my man Ji Woo admitting he’s a jealous bitch hit harder than I expected it to

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

there's something so comforting about artists you admire talking about their own struggles and insecurities

@unfortunate17 and I were discussing Wille’s anxiety and how we don’t feel like Wille’s reluctance to partake in public speaking was a result of his anxiety, but rather his history of being forced to speak and say things he doesn’t mean and follow a script in order to preserve the reputation of his family and control the public’s perception of him. He was forced to follow a script three times in season 1 - the first when he had to apologize on TV for a fight he was not sorry about, when he had to read a written speech to his classmates regarding his brother who had just died, and when he was forced to lie about the video leading to the destruction of his relationship with Simon.

In my opinion Wille’s fear of public speaking in season 2 is not related to general or social anxiety - as I do not believe Wille has social anxiety at all and is not shy at all despite some people in the fandom tending to believe he is - but rather a fear of being perceived, because that is ultimately Wille’s main struggle in the series - not being with a boy, not being in love with a gay, not being queer, but being perceived by others and feeling forced to live up to a certain standard or expectation when all he wants to do is live his life truthfully and without people having opinions about the things he does.

What’s so powerful and beautifully written about the scenes with Boris is that even though Wille is made to see a therapist by his mother, the Queen, who is the one who persuaded/forced him speak out when he didn’t want to, Wille’s sessions with Boris are the first time he is told he doesn’t have to say anything if  he doesn’t want to, and the confidentiality of their sessions and Boris’ position as an unbiased professional allows him to be more honest with not only himself, but with another person without feeing like he is being judged or forced to feel or believe something he doesn’t.

We see in season 1 episode 4, when Wille goes off script and speaks from the heart about Erik, and in season 2 episode 6 when he once again goes off script, that Wille really has no issues with speaking to a crowd, but only when he feels he’s being truthful and honest and in control of the narrative. His fear of speaking in the class presentation, in my opinion, has a lot to do with how out of control of his own narrative Wille felt throughout season 2 as a result of the lie at the end of season 1 and the events of season 2 - he is perceived by his classmates now as having denied being a part of the video, as if it was something to be ashamed of, he is perceived as being interested in Felice when in reality he’s desperately in love with Simon. He just wants to exist and stay true to himself and it scares him to do it in front of an audience, and that’s what makes it so powerful when we see him slowly begin to accept how he feels about himself and the circumstances of his life through the sessions with Boris, and how that results with him re-taking control of his own narrative at the Jubilee at the end of the season, and that’s just beautiful writing.

Sorry what’s up w the Ethan slater stuff? I know him only from your posts / SpongeBob stuff

HI HELLO please buckle in

yep -- the same guy from the spongebob musical, and my posts abut the spongebob musical.

he blew up completely and now the general public knows him as 'ariana grande's new boyfriend' - their relationship seems to have started off the back of co-starring in the upcoming wicked musical film adaptation.

it's just been like. a monkey's paw curling sort of a way for him to get catapulted to fame, as i had always really enjoyed him as a performer (as spongebob, yes, but also in the other roles i'd seen him in,) and my biggest hope back around 2017 was that he would continue in and be really successful in theatre, get a lot of broadway roles, maybe take on some existing parts i thought he'd really suit, like seymour in little shop or ogie in waitress.......... but instead he booked the role of boq from wicked in a massive hollywood film production instead, where he met ariana grande. THE ariana grande.

and then yeah. at some point, he and grande broke up with their respective partners, (slater leaving both his wife AND newborn son) jumped into a new relationship, and now the whole wider internet knows who he is but certainly not for the right reasons.

there's been speculation regarding whether or not grande and slater had cheated on their previous partners before their relationship began with various sources coming out of the woodwork saying "yes they did" and others saying "no they didn't" -- humans are all perfectly capable of making stuff up, the media especially, so i simply don't know who to trust and i admit it had completely shattered my whole good impression of him - PLUS it gave the wider internet an absolutely awful first impression of him, resulting in, yeah, the (frankly, unflattering, sometimes downright cruel) memes of him popping up on twitter and, as i discovered yesterday, in non-theatre youtubers' videos who would literally never have heard of him if not for the slater-grande romance 🥲

FULL COVERAGE of the situation as it was happening can all be found on the lovely @notasimpleslater's blog under the tag 'ozgate' if you want to delve deeper!

