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reikunrei · 2 months

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Who's Mummy, Anyway?

It's more Doctor Who inspiration time!! I wanted to explore another set of episodes, this time from season 1:

Episode 9: The Empty Child and Episode 10: The Doctor Dances

These episodes revolve around strange happenings during the London Blitz on January 20th, 1941. The Doctor and his companion, Rose, follow an object through spacetime, where it crashes on Earth. Meanwhile, a young boy is wandering looking for his mother, though he's been changed by this fallen object and its yet-unknown properties. And he's infecting others, making them "like him." Ultimately, the solution to their predicament revolves around figuring out the true identity of this boy's mother, finally bringing an end to his search.

Prior to watching these episodes again, all I remembered was that there was a hivemind-type element involved, among some other details. What I didn't remember, however, was the everything else surrounding this boy.

In the following scene, the Doctor is reacting to the phone ringing in the front panel of his Tardis (which takes the shape of a police call box). However, it's not a real phone, it's just part of the Tardis's disguise, and therefore shouldn't actually work. Just when he's about to answer it, a young woman shows up and tells him not to. However, he doesn't heed her warning and when she disappears, he answers it anyway.

They don't give it subtitles in the DW episode, but before the child actually starts speaking, there's a muffled, garbled sort of static-like breathing, very similar to Will on the phone with Joyce.

He follows this girl to a house, where she and a group of homeless kids she watches after are eating from a meal left on the table. At the present moment, there's an air raid occurring, and this girl takes advantage of that to feed the kids when the homeowners are stuck in their bomb shelters. And when the Doctor calls her out on it (though he admits he thinks it's brilliant) he says:

Which... just... well, I wasn't expecting a TFS reference like that. But anyway, jokes aside...

The Doctor asks these kids why they haven't been evacuated yet, as they should be in the countryside by now. However, several of them admit that they had been evacuated, but they came back for one reason or another. For at least two of them, it was because they had to deal with "a man" at whatever home they were evacuated to, and they decided that being out here, taken care of by this young woman, was a far better bargain.

This stuff never comes up again, but boy, a group of kids who have to deal with an unsavory man? Okay, throwaway-line Martin Brenner!

This is where the Doctor also learns that this girl's name is Nancy... word.

He asks her again how his phone could have been ringing, since she seemed to know why, but she won't reveal anymore information to him. Instead, he cracks a very Brenner-vibes joke when asking if any of them have seen Rose, who he got separated from at the start of the episode:

We all know that Brenner needed one specific blonde boy in order for his "research" to work...

Nancy's about to kick the Doctor out so the rest of them can finish their meal in peace when the boy searching for his mummy shows up outside the window. The boy is young - 5-6 years old - and wearing a gas mask. Nancy gets all the other kids to escape out the back of the house while the boy waits at the front door for "mummy" to let him inside. Nancy gives the Doctor a little more cryptic information and the phone in the foyer starts ringing, but when Nancy doesn't let the Doctor answer it, the boy's voice then comes through a nearby radio, and even through a motorized toy, which I think speaks for itself in terms of similarities to voices coming through radios/speakers and them otherwise acting on the fritz in ST...

"It's not exactly a child" had my ears perking up too irt @aemiron-main's posts about doppelgangers.

Nancy flees out the back, leaving only the Doctor with this boy on the other side of the bolted front door. The boy reaches through the mail slot, where we then see he has a scar on the back of his right hand.

Photos taken from this post by @henrysglock.

Now obviously the scars don't look the same. The one on this boy is just superficial (unlike Henry's, which seems to hold some form of importance we have yet to fully uncover), and they're not even on the same hand. However, it's still an important detail that's imperative to the Doctor's understanding of what's going on here, and comes up again later.

The Doctor tries speaking to the boy, but he simply continues asking for his mummy and begging to be let in because the bombs are scaring him. However, when the Doctor opens the front door, the boy vanishes.

With the "threat" gone, the Doctor chases after Nancy, finding her in an old railroad yard. She's still his best bet for finding out what's going on, so he asks her again about the boy. He's deduced that this boy has something to do with the object he and Rose had been chasing.

I didn't mention it earlier, but when they're chasing this object through spacetime, they struggle to keep up with it because it's "jumping time-tracks," so when they land on Earth, it's only a general estimate, both in location and time. They're roughly a month out from when it landed, and thus have to ask around to figure out where it is... we only had a month of peace in that house... anyway...

Also... a bomb that wasn't a bomb vs the huge amounts of energy needed to open a gate to the UD, El being called a "fancy bomb"...

Nancy takes him to where the object crashed and instructs him to go to the nearby hospital to talk to "the Doctor" there. Before he leaves, however, he asks her who she "lost."

We all know what the "lost" reminded me of... even the "he's empty" from earlier as compared to Max's mind being empty/just being the void or the "darkness," if we want to speculate on what that means.

So, we learn that the boy who's been following Nancy around is her little brother, Jamie, who was killed during an air raid around the time that this object crashed to Earth.

The Doctor goes to the hospital to see... the Doctor... who we learn is actually named Dr. Constantine (though I do have to really point at the weird emphasis they had on her simply calling him "the Doctor," which even confuses the actual Doctor, because Dr. Constantine is just a human, not a Time Lord, so what gives with the weird false curveball? Anyway, just something that really stuck out to me, especially irt all the weird name and identity stuff in ST). There, the Doctor sees that every bed is filled with patients who are all wearing gas masks, just like Jamie. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to gather readings on all of the patients while Dr. Constantine warns him, "don't touch the flesh." (Which, this feels a little reachy, but it reminded me of an early interview for TFS where Bob's actor uses the phrase "in the flesh," which James talked about in this post). The Doctor learns that every patient has the exact same injuries:

Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side (okay Vecna), partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right, scarring on the back of the hand, and the gas masks are fused to the flesh despite a lack of burns.

We also see here that Dr. Constantine, who appears weak and is experiencing fits of coughing, is developing that same scar on the back of his own hand. Dr. Constantine explains how the first victim, Jamie, was brought in with "truly dreadful" injuries. By the following morning, all doctors and nurses who had treated him had the same injuries, and within the week, it had overrun the entire hospital.

When the Doctor asks what the cause of death was, Dr. Constantine says, "There wasn't one. They're not dead."

There is absolutely no sign of life in any of the victims, and yet they're "alive." They don't get out of their beds, they only respond to sudden noises that startle them (notably, they all respond in a group, like a hivemind. If one reacts to something, they all do), and Dr. Constantine even calls them "harmless."

The fact that they're dead-but-not-really obviously feels akin to the whole "Henry's dead but not really" deal going on in Stranger Things, both in the sense that his death in the outside world was faked so he could go to the lab unnoticed, but also reminded me of TFS and his ability to fend off the Shadow when Will had nearly fully succumbed to it in less than a week. Dr. Constantine even says that "[the patients] just don't die," which is very much like Vecna and his regenerative abilities/getting up and walking away after being flambée'd, as well as Brenner's seeming inability to stay dead.

While the Doctor continues talking to Dr. Constantine, Dr. Constantine proceeds to have a choking fit and his face morphs into a gas mask, his "infection" fully taking over.

At this point, Rose shows up at the hospital, having finally caught up to the Doctor with a new friend in tow: Jack Harkness.

I need to get into Jack Harkness in another post sometime once I do some more reading up on him again because he has a lot of interesting stuff that ties in with the Creels/I wouldn't be surprised if, in some way, shape, or form, he was some influence for Henward, but for now, we'll just stick to what's presented in these episodes.

When Rose initially got separated from the Doctor, it was because she saw Jamie on a rooftop and, concerned for this little boy out alone in wartime London, she went to meet him. However, she accidentally got swept off by a barrage balloon, having undone the rope tethering it in place as a way to climb the side of a building to reach Jamie. Jack spots her, and though he's presenting himself as a volunteer for the British army, he's actually from the 51st century. Using his spaceship, he rescues Rose when she nearly falls from her barrage balloon, catching her in a tractor beam and bringing her aboard.

We have a fun Victor Creel and Henry moment all wrapped up into one when Rose, a bit smitten by Jack, says hello twice.

Screenshot from this post made by Em regarding the weirdness about Victor and the Creel murders aftermath. Also thank you to Em for the screencaps of TFS!

