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millieindeed · 11 months

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Hah, haven't done this in a while. Tagged by @notabuddhist

Ages ago admittedly, but then I lost the tab in my pile of tabs.

1. are you named after anyone?

Yep! A few people actually. Millicent comes from my great auntie Millicent. A ferocious and seriously impressive lady. I only met her a few times due to being several continents apart, but she always amazed me. I'm somewhat also named after Millicent from Ozy and Millie, the excellent comic by Dana Simpson.

My middle name Alice also comes from my Grandma. It's actually her first name though she typically goes by her middle name. Plus I like the association to a good friend and to she of Alice in Wonderland.

2. when was the last time you cried?

I think about a week ago? I've been rereading the exceptional Old Addictions Die Hard by @logjammer9000 and there are quite a few parts that made me sob. Indeed a big part of why I started my third reread is the most recent chapter included a character death that had me absolutely sobbing. She knows exactly how to destroy me it seems.

3. do you have kids?

No, but I'd love to. It's gotten harder (being trans is a complicating factor), and I often worry that I won't get a chance, but I really would love to be a Mum. On the plus side my sister is interested in having kids and I would be pretty happy to be a cool aunt to them.

4. do you use sarcasm a lot?

Hm. I don't think so. I think I did when I was younger, as I seem to remember having that as a reputation? but can't recall specifically.

5. what sports do you play / have you played?

Tennis and Basket Ball. I think the tennis was mostly just learning not matches, but it was outside school so I think it counts. The basketball was matches, and our team were....not amazing. But I really enjoyed it and it was crazy how much better I was at it than people who didn't play (crazy to me because I assumed I was bad) when I tried it out later.

6. what's the first thing you notice about other people?

Hrm. I'm not sure there's like, a body part or w/ever I go to consistently. It's mostly just 'do they have any distinguishing looks that make them look a bit queer', otherwise my attention often doesn't last long. Y'know, cool jacket, tattoos, pins, coloured hair, that sort of thing.

7. what's your eye colour?

Brown. I used to dislike that cause it was 'boring' and 'normal' but I think it's a fairly nice shade.

8. scary movies or happy endings?

Yup! Love scary movies, all about that. Love happy endings too, big sap for stories where things are just, nice. Doesn't even necessarily need stakes some of the time.

9. any special talents?

I'm bad at complimenting myself so I sorta just don't think I'm good at anything? I'm a bit of a jack of all trades and can pick things up pretty quickly. And generally do them reasonably well when I get a chance to figure it out. I can be really good at retaining instructions and then teaching others (was complimented on this recently so I can ignore the internal criticism).

I also think I'm pretty good with people. Listening to them and empathising when needed. I've been told I have capybara energy which I think is pretty special.

10. where were you born?

Misread this as 'were you born' and was wondering why Macbeth was fishing for information.

I was born in Arica, in Chile. I have few memories from there, mostly from when I revisited at age 5. We left after about 2 years.

11. what are your hobbies?

haaaah. Well. All of them.

I draw and paint; I crochet and knit; I like building models; I do puzzles; I game; I run & rock climb; I write; I like making things in general regardless of medium; I paint miniatures; I make games; I play TTRPGs (mostly D&D).

Not all the time, but those are hobbies I like and where I haven't done them in a while I intend to return to them when the mood takes me.

12. do you have any pets.

Yes! I have an absolutely adorable cat named Kita. She's a princess and meows a LOT and likes to sit on my chest while I work.

I also just recently got a puppy! His name is Ozy (officially Ozymandias King-of-Kings). He's a bit of a terror at the moment due to the puppy madness, but I adore him. He's the softest and cuddliest thing you've ever seen and when not mad, he's a pretty chill and snoozy guy. Also real smart, it's a danger.

13. how tall are you?

Last I measured I was 5'11. That was before the hormones though, so it's possible I'm shorter now.

14. favourite subject in school?

I loved anything that let me be creative. I got a lot out of creative writing, photography, painting etc. Sadly didn't really pursue many into the later parts of schooling as I went with the uni required English Lit which wasn't creative and was just reading and analysing which I didn't like. Some good teachers tho. I also loved Programming (the class had a few names) and was pretty decent at it. Also what I do now for a living.

15. dream job?

Ahhh, I'm currently struggling with this personally! I don't really know. The work I do is...fine. It pays well and keeps me engaged at least some of the time. I was liking it more because I got them to give me a 4 day week. But I found the income hit hard and am back on 5 days and hating it.

I think my current dream would be to run a Bookshop/Event Space. Somewhere fairly cosy with room to host like queer community events, or D&D games or that sort of thing.

That or some kind of artist/writer.

#meme #Sorry not tagging anyone #Glad I finally filled this out though #it's been on my to do list for _ages_#biography #q and a

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liquidstar · 3 years

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I'd love to hear some of your recommendations! And I'm good without any content warnings, but since you're posting this for all your followers to see probably best to add them

Alright sure! I’ll be general then and since you’re just starting out this will sort of be bringing up a lot of really popular ones, the really good ones where the general consensus is “you gotta see this!”, but I’ll also try to give ones from different genres so you have a variety of things to pick from, so this isn’t really a list of personal favorites but I’ll throw in a couple of those too lol, but generally think of this as a handy beginners guide with just a little personal bias.

I wrote a lot so I'm gonna put them under the cut here.

Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is a franchise that’s considered a must-watch, it takes place in a world where alchemy is a borderline magical power, but is considered scientific in-universe and follows scientific laws, namely the law of equivalent exchange. Something can’t be made from nothing, to gain something of equal value must be lost. The story follows the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who at the ages of 10 and 11 committed alchemy’s one and only unforgivable sin, human transmutation, in an attempt to bring their mother back to life. As a result, one brother lost his arm and leg and the other lost his entire body, leaving his soul bound to a suit of armor. However the brothers are resolute to regain their original bodies, and the older brother, Edward, joins the State Alchemists, a branch of the military, to try to gain access to research materials to help them achieve their goal. But was that really such a good idea?

Fullmetal Alchemist can be a bit confusing to get into due to the fact that there are two series: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009). The latter is a reboot with a different story that follows the original manga. They both have the same beginning, but diverge paths and tell very different stories. My recommendation for how to watch this show is: Watch 2003 first, and Brotherhood second. Everyone has a different opinion about which is better, but everyone agrees that 2003 has better backstory but a contrived ending, and Brotherhood has a rushed beginning (Because it works off the assumption that you’ve seen 2003) with a great and fulfilling ending. If you can’t do both I say just watch Brotherhood because it will leave you more satisfied and you don’t have to watch 03 to get into it.

For both series the biggest trigger warnings are: Parental death, child death, pet death, war, genocide, dismemberment, religious themes, and miscarriage. For brotherhood specifically: on-screen suicide, and for 2003 specifically: rape (not on-screen) and pregnancy from it. The 2003 series is also a lot darker than Brotherhood which has a more optimistic tone, so that’s worth noting too.

Soul Eater

A show I think is incredibly fun, and a good one for an October watch if you wanna save it. It takes place in a world where certain people have the ability to transform into weapons, and they team up with other people who become their meisters. The characters often travel around, but the main setting is Death City, a fictional city in Nevada based off of Las Vegas but with a huge Halloweentown vibe, and a school right at the top of it called the Death Weapon Meister Academy (DWMA) where a bunch of kids that turn into weapons learn how to hunt down witches and kishins (Beings that consume human souls). The school, of course, is run by the grim reaper, Lord Death himself.

Our main characters for the series are a group of 7 students. Our protagonist Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul “Eater” Evans, a scythe. A loud mouth assassin named Black✰Star and his weapon partner Tsubaki, who has many weapon forms. And the son of the grim reaper, Death The Kid, and his two weapon partners Liz and Patty Thompson, who are twin pistols. There are also a bunch of really lively colorful background characters and antagonists, and the cast of the show being as insane as it is really makes it, on top of the great atmosphere and of course the plot, which just builds more and more as the series progresses. Also Crona is there and we all love Crona.

Trigger warnings for this show include: Child abuse (Mental and physical), manipulation, snakes and spiders (The motifs of two major villains), some very surreal moments that can verge on unreality. Also, in the dub and most subs: misgendering of a canonically trans character. Crona is a character who is non-binary, but the dub and subs use gendered pronouns for them due to general ignorance about neutral pronouns in 2008, though this isn’t the fault of the original series and falls on the translators hands.

Also it’s important to note: that the first 3 episodes are prologues and they take themselves less seriously, there’s more fanservice in them than there is in the rest of the series (Except for Blair she stays the fanservice character :pensive:)

Zombieland Saga

Idol anime is really prevalent as a genre, the most popular being Love Live, but my personal favorite is Zombieland Saga. It’s an idol anime, but it’s also a comedy about zombie girls who become idols. It sounds ridiculous but there’s an insane amount of heart in it regardless, it wasn’t a show I expected to get emotional at but I did! It also made me laugh a lot too. The series itself can serve as a bit of a subversion on what idols are, not just because they’re literally zombies, but because of who the characters are.

Sakura Minamoto is a character who starts off as a more typical idol, a peppy pure girl, as the series continues her struggle with depression gets highlighted. Saki Nikaido serves as her initial foil, a delinquent girl with a criminal record who subvers the idea of pure perfect idols. Ai Mizuno, a former idol who has since undergone severe trauma (The way she died). Junko Konno who has ideals that seem very different on what idols “should” be due to the time period she died. Lily Hoshikawa, an explicitly transgender idol. Yugiri nolastname, a former high ranking courtesan, subvering the pure image of an idol by being a sex worker. And Tae Yamada, a completely nonverbal idol who’s still treated with the same amount of importance as the rest of the team. The premise here really is just that these girls don’t fit the incredibly rigid mold of what idols should be and yet they still all deserve love and they gain a fanbase by being their earnest selves.

Trigger warnings for this series aren’t incredibly severe but since they’re zombies there’s still talks about death and they way they died (Including motorcycle/car accidents, plane crashes, getting struck by lightning, and a heart attack), there’s also comedic dismemberment, as in their arms just sort of pop on and off and stuff like that. The most notable thing is the deadnaming of Lily, the trans idol, by her father, but it doesn’t appear to be malicious in any way.

Note: this series is in the middle of it’s second season right now, if you want to wait until it’s over it should be 12 episodes long and just aired it’s 3rd, so about 9 more weeks.

Death Note

This is also absolutely another series that gets recommended to people right off the bat, and for good reason, this show is an intricate game of chess between a serial killer and a detective trying to catch him, and it’s incredibly easy to get super invested in the suspense of what happens next. The story begins when a shinigami, a god of death, drops his “Death Note” into the human world out of pure boredom. A Death Note is simply a notebook where if you write someone's name in it… They die! And who better to pick up such a powerful object than Light Yagami, a prodigy praised for his genius and academy accomplishments as well as his charm and popularity, and with a very strong but juvenile black-and-white sense of justice, likely due to being raised by a cop.

So naturally Light begins his power trip as soon as he finds the notebook, he intends to “fix” the world by cleansing it of all the bad people, but truly he intends to become the world’s new god. Or the “God of the new world” as he puts it. But there’s one thing standing in his way, a detective resolute on catching him with the codename L. The series entire crux is a game of cat and mouse between these two, as they try to outsmart each other and the murders continue, Light loses more and more of his humanity, L becomes more resolute on catching him. There are more twists and turns than a cheetah race, and it’s honestly pretty addictive to see what happens next.

Trigger warnings here obviously include a lot of death and murder, including suicide, but in some cases it’s a forced suicide at Light’s hands. Also abuse, as Light loses his humanity he isn’t above manipulating and discarding people who love him. And one instance of near-rape on screen fairly early on, but the purpitrator dies before it happens and the victim escapes.

K-On!

Slice-of-life is an incredibly popular genre, and K-On! is the quintessential example of it. It’s a series that not everyone will like, because not a lot truly happens, and it can be overly saccharine or “moe” for a lot of people, and that’s fine. But I personally think that despite not a lot happening, the story has genuine substance, more than you may gather at first glance. It’s true that not much in the way of big plot really happens, it’s mostly life events, that’s why it's a slice-of-life. But it’s not about nothing. The real theme of the show is the fleeting nature of youth. It’s about how important the friendships you form at that time are, how they’ll stick with you for a lifetime, and how everything comes to an end. It’s sweetness even becomes a little bittersweet because you knew their after school tea time would end come graduation, and as they realize this it breaks their hearts a little, but they continue on, because they’re still After School Tea Time!

The series itself is simply about 5 girls in a band, Yui Hirasawa on lead guitar, Mio Akiyama on the bass, Ritsu Tainaka on the Drums, Tsumugi Kotobuki on the Keyboard, and Azusa Nakano on Rhythm Guitar (Who shows up later). They’re in a club at school called the light music club where they waste a lot of their time just drinking tea and eating cake, but they’re having fun and that’s what counts! The series has a lot of really great direction and expressive animation despite the fact that a lot of it is just sitting around and talking, it’s incredibly visually interesting so you don’t get bored.

I honestly don’t think there are any big trigger warnings I can give for this series, maybe that Sawa-chan can be a little too forceful when she wants to dress up the girls in cute outfits sometimes but it’s usually not presented as too creepy especially after season 1 where they tone it down due to straying from the manga.

Mob Psycho 100

This series is an absolute love letter to the art of animation as a whole, the artstyle itself may not seem like much to look at but the animation is some of the most expressive, fluid, creative, and vibrant out there right now, it’s the type of series that you can tell was made with a real passion for its medium and it’s story. It’s protagonist is Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed “Mob”, a term that literally means “Background character”. Mob is a middle school kid and an incredibly powerful psychic, like, insanely overpowered, but he’s currently working part time for a shady conman, Reigen Arataka. Though it may seem as if Reigen is just using Mob for his powers, their bond is actually a very sweet one and you can tell they care for each other, it’s a very important one at the heart of the series.

The core themes of the series itself are what really make it shine, it’s message is stated as clearly as possible in the opening songs, “your life is your own” and “if everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be”. Put simply, you’re the protagonist of your own life, but the other important message of the series is that all the supposed background characters are just as important. The friends you make, the connections you have with other people and the way they impact you, they’re what make you strong. No one is born special, everyone is just a normal person, and everyone deserves kindness. It’s a series that I recommend incredibly strongly for just how powerfully it portrays this message.

Trigger warnings for this series include kidnapping, possession, a scene with a “man in a dress” joke, and a racist design for a background character. Also (spoilers) a scene where it seems like a child was murdered and a scene where it seems like Mob’s entire family was murdered.

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War!

Hey, speaking of amazing animation, Kaguya-Sama is a romantic comedy series centered around the premise of two incredibly arrogant people falling in love. Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are the vice president and president of the student council at the prestigious Shuchi'in Academy, they eventually develop feelings for each other but they’re both simultaneously too proud and too insecure to admit it, so the real crux of the series is the 3D chess they play with each other to try and get the other to confess first. Along with the scatterbrained secretary, Chika Fujiawara, the treasurer in desperate need of Prozac Yu Ishigami, the cast is incredibly fun and they all fit into the comedy great. Every single little game of “do you like me?” that they play is written like the most intense thing in the world, the insane animation absolutely adds to it, making it seem almost like a psychological thriller, the comedy comes from the absurdity of just how much they hyperbolize it.

