#I literally thought it was season 12 and would be at the end of the season BUT NOPE

[discotitsposts]

meant to be

Spencer trying and failing to flirt with you because you are oblivious to his attempts.

spencer reid x reader

i picture this as later seasons spencer maybe sometime around 12-14?

some mature themes mentions of sex at the end so 18+

writing this because i saw something about people who are bad at flirting and that’s literally me. (i hope ppl get the reference w the nickname)

Spencer had tried every day to get your attention romantically. It didn’t work. Nothing did. You were so oblivious to all of his flirting attempts. He figured maybe you had trouble understanding so he worked harder to make you think of him as more than a friend. He tried everything his genius brain could come up with.

He even made up a nickname for you, Bean, because you always had a coffee in your hand, and because he was taller than you.

Today you were getting coffee with him as usual. At your favorite coffee shop and library. You didn’t work at the BAU so you would eventually have to go to your own job so Spencer decided to try again.

Since you lived in the same building, neighbors in the same hall, he picked you up every morning. Drove you to get coffee and you each picked a book for each other and then he drove you to work.

He knocks on your door awaiting anxiously. You come out in your outfit, just a t shirt and jeans. you didn’t have a dress code at your job, you were an author and usually went into a nice office that the publishing company provided to write since you had a hard time focusing in your apartment. Too many distractions.

In Spencer’s car you make small talk as he tries to think of a way to flirt with you. Normally he’d call Morgan but his son was a toddler now so he was busy. He gets so lost in his head he doesn’t realize he just ran a stop sign on accident and almost hit someone.

He hears you yell “Spencer what the fuck!” and slams the brakes. The other car honks and his heart is pounding in his brain. He pulls to the side of the road and stops.

“Spencer. Breathe. It’s ok.” You worry tracing your face at the sight of his extremely fast breathing and you rub his back reassuringly.

“Holy shit.” He barely chokes out. His face is beet red and he looks like he’s about to have a panic attack.

“Switch.” You tell him. He looks at you and feels comforted immediately by your face. “Let’s go, switch.” You get out of the car and switch sides.

‘So much for flirting’ he thinks. Then it hits him. When he picks your book for the day, he’ll give you a romantic story. Something that says ‘I really like you but I’m an idiot so I don’t know how to tell you but i’m not actually an idiot because im technically a genius but my fucked up life has ruined romance for me but i’d love to try it with you if you are okay with that.’

When you take over driving you don’t talk. You just focus on the road. You had even turned the music off. He hopes you’re not upset with him. That thought quickly dissipates when you pull into the parking lot and your face is beaming. You both race to the entrance and he gets there first and opens the door for you. You stick your tongue out at him and he smirks.

You order your usual drinks and he gets himself a breakfast bagel and you get a croissant. He puts the food at a table and you both get up to grab each other a book. You had yours picked since last night, The Godfather. It’s only a little over 400 pages so he’ll probably finish it by lunch time but at least it will be fun for him since it will make him think of you. At least you hope it does.

You have a habit of making funny commentary during movie nights. When you watched ‘The Godfather’ trilogy with Spencer he had laughed so hard he cried.

Meanwhile Spencer is searching rows of books looking for the right one. He moves to poetry but nothing feels right. He feels slightly frustrated so he moves back to classics and picks ‘A Little Princess’ instead. A favorite of yours you had read in elementary school. Not romantic but shows he knows you well.

When he makes his way back to the register to check the book out, you’re already seated munching your croissant. He makes his way to you and hides the book behind his back. You discreetly pull yours out of your bag and hide it the same way.

“1,2,3!” You both count at the same time and then reveal your books. Spencer cracks up when he sees the book you had picked. He had read this before but he enjoyed it because it reminded him of you. You both eat and finish your coffees. You look at each other.

“More?” Spencer asks.

“Obviously.” You answer. You both stand up and order more coffee.

Back in Spencer’s car you open the book and start reading. He’s about to put the key in the ignition when sudden confidence hits him. He doesn’t know if it’s the caffeine but he doesn’t care. He should kiss you right now. He stares at you until you look up.

“You’re going to be late for work if you don’t start that engine up soon Mr. Chauffeur.” You tease him.

He leans closer and puckers his lips slightly. He’s so filled with lust he just can’t wait anymore.

You look at him strangely. Was he trying to kiss you right now? Probably not. Truth was you were always so filled with doubt whenever you liked someone. Especially Spencer. He was just too handsome and sweet and perfect.

He leans in even closer to you and tilts his head. You, however, had gone back to your book and weren’t even looking at him.

“Does this make you uncomfortable” Spencer leans in closer. He closes his eyes and you lean down to reach for something from your bag. He doesn’t feel your soft lips on his and thinks he may have missed your face. He opens his eyes.

“Everything does. I have anxiety Spencer. All the time anywhere day and night. ” You reply while eating a yogurt you had found in your tote.

Spencer pulls away and smacks his forehead. He starts the car and drops you at your work and drives to the BAU feeling defeated. What would it take for you to realize how bad he wants you.

That night he decides to drop by your apartment. You had gotten a ride home from work by a friend tonight. He opens his door and walks the short distance to yours.

When his hand knocks on your door he feels nervous. You open the door and greet him.

“Hi!” You cheer.

“Hey, I was gonna order a pizza. You want?” He lies. He actually wasn’t the biggest fan of pizza. He didn’t eat it too often but it was your favorite food so why not.

“That would be great. I’m starving.” You clutch your belly dramatically. Which makes Spencer laugh.

He picks up the phone, “What would you like on the pizza m’lady.”

You tap your chin and think. “Sausage.” You reply. Spencer thinks of a way to flirt. Kind of.

“How much sausage would you like?” He asks smirking.

“Uhh, 5? I don’t know dude. The normal amount that goes on a pizza?” You answer sarcastically, going to your dvd rack to pick a movie. Spencer sighs. He calls and places the order and helps you pick a movie.

“How about ‘How To Be A Serial Killer?’ That’s a good one. I love Matthew Gray Gubler in this one so much.” You fan girl a little.

“Who the fuck is Matthew Gray Gubler? Also, no, not with my line of work. I need a break from that.” Spencer asks with a hint of jealousy in his voice. You clasp your hand over your heart dramatically.

“Ok, fine. how about a Disney Classic? Sleeping Beauty is my favorite.” You ask. Spencer nods. You put the movie on and grab two root beers from your fridge. Spencer thanks you when you hand him one and you lay a big fluffy blanket over you both. Not far into the movie the pizza arrives and you cheers Spencer with your pizza slice.

After you both eat and are full the movie is still on. You’re starting to feel sleepier by the second. Spencer offers you to lay with him and you take him up on it. He’s basically a giant teddy bear. He’s so warm and comfortable.

“I’ve got a real life sleeping beauty right here.” He whispers to you. You smile with your eyes closed. Too sleepy to open. He gets out from under you, to your dismay. He cleans up the trash from eating. He even washes some dishes you had left sitting. When he comes back, you’re still half awake. He sees you sneak an eye open to look at him and your smile after.

“It seems there’s a fair maiden who has fallen asleep. However can we wake her? What if she sleeps for a hundred years?!” He exclaims. You start giggling softly. He leans closer to observe you.

“I don’t believe it! She’s laughing in her sleep! Must be quite a funny dream. Wonder what it is. Only one way to find out.” He gently leans down and kisses your lips softly. This action puts you in shock and you’re blushing. He starts to pull away because doubts fill his mind. You grab his hair and pull him back in.

You both pull back and he starts to ask you,

“Were you ok with that?”

You cut him off, “Yes.” Then you rip your shirt off. Spencer’s in shock. He follows your lead and starts undressing. He picks you up and carries you to your bedroom. The kiss you’re sharing is deepening by the second.

“Fuck why is it so hot in here.” You complain.

“I can think of a few reasons.” Spencer had been kissing you on your neck sucking the skin softly. He lays you back on the bed. He makes you comfortable. He goes down on you and then fucks you like you’ve never been fucked before.

The next morning you woke up naked next to him flashes of last night replaying. You couldn’t believe it. Spencer was so passionate! You didn’t even imagine he liked you like that.

He groans next to you and turns over. You get up and put on some coffee. When you come back into the bedroom he’s awake and looking for you.

“Hey, coffee’s ready.” You lean over and kiss him. He groans too tired to give an answer. He pulls you into the bed and holds you longer.

With him, this felt so easy and realistic.

Then you realize something.

This was meant to be.

the end ♡

to anyone who read this far: hope u enjoyed reading!! please let me know if u enjoyed! xoxo

#criminal minds #spencer reid #mgg #matthewgraygubler #spencer reid x reader #dr spencer reid

[cupcakesmoothie]

I did all three backstories for Touchstarved (I have 12 hours on this thing and it's only the demo)

Kuras and Vere don't seem to have red options, but Vere does have a secret ending and Kuras... I don't know, holds you for a bit longer?

For Mhin, it really is just picking The Alchemist backstory. You can call them short or whatever and you'll still get it.

For Leander, you have to take the flowers and keep touching him. It's okay if you hold back the first time even.

For Ais, you gotta tell him fuck you and pet the soulless, and after that red option pretty much all yours.

Differences I found between the three backstories:

It is pretty much like how they tell you, Oracle gets premonitions, Hound has experience with people and survival, and Alchemist has knowledge about magic and science, so there's different things you find out with each one.

The Alchemist:

I may be a little bit biased, but think The Alchemist is the most informative (It's also the first one I picked). There's the expected info of noticing that Vere's collar is enchanted, or knowing about how strong Leander really is when it comes to magic, but it's got the added bonus of MC's mentor having been in the Senobium in the past.

Compared to the others, The Alchemist is more familiar with Senobium, albeit through word of mouth. It's interesting how many times the MC says something similar to "I didn't know the Senobium did that." It calls into question whether MC's teacher was lying, or more interestingly (and what I think might be the case), the Senobium has changed a lot recently. It's talked about, even without the Alchemist backstory, that the Senobium used to be somewhere you could go to for help, but now most of the characters you meet do not like the Senobium, so what changed?

The Hound:

The Hound (the least popular option, apparently) was pretty fun. The Hound notices more about Ais, specifically that he's very suited to be a leader, and that the number of scars he has (one) seems suspicious for his temperament (or "how seasoned he acts", as the MC puts it).

One thing that I found very fun was doing Mhin's route as the Hound. They're somewhat able to keep up! They can (or tried to) recognize tells, and noted that Mhin was one of the few people who was able to sneak up on them. They also weren't sure how Vere managed to get their key. They were also prepared to steal to survive.

The Oracle:

While The Hound notices physical things, the Oracle notices... how do you say, otherworldly things. The Seaspring seems to be hiding a lot (of course it is), but the MC notices a heartbeat. A presence. They feel something from Ais. The name Ocudeus means something, they can feel it. They feel like they can see Ais' tattoo move.

Also, the MC feels something from Mhin and Kuras (in his clinic at least), which is interesting!

If I had to decide which love interest was better with which backstory...

Vere: The fact that the Alchemist thought that they could tell what enchantments were on his collar if only they could touch it feels promising! And both their connections (though I mean connection in the loosest term for MC here) to the Senobium makes it feel like you might very well find something.

The Hound might be one of the few who can actually survive this guy if I'm gonna be honest. (I mean you can still get killed by him but. You know.)

Ais: The Oracle's sixth sense makes going to the Seaspring a lot more interesting compared to the others, and the way they can feel something from Ais is very cool.

The Hound can tell his character better than the others, and I wonder how that will come into play later on.

Kuras: The Alchemist knows their way around spell-crafting and alchemy (When I picked this I wondered if they would be able to help Kuras around the clinic, which doesn't happen, but hey it might).

The Oracle seems to also feel something from him.

Mhin: First things first, their red option literally requires you to have the Alchemist backstory. Mhin's precision is noticed by the other MCs sure, but not to that detail.

