#as in i give max the lesbian mindset

[chrzannekk]

we as a society need more camp camp yuri

#see the thing is #everytime i draw/write masha i yuri them #as in i give max the lesbian mindset #so max is a lesbian? #idk here yuri there we go maxine #cc max #cc maxine #cc sasha #cc masha #camp camp

[jussst-lurking]

Lesbian Lestappen

Ok, seeing a picture of girl Max unlocked an entire fucking story idea in my brain! Here goes (this is long btw):

It would sort of be lestappen through the years (cliché I know) but!!! they’re both girls. So imagine, Max and Charlene in karting as the only girls and they are both really really good, Max was basically winning everything in the regional Dutch championships, and even though it’s her father who’s doing this with her, she’s always compared to her mother (maybe also because ppl see that she’s talented but no one thinks she’ll actually take this further than karting).

Meanwhile Charlene is really successful in the regional French championships and when they both start racing internationally and against each other and as the only girls in the classification people start whispering about them. Some see them as promising young talents, others don’t look on them as favourably.

Anyways, the two of them get pitted against each other a lot (as society tends to do with women and girls) and they constantly fight each other for wins and they cannot fucking stand each other (especially Charlene, because Max tends to get the better of her more often than the other way around, and she really has this mindset that there can only be one girl here.)

Fast forward a couple years: in a shocking move that nobody saw coming Toro Rosso offers Max a drive for 2015. People are outraged, say she’s too young at 17, say she won’t be able to take the pressure, write disgusting speculative articles about whether she’ll be able to keep up with the boys, or that she’s getting the seat because she’s a girl or some shit (as if you’d get preferential treatment in motorsport when you’re female). Anyways, Max enters the sport and serves absolute cunt, not taking shit from anybody, achieving multiple p4 in a car that clearly doesn’t belong there, she’s battling with many of the well established drivers and wins (sometimes) but she also gets criticised a shitload for her ‘overly aggressive’ driving style, with many calling it unnecessary and dangerous, others even joking that it’s not ladylike to drive that way. Max obviously doesn’t give a shit, says that’s the way she drives and that people should deal with it.

Then, in 2016 more shocking news: they’re putting her in the Red Bull not even half way though the season. People criticise the move left and right, again the arguments of her being too young, too immature, unable to handle the pressure of a top team, that she’s driving too aggressively and will only bring the team down etc. Max shuts them up by winning her first race for the team, with an RB 1-2 in Malaysia, and that phenomenal drive in the wet in Brazil. Rules get changed because of her, older drivers are afraid of her (see: Nico Rosberg in Abu Dhabi 2016) and the discourse around her never really stops.

People also see how well she’s getting on with Daniel, and oh, they’re vile about it! Say she’s flirting with him and manipulating him and all of that good stuff. Some people think she slept her way into that rb seat anyways…

At the same time, Charlene is setting the junior categories on fire, winning f3 and gp2 in a row, both times as a rookie, and it’s hard to look away from her. It seems almost inevitable when it gets announced that Charlene will debut in f1 with Alfa Romeo. Like with Max, there’s backlash, but maybe less so because Charlene proved herself by winning 2 junior categories in a row. Still, some question the direction f1 is headed in. (Also when f1 gets rid of the grid girls and many see it as pandering to woke culture and all of that. Maybe they even try to blame Max (and Charlene) for it.)

There is an absolute shitstorm when Ferrari kicks out Kimi (of all people!) and signs Charlene for 2019. People say the nastiest shit about her.

She doesn’t want to admit it at first, but all the vile comments and inappropriate interview questions get to her and so she reluctantly seeks out Max.

Max herself is dealing with the news of Daniel leaving and people blaming her for it, saying the team is building around her, trying to make her the first female world champion and so on.

Charlene confides in Max that she’s struggling with all the things people say about her and that she sometimes questions whether she actually deserves the seat. Max tells her that people are assholes and that Charlene shouldn’t listen to them because she 100% deserves that Ferrari seat, but also that it’s harder for them here, that they basically have to be twice as good to get half the recognition and therefore it’s important to just keep pushing, keep your head down and do the talking on track.

Things heat back up between them in 2019: they are in a fierce battle for 3rd in the championship and shit hits the fan in Austria, people are taking sides, pitting them against each other even more. The battles they produce are some of the most entertaining races of the entire season.

Things calm down in 2020, what with the pandemic and Ferrari being shit, there isn’t really much happening between the two of them except for that incident in Sakhir.

But then 2021 comes around and Max has her first proper chance to fight for the title. She grabs her opportunity with both hands and leads the championship by Monaco. Even though Ferrari is better this year, Max and Lewis are in a league of their own and all the attention is on them. Then, Silverstone happens. A heated battle turns into all out war, splitting the fan base, and Max is getting slandered and demonised by the media and she has so much pressure on her shoulders. She appears to handle it well, but Charlene sees all the vile and sexist shit people are saying about Max and she absolutely is not having it and reaches out to Max to make sure she’s ok. They start a tentative friendship, mostly bound to the paddock and even though Max isn’t saying it and it’s not visible from the outside, her friendship with Charlene, who can relate to her in a way others can’t, gives her so much strength to keep going. Max wins her first Championship in the most controversial fashion possible, but she holds her head high and ignores the people calling her a fake champion.

She takes the number 1 for herself, mostly because that’s what she always wanted, but also to remind people who the reigning champion is. The gold details on her helmet and the golden boots are there to highlight it even more.

2022 starts with a bang, the new regulations seem to be working as Max and Charlene battle for the win and for the championship. Everybody is surprised by how well they seem to get along with each other, and despite multiple attempts by the media to put the two against each other, they have nothing but kind words to say. The battle for the championship doesn’t last very long though, because Ferrari keeps screwing up the strategy and suffer from unreliability. Max is Charlene’s number 1 defender when people try to put the blame on her. They get closer, get into a habit of discussing their races together and sometimes they go out after a race or meet up in a hotel room to watch a movie to unwind. Max is always there to comfort Charlene after a bad race and they both start to fall for each other (or maybe in Max’s case she starts realising that she’s had feelings for Charlene for a while now) and then, probably in Austria (because where else would it be) Max ‘accidentally’ ends up kissing Charlene during their race debrief that evening. Max apologises but Charlene says there’s no need to and kisses her. They get together and everything and Max wins her second title and then maybe they appear at the fia gala together but they don’t explain anything? And all of f1 is going crazy about what that means and so on and so forth, and then there are those cryptic pictures on instagram and then in 2023 they are so obvious and when Charlene gets pole in Baku Max just straight up kisses her, but they both refuse to elaborate on it, and that’s how everyone gets to know they’re dating.

#lestappen #max verstappen #charles leclerc #fic idea #this idea came to me at the most inconvenient time ever #I’m in the middle of exam phase #and I already have a summer project (my space au) #but this would be sooo cool to write

[lookwhatilost]

I think a very revealing line in The Force Awakens is Han Solo’s first line, when he enters the Millennium Falcon: “Chewy, we’re home.”

That’s the thing with these types of movies, what I’ll call “legacy franchises” – the new Halloween movies are guilty of this, same with Ghostbusters Afterlife – the original source material and the cultural impact and the fandom around them have proxies in the universe of the movie. Within the new Star Wars universe, Han Solo is a legend, and the Millennium Falcon is a legend, and Luke Skywalker is a legend, and all these characters have heard of them and are fans of them and they’re so important in their legacy. It’s just become Star Wars about Star Wars. Ghostbusters about Ghostbusters. Who the fuck wants that? We’re watching a movie about how much we liked the previous movie. What the fuck is that? I know I liked the previous movie! I could just watch the previous movie! It’s really irritating and it’s really sad because I’m not strictly anti-nostalgia. It’s nice to go back and revisit the things you love, and the distance between you now and you then, it’s all good. But this is wallowing and refusing to do anything else. And it’s this reverence for these key elements of the past, that were so in awe of them that we don’t want to do anything different or better. We can imagine tweaking or correcting them, or putting more lesbians in them, but we can’t imagine surpassing them. We can’t imagine a better Star Wars and we definitely can’t imagine doing something that’s not Star Wars that’s better than Star Wars. We’re so in awe that we can’t get out from under its shadow and do our own thing culturally.

In a reboot, you’re trying to appease the people who want a sequel and trying to appease the people who think they want something different, and trying to do both at the same time. Or, appearing to do both at the same time, but just doing the former. The Thing reboot was released as Thing in 2011, which functionally worked as a remake but was also canonical to the first movie. I guess they call those “soft reboots”. It’s not even driven by markets per se, because with enough money and cultural influence you can decide what the market it. People will watch what you give them if it’s adequately entertaining. I don’t want to say that this is what people want, it’s a matter of what people will accept. These are very different things. They can’t consume anything better. Maybe they would, but they’re not really being given an informed choice. Studios are so afraid of it that they won’t do promotion. There’s a very conservative and risk averse mindset among the capitalist class making decisions, at least in this instance.

2015 and 2016 were very pivotal years in the popular culture landscape, especially the one that I’ve been posting about for the past… 2 and a half hours? Oh god. There were two other reboots of IP franchises at around the same time – Mad Max: Fury Road came out earlier in 2015 and Shin Godzilla in 2016. I think those are both great movies. But the interesting difference between them, and I’m kind of curious how this happened in that era of Hollywood, is that Fury Road was a passion project driven by George Miller. An actual movie by a guy who wanted to make movies, who made the original movies. He was looking not to cash in on what he’d done before, but thematically add to the level of spectacle and scope and outdo what he’d done in the 70s and 80s… Like an actual artist! And he did! It’s a perfect movie! And Shin Godzilla, it’s not the same guy, but that’s the same impulse driving it to a large extent. You watch the first episode of Evangelion, and it’s obvious that Anno is a huge Godzilla fan. He wants to do what the first Godzilla was to the post-WWII atomic bombings, which is an important thing to keep in mind with the original Godzilla. It’s an allegory for an atomic bomb in an abstract way, but it came out less than 10 years after those bombings. All the people in the theater watching the first Godzilla, watching those buildings falling, lived not just through the atomic bombings, but the harrowing convection and napalm bombings that leveled the whole cities before they dropped the a-bombs. Shin Godzilla is that, but for the post-Fukushima moment. It’s not in a cynical way, the going through the checklist of the discourse way, but a genuine response to the period way. Modernizing something in the sense of a difference product line for new sensibilities, versus reinterpreting a text artistically for a new context. The new Star Wars is the former. Fury Road and Shin Godzilla aren’t devoid of commercial influence, but they’re much more so the second direction. Truly great older blockbusters have some counterbalancing the commercial side with sincere artistic influence. Take this against things that are so lopsidedly commercial that whatever creative impulse and craftsmanship is there is drowned out, or filtered, or banded, or never present in the first place.

[ricegrains-n-rosess]

My personal ST sexuality headcanons :) IK it’s long stfu I needed to get this out

Nancy: I’d say she’s a lesbian just strong wlw vibes all around, she was into dudes but platonically and mistakes the desire for affection and friendship as romantic feelings and just thought her attraction to women was bestie vibes only :)

Robin: Fuhkin gay. so gay. Figured out she was gay from a kitschy erotica novel that she stole from a yard sale when she was 12 (the ones with huge half-breed musclemen and fainting women in ripped bodices on the cover)

Steve: Oh homie, get some dick. Watched Grease when he was 11 and had a boner he had to hide throughout the whole thing because he was sweating from John Travolta and Olivia Newman.

Eddie: way too gender to not be nonbinary (he/they king) also BISEXUALLL so bisexual like he radiates bisexual slut (affectionate) Maybe pansexual? He also gives pansexual vibes in a total “*shrug* ass is ass, man” kinda way.  Was that one kid who was kissing boys in secret when he was 6 and putting on lipstick before having a crisis at 14 and sadly became a total shithead before going back to being a nerd at 16. Blows men at truck stops without shame.

Billy: Fakes being straight but is the biggest fag in history like stone butch has had affairs with 13 different men. Makes women want to leave their husbands but even more so makes men leave their wives. He does drag and is intense enough that if anyone tries to make fun of them he’ll beat their asses until they’d have to be scraped off the floor with a spatula.

Eleven: Ok so like, really heteromantic but experimental with girls. Asexual but doesn’t really understand her asexuality so developed a pretty shitty mindset of thinking something was wrong with her. Max being educated on this helped her understand herself better probably.

