#please reblog this post because tumblr won't make it show up in tags :(

[labs]

Introducing Collections

Hello again, Tumblr. Labs division here!

A while back, we announced our comeback as a new team that would imagine big ideas for Tumblr—and would build them in public (aka with you). We recently announced our first failure, and today we're very excited to announce our first possible success!

A bit of context

As we've said before, an essential part of how we're working in Labs is speaking to people who use Tumblr pretty much on a daily basis and those who don’t use it at all.

In those interviews and focus groups, we learned that curating the Tumblr experience around different interests and fandoms is a big part of making Tumblr feel like your own space — and one of the main ways you do that is through blogs and tags (be it following or creating them).

So here at Labs we're working on ideas to help you curate the content you care about, and to help share what makes your experience fun with other people, even if they are not on Tumblr already.

Ok, but what's the idea?

Have you ever put together a song playlist to listen to when you're in a certain mood, or share with a specific friend? Or sent them books you know they'll love? Now imagine if you could do that with blogs and tags on Tumblr…

Maybe you're a veteran in a fandom and have the best recommendations of who to follow for your followers. Or your best friend won't join Tumblr because they don't know that their favorite TV show is actually really popular here. Or maybe you want to curate and browse content from a specific fandom, or a group of your mutuals, your own way.

That's the idea behind Collections!

You can check out that example collection on the web here!

We want your help

The first way we're testing Collections is by inviting some of you to create your own and share with followers and friends—they'll be able to follow all the blogs and tags in your collections. So we're looking for volunteers!

You want to help? Great! Here's what you need to do:

Come up with your own Collections of blogs and tags, write it down somewhere. Focus on introducing people to Tumblr or recommending stuff to your followers. What would you want them to first see on your version of Tumblr?

Come up with a name, cover image, and description for it. Also try to think of who you would send your collection to, and where you might post about it.

Write out that idea as a reply or reblog on this post!

We’ll give it a few days, and pick a handful of people to play with Collections. We'll let you know. Then we’re off to the races!

If you decide to participate (and get selected), please note that this early release won’t work on the apps yet, only in your web browser. 

What happens next?

Our goal is to keep working on improving and adding Collection functionalities while you test what we've built (and share your feedback with us).

Next we’re exploring making a collection something you can follow on Tumblr, as a way to curate Tumblr around your many interests and moods, and to give you more freedom to curate content on your dashboard.

And if this idea is not for you, remember we have many more experiments in progress, so stay tuned!

With love,

Labs division

#tumblr labs #collections

[budgebuttons]

There's a lot of reasonably frustrated but ultimately misdirected psa-style posting about how viewers NEED to start reblogging things rather than just liking them because that is the primary mode of post circulation on this site. The modern manifestation of this sentiment seems to miss the fact that, if you've been here for ~15 years, were here prior to, during, and after the exodus to the bird app, you already know that likes have always been more common than reblogs, that many people simply don't want to put your art on their blog, and that guilting end-users into using a microblogging site A Specific Way absolutely does not work. If it did, the trend would have shifted a decade ago. Because this conversation really is that old. Regardless, the modern discourse of how difficult it is to be Seen specifically on Tumblr isn't productive because I think it ultimately misses the reason being an artist online feels so Bad, now.

The social media era has funneled Looking At Stuff on the Internet into an economy of engagement that encourages end-users to treat everything we/they see as quick, cheap, and disposable. This is just another fun and flirty way that capitalism devalues art. It's nothing new. Trying to force masses of users to behave in a way that is healthier for the circulation of art isn't going to do anything to solve the discontent we all feel when we hurl something into the void and it is ultimately ignored. I swear up and down: A higher notes number won't feel better, either. Popularity is just as demoralizing as radio silence, but it manifests differently. Instead of 4 likes and maybe 1 reblog from Old Faithful Mutual, you get a horde of people who treat you like a content machine. You keep hoping for an impossibly Bigger Number. The notifs on the first Big Number Post haven't even settled, and people are already asking when the follow-up is coming. You get anons, but most of them are trying to passively convince you to give them More Content.

It's really, really hard to make people care about art. If there was a silver bullet for making the average person appreciate the enormity of human effort behind every beautiful thing they encounter, we would have found it centuries ago.

The best thing creatives can do for their lives online is to be friendly, or at least kind, with other creators. "Big" artists don't form in-groups because they're snobs. They find each other because they casually showed each other support, and their mutual appreciation for that Thing that wound them up in the same tag becomes a foundation for connection, and in many cases, the ever-illusive Bigger Audience as they introduce themselves to each others' circles. We get more eyes on our work by building community with each other.

Where does that leave people who are just here to look at things, not post them? I think the answer is almost identical: COMMENT!! Please, comment! The first step to engaging with art on a more meaningful level is to point out something you particularly enjoy about a given work. It can go in the replies, it can go in the tags, doesn't matter!! If you notice some symbolism or make some connection, there is all likelihood that OP put it there because they desperately wanted somebody to notice it. Let them know why you like it!

Reaching for the nebulous, impossible goal of better post circulation isn't going to make being a creator online in 2023 suck less. Meaningfully connecting with each other can, will, and does. You can make someone's day just by passingly letting them know that their effort is worth more than a number.

#budgetalks #I got to thinking about this because of fanfic actually #the proportion of comments to kudos ESPECIALLY on popular fics bums me out #especially when you open the comments and half of them are people asking for more

[everlastlady]

Vampire Miguel HCS

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✰- Author's Note: Hello! My little spiders welcome back to another Miguel story. I decided to write some Miguel content before I rest up. I'm writing this from inside the Tumblr app. Since I usually write on google doc from my phone or laptop. Which I think/believe that Tumblr should add a word count for the app, I think it will really help writers. Anyway this is vampire Miguel hcs with a female reader, don't worry I'll make a separate one soon for male readers because I really need to also cater to my male followers if y'all want I could also make one for my non binary followers as well. So for now remember to eat a meal or snack, drink some water, get fresh air, take your medicine and vitamins, and especially remember that you are loved. If you enjoyed these hcs then please consider commenting, tapping or clicking on the heart, reblogging with tags, or blaze this post if you can. Remember to always support your local writers! ♡♡♡♡♡

✰- Story Contains Blood, Biting, Fem reader, Violence, Fluff, Smut so minors dni, stalking ,Protective Miguel, & author giggling like a bitch over smut.

✰- Posted: Sunday, October 8th 2023 at 1:21 a.m

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Vampire Miguel who has been watching you for a while. Ever since he stopped that guy from robbing you in that alley when you were coming home from working. Miguel couldn't get you out of his mind especially the scent of your blood from when the man had cut you when you refused to hand over your bag and fought with him. Good thing Miguel showed up to save you. But the scent of your blood was so strong that he had to control himself and hurry up and leave. He let you call the police, you were happy the mask man saved you but was confused at his behavior.

Vampire Miguel who continues to watch. He found out that you live in the same apartment building that isn't to far from his. He likes how well you keep your house clean. But hates how rude your neighbors are, he wishes he could get rid of them so that you sleep better at night. He thinks that you look adorable when you are asleep at night. Still having to himself back from opening your window and crawling on top of you to stick his fangs into your neck, he wanted to know what sweet sounds you would make. Thinking about this so much, he goes home and strokes his cock to the image of you underneath him as he's pounding into you while his fangs are buried into your neck like his cock would be in your sweetness.

Vampire Miguel who finally gathers up the courage to talk with you. So he pretends to introduce himself at the coffee shop you go to before work. The two of you talk and get to know each other, exchanging phone numbers, and waving goodbye. He did it! Now he has to act cool because he has scored a date with you. At his place he makes you dinner and can't wait for you to come. He thinks you look beautiful in the dress you were wearing, your hair, make-up, and jewelry looked beautiful. Miguel's dinner looked and smelled great. The two of you ate, drank, and dance.

Vampire Miguel who goes on more dates with you and eventually becomes your boyfriend. You find it stranges how he always sleeps during the day but is active as a cat at night. He seems to always be gone at night. Sometimes he won't talk when he sees you and it worries you. Also he smells metallic. He eventually tells you that he's a vampire and is spiderman, now he's scared that you'll run out screaming and tell someone. But you don't you still love him and stay by his side. Though you wished he told you earlier but you understand he was scared.

Vampire Miguel who loves to stuff you with his fingers as you unravel underneath him. When he's pumping his fingers in and out of you trying to prepare you for his length. He absolutely loves to praise you, calling you his good girl or sweet little thing. And when you are finally ready he slides himself into your pussy pushing his hips into yours while feeling how you squeeze around his cock. You feel so damn good. You could hear him grunt and see how his fangs scrap across his lips, as he's thrusting. He bites your neck, breasts, ass, thighs, and stomach. He wants people to know that you are his.

Vampire Miguel who has beat people to a bloody plump for messing with you that sometimes you have to grab onto him and yell for him to stop. His red rage filled eyes would stare at you before fading back to those beautiful brown chocolate orbs. He would apologize and pick you up, leaving quickly. You would patch up Miguel and remind him that he needs to work on keeping control so he makes a promise to keep his anger in check for the both of you.

Vampire Miguel who shits on other vampire movies and shows calling them dramatic, misinformed, or stupid. Though he's very fond of the movie Dark Shadows the old version and Tim Burton's version. He also questions your taste in vampire stories whether it's books you read online or books you buy.

Vampire Miguel who when he bites you for a quick snack especially when he's seriously injured and needs blood. Is gentle, even though he didn't want to bite you at first but you reassured him that it's fine. He's gentle when he bites you and never takes too much from you. But will make sure you get you some water and snack to eat after he drinks from you.

Vampire Miguel thinks about turning you into a vampire but it's your choice to make. Miguel will love you no matter what if you grow older and older he will still be by your side especially when you become an old lady he will still protect and love you, no one will mess with you at bingo night or when you are knitting away in your cozy chair. When you die he will visit your grave everyday and leave a rose there on your birthday or your guys anniversary.

Vampire Miguel that If you do choose to become a vampire, Miguel has a lot to teach you and is glad to have someone by his side. He brings home a lot of donated blood, but sometimes you aren't afraid to get your hands dirty and help him fight crime. Miguel thinks it's hot whenever you have blood on your mouth that it leads to a steamy make out session on the floor and then leads to sex on the floor. Thanks to the abilities from you both now, y'all be fucking on the ceiling but it's not like he wasn't pounding into you on the ceiling when you were human.

Vampire Miguel who thinks it's cute whenever you dress up as vampire for Halloween and get those fake fangs. He will also dress up like a vampire to match with you at parties. All your friends and people at the party tell him that the blood on him and his fangs on him look so real. Miguel chuckled as your just let out a nervous laugh hoping no one gains the third eye or a new brain cell.

Vampire Miguel who tells you that garlic doesn't really kill vampires that it just makes them sick but to the point they die. So when Miguel accidentally ate a dish that had garlic in it. You took care of him but he did say that silver makes vampires break so you replaced your silverware with fake silverware. Miguel was in a awe he saw how much you listened to him about vampires and sacrificed a lot to keep him safe so he did the same by keeping his hunger in check, anger in check, and keeping you away from greedy and corrupted vampires that could hurt you or his enemies from whenever he's being spiderman.

