#also these two characters are annoyingly relatable in their own ways

[notemaker]

Getting out of the comfort zone can be uncomfortable.

#i havent finished the manga yet so Im working on vibes only #the vibes say: these two are worth exploring #their dynamic compells me #also these two characters are annoyingly relatable in their own ways #laios touden #the autism knight #I GET IT #I GET IT NOW. WHY HE'S CALLED THAT WAY. I REALLY DO #laios dungeon meshi #laios #dunmeshi laios #laios thorden #laios x kabru #kinda #my art #art post #kabru of utaya #kabru #kabru dungeon meshi #delicious in the dungeon #doodles #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi

[writingonleaves]

were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? (did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?) - jeremy swayman

pairing: jeremy swayman x original female character

warnings: swearing, pretty angsty. hopeful ish ending because i can't do sad endings, very personal but i think many can relate in their own way, cliche ish, barely proofread

inspired by + title: "the smallest man who ever lived" by taylor swift

word count: 5.6k

author's note: i'd argue almost every piece any author writes is personal, because it has their life interspersed through the words. but this one really is, because a majority of this is the exact same words i wrote years ago after a break-up. heard the bridge to this song and immediately knew i had to write something inspired by it. also trying a new format of sorts (maybe a bit meta??), so i hope you enjoy and lmk what you think!!

~*~*~

When Noelle Betsko walked away from Jeremy Swayman, holding back tears until the call dropped, she knew it was going to be a tough time for the foreseeable future. 

It didn’t matter that the pandemic had forced them apart. She knew she would still feel him for months to come.

She did the only thing she knows how to do when trying to deal with things. The one thing she always resorts to as an aspiring novelist. Sometimes on her laptop when the words were spilling out too quickly for her brain to catch up, tears littering the keyboard. Usually in her old beat-up journal, scribbling in the cursive that Jeremy claimed he always loved (“It makes your handwriting unique”) with the pens he had gifted her just a few months prior. 

At the age of 21, Noelle got her heart broken for the first time. At the age of 26, she’s about to publish her first poetry collection of sorts, all of the poems modeled after journal entries written throughout her life. So not really poetry, though her mother would say otherwise. 

She swallows as she thumbs through the middle part of the first known and binded copy of “miscellaneous.” There are only eight entries in the whole collection that are taken verbatim from her past writing. These are the eight.

May 13, 2020 (three days post-breakup, crying in my childhood bedroom)

I don’t even recognize who I was and who you were in those writings before these pages filled with love and hope and happiness. I can’t even summon up those feelings anymore that I knew existed at one point. Those feelings of complete bliss and love for someone so deep you can’t explain it. 

I’m mad at myself for not being able to conjure those feelings, because at one point, I did love you. How could something that was part of my daily life for over two years just disappear so quickly? 

But now, I’m not mad at myself. I’m mad, but I don’t know where to direct that anger to. I feel a bit empty sometimes, but then frustrated the next. Sometimes I get sad, but not so much compared to the other feelings. I spent enough time being sad during our relationship.

When we broke up, on an annoyingly beautiful Tuesday in May — over the damn phone, mind you, which whatever, it’s COVID. Fine — You told me you felt like you had been putting more effort into us. 

At the time, I didn’t react, but I’ve been thinking about how angry that statement made me. Makes me, actually. I was always very open with how much I gave to that relationship. How much it meant to me. How much it affected me. But I understand that with some people, sharing everything too much equates to things not meaning anything anymore. But you out of all people should’ve known that I mean everything I say.

I felt like I gave so much. I know I gave so much. When I told you I loved you, I always meant it. Every single time. When I told you I missed you, I always meant it. I wished you were right next to me at that moment. I mentally gave so much, because to me, I wanted to. You were always on my mind, always high up on my list of priorities. I never took us for granted.

I’ve been questioning if that was the same for you. Did you start becoming complacent?

The second thing you said that day that hasn’t left my head is that you knew me pretty well. And initially, I remember not thinking much of it. So I don’t doubt that; you always knew right when I was about to cry, even over the phone. You often knew when I was mad or upset, but when I look back now, you never pushed. Which is a good thing, to an extent. But it was a bad thing sometimes too. I knew you often wanted to give me space, but sometimes I didn’t want space. I wanted you to push. To try to understand. Maybe that’s unfair of me; it probably is. I should just say I want to talk about it more, right? 

But if you genuinely knew me, you would’ve known.

After two years, seven months and 12 days,  I still feel like I didn’t know you. Did I ever know you at all?

When people talked shit about you, I always defended you. And I still would defend you now. But lately, I've questioned what I’m even defending. All those good qualities that I thought you had, were they even real? Of course, I know some of them were, to a certain extent. But as I look back on us, there’s a lot of doubt about whether I even knew the person I called my boyfriend for so long. I know there was a point where you cared about me, but I can’t remember when. 

I often felt like I was letting you know so much about my life, but you didn’t do the same. I get that sometimes a person just wants to forget about the bad and focus on the good with a person you like for awhile. I get that. But once that was happening every damn time? That should’ve been a red flag. 

June 7, 2020 (twenty eight days post break-up, outside my childhood room on the deck) 

I don’t understand how you can give so much to something or someone and have it not be recognized or appreciated or enough. If I wasn’t enough for you, how will I be enough for anyone?

I hope one day you’ll truly understand how much this hurt. Not just the breakup, but feeling like I was always being pulled in a direction I didn’t always want to be pulled in. Feeling I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and never ever being able to win. I hate that I settled so much in the last year. Because I should’ve demanded more, even though deep down I knew you were never going to be able to give it to me.

I think back to our past daily texts, and I just don’t get it. At one point, we both meant the things we said to each other. 

Yet we still hurt each other. 

This fucking hurts.

You’ve hurt me so much, but most of it wasn’t intentional, which I think is somewhat even worse. Because I’m not totally mad at you for causing the pain. You never did anything outright to cause me pain, but I still feel like you did. 

Unintentional pain almost stings more than intentional. 

When I asked you out that night after we were both on an emotional high, I took a chance. For once in my life, I took the leap, knowing that I could get humiliated or hurt or just straight up shot down. 

Where did it all go wrong? Or, more realistically, how did we think that we could go through the wrong when it was there at the start?

I’m trying not to blame myself too much. Trying not to tell myself that I should’ve known better. 

All those times, especially at the start, when I would ask you if you genuinely liked me, you always thought I was just trying to be annoying. But you never understood that I genuinely thought that way. My self confidence from the start was lacking, and you didn’t try to understand that, because I come across to everyone as confident and self-assured. 

It hurt, when you would brush things off like that. I felt like you didn’t care.

And then, it got to the point where I stopped asking that question. Part of that is because I did become more confident and you did show that you cared, and part of that was because I knew it would piss you off.

The amount of things I was scared to talk about with you because I knew it would piss you off? I don’t wish that feeling on anybody.

I shouldn’t have been scared. I shouldn’t have been uncomfortable. But I was. And if you did notice like sometimes you claimed to, why didn’t you make it more comfortable for me? Was that too much to ask for? 

So larger than life that at the end, you faded into just the smallest man who ever lived. Fuck you.

Was it too much to ask for when I just wanted to know why you were upset? You didn’t have to ever tell me the full story (lord knows there were times I didn’t), but was it too much to ask for something? You told me once that I’m the person you’ve told the most to. How? You barely told me anything. And when I wanted to talk to you, whether it was about growing up in Alaska or why you were in a bad mood last night, you always brushed it off. Always. 

So I don’t feel so bad about feeling like I gave more effort. I gave so much of myself to you. If you really cared about me like you claimed you did, why couldn’t you show even just 1% of that care back? Or just meet me in the middle?

I could’ve tried harder to meet you in the middle, I’ll admit that. But you didn’t even give me a map or a clue how to. 

I felt so fucking left in the dark. I felt left in the dark about my own fucking relationship, something that I should be completely sure about. If you really love someone and care about them, how can you leave them in the dark? How could you not even see that I was struggling to find a flashlight?

You did care about me. I know that. To some extent and at some point in time, you did care about me. But caring about someone and their well-being isn’t always enough.

Why couldn’t you have worked with me? When I was extending my hand out, why didn’t you reach for it? How can someone just be so blind? I mean, I’m practically always spelling it out for you. 

Maybe I am being selfish. But fuck, I just wanted to be happy. At some point, you made me happy. When did I start making you feel like I wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t I enough for you?

It’s useless, in a way, to keep going about this. Because I know I deserve better. And we’ll both find people who are better for us. We just couldn’t be that person to each other.

I fucking loved you.

I wish it ended differently.

July 8, 2020 (fifty nine days post-breakup, in front of the lake)

I really really fucking miss you. 

I do. 

I miss being able to text you that i love you and not necessarily expecting a response until the next morning. I miss knowing that as soon as you wake up, you’ll text me back and assure me that yeah, you love me too. 

I’m left feeling bittersweet as I look back on memories that are just splashes and not definite strokes on the canvas that used to be us.

I miss having you as a friend. 

I’ve been having more urges lately to want to text you. And it isn’t even anything important. Just moments I experience throughout the day.

Do you get the urge to do the same?

July 19, 2020 (seventy days post-breakup, still in the same damn house)

It’s hard. It really is. And it kinda just hits you at random parts of the day. Sometimes I wake up from a dream that you were in and have to remind myself that it didn’t happen. 

Sometimes it physically aches when I realize that you won’t ever help me put on my jacket again, or complain that my hair is in your face when we’re lying on the couch watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, or groan when I drag you up to dance with me (which you never improved on, no matter how many times I tried to teach you basic rhythm). I can’t view our song the same way anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. 

The other day, I read some simple thing on Twitter. I don’t even remember what it was, but I do remember that for a split second, I could see your smile in my mind. But it wasn’t just any smile. It was the smile you gave me when you took me ice skating that first time. I remember asking you what you were smiling at, and you said that you just were taking in this moment. I don’t know if you took a mental picture that day, but I know I did. That day seems so long ago now. 

In almost anything I do, you somehow pop into my mind or into the conversation. And it’s not even in a harmful way either. It’s because you were part of my life for so long. I see a dog on the street, and it reminds me of how you always stopped to pet every single one we’s see I write something in my messy handwriting, and I remember how you always used to complain that you couldn’t read the notes I’d occasionally leave around your place when you went away. I went to the doctor’s the other day, and they said I was 5 feet and 3 inches, which is just definitely not true, and I almost reached for my phone to text you, because you would’ve cackled and insisted that no, I’m 5 feet 2 inches and it wouldn’t even matter because I’ll always be shorter than you. It’s simple and minute things that make me miss you that much more.

I still can’t listen to some songs the same way anymore, but I can at least listen to them now, which is a feat in itself. I was unpacking from college and found the teddy bear you sent me the first extended time we had to be apart and had to immediately put that out of my sight. From those boxes also came photos that I had decorated my dorm room with, and to be honest, I’m glad now that I let you keep our best one. I deal with all my emotions, besides writing, by making Spotify playlists, and I made a new one earlier this week. I think it’s helping. It’s a slow process, this whole moving on thing, but it’s one that I’m trying to be grateful for, because like most things in life, you just don’t truly know until you go through it.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how you are and how you’re healing. But, even though we’ve both changed since the day we met, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you’re incredibly strong and stubborn. I hope that you’re finding some growth in this process too. 

October 17, 2020 (one hundred fifty seven days post-break up, apartment in orono)

It’s been almost 5 months, and you still cross my mind everyday. 

Why wasn’t I enough for you? Why didn’t you fucking tell me what you were thinking? Why was I the one who had to approach you just because I was just so done with the silent treatment?

But I’m not mad at you. Not anymore. The mad phase passed ages ago. 

Closure is a fake word. Even a breakup as mutual and smooth as ours was still left me with so many questions that will probably never be answered. 

Any breakup fucks you up to some extent. I knew it was going to mess me up even back when we were together. But not like this. Never like this. 

But like anything in life, I guess you can never really prepare for what you think you might feel, because most of the time, you discover a whole new side of you that you never thought existed. 

I don’t miss you. I don’t. I don’t feel that love in any way anymore. 

But I did once.

You did too, right?

November 15, 2020 (one hundred eighty six days post break-up, fogler library)

I hate Halloween. 

Though, it did bring me to you three years ago. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there. 

Three years later, you texted me on Halloween, five months after our breakup. The universe really, really wanted to fuck with me. 

It was a tough night for you. I knew that. Because I know how you are after losing a game you should’ve won. But that didn’t mean that I owed you anything and had to respond. 

We agreed on no contact if we ever wanted to stay friends. Clearly, friends is out of the picture now, but come on. A vulnerable text after a bad night because you know I would feel bad for you?

Fuck, you know how much I would hate that. You had to have known. 

Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean that everything about you just disappears. I still know your tendencies. I still know exactly how my head burrows into your chest during a hug. I still know the actions I used to do that would be followed by you attacking me with a hug. I still could point you out in a crowd. 

I looked for you in every crowd for years. 

That stuff doesn’t just go away, no matter how much I want it to. But fuck. Fuck. Why did you text me? 

I don’t regret how I handled it. I probably would’ve responded months ago. But just like you, I’ve grown these last couple of months. 

It was comforting, for a split second, to know that maybe, just maybe, these past couple of months have been hard for you too. It makes me feel human. It makes me feel like I’m not crazy.

I’m glad you texted me. You gave me another level of closure I hadn’t known that I needed until then. 

But fuck, dude. You know me better than that. You should know me better than that. 

I hate Halloween.

November 26, 2020 (one hundred ninety seven days, at the coffee shop i brought you to when you came home with me two years ago)

I don’t regret loving you, but I hate you for what you did to me. 

Or maybe not. 

I hate knowing that even though we haven’t been in a relationship in a bit, it feels like sometimes, you’re on my mind the exact same amount when we were dating. I hate knowing that I gave so much of myself and my love to you, and it always felt unrecognized. 

Fuck, will it ever stop hurting? Will I ever be able to have to stop myself from thinking about you? Will it ever stop?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy it.

June 12, 2021 (three hundred ninety five days post-break up, in boston, visiting a friend)

Tonight, when a friend asked me about you and how I felt about how we ended, I was able to articulate my thoughts clearly. I’m really proud of myself for getting to a point where I can take the lessons I learned the few months after we broke up and acknowledge them in a succinct way without breaking down into tears. Just watery eyes and the occasional voice crack 

I’m also proud that I can say that when we were dating, I lost a bit of myself. For months, it was really hard to admit out loud.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come. Sometimes, I wish I could call or text you about it, because I think you’d be proud too. And I know I’d be proud of you. I am, to be honest. I do break resolve once in awhile and check on you through various avenues.