It’s not pure comedy though, due to a lot of the series being set up around mindgames, the characters are actually fairly psychologically complex with a lot of genuine development stemming from their childhood to explain why they are the way they are. The series may be about mindgames, but the actual narrative frames them as a juvenile way to go about relationships, a way to try to protect yourself from getting hurt because you’re afraid to trust. The entire core theme is that communication in relationships of any kind is the most important thing and you cant replace it with clever little tricks, so the main pair only ever make actual progress when they’re actually upfront with each other. Even if it’s scary to be that vulnerable with someone, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past like they have, the relationships you build off of mutual trust and openness will be worth the risk, and they can help heal you. And one of the things I love about the series is that this doesn’t just apply to the main pair, but it places equal emphasis on the importance of friendship. All the characters' relationships with each other are unique and interesting and they all develop the same way, with trust and openness, and they become better because of each other.

Despite being generally a comedy, a lot of the characters deal with some really heavy things too so trigger warning for: child abuse (not on-screen), child abandonment (again not on screen), anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal ideation- initionally played off as a joke but it becomes very obvious the character in question is legitimately suicidal and in the manga he nearly attempts it but is stopped, this plotpoint will most likely be in the anime at some point as it’s also not complete.

Your Lie In April

Alright I gave you a funny show now I’m going to make you cry. In fact it’s hard for me to type this synopsis because I’m an absolute crybaby and thinking about this show gets me, but I think it’s absolutely worth checking out because it’s a very beautiful sadness. Your Lie In April is a series that follows the stress and trauma young musical prodigies face in their lives, as well as the people around them, and it’s a series about the beauty of music and art, and just how much it affects people. The music in the show is absolutely gorgeous, the way that they convey emotion through it is so beautiful and intricate that it just sticks with you. You feel the music, and you understand.

I’m actually going to give the trigger warnings right now instead of at the end because in order to explain the plot I’ll have to talk about them so tw for: Child abuse (phsyical and mental, on-screen), terminal illness, death, in depth depictions of PTSD, vomiting, panic attacks, the works.

The series follows Kousei Arima, a formal piano prodigy who hasn’t performed since the death of his mother two years ago. Kousei's mother was terminally ill, but she was also incredibly abusive. Kousei has incredibly complex feelings about his mother because of this. The trauma she instilled in him is severe, but because he was a child, he still is a child, and he loved his mom a lot, as any child would, and he didn’t want her to die and he blames himself for not being good enough. He wanted to make her happy, and the only way he knew how to do that was to play the piano. So he played and played and practiced until he was perfect, they called him the human metronome. But he would still get severely punished for being anything less than perfect. He had lost all the passion he once had, and after his mother died it was the final nail in the coffin, his trauma manifests now in a way that makes him unable to play. But all that changes one day in April when he meets a violinist named Kaori Miyazono, a girl full of life and passion for music, she’s someone who according to Kousei “Exists in springtime.” and she’s going to help him play again and refined that love for music whether he wants to or not! Teen drama happens of course, but there are much bigger roadblocks ahead.

Assassination Classroom

This series is thankfully generally more lighthearted… Most of the time at least. The premise is pretty simple, but incredibly ridiculous. An incredibly powerful octopus-like creature is the teacher of a classroom of middle school students tasked with the assignment of assassinating him in order to save the world. The series starts off very slice-of-life as it focuses on introducing the very large cast of characters inside of Class E, also known as the “end class”, but it quickly gains traction and gets a lot more intense as time goes on.

The octopus creature in question, Korosensei, is actually a very kind and genuinely good teacher to all his students. The real crux of the series is that it’s sort of a critique on the educational system, the students in the end class are there because they’ve been ostracized from the rest of the campus, far away in the mountains, to be made examples of. Why? Because they’re students that are considered worthless, instead of getting help they’re only pushed back further down in the system and left to struggle within it fruitlessly. They’re given up on, despite being children with so much potential, because they don’t fit a very rigid mold. That’s what Korosensei wants to help them with, and they’re able to grow as people together. As the series progresses you feel such a great sense of unity for the class, they’re like a family, they stick together and it’s very heartwarming. And watching them work as a team of assassins is so fun!

However the series can get heavy at times too, it doesn’t stray from heavier subject matter at all and i found myself incredibly shocked by it a few times, so trigger warning for: Child abuse (on-screen and off), both at the hands of a parent and a teacher and in one case a parent who is also the principal, misgendering of a character, sometimes as a “joke” but other times played dead serious at the hands of his mother, child death- specifically suicide, a successful one as well as 3 assassination attempts that doubled as suicide attempts by the main 3 characters (weird parallel they all got there huh)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Honestly this is a series that is good to go in blind for if you need to tws, it’s a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but if you don’t want to know more than that you can stop reading here. If you want to know more, it’s a series that starts off very light-hearted and in tune with typical magical girl conventions at first, however by episode 3 it’s made painfully clear that these girls are being led to sign up into something they shouldn’t. It’s heavy, though not incredibly so, but it’s also a lot to explain in a summary. Madoka magica is… It’s Faust with magical girls.

I’ll explain as much as I can without giving too much away. The story begins when Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a creature who calls itself Kyubey, who says it can grant a wish of theirs and in exchange they have to become magical girls and fight witches. Both the girls are hesitant, but Sayaka wants to wish for her childhood friend’s injuries to be cured so he can play violin again, while Madoka is content as she is and can’t think of a wish. Luckily they have a mentor, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe who helps introduce them to everything. However something is stopping Madoka from becoming a magical girl, a mysterious new student who is also one herself, Homura Akemi, is resolute on keeping Madoka from becoming a magical girl by all means possible, for reasons Madoka doesn’t understand. Things get even more complicated when a rival magical girl shows up, Kyoko Sakura, who becomes Sayaka’s new rival. As things get more heated between those two they discover a terrible secret about the nature of magical girls, and what they truly signed up for.

Spoilers ahead but trigger warning for: Child death, parental death (backstory only), decapitation (off-screen), needles, incredibly surreal imagery inside the witch’s labyrinths that may feel unreal, mind control, suicide, depression and despair expressed by young characters. Also don't bother with Magia Record

The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K.

Alright something lighthearted now, there are a lot of comedy anime I enjoy, a lot of series that have made me laugh, but none has made me bust a gut like this series has, it’s absolutely hilarious. It follows the life of a boy named Saiki Kusuo who has psychic powers. His powers are incredibly overpowered, and he absolutely hates them, in his eyes they cause him nothing but trouble. There’s not much in the way of a plot to describe, because there isn’t any, the series is comprised of 5 minute segments surrounding Saiki and an incredibly vast and colorful cast of characters that are just all completely insane, many serve as parodies as types of anime tropes because the series as a whole is very self aware and doesn’t shy from breaking the fourth wall a lot, but the characters surrounding Saiki are what make his life… Disastrous.

Like I said there’s not really a plot to describe but like FMA people may get confused with this one, there are 3 seasons but one of them is titled “The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K: Reawakened” as is a continuation of the first two with just 6 episodes in it. Also for some reason only the second season isn’t dubbed so if you’re planning on watching it that way you’d have to either stop or switch to subs for season 2

The only major tw I can give here is an ongoing joke about a character being into his sister, he’s treated as disgusting for it of course because he’s a parody of that trope but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable, luckily he doesn’t show up much.

Little Witch Academia

Little Witch Academia is a series I personally just adore, it takes place in a world where witches are common and well-known among the people, but the era of witches is over and magic is dying out. However that doesn’t mean passion of magic doesn’t exist, the protagonist is a young girl named Atsuko Kagari, or Akko for short. She’s resolute on being just like her icon, a witch known as Shiny Chariot, as she attends the same magic school: Luna Nova! Unfortunately Akko isn’t exactly a magical prodigy, in fact she can’t even fly a broom, but that’s not gonna stop her, nothing will. Just like Chariot said, believing in yourself is your magic.

Once at school Akko gets into all types of crazy shenanigans with her with her two roommates, Lotte Yanson and Sucy Manbavaran, and occasionally her rival, Diana Cavendish. Akko still struggles a lot in school, in fact her inability with magic is pretty explicitly handled as a metaphor for a learning disability, and though this makes it harder for her she’s still resolute. Though the series is generally episodic, a concrete plot starts to form by the second core. Along with the help of her guidance counselor, Professor Ursula, Akko learns that she needs to unlock 7 “words” to bring magic back to the world, each time she learns a new one it comes with an important lesson to her and ultimately relates back to each of the core themes of the series

The series is pretty lighthearted so the biggest trigger warning I can give is one for bullying, two characters in particular tend to target Akko for not being a good witch and it can really sting to watch. Other than that none come to mind

#if you want stuff out of a more specific genre i can give a list of those too but this is like. general

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maticide666 · 3 years

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my eurovision top 39 songs (finally)

anyway i finally got my top 39 completed. under a read more because it can get kinda long with the commentary i added klfdja;sflk (and by that i mean VERY long, maybe a wall of text if i have a lot to say about the song.)

none of this takes rehearsals into account.

basically, 39-37 i don't like, 36-35 are meh, 34-25 are decent, 24-18 are good, 17-12 i enjoy listening to a lot, 11-4 i love, and I would pay for votes for top 3 if i could.

39. Azerbaijan - Efendi - Mata Hari - Honestly, I kinda want to like this song. The instrumentation is nice, especially with the Azeri instruments. Efendi's vocals are ok during the verses. However, her vocals during the MA-MA-MA-MATA HARI part makes this song utterly unlistenable for me. It is just so distracting and ear-grating. Not great for my sensitive ears. And that is without taking anything else into account.

38. Estonia - Uku Suviste - The Lucky One - For some reason reminds me of a boring modern country song. Bland af. At least the melody of the chorus is nice.

37. Cyprus - Elena Tsagrinou - El Diablo - Discount Lady Gaga at the best points of this song. Feels like three songs at once. Also, the lyrics seem like they just went all "What Spanish-sounding words sound spicy? Taco? Tamale? Mamacita?" As a Spanish speaker and as someone of Mexican descent who enjoys those foods, this annoys the living shit out of me. At least I can make El Diablo/Fallen Angel memes out of this. (Honestly, I don't mind the gratuitous Spanish with the words El Diablo.) Also, this song got real old real quick.

36. Slovenia - Ana Soklič - Amen - The gospel vibe is nice, but there is just too much Christianity in it for me to enjoy this song. Sorry, Ana.

35. Moldova - Natalia Gordienko - Sugar - Sounds like a sugary version of Siren Song by MARUV. Kinda boring, but enjoyable in the right circumstances.

34. Georgia - Tornike Kipiani - You - Good to listen to when mind feels blank. At first I kinda liked this song, but nowadays this song has lost its charm. This won't sound out of place alongside boring 70s slow classic rock songs.

33. Austria - Vincent Bueno - Amen - Not something I would listen to regularly, but still nice. For me, easily the biggest downgrade from 2020.

32. Greece - Stefania - Last Dance - Pleasant to listen to, not much else.

31. Portugal - The Black Mamba - Love Is On My Side - Good song, but not my cup of tea. Unfortunately, some great songs have to be near the bottom of my ranking.

30. Germany - Jendrik - I Don't Feel Hate - A fun song to listen to. The novelty wears off after a while. The feel good vibes and ukulele are nice.

29. Israel - Eden Alene - Set Me Free - the song release version was bland and boring, but the revamp. Now THAT is good stuff. The song doesn't seem so empty anymore. I miss the key change from the original, though.

28. Spain - Blas Cantó - Voy A Quedarme - A very emotional and beautiful song from Spain. Again, not usually my cup of tea. However, the melody somehow gives me a nostalgic vibe.

27. North Macedonia - Vasil - Here I Stand - DAMN Vasil has a lovely voice. Nice that he's showing it off here. Too slow of a song for me to enjoy regularly, though.

26. Albania - Anxhela Peristeri - Karma - I don't have much to say other than this song is nice.

25. Bulgaria - VICTORIA - Growing Up Is Getting Old - Pleasant to listen to, but depending on my mood I think this is a beautiful song but not my cup of tea or a complete snoozefest.

24. Serbia - Hurricane - Loco Loco - Fun song, but it feels like something is lacking, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

23. San Marino - Senhit - Adrenalina - Once the initial hype from Flo Rida being on the song died down, this became another typical Eurovision bop.

22. Sweden - Tusse - Voices - At first I thought the song was completely unremarkable and couldn't understand how this won Melodifestivalen. Nowadays it's a nice song to chill to. I gotta respect a perfect televote score from the national final.

21. Ireland - Lesley Roy - MAPS - nice.

20. Croatia - Albina - Tick Tock - Grew on me slightly. Shoutout for including a verse in Croatian.

19. Switzerland - Gjon's Tears - Tout l'Univers - Another grower for me. Doesn't hit as hard as his song from last year, but I dig it.

18. France - Barbara Pravi - Voilà - Lovely chanson right here. I wish it didn't take forever to pick up, though. I was about to completely give up on this song in the middle of my first listen. I'm glad I didn't.

17. Belgium - Hooverphonic - The Wrong Place - Classy. Not much else to say.

16. Ukraine - Go-A - Shum - I'd definitely go rave to this song. I kept finding this song hard to rank due to the white voice. I couldn't decide if I absolutely adored it or if I found it grating. Maybe I just wasn't feeling well when I first thought about it.

15. Lithuania - The Roop - Discoteque - Lots of fun, doesn't have the charm that On Fire had last year. I would dance to this song.

14. Poland - RAFAŁ - The Ride - I actually kinda like this song???? Even with Rafal's vocals??? I know he has political controversies, but I can't help but think this song is nice. A better, less controversial singer would benefit this song, though. I'm not counting the revamp just yet since it was released too recently.

13. Latvia - Samanta Tīna - The Moon Is Rising - This song gives me nostalgic mid to late 2000s hip hop vibes. The guitars in this song are lovely.

12. Romania - ROXEN - Amnesia - Definitely something that can put me in a trance if I'm in the right mood.

11. Czechia - Benny Cristo - omaga - Nice, catchy, I would dance to this.

10. Malta - Destiny - Je Me Casse - Damn, Destiny has a lovely voice! And the song itself is wonderful. I'm not a fan of the amount of Swedish talent being used instead of Maltese talent, but I really do enjoy listening to this.

9. Denmark - Fyr og Flamme - Øve Os På Hinanden - another really fun song! This really grew on me. Nowadays if I want to listen to a Eurovision song, this is one of the first songs I think of.

8. The Netherlands - Jeangu Macrooy - Birth of a New Age - I can vibe with this. You can hear the passion in this song. I wish I could let my body do the talking right now, but y'all can't see that with just a tumblr text post.

7. Russia - Manizha - Russian Woman - I was NOT expecting this to come out of Russia when it won the national final. I wasn't expecting to like this either. The message is great, the instrumental is great, everything about this is brilliant.

6. United Kingdom - James Newman - Embers - A funky song. I LOVE James's voice. Massive upgrade from last year in my opinion. I'm a sucker for brass in an upbeat song. Unfortunately, I have had the staging kinda spoiled and I am VERY skeptical about this coming out of bottom five. I'm done with the BBC.

5. Australia - Montaigne - Technicolour - There is a Lot happening in this song and I am all in for it. I'm kinda terrible at parsing lyrics, but it's a non-issue when I can follow Montaigne's voice and forget about the lyrics. Ironically enough, it's Montaigne's voice that also worries me this Eurovision season - mostly whether she was able to pull off her live on tape performance off.