Vampire Miguel who will love you until the end of time whether you choose to stay human or become a vampire like him. Because no matter what you choose Miguel will love you for a thousand years and thousand more.

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📖Taglist/Miguel's Simps: @sukioyakio @quechulitaaa @miguelcvmslvt @homewreckingwreck @tayleighuh @lauraolar14

『 Let me know if you wanna be added or removed from the tag list! 』

#miguel fanfic #miguel spiderman #miguel x reader #miguel o hara #miguel o'hara #atsv miguel #miguel atsv #miguel o'hara fanfiction #miguel o'hara smut #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #miguel ohara fanfiction #miguel ohara smut #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel smut #miguel spiderverse #miguel x you #miguel x fem!reader #everlasting writes🪻 #vampire #vampires #vampire miguel o’hara

[nanjokei]

further guidance for newcomers coming from reddit

hi arriving redditors. here are some things i don't see most posts mention. this is for people who conquered the baby steps of joining the site. i think they're pretty important! also me clarifying on some stuff i've seen people word very vaguely consistently in their guides

under the cut because it's a chunky set of bullet points! with a few that also discuss how to keep yourself in a safe and fun browsing environment for yourself and others (mostly quality of life)

if you have any questions either send me an ask (anonymously is ok too) or reply to the post

you can enable a custom theme that shows on the web in your blog settings, if you so wish (blog settings > visibility) and then (custom theme toggle to on) this is the classic tumblr experience, but it's ok to want to hide your blog from the public. however you won't be able to link stuff on your blog to people without tumblr accounts

you can find custom tumblr themes by searching resource blogs like theme hunter or just in the tags in general (like "tumblr theme" or just "theme" and see where the other tags you may find to refine your search takes you)

tumblr is currently trying to enact changes to appeal to "new users" that make the website less friendly to its current inhabitants, such as fucking with quality of life and muscle memory and even stuff integral to the culture of the site. if you see people complaining, i highly advise against going "this sounds kind of nothingburger" and assisting in sending tickets to support the drive against such changes

there is a 250 post per day limit. you probably won't hit it though.. maybe? but people used to make post limit blogs (seperate email) for that. but that is for heavy usage users.

you can make as many sideblogs as you want. you are free to divulge whether or not it's you. of course use common sense to gauge whether or not it matters. but side blogs can be anything: maybe you want to categorize things, maybe you wanna make one into a huge fan page/blog for a specific hobby/celeb/show/game/etc, maybe a quieter space, maybe posts you feel don't belong on your blog, maybe even a blog where you reblog resources to exclusively. the possibilities are endless! (maybe not for porn, it's a little harder to skirt by these days even with muh community labels)

a lot of posts are incredibly vague about whether or not you can leave comments on reblogs. i think it truly depends. for example, if it's praise for artwork, i feel like it is truly best left in the tags. the artist can see it still! it shows up in their notifs when you reblog. in comparison, when it comes to funny text posts and pictures, you can comment as you like, but consider TPO (time place occasion). it helps to check the notes (comments only filter) to see if the quip or comment you wanna make has already been made or if OP made further comments later. again, it's a call to use your judgement and everyone has a different tolerance for this kind of thing

i see many people or perhaps most came from LGBTQ+ centric subreddits so i am surprised i'm not seeing this mentioned often: there are unfortunately a lot of terfs here. please stay safe. install shinigami eyes and engage in blocking sprees whenever possible.

in account settings, not blog settings, there is a section called "content you see". it has filtered tags and filtered post content. the difference is filtered tags is specifically for tags, for example, if you want to hide a certain show you don't like, you can have the site apply a peek-a-boo filter on it (this content contains #TAG, as in click to view). you ask, what if the person on my dash doesn't tag it as that? that's fine! it also takes into account the original poster's tags. the OP didn't tag it? then filtered post content might help. MIGHT. it's pretty helpful and unlike twitter's mute list, as far as my experience, it is not broken. for example, if you write [SHOW NAME THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE] in plain letters (with aliases as seperate entries just to be safe) it will filter any post that has the words in the body of the post. pretty useful! use this to curate your dash further or even filter out triggers.

speaking of tags. a lot of people are also vague about this. i'll say it clearly. you can add whatever tags you want to a reblog. there's no limit (aside from character lim per tag)! there's no social faux pas, unless you're being backhanded at someone's creative work, like reblogging just to dunk on it or going "i like the art but not the character" etc. when it comes to your own posts, try to avoid tagging irrelevant tags (for example, if you're making a lot of posts that are tangentially about cardcaptor sakura, think about if it belongs in the tag or not. think of it as whether or not it deserves an OC flair on reddit). again, people's tolerance differs, but especially on older media and slow tags people do not appreciate random tangential text posts (for example "i wanna watch ccs!" and nothing else)

in terms of culture, tumblr has a weird balance between "you can ask for context" and "lurk for 10,000 moar years". i would not know myself. i've been here for 12+ years *shrug* you'll have to gauge it for yourself. most things you can google "[tumblr user] callout" and figure out from there LOL (yes that's usually what happens). i DO encourage trying to garner it from context, especially for terms.

due to the looser moderation(?) on here, LGBTQ+ and other minorities use their own discretion reclaim slurs freely. join in, or put the slurs in your filters. it's fine not to join in as that's your personal comfort, but this is a heads up that the culture is like this since i'm not sure how the moderation is in places like r/196 are. (sorry i used reddit for entirely different things ><)

DO NOT TAG D0NATION POSTS WITH #D0NATION OR ANY OTHER VARIATION. this is SO important. it's best not to tag donation posts AT ALL. tumblr internally flags them and suppresses the post. just reblog silently (d0nate if you can) and move on (censoring just in case lol)

search is useless for finding specific posts. give up before you even try. your best bets are google, asking for help on the dashboard, or just hoping it shows up on your dashboard one day (it probs will, maybe not immediately when you need it though)

i called old tags "slow" but not dead earlier: tags Do Not Die (though some just kind of randomly get wiped or lose posts, idk, it is some post-2018 indexing weirdness) so you can find fanart and posts from 2012 and it's ok to reblog! the essence of tumblr is the continued circulation of people's creations

please do not repost screenshots of tumblr posts unless they are no longer accessible (reblogs locked for example) 😭 i am seeing this happen already. this is the one thing from reddit you're gonna have to let go of. twitter and other place screenshots are OK (probably, some people don't like them). but don't let your page look like one of those r/(etc) post aggregate bots on twitter is what i'm saying. once you explore a tag enough times you'll know what is usually appropriate to post (usually derivative meme templates are OK, but don't overdo it (tho this just falls under "dont spam") (also this is MY personal preference, so if the climate of the tag houses a lot of memes, go ahead!)

in general reposting content that isn't your's is kinda eh. especially reposting people's art without explicit permission. there are art reposters who in the modern day usually ask for permission, of course there are internet spelunkers who repost content from old web and dead sites. there's a lot of nuance, but i highly discourage reposting things you didn't make yourself unless it's stuff like official art and whatnot. photography and other stuff from other people, use your judgement. and as an aside i know "stolen memes" are r/196 and other meme subreddit cultures but it's not exactly appreciated here and i feel like if the reposting gets out of hand tumblr users might get real tired of it. the humor isn't really the same here in that sense, i suggest posting them in a sideblog that archives such things so they aren't lost and/or keeping them in your community tags. ofc no one can stop you!! but the whole highly derivative fried meme thing is very reddit. the culture could not be more different even if we are similar in many ways. i mean this in the nicest way possible >_< if you're not sure, DON'T REPOST.

this is just advice from me, but when liveblogging a show, it's nice to tag it with a unique tag, such as #[your name/nick] plays [game]. i find it's ok to tag series name to some posts that are more substantial, people are happy to see others enjoy what they love, but using a unique tag also helps people track YOUR liveblog since they may save the tag to look at :)

put your age or whether or not you're an adult somewhere where people can see, (and your pronouns too or lackthereof). whether or not if it's on your bio, or an about page, or a carrd. please. it's a matter of curation and safety. some people don't wanna follow minors by accident and vice versa, just as a means to curate their space

people write alt text and image descriptions in the post bodies pretty often. yes it's built into tumblr, but either some people forget or the feature... refuses to work that time. yes it's BROKEN. if you feel like you can contribute alt text for an image in an adequate fashion, go ahead!

try not to reblog people's personal posts. asking people never hurts!

you can restrict non-followers from replying to your posts, or turn off replies all together. as far as i know it's not possible for seperate posts unfortunately, just a blog-wide toggle. when replying to someone specifically, be sure to @ them so they can see it!

for a long time, only the first 5 tags you used in an original post mattered. a lot of people still repeat this, but in my experience this seems to have... changed?? i can't say for sure, but my posts appear in tags beyond the first five. just to be sure, tag the most relevant things first! (or not, if you have your own strategy LOL)

you're free to not tag trigger warnings (it's nice to do it for others tho especially if they ask) but please tag flashing images as such. #epilepsy warning, #flashing, #flashing image, #flashing, etc.

REPORT BOT BLOGS. it blocks them for you anyway. just blocking doesn't do anything for anyone

you can add other people to a sideblog to make it a group blog. this is how blogs with mods work, or even collectives, it has a lot of uses in general so have fun with it! be wary it requires getting someone's email so be safe about that and try to do it with people you trust.

this is advice from me since i noticed after publishing this post that a lot of reddit users don't tag things. you don't have to btw!! but my advice that brightens up the website: if you reblog cool art, writing, music or photography (taken by OP) and you like it a lot, i highly recommend leaving compliments in the tags. we live in an age where creative creation is increasingly unappreciated and people are quiet silent— creators get no feedback therefore no encouragememt to keep creating. this is more like a personal plea, but like to reblog ratios have become DIRE. people are apathetic and scared to interact with people's creations even though on here they are actively ecouraged to. if you like art or fic etc i even more highly recommend you reblog it. likes don't do anything! reblogs = more eyes on it. let's support each other's creative endeavors 🩷

don't fall for the trap of trying to make tumblr into reddit, or trying to recreate the feeling of a subreddit. it's not gonna work. try to adapt. it's easier said than done but lol. rome wasn't built in a day. operate your blog like your own space rather than trying to recreate a hub. the tolerance for trying to change tumblr culture is super low and a lot of people who are much meaner than me will probably try to bully the idea into the ground. and people DO get mean. (like playground namecalling, but people have no reservations about it, so it's stuff that would probably get you banned on reddit)

if your post gets traction and the note notifications annoy you, deleting the original post will make the notifs stop coming. a lot of people reblog the post to keep it on their blog then delete the original to effectively "mute" the notifications permanently.

#196 #r/196 #reddit #r/tumblr #r/curatedtumblr #curatedtumblr #reddit blackout #reddit boycott #reddit migration #r/traa #i hope this reaches people bc i feel like some of this stuff is important #traa #r/ftm

[wolfjackle-creates]

1000 Follower Celebration!

I'm blown away, honestly. The last time I had any notoriety in a fandom was back in, like 2007 or 2008 when I was on the Dibbuns Against Bedtime fan forums for Redwall. I was made the head of my dorm as the site started dying because I was the most active member in said dorm.