As Rose and Jack flirt talk, he reveals that he believes Rose to be a Time Agent, since she's carrying a cell phone, has on a liquid crystal watch, and is wearing fabrics that won't be around for 20 years.

Even the stop acting now... a silly terrible play... anyway... Rose even keeps up the act of being a "Time Agent" and neither she nor the Doctor ever tell him they're not, he just figures it out.

When we meet Jack, we're also introduced to the concept of Nanogenes. Jack uses them to heal the rope burns on Rose's hand from when she fell off her barrage balloon. And I don't think I have to explain too much what this reminds me of, at least visually...

Another fun little detail I'll just shove in here is that Jack has parked his spaceship right beside Big Ben, that way it's easy to remember where he parked. The time on the clock reads 9:30 ("lessons start promptly at 10:00!") and Jack says they have just about 2 hours to close their deal before all bets are off (read: the bomb destroys it), which would be at almost midnight... and we sure love our midnight in ST, don't we? Not to mention that Jack is a captain... anyway...

We also learn that Jack was the reason this strange object crashed on Earth. He explains to them that he was trying to con them, deliberately sending a piece of space junk (it's an ambulance, of sorts, which Jack made sure was empty) through spacetime and would present it to them as something extremely valuable, but by the time the money would be exchanged, a German bomb was due to land exactly where the object had landed, thus destroying it before the Time Agents would be able to see what they paid for.

With that truth sorted out, the Doctor focuses back on the patients in the hospital, noting that it appears that their DNA is being rewritten.

I promise those Billy screenshots are gonna pay off later too...

It also made me think about the way Henry's blood changed after he was infected with the Shadow and the blood transfusions that happen in TFS, giving Henry's blood to the other lab kids to... do whatever it is that they haven't confirmed just quite yet, but likely has something to do with making them resilient to the Shadow or to Dimension X. James has spoken about that more in depth here, which I think is an interesting read.

Meanwhile, Nancy is back at the house they'd been eating at prior, packing up the rest of the food that was left. While there, Jamie speaks to her over the radio and then comes into the house. When she tries to flee out the door, he points at it and it slams shut in front of her and locks her inside with him.

At this same moment, all of the patients in the hospital get up out of their beds and begin asking for "mummy" while stalking toward the Doctor, Rose, and Jack, cornering them. Again, we're seeing this "hivemind" in action, the rest of them following what Jamie, the first victim, is doing.

Yes, the Doctor stops them by telling them to go to their room, which Jamie reacts to as well, thus saving Nancy. Yes, he's pleasantly surprised that it worked, too.

Also, just a fun little moment that I want to touch on that occurs here, when Nancy goes to leave the house, she runs into a little boy wearing a gas mask. She startles, thinking that it's Jamie again, but the boy removes his mask and it turns out to be the son of the family who lives in the house she was stealing from. Gotta love more fun times with lots of blonde-haired blue-eyed children getting mistaken for each other! We love confusing identities in this house!

Meanwhile, the Doctor, Rose, and Jack are going to the top floor of the hospital, which Dr. Constantine told the Doctor he should go to find more information before he succumbed to his "infection." There, they find a room with a busted out glass window and a tape recording setup.

*extremely loud cartoon blinking noises* are we seeing this shit??

I was especially raising my eyebrows about the "angry" bit, what with Brenner's whole deal in TFS getting Henry to become angry in order to trip him into using his powers. Not to mention the countless drawings, which are giving ST2 Will with his drawings of the tunnels, but then the absurd strength this child seemingly presented despite being, well, a child, vs Jim's jab at Henry in TFS about not having the "upper body strength" to cause the harm toward the local pets. They might not normally be physically capable, but they were infected with something that made them strong enough.

The Doctor starts playing the tapes in the room, and they hear recordings of Dr. Constantine talking to Jamie, trying to ask him questions, trying to discern if he's "present" or not, and only getting back, "Are you my mummy?" and "I want my mummy!" and other such iterations. Jamie at that point had been totally lost to whatever had infected him.

The Doctor starts thinking, saying that he can "feel/sense it" coming out of the walls of the room. He doesn't elaborate on what, it's just a feeling he picks up that neither Jack or Rose can sense (he blames this on them being inferior as humans lol).

Okay, so, fucking... again, raising my eyebrows about it being afraid, much like how the Shadow on TFS feeds off of fear and that's what makes it stronger. Not to mention the "power of a god" vs all of Vecna's God coding. Very happy these episodes gave me a reason to look again at one of my favorite James posts ever about this very topic. Which, like, sure, the Shadow/Mind Flayer and Vecna aren't one and the same, but, y'know, I'm connecting dots and having fun leave me alone.

Anyway, since the Doctor sent it to its room... and this is its room... well, yeah, Jamie shows up, and so using a fancy blaster that Jack has, they bust a hole in the wall to get out and then patch it back up, trapping Jamie in the room. However, he starts busting down the wall, ST1 Demogorgon-style, in order to get to them. The other patients begin coming for them as well, since Jamie's after them.

Meanwhile, Nancy is talking to some of the homeless kids, telling them that Jamie doesn't come after all of them, he only comes after her, so if they want to be safe, they can't be around her.

In that same scene, one of the kids is writing on a typewriter, which continues typing even after he gets off of it. When this is pointed out, and when they read what was written, it's just "Are you my mummy?" over and over again. Nancy tells them again that as long as they stay with her, Jamie will always be coming for them, and she leaves, intent on breaking into the crash site on her own to figure out what happened to Jamie.

Now, the Doctor, Rose, and Jack are stuck inside the hospital, trapped in a room with only one exit with dozens of infected patients on the other side intent on getting to them. Jack is able to teleport out to his ship and finds a way to speak to the Doctor and Rose via an "Om-Com," which means he can call anything with a speaker grill, which the Doctor realizes is what Jamie is doing as well. And, speak of the devil, Jamie pops up talking through the same radio that Jack is.

Jack manages to block out Jamie by playing "Moonlight Serenade" through the radio instead. Using music to protect them from the weird omnipresent dead-not-dead child? Okay! I guess! I'm going crazy.

Jack manages to then teleport Rose and the Doctor onto his ship after doing some meddling with his hardware, and now back together again, they ask him more about his conman status.

What if I just started eating glass and barbed wire for fun, huh? It really had to be two years, didn't it? Just like the discrepancies between Henry and Edward? Okay, yeah, sure, whatever, I guess !! For more information about that, check out this post by Em, there's a whole section detailing the year discrepancies shown to us in the ST newspapers that present this 2 year time difference (and take a gander at everything else he has there, it's well worth the read).

Meanwhile, Nancy has attempted to break into the crash site, but was detained by the guards who are protecting it. She gets handcuffed to a table beside a soldier who's clearly been infected, but nobody listens when she pleads to be kept away from him. She begins talking to him, saying she understands what's happening to him.

The Doctor, Rose, and Jack arrive at the crash site, where they learn that now the contaminant is airborne, and soon absolutely no one will be safe and the whole world will become infected, wiping out the human race. As the Doctor is explaining this, he interrupts himself by asking if anyone else can hear singing, and we then hear Nancy singing "Rock-a-bye Baby," which has put the infected soldier to sleep beside her. Love some more "music saves" (though this is merely because the lullaby put "Jamie" to sleep). The Doctor rescues her, and they all flee outside to examine the crashed object.

Here, the Doctor explains that this object actually wasn't empty like Jack said it was. Instead, it was filled with the same Nanogenes that were in Jack's spaceship that healed Rose, only because this is an ambulance, there were far more than they could imagine - specifically, enough to "rebuild a species." When the ship crashed, they all escaped. The first "living" thing they came across was a dead child - Jamie. Having never seen a human being before, these Nanogenes took Jamie as the blueprint for humankind. With him as the blueprint, every other human seems "wrong" to the Nanogenes.

While they're trying to sort out their next moves, the infected begin approaching the crash site due to an alarm on the ambulance being activated when they tried to open it. The Doctor explains that, because this is a battlefield ambulance, not only are the Nanogenes programmed to help heal wounds, but they're designed to make every living thing into a perfect soldier.

Also realizing I haven't mentioned this yet, but Chula is just an alien race or something. This ambulance is a Chula ship, as is the spaceship that Jack has in the episode.