Max: B I S E X U A L all the way omg. Fucking definition of hot bi girl. I’d say also poly?? She’s the girl that Joan Jett is singing about in AC/DC. 

Lucas: Just told people he was a spicy straight after he was caught making out with a guy. Actually bisexual but has a shit ton of internalized biphobia. Which leads to shit getting rocky with max sometimes.

Mike: Oh god he needs to get dicked down even harder than Steve he has so much internalized homophobia. I’m not even going to call him bi he just feels so gay it ain’t even funny.

Dustin: panromantic asexual. I dunno how to elaborate but his mom bought him a barbie when he asked for one. He’s just chill about his sexuality doesn’t get the big whoop about why it’s so important. He doesn’t really like pride but went to a parade wearing a pan flag with Suzie who’s pan as well and he’s super supportive of her .

Will: Toned down gay, similar to Dustin where he really doesn’t give a shit about sexuality like has a very “gay isn’t different to straight so let’s all just be treated as equal it should just be considered normal” mentality. Tho I reckon he’s the sort that would throw a brick through a window if he had to. More punk scene activist less Yas Queen 

Jonathan: Aroace, depressed and felt desperate to feel something so convinced himself he was in love with Nancy. Still unaware of what he is :(

Joyce: Bisexual. No elaboration. 

Chrissy: Pansexual. She looks like a walking pansexual flag.

I probably missed some people out lol i’m just tired <3

#https://www.pinterest.com/morethanareview/vintage-book-covers-80s-romance-covers-fabio-tbt-b/ #fruity four #lgbtq #pansexual #aroace #gay #lesbian #stranger things #stranger things 4 #st 4 vol 2 #stranger things is so gay

[misiwrites]

mayblade oneshot #1

prompts: bubbles; unpopular character; jewellery; rival; movie; lace; sleep characters: emily, hiromi, mao, max, rei pairings: emily/mao, max/rei word count: ~4,000

summary: In desperation to improve her relations with Mao, Emily agrees to go on a PPB & Baihuzu double date.

here’s a silly oneshot for mayblade about emily being an insecure baby lesbian. also like, an attempt to give her character development in 4k words, i guess. all prompts are questionably used, this required some "creative” patchwork to somehow combine them but i did it anyway because i love being weird. the “unpopular character” part is that this fandom doesn’t exactly have a surplus of fics about the girls and especially not f/f ships. idk if anyone even ships emily/mao but here you go anyway. this is the best i could do in 2 days, only marginally edited, also untitled so i’m posting only on tumblr first – i’ll put the mayblade oneshots on AO3 later once i know what i’m actually doing with the rest of the weeks (or if i do them)

☆ ☾ ☆ ☾ ☆ ☾ ☆

Although Emily has never been on a double date before, she has an inkling that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. And the only reason she finds herself in this situation, handcuffed to Mao in an escape room while wondering who’s even on a date with whom here, is a single idiotic suggestion made by Hiromi.

Technically, it had all started from a slumber party hosted by Mao. She had decided to throw an exclusive girls-only closing party once the world championship tournament was over, in the spirit of them no longer holding any animosity towards each other – supposedly, anyway. Emily hadn’t gone to said party, much to Hiromi’s confusion when they talked the next day.

“I’m not much of a party person. Besides, she obviously hates my guts,” Emily mumbled for explanation.

“Who? Mao? I don’t think so.”

“Well, I do.”

“What, because of the match the other day?”

Not just that, but it was the latest evidence of such. Part of the end-of-tournament celebrations had been the several ceremonial matches between the teams that hadn’t made it to the grand final, including a rematch between the PPB All Starz and the Baihuzu where, instead of the official tag teams, Mao and Emily had taken the places of Rai and Rick to spice things up a little and give the benched players an opportunity to join in on the fun. It hadn’t gone down particularly stellarly; their ferociously competitive personalities had clashed so hard that the match had turned into a catfight of taunts and insults tossed back and forth, it was far from a fun practice match for anyone included and ended with both girls storming out of the stadium, fuming, cursing each other.

Though Mao wasn’t the only one Emily had been cursing in that moment. She had also cursed herself, who had once again failed to contain her snarky temperament. For having once again let herself fall in the same mindset from two years prior, when she’d first met Mao and immediately framed her as a rival and her competition, just for being the only other girl in the main participating teams.

But she didn’t want to stay in that mindset. In fact, she’d intended to do the exact opposite, because the mere sight of Mao made her heart race in the queerest way and her legs feel suspiciously weak and her mind blossom with thoughts she could never, ever put into words for anyone to hear. Somewhere along the two years since they first met, Emily’s heart had undergone a drastic change. But the changes that Mao had undergone couldn’t be understated either; she’d grown to become so dazzling, so strong and blindingly gorgeous, those toned arms and muscular thighs combined with the impeccable feline cuteness; simply put, Emily had come to the horrific conclusion that she was falling for Mao, and hard.

The intensity of her own queerness had surprised Emily – although she’d already more or less come to terms with such inclinations within herself after having spent several formative years devoted to Mrs. Judy, recently admitting that her obsession with the PPB coach had, perhaps, slipped past platonic territory and into the realm of a puppy-like crush over time. (What could she say? Judy was a smoking hot lady.)

For some ungodly reason, however, Emily had found herself incapable of shedding the tough interior of a cold, lab coat-wearing bitch that she’d put on in front of everybody so successfully that, even now, she couldn’t really call anyone but Hiromi a friend; so, when the opportunity had risen to have a fun ceremonial match with Mao, she’d automatically played along the guidebook of being that bitchy, calculating nerd who only saw Mao as a rival. And Mao had responded accordingly. It had been a shitshow.

Hence, of course, when Mao had hosted a fun slumber party for the girls afterwards, Emily couldn’t bring herself to go. She’d wanted to, but she was too ashamed of her own behavior. The other girls were probably talking ill of her behind her back, anyway – except for Hiromi, whom Emily trusted to be the good friend she’d become to her. Honest almost to a fault, Hiromi always defended those who deserved it, and Emily wished she had even an ounce of Hiromi’s courage to be true to herself in front of others.

But Hiromi wasn’t just courageous; she was also alarmingly impulsive. And got a lot of very weird ideas that she then immediately jumped into executing. That’s why, before Emily could stop her, she’d come up with the bizarre idea of a double date that would allow the PPB and the Baihuzu to properly reconcile – and then voice-messaged Max about it. It was so instantaneous that Hiromi was already on the phone before Emily fully realized what she was even saying.

“Hey! So, I’ve been talking with Emily and she feels kinda crappy about that fight she had with Mao. I know she wants to make up with her but doesn’t know how. How about you take her and Mao and Rei on a double date to sort stuff out and have a good time? Sound good to you? Peace out!”

“I’m not going on a date with Max,” Emily immediately blurted out, scandalized by the idea alone. She never got over her distaste for the boy who bore such disturbing likeness to Judy but had none of her class nor style, and didn’t seem interested in inheriting any of it either. It was like being offered a Judy of her own age on a plate but worse, a pesky guy who wore bright orange overalls all day and didn’t even seem ashamed of it at all. Horrendous.

And, as per his response a minute later, Max thought the idea was “just great”. Therefore, despite Emily’s obvious disdain, this double date somehow came to being almost automatically without her input in any of it.

“Eh, you don’t need to think of it like that,” Hiromi assured her. “You do want to make up with Mao, right? I think it’s the best if you’re nowhere near a bey stadium to do it, honestly.”

Well. Emily did want to make up with Mao. She wanted more than to make up with her. So, in the end, she did agree to go on this date with Max and the Chinese pair… but only by summoning a whole different fantasy to go with it.

If I went on a date with Mao… What would I want it to be like? It was a tantalizing yet anxiety-inducing thought. After all, Emily had never gone on a date with anyone before, nor had she been so perfectly smitten with someone the way she now found herself smitten with Mao. It was a bit scary, a bit exciting, it was… nothing but a silly daydream. One that she clung onto wholeheartedly.

While getting ready for the date, she took a long, committed bubble bath. She thoroughly indulged in coconut-scented bubbly goodness and scrubbed herself squeaky clean.

She put on her favorite underwear, mint green with a bit of lace and cute little ribbons in the front – for confidence, not some absurd fever dream scenario of actually getting to show it off. Although… perhaps her thoughts did go in that direction, just a little. Enough to make her ears feel suspiciously warm while getting dressed.

She’d gone shopping for a whole new outfit for the occasion. A plaid shirt, ripped jeans, and a beanie that gave off a sufficiently sapphic vibe without being flashy. She even put on some jewelry, a rare sight on her that spoke of real committal for the cause. A couple of bracelets and a cute alligator necklace she’d gotten herself for a present before.

By the time she left her room to go meet up with Max, she’d almost forgotten she was supposed to go out with him instead of Mao. She’d gone in full girl-meets-girl mode while getting ready and now had to face the reality of… well, at least Max hadn’t put on the orange overalls for once. He was rather nicely clad in a button-up shirt and Capri shorts, in fact. Almost as if he’d put in an actual crumb of effort for the occasion as well, oddly enough.

The two of them went to fetch the Baihuzu pair from their lodging. She hardly paid attention to Rei (he sure existed, showing off his arms and wearing normal jeans that proved he had actual real legs despite habitually hiding them in weird, baggy yoga pants or whatever); she was only concerned with Mao’s adorable pink-and-white cat sweater and a pair of shorts, generous for her curves and thick thighs. Her hair was tied up on a couple of buns with red ribbons that bounced a little with each step as the four of them made their way downtown.

She was so cute, lovely, mesmerizing… bouncy. She looked so good that Emily almost didn’t mind her dismissive attitude towards her. Mao’s main interests seemed to lie in going to try out a bubble tea place near their lodging, to which the other two cheerfully obliged. To Emily’s dismay, Mao was annoyingly colloquial with Max who, as usual, got along with anyone with ease despite them not being friends of any sort for all she knew.

At this point, Emily didn’t notice anything off about the arrangement yet. She knew that the guys had known each other a long time, it wasn’t strange to her how easily they reconciled after a tournament of fighting against each other in rival teams. She figured they just slipped right back into their old acquaintance as if nothing had ever happened between them.

They had the bubble tea. Emily had something with mint, she didn’t pay much attention, she was more invested in watching how excited Mao was to try a “summer” tea with several fruit on it. Emily took the mental note that if she were to ever take Mao on a date, a bubble tea shop was the winner.

As if.

After the tea, they went to the infamous escape room – it was Max’s idea. Emily had never been to one before, but being a natural problem solver and engineering-minded, she rather liked the concept of a puzzle room. It wasn’t the worst way to spend a date she didn’t want to actually be on…

And now. Here is where she begins to wonder some. It’s not the fact that the two boys get along so well that puzzles her, but rather the lack of initiative of it feeling like Rei is on a date with Mao. The lack of similar intent from Max’s side doesn’t surprise Emily, he’s never shown any such interest in her (thank God), therefore the most of this double date’s premise hinged on Rei and Mao being a legitimate couple where she and Max were not…

but… how should she put it… something is just off about the mood as they proceed with solving the escape puzzles of the confined room.

Emily lets quite a lot of Max’s oddball behavior slide, having witnessed plenty of it by now as they’ve pretty much lived together as the PPB All Starz team for a couple of months now; but as she side-eyes the guys’ shenanigans as they solve a Tarot card-related puzzle together while Mao is preoccupied with a different task on the other side of the room, she’s becoming increasingly convinced that Max is flat-out flirting with Rei. Looks, gestures, touches, words. All the time. Constantly. It never ends.

Rei’s not doing anything to tell him off for it, either. If anything, he seems to be enjoying it.

And the intimate mood it has set in the room only grows stranger when Emily finds herself shackled to Mao a moment later, as part of solving a puzzle where they are instructed to create a literal chain across the room in order to get the final key. For the first time that day, she’s standing close enough to Mao to be able to catch the subtle smell of her sweet perfume. It’s a floral fragrance that Emily, with her limited knowledge of anything remotely related to cosmetics, cannot exactly accurately place but she’s guessing jasmine… With a hint of something potent, almost spicy… Saffron, perhaps…?