4. Iceland - Daði og Gagnamagnið - 10 Years - I didn't think Daði could pull it off against this year, but he did it. I like this just a little more than Think About Things, which was my favorite song last year. I'm still a little gutted that this pandemic robbed him of a probable victory, but I've made peace with it. I still need to learn the dance moves, though.

3. Italy - Måneskin - Zitti E Buoni - FUCK YEAH A KICKASS ROCK SONG IN EUROVISION! This song gave me massive rock en español vibes on my fist listen, and honestly this is something I would bang my head to if I had the same body I did when I was 15.

2. Norway - TIX - Fallen Angel - I was not expecting to like this song much, let alone becoming THIS obsessed with TIX. In fact, he wasn't even on my radar for winning MGP. I listened to Ut Av Mørket for the first time and thought something like 'this is boring af, but at least it's in Norwegian'. And then he changed it to English, which I wasn't a fan of at first. And then one day the lyrics clicked - especially with my own struggles with mental illness. To this day this is one of only two Eurovision songs to actually make me cry. Even now he still isn't my MGP winner (that honor goes to JORN), but he has definitely won my heart.

1. Finland - Blind Channel - Dark Side - To say that this song kicks ass would be an understatement for me. This song has just the right mix of rock, pop, and even metal. Ever since I found out that this song would be in the national final, I knew that it would be my favorite this whole Eurovision season regardless of who won UMK. Yes, my jaw dropped when I saw the lead Blind Channel had in UMK. I literally cancelled my plans to watch the MGP final live because of these guys. I am not disappointed. Even Måneskin couldn't bring these guys down in my ranking. And while the lyrics might be a bit iffy, they did get me through rough times. I hope these guys are able to bring rock music back like they want to. But for now, I will give them my (useless tbh) douze points.

#eurovision #esc #this post took me two days #and even longer to actually rank everything #mostly because half the time i couldn't decide which song i liked more #so something gerbear's sorter couldn't help with #i'm tired rn #of course my top 3 is predictable

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wolffyluna · 3 years

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Fic Writer Meme

I was tagged by @thou-breath-of-autumns-being and @eldritch-elrics. Answers under the cut.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

135

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

387198

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

There’s 22 of them, using a sensible-ish count. There’s Age of Sigmar, MCU, Dragon Age, Dragonshield (yes, the card sleeves), Dungeons and Dragons, Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Guild Wars 2, Warhammer 40k, Heaven Will Be Mine, We Know The Devil, Keychain of Creation, Overwatch, Revolutionary Girl Utena, The Adventure Zone, The Magnus Archives, Silmarillion, Undertale, Voltron, TGCF, MDZS, Nirvana in Fire

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

‘The Heat Talking’ - Overwatch omegaverse. It’s popularity is very explicable :P.

‘A Stained Glass Variation of The Truth’ - Xianle Trio sickfic, featuring Mu Qing have a lot of feelings about looking after Xie Lian. This is one of the ones where I look at it’s popularity and go “[nods] my audience has Good Taste.”

‘Let Bastion Say ‘Fuck’‘ - Overwatch crackfic. I wrote for Overwatch a while ago. Those fics are very much not my best work. And Yet.

‘though shadows fall’ - TGCF HuaLian post nightmare hurt/comfort. (which reminds me, I should really write some HuaLian post nightmare hurt/comfort where Hua Cheng is the one who has a nightmare.)

‘All That Can Be Done’ - Overwatch Genyatta angst featuring Zenyatta dying of a God AI virus.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, I really do, but... if I reply, the comment no longer shows up on the ao3 homepage. I do intend to reply, but the lure of having comments on my homepage wins out most times.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Probably either ‘All That Can Be Done’, the aforementioned fic where Zenyatta dies of a God AI virus and gets killed by Genji, or ‘Always Neater In Morality Plays’ where Sazed successfully poisons and kills Taako.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don’t really write much crossover fanfiction?

...Though I am right now doing an rp featuring a character from a historical tv show set in the Tang dynasty accidentally time travelling into an AU version of the Handmaid’s Tale, so, uh, that’s probably the wildest crossover I’ve been involved in.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. I’ve received a few “you’re characterisation is bad and you should feel bad” and “how dare you write something to your tastes and not my tastes!”

‘Always Neater In Morality Plays’ got a... bad reaction. Including a popular blogger vague posting about in a way that made it obvious exactly what fic it is and how grody they found it. They may not have linked the fic directly, but, uh, everyone knew. (And I may have also sent an ill-advised ask along the lines of ‘you have the right to vagueblog whatever fic you like, but for the love of peace could you at least check who is following you, so you don’t put ‘oh god, isn’t this fic the creepiest thing ever?’ straight onto the dash of the author?” And also a chunk of the TAZ fandom blocked me*.

And then several years later I found out ‘snuff’ meant something different than what I thought it meant (I thought it just meant ‘focus on major character death!) which added an embarassing glace cherry on top of that sundae of bad.

*This became sort of funny when some of these people got into the Magnus Archives. “Oh, so you draw the line at graphic depictions of poisoning, but someone exploding into a shower of worms is fine???”

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do, yes. As for what kind-- well, my ao3 exists and is a relatively comprehensive survey.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nooooot to my knowledge?

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but if anyone wants to-- [makes ‘call me’ gesture].

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, not yet. I’d be potentially interested in doing one, maybe one of those ones where one person writes one chapter and then another person writes the next. At the moment I have a friend who is also interested in maybe doing that, we just don’t currently align on fandoms.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

[whine] Don’t make me choose between my babies!

14. What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

‘A Shattered Angel And A Broken Fist’. It was one of the earlier fics I wrote, back before I learned that if I wanted to write something long, I needed to have an idea of how it was going to end. I lost momentum and now... I honestly have no clue what should happen next? I have re-read and gone “yep, some stuff should happen. Not sure what stuff.” So while a lot of people like it and it would be nice to finish, its probably not happening.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Hmm, I think I’m reasonably good at dialogue? I’m honestly not sure what my strengths are. I don’t mean this in a low self confidence way, more that I know I don’t have an outside perspective on my writing, and like a fish, I’m not super aware of the water I’m swimming in.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have a bad habit of people have conversation in Blank Windowless Voids of No Description.

I also have a less bad habit of trying to fill those voids with a) geology and b) Australian fauna and flora. This causes problems when the pov character has no reason to know geology, and the story is not set in Australia.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I am one of those people who pretty much only speaks English, except for the a bit of “Je m’appelle Wolffy. Le chat est petit.” So I don’t write dialogue in other languages. Too much risk of embarrassing error, for not much gain, when you can just use italics or something.

I do have a lot of thoughts about translation conventions in fic where the characters would not be speaking English, and things like whether to live honoriffics. The thoughts are a bit unformed, but mostly revolve around being consistent at least within a fic (no characters being “Your Highness” in one paragraph and “dianxia” the next), trying to avoid the affect you sometimes find in anime fics were every third word is in Japanese, and also trying to maintain character voice. (I occaisionally have moments of “yes, there is an English translation for what this character calls this other character, but it’s not what they canonically say and it’s going to bother me deeply if I only use English.”)

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Depending on how you define ‘fandom’ and how you draw the line between historical fiction and historical rpf, my first fandom was the Bagoas fandom. Not the Bagoas what followed Alexander the Great around, no, the vizier who was around before him.

...I was like twelve at the time, just to make this weirder.

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

[whines harder] don’t make me pick between my babies!

#premium original content #wolffy writes fic

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a-green-onion · 3 years

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The He*archate vs Umberto Eco’s “Ur-Fascism”

ok it looks like I haven’t already done this, so! A lot of fictional Evil Empires use the visuals of fascism (iirc the Star Wars original trilogy did this), but not all of them follow through on making the Empire substantially fascist in ideology and practice. Machineries of Empire certainly has fascist visual components, with its regiments of black-shirted soldiers. Umberto Eco, a writer who grew up in Italy under Mussolini, wrote an essay about growing up under that regime and his ideas about key features of fascist and fascist-like movements (I’ll link it in a reblog, I don’t want Tumblr eating this post. I really recommend it, it’s very accessible and well-written). I want to see how much the he*archate correlates with these. It’s easy to get caught up in all the flashy space battles and gory exotic tortures, but YHL is very into military history, and that’s one reason his despotic regimes work so well--they’re taken from real life.

This is horribly incomplete because in my reread I’m only about halfway through Ninefox Gambit, but...I wanna Post.

An important note to start: Eco uses “fascism”, the name for Italian political movement, to refer to a variety of different totalitarian regimes and philosophies, because “fascism had no quintessence. Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions.” Further, “Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist.” Thus, the common characteristics he lists are not features of every fascist movement, and are often features of non-fascist repressive movements. The he*archate does not have all these features, but I think it makes sense to analyze it as a fascist empire.

Without further ado:

1. The cult of tradition, including syncretic occultism. “As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message” (Eco).

The he*archate does not do this. As I pointed out in an earlier post, there are no foundational religious beliefs behind the High Calendar. No holy texts, no prophets, just a way of life, a set of practices, and endless heresies.

2. Rejection of modernism. “Even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden)” (Eco).

I don’t think the he*archate does this? I might be forgetting something though, feel free to chime in.

3. Action for action’s sake. (Eco)

Kel Kel Kel Kel Kel.

4. Inability to tolerate analysis. “Disagreement is treason.” (Eco)

Yeah that’s precisely how the High Calendar functions.

5. “Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders.”

So, we don’t get to see much of the heptarchate in its earliest forms, and what we do see is in the third book, which I don’t remember super well. I think the he*archate does this, but it’s more obvious how in the context of Eco’s points 5 and 9.

6. “Derives from individual or social frustration” and features an “appeal to a frustrated middle class.”

Again, this talks more about how fascism begins than how it continues. The he*archate is an established, stable totalitarian empire, not a burgeoning movement (which is interesting because by rights this house of cards should have collapsed centuries ago). It would be interesting to look at how the hexarchate uses propaganda but uhhh iirc that’s mostly in the second and third books and I don’t remember them that well.

7. Nationalism, and the obsession with a plot, both as an outside and an inside threat.

Reflected in how the heretics (an inside plot) are iirc assumed to be aligned with the Hafn (an outside threat). See also point 9.

8. “The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. [...] However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.”

...I think the he*archate might win too many wars for this to be applicable?

9. “Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy [...] life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.”

The he*archate absolutely does live in a state of permanent war, against heresy which is everywhere. The he*archate seems to have solved this predicament by achieving a placid, high standard of living for the majority of its citizenry, contingent upon those citizens’ complicity in the ritual torture of prisoners of this “war.” Thus, every citizen is both invested and involved in the fighting and encouraged to identify with its sacrifices, but also able to live in a true golden age. I’ve always thought about this aspect of the he*archate as in conversation with Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” but that’s an essay for another day.

10. Contempt for the weak and popular elitism. “Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.”

This one isn’t an obvious component, but I think it’s present, especially looking at how the Kel talk about “crashhawks”. I’m going to keep a closer eye out for it as I reread.

Cheris is “un-Kel” because she cannot do this. One of the first things we see Cheris do is order her soldiers into a mildly heretical formation to keep them alive, and we see again and again how well she knows, respects, and cares for the people and servitors under her command.

On the flip side, Kujen is able to become the system’s architect precisely because he despises his inferiors, and sees everyone as an inferior. As we learn in the third book, this does not come naturally to him, but inducing this state of mind in himself is necessary for his success.

11. “Everybody is educated to become a hero. [...] This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. [...] In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”

Kel Kel Kel Kel.

12. “Machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality).”

The he*archate absolutely, emphatically does not do this. Plenty of gender equality, plenty of nonstandard sexual behavior.

But! There is another component to point 12. “Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.” This might be relevant to the commonness of dueling as a form of entertainment, both as a participant and a spectator sport? I don’t think dueling is particularly eroticized but it’s certainly linked to exchanges of power.

13. Selective populism. “In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction.”

Not a strong theme in MoE, but arguably, this is how the calendar operates: on the Will of the People, carefully channeled by the appropriate authorities.

Also, not strictly relevant, but everyone needs to see this line: “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.” Hm.

14. Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.”

Again, I’d like to take another look at the propaganda that gets sent out in later books to talk about this properly! The Kel make heavy internal use of euphemisms, but that’s not quite the same thing.

***

Anyway, that was fun, and I hope everyone learned something about how fascism emerges! I encourage you to read the entire essay, chew on its ideas a bit, think about if they apply to other fictional words and to real life.

#tooth speech #ninefox gambit buddy read #ninefox gambit spoilers #machineries of empire #machineries of empire spoilers #fascism cw #nazis cw #long post

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ninjakasuga · 4 years

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Sonally Headcanon Prompt Masterpost.

Before the Sonsal Celebration Week, Year 2 hosted by @gojira007 for their @boundforfreedomsonsal blog, I began posting a series of Sonsal/Sonally headcanon prompts to help get folks stoked as well as just have some fun. Here is a master post showcasing all three series of prompts with my answers being under the cut. Since this is tied to the blog, I’ve nixed the NSFW prompts in the first set and will make a second post for those by themselves without tagging in the blog.

I can’t wait to see what others respond, while some of y’all did, it seemed like my third series of prompts flew under the radar as nobody replied to them. Oh well, I probably didn’t tag them right XD. In any case, enjoy the goodness! My answers will be below the cut.

1: Pet Names? 2: Habits as a couple they develop together? 3: Favorite ways their significant other shows their affection for them? 4: Their least favorite trait about the other that often causes occasional friction? 5: The moment they fully realized they were in love with the other?

6: How the marriage proposal goes and who asks first? 7: Kids, if yes how many? 8: What would a normal non-eventful evening at home for the two be like? 9: Adoption! Yes/No, Why? 10: Their Anniversary approaches! What would each do?

11: Favorite Vacation they took as a couple? 12: A special gift they gave the other that really touched their heart. 13: Sally’s pregnant, how do they handle the pregnancy ups and downs? 14: Parenting, how do they tackle it together? 15: Which of them is the parent to freak out most when their kid/s get into the dating age? 16: Who starfishes the most? 17: Oh no, one of them is sick, how do they handle tending to their loved one? 18: What do each of them do to ‘cool off’ when they have an argument they can’t seem to reach a compromise over? 19: The Wedding, big, small, or do they just elope? 20: Speaking of weddings, time for one of their kids (or their only child) to get married! How do they handle it?

21: GRANDCHILDREN!! Their kid(s) just made them Grandparents, what kind do you see them as? 22: The years come and go, as they leave their youth and start to get into the years between 50-70, what are they up too, where do you see them in their retirement years? 23: Time to host a family reunion (including extended family like the FF crew) 24: Awwww they’re having their 50th wedding anniversary, how do you see it going? 25: As with every life, there is death. One of them has passed, how does the other handle it? (for context this is under the assumption old age or something related did them in versus a sudden death by accident)

1: Aside from the ‘Sal’ nickname Sonic has always given our favorite Princess; I personally see a few unique nicknames between the two crop up over time as their romance blossoms. Sonic being the quip-meister he is mixes affection with a bit of humor giving us ‘Honey-Munk’ or ‘Fiery Red’. Sally naturally isn’t one to not give her own spin in kind with titles such as ‘Greeny Eyes’ or ‘Hunky-Hog’. Both aiming for endearing but also teasing the other with cheese when not using more ‘traditional’ romantic pet names like honey or darling. Keep them both on their toes.

