#fucking is the LAST thing on his mind and that's not even subtext it's just text if you read any red hood focused stuff and i do mean ANY

[jasontoddssuper]

"It's normal for guys Jason's age to be super h*rny and k!nky so that's why the fandom potrays him that way!!"Hey dudes,i'm gonna let you in on a little secret,a super special one that you get to know if you actually read comics:JASON ISN'T FUCKING NORMAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#he literally got murdered at 15 had no friends his age from then on until he was 19 and has had 2 s/os and slept with neither #fucking is the LAST thing on his mind and that's not even subtext it's just text if you read any red hood focused stuff and i do mean ANY #genuinely how do you guys look at his coping mechanisms and life and go 'ah yes he's clearly getting down and dirty on a regular basis' #LIKEEEEEEEE it dosen't matter that he could if he wanted to because the fact is he DOSEN'T want to!!he wants FRIENDS and MENTAL PEACE #'parental issues' my ass you just wanna fuck trauma survivors without having to think of us as people.choke!!! #jason todd #pro jason todd #jayrose #jayeddie #jaytemis #jaykyle #bi jason todd #pan jason todd #demi jason todd #trans jason todd #agender jason todd #black jason todd #latino jason todd #afrolatino jason supremacy #he's also autistic/adhd/mdd #robin #red hood #star sapphire jason #red reaper #spider mutant jason #batfam #dc #lemon #letters from summer

[anistarrose]

The thing about the Heart Attack segment in Wonderland is that they put so much aromantic subtext in it. They accidentally put SO much aromantic subtext in it, on behalf of multiple characters, and I'm thinking about it constantly. Let me tell you all about it.

Magnus is dropped into a dating game and literally leads with "I cannot stress enough how uninterested I am in this." Now, it's perfectly valid to read this as due to him waiting for Julia, or just him being plain old uncomfortable with having his love life put in the spotlight. However! I cannot stress enough the exchange that happens just a minute or two after that line:

Magnus (describing his ideal date): ... and we don't see each other again, ‘cause I'm really not interested in dating. Audience: [exaggerated] Oooooh! (cheers) Griffin: The silhouette is like, fanning itself. Lydia: Playing hard to get, huh? It seems like our contestant is into that.

And I just have to say: unfortunately, this is one of the most aromantic fucking experiences I've seen represented in fiction in my life. I mean — saying you're not interested in romance, then having those words twisted on you, like they're some secret coded way of saying that you are interested in romance? Not having a single way to express your disinterest that'll actually be believed? That's some aro shit right there. God. Fuck.

As an aside, it's enough to really tell that Heart Attack is not designed to be a reprieve from the pain, even though it's the "good outcome" of Trust or Forsake. It's designed to be uncomfortable. To funnel suffering to Edward and Lydia, just like all the other games do. (More on that later, in fact.) But in summary:

Magnus is a character who can be read as uncomfortable with romance for either aro-spec reasons or unrelated reasons. But in either case, his discomfort attracts reactions that reek of amatonormativity — and therefore, resonate with aromantic experiences. (Psst, I did recently write a gray-aro Magnus fic!)

Two more analyses below the cut (and only one of them is for another Horny Boy):

Obviously the next character I need to talk about is Merle. I've found aroallo readings of his character to be compelling for a long time (having sex with plants so you don't have to worry about romantic commitment, am I right?), but the way he describes his "ideal date" is another factor:

Merle: I volunteer to drive her vehicle, and tell her it's filthy, and so we go through the uh- drive through vehicle wash and she pays for that too. Um, and then I take her to have dinner with my family, and- Magnus: Wait, like your wife and stuff? Merle: She meets my ex-wife.

Merle's probably exaggerating as a joke, continuing on about both him and his partner being miserable, but I think the fact that Merle's mind goes here is genuinely drawing from a lot of poor romantic experiences in the past. He didn't get a choice about being on Heart Attack, and his marriage with Hecuba was similarly "arranged".

It's also worth noting that at this point in time, Merle is putting in the work to be part of Mavis and Mookie's lives again, but is not interested in doing the same for Hecuba — he instead just asks Mavis how Hecuba's doing. That said, given that Magnus is the one to put the focus on Merle's ex-wife, I think it's fair to read the "family" comment as Merle actually expressing that he'd rather spend time with his kids than give any special romantic attention to his date. Moving on to the rest of the "joke":

Merle: She's having a miserable time and she's really mad, she can't wait to get outta there. I take her back to her house, and so I lean up against the door jam and say, 'Sure you don't want me to come in for a few minutes?' and she slams the door in my face.

It's possible Merle just has a more roundabout, self-deprecating way of expressing a similar thing to what Magnus did: Merle just isn't interested in dating. To me, the last line implies he might not say no to sex, if offered — but overall, it reads as if Merle is putting minimal effort in because he's looking for an excuse to get out of this relationship anyway.

It's also possible that Merle's "rejection" of a suitor being so disguised as humor could point to him still coming to terms with his disinterest in dating. Particularly, in comparison to Magnus, who is so vocal and unashamed about it, while Merle might still be figuring this all out.

(Honestly, the self-deprecation Merle turns to here is actually kind of sad, when viewed in that light — he already lets himself be the butt of jokes so often, and now he feels like the way romance doesn't click for him has to be a joke, too? Oof. Someone give him a hug and tell him he's not broken this instant!) But regardless:

Merle views dates, and perhaps romance in general, as things that will inevitably turn disastrous for him and any party involved with him, and he would rather spend time with his children than repairing a relationship with an ex, or cultivating a relationship with a new partner. This is not an experience exclusive to the aro-spec umbrella, but you can't say that an aromantic reading of his character doesn't fit him like a gardening glove...

...which he wears while fucking his plants. Because plants don't demand emotional intimacy, nor take too much time away from the platonic relationships that matter more to him. And you know what? He's fucking valid for that! Fly your flag, nasty grandpa!

But moving on: I promised you aromantic analysis of characters outside of our protagonists, and henceforth, that analysis I will provide. And not just because I admittedly see Taako as the token alloromantic (though clearly an aro ally; if he hadn't chosen Forsake we wouldn't have gotten all this incredible characterization!)

I digress. So let's go on to addressing the lich twins in the room: Edward and Lydia.

Remember my argument earlier that Heart Attack serves the purpose of collecting suffering just like the rest of Wonderland does? How it's just a subtler way of making Wonderland's victims fundamentally uncomfortable?

...Using, of all things, romance?

How the vogue twins, for whatever reason, felt inspired to make people uncomfortable with matchmaking and adoration? How, some way or another, they noticed how much potential romance had to induce suffering? Being pressured into a relationship, being told that no matter how firmly you say you're uninterested, you're not really uninterested?

...Relatedly, I have always gotten the sense that Edward and Lydia projected relentlessly onto their victims.

Edward: This resolve, this desire to do whatever it takes no matter the cost to save yourselves — do you know who you three remind me of? Magnus: No? Merle: Who? Edward: Us!

I'm even going to go a step further and say that on top of projection, they want their victims to go through things they went through. Swallowing the guilt of having fucked someone else over to survive, of course — that's basically self-admitted. But possibly also... the feeling of not being able to get back what you lost (Keats). The feeling of being able to heal (Keats).

So, where does that leave Heart Attack?

Lydia: It was the three of us, surviving against all odds. The world against us.

Their family of three was (is) indescribably important to them. I'm not necessarily saying that societal expectations of romance, especially of romance as a priority above that of family, left a bad taste in their mouths — if not downright contributing to their trauma — but, okay, I wrote the rest of this post and now that I'm back, I can no longer deny it. I'm definitely, absolutely saying that.

At the time of the podcast, we know Edward and Lydia's own relationship is heavily strained. Until the end, they are lying to themselves and to each other about the fact that they continue to be emotionally and magically reliant on each other. After all, Lydia wouldn't say "I guess we really needed each other after all" in her dying moments with such surprise otherwise.

This is the second reason that I... well, I wouldn't quite call it a "theory," but I find it most impactful to read Edward and Lydia as characters for whom the concept of Love has baggage. And always has, from their origins as youth in a tough spot in an already amatonormative world.

Maybe the constant societal devaluing of platonic, familial bonds left them with serious emotional scars. Maybe the constant conflation of Love and morality just weighed on them and weighed on them and weighed on them until they decided: well, we don't love the way people expect us to, so we might as well give up on being the good people they expect us to be. We might as well embrace this new fuel of suffering.

...And you know, I hope this gets across what I mean when I always say I headcanon villains as aromantic to make them more sympathetic.

Edward and Lydia, textually, are already tragic villains. As twins and liches, they're also textually foil characters to several of the Seven Birds. But I also like to think that they have a lot in common with Magnus and Merle, and the possibility that tugs at my heartstrings the most is the possibility of them all falling under the aromantic umbrella.

#taz #taz balance #taz balance spoilers #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #vogue elves #wonderland twins #(i always forget which tag i use for them lol) #aspec taz #taz meta #happy aro week this essay is my gift to myself <2

[bestworstcase]

@cryptidblues tumblr ate this one too, maybe drop tumblr support a line to check if you’ve been erroneously shadowbanned 

Oscar is dying! He’s dying! We’re getting the full weight and crisis of the merge in volume 10 I NEED IT. The image of him collapsed on the sand as the sunrises with his back to the long memory OOUGH just like Ruby and crescent rose after she drank the tea, before the tree took her. The reversal on “I don’t want to be me anymore” / please let me stay myself. The lad is being eaten alive! From the inside out! By an unstoppable brain parasite that will kill him! And Replace Him! I Need the slow build up of horror from Oscar and everyone involved. “And Oscar…just isn’t himself” they’re place setting. Getting the table ready. Ooh yknow he’s hiding those merge episodes/attacks from his friends. I NEED the existential terror and dread! BUT I NEED THE CATHARSIS OF OSCAR BEING KNOWN, SEEN & SAVED TOO ;-;

NOT to make a post oscar about ozma instead but the thing that is really, really pulling the hinges off for me is the implication that this is happening because oz started actively fighting the merge. as long as oscar resisted and oz kept up the drumbeat of “this is inevitable, there is nothing either of us can do,” the curse kept on quietly eroding oscar as the boundary became thinner and thinner between them. it was, for lack of a better term, stable. 

the moment oz tries to resist, the curse starts trying to rip him forward. to force him to take over, inflicting what seems to be torturous amounts of pain on both of them. the subtle, silent, invisible violence that was inflicted on oscar before explodes outward to attack both of them. 

how many times have i said this curse is specifically designed to make it impossible for ozma to change? that the whole point is to prevent ozma from ever changing his mind or defying the god of light? never doubt me. the literal fucking instant ozma tries to break free, the curse becomes YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE. 

the curse had a failsafe the whole time.

