#but i honestly think that my self loathing is the root of my problem

[foxconfessorandthewolf]

Okay, so I’m a bit wine drunk but I don’t think I’ve ever really articulated why I love Snarry together and I’m currently trying to finish a fic after taking a three-year-hiatus from writing these two, so this is probably a good exercise!

I’m a bit on the older side of fandom, having been a fanartist and fervent reader since 2003, so my connection was really sparked during that time between OOTP and HBP when Snape and Harry were at some of their most clashing and deeply vitriolic, forced together into hateful vulnerability by Occulmency lessons. Every scene between them was electric, laced with tension as we truly did not know how things would go, or even where Snape’s true loyalties lay. He was an unknown, tied up with Harry’s own family’s mysterious past, connected to Harry in a myriad of odd ways that few other characters were, and - as a rivals-to-lovers lover - I was fascinated by him. From that first moment when they lock eyes in the Great Hall and that frisson of pain shoots through Harry’s scar, I desperately wanted to know who the hell this man was and his story. I think a lot of Snarry shippers come to the ship with a special appreciation for Severus Snape’s character himself. He’s such an incredibly drawn character, rich with complexity, complicated and pretty fucked up, with clearly-held passions, hatreds, weaknesses, and motivations. He’s emotional in a way a lot of other characters aren’t, though I think he’d loathe to hear that. And his character voice! It’s unique and pitch-perfect. You always know exactly who is speaking with his lines. Honestly, the way he evolved from a spy/traitor stock character to become so multifaceted and enigmatic is a masterpiece of characterization, and it’s an aspect of why I’m drawn to him - there’s still so much about his origins and well, what his damage was, that we don’t know. Because of this, I especially love Snarry fics that delve into character studies of him, trying to explore all the shadows left behind. I also admit I have a preference for interpreting Snape as morally grey. I like him petty, sharp-tongued, ambitious, with an incredibly liquid definition of what is right and wrong. He’s self-interested, dripping with disdain, and really doesn’t see that as a problem. What happens to him when he deeply falls in love?

I love a ship that makes me work for it. There’s no obvious line of how Snape and Harry might wind up together, so each fic is a wealth of possibilities of bringing these two together despite their roadblocks. As I mentioned, I’m big fan of animosity in a ship. Give me rivals, give me enemies, give me the sparking passions, the sharp fury, the way they stoke each others’ emotions and seek to hurt, the racing hearts, the raised hackles, the intense emotional reaction to another person. Just throw it at me. I devour that shit. I love the messy and taboo nature of their relationship, the complications raising from their age difference, temperaments, and largely similar and shared traumas. There’s an interesting element of Snape being a foil to James Potter, and how that relates to Harry and their past. Basically, this shit is really good potting soil for incredible fucking fics, packed with nutrients.

The shared natures of their traumas, like Voldemort and each being forgotten and abused as children and how they might be able to understand each other and bond from it is also something that’s fascinating to explore. I love when a writer pushes on Snape’s bruises, looking to make them hurt, cracking his sardonic brain open and rooting around in there, and I love when they compare and contrast to Harry’s. There’s a seductiveness to how Snape is so obsessed with Harry, fixated on his Boy Who Lived heroic reputation, clearly dripping with envy. What, beyond jealousy, might draw Snape to Harry and what, other than hatred, might draw Harry to Snape?

It’s all this, the passionate, electric, dangerous nature of their relationship; the way their characters contrast each other yet have surprising connections; and the question of finding solace that keeps me here, 21 years later. I’ve had wines less complex than this ship. They’re fascinating. They’re messy. They’re everything.

[crossposted from a reddit comment I just left, and wanted to share with y’all]

#snarry #i need them to hatefuck it out #i need snape to be cracked open and see all the tender parts fall out

[bookishfeylin]

So a little story from me because I feel really impacted on your topics regarding POC so I wanted to share this with you because I feel more comfortable telling you about this.

So I had a friend who was black-american who was really, really bullied alot because of his skin when he used to live in America, he's been my best bud for years ever since he came to the Philippines a year ago and honestly he is literally one if not the most important person in my life, he's an amazing person who is kind, smart, and so generous and loving I sometimes couldn't believe I was friend with a great guy like that.

His impact on my life made me push for my goals, he made me feel safe when I'm at my lowest, and he always sticks up for me whenever someone was being an asshole to me. (Pardon my language)

So being friends with an amazing guy, this amazing person who became so important to me for just a year of friendship, made me feel so afraid for him when I found him scrubbing his skin so raw the skin was starting peel and bits of blood came out. I remembered how I grabbed the scrub and threw away and helped him calm down and just making sure he's okay, I was heart broken when he kept telling me to leave him alone and keep trying to scrub himself raw.

I was utterly terrified, devastated and so, so sad at how he hated himself, how he said that he didn't like the color of his skin, he didn't like how he was born black and that being black was what was wrong with him. He told me stories of how he was bullied before but my heart literally broke when I realize those assholes actually convinced him, manipulated him into thinking that him being black, him having a dark skin tone that everyone always describe just to be factual or polite to POC, is the problem.

I was so, so, so furious that these awful people manipulated my best friend, my best friend whose a one in a million, whose so important to me, Into hating himself. I spent that entire night at his side being there for him, talking to him, supporting him at that low moment where he felt awful and self-loathing to himself.

That was a year ago during new years, and honestly one of the most heart wrenching night of my life, Now I spent my time being the friend he deserves, I made sure he always knows he's loved, cared for, and him being himself is not the problem. I will spend the rest of my life telling this person I love everything about him, from his skin to his smile to his personality and more, I'm gonna keep reminding him that I got his back and can always count in me.

This guy, my best friend means so much to me, bookish. And I'm so lucky to have an amazing person in my life, and I'm going to work hard to always make sure he knows I love him and his entire being.

Also I'm so sorry for just dumping this one you 😭😭😭, A lot of your posts pulled my heart strings so much and impacted me so hard. A lot of them made me cry because of how true they are. And honestly a lot made me cry and sob and I got so emotional I just had to write this. Again I'm so, so, sorry for dumping this story unto you 😭😭

But I would like to thank you for being such an inspiration to me and to my friends, my best friend always loves your posts whenever we scour Tumblr. Your an amazing person bookish and I wish you best days and regards.

Have a nice day! 😊😊😊

Nonny this ask really hurt but it fully encapsulates why it's so important to me that we keep talking about things like this. Why we talk about racism and colorism and whitewashing, because of how absolutely insidious and deeply rooted they become in our psyche. It's wonderful that you're such a supportive friend to him, and I'm sure your friendship helps--but the nature of internalized racism is how deeply rooted it is due to systemic racism, and its an insidious plague that takes years of self-love to unlearn (if ever). When I was a little girl I prayed to God that I would wake up white and "pretty." The self-hatred that's instilled in POC and especially in Black people for our race and our skin tone in particular, believing that our skin makes us incapable of being attractive or that having darker skin than white people and nonblacks makes us "dirtier" than other races of people (something I heard a lot of attending a mostly white school in American suburbia--), takes YEARS to overcome. THAT is why representation matters. THAT is why more diversity on screen and in books is a good thing. And THAT is why we must have these conversations about racism and colorism and whitewashing, no matter how uncomfortable it makes people. I'm glad my posts were able to resonate with you <3

#ask #anon #racism #antiblackness #internalized racism #representation matters

[caniowest]

I truly hope that anyone that feels left out of their friend groups/ can't seem to genuinely connect with other people gets the love they deserve (and a very warm hug). At times, when we walk behind our friends, or when we don't get invited to certain parties, we tend to think it's our problem. That it's our fault that they don't pay enough attention to us. I think everyone has experienced this to a certain degree at some point, and it's honestly heartbreaking.

Trying to find your so-called "inner peace", while also balancing a healthy lifestyle and mental health issues can be hard, like, excruciatingly difficult to navigate. You don't need to perfect yourself every day- we're not a self-improvement project after all- and you can definitely long for those special human connections. We, as homo sapiens, thrive on this. But if we were to only look at other people for their approval, validation, and appeciation, we'd be burnt-out. And that's what happens most of the times.

When we start to like a new person, for example, we'd be feeling kind of sad if our best friend wouldn't support our decision. This only worsens as time goes on, and at one point we're left to wonder if we even have a a clue on what's really going on in our head. With all these contradictions, swirling thoughts and divergence, our mind cracks under pressure. Truth is, no matter how secure a friendship or relationship is, we are human beings- it's normal for us to get affected by what other people think, even in small fractions.

So, what remains in the end? What path do we take in order to "keep the balance" and not let ourselves get overshadowed by others? I think the answer to this is something we've all heard before, and it is definitely harder that it looks. "Loving yourself " seems impossible when you think you don't know who you are. Because, why would I love someone estranged to begin with?

And so, with each passing day, I try to find myself. When walking outside, I try to stop and just notice the world around me. The sun on my face, the rushed people, the old buildings I pass by every day. And honestly, doing this has not only helped me live in the present, but also regain old parts of my soul. Little me would be so proud to see that I'm no longer stuck in a loop, everyday, doing the same goddamn thing I loathe.

I'm by no means an expert on wellness, and mental stability, but maybe those who take their time reading this post that I poured my heart into find some comfort in knowing that their journey isn't linear. It doesn't have to be and it will never be.

Focus on growing yourself back from the roots that burned.

You are your most precious asset, and your life, perfect or not, is valuable.