But you all? You're here because you like something I'm making? It's so wild to me. I appreciate every single one of you. Every like, every reblog, every comment. They warm me up.

I've been thinking over the last few days what I want to do. The obvious answers—prompt fills, polls to determine what I write, story snippets—I do all that with too much regularity. And I'm trying to avoid taking on more fics as I focus on the ones I've already got going.

So we're gonna do something a bit different this week.

Over the next week (From Wed 2/21 to Wed 2/28) send me the title of one of my WIPs (listed below) and I will respond with a few paragraphs. Not my usual 1.2-1.6k that I like to do for WIP Wednesday, but a few paragraphs. At the end of the week, I'll compile them all and post everything in a single post.

I won't be adding all the links like I usually do with each addition to a story until I post that final draft, but I'll tag everything with "[story name] 1000" so you can click that and follow along with the fic in some sort of order.

There are six WIPs eligible for the game! Please limit yourself to one fic per ask, but you may send in multiple asks. I will request that, for now, you limit yourself to one request per fic (aka a max of 6 requests per person). If I find that I'm able to keep up, I may waive that request in the upcoming days. But it will depend on how busy my inbox (and life) get.

Bring Me Home

Ghost!Robin

Answer My Call

I'll Carry Your Heart (Until I Find You Again)

Want to Hold On and Feel I Belong/Bad Reveal AU

Empathy!Verse

I totally forgot about the Empathy!Verse when I did my last ask game. Mostly because that has been entirely written on Tumblr and I...kinda forgot to transfer it to a Scrivener document. Ooops. 😅

Something to Feel isn't on this list because I want to dedicate my time to it today. I'm close to the end, I think, and already have one ask in my inbox about it that I totally meant to get to before now (if it's your ask, I promise I haven't forgotten you!).

Brief Story Summaries

Bring Me Home: Tim and Danny are online friends and know each other's secrets. Currently in the arc where the Young Justice and Team Phantom help Danny escape after a reveal gone wrong.

Ghost!Robin: Jason is haunted by the ghost of the Robin he used to be. Danny finds out when Jazz introduces him to Jason over a meet-the-in-laws dinner. Currently, Jason and Robin are meeting with Frostbite to learn what may have happened.

Answer My Call: Jazz is sending texts to Danny after he escaped a GIW facility and they can't talk. But it turns out Jason is the one who's actually been getting them.

Carry Your Heart: Jason and Danny meet in the Ghost Zone while Jason is dead. They become friends. But Jason runs to Desiree to wish for his life back. A wish she fulfills. Danny goes to visit him, only to find his core left behind in a lair that's in ruin.

Bad Reveal AU: Danny is living with the Waynes when he finds out they're also the Bats. He freaks out because he believes the bats are working with the government (aka the GIW). So he shoots Bruce and runs away. The bats are now trying to convince him it's safe to come home.

Empathy!Verse: Liminal!Jazz is studying in Gotham and feeling the lack of other liminals to interact with. After getting used to the undercurrent of emotion that follows all interactions with ghosts/liminals, humans just feel...flat. Then one day, she literally runs into another liminal as she's going to the library. Jason Todd. Only... he doesn't know what it means to be liminal. So Jazz is there to show him.

#1000 follower celebration #ask game #name a wip #send an ask #and I'll write you a little something #hope you all have fun with this!

[gallavichthings]

Gallavich Week 2023

Here we go once more with the 11th (!!!) edition of Gallavich Week!

Last year I decided to change things up a bit and give you two choices for each day, instead of just one as was usual before. Well, this year I'm taking things even further because you'll actually end up with several choices per day.

Dates and themes below, details about each theme (please read those and also follow the links when provided) and more information about Gallavich Week in general after the read more. Quick reminder that all kinds of work are welcome, as long as they are original. Please read the guidelines before posting.

18/06 - Gallavich Week 2023 playlist

19/06 - Top 20 touristic attractions in Chicago

20/06 - Disney

21/06 - Meet-cutes NYC Instagram

22/06 - Tags from popular Gallavich fics

23/06 - Shakespeare

24/06 - Free Day

Details about themes:

18/06 - Gallavich Week 2023 playlist

This was a playlist created with suggestions from some followers of songs that reminded them of Gallavich. I won't be adding any more songs to it, but there should be more than enough to inspire you!

19/06 - Top 20 touristic attractions in Chicago

Just follow the link to know what they are. As usual, prompts are meant to inspire and can be taken any way you want, not just as Ian and Mickey visiting the places.

20/06 - Disney

Anything Disney-themed. Disney movies, Disney shows, Disneyland... Mickey Mouse? :P And yes, Marvel and Star Wars can be considered Disney as well.

21/06 - Meet-cutes NYC Instagram

Follow the Instagram to find dozens of interviews with random couples about how they met! Watch them and get inspired. :)

22/06 - Tags from popular Gallavich fics

I took one "unusual" tag from each of the 10 Gallavich fics with more kudos on AO3, so here they are, to be used as inspiration:

Unresolved Sexual Tension (from Sexual Harassment in the Workplace)

Organized Crime (from The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Ian Gallagher)

Soulmate AU (from you are inked on my skin long before we begin)

Ian and Mickey talk dicks (from Nobody's Fuckin' Business)

Accidental Baby Acquisition (from Melánia)

Internalized Homophobia (from Noisy Neighbours)

Domestic!Gallavich (from a thousand and one ways to show you care)

Long-Distance Relationship (from Lost in Translation)

Ian Bottoms WHOOPS (from eighty-four)

Social Media (from Cooperative Gameplay)

23/06 - Shakespeare

Self-explanatory, I suppose? But again, to be interpreted as you want.

24/06 - Free Day

CREATING AND POSTING GUIDELINES

How do I participate?

You don’t have to subscribe to anything or announce what you’re doing, you just have to post your work on the appropriate day and tag me on the body of the post using @gallavichthings. It’s important that you tag me properly so that I can be sure to see your post and reblog it.

What types of works are accepted?

Any kind of original fan work is accepted, including but not limited to: fanart, fanfiction (no minimum words required), graphics, gifs and gifsets, videos, and fanmixes. Yes, meta and polls are also accepted (though I do request that you either try to keep them within the theme for each day or post them on the Free Day).

When can I start posting?

I’ll always make one initial post for each day, at 12am GMT (check here to see when that is in your time zone). After that, post away!

Can I still participate even if I don’t have a Tumblr account?

Absolutely! Just submit something here (http://gallavichthings.tumblr.com/submit).

Can I post on Twitter or Instagram?

You can post anywhere you want! On Twitter and IG, we encourage you to use the hashtag #GW2023and I’ll RT you. You can also mention @gallavichthings if you want. I do not have an IG account though, sorry, but you can post there and send me a link for visibility. That being said, we do encourage you to post here as well, so it can be seen by more people.

Is there an AO3 Collection?

Yes, right here. Participation is not mandatory though, and you can rest assured this Collection will not be deleted.

Can I post something that I’ve already posted before?

No, sorry. The works should have been created specifically for GW. You can, however, create a sequel or a different version of a previous work.

Can I post something that is not in English?

Of course. Just make sure that it is original, or that you have the original author’s permission (and, in that case, link to the original too).

Can I make R-rated works?

Yes, just please give any necessary warnings and tell us the rating at the very beginning of the post. If the post is visual (like a fanart or a gifset), it would be nice for you to also tag it accordingly - Tumblr now allowes you to select if a post is deemed for mature audiences or not. It’s not mandatory, but if possible put it under a Read More here on Tumblr and under a spoilers mark (so it’s not instantly visible) on Twitter.

Can I post something that’s AU?

Sure thing! Tag it accordingly though, both for those who want to avoid it and for those who’d like to find it.

Can I post supernatural works, mpreg, or genderbends?

Yes! But if it’s a fic, please include it in the warnings.

Can I post more than one work?

Definitely! The more, the merrier. You can post as many works as you want, on as many days as you want, be it one post per day or ten on the same day. Anything goes!

Can I post on more than one day? Do I have to make something for each day?

Again, the more, the merrier! You can post on only one or all days if you wish!

Can I make one work that fits two or more themes?

Sure thing. I only ask that you post it on the day of the last theme included. For example, if you are posting a work that includes the theme from Day 1 and the theme from Day 4, post it on day 4 (just make sure to tell me that it includes both).

Can I write a multi-chaptered fanfiction?

Yes, and you don’t have to post everything either. When you do, just be sure to include either a masterpost, or the links to the previous chapters in the beginning.

Can I include other characters/pairings in my work?

Yes, as long as Gallavich is still the focus.

What if I can’t finish on time?

The Gallavich fandom is ALWAYS happy to see new fan material, so just post it when you’re done and tag me, ok? The same goes for people who can’t finish a work on the assigned theme day; you can still post it on a different day during GW, just make it clear which day it was made for.

#Gallavich #Ian x Mickey #Shameless US #Shameless #gallavich fanart #gallavich fanfiction #Ian Gallagher #Mickey Milkovich #GW2023 #mod post #events

[thelunarsystemwrites]

Hey, wanna talk about something real quick. (/Srs post)

Do you love fanart? Honestly, I'm sure you do! Just about everyone loves seeing fanart of their favourite characters! Honestly, I'm willing to bet you probably have some saved on your camara roll, huh? Hey, there's nothing wrong with that! But seriously.

Don't. Repost. Others. Art.

I'm bringing this up, because of tag games—Like, for example, "Reblog with the last fictional character in your Camara roll!"

Don't reblog with others art, unless you have permission! Or if the creator has directly said it's okay!

If you do this, and don't credit the original creator? That's reposting. Hell, if you do this without permission then that's reposting!

REPOSTS ARE BAD LIKE 90% OF THE TIME! The other 10% is reposting with PERMISSION.

I've had my art reposted once, and it sucks because while they have me credit—They never asked for permission. And when you repost another artists work, they don't get the attention on THEM, people focus on you, even if you claim you didn't make it! EVEN if you credit them, a lot of people won't check them out, you cant take that risk. (And saying 'Credit to OG artist!' Is NOT enough!)

So please, if you do any tag games/challages like this, and the last picture is fanart? USE A CANON PICTURE OF THE CHARACTER INSTEAD! If your last picture was fanart of Sans—Just use his sprite instead, please. Same for show/movie/other games, just use a screenshot of the ACTUAL character!

But what if it's my OC? If you made the art, it's okay to post, if YOU made the fanart of a character, it's okay to post. If it's an OC that ISN'T yours, then ask.

In short:

Don't repost art you didn't make without permission.

Don't repost OCs you didn't make without permission.

Using your own art is fine.

Always check to see if someone is okay having their art reposted w/o permission, and the RULES of it.

If it's an AU (like undertale) and the only official art is from the artist, don't repost if they don't allow it. Or find art that someone who made fanart thar IS okay being reposted/you have permission.

You don't owe anyone permission to use your art.

You're allowed to be upset if someone reposted your art.

But Lunar! It's just a silly game, I'm not going through all that effort to cred-

Then leave. I don't tolerate reposting, it isn't fun. It's real easy to just wait a bit, or use a different character that you have Canon art from. (Example, instead of using fanart of TMNT, use a screenshot from the show!)

