Ship dynamic unlocked: Sadistic bitch from a weird family x Golden retriever who can kick ass

HELLO!!! I saw the smut ask game u rb'd and also would stab numerous people for your writing so. i figured i could send in a letter or two if u were willing >.<

but first,,, do u have a list of hellaverse ships u ship so i can know what to request? pls and thank you for ur time 🙏

Oh!!! Hello, dear friend! ❤️ No worries, you're not a bother at all! My ask box is barren, and it is open anytime ❤️

I ship most anything, within reason, honestly! Here's a few I like off the top of my head, and some reasons why:

Chaggie- Sweet, sweet lesbians, like my wife and I. Need i say more???

Huskerdust- Th-The dynamic??? The way that Husk just-- LETS Angel know to be himself, his REAL self??? The way they look at each other? The way they show consent while dancing??? I have SO many feelings-- THEY. ARE. PRECIOUS. They are my Endgame

RadioApple- SO MUCH ANGSTY POTENTIAL! But also... so, so, sexy. Angry, bickering old men, who both love Charlie and one upping each other. Like water and oil. They don't mix well, but when they do... MAN. HOT. (Lillith and Luci are obviously still awesome to me)

AdamsApple- I've seen IRRATIONALLY hot art for this ship. 10/10, would ship again. Sue me.

LuteXAdam- WOULD be endgame if Adam didn't die. NEXT--

One-sided RadioStatic- MORE ANGST. But also, I just love the idea of Vox being a scorned ex/lover, who is helplessly obsessed with his ex. I also love the idea of Alastor using this to his advantage, and getting a thrill out of driving his ex CRAZY. Can ALSO be steamy. Serious hate-fuck vibes. Vibes I can't deny are dangerously hot.

Radiodust(?)- I'm cool with it! I don't see it ever becoming a thing, and I think Huskerdust has so much more chemistry, but I see the appeal! If only for opposites attract!

Charlastor- I SEE THE VISION... But also love Chaggie so much. Ugh. There is serious room for chemistry though.

RadioRose- LISTEN-- I see this more through a queer-platonic lense: BUT THESE. TWO. ROT. MY TEETH. They could be so adorable!!! They compliment each other! loads of chemistry and similarities!!! This is one of the fluffiest of ships I enjoy, just for the sake of something sweet! Same goes for MimzyXAlastor! But mostly due to the art of @bananadramaaa (seriously, go check out that art, THE WAY THAT MIMZY AND ALASTOR LOOK? UGH 😫💦)

For Helluva Boss...

M&Ms- BOOM. DONE. LOVE THE DYNAMIC. Reminds me a lot of my wife and I. I related to Milly SO much in the episode where they lead a sting operation together. UGH. SO CUTE--

Stolitz- Why, of course. Now, they definitely need to sort through some shit-- YES. but I love them. I hope we see a rekindling in the next season, or I will simply DIE

Luna, Vortex, Bee Throuple- I mean, goth girl, scene girl, and punk/metal head? Yep. I'd smash that like button.

Verosika and Barbie Wire- YOU CANT TELL ME THERE WASNT SOME SHENANIGANS HERE-- EVEN REVENGE FUCKING--

OzzyXFizz- ALSO remind me so much of me and my wife. The way they fold for each other??? Honestly, the most developed, wholesome, non-toxic ship in the Hellaverse, imo. I love them. LOVE THEM.

OctaviaXLuna- Platonic buddies! I don't like the age difference, but could see them being the best of buds. They would have the best time at the Hellaverse's HotTopic.

StrikerXBlitzo- Closest thing I think to a problematic ship... had Striker been more persuasive, or Blitzo less in love with Stolas... I could see these two horn dogs working out. If exclusively for a friends-with-benefits situation.

So yeaaaaah... honestly, most anything goes! As long as it's not straight up incest, I can see the vision. Write/ask away, dear sweet Anon! 👈😎👈

I'm bored and in a kkg brainrot mood, so i'm just gonna rant about my opinions of kakegurui ships and i will make some headcanons:

Kirasaya

Ok i had to start with them bc they're just too iconic, i think they have one of the most interesting and complex dynamics in kkg, they really got me obsessed with them, it's probably my number one kakegurui ship and the reason i started watching the show and reading the manga. Honestly yeah their relationship has some power imbalance, since sayaka is kirari's secretary, and is probably disfunctional, but contrary to what some ppl say kirasaya is not abusive, kirari never physically or emotionally abuses sayaka throughout the story. Anyway they're a 10/10, peak lesbian yearning, if they don't kiss at least one i will jump the author. Probably one of my fav ships ever, i think they're made for each other and i can't see kirasaya with anyone else, they're just so good together and their chemistry is >>>>>>

Yumary

Ok this one is kinda an unpopular opinion bc most people like yumary, but honestly i can't get invested into it, there's something in this ship that doesn't make my heart go "fuck yeah they should be gfs". Personally i don't ship yumeko with anyone bc i can't imagine her in a relationship since her main thing is being a compulsive gambler, her existence revolves around it and she forms relationships when they're useful for her gambling games. I think yumary could be friends with benefits for some time, but after a while mary would probably break it off because i don't think she can handle a sexual/romantic relationship with yumeko and after a while it would make her go nuts. A friendship between them is already messy and complicated and honestly i don't think they are compatible that way. Yes they have chemistry and there's probably some mutual attraction but to me it's a no. Also can cishet dudes stop fetishizing this ship ? My vote is 6/10, mostly bc mary doesn't seem much physically comfortable with yumeko, idk mary just seems off with her in that sense and i prefer them as gambling partners or friends.

Meariri

I honestly love this ship, especially after reading the manga, they have such an great dynamic, i think they both care about each other, they have chemistry and i think they're compatible and that their personalities compliment each other, mary is often loud and aggressive and passionate while ririka is more closed off and quiet, they're like fire and ice and this case i think the saying "opposite attract" works with them. Mary counts on ririka and i love the fact that she is so comfortable with her physically (mary is almost always the one to initiate the contact, holding her hand, touching her head, etc) and ririka gets inspired by mary to be her own person and chase her goals. Plus they're really cute together, aesthetically i find them the most attractive couple, i'll give them a solid 9/10

Itsukaede

Lmao i don't even know if this is the correct ship name for itsuki x kaede, ok i don't hate it and i think they could work as a couple, it's not my cup of tea bc m/f ships bore me, but i like their relationship, they have the kind of old married couple dynamic that always works. 6/10.