❤️‍🩹

#wellbeing #mental health #positive mental attitude

[benandstumpy]

went ahead and revisited hermit ren. this is one of the best episodes and i think the fact it was a passion project is very clear. obviously it's an episode of comedy, but there's a lot of care and personal artistic sensibility put into it.

one detail that always stuck out to me was the reuse of the home sweet home phrase. it's a pretty good moment of subtlety that the show usually doesn't go in for, and tbh i'd argue this episode as a whole is pretty carefully made. chris reccardi not only directed and storyboarded, but even did some of the music for this one, which is especially standout because i can't really think of another instance where original scoring was done in this show. at least not off the top of my head.

speaking of storyboarding as well, the expression work in this episode is very distinctive. frequently it takes less inspiration from old wb cartoons and veers more into reccardi's own stylization, which is typically more angular than the show's normal look. there is some difference between the spumco style and the games style, but i feel like this is still set apart from other games-era episodes. it does have the effect of giving the characters stiffer movements and appearance, but imo it isn't too jarring when the episode is fairly unique as a whole. (i would include more example screencaps but honestly i'm too lazy.)

regarding the story, though, the most interesting thing about it to me is the way that ren's hallucinations consistently belittle him and/or work against him. not necessarily uncommon with hallucinations, but from a screenwriting perspective, i think there was a lot of care put into how this plays out during the climax of the episode. the mummy highlights ren's anger/fear/ignorance as if to suggest that these are all he's capable of or all that are worth experiencing, and this comes immediately after ren expresses openly that he misses stimpy's companionship. that initial positive emotion is dismissed as worthless sentiment by ren's deceased predecessor.

and then ultimately, when ren snaps under the pressure of his own self-loathing, he has no choice but to leave the hermitage. but he's better off for it! the choice to become a hermit is framed from the moment he makes it as one that results from an inability to cope properly with the stress of his life, and then the salesman/hermit union rep calls him a loser. ren's perception that the struggle he undergoes is a product from without as opposed to an internal lack of patience, confidence, and understanding is the conflict here. the relationship he has with stimpy is a pillar of support for when he is unable to cope; he is unwilling and unable to self-reflect and therefore cannot solve the root of his problem, but having support from another person is enough to keep his head above water in the meantime. that emotional connection is a necessary and even fulfilling counterbalance to the cynicism inherent to his character.

i really think this episode is a stunning example of originality and i don't think it would have been possible in the spumco era. games may have been hit or miss at times but it had some damn fine hits.

#ren and stimpy #op #cartoon #rewatch #ren #this took way longer to type than i thought it would oops oops oops

[yandere-daydreams]

*slides in quickly before requests close* howdiddlydo person of unknown gender, may I request sum frustrated Yandere Vil from Twisted Wonderland with him trying to become the fairest of them all, Reader is prettier than him, but only because he's in love with them ... however he doesn't know that? Also, please take care of urself during these trying times!

Chapter Five isn’t out, yet, but I’d like to think he’d be the type to only occasionally handle a challenge to his position with grace. It’s very much an ‘indoctrinate or eradicate’ mindset, and I think it’s clear which direction I chose to go in, this time.

Title: Eye Of The Beholder.

TW: Minor Acts of Violence, Possessive Mindsets, and Unhealthy Relationships. 

~

The worst part was, you didn’t even want to be in Pomfiore.

You could live with it, if you had to. You admired the Beautiful Queen’s cut-throat determination, but that kind of adoration was universal, nowhere near the idolization most students placed on their dormitory’s patron. If you had a choice, you might’ve preferred somewhere a little more fun, like Scarabia, or Diasomnia, if only because of the respect that came along with their reputation. You were neutral towards Pomfiore, you tolerated Pomfiore, but Vil must’ve interpreted your lack of enthusiasm as a gentle loathing, he must’ve thought your disinterest was poorly veiled disgust. That, or he didn’t like your skin-care routine, or the way you wore your uniform. Maybe he had a problem with your attitude. For all you knew, his issue was with your hand-writing.

His hatred seemed sourceless. It could be sourceless. It could be because of everything. You didn’t know. You didn’t care. It didn’t really matter, if you were being honest with yourself.

Vil hated you, he hated you more than you’d ever seen him hate anything. And he never hid it.

He didn’t even try.

“What were you thinking?” His tone was harsh, the kind of brash, ugly pitch you’d never hear out of him if anyone else was around. If anyone he respected was around. But, they weren’t, and he was free to tangle his fingers in your hair and drag you into his personal suite, the door shut and locked as soon as you were thrown inside. Your scalp throbbed, and a ring of bruises was forming around your wrist, where he’d dragged you out of your clubroom, never stopping to ask questions, never hesitating, never batting an eye when it came to humiliating you like a child that’d gotten away from their sitter. You could only be glad he hadn’t chosen to scold you in the common room, this time. You were still living down the embarrassment from his last public lecture. “I try to take you under my wing, I try to be a good mentor, and what’s the first thing you do? Ruin it. You go and ruin it.”

“I was just joining a club,” You mumbled, your voice just low enough not to interrupt Vil’s disjointed rant. You kept your posture straight, your arms held stiff at your sides, but the urge to curl into yourself, the temptation to make yourself small was still there, your common sense warring with your instincts of self-preservation. “It’s not a big deal. Rook said it’d be--”

“Rook couldn’t have known which hellhole you planned on sealing yourself inside of,” He spat, unwilling to hear you out. You weren’t sure why you’d expected him to, he’d never really cared what you had to say. He’d never really cared about you, not unless you were doing something he deemed ‘unbefitting’ of a Pomfiore student. “Honestly, it’s hard to believe you were chosen to be part of my dorm. I’ve never met someone so ungrateful, so ungraceful, it’s like you don’t even want to belong here--”

It was your turn to interrupt him, now, even if your declaration was less confident than his own. “I don’t.”

It was barely a mutter, little more than a whisper under your breath, but Vil fell silent in an instant. Going quiet as he went stiff, his posture turning so rigid, you almost couldn’t recognize him as the man millions chose to worship. “You… you what?”

“I don’t.” You’d tried so hard to hold back your irritation, to swallow it down before it could start to spill out, but it felt good to let your voice dip into something more hostile than what Vil deemed acceptable, to let your features scrunch and your hands twitch as you resisted the urge to wipe away the frustrated tears forming in the corners of your eyes. “I don’t, I never wanted to be. If I had my way, I would’ve transferred months ago.” You paused, setting your jaw with a new sense of perseverance. “I will transfer, actually. Anywhere would be an improvement, as long as you’re not there.”

You finished, and a second passed in silence. Then another, and another, and you began to hold your breath as you waited for Vil’s response. He closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and only after he’d regained an ounce of his composure, he moved.

You heard the blow before you felt it.

It was a sharp, sudden crack, quick enough and loud enough to catch you off guard, setting your nerves on-edge before the pain kicked in, bright and burning and blinding as his open palm collided with your skin. It only took a moment, but the briefness of it didn’t stop your lips from parting in shock, your own hand rising to cradle your reddening cheek as you stumbled back. He watched you in faux-apathy, for a moment, his stare cold and his expression stoic, but his anger was undeniable, a fire flitting in his eyes, the same one he’d always tried to smother in yours. “You won’t,” He said, calmly, melodically. Taking the time to make sure you were listening, but not giving you the luxury of a full minute to recover. “You’re not going anywhere.”

You didn’t know what he was talking about. If anything, you were only more sure you had to leave. Fuck, you’d drop out of Night Raven all together, if you had to. He’d humiliated you, demeaned you, policed your wardrobe and your speech and your life, but this was the first time he’d done something physical, something violent. Something that’d leave a mark for days, weeks, if you weren’t lucky. “You’re insane--”

“I’m doing what I have to.” This was usually the part where his irrationality faded into exasperation. Where he dug his nails into your shoulder, tilted your chin up, and told you to stand straight, lest you tarnish his reputation any further. But, if any of that tired, familiar resolution was present today, you couldn’t seem to root it out. Rather, he just seemed poised. At ease, but not relaxed. Firm, but not forgiving. “You’re not transferring, you’re not leaving, you’re not taking a step I don’t approve of, not if I can help it. If you get away, you’d win, and I’m not about to lose to you.” His hands balled into fists at his sides, his upper lip curling back. His self-imposed image splitting and shattering, if only in front of you. “I’m not about to lose you.”

You grit your teeth and glare. You didn’t lash out, not as much as you wanted to, but you doubted Vil would let you get away with anything more blatant. “And if I don’t want to live in someone’s shadow?”

At that, he broke into a smile, the perversion of a proper grin painting itself across his expression for the first time in your short companionship. He didn’t reach out, didn’t touch you, didn’t even shift his tone away from the stern delicacy he was so skilled at employing, but he didn’t have to. Not when his joy scared you more than his anger ever could. “Oh, sweetheart,” He sighed, shaking his head so sympathetically, anyone else might’ve believed he was the mentor he was so fond of masquerading as.

“Clearly, no one’s taught you how futile it is to run from a Queen.”

