#really says a lot about our cast of characters

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Furiosa thoughts

About 48 hours after watching, I think my take on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is coalescing into: I enjoyed it as a Mad Max movie but found it disappointing as a Fury Road prequel.

Any Mad Max movie made after Fury Road was always going to suffer the fate of being compared to Fury Road, which is the best action movie ever made. So like, compared to any other action movie you can think of, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (we'll call it FMMS going forward) is very very good! It just isn't Fury Road.

The rest is under the cut for spoilers:

The action sequences were compelling. (I was aware I was hunched forward in my seat in tension/anticipation almost the entire time.) Some of them were even brilliant. That long sequence where the Octoboss and the Mortiflyers (yes those are their names) are attacking the War Rig with all kinds of airborne contraptions? Phenomenal. I was like yes okay now we are in a Mad Max movie! Other than that one sequence, though, in which we see Furiosa and Praetorian Jack begin to trust each other, I thought they rarely achieved the kind of wordless advancement of character relationships through action beats that is the lifeblood of Fury Road. So the action was good, but it was just normal-good, not Fury Road transcendent.

I did miss John Seale's cinematography. While I thought the action choreography was great, the shot selection was just not as dynamic and interesting as in Fury Road. I also really did not vibe with so much of the musical themes being recycled from Fury Road. The Fury Road score is SO memorable and the music is such an integral part of the momentum and feeling of every scene in the movie; I can play that score and see every beat of the action unfolding in my brain now. I wanted new score that felt like it was a part of this new action that we were seeing.

I loved all the new worldbuilding details and finally getting to see inside Gastown and the Bullet Farm. Those locations and their unique features were utilized really well for the action that took place in them. Loved the new details we got about the Citadel. The grappling hooks just dipping down to yoink people's vehicles during battle? Fantastic. The hidden Citadel ledge with the little pool of water?? That was such a fanfic-ready location. Pretty sure I already wrote at least one fic set there back in like 2016.

The Green Place! Very different from what I imagined but so much worldbuilding in just a few shots.

In general I thought the new cast rose to the challenge. Alyla Browne who played little kid Furiosa I thought was phenomenal actually. That's a tough role, both emotionally and physically, for a child actor and she slayed it. Casting Indigenous model and actress Charlee Fraser to play Furiosa's mother certainly made the Stolen Generation parallels more obvious. I'll have a lot more to say about Dementus down below, but Chris Hemsworth brought a great combo of bonkers and menacing.

I never doubted that Anya Taylor-Joy could bring the emotional intensity needed to the role--she can do crazy eyes like nobody's business, and with the growl she put in her voice she really did sound like Charlize Theron a bit. I found her physicality convincing for a young Furiosa. But she is not Charlize, through no fault of her own. Charlize is tall and she has broad shoulders and she just takes up so much space when moving and fighting as Furiosa and I think it was always going to be hard to replicate that. As long as they didn't try too hard to bridge the gap between the characters I was fine with it. But that one scene at the end where she's bringing the Wives to the Rig I was very viscerally like that is NOT our Furiosa. (I almost wish they would've used Charlize's stunt double for that scene the way they popped Jacob Tomuri into Max's place.) They could have simply left a time gap--based on the "15 years" she says to Dementus and the 7,000+ days we hear about in Fury Road there should be at least a 4-year gap between the film timelines, although in terms of bridging the look of the two actors it feels like it should be more like 10 years.

If FMMS had been a self-contained movie about a character named Furiosa in the Mad Max universe, I think I would have found it very satisfying. But as a prequel to Fury Road there were a bunch of ways I thought it was lacking on a story level.

I think it's pretty clear that this is not the backstory, or at least not the complete backstory, that Charlize Theron was imagining while playing Furiosa. Which...there's nothing objectively wrong with that; word of God and what actors think about their characters doesn't supersede what's on film for determining what is canon. However, Fury Road positions Joe as Furiosa's main antagonist, and while we don't get the full story behind the incandescent rage she directs at him, we know that rage is there and is a big part of her motivation. In interviews at the time, Charlize talked about the idea that Furiosa had been stolen to be a Wife but then was discovered to be infertile and discarded, how she survived by hiding in the Citadel and eventually rose to a position of power, how she saw her actions not as saving the Wives but as stealing them, and that her motivation at least starts out as more about hurting Joe than helping these women.

We get only the tiniest suggestion of Furiosa's backstory in Fury Road ("I was taken as a child, stolen") and the rest we piece together by implication. She is a healthy full-life woman working for a man who keeps healthy full-life women as sex slaves, hoping one of them will produce a viable male heir for him. She is effectively a general in his army, projecting his power on the wasteland, a position no other woman seems to occupy. She tells Max she is seeking "redemption." Redemption for what? She doesn't say. But "whatever she has done to win a position of power within this misogynist death cult" seems like a pretty obvious answer.

And that's interesting! That's an interesting backstory that engages with some of the core themes and moral questions of the Mad Max universe. These movies deal a lot with the tension between self-preservation and human connection. Do you screw someone else over to protect yourself? Even if it means putting them in the terrible position that you yourself have clawed your way out of? Even if it means enforcing your own oppressor's power over them? Or do you take the risk of helping people and caring enough to connect with them, even though this carries an emotional and physical risk?

FMMS doesn't really engage with Furiosa's relationship to Joe like, at all. It's not like Joe comes off looking like a good guy. He's just hardly in the movie. I don't know if this would have been different if Hugh Keays-Byrne were still alive. I don't know if there was pressure from the studio to cast an A-list male lead actor alongside Anya Taylor-Joy (who's a hot commodity now but wasn't what I would call an A-lister when she was originally cast). I don't know if, once Chris Hemsworth was cast, that affected how central his character's role became, since he is certainly the biggest name attached to the film. I would have actually been fine with Chris Hemsworth or another actor of his ilk playing a younger Joe, and us getting to see some of the charisma that attracted followers to him.

But the end result is that we have Dementus, who is a perfectly fine Mad Max villain, and quite entertaining at times! But not the most compelling antagonist you could give Furiosa.

The four Mad Max movies that feature Max go through an interesting evolution. In the first two movies, the villains are people "outside" society--criminals and roving gangs--and the people Max is defending are "civilization." So we have Mad Max where Max is a very fucked-up cop, and Road Warrior where Max is the prototypical western gunslinger, riding in to town to protect the settlement from an outside threat, but ultimately unable to accept any of the comforts of civilization for himself.

Then in Thunderdome and Fury Road, the dynamic switches. Now the antagonists are warlords and dictators. They are civilization. And the people Max ends up helping are trying to escape them.

To me, Dementus feels much more like the earlier kind of Mad Max villain. If there's another Mad Max movie I can most compare FMMS to, it's the first one. Dementus is Furiosa's Toecutter. (Kills her family, gives her her signature disabling injury, movie ends with her seeking revenge on him but it doesn't feel heroic or triumphant.) The whole end of FMMS when Furiosa is implacably hunting down Dementus? Extremely Mad Max 1.

But violent revenge holds a different symbolic place in Furiosa's story than it does in Max's. The end of Mad Max is a tragedy because Max tells us it is. He explicitly states, early in the movie, that he needs to stop being a cop or he'll become no different than the violent criminals he's pursuing. So he leaves his job and goes on an extended weird vacation with his wife and child, trying to get away from the violence of a collapsing society. But that violence finds him anyway, and by the end of the movie, Max has become the exact thing he said he didn't want to be. It's a tragedy not because the people Max kills in revenge for killing his family don't deserve it, but because seeking violent sadistic revenge is damaging to Max. That is not what he needs in order to heal from the loss of his wife and child. What he needs is to take the risk of human connection again. This is what he starts groping toward in the following two movies and fully realizes in Fury Road.

But Furiosa doesn't have the same arc. Her story in Fury Road is about how a few people struggling against their oppressor can be the catalyst that brings down a whole regime. Furiosa getting to rip Joe's face off is fucking satisfying, and it's supposed to be! So it's a bit weird, then, to spend an entire movie giving her a backstory that not only is not about Joe at all, but implies that seeking and getting revenge against Dementus for killing her mother and Jack is what made her into the person we see in Fury Road.

Aside from questions of revenge, what I thought Furiosa's goal was going to be is set up in the beginning of the movie. "No matter what happens, find your way home." Very clear objective there. And then we see her try to get home like, 1.5 times. I thought we were well set up to follow the tried and true film story format of "simple goal, big obstacles, high stakes." I wanted to see her trying over and over again to get home, and being thwarted in different ways every time. I wanted to see grief and guilt over her mother's death turn her mother's last command into a mission for which she would sacrifice anything (and anyone) else. I wanted to see her justify working for Joe and accumulating power in the violent world of the Citadel as what she has to do in order to get home. I wanted to see "Have you done this before?" "Many times." But we didn't really get that either.

Ultimately, I think the least frustrating way to think about the film--which the film itself encourages--is as one of many possible Wasteland legends about a character called Furiosa. Maybe it happened this way. Maybe it didn't. Maybe this is the Furiosa we see in Fury Road. Maybe it isn't. It all depends on how much you believe of the History Man's tales.

#mad max #furiosa #furiosa a mad max saga #mad max fury road #spoilers #furiosa spoilers #story structure

[ryuichirou]

Replies

A bunch of replies todayyy! Sorry for the wait!

Anonymous asked:

Wha…what is with all the gaslighting discourse?

A waste of our precious time, Anon.

It started with some Anon being frustrated with me talking about Jade being a gaslighter in a hc post about twst boys being horrible to their lovers, and then them calling Rook a gaslighter instead. I was confused about this ask and replied half-jokingly, but the Anon came back trying to explain themselves once more. So I wrote another reply where I stated my position loudly and clearly: I do not agree with that Anon, I will continue drawing and writing Rook and Jade as I please, and I do not like how the Anon approached this topic by basically telling me that because it upsets them personally, I should reconsider how I view the characters. I find this type of rhetoric manipulative and unfair not only to us, but to the rest of people here: I can’t prioritise one person’s trauma over others’. I also really don’t like it when someone tries to assess my personal views on things by the type of fiction that I like and the way I see and portray certain characters. This is literally why we shoo away everyone who acts disgusted because of some of our ships, and this situation is no different to me. “I really don’t like it = this is dangerous” is manipulative, no matter how you cut it.

