#i had a phase where i wanted to be the lesbian version of him SO fucking bad but i got over that thankfully (i am too shy..)

[piratefishmama]

Fake It 'till You Make It | Part 1

The phone was ringing. It was eight in the morning, on a Sunday, and the phone was ringing. Eddie rolled over, pushing his face into his pillow in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, he’d suffocate in the sweet embrace of his misshapen, well-loved pillow before whoever dared to call at such an ungodly hour, decided to give up.

No dice. However his uncle did seem to be answering it for him, bless that man, bless each and every one of his gray hairs.

“Eddie, up an at em, son! S’fer you!” Damn him. Damn him and all his gray hairs.

“Nggghhhh!!!!” Was his very coherent response

“It’s one of those kids’a yours!” Kids? He had kids? Oh shit he had kids, right. kids who should know better than to call at EIGHT. AM. AM. THE MORNING.

ON A SUNDAY.

Just inconsiderate really. He’d spent the majority of the previous night convincing the Gillespie’s that maybe their daughter didn’t actually need to get onto the endless carousel that was the dating scene.

Convincing them that maybe the dating pool was so batshit insane that it was for the best that she remain perfectly single for a little while longer. That maybe being single wasn’t nearly as bad as being with whatever the fuck Eddie Munson was.

Eddie had spent the entire evening referring to her father by his first name as it visibly pissed him off, called his daughter ‘sweet cheeks’ and slapped her ass as she left the room one too many times (any time more than zero times was too many times), offered her mother a joint to chill the fuck out, talked about his band incessantly, he’d gone all out on the ‘disrespectful sack of shit’ angle until he’d been forbidden to date their daughter.

Then listened with glee outside the door while they declared she was forbidden from dating for as long as it took to shake her from her ‘bad boy’ phase. A job well done, she’d slipped him the fifty bucks she owed for the night through the back window, and he was on his way. Fifty bucks better off!

Megan wasn’t having a bad boy phase. Megan was a lesbian waiting for the perfect opportunity to get the fuck out of Hawkins. She just… couldn’t handle her parents constantly asking about her dating life. Or her lack of a dating life.

She was beautiful, the picture of stereotypical femininity, they had no idea why their daughter wasn’t snagging one of the rich Loch Nora guys like a Harrington, or a Johnson, or even one of the B grade rich guys like Hagan, or Peters.

She was too busy with a Holloway.

Then the following hours before he’d eventually passed out, he’d been slowly working through memorizing the chorus tabs of an Iron Maiden song he’d been meaning to learn for one of the covers used to bulk up Corroded Coffin’s sets. Jeff already had his parts down, Eddie had been lagging.

“M’not here!”

“Says it’s important!”

“Tell em I’m dead!”

There was a pause, and then his bedroom door was opening, and a cushion was thrown at his head, forcing him upright to shout his indignation to the world while his uncle stood there stern and unimpressed “Boy get your backside up an talk to y’damn friends.”

“Nghhh, fine.” He was up anyway. The phone ringing had woken him up. It’d take a miracle to fall back into a full snooze now. He shoved his blankets aside, trudged past his uncle, and snagged the phone from where Wayne had left it on the little table by the window. “Whomever this may be, I’m nuking your stats next session for the unholy crime of waking me up before noon.”

“But I’m calling about a job”

“Ahh, Henderson. Might as well just tear up the sheet for that little gnome now, kid.”

“He’s a dwarf and— ngh whatever, I needed to roll a new character anyway. Listen! I have a job for you, if you want it, one of your weird little rent a guy gigs” not something he was proud to have let slip around the kids. It could get weird if they made assumptions!

But if it got him an extra buck or two without having to do much other than be an over the top version of himself, then what was the harm? It wasn’t like he was selling his body or anything, just his funhouse personality.

“…Go on.”

“Okay so… don’t freak out, but… it’s a guy. He’s cool though!! Like, really cool, super chill, no danger to you what so ever.” That was fine, his ‘dates’ were usually fake but that didn’t erase the very real danger of being perceived by two of an older less cool generation that talked. “He knows it’s all fake so it’s just acting—"

“And this guy’s parents? How cool are they?” It wasn’t just faking a date, it was faking it in front of parents. Parents who usually weren’t about to approve of him when it was a heterosexual relationship. A Homosexual one? He really didn’t want to have to go through the real risks of hate crimes with a teenager, but Dustin clearly wasn’t getting the danger aspect there.

“I don’t know, I don’t really know them, but he says he can explain everything if you give him a chance, he’s free today, he even said he’d buy you breakfast if you meet him early!”

“…And he knows I’m a him, not a her, right?”

“Yeah, I said he was cool! The gay thing isn’t a big deal to him.”

“I’m not—” it was instinctual, Dustin didn’t know what he was, maybe he’d heard rumours, but he didn’t outright know that his dungeon master was a queer. Probably for the best, as lovely as Claudia Henderson was, she was very susceptible to accepting the crowdsourced opinion on things. She didn’t have her sons need to question everything.

She’d probably pull him from every Hellfire meet ever if Dustin let it slip that the guy in charge was queer.

“I know you’re not, but it’s fake right? it’s not like you guys have to do anything other than claim to be dating, right?” True… he never actually did anything with his ‘dates’. Usually just telling the parents they were dating was enough of a shock to the system to hide the lack of proof. The most he’d ever done was slap an ass here and there, maybe wrap an arm around a waist or two.

That was enough for the ‘traditional’ close minded Parents of Hawkins.

“…Fine, I’ll hear the guy out, but I’m only hearing him out alright! I’ll decide on whether or not I wanna take this job only after he explains, got it?”

“Got it!!”

“Alright, tell him to meet me at Benny’s in twenty.” Another quick confirmation and Eddie was hanging up the phone. so much for going back to sleep but at least he’d get a lovely breakfast out of it.

Part 3 

#PirateWrites #Steddie #No Upside Down AU #FakeItTillYouMakeItFiclet

[bluerosesonata]

I played and finished Slay the Princess last night while I was puppy sitting. I had such a great time. She’s my scary wife now.

Spoilers + more detailed thoughts below the cut, but without spoilers:

[points at devs] haha horror podcast fans

I’ve always loved Nicole Goodnight from her first appearances on Nosleep. she did so excellent as the Princess.

Very impressive scope, even with the very definitive ending I got, I came away from the game feeling like there were still paths I hadn’t seen.

Just as a general tone setter, I love the opening card/disclaimer that ends with “This Is A Love Story.”

GREAT visual style and art. I’ll get into this in my breakdown below, but with my amateur eye I love how they took a non-traditional approach to way the images/characters are displayed in a renpy game

INCREDIBLE music.

Hard to avoid Disco Elysium comparisons with the aspects of the Self mechanic, which I’m sure is either a received as a high compliment or is a source of annoyance for the devs, lol

Highly recommend it for OELVN fans, horror fans, and lesbians.

First and foremost, I’m genuinely very impressed at the amount of variety to the paths.

On my first playthrough, I got on a loop where I kept the princess locked up, and then she came upstairs and killed me. The next loop, The Paranoid showed up, and when we went into the basement, it was all spooky and distorted. In this one, we had some great banter with The Princess before I ultimately decided to slay her, and trapped me in the basement by warping reality and removing the stairs, forcing me to kill myself to escape that loop. The Cold showed up in chapter 3, and I think that was when I tried to leave the woods.

In subsequent loops, even when choosing all the choices I made to the best of my memory, I couldn’t recreate that first loop at all. It really speaks to the scope of the game in an impressive way.

The first vessel I managed to provide was The Tower. (It was the outcome of being mauled on your first encounter with her, then perceiving her as a dominating, inevitable force.) After discovering my new objective, the endings I saw were The Prisoner (It’s the ending where you just wait for the cell to rot away around you), The Razor (GOATED route, I will be calling her ‘Knife Wife,’), The Damsel, and ended with The Adversary (devil horns), before reaching Awakening.

These are the only routes I can talk about, but I’m certain there were at least 2 I missed/didn’t get to see. It’s an EXTREMELY impressive scope, and fully voiced, to boot, so my hat is off to the devs on that front.

(The next few paragraphs are about the voice acting, if you want my story thoughts, I made a small heading for that bc my VA thoughts got a bit out of hand lol)

Voice Acting

While I’m on the subject of the game being fully voiced: Nicole’s voice acting really shines here, and it’s absolutely essential to making this game what it was. I think a version of this game without it would be very Good, but not nearly as Haunting. The sheer variety of reads on certain lines based on how you first approach the princess is incredibly impressive, as well. (Again— scope!!!)

As far as the narrator VO goes, i can’t deny that Jonathan did a great job, and with his history of being the main narrator for The Magnus Archives, he was a good fit for the tone and audience of the game. I would even posit that, even if there were other people who were considered in the early phases of development, the cross-promotional potential of drawing in even a small section of an audience already primed for cosmic, reality-altering horror via TMA was a very smart business decision, and I applaud them for it. That being said, I think one unintended side effect of his casting may be that people familiar with his TMA character (a…semi-reliable narrator) might immediately come in primed with doubts about the Narrator. They seem to have anticipated this, though, and included skeptical and suspicious dialogue choices with him right off the bat in the first chapter, which is fun.

(A brief aside: If it seems like I am being very measured with my thoughts on the Narrator, it is not because I have anything negative to say about his performance. I am being measured simply because the narrative devices the game employs makes it impossible to not draw comparisons to Big Hitters like The Stanley Parable and Disco Elysium— both incredible games that I personally would be both delighted and terrified to be brought up when discussing a game I created or a role I was playing.

These games did not Create the idea of “a narrator you interact with and who is sometimes rude to you” or “multiple voices with distinct Traits butting in on your current predicament,” but both games are incredibly prolific in how implemented those devices and the vocal performances involved….so it is not a fair comparison.)

Story Thoughts

The subtitle for this section could also be “Faron ranks how hot they find all of the versions of The Princess.” jk.

I am not going to do summaries here I’m just going to assume most people reading this have played the game.

But let’s start again with the sentence at the beginning of the game: “This is a love story.”

Not long ago, there was a big discussion on tumblr about the statement that horror is “about love”, (it might have even been spurred on by TMA, lol) and that lead to a lot of justified (but not always kind) posts from my fellow horror fans being annoyed by that take. I’ll spare you a rehash of all of that. But it is exactly Because of that discourse (and my general gothic preferences) that I like the choice to open with this a whole lot. The phrase “This is a love story,” written in bold, at the end of a disclaimer saying ‘there are no wrong choices, just different paths,’ has an immense power to it. It is a mic drop way to open up a story, as a way to prime the audience to be open to the Princess as more than a monster, and creates the anticipation for a greater relationship to be uncovered between the protagonist and the princess.

It could also be that the phrase hit my brain in a weird way because of Fata Morgana. I don’t think The House in Fata Morgana had a similar line in the actual game— but my roommate who handed me Fata Morgana very specifically told me, “it is a horror game, and it is a tragedy, but at its core, It Is a Love Story.” And that’s always stuck with me. (I digress.)

A Brief Address to Loops and the Popularity of the Looping Narrative

I could sit here all day and talk to you guys about looping metanarrative structure and the different approaches to it, but you’ve probably all played a VN with that before. (If you haven’t, and this is your first time encountering something like this and it blew your mind…Go play Zero Escape: 999. Run, don’t walk.)

I believe very strongly that reviews should be about what a game Is, and how well it accomplished what it aims to be, not about what you wish the game was. But it is an even stronger opinion of mine that loop narratives, especially in visual novels, can sometimes get too bogged down in the details of “why am i in a time loop.”

I am extremely glad that this game (mostly) avoided this, bc it offers an opportunity to say something about the subgenre as a whole.

At the end of the day, looping narratives mainly exist as a metanarrative device in VNs to acknowledge and offer a reason why your character’s behavior (and/or your choices) change. It’s an easy way to create ludonarrative harmony, and to inject some extra drama with little extra effort.

But BECAUSE it’s easy, it can also feel Extremely Overused, and starts to become an expectation.

I won’t go on a soapbox about it, especially because I feel like this game handled it very well, and the looping, metanarrative aspect is suited to the themes and character subject matter of Beings Who Are Concepts, even if they Why doesn’t really satisfy. At the end of the day, this is a love story, and the why matters less than the feelings involved.

Specific Path Thoughts

All versions of the Princess are incredibly strong concepts, and the game is structured in a way that I very much would enjoy seeing how different people’s first loops influence their opinions on her. It’s got IMMENSE “streamability” in that regard.

Someone that encountered The Damsel version of the princess first would have an INCREDIBLY different experience than someone who encountered the Adversary first, which ties very neatly into the subject of the greater love story and can also generate some great post-play discussion.

I think, undoubtedly, the Aspects of the princess that made the biggest impressions on me were The Adversary (demon wife) and The Razor (Knife Wife). Part of this is due to the sheer length of their paths, as both of them take 3+ loops (correct me if I’m wrong) to reach the conclusion of their sections, whereas The Damsel, The Tower, and The Prisoner all only took 2. (See the next section for more on that). Thinking about it, every path was similar in the amount of sheer resources created for them (illustrations, animation), but these two create the illusion of having more than the others simply due to being the longest action sequences and loops in the game.

The Razor has an OUTSTANDING design, and the sequence to slay her would have been an incredible finale in its own right, as we get introduced to EVERY Aspect of ourselves as we die over and over again, even shoving the narrator out of the way so we can just jump to the cabin and fight her again, and the PC reasoning that “if there’s enough of Me, I might be able to overcome her”. For this reason, and because of the big knife skeleton body, I think that the Razor path is more Fun than the Adversary’s.

Flavor-wise, however, I feel like The Adversary is a much stronger character and narrative thread. A princess who doesn’t want to escape— she just wants a good fight. She wants you at your best, and she won’t have any less. That’s exactly the sort of character dynamic that really gets me going. I love single-minded women, and I love a main character who meets them on their level of crazy.

Both of these paths involve the Aspects of Self “The Hunted” and “The Stubborn,” and they are the aspects of the PC that by FAR have the most color to them (besides the lover, who is more of a buffoon.) I think they were my favorites.

That being said, I adored how exhausted the Narrator got during the Damsel path, and I thought there was a very quiet, profound power in the Prisoner version of the Princess. She had an austere, quiet pride to her, tinged with an undeniable sorrow.

I really do appreciate the variety of ways they provide for one to approach your dialogues with the Shifting Mound after every loop. They really create a lot of space for the player to decide how they feel about her. Even if it sort of bothered me that every time there was a choice to tell her you would slay her once it was all over, I appreciate the option being there. (And, again- the sheer amount of dialogue!! Sheesh!)

Lastly, the finale. It was incredible, going through all of the forms, reliving all of the choices you made. But this is the part that the amount of options started to detract from my experience.

Again- I love that they left a lot of space for people to decide how they feel. I like the amount of responses provided, and I get the impression they don’t change the final choice in any way, just the dialogue she says to get to it.

But it bothered me that there was an option to just…opt out of seeing every vessel, either by submitting to her or by killing her. I can’t see a world where anyone playing a finale like this would WANT to cut the big final movement short. It seems silly.

The payoff was worth it, though. It was a beautiful end and one that definitely will stick with me.

(And Obviously I decided to take her hand and remain endless with her! How could I not!)

