#anyway idk if i articulated this very well but i wanted to try to get my thoughts out

[mikesbasementbeets]

to be real for a second, i think there is a moment in the show where mike has a ~realization~ of sorts about his feelings but hasn't quite put two and two together yet.... and it's this:

this realization of "hey my feelings for will are actually maybe different than my feelings for my other friends, but i'm not sure why" happens at the end of season two. and then mike spends the entirety of season three acting sort of strange and different around will while having his relationship with him constantly juxtaposed with his relationship with el. reaching the end of that season which, despite all the supernatural shit going on, took the time to focus so heavily on those two relationships (and how fundamentally different they are), and having mike have the same realization he had at the end of season two makes no sense because it would mean he accomplished absolutely nothing in his emotional arc during the course season three

especially to claim that he still believes he has feelings for el going into season 4. especially to claim he still believes he has feelings for el by the end of season 4. it's to claim that he has not made any emotional progress in his relationships for at least two full seasons, that he's been going through all of this for it to not have made any conscious impact on him, and the changes in the way he acts from s2-3 and from s3-4 aren't a product of his character developing (growing, changing, to quote hopper's letter) but rather..... ? i don't know actually. just him feeling weird but not understanding himself at all. still. it just doesn't make sense to me. he's one of the main characters of the show, and to keep him emotionally stagnant for 4 out of 5 seasons (especially when we can see that his behavior is changing, that he has not been stagnant at all but rather deeply affected by everything) would be a disservice to his character, first of all, but also a disservice to the narrative which has been showing us his (as well as the other characters') struggle with growing up and growing into himself every season. and it simply doesn't align with what we're being shown

mike is already having realizations by the end of season two. but by the end of season three, he's starting to be really honest with himself about what they mean

#i know i joke about mike being dumb sometimes but some people think he actually is so i try to do it less now lmao #sorry if it comes off rude or dismissive i just think it's a really weird takeaway after watching s3-4 that mike just still doesn't get it #what do you think is happening in his s3 arc if he's still at the exact same place he was at the end of s2? same with s4? #do you think they're saving his ENTIRE sexuality realization coming of age arc for season 5? then what's he been doing so far??? #(i also may have updated feelings on when exactly he realized his feelings for will if i said snowball before.. i think there's more to it) #i also think 'it's impossible to tell until we hear it from mike's own mouth' is a bad take. personally. this is the show don't tell show #we're seeing it happen right in front of our salads. we shouldn't need mike to literally come out to understand that he's consciously #struggling with his sexuality and his feelings for will. he knows at this point. he's very very aware #anyway idk if i articulated this very well but i wanted to try to get my thoughts out #posting late so maybe no one will see it anyway lmao #mikesbasementbeets posts #beets posts

[epicsauce]

pleeease keep talking about toys...i think this is interesting and smth i've never thought too hard about but it makes sense and i like to hear your opinions on modern toys

(ask pertaining to this post)

holy shit okay !! i would love to ramble on so, i shall!

okay im no expert on toy sales history, this is all just observation from my life experiences and i'll try to keep each part i want to go over relatively short!

that being said lets start with a small one that i've personally noticed as a canadian: Kinder egg toys! i remember when they used to come with like 4-8+ pieces, and you needed the included step by step manual to assemble them. they would often come with sticker sheets to decorate them with, and they would often be articulated or be set on wheels or have some sort of fun or movement or general functionality to them:

dont those look awesome? wrapped in 2 kinds of chocolate, and for only like 2$! i remember they would come in all shapes and sizes, all sorts of animals and vehicles and sometimes freaky little abominations, as you can see above, and sometimes even puzzles! they were such a special treat as a kid.

but kinder eggs now? come with a maximum of like 3 pieces that just snap together (usually the front and back of the toy, and then the platform they stand on). and thats all they mostly are now, stiff toys that stand on platforms wahhooooo yippeee

idk just look at the quality difference from the old ones above compared to some of the new ones:

like..... these are..... nothing! literally nothing. just a figure snapped to a pole/platform and thats it! not very interesting for more than 3 minutes max.

now i know what you're thinking: "not ALL of the old kinder toys had to have been bangers" and you'd be right, some were lame as hell, but even the lame ones from before look more intricate than the ones we have now, like can you see what i mean, just detail-wise?

it just feels so cheap and shitty, i could go on and on but more is explained later. point is, it sucks.

anyway that's a very small example and we can move onto bigger and better ones, and maybe even one that everyone else might have noticed by now; McDonald's toys! remember when they were actually toys?

and not just stiff figurines?

(the minions franchise was like CRACK for companies who love making profit off of nothing but stiff rounded plastic. probably the cheapest form of "toy" i can think of)

and yeah, again, its not like there werent figurines back in the day too, there's ALWAYS been lame as hell mcdonalds toys, but looking among many modern mcdonalds toys, you dont see anything as cool as the old ones. literally every major modern movie/franchise right now is nothing but figurines. the most recent actually interactive mcd's toy ive seen is when they collabed with hasbro games

again, companies just seem to be pumping out quantities over quality.

but why?

well, for starters toys are becoming cheaper (both in price and quality) because prices have sky rocketed and stores are forced to only stock cheaper things, therefore the cheap things sell the most, and then more of them get made, and statistics get fucked, etc etc the cycle repeats.

but toy companies know one thing, and that's that things that are "cuter" always sell more. "cuter" being used with vitriol because their idea of 'cute' is 'more glitter and sparkles and rainbow colours and obnoxiousness' oh, and dont forget the huge soulless bug eyes on all of them!

i know that people love these things, but theyre so..... uncanny. their stare is piercing, their stance is so stiff, i always felt bad actually playing with the only one of these i had growing up, and not just because it freaked me out, it just genuinely didnt feel good to play with.

and i knoowwwww people are obsessed with these things, but come on, you have to admit theyre SO unoriginal! theyre just cookie cutter shapes!

these things are horrifying and, at best, belong on a shelf.

these "beany boos" are so woobified and almost feel like a flanderized version of a stuffed animal, and they've completely taken over "beanie babies", which were wonderful soft little things that actually had movement and weren't stiff to cuddle! I also feel like they're almost trying to copy what webkinz was, in a way, as some of those were stiff too (but still loveable and not burdened with an uncanny, vacant stare)

anyway this is getting insanely long and im sorry but i feel like im going insane every time i see new toys nowadays. the like.... "cuteification" of everything is driving me insane, and the fact that they are simply just lower quality than what we used to get, because of prices rising and causing easy-to-make things to become more and more popular.

examples to further prove these points:

extreme woobifying or "cuteification" by almost completely removing all horse anatomy in favour of thin limbs, heavy makeup eyes that are now on the front of her face, and modern influencer eyebrows. on a horse.

and the extreme-simplifying of toys can be seen quite well on those mini polly pocket sets!! see this one here?

almost allllll of those little plastic things could be rotated or rearranged or moved or fucked with in some manner, it was awesome. i loved these miniature houses they always came with so much shit. wanna guess what the newer ones look like?

you guessed it, like shit!!

man even beyblades used to come with like, all sorts of different pieces both metal and plastic alike, and you had to assemble them yourself and you could interchange pieces to obtain a different weight which would affect your attacks against other beyblades, etc etc:

and looking at them now? they seem to be mostly made of- yep, you guessed it, hard cheap plastic.

anyway holy shit i literally reached the 30 image limit on a single post tumblr really said thats ENOUGH !! i cant believe i just spent that long talking about the worlds most pointless thing but at any rate i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you see my vision. because like i said im not insanely knowledgeable on any of this in particular, but its hard not to notice the decline in quality of all of todays modern toys.

#i didnt even go off about the entire brand of toys that exist just to shit in a cup after you feed it chemical mixtures #and i literally cant ive talked soooo much on this post i need to go smoke weed and to go bed LOL #00 #03

[moonstruckme]

hi!! as one of my favourite authors, i want to ask you what i should do in this situation - please dont be offended or take it the wrong way :)

i submitted a request to one of my other favourite authors a few months ago and they haven't written it - not saying they have to ! i totally understand that sometimes a request just doesnt inspire you or you just dont want to write it which is totally valid! accepting fanfiction requests is not an obligation and it should never feel like that! but i am in a bit of a pickle. i hate sending the same request to multiple authors, but in this case, if i dont know if they are ever going to write it/they have chosen not to write it, is it alright to send it to another author? it just seems disloyal, in a way, to send the exact same request to multiple authors so at least someone will accept and i dont want to do it! i dont want the author i originally sent the request to to see it on someone else's blog and feel bad about it but i also want to know if it would be okay? because maybe they personally dont like the request or maybe there was a tumblr glitch and it didnt get sent (in which case i dont want to spam request)- idk! but if it were you who i sent a request to and then you rejected/did not write it for a few months how would you feel if you saw the same request on someone else's blog?

feel free to ignore this if you wish to !! i love you and i love your works so please take care of yourself and stay hydrated 🤎🤎

Hi! It's really considerate of you to ask babe, it's a complicated issue!

