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justintaco · 6 months

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I've been up for almost 24 hours so

superheavy Lonetrail Muelsyse spoilers

Besides the like, uncountable amount of stuff that blew me away in Lonetrail,

linking together Mansfield Break and Dorothy's Vision with Vigilo and Walk in the Dust

creating thematic parallels with Near Light at the end,

what really blew me away was Muelsyse.

Anyone who's followed this blog for a long time knows I'm not big on shipping and I'm semi-public with my opinion that most times shipping brain completely poisons someone's ability to actually engage with a narrative. But honest to god, even to me, they seemed to be almost writing a romance with Doctor and Mumu.

Blink twice if you don't think I'm crazy.

like any gacha you have a lot of flirty lines between the player character and a million of the girls (and guys), but like, this seemed unusually genuine and romantic?

(x)

Like besides them sharing a dance and all their cute little scenes, they seemed to be creating a genuine parallel in their backstories and who they are as people here

Mumu discovers she isn't actually the last of her race but realizes that she has so little in common with them she cannot form any meaningful connection or even find a shared language with them. Her integration into human society is like, almost all just an act of survival by her own admission, she doesn't feel any belonging there either. In fact, most of the time her real body is hiding in her vivarium because the physical world itself is becoming so poisoned by originium that it's dangerous to leave using anything but a clone. Even in her flashback with Saria and Kristen, she seems to be the third wheel.

She is by every possible metric, completely alone. And it seems like her chronic teehee backstabbing is a coping mechanism to feeling completely alienated from even her closest friends and what becomes her second family with the Rhine Lab directors. Even that dysfunctional and over idealized family is gone now too. She even says the following after she betrays Doctor for one last ditch effort to throw in her lot with Kristen and maybe find somewhere out in the stars she can belong:

Compare that with the Doctor, who in this event witnesses what seems to be the death of the last member of their race. In fact, the dialogue implies that Doctor feels an incredible amount of anguish even just pulling the plug on Trevor since it's not so quick a death. Directly after this event, after escaping the big silo bunker thing, Doctor's first thought is to go seek out Mumu rather than regroup with everyone from RI (including Saria who just reentered the atmosphere Halo 3 style). It feels like a response to an epiphany.

Earlier, Doctor had managed to actually get her to tell the truth about herself during their dance. How isolated she feels without any past or family, just like Doctor. So they go directly to her, fresh off of losing the last connection to their past life besides Kal'tsit (who is implied to not only be unwilling but in some way unable to share more info with Doctor).

You then get what is this, extremely deeply intimate conversation between Doctor and Muelsyse, commiserating over their shared loneliness.

She tries to play things off with her usual shtick but pretty quickly she admits that saving those random Control goons on the ship was her failed attempt at suicide because Saria had well and truly kicked her out of the triumvirate to confront Kristen alone.

After that she begins connecting with Doctor on a deeper level than any character I can really recall. As much as I love the ex wife Kal'tsit stuff, they really don't seem to have a romantic attachment. A very very close and intimately trusting one, maybe a past romance, but never romantic with Doctor as they exist in the present since waking up. Doctor views other characters like Amiya, Ifrit, and Rosmontis as children to be protected. But this here is these two really baring their souls and it's just crazy to see in a gacha game where the format discourages stuff like this.

Just, man I love this whole conversation. They've both just learned recently that they can't shed their loneliness with what's left of their races. Muelsyse is totally at the end of her rope, but Doctor has just learned that the only thing they can do is fully commit to the people they know in the present. So despite Mumu's one final attempt to put a barrier up between her and another person, a literal physical barrier of water

Doctor walks right into the barrier and literally reaches out to her to help save her with what they just learned that same day

Muelsyse refers to the parts not in blue here (blue usually being the only confirmed dialogue Doctor says out loud in any given cutscene) when she talks to Nasti later. That means the Doctor said all of this out loud.

Again, am I crazy or does this feel like the most romantic Doctor has ever been with another character?

A lot of himejoshis on Twitter have been mad about the event and what it means for Mumu x Ho'ohleyak, Mumu x Saria, or Muelsyse x her OT3 with Saria and Kristen, and honestly

they might have a point

#needed to get this out or I'll never be able to sleep #please try to keep replies spoiler free if you do #Arknights #Muelsyse

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fluffalpenguin · 6 months

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⬅[Prev] Day 3: Decks

@ygoc-week Day 4: Relationships

Like Day 2, some character introductions are included for context! (Image heavy post as usual)

relationship chart at the end of the post!