Please—When playing games, they're supposed to be fun. And getting your art reposted isn't fun.

Sorry, this is like—My first actual rant on Tumblr that's not about my personal life.

#Repost rant #Rant #seriously #serious post #serious talk

[sundrop-writes]

Official Taglist Rules

aka things you need to know if you want to be tagged in my fics

I am officially starting taglists! So if you want to be tagged in future fics, make sure to read this post first.

Taglists will be made in the replies of the post or in a separate reblog, so tagging may take a few minutes after the fic is posted. Please be patient with this, as I am a person, not a robotic system making fanfic notifications.

You must have your tagging/mentions turned on in settings in order to be tagged in fics. If you are new to Tumblr, please make sure that you have this turned on - otherwise, your username doesn't become a hyperlink when it is typed out with the @ symbol, and my tag for you in the taglist will not come up in your notifications.

If I see this happening, I may send you a reminder to fix your settings, but if you don't fix it - I will simply drop you from the taglist.

Most importantly, if you want to stay on the taglist, I kindly ask that you leave a comment on the fic or reblog it within a week of it being posted. Writing a fic and maintaining a taglist is a lot of work, and supporting fanfic authors in these simple ways doesn't take much time. Leaving a simple comment after reading the fic only takes a few minutes, and even if you don't have time to read the fic within the first week of it being posted, reblogging a fic takes less than a minute.

Reblogging really supports writers because it puts their work in front of more eyes, and it is a simple thing you can do to show your favourite fics and your favourite writers some love.

There will be separate taglists for each fandom. If you ask to be put on that taglist, then you will be tagged in literally everything for that fandom - requests, headcanons, smut, longer fics, etc. I won't tag you in fics for only a certain character or only fics of a certain genre. If you are signing up for a taglist, you are singing up for everything from that fandom. (Especially because I post longer fics infrequently, I don't want someone to be put on a taglist for them only to be tagged in one fic a year or less.)

If you make a comment on a particular fic asking to be tagged in future fics, I will add you to the taglist. But please keep these rules in mind (I know a lot of people are gonna be added through comments on specific fics without even reading this post - but hopefully being tagged in this post for keeping track of the list will cause you to read it?). If you want to be added to a specific fandom taglist, you can send me a DM or an ask regarding that.

And as of me posting this, I will make a post calling out for people who want to sign up for those fandom based taglists when I am about to post a few fic for that fandom. So not all taglists are active yet.

And there will also be a separate cumulative list for people who want to be tagged in every single thing I post, regardless of what fandom it's from - a list for if you're just a fan of my writing and my style. If you want to be a part of that list, you can reply to this post telling me so or send me an ask to tell me so.

In order to keep track of the taglists, I am going to keep a list of people who want to be tagged on this post. You can ask to be removed at any time.

Sunny's General Taglist: (Not Yet Applicable)

DC Titans Taglist: @panacademics | @poetatorturadaa | @m0chaminx | @adat4r | @skypperlegacy | @jasntodds | @makeyouminemp3 | @101maverick | @peehall | @starmyx | @em8rin | @redhoodless | @obsessedwithromance | @laurelthesimp | @mrs-megane | @domfikeluva | @nooneuniqie | @groundzerospitfire | @bookygeekygirl | @princestalea | @saddestsquid | @100520s | @jazzchambers95 | @reaperxxxxzz | @omgpanicfan | @blackviper980 | @yin24 |

(Other fandoms will be added when I post more fics for them.)

#sundrop speaks #faq #tagging #taglists

[onlymingyus]

puppy

cw; kim mingyu x gn reader, smut, handjob, cum eating, sub!mingyu, mingyu called puppy, overstimulation

imagine mingyu being so desperate for you as you sit between his legs. his thighs shaking as your hands work over his hard cock. your teeth caught between your teeth as you watch him lean his head back against the headboard with an almost pathetic whine before he rolls his head back to look down at your hand running over the head of his cock.

you were overstimulating him and he wanted you to let him cum so badly but you had made him promise to be good for you and he was trying so hard. mingyu's fingers dug into the bedding as he lifted his hips, pre-cum dripping almost an obscene amount from the tip of his cock as you lean to let some spit drip from your mouth on to his shaft. "please..."

"such pretty little whines from my puppy. is it too much?" mingyu gasps as you twist your hand under his head and press your thumb along the vein that runs along the underside of his cock. "yes, oh fuck. i--i'm afraid that i'm gonna cum anyway and i won't mean to."

you feel mingyu's legs kick at the bed behind you as he lifts his hips only to hear you tsk at him before he puts the down. "but you are so pretty gyu, look how pretty your cock is like this? it's almost angry isn't it?" mingyu looks back down at you palm his length in your hand to show him before he nods watching his cock twitch.

"mmhm." you nod at his attempt to answer you before letting more spit drip on to his cock making him moan your name. "are you going to give me all your cum?" the way that mingyu nods so quickly makes you moan softly under your breath as you start to pump your hand over him. "the cum for me."

breathy gasps fall from mingyu's mouth before white ropes begin to shoot from his cock. you smirk letting his head point towards his abs as he leans his head back so that his cum lands on his own body and your hand. your motions only slowly when mingyu actually whines and grabs your wrist.

"what a good boy." he laughs into a smile before groaning as he feels your tongue run over his abs beginning to clean him up. "oh my god...you are gonna make me hard again." you laugh against his stomach before glancing up at him as you lick you lips. "then you can cum for me again."

tag list; @bangchanbabygirlx @just-here-to-read-01 @hoshistar96 @niktwazny303 @strawberri-uyu @yeritheloml @tis-nikii@noraehey @hoohoohope @otterpopchan @xuxibelle @foxdaisy @smileysuh @vern0nsworld @synthetickitsune @enhacolor @pandorashbox@yeosayang @httpswonwoosglasses @rubyscoups

please note that I am doing my best to tag all of you who have filled out the tag list form but tumblr won’t let me tag some of you. I think that is because either you have tags turned off or possibly a blank tumblr page. consider reblogging some of the fics you like from me or other writers. ♥

© onlymingyus - all rights reserved. Reposting/modifying of any fic, or pieces of original writings posted on this blog is not allowed. Translations not allowed.  

#mingyu smut #seventeen smut #svt smut #mingyu imagines #seventeen imagines #svt imagines #mingyu x reader #seventeen x reader #svt x reader #mingyu #seventeen #svt

[vaspider]

I have a question about your post about the garbage you get having a large follower count. I didn't see it mentioned in the reblogs.

How does this work with Tumblr? For example, say you made a post about some relatable trans masc experience. By the time I'm seeing it, it's got a bunch of really good additions but no one on any of the reblog chains has mentioned some connected trans masc experience that I've had.

It doesn't seem that screenshotting it and cropping out all the usernames is the best option (everyone deserves credit for their good info). But if that post has 10k notes, it's probably making your notifications unusable. So, it seems like it might be a risk to add my 2 cents and further blow up your notifications because my 2 cents might be 0 cents to you or others reading it. On the other hand, it also might be a whole dollar to someone who was a whole dollar short and since I don't have a large follower count, if I made my own post with that addition it might never get seen by someone that needs it.

Am I making sense? I'm worried that my 4am lack of sleep brain is making me not make sense. But I wanted to ask because I would really hate to be doing it wrong and cause you and any other large blogger here frustration they don't need.

The thing that matters to me is that people are like, taking a moment to look in the notes before they add to stuff, just to see if it's been mentioned 20 times, and that they're not, like, super shitty if I'm like "hey, we talked this to death already and you didn't see it in the notes bc I blocked the person so it won't show up in the notes, if you want to keep talking about this, make your own post."

And also that it's not like ... giving the most obvious advice to me as OP. You know, the "well have you tried yoga" kind of reply.

If you're putting a good faith effort in to not be a douche, don't worry too much about my notifications. It only really bugs me when people are either openly dickweeds (shit like tags that say "vaspider sucks so much and I hate him but he makes a good point so I'm reblogging JUST THIS ONCE" or whatever are just evidence of being a truly unbearable human being) or get shitty when I say like "please drop this particular line."

I would rather prefer people not screenshot my writing and blot out my name, though, bc that shit happens an annoying amount. Oftentimes it's people who are using my words for clout (weird) or attaching their own ko-fi links (weirder, and happened more than once with the Pete Buttigieg essay), and both of those things kinda suck. I am a lot of things, but two things I'm not are an object or a public resource.

So, yeah.

[prezaki]

Sword and Mirror - a Lacus Clyne Analysis

“First… decide. And then do it. It’s the only way to achieve anything.”

Do you want to read ~8.000 words of Lacus Clyne character analysis? I hope so, because that’s what I got for you today.

When I watched SEED, I was wholly convinced I would dislike Lacus and everything she stands for. I have never been more wrong. Lacus is a tricky character to grasp - the show narrates her story largely through themes, blank spaces and parallel storytelling. As a result, I understand how she can seem quite flat on a casual viewing. I promise you right now, there is more to her role in the story than meets the eye.

In a 2020 interview, Director Fukuda said: “I do remember [Writer Morosawa] saying that the idea of Lacus Clyne was that she would be a mirror of other people, and that was why she was necessary to reflect other people’s hearts.”

The primary mirrors for Lacus are Flay in SEED and the Durandal/Meer combo in Destiny, so these will be our focal angle for unraveling her character - because the question is not just “what does the mirror say about other people?” it is also “what is inherent to Lacus that is able to reflect these (often negative) characters so well?”

Lacus’ story includes a lot of interesting ideas about power, agency, and gender performativity. I am here today to make my case to all of you, to present to you the Lacus I came to love - a girl who would love to be ordinary, but who cannot ignore the ideological power her image has become entrenched with.

(Because tumblr is a functional website and won't show posts with links in tags, I will add my source links in a reblog.)

We’re going to be following Lacus’ appearances more or less chronologically here, with digressions into related topics when it fits thematically.

Starting us off, we can’t talk about Lacus’ early scenes without also talking about Flay Allster. Lacus and Flay are two sides of the same coin and the show beats us over the head with that pretty much from the first time we meet Lacus.

Flay and Lacus arriving on the Archangel follows the exact same script: a girl exits a lifeboat, floating through the hangar, into Kira who blushes at the proximity and informs her that this is an Earth Forces vessel. The two scenes are merely four episodes apart, serving as a giant blinking billboard to tell the viewer: compare and contrast these two!!

At this stage of their lives, Lacus and Flay are in nearly identical situations. Their mothers are out of the picture, having passed when they were young. Their fathers are important politicians of their respective faction. Each of them is engaged to a boy they did not choose as part of a ploy to further their fathers’ political agenda.

That is hitting right on a theme SEED explores with most of its main cast - children as extensions of their parent’s will. As they exist at this early stage of the story, Lacus and Flay are each tools to further their fathers’ reach. The fact that both of them seem to have positive emotional relationships with their fathers does not diminish this aspect - in fact, I’d argue it underlines it. Both of them want to live up to their fathers’ legacies and willingly accept their place in it.