Shit. About time I should say something to her. It’s awkward, just standing there doing nothing. Moreover, the whole point of this outing was for her to make up with Mao, and so far she hasn’t said anything but a pathetic “hi” to her. Where to even start?

The flowery waft is so strong. She peers over at Mao, eyes drawn to the French pink of her painted nails. For someone so tomboyish, with the build of a martial artist, Mao sure is surprisingly feminine as well. She’s unbearably cute, really. Emily can feel the clamminess of sweat beginning to gather on her face just from the proximity. Would complimenting her work for reconciliation? Or would Mao just find it tacky? Or weird? Would it be insulting to focus on feminine stuff? Oh gosh—

“That’s a cute necklace,” Mao says.

Emily blinks. She intuitively looks down at the object hanging from her neck despite knowing perfectly well what it looks like. “Oh.”

Mao leans in a bit closer, to take a better look, and Emily is positively, utterly bewitched by the notion of just how long and dark Mao’s eyelashes are.

“It’s really original. Is that a crocodile?”

“An alligator,” Emily corrects. “For Trygator.”

Mao lets out a delighted shriek. “Of course! How stupid of me to not realize.”

The other end of the chain that’s connected to Emily’s left hand suddenly drops to the floor with a clutter. The puzzle has been solved, and Max comes over with a key to the handcuffs. Emily doesn’t know whether she’s more relieved or disappointed.

At least the ice is broken between them now. Emily is for once eager to push when they collectively wonder if they still wanted to go do something by the four of them. She definitely wants to keep going now, she’s finally getting comfortable with this mismatched party of four.

Since they’re in town anyway, they decide to head over to Max’s place to watch some movies, in continuation of a conversation they had over in the bubble tea shop where Rei admitted he’s never seen all the Lord of the Rings films. “How could someone not have seen them?!” – and Emily is inclined to agree, she’s seen each so many times that she’s lost count. But yet another Fellowship of the Ring re-watch always works.

Emily’s never been to Max’s house in Japan. Now, once she sees how ordinary and, well, Japanese the Mizuhara residence actually is, the thought occurs to her – possibly for the first time – how there’s more to the guy than being related to Judy. The mother and son look so alike, the fact that Max also has his Japanese roots easily slips Emily’s mind… but he does come from a different cultural background from her, after all.

As does Mao. Emily suddenly realizes, much to her embarrassment, that she never did put much thought into how different a place Mao or any of the other international bladers came from. It wasn’t something that she, as a white American, needed to be concerned with. All the different locations they toured during beyblade championships had felt like theme parks of some kind to her. The extent of her knowledge on China – well, she’d rather not even go there.

They get snacks from the kitchen and settle in the hobby shop part of the house to watch the movies. Mao chooses to sit on the floor while the rest make themselves comfortable on an enormous black corner sofa, the space is almost like an actual home theater despite hosting a bey stadium.

By the half-way mark of the Fellowship of the Ring, as dusk has begun to push against the windows from outside, they take a short break. Max goes to fix some more soda for them and Mao, stretching each of her limbs, climbs up to the couch to snatch some of the freed-up space. She’s still keeping a distance between her and Emily, though.

“This movie is too long, to be honest,” she says with a yawn and another stretch.

Emily couldn’t disagree more – but instead of stating so, she quickly bites back her tongue. Surely there’s something else she can say, something that’s not a potential spark for yet another squabble. That’s the last thing she needs now.

“What’s your favorite movie?” she decides to instead ask. It’s the first question she’s posed to Mao all day.

“Terminator,” Mao replies briskly.

Emily spits out her mouthful of soda.

“What? Seriously?”

“It was the first Hollywood movie I ever saw. Still the best! Classic!”

Wiping her chin on a shirtsleeve, Emily actually contemplates this answer for a bit. “So you did grow up watching American movies in your homeplace, then.”

“Well, not many,” Rei chimes in from his corner of the couch. “Not exactly many opportunities to watch movies in our village. Most places are lucky to have electricity…”

“But there’s been a conscious effort to bring the place up to speed in the last couple of years!” Mao insists, casting a mildly accusatory glare at him, as if he were at fault for leaving behind a village without televisions in the boonies.

Max returns with a new array of soda bottles. “My dad has a secret stash,” he explains, though nobody asked.

They carry on with the film, but Emily’s attention span is up, her thoughts scattered. She’s so very pleased to have been able to start a decent conversation with Mao. Up until now she’s had no idea what to even say to her, convinced that Mao’s avoiding talking to her in the first place; now she’s itching to ask more, even about their backwards Chinese village, maybe hear more about how she perceives American culture, suddenly the prospects of possible topics feel endless even without talking about blading.

Sam and Frodo take off, the first movie draws to an end. The Two Towers next? Hell yeah. But the boys leave to replenish the snack bowls first. Emily stifles a yawn that she catches from Mao; it’s not that late yet, not for a movie night, but Mao is starting to look like a sleepy kitten at this point.

“Are you and Rei actually dating?” Emily suddenly asks, emboldened by the girls-only moment – and perhaps the sugar high from too much orange soda as well.

The question earns an amused half-laugh, half-scoff from Mao. “Dating? Hah, I wish. I mean, I sure try, but Rei-nii basically said to my face that his head is too full of other shit for him to care. Eh, boys develop slow – I’ll give it a couple years and try again.”

“That’s commitment,” Emily mumbles, fiddling with her plaid sleeves. It stings, despite her having full well known how unlikely it was that Mao also liked girls. And even if she did, her commitment to eventually get through to Rei sounded like she had no plans to go and give someone else a try.

“Yeah, I’m probably just stupid,” Mao admits in a deceptively light-hearted tone.

So am I, Emily wants to say, but decides to instead get up to her feet for a bit, numb from all the sitting, and take a bathroom break.

So, it turns out, this so-called double date was actually a none-date, as neither couple is even seeing each other. No wonder it never felt like a proper date to begin with.

Or not like a boy-meets-girl date, at least. On her way to the bathroom, she walks right past the kitchen area of the house and, while at it, spots the guys engaged in their snack shenanigans – that is, snack shenanigans that are looking a whole lot like they are the snacks for each other.

She freezes, then sprints out of direct line of sight, feebly attempts to blend in with the wall behind her as she spies on the kitchen. She’s too far away to hear what the two are saying, speaking in low, hushed tones; but the way they’re pressed against each other by the kitchen counter, Max’s hand traveling up and down, up and down Rei’s muscular arm, and – whatever else they may be engaged in that Emily cannot see from her hiding spot – well, it doesn’t leave much for interpretation.

When they finally move away from the counter, she slips behind the bathroom door as quickly and quietly as she can, then peers through the narrow gap of the barely closed door. A few seconds go past, then Rei emerges into her view carrying a new bowl of the Cheetos that Emily herself has been snacking on all evening. He picks one from the bowl and is just about to eat it when Max’s hand appears from the side to snatch it from him; she sees Max, sporting a cheeky smile, toss the Cheeto in his own mouth, grab Rei by the collar, and pull him in for a mischievous little kiss before they move on.

Emily pulls the bathroom door closed. She takes a step back, her face glowing red hot with the warmth of stunned fluster.

Now, she thinks back, when Max agreed to this double date of him, Rei, Mao, and Emily – well, Hiromi never did specify that the one Max was going on a date with was her, not Rei. And Mao, too, is apparently in full understanding of not being in a dating type of relationship with Rei. So…

She returns to the movie room a moment later with her heart in her throat. And as Max puts the Two Towers on, she resolutely sits right next to Mao. The guys, too, seem to have seized the other corner of the couch together. They act civil in front of the girls but their games are so obvious to Emily now, it feels weird to even share the space and pretend she doesn’t know they’re itching to get into each other’s pants.

And she thinks of her own lacy panties that she put on this morning for a confidence boost. She shifts uncomfortably on the couch, feeling herself so silly all of a sudden.

Several quiet minutes of movie-watching drag by. Merry and Pippin meet the Ents, the approximately one hundred hours long battle of Helm’s Deep begins, all Emily cares for in this part of the movie is Legolas and Gimli, what else.

She feels a soft weight press against her left shoulder. Her heart jumps anew, her hands clutching the hem of her shirt in panic.

Mao, fast asleep, has slumped against her. The warm, steady puffs of her breath now tickle at the base of Emily’s neck.

A bead of nervous sweat rolling down her face, Emily side-eyes Rei and Max. To see if they noticed, if they care.

The guys aren’t paying them any attention whatsoever. She doesn’t care to pay them attention, either.

She straightens her glasses with a shaky hand. Then, slowly, she moves the same hand over to the back of Mao’s head. She gives the soft, pink hair a tentative stroke. Mao lets out a content murmur, so quiet, it’s more of a vibration that Emily feels on her skin than a sound.

And in the comforting darkness of the room, Emily allows herself a genuine smile for the first time that day. She relaxes her tense shoulders to better accommodate the sleeping girl leaning against her and smiles, she feels like she could keep smiling forever, she’s indeed never had less qualms about the length of the Lord of the Rings movies if it meant staying like this all night.

She cannot wait to let Hiromi know just how successful her double date scheme turned out to be.

#my writing #fic post #mayblade 2022

[retroellie]

The Last of Us Headcannons

Summary: Headcannons about TLOU2 characters 

A/N: I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a bit, I’ve ben stressed so I thought I’d write for my comfort characters lmao 

Warnings: Slight NSFW mentions, TLOU2 spoilers 

Word count: 2.4K

Ellie

-This girl is the best girlfriend i swear

-She will always tell you she loves you when she leaves or even if she goes into the other room

-She’s lost a lot of people so she’s always telling you how much she loves you just in case

-Helping her when she has nightmares, especially after joel's death

-”Please don’t leave me.”

-“Ellie, I’m not going anywhere.” 

-She’s definitely a lover of old music

-80s and early 90s was definitely her favorite eras music and movies wise

-Gifting her records you found in abandoned buildings

-She draws you a lot, especially when you aren’t paying attention

-One time she couldn’t sleep so she drew you, she thought you looked peaceful asleep. That drawing is probably her favorite she’s ever done.

-You basically live with her in the garage she lives in

-Winters are always cold in the garage so y’all are basically attached to each other

-You both are cuddled up watching movies with tons of blankets on

-This girl is horny all the time, like if yall are alone she’s on top of you

-Dancing together at the dances

-This girl is so clingy omfg

-Ellie worries about the looks and comment yall get when showing affection in public so she tends to tone down her clinginess

-Joel loves you, point blank period

-When ellie tells you what joel did for her, you didn’t know if you should be happy or sad

-They were gonna take ellie away from you, you probably would've done the same

-”My life would have mattered.”

-”Your life matters to me.”

-You tried to make her feel better about it though, telling her that there would still be bad people and infected in the world

-Neck kisses from the back, my heart is melting holy shit

-She asks maria to put you on routes with her cause mama you are not going without her

-Puns, just puns all the time and you love it

-Definitely calls you babe and baby, you always make fun of her for it but she knows you loves it

-Yall make fun of each other but it’s all in good fun she will never take it too far

Joel

-You’re this mans baby idc

-No one hurts you or they will get tracked down and their knee caps will be gone

-Joel knows full well you can take care of yourself but he just gets so mad

-This man is so soft for you

-He tries to spoil you the best way he can, going out of his way to get you presents from abandon stores

-Teaches you how to play guitar

-He will have you sit in his lap and play the chords

-”Is it sounding better?”

-He just nods and kisses along your back

-He will sing you to sleep if you ask him

-This man has shown you some good ass music, yall sometimes just lay in bed and listen to old records

-He loves the way you look in his shirts, this man melts or bends you over the kitchen table

-He doesn’t cry often but this man is hurt

-The first time you saw him cry was when he broke down to you about ellie and the fireflies and what he did

-It hurt him a lot to admit it but he was so relieved that he could let go and someone be on his side for once

-Tells you all about sarah and how she would like you

-”She would’ve loved you.”

-”Yeah, casue i’m the coolest.”