1. Fleur & Jackie (VS Hamelin)

The dazzling, dangerous duo of a heiress and a hitman-for-hire! Fleur was the one that gave Jackie her name, Jacqueline, from a romance novel she had been reading at the time.

Though they look like they share a standard master and servant relationship, the two are more like equals with a directional hierarchy. Partners-in-crime, if you will...

As a research student who's always struggling to get the Tops at her school to assist her in her thesis, Hamelin hates rich people for hoarding the very historical artefacts she needs for her research. With her Magikey deck and homemade gadgets, even state-of-the-art security systems don't stand a chance!

The next day after a failed heist at Fleur (after being foiled by Jackie), she bumps into him at the college. To her horror, Jackie learns her name, and from that day on seems to have decided that the two of them are now friends.

Jackie has no clue that Hamelin and the phantom thief are the same person, but somehow he constantly makes cryptic remarks that allude to such knowledge. It always sets off the wheel in Hammy’s head.

“Inviting me out for an outing after nightfall? Is she trying to get proof that I am the phantom thief by proving that the two of us can never be at the same place at the same time? But if I say no, then she has even more reason to suspect me! If I say yes, I’m playing right into her hands… Curses! A moth? More like a spider!” “(... She’s been thinking for a while now… Is she trying to think up a way to gently let me down? I feel a little bad… But I’m not giving up!)” <- innocently just wants to be friends

(The girl at the back is Jackie's childhood friend and unrequited-but-actually-requited crush, Eliza*)

2. Violentshipping Fuschia/Viol

In their clash during the war, Fuschia learnt the cruel reality of the dimensional war he was so happily participating in. He was to get a taste of his own medicine, but escaped his cardboard fate when Viol heard his desperate pleas about his siblings.

I'm slowly working on the specifics of their encounter but anyway here are bingo charts for the both of them filled by each other:

3. RGB trio (Fuschia & Abel* & Viol)

Fuschia thought he'd just have to avoid Viol for the rest of life as long as he worked at LDS, but little did he know meeting up with his old schoolmate, Abel, had a surprise in store for him... Their theme song is guy.exe by superfruit

4. Abel & Viol

After Abel defected to Xyz, the two ended up being in the same refugee camp. While they knew of each other's existence, they never spoke a word to each other for the entire war, only ever enjoying each other's silent company as they ate their meals in companiable silence. It was only after the war ended when they both returned to their 'spot' as a last hurrah of sorts that they finally exchanged names.

The two look stunning no matter the state they're in, and are often mistaken to be models. While they can be found hanging out at the most fashionable cafes in Maiami on the weekend, they'll also do the strangest things together, such as going fishing in the middle of a heavy storm.

arteeeeee omggggggggggg🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟👍👍 c079x BIG CATCH ‼️🎣🐟💯yall cray crayfish fr lmao!!! aluberenjoyer who took this photo

5. Fusion Mean Girls (Fuschia + Auvria* + Abel +α)

At any given day during a school day, Fuschia and Auvria can be seen sitting at the back of the classroom doing anything but paying attention, such as painting their nails. Despite that, if you were to call on them, they'd be able to answer the question with ease. This catches the eye of a certain Obelisk Force member...

On the battlefield, the pink-headed pair often play a game to see who can collect more resistance scarves in a given time limit.

6. Arte & Alcidis

In school, the two quickly became friends over a shared interest in the field of design. While Alcie would hesitate calling Arte a friend then, the loss of her comforting presence during the war made him realise how reliant he had been on her company. During the invasion, he writes many letters (diary entries) to her, knowing that she would want to know everything that happened. He doesn't actually give them to her when she's revived, because he's let himself be very vulnerable in them.

A handy dandy chart for an overview... (Not exhaustive because it only includes my own+1 ocs)

Things I wanted to draw but didn't have the time:

sillies trio meeting and their antennas reacting to each other

jackie vs hamelin rooftop duel

hamelin conducting a field study as jackie watches

post-canon alcie and arte hanging out

fuschia jackie vibing together

and a bunch of other combinations with my friends' ocs!! keels over

➞[Next] Day 5: Swap (Coming soon!)

(Note: * = OCs owned by @shinrei017)

#yugioh oc week 23 #pasu makes ocs #no prizes for guessing who my favourite child is #just kidding they're all my favourite #i have the pre-duel dialogue written down i just need to cook the mid/post one..............