So on one hand, there's always the possiblity that they're fully planning to write it and just haven't yet. I think one option is to just message the author/send something to their inbox asking in a very no-pressure way whether they know the request you're talking about and would be okay with you submitting it somewhere else. Because personally, I would be a bit upset if I saw something that I was planning to write being written by another author (even if I might suspect the situation you're describing has taken place, I have no way of knowing you didn't just submit those requests at the same time, you know?)

Also, and this is just my own philosophy on this, but when I've submitted requests to authors and they haven't been answered, I just sort of take that as me having placed a bet and it not panning out. (Which is definitely not the best way to describe it, I just can't seem to articulate what I'm trying to say atm) I typically let that one go, usually because in my case I've submitted that specific request to that specific author for a reason and I wouldn't really want someone else to write it anyway, but that's just me. I hope that doesn't come across as patronizing or like "get over it" in any way, I just wanted to add my perspective as a requestor as well as a writer.

Overall, I'd say the safest bet is to just make all writers involved as aware of the issue as you can, because in my experience, writing a request that someone else has gotten makes me feel like I've accidentally betrayed that other author. Maybe messaging the author you sent the request to to ask if you can submit somewhere else, and, whether they respond or not, just briefly disclosing in your new request like "I submitted this months ago to x use/another author but they haven't responded, so I get if you're not comfortable with this" might work?

I realize I've given you a lot of hoops to jump through and obviously you're your own person so do what you want! You seem like you're going into it with great intentions and I'm sure that'll come across whatever you choose to do :)

#sorry for this very convoluted message lmao #i tried to articulate many things and it didn't work very well #mae’s asks

[vioisgoinginsane]

Actually, this needs a separate post for people who don't follow me

The idia and Rook essay you didn't know you needed in your life

Idia plays video games. Rook likes theatre plays. *trombone sound*

For once, the pun isn't how i thought of this. I can elaborate but it will take a couple of minor spoilers.

Basically, Theatre is like the grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfather of video games. most modern video games have an overarching story, and every kind of storytelling medium, literature, film, TV, games, comics, Musicals, influences your view of the world and, most tellingly, your vocabulary and speech patters.

Idia talks Like This™ and Rook talk....in

That Peculiar Manner of Speech

Not a single one of the students in this school is normal about their interests and I could probably point out other examples, I don't think I'm even trying to draw any parallels between these characters but they were the first I thought of so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ they're getting the over thinking treatment.

Anyways, obsessing over storytelling mediums is a bit different than other interests. It shapes our worldview, how we try to understand it, relate to it and interact with it.

Idia's favorite game influenced his desire to be a hero and go on an adventure in the outside world and we know that Rook was not expressive till he was moved to tears by one of Neige's performances.

I guess games are a more self centered game since most of the time you play as a protagonist and interact with characters and do things to push the story forward. Meanwhile with plays, as an audience, you merely observe a story. This, most notably, draws our attention back to Rook's observant nature. He want to observe things very closely, as a hunter. In Idia's case I think I could say it's sort of a hint that despite his near paralyzing social anxiety he did have longing to be the protagonist of his own story.

The funniest part is that Rook navigates a social situation with confidence despite being so fucking weird (and sometimes worthy of a restraining order), and Idia's a socially anxious mess. But hey, that IS exactly what you would expect from a theatre kid and a gamer, isn't it? (No Offence to theatre kids, Rook's various restraining orders got nothing to do with being a theatre kid) and I thiiink this is something that just comes down to one's very core nature and not any influence.

BUT we know from Idia's online chats with lilia (while having no idea it's lilia) that he is better articulate- well, he's GENERALLY better articulate in writing) but he is, dare i say... Sweet to his gamer homies?

Guys, this is the same Idia that roasted everyone that tried to save him in the ghost bride event. It really kicks me in the gut that lilia was like "too bad we're saving idia so i have no motivation" like people would NOT BELIEVE their ears if they knew.

To draw the line, gaming gave Idia a way to make friends, without whatever hindrances him in IRL interactions like idk insecurities about his hair and interests.

Do you guys think Rook had any friends before meeting Vil?

*cricket sounds*

Yeah I know, I honestly can't tell either way. Like, having an interest is a way to make friends but Rook is just too weird even by Theatre kid standards... Also we know he used to not care much about his appearance so... Idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ᵐᵃʸᵇᵉ he looked scarier (?)*shrugs again*

And. I know that one CANNOT just go to Vil and tell him "I am the biggest Neige simp that ever was" but I occasionally get the sense there's a part of his enjoyment of that hobby that he likes to keep between him and himself.

I thought of this mostly cuz in one of the birthday lines he says he used to spend his birthdays going to theatre shows literally ALL day, but like. You could always just choose to spend your birthday like that, get the felicitations and gifts in the mail, I don't really think i can use it as proof of anything.

There's a lot stuff about Rook that's just "???????" As to why he is the way he is. Why is he french?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" "why does his family have all these teleporting mensions?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" "why does he stalk people?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" mostly cuz he dislikes talking about himself and actively avoids it, changes the subject, distracts you, or even outright lies about it.

With Idia we have his whole backstory layed out in the main story so I can do stuff like trace his cynicism back to that traumatic event that happened the one time he tried to follow his dreams, meanwhile "Why is Rook such a romantic?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

#twst #twst analysis #vio plays twisted wonderland #idia shroud #rook hunt #twst pomefiore #twst ignihyde #twisted wonderland

[hikennosabo]

trimax volume 6 random thoughts

chapter 1:

oh, hey, it's the guy from the 98 anime!..... or not?!

i'm not keeping track of this TOO closely, so there may be other instances of this that i missed, but the guy from 98 episode 1 also showed up in trimax chapter 7. it makes me wonder if nightow provided character designs/ideas to the 98 team, or if it's the other way around and he decided to incorporate anime-original characters into the manga. either way: neat!

HAVE I MENTIONED I LOVE MERYL, BY THE WAY.

i love the bits of characterization we've been getting for her. she (and milly) are our tie to humanity, after all

i must say it is nice to have a goofy fight after... all that in volume 5. and before... the rest of volume 6.

chapter 2:

aaaand now we start the next chapter with wolfwood's nightmare/flashback! hurts just a little bit! (the trio IS kinda serving tho ngl... when you have a fashion show at 7 but need to terrorize the orphanage at 6)

^ completely and 100% unironically, they were in love here.

i just... ugh. this is such a vashwood chapter. the absolute trust and fighting together completely seamlessly, they are just. ugh. ughhhhh. this kind of trust just GETS to me.... sorry. i'm normal about them. i'm NORMALLLLLLaauughghghgh

ANYWAY. chekhov's table made me laugh

i am physically restraining myself from going crazy over vw again as i reread this chapter to write this post.

anyway anyway. ww calling himself "nicholas" is cute :)

just kidding one more vw comment as a treat

HE'S SO IN LOVE. FUUUUUCK.

chapter 3:

legato continues to be fascinating to me. i'm observing him like a bug in a jar. which is appropriate, considering...

WHEN I CALLED HIM A BAGWORM IN THAT ONE POST I WAS JOKINGGGGG I WAS JOKING!!! THIS MADE ME LAUGH FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES STRAIGHT WHY DID SHE HANG HIM FROM THE CEILINGGGG IT'S SO FUNNY

this is actually making me fucking cry.