Mechanical Musings

Note: I am a dabbler in Ren’Py, but I have been a dabbler for over a decade, and I went to college for game design. (You’re allowed to laugh) I’m not GOOD at programming, and I forget the class names for basically everything unless I’m looking at it.

All of this is all to say I am PURELY speculating on how certain parts of the game were accomplished.

UI/Display/Visuals

The choice to omit a typical text box was an objectively correct one for this game, in no small part to how they decided to do the visuals on this game. It kept the game looking clean and drew the eye to the stunning visuals. The right aligned prompt box similarly aided in that respect, and I think that being forced to scroll down to resist during certain tense sequences was a great touch. Makes me wonder if there’s a timed element on those responses.

The choice to eschew using typical talk sprites (outside of The Long Quiet scenes, the sequence with The Damsel, i thiiiiink the confrontation in the basement maze, and the finale) in favor of using scenes/displayed images really aided in the storybook vibes, and the animated loops they had on those images gave the pencil work an amazing kinetic energy for the scenes where the princess is just standing or sitting still. (For the uninitiated- It’s incredibly simple to program animation loops using static images in RPY, but I’m not clear if that the most memory-efficient way to do so; I’m going to assume they did this though)

The menu Ui is what gives it away as Renpy to me, but you know, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, lol.

I’m sort of surprised there wasn’t anything like a scene viewer or gallery that unlocked at the end, but I guess that might sort of be immersion breaking.

Gameplay

Just from my hobbyist eye, I can tell there’s a looooott of dialogue flags in this one, where they track previous things you’ve said in the scene. There is absolutely a variable for “Princess hostility,” just based on the fact there’s several like reads of her answering the questions you can ask in chapter one, but since I only did a single run where I didn’t pick up the knife in chapter 1, I can’t be sure if it’s points based or binary “has knife = true.”

My guessssss about how the Aspects are inherited is that it might be a point based system combined with a flag indicating how you died; this would explain how I inherited “the paranoid” in ch2 my first run, but never after that.

I can say with almost complete certainty from the way it completely locked me out of deciding to leave the princess locked up after my choice to leave the woods that there is a true/false variable tracker for each path that stores if you’ve reached the Long Quiet or not, bc no matter what I did I could NOT do that again. Either that or there’s a flag where the narrator will lock you downstairs after seeing that screen once.

There’s also probably some variables tied to your appearance changing in the mirror, but i would need to double check achievements to be sure that text isn’t just set to appear after X vessels being provided.

There’s also a distinct possibility there are different “pools” for the princess’ aspects to be pulled from after each “level” of ascension; this would set it up so that it’s impossible for you to end with an event that is only 1 loop long, and it would be easier to assure story pacing that way.

(Ex: “If Vessels < 2, use Event_Pool_A, Else use Event_Pool_B”, where pool A contains vessels that use less than 2 loops to complete)

All in all, if I ever got the chance to crack the hood open on this, I would. I highly recommend it.

#bluerose txt #slay the princess #game thoughts #bluerose reviews

[aburningpotathoe]

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER SPOILERS

tldr: pros and cons list

PROS:

-cinematography and creative decisions. the movie is visually stunning

-good-ish plot. Janes introduction doesnt feel forced

-good villain

-both posrt credit scenes are reallt good

-really good queer rep

-expands the MCU without feeling like an exposition movie

CONS:

- too. many. jokes. and theyre so cringe too

-the children scene????

- the whole jealous!stormbreaker plot point

-the movie feels like a kids movie which i would respect if it didnt have sexual innuendos, orgy jokes and thor's naked butt

ONTO THE MAIN DISH

Ok im gonna do a quick (lies) review/rant about the movie

Im gonna say its one of the worst phase 4 movies (coming from someone whos really liking phase 4). Id give it a 6/10. BUT one the things i love about it is that it has its own identity and they really let the director expand his vision and make the film his rather than be a generic cbm like the first thors.

But thats also my main issue with it.. i just cant get into taikas vision for this one. I loved ragnarok but here the jokes are cringier and more present, to the point where the first 30ish minutes really feel like a succession of gags.

Also the dialogues are badly written (on that note, i wanted to ask if the english version is better at it, i watched it in italian and im wondering if my issue with the dialogues and the cringeiness is just a dubbing issue).

Onto the spoilers

-Plot

The plot in itself is good, with some minor exceptions and so is the pacing.

The only problems are that Jane becoming mighty thor might feel rushed (i didnt personally mind it tho)

and that Gorr kindapping children felt so RANDOM?? like obviously it was to draw thor out but maybe if they insited more on why heimdall's son is important for Asgard due to his sight, their capture would have made more sense and feel less like a mcguffin needed to further the plot. also Gorr's cage thingy felt like something out of a fairytale and idk how to feel about it

oh and the childern scene but more on that later

Other than that the plot is good, i liked the romcom aspect EXCEPT THE STORMBREAKER BEING JEALOUS OF MJOLNIR PART?????? (then again maybe its less cringe in english idk)

-Characters

Gorr works super well as a villain, christian bale gives it his all and the dubbing was actually astounding for this particular character

Jane is the highlight of the movie, Natalie works really well as a superhero and her chemistry with Chris H. is waaaay better than in the other movies, her arc is really good and almost identical to the comics

Loved the Darcy cameo

Sif was??? there??? she did stuff??? for 2 seconds???

Valkyrie was also really cool, we finally got the confirmation that shes a lesbian and her scenes with gorr are amongst the highlights. And marvel will pay for my therapy after almost killing the only character i care about from the thor franchise.

The guardians are barely there (Crisp ratt looks like someone botched his plastic surgery) and i guess they just are a way to introduce the gorr issue and many many gags (like the temple destruction.. the parts with Kraglins wife... thor doing the splits.... etc...)

Korg is ok.... i wish they had the balls to kill him bevause his "death" scene was actually really cool and surprising. Even tho him with his husband/boyfriend at the end was SO CUTE

The other gods are... cool? the dumpling god was more cringe than cute and i think the scissor god pun was lost to the dubbing. Also we were robbed of like a Khonshu/Taweret cameo, maybe them being on thor side or smt idk

Zeus was really cool and the whole gods are useless and their hybris thing was really cool to see. Ive seen people call zeus cringe but for me it was one of the best parts of the movie. THOR KILLING ZEUS WAS EVERYTHING??? I WISH THEY HAD MORE MOMENTS WHERE THE CHARACTERS EMPTIONS FELT SO STRONG LIKE I FELT THORS RAGE AS HE KILLED HIM (even tho hes alive in the post credit scene)

the inclusion of eternity was wild but honestly was executed well

-direction

A major pro is the cinematography, some shots are outright stunning, some creative decisions are amazing and the cgi works reallt well

ive seen people criticize the costumes for being cosplay-y but it honestly didnt bother me

-cringe

I guess the only problem i had was that there were to many jokes and it reallt felt like a contuous jump from one comedic situation to another woth some hiys of fights, romance and stuff

OH AND THE SCENE WITH THE CHILDREN WAS SO BAD, LIKE I WAS STARTING TO ENJOY THE MOVIE AND THINKING IT WOULD GROW AND ME AND BAM! ITS JUST SO CRINGE AND THEY COULDVE MADE IT WORK SO MUCH BETTER SO EASILY. IT WOULD MAKE SENSE THAT THE CHILDREN WOULD DEFEND THEMSELVES BUT THEY SHOULD'VE STARTED FIGHTING/HELP ON THEIR OWN (ya know so they dont die) AND THEN GET THE POWERS OF THOR BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTHY RATHER THAN THAT CRINGE ASS SCENE. ALSO THE TEDDY BEAR SHOOTING LIGHTING OUT OF ITS EYES???? THE GIRL CUTTING WONSTERS UP WITH A WAND?? (it sounds good on paper but after 1.30 hrs of gags and nonsense it just felt like too much)

The ending was meh... i dont mind thor being a father to gorrs daughter but her having powers out of the blue,??? do they come from eternity????

it was weird to introduce a cosmic entity in the last 20 mins of the movie but it worked pretty well.

ONTO THE POST CREDITS:

I completey guessed that they would introduce Hercules and a thor vs Hercules movie seems right up taikas alley so i look forward to that. Not a fan of zeus not dying tho

The scene in valhalla was sooo cute. Heimdalls cameo was sweet and felt like a good conclusion tho the first thor run (like the thor and tdw worldbuilding)

overall a fun unhinged ride that is downplayed by excessive comedy, which is a shame bc the character journeys are spot on (kudos to taika for putting that much character development in 2hrs of movie). FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHATCH IT IN ENGLISH WITH DUBS bc the main problem is that the jokes dont wok and the dubbing might be a major reason as to why

#thor #thor love and thunder #jane foster #mighty thor #gorr the god butcher #mcu phase 4 #korg #valkyrie #asgard

[aidanchaser]

anyway i’ve been thinking a lot about this in the past week or so (+ the past year or so) and i had a bottle of wine tonight so here we go

When I was 15 I loved a girl. I told a friend that I trusted. She told everyone else.

I talked to a counselor at church. She asked if it was a phase. She asked if I wanted to be this girl’s friend or if I wanted to actually be with her.

(I wanted to press my lips against her neck)

When I went to college, (small. christian. conservative.) my roommate said, “I couldn’t imagine sharing a dorm with a lesbian????” I kept my mouth shut.

It was a phase, anyway, it seemed. There was a boy I liked at school, a boy I even loved. So what did it matter who I used to be?

But I wasn’t attracted to him. I ran into stories and experiences of asexual people and thought, “Yes, this sounds like how I love boys. I must be ace.”

I’m no stranger to disconnect. I had a hard conversation with a friend about her abusive relationship, then had the thought, “I am going to go do the dishes so that I can use water so hot that it burns” but it still took me another six months to realize that I was actively choosing pain as a coping mechanism. 

So I dated boys. I dated boys for another fifteen years. I kissed boys. I made out with boys. I tried to masturbate thinking about boys. I fucked myself with a beer bottle because it felt masculine. I felt nothing.

When I was thirty I made out with a boy I knew I could love and I hated every second of it. I remembered the girl I loved when I was fifteen. I remembered that I had spent half my life telling myself I wasn’t attracted to anyone, but I remembered that I had wanted to kiss that girl. I remembered my dream about fucking Jennifer Lawrence. (embarrassing when I woke up, and anyway, everyone had sex dreams; that didn’t actually mean anything, right?)

But now that I remembered? Now that I recalled how I did want to kiss a girl, that attraction was a thing I had experienced? Masturbating was no longer boring. No longer a chore. I thought about girls and it was... nice.

I came out to a trusted friend. I told her a version of this story, of the boy I kissed but felt nothing. Of the girl I dreamed of kissing. She asked, “But how do you know you’re gay?”

I came out to a different trusted friend. “I’m a lesbian,” I said. “But aren’t you ace?” she asked. “Maybe not.” And the look she gave me made me wish I hadn’t spoken.

I get teased for not opening up about my feelings. But I don’t know where my feelings are supposed to go when they’re not inside; it feels like every time I take them out, I get asked why I bothered, or if I’m sure that’s mine. So why do I unscrew the lid?

#im drunk but thank god im sober enough to save this as a draft #oops I had another glass of wine and I'm sad and lonely time to post #personal

[corvidclub]

The Bear music hcs

Carmy: does not have a music taste. he's rarely shown in the show as listening to music diegetically like Syd or Richie and I chose to believe this is another aspect of his lack of identity outside the kitchen. I think he enjoys individual songs that he associates with his siblings or happens to hear around him but he never goes the extra step of listening during his free time. Because of this, his constant dissociation, and the fact that he never went to parties he missed out on a lot of pop music. So there's a lot of moments where a song will be playing and Carmy will be like 'what is this?' and everyone will look at him crazy because it's like...Lady Gaga or something. Syd sends him some calming instrumental playlists and he's like mindblown that they actually somewhat work.

Sydney: a lot of instrumentals like jazz, ambient, and movie soundtracks. ik a lot of ppl won't like 'syd' and 'lesbian' mentioned in the same sentence but I imagine her music taste as very lesbian in the sense that she listens almost exclusively to female singer-songwriters particularly older ones that her feminist mom listened to like Tracy Chapman. I imagine she went through a phase in middle/high school where she was really into 1D or a kpop bg and that band are the only men on her phone. Her playlists are very chill with a lot of r&b, neo-soul, folk, with the occasional hip hop or indie rock song.

Richie: I think Richie's taste is closest to the actual show soundtrack a lot of dad or alternative rock that was popular in the 80s and 90s. A lot of Chicago artists. Also a lot of movie soundtracks bc I imagine him and Syd as the resident film enjoyers. I think Richie is actually the most "cultured" of the cast in the sense that he actually tries to keep up with what's popular even if it's just to complain about it so he'll listen to whatever the Grammy nominees are or to a popular artists new album if its getting a lot of press. His conversations about music with other characters generally have a lot of 'how have you NEVER listened to x do you live under a rock??' I also hc his family as being originally from the south so I think he has a few guilty pleasure country songs that he listens to.

Marcus: Hip-hip (dare I say Tyler the Creator?), anime openings, and some girly pop songs. #dudesrock

Tina: We've already seen that she likes classic spanish ballads and I think her music taste is pretty similar to that, but I also think she's a Cool Mom who tries to listen to what Louie likes so she'll sometimes be humming Bad Bunny or Rauw during service.

Mikey: I think his taste was very similar to Richie but I think he listened to a lot more hip-hop. He was exactly the type of suburban white kid to get into gangster rap in the 90s to piss of his mom. He probably picked Carmy up from Kindergarten blasting N.W.A. Bragged a lot about being an early Kanye fan (because Chicago) and Eminem fan (because white).

Natalie: It'd be easy to say to that her taste is basic based on her appearance and her being the "normal one" but that just how she had to present to survive her home life and her music I think reflects all her pent-up rage. She went through a punk/emo/goth etc. phase unbeknownst to any of her family bc she would still dress how Donna wanted her to but just listen to the music. I imagine her riding in the car with Richie playing MCR and he's like "I thought you'd listen to pop music" and her rolling her eyes and saying "mcr is pop music" and he is suddenly very intimidated. Basically I picture her having a version of the Jeff papa roach scene from Yellowjackets everytime she leaves work.

Pete: Again it'd be easy to assume he's basic bc he's a dorky white guy but in my mind he's exactly the type of unassuming dorky white guy who is obsessed with music. He knows all the albums that Fantano rated 10 and has thoughts on them. He and Nat slept together for the first time after he invited her to his dorm room to listen to the new Nine Inch Nails album. He secretly judges Richie for being basic.