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sailorblossoms · 2 years

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Originally I added this as a reblog of my post unpacking comphet and how Simon fell into it, how he needed structures to survive, and that had me thinking about Agatha's side too. I'm making it it's own post now because both are long and it gets a bit messy to follow on the app lol

Simon's trauma and neglect played a big part in him falling into the structure that included "dating the damsel". At the center of it all, there's someone who's erroneously going along with expectations because he's starving for affection, because he wants to feel wanted. And that's something Agatha has in common with him. She might not be "starving" as much as Simon, but she's still starving for affection. Agatha wants to find herself, and she attempts to use romance to do so because she wants to feel wanted. She wants to feel the spark of being truly desired by someone who makes her feel passionate, rather than just being stared (or even ogled) at for her beauty by strangers.

This is why she fights with Simon when he tells her he prefers to stay at Watford in case Baz shows up in CO, rather than going to her house during break. Simon notes that it doesn't seem like she actually wants him to go with her, but that she wants him to want it (and yet Simon is choosing the possibility of seeing Baz, who's his "enemy" over her). This is also why both Penny and Simon note Agatha is "jealous" of what they have: it's clear that Penny and Simon, through their years of friendship, were each other's #1. When Penny looks back, she doesn't think about all of them as a team, it's just Simon and her (as a duo) against the world, while Agatha was just the one they were constantly saving (no wonder Agatha feels like a third wheel!)

It's likely that Agatha resented being stuck with expectations and unwanted attention while Penny could just be Simon's friend, even though Simon "liked Penny" better. And she says it herself: she doesn't have other friends. It must have been isolating, for someone who wants to feel wanted, to be friends with people who seemed to like each other much better than they liked her, who are always thinking of each other first before they thought about her (even more given Agatha recalls both of them ignoring her when she was constantly pointing out the dangers and the like). It must have been lonely then (and there's a difference between being lonely and wanting to be left alone). Heteronormativity has them all reframing these feelings as "romantic" jealousy, including wanting Simon, who's supposed to be in a romantic relationship with her, to like her better (after all, she's using conventional ideas of romance to feel wanted).

And it's so very telling that after 3 years of dating Simon, Agatha still doesn't feel wanted. She doesn't feel desired, she doesn't feel the spark. She thinks stuff like "her roommate is jealous because Simon liked her", but she doesn't actually feel like Simon genuinely likes her in a non-platonic way. It's so so very telling, that when she summarizes "their relationship" (which Penny already noted as just going through the motions and void of any romance in CO) it's not only lackluster as hell, but she's also just saying shit they can totally still do as friends. Also, Agatha being there because Simon "needs a date" to a school ball it's basically describing their dating as something done because they were obliged to fulfill a social expectation, rather than being together because they actually wanted it. It's quite fitting.

And then there's Agatha "liking" Baz. Since dating "the hero" was clearly not working out for Agatha, she starts wanting to go after the Bad Guy, which is also just following typical straight romantic conventions. Nothing about the way she thinks about Baz indicates that she's actually, genuinely attracted to him. Rather, she's attracted to an idea of him: that being wanted by a bad guy will be liberating and exciting, because he won't expect her to be so good and so perfectly well behaved (The expectation that she must be the perfect pure lady is part of her role. Agatha can be bitchy and a jerk, but she's very aware that this isn't "socially acceptable" of her, that her being "unlikeable" doesn't fit her role).

She's a whole cliché in her white dress, dramatically waiting for him at night, because she's still just following conventions, still expecting typical straight romances to hold the answers she's seeking (the pure good girl being drawn to the dangerous, attractive bad boy, except she's sure he wouldn't actually hurt her–it's a whole thing in romances, and note how Agatha isn't actually afraid of Baz, even as she thinks he will have her "poisoning people", with the way she's standing alone, defenseless and in the dark).

She says it herself, this is how she was looking for a spark. For a thrill. But looking back, it's so very embarrassing for her, because in her search to find herself and feel desired, she was just between two queer boys who have only ever wanted each other. Neither ever liked her that way. And well, it's not her fault really, since heteronormativity was trapping all of them during school, and it tells us that boys must compete for the pretty girl.

It's also worth noting that while Agatha and Simon are mirrors (they fucking share a braincell sometimes, I swear) Agatha can be quite a few steps ahead of him (and perhaps everyone else) in figuring her shit out. She was wrong about a lot of things at the start of CO, but once she puts a distance and starts to look back, she's not wrong at all in her assessments. And what she's basically saying is that comphet and heteronormativity were a kind of death for her. She was never going to find herself while she was trapped, she was never going to find her spark.

It's very interesting to note that when Agatha finally experiences real attraction for someone, there are things in common with Simon being attracted to Baz. Agatha also falls for someone who brings out the real her, someone who infuriates her and drives her crazy (while she can't help but want more, to want to be closer), who's ruthless in a sport, whose hair is a turn-on, who makes her talk about not really being into her previous (comphet!) relationship, etc (there are quite a few similarities between Baz and Niamh).