Watching the Hound observe where they could be was so fun to watch. It feels like this MC will be able to keep up.

The Oracle feels something from Mhin, something inhuman.

Leander: The Alchemist was able to tell that the flash of magic was a barrier spell, and that most magic (or at least the ones they're familiar with) uses an incantation or spell circle. His didn't.

But either way, there will be things to find no matter the backstory you choose, and all of the character's stories are intertwined, so don't let this dissuade you from a specific backstory! There will always be things to find, you just need to look.

Extra: I found it pretty cool how each MC has a different way of knowing what a Groupmind is. Story-wise this makes sense of course, but each of their reactions to it are slightly different, from I heard this from rumours of people in cults (Hound), to I used to be told I could put people in a groupmind (Oracle), to legends suggest it was possible with a strong enough catalyst but it's never been done before (Alchemist).

Also, it's interesting to know what they each think of surroundings (specifically the Amaryllis district). They all have different opinions from I used to be told bizarre things about this place and now I kinda get it (Alchemist), to it's not that different from the place I grew up in (Hound), to it's VERY different from where I grew up in (Oracle).

And if I'm not mistaken, the reason Vere gives for your desperation is different for all of them!

You can find gameplay from me on my Youtube channel, or watch me getting all the red options and secret ending here:

I didn't read it out loud cause my mic sorta sucks and sometimes it peaks and gets a bit shrill. Also you see how my mouse moves sometimes? It means I'm screaming. I don't think I'd have been able to keep calm enough for this. Also my reading kinda sucks anyway hope you like it lol

#If you guys watch the 3 hour unedited version and find my friend going online please tell me the timestamp #I cannot find it #There are two and I found one of them #It's a fun little easter egg I guess. If you even care #Touchstarved #Touchstarved game #touchstarved spoilers #I had fun doing this #sweetmountainseeds #Oh btw #I may be wrong #Yes I replayed the game four times #But I might be wrong #There might be things you need/don't need to do #I can't really tell anymore #I mean everything here should be right but do correct me if I'm wrong

[katyatalks]

Animedia 2022/12 - MP100 III Interview with Hoshino Takanori ENG

“Serizawa, the kouhai who holds respect and affection for Reigen” & “Reigen Arataka, the senpai of Serizawa’s life”

Animedia 2022/12 holds a short interview surrounding Serizawa’s relationship with Reigen. Below is the full English translation:

—

Q: Hoshino-san, as Serizawa’s voice actor, in what ways do you feel Reigen has a senpai-ish nature, or a senpai-ish charm?

A: Reigen-san has an element to him where he isn’t very good at leaning on others. There’s something charming about that awkwardness. I think you could see that as him being dependable or having a firm character.

Q: Could you please tell us about a scene that you feel exemplifies Reigen and Serizawa having a good senpai / kouhai relationship?

A: I thought it was amazing when Serizawa was shocked by episode 1’s “Rice Grain Big Bang!”. Reigen announces his special move without an ounce of embarrassment, Serizawa gives an intense response to it. 100%. Full points.

Q: At last the long awaited season 3 has arrived. There are many people who eagerly await new episodes each week. What should we look forward to? It looks as if much like seasons 1 and 2, some heart-trembling events will unfold…?

A: Naturally, each person associated with Spirits & Such will go through their own growth, their own conflicts… which one should I say… there are certainly some heart-trembling events, perhaps I should choose this. It wasn’t just once or twice that I came close to tears during rehearsals and recording sessions.

Q: At this current point in time, how would you say Serizawa feels about Reigen?

A: “He doesn’t assume or pass judgement on me, and no matter what, he supports me… he’s amazing… even though he’s younger than me… compared to him, I…” I think it’s something like this - he holds Reigen in high regard and uses that to work on himself.

Q: Please say a few words for our readers and the Serizawa fans looking forward to coming episodes.

A: Season 3 is full of moments where everyone at Spirits & Such feels lost, chooses, and moves forward. You won’t want to avert your eyes at all until the season ends, so please watch as each episode airs. Please enjoy each broadcast!

—

*敬愛する = quite literally ‘to respect and love’.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #my stuff #reigen arataka #serizawa katsuya

[prying-pandora666]

On Alucard and Maria

Are there actually fans advocating for Alucard to be written as Maria’s father figure in the new season of Nocturne? Like that would be a good thing and not infinitely creepier? I don’t think they’ve thought this through.

Alucard is the single most popular character in the franchise. He’s also probably the most shipped character. And yet he has only had one canon love interest in the decades since he’s existed. It’s Maria. And you’re telling me that you think that because he’s 300+ and she’s 17-18 when they started living together in the games, that it would be grooming. However, somehow him inserting himself into her life at age 16 when she’s just lost both her parents wouldn’t come off like grooming!?

Does this man look like he should be picking up random children!? He’s literally terrified of his own cursed blood. Maybe LISTEN TO HIM.

I’m convinced fandoms have forgotten what that word means. Grooming has specific features. It doesn’t just mean “older guy and younger girl.” A relationship with an age gap or an uneven power dynamic can be exploitative or abusive without being a case of grooming. Grooming specifically refers to the process of forming a relationship with a child with the intention of leveraging that relationship and trust to train and prepare (aka brainwash) your victim for the harmful activities the groomer wants to normalize. The relationship Alucard and Maria have in the games is in no way grooming. You know what would be grooming though?

Coming into a 16 year old’s life when she’s vulnerable, traumatized, and recently orphaned only to insinuate yourself as a new father figure. This is so highly inappropriate and a huge red flag. Consider what you’re actually asking for here. These characters do not exist in a a vacuum. They have a long history together as each other’s only canon love interests. You cannot fully extract them from the games, art, interviews, audio dramas, animations, and more where they’re depicted as a couple. There are decades of this precedent and you are asking Netflix to knowingly take the characters with an established romantic dynamic that the audience is already primed to see as romantic and instead portray their meeting as him trying to be her new daddy?

“Oh look! Alucard and his… daughter? Yikes.” This is an official advertisement btw.

THAT is grooming! Think about the optics of this! It would be abysmal! No it would NOT fix the problem of their age gap to make him act like a groomer and get in good with her as a dad. You just cannot completely extract them from the legacy of their relationship in the source materials. It will be incredibly creepy and textbook grooming if you get your way.

Is this really what you want to associate with an “adoptive father Alucard”? Because the art we create doesn’t exist in a vacuum. All the old content—official and fanmade—is still going to exist.

What is so objectionable about the original dynamic anyway? It’s a pretty fun subversion of the tired and problematic vampire trope of “vampire man stalks teen girl and coerces her into being his”. Instead in their original relationship, Maria is the one who pursues Alucard! It’s the young woman who takes initiative and is given the agency to go after what she wants. She courts and woos him. That’s part of the fun!

Yes, Alucard is 300+. He’s also a fictional creature that doesn’t actually exist IRL and stays eternally young. There are no actual people who will ever have his problem of staying 20 forever so it’s rather silly to say he can’t date any humans because of course he will have an age gap with any of them.

The only real problem I have seen people bring up is Maria’s age, but from what I can tell, the show’s already fixed this. Check it out.

In The Games

Rondo of Blood: Maria is 12. She and Alucard do not meet. Richter is a brother-figure and not romantic.

There is then a 5 year time skip.

Symphony of the Night: Maria is 17. She and Alucard meet to save Richter. At the end, Alucard says his goodbyes and intends to return to a life of solitude. Maria goes after him because she has developed feelings for him and doesn’t want him to suffer a life alone.

Maria is given agency to pursue what she wants and prove herself even against Alucard’s resistance and hesitance to let another person into his life.

They spend a year together before we get the audio drama.

Nocturne of Remembrance: Maria continues to try to get close to Alucard. They end up saving each other’s lives and in the end he finally confesses his romantic feelings for her. She is an adult and perfectly able to make her own choices. She chose him. He admits he returns her feelings.

How fandom can look at a story about a young woman subverting the trope and chasing the vampire to get what she wants—basically an anti-Bella Swan—and still find a way to disempower her just so they can pearl clutch? I couldn’t tell you.

So now let’s look at what the show did.

In The Show

Nocturne S1: Maria is 16. She’s been aged up from 12, probably to give her a more active and believable role. But this also means she’s within a normal age to start feeling attraction and expressing her wants. Within her society, she’s even considered of marriageable age. However we are spared the discomfort of our modern values clashing with her contemporaneous ones because Maria in this season isn’t interested in romance. She’s interested in revolution, equality, justice. They’ve portrayed her with so much love and strength. There is no indication they’d betray her by writing her as the child victim of a male suitor. In fact she only meets Alucard in the final few seconds of the season and the two do not even speak a single word to one another.

Now let’s remember the games had a five year time skip. The show only needs two years to get Maria to the adult age of 18, but assuming the follow through with the timeline and go for the full five?

Maria will be 21.

21.

Fan concept for adult Maria. Credit:@esp-art

Are you telling me a 21 year old woman is not old or mature enough to make her own decisions? How is this not a total infantilization of women? Do you think a 21 year old badass vampire hunter needs protection from the ace depressed dhampir boy who just wants to sleep and has in no way tried to pursue her until after she expressed consistent and persistent interest in him?

It is not “grooming” to meet someone when they were younger and then meet them again years later as an adult. That’s a thing that happens! In real life! Adults can still make decisions for themselves! It is only grooming if Alucard behaved in a way that would manipulate teen Maria and put her under his control and authority before she can consent. There is no indication that Alucard in the show is going to do this. And yet the fandom is basically demanding it by saying he should make her “his baby girl”?

And what of Maria’s feelings in all this? She just lost her mother and was betrayed by her father shortly after discovering he even existed. She has lived her whole life without a father. She is in no desperate need of a new one. And if she does need a family member, she already has one! Richter is 19 and is her trusted adoptive brother. Why wouldn’t she go to him over a total stranger she just met and who is half vampire - literally a predator creature that feeds on humans!?

Yeah, hi, Richter Belmont still exists. He and Maria consider each other family. Why would you want her relying on a strange man she just met as a “father figure” rather than her trusted and loving brother?

Have none of you even considered how Maria would feel if Alucard even tried to fill the paternal role? He’d have to force it on her through manipulation and coercion. No way she would want to view him that way. Especially considering she is 16 and likely to be as attracted to the sparkly 20 year old looking sculpted marble beauty as anyone else!

Don’t mind the beautiful eternally young man who looks made of pure porcelain and light. No teen girl has ever been attracted to this, right? No way it could be exploitative and creepy for him to present himself as her new daddy, giving himself authority and influence over her as his child to mold as he wishes, right? Oh yeah, this is MUCH better than Maria pursuing him of her own volition once she becomes an adult, right guys?

We are truly in the stupidest dark timeline.

Frankly, I don’t care if Netflix has them get together or not. They would work just fine as friends too. I just sure as hell hope they’ll ignore the fans clamoring for a creepy daddy/daughter dynamic. Dressing it up as “concern” won’t hide that for some it’s a fetish, and for others they’re just useful idiots who haven’t thought it through.

I implore you to think it through.

#castlevania #castlevania netflix #castlevania nocturne #alucard #maria renard

[skitskatdacat63]

2009 Reference Guide to Seb's Hair(Long post w lots of pics):

I would rate these but I love every version of him too much so I cannot pick 🤭, I'll add some commentary though. This took a horrible amount of time but it was also a great excuse to download and show off a truly terrible amnt of Seb pics(I was in tears half the time bcs of cuteness agression)

0. Testing(Jerez)(February 10th-12th):

Honestly such perfect Seb hair, I find this soooo cute!!! His hair is honestly always so perfect at Jerez testing every season. I love the length and style, he looks so incredibly pretty <3

1. Australia(March 26th-29th):

And now he is...bald. I actually kinda love this hair, he's my little kiwi fruit!! But I also can't help but mourn the Jerez hair. I'm just like: why did you feel the need to go bald, Seb??? It makes him look so young!

