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#and then be at my most invested in s2
vecna hiding in wills head deciding to pause before saying 'thats my friend. mike' to add drama to the dramatic romance show hes somehow got a front seat ticket to:
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divinekangaroo · 9 months
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in a cage with lions, i learned to speak lion (part 1) - pettiot - Peaky Blinders (TV) [Archive of Our Own]
STANDS ALONE / Part 1
Post S1-E6 and pre S2-E1. Maybe Tommy comes to apologise after the business in the car about John.
When men came saying they wanted to make sure you were alright, but what they really wanted was forgiveness for what they’d done, always wanting something for themselves.
Well, she wasn’t sweet or good or simple, and he was a cold cruel clever thing, and she wanted something for herself, too.
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Explicit | Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark | Alley Sex, Rough Sex, Consent Issues, Power Issues, Unhealthy Relationship, Complicated Relationship, Shame, Longing, Manipulation
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harrowharkwife · 11 months
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i am SO fucking exhausted by mainstream media opinions lately and i don't understand why they're frequently SO different from my own? like i genuinely don't think i am approaching anything from that unique of a perspective as a viewer? maybe it's just that i'm too easy to please when it comes to stories or something but like. how is the mainstream, widely accepted consensus on yellowjackets season 2 is that it's "bad" and "doesn't work as a season" and is "riddled with problems." literally what the fuck are you talking about. this is the most fun i have had watching television uhhhhh literally Ever? you're telling me people hated Burial? how? why? like i don't...i just don't GET it. and i'm not playing dumb for kicks here im like genuinely honest to god confused. that was the single best episode of television I've ever watched in my life. like i get that people have different opinions about things and that's fine but HOW am i in the minority here what am i missing
#most of the critiques I've seen are that it 'focused on the adults too much' and was 'too weird' re: mistys sequence#like??? that was clearly supposed to be funny and campy and silly and artistic and a twin peaks homage?#and the 'focusing on the adults' i... i mean i guess some people are just here for the '96 mystery#and are completely uninterested in the psychological effects it had on all the characters?#i guess some people don't?? care??? about watching them wrestle with that trauma and go on to try to have lives#after something like that?#but like. that's the entire point of the show though. if you hate that why are you watching it every week#with enough investment to like. blog about it and put energy into writing whole ass thinkpieces#so much of media criticism these days boil down into 'i wish this show was Not the show that it is'#'i wish it was this other show that im writing with my twitter mutuals'#and like that's fine and fun and cool and valid and that's what fic is for! but a show isnt BAD for committing to itself and its own vision#like. there is something sooo sexy abt a piece of media that is so wholly itself that you have to meet it where it is#and judge it by its own metric#it creates a whole new unique lens for each and every thing you love! quit comparing apples and oranges!#it's SO fucking fun analyzing different pieces of media through the lens of their own little world and conventions#and guiding principles and plot pacing and what they choose to emphasize and their genre conventions and etc etc#it's FUN! and not to sound like a pretentious film bro dipshit but like why does it seem like this is a dying art these days#'s2 is boring' THEY. THEY ATE A PERSON. ARE WE WATCHING THE SAME THING
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spacemilkbag · 1 year
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cherrymoonvol6 · 6 months
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#k so i started watching the shera show just to see if catradora is as bad as people say it is#(because seeing that people hate a ship makes me 200% more invested fyi)#and like. i do Not see it girlies#i do think the show is as shallow as they come and maybe the whole catradora backstory is too much for it#currently on ep 4? 5? of s2 and i'm pretty comfy with the fact that catradora will be endgame#because their dynamic is easily the most interesting one in the show#although crab lady (what was her name....) and catra scratch an itch of mine too#mainly bc i am really into one sided pining#and i like that (oh it's scorpia i remembered) scorpia is the easy option for catra#someone who idealizes her and is already invested in the idea of getting together with her#and catra having this realization of the nature of scorpia's feelings in that episode (4? 5?) like UGH that's some good shit right there#but what stood up to me about the show was how uhhhh like there's so much ship bait everywhere#not in a malicious way. just in the way that there's ship teases for a lot of pairings in the show#like glimmer and adora and bow with uhh everyone (disaster bisexual characters my beloved)#like it just feels very queer positive and casual. i really like that#but yeah. so far i'm not head over heels with catradora but i definitely think it has a lot of potentiak#and the fact that they are the endgame couple is pleasing to me#like IMAGINE identifying the couple with the most potential and making it canon. some other shows could've learned that lesson#oh well! (lumity why are you so fucking boring it pains me)
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twilightcitysky · 8 months
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Everything Is Meant (long S2 analysis, part 3)
Part one
Part two
There's SO MUCH excellent meta out there right now, and I'm going to try not to reinvent the wheel too much, but I want to keep going with tying the episodes/ elements up together because on first watch it wasn't entirely clear how everything fit. I also strongly recommend a rewatch, no matter what you felt about the ending... if you need to stop it 10 minutes early, do that, but you pick up so much more the second time around.
So: Maggie and Nina. I spent most of my first watch wondering why we were bothering with them, honestly. Later in the season Nina, and then Maggie and Nina, gave Crowley some insightful advice, but their actual relationship didn't progress despite all the meddling, and the amount of emotional investment BOTH Aziraphale and Crowley had in making them get together was frankly strange.
I started thinking in terms of mirror couples, since that was such a big deal in S1 and that's clearly what they were set up to be, but I made the mistake that all of us made on first watch: that Nina was Crowley and Maggie was Aziraphale. It still wasn't really coming together.
Then I put the psych hat back on and started to think about displacement. Displacement is a defense mechanism, and it consists of satisfying an impulse (usually an unconscious one) with a substitute object. At the beginning of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley aren't really in a good place, and I think on some level they know that. Aziraphale is trying to SHOW Crowley that he wants to take the next step through all the casual touches and phone calls and inviting him in, and feeling frustrated because Crowley doesn't seem to be taking the bait. (I absolutely think that Aziraphale tried to get Crowley to stay with him at the bookshop instead of living in his CAR, and Crowley said no. That's a whole other meta.) Meanwhile, Crowley, I think, is waiting for a Grand Gesture. Where did he go, as soon as Aziraphale brought up trying to get two humans to fall in love? Romantic tropes. Getting caught in the rain under an awning. A dramatic kiss that opens someone's eyes. That's the sort of thing he's always done, right? Big rescues, impassioned pleas on the street, fancy dinners, "give you a lift anywhere you want to go". He's defensive and guarded and unlikely to let someone in unless he's CERTAIN he won't be rejected, and Aziraphale's approaches are just too... quiet. No one's fault, they just don't speak the same language.
Then, they're handed the opportunity to make two humans fall in love, and they're both All In immediately. Look at Crowley's face when he summons the rainstorm. This is HUGE for him. Why? Because of displacement. Look at Aziraphale arranging the ball and being borderline deranged about it. They're both desperate to demonstrate what they think it takes for two people to move past their misunderstandings and fall in love. They can't do it for each other because the stakes are too high, and if either of them shows their cards unequivocally the vulnerability feels life-shattering. They're codependent and terrified of rejection and also, importantly, have no idea what they're doing when it comes to love. "Saw it in a film", Crowley says. Aziraphale's read about it in books. But they have zero practical experience.
Instead of learning to communicate, they try to say what they want to say through the medium of Maggie and Nina, up to and including the questionable moral decision to exert control over people's actions and thoughts during the ball. If I can just make this come out right, they both think, then things between us will be alright too. It HAS to come out right. They're attempting to gain some control over their own lives, over something that feels so overwhelming and shattering they can't look directly at it.
It doesn't come out right. Nina's relationship falls apart, but that doesn't mean she's in love with Maggie. While Crowley's stress-cleaning the bookshop to the music that played when Aziraphale got his books back in 1941 (just fuck me up David Arnold), they come in and tell him so. "I don't understand", says Crowley. Because it should have worked. Why didn't it work?
They tell him, of course. "You need to talk to each other. Say what you're really thinking." But here's the thing about communication: you have to learn it. You need to get the hang of expressing your feelings without blaming your partner, and separating intent from impact, and staying away from getting defensive and lashing out. No one has ever taught Aziraphale and Crowley how to do this. It's like Maggie and Nina put Crowley in front of a loom and asked him to recreate the Bayeux Tapestry. He doesn't have the skills; he's always going to get it wrong, even if he tries his hardest.