I still haven’t seen you in person since the last time COVID made us say goodbye. Maybe I never will again. But day by day, I’m starting to accept that and be okay with it. I’m accepting that memories that used to be so painted in my mind are blurry or almost completely erased now. But that’s okay. Honestly, it’s probably for the best. 

I wonder, when you think about it, if you think about different moments that I do. That’s the thing when something ends. You have to be okay with letting go of those moments and realizing that just because you forget them, doesn’t mean they weren’t important. 

I don’t think I miss you. I hesitate in saying that. Because I’ve moved on and handled the aftermath of it better than I think both of us ever thought I could. When you hung up the phone for the last time, I proved to myself again that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I think we all are. But we don’t realize it until we’re thrown into a situation that we think we’ll never be able to overcome. 

But we do. Whether it’s because we’re forced to because there’s no other option, it doesn’t matter. Because we get through. We move on. 

I hope you're moving on. 

And then it goes into other topics, graduating during a pandemic specifically and losing what’s supposed to be your last year of no responsibilities before adulthood. There are other poems in here that reference a past relationship, but not as much as these eight. 

If there’s one thing that Noelle did change, it was taking out the details. Jeremy may have hurt her, but he doesn’t deserve someone possibly making a connection between these poems and their shared background. She’s not a famous author by any means, but she wanted to be careful.

Not that she makes that part of her life publicly known. People don’t need to know that her brother was Jeremy’s captain for two years at Maine and that’s how they met. 

Noelle grew up going to rinks. She hasn’t gone to one since they broke up. 

But also, what the fuck? It’s been five years since she’s dated the guy. She really is over it by now, even if his rise to stardom in the Bruins flittering on her social media feeds still sometimes has her swallowing a bit before she can continue with her day. 

Brooklyn is far enough from Boston. But sometimes it feels like it’s right outside her door. 

She’s proud of her first published work. She really is. People believed in her and after numerous notes swapped back and forth with her editor, she did it. She always knew she wanted to work in publishing. She never knew she herself would publish anything.

And here she is now, two weeks after the book release, in Boston, about to do a q&a and a signing. Apparently, “miscellaneous” has been on top of numerous lists and it’s flying off the shelves. Noelle can’t really believe it and tries not to think about it too much, trusting her agent with all of that. 

She’s happy to talk about her work and process though. That she can handle. And she’s grateful for all the love.

After a signing at a local bookstore, she decides to walk the 20 minutes home in the Boston fall. It’s a bit brisk, but she doesn’t mind and she just wanders, belly filled with delicious sushi she inhaled for dinner with an old friend.

Of course it happens the one time during her walk when she doesn’t avoid eye contact with someone. The song playing in her earbuds fade out of her focus and she almost stumbles. 

Jeremy’s eyes were always Noelle’s favorite thing about him. She thought she would’ve forgotten what they looked like by now. But clearly she hasn’t. 

Her eyes quickly cast to the person next to him. It’s definitely a girl. They’re a bit too far away for Noelle to pick out details. But it’s enough. He’s walking on the side closest to the street. It’s a Friday Night in a bustling part of the city. 

It hurts. She wishes it didn’t.

Even from far away, she sees his eyes blink in recognition. Noelle puts her head back down and walks faster. 

(She cries in the shower when she gets back to the hotel. She had debated feeling super sorry for herself and going to the hotel bar but refrained)

She has a few free days in Boston before flying back to New York. When she wakes up the next morning, she debates on going home early. But no, she won’t let a three second glance at someone ruin her time here. She used to occasionally come here during her college days. She loves this city. 

The city may be Jeremy’s, but she can make space for herself here too. 

She takes her time at a cafe, people watching and eating some breakfast. As she takes her coffee to-go, she looks out the window at the bookstore she was in the night before for the signing. She almost drops her coffee. 

Jeremy walks into the book store. 

Now, Noelle is debating her options. What she should do is continue with her day and walk in the opposite direction. But she’s always been too nosy for her own good. And maybe a bit self destructive. She decides to leave the cafe and cross the street immediately, so impatient to where she’s almost tapping her foot as the pedestrian signal stays red. 

As a writer, she’s no stranger to movie moments. The scenes written in books or movies where the timing is too accurate to be real. The situation too good to be true. But after a car speeds through an orange and she can finally walk, she stops in her tracks instead, feet glued down to the sidewalk.

Because Jeremy is right in front of her on the other side of the street. Her book in his hand. And he’s looking right at her. 

The first feeling she can recognize in herself is anger. Anger at the way their relationship panned out. Anger at the way they ended. Anger at the radio silence the years following. Anger at him for everything. Angry at herself for everything. 

The second feeling is, weirdly, shame, which she’s embarrassed by. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. But she feels it anyways. 

The third, and perhaps the most prominent, is emptiness. Five fucking years later, and she’s brought back to the emptiness she felt immediately after they broke up. The emptiness that the person you loved isn’t yours anymore — who maybe wasn’t ever yours to begin with. 

Before she can run, he’s already crossed the street to her. He looks naturally different as someone who you haven’t seen in five years would. But he also heartbreakingly looks the same. 

“We should get out of people’s way,” Noelle manages to chokes out. 

Jeremy laughs a bit. Her heart lurches. “Yeah.” He starts walking and she follows him wordlessly. This is his city after all. 

He leads them to a bench under a tree with beautiful fall foliage. She puts at least a foot between them as they both sit down, staring out at the people passing. She can’t take the silence. 

“I see you bought my book.”

“I did,” he replies evenly. “Congratulations. I always knew you would do it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe if she squeezes hard enough she’ll forget when she originally pitched Jeremy the bare bones idea of the exact same book that’s currently in his hand. “Thank you. Congratulations to you too. On everything.”

“You’ve been watching?”

She shakes her head. “No. But, you know Seth and…yeah. It comes up during family calls sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say hi last night?”

She looks pointedly at a couple walking their dog. “You seemed busy.”

“She wasn’t-that-it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh. Because that makes me feel so much better,” she spits out, before taking a deep breath. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We broke up ages ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she gives him a look and is slightly proud of how he seems to shrink into himself a bit. “I-I know it’s five years too late. I know I didn’t handle it as well as I should’ve. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The thing is, Noelle always thought that maybe hearing an apology someday would make her feel better. But now that’s heard it, she’s not sure she does. 

She swallows. “I appreciate that.”

“I’ve already read it, you know.”

“Read what?”

Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “Your book. One of my teammate’s girlfriend recommended it and I asked to borrow it. It’s fantastic,” He looks down at the book in his hand. It’s like the cover is taunting her. “I wanted my own copy.”

“Oh.” 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me off the hook with the poems I know were about me,” he scoffs, shaking his head at himself. “You could’ve written way worse.”

She can’t help but let out a chuckle. “I thought I was pretty mean.”

“Your definition of ‘pretty mean’ is tame compared to a lot of people,” he says, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the book. “You were always the kindest person, even when you shouldn’t have been..” 

He puts his hand out in her direction, the hand with the book in it. She furrows her eyebrows. “What-”

“Could I get a signed copy?”

“Jeremy. What do you want from me?”

He sighs, taking his hand back. “A chance to apologize?”

“You’ve already done that.”

“Not in the way I want to and what you deserve.”

She lets out a sigh, turning to face him fully. “I don’t know if that would be worth my time or yours. I know the book just came out, but that was five years ago. I’m over it. Forgive and forget, right?”

“But do you?” Jeremy counters back. “Clearly, you don’t forget, which I deserve. But forgive?” 

“We’re just going in circles now.”

“No we’re not,” he says firmly. “You’re just shutting me down because you don’t want to talk about it. I’ve had five years to prepare what I would say to you if I saw you again. You’re telling me you haven’t?”

“Of course I have,” Noelle tips her head back. “But also, what’s the point?”

“The point, is that I still love you.”

“Fuck you,” she says in a strained voice. “You can’t just-you can’t just throw that shit out there. Fuck you.”

He bites his lip, and to her annoyance, he laughs. But she listens more carefully, and it sounds very self deprecating. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” Noelle looks down at her feet. “So…what? You still love me?”

“I do.”

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“What are you going to let me do?”

“I live in Brooklyn.”

“I know,” she whips her head up. Jeremy looks sheepish, which she didn’t even think was something he knew how to do. “Seth mentioned it when we caught up a bit ago. I also still follow you on Instagram.”

She tries again. “It’s been five years.”

“And I’m here sitting with you and still feel the exact same way I did back then. Even more, to be honest.” He eyes her pointedly. “Any more excuses?”

Her voice softens. “You really hurt me.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry, Noelle.”

“I hurt you too.”

He shrugs. “We were young and stupid.”

“And we’re still not?” Noelle says with a snort before swallowing. “I’m not the same person you fell in love with.”

“I’m sure I’m not either. But I don’t know if there’s a world where I don’t love every version of you.”

“Even after reading the book?”

“Especially after reading the book,” he sighs. “Noelle, I know this is unfair of me. All of this. And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to reach out. But I always intended to. And then you’re here? And I see you twice in two days? I’d be an idiot to not try. More of an idiot than I am, anyways.”

“Try for what?”

“A second chance? To be friends? Whatever you want.” He suddenly deflates. “Even if you don’t want anything to do with me. At least I’ll know.”

“Why did you never text me?”

“I thought about it a lot,” he admits. “I tried once, actually, after the high of a really good win. But it didn’t go through. I got the message.”

“The message?”

“You blocked me, right?”

Oh. “Yeah,” she lies. “I did.” She reaches into her bag for a pen and gestures for the book, which he gives to her, a curious gleam in his eyes. “I’m in Boston for two more days, including today.”

He takes the hint immediately. Eagerly. “I have a game tonight, but I’m free tomorrow.”

“Who are you guys playing?”

“Toronto. And I’m starting. Should be a good one.”

She hums non-committedly, scribbling on the inside of the front cover. She hands it back to him with a small, close-lipped smile. She nods at him to read the message.

to my first fan, 

i still love you too. 

xxx-xxx-xxxx

yours, 

noelle

He looks up, eyes shining but a bit confused. 

“I never blocked you. I just changed my number.”

“Oh.”

“And even if I still love you, I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I’d be more surprised if you weren’t.”

She stands up, adjusting the bag on her shoulder and putting her sunglasses on. “Text me?”

His mouth splits wide into a grin. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She backs away with one last attempt at a smile before turning down the street.

#k writes #hockey fanfiction #nhl #nhl fanfiction #nhl fanfic #nhl writing #hockey blurb #hockey writing #boston bruins #jeremy swayman #jeremy swayman blurb #jeremy swayman writing #jeremy swayman fic #jeremy swayman fanfiction #jeremy swayman x ofc #jeremy swayman x oc #jeremy swayman x reader

[mdhwrites]

I really love your post about why the anti-discrimination theme falls flat on TOH.

Honestly, applied to Amphibia, the issue is taken care of. From S1, we saw how frogs are treated and the injustice and inequality in the whole hierarchy. For example, despite being called Frog Valley, there are no frog majors but toad majors like Toadstool and he used to be awful and greedy.

Then we have the toad lords and soldiers who subjugate towns like Grime used to instead of protecting them. And the newts are either annoyingly arrogant like Duckweed or inside their own world, that kind of is explained in how Newtopia looks so fancy while the rest of Amphibia is medieval and surrounded by monsters.

Most importantly, many characters have a point of view or conflict related to the hierarchy and the state of their society. The Dinner and The Three Armies showed the biases of Grime, Beatrix, Hop Pop, Tritonio, and others against each other but instead of leaving it like that to be pessimistic or not addressing it, all Amphibia faced those issues to create a more harmonious and just society for everyone.

Okay so two things first. 1: Context for Amphibia fans is that I did a blog discussing how TOH accidentally discriminates against the demons of the demon realm and only promotes the most human of them, thus making a theme of anti-discrimination... Rough to put it mildly. Link here. 2: I don't think Amphibia explicitly has a theme of anti-discrimination either. It touches on it in ways but those ways are mostly due to one of its other core themes: Community. That's not all surprising either because it's hard to talk about community without also talking about inclusivity to those communities and allowing those communities to at least have a personality.

Now yes, you're absolutely right that the end of the series actually explicitly discusses the actual bigotry that each culture has towards each other in admittedly not my favorite but a fine episode. I actually want to expand from just the literal text though for why I think Amphibia does such a good job at not demonizing any of the races despite the fact that two of them may as well exist to be villainous. After all, the toads and the newts are often adversaries to the main characters. Wasn't that a problem for TOH?

Yes... Which makes it a good thing that the first adversary for Anne is the frogs.

Actually deep diving how Amphibia handles race, inclusivity, etc. like that is FASCINATING. You could probably do an entire college essay based solely on this one aspect because the show actually portrays multiple versions of communities and acceptance into them masterfully. I'm going to only briefly touch on each but I could probably say more on all of them and this actually includes humans as well which arguably might be Amphibia's one stumble on the issue but it's not a big one.

Let's start with that inflammatory line though. Of all the races, the frogs are actually just explicitly the most racist. They are against ANYTHING they don't know. Even other humans after Anne are entirely based on their perception of Anne. It actually takes Anne returning and showing fallibility for Sasha to become her own person to the community who is on par with Anne despite all she's done for them. Before then, the closer you are to her in their eyes, the more acceptable you are. They explicitly state this with Marcy. Otherwise, you're just a weird thing to potentially be purged because you are dangerous for being unknown. This is explicitly something Anne has to overcome, including one episode where she becomes popular by becoming more frog-like through her zits. The Plantars are the closest to being progressive in the town and even Polly can get swept up into mob mentality when the people get ready to take down Marcy (if I'm remembering the joke right).

The upside to the frogs is supreme loyalty to each other. While Toadstool is self serving and selfish, even he eventually figures out that he likes the frog way of thinking. The community you are a part of means the world to you. It is arguably the most important thing besides family. They play at war with each other because no one can actually hate someone in this community. Once you are in, you have the protection of ALL. It's just getting that acceptance is hard.

So even the race we spend the most time with is actually still flawed in some way. It is not perfect. How about the one that theoretically is the most evil? One could argue the Newts but that's more got to do with the combined culture of Amphibia which we only get Andrias as a main show of besides the one episode in the past. I do not want to say Andrias represents all newts, even if his ideas are still obviously in the current culture of newts, hence why I won't say they're the most antagonistic.

The toads on the other hand are fascinating because while they are brutal conquerors and willing to subjugate others, they're also theoretically the most inclusive. They are the closest to a meritocracy in Amphibia. If you can prove your battle prowess and ability to lead, even a gangly weirdo from another world can rise quickly and take a role of power. However, this culture is also part of why they're such a joke/a problem. The passionate rise to the top while the grunts are mostly going to be complacent and the toads still push a "Got mine, fuck you" mentality so that once a job is done, selfishness takes hold. This is why they're good at taking a city but bad at keeping it because they lack discipline because as a community, they don't have either a national ideal to work for like the newts or each other like the frogs. Each one proves themselves but that also makes each of them in competition with one another. It also explains why they're willing to subjugate a people because if they were worth their own lives, they would be able to resist.