Anyways, then there was that Anon to whom I replied yesterday! And it was a nice ask, I had fun thinking about what to write. They actually sent their ask a month ago, just as this whole thing was happening, but I took my time because I was busy, but wanted to reply properly. Just like I said before, I love talking about characters a lot, and even if I disagree with someone, as long as they aren’t trying to force their point of view on me or imply that I don’t get it or I am stupid, I like hearing different interpretations of characters. Even if it feels completely off to how I view it, I can appreciate or at least respect it if they respect the way I do things. And don’t imply that I don’t get it or I am stupid.

So yeah, this is everything I have to say about this lol But you can read more on this topic; I believe there are plenty of other posts on this site, apparently this discussion has been going on for years. I really have no idea what there is to even discuss though.

Anonymous asked:

I know you haven’t talked about twst cast being parents for awhile, but I couldn’t help but come up with an azuide kid scenario. Imagine the kid is constantly feeling so much pressure from Azul’s expectations that when they fail a test after enrolling into NRC, the kid just SNAPS, overbloting and having a complete breakdown. And Ortho gives Azul and Idia a look that screams “See? I TOLD you so!”

It really has been a while! We don’t really think about family topics all that often though, so I guess it’s not very surprising lol

Thank god AzuIde kid has Ortho around because these two aren’t at all helpful with Idia hiding in his room for the majority of time and Azul almost being the second Riddle’s mom lol If it takes less time for them to overblot than it did for poor Riddle, it’s going to be very impressive. ESPECIALLY if the kid has Shroud blood, which means that they shouldn’t be able to overblot easily, if at all…

This is some great parenting right here.

Anonymous asked:

How do you think diasomnia would celebrate silver's birthday :)? I feel like Lilia would end up doing the least most birthdays,,, where he just ends up having sex, doing what he wanted anyway while barely being nicer to him than usual. Silver would be so grateful still lol

Anon, I am so sorry because I didn’t reply in time I completely missed the time when it would be perfect…. Sweet Silver, my precious fellow Taurus, I have failed you. 😔 But it’s better late than never!

I feel like Silver mentioned that they celebrate it together every year and take a picture together, and to be honest, I think Lilia actually cares a lot about making Silver’s birthday feel special. Even thinking back on how he made sure Silver would experience trick-or-treating on Halloween despite not having any neighbours, Lilia seems like someone who likes doing this type of thing. Silver himself doesn’t really care much though.

This doesn’t mean that Silver wouldn’t be very grateful even for a bare minimum of course, I think he gets this feeling of “there’s more?” every year after only receiving this “doing the least” level of attention from Lilia at first. Maybe Lilia would try to prank him as if he forgot about his birthday, but… Silver himself wouldn’t remember, so this isn’t much of a prank :(

Also ALSO! When it comes to sex, you are right; Lilia would present it as something special for Silver only, but he would ABSOLUTELY end up just going whatever he himself wanted to do lol

Anonymous asked:

Have you heard how horny Rollo is for the bell tho? Now that's a paraphilia if I've ever seen one. No clue how it would even work but mark my words, that boy will either fuck the bell or get fucked by the bell one way or another

+

Anonymous asked:

Rollo anon here, Malleus sneaks into the belltower to get railed by the gargoyles and comes face to face with Rollo getting off to the bell

Anon THIS PIECE OF ROLLO LORE IS SUCH A TREASURE (in the most unhinged horny unholy way possible). Just as with Gargoyles (both with Rollo and with Malleus), this is something that’s been on the back of my mind since we’ve heard this information lol There has to be a way… The bell is magical for a reason…

God Rollo would absolutely hate being interrupted and SEEN by Malleus of all people. Wait until he hears about the reasons why Malleus is even there, heheh.

eh-nonnie-mouse asked:

True, Sebek is too hard on (pun intended) for Malleus to slip up unless he's REALLY distracted. Also can you two imagine...Lilia physically shows Sebek how to move using Silver as the example and then letting Sebek try right after, guiding Sebek's hips every once in a while to correct his rhythm and or movements he gets to stick it in.

(this is related to this post)

I’ll be honest, this is so stupidly easy to imagine that I don’t know if we should judge ourselves or Lilia for this LOL

He just wants to ensure that he has taught these boys everything that they need to know… This is a very important part of their training. Sebek is becoming a man. 🥹

Anonymous asked:

Yes yes, Jack has a knot, does that mean Leona and Che'nya have barbs? Is Ruggie's grandma packing? Twins in merform with no balls? Followup question: Who would be most into all the different kind of dicks?

Yes yes yes and yes. Someone also mentioned a possibility of Malleus having two dicks lol I always forget about all that stuff when it matters (i.e. when I actually draw it), and it sucks; we need more beastboy dicks! And Ruggie’s grandma too I guess… powerful woman :(

Now that I think about it, I really don’t draw balls when I draw Twins in their merform. But with merman in general, in our case it’s usually something that makes no sense biologically lol but at least it’s fun! And very hot.

As for the follow-up question, damn it I feel like the only correct answer here is Rook fucking Hunt, but since we don’t really see him on the receiving end of things, he is just here to appreciate.

Also you know, wild card? Riddle. He just isn’t aware of it yet. Also Idia because he has no choice and he’s seen too much weird porn.

#replies

[hikaaa-bi]

also it’s so funny that celia apparently comes from a universe where there was a literal apocalypse with torture dimensions and entities running rampant, and she’s somehow the most normal character in tmagp

#really says a lot about our cast of characters #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #magnus protocol #celia ripley #tma #the magnus archives

[featureenvyproductions]

"Why does everything need to be Gay now it's so shallow to make men attracted to each other when they could be Pure Platonic Friends -"

oops sorry I can't hear you over the sound of me Doing What I Want Forever because I have been watching movies, TV, and animation since the 80s and have watched enough shallow heterosexual romances that would have been stronger as mlm-wlw solidarity friendships to fill the space between stars in a galaxy

#also 1) friends can fuck each other so you're not safe especially since gay guys do this a lot #2) why can't there be a cast with MANY mlm characters where some are strictly friends and some are partners #(bc this is a real thing that happens in the real world shocker I know but sometimes friend groups have several mlm folks) #3) as an aromantic vaguely ace spec person I get the need for good platonic relationships #but uh queer people reading mlm romance into something (often based on their own experiences or representation needs) #that creators refuse to delve into #or god forbid writing it into their own work #IS NOT THE BIGGEST PROBLEM HERE #i can't believe it's the year of our lord 2024 and i am still seeing this thinly veiled homophobic take everywhere #2006 called and it wants its 'I don't wish evil on gays but i dont condone their gay stuff' attitude back #Also when I think about all the shows and movies that came from source material with wlw or mlm characters who were all but TOTALLY erased #Or I think about media about queer historical figures who were utterly straightwashed or had their queerness demonized #or reduced to a footnote or Non Controversial background noise #My rage about this increases like 10000 fold #Anyway TLDR ultimately I fall under the mlm umbrella and that's part of the reason I write the shit I do and I'm not the only one #And I write cheeky posts about it but I actually am genuinely disturbed sometimes at this sentiment #Because no one says it outright but there's this massive undercurrent of an assumption that we don't exist #And we don't create #And we don't create things FOR OURSELVES not even bc precisely because of all the times we were told #'Well that's not really marketable so if you want to see it maybe you should create it yourself' #I feel like I'm talking to a wall here DOES NO ONE ELSE GET ANGRY ABOUT THIS #LIKE HOMOPHOBIA ISN'T OVER YET #ESPECIALLY NOT FOR MLM PEOPLE WHO AREN'T CIS AND WHITE #Like stop calling sex and/or romance shallow when it's gay and SUSPICIOUSLY 0 OTHER TIMES oh my fucking god

[celestial-kestrel]

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

#Mari Lwyd #Wales #Welsh #Welsh culture #Youtube

[rui-drawsbox]

remembering the most memorable mc's (with canon appearences) from the otomes i played

all of them are phone games btw. and looong rambling about the games after the cut!

Mystic messenger has been in my radar since i was in elementary school but i played it for the first time after the spanish traslation came out (2017 i think?) Seven shaped my type in such a specific way that im not really sure why loved him so much (it was the whole "he loves you in every route" stuff). I like a lot the default mc, most of the fandom did and that was enough to won me over

Rosa is top tier protagonist tbh, Tears of Themis has really good story and characters (as far i played, not a lot but i enjoyed it) The reason i'm not that much of a fan is bc the game is expensive asf and not very free to play friendly. You're either lucky or have a big wallet with the gacha

i miss my wife man(Marius)

Ephemeral has to be one of the best free to play otomes i've played tbh (if my memories aren't tricking me, it's been years) Good artwork, good storyline, good characters and as far i remember you can unlock one chapter of the character route per day (mabye two days, idk) and the mc's background has an important role in every route (she's a zombie! she's pretty now but eventually will fall apart, aaaaand her story gets expanded in one of the routes!) ((shes also adorable)) There's also a sequel, if you wanted more of the boys! never finished it but i'd recommend it

Honorable mentions! Huellitas Mágicas is a great game! has a really good cast with well fleshed arcs for all the characters, even the scondary ones! The game shines more for the development of *all* the characters rather than just the protagonist/ml. The main theme is overcoming insecurities! Each love interest has a different way of helping our (very insecure) protagonist and helping different characters with their own struggles :DD

10/10 i recommend this game if you want something cute and can be finished in a few hours, if i remember right. It also has a sequel! with like- 12 new love interests, also never finished it bc i didnt found a guide that worked for me but ñek

A3! is my canon event as a gacha player. Discovered the english/global server, tried it and got bored, left it for a few months, tried it again and fell in love, noticed the game was going to shut down bc low sales -HAHA :(-. This is not a otome btw, this is here bc Izumi has to be one of my favorite protagonists in gacha games ever

last but not least! Obey me! Shall we date? oh dear, what have they done to you :(. The original had intense powercreep to force you to pull cards -multiple times bc that makes them stronger- and even now, the company showed a lot of favoritism to some characters, leaving others to dust bc they don't make the same money. Not to say, they released a new game with the same cast and new main story (ignoring all what happend before). And let me say: THEY LITERALLY WANTED TO KILL THE ORIGINAL GAME.