2: When sitting together and they have a free hand, they instantly go for a hand-hold on reflex. Another one I see them developing is little touches or pets of affection; another ingrained reflex after a time. Say Sonic is about to walk away, he gives Sally’s hair a little playful pet and flick. Another instance is either of them giving the other a quick peck be it greeting, leaving or they have a mutual eureka moment.

3: Sally finds that as much as Sonic’s spontaneous behavior can be exasperating, it can also be endearing when applied in certain ways. Like a back or shoulder rub here and there, when she’s stressed. Pick-me ups when she’s down in the dumps and as corny or awful some of his ballads are, the effort is endearing for Sally. On Sonic’s end, he enjoys Sally just going on runs with him. No mission, no need for any ceremony, he just pops over, asks if she wants to hang, she agrees and they run off and just, enjoy the day. Probably make out somewhere in private too XD.

4: Stubbornness is something both suffer from and their own unique flavors of it can be the force that drives them up a wall. Be it Sonic’s impulsive behavior, or Sally being too cautious, if they don’t see eye to eye, sometimes it takes a while before they reach a compromise. Sometimes it comes fast, others, not so much and when it doesn’t both need space to cool off.

5: This varies from continuity to continuity, but ultimately I feel the mutual feelings of love blossomed naturally and so organically neither truly grasped it until something just happened to push their feelings from the back of their mind, and into the foreground. Whatever this catalyst was it shakes them up into realizing their lives could easily snuff out one day and the regret of not saying the deep-down feelings they have to one another, causes one or both into a confession and it spills from there into ‘daaw’ territory.

6: I myself see Sonic being the one to ask. Not so much out of a traditional romantic gesture; but it’s his nature to grab life by the horns and juice and jam onward. Once he sets his mind to it; he goes for it. Whether he actually plans a nice romantic moment or something more subtle is up in the air. Whatever and however it goes, Sonic is the first to ask.

7: Assuming they want kids (and I believe they do), I honestly see them being happy having however many they wish. In terms of planned children, they’d aim for one and go from there. Given they would only think to have children would be after the war, depending on how busy they are with any rebuilding efforts or in Sally’s case, running a Kingdom, would probably factor into their mindset of however many kids. I could see Sonic envisioning a big family, but happy to settle for one, to two or three once the ‘new baby shine’ wears off. Sally would want to be sure she could actually spend time and help raise the children so I see her being practical about the number of potential kids from the get-go.

8: I honestly envision the two just, vegging to some degree. They could lie on the couch together and cuddle all night and call it a win, or the bed if they wanted to fall to sleep afterward. Whatever the status of the world, and their part in it; they just enjoy being home together and doing something together, mostly to relax. Cuddles, reading books together, bathing, cooking, sex, exercising, playing with their kids if they have any. So long as they (and any family they may have) can spend it together; that’s all that matters.

9: Yes, even if they do have kids of their own, I can see them adopting, either before or after marriage even. Heck especially in story settings where Tails’ parents are not around; he’s instantly adopted as the first kid.

10: Both of them are actually very good at remembering Anniversaries, and both have equally cut it close due to forgetfulness or busy schedules but they never outright forgot and had nothing to show for it. Sonic likes to make Sally breakfast in bed, given she’s often the busiest of the two and could use some TLC. Sally in turn usually wants to handle lunch and for dinner, they pick a mutual haunt and eat out. They often do a small gift exchange, be it something homemade or an item that caught their eye that screamed ‘this belongs to my beloved’. If and when kids come into the picture, usually they’re drafted into helping with surprises by one or both parents.

11: Having lived in the Great Forest for most of their lives; the two have always had an affinity for nature. While some would love a ritzy stay at the swankiest hotel at Casino Night (they did that once and did enjoy themselves), in terms of vacation they truly enjoyed? Their world-tour camping Honeymoon; short and sweet they traveled around finding locals to enjoy Mobius’s natural beauty and spend a few days or a week in said locations. Just them the wilderness and, well all the stuff Honeymooners do ^_~.

12: Sonic found Sally’s picture album during a raid on Robotropolis early in his active FF career. He stumbled across a warehouse where Robotnik kept mementos taken from the Royal Family as ‘gloat trophies’ and so Sonic liberated what he could carry. For the first time since the coup, Sally had pictures of her Father again as well as memories from their childhood she thought lost forever. She never forgot this. In return, Sally on a whim had Nicole stealth hack the Robotropolis network for misc files and found Uncle Chuck’s entries from when he was Minister of Science. The gem of this was, among his work files, was his special chili-dog techniques and recipes saved on file. While the actual science files went to Freedom Fighter use, the personal entries were given to Sonic who could once again recreate the magic his Uncle used to treat him too. Suffice to say in both cases, kisses were had even if in my mind this all happened before they got together.

13: Pregnant Sally is both downright amusing, terrifying, and full of aw and d’aw. To Sonic, it’s a balancing act as he is trying so, very hard to do right by Sally. She needs rubs, he does it however long she needs. Cravings, he cooks them or rushes out to get it if she’s craving a particular take-out item. He hugs her when she has crying fits; tries to keep a cool head when she’s upset for no reason. Mainly, Sonic just tries, and yes he will put his foot in his mouth from time to time; but this is one of those events in his life where he focused on the nth degree. Sometimes to Sally’s annoyance and speaking of whom; it’s well a roller-coaster for her. Her body is changing and her hormones wreak havoc on some days. While never as vain as Sonic can be, Sally feels her self-esteem for her appearance dwindle at times, and she especially hates her mood swings. Most notably the ones where she snaps at Sonic, which often takes her back into the same kind of depression she felt when Sonic was assumed to have died and usually ends up crying and apologizing to him profusely. Thankfully Sonic’s presence and support help her weather everything and the end result to her makes the pitfalls ‘worth it’.

14: Sonic is the ‘fun stay at home Dad’ while Sally’s doing her Queenly duties. That said, Sonic isn’t a slacker at keeping their child(ren) in line. He’s permissible to degrees, but even he’s matured enough to know there’s a fine to tow between being ‘friends’ with your kid and ‘being a parent’. Sometimes he can get over his head, but usually, he can either remedy the issue or he thankfully has Sally to back him up. On Sally’s end, taking cues from her Julayla and Rosie’s book on childcare, she tends to miss lessons with free-form playtime. Letting her children grow and figure things out, while always being within reach to help, and impart advice willingly whether she’s asked too or not. While often tired, Sally adores playtime with her child(red), and however many they have, she never wants to miss out on anything if she can help it. This is a factor both she and Sonic share as they desperately want any child or children they have to know they’re loved and have the security of their parents and loved ones around at all times. While each has their own path in parenting, they both prefer to work together than at odds as neither like arguing in front of the kids (even if it does happen from time to time but they try to avoid it).

15: Both to a degree, each has their own hang-ups of concern whether the child is male, female or they have kids of both genders. Given some of their own romantic miseries during their teen years; they worry about any child of theirs going through anything of the same or really any heartache even if it may be inevitable. However they both don’t want to be overbearing; BUT, both insist on meeting the girlfriend/boyfriend post-haste once they know that’s on the table.

Also yes, they are the types who will discreetly threaten the significant other with bodily harm (even if it’s in pure jest) if they cause their child any grief.

16: They share this one, sometimes one, the other, or both the same night. Depends on who’s the most exhausted. XD

17: Sonic HATES being sick and waited on; so he tries very hard to play it off and handle himself. Sally will have none of that and threatens often to tie him to the bed if he resists too much. After a spell, Sonic begins to accept and even enjoy some of the pamperings. Sally accepts when she’s ill she needs to rest, but she still tries to get work done. Sonic has often caught her with Nicole’s hand-held or some kind of paperwork in bed to his displeasure. Sonic is instantly into caregiving when she’s sick and at times can be overbearing in pampering Sally. Something she has a love/hate thing about.

If they’re BOTH sick, they compromise and lie together in bed, finding cuddling the other to be it’s own soothing balm to whatever is afflicting them.

18: Sonic falls back to his go-to-thing; running. He goes on a run, however long to cool off and think in private as he ponders on the source of their friction. Sally tries to distract herself with some sort of brain-focusing tasks like a puzzle or a good book while mulling over the argument in her head to try and draw conclusions on why it went south and if she or Sonic were in the right or wrong. Eventually, Sonic returns from his run, and Sally puts away whatever she used to cool off and they both sit down and talk it over, eventually working things out and making up for any hurt feelings.

19: No matter how they slice it, given Sally is a Princess, there’s gonna be some sort of big deal ceremony. I do see both Sonic and Sally wanting just a small wedding for their friends and family; especially if they opt to marry before the war ends. Then they’ll save the BIG SHOWY ceremony for after the war. Mostly if they can get away with postponing it that long. XD

On the flip-side, if the story has Max still being a pill about Sonic being Sally’s squeeze; elope, no questions asked. ^_~

20: Assuming the future-in-law is worthy of their child; they will jump for joy and be happy for their kid. Sure they will have some ‘giving away our baby’ jitters, but ultimately their child’s happiness trumps all discomfort they may have. There will be some crying but it will be tears of joy, and if anything their child having a wedding and moving on in their own life would be a great joy in of itself. It would be another symbol that whatever they suffered in the war was worth it. If just so their child could have a safe and peaceful world to grow up and live within; to find their own life and love. No greater joy can a parent hold for their child, especially these two.

21: Once the two stop joy-spazzing over the news, you can expect them to be front and center Grandparents. The parents may have to pry the newborn away from them for the first couple of visits. Knowing how to take care of a newborn can be stressful they along with their in-law’s parents will help split babysitting duties and just enjoy being able to spoil the kid rotten and playfully hand them back to the parents when the going gets rough. Not that they won’t step up, but I feel every new Grandparent doesn’t have that moment of ‘now you see what I went through, ha!’. In any case, they are the type who will be as available and active in their grandchild(rens) life as much as they can be.

22: Age does not slow them down much; maybe in the physical (despite what Sonic says), but these two will be firecrackers even as their fur dulls and greys. Some aspects of old-age will hit them hard, not just in that both are usually very active people, but some genetic ticking time bombs or perhaps past physical trauma from the war years have caught up with them. Sonic will take getting ‘slow’ the most, as running has been his ultimate expression of freedom. Sally will take bouts of forgetfulness hard given how organized and reliant on her mind she is. In this they will lean on each other more, their devotion and love pouring through ever stronger. Sally forgets something, Sonic has it written down and encourages her to keep a pen and paper on hand to jot thoughts down. While Sonic can’t run forever, what running he still can do, Sally encourages. If he’s truly not able to run, then they’ll walk together hand in hand and ‘pretend’ they’re zipping around the city. There will be a lot of sitting together, hand in hand, and since their kid (or one of them) has assumed the throne; they have a lot of freedom to do whatever fancy comes their way. They simply relish the fact they lived long enough to enjoy this stage of life when living to be an adult seemed like such a far off dream.

23: I envision sometime over the years as a Memorium for its role in giving the survivors of Robotnik’s coup, and serving as base and home for the Freedom Fighters and a second home for the people of Mobotropolis; Knothole is rebuilt in its original state. Feeling both nostalgic as well as the importance of Knothole to their history and that of the planet after the war; Sonic and Sally opt to host reunions there. Something about walking through the old village (even if it’s a recreation) just feels nice and getting to show their kids and grandkids where they came from feels right. I can see them alternating on Angel Island as well given its importance in the grand scheme of events as well. Plus who doesn’t love the view from the island?

24: If anyone insists on a big party, they nix it. Only their family and closest of friends that are still around are invited. Being in their 70’s by this point, they prefer simple, and so there’s food and cake, and all the videos and photo albums out to reminisce, tell stories and enjoy life while they still can. Sonic being Sonic will at some point call attention and, with some effort, get on one knee and recite his proposal and marriage vows to Sally again, reaffirming his love which still burns ever brighter. Touched and while happy-crying, Sally will take his hand and affirm her vows as well as her own affirmation that her love for him still burns the same as ever. As they go to bed after the party, both Sally and Sonic cry joyfully as they hold one another. Feeling blessed at having lived the lives they have, and looking forward to however many they still have.:

25: There are a few ways I see this happening. If one of them expectedly passes before the other; the grief will be monumental. Having lived together as long as they have, experienced what they have, and enjoying a deep bong of love few can, losing their significant other will be a blow that they probably won’t recover from. I would expect within one or two years’ time, a combination of the grief and just not wanting to live on without their beloved will see whoever survived won’t make their sweetheart await them long in the here-after. Another scenario is if one of them catches a terminal illness, and they can prepare for it; Sonic and Sally will both make the best of what time they have. With the deadline closing in, whoever is not ill, I can see making arrangements so that once their beloved is about to pass, they will be given a legally approved injection to end their own life. While some of their family may not fully approve, for the most part, such a thing is understood and nobody objects.

One way or another, they will be together, in the next life as they were in this one

[The last one was admittedly a tad sad, but well as they say life ends eventually, and I felt like making the prompts feel like an evolution of their relationship like I did in the fanfics for the celebration week prompts.]

#Sonsa #Sonally #boundingforfreedom #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sally Acorn #Archie-Sonic #romance #headcanons #prompts #Sonsal Celebration Year 2 #life and times

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thejudgingtrash · 4 years

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My unpopular opinion: Chiron is a horrible teacher, protector, whatever. He’s as bad dumbledor. He often manipulates children and put them in danger? Also is RR really trying to tell me not one single demigod from before percy’s generation made it to adulthood? Not even demigods of minor gods? If not then why haven’t we heard from them, why weren’t they called to fight in the war so that literal children didn’t have to? I have more but I’m not brave enough to post them lol

Fuck, I gotta check my asks more often. Too much stuff laying around and oh please people! Send your stuff in! Don’t be shy! It’s so interesting to see what’s on your mind! Let’s have that conversation and ask me!! :D I mean a bunch of people agreed and disagreed with my stances (Part 1/Part 2), let’s see how I feel about yours!

Anyway HERE WE GO BOYS! LET’S GO LESBIANS LET’S GO!

LET’S HAVE THAT WHOLE DAMN ESSAY!

Chiron is clearly a self insert from Riordan. I mean come on…

That’s a solid Chiron if I see one. Which is pretty ironic as Chiron’s the shitty teacher who we all know and love. Got something to admit, Riordan? You as a former teacher? HMM?

Hiding incompetence under the disguise of the gentle old wise teacher is definitely something that Dumbledore and Chiron share. Chiron is the old centaur who lived for aeons and helped out the most famous heroes of their times, so shouldn’t modern times be considered to be an easier job for him? He’s barely present, highkey vague and has absolutely no problems with tossing children literally out into the open across the entire fucking US and A to clean the gods’ bathroom messes.

Had the heroes been in their 20s like in the original myths (or even older) it would’ve made more sense to let them find their own ways. It would be rude, but somewhat okay. You could expect adults to find the way and connect the dots. But this is just messing with a bunch of 12 year olds because you can at this point.

Chiron is that supposed sweet teacher that just fucks up. We all had one, you know the one. Seems gentle and nice and but has clearly chosen the wrong job. Don’t know if that’s the trauma of living that long and/or seeing kids dying constantly that’s hitting him in the back of the head.

I have the feeling that people are projecting their teacher fantasies on to him just like step-father fantasies that include Paul. Because we want a guide who is trustworthy, we want an authoritative figure that we can share our concerns with and who guides us to solid solutions without betraying our trust.