Both Simon and Agatha get a chance to talk about their relationship with their actual love interest in awtwb, and both communicate the worst with body language/reactions rather than words, you can see that here with Agatha, or with Simon self-harming (kicking walls, pulling his hair, etc). It's harder for Simon (due to his traumas and his resistance to process things, alongside Baz purposedly asking much harder questions to answer–questions related to identity), and he doesn't really think about it–in the rare ocassion he does bring it up, he's all to ready to wrongly blame himself for everything that went wrong, everything that simply sucked ass. While Agatha has spent much time thinking about everything that sucked ass for her about dating Simon, so now she can calmy say that she liked Simon. And the way she liked him is compared to the way Niamh likes him too: it's platonic.

Also worth noting is that you can tell Agatha is experiencing real, mind-blowing attraction in basically the same way you can tell when Simon experiences it for Baz. There are body reactions: Agatha's knees go weak just by looking at Niamh, Baz looks at Simon a certain way and it has him feeling hot and bothered, wanting to jump on him, to smash his head against the wall, wings snapping open and shit. There's also the way their thoughts are derailed, the way they keep repeating their love interests' names in their minds, as if they were unable to think about anything else. (Agatha going Niamh, Niamh, Niamh here isn't unlike the way Simon is constantly going Baz, Baz, Baz in his head since CO)

Also worth noting is that the woods were associated with negative feelings for Agatha, about feeling embarrassed and foolish for looking for something with someone she didn't really want, for someone who couldn't possibly give her what she wanted. But Agatha and Niamh kiss in the woods, basically reclaiming it with sapphic love and desire. There's her spark.

#agatha wellbelove #simon snow series #simon snow #baz pitch

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direwombat · 1 year

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for the fanfic emoji asks:

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

💖 What made you start writing?

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

thank you skelly! ending with the wip snippet (wippet?) since i answered 🤯 in the previous ask!

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

oh god. anything and everything on my ff.net account (abandoned way back in 2011 jesus ...) we don't talk about those days. also the rpf fics that i wrote a while ago. less because i'm embarrassed by it being rpf (the people encouraged fic and also...technically it was an au) but more because one of the people i enjoyed writing rpf for turned out to be a MASSIVE dickbag. like. YIKES (i'll bake cookies for anyone who correctly guesses which fandom this was for lmao)

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

;w; i like to think i do a good job at capturing and communicating the emotions of the characters i'm writing. i generally prefer character driven stories and i think/hope that comes through in my writing

💖 What made you start writing?

gosh tbh i don't even remember. i was a creative child, so drawing and making up stories was something i was doing since i was little. i started writing and posting fic in high school and it was kind of an off-and-on kind of thing, but it really wasn't until i made it through undergrad/when the pandemic hit that i started writing longer form stuff. and then that was put on pause because of grad school. but after grad school (may 2022) i had more time and more importantly no outlet for a lot of difficult emotions i was feeling while job hunting and melting in the texas summer heat, so writing (working on fragile creatures) was my escape. i wrote because it was a safe space to deal with hard emotions at topics that i didn't have anyone to talk to about :') you know. normal lonely person who has no irl friends kind of things </3 writing (and finding this little bubble of the fc5 fandom) helped me through what was probably the worst stretch of months i've ever had.

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

why of course skelly! under the cut is the rough draft for the ending of chapter 1 of kneeling at the crossroads :)

Climbing into the truck, she settles in behind the wheel and stares at the intersection in front of her. To the right is the road leading north, towards the bridge to the Whitetails. To the left, the bridge leading into the Valley.

Her knee bounces as she thinks and she shifts restlessly in her seat. Nervous energy is telling her to run, act, stop thinking, pick a direction, and fucking go.

She needs to find her brother.

But, Rae-Rae is in trouble and Dutch sounded genuinely worried about her.

Her brother is somewhere in the Whitetails, unable to call for help because radio signals are being jammed.

But, Falls End is being fucking occupied and who knows how many are injured or dead.

Her brother is likely also in a war-zone. Alone. Possibly dead.

But, Joey is definitely still alive. She saw proof of that. But, she also might not be alive for much longer, if Sybille doesn’t take John’s bait.

Whitetails or the Valley?

Her brother, or the community she swore an oath to serve?

The lives of the many, or the life of the only kin she has left?

The familiar, coppery tang of blood fills her mouth again, but the sting of reopening the crack in her lip barely registers. She can’t get the image of Joey, beaten and crying, out of her head. Her partner — her friend — is in immediate danger.