Nightbringer might be a decent game but i don't trust the devs anymore, i still remember what happend with Asmo's birthday right after the release, and honestly i don't want to sit there watching how they disrespect my favorite characters again and again and again. Loved the characters hated the devs. 5/10 you can play it if you want but i don't recommend spending money on it, it's not worth it, just search #obey me here in tumblr and enjoy the amazing fanworks that i can assure you have a lot more love than the game itself

i miss my wife man (mammon and levi)

#got sting by the nostalgia mosquito #thinking about it i kinda want to play huellitas magicas again #mystic messenger #mysme #tears of themis #rosa tears of themis #ephemeral #its that the right tag? #huellitas magicas #a3 #a3! act! addict! actors! #izumi tachibana #obey me #obey me shall we date #otome game #tot

[cassandraclare]

*sighs a bit* Okay. Guys. I have been asked this question a lot, and answered it a lot. I don't know how to give a better answer — Dru & Ty&Kit share significance as main characters — so I guess I'll talk a little about comparison and structures.

First, all series have different structures. I don't think it's super useful or predictive to try to map an upcoming, unknown book series onto an existing series. In TLH the main character was Cordelia, everyone else was secondary to her, and people's roles and the significance of them altered from book to book. It was a big ensemble cast and they mostly stayed put in London especially in book 1.

TWP focuses on a smaller group of people. It also has a very different structure. In book one, Dru is not with Kit and Ty. They are in different places, both of which have their own stories that are significant to the plot. There is no way to see Place One without following Dru. There is no way to see Place Two without following Kit and Ty.

I know that TWP is a long way off. I know there are people who are very angry with me that there's such a gap, but there isn't anything currently I can do about that, or about the fact that I don't yet have the schedule for my upcoming books. That rests in the hands of several different publishers who must coordinate the release times and production schedules for four different series. I am not withholding any information about when these books come out. I simply don't know it yet.

I understand that TWP being a long way off makes for anxiety, and that those who are worried Kit and Ty will somehow be secondary are looking for tiny clues in microscopic details — micro-reading the of placement of the word "and" in my newsletter and such — that are meaningless, but I get that it all comes from anxiety. (FTR, those worried Dru will be secondary are equally anxious.)

I think there is only so much I can say. Because there's a big gap between TLH and TWP everything I do say or every image or hint about it is freighted with a weight of assumption it can't really support. Anxiety is always going to trump reassurance. And truly, at the end of the day, if you only care about Kit and Ty and find the idea of a Dru story tiresome, you will feel like they got shafted because when you absolutely hate a plotline, you will always feel like it's taking up way too much space. That's just how our minds work.

I've been doing this long enough that I know no book can survive a hostile reading. I know that Book Three of a trilogy is the one people hate until they don't. (When Clockwork Princess came out people hated it so much I considered quitting writing!) I know that it's wonderful to love a character but can also be a problem for people when I put out books that aren't about that particular character or dynamic. I know that for a lot of people, Sword Catcher and Ragpicker King are just tiresome things that have no business on my schedule because they're not Shadowhunter books. And I get it. But I also have to block it out, because I've been writing a long time, and I've gotten to a point where I know that I have to write the thing I want to be writing, because if I don't, if I sit down and try to force myself to write something I'm not feeling like writing at that time, I'll be making myself physically and mentally sick. And that's no good for anyone, really.

I suppose the positive thing is that, while this would not have been true five years ago, I am at the place where I want very much to be writing Wicked Powers. I missed these characters and am glad to be back with them. I consider this a story in which there are three main characters. And that is all I can say right now because it's all that I know.

(And this was much more of a general response to a lot of things than a specific response to this question, but I did feel like it was stuff that I needed to say. Creators are at the end of the day, just people. Sometimes we are powerless to reassure. Sometimes we are tired. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we try things and they don't work. Sometimes we can't explain to you what our story is going to make you feel, because only reading it is going to tell you that. This may be one of those times.)

#the wicked powers

[reiding-writing]

Congrats on 1000 followers! That's such a huge milestone! For the climacteric event, could you do a continuation of 'Takedown'? Maybe a role reversal, where cold!reader witnesses a badass moment from Spencer (whether his 'takedown' is physical or verbal is up to you) and gets flustered about it? I love your cold!reader series so much, it's such a great character dynamic with the rest of the cast!! Congrats again!

TAKEDOWN [CLIMACTERIC]

/ˈteɪkˌdaʊn/ /part one/

Spencer might be a know-it-all, but at least he actually knows the things that he talks about.

WARNINGS: fem!reader, just some guy being really obnoxious and annoying, mild mansplaining

spencer reid x cold!reader || fluff || 2.4k || event masterlist!!

a/n: we’re gonna ignore i uploaded this prematurely and just focus on the fic thanks 😭🫶

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ cold!reader masterlist!!

this is a continuation of my original ’takedown’ fic for cold!reader with a role reversal!

Spencer wouldn’t say that he liked to ‘show off’.

He knew he was smarter than most people, and his teammates knew he was smarter than most people, and that meant that when he displayed his intelligence to provide important details about a case, the team would take his word for it.

It saved a lot of time in explanations for where he got his information from and allowed for profiles to be built at twice the speed.

But sometimes asking someone to quote a source was necessary.

Case in point, a police detective from Indiana who just would not leave the BAU team alone as they tried to curate a profile for the serial killer they were hunting.

Some of his muses, most definitely flukes in knowledge, actually did have a productive outcome.

“A majority of stabbing cases have an underlying sexual motive, so I’ve taken the liberty of looking into the sex-offences registry for anyone who could be our killer,”

And some…

“Have we considered the possibility that our killer is actually killers, I mean if you look at the stab patterns across the victims, there’s a clear dominant and submissive personality no?”

…were the exact opposite.

“What you’re seeing is a progression of the unsub’s confidence,” Spencer shook his head slightly at the detectives attempt at an explanation. “The slashes are only jagged and uncertain in the two first victims, with all of the victims after that displaying much more confident wounds, which clearly shows the evolution of one individual, not multiple,”

He didn’t like having to shut other people’s trains of thought down, it was something that he’d gone through enough to not want to put anyone else through it, but when they were the complete opposite of productive, sometimes it was for the best.

It was remarkably easy to tell when somebody had read something on the internet rather than actually going through the training required to be competent in a certain specialty. Especially when it came to the forensic side of things.

Throwing in key words like dominant and submissive personalities didn’t mean that he knew what he was on about. It just meant that he’d read a few case articles on a certain subject and then passed that off as a rounded understanding of whatever concept he was trying to explain.

And it was really frustrating.

“What’s wrong with you today?” You enter the put aside meeting room with narrowed eyes, a cup of takeout coffee in your hand that serves as a relic of you being able to escape from the hellhole that Spencer was inherently trapped in.

“It’s nothing, i’m alright,” He presses his lips into that awkward smile of his, but it lacks any of the genuity that it’s usually accompanied by, merely a shell of a smile that Spencer knows you’re not buying.

A quirk of your eyebrow is the only push needed for his façade to break immediately.

“It’s just—” Spencer exhales heavily through his nose, biting the inside of his mouth in a will for him to keep himself together. “I’m just frustrated.”

You gesture with your head for him to continue, and it’s like you’ve blown a hole in a dam with how fast everything comes tumbling out.

“Officer Harrison keeps interrupting the investigation and talking about absolute nonsense under the guise of it being objective fact and I’ve spent so long correcting him that I haven’t actually managed to do anything,” He gets it all out in a single breath, and it’s honestly quite impressive to watch until he’s caught at the end with barely any air left in his lungs and has to take a moment to catch it up.

“I just wish he would leave me alone,”

You haven’t met Officer Harrison, too busy with the coroner and taking interviews, but if you had to make an educated guess you’d say Spencer’s apparent frustration was well founded.

He wasn’t one to exaggerate things.

“Tell him to then,” You shrug out your answer like it’s easy, leaning your lower back against the table to sip at your coffee.

“I’m not like you,” Spencer sighs exasperatedly, his shoulders in a slump alongside his mind. “I can’t just— scare people off,”

You give a small quirk of your eyebrow at his assessment of your personality, and Spencer can see the small traces of amusement in the corners of your mouth. “You have the authority Reid, you outrank him tenfold,”

“I know, I just—” Spencer shrugs, defeated. “I don’t know, I just can’t,” He uncaps his marker to return to the barren whiteboard to try and actually get some decent headway on the profile with a solemn expression, submitting himself to the inevitability of having to do two jobs at once.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Your offer sounds almost like an assassination proposal, monotonous and almost too serious.

“No,” Spencer shakes his head lightly. “No it’s alright, it’s not your problem, I’ll be okay,”

“You’e sure?”

“Yeah,” He gives you a small nod over his shoulder, lips pressed into a line as a grateful but dismissive smile. “Thanks anyway,”

You push yourself from the table with a sigh, joining Spencer at his side to pull the marker from his hand.

“Wh—“

“Go make yourself a coffee Reid.” You cap the marker with a knowing tilt of your head, putting it away in your back pocket so he can’t try and take it back from you. “You need to take five and calm down, you aren’t going to get anything done like this,”

You can see the want to turn your idea down, to say that he’s fine and not affected by the officer in his expression, but you both know it’s not something to be acted on, and so gives you a small nod with an exasperated exhale as he drags himself out of the meeting room to do as you’d asked.

He’s grateful for it really, the warm ceramic under his hands serving as a grounding point and sickly sweetness of the drink as it reaches his taste-buds a welcome distraction from the rampant frustration inhabiting his prefrontal cortex, but that small voice in the back of his head continues to torment him about the inevitability of having to deal with the officer again and all of th

He knows he should at least try to let it go over his head. If he stepped back into the meeting room like he was you probably wouldn’t even let him get one foot in the door before sending him on a longer break, but he didn’t want a break, he wanted to work, to crack this profile open and actually make some real headway.

He just needed to take a second to breathe.