2. Malaysia(April 2nd-5th):

3. China(April 16th-19th):

I think the highlight of his bald era is how much he embodies the nickname "sunshine." Like the way his hair and eylashes glow in the sun??? Literally sunshine. Also it's cute to see his hair grow more fluffy

4. Bahrain(April 23rd-26th):

The texture differences are so interesting, I think this length looks its best when it's more fluffy like in the top right pic.

5. Spain(May 7th-10th):

It's funny how his hairline does that point in the middle, again: looks better when he looks unkempt

6. Monaco(May 21st-24th):

Weirdly shocked at how much his hair grew in-between Spain and Monaco??? Also I forgot that those fashion pics were from this weekend, and I was jumpscared by his mohawk look. I think he should keep away from hair product hahaha

7. Turkey(June 4th-7th):

Lego hair looking ass. Kidding kidding, just think his hair looks best all natural

8. Silverstone(June 18th-21st):

Lowkey kinda baffling to me how different his hair looks at different stages of the weekend. The podium hair especially is just soooo different, its very cute but yeah idk

9. Germany(July 9th-12th):

I did not realize he cut his hair again during this season?? Seeing these was very surprising to me, I had thought he grew it out for the entire season but I guess not! But I guess if he hadn't gotten a haircut the entire season, he'd probably have his angelic curls of 2010 by the end

10. Hungary(July 23rd-26th):

Kinda love the looks he was serving this weekend, it's just very spikey and cute(also the cunty sunglasses!!

11. Valencia(August 20th-23rd):

12. Belgium(August 27th-30th):

That garage lighting makes his hair look soooo much more yellow rather than his fair blond in the sunlight

13. Italy(September 10th-13th):

This transitional growing period is not my fav, just the way his hair sweeps in is funny

14. Singapore(September 24th-27th):

Looking particularly blond this weekend!! His hair is just very light and pretty

15. Japan(October 1st-4th):

I think most of these are from post-quali and for good reason; I love the way it looks like he has highlights in all the bottom pics

16. Brazil(October 15th-18th):

I love his scruffiness from this weekend!!! The scruffy stubble is sooooooo!!!

17. Abu Dhabi(October 29th-November 1st):

Pretty cute I think but yeah like nothing can really compete with his hair length in 2010 for me so I look at these and I'm like, ooooo growing longer!!

Conclusion: I think it's fun to get to see the process of someone's hair growing out. I've noticed that a lot of men with short hair get very consistent haircuts to keep their hair generally the same length, and I think that's so boring!! I think it's great to grow out your hair for a few months time because you get to see yourself at all the different stages and experiment with all kinds of different looks! So yeah, props to Seb for serving all kinds of looks this season!!

Also it's always interesting to me how much hair length/style and facial hair can change a person's look, but particularly how old/young they look. Like when he shaved his his head, it made him look so young. But in Brazil for example, with the longer hair and scruffy facial hair, he def looks older!

And of course, let me know which you like the best :D My favorite is Jerez <3

#i need a tag for posts like these which is just: #normal posts that catie normally makes in a normal fashion(not deranged) #this is mainly just ref for me #and for people like me who feel the urge to be ultra specific in everything they create #hope this was interesting for people who are not just me!! #i love how I originally foolishy tried to make this in one night. so naive..... #okay anyways posts i wanna make in this same vein: #more seb hair guides obv(guys idk if you knew but im very normal abt his hair) #id like to try and categorize all his 2009 and 2010(and before) helmets since theyre not on his website and i love them a lot #this would take a horrendous amnt of time but id love to try and make a guide of all nando's facial hair(hes had so many wild ones okay) #and then i wanna rate all the rbr race suits bcs i think about them *so often* and i have many thoughts #sebastian vettel #sv5 #f1 #formula 1 #formula one #catie.rambling.txt #we do a little bit of f1 #normal posts that catie normally makes in a normal fashion

[vasquez-rocks]

in the spirit of "o'brien doesn't actually suffer the most, it's just that all his suffering takes place in special Suffering Episodes": a complete ranking of ds9 characters by how much they suffer

(including recurring guest stars but not villains. i don't care how much gul dukat suffers. he could get hit by a fucking bus for all i care!!) 1. kira nerys. undefeated galactic suffering champion. literally goes back in time to find out if her mom died in a concentration camp when she was a small child like she thought and somehow the answer she gets is, to her, EVEN WORSE THAN THAT. o'brien could never.

2. odo. lab experiment childhood, spends 5 seasons pining tragically for the station’s most eligible terrorist, seeks his family only to find out they're genocidal maniacs, every small innocent being he tries to parent either dies or runs away, he has to return to said family to end a war! odo suffers so much actually??

3. benjamin sisko. loses his wife, becomes an unwilling messiah, forced to leave his family (the most important thing), etc.

4. miles o'brien. ok fine sure he does suffer a lot. not like kira does tho!!

5. garak. most of his suffering is pre-show but that suffering is BAROQUE. and then daddy never tells him he loves him and he indirectly causes his mother’s death

6. nog. after 6 seasons of minimal suffering, our baby boy suffers a LOT

7. jake sisko. not counting "the visitor" (it was a different timeline!). if the show put Jake through any additional suffering, i would wail and cry. His primary sufferings are pre-show (mom's death) and end-of-show (dad is gone and can't say when he'll return), but they are significant. at least he has, and loves, a wonderful stepmom!

8. kassidy yates. SPEAKING OF. her primary suffering is going to jail for the standard federation prison sentence (6 months, which is also what garak got for attempted genocide!!!!!), but then also losing her beloved husband to the celestial temple like almost immediately after, which is kind of a lot

9. keiko o'brien. a lot of miles’ suffering is hers also, and also she gets possessed by a demon after spending the first few seasons trying to find a new fulfilling job despite her husband moving her, a botanist, to a barren space station on which all life withers

10. jadzia dax. happy-go-lucky sex worm who has never experienced a "problem" until gul dukat throws a death basketball at her at age 35, so idk it evens out

11. julian bashir. gets kidnapped a lot and has a backstory so angsty that it's hard to tell whether he's even technically the same person he once was. HOWEVER, he's a goofy lil sexual harasser which makes it very easy to overlook his suffering!

12. worf. virtually all of his suffering is his own fault and he universally responds to it by creating more suffering for his own perverse ends. however, he does get disgraced from his people (his fault), lose his wife (not his fault but also why was she the only person left on the station when she literally FLIES THE SHIP most of the time??), and refuses to ever have fun (his fault)

13. leeta. perky and happy. in a great marriage. loves her stepson! unionized her workplace! however she is not at the bottom of this list because she is (a) a child of the occupation and (b) has to put up with fuckin quark

14. ezri dax. contrary to her frequently expressed beliefs, many things are easy for ezri

15. quark. when he suffers it's hijinks

16. rom. rom's character development is entirely positive. he goes from being the put upon idiot brother to the self-actualized leader of his people who has a son who loves him and a beautiful wife. the worst thing that happens to him specifically is probably when he masturbates so hard he almost dies and even then the result is he becomes a hero to labor in both his world and ours. things go ludicrously well for him at every turn. he is the winner of ds9

#ds9 #deep space nine #star trek #jadzia dax #kira nerys #benjamin sisko #odo #ezri dax #julian bashir #worf #miles o'brien #suffering #the human condition #also bajoran condition i guess #rom #nog #quark

[empressofthesunslittlecorner]

Let's talk about Zutara

WARNING NOT KATAANG AND MAIKO FRIENDLY

CONTINUE WITH PRECAUTION

I thought I should finally use this second blog of mine for the reason I made it.

To scream into the void and find mutals.

So let's talk about one Ship which people to this day fight over.

The fanon ship (at it pains me to write this) made out of Zuko and Katara from Avatar the Last Airbender aka. Zutara.

I read a lot of analyses, arguments and so on about this ship.

It probably all has been said about Zutara, but since I'm writing an AangXOC story which will include Zutara, I felt like I should give my stance on it.

Back when Avatar first aired in the country I lived in the time I was like 11-12 years old.

I had an instant crush on Aang since he was so funny, kind and gentle.

I never saw Aang's crush on Katara as a problem, because it always seemed to me, till season 3, that Katara was just motherly to Aang.

Giving a friend a cheek kiss in thanks doesn't automatically mean that you like-like them.

At this time I only really shipped Sokka and Yue and cried my eyes out how it ended.

And then the famous scene from book 2 in the crystal catacombs under Ba Sing Se happened.

Short recap, in that season Zuko goes through a lot of chances and I root for, wishing him the best.

Now back to the scene, I said.

The scene turned me into a Zutara shipper in one instant.

Zuko and Katara opening up to each other, sharing their traumas and feelings about the Fire Nation, Katara offering to heal his scare...it was poetic cinema.

I was shivering all over and was like kiss, kiss, kiss!

Let's not forget that before this scene I didn't even see them as a potential couple...but this scene, this beautiful moment they shared with each other, opened my eyes.

I was like, yeah this is it, this is something one should want from a partner. Mutual understanding.

Then Zuko decided to betray Katara for a chance to go home and I cried right there with our favourite waterbender.

I felt also betrayed.

The scene they shared made me feel things, which I experienced as a young girl for the first time, I felt the connection between Zuko and Katara like it was my own.

I was Katara at this moment and couldn't believe that the boy who opened up to me, who understood what it was like to have their mother taken away from the Fire Nation, who said that he wanted to change, that he turned his back on me.

Didn't I/Katara mean nothing to him?

Didn't he feel how special our/their moment was?

I was devasted.

When Zuko then joined the Gaang in the middle of season 3 I could understand Katara's anger towards him.

Katara and I trusted him first and he betrayed our trust.

We had a right to be angry.

As the Southern Raiders came on, as I saw how flawlessly they worked as a team, I felt my own heart heal.

I swerve to this day, that I thought they would kiss at the end of the episode, but we got a hug.

However, this hug, made me feel all giddy and mushy inside.

I felt it was something special.

Maybe even more than a kiss.

It was a huge of forgiveness and the start of a new bond.

And then the last episode comes on.

Zuko sacrificed himself to save Katara from Azula lighting, she healed him then...I thought, yes this is it, now comes the kiss...but nothing.

Then suddenly Zuko is back together with Mai and I was like WTF?!

And Aang and Katara share this really intense kiss at the end.

I was literally like:

It came out of nowhere for me.

That Aang wasn't over his crush on Katara we all know, but when did Katara decide she liked Aang?

When did this realisation happen, when in the Ember Island Player, which was like a few days before Sozin's Comet Katara made clear that she didn't want to have a romance or get kissed by Aang, which he didn't respect.

Did he ever actually apologise for the unwanted kiss? I don't think so.

Remember I had a crush on Aang, but through the seasons I became a Zutara Shipper and literally felt all their moments like they were my own.

I was Katara and Aang wasn't on my radar anymore.

I really doubted my interpretation skill, did all these lovely, mushy, heartful moments have been really romantic or did I project?

I felt like Zuko and Katara had broken up with me.

Yeah, so much inpact had their "friendly" moments at me!

To this day, the hug Katara and Zuko shared on the Southern Raiders is one of the most lovely moments of any of my ships.

Not even kissing made me feel, what this hug made me feel.

Think about how powerful this is!

If Zutara had kissed, I would have probably passed out or cried like a baby in happiness.

I don't know and I will never know since it's a fanon ship.

Uurgh.

Anyway, years passed and as I mention before I read a lot of analysis and so on.

What shocked me most was that Byrke originally planned to have Zuko and Katara together but then changed their minds.

It did reassure me, how I wasn't imagining things between them, however reading then how the Souther Raider Episode changed a lot of times because Bryke found it too shippy, tells you a lot.

They wanted to make Kataang canon and better, than the natural flow Zutara had going on.

