Aelin said through gritted teeth.

“I’m afraid you can’t leave this wing of the castle without an escort, ma’am.”

What the fuck? “Are you serious?”

Aelin didn’t bother hearing what he had to say, her ears were ringing as she stomped her way back to her bedroom. This had Evalin written all over it. So typical of her mother to treat Aelin like a ticking bomb whenever she got angry, like her own daughter was a situation that needed to be handled. She was so tired of this bullshit.

Aelin couldn’t cross a gate? Awesome. She’d make her own fucking gate to cross.

After getting back and slamming her bedroom’s door, Aelin quickly noted that her easiest way to the outside was a tree that was too short to jump from her balcony. She looked down, studying the sight. But if Aelin could get to the balcony underneath hers... She’d have perfect leverage to get to the tree.

Not thinking twice, Aelin ripped the mattress from her dull guest bedroom and wrapped it around her balcony’s ornate iron railing. Holding on the handrail for dear life, she crossed to the outer side of the barrier, and managed to find balance with half of her feet touching the rest of the balcony’s floor she had. She could feel the wind hitting her back and hear some hawks screeching far from her, but she couldn’t let fear paralyze her. Aelin took one last deep breath.

And then she jumped.

Aelin felt like her heart was free-falling, or maybe that was because she was free-falling herself. However, the gust of wind felt good for just one second, until her forehead hit the building, making her curse this city one more time. Why was this castle made of stone?

Noticing she was still depending on that short mattress to live, Aelin angled her body and swayed it enough to land inside the downstairs balcony.

Feeling every bone in her body ache from that crash, she only gave herself a few seconds to rest while analyzing that tree. She just needed to figure out the best angle to climb on that branch and—

“What the hell are you doing?”

A tall, green-eyed man was staring at her with furrowed eyebrows. He was dressed casually, with sweatpants and a black t-shirt that emphasized the ink that ran down his left arm. The same muscled, tattooed arm that gave her very improper thoughts earlier today. Somehow, the photos didn’t do Roman Whitethorn justice. Or something. God, why couldn’t she get his name right?

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” He insisted, and Aelin just realized she was staring blankly at him. Her scheming abilities let her come up with a plan in the seconds that took her to get up and straighten her posture.

She curtsied. “I’m so sorry for the disturbance, Your Highness. I’m working, and I need to retrieve something from this tree. Now if you’ll excuse me—“

“Wait. What’s your name?” As serious as he tried to school his expression, the prince’s eyes were twinkling with amusement, and Aelin wondered why.

“Celaena,” she let the lie slip through her lips not for the first time, but this situation specifically left her feeling her pulse go a mile a minute.

He hummed. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

A/N: I have some sequel ideas, let me know what you think!

Edit: Now I’m definitely continuing this and here’s a snippet of what’s to come

HERE’S PART 2 and I’ll make a masterlist soon I promise

TAG LIST

@autumnbabylon

@courtofjurdan

@elentiyawhitethorn

@leiawritesstories

@rowanaelinn

@thegreyj

#rowaelin #throne of glass fanfiction #aelin galathynius #rowan whitethorn #aelin x rowan #throne of glass au #modern royalty au #runaway bride

[whydoiwrite]

Hey, I just saw the picture you posted of Sonnett and kelley, with the tagline about when Sonnett used to flinch when Kelley would touch her.

Idk if you’re taking requests, but that would be a fun thing to explore. Like how far they’ve come.

How bout a ficlet? If you want more, I'm not saying no, because Kelley's goal might could do it. Just not tonight.

She doesn’t know when it happened. When she stopped trying to avoid Kelley’s touch and accepted the fact that though uncomfortable, it was inevitable. When she realized she actually wanted Kelley to touch her. When she started to initiate touch, too (not for herself, mind you, but for the spunky ball of energy who somehow manages to turn the fire down just a tad when she slides that captain band on). Kelley’s just so damn touchy, it almost seemed like not reciprocating might offend her. Meet her where she is. Doesn’t matter if she’s ahead or behind, just meet her there, Emily told herself, except for a long, long time, that was easier said than done because it was Kelley.

Kelley, who can have a whole conversation without ever saying a damn word. 

Who brushes Emily’s arm as she laughs at a dig that Rose very much deserves.

Who wipes the sweat from her legs and neck during hydration breaks even though there’s really no point.

Who gently guides her through a crowd with a hand on the small of her back and roughly pulls her into photos via headlock.

Who squeezes her shoulder reassuringly in the locker room at the half of most National Team games, because Kelley knows Emily’s time will come, and she also knows how hard it is to wait. 

Who does it because what she wants - more than she wants someone complimenting the accuracy of her long balls or making her chocolate chip cookies so just this once, she doesn’t have to be the one in the kitchen - is to be shown the affection she wasn’t allowed growing up maybe gay/maybe straight/maybe it’s just a phase. So what she still can’t ask for, for different reasons now, she gives to Emily, the one she sees herself most in. And she hopes that one day, Emily will read her mind and understand all of it, return the unspoken feelings, be the one who reinforces what Kelley keeps trying to remind herself - it’s ok for her to ask for what she wants, to need something or someone and to say it aloud.

But for now, Kelley knows no better way to show all those feelings she can’t verbalize than to touch her. Maybe sometimes with a few thousand people around.

So Emily does something she hates, or used to hate (she doesn’t hate it anymore), because it’s Kelley.

She unlearns the same lessons as the pride of Georgia (as Kelley never lets her forget, dropping the “youngest voted into the Sports Hall of Fame” at least every coupla months) once did. It’s a little slow, a little late for Emily’s exes, but just in time for Kelley.

She learns not to hide the person who brings her joy. Or her own feelings.

Learns to lean into the arm around her waist in the post-training huddle.

Learns what it means to feel secure and safe, even if some of that safety comes from the fact that Kelley has a girlfriend, and that fact cuts Emily a lot of slack in the public eye.

But for now, that’ll do. Maybe it’ll do forever. See, Emily doesn’t even remember when she fell in love with Kelley. No one ever really tells you that you should be paying attention to dates in those early moments, and it’s a little hard to remember anything else when you’re actively trying to ignore butterflies. But it was somewhere in between Kelley’s comment on her IG post:  “You look cute in 💜” and her own surprise that she kept under wraps for awhile: “Merry Christmas, I was traded to the Spirit!” Somewhere between finding herself and learning to love herself. Somewhere from across the ocean. Sometime after that voice in her head warned her it was a bad idea and the thumping in her chest told her not to bother fighting it.

[firsttarotreader]

they keep insisting they never call him gay, that they think he’s just queer, yet every single time someone brings up something that has to do with him and women they attack whoever posts it and then they discredit it. even if what they say is a fucking lie. like omg i can’t believe it.

fam, he likes thirst posts from girls too. he liked that fucking clit instagram post. he had a picture of a man and a woman having sex in his dressing room. he’s clearly into both and idk why y’all can’t admit it??? unless you’re biphobic of course. why do y’all have to bring up unrelated shit no one cares about to keep discrediting every instance of him being into women?

And there’s this false comparison that the fans who believe he’s into all genders do the same as they do and deny his attraction to men instead, when seriously, who is doing that? “All genders” include men. 😅 Saying he seems to like girls is not the same as saying he is straight, yet that’s exactly what they say it means. Damn, it’s like a broken record in this fandom, I’ve lost count of how many times I said that! 🤣🤣🤣

Dumb as fuck! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Gonna repost the pic proving it’s inside his dressing room just because I know these ppl are here on my blog all day. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[carmensbroom]

I've once again had 6 hours to process everything I saw in season 4 so I'm just gonna say my thoughts on it (hold onto your fedoras again folks)

first off, WE FOUND OUT GRAY'S LAST NAME?? I was so shocked and happy at the same time I love how everyone asked for player's real name and we ended up with gray's surname for some reason shsjsj. NOBODY ASKED FOR THAT BUT THEY DELIVERED ANYWAY

ALSO GRAHAM IS AN ORPHAN?? my precious boy *throws mommy's boy headcanon out the window*

the second episode really had me shipping carmivy they're so cute we got a girl's trip and I'm all for it

I think I may now be a dash haber stan but let's not make a big thing of it

also ivy eating the chocolate in the middle of a mission deserves an honorable mention because of her cute little tongue (I'm weird okay djsjsjs)

zack trying to bond with shadowsan and him having none of it was delightful

that fucking robot god damn bellum really thought of everything didn't she every time I thought it was gone it made a come back I literally said out loud "carmen is so fucked"

I SWEAR TO GOD EVERY TIME GRAY TALKED ABOUT CARMEN I KEPT THINKING HE WAS GONNA SAY "BECAUSE I LOVE HER" IN WHICH CASE I WOULD HAVE DIED AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY

yall have no idea how relieved I was when I found out that photo of julia was her and her (presumably) mother and NOT a boyfriend sjsjsjs

catch me making a headcanon that julia has a single mom because her father disowned her for coming out as gay based on that picture alone 😭

I'M SORRY BUT THE AMOUNT OF FLIRTING BETWEEN CARMEN AND JULES?? PLEASE THEY'RE SECRET GIRLFRIENDS JUST ADMIT YOU CENSORED THEM AND GO

OKAY BUT WHEN THEY WERE IN JULIA'S OFFICE AND CARMEN SAID "WAY TO FOLLOW YOUR HEART JULES" AND SHE WAS LIKE "YOU REMEMBERED" I LOST IT WHAT DID CARMEN REMEMBER JULES?? DID THEY HAVE A CONVERSATION OFF SCREEN? MAYBE I'M JUST A BIG HUGE LESBIAN BUT THAT'S A BIT GAY LADIES

carmen getting all worried when julia wasn't answering her phone was the blessed gay content I signed up for PLEASE THEY CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER SO MUCH

never thought I'd say this but I loved devineaux this season he was funny, he improved his treatment towards julia (I don't recall him officially apologising I must have missed something djsjsjs)

the only thing I didn't like was it kinda seemed like they were trying to hint that chase and jules were into each other and I didn't really vibe with that

all that shit with dr bellum and the crown for cleo really had me thinking cleobellum was gonna be canon what a clown I am (seriously tho the way she lost it when the crown got stolen GIVE IT BACK IT BELONGS TO HER WIFE)

look all I'm saying is: tigress new outfit in the egypt episode was hot

HER FACE AT THE END AFTER SHE GOT TRAPPED WITH ALL THOSE BUGS

I wish julia and gray could have met there's so much friendship potential there 😭

is player... is he a bit 💅 I SEE THAT PRIDE STICKER ON YOUR LAPTOP YOUNG MAN YOU'RE NOT SUBTLE

ngl I nearly teared up when player finally met carmen in person

I'M SORRY BUT JULIA'S BLUSH IN EPISODE 7 PLEASE SHE'S SO SMITTEN WITH CARMEN IT'S BRILLIANT

EVIL CARMEN WAS REALLY SOMETHING ELSE I WAS SO SCARED SHE'D BE STUCK LIKE THAT FOREVER

I mentioned this in another post but when julia was like "don't you remember me? I'm your girlfriend friend, jules" I NEARLY FUCKING CRIED THEY WERE GETTING KINDA CLOSE AND THEN CARMEN GOT MIND WIPED

JULIA TOPS JULIA TOPS I SAID IT ALL ALONG AND IT'S TRUE SHE REALLY PINNED VILE CARMEN THAT'S TOP BEHAVIOR (also this now makes carmen a bottom I don't make the rules)

kinda shocked that paper star was hardly here I don't stan her so it didn't bother me much but still it was just strange they didn't use her this season

when shadowsan whipped out the last doll and carmen had all those flashbacks to when she was at vile I nearly started crying AGAIN

I LEGIT THOUGHT CARMEN HAD KILLED GRAY DJSJSJS AN ELECTRICIAN GETTING ELECTROCUTED THAT'S SOME IRONY RIGHT THERE

gray really confused me towards the end he kept switching sides every five minutes for the whole season I wasn't sure whether to trust him half the time dhshsjs