-”You're a nerd.” He chuckled out

-He would happily tell you about life before the infection, what it was like to not have to look over your shoulder all the time

-He would never tell you about his time in boston

-He didn’t want to scare you, so you never asked but you had a good idea of what happened because of tommy

-Slow dancing in the kitchen while dinner is on the stove

-Forehead kisses in the morning when he has to leave for rounds and your dead to the world

-Calls you Babygirl and princess, IDK HE JUST SEEMS LIKE THE TYPE OKAY

-His voice in the morning>>>>>>

-Will watch you dance from a far while at dances

-Takes you out on little dates, he doesn’t even care about the stares yall (The age gap)

-He is prepared for anything to happen so he loves you like it’s his last day

-Talks about having kids with you but is okay if you don’t want them, i mean he’s not sure if he wants another one but hell, He said he wasn’t going to date anymore but here we are

-If you want kids he doesn't care hold old he is, he will try and try and try to give you a child 

-”Damn it i got my period.” 

-”Well then I reckon we gotta try again, huh baby girl.” He says with a smirk 

-This man has a daddy kink and that’s all i gotta say about that umm anyways

-He is madly in love with you and he shows it, he has lost too many people and he has the mindset of “Good things don’t last forever”

Tommy

-I love this man with all my heart, he’s my baby

-He’s very caring and will hold you anytime you need to be held

-He just wants to help people and make the world a little easier for them so he overworks himself to the max trying to keep everything in jackson in order

-”Tommy, it’s 3 am and you got rounds in the morning. Come to bed.”

-”Yeah i'll be in there in a minute, i just gotta figure out the food supply situation.”

-Having to drag his ass to bed

-He loves cuddling, he loves feeling close to you

- Your the fighter of the relationship, tommy doesn’t like to fight if he doesn’t have too so he lets you deal with the violent stuff

-Although tommy loves his brother, he has a hard time forgiving him for the violence he exposed him too

-He feels very undeserving of you and everything good in his life., you have to constantly reassure him that he is a good person and is doing a great job

-He does have nightmares of being in Boston but you were always there for him, he was so thankful for you.

-He loves your cooking, like it can be the most simple thing ever and he’d be like 

-”This is the best Cereal i have ever had, who taught you to cook like this?”

-He has mommy issues, like his mother wasn’t really around so he has a lot of issues with that ig

-He is the best kisser i said what i said

-He’s very passionate and possessive, it’s cute

-He gives you his jackets all the time, he thinks you look so cute in them

- This man is literally the softest i can’t

-He doesn’t cut his hair just because one time you told him you liked it long

-”Jeez honey, your hair is getting pretty long.”

-”Shoot, do I need to cut it again.”

-”No...I like it long, it flatters your face.”

-”I will literally never touch my hair again ever again now that you said that, Okay”

-You have expanded this mans music taste

-He only ever listened to country cause i mean he’s a simple man but then you came along

-You got him a walkman just so he can listen to the music you recommend him

-He tells ellie all about you and asks her for help because he doesn’t want to mess up anything

-He’s not good in relationships and he believes he’s not a very attractive man so he doesn’t really try but he sees himself marrying you

-Spoiler he asks you to marry him because he can’t see himself without you, he doesn’t want to imagine how the world would be so dark without you in it

-He’s not into cute nicknames so he’ll just call you honey

-After joel's death, he was broken and you didn’t think you can even put him back together, but your willing to try

Dina

-I think you would be dina’s first girlfriend but she would love you with all her heart 

-She kissed you at the dance and everything kinda clicked from there 

-She would sneak over to you house in the middle of the night 

-”Jesus, i could've killed you.”

-”But you didn’t silly, come on i’m cold lemme in.” 

-”You're gonna be the death of me dina.” 

-Your rounds with her were never boring, it was always an adventure with her 

-Making out behind building because she couldn’t wait till yall got home 

-This girl will tease you until your bright read in the face

-She will definitely love kissing you, like she will just randomly kiss you 

-She will try to smash you literally anywhere, when she’s wanting to do the nasty it doesn’t matter where you are she will pull you into a random room or bathroom

-She never bores you in bed too, she’s always up to do new things especially since your her first girlfriend 

-When she found out she was pregnant she wanted to give this child the best life so yall decided to move out into a farmhouse 

- Having a kid didn’t really change how she loves you

-She’s still crazy and wild but now she just has a kid on her hip

-You guys were co parents so you both would hunt and take care of JJ 

-You guys would do almost anything to make that kid laugh even if that was dancing like lunatics for an hour straight 

-You guys almost never get alone time so just laying in bed without the kid felt nice 

-Yall are cottagecore lesbians idc, yall are the best parents and i said what i said 

-From behind hugs and kisses, she will grab your hips and kiss your neck until you have no choice but to rip her clothes off 

-Vintage records and slow dancing with JJ 

-I feel like being in a relationship with dina feels like a vintage song about love 

-There's lots of dancing in this relationship because dina loves dancing 

-She’s always afraid that you will feel left out in the family though since your not JJs real parent but you always tell her you don’t mind and you love JJ just like how Jesse would 

-She finds it so hot when your all protective parent when it comes to JJ, as soon as he falls asleep mama yall wont get any sleep 

-Yall are the best parents, dina will fight anyone who hurts JJ and you make him feel loved 

-When he gets older you guys try to tell him about Jesse without making you seem like the outsider of the family if that makes sense 

-Taking care of the animals and plants as a family and reading books about how to while laying in bed 

-Dina makes the best food and she tries to teach you but it just doesn’t add up to what she does 

-Okay we don’t know much about her sister but by the picture we saw she looks hella cool and i think you would be like best friends with her 

Jesse 

- yall sleep on this man i swear, so this one is to all my jesse stans are there 

-He’s kinky, that’s all 

-He knows he’s hot and he’s super cocky about it 

-He’s not much of a cuddler ngl but he will fall asleep and wake up spooning you 

-Your really close to his mom, like she loves you so much 

-He’s very reckless and your kinda the opposite so you kinda tone him down abit so you think that’s why his mom likes you so much 

-Jesse isn’t much of a dancer and he doesn’t really listen to music but he does like to play video games 

-You always pick him up video games randomly and gets so excited 

-You force him to dance with you at dances and he’s so awkward about it 

-”I hate this.” 

-”Awe you love it.” 

-Always trying to grope you while dancing, like will have his hands on your ass and theres kids behind you like sir stoppp but like keep going 

-”Hey! watch those hands.” 

-”I have no idea what your talking about”

-You and dina are pretty good friends like even after their weird relationship, she’s happy for the both of you 

-Okay so let's pretend jesse didn’t die and he is alive and well 

-When he finds out dina is pregnant he freaks out, he’s still pretty young so he’s terrified he won’t be good enough 

-When the baby comes though he’s so excited, when he’s in the infirmary with dina your happy for him but you can’t help but feel an outsider 

-Dina is so sweet and tries to make you feel better 

-”You're gonna be the coolest step parent ever. I’m glad my son gets such a badass step mom damn.” 

-Dina does move out of jackson still though so yall only get JJ every other week, that was the agreement 

-He cooks in the morning for you and JJ while yall are laying in bed 

-I’m sorry but he’s literally the coolest dad, his entire life changes because of that kid 

-When JJ leaves to go over to his moms house Jesse won’t let you get out of bed, this mf hasn’t got any in a week

-He gets a bunch of cook books so he can better his ability to cook for little JJ 

-You guys decorate JJs room together and it’s the cutest thing ever 

-He takes you to romantic places in the abandon city when yall are on rounds together 

-Jesse has a lot of friends but he would much rather hang out with you 

-Yall call each other stupid and dumb a lot but it’s never used as an insult its just for fun 

-”Damn it, why do i always get the nasty ones.” 

-”Because your stupid, dummy.” 

-”That’s right, i forgot.” 

-Your guys bed is never made, you guys don’t even bother at this point. Like either the kid messes it up or you guys mess it up so what's the point 

-He picks you up when he hugs you, literally pick you up from the waist and lift you up 

!Credits to gif owners!

#The last of us #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us x reader #ellie williams #tlou ellie #ellie williams x reader #joel miller #joel miller x reader #tlou joel #Tommy miller #tommy miller x reader #tlou tommy #dina x reader #tlou dina #Tlou dina x reader #tlou jesse

[derekfoxwit]

Doctor Dorpden’s Critical Tips of Prestige

Note: This post was made with satirical intentions in mind. I’m only emphasizing because I’ve had a couple of comments on previous joke posts I’ve did take it seriously. With that said, here we go.

Tip 1: For starters, remember that when looking at the work, if the Mystic Knee twitches fast enough to punch a hole in a wall, this suggests that the work should be near the lowest of the low. No further development of opinion is needed.

Tip 2: For an equal degree of sophistication, give the warm comfort of nostalgia at least 5 times more chances than the new thing that MAY seem actually poggers.

Tip 3: If you have the anecdote of encountering shitty fans, then use them as a scapegoat for the show they flaunt over being shitty. Clearly, they’re always making the show the way it is.

Tip 4: If you haven’t heard much about a newer film or show you’re yet to watch, there’s an 85% chance that film or show is actually not worth your time. The Father (2020) isn’t as widespread as Joker (2019) for a reason.

Tip 5: At this point, just go for the Asian Artist Dick. I’m actually in the mood to see merit in that because I want to look edgy against cute doodles. Stop attacking Uzaki-Chan, you cowards!

Tip 6: Avoid the electronic tunes. They’ll make you smell like a bum, for there’s no structural in a music album that’s nothing but wubs.

Tip 7: If you see a Tweet that looks dumb, use it as a means of generalizing all the fans of a work as sharing that same opinion.

Tip 8: If the cartoon I’m given doesn’t provide me with mature ideas such as slicing an Arbok in half or fake boobs, then the cartoon might as well be on the same level as Teletubbies.

Tip 9: You know the music is (c)rap when it brings up drugs, regardless of lyrical context.

Tip 10:  Raw mood is the indicator of quality cartooning. If you’re quick to assume the worst in the newest HBO Max original cartoon, then you got thyself a stinker. Same thing if you were super bummed out when watching a new thing, regardless of anecdotal context.

Tip 11:  When you’re not given continuous throwbacks, ensure you’re as reductive and over-generalizing about the works shown as possible.

Tip 12:  If your hazy and imperfect as hell recollection of a children’s film, whether it’s Wall-E or Lilo & Stitch, would describe said film as “too sugary” or “key-waving schlock”, then that HAS to be the case. No meat on that bone whatsoever.

Tip 13: Simpler, more graphic style that isn’t as realistic as old-school Disney or Anime? You got yourself a lazy style with zero passion put into it.

UPA? Who’s THAT?!

Tip 14: Don’t trust anyone saying that western children’s cartoons had any form of artistic development after 2008 (with, like, TWO exceptions). If it did, why didn’t we go from stealing organs in a 2001 cartoon to showing opened stomachs in a 2021 cartoon?

Tip 15: Big booba is always important to the strong female character’s quality.

Tip 16:  Only MY ships count, for they provide me with a feeling of intelligence.

Tip 17: “PG-13″ and “R” rating just simply mean you’re not caring for expressing themes in a sophisticated manner. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 18:  In this age of smelly radicals, “Death of the Author” is more important than ever. Without it, this’ll imply that a classic like The Matrix was secretly toxic, due to what the Wachowskis have to say about it being an “allegory of trans people.”

Tip 19: Turn the fandoms you hate into your torture porn. Ask in Tweets to Retweet one sentence that’d “trigger” them. Go out of your way to paint all of them as blind consoomers. That’ll show them, and it’ll show how much more intelligent you are compared to those clowns.

Tip 20: Whatever the Mystic Knee dictates upon the first viewing of a work is what shall indicate the full structural extent of the film.

Tip 21: The mindset of a 2000s edgelord is one that actually understands the artistry of the medium of animation. Listen to that crazy but ingenious man.

Tip 22: Because sheer ambition makes me feel manly, the high pedestal you bestow upon a cartoon work should be based mostly on the mere mention or mere suggestion of serious topics. This means that pure comedy is smelly.

Tip 23: Is the new work tackling subjects that you’ve loved a childhood work of yours for covering? Just assume it’s super bare-bones in that case compared to the older case, for there’s nothing the older work can do to truly prove itself otherwise. Seriously, Letterboxd. Stop giving any 2010s cartoon anything above a 4/5

Tip 24: If the Mystic Knee is suggesting that the work is crummy, then consider any explanation off the top of your head for why the work in question is crummy.

Tip 25: Sexual and gender identity is inherently political, so don’t focus on them in the story. It’s no wonder why Full Metal Alchemist has caught on more than the She-Ra reboot.