Ryomeko

I can see it happening, i don't ship it, but i don't mind it either, i'm kinda neutral about ryota x yumeko, but i think he's one of the ppl who care about yumeko the most in that academy (with also mary ofc), the ship is boring bc ryota is bland (he's a good guy don't get me wrong and he defo doesn't deserve the hate he gets) and as i said previously i don't ship yumeko with anyone. Sorry i gotta give it 5/6 out of 10

Yumedari

Ok i love midari but just like yumeko, i don't ship her with anyone bc i see her as someone who's too much unstable for relationships, but i know that canonically she loves/likes/is attracted to yumeko so i don't hate this ship, i think it's decent, the only problem is that yumeko hates midari. Still i think that since they're the most insane mfs in that school somehow this ship could work. 6/10

Yuridari

Again midari in my eyes is kinda unshippable, but this ship is not bad at all, they would have that kind of bickering married couple dynamic like itsuki and kaede, i like it but it doesn't do much for me. 7/10

Ryomary

Jsjssjsksk i looked the name of mary x ryota's ship on wiki so if it sounds weird it's bc i don't know their ship name and i have looked at the first site google gave me. This ship is hard no, mainly bc ryota is very bland and i consider mary a lesbian (i read that she is a canon lesbian but idk if it's confirmed by the author, let's say lesbian mary is just my hc) so shipping her with men feels like a hate crime to me, mary is for the girls only, 4/10.

Tsumary

They are kind of cute together right ? I think they're adorable, tsuzura is mary's first love and i think that someone like her would make mary very happy. I still haven't finished kkg twin, so my opinion on tsuzura is incompleted and it might change, i don't hate her but i find her character a little basic/boring so even though this ship is cute it doesn't make me fall in love with them. 7/10 bc probably also tsuzura had feelings for mary and they have a healthy dynamic, you can see they love each other.

Midasaya

I enjoy this crackship, i know that they both like different people but i headcanon that they were together during middle school or that midari had at least a small crush on sayaka during that time, before kirari came to hyakkaou i like to think that they explored their sexuality together so midari was probably sayaka's first kiss, her first date, etc, so they would have history together and we also see that midari knows sayaka bc her character is described through her pov during tower of doors. I find this ship pretty funny bc sayaka is always so serious and composed and midari is a ball of chaos. 7/10

Yumesaya

This is another crackship i don't mind and find hilarious, yeah i'm a huge kirasaya stan but i'm also a multishipper and sayaka deserves all the girls in the world, so the more the merrier. I like to think this ship as one sided love in which yumeko sort of pines after sayaka and i think it would be very interesting to see kirari being jeaulous that sayaka is getting yumeko's attention. We saw jeaulous/protective sayaka in kakegurui, but i would also like to see how kirari reacts when someone tries to take sayaka away from her, it would be really interesting. Obv this would create some tension between kirasaya and also between kirari and yumeko, almost a sort of love triangle dynamic. My opinion is that yumeko is just too unstable to settle down, also they both probably would get bored/lose interest in each other after the heat of the moment. 6/10

Ririsaya

Sorry but i really can't see it happening not even if i squint, but i really enjoy the ririsaya fanfictions and i think those works are pretty great even though i don't ship them very much. It would be interesting if both twins were in love with sayaka and there was some tension/coldness between them for a while bc they liked the same girl (maybe i read too many fanfictions). My headcanon is that both sayaka and ririka had a crush on each other when they first knew each other and for sayaka it was probably pretty confusing bc she already had feelings for kirari. I see them as friends, 7/10

Yumemisaori

Again idk if this is the correct name of the ship, many said that yumemi and saori are a healthier/mentally stable version of kirasaya and i agree. the dynamics are similar bc we have the secratary that is willing to do everything for her boss and the relationship is a little more balanced, i think they would be very cute together, but sadly they had very little interactions and if i could see more of them i would probably ship them even more. I like them 7/10.

Sachiko x Mary

I didn't even find a ship name for this couple, so they must be pretty unpopular, i like both characters and their antagonistic dyanamic is very interesting, but i don't ship them much bc i think mary needs/wants someone who is completely different from sachiko, who wants to make mary her pet and mary is someone who cares very much about her freedom, her indipendence and wants to make her own choices and this completely clashes with sachiko's extremely sadistic and domineering nature. I prefer them as enemies who have some sexual tension or enemies with benefits or one night stand adventure, but nothing more. 5/6 out of 10 bc the only mary ship i really love is meariri and i also like tsuzumary a bit.

Sachiko x Mikura

This is probably one of the most unhealthy relationships in kakegurui, but i kinda like it. Their dyanmic is pretty much vertical with sachiko who has all the power and makes mikuro do everything she wants and mikura who is completely obsessed and devoted to sachiko (my opinion is that she developed a sort of stockholm syndrome towards sachiko). I think that someone like sachiko could never have genuine romantic relationships bc of her extremely sadistic nature, she sees ppl like toys to break and what she enjoys the most is seeing ppl suffer, so the only compatible person with sachiko is someone extremely masochistic like mikura. Giving them a 6/7 out of 10 bc their interactions are fun/interesting and spice things up.

Rin x Ibara and Yumeko x Kirari

Hard no to both of them, i don't ship incest, yall can do what you want but personally it's a huge no for me. When i first started watching the anime at the beginning i thought yumeko and kirari had some sort of tension and could have been enemies to lovers (lmaoo i was so naive), but then i discovered they were cousins and i saw more kirasaya interactions so i got completely turned off by this ship. 3/10 to both of these ships.

Sachiko x Sakura

Now this ship is very sexy, idk why i like it but i do, yes i don't see sachiko with anyone besides mikura, but this pairing is not bad at all, even though it's a crackship. I think they would be rivals with benefits and would argue a lot and then make out/have hot sex. 7/10 (maybe it's too high but since these are just my opinions i won't be objective)

Mary x kirari

Uhm is there really someone out there who ships them ? Yeah i thought they had some sexual tension in s1 with that tea scene, but it's a no from me, i don't like it and i don't think they're compatible in any way, i can't see kirari with anyone who isn't sayaka. 4/10

The feeling I get when a male calls himself a lesbian ranges from annoyance to anger.

