no ones ever gonna understand how much i love daigo doin this stupid shit after dissolving the tojo

I could write a three hour video essay on tutu and gender but I really love how a show in a genre that’s primarily targeted towards girls explores how expectations of masculinity can traumatize young boys.

This is shown with Fakir especially. While the text never explicitly attributes his behavior to his gender, his arc over the course of the show is quintessentially informed by toxic gender roles. This got long and I have a lot of thoughts so I'm gonna put it under a readmore:

Fakir has one unchanging goal for the duration of the show: he wants to keep the people he loves safe. But outside elements twist this motivation into an identity. He is suffocating under the weight of a person he has never been and can never be no matter how hard he tries to mold himself.

Much of his personality is likely a direct result of circumstance. We are shown multiple times that when he feels in his element he’s inclined to a gentle disposition (ie how he acts with Duck as a duck or with Raetsel). As a young child especially he appears earnest and naive, his already innate desire to protect blinding him to the cruelty of the world. However, this sweeter side is near overwritten by the cold, domineering personality that characterizes his early appearances in the show.

We can infer that without the trauma inflicted on him by the story Fakir would have retained much more of this gentler personality as he grew up. Instead, his desire to protect others is twisted and warped by fear, becoming a desire to control.

Even before having his life upended, Fakir wanted to to take the weight of protecting the entire town all upon himself. He sees a true hero as someone who stands on his own without help.

So how does this tie into gender? Fakir deliberately crushes his "weaker" side--the earnest, sensitive young boy in the favor of a tough persona. He particularly views emotions as a weakness. It's notable that in one of the most iconic scenes in the show, Fakir has a breakdown over someone seeing him crying. This simple display of human emotion is enough to completely shatter the image he has constructed for himself. Fakir's harsh, impossible standards for himself are rooted in toxic masculinity, in the idea that men--real men--are never visibly sad or scared.

Immediately after losing everything as a child, Fakir was given a new source of hope and pride: the role of the Knight. He, of course, built his whole identity around this role. The Knight, like the Prince is expected to protect others without fear. This can be read as analogous to how men struggle under the expectation to be the protectors and the breadwinners, expected to take pain and hardship upon themselves so those under their care may live a comfortable life. However, the story's knight is doomed from the start: a failed protector. Fakir is growing up under literal impossible standards. He's meant to give everything and crumble under that weight without achieving anything.

It's worth noting that the Princesses' roles are meant to revolve seeking affection from men while the men's roles are colored by violence. Contrast the Knight and Princess Tutu who are both destined to accomplish nothing and be forgotten: while Tutu gracefully dissolves into a speck of light, the Knight is gruesomely torn apart. Here, masculinity becomes inextricably linked to violence in Drosselmeyer's world.

For as long as Fakir tries to be a knight worthy of the story he is confined by a toxic gender role. A protector relies on the idea of a weaker subset of person--the protected. Even without malicious intent, this strips agency. Fakir ignores Mytho's wishes all for the sake of "keeping him safe." Likewise Duck doesn't' want Fakir's protection. In several episodes she begs him to give up on fighting and search for peaceable solutions.

Even though neither Duck nor Mytho ask for Fakir to fight for them he feels personally responsible for their safety to the point his entire self esteem rests on his ability to protect them. Despite his guarded exterior, two of the three times he breaks down crying are because Duck got hurt --due to his own incompetence in his eyes.

Fakir can only grow as a person when he stops placing everything on his own shoulders. For all he clings to the sword his real strengths are found outside of battle. He only saves Duck by opening up to her in his first display of willing vulnerability.

By the end of the series he has entered a genuine partnership with Duck. Rather than a one-sided relationship where he sees himself as her protector, he writes her story and trusts her to guide herself through it. This is in direct opposition to the masculine ideals he clung so hard to. The knight and the prince --his role models--are both meant to be self-sufficient in the original fairytale. Instead, Fakir is able to be a vulnerable boy who gets scared and hurt--and doesn't need to hide it--but has friends he can rely on when times are tough.

Fakir's arc doesn't involve him becoming more feminine, necessarily, but it does show him breaking free of the standards placed on his shoulders by toxic masculinity. He was never meant to be a fighter; that was an unfair role he was forced into. At the end of the show Fakir was achieved his freedom. He isn't a knight. He isn't a protector. He isn't personally responsible for the lives of those he loves. He's just Fakir.