Grime is actually the exception here from everything we can see. Beatrix even takes a loss from a frog better than Grime. Grime is different from a lot of Toads though and seems to hold a more personal need to prove himself, rather than that being strictly personal. He gets knocked down lower on defeat and rises higher in triumph. It takes longer than it likely would have with other captains for him to recognize that Sasha's ability to get rid of her guard is impressive and deserving of re-evaluation because he's not willing to admit he's wrong. He is the one toad who will take a city and stay vigilant because he is stubborn enough to not want to lose those gains no matter the cost, hence why he seems to constantly look for a status quote he can keep a hold of rather than seeking endless glory. Sprig challenges that most explicitly and so he lashes out with anger rather than the admiration that he should. The admiration that the toads who Anne first met liked in her when they thought she could be ruthless and strong. Those toads in fact accepted her WAY faster than even potentially the Plantars as Sprig needed his life to be saved first.

Next let's talk about the newts. We get weirdly more time with their society than even the toads but I don't know how much I'd say we actually learn about it which is an issue with Marcy as well. Buuuut this actually is in line with their culture. They're more of a melting pot where they are both more enlightened in that everyone gets a fair shake but they're much more rigid. It's probably the closest to modern America we get where you CAN apply for an important job but you need the connections, open doors, etc. like that to get it. You can prove yourself but it will only get you so far and people will only care so much.

A large part of this is actually in how the newts specifically treat Marcy. Where as someone so high in the ranks for toads would be respected and have friends simply due to being so outstanding, see Sasha, Marcy has a position but no acceptance beyond that. Respect but no friends. They are willing to use her because she is the most useful tool for a job but they aren't going to act like they'reclose with her for that. Not without, sadly enough, a reason to. Olivia keeps her at arm's length, the other advisors don't really seem to actually have a relationship with her but Andrias does because she fits into his plans best if she trusts him.

Sprig also gets to demonstrate this because his interesting worldview gives him a position in the society but no special treatment besides getting that position. He still has to prove himself in all the same ways and while some quirkiness is allowed, you must keep THEIR peace. Even the frogs allow for more individuality once you are in their community. But again, it's a little rough when it comes to the newts because Marcy isn't actually a look into their culture like Sasha is for the toads as she never gets episodes just about her in Newtopia like Sasha does with Grime. I'd be intrigued about what the journal potentially changes about this.

ANWAYS, for the last one we have the Thai community and humanity. Or more so the former. I don't know if there's a unifying concept for humanity as a whole, which is befitting the treatment of the trio's mix of perspectives as well, but more a theme of optimism. That people may be lazy and a bit self serving but most people's hearts are in the right place. That they care.

The Thai community is the only one I really want to talk about because Thai Temple is admittedly one of my favorite episodes of Amphibia period. As someone who grew up in Alaska, I actually related to Anne not seeing the beauty of her culture really well. There's a highway in Alaska that sandwiches you perfectly besides mountain cliffs and the ocean and it is GORGEOUS. Aaaand I stopped caring about it because it became routine. I closed my mind to it. Like nature will accept you though if you are willing to give it the time, so is the Thai Community at the temple. If you show interest, interest will be shown back. That's why the Plantars are easily adopted into it because the people there want to share who they are, they're probably just not used to people actually being interested.

There's more I could say that dips more into the community aspects but how they treat Anne, Oum and Bea are a different subject (all of it positive and makes me sad as a straight white dude who doesn't keep religion honestly) but yeah, I hope this shows how Amphibia looks at acceptance, community and how different people treat those who are different in varying ways. Like I said, this is also still mostly scratching the surface as probably a lot more could be said about each. Even the original ask brings up how the walls of Newtopia cuts the newts off from nature itself while somewhere like Wartwood has to live in harmony with it.

End of the day though, it's still almost an incidental biproduct that no one in Amphibia feels half baked. Every society has a purpose and role to its storytelling and that helps make it a more cohesive work with a lot less accidents than be interpreted in awful ways. Seriously, if you have not watched Amphibia, GO WATCH AMPHIBIA.

I can guaranty the show will accept you, even if you don't love it like me.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#amphibia #amphibia critical

[slyersky]

Stiles x Reader - Friendly flirting

(A/N): I tried to make this as gender-neutral as possible. I wanted to make this shorter than the stuff I usually do but it was a nice way to relax and get some old ideas out and think I started word vomiting a little-

I’m sorry if the characters are OOC, I’ve never written anything Teen Wolf related in my life and after watching, like, barely one and a half seasons, my friend encouraged me to start writing fan fiction about it. Being the good friend that I am, who is also horrible at telling people no, I did as they said. I hope it’s not too bad… Enjoy! :)

Content: Reader is a flirty little shit, Stiles gets flustered easily, slightly suggestive themes, short mentions of blood (nothing major)

Words: 2,700

“(Y/n),” Stiles tried to get your attention. His attempt was futile, leaving you with a fork loosely hanging in your hand without having eaten anything yet and your mouth slightly agape. It was lunchtime and you were sitting across from him and Scott. Not a word had left your mouth since you guys sat down. You just started spacing out, staring at your friend with a blank expression.

You probably didn’t even know you were staring at him, so lost in thought that your eyebrows were slightly furrowed. God, he loved the look on your face when you were in a world of your own. Where no one could reach you and you were all to yourself, able to think about anything you wanted. Stiles wondered what you were thinking about this time.

Occasionally, you even bit your lip, a very common habit of yours. You did it so often that your lips had grown a little chapped. He couldn’t help but pity your lower lip for the abuse it went through on a daily basis. He remembered that it had started bleeding once during one of the times the two of you studied together. You had been so concerned and stressed about upcoming exams that you kept biting, completely unaware of what that might bring. Stiles wasn’t going to lie, he always grew a little nervous when you did it. Not in a bad way though, of course not. He had to admit when you didn’t do it to the point of self-harm, it looked kinda hot.

But for now, he wanted you to eat instead of spacing out. There wasn’t much time left before you had to go back to class, so he tried to get your attention once more.

“Hey! -”, Stiles snapped his fingers in front of your face- “Earth to (Y/n)!”

Snapping out of your trance, your eyes focused on his fingers and then the face behind them. You shot him a sheepish smile and quickly began eating. Oh, how much he loved that smile. It was so warm and pure. It always seemed like you were smiling just for him, it made him feel special. Was it obvious that he thought you were beautiful?

“Sorry, didn’t mean to stare at you.”

“It’s fine. What were you thinking about?”

Now your smile formed into a smirk. You leaned a little closer to him and lifted your fork to vaguely draw circles in the air in front of his face.

“Oh… You know…-“ a small chuckle escaped you, even though you tried to hide it- “Just you and your perfect, adorable,… annoyingly beautiful face.” You winked and went back to your normal sitting position again. A short laugh escaped you as you watched Stiles’ face turn red in embarrassment. Scott, who was sitting next to him, only sighed.

“Get a room, you two,” he groaned, which made you laugh again.

“C’mon, Scott! You know I’m just messin’ with ya,” you were right. You were only messing around when you let out flirty comments and pick-up lines. Stiles had known that for as long as he had been friends with you. He remembered the first things you said to him like it happened yesterday.

— — —

“Uh, hey… Do you have a pencil sharpener?”, Stiles turned around to meet your gaze. You were holding up your pencil, its’ tip had broken off while you were trying to write with it.

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Gimme a second…. Here.”

“Thanks. -”, you took it from his hand, fixed your pencil and handed it back to him with a smile- “Man… Without you, my life would be a lot like my pencil…pointless.”

Stiles had to suppress a laugh to not get looked at by their teacher. You grinned as he failed to contain a chuckle. He didn’t quite know if you were being serious but according to the look on your face, you weren’t trying to flirt. Even if you were smirking now.

“By the way, the name’s (Y/n)…”, you held out a hand to shake his, which he accepted.

“Stiles… Nice to meet you.”

— — —

Friendly flirting was another common habit of yours, not that he minded. Sometimes it was nice to hear those little compliments, even though he doubted that you actually meant them. He hoped you did. At least every now and then. If you complimented him so often, you must’ve somewhat liked him, right?

The ringing of the school bell made Stiles come back to reality. You made a panicked face and shovelled as much food into your mouth as you could without having to choke. In the end, you did end up choking but at least you were done with your meal. You groaned quietly as you put away your tray together with the other two boys.

“Jesus, maybe you should slow down next time, (Y/n)...”, Stiles commented with a concerned look.

“What can I say...? Maybe choking is just my thing?”, you winked and almost started laughing at the reaction of your friends. Before any of them could say anything you dashed off and yelled that you would see them in class.

——

A long sigh escaped you as you slouched down in the chair you were sitting in. Nothing was as boring as studying for a maths test, even if you were doing it with a friend. With your textbook in your lap and a pen in your hand, you started writing another equation on a sheet of paper.

“Why does this suck so much?”, you mumbled to no one in particular.

“Because there’s nothing fun about it…?”, a response came anyway. You spun your chair 180 degrees and then came to a halt to look at your friend, who was sitting on his bed. He was concentrating on solving his equations as well, book laying next to him, his notes propped up on his leg and his pencil tapping against his cheek.

“That’s one way to put it…”, you huffed and turned the chair around again. At least the two of you were almost done for the day, with only a few more math problems to go through. You wrote down a few equations and then quickly made matching graphs for them so you were able to compare them.

Stiles looked up from his work after he finished to check on you for a second. You mostly had your back turned to him, slightly turning the chair from left to right now and then. You had propped one elbow on the desk and laid your chin in your hand as you scribbled more stuff onto your paper. A strand of hair fell onto your face and you quickly blew it out of the way, only for it to fall back to block your vision. He had to stifle a laugh at your slight annoyance, you were just as beautiful as always. He noticed that you were back to biting your lip in thought. It already looked irritated.

“Hey. No biting.”, he commented and you shot him an annoyed glance.

“Yes, mom.”, you sassed back with a high, childish voice. However, you did stop biting. Good. Stiles didn’t want to run into the bathroom to get a bunch of tissues. The boy admired you for a few more seconds until you spoke up again.

“You like what you’re seeing?”, you smirked as you saw how his cheeks turned a little red out of the corner of your eye.

“I was just thinking that you’re taking an awfully long time to finish… If you keep this up we’ll be sitting here ‘till midnight.”, Stiles tried to quip back. You turned the chair once again and playfully threw an eraser at him.

“I’m going to go extra slow now just because you said that.”

“Noooo… Don’t do this to meee… It’s gonna be so boring!”, Stiles dramatically let himself fall back onto his bed. With an exaggerated sigh, he let an arm fall over his eyes. He heard you chuckle and then continue to work. However, it didn’t take long until he heard you set down your pen. A slight squeak of the chair gave away that you got up from your seat. He could feel the mattress dip next to him.

“Boring…? You’re lucky I’m done. And… I think I have something in mind that will be quite entertaining for us…”, still keeping his eyes covered he felt you move around on the bed until there seemed to be pressure next to both sides of his head. This was weird, what were you doing…?

Removing his arm from his face, he looked up at you. Your arms were trapping his head in between them and your legs were on either side of his waist, pretty much straddling him. Your hair was dangling down, framing your face perfectly as a mischievous smile spread across your lips.

“Woah- Wh-what are you doing…?”, the boy underneath you had trouble catching his breath, the question came out as barely more than a whisper.

“Isn’t it obvious?”, you leaned down a little. Your faces were almost touching and you could clearly see his face grow red once again and his eyes looking anywhere but yours.

Before he could say anything you let your body go limp. Without a warning you fell onto the bed with an exhausted sigh, halfway trapping your poor friend underneath you.

“What the hell, man!”, he let out a string of curses as he struggled to heave you off of him. You only let out a hearty laugh as you closed your eyes and relaxed. His bewilderment slowly started to subside while annoyance took its place.

“What? Sleeping is a good way to pass the time… Plus, all this studying was exhaaauuusting.”, you chuckled without opening your eyes. You didn’t notice how his demeanour changed.

“You’re so annoying…”, he huffed and got off of the bed. You turned onto your stomach and opened your eyes to look at him. Stiles grumpily sat down at his desk with his back turned towards you.

“Hey… What’s got your panties in a twist now?”, he didn’t answer your question. “C’mon, Stiles… You know I don’t mean these things…”

“That’s the problem,” he quipped back.

“…I’m sorry…?”, not sure what he meant, you sat up properly. You could tell that this was turning more serious than you would have liked it too.

“You act like all of this is some sort of joke. Did you ever take the time to think about the effect it has on others? Is any of this ever even serious to you? All you do is toy with people's feelings!”, Stiles avoided specifically mentioning himself, it would only make it more embarrassing for him. He glared at you over his shoulder. The boy watched you shrink in on yourself a little. You looked away from him and frowned to yourself. A bit of silence ensued.

Stiles slowly started to feel bad for snapping at you. This was just what you were like, how you showed affection towards others. And he never thought he would ever put you down for your personality. But it was frustrating. He knew that he could never have what he wanted and you just edged him on. Before he could say anything else, you finally broke the silence.

“You’re right… I was being an asshole. I know that most people take stuff like this very seriously, maybe I need to start doing that too. I’m… uhm… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to annoy or hurt you.”, your voice was small. Avoiding any eye contact, you stood up from the bed and quickly grabbed your backpack. “I’m sorry that you had to put up with all that. I’ll just… It’s best if I leave now.”

Leaving the stuff that was still on his desk behind, you made your way out the door with your head held low. Stiles didn’t know what he had planned to achieve with his outburst but it certainly wasn’t this! Nooo no no. Letting you walk away would do more harm than good.

“Hey. Hey hey hey, wait. (Y/n) wait!”, he jumped up from his chair and leapt through the door. You were still on your way through the hallway and Stiles managed to catch up. He grabbed your arm with a little more force than he wanted to and made you stop in your tracks. He turned you around to face him but you looked down at the floor as if it was the most interesting thing you had ever seen.

“…Look… I shouldn’t have said that. I know this is not an excuse but I just got so frustrated…”

“No, it’s fine. I crossed your boundaries and made you uncomfortable. I get that you would get mad at that.”, you interrupted him.

“It’s…not just that…”, well, Stiles had started it now, he would not be able to back paddle. Was this even a good time to confess? Then again, when would he get the chance to talk about his feelings like this again?

“What do you mean?”, now you finally lifted your head to look at him. Were those… tears in your eyes? Were you upset because he had yelled at you? Or maybe because you thought you were annoying him? Whatever it was, the look in your eyes made his heart sink a little.