#yandere #yandere love #yandere x you #yandere x reader #yandere x y/n #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere imagines #yandere scenario #yandere prompt #twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #yandere twst #twst x reader #twst vil #vil schoenheit #yandere vil #yandere vil schoenheit #vil x reader #vil x y/n #vil schoenheit x reader #vil schoenheit x mc #yandere fantasy #yandere fanfiction #yanderecore #yancore

[swimfuel]

okay humanstuck thoughts under the cut

i owe a lot of this to @/rhythmic-idealist's kankri/vantasposting bc holy shit theyve got such a big brain (ill link to their individual posts when im on desktop since im using this to keep all my thoughts straight and i agree with most of what they say wholeheartedly)

general status quo stuff:

signless works in an extremely demanding career involving helping others (i'm leaning towards an attorney who works with organizations and does pro bono work), and is also extensively involved in social justice work outside of his job... he is very rarely home

he loves and cares for his children deeply and tries to express it whenever they're face to face, but the couch in his cramped and messy office has seen far too much use over the years for him to have been able to say it enough

his habits of working himself to the point of exhaustion are handily passed down to his kids btw

the kids had to grow up quickly because signless was out of the house so often and so consistently—kankri, who was already pretty high-strung, has to learn to take care of himself and karkat

they grow up near ms firuzeh maryam, who's their pseudoaunt/grandma (she took in a nine year old kavana vantas when she was about twenty), but they just call her ms rosa

they spent a lot of time in the maryam house growing up, with miss rosa's two nieces. porrim is a year older than kankri, while kanaya and karkat are the same age

kankri grows kinda sensitive to people trying to mother him since it rubs against the notion that he's the "adult of the house" and that he can take care of himself and karkat just fine

(and it also kinda underlines the fact that kankri has no idea what he's doing at the best of times)

and ironically enough, kankri becomes overbearing and naggy towards karkat in his own right, which forestalls them becoming close in any brotherly sort of way

they grow up really just... unable to communicate with one another clearly

karkat develops his ornery exterior in response to kankri's constant stream of opinions and frantic attempts at making up for the presence of a guardian in the house

i think there would actually be some really interesting parallels with rose in this au.. maybe i'm drawing from my own experiences as well but i think he'd begin to assume that every time his brother opens his mouth, he's going to criticize karkat

but instead of reacting like rose with the "making yourself more of a puzzle"/passive aggressive stuff, he gets a more defensive/hackles raised/"argue with you before you can argue with me" approach

and the thing is that they do love each other and would take a bullet for the other etc etc etc.. but they don't know how to express it because they've fallen into these shitty patterns

and it really doesn't help that kankri has grown somewhat resentful of signless over the years... that mix of resentment and fear and love gets more extreme and more polar every time signless gets injured during a political demonstration

i think kankri and signless would also be slightly closer than karkat and signless, as signless' job really only started to ramp up when karkat was less than years old and kankri was in his early double digits

kankri autistic btw its word of god (i am god)

karkat has a pet crab. its name is also karkat. he vents his frustrations to it.

i feel like the vantases exemplify both the best and worst parts of their aspects with one another as well... the strength of their bonds keeps them together and grounded, but TOO grounded. [insert Blood rant here]

the Blood rant:

i define Blood as bonds, responsibility, and the "core". if Life is the fertile soil and everything living on a planet's surface, then Blood is the gravitational core of the planet keeping everything together

i also think Blood, Heart, & Mind work in tandem to define a person just as blood serves to connect the pieces of the human body... Heart is the soul and the self, Mind is the application of one's self through active choices (agency), while Blood defines both the self and the choices one makes in greater detail [and, as an aside, Life provides the physical spark of life needed to keep the heart pumping blood]

OKAY wow that got tangential anyways

SO BASICALLY! too much Blood makes you stagnate, so for example:

kankri is split between staying home with karkat or going to college across the country and being truly unbound for the first time in years

another crisis of Blood: signless is caught between his empathy and responsibility to the whole world and his responsibility to his own children

okay so here's more status quo stuff:

the maryam and vantas kids grow up together and its hilarious because you'll see them all together and its just like (girlboss) (girlboss) (physical manlet) (emotional manlet)

the maryam girls are actually miss rosa's nieces but she took them in when they were both pretty young

the pyropes know the vantases well enough considering pyrope senior and sign have known one another from their respective legal practices for years, but they live on the other side of town

the leijons lived in town when kankri and meulin were very young, but they moved and travelled for a long time before coming back and reestablishing their roots

the captors (psii being one of sign's oldest and closest friends) move into town with the peixes family pretty early on though

the condesce is.. a horrible spouse and guardian, to put it plainly. she's very emotionally manipulative and isn't averse to smacking people around, including her own family. she moves herself and her perfect little family into town so she can properly oversee a new business venture close by

feferi is one of the best young swimmers in the country and has a pretty good shot of getting onto the olympic team.. a lot of this drive to be perfect and to be better results from the condesce's unrelenting pressure and thinly veiled resentment throughout her whole life

so yeah psii, )(ic, feferi, and sollux all live together and it's really not great for anyone involved. (meenah ran away years ago, and crashed on aranea's couch for a pretty long while—mituna moved out with latula for college before psii and the condesce got married)

it gets bad to the point of sollux staying with the maryams for two months while the adults try to sort out that absolute clusterfuck and get the divorce proceedings going (meenah finally convinces feferi to get out and come stay with her and aranea for the duration as well)

in terms of relationships i think latula and porrim were really really close in high school, and probably had some kind of unacknowledged thing going on for a while that never actually turned into anything because latula and mituna were going steady

kankri has had a crush on latula for years but never acted on it for similar reasons

meenah still carries a lot of that give no fucks attitude (it's developed moreso as a defense mechanism here) and can't understand why feferi refuses to leave the condesce with her

okay back to VANTAS MANPAIN i also think that karkat feels the weight of a lot of expectations on his shoulders as well

he feels responsible to live up to the example his dad and his brother set, even if it's to his own detriment—and kankri's oblivious rambling about his grades and his teachers and all his clubs certainly aren't helping the matter

kankri is one of those overinvolved kids taking a million AP's while simultaneously shitting on the collegeboard at every single step

hes this super overachiever anal retentive perfectionist type dude and (just as karkat preemptively criticizes others to forestall their criticisms of him only to harshly criticize himself) kankri subconsciously holds the people around him to the same expectations he holds for himself

so karkat also develops this sense of lacking which, in combination with everything else, culminates in self loathing and thinking he has to solve everyone else's problems and getting horribly mad at himself for every little mistake

GOD i have a lot more but lemme post this before i accidentally close out of the app and lose it all

more little details:

vriska's mom and terezi's mom HATE each other like HATE HATE HATE one another it's so bad

karkat wrote a ten page review of my immortal in middle school

jade is one of nepeta's best online friends

sollux can't raise one eyebrow at a time.. karkat gives him so much grief about it

the vantases eat a lot of shitty renditions of persian dishes until karkat learns to cook because literally the only person in the world with a CHANCE of getting KANKRI VANTAS to make an EDIBLE DISH is miss rosa

kanaya is really good at persian dance too but is VERY VERY embarassed to perform in front of people.. however porrim definitely is not

karkat has insomnia while kankri just stays up stupidly late for assignments that really shouldnt be taken that seriously.. but they both have the same rumination/sleep anxiety thing where your brain goes insane with horrible and depressing scenarios as you try to sleep

and more ideas that i thought were interesting but idk how to fit in the context of this au:

signless and disciple getting married pretty late in life after having been in love for years, the vantases move in with the leijons and karkat suddenly has two sisters

nepeta and karkat are both juniors at this point, meulin is probably in her third year at a local college nearby while kankri is about to start his second year at a university pretty far away

the kids in general honestly but ill figure it out

more random hcs this time with kids:

kanaya and rose get into a flame war online that gradually settles into elaborate courtship rituals

also nepeta + jade online besties

also bec can inexplicably still teleport

the first sbahj movie comes out and the next six months of dave strider junior's high school career are absolute hell

actually hc that dave senior goes by d strider professionally. the d stands for a lot of things

aradia and dave frequent a lot of the same forums but never end up really interacting

meanwhile karkat and john frequent a lot of the same forums and DEFINITELY end up interacting. this turns into grudging (at least on karkat's part) friendship after they find themselves fighting for their lives defending an objectively shitty movie together on the same thread

#humanstuck #vantas family #.

[safarigirlsp]

I’m bummed 65 got delayed to next year. I was really looking forward to seeing it. What are your thoughts on Ferrari? I’m personally not excited about it and think Adam is miscast. He’s 38 and the real Enzo was about 58 during the time period the film is set.

Hi!

I was seriously bummed out too! Although for me, I don’t think I’ll ever experience a movie let down as extreme as when I got the news that The Last Duel’s release was being delayed a year! That was a bad day! It’s always the movies that I’m most excited about that get bumped.

I’m very excited about 65! He looks hot, has great hair and a goatee, and his body looks great! Plus, it’s action/adventure and he gets to run around with a space gun fighting dinosaurs! Also, and this is just my personal theory, but I’m wondering if he’s hallucinating his daughter and going kind of nuts too! She’s in some set pics in the jungle and rain, which doesn’t make sense for her to be physically with him on planet dinosaur lol. Plus, she makes space zoom calls with him while he’s traveling. So, I’m thinking that in addition to all his other problems, he’s also losing his shit and going insane, which could be a lot of fun to watch with AD actually! And it seems like something right up his alley!

Regarding Ferrari, I’m really ambivalent at this point. I’m always excited for more AD content, so that’s nice. And I’m glad he has another movie in the works already. But I’m with you that it’s definitely not blowing my skirt up at all either lol. The premise is very blah and uninteresting to me, but of course, anything can be done well. I’m assuming it’s going to have some backstory stuff of him being a young hotshot and then the present story of him being older and bitter etc. The real life story about his son dying and throwing his life and business into self-destructive turmoil is also something that holds zero appeal to me. Not my kind of story. I think people are expecting him to be playing some kind of hotshot playboy racecar millionaire, and I don’t think that’s what we’re going to get at all lol. I’m expecting more of a dark, heavy, dramatic downer lol.

I’m very much not a fan of Michael Mann either. Whereas Ridley Scott is one of my all time favorite directors and can do no wrong to me, Michael Mann is the opposite. I have seen every single movie he’s made since the 80′s, and I always expect a lot because they look good, but I have never enjoyed a single one! Not to say they’re not objectively good movies because that’s different, but I have not enjoyed them at all. Public Enemies was his best in my opinion, and it was decent, but that’s my most favorable review lol. He’s also not a director to make many upbeat movies with heroic characters, so I think a lot of people will not get the movie they’re expecting based on a knee jerk reaction to hearing the name Ferrari lol.

I also personally loathe the cheating theme! I know Gucci and Ferrari are real people, and even Charlie was based on a real person, who are/were cheating bastards, so it makes sense to include that in their stories. And I’m not one of those people who translates that to a judgment call about the kind of man AD is in real life, because I think he’s the polar opposite. But that behavior really doesn’t endear me to the characters lol. It makes me root for their deaths honestly lol!  I vastly prefer rapists and murders to cheaters!