...i got so distracted laughing at bagworm legato that i almost forgot to say literally anything else about the chapter, but anything else i have to say mostly boils down to "wow, legato is such a freak (affectionate)"

also, whenever something that was in tristamp is brought up i feel like the leonardo dicaprio pointing meme. like "oh hey, i know this!" going into this manga with prior knowledge from stampede is... an interesting experience. all that being said, i can't WAIT to see more of the manga version of double fang. oh nightow we're really in it now

chapter 4:

oh, finally, FINALLY!!! last volume i asked where the knives nuance was and now we're FINALLY getting some knuance, thank god. seeing knives react to just how badly humans treat plants is SO effective. and we're not even up to the juicy part yet. it makes me want to eat glass.

speaking of eating glass.

i thought something like this might've been the case, but still... this hurts to read.

i want to eat glass!!!! fuck!!! this reveal is so insane, it's like monkey's paw of "this is a way knives can be defeated, but by the same method, vash is closer to death than knives is." WE don't want vash to die, and neither does knives, and this chapter is the first (and possibly the only, idk) time the reader's feelings and knives's feelings are... well, aligned. at least in a sense.

chapter 5:

this chapter is really something, because it starts off almost seeming like another lighthearted "we're in a random town fighting a goofy enemy of the month" romp much like the early chapters were, heck like chapter 1 of this very volume. but it's just wearing the skin of that. which is, y'know. the thesis of this entire chapter. smiling to hide the pain and all that.

i don't think i can really... articulate anything of substance. the chapter just kind of... speaks for itself, i think.

although i DID laugh at ww trying to enjoy his noodles and failing, and also the phrase "needle-noggin-isms." thanks for providing some levity, we actually really do need it.

chapter 6:

ohhh boy we are REALLY in it now!!

i enjoy seeing knives ponder like this. legs crossed, arm slung over his face... i don't know. maybe it's because i myself sometimes lounge in this pose.

what exactly is he thinking about, i wonder. that in awakening/forcing vash to use his powers, he unintentionally pushed him closer to death? maybe? i don't know. either way it's very on-the-nose for what their relationship has been like.

and then of course we cut to this shot of vash, looking in a mirror created by knives's slice

this shot is making me think a lot and i'm reading too much into it, but- obviously the reflection puts vash's beauty mark on the opposite side, so there's the knives resemblance, so also, i suppose vash must see knives every time he looks in the mirror, right? also vash looking at his reflection featuring his own black hair- which we're all still thinking about... i dont know. i dont even know if this is anything LOL. i feel like i have the dots but i'm failing to articulate the connection. anyway

this made me laugh. thanks for the levity again, wolfwood :)

BECAUSE WE'RE GONNA NEED ALL THE COMIC RELIEF WE CAN GET, BABY!!!

maybe i'm just insane for this because it's Generic Party Imagery but the specific combination of rem flashback + party popper + funny glasses makes me think of the similar scene in 98 when the seeds crew celebrates finding planet gunsmoke. like is this another instance of nightow nabbing stuff from 98 or am i just making things up.

the twins are so cute and baby knives smiles so much, i want to microwave myself.

knives wants to believe in humanity. man. MAN!!!!!

what comes next... i'm absolutely carrying my prior stampede knowledge into this, but fuck, man. fuck. even then, i know that stampede didn't show everything, so i don't even fully know what to expect. which is fun! but i can't believe the volume ends right in the middle of the flashback, MAN!!!

#Having A Normal One #trigunbookclub #trigun talk #june speaks

[red1ight]

i am home early from work today yay so i can share my thoughts re:the dc comeback

well. it's very different for them but very much the same in terms of the kpop gg landscape rn... so that's boring to me. especially the english lyrics of 'i'm flawless i'm gorgeous my black dress' are so tired, a bit eye-roll. as is the heavy use of english lyrics itself. like i know they're trying to appeal to foreign fans (esp usamerican fans since they're looking to release an english album soon) but.. why? anyway i digress that's a different conversation.. as for the structure of the song itself, it's predictable, the rhythmic speaking over the electronic synths is also very overplayed, i don't care for that.

that all being said,, i don't think the song is overall Bad like i think it's kinda fun once i get past the standards and expectations i have of their music LOL. but im frustrated because if they really wanted to go this route musically, and conform to the current trends, they could still do so much to insert their own color, which i feel like normally is their strong suit. I can appreciate that they still opted for an acoustic drum beat and electric guitar in certain places, but aside from that.. they could have at least done more to spice it up. like for the chorus, they could have messed around with the progressions and leaned more into some interesting minor chords. i wish i knew music terminology to better articulate this idea LMAO anyway

I think yoohyeon in particular has some nice parts, the prechorus is enjoyable, but for a group with such overall strong vocals, there just wasn't much at all to this song. jiu and sua were particularly underutilized vocally which is a real shame.

as for choreo - i find it boring for the same reasons, it's just like everything else you can expect from an 'i'm bad' 'girl-crush' song (do ppl still use that term? can we retire it? have we already? idk). the tiktokification of kpop choreo is disappointing, especially from them since we know what they're capable of.

i think the concept is just a bit disappointing coming from them? it just doesn't seem to fit the image they've created or fanbase they've built.. i mean i know having a somewhat 'alt' (using that term really loosely here) image in the industry will not profitable forever but.. idk maybe it would? is it better to just do the same thing as every other group rn? isn't that why so many groups fell off around 2015-ish? because there was an oversaturation of the same concepts?? idk. also im getting kind of tired of the album 'concept' never having anything to do with the title track honestly it's become a real pet peeve for me like what does this have to do with villains or the cool spooky teasers they had in the very beginning of i think last (?) month? where's the intention where's the thought where's the care where's the artistry !! i've been thinking this for a while, but everything just feels rushed and barely thought-out.

all to say that it's nothing special, it could be fun to listen to if im in the right mood and ignore the english lyrics, but disappointing (sorry realizing im using that word a lot lol) only because i have such high standards for them. so it'll most likely end up being a skip for me. oh well. i'll check out the b sides of course though

#brevity idk her

[mandaloresson]

This is an open invitation to rant about whichever headcanons you’ve been thinking of :3

you mean Cats headacnons right? because I haven't been able to think about ANYTHING else recently (I have an exam in two days I'm suffering)

before I go on listing what I've been thinking about in no particular order, I wanna say that I actually don't have that many headcanons of my own hence the constant begging for prompts, I need help with ideas. but what I do have, okay here I go:

so I've mentioned that I like to and will probably always portray these characters as either just straight up humans or as cat hybrids as in they look like humans and function like humans but they get the catperson treatment of having cat ears and a tail and like cat mannerisms.

in that regard, I imagine them as I wish and I've drawn them how I imagine them (as completely humans here and as cat hybrids here)

moving on I personally subscribe to the headcanon that Tugger and Munk are Old Deut's sons, but sometimes I also like to play around with the hc that Macavity is their third brother

in my hc Old Deut had each child with a different woman, I don't wanna dwell on this too much but in my brain it always just made sense that Old Deut in a human AU is black, that Tugger is too, that Munk's mom is white and that Mac is also black idk it's just how I see them and it's not based on who played them in what version

moving on, in the AU where Macavity is the third son, he is the middle child

he's estranged from the family and yesterday in particular I just paced around the terrace with a cigarette thinking about 5498396 reasons that might be so but I'll get to that

he isn't the stereotypical middle child, he's not the peacemaker or the mediator, he's a fucking menace

I see Munk as more of the stereotypical eldest child, excellent grades and a blossoming career (though remembering the part in the musical when he fights Mac I'd also say he's good at sports or something, definitely not abandoning physical activity) he had a lot of pressure on his shoulders growing up but he also had big expectations of himself and while it did lead to complicated family dynamics, I see him as emotionally mature and I see Old Deut as very caring and, well, also emotionally mature so they'd be able to work it out

Tugger is the youngest and I know this isn't the case in all families, I'm just applying my personal three child family experience okay: I would say that the pressure of expectations lessened with each child so for example Munk had to be really good at school and fulfill all kinds of expectations, then Mac had it a bit easier and also being a menace lowered expectations so by Tugger's time expectations were low and I actually think this would offend him, not that he'd be able to articulate it when he was younger, but he would act out and try to get a response from his parents to prove that they should actually care about whether he's doing well in school or not, for example (that isn't to say the parents aren't caring, it's just about expectations and pressure)

anyway no surprise here but I think Tugger would be a musician in a human AU, I can't really see him as anything else, I think he'd be a punk or a rockstar and I think he'd take a lot of pride in it. I'm somewhere in-between him being a big star and being an indie artist but either way, he wouldn't be a child prodigy or anything

see Munk has his smarts and Mac is an athlete (I'll get to it, I'll get to Macavity) and Tugger has nothing he's not very good at school he's not very good at sports he's the youngest child with the least expectations on his shoulders as previously discussed and his parents are like "as long as you're happy do whatever <3" but he doesn't know what he wants to do or what he's even good at

until, and I haven't really thought about how, but somehow, he discovers his love for and talent for music though he puts in a Lot of effort to practice not just relying on his talent because he's finally found something he truly wants to do in his life

okay so Macavity.

you know how in fandoms there are people who like the main characters, then there are the people who particularly cling to side characters, there's the people who really love them a morally gray anti-hero and there's those who lust for villains?

well, I'm all of them, and while I could give you examples from other fandoms that's not why we're here. it can, however, also actually be seen on the example of cats

so if you haven't gathered already my favorite characters are Tugger, Misto and Mac and sometimes Munk and Skimble

and it's like, not a surprise right? it's not crazy for a gay person to see Tugger and Misto and be like "yeah I'm gonna base my entire personality on them for the next month"

when it comes to Macavity, that's where my love for side characters and villains shines through because really, what does Macavity even DO in the musical?

it's been said that Macavity in Cats is supposed to be more of a looming presence rather than a real threat, that seeing little of him is very effective and makes him mysterious (he's the Mystery Cat after all!) (also that's why it's been said that the movie fucked that up by giving him a much bigger role in the story which takes away from the mystery but I'm not here to talk about the movie that'd be a whole other rant)

SO, in that regard, like pretty much anything in Cats, there's really free reign to headcanon who he actually is. my favorite question is: is he really a threat? or, alternatively, how much of a threat he is?