THE LOOK ON CARMEN'S FACE WHEN SHE THOUGHT SHE'D KILLED GRAY WAS SO HEARTBREAKING AND THEN SHE STARTED CRYING OH MY GOD I'M SORRY BABY

the way she's always been against hurting people/taking lives and then she ended up hurting all the people she loves (she nearly killed zack for god sake) really hit me hard

gray's ending was... kinda weird I understood the parallel of him not wanting to complicate carmen's life like she said about him in season 2 but it was still kinda strange that they didn't have one more conversation or get any closure

I'm obviously kinda upset that carulia wasn't canon they had so much potential imo and the show isn't about romance anyway BUT I'm happy with the content we got and THEY FLIRTED SO MUCH THEY'RE CANON IN MY HEART

THE TEAM RED GROUP HUG KILLED ME IT WAS SO CUTE

kinda annoyed that carmen just straight up left zack and ivy she really just left a note and said YEET

ivy's voice crack when she read the note got me all choked up

ngl I'm still not entirely sure how it ended I had to rewatch it a few times to understand what they were trying to imply sjsjsj

would have loved to know carmen's given name but at the same time she's literally THE carmen sandiego that's who she is, it would be silly to go by a name that she doesn't connect with just because her parents gave her it

her mom being a regular citizen was kinda bittersweet I mean a plot twist would have been good but at the same time it would make the story even more complicated

*dreams of a spinoff movie where we get better closure on everything*

ACME IVY ACME IVY I'M NOT AN IVY STAN BUT DAMN IF I AIN'T SIMPING FOR ACME IVY

I know carmen didn't want revenge but I feel like chief got let off with killing her father way too quickly if I'm honest sjsjsj

JULIA BEING IN CHARGE OF FINDING CARMEN'S MOM OH MY GOSH

I feel so bad for laughing when julia got knocked out the way the cloth fell on her head sent me but when the pole hit her head I was like "OKAY I TAKE IT BACK THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE"

was not expecting julia to physically fight anyone I mean she's always been so calm and collected and then this season she was like fuck it might as well hit a few people before we finish forever

wishing carmen and jules could have hugged or had a scene together where they talked about stockholm but I won't complain it wouldn't have really made sense anyway considering they were cool with each other at the university

so glad the trailer was misleading about the coach brunt situation I really didn't want her to get a last minute redemption

another honorable mention: cleo snapping at julia "DON'T YOU DARE IMPLY THAT I AM COMMON" sent me djdjs she was just stood there like "I am but a humble history lesbian leave me be"

I think that's everything I'll probably add to it later if I think of anything or I might make a part 2 djsjsjs (I've been writing this for almost an hour now 😭)

overall I enjoyed it from start to finish. I haven't really cried about it ending yet I'm still processing everything but I'll probably have a little sob when it finally hits me djsjsjs

CARULIA NATION WE BASICALLY WON NOW EXCUSE ME WHILE I REWATCH ALL THEIR SCENES TOGETHER AND MAKE IT MY ENTIRE PERSONALITY

#wow this ended up being way too long #I was trying to go in order of what happened but I kept remembering other things so it's juat a big mess dhshsjs #anyways carulia is canon because I said so #really hope we get an animated movie or another short in the future #cs spoilers #julia argent #carulia #julethief #gray crackle #gray cs #chase devineaux #carmen sandiego season 4 #carmen sandiego

[morporkian-cryptid]

Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro, and its extremely gay and romantic title scene

Hello everyone, this is your new installment of “Elliott rambles about her fandoms”!

Today I am going to be talking (well, mostly yelling) about the opening credits of Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro.

Because I’ve rewatched that movie almost two weeks ago, and I’m still going into a fit of hysterics every time I so much as think about it.

[Image description: Lupin and Jigen sitting in front of the Fiat, with a small nomad cooking space set up. It is night, Lupin is reading a map and Jigen is holding a pan above a small gas stove. The lighting is dim and comes only for the stove. The subtitles of the song lyrics read “My love for you burns”]

https://twitter.com/spacequeenemily/status/1118274079662977025?lang=en

This Twitter link is the only video of the title scene I could find online; the image quality is a bit low but at least it’s the full scene. Please watch it, I promise you won’t regret it.

Fair warning: long post with much capslock, very swearing.

Okay, so.

The lyrics of this song, Fire Treasure, go more or less like this (from the subtitles of the movie, which I assume are the official translation) :

I want to go with you, searching for happiness / No matter how hard the road or how the night may grow cold / I just want to wander on with you

Who else is there to comfort and hold / This lonely traveler when their heart grows cold? / Who else but you can make all my dreams come true?

Like a raging fire my love for you burns / All I want is for you to know how I feel / Make me your prisoner and never let go

(additional lyrics which are on the wiki but not in the title sequence)

You, who wander the wasteland  / I want to let you sleep / The shooting star is for you

I want only you to understand / This love of mine that blazes with flames / I'll clear away the enigmatic mist

You can find the official japanese lyrics here on the Lupin III fandom wiki.

Now this is a pretty basic love song, and we know most of the theme songs in this series are love songs and it doesn’t always mean anything (looking at you, Red Jacket opening theme). The music itself (without the lyrics) is used several times during the movie, especially in scenes with Lupin and Clarisse; and reused later in several movies involving similar dynamics.

But the only time the whole song, with lyrics, plays in The Castle of Cagliostro, it’s during the opening credits / title sequence. Aka, Lupin and Jigen’s road trip.

Yeah. This longing, yearning love song about a lonely traveler and the person who silently loves them and wants to follow them through all the troubles of the road and look for happiness by their side... Is played along with of a video of Jigen and Lupin traveling together.

And oh, if only it was just that...

It could have been two guys being bros, two friends having a fun road trip together. They could have shown the banter and playful fights between them that we see in the rest of the movie. But NO. THIS is what they gave us instead:

[The silhouettes of Jigen and Lupin sitting on and leaning against the Fiat, with a boat in the background and an orange sunset-like sky]

[the Fiat driving on a narrow bridge in the middle of an expanse of water glistening and reflecting the pink and purple sky]

[Lupin lying on his back in the grass, and Jigen sitting near him and cooking in front of a small portable gas stove, the Fiat parked next to them. It is night, and the gaz stove gives a soft glow, the only source of light in the picture.]

[Lupin sitting on the roof of the Fiat and Jigen standing left of it. They are waiting for a train with wooden wagons to pass. There are white flowers in the foreground on the right of the screen.]

[Night time, on a backdrop of dark blue sky with white stars. Lupin is sitting on the roof of the Fiat, lighting a cigarette (the Fiat itself isn’t in the frame). Jigen is standing near him, smoking a cigarette, with only his head visible. The subtitles of the song lyrics write “Make me your prisoner and never let go”.]

[The same scene from a different angle, the Fiat is now visible, with grass in the foreground, Lupin is seen from the back and Jigen from head to feet. The dark blue sky is fading into white at the bottom, suggesting sunrise.]

They could have given us a fun, “straight pals being bros” road trip. Instead, they decided to give us a soft, nostalgic ambiance, with orange and pink sunsets, the boys wistfully looking into the distance under a starry night sky, smoking cigarettes together in silence, with the soft glow of a shared meal around a campfire. THEY MADE THE CHOICE TO MAKE THIS AS FUCKING ROMANTIC AS POSSIBLE. THEY WILLINGLY MADE THAT DECISION.

We all know that this franchise’s subtext is not exactly subtle in establishing, to name just one obvious example, Jigen’s orientation (hum hum kabuki-related slang, hum hum bootleg playboy magazine, hum hum shameless flirting with burly soldiers).

But THIS. This isn’t a “I hate women” joke. This isn’t a two-second frame showing a bootleg gay pinup magazine. This isn’t a subtle parallel between Lupin’s relationships with Fujiko and with Jigen. This is the most OBVIOUS and EXPLICIT bit of subtext I have ever seen in this goddamn subtext-packed series. This is A FUCKING LOVE SONG, WITH THE WORDS “MY LOVE FOR YOU BURNS” EXPLICITLY IN IT, PLAYED ON A VIDEO OF JIGEN AND LUPIN ON A ROAD TRIP WITH THE MOST ROMANTIC AND SOFT VISUALS POSSIBLE. ONE MINUTE AND FIFTY FIVE SECONDS OF TYPICAL ROMANTIC SCENE WITH TYPICAL ROMANTIC VISUALS AND A FUCKING LOVE SONG.

This can’t be an accident. You can’t accidentally make a scene like this. I mean come on, “Like a raging fire my love for you burns, I just want you to know how I feel” with a panning shot of a starry night sky and Lupin and Jigen silently sharing a smoke? HOW DO THEY THINK WE ARE GOING TO INTERPRET THIS? IS THERE ANY OTHER POSSIBLE FUCKING INTERPRETATION THAN “JIGEN IS MADLY IN LOVE WITH LUPIN?“ NO THERE ISN’T. THERE FUCKING ISN’T.

They go and try to tell us that Lupin and Jigen are just friends, they give Jigen barely believable female love interests whom he has little to no chemistry with, they write Jigen getting angry when he thinks Lupin might be gay, and then they turn around and make THIS. FUCKING. TITLE SEQUENCE.

It kills me because IT’S CANON but also it’s not! They’re not stating that Jigen loves Lupin, they’re not confirming that they’re a couple, at no point in the 50 years of existence of this damn franchise has either of them explicitly declared that they were in love with the other, and that is most likely never going to happen. But this fucking scene exists. This fucking scene is CANON, and it’s technically still subtext, but it is the most OBVIOUS and IN YOUR GODDAMN FACE subtext EVER.

Disclaimer: I agree that most of the anime and movies’ (still relatively un-subtle) subtext can be disregarded or interpreted as platonic if you want, and I absolutely respect anyone’s desire to interpret them as platonic friends. All visions and interpretations can coexist. That being said, I’m sorry but for this specific scene I will not, ever, budge from the position that it is a fucking romantic love scene and that there is no other possible interpretation, I’m sorry but just FUCKING LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT IT AND TELL ME THIS ISN’T MEANT TO BE ROMANTIC. I DARE YOU.

This scene is just at the VERY LIMIT of explicitly stating Jigen and Lupin’s love. But it’s STILL NOT EXPLICIT. The song says “I love you” but neither Jigen nor Lupin does. The song on its own could relate to any number of characters (and in the rest of the movie it relates mostly to Clarisse, and more generally to all the girls Lupin leaves behind). The video without the music, while being very sweet and having a romantic vibe, could still be interpreted as a road trip between friends. And yet. AND YET. They made the conscious decision to put THAT SONG with THESE IMAGES. And to then “leave it to our interpretation”.

The Castle of Cagliostro was the second movie of the Lupin III franchise. It came out in 1979, not even ten years after the first episode of the anime aired. This is one of the establishing movies of the franchise, the one that propelled Lupin III on the international scene, the door through which generations of fans have been introduced to the series. A now iconic and unmissable pillar of the pop culture myth that Lupin III has become, a jewel of hand-drawn animation, produced by one of Japan’s most internationally well known animated movie director, future founder of one of its most iconic studios.

This isn’t a “blink and you’ll miss it” nudge in an largely forgettable TV special with weird chara designs and a plot created by writers seemingly on crack. This isn’t a subtle nod to long time fans and shippers like Part 5 did in 2018. This is the FUCKING TITLE SEQUENCE of the CASTLE OF MOTHERFUCKING CAGLIOSTRO by HAYAO GODDAMN MIYAZAKI. AND IT’S A LOVE STORY.

It’s been a week and a half, guys. And I still want to scream. I will never be free. Lupin and Jigen are in love and the world needs to know.

#in conclusion: they are in love your honour #no i did not just spend a whole hour typing this #i just #i want to scream about it on the rooftops #i needed to get this shit off my chest somewhere else than in my best friend's discord chat #ITS SUBTEXT. ITS STILL SUBTEXT HOW CAN THIS STILL BE SUBTEXT. #ITS CANON #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH #IM SO FRUSTRATED #long post #lupin iii #lupin iii : castle of cagliostro #hayao miyazaki #lupin the third #jigen #jigen daisuke #daisuke jigen #lupjig #jiglup #lupin x jigen #fire treasure #lupin iii ost #the castle of cagliostro #the hobbit rambles

[shijiujun]

i feel kinda bad for shl cos all the fans of hyx and spl are blaming shl since their dramas are being delayed :(

LMAO I really don’t get that altho i can see that the timing might be a little back to back, and i’m not a SHL-only stan by any measure but:

For HYX especially,

Firstly it was already having problems since the end of last year with censorship and review. This is mostly due to the reason that 2ha is a pretty big fandom and is the cult fave in the danmei industry - what this means is that there are three types of fans basically right, (1) Normal fans who love the novel + show (2) Those who fanatically love the novel in some extreme ways haha (3) Those who hate it and/or are HYX-onlys - so you get it all in a bag. 