/ozma tangent

oscar though. this poor kid. like the greatest burden on his shoulders in the last four volumes has always been that no one wants to openly acknowledge what’s happening to him and the nature of the merge’s violence being so completely internal means that no one has to look at it except him. and he’s been so isolated in that existential dread but he’s also grown so accustomed to being treated like just. the next ozpin. that when the violence abruptly becomes externalized in reaction to oz’s resistance, oscar… hides it. keeps it to himself. somewhere deep down the idea that it doesn’t matter to anyone what happens to him got lodged in his brain so deeply that he keeps it hidden!!

and i’m obsessed with the emotional complexity the layers of what he’s feeling with regard to ruby, because it’s not as simple as that he misses her and aspires to her optimism; there’s also some underlying resentment there (“you were always so sure that everything would work out…right up until the moment it didn’t” <- paraphrasing) because she was wrong and he wishes he could borrow her certainty but she was wrong. she fell. she was wrong. 

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, everyone else believes that they’re gone forever. that they’re dead. oscar doesn’t. he’s thinking about it in terms of where they might have gone, what might have happened to them, he’s doing research because deep down, there’s a teeny tiny spark of hope that hasn’t been extinguished yet. so there’s this subtext of i wish i had your certainty. even though you were wrong. i’m still trying to find you. we’re still fighting this. you always saw me for who i really was. i don’t know who i am anymore.—there’s this tension throughout the monologue between bitterness and hope, and i don’t know if oscar is even capable of seeing that he is still hopeful or that he does have, if not ruby’s kind of certainty, something of his own that rhymes. he’s feeling this bleak about everything and still trying to figure out where they are because he doesn’t believe they’re dead. 

it was oscar’s idea to put the memorial where the portal had been. it’s taller than a person and shaped like a door. it’s a memorial but it’s also a symbol; the portal is gone, but they were inside it still, we should build our own door so they can find their way home. and then they do, according to the context given. the blacksmith gave them a doorway that went right through their memorial.  ETA: never mind, misremembered

ruby confronting and facing his mortality after running away from it for three volumes to galvanize her to really try to save him vs oscar doing whatever he can think of to somehow save her while roiling in all these complicated painful feelings about how no one cares to know how he’s suffering because it isn’t like there’s any real hope for him. tasty!

[robiny]

I need to vent about this - is there such thing as media literacy in lobotomy kaisen ? I see nuclear takes every day and I don’t engage with them because I know these people have their mind’s set and can’t believe anything else or their fragile view point will shatter. But how can you even argue satosugu were just friends 😭😭😭 like do you even have friends? shoko and gojo are friends, megumi and nobara were friends, geto and gojo? Im sorry but how much subtext can you overlook and how much subtext can there be for it to matter. OF COURSE gege is not going to STRAIGHT UP say they are gay lovers this is shonen and you are proving him right by arguing against it. AND ABOVE ALL ELSE the thing that truly pisses me of tremendously makes me genuinely hysteric, is people misinterpreting gojo’s last words to geto. HOW CAN YOU ARGUE WITH A STRAIGHT FACE THAT HE SAID ANYTHING BUT “I love you” HOWEEEWMEMDMSMSDN HOW, WHY WOULD THAT CONFESSION BE MUTED IF HE SAID SOME BULLSHIT LIKE UR MY BESTIE WHY like genuinely, these words weren’t hid from the audience just because, ITS A CONFESSION OF FEELINGS SO DEEP SO PROFOUND BUT SHAMEFUL AND SECRETIVE AND THEIRS FOR ONLY GETOS EARS TO HEAR AND GETOS HEART TO FEEL. WHY “LOVE IS THE MOST TWISTED CURSE” I WONDER WHAT MADE HIM THINK OF LOVE THIS WAY PROBABLY FUCKING UTAHIME NOT THE GUY WHO HIS SOUL KNOWS BETTER THAN HIS ALL FUCKING KNOWING EYES. WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LOVE FOR A BEST FRIEND WHO HAS HURT YOU TWISTED ??? NO TF YOU WIULDNT YOU DONT PONDER ABOUT YOUR LOVE YOU DONT HIDE IT FOR 10 YEARS YOU DONT WANT IT BACK EVEN IF ITS THE THING THAT RUINS YOU. no but genuinely any other interpretation of the words is stupid, im sorry, it’s not just their relationship but also the scene itself. getos reaction… he was shocked, then happy, blushing because it made him ashamed but at the same time smiling because it made him so happy, wishing after pushing away gojo for years that at the very end gojo would stop loving him but he never did. literally at the brink of death, finding peace in the chaos, but facing this unconditional love, geto wished only for gojo to curse him a little so he wouldn’t suffer losing him…. best of friends everybody

#anyways 😒 #stsg #I’m sorry but this makes me so sick #Can gay people have anything #why are satosugu denied their love why is their love questioned #it’s literally a core part of gojos and getos characters and people want to overlook it so bad #whateva #satosugus know what’s up so it’s doesn’t matter #but it does piss me off so much lol #it’s homophobia there I said it #just shut the fuck up if you have nothing of value to say #words that were never spoken in their youths ah yes gojo never said getos his best friend makes so much sense narratively speaking #be fucking fr #satosugu #my angels darlings I will protect you #I’m a little ashamed to be so angry but I’m doing my part #someone has to fight for the gays #gay rights

[orionsangel86]

Subtext Glorious Subtext! A Dreamling on Netflix analysis in The Sandman - Part 4

1689

It is an impressive thing to have hope when all seems hopeless.

A shorter analysis for this century because it is a much shorter scene. Like with the other centuries, the main focus here is on the tone.

It is in the acting choices and direction which draw attention to just how far Dream and Hob’s relationship has already developed - mostly on Dreams side in this particular century.

There is this layer of heavy melancholy over the entire scene. When Ferdy delivers his lines here he makes you feel the weight of the last 80 years of pain and torment. He is clearly heartbroken over losing Eleanor and Robin, but it is Dream’s reactions that really emphasise the pain.

He is clearly so sad for Hob. His eyes are glossy with unshed tears (though tbh, Tom Sturridge’s glossy eyes are basically consistent throughout the whole show). Throughout the scene, as Hob tells Dream how his last hundred years have gone, each time the camera cuts to Dream's reaction it zooms in slightly. With Hob, the camera set up remains steady other than his final surprising response, but the zoom in on Dream conveys how he feels each of the revelations, indicating how finally Hob is having an impact on him.

The tone in the show is serious and somber as both Dream and the audience feel the weight of all Hob has gone through. There is no humour here, not while he tells his tale of woe. But in the Audible audiobook, Hob is a drunk at this point. Slurring his dialogue and unconcerned about his manners, and he doesn’t exactly come across as sorrowful. Dream as well seems less sympthatic with him and more just wanting to know if he is finally going to seek death. The line is delivered with astonishment and almost encouragement to get Hob to say yes: “Do you not seek the respite of death?”

Whereas Show!Dream goes for sympathy and appears genuinely upset himself at the expectation that this is it.

"So do you still wish to live?"

Tom Sturridge delivers this line with baited breath. You can practically see it in the gif above. He expects the answer to be no, but he says it with such tenderness. The second line isn’t there. There is no encouragement in his delivery. It’s clear he wants Hob to say yes, even though he expects the answer to be no. Tom’s micro expressions are phenomenal.

When Hob surprises him by confirming he has so much to live for, he lets out a short breath, and smiles subtly, clearly impressed. There is an implication that it is this moment that made Dream change his mind about Hob. He gives him his undivided attention from now on.

In a new addition not in the comics, we see another man sketching their meeting, which will prove to be important in the next century. We hear Hob tell Dream "Now can we order because I'm about to eat the fucking table". Unlike with all other meetings so far, this is the first time we have cut away leaving Dream and Hob together to continue their date. Whilst the comics also leave the 1689 meeting after Hob has stated he still wants to live, the show makes it clear that Dream stayed with him. We don't know what took place, but this marks the first "fanfiction gap" the show has given us. It prompts the audience to fill in the gap and wonder how the rest of the meeting went.

Which, when taking the 1789 meeting into consideration, is certainly a curious thought. How did they leave things in 1689 to make them appear so comfortable with each other in 1789? Comfortable enough that they exchange sly glances at each other, flirt, and defend one another in a scene so loaded with sexual tension it has been giffed more than any other moment in the entire Sandman series.

But that's for my next analysis! See you over in part 5!

#dreamling #dreamling meta #the sandman #sandman meta #dreamling week #dreamling week 2023 #dream of the endless #hob gadling #sandman comic spoilers

[mdhwrites]

What are your thoughts on those fans who bodyshame Belos? Keep in mind, he is the ONLY character in the show who gets this treatment, and almost no one calls out the fans who bully him for that. I don’t think they are aware of how many people they’re hurting by mocking everything about Belos’ appearance.

FUCKING WHAT!? I'm not familiar with this trend actually! As a 290 pound fat white dude though (who even when he's doing better hovers closer to 260 *sigh*), that fucking blows! Fuck those people! It's... also not surprising... Kind of because the show doesn't exactly refute the idea that those who are evil are also ugly. Now to be fair, that's frankly a tale as old as time in media, especially visual media. Kind of like dressing in black, it's just one of those ways to theoretically set your audience on edge about a character and amplify the fact that someone is a villain. Their monstrosity inwards is monstrosity outwards.

But that also feels like a trend that has been fading but TOH is not a very progressive show in a lot of ways and beauty is definitely one of them. I've made a blog about how all the good characters are fairly standard levels of beauty with Amity being portrayed as ready for the runway and even Willow is the definition of 'more to love'. Meanwhile it's bad guys are the demons and commonly on the uglier side. Even Hunter has the most 'abnormal' face amongst the main characters with his large nose and his scars but he started as evil and questionable to trust so... That doesn't help anything.

And this will bleed into a fandom, though I also want to be fair that besides making religious colonizer jokes... What does the fandom really have to work with with Belos if you don't like him? His appearance is effectively half of his presence and easily the thing that makes him the most intimidating. The animators pull a lot of work that the writing isn't quite keeping up with him in order to give him a menace? Want to knock him down then? Hit on his appearance so he doesn't look as scary.

But also... Belos is a good looking dude. Controversial opinion maybe but the dude is about the same body type as Hunter, a trained soldier, has a Hair Metal main and sure, his face is showing slight signs of age but the animators did a good job making him be able to have a warm smile and a kindness to it when talking to Hunter that wouldn't be possible if he were genuinely grotesque in anyway. The second he closes up the scar on his face and pulls his hair back into a ponytail in King's Tide, he looks ready to be a teacher in an anime.

Which I assume mostly happened because he's a main villain. He's not like Tibbles where he's a joke and Tibbles is fat. He's not a throwaway one off like the publisher who worked with King who is demonic. He's more important than that... Like Odalia. You know 'dem hips'. Even Alador doesn't look bad by any conventional means.

And as I said the last time I spoke of this: I like pretty people in stories. It is still an awkward element of the show though that it claims to be so incredibly progressive but that all of its villains are the ones with truly alternative body types and that it almost equates beauty with power in its subtext because we NEVER get an ugly opponent that we're supposed to take seriously or be afraid of.