When he does return to the meeting room, you’re not alone anymore, and Spencer can practically feel the amount of will power you’re using to keep your mouth shut as Officer Harrison rambles on about something he’s not quite close enough to hear yet.

“…very unlikely for that to actually happen,” The officer points to a section of scrawl you’d added to the whiteboard after Spencer’s departure, something about brief episodes of mania as a possible reason behind the unsub’s violent attacks.

“That’s not actually true, it’s been disproved dozens of times over,” You shake off his attempt at over-explaining your own theory to you with a full tone and a shake of your head, a clear indication for him to leave you alone.

He doesn’t of course, and Spencer swears he sees your eye twitch as Officer Harrison continues to talk aimlessly.

“I’m just saying, there’s research to support the idea that serial killers make their crimes more gruesome than they need to post-mortem so they can plead insanity in court if they’re caught,” He raises his hands in mock surrender, and you quirk your eyebrow at his explanation.

“And where did you get that information from?”

“A doctorate thesis paper from Stanford,” Officer Harrison crosses his arms like he’s secured a victory over you in knowing something that an expert doesn’t. “You’ve probably never read it, it was an investigation into the differences between legal and clinical insanity, and it concluded that serial murderers over gruesomise their kills to plead legal insanity in court despite being completely sound of mind,” He points back at your scribbling with his index finger, knocking his knuckle against the board. “So this theory isn’t worth looking into sweetheart, trust me,”

The use of the placeholder ‘pet’ name makes your eyebrows furrow until there’s a prominent frown line between them. “I have read that paper, for your information,” You spin the whiteboard marker between the fingers of your left hand, likely a way to expel some of the tension in your muscles as you grow increasingly frustrated with the man.

“You don’t have to lie sweetheart, it’s alright, no one’s expecting you to have read an 85,000 word paper from almost a decade ago, I just like to educate myself in my free time,” He shrugs with a nonchalant expression, but there are traces of what’s almost condescendion in his tone and Spencer decides it’s time to stop this little debate before Officer Harrison ends up with a broken nose and you end up getting a very long talk from Hotch.

“She wrote it,” Spencer presses his lips into a tight line as he walks around the table to join you at the whiteboard.

“Excuse me?” The officer blinks at Spencer blankly, eyebrows knitting together in a mix of confusion and a slight amount of irritation at Spencer’s intrusion.

“The thesis paper you’re talking about? She was the one who wrote it,” He nods his head in your direction, and he can physically see the way the officer’s air of intellectual superiority drains from his face.

“And I’m not actually convinced that you’ve read the whole thing yourself, everything you mentioned was part of the paper’s abstract, which at an average reading speed of 238 words per minute, should have only taken you a minute and 24 seconds to read, rather than the 5 hours and 54 minutes to read the whole thing,” Spencer feels a little guilty for how good the drop in Officer Harrison’s face makes him feel, but it’s easily overrun by inherent relief at getting the frustration off his chest.

“Can you name anything important from that paper apart from what you just mentioned? Anything at all?” The frustration underlying Spencer’s tone was obvious, and it was almost gratifying for you to watch him take a stand in his own beliefs for once.

There’s a few moments where he pauses, giving Officer Harrison the very slim opportunity to redeem himself and prove he had actually read through the whole document.

Neither of you needed to watch him try and stumble through his answer to know that he didn’t.

“Maybe if you had read it you’d know that the ‘fact’ you just mentioned, was proportional to the percentage of serial murderers that weren’t diagnosed with any mental illness prior to their arrest, which was only 63% of the total sample that was analysed. 114 of the murderers were actually diagnosed with some form of clinical psychosis, which is still entirely probable for the unsub that we’re looking for,” There’s a lingering trace of snark dousing Spencer’s tone, joined by an elevated sense of conviction as he narrows his eyes towards Officer Harrison. “Or maybe you’d at least remember that it was actually 97,502 words long, not 85,000,”

The fact that Spencer recalled such specific details of your thesis shouldn’t be a shock to you, his eidetic memory was practically a staple of his character after all, but considering you weren’t even aware he’d read it in the first place until five minutes ago made that revelation hit you just a little harder than it probably should.

“If you want to act like an expert in something, become an expert in something,” Spencer crosses his arms and it may as well have been a done deal. “Don’t pass off surface level, incorrect information as objective fact, all you’re doing is slowing the real experts down,”

The assertiveness in his tone, whilst occasionally used when arguing his point for a specific topic, was much more present as he shut down the Officer, and it was almost a little too gratifying to watch the wind get knocked out of his sails at Spencer’s reprimand.

“Now if you’d please excuse us, we have a profile to work on,” He gestures to the whiteboard with his head, and Officer Harrison is off like a whippet, retreating out of the room with his tail between his legs and a traffic light red coating his face from the embarrassment.

You give a dragged out whistle as the door closes. “Congratulations on telling him to leave you alone,”

Spencer laughs almost pathetically. Was he really so socially inept that he had to be congratulated on standing up for himself?

“Thanks,” He presses his lips into that typical Spencer smile as he fiddles aimlessly with the button on the cuff of his right sleeve. “And uh, thanks for letting me handle it on my own,”

You shrug nonchalantly. “You asked me to,”

“I know, I just— thank you,”

“It’s nothing to thank me for Reid,” You shake your head dismissively, but Spencer knows you’ve accepted his thanks through the slight quirk in the corners of your mouth that break the ever-present scowl that cements itself on your face. “I didn’t know you read my thesis,”

Spencer blinks for a moment before giving you a small and enthusiastic nod. “Three times actually, it’s extremely well written from a logical perspective, and the transcripts from the interviews you held were very interesting,”

And there’s the Spencer you knew.

“You’re an incredible psychologist, it’s no wonder you skipped your bachelors,” He emphasises his words with exaggerated head movements that make the curls of his hair bounce against his forehead.

“Thank you, Reid, that’s very sweet,” There’s a fondness to your voice that you’d deny if he pointed out, but you’re trying much less to hide it from Spencer than you would from anyone else in your team.

Spencer Reid had read your thesis three times. You wouldn’t be surprised if he knew it better than you did. You’re almost certain he knew it better than you did. He could probably recite the whole thing word for word where chunks of it had already been forgotten in your mind.

It wasn’t exactly something revolutionary, but it may as well have been.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #climacteric 🪶

[sl-ut]

streamer!ellie hcs

been thinking about gamer!ellie williams x fem!reader a little too much lately so here are some random ass hcs

she's a pretty big streamer on twitch, plays a lot of different games but she particularly likes rpgs bc she thinks they're the most fun kinds of streams to watch

she plays gta online (on nopixel ofc) A LOT

her rp character is definitely like a druglord or something lol

speaking of, total stoner

she usually smokes right before her streams to help her settle down (she gets kinda nervous before her streams)

she's up front about her drug use (just weed don't worry) w her fans, but definitely doesn't wanna smoke on stream bc she knows there are younger viewers watching

she streams at night, probably around 8:30-9pm AT THE EARLIEST

has a boss set up. she has an extra room in her apartment for streaming, has lots of fun little figurines and posters of her fav games/movies/artists, led lights (always set to either blue or red), and custom display, keyboard, and headset

off-topic, but she'd also an astrophysics major and is on the DEANS LIST??? our girl is so casually smart and doesn't even try that hard like

she's such a nerd, always been a big star wars, harry potter, and lotr fan since she was a kid

she casually drops the gf bomb on stream one day and the internet just about blows up

lesbian twitter died a little that day

she's kinda secretive about it tho, didn't even really mean to mention her gf (she hadn't even asked her to be her gf yet and she already publicly announced that she was off the market)

for plot purposes, i've always really liked the idea that y/n is also a public figure? maybe she's a small actor/singer or an influencer or something

y/n texted her during the stream saying "u got something u wanna ask me???"

ellie was trying so hard to not turn red and end the stream

a few days later, everyone's fav lowkey singer/actor/influencer happens to soft launch her new gf (everyone was a little sus but no one really assumed that it was ellie bc why would it be??? they've literally never interacted on the internet before?)

except what they don't know is that ellie had been really high one night and decided to shoot her shot, sending a risky dm on insta and almost pissing herself when she saw that she had actually responded

begins talking about the relationship more on stream

doesn't reveal who her gf is for a while tho, but when she gets a text from y/n asking for her help for a sec she'll just tell her chat that she'll be back bc she needs to "go help the missus"

such a loser fr

finally hard launches on y/n's bday, posting a photodump from the past few months that they've been together

lesbian twitter died again

two of the hottest internet gays off the market? oh no

but everyone really loves it

ellie likes when she brings her snacks or a drink during the stream, inviting her to sit on her lap and chat for a bit while they're waiting to join a server or something

she bought an additional gaming laptop so y/n could stream with her sometimes

ellie does random super loser stuff when this happens, like if they're playing gta she's taking her on a long car ride around the city bc she's roleplaying as y/n's sugar daddy

loves using her platform to hype up her gf's work

always reposting new songs or casting announcements that her gf is involved in, and loves being her date to big press events

omg i might have to make a little modern!ellie fic bc i love this smmmm

#reader insert #x reader #imagines #lesbian #ellie williams x reader #ellie x you #ellie x y/n #ellie x fem reader #ellie x reader #ellie the last of us #ellie williams #ellie tlou #ellie smut

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Michael Sheen about David Tennant, bonding over working on Good Omens and their kids, Season 2 and suprises in S2, and David's bad habits. (MCM Comic Con, 30.10.2022)

Q: Now, I've watched a youtube video, it was a really strange fan video, it was lovely though, and it was about the bromance between you and David Tennant.

Michael: I'm sorry, I didn't... I don't know who you're referring to.

Q: I mean, what is he like to work with, he seems like a joy to work with and you guys get on really well.