The first type of fans is definitely the easier ones to deal with, but unfortunately in big fandoms you get a lot of (2) and (3). It’s not something that’s exclusive only to 2ha/HYX but because it’s a cult fave, and a controversial one at that, problems definitely arise.

(2) are the ones who head down to the filming scenes, take photos and footage despite crew telling ppl not to do it, not to sneak around filming sites and definitely not to leak photos or footage. They do it anyway. Yeah sure of course it’s a couple of photos every few weeks or a tiny video every few weeks but word gets out. They’re inevitably hurting the show and the fandom with their actions, because shit trends on Weibo really fast, and the censorship committee (not just for the film industry or shows) is always lurking on the site to catch any sign of you know, hate speech for the country etc. and more. Not related, but the point is that social media is watched very closely. It’s not a myth or an exaggeration, you really just got to be careful, and HYX is a show that, despite not having been broadcasted, has consistently trended on Weibo over the last few months. Not always because of leaks, but yeah, HYX is in everyone’s faces. Fans themselves put a fucking huge spotlight on the show BEFORE we even have any content at all, and of course this isn’t enough to like create huge trouble for the show but then we have-

(3), which I believe creates the most trouble - the thing is 2ha and meatbun who wrote the book, has a long line of haters and antis, way before HYX came into the picture. I shall not go into details of how I’ve seen some big accounts on Tumblr here spit vitriol at the book without even reading it just based on the content/trigger warnings and playing the morality card (and I think most ppl who’ve followed me for a while know just what I think about that). Like this was way before any footage or leaks or even HYX being a thing came about - as a cult fave it has its share of haters, and this share is a huge. There are those who get off on their moral high grounds XD and I think especially these ones are the most troublesome, all they have to do is report that HYX is immoral, bad for culture etc. etc. hahaha and yeah the censorship team is always ready to step in on reports, especially on BL stuff.

And of course the larger part is the change in censorship processes - honestly even way before SHL came out in end Feb, HYX was no closer to getting passed by the review committee than it is now. Maybe yes, SHL scenes may be now used as reference for comparison but seriously? People are deluding themselves if they thought pre-SHL HYX was going through the review process smoothly and only hit roadblocks after. I mean, we’ve all seen the leaks, some of them are truly like god-tier scenes that may be hard to explain away. It’s not like they can repackage the script especially because they have to submit everything to the review committee.

I mentioned this in a post yesterday but how SHL passed reviews is due to the fact that they didn’t have to submit a full script. They only had to submit a partial script, and that makes a world of difference. Basically a team, under these requirements, can repackage the script to include the more het looking parts even I feel, and of course some heavy misdirection by the team, it could work. Now that you have to put an entire script up for scrutiny.. I mean, it’s hard. This is just a game of probability.

And the last reason I think is still Tencent. Honestly, I’ve never seen a huge ass MNC like this handle a show this terribly.

1. No control over leaks - This is honestly the dumbest shit to do

2. Terrible crisis management response time - When fans leak footage, it’s standard and practical business sense to control it IMMEDIATELY. They shouldn’t just leave it up to the crew to put up notices and as the company that owns the rights to the show, it’s up to them to possibly threaten legal action as well. Basically a sterner stance would have helped a lot, but Tencent is a motherfucker of a company who only cares about free marketing and publicity without any considerations over impact to the show itself 

3. Terrible at communicating with fans - Seriously, I’ve never seen a company or team that’s been this bad at confirming delays etc. and providing updates about a show. I understand that it’s mostly due to them not wanting to affect the review process or create more chaos within the fandom but lmao Tencent allowed the hype to build so much and then goes absolutely silent at crazy rumours. I mean we had to find out about a delay from Cai Bao, their cat mascot, like??? In a really veiled and poetic message that didn’t outright say the word ‘delay’ like damn these ppl have a lot of time

As for SPL,

Lol we don’t know anything about this show. We don’t know if they took out or left in the Yifu part that would supposedly make it less gay or whatever, we don’t know anything about how gay it should have been or could have, so this one might be a tad more ridiculous. I mean none of us have seen any good leaks, and we haven’t seen any of the script, we got ZERO idea about this. Maybe they really went hard on the bromance, how would any of us know hahaha so all the more it’s like people have zero basis to go on, to say that it’s because of SHL. Seriously, everyone’s shooting in the dark.

Technically if laws didn’t change last Feb, I think SPL/WIK should have been passed in the same way as SHL did, but it’s just inopportune time for them.

===

- So tl:dr HYX already had tons of problems, that I doubt were going to go away just because SHL didn’t air, honestly. For SPL, it’s really hard to tell what failed the review, because none of us know what’s going on in the script.

No one cared about SHL, even I only realized the show was airing on the day itself and then made a rec post after I watched the first 4 eps. And if it truly was anything to do with SHL, I’m telling you that the first thing the censorship committee will do is basically shut SHL down, get Youku to take it off sites etc. until it’s reviewed again etc. etc. That hasn’t happened yet, at least not before HYX and SPL were stalled.

===

ALSO!! Don’t have to feel sorry for SHl fans hahaha I’m telling ya a lot of us definitely weren’t OG SHL or TYK fans, seriously! All the bigger accounts I see on Twitter are a combination of CQL/SHL or MXTX/SHL, SPL/SHL and I am personally 2HA/HYX/SHL. The fight is all out on Twitter HAHAHAHA but it’s not that bad, we’ve all got practice. Seriously WHO ACTUALLY is an SHL only stan I’ve honestly not seen much?! HAHAHA the point is we’re all yelling on behalf of SHL as a cross fandom fan, easier for us to do so as well. We’re talking about 2ha/HYX/SPL/Priest dedicated accounts that delved deep into SHL championing for no-nonsense in the space hahaha

#asks #shl #hyx #spl #and while i've never worked for the chinese film industry #i was in film and production #so i half know what i'm talking about #and i did ask a friend who works in a chinese film company #and yep ;/ #if you need to know how disastrous big companies are #tencent is a prime example

[lannister-slings-and-arrows]

Chapter Two of See You in the Morning Time

The third in a Rafael Barba/Reader/Frederick Chilton threesome verse written in collaboration with @pascalispretty . Gif by @mrsrafaelbarba . Yep. We did this. Was it necessary? No. Did we enjoy it? Sometimes. Are you going to read it? I sure hope you do and that you like it! Cross posted to ao3!

Part Three of the series So Much Easier than You Realize

Chapter One: A Different Feeling Entirely Chapter Two: Show Me the New

Warnings: Frederick being an anxious (and sad. and repressed) little weenie, discussions of period typical homophobia, bi panic, completely invented backstory (you got on this ride folks lol), Rafael being surprisingly supportive, cuddling, and of course a little bit of teasing Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 2293 Summary: It's not often that Fred instigates anything with Rafael except an argument.

It’s late by the time Fred and Rafael finally make their way to bed. They shower and put pajamas on while waiting for the food to arrive and once they eat, they finish the bottle of wine that Fred had opened earlier and spend the rest of the evening chatting and watching some dumb movie on TV.

Lying in Fred’s bed in his borrowed clothes, Rafael can’t help but smile to himself. After weeks of skittishness from Fred he had finally made it past some of the walls that the doctor had put up. Fred curled close to Rafael while they watched the movie, dragging a blanket over the two of them and cozying up entirely unprompted.

When Fred comes out of the bathroom and flicks the lights off, he’s even more pleased that Fred doesn’t seem to hesitate to lie close to him in bed or reach out for his hand.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” Rafael murmurs, to break the silence more than anything. He hears Fred scoff.

“I was hardly going to kick you out as soon as we were done.” As best as he can, Rafael turns on his side trying to make Fred out in the darkness of the room.

“I know. I just wasn’t sure how you’d feel.” He’s not at his most eloquent or subtle, but he wants to acknowledge what happened between them. “You were… hesitant at first and I just want to make sure you didn’t feel like you had to do this. As of a few days ago you were still pretty clear that you were not comfortable with the two of us having sex.”

Rafael doesn’t want to force a confidence, but he feels like he has to make sure. He’s coming to care too deeply about the arrogant chronically awkward man next to him to just let this go with vague assurances. He hears Fred shift onto his back and wants nothing more than to drag him into his arms and kiss his stupid, conceited face, but he holds himself still and waits for Fred to answer him, giving him the space he clearly wants.

“This wasn’t as sudden as you think it was,” Fred assures him eventually, face still pointed at the ceiling. “I’ve been thinking about this since, you know, that first time.” Rafael can practically feel Fred’s blush from his side of the bed and grins. “And my reticence was never about you, you know that, yes?”

Rafael nods, realizes Fred probably can’t see him, and clears his throat.

“Yeah, I figured as much. I am, after all, a damn catch.”

Rafael yelps as Fred reaches out, faster than he thought was possible for a well-fed psychiatrist who sits behind a desk all day, and smacks him on the chest.

They’re quiet for a few minutes, together in the dark cocoon of Fred’s bedroom, before Rafael sighs. He can’t help but notice the similarities between the blank peacefulness of Fred’s minimalist design and the deliberately organized calm of a therapist’s office and wonders if he did that on purpose. Maybe it’s a natural inclination, he muses idly. It invites honesty. The sharing of secrets.

“I’m only eighteen months younger than Benn, you know,” Fred says eventually, and it’s so unexpected that Rafael finds himself frowning a little in confusion. “All the way through school, I was Bennett Chilton’s younger brother; just the little brother of the handsome quarterback that everyone adored.” Rafael has seen photos of Bennett, tall and painfully handsome. He can see that it might have been hard to grow up in that shadow.

“He came out when he was sixteen, and I was fourteen. And I’m sure you can imagine what that was like at an all-boys Catholic school in Virginia in the eighties.” Rafael winces in the dark. He remembers well enough the attitudes in his own high school, in marginally more liberal New York. He can’t imagine what it must have been like in a place without a visible community to look up to.

“People were mostly smart enough not to say anything to Benn’s face--he was a six foot two starter who never backed down from a fight, they would have had to have been stupid--and our parents were supportive. But the things people said about him behind his back--” Fred shudders, an involuntary shiver that makes Rafael want to wrap his arms around him and never let go.

Instead, he just squeezes Fred’s hand reassuringly and waits for him to continue. For someone who has trouble shutting up at the very best of times--staying silent isn’t Rafael’s forte--he is doing an admirable job tonight. His desire to prove he’s worthy of this unexpected vulnerability from Fred is more than enough to keep him quiet. Rafael is desperate to know more, to know everything about Fred; about what makes him tick, about why he was so reticent, so reserved, when clearly this is something that he enjoys.

“It was awful. The kind of things you never want to hear about somebody you love. And I was hardly in any position to be giving out bloody noses or black eyes whenever someone called him a fag, or made some crack about AIDS.” Rafael shifts slightly nearer, still not saying anything. He smiles to himself when he feels one of Fred’s hands reach up to rest on Rafael’s hip.

“I was a short, scrawny child--I spent a lot of time in the hospital and home sick--and I couldn’t afford to give the other boys in my school one more reason to pick on me so I just… didn’t say anything. I’m not proud of it, but it’s not like Benn had any trouble sticking up for himself. I doubt he would have appreciated anyone stealing his opportunity to get into one more fight anyways.”

Rafael covers the hand Fred has on his hip with his own, deciding now is not the time to joke that he can’t ever imagine Fred as scrawny. Fred clears his throat again and continues in the same calm, rehearsed manner. Like this is something that he witnessed happening to someone else.