Tip 26: Since I got bothered by a random butt monkey type character in a crummy cartoon, I’m now obligated to assume that having a butt monkey will only harm the writing integrity of the cartoon.

Seriously, Mr. Enter....what?!

Tip 27: We’re at a point where pure comedy for a kids’ cartoon is doing nothing but dumbing down the children. Like seriously...... I doubt Billy and Mandy would ever use farts as a punchline, unlike these newer kids comedies.

Tip 28: The difference between the innuendo in kids’ cartoons I grew up on and the ones Zootopia made is the sense of prestige they give me. Just take notes from the former instead.

Tip 29: Wanna make a work of artistic merit? Just take notes from the stuff I whore out to. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 30: Always remember this golden rule: If the newer work, or a work you’ve recently experienced the first time, was truly great, why isn’t it providing the exact emotions from your younger, more impressionable years?

Tip 31: If the Mystic Knee aims to break the bones of a character doing certain things (.i.e. having body count of thousands; lashing out to character; etc.), that means the character is bad and deserves no redemption.

Tip 32: If you want me to believe there’s any intrigue or depth in your antagonist, give them redemption, for I am in need of that sorta thing being spelled out. Looking at you, Syndrome. Should’ve taken notes from Tai Lung.

Tip 33: In a case where you’re going “X > Y” (.i.e. manga compared to western comics), ALWAYS CHERRY PICK! Use the recent controversies of the “Y” item while pretending that the “X” item has never had anything of the sort.

Tip 34: BEFORE you bring up those comments that shat on the original Teen Titans cartoon back when it was new, whether for making Starfire “more PC” or whatever.......the DIFFERENCE between them and me is that THEY were just bad faith fools that couldn’t see true majesty out of blind rage. I, however, am truly certain that calling any western TV cartoon from 2014-onward a work that transcends its generation suggests a destruction of the medium.

Tip 35: Based on fandom growth, it shows that any newer show isn’t being watched much by kids, but rather loser adults that act like children. Therefore, there’s more prestige in what I grew with.

Tip 36: The focus on children is bad at this point since the children of today have attention spans that flies would have.

Tip 37: A select few screenshots (or even one) of either a less elaborate attacking animation, less realistic game graphics, or a less on-model image in a cartoon indicates EVERYTHING about the work’s quality.

Tip 38: Consuming or writing media where characters go through constant suffering is little more than gaining pleasure out of it. YOU SICKOS!

Looking at you, Lily Orchard!

Tip 39: Whether it’s a sexual awakening story or just simply a romance, focus on a character being lesbian, trans, bi, etc., then it shouldn’t be in a kids’ work. It’s too spicy for them by default. Kids don’t want romance anyway.

Tip 40: The very idea of a western cartoon with no full-blown antagonist (i.e. Inside Out) is a destruction of animated artistry. Sorry, but it’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 41: Unless it’s my fluffy pillow, such as Disney’s Robin Hood, it should be obligated to assume the inserting of anthros is only there to pleasure the furries. Looking at YOU, Zootopia!

Tip 42: With how rough and rash The Beast was, it shows that he was more of an abusive lover. Therefore, I refuse to believe that Beauty and the Beast has any of the meticulous moral writing that most of Disney’s other 90s films has.

Tip 43: When you suggest one work should’ve “taken notes” from another work in order to do better, BE VAGUE! Those who agree will be shown to be geniuses.

Tip 44: Remember how morally grey Invader Zim was? That really goes to show how little the Western Animation scene has been trying since that show. Really should just be taking notes from that series (and of course anime).

Tip 45: Even if I have a radar that clearly indicates such, hiding the item I look for inside an enemy is always bad, for I refuse to believe it would be inside the enemy.

Goddamn it, Arin!

Tip 46: People struggle understanding your gender identity or pronouns? All there is to see in that is a giant cloud of egotism that reads “My problems” zapping another smaller cloud that reads “other people’s problems”. Seriously, kids are starving, so WHAT if you identity confused someone. Grow a spine!

Tip 47: Stop pretending that adaptations should colorize how a story or comic series should be defined. No way in FUCK can a cartoon or film incarnation become the definitive portrayal of my precious superhero idol.

Tip 48: Enough with your precious “limited animation” techniques, YOU WESTERN HACKS! All you’re doing is admitting to sheer laziness and lacking artistic integrity. Now if you excuse me, I’ll be watching more anime, since that gives me a sense of prestige.

Tip 49: If getting five times more detail than the 2D animated visuals have requires someone getting hurt, so be it. No pain, no gain after all.

Tip 50: Yes, I genuinely struggle to believe there’s this majestic level of layered material without having the most immediate yet still vague re-assurance practically yelling in my face. But that’s STILL the work’s fault, not mine.

Tip 51: Every Klasky-Csupo cartoon has more artistic integrity than any of them cartoons with gay lovers such as Kipo or the Netflix She-Ra show.

Tip 52:  If Sergio Pablos’ Klaus is anything to go by, we have no excuse to utilize those smelly as fuck digital animation “styles” found on Stinky Universe, Suck-Ra or Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turds.

Tip 53: Stop projecting your orientation onto works of actual talent. Seriously, how does Elton John’s I’m Still Standing expel ANY rainbow flag energy?

Tip 54: Hip hop and electronica have been the destruction of music, especially the kind that’s actually organic and not farting on the buttons of a beeping or drumming gadget.

Tip 55: The audience for cartoons has become significantly less clear over the years. We should just go back to Saturday mornings of being sold toys or shit kids actually want.

Tip 56: PSAs for kids shouldn’t be about ‘woke’ content. They should be actual problems such as doing drugs; not playing with knifes / outlets / matches; or acceptance.

Tip 57: The instant you realize a detail in a childhood work that’s better understood as an adult, you’re forced to paint that work as the most transcendent thing in the world. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 58: Before you lash out on ALL rich people, remember this: #Not All Rich People.

Tip 59: There’s nothing to gain out of the (c)rap scene other than becoming a spiteful, gun-wielding thug that sniffs weed for breakfast.

Tip 60: Since the Mystic Knee told me to get anal about prom episodes in several gay cartoons, this shows that writing about one’s younger experiences just makes you look pathetic.

Tip 61: Another smelly thing about Zootopia is how it was painting a police chief as stern and exclusive. #Not All Chiefs

Tip 62: Me catching a glimpse of Grave of the Fireflies as a kid and turning out fine shows that you may as well show kids more adult works without worry. No amount of psychological questions being asked will suggest otherwise.

Tip 63: There’s a reason why the Mystic Knee keeps leaning more toward the 90s and early 2000s than most decades. That knee KNOWS where there’s a sense of true refinement.

Tip 64: The BIG difference between rock and electronica? Steward Copeland actually DRUMS. All that the likes of Burial, Boards of Canada, Depeche Mode and several others did was push drum buttons.

Tip 65: One exception to the golden nostalgia is when the work in question doesn’t stuff your face with fantastical, bombastic stories. At which point, there can only be rose-colored blinds covering Nickelodeon’s Doug. Nothing of merit or personal resonance to be found.

Tip 66: Remember that the sense of nuance in the work comes down to there being everything including the kitchen sink, whether it involves multiple geographic landscapes; giving us hundreds of characters; etc. Only through the extremes will I be able to tell there is nuance.

Tip 67: Once you see a joke that has an involvement with sexual or violent content, just ignore the full picture and just reduce it to having nothing to it but “sex, violence, gimme claps.”

PKRussel has entered the chat

Tip 68: With all the SJWs messing up the art of comedy, lament the times where you could be called a comic genius, NOT a monster, for shouting out the word “STAB,” calling a gay weird, painting Middle Easterns as inherently violent, etc.

Tip 69: Guitar twang will always win out over (c)rap beats. There’s a reason your grandma is more likely to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Kendrick Lamar.

Tip 70: Once the Mystic Knee notices a lack of squealing at the video game with linearity, that shows there’s more artistry in going full-blown open world.

Tip 71: Related to Tips 66 and 68, ensure your comedy gets as much information and mileage out of each individual skit as possible. EMPHASIZE if you need to. Continuously spout out your quirky phrase of “STAB” if needed.

Tip 72: Based on the onslaught of TV shows with many seasons and episodes, animated or otherwise, it shows that there’s more worth going for that than simply having a miniseries or a 26-episode anime.

Tip 73: Building off of the previous tip, you’re better off squeezing and exhausting every little detail and notable characterization rather than keeping anything simple and possibly leaving a stone unturned, especially if there’s supposed to be a story. 

Tip 74: Playing through the fan translation of Mother 3 made me realize how much some newer kids’ works just try too hard to get serious. Why even make the kids potentially think about the death of a family member?

Tip 75: The fear I had over Sid’s toys from the first Toy Story and similar anecdotal emotions are the be-all indicators of what kind of show or film is fitting for the children.

Tip 76:  Seeing this British rapper chick have a song titled “Point and Kill” just further exemplifies the fears I’ve had about rappers being some of the most harmful folks ever.

Tip 77: The problem with attempting to make a more “relatable” She-Ra is that kids aren’t looking for relatability. They want the escapism of buff fighters or something similar. This is why slice-of-life is so smelly.

Tip 78: Based on seeing the rating of “PG-13″ or “R,” I can tell that the dark humor is little more than “hur dur sex and guns.” Given the “TV-Y7 FV” rating of Invader Zim, the writers should’ve taken notes from that instead just so I can sense actual prestige.

Tip 79: The original He-Man has more visual intrigue in its animation than any of those smelly glorified doodles found in the “styles" of the 2010s and early 2020s.

Tip 80: It’s always the fault of the game that my first guess (that I refuse to divert from) on how I have to go through an obstacle won’t work.

Tip 81: Zootopia discussing prejudice ruins the majestic escapism I got from my precious childhood films from 1991-2004. Them kids might as well be watching the news. Now to watch some Hunchback after I finish these tips.

Tip 82: There is no such thing as an unreasonable expectation, and there’s especially no wrong way to address the lack of met expectations! For example, if you expect some early 2010s cartoon on the Disney Channel to be a Kids X-Files, yet you get moments such as some girl getting high on stick dipping candy, you got the right to paint the worst out of that show for not being “Kids’ X-Files.”

Tip 83: Related to my example for Tip 82, if you get the slightest impression of something being childish, you know you got yourself a children’s work that does little than wave keys and has basically nothing substantial for them. In this situation, those malfunctioning robots found in Wall-E are the guilty party.

Tip 84: Without the extensive dialogue that I’m used to getting, how can one say for certain there was any amount of characterization in the title character of Wall-E?

Tip 85: Ever noticed yourself gradually being less likely to expect an upcoming work or view a work you’re just consuming as “the next best thing”? That’s ALWAYS the fault of smelly “artists” (hacks really) and their refusal to give a shit.

Tip 86:  It’s obligatory for your lead to be explicitly heroic just so there is this immediate re-assurance that they’re a good one.

Tip 87: Without the comforting safety net of throwbacks, one cannot be for certain that there has been an actual evolution of a series or the art of animation and video games.

Tip 88: Don’t PSA kids on stuff they give zero fucks about. That means no gender identities or pronouns, race, etc.

Tip 89: Don’t listen to Mamoru Hosoda saying that anime women tend to be “depicted through a lens” of sexual desire. He’s just distracting from the superior prestige found in anime women.

Tip 90:  If you’re desperate to let others know that your talking points are reasonable, just repeat them over and over with little expansion on said talking points.

Tip 91: 7 or more seasons of art is better than 26 episodes of art.  EVERY TIME!

Tip 92: Always remember to continuously talk up the innuendo and mature subject matter of the childhood work as the most prestigious, transcendent thing of all time. With that in mind, there’s a high chance that your favorite childhood work will be better known than Perfect Blue (1997), and there’s likely a reason for that.

Tip 93: An art style that gives many characters relatively more realistic arm muscle details will always shine through more than any sort of art style done for “simplicity” (laziness, really).

Tip 94:  Seeing a few (like, even VERY FEW) people show more enthusiasm for Steven Universe over Invader Zim really shows the lower bar that has been expected out of the western animation scene compared to anime.

Tip 95: Electronic music makes less conventional time signatures cheap as hell. REAL music like rock makes them the exact opposite.