Michael: I mean, it's like having and an albatros around your neck, really, he sort of does drag you down a lot of time... no, I feel very lucky, you know, David and I were in a film called Bright Young Things together many, many years ago - [applause] thank you very much, thank you, thank you - but we didn't get to act together in that and we didn't, you know, we didn't really know each other from that and we've know each other 'say hello to' over the years, but it wasn't until we did Good Omens the first series really that we - [another applause] thank you thank you - that we got to know each other and of course we spent a LOT of time together on that, and people were coming in and out, but it was essentially me and David sitting in the tent all day every day a lot of the time. And so we sort of slowly got to know each other doing that and then, actually it was probably doing the publicity for that and the press for that that we really got to know each other and and then because we both had babies within weeks of each other, you know, me and Anna and David and Georgia, you know, we got very kind of bonded then because of over that. And we say that, so David and Georgia's little girl Birdie and our little girl Lyra, we say, Lyra's only got one friend and that's Birdie. And we sort of got very close but we were very lucky, because you don't know the chemistry's gonna be like between you and another actor until you start working together. And, you know, interestingly David and I probably hadn't work together because a lot of time we were up for the same parts, or you know, there was only one David or Michael shaped hole in the cast and only one of us would fill it, so we didn't get to work together. And I've been a big fan of his work for years and years and really admired, you know, what he did, and so then get into work opposite each other, it just sort of clicked very quickly, and I remember when we did the table read for the first series of Good Omens and we were sitting there next to each other and starting to read the lines together and we'd not really talked about the characters much before then or how we were gonna do it abd you could sort of feel the two of us kind of adapting to each other over the first, you know, few pages and then we just kind of, it just clicked, the characters just clicked and we just sort of without having to talk about it we just instinctively understood how they would be together and I remember Neil Gaiman and Douglas the director saying that watching it was like that as well, you saw these characters sort of circling around each other a little bit and sniffing each other out and then bumph you're just suddenly dancing and it's been like that ever since, really. It was such a joy to come back and do the second series together again, and it was like... once we'd put the costumes on again, and we were on the Soho set - we filmed it up in Scotland and they've buil like entire block of Soho, on the first one where they only built a small amount of it and it was in a freezing cold carpark ouside Oxfordshire and it was miserable and this time we were in the lovely, warm soundstage with a whole of Soho built, and once we got the costumes on and I remember our first scene together - because David was a bit ill at the very beginning of the filming, so he wasn't there for the first few days - and then when we did get to our first scene together and it was just a walk across the street or something and it was almost like the costumes were walking for themselves, like they just knew what to do, the characters just sort of took over, weirdly, and we were in that kind of groove again. So it's an absolutle pleasure working with him and spending time with him and it's so lovely that we found these two characters, or these two characters found us, to be able to sort of put everything into, you know, and to feel so comfortable with each other. It's been brilliant and I hope when it comes out next summer I hope everyone really enjoys it, I think there's gonna be a lot of great surprises for people and I hope you enjoy it.

Q: I mean, Michael, that's all very well, that's very sweet, what a lovely story, but I want you to dish some dirt. Tell me, is there something... does he have a bad habit... does he have an annoying habit, that he wouldn't want us to know about?

Michael: About David?

Q: Yes.

Michael: Oh my goodness. David doesn't have any bad habits. Em, what can I tell you about him... I mean, he's a bit good to be true, really. He's always lovely to everyone... oh! I tell you what his bad habit is. He leaves it to me to... when there's a problem and we are unhappy about something, because I'm supposedly the grumpy one, he leaves it to me, so he can be the [imitating David:] 'Oh, I'm so sorry, it's just Michael has a wee problem with this, I don't know... it's not me, I'm fine with it, you know...', but, you know, the two of us have gone, 'Well, that's a bit out of order, innit?' and then I'm the attack dog who has to go out.

#good omens #michael sheen #mcm 2022 #david tennant #bts #birdie #lyra #gos2 #season 2 #michael about david #I love them #interview #michael interview #fun fact #bright young things #s2 interview #transcripts

[colealexart]

story time! i met the cr cast this past weekend at mcm london and they were the kindest people imaginable, but my interaction with laura and marisha was just. incomprehensibly sweet and the best thing to ever happen to me.

first up was laura. my friends izzy (@wvearp) and abby (@overnighttosunflowers) went before me in the queue and they got my art signed by her. when they did, she said “oh, best art” and they told her that they were here with the artist. she immediately was like “what?! where?!” and started looking around frantically. i was standing just to the side and i waved awkwardly and she was like “NO WAY! YOU!! i favourite this shit on twitter ALL THE TIME!” which i find hilarious because yeah, i freak out a little every time she does.

when it got to my turn, i said hello and asked her how she was doing. she did not answer my question and instead said “cole, are you kidding me? these are gorgeous” about the two prints i handed to her. (the one pictured and a different one i got signed.) she said she remembers seeing this after the episode aired and i was like “yeah, it airs at 3am here so i drew this in a frantic, sleep deprived stupor at 7am” and she said “you did it so fast, i remember! i sent it to marisha! people are SO QUICK with the fanart, you guys are insane.”

after she signed the print, she held onto it for a moment and just sat and admired it, before looking at me with the BIGGEST smile and saying “you are seriously the best. thank you.” and i don’t know how to handle sincerity so i handed her the dice i got for her. she was so excited about them and immediately rolled the d20 and got a 10 (edit: i misremembered, she got a 3 lol). i then asked if we could play rollies and she beat me. i got a 5 and laura got a 7. i said i’m sorry they’re not rolling well and she was like “it’s fine, they just need charging up!”

i also got a selfie too, but the guy helping her at the table took the photo for us instead of me trying to take it because i suck at taking selfies. she gave me a really tight side hug and when it was done, she thanked me again with the biggest smile.

i also didnt realize until afterwards but instead of writing a character quote, laura wrote “you are everything” on my autograph 😭

next was the group photo op. as we walked up i said hi again to laura and she immediately recognized me from before. she grabbed onto my shoulders and literally spun me around to marisha and was frantically saying “marisha marisha, this is the person that does the amazing imodna art!” but there was a lot going on and marisha was looking at me with the most bewildered expression, until she eventually understood what laura was saying but we had to rush to take the photo. laura held onto my arm and marisha leaned against me and i didn’t realize until afterwards but liam and tal also had their hands on my shoulders lol. it was A Lot. i told marisha i would probably be heading to her autograph queue next so i’d see her there and she was like “awesome, i cant wait!”

so after that, i met marisha. i was probably the most nervous to meet her because she’s just so cool and intimidating but in reality she is just so warm and has such a calming presence about her. she was like “cole, good to see you again!” and i handed her the same imodna print that i had laura sign. she said “ohh, aww this is amazing! this is what laura was talking about, i was so confused!”

then we talked a bit about the live show because her voice was hoarse and i asked her how she was feeling. she said it was just her voice that was gone, but we agreed that it was absolutely worth it because the live show was incredible. i also congratulated her on the how do you wanna do this, then gave her the dice i got for her and we played rollies too. we both got an 18 at first and when we rerolled, she beat me with another 18 to my 16. then she was like “oh these roll really well, i’m definitely gonna use these!”

we took our photo together and afterwards she said “thank you for your art and everything. seriously, you’re so talented” while rubbing my shoulder, and then i headed off to join ashley’s queue.

i’m probably gonna make a separate post about meeting ashley and sam. i just wanted to write this down mostly to immortalize on my blog. i expected them to be kind but i did NOT expect to feel so loved and appreciated. laura was about as excited as i was, and made me feel so special. (this is also a pretty small thing but i dont think i pass very well, so the fact that laura said ‘person’ and didn’t misgender me meant a hell of a lot too.)

i did bring extra prints to give to them as a gift but was overwhelmed and forgot lol

anyway, that’s it! for anyone wondering if the critical role cast are as kind in person as they seem online, they absolutely are and then some. i’ll never forget this past week.

#laura bailey #marisha ray #critical role #imodna #yes i cried a little while writing this out #they just make me so HAPPY

[zundely]

Having more dragon age thoughts- this time about my dwarves, and partially about Varric.

So, hot take to lead with- Oghren is actually a much better and more insightful character to criticse dwarven cast system and culture then Varric. The best dwarven companion we ever got is obviously Sigrun but I feel like this one is pretty much self-explanatory, so I feel much more compelled to talk through our two lovely dwarven gentleman.

First thing I want to say is that, while I usually feel need to say that I do not hold anything against Varric as a character, his disdain for dwarven culture is something that bothers me a little. Especially since he is one of 3 dwarven companions we get across whole 3 games, and by far the most popular one. He is actually pretty similar to Sera at times in a way he views his own heretige but the games refuse to address it. Which is a shame because I think his view on the culture he was basically excommunicated from before he was even born should be a bigger deal then some quips about beards and getting antsy any time he steps near a thaig. Like Varric clearly has some very very complicated feelings about all things dwarven- something that no so subtly is a mirror of his very very complicated feelings on his brother who was much more of a 'real dwarf'. It feels like in an attempt to distance himself from what his brother represented Varric also felt a need to distance himself from anything too dwarven. But at the same time we see that it's something he never really let's go off- he is moved by his ancestor's fate in Legacy dlc questline, he keeps up with dwarven politics, he will get a bit miffed at mere mention of him not looking your standard dwarf.

However since dwarven culture doesn't come up half as much as elven one in later games we never really get to do anything with Varric's internalized issues. It's just sort of becomes a running joke that he is "not like other dwarves, that guy he HATES deep roads and he doesn't have a beard". And while that in itself is fine, not all characters have to focus on their relationship with their culture it becomes an issue when Varric is the only companion representative of said culture through 2 out of 3 games. It means the game has much less opportunities to present us with fun lore in an organic fashion because Varric is too busy making sure we know he hates it here. Like why I am more tempted to take Iron Bull to a dwarven ruins the Varric.

Oghren was ultimately a much better point of reference for dwarves because he is a product of this environment and he is surprisingly insightful and self-aware about it. And despite the multitude of ways in which Orzammar failed him he still cares about it. He still takes a lot of pride in his heretige even if all it really brought him is being rejected for becoming the thing it wanted him to be- a killing machine.

And now I am stuck on one hand wishing that there will be SOMETHING done with Varric's not feeling dwarfy enough- on the other however if Varric will be the only dwarven companion in DA:D I am going to scream. I am sorry all the Varric fans, he is either coming back in an advisor style role or I do not want to see him . It sometimes feels like the writers are not comfortable with writing dwarves and they use the 'least dwarfy dwarf' Varric as a get out of jail card and I just want something new.