“It wasn’t long after that that I had my own month of absolute pure terror and confusion. It was one of Bennett’s teammates from the swim team that actually sent me over the edge. His name was Bobby and he was gorgeous. He had never made any jokes about Bennett, never joked about changing somewhere else in the locker room. He was a little stupid, I can admit that now, but back then I thought he was perfect. I worshipped my brother and this pretty boy clearly did the same.

“Well, I was horrified. Up until then I had been fully and completely in love with a girl I had known practically since infancy. Was all of that a lie? Was being gay genetic? Was Billy going to go through the same thing? It took me a whole month before I had the guts to ask Bennett and I nearly stabbed him with our father’s letter opener when he laughed at me.”

Rafael winces again, knowing how touchy Fred is now, a grown adult well-respected in his professional field and still a little obsessed with slights, perceived and real. Fred huffs, forcing any trace of bitterness out of his voice.

“He told me that you can like girls and boys at the same time and that I should go see if I still liked jerking off to pictures of Jennifer Connolly.” Rafael isn’t able to suppress his snort.

“I always liked Carrie Fisher,” he tells Fred, smiling over at him.

“You would, you pervert,” Fred shoots back. “Probably loved that bikini, didn’t you?”

“I think I’ll plead the Fifth on that one.”

Fred shakes his head and sighs deeply.

“Well, naturally, that was enough humiliation for me for one afternoon and so I threw a throw pillow at him and bolted for my room.”

“Did you jerk off to Jennifer Connolly?”

“Rafael, I can still kick you out of this apartment.”

“Sorry.” Rafael is silent for all of twelve seconds before he asks again, “Come on Fred, I’ve got to know; did you?”

“...Maybe,” Fred reluctantly admits. Rafael laughs and squeezes his hand.

“Moving on from your prurient obsession with my teenaged masturbatory life,” Fred says pointedly, managing to sound arch, offended, and haughty all at the same time. “I contemplated for a while what Benn had told me. A long time actually--that percolated in my brain all throughout the rest of high school. I only ever dated girls, I ignored it completely every time I was even remotely attracted to another boy, but I kept thinking about that. Not only did I have a lifelong conviction that if Bennett said it it must be so, but it just sort of felt right, you know?”

Rafael nods, remembering a similar feeling he had when he was younger. Despite what the other boys in his neighborhood said about “queers”, despite what the Church said, and despite what he knew his father would do to him if he heard Rafael’s thoughts, he was what he was and that was that. Fuck anyone who said different, he remembered thinking. It’s not like he could change it, even if he wanted to.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he answers when it’s clear that Fred requires some encouragement to continue. Fred twines his fingers with Rafael’s before carrying on.

“I lived with Benn in college. Our father bought him an apartment in Cambridge the day he got his acceptance letter from Harvard, and it only seemed logical that I’d move in once I got accepted too. And, I don’t know. It was a little easier there.” Rafael thinks he grimaces, but it’s hard to tell in the dark.

“It has been a while though, since I’ve indulged. And I've never participated frequently.” Every word seems like it’s forced out of Fred’s mouth.

“All this to say, Rafael,” Fred murmurs, inching closer across the sheets, “Is that the problem was never you.”

Rafael gathers him into his arms this time. Fred goes willingly, releasing a heavy, shaky breath and clearly relieved to not be talking about this anymore.

“I know,” Rafael reassures him. “I know it wasn’t me. I was just… I don’t know. I was worried.” He smiles, giving Fred another squeeze. “You’re a delicate little flower Freddie, I want to make sure I don’t trample all over you.”

“Get out of this bed this instant.”

Rafael laughs and they settle down to sleep.

***

The three of them celebrate in Rafael’s tiny Brooklyn apartment when Fred returns from Baltimore. He insists that he wants to cook and, though he had his doubts about his equally minuscule kitchen, manages to turn out an incredible ropa vieja. His mother would be proud.

When the empty plates are discarded on his coffee table, stacked haphazardly and waiting to eventually be washed by whoever loses the inevitable game of ‘who had the harder day’, Rafael sinks back into the couch and smiles benignly basking in the praise of the two of them and their company. Four days is starting to become too long to go between times when they’re all together and though he wants to frown at the unpleasant feeling of missing the both of them when they aren’t around he loves it a little bit as well. Every other wandering thought was of the two of them and he can’t deny that it's nice to feel these first desperate stirrings of a relationship again.

“I don’t know how you made all of that, Rafael. I’m pretty sure my cousin Caroline had a bigger kitchen in her dollhouse.” Fred surprises him when he leans closer to Rafael, snuggling contentedly against him. Rafael had told the third of their little trio that he and Fred had finally slept together--hiding things in a threesome was the quickest way to hurt feelings. Everyone was going to eventually do things without everyone involved and it’s best to just let that out in the open--but he hadn’t expected Fred to offer such casual affection so freely.

Rafael catches her looking at the two of them with a soft smile on her face and returns it with one of his own. She hid it well but she was a little disappointed during their FaceTime when he had warned her that Fred might not be overly demonstrative yet. Rafael knew she felt a little--guilty wasn’t the word she would use, he knew, if he could ever get her to talk about it--uncomfortable about how much more open Fred was with her than he was with Rafael. He loves how hard she tries to remind him that Fred is just anxious, cautious, a little scared. Rafael is a grown man and doesn’t need his hand held, but the fact that she tries to anyways makes his heart feel like it’s growing through his ribcage sometimes.

When Rafael looks back down at Fred he looks like he’s about to fall asleep with his head nuzzled against Rafael’s shoulder. He would describe it as endearing until Fred moves one of his hands high onto Rafael’s thigh. Rafael smirks.

“All it took was one night and he’s already falling for me,” he says to her in a stage whisper. Fred is unfortunately still awake enough to jab Rafael in the ribs, settling down only after the air is knocked out of Rafael’s lungs with an “oof”.

“As long as you remember to invite me to the wedding,” she teases. Rafael watches her duck admirably as Fred throws a cushion at her head.

“You’re supposed to throw a bouquet at me, not a pillow!”

#rafael barba x frederick chilton #rafael barba #frederick chilton #law and order svu #hannibal #fanfic #fanfiction

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Hey, hope you’re doing well and staying sane! It’s been a year and one week since my city went into lockdown mode and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Question regarding your wonderfully zany HP fics - I’m a personal fan of “When Harry...” and “October” - have you ever considered an AU where Tom was the one born a girl, or would the crushing patriarchy of the 1940s Muggle Britain and the Wizarding World (witches must have babies!) in general doom that sort of premise?

You ask a very interesting question.

I’ve dithered with this idea off and on but I’ve always concluded it’d be such an overwhelming task that it invariably gets set to the side.

Because I think it’s highly likely that a female Tom Riddle would not have become Voldemort. Or, at least, not as we know him.

So here’s some general thoughts.

Female Tom Riddle’s Name Would Not Be Derivative of Tom

I imagine that Merope, dying on the orphanage floor, would still blindly name her son Tom Marvolo Riddle, after his father and her father, nevermind that the child is a girl.

Now, Mrs. Cole is a harsh woman with a difficult job, but I imagine she’s not needlessly cruel to infants. She’s not going to name this poor girl “Tom Marvolo” even if it is her mother’s dying wish. 

I imagine, as a result, Tom ends up with a very normal, English, girl’s name like Susan, Elizabeth, Jane, Victoria, etc. (We’ll go with Susan so I can just keep a consistent name for the rest of this post). 

This of course means right away that, even if Lord Voldemort does happen he’s not called Lord Voldemort, because Tom’s name isn’t Tom and we don’t get the same anagram.

As I’m terrible at anagrams, personally, one of you can look at Susan Elizabeth Riddle and tell me what you come up with.

Susan’s Antichrist Orphan Years

I doubt Susan’s antichrist years would have been quite the same as Tom’s. She probably won’t be getting in the same kind of physical scraps every other day of the week. That said, I’m sure she’s a hellion on wheels and just as if not more psychologically vicious than Tom ever was. Girls can be mean and I imagine Susan lets this fly.

She may also end up being more careful, though, than Tom was. Although she’s  a little girl and witches are traditionally women, that may make it less easy to spot, she’s a very pretty thing and probably very charming.

I think, for example, Dumbledore’s misogyny will work against him. Tom Riddle he recognized as an immediate threat, I’m sure Susan will just remind him of Arianna (who suffered similar outbursts, had a similar impoverished upbringing, and Dumbledore just never takes women seriously). 

He’d still be disapproving when she gets sorted into Slytherin but we’d likely see him react to that in the manner he interacts with Leta Lestrange in Crimes of Grindelwald: where he just lectures to her about what a shame it is she has traveled down this path of Slytherinhood and she can still be saved.

As a result, and this is where things go haywire in my head, Susan will likely not have the same antagonistic relationship with Dumbledore. Oh, I think she likely loathes him entirely for looking down on her, but I don’t think he’d light her wardrobe on fire for example. I also don’t know if she’d make the parseltongue reveal.

Hogwarts

Given what we do see of sexism among the purebloods (it seems like a very patriarchical society) I imagine that Susan is treated a lot more like, say, Lily Evans. She’s brilliant, but never acknowledged as the most brilliant student in Hogwarts, always as the most brilliant witch and then compared to her male peers who are in fact far dumber than she is.

Slughorn probably still loves her, but no matter what she does, Malfoy will always be treated as better than she is.

This, combined with her effectively being muggleborn, I’m sure makes for a very angry Susan. However, I don’t know if she’d let loose the basilisk.

To me, that always screamed a nervous breakdown and existential crisis on Tom Riddle’s part. He finally finds the truth, that he is in fact the heir of this great family legacy, and it doesn’t matter at all.

Susan faces not only the issues over her blood but also that she is a woman. So, I think in that, she might not open the chamber of secrets. Instead she’d just be even angrier that she’s the heir of Slytherin but knows damn well the man himself would never acknowledge her because she’s a woman.

Post Hogwarts

I imagine that Susan would not be able to find employment where even Tom was able to. She might, that said, be able to get the Defense (or perhaps Muggle Studies, I’m sorry I can’t help it) position as Dumbledore wouldn’t be actively working against her. In this position I imagine she’d sit and stew for a long time, trying to decide what it is she wants to do here and knowing this isn’t quite it.

If she wants to climb into power, I imagine she’d have to do so through marriage, and the likely candidate for that is Alphard Black, who never otherwise married. I always pictured Alphard was very likely gay, and I imagine Susan would figure that out, and act as his beard and help (somewhat) appease his family. They probably aren’t thrilled he married a muggleborn.

She then pushes Alphard to run for minister, essentially makes herself Eva Peron, and fabulouses her way into power and before we all know it Susan is essentially minister and how do you like them apples, Malfoy?!

If she dreams up a Lord Voldemort persona... I am not sure she would, given everything. But if she did, I think she’d realize that Lord Voldemort is a man, not a woman, and would cross dress. The pureblood aristocracy, despite respecting figures like Morgan le Fey, would never follow a woman’s revolution. This would make things very awkward when Bellatrix Black starts hitting on her.

I imagine Dumbledore would never quite figure out who Voldemort is either, because it could never occur to him that it was sad little Susan Riddle. And Harry of course would be floored that it’s a woman.

But, again, I don’t think the Voldemort future as we know it from canon would be all that likely to happen. 

Ships

That said, I’m not sure why since I consider Tom Riddle bisexual, but I imagine Susan is a raging lesbian. No real reason, except perhaps that I don’t think she could abide being romantically entangled with someone who had a natural superior position to society than she did. Which means of course if I ever wrote this it’d turn into femslash Lily Evans/Susan Riddle somehow.  

Because that’s what I do.

Conclusion

But yes, the long and short is I have thoughts, but once I get thinking about it I go “whoa, we’re getting far from our source material here” and decide to focus back on what I’m writing right now.

It’s an interesting thought experiment but one that would yield not only an entirely different character but an entirely different world. 