I am not exactly a newcomer, but I still enjoy giving people opportunities to talk about their OCs. So, please take this as a space to talk about Kepler as much as you would like to, if that's alright!! I may not be 1000% familiar with the intricacies of Star Wars, but I'd still be happy to hear ^-^

Hiii omg thank you so much for asking! 😭💖🫶💖 I really appreciate it! And tbh even a basic understanding of star wars is enough to get u thru most of it, what I love about the universe in general is that yes there are lots of rules but at the same time there's no rules at all?? You can do whatever you want as a fan and there's not rly anything ppl can do to stop you 😂

but for people who ARE seeing this for the first time, my star wars s/i is a Jedi Knight and my bff and I worked together to basically make an oc to be her Padawan! his name is Kepler Quinn and he's my perfect beautiful boy that I love 🥺

a lot of his character development comes from both coming into his own as a person through his training and through his relationships to others. He's been through a lot of rejection in his life already, so he kind of put up walls and has to learn to let people through them! Especially my s/i, who decides to dedicate herself to training him and making him see himself the way she sees him: as amazing! He's got a lot of really impressive skills, he's very in tune with the force when it comes to listening to it for insight, he's just not naturally a good fighter. That doesn't get you very far during a war 😅 but she thinks he's perfect! and she, and the other friends he makes are all part of his story.

(ps. here's some drawings of him made by my bff @star-whores69)

okay … this is random af but … does anyone happen to have a (free) pdf of tbosas? yes yes i know i should’ve read it by now but tbh … i’m notoriously terrible at reading spin-off/bonus books for fandoms i’m in. like i’ve not read a single one for twilight, never read harry potter & cursed child … & i like i didn’t anticipate it was gonna get this big & become a movie & everything & nowww the urge to read it is very strongly there …

experimenting w/ blood colors, b/c red blood would not stand out on this hoe’s already red-as-hell design

"happy birthday to my favorite partner in crime."

no one ever saw them coming. this far outside the central circulatory system of las vegas, the star - speckled star was much clearer, especially on a moonless night like tonight. in fact, the sky was so laden with stars that one could imagine that the sky was sinking with the weight of all those gems. there was hardly a spot of absence between the sparkles. for those that milled about and lived in the house on the hill in the desert, this was a fantastic sight. romantic even. clearly, there was a reason why maxwell jennison had built his home all the way out here, far from the artifice of the boulevard, despite that being where the body and soul of his business belonged. who needed all those dizzying lights, buzzing and throbbing with the constant current of electricity, when you could have this: a starry night so bright you could reach up and touch the glittering sky yourself?

of course, a huge house placed atop a hill in a gated community in the middle of an expansive desert also had its benefits security - wise, and charlotte had to figure that that surely accounted for something to one of the top mob bosses in the city. but like a king in his castle, jennison had grown comfortable and complacent in the safety of his estate and under his blanket of stars. no one has ever dared to breach the natural fortress he had created; the vast barrenness of the desert was, in and of itself, already an intimidating challenge. next was the uphill climb that could offer nothing except massive disadvantages in the cases of speed and probable detection. the estate itself was sprawling and the house! fuck, the house was a goddamn maze, littered with twisted corridors, false alcoves, dead ends, and a team of guards that paced the square footage in neat little loops: SPECTRES FOR HIRE. it was a haunted house modernized and styled in excessive splendour.

yet while all that shone and glittered might've be found up above their heads, the shadows that were missing from the sky were busy prowling down here, in the dirt, through the sand, and up that hill. and these shadows knew a thing or two about haunted houses. NO ONE EVER SAW THEM COMING.

in the night, the desert was nothing more than another abyss. the ground could not be trusted and the darkness was so dense, the horizon itself ceased to exist. but there was one beacon of light in all this void and that was their target. charlotte and nox approached from the desert side, where there were the fewest guards to worry about because no one ever figured anyone would be crazy enough to march through all that SAND AND SHADOW. that same sand would make for a quiet send - off as they rolled the few bodies that had the misfortune of patrolling this border tonight and met their end with the deft snap of the neck or the precise insertion of a blade into the throat. sand, shadow, and now, blood too. those bodies were left for the sun to find.

the rest would fall, bleed, and stay exactly where they died: on the cobblestone of the steep, winding driveway, in the dirt of the flourishing gardens, on the polished marble floors of the house's interior. no one saw them coming. none of the dozens upon dozens of cameras could capture them. the men watching over the monitors could hear the shouts and gunfire of one reality and yet, turn to witness an entirely different reality on their screens: one comprised of static nothingness, darkness, and the eeriness of a false calm. TO SEE NOTHING WHERE THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and yet, there is nothing.