But like I said, he’s essentially sending out kids to deathly missions and encouraging deep traumas. Yes, we can partially blame Chiron, but most of the blame goes to the gods who enable and encourage this weird dynamic. Would all of them straight up cut the bullshit and mostly resolve their own issues without using their children as pawns, it would’ve been easier for everyone involved. Additionally, there are many kids in camp to keep busy, look after and care for. I don’t know how many there were pre-TLO but I’d assume the number was in the hundreds? Of course, in larger cabins are camp counsellors that help out and guide next to camp schedules. But since Percy’s the only kid in the Poseidon cabin I guess that thought went south? Percy being the special kid would actually mean that there should be a focus on him unless you’re going for the “I’m neutral” spiel. Chiron knew from day one that Percy was walking Poseidon seed, come on.

Also like I somewhat implied, seeing people die left and right might have impacted Chiron to make him feel indifferent/despressed (could also be a stretch, who knows). Which isn’t an excuse, but might explain some takes. Explaining the same stuff for millennia in its essentials is probably getting tiring.

I think this is the third time that I mentioned it on my blog but showing and telling are the most powerful story telling concepts/fundamentals and you see Rowling and Riordan constantly failing at that which is concerning. Instead of Chiron (or Dumbledore) just simply getting down to the point and telling and explaining stuff briefly, he only eludes, vaguely formulates and it is simply confusing especially for a child in a brand new environment who just lost his mother (if we’re speaking about TLT). This does nothing but add more stress in such a fragile situation especially when a new and bigger threat makes its way.

There’s also the discussion on how much of Greek myth Percy actually gets. He has the basic/ obvious knowledge which many tend to forget. He doesn’t come in with no knowledge. He had Latin classes back at the academy, he studies with Annabeth, he knows some of the monsters. What he simply doesn’t know, is the magic of it all. That is the most confusing part for him.

The actual magic is not explained, which it doesn’t have to be in all of its entirety, but needs to be addressed somehow and gradually.

Percy asking a simple question like how the camp stays sunny and covered 24/7 and how the wardens work and Chiron casually sitting here like you a stoopid one

doesn’t help.

What many people forget: Magic doesn’t erase logic. Even in a magical setting, unless clearly stated, there has to be some kind of logic to connect the dots. It doesn’t need to be a clear cut A to B, but it should be comprehensible for both the readers and the characters in a particular situation. And that’s just not happening for Percy as the character. This also sets up the premise of Percy being ”stupid” which he isn’t. He is surrounded by incompetent teachers and staff that don’t bother telling him how things work and assume that he’ll just manage.

Yeah. Both Dumbledore and Chiron are awfulness in a sweet calm disguise.

Onto part two of the ask. I have had so many talks with people on that exact problem. It simply boils down to one issue:

Rick Riordan‘s inconsistency in world building and setting. The story telling doesn’t make any sense.

So kids are dying like flies before 18 but many are also super famous and in powerful positions? Many are historical figures that made it well over 18? Make that make sense. Also was WW2 supposed to be kicked off by some 12 year olds with that logic? The biggest man made catastrophe of the modern era boiled down to a bunch of fighting kids? No. We all know it. Just simply no. I actually don’t mind the WW2 background but Riordan should’ve given it another thought and be a bit more sensitive…? Like the whole fascist gang being team Hades? Uhh… sure…. nope.

Also the same logic applies to Civil War? You’re telling me a bunch of kids were supposed to have started this stance? Who was for and who was against slavery then? What in the actual fuck? Using children as child soldiers to stand in for these large complex historical issues that stretch over years and show many of humanity’s horrifying sides is just….eh.

No. This whole thing about campers dying as soon as they reach the magic number of 18 are either bedtime stories to scare the kids or toughen them up orrrr my guess, Riordan actually managed yet again to fuck up his own lore.

It’s the same logic with New Rome. You have a whole city full of adults but have a few kids run that bitch? You did your ten years of service as a child soldier and then do one of these?

As if adults magically exit this world. Like is that the reason why Percy’s been 17 for a whole damn decade? Because otherwise he gotta hand riptide in and all of the boys scout medals he has collected so far? Adults would’ve had the experience and expertise to win those fights but it would break the magic and charm of the books that a bunch of kids are saving the world for the younger demographic. Let’s do not forget that the targeted audience of the books are middle schoolers. Makes somewhat sense with PJO but with HOO Riordan really shot himself in the leg. He should’ve matured the OG characters at least.

(Also speaking about the actual myths again. A good chunk of them died in their 20s/30s/40s. Odysseus guided as an old man. The heroes weren’t twelve and dipping by the age of 16. The Trojan war went on for 10 years for example. So whereas the real Perseus lived a longer life and had a somewhat happy ending in comparison to his peers, he wasn’t the only one that made it into adulthood.)

Riordan mixing up his own lore is just a shame. Yes, it’s human and he already gets a lot of flag for other stuff. I also get it as a writer with my fanfic where I really have to scroll up to search tiny details that I’ve embedded and not noted down. Perhaps it’s my inner capitalist speaking, but for I’m way more forgiving towards a free product, a gift like a fanfic, rather than something I’ve paid actual money for when it comes to this. The process of publishing a book is large. You mean to tell me that there was no editor at Disney that bothered to fact check? Riordan got a check from us all and doesn’t even bother looking up his own stuff. A little bit more effort, Ricardo. Please. You have an entire damn wiki you could use to check for free if you’re too lazy to read your own books/don’t use authors softwares. Like what?

It’s stupid. You know it, I know it. And as you can see, I fully agree with you.

#ask #ask me anons #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #chiron #chb #rr crit #rick riordan #hoo #heroes of olympus #my rants #camp half-blood #dumbledore #pjo hot takes

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ears-awake-eyes-opened · 4 years

Text

Haymitch, Effie, and Hayffie

(Musings, character analysis, my headcanons about their backstories and forward stories, especially about their relating and relationships. I felt like I needed to think through some of these ideas before writing more fics. These reflections got incredibly long, and I considered just keeping this in my drafts for myself, but maybe something here will resonate with someone else too, so here we go.)

I’ve been writing about Hayffie for a month, and I have some thoughts about their relationships/sexual histories both individually and together. It’s film-Hayffie that I’m into, so some of my ideas might conflict with what’s canon in the books, which I haven’t read in nearly a decade. When I eventually reread the books, I may feel differently, but these are my musings for now.

Haymitch:

We know Haymitch had a girlfriend when he won the second Quarter Quell at age 16. Snow had her murdered along with Haymitch’s mom and younger brother, so I’m guessing Haymitch loved her, otherwise Snow wouldn’t have bothered to have her killed since Snow always kills with intention.

Haymitch I imagine has probably always been good-looking-enough, but not extremely handsome. (I say this despite the big crush I have on Woody). I can see Haymitch as a kid having been witty, reasonably athletic, reasonably popular, a class clown and fairly obnoxious. As a teen without a father present/alive, home would have been a place of hard work, so school was likely Haymitch’s primary outlet for fun. I figure that particular girlfriend may have been his first serious love (and probably his only love).

I think he and she had some experience with sex but not a lot. They probably explored each other and discovered things together. They may have had sex only soon before the reaping, just in case the worst happened and one of their names was pulled. I’m remembering the guy I dated when I was 16. I loved him, but I didn’t want to have sex with him. However, if it had been the feeling of the end of the world, I probably would have slept with him. So, logic tells me they did.

Fast forward. Traumatized post-Games Haymitch wouldn’t have been with anyone else for a long time. I think it may be canon that he refused prostitution because he had no loved ones left to lose, but even if Snow did prostitute him, it would have been maybe once when Haymitch was still a minor, like Snow’s last nail in the coffin of crushing him. But Haymitch would have ultimately proven himself to be too much of a loose cannon/liability for Snow to use in that way.

So I imagine Haymitch has some history of sexual trauma. First in the intensity of sex with his beloved girlfriend within the feeling of coercion (let’s do it now or maybe never). Then with being prostituted to likely some wealthy middle aged woman. Rather than being the prostitute of a man, I think Haymitch would have killed the man or killed himself, depending on his trauma state at the time. So I don’t see sex with men, forced or otherwise, in his history.

It’s canon that Haymitch is basically a loner/shut-in who doesn’t like people in his house and sleeps holding a knife (when he’s able to sleep). I see him having the potential to be quite desirable to women and the potential for being a player. But trauma put a damper on those potentials. I think he could have sex whenever he feels like it, but for a couple of decades after his Games he just doesn’t very often (on average over those years once or occasionally twice a month maybe) because women are too much of a hassle, and they aren’t the love he lost. Alcohol is strongly his drug of choice over sex.

When he does have sex, I believe it’s one-night stands or casual sex with women who are players themselves and probably who he mildly dislikes. He steers clear of relationships that seem at all likely to become emotional. He firmly does not want to get attached to anyone again. Liking people is something he perceives as risky. Loving people is something he perceives as suicidal.

Haymitch is perceptive. Over the years, he’s learned some basics about what feels good to women physically. Pleasuring women has never been his first priority during sex, but I see him as the kind of guy who gets off on them getting off, so he would have made an effort to experiment a little and pay attention to the results. Unfortunately, alcohol often gets in the way of really focusing on women while he is with them. Which is one of the reasons Effie likes him better sober...

Effie:

I like to imagine Effie in early life, 0-9 maybe, with a very old great-grandmother in her 80s-90s. This great-grandma had memories of growing up in a free-er nation before the dictatorship gained in intensity, before the first revolution, before tyranny. I imagine she told Effie folktales that Effie remembers as bedtime stories. Those appeared to be fictional but were filled with archetypes and the roots of humanity. Her great-grandma was careful to protect the family, so she never spoke openly against the Capitol, but she understood and communicated deeper truths which shaped Effie’s heart/unconscious mind. I like to imagine Great-grandma offered Effie a reflection of the girl’s authentic self and offered her a small taste of empowerment. “Never forget you’re more than a pretty, well-mannered girl. Your wit is sharp. You have the capacity to be so much more than a face and a body bending to someone else’s will.”

To Effie’s controlling parents, and even to Effie herself in time, the great-grandma would seem eccentric. I envision her telling Effie that a woman doesn’t need a man to please her or to achieve greatness, and teaching her that she can please herself in all ways including financially and physically. Those lessons sunk in. I see Effie’s great-grandma having possibly been widowed young and surviving on her own awhile, with kids including Effie’s grandparent. In many ways Great-grandma was a self-made woman in her time.

Effie lost most of that connection to antiquity and to her authentic self when her great-grandma died, and she had nothing substantial to shield herself against the tight control and will of her family and Capitol life.

I imagine Effie mostly complied with that control but claimed autonomy in subtle ways. I think she had sex throughout the second half of her teens and throughout her 20’s, always being discerning, discrete, and selective about partners, rather than *sleeping around.* She had an intention behind each conquest. These conquests often had to do with aspects of self discovery, the desire for validation, and facilitating what she wanted in life, especially the ability to project a certain image in order to get where she wanted to go.

Did Effie fall in love with some of those young men? Probably, because underneath her thick facade, Effie has a tender heart which the facade protects like armor. Did she ever have her heart broken? Seldom. For the most part, she inherited and practiced ways of staying in control of her emotions within relationships. Most men thought of her as a desirable pain in the ass, but worth the high maintenance because she knows how to pleasure a man, she gives that focused attention during significant times including sex.

Did she ever experiment with sex with women? Possibly at some point out of curiosity and in seeking validation, but I don’t see women as her jam. Pretty and popular in childhood, she got along with girls in school. Later in her teens and adulthood, women mostly resented her natural beauty, fashion sense, drive to achieve, ability to attract attention, and her perfected facade. I see Effie feeling wistful at times for the quality of connections she had in youth, but her understanding of survival in Capitol society dictated that image and career-based connections were more important than purely emotional ones.

By age 30, during her years as an escort, Effie is quite singularly driven. She knows her body well, but there’s a veil over much of her inner self. The facade she’s built up is so thick that she doesn’t know much anymore about the vulnerable self beneath it. Haymitch can see the softness in her, whether he’s sober or drunk. She is both terrified and thrilled by his capacity to see the self she hides.

Hayffie:

I picture Haymitch as one of the first crushes Effie can remember having. I think of her as 8-9 years younger than him, so she would have been 7, nearly 8, when he was in the second Quarter Quell. She would have been quite taken with the way he held Maysilee’s hand as she died. Just as Effie was genuinely touched by Katniss caring for Rue as she died.

I see Effie having only been an escort since maybe the 72nd Hunger Games — long enough for the District 12 folks to know and mock her, but not too long. She had ambitions to move up in the districts, and she was on her way to proving herself as an effective tool of the Capitol: looking, sounding, and acting the part she was playing, and keeping herself veiled to the injustice of the Games and of tyranny in general. She was brainwashed by a lifetime of coercive propaganda, not because her mind is weak, but because the propaganda was so prevalent and multifaceted, including coming directly from her primary caregivers.

I think she probably expressed interest in Haymitch early on in their work together, seeing him as his idealized younger self. I think he turned her down then, in part because there was something about her that he enjoyed too much, even though he may not have been able to pinpoint what it was, because in the beginning he perceived her to be mostly ridiculous.

I see Hayffie playing cat and mouse for a few years — teasing, taunting, holding each other at bay and not doing much beyond tormenting one another during games 72-74, and learning each other’s nuances along the way. Effie would find Haymitch’s uncoothness off-putting and his wildness tantalizing. He would find her poshness annoying and the woman underneath all those layers a sensual curiosity.

The third Quarter Quell effected a personal transformation for each of them. Haymitch accepted the reality that he was caring about people; he couldn’t stop those emotions, even with alcohol, and he really didn’t want to. Effie’s eyes were opened to the injustice of the Games through her deep affection for her team of victors. Her armor came down enough to experience heartbreak — a related heartbreak to what Haymitch was experiencing as he lost old friends, like Chaff and Mags, and as he cared for Katniss and Peeta and helped launch a revolution.

I see this as the vulnerable time for Hayffie when their personal games of cat and mouse would pause, and intimacy would creep in and feel scary. They’d banter it away for a while but by then they’ve seen each other’s heartbreak, and the contents of a heart once seen, can’t be unseen.

In the absence of liquor for him and in the absence of facades for her (i.e. in District 13), hiding authenticity from each other would be tough. The taunting chase would continue in spirit, but physically they’d be ready to catch each other and play with that physicality if for no other reason to provide distraction.

“Let’s keep this casual,” they’d say. “No strings.” But the tapestry that had been weaving so long would take shape nonetheless. Strings would be everywhere, drawing them together faster than they could cut them.

Sex between them, after years of avoiding it with each other, would feel easy and alive, like breathing. Their bodies would fit well, so neither would have to work too hard to pleasure the other. I can see that sex between them has the potential to be very rough at times, though always with mutual consent. They both would be this interesting mix of selfish and giving. Their parting and coming together I see going on for years with feigned casualness. Cat and mouse again. The lightness would become more and more of a lie. Sex with other people would eventually whittle to nothing without much discussion about it.

They’d meet themselves in time as free individuals, and they’d realize they had fallen for each other all along, despite everything and because of everything. They would keep trying to stop it, and they’d keep failing miserably until finally moving into acceptance.

I don’t picture them ever married. Haymitch would want no government or religious bullshit in their personal business. But I see them eventually sharing their lives with increasing intimacy, how ever that might show up. I’m not sure yet how it would show up, though I like to think that several years down the road, Effie will move to District 12 “as the place becomes more civilized,” and when she perceives that there is meaningful work for her there. I also believe Effie’s perception of “meaningful work” will shift in time, initially out of necessity and then organically as she reconnects with her deep self and reclaims it.