And he does try. But that's where Maggie and Nina the mirror couple, rather than Maggie and Nina the displacement relationship or Maggie and Nina the Greek chorus, come in. Aziraphale, as Nina, has just ended an incredibly toxic, invasive relationship with Heaven. A relationship that invaded every facet of his life, isolated him, and prevented him from being close to anyone else. "Rebound mess," Nina says. Aziraphale is a rebound mess. He's transferred the responsibility for his emotional wellness to Crowley. Crowley is the person he calls when he's in trouble, or (and this is key) when he wants to report a clever/ good thing he's done, or when he's bored. (At no point did Crowley reference Aziraphale calling him for a solicitous reason-- another problem.) Crowley is meant to take care of him. He forgets, I think, that Crowley is a person with his own wants and needs, just like Maggie and Nina are people with their own wants and needs who don't appreciate being messed with. (I think things would have been much different had Aziraphale BEEN THERE for Maggie and Nina's talk with Crowley, but he wasn't.)
And Maggie-as-Crowley? Lonely. Behind on rent, at risk of being evicted (it's important to note that Aziraphale saves Maggie from losing her record shop, as he couldn't save Crowley from losing his flat). Pining. Awkward. Revolving around Nina like a planet, to the extent that we don't get much of an impression of her otherwise. They realize, there at the end, that they both need to round themselves out before jumping into a relationship. Aziraphale and Crowley need that too. They need to take time apart and learn to be healthy on their own. Unfortunately they don't have the skills to get to that conclusion in a healthy way, so it all explodes in their faces and everything falls apart.
Aziraphale tries to teach Nina and Maggie to dance as a substitute for communication. Nina and Maggie try to teach Crowley communication as a substitute for the dance they've been doing around each other. That's the reason they're a part of the plot: they exist to demonstrate the way Aziraphale and Crowley might have succeeded in forging a better dynamic. Sadly, the boys' dance is too practiced and they got sucked right back into it.
It's okay, I think, that Nina and Maggie's storyline never really went anywhere. It wasn't supposed to. It's an allegory, not something that needs to stand alone.
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bookshelfdreams · 3 months
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ofmd wasn't "profitable" enough but I didn't even get the feeling hbo wanted to make money off of it. They didn't promote it when s1 dropped, and the promo for s2 was erratic at best. They don't sell merch. Or physical copies. There's no bts documentaries other than what actors (shoutout to Samba ilu) make themselves in their spare time.
It took more than a full year for me to be able to watch s1 legally! I still can't access s2 legally anywhere! It's not that ofmd is unprofitable, it's that hbo refuses to profit off of it, because - well, because profiting off of it would mean investing work and money into it.
And like. Of course, when you compare it to the juggernauts hbo holds rights to, like GoT, ofmd is small fishes. But.
How on earth do these clowns think cult classics happen?
A Game of Thrones was first published in 1996 and didn't make it on the NYT beststeller list until 2011. The first edition of the first Harry Potter book was 500 pieces. And yeah, TV shows are different, but if you look at today's media landscape, would things like Star Trek, or Buffy, or Doctor Who stand the slightest chance? These things take time, is my point. A piece of media doesn't become a massively profitable, beloved classic over night. It takes time and effort to build that kind of franchise.
And the thing is! Nobody who makes these decisions even likes stories. I'm convinced that whoever is in charge at hbo, at amazon prime, even at disney, thinks storytelling is dumb and for idiots. They think it's enough to just slap the name of something people love on whatever garbage they spit out, for it to be profitable. They think it's the brand that sells: Look this has "Lord of the Rings" on it! Look, this one has "Game of Thrones", you like Game of Thrones don't you? Watch my show, boy.
But this isn't how this works. It's not the name that sells (unless, I suppose, you're the MCU, and even there one gets the impression the trick is finally stopping to work), especially not when the product is bad. People aren't idiots.
But it's not about making something good. It's not about making a meaningful piece of art, or telling an engaging story. ofmd served its purpose; it drew in all the subscribers it ever would, so there's no point in letting it go on. Even in the s2 that we did get, this is evident: the penny pinching is palpable, it's clear that the studio didn't want to spend any more money than absolutely necessary on it, and then cut the budget by 40%.
It's not about art. It never has been.
And it's not even about profit, because to be profitable eventually, stories have to be allowed to thrive first. You tell a good story first, and success happens later, often much, much later.
And ofmd was incredibly, astonishingly successful. It was the most in-demand series for weeks after the s1 finale. But even that wasn't enough, it's never enough, ofmd could have made record-setting profits and it still would have been cancelled, because -
Well, I don't know. Because we live in a bad time for art. Because Orwell was right, and stories have become commodities, like shoelaces. Because. Well. It's not about telling a story, is it?
What's the point of a story? What's the point of making something for the joy of making it? What's the point of a piece of art, existing, if it cannot be transferred into numbers for the stockholders?
idk how to end this. I hope David Jenkins finishes the story he wanted to tell, even if just for himself. I hope, against all odds, that weird, fun, heartfelt, beautiful little stories like ofmd continue to happen.
But goddammit.
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heliads · 11 months
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sorry to send in two requests but if you've got the time Luke Patterson x reader where she is his tutor for English or something and he develops a crush, so even when he understands the stuff she's teaching him he pretends to be confused so that the tutoring sessions last longer. And then one day he gets a good grade and she's proud of him but that means the sessions are over so he builds up the courage to ask her out? You can put this at the bottom of the list or not even write it because I know how swamped your requests get, but ily.
do not apologize for two requests!! my blog exists for you!! and jatp s2 may be dead but my feelings for that show are not. xoxo
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Luke Patterson is currently fighting a one-man war against his English class, and he is losing. Badly. This was not supposed to be his problem class, he was thinking the biggest struggle would be math or science, but surprise surprise, there’s no such thing as a class you can just skate through. He tried to skate through English. He tried really, really hard, but instead of Spark Notes-ing his way through whatever classic book they threw his way, Luke’s staring at a bright red D on his latest essay.
This would happen to be the most recent essay they were assigned, the one Luke pushed off until the last minute because he was too invested in getting some good songs down on paper. He hadn’t meant to procrastinate, he never does, it’s just that whenever Luke had a spare hour or two, it’s always far more tempting to head out to the studio and mess around with some chord progressions than to do homework.
This essay had gone just like all the other ones so far this year. The book had been assigned, the essay followed not soon after, and Luke told himself that he was going to start it on time for a change. The only problem was that he came home late that day after a shift at his job, so he couldn’t start it that day, and then he was studying for a test the next day, and after that he was working on songs. Before he knew it, it was the night before and he was speed writing to get everything down in time. Luke doesn’t even think he had time to proofread before turning in that mess.
So yeah, he shouldn’t really be surprised about this grade in particular. Still, he isn’t pleased about it. He doesn’t want to see the look on his parents’ face when he dodges another question about his grades, nor listen to all the other kids in his class talk about how easy that essay prompt was. Everything just makes him feel worse.
And, if Luke’s day couldn’t get any better, his English teacher pulls him aside after class to talk about it.
“I noticed your last few assignments haven’t been going as expected,” she says sympathetically, “is there anything you want to tell me about that?”
There’s a lot Luke wants to tell her, such as the fact that this class is dry as a saltine and twice as bland. They’ve spent the last few classes just going over social hierarchies around the time when the book was written, talk about boring. If Luke wanted to study history, he’d read a textbook.
He can’t say all that without damaging his final grade even more, though, so Luke plasters on a grin and does his best impression of an earnest student who’s just had a bad string of luck. “Not really, I’ve just been so busy recently that I didn’t have enough time to really ponder the prompt, you know?”
Usually, this is Luke’s best strategy for getting out of these kinds of nonsense conferences. He’ll whip out a few key words like ‘time commitments’ and whatnot and his teachers will fall for it every time.
He might have done this too often, though, because his teacher just nods and refuses to let him go. “That makes sense to me. Do you think it would help to spend a little more time exploring the prompt or connecting the book to the essay topics?”
“Sure,” Luke says vaguely. He’s only half paying attention; he just saw Reggie outside the door mouthing the words what did you do?? as dramatically as he could.