“Uh… I was frustrated… because you keep doing this whole friendly flirting thing. And I know that you’ll never mean those words the way I want you to. Because I’ve liked you for quite some time now and every time you compliment me I don’t know if there is actual honesty behind those words. And it hurts a little.”, now it was his turn to look away. He had to get it off his chest. Would that ruin their friendship? Probably.

“Shit, who am I kidding? It hurts a lot, actually. But I still listen and I still embrace it every single time because there’s this tiny glimmer of hope. The hope that you do feel the same, that you actually mean what you say.”, his hands were starting to gesture now. The silence was too loud, he needed to distract himself from it. You weren’t saying anything, just staring at him. What should he do? Should he keep talking?

“I guess what I’m trying to say… Is that I like you, a lot. And that I was hoping that you felt the same way, even though the odds of that are extremely low and I-“, Stiles was cut off by two hands grabbing his cheeks and pulling him downwards. You managed to shut him up by placing your lips on his. The kiss was short but he still felt breathless as you leaned away again. He could’ve melted into the floor right then and there. His face grew redder than he could ever imagine, making you laugh out loud. Finding the right words to say was hard, he stuttered out a few words that never correlated into a sentence.

“Oh no. I think I broke you.”, you laughed as you removed one of your hands from his cheek and wiped the tears that had gathered in your eyes before.

“Y-you did not.”, Stiles finally managed to protest. “But… does that mean…?”

“Yes, you idiot. I like you too. And to be clear, whatever compliments I gave you, I meant every single one of them. Although I have to admit that messing with you was pretty fun.”

The boy let out an exaggerated gasp and stepped away from you.

“I can’t believe it. I fell for someone so cruel that they would purposefully mess with someone’s feelings.”, he theatrically rested the back of his hand against his forehead and acted as if he faint like a Victorian lady.

“What can I say… I guess I must be quite the sadist.”, you wiggled your eyebrows at him and he only groaned.

“Nope, I’m not tolerating this anymore.-“, he stated playfully and wrapped an arm around your waist to drag you back to his bedroom. -“You’re gonna get your punishment for teasing me for so long.”

“Oh~? And what did have in mind, dear?”, you smirked as his face turned red once again. You could have sworn that steam was starting to rise from his head.

“Get your mind out of the damn gutter, pervert!”

#teen wolf #stiles​ stilinksi #stiles x reader #teen wolf fluff #gender neutral y/n #fanfic #sfw

[imjustabeanie]

hi there! this is for the matchup trade. i'd like to request a twisted wonderland matchup. please do not match me with the first years. my info is as follows: pronouns: she/her/they/them personality indicators: intj 5w4 ; melancholic-choleric signs: pisces sun / taurus rising / taurus moon hogwarts house: ravenclaw alignment: neutral good alignment

personality: studious, business-minded, tech-savvy, a little bit of a perfectionist, tends to overwork, stubbornly independent, calm and composed, intimidating at first glance (according to colleagues), reserved and extremely introverted, protective to loved ones, obedient and respectful to authorities but will not hesitate to call them out if necessary, blunt, idealistic, highly organised, loves to play video games or read and write books on spare time, passionate, tends to sing alone only when in the mood, drawn to mysterious, historical, gothic, and horror subjects

hobbies + likes: researching abandoned and haunted places, writing, reading, exams, stationery, business-related topics (esp finance), coffee shops, bookstores and libraries, electronic shops, technology, video games, dark royalty / dark academia aesthetic, classical literature, classical music, detective/crime/mystery/horror stories (esp. from 19th century), cats, history, listening and belting out to musicals when alone, greek mythology

dislikes: bugs, studying repetitive subjects without gaining new knowledge, failure to meet own expectations, unnecessary change

fashion choices: gothic, elegant, classic, vintage, and formal fashion styles

partner preference: someone gentle yet authoritative, smart/highly intelligent and has a lot of knowledge generally or on a certain subject

that's all, thank you!

Hi! As you know I've been having problems with tumblr for some reasons 🫠

About my matchup, here is my description link. Just....not leona or ruggie lol...

Here is your matchup! Enjoy!

I hesitated a lot between Vil and Jamil before finally settling on….Vil! Riddle was also considered lol. I didn’t choose Jamil because he’s too sly and secretive (hypocrite of me I know). He has very high standards and his character definitely isn’t for the weak. But you two would make a good match.

How you met: Okay, you two had a group project together. Since you’re both perfectionist and ambitious, you’d butt head a lot. He’d make snide remarks about your appearance and of course you’d retort. But in the end, you both make very good work together. In the start, you’d just be study buddies. But then he’d start giving you skin care and general appearance advices. Slowly you’d get to know each other’s and despite the difference in interests, you’re both eager to learn new skills. He’d keep up with you when talking about technology and business and would ask questions! Perhaps you could even propose some props for the movie club. He’s definitely knowledgeable on books and would gladly discuss them with you. This would take time as you’re an introvert and you don’t have much in common. But in the end, if you see him for who he is and treat him nicely, you can definitely tell that he’s softer on you than the rest. He’s gonna be annoyingly strict but it’s his way of showing that he cares. Your frequent appearance in his daily life (and perhaps rooks teasing) will prompt him to suddenly ask you out on a friendly movie date. Spoiler alert, he’s gonna criticize the whole movie.

In a relationship: Both of you will learn a lot from each other. You’ll learn a lot of insides about the entertainment industry. He’ll also push you to always look your best so I hope you’re not too sensitive. Because he’s as if not more blunt then you. The truth is his way of caring. He loves that you’re organized, ambitious, studious and a perfectionist. Because it means you always strive to do better just like him. He enjoys hearing you sing and will personally coach you if you want. I think that with you, he’d also learn to loosen up and enjoy a good game. Your hunger for knowledge is nice and he’d often give you books he thinks you’d enjoy. If you were to ramble about history he’d be here to listen. I can just imagine him doing a mask or make up and you passionately talking. He’ll definitely have a soft smile on his face at this moment. For your aesthetic, he’d make the effort to find fitting outfits for both of you. Vil is the to go to guy concerning fashion. He can easily switch or fuse them. I can imagine both of you trying out different combinaisons (and rook taking sneaky pictures). Vil isn’t much for horror or mystery but will make the effort for you. Everyone enjoys a good true crime, but excessive gore isn’t his thing. He’s more in refined crimes if we can say that. Good luck convincing him to get a cat, he’d fear for his looks lol. Him caring about you and loving you is shown in his effort to share your hobbies. He’d also take you on expensive dates and show you his world. It will take him time to open up with you, but you can expect a loving and long relationship if you get past the struggles. Getting with him will direct the paparazzi and his fans on you. He’ll try to hide you at first (it can spark arguments depending on your character), but it will get discovered eventually. His fans will make very good comments. The pressure can be too much with someone like him, even when he defends you and insults your bullies. If you get past this and can handle it will be a very loving relationship. The power couple lol. He’ll even take you to some of his shootings and always expect your critics and compliments on his roles. To him, you’re his muse even if it takes him time to admit it.

#match ups #matchups #twisted wonderland

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Gina Florio

Published: Dec 20, 2023

The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, and many more told the kind of magical stories that stayed in our hearts, along with catchy music that could get stuck in our heads for days. This period is often referred to as the “Renaissance Era,” and many suspect that these movies are loved by women everywhere because Disney successfully captured the brilliance and timelessness of femininity. Jasmine was seductive and required her man to work for her, Ariel taught us about sacrifice and trust, and Mulan was both brave and family-oriented. All of the princesses had their own personalities and opinions, but they each made room for a prince to come in and sweep them off their feet. None was too proud to reject a man. 

These traditional Disney films were never political, and the themes were always centered on universal, relatable stories that brought people together rather than driving them apart. However, Disney has certainly lost its way over the last couple of decades. They’ve lost their touch at producing hit movies that resonate with both young children and adults. 

Disney Movies Have Taken a Turn for the Worse

Turning Red, the Disney Pixar film of 2022 that was acclaimed for its heartwarming narrative and representation, did not achieve high commercial success compared to other Pixar films. With a global box office gross of only $20 million against a production budget of $175 million, it ranks among the biggest box office bombs of 2022. The supposed reason for its underperformance is attributed to its simultaneous release on Disney+. This strategy allowed audiences to view the film at home, significantly affecting its worldwide box office earnings. However, it left people wondering if it just wasn’t good enough to draw in audiences; there were many parents who expressed their disappointment with the type of inappropriate content that was being delivered to teenagers for the sake of sending a particular message to the world. 

The Disney animated movie Strange World also faced a significant box office shortfall, with an estimated loss of $147 million in 2022. A notably woke aspect of the film is the introduction of Disney's first openly LGBTQ+ teenage character, who discusses his same-sex crush. The film's underperformance is attributed to various factors, including its inclusion of sexuality discussions, which deterred many parents from allowing their children to watch it. Some critics suggest that modern parents, more informed through social media, may choose to avoid content with inappropriate sexual themes for their children.

Similar issues in the past were observed with Pixar's Lightyear, which included a gay kiss and initially underperformed at the box office. Chris Evans, a voice actor in Lightyear, criticized those opposed to the movie's “inclusive” content. However, what he considered inclusive was just seen as annoyingly woke to the general public. Parents have generally never been on board with showing their children progressive content, regardless of the political message companies like Disney are desperately trying to send. 

Elemental, a Pixar movie, actually defied initial poor box office performance to become a significant hit. Released in June, it had the worst opening in Pixar's history with $29.6 million in domestic ticket sales. However, the film, which cost $200 million to produce, gradually gained momentum, earning nearly $500 million globally. It currently ranks as the ninth top-grossing film of the year, surpassing Marvel's latest Ant-Man sequel. But this was an anomaly compared to the rest of the Disney flops in the last two years. 

Now, Disney is again experiencing a box office bomb with its Thanksgiving release, Wish, the newest princess film that seeks to copy Encanto’s success. But, due to its poor storytelling, boring songs, and progressive message, it has also flopped. 

Disney Says It “Lost Some Focus”

Disney has disclosed that it invested a staggering $965 million in four high-profile projects in 2023, which unfortunately turned out to be significant flops: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Secret Invasion. This revelation comes amid a cost-cutting initiative led by CEO Bob Iger, who returned to lead the company in November 2022. Iger emphasized the need to reduce production costs, acknowledging the exorbitant expenses involved in creating content.

In early November, Bob Iger said, “At the time the pandemic hit, we were leaning into a huge increase in how much we were making and I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality. And I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus.”

Typically, the budgets of movies and streaming shows are kept confidential, as studios usually lump these costs into their overall expenses without detailing individual project expenditures. However, Disney's production activities in the UK provide a clearer picture of their spending, due to the unique financial reporting requirements in that country. Studios operating in the UK must set up separate companies for each production to avail a tax rebate of up to 25% on their expenditures. These companies are required to file financial statements, which reveal detailed spending data.

Disney has been leveraging the UK's incentive scheme by filming more content there. This strategy, however, has led to significant investments in some of its most expensive and least successful productions of the year. A notable example is the Marvel Studios superhero film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Despite spending a hefty $193.2 million on pre-production and filming, the movie opened to mediocre reviews. This situation illustrated the challenges Disney faces in managing production costs while striving to create compelling content that resonates with audiences and succeeds financially.

Disney Acknowledges That Going Woke Hasn’t Worked Out So Well for Them

Disney is finally acknowledging the significant impact of wokeness and culture wars on its operations. This admission was made in its annual financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ending September 30. The report highlights various aspects of Disney's performance and future risks. Disney employs about 225,000 workers worldwide and emphasizes its commitment to creating a more inclusive and diverse workplace. This commitment aligns with its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) objectives, which focus on reflecting the life experiences of its audience and supporting diverse voices in creative and production teams.

Financially, Disney reported revenues of $88.9 billion for fiscal 2023, marking a 7% increase from 2022. Despite this growth, the company has reduced spending on film and TV content, cutting it from $29.8 billion to $27.2 billion. Iger plans to further reduce content spending to $25 billion next year. Alongside these cuts, Disney has also implemented staff reductions and other expense cuts, achieving about $7.5 billion in cost savings.

Disney's involvement in culture wars and public debates has had widespread effects. The company acknowledges risks related to “misalignments” with public and consumer preferences, which affect demand and profitability across various segments, including broadcast, cable, theaters, internet, mobile technology, theme parks, hotels, resorts, and consumer products. This misalignment has led to challenges in adapting to market changes and economic or social climates.

"Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands," Disney admitted, acknowledging that consumer preferences impact revenue.

Disney's leisure business is influenced by multiple factors, including health concerns and the political environment. The company's intervention in the debate over Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill in March had significant repercussions. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responded by revoking Disney’s special district status in the state, highlighting the cost of Disney's political engagement.

Closing Thoughts

Whether Disney is going to correct its course is yet to be seen. Even with its flops, the brand remains the most recognizable name in the entertainment industry, and it has committed itself so deeply to the woke liberal cause that it’s difficult to imagine they would ever come back from that. In the meantime, their movies will continue to flop if they don’t find a way to return to the Renaissance Era (or something remotely close to that) and offer audiences heartwarming, relatable stories rather than subtle (and not-so-subtle) tales of progressive politics. 

==

I've seen statistics suggesting that Disney has lost a good $1b at the box office in 2023, not counting the major losses in streaming, both in terms of the cost vs return of the content (the excrable She-Hulk was reportedly $25m per episode, almost double the $15m budget of Godzilla Minus One, for a 9-episode dumpster fire), and the inability of the platform as a whole to turn a profit.

#Gina Florio #Disney #Disney flops #box office flops #ideological corruption #ideological capture #go woke go broke #religion is a mental illness

[redgoldsparks]

December reading and reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon.

The Savage Beard of She Dwarf by Kyle Latino

She Dwarf might be the last of her kind, but this only fuels her desire for adventure, danger, and travel. Her famous warrior mother died before she could lead She Dwarf though the final coming of age trials, so our hero is on a quest to find the lost kingdom of Dwarves to see what knowledge she can gain from the ruins. A long the way she battles and befriends a whimsical cast of misfits who end up tagging along for the journey for reasons of their own. This story is action packed, fun, beautifully drawn and extremely aesthetically queer though there are no outright discussions of anyone's gender or sexuality. I highly recommend this comic for fantasy comic fans of all ages, it was released during covid and never got the promotion or attention it deserved. Buy this book for someone for the holidays!

Under a Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire, read by Michelle Dockrey

This third book is the series is more whimsical and light than the first two, which I suppose makes sense as it takes place primarily in a nonsense world. It introduces a few new characters, as well as bringing back Christopher and Kane from book 1. A group of these teens sets out together on a quest, but not all of them return to Earth at the end of it. I'm definitely planning to continue with the audio books of this series.