I don't even think any of this is intentional, I'm not saying Dana is fatphobic or something. Again: I write pretty people in my stories because I like attractive girls and I do have a type, not because I dislike other body types. But when you have no true positive portrayal of the other, especially in a story 'celebrating the other' (in theory), it's not surprising if people make the sorts of jokes that bash on someone's appearance for only being an 8/10 like Belos instead of literal perfection. They are being unconsciously told to still mock someone who doesn't have perfect hair ALL THE TIME because the characters we're supposed to like are all conventionally attractive.

'The Other' looks like they're ready for a Vogue Fashion Shoot, why aren't you? *gags* Edit: I went back and forth to add this but I actually did do a story about body positivity. With the framing device I used, I decided nudity was necessary but everyone is 18+ and there's no sex in it. Just Luz trying to get comfortable with the idea of being undressed for Amity. Or that's what she claims at least to Boscha.

=========

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

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

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#the owl house criticism #toh critical

[knowlesian]

i’m crying over stede in the bar in e10 again, and i wanted to spotlight something i find endlessly impressive— the care these writers have when they’re landing big moments, and their laser focus on word choice.

really good writers are really careful with how they say what they say; it’s the whole “if i tell you i’m taking you to my cottage in the forest, things are probably going to be instagramable; if i say we’re going to my cabin in the woods, you’re gonna die” joke in action. the essential meaning behind those two examples is the same, the definition more or less the same, but because of word choice they drag incredibly different subtext/implications in with them.

i’m just gonna tear into it line by line, don’t mind me!

What is Blackbeard like? Is he as bloodthirsty as everyone says?

He’s absolutely lovely!

so stede’s instinct is to say ed is lovely. there’s a lot of cool things happening here; stede stuck up for ed, stede got over his urge to just nod and agree and not cause a ruckus when he feels the need to please or impress someone, and stede embraced his first and truest impulse: to be lovely, himself. 

because that is unmistakably pushback, covered in a compliment and gently delivered as stede has been taught to handle these things: the men tell us he’s a monster, and stede says oh but he’s lovely. no he’s not, is the subtext here. you’re wrong about him, stede is essentially saying.

(and in my favorite way to turn the lighthouse/kraken metaphor angle, where it’s about life as both/and, not either/or, and to be a monster and a lighthouse at once is to embrace that which makes us awesome while also embracing that which makes us suck with eyes/heart wide open: stede is also unconsciously saying ‘even if you were right! no matter what he is! he is lovely and i love him, all the while.’)

the men, as i covered in my meta here, don’t want that: they want to hear about a cartoon monster, have some cheap thrills and confirm their worldview all at once.

because of what stede says next, i want to stress: he doesn’t want to do any of this. he’s gotten through whatever stories he told after they all cheered his very presence, and he is absolutely fine bragging about his duel with izzy— things are going good in his quest to Win At Terrible Social Situations. 

(sidenote: i love how stede just doesn’t ever feel his usual need to impress and hide his more unpleasant feelings or snippy side with izzy; from the moment they met, it’s like stede just went ‘i sense your purse dog energy, and i raise you i’m not scared of a fucking purse dog?????’ for reasons that remain partially a mystery but DELIGHT ME.) 

being asked to confirm the stereotype he knows ed hates feels wrong. he doesn't know it yet, but he loves ed, and thanks to everything they went through he knows talking about ed like that would be particularly hurtful.

but: he wants attention, he wants to feel wanted, he wants to win the game for the very first time ever. 

because he didn’t win the game, in e5; he realized the game is stupid and hurtful and overturned the table, instead, and it was A W E S O M E.

that night happened, stede learned what he learned and gained what he gained, and yet: here he sits, alone in a bar even while surrounded by assholes. and he knows, down in the pit of his stomach where these kind of painful things like to take root and fester: i have never once won this stupid fucking game, in my entire life of playing it. i found out i could just refuse to play, and doing that felt amazing, but i wasn’t alone then. i am alone now, i thought i was making the right choice by coming home but i am as unwanted as ever and i don’t know how to make these pieces fit into what the world reminded me is my place in life through chauncey, while he played my specific insecurities and self-loathing like a fiddle right before he repeated the last major trauma i experienced in a way that was comedic for the audience, but horrifying and triggering for me. i am angry and scared and i hurt, i think maybe i have made a mistake though i can’t allow myself to know it, not yet— and, most painfully of all: i spent my whole life training for this, i have played this stupid fucking game and gotten nothing but scorn for it for so long, i don’t know if i can take it again after knowing what life feels like without it.

stede looks at the way their expressions change, hears the evidence of the crowd turning on him, and does not so much think as feel: i have never, ever won. 

when you invest a lot of time and energy and care into anything, be it a system or a hobby or an ideal, the hardest thing in the world to do, even harder than walking away, is realizing: well, fuck. whatever i used to get out of this, if anything, i am not getting that now. i should stop. i don’t even like this. 

so when all the men’s faces fall and he starts to lose them (“disappointed murmurs”, the captions tell us, and choose to be helpful instead of their usual approach of generally scattershot on dialogue) stede scrambles to scoop the ball he knows he just fumbled back up, and uses his audience’s word choice in the kind of social/literal echoing guaranteed to get positive results:

Oh, and of course, a bloodthirsty killer.

that gets him their approval again, complete with wide grins and a bunch of nodding that tells us this is what they want: reflect their beliefs back, stede, or you not only don’t win this one you are going to lose, and lose hard. 

these men literally cheered the fact that stede was in the room, however many stories ago that was. we know he’s known one of them since childhood; we can assume he’s at least vaguely familiar with the rest. he expected their scorn, but received jealous admiration. he’s different and has things they don’t that they actually see value in, now, not just what they consider weird gay clothes and weird gay trinkets and weird gay interests and habits that make stede weird and gay in a way they very much want him to feel ashamed about. 

just the opposite. they looked at him, and they cheered for his very presence. the feeling that gave him was a shadow of the feeling he got when he put on ed’s clothes and stumbled onto the deck in leather armor and ed said: if you motherfuckers don’t clap for my new half-drowned golden retriever of a boyfriend, i will BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND. CLAP FOR HIM OR FUCKIN SEE WHAT HAPPENS, but it’s still a balm to his very bruised soul.

here’s the seductive difference between then and now: ed made everybody clap for stede. ed’s legend, ed’s status. ed’s name they were clapping for, even if stede was the one receiving the attention and applause.

these assholes might be assholes, and i think stede damn well knows their approval is not worth all this because he doesn't actually think they’re his friends or like them much as people, but they know stede’s name. stede’s new legend and his status. 

they’re cheering for stede bonnet: gentleman pirate. the crew did that once and it felt so fucking good that stede started to believe in his own potential to be just that in spite of himself.

not play at pirates; be a pirate.

and now he’s here and the crew is not, mary is Not Happy he’s back and the kids are just as unimpressed. he came back for them; they don’t even want him around.

these men? these... really annoying, could do with some therapy themselves, stuck in a toxic rut men?

for the first time: he entered a crowded room, and the people who made up the crowded rooms he spent his life alone in were happy he was there. they were hanging on his every word, up until now; he’s so, so close to winning.

so stede adds:

Born of the devil, and all that.

i mean. ohhhhh, these writers. oh these very heartbreaking and careful writers.

what did ed’s mother say, when she fed him the poison she’d been convinced to believe was a cure to the deadly illness of reaching too far above one’s station: god doesn’t want us to have these things. we could steal them, or pretend we wear them well and find out if people believe us, but god would always see into our hearts and know we aren’t the sort of people who deserve fine things.

there are a lot of things the writers could have put in stede’s mouth that would have confirmed these men’s impressions of ed that weren’t a one-two punch of accidental pain; he’s a fearsome pirate. a brilliant fighter, capable of pulling off mad plans no mortal man would attempt. he taught me a thing or two about swordplay, actually, and now back to my duel with izzy—

he says none of those things. bloodthirsty, these men gave him; not one of god’s creatures, stede filled in himself. a killer, born of the devil.

now, stede himself knows the first part would hit ed in a wound so old it festers to this day; ed confessed to him that he takes care not to use his own two hands to directly kill, not since he used them to protect himself from a man unworthy of the title ‘father’. he’s hurt people, he’s brought their deaths about. he has not killed them, and it matters to ed that stede knew that. 

it’s a thoughtless moment; he’s not consciously thinking to himself, ‘i have just, in the span of so very few words, invalidated a core tenet of ed’s identity. if he heard me say this, he would be so, so hurt: i have accidentally done something very damaging and echoed some racist talking points without realizing it. oooooh fuck. ohhhh no, i fucked up i think.’ 

however, you know that pit of the stomach, ugly feeling when you say or do something you can kind of tell yourself isn’t a big deal, but you know it actually is? and then a little voice inside you says: you should feel shitty about what just happened, for valid reasons that have nothing to do with how you always feel shitty. this one’s on you, kid, and it’s going to be on you to fix it, too.

i think that’s what stede experiences there.

he doesn’t know all the complicated reasons why, just yet, which accomplishes a couple things at once.

on the writerly level, it calls back to ed’s past and fears and helps us as an audience understand why there’s a direct connection from what he says here to stede’s immediate move into a guilt spiral at mary’s art showing; he knows he feels gross about himself later because he didn’t stick up for ed about the killer part, but only the writers know about ed’s conversation with his mother and so they can reference it in a way that calls it out to us as an audience, but doesn’t pretend stede the character has knowledge he doesn’t.

on a sociological level, it displays a much more modern and coded racism from the bar assholes, as well as a general blindness to the same from stede: he’s thinking bloodthirsty as in pirate, and that’s the surface conversation. but floating underneath it, just like it did with the french captain when he called ed an animal and the way stede stood up for ed contained a subtextual dig about ed not having a tureen, either, is that ed is a pirate who is not white. i put it that way on purpose, because that’s the quiet part loud: it’s not about who ed is for these jerks, it’s about what he is not.

so when stede upholds the legend of blackbeard in a way that would be a knife through the heart of the man behind it, the writers do a couple backflips and give us a whole essay on why and how this is happening without saying more than seventeen words and leaning hard on social cues and the kind of subtext ed understands damn well and stede has learned by now to recognize through watching ed’s response to the same— but again the writers know their shit, because they yanked stede away before he learned to decipher the code on his own and/or ed said to him in plain terms: baby, i love you, but that quiet part kept quiet stuff’s still racist. violence is violence, even when it’s the silent kind.

stede knows saying that was wrong; he can identify that he stumbled there, if not all the reasons why, and we know that because he immediately redirects. no more questions about ed at all is his boundary; and once again, the writers nail it.

the guy straight out of central ‘this one’s an asshole, folks, watch out’ casting (who made a face so excited it looked a little like he was getting off on stede saying ed was born of the devil) is no longer quite as satisfied with these stories.

he wants the monster. if ed isn’t just a monster: what’s the fucking point of this story? if stede isn’t ready and willing to throw ed under the bus, if he actually thinks ed is lovely: is he really one of them?

if ed’s not just a monster, and stede’s not just one of them: is stede the monster?

so he pipes up, you ever kill anybody? i want to feast tonight, and if you won’t give us ed you’ve always been next on our gross little menu.

that’s the other quiet part loud: stede is only safe if there’s somebody else they can all be above, together. once they’re done with ed... 

stede was never, ever truly safe among these men, is the point. he has lived his life in moments between these sorts of interactions, cringing in anticipation away from the next one before it even begins.

what do we mean when we say violence? because stede has known a kind of safety and comfort that make it easier to sleep on his nice mattress at night and supplies marmalade and fancy ships and gated communities: it has never once made him truly safe.

it has never even made these men asking stede to hurt the man he loves for their entertainment safe. it’s killing them all, bit by precarious privileged bit.

they can’t see it: stede can.

again, he doesn’t give them the answer they want. killing was unavoidable, not exciting. he’s seen death; and it changes you, forever, but not in ways these men want to hear. 