The teacher looks pleased by this. “That’s what I thought. I’ve gone ahead and signed you up for some tutoring sessions, you’ll start this afternoon after school.”
Luke blinks. “Wait, what?” Clearly, he hasn’t been paying attention nearly enough. Since when was tutoring on the table?
The teacher spreads her hands. “You need a little more help and organization to stay on track. Tutoring is the perfect answer to this.”
“Is it?” Luke asks feebly.
“Absolutely,” the teacher decides, and that’s that. Luke tries to wheedle his way out of it through repetition of how busy he is, like, all the time, but it doesn’t matter. She’s caught him in a half-lie and there’s nothing he can do to avoid it.
Reggie’s waiting for Luke outside the door when he finally leaves. “What happened in there?”
“Pure misery,” Luke groans, and contemplates giving himself a concussion by ‘accidentally’ falling down the stairs so he can go home without having to go to tutoring.
Unfortunately, Reggie enlists Alex in keeping Luke free of head trauma, and so he finds himself in an empty classroom later that afternoon, mournfully watching all of the other students leave the school with no doubt wonderful plans awaiting them.
Luke’s just starting to wonder if his tutor isn’t going to show up after all (after fifteen minutes, he’s legally allowed to leave, right) when someone slides into the seat in front of him.
“Sorry about being late,” they gasp, “I just found out I was doing this like ten minutes ago.”
Luke breaks his desolate stare out the window to glance at his tutor and instantly, he feels the crushing weight of shame bear down on him tenfold. It would have been one thing to have a total stranger be his tutor, someone Luke could avoid looking at in the hallways and never speak to again, but he knows this girl. More importantly, he’s thought she was cute for at least the last four years.
This is the worst case scenario, then. Y/N L/N is smart, she’s pretty, and judging by the fact that Luke always sees her in a group of friends laughing at her jokes, she’s funny, too. Definitely someone Luke would want to impress through gigs or shows instead of, say, his crumbling English grades.
“I’m Y/N,” she says, and Luke realizes that she’s probably been waiting for him to say something. Great, he can’t even introduce himself properly.
“Luke,” he answers, “but you probably knew that already.”
Y/N laughs, and judging by the slightly manic tone behind it, she’s just about as composed about the whole thing as he is. That makes him settle slightly in his chair, lowering his guard. “I was told that I would be tutoring you when I was trying to leave class. Ms. Brown pulled me aside when the bell rang and told me about it.”
“That makes two of us,” Luke grumbles.
The corners of Y/N’s lips quirk up before she manages to tamp them down again, and if Luke weren’t totally out of his mind, he might even say that Y/N has the same attitude towards their English teacher as he does. That would certainly make this whole tutoring experience a lot more interesting.
“So,” she says, clearing her throat in an attempt to sound official, “you wanted to talk about essay pointers, right?”
Luke starts to say something about how he didn’t want any of this, actually, but Y/N arches a brow and he relents. “Yeah, essay stuff. The last one didn’t go over too hot.”
Y/N tilts her head to the side, contemplating this. “Did you agree with her grading?”
“Yeah,” Luke admits, “she wasn’t wrong to mark me down, I kind of did it the night before in one sitting.”
Y/N frowns. “Really? Why’d you put it off so long? I thought you liked writing. Whenever I see you, you’re always jotting something down in that notebook of yours.”
Luke grins. “You’ve been watching me? That’s creepy, you know.” He’s obviously holding back a laugh, though, so the comment has no trace of a barb.
Y/N rolls her eyes, although her face looks a little hot at the moment. “Just answer the question.”
“Alright,” he says, hands raised in mock surrender, “you’re right, I do like writing.”
“Then why wait until the last minute to do the essay? I mean, I get not having a ton of time to work on assignments, but if you really do enjoy writing, it shouldn’t be all that bad, right?”
Luke groans. “ This is different. It’s not fun writing,” he tries to excuse himself.
It sounds bad even to him. Already, Luke can see how this is going to play out– she’ll laugh at him, maybe, say that someone who just got a grade like him can’t possibly be thinking about writing and fun in any way at all. She doesn’t, though. Instead, she nods and smiles at him. A real smile. Not mocking in any way.
“What is fun writing, then?” She asks.
Luke blinks in surprise. “Well, writing songs is fun, I guess,” he stammers, “stuff that actually matters, you know? All these essays are the exact same, but songs are all different. That’s why I care about them and not some pointless paper.”
Y/N nods. “That makes sense to me. So you release music, right?”
Luke isn’t sure where she’s going with this, but he’s perfectly happy to talk about music instead of that offensive red scribble all over his paper, so he plays along. “Yeah, me and my band. We try to, at least.”
“Have you ever gotten a review that bothered you? Not because they didn’t like it, but because they disliked your songs for the wrong reason? Like you had a whole story in mind for your album but the critics just ignored it?” She prompts him.
“Yeah,” Luke says, eyes widening with irritation, “Man, it’s so annoying. You go to all the trouble of writing out these ideas, and you make them have a really good meaning, too, and then it’s like they never read it at all. It makes me so mad sometimes, I want to write a column or something in response about how they totally missed my point.”
“Like, say, an argumentative essay about the real strengths of your chosen piece of writing?” Y/N says as casually as she can.
Luke’s about to argue and say that’s not like this at all, but on second thought, it is. It totally is. “Wait, you’re right. I never thought about it like that, but you’re right. Y/N L/N,” he decides on the spot, “I really like you.”
She grins back at him. “Luke Patterson, I like you too.”
That settles it for him. Luke had been annoyed at the thought of having to suffer through tutoring beforehand, but maybe he’ll be alright with it now. Y/N isn’t a part of the oppressive legion of teachers all conniving to make his life a living hell because he wants to be a musician instead of a doctor or a banker, she’s on his side. That makes it all better somehow.
And, unsurprisingly, it is better. Luke actually ends up having a really good time in his tutoring sessions with Y/N. They don’t feel like tutoring at all, more like a chance to hang out with a friend. They talk about Jane Austen and tell awesome jokes, read Shakespeare and spend more and more time together. Luke knows this is only a temporary thing until his grades get back up, but it’s too easy to forget that.
Until, one day, it isn’t. His English teacher hands back an essay with a bright red ‘A’ marked on the front, and tells him that she’s proud of all the progress he’s made so quickly. Instead of a sigh of relief, the only thing escaping Luke’s lips is a desolate sigh. After all, if Luke’s improved to this point, that kind of means his tutoring sessions will be over, right?
Y/N doesn’t know that, though. Y/N doesn’t have access to his grades. All she knows is what Luke tells her, and if informing her of his latest essay win means she’ll stop seeing him after school, why should Luke let slip a single syllable?
So, later that day, when Y/N asks him how the latest essay went, Luke shrugs and pretends to be disappointed. “I’d hoped for more,” he says, “she, uh, didn’t like my commentary.”
“Really?” Y/N questions, frowning slightly, “I thought you were really good at that.”
Luke’s eyes widen, caught in a lie. “Who knows with teachers, right?” He laughs weakly.
Y/N pretends to shudder. “I know, right? I feel like half of your grade is literally just how much she likes you. English classes are always so subjective.”
“Subjective?” Luke asks, grinning and propping his chin up on his hand, “Tell me about that.”
Y/N laughs. “Only if you promise we’ll talk Jane Eyre immediately afterwards. Immediately.”
“I so swear,” Luke intones, holding up his right hand with all the solemnity of a president being sworn into office.
Y/N swats him on the shoulder with her notebook, but she obliges, and maybe they don’t talk about Jane immediately. Maybe they laugh a little longer than usual. And maybe, just maybe, Luke thinks that he’s perfectly fine with obscuring the truth if it means he can have more of this when he needs it the most.
The truth, unfortunately, has a habit of making itself heard regardless of who is inclined to hide it. Luke comes into their usual study spot in the library one day to see Y/N waiting for him, not already in her seat like normal but standing tentatively at the side.
He frowns, slinging his backpack down on the ground and pulling up a chair. “Everything alright? You look like you’re about to run. If you’ve got something planned, we can do this another day.”
Y/N shakes her head slightly. “No, I’m free all day.”
Luke gestures towards the table. “Then sit down, my legs are getting tired just looking at you. We’ve got stuff to study, don’t we?”