The deciding factor on Ferrari for me will be almost entirely looks based! If he looks hot with nice hair and build, then I’ll be excited! If he’s clean shaven with short 1950′s nerd hair, I’m going to be very meh and disinterested lol. I fully expect the later, and it would be true to character for Ferrari. I absolutely am that shallow lol! I have my fingers crossed for maybe a stretch in the movie where he gets so depressed that he becomes a shut in for long enough to let his hair and beard grow out 🤣

I’m posting these 65 set pics again because he’s pretty!

#65 #gq #flip #best

[moonnhare]

on the subject of self loathing— with a peculiar lack of loathing

i hate you. i don’t, actually, but at the same time i really do. it’s not because i want you to like me anymore. i don’t need your admiration. i hate you because i understand you perfectly. or at least this apostle aspect of you; the worship, the love and corruption. the worms.

i hate you because i am you. the position of the sun in the sky and i hate copying you— hate discovering myself after you— and we’re the same again. fuck. i don’t want to be you. i don’t want to know exactly what you mean. my lover gives me a sharp

kick and a snarl and all i can think is how

i am the dog. fuck the dog. i hate the dog. i hate your dog but it’s a damn good metaphor, isn’t it? so i’m stealing it. the art community would make a fuss. they swarm tracers. draw imaginary scuffed lines between referencing and plagiarism in an instagram-slides infographic. it’s all art. it shouldn’t matter.

i think sometimes that i am intrinsically good. other times i think i am very bad, but i like that better. there’s more freedom to it. it means i don’t have to text back; it feels like the BART train car when i’m alone in it, or my dorm’s gray stairwell. like walking around at night hoping i’m masc-presenting enough to not get stolen away somewhere. i’m not happiest when i’m lonely, that’s not what i’m saying, but i’m most comfortable. there are no obligations when you aren’t trying to be good. there’s no guilt— it’s the guilt that eats me. a bad person can shrug it off or not feel it at all.

a bad person doesn’t answer their mom’s call because they’re too high to hold a conversation. a bad person tells their dad yes i’ve been studying hard after a day in bed. a bad person lets their hunger burn through them because they don’t feel like going to eat. fuck. i don’t know what’s wrong with me. i can feel my hip bones and it’s not stemming from society or image or whatever bullshit runs rampant on this site. i’m just bad at taking care of myself.

but even if i wanted i couldn’t be all bad. good people mail their favorite roommate’s poster for them and vacuum up the dirt they spilled. they realize they don’t hate their other roommate sometimes. they tell their parents they love them and can’t wait to be home. they treat themself to pearl tea after a final. they try to make friends— 408, do you want to smoke my froggy pipe on the clark kerr roof? no, i’ve never been. take me there.

i’ve been writing, just not posting. i hate everything i write. honestly. i have to redo my whole novel. my friends and family still won’t read it even though i press. i don’t know why i want them to. it’s not good and the first half is endlessly boring. my grandma’s friend offered to help me edit it and said it was so boring she wanted to make up an excuse to stop. it was constructive, i’ll give her that. certainly got the message through.

i could be the burnout novelist but i know i’m not. remember that time we wrestled in PE? unstoppable force versus immovable object, you said. i’ve always been the unstoppable force. you’ve always been the immovable object. we both have roots at home but i’ve always felt the need to run, and you stay trapped. but in other ways, i think, our roles are reversed. my point is that i could be the burnout novelist but i don’t know how to give up. giving up has never been an option. i get everything i want. the problem stems from my love for the chase.

look. i’m not talking to you as a friend here. i’m talking to you as a fan; you’re not supposed to take any notice of me. i just admire your work. i relate to it. i write to you now like i’d write to… fucking mitski or siken or someone. better yet, a priest in a wooden box. there’s a leash around my neck. i cant stand it, but that’s stupid. i’m happy, i just hate the restraint. i want to do things solely because i’m not supposed to— i want to be rash but i’m not. i want to be angry, sometimes, but i never am. just tired when she’s mad for a reason i don’t understand.

i don’t know why you were so mad about the trash. lately i’ve been wanting to fight back. i’m bad sometimes. bad dogs bite. you make me want to gnaw the leash. i’ve never been the victim.

#mine

[yukipri]

I wasn't sure if someone had asked before so I think I spent an hour searching through your blog cuz I didn't want to be obnoxious by asking a question you've answered before, I couldn't find anything, and I'm so sorry if you HAVE answered this before cuz I'm not trying to be obnoxious I'm so sorry. But my questions: Do you mainly ship ASL as a trio, or are you also cool with SabAce as a duo ship? Do you have and lesbian ships you like? Who's your favorite emperor [aside from Luffy cuz, I mean, duh]. What do you think Ace and Sabo's bounty's would be post timeskip where Ace DOESN'T, you know, die? And what are your thoughts on Dragon as a character as well as his relationship with Sabo and Luffy? [Mostly I was trying to think of interesting questions that might entertain you. I love you and your work and appreciate how open and genuinely nice you seem btw!]

Thanks so much for going through my blog! Honestly I don’t mind answering questions again, and if I remember that I’ve answered it recently, I’ll just redirect you to that answer! So it’s no biggie, don’t let that stress you out! (same goes to anyone else who may be concerned about the same thing!)

That being said, I do ask that questions that you might want more detailed answers for be sent in separate asks, as it makes it easier for me to link to the headcanons masterpost if I end up writing an essay, and makes it easier for me to find time to answer bits of questions I DO have answers for, while giving me time to take time answering others. I don’t at all mind a spam of like, a dozen separate asks! I won’t consider it spam at all, and will be flattered that you want to talk to me ^ ^ (in fact, I just updated my askbox thing to make this a lil more clear! It’s not a big deal, just you’re defs not the only person who’s done multiple questions per ask, and it’s just a bit more convenient for me ^ ^;)

That being said, all these are pretty short so I’ll try to give short answers to these too to keep them to this one post ^ ^;

Do you mainly ship ASL as a trio, or are you also cool with SabAce as a duo ship?

Romantically, I ship Ace and Sabo exclusively with Luffy. That being said, I ship Sabo and Ace platonically with each other just as hard as I ship them with Lu. I really feel they’re a well balanced trio who love each other equally. In fact, I’d say my preferred take of Ace + Sabo really pushes that platonic line, more Queer Platonic if anything. Patreon peeps have already seen what I mean by this, but non-Patreon peeps will begin to see that interaction more starting On the Courtship Part 9!

Do you have and lesbian ships you like?

I have several low-key ones, like I think Vivi x Nami’s cute, Shirahoshi x Mansherry etc. But the ones I’d say I actually ship are All the Gals x fem!Lu LOL (since Mermaid AU does contain Nami x Lu, Koala x Lu, and Vivi x Lu among its ships ^ ^; Idk, I don’t really ship them when Lu’s a guy bc most of these gals give me Gay Vibes, but when Lu’s a girl I DO ship them???)

Who's your favorite emperor [aside from Luffy cuz, I mean, duh].

Shanks and Whitebeard, surprise surprise LOL

What do you think Ace and Sabo's bounty's would be post timeskip where Ace DOESN'T, you know, die?

Depends on the specific circumstances that lead to Ace not dying, and exactly what he’s doing during and post timeskip (like in Mermaid AU, the government thinks that Ace is dead, and he’s sorta trying to keep his head down, so his bounty won’t have gone up, etc).

And what are your thoughts on Dragon as a character as well as his relationship with Sabo and Luffy?

Mixed feelings. I think he’s got the right things in mind at heart, and I’m glad someone’s trying to solve the root of the world’s problems by going directly for the World Government and Celestial Dragons. I think he clearly did a pretty great job raising Sabo, and has likely earned the respect of his followers.

I ALSO think he’s a fantastically SHITTY dad, for having Lu and then dumping him on GARP to raise, all the while doing things that he knows would put Luffy in the same situation as Ace, hated and hunted by the government for his heritage alone, which Luffy doesn’t even know about. Like, Roger at least has the excuse of being dead, but Dragon could have and should have done so much more for Lu. It’s lucky for him that he ended up with a kid who’s like the opposite of caring about daddy issues, but Lu could have very much turned into a 2nd Ace in terms of self-loathing if his personality was different. This’ll also be mentioned in Mermaid AU.

Hope those answer your questions! (and, also helps u see why it’s easier for me to get separate questions in separate asks ^ ^;)

Thank you so much for coming to talk to me!!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

#YukiPri replies #One Piece #Anonymous

[chisatowo]

please talk about why saimatsu wouldn’t work!! i’ve thought mostly about the shuichi aspect of it, but i’m curious what your thoughts are, especially on kaede’s end

Ok ok so!! Similarly to saimota, The main root of the relationship's problems would be how Shuichi over idolises them, but going into more detail on Kaede's side of thing, I just think that she.... Wouldn't handle it well. Not that Kaito did either, but she'd handle it badly in a different way. The main difference between Kaito and Kaede in this regard is that Katio wants to feel needed, and Kaede wants to be accepted. Its not a huge difference at first, but it would influence how they'd interact with Shuichi. Mainly, Kaede isn't as good at puting on a performance as Kaito is, and that Kaede does have some much more visible self loathing issues. They both feel the need to put on a show to stay on their pedestal, but Kaede doesn't feel like she deserves it in the first place, and I feel like she's snap way sooner because of this. The best case scenario for them in my mind is that she and Shuichi eventually distance themselves from each other until they're in a better place in those regards, but honestly I feel like they'd be more likely to fall into a cycle of Kaede getting overwhelmed and snapping at Shuichi, Shuichi getting super sad abt it, Kaede feeling bad and apologising as she sweeps all that under a rug, rinse and repeat. Idk if any of this makes sense, I'm not very good at this kind of analysis hdjsgs. Long story short; Kaede would hate Shuichi over idolising her but not know how to properly communicate that with him without immediately taking it back as to not upset him.