I don’t picture Hayffie with kids. Okay, that’s a lie. I totally picture them with a kid and would have a blast writing the humor, affection, and angst inherent for them within that choice, but I don’t think that choice is in character for them. If they conceived a child, that would happen inadvertently. They’d both be terrified of parenthood, given their histories individually and together. Most likely Effie would terminate the pregnancy, but she’d be conflicted. And the more opportunity Haymitch would have to think about it, the more conflicted he would be as well.

The Hunger Games takes a toll in both ways. Kill a fetus to keep it from being born into a world where they’ve participated in and witnessed the killing of children? Or let the fetus become a baby with traumatized dysfunctional parents and hope for the best? I think they’d see it as a lose-lose, but also would feel so much tenderness about the possibility, especially if it happens years down the line in the feeling of “let’s do it now or maybe never.” Sound familiar? There’s some trauma reenactment there.

Trauma bonding and secure attachment:

I think that Hayffie could fall easily into reenacting trauma with each other. Here are some ways I see that playing out...

Haymitch experienced severe attachment trauma while still in early life, losing his parents and everyone he loved. This was on top of the trauma of being hunted and killing and witnessing death within the Games. This trauma was inflicted directly or indirectly by the Capitol. Haymitch has a lot of unresolved anger at the Capitol. Without integration there’s no healthy way for someone to cope with that severity of trauma. Hence, his addiction/alcoholism.

From the perspective of dysfunction, I can see him drawn to Effie because she’s a Capitol girl, controlled/controlling and emotionally abandoning. She doesn’t show up all warm and fuzzy and “talk to me, honey.” She shows up with open criticism and disdain for him. On the surface, she has those fundamental qualities in common with the primary abuser throughout his life (Snow). So through the lens of trauma reenactment, it makes perfect sense that he’d want to fuck her.

I imagine Effie experienced early life trauma that was more subtle but still impactful. She grew up in a place where one misstep could lead to her family’s ruin. She grew up with parents who likely demanded no missteps and were emotionally unavailable, being so focused on achievement over emotional health. To keep her parents’ approval Efffie needed to do everything precisely: appearance, manners, attitude, performance. When she didn’t exceed par, I imagine she was criticized and chastised. When she exceeded par she was praised. (Intermittent reinforcement.) Throughout her early life, she marinated in rigidity with constant reminders of what happened to people who were imperfect. Effie became an attention seeker and a people-pleaser. She sought validation from not just the masses, but also specifically from people who were the most critical of her and dependent in some way upon her *performance.*

From the perspective of dysfunction, I can see her drawn to Haymitch because he doesn’t offer her consistent validation. Even his *compliments* are teases, taunts, and mocking sarcasm. His alcoholism makes him emotionally unavailable and at times intermittently reinforcing. In moments, he’ll look right into her with unmistakable genuine attraction, and she’ll feel high when he does. The high comes because the attention is intermittent and unpredictable. In that state of emotional drugs flowing through her, it makes total sense that she’d want to fuck him.

Their potential for trauma bonding will make their relationship at times explosive and volatile, not overtly abusive but with sharp tongues and intense physicality that at times borders on punishing. Their desire for each other grows like wildfire, their bond tightens, and sex between them is compelling and delicious in a way that I don’t think either of them has experienced before.

I like to believe their potential for trauma bonding is only part of what draws them together.

I think Haymitch’s compassion in the second Quarter Quell touched young Effie’s heart very genuinely, and her young heart was also shaped by her great-grandmother’s unconditional love. With that heart, she in time grows deep affection for “her victors,” not just as validations of her self-worth, but as people who are truly deserving because of who they are, not what they do.

I think Haymitch has the capacity to see through Effie’s walls of makeup, clothing, and attitude to the heart of the girl who has watched him kill but doesn’t regard him as a murderer, rather she sees him still as the boy who held his friend’s hand in death. I like to think of him seeing that core aspect of himself through her eyes. Each time he sees it, he forgives himself a little more for the responsibility he feels for the death of his loved ones and everyone he ever killed in order to stay alive, and evey tribute who died under his mentorship. Haymitch carries impossibly heavy burdens on his shoulders, hence the alcoholism. Effie’s regard for him as a victor, a victor who showed compassion to Maysilee, to Katniss, to Peeta, and so on, lightens more and more over time the burden he carries.

I think their relationship is an interesting mix of dysfunction and healing. It’s raw and messy, and Effie desperately needs raw and messy, even though she fights against that a long time. Their relationship also has the capacity for deep tenderness and connection, and Haymitch desperately needs tenderness and connection, even though he fights against it a long time.

I so want to see Effie raw and messy. I so want to see Haymitch tender and connecting. That’s the unfolding I write for them together. It’s tough not to rush it, because it’s so interesting, and I want to see it all so badly.

After all these years, I am adoring Hayffie in this unexpected way. This ship is surprisingly intricate and beautiful.

P.S. If you made it this far, wow, and thanks for caring about the characters enough to read my extended ramblings. Comments welcome. I love to hear other people’s thoughts about Hayffie.

#hayffie #hayffie musings #effie x haymitch #haymitch x effie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #thg #hunger games musings #the hunger games #hunger games #character analysis #trauma reenactment #attachment trauma

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secret-engima · 4 years

Note

Ohh, another quick question - after the Burning, who are all the various Clan Chiefs? I think u stated before that Clans have more than one (one for each village/area) so how many Chiefs survived? What happens if a Chief dies without an heir? Does it go to the nearest Kin? Does the Clan vote?

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm haven’t thought about that? But okay. I’m thinking after the Burning ... *pulls up your handy numbers list* lemme see....

I’m not gonna nAME all these chiefs off the top of my head cause then it would explode but I can give some numbers based on the surviving population. Note that this list will not include any Chief’s or Chieftesses that may or may not be elected AFTER the survivors have settled in Lucis/Little Galahd/remains of Galahd under Nif rule. I’m just ball parking some numbers (which is probably a bad idea since I’m terrible with numbers) for those who were in power before and during the Burning who survived it. K? K.

Ostium - 15k - 10 surviving leaders, 4 Chieftesses and 6 Chiefs. 4k - 5 total surviving leaders, 2 Chieftess (one of whom leads Libertus’s particular Clan branch) and 3 male Chief’s. This is down from like- 30-ish Clan Chiefs? As population centers grew, the number of Chief’s decreased because each branch of the Clan came to encompass a larger area/more people, but you still had several that were only Chief’s of tiny areas. A LOT of Chief’s are lost during the Burning because they either get wiped out with their branch or they are killed in the fighting, so yea the number of Chief’s is not gonna be balanced compared to the number of survivors.

Furia - 17.5k - 12 surviving leaders, 9 Chieftesses, 3 Chiefs. 5k - 4 surviving leaders, 1 Chieftess, 3 Chiefs. This is down from a number of around 43 leaders.

Lazarus - 16.3k - 14 surviving leaders, 4 Chieftesses, 10 Chiefs. 4k - 8 surviving leaders, 3 Chieftesses, 5 Chiefs. Down from a total number of roughly 37 leaders.

Arra - 8.2k - 7 surviving leaders, 5 Chiefesses, 2 Chiefs. 2k - 4 leaders, 1 Chieftess, 3 Chiefs. Down from roughly 29 leaders (these guys tended to still congregate in numerous small pockets I feel, which is why they have a relatively higher chief-population ratio then Furia or Lazarus had).

Bellum - 3.7k - 6 leaders, 3 Chieftesses, 3 Chiefs. 500 - 2 leaders, both Chiefs. Down from roughly 47 chiefs (these are another group I see mostly sticking to small, scattered population groups rather than large cities since Bellum Tempers. I also see the Chiefs having a very high attrition rate during the Burning because of a lead from the frontlines mentality).

Praesidium - 7k - 9 surviving leaders, 4 Chieftesses, 5 Chiefs. 1k - 3 leaders, all Chieftesses. Down from a whopping 62 leaders (there were Praesidium in like- every major population center and the a bunch of smaller towns and villages besides. They had. A lot of Chiefs. Most of them died for similar reasons to the Bellum Chiefs).

Altius - 13.8k - 11 leaders, 10 Chieftesses, 1 Chief. 3.5k - 6 leaders, 5 Chieftesses, 1 Chief. Down from roughly 25 leaders.

Bestia - 10k - 13 leaders, 3 Chieftesses, 10 Chiefs. 2.7k - 6 leaders, 2 Chieftesses, 4 Chiefs. Down from roughly 27 leaders.

Carduus - 12k - 6 leaders, 4 Chieftesses, 2 Chiefs. 3k - 3 leaders, 1 Chieftess, 2 Chiefs. Down from roughly 23 leaders.

Canere - 13.3k - 15 leaders, 3 Chieftesses, 12 Chiefs. 3k - 5 leaders, 2 Chieftesses, 3 Chiefs. Down from roughly 30 leaders.

Tibiae - 10.2k - 17 leaders, 8 Chieftesses, 9 Chiefs. 2.5k - 8 surviving leaders, 2 Chieftesses, 7 Chiefs. Down from roughly 31 leaders.

Khara - 10k - 7 leaders, all Chieftesses. 3k - 4 leaders, all Chieftesses. Down from roughly 19 leaders.

Ornata - 13k - 9 leaders, 1 Chieftess, 8 Chiefs. 3.3k - 5 leaders, all Chiefs. Down from roughly 27 leaders.

LET IT BE KNOWN. I suck at numbers. I am literally making up numbers as I go along for the original and then decreased chief pool, because I figure that while the population totals might look neat like 20k, 60k etc, etc, the DISTRIBUTION of those numbers would be all sorts of uneven, which means the number of Chiefs or Chieftesses to lead those distributed numbers would have a lot a wiggle room. Hopefully that makes sense. The number of how many survived I also felt free to make up roughly as I went along because hey- just because you're the Chief or Chieftess doesn’t mean you have enough luck to dodge a bullet. Some populations made it out with more leaders intact and others didn’t. In the wake of that disaster, some Clans chose to elect new Chiefs to fill out the missing numbers, while others chose to just fold into the branches of whatever Chiefs survived. Depended on whether they all settled an in how large numbers per area they settled.

Maybe someday when I don’t have a borderline headache I’ll give everyone names and bios. But that is not this day.

Moving on.

Okay so- Chiefdom is not necessarily hereditary for Galahdians. It usually is, but that’s more because as the child of the Chief you get the most Chief-orientated training soonest and that makes you the most capable, but there have been plenty of times the spouse of the Chief’s child became next Chief or someone else entirely from the village got picked as heir either by the Chief or by the Elders. You can have long lines of Chiefs that are all blood related, and then a break in that chain for whatever reason, most of them non-nefarious (Nyx is descended of a line of Chiefs, but is not a Chief himself because he’s descended of one of those aforementioned splits. Either his ancestor was a younger sib who was not Chief or a Chief’s child who just willingly passed off the mantle to another, but anyway-).

If a Chief dies and there is no surviving heir, then it is LIKELY it will go to the nearest Kin who is of age (so long as that kin is not already an Elder). If the only surviving nearest Kin is either too young (and orphaned) or an Elder, then the Clan Elders deliberate and select a new Chief or Chieftess from among the Clan. If there are nearby branches of Clan, the remnants of the Chief-less branch may also migrate quietly over to the nearest branch and absorb into that settlement, accepting the established Chief there as their new leader.

If there are no Elders around to make the decision and no nearest Kin, then the remnants of the Clan have a majority vote on who takes charge.

#SE asks #a-world-in-grey asks #galahd culture #Thrown to Wolves verse #Deleantur verse #Stand Strong verse

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years

Text

Ranking Zelda Water Dungeons

@thehylianbatman asked for this, and I’ve been sitting on this idea for something like two years now so I figured it’s a good a time as any to pull it out. Water dungeons in The Legend of Zelda have collectively garnered a bad reputation, with some of them among gaming’s most standout representatives of all the annoyances that come with Down the Drain levels. Because I like to be contrary watery environmental aesthetics are typically among my favorites however I have a particular fondness for many of these dungeons, and so I’m giving them a bit of time in the limelight (while also acknowledging that some of them nonetheless really are terrible, even if they’re pretty). Also note that I have not replayed any of these games to make this list, so I’ll be going entirely from memory. While that’s hardly the most accurate way to do something like this, it’ll be helpful in gauging which dungeons leave the most lasting impressions.

First off, a list of dungeons I will be excluding from this ranking because they don’t meet my personal requirements for what constitutes a water dungeon.

Any mini-dungeon, ex. Pirate’s Fortress from Majora’s Mask or the water-based shrines in Breath of the Wild

Dungeons where the name and/or location is suggestive of a watery theme but the experience itself fails to deliver, ex. the Palace on the Sea from The Adventure of Link, Catfish’s Maw from Link’s Awakening, the Ocean Temple from Spirit Tracks

Dancing Dragon Dungeon from Oracle of Seasons, because a waterfall entrance and some short swimming segments do not a water dungeon make.

The Tower of the Gods from Wind Waker, because only the first floor is even partially water-based and it’s just the tide going in and out which is both uninteresting and rather frustrating to play around. I thought about including it, but it would be very low if I had.

Skyview Temple from Skyward Sword, as its swimming segments are also brief and come more in the odd return visit for a midgame fetch quest than for the initial run through.

Now for the ones that made the cut:

#13. Water Temple (Triforce Heroes)

This one just barely made the list, and my decision to include it in the end is mostly on account of the novelty factor. Of the three stage select-style Zelda games, Triforce Heroes is the only one with any notable water levels and even dedicates a full world to the theme. It’s too bad that I can only really count the last level in that world as a dungeon, because this Water Temple is just a knockoff of the Swamp Palace from A Link Between Worlds adjusted for three Links. There are tektites and octoroks and you play around with water levels and this game’s iteration of the hookshot before fighting a version of the OG water dungeon boss Arrghus. Much of TH feels like a quirky theme park version of a Zelda game, and unfortunately this particular example does little to elevate the concept and as a result feels uninspired. The rest of the Riverside world fares better, especially in its use of the new water rod item, but its last level is a dungeon only because it has to be.

#12. Jabu-Jabu’s Belly (Oracle of Ages)

If I had to choose one dungeon as an example of what people tend to hate about this group on the whole, it would be this one. Less infamous though it may be coming from a handheld title rather than one of the 3D games, this version of a dungeon inside a giant fish suffers precisely because it is not 3D, or more specifically not Ocarina of Time. It combines aspects of both of OoT’s water dungeons and fails at each of them because of the limitations of the game’s format; the unpleasant environs of being inside a digestive tract don’t come across well on the Game Boy Color, and raising and lowering the water level is harder to visualize in only two dimensions. Combine this with bland visuals that make it easy to get lost, a dungeon item that’s only a length upgrade of an item you already have (also like OoT’s Water Temple), a droning musical track, and the less fluid swimming controls that come with OoA’s mermaid suit “upgrade,” and there’s not much saving this one. The boss is sort of fun I suppose, but it’s a bioelectric aquatic monster...hmm, now where have I seen that before....