(there’s a fun thematic overlap here, between stede’s two accidental ‘murders’ and ed’s fine moral line that led him to the same sort of murderer once removed aesthetic: it’s not quite the same, but they are ideally equipped to understand the other’s situation, if only they would both open up at once and see what happens next.)

stede thinks he’s telling them killing sucks; they hear, killing is AWESOME. killing makes you a Real Man. probably it makes your dick bigger and harder, and if you kill people your horse will stop shitting itself all the time when you ride it to the bar to complain about your bitch wife with the boys and everyone will love you and you will never wake up crying in the night because you can never be satisfied.

now, they don’t actually want to do their own killing; that would be messy and hard and maybe kind of sad, but they can feed off what they consider stede’s confirmed manful glory and have a circlejerk over his proof that men like them were meant to rule the world.

another round is ordered, the cheers start up again: stede’s face remains deeply, deeply unhappy. they didn’t fucking hear him. he was so clear: they’re not listening. they’re writing their own story on top of his words, a story that isn’t about stede (or ed!) at all, and only serves to confirm what they already believe.

and he knows: ed would have listened. ed would have heard him, but ed isn’t here because stede left him behind, and to top it all off he forgot himself for half a second chasing the high of a win and said something terrible. 

seventeen words: it took seventeen words to remove any flavor from this for him.

in the end, it hurts like a motherfucker now, but in terms of character growth and stede pulling out of the cycle that’s a good thing: unfortunately but realistically stede needed to actually get the thing he wanted to realize, oh shit. oh fuck. ohhhh fuck. thanks: i fucking hate it. 

sometimes you gotta just touch that stove and find out: yes, it is in fact still hot.

god, this show is smart.

(and i don’t think it’s any mistake that before we follow stede’s depressed ass over to mary’s showing and he subtext yells I AM NEITHER GENTLEMAN NOR PIRATE, I AM SO SAD AND ALONE AND MAD AT EVERYTHING, THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP DELIVERED VIA BAD LIFE CHOICE-O-GRAM, I THINK I FUCKED UP???? we have izzy tearing down ed’s attempts to build himself back up with a similarly short sentence about what izzy thinks it means that ed is in a silk gown, pining for his boyfriend. the way this show uses narrative echoes and parallels without relying on the simple 1:1 absolutely kills me.)

#our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #my ofmd meta #ohhhhh stede you make me so sad #these writers are just so damn good at ...people!!! and all our dumb weird habits! #it's so fucking rewarding to watch this i really should just give in and do those damned recaps

[bookshelfdreams]

Im sorry about this i need to rant. I thought things were getting better but Izzy stan Twitter is at it again with their whining, truth bending and self-victimising.

'Do you like OMFD but wish the queer disabled hero didnt die?' IZZY IS NOT THE HERO OF THIS SHOW!!!!! He is at best a reformed antagonist. What an insult to the other disabled characters, and what about the actual heroes of the show??

'We've been betrayed by straight man writing queer stories'. First of all, way to dismiss the other writers. Also, its not his fault you project your personal traumas and mental health on a fictional character on a show with death in the title.

'GB's ending is comphet (?????) because 'we only need eachother' and theyre breaking away from their queer community' ED HAS BEEN WANTING TO LEAVE PIRACY SINCE LAST SEASON!!! also, its progress that Stede was able to resist basic flattery. And David made it clear that they still have work to do. This one truly broke my brain.

Im just sick of all this. Izzy stans have been coddled for the past week, being told its ok to grieve, but theyve crossed multiple lines. I do wish some things had been more explicit in this finale, only because David overestimated the maturity and media literacy of some people.

Sorry for this but i needed to talk to people here. Its beyond annoyance at this point. Im angry and sick of petty crybabies actively working to poison what we've built.

Don't apologize, feel free to rant at me any time!

"The Blackbonnet ending is comphet" surely is A Take, let me add that to the It's Only Queer If It's Subtext Collection, also featuring such gems as

The Lupete marriage proposal/wedding was basically straight

Canon queer ships are boring and unimportant

Izzy has the only queer arc

Izzy is the only "convincingly" queer character

It's super interesting to see this develop. The massive victim/persecution complex of a certain subset of Izzy fans. The vitriol leveled against all other fans, and the show itself, because clearly, these people never liked ofmd in the first place. Never liked what it actually had to say and instead, invented subtext that was never there to look into instead. It's like watching the birth of a conspiracy theory under controlled conditions in a petry dish. You will see these people say with their whole chest the most unhinged bullshit imaginable and receive praise for it, but when you keep in mind that for months, they have discussed the show Izzy in their insular little echo chambers, most of their takes become a lot more understandable. There's robust internal logic, even though, due to the flawed premise, none of it makes any sense.

But it becomes understandable when we loop back around to the point that a lot of these people don't engage with the show on its own merit. They really treat it as if it were just another queerbaity (maybe not even that) mid-2010s thing, too afraid to do something different.

ofmd is not that! But when all you have is a hammer. And when you're surrounded by people who keep insisting that yes, obviously that problem is a nail. That one too. Nails are all that exist. yk.

But. And please know that I am holding your hands and speak as gently as I can when I say this.

But please don't get angry about this? If this whole drama genuinely upsets you, you might need to take a step back and remind yourself that it's just fandom. It's just some idiots somewhere enjoying the pirate show wrong. It's not that important. There's plenty of things that are worth your anger in the world right now. Everything is fucked. But this isn't one of them.

Like, for me, this is fun. I am a petty bitch, I love to gawk at bad takes, I love conspiracy theories, reading things like this tickles my brain in the best possible way. It's like reading through the Psiram wiki (which is also something I do for fun. Yes, I am aware there's something wrong with me). It's even better, because it's inconsequential. It doesn't have very real human misery attached to it.

Like, obviously i think it's fine to be opinionated about dumb bullshit on the internet, and while picking fights with people who don't agree with me isn't something I enjoy personally, some people do and there's nothing wrong with that either. As long as everyone involved is having fun.

But. You gotta keep your distance, you know? Don't get personally mad at people with bad opinions. Having wrong opinions about the pirate show isn't actually harmful. Fandom isn't activism.

#that being said feel free to dm me if you want to discuss any of your points further #which just to be clear is absolutely something im up for just maybe not in public #anyways thank you for reaching out! #anonymaus #message #ofmd s2 spoilers #this turned out way too long #apologies

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Excuse me for being an uncultured, uneducated swine, but I've never heard of "Spider Riders" before.

Would you mind giving me a basic rundown of the premise? I might go check it out

it is a fucking canadian-japanese 2006 anime that ran for two seasons that i have never seen anyone else watched but i loved it as a kid, remembered like 3 things (so i didn't have like, actual nostalgia, just distant memory of it), rewatched it as an adult last year and it wound up, i'm not kidding, in my top 5 tv shows with stuff like ATLA, the dragon prince, infinity train, and transformers: prime (in that order)

ok so the first two episodes (basically just the pilot) are Not Good and premise wise it's not anything that special, i.e. Boy gets isekai'd to a world where humans (??) and giant spiders exist and some form pair bonds, and fight evil Invectids (big insect people). Main bad guy has his council of four who are the main roster of villains, there are power ups, etc. It's like very basic

However

Series has a surprising amount of inversion (aka I totally thought main kid was gonna have a Rival in the main group bc that's the red-blue trope, isn't it? But nah they're all just big brothers to him and it's honestly pretty wholesome)

The world, lore, and history is so good?? For no reason??

Diverse array of villains in terms of arcs and personalities. Villains who are being manipulated; villains who genuinely love their people; villains who are honour bound even to their detriment. Villains who have realistic redemption(s)

Series has super interesting explorations of its concept of God (the Oracle) and what a relationship between mortals and god should look like that legitimately changed my own viewpoint on it?? Fucking wild

More than one female character with prominent screentime!! Pretty cool I think

There's a siege on a floating city at one point and that shit was baller

Some of the spiders have a backstory and it's fun and vaguely depressing

Stags. I just love Stags. Also Igneous is gay as hell and it's barely subtext

Really strong thematically and consistently? I remembered the end of the show going in and I was about 17/52-ish eps in when I was like "oh my god they're gonna thematically stick the landing" which is just lovely

Series is also obsessed with "Okay say we win the war? What then? How can we end the war without fully understanding why our enemies were driven to start it in terms of addressing the needs that make people inclined towards war in the first place" and then again stuck the landing, like that shit ate

Anyway I love it and it's so good for No Reason. Truly a 10/10 show

#spider riders #thanks for asking #dragons rambles #glass-teeth01

[amethystroselily]

considering that dazai isn’t one to show his emotions, it was very surprising for me to see him acknowledge his connection with chuuya. do you think that will affect their dynamic later on?

we’ve seen him be emotional with oda, but he died immediately after, so they didn’t have to live together with that interaction in mind. the only person that knows what happened is dazai, so there’s no risk of someone continuously being able to see past his masks, but (assuming chuuya is alive) that’s not the case this time. chuuya now knows how dazai feels, and i feel like that fact will make dazai uncomfortable.

I was SO surprised when I first saw that scene too! Honestly I was convinced Dazai didn’t care about Chuuya at all until fifteen and even then I was skeptical (but that may have just been bc I was 14-15 at the time and perhaps not the best at picking up on subtext or just… things not being directly told told to the audience…) But like, obviously he does. He just hates acknowledging that he has feelings.

Considering Asagiri’s writing style, I’m not entirely sure the story will fully acknowledge the emotional ramifications of that scene, but I hope it does.

Honestly I think Dazai will just pretend that it never happened and will continue to treat Chuuya exactly like he always has. Because he hates emotionally vulnerability. And because he was already like “jk I hope you die 💕” after he said all that. So I guess it really depends on Chuuya and whether he even remembers that whole speech when he wakes up. Because I’m not entirely sure how the vampires work and if their even conscious during the time they’re under the ability, but I’m going to be a little annoyed if Chuuya doesn’t remember any of that. (Although it is really funny that Sigma will either way.)