Like how dare you!?!

No seriously how fucking dare you?!

The average hetero family would rather have a fucked up male in the family than let their daughter actually date another woman. The hope for biological children often outweighs their daughter's happiness overall. Plus the desire for conforming based on the social norms adds even more to this burden. Yet men, male nonbinary, and transwomen insist they have the same issues or social dynamics to go through?

For a OSA (opposite sex attracted) male to delude himself to thinking he has the same problems dating as any SSA (same sex attracted) woman, female nonbinary or transman that is more than a harmless fantasy but an absolute insult to what any real lesbian actually goes through. Anyone that is female has to justify their ability to love another female individual. The unique challenge women in general face is that she is expected to sacrifice everything to uphold values and standards even to the point it hurts. Men do not just make a woman have a child but they end up keeping her tied down for the sake of the child. Because the illusion of a "happy family" is more important than if the relationship is healthy. Divorce is demonized as a thing that people fail at even though people claim its a last resort to use in emergencies. It's so frustrating that if a woman wants things other than what society wants its bad. Yet any males can indulge in as many women as they want and only get penalized if they catches something incurable. Even then there will be someone to say to him its not his fault. The one thing a male will be ashamed for is if he is bangs another male.

Closest thing for a male to understand the issues lesbians face would be if that male experienced SSA toward another male like bi or gay men. Even then those are still separate issues that deserve their own spaces and attention. I hate it so much how individual women are treated as limited time offer for baby making for men to use or a sex toy. Yet we as humans as a species range in the billions. And we are still growing as a overall population. Plus after the whole making kids you have to prove your worth something to even be around. Which makes no sense because childbirth causes so many health problems. Why should women harm themselves to make others happy when there literally is very miniscule reward or progress shown for contributing to society the way they are expected too?

I have no sympathy for OSA males that say they castrated themselves and/or physically alter themselves to claim lesbianism. Saying but now they are supposedly sterile that wont last. Because we have so many remedies to help male infertility and surgeries too and funding for male desires just keeps growing. Meanwhile women's health is constantly underfunded while women themselves are underpaid. So many women including myself have had to argue to get taken seriously just for basic health concerns. Reproductive issues for women are a whole different minefield. Knowledge on sexual health too is still something seen as morally wrong. So males should stop calling themselves lesbian. Lesbians are females (women) shamed for existing without males (men) throughout time. A male living with a female is society's norm.

So how hard is it to understand this anger?

Can you rate Kakegurui ships??

[For the sake of keeping this as short as I possibly can, I am not going to be including Kakegurui Twin or Kakegurui Midari characters.]

Sure thing! I will go over as many as I can think of including some rare pairs too! There are even a couple straight ships I can think of as well. I know, scandalous~ 

Yumary: 4/10

As many of you probably know, I’m not the biggest fan of this ship. If you really want an in depth explanation as to why, I’d be happy to do so, but I’m keeping these short. 

Fanfic wise, it’s really a hit or miss with me, but usually I will skip a Kakegurui fic with a Yumary tag on it (if it’s the main ship/focus). I will admit though, I have seen some pretty dang cute Yumary fanfics that did catch my attention and left me happy after I read it. 

Meariri: 10/10 

Yes, yes, everyone knows I am the #1 supporter of this ship and again like I said with Yumary, if you want an in depth explanation for this I will, but this will forever be my favorite Kakegurui ship. My OTP. 

It’s just so damn cute and most fanfics I read with their tag gives me serotonin. I mean, what’s not to love? Shy, reserved Ririka x protective tsundere Mary is my jam. 

Kirasaya: 8/10 

Ah yes, the biggest ship in the fandom with a whopping 708 fic count on AO3 compared to the second biggest ship on AO3 (Meariri btw) with a 389 fic count.  I think it’s a tad overhyped and because it has so much attention, I kinda get bored of seeing strictly Kirasaya things everywhere.

Don’t get me wrong! I actually do like this ship a lot! Overall, it’s difficult to imagine Kirari without Sayaka by her side. I always enjoy seeing either fan art or fanfics depicting a flustered Sayaka and smug Kirari. Though bottom!Kirari is close to my heart <3

Yuridari: 9/10

Hell yeah, this is like my second favorite ship. Periodt. I am the captain of this ship and will never stop reading content produced for them. Honestly, this ship is the epitome of opposites attract. 

We have Yuriko who is calm, collected, and quiet, then we have Midari who is loud, vulgar, and chaotic almost at all times. The two have a very interesting balance and dynamic, that’s for sure!

Ryomeko: 6.5/10 

Ryota and Yumeko don’t have a ship name anywhere, so I just made one for them. Say what you will about Ryota, but I unlike most of the fandom, actually grew to like Ryota. At first I wasn’t too fond of him and didn’t ship him with anyone, but now I know he shows genuine care and concern towards Yumeko and to an extent Yumeko shows the same for him. Arguably, I have to say Ryota is really the only person I can see being with Yumeko where their relationship would be healthy and prosper which the past me would never admit to. Would I ever write them in a fic? Probably not since I don’t really write for straight ships, but I would for sure mention them as a pairing if it came to it!

Itsukaede: 1/10

This may be one of my least favorite ships, actually. I really dislike Itsuki’s relationship/friendship with Kaede and I have from the start. Even during Itsuki’s arc where she gains control over Kaede’s life, their dynamic as a whole seems toxic and I can’t understand why Itsuki has feelings for him. Maybe because she thinks he’s cute? I think he looks musty tbh

Ririsaya: 7/10

So I have not seen many fics, art, or people really talk about this ship, but I am genuinely intrigued by it. I myself plan on writing for this pairing eventually. My opinion on it is that both Sayaka and Ririka deserve good things and being with each other would not only be very good for the two of them, but would be adorable af. I look forward to exploring more their ship.

Miraitsu: 6.5/10

I like it a lot, however points are docked because they only have one real scene/arc together and it’s difficult to produce content of them since they have such little screen/manga appearances together or in general. I will say I like pairing Itsuki with Miroslava a whole lot more than shipping Itsuki with Kaede though. (I also love how the fandom has collectively declared Itsuki as bisexual and I am here for it and also accept that as canon)

Yumedari: 5/10

Not gonna lie, I’m pretty neutral about this ship. I don’t really ship it myself, but I’m not completely turned off by the idea of it either. I know it’s canon that Midari feels something for Yumeko, but I guess the reason why it’s hard for me to climb aboard this ship is because of Yumeko’s disgust towards Midari. Canon wise, this ship sunk long ago. Fandom wise, I know some Yumedari shippers are still kicking which I can respect as a rare pair shipper myself. 