#the bear #m.text

[archaictunic]

now that i've finished!!! i have THOUGHTS i'm just rambling don't mind me. this is the abridged version of this post because i initially had 12 different points and lost most of my thoughts when i accidentally hit ctrl+z :3 SPOILERS FOR TOTK PLEASE DON'T CLICK IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED.

first. i am ignoring that link got his arm back. i understand why it does that, but i am not keeping nor acknowledging that bit of information - not for a while, at least. the gloom can be gone. ganon can be destroyed. rauru still had to REPLACE LINK'S ARM ENTIRELY. unless his weird ghost arm just… slid on top of link's existing one like a glove. but thats SILLY. i like the cool dragon arm. i want link to start growing out his nails on his other hand and get them done in hateno or something and continue to have cool little claws.

second. i want to write up a page or something somewhere detailing my opinion on Ships. like… i didn't ship zelink really UNTIL botw/totk, and even then, it is purely because of my partner and i talking about/developing some stuff with them. and the more i think on sidlink or even link/mipha the more the zora age starts to make me Question things?? and then obviously, despite my personal adoration for revali, he and link would NOT get along super well , especially romantically? ( at the very least, NOT my link, not without some MAJOR work on both sides ) idk. link ships in-universe are hard lmao give me crossovers or something where i'm not working off the burden of canon (this is only mostly a joke) - also urbosa is a lesbian, and daruk is more like a dad. this is hard. riju is ............ viable i guess but i dont know they also don't feel super romantic. yunobo is his hype man not his boyfriend.

third. the ganon fight was SO fun. i absolutely adored the very end of it; and it felt way more involved than the big pig from botw?? so like even though, essentially, those final phases were the same sort of type of gameplay (very hard to lose, honestly) it was STILL super fucking fun i had such a good time exploding his pustules. how many times now has link stabbed ganon in the forehead.

fourth. other than the arm, i'm excited because the ending really didn't step on the toes of ANY of my vague thoughts for development so far?? like i will still be able to take my link in EXACTLY the direction i was hoping to!! where he KNOWS what responsibility rests on him; and he's quiet because of the burden, but also like… he doesn't know WHY he's the hero. why ganon is the villain. he knows ganon did evil things, he knows he's supposed to hate the man for … well, everything, but he sort of sits on a weird little line where he hates him, but also doesn't understand why he should feel anything at all about him? the hatred is a requirement. he has to hate the calamity. the demon king. even if he's never really met him. even if he doesn't know anything about how they got here. he just. HAS to hate him.

fifth. i am thinking about link's scars. not that he canonly has ANY. but i really want to look over the events of these games, and my own personal playthroughs, and find a few scars to really give him more character. i think that scars can be something SO important. something that can have such a heavy story behind it. like… i'm never gonna forget my first lynel battle, for example. idk i really need to draw him a WHOLE reference i'mj ust fufuckcing tired. might also make an art sideblog for that when it comes to it because i fear my content getting notes.

sixth. i want to chew on every character in this game like a stimmy squeaky toy

#╰ △ ╮❝ ᴀ sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ sᴏᴜɴᴅ ⋰ 「 ooc . 」 ⋆ #totk spoilers /

[thetimelordbatgirl]

It’s very telling where the MCU is in terms of quality when MoM is literally months away from coming out and yet people care more about the cameos rather than the actual plot (not to mention completely ignoring the light-washing/de-aging of America Chavez, an Afro-Latina lesbian woman and the whitewashing of Wanda’s Romani/Jewish heritage that has been going on since AoU)

Not to mention how everything that fans have praised about NWH is things from the old Spider-Man films. Hell, even with Thor 4, there’s more talk about Valkyrie’s sexuality and her “finding her queen” rather than anything about the main antagonist or plot.

And don’t even get me started on the disaster that was the Loki series and how supposed loyal fans can watch Loki be tortured and humiliated and call it “therapy” while they go and worship a female variant of him that’s about as interesting as watching paint dry.

The MCU only cares about putting out as much content as possible just to make a fast buck. It’s honestly sad considering how in Phases 1 and 2 they seemed to care about the characters and making each movie have a unique feel to it. Now everything feels the same, everyone acts the same and there’s no sense of individuality or creativity anymore.

I fully believe that Age of Ultron was the beginning of the end for the MCU, cause that’s honestly where things started to go really wrong in my eyes.

People focus more on Wanda in MoM then they do Strange.....and its his film. Like, I still ain't a huge fan of Doctor Strange's first film, cause whitewashing seems to LOVE this particular set of stand alone MCU films, but like.....no discussion of Strange or Wong or ANY Doctor Strange characters and elements, just Wanda and the cameos and its just....dam, kinda feel bad for Strange Stans right now. MCU be like with ANY character of color at this rate.....mainly oddly the woman of color from comics: "Can we get a whiter version please?" Like, shout out still to the Funko of Miss America for....actually making it worser. Dunno how, BUT THEY DID. And we all know why they suddenly mixing up the Young Avengers ages....given Young Avengers had members who are gay and in Loki's case, genderfluid, but well, MCU won't allow rep to full be seen so already betting we won't even see lesbian Miss America....

And with Wanda, its like......thanks, you failed in casting 101 as she is white as fuck in MCU, has the power to lose her accent and isn't Jewish cause no Magneto means no Jewish twins I guess.....no wonder she's appearing in MoM, she fits right in with whitewashed Ancient One and lightwashed!Miss America. No Way Home's entire hype was literally the old villains coming back. Like, people screamed more at the pumpkin bomb being thrown in trailer followed by Doctor Octopus' appearing with, "Hello, Peter", then the rest of the trailer, and if that ain't obvious that No Way Home was hyped soley on the cameos, then the aftermath of people soley focusing on Andrew's Peter and Tobey's Peter is obvious enough. Given MCU cut Valkyrie's Bi scene....I am VERRY skeptical off chances we'll see Valkyrie romance Jane, but....I'll wait until trailer I guess, but yeah....looking at any hype on Love And Thunder, its just kinda Jane's return and Valkyrie finding a queen....but in all honestly, given the Guardians are also taking over a plot in this film, I dunno what I'd prefer to be hyped at this point.

I hate Loki Show....so much. Like, keep in mind, up until that point, I'd been hopeful for it and TFATWS, cause even from trailer I knew I wouldn't like W/V, and first trailer for Loki? Yes, but watching the actual show? It was suffering. It wasn't about Loki like promised to fans, it was about him being basically secondary to Sylvie's journey and suddenly he's in love with her and while she can just, do whatever she wants without much happening, Loki get's literally tortured as a form of therapy.....and people ship Loki with the guy who did it.....thanks, I hate it. And don't get me started on Sylvie. She's literally an OC, a mashup of the two Enchantresses and....Lady Loki, cause genderfluid Loki was toooooo hard I guess, and she's just impossible to watch cause MCU makes her into a girlboss.....while also sprinkling in some incest/selfcest, but better not go too far....or stans will call me biphobic again for hating their ship.

Yeah, nowadays mcu is kinda just interested in cramming whatever movie or show they can really. Phase One-Two at least seemed to think over the films and such, but nowadays its like, "WANT A HAWKEYE SHOW?! WANT A SHE HULK SHOW?! WANT A CHRISTMAS AND HALLOWEEN SPECIAL?!" like.....its just there until MCU is basically beyond dead....well, more beyond dead then it is already.

#anti mcu #nwh was also just #a bootleg spiderverse film #but disney wont ever admit that one

[susie-dreemurr]

For the Send a fandom thing

Undertale/Deltarune even though i know next to nothing about it, I know you enjooy it from your posts about it on my dash

Aw thx :]

The first character I first fell in love with: 

UT: I don’t remember I played (watched?) undertale like around 2017. I was basic asf my favorite character was Sans because funnyman secretly badass also angry revenge man. Nowadays he’s just okay though, like he’s cool but not favorite type of cool.

DR: SUSIE DEFINITELY SUSIE. The second she opened that door and everything went silent I knew she was the one. I absolutely loved her introduction scene, my love for her just kept growing every time to the point that every like 10 minutes she wasn’t in the scene I was like “where is Susie.” She carried tbh DR would be NOTHING w/o her

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: 

UT: Probably Alphys. I wasn’t really caring about her that in my first Undertale phase but now she’s just OUGHHHHH she’s my pathetic little meow meow, she has horrible self esteem, she’s a lesbian nerd who wants to impress her crush, she’s lonely, she struggles with suicidal thoughts and living a lie because it’s better than the unhappy truth and feeling like all she is is a failure and it all leads back to the True Lab (the arc that won me over to her in my replay) you think she was being inhumane but it’s revealed she wasn’t she just wanted to help and she was so happy when she thought she saved the Amalgamates lives but she made a mistake and she let it consume her. But she heals, in the True Route. She heals because she knows she’ll have the support of her friends even when she fucks up and she takes accountability for what she’s done to us and the Amalgamates and sends them home. She’s a mirror of one’s worst flaws and the mirror is telling you you’re deserving of love and you can change.

DR: Probably Ralsei. He’s never had friends before and spent most of his life waiting for the two heroes, sheltered enough to be a complete doormat (at first, at last) making up an idealized version of Kris and Susie of completely pure heroes who will seal the fountains and the three of them would spare everyone. And then his naive view of the world is shattered, with Susie making the first cracks and King Spade giving the final blow. But he remains kind, his talk with Susie shows he’s learned (well, so still learning) the nuance of things. He then tries to find his own identity aside of lightner servant and is flourishing into his own person. And he’s mysterious and he knows more than he lets on he probably knows about Kris being possessed but he isn’t I’ll intentioned. (I was gonna change it to Noelle halfway through but got lazy oops)

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: 

DR: Jevil. He’s okay but not that…you know? Spamton greatly outpaces him in the “interesting well written secret boss” way. I also don’t care for Roulx or the Addisons but these are easy answers.

UT: uhhh out of the main cast it’d be Asgore. I usually like tragic father figures who are kinda morally grey but he’s too much of a pathetic divorce man even for me.

The character I love that everyone else hates: 

•DR: he utdr fandom usually doesn’t dislike characters as in majority opinion, and when they do I’m usually not too fond either. Genuinely can’t think of anyone. ((Edit: I guess wider fandom wise is Kris but I didn’t realize when writing this because I stay in my tumblr bubble))

UT: gain, the utdr fandom doesn’t usually do the disliking characters things, I mean, not where I go anymore lol. Chara fits I guess, but as far as I can tell, the overall fandom view of them has changed.

(UT still) But they’re so tragic, they were just a kid who was treated so badly in the world above they climbed a mountain no one returned from because of a “not very happy reason.” And then they meet the royal family Dreemurr and are adopted by them and suddenly they’re in a safe loving home, monsters treat them well unlike humans who only ever hurt. and they have to deal with the pressure of being “the future fo humans and monsters” and they were still dealing with their trauma and they coped by laughing off the pain and they were too stubborn and willing “to erase [themselves] from existence” and in their attempt to sacrifice themselves for their family’s happiness they tear it apart. And they wake up they’re so confused because they should be dead as their plan failed, and then they turn to you for guidance and you can turn them for the better and help them SAVE, leave them still uncertain of their purpose or completely corrupt them to the point they’re willing to kill the ones they sought out to save.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer:

UT: Sans. It’s not that I don’t like him, but he’s just okay. He can have chill uncle vibes that I like and be pretty interesting in No Mercy, but his personality doesn’t draw me in all that much anymore. I might have burnt out from all the fixating on him in my first Undertale phase.

DR: I only got into Deltarune after chapter 2 released, so I haven’t been into the fandom too much to just stop loving a character just yet.

The character I would totally smooch: 

UT: Sometimes you gotta stop going after the furry boss monsters and uh…just go after a really cute fish…? (It’s Undyne I’d totally smooch Undyne)

DR: Queen I love evil women (she’s actually my second pick but the first one was the easy answer)

The character I’d want to be like: 

UT: Papyrus (he’s such a good and passionate person) or alphys (reasons listed above)

DR: Susie (Susie)

The character I’d slap: 

DR: Spamton. He’s an amazing character but I am not forgetting the part he played on snowgrave. I know you’re a wrongen puppet man. Also he just gives me the energy to put him on a microwave and throw him in a wall (lovingly)

ALSO I FORGOT ABOUT HIM FOR A MOMENT NVM IF I HAD TO PICK ONE SPADE KING. Call the social services on his ass.

UT: Jerry because Jerry.

A pairing that I love:

Canon pairings for both Undertale and Deltarune. By that I don’t mean past canon like Asgore and Toriel I mean canon Currently like Alphyne and Suselle.

A pairing that I despise: 

Asgore X Toriel bad. Susie X Lancer because they are siblings in soul so it feels wrong.

#deltarune #undertale #safeutdr #safe utdr #utdr #chara dreemurr #alphys undertale #ralsei #alphys #chara #mine #asks

[bisluthq]

hi nat! i know you don’t believe in kaylor anymore, but i wanted to send in my kaylor/joshlie theory, just as food for thought and fun speculation.

CW: ED

background:

back in 2017, i made a new friend. i quickly became kinda obsessed with her. i idolized how tall and skinny she was, her radiant sunshine-like presence, and the way she was so much cooler than me. something about her just drew me in like a magnet.

one day she told me that she was “bi-curious,” and i felt the unexplainable urge to tell her that i was queer too—so i did.

thus started our intense homoerotic friendship. we talked about everything, and she was rather touchy and flirty with me (we even hooked up a few times). but she was hung up on this dude who she’d been in a long-term off-and-on relationship with. looking back, i think she saw me as a willing participant in her experimentation phase—a source of casual fun while on a break from her ‘real’ relationship (plus, i came with the added bonus of helping her figure out her sexuality a bit).

meanwhile, i was serious about us because i was in love with her. as such, the relationship was obviously very unhealthy: neither of us had appropriate expectations of the other, and because of the imbalance in our level of commitment/love, she ended up inadvertently taking advantage of my friendship in ways that only increased my obsession with her. naturally, our friendship eventually imploded.

i think the kaylor story may look similar.

my theory on kaylor:

i think that kaylor had a very similar friendship as me and my friend. their connection obviously started out as pr, but they ended up getting along well and bonded. thus started their genuine friendship.

i think that their eating disorders were likely a strong source of bonding/connection for them, as this was the case for me and my friend as well. i wanted to emulate how skinny my friend was, just how i think taylor wanted to emulate how skinny karlie was. (remember the vogue best best friends video, in which taylor complemented karlie’s “shiny abs.”) this is obviously an unhealthy place to start a friendship: from day one, you are on uneven ground, where one person is essentially worshipping the other and seeing them as a god-like figure to emulate.

imagine that taylor in that sort of mindset with karlie. and on top of that, she’s attracted to karlie—obsessed with her skinny body, her sunshine-like personality, how sophisticated she is, how effortlessly successful she is, etc. she develops an infatuation with karlie. she wants to take karlie to big sur with her and play 1989 on the way, and she’s so obsessed with karlie that she wants to tell her the truth about the 1989 muse. (trust me, it’s feasible—i told my friend shit i’d never have even imagined confessing to another human, all because of how infatuated with her i was.) so taylor and karlie sit down, have an intensely emotional conversation about how taylor is bi, how the pressures of staying closeted gut her every day, how her relationship with the 1989 muse dianna was so full of strife due to closeting, etc. /// or maybe taylor feels that she must disclose her bisexuality to karlie before the big sur trip. she’s terrified that if she doesn’t tell karlie she’s bi, then karlie will somehow find out. and taylor’s afraid that then, karlie will be creeped out that a ~predatory lesbian~ invited her on a three-month sleepover, leading to the demise of their friendship. so taylor must avoid that outcome – so she must come out to karlie.