“Well, that’s what I was going to ask about,” Y/N says, “Ms. Brown stopped me after class today, said she had someone else she wanted me to tutor. I said I was already booked with you and she was confused. Apparently you’ve been doing just fine for quite some time.”
Luke feels his breath catch in his throat. This is not how he’d wanted Y/N to find out. For what must be the hundredth time this year, Luke sends out a silent curse to all meddlesome English teachers.
“Yeah,” he says as carefully as he can, “I have, but only because of your expert tutoring. It’s like antibiotics, you know? You don’t stop taking ‘em when you start feeling better, only when the prescription is over.”
Y/N blinks at him in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
He runs a hand through his hair, trying not to feel like everything is slipping out of control in an instant. “It was a simile, sorry. A bad one. All I mean is that we don’t have to stop this just because I got a good grade or two.”
Y/N almost looks like she’s smiling, but that could just be Luke being delusional. “I thought you didn’t want to do tutoring.”
“I didn’t at the start, but you’re different. We’re cool. We are cool, right?” Luke starts rambling more and more with each passing second, but he can’t help it. He’s overthinking everything. What if he’s literally just been a tutee this whole time, and she doesn’t think they’re friends at all?
Y/N stares at him a second longer, then takes a seat at last. “Luke Patterson, are you telling me that you like my company so much that you’re willing to keep going to extra English practice just to see me?”
Luke can feel his face heating up, but he does his best to ignore it. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds–” He still has a little bit of self control left, so he cuts himself off before he can make a truly terrible mistake.
Y/N catches him, though. “It sounds like what?”
“It sounds like I like you,” he admits, and Y/N’s smiling at him, so he decides to take the leap of faith and just do what he’s been wanting to do for quite some time. Since the start of this, actually. “And I do like you. I like you a lot. I might not need the tutoring anymore, but that doesn’t mean I want to stop seeing you. So what if we met up sometime soon? Not for English, for us.”
Luke decides that he likes Y/N’s smile more than anything. “Are you asking me out?” She says.
“I am,” he affirms. “Are you saying yes?”
“I am,” she repeats.
Suddenly, Luke feels like the luckiest kid of all. Maybe he does have to throw in a good word or two for meddlesome English teachers after all. Sometimes they have a way of connecting you with the best people in the world.
requested by @thatfangirl42, i hope you enjoy!
jatp tag list: @rogueanschel, @retvenkos, @callsign-scully, @lovesanimals0000, @amortensie
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keikakudom · 7 days
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I decided to make a HH AU cause...y'know....anyway.... now introducing
Reset Resort! A Hotelier Vox AU
- you already know, it's a hotel Vox au.....but not quite what you're thinking. Kind of a swap between Alastor and Vox, but not exactly.
- most things are kinda(?) the same. Except the hotel is not as run-down and quite more successful. As if s1 started with s2's reputation and building. It's also more modern/sleek and closer to your typical strip hotel of course.  Much more busy with additional residents coming in and out. Think Vegas-style. It has way too many amenities than necessary, and it's actually an enjoyable place to hang out , but the message for "redemption" might be a bit....lost.
- It’s supposed to be a place where Sinners can (lightly) indulge in their vices without risk of falling into a soul-binding deal on their road to recovery.
- In this AU, movement between Sinners/Winners has been proven. NOT redemption yet. With this “concrete” evidence, Vox considers it "purely a business investment" to sponsor the hotel.
- Because of this "proof", Heaven has granted Hell/Charlie a grace period of an extra year with no exterminations, so long as they continue to monitor the process and Hell provides further progress and evidence of redemption.
- Vox is there for the start up of the hotel with Charlie. He sponsors her project with his reach and expertise. His personality is much more subdued over by his TV persona, except for rare occasions. His temper is not as bad as in-canon. AKA, he’s just a tad more fake and corny in this AU.
- Charlie is more mature and less naive in this AU. She takes redemption seriously and studies behavioral patterns/is much more patient and careful. With Vox being extremely efficient and taking over the managerial/facility side of the resort, she is able to dedicate her time fully towards redemption efforts and being a therapist. She is still overzealous sometimes because she knows that if nobody else will show enthusiasm/push sinners to do better, then nobody will.
- Vox tried to manipulate Charlie very early on when they first met, and Charlie ended up realizing his kindness was just for his own benefit and has been wary of that fact ever since.
- Their relationship is like: she knows he’s reliable and will do everything she asks, but is doubtful/sad that it isn't genuine. Vox thinks Charlie looks at him with pity and absolutely HATES it, but he still plays carefully so he can do a repeat and build up her trust again. Doesn't like Vaggie for a similar reason. They just think he's another misguided sinner in need. Neither have fully grasped the idea that most Sinners chose to do-evil. 
- Vox holds a contract with Lucifer. What for? Well... let's say that they're on good terms and are friends. They meet with each other once a week (where Lucifer gets social interaction and updates on Charlie). 
I already have sketches for Alastor and Vaggie planned out in this AU~
It's less of a full "reversal" and more so one swap and the butterfly effect that follows. This AU has been my brainchild for a few weeks, so PLEASEEE I'd love to answer any questions or asks....
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olderthannetfic · 2 months
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https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/739381076510785536/so-it-seems-our-flag-means-death-has-not-been#notes
I liked OFMD and I'm sad it's not getting renewed, but I agree that the fandom was especially toxic, even by the standards of currently popular slash-heavy fandoms. I wanted to read fic after s1 ended the way it did, and I read a little bit, but along with it having all the tropes that I can't stand in a lot of what is currently big with the MSF crowd (and that I'd been happy to have a reprieve from in my current main M/M fandom), the toxicity of the online fandom discourse made me quickly realize it was one that I was going to discuss among my current-friends-from-other-fandoms who also watched it, and my sister who watches it, and pretty much ignore the rest of the Internet. It was such a perfect storm of everything awful, from people who are overly invested in it to an unhealthy degree (I think I realized I wasn't gonna be active in the larger fandom around a month or so before the s2 renewal announcement, when I saw earnest PSA tweets telling people to "stop threatening suicide in HBO's replies if they don't renew OFMD"), to bombarding and parasocial obsessions with the creators and actors, to all the classic "anti" and purity police crap that plagues anything that gets popular on here.
The fandom it reminds me the most of, honestly, is Yuri on Ice fandom at its peak in early-mid 2017. Again, a show I love, but a fandom I absolutely do not miss. In some ways they are kind of similar shows: ones with canon M/M romances where they were not billed as that, and they were hinted from early on but people didn't trust it due to years of dealing with queerbaiting, where that sort of thing slowly crept up on people and then became the defining feature of how it was discussed everywhere. I wonder if there's a particular level of insanity that that type of thing breeds in its fans - or maybe, more broadly, "canon M/M with a large female fanbase." Like, you don't see this kind of thing in canon M/M stuff that's mostly watched by queer men rather than women, but there are shades of the insanity I also remember from Glee fandom (I was more active on the F/F side of things there, which had its own unhinged drama, but the Klaine vs. anti-Klaine stuff was so explosive that it was hard not to notice it if you were anywhere in that fandom, like a mushroom cloud in the distance). But YOI and OFMD do seem very... singular in the particular kind of obsession that they generate.
And I really wish people would shape the fuck up, because if they're going to act like this over and over again, that's just going to de-incentivize showrunners to make shows like this for that audience.
Driving Con O'Neill off Twitter was one of the worst parts of it, too. There was something so refreshingly earnest about how much he embraced the fandom, even the weirdest parts - saying with regard to NSFW fanart that "art is art" and retweeting stuff like his character in a crop-top that said "babygirl." It was so nice to see an actor who didn't usually have that kind of following embrace it wholeheartedly rather than steering clear. ....And then people had to be awful and creepy and obsessive and he left Twitter. I bet he's going to be a lot more skeptical of dealing with fans in the future!
--
It's not just the canon m/m aspect: it's the wholesomeness.
Yes, yes, they're all evil pirates, I agree, but watching S1 did give me the feeling of something that was supposed to be very progressive and light-hearted in particular ways. I don't think that's bad, but it does tend to attract some very over-sensitive fans with some very rigid expectations.
It's sadly par for the course that one of the random side character actors is the fun one and people are jackasses and desperately want the leads they ship to be the fandomy ones and/or just start creeping on any actor they can get a reaction from.