But if he does remember, it’s going to be so awkward for the both of them. Chuuya will probably just tell him it was a weird and then perhaps some awkward tense silence and then they’ll go back to normal. Honestly I think Chuuya might be pissed about it, because Dazai’s finally showing some level of ability to care for him right now after… everything. So I imagine it’s very emotionally conflicting.

I guess it depends on how their relationship progressed between Stormbringer and the Dark Era. Because in Stormbringer Chuuya seems to believe Dazai genuinely does not care about him or anyone, while Dazai demonstrates throughout that entire book that while he’s willing to let Chuuya get hurt (both physically and emotionally) he does really care about Chuuya in his own fucked up way. Which I think is how most of Dazai’s relationships are, besides, like, Odasaku (but that was a really unique relationship for Dazai and it’s kind of the only time he let himself care. I think it’s bc Oda was the only person who, idk, seemed to like him? I guess). Because despite constantly manipulating him himself, he does seem to care greatly about Chuuya’s autonomy. You can see it with his reactions to the sheep and his reactions to Verlaine. (Which is kind of insane actually… like is it a “only I can do this” hypocrisy thing or is it something Dazai wishes he didn’t have to do but thinks is justified?) But also the moment he steps away, delaying a plan, to let Chuuya think over a major decision is actually really considerate coming from Dazai. (But I can’t tell if that’s related to Chuuya specifically or the situation in general. I feel like if it had been someone he didn’t know as well he’d just make them do it, but it’s entirely possible that the idea of losing your last chance to find out if your human is something he finds particularly heartbreaking. Who really knows.) Anyways Chuuya seems to have come to care about Dazai more now than in stormbringer. Because he seems more, like, genuinely concerned about Dazai in the manga than in stormbringer. But that would make sense, bc it seems like they were paired up more after that. So I think a lot of their relationship did develop between stormbringer and Dark Era. (This entire paragraph might be pointless now that I think about it. I… kind of forgot what I was trying to say I think…)

#bsd #bsd stormbringer #bsd stormbringer spoilers #bungou stray dogs spoilers #bsd manga spoilers #bsd spoilers #bungou stray dogs #bsd dazai osamu #bsd nakahara chuuya #soukoku

[aechteaseawb]

i kind of want to write chapter one girajera. whatever the fuck was going on in the earlier episodes you get it. like sometime after gira became king but before jeramie did

//

“Y’know,” Gira jumps at the voice ringing out behind him, “it’s equally important to take a rest here and there.”

He hasn’t realized his door’s been pushed open at all, but his guest must’ve been standing there for a while, with an unhurriedness that’s scarcely found in Gira’s social circle.

“Jeramie!” he calls out. “How long have you been-”

A comically loud stomach growl interrupts him mid-sentence. He always thought that only happens on TV! Oh, this is embarrassing, but Jeramie only pushes in a little food trailer and tells him, “It’s already half past two. Your maids were getting worried that you weren’t responding to their door knocks!”

“They were?” Dang it. Gira didn’t hear any of it, too engrossed with deciphering the legal jargon on the new merchant route proposal! He’s just got so much on his plate now all of a sudden, and there’s so much catching up to do that Gira sometimes loses track of the time, this being the third occurance of the week, and it’s only Tuesday! “I’m going to have to apologize for that later…” he mumbles, mostly to himself.

“Well, never mind that for now,” Jeramie says, stepping right into his space and helping him sort the scattered loose pages into neat stacks, like it’s the natural thing to do. He serves the plates on the trailer onto Gira’s desk in a playfully large bow. “Bon appétit, your majesty.”

“Ah, thanks,” he says, not sure what else to say.

“You’re most welcome,” Jeramie answers with his usual cryptid smile.

He never quite knows what to think of Jeramie.

Gira hasn’t had that many chances to get to know him yet, so he doesn’t know where to land his judgment. It certainly doesn’t help that Jeramie enjoys shrouding himself in mysteries and riddles. Gira’s tried, he swears he has! But he really, really still doesn’t know how to read the subtext! And the result is that he’s now spent a whole lot of time staring at Jeramie’s face stupidly without coming to any kind of substantial conclusion.

Well, his face is very beautiful, there’s that. And his skin is in very good condition for a two-thousand-year-old. His eyes look unspeakably old sometimes, but when he smiles after a successful prank, when his eyes crinkle, he looks indistinguishable from any teenage schoolboy. 

Does two thousand years do that to a person? Gira can’t begin to imagine going two weeks without washing his face, but it doesn’t seem to bother Jeramie. Most things don’t seem to bother Jeramie.

Jeramie always looks so self-assured about his movements, and he doesn’t seem to shy from any encounter, unshaken even when he was being threatened, or treated with hostility. Maybe it’s because he’s seen far too much, so not much can unfaze him anymore, and now he goes around doing whatever he pleases. But Yanma once said, He’s just a socially-inept old geezer with too much time on his hands.

“Jeramie,” he says, “what did you have for lunch today?”

“Me?” Jeramie’s eyes widen. Gira wonders when was the last time anyone asked him about what he had for lunch. “Thank you kindly for asking, but no need to worry, really,” he says. “I don’t eat in the same way you do.”

Gira has absolutely no idea what he means by that, but… “You eat human food, right? I’ve seen you eat.”

“Yes,” he says. “I eat human food, but-”

“Here,” he scoops up a spoonful of egg and shoves it in Jeramie’s face. “You haven’t eaten anything today, right?”

“Well, now!” Jeramie exclaims. “Pardon, me, then.” He carefully lays his left hand on Gira’s wrist, and leans forward to take a bite. He can hear the sound of Jeramie’s teeth clinking against the silverware.

//

it is very amusing to me to have yanma call jeramie an old geezer

#kingoh #ficlet

[cringe-y-gumi]

Forget school, embrace the dreamnoblade. For this we must imagine:

Techno being the one they put in prision, the server decided that he is the biggest threat, without him dream couldn't have blown up lmanburg, quackity would have his two eyes, tubbo won't be scarred and everyone would have their home. So they take Phil again, they used ranboo against him as much as it hurt Tommy to use his friend like this.

Techno is unsurprised but disappointed nonetheless. He spends the few first weeks trying to grow potatoes in the cauldron because Sam doesn't give him enough for his half piglin side. But one day quackity arrives.

He just wants atonement from what happened in the butcher army,but even tough he is decked out techno still manages to trow him into the lava so next time he comes back with potion, and they work a little too well in making the piglin weak.

It gets to the point even the sigth of a regen potion makes Techno pale.

This goes on only for two months.

Dream decides that Techno is worth more alive than dead (and he may or may have not missed his rival) So with the knowledge he has of the prison he gets him out nobody the wiser, Phil is still on the artic trying to make a plan with ranboo and Nikki.

Cue cottage core arc where Dream is very sweet and caring to Techno while he is very emotionally constipated. Dream gets the rest of the syndicate when Techno heals up and makes the rest of the server go boom boom.

I do not regret writing this long ass ask.

Oh gosh, I almost let this one slip out of my mind.

I'm so tireeeed... But tbh, seeing some people still enjoying the things I also like— like Dreamnoblade of course, I'm all good

ಥ‿ಥ

and YEEES!!! Please for the love of god, I BADLY WANT SOME DNB COTTAGE ERA WITHOUT BEING HIDDEN BEHIND THE TITLE RIVALS DUO ( ≧Д≦)!!!

I may be biased, but the potential, the subtexts of some of the fics I read are OH SO THERE! Sometimes I wonder if some of them wanted to actually write dnb but due to its reputation, didn't.

Or maybe I'm projecting...

Anyway, I'm getting side tracked.

I would LOVE to read this one!!! But also add this:

When Dream broke Techno out of the prison, the Syndicate never knew. So when they were executing a prison-escape— one that was a little after Dream broke Techno out, they met a barren, empty cell.

Syndicate be panicking, while Dream and Techno be enjoying their cottagecore era.

Of course, Techno needs to heal— both physically and mentally but mostly it's emotionally.

After spending 2 months in that cell with Quackity taunting the fuck out of him, his Rival/friend acting all soft and domestic is the last thing he would want to deal with. But he doesn't have a choice.

Because the thing is... Not even Dream knew why.

"Techno is a powerful ally so he needs to get on his good side" is what Dream tells himself. You see, no business partners would wake up early to make sure the other eats. No business partners would learn the way the other likes their bath (temperature) or their coffee.

When Dream first noticed himself, he found out he likes what he's feeling and is he started to do them more.

When Techno finally noticed, he found out he wasn't opposed to the feeling and so he also started doing the same.

But remember the Syndicate?

Just when things starts to become better, the Syndicate managed to accomplish their goal: To find and rescue Technoblade who they all assumed was kidnapped and kept somewhere.

So with that, they managed to catch the two off-guard— successfully getting Techno, and capturing Dream.

Techno doesn't accept it. No one is listening to him. Dream— being used to this treatment, isn't even speaking

AHHH I want hurt comfort, more when I finally get some sleep...

Also I appreciate such long ask! I like Reading them!

[greens-multiverse]

[after - almost six months, holy fuck - here's part two of my end-of-anniversary-crystal songfic about abe and azure journeying to the bottom of reality/excuse for a lot of expository flashbacks about my season 2 myth arc headcanons. part one, which contains most of the setup, is here. our song being ficced is still the ai girl and the deep heart sea; tonight we're on the first full section, 'reincarnated girl rho.' this... turned out much longer than i expected]

so if you did go diving into the depths of the substructure-sea, what would you find just below the surface? easy: the physical world

you might think we live in the physical world, but that's not entirely true. human bodies exist in the world of atoms and forces, but human minds, like the minds of anything sentient enough to dream, belong to the lower layers of the noos. that's the term for the blanket of ideas and memories and stories we sophonts collectively lay over bare reality, the landscape of thought that gives everything meaning. up here, a piece of stone could be the last remaining artifact of a lost civilisation, or a source of energy that could power a city for generations, or the mark of the one true king. down there, it's just a collection of molecules

still, as stark as it might look with the haze of imagination removed, the topmost portion of the substructure is pretty similar to the world we know. the stars spin and the elements flow and people and animals act just the same, though if you didn't know how our home layers work you'd never guess why. and even if you do, it's hard to impose the framework of narrative over them for very long without the support of the noos. down there, nothing could be or means or implies anything; it just is

which isn't to say travelling through it would be exactly like going for a walk in our home layers - it might, if you were going for a walk across it, but if you're going down through it things get very strange very quickly! the philosophers also say that time is a direction, much like up or forward, and they're fairly close to right. going through the topmost layers of the substructure feels like plunging through entire timelines, events thousands of miles and dozens of years apart all flashing past your eyes at once. it's like experiencing dozens of scenes from the same story all at once, all without any context to tie them together or any subtext to give them meaning. but if it's a story you played a part in, you might be able to follow along, just about

it's pretty easy to find yourself reflecting on it

sunlight zone

Azure, the girl who returned

down here, I can see everything

as we drift downwards, time and distance fall away, and all that ever was blurs together, like disconnected clips of an absurdly long video. it's as if in the final death throes of this tiny shell of a world, the strings holding its timeline together have snapped, and the whole arc of its short history has tumbled into my hands. I feel like I could see anything, anywhere, if only I knew how to sort through the heap. I can even catch a glimpse of its ever-fewer potential futures

the back of my right hand shines a familiar colour I still cannot name. Abe's hand in mine crackles with haze, purple and white chasing each other around his crumbling skin. beneath it, I can just about see the beginning of a vast, eternal structure

the further we descend, the closer everything draws to us. it's becoming hard to distinguish discrete events, everything running into everything else. soon, I realise, the only moments I'll be able to perceive at all are this world's approaching end, and its distant beginning

but I don't need to look to see all the parts that truly matter. ever since IT came, I've remembered everything I've ever witnessed in perfect clarity