(and I'm aware of the headcanons about him and Demeter and I'm not trying to take away from that but I mean, it's all just headcanons and speculation)

this is among other reasons why I was conflicted about the angst in that fic I'm writing: the long pacing I did on the terrace yesterday resulted in a very detailed backstory of how and why Macavity is estranged from the family, only for me to stop and wonder "am I going too far?"

it's my story and I can do what I want, but I did wanna hear the fandom's opinion, here's the poll, vote on how much angst you'd like to see (because there WILL be angst, I'll just decide whether to tone it down or not)

ANYWAY I don't wanna spoil the fic by detailing which two versions of Mac's backstory I made, and I'm afraid that saying what I had in mind for it will influence people's votes in the poll so I won't say anything about THAT

but here's another Mac headcanon: pretty much everything I have to write will have him involved with crime somehow I know that's like very obvious and low hanging fruit but I'd like for it to be diverse like maybe he's just doing something petty in one story and then in another he's a full blown mafia boss, who's to say? I have an ao3 btw haven't posted cats fics yet but I WILL

I really like to think that Mac can't dress like sure if he's a crime boss he'll wear beautifully tailored suits, but if he needs to think of an outfit himself? it's hopeless

as I said I think Tugger would either be a punk or a rockstar so either of those styles of clothing would be his thing

okay okay Misto I completely sidelined my boy

I'm headcanoning in my silly little brain that he straight up does not talk to his family and reasons for that may vary

I headcanon in my silly little brain that the only family member he's in contact with is Bustopher Jones and again reasons for that may vary depending on the reasons why he's not in contact with anyone else

when I think about Misto I usually have two trains of thought: he's either a dancer (ballet and contemporary) and/or he legitimately has powers

haven't written anything with him being magical just yet but I see it as being kind of a soft magic system where he might be the only one capable of these things he doesn't know why or how, or maybe it's a family thing and it ties back to why they don't talk

I'm gonna be a 100% for as much as I adore Misto I haven't worked those details surrounding him as much :')

uh I don't know if I have more honestly? if there's any specific headcanons you guys wanna know about, feel free to plant that seed of thought in my head and I'll come back with my opinions

and once and once again, I'm open for (completely free!) writing and drawing prompts

<3

thank you so much for this ask!!! I loved answering it, but I'm gonna try to go study now ;;

have a nice day!

#cats (1998) #cats 1998 #cats the musical #cats musical #rum tum tugger #mr mistoffelees #munkustrap #macavity #old deuteronomy #headcanons #cats 1998 headcanons #jax answers #cats headcanons

[rayssyscourse]

I've never really understood a lot of discourse around system spaces so I'm just shooting this ask to see if you wanted to answer some questions.

1.How are we defining traumagenic and endogenic spaces? There seems to be a lot of talk about these spaces and keeping them separate, but it's never really specified what or where these spaces are. If we're talking about Tumblr tags, I don't think you can get more refined anymore than they already are and it's also an open space.

2. And in what ways do you find that the communities are intertwined? Beyond the use of basic terminology, I feel that most endogenic and traumgenic spaces (Tumblr, websites, subreddits) have completely different "vibes" and terminology usage. From my perspective there is a thick line between endogenics and traumagenic spaces and I don't see the blurring of disordered and non-disordered. Not saying you're wrong /gen, I just don't understand.

3. I see a lot of people talking about endogenic systems entering traumagenic spaces, is this a problem that can't be solved by just blocking the endogenic tags or removing them from the servers? And, what is the severity of this issue in the first place? Are there flocks of endogenic systems overwhelming these spaces or a stray once in a while?

For sure! Keep in mind this is just my perspective, but here's my thoughts :)

1. I'm defining them mainly as stuff like group chats, support groups, servers, blogs, and other internet spaces that serve as places to talk about this stuff. You're right that Tumblr tags are pretty open lol. I'm talking more about the more designated discussion and support groups/spaces.

2. Essentially, it's the fact that endo and traumagenic systems are viewed as more or less the same thing with slight differences. (That's a little bit of an exaggeration but hopefully you get what I mean lol.) The same terms are used to describe different things. Even the "-genic" terms imply that we're basically the same/equatable. Of course there are similarities, but my main issue is the fact that the communities are viewed as two parts of a whole instead of different experiences with similarities. Hope that makes sense, I'm kinda tired rn and idk if I articulated that super well.

3. In some cases, yes, it can be. But half of the problem is that spaces are viewed as open to all origins by default. Spaces that designated themselves as traumagenic only are often harassed for not allowing endos, even if they haven't actually said anything against endos. There's very little recognition of the difference in the experiences. And as for the severity, it's in between. I'm not saying every space is being completely overrun, but it's difficult to see spaces harassed, crowded with people whose space it isn't, etc. when we just want to be recognized as what we are and have community.

I realize that last little bit could come across as antagonizing, so let me just say I'm not trying to blame all endos or say that they're, like, the root of all the problems in the community.

Anyways, I hope that clears things up! Thank you for the ask and for asking for clarification :) Again I'm a little tired so I hope this makes sense. Have a lovely day <3

#syscourse #rayssyscourse

[shortpplfedup]

Gonna try to organise my thoughts about this episode, because all I've been able to articulate so far is...

So, as expected (by me anyway) consequences came with the morning, and those consequences were worth my faith in this story and these storytellers. Again, the show treated the dubcon like dubcon, both during the act and in the aftermath. Porsche's hurt and Kinn's guilt were all over the episode, further complicated by the dangerous and precarious situation they are living in. Porsche wants desperately to understand and recontextualise the night, but Kinn isn't able to give that to him for reasons both internal and external. At a moment that Porsche needs softness and care, Kinn won't, CAN'T show either. Basically every conversation they had this episode was fraught in a different way, all while they studiously avoid the elephant in the room.

And then into that mess here comes Vegas. It's unlikely that he knows what happened between Kinn and Porsche, but his mole obviously knows Porsche got punished for being attacked and Vegas figures it's the perfect time to ingratiate himself. Does Vegas realise his hamfisted and obvious ploy was too much and decide to stick to the serpentine manipulation he's clearly good at? Idk. What's clear is that he very much understands the inner workings of both Kinn's mind and the main family's SOP, and is actually a pretty good judge of people. Because he read them all, Porsche included, like a book and knew exactly where and how deep to stick the knife in.

Because Kinn and Porsche? Oh honey they're both flailing, REELING after what Kinn did. Porsche is sick at it all because some part of him wants some part of Kinn and he feels like that emotion left him open to being used, taken advantage of and discarded. He rightly blames Kinn for what's happened, what is happenING, but he also blames himself, and that is SO realistic in its layers. Kinn KNOWS immediately after that he should not have done what he did, but he has no idea what to do to fix it, and even if he did know, he can't allow himself the vulnerability of guilt and atonement because he thinks it puts Porsche, himself and everybody else in danger. In the end Pete is the one to knock sense into him, but he still struggles with doing what he knows he must because it's so alien to him to even feel guilty in the first place, far less act to remedy the harm he's caused. He knows he basically needs to prostrate himself at Porsche's feet, but every fibre of his being rejects what that would mean: facing what he's become, how he feels, what Porsche is starting to mean to him.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Porsche and Kinn are on the path to the story's main inflexion point: Porsche either has to get on the mafia train or Kinn has to get off it, or they have to part ways. Straddling both worlds is impossible. That's why no matter what accord they come to next week in the woods it can only be temporary at best. Because they can't trust each other while they're essentially on opposite sides of a divide like that, and that lack of trust is why this whole thing unfolded, is unfoldING in the way it did. If Kinn could have just admitted to himself and to Porsche that he likes him, this all wouldn't have happened. But when you repress things it doesn't actually stop them from coming out, they still emerge just in an ugly and twisted form.