Augustine is smart. He’s a ranger. He knows the mountains better than most, and he’s armed. Sure, his issued rifle is more meant to scare off bears, but it’s enough to give him a fighting chance, at least.

A chance that Joey certainly doesn’t have.

She slams her palms down against the wheel and she kicks into the footwell with enough force to shake the cab. “FUCK!” she shouts. And with a violent twist, she turns the key in the ignition and turns left, speeding off into the Valley.

I’m comin’ for you, Augustine, I promise. I just need you to hold on a little bit longer.

#thank you for sending in questions <3 <3 <3

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batboyblog · 2 years

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hello @queerarrow thanks so much for taking the time to comment on my thoughts, it was interesting and I wanted to address some of them here:

Two things I don't think gay media is lacking in hope or joy focused stories? The movie Love, Simon comes to mind, where his coming out is supported by his mom with a lovely speech, it ends with a Ferris wheel romantic moment and the final scene is Simon with his friend group in the car now plus boyfriend getting their morning coffee as an upbeat squad. There for sure is a narrative about gay media being a downer but I think thats a little disingenuous, and feels like again the conversation around Heartstopper is trying to take advantage of that narrative to sell itself as the "only" hopeful and positive gay YA story.

thing two is... I don't think they do deal with problems in a hopeful way? which maybe is different from focusing on hope and joy? The only serious issue they really focus on is bullying and how do they deal with it? Charlie quits, he leaves the Rugby team? something we're shown him enjoying, but once a bully shows up he quits gives up, leaves. He doesn't show that he a skinny gay boy can do rugby even though he's not "supposed to" as gay boy, it doesn't show that the team rallies to support Charlie against a homophobic bully (that'd be hopeful) it should Charlie walking out of Rugby and indeed not even for himself but for Nick. Charlie hasn't learned anything across the show, he's still putting a boy's needs/happiness over his own, just like with Ben. Then Nick also "quits" (or walks out of Sports day, idk how British school works, but the implication was he quit Rugby) so the hopeful and joy filled way they deal with the serious issue of bullying is to... run away? to allow the bully to get what he wants? (no queers in sports) I agree that the visuals and narrative focus on the positive side of the scene, ie that Charlie and Nick are together and Nick picked Charlie over sports.

I think people often frame it as an either or, I don't think anyone is saying Nick and Charlie need to be getting it on. Only the show doesn't do a very good job of showing thats something they might want to do at some point? The kissing is very cautious, demure, and polite, now that might be the actors maybe they were not comfortable really macking on each other, or putting hands on hips or into back pockets etc. But the result is there's a lot of romance without a lot of desire. Which links back to Ben, narratively I think we can all agree Ben going through all the trouble of sneaking around with Charlie and Charlie going through all the trouble for 3 second chased kisses doesn't make a whole lot of sense, particularly as we are shown clearly later that Ben does not respect Charlie in general and his boundaries in particular. And I think it's troubling that the gay character who is the most sexualized, Ben, is also very rapey since a long standing stereotype of gay men is that we're sexually dangerous and untrustworthy.

I mean I hope they do do something, I'm unsure what they could do to turn Ben into a real character rather than a cartoon villain, and given the over all black white morality of the show's thinking I have doubts, plus it does kinda feel like a damage done thing. But yeah they have two more seasons to add a little complexity to his character, maybe explain why Charlie "went out with him" at all since the narrative need to make sure Charlie wasn't "cheating" really destroyed any kind of relationship they. might have had.

So there's a thing in storytelling called "show, don't tell" which is we the readers or viewers should see what we're being told about. Don't have a character say "he was so freaking tall!" have us slowly pan upward along a very tall man. Any ways we're told about Elle's trans experiences, all of which have to do with bullying and abuse for being trans (again not very joyful..) but we don't see them. Indeed a friend of mine missed the line about the transphobic teacher, and picked up the line about her hair when she's talking to the girls. And my friend, being black, assumed the bullying and school switch was about her being a black girl with big natural hair, a common problem black girls face (hair bullying that is). So he thought she was a cis girl for like 4-5 episodes. And indeed if you changed the reason she was bullied, literally turn "transphobe" into "racist" with ADR, nothing would change for Elle's story. I mean it's cool a trans actress got a role on a big show, and I think it's cool in general terms to have a trans friend in a friend group and it be not be a big deal thats cool. But it's pretty clear that the show either didn't want to or didn't know how to tell an explicitly trans story/love story for Elle and Tao and basically avoiding any of the emotional or psychological road blocks either of them feel about falling in love/dating.

#Heartstopper #Ben Hope #meta #gay stuff

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