IT was far too unstructured to be called an 'entity' there was no one who understood what IT was or why IT had come into existence so they called it 'Missingno' or 'the glitchhaze' or 'OLDEN' some even called IT 'Altair' as if IT were a god

I did not witness ITs entire emergence, of course. the formation of the confluence called OLDEN began before my world was created, before his, perhaps even before the true reality all the worlds of the haze are mere shadows of. whatever ITs source, IT came to impinge on that reality, chewing it up, piece by piece, shredding order and logic and spacetime until only a formless haze of glitches remained. there was nothing anyone could do to stop IT. even the gods could just barely slow IT down

and yet, so I'm told, there was no malice in IT, not then. ITs bites at the edge of the universe were random, almost exploratory, as if IT didn't know what it was, or even what IT was. everything IT touched collapsed into haze, but that haze did not lash to corrupt everything it could reach or sink beneath the surface of reality to poison it from within. most often it disappated, and even when it lingered it reached out tentatively, inquisitively, even playfully. whether IT was curious or hungry or simply lacked enough of a mind to want anything at all, no one knew, but IT wasn't trying to destroy our universe in the beginning

but by the time IT came to my world, IT had changed. IT had learned how to hate

IT came to a world wracked by change and uncertainty and shredded it apart with a brilliant vicious light since no matter what all would someday return to the void why not cut short this farce of a universe and bring an end to ITs own suffering?

my world was nothing. a bubble within a bubble, a tiny simulation created as a last bastion from the corruption. but limited as I knew it was, insignificant as I knew it was, it was mine, and I fought hard to free it from those who would harm its people. I defeated each gym leader, I tore apart Team Rocket, I ascended the Indigo Plateau to claim the title of our world's first champion. ten settlements, twenty-five routes, a hundred and fifty-odd species of pokémon, and I stood above them all, the strongest trainer between the impassable mountains and the waters that trailed off into nothingness. I swore to protect them from whoever and whatever might seek to harm them

I was so young, then. so naïve. so arrogant. despite everything I had already learned, it never occured to me SOMETHING might come that I could not fight

IT came to my world at dawn. by the morning's end the ocean was a writhing mass of corrupted matter, advancing northwards in an unstoppable deluge. by mid-afternoon, the plains were choked with haze, towns and forests collapsing in on themselves faster anything could flee, faster than most could even notice. by nightfall, all that was left of my world was a mountaintop, and a temple, and me

I had begun the day determined to fight IT until the breath left my body, but by this point all I could do was sob. I had lost all my allies, all my pokémon, all my hopes as city after city fell and nothing we could think of so much as made IT flinch. they had relied on me to save what they could not, take revenge where they could not, and I had failed them all. despite everything I promised on the Vermillion dockside, I hadn't been able to protect anyone. all I had left was despair

I'm not sure why I had been allowed to escape. perhaps IT meant to save me for last

IT came slowly up the mountainside, chewing the horizon as if savouring each bite. I watched it from the empty doorway of the temple, unable to muster the energy to flee any further. for the first time, but not the last, I sat and waited for the end

then the space just in front of the doorway flickered, and Abe stepped through a crack in reality and out into the snow. we had known each other for some time now, he who designed my world, I who tracked him down and demanded to know why. I had seen him teleport across the world through his unknown doors many times before, but I was still somewhat surprised to see him alive. so quietly for a moment I didn't know if he heard it, I croaked out his name

he was just as shocked to see me here, I could tell by how quickly he spun around. his breath caught for a second, and he mouthed, "I'm sorry." then he turned to face the approaching chaos, and his shadow blossomed into an infinity of fractals

the beginning of the battle between the last of the fossil gods and IT was, I am told, like nothing ever seen by living eyes. unseen it remains, for I did not watch it. I moved further into the temple, behind enough walls it seemed unlikely I would be impaled by debris, and there I curled up and waited for the storm to pass. there was nothing I could do against IT I had not already tried a thousand times, and besides, what difference could a single powerless human make in a clash of the divine?

all around me, the earth, the walls, even the air shook. I could not even begin to interpret the sounds - the crackling, the tearing, the rattling - erupting from the temple's entrance, but soon enough I saw cracks drive through first the stonework and then the empty air. I knew my world was finally dying, and, despite my youth, despite my pride, despite my fear, I felt strangely relieved. a gash in spacetime snaked through the halls towards me, shedding glitches, leaking a brilliant, terrible light -

and from a direction I was not watching, something pierced the back of my right hand

I instinctively jerked my arm back towards me, but as soon as the impact sight came into view, I froze. there was no blood, no pain beyond the initial shock, not even a wound. there was only a sliver of dark orange stone barely larger than my fingernails burrowed into my skin, faintly humming. I had just enough time to take in the sight before the tear in the universe reached me and glitches overwhelmed everything

everything, that is, except me. the stone walls melted, the air collapsed, the world around me crumbled into a thick morass of swirling, chattering, ever-changing decay, but I remained just as I was. even when the haze lanced out at my body directly, the force I had seen rend through buildings and mountains and people alike in mere seconds slid off my skin like a passing rain. the space (if one were to call it that) around my head shifted rapidly between water and wood and viscera, but I could breathe more easily than I had in hours. through the flickering, crackling haze, for the first time I saw the back of my hand gleam

I did not know, then, that the miniscule stone shard tinting my skin an impossible colour was the last remaining fragment of an entity older than the gods. at the end of the battle I was sheltering in the temple from, IT aimed a dart of pure haze right at the core of the only fossil god still alive, the Dome. but for whatever reason such a being might do such a thing, the Old Amber leapt into its path. the impact made the packed-together rock at the heart of their being burst into a thousand infinitesimal pieces which flew off in all directions, shattering against the mountain or evaporating upon contact with the glitches. but somehow, through a series of coincidences and just-right circumstances, one shard slipped through it all and landed in me

was this planned by the Old Amber, or mere happenstance? I still don't know, and I doubt I ever will. but whether there was a purpose behind it or not, from that moment on the glitches could not touch me. a whole world could dissolve into haze around me, and I would keep my form, and my identity, and my memories. no matter how much time passed, no matter what happened, I remained myself

but all that I discovered later. then and there, curled up in that crumbling temple at the end of everything I'd ever known, I dazedly watched half a dozen tendrils of corruption pass through my body harmlessly before I realised I was not, in fact, dead. I reached out for one of the few remaining patches of wall and slowly got to my feet, and just when I'd found a stable footing my world finally snapped open and I tumbled head over heels into the glitchhaze. I fell for what seemed a thousand years through light and texture and shrieking, repetitive sound, and none of it so much as pulled my hair. the shock had faded from my mind enough I was beginning to wonder why

then my back slammed against solid ground. it knocked the breath out of my body, and when I inhaled I tasted air once again. the surface I was lying on was wet, spongy, and stable, at least as far as my arms could reach. when I pried my gummed-shut eyes open, the first thing I saw was a dazzlingly blue sky

it was a fairly typical early hazeworld fairly early on in its development. no tree was yet tall enough I could not step over it, the largest animals were barely bigger than mice, and the pokémon were still amorphous clouds of spirit, not coherent enough to create physical forms. even once it had fully matured, its sky never changed from that brilliant blue, and its dirt squished like jelly rather than crumbling. the worlds of the haze were only ever so real, and this one was even less so than mine had been

but in that moment, all that mattered was that it was

yet there was one whose existence ITs haze could never erase I was "Vega", lodestar inviolate, she who saw everything

that grassy clearing caught in an eternal morning was not alone in the glitchhaze for long. as some consequence of its battle with IT, the Dome created handfuls, then dozens, then hundreds of these tiny worldlets, little pockets of order billowing in the haze. each new hazeworld was just a touch more real than the last - a sky that dimmed and brightened again, soil that could be broken up to plant whatever fruit you pleased, water that cycled from stream to lake to cloud and back; a little larger, a little more self-sufficient. soon they were detailed enough humans could live there, and they built settlements, then cities, then regions. and then, slowly, step by stumbling step, they began to reach out across the haze to each other

I had long mastered the art of travelling through the haze by then. Abe, who had also survived that last battle, had to travel between worldlets through broken warps and bizarre glitchmancy tricks, his unknown doors writ large, but I could simply walk off the edge of one world and stroll through the glitches to the next one. not that it was ever that simple, of course; navigating the endlessly shifting landscape of the glitchhaze was more art than science and more luck than either, and I seldom arrived in the precise world I was aiming for even when I didn't spend months lost in the wilds of the haze. but it was never dangerous, not for me. out of everyone in existence, I alone travelled the haze without fear

the people of the hazeworlds grew used to Abe and I passing through their regions. we both got into the habit of telling them stories; he of the worlds that lay past their borders and the ways they could be reached, I of the worlds that once were and how they had been destroyed. we taught them what the haze was and that there were others like them beyond it, and they taught themselves how to send things through it; first information, then objects, then living beings. soon the haze was home to a great alliance of worlds, interconnected by hazeships and databeams and a dozen kinds of interworld teleportation, fighting back the glitches wherever they could, always searching for a way to defeat IT forever. Abe and I they revered as gods, the ones who had shown them the nature of reality and bestowed upon them the power to change it. with our teachings, they so fervently believed, they would restore the universe