Anyway, I told you that ST3 Billy screenshot would pay off. Now, they're sort of trapped here. They don't really know what to do, because this little boy is going to tear the world apart in order to find his mummy. Nancy pipes up then, saying that it's her fault this is happening.

Holy Mothergate. Do you ever just scream and cry and throw up? This was one of the other details I remembered about the episode, and it automatically had me thinking of the Alice/Virginia sister/mother swap that Em has talked about in posts like this one.

Nancy approaches Jamie, telling him that yes, she is his mummy, but he doesn't understand because "there's not enough of him left." However, Nancy apologizes to Jamie, saying she is and always will be his mummy, and hugs him. This causes the Nanogenes around them to activate, and while Rose thinks they're going to "change" Nancy, the Doctor stops her from interfering and instead begs the Nanogenes to figure it out. They should be able to read that Nancy and Jamie are related, and that her as the mother should be more than enough for them to get it right.

There is just so much happening here. Henry being the "parent" to the other lab kids, whether by actual blood relation or simply because his blood was used in transfusions to give the kids his same mutated blood, and that being a "superior" DNA type, which is also a word One uses during his monologue toward El.

And the constant use of the word "change" throughout the episode (this isn't the only instance it's used) as compared to Brenner Sr. and Henry said to have "changed" after their run-ins with Dimension X in TFS.

"Mother knows best" isn't something that comes up verbatim in TFS, but the actress who plays Virginia made a post on instagram with "a mother always knows" in the caption. Plus, matched with Virginia's whole thing about seemingly "knowing" what was going on with Henward, as per One's monologue in ST4, and being in cahoots with Brenner about getting him back into the lab in TFS... well, at least in these Doctor Who episodes, it's "mother knows best," but for good.

Anyway, the second episode wraps up with the Doctor sending out the Nanogenes to "fix" all of the people they infected the first time, thus bringing all of these "dead" people back to life. Again, they take the form of these light particles much like the light particles in the UD, which we still don't know the origins or purpose of, other than a means of communication across universes/timelines! Shrimpy!

One thing I really noticed, which is something that also came up in the last DW/ST comparison post I made, is this emphasis on identity. I just find it super interesting that in these episodes, which have lots of other parallels (especially stuff regarding the Shadow/MF), there's this emphasis on knowing who someone really is. In ST, this is something that's becoming more and more important, all the way from ST1 with stuff such as Will's body being a fake, up until ST4 with the uncertainty in the true identity of Vecna and One, and even Brenner.

Basically, I just think that all of these other parallels to the Shadow and the language used around it lend credence to the idea that this idea of mistaken identity and not knowing the full truth until the very end is something that is obviously going to come into play in a very overt way in ST5. Also time travel and alternate universes definitely exist in ST simply because of these connections to DW, and this isn't even getting into any DW episodes that are about alternate universes and changing timelines! Which I will hopefully be discussing sooner than later :]

#st dw #stranger things #i say things #im So tired but i DID IT.... it's DONE

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mad-komet · 4 months

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PLS drop the Spit Kink Approved list... pls

Well, if you insist... just keep a few things in mind:

This is solely based on the use of spitting, which I've defined as "with a focus on saliva, which must be expelled from the mouth with intent." Spit as lube does not count, that's something else, and niether does the mere presence of saliva, even if it's mentioned a lot.

I am only referencing the m/m fics in the Spit, Spitting, and Spit Kink tags. (there are actually eight which make the grade) Surely there is spitting in other fics that haven't listed it in the tags, but I am not reading all that.

Total 22 tagged fics; Spit (2), Spitting (4), and Spit Kink (16). A few x reader fics excluded on the basis of not being gay, sue me.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not including ratings, archive warnings, or the like for my own convenience - if you look these up to read for yourself, it's at your own discretion.

That said, here is the Certified Spit Fics List

Chronological by Date Updated

An Attempt to Tip the Scales by Borderlinemediocre

“I’m not stopping, babe. And you’re not gonna stop me. Give up.” Charlie says, punctuating his words by spitting on Carlo’s face. Brandon’s lightheaded, and not just from the choking.

Charlie finally, finally lets up and Brandon takes a huge breath in, chest expanding as much as possible. Charlie laughs at him, reaches down to spread his spit around a bit, thumb sliding into Carlo’s mouth.

Woah mama, this one is hot. They only spit once, but oh how economical and effective it is! This, to me, gets it just right irt spitting; it's degrading and intimate and uninhibited.

🔒Calamari by Fresh_penguin

He used his thumb to pull my bottom lip, opening my mouth. He spits into my mouth. Well, not really, drooled might be a better word. I could watch the glob of saliva leave his mouth and slowly make its way to mine. I stuck my tongue out just to make sure it hit.

The only one that was in first person. First instance of spitting into the mouth, which is by far the most common. Not quite as dirty as spitting on someone, but still very hot.

🔒[pkane advisory] With you, I'm badder than I've ever been (let's make the devil smile) by Anonymous

"Open up, babe, got a gift for ya," Patrick grins, thumb on Brendan's chin pulling his slack jaw down, Brendan's brain still too offline to comprehend what's happening, and then Patrick works his jaw and, eyes gleaming, spits the remnants of Brendan's own come, [sic] now thoroughly mixed with Patrick's spit, back into Brendan's mouth. He pats Brendan's cheek. "Swallow, baby girl."

Ah, this one is pretty dirty, but barely any spitting, and it's just cum. Not really for me, but maybe it's for you?

🔒couldn't help it by jesuisgrace

He pulls back out of his space and looks down, a wicked smirk on his face when he peeks back up at TK. He purses his lips - fuck have his lips always been that fucking pretty? - and spits right onto the head of his dick. TK’s moan echoes through the locker room as Patty smears his spit down the length of him. His hand is so fuckin’ big it’s like he can feel him everywhere, long fingers dragging up as he slides his palm around the head.

Oh yeah! Plenty of spit from good ol' tknp, and this one has a link to visual reference of np spitting ... fuck yes.

🔒[mattdrai advisory] The Day Leon Draisaitl Swore Never To Buy Another Apple Product Again by irrelevanttous

At the same time, ignoring the ringing in his ears and static in his vision, he pries Tkachuk’s lips further apart with his thumb. He squishes Tkachuk’s cheeks to hold him open and leans forward again, draping his chest all over Tkachuk’s to pin him in place. Then he spits right into Tkachuk’s open mouth.

Not a lot of spitting here, and only into the mouth, but hey that counts!

🔒I wore his jacket for the longest time by rain_over_coruscant (<3)

Dahlin snorts. “You can give it better than you take it.”

“Fuck,” Auston chokes, spitting out blood-snot onto Dahlin’s socks. Through the tears, he can see Dahlin cringe, and a horrible worm of an idea drops bright and stupid into his brain. Before he can back down, he gathers up more blood and spit in his mouth and spits it at Dahlin’s face. Dahlin lets out the squeal of someone just as squeamish as Auston and shoves him backwards, leaving him stumbling all the way back against the bed, blood still pouring from him.

Woah man, this one is hot. A winner's room fic, and it's the only Rasmus Dahlin/Auston Matthews fic. It's also the only one on this list that mixes spit with blood, makes it extra juicy. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I like what I got anyway.

🔒[penguins petplay advisory] skills competition by cuprun

Kris tightens his grip just a little, using it to tug Sid’s mouth open fully, and then he leans forward, gathering all the saliva he collected to the front of his mouth and spitting it where Sid’s mouth is open and waiting for it.

Petplay is not for me, but who wouldn't appreciate Kris spitting in your mouth?

🔒it would be a sin not to sin by tapedsleeves(pp tiny) for Lurlur

Adam spits on his tongue. Vince writhes harder under him, but he can’t go anywhere. He doesn’t want to, he just has to do something with how that makes him feel. Adam’s fingers dig into Vince’s mouth, his hands held firmly by Adam’s weight. “Swallow.” Adam says, firm.

Again, spitting into the mouth, and that's about it, but still hot and orally fixated.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly these are all hot in their own right, but only two of these really hit the nail on the head for what I was looking for in a "Spit Kink" fic.