This means that there is a level of performativity that permeates every aspect of their lives. We see this most clearly with Flay - every part of her day to day persona is carefully curated to show herself as a perfect little lady. We know that this act is directly linked to pleasing her father, because it includes doing things for her father’s benefit such as writing love letters to Sai despite not actually liking him or putting in unusual effort to look her best for reuniting with her dad. She acts out the perfect hyperfeminine daughter that George Allster wants to present to the world. Flay’s sweetness is a manipulation - a way to exert power, first on her father’s and then on her own behalf. This is why Flay keeps up the performance, even once we have seen the real Flay as a much darker personality. It’s the only way she’s been taught to assert agency and thus her only strategy to protect herself.

Lacus is rather similar about strategically using her hyperfeminine charm when needed be. Her initial episodes on the Archangel serve as a perfect example of this.

But first, we have to elaborate on her background. She’s a popular idol singer on the PLANTs but her career is, like everything else, something that is tailor-made to promote her father’s moderate politics. When Meer describes Lacus’ job in Destiny, she does it like this: “[Her job] is to actively pursue ways to help the PLANTs and the world achieve peace.” Tellingly, the line is placed over an image of Lacus and her father.

So we know that Lacus is politically active by this point, even if just as her father’s mouthpiece. We also know she is in this sector of space as part of a ceremonial delegation. She is literally engaged to Athrun in a bid to reign in Patrick Zala’s extremism by making the public see the Clyne and Zala families as a unity. What I am getting at is that there is absolutely no way Lacus is oblivious to the context she finds herself in when she boards an Earth Forces ship. When she acts as though she were, it’s deliberate.

Lacus only takes decisive action when she feels that she knows all the facts and she likes to go see the circumstances of a situation for herself. This is something we’ll talk about a lot more later on, but it is already useful to keep in mind here.

Lacus’ time on the Archangel is characterized by her leaving her (locked) room again and again to wander the ship, then acting oblivious as to why anybody would be upset about the enemy leader’s daughter freely scoping out the place.

(Her mild ‘Oh?’ here always gets me.) It’s the kind of behavior she can get away with precisely because she is a hyperfeminine teenage girl - if she were an adult male refugee instead, she might have been arrested for pulling a stunt like that. But being as she is, the exaggerated naivety somehow registers as believable for everyone on the ship and she gets off scott-free.

What I love about Lacus and Flay is the level of awareness they both have about gender being a performance that can be put on for gain. Both of them are genuinely pretty girly, but more than that they know how to play up the girliness and use it to exploit gender biases to their advantage. They know people are likely to underestimate them and/or be sweet on them and they bank on it fairly often.

Of course this isn’t to say Lacus’ personality is one big fake and there is a ‘real Lacus’ in there who is diametrically opposed to how she presents herself. Even during the Archangel stay, we see Lacus in private and we find a gentle girl. She prays, she sings, she plays silly little games with her Haro. Lacus’ naive act is effective precisely because it is merely a slight over-acting of her regular self.

This is confirmed by Director Fukuda when he states that “about half of her behavior is natural, but she can also play the role of herself. She is her true self when she confronts Rau Le Creuset and she is also her true self when she plays with Haro.”

While we’re on the topic of Haro, I find pink Haro to be a bit of a curiosity. In Gundam’s history as a franchise, Haros have usually represented something about their owner. For Amuro, Kamille, Hathaway and Uso their Haros were manifestations of the childhood they were clinging to / that was clinging to them.

Lacus’ pink Haro is the first Haro in Gundam to be willful and rude instead of cheerful and supportive (though Haro in Victory certainly packs a punch). It also has the rather interesting catchphrase: “I won’t accept that”. What does that say about Lacus, if anything?

I would argue that it is a first pointer towards the strength of personality and opinion that Lacus camouflages behind her innocent exterior. During these early episodes, there are two major hints towards the Haro symbolism.

The first is simple: Haro is Lacus’ excuse for constantly leaving her room. See, it is Haro who won’t allow them to be locked in. This is totally out of her innocent public persona’s control, see?!

The second one follows when Lacus leaves the Archangel and we first see proof positive that she’s been playing dumb while in enemy territory. As soon as Lacus is safe in Athrun’s suit, she addresses Rau in a commanding tone never heard before.

“Stop it at once. Are you trying to turn this location into a battlefield when there is a representative of the memorial delegation here? I will not allow it! Stop your combat operations at once!”

Suddenly, we learn that Lacus has perfect awareness of her own importance and a clear grasp on political/military speech style. We are forced to recontextualize the clueless girl we’ve spent the last few episodes with, turning our perception of the character on its head. But the viewer isn’t the only person shocked by this. As Athrun stares at his gentle fiancée in bewilderment, we are treated to Haro’s shout of “I won’t accept that! I won’t accept that!” which perfectly echoes Lacus’ speech and feelings - meanwhile Lacus herself just gives an angelic smile, acting as though she has no idea why what she just did should be astounding in the first place:

The disparity between Haro-as-the-inner-voice and Lacus’ outer performance as she reverts to her usual ‘public self’ is used deliberately, foreshadowing the many surprises Lacus still has up her sleeve.

Lacus is then moved to the ZAFT vessel Vesalius, where she continues to wander about against Athrun’s advice. Though she is no longer in enemy territory, it makes sense for Lacus to keep up the naive act so she can scope out the ship as much as possible. After all, she sees herself as a civilian who wants to end the war. She has no specific loyalty to ZAFT as a military. Of course she’d want a glimpse at things.

After this, Lacus is shuffled out of the plot for a good bit as she recuperates at her home with her many, many Haros. So many Haros. It will never cease being funny that Athrun (notedly, the person who gave her the Haros) is also the one who goes ‘how can you live like this?!’.

This is a good opportunity to talk about Lacus and Athrun’s relationship as a whole. Though the two of them never met before being introduced to each other for the engagement, they like each other. Lacus seems dedicated to making this marriage work out. In a bonus audio drama covering their first meeting, Lacus basically steamrolls Athrun with her can-do-attitude regarding the engagement. He is completely taken aback as she speculates about the hair color of their future children… Lacus approaches the engagement on a baseline of ‘I don’t know you that well yet, so I don’t know if this is good or bad - might as well be optimistic.’ It’s only after Athrun’s enduring discomfort that she slows down. This ongoing positive approach to the relationship seems to both be because of her dedication to her father’s cause as well as because she simply comes to like Athrun. She treasures his gifts, is overjoyed when he comes to visit, and would be perfectly willing to take their relationship to an actual romantic level.

Just look at her waiting for a proper kiss before Athrun chickens out and opts for her cheek instead…

But ultimately, Athrun just does not understand Lacus. This is evident in their interactions and confirmed several times by Director Fukuda. Athrun can’t see past Lacus’ one-sided public presentation. Her deeper thoughts and convictions are lost on him. According to the above-linked interviews, it is this specific visit in episode 20 when Lacus tries to test Athrun and then decides to cut her losses.

“I think she was trying to see if Athrun could accept her thoughts. Lacus also feels that way about Kira, so she told Athrun that she likes him. She actually wanted Athrun to inquire about her reasons, but Athrun doesn’t ask. That’s why Lacus can’t make space in her heart for him.” - Fukuda, as linked above.

Not only does Athrun not seem open to meeting her head-on ideologically, he also doesn’t display any jealousy at her stating she is fond of another guy. Both as a comrade and as a romantic partner, Athrun feels distant from Lacus. Of course she remains fond of him as a person, but she won’t keep chasing a connection he is not emotionally open to.

Kira is different in this regard - he is ready to accept and agree with Lacus’ morals, to let her take Flay’s place as the person who inspires him to keep fighting. And that is precisely the next step in Lacus’ journey - forging her bond with Kira.

After Kira and Athrun gravely wound each other in battle, Reverend Malchio picks up the injured Kira and brings him to the PLANTs. It is implied though not elaborated upon that Malchio is part of Siegel Clyne’s large web of contacts trying to stop Patrick Zala’s megalomania. Malchio and Lacus appear to get along well - it stands to reason that Kira was entrusted to her care because Malchio knew he’d saved her before.

Lacus delights in nursing Kira back to health. She shares her love of the outdoors and beautiful gardens with him, and listens to his struggles and regrets. It is here that we get a good glimpse at the way Lacus’ genuine girly side looks. She is playful yet ladylike, she can appear quite innocent… but she never seems at a loss for what’s going on and routinely gets serious when discussing matters of war and trauma.

This Lacus in the garden is the person she would like to be. In her ideal world, there would be peace and she’d be at liberty to simply enjoy her songs and flowers, spending time with a person she likes. Lacus’ gentleness and her appreciation of simple pleasures are not an act.

Unfortunately, that ideal world does not exist. Which is why, when Kira declares he wants to fight not ZAFT nor the Earth Forces but the conflict itself, Lacus sees her own morals echoed in him and decides to act as well.

She abuses her authority and the trust the PLANTs’ society holds in her in order to let Kira steal the Freedom, one of ZAFT’s new super weapons. It is likely that she was aware of the Freedom’s existence through her father - there don’t appear to be any secrets between the two of them.

This is a good point to point out one of Lacus’ most defining habits: her tendency to ask questions. Though she is far from clueless, she is someone who will contribute to a conversation by prompting for elaboration again and again. She knows that asking someone else to spell out their thought process will help them solidify it.

Lacus has a very intuitive understanding of the human mind and how to enable it. She is a good person and mostly uses that strategy in order to gently nudge those who are already morally aligned with her in the right direction… but there certainly is potential to use this kind of strategy for outright manipulation. We will see as much when we get to Destiny… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Right now, allowing Kira to act has also forced Lacus to do the same - she is now regarded as a traitor to the PLANTs for her theft of military equipment and needs to go into hiding. There is only one last thing she feels she needs to do before she can address the public: tie up loose ends with Athrun.

The staging of this confrontation reveals Lacus’ deep sentimentality. She hides out at the theater she first sang in publicly, a hideout so fitting of her personality that Athrun figures it out with only minimal prodding. Lacus had taken great care of the flowers she received from that theater years ago. I’d say it’s fair to assume that the location has not just been picked for how easily Athrun could find it - after all, Lacus is singing in full stage costume when he finds her. In a way, this is her goodbye performance to her old life that she is now giving up in the name of rebellion.

On this stage of memories, Lacus gives Athrun an ultimatum.

“Did you kill him? What is it that you believe in and fight for? Is it the medal you received? Your father’s orders? If it is, then Kira may once again become your enemy. And so will I. If you’ve declared me an enemy, will you shoot me? Athrun Zala of ZAFT!”

For the first time, she addresses him with a harsh voice and allows him to see the full power of her determination. (Poor guy, he had no idea what he was in for…)

At this point everything has been set in motion and Lacus is fed-up with Athrun’s lukewarm commitment. He is holding her at gunpoint, but the one forcing a decision is Lacus. When Athrun protects her from the ZAFT agents sent to kill her, that proves that Athrun is not acting in blind loyalty to his father - he passes Lacus’ test. Noteworthy is that through this entire exchange, Lacus had gunmen from the Clyne-faction in hiding. If Athrun had actually made a move to hurt her, he would not have left that theater alive. I fully believe that Lacus would have ordered his death if it ensured that he won’t get a second shot at killing Kira - the sword she is pinning all her hopes on. However, she surely had confidence it would not get that far. Her primary intention was to wake Athrun up, not to get rid of him.