#rat answers #rat rants #anon

[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 9

Hello all, I am back with another exciting segment of Midnight Striga!! Admittedly, this one is slower than the prior chapter, but I still hope you all enjoy it.

Lilith strode forth, Eda hot on her heels. They circled through the Covention, spotting the representatives from the Major Nine assisting. The Construction Coven workers were rapidly working on structural damage dealt to key pillars and walls, members of the invading force held tightly by hastily assembled cells and chains, the Construction Head, and Lilith was genuinely puzzled as to where he had come from, looming over the invaders, personally guarding them. The Oracle, Healing, and Illusion Covens were working in concert, with the Oracles tracking down trapped or injured citizens while Illusionists either guided them to safety, or rescue workers to their locations, and the Healers had set up a clinic to attend to the injured.

The Plant and Abomination Covens worked to root out and capture the remaining attackers, many of whom were thrown into those same cells she had passed alongside the Construction Coven. The Beast Keeping Coven members used their abilities to track down and locate those stuck in areas inaccessible to the abilities of Oracles, allowing rescue workers to bring them to safety, the Bards using their magic to manipulate the pieces that the Construction members couldn’t move safely. The sight of the Covens working together, in harmony, brought a melancholy smile to Lilith’s face. Her mood plummeted further, however, when she saw the bodies.

Piles of corpses, so many they couldn’t lay them out properly and were overlapping in awkward lumps, were arranged before the Healers’ Clinic, families weeping over their loved ones, the ones who had been present with them at least. The rest would need to be informed. And not to mention the numerous corpses of Guards, some having died cleanly… others not so much. Titan, she really was a failure, wasn’t she? Shaking herself from her self-loathing, she turned to her sister. “Edalyn, I must ask, but do you have any idea what has occurred?”

“Well, from the looks of it, a huge fight.” Eda said, faux-humorously. Before Lilith could snap at her, she continued. “But seriously, while you were stuck in la-la land, that guy, Rudolph he called himself, said he and his group were part of the ‘Black Dog Squadron’ whatever that means, and that they were here to kill everyone for someone or something called Oroboros. Beyond that, I couldn’t say.” She recalled, face grave.

Lilith bit back a curse. Taking a deep, calming breath, she attempted to draw more information out of her sister; out of all the adults on the Isles, Eda’s knowledge of humans was estimated to be some of the best, by virtue of her regularly full stores of ‘treasures’ to sell. “Edalyn, I am begging you, if you have any knowledge of how this…” She gestured, to the corpses, to the crying parents and children, the ruined stands and damaged walls, ”all happened, I need you to tell me!” She pleaded.

Eda leveled an even stare on her sister, before slowly replying. “Lily, I had no idea how this happened, or what went into it occurring. As much as I hate Bonehead, if I had ANY idea that something like this was going on, I would’ve either let you know, or tried to stop it beforehand myself, maybe both.” Lilith searched her eyes, an almost desperate light burning within her, before sighing, accepting Eda’s words.

“As much as it pains me to say this, I will likely need your help for the moment.” Lilith said as evenly as she could, the bitter sting of acknowledging just how much her sister still outclassed her rearing its ugly head. “If any of these scavengers are still lurking about that are on the level of that maniac Rudolph, I will likely need your skill to defeat them before they can wreak further havoc.”

“Heh, glad to see you finally admitting my skills,” Eda preened, oblivious to Lilith's mood plummeting at her statement, before growing serious. “And yeah, of course. We may have had our differences, but I’m not gonna cut and run when kids are in the crossfire.”

Lilith nodded, relieved. She hated that she felt relieved; it was just another admittance of how Eda was better than her. Still, Lilith took in the sight of the dead guards, the mutilated children, and felt her resolve harden. It didn’t matter if Eda was better than her right now; justice was what was needed, and she would bring about that justice. She felt her eyes mist. It was the least she could do, as penance for failing them.

Throwing up her arms in confusion, Lilith exclaimed. “What I truly wish to know is how did Humans gain the ability to wield magic!? It should be impossible!! They lack a bile sack, so how did that-that maniac cast those spells!” She whirled on her sister. “Please tell me you didn’t know about this?”

Eda shrugged, feeling guiltily amused at Lilith’s flustered panic. “Eh, only for a few weeks or so. And let me tell you, it sure caught me by surprise!” She laughed. Eda paused, a thought occurring to her, but it was one she was hesitant to share. Biting her lip, she carefully broached the topic. “You know, I think I might know someone who could shed a little light on this whole mess.” She said cautiously.

Lilith zipped into Eda’s personal space, tightly gripping the front of her dress. “Truly!?” She asked, pleading honestly. “Where are they? Who are they!?”

“Well first off, personal space sis,” Eda bluntly stated, lightly pushing Lilith out of her comfort zone. Taking a breath, she added, “As to where they are, they honestly should be right here in the Covention.”

Lilith’s face fell, already fearing the worst. “But, if they were here, then wouldn’t they have had to face…” she gestured to one of the attackers being led to the cells, cackling insanely, “ Them?”

“Pffft! If goons like that were a serious problem, I’d be a little worried, but she’s crafty enough to stay alive, heck, she probably beat a few of them!” Eda cackled, before adding, with a hint of nervousness, “And, well, I hate that I got to ask this, Lily, but please keep an open mind when you meet her? Please?”

Lilith gave her sister a flat stare. “Edalyn, I have just had a rather large portion of my worldview regarding humans and the power and stability of the Isles torn out from under me, as have a large group of others. When word starts spreading, I have no doubt that more than a few people will either go into denial or mass hysteria.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Very little could properly phase me at the moment. So yes, Edalyn, I will keep an open mind.” She said the last part so dry and sarcastically that, if this weren’t serious, Eda would’ve been so proud to call them sisters. Eda nodded grudgingly, accepting her promise. With that, the two headed out. Eda really hoped the kid was okay.

Luz gasped and sputtered, nearly choking on her tears. Willow slowly rubbed circles on her back, calming some of her heaving and screams. Gus and Amity stood on the side, both feeling lost and awkward; neither was as close to Luz as Willow, but neither wanted to see the girl in such despair either. All three just wanted to know what was going on.

“Sshh… sshh… it’s gonna be okay.” Willow whispered, unbothered by the tears staining her dress; it had already been ruined from the blood and grime of the battlefield the Covention had turned into, but even if it was fresh and clean, Willow would gladly soil it for a friend to cry on. “You can talk to us, okay? And if you don’t want to, we’ll be here anyway.”

“She-She can’t be alive!!” Luz spluttered, tears clogging her throat. “She can’t be!! I can’t have abandoned her!” She wailed. It had to be a lie, it had to be!! Because, if it wasn’t… Luz would never be able to stop until she saved her, no matter what she’d have to do in order to do it.

“Who?” Amity hesitantly asked.

“My hostage.” Luz said glumly, her tears drying up for the moment. She reached into her jacket, pulling out a photo tucked inside, showing it to them, a watery smile forming on her face. “My sister.”

“Sister?” The group echoed, leaning forward. Staring back at them was a picture of Luz and, well, Luz! Or rather, they saw Luz standing by what they presumed was her identical twin. The two were still very much distinguishable from one another. The one on the left was clearly the Luz they knew, having a similar style, a wild and reckless grin stretched across her face. The one on the right, however, was shyly glancing away, a nervous smile on her face, hair tied back neatly with a pair of clips.

“Yeah, Vee.” Luz said, a melancholy look of remembrance on her face. “She was always my leash, even before I got drafted into Oroboros. Whenever I had some crazy idea, she’d talk me through it before I did something stupid.”

Willow and Gus sat down beside her, leaning close, Amity standing a respectful distance behind them, clearly listening. Luz continued. “One time, I got this idea to make home-made Lacrimas by shoving a bunch of magic into one spot, and Vee reminded me that neither of us knew how Lacrimas formed, and just stuffing magic into things blew them up.” She snickered, a tear tracing down her cheek. “And this one time, I was gonna try and tame a Wyvern, I actually went out and did it even! But then, Vee reminded me we had nowhere to keep it, and no way to feed it, so I found it a nice hunting ground, and convinced it to defend a nearby town.” She laughed out loud, a heavy, full-belly laugh that sent her sprawling, tears leaking.

She paused, tears in her eyes. “She was my best friend, the person who made every day away from home something bearable. She was my anchor, my rock, and Oroboros used her against me.” Her fingers dug into her hand, a pained look crossing her features. “If she’s actually been alive this whole time…” Her tears were cut off when Willow and Gus hugged her, both having tears of their own.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll get through this.” Willow stated, pulling away and looking Luz straight in the eye. “Oroboros is going to keep coming after the Isles, so you’ll probably get an answer one way or another. And either way, I’ll be right by your side.”

“And the same goes for me!” Gus chimed in. “Plus, my dad’s a reporter, so I can help find out new info for you to go off of!”

“And if I am available, I would not be averse to using my magic to fight against those who’ve threatened the Isles. Rescuing an innocent will be a nice bonus, I’d say.” Amity primly stated, sporting a confident look.

Luz gave the three an almost awestruck look. “You guys.”

“GET AWAY FROM THEM!!” A voice screamed, drawing their attention. Luz’s eyes widened as Lilith Clawthorne, Eda’s apparent sister, rocketed towards her, staff glowing with magic, her eyes burning with rage. Before she could smash Luz’s face in, however, Eda jumped in, tackling her sister to the ground.

“Sheesh, Lily! Chill out!” Eda cried, desperately wrestling her sister to the ground. “I told you to keep an open mind, remember?”

“What does that have to do with-” Lilith ranted, only to pause, eyes widening in realization. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She groaned, hanging her head as Eda sheepishly chuckled.

“U-um… Eda, what’s happening?” Luz tentatively asked.

Eda really wanted to ask Luz why she’d been crying, but decided to put it off, focusing on the current issue. “Well,” She drawled, “My prissy sis here wanted info on everything that happened. And after thinking it over, I thought you’d be the best person to give it to her.” Eda stated, pointing at Luz decisively. As unbalanced as Luz’s emotions were at the moment, she could see the logic in that.