#11. Swamp Palace (A Link Between Worlds)

I did want this one higher, but it’s so short. That’s true of all but two of the Lorule dungeons really, with them being streamlined and in many cases more thematically pronounced rehashes of the Dark World dungeons from A Link to the Past, but because the original Swamp Palace is already solid (see below) this one just doesn’t have much to do. It adds some raft puzzles and marginally more complex changes to the water level, but that’s about it. The boss is also almost identical, which isn’t saying much because “monster with a single eye that is also its weak point” describes most of the bosses on this list, but here it’s just Arrghus again. I will say that I was grateful for how short this dungeon is in my single run of this game’s Hero Mode, because it holds the valuable defense-boosting Blue Mail. Imagine the developer trolling that would have been leaving it where it had been in LttP: in this game’s equivalent of the Ice Palace.

#10. Lakebed Temple (Twilight Princess)

As the first 3D entry on this list I suspect this may be a bit surprising, but I have to say I’ve never liked Lakebed much. A big part of that is how there’s relatively little water inside the dungeon despite it being on, you know, a lake bed. It’s a shame too, because Twilight Princess has the second-best underwater controls of the 3D games and even underwater bombs. Have fun using them in maybe three rooms. It’s also an uninspired experience beyond that, with drab visuals - despite its reputation for being gritty and brown TP can do good visuals, just not here - a music track that’s more atmospheric cave music than identifiable melody, a structure that resembles what would come from welding the two tower climbs of Ocarina of Time’s Fire Temple to the central structure of its Water Temple, and a tedious backtracking segment in the middle if you want to get all the chests (and all the stamps in the HD remake) which of course I do because 100% completion. Redirecting multiple currents and using them to flood the central room is admittedly neat, but I can’t give Lakebed too much credit for what the clawshot does to distinguish itself from the standard hookshot when much of the difference here comes down to hanging from slowly rotating platforms. Whee. Morpheel is also a joke, initially a riff on OoT’s Morpha that looks genuinely impressive when its leviathan main body emerges for the second phase...and then dies in a minute while posing next to no threat to the player as it swims around aimlessly. The frog mini-boss leaves more of an impression for striking an odd balance between goofy and gross...but why is a giant frog at the (partially dry) bottom of a lake? Gah.

#9. Angler’s Tunnel (Link’s Awakening)

Easily nabs the award for best glow-up in a remake, and indeed this ranking owes itself mostly to the Switch version. The original deserves some praise for being the second water dungeon in the series while not copying too much from the first, and it’s the only one on this list where Link can’t swim at all until he acquires the dungeon item meaning for the first half he’s got to avoid water like it’s lava. Still, the remake massively ups the aquatic ambiance between the cool blue lighting and environmental pieces and the remixed music (with bits of the original Game Boy chip tune left in, as with most of the soundtrack). It also buffs the boss so it dies in thirty seconds instead of five - go marginally threatening Angler Fish! Less than half of the dungeons in Link’s Awakening have traditional themes, instead preferring such odd motifs as bottles and keys and amateur demolition, but Angler’s Tunnel is one of the few that does so I’m happy to see that the development team for the Switch version really leaned into that distinction.

#8. Divine Beast Vah Ruta (Breath of the Wild)

I struggled considerably with ranking this one, and even now I’m still not satisfied. On the one hand this ought to be easy; everyone knows that the Divine Beasts are a low point of Breath of the Wild, small and monotonous with few enemies and similar boss fights and puzzles that are only slightly beefed-up versions of those found in shrines. On the other though BotW more than any previous game blurs the definition of a dungeon with its multitudinous shrines, lengthy (or not) quests leading up to the entrance of each Divine Beast, and Hyrule Castle providing an open-world dungeon experience like no other. In this regard Ruta is easily the best of the Beasts, as the sequence of events leading up to it involve a mostly linear narrative and geographical progression (helped by Ruta drenching the area in constant rain and preventing Link from climbing over everything like usual) that organically follows from the story progression near the start of the game and concludes with a thrilling mini-game in which Link rides Sidon smashing ice blocks and shooting targets mid-air after being launched from the top of a waterfall - and also forever blessing the internet with more gay shark cocks than it could have ever needed or wanted. Ruta’s interior has a few points in its favor as well; the obligatory dungeon movement mechanism only shifts the aim of the water spraying from the elephant’s trunk which is less disorienting than the equivalent mechanics in the other Beasts, and Link has a rune (Cryonis) naturally attuned to water/ice puzzles which somewhat makes up for BotW’s bizarre lack of underwater swimming. So yeah, lots of pros and cons and Link the DP’ing fish fucker bottom, so I’ll have to settle for sticking this one just below the middle.

#7. Jabu-Jabu’s Belly (Ocarina of Time)

It seems strange how everyone accepted it at the time, but Ocarina of Time’s initial trio of dungeons keep the training wheels firmly on. All of them are fairly short and straightforward, none of them have locked doors, and the first two are as aesthetically generic for their respective themes as it gets. Then comes Jabu-Jabu, which is still short and key-less..except you’re inside a giant fish so here that makes sense and we’re all better off not thinking about how the barred “doors” work. As I alluded to in the entry for the inferior Oracle knockoff, this dungeon sells it on the nastiness: Link’s footsteps make squelching sounds, the walls appear to pulse (and have live cows in them serving as switches in the Master Quest revamp...again, don’t ask), glowing white growths serve as slingshot targets, there are mysterious tentacles everywhere and not the sexy kind, and the boss is a swollen mass of viscera that explodes in a shower of green goo when it dies. Extremely gross all around, but then you are inside a giant fish. Funny too that Jabu-Jabu throws a hitch in the usual dungeon pattern in the form of an escort quest of all things, but thankfully Link has to carry Ruto around instead of waiting for her to follow with dodgy AI. I also have to give credit for this dungeon making extensive use of the boomerang you find in its depths, easily one of the most fun items in OoT that goes criminally underutilized since only young Link can use it and it comes right at the end of his portion of the quest.

#6. Mermaid’s Cave (Oracle of Ages)

Oracle of Ages makes up for its counterpart’s lack of water dungeons with two of its own, and Mermaid’s Cave is by far the better of the two. It stands out as the only dungeon in either Oracle title to make use of its game’s defining gimmick, which in this case means that there are past and present versions that have to be explored separately. Ocarina of Time had earlier featured a dungeon with a similar concept in its Spirit Temple, but as with time travel in OoA more generally Mermaid’s Cave takes it a step farther with major structural and environmental differences between the two versions. The water source at the base of Rolling Ridge dries up over the course of four centuries, leaving the dungeon partially flooded in the past but mostly dry and ruined in the present, and doing some things in the past Mermaid’s Cave will affect the dungeon in the present as well. Unfortunately the novelty is somewhat undone by the dungeon item, the clunky mermaid suit that I’ve previously complained about. It leads to the game’s first fully underwater segments and plays a major role in the boss fight which alternatively engages you above and below the surface, but the letdown that is this dungeon’s namesake keeps me from placing this one any higher. Well, that and the fact that you have to do two Goron trading sequences to get inside, because of course you need a key for each era. OoA loves little annoyances like that.

#5. Swamp Palace (A Link to the Past)

While you’d be hard-pressed to call it the most iconic anymore, this is without a doubt the ur-water dungeon of the series - and I don’t only mean that it’s the first one. It’s got raising and lowering the water level, swimming against currents, redirecting channels, electric enemies, the hookshot as a dungeon item, randomly unintuitive nonsense (flooding a canal in the Light World does the same in the equivalent Dark World building because...?), and a squishy boss with a giant eye. As I did when I was ranking the games I had to bump this dungeon up a few spots specifically for how important it was in inspiring future dungeons, but nevertheless I believe the Swamp Palace holds up on its own even today. It’s notable that, in the game that arguably has more dungeons than any other in the series depending on how you count them, this is one of only a handful to even have a clearly identifiable theme - and that so much of what’s on display here has been iterated upon in so many future titles. That’s some classic Zelda stuff right there...and funnily enough this isn’t among the most annoying of the Dark World dungeons. Safe to say that a certain later title was the one to acquire a bad reputation for this dungeon type...ahem.

#4. Water Temple (Ocarina of Time)

Here it is now, possibly the most frequently maligned dungeon in the entire series. For the N64 version I absolutely understand it: the layout is unituitive and forces a lot of backtracking if you don’t know exactly where you’re going (especially with that block in the central tower...you know the one), most of the rooms look similar so it’s harder to memorize the locations of each, needing to open a slow-loading menu to take the iron boots on and off repeatedly is exceptionally tedious, movement and combat options are awkward and restricted underwater making enemies more annoying than they should be, Dark Link can be a nightmare of a mini-boss if you don’t know the flaws in his AI, the dungeon item is merely an extended hookshot, Morpha can kill you very quickly if you don’t know the even bigger flaw in its arena design...it’s one big mess, and little wonder it’s about the only dungeon to actually be easier in the Master Quest. All that said however the 3DS remake fixed around half of these issues including the iron boots and some of the navigation woes, and it’s a much smoother experience overall in that version. This Water Temple still doesn’t crack the top three for me though, in large part because I view it largely as bringing the ideas of the original Swamp Palace into three dimensions rather than creating something truly unique and memorable - or memorable for the right reasons anyway. There’s also the curious aesthetic choices in this dungeon that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone discuss before. Between the music, the pagoda in the middle, the serpentine dragon statues everywhere, and Dark Link’s room there’s a distinctive East Asian flavor to the temple that I don’t quite know what to make of. It’s nowhere near as pronounced in any of OoT’s other dungeons or major set pieces, so it all feels quite random.

#3. Temple of Droplets (The Minish Cap)

Heavy bias factor here, because ice is another favorite gaming aesthetic of mine and this is somehow the only Zelda dungeon to combine it with water (Phantom Hourglass’s Ice Temple doesn’t count for the same reason that neither DS game appears on this list: Link can’t swim in those games, so how could there be water dungeons?). That aside however the Temple of Droplets is just delightfully creative, as is typical for this game’s dungeons. It starts with predictable ice block puzzles that lead to a fake-out with the boss key, but then it opens up to a diverse blend of lily pad “boating,” diving, melting ice with sunlight, burning ice and webs and lighting dark rooms with the lantern, and still more ice block puzzles. It’s so many different elements mashed together and enhanced even further by The Minish Cap’s unique shrinking gimmick, because this is one of the two dungeons to be fully Minish-sized. The mini-boss is an electrified Chuchu, and the boss an ordinary Octorok with a weird floral growth and separate water and ice phases that make defeating it much more of an ordeal than such a basic enemy normally has any right to be. I believe I mentioned in my game ranking that TMC is one of the more underrated titles, a creative sleeper hit that still manages to pack in tons of references to earlier, better-known 3D games. That’s certainly true of this dungeon, which throws in a quick little puzzle reference to earlier 2D games’ habit of designing their dungeon maps in particular shapes. The similarly-shaped Bottle Grotto wishes it was this good.

#2. Great Bay Temple (Majora’s Mask)

Notwithstanding that it’s in my favorite game in the series, Great Bay Temple took a while to grow on me. At first I was skeptical that an anachronistic waterworks was the right fit for a dungeon in the grim and apocalyptic Majora’s Mask - I’m always leery about fantasy media injecting random bits of other genres such as this dip into (sort of) steampunk. It didn’t take long however for me to fall in love with the place, with its rapidly-paced dynamism and brightly-colored plumbing a stark contrast to the slow and plodding Water Temple of the previous game. It perfectly accentuates Zora Link’s speedy swimming, and while the ice arrows slow the second half down a touch I’m just grateful that at least they have a point in this game unlike in Ocarina of Time. The enemies are hit or miss, although I say that less about Gyorg and more about Wart, the mini-boss that thoroughly demonstrates why Arrghus is an exercise in tedium in 3D (which is even less forgivable in a game where you’re always on the clock). Still, that doesn’t detract from how fun it can be exploring while redirecting water currents and getting all of the colored pipes flowing, and this isn’t even too frustrating with the water pushing you through the areas you need to be in sequentially. What does detract from all this somewhat is the 3DS remake; Zora Link’s infamous swimming nerf isn’t so bad in the dungeon’s narrow corridors and I can live with the more restricted ice arrows (creating icebergs in random places isn’t my idea of fun, so I don’t feel like anything was lost), but the changes to the Gyorg fight make it longer and more RNG-dependent than it should be. It’s not the only boss in the remake to become worse apparently out a desire by the developers to waste more of your limited time with them *glares at Twinmold*, but Gyorg hits worse in my minimal cycles runs on account of where Great Bay Temple falls in my scheduling.

#1. Ancient Cistern (Skyward Sword)

I didn’t want this to be #1 - it’s just not fair. The Ancient Cistern is more or less the only entry on this list that escapes the water dungeon stigma, and in fact gets consistently ranked as the best dungeon in all of Skyward Sword. Everyone loves this place, and it’s easy to see why. The aesthetics are gorgeous, it’s decently challenging but not labyrinthine, the whip is fun to use, Koloktos is awesome and unique and mildly disturbing, and the whole thing is wrapped in an explicit allusion to a Buddhist fable that comes across in the environmental details and in the dungeon structure alike. I wouldn’t call this a perfect experience, but my objections feel like nitpicks. The underwater swimming controls in SS suck...but you’re not underwater much, and there’s a much more infamous section for that later in the game. The dungeon is only half water-themed, with the basement being more of a shadow dungeon and (unlike with the Temple of Droplets) little being done to blend the two...but that plays into the fable reference and at a key point the feeling of ascending a thread from death/hell into enlightenment. The Buddhist trappings are extremely overt particularly with the shape of the boss key and the giant statue that is the dungeon’s central structure...but if the presence of that in the Zelda universe isn’t immersion-breaking to the developers for whom Buddhism is a present cultural reality then it would be petty of me to consider it more than a curiosity. None of that was enough for me to place Great Bay Temple over it, especially in light of the mild downgrade that dungeon got in its remake. Here’s to hoping that when/if SS ever gets a port or updated rerelease that the Cistern will be as good or even better than it is now. They can take the motion controls off swimming, for starters....

#The Legend of Zelda

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gamepillow19 · 3 years

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Coolsculpting Did Not Function

What Is Fat Freezing?

Content

Lipo Fat Freeze.

What Areas Can I Have Treated With Cryotherapy, Fat Freezing Coolsculpting?

Coolsculpting In Cambridge.

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marscats37 · 4 years

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ranking the tma entities.

I wanted to examen the entities on the magnus archives and rank them based on how scary I found them, or how much they “get to me.”

None of the low rankings are at the fault of the creators, it’s all my personal opinion and obviously what I was scared of or fascinated with before the podcast is what’s impacting my opinion. We’re all gonna have different opinions on this, and if you listen to the magnus archives, I’m so curious on which ones are your favorite.

To keep this fun, I’ll also list my favorite statement related to each entity. Also, I’m sorry, but I won’t include extinction on this ranking. It’s not really touched on until the end and I don’t have a solid enough opinion on that one.

We’re starting at the bottom.

14. The Hunt - I mean, the hunt is cool, but like canon says, it’s hard to relate to this one due to the fear of being hunted not amongst most people. I don’t have a strong enough opinion on this one to really give it any chance to be higher on the list. I’ll give credit to it being the entity for some of the coolest characters (Daisy, Trevor, the Montauks)

Favorite Episode - 109 / Nightfall. Despite the low ranking of the hunt, I really love the montauk storyline, and it’s exciting to see julia and trevor team up

13. The Desolation - This one only ranks slightly higher because burning is the given for most painful way to go, but this one doesn’t get to me. It’s just, mean. Maybe if I worried about losing the things and people I love, but it’s not something I think about.