Yumesaya: 5.5/10

Same as Yumedari basically. I don’t particularly ship this myself, but it has crossed my mind once again. This is basically Yumedari but with more tension, less masochism, and a shit ton of homoeroticism. The only difference is I could and might possibly give writing this pairing a try, hence why the plus half a point for the rating. 

Maryota: ??/10

People ship this?? With Mary’s gay ass and harem??? I don’t even have an opinion of this. It’s like shipping a straight man with a lesbian... oh wait-

Maryitsu: 3.5/10

Okay look. I can’t see them being anything more than friends, at most friends with benefits. The two of them have the romantic compatibility of a teaspoon in all honesty. Still better than Itsukaede though.

Yumemisaori: 8/10

SEVERLY UNDERATTED?! LIKE?? Hear me out. Cute shy assistant x bubbly pop star is so freaking sweet. Also, it makes Yumemi’s character much more likable in my eyes. Imagine being fawned over by thousands of men but you’re secretly a lesbian who’s in love with the girl who’s only supposed to have a professional relationship with you. I live for that ironic shit. In other words, it’s Kirasaya with more steps and more obstacles. 

Sayadari: 6/10

This is childhood friends to lovers and you cannot convince me otherwise. Canonly, I think it would be fair to say if Kirari wasn’t in the picture, Midari would be Sayaka’s love interest (if the creators focused on romantic relationships and the side characters and such). 

Kiramary: 4/10

This takes hot x cold to a whole new level. There could be sexual tension between these two for sure, but as for romantic... I stick with shipping Mary with the better other Momobami twin. Kiramary just isn’t for me. I am open to hearing any other opinions on this since I don’t think many people ship them anyway and it is a really rare pairing, but still exists. 

Welp, that’s all I can really think of at the moment! Let me know if you agree or if there are any ships missed! :)

I may or may not have spent my entire Sunday binge watching all of I told sunset about you and Gaya sa pelikula and now I have so many thoughts and feelings that I need to write about them so here we go! Under a read more (if tumblr allows me to) because it’s 2k words hehe

First of all, I knew next to nothing about both shows before starting them. I had seen a couple of gifs here and there, but really had no idea what I was in for.

I started with I told sunset about you, which has 3 episodes out of 5 out. All I knew is that it was going to be beautiful and possibly sad, and it was. Everything about this show is so high quality, from the audio to the dialogue to the locations to the acting, just wow. The production is better than a lot of movies I’ve seen, and every technical aspect is perfect. I am really loving the plot so far as well, I find the childhood friendship to stubborn rivalry to grown up friendship again very relatable. I think it’s a very common experience for a lot of non straight folks to develop an extremely close bond with a same sex friend when you’re too young to realize what you’re actually feeling for them until you’re a lot older and suddely the jealousy and possessivenes all make sense.

I love the recurring themes sprinkled throughout the episodes, starting from the chinese vocabulary that expresses the core thoughts of the two main characters: rival, intimacy, secret, male protagonist, as promised. They could easily be the episode titles, or the names of imaginary sections the show could be divided into. It’s a great way to integrate metaphors and deeper meaning into the plot.

That’s how most of the communication goes in this show, deep emotions are never conveyed through words because words are scary and loud and they can’t be taken back once they’re out there. The plot advances though stares and gestures and touch and gorgeous shots of the landscape. The pace is slow with hour-long episodes that could each be a movie of their own. This worried me a bit before starting, and I have to admit that at times I struggled to stay focused, especially during scenes that set the mood but don’t do much plot-wise. This is just a personal preference, though, and in no way I see it as a flaw. 

The dancing around each other the main characters do, sometimes literal, is frustrating but it determines an emotional build up that’s just starting to reach its peak. This is one of those shows that has me screaming if only they talked to each other, but the silences and unspoken words are so well directed and acted that it works. I struggle a lot with keeping in mind that they’re still in high school, they’re very young and I can’t expect them to act rationally just yet. 

I was really worried about Teh possibly going the insufferable Theory-of-love-khai way, and I am still not 100% sold on him. When he started helping Oh-aew again it felt like he was just doing it to make himself feel better about the whole thing. It was frustrating to see him so possessive and jealous while also so deeply in denial about his own feelings, to the point where he had me rooting for Bas instead. He was getting better, but then he fled at the end of episode 3 and now I have no clue what’s going to happen next. About this, I really have no idea if they’re going for a happy ending or a sad one. I’m really hoping it will be good, because so far there has been barely any emotional payoff for all the repressed longing and misunderstanding the show has put us through.

I do like their dynamic a lot though, I have a weak spot for childhood friends reconnecting and an ever weaker spot for informal mentor/mentee relationships. Oh-aew asking Teh to tutor him until he passes the admission exam was an almost exact mirror of Yuri on ice Yuri begging Victor to be his coach until he retires and I loved that a lot.

Now on to the one issue I have with this show: it feels too much like an art film. It reminds me of Moonlight and Call me by your name, in the way that I wasn’t able to connect with those movies because they are too perfect. They are so beautiful and carefully crafted that I can’t fully immerse myself in them. There’s a filter that stops me from relating to the characters and constantly reminds me that this is not reality. It’s pretty, it’s extremely well done, but it feels like art. It has some quirks, some scenes that feel too artificial. One scene in particular, the one where Teh buries his head in the paper Oh-aew wrote with his coconut scented pen to sniff it, which is a direct parallel to Call me by your name, bothered me in particular. Just as it felt over-the-top and purposefully weird in the movie, so it feels in the show. It’s a way of showcasing how a confused teen deals with attraction he barely understands, it’s raw and animalistic in a way, but it’s so quirky that all it accomplishes is to remind me that I’m watching an lgbt show. It makes me wonder if a scene like this would make sense in a straight relationship because here it seems to highlight how different and primal his attraction is. If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say that I have a problem with media showcasing queerness though peculiar, purposefully awkward scenes like these instead of normal kissing and cuddling.