“Seriously!?” Gus cried, incredulous. “After what she just learned!?”

Eda blinked. “What? What’d she learn?” She asked, figuring that whatever it was was the reason behind Luz’s tears.

“Something we can talk about later. In. Private.” Luz stated, her face screaming ‘let it go for now!’ Eda grudgingly agreed.

“Ugh, can we please move back on to the topic of information?” Lilith growled, pulling herself up. She loomed over Luz, a suspicious glare emblazoned across her features. “I have a great many questions for you, human.”

“And I’m perfectly willing to answer them, Miss Clawthorne.” Luz replied, unblinking. She glanced around, taking note of the damage around them. “But maybe it’d be better if we went somewhere more private for this?”

Lilith nodded, seeing the logic in that. “Indeed, better we not be interrupted.” She turned to her sister. “If that is acceptable for you, Edalyn?” She asked, getting a shrug and a nod in return, the Witchlings following Eda’s lead. Lilith clapped her hands. “Well then, we’d better be going back to the main center, as I recall seeing the Covens building something of a camp there to deal with the aftermath of this mess. The Healer’s Clinic should have a room we can use.” And with that the group set off, a tension running through them after their collective ordeal.

Emira paced, frantically glancing about the interior of the Healer’s Station, Edric gloomily slumped next to her. Her eyes scanned the nearby groups, hoping to spot something, anything, that could give her some hint as to where her sister was. She and Edric knew she was here, but where had she disappeared to after being displayed up there with Lilith was the real question.

“Could you please stop pacing, sis?” Edric groaned, clutching his head. “It’s not going to just make her appear if you keep doing it.”

Emira whirled on her brother, fire in her eyes. “Well what do you expect me to do!? Maniacs barged into the Covention, massacred who knows how many people, and OUR SISTER IS MISSING!!! I don’t have a lot of options right now, now do I?” She brutally snapped, briefly yelling in the middle of it, before fading into a broken tiredness. All those people, those kids, all gone. If her sister was gone like that, and her only memories were of her and Edric pranking her… She looked into Edric’s eyes, and saw the same fear, the hopeless, helpless realization that Amity may be gone, and her only memories of them would be of all the times they gave her trouble.

Edric sighed, tiredly rubbing his eyes. “Believe me sis, I get it, but all we can do is wait, and hope she’s okay.” He patted the spot next to him, a clear invitation to sit. Emira gave one last furtive look around, and glumly complied. The two briefly wondered just how their parents would take all of this.

Bria bit her lip, glancing over at Gavin and Angmar. She didn’t consider them friends, not really. Maybe she’d change that? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure about much right now. She… had been made helpless. Magic like nothing she’d ever seen had been on display, and a LOT of people were dead. She, Gavin, and Angmar WOULD be dead. If it hadn’t been for Matty. Matty; goofy, clumsy, always taking the fall, boasting about his skills Matty, had saved their lives. Tears pricked her eyes, as she remembered how close she’d come to death, the sheer heartlessness on display. Was that what she was like? Some kind of monster? ...Was that what everyone was like at Glandus, behind all the excuses about being powerful?

“Hey, I got your drink!” Matty cheerfully replied, holding a glass out to her.

Bria shot him a half-hearted smile. “Thanks Matty.”

“Eh, it’s no problem.” He said, waving it off. “After all, we’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, friends.” Bria muttered, sipping her drink. Maybe… they really were friends. She’d have to talk to Angmar and Gavin about this. Maybe Hexside was still taking transfers.

Skara listlessly handed supplies to Bo, who was frantically patching up as many injuries as she could. Skara just felt so tired, so hollow. So many people had died. She’d seen little kids ripped apart, their parents crying over their bodies. She’d seen the opposite too, parents being cried over by their kids and family members.

Skara only had eyes for one thing, though. Boscha. Boscha was propped up on a bunk, at least two rows away, but still in Skara’s line of sight. She’d been brought in by a little demon, screaming and demanding that someone help her. Skara felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought that it wasn’t her demanding that someone heal her friend. Oh, wait, they weren’t friends anymore. It still hurt to think about, even though talking with Amity helped. The demon was hovering around Boscha, ranting and ordering around anyone and everyone who got close. In the back of her mind, Skara was honestly impressed at how unrelenting and exacting he was with his demands, even if no one was following them.

Then, Skara caught sight of another body brought in, another corpse. It was Batthew, a nice guy who had flirted with her a few times before. He was sweet, in his own way, and was really fond of going over the top. His throat had been slashed open. Skara didn’t fight the tears as they came.

Lilith pulled up a seat, eyes glaring daggers at the human seated before her. One way or another, she was going to get the answers she needed. She briefly spared a glance at Perry Porter, a known and well-viewed reporter upon the Isles, and one known for being unabashedly honest and direct in his reporting, something that earned him several points with the populous, as they knew they could trust his information. The boy, Augustus, had called him in after they’d gotten to the emergency clinic the Healers had established, citing a need for the people to understand what had happened. Thinking of her own impending reveal to the public, Lilith had agreed. If all turned out well, both could be accomplished together.

Lilith leaned forward. “Now then, human, it’s time for you to answer my questions. The People of the Isles are dying to hear what you have to say.” She said, eyes half-lidded.

Luz placed her hands on her chin, a brave smile on her face. “Ask away. I’m all ears.”

#the owl house #fairy tail #owl house au #fairy tail au #owl house crossover #fairy tail crossover #lilith clawthorne #eda clawthorne #luz noceda #willow park #amity blight #gus porter #perry porter #edric blight #emira blight #king the owl house #boscha the owl house #skara the owl house #bria the owl house #angmar the owl house #gavin the owl house #mattholomule #magic #bo the owl house

[creations-of-a-potato]

You've been visited by the random OC question fairy! :D ~☆

Has your character ever hurt or been hurt by a friend? What were the repercussions from this incident? Did the friendship survive?

hi!!!

oh boy :)

again, still on my Supernatural hyperfixation

lets go with Role Swap

Israfel

so, Israfel was friends with Abel & Cain (Abel more so) and after Abel's death (which was an actual accident here, Abel found Cain talking to Michael a.k.a. the Devil and the two got into a fight. Cain accidentally shoved Abel too hard, Abel lost his footing on rocks and tree roots and cracked his skull open.) Israfel tried to bring Abel back but it went. Wonky and Wrong.

Then during the Rebellion, she met Delilah and eventually Delilah was killed because of the two's relationship. Israfel did Not handle it well. She bound the souls of Delilah's murderers to the earth so they couldn't be reaped, which put her near the top of Death's shitlist.

After Delilah's death, she deserted Heaven and wandered. She buried all the parts of her that wanted to heal and help under her pain and grief. Honestly, she's fairly ashamed of how she acted during this. She was in a lot of pain, grieving, crushed by guilt and feeling broken. She lashed out and wanted to make those around her hurt as much as she did, usually by physically hurting them. She had exactly one friend that she could talk to during this and she avoided the HECK out of him.

Eventually she ran into Cain and she didn't really think about what she was saying. She just wanted to make people hurt and, hey, physically hurting people isn't helping the pain, maybe psychologically hurting people will.

She told him,

"Cain. No matter how much Abel loved you or forgave you, you killed him. People like us do that. We kill everyone we touch."

And Cain (being of the Eden bloodline and the Winchesters ancestor) already had a BIG guilt issue and self-loathing problem. So he already believed that, and just internalized it more.

She apologizes (genuinely) later but like. 500,000 years later. By that time, he has a better grasp on what her mental state was like then (Delilah being killed for loving her, Colette being killed because Cain loved her) and understands why she did that. So he forgives her, but she doesn't forgive herself.

See, when she tried to bring Abel back, she talked to Abel before his soul Went Off. He asked her to give Cain a message for him and try and get him away from Michael if she could. She neither gave Cain the message nor tried to get Cain away from Michael (not that either would have handled that well, hello unhealthy and desperate possessiveness because both are walking the edge of stability and collapse and are the only thing holding the other back and they're terrified of what'll happen if one falls off the edge)

uhhh im legit fallinv asleep here, so im gonna go to bed and reread this in the morning and check ot for mistakes and junk

OH NO i just reread the ask and, I answered it backwards!!

uhh, I'll reblog this tomorrow with the more correct answer, or smth I'm tired

always happy to see you Fae!!

#random oc questions fairy #potato answers #supernatural #oc #spn oc #ch: issy

[potatopossums]

Insecurity and Boundaries: A Necessary Coexistence

Content Warning:

This post includes discussions / mentions of:

bodily insecurities, explicitly including dysmorphia, dysphoria, and implicitly including but not limited to eating disorders, weight

childhood trauma including shame, humiliation, fear

coping mechanisms, both healthy and unhealthy, including anxious avoidance, projection, masking, reflection

mentioned references to all of the above through lenses of morality, cis white feminism and sexualized body positivity

adhd

—

Author's Note:

Written through the lens of adhd, anxiety, depression, queerness, transness, nonbinaryness, aromanticism, alterous attraction, and as always, questioning.

—

Ngl I've had the opportunity to date/"be with" (in whatever capacity) several quite attractive ppl, and the last couple have been great examples of something that actually kind of triggers me / turns me off.

I didn't really know what to make of it then, and I felt bad about it then too because I thought I was just being judgy. Not saying some of that isn't potentially still there, but i think i understand better now.

It honestly kind of scares me when I have the opportunity to have close relationships with people with bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia or strong insecurities. My brain has a really bad habit of being reflective when I'm feeling vulnerable. I just match people. It's a way of masking while relating to people. It's a defense mechanism. But it feels quite real in the moment and i often don't realize it's happening until it has already happened.