#ask #anon

[bedbellyandbeyond]

The Terrible Truth

(Story Post)

Nathan ran up to the front porch of the cottage, and let himself in, his heart pounding. Before him, Dax and Kent were sitting on the couch, hovering over a smartphone on the coffee table, but they straightened up when he came in. “Dax!” Nathan said walking over and giving him a hug from behind the couch. “Are you alright? I was so worried!” “Yeah, I'm alright…” Dax said. “I'm just showing Kent here how to use his phone. He's picked it up quite well actually. I bet he could've figured it out on his own if he'd tried…” Kent just huffed. “What happened?” Nathan asked. “Why'd you come here last night?” Dax tensed up. “…I don't really remember, but Kent's told me the general gist… Can you come sit down?”

Nathan didn't like the vibe he got from Dax and Kent. As far as he'd seen so far, they didn't get along at all and now here they were, sitting quietly together, with looks on their faces like someone had died. Nathan moved over to an armchair and sat down. “Are you really alright, Dax? You're not hurt?” He spotted Dax's wrists. “You have Band-Aids…” “A-ah…” Dax flinched a bit, touching the bandages on his wrists. “This is nothing… But um, are you doing alright? I'm really sorry I took off… I honestly don't even remember leaving the hotel.” Nathan nodded. “Yeah, I'm okay… You kinda freaked me out last night. You weren't really yourself and I figured it was the thunderbird, but you weren't really all sparky or anything until you flew off out the window.” “Mon dieu, so you really saw the whole thing? Like, 100% thunderbird?” Dax asked. Nathan nodded. “…Honestly, it was kind of pretty… You know, like majestic. But APID isn't very happy and the news was having a field day because so many people saw you. City officials have been arguing with indigenous leaders over what happened and APID has had to fly out more agents to try to contain the situation. They're trying the whole ‘mass hysteria' bit but it's not easy when there's cameras everywhere.” Dax rubbed his forward. “Shit, so I'm in trouble then… My case worker's going to be upset.” “So, you really don't remember any of that?” “No, I'm sorry… I know it’s been a really long time since I've lost full conscious control of the thunderbird, but something's wrong with me… I don't understand why I gave in so easily,” Dax wondered. “I don't want to hurt anyone.” Nathan looked to Kent. “What happened when he got here? I'm surprised you let him stay, though I'm grateful.” Kent clenched his jaw. “Well… I didn't have much choice. He pretty much forced his way in… Blew my doors open.” “I'm sorry…” Dax said. “I don't know what drew me here. Maybe, it was the only other place I knew I could go to up here… I really don't know.” Nathan rubbed his neck. “I'm not going to lie… I had to transform last night, and I'm worried I scared you off…” “No, no!” Dax said. “Please, Nathan. Don't blame yourself for anything that happened last night. You're the last person who needs to feel responsible for any of this.” He took a deep breath. “But there is something that happened that I think you need to know about.” Nathan felt a shiver down his spine as he noticed Kent get very tense and look away. “…What happened?” “Nathan, we…” Dax's mouth went dry. “I… Well, apparently, I came here last night and, well, I really don't know what compelled me to do it, but… Well, Kent and I…” Nathan started shaking his head. “No. No… No, you didn't.” Dax nodded. “Nathan, we slept together.” “…” Nathan stared at Dax and then looked at Kent. “Are you serious? You two?” Kent unclenched his jaw. “…I didn't have no damn control over it… He came here, to me, in a fucking heat…” “Dax doesn't go into heat! He's not a damn animal!” Nathan said. “Are you fucking kidding me? What happened?!” Dax rubbed his neck. “I don't really have any answers for you… I only know as much as Kent's told me. Well, and my body's told me…” Nathan’s eyes welled with tears. “So, you're serious? You two really slept together? The night we try to be intimate for the first fucking time, you fly off and fuck Kent? Of all people?” Dax put his hands on his knees and hung his head. “…I'm so sorry… I wish I could undo this somehow… I don't want to lose you.” Nathan wiped the tears off his face angrily before glaring at Kent. “And you… You did nothing but insult Dax since the moment we arrived because of your damn threatened ego, and then you fuck him the moment he presents himself to you?” “I didn't do any of this shit on purpose… I've told you before, I don't have control when all those damn pheromones are flyin' around,” Kent argued. “I know that's bullshit,” Nathan said. “If you were really scared of that happening, you wouldn’t want me and the kids to come live with you so bad because the wolf could go into heat at any time and you ‘wouldn’t be able to control yourself’!” “How dare you?” Kent growled. “Don't act like you know shit about me or what I want! I just want to see my fucking kids!” “And you think I'm going to let you see them now?” Nathan growled. “You fucked my boyfriend!” “I have every right to see them!” Kent roared. “I'm their damn father!” “Then fucking act like it!” Nathan said. “I'm not going to have some violent, homophobic, sexually uncontrollable asshole anywhere near my children!” “I'm trying my fucking best!” Kent said. “I ain't been around people in years, ‘specially not no damn aliens and thunderfuckers and shit… I've lived on just instincts for a long time! So much of this shit is new to me! I don't know how to react to all this shit!” “Don’t yell at me! Say shit one more time and I will punch you in the face,” Nathan growled. “You don't know nothin' of what I'm going through,” Kent huffed. “You have no damn idea what it’s like to be this damn alone.” “If you're so alone, why are you so fucking scared of being gay?” Nathan asked. “There's literally no one out here to judge you. The only people you know is us, and we’re literally gay!” “…” Kent took a breath to calm down a little. He rubbed his own shoulder. “I’m not gay...” He looked at Nathan. “Do you remember who it was that was murdered? Back when they arrested me?” Nathan blinked. “Um, it was a whole family... An older married couple, their daughter, and her son.” Kent looked at Nathan. “…My girl, my son.” Dax straightened up. “…They were your family?” “The articles never said anything about your relationship to the victims,” Nathan said. “No… We weren't allowed to be together. Her family hated me ‘cause they had affluence n’ reputation, and they just saw me as a dirty Chicano, blue collared, farmer’s kid… When she got knocked up, they did everything they could to keep me out of the picture. But, you know, I'm stubborn, so I kept comin' back. I'd sneak in to come see her and the boy…” He took a deep breath. “And the last time I did, the back door'd been broken into, the house’d been robbed, and I found…I found all of them…” He stopped and put his forehead in his hands. “Lord, just rememberin’ it now…” Nathan frowned sympathetically. “…Kent, I'm sorry… I can't imagine what that's like.” “No, you can't…” Kent got up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Y'all need to leave…” “It's okay to cry, you know…” Dax said. “That’s incredibly traumatic.” Kent growled. “I know, dimshit! I don't fuckin' care about cryin', I just want to go back to bein’ alone… Get out.” Nathan stood too. “Dax… The vans still outside. Do you have your stuff?” Dax got up. “Our bags are at the door… Nathan, are you okay, you know, with everything?” Nathan didn't show emotion. “We'll talk on the ride home… Just meet me in the car.” Dax nodded, got their bags and left. Nathan stood there a few moments still facing the bear man trying to control his own tears. “Kent—” “—I'm sorry, okay?” Kent growled. “Is that what you want to hear? I'm sorry I fucked everything up again! I fucked up every chance I had to have a fuckin' family…” Nathan shook his head, opening his hands. “No… We're going to figure this all out… I made a promise, I'll bring the kids up next weekend to see you. Just don't beat yourself up in the meantime.” Kent just crossed his arms. Nathan took a step towards the door, but Kent grabbed his arm. He looked up at him in surprise. “Hey, don’t grab me!” Kent huffed and let him go. “Calm your tits. I’m trying to say something.” “Then just say it,” Nathan said putting his hands on his hips. Kent took a deep breath.  “…I hate sayin' this, but…Dax is a good guy… Don't lose him. Not because of me. He's probably a better dad than I'll ever be…” Nathan sighed and rubbed his neck. “…Did he put my number in your phone?” “Yeah…” “Okay. Can you text?” Nathan asked. Kent sighed. “Think so…” Nathan pointed to the phone. “Text me right now.” “Why?” “So, I have you in my phone,” Nathan said. Kent picked up his phone and after a moment he sent off a text with just a ‘hey’ to Nathan. “Did you get it?” “Give it a moment…” Nathan pulled out his own phone and waited. “There, I got it.” “Now what?” Kent asked. “When we get home, I'll video call you so the twins can say ‘hey’ back,” Nathan said. “Video call?” Kent wrinkled his brow. “Like, I can see ‘em in the phone?” “Yep. It's not the same as being face to face, but you'll have that later,” Nathan said. “I mean, if you'd rather just wait until the weekend…” “No, no. Let me do the video thing,” Kent said. “I can talk to ‘em?” Nathan nodded. “They won't say much back, but yeah…” “Alright…” Kent nodded slowly. “Thanks.” “It's the best I can do right now…” Nathan put his phone away and went to the door. “Just try not to swear on the call…” “I won't, I won't.” “Okay.” Nathan waved and left. Kent sat back down and let out a few more tears.

#lore #Nathan #Dax #Kent #werewolf #thunderbird

[whatiwillsay]

off topic - let’s talk about gaylena 👀

selena gomez is one of taylor’s oldest and bestest friends and given that she is in the 22 liner notes, a huge part of taylor’s life, and maybe fruity herself it seems like possibly we don’t talk about her here at the blog enough!

i don’t want to do a timeline of selena and taylor’s friendship - you can read more about that here, but they met back in the day when they were both dating jonas brothers and to me this idea of finding a real friendship in the midst of these contrived promances is pretty adorable.

ofc most of y’all think taylor is a fruit basket but i think there’s a good chance that selena is too!  i’m not saying she is for sure but y’all know me.  i’’m here to make a compelling case that everyone and their dog is gay so let’s gooooo! 

Part I - At least one fake rs!  

Selena “dated” Taylor Lautner in 2009 and he’s definitely gay.  Of course, that doesn’t mean she is, it could just be PR, but y’all know I gotta note everything!  We stan our fruity bffs dating the same gays 😍

Part II - Selena x cara delevingne

i feel like there’s a chance they met through taylor but everyone in that squad adjacent circle knows one another.  cara dated michelle rodriguez for the first half of 2014 and then got with annie clark in March 2015 but it feels like it’s possible something has gone on between her and Selena from summer 2014 - early 2015? ...maybe something casual on and off a bit?

August 2014 - Steamy pics surface in Saint-Tropez, France

Selena and and a freshly single Cara vacation together in part to celebrate Selena’s 22nd birthday.

They party together and look cozy!

Pictures such as this surface and spark rumors around the two:

Selena apparently loves the rumors and gushes about being shipped with Cara.

Quote:

You say Selena drag queens were the true measure of success for you. But isn’t it true that you’re not truly famous until you’ve been the subject of a gay rumor? And last year, the tabloids had a field day with photos of you and Cara Delevingne. I’ve made it!

How did you react to those rumors? Honestly, I loved it. I didn’t mind it. Especially because they weren’t talking about other people in my life for once, which was wonderful. Honestly, though, she’s incredible and very open and she just makes me open. She’s so fun and she’s just extremely adventurous, and sometimes I just want that in my life, so I didn’t mind it. I loved it.

Notice she doesn’t deny them?  Now of course she could just be being cool, if she freaked out about it that might be even weirder but hey, it’s still kind of interesting.

Then she admits to questioning her sexuality???

Have you ever questioned your sexuality? Oh, I think everybody does, no matter who they are. I do, yeah, of course. Absolutely. I think it’s healthy to gain a perspective on who you are deep down, question yourself and challenge yourself; it’s important to do that.

(Selena btw, this is cool and all, but not everybody questions their sexuality, maybe you’re just gay 👀)

November 1 - LACMA Art + Film Gala 

they even left the event together 👀

and they hung out earlier that day as well:

They were seen the next day partying for Kendall Jenner’s bday singing to her:

a few weeks later Cara tweets Selena’s lyrics!

In December 2014 they are travelling together in texas:

in january 2015 they get cozy at the golden globes together!

and they leave together again:

January 19th/20th a bunch of gay nonsense happens

They post this gay shit with matching shoes and linked fingers:

then they say this to one another:

Enty says they were hooking up!

then we don’t get any more content that i can find for about six months! perhaps they had a fling from summer 2014-jan 2015 and then it ends, Cara gets with Annie in March?  Then after half a year apart Selena and Cara resume a friendly relationship?  Perhaps!  Selena is seen with Justin a bit off and on during this time but this was in their Style/Heat Death Era imo (tbh i probably shouldn’t give a hetty pairing including Justin that designation 🤢but y’all get what I’m saying - it’s fully possible Selena was hooking up with both of them!