so, for either reason i described, taylor comes out to karlie. considering how scared taylor is to come out to karlie (since it might ruin their friendship, or karlie might maliciously out her to others now that she knows, etc.) and considering how generally poor taylor’s mental health was at the time, the coming out inevitably evolves into an intensely emotional conversation about taylor’s fears, insecurities, the pressures of being a closeted mega-celebrity, etc. perhaps karlie feels compelled to match the level of emotion and vulnerability, motivating her to tell taylor “i’m questioning if i might be a little bi too.” or perhaps taylor’s level of earnestness and rawness stirs up the illusion of intense emotions inside of karlie. so, karlie “comes out” to taylor – confessing that she’s questioning/bi-curious (for context, i think karlie is kinsey 1). /// (to show the validity of this possibility – this is how evangelical churches, such as the one shown in the 2006 documentary “jesus camp”, are able to convince children that they’re being overcome by the holy spirit, being prompted by god to break down in tears, etc. – psychologically speaking, when people are put into highly intense emotional situations, [such as taylor breaking down while coming out to karlie], their brains will feel inadvertent pressure to match the level of emotion. as such, their brains will either exacerbate existing relevant emotions, or create the illusion of relevant strong emotions. [this is probably especially true for karlie, since she is an empath and a people pleaser.]).

thus starts the “friends with occasional benefits” stage. karlie views the relationship as something casual, something that gal pals do sometimes, something fun to experiment with while she and josh are on a break, and maybe with the added bonus of helping her figure out if she’s actually a little bit queer.

but taylor falls hard. as i already said, i think taylor was infatuated with karlie’s personality, success, and skinniness. that’s why taylor is willing to engage in such an unhealthy and un-reciprocal relationship: she’s willing to tolerate josh’s presence, because her brain is so fixated on karlie that she’s willing to endure anything for her. taylor may even recognize that kaylor is doomed, but she’s so in love/obsessed that she can’t bring herself to care about anything other than the utter infatuation she feels in this present moment. (this was true of me and my friend – my friend would literally vent to me about her long-term on-again-off-again boyfriend, and i was willing to endure it because of how obsessed with her i was.) or maybe taylor’s somewhat in denial about josh. (this was also true of me and my friend – i had such a hard time conceptualizing that she had feelings for the man that my brain, to some extent, refused to fully grasp the reality of that.) or maybe taylor was even in denial about how intensely she loved karlie, convincing herself that she just really valued her platonic friendship (i also did this – it took me months to admit that i had a crush on my friend and admit that my level of obsession wasn’t normal gal pal behavior – even though i was already out to myself.) also keep in mind the eating disorder dynamic here – taylor looked to karlie as an idol regarding how to eat healthy, exercise, be skinny, and be successful. the mindset of people engaged in eating disorders tends to be obsessive and unhealthy to the extent of being willing to ignore reality / unknowingly refusing to accept reality, possibly including the reality of josh, if taylor feels like her skinniness is dependent on her connection with karlie.

so basically, karlie sees this as a gal pal fling, friends with the occasional casual benefit. taylor, conversely, is infatuated with karlie. one thing that really confirms this for me is kissgate. taylor was liking kaylor shipped tumblr posts shortly before kissgate – she obviously was feeling something for karlie that night. but karlie wasn’t committed to taylor to the same level – yes they (allegedly) made out, but karlie made out with josh immediately afterwards. /// to taylor, kaylor is a ship, an endgame. but to karlie, taylor is just a fun little pit stop, and she’s gonna go make out with her real boyfie immediately after.

eventually, the friendship inevitably implodes, leading to their breakup in 2016. some straw finally breaks the camel’s back on this relationship which was unhealthy and doomed from day 1.

now let’s look at lyrical evidence from repuation that supports my theory.

lyrical evidence from reputation:

ready for it

the bearding anthem. verses “he” are joe, as confirmed by the music video. chorus “you” is her fantasy idealized version of long-term kaylor.

there’s a reason that the “you” relationship (in the chorus) is happening IN HER DREAMS and not in real life – she pines for this committed and serious relationship with karlie, but that’s not reality.

but taylor has hope that it might happen – “i know i’m gonna be with you, so I TAKE MY TIME.” she imagines they’ll be friends-to-lovers, and she’s willing to wait as long as necessary for them to fully reach that lovers stage

this is a stretch, but “thief”/“robber” may refer to how she’s “stealing” karlie from josh lol. “touch me and you’ll never be alone” may also be a cheeky reference how taylor was like a temporary placeholder for josh – when karlie felt alone bc she and josh were on a break, taylor was like “touch me karlie, to keep you occupied while josh has left you alone. and oh yeah, if you end up in a relationship with me, then i promise that you’ll never be alone, bc i will commit to you, unlike that josh boy. i will be so much better than him, if you just let me.”

end game (but only the chorus/verse which taylor wrote)

“i WANNA be your endgame” – taylor is not in a committed relationship with karlie. as karlie sees it, they’re just fooling around. but taylor wants more than that: she wants to be karlie’s endgame.  

“you and me would be a big conversation” bc they’re gay. (sorry joseph matthew alwyn, this line is not about you)

“i don’t wanna touch you …… like the other girls do” may be a reference to how karlie is gal pals with plenty of her female friends (example – her platonic yet very affectionate relationship with toni garrn). but taylor wants more than that – she wants their touches to be romantic rather than just platonic/occasionally casually sexual.

“i don’t wanna hurt you” – taylor fears that she’s bad news for karlie (a sentiment repeated in the first line of delicate, the bridge of i did something bad, etc.). this may be internalized homophobia – the predatory lesbian falls in love with her pure/innocent straight best friend and then corrupts her with homosexuality.

“but i ain’t tryna play” – taylor wants this relationship to be more than just the occasional fun/playful/casual hook up. she wants to be karlie’s end game.

“i hit you like ‘bang’, we tried to forget it, but we just couldn’t” may refer to the first time they hooked up. it was unexpected, just happened so suddenly (“like ‘bang’”). and they were just going to put it past them – sometimes friends hook up, it’s whatever. but taylor can’t move on from it.

“your body is gold” – self-explanatory. karlie is the gold rush girl, after all.

“you’ve been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks” reminds me of how i used to try to communicate my seriousness/love to my friend, but she’d laugh it off and assume i was joking. conversely, perhaps the “trick” is that taylor is pretending that she’s not super invested in karlie—maybe karlie is catching on to the fact that taylor is infatuated with her in a ~gay way~. taylor denies it, but karlie calls her bluff on that statement.

“here’s the truth from my red lips” – but in the music video, her lips aren’t red when she says this line. this may allude to all of the lying involved in her relationship with karlie (such as lying about just how in love with karlie she really was). or taylor may have her lips a different color because the truth has changed from the time she wrote this song to the time she’s filming the video – when she wrote this song, it was true that she wanted to be karlie’s endgame. but by the time rep era is here and they’re filming this video, the kaylor friendship is over, and it is no longer true that taylor wants to be karlie’s endgame.

i did something bad

just like in “ready for it”, i think the verses primarily refer to bearding (or maybe calvin/kimye, idk), but the chorus is about karlie.

“they say did something bad / then why’s it feel so good” – it is bad that she slept with karlie despite the fact that karlie is in a complicated long term relationship with josh. but the sex felt good ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

“and i’d do it over and over and over again / IF I COULD” – this implies that taylor only did ~the bad thing~ a few times, and she was unable to do it more times, even though she wanted to. this lines up with my theory that she and karlie hooked up a few times (casually in karlie’s eyes), but taylor wanted it to be more than just a few times (she wanted to be karlie’s endgame). but they couldn’t get to that committed place of routinely having sex bc karlie was still low key hung up on josh.

this is a very unlikely reach but – “he says ‘don’t throw away a good thing’” – “he” might be josh speaking to karlie about their relationship.

in the bridge, taylor says that she is a witch being unjustly burned. the witch is burned because she is being accused of the sin of dark magic – this parallels josh accusing taylor of being a witch who committed the sin of sleeping with his girlfriend, or maybe even the sin of “corrupting” the pure straight girl karlie. furthermore, the bridge invokes religious imagery of purgatory. and tbh, religious imagery is almost always gay xoxo.

don’t blame me

“don’t blame me, love made me crazy” again implies that taylor has committed a sort of ~crime~, such as the ~crimes~ i just mentioned regarding the don’t blame me bridge.

“my drug is my baby” – the drug reference makes me think of dependency. the obsession and infatuation i experienced with my friend (and that i suspect taylor experienced with karlie) is sort of like a drug dependency – and just like a drug dependency, the need for each other is not reciprocal (the drug does not need you back).

“shaking, pacing, i just need you” implies that taylor does not have “you”, which is consistent with my theory that she wanted kaylor to be endgame whereas karlie was only willing to doing occasional gal pal hook ups.

“for you, i would cross the line” / “they say she’s gone too far this time” – sleeping with josh kushner’s ~innocent straight~ girlfriend certainly crosses a line, lol.

“i would waste my time” – as i mentioned in my ready for it analysis, taylor hopes that kaylor be friends-to-lovers. she’s willing to wait as long as necessary for them to fully reach that lovers stage, even though she recognizes that the relationship is doomed and thus a waste of time.

“my name is whatever you decide” – we don’t have to “girlfriends.” we can just be “friends with benefits” or “gal pals” or whatever name you decide, because i am so desperate to have you at all that i will accept you in any form.

“i’m insane, but i’m your baby” – acknowledging that this unhealthy relationship/infatuation she has with karlie is “insane”

“halo hiding my OBSESSION” – “obsession” (!!!!) (that’s what i’ve been saying kaylor was!!!). also, “halo” is a religious metaphor, and religious metaphors are always gay xoxo. and this is a reach, but as a victoria’s secret angel, karlie wears a halo.

“i once was poison ivy, but now i’m your daisy” – i’m sorry, but i’ll never get over the fact that karlie tagged the daisy as taylor, and then taylor drew a picture of a daisy in an identical position above the word “daisy” in the handwritten lyrics.

“for you, i would fall from grace / just to touch your face” – religious metaphors are gay xoxo!

delicate – unsure if this song is about karlie (i think it’s more likely about lily or even joe), but if it is about karlie, it does align well with my kaylor theory.

“this ain’t for the best” – doomed relationship due to josh, corruption of straight girl, karlie won’t commit, etc.

“we can’t make / any promises” – karlie can’t commit to taylor like taylor wants/needs

“is it cool that i said all that? is it chill that you’re in my head? cuz i know that it’s delicate” – is it cool that i have gay feelings for you, bestie, because i know we’re toeing a very delicate line between friends and lovers?

“third floor on the west side” – iirc, the master bedroom of karlie’s west side apartment was on the third floor

“do the girls back home touch you like i do?” – contrasting platonic girls’ touches to the type of touch taylor is giving her. (similar vibe to “i don’t wanna touch you …… like the other girls do” in end game)

“stay here, honey, I DON’T WANNA SHARE” – i don’t wanna share you with josh

“I PRETEND YOU’RE MINE ALL THE DAMN TIME” – implies that karlie is not hers all the time (because she’s josh’s)

“i like you …… i want you” – taylor is Yearning™ for a deeper/more serious relationship with karlie

look what you made me do

i don’t think this song has much substance, but it may draw on themes/emotions from the kaylor friendship break up.

“i don’t like your games” – i don’t like how you led me on, making me feel like we could be forever when, in reality, you were never going to commit to me because you loved josh

“don’t like your tilted stage” – this reminds me of the power imbalance i mentioned earlier: taylor was obsessed with karlie and idolized her. karlie did not reciprocate this dedication and infatuation. because taylor’s love for karlie is so much more intense than karlie’s love for her, the metaphorical scale is imbalanced, making it tilt.  

“the role you made me play, of the fool” – you made me out to be a fool, ready to confess my undying love even though you could never reciprocate. // furthermore, the “role” may refer to how they had to act like platonic girl squad besties as per their pr arrangement (reminds me of how karlie publicly said “taylor and i are still besties” after karlie’s name wasn’t on the junior jewels shirt in the lwymmd mv, how karlie promo-ed the “Me!” filter on Instagram, the song closure, etc.)

“your perfect crime” – the crime of sleeping with taylor despite being low key still with josh

“i got smarter” – i began to realize how unhealthy this warped and imbalanced friendship was

“you asked me for a place to sleep / locked me out and threw a feast” – this may refer to karlie had a ~designated bestie sleepover room~ in taylor’s house, and that enty blind about how karlie used taylor’s credit card and that caused a feud lol

i do not think that “so it goes” is about karlie – it’s too reciprocal. i don’t think gorgeous is about karlie specifically – maybe lily or just women in general. and i agree with andy’s theory that getaway car is more so an exercise in storytelling than a song that contains substantive clues about her relationships.

king of my heart

we have the photos showing that taylor wrote/recorded this after facetiming with karlie to watch the sunset together. taylor wrote this right after that romantic coded date, presumably during a high point of their friendship/relationship – as such, this song is more idealistic than most other kaylor songs. taylor is hopeful about the future of a committed endgame kaylor. (but, we’ll also see that taylor does still have some insecurities about kaylor.)

“now you try on calling me baby like trying on clothes” – karlie is just “trying on” calling her baby. karlie is new to this whole wlw thing, and she won’t be wearing these metaphorical clothes (a wlw relationship) for long – she’s just trying them on. furthermore, “trying on clothes” may reference how karlie is a model.

“salute to me, i’m your american queen” – i think i remember from my ttb days (derogatory) that there’s a video clip of karlie calling taylor “the perfect all-american girl” whilst doing a salute.

“you move to me like a motown beat” may reference the “motown beats” instagram post where kaylor are putting on lipstick together

the fact that taylor includes the line “all the boys and their expensive cars … never took me quite where you do” may be a sign of taylor’s insecurity. i think this may be a message to karlie – ‘yes, josh is a rich boy with expensive cars, but look, we are so much better than joshlie is.’ calling josh a mere “boy” is also a funny little insult – he’s not a man, he’s just some silly little boy who can’t satisfy you like i can.

“body and soul” – i think it might be significant that taylor specifies body AND soul. they’re already connected by the soul through their close friendship – but now they’re connecting sexually with their bodies as well. conversely, this could reference how they’ve already connected bodily through casual gal pal hook ups, but now taylor believes that they’re starting to connect on that romantic soul level as well.

“school girl crush” gives me such unreciprocated crush vibes. maybe taylor’s crush was unreciprocated for a while, but she has reason to believe that their relationship is growing into ~more than just friends~, as she’s desired

“drinking beer out of plastic cups” – knicks game

“say you fancy me, not fancy stuff” – “fancy” could just be straight-bait to make swiftwyn beards look more convincing, or it could be a re-dedication of the song to joe (just how the bridge of dress re-dedicated that song to joe). (for context, i believe in swiftwyn beards-to-lovers.) but what’s important here is that “fancying stuff” made me think of how, as a model, karlie is like madona’s Material Girl. rich boy josh with his fancy cars can give karlie more “stuff” to satisfy her inner material girl, but taylor wants to show karlie that she can give her deeper fulfillment than that.

“this is enough” – this might be taylor reassuring herself that their relationship, despite being in a weird ~gal pals who hook up occassionally~ is enough. even though they’re not ~girlfriends~, the relationship is enough, because taylor believes that they’re working their way towards that ~body and soul endgame wives~ type of relationship.