Overall, I can’t wait to see how this show ends and I still think it’s one of the best bls to air in 2020, if not ever. It’s refreshing to see something with a big budget used well! So far my rating is 8/10, which I know is a lot lower than what everyone else seems to think but it’s still very much subject to change! Just hoping they won’t pull a Make our days count, but I doubt they’ll go there.

And now Gaya sa pelikula. Wow. Again, I knew next to nothing about this show before watching, and I was coming from a 3 hour I told sunset about you binge watch, so the bar was pretty high.

And boy, did this show deliver. I was blown away by the depth and the humor of it. It feels like the writers had fun taking all sorts of common tropes and stereotypes just to show everyone how well they can be evolved and made complex. Two strangers who somehow find themselves sharing an apartment sounds like the start of so many fanfictions out there, but it’s so well executed and interesting that you don’t even stop to think about how weak the premises for their meeting are. It doesn’t matter and it’s not even that far-fetched, either. The sister and the neighbor are also two characters that start off as extra stereotyped, but in just a few scenes they unveil an incredible depth and backstory. It blew me away.

Each character is so realistic. Everything they do and say makes sense, they all have their reasons and their past and they react accordingly, it’s so coherent. It’s impressive how everything takes place inside the house and you barely realize it because things happen and the plot moves anyways, and the way information about external events and people is conveyed is so seamless that you don’t even notice it. In only 7 episodes (so far) they have managed to give everyone a complex background and personality through the use of objects and small details and wow don’t get me started on the music.

The soundtrack is SO GOOD. I never really pay attention to music in shows but it plays a very important role here in my opinion and, well, it’s exactly the kind of music I like listening to and ahhh I just spent 4 hours playing the first kiss song on loop so I might be biased. Right from the start in episode 1, when Karl gives in to Vlad’s music and starts dancing to it, it’s established that it’s an important element to the mood of each scene. I love how the dancing I talked about for I told sunset about you comes back here, but while I saw it as a hesitant dancing around each other there, here it’s the opposite, it’s freeing and it’s about accepting yourself. And the end of episode 6 highlights this, with the beautiful quote “You are entitled to a love that lets you dance without fear and shame.” It made me cry a looooot.

I think the development of their relationship is masterfully done. It doesn’t happen too quickly nor too slowly. Karl goes through some needed shocks that act as his wake up call. When I’m watching bl shows I care the most about them feeling real and relatable. I don’t want to feel like they were written by a straight person trying to guess what it’s like to be gay. Now I didn’t look anything up about the Gaya sa pelikula writers, but I’d be very surprised if they were straight. I can relate to both Karl and Vlad for different aspects of their stories and their worries and thoughts. There was one part in particular that hit so close that I had to take a few breaks because it hurt too much. I am a lesbian, I’ve had relationship with a girl that lasted over a year, I am out to some friends but not all. I never came out to my parents, who are both very open minded and friends with a lot of gay people and would love me just as much if I told them, and yet I can’t. It’s not just that, I am terrified by the idea of them already knowing or being able to guess. When Karl freaked out over his uncle guessing, it hit me so hard because I’ve felt the same way so many times.

Episode 7 was amazing. I hate badly written drama the most, and 99% of shows can’t come up with any good reason for drama but they have to put it in there anyways and it sucks. This was the complete opposite, I adored it and I say this as a lover of fluff. It feels right, I think it’s an issue that would come up between two people like them. They are both right and the only thing that could happen there is what actually went down. I definitely think things will be fixed by the end and I am looking forward to it, but I am very glad this issue was included because it’s so important and so true to many lgbt people’s lives.

Another aspect I absolutely adored are the multiple references to lgbt theory and language, and Vlad has some of the best lines I’ve ever heard coming from a bl. When he tells Karl not to be afraid of the word, when he explains that “you don’t look gay” isn’t a compliment, when he scolds his sister for not acknowledging the things she used to say to him by covering them up with her ally act, those are all such important and educative moments that I hope everyone listens to. I love that Vlad is not correcting some ignorant bad guy, but it’s his accepting and loving friends and family that make the mistakes, because sometimes being supportive your own way isn’t enough if you’re not actively learning from the ones you want to support.

This is a 10/10 for me right now. I can’t find anything I don’t like about it. It never feels boring, it never feels overdone, it never feels cheap or unoriginal. It went straight to the top of my favorite bls.

And now I can’t help but compare the two a bit, because yes they are two different shows but right now the relationships they portray have reached the same point: there has been a climax and now the one who is more confused about his sexuality is panicking and taking a step back. It’s a coincidence that I watched both shows on the same day when their last aired episodes end in such a similar way, but it really leads me to compare the two. I don’t want to put them one against each other or say which one did it better because that’s not the point of this, they are both two amazing and important shows who are excelling in what they’re doing. 

Gaya sa pelikula is down to earth, it’s explicit and it’s straight to the point in explaining what’s going on inside each character’s head. It feels like watching real people deal with real struggles. I told sunset about you is a lot more subtle and quiet, and since we don’t really have a clear insight in the characters’ heads sometimes it’s hard to completely understand what’s going on with them. It’s a completely different way of narrating, and while Gaya sa pelikula makes me feel like I’m a part of the events, I told sunset about you feels like I’m just spectating from an outside perspective. They are different choices, but one of them ends up feeling a lot more emotional to me than the other.

To wrap it up, I highly recommend both shows and I can’t wait to see how they’ll end! They are both among the best shows of the year, both free of all those annoyingly stereotyped characters and plot points that most bls tend to overuse.

Hey Kay! I was wondering... I'm thinking of writing a Byler fic. Is there anything that's missing from the current fic library that you think would be good to see, in terms of tropes, characterisation, things to explore, etc? I would also appreciate hearing from your followers. Just any ideas that people would like to see in a fic.

yeah sure ...

1)We need more povs from Mike’s perspective. (Almost all are from Will’s pov - let’s mix it up sometimes)

Mike in canon is the pinning-gay -(overly romantic) whipped one , but we never see it. And he’s pretty much never written this way! Mike in s3 has 6 drawings from Will on his wall  (he kept them up since s1-for years- despite replacing the poster on the same wall). Has even caressed extra drawings of Will’s that he’s kept in his binder.  In s1 wrote a whole story for Will about defeating a monster and giving the king it’s  7 heads (cause Will rolled a 7 when the demogorgan attacked him.) And as a Star Wars fan he had his own character be given a medal by the king (like how leia gave the medal to Han for his heroism.) He attacked people for insulting Will. Literally hates apologizing -but is quick to do so for Will . Boy ran in the pouring rain twice for Will- disobeying cops, the government, and his parents to do so. He initiates every byler moment (arm thing, hand touch, ‘best thing i’ve ever done’, ‘crazy together, right?’, always asking Will “what’s wrong?” or “are you ok?” etc). And was upset at Will dancing with a girl + insecure about Will replacing him -after he moves away.