Hot take but I don’t think Hobie is ever gonna be comfortable around Jeff. He’s gonna force himself to be polite for Miles’ sake, but they’re never gonna have an easy-go-lucky relationship.

And the thing is, Jeff gets it. He’s a black cop. Of course he fucking gets it. He can just be glad that the kid calls him ‘Mr. Morales’ even if he doesn’t even pretend to respect his title as ‘Captain’ like Miles’ other friends do.

He wishes things were different and that this kid didn’t have to be so wary and defensive around him, but he chooses to put on the badge every day and be part of the force that he has first hand seen the corruption in. He has his reasons for doing what he does. He believes in being the change he wants to see and making sure that he can at least be one less corrupt asshole walking the beat, but he gets it.

He’s not so prideful that he expects every person to give him the respect he wishes he can someday claim. He hopes he can gain some level of trust from the punk (and oh boy, of all the people he imagined his son bringing home, an anarchic pierced up rebel was not on the list) eventually, but for now he settles for the forced politeness and let’s the clear mutual respect and adoration that Miles and Hobie share soothe him. He’s happy for his son. He’s glad he has someone who gets everything he goes through as a vigilante (and oh boy, again, that’s still something he’s getting used to).

He notices the way Hobie is constantly hanging off of Miles and the feigned casualty of his touches, but Jeff recognizes the way the young man scans the area for threats and the subtle but deliberate way he angles his body in front of Miles to protect him. Jeff feels the bone-deep weariness and guilt that the actions inflict in him — the thought that this teenager is so on guard around a cop that he feels the need to protect the people he loves even against their own damned father (and the added responsibility on both Hobie and Miles’ shoulders that comes from being superheroes of course. Always on guard, scanning for danger and ready to jump in at a moments notice to protect innocents. The same familiar urgency that Jeff feels every moment he’s on duty). He wishes it was different. but he gets it. One day, he vows, things will be different. He just has to keep working it until that day comes.

And yeah, they give each other a hard time about their life choices and sometimes things get tense and awkward, but at the end of the day, Jeff is a father and a damned good one and all he wants is to protect his family (even if it now includes a punk like Hobie).

Randomly thinking about how angry the way Winter is treated in the narrative makes me

They show the real Winter and acknowledge who he actually is JUST to once again present him as the mean stuck-up prince??? HE GOES THROUGH SO MUCH DEVELOPMENT IN WINTER TURNING JUST TO BE SHOWN AS THE SAME OLD 'ANGRY RACIST STUCK UP PRINCE'???? IN THE NEXT BOOKS LIKE WHAT. TUI. PLEASE. I KNOW THAT WE AREN'T SEEING IT FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE, SO WE DON'T KNOW WHAT HES THINKING BUT. HE BARELY CHANGES AT ALL... LIKE AT THE END OF WINTER TURNING HE REALIZES THAT THE WINGLET IS HIS TRIBE AND HE CARES ABOUT THEM MORE THAN A RANKING AND A FAMILY WHO (mostly) DOESN'T LOVE HIM. THEN IN THE NEXT BOOKS HE'S BACK TO THE SAME OLD 'WINTER'. TUI.