“all at once” may refer to a seemingly sudden shift in the nature of their relationship – one day, they’re (infuriatingly) just gal pals who hook up, but all of a sudden, taylor has reason to believe/hope that maybe they’re starting to be more than that, maybe inching their way towards endgame territory.

i do not think that dancing with our hands tied is necessarily about karlie. it seems too reciprocal to be just about her; it might be an amalgamation of many relationships and how she frequently fears being outed.

dress

“a golden tattoo” – drake’s party. also, karlie is gold rush girl

“all of this silence, pining and anticipation / my hands are shaking from holding back from you / all of this silence, pining and desperately waiting” – once again implies that taylor does not have karlie the way she wants her. there’s “pining” because she wants more than karlie can give. and taylor is “desperately waiting” in hopes that maybe one day karlie will reciprocate her love to the full extent that she desires

“i don’t want you like a best friend” – self-explanatory

“carve your name into my bedpost” – taylor is making a request – ‘please commit, please leave a sign that you are committed to me forever, please be my endgame.’ note the dichotomy between this plea for karlie to take the initiative to make the carving, versus the statement in the first verse of how karlie inadvertently left “an indentation in the shape of” her. the indentation was not an act of karlie’s chosen will – taylor just so happened to fall in love with her, and now she’s asking karlie to reciprocate by making that carving.

“inescapable, i’m not even gonna try” – taylor is resigned to the fact that she’s fallen for karlie, even though the relationship might be doomed (as the next line demonstrates)

“if I get burned, at least we were electrified” – taylor is acknowledging that this relationship is low key doomed, and if anyone is going to get hurt, it’ll be taylor. taylor will be the one getting “burned” by the intensity of her infatuation, whereas karlie won’t be burned because she never reciprocated that intense love. /// going back to my commentary on “carve your name into my bedpost” – note how taylor frequently references karlie “claiming” her (with “marks”, “indentations”, “carvings”, and now “burns”), whereas taylor never states that she’s claimed karlie in any way. i think this may reflect taylor’s recognition that she has fallen much harder for karlie than karlie has for her. karlie does not bear marks, indentations, carvings, or burns from their relationship, because she was never as committed as taylor was. but taylor bears all those things because it is she who fell so hard for karlie.  

“you kiss my face and we’re both drunk” reminds me of that trope where the gal pals only make out when they’re drunk because they’re convinced they’re actually straight. maybe karlie is one of those straight girls who only has so much capacity for wlw sex, meaning that it happens more often when she’s drunk than when sober.

i do not think that “this is why we can’t have nice things” is a direct karlie song. it may indirectly reference how karlie “broke” the “nice thing” that was their relationship by refusing to commit, but i don’t think that the song has anything substantive to show us about kaylor.

i’m not sure if i think “call it what you want” is a kaylor song. on some level, “fit like a daydream” does sound like eating disorder taylor idolizing karlie’s body, and it’s interesting to me how the subject of the song expresses virtually no devotion to taylor, whereas taylor spends the whole song telling the subject “call it what you want – call us girlfriends, gal pals, whatever you want as long as i can keep you.” this reminds me a bit of kaylor.

new year’s day

“don’t read the last page” because i know that this book has a sad ending. this relationship is doomed, and it’s going to end poorly. but let’s put that out of our minds – i’m to infatuated with you in this moment to think about how this will inevitably end.

“i stay when you’re lost and i’m scared and you’re turning away” – when karlie is “lost” (leaving taylor to go back to josh) or “turning away” from taylor to go back to josh, taylor stays. she’s scared that she’s going to lose karlie, but she’s still going to stay, because she’s willing to “waste her time” (don’t blame me) waiting for karlie to choose her.

“i stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or we’re making mistakes” – taylor is willing to stay through the mess of their imbalanced and un-reciprocal relationship even when that inevitably gets hard. their relationship is “wrong” because karlie is josh’s, and maybe kaylor was a mistake because of joshlie, but taylor doesn’t care – she loves karlie too much, so she’s going to stay and wait for karlie to choose her.

“i WANT your midnights” – implying that taylor does not currently have them, because karlie is not reciprocating the level of love taylor is giving and wants in return.

“hold on to the memories” implies that this relationship will be ending soon (because it is doomed), leaving karlie only memories to hold onto.

“i will hold onto you” – this goes back to the theme of taylor’s obsession. karlie is her drug – she’s addicted to her, and she will “waste her time” eternally waiting for karlie to choose her because she’s that obsessed with her.

“please don’t ever become a stranger” – why is taylor worrying about this? because the relationship is doomed, and becoming strangers feels like this horrible yet inevitable ending that will be a part of “the last page”

thanks for reading, and sorry about any typos!

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

SUBMISSION

I found this as part of my Insta ask era but let’s look over this for thoughts. Haven’t read it yet but I know anon was stressed it got lost (it did because y’all talk too much but also don’t stop I love it).

#nat talks kaylor #submission

[uncurlinglikeflowers]

Queer Trauma, Coming Out, & the Long Road to Self-Love and Healing

As I’ve reflected on my past, I’ve discovered that my adolescence may be one of, if not THE most traumatic time of my life thus far as a queer person. The last few months with my incredible therapist have made me realize that the years of anxiety, panic, fear, self-loathing, confusion, and depression have scarred me deeper than I had previously thought. She also made me realize that this is at least partially because I have never really talked about it openly and in depth in a healthy and productive way before, which is what inspired me to start this blog to share my experiences with others that are currently struggling with their identity, or to allow those that are also currently healing from the trauma of their previously closeted life feel a little more seen.

I knew from a VERY young age that I was different, but didn’t know how or what it meant. I was a lonely kid for a lot of my childhood without many friends. I didn’t want to play football with the boys during recess. I sought companionship at lunch with a table full of girls more often than not, which in itself also made me feel incredibly self conscious at the time as well. 

I asked, (with incredible shame) for the “girl’s toy” from the backseat in the McDonald’s drive-thru because I loved to play with the mini-Barbies and craft entire storylines for them. They were easier to hide in my room than regular sized Barbies. I spent most summers off school alone playing video games and reading book and book after book. I didn’t really click with the boys down the street. I was obsessed with Britney Spears and the color purple. I was lonely without really knowing what it meant.

I feel as though that fear I felt in my childhood and adolescence held me back from SO much. Middle school in particular was absolute hell. I hated it. I always felt constantly insecure and uncomfortable. I had absolutely zero confidence or self love. I hated my body and how I looked. 

While other kids experienced their first relationships and first feelings of romantic love, I was convinced that it was just not a possibility for me. On top of being deeply closeted, scared, confused, lonely, and in deep denial, girls didn’t go for me anyway. I was the awkward chunky guy struggling with his identity feeling like he had to make up for it by working extra hard to get perfect grades and give himself 100% to other people. I tried not to think about it too much, but hearing about relationships, seeing people kiss in the hallways between classes, and girls talking about what they liked in boys which was the complete opposite of me... it was hell.

To make my self consciousness worse, I felt supremely uncomfortable in gym class and the boys’ locker room in particular. I was ashamed of my body and also self conscious for wanting to look at the other boys; terrified that they would catch on and beat me senseless. Hearing them consistently call each other f*g in a very VERY negative context drove me deep into the closet as the identity I already felt shame for was directly correlated with being a ridiculed outcast, and something that was inherently, disgustingly wrong and unacceptable. The worst insult teenage boys could deliver to each other in the safety of an unchaperoned locker room in a hick town often not kind to queer people or those that were different. I SO desperately wanted to fit in with the other boys instead of being any version of who I actually was.

Part of that façade of blending in with my hetero peers involved having a girlfriend for two months in 8th grade. We didn’t even kiss, let alone approach any sexual situations. I’m sure she had her suspicions. I was utterly obsessed with the concept of blending in by having a girlfriend like the other boys and just having someone special in my life, even if we really didn’t even do any couple things. 

Upon reflection, I don’t think the concept of ever being sexual with her ever crossed my mind in the slightest. Even the idea of kissing her scared the hell out of me, and not just from first kiss nerves. Deep down I knew it wasn’t right for me. Don’t EVER tell a kid they’re too young to know. Fast forward to modern times, my first kiss with a girl was with a close friend YEARS after I came out. Go figure. 

The idea of caring about and loving myself was non-existent at that time. It’s a very VERY new and ongoing journey for me. I didn’t really care about myself at all. I hadn’t learned how to. Mom was in and out of cancer treatments, and would later pass during my senior year of college and kick off my coming out process, but that’s a whole other post for another day. Spending pretty much my entire childhood watching mom deal with being sick, I didn’t want to cause my family any more discomfort. I was full of self loathing, fear, and confusion, but it seemed irrelevant and unimportant because I didn’t want to be a hindrance. 

Instead, I tried so desperately to be the perfect kid and son by befriending my teachers, being a model student, and joining band and a bunch of organizations to stay as busy as possible to stay distracted and impress everyone else.I didn’t love myself because I didn’t think I was allowed to or deserved to in my own head. While I did finally make more meaningful friends in high school, I continued to go through the motions to make my family proud to make up for the scared closeted kid who thought he had to make up for his queerness as though it were a shameful weakness, and it seemed to be the only thing that could possibly matter at the time.

Non-surprisingly, I never really knew any openly queer boys in grade school. It probably legitimately wasn’t all that safe to come out in that environment. I’ll never forget the two boys I saw holding hands in a Wal-Mart that absolutely shook up my entirely reality, because I had never seen romantic same-sex affection in person before. 

There was a lesbian couple at my school, but people said awful, degrading things about them behind their backs constantly and acted like they were the biggest freaks. Another boy in my grade in high school hadn’t come out yet officially but was very flamboyant, and thus was treated just as awful as the lesbian couple, if not worse. Other kids just regularly said despicable things about him without even knowing him at all. I even heard parents make blatantly homophobic jokes about him. 

His life had to have been hell, and as a fully out queer adult, I still regret not being able to stand up for him more. That definitely forced me deeper into the closet. He wasn’t even out but got talked about like he was some disgusting abomination. How could I ever assume that I could ever come out, let alone kiss, date, and love another boy? I HATED the idea of any attention being placed on me, so I just wanted to survive school at that point.

I had multiple people throughout high school ask me if I were gay just as though it were the most casual question rather than a triggering inquiry that sent me into a mental frenzy every damn time it was presented. Having one of the jock boys ask me such a deeply personal question in passing on the way to my seat in Algebra class was traumatizing. I of course always said no, as at the time I was still convinced it was a passing phase and that I couldn’t actually be gay. 

At home, in the days of Myspace, I got anonymous messages telling me they were pretty sure I was gay. The anonymity was arguably worse in some ways. 

At a young age, I became hyper aware of how I carried myself, talked, and acted. I loathed hearing my voice or seeing myself in pictures, for fear of sounding too feminine or standing or emoting too gay. I obsessed over the concept that boys and girls carried their books a certain way, or the boys would be labelled as queer. I was paranoid about where I shopped for clothes, the colors I wore, and the length and fit of my shorts. 

In middle school, I got a lilac colored trapper keeper for school that I ultimately had my parents take back to the store for a different one because I felt so self conscious about it all day. At home I played with my little Barbies, but didn’t dare tell the kids at school for fear of rejection and isolation. Overall, I felt grossly incompetent, irrelevant, and unimportant in my own mind. Unworthy of love and of course, deeply ashamed for my attraction to the other boys.

I never had anyone whatsoever to help guide me through the coming out process, because I didn’t know a single queer person who could. I’ve now dedicated a good amount of my energy trying to be that person I desperately could have used then for anyone else that needs that role to be filled, and for someone to tell them that someone is incredibly proud of them. An obscene amount of queer people don’t ever hear “I’m so proud of you!” when they really need it the most. 

I also didn’t have any good queer representation on TV or in movies, so I really did feel completely alone at times. Most queer characters in media existedly solely to be made fun of and mocked, ratcher than celebrated, properly represented, or God forbid, given a legitimate love story, and the public’s reaction was so frequently one of such repugnance and disapproval. 

This was also probably about the time that a close family member told me that he had punched a gay guy for hitting on him when he was younger, a story he again felt the need to share with a now ex-boyfriend and I when we were dating, as though that’s not a horrifying thing for an already scared and closeted queer to hear from their own family. 

I think during middle school in particular is when my anxiety and depression issues started, but I assumed either that I was being a baby and that my feelings were invalid, or that it was just teenage angst. The idea that boys and men should mask their emotions and feelings and feel shame rather than expressing them was, (and seemingly appears to continue to be) a very real thing in small towns and society in general. 

It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was experiencing varying levels of almost daily trauma that would fuck me up well into adulthood. If you take anything at all from this post, let it be that the conversation around mental health, (and men in particular in this instance) NEEDS to change.

Another particularly noteworthy event in my queer adolescence was when two of my friends, (both girls, shocker) discovered gay porn on my computer. While they pestered me about if it were mine while they laughed, I of course lied. I felt a deep shame and utter humiliation. On reflection, fucking IMAGINE if they had been able to be gentle and understanding with me and told me they loved me and still would even if I were gay. From then on I was terrified that they would bring that day up to our other friends as a joke. Perhaps they did a time or two, I don’t recall. These same friends made jokes about the queer kid I mentioned earlier, and both parents of one of the girls regularly gossiped and made homophobic jokes about him when I was at their house 

By the time school dances rolled around, I knew I would never be able to go with anyone but friends. Even if I weren’t still deeply closeted, I’m pretty sure my school still had pretty strict rules against bringing same-sex dates to Prom. While I definitely had fun with my friends at the dances we went to, I so desperately longed for a world where I could dance with a boy who loved me like everyone else was able to.

The loneliness and isolation I felt at the end of those nights could be unbearable because it didn’t seem possible for me, even as I looked into the future. I was fully convinced I would live a very lonely life without anyone to love me the way I craved. I didn’t belong in that world, and wouldn’t ever be set up for that kind of happiness, joy, and feeling of content. I would live for everyone else but myself because that’s just the way the world worked for us queers.

I wish I had had just one single person then who gave me full permission to be my authentic queer self on any level. Someone who could hug me and tell me life after high school and college could and would be vastly different. Someone to tell me I wasn’t an unlovable disgusting freak, but rather a kind-hearted boy who deserved a deep love someday because I was a valid and gentle soul who deserved the world. I certainly deserved more than the shame and pain that constantly haunted me. 

Maybe then I wouldn’t have thought about death before 30 so much and obsessed over it well into my college career. I might have realized that I needed to learn to be gentle with myself and take care of and prioritize me and my own happiness. So many people let me down and convinced me that I was a filthy sinner and an over-emotional kid with invalid perspectives and feelings. As most of my closest friends, (that I cannot stress enough have been the ones to save my life and encourage the authenticity that I present so proudly today) came into my life after I had already come out fully, they weren’t around during those dark early struggles. 

Sometimes as an adult I still wonder what it would have felt like and how profoundly different my life could be if someone had held me close and sincerely told me they’re proud of me for what I survived and overcame, and told me that they can’t wait to see my eyes light up with the love I’ve always dreamed of in a boy, and that I still continue to seek. 