-but 90% of byler fanfics (don’t get me wrong some are good) are from Will’s pinning perspective. Also do people realize Mike is clearly the more romantic/ emotional open of the 2 while Will is clearly the more emotionally closed off/aloof one?  He loves Mike too- but he’s def less obvious about his feelings- based on how he behaves. Will rarely opens up to people (Mike being an exception). But, it’s never written that way (usually it’s the opposite).  

2) as a gay women all the reductive stereotypes annoy me. it’s obvious when fic writers try to have the gay romance be modeled after het romance- and try to make one into the ‘girl’/ ‘guy’. Duffers don’t stereotype  Mike or Will but a lot of fanfiction writers do in order to make the gay romance resemble a straight one more (canon character traits, be dammed). Please, stop pushing heterosexual dynamics on gay and lesbian couples and trying to make one “the girl” and “the guy”. It’s very offensive and innaccurate.

Because he’s taller and most people head canon him as bi they make Mike a jock (despite in canon having horrible aim and not being able to run as fast as the rest of the gang). And Will (since most see him as gay) is weak/ sucks at sports compared to mike...despite knowing how to use a bat, shoot a gun, and being able to tear castle byers apart with his bare hands . Also nothing in canon shows Will likes to wear makeup and dress in drag (but it’s a constant thing that i’ve heard come up or heard others mention). It would be fine if he wanted to express himself in such a way. And if it only came up in an occasional fic it wouldn’t be a big deal. But it’s such a common theme that comes up (despite no canon evidence) that in most cases it just screams ‘straight writers trying to make Will into “the girl”’.  Not to mention the huge emphasis of their height difference (shows this too). It can get annoying calling him “short” & “petite” (a term used for women) when will isn’t even the shortest guy member- and now his actor is way taller than gaten (dustin) a bit taller (I think?) than caleb (Lucas) and barely shorter than finn (Mike’s actor). But writers even in future fics write him as short...ok? ya’ll really can’t let go of making Will “the girl.” Cause ya’ll incorrectly equate shortness to femminity. It’s tiring. Some writers straight up say he’s “pretty “, “feminine” or “looks like a girl” 🙄

3) it’s not byler if it’s unrequited- stop tagging it as such

4) more emphasis on Will’s passions(art, writing, horror movies). Maybe in his upbringing with Lonnie.And jon being a good bro to him. Will’s Mental health issues maybe ?

5) mike is a socially awkward, clumsy, unathletic, (caring) science/sci-fi /D&D loving nerd. In au whatever- but mike is not a bro-y jock, or a cool bad boy. 😂 plus , more writer mike would be nice to see

6) headcanon him all you want -but at this point it’s pretty obvious (to me at least) Mike never loved el,and was just lying/confused/ projecting Will on her. And El is/was also confused and never loved mike.   so it would be nicer to see that instead of Mike just ‘falling out of love’ with her. Mike is gay. people say in s3 Will saying “a day free of girls” is gay coded but everyone ignores Mike in s3 saying “BOYS ONLY”. same energy. writers even threw in a telemarketing joke so Mike says in s3 “El? no. sorry not interested.” And Mike has more rainbow refs than Will.  Boy is clearly gay not bi (way too much evidence to talk about here) .  They even  compare mileven to ted/karen who “never loved each other.”   The  writers make fun of mileven constantly and say over and over it’s not actually romantic - (if you choose to read just 1 link read this one  and get with the program) . plus, most Bi dudes  wouldn’t stop being attracted to a girl the more fem she gets (and only be attracted to her when she looks like a “guy”(specifically their guy friend).which yes the characters in s1 said over and over again that El looked like a “boy”/“will”.  And then they have him Makeout with her while putting up a  drawing of said male bff on the wall (cause now she looks less like him) and so he needs to look at said bro, to stomach the makeout seshes/ and in an effort to transfer said romantic feelings from guy friend to gf. Then push his gf’s hands off himself during the kisses- sing to stop kissing, and  kiss to mostly show off how straight he is. And without said pic- not kiss back and just keep his eyes open and not reciprocate. Nor would they have Mike equate het romance to something he thinks he has to do as a part of growing up . Bi dudes consider falling for a girl as simply romance not a foreign idea that has to be done cause there’s no other option and that’s ‘just what old people do’. Mike claims el is the only girl he’s ever had feelings for - but like dustin said mileven is “bullshit “ (stancy parallel -where nancy was not in love but faking it). So mike’s never been into a girl and is also into Will... so...

7) it’s the 80s they can’t just be open/ have pda in public (you could have gotten k*lled or beaten severely.) And most of their friends/fam would not take it well initially. (I think jon, Karen , and steve/robin would take it well... but not most of the crew.) although they’d all prob come around eventually . -Takes me out of a fic to have such historical revisionism when everyone is just totally fine with byler and they’re out to the public/strangers.

but that’s just me. What about you guys?

Been thinking abt this ask for a bit, what is your take on Penelope's sexuality?

whew, okay, this is something feel very strongly about so i apologize for the length in advance.

there tend to be two camps of people in this fandom when it comes to interpreting penelope’s sexuality and they are: (1) antis/cheryl stans who consider her to be heterosexual because they refuse to entertain the idea that she might be gay since they hate her; (2) people who have never given her character a second thought but listened to her red dahlia monologue and missed the entire point of it decided it somehow made her a lesbian.

then there are the handful of people in the parentdale fandom who know neither of those interpretations have any merit. because here’s the thing: penelope has canonically been shown to be attracted to men, and at the very least it has been implied that she’s attracted to women.

so let’s start with the former: her attraction to men.

if we think about her timeline in chronological order, the first thing we have to take into consideration is the fact that she slept around quite a bit in high school. see: “oh, it’s not that different from when i was younger and i had my pick of gentleman callers lining up every evening”. it’s important to note she says this very fondly, to the point where she does that whole looking-up-dreamily bit that one does when reminiscing about the past. keep in mind that at the time she was already aware that she was promised to clifford, and that the blossoms surely wouldn’t have approved of her going around with other boys.