Batcat by Meggie Ramm

This magical, brightly-colored tale follows Batcat, a creature of comfort, who is driven out of their cozy home by an annoyingly friendly ghost. On their quest, Batcat is forced to face some of their deepest fears (the dark, being eaten) and some of their biggest questions: are they more a bat, or more a cat? Readers of all ages who have wondered about their own place in a world keen on dividing things into categories will relate to this quandary, and delight in the playful ways that Batcat defines themself outside of the binary. I got to read an advanced copy of this adorable book because it was written by a dear friend. Yes, I am biased, but I loved this story and highly recommend people check it out when it is released in March of 2023, or preorder it now!

Funny Planet: How Comedy Ruined Everything by Ken Jennings

This is a conversational, light, easy to read nonfiction that traces the way comedy and humor have spread their roots into almost every aspect of American life. Advertisements are now expected to be funny, as are politicians, the news, the modern art world and some types of avant-garde fashion and food. Also, social media, particularly twitter, which (even in its crumbling perhaps final days) is a near constant stream of jokes and jibes at every current happening, large or small, including very horrific tragedies that probably shouldn't be made light of. And things that were already funny, like sitcoms, have nearly doubled their joke density in the past 50 years. The author explores the historical development of comedy in these different fields, and also wonders what it is doing to our brains to be fed such a constant stream of jokes. I missed a lot of the references by virtue of having seen almost none of the TV shows or comedy specials the author was referring to, yet still found this a quick and lively read.

¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico by Christine Suggs

Suggs' debut memoir is a complete delight. The themes of language, translation, family, queerness, fatness, and being biracial are beautifully woven together into a rich and authentic whole. Nothing is overstated, simply presented as it was lived, and illustrated in a lovely palette of warm browns, bright golds, and smoothing blues. I loved the tiny avatar of the author's internal thoughts and how it interacted with the text and images on the page. This book uses all of the visual tools of comics to tell a wonderful coming of age story and the result is as sweet as pan dulce. I had the chance to read this book ahead of it's review and I can't recommend it more! Pre-order it now or look for it on shelves in April 2023.

The Box In The Woods by Maureen Johnson read by Kate Rudd

This fourth book in the Truly Devious YA murder mystery series introduces a new cold case for anxious teen detective Stevie Bell to bang her head against. This one, a quadruple murder from 1978 which took place in the woods outside a summer camp, was mishandled from the beginning. Dubbed 'The Box in the Woods' murders, the police at the time initially thought it was a drug deal gone wrong, then thought it might be the work of a contemporary serial killer. Stevie is hired by the new owner of the summer camp, who wants to make a podcast about the crime. Stevie doesn't care about the podcast, but she does love getting to bring her friends with her to a camp and getting her hands on a difficult case. This book continues to develop Stevie's friendships and romantic relationship in satisfying ways. I remain very delighted by and impressed with this series, and I'm excited there's a fifth book coming out before the end of the year!

Buzzing by Samuel Sattin and Rye Hickman

]The power of a supportive role playing group can't fix everything, but it goes a long way. Isaac is a teen with OCD, who suffers from near constant intrusive thoughts, cleverly visualized here as bees with mean voices. Over the story he builds confidence and community by leaning into his love of fantasy and drawing; as a former fellow misfit teen artist, it was wonderful to watch him grow. This is a nuanced and diverse coming of age story, I'm so excited for all of the readers who will discover it and see themselves in it. The art is excellent, both in the real world day to day parts of the story and the D&D fantasy parts of the story. I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of this book because I am friends with both of the authors- pre order it now, or look for it on shelves in July 2023!

Falcon written and read by Helen Macdonald

This was my second book this year by Helen MacDonald. Shorter and more traditionally nonfiction that H is for Hawk, this book is a collection of facts and anecdotes about the relationship of falcons and humans across many centuries and cultures. Human have long anthropomorphized falcons, attributing to them traits such as nobility, cunning, and martial prowess. Humans have been training and hunting with falcons for at least 3,000 years; lately, we have driven many species to near extinction, and created involved and wide ranging programs to try and rehabilitate the dwindling populations. I listened to this entire four hour audiobook during one long car ride and was well entertained the whole time.

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

Chris, Jo, Elise, and Alex bonded over being the only queer waiters at a restaurant, but their friendship long outlasted their stint at the job. Ten years on, the crew, now in their mid and late thirties, face a whole slew of new challenges: parenting, vying for promotions, balancing partying and work, being judged by baby gays at the club, and scariest of all, drifting apart. Fans of Bongiovanni's Grease Bats will enjoy the familiar flavors of a messy, horny, queer and trans friend squad but paired with a more nuanced slice-of-life narrative. These characters are trying to stay true to themselves, invest in their communities, get laid, and support each other. But it's not so easy to balance all of those conflicting needs, and they frequently fall short. I was left hoping that the characters could forgive each other's deeply human failings. I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of the book- it's available for pre-order now, or check it out when it's released in March 2023!

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker Chan

What a wonderful book to end the year with! This one came highly recommended by many friends and did not disappoint. Epic in scale, with fantasy rooted in Chinese history, this story is set in an alternate mid-1300s with Mongols attempting to control all of mainland China, but resisted by a rebel force. The book opens with Zhu, the only daughter of a peasant family struggling to survive during a famine. A fortune teller predicted a great destiny for Zhu's one brother, and nothing for her. But when her brother dies, Zhu decides she will inhabit his destiny instead. She disguises herself as a boy to seek shelter and education in a monastery, a story trope I have always enjoyed, but especially here because this book takes the narrative in a explicitly trans/genderqueer direction by the end. Elsewhere in the story, a eunuch general in the Mongol army hides a bitter desire for revenge from his dearest friend; the rebel leaders battle each other for power, doing nearly as much damage to their cause as they do to their enemies; and a daughter of a rebel commander despairs over the constant bloodshed and death of the seemingly endless war. This is a complicated conflict, in which neither side is morally superior to the other; I was equally compelled by the personalities on each side and also certain that all of them were on a path towards destruction that they could not escape.

#reading #book reviews #comic book reviews #books #audiobooks

[horsepowerandlover]

mandatory favorite character infodump

Recently I have been seeing lots of aweosme fanart of Raine Whispers (From TOH) dressed in Lapis Lazuli’s outfit (Form SU). This has brought to my attention not only the similarities between Raine and Lapis, but I have also considered Raven from 2003 Teen Titans. See the divided character analysis below...

Lapis Lazuli:

-Often considered the most powerful character in Steven Universe (Although this is debated)

-She has been manipulated by her own kind, both when she was trapped in the mirror and when she was fused with Jasper. However, Malachite was equally toxic on both parts. Lapis was both the manipulated and the manipulator.

-This is a sillier bit I observed, but notice she is often paired with a green-coded love interest (non-canon)

-Now to the drowning imagery. In Chille Tid, Lapis is shown fighting with Jasper for power over Malachite. The way this fight for power is portrayed is that whoever is out of control is trapped under the surface of obscure, murky green water, effectively drowning, even as gems cannot physically drown. She is fighting against someone who she has gotten stuck with and remains with in order to keep her away from Steven. To protect Steven.

-The last critical element of Lapis is, because of her trauma related to water, she has a lack of control over her powers. Similar to...

Raven:

-Most powerful character in Teen Titans; however, she is frequently limited by...

-The lack of control and threat to herself. If Raven doesn’t mediate and reel herself in, she is at risk of losing control and being exploited by her father. The unfortunate fact that she has to limit her powers and control her emotions to an almost unhealthy point leads to her being manipulated by Terra. More on that in a minute.

-Once again, often paired with a green-coded love interest.

-When she is manipulated by Terra during one of the final battles in Aftershock: Part 1, Terra starts the battle struggling to keep up with Raven’s prowess and control over her powers. If I recall correctly, Slade reminds Terra to use what she knows about Raven to bring her down. Terra starts talking, criticizing Raven about how foolish she was in trusting her, and how this was all her fault for letting Terra slip past her carefully crafted defenses. This angers Raven and she begins to lose her temper, her attacks become looser as her aim falters. Terra uses this to her advantage. Eventually, she drowns Raven in muddy water. 

Raven drowns trying to neutralize someone who has harmed not only those close to her but the entire city; someone working to have control over everything but who doesn’t know they are being controlled in return.

During Fear Itself, Raven is also shown drowning. However, this is due to her own emotional state and not the interference of another.

Raine Whispers: The wild card 

-Arguably one of the most powerful characters in The Owl House. They are put in the position of coven head, a position that the general population of the Boiling Isles deems the most powerful. They were called “annoyingly powerful” by the main antagonist.

-Has been manipulated ever since they were young, but they remain a freedom fighter regardless. Unlike the other two characters I have mentioned, Raine is often quiet when it comes to being taken advantage of. They know that it’s the best way to fight from the inside, so they let themselves be used; specifically by Terra. 

Again, unlike Raven and Lapis (moreso unlike Lapis), Raine is physically manipulated by Belos during episodes 2 and 3 of s3. This aspect of physical manipulation could be related very loosely to Raven, but actually is more similar to Terra’s demise at the hands of Slade. Both Terra and Raine broke free from the control, fought their manipulator, and eventually, killed both Belos and Slade. 

-They are the green-coded love interest (of Eda)

-Briefly, in Watching and Dreaming, they are shown to be suffocating/drowning in Belos’s sludge. This moment is only a few seconds long, but the symbolism stands regardless.

What does it mean to drown?

Drowning often represents one’s internal state. In dreams, it has been observed as a symbol of rising above personal struggle. Lapis’s case in particular showcases the meaning of drowning in the ocean. This usually means that you are learning to let go of control. Fitting. 

With Raven, drowning in mud is also very succinct. Mud represents many different struggles, but most notably a lack of control over emotions and an inability to escape a situation.

Raine is, once again, the wild card here. They are not exactly drowning, per se, To avoid any incorrect interpretation, I have applied suffocation to Raine, rather than drowning. Suffocation is often a symbol of feeling trapped and wholly overwhelmed. Feelings of restriction are also associated.

I’d love to hear more opinions on this! It was just an idea that I wanted to flesh out on paper--- I enjoyed coming up with similarities between my favs :3 It’s obviously very self indulgent lol 

(Forgive the half-assed grammar and syntax, its finals season :P)

#teen titans #raven #the owl house #raine whispers #lapis lazuli #steven universe

[captainhysunstuff]

How do you deal with continuous, seemingly raging artblock? I want to draw but damn— my hatred towards my own art seems unforgivable. It's like whatever that was produced by my own two hands will cause carnage, a sin dissaproves by all humanity.

Hmmmmmm, I’m probably not the best person to ask for advice on overcoming art blocks unfortunately. It’s such a paaaain. I 100% relate to your feelings, and overcoming them isn’t easy.

Also, my methods aren't exactly the healthiest either, but I'll share regardless. Just keep that in mind. Ehehe.

(I'll put a Read More. It's a little lengthy.)

Whenever I find myself not drawing for a long period of time, I try to reinstate drawing as an addiction or habit. Have it become a craving that's only satisfied by actually drawing something--anything--regardless of quality. In recent days, my art block stems from a lack of being able to multitask and being unable to focus on the drawing process (being tired from work doesn't help either). Therefore, setting aside a space to draw helps, too. Putting on some music you find easy to zone out to or help your flow helps.

The hatred towards your own work is a very hard hurdle to jump. I suppose the key to this is to learn to stop criticizing every stroke you make. Be at peace that not every mark made in the moment is gonna be perfect. This is way easier said than done of course, but when I start falling into the "everything I do is crap and unworthy of eyes" hole, I try to remember that not everything I draw has to be shared. I'm not getting paid to do this (not sure about you, but that's my situation). It's a hobby, and it's supposed to be fun. It's not life or death for me if the character's eyes are skewed or their head is annoyingly asymmetrical. I'd love to be a master artist and have every work I make be a masterpiece, but I'm allowed to draw "crap." If you really feel like your subject isn't coming out the way you want, find or make references to work from and feel good about the effort you put in. There's never any shame in using references. The more you draw, the better you get. That's a straight fact. Eventually, you won't need refences, and that's a pretty cool feeling~.

Basically, if you're facing a bout of art block, try and doodle something with the mindset that it doesn't have to be perfect, and no one has to see it unless you want to share it. You could always surprise yourself and be like, "Hey, this is actually pretty cool~. Check it out!" But if that doesn't happen, it's okay. It's not a failure. Just add the drawing to the pile and bask in the satisfaction that you actually put strokes to the page, and you've gotten a bit better just by doing so. (That's kind of the point of my whiteboard to be honest~. I also use it to hold up my recent drawings or pages of my comic as a reminder to draw and of how far I've come along in whatever "project" I'm working on. It's neat to see it all hanging up in a physical space. It's a little bit guilt trippy to myself, but it does put a clear bookmark in where I am when I pick it back up, and I can edit it whenever I see something strange as I walk by it~.)

If the block stems from lack of inspiration rather than skill, try exposing yourself to some new media (a new show, movie, book, fanfiction...) or do something that stimulates your brain like going outside or talking to your friends. Don't feel like these activities are procrastinating from creating. They are necessary aspects of your life, and you shouldn't feel guilt for doing them instead of drawing something. Your art isn't made in a vacuum. While out in the "field," you may encounter something that inspires an idea that you can't wait to express through your medium ("Whoa. I HAVE to draw this when I get back!" Write it down if you can so you don't forget~). If you're really passionate about drawing, the urge will come back, and you'll find the time to try and sketch something, even if it's small. I'll admit, I don't do these life things as often as I should, so I need to take my own advice, lol. The list of new stuff I wanna check out is massive~. I am working on leaving my home and observing my surroundings more often though (Covid makes it a little difficult, but I get by).

I know your question was more about trying not to hate your own work, but I also addressed things that I felt were relevant because they make me want to draw regardless of how I feel about the end result. Try your best to not compare yourself to others too much and draw for yourself more. Acknowledge that you want to improve, but don't beat yourself up for not meeting your self-imposed standard of "perfect." So, draw with lower expectations sometimes, I guess? *shrugs and laughs* Like I said, the more you draw, the better your get. Even if you personally think it looks like crap, be like, "Yeah, I did that!" Just own it. Own your "carnage~." ^__^

(*laughs* Carnage. That's such a great way to refer to one's artwork~.)