That aside, 8 out of 34,101 is a meagre 0.023% ... that is truly slim for Men's Hockey RPF where it is the job of these men to spit! (So it's our job to write about it, amen.)

#x #ask #anonymous #spitting!!!!

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bugbuoyx · 8 months

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I think it's funny when people say trans men don't experience misogyny. I experience it alot as an out and proud and obvious trans person. Most folks are good, they don't blink an eye (even in the rural south) but for some you can see it like a switch. The biggest tell in my experience is they start treating you like the world's biggest idiot. Like you couldn't possibly know more than them about anything. I also tend to get babied, people stop letting me do things I was doing previously such as lifting heavy stuff and outdoorsy type work.

I just think it's ridiculous that the most basic elements of misogyny, elements that have been defined and discussed for years, no longer count as misogyny because it's directed at a trans guy. How do people even claim it's "misdirected" (which is such a bullshit word irt oppression) it's all very clearly directed at me for having formerly been a woman*. And what of my time spent living as a girl? Does all that misogyny mysteriously disappear, all of my former experiences rendered moot by the fact I'm now a guy*.

I haven't even gotten into how cis men can be misogynistic towards each other but rad fems and people who pretend they aren't rad fems but boil misogyny down to "woman only oppression" like to ignore that. What do you call it when a cis guy shames another guy by calling him a pussy? "You hit like a girl" anyone? You can't explain this away as "misdirected" because the intended target is not a girl, is not mistakenly being perceived as a girl, it is a deliberate act of misogyny in order to enforce the patriarchal status quo.

#misogyny #transmasc #transphobia #im bad at tags negl but w/e #i bet if i sniffed out the origins of “misdirected” it would come from rad feminism #like i dont think people realize exactly how much radical feminism has invaded queer spaces its so bad its literally everywhere #its in the heavy separation of gender in the accusations that certain peoples (depending on your flavor of radfem) experiences dont count #its in the black and white view of the world #of misogyny being the only oppression that matters and everything else is coincidental the idea that men cant be oppressed at all ever #of the idea that theres one person who is the most oppressed and collecting and wielding identities like oppression points #except your points dont count if you are actually oppressed such as black trans folks who are regularly silenced #seriously though the idea that no man ever has ever faced oppression especially from a woman is so funny like i live in the rural south --#-- and i still learned in school that there were black men who were violently murdered bc cis white women accused them of rape #but yallre like wasnt misogyny wasnt a girl he deserved it for being a nasty stinky man uwu #which is disgusting racism but if you point that out youre a misogynist not allowing women to “vent” about their oppression #transandrophobia

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noisytenant · 3 months

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thoughts about maria and the image of the child as i start umineko episode 4; no MAJOR plot spoilers, but names a character you won't know about until ~episode 4, and gestures to other spoilers. mentions child abuse

i dont have a coherent thesis yet, but it's interesting the ways that maria does and doesn't fit into various "little girl" archetypes.

an endlessly forgiving, saintlike victim; a creepy, otherworldly messenger; an innocent, pure, clueless child; but also stubborn, hysterical, illogical, and annoying.

i feel like in embodying so many of these conflicting archetypes at once, it sort of forces you to reckon with the image of the child, and how it contrasts with the rich and painful reality of childrens' experiences.

i mean, umineko is very much about child abuse, but i think some stories struggle to not write the child character as an object upon which acts are inflicted, an animal from which responses are extracted. i feel like i'm phrasing this badly, but the essence is, sometimes abused child characters are only empathized with inasfar as they are victims. any "self" they have is swallowed up by the facts of being a child, and being abused. so it's interesting how maria relates to this.

we understand how maria's behavior manifests in these stereotypical ways (thanks ryukishi for being so unsubtle about this lol), but these behaviors that might be used as contrived plot elements in another story can be understood as the desperate self-expression and survival strategies of a severely abused developmentally disabled child.

but i also feel like we still haven't seen much of her inner experience. in a lot of critical moments, she's being viewed through the eyes of those who are, often unjustly, depending on her--or the idea of her. it's unclear if these visions of her are even real, or just imagined. her interiority is speculated on but yet to be penetrated. i imagine eventually we'll get to spend a little more time in her head, and i'm excited for that time to come.

miscellaneous notes on tangentially related topics:

this all gets especially interesting meeting ange, who we Don't get to see as a young child despite her being one. her dynamic with maria (or the idea of maria) is immediately extremely compelling. i also really like how ange's design has this sort of regressorcore hairstyle it's really fitting given her circumstances lol

when maria's like comforting battler in episode 2 it really felt like 🥺🥺🤨🤨❓❓❓💥💥💥😮😮🤔🤔🤔 irt All This

the witches are thus far all eternally kids to teens, maybe early 20s at most. its very Lol Lmao.

generations of abuse are the poison eating at the entire family, and the inability to see their children (especially their girls) as people is the propagator. but in the tension between mystery and fantasy, there's also perhaps a question of how we understand and resolve this abuse. is the concept of love a fantasy that obscures the mechanisms of abuse, that renders it arbitrary and unknowable? or is it a north star that drives us to unravel our inner narratives and strive to be the people we want to be for the people we care about?

the tension between mystery and fantasy thus can also be seen as a tension between adult and child.

thats all i got thanks

#indexed post #I think Im cooking but also this is a theme that I read into like. Literally anything so. Smiles shrugs #umineko liveblog #the opinion haver

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actualbird · 1 year

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Hey Zak!

I just read your analysis on marius and emotional distancing and I agree! I think on top of that, he's also the type to bottle it up, if that's the right term for it.

There's one Marius scene that really stuck with me, above all the romantic stuff. (i don't remember which story it's from, i just remember what he did). Marius was talking about something traumatizing, then in the blink of an eye, he was smirking at us, all smug and asking us if we really fell for it.

Once I noticed that, I start noticing it in all Marius angst stories. Every time he talks about something traumatizing, he typically changes the topic in the middle. Which is to be expected when it's something that traumatizes him, but the thing is, the trauma gets mentioned, and we see him being vulnerable. Then, it's like a switch flicks in his head. Like "Oh wait, I'm talking to jiejie", and he immediately clams up and starts teasing us, going back to the flirty brat we met at the start.

I can't think of a single time when he mentions something traumatizing, and we actually get him being completely vulnerable as he tells us about it all, not just part of it before he swaps to flirty and confident mode.

I was kidding when I told some of my friends that "marius is the type to be having an emotional breakdown and saying 'i'm fine, it's fine, why do you think i need help'", but now I think it could actually happen.

irt analysis on marius and emotional distancing

hi roshie-writes!! first off, im v sorry im getting to this ask very late OTL but im happy to hear u agree with that analysis :D

additionally, this ask is rlly interesting cuz yEPPPPPP, I AGREE ON ALL THIS TOO

that whole thing of Drops Vulnerability And Then Shifts To Playful Aloofness is SO VERY common in marius stories, and i personally first clocked it in the Lost Gold event. in like, the very first scene of his LG route, marius tells mc that she must think him naive for wanting to trust bryce and in general just confesses some insecurities hes got. and then the moment mc shows him sincerity, concern, and worry, he immediately shifts and is like "AWWWW UR WORRIED ABOUT ME >:3c" which makes me (and mc) wanna affectionately strangle him.

another more recent instance of this tendency happens in his blossom chapter personal story 4, right when he actually tells the full story of the Basement Incident. and then not like 5 lines after that, he gets flirty, glosses OVER ALL OF THAT WORRYING INFORMATION, and then says "Yeah, that's my good girl" to mc with a smirk on his face.

this personal story 4 instance stands out to me for three reasons:

1) simply cuz the Basement Incident full story lives in my mind rent free and

2) the "Yeah, that's my good girl" is notorious cuz i regularly see screencaps of that line do rounds on twt with ppl simping over it, me included, cuz my god marius KNOWS how to be flirty, like, lemme just drop the screencap cuz Im Not Immune To Marius von Hagen

and 3) the fact that this above screencap regularly makes rounds w ppl going crazy over how hes a flirty bastard (affectionate) really makes me go nuts cuz.....aGAIN. HE DID THIS LIKE 2 SECONDS AFTER CONFESSING HE NEARLY DIED AS A CHILD. LIKE...to an extent, his deflection here worked even outside of the realm of the in-game story itself, it's working on the players too cuz we're busy going MARIUS! VON! HAGEN! over the flirting that, again, attention is taken away from the thing he doesnt want anybody to pay attention to