there is no reason to believe she was hooking up with these guys for any reason other than she enjoyed it. she obviously wasn’t encouraged to date by her parents, she didn’t have anyone to impress considering the fact wasn’t popular, and it’s not like she could have gone around advertising these encounters anyway since she would have had to have kept them a secret from the blossoms. so that throws out any “she was pressured into it”/“she was trying to convince other people that she was attracted to boys” possibilities. the fact that she happily recalled these memories to cheryl alone casts serious doubt on them.

why excitedly bring up the memories at all if they were just reminders of a time when she was suffering as a result of heteronormativity? it’s not like cheryl encouraged her to share, or gave any indication that she would be impressed by such a revelation. penelope has nothing to prove to cheryl, anyway. the most logical conclusion is the one you get when you take her words at face value: she experiences attraction to the opposite sex and had fun exploring her sexuality in her youth. we’ll circle back to this later when we get to the subject of how comfortable she feels with sex.

so after high school she marries clifford. it’s a forced marriage, and one neither she nor clifford consented to-- but it’s what their parents groomed them for since they were children and something they’ve known was inevitably coming for years. now, for the purposes of keeping this as short as possible and not veering off topic, i won’t get into a whole analysis of their dynamic. all i will say is this: they were depicted as being entirely comfortable with one another in season one. they may not have come across as passionate or romantic, but you could tell they were partners (always on the same page, experts at nonverbal communication, trusting of each other, etc.). and what’s more than that, is they were constantly initiating affectionate gestures with each other: linking arms, putting their hands on each other, standing close together, hugging, etc.

their marriage may have been forced, but penelope genuinely cared for and felt safe with clifford. even after he died, there was a lingering attachment to him. nevertheless, that doesn’t make their situation any less traumatic. no matter how comfortable they felt emotionally with one another, the fact that they were groomed to be life companions and eventually forced to have sex with one another and raise children together, remains a very traumatic experience regardless. and we know penelope is still traumatized by it because she’s talked about it time and time again. if she was only attracted to women, that would add a whole other layer of trauma to the situation.

because if she was only attracted to women, she wouldn’t want clifford anywhere near here irrespective of the fact that they were raised together. hell, she couldn’t even close her eyes and pretend he was someone else while they were having sex. and she certainly couldn’t attempt to get to a place where the sex wasn't so awkward and uncomfortable. every encounter would be an unpleasant, pained, and traumatic experience. to the point where i can’t imagine she would want to be the recipient of any physical contact from clifford, much less frequently initiate it. in this scenario, it wouldn’t just be clifford’s relation to her that she would have to cope with, it would also be the fact that he was a man. even just going through the motions of being his wife would make her feel isolated and miserable.

which brings us to her job in s2 and probably the most solid indication of her attraction to men. in s2, we learn that the blossoms are broke and penelope is faced with the reality that she needs to get a job. let’s start with what she does to pay for the christmas tree cheryl bought: sleep with vic. was it necessary for her to do this? was it the only avenue she could have possibly taken to come up with some money in those circumstances? of course not. christmas trees aren’t that expensive-- she could have easily pawned any number of valuables in thistle house to come up with the money. hell, she could have chosen some cheryl owned to teach her a lesson. or something nana owned. or she could have simply...returned the tree. there was absolutely no reason for her to decide to sleep with vic if it wasn't something she was perfectly comfortable doing. why would this be her go-to solution if she was only attracted to women? her options were plenty.

then after this, what does she do? gets a job as a courtesan. which she delightedly describes as “providing comfort and companionship to the lonely men of riverdale”. and, as cheryl notes in that scene, she seems quite proud of herself for it. i have a very hard time reconciling how any of this would make sense if she wasn’t attracted to men. you can’t argue she was solely in it for the money, because when cheryl offers her an out via the second nick st. clair check, penelope declines to quit. in her own words, “oh, but cheryl, why would i stop, when i’m having such a good time?”. what, pray tell, would be the good time she was having if she didn’t enjoy the sex she was having with these men? keep in mind that, at this point, she wasn’t even doing any dominatrix work. at this point it was very much implied that she was focused on providing the “girlfriend experience”. so you can’t even argue that her enjoyment came from feeling empowered by dominating these men or whatever.

furthermore, not only did she hand-pick this very specific job herself and refuse to quit it when strongly encouraged and given the chance to, but she also had other options, same as she did in the situation with the christmas tree. she could have turned to hiram like cheryl suggested, she could have worked at pop’s like hermione did in s1, talked to weatherbee about a position like alice, looked at the listings in the register, or asked around about any job opportunities at highsmith, you know, the very prestigious college she graduated from and donated tons of money to and apparently sat on the board of?? the point is, penelope didn’t have to turn to sex work to pay her bills if she didn’t want to. and even if she had, she could have stoped the second cheryl handed her that check and begged her to. penelope went into sex work because she wanted to. and she's vehemently voiced how much she enjoys her work continuously and consistently since then.

then there’s her relationship with hal. this is the second strongest indication of her attraction to men. why? because she genuinely had feelings for him. when cheryl approaches her about the affair, assuming it to be a transactional encounter, penelope explains that, “it’s different, with hal. he’s not a client. it’s real”. if you pay attention to her facial expressions in that scene, you can see that there’s a certain softness and vulnerability to them. the way she delivers the line is especially vulnerable-- and penelope so rarely shows vulnerability in front of cheryl, so that alone says a lot. she then asks cheryl to “please stay out of it”. now, we don’t get to see much if any of penelope’s relationship with hal, but the bits we do see let us know that it’s not just some salacious affair. at least, not on penelope’s end. after cheryl drives hal away penelope is visibly upset and accuses cheryl of driving away her “one decent chance at a better life”.

we don’t need to unpack all of that, because penelope feeling like she can’t be happy without a man is an entirely separate issue, but the point is: she sincerely cared for hal and saw herself being happy with him. when cheryl dismissively fires back with “if that’s your idea of love”, penelope defensively snaps, “what would you know about it?”. that’s not the reaction she would have had if she had simply pursued hal because she was bored or wanted to cause some drama or was merely trying to mess with alice or something. you can’t say she was with him for money either, because: (1) she already had money at this point, (2) hal isn’t wealthy, and (3) she wasn’t getting any money out of him anyway since he wasn't a client. and if she was just looking to get hitched and settle down with a man for money, she certainly wouldn’t have gone after a married, middle class one with kids. that would not be a sensible strategy.