nothing but shadow, blood, and the awful feeling that someone was staring right at them through the camera lens. the same someone who was out there laughing in tandem with the screams of terror as those who finally did see them coming, always saw them too late. the men in the monitor room also discerned much too late that the shadow that suddenly enveloped them was different from the usual shadows. by the time a certain blonde head poked into the room, only a few loose eyeballs were left to stare and keep watch over the flickering images. the bodies, however, were gone.

charlotte walked over to the desk, picked up one of the eyeballs, a green one, and rolled it back - and - forth across her knuckles as she considered the screens in front of her, smiling as a tendril of darkness stretched out pulled at a bloody strand of her hair. " Not my blood, don't worry. " she hummed to herself as she waited for a few discernible images to appear through the flickering of colour and static. most of the cameras were already dead, but there was one that eventually showed her what she wanted to see. one of the few rooms they had yet to gut. grinning, charlotte raised the tip of her knife and tapped the tiny, glitching picture of the boss running about his office as two of his men tried to hurry him. " I found you, " she sang. charlotte whipped around and trained that ghoulish grin on nox, her bright eyes meeting the twin pits of darkness on their gaunt face. " Looks like he's trying to get the vault open, " she remarked, leading nox out of the security room and down the hall to the central staircase.

in the end, it was too little too late. the first of the last two guards saw them coming up the stairs as if they owned the place. he was quick, in possession of the kind of reflexes men like maxwell jennison paid very well for. but quick wasn't quick enough. moving with practiced precision, charlotte maneuvered behind nox as the gunfire began. perhaps, ( and this is being generous ), only the first bullet fired had any chance of hitting either of them. the rest sprayed in an uninterrupted upward arc, bullets tearing apart the floor and ceiling until the arc finished with a deafening crack of bone as nox snapped the man's arm in two, the barrel of the gun now facing the man, spitting bullets into its owner's face. then, and only then, did the man's finger release the trigger.

inside the office, the second guard was trying to open a false door embedded in the eastern wall. maxwell stood shaking in his multi - thousand - dollar suit beside him, shrieking when he saw a blur of red, black, and blonde, come through the door. the last guard didn't last more than another seven seconds. in that time, charlotte managed to drag maxwell by the collar, with her knife pressing a fresh wound into the slant of his cheek, all towards the still unopened vault. to his credit, maxwell was attempting to pull himself together even as blood dripped down his face, over her fingers, and into the collar of his white shirt. I don't know the code, he was trying to say. I can't remember the code. " That's because you're panicking. It'll come back once you calm down, right, look at me. Let's take a nice, deep breath, " she told him, then inhaled through her nose, holding the breath and stench of his rancid fear until he followed her example. " Good, now let it out. Very good! He's a natural, " she said, smiling at nox. " Here, breathe with Nox and when the numbers come back, you just let me know, okay? "

the code, as it turned out, was the birthday of his firstborn child. quite the thing to suddenly forget, even if in a panic, but that was neither nor there anymore. the man, now tied up with his own tie and shoelaces, could only watch as charlotte cheerfully sat on his desk with a large folder in her hands. the folder contained everything to do with an old business he had stolen from a rival: deeds to land and buildings, records to stolen and laundered money, evidence and documents once used as leverage for blackmail. it was all there and now, it was all theirs: an agent of chaos and a shadow for hire. next to charlotte sat an open box filled with diamonds and a handful of gold bars. this, they might take as well. and lastly, out of the vault, was a very expensive bottle of champagne. whatever celebration jennison was saving this for was now obsolete. charlotte cooed and reached to take the bottle from nox, wanting to see the elegant label for herself.