#asks and answers #art block #artist issues #I hope this ramble helps in any way~

[sixtypackofcrayola]

I'm a sucker for Love Potions. Can we get the two monkeys affected by some, with their own o/s?

love potions r so silly why not

✰ LOVESICK ✰

Fandom; LEGO Monkie Kid

Character List; Sun Wukong, Macaque

Genre(s); bulleted headcanons, the amount of fluff makes me sick /lh

Pronouns; They/Them

TW/CW; None! A/N; written in a diff. way this time kinda just mixed hcs for both into one big block o’ text instead of giving them their own sections</3 a little short sorry abt that,,

☀️ 🌙

-Who knows how these two got a hold of a love potion,, but ohu boy -I just know Wukong would be annoyingly sweet and cheesy. As soon as he catches sight of his S/O it’s,, it’s over -Macaque would get real flirty real fast. And he wouldn’t be as clingy as Wukong but his words are sure to fluster -Wukong would call his S/O every pet name he knows of whenever he’s referring to them. Peaches, sunshine, darling, honey, baby, sweetie/sweetheart, honey-pie, etc. They will NOT get a break. He’ll probably refer to them by their name like once if at all -Macaque calls his S/O anything relating to sweets or the moon, and a lot of em he wouldn’t say normally. He doesn’t use pet names all that often so it’d feel like more of an overload after the love potion. Mainly he’d call his S/O “sweets” and that’s about it y’know -Macaque also just speaks in a much more,, smooth(??) flirtatious tone like he’s actively trying to fluster his S/O because he is. He’ll compliment them and go on about the little things he loves about them. Will make eye contact too just for that extra effect -Wukong’s goofy ass over here smiling and giggling at everything his S/O does and complimenting them constantly. You can practically see the hearts in his eyes. “Have I told you how stunning you look today?” “Yes, you have. Many times, love.” “Well IIII think I should tell you again!” Lots of ‘I love you so much’ -Wukong will also insist on staying close to them because he’s gonna get real clingy. He will not hesitate to shower his darling with kisses, mostly on their forehead or cheek and of course on their lips.  -Macaque likes neck kisses, given and received. There will be lots of those. He will also want to be close to his S/O for most of the day -S/O should expect a flower or two from Macaque because ROMANCE.  -Any affection given towards either will have them absolutely melting. Tell Wukong he’s pretty and he’s down for the count, floating hearts n all that shit. Flirt back with Macaque and there is no hiding his face turning red -Happy tail sways from both whenever their S/O is near for however long the effects last. They’ll also occasionally wrap their tail around them. -Don’t ask them to help you find a cure if it’s one of those potions that don’t just wear off after 24 hours or so, because they will for once be useless. Their lovesickness is all that’s goin on up there rn.  -If their S/O’s happen to be flirty people then OH GOD -Y’know those like sickeningly sweet couples that r just non-stop lovey dovey and make ppl feel disgusted but also sad bc they kinda want that -Yeah that’s them. -I hc that Wukong draws so he’s gonna be scribbling his S/O with hearts around it if he’s got something to draw on -Macaque would love the way his S/O blushes when he drags out their name yknow? It’d only make this whole ordeal ‘worse’ -Macaque’s touches are softer, more intimate, while Wukong will just throw himself at his S/O, lovingly of course -In conclusion, no more love potions for the monkeys ( Fin. ~ ✰ )

#lmk #lego monkie kid #lego monkie king #sun wukong #lmk sun wukong #sun wukong x reader #macaque #lmk macaque #macaque x reader #six eared macaque #lmk x reader #monkie kid x reader #lego sun wukong #lego macaque #all this lovey dovey stuff BLEH /hj

[stuckasmain]

Finally watched scream 5

It’s been out for awhile now and I had bits and pieces spoiled though gif sets, like I usually do. But never enough to give me the plot or expect what happened. Honestly this movie was pretty great, it’s just after scream 2 for me.

SCREAM FIVE IS WHAT SCREAM FOUR WISHES IT COULD BE

Look, scream4 had its moments but it’s genuinely the worst out of them all. It’s too 2011 for it’s own good and produced the two most annoying characters to the franchie. This movie does- as Mindy so wonderfully puts it- a good requel.

It’s a great  homage to the orignal without completely doing it over with the same points or the same thing subverted. It has new charecters who are connected but not annoyingly so to the point that’s all they are. Despite their relation to existing charecters and their rolls each kid has a actual personality that I really enjoy (except Liv/pink hair, by the third act she was kind of just a ass?) it does the legacy charecters well. Brought back but not overly used. The stories about them but it’s not. It passes the touch without over relying on their familiarity/ fans love for them. Also loved the small references to other works not just past Scream movies- such as they’re being Elm street (which Sidney cannonically lived on in the first movie) or Sams dad being billy - if he dated let alone married her mom it would have been Sam Loomis. Both Halloween and psycho references.

Also props for killing Judy (idk why I hate her as badly as I do but I absolutely despise this woman and she had it coming) Wes however- didn’t deserve that :(. He had to potential to make it into the third act.

I’ll also give them this - they returned to their roots. The orignal scream was a spoof and movies and horror fans, the second one slightly? Kept this but after that they became a spoof on scream fans rather than the whole. This one at least makes reference to more besides a few shoved in title drops. Idk how to explain it.

Randy Meeks memorial home theater 💕

Way funnier then it should have been but a great homage Randy himself would adore. Mindy is also a direct nod to her uncle sharing a LOT in common, their rants I relate to a lot lol. Seriously the re creation of the couch scene while watching it is absolute art. “Oh shit” realization is everything. And the line that was something along “you’re watching a movie where your uncle gets stabbed” her charecter is really the only one to directly follow a orignal charecter (the killers only really show randy/stu tendencies at the end) and so she survives the end of this movie even getting the iconic Dewey thumbs up while on a gurney. I only hope, if there’s a scream 7 she doesn’t also die in a sequel like her uncle.

There’s a few holes for as good as this movie is. Like how the creepy ex comes into it besides being another spot on the kill count. Sure he’s related to stus … apparent sister? But he’s never brought up after that and seemed like random bloodsport. Also a bit confused on how sams…dad situation is supposed to work but that’s for another post

While Dewey’s death is extremely sad for me it also makes a point about stakes. His whole  character is to survive when he really should have died in all of the movies, and I do like how his limp from the second is brought back. However I like that it mentions stakes- that these beloved charecters have had it really lucky for a bit to Long.

RICHIE I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU. But I do like how they make him the reverse Derek. There to help and is hurt by ghostface in the beginning but is actually guilty this time around.

Sid said “fuck doors”

JAMES A. JANISSE. SCREAMING FOR THE DEAD MEAT/KILL COUNT REFERENCE

Why’s Tara like 16 and the others all around 18? Or does the actress just look super young?

#scream 1996 #scream 5 #scream #movie review #sidney prescott #stu macher #billy loomis #randy meeks #dewey riley #gale weathers #kill count #dead meat #james a janisse #sam carpenter #tara carpenter #wes hicks #mindy meeks martin #chad meeks martin #amber freeman

[haikyuuuuuhypeeeee]

Chapter 4

⚠WARNING: Swearing, mention of previous characters' deaths

• ────── ✾ ────── •

“I just don’t get why no one wants to help me plan the shrine visit and picnic lunch.” Oikawa pushes his now-empty plate away and turns his head. You share a look with Makki and Mattsun.

“We just don’t want to get in the way of your vision.” Mattsun replies. “You’re the most creative of us all and we don’t want to bog you down.”

Oikawa only glances towards Mattsun before glancing at you and Makki. You both put on your most sincere faces, hoping to placate your irritated friend. It seems to do the trick, as he huffs and rolls his eyes.

“Well of course I’m the most creative. I guess I can plan everything and tell you all what to do.”

You smile at Oikawa, nodding. “That sounds good.” You enjoy the last bit of your dinner, keeping your eyes on your plate.

Since Hajime’s passing, there’s been a visible gap in your friend group. It’s not a gap that can easily be replaced or filled, but the balance of your group has been thrown way off course.

Makki and Mattsun try to lighten things up with jokes but most of the time they fall flat. And it’s not fair to always depend on them to keep the mood light when they can’t muster the energy to do it.

Most of the time you’ve remained silent on the outings. You’ll laugh at the jokes from Makki and ask everyone about their days, but nine times out of ten you’re hindered by the absence of Hajime to make meaningful conversation.

Surprisingly, the most consistent of your friends is Oikawa. But since there’s no Iwa-chan to reign him in, he has become the leader of your group - making plans, driving conversation and trying to keep your group from falling apart. The only problem is that Oikawa has utilized more...forceful tactics to get what he wants.

“For lunch tomorrow we’ll have to meet somewhere by the gym because I have training in the afternoon.” Oikawa states later, while everyone is leaving the restaurant. “And we have to get salads or something similar, I can’t eat anything heavy before.”

You send a quick glance to Mattsun, pleased to see Makki holding his boyfriend’s hand tightly. Of everyone Mattsun is the one who snaps back against Oikawa the most, unwilling to deal with his antics. Makki is the best at keeping him calm while you would try to keep Oikawa from escalating the issue.

“Oh, I can’t meet tomorrow, sorry. I’m getting lunch with my friend.”

Your friends all give you questioning looks - Makki and Mattsun look more excited (and ready to tease you if necessary.) But Oikawa narrows his eyes.

“Is this the same friend you ditched us for lunch yesterday and today?” His tone is accusatory and you inwardly sigh. So it’s going to be this kind of night.

“Yes.” You don’t want to beat around the bush but you don’t want to antagonize your friend with smart-ass answers. “He wanted to get lunch again so I agreed, I wouldn’t if we were planning on getting lunch.”

Oikawa scoffs. “You should always plan on getting lunch with us, Y/N.”

“Oikawa I think you’re skipping over an important detail.” Makki steps in, inadvertently stopping Oikawa from going off on you. But before you can relax he turns to you with a shit-eating grin. “You’re meeting with a guy?”

Shit.

Mattsun appears over Makki’s shoulder, giving a similar smirk. “Please elaborate, Y/N-chan. Who are you meeting with?”

“And when can we expect an introduction?”

You give Makki an annoyed look at his extra question. “His name is Osamu, and we worked on a project together for one of our classes. We worked well together so we decided to get lunch. It’s no big deal.” Your last sentence is directed to Makki and Mattsun, both waggling their eyebrows.

Despite their childish behavior you’d take it every day over Oikawa’s snide attitude.

“Osamu, huh?” Oikawa looks down at you with his head tilted to the side questionably. “How come this is the first we’ve heard about him?”

You shrug. “It’s no big deal, Oikawa. Don’t be a jerk.”

“Hey I’m just wondering why you never wanted to tell us about him.” He held his hands up innocently. “Are you keeping other secrets from us perhaps?”

You feel your eyes narrow and you can’t help but let a little venom into your words. “I’m not keeping secrets, Oikawa. Osamu and I worked on a project together, he found out about Hajime and I found out that he lost his twin brother, so maybe I’ve found another friend who I can relate to.”

Oikawa’s eyes widen marginally at the mention of Hajime and he doesn’t reply. His hands lower and he looks off to the side. You see Makki and Mattsun stiffen before Mattsun steps closer to his boyfriend.

It’s no wonder that people tell you not to joke about death or dying. It’s easy for people who haven’t understood how devastating the loss of a loved one is to make those simple jokes, because they’ve never experienced the instant the mood of a group plummets. It’s a powerful weapon, made to bring the strongest down a few notches. It’s one you wouldn’t ever use unless absolutely necessary, and even this time mentioning how you and Osamu were able to bond over your shared trauma was a slip made out of anger. But it was effective in shutting Oikawa up.

“Oh.” Makki says into the stifling silence. Oikawa still hasn’t looked away from the ground and now you feel guilty again for bringing the mood down. Twice in two days is not a record you wanted to make. Makki speaks up again. “That’s so sad, how did you find out about that?”

Here is where you hesitate, because you can’t say that you were texting Hajime’s old phone number and serendipitously the stranger receiving those messages not only is a student at the same university you attend but also lost someone close to him, and you agreed to meet with him for coffee after five minutes of your “meeting.”

“I think it just came up organically,” you reply, hoping you sound somewhat nonchalant with your fabricated explanation. “I don’t really remember the conversation exactly.”

“Huh.” Mattsun says. “Well if you guys are going to hang out more maybe see if he wants to come to our group therapy sessions. The next one’s in a few days.”

At this Oikawa whips his head up and glares at Mattsun. He doesn’t say anything in response to Mattsun’s suggestion but he looks livid. Mattsun in turn meets Oikawa glare with his signature, unaffected gaze.

“Okay, we’re gonna head out now.” Makki grabs his boyfriend’s arm and steers him towards their apartment. “Oikawa, we’ll text you about lunch tomorrow. Y/N, I want all the details from your ~date~”

“It’s not a date!” You call, but Makki doesn’t reply save for a little hand wiggle he sends over his shoulder. You sigh out loud and shake your head at your friends’ antics.

You turn to your silent companion, who has taken to glaring at the ground again. “Are you ready to leave?” He doesn’t answer you, not even nodding in agreement, but he stands straight and you both move together towards your apartment buildings.

Oikawa speaks up after a few blocks of walking in silence. “Did Osamu really lose his brother?”

“Excuse me?” You turn to your friend, appalled at such a question. “Are you really fucking asking if he was lying?”

“I’m just looking out for you.” Oikawa doesn’t meet your angry gaze but his voice has lost its disapproving tone. “Some idiots will lie to get sympathy or try to connect and get closer to you. It’s fucked up.”

Still feeling aggravated you turn forward and roll your shoulders. “I guess. But you didn’t see him. You’d have to be blind to take one look and think he’s okay.” His tired face pops into your head again, the look of a person just trying to scrap by one day at a time. It hurts to think about.

“Do you like him?”

You turn back to your friend, angry again, to see him giving you a calculated look. There’s something else there too, almost something like indignant hurt.

You know why he’s looking at you like that and it makes something in your stomach twist.

Oikawa is the only other person to know of your love for Hajime. He pried it from you years ago but had sworn on his own hair products that he wouldn’t tell a soul. In spite of Oikawa’s general obnoxiousness and seemingly fictitiousness, deep down he’s a very loyal friend. And even though he knew one of your deepest secrets, you knew it was safe with him.

But he badgered you for days on end to confess to Hajime and every time you told him no. He was annoyingly persistent, but not once did he say well what now? after Hajime passed.

You missed that annoying weirdo. You don’t like the possessive, mean and cruel Oikawa that’s taken his place.

“I don’t like him like that, Oikawa.” You say now, turning back ahead first this time. “He’s just a friend.”

You feel Oikawa’s gaze on you still but you don’t look back. He doesn’t say another word to you, save for a short remark when you leave to go into your apartment building.

“Have fun on your date tomorrow.”

He drops that line and walks away, leaving you to stare after your friend with your gut twisting.

Why does he have to do this?

Insecurity, jealousy, anger, depression - maybe a mix of all four and more. It’s partly why you’re giving him a pass for now.