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andythelemon · 1 month
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Life update 2024
Hey everyone! It’s been a while since I last wrote anything of substance here. How time flies! Happy new year, happy year of the dragon! I hope this one is kind and auspicious for you all.
I'll admit to falling off the art train terribly for most of 2023. I barely drew; a lot of things I posted were older pieces for projects I couldn't share at the time. I think I speak for most of us when I say it's not been a great time for art collectively; growing frustrations with social media and despair at the state of current global affairs leaves little room for creative inspiration. I know many artist friends of mine are in the same boat. There's little one can do except plod on and hope for better times ahead, I guess? I'll do my best regardless!
Having said that, I did have a major touch-grass-normie arc offline, and as wild as it was, I'm glad I invested time and energy into that area of my life. After the lockdown years of terminal-onlineness, it felt great to do things that were not related to fandom at all, to have new experiences, to make new friends, reconnect with old ones, see new things. It was funny and terrifying all at once. I truly felt like a shonen and shojo protagonist (we will not go into details of the love triangle situation, IYKYK!). There were ups and downs, sadness and laughter, but that's part of life. I'm grateful for all that's happened and am a better, wiser, more mature person because of it. This past year taught me it's not about categorizing life's happenings into a basic good/bad dichotomy, but more learning from each experience and acknowledging we are wiser and grateful for having weathered what's thrown our way. Character development!
The universe has a way of working things out... so at the end of 2023, I had the opportunity to travel for 3 months. After hopping around the East Coast, Milan, various bits of Japan and a beach break in sunny Egypt, I've returned home with a renewed vigor for living my best life again. It was a joy to hang out with various artist friends in person and meet some of you at ANYC. I'll cherish every second of my travels and hope we can meet again soon!
I did fall off the nerd bandwagon for a while, so I gotta get back into the various anime on air! I've been watching Magi in my own time... such a guilty pleasure, but so many things await, including catching up on JJK S2, BSD, and everything else. Just goes to show my deep love for adventure, friendship-fuelled stories keeps me going. No promises on what this year holds art wise, but I'll continue trying hard and sharing what I can, as well as the usual self-indulgent group projects.
Thanks as always for the kind support and for sticking around. This blog is 12 this year... crazy, huh? See you on the other side!
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dangermousie · 8 months
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Top Dozen 2023 drama MLs so far
It's August, so not the end of the year, neither it is at halfway year mark, but why would I ever do anything like a normal person? Here my very very subjective list. I have limited myself to one dude per drama or LYF would be half the list. No order except alphabetical.
Chen Wende (Sun Yizhou in Gone With the Rain, China)
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The epic troll lord stole the whole drama as competently as he stole the FL's heart. He was competent and adult and oh-so-amused by but also gone for the heroine.
Gu Jiusi (Bai Jing Ting in Chang Feng Du/Destined, China)
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CFD lost steam for me halfway through but Jiusi's character remained a delight throughout and BJT gave a great performance as a golden boy who went through a bunch of hell and grew up but remained goodnatured at heart.
Han Dong Jin (Kim Young Kwang in Call It Love, Korea)
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You know, he and Jing (from LYF1) really fit the same mold even if one is in a mellow realistic modern and another in xianxia - lovely traumatized people from monster families who win over heroine with a metric ton of baggage through sheer unswerving decency. I have a type.
Jang Uk (Lee Jae Wook in Alchemy of Souls s2, Korea)
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I loved Uk in S1 and S2 continued that love - he's so intense, so grieving, so still in love with Naksu. LJW is always a good actor so it's such a pleasure to see him in a good role.
Kim Do Ha (Hwang Min Hyun, My Lovely Liar, Korea)
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The year of surprises - Minhyun, who I found utterly wooden in AoS stole my heart here as this hopeful, traumatized sweetheart of a man.
Kim Moo Chan (Park Hae Jin, The Killing Vote, Korea)
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Yeah, we are only one ep in but who said anything about this list was objective? PHJ brings his usual unsettling intensity to the role of a cop who breaks all the rules and teeters on the edge and now is set to catch a killer who really only differs from him in a matter of degree.
Lee Jang Hyun (Nam Goong Min in My Dearest, Korea)
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If I had to pick a favorite ML from this list, it would be between him and Jing (LYF). This is basically if you took Rhett Butler and took out slavery and rape but gave him a sword. The character is complex and nuanced and NGM is giving his usual incredible performance.
Lee Rang (Kim Bum in Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938, Korea)
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I was not a Rang fangirl for most of the original (even if he was well-acted; and he did win me over by the end) but I fell for him head over heels in this sequel/prequel/spin-off. I am so happy the man who believed he had nobody and was abandoned by everybody ends the story with his beloved brother and his beloved woman, both.
Moon Seo Ha (Ahn Bo Hyun in See You in My 19th Life, Korea)
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A lot of MLs on this list have serious trauma and haunted by it and can't let go of their past love (I have a type) but even by those standards, Seo Ha was such a lovely, quiet person slowly healing.
Tantai Jin (Luo Yunxi in Till the End of the Moon, China)
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Abuse victim/monster/praiseworthy king/xianxia saint/man on the brink - LYX portrayed a character in multiple timelines and many different complexities and did it amazingly. Tantai Jin may or may not win my favorite place on this list, but his performance was hands-down the most glorious thing this year.
Tushan Jing/Ye Shiqi (Deng Wei in Lost You Forever part 1, China)
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If before LYF aired someone would have told me that a character played by Deng Wei, an actor I've always found eminently forgettable, would make it on this list and be in the running to win the whole thing actually, I'd have wondered what weird reality they came from. They somehow managed to make someone genuinely good and kind not in the least boring; I am ridiculously invested in the man who managed to keep his soul after all he's been through.
Yun Xiang (Chen Xiao in The Ingenuous One, China)
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A schemer on a revenge quest, smarter than anyone else in the room but helpless in front of love. Yun Xiang was an adult in an adult story for adults and it was glorious.
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mrghostrat · 3 months
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"He needed an internet connection so he could download an app to draw with, but the whole point of setting the thing up in London was because he knew Crowley understood all of this a whole lot better than he did."
Okayyyyy I just got violent flashbacks to the s2 finale this is evil 😭😭
But in all seriousness, I LOVED the new bnf au chapter, I mean the kiss??? I audibly gasped, it was soooo good
I was wondering if the witch and the witchfinder are a canon couple in the nice and accurate prophecies? Or are they just a very popular fanon ship? Or is it like good omens, where people saw the romantic subtext in the book and where it was made explicitly canon in the show?
I just think all options would be really interesting, given that Crowley and Aziraphale are both middle-aged queer people and the book came out thirty years ago. So they either would have had some representation back then, or they recognised themselves in the story and even though it wasn't canon, maybe those ideas would later explicitly be confirmed by Agnes Nutter nonetheless? Since all these options have really interesting implications for the way they both interacted with the source material, I'm really curious what your thoughts on the matter are.
Thank you so much for all the beautiful things you create for the fandom, both your fics and your art give me life and I'm so grateful for them ❤
omg you have no idea how excited i am about this question 😭 as i've written BNF, i've been quietly fleshing out more about their fictional fandom, and accidentally gotten reeeeally invested and am dying to talk about it 😭😭
i'm actually tempted to make some fanart of the witch & the witchfinder, using michael and david as facecasts to go full meta thphptftf. in b4 i write it as a fuckin book series for real
buttttt i'll put all my N&A thoughts under a cut so i dont ramble too long on your dashes 💛
The Nice and Accurate Prophecy: Agnes Nutter's book series (turned play, turned film, turned tv series); the fandom in my fic Big Name Feelings
the idea of using Agnes Nutter's "Nice and Accurate" book for the in-fic fandom was taken from @tawnyontumblr's fic New Messages (i just thought that would be a fun fanon consistency to follow), but all the details about the story and characters are me.