Tip 96: If your Mystic Knee suggests that the 90s cartoon being viewed doesn’t showcase a vague sense of refinement or artistic integrity, then every related assumption of yours is right. EVERY TIME!

Tip 97: Doing everything and the kitchen sink for one series or movie shows a better sense of refinement and prestige than any form of simplicity. THIS includes character design as well.

Tip 98: The advent of that Star Wars: Visions anime really shows just how stinky western cartoons have become.

Tip 99:  For those wondering, no, Europe isn’t being counted in my definition of “western animation”. Doing so is a complete disservice to prestige.

Tip 100: If even less than half of these tips aren’t being considered, you can kiss that prestige badge goodbye. After all, I SAID SO!

#joke #shitpost #prestige #electronic music #anime #animation #cartoons #film #television #nostalgia #satire #dank memes #edgy #disney #pixar #wall-e #toy story #steven universe #she-ra #netflix she-ra #invader zim #mamoru hosoda #zootopia #hip hop #klasky csupo

[themeed]

damn allowed myself to want things for a day and all i want is a van to live in, knowledge, freedom, weight loss, and a bass guitar.

im. happy with that i think. im proud of me, no jokes. im proud of being able to want things and care about them and vibrate towards them with longing. im... pleased with that. its fulfilling in a way Not Wanting For Anything isnt, because thats... kinda hollow. empty. in a vacant, lonely, yearning and grieving and SAD way. maybe because i Couldnt Want then. i Couldnt Desire or it would be used against me or taken away. that sucks. that sucked.

and now. im free to want again. and comparatively???? i think im very much never going to aim for buddhism or that weird Not Desiring Not Attached Nirvana mindset. like good for u but been there out of trauma and its not fun theres no reason to truly Live. u just float endlessly and experience and it aches so badly!!!! it hurts to want to want and not be able to. and i guess that is different from not wanting at all but... its not different enough for me to justify ever going back to that. or going forward to that. i just got this back and screw enlightenment if it means i have to give up on my passions i dont think life is worth living without it.

and anybody who looks down on that from a spiritual tower has yet to examine their own pride and how empty they feel without it.

anybody who looks down and smiles and wishes me luck on my journey? good for them. im glad theyre living their best life, on their journey as they see fit.

and i feel the need to protect myself because ive been hurt by the pride- the arrogance of others before. a lot of my hurts and traumas stem from my mother being too prideful to recognize that she can be wrong and someone under her power could be correct over her. and it was an uncomfortable truth. so she denied it was one at all and hurt me. i know the reason could be elaborated on. she didnt want to confront her own internal logic. or trauma. or even doublethink. that doesnt excuse her hurting a child for the sake of her sense of pride, of comfort, of self-worth. a child under her power, that she claimed to be parent of. teacher of.

not owing anyone anything is not the same as not hurting anyone. i havent reconciled that yet. oppressors should be held accountable for their mistakes, and give reparations if the harm is physical at LEAST. and i think that applies to politics, yes. privately though? if i beat up a nazi, i dont want to pay for his hospital bills. my personal philosophy struggles between equating people and ideas as a worth measurement, and realizing that that line of thinking is... similar to oppressors. but. its based on something people can change. the question is, do i think "if given the opportunity" is a good enough reason to stop and question a racist that runs their mouth? and do i think pre-emptive violence is okay? if say, a nazi walks into a bar and doesnt say anything but is wearing all the red flags and bells and whistles. i dont think that justifies a beatdown. being asked to leave, sure, but the beatdown doesnt start til the first remark flies.

once the intent is given OR the action is taken, the line is drawn. doesnt matter if they Havent Had The Chance. if theyre starting shit outside of debate spaces like that, and not, say, asking questions, theyre not looking for new perspectives, and it is NOT my job to educate people. its not my job to Show People The Light. a quick fucking google search could tell them why theyre wrong. if they havent put even the most basic energy into questioning their beliefs, thats on them.

it sounds like im trying to absolve myself of blame here. largely because. i think i should go out and help educate people because theyre inherently complacent if theyre, yknow, in a position of power. aka white folk and men and rich folk and cis folk and on and on and on. these people dont live my reality. they dont live the reality of a gay black man in the south, or a genderqueer lesbian in the west, or an indigenous woman whose nation is being targeted, or a muslim woman who cannot wear her headcoverings in the face of danger of death, or an asian immigrant who cant get a job because of COVD age discrimination resurging. we will never live each others realities, but we can become aware of them.

they wont come into awareness without someone asking or telling, and then doing something to change them.

we shouldnt need to go running to people in power for them to be aware of problems in the populace, govt is supposed to help and solve issues like this. like. actively. thats the whole point, make life better for the countrys citizens. and individuals in a position of social power...

are individuals who didnt take on a responsibility to protect and serve or otherwise care for the populace of a nation. i personally think they SHOULD care, but they are not obligated to. i cant make them care about others.

and honestly, on some of them, it would be a waste of time. there are people who want to change or question things and yknow what? they seek out answers. in people or places or online usually. stats and stories.

so like. i dont think someones Potential as a person matters when theres a throwdown about to happen. it really isnt my responsibility to save people from themselves or try to change their sides against their will. if they want to chat about it they can ask questions first.

not throw insults or punches or hatred.

what people have been taught is worth analyzing and trying to correct IN SOCIETY but i cant fix every broken white boy that comes to me. PSAs, fliers, outreach, online videos, debate spaces. those are things i already have access to and can be a part of if i really want to go around changing minds. or yknow. get involved in legislation and be myself around others to change their perceptions of whats socially acceptable or normal. maybe protest, maybe call congressfolk, etc.

but not every comment has to be analyzed or a learning opportunity. im allowed to shut it down, and people can respect that or stop talking to me. this isnt my parents house where i had to justify everything that i said or did when scrutinized, and doubly justify any criticism i had of mother, or any joke i frowned at instead of smiling.

these people dont have that power over me. they arent my mother. they arent my boss, and if they are i can fuck off and get a new job if necessary. they dont have financial control over my living space and food and schooling and physical control of where i can go and with who and for how long. I CONTROL THAT. I do.

Huh. maybe thats why i want a van so bad. i mean... when this lease ends if nobody is gonna end up living with me...

i could just... live in my car and shower at truck stops. get a storage unit for my stuff. save by driving jobs. like 40 to 60 a day. tear out my cars back, insulate it, and install my mattress pad there. water on the floor, cooler next to it, wooden cutting coard, knife, single camping plateware set, and another little shelf for spices. maybe a hot plate i can hook up to the car battery? get a long enough usb and it might be doable. i could go camping and open the trunk to just... vibe.

because yeah, honestly? i dont plan on having a solid apartment for a bit. like a long bit. and i still have like 70000 miles on my car before itll want to go. and by that point, even at like 100 miles a day, thats like 2 years, less if i go cross country in that vehicle. i could save up SO MUCH for a better vehicle, or like. college. live on campus, get some credit, continue working after i figure out want i want to do.

i think thats a solid plan, even if i dont get another apartment and put everything in storage. work as i need to instead of all the time for rent, really only paying for gas, car repairs, car ins, food, and phone data/hotspot internet... that would bring my monthly expenses down to like 500 a month max instead of like 1400. id only need to make some 1000 a month doing contract stuff to save for taxes and stuff. anything extra would be just that: extra for savings and things. holy shit.

depending on how this next month goes for my friends, holy s h i t.

i. i might do this. legitimately.

i. dont think i can yet. i need proof of address to get my license im pretty sure? but hey, thatll be my 21st this year, so. once i have that i wont need a new address for a While. i dont know if ill want one, really.

i could always just ask a friend or family member if i could use theirs for mail that cant go to a PO box.

anyway. yeah. wow.

[maxbernini]

when i saw you said enemies my first thought was immediately lola and tiff but no! i will go with the little more subtle “enemies” to friends lola and max for the playlist thing!

ludvig i can literally always count on you 💖 this was harder than i thought bc there’s zero songs about the vaguely complex relationship between you and your lesbian ex gf’s new gf you’re unsuccessfully trying to be impartial about lmaoo, so here’s some songs that imo fit both characters’s mindsets (i think they’re very similar actually, max s7 would’ve made this clear 😔)

1. hartley - feel too much

2. nina simone - don’t let me be misunderstood

3. the wombats - lemon to a knife fight

4. the smiths - please, please, please, let me get what i want

5. arcade fire - my body is a cage

give me a character or ship and i will make you a 3-5 song playlist! 🎵

#why aren’t there more frenemies songs !!!! #but as always tysm ily 🥺💓 #ask #anon #ludvig tag #playlist ask meme

[kiwispideys]

Manly (Peter Parker X Trans Male!Reader)

A/N: Hi all! Sorry I haven’t been writing, as a lot has changed in my life and I’ve been focusing on making my final year of high-school the best I can before I have to go off into the real world and have to actually adult. But a hope you all are doing okay with COVID going on and feel free to message me if your anxiety is really high or anything like that :)

Peter Parker X Trans Male! Reader

note: REQUESTS ARE OPEN! I DON’T DO SMUT!!! IF YOU’RE NOT SURE OF A CELEB/FANDOM JUST ASK ;)

@eat-moar-veggis​ asked:  hi, could i request a spider-man imagine where Peter and Ned are trying to help the trans boy reader act/look more like a guy? it could be serious or funny, your pick. thanks in advance!

Summary: When you ask a question out of the blue, Peter and Ned try their best to make you feel better

It was a usual Friday night for you, Ned, and Peter. Ordering takeout and staying home playing video games or having a movie marathon of whatever series you felt like… Although, it usually ended up being Star Wars.

That was until you asked, “I’m not manly enough am I?” out of the blue. So out of the blue, Peter was shocked you even asked the question.

As a trans male, Peter knew your struggles to be accepted by others was a lot harder than his. Even though you looked like your everyday teenage boy, people would still find out and judge. Often vocalising them at school, with statements such as:

“Your walk isn’t manly.”

“Your voice is too high.”

“No matter how many surgeries you have, you’ll still be a girl.”

Most of the time you ignored these comments… most of the time. But Peter could tell that some things had been bothering you lately, you hadn’t been as happy as you usually were. Not as many witty remarks, looking tired all the time, not up for any of your trio’s usual shenanigans. Peter didn’t know what had happened or when throughout the day it had happened but he was determined to get you out of this mindset.

“Y/N, there isn’t such a thing of being manly enough.” He said.

“You know what I mean, I don’t pass enough. Everyone just thinks I’m a butch lesbian which I’m not!”

“Ok alright! You stay right there. We’re giving you a lesson.” Peter said standing up from the beanbag, turning the video game off that you guys had previously been playing, and dragging Ned along with him. Five minutes later he and Ned returned dressed up exaggerating their “manliness.” Peter was in baggy sweatpants, a cap on backwards, had a fake tattoo sleeve, a white tank top and a grey hoodie. With Ned was in similar attire while flexing his arms and posing like a bodybuilder.

“I’m Max,” Ned said, lowering his voice.

“And I’m Aaron.” Peter also had lowered his voice.

“We heard you wanted to know how to be more manly. Did you not?” Ned asked you.

You laughed and nodded.

“Well, you came to the right people because we are the manliest people you could find.” Peter continued. 

“Right, Y/N, stand up and show us your walk for us.” You laughed once more and stood up and walked around the room.

“No! No! No!” Ned said, shaking his head. “You’ve got a package in here, No?” He said gesturing to the pelvic area. “So you’ve got to walk a little wider with your feet. Like this.” Ned walked around the room with wide feet. The picture of Goofy came to mind as you watched him walk, making you laugh once more. “Now you try!” So you did what Ned had said and walked exaggeratedly around the room, earning a massive round of applause from the two boys.

“Now that we’ve solved that part, now with sitting in a chair,” Peter said pulling up a chair and plonking himself in it. “You see...” He said preparing to sit down. “-when you sit down you take up as much room as humanly possible.” He said stretching himself over the chair, taking up as much room as possible, no matter where his limbs were at. Following Peter’s instructions, you sat down in the beanbag behind you and stretched over the beanbag. Taking up as much room as you could, not caring what silly angles your legs and arms were at. The two boys chuckled at the sight of you genuinely enjoying yourself, a scene they hadn’t seen in a little while. 

“Y/N,” Peter said, sitting down next to you. “- just remember, being “manly” is just some dumb social construct. You can be anywhere on the scale of masculinity but that doesn’t define who you are as a man.”