#varric critical #i think #dragon age #rambles #I am honestly a tad terryfied to post it in case people will take it as an attack on their fav #And it's not... mostly at least #I just miss the edge dwarves had in Origns #da2 #Like a lot of post DA2 Varric I like the potential but the way he is actually writen feels underwhelming #dragon age dwarves

[madlori]

Ship dysphoria

Ok so a bit of time has gone by, and the 9-1-1 fandom is settling into a bit of an...existential crisis?

Because 90% of this fandom is built on Buddie. Buddie has always been the strongest driving force. We love our other blorbos, but it's Buddie that usually drives us feral.

Except...Buck/Tommy. OMG. It is WORKING for a lot of fans. (and JFC we cannot settle on a ship name. Tevan? Kinley? I'm gonna stick with Buck/Tommy)

A LOT of fans are having a "I'm a devoted Buddie shipper, why do I like this so much??" moment and it can almost feel like a betrayal, or that you're deserting the ship (the ship that, remember, Oliver told us to stay aboard).

And I think I can probably speak for everybody when I say that the last thing we want or need is a ship war in this fandom, something we haven't ever really had but which has torn other fandoms apart.

So I'm gonna put on my veteran-of-many-fandoms hat for a second and tell you a thing:

It's okay to ship Buck and Tommy. It's ok to do that and still ship Buddie. It's also okay to leave Buddie behind if it's not working for you anymore. It's okay to just tolerate Buck and Tommy and not really care about it, and stay focused on Buddie. You are allowed to ship however it works for you, and you are not limited to one and only one ship. If you decide you don't think Buddie will happen and you're going to cut your losses, that's okay, too. It is not a reflection on your character or something. You don't swear an oath of fealty to a ship.

We don't know how long Tommy will stick around, but Buck will still be bisexual. He may date another man. He may date a woman again. You can ship those things too.

But why is this ship hitting me so hard? I never thought I'd like Buck with another man! I'm so confused!

I get that. There are some reasons why that might be.

There is something very appealing about a ship that's canon. Some of you might never have had a canon queer ship, but the pull is strong. There's no guessing, no interpreting, no subtext-examining. It's there, it's real, you don't have to wonder if you're just overinterpreting things. Yes. Buck and Tommy kissed and are going on a date. Even if that's all it ever is, you'll never be accused of "seeing things that aren't there." Don't discount that.

Tommy, even in just 1.5 episodes, is a LOT more integrated into the firefam than any of Buck's previous girlfriends. Tim talked about not wanting him to be "siloed off" away from the main cast and that was exactly the problem with his prior girlfriends. Tommy is friends with Eddie. He knows Christopher and has hung out with him. He spent most of that loft conversation reassuring Buck that his place in Eddie's life was secure. He feels more like part of the gang than any other ones. That makes it easier to see him in Buck's life.

The mere fact of Buck's queer awakening is so monumental for so many of us that the character who helped him get there is going to naturally earn our affection immediately, and it's going to make you want that relationship to succeed, even if it's ulitmately not endgame for Buck. You want to see Buck have a good experience the first time out with a man. Of course you do.

And we just want to see Buck make out with a hot beefy firefighter. That is so valid of us.

Anyway. There is no need for a crisis. You can love Buddie with your whole heart and still be excited about this pairing, and want to see how it goes, and read fic about it. I may be writing a lil something myself.

You're good, fam.

#9-1-1 #9-1-1 abc #buddie #buck/tommy #kinley #tommy kinard #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 #911abc #shipping #ship wars #buck's bisexual awakening

[spacerockfloater]

Why the fuck does Laena Velaryon, who is canonically younger than Rhaenyra Targaryen in the show, look like a fucking 20-year-old in episode 5 while Rhaenyra, her elder, still looks fucking 13? Why the actual fuck did they change the YOUNGER girl’s actress and made her look older, but it’s okay for Rhaenyra to continue looking like a preteen? I’ll tell you why.

They’re trying to distract us from the fact that creepy ass Daemon is courting a 14-year-old. A FOURTEEN YEAR OLD. Rhaenyra is 15 in episode 1 and Laena is 12, meaning they have a 3 year age gap. Then, Viserys tells Rhaenyra that she must marry since she’s 17 now, making Laena 14, maybe 15 at best. So they obviously can’t afford having Daemon thirst over a child again, therefore this is a shitty attempt to cover up the fact that Laena still is a very fucking young child.

HBO what is this? Why do your casting choices indicate that you’re trying to use some kind of ageist technique to manipulate your viewers? Why are the supposedly good guys, Rhaenyra and her children, portrayed by very young actors? Is this to show how innocent and pure they are? Why are the characters who are supposedly evil, Aegon and Aemond, or the character for whom we shouldn’t worry too much about since she’s just a tool for Daemon’s story line to develop, Laena, portrayed by obviously older actors even though they’re all supposed to be kids? Because the youth = good people and old = bad people analogy is fucking gross and lowkey paedophilic. Not to mention how weird it is to make all the black girls in the show look like fucking grown ups. What kind of racist bullshit is this?

I can’t understand HBO’s decisionmaking for the love of me. Like, on the one hand, it’s so obvious that they’re forcing Daemon and Rhaenyra down our throats, to the point that I actually laughed out loud when the show runner said “he doesn’t get why people like Daemon”. Like, my guy, you MADE the show. You made him look like an appealing, dangerous, sexy, strong, victorious and mysterious man, so what do you mean you don’t get the appeal? On the other hand though, most of the actions that they allow Daemon to perform are so horrifying that it makes it impossible for a sane person to stand beside him and defend him. Like, they try to sugarcoat that he’s an abusive piece of shit yeah, but they somehow don’t shy away from the fact that he’s terrible? Are they doing both of these things on purpose? Are they trying to challenge the viewer, to show us how abusers, despite being openly deranged, still have their way of dazzling their victims, the average person, and hypnotising them with their charm? Is Daemon doing to us (and by us I mean you Daemon stans, not me, stay safe though) what he’s doing to Rhaenyra and Laena? Are the show producers testing the average viewer’s intelligence and ability to recognise an abuser? Will there be a lesson to be learned?

I would like to hope so but I highly doubt it, because while one could support this theory by arguing that changing Laena’s actress is an attempt to mask Daemon’s degenerative nature a bit so that it isn’t completely obvious that he’s a bad man, someone else could counter this argument by saying that we’ve already seen Daemon groom a minor so this wouldn’t be something new. We’ve seen him do much more violent crimes actually, so why shy away from the fact he’s a groomer when we are already aware of this? Idk man, I really want to think that HBO is trying to make us see that Daemon is an evil person, but then indirectly glorifying him constantly makes me believe they just want people to root for him.

P.S. I may anger a lot of people by saying this, so I’ll make myself clear by stating that I love and greatly respect actors who specialise in portraying evil characters, because doing so and not losing yourself is a challenge (*cough* Leto *cough*) but if done correctly, it’s a true showcase of one’s talent and hard work. Lee, De Niro, Hopkins, Bardem and Rickman are just a few to name. However, Matt Smith has never rubbed me the right way. No hate to the guy, I don’t even know him, but I’ve seen him play the villain in three separate occasions (HOTD, Last Night in Soho, Morbius) and I just get these weird vibes, but I usually told myself it’s just my imagination running wild. However, I recently found out that Smith claimed that Daemon is a loyal man who loves deeply and that his “heir for a day” brothel feast was his way of honouring Aema, which really disturbed me for obvious reasons. I don’t know if he said this because he’s trying to defend his character and by extension himself, or if he just wants to promote the show, or if he doesn’t understand Daemon or if he funnily enough has fallen victim to his own character’s charm and I don’t care because it is a dangerous thing to say. Painting this character, the arrogant, obnoxious, self serving, people slaughtering, wife murdering, backstabbing, abusing, grooming, lying, manipulating, war criminal of a man, in such a positive light while being a man yourself, knowing that most of this character’s supporters are young impressionable women who just find him hot, makes me lowkey wanna cover my drink in his presence, I don’t know.

#hbo #hbo max #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd critical #house targaryen #house velaryon #anti rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #laena velaryon #anti daemon targaryen #anti daemyra #ageism #matt smith #anti targ stans #anti targ restoration #pro team green #team green #anti team black

[splonk-fox]

The flaws of Jax and Ragatha, and why they matter to Pomni's character arc.

Within the two episodes of The Amazing Digital Circus that have been released so far as of writing this post, there have been two characters who have been given the most attention and depth out of any of the cast (ignoring Pomni obviously), and those two characters are Ragatha and Jax.

The duo consisting of the kindhearted optimist and the meanspirited pessimist have without a doubt become some of the most interesting characters to analyze within this series so far thanks to how much meaningful screentime and character depth they have been given within the the two episodes that we viewers have been fortunate enough to witness with our very eyes.

But why is this? Why is it that these two have received special attention from the writers so far, and what role do they play in Pomni's character journey? Well I believe I may have found the answer, and it's unfortunately one that does not spell a good future for these characters. But to truly understand where I am coming from, we must first understand who these two characters are and how they relate to our main protagonist.

To start off with the kindest of the duo, we have already learned quite a lot about Ragatha thanks to the two episodes she has been featured in so far.

Her most prominent character trait is without a doubt her kindness. She is the first person to really be genuinely nice to Pomni upon her entrance to the circus and spends the rest of the episode showing her around the place and trying her best to help her get settled in.

She's also someone who doesn't like to be overly blunt with her responses, such is shown when Pomni asks how they leave the circus, to which Ragatha, instead of just saying that she couldn't, phrases it in a way that makes it sound as if they simply haven't found a way to leave yet, this was obviously done in an attempt to not freak Pomni out too much, though this doesn't really go anywhere thanks to Jax.

Now that's great and all, Ragatha's a nice person, you can easily observe that through casual watches of the show, looking deeper however, you can see that there is a lot more going on with Ragatha than she would like to make you believe.

Insecurity is another trait that Ragatha has that, while not shown off as prominently as her optimism, is still very important to Ragatha's character.

As we see in episode 2 of the series, one of Ragatha's biggest fears is not being liked. She vents to Kinger about how she feels like Pomni doesn't really like her that much, and that clearly scares her. And why wouldn't it? The end of episode 2 makes it clear that one of the most important things in this show when it comes to keeping the main cast mentally stable, is their sense of community.