I want to repeat again, a HUG was MORE ROMANTIC and INTENSE than the crappy kiss Kataang shared.

Like what?!

How is this possible?

Well, yeah, if you don't force things and actually make people interact in a wholesome way it can be.

Zuko and Katara felt never forced because they just clicked. They were different, but the same in many things, that it was so natural to understand the other.

Aang and Katara felt always more like a mother-and-son duo, than real lovers.

And Maiko was kinda lame too.

Sorry.

I have this theory they just wanted to pair Zuko with a Fire Nation girl and be done with it.

I don't know why they chose Mai when it could have been worked with Ty Lee too, if it was only to pair Zuko with someone who doesn't understand him or doesn't want to try.

Excuse me, maybe Ty Lee would have been better since she seemed to care for her friends, in contrast to Mai who just tried her hardest to be goth and hate everything.

Sorry.

What I'm trying to say with this rant?

I think, as someone who had liked Aang and then felt more connected to Zuko and Katara, I can clearly say that if Katara had been a real girl and not a fictional character controlled by men, she would be together with Zuko.

Why would I/Katara choose someone who I need to mother, who is younger than me, who can't relate to me, if there is an older handsome boy who is kinda dorky and awkward and tries his best, understands my feelings and helps me to parent the Gaang?

Yeah, no, Katara would have smooched Zuko if she had been a real girl.

Now, who of you who knows me, can say, but Empress some of your OCs are older than their canon partner, how can you say that Kataang can't work if you do this in your stories?!

I want to make clear I don't have general a problem if the girl is older than the guy or taller.

It's just that their supposed age gap is when they are together makes it creepy.

Look at an example.

My parents have a three-year age gap.

Nothing much.

They are both in their 60, mid 60, so it's not weird.

They are in the same mature stage in life and understand the struggles of the other.

Now think if my parents meet at 12 and 15.

My dad is the older one.

Are you going to say with a straight face that it wouldn't have been creepy if my parents started to date at this age?

What does a teenager want with a pre-puperty child?

Also, they live in completely different worlds, how can they relate to each other?

The same goes for Katara and Aang, what does a 14-year-old want from a 12-year-old?

I bet if it was the other way around, we would all give Aang shit for preying on a 12-year-old girl.

The gender shouldn't decide if we find a couple creepy or not, even if it's so sadly.

What I want to say, Kataang would have worked better if let's say season 3 ended with no pairing, just all being friends and happy and then in the comics when they age, when Katara is 22 and Aang is 20 they got together.

They would have matured, been on the same level, probably dated other people and had experience.

It would have been okay.

Even if I still think Zutara is superior in anything.

Anyway, I hope I could explain myself and no hate to the canon ships and their shippers.

Ship and let ship.

I just wanted to explain my reason why I will be always a Zutara Shipper and don't reconsider the ending of Avatar as the end and Legend of Korra.

I will forever be Team-Season-Four-Where-Aang-Finds-Hiding-Airbenders-And-Falls-in-Love-With-A-Airbender Girl-His-Age-And-Zuko-And-Katara-Marry-Eachother-And-Katara-Becomes-The-Most-Beloved-And-Badass-Fire Lady-In-History!

And they find also Zuko mom ^^

So for now this is it for me.

If you want my take on an Aang and OC story, where Zutara will be canon, go to my other Tumblr profile empressofthesunwriter and read Yin and Yang.

Here is the link to the Index

I wish you all a nice day/night!

Till next time!

#avatar the last airbender #atla #zutara #zutarian #zuko #prince zuko #atla zuko #katara #atla katara #atla zutara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #Youtube

[happypotato48]

List of Thai BL dramas i've watched with short opinions about them i guess :P

Thai BLs that i finished:

A Boss and a Babe. It's cute for what it is, i loved the gaming friendships and i'm a sucker for forcebook. 7/10 need more unhinged energy from book.

A Tale of Thousand Stars/Our Skyy 2 : Bad Buddy x A Tale Of Thousand stars. this show reminds me a lot of early to mid 2000s lakorns. it's a beautiful by the book love story, i appreciated that a bl got to take a spin on this kind of quiet thai story. 8/10 loved it but still too vanilla for my taste.

Bake Me Please. Guide Kantapon is the cutest man alive and CAKES! that it, that all i have for this show. 6/10 it's a show that exist.

Be My Favorite. damn fluke gawin is so pretty what was this show about again? :P i'm kidding, i actually really liked this show. i watched it when i had zero knowledge about bl industry, i was oblivious about krist's controversy and i find krist acting to be charming and think kawee is very relatable as a cringe fail human myself. 8.5/10 this show made me want to collected weird thingies.

Cherry Magic (Thailand). oh boy this show. it's was everything to me also the only show so far that i've written extensively on this site. here is my personal feeling about this show. 9.5/10 would kill for taynew.

Cooking Crush. what! the fuc$! look look, i just learned that both offgun are older than me. when i first saw the show i thought they were some rookie actors with how young they looks. watching cute bl is gonna be the death of me. anywho this show is supercute don't have a lot of thought about it though. 7.5/10 cutting half a point cause of no samsee x metha.

Cutie Pie/Naughty Babe. what a fuckin legend of a series. all the characters have zero braincells and somehow all the rich pretty boys are engaged to each other and by arranged marriages nonetheless. wtf is this fanfic version of thailand and where can i get hit by a truck and get isekai to it. 7.5/10 still haven't watch Cutie Pie 2 U, i hope it get dumber.

Enchanté. this show is so dummmb it should've go full camp reverse harem yaoi nonsense but it didn't and ended up being kinda boring. 6.5/10. meh, i'm still a sucker for forcebook.

Last Twilight. UGHHH!! i'm still so mad. this show was going to be THE SHOW for me then ep 11-12 happened i legit mentally check out halfway through ep 12 and i basically blocked the ending from my mind. this show came out at the right place and the right time for me, the first 9 episodes helped me through a very tough time in my life. the story of two people helping each other finding their way out of the dark was very compelling to me. ughh. 5.5/10 (9/10 for ep 1-9) P'Aof why are you like this!!

Laws Of Attraction. yassssssss this show slay(literally :P) the show is a breath of fresh air for me despite how very lakorn of it is. i'm glad that there is a bl that feel this soapy and campy cause like i do love my angsty and innocent school bls but the industry really need show like laws of attraction. jamfilm also were very great in their roles espically film, charn is the most babygirl corrupted cute evil lawyer of all time. 9/10 no note headempty only charn's evil smirks in my mind

La Pluie. now, this is a romance. this show is one of the most romanctic media that i personally have experience. i loved that the show took the cheesy premise of soulmates and work it so well to do both deconstruction and exploration of the trope. i think using rain, thing that isolated people as a narrative tool for love connection is absolutely brilliant. last but not least pat is just the perfect bl love interest, he's an very idealized character but he do feels like an actual person. i want to give a shout out to Pee Peerawich the way he said "มันหนาวอ่ะ" in ep 8 sent me, the raspy voice, the eye twich and combo those with a back cuddle, sir! you just commited a mass murders with that move. 9/10 plz i need season two with my baby boy tien.

Love in Translation. the unhingendness of that first meeting is probably my favorite bl meet cute. look if you don't get into a fistfight with the guy you destined to be with then what is the point of life. this show fake date is very well done it's doesn't feel forced like in a lot of other bls and it make the growing attraction feels very genuine and it pay off in one of the best sex scenes in all of bl, yang is such a freak and i loved him for it. 8/10 the last two episodes did got slightly off the rail for me but i still enjoyed the show.

Moonlight Chicken. one of the most beautiful shows i ever watched. when watching this show i can feels, smells and tastes everything it depicted. from the comfort khao man gai to jim's loneliness, from alan's heartbreak to liming and heart's midnight motorcycle ride. this show gave me all the feels and i still can't completely shake it off. 9.9/10 this show is a healing.

My School President. These boys!!!! i can't, i loved these boys so much, all the boys, YES ALL OF THEM! this show is on the opposite spectrum of Moonlight Chicken for me. while MC give me the good heartaches this show give me unbridled joy it's like heartstopper on cracks. i absolutely adored tinn and gun and the show relentless optimism about thier first love. love is awesome no matter the romantic, familial or platonic kind and i think this show hit the marks with all three. 10/10(i'm super bias but fuck it idc i even liked the singing) this show made me started watching thai bl and it always will have a place in my heart.

My Ride. this show is lacking in intimacy but making up by being all heart. could this show be better if they fleshed out and explore more of tawan and his cheating bf's relationship, maybe but i'm happy for what we got. 8/10 mork and tawan were very cutie patootie, i don't remember much about the het and the side couple were just st ok.

Step by Step. man trisanu is exactly the same height at me and i want everyone to know that is the only reason i started this show🤣 . i feels like this show have a lot to say about stuff but i kinda got lost staring at man trisanu while watching. one thing i really loved is the very fem *ตุ๊ด coworker who got to be a real character not just a jokey sidekick and having a loving relationship with a hottie. 7.5/10 can i get more man trisanu in bl plz.

Triage. asshole doctor stuck in a timeloop for him to find the meaning of life, yes plz give it to me. i loved stories about assholes who need to better themself for love and other junk. tinn and tol are both grumpy bitches and i just loved that the show use the timeloop to soften these nerds. at the end i just want to wrap them in blanket and let's them cuddle each other forever. 8.5/10 the last ep is bit convoluted but i forgave the show for that cute clocktower kiss.

You're My Sky. i started this show for my boy suar and he did not disappointed. the pining and the longing for an older boy who been there for you most you life, chef kiss. this show also very beautiful to look at. 8/10 i'm kinda meh about the side couples, i do think they all got the "good ending" for their stories.

Thai BLs that i didn't finish or gave up and skipped to the ending:

Bad Buddy. Oh boy, am i gonna get murder for this??? sorry but idk why i didn't wholeheartedly love and give this show my undivided attention. i watched this show very weird and out of order, i started with the last ep than just watch other episodes in bit and peice. i think i've seen 70% of this show. plz forgive me this is the first thai bl i tried to get into but can't. maybe i need to give this show another chance and watch it properly. or idk maybe cause the way i watched it, it's ruined for me forever. 6.5/10 i loved the rooftop kiss plz don't kill me.

Dangerous Romance. this show is trash and not the good kind, how this show depicted relationship between a rich asshole and a poor boy feels very gross to me. i fast forward a bunch and gave up after the not just dumb but very cruel breakup. 4/10 it's watchable if you ignore the plot and the chatacters.

Hidden Agenda. wow this is the most nothing show that ever nothing for me. it's a perfected white noise while playing chill video games. i stopped watching after ep 8 cause look like there going to be a dumb break up, i have no desire to revisit this show. 5/10 joongdunk were kinda cutes.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear. this show is too god damn long with too many side plots the one and a half hour per episode killed the momentum for me. i liked the show and do think i want to revisit and finish it one day. 6/10 for now.

Vice Versa. why are they giving jimmysea this show. this show is so boring for me, i gave up in episode 6. 4/10 gmmtv give my babies better shows!!

Thai BLs that i've watched all the sex scenes and have no intention of watching the actual show:

Kinnporsche: heheehehhehehe everyone were so hot, too bad i don't like rich mafia story. mile being a nepobaby also significantly killed the mood for me. 55555/dead bodyguards (idk how many there are but i don't care) the ost are bangers though.

Venus in the Sky and Love in the Air. cringe gay sex for the wins. 69/420.

ok, whoo that was a lot. gonna pin this cause i don't think anyone want to read all that in one sitting. i think i'm gonna make another post for non thai BLs in the near future. thanks for reading my unhinged opinions hope i'm not gonna get moider for it 55555555.