@mimeticry / HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE PARTNER IN CRIME.

charlotte gasped and hugged the bottle to her chest, coating in slick red blood, even as she trained a gentle, astonished gaze on nox. " You remembered, " she exclaimed softly, her eyes flickering over their face before settling on their mouth, as bloody as her own hands. placing the bottle on the desk, charlotte reached for nox and pulled them in by their shirt until they were close enough for her to hold their face between her hands. " Come here. " a whisper and then, a laugh, both swallowed immediately as she slanted her mouth over theirs. legs parted to either side of the shadow's hips and she pulled herself closer until she was flushed against them. the desk jostled and the box of diamonds tipped over, landing with a thud while the stones skittered across the hardwood like the sound of rain. charlotte turned her head to look at the glitter at their feet. the furthest of the diamonds had rolled to where the mob boss lay on his stomach, his cut cheek pressed to the ground. he looked from the diamond back to the embracing couple, his gaze the textbook definition of doleful.

turning back to nox, charlotte nudged their nose with her own before making a satisfied sound placed somewhere between a pleasant hum and a moan. without taking her eyes - or hands - off the shadow, she jerked her head over at the man on the ground, a fiendish grin smeared across her lips. " What d'you think? Should we let him live? Everyone else is already gone. . . "

istg one of these days.......

truly nothing wrong with dc so don’t come to me with that... but honestly i feel like such an old man now cuz whenever i see really ... noncon-y stuff, i’m just:

💖 that post where your tags talked about how you could moan that to a butch, I want you to imagine me falling over myself and raising my hand enthusiastically bc you could moan that to me!!! that would be pretty nice i think I’d be 100% yours right there so uh please

theres nothin i want more than a good handsome breeding butch

GOD. Epilogue of "A Dream a Kirin Dreamed" pisses me off. This is not to say it's bad by any stretch. It just pisses me off because WHY DIDN'T KIRYU BOTHER TO TELL DAIGO ANYTHING. Why did he just say "He didn't betray you" without backing up his point at all and then fuck off entirely without checking back in.

The man just woke up and he's awake for a week before he's discharged from the hospital??? Maybe catch him up to speed on something that's clearly weighing on him??? Or on anything else that's happened in the time he was unconscious ??? Hello???????

Like. Dude. Is it not enough that you're just dead weight for the entire fucking ending. Knowing this is your son's best friend. And no way he doesn't know because even aside from Mine's monologue which (obviously) focused on his perspective, Kiryu says himself when he encounters a journalist who can't find any friends or family to interview about Mine that Daigo would know him best.

KNOWING this is your son's best friend. You LET him kill himself in front of you both because for you, sitting on your ass and going "Mine!" was good enough. You didn't think to reason with him. You didn't think to grab onto his leg or something when he was three feet away. You weren't injured. You weren't THAT exhausted. You just didn't think to do it. Even though A SUBSTORY IN Y3 ENDS THE WAY THE MAIN STORY SHOULD HAVE AND IT'S ONE OF THE LAST THINGS YOU CAN DO BEFORE HEADING TO THE HOSPITAL.

Y3 ending is literally my Y7 ending in terms of how much anger rises up within me whenever I think about it because it just Somehow, To This Day, piles more and more on top that makes it worse than it already was. Like its ONLY saving grace is that Mine didn't actually die. Allegedly. At least you can argue Ichiban and Aoki didn't have time to react, but Kiryu had all the time in the world and did nothing.

Ok I need to stop I need to stop I know I should be mad at Yokoyama and Takeuchi and not Kiryu and I literally had to run this post through an all-caps -> sentence caps converter But Anyway Point Is If Ichi Had Been The Protagonist Of Y3 Mine Would Be Alive

i cant even really blame something like kiryu's emotional ineptitude to explain why he couldnt just be open about What Mine's Business Was because the guy can CLEARLY speak from the heart and say good and honest things. like he knows how to communicate For The Most Part so its truly just. The Fuck Happened Here you dont think it wouldve been a good idea to get daigo up to speed on the past week or 👁️👁️ just saying Mine Didn't Betray You is like. a FAIR start i GUESS but ELABORATE a bit ??

not at all a 'rare' L moment just a typical kiryu L honestly （；´д｀）

Girl help how am I already on chapter 7 of this fic

honey, listen to me, I would love for you to do one in which the context is Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift with Kai, I swear to God that I would love one like that and I haven't seen anyone else do it, I would really appreciate it, sweetheart

This has taken me an EMBARRASSINGLY long time to fill, and I am so, so sorry about it!! I don't know why I struggled so hard; I think I needed to be perfect to do justice to Taylor Swift, and I've also been really hard on myself writing-wise, lately. Buuuttt, I've finally finished it and am rather happy with the final piece. I hope you like it, too, and I hope you see this, even, since it took me so long to respond!! 🩷 I will post it in just a minute.

why have these last years fucking sucked ass

god i need to rebrand

had an impromptu going to a different church, going to the mall, going to relative's house, having a family gathering experience today. ougghhh