HE CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS........

i talk a little bit abt this bait-n-switch tendency of his in an old analysis i wrote, marius von hagen, facade vs. sincerity, harsh truths vs. persisting hope, and my thought abt this tendency hasnt changed from the insight i gathered back then, which went:

marius casually has the tendency to “act” a certain way to get things like praise and reassurance, which could arguably interpreted as him using facades (which in this situation i think is actually him just saying theyre facades, theyre actually sincere, but he hides that, says it’s just an act) to acquire the deep seated sincerity he wishes. here, facade is a medium by which to acquire sincerity from others.

this is partly because of what you say which i agree with. he still wants people to care about him (because thats an innately human desire we All want) but at some point, he realizes hes talking to mc and hes gotta dial it back. and why does he dial it back? because he doesnt want her to worry. she matters to him, and he doesnt want her to be upset over him, so shifting the conversation into something playful can effectively stop worry in its tracks or, at the very least, delay it.

but i also think this is because revealing these gutpunch things like trauma or insecurities is, at the end of the day, a vulnerability

and marius is in a position where he cannot be vulnerable. vulnerability can put him (and maybe even people who matter to him too) in danger.

as much as his deflection, disconnection, and repression is a method for him to deal with his own things himself, these methods are also a way for him to protect against others. he needs to act like these vulnerabilities dont matter to him at all, because then theyre less likely to become weakpoints for an enemy to exploit.

and marius is also in a position where hes got a Lot of enemies. so many people would quite like it if they had something to hold over the head of Pax, mr interim-CEO himself

it's at times like these i really appreciate that marius' nxx codename is King, because it is sosososoososoo fitting for him, specifically due to the chess definition of the term.

the king is simultaneously the most important piece (which garners many enemies and ensures everybody wants to be able to put the king in check or checkmate), AND arguably the weakest piece too (full of vulnerabilities and weakpoints that need to be Constantly guarded against). the king is literally a piece thats meant to be hunted and protected, because thats the entire point of the game, and thats a lot of what marius has to deal with too. marius, to me, feels like hes constantly playing 4D chess in an effort to protect himself and make it look like hes protecting no weakpoints at all, weakpoints Dont Exist, if u saw them, no u didnt, because he needs to appear invincible

all eyes are always on him, for better or for worse. and when everybody is watching, allies and enemies alike, it seems way smarter to just hide and minimize vulnerability completely than to risk getting stabbed in the back for it.

#roshie-writes #asks #marius von hagen #tears of themis #the marius urge to make zak write a ridiculously long block of text. he CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS ALSO!!!

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mymarifae · 2 years

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what do you think about the new girl page? seeing lots of divisive opinions on that one

mm. mmmmmm. hoooooooo boy ok let's talk about this. i guess.

to sum it up succinctly? it strikes me as bizarre. like, just bizarre. it's weird on multiple levels and fucks with established characterizations of susie, kris, AND noelle. it's messy and i think it was a poor choice. and for now i'm tentatively bonking toby over the head with a hammer (i will get into why it's tentative for now, rest assured) and i'm also bonking everyone praising it and immediately incorporating it into their views of the characters.

to break it down further...?

in and of itself, it's like. alright, we've got this indirect and yet very clear confirmation that susie was adopted/temporarily housed by (and is still bouncing around in the foster care system) a human family and has/had a "mother" who abuses/d her. so she's lashing out. she's redirecting her pain and trauma onto the one human in hometown. who was also adopted. by a family of monsters. a family that is kind and loving. that's not fair, why didn't she get to be a dreemurr, why did kris steal her chance, this isn't fair this isn't fucking fair-

she's a hurt, scared kid. and i don't necessarily think this is a. well i don't want to say "i don't think this is a bad scene to canonize" because it is a bad scene - it's uncomfortable and it caused me a lot of pain to read. but it's not like unforgivable, and it doesn't make susie a bad person.

i will never hold a grudge against a kid for lashing out when they were never taught love and kindness and acceptance. i will never hold a grudge against a child for being scared and hurt and so so so so angry at the unfairness of the world.

my issues with it arise from the way it just... doesn't... make sense. if susie was truly so horrible to kris, why were they so quick to trust her? hell, why was she so eager to be their friend? there should be a hell of a lot more tension between them. the things susie said to kris were genuinely pretty awful and can't be swept under the rug Just Like That.

it also completely contradicts the way chapter 1 is set up, where we slowly piece together that susie never actually bullied anyone. sure, the way the blog post is written makes it sound like she only went after kris when they were alone, but that kind of visceral hate isn't going to go completely unnoticed. i mean, noelle picked up on it before seeing the classroom incident, yeah? i feel like someone would have said something. and i feel like MK especially would have made one off-hand comment about how much susie seems to hate kris Specifically instead of just repeatedly saying that they've never seen her actually do anything bad, but, b-but, BUT she still sucks kris lol.

also, noelle's "i always thought susie can't be that bad!" comment makes noooooooo fucking sense if she saw this unfold. because she literally saw that yeah. she's that bad.

it puts kris and susie's current easy natural loving friendship in a very weird light, and i very much dislike how many people are jumping to accept it. yes, i also love depth in characters' relationships. i love layers and complexities and tensions.

depth =/= toxic. and that's what this blog post does. it makes it toxic. it makes noelle's crush on susie toxic and uncomfortable as well. (seriously: "maybe i should buy apple shampoo so she bullies me instead? XD" ?????????????)

now you will note that i said i am Tentatively bonking toby over the head with a hammer. there is another reason why i don't like people jumping to incorporate this whole mess into their understanding of kris and susie's friendship:

... how do you know this is a scene from our game's current timeline?

it's pretty obvious deltarune has some fuckery going on irt timelines and resets similarly to undertale. on that same note, i've always loved how quickly susie and kris Click, but it has always made me raise an eyebrow. because that is not two teens slowly realizing they have more common ground than they thought and slowly letting their guards down around each other. that is two already best friends reuniting.

the way i've come to understand it is this: in the very, very, very first instance of "deltarune", it took kris and susie a very long time to become friends. BECAUSE of what happened in the classroom and whatever else. they only began to trust each other a heartbeat away from the end of the world. and then they fail. and then the timeline resets. and they do it again.

and the... feelings, the vague memories and the déjà vu. they linger. distantly, susie remembers a time when they were almost friends. and as the timelines go on, again and again, they just build up. things begin to change. their stories become brighter and brighter, despite ultimately ending in the tragedy that [gaster] wishes to prevent. until we get to this point where susie feels like she should be furious with kris for Something, but she can't bring herself to. and thus our current timeline, the beginning of Our Game, is born.

i stand by my theory that kris and susie's friendship will be what prevents the roaring or the angel's heaven or whatever other apocalyptic events ralsei decides to tell us about later. the red soul's intervention has nothing to do with it. they have lived countless lives together. they know now, just intrinsically, that there's no one they can trust more than each other. they are best friends till the end.

and by god is it going to be a happy one.

toby still gets a bonk over the head if this is the case btw because i ultimately disagree with using "ogh. timelines." as character development but i'll accept it if it means this stupid blog post isn't real (anymore). otherwise, he is going to need to pull some fucking magic out of his ass to explain this properly to me because it literally demolishes 2 chapters of build up and development ABFNDBDKGKFGKFJKGKDG 👍🏾

#i love deltarune very much but i do think toby's writing in many aspects is lacking #ESPECIALLY in terms of timelines and the red soul and player involvement and like. whatever. perhaps he will tie it all in by ch7 but...#as of now that is both undertale and deltarune's biggest weakness. you can twist however you want #but a from a purely canonical viewpoint it doesn't make sense. it Doesn't. we are all extrapolating and guessing and it's annoying #toby is amazing at characters and character interactions and humor and relationships. he is not so amazing at the . meta nonsense.#i'm serious ddlc is the only game that i've played that handled the incorporation of the literal player decently #everyone else just does this weird unexplained confusing Mess and uhghhh. stop itttt stop trying to be 'cool' and 'smart'#just letyour stories be stories. they are real enough as they are. i promise.#anyways... yeah this wasn't it #mailbox