#thai bl #bl drama #bl meta #bl shows #dumb boy rambled #i think i got all of them #but idk maybe i'm missing one or two shows #i shouldn't written and posted this at 5 am after staying awake all night but fuck it

[bengiyo]

The Sign Ep 12 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

It's been too long, so I barely remember where we are. We left at Tharn somehow maybe saving Phaya and getting stuck in a cave to maybe say goodbye because Chalothorn threatened him or whatever. Chart got caught for being undercover. The rest of the gang was lost in the woods. Anyway, let's finish this.

Wait, how are they successfully tracking anyone? I thought there was no phone service.

Oh lord don't start death flagging with promises about rings.

Damn, I feel bad for Chart. That final kick delivery was actually pretty good.

Bestie said they didn't need rope to get them out of the hole. The power of the Warrior's Bond and Yai's arms was enough.

I watch too much American action. The bullet stuff is giving recent Fast films.

Well, there goes Khem.

Why would they let Tharn run after them alone? He literally loses every fight.

Mhmm, see, Chalothorn had to intervene.

Montree still being afraid of Tharn came across clearly.

Damn, y'all ain't even shower before going back home?

Here we go. One last look at Babe's waistline before it ends.

Oof, the only thing Tharn responded to was an admission of his love.

Finally, 🍑

Oh, I liked that shot of the water leaking through the bed to show that Tharn was gone.

I feel like the grandma has always known more than she let on.

Did we really repeat the exact same death scenario? Chalothorn, you really suck at this. The circle remains unbroken.

I know Phaya's doctors have got to be frustrated that he keeps drowning.

Is Dao in France to cut down on filming schedule conflicts?

I love when dramas show the passage of time with facial hair.

So... Chalothorn just...got over it off screen?

Oh, a second season tag and Saint cameo. I guess?

Final Verdict: 5.5, Great Gowns, Beautiful Gowns. Overall, I just don't think the elements of this show ever really came together. I think the first two episodes of training and mythology teasers, along with the Lieutenant Tam mystery, made me expect these elements to circle and eventually converge in a more cohesive way. I also feel like some of the side stuff didn't really work. I thought some of the mythology about the Naga and Garuda was really interesting, but I didn't exactly feel the cycle they were stuck in playing out in this drama. I'm also hugely annoyed about the core angst evaporating off screen. So, in the end, I'll mostly remember it as copaganda.

That being said, I thought the cast chemistry was solid, and I really liked the execution and use of the CGI. I like that IdolFactory keeps trying more things, but I do think we need to get stronger script writers and editors in the room with a stronger say on the planning front.

#Ben watches #the sign the series #thai bl #bl series

[yesokayiknow]

what are ur fav feral Clara moments

this is an incomplete list but:

The Volcano. i don't need to explain

'die with whoever comes after me' and then he did i love soulmates

actually the whole of those 2 episodes. they're peak feral clara tbh

every single time she threatens to kill missy. because she would, if she had to. if she REALLY wanted to. she would and i think that kind of scares her and kind of excites her (and kind of scares her how much it excites her) but instead she lets her live and she goes along with her plan and just! s9 should've been like s10 we should've had more missy and that's that on that!

forcing 12 to bring someone back from the dead. i know that's grouped with the volcano but the REASON for why she did that is just so wild. do you think for the rest of the season she thought about making him do it again.

all the times she cosplayed as the doctor <3

the entirety of her date with danny. what's wrong with this woman.

lying at the end of death in heaven and then lying AGAIN in last christmas literally up until she physically couldn't anymore. and she would've kept going if she could. the two of them would've just lied to each other forever g o d

yes i KNOW she isn't technically clara but the way oswin snarls exterminate. sorry for being gay

legally i cannot think about the raven i hope you understand

#asks #actuallypjo #and then they just stare at each other????? absolutely disgusting. i miss them so much #doctor who #clara oswald

[wrenwinchester]

Reasons Psych and Supernatural should have a crossover:

1. Woody (the coroner from Psych) being Zachariah’s vessel.

2. Shawn and Cas talking about cats, possibly talking to cats/interrogating them

3. There are so many shared actors between Psych and Supernatural (Woody/Zachariah, Lassiter/Cain and many more)

4. Just the fact that there are literally so many “references” to Supernatural in Psych and the fact that Shawn and Gus are essentially a slightly less codependent version of Sam and Dean (anything can be a supernatural reference if you try hard enough.)

5. It would mean Metatron occasionally works part time as a security guard at an old folks home as a guy named Jervis.

6. Shawn and Gus could meet the ghost facers who got lost in their way to LA and ended up in Santa Barbara.

7. It would mean at some point Cain decided to go to the Police academy and join the Santa Barbara police department. (Alternatively one of his descendants looks just like him) (However I’m going with the first option because it definitely explains Lassiter’s fascination with the Civil War.

8. Fake FBI/Fake Psychic hijinks

9. Shawn would be a role model/older brother figure for Dean (he’s two years older than him).

10. Both Shawn and Gus and Sam and Dean get mistaken as a couple occasionally.

11. Shawn likes Bees, Cas likes Bees, and Cain (thereby Lassiter) likes Bees.

12. Shawn and Dean fangirling over cowboys.

13. The dual ADHD hijinks of Dean and Shawn, mixed with Sam and Gus being over their shit.

14. Dean hitting on Juliet only to get shit from Shawn even thought they aren’t dating yet.

15. Juliet flirting back with Dean to mess with Shawn

16. Lassiter recognizing Sam and Dean from the FBI’s most wanted from 2006-2007ish and trying to prove it’s actually them but failing.

17. Shawn Spencer, Psych season 5 episode 2, “nothing shuts my pie hole but pie.” Just another reason Shawn and Dean would be best friends.

18. Shawn and Dean both have an obsession with scooby doo.

Just Please.

P.S. I love the idea of Shawn and Dean being best friends for many reasons, however, Shawn being a passenger Princess, and Dean not allowing anyone else to drive is just too perfect.

P.P.S. Also Woody being Zachariah’s vessel is just hilarious to me.

Edit: added #16+

#dean winchester #supernatural #sam winchester #spn #the winchesters #crossover #psych #shawn spencer #juliet o'hara #carlton lassiter #Cain of Cain and Abel #burton guster #please please please #I need this #Psych meets the ghost facers

[kindestegg]

Analyzing all the differences in the storyboards posted by Yasmin Khudari and the final product! - Part 1: No Collector Edition

Hello everyone!! Today I bring you a different kind of meta post than usual... I'm sure some of you are already aware that Yasmin Khudari who worked on The Owl House has posted quite a lot of storyboards for episodes in season 2B and For the Future as well. I will reblog this post with the link to her site later (as if I believe correctly the issue with posts with external links on them getting shadowbanned still is not fixed).

But for now! Under the cut, I will point out every difference between the storyboards and the final cut and what this could mean! There's a lot of exciting stuff to go through, so much so in fact that I will have to cut this post in half to showcase the Collector related storyboards elsewhere because there is just! So much ground to cover! And the 30 image limit would burst!!! (I know this because I've literally tried.)

(A small side note... I have elected to sometimes to not show picture evidence of things changing because we do have a 30 images limit here and I want to hopefully talk about all the changes!)

Starting with Season 2 Episode 12, Elsewhere and Elsewhen, we have this cute little scene of Lilith cutting some branches out of the way while Luz follows her and does a little twirl. I imagine this was just cut because it wasn't very necessary, but it is cute as hell.

In the final episode, they cut directly to the scene where Lilith is looking at her book showing the Pools of Time entry.

Another subtle difference likely cut for time, Lilith originally would sniff the seaweed brought by her palisman that ended up on Luz's head. In the final episode, this little action is absent.

Something that was not cut but rather added this time! In the storyboards, Lilith only goes "Eh?" when she thinks she failed in finding the time pools, whereas in the final episode, she goes into her whole spiel about how she "triple checked all her calculations, her equipment is first rate". It's possible that while the moments seen before were cut, this was added instead.

There is also another slight divergence in dialogue. In the final episode, Lilith's monologue goes: "Maybe the blood was too dry? Is it not algae blooming season?" Whereas here Lilith wonders if the map was outdated or if the oak was a bit more of a pine before wondering if it's not algae blooming season.

And finally, there is a moment that was also cut from the finale episode where Luz is wowed by the discovery of the prehistoric Boiling Isles, but finds out she can't breathe in there. This would explain why in the final episode she is heard coughing before pulling her head back out.

I do think it's a shame this was cut as it would better explain why she was coughing and would be a neat little nod to the fact the air would have been different in that era of time.

Next, we have another set of boards for Elsewhere and Elsewhen, this time showcasing Luz and Lilith traveling with Philip to the head. I'm excited to get to this one because this has some juicy changes I want to discuss.

And our first change already shows exactly what I mean: there is no mention of The Collector in these boards. Instead, both Luz and Philip are seeking something called "The Song of Stars".

And equally, Luz doesn't refer to it as a "he" who can tell them how to clear the mist, but rather just something that can grant them power.

Is it possible that at the point in time these boards were getting done, the Collector was not yet meant to be a character? Maybe the Song of Stars was rather some kind of powerful spell, something that would grant Philip a power similar to the draining spell.

Smaller detail but just something I thought was cute: In the original boards, Luz did not say "snap snap snap" out loud, so I'm glad that was added in the final cut. It's cute!

But you know what did not make the cut? Philip being a suck up to flatter Luz and Luz being absolutely adorable about it. He calls her crab language "beautiful" and says both her and Lilith are very brave and that they're like warrior princesses, which sure makes Luz happy. Oh, if only her happiness could've lasted.

A blush and happy tears!! My god girl!! I am so sorry your idol turned out to be a douche! You deserved to have kept that happiness!!!

I do have some theories as to why this was cut. Could have been reworked for time, or could have been that they didn't think people may get the reference (this reads like a Xena Warrior Princess one to me at least), or even that it might seem odd for him to have that concept...

I do think the blush here is interesting, we have seen characters in the show blush in contexts that aren't romantic such as when they are embarrassed, looking up to someone or think something is cute. So this isn't too odd, Luz is meeting what at the current time is a big idol for her and he is saying very nice things to her, which would understandably get a strong reaction.

Minor change: Luz goes "what!" in the original storyboards before asking if Philip uses glyphs too. Again, very minor change, but! Cute!!!

Interesting change here: In the original boards, Philip does not comment that it took years for him to find the glyphs and that it was almost as if the world wanted to hide them from him.

Instead, he comments he "didn't realize there was one for light as well".

This is REALLY interesting to me, because it also makes me wonder if the subtle theme of it being ambiguous whether the Titan's consciousness lingered and somehow hid the glyphs from Philip or if he was just that disrespectful and stubborn towards the B.I culture and wildlife that the only way he could rationalize his hardship was through the world being against him... was way less present in an earlier draft of the story.

He also does not comment "a warrior and a scholar, truly impressive" at Luz after she tells him she also found a glyph in a snowflake, just being quiet instead. I think that part may have been added to make more thematic sense with Lilith having a small quiet moment of looking weirded out by Philip's flattery right after.

Another minor detail: Luz also blushes in this storyboard when gushing over teaching Philip the light glyph, but this is absent in the final cut. I wonder if this was done so people wouldn't get the wrong idea, or, rather, if "my idol is so cool" gushing would be considered to be something that wouldn't be worth blushing over.

Another instance of The Collector being replaced by The Song of Stars. I find it funny in a silly way that it's in all caps, makes me think of how RPG games will write important key items or boss characters in all caps.

And that's all for the differences in this episode! But before we move onto the next, I wanted to talk a bit more about the Song of Stars because this all just... fascinates me? Coupled with that one storyboard we have seen from The Owl Beast nightmare that showed what seemed to be three figures instead of one, I wonder if back then they were toying with the idea of the celestial magic opposing earthly magic from the titans and the collectors as a species being the reason why titans are gone, but they didn't think to actually have a collector as a character back then, only have them as some distant threat and adding to the lore. The song of stars could have been some kind of powerful spell or weapon left by then way back when, perhaps even what killed the titans.