Now I’m not super familiar with Selena’s discography so y’all lmk if I’m missing anything major - lyric wise that point to her not being straight.

Selena’s album Revival that comes out after this relationship has a few songs with some vibes, even though I get the feeling a lot of it is probably about Justin, allow me to reach.  The title track could be translated as someone coming to terms with their sexuality (among other things):

I feel like I've awakened lately The chains around me are finally breaking I've been under self-restoration I've become my own salvation Showing up, no more hiding, hiding The light inside me is bursting, shining It's my, my, my time to butterfly

Good for you, imo, is too sexy to be about a man even if it’s not super queer lyrically it’s a vibe ok?

Me & My Girls might be a bestie anthem a la 22 (oh wait, no 22 was gay too) but I mean...could be about a girl gang of lesbians too!

And if we want it, we take it If we need money, we make it Nobody knows if we fake it You like to watch while we shake it I know we're making you thirsty You want us all in the worst way But you don't understand I don't need a man 

Quinn Fabray indeed!

Nobody feels probably like a retrospective on Justin 🙄but...there is a hint of sapphic craving in there!  Saying this particular lover loves them differently than everyone is a bit 👀 plus this stanza:

No oxygen, can barely breathe My darkest sin, you've raised release And it's all because of you, all because of you And I don't know what it is, but you've pulled me in No one compares, could ever begin To love me like you do And I wouldn't want them to

Is Perfect about some bitch Justin started dating?  Probably but bear with me here this song is actually pretty fucking gay.  Gay enough that I’m gonna add it to one of my gay playlists.  Could this song actually be about Cara moving on to Annie?

Ooh, and I bet she has it all Bet she's beautiful like you, like you And I bet she's got that touch Makes you fall in love, like you, like you

I can taste her lipstick and see her laying across your chest I can feel the distance every time you remember her fingertips Maybe I should be more like her Maybe I should be more like her I can taste her lipstick, it's like I'm kissing her, too And she's perfect And she's perfect

Part III - Selena x Julia Michaels

Julia Michaels is a singer/songwriter known for her song Issues.  I don’t know her sexuality but she at the least has gay vibes!  It seems they met around this time perhaps because Julia wrote on Revival.

They have a friendly enough friendship for a few years, liking one another’s posts on IG from time to time, posing for a photo a time or two and then they seem to get swept up into this very intense friendship in 2019.  They write some music together and Julia goes whole hog in promoting the shoe brand Selena is hawking this time 😭

2019 - The Superior Sapphic Jelena Timeline:

It starts, for some reason with a lot of shoe promotion:

chill, chill

more shoes

but more gayness?

this homo shit

ok...

Then we go into the REALLY GAY NOVEMBER OF 2019:

Then they perform together:

And...actually kiss...on the mouth on stage???

Sure it’s just a peck but still...if that were a guy people would say they were dating.  

Somehow kissing on the mouth isn’t the gayest thing these girls do over this period because these fucking dykes got matching tattoos.  I’ve read enough Larry blogs to know this actually means they’re secretly married.  All jokes aside this is fruity behavior. 

From their IG stories:

Selena gets Julia a very nice christmas gift:

Covid sets in and content drops off but god damn!  It’s possible they just had an intense friendship but if a man and a woman collabed on music together, kissed in public, and got matching tattoos everyone would say they were dating!

Selena, as far as I can find, didn’t have any public boyfriends around this time so who are some of these love songs about?

Rare comes out in January 2020 and perhaps has some gayish songs?

Don’t tell me why but boyfriend lowkey, has a gay vibe.  Don’t ask me to explain it but it’s just the musicality of it.

Crowded Room could be a love song for Julia?  (or by Julia for Selena, since they’re collaborators?)

Baby, it's just me and you Baby, it's just me and you Just us two Even in a crowded room Baby, it's just me and you, yeah

These are general gay vibes, our secret moments in a crowded room tease

It started polite, out on thin ice 'Til you came over to break it I threw you a line and you were mine

It would have started out polite between them, since they worked together for years before whatever 2019 was happened.  And throwing someone a line first of all makes Selena sound like the aggressor but also “throwing someone a line” could be a reference to writing songs together.

Yeah, I was afraid, but you made it safe I guess that is our combination Said you feel lost, well, so do I So won't you call me in the morning? I think that you should call me in the morning If you feel the same, 'cause

Lots of people are afraid at the beginning of a gay rs.  Treacherous tease 👀

In summation!

Selena does gay stuff like fantasizing ab kissing other women in her music, getting very touchy with famous dykes on vacay, hangs out with Taylor Swift, has chronic mental health issues, dated a jonas brother and a twilight gay, has admitted to questioning her sexuality, and loves being shipped with women.  Is she gay?  I don’t know!   But all she’s missing from her celesbian bingo card is a suspiciously intense friendship with a Glee Cast member! What do you guys think?  Selena fruity or just weird?

Edit to add: so apparently I missed an entire ship and Selena supposedly acted really gay all the time with her backup dancer Charity Baroni.  Exposing SMG has posted a lot about all that.

Also Selena has been cast in a gay role! edit to add: @bisluthq went and found this for me - julia is indeed a fruit queen

#selena gomez #gaylena #taylena #gossip #cara delevingne #julia michaels #lesbian #sapphic #of interest #taylor's fruity friends

[kiribakuhappiness]

How do you deal with the hate comments you get?? (Not that I think the last ask was particularly hate or anything) but I never see hate stuff on your blog or in your comment sections either. I feel like I see tend to get them a lot abd sometimes I don't know how to handle them :( love your work!!! Sorry if this is rude to ask...

Not rude at all - but there's a lot to unpack here, so I’m really sorry if I ramble or go off on a few tangents in my answer!

The short answer is: I don't deal with hate comments.

The medium answer is: It depends on the type of 'hate' that I’m receiving.

The longer answer is this:

I have been really lucky (I think) to have been able to grow a little community on this blog of similar, like-minded people who enjoy the same things that I do (Tsundere characters, characters that can help show more representation in the Alphabet Mafia community, dumb boys who deserve to just be dumb boys, etc). I've rarely received any hate comments since my time here on Tumblr, and I think there's a lot of reasons for this.

1.) If someone comes rearing into my Ask box just LOOKING for a fight (ie, random death threats from Anons, homophobic comments, an obvious attempt to bait me into some kind of long-winded debate, etc) I simply just do not deal with it. Those people (especially Anons) are just looking for a reaction out of you. They want you to get upset, to post some long rambling defense, to be snarky and rude back to them, that's what they want.

But at the end of the day, I don't owe any of them a response. Hell, I don't owe anyone a response if I don't want to answer something.

But I answer Asks because I like talking with people, and getting all amped up and excited over the same things, that's part of the fun of creating and sharing that creative work online and being an active part of the fandom. I LOVE hearing from the people that follow this blog (even if I don't always get the chance to respond to all of them) because I know that they're happy or excited enough to hit that Ask button and send me a message, and that makes me feel good to know that I was able to get them so pumped up!

But those Anons aren't looking for that kind of connection. Most of the time, they’re not even looking to have a mature discussion, even if that’s how they come across at first. They're looking to hurt. To ridicule and make fun of, to make me and my followers feel bad or low. And, most of the time, the people who are sending that hate are young. So young. Like... way younger than what you might be picturing in your head right now.

So when I get the really bad hate - the hate that makes your skin feel hot, the hate that spikes your blood pressure, the hate that makes you start typing in a blind rage because you want to hurt them just as much as they've just hurt you - then they've already won. And I'll be damned if I let myself be led by the hand right into a losing battle.

So I simply do not engage. I don't reply with some snarky comment thinking I'm oh-so clever, I don’t reply in a holier-than-thou manner because I think I’m just so much better than them, and I don't reply with a long rambling post about why they're wrong and why they're childish and why they're hateful because that in itself is a hateful act, and I have far more important things to be spending my time and my energy on than fighting with a random on the internet and fueling that (quite frankly, pointless) hatred.

When I don't respond, the anon grows bored. Why send hateful things into someone's Asks if they aren’t even going to showcase it to all of their loyal followers? The reason you don't see hate on this blog is because I simply do not allow them to sink their roots into this soil. I pull them out like weeds and refuse to let them grow here.

I also don't respond because, while I may be able to take a death threat or a homophobic slur with gritted teeth and a roll of the eyes and keep on going about my day, some of my followers may not be mentally or psychologically equipped to see such rude backlash. They range from pre-teens to adults, and when they choose to follow me and my blog, I see it as a responsibility on my end to shield them from that unnecessary hatred. There's no need for them to see such toxicity, and so I act as a stubborn guard blocking the front gates. This temple is for relaxation, for laughter and excitement and love, and I'll protect it until the day that I decide to send that last post and go off to do something else with my life.

2.) Another reason that I believe that I don’t get much hate on this blog is because I don’t cross-platform my content. Does this lower the visibility of my work? Sure. I don’t have a Twitter, or a Youtube, or a TikTok, or an Instagram. This blog is just that - this blog on Tumblr, with a link to my AO3 for my writing. And while that limits my audience and perhaps bottlenecks my views, the safeguard it brings from distancing from toxic mindsets that tend to leak into the more problematic social media sites is well worth it, in my opinion.

I don’t write these stories for kudos and hits. I don’t write these stories to push out as much content as possible, to gain a following as quickly as I can, to reach the entirety of the fandom. I don’t want that. I want to write stories to get better at writing, I want to write about the boys because I crave more gay representation and quite frankly I am obsessed with Bakugou as a character and how much fun it is to write from a Tsundere mindset.

If other people happen to find my work and they like it too, then that’s so awesome! But the extent of my dedication to this blog is just that, my own dedication to something I love and something that brings me joy.

3.) The final reason that I think why I don’t get a lot of hate comments or hurtful asks is because I put a lot of pride and effort into my fics. When I write a piece of work that contains heavy levels of smut, I work really hard to make them realistic, to make the characters motives and emotions clear and concise, to showcase a healthy depiction of what it means to be sexually attracted to and/or engage in sexual activity with someone that a person cares very deeply about.

I see a lot of smut centered around the bnha fandom, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, in my opinion, but sometimes I do see things that I personally feel are a little tactless. They’re not handled well, or they promote toxic behaviors, or it really is incredibly self-indulgent and sometimes grossly ignorant.

However, just like with the hate that I sporadically receive in my Asks, it’s of my own personal belief that if I see something I don’t like or don’t agree with on the internet, then I simply do not engage with it. I don’t give it the attention that it so desperately wants to get out of people, I don’t give it a platform to grow on, I refuse to allow it to think that it has the upper hand anywhere in the situation.

I am entirely in control of the things that I promote on this blog, and I take that responsibility very seriously. It’s why I refuse to reblog art if it’s so obviously not being posted by the original artist (there are SEVERAL kiribaku blogs I have seen gaining popularity recently that simply post art from other artists without any credits or any permission). I have even seen several of my own mutuals reblogging art from those particular blogs, and so I find it incredibly important to be diligent in which accounts I reblog art from.

That being said - I’m not perfect. I’m a human being behind this account, a singular entity the runs the entirety of this blog, ever growing and learning and working every day to be better than I was the day before, and sometimes I make mistakes.

Sometimes I reblog stolen art, and need a follower to nudge me in my inbox and let me know that it’s stolen and where to find the original art, so that I can take the responsibility of deleting the stolen post and reblogging the original content to show support for the original artist. Sometimes I write something in a fic that (to me, from my own experiences) I might not consider to be harmful or inappropriate, but that might be damaging in a way that I may have never considered before because I had grown so used to receiving that kind of treatment myself that I fail to see its toxicity on my own, and so when people come to me with genuinely helpful constructive criticism, I feel it is my duty as a writer to be level-headed and humble enough to admit that perhaps what I have grown so accustomed to is just that - behavior I’ve simply grown accustomed to - and to then take a good hard look at that example and make a decision about whether I want to change it or not.