I've seen people calling Winter 'nasty mean racist man' HAVE YOU READ THE BOOKS. DRAGON RACISM WAS SO RAMPANT IN THE BOOKS.... LIKE ALMOST EVERY CHARACTER HAD A MOMENT WHERE THEY WERE BEING THE DRAGON EQUIVALENT OF RACIST. WHICH OBVIOUSLY, ISN'T GOOD, BUT TO JUST PIN IT ON WINTER??? WHAT??? HIS HATRED OF NIGHTWINGS WAS FUCKING DRILLED INTO HIS BRAIN GROWING UP, HE GETS PAST THAT AND LEARNS TO NOT BE DRAGON RACIST. HE REALIZES 'OH FUCK. MAYBE THE THINGS MY SHALLOW HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY TAUGHT ME AREN'T TRUE'. DID WE READ THE SAME BOOKS, WHERE APPARENTLY, NONE OF THAT HAPPENED?? MEANWHILE DARKSTALKER, THE FANDOMS 'PRECIOUS MISUNDERSTOOD BABY' TRIED TO COMMIT RACIAL GENOCIDE BECAUSE HE HAD AN ABUSIVE DAD WHO HAPPENED TO BE AN ICEWING??? (And when Winter is upset about this he is treated as unreasonable by the guy who KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON (Qibli) )

I've been a Winter defender for so long, surrounded by a fandom who mostly hates him and now that I have emotional intelligence since I'm not nine (no offense to nine year olds 🙏) and I have a place to ramble where I'll be listened to I can finally defend my angsty ice dragon I will absolutely do so. This stupid ass garbagefire of a series has meant so much to me over the years and I'm passionate about so many of these characters. I adore Winter so much, reading through the books for like the 50th time is so amazing, like I used to immediately hate moon because she was called a Mary sue, Qibli because people find him annoying, Kinkajou because she was the 'annoying one', but now I love all of those characters. I can see traits of all of them in me, and they mean a lot to me. Turtle's anxiety, Qibli's Sociotropy, (needing to be liked by everyone) hypervigilance (I've never seen people talking about it, and to see it represented in my favorite book series makes me feel seen.), fierce loyalty, Winter's guilt, self-loathing, desperate desire to please his parents, Moon's social anxiety, nervousness, and love of reading, Kinkajou's desire to be a dragon others notice and remember.

This turned into a rant about a completely different thing I'm so sorry, I'm not even done I have so much to say about these guys

Please don't let this flop I poured my heart out about this book series for children

Extraordinary Attorney Woo features an autistic female lead who loves whales and doesn't know how to return hugs, a male lead played by Kang Tae Oh, and a secondary character who regularly misses out on fun and important events because of moderate to severe gastrointestinal issues. Like this drama was literally made for me.

If you could have any Asmo/reader fic what would be the things you would want from it? like an ideal fic would contain what tropes or AUS or situations or whatever

uhmm anything wellwritten that characterizes asmo similar to the way i do ! i rlly like character exploration , both more serious stuff & just sillycute...anything where asmo is a little cunning and toxic and also gets railed into oblivion.anything where hes a vampire. ill write a tag essay about the specifics

fandom autopsies done by people who weren't on the front lines actively consuming and interacting always befuddle me. not because i believe it's super hard to summarize a fandom after its peak through solely outsider research but because actually i do kind of believe that

not directing this at anyone in particular but lest we all forget... kim kitsuragi IS a cop and a centrist and acab DOES apply to him

he can be your uwu gay bby that's fine but he does make it clear he's chosen pragmatic moralism. so just like... think about that perhaps.

one of the things that makes the umineko cast work so well is that they're very tightly written in terms of how they parallel each other but also how they parallel yasu first and foremost and i've always felt like that's an approach sotsugou tried to replicate with the higurashi cast and satoko

i spend so much time thinking about them and feeling miserable. anyone else feel like this. like. the implications.

I had no idea when I started this account that I would turn into such a Byron stan -- no regrets, to be clear! I'm just so surprised.