Maybe we will know once the series ends and we can ask all about the cut storylines that ended up being discarded in favor of the current one. I certainly want to know!

For, Them's The Breaks, Kid, now, we have one minor dialogue change. Eda adds a "honestly", when she says she thought there'd be more (to her misdeeds). Maybe they took it out because she WASN'T being honest? LMAO.

This is an interesting cut line: In the storyboards, before saying she'll be separated from Lilith, Eda says her parents "will kill her". While we know this is classic Eda hyperbole, I think this is interesting because to me it may have been cut due to the fact that this could be seen as odd when her parents have been shown previously to be pretty understanding... or maybe there is more to the Clawthornes than we think of.

I'm definitely not saying Dell and Gwen would be abusive, fucking hell no, but Gwendolyn has at the very least been pretty overbearing on Eda at times, and has made Lilith feel left out, presumably even before the curse if Lilith's desperation to stand out above Eda is anything to go by. Maybe, even without meaning to, Eda and Lilith's parents were pretty strict about getting them a good enough education and nudging them to join the Emperor's Coven. I mean... where do you wonder their aspiration to it came from?

Or, again, I'm just looking too much into this and this line was cut precisely because this wouldn't reflect Dell and Gwen well.

Small detail, in the storyboards, Eda said "I'll do anything to make up for this" instead of just "I'll do anything". I think it's possible they cut this because it made more sense to imply she'd do anything to stay rather than "make up for" things she wasn't truly sorry for.

More small details! Faust doesn't say "no child is beyond redemption", but rather "no one". This is interesting to me because it would imply Bump's life philosophy extends to adults as well, and in my opinion nods to the goodness in his heart.

Also! In the storyboards Eda doesn't laugh nervously, just raises her hand at Bump.

"IFWOT" also used to not have its name be said in the storyboards when Faust explained it to Eda and Bump, instead he simply called it a "special training program for gifted students of the Isles". I think this was more of a change to let us know of the name really, and it's possible they didn't have the name when it was boarded.

And finally, Faust was I guess supposed to laugh offscreen when he walked away, but this is absent from the final episode. I guess they either thought he might not be the type or they just forgot to add it, after all it would require someone to remember to record the line and add an offscreen sound effect.

Another set of boards for the same episode also shows Lilith and Eda in their studying together.

For starters, instead of Lilith saying "Trials for the Emperor's Coven are just around the corner", she says "The Emperor's Coven will be here *any* day" in the storyboards, which to be fair isn't a big difference, specially since the storyboards afterwards continue the same way with Eda pointing out seven months isn't any day/just around the corner.

Also something interesting, when giving Eda her question, Lilith specifies a potency the Leadfoot potion would have. Does this imply that potions can be mixed with varying potency, making some purposefully weaker or purposefully stronger? Maybe as a way to create balance?

Also it is barely a real difference, but I thought it'd be criminal to not let you all know Lilith is described to be "slightly envious" in the storyboards when stating that Eda is correct lol

She also had EEE on her dialogue before saying "imagine us both getting" on the storyboards which I'm sad didn't make it in!

Also there was no dialogue for Lilith pointing to the clock in the original storyboards! I'm guessing they added "look we're gonna be late" as a way to clarify what pointing anxiously at a clock meant lol

The storyboards then cut to way later in the episode, with Raine having transferred to Hexside and Eda meeting them in the cafeteria. Another slight dialogue change is Raine used to simply say their parents were surprisingly cool about it, rather than they hated the cold on the knee like they do in the final product.

It is very faint, but there is also a cut frame of Eda blushing at Raine while smiling here. Very cute!

Raine also used to take a sip while saying "give me the rundown of this place" while cutting that sentence in the middle and going "blegh" because of the taste, rather than in the final cut where they say the full sentence and then take a sip.

I think this may have been cut simply because it made the pacing of the dialogue way too awkward.

And finally, Raine used to laugh at Eda commenting on how much she liked the apple blood, which I think is just cute.

Next up, Labyrinth Runners! We have three different sets of storyboards for this one to get through!

First of all! After Bump takes a fighting stance, the coven scouts look at each other and shrug, which was cut in the final version. Guess they'd usually not think much of Bump huh...

Another set of storyboards shows us a pretty different look at the scene where Adrian has Gus held inside the gym: First of all, for some reason this set of boards is missing all of Adrian's dialogue, which makes it hard for us to infer just how much changed about that from the storyboards to the final cut, but we can see a glimpse of a different storyline with Gus' one line in all this:

"I'll never join your coven"... does that mean, originally, Adrian would try to force Gus to join the illusion coven, and Gus was resisting because he probably figured out by now getting coven sigils is bad news? But then again, I can imagine this was cut and quickly reworked into something a little less convoluted and more straightforward: Gus wouldn't know yet just how bad joining a coven is and about the draining spell, and Gus DOES specialize in illusion, so it could look odd that he is resisting this much.

There's another set of boards of when Hunter wakes up at the infirmary, and sadly this one is also missing dialogue. But we can still infer some differences!

First of all, after Skara tells him it's not an illusion and he is in the healing homeroom, Hunter opens his mouth briefly, maybe speaking words of relief or just sighing in relief really.

Also minor thing: it's a bit hard to tell with how these storyboards are with missing chunks, but it seems like Willow would have walked up to Hunter to defend him without him having to have brought up Gus' breathing exercise.

And for the last board in this, uhm, I don't... think this was meant to make it into the final cut but. LOL. LMAO.

Moving onto King's Tide!

Originally, we would've seen Luz use her safe fall spell when dodging Belos' attacks!

Also, instead of saying that it took him years to figure that (combining glyphs) out, Belos instead says it took him years to "harness their strength"... and he does NOT say anything about it being almost as if the titan was hiding it from him. Hmmm. Perhaps, more fuel to the fire of the theory that back then, there was no subtle implication of either the titan's consciousness lingering or Belos attributing his own disdain and lack of care to the titan?

This also curiously alters the next bit of dialogue: he still says "though you're still decades away from beating me", just earlier. And soon after, he says "that was almost impressiv-" getting cut out when Luz sends fire out at him. Not gonna lie, I almost wish this was kept because I like the idea of Belos getting cocky and immediately getting blasted, unable to finish his sentence. But oh well!

Speaking of dialogue differences!

Here, Philip says "And I'm giving you a chance to be saved, Luz. To go home!" instead of "And despite our differences, I want to help you, Luz. I can send you home." I consider this more or less the same, really, but it is an interesting change. He leans more on the saving aspect here.

And there is a pretty big cut scene also with how Luz responds to "I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place".

Here, she snaps that he's the one destroying things, and wonders what it is all for, and then asks "what do you think they DID to you?"

Only after this, in the storyboards, does she go on to her "you're such a hypocrite" lines.

To me, this is a bit of a shame for having been cut out, because I feel like it brings up a good point about how Philip self justifies his wrongdoings by believing that the Boiling Isles residents are all inherently bad by the way they simply are, and that this divergence he cannot understand could somehow justify the drastic violent measures he takes.

I think it could have been this was cut for time, or maybe the crew thought this addition would be a bit confusing for some audiences to understand the implications it is trying to set up. It IS indicative of a bigger exploration of Philip's psyche after all.

Another incredibly interesting change: in the storyboards, Luz used to not have the petrification spell continue crawling up her, and is able to shake it off okay. I imagine they changed this to maybe make the situation look more dire and up the stakes a little, otherwise the scene might be too stale and anticlimactic with just Luz being able to keep talking and not having time ticking down on her life.

She also shuffles to her feet and is able to stand up while facing him, while in the final episode she can't get up due to the petrification spell still crawling up on her. Not gonna lie, I almost wish we did get this one, because the way she controls the situation with Philip here kind of feels more satisfying like this, while in the final product, you're busy going "shit shit shit LUZ OH NO".

She also used to cry a lot more on the boards when begging for the deal... I wonder if they added the petrification continuing really to just hammer home the desperation and make her crying have a "reason", though uh... hot take, I think she has reason enough to cry considering the Draining Spell threatening to kill everyone.

Also! Belos used to "chuckle" as the boards call for it when he was about to shake Luz's hand, but he doesn't do so in the final cut.

And finally for this batch: there's a small cut moment of Belos saying "you" with pained effort at Luz after she fucking booms him and gets the sigil on him, and she fucking STARES back with the most ominous badass look. I'm kind of sad that didn't make it in. Yeah it's minor but I like every time it's very clear Luz is being a thorn on his side and he is actually really fucking bothered by it actually.

Next batch of storyboards for this ep shows the fight with Belos on the bridge! First difference I can think of is that Luz was supposed to say "Philip" very quietly before getting jumpscared by him showing up behind her. It may have been cut similarly just because of them not getting audio for it or something or it not being necessary.

Bigger dialogue change: Instead of saying "we don't belong here", Belos says "I wanted to save you", which adds more fuel to the fire that they used to put a lot more emphasis on Philip's psychology of seeing himself as the one who gets to decide who is saved and seeing himself as a savior and martyr, and also someone done wrong by the demon realm.

I can't really know for sure why this was reworked and why more emphasis was put on rather Philip seeking to relate to Luz in their humanity. A lot of these boards seem to put even more emphasis on them as foils, standing up as equals against each other, and I do kind of lament we lost that? I mean, don't get me wrong, I can totally see that STILL lingers in the final product, but it feels way stronger in these.

By the way, if you're wondering, Luz does not say "I'm nothing like you" here either, it just cuts right onto Willow grabbing Belos with vines.

Also! When the gang shows up, they used to have no dialogue about how they're here to help and all, just cutting to Luz saying "you guys!!" (in the final product, she says "You guys are literally the coolest"). I do like the final product more, it's cute and adds more I think.

This one deserves to get shown: there's a cut little moment after Amity covers Luz where they look at each other and blush and it is! So cute! Why did it not make it in!! WHAT! Just because it "isn't the time to be gay"? Bullshit! Yuri time is all the time!

But for something that wasn't in the boards but made it in! Hunter protecting Willow was added in the final product!

And that is it for King's Tide... and so I ask that you tune in next time for when I analyze the For the Future boards!! I am VERY excited to get through those, specially because even between the roughs and cleans for a scene, there's so many little differences!!! And I want to talk about it ALL!!

#the owl house #toh analysis #storyboards #toh storyboards #luz noceda #emperor belos #philip wittebane #eda clawthorne #raine whispers #sorry for tagging all these characters but theyre all pretty relevant here! #commander's orders

[charcubed]

Hi. I tend to forget that tumblr exists and just shout all my thoughts about The Winchesters on Twitter @CharCubed, which is a problem, but for once in my life I'm posting something here!

Here are some broad Thoughts on where I've landed of what this season 1 finale of The Winchesters offered–

• I very much want season 2 of this show SO badly. I want to see how they all continue to build their lives now that we know tragedy need not be their end! THIS IS THE HEALING SHOW. That whole cast gets to write their own story... "the only thing that's worse than how it starts for a hunter is how it ends" is no longer the case, as Carlos already said... and Dean helped to free them? That fucks.

• In regards to those possibilities: now that Dean would no longer be framing the prequel as a story he's telling, it frees the prequel up to no longer be doubling as Dean's story through revealing mirroring–which is very much what it's been doing for 12 episodes. Now the monster plots and the storylines for those characters in The Winchesters can also be diversified, so every episode no longer has to include, for example... [checks notes] a situation where a character is literally and/or metaphorically trapped and has to confront their trauma, break cycles of violence, and speak truths to be freed. It's been very Loud and very much Like This Constantly because it's Dean's story, but now it won't have to be anymore, which is an interesting thing to contemplate! (To be clear, for those unaware of my history of yelling about this show: I love that it was Like This. This show is fucking genius.)