With this last personal matter settled, Lacus begins her real work. She has the unique advantage of being an already established ambassador for peace through her idol work (and the association thereof with her father’s politics). This gives her inherent credibility with the populace of the PLANTs - something she is intending to make full use of through guerilla radio broadcasts.

“Coordinators are in no way a different species that evolved from other forms of humans. Even with the reform of marriage regulations, we are unable to build towards our future. How is that an advanced species?”

In her speeches, she takes a stark counterposition to Patrick Zala’s doctrine of Coordinator superiority. Fukuda repeatedly calls Lacus a radical girl - and for her context, she is. After all, she lives in a society legally controlled by eugenics, in which only marriages resulting in childbirth are legally viable. To stand up and publicly declare that the entire premise of the current PLANTs is bullshit… That is bold.

Her rebellion is harshly punished as her father is mercilessly gunned down for association with his daughter - which now leaves Lacus in charge of the whole Clyne faction. Her response to her father’s death is muted. She merely nods in acknowledgement and goes back to organizing her resistance force - the only hint to her true discontent is once again Haro, closing out the scene with an “I won’t accept this!”. We see yet again that Lacus’ public face is always tightly controlled. As a leader she understands that she cannot show weakness or risk hurting the morale of her group.

Through the connections her father established and the loyalty of her own followers, Lacus manages to steal the spaceship Eternal and escape from the PLANTs. Through this, she can reconvene with the Archangel and meet both Kira and Athrun again.

It is here that Lacus allows herself to cry about her father for the very first time. She is a girl who is open with very few people, who does not feel like her position offers her the luxury of being candid with her emotions. It takes being alone with somebody she trusts for her to let go and truly feel.

I am going to be talking about Lacus’ relationship to Kira in more depth when we get to the beginning of Destiny, but for now it will suffice to say that their non-faction-aligned positions make them kindred spirits who rely on each other. They have gotten to know one another fairly well during Kira’s sickbed stay at the Clyne mansion. Kira has met Lacus with an emotional openness that Athrun never showed her, which makes it easier for her to fully respond in kind.

(As an aside, the death of the politician father is a recurring theme in SEED. Lacus once more follows in the footsteps of Flay, as well as Cagalli; with Athrun soon to join them.)

During the battle sequences following the reunion, we see Lacus as a collected and capable commander of her ship. We have already witnessed her incredible calm (not losing her cool when threatened, losing family members, having people shot in front of her,…) and it comes in handy here as well. Notably, Lacus is shown to be a lot more cold and pragmatic than Athrun. Where Athrun is motivated by personal relationships and would risk it all to save their comrades who are lost in the Mendel colony, Lacus immediately declines his plan.

“Even if Kira, Mu and Dearka never return, we must still continue to fight.”

Just like Lacus has accepted the death of her father, she would also accept Kira’s death in the name of a greater cause. As always, her personal feelings take a backseat to being able to fulfill her function and represent her ideology.

“My mother told me something long ago. The world belongs to you and also you belong to the world, as long as you are born and exist in this world.”

This attitude is at least somewhat contextualized by this quote that shows up shortly after. Lacus’ mother is implied to have passed away when she was very young, possibly making this one of Lacus’ core memories of her. “And also you belong to the world,” seems to encompass a lot of Lacus’ attitude towards duty and commitment to peace.

Lacus’ arc in the season closes off with the activation of her SEED mode, as well as the associated speech. I have transcribed it in full here:

“We humans, possibly, could exist without fighting. However, many of us choose to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we must kill to protect our future and ourselves… What sort of future is it? What are we? There is no future for those who have been killed. And what about those who have killed? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with bloodstained hands? Well, is it?”

In The Art and Data of Gundam SEED, this scene is described as follows: “Confronted by so many lives being lost, Lacus’ SEED activates out of grief and sorrow over the endless link between humanity and war.”

However, what I actually want to point out is not what triggers her SEED but how her SEED manifests. Usually SEED mode is shown to enhance piloting skill, but Lacus isn’t a pilot. What she does instead is the one thing she does so well: ask questions. Her power is the unerring dedication to bring into question things that are seen as self-explanatory, to inquire again and again if there truly is good reason for the world to be this way.

It positions her as the perfect antithesis to Rau who views violence as a given and himself as the answer.

In SEED, the series villain is Lacus’ opposite, a clear-cut opposition. It is in Destiny that Lacus really comes under scrutiny with a villain who is far more alike to her in many ways.

But before we can get into discussing Lacus and Durandal, we have to cover the After-Phase Between The Stars short, a five minute special that serves as a bridge between the first and second season, catching us up to what the cast has been up to in the two year time skip.

The set-up for Destiny often comes under scrutiny because fans consider it uncharacteristic for Lacus and Kira to have pulled back from politics rather than take part in managing the peace they helped bring about. I don’t think that is true. Neither Kira nor Lacus wanted to be in a position of authority, nor do they feel like they actually have adequate answers to the complex political problems of the Cosmic Era. During the war they had a clear goal, but the reparations are not nearly as simple.

The two of them are only 16 when the war ends - it’s natural that they would want to back out and leave the rebuilding efforts to qualified adults. For them to move to Orb and live with Malchio so they can heal from the loss they’ve endured is an understandable choice.

And it is not as though Lacus makes this decision out of pure selfishness and thoughtlessness, as After-Phase spells out almost word by word.

Cagalli: “It’s amazing you actually went out onto the battlefield. Doing that suits you well.” Lacus: “Is that right? But even when Kira was crying, he still said he would return. We may still not understand what we should be doing. The world isn’t something that someone creates.”

Lacus is aware that she has amassed a lot of influence over the course of the war, being an idol turned resistance leader whom the people generally rely on. If she were to step up now, people would be sure to place undue importance on her just because of the feelings they project onto their role. That is a power she doesn’t want to use.

Not doing politics at this juncture is her political stance. She feels the world should be shaped by people and not by ideologues making the decisions for them.

Cagalli and Lacus are at different ends of the same problem during Destiny - where Cagalli tries to step up to her position of power and finds the complexities of it quickly overwhelming her, Lacus decides stepping away is what is best for the world and is mistaken in that as well.

Lacus’ decision turns into a major part of Destiny’s conflict - because Lacus is not the only one who sees that her position holds inherent power. Durandal sees it too, and he exploits the vacancy by filling it with his own propaganda version of Lacus. In Meer, Durandal creates the Lacus that Lacus herself doesn’t want to become.

This is where full analysis necessitates a digression to Durandal, who is Lacus’ true counterpart in this season even as Meer takes the role in physical appearance.

Lacus’ mirror being split between Meer (body) and Durandal (mind) is interesting in itself, because it touches on a gendered dimension again. Durandal states that Lacus’ power to influence is greater than his own, but that is not due to who she is as a person. The influence of “Lacus” can only be realized because she is a beautiful young girl. We find ourselves at an intersection of idol culture and propaganda - Lacus as an idol is by-design a ‘pure’ celebrity, someone you can look up to without concerns because they are wholly innocent. That is how idols are produced in the real world as well. Through stepping out of the ‘idol’ space and becoming a resistance leader against an inarguable evil, Lacus has then attained an almost goddess-like reputation. The trust inspired by superficial elements like her beauty and soft voice are conflated with her achievements at the end of the war. She is venerated as the icon of peace, rather than seen as an individual with the capacity for flaws. “Lacus” is a near-abstract concept to the public.

That’s what makes it so easy to abuse - so long as you have another beautiful young girl at the ready who is willing to play into the idea of “Lacus, the beautiful savior”. And boy, does Meer play into it. She takes Lacus’ distanced image and turns it on its head. By delivering fanservice like no tomorrow she plays further into the idea of Lacus as a consumable savior who exists for the sake of the audience, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. A large part of Lacus’ influence is thus divorced from who either she or Meer is as an individual.

However, Meer doesn’t write her own speeches. Durandal controls everything she says. Where Meer mirrors the way Lacus is seen (and not seen) by the public, Durandal is the one we truly need to examine here.

First things first. Durandal is absolutely intended as a Lacus parallel. This is conveyed at a number of points through the season, but the first overt comparison is made when Durandal giving Athrun the Saviour is written and shot in an almost 1:1 recreation of the scene in which Lacus gives Kira the Freedom.

Lacus: “I feel that the strength you’ll need is in this machine.” Durandal: “Should we end up in that situation, I want you to be someone with power.”

Lacus: “Will this take you where you wish to go? Will it help you when you get there?” Durandal: “But what you can do and what you wish to do… These are things that nobody knows better than yourself.”

Even Lacus’ “I am Lacus Clyne, you are Kira Yamato” is echoed in the way Durandal insists on Athrun’s inherent self and nature. The idea of an inherent self, a core of a person, is something that unites Lacus and Durandal. They just take it in very different directions - Lacus’ point of view is a more standard “be true to yourself so you can love yourself and find your true purpose”, while Durandal takes it a big step further and comes out on the other end with “have someone decode exactly What You Are and then adhere to it for the rest of your life instead of ever questioning. This will make you happy”.

Durandal is Lacus taken to the extreme. Every soft line of wishing for a world in which the cycle of war is forever broken is turned into a masterplan and a doctrine.

Further, Durandal and Lacus’ strategies of dealing with people are similar, to the point where we have Athrun explicitly picking up on it. The Lacus-giving-Kira-the-Freedom vs Durandal-giving-Athrun-the-Saviour sequences are completed later in the season when Lacus gives Athrun the Justice. We’ll address this scene ahead of time here because it is more important for establishing the Lacus-Durandal dichotomy than it is for Lacus’ personal growth.

Athrun: “Are you trying to tell me I’m nothing but a soldier?” Lacus: “That too is something for you to decide. Power is nothing more than power. And perhaps you are a soldier, but over and above that… You’re Athrun. That’s all there is to it.”

This exchange a) follows Athrun’s realization that Durandal thinks of him as someone who is destined 0nly to be a soldier and b) is accompanied by Athrun directly flashbacking to his conversation with Durandal, comparing that with what Lacus is saying.

Both of them are in the process of prompting him to pilot a mobile suit they already had manufactured for him. Both of them employ a similar rhetoric of making a plea to his intrinsic self and allowing him a choice. Both of them are successful at making him get into the robot.

Lacus and Durandal differ primarily in two core aspects. For one, Durandal prioritizes the role over the individual. I.e.: ‘Athrun is Athrun and because he is Athrun, he can only ever be a soldier’. For Lacus, the inescapable self is the core of your personality, but what you do with it is up to you. I.e.: ‘Athrun is Athrun and thus he has to make the choice that goes best with his true heart’.

The second difference is how genuine they are. Both Lacus and Durandal understand how to manipulate people, but only Durandal abuses this manipulation constantly and with great intentionality. Lacus generally tries to hold back and only encourage instead of exert control. Durandal will lie, Lacus less so.

But in the end both of them remain as people dedicated to their ideal of peace, who employ a soft surface personality in order to make others let their guard down.

Destiny is a season about deconstructing Lacus The Idol. Durandal zeroes in on Lacus not simply because of who she is but because of the ideals she’s grown to represent, the thing she was marketed as from the start, everything that was projected onto her. Lacus The Idol is a construct, an ideal, a wish. Durandal is trying to turn his interpretation of that wish into reality. Lacus The Person is nothing but a roadblock to him.