Your phone pings when you get into your apartment, and you feel the tension from the day leave your body when you lock the door. You feel wrung out and you honestly just want to sink to the floor and just lay there.

Before you give into your urge to become one with the floor you pull your phone out to see who texted you.

If it’s Oikawa I’m going to flush my phone down the toilet.

But you’re pleasantly surprised to read the screen and not see it was Oikawa who messaged you. You unlock your phone to read the text, feel a smile tug at your lips and send a reply back.

Glancing down at the floor, it suddenly doesn’t look as appealing as it did before. You walk through the apartment, heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

• ────── ✾ ────── •

A/N: And we get a bit more of a glimpse into Y/N's friend group, and the dynamic is.......not ideal. Hopefully the friends can work through their problems and help each other......anyway, thank you for reading!

Taglist Open! Please send an Ask with the request to be added to It’s [Not] Okay Fic & SMAU: @psycho-nightrose @camcam1617 @kamalymaly @toobsessedsstuff @shookykookie30 @roro-707 @qualitygiantshoepsychic @cerealfrdinner797 @ara-mitsue @gray-444 @tanakasimpcorner @rintarovibes @jellien @everytimeswift @bongofrito

#haikyuu! #haikyuu #haikyuu fic #haikyuu social media au #haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x you #hq smau #hq x reader #hq x y/n #hq x you #haikyuu angst #hq angst #haikyuu romance #hq romance #miya osamu #miya osamu x reader #miya osamu x y/n #miya osamu x you #iwaizumi hajime #miya atsumu #oikawa tooru #hanamki takahiro #matsukawa issei #tw.mention of past character death #kita shinsuke #suna rintarou #ojiro aran #its [not] okay fic & smau

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Autistic Hiccup x ADHD Anna Headcanons

SO I’ve been really into the whole Autistic x ADHD ship dynamic and Hiccanna...highkey fits??? Like y’all know I will die on my “Anna has ADHD” hill, but after reading this post by @hobie-brown I’m like wait, the autistic Hiccup headcanon is wonderful too??? And blends SO WELL with ADHD Anna??? And I absolutely HAD to explore it more so BOOM headcanon time! Another special thanks to @hobie-brown for writing the super lovely autistic Hiccup headcanon masterpost that inspired me to do this!

Disclaimer: I myself am not on the spectrum (part of the reason I’ve always felt a little weird about definitively HCing characters as autistic unless I see actual autistic people HC them that way too), so most of the stuff here is stuff I know secondhand from my autistic friends! I do have ADHD, so I can always promise that ADHD Anna will be 100% authentic XD

~Anna absolutely gets into Hiccup’s special interests to try and impress him. The most obvious one being, of course, dragons, but also dinosaurs (extinct dragons), lizards (tiny dragons), and Dungeons and Dragons (An RPG game that does, in fact, include dragons). Hiccup absolutely had that dragonology book as a kid and got obsessed with it beyond all reasonability. Hilariously, Anna’s wooing strategy of indulging his special interests works like a charm--mainly because a) he’s pretty flattered that someone takes THAT much of an interest in what he likes and b) half the time, ANNA finds that she genuinely gets into whatever said special interest is and finds them easy to hyperfixate on. It helps that the more she obsesses over it herself, the more she has to talk to Hiccup about XD

~Specifically, Anna definitely joins a DnD campaign at some point so that Hiccup will think she’s a “cool gamer girl”--and then gets unironically obsessed with it and starts writing 10-page backstories for all of her characters. She later tells Hiccup it started out as a ruse to win his heart via nerdiness, and he absolutely loses his shit laughing.

~One of their overlapping special interests/hyperfixations is high fantasy. Hiccup is, unsurprisingly, all about the mythical creatures while Anna is more into the magic and the zesty political drama, but you dun best believe they catch every CGI-ridden fantasy movie that ever comes out. They’ve both spent a literal fortune on fantasy movie tickets, even moreso on watching them in 3D or Imax. How embarrassing for both of them.

~Another less-obvious overlapping interest is history. Hiccup gets into it while looking into the cultural mythos of dragons (he’s pretty fascinated by the fact that so many cultures around the world thought up similar creatures independently), while Anna gets into it because she grew up cooped up bored and lonely in a big house, and entertained herself by looking into the history behind some of the family paintings. They don’t seem it at first, but they’re actually both huge medieval and ancient civilization history buffs.

~Hiccup is THE most touch-repulsed person you will ever meet. This is unfortunate, as he is also SUPER touch-starved and absolutely does not realize it (I mean, I’ve never gotten the vibe Stoic was the super huggy type, considering his and Hicc’s relationship in HTTYD 1). This means he has absolutely no fucking clue what to make of Anna when they first meet meet. Anna’s the sort of person to give physical affection pretty freely, especially if she likes you--usually in the form of hugs, arm pats or playful swats, putting her elbow on your shoulder, etc etc. Hiccup is kinda just like “this is way too much touching but like??? I kinda like having her this close to me??? What do???”

~Anna, meanwhile, notices that Hiccup kinda stiffens up whenever she touches him and seems to not be crazy about it and she’s just immediately like “yo what’s wrong???” And as SOON as he admits he’s not all that crazy about being touched randomly she’s like “OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY” and never touches him without asking again.

~As soon as she finds out touch a kind of A Whole Thing for him, Anna is like...AGGRESSIVELY respectful of Hiccup’s boundaries when it comes to physical affection. Almost annoyingly so. She gets in the habit of basically never initiating any kind of physical touch without asking first--even long after they’ve started dating, and he’s told her it’s okay to initiate touching as long as she’s not smothery about it. She still refuses out of principle.

~They come up with a kind of “consent language” so Anna can pretty quickly determine when it’s all right to touch Hiccup--because Anna still really likes being physically affectionate with him, and he does actually like receiving physical affection a lot of the time (because, again, touch-starved), he’s just choosy about who does it. They work out a system based off of small, light touches that Hiccup doesn’t mind where it’s basically 2 taps on his shoulder for “can I hug you around the neck,” 2 taps on his side for “can I hug you around the waist,” 2 taps on his arm for “can I grab/lightly slap/punch your arm,” and 1 tap on is shoulder for “can I put my arm/elbow on your shoulder.” If he’s cool with it he’ll either nod or just say “yeah go ahead.” It works a lot quicker than asking “can I do such-and-such specific touch” every single time, and allows Anna to keep some of her spontaneity. They develop this during their friendship and it ends up rolling over into their relationship, even after Hiccup has basically told her she doesn’t need to ask permission for a lot of these anymore. She adds a new one after they start dating--she taps him a couple times wherever she wants to kiss him to ask if it’s cool to give him a smooch! It usually is.

~INFODUMPING. Literally SO. MUCH. INFODUMPING. Hiccup absolutely WILL NOT SHUT UP when he gets to talking about one of his special interests. Anna just will not shut up in general, but when the topic changes to one of her hyperfixations, it’s even worse. If you try to have a conversation with these two while they’re infodumping, you WILL get talked over. Honestly, left to their own devices, they could probably infodump to each other for literal days on end.

~Despite how much they both like to infodump, they’re both pretty good about being patient and indulging the other when it’s their partner’s turn to infodump in the conversation XD They are, however, notorious about accidentally triggering a barely-related infodump in the other person. It’s not uncommon for one of them to finish a rant and then the other goes “OH THAT REMINDS ME” and sets off on a completely different, barely-related rant.

~Hiccup actually really appreciates how overexpressive--and occasionally overdramatic--Anna tends to be. He never has to try and figure out what she’s thinking because she just says everything in her brain, and her body language basically always matches how she’s feeling to a ridiculous extent, so he never has to give himself a headache trying to read her. The fact that she’s the opposite of subtle and has no filter whatsoever works great for him, because he doesn’t have to drive himself insane trying to understand her. He gets her better than he gets most people because she’s an open goddamn book. The boy’s never been the best with social cues at all, never mind the nuanced, obscure ones, so Anna’s general straightforwardness and utter inability to hide her true feelings at literally any time is a breath of fresh air. What you see is basically what you get, and Hiccup wouldn’t have it any other way.

~People think when Anna and Hiccup start dating it’s gonna be a disaster, mainly because he’s so blunt and she can be...”oversensitive” (i.e. has a REALLY bad case of RSD). Turns out they’re dead wrong--because Hiccup has RSD too! (I mean, come ON--look how BADLY he wants to get his village’s approval! And how hard he takes it when his dad or someone else is mad at him--even if he tries to hide it with snark) He’s actually one of the few people who can be blunt enough with Anna that she realizes when she’s being a dumbass but tactful enough not to hurt her feelings or set off her RSD--because god, has he been there. When Anna is being especially difficult and has worked herself into a real bad funk, Hiccup (and sometimes Elsa) is the only people who can talk to her and get through to her without getting blown up at.

~They stim in similar ways!!! They both tend to fidget or kinda bounce up in down in place as a way to comfort themselves and calm themselves down (I see them both having a lot of anxiety and generally being kind of paranoid, although Anna is MUCH better at hiding this via putting on a cheerful face). They both do the leg bounce!!! Also if they get SUPER excited they’ll do a little awkward happy dance!!! They both also tend to stim by rubbing things in small, repetitive motions--with Hiccup, it’s usually his sketching pens, his ear, his head, or the back of his neck, while with Anna, it’s usually her other hand, her arm, her clothes, or really anything with kind of a comforting, consistent texture (some favorites are rubber, felt, and velvet). After they start dating, they actually will stim with each other’s hands while holding hands--usually by squeezing the other person’s hand in kind of a repetitive pattern or doing the thumb-rub thing on the back of the other person’s hand. It’s not uncommon for them to each be doing something completely unrelated while holding hands and just stimming on each other’s hands the entire time. Anna especially really loves when she feels Hiccup stimming on her, because it’s her little indicator that he’s happy and feels at peace and content in her presence and she LOVES being able to do that for him!

~They both stim by playing with hair too! Anna likes to play with her own to stim--mainly by figeting with the end of her braids or tucking hair behind her ear. She DOES love to ruffle Hiccup’s hair too (and she LOVES how fluffy it is!), but it’s usually not a stim thing. After they start dating, Anna does occasionally stim by massaging Hiccup’s hair/scalp, but she doesn’t usually do it for very long. Hiccup really loves braiding Anna’s hair, or just playing with it when it’s down. it helps him relax and clear his mind to have something fairly repetitive and/or mindless to do.

~Even after gaining some confidence, Hiccup still has a fair bit of social anxiety, so he and Anna basically always go to parties and social events together and stick with each other the whole time to make it less intimidating for him. Hiccup generally prefers to let Anna do the talking when they chat with people, and sometimes if he’s REALLY nervous he’ll sometimes even let her kinda talk for him (not in a condescending “speaking over” kinda way, but more in like a “I can sense you’re not comfortable speaking here so I’ll help you out as best I can” kinda way). She always makes sure to leave space in the conversation for him to take over talking if he wants. She’s also incredibly prone to bragging about his accomplishments to basically everyone they know. Hiccup is both embarrassed and flattered by this.

~When Anna finds out about meltdowns (probably through Hiccup mentioning it kind of offhandedly--“Eh, sorry I went AWOL last night, I was having a bit of a meltdown. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine now.”) she lowkey gets super anxious and frustrated because she REALLY wants to help, but has no idea how. Cue literal HOURS of research on the internet and AGGRESSIVE memorizing of any and all tips that she reads that she thinks would help. Which, of course, means several MORE hours spent going over flashcards like she’s studying for a goddamn test, because Anna has never been known for her sharp, expansive memory.

~The first time Hiccup ever has a meltdown in front of her (maybe after a really bad phone fight with his dad or something? Just general sensory overload?), she takes him to a secluded room and IMMEDIATELY gets rid of anything that could be agitating sensory-wise. She dims the lights! She closes the blinds! She throws a nearby clock, an alarm, a timer, and several other objects with only the slightest potential of making an annoying noise out of a nearby window in a fit of passion! She goes on a frenzied quest to find Hiccup’s noise-cancelling headphones--and finishes it in record time! Even in a state of emotional turmoil, Hiccup realizes that Anna’s being just a little too methodical in how she goes about all this--these are the kind of things that wouldn’t ever occur naturally to her to do. So as soon as he calms down a bit and has screamed into a pillow for a while, he’s like “...did you go on the internet to look up how to help with meltdowns?” and Anna’s like “...yes?” And Hiccup is lowkey so touched he starts crying all over again...and then, naturally, makes a long string of snarky comments to try and distract from it XD

~For their anniversary Anna saves up a bunch and buys Hiccup a lizard and a terrarium!!! She gets him a crocodile skink because, I quote, “Well, they always look annoyed, they’re kinda shy, they don’t like to be touched, and they look like tiny dragons, so they reminded me of you!!!” Hiccup screams like a goddamn fangirl, he’s SO excited. As luck would have it, Hiccup’s crocodile skink is a lot less skittish and prone to hiding than they usually are, and he actually lets Hiccup pick him up and pet him without much issue. Which is honestly great, because repeatedly touching something smooth and even like lizard scales helps calm Hiccup down when he’s agitated and helps with some of his sensory issues.

~Probably goes without saying, but Hiccup basically NEVER genuinely gives Anna a hard time about her memory problems or how she’s not always the quickest on the uptake, and if anyone tries to call her annoying, dumb, or immature he will absolutely roast them into oblivion. He does sometimes like...lightly tease her about jumping into things without thinking or never shutting up, but he never pushes it if he can tell she’s genuinely bothered by it (and, again, Anna is very easy to read, so it’s not hard to tell XD)

~I’ve seen other people in the fandom HC either Hiccup, Anna, or both of them as BOTH autistic and ADHD, and honestly...fuck yes!!! I’m down for this too! I love the idea of these two disaster ND kids just vibing with each other on so many damn levels that it’s like...incomprehensible to the average human XD Like man, they fuckin GET each other!!! I’m pretty happy with most combinations of ADHD + Autistic headcanons for Anna and Hiccup, so long as they end up vibing!!!

~THEY JUST. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. SO MUCH. THEY LITERALLY WOULD DIE FOR EACH OTHER. I AM SURE OF IT. I’M CRYING. 