• Initially, this finale had some alarm bells pinging in my brain but then I parsed the Reasons for those things. Mary told John she had "Something to say," right? And then she never says it. That's a Chekhov's gun that's never fired and it's of course paralleling how Dean has "something to say" to Cas too. Them not speaking that truth is a problem. In addition, we also got a montage eerily akin to the 15x19 one. But these callbacks / parallels to s15 all loudly indicate something very specific: The Winchesters is an unfinished story, and this finale (like the rest of this show) is mirroring and revealing truths about the prime narrative of SPN. For one thing, with the prequel they originally expected to have 22 or so episodes and ended up having 13 to work with. For another... this is the START of their story, not the end. So along those lines, what can we deduce about the end of season 15? (Hint: that finale is not an ending either.)

• Speaking of which: We learn that everything Dean was just doing takes place in the ~heavenly~ time period before Sam “dies." This all functionally happened right after Dean died as he drove down that road. He is restless, unmoored, grieving, and–this is key–considers his "ending" to be an unhappy happy one. He's fucking around and finding out, looking for and unpacking (through his narration) what he needs and wants for HIS happy ending to look like. He found out about the Akrida being a failsafe from Chuck and couldn't resist meddling to save everyone. It's also worth noting that Dean says to Jack something like, "If you have to kick me out of Heaven then that's fine." Between the lines is the thought of "please kick me out of Heaven, I'm causing problems because I'm grieving and I'm not done, I don't want this 'peace' but would rather have freedom." That in itself is a massive subversion of the SPN finale, to say nothing of the previous 12 episodes we've received.

Anyway. So in terms of Dean's story, we now know that this all takes place smack in the middle of 15x20 timeline-wise. This checks out because Bobby's presence connects to him being the only one we saw in 15x20. And... what I personally consider to be Jack's incredibly fucked up or ~potentially taken over by Chuck~ vibes are, in that sense, consistent with 15x19 as well. (I'm so sorry but please let me drop this cursed "Alex Calvert playing Chuck" joke by Jensen from August 2022 which haunts me.)

So: nothing about the concept that @chuckwon at the end of season 15 has been confirmed or denied in canon at this point. The idea that Chuck LOST, as Dean says here, is simply what Dean may still be thinking (which makes sense). But nothing has fundamentally changed about the state of how season 15 left things in the prime narrative yet... largely because that's not what this story is / was about.

In terms of what this finale presented to us, I think "Chuck won" potential was all deliberately left open. And I continue to Call Bullshit on the finale accordingly. A Chuck won plot line COULD be used in a future sequel to great affect, or it could NOT be used in a future sequel. That will be totally up to the future authors / team behind that potential sequel to see what story they choose to tell, and where it all may or may not go. But until then (on that front) right now it's the same shit, different show, and deliberately literally nothing about that potential has changed.

• I LOVE all of the above now that I've parsed it all in my brain. It makes perfect sense. Much like we were never going see the gay angel pop up in this show and kiss Dean (with apologies to anyone who somehow thought otherwise?)... leaving other things open like this is fantastic and the objectively correct call. Dean's story is HIS story to be furthered elsewhere, whereas this show belonged and continues to belong to its cast of characters who must take center stage. But through this story within a story narrated by Dean himself, we learned a hell of a lot about his state of mind as it actively stands in 15x20. Or more accurately: the entire show reinforces and reiterates comprehensively and repeatedly that the SPN finale was wrong and bad and not the end of the story at all, and now canonically and openly and in no uncertain terms that that's how Dean feels too.

• AND THUS: season 1 of The Winchesters works as deeply clever and layered commentary on Supernatural's ending and presents the stepping stone for a sequel continuation for Dean and his family. It's also the beginning of a new chapter with endless potential for The Winchesters' cast of characters who are not tied to fate or main timeline.

I fucking love it here.

Truly, madly, deeply: ALL HAIL ROBBIE THOMPSON.

And seriously, I really hope we get a season 2 because I adore all of the prequel's characters on their own merit and I want to see what their story can become :')

#the winchesters #spnwin #spnwin meta #the winchesters meta #dean winchester #GO LITTLE ROCKSTAR. FUCK SHIT UP #chuck won theory #chuck won meta #char writes things #ON TUMBLR? NO WAY. #I will likely reblog this to the chuckwon blog eventually

[victoriansecret]

How did you get into living history as a profession?

In eighth grade, on my big school field trip, we visited my current museum. At the time I didn't think about it as a job, I just wanted to live here. Which I now literally do: I live in one of the reconstructed buildings inside the historic town. The same year, my history teacher was very good, and structured his class in ways that worked for me very well. For one thing, he'd tell the anecdotal, often amusing parts of history, not just pure dates and names. And more importantly, he had couches in the back of the classroom arranged in a circle, where after reading the chapter we were on the whole class would go back there and talk about it. I am a very auditory person, so this helped me tremendously. It also, not so coincidentally, is very similar to how this field works. The term for the work I do, internally, is called "historic interpretation". I try not to use that term with guests unless I can explain it, but basically, if you can imagine what a language interpreter does - that is, turning a foreign language into something a person can understand - that's what we do with history. Help people better understand it, who may not otherwise know much about it. There's a lot more to it, and for anyone interested in the field, I highly recommend the seminal work on interpretation (not just historic, but also nature, science etc.): Freeman Tilden's Interpreting Our Heritage. He had been contracted by the National Parks service for decades to observe how park service guides interacted with guests, and from that develop an understanding of what works and what doesn't, and did a lot of training for the parks. This book was the culmination of all that, where he breaks interpretation down to his six primary principles, to each of which he devotes a chapter explaining them in depth. There are updated works which expand on it, but part of why his work still stands up (and is, in my opinion, still far better than any of the others) despite being published in the 1950s is that he really gets down to the basic core of what interpretation is and can be. I am not ashamed to say I literally cried the first time I read it, because it exemplifies why I care so deeply about the work that I do. To quote what is, in my opinion, the most important and core of his principles, he writes that: "Interpretation is not information, but provocation." That is to say, all interpretation is based on information, but the goal is not to come away with every guest interaction having shared so many facts, but rather to have inspired them to be interesting in the subject more deeply and want to learn more. This is what happened to me, all those years ago. Between that class and that field trip, it made me realize I loved history. In hindsight I now realize I already did - I loved Jane Austen film adaptations, for example, and was already beginning my obsession with servants - I just didn't like or connect with the way it had been taught to me up until that point. And again, interpretation as an idea in and of itself, beyond just the things being shared, also became something I was enamoured with.

About 12 years later, I was working at a restaurant which was destroying my mental and physical health, and I knew I needed a change. I also desperately needed to get away from my home town. I thought about the things I liked (history), was good at (talking to people), and wanted to do (wear period clothing -- and again, get away), so I thought maybe I could work at a historic museum. Long story short, I began applying to various places, including my current museum. Eventually, I ended up working at a seasonal site in Michigan, where I spent four 'summers' (for the last three, I was there from beginning of May until end of October), and with that experience was able to get my first full time job at my current place. Which I eventually left to go to another museum, only to come back about a year and a half later. ..... as an aside, and I like to tell this story especially for anyone aspiring to get into this field, or really in general, my first boss once told me why she gave me an interview. My restaurant job was my only job ever, and while by that point I had my GED, I was a highschool dropout and have never been to college. I've worked with hundreds of colleagues since, and not counting people still in school, I think I can count on one hand the people that do interpretation specifically who are not college graduates (not to mention many with Masters and PHDs etc), let alone have never gone at all like me. In my cover letter for that first job, I made an analogy. My job at the restaurant was running the salad bar, and because it was in the middle of the dining room, I said something along the lines that it meant I was "always on display", so that would help me in being in such a visible job in period clothing etc. and always having to be 'on' for guests. Because analogies, and connecting to things people understand to help them better grasp the information being shared, are such a huge part of the job, she, in her own words, "knew she needed to give me an interview." And because I am, in fact, good at talking, I knocked it out of the park. ..... which is not to say I didn't have a lot to learn when I started, it was truly a struggle at first on a lot of levels, but these days I think I am an excellent interpreter. And considering I have very low self-esteem overall, it's one of the only things about myself that I'll say that about.

#me #living history #asks

[captain-azoren]

I want someone to tell me what "non-evil" thing Azula was supposed to do when Aang was going into the Avatar State that wouldn't have been incredibly incompetent or out of character or made no sense in general.

How would you have written Azula in a way that makes her less evil but keeps the story the same? Just make her smirk less?

I see a lot of talk about Azula's agency and the choices she makes, but if she's trying to win, why would anyone expect her to anything differently?

And before anyone starts, this is not making excuses, this is trying to understand where the character is coming from.

Azula sees Iroh as a traitor and a disgrace. She legitimately hates him. Of course she's going to do a lethal sneak attack on him. Zuko betrayed her, their family and their nation. He also hates her. Azula had no reason to like him, so why is it so hard to fathom she wants him dead by the end of the series?

Azula isn't going to feel remorse because she believes she is the good guy, or at least that the Fire Nation winning is for the greater good. And newsflash, so does the vast majority of the FN. If any other loyal soldier in the FN had to make those choices, they likely would have done the same.

Nearly every single FN soldier had been trying to kill these kids. That includes Zuko. Zuko was literally RIGHT THERE fighting Aang and Katara in the crystal catacombs, but he doesn't get called evil or heartless all because he was too incompetent to strike a killing blow on Aang while he was powering up and then later expressed regret.

Except Zuko only regretted betraying Iroh. Need I remind people Zuko hires a damn ASSASSIN to kill a 12 year old in the next season? If you think Azula coming the closest to killing Aang somehow puts her at a higher grade of evil than 99% of the villains who attacked the Gaang, you have moral myopia and are full of shit.

Azula isn't going to bat an eye at killing Aang because Aang being a child is secondary to Aang being the single greatest threat to her goal. You cannot reasonably expect her, within the circumstances, to politely ask Aang to surrender. You cannot expect her to just lay down and accept defeat when her level of skill, her tactical cunning, and her upbringing under Ozai all point her towards shooting Aang in the back.

Why shouldn't she try to kill Zuko and Katara? She's the enemy and he's a traitor. She hates them and she's pissed. This isn't some moral event horizon.

Azula hates Ursa because she felt neglected and that Zuko getting more attention was unfair. It might be a misunderstanding, but as a child it isn't Azula's responsibility to sort things out.

Azula has arguably the least agency due to her age and having the most oversight by a powerful adult, so yeah I'm not letting that go.

I'm not saying Azula isn't bad. She has a pretty unpleasant personality and dies some shitty stuff. But it's only some, and on the whole she isn't even particularly bad compared to the other villains in the franchise. Is the smirking bad? It is only if you consider having nasty thoughts to be a crime. A bad sign, but just a sign.

But that's all it really ever boiled down to, isn't it? That damn smile of Azula's that shows you just how much she enjoys hurting people. Well the fact is, no matter how much Azula seems to enjoy her actions, no matter how little remorse she shows, it doesn't make her actions any worse than if she had a cold, emotionless or angry frown. It makes her unpleasant, yes, but ultimately you have to judge people on their actions and less on their thoughts and feelings.

No matter how conflicted Zuko was, he still stole that girl's horse when he could have kept walking, hard as it was. No matter how jolly or enlightened Iroh was, he still waged war for decades.

If you expect me to forgive Zuko and Iroh for all their wrongdoings just because they turned things around, then I'm going to hold Azula to that same standard and say that, smirk or no smirk, her actions are, not excusable, but forgivable.

And yes, I do sincerely believe that Azula caused less harm to the world than Zuko and Iroh in the months she was actually active. I understand that conquering BSS was bad and burning down the EK would have been an actual atrocity, but I also understand that conquering BSS was something the FN as a whole was aiming for and burning the land have zero objections by any of the FN military.

Azula also suggests it to keep Zuko from saying something stupid and to get on Ozai's good side. I do not believe she suggested burning the land because she sadistically wanted to kill thousands of people. Azula probably thought it was a brilliant tactic for stampings out the last few rebellions for good.