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genderoutlaws · 2 years

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hi, i need some advice.

im afab but ive nevee felt right as a girl. i always stuck out to all the girls i grew up with. i grew up quicker than they were so i was taller than them, my calf muscles are huge, i have dark hair all over my legs and arms, my shoulders are broader than my hips... like compared to near all the girls i grew up with, i just... wasnt a girl in comparison.

i love being feminine and girly but whenever i try i just... it doesnt look right. i cant be a girl as effortlessly as they can. i just stick out like an ugly sore thumb and it's so frustrating.

becauee of all this, i relate ao so so much to the stories of trans women and how they navigate femininity, womanhood and being women. ofc i cant identity as a trans woman because im afab, but what do i do about any of this... i dont understand myself at all but i feel seen in the experiences of trans women.

what do i do?

hey anon, i obviously can’t tell you who you are as that’s your own journey, but like Just going from this message it honestly sounds like the experience of a cis woman who is very alienated from womanhood because of the restrictions white cis heteropatriarchy places on who is the “correct” kinda woman yknow? i think it makes a lot of sense to connect with trans women out of that shared experience of having your physical features held against you irt your femininity.

i don’t know if you need to Do anything necessarily, but ig i would encourage you to continue reading and listening to those women’s experiences that speak to you, and maybe writing about your own too! (doesnt have to be public ofc, private journaling has helped me sm honestly in terms of self actualization and figuring out who and what i wanna be)

i hope this helped, if you ever wanna talk feel free to DM me or send another anon <3

#asks #anonymous

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demetriandelibinaryboyfriends · 11 months

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Pride Month Character Sexuality Headcanon Moodboards 1. Yasmine - Lesbian 2. Demetri Alexopoulos - Gay 3. Moon - Bisexual 4. Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz - Bisexual

Next up is my favorite little gayboy in the whole world!!! Why am I so dead convinced he's a little gayboy and not a little biboy??? I'm so glad you asked!!!

Yes obviously he's in love with Eli, a boy, but I firmly believe Demetri has never once genuinely yearned for the touch of a woman akidjsilufhk

MF literally spends his first scene of the show limp-wristing. I am not kidding in the least.

Like even Eli is sus in the first pic akajsldibhodfku

"But that's circumstantial evidence, tumblr user demetriandelibinaryboyfriends!!!" you say. "He starts simping for Yasmine immediately after, so doesn't that cancel it out?"

Well, see, that's exactly what he wants you to think.

The reason he does this imo is actually kind of sad. Miguel comes to the table (Demetri's first potential new friend in like 10 years!!!) and immediately shows an interest in girls, establishing that he's probably a Regular Straight Guy. Miguel has seen Demetri talk in a slight gay lisp (he does!!! Don't @ me!!! Like maybe they were going for "nasally nerd voice" but it just sounds like the stereotypical gay guy voice???), have Some Kinda Fruity Vibe going with Eli, and limp-wrist all over the place, and Demetri knows this. He's also just met Miguel, and has every reason to believe this straight dude will ditch him immediately if he suspects Demetri's gay (high school kids really ARE that cruel sometimes), so...he tries to cover his ass and pretend to be straight so Miguel will stay :(

Speaking of Yasmine, though!!! Basically every time throughout the series that he shows an interest in her, it feels extremely performative. Like he's just saying what Miguel (or whoever else) would expect him to. And it's only ever about looks and social status in a way that suggests he sees Yasmine as a kind of placeholder/cover-up--"the conventionally attractive girl I act obsessed with so no one suspects I'm gay."

On that topic, the irt S1 Demetri, the fact that he picks a very unattainable girl to show blatant interest in is huge. Like what better cover than "pining" for a girl who you believe there is 0% chance you could ever actually date??? Indefinitely permanent beard without once having to fake a straight relationship!

I also think this is why Demetri is so gloriously unbothered when he botches hitting on Yasmine in 1x09. Like sure, he's socially inept, but he's not unintelligent; anyone with two brain cells could tell Yasmine wasn't interested (and he doesn't have the Eli-esque ego-driven delusion to think he's doing better with girls than he actually is). So why does he happily say "I think that went well!" when Yasmine walks away??? Because he's filled the Expected Straight Guy Quota beautifully by shooting his shot with a hot girl, and now that that failed he's off the hook!

Another funny thing is that he ONLY goes and hits on Yasmine after he's seen Eli making out with a random girl. I think it's both a mimicking kind of thing ("well, shit, if this is what Eli's doing I'd better do it too!" they're like cats I love them) and an "I guess if Eli's gonna start kissing girls and be unavailable now, I have nothing to lose so I might as well" kinda thing.

Generally speaking, S1 Demetri, um...sure does procrastinate getting romantically involved with girls. We're meant to believe it's solely a lack of confidence and his general defeatist nature, but like. Every chance he gets, he puts off making a move on girls. He straight up tells Miguel he's going to wait until he gets a well-paying, respectable job before asking any hot girls out. Homeboy literally putting off dating girls for like 5 decades. Not to mention the Halloween dance, where he tells Miguel to "slow his roll" asking girls to dance and says it "could've been worse" when they in fact don't end up dancing with any girls. Both rather flippantly and cheerfully, too! Like Demetri only ever seems to care about girls when Miguel is around, which goes back to my theory that he's worried Miguel would abandon him and Eli if he figured out Demetri was gay.

Tbh I don't think Demetri's lack of initiative with girls is because he's a defeatist because...he seems indifferent (sometimes even chipper) about his lack of luck with women. But when it comes to Eli being bullied??? He is ACTIVELY bothered. Like he's clutching the back of a chair in a silent rage during the library scene. He looks heartbroken when the cafeteria kids start snickering about Eli's mom calling the school. He goes off at Johnny when he makes fun of Eli's lip! Clearly Demetri doesn't like being at the bottom of the school food chain, even though he's also a defeatist about getting bullied. But when it comes to girls??? Every time the loser trio fails with women, Miguel tends to take it 5000% harder than Demetri, who legit barely bats an eye!

I feel like I don't need to convince you of the Demetri-Eli subtext, because otherwise you wouldn't be on my page, but...it's worth mentioning that Demetri spends all of S2 being a sad little simp for Newly Evil Eli and completely forgetting Yasmine's existence while she's in France. Moon is the only one who acknowledges Yasmine's existence all season, but that gay subtext is a conversation for another day XD In any case, Demetri quickly 100% forgets the girl he was supposedly "so into" during S1. Wack! Speaking as an ex-high schooler, btw, you don't just forget your crush over the summer if you really liked them that much. You yearn and talk wistfully to your friends about what they might be up to XD

Also worth noting that as soon as Demetri does drop the Aggressively Straight facade and forms genuine relationships with women, platonic bonds with girls seem to come second-nature to him! He very easily befriends Moon and Sam, despite being scared to so much as interact with girls for years. But as soon as he does, connecting and being amicable with girls seems effortless as long as it isn't romantic. It brings to mind how gay men often have a lot of close female friends and tend to be more at ease around them because there's no concern of underlying sexual/romantic tension.

Tbh you could argue the only time Demetri's relationships with women suffer is when he Tries Too Hard To Be Straight. He has healthy and solid friendships with Sam and Moon, and he has never once tried to flirt with either. Among all the girls in the cast Demetri regularly interacts with, Yasmine is actually the one he has the most contentious relationship with. And why's that? I would argue it's because he feels obligated to hit on her whenever they're together, lest his hard-earned new friends suspect something is abnormal about him. Not Moon as much, but Sam and Miguel for sure--as far as he can tell, they are both 100% straight and it's very possible he's worried about them abandoning him for being a "weird freak" the same way Eli did. In any case, him hitting on Yas makes the atmosphere between them tense and uncomfortable, making his relationship with her feel more stilted than his more organic-feeling interactions with Moon and Sam.

Worth noting that he only really brings up Yasmine/waxes poetic about how "into Yasmine" he is around the people he MOST wants to think he's straight--Sam, Miguel, and Eli. Sam and Miguel are his best friends sans Eli, and Eli, well...of course he would constantly bring up his Girlfriend He Totally Likes So Much around the dude he absolutely does not want to suspect he's into!!! In S4 especially he just got Eli back, and shies away from anything that might open a rift between them again, especially a big fat gay crush he's been harboring since the jump!