They're all in this together, they have each other's backs and will do their best to be there for each other when it's needed. That is what is communicated to us within the second episode through Kaufmo's funeral.

This segment of the episode, while somber in its tone, is also one that instills hope within Pomni and the viewer. Because it shows that despite everything, the circus members do care about each other. That abstraction is something that affects everyone and it isn't something that is just brushed off immediately, which if you recall, was the crux of Pomni's fears as seen at the beginning of the second episode, the fear of being forgotten, the fear of no one caring.

"I don't even remember her name honestly" - Dream Jax.

So with how the importance of community has been firmly established within this show's messaging at this point, it should be no surprise that Ragatha's biggest fear is not having that community. Of people not liking you, of people hating you. So how does Ragatha solve this?

Repression, that's how. Of all of Ragatha's personality traits her tendency to not display her true feelings towards things are without a doubt the most damaging.

The best example of this is how she reacts to Pomni abandoning her for the exit. The pilot would lead you to believe that she was mad at Pomni for doing this, that she didn't trust her anymore because of this selfish act.

And yet, that's all brushed to the side in the following episode. Ragatha is back to her optimistic self and is saying that everything is fine! That it was completely understandable and that there was no bad blood between them. Yet you can tell that isn't the whole truth, that Ragatha really didn't get over what Pomni had done to her that easily.

Now do I think Ragatha hates Pomni or secretly resents her? No, not really. I do think she's being honest when she says that she doesn't hold anything against her for doing this. But that doesn't mean she wasn't hurt by it. We can see clear as day from the pilot that this did affect her, so why does she act like she doesn't?

Because, from her perspective, her feelings do not matter. The only thing that does is to make sure Pomni is able to adjust, to make sure that everyone is happy, that everyone is still somewhat sane within the circus, and so she compromises her emotions in order to do this. Gooseworx has even said it herself that Ragatha often says things she doesn't necessarily mean in order to ease tensions. She doesn't want to cause conflict, she doesn't want people to fight with each other because she understands how important community is to the members of the circus persisting.

Yet in the midst of all of this, what Ragatha fails to realize is that with how she currently handles things, she is paving the way for her own mental break.

Ragatha, in her attempts to be there for others, has walled herself off from others being there for her. By lying about how she really feels about things, by acting as if she is fine, she is not allowing herself the emotional vulnerability necessary for others to be there for her when she needs it.

The closest thing we have had to this so far is with Kinger, and while having someone she feels comfortable enough to lament her feelings around is a good thing, this is one person, one person who is... not exactly mentally stable, to put it lightly. Is not exactly an end all be all solution to her problems.

Kinger being the only person who Ragatha can rely on is only gonna work for a limited amount of time, the more she represses, the more she hides her true emotions and clear mental instability, the closer she is to meeting a cruel fate, one that no one would be able to save her from because no one even realized there was something wrong with her. For in her pursuit to make everyone else happy, she has sacrificed her own happiness, as a result.

And then there's Jax.

Jax, in a lot of ways, is pretty much the polar opposite of Ragatha. While her leading trait is kindness, Jax's leading trait is being a complete and utter asshole. And while Ragatha is all about answering things in a roundabout way to ease stress, Jax is all about the blunt answers.

This is best shown to us in the pilot when, in the same scene where Ragatha tries to answer Pomni's question of "how do I leave?" in a way that wouldn't stress her out too heavily, Jax goes straight in with the "you can't". Jax is a pessimist, he has accepted that there is no way out, and is simply riding things as they go by.

Jax's leading character trait is all about causing as much chaos as he can for the sake of his own satisfaction. He doesn't care about how others feel, the only thing he cares about is causing as much chaos as possible simply because he can.

Yet that isn't all that's going on with Jax, there's something deeper here, something more complex.

When it comes to the scenes everyone points to when saying that Jax has a lot more going on with him than meets the eye, the scene where he reacts to Kaufmo's funeral is the one everyone looks at with an analytical lens, and that's for a good reason.

For I think this little scene might just tell us a lot more about Jax than we think.

One thing that I've come to notice about Jax's brand of chaos is that it's very reliant on others' reactions. All of the chaos he causes, all of the absurd and awful things he does are for the sake of seeing how others react. From throwing Pomni over the side of a truck and attempting to use her as a human bridge, or literally everything that he does to Gangle, it's all reaction-based, and that made me realize that, despite how selfish and uncaring he acts towards everyone else, community is still the one thing that truly matters most.

He needs the others so that they can react to his hijinx, as they are what give said actions meaning. If he had no crowd to watch as he acts like a shitty person, then he has no reason to do anything. But that is also where Jax's true character flaw comes in, his selfishness.

With how Jax is constantly pushing others around for the sake of his own amusement, Jax is very clearly a self-centered person. He is someone who is in it for himself and no one else. Who cares if others don't like him? Who cares if others despise him? As long as he gets to see funny things happen to people, he is gonna be okay.

But what happens when that method is no longer effective? What happens when the others don't give him the reaction he wants? What happens when he can no longer use chaos as a way to distract from the pointlessness of his reality?

Well, as scary as this may be to think about, Jax won't really have much of anything to fall back on. His cruel actions have wrote him into a corner. No one likes him, that much is obvious. And while Jax seems content with this now? What happens when he is put in the position of needing someone else's help?

Well, then he'll have no one, and it's ironically for the exact opposite reason to Ragatha. Ragatha's problem is that she is constantly repressing her emotions, despite the fact that she has people who care about her, she doesn't open up to them because in her eyes, her feelings are secondary to others'.

Yet Jax is the opposite, he's honest, he is self-centered, and that's also why he is one of the members who are in this most danger.

In a show that seems to be about how important community is and how important it is to stay together and be there for each other? To have a character who is the complete opposite of that. To have someone who doesn't care about others, who won't be there when someone else is hurting. To have someone who is actively making things harder for everyone... that just spells out demise.

Jax's true weakness is that he does not have a community who will be there for him when he needs it, he was never there for others so why should they be there for him? Meaning that when Jax is at the end of his rope, crying out for help, no one will listen, because as cruel as it sounds, most of the members would probably be happy that he's gone.

While this does admittedly rely a bit on speculation, I think what I've stated above might be the true reason for why Jax looked sad for a moment when the other characters were talking about the funerals held for those who have abstracted. Because in that small moment, he realizes he might not get a funeral of his own when he "dies", or if he did, no one would really have anything nice to say about him.

And that fear, that knowing of how the way you've built yourself up by putting others down has lead to everyone hating you, to everyone not having a single good thing to say about you... that is terrifying. And yet he hides it, he walks away, he refuses to attend the funeral because then he will have to be confronted with the uncomfortable reality of the fact that he won't die as someone who was remembered for doing good things.

The only thing he'll be remembered for, is how much everyone hated him. And all of that brings us right back, to Pomni.

I said at the beginning of this post, as well as with the title itself, that Ragatha and Jax matter to Pomni's character arc, but why is this? Sure they're both main characters so obviously they're going to influence her journey going forward, but how exactly does any of this matter to Pomni? It's simple really.

Ragatha and Jax represent two extremes, they represent what happens when you lean too far in one direction. In one case, it is caring too much about others and not caring about yourself, and in the other, it's caring too much about yoursef and not caring about others.

Pomni has already shown traits of both Jax and Ragatha. She has shown an empathetic, kindhearted side as seen in her interactions with Gummigoo, and she has shown a selfish side, as seen when she abandoned Ragatha for the "exit" in the pilot.

Pomni has shown herself to be both selfish and selfless. But what part of her matters more? Simple answer, both. It is important to care about others while also taking time to take care of yourself. Ragatha and Jax show what happens when you forget to do one of these things.

By always taking care of others, you're forgetting to take care of yourself, and by always taking care of yourself, you fail to take care of others. To find a healthy balance is to do both. To be aware of your own mental health while also making sure that others are doing okay too. And this is something that Pomni will need to realize if she is going to make it in the circus.

And this is where Jax and Ragatha become important. I believe these two will show Pomni how important it is to keep a balance of things. To not lean too far in one direction, as if you do, it spells bad news for you either way. And how will this be communicated to her and the audience?

Abstraction.

Think about it. If Ragatha and Jax's harmful practices continue without change and they end up abstracing because of it, that will be a wakeup call to Pomni, it will show her the flaws of being too selfless, and too selfish. Is it an extreme way to communicate such message? Sure, but it's also one that can't be ignored.

We, the audience, and Pomni, would see first hand the consequences of leaning too far in either direction, that if you don't find a balance, you will end up like Jax and Ragatha did.

And that's why I think these two in particular have been given so much screentime and attention these past two episodes. Because they are meant to show us the most extreme versions of Pomni's most prominent character traits.

The ability to care about yourself, and the ability to care about others.

Of course, I might be wrong in this assessment. We are far too early in the show's runtime to truly predict any big events like this. But from a narrative standpoint, I believe this interpretation makes the most sense in the way of showing us the audience, and Pomni, what truly matters. It's not just about you, it's not just about others, it's about both.

Thank you for reading.

#the amazing digital circus #tadc pomni #tadc ragatha #tadc jax #character study #analysis

[misc-obeyme]

How many relationships (or hook-ups) do you think the Demon brothers (+ side characters) had before meeting MC?

All of them are very old and seeing how they live long lives surely they had some experiences, some more than the others.

I'm thinking out of everyone Asmo definitely had the most experience with others. But with Asmo most of his experience are from hookups since he's the most beautiful in all Devildom, so everyone would want to have their way with him. He probably tried going into serious relationships but that didn't go anywhere.

Lucifer's pride might have gotten in the way for him to form a serious relationship in the past (and he was still traumatised being cast out of heaven), but he definitely had hookups here and there. I can see Mammon trying in the past to enter a serious relationship, he was madly in love, but he got taken advantage of :(( Maybe he had hookups for money??

I'm sorry, but Leviathan is an Ancient Virgin. The only experience he had was his right hand. Again it's difficult to say with Satan. He tried relationships and hookups but he wasn't into it and sticks with romance/smut books instead??