Though Lacus does not have as many scenes in Destiny as she does in SEED, she is even more crucial to the framework of the story this time. This also means that what few scenes she does get tend to really matter for fleshing out her character.

Her journey begins when Durandal’s failed assassination attempt causes Kira to once again become a Gundam pilot. Lacus is incredibly hesitant about this, but Kira reassures her that he’s fine and doing this out of his own will.

And with that it is finally time to dive into Lacus and Kira’s relationship properly.

Let’s preface this with a Fukuda quote from The Art and Data of Gundam SEED: “Their hearts are connected, but they aren’t like lovers. In a sense, they’ve skipped over that step and become something more like family. Kira is afraid of losing Lacus, because of his trauma with Flay. And Lacus feels guilty for making Kira do something he didn’t want to do, so she feels indebted to him. Psychologically speaking, the two of them are in a rather precarious codependent relationship.”

If the dynamic between Lacus and Kira reads as awkward, it’s because it should. In the beginning of Destiny, Kira is portrayed as traumatized by his encounter with Rau, which he has several flashbacks to. Lacus is the one accompanying him through his recovery, but she is also extremely aware that she is the one who gave him the weapon to fight Rau, that she is the one who is responsible for Kira entering the war again.

Lacus needs Kira to fight and enables Kira to fight, but she knows this is a horrible thing to do to somebody. And she can’t apologize for it, because if necessary she would do it to him again. That is the kind of pragmatist she is. Her feelings towards Kira remain as “I am fully aware that I intentionally put you in this situation, both materially and emotionally, and I know that I can never make it up to you”. How deeply and sincerely sorry she nevertheless is ties her to Kira more than anything else in the world. She cannot make it up to him, but she will spend a lifetime trying. Her feelings of guilt are on full display several times throughout Destiny.

Kira meanwhile projects Flay onto Lacus. His failure to protect Flay translates into an obsessive need to protect Lacus instead. Flay shapes every aspect of how Kira interacts with Lacus, how he can interact with Lacus. No doubt the topic of sexuality is also deeply tainted by his highly charged experiences with Flay.

Lacus does have some romantic feelings for Kira, seen in her blush when she kisses his cheek after giving him the Freedom or in the way she cares about his opinion when she is trying on a variety of outfits during Destiny. But she also seems respectful of the fact that Kira cannot truly reciprocate. (He also absolutely fails at having any opinions about Lacus in different clothes - it is bittersweet to see that short attempt at acting like a proper couple fail so miserably.)

The most romantic affection we see between the two of them are kisses on the cheek and I think it’s fairly safe to say that that is all there ever is.

Lacus and Kira cling to one another, silently asking for a forgiveness they can never be granted. They are nominally a couple, but the reality is simply that much more complex. They are family, they help each other heal, they make each other sad, and they absolutely cannot be apart.

The ghost of Flay hangs over them both in-character and narratively. Lacus has become the reluctant wielder of the sword that is Kira Yamato, the sword Flay helped forge. In turn, Lacus assumes Flay’s position in Kira’s mind; as the driving force, the one giving him direction, the woman to be protected.

Returning to the plot of Destiny, Lacus is now on the run with the Archangel, forced to watch as Meer assumes her identity. Fans generally seem to think she doesn't mind this, but that’s not really true. Lacus is just never vocal about her feelings.

Rie Tanaka’s line read in this scene of everyone watching Meer’s concert is absolutely superb - Lacus sounds deeply sarcastic. The Art and Data of Gundam SEED just confirms this when describing Lacus as “with a smile on her face, but daggers in her eyes.”

Lacus is deeply bothered by what is being done in her name and to her image, but currently neither has the means nor the strategy to combat it. She’s in hiding because she is under active threat of assassination and also because they just don’t really know what is going on.

The latter is of particular importance, because Lacus’ MO remains as it always was: she wants to know as much as she can about a conflict before acting. This principle is actually spelled out in her bath scene with Cagalli.

“First… decide. And then do it. It’s the only way to achieve anything.”

What seems simple nevertheless delivers a good glimpse into her interiority, especially thanks to the inclusion of a flashback to her father’s death. “Guilt” is a core theme for Lacus this season. Destiny presents a Lacus who is fully aware of the tragic consequences of her actions, a Lacus who carries that sadness permanently.

“It’s the only way to achieve anything,” is what she says, but she also means: “If you allow yourself regret, if you allow yourself to contemplate all the different paths you could have taken, you will surely be crushed by it.”

Lacus' philosophy is founded on standing firm in her decisions. She cannot allow herself to be immobilized by regret.

And that is another part of why Lacus takes so long to act. She observes situations very carefully until she is completely certain of the route she wants to take - of the route that will leave her with the least regrets.

Her unwillingness to act unless certain is Lacus' greatest strength and greatest weakness in one.

Thus Lacus soon admits that she does not know the best course of action. She then decides to act on her principles and go look at the situation on the PLANTs for herself. It’s a mirror of the viewing deck scene Lacus and Kira share at the very beginning of SEED. That encounter ended with Kira smuggling Lacus out of the ship, this one ends with her leaving by her own choice.

Though Kira worries about Lacus, she calms him down by quoting back his own reassurance when he first stepped back into the Gundam. This puts a nice emphasis on the mutuality of their relationship. Just as Lacus understands that Kira does not wish to be a pilot, Kira understands that Lacus longs to live a regular life far away from political importance. They both want nothing more for each other than a peaceful situation in which they can escape that which burdens them.

Lacus’ plan for going back into space is to impersonate Meer and steal her shuttle, a nice bit of vindictiveness on her part. There is a fun little audio drama in which she pretends to be worried people appreciate Meer more than her, tricking Waldfelt into helping her learn Meer’s dance routine. In truth, that was preparation for this exact plan. It goes to demonstrate that Lacus not showing her full cards and instead acting out the carefree girl she would like to be is a constant habit for her.

Thus Lacus sets out for the PLANTs, investigates Mendel colony, and finds out that Durandal is on the fast lane to upgrading society to Eugenics+. Interesting here is the revelation that Lacus has kept the Eternal in hiding this entire time and maintained a crew. Though she was hoping that the world would straighten itself out, she clearly never ever abandoned her backup plans for the worst case scenario. She is cautious in every sense of the word.

Meanwhile Durandal is rapidly trying to unify all of mankind under his leadership, attacking the independent Orb under pretenses of only desiring to root out Logos. So Lacus decides she has seen and heard enough. She needs to reveal herself before it is too late.

“I ask the world, please do not get caught up in the trap of his words, telling you that no one else is at fault. We must gain a deeper understanding of Chairman Durandal’s true objective.”

Even though Logos is undoubtedly a powerful evil within the Destiny universe, Lacus calls out the faults of conspiracy thinking and encourages people to question the motives of anyone who offers a solution that is too easy and too clean. It’s Destiny’s clumsy attempt of exploring the thin line between calling out harmful power structures vs simplifying reality in order to create a unified enemy.

It is also interesting because Lacus’ plea for everyone to think for themselves and question the absolutes presented to them is at odds with what a large portion of the public wants from her. They would like for Lacus The Idol to guide them - which is exactly why Meer was so effective as a propaganda stunt. The nature of Lacus’ social power is by default opposed to the change she actually wants to effect in the world.

This then brings us straight to Lacus’ actual confrontation with Meer.

Meer lays a trap relying on Lacus’ goodness and dedication to helping those in need. Ignoring the trap would prove Lacus a hypocrite, but Lacus is not the type anyway. She walks into the trap with open eyes - and offers Meer a sincere chance to be saved.

That’s the thing about Lacus and Meer: Lacus hates that the identity theft is happening, but she does not consider Meer to be the main perpetrator. Rather, Meer is also a victim. Lacus’ speech to her demonstrates this well and also says a lot about Lacus, so I’ll be copying it down in full:

”If it’s my name you want, you may have it. And my appearance. You and I will still be different people. That will never change. None of us can be anything other than ourselves. But that’s why you and I exist and stand here before each other, right? That’s why we have encounters, right? With one another and also ourselves. Your dreams belong to you. So please sing your dreams for your own sake. You mustn’t let others use your dreams for their benefit.”

Lacus looks at Meer and she feels sad as well as responsible. Meer was coerced to throw her own life away in the name of Lacus The Idol. Lacus feels that what happened to Meer could only happen because she exists. She sees a girl trying to become a version of her that Lacus herself feels is a burden, and she can’t help but be sad for the consequences of her existence.

I said before that “guilt” is a big theme for Lacus in Destiny, and here it appears in its more misguided form, taking more onto her shoulders than is actually warranted. One might argue it is a form of arrogance in its own way.

However, Meer and Lacus never get to resolve this. Meer steals Lacus’ place one final time, taking a bullet meant for her and dying in her stead. The sense of guilt is thus solidified and will remain with Lacus for the rest of her life.

Lacus’ tears for Meer are the most intense expression of grief we see from Lacus in the whole series and I think it is fitting.

Meer was a girl who spent much of her life wondering about Lacus, wishing she could know about the elusive stranger behind the idol. Now Meer is the one who is an eternal stranger and Lacus is left wishing she could hold onto more of her than just the diary and the idol work she left behind.

To Lacus, Meer is a girl who destroyed herself out of admiration for her. A girl who was consumed because Lacus’ inaction let it happen. Lacus’ philosophy might be largely pacifist, but it is not and has not ever been victimless.

And that is what really makes Lacus’ character to me: this awareness that even her best bet at a ‘correct’ decision is not the bloodless path, cannot be the bloodless path. Adhering to her morals still costs lives and Lacus tries to confront that dilemma, carrying her grief close to her heart.

Lacus’ speech to Meer conveys what Lacus thinks of life, touching both on her core similarity to Durandal (the idea of a ‘true self’) as well as the most major difference: Lacus believes striving for dreams to be the inherent value of human existence, even if it causes pain. Just as her decisions are worth making, even if they result in loss.

“All lives are meant to fight for a desired future,” is the bottom line Lacus arrived at by the end of Destiny. The right to struggle towards your dreams is worth fighting for, the contradiction of mankind is lamentable but ultimately to be protected.

And after the war ends, Lacus has internalized the responsibility she feels for what Durandal wrought. Though she does not want to hold political power, though she wishes she could simply play in her garden for the rest of her life, she realizes now that even her absence can be instrumentalized for harm. By the end of Destiny, Lacus has been locked into her very own bad ending, the exact thing she tried to avoid.

She closes the season where Cagalli begins it, stepping up to the inherent responsibility of having power. It is an intriguing place to leave her. It will require her to step out of the idol image that she has acquired, and to make decisions before she is ready to make them. Both the public and Lacus herself will have to reckon with Lacus’ fallible nature as an individual. The ethereal image of Lacus as the beacon of morality might well be crushed under the weight of Chairwoman Clyne.

Lacus is a reluctant mastermind. A girl with great talent for affecting others, always wishing for a world in which she does not have to use that talent.

Now she is following in the footsteps of a man who was a manifest representation of what a well-intentioned villain she herself could easily become - and she can only hope she’ll make decisions that she can stand by, just as she always has.