Young, baby gay Travis would be in absolute awe if he knew what life had in store for him back then. To see a future version of himself painting his nails, wearing whatever he wanted, dancing with strangers at pride festivals, having the time of his life at drag shows with his queer family and falling in love with boys? Proudly holding a boyfriend’s hand walking downtown in a busy city? Openly telling his dad about the cute boy he’s going on a date with? Going Facebook official with a boy? Being a super vocal advocate and inspiration and mentor to not only queer family, but to people he hardly talks to but manages to influence and inspire just by unashamedly being himself? Genuinely looking forward to kissing his new husband in front of family and friends on his wedding day, knowing it’ll be one of the happiest days of his entire life? 

Holy. Actual. Fuck.

Travis of six or seven years ago wouldn’t have even dared to dream this big, let alone baby gay Travis. He probably would have been utterly mortified but SO comforted to see that future life when he didn’t believe it to be any level of possible.

I’m so fucking proud of myself for this journey, and no one will ever take that away from me or water down my trauma or the grueling work I’ve put in. Genuinely, this is the one thing in my life that makes me absolutely burst with pride. 

I think I want to learn how to keep baby Travis in mind with this pride without having to revisit the trauma in the process. Look back at him with open arms, excited to see him learn and blossom into his actual self someday. Even if he could have desperately used someone like the me I am today, he survived then, and continues to persevere today. 

He’s queer as fuck, and proud to shout it from the rooftops. He’s a voice and an advocate for the voiceless. A shining light and beacon of hope for those still navigating their terrifying escape from their closeted life. He’s going to meet a man someday and love him so deeply in the way baby Travis always dreamed of. Above all, he’s going to continue to make that little guy so incredibly proud because he knows now the importance of loving himself in the process. 

I’m so proud of that scared little boy. I just wish he could have known then how proud he would make himself one day.   

As you talk with the queer people in your life, please keep in mind that just about all of us have incredible trauma directly tied to our identities. Talk to them with love, compassion, and understanding. Tell them how proud of them you are for pursuing their own happiness in the face of oppression and rejection. 

Demand better from elected officials. Advocate for us. Shut down homophobic ideals, even if you think it’ll make your family and friends uncomfortable to hear. Support queer content, artists and creators. Be a proud ally, but don’t ever allow yourself to take the spotlight away from actual queer people or our queer spaces. Mourn, love, and celebrate with us. 

Understand why pride is SO fucking important to us, and why you never have to worry about needing your own pride events. Listen to us and love us for exactly who we are, and were always meant to be. Love is the most incredible, beautiful, and often rare human experience we’re able to experience during our short time on this planet, and it should always be celebrated.

Happy Pride!

#pride #gay #lgbt #journaling #love #queer #coming out #coming out stories #queer trauma #adolescent trauma #self love #healing #trauma

[valkyriecain]

hi, I noticed in your recent post you mentioned about the skulduggery pleasant books being written autonomously. I used to read the books years ago but I am not up to date. if I may ask you, did the author do something bad?

ok so listen there's so much to this and i have what is commonly known as Sieve Brain but im gonna recall the "highlights" in bullet points because if not we will Die Here. important factors, before new stans be calling me bitter and unjustified: i had been a fan since 2008, first met derek irl in 2010 and from that point became really close to him. i considered him a friend, and i believe he considered me the same. i worshipped him unapologetically, which he loved.

and none of this should put you off loving SP! i still hold this series very dear and still buy any new releases, though it pains me knowing derek gets the money. I just really have to distance the books from him.

here you go:

things were "fine" until the release of desolation, the second book in the demon road series (for reference, i ADORED DR. didn't just hate it out of spite because it wasn't SP). myself and other fans took issue with this book because the main character, who was a sheltered 16 year old girl, was presented in an INCREDIBLY painful scene to read where a 20 year old woman who is tending to her after she's been in a brawl and coerces Amber (protag) into kissing her. they then date. it's messy as fuck, but honestly I'd level with the age gap if it wasn't so Male Porn Fantasy and vaguely rapey. myself and another Mega Fan moonie ended up sharing private emails with derek about how we felt discomforted by this and let down by him, and after honestly emotionally draining ourselves and digging deep to be honest with a man we've never wanted to fault, his eventual conclusion was an eloquently phased "you're being over sensitive and I'm sorry you've made yourself feel like this," and refused to acknowledge any fault. that's a VERY shortened version. for myself and moonie it was really long and messy and tiresome and incredibly heartbreaking tbh.

now, i said things were "fine" but they weren't, we were just deluded as fuck. so heres a vaguely timelined bullet pointing of what happened BEFORE Creepy Lesbian and after1811. I'm sure anything I miss moonie will RB with lol her brain works a lot better than mine

•  valcain is based on dereks Ex Best Friend (much open to speculation), who was his 12 year old krav maga student when he was in his 30s, this is how they met. get on ur monocles my friends. she now seems to have nothing to do with him and no input on the books where she was previously heavily involved. in old blog posts he sexualised the IRL val when she attended an event with him, she was in her teens.

• in KOTW derek name dropped my OC (harmony blake, fact check me), at the time I was OVERJOYED. looking back, she was fucking serpine. i believe i was 17 at this time.

• myself and my own Ex BF had our chosen names dropped in LSODM (for memory). they had BOTH fucked saracen. if you missed it, derek confirmed that saracen is his self insert :^) me being a silly prick was having a jolly old time

honestly I don't remember my irl meetings with derek being overly creepy, but back then I adored him, so? idk. the one thing I remember which made me uncomfortable at the time, was myself and a couple of other mega fans who were all in a friend group got invited to his house. he had a cap shield from the first avenger and we all took turns holding it. I was wearing a t shirt and shorts, so when I held it, I said "it looks like I'm nekked behind here" because it did. and he did a little "heh" and sort of looked like he was imagining it. it was bleh. anyway

• LAURAGATE. dereks gf. she's 26. he's 40something now, whatever, who cares, right? oh wait yeah she was a 17 year old fan when they first met at a signing, that's right. he referred to her in his blog as "the blond with the legs".  they started emailing. 2013 was their First Date, I believe she'd just turned 18, or was just off being 19. I was at this signing so I can tell you how skeevy it looked. she actually queued up to see him and have her photo taken mid signing which is weird as FUCK and paints a clear picture of how fucked this situation was. there's more to this day but it's just shit garnish on diarrhea soup tbh

• derek totally distances from the Big Fan base. be this because we criticised him, because we know the gross ins and outs of his and lauras relationship or because she was feeding his greedy ego and he didn't need us any more? who knows. the fandom has taken a fucking blow without us though. i know we were cringe and terrible but we were the life of the party and honestly we added to the skulduggery brand.

that's a brief summary of lowlights. him and laura continue to be terrible people, feeding into each others worst attributes and refusing to grow as people. laura just wants to coast on his "fame" and "fortune" and keeps trying (and failing, miserably) to exploit both of these to become an influencer. derek seems fucking miserable from what I can tell but he's got a "leggy blonde" so he'll not budge, will he

ANYWAY. if you want me to expand on anything, just uh, lemme know. I will if I can

#skulduggery pleasant #derek landy #discourse

[kevinstansanonymous]

High School but Gayer and Worse

Aka the tma/wtnv high school au crossover you didn’t want but I still provided

WTNV Cast: Cecil: runs the morning announcements, is the assembly narrator and does sports commentary

Carlos: resident mad scientist, blew up the chem lab freshman year, his scientists are other freshman who live in awe and terror of his shitty chem skills

Old Woman Josie: the nice librarian lady

The Angels: weird library kids who follow Josie around

Earl Harland: that one kid in every culinary class, you swear he’s been a junior for as long as you’ve been there

Tamika Flinn: freshman girl who feels really strongly about banned books in high school

Leann Hart: rival underground school newspaper, is suspected of causing the “mysterious accident” that put the online social media team in the hospital

City Council: principal & vice principal

Station Management: the office

The Interns: freshman who help Cecil out, they keep getting in accidents/getting sick so none ever last more than two days (except for the lesbian freshman of course)

Michelle: first chair cellist in the school orchestra, plays percussion in school band, one of the school's top trend setters

Maureen: sophomore who survived being a freshman intern, she keeps getting in what look like fatal car accidents but miraculously surviving with no harm

Kevin: was raised atheist but sophomore year created an entire religion, managed to convert half the school before faculty could get involved

Charles: new Mormon kid really interested in Kevin’s cult and also Kevin

TMA Cast: Jon: runs the school newspaper, that one kid who always asks really uncomfortable personal questions

Martin: sunshine boy, has a giant crush on Jon, went through his edgy phase sophomore year when he became friends with Peter

Elias: that shitty rich prep kid

Peter: the even richer shitty prep kid, family owns a yacht which he never shuts up about

Melanie: volleyball lesbian (she’s the spiker), her slaughter record is her deliberately aiming the ball so it hits other girls’ faces

Basira: runs one of sports team, is top of her class

Gerry: weird library kid who came up with the high school fears, caused a school wide supersitution about it

Georgie: class president and also gsa leader, once stood up to the principal which is where she got her no fear rep

Jude: no one’s sure how she got in here, everyone’s pretty sure she’s been expelled five times but she’s always there in the locker rooms offering freshman cigarettes

Agnes: prep kid that every lesbian in school has a crush on, may or may not be under police investigation for arson

Daisy: runs the chess club, school rumors about her previous anger issues but no one has any proof, had an accident and was in a coma for sophomore year

Tim: high school sweetheart, had to move away after junior year

The High School Romance™ Drama: Elias and Peter are the shitty high school couple that dramatically breaks up and gets back together every two weeks. Their drama shamelessly gets involved with everyone else's drama

Cecil and Carlos are the school’s It Couple™, they won homecoming king and king (which is this au’s version of their marriage)

Martin has a giant crush on Jon and Cecil tries to help him out using the morning announcements, cue horrible shenanigans and mishaps

Jude still has a Massive Crush on Agnes

Maureen and Maurice are still a power hipster couple, rumor has it they once single handedly crushed a freshman beneath their power

The principal, vice principal, and the entire office are all in a giant polycule

Kevin and Charles aren’t subtle at all and people keep walking into them making out in very obvious places

Steve and Abby are the brave out straight couple, they adopted freshman Janice

General Fackts™: Kevin’s broadcasts are when he locks Cecil out of the broadcasting room and takes over for the day

Cecil and Kevin are twins but their parents divorced and raised them separately (cue parent trap)

Martin performs poetry at the talent contest to confess to Jon, Jon doesn’t get it, (cue shenanigans)

Martin ends up becoming friends with Peter sophomore year, it goes terribly, (cue depressing shenanigans)

Jon and Cecil have a bitter rivalry because Jon thinks Cecil isn’t professional enough as a reporter and Cecil thinks Jon’s sweater looks dumb

There is at one point a school fashion show, the school never recovered from the damage

(Fears under the cut since this is getting long)

The Fears but in puberty this time

Vast:  fear of the largeness of the world, "Where will I go after this?"

Buried: fear of being trapped into a career path, or alternatively just normal claustrophobia, "what if I don't actually want to do this?"

Web: fear of being used, "what if they don't actually care about me?", "what if i'm being manipulated?"

Slaughter:  fear of disapproval from authority figures, "is my mom going to be mad at me?"

Lonely: fear of being unlovable, "what if no one ever likes me?"

Hunt: fear of being targeted or bullied, "will people come after me for who i am?"

Flesh: fear of being ugly or unattractive, or judged based on your body, "do people think i'm pretty?", "will they hate me for how i look?", "is my body good enough?"

End: fear of the unknown that comes after graduation, "what comes after?", "will i survive the real world?"

Corruption: well... fear of bugs, or fear of changing for the worse, "will things ever get better instead?" “Is that a fucking cockroach infestation in the locker room???” (god i hate public school)

Dark: fear of the dark, fear of the occult, "are ghosts real?", "can these superstitions hurt me?"

Desolation: fear of it all crashing down, fear of failing school or your grades being ruined, "are things this good really sustainable?"

Eye: fear of being known, of having your secrets exposed, "does anyone know?"

Spiral: fear of dwindling mental health due to school, “can i really go through another year?”

Stranger: fear of the people around you becoming strangers, fear of not knowing things, "My friends are acting different then they were before” “I don’t recognize anyone in this classroom”

#sorry for this massive post but it needed to be set free #we made this like a year ago lmao #long post #tma #wtnv #cecil #carlos #jon #martin #im just gonna tag the big fandom characters otherwise these tags would be a mile long #also im fitting a glee club in here eventually

[littlelegoman]

Jay= Jazzmine

Kai= Kykora

Zane= Zala

Lloyd= Lorelei

Cole= Cassandra

Nya=  Neron

Pixal= Pandor

(I will be referring to seasons as arcs because for them it really is. This only developed up to season 5)

TW: Trauma mention

JAZZMINE

•Transgender (MTF)

•does those little shock things to people to fuck with them

•everyone hates it

•choice of clothing: various shades of blue

•"you know there are other colors right?" "Shut up I look fucking gorgeous"

•accessories are a necessity

•will shock people and things out of fear

•so surprises in the pool are very fatal and very avoided

•gaymer gurl

•bisexual with a preference for women

•CONSTANTLY worries if she isn't good enough

•will scream under pressure

•the jokester

•okay it's more dad jokes but they're so stupid that people laugh

•will say what is on her mind

•it usually doesn't go well but at least she's honest

•she has her plain brown hair with her freckles my gay is showing the more I write this

•she introduces herself with jazz hands

KYKORA

•Cis-Female

•usually goes by Ky rather than her full name

•she genuinely hates her name

•short temper

•surprisingly has good control of her powers

•this does mean that if she burns you or something it's usually on purpose

•She has a tattoo with her brother's name on her arm

•the ends of her hair are dyed in a fire ombre

•"shut up Jazzmine I will burn you"

•clothing: leather jacket with gold embroidered on it, red crop-tops and black jeans

•acts narcissistic but has really low self-esteem

•actually has a hard time remembering names so she uses nicknames or things she associates with that person

•flirt

•look I don't care what Ninjago says in the canon, this is my au now and I say she's a lesbian

ZALA

•Goes by she/her but other pronouns (he/they/it) are fine as they have no gender being a nindrioid and all (technically non-binary? I think)

•once she knew she was a robot/nindroid she made sure she was hooked up to a secure database with information

•still can't get over not being a real human

•at least he knows why she never fit in

•that gives peace

•she looks for more logical solutions and is challenged when having to think outside the box

•asexual

•' You have a typo, Lorelei! It's 'immediately' and not 'imedently!' 😊' 'stfu zala' '😕' 'okay I'm sorry ig' '🙂'

• respectful bitch a.k.a suck up and teacher's pet

•there was one time where she told someone to "Respectfully, fuck off and die in a hole."

•selfless

•"please think of yourself for once" "I'd much rather worry about you."

•clothing: pale icy tones, whites, and slivers

•her hair is technically not hair, it looks and feels like hair but it's an advanced technology to where it can change color.

•she has it blonde with a silver streak most of the time

•she is a wizard when it comes to older technology

LORELEI

•goes by Lei

•Cis-Female

•sort of forgives her father for leaving

• it's not her mom's fault she was bit by a snake and that triggered her evil bloodline

•very defensive about her feelings

•"hey you okay?" "What?! Of course, I'm fucking fine, what do you want?!"