The whole Demetri-Yasmine relationship is super shallow and performative--in my opinion, from both sides, but Demetri's side especially. He seems to see Yasmine as more of a concept than a person, calling her the "girl of his dreams" and saying he's "101% in love" while...not appearing to know anything of substance about her. He literally never alludes to knowing anything about her personality except that she's hot and mean. And sure, you could chock this up to him being a shallow, horny teenage boy, but...we know he's anything but shallow, given how he loves his childhood best friend so much and so deeply that he forgives him for all number of horrible things in 3 seconds flat because he is that certain that Eli means his apology and is a good person deep down. Given that he has absolutely undying loyalty to his other best friend Miguel Diaz, despite Miguel being (indirectly) part of the reason that he and Eli got estranged in the first place. Given that he also has so much undying loyalty to Sam LaRusso that he backed her up in a dangerous gang fight and got his arm broken for it. Demetri clearly sees and understands the nuance and complexity in people. So why does he talk about his own girlfriend as if she has none???

Something else to note is how in S5, Demetri reveals that he and Yasmine fight so frequently that her arm is literally weighed down with all the make-up bracelets he buys her. This is just supposed to be a Funny Bit, but...I can't help but notice that this is a stark contrast to S4, where they seemed to be all over each other every time we saw them together. Maybe because when they're alone together, the facade falls away and their "relationship" doesn't really have any leg to stand on? Also one has to wonder why anyone would stay in a relationship that dysfunctional. Makes a lot more sense looking at it from the perspective that Demetri feels like he needs a beard, and isn't sure he'd be able to find another girl willing to date him. Besides, as far as fake-girlfriends-to-make-people-think-you're-straight go...well, you're really not going to do much better than Yasmine.

Mentioned in many other posts, but I firmly believe that Yasmine is a closet lesbian and she and Demetri are a case of "gay and lesbian date in high school because they subconsciously detect the gayness in each other and mistake that sense of kinship for romantic attraction."

I also think it's very possible that a little ways into dating, one or both of them realized they were gay, and they made a mutual agreement to "stay together for appearances." Yasmine's social status plummeted after the end of S1, and it's possible she had homophobic family in the picture who would make publicly coming out impractical. And Demetri, while definitely more popular than he used to be, likely thought he could stand to lose all that if it got out he was gay.

Tbh maybe it was a mutual fake dating situation from the jump!!! Point is that this relationship is WAY too stilted and awkward for me to believe one or both of them ISN'T hamming it up a little. It just does not feel genuine or natural at all :/ Although they DO actually have a lot of platonic potential (especially taking the mlm/wlw solidarity aspect into account, or even just the trope of a popular alpha bitch having a sassy gay best friend aidpsiufhodly), which leads me to believe there's more going on than just Demetri using Yasmine as a beard. I do think he likes her and admires her a lot, just not romantically or sexually!

I've actually heard from my mlm friends that it's relatively common for gay guys to be drawn to powerful and outspoken women, and mistake that admiration for a romantic crush! This is probably what happened with Yasmine, if Demetri did believe he had genuine feelings for her and wasn't faking a crush to actively hide his sexuality. I'd also imagine this is where the "bitchy queen bee girly-girl with a gay best friend" stereotype comes from!

A big part of my gay Demetri/bi Eli belief comes from how different their relationships with women are. Demetri is more comfortable with women from the jump, befriending Aisha, Moon, and Sam fairly easily in a way that could indicate a lack of attraction (so, once again, less pressure and more freedom to be his authentic self). Eli, on the other hand, seems to have more trouble with girls in a way that leads me to believe he IS attracted to (and intimidated by) them to some extent. Although he does form a close friendship with Aisha, his other relationships with girls seem to consist of him awkwardly flirting with/trying to impress them, antagonizing them (e.g. Sam in S3), or not really interacting with them at all. In S2, Eli doesn't even seem at ease around his own girlfriend! He's quick to jump to snapping the MOMENT Demetri says something that might make him look bad, like he doesn't trust Moon to like anything other than his "coolness" (which, to be fair, she...doesn't really lmao). He does befriend Tory, but it's more of a casual "work friendship" and it's nowhere near the kind of easy, close-knit friendship Sam and Demetri have. Even Dem's relationship with Yasmine is amicable enough when he's not trying too hard to hit on her. Point being that Eli struggling with girls more than Demetri kinda gives me the impression Demetri doesn't get (romantically) nervous around girls much at all. Not to say someone like Tory wouldn't make him nervous about getting punched in the face or knifed in the gut XD But nervous about dating girls??? Nah. He's only nervous about keeping up the appearance of wanting to date girls!

Just LOOK at what this mf wears!!! Like he LITERALLY has the mlm flag on a hoodie!!! With fucken purple-ass skinny jeans, the fucken bottom stripe of the mlm flag and also the gayest color alive!!! Like all throughout the show this mf's color motifs are CONSISTENTLY blue and green. The blue we could say comes with the Miyagi Do color motifs, but what of the green??? Why he wearing so much green, though??? To match Eli??? His BOYFRIEND???

Yes, it COULD be a reach, but like. It's SO CONSISTENT throughout the show!!! So much blue!!! So much green!!! And when he's NOT wearing those colors, whatever colors he's wearing usually match with Eli's outfit!

Sorry but color-coordinating your outfit with your bestie shows the fashion sense and awareness of a gay man. Demetri Alexopoulos...

As always, pic credits available upon request!

#demetri alexopoulos #demetri cobra kai #cobra kai #aesthetic #moodboard #ck pride month moodboards #gay #mlm #cobra kai season 1 #cobra kai season 2 #cobra kai season 3 #cobra kai season 4 #cobra kai season 5 #happy pride 🌈#lgbt #lgbtqia #queer #queer pride

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skygemspeaks · 6 months

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So I finished reading Earth and Fire, and it was another awesome expansion of the portal future! Some thoughts:

I loved seeing Jarra and Gradin's relationship develop from grudging cooperation to mutual respect. Gradin is so interesting in how different he is from just about everyone else in the series, and I can't help but like how blunt and honest he is. I look forward to seeing more of him in the next novella (i can't help but wonder what Gradin's reaction to the events of the main series will be. He probably gets a HUGE secondhand ego boost when jarra starts making news as a Military commander 😂)

The concept of family crashing is kind of gut wrenching, but also it makes so much sense. I feel bad for Vina, but also for her ex boyfriend when he found out he was just being used

It's cool that we actually have names for the other 3 from Jarra's Next Step family who weren't named in the main series

It was kind of fascinating seeing Keon's journey of self discovery in this book as he comes to terms with the fact that while he does have some romantic feelings for Jarra, her life goals aren't compatible with his. Also the fact that jarra was clueless through it all was hilarious

It's clear all throughout the book how jarra's trauma irt being abandoned by her parents and how society at large treats the Handicapped informs her decisions and how she reacts to rejection (whether real or imagined). The scene where Gradin refuses to let her back out of flying lessons was really sweet (in his usual blunt way), and i was proud of her for working through her fear of failure!

There was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Rono cameo in the athens fire!! Dig Site command was talking to Cassandra 2! That'a a fun little detail!

Cathan was pissing me off in this book, but the ending when you find out he crashed a medical conference to see his father was absolutely devastating, i felt so bad for him. The bigoted norm asshole who kept insulting jarra and the others made me so angry, and it was so cathartic when the principal of the Next Step went full mama bear mode. Her frank explanation of the ways that Hospital Earth takes advantage of its wards was well written, and a really good way of tying this story in to the main series

Over all, this novella was amazing and over way sooner than i'd like. I've been putting off the earth girl spin offs for years, and i'm kicking myself for it now because they're SO good! I really hope we get a continuation of the series as jarra and the rest of asgard 6 starts excavating fortuna, it'd be SO cool. (I still haven't given up hope of fian and jarra making their relationship into a triad with raven, even though that's probably not gonna happen)

#portal future #earth girl trilogy #janet edwards #jarra tell morrath

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miraculouswolf99 · 2 years

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Miraculous/Criminal Minds Crossover Idea

I read a story once where Marinette turned out to be Hotch's daughter. But, the main part about the story that I loved was that it was actually a very unique Lila Exposed fanfic. Now, I have never been one for the whole "Marinette turns out to be the secret child of this person" type of fanfic. I will read them, but I will not write them since I think they are overdone. But, the fanfic did give me my own idea.