Favorite Episode - 067 / Burning Desire. Not a scary episode, but I have a soft spot for Agnes, she comes across as a tragic character. I’m also biased because I associate this episode with a good atmosphere I was in when listening to it for the first time.

12. The Slaughter - I think I feel similar to the hunt as I do this one. It’s cool, but I don’t have a fear of violence. Plus, the slaughter is often associated with war, and I've never been a fan of war imagery.

Favorite Episode - 042 / Grifter’s Bone. This is proof that I’m not put off by slaughter - related statements in general, because I freaking love this episode.

11. The Web - Ranking this one so low may be unpopular since a lot of people seem to love this one, but it doesn’t get to me ! I’m not scared of spiders and to the metaphorical sense, not scared of manipulation or control. I dislike it as much as the next, but doesn’t hold a true space in my nerves.

Favorite Episode - 081 / A Guest For Mr. Spider. I’m hard on the web, but there actually have been some spooky statements, especially the ones involving cocoons. But this episode is a special kind of creepy, and statement aside, showed us an even more vulnerable jon, which I loved.

10. The End - I think the statements that revolve around not being able to die are actually scarier than the ones about death itself, but I think I just have that natural fear of death, I think this is really just another neutral fear for me. I don’t really have much to add.

Favorite Episode - 121 / Far Away. Not a scary episode, but I really enjoy Oliver Banks, I love his statement, and you know, it was interesting to see him visit Jon.

9. The Corruption - It doesn’t seem fair to rank this one so low, corruption is so cool and creepy ! But I kind of got over my fear of bugs and gross stuff (with the exception of roaches. I still scream at the sight of roaches.) so these episodes just mostly serve as really good visuals. I will emphasize that I really love the corruption, I just simply love the other ones more.

Favorite Episode - 032 / Hive. The Flesh hive is my favorite aspect of corruption, and I really loved getting Jane’s side of the situation (sort of.) Plus, trypophobia is actually really unnerving. I just googled the word to make sure I spelt it right and now I have goosebumps. eeeesh...

8. The Spiral - To be honest, these episodes aren’t super intense, I don’t have a fear of going mad. It’s ranked high enough because of how much I love the distortion. I’m giving the creators’ credit for this one, the distortion is really the only reason the spiral has any impact on me.

Favorite Episode - 101/ Another Twist - see above.

7. The Buried - Now we’re getting to my fears. I got claustrophobia, babey ! Also I have asthma so the feeling of not being able to breath is a familiar one lmao.

Favorite Episode - 015 / Lost Johns’ Cave - I think this is a popular one amongst the fans. It’s such a good episode and I think about it a lot still.

6. The Eye - If we’re getting personal, I’m a private and paranoid person. So naturally this one is a bigger fear of mine. If I really think about it, I can scare myself over intense eye contact too. In a visual sense, I have a bias towards eye imagery.

Favorite Episode - 120 / Eye Contact. this is hard to answer, there aren’t many eye-centric episodes, although technically every episode involved the eye. But I like the references in this episode, and story-wise, the finale of season 3 is my favorite.

5. The Vast - It’s not fair to rank the vast higher than the buried, since I’m more scared of the latter, but the vast is just so fascinating to me. The only negative part is that I get vertigo, but I find the empty cosmos and the large ocean almost comforting. Idk, I like this one !

Favorite Episode - 051 / High Pressure. I just think this a neat statement ! I also like how being underwater does had an element of the buried, so best of both worlds.

4. The Lonely - I feel.. conflicted on ranking this one so high. On one hand, it’s not that scary, it’s just the fear of being alone, but on the other hadn't, when the statements hit me, they hit me the most. I love isolation and being alone, but these episodes make me feel like I’m only conditioned to love those things due to them being my comfort.

Favorite Episode - 170 / Recollection. This episode made me cry. I know it’s centered around Martin, but I also found myself relating to it too. Also, I love Martin.

3. The Dark - I can stand being in total darkness, unless I think about it long enough. I think that goes for many, but I still think about the dream where I saw a completely black patch growing on my ceiling and I actually screamed myself awake. I don’t recall another time I’ve had a scream-induced nightmare like that. Especially at my old age. I also think the creators do a good job making this one scary. I remember one Q & A where the writer said this was the hardest entity to write for.

Favorite Episode - 086 / Tucked In. By the way, I had that nightmare months before I heard this episode. This statement naturally stuck with me due to the familiarity.

2. The Stranger - Another popular entity, and rightfully so, the stranger has so many opportunities to be scary !! No wonder two of the season finales involve this one. I don’t think I can add much to it that’s not a given, I love how creative these statements can be. We have the “not them” we have nikola, the angler fish, etc.

Favorite Episode - 034 / Anatomy Class. I mean, as good as many of the stranger episodes are, this is my all-time favorite statement. The students are like an innocent form of uncanny and the professor’s fear is really felt.

1. The Flesh - if you follow my twitter, you might have expected this one. The visuals are so gross and interesting, I’m biased towards body horror. I even like the meat statements, I was surprised there were so many of them when I listened to the podcast for the first time (and tbh it’s helping me towards my path of not eating meat lol) I don’t have deeper reasoning for making this one my favorite, I just think it’s neat (and gross.)

Favorite Episode - 171 / The Gardener. Yes, the newest episode to the date of me making this post. So far season five has been really exciting and I love the format it takes. But oh my god guys, the visuals for this one ?!?! The metaphors of negative body obsessions to something so grotesque yet fascinating to imagine. It’s not an episode I can listen to over and over (remember, this is a horror podcast and my nerves need a break) but it’s one that I’ll remember. It’s right up my alley in terms of horror content.

ANYWAY. This is not a final list, Most of the episodes I’ve only listened to once so I’m sure if I had a chance to revisit more of them I’ll change my mind on rankings and favorites. I genuinely like how everything is categorized, but these are based on my preexisting fears and fascinations, as mentioned above. The statements in the podcast only amplify them. so yeah, this list is very subject to change.

#dumb long post #who missed me talking on tumblr ?#tma

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the-minyard-twins · 4 years

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Andreil Fic Rec

I’ve always wanted to do a fic rec so here we are! I’ve read a lot of Andreil recently and these are my top 28 favorite Andreil and AFTG fics

1. Trust Fall (And Welcoming Arms) by SpangleBangle

85k | Explicit

Life goes on after the Foxes win the championship, and for Andrew and Neil it’s uncharted territory with only each other for guides. Maybe it’s time to put away some of those hard edges, and learn how to touch more softly, and speak more honestly. And if they falter, they have their family to help them get back on their feet.

2. Learning To Feel (When You’ve Forgotten How) by thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes

43k | Teen | No Proust AU

On the night before his first day of therapy at Easthaven, Andrew blows out his legs and decides he isn’t going to bury his feelings anymore, consequences be damned. In return, he gets a schedule change, and a very strange new therapist. /////// “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t blow you,” Andrew finished, looking anywhere but at Neil’s face. Neil looked like he had just realized the sky was blue. “You like me,” Andrew sighed. “Yeah,” he said, resigned “Yeah, Neil, I like you,” /////// No Proust AU

3. Broken by Jeni182

34k | Explicit

Andrew attempts suicide and he and Neil try to navigate his recovery and healing together.

4. Waves by Jeni182 (sequel to Broken)

94k | Explicit

Broken Part II - Neil and Andrew try to navigate life post Andrew’s suicide attempt now that he’s in Denver and Neil’s in his last year at PSU.

5. Funky Happenings with the Fox Family by dobbypussypopper

29k | Teen | text!fic

naughtygayweedcrime: did I rlly just see neil say woke

naughtygayweedcrime: what a surreal timeline we live in

dumbfool: allison is trying to teach me how to meme so I can get hip

naughtygayweedcrime: bless your poor soul

davidwymack: sometimes I regret living

davidwymack has muted exyllent, damnwilds, + 7 others for 30 minutes

6. Something in Return by reaching _my_summit

31k | Mature

“Andrew Minyard, how will you celebrate winning your final college Exy championship?”

“I’m going to Disney World,” Andrew deadpans.

- - -

Andrew’s final year at Palmetto State comes to a close. His future is upon him and there are plans to be made. Years ago, Neil asked Andrew to stop smoking in exchange for something. Andrew finally knows what he wants in return.

7. The Unloved Kids by AlrightDarlin

35k | Not Rated

“I intend to treat them the same. I need strong athletes, not toddlers,” Wymack starts, but sits back with a sigh, running a hand over his face. “But hypothetically, if I had to look after a bunch of toddlers on the weekends…”

Betsy’s eyes crinkle with her smile. “Are you asking advice?”

“They’re screwed up enough,” Wymack says, “I’m not trying to make it worse.”

(David Wymack takes his little nightmares and does his best to corral them and love them within an inch of their lives. He can’t change what happened to them, but he can be there for them now.)

8. Turn it Off by elawless

10k | Mature

“It hurts…so much…too…much” He choked out between breaths. “I want to let go so…bad. I am so close”. He lifted his head to look at Andrew and saw no blue in his eyes and believed Andrew was real, but the rest of the pain was. It was just enough for him to trust Andrew with what he would say next.

“Stay. Give me Neil back. Don’t leave.” Andrew could no longer cover all of his desperation, his voice seemed to crack on the last word.

“Just let me turn it off. Just for today. Neil will come back. Bring him back, for the both of you.”

9. VW Actually Means “Very Weird” by exyjunkies

15k | Gen

If it was just going to be the two of us, then why bring the Volkswagen?

So that if I end up murdering you on this road trip, I’ll have enough space for clean-up.

Neil and Andrew take on the Pacific Coast Highway over the span of two and a half weeks, with a surprise for one of them at the very end.

10. Puzzle Pieces by Nikotheamazingspoonklepto

59k | Explicit | Series

Neil’s life is a puzzle, the people in it are the pieces that give everything meaning. Together they make a picture of happiness.

11. diet mountain dew by reaching_my_summit

2k | Teen

neil thinks andrew is very pretty. he tells andrew exactly that.

12. For Science by ClockworkDragon, DeyaAmaya

8k | Explicit

“Here’s what I propose: we’ll play a game, and I’ll even let you pick which one, but we’re going to set some stakes. I’m not going to let you talk big and walk away free of punishment if you lose.” Without hesitating, Kevin asked, “Fine, I choose Trivial Pursuit. What are the stakes?” Allison put a finger to her lips and tilted her head, as if she was actually thinking of a response and didn’t plan this whole thing days ago. “Hmm, did you know the spirit store recently added fox themed thigh-high socks to their stock? They’ve become quite popular amongst cheerleaders.” This statement seemed to throw Kevin off because he just stared blankly at Allison until she continued. Andrew was not, however, an idiot. He could see where this was going. “How about whoever loses has to wear the socks for an entire school day; including morning and evening practices?” “Holy shit,” Nicky whispered. “You are one devious bitch.” Allison winked.

13. ain’t no rest for the wicked by dearhappy

8k | Teen | Lucifer!AU

“You really expect me to believe that?“ Neil asks, "Especially when his girlfriend said that he’d always been worried about what you’d ask for in return, and that he called you the Devil.”

“I don’t lie,” Andrew says simply. “You can think whatever you want.”

“Why was he so worried if that was all it was?”

“He made a deal with the Devil,” Andrew says, “Tell me you wouldn’t be worried about that.”

14. Not Damsels, not Knights by my_unlikely_hero

93k | Mature

Neil is not a damsel, Andrew is not a knight, Riko is not a dragon. Nobody gets saved. Not really.

Or: Riko goes too far, and Neil is left in pieces.

15. The Continuing Adventures of the Nine-Nine by gluupor

48k | Gen | Series | Brooklyn 99!AU

A series of short, ridiculous, mostly plotless stories featuring the Foxes as the cops of the Ninety-Ninth Precinct.

16. Not Only You and Me by orphan_account (part of a series)

18k | Explicit | Porn!AU

Andrew, Neil and Kevin film Foxy’s first gay threesome porn scene.

Cue the feelings.

17. High School Science by fuzzballsheltipants

30k | Teen/Explicit (parts 1-3 are Teen and part 4 is Explicit) | Series

High School!AU

18. False Equivalence by sunrise_and_death

22k | Teen

Some part of her had known it would come back to Neil. He was the one who had cracked the twins the first time. Of anyone, he was the most likely to have a solution for this as well.

Although the events of the previous year resolved a lot of issues, Katelyn quickly discovers that not every problem has been addressed. As she attempts to map a future in which Aaron has both her and his family, she finds herself once again working with Neil Josten—to unexpected results.

19. trans andrew by aceaaronminyard, autisitcandrewminyard

30k | Explicit | trans!Andrew

a fanfic series for a tfc au where andrew minyard wasn’t registered into the system as andrew doe but as erin doe.

mostly set post-tkm. mostly porn.

20. Advice and Amusement by Autumnalhogwarts

11k | Teen

After a series of failed attempts to woo Renee, Allison turns to Andrew for help. As Renee’s best guy friend he’s in a unique position to offer advice. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll be willing to.

21. Kidnapped by Shell_Writes

21k | Explicit

Neil and Aaron get kidnapped by four deranged men while the team is on a camping trip. shit happens and they have to escape this horror house. together.

22. Return of Dad!Mack by SensationalSunburst

14k | Gen | Series

Dad!Wymack & Mom!Abby

23. For He’s A Jolly Good Felon by gluupor

4k | Teen | Felon!Neil

What’s a guy to do when he’s forced to go to his conservative, homophobic aunt and uncle’s for Thanksgiving dinner?

Why, invite along his ex-con, tattooed, argumentative roommate as his fake boyfriend, of course.

24. make my heart shake (bend and break) by WaifsandStrays

4k | Explicit

Aaron develops a fascination with Kevin’s dick, has a sexuality crisis and feelings and fails to process any of it.

25. Across the Water by transandrewminyard

13k | Teen | trans!Andreil

Perhaps several years too late, or maybe right on time, Neil Josten runs away from home and tries to dream a new life for himself. How poetic that his first night out on his own would deliver him to a stranger who seems to understand everything he’s been through, and then some?

26. Prompt: Andrew and Neil get to babysit Sophie by orphan_account

14k | Mature | part of a series

What it says on the tin, basically.

Aaron and Matt leave for a few days and ask Andrew and Neil to babysit Sophie. Baby-sized exy is involved. Also lots and lots of angst. But there is a happy ending!

27. Salt Bros and Roller Derby Vixens by moonix

14k | Teen | Series

Roller Derby!AU

28. Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder by priorwalter

12k | Teen | Felon!Neil, Author!Andrew

“So,” Neil asks as he washes his paint-covered hands in the kitchen sink, “Christmas.”

Andrew glares and says nothing. This year, Neil and Andrew are spending Christmas with Andrew’s brother, Aaron Minyard. Aaron Minyard, Andrew’s twin whose existence was unknown to him until two months previous. Aaron Minyard, an orthopedic surgeon with a wife (an oncologist, naturally) and two daughters. Aaron Minyard, who grew up with a mother that chose him.

Andrew Doe has survived until age twenty-nine without any biological family, and his life turned out pretty good, considering all of the reasons it shouldn’t have. At age twenty-nine, Andrew’s book becomes a bestseller and leads his long-lost twin brother to him. Familial drama ensues.

#aftg #all for the game #tfc #the foxhole court #andreil #aftg fic rec #fic rec

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