N&A takes inspiration from Good Omens (as a story, and as a fandom) but isn't intended to be a direct copy of it. the original paperback series is a few books long, and each adaptation of the books are considered good, accurate, canonical content. the tv show (a HBO series) is the most recent, highest quality, and most popular. The Witcher style, high fantasy quality.
agnes is loudly supportive of the lgbt community just like neil/david/michael are. but i imagine that for the series to be so "marketable" over the last 30 years, there isn't an explicit queer relationship between the witch & finder. there are canon queer side characters but the witch & finder are a little more nuanced.
the witch and the witchfinder aid each other through time, working together to defeat the evils in the story (like Aziraphale and Crowley from GO). there's tension between them, but boundless love, and plenty of flirtation, despite the running "we shouldn't, we're meant to be enemies" theme. they would canonically get together at some point in the story, probably towards the end after they've spent some time dancing around each other.
the thing that makes this vague is: the witch reincarnates through the story, almost doctor who style. they're a trans icon, much like how the GO fandom looks at Crowley and all his gender ambiguity.
when they finally tryst with the witchfinder, they're female. it's by pure happenstance that they're female presenting at that stage of the story, but still widely critiqued over the years. the thing that canonises the mlm relationship is that the witch is said to carry their consciousness through each reincarnation— they're not a new person like The Doctor is when he regenerates.
the start of the book series spends more time on "Crowley and Aziraphale's favourite male reincarnation", while the movie and tv show only briefly montages through some of the witch's faces. the mlm side of the fandom most definitely lost their minds over the brief few minutes of screentime that they got of the male witch, and has absolutely gifsetted it to death.
i've done it like this because so much of (every) fandom has always been seeking out representation and filling gaps where the original content lacks. there's something to be said about the solidarity of queer fans creating more queer content for themselves. except, in the case of N&A, they're getting to work from a source material that is genuinely queer supportive, unlike fandoms like SPN and BBC Sherlock that are fighting against the tide of queerbaiting and buried gays.
it also gives aziraphale and crowley a chance to band together in the next chapter when they talk to a dickhead at the party:
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i haven't exactly decided what happens with the witchfinder, like if the story takes place over hundreds of years and he keeps reincarnating as the same lookin dude (like how jack whitehall plays both Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery and Newton Pulsifer) or if it's set over one lifetime and the witch just gets killed and regenerates a lot. i do like the idea of there being some "through the ages" shenanigans, and a canonical "modern day" setting like GO has.
but i gotta be careful bc i genuinely can't stop thinking about this fake story that's barely mentioned in my fan fic or i'll end up writing the damn thing myself
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shuttershocky · 10 months
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Shutters, in your opinion what are some of the best designed operators? (as in their kit and playstyle)
Gladiia - I've already said in another post that Gladiia is the perfect unit, and I stand by it. She's extremely effective with only minimal investment (E1L1 with skill level 7 will have her do most pulling jobs) but then somehow just gets stronger and stronger AND STRONGER the more you invest into her. Gladiia never learned what 'Diminishing Returns' meant, the economics student that tried to teach it to her got shoved into a locker when he tried. She's a viable M9 unit, wielding utility, damage, tank, and even heal support for some fucking reason. She even keeps getting stronger when you raise other units (Abyssal Hunters). She's fun, she's strong, all of her skills do something unique, she enables strategies absolutely no one else can do, and best of all: she's free.
Saria - Saria is the best case study of how to make a powerful—even overpowered—kit in a genre that mostly cares about DPS without any DPS. Like Gladiia, all of her skills are good and provide unique utility, but unlike Gladiia nothing about her module upgrades or talents or skill numbers is immediately going to tip you off that Saria's incredibly powerful; she just is. You just use her and you realize this is one of the best units in the game, hard carrying your lineups from her sheer versatility and healing power, with some SP utility or debuffs to boot.
Stainless - I would put him on this list for the sheer versatility, fun, strategic potential, and truly clever design his S3 has, but his S1 and S2 are also really fucking good too and stand on their own merits. Like Saria, Stainless is another operator who impresses me by standing out via sheer utility in a DPS-focused game, but unlike Saria, Stainless doesn't bring sustain or bulk, he simply has an array of gadgets that expand your possible map solutions AND operator picks to a wild degree. I finished most of Il Siracusano's EX stages by using Stainless clears—the way this guy enables bad operators with bad skills like Tachanka S1 cannot be matched by anyone. This is my single favorite operator gameplay wise to have come out in the last 2 years, insane how he and Dorothy are the least popular 6 stars when they're both so much more fun than their competition.
Gravel - You know what Gravel does. I think Gravel's kit was a marvel of its time, some truly inspired game design. You see, when Arknights first came out the primary faces of Tower Defense was Plants vs Zombies and Bloons. Gravel's low redeployment time and usage of throwing herself at the enemy team to constantly delay them simulated the feeling of having a mobile character in a genre about putting down towers that don't move, while Gravel also took advantage of enemy targeting priority being based on last deployed unit to act as bait for ranged enemies. She was the best unit to show off how Arknights differed from its competition, by taking advantage of all the design decisions that made Arknights a different beast of tower defense. Simple, effective, and unforgettable.
Hellagur - Hellagur's another example of an operator that does just one job just like Gravel, but approaches it in a way that emphasizes Arknights' unique approach to tower defense: Hellagur holds one spot, often right in front of the enemy gate and without support from his team. As the first Musha, he introduced a highly aggressive playstyle that was all about risk evaluation. You ask "Can Hellagur handle this?" and then see if he can. if he can't, you either buff him or try another approach. If he can, he often solves a big section of the map by himself by simply blocking a whole gate, freeing up the rest of your squad. High risk high reward is a common trope of game design because of how engaging that feeling of ramping tension can be; when Hellagur gets brought down to 1/3rd HP as he's dueling a particularly strong enemy, time slows down a little as you nervously watch him to see if he can handle it, and if he does and reaches back to full health before the next enemy comes, that release of tension and anticipation is its own special high.
I love this ask! Really fun question!
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k-s-morgan · 7 months
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What is your HC for Will’s sexuality? Do you see him as bisexual? Also if we only consider canon, is Will a straight man who happened to fall in love with one man (Hannibal)? Sorry for my ignorance here as I am not part of the queer community, but if a straight man falls in love with just one man in particular and doesn’t feel attracted to others, is he considered bisexual? Because I think this is where Will fits. I personally don’t think he’d be attracted to any other men, just Hannibal.
What do you think?
Hi! I don't have a clear headcanon here, but I enjoy speculating because I adore Will as a character.
To note, I won’t be relying on Bryan’s words in this meta as he gave us three different versions of Will’s sexuality, where he called him heterosexual with Hannibal being his possible exception (Bryan: I feel one is omnisexual and one is heterosexual and there's a lot of influence going back and forth, who knows with a six pack of beer what would happen), hinted at Will’s bisexuality (Bryan: You can have this intimate connection with somebody that then causes you to wonder where the lines of your own sexuality are), and implied that Will might be gay (Bryan on Twitter: “YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO BREED” #SUBTEXT #HANNIGRAM #WhatAreYouBecoming). These tags point out not simply to Will’s darkness, but to the other things he (possibly) represses.
So, I think only the show itself should be taken into account when discussing this topic. On the surface, we see Will interested in Alana in S1, sleeping with Margot in S2, and marrying Molly in S3 — and of course, falling in love with Hannibal in the process of all 3 seasons. However, the three women in his life are united by some common aspects — namely, 1) they are perfectly safe and ordinary (with maybe Margot being an exception, but her own sexuality plays a role in this); 2) Will never develops any real emotional connection with any of them. To be more specific.
Alana
We first hear Will referring to Alana in E1 of S1, when he just distantly calls her by her last name. In the course of their time together, Will never seeks Alana out himself. It is Alana who comes to his class, or to the hospital, or to his home — Will does flirt with her, and he kisses her first, but he never appears genuinely interested because he never seems to think about her unless she comes to him. The only exception I personally remember is in E8, where we learn that Will called Alana and invited her over to help him find an animal that was attacked by coyote. Still, the script offers an interesting bit here.
WILL GRAHAM: I invited you over on the off chance we find it alive. Hard to wrangle a wounded animal by myself. (then, realizing) Did you think it was a date?
ALANA BLOOM: Honestly, it never crossed my mind.
Will is at first relieved, then almost disappointed.