Abe helped them whenever and however he could, but I seldom did. I could never muster the will to do much more than pass on my stories, never shake the feeling that no matter what anyone did, reality had merely been granted a stay of execution. why, I still cannot say; perhaps my mind was as trapped in that moment of despair as my body, and just as my hair never grew no matter how many decades passed me by, my heart never lifted out of that black pit. or, perhaps, I simply never managed to overcome my grief. all I could bring myself to do was sit on the outside of that glorious dream and half-heartedly hope it would be fulfilled

alas, it was not to be. no matter what they tried, no matter how they struggled, in the end there was nothing we mere humans could do against ITs hate. one after another, the worlds of the alliance were overcome and fell, and the links they'd forged between them became vectors for the very corruption they'd been made to fight against. over the course of its long defeat, the alliance grew desperate and cruel, but even that was not enough, and once it finally broke the surviving worlds of the haze were left completely without protection. once upon a time a world was not considered stable unless it was completely free of glitches, but now even the most substantial were strewn with impossibly stretched landmarks and holes in reality that opened into infinity. even Abe, as immortal as I was but for somewhat different reasons, began to mutate, his form and his memories slipping away a fraction more every time he crossed the haze, until all that was left of him was a barely sentient heap of glitches, marked out from the rest of the corruption only by the occasional flash of purple

but I? I remained. no matter how many worlds crumbled around me, no matter how long I spent lost in the haze, my self was preserved. even in that final barely coherent, violently unstable, utterly corrupted mockery of a world, where no division existed between human and pokémon and language had degraded into loud, garbled noise and time had broken in a way impossible to put into words, I had not changed one bit since the day my world died. in my customary seclusion, I watched the strands that held together this final world quietly fray, and I wondered whether, once all existence had been devoured by IT, I would finally be permitted to cease

isolated as I always was, she nonetheless tracked me down. a girl with blue hair and red scales and a wide, fanged smile, whose eyes were tinged the faintest purple and whose voice carried a muted echo of thousands more. like so many residents of the haze before her, she and her allies had sketched out a wild, one-in-a-million scheme to restore the lost worlds and bring the battle to IT. I didn't believe they could do it - there? then? at the end of everything? - but for the very last time I gave them my stories. I told them everything I knew, fully expecting that it could never make a difference

some time after that (in a manner of speaking) the last world abruptly shattered. the slow rot that had been eating away at it since before time had broken suddenly surged, and pillars of pure corruption burst out of its husk of a sky. as the ground beneath my feet dissolved into glitches for the very last time, the shard in the back of my right hand vibrated so fast it became painful. through the haze and the light, I thought I saw my left hand begin to melt -

and I sat in the Champion's Chamber of the Indigo Plateau, on the same plastic folding chair my world's Lance had taken to calling my throne, so many long years before. the stitching on the jacket I had left dangling on it the day my world had ended pressed into my back

it took me so many long seconds to comprehend where I was. it took me several more to realise I could still move. my heart hammering, my body shaking, half-convinced that if I moved too quickly this dream would burst like a bubble, wholly expecting Koga to burst in at any moment and announce that something was eating the sea, I got to my feet. I took a few dazed steps, and my shoe tapped against something on the floor

I looked down, and I saw pokéballs

what can I say about what happened next? my charizard wrapped my tail around its body and held me close as I cried. his scales rustled, solid and alive, radiating a warmth that drove my grief to the edges of my soul for the first time in an eternity of loneliness. with every pokéball I opened, every old ally I reunited with, every step I took in a world like so many others I had passed through but in its details unmistakably mine, it receded a little further. how it came to pass, I suspect not even the gods could say, but the people of the last world of the glitchhaze had brought back the first. they had brought me home

the story of that reborn world is not one I am equipped to tell. as much as I tried to keep a grasp on events, from the moment we discovered there was a new land beyond the once-impassable western mountains I played at best a peripheral partin the saga of ITs final defeat. but I was once more part of it; so longer a silent, sobbing witness to a fate I could not change, but an active participant in an impossible, glorious miracle. I fought where I could, and I laughed when I could, and though my sorrow never entirely went away it became easy put it aside for a few moments and bask in the beauty of this dream-made-reality

and yet, as wonderful as it was, it was not perfect. there was one person missing. I scoured the world in my search for him, both the tiny region we had grown up in and the new lands blossoming into existence all around it, fully convinced he had to be out there, restored along with everything else. but I never found more than a shadow. there was one time… but that was not him. I have been told over and over again that my best friend still lies at the bottom of the Cinnabar Strait, as dead as this world once was, and will soon be again

but that cannot be. he was a host of the Voices, and even when all of reality was on the verge of being devoured by glitches, they were as immune to the corruption as I. somewhere, somehow, he must still exist, if not in body then in spirit, if not within this universe then without it. and though logically he could be anywhere in the infinite nothingness outside reality, I know - somewhere, I think I always have - where he is. for so long I thought him unreachable, but no longer

wait for me, Evan. I'm coming to save you

and as for THAT which declared everything I had l ever loved and all we dreamed together no more than a useless charade what would I say to IT? … come on we've still a long road ahead

#twitch plays pokemon #mitzi fic #mitzi writing #azure #abe #old amber #and this remains not not about #olden #approaching four thousand words! i was not expecting the sections to get this long #i can't promise the next one will take less time to come out. it's almost certainly gonna be narrated by the voices #and they're always Fun to write #i decided azure talked like she'd swallowed a thesaurus very early on and had a lot of fun writing her #and i have decided who exposition guy is! #layer 2: the stream

[deadendtracks]

The way Tommy tells Lizzie he doesn't want to guess after the whole May thing...what do you think about it.

the entire May drama, is well discussed and most of the general take makes sense about Lizzie's outburst, the snark taunts, and May's response...but how far do you think Tommy was aware of Lizzie and stuff

Polly seems to have the idea that she loves him and even Ada, but what about Tommy? He seems to be slightly aware of it all, and seems to use it also, but at the same time doesn't want to take her seriously not ignoringhis traumafrom Grace's death, but then says he's kissing her when she puts her doubts...was he leading her on for his own emotions? While he also explicitly makes effort to put a wall between them (sometimes protect her heart)

I wasn't sure but I think you're asking about the scene in season 4 when May Carleton visits the office and Lizzie reacts jealously? I watched the scene last night, because I couldn't remember it very well.

So the context of the scene is that Tommy had recently taken Lizzie to the spot on the canal where he used to meet Greta, Lizzie asks if it's Greta he's kissing or her, he says it's her, and then they have sex. It seems like the first time they've been intimate since season 3, so at least a year. Afterwards Lizzie comments that they're all losing their minds trapped in Small Heath because of the vendetta, which Tommy acknowledges.

I think this point may be important to the situation you're bringing up, so I'll just note that Uncle Charlie also comments that Tommy's "going mad cooped up here... like a wasp in a beer glass."

May Carleton shows up in person with some paperwork for Tommy to sign and immediately when she enters the office, Lizzie reacts jealously, calling her "Lady Carleton." It's interesting that Lizzie's reaction takes the form of highlighting their class difference, and this too is important. May says she's not a lady, Lizzie says "too right you aren't" which is more or less calling her a whore, I think? Like, Lizzie knows that May showing up is basically saying she's interested, but all the polite trappings of class make that plausibly deniable in ways that aren't available to Lizzie.

When Tommy puts the question to May, she more or less responds that she was curious to see what Tommy was like now that his wife and brother were dead, and that he hasn't changed at all. Tommy's immediate reaction is blank, but he goes on to invite her to taste the gin he's distilled "for the eradication of seemingly incurable sadness."

Whiiiich is a pretty passive aggressive way of telling her she's wrong that he hasn't changed in the face of so much grief. I could probably write a whole essay just on the interactions between these two in this episode but you asked about Lizzie. I wanted to bring this up because I think it illuminates some things about Tommy's role in all this.

Lizzie comes into the office with some excuse, and proceeds to act very obviously jealous. She makes a comment that Tommy "sees something glamorous and expensive and he just can't resist it. He's so weak." Which is obviously aimed at May. Again, Lizzie's jealously takes the form of a jab about the class difference between she and May.

What are we to make of this? First, Lizzie knows there's no reason for May to have shown up in person to get Tommy to sign paperwork. Just as in s2, May and Tommy dance around the propriety of her virtue, with May not acknowledging what she's there for outright and Tommy more or less giving her an excuse. In s2 it was that his car was out of oil, in s4 it's the fake strike. He always carefully gives her an out: he has booked a suite at the Midland, but it's clear he is waiting for her to acknowledge the subtext, waiting for consent. He acts a bit pissy about the whole thing unlike in s2, but that dance is still there.

I think the point I want to make is that this is part of Lizzie's jealousy: no one is ever worried about the propriety of fucking her. Not just because of the class difference, though that's part of it, but also because of her past. So she sees May show up for no good reason, which signals her interest in Tommy without saying a word. And she obviously knows May and Tommy had a relationship in the past.

And she does pick up on a pattern with Tommy and rich women -- this is also true of Grace, who he married. Tommy is careful with these women in a way that he isn't with her; he gives them a type of respect that he doesn't give her.

Now, Tommy's reaction is what you asked about. When he says he doesn't can't even guess about Lizzie's outbursts, what's going on there?

First, I think Tommy distracts himself with sex. I think that's what he was doing with the sex worker in the Midland in 4.01, with Lizzie in that scene by the canal, and with May here. He's also losing his mind trapped in Small Heath for a variety of reasons that could also be another essay. He's fucked up over John's death even if no one can tell. He's got the lives of his whole family on his head. None of this excuses how he treats Lizzie, but it is the context.

If you watch the canal scene, he's downright spacey as he talks about Greta, as if it's something he hadn't remembered at all until Jessie Eden gave him that photograph and confronted him with his pre-war self. He's really dissociated and out of it, then he says he wanted to bring Lizzie there (why?). So yeah, as I said in a previous post I do think he wasn't really kissing Lizzie there as much as he was in part using her to connect to this pre-war part of himself. I don't think that was conscious at all. After they fuck and are smoking and talking, he's visibly more connected and conscious, more 'in his body' so to speak. He starts talking about charity projects he wants Lizzie to run because he'd promised Greta he'd change the world. It's a pretty fucked up scene from Lizzie's perspective, absolutely. What is she supposed to think?

He seemed to want to have this romantic moment with her but was obviously remembering someone else while he did it. Then May shows up and most likely Lizzie already knows he's booked a suite at the Midland. She may have even been the one to book it for him.

But how aware is Tommy of the fact that Lizzie is in love with him? I think this is fairly up to interpretation, to be honest. I think you could interpret it as that he's aware and uses her. I don't personally think that's quite accurate.

In s2 at the race when he asks Lizzie to lead the field marshall on for him, Lizzie's very upset that he even asks, and starts to say something about how giving up sex work was easy because she was in love with him-- she doesn't quite say that last part, but the thing I think is important is that Tommy is genuinely not listening. And he's not listening because of the fact he's planning to kill a man and is stressed out about it. This doesn't excuse him for any of it, but it is a point where I think he absolutely wasn't aware that Lizzie was telling him she's upset because she loves him and he's asking her to do this thing.

By s3 he says that Lizzie is the only one who kept his heart from breaking, which is... well, it's got to involve more than just being the 1920s equivalent of friends with benefits, right?

But I do think in Tommy's mind, that's what he sees them as. And sure, I think there's a lot of reasons why that's pretty convenient for him. But I don't think Tommy consciously uses Lizzie in the way you're asking about, where he's manipulating her affections for him overtly and consciously leading her on. I *do* think he is careless of her and just doesn't consider how she feels at all, for the most part. He's too wrapped up in his own head for that.