The important thing to remember is that we’re all entitled to our own opinions and feelings, but that we’re also individually responsible for the way that we react to these types of circumstances.

Becoming defensive, becoming enraged, becoming aggressive, becoming jaded - these things don’t do anything but make a situation worse.

That’s why I love Bakugou so. fucking. much. He IS all of those things. Defensive. Easy to anger. Inherently aggressive. And Horikoshi is teaching him through many trials and errors why those types of behaviors will be his inevitable downfall, why falling into the pit of ‘you hurt me, so I must hurt you back’ leads only to repeated failure and internal anguish, why you will forever be forced to run in place and can never continue to grow and move forward if you’re so busy ignoring the reality that we are all humans, that we are all flawed, that we all experience the same emotions, even if we don’t agree with them or think that they’re justified.

The reason I love Bakugou’s character so much is because he is so deeply flawed, he is told time and time again that he is the epitome of a villain, and yet he refuses to accept that. He refuses to believe that he is anything other than the greatest hero-to-be, and he’ll push his bruised ego and damaged pride aside time and time again to relearn what has already been so solidly ingrained into his being, to continuously be watching and listening and learning while still whole-heartedly remaining unabashedly true to himself, to know that he came to this amazing hero school and is being taught by these incredible heroes “not to learn what he can do, but to learn what he can’t do.”

So, to wrap up this entirely incoherent rambling mess of a response that you no doubt didn’t care to read about, I deal with hate the same way that I deal with everything else; circumstantially, and with as much empathy as I can possibly muster.

If it’s random hate just looking for attention and wanting to hurt, I refuse to give them a stable platform to stand on or an audience to be subjected to. I force them to go somewhere else, cause it’s no fun to hit someone over and over again who refuses to ever hit back. If it’s in regards to my fics, I think I work really hard to provide healthy representation work for this fandom, to showcase the characters in not only challenging situations but also how they can realistically overcome them, and to create an environment where love can be seen as just that, love.

Whether it’s with Bakugou and Kirishima learning how to recognize their own weaknesses and become better people because of them, or whether it’s with Bakugou and Hikaru discovering that experiencing love and relenting in trust doesn’t make them weak but in fact makes them infinitely stronger than they will ever consciously realize, the end result is always the same. I just want to share stories, hopefully ones with positive messages, that make people feel things and maybe might teach them a lesson or two along the way.

I hope this somewhat answered your question anon! Sorry it’s so long and jumbled but is anyone really surprised anymore? When you ask me a question like this, just know I am always going to go off on a long tangent :,D

If you’re ever experiencing a situation where you feel harassed or unsafe or you want advice on how to properly handle a situation, please feel free to reach out to me, and we can work together to try and come up with a mature, responsible solution!

Happy reading!! xx

#dealing with hate #there I go rambling again oops sorry ahaha #personal #asks

[goth-albino-angel]

Yugiri's smile is everything. She has so many of them and they all mean different things. When she's relaxed, when she's excited, when she's confused, when she has no clue what's going on but everyone else is happy so she's happy, when she's relieved, when she's proud... She has so many different smiles and if Tumblr didn't have the 10 image rules, I would absolutely gush about every single one of them in detail. Unfortunately, if I do that, all of those posts will probably be eaten out of the tag, so instead, here are my top 10 favorite Yugiri smiles so far, images included. (Pre-Revenge episode 9)

10. Season One, Episode 2: The First Smile/ 9. Season One, Episode 10: The Sentimental Smile

Episode 2 is the first time we ever see Yugiri smile. Before this, she seemed relatively nonplussed or generally disinterested in pretty much everything going on. Even though she was in a different time period with complete strangers and a madman demanding her to be something she has no knowledge of, she was fairly calm. Then the first time we see her smile, it's when she sees something completely familiar. Her own face. Not only that, but she directs that smile toward the character that is going to become basically her little sister. The first one means so much and it's so important.

Within the same vein, her smile to Kotaro in episode 10 is one during an emotionally heavy moment. It's the first time he's hit an actual snag in his plans. Sakura's singular focus on the Arpino show rather than on the bigger picture of the group as a whole would have been a massive roadblock had she not realized her mistake.

Yugiri is the only one who properly realizes the reason they were sent into the mountains in the first place. Instead of simply sitting on the information, she's proactive about it and actually goes to discuss the problem with Kotaro. She wants to understand his reasoning so that she might be able to help him. And when she turns toward him, she also gives him the observations she's witnessed throughout her new life. This smile may be low on my list of favorites, but it's still unbelievably important.

...Also, when they released the preview image of this smile, my brain short-circuited for ten minutes, so it had to make it onto the list regardless.

8. Season Two, Episode One: The Professional Smile

This smile isn't much out of the ordinary for what we've come to expect of Yugiri, but it's on here because this was our first look at Yugiri after basically two years of very little. None of us knew how the group would come back, how the writing team had incorporated the unexpected pandemic, how things would play out, or what would be happening. The Promo showed Tae's hand flying off to knock off Sakura's head, but as 2018 displayed, the promos can't always be trusted. This showed that, even in this new world where she's only been awake for a year, she's putting her skills to use and working just as hard as the others. Thanks to the conversation from Episode 10 of the first season, we know she was trained as a geisha which would make service work much easier than it would be for the other girls.

I don't have too much to say on this one, to be honest. I do like that she's in softer lighting, as opposed to the others who were all surrounded by harsh lighting on their season two introductions. The softer lighting lends itself well to the lack of pigment and coloration in the girls' makeup, allowing Yugiri to look like she has some color, even if she still looks somewhat pale and tired. It doesn't give her quite the same sickly look the others have at their jobs. The red dress? 100/10. Perfect decision.

7. Season One, Episode Five: The Proud Smile

SHE. DOES. GYMNASTICS. She has every right to this smile! I did the math for this specific part of the episode and Yugiri got third place. The judges liked her rope aerobics so much, they shot her all the way to third place even though her distance was zero meters. It wouldn't have gotten her interviewed, but it would have at least put Franchouchou at the forefront. I still applaud Tae snagging first place, but Yugiri deserves some praise. She really did go face first into the mud on a bike and said, "Never again." She's so proud of herself. I'll be gushing about the actual gymnastics part in a different post a little later, too, but she definitely deserves to be proud of herself. I'm really gay...

6. Season One, Episode Four: The Cute Smile

Originally, this was just going to be me doing some keysmash version of a squeal or something, but there's something I'd like to draw attention to. I'm pretty sure that, by this point, Franchouchou only knows two songs. Yomigaere, which was supposed to be performed in episode 2, and Mezame Returner, which is what's being performed here. Of these two, Yugiri has more experience with this one, but from what the audience had been shown, it wasn't good experience.

Memorizing the lyrics would have been the easy part for her. It's that a good portion of the dance practice was also spent helping Lily get the steps down and potentially calming her frustrations. Then the performance itself would have been a complete disaster if Junko and Ai hadn't gotten over themselves at the last minute to finally help.

This is the first successful performance of Mezame Returner we're witnessing and it's clear the group's had more practice since then. You can see how excited and happy Yugiri is here because this one is actually going well. They had a bit more time to prepare, the two lead roles were actually involved this time, and the audience also was clearly enjoying the performance. She's so happy and it's just so heart-warming to see. Yes, even with the CGI. Don't @ me, she looks adorable.

5. Season One, Episode Seven: The Sassy Smile

This one also was just going to be a squealing keysmash thing, but again, I have something to point out. Look how much more confident she is now that Junko and Ai have, once again, gotten over themselves. Yugiri sees the effect that Junko stepping in had on the others and just like the rest of the group, her movements are more relaxed and free.

It's more obvious, actually, if you look at the way the other girls are moving directly after Junko helps Ai up in comparison to how Yugiri is moving. She did a spin while waiting for Sakura and Lily to finish their segment, and she could be cheeky during her own. She sensed that the tension had mostly dissolved and because of that, she allowed herself to relax and could properly throw herself into the performance. When she throws out this smile and wink, it's not actually directed at the audience. It's Yugiri telling the others that they've got this without breaking the performance.

4. Season Two, Episode Four: The Gentle Smiles

I put both of these here because Yugiri's just... so... caring? So much of what she does is passive that you don't realize just how much work she puts into relieving the stress from the other girls until long after the problem has been resolved.

In the first, she's speaking to Sakura. No doubt, Yugiri probably noticed how worried Sakura was about Junko. Even though Sakura was trying not to let the others catch on just how anxious she really was, Yugiri still knew that something was bothering Sakura as well as Junko. Yugiri knew that the key to easing Junko's mind lay in placating Sakura first. She's seen what happens to them all when they fall apart and she wants to avoid that at all costs. So, Yugiri lifts Sakura's spirits and gives her back the fire and determination to make a great performance.

In the second, Yugiri is watching Junko eat. Unlike the others, it's clear Yugiri knows that Junko is in much higher spirits than when last they saw her. Junko would likely have still been a stuttering, quivering mess otherwise, but she wasn't stuttering and her actions were purposeful and self-assured. Yugiri is very observant. She would have caught on that something had happened to make Junko feel better. What makes this smile even better is that she's not the least bit disappointed. The reason she made dinner was to help Junko, but she doesn't view the meal as a waste of time. She's so focused on other people, that she's happy Junko is feeling better at all and even offers her different platters to help keep her mood up.

These are high on the list for two reasons. One, they're a show of just how much Yugiri does for her girls. Two, YUGIRI COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HEADCANON CONFIRMED BITCHEEEESSS!!! I GOT ONE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!

3. Season Two, Episode Six: The Affectionate Smile

I will be completely honest, I have no idea why this one is as high as it is. I admit, I did spend three hours replaying this single thirty second scene because it's really sweet and Yugiri and Tae don't interact very often, so seeing Yugiri not only be worried for Tae, but also be immediately reassured that Tae would be fine was just something my heart didn't know it needed until it had it. The sheer level of affection Yugiri shows toward Tae is too adorable. Especially since Yugiri usually only has moments like those with Sakura and, to a lesser extent, Lily. This smile's really cute, it's in the middle of a wholesome scene, and it made me love both Yugiri and Tae that much more.

2. Season One, Episode Three: The Excited Smile

Once again, an entry that was going to be a simple squealing keysmash until I realized there was something to point out here as well. This is the first smile we ever see from Yugiri that's genuinely enthusiastic. She has plenty of them, especially during her performances, but this is our first time seeing her fully incorporate herself into the group as an actual member and actually look excited to do something with the others. This was an omen of adorable things to come and damn did it deliver.

Honorable Mentions.

I'm only going to touch on each of these briefly because to be honest, there are a LOT of smiles I could've picked.

The first one is from episode 6 when the group is talking about their very first meet-and-greet. Lily asks Yugiri if she's keeping up okay, and Yugiri remarks that she's taking things as they come. This was a small look into the kind of character she is. As I mentioned before, she's very passive in the way she operates, but that's to the benefit of those she cares for. This is her admitting that she doesn't want to be a problem and it's just sweet that even though Lily is worried about her, Yugiri's still highkey thinking about everyone else.

To the right is a shot of Yugiri during Electric Returner. This one is just the squealing keysmash because she looks so genuinely ecstatic, it's contagious. She's NO DAMN CLUE what happened or why they sound so different, but she is absolutely living her best second life.

The next shot comes from the beginning of Yomigaere and is somewhat of a repeat of the above. She's excited to perform for such a big crowd, she's glad Sakura finally agreed to actually participate, and she's living her best second life. Whoever animates Yugiri's CG model? I love you. I want to send you a gift basket. She's always so happy during performances.

Then comes her smile after the group finds out Sakura's memories are back. She's just glad Sakura, her Sakura, has come back to them, that she accepts her crap luck and is still willing to stay. For Yugiri, this goes under the list of Best Possible Outcomes. Her family is whole again and she's so relieved.

Last in the top row is the first full frontal shot we get of Yugiri in the Saga Jihen music video. She's so unbelievably adorable here. I wish I could've gotten her first expression, but the curtain was still rising and without photoshop, I'm not editing an image to the degree needed to get her whole face lightened. Point is, she's cute and everyone deserves to see her adorable face on the first song she got to be center for.