So, why relieved? And why flirt with Alana at all if he isn’t actually interested? As I see it, Alana is a very normal, perfectly safe and socially acceptable choice, a nice beautiful woman whose acceptance is clearly important to Will. We know that Will is fighting his demons all the time — he desperately wants to be normal, to bury the darkness inside him. I would say, to him, an acceptance by such a normal person as Alana would mean that there is nothing wrong with him and that he can be normal, too. Now, I can’t say if it was really planned or if it is just a set of coincidences, but I think that the theory that makes most sense is that Will was attracted to Alana’s normalcy first and foremost. He craved an ordinary life at that point, and Alana was someone who could give it to him. The more time passes, the stronger Hannibal and Will’s bond gets, the colder Will acts with Alana. By S3, he doesn’t even know that she had a child and who she is with, so they obviously do not keep any contact. For these reasons, Will never appears emotionally invested in their relationship to me — he remembers about Alana only when she comes to him, like he is only interested in her because she is the only woman he is friends with, someone he doesn’t have to try hard with.
The only aspect that points to the sincerity of Will’s attraction to Alana is his words to Hannibal — that he wanted to kiss her since he’d met her as she’s very kissable. I can interpret it in two different ways. Will can be truly attracted to Alana or he might be so repressed that he thinks he wants things that he doesn’t (and we do have a precedent here — Will tries to deny who he really is in regard to his darkness for quite a long time).
Margot
I think we can all agree that Will was never emotionally interested in Margot. Like with Alana, it is Margot who seeks him out, and Margot is the one to initiate sex. Why does Will agree to it? Just because he wants it? I think it is possible, but I also think it’d be a little out of character for him for several reasons. Will knows Margot has some agenda. He knows she is not interested in sex with him because she admitted she is a lesbian. When she makes her move, Will tells her, "I've got the wrong parts for your proclivities". So he knows the truth, yet still agrees to have sex with her, and during this process, he doesn’t really see Margot. He sees Alana, Hannibal, and a Stag Man– a being that symbolizes his and Hannibal’s connection. More than that, he reaches orgasm only when the Stag Man appears. So, it is equally possible to read this scene as Will’s attempt to engage into the most natural activity in the world — sex with a woman, but he still fails at it by dragging a man and a monster into it.
Molly
Molly is a character who seems alien in the world of the show because she’s the embodiment of normalcy. Will marries her, and we can surely assume they have sex, but from the first seconds of their scenes, it is clear that emotional intimacy between them is missing. Molly and Walter go fishing, an activity that Will enjoys deeply and that could be a uniting hobby for him and his new family. However, Molly and Walter go alone, Will stays home. In all their scenes together, Will never initiates contact between them — he never attempts to touch Molly, sometimes even going out of his way to avoid it. In the hospital, after Dolarhyde’s attack, Will still doesn’t touch her, though his hand twitches as if he considers it. In the second scene, he touches the pillow near Molly’s head, which is so awkward and embarrassing that I’d personally never be able to tell these people are married. The most important thing, Will doesn’t return her ‘I love you’, which is very deliberate. Hannibal tells him that he has chosen a ready-made family, and Will doesn’t argue with it. He goes to Hannibal at the first opportunity because he missed him, not because he needed his help, and then after Dolarhyde’s attack and after learning Hannibal is in love with him, Will easily discards both Molly and Walter and we never see them again. He basically breaks up with Molly back at the hospital, as if her first contact with something not normal taints her in his eyes, breaks the normalcy he thought he needed from her.
So, it is clear that Will never really developed emotional bonds with women in his life. Was he truly attracted to them, or did he like them for the cover of normalcy they could potentially provide for him? I wouldn’t be surprised if Will turned out to be flexible, bisexual, or gay, as it is really open to interpretation and there is enough subtext to support every version. I used to think that Will was bi, but I also wonder if his possible repressed homosexuality could be one the factors that made his fight with himself so intense. Taking into account the area where Will has grown, to him, it is bad enough that he is a killer — he’s also a gay one at that. I think it could enhance his struggle through S1-3 and his slow realization that adhering to social norms in all ways does not make him happy.
Then again, I think Will’s sexuality doesn’t actually even matter at this point because after all seasons, there is only one person who is going to be a permanent part of his life, among all men and women — Hannibal. We have seen that neither Will nor Hannibal can tolerate the other’s partners, and with rich sexual subtext between the two of them, I believe they will easily move forward in their relationship post-fall.
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My Thoughts on Santalla
lul bad just use Eyja instead
Are they gone? Did I bait them into trying to find the upvote button on tumblr? Good good.
Now I'm going to do a lot of work arguing Santalla from a position of general good faith and wanting to encourage others to experiment with her. That cannot be done without acknowledging that her class, the Splash or AoE Caster, is one of the worst in the entire game. They have very high DP costs, limited range, and pretty low attack speed. This results in a pretty poor DPS even for a class that's meant to manage crowds of enemies. I'm sure we can all post funny numbers about how Eyja does like 8 billion damage. Let's push past that for now. Splash Casters still have their perks. Santalla HP: 1,640 (+155 from Module) ATK: 770 (+90 from Trust) (+32 from Potential 4) (+70 from Module) DEF: 123 RES: 20 Redeployment Time: 70 seconds (-4 sec from Potential 3) DP Cost: 33 (-1 from Potentials 2 and 6) (-8 from Module) Attack Interval: 2.9 seconds Talent: After being deployed for 20 seconds, this unit gains ATK +15% and Status Resistance (+3% ATK from Potential 5) (-5 seconds and +5% ATK from Module)
Let's start with a discussion of the basics. The stats. While not super notable, she is the bulkiest of the 5-star Splash Casters, having better HP and DEF than all of them. She's a little less bulky than either Mostima or Dusk (and considerably less if its Module X Dusk, which it won't be), but this isn't a tanking class so its not a major deal.
Her offense is the key part of the show here. Her ATK with just her trust bonus is 860, which doesn't stack well against Lava's 888, Leonhardt's 863, or Skyfire's 874. Mostima's 939 and Dusk's 1,028 ATK seem to have pigeonholed Santalla into a bulky, unoffensive position.
Santalla's talent is an incredible saving grace here. It's easy to activate and will always be active when her skill is up, and the resulting 15% ATK boost puts her effective ATK at 989, making her more comparable with the 6-stars. The key here, when compared with Leonhardt's, Skyfire's, or Dusk's talents is the general ease of this talent. 20 seconds sounds like a lot, but at Mastery Level 3, her S2 has a 20 second charge time on deployment, so its downtime that's already covered.
If you were to push Santalla to her peak performance, here is how her ATK would compare to the others:
Santalla: 1,183 Lava the Purgatory: 950 Leonhardt: 1,013 (He will always have one stack of his talent due to how video games work: with 8 enemies in range his ATK is 1,351) Skyfire: 977 Mostima: 1,055 Dusk Module Y: 1,144 (Potential max of 1,556 with 18 kills) Dusk Module X: 1,142 (Potential max of 1,690 with 24 kills)
Truthfully, the raw attack stat isn't the most relevant thing on the block. But it does give a decent indicator of what exactly Santalla is working with, and the fact that she can hang with the 6-stars while off-skill is genuinely really impressive, although Leonhardt is probably a little bit better than her at that.
Also worth noting that she gets Status Resistance from her talent. This is cool. Not like, the most insane thing in the world but getting less owned by status occasionally comes up.
From this point forward, I will be discussing what I consider Santalla's base (Max Level and 100% Trust) and near max power (all the goodies, except for potential BUT you get whipped cream to use as you like), and that her talent is always active. This is to give players who maybe are a bit worried about investing her module some idea of how much it impacts her. For the latter, keep in your head that her ATK with her talent up is 1,116.
Her base DPS, assuming she is attacking an enemy with 0 RES, is 341 damage per second. With her module, this increases to 384.
Skill 1
I'm not going to go over this one in detail. No one is wowed by Swift Strike gamma. But to go over what it does to her DPS briefly: +45 ASPD is enough to reduce her attack interval to 2 seconds flat. At base, Santalla's ATK will go up to 1,376, giving her a DPS of 688, about a 102% increase. With her module, she will have an ATK of 1,534, resulting in a DPS of 767, or a 100% increase.
This makes sense. Since Santalla's talent already gives her a decent ATK buff, the improved ATK buff from her module will create a little bit more diminishing returns, and on the whole, the DPS increase is than the expected amount at 210%. On a whole, if you raise this all the way up, Santalla does double damage over 35 seconds. Probably not jumping out of your seats on that one.
Skill 2
Oh boy, this skill. This skill has a lot to cover, let's start with the description.