Aside from Kinn and Porsche, several other irons in the fire are starting to heat up. Tankhun may be traumatised but he's not dumb and he's not unaware. He sees and knows more than he lets on, as we see when Kim makes a rare visit home to do some snooping. I wonder if Khun is gathering his little nuggets of insight for a purpose or if he is just part of the Greek chorus of the story. And Kim, well Kim's purpose continues to be elusive. He's obviously investigating something, but what or why is still shielded from us. Is he just a paranoid freak (Pete said Kinn was the most normal of the three brothers, remember) or is he trying to uncover something? Kim has underestimated Porchay though, he is about to get more than he bargained for in one way or another. He's charmed and intrigued by Porchay despite himself; he was absolutely ready to discard him having got what he needed out of him but instead he pulled up a chair and got in deeper.

I've been invested in this show pretty much from the beginning after checking it out on a whim, but this episode has cemented its bonafides as a story worth the effort for me. It was simply outstanding. Those crosscut flashbacks both when Porsche was alone in the bathroom and when they're both trying to move on using sex and failing...art. Just...art.

#kinnporsche #meta #on art

[dissociacrip]

this is only a vaguepost just bc i don't wanna start an argument w/ the person who said this or anything but i wouldn't say wheelchair is a last resort for POTS, but maybe that's just me.

i don't just have POTS i also have low muscle tone + other shit, with the combination of my health problems the reason that i bought a wheelchair, and yeah it depends on how someone's POTS affects them, but that statement doesn't sit well with me. i think that's fair to say for people w/ non-severe POTS as their reasoning for wanting a wheelchair (let alone wanting to be a full-time wheelchair user), but not POTS generally. not everyone with POTS is a faint/fall risk, but in the case of somebody w/ a history of fainting/falling, a wheelchair makes the most sense to keep from busting your head open.

a portable seat also doesn't make sense to me personally because say, i'm in a store or standing in line, or at a museum. something where someone who uses a portable seat would have to sit down, get up, sit down, then get up again in order to move. that seems like something that would just aggravate the hell out of POTS. that's part of the reason why i personally opted to a wheelchair instead of something like a rollator.

my previous cardiologist left and i stopped going to him anyway because the insurance co-pays with an EKG being done every time were absurd. i'm only trying to see one again now because i want to check in with someone about the ataxia, altered consciousness (i do not wanna call it brain fog bc that is sugarcoating it), coathanger pain, and slurred speech - and that all gets progressively worse the longer i'm upright since i only recently pieced together my POTS was the culprit since, for w/e reason, no one in the POTS community seems to talk about that stuff very much (mainly just fainting, dizziness, brain fog, etc.) i couldn't get on ivabradine because the fucking red tape made me want to rip my hair out. i can't find my other compression sock and there's only so much that would do since hypotonia and other stuff also comes into play that affects my tolerance for being upright and walking for extended periods. i generally don't have a lot of resources or options in the current life situation i'm in.

the fact they also make it painful for me to sit for extended periods makes the wheelchair thing funny.

idk...i don't think there's an epidemic of people using mobility aids (let alone something as difficult to use and acquire as a wheelchair) when they don't really need them in some sense. wheelchairs and rollators and crutches are usually things that take up a lot of space and make accessing many aspects of public life difficult. unless someone had something else going on w/ them i can't imagine somebody using a wheelchair super often for an extended period of time unless they needed it. my cane isn't good for me, but it was easy to get, and i was desperate for any kind of support at the time i got it, even if it makes me walk worse because i'm using it as something to lean on for the most part. if someone is using something like a transport chair even i'm gonna assume that they're doing the best they can with what they have before assuming they don't know what they're doing.

i think people sometimes give bad advice about mobility aids, that people should make informed decisions, and that the ideal is to be able to go to a doctor about it and have a see a PT who's trained for that kind of thing, but that's never a guaranteed thing. generally, the recent attitude i've seen around mobility aid usage is uncomfortable. it verges almost on a kind of intra-community healthism for me in a way i can't really articulate at the moment.

#j #body log #community

[transmutationisms]

hello camille! sending this to you because ik you’ll be able to articulate it much better than me but i’ve been thinking a lot about roman’s potential restrictive behaviour when it comes to food and how his eating behaviours are rooted more-so in self-harm than self-preservation (which is how i think caroline views her restrictive eating habits, even if that’s not really the case). I view Roman as a character that is affected by rot, although not as concerned with moral rot like kendall, but rather physical rot. Initially I thought that Roman’s unhealthy obsession with his appearance means that he’s scared of rotting, but actually I think he wants to rot away, hence the restrictive eating habits (which of course isn’t canon and not everyone has that in their belief system, which is fair enough- it’s just a potential aspect of roman’s character that i find interesting) and his restriction linking to the urge to self-destruct. I think a lot of a lyric from 4st7lb by Manic Street Preachers in regard to roman: I want to be so skinny that I rot from view. Not necessarily the skinny part, I don’t think that’s at the crux of roman’s ed, but rather the wanting the rot away until you can no longer be perceived. He is a character that constantly wants to control people’s perceptions of him (giving himself a reputation of a sex pest and a deviant when he can’t actually fuck, ordering ‘steak and mashed potatoes’ then ‘picking at it and checking his waistline’ etc) and he figures that he’d rather rot away, so to speak, so he’s unable to be perceived in ways he doesn’t want to be perceived. Perhaps if he can make himself rotten, people won’t try to get too close, and expect something from him that he can’t live up to. Idk if i even explained myself very well but hopefully you get the picture

no this is RIGHT on the money imo. i read roman as being very tormented by the fact of existing and having other people look at him. i think all of the roys do weird shit with food, but the particular way in which roman relates to his body (primarily as an object for other people to look at) ties into his not-eating. he'd get rid of his body entirely if he could.

it's like, if i have to have a body, then i will be thin and wear too-tight clothes and put on airs like a suave businessguy. but i'll also get up from the table and pour myself a drink when shiv talks about the lobster-at-gstaad incident, and i'll snack on fruit but pick at my meals, and no one notices these things because i'm not the #1 brother sitting at the big boy table when dad's having his business dinners anyway.

tbh Since You Brought It Up. i do actually see this as being deeply related to roman's deification of logan (which is in turn related to roman having been raised catholic, or at least under the auspices of the catholic church). i read roman's not-eating as having a lot in common with the fasting behaviour of saints and devotees in the medieval and early modern periods. what these people wanted was purification, transcendence, and ultimately death as the ultimate act of de-creation and self-negation.

a lot of cases of fasting girls will also specifically note that they ate fruit (they had all kinds of reasons why fruit didn't count as a real food, it's fascinating) and i know this sounds insane but like. i do see roman's constant snacking on fruit as being part of this lmao. i don't think he sees fruit as sustenance, i think all of his eating and not-eating and the way he talks about eating (you eat me, i eat you) ties into his overall project to purify himself and to ultimately transcend his body. and in his mind he's positioned logan as god, as being the only one with the grace to forgive roman his bodily defilement (ironic since logan Does Eat, although still in a fucked-up way imo).

this also plays into the ways that roman is often feminised. although there were plenty of cases of male fasting saints, by the early modern period there was a robust genre of literature on "fasting girls" as a specific phenomenon. physicians usually read these cases as being about the girls' willful rejection of Adult Womanhood. so, to be a fasting girl meant being a Girl, specifically: immature, forever bound to a pre-sexual (and yet often sexualised) body.

and then, speaking of gender and womanhood, this circles back nicely to caroline. because, like you said, i do think she sees her own not-eating as being in service of her health and self-preservation. imo there's a pretty direct line from caroline's not-eating to roman's not-eating in the sense that both of them imbue food and eating with mystical transcendent properties, and try to gain immortality and grace through these acts. but they articulate these goals in very different ways.

caroline's not trying to "feed on light," or to gain forgiveness and grace from logan, whereas roman is (and again, roman's catholicism plays in here). and caroline's also acting out a very different gender narrative as an older aristocratic woman, versus roman who's fashioning himself as this little fasting girl. for roman, not-eating is a reclamation of purity and innocence: things he can only attain via the destruction of his body. whereas for caroline, not-eating is about clinging onto her body as the thing tethering her to existence. (and i do think she probably has some body trauma/history/etc.)

anyway yeah this is what makes me so ill about roman and food and his body and his reflection in the mirror. truly i don't think he's focussed on his body Per Se in the way that a lot of people think he is. i think it's alllll about the self-destruction, and the use of not-eating as a ticket to gain entry into heaven (waystar). logan wants immortality through his heir, and roman wants immortality through receiving logan's love and grace. and in roman's mind, his body is just the thing he has to sacrifice in order to earn this love and grace.