“It kinda does Pete…” You murmur.

“You know what I mean!” He laughs, gently pushing you with his shoulder.

“Yeah, like look at us! We’re just a couple of nerds but we’re still men.” Ned pipes in.

“Thanks guys, you’ve definitely put me in a better mood.” You say hugging the two of them.

“Now, who’s ready for a Star Wars Marathon?”

#peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker imagines #tom holland #tom holland imagines #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine #trans male! #spiderman #spiderman imagines

[g0dtier]

so stranger things 3 was..........................fine

billys redemption arc was great, idc how you feel about him that shot at the end of him with the mind flayer arms in his body was fucking dope. plus, for a redemption arc, what more can u ask of him to give like. he died

hop’s death is bs and i wont believe it. i cant believe hop is actually dead. i just dont trust it. no body, no death. fuck that. 

couldve done with a LOT less “hur hur amurricans fightin the evil commies” tho. like that shit is so asinine. the whole 4th of july festival thing was so cringy. plus of course they made the russians all stone cold wooden ass bitches. like when the americans fucked this all up yall at least gave them some kind of personality, and i get wanting to show the whole red scare thing and shit but holy shit you did not have to swallow the boot, you couldve just stuck to licking it and it wouldve been bad enough. like you didnt have to go full on propaganda at some points. erica’s speech about capitalism? cringy as hell

so yeah the human villains were amongst the worst this season. alexi was funny as shit but of course they had to be like “look guys hes participating in capitalism now so you will feel bad if we kill him now cause obviously u wouldnt if we’d kept him a commie” like. im not even a communist, nor do i in any way think the soviet union was an ok thing, but holy shit the american patriotism was so goddamn cringy. do they realize they have non american watchers...

anyway the teenage stuff was also kinda bull. i just didnt care much about the pointless fights. i lost my fucking shit laughing when Hop was in the car after being the worst dad ever and singing along to Jim Crowe but oh my god, Hop you’re the worst fucking dad lmfao. a lot of the earlier drama was just unwarranted. Max is a weird bitch all of a sudden while being hella cool last season and a lot of like the first 2 eps had some Big Bang Theory level cringy “look at how stupid women are” humor. like. why. god i know y’all are romanticizing the 80s but this whole “hur hur teenage boys are dumb and teenage girls are mean” circlejerk needs to end. who hurt you, duffer brothers? please keep your angst out of your TV series, that entire Victim Boy Cant Understand Insane Teenage Girl, Very Sad mindset youre showing is sexist as hell. go to therapy. goddamn.

now that i think about it the only things i liked this season was the monsters and billy’s arc. OH and Steve and Robin but holy shit that is gonna be so much to unpack later. like. i can just see em going very very wrong with this. and i was rooting for them to get together as well but i KNOW they probably will next season and these two asshat writers will go all “well guess steve cured her of that lesbianism huh”. like they were so good together and its cool if shes gay but i KNOW they’re gonna fuck it up. coulda just made her bisexual, which i was rooting for in the first place, but i know theyre gonna pull a stunt like that next season and its gonna be, again, cringy as shit. shoulda made it clear this season if u dont want it to be looked at as some weird copout. and i say this as a bisexual. who loves bi rep.

season 1 and 2 were good, 2 less so with the drama between El and Max but season 3 kinda missed the ball for me. Amazing cast tho, like amazing. great acting, great camerawork, just...kinda bad writing

#stranger things 3 #spoilers

[high-paladin-fantasy]

What if... I took the cast of ambigiousamphibian's Luciferium Supersoldier series... And made them a temporary HPF characters?? Hahaha jkjk... Unless.......

I mean I am probably not doing that, but if i WAS about to do it, it would involve Max, Mayo and Horse.

There are no real horses in Kenshi, as the world is almost completely alien, so I am thinking Horse would be a robot? That would also explain why is she so powerful and useful lol.

As for Mayo, Amphibian called the dude "she" for an entire episode, so i think i'll give that to Max, who rescued Mayo and thought he was a woman for a very long time. And Mayo was like... Too terrified of Max to say anything, which is honestly understandable. Or maybe he didn't care enough about the pronouns? I'm not even gonna talk about gender, it's just that Mayo was like, "huh, ok, I guess I'm a she/her now lol"

....like in the way that he/him lesbians and enbies with binary pronouns exist, Mayo could be... You know, a cis man with she/he pronouns??? That sound... Cool. It would challange Auron's mindset for sure.

Imagine it as a non canon comic relief episode! The entire Sai's group goes "woow :0 we never saw a skeleton like this before" and Max goes, proudly, "yeah i found her myself. I call her Horse" and there is a whole bit about, "and this woman's name is Mayo" "...actually... I'm not a woman, Max...." and also, Max's addiction to this ancient drug is explored and at the end, he leaves because of the need to find more.

No senseless fucking in this one!!!

...okay now when i'm thinking about it, it would be really funny if Lozo tried to hit on Max, because Max would be completely oblivious to it. Lozo could tell him he wants him to grab his body and use it as a sex toy and Max would be like, "damn bro thanks for the compliment".

Ohh I think Lozo and Sai would totally have a bet about Lozo getting in Max's pants. Auron is just standing in the backround, bewildered.

Sai wins btw. Max is aspec.

...Mayo has a pretty high chance of getting rawed tho. She is a pretty pretty twink and has fur around her neck and... Yeah. Lozo is a shameless flirt and Sai would definitely join. Or maybe not, if it was further into his relationship with Auron... Auron needs monogamy lmao. But i guess Sai wouldn't be there yet, as Lozo is still present??

Well. It's non canon, so i don't have to make it a full fleshed part of the story i guess.

#not canon hpf

[chunsoftie]

overall final thoughts regarding life is strange: before the storm

This is a continuation of my post a few months ago regarding how the second part of LiS: BTS (spoilers ahead, obviously) concluded. Now, I get to talk about the entirety of the 3-part story-driven narrative focused on Chloe and Rachel’s relationship. There is a lot to talk about, I’ll probably expand this in essay format, but in bullets, here are some of the things I liked:

even though we didn’t really need to know about rachel’s mother since it was hammered in last minute in the second episode’s ending, I did appreciate what writing choices were made in regards to your final decision. They didn’t really impact the ending scenes too much, which is such a contrast compared to the original LiS, but overall, I enjoyed learning about Sera.

I’m on the same boat regarding the team’s shying away from lesbian interaction in this episode, but for the most part, I was more interested in how their relationship grew into one that was built on friendship that led into something more. I definitely got all of those intimate moments from this episode.

didn’t bore me nearly as much as the second episode, but I can’t tell if I think this was better than the first one or not. overall, they’re all on the same level, but I came away enjoying the content explored in the finale more than the previous two episodes.

really liked how complex they made jame’s characterization in the episode. they definitely could have kept him boring but they managed to keep me guessing throughout. I just wish his VA put a little more compassion into his role (but with this cast, what else is new).

speaking of VA’s, Rhianna did a fantastic job in this episode, which surprised me more than it should have. Great job!

Definitely grew onto Amberfield more, as a ship. Before I was indifferent, but I am a lot more invested into it now than before. I really liked how their relationship built from the first episode.

“you don’t like the perfect relationship we have?” “I wish you’d have lived long enough for us to fuck it up.”

now onto the things I didn’t like so much:

what the fuck was up with eliot? absolutely pointless use of a character. honestly felt something could have correlated between him and damon, but nope. plus, the fact he was annoyingly badgering chloe in the hospital made me literally want to throw my computer against the goddamn wall.

I kind of felt a lot of plot points were spread all over the place and didn’t gel well. I didn’t like how rachel wasn’t more of an active role towards the end of the episode, and that it was all up to chloe. I understand this is chloe’s story, but it would have been all the more powerful for the two of them to do something towards the end, like how you’d interact chloe with max in the original series. but, I digress.

not much gameplay this episode? I know this is an overall thing with these three episodes to incorporate more story decisions but I least the time traveling thing with max made for an interesting reason this is a game rather than a movie/tv show.

what really was the difference between the endings? a couple of scenes and a 2% change of rachel meeting her mom? hmmm.

damon was barely intimidating because you knew he was going to be reprimanded later on in some way, shape, or form.

choices that you made in the previous episodes dictate how much available gameplay you’re going to have the option of doing with the finale. it should try to be more balanced.

even though the ending scene with rachel being photographed off-camera to jefferson was really well done, I wish they tried to connect more of pre-original LiS events to how rachel was associated with these characters. obviously that wasn’t the point of the games, but I wish they took more chances with it.

Obviously I speak this more with a critical mindset than a negative one altogether. Life is Strange: Before the Storm was a decent prequel. They could have incorporated more gameplay, but considering the limitations when it came to the story, I can’t blame them through and through. I’ll give another little post like this when I get the Deluxe version and play the newest Max episode.

#life is strange: before the storm #lis:bts spoilers #lis #life is strange #analysis #review #game analysis #game review

[biofunmy]

Against Nihilism

Kate Ferro for BuzzFeed News

After a big breakup earlier this year — I was the one who ended things — I gave myself a lot of room to grieve in whatever ways felt good at the time. Ordering takeout for both lunch and dinner? Sure. Downing IPAs while watching women’s soccer at 10 in the morning? No problem. Draining my savings on weird funky clothing and yet another pair of clogs? You bet!!!

According to the tenets of modern pop feminism, I’m entitled to a certain amount of overindulgence because, as a hardworking woman, I’ve earned it. Everything from institutional sexism to harassment to heartbreak can supposedly be assuaged by a couple bottles of wine with a group of good girlfriends. The treacly “Treat yo self” mantra popularized on Parks and Recreation has enabled many a stressed-out woman to place that $800 Anthropologie order (you can always return most of it, right?). Life is hard and the world is on fire; maybe we deserve to indulge in some good old simple pleasures.

So what if wine is a carcinogen and the alcohol industry has actively worked to downplay the link between drinking and cancer? So what if fast fashion is built on exploitative labor and contributes to mass global pollution? So what if the concept of self-care — popularized by Audre Lorde, a black lesbian activist battling breast cancer — has been co-opted to sell us things we don’t need, things which indirectly harm others and might actually harm us in the end? We’ve earned it, ladies!

I’d like to think I don’t actively buy into the capitalist vision of self-care, even as I’ve thrown my money into its maw; at least, I don’t assume any sort of entitlement to feeling good via the accumulation of material things. More so, I just thought…fuck it.

A few months ago, drunk in the middle of the day, I impulse-bought a Juul at a bodega in downtown Manhattan. I’d been taking hits off my friends’ vapes for months, only after I’d had enough to drink that smoking became pleasurable instead of disgusting. That was the rule I’d used for myself previously with cigarettes: I could never buy my own, but if I was drunk, I could bum one or two or five. Actually owning a Juul, as much as I liked to think the vapor or whatever made them safer than my beloved Marlboro Lights, was definitely breaking the rules. But I’d reached a point where I no longer cared.

While other people were having their hot girl summers, I spent mine flirting with a sense of doom I haven’t experienced since I was a hope-starved teen. (Nihilism: It’s back in style, just like denim miniskirts!). And I’m not alone. Twitter offers a daily glut of jokes about the apocalypse; things have gotten so bad we’re begging for vaping or an asteroid or alien overlords to finally put us out of our misery. The novelist Jonathan Franzen published a (much-maligned) essay this past weekend about climate change, arguing that the oncoming disaster is impossible to mitigate and “we” can no longer pretend otherwise. (“Every day, instead of thinking about breakfast,” he wrote, we all “have to think about death.”) Reading recently about presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s dystopian vision of the future, I found myself dismayed, and thoroughly dragged, by Max Read’s description of a “doomer,” the archetypal internet memer who believes we’re all totally fucked: “a depressed, purposeless 20-something usually depicted smoking a cigarette and wearing a beanie.”

Okay, I’m not a doomer, but I have become somewhat fatalistic lately. With talk of another recession and the continued possibility of dying in a mass shooting or some sort of natural disaster, the scarcity mindset I’d developed as the child of a parent living paycheck to paycheck kicked back in again. Thanks to a few greedy corporations and crisis-denying national governments, climate catastrophe seems inevitable — no matter what personal choices I make about things like food or travel or children.