Is it bad? Yes, it's very fucking bad, because Azula doesn't understand the sheer gravity of what she's saying or the devastation of Ozai's escalation. But that's true for everyone in that room but Zuko. It isn't JUST Azula, it's the whole damn Nation.

You know what Azula does that's just plain mean? Destroying a sand castle. Taunting Zuko about Ozai going to kill him is pretty cruel. Azula probably could have found a nicer way to get Ty Lee on her team.

But don't give me any bullshit about Zuko being Azula's abuse victim. It was a toxic rivalry. And I guarantee you if Zuko had gotten the upper hand on Azula sooner he would have done what he could to humiliate her, because he hates her out if envy, not just because she's mean.

And why should Azula be nice to Zuko, who is always belligerent and angry towards her for being better? That is how she sees him, in her eyes Zuko is the bad sibling who needs to be humiliated and taught a lesson because he's stubborn and entitled and spoiled by their mother who loved him even when he failed, unlike their father who gave attention when it was deserved and earned.

Yes, that's a fucked up way of seeing things, but that's how Azula sees it, that's what she believes is right, and you shouldn't expect her to know otherwise because she IS 14 and has no exposure to anything else.

Azula DOES regret some things, she regrets always having to use fear to control people, but as the series itself spells things out, it's literally all she knows, it's all that she thinks she's even capable of from her failed attempts at being normal in the Beach.

Azula doesn't think she has a choice,band if you don't think you have a choice, then THERE IS NO CHOICE. There is NO opportunity or chsnce to change without guidance, and what so many dumb casuals and antis just don't GET is that Azula really doesn't know right from wrong. That these supposed second chances she's getting to change her ways are utterly pointless if she lacks the wisdom to see them as choices.

None of us are excusing Azula, because that would defeat the purpose of wanting her to finally understand for herself what she did wrong and to get better, but we can't blame her for everything either.

Just because what she did wasn't right doesn't put her beyond forgiveness. The right thing to do would be to trying and actually guide her and help her, not just throw second chances at her and be shocked when she makes another bad decision.

This is a hard pill to swallow for some of you, but a victim is a victim, and no matter how bad or abusive they are, a victim NEEDS HELP. So get over your hangup and do something useful, and if you can't do that, then stay out of the way and let someone else help.

I'm sick of people trying to convince me to forsake a kid, no matter how cruel or messed up she is. Stop telling me to give up hope, stop telling me to keep fighting to save that one little kernel of goodness buried deep down.

I've been doing this shit since I was a teenager, both for myself and for actual people who made bad choices. Even if Azula laughed at Zuko's pain or was willing to kill, she deserves to heal from her abuse as much as she needs to right her wrongs. Fuck anyone who thinks it's okay for her to suffer.

#azula #rant

[ceruleanwhore]

Aang As a Father, in Response to LoK

⚠️CAUTION⚠️

This post is full of Aang and kataang hate. If you like Aang and/or ship kataang in any capacity, scroll on for the sake of your mental and emotional wellbeing. Thank you!

When Avatar: Legend of Korra came out, I remember there being tons of discussion around how much Aang sucked as a father and how surprised everyone was, even some of us who never really liked him as a character. However, I’ve been thinking about it today, and the conclusion I’ve reached is that not only is it not surprising that Aang was not a very good parent, but it was inevitable. The one thing I disagree on that I’ll get to at some point in here is how he sucked at parenting in canon as opposed to how I think he was set up to fail at it given the direction he was headed with his canon characterization.

I’d like to start by getting into that characterization and discussing some of the elements of Aang’s canon personality that I think are relevant. In the series, yes, as we all know and as Aang stans love to point out ad nauseum, he’s just a mere bitty child, but we can also see some of his flaws that, even in his 12-year-old self, have some serious consequences at times. Canon Aang is a messy cocktail of toxic positivity, selfishness, avoidant tendencies, impulsivity, and a dangerous lack of emotional control. He does things like casually throw away the fate of the whole world over his god-given right to have a crush on a girl and then, in the next season, compare that same girl’s experience of losing her mother to his radically different experience of losing his pet for a couple weeks as he tells her to get over it. He also has a tendency to go into the freaking avatar state when he’s upset about something and cause serious damage to everything around him until Mommy calms him down. Even when he doesn’t go into the avatar state, he does things like verbally abuse his friends and abandon them in the desert when Appa goes missing.

All of this is completely relevant to who a hypothetical adult Aang would be and what he’d be like because, all throughout the series, there is never any accountability from Aang. He literally never takes responsibility for the things he does and makes amends or even just apologizes in a meaningful way because he never has to — the narrative makes sure of that. That’s the key part of Aang’s flaws, that Bryke genuinely thought they made a perfect good guy and had nary a crumb of self awareness that they accidentally made him a raging asshole who is constantly being rewarded for his shitty behavior. Even when he’s clearly in the wrong, like with the Bato situation in s1, they somehow turn it around so yeah, I guess he fesses up and apologizes but, at the end of the episode, Sokka and Katara are apologizing to him and there’s no lasting consequences for the shitty thing he did. Because of this crucial element of the story and Aang’s character, it is very likely that he’d go his whole life being a dickhead while continuing to never have consequences for that and somehow managing to maintain his friendships and relationship with Katara.

I want to kind of go through these one at a time, starting with the lack of accountability. Since Aang is the avatar, literally no one in the whole world of atla actually has authority over him, at least once he’s an adult. His peers are his equals but, even though Katara, Toph, and Zuko taught him his bending, they don’t really have any tangible authority over him as his teachers. Combine that with the fact that none of Aang’s friends really ever criticize him or hold him accountable for his actions and it becomes very clear that, as a father, he will never actually be held accountable for being a bad parent. What goes with this is that he also won’t be open to advice because he assumes he always knows best and the narrative also supports and rewards that. Between the two, he’s set up so that when he inevitably turns out to be a lousy father, there will be nothing anyone can say (assuming they would even say anything at all) to help him improve.

With this in mind, let’s start into the actual character flaws that, as concluded above, won’t be corrected at any point, starting with the toxic positivity. One of Aang’s most recognizable characteristics is his bright, cheery disposition which can be a good thing but also leads to him being very dismissive of anyone else’s problems or negative emotions. As a parent, he would never take his children’s problems seriously and would simply brush them off and tell his kids to practice detachment and just let go of whatever is bothering them, regardless of how serious the issue is or how much it matters to the kid. This will teach the kids both not to even try to bring their problems to at least one of their parents and also that any problem they have is actually inconsequential, so even when they do have really big, serious issues in life, they won’t be able to recognize it as such and get whatever help they might need. It also will convey to them that their own father just doesn’t really care about them, at least not enough to engage with them in any capacity about anything serious.

Next up is Aang’s selfishness. Throughout atla, we see time and time again that Aang struggles greatly with prioritizing literally anyone else over his own comfort and desires. He was more than willing to sacrifice the whole world for his ability to avoid having to engage in conflict and then, in season 2, he showed that he was 100% willing to sacrifice the whole world for his crush on Katara. It’s not just that he tends to thoughtlessly give into his impulses and desires without giving thought to how it affects others, it’s also that, because of who he is, that has the potential to cause immense damage and he still doesn’t care. As a father, he would always put himself before his wife and his children. He would treat Katara at least as badly and unfairly as he did in canon and his children would have the lovely experience of watching that and also growing up in a household where their wants and needs don’t really matter to their own father.

Another key factor when it comes to Aang’s personality is his avoidant tendencies. We see multiple times throughout the series just how far he’ll go to avoid doing things he doesn’t want to do, like preventing the world from complete destruction. In his household, I imagine he’d want no part of any of the real, ‘messy’ aspects of parenthood and would just have Katara do all those things. Anything to do with the mess of child care (changing diapers, cleaning up spit up, any sort of wound care for scraped knees, etc.), conflict resolution between quarreling siblings, or correction of misbehavior would fall to her. He, like plenty of real men, would only want to do the cute, fun parts of parenthood, like taking the kids to Disney, while making Mom the ‘bad guy’ who has to do all the real work. 

Then there’s also the impulsivity. Aang tends to get these ideas of things he wants to do and then, without any further thought, just goes and does them. This can be pretty harmless when it’s something like wanting to go penguin sledding and then going off and doing it but, as we’ve seen, there’s plenty of times where it isn’t, like when he hides Hakoda’s correspondence from Katara and Sokka in s1 because he’s feeling pissy. In parenthood, I think this is where we ended up with the unfair treatment showed in LoK because it’s his impulsivity driving it, but I don’t actually think he’d be out here treating his kids differently based on bending abilities, I think they’d all be pretty equally getting the short end of the stick from him. 

The way I see his impulsivity coming out with his family is either with grabbing the kids to go do something on a whim (like riding the elephant koi) or going off on his own or with Katara on some spur of the moment trip that leaves their kids alone or drags them away from home for weeks at a time with no notice. If they’d leave the kids alone while going off without them, that could lead to trauma around neglect and abandonment while, if they take the kids with them, the kids get stuck being dragged along and then ignored while Aang goes off to do all the stuff he’s there for that the kids weren’t really ever supposed to actually be part of. I think that, with stuff like this, the avoidance, and the toxic positivity, he’d think that he’s setting himself up to be the cool, fun dad with Katara being made out to be the ‘bad guy’ when, in truth, he’s out here fucking up his children and they’re going to know and hate him for it in the end.

The last part is the matter of his inability to regulate his emotions. It’s bad enough for anyone to have to sit there and watch as the same toxic positivity dickhead then struggles with anger issues he never even so much as apologizes for, but for his kids, I’m sure it’s unbearable. My dad has struggled with anger issues my whole life, as have I, but we take responsibility and we’ve both spent over two decades working on ourselves, trying to get better. Aang would never do that in any capacity. For his children, they’d get this environment where they can never be upset at all because it bothers Dad but then Dad can fly off into the fucking avatar state as soon as he’s even mildly inconvenienced. This model of ‘you being upset is just a little inconvenience you need to get over but when Dad’s upset it’s a huge deal and he’s actually allowed to be upset’ would be downright infuriating to live with and would definitely contribute to their children’s childhood trauma. It’s not just that you’re not allowed to be upset, it’s also that you always have to be walking on eggshells trying not to set this guy off.

Another thing I would add to this last point is something I learned from my family that I think is relevant here. My dad genuinely thought he was totally normal and didn’t have any anger issues until my brother and I were born, and he also was always really great with other people’s kids and never had problems there until he was working on the railroad with two babies at home. Yes, we’ve already seen Aang’s anger issues in canon, but I would also speculate that his mood and stuff would get worse once Tenzin’s born. This could either lead to him being absent for most of the kids’ early childhoods as he’d just avoid being around them if they’re triggering him or his anger issues could get worse and more prevalent once there’s kids in the mix. Either would be detrimental to his children’s mental health.

So I guess my point here is that LoK having it so Aang’s whole issue with fatherhood is that he treated his kids unequally doesn’t really cover the ways in which he’s set up to be a terrible father. I really don’t think favortism would even be an issue (I think all 3 kids would get dragged around to air nomad stuff, not just Tenzin) but Lord knows there’s other issues to be considered here. As a father, Aang would be selfish, impulsive, dismissive, thoughtless, and hypocritical as well as probably struggling with completely unchecked anger issues. His children would have trauma because of him and they would hate him, but not because he would leave two behind while dragging the eldest around on vacations. The cherry on top of the shit sundae of Aang’s fatherhood is that he would have no self awareness whatsoever as all of this would go unchecked by his wife and friends, so he would genuinely believe that he’s a good, fun, loving father all the way up to the moment of his death.

#anti aang #aang critical #aang slander #aang salt #atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #avatar: the last airbender #a:tla #avatar meta #atla meta