#i think shiv may be caroline's actual eating mirror. possibly. and then kendall's whole thing with eating around/with logan. #and then of course. the pierces with their blue blood eating thing. contrasted to the roys #anyway ily dee thank you for this it was a perfect break from my work dsgkjhfdkjhgkfjdh #you eat me i eat you

[f0point5]

Also the whole thing about him being annoyed with himself for being P5 as if he’s a usual P2/3 yk. Likeeeee you’re very often in P5 or even lower so why are you acting like this is sooo reputation damaging for you. Obviously he’s had a great season in general imo if we look at the beginning of the season and the end he’s definitely made improvements and him being on the podium multiple times as well but come on no need to practise more self pity because of P5. He also loves to claim that it’s just lack of talent etc trying to make us pity him as well and I’m just not buying it.

Idk if this is a good take or not honestly it’s just how I’ve been feeling in the past weeks. Especially since I am a Lando fan (mostly a Max fan but I got a place in my fan heart for Lando as well) and him doing better this season was great to watch but sooo many of his interviews were hard to watch because I got second hand embarrassment and the pressure he puts himself under just makes him perform worse. Idk if he’ll ever win a race with that attitude honestly sometimes I doubt it but I hope I’m wrong tbh

I get second hand embarrassment every time he messes up in quali and says “should have been pole” like Max wouldn’t have seen his time and pushed and taken pole anyway.

But honestly, the beating himself up really annoys me because the “what if” is such a stupid argument when you’re the one in control of which scenario played out. It’s not like “what if it hadn’t rained and I slid off”…it’s “what if I didn’t bottle it” and the bottling it is such a fundamental part of his driving at this point it’s like, but you did and you will so saying “what if I didn’t fuck up” is like saying “what if someone else was driving the car”. Idk if I’m making sense here?

I don’t think it’s lack of talent and I don’t think Lando thinks that either, but I also don’t think it’s calculated. I think he just doesn’t know how to explain himself and doesn’t want to to the media, so he just says that so he doesn’t have to say more. When Max has an issue, he’ll explain the whole thing, because he has nothing to hide in that sense, he knows one mistake is not who he is as a driver. But for Lando, mistakes have underpinned a lot of his moments in the spotlight. I think what Lando thinks is what I think, it’s not lack of talent, it’s lack of skill (mental strength being a skill you need to develop). But I don’t think he can articulate that to reporter and I don’t think he wants to admit it.

But yeah Lando does need to stop acting like P2 isn’t good enough for him when it’s literally the best he’s ever done in F1. He treats himself like he’s a 7 time champion in decline not a young driver on the up.

I don’t see the attitude getting better next year because I think we will see the Dawn of Papaya Piastri and it will be “all too much for little Lando Norris”. At least for a while.

At the end of the day, I think Lando is a nice guy with good intentions, but where racing is concerned I think he has a lot to sort out

[secretsolarsystem]

Prompt: “you’re so bad at this. It’s cute.” (Literally all I can think about for this is anakin trying to flirt on an undercover mission lmao.)

okay you’re SO RIGHT about this being Anakin flirting undercover. boy cannot flirt to save his life but he’s all the more cute for it <3

this is written in the same ‘verse as the lil ex-Jedi!Obi-Wan/padawan!Anakin fic I wrote!! this takes place a few years after that…idk how many lol, but Anakin is still in the Jedi Order here :)

ex-Jedi!Obi-Wan, padawan!Anakin, bad flirting at some random twi’lek guy I didn’t even give a name, Obi-Wan saving the day YET AGAIN, 2.1k <3

—

Taking a deep breath, Anakin reminded himself why he was here. The target, a twi’lek, was suspected of working with a local bounty hunter, the twi’lek seducing their targets to get information to ensure an easy catch for the hunter. The Jedi were of course not a fan of any guns for hire, but this one was getting too confident and going bigger and bigger with their targets. Soon, the Jedi worried, prominent figures would fall victim. 

So that was the main reason this mission existed at all. But Anakin needed to remind himself why he was here, or else he’d bail.

He was here because the Council suspected that the best way to catch a bounty hunter that was trying to show off was to bait him with his very own Jedi. So they put out a bounty on Anakin, hoping to get first to the twi’lek and then to the hunter. 

Anakin specifically was here because, well – everyone else was busy.

That, and when the Council tried to encourage him, telling him he just needed to flirt enough to get the twi’lek to leave the bar with him so the knights waiting outside could follow them to wherever the man ran his part of the operation, Mace Windu, Anakin’s own master, snorted. He snorted.

Because yeah, Anakin couldn’t flirt for shit. But for Master Windu to snort and say, “Force help us all – I mean, did you see him with the senator from Naboo?” was enough for Anakin to narrow his eyes right at his master as he accepted the mission.

Now he was wishing he’d just taken the joke as a warning and declined. Because, truly, Anakin couldn’t flirt for shit. Not like a normal person would, anyway. Words weren’t always Anakin’s strong suit, but when he truly meant and felt what he said, Anakin could be quite articulate and even persuasive.

Did he want to fuck this conman? No, not at all. But did he want to see him brought to justice? Yeah, obviously.

And did he want to make his master take his snort back? That more than anything made him take one more deep breath and make his way towards the bar itself.

Fortunately, utilizing the fact that he was a Jedi allowed Anakin to wear his typical Jedi attire, affording him some comfort in this very uncomfortable situation. Holding the familiar ends of his sleeves between his palms and his fingers, Anakin approached the empty seat at the bar next to where the twi’lek sat, and asked, “Is this seat taken?”

Except- Maybe he just didn’t hear him? Because the twi’lek didn’t answer. Anakin coughed. “Oh, um- Excuse me?” The man whipped his head around quickly, making Anakin snap to attention. But with the man’s attention on him, sneering as he was, Anakin asked again, “Is this, uh, seat taken?”

The man gave him a once over, his yellow eyes starting at Anakin boots and trailing up, widening in what must be intrigue as he took in his lightsaber and then his padawan haircut. “Only by you,” the man purred, lips quirking into an easy smile as he watched Anakin take a seat.

Giving the twi’lek a smile – he’d meant for it to be suave, but he knew it probably looked like he was going to vomit – Anakin waved down the bartender, waiting anxiously for them to arrive. “Another drink for him, please. And I’ll take one of what he’s having too. Please. Thank you.”

As the bartender nodded and got to work making their drinks, the twi’lek dropped his elbow onto the countertop of the bar and dropped his hand into his hand, leaning closer towards Anakin. Anakin’s eyes watched as he threw an orange lek over his shoulder and let his fingers caress it all the way down until his hand dropped to his thigh. “You sure you’re old enough to drink, little Jedi?” he asked, making Anakin’s eyes snap back to his.

“Yes,” Anakin responded, not at all pouting. He was exactly the legal drinking age, thank you very much.

“Aw, no need to get all pouty,” the man tsked, sitting back up once their drinks arrived. He pushed one of them, a small glass of some amber colored liquid, towards Anakin and held up his own glass. “To being old enough,” he toasted, throwing Anakin a wink.

Blushing, Anakin gave another nervous smile and tapped their glasses together. The twi’lek took a long sip of his drink, watching over the rim as Anakin sipped his own. The second it hit his tongue, though, Anakin spit it back into the glass, cringing as he stuck out his tongue.

“Kriff, what is that? That’s terrible! Uck, I feel it sitting in my stomach!” he groused, placing a hand on the spot where he could feel the alcohol burning despite not even swallowing his entire sip. The bartender graciously dropped of a glass of water for him, and he gulped it down without hesitation. When he set the glass back down, he saw the man looking at him with an unimpressed look, his own glass now empty.

“Oh, um, sorry,” Anakin said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “I guess it’s a, uh, an acquired taste.”

Lips quirking up again, the twi’lek dismissed him with a wave before leaning on the bar again. “It’s alright, little Jedi. It was cute.”