But as a nonbinary person who gets misgendered a lot at work, I've spent a lot of time now very acutely aware of my own body (as if i wasn't already). I don't tend to hate my body in a vacuum. I actually enjoy my body. I like how it looks in certain clothes; I like how I can trick the eye and make it look another way with other clothes, and then surprise, it's a different body underneath! I like how my body feels when i masturbate, i like how my body feels in the warm sun, i like how my body feels when i self-soothe. Even when I'm in pain, in some of those moment, i like that my body exists because I know something is happening inside me, something systematic and programmed, something beyond me that does it's evolutionary purpose, no matter how flawed. I've always had a curiosity about bodies in general (gender and sex completely aside). So when i say i love my body, i mean that.

Does it mean i don't struggle with dysphoria? Of course i struggle. And it makes me feel like shit.

Sure, I've got that Cis White Feminist Self-Loathing Intervention Voice in my head that says "all bodies are beautiful" (and she really means all women are beautiful but I'll co-opt her lines to fit my agenda). That voice is problematic because like. I like being beautiful, but why do I want to be beautiful, and what happens when I'm not beautiful? How do I guage whether I'm beautiful at any given moment? Isn't that largely subjective even with an overarching cultural & social standard? When I feel "ugly" — my cowlicks sticking up, teeth unbrushed, i feel too short, i feel i look too childish, I'm afraid my boobs are showing in a way i don't want to be seen, etc. — who's to say that someone else doesn't find some of those things attractive? So attractiveness is a poor method of confidence, despite how influential it still is on my brain and personality. That influence is fear based.

All that in mind, when I hear other people struggling with their bodies, especially in a Trans/Non-Binary/Dysphoric way, it really scares me. I mean, any bodily struggles scare me because I have my own insecurities to deal with. And when I'm in that state of really wanting to keep a connection because abandonment trauma + adhd, my vulnerable brain says that in order to impress someone, I must reflect relatably. So that has me digging back into my bodily insecurities. And I explore them as if I should be feeling them.

Let me unpack that. I'm avoidant with my anxieties. I don't talk about them, and I don't think about them much if I can help it, because when I think about them, that result can be largely painful, dramatic, and too emotionally volatile for me to handle. I always want to look put together, I want to feel secure enough to not need to ask for help, because those few times it went badly when I asked for help still stick with me (regardless of how long ago those moments were, and regardless of how many good times I've had where received actual help since). I remember the embarrassment and humiliation, the shame, the fear, the guilt. I remember wanting to make myself smaller, and how crushing that felt to do. I remember how little I understood of these wild and complex emotions, and all I knew was that I felt violated and disgusting. And I turned that inward. Because I had no external support.

So me saying that I explore my anxieties "as if I should be feeling them" is multi-pronged. It's Cis White Feminist Body Positivity, it's all those family members who modeled and normalized self-hatred for me from a young age, it's bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia at being misgendered, it's me trying to convince myself that my body truly is okay and that my negative inner voice doesn't know what it's talking about due to it's poor influences, and it's me ultimately not being able to reconcile all that on my own (or fast enough, thanks adhd) and resorting to anxious avoidance of my insecurities as if that solves them.

And then, when I hear someone I might kind of want to be intimate with start to talk about their insecurities, my brain panics. It says, "If you go in there, you will lose it. You will fall into the same hole they're in. You will have to suffer just as much for them, and for yourself. You will lose all your energy and you will start to hate yourself. They will treat your body the way they treat their body. You will be made to hate yourself."

And even though I know plenty of people with dysphoria/dysmorphia and other bodily struggles absolutely won't do those sorts of things, I also know that projection is a thing. And considering how poor I am at boundaries and how I tend to adopt unhealthy relationship dynamics due to my avoidance, I know that it would just start a bad cycle for me. Even with all the empathy and understanding in the world, I simply cannot root myself in a situation that would cause me to loathe myself.

And again, in case this wasn't clear: this is absolutely not a statement about people with bodily confidence issues as a whole. I am not trying to villainize or demonize or moralize their experiences. That is markedly the opposite of what I intend here.

But it took a long time for me to get to this point in my self-awareness. And i wanted to share it because i want other people to be able to reach an understanding of themselves too, whatever that understanding might entail. Yeah, it's a little cliche, but our projections and fears about others can have a lot to do with our fears about ourselves. It's important to be self-aware, even if that doesn't immediately solve the problem(s).

I tend to really like confident people because of this. That attraction has it's own roots in confidence issues, and its own potential flaws. And until I can change my own avoidant anxiety, I'm going to find new ways to project my avoidance and shame onto others, regardless of whether they are confident or unconfident, dysphoric or not.

But, just because I'm projecting doesn't mean that I'm unworthy of boundaries. Even if my behaviors are unhealthy, even if I do need to work to change those things (and even though I actively want to change those things), it is still healthy for me to know my limits. It's healthy to know what triggers me. It's good for me to realize these things and step back, even if the relationship I'm leaving/not starting is arguably "good." (And that assumption is a whole other topic for another post.)

So, along with whatever other epiphanies you might have received from this read, here's my major takeaway that I want to leave you with:

Your boundaries are okay. Even if they're based in anxiety, even if they're based in unhealthy coping mechanisms, even if you want to change your unhealthy behaviors/mindset. Your boundaries do not need to pass any social justice or morality tests in order to be valid. Your boundaries do not have to "make you grow." Your boundaries are not bad, even if you feel like they keep you from being the best version of yourself.

The only way you can actually grow is if you respect yourself enough to respect and enforce your boundaries. The only way you can feel comfortable and happy and healthy is if you respect your boundaries.

So please do that for yourself. Please respect your boundaries. I know it's very hard, especially for people-pleasers. I know it's hard for you avoidant types. I know it's hard for those of us who mask and reflect.

But please, just a little bit at a time, respect yourself. Even if that means disappointing or hurting others with a "no."

And please, please, please surround yourself with people who respect your boundaries and stand up for you. Of all the work I've tried to do alone, nothing compares to the effectiveness and growth I've experienced when I've been around radically affirming people — people who fought for my right to say no; people who defended my boundaries no matter what they entailed; people who stood up for my pronouns at work; people who validated my life experiences, labels, queerness, and questioning. It can be difficult to find people like that in real life, but please stay in the company of people who do that for you. Even if they're online. Stay near people who model self-respect for you. They will help you practice how to treat yourself.

—

#tw body insecurity #tw dysphoria #tw dysmorphia #tw eating disorder #adhd #masking #reflecting as a coping mechanism #trauma #relationships #alterous attraction #questioning aromantic #nonbinary #agender #queer

[aidanchaser]

Character Profile: Remus John Lupin Canon: friends with James, Sirius, and Peter; Gryffindor prefect; excellent in Defense Against the Dark Arts; a patient professor; loved Tonks; a werewolf AU: Remus' character arc has always been the most clear to me. I knew what I would do with Remus before I knew what I would do with Harry or Regulus or anyone else. You can see the beginnings of his arc as early as Chapter 4 of Philosopher's Stone when he and Lily see Hagrid out.

Lily and Remus walked Hagrid to the door, and Harry went to wait for everyone in the parlor. He heard a quiet conversation between Lily and Uncle Remus, but only the tail end of it, "I understand, Lily —" and her response of, "But you shouldn't. That's what we want you to understand."

I didn't talk about the criticism I've received for how I write Lily (some of it very valid), but I do want to touch one piece of criticism I have gotten about Remus, which is often something along the lines of, "If James and Lily and Sirius all survived, and stayed with him through adulthood, Remus wouldn't hate himself so much."

I did take that thought into account when I began the series. I thought heavily about who Remus is when he is not alone, when he is established in a community, when he has people who can look out for him. I thought about my own mental health, and how that doesn't go away just because I have good friends. I thought about how injustice doesn't go away, even if your closest friends stand with you. I thought about how we internalize oppression, and since I'm writing this post fresh out of a conference on combating systemic injustice and teaching students to recognize and fight oppression, those ideas are all very present in my mind. I kept Remus' self-loathing because it made sense to me that it would persist, despite his friends.

All of Remus' conversations with Sirius and Tonks echo this deeply rooted self-loathing, and I think understanding the depth of those roots is key to understanding Remus. I had never planned on bringing Lyall Lupin into Deathly Hallows, and I don't know when exactly it occurred to me that I should, but I am so glad that I did because that truly is how deep these roots go. We pass on our fears and hate to our children so easily, no matter how much we might try not to, might try to hide them, children know. If we truly want to change the future, we have to change ourselves.

This is an everyone lives AU, so, spoiler, Remus lives. But what is so key to Remus living is that he gets to grow and work through both his understanding of himself and his relationship with the Wizarding World. And if he can't heal himself, he will pass on the same faults to his children, just as his father passed that internalized fear and hatred onto him.

Which brings us to Teddy and Tonks. I always knew that Teddy would exist. He had to. So I knew that Remus would end up with Tonks. I waffled for a while on what I would do with Sirius, and, honestly, Sirius' conclusion has changed several times just in the few months I have been writing Deathly Hallows. I won't say more on it, but I hope people trust me to be as delicate and kind with Sirius' character as I have been with Remus' development.

There were originally notes for Teddy to be a werewolf, or for Remus and Tonks to have a second child who was a werewolf. It always pained me to watch Remus agonize over his unborn child being like him, and for that fear to be unrealized in such a complete way... But, as terrible as werewolfism as a metaphor for HIV is, I want to honor at the bare minimum Remus' realness as an outcast with a very specific curse that has such limited treatment. With that in mind, I could find no known case of someone with HIV fathering (for lack of an ungendered word) a child with HIV. So I will find another way for Remus' growth beyond his father's mistakes to be realized in the end of Deathly Hallows.

I don't want to say much more on Remus' growth and development, because a lot of that will be coming on June 5, when I release Chapter 11, and I want to let that chapter speak for itself.