First on the bottom row is Yugiri looking apologetic from episode 8 of Revenge. She's so cute. It was an honest mistake and she had no way of knowing the paper belonged to Kiichi. No doubt, that was probably why she offered to help him rewrite them later.

Next is how cute she looks in big sister mode. She's wiping the mud from Kiichi's cheeks and is taking such care with him. Throughout the entire episode, she treats him like a little kid and it's likely because her role was big sister for so long that she doesn't know how not to treat him that way. It really does shed light on just how kind she is to everyone, though, that she doesn't even think about her dirty kimono and focuses on cleaning him up a little first.

Then we have her smiling at Kiichi as she remarks on how beautiful his dream of reviving Saga is. She even says she hopes it comes true. His dream means something to her. She can't even fully see it, he can't even fully see it, but they don't need to. What Itou didn't understand this whole time is something Yugiri understood immediately just from listening to Kiichi talk. They don't need to see it in their minds, all they need is to feel it in their hearts, and that's something Yugiri knows.

And lastly on the honorable mentions, because this post is already super long, Yugiri smiling while she's cooking for her guests. It was a tossup between this or the pinwheel because it's just really nice that Yugiri can simply enjoy mundane things. I chose this one because it's a direct contrast to how she was at the beginning. Before, she ate with a disinterested expression, but now, she's cooking for guests rather than just for herself. The lift in her mood is obvious, and it's something so small but so heartwarming, I couldn't resist.

I would've put the pinwheel moment anyway, but unfortunately, as a com major, formatting and design are everything and an extra picture on the top or bottom without a balancer would've thrown the whole thing off. Maybe next time.

NOW FOR NUMBER ONE

1. Season Two, Episode Eight: The Softest Smile

This should have been expected. There's something genuinely touching about the fact that Yugiri really does give her everything, even to complete strangers. These girls barely know her, everyone in town barely knows her, but because her dance students suggested Yugiri go out and actually experience, Yugiri gives it actual thought. She doesn't dismiss them, she doesn't deride them, she doesn't make them feel foolish or anything like that. She treats their suggestion the same way she would if it had come from a close friend. And she does actually take them up on it.

Later, we see her come into contact with Kiichi to demonstrate that even full-on strangers aren't exempt from her kind heart, but this means more. All we know is that these girls take Yugiri's dance class, and from the way they speak when we first meet them, it's clear Yugiri has a professional wall between herself and those she instructs. But she still treats them as she would the girls back in Shimabara. It's proof that, even in the past, Yugiri really was just as kind-hearted as in the present. It's a show don't tell kind of thing that just speaks so deeply to the writer in me. I love this smile. It's everything. Her smiles are everything. She's everything.

#Yugiri #Yuugiri #Zombieland Saga #Zombie Land Saga #Zombieland Saga Revenge #Zombie Land Saga Revenge #Angel has spoken #rip mobile users #I'm sorry but I needed to do this #also sorry about the slight passive aggressiveness for entries five and six #I'll do better

[rpbetter]

"writes dubcon therefore is a freak who should be bullied off the site" ho boy i'm fed up with people acting as if consenting adults writing [insert "problematic" fictional thing here] is the worst thing in the world. seen way too many people justifying harrassment of REAL PEOPLE by "they write thing that triggers me". ok, and? mute the tags or don't follow! "it triggers someone" is not a valid reason to ban a topic. piano music triggers me yet i don't go around demanding everyone stop playing the piano.

Anon, not only is everything you said absolutely valid, but also, thank you for demonstrating that triggers are incredibly varied and as such, we cannot predict everyone's triggers. Making the entire "point" of banning for possible triggers invalidated as hell.

We should be aware of things like the most commonly occurring phobias (things like arachnophobia and coulrophobia that are, additionally, easily triggered by imagery) and tag them. We should be aware of very obvious triggers, that are, again, easily set off by imagery, like blood, eye trauma, and depictions of domestic violence. And we should always read and be aware of our writing partners' stated triggers so that we can tag them appropriately or even decide that it isn't going to work because our muse, canon story, or interests are going to present an unfair situation in this partnership.

But triggers can be highly unusual, as well as activated differently (even at different times) for everyone. I'm not triggered by seeing hotel rooms in pictures or movies, I'm not triggered by writing scenes that take place in them, but I'm triggered to some degree by being in one. It's outrageous oversimplification to act like all triggers are the same, they all display the same way, they're all going to trigger someone on the same basis, everyone's going to react the same to their triggers. There is absolutely no way to prevent 100% of possible triggers for 100% of the population, 100% of the time.

Add to this that way too many people trivialize triggers by throwing around that term to justify the banning of something that makes them uncomfortable or that they take a personal, moral issue with. "I don't like this" and "I'm grossed out by this" and "this makes me feel uncomfortable" is not being triggered. It's just a good way to weaponize the better nature of other people so that they comply.

Most people legitimately do not want to trigger someone, especially if they have triggers and know what it's like. Just like no one wants to be accused of cruelty towards trauma survivors in general, or be designated a pedo, rape apologist, or fascist. They're all things to weaponize in order to isolate, shame, and control. And that's really fucking gross. These are serious, real things that have no business being trivialized to police content, win internet arguments, or garner popularity.

The potential for someone to be triggered isn't a reason to ban anything; we have tags, we have blacklist.

While I'll be the first to say that tumblr's blacklisting can be as shitty as everything else on the site, the primary issue with running into content you don't want to see comes down to two factors: no one tagging/tagging correctly and actively exposing yourself to that content. Going through people's properly done tags and blog warnings about their content in order to "call it out" is actively exposing yourself by choice. You actual walnuts.

Calling people on on their "problematic" content is bringing those topics to the attention of other people. That's the whole point of this gross behavior: look at the freak pedo abuse apologist I found, they write dubcon!! Don't look if you'll be triggered uwu

Buddy, pal, my guy...you just put that on blast for anyone to run across. Maybe their blacklist catches those words in your callout post, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they think you're a safe space because you promote yourself that way, so they click it anyway. Point is, you just willfully and irresponsibly exposed people because it's more important to you to demonize a rando on tumblr RPing something you take issue with. Good job!

Furthermore, dubcon itself is such a hilarious issue to take. Do they realize that isn't always sexual, or? Not? I'm thinking not. Funnily enough, one of the oldest posts I've been working on for this blog is about exactly this topic, the myriad situations that are dubious consent. That doesn't have to be sexual, and neither does it have to be intentionally predatory. You can come up with some amazing character development with a lot of muses in the RPC with dubcon because almost everyone's muse has some manner of trauma that might negate their perception of their own consent...and what do you do then? Is it removing more agency from that muse to shut them down, or is that always the better option? Can you separate your opinion as the mun from your muse's natural reactions? How does this impact the muses involved not just that moment but the next year?

Point is, dubcon isn't always some rapey situation. Even if it was, even if someone is writing it that way, it's literally not your business or your problem.

There's one mutual-in-law on my RP blog that really bothers me. They write things that I find fetishizing, incredibly rapey, all around shit that bothers me. I don't want to see it, some of the things they write makes my damn skin crawl. This person doesn't know it, we certainly don't speak and I don't think they like me very much, but I've repeatedly defended their right, specifically their right as a person with some long-term callouts on them, to write what they want to. I have them blocked and their urls blacklisted so I never have to see my mutual reblogging their threads. It's not a problem because I don't click "show anyway." Why would I, if it genuinely bothers me so much?

That's how you handle things that bother you; you use the tools available to not interact even by accident. Not by launching a morality crusade.

If any of us want to write what we enjoy, we have to allow others that same freedom. It's always a matter of time before this policing grows to include more and more topics, it's been used multiple times to get well-meaning people who don't fall into the general demographics to police queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups off of platforms. We've been fortunate in most of the RPC that it implodes on itself before it gets all the way there, but even so, you can see it.

It starts with things that produce a visceral reaction in the great majority of people, positions this with a repeatedly condemned idea presented as solid fact that fiction is reality, and you've got the start of something awful. Today it's something you don't like, maybe even something that triggers you, so you either support it or you quietly allow it to happen. Who needs to write that "freak shit" anyway, can't they just be gross privately? Six months from now, it's something "problematic" that you enjoy like violence that's canon-typical for your muse, or your OTP because they're gay and that's fetishizing, they're cis male and female but one or both is bi and that's bad representation, or they canonically have a rocky relationship so that's romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

If you can't care for any other reason, you really should care about how it is going to impact you sooner or later. In an environment like this, you can stay in your space, put warnings on your blog, and tag properly and you're still going to get a callout if the wrong person finds your blog. Just takes a single person with more time, energy, and skewed ideas of justice than they have reading comprehension or common sense.

Again, I cannot encourage people enough to give warnings, but it's difficult to ignore why those warnings are slipping; they're a way to be found, designated as a Problem, and called out. Look, it's another reason why callouts actually make things worse, not better! People put that shit in their rules so you can avoid content, they're being responsible and interested in promoting a safe RPC. Let them do it, damn.

You can't tag everything, and if you've never experienced what a giant series of repetitive tags is like on a screenreader you probably should before you tag seven paragraphs of possible issues. You can tag for visuals, you can tag for the obvious things, and you can tag for what's in the rules you agreed to when you followed/followed back. But you should also warn people that you write "dark topics" on the tin, and expand on that in your rules for specific things like graphic violence, toxic relationships, dubon, and addiction.

That's how responsible adults, not over-aged children, make better decisions about their mental health and general comfort. Not by appointing themselves the watchdogs of the damn RPC, here to protect you whether you want to be or not, find that incredibly insulting or not when you're in one of their categories of people who must be protected, by forcibly banning Problematic Everything. Problematic, of course, being entirely in the eye of the content police.

It's fiction. No one and nothing real was harmed. It's great that you are so invested in the fictional world and people that make you happy, but take a fucking big step back into reality. The real people you're harming with your bullshit had every right to peaceably exist. If what they're writing is triggering to you, stay. away. from. it.

Without any coincidence whatsoever, that's how you get from the base-point of Problematic Material to Problematic Mun. Yeah, it's just fiction, it's just RP, but I also took something out of context OOC or was upset by their tone on their own blog or couldn't exercise the minimal adult logic to remove myself from their presence OOC as well. So, now, you've got OOC behavior being added to the callout, if it wasn't already. Everyone is now ableist, transphobic, racist, and a misogynist because it lends that visceral reaction to the callout and ups the game from just being "y'all so gross you aged up a cartoon character to ship" to "this is REAL and it won't be tolerated! OP is actually a pedophile, they told a sexual joke in a discord server with a minor present and I have the receipts!"

What are the most storied callouts in the entire RPC? I'm absolutely certain the same names came to mind no matter what fandoms you're in, and one of them was "Matt." Another was probably "Ares/Snow". They're all successful and keep being brought up out of the closet anytime people are bored enough because their primary punch is the mun themselves being a predatory threat to the community. The mun is verified to be a bad person. Well, of course, that's got to be repeated, it worked. (Even if it did not, at all, work and only made it harder for people to avoid any of these muns.)

Are there people in the RPC who are legitimately a problem? Absolutely, yes. We're all supposed to be adults, however. Part of being an adult is having and acting upon one's agency. If someone is coercing you into things you are not comfortable with, shut it down. If you have difficulties being certain of those situations, run it by a trusted, honest friend or available, impartial source in the RPC for a second opinion. If you can't handle any manner of confrontation, there really are situations in which it's perfectly alright to block someone without any discussion. It's just the internet, you're in control of your space. Own it.

Minors are a whole other can of fucked up worms I'm not even getting into right now except to say that because a minor exists in a space they were told to stay out of does not mean we ban all topics inappropriate for their consumption.

tl;dr: banning shit doesn't work anyway, the whole idea is predicated upon some incredibly problematic takes IRL, and no, there's no justification for it outside of intense personal problems with one's own importance. That energy would be infinitely better spent volunteering one's time to help real people in crisis or after surviving one, or even oneself in developing some healthier approaches and thought patterns.

#hey what if we all start saying we're triggered by callout culture is that bannable then lmao #vespertine #drama cw #bsnf #callout culture #tumblr rpc #rp problems #also thank you again anon I hope you're having a great day!