I doubt Beelzebub had anything serious going on with someone but maybe he had a few hookups? Belphegor's the same with beelzebub, my guy is too lazy haha.

It's difficult to place Diavolo seeing how he's the next Demon king. This may sound dumb but maybe he had a lot of Physical experience (The best Succubus/incubus for the king! The best Orgies for the King!) but no romantic relationships seeing how easily everyone would want the crown for themselves and how much of a scandal that could be. This could also be said for Mephistopheles since he's a noble too.

Then there's my precious sexy ass Barbatos. It's hard to say but i low-key think he had a few flings here and there when he was still young and not a butler yet. He won't be seeking out any relationships/hookups anymore since he probably tried everything already and that could possibly distract him from his butler duties.

Raphael/Simeon are Angels so i doubt they had any experience in the past when it comes to Relationship/hookups. Solomon DEFINITELY had quite a lot of Relationships/hookups! This guy had a ton of Succubi and wives! As for Thirteen i assume she's not into Relationships/hookups until she meets Mc.

What are your thoughts on this?!

Now this is an interesting topic, anon. I've thought about it a lot, but I don't think I've managed to settle on a solid idea that I like best.

The rest is below a read more because I wrote A LOT, so this way people won't have to scroll as much.

Also NSFW below the read more due to the discussion of sex, but nothing explicit.

I think how experienced the characters are is going to depend on how sex is viewed in their respective realms.

We know how it is in the human world. I personally have a huge issue with the way sex is taboo in our world. It bothers me that there's so much suppression of it and that people are so concerned about stuff that really isn't that big of a deal. It feels manipulative and I've always felt the conservative view of it is the predominant one in our society, which only exists to control people. At least, this is my view of how I've seen it handled around me. So I feel it's important to note that I am a USAmerican. I also happened to grow up in a place that was ultra conservative while not being conservative myself so my opinion may be skewed.

Anyway, the only reason I'm talking about this is that it means I tend to prefer thinking of both the Devildom and the Celestial Realm as more free with this kind of stuff.

Especially the Devildom, but the idea that just because angels are angels means they've never experienced sex or relationships bothers me. I think it's because the CR touts itself as being the pinnacle of all things good and pure and in my opinion, sex is good and pure. I don't like thinking of it as a "sin." (PLEASE NOTE I'm discussing consensual sex between adults, obviously this is not the case for abusive situations.)

That being said, I'm also aware that this is my personal take on it, so it might not really make any sense. Like I just want the CR to be chill about it because that's what I would prefer, not because it necessarily makes sense for them to be chill about it lol.

In the context of the game, it makes more sense for the CR to not be chill about it.

But their stance necessarily alters how much experience I believe characters like the brothers and angels to have.

Because the brothers were obviously angels for a big chunk of their lives.

I also have a personal preference for characters who do have some experience. I think a first love/first sexual encounter is always extremely intense and can be toxic or problematic in ways that the inexperienced person is blind to. (Not necessarily of course, but you kind of move past that all encompassing devotion that you tend to have for your first.)

So for me, it's more appealing for the characters to have moved past that first experience and to have some knowledge of how love and relationships work. It isn't necessarily about the sex part, but sex is often entangled in love and it certainly complicates things.

Which means that in my own personal thoughts about it, Levi is the only one who could even manage to stay a virgin that long.

The reason for that is because he makes it pretty clear that he rarely leaves his room, especially after they fall.

Now if the CR is chill about sex, I think it's possible that Levi had some desperate sort of encounters while he was fighting as the Grand Admiral you know what I'm saying? But if we're going with the idea that they aren't chill, then yeah, he's probably still a virgin.

I do think it's possible that Levi isn't a virgin, though. I honestly think you could easily come up with a situation in which he actually did have the opportunity come up. Maybe he even fell in love with someone over an online message board before meeting them in person. I just think there are options, you know? And in the end, it depends on what you prefer.

In fact, I would say I kinda feel this way about all the characters. I think you could say all of them are virgins if you wanted to. Lucifer, for instance. CR isn't chill, so he never did anything as angel. After he fell, too dedicated to his work and Diavolo to even bother pursuing anybody and always immediately shutting down anyone who came onto him so as not to get distracted.

That's just an example, I'm saying you can change these details to fit with your preference for any of them, though I think Asmo would be the hardest lol.

So here are my ideas on all of the characters, based on the concept that the CR is not stupid and instead chill about sex:

Lucifer is experienced, but not by a ton. In the CR, he's too busy being a seraph and keeping all his lil siblings in line. Maybe there are a couple of people who catch his eye and while he might indulge, I don't think he'd have had a relationship. After they fall, he retreats into himself. At this point, if you're into DiaLuci, that could start to become a thing. But I also think you could say that maybe he had a little bit of time where he kind of went crazy, going out and doing all the things he maybe didn't have time to before, more as a bad way of coping with the reality of the fall and the loss of his sister. After time, when they all get settled, I think it's an every once in a while kinda thing. He just doesn't strike me as the guy who'd have time for relationships unless it was with someone like Diavolo or MC (or Solomon... yes I'm still on the solulu train just you wait). He doesn't have any reason to let someone that close to him, you know?

Mammon, I agree with you on. I think he probably wanted to be in a relationship and likely fell hard for someone, only to have his heart broken. Thus his tsundere attitude now. It's a defense mechanism. I think that could have happened in the CR and then once he fell, he would just do the hookup thing, especially when he's out partying or gambling or something. It doesn't mean anything. He's still protecting his heart until MC comes along.

Levi we've discussed, but I do think he's either a virgin or maybe had some fumbling moments in war time, you know. Pluuuus I kinda think he was probably admired by a lot of angels during that time. So you know.

Satan has a whole stretch of time where he's just trying to figure himself out. I think he'd be cautious about a relationship due to his wrath. I always think of Satan as being super romantic, but he's also concerned about his own anger. He's afraid to hurt people because of it. So I kinda think he'd hold off. He likely had some hookups and such, but I don't think he'd have a full blown relationship until he felt it was someone who truly understood him.

Asmo I agree with you on, but I also think he could have had a serious relationship at some point. I kinda see it both ways. He might not because he doesn't want to tie himself down to any one person, but I think he can also fall in love passionately. So I think he could've had one really intense relationship that inevitably fell apart.

Beel is such a sweetheart, I can imagine someone else falling in love with him easily or other people kinda throwing themselves at him. I don't think Beel would've refused them, either. But I don't think he had a serious relationship, maybe just short ones here and there, probably some hookups, but nothing more.

Belphie I think could go a lot of ways, but I kinda see him being mostly uninterested. He might have had a couple hookups over the years, just because there are so many years and there's no way the opportunity didn't arise at some point. But I don't think he ever cared about anyone enough to pursue a legit relationship.

Okay, now bear with me here, but I kinda like the idea that Diavolo and Mephistopheles hooked up lol. I mean, they were childhood friends, right? Maybe when they got older and started having those thoughts and such, they were like hey... why not? I think it's really cute when bffs decide to be each other's first, even if they never intend to have a serious relationship, you know? Just another reason for Mephisto to hate Lucifer lol. Otherwise I would say Mephisto is probably pretty picky. I think he's more likely to only have been in a serious relationship, considering hookups kinda beneath him.

But aside from that, it's going to depend on what's expected of royalty in the Devildom. I can't imagine they'd have a rule about it, though. It's the Devildom, you know? So I think Diavolo has likely had hookups, but I do think it's a rare occurrence now that he's focused on running the Devildom and united the worlds and all that.

Barbatos, my true love. I like the idea that he was a bit promiscuous in his younger days, traveling through space and time and doing whatever pleased him. He might have been more passionate, more likely to fall in love, a little more free with himself physically. But ever since becoming a butler, I think he clamps down on that quite a bit, just like he does with everything else. He's certainly experienced and I don't think he's like not ever doing anything since becoming a butler, just that he doesn't do it as often as he once did. He's had a few relationships in the past, I think, but not since he started working for Diavolo. He's too dedicated and spends all his time in the castle.

Simeon and Raphael are going to depend on the CR again, but if we're still in my preference of the CR being cool about it, then I think Simeon at least is no virgin. He's too pretty and there is no way a million angels have not come on to him. And like I don't think he'd just fall into the bed of any angel that batted their eyelashes at him, I do think that he's secretly very passionate. Under that cool exterior, he loves hotly and I think he'd have fallen for someone at some point, giving them all of himself. Now he's older and more calm and collected and carrying the grief of losing Lucifer and his brothers.

Raphael I'm not so sure about. Because on the one hand, he's clearly quite passionate too in a "here are the spears" sort of way. But he was also super dedicated to his goal of becoming a seraph, so I don't know if he even had the room for any kind of relationship. Might still be a virgin. But I think you could go either way with him.

Solomon is a human and he's been around for ages there's no way he's still a virgin. I know I said you could make it work, but wow, that'd be tough to do with him, I think. He's like nah, the 700 wives and 300 concubines (or whatever the numbers were lol) are just for show, I didn't actually do anything with them! Wait, no but he had kids. Well you could say that Biblical lore doesn't apply to your story adsklfjdf

However. Solomon is known for being incredibly lonely. Even if he had relationships, he likely had them with other humans who inevitably died and left him alone again. So I think after his normal human lifespan ended and he had to start moving around more and kind of dedicated himself to magic, he likely stopped having relationships of any kind (love or friendship or anything) because it hurt too much. I think he could have hookups or one night stands with people he never saw again. But not so much a relationship.

Thirteen I dunno. That woman is hot af. I could see her having to turn down a lot of advances. I think she might have had some hookups, maybe even a relationship, but nothing too serious. She strikes me as a little more lighthearted about this kind of stuff. Like you know life is fleeting and in the end I'll just have to reap you anyway lol. I don't think she would get serious until MC.

ANYWAY. Sorry for this absolute NOVEL of a response. I didn't realize just how much I had to say until I started... and then I couldn't stop. I hope that somewhat answered the question, anyway??? In the end, I think it's possible to have all the characters as experienced or inexperienced as you like!

#rambling so much rambling #I'm sorry anon #no wonder it takes me so long to get through asks dsklfjkf #obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #obey me raphael #obey me mephistopheles #obey me thirteen #anon asks #misc answers