The last note I do want to make is, as I did for all the Marauders (and Lily), I gave Remus pieces of myself. My own self-loathing and depression is so present in Remus, my absolute worst days go to him (and to Sirius, but in a different way). The thoughts where I feel utterly hopeless and overwhelmed and unworthy are the thoughts I have given to Remus. The coping mechanisms, the friendships that have uplifted me through that, and the conversations I have with my dear friends are the foundation of Remus' relationship with the Marauders. I only hope that bit of myself and my world that I give to them brings them to life in your mind.

Character Notes: friends with Firenze; once had a conversation about death with Sir Nick Remadora: First he was amused, then impressed, then smitten

Addendum: I forgot how meager Remus' notes were. I don't know that I will ever get to touch on the relationship I imagined for Remus and Firenze, nor Remus and Nearly Headless Nick. I had always imagined that both had lengthy conversations with Remus following the death of his mother and helped him grieve during a time when he did not feel able to turn to any of his friends. I always wanted to do more with Firenze, who would have an entirely different relationship with Remus' furry little problem, and probably would have been even better at helping Remus understand himself and trust himself than James and Sirius. But I am not sure it will come up.

Trust me, it is not lost on me that I am writing this fic to expand on a universe I felt was so unexplored, and here I am, failing to explore all that I want to explore.

#personal #remus lupin #harry potter everyone lives #hp everyone lives #hp au blogging #my art

[fannishcodex]

Some sketches/brainstorming for a Role Swap AU where Kipo’s the older, abandoned experimental subject, and a younger Hugo isn’t left behind.

Due to being 17-18 and various other AU reasons, Role Swap!Kipo (or “Futura”) has greater control over transforming her body and can even shift it into more intermediate stages, i.e. looking more like a normal sentient mute like Jamack, the Timbercats, etc.

(Her face reminds me more of a jackal than a jaguar at the moment, but I was honestly enjoying the jackal-esque look more. Also thought it made her look more distinct from her Mega/Full Mega forms, and I was also considering possible subtleties in shapeshifting mechanics. May try to change up her face later though.)

In this Role Swap AU, Project Kipo actually went through official channels and was approved by the DNA Burrow as an alternative to the ongoing failure of the mutagen trials with animal subjects. (Dr. Emilia was outvoted and outmaneuvered.)

More Role Swap AU sketches/brainstorming under the cut:

Song still ends up mutated due to side-effects of the pregnancy and still gets stuck as a Mega after a failed field test on the surface when Project Kipo is one year old. The fallout of that included effectively abandoning Project Kipo, though it didn’t reach the extreme of destroying the specimen. The experimental subject was kept around, generally confined to the labs in response to concerns held by the majority of the DNA Burrow over the high-profile failure and rampant fear it sparked. Emilia tried to find some practical application for the defunct project, over which she now had full control. Lio lost parental rights, and sometimes got approval for limited visits. (One serious escape attempt was made and ended in failure.)

So Kipo is Hugo’s older sister.

Some more detail on AU reasons for Kipo’s greater control over her jaguar shapeshifting and powers: Emilia tried to train her as a tool/weapon from a young age, Kipo was born mutated, Kipo eventually finds another way to balance her jaguar and human sides, BUT she does have an anchor--it’s Hugo. Eventually the thought of him is enough for her to maintain control.

After begging and doing well with academic tutors, a 12-year-old Kipo was allowed to assist with mutagen trials on the animals; she was motivated by something Emilia told her since she was little, that the trials could help cure Kipo of her mutation. Kipo instead ends up bonding with the young mandrill, especially when he does gain sentience. (The formula mutates Hugo faster, happening when he’s a few months old, when he’s smaller/size of a small child and before his facial markings grow in.) Outside of a strained relationship with Lio and a messy, manipulative, abusive situation with Emilia, Kipo has been very isolated. Hugo is someone else to add to her limited social circle, and the mandrill child has shown her the most affection, the simplest and warmest affection. Kipo goes to great lengths to hide she’s a part jaguar mute from Hugo because he is literally the only one in her life who doesn’t know about her mutation, and practically everyone fears her for it and it’s the root of so many of her problems. She even makes Lio promise not to tell Hugo.

When Kipo turns 13, various things lead to a veritable repeat of her mother, with her going completely Mega for the first time and losing all control in spite of Emilia’s brutal safeguards, and Kipo’s separated from Hugo and Lio.

Lio truly cannot find Kipo, but there are other unfortunate factors--an encounter with Mega!Role Swap!Kipo while carrying an unconscious and injured Hugo made Lio truly afraid of his daughter because she looked as lost as Song when she went Mega, she looked ready to devour them both and he realized how very much he could not bear that fate for Hugo. After everything, Lio’s rather colder in this AU, more cynical, but he realizes he’s truly grown to see Hugo as his youngest child, and he becomes so utterly afraid that Kipo’s jaguar side will end up killing Hugo. And Lio knows how much Kipo cares for Hugo, it would be too awful if she accidentally killed him while not in her right mind. And Lio remembers Song lost inside her Mega mutation, it looks like the same has happened to Kipo. Lio tries to take an extended search for her, and leaves Hugo behind with some *allies they made, but--well, Hugo still has the mutated pheromones, and Emilia eventually figures that out. Lio and co. rescue Hugo from Emilia, and Lio just--Lio just can’t leave Hugo alone like that again, he has to stay and protect him (especially since Emilia escaped again). And Lio remembers Song losing her self when she went Mega, he believes the same has happened to Kipo...

Even when Hugo grows older, Lio resists telling him the whole truth because he doesn’t want his youngest to even try looking for a Mega Jaguar mute for fear he’ll only get himself eaten by a Mega who’s lost all sense of her former self.

(*More on these allies in the AU later, but I think they can be guessed...)

For various AU reasons, Role Swap!Kipo travels way up north (San Praesidia) and falls in with a gang of big cats--lions, tigers, cheetahs, etc. She eventually becomes their leader when she gains better control over her powers and can overwhelm them with her great strength as a Mega. With Kipo commanding them, they eventually conquer their northern surroundings, and then start moving down to Las Vistas. The big cat gang is generally fashion forward and fixated on something like modernism, and they become even more inclined toward the future when Kipo/”Futura” takes over.

(Kipo decides on “Futura” due to reading up more on Song’s research after she returned once to the ruined DNA Burrow before she wound up in the north. Her mother’s references to Kipo as “the future of humanity” left an impression on her...)

By 17-18, Role Swap!Kipo appears visibly cheerful and very eccentric and enjoys trying on different outfits and music. While awkward and earnest in her initial attempts with others on the surface, after having a pivotal mental breakdown before she took control over the big cat gang, she’s now better at manipulating others with charm and chatter besides always having Mega force at her disposal. She dabbles in chemistry, but loathes astronomy. (She still made a replica of Hugo’s star blanket during one of her low moods, she only likes that stylized image of stars in relation to her brother.) Her hatred for Emilia is more clear and more intense now. She hates every human from the DNA Burrow. She pretty much loathes all humans. She hates Lio for the abandonment after she destroyed the burrow, but even more for what happened before and for helping mutate her in the first place and turning her into a living science experiment. She hates Song more than Lio, though she’s never properly met her--actually, because she’s never properly met her. 

(Completely off topic: Yes I got tired and just made all the Role Swap!Kipo sketches pink. XD But I also thought it was a little stylistically nice? Also felt Hugo needed more colors because of distinctive mandrill markings, not just ‘cause he’s my fav? I mean, I’m pretty sure there was more to it, but who knows what my gut really felt. XD)

Role Swap!Hugo is sweet, shy, earnest, awkward, and very anxious. He tries to hide his mutated pheromones, which Lio and allies they’ve made on the surface have told him to only use for emergencies, and to be mindful that it only works on primates, it won’t help him with everyone. He’s very fond of the dark-feathered flamingo twins he tamed enough and befriended enough to ride, and whom he named Evangeline and Katherine. He enjoys music, art, history, reading, and historical fashion...he still has a soft spot for kings and such, but definitely doesn’t think it would ever be for him just due to public speaking alone, and he also prefers to keep that between him and the memory of his sister, whom he still deeply misses and grieves.

Role Swap!Hugo loves Lio, but things can get strained between them due to trauma in their family history, lingering insecurities, heavy issues, like--as he gets older, Role Swap!Hugo knows Lio is refusing to tell him everything that happened in the DNA Burrow, and Hugo feels he’s old enough to know the truth, if him being too young was Lio’s only reason for secrecy. And...and Hugo’s old enough to try looking for Kipo, maybe she’s alive and missing; Hugo knows he was too young before, but he’s older now, why doesn’t father even want to try?... But Hugo guiltily reconsiders and worries it’s too much for Lio who was able to really search before, and Lio maybe just can’t deal with anymore heartache.

But Role Swap!Hugo wants to try...    

Role Swap!Kipo is very convinced she’s right. When she finally reunites with Hugo, she’s convinced she knows what’s best for her baby brother, and she thinks it’ll be better for Hugo if Lio were out of the picture because he was one of several scientists who experimented on both of them. That’s unforgivable, unavoidable. There’s no ignoring that. And making things worse, Lio still has too much control over Hugo--how can her poor brother ever be free of Lio if he’s still around? No, their dad should be out of the picture, just like Song.

(Hugo had dreamed of Kipo’s survival, but he had never imagined this.)

#kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #scarlemagne #kipo oak #hugo oak #kataowb #my fanart #my fanfic #role swap au

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with:  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER.  Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There.  I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life.  I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable.  It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv.  So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.”  That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.”  But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot.  That snuck up on me!  And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but.  God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo?  Like, she's just unearthly beautiful.  But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman.  And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay!  But – no he's not?  He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks?  Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr.  But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh.  It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place.  I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4!  It's season 4!  I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4!  I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus.  I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong.  The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be.  I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like.  I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere.  God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time.  Just.  Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project.  I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me.  I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia!  In my way, I love and support Julia!  But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster.  I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb.  I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy.  He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion.  But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending.  For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

#the magicians