Emilie and Amelie would have another sister. One that would have been given up by their parents and lived in the states since they did not want another kid after having their twin girls. And that sister would have been none other than the Penelope Garcia. It definitely would explain where Adrien would have gotten his sunshine and optimistic personality from.

Garcia would be unaware of her real family for most of her life until after she had gotten into hacking. During her time as the Black Queen, she had tried to learn more about her family since she was aware that she was adopted. But, she kept hitting dead ends because she was unaware of how she was actually born in France. So, she would have only been looking into herself on the American side of the paperwork.

After she joins the BAU, she gets the help that she had wanted to find her birth family. After Emily returns to the BAU, she tells Garcia that she had used her international connections in Interpol in order to find Garcia's birth family. She was really shocked to learn that she had been born in France, as well as how she had two sisters, a brother-in-law, and two nephews.

The team went with her to France, not wanting her to go in alone when she meets her long-lost family. After they arrive, they discover that Paris is definitely not the City of Love that they expected. Soon after they arrive and check into their hotel, they witness their first akuma attack. It was just Mr.Pigeon again, so there was not much to worry about.

It was only after the Garcia goes to Agreste Mansion with JJ that they would learn what was going on. Natalie was going to turn them away until Garcia said that she was the long-lost sister of Gabriel's wife. They manage to get inside and they both show Gabriel the proof before he can throw them out. Garcia also gets to meet Adrien and she is instantly taken with the Sunshine of Paris.

But as she and JJ would get to know the family, they both got suspicious. Gabriel was constantly telling Adrien to sit up straight, to present himself as best he could, to basically be perfect. It rang the warning bells inside of their minds. Especially since Garcia was allowed to be shown around by Adrien. And she got to see his more carefree and fun self. She saw herself in Adrien as she saw how much he likes to see the good in others. He was also the one that told her about the akumas, Hawkmoth, the heroes, and everything else that was happening in Paris.

Garcia told all of this to the team after she and JJ returned to the hotel. It shocked them that they never heard of any of this before. Especially given that there was an international version of the BAU, which was the IRT. So, they called their friend Matt to ask about it. He revealed that they knew something was going on there, but the mayor of Paris did not allow them to investigate nor allow them to come to Paris.

After telling Matt about Garcia's newly discovered family, Matt said that he would soon be on his way. And while he was traveling, the BAU did their own research. Emily and Morgan managed to get a hold of the heroes after another easy akuma. So, they managed to get information from Ladybug, Cat Noir, White Wolf, and Beautifly. They both noticed that Cat Noir was the one most willing to tell them things. Hotch, JJ, and Rossi asked around both the hotel and the local police to see what civilians and cops had to say. And they got even more suspicious of the mayor when they were told about a media block where no information about the akumas or Hawkmoth was allowed to leave Paris.

It was after Matt arrived in Paris that they found something else that was interesting and unnerving. The team had talked about things while going to a bakery that Adrien recommended for Garcia. And while there, they end up seeing a crying Marinette being brought in by Vallia, Kagami, and Juleka. While Marinette is being comforted by her parents, the team ends up hearing the name "Lila" being mentioned several times as well as talk about "lies" and "manipulation." It made them concerned.

Garcia manages to talk to Adrien after she learns about when his fencing lessons are thanks to her "Garcia magic." She asks Adrien about Marinette and he reveals to her the sad truth.

Lila had been tormenting Marinette by telling their class a bunch of lies about her. Saying that Marinette was bullying her, stealing her homework, trying to spread rumors about her, and many other things. And in their class, most of them believed Lila except for himself and their friends Nathaniel, Juleka, Kim, Lyon, and Vallia. And Marinette also had her friends outside of class helping her as well since only their class ever listened to Lila's tall tales.

But then, Lila had turned a lot of people against Marinette. And those like Alya and Alix were doing a lot of things to Marinette as "payback" for the things Lila said that she did to her. And the day that Marinette was taken home by Vallia, Juleka, and Kagami was the day that Lila lied about Marinette threatening that she would ruin Lila's life and Alya had slapped Marinette even when Marinette tried to protest her innocence.

But, that was when Garcia also found out something that really made her blood boil. Adrien revealed to her that as much as he wants to help Marinette, his father ordered him not to upset Lila. Apparently, Lila was a model for Gabriel Fashion and Gabriel was forcing Adrien to play nice with her or he would no longer be allowed to go to school.

Garcia had to hug and comfort Adrien as he cried about how miserable he was. Not only just because of Lila but all the other things that Gabriel makes him do. Including all of the photoshoots he had to do, the meals that he ate that were always getting cut down, never being allowed any freedom to be with his friends, and so many other things. Garcia felt her heart break for Adrien.

She then promised Adrien that she would do everything in her power to help him and his friends. Garcia had literally been an aunt for only a few days and she was already the best one Adrien could have hoped for.

When Garcia returned to the team, they had never seen her so determined and serious. She got right on her laptop and started tying faster than any of them had ever seen. When the team learned why she was this determined, they all vowed to help her as best they could.

As the team would do as much research as they could, they found plenty of disturbing things. Adrien told Marinette about his new aunt, so she gladly handed over her phone in order to help take down Lila. Garcia had used Marinette's and Adrien's phones to start her research as well as to gather evidence. She quickly found evidence of cyberbullying for Marinette as well as Gabriel and Lila's threats to Adrien.

And with Emily using her contacts at Interpol, the team also learned that Lila had arrest warrants out for her in three other countries. She has caused two other kids to kill themselves in the past as well as also raping a boy at her third school. It was a constant pattern for her to go to another school, lie as much as possible, make people basically worship her, and then ruin the lives of anyone that stands in her way. She had been to six schools before Dupont and it was the same thing with each one.

Even with the three schools with no suicides, rape, or murder, there have been cases of extreme bullying, sexual harassment, as well as cyberbullying. And Lila was either the cause of it or the one actually doing it. Not only did she target those that see through her lies, but she also targets rich and handsome guys. Even if they reject her, she harasses them, lies to them, manipulates them, and threatens them until they "date" her. Marinette and Adrien were obviously her next targets.

But it is not just Lila that the team goes after. Garcia was pretty much ready to declare war in order to give Adrien the happy life that she knows he deserves.

The team had learned a lot of things about Gabriel that really made them question why Adrien was even still in his custody. The only answer they could find was that it was because Gabriel was rich. Money talks. Plus, they also learned that Gabriel was "friends" with the mayor. And since the mayor's daughter was about as obsessed with Adrien as Lila was, the mayor was obviously also helping Gabriel keep custody of Adrien.

But talking with not just Adrien, but his bodyguard and the people that Adrien works with during photoshoots, they learned even more. Gabriel was obviously breaking a lot of child labor laws with how much he was forcing Adrien to work. They also got plenty of evidence of neglect, emotional abuse, and mental abuse.

Their main evidence of the neglect was how Gabriel seemed to ignore the amount of harassment that Lila puts Adrien through during the photoshoots that the two of them do together. The staff and Adrien have all told the team how they tell Gabriel about Lila harassing Adrien. And every single time, he waves them off and says that Adrien is just being overdramatic. But it was obviously not that since Garcia had personally seen the nail marks that Lila leaves on Adrien.

While the BAU did not have much power in France, they were still able to show their evidence to the proper authorities. Lila was sent out of Paris in order to be tried for all her past crimes. Her mother was also arrested since she helped her daughter escape every time that she got in trouble with the law.

And while Gabriel used even more of his money to keep himself from being arrested, he did lose custody of Adrien. Garcia could not take custody of him because she lived in an entirely other country, but Marinette and her parents gladly took Adrien in.

Though, Adrien was inspired by his aunt's work as well as her team. After he graduated, he planned to go overseas to sign up for the FBI academy. He hoped to become a profiler and one day join the team.

But before them, his amazing aunt would visit whenever she could.

#miraculous #miraculous fandom #miraculous ladybug #ml salt #lila salt #alya salt #lila exposed #original character #crossovers are the best #crossover #criminal minds #gabriel salt

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