[Attack Range expands, Attack Interval shortens massively, and attacks now summon icicles over random areas within range. When the icicles fall, all enemies in the area are inflicted with Cold for 1 seconds and dealt 90% of Santalla's ATK as Arts damage.]
Going over it in detail: -Santalla's range expands to include the 4th row, identical to Marksmen snipers -Her attack interval is reduced by 2.4 seconds, all the way down to 0.5 seconds. This means she will attack twice a second, getting in 30 attacks over her skill duration. -Randomly is both correct and not correct. It's time to bring in diagrams.
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Icicle falling is semi-random. One icicle will fall in column B (the left column), followed by an icicle in column D (the right column), and finally by an icicle in column C (the middle column). Using the diagram as a metric, you can consider it like this:
Random(B1, B2, B3, B4) THEN Random (D1, D2, D3, D4) THEN Random (C1, C2, C3, C4). (Yes, she can target her own square, this is a reminder to always double check your thinking lol) -Her icicles explode with a radius of 1.5 tiles. To explain what this looks like:
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Here is an Attack on "C2". Fortunately, Santalla's effects make it really easy to visually confirm this. Even as she is slaughtering Originium Slugs.
-Cold for 1 second might initially give the impression that Santalla needs to chain together back to back hits with her skill in order to inflict and sustain freeze. This isn't true: she does however need to score a hit within the next two hits.
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I would watch the first six seconds or so on 0.5x speed and count. Santalla is allowed to miss one of her hits and still keep her cold and freeze going. This is going to be really important once we talk about how her probabilities work.
-Each attack will deals damage equal to 90% of Santalla's ATK. This is a modifier applied after her attack buff from her talent, but BEFORE Res is applied. We'll be talking about her damage primarily in 0 RES situations, but this will be important later on for an example. For now, at base, Santalla's icicles will do 890 damage, and with her module they will do 1,004 damage. This is an 11.1% decrease in damage.
With all of that out of the way, phew, let's talk about the skill as a whole. This is a crowd control skill that looks to freeze enemies with multiple icicle hits. This is a pretty nice idea actually. Freeze is a really powerful source of crowd control and an enemy could theoretically be pinned down for the entire 15 second duration. Critically also, being Frozen reduces enemy RES by 15, giving Santalla some sneaky extra damage. This naturally relies on quite a bit of luck though, and enemy position is really, really important.
In particular, you might have been clever and noticed a connection between her attack pattern and how many hits she needs to land to Freeze an enemy and sustain the Frozen condition. The initial hit needs to land, and then one of the two next hits also needs to land. This means that, for any given enemy in her attack range, they need to be hit by an icicle from a different column in order to be frozen.
This also plays very weirdly with enemies outside of her attack range. Since the icicles have an explosion range of 1.5 tiles, she can hit enemies outside of her attack range, but whether she can freeze them or not is actually dependent on where exactly they are outside of her attack frame.
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Geometry is fucking sick y'all.
Due to the rules of how this works, Santalla cannot actually freeze enemies outside of her attack range if they are on either side of her attack range. The only icicles that can hit those areas are all from the same column, so it's not viable. Only at the very front and directly behind her attack range are viable options, and its pretty specific both in location and which icicles have to fall. But it is technically possible.
Since we know the rules and can properly map out how each icicle will impact the map, we can do something really interesting: we can calculate a general probability as a guideline for how likely an enemy is to be frozen when in any specific tile. Do note for this I am assuming the enemy is in the center of the tile and not moving. This is a guideline, I am not smart enough to brain out every possible solution and factoring in movement is about my brain grade.
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We can discount the middle tile of icicles because those won't factor in here. Assuming out helpful little enemy in C3 was hit, what are the chances that Santalla will freeze him with her next two attacks? Well the left column and the right column have three viable options out of four, so this is pretty simple to figure out. We only need one to hit, so we can include all solutions that include a positive left and right hit (56.25%), all solutions that include a positive left and negative right (18.75%), and vice versa (18.75%). The only solutions left are two negative hits (6.25%) which is out failure rate, giving us a success rate of: 93.75%!
(This is assuming all squares are weighted equally.)
Since the spread is symmetrical, we only have to test for 8 different locations. B1 and D1 are essentially the same but flipped after all.
B1/D1: Only hits in C1 and C2 are positive. This gives us a 50% chance. B2/D2: C1, C2, and C3 are positive. 75% chance. B3/B4: C2, C3, and C4 are positive. 75% chance. B4/D4: C3 and C4 are positive. 50% chance. C1: B1, B2, D1, and D2 are positive. 75% chance. C2: B1, B2, B3, D1, D2, and D3 are positive. 93.75% chance. C3: B2, B3, B4, D2, D3, and D4 are positive. 93.75% chance. C4: B3, B4, D3, and D4 are positive. 75% chance.
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The cool thing about rectangles is they are symmetric both ways, which makes the actual math part of this a lot easier. In general:
The closer to the center of the attack range an enemy is, the more likely they will be frozen and remain frozen.
There's one little quirk though I forgot to mention. While icicles will fall randomly in her attack range, they will not fall in squares that are considered out of bounds such as squares occupied by a wall. I mean come on, there couldn't be a map that could be abused with, could there?
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Let's say we are sick and tired of that bastard Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter, and he's parked in the center of the first row, and we park Santalla right below him.
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Suddenly the top two rows are out of bounds, so when Santalla uses her skill, she will only attack six squares. What happens to the poor Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter who is sitting in C2?
Well C2's positive hits are B1, B2, D1, and D2. Those are the only squares Santalla can hit. So Santalla will perma-freeze the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter and hit him with all 30 of her attacks of her skill!
(2 * (Damage * 0.5)) + (28 * (Damage *0.65)) is the formula that will tell us how much damage the fighter will take.
At base, the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter will take: 17,074 damage. With module, the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter will take: 19,288 damage.
We did it gang. We killed the 10,000 HP Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter because this stage gives him a hidden HP buff. Santalla is the greatest.
Well...no. Even if you can guarantee all 30 hits will lands on an enemy with 0 RES, your total skill damage comes out to 26,700 and 30,120 damage respectively. It is a genuinely pretty impressive DPS, sitting at 1,780 and 2008 respectively, but this requires not only good positioning but also very intentional knowledge of the map. There will be maps where it is simply impossible for Santalla to do this.
You might be wondering what the chances of an enemy in tiles C2 or C3 are of getting hit with all 30 attacks from Santalla's skill. Fortunately, that's very easy. We take the success rate on any attack (75%) and multiply it by itself the number of times we need. 0.75 ^ 30. That can't be that bad right?
0.018%. It's pretty low. Comparatively, you might ask, what are the chances a corner tile enemy is never hit? Well we thankfully can avoid all right-side hits, as those will never hit an enemy on the left side. 10 are automatic misses. The remaining 20 are 50/50s. 0.5 ^ 20.
0.000095%. So okay, to be entirely fair, its really unlikely you will just never hit an enemy. Santalla will generally do _some_ damage and inflict Cold. If you can deploy blockers to keep enemies from leaving her attack range, chances are she's going to do decent work.
The big problem with this skill, the reason I made all the graphics and did the probabilities and what not, is that Santalla is inconsistent. Unless you're smart and use her wisely, there's a good chance that she can not perform to what you need her to do. Figuring how much of an impact she'll have on average is frankly a level of math I'm not qualified to do, but you have to construct her greatest scenarios deliberately. She's not quite plug and play.
Conclusions
There's probably an argument that whatever you want Santalla to do, Gnosis can do better. That's likely true. He's way more consistent at locking down large crowds of enemies with freeze and maintains a pretty good sum of damage on them too. But I think Santalla is the kind of operator who while inconsistent, is going to be fun to optimize and make work. Getting Santalla to work is rather rewarding thanks to the combination of her good DPS and a powerful 14.5 second permafreeze. But you won't always be able to make that happen, and I think planning around her inconsistency will also be an important part in managing her viability.
I think its actually a really good idea to pair her with Gnosis. The massive Fragile debuff Gnosis provides happens at the very end of the damage calculation, which is quite impactful. Santalla can be comboed with other strong crowd control operators too, such as Magallan (lesbians for life), and Saria.
Plus I'm sure if you do the dumbshit buffing set-ups she can take out Patriot. Chop chop. Make it happen.
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