•trauma

•when she was in her evil phase her plans were much more elaborate but because she was a kid she had to go for the budget version

•if she was still on her little villain thing still the world would be fucked

•pansexual

•jealous girl

•mostly with people who have a good childhood and parents

•had to grow up too fast

•her eyes are brown without her element but green with it

•her eyes also glow in the dark

•she has butter blonde hair but dyes it a very light strawberry blonde

•"Why are you dying your hair blonde?! it is blonde!"  "It's strawberry blonde there's a difference!"

•clothing: light green hoodies

•science nerd

•straight

CASSANDRA

•Cis Female

•lesbian

•musical nerd

•she wears a lot of everything

•she's trying to find herself

•amazing swimmer

•major PTSD when death is mentioned or ghosts

•also has a major fear of being forgotten

•has nightmares about it from time to time

•goes to Zala about it

•she has an afro

•hot wahmen

NERON

•"The name Neron is primarily a male name of Spanish origin that means Sea"

•his the only name that I made mean the element he has

•Cis-male

•he has longer hair, usually kept in a bun, however, his hair down has an ocean-like hombre

•he has a tattoo of his sisters name

•has trauma with lava

•actually has a relationship with Jazzmine that wasn't a whole 'wow looking good' thing

•usually communicates via text or notes 

•old habit from trauma

•he's fine really

•he isn't, I lied

•actually has a personality for the first fee arcs and isn't just the brother of someone

•yeah I'm throwing slander

•marine biology was like his middle school phase

•questioning

PANDOR

•his first name is a take on pandora

•his full name is Pandor P.I.X.A.L Borg

•same thing as Zala, he goes by he/him more often but any pronouns work as he has no fixed gender

•he has the same "hair" that Zala has, he keeps his a silver though

•smort

•he has no real equal other than Zala

•they are compatible

•asexual

•he is very loyal to his friends

•he has trauma from being hacked and controlled

•it is his biggest fear

•along with being afraid he will fail people

•he's stuck inside Zala's head at the current time

•he's a wizard when it comes to newer technology

•the preeminent fuck i can't spell the cursed realm monster scares the shit out of him and yes this is foreshadow

I'd like to thank @.genderbenduniverse for the idea!

#ninjago jay #ninjago kai #ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago cole #ninjago masters of spinjitzu #ninjago zane #ninjago lloyd #ninjago nya #ninjago pixal #ninjago genderbent au #tw trauma #cw trauma #cw trauma mention #tw trauma mention #lorelei #zala #jazzmine #kykora #Cassandra #Pandor #neron

[nikkoliferous]

Phase One: Thor

Since I was looking up my past live-blog of the novel and realising how annoying and repetitive reading through it all is because of my having structured it as a bunch of reblogs, I’ve decided to organize it all into one long-ass post instead. In case anyone else wants to read it in the future. Or in case I decide to re-read it. Because I’m hilarious. 😅

SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO

My Hilarious Yet Wrathful Overview Of Phase One: Thor, Redux

—

If your son who’s to become king requires a babysitter to not screw it all up and also the idea of him being king is stressful enough to put you into a coma, maybe, uh… reconsider doing that? Just a thought.

But you see here why Odin was so deadset on Thor becoming king, despite him being ill-suited for the role. It’s not about what’s best for Asgard; it’s about personal legacy. Thor is Odin’s mini me, and Loki is very much not. There are places within the text where Odin laments Thor “lacking his father’s wisdom” (he’s definitely inherited your humility, though, Odin!), but he hopes for Thor to grow into a “wise king” like himself. Whereas he holds no such illusions (lol, pun) that Loki will ever take after him.

now with tag commentary! #this scene is in the script and both novelizations #(though in reading this novel seems to just be a more complete version of the junior novel? #idk i'm confused because they're supposedly written by different authors but so far the text is identical) #and it drives me insane each time i read it

“Haha, I’m a warmongering piece of shit, isn’t it funny?”

I know, I know. I try to cut Asgard some slack for being such a militaristic culture because social changes happen slowly and when you live for thousands of years per generation, it makes sense that your views on things like war would be regressive. The text says Odin has ruled Asgard for tens of thousands of years (so much for taking Loki’s “give or take 5,000 years” line literally; sure, the Odinsleep would have extended Odin’s lifespan, but by that much? Idk).

Still, fuck Odin. Especially since he’ll eventually try to shame Loki for doing the same thing he’s fucking boasting about here. And on a much smaller scale too.

…is it, though?

I actually think Loki’s relationship with being the centre of attention is really interesting in its complexity and we don’t discuss it enough. I’ve said this before, but he strikes me as the sort of person who craves attention but also wouldn’t really know what to do with it if he had it. He craves it as a result of neglect, because he’s never been shown recognition or validation. This is why he seems to revel in it in Stuttgart, even in (or maybe especially in?) his brainwashed state. But he also frequently comes across as pretty introverted and has horrible self-esteem, so I think on another level, sustained, genuine attention would make him feel kind of uncomfortable. Loki seems to believe that in order to be loved or respected, he has to literally be Thor, though. And Thor has always been the centre of attention, so for Loki, attention is synonymous with respect.

I find Loki’s relationship with wanting attention especially fascinating because I too both crave and fear it. As a borderline, I need it. When no one is paying attention to me, I lose my sense of identity. I feel as though I literally cease to exist. It’s excruciatingly painful. And yet, I have no authentic sense of self; I’m just a chameleon, and the closer people get to me, the more likely it is they’ll see behind my mask. They’ll realise it’s all a show and that I’m actually no one. And then they’ll leave. I can’t help wondering if that’s how Loki feels sometimes too.

Wait, what? You mean goat. His horns are shaped like a goat’s. This is a ram: 

This is a goat:

This is Loki:

Do you see now? They’re like a goat. Not a ram. Not a cow. A GOAT.

This book was written before Ragnarok was a thing, so it may be unfair to connect the two, but it still seems worth noting that it was Thor who reduced Loki to being no more than a trickster to begin with. “You could be more,” my ass. Loki’s problem has never been that he was one-dimensional; it was always that the people in his life, including Thor, refused to see any other dimensions to him. Which makes those words particularly cruel—as if they aren’t cruel enough already, what with the physical torture and all. 

Always happy to have cause to point out that

Loki was on Thor clean-up duty their whole lives; he certainly was not trying to kill Thor.

People like to point to Loki’s attempted genocide of the Jötnar and attempted(-ish? lol) conquest of Earth as proof that he’s some kind of violent maniac. But in a little place I like to call reality, Loki was historically far less aggressive and bloodthirsty than his peers.

Question: why is one conqueror evil and the other is righteously entitled to ruling over the Nine Realms?

Asgardian exceptionalism FTW

I can’t even begin to imagine what would lead you to expect such a thing, Odin. 😂

Uh, ‘cause it is?? And also their planet is MELTING without it??

This is all only within the first two chapters, btw. Lmao

—

—

—

“Looking for answers,” my foot.

YOU WOULD THINK SO, WOULDN’T YOU??

#i mean unless you knew heimdall #he only commits treason on days that end in y

—

—

What’d I say? Thor clean-up dutyyyyy 

Just wanna remind everyone that this 

is why he’s smiling during this scene 

because it makes me laugh every time. 😂 

—

My heart breaks every time I remember that second excerpt because literally ALL OF IT happened to him when he survived falling through the wormhole. My poor boy. 😭

But also of note… Loki gets cold (and also does not like being cold). This interests me because 1) as many are aware, the prevalent headcanon that Loki has a low body temperature irritates me and 2) it possibly(?) lends weight to the theory that he may not be fully Jötun, whether by virtue of his birth or Odin’s spell.

Haha, look at this Feminist Icon™ trying to take credit for his female friend’s accomplishments! Truly inspiring. 

#for some reason the ragnarok lovers have somehow decided that thor is both a feminist and lesbian icon #whatever that means 🤷‍♀️ #and i'm still trying very hard to figure out why #is it literally just because he *says* he respects women or whatever in that dumb rambly conversation with valkyrie?

Ooh… you were so close to getting the point, Volstagg. So close. Take your tongue off Odin’s boot for just a couple minutes longer.

Also, the author just forgot the name of the Casket. How did this book get published? 😂

JUST LOOKING FOR ANSWERS, HUH?

Because fuck Loki, amirite? He, uh… he’s a prince too, you know.

Also… Fandral, you dweeb 😂

…am I reading too much into this, or did Odin just literally forget that Loki exists?

On the other hand, the author also seemed to forget Loki existed for most of this chapter, so who knows. 🤷‍♀️

lmao @ Jane immediately trying to convince herself she’s too rational to be attracted to a stranger 

Honestly, though, big mood. 

Just your periodic reminder that Thor’s sycophantic friends KNEW Loki was right and decided to throw him under the bus anyway. 

Just as I’ve always said: That was it. That was their ENTIRE rationale. That Loki *could* have done it, therefore he must have. Please tell me these people have nothing to do with Asgard’s justice system.

…lol, jk, Asgard has no justice system.

Ok, first of all, no.

Second: thank you, Fandral. You’re a self-absorbed cad, but also evidently Thor’s least stupid friend.

Thirdly, how…? First, it was, “Loki arranged all this because he’s jealous of Thor.” Now they’ve suddenly jumped all the way to, “All of Asgard is in danger.” What exactly does Sif think Loki is planning? He’s gonna, what… assassinate Odin and then sell Asgard to the Jötnar?

—

Please stop hurting me.

Just so there’s no confusion: this one sentence explains everything Loki did for the rest of the movie. It explains how a person who has been historically non-aggressive suddenly transforms into a warmonger. To prove himself a real Asgardian, like his brother and father and grandfather. 

—

…why did Odin fall into the Odinsleep in two completely different scenes in this book? I’m super confused.

Also, we really need to talk about how cruel it is of Marvel to keep forcing Loki to prove his loyalty again and again and again when he’s been doing so almost literally since we met him. And by “we need to talk about it”, I mean I need to tie Kevin Feige and co. to a chair and spend a minimum of five hours lecturing them on how poorly they understand their own fucking character.

Let’s just be clear here: they’re talking about Loki. They’re saying Loki, their LEGITIMATE king, is an enemy of Asgard, based on evidence so paper-thin it’s practically invisible. Just… please, let that sink in. Take a moment to appreciate how utterly fucked up that is. 

I’m sorry (not really), but Thor was so much funnier before Ragnarok.

This scene has always kind of bugged me. If Odin removed Thor’s powers, how come he can still control the weather? Confusing.

So what exactly was Thor’s plan anyway, before he realised he couldn’t lift Mjölnir? He was just gonna call on Heimdall to help him commit treason AGAIN, show up on Asgard against the expressed command of his king, and… Odin would just shrug and be like, “You got me, son! I guess I can’t keep you down. Welcome home!”?

…I mean, I guess that more or less is what happened in the end, but it’s hard to imagine it would have still gone down that way without all the stuff that happened with Loki. Idk.  

#look what i'm saying is... thor is not exactly a thinking person #no one on asgard is a thinking person #except loki but he's crazy now so he's also thinking somewhat poorly lol

Cool, Thor. Now imagine feeling that way for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and develop a little fucking empathy for your brother.

But you won’t.

You’ll brush off his feelings of worthlessness as “imagined slights”. 😒

Nice that somebody knows how the royal line of succession works, I guess… 

That sound you hear? Yeah, that’s just my heart breaking. NBD. 

First, they mislabelled it the Casket of Eternal Winters. Now it’s the Cask of Ancient Winters. Author must have been thirsty when they wrote this. Lol 

Look, not to nitpick, but this is not the recommended procedure when you see a storm that you don’t believe is of supernatural origin coming. I’m just saying. Lol 

Uh… ‘cause he is?? And your pals are committing treason AGAIN, Thor, so it technically is responding to a threat to Asgard. Just FYI.

Anyways, this is an important point that doesn’t get made often enough. People want to act like Loki illegally usurped the throne somehow, but even without the deleted scene that explicitly shows Frigga passing rulership to him (a scene which is, for some reason, entirely skipped over in this book, but whatever), understand this: Loki could not have controlled the Destroyer unless he was legitimately King of Asgard. The fact that he’s able to do so is irrefutable proof that his rulership is valid.

lmao you little shit

So… here’s my issue with this scene (and with Thor as a character): He always assumes that Loki’s acting out specifically to hurt him. That Loki’s entire life and thought process revolves around Thor. He does it in this scene, he does it in The Avengers… it’s just a chronic thing with Thor. Everything is viewed through the lens of Loki inexplicably hating him.

But that’s… just not accurate. Yes, Loki harbours a lot of jealousy towards Thor. But that’s not what’s happening in this scene. Loki is not trying to kill Thor here because he wants him dead; he’s doing it because Thor (and his friends) are getting in the way of Loki completing his ultimate goal. Loki tried to solve this problem non-violently, by lying about Odin being dead. It’s Thor’s friends who all but forced his hand by going behind his back and trying to bring Thor back to Asgard against Loki’s (and Odin’s!) direct orders.

For all the humility he’s learned in the past few days, this entire speech is still really all about Thor. About assuming that Loki’s doing this for personal reasons, because he holds a grudge against Thor for some unknown reason. This is implicit in his request to “take [my life] and end this.” It never even occurs to him that his friends are traitors to the Crown and Loki, as King of Asgard, is perhaps justified in pursuing them.

It also needs to be acknowledged that Thor’s apology here is hollow, even if it’s ultimately coming from his heart, because he has no idea what he’s apologising for. “Whatever I have done to wrong you” is not an apology. An apology addresses specific hurtful actions taken and commits to not repeating those mistakes in the future. Thor cannot commit to not repeating the hurtful things he’s done, because he doesn’t know what he’s done. Despite his best intentions, what Thor is doing here is actually kind of manipulative. He’s not addressing any substantive issue between the two of them; he’s just trying to talk Loki down. And it ultimately fails not because Loki doesn’t care or because he wants Thor dead, but because it doesn’t actually change anything.

Finally and only semi-relatedly, we should maybe at some point talk about the fact that Loki, who is stated to be a master tactician, has displayed a weird pattern of hardly ever being as lethal as he could be. He freezes Heimdall in place instead of killing him outright; he backhands Thor with the Destroyer instead of incinerating him; he, well… *gestures vaguely at almost the entirety of the first Avengers movie* Anytime the violence is even a little bit personal, he seems to hedge. Odd behaviour for somebody who’s supposedly super evil.

I’m sorry, I know I’ve pointed it out at least a hundred times before, but I just can’t encounter this scene in any form without taking a moment to appreciate how underrated and hilarious it is.

I also genuinely wonder how many Ragnarok stans who have accused me of having no sense of humour, have failed to laugh at moments like this one. Kinda feel like if you need to have the comedy spoonfed to you in the form of ass jokes, maybe you’re the one whose sense of humour is lacking. 🤷‍♀️

Let’s be super clear: this is not what happened. Loki did not betray Odin; he was betrayed by Odin. He did not open Asgard to its enemies; he attempted, misguidedly, to destroy Asgard’s enemies. And he most certainly did not commit suicide out of a sense of guilt.

I’m not saying Loki did nothing wrong, nor am I saying he feels no regret for the lives he has taken. What I’m saying is there’s no indication that he believes he betrayed Odin or Asgard in the process. Which makes perfect sense, because he didn’t. Everything he tried to do was for Odin and Asgard. It was misguided and horrible, yes, but it can hardly be classified as a betrayal.