Anakin went red in the face again and squirmed, and thankfully, based on the persistence of his leer, the man seemed to see it as shyness rather than the discomfort Anakin really felt. He didn’t want to be called cute, especially not by this man.

But he was supposed to at least pretend to want that, so Anakin made to mimic the man, resting his own elbow on the bar top and dropping his head into his hand.

Except, when he did that, he must have put his elbow where one of the glasses left behind some condensation, or maybe the bar top was just slippery in that one exact spot – because when he leaned on it, his elbow slipped right off, making him fall forward and smack his forehead directly on the counter.

“Oh!” the twi’lek laughed, watching with delight as Anakin righted himself and rubbed his aching forehead, face burning up with embarrassment. He had to fight a scowl at being laughed at, and tried to offer, at best, a grimace instead.

“Sorry,” he muttered, though why he felt the need to apologize for accidentally getting hurt, he didn’t know.

“Adorable,” the twi’lek cooed, reaching out to hold and thumb at Anakin’s braid. It made his whole body freeze, having a stranger touch his braid so casually, so confidently without even asking. “So, little Jedi, what brings you down here from your beautiful Temple?”

Passing off the urge to shake himself out of his skin as a shrug, Anakin answered, “Thirsty, I guess.”

“Hmm,” the twi’lek hummed, smirking as he looked at the glass full of Anakin’s unfinished drink. Then, looking back, he said, “Perhaps I could make you something better, something you’d like more. How does that sound?”

It sounded horrible, it sounded terrible, it sounded like the last thing Anakin wanted. But, more importantly, it sounded exactly like his mission objective. “Uh, yea-”

Before he could seal his fate, the bartender placed a tall, skinny glass full of some purple liquid before him. Anakin and the twi’lek blinked at it, then at each other, then at the bartender, who tilted their head to the other end of the bar as explanation.

Turning away from the twi’lek to look over his shoulder, Anakin immediately relaxed, even as he fought a sigh and smile of relief.

Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was here to save him, as always.

Upon catching Anakin’s gaze, Obi-Wan’s lips stretched into an easy smile, and he stood from his barstool and came over to the two of them. Anakin heard the twi’lek grumble something, but he didn’t care. Obi-Wan was here.

“Hello,” Obi-Wan greeted, looking first at the twi’lek and then to Anakin. “I couldn’t help but notice your…dislike of Corellian whiskey.” Anakin blushed, though this time it was not from discomfort. No, it was from knowing Obi-Wan had been looking at him, and from Obi-Wan looking at him now. “So I thought you might like to try Phattro. Perhaps you will like it better.”

Nodding, Anakin made to grab the drink, but a hand suddenly on his wrist stopped him, shocking him out of Obi-Wan’s hypnotic gaze. Both of them turned to look at the twi’lek, his yellow eyes narrowed into slits as he snarled at Obi-Wan.

“We were just leaving, actually,” the man growled, grip on Anakin’s wrist and braid tight.

Obi-Wan hummed behind Anakin, and Anakin felt the man’s fingers brush on his neck before he also took his braid in hand, gripping it above the twi’lek’s hand, closer to Anakin’s head. It made Anakin gasp, having Obi-Wan’s hand on him. One of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hands on him was enough to let him forget the two the twi’lek had on him.

“I think you are the only one leaving, friend,” Obi-Wan spoke, voice heavy with suggestion. Anakin watched as the twi’lek’s eyes grew wide and unseeing, and he watched as he repeated “I am the only one leaving,” and then watched as he let go of Anakin, stood, and left.

Blinking as he processed what happened, Anakin turned to look at Obi-Wan with a scowl. “You just lost me my target!” he whined, scowling further when Obi-Wan simply smiled.

“Oh hush, young one,” Obi-Wan chided, tugging on his braid before letting it go and taking a seat next to him. “There are knights waiting outside to apprehend him. Worry not and enjoy your drink. I truly do think you’ll enjoy it.”

Pouting, Anakin did as he was told. He might as well, seeing as he still felt gross from interacting with the twi’lek and now felt like he’d failed his mission. He took the first sip and immediately felt better – not just because he was getting alcohol in his system, but because Obi-Wan was right: it was delicious. It was fruity and sour and didn’t even taste like alcohol.

He would blame his blush on the booze, and not the satisfaction at Obi-Wan knowing him so well.

“Good?” Obi-Wan asked, voice and smile incredibly please.

“Very,” Anakin admitted, taking another long sip. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, young one.” Obi-Wan said like it was his favorite thing in the world to say. Maybe it was. He took care of Anakin so much, he had to enjoy it at least a little. “You’ve earned it, after pushing through all of your terrible flirting.”

Turning to Obi-Wan with frown, Anakin gasped. “Terrible? It was working! He was about to take me home!”

“Yes, darling,” Obi-Wan agreed, “but only because he is trying to cash in on the bounty they’ve placed on you.” This last part was said with a sense of…agitation? Anger? Whatever it was, Obi-Wan clearly wasn’t happy about the bounty, if the way his eyes briefly flashed gold was anything to go by. “You are so good at many, many things,” Obi-Wan went on, “but you’re so bad at this. It’s cute, though. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Anakin felt at least four emotions at once. First of all, ‘darling.’ Obi-Wan’s little pet names killed him, how casually and affectionally he used them. Then, him saying Anakin was good. It wasn’t the same as when Master Windu said it; when Obi-Wan said it, heat he tried to ignore pooled in Anakin’s belly. And then saying he’s bad! Anakin tried his best! But then Obi-Wan had said he was cute, and that made heat fill his belly and rush to his cheeks even more than before.

Anakin supposed he could see what Obi-Wan was saying, though. Apparently everyone knew that Anakin couldn’t flirt, so what else could he do but snort and take another drink? “You’re telling me that slamming my head onto the counter wouldn’t do it for you?” he joked, throwing Obi-Wan a smile.

Obi-Wan returned it easily. “Oh it would, dear one, but only because I already like you so much.”

Heat rushed all throughout Anakin tenfold at that, and he faced forward as he downed the rest of his drink, heating up under Obi-Wan’s amused gaze. Anakin hadn’t been worried at all about the bounty hunter successfully killing him tonight. Now, though, he was worried Obi-Wan Kenobi was going to make him blush to death.

When Obi-Wan ordered him another drink, Anakin accepted it happily.

from this prompt list

prompted fic collection on ao3

#i just think they're really cute in this dynamic <33 #me: oh bad flirting! I'm bad at flirting!! hell yeah #also me: oh god how to make bad flirting cute and interesting and funny #also me: obi-wan will find anything anakin does cute and interesting and funny. hell yeah!!! #obikin #ask #prompt #my writing

[theduvetpirate]

Finished the Raven cycle and I had a lot of thoughts but I actually can’t remember anything that happened apart from very specific scenes???? Also I am very heavily in favour of Gansey as he is definitely my absolute favourite but the other two are quite horrible to him for a lot of the book considering 9/10 times he’s genuinely trying to help and they are aware he’s trying to help and doesn’t mean to flash the cash and I just ???? Don’t get it?? Maybe cos I am a fully developed woman in her late 20s and I would just not let someone I care about speak to me like they do sometimes no matter how upset you are, especially if I’m trying to help you and the issue isn’t my fault to start with 😂 or maybe because I relate a lot to Gansey with feeling like my friends don’t need me like I need them so maybe I’m just projecting hahahaha

Adam especially is horrible to Gansey quite a few times where I just thought he was way out of line, even including when eventually Gansey had enough and snapped at him and was horrible back and Adam was all FUCK YOU and left the car and I feel awful for thinking it but the entire time I was like ?? So you don’t like being treated this way but you treat Gansey like this a LOT especially at the start ?? Hmm. I realise this is part of adams development, and he grew on me a lot as the series progressed but in the first two books especially I couldn’t stand him 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Also so much stuff got confusing and was so fast and unexplained or like just resolved so quickly that the pacing felt a bit wild, idk how to articulate this brain dump I’m having hahahahah

On the flip side though I genuinely loved this pure portrayal of platonic love between the gangsey, especially the three main boys and their love for each other and willingness to do anything and follow each other anywhere, because I LOVE found family stories and this one satisfied that for me!!! They’re all in love!!! Yes!!!!! The scene when Gansey and ronan went to the trial made me want to shriek I was so happy, wish it hadn’t ended so abruptly I’d have loved to have read more of that,

Bluesey was well developed too imo, the secret calls, that ONE SCENE WHERE HE HOLDS HER HAND BRIEFLY IN THE SIDE of THE PIG omg!!!!!!!! The toga party!!! Just ahh I love them, ronan and Adam were developed well too, genuinely enjoyed both couple arcs neither felt forced or ingenuine or too plot devicey (although ofc bluesey is a huge main plot point)