So why bother saving for the future if there isn’t even going to be a future? Why bother being kind to my body by taking it easy on the beer and potato skins when all the crap I consume might not catch up with me by the time that not-future comes to pass? No matter how I treated myself — and no matter what infinitesimal steps I took to be a better human citizen — we’d all end up in the same place in the end.

For a while during my “fuck it” summer, it felt great to be a mess, if only because of its implicit rejection of corporatized self-care’s evil twin: self-optimization. Since diets have become passé, we’ve entered a new era defined by “wellness,” but women are still expected to meet Eurocentric and patriarchal beauty standards — only, unlike with dieting, we’re now supposed to feel good about attempting to contort ourselves into socially acceptable bodies.

Fuck other people’s narrow ideas about the only right ways to live a good and happy life.

“Wellness” conjures images of Gwyneth Paltrow peddling hundreds of dollars’ worth of Goop vitamins and oils and crystals and juices to customers who, because they are not wealthy celebrities, will never look like Gwyneth Paltrow. Organic vegetables and private Pilates instructors are the provinces of rich people who have the time and money to optimize their bodies as if it’s their job (because it is). Fuck wellness! I thought, ordering chips and queso for the third time in a week. Fuck other people’s narrow ideas about the only right ways to live a good and happy life.

But was my life really better, or happier? I loved taking shots with my sister at my favorite dive bar, bonding in a way we sometimes struggle to when sober. But I hated that by the time we got home I was sobbing on the couch about our fraught relationship with our mother, some deep dark part of me ripped open and exposed to the unforgiving light. I loved the dopamine rush of confirming yet another online shopping order, but I hated having to return half the crap once it piled up in my bedroom. I hated hangovers, mountains of takeout containers, and the point at which my Juul would stop giving me a stream of little highs and instead just start making me sick.

Amazon Studios / Courtesy Everett Collection

Jillian Bell in Brittany Runs a Marathon.

Last weekend, I took myself on a date to the movies. I saw Brittany Runs a Marathon, which is the exact kind of movie I’ve been seeking out lately: funny, uplifting, and you know going in exactly what you’re getting. Keep your twist endings, Quentin Tarantino! I’ll watch the movie where the ending is literally spoiled by the film title.

Paul Downs Colaizzo’s indie movie, which won the Audience Award in the US Drama category at Sundance, stars Jillian Bell as the titular Brittany, a goofy twentysomething in a major life rut. A doctor tells her she has an unhealthy BMI (proven to be a bogus measure of a person’s health) and that she needs to lose 50 pounds. This leads Brittany — and Bell herself — to attempt to shed the weight of a “small Siberian husky” over the next year, at the end of which Brittany plans to run the New York City Marathon.

A movie about a woman trying to find fulfillment through weight loss sounds pretty out of step with our current cultural moment, when fat acceptance and body positivity have been gaining significant ground. Kate Browne in Runner’s World argues that the movie functions as “fitspo” by conveying to viewers that if you lose weight, you, too, can achieve your dreams. “The story we’re too often told about fatness and running,” she wrote, “is that body size is an obstacle to overcome in our quest for glory.” Madison Malone Kircher, in a piece for Vulture, made similar points: “In Brittany Runs a Marathon, being fat is portrayed as a starting point instead of just a state of being.”

I, too, would have preferred a movie in which Brittany ran a marathon after gaining back all the weight she initially lost while training — proving to herself, and to viewers, that she could do remarkable things at any size. Still, I think the film does complicate more straightforward and more explicitly anti-fat weight loss narratives in popular culture by making clear that personal fulfillment and a small waist aren’t inextricably intertwined.

Soon before she’s set to run her first marathon (spoilers ahead), Brittany pushes herself too hard in her attempt to lose her final 10 pounds; she deprives herself of food and ends up in the hospital with a stress fracture. She has to miss the race. While recovering, she’s much thinner but more miserable than ever. In the film’s cringiest scene, Brittany gets drunk and heckles a fat woman at her brother-in-law’s birthday party, refusing to believe that the woman’s “average” size partner could actually love and desire a fat person. At other moments, she makes jealous assumptions about a (thin) neighbor she doesn’t actually know; she begrudges a married friend his happy domesticity with his husband and children. The film suggests that Brittany’s main problem has never been her weight — it’s that she’s convinced all her woes have nothing to do with her own actions and that other people, in turn, don’t deserve their happiness.

Amazon Studios / Courtesy Everett Collection

Patch Darragh and Jillian Bell in Brittany Runs a Marathon.

At the end of the movie, when Brittany signs up for the marathon again the next year and actually makes it to the race — cheered on by friends she’d previously spurned — I cried. I cried because it was, yes, inspirational, but I was also moved by the way the story managed to explore personal autonomy and desire in a self-improvement narrative without discounting the significant role played by larger systemic forces.

No, Brittany shouldn’t have to lose weight to be treated with respect — but the material reality of her life is that, when she’s thinner, she’s actually “treated like a woman,” as she tells her soon-to-be boyfriend: People smile at her; they hold the door for her on the subway. No, it isn’t fair that the fancy gym she tries to join when she first decides to lose weight is cost prohibitive to so many people — but that doesn’t discount the fact that running, and other ways of moving one’s body, are completely free.

I cried because I’ve long resented all the pressure I feel to work out and eat “well” and drink less and sleep more. So much of that pressure comes from a world hellbent on optimizing our bodies and brains for workplace efficiency, for social acceptance, for conventional beauty standards, for “normalcy.” It’s pressure designed to make us believe the world will become less of a hellscape through mere personal effort, rather than structural change.

But what if we don’t make those choices (just) to make ourselves more palatable to the world around us? Yes, living “well” — if we’re financially and physically able — benefits The Man. That doesn’t change the fact that treating our bodies with respect and care might benefit us too.

When I first thought about quitting drinking, about a month ago, I read Sarah Hepola’s 2015 recovery memoir, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget. I sobbed through the last 50 pages. (Yes, I’ve been crying a lot lately.) She talks about how, even after she got sober, she still wasn’t taking care of herself: lots of takeout, not a lot of making the bed or hanging up her laundry.

I told myself this was OK, because our society was beyond warped in its expectations of women, who were tsunamied by messages of self-improvement, from teeth whiteners to self-tanners … I wanted to kick the whole world in the nuts and live the rest of my years in sweatpants that smelled vaguely like salami, because who really cares?

But then, after a while, Hepola realized: She cared. She realized she didn’t need to make her body and home feel and look better to please men, or because it was what she was “supposed” to do. “I should take care of myself because it made me happy,” she wrote.

After finishing the book, I wondered if, angry at the propagandist sham of American individualism and bootstraps meritocracy, I’d course-corrected a little too hard — giving up on trying to improve myself or the world around me.

Eddy Chen / HBO

Zendaya as Rue on Euphoria.

My nihilism was both political and personal. Politically, I’d become Chidi, the philosophy scholar on The Good Place, who ends up in Hell because of his ethical indecision. At one point, after grasping so desperately for moral purity and failing to find it, he gives up. “The world is empty,” he yells. “There is no point to anything. And you’re just gonna die. So do whatever!” Personally, I saw myself as Euphoria’s Rue (minus the hard drug-taking), who returns to her life of debauchery after getting clean in rehab because she doesn’t see the point in trying to get better. “The world’s coming to an end,” she says in the first episode, “and I haven’t even finished high school yet.”

It’s a lot easier to believe that you can’t do much to improve your moods, your relationships, and the way your body feels while simultaneously believing you can’t do much to improve those things for other people, either. Abdicating that sense of any responsibility let me avoid a deeper, darker worry: that prioritizing the self is, by nature, saying to hell with everyone else.

My obsession with that particular quandary led me to Trisha Low’s new book-length essay, Socialist Realism, in which she attempts to reconcile her desire for the comforts of love and home with her desire for a socialist utopia. Is it even possible to pursue personal happiness and fulfillment while prioritizing The Greater Good at the same time?

“Home,” she writes. “It’s just something to contain our misplaced desires for a better world. How can we willingly long for that?” Her work is built upon that of her teacher, the academic José Esteban Muñoz, who famously theorized that queerness is, by its very nature, not-yet-here — “that thing that lets us feel that this world is not enough.”

In Megan Milks’s review of Socialist Realism for Bookforum, she notes that a decade ago “many queers were enamored with the alluring radicality of queer negativity” — think Lee Edelman’s 2004 polemic No Future, about the queer death drive — but “in the Trump era such grandiose nihilism seems puerile.”

I loved Low’s book for its messiness, its sense of struggle — a perfect depiction of the constant tugging I feel within myself every day, between my desire to deal with the realities of my own life and my desire to think on bigger, more ambitious scales. “Whatever,” Low eventually concludes. “You can make utopia out of almost anything.”

Since last month, I’ve stopped consuming alcohol (for now, though maybe also for longer). I threw away my Juul, then got jealous that I didn’t get rid of it more dramatically when I saw somebody smash theirs with a hammer on Instagram. Even King Princess, the Gen Z queen of Juuls, recently quit — a harbinger of change if I’ve ever seen one.

I’m trying to whittle away at my nihilism (both the personal and the political) in other small ways. I signed up for a trial at a rental clothing company, with the hopes that I’ll spend less money on shopping and contribute less waste. I’ve stopped eating beef, hopefully en route to full-fledged vegetarianism. And I joined a powerlifting gym after my friend Katie, who is basically a lifting influencer, extolled its many virtues. I’m hoping the sport’s focus on strength and power, rather than weight loss, will help me stop punishing my body for the way it looks and start celebrating it for what it can do.

I’ve had these little bursts of self-improvement projects before, but in the past I’ve always gotten bored and given up eventually. I’d start drinking again. I’d order a bunch of crap I didn’t need from companies that mistreat their workers and actively make the world worse. Whatever, who cares, nothing matters.

Just last week I caved and ordered six different white T-shirts and a $200 pair of boots. (“Basics!” I told myself. “Just the basics!”) I know I’m still going to have nights where I eat only popcorn for dinner and watch six straight episodes of Love Island and bum hits from my friends’ Juuls. I think what’s most important is that I’m at least trying to train myself to rely on more than just instant gratification. To have faith that, if I’m lucky, there’s a lot more life I’ve yet to live.

Critics of Franzen’s New Yorker piece on the climate apocalypse pointed out that the author’s climate projections are seriously flawed and his conclusions perhaps even more so. After taking swipes at everyone, from the evil science-deniers on the right to the overly optimistic peddlers of the Green New Deal on the left, Franzen sees hopeful futures for community gardens and CSA programs, but not much else.

“If your hope for the future depends on a wildly optimistic scenario,” he wrote, “what will you do ten years from now, when the scenario becomes unworkable even in theory? Give up on the planet entirely?”

What a patronizing way to address anyone who dares to dream. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg hasn’t documented her climate depression or dared adults to consider the impact of their personal choices just to piss off a bunch of man-baby conservatives. As a young person, she’s more than justified in fearing for her future, but despite her anger and her sadness — because of her anger and her sadness — she still believes in something better. Why bother even trying otherwise?

Yes, living “well” — if we’re financially and physically able — benefits The Man. That doesn’t change the fact that treating our bodies with respect and care might benefit us too.

Corrupt corporations and governments do hold the most blame, and the most significant obligations, when it comes to righting our course. But there is no easier way to shirk consumer responsibility — whether you’re eating beef, or flying a lot, or holding onto that unholy Amazon Prime subscription — than by self-soothing with the leftist adage that “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism.”

As Charlotte Shane recently wrote in a piece about Jonathan Safran Foer’s We Are the Weather (yet another collection of Big Climate Thoughts by yet another underqualified white guy), holding institutions accountable “can’t be a ploy to deflect attention from our own culpability … No matter how otherwise constrained our circumstances, we can always choose each other, choose solidarity, choose effort. Every time we do, we’re making headway toward a new habit, a self-reinforcing orientation that alters the fabric of who we are and how we live.”

Is there anything in this world harder than trying to be both happy and good?

I’ve been listening to Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell on repeat since the album dropped, which has put me in the perfect mood for my sad girl fall. But as much as Lana sings her beautiful, dreamy way through the depressing fog that is modern living, she still ends the album on somewhat of a high note. “Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have,” she croons on the very last song. “But I have it.”

May we all, Lana. May we all. ●

Sahred From Source link Science

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