The insurmountable burden on Loki is not that he did terrible things, but that no matter what he does or how hard he tries, Odin will never look at him with anything but contempt. Consider once more these passages from the very beginning of the book, at Thor’s coronation:

—

Consider that this book goes to great pains to point out that Odin favours Thor because Thor is a warrior like him. And yet even when Loki embraces that, even when he acts more war-like than ever before, Odin rejects him— just as he always has.

There is a reason why this moment is the last time Loki will ever call Odin his father. Because he realises once and for all that, no, nothing he tries will ever be good enough; no, Odin won’t ever look at him with pride. That is Loki’s burden. That is why he lets go.

The epilogue is really just two pages of making me want to vomit. 

There’s your party where Thor and a certain subset of the fandom insist that Loki was mourned. There’s barely an indication here that anyone even perceives his demise as a negative thing.

“[Sif] could see Frigga thought [Loki was dead] as well” also contradicts the tie-in comic for TDW, so I don’t know what the author is on about there. Unlike the majority of Marvel comics, the tie-in comics are canon to the MCU, so it’s a bizarre statement to make.

COULD YOU SMEAR THE DEAD* ABUSE VICTIM A LITTLE HARDER, PLEASE? Fucking hell.

No matter how many times I encounter this scene, in whatever format, I still fail to become desensitized to how disgusting it is. I realise there’s a good chance that whatever version of events Thor has been told was twisted at best; but how you can look at a man whose son has just committed suicide under any circumstances and say there will never be a better father than that guy, is utterly beyond my capacity to understand.

And Odin’s “you’ve already made me proud” line just feels like extra salt in the wound because, again, Loki let go because he realized Odin would never say those words to him. And yet they come so damn easily when it’s Thor.

Fuck this entire family so much. I think I hate them more than Loki does. Sometimes I wonder what he would think about that. How he would react to knowing that not only is he actually loved, but that he’s so loved that people are genuinely furious at the way he’s been mistreated. That there are people who regularly devolve into full-on rants because they just can’t contain how much anger they have towards the people who hurt him. I think he’d have a hard time wrapping his head around that concept, tbh.

Anyways, to end on a not-completely-depressing note, I’m still waiting for someone at Marvel to explain how Loki knew what Thor said in this scene after plummeting into a wormhole. ‘Cause he references this conversation as Fauxdin at the end of TDW. So like… ?? Did he steal Odin’s memories before he erased them? Because that would be… kind of neat, actually. And very clever. Not entirely ethical, of course, but it’s Odin, so fuck ethics.

WELP, THAT’S IT. Thanks for following along with my dumbassery, hope you enjoyed yourselves. Lol

#phase one: thor #loki meta #thor meta #odin's a+ parenting #frigga's b+ parenting #topic: thor and loki's broken relationship #loki #thor #heimdall #lady sif #the warriors 3 #jane foster #ragnarok cinematic universe #mcu #topic: asgardian hypocrisy #topic: asgardian militarism #topic: odin's family dynamic

[emblemxeno]

Interesting to see some semblance of Soleil discourse again. I hated her when i played fates, and was genuinly surprised that people really loved her. Do you think a lot of her shittier aspects were from Fates' shoddy translation, or was she always sort of bad?

Sorry for this taking so long! I figured I might as well make this a sort of definitive post about Soleil since I talk about her a lot, so I put some more research and effort into it than I initially planned.

Soleil’s writing does have a lot of differences between the Japanese version and localization, but I have many, many issues with both.

Japanese Soleil

Soleil in the Japanese version of Fates is, to put it simply, a train wreck. As we know, her defining trait is her love of girls. However, with Soleil it goes past attraction and flirting into outright predatory behavior. 

In many of her Japanese supports, Soleil creeps around girls, be it generic girls off-screen, or her female support partners. She hits on her mother in their support, she plans to sneak behind girls and embrace them out of nowhere in her support with Ignatius, and she harasses Ophelia and planned to get a better look at the latter’s figure in the tents when they switched bodies.

But the absolute worst was her Japanese support with Forrest. 

Basically, she’s chasing Forrest around because she’s convinced he’s a girl, despite him telling her over and over that he isn’t. Soleil is extra creepy in this one, saying things like “I can’t hold myself back anymore” and “I won’t do anything bad, so just give in.” Forrest goes so far as to even compare her to a wild animal stalking its prey.

Forrest then tells Soleil once again that he’s a boy, and what does she do? She asks him to prove it by getting naked and bathing with her. Forrest, of course, refuses again. Soleil then finds out from others around camp that Forrest was telling the truth; but she still can’t keep her urges down and keeps making unwanted advances and touches towards him.

That entire support is extreme sexual harassment. It is one of the worst supports I have ever read, especially since it’s played for laughs and it can later advance into an actual relationship between them. Treehouse did realize how bad this support was, and changed it from the ground up into something completely different, which is one of the very few things I will thank them for.

Now, localized Soleil is another beast entirely. Before going into my issues with her localized version, I’ll explain the context behind her trope.

A History Lesson

Soleil’s character at its core is based on the Class S trope. Class S is a Japanese term describing romantic friendships between girls. It’s origin and popularity is owed to things like western women’s literature (such as Little Women) being translated for Japanese audiences back in the early 20th century and the all-women Takarazuka Revue theater being established; these helped cultivate feelings of sisterhood and a sense of romance for young female audiences, especially since most schools at the time in Japane kept boys and girls separate. While there was a decline in the Class S genre after Japanese schools became more co-ed, it has made a resurgence in popularity ever since the late 90′s with light novels like Maria-sama ga Miteru.

Class S had a rather big impact on Japanese society, where it was actually expected to happen and treated as something wonderful for these kinds of close friendships to develop between young girls.

However. These aren’t treated as real romantic relationships. They’re seen as nothing more than a phase. After adolescence, girls are expected to ‘mature’ or ‘graduate’ in a sense, into a real relationship with a man. To still have Class S relationships with other girls when you’re supposed to be in a “real” relationship is seen as a sign of immaturity.

Soleil Herself

So what does this mean with Soleil? Lots of her supports in Japanese have other characters being bewildered or even annoyed by her continued love for girls, because “she’s technically an adult now, shouldn’t she have grown out of that phase?” 

Shigure gets surprised that she’s trying to learn how to sing to impress girls. F!Corrin wonders why she won’t give up her mindset already. Soleil gets jealous of Asugi’s popularity with girls and childishly tries to imitate him. Sophie says she doesn’t have time for Soleil’s antics because the former is trying to be a mature, devoted knight. Ophelia is frustrated that they can’t be “normal” friends instead of Soleil chasing her around and proclaiming her love.

They treat her obsession/love for girls as something childish for an adult woman like her to still have, much like Japanese society does. Soleil is Class S.

Soleil does actually get a chance to technically grow out of this phase, much like adult women are expected to. She ‘graduates’ into adulthood once she becomes romantically involved with her male romance options in the Japanese version; a “real” relationship.

As a gay man, you can probably guess how I feel about this trope. While it has had impact on helping Japan ease up on its more conservative beliefs and lots of Class S media has been created by actual queer women (like Nobuko Yoshiya), it’s still not a great feeling when same sex relationships are basically treated as not real or just a phase in someone’s life. It sucks, especially when I think the Japanese Rhajat/F!Corrin support is one of best in Fates. But enough about me, what does this have to do with localized Soleil?

Where The Localization Fumbled

Since she was already getting her fair share of controversy thanks to the many incorrect reports of conversion therapy during her support with M!Corrin, Treehouse decided to go the whole mile and rewrite some aspects of her character. This included removing the Class S aspect of her, and adding in a line from Laslow (as well as her roster description) that basically confirms she’s bisexual.

Except... they messed it up. They made her apparently bisexual, but they removed the romantic aspect of almost all of her S supports, all of which are dudes. Instead, most of her S supports result in promises of friendship or partnership of some kind. The only romantic S supports she has in the localization are with M!Corrin because Avatar privilege, and Forrest, which can still kind of be taken as platonic.

This doesn’t make sense. Why go out of your way to make Soleil bisexual, but remove her romantic supports with dudes? Her wlw side isn’t suddenly erased if she were to marry a dude, what’s the deal here? Did two different people have a hand in this and just didn’t communicate? Did one intend to make her a lesbian and the other wanted her to be bi? 

This is a huge inconsistency and fumble on Treehouse’s part, one of their biggest. Hell, besides that, they didn’t even remove all of her creepy aspects either; she still creeps on girls in her Ignatius support (she now plans to pinch them instead of embrace them from behind), and while her support with Ophelia was toned down, it still isn’t great. Why go so halfway on this, especially since she’s the most controversial character in the game?

Conclusion & Overview

So yeah, those are my thoughts about Soleil. Her Japanese characterization is a predatory mess and based on a trope which I am not fond of whatsoever, while her localized characterization is only somewhat better as a person and is plagued by a whole slew of new writing problems because her bisexuality just wasn’t done correctly by Treehouse.

Which honestly? It makes me kind of sad. Soleil has a lot of good things about her. I like her shamelessness, her confidence. Her shyness is basically an inverse of Olivia’s, where the latter is shy all the time except when dancing whereas Soleil is only shy and insecure when dancing; it’s a neat full circle for the entire family line. She has a couple of great supports too, like with Laslow and Kiragi. Her design is adorable, she’s a good unit, female mercenaries are always a plus, and her new voice actress in Heroes is one of my favorites. 

It’s just everything else is... bleh. 

I don’t dislike her as much as I did a few months ago, because looking over her supports again endeared her to me a little, but unfortunately she still has too many things about her that I hate for me to say anything better than that.

#fire emblem #fire emblem fates #fire emblem if #fe14 #the soleil chronicles #queer characters #lgbtq characters #gay characters #writing

[chaoticspacefam]

🖊🖊 for Ni'kasi and an oc of your choice 👀

Thanks for the ask, Pinky! apparently my brain has decided “gush” means “throw lots of random fun facts at everyone” today so here we go! Here’s your favourite tomato gal! :3

-She and Saarai were always twins and I’d always intended for them to be close, and the bare-bones basic premise of how I wanted their relationship to work was “Saarai is the brawn and Kas is the brains”. While this is still true, it did evolve ever so slightly in that Saarai is now also the (more reliable) moral compass. Kas isn’t particularly Dark-sided, but she’s not Light-sided either, she’s inherited a lot more of mom’s “I will do what I have to to get a job done even if that means I have to kill a bitch” attitude XD

-When I first came up with the idea for the twins, Kas’s name was originally going to be “Jen” which is the High Sith word for “hidden, or in shadow” (”Saarai” is the High Sith word for “Truth”, for reference ;) ) ; so their names joined together would have meant “Hidden Truth”. I don’t remember where Ni’kasi came from because it isn’t an “actual” Sith word nor does it have particular meaning (though I might try to make one up, we’ll see :P), but the very first time I went to write down solid bios for them I ended up writing “Ni’kasi” instead of “Jen” for her and it’s stuck ever since then.

-Initially, Kas’s colour pallette was a lot lighter, which you can see in all of her screenshots up till now (cause I forgot to change her when I changed the design earlier this year oops :’D) and also in this art piece I ordered of her last year, here:

(art is by @/cerculor on deviantART)

and the twins were very darn near close to being identical, but I decided that I actually rather liked their dad’s more purple-ish skintone earlier this year and that it was a shame neither of the twins looked a bit more like him, so I changed Kas up a bit and gave her dad’s skintone, jaw spurs and eye colour. She’s got mom’s red-tinted hair and (mostly) mom’s ridge/browstalk structure though :D

-Great with her own kids and direct blood relatives (e.g. nieces, nephews, grandchildren), but kinda iffy with other, random children. She won’t hurt them but she’s very much D’leah’s child in that respect, she’s very “Sith-y”, and liable to be abrasive, unsympathetic and so on. Generally not the sort of presence you’d want around your kids... there will definitely be tears hahahaha

-The scar on her eye was originally going to be caused by D’leah in the same fight that she gets Saarai’s nose, when Ni’kasi got between them to try and break up the scuffle, but I retconned that instead when I re-thought some stuff about that so now she gets it from the Inquisitors after they figure out who killed Ty’s dad and come after them.

-This is also how Kas ends up in the slave pens, after they kill D’leah they throw Ni’kasi into slavery (which is a bit of plot armour/oversight on the Inquisitors part, I admit but shhh XD) and figure y’know “she’s never gonna get out of there again”. A lot can happen, and be forgotten, in 60 odd years tho so eventually they do throw her back into the Academy much to Kas’s surprise.

-She has a lot more scars other than the one on her eye, just that most of them are on her back, or the back of her neck, so you generally can’t see them (I haven’t drawn a scar ref for her yet, it is also on the to-do list lol)

And we random-rolled Aria for this one, so more Tiny Sith nonsense!

(art is by @/ocellifera on deviantART)

-Aria’s hairstyle and general appearance actually came about because it was based on my second-favourite “portrait” choice for the PC in KOTOR II. She wasn’t how I saw my version of the Exile looking, but I really liked the design (including the little blonde fringe streak) so I decided I wanted to do something with it! <3

-We don’t get to see it much because usually when I draw her she’s back with the Sith and fully into the “Dark side” portion of her story and therefore her eyes are amber, but here you go, a nice glimpse of Aria’s natural eye colour! As mentioned on Myla’s ask, she has heterochromia as well, though her grey is “lighter” than Myla’s as she inherited the grey from dad and the brown from mom (yes I know technically it doesn’t work like that but basically I couldn’t decide which one I liked better so instead of agonising over the choice I went “one of each, problem solved” XD)

-Aria was actually the very first SWTOR-era OC I made, very closely followed by her dad, Roan, and then Vano, then her mom when I worked on her backstory, and followed by everyone else haha. I created her for an RP on an RP site that got a couple of posts in and then died/my partner ghosted me for whatever reason (I’ve never found out nor does it matter really), I was disappointed because I really liked Aria and didn’t get to “do much” with her, so I recycled her when another RP popped up, used that to build her backstory and prompt me to start the Subterfugeverse and then threw her into the Zephyrverse AU RP with my buddy k-christine once she got back in touch and we started RPing again :D -Aria gave me the most trouble (other than maybeee Saarai) in terms of finally nailing down what her sexuality was. I had no idea what she’d be at all when I first made her, other than I knew this binch wasn’t straight hahaha. So first, I defaulted her to bi, but then that didn’t seem to fit her much (I didn’t know pansexuality was a thing at the time), then during my self-projection phase I considered leaving her as just a lesbian but she wasn’t happy with that either and eventually I figured out pan is a thing and she started jumping up and down and screaming HELLO YEAH THAT ONE!! at me. The only thing that was for sure obvious to me was that she’s demiromantic, because while she can get around and doesn’t care who with (insert “will fuck anything (humanoid) with a pulse” joke here), the romantic feelings often attached to that for other people take a long time to develop for Aria.

#Q&A with the crew #gushing about OCs ask #long post #swtor oc: ni'kasi ahaszaai #sith inquisitor #sith pureblood #swtor oc: aria saal #jedi consular (sith assassin) #ds! jedi consular #thank you for asking! :D #palepinkycat #swtor #star wars: the old republic #elven's art #not my art #cerculor #ocellifera #wow kas had a lot to say tonight huh #hope you enjoy the answers tho! #:3