#hiccanna #hiccup x anna #anna x hiccup #hiccup #anna #hiccupxanna #annaxhiccup #autistic hiccup #adhd anna #headcanons #hcs #httyd #frozen #crossover #rotbtd #rotbtfd #hiccup haddock #princess anna

[snowleopardsaregettingmytoes]

the obi wan show is really boring. and the opening was awful. and the music is really generic. and nothing about "its all just done in a computer but pretends to be real by using a lot of polygons and shading" cinematic is impressive. lemme know when you make another star wars with model ships and actors who aren't auditioning for a bible movie with a fascist-wannabe director treating the set like his own personal riech. (that's hyperbole for the acting is stiff and made so much more boring by the faux stoic exposition prattling. but if you watched movies that aren't like this thing, you'd know that.)

this is why i watch old movies. and you know? i cracked the code because i was willing to sit with it. what people keep calling racism and sexism is actually a form of communication & visual metaphor. notice how the white guy is like "hey i'm you", and the black guy is too, but he's like, there to represent a different motive/approach. and depending on the story and message the white guy either makes peace/friends with him or defeats him. this can go other ways too, like different hairstyles and styles of clothing. watch enough movies from the same era and you notice patterns.

these are backed up by the pretentious filmschool people's peacocking (but they only seem to grasp these concepts at a surface level.) Mirrors, reflections. symbolism. themes. what they're talking about are actually true and very important....they just talk about it really annoyingly, as does anybody saying stuff out loud to get it stuck in their own heads. its once these concepts are truly understood and their implementation perfected that we begin to not realize they're even there, woven so tightly into the fabric of cellulose that they simply ARE.

fun fact: in the 20th century when us queers weren't as open about ourselves, we tended to find each other by proxy. we'd mention something queer and observe those who heard. if they reacted like they knew or were interested, we had just found each other. but to be safe around the shitty bible shitheads, we didn't directly say its what we wanted.

"i am a man and i want to kiss another man" vs "heh i was at a bar and just saw two guys kiss what's the deal with that?"

same idea in movies. there's a joke about or related to queer culture/activities and any queers in the audience could find each other by seeing who reacted and how. i mean, c'mon. the entire industry was queer. of course they're gonna help their anytown usa counterparts find eachother.

it also made creating a mood so much easier and more effective because in the 20th century everything looked like stuff. the cars looked like cars and they all had different "faces" amd the houses and buildings were like that too. and so much variety. its sort of easier to just observe by being surrounded by it (i refuse to buy new stuff for the majority of what i own, so its literally what i surround myself with, including cars) than it is to explain it. try watching a movie that has a lot of scenes on the road and pick out specific cars, notice the colors and shapes and if you know makes & models check that too. or similarly, when there's a lot of buildings, make a conscious effort to determine which building might have what inside it. (home, apartments, offices, municipal, different kinds of stores and restaurants, garages vs gas stations, etc) clothes (ask yourself what kind of attitude must come with choosing an outfit such as that, then compare it with the character. avoid generalizations such as "only lawyers wear suits" and "wow she's wearing such a frumpy dress she must be stuck up", and instead use more bite-size feelings you might consider while getting dressed.

okay so you've watched a 20th century movie for that stuff. now try watching an avengers movie, or a similar-to-the-genre-studied film circa 2009-present. 9 times out of ten all that stuff falls apart because the new shit is so samey and forgettable. it relies on you either only caring about a concept ("there's a car chase happening" vs "this car chase is important because of what's riding on it, and these characters represent x,y,z and the cars represent these feelings and motivations, etc") its all very vauge, likely on purpose because if you can do that and give the bare minimum to make somebody who doesn't care much about movies pay attention so they have something to talk about in their boring little life to sound interesting and fit in (probably because the awesome hobby they could have been participating in got driven out of production and replaced in their life with a posting on reddit addiction), well you just made a lump of shit that grossed an obscene amount of money at the box office.

my solution is we behead all the capitalists, destroy the stranglehold of mediocre "smart" technology, paint our goddamn houses purple, learn some skills and hobbies and get goddamn fistfulls of grass and then when we're done with all that we meet up at the predetermined location and make a cobbled together sci-fi epic based on one of you's vintage fanfic, just like the original star wars. and we remember what we learned from the 21st century and never let that shit happen again.

#dog #cism—certified information security manager #life quote #dating #children's hospital #let's visit grandma and watch her eat #spamton #chills #cars #color theory #spamler #cosplay #homestuck #i see you are also a person of culture #i wanna throw up #onceler #sands undertable #socially awkward haven #and you think its another bad dream #movies #hollywood #star wars #obi wan kenobi #cinema #also global warming is likely #actually made up by the rich to keep people subjugated and glued to their phones and buying paid websites and in perpetual subscriptions to #shitty electric vehicles that are disposable and will be thrown away in 2 years like everything else #therefore are much worse for the enviroment than some treatable carbon emmissions from vehicles completely rebuildable and maintainable #by their owners. #be free

[lassieposting]

Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying. 

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings”. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas.  There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

#skulduggery pleasant #sp meta #derek landy hate blog #Anon #fire message #anti valitsa #anti val #anti phase two tbh #phase two fans will not enjoy this post

[walkingtaetrash]

THOUGHTS ON GILMORE GIRLS:

i have so much to say y’all regarding gilmore girls. I LOVE this show. i have a very tension filled hatred for some parts but most of all LOVE.

after watching seven whole seasons of these girls lives, i have to say i truly understand the complexities of these characters. we’re not even gonna get into the years of a our lives thing, no this is about the freaking original. god, the amount of shit that rory did, lorelai did, chris did, luke did, emily and richard, I MEANNNN god it’s a lot

1. Rory.

gosh this girl was so frustratingly annoying. a perfect gem and pearl in the first year, and then later she becomes a nuisance. but what i truly see is her finally getting out of that naivety/handholding/dewy eyed phase and onto things like being a teen. this girl really stole a boat and got it on her record and what i hated about the show is that they never bring it up again. like that def affected her getting into places bUT NOOOOO. they wanna paint her out as some saint. i think the only sympathy i have to her behavior is that she was growing into who she was. i thought thank goodness Jess screamed at the girl to go back to yale because Logan wasn’t gonna do it!! gosh the whole relationships this girls gone thru, ruining deans marriage, cheating on logan with jess and making jess sad, going back to logan again and again after he treated her like crap? like NO honey that’s toxicityyyyyy. anyways she was annoying but at the end i love her.

2. lorelai.

I LOVE THIS WOMAN. no matter how many times she screwed up i could never stop loving this woman. does this mean i have bias ? YES. sorry y’all. i just related so much to these two. the dynamic of a single mom and her kid spoke so much to me and my mom. but also i am not like lor and rory, i’m more like lor and emily. i have the same mommy issues, caffeine addiction, and a incessant need to ramble on about god knows what. i do not have the sexy, charming wit she has, but i do think i’m funny and i talk a lot (i mean look at this long ass text post) BUT she’s just so beautiful and wonderful. she went thru so much for rory and made her into the kid she is today and just was so understanding. i wish she gave emily grace but at the end like i truly get why she was always so frustrated. there were times where she was excessive but damn it i get her. i love her and luke. why tf did jason happen. also the chris marriage so nasty, but all in all she deserves love and to be cherished.

3. luke

this man holds my heart gosh damn it, i love him. i don’t know why april came into his life, maybe to add some spice. i think he never would’ve forgotten to wear a condom lowkey he’s so responsible. but hey, whatever the show includes. i think he handled that part so well tho , and only fighting for partial custody , i truly loved that. he didn’t wanna make it a big thing cause he knows that april needs her mom, but i thought it was rude that Anna (ew), someone who knew Luke’s character, and knows what kind of guy he is, would not tell him he had a kid. and then expects him not wanna be a dad? like he is the ultimate “i wanna make sure everything’s done right on my end, i’ll always do what i think is right” type of guy. he did that with jess i mean come on. i love his anger about things cause it reminds me of my own dad, and like i wish there was more complexity to him, but i think he repetitive nature suited him. he had a lot of chaos in his life and tranquility in the small things in life like routine and filling the salt shakers really helped him feel grounded and have a sense of control. i love him, the most caring dude in the world, and i would want him on my side in a war.

4. dean

we gotta start somewhere for rory’s boyfriends. i think he was a good first boyfriend, treated her right, but goSH DAMN IT HE WAS SO FUCKING ANNOYING LATER ON. see i even started watching gilmore girls cause jared padalecki was in it, and i was so awestruck by it cause of the characters but DAMN if a character could be even more annoying. dean was not into the things rory was into and they had no spark, but they had comfortability and it was sweet and he helped lorelai out a lot and treated her good, but he legit was so clingy and all that shit later on. and like he wasn’t even trying wiyh life with her in it either and it just frustrated me. he messed up a marriage for her, it’s so wrong man. like ugh.

5. jess

if i could hug someone i would hug him omg. he looks like he smells like those manly colognes, books, and hair products but the fruit scented kind like coconuts and berries that he’s embarrassed to tell you about. gosh he is such a character. i love him so much and he went thru so much as a kid and i wish he never had that scene of pressuring rory cause that was a HUGE ick but all in all, he just had to go to therapy and know he could make it big. i wish they input his story more and that whole outfit at the poetry house thing was vomit, the hair and goatee made me choke i was like this aint you bby boy, but alas they had to make him look like those 2000 poet guys (i mean it was in the 2000’s but i digress) it just wasn’t his leather jacket and jeans look i missed. he was the one who understood rory in all her creative mess. he was the one to spark up that drive for yale again and told her to pursue whatever she wanted (granted i didn’t like how he showed up at her dorm and was like let’s run away together) but he was there for her in the ways he could. he had so much trauma tho that i think it was best they let go of each other and i think if they found each other again later and pursued it it would be beautiful.

6. logan.

i hated him at first yall. i’m so sorry i really did. he was a player, immature, immoral, and annoyingly right about things. rory did not need his influence. they stole a boat together, he wanted her to be out of her comfort zone yes but damn to what extreme? i think after he matured up, it was so beautiful tho. i hate to admit it but i love him now. he grew on me, he truly started caring for rory in a responsible way, he started working, he started realizing he could lose rory, and in the end it was sad she didn’t accept but he took it like a champ. i think he was so ready for it cause he loved her but he couldn’t have expected her to drop all her career options and just go with him to san francisco. i think he should’ve known her well enough but i also get why he didn’t wanna do long distance. i think he connected with her very well. in the way that pointed out her ICKS she never knew she had. she also was a trust fund baby with a rich family and is at Yale and doesn’t have to work through college. i hated that she never acknowledged that and thought she was some fucking hard worker. like yes you study a lot ma’am but you don’t work you’re not someone who knows what it’s like to worry about rent the next day. like damn she had a mom and she had her pool house shit and i also think it was so ungrateful the way she acted towards emily and richard. like they did so much shit for her and she took it for granted. yes they can be extreme but rory needs to be nicer. she is literally another pompous kid who attended an ivy league and she acted so high and mighty in that article ugh. anyways logan was able to show her that hey you have flaws too don’t think you’re perfect but also showed her her TRUE potential. he wanted her on a newspaper and wanted her things to excel and was there with her every step of the way. paid for an apartment, dor a car, and i feel she never really acknowledged that. it was frustrating. but he was frustrating in ways too with the bridesmaid things and the player things and the gambling with Colin and Finn (why did they exist) and yeah. but anyways 9/10

7. christopher hayden.

can i say i fully loathe this man? HATE. i despISE this man. the amount of times he messed up? the amount of times he broke rory and lorelai’s heart?? TOO MANY. he’s a dumb dad and he acts stupid with GG too and i stand by it and sherry is a bitch but damn oh damn did chris get himself in shit. lorelai was ready to marry him and be with him and he went to sherry. SHERRY DIDNT EVEN WANT THE KID. well she did and then it came by and she didn’t and then she left and that was confusing asf. cause she was over here talking rory’s ear off about chris and kids she was the most annoying character ever. hated her . BUT I HATE CHRIS MORE. then lorelai dated luke and pushed her and expected her to be with him and it to be fine. no. and thank god they split but damn the hurt lorelai went thru? it’s embarrassing when luke is the one at the hospital for lor’s dad instead of the husband. anyways it was stupud of him to always try. and then like mess it up between him and rory and act like a dad when he was barely there for her, but either way i’m happy he paid for yale and he’s out of their lives as much as he was in it.

8. emily.

EMILY MY LOVE. you are so stubborn and so conceited but damn do you love your family to the moon and back. this woman was a wife through and through and i have so much respect for her and it’s so weird because i’d never want that for me and it’s so traditional but she’s such a caring woman. only for her blood tho it’s so funny the way she could care less about those around her. um, i hate the rich things ya know the “status, and being poised” thibg but i have to realize it’s becaus of how she was raised and what she was taught was correct. i think lorelai never deserved that uobringing but i think emily tried her best in what she knew. and she tried to be better and wanted to be included in rory and lorelai’s life. even if she was always annoyed by lorelai’s jokes, she knew that was their dynamic and i loved that lorelai agreed to friday night dinners even after rory left it meant so much to her. and i love emily. she loves lorelai so much in her weird and twisted way, she does. that girl would kill for lorelai. i’d move mountains for this woman

9. richard

i needed time to get used to him at the beginning of the season but later on i found that i loved him too. the loving at first about the rory cryibg about yale thing was cute cause it was his first “i’m your grandpa i’d do anything and spoil you silly” event he ever experienced but it was so intense and i totally understood why he coddled her. i wish he didn’t cause it caused all the problems but it was necessary to see his love for her was strong.

they had to find ways in connecting in the beginning with the golf and the hat and books and all that but rory and richard were so close and i love that man. at the end, he saw no use in fighting with lorelai and even laughed at her jokes and was a mediator between emily and lor and the heart attack def did shit to him for him to say he knew lorelai was adored because she turned out to be a great person and that’s why the town loved her, it wa all so cute. i think at the end of the seasons we grow to love richard and emily so much so that we forget all the bad things they did.

kirk.

100000/10 he’s amazing i never would give him up.

enough daid, this show is great i love the complexities and i love the dynamic, the jokes, (some are problematic like the body shaming, r word, culture stereotyping, and sexuality jokes) i think that it was a great show focused on plot. i hated the first episode of the life thing the spin off i forget what it’s called, but you know. they made a lot of “spanish i don’t speak spanish” jokes and there’s barely still any diversity in the cast, and the jokes are so bad like they’re trying to be accepting of the lgbtq+ community but they made jokes so many times in season 7 that it can’t be ignored and like the amount of times they are so stereotypical to the asian community like “rory’s trip to asia”? like that whole episode was so rude with the hello kitty sign, but like idk

it’s a complicated show, i loved it and hated it, i have a love relationship with it that includes such tension it’s toxic. like i’m even hispanic and the whole bit of them not knowing soanish nor thinking they can learn a bit (idk as a inn owner maybe pick up a language/trade?) is not even that effecting to me cause i know them as characters on the show and the girls we grew to love are not like that at all. idk it’s so weird. idk y’all. anyways i finsihed it thank goodness now someone pls recommend new shows :))))

#gilmore girls #rory gilmore #lorelai gilmore #luke danes #logan huntzberger #jess mariano #me rambling #there’s no end to it #i apologize but i had to let it out #enjoy this lol