So naturally I'm thinking about how he would feel after Phoenix Gate happened. Specifically about his feelings regarding Anabella and having to claim he would be loyal to her, even though his heart remains with Rosaria and he considers her to be the most vile person alive. And I was wondering like, what's the difference between swearing fealty or loyalty? (This question came up while writing a reply to a thread and I went down a rabbit hole). And when I looked it up I found this quote that just *clenches fist so tight it breaks* sums up Byron's feelings so much:

“Loyalty is the most perfect form of mutual respect. It is a bond that goes two ways, and that is why it endures. Fealty, on the other hand, must be endured. It is based on power, and ends the moment the one who commands it no longer has a grip on the one who is shackled by it.” - Karen Tumulty

Loyalty is what he felt for Elwin, his brother who he had the utmost trust in and love for. It went two ways not only because Byron was his brother but because Elwin had great respect and care for the people he ruled. His loyalty was to them as well, which is why he agonized so much over how to best serve them and care for the most vulnerable people in Rosaria. He was dedicated to liberating Bearers and changing society's views of their humanity and worth for the better. His unconditional positive regard for everyone in Rosaria made Byron love and respect Elwin all the more. The two-way loyalty endures and only grows stronger with time.

Anabella, by contrast -- she must be endured. She is a painful reminder of the absolute heartbreak and destruction she wrought. She's a looming threat of what will happen if you speak out against her, and she had no problem getting rid of others who remained loyal to Rosaria -- and they weren't even Elwin's brother. It's so interesting that she let him live. His talk with Clive and Jill when they reunite makes it seem as though Anabella wasn't always so terrible; maybe she was judgmental and haughty, but they weren't traits that made her seem like a risk for committing treason. Maybe they even got along well enough at one point? Polite acquaintances? But he says with certainty that she's taken a sharp turn in the wrong direction, as if she was being influenced by something or someone else.

So with Anabella demanding that the remaining inhabitants of the former duchy (and surrounding areas) must swear an oath to her, Byron feels he has no choice. If he were to refuse, the best case scenario would be to lose absolutely everything he has. The worst, of course, would be death. Byron feels great shame over this and in that same scene tells Clive that he wishes he had been as courageous as Elwin always was. But he made a methodical, painful decision that wound up being exactly how he could be brave and help the resistance overthrow Anabella (and Ultima at the helm of it all). He needed to retain his influence, property, and wealth to support the Hideaway and the Cursebreakers. And when push (literally) came to shove, he was more than willing to put his own safety on the line (and he looked so good swinging that axe around wow !! look at that guy).

So, where was I going with this whole thing ?? I nearly lost my train of thought but ok to wrap this up -- if Byron had seen the difference between swearing loyalty and fealty, I think he would have felt worlds better about having to feign support for Anabella. It didn't make him a bad person or a shameful Rosarian. It was a means to an end, a way for him to bide his time while he threw his support behind the people who would liberate Rosaria.

After the National Guard successfully suppresses a rebellion, there is relief among the ruling class; they exhale and breathe freely again; and then, they turn from crushing those who attack to crushing those who flee. They turn from attacking barricades to attacking safehouses. The police are sent out in full force. The military occupies the city. Spies hunt for the dens of rebels, like hunting dogs for the dens of foxes. All the government’s forces fly out in pursuit of one object: that object is not the defeat of its enemies, as they have already been defeated; it pursues their annihilation. 

Chapter 2 of "Annoyances," a tragicomic fic about a badly wounded Jean Valjean and Javert struggling to force each other to walk back to Rue de l'Homme Arme No. 7 before they're both arrested, is now out! The new chapter is titled "Phantoms of a Barricade Which May or May Not Actually Be Dead."

Thanks to @fremedon for beta reading, and to @alicedrawslesmis and @pilferingapples for the original post/reblogs that inspired this.

i feel like we are in the middle of a huge cultural conversation surrounding the reality of child exploitation in the entertainment industry.. so it’s funny,,,, when taylor swift describes very clear child exploitation that she very much did experience in one of her songs everyone is taking it super literally… and assuming that she’s referring to her family’s little christmas tree farm as an asylum and we’re laughing and calling her silly