Henry was,,,,a total babe but like didn’t feel necessary to the plot at all ngl idk if anyone else feels that way, love him to pieces but??? He felt inserted for no reason really

Sad about Noah’s ending but enjoyed his friendship with ronan the most I think

Also idk how I feel about ronan being literally so OP that everything in the book ends up being what he created idk, when I started I kinda hoping it was the actual plot was this quest for glendower but I did feel it seems to get sidetracked WAYYYY more into the dream stuff, tho ig it did come back around to the king eventually… haha oh well

Anyway omg I’ve been rambling about nothing for ages lmaoooooo

I think in essence it’s like,, could this have been written more coherently and consistently plot wise, yes probably, would I die for the gangsey and reread this series till I die, also yes 😭😂😂😂😂😂😂 am I biased to Gansey and blind to any of his flaws, also yes probably hahahahahahahaha

#the raven boys #the raven cycle #trc #gangsey #gansey #bluesey #pynch #Adam Parrish #ronan lynch #blue Sargent #the raven king #blue lily lily blue #maggie stiefvater

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

wait i wanna ask u abt homestuck characters for the bingo but idk anything abt what genre of hs fan u are… u could be a midnight crew stan for all i know. uhhh u don’t have to answer any of these if u don’t want to but rose, kanaya, dave, karkat and/or any other homestuck character u projected onto when u were a teenager

Ok this is gonna be a long one because you asked me for 4 characters and whoever I projected onto and I was a strilonde motherfucker so I've done the four you asked about as well as Dirk and Roxy. I'll start with Roxy

My friends in middleschool got me into homestuck by assigning me Roxy kin. Which fair enough I am still kinda like that to this day. I didn't project onto her as hard as I did with Dave but I'm love her.

Dirk is my homestuck problematic fav I love him so much I liked it when he mailed his severed head to Jake because he was gay. A respectable flirting method if ever there was one.

I'll do Karkat next. My emotions on him are uncomplicated. I like him and he's dating my Blorbo so ... king shit. Starred in many a mediocre fanfic authored by baby me.

Now for Kanaya. I love her so much she's so cool I cosplayed her like not even that long ago I think it was 2 years ago. I freaked out my friend's cat. I like it when she kills people with her chainsaw. I say everyone's wrong about her but me because, and this applies to rose too, but less so because Rose had her whole alcoholism arc, I feel like the fandom portrays her as more competent and put together than she is just because her aesthetic is very poised. Shes a 13 year old disaster lesbian. She just also happens to be the mom friend. You will put respect on her name honestly smh.

I'm gonna do Dave and Rose together because I have a fun story about them so here's the bingo cards.

You guys are about to unlock forbidden mentally ill Jamie lore, so buckle up. When I was 13 I came out as a trans boy to my parents and asked to be put on testosterone and was denied. I was already in the throes of puberty, had been for a year and a half at that point. And I finally had the answer for why I felt so shitty about it and I had the solution and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it because I was essentially, as all children are under our current shitty legal model of family, my parents' property. I had no fucking rights and so I couldn't choose what puberty I was going to go through even though I would be much happier now if they had. But anyway point is I was able to understand and articulate what was going on and by all rights I should have transitioned back then, but there was still this barrier. It was the most frustrating thing in the world. Part of my coping strategy for this horrid injustice that was occurring in my life was to put Dave and Rose in a jar and shake them around. I had an ongoing comic that I drew that I think I intended to put online at some point but never did where Dave(FtM) and Rose(MtF) while stuck on the meteor went through the throws of puberty Rose got tall, started growing facial hair at an alarming rate, the whole bit. Dave suffered his binder becoming too small and periods. It was a whole thing. And they spent 3 years trying and failing to alchemize synthetic hormones. Meanwhile they were surrounded by and developing relationships with these trolls who didn't understand human puberty and there were many goofs and gaffs about these trolls, but especially Kanaya and Karkat, just not getting it in the gayest way possible.

#hoemstuck #davekat #rosemary #rose lalonde #roxy lalonde #dave strider #dirk strider #karkat vantas #kanaya maryam

[cassthecringe]

Helloooo anon who was complaining about the people who say that Jotaro and Kakyoin only talked twice here!!

GOD CASS YOU’RE SO RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU’VE SAID.

People really like to undermine Kakyoin’s role in both the actual part and in affecting Jotaro’s life later. The trip to Egypt has left a great impact on Jotaro and the effect it left on him is not even subtle in the later parts, like it’s just so obvious how it changed something in him and you can see it through the way he interacts with the later characters and Kakyoin was a part of this trip too so it’s definitely no surprise that Kakyoin, though his existence In Jotaro’s life was short lived, left a huge impact on him later because as I said the entire trip did.

I really don’t wanna ramble about that part^ because I believe you’ve explained it articulately enough but ughhh I just hate how mis-characterized both Kakyoin and Jotaro are.

Like another instance that’s really popular in the fandom but also pisses me off is the Kakyoin likes Jotaro’s mother bit. Like Kakyoin’s quote of him saying if he were to fall in love it would be with someone like Holly feels like it was added to give insight to both Holly’s and Kakyoin’s characters(separately). Not to dig deep or reach or anything its just that in my pov (which could very well be wrong lol) the line goes to show that both characters have a dual personality where they’re kind but also tough (yk like how Holly was actually sick but tried to hide it in front of Joseph and Jotaro and the many other instances where Kakyoin’s toughness and kindness show) and given that prior to Kakyoin saying that line he was talking about how good of a person Holly is, to me at least it’s clear as day that the line wasn’t said to joke about Kakyoin’s love for Holly for fucks sake but just to give a bit of characterization to the characters. But well idk

I don’t wanna be a bother and I’m really sorry for the rant and opening all this up but the way you discuss the characters intrigue me that’s all!

you're not a bother at all! omg anon you have no idea how much i've been living like honestly i love these two so much i love love love talking about them and discussing them and analyzing them like u have no idea omg dude this is not a bother at all it is far from it. i've been wanting to make a video essay on why ppl are invested in jotaro and kakyoin's relationship so your discussions have actually been helping me draft out what i want to say. so if nothing else, please accept you've been a great prompting for me to get started on that ily

AS for the content of your message i couldn't agree more fuck. especially about the holly bit like like you said it's not fucking kakyoin coming onto holly okay it's about demonstrating holly's strength and kakyoin's admiration for it, it's about establishing both of their values (holly doesn't want her family to worry and kakyoin wants to be as strong as her even while in a vulnerable position which makes sense especially given how he just got freed from the fleshbud)

BUT AS FOR THE HOLLY THING I'VE BEEN MEANING TO TALK ABOUT THAT FOR A BIT NOW

so 1) AVDOL is the one who promotes the conversation about holly with kakyoin and AVDOL AGREES WITH HIM WHEN HE SAYS "OH IF I WERE TO FALL IN LOVE..."

and 2) THIS FUCKING LINE IS NOT ABOUT "MILF HOT LOL" ANYWAY IT'S FORESHADOWING FOR HOW BOTH OF THESE CHARACTERS WILL LATER DIE TRYING TO PROTECT THE CRUSADERS!

"I FEEL LIKE I WANT TO PROTECT HER...TO SEE HER FEELING BETTER, SMILING" "YES." THIS IS ALL FORESHADOWING FOR HOW KAKYOIN AND AVDOL DIE FOR THE CRUSADERS BECAUSE THEY WANT TO PROTECT THEM. BECAUSE THE BONDS THEY FORMED WITH THEM MEANT FUCKING EVERYTHING TO THEM. THEY WERE PRECIOUS TO THEM BEYOND LIFE ITSELF EVEN THOUGH IT'S CLEAR AVDOL AND KAKYOIN BOTH DIDN'T WANT TO DIE, THEY JUST DIDN'T WANT POLNAREFF JOSEPH AND JOTARO TO DIE MORE. THEY WANT THEM TO LIVE PAST THIS NIGHT. THEY WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY AND TO SMILE AND THEY NEED TO LIVE TO DO THAT SO THEY WILL BE THE ONES TO DIE IN THEIR STEED. IT'S NOT ABOUT FUCKING "HOT MILF PUSSY" IM GOIGN TO FUCKING KILL YOU

anyway

#cass cries #probably gonna make that last bit its own post #cause ive been thinking about it so much. all the time #stardust crusaders spoilers