#gundam #gundam seed #lacus clyne #flay allster #gilbert durandal #bc i talk a good bit about both of them too #analysis

[illmetkismet]

Hello beautiful people in the "x reader" tag, and more specifically the "Leon Kennedy x reader" tag! I don't usually venture here, because I have these tags blocked, they're not my thing, but I'd like to ask you for a favour:

Did you know that if you reblog a post and tag it "x reader", that it will come up as a blocked tag post for everyone who has that tag blocked? All it takes is one person tagging fanart as "Leon Kennedy x reader", even when it's absolutely not x reader fanart, just regular ol' Leon Kennedy art, for tumblr to block it for me. It doesn't even have to be the most recent reblog! If anyone at all in the history of the post added a tag that you have blocked, that post will (sometimes? I don't know how consistent this is) show up as blocked for you.

So if a post is not actually x reader, but just reminds you of an x reader headcanon or something, I'm asking that you please reconsider tagging it as such, because tons of people have that tag blocked and they won't see that art. This sucks not only for the people who have the tag blocked, but for artists and people who make cool posts in general, whose post now gets blacklisted because you tagged it incorrectly.

Please and thank you!

#x reader #Leon Kennedy x reader #resident evil #leon kennedy

[furry-homestar]

beware of swimmingbreadshark/toona-fish

i hate that i have to make a post like this, i don't want any drama in this fandom, but this feels very important

even if you don't feel comfortable reading this, please reblog to spread awareness

please don't go and harass this user or anyone who's associated with them. just block and move on.

trigger warning (all illustrated only): gore fetishization, necrophilia, brief mentions of animal death, brief mentions of rape

i don't know how to begin a post like this. swimmingbreadshark (further referred to as "tasha" because that is its name) is certainly a user on this website. it also has a homestar runner blog by the name of toona-fish. considering i've blocked it i don't know how significant it is but i'll post this anyways because it's important.

i guess i'll just cut to the chase: tasha draws gore for sexual reasons, and on at least two occasions has drawn art depicting necrophilia. pretty much all of it can be found on its newgrounds sadostar (yeah great fucking name), though much of it is locked behind an adult rating. its description sums it up pretty aptly.

i won't be showing any of the actual drawings in this post.

since its tumblr and newgrounds don't link to each other and it never posts them on another website at the same time, i can't exactly prove that it's the same person (aside from both accounts using the same name and pronouns and having the same art style) but i will try my best

discord user named tasha posts this drawing in a discord server for another user named yuki. this same drawing is then posted on the tumblr blog toona-fish (also run by a tasha) and it is reblogged by hooray4dolphins (it doesn't say anywhere on the blog but yuki is one of my friends and i know full well that it's faer blog)

therefore, it seems rational to assume that tasha on discord and tasha on the blog toona-fish are the same person

this same tasha on discord links back to the newgrounds profile, and has also posted several drawings on the server that match up with pictures posted only on the newgrounds profile.

this image was posted on july 29th and the description pretty aptly describes the contents of it, though i won't be showing it in this post.

on the same day, the account on newgrounds posts the same image titled "take out the dog". you can double check this for yourself by visiting the profile (but please don't if you're sensitive to gore or animal death). hopefully though the tags are enough to tell you that they're the same.

so, it can be assumed that either the tasha on discord is extremely dedicated to impersonating this random person, or it's the same person behind both sadostar on newgrounds and swimmingbreadshark/toona-fish on tumblr.

here's proof of the necrophilia art, once again not showing the image. it also mentions rape so there's that. i won't be going into a lot of detail here because i've already made my point.

i heavily encourage you to block both swimmingbreadshark and toona-fish from viewing your account. i believe i've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that these are the same person. thank you for reading, hopefully this was comprehensible enough, i've never done a post like this before and i intend to not do one ever again.

#swimmingbreadshark #toona-fish #callout post #idk how to tag this

[astelren]

Genshin Impact with affectionate s/o

ೃ⁀➷ TW/CW: Fluff, Gender Neutral Reader, A little bit of Zhongli being a teaser, One Mention of jealousy, let me know if I need to add more TW/Tags ♡ Minors please interact with me only by liking or reblogs. ➳ Characters: Zhongli

⤠ With a scary cat s/o (Diluc) ⤟ Genshin Masterlist (soon!) ⤠ None ⤟

@/its-alvi-tar​ requested: REQUESTS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT? HERE I AM!! HC for Z H O N G L I with an affectionate S/O? I love that boy! Also farming primo gems on mass for his banner. Wish me luck! 😔😔

I wanted to post this with Zhongli third? fourth? rerun and I think I managed that? I hope? Wishing that tumblr doesn't give me problems once again with the tags once more... This is a rewriting of my old work, originally posted on @/severnrsstuff (now severnr0ses).

He doesn’t mind nor care. Zhongli goes around doing work with you attached to him like a koala at his eucalypt tree and he is just like “yes, my lover is an affectionate one, I love them very much. Why? Do you have a problem with that?”

Say yes and Zhongli becomes Morax once again

Zhongli is completely fine with cuddling, hugging, kissing, everything. Nor does he care about being in public, but I can see him being much more “professional” when in public or at least trying to

If you decide to snuggle him when you two are in public Zhongli isn’t going to move you away or anything, he is super chill about it and would be very confused as to why other people are looking at you two weirdly

Like??? It’s your way of showing your love towards him??? What do they want-

Perhaps he would ask you, so gentle and caring, to tone it down a little bit when you two are in public, even if he feels bad about it and you can definitely use your puppy face a bit to make him feel even worse (and it's fun to see him being a little bit more panicked than usual). But it’s not like to he told you to stop!!

Zhongli would feel bad if he moves you away from him when you act more affectionate with him, he would try to win you over again by buying something for you (in hopes that he remembered his childe wallet)

Seeing you being so openly affectionate with him makes Zhongli feel very happy and soft inside, every time you snuggle with him Zhongli will always give you a little kiss on the cheeks or forehead, say how much he loves you, and caress your face

In private he’s much more cuddling: you wouldn’t need to start cuddling in private that much, since Zhongli often hugs you first (especially if jealous but shshhs you didn’t hear it from me). He’s, surprisingly, very affectionate! Hugging, kissing, caressing, holding you closer, everything. Although very tame and gentleman-y in a way? Like he has this calm and collected aura while he strokes your back that you don’t understand where it comes from...

Most of the time, however, you have to initiate it. Especially in public, private it’s not so common. During the day he is a very busy man, working and all, so you might feel a bit... Neglected, considering how he seems to act so caste when other people are around

Pout a little bit about it and Zhongli will notice it, chuckling slightly and calling you a needy baby. He might tease you a little bit; kissing you everywhere except your lips, hands slowly caressing your side while he calls you once more a needy baby, always in need of his full attention otherwise you throw a little tantrum

Don’t worry he won't do it for long, just to see you pout a little bit more because he finds it so so cute :((((

He’s probably more cuddling when in bed; both before sleeping and after waking up. Zhongli likes to sleep with you in his arms, usually telling you an old story from when he was Morax or something that happened that day, gently caressing your back while he has his eyes closed

Good luck with trying to get up when you are between his arms, he won’t let you go. Use him as a pillow, or mattress, but don’t leave or you will hear Zhongli muttering still half-asleep, to not leave or he’s getting angry

When Zhongli wakes up he likes to hold you even closer, gently kissing your face while whispering “good morning” and smiling happily. Will probably not let you go up easily and “force” you to stay in bed with him a little more, kissing and cuddling before having to get up

This work belongs to @/astelren, do not repost, translate, copy, rewrite or share on tiktok without my permission. Reblogs are appreciated and encouraged♡

#genshin fluff #zhongli x reader #genshin x reader #zhongli fluff #zhongli x reader fluff #genshin zhongli fluff #genshin zhongli x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact zhongli x reader #genshin impact zhongli fluff #genshin x reader fluff #🌹 ── my.writing #🌹 ─ genshin.writing

[tomobikicentral]

Hai darlings! Welcome to Tomobiki central! This is a blog which archives anything and everything Urusei Yatsura, both old stuff and new!! This blog was made specifically so fans can avoid spam posts and make it easier to find the best Urusei Yatsura content on Tumblr.

What will be reblogged here?

Everything! as long as it's not low effort, that is.

What counts as low effort?

Posts like screenshots with no text added (unless it's a screenshot which is a meme within itself), or non oc fanart with no source added, official art with no description as to what it is, low quality textposts etc. Also, your post should clearly be recognizable as something from Urusei Yatsura, and not look like something from another anime (as it should have something like characters or some kind if sign that it is from UY). Posts with only links won't be reblogged as well, unless it's a link to a fanfic (but make sure to mention that!). Posts which send unnecessary hate about the series (or anything really) will not be reblogged either since it may create discourse, however meaningful criticism is allowed.

Why was my post not reblogged even though I followed the above criteria?

That would be possibly because I've either missed it or it didn't show up in the tags. You can message or send an ask to inform me.

What about NSFW posts?

NSFW will be reblogged only if it's with the series' own restrictions (that is, the most which can be shown would be nude breasts, though over-fetishism of that won't be reblogged either). Anything over these restrictions, censored or not will not be reblogged. If you don't want to see the NSFW posts, you can simply filter out the tag 'nsfw'.

Why should I follow this blog?

Of course, whether you follow or not is up to you! But following this blog is going to be very helpful to those who create UY content since it allows their posts to get noticed and appreciated more: the more followers this blog has, the more notes they will get. And not to mention, you'll get more UY to enjoy!

How do I find a specific type of content on this blog (for example, only remake related or only fanart)?

The tags will help with those! Posts will be divided in two different ways: a) according to what type of media they are from (manga, original {anime}, remake or even the video games!! However if there is no sign of which media it is from it will be tagged as 'unspecified'.) and b) based in what type of content it is (fanart, official, edit, gif, video, etc.). You can search with the help of these tags and find what you're looking for!

That's all I can think for FAQs, if there's anything else, I'll edit and add to this post.

This blog is still new so it will take time to fill it up with a lot of UY. Please reblog this post so more UY fans will be able to know about this blog. If you have any queries, feel free to contact me here or on my main (@yumedoca ). Have a cosmically great day ahead!! 🌟

#pinned post #urusei yatsura

[doubletrea]

see this? this is called "tag spamming"

on other social media sites, it works to garner more attention to your art, writing, or photography. not here! on [tumblr]™️, this is the bane of everyone's existence. there's no algorithm here, only posts by people you follow. posting like the screenshot above reveals your "noob status" And is annoying for people searching tags only to find ten million posts that are completely indistinguishable from a bot post (this won't get you followers!). The best way to grow is to interact with other people who post things you have a shared interest in!

reblogging things and tagging them with anything you please is fine, because tags on posts you reblog are for others to find posts you've reblogged or created tagged with that thing. they don't show up when someone searches the site! (just remember, the original poster and the person you reblogged from can still see them, so, uh, be thoughtful about what you say! (as a sidenote, comments on posts cannot be deleted. so again, be kind, okay?))

if you post art, I would recommend making your own personal art tag, so people looking for art can find it when they go on your blog!

(also, "for you page" isn't a thing.)

#reblog my post NOW boy