I think he put a wall between them after s3 because she'd seen him vulnerable and he couldn't handle being vulnerable with anyone after the events of s3 and his family's arrest and rejection of him. It wasn't for Lizzie's sake, he wasn't protecting her feelings, but his own.

So when he needs her again in s4 when he's losing his mind from pressure, he just assumes she'll be there. And he doesn't see this as any kind of commitment, which is why he's angry and perplexed at her jealous behavior.

And yeah, this says a lot about him and his assumptions about her and still seeing her as available to him for his needs, versus the careful way he negotiates things with May. He was much more direct with May in some ways too -- in s2 he outright tells her he isn't in love with her, because he respects her feelings. He doesn't ever seem to see that as something he should do with Lizzie, and that's telling of how he thinks of her, or doesn't think of her.

It's not very flattering. So when I say that I don't think he intentionally leads her on or uses her affection for him, it's not saying he's a good guy here. Some of this is probably at least a little bit willfully ignoring things as well, because he doesn't want to deal with them.

It's complex, because he respects her enough to try to counter her own self-loathing talk about how nice girls aren't sex workers, and I think he's being genuine -- he considers her a nice girl, he respects her mind and her ambition, he trusts her with projects that are important to him, etc. But on some level he doesn't consider her as someone he needs to be careful with the way he was with Grace and May. And part of this is the class difference and Tommy's internalized class issues (upper class women need to be treated this way) and part of it is his unconscious assumptions about Lizzie because of their history of his having been her customer, I think.

The fact all this is most likely unconscious and unexamined for him doesn't make it right at all.

From Lizzie's perspective they had this moment at the canal and then May Carelton shows up and he's clearly interested in her. It'd be a slap in the face. But yeah, I don't think Tommy thinks about what Lizzie feels about him, so he's more or less annoyed and confused in the face of her jealousy.

#peaky blinders #meta

[bitacrytic]

YOU ARE WATCHING INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE!! OH MY GOD TELL ME YOUR TAKES!

I just finished it last night.

Where do I start from?

1. Louis must serve million-dollar-dick because the men around him are obsessed. Even the angry, bitter writer can't seem to hide his boner long enough to deliver his sass, completely.

2. Lestat? Oh Lestat. I had, maybe two seconds of pitying him when he was trying to grovel but then Claudia exposed him and I was like, "Yup. Sounds right." Words cannot express how much I do not like this man. And the fact that he lulls Louis into a false sense of security and equality??? Over and over and over? He lied. Every single time they gave him a chance, he held something back. And yet, he wanted a "family". At least he was honest with Claudia as to why he wanted to keep her around.

3. Can I just say that I LOVE that the show outrightly stated that Louis and Claudia were his slaves? None of that subtext, maker-in-place-of-slave-master bull shit. Because the show did that, in the beginning. I was worried that they'd leave it at that. That they'd just use the word "maker" as an excuse for how he treats them. But then, BAM, Claudia calls them his slaves and I was in HEAVEN about it.

4. I love that Daniel is so astute. Yeah, he was horny in every interview but Louis' sultry eyes or EVERYTHING ABOUT RASHID, wasn't enough to pull the curtain over Daniel. He was like, "Eh, you're hot, but was it raining or not?"🤣 what the fuck did Louis expect? Didn't he do his research before he hired Daniel? Didn't he know that this man was intrepid and so, so mean? Whenever he called Louis back to review a plot hole or expand on something Louis wanted to gloss over, I loved that.

Also, that scene where Louis was feeding on Rashid and Daniel couldn't concentrate because he kept thinking about what Rashid would taste like????????👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 (there was a threesome in the flashback that Daniel has forgotten. I won't believe otherwise)

5. Claudia! Iconic! Brilliant! Mind-blowing! Best girl! Queen! I heard spoilers about her but I am going to choose to believe that the show will not do what the books did. That girl is life. She was the perfect foil for Lestat. And I love that Louis didn't and couldn't turn her. So they had their little mind corner to hide from Lestat. That chess game where she walked away??? That was the best performance from anyone on the show. I was screaming along with Lestat, but unlike him, I was screaming in joy. A boss! His powerless rage was the best thing. Especially since we know he's not actually powerless. So we know that what's holding him back is his affection for Louis. It was all she had against lestat and she weilded that weapon to perfection.

Her plan to get rid of him? Chef's kiss. I just wish... *sigh* Daniel said her diary, after they left New Orleans, showed resentment towards Louis and rightly so. They had a plan and he flaked out. Just like he did when he told her to go alone. Fucking Louis. Lestat was right. Louis sucks at choosing.

6. Rashid? He is the most beautiful person on the planet. I will not debate this anyone. When he was a fragile twink who was willingly offering his blood, pumping himself full of honey for days just to be sweet for Louis, he was perfect. When he watched the exchange between Daniel and Louis from the sidelines like a helpless lover, eager to defend Louis at every turn, he was perfect. But when he (spoilers) became the old, powerful vampire who was impervious to the sun???????? My coochie fell out. I'm sorry. I had to take a moment. I think I stopped breathing.

I have found a new actor to obsess over. Thank you, AMC.

I've seen spoilers on the Internet that he's going to be worse than Lestat. 😭 Louis was already giving captive-in-a-cage when he introduced Armand. I can't even imagine what season 2 will do to my sexy baby, Louis. 😭😭😭

7. I HATED LOUIS' FAMILY.

His mother was the worst. The fact that they were living in a house paid for by Louis' whore houses, and still had the mind to be sanctimonious was so frustrating. The brother-in-law... oh god. I wanted to slap him. And his sister? She grew irritating everytime I saw her.

The fact that she called him to judge AND BURY HIM, because she wanted to move on was so annoying. She could have done what she wanted and left. But she needed him to hear, one last time, that he was dead to her and that the new him was fake and wicked. Just, why? What was the reason? She lowkey became her mother.

All in all, I loved this show. I'm glad I waited till it was done or I would have been frustrated, waiting for new episodes. I loved every moment of it. I will rewatch it. I will re-rewatch. I will hate every moment of waiting for the next season. Fucking AMC, who wants your fucking 7 episode bullshit???? Why did you make it so fucking short????

#interview with the vampire #these takes are pretry surface level #maybe one day I'll make a.more comprehensive post about each character #considering how short the show was #i feel like i could write a lot about each character that came on screen #and i know the moment I post this #other things will come to mind😒

[swervestrickland]

re: your tags, yeah!!!!!!!!!!!! YEA!! and like, punk is NOT being smooth about all this either. he had to escalate things SO far to push hangman to the point of snapping (being condescending wasn't enough, his handshake intimidation thing wasn't enough, the one handed shove wasn't enough, he had to two hand hard shove hangman before he got punched back!).

i wrote that whole thing in a vacuum just cuz i was excited about my interpretation of the situation being validated but then later saw randos online being genuinely confused at why hangman was so angry with punk right off the bat as if punk hasn't been needling him for weeks, as if last week we didnt see punk specifically pointing out to hangman that the crowd is cheering "cm punk" louder than page's name with the commentators even going so far as to say "golly is punk getting under page's skin or what", as if the week before that he didn't use hangman's finisher on silver and was literally saying "u mad?" about it like what! what the!! are these people watching the same show as i am?? can any of this even be considered subtext at this point, i feel like its so overt its pretty much just Text. sorry for ranting LOL

*babbles excitedly* YSHSJSKFHS YEAH LISTEN

at the beginning, when hangman told punk he was gonna destroy while punk was off fuckin around on a tv/movie set idk, I was confused. VERY confused. because it seemed like, ok this is coming out of nowhere. at that point, I would’ve said, “holy shit? Hangman’s turning heel.”

But THEN—a week later, Punk uses the same language as Triple H used against him way back when in 2011, ELEVEN YEARS AGO. Granted, in the parallel, Trips is saying Punk MADE it personal, that it’s NO LONGER just “business”, but the fact remains that Hunter at first had believed it was business as well, and Punk prodding and poking and all around running his fucking mouth (for good reason at the time) made it personal because he was going after Hunter specifically. So, in my opinion, that’s a heel fuckin move. Why are you as a man using the same language as the language of the man you considered the villain in YOUR story?

Next, Punk uses Hangman’s finisher. WHY??? If this is just BUSINESS, then WHY???? Why are you pushing at another man’s buttons???? If not to FLIRT, then WHAT are you DOING? That’s not flattery, motherfucker, that’s offensive and you know it!!! You’ve watched wrestling as long as I have and MORE, you ass!!!! You know that isn’t flattery!!!! That’s a fucking insult!!!! (Especially when you don’t even connect with Silver’s head it was such a bad buckshot lariat I’m so upset about it 😭😭😭)

I won’t even talk about the week after because I’m just gonna go insane. Hangman made me lose my mind. I love him.

(Right at this point, I had written three paragraphs worth of brainrot and when I saved it to post, my fuckin app glitched out and didn’t save so I’m gonna try to type it all out again at my lunchtime but just know that I’m in a rage)

Okay yes I WILL talk about the Takeshita match because. Fuckign philip. Throwin shade like literally throwing shade and JR just. Edging him along like.??? Okay?!?! And nobody calling this out at all on commentary like what the fuck. And!! The whole “I’m in his head!I’ve got him right where I want him!” like ok motherfucker manipulative much????? If you planned on doing this the business way AND the babyface way then WHY are you using heel kevin owens tactics?

There was this ask that I got, where I rambled about how, Hangman is the only man past/present so far in the company (at least on PPV) that hasn’t kissed the ground that punk walks on. That he doesn’t care for him at all, in any way, just does not give a fuck about this dude. And that, in some way, that’s hangman getting in punk’s head because every other guy he’s fought at a ppv made the mistake of telling punk that they idolized him, at one point or another. And that became their downfall. Meanwhile, with hangman, punk doesn’t have anything on him except to push and prod at hangman’s hothead fuckin personality. But it takes more to work on him, because he doesn’t have hangman’s number. The men that have hangman’s number, hangman’s gods, are dead and buried, as I said in another post sjskfjdj.

And I just!!!!! Hangman is something else man. He catches onto snakes bc he’s lived with them so long. He knows what he’s done, he knows what his friends have done to get to the top, and he knows punk is snake in the grass brat 3000, original model. The only thing that fucks punk up is a man that doesn’t kiss his feet. Hangman IS in punk’s head, which is why punk had to shove him multiple times to get a rise out of him. That’s also why hangman didn’t do the pipebomb, why he thought better of it because he knows that plays into punk’s ego and a puffed up punk can do anything. Like you said, that’s why punk points at the crowd chanting cm punk, that’s why he throws it in hangman’s face bc punk is all about the ego.

Anyway I have lots of fuckin thoughts about this shit but I’m glad we here on tumblr dot hellsite know what the fuck is going on

#emi replies #wrestlezon