it’s also worth noting that nat stated in several interviews back in s2, while the affair plot was airing, that she believed penelope had real feelings for hal. she explained that penelope was lonely and, thus, “looking for a bit of warmth from somewhere”. so that’s how she was playing it.

then there's the maple club. just in case it hadn’t been established enough how much she adores her job, she had to go ahead and open a kink club. there really isn’t any need to drive the ‘she actively enjoys sex work’ point further, as i feel it’s been made explicitly clear already, but i do want to make one note, and that is that penelope was still taking clients while she was a madame. we saw her holding props in like, every other scene, and she was shown wearing nightgowns. so if anyone, for whatever weird reason, assumed she only opened the maple club so she wouldn't have to participate in the sexual encounters herself, i am here to burst your bubble.

and finally, we come to the scene that launched a thousand bad takes: the scene of the red dahlia monologue. in that scene, penelope utters the infamous words, “not people betty, men. they are the true poison”. in context, it is very clear that she is speaking from her many personal experiences with shitty men, seeing as before she delivers that quote she categorically details some of the traumas she has endured at their hands-- the murder of her son by her husband being one of them. that’s all that quote is about! the pain and betrayal she’s experienced from shitty, morally reprehensible men! it has nothing to do with her sexuality, and to make it so is to ignore and take away from the seriousness of her trauma. nothing frustrates me more than to see people misinterpret that scene and reduce it to some man-hating lesbian narrative bullshit. y’all can save that nonsense for cheryl.

also, the fact people were so quick to ignore penelope’s attraction to men in favor of calling her a lesbian feels very biphobic to me, and i will not have it. rip to everyone who thinks being bisexual is just Gay Lite™ and refuses to even consider the possibility when a character is indicated to be attracted to the same sex, but i’m different. not that that scene was any indication that penelope is attracted to women-- it was not. mistrusting men and being disgusted by their actions does not a lesbian make. that is literally just being a woman. but anyway.

the last thing i want to say before i get into penelope’s attraction to women is that there is no way she would be so comfortable with sex, or so confident expressing her sexuality, if she was a lesbian whose sole experiences with sex had consisted of meaningless high school hookups and over two decades of forced marriage to her brother. that just doesn’t add up. if she were a lesbian, s2 would have gone very differently. clifford’s death would have been liberating in more ways than one, and the last thing she would have done after finally being free of having to endure a heterosexual relationship is sleep with a random man to pay for a christmas tree, get into sex work, and pursue a relationship with a man. and go on to open a kink club. that just doesn't make sense.

so onto her attraction to women. this doesn’t require as much of an explanation, so i’ll try to keep it short and sweet since i’ve already written an obscene amount of words trying to answer this ask. i honestly can’t remember when i first started headcanoning penelope as bisexual, but i know i had been entertaining the idea of her being attracted to women long before the flashback episode aired. i’m not sure what it was, the ~vibe was just there. when i first got into the fandom i followed several people who shipped penelope and alice, and, while i didn’t care for the ship at the time (embarrassing, i know), the idea of penelope being interested in women felt very natural to me. maybe it was the violently sapphic schoolteacher/librarian aesthetic she had going on in s1, maybe it was the fact that her whole energy screamed ‘repressed’ to me. actually, i do think the latter is what initially got me wondering.

and then nat starting theorizing that penelope was attracted to women and that was very validating. i was briefly hopeful they would go in that direction in s2, but of course it never happened.

but then the flashback episode aired and bitch ?????? that one scene with sierra was gay as hell. i’m still very confused about why they played up penelope’s crush on sierra only to never go anywhere with it in present time, but  i’ll take my crumbs. all of the looks penelope gave sierra in that episode, the way she ignored her vandalizing the bathroom mirror while she grilled alice and hermione for their hall passes, the way she set up a quest just to get everyone out of the room so she could be alone with sierra, the subtle scoot towards her and “looks like it’s just you and me for a little bit, sierra” line with that dorky ass grin, the linking arms and smiling at her in the hallway??? there was nothing heterosexual about that.

and then there was the random, low-key coding in 3x12 where we learned that penelope graduated from a college named after patricia highsmith, referenced the price of salt, and used the word sapphic.....i still have questions about all of this. are we just supposed to believe she reads lesbian novels for science? and casually references them in conversation? where did she learn the word sapphic? if i asked my mom what the word sapphic meant she would have no idea what is was talking about. some food for thought.

also....her scenes with alice. that’s all i have to say.

i’m probably missing some things here, but that’s the bulk of it. i apologize for letting this get away from me...i just have a lot of thoughts lmao. anyway, i hope this was at least somewhat insightful and coherent. i appreciate the ask!

veth, the mother (figure)

you know, maybe i should have known better than to think i could do anything but fully flesh out my veth meta for everyone before going to bed, because i meant to address how fast people are to defend veth and that’s, like, exactly what happened.

i think veth is incredibly interesting. i think she’s a character for whom you have to do a lot of digging to get at what she thinks and feels, and how that’s really different from what she actually expresses. i want to look at veth critically, and i’m not willing to sit and let people tell me that it means that i hate her or want to misrepresent her, because i don’t.

here’s the interesting thing about veth and showing maternal love: she does show maternal love. maternal love is shown towards the people she has decided are her children, and that’s the mighty nein and luc. but maternal love isn’t suddenly perfect because it’s maternal (and, not to mention, veth hasn’t spent all of luc’s life with him. not even half.) other than caleb, veth tends to act, especially with fjord and beau, the exact way that mothers are with older/adult kids: they don’t know how to show they care (this is compounded especially by the fact that she didn’t know them as young kids, and that she has to balance feeling maternal with being an equal to them in the group at times), and can end up hurting their kids a lot. veth admitting that she really does care about fjord stands out not just because of the scene they were in, but because it was the first time she did that. (it’s really interesting to me that a) she didn’t apologize, and b) she used strength as an excuse to call fjord weak. yes, it’s interesting rhetorically, but if veth is the established mother figure of the group, why would fjord absorb the idea that he’s strong if veth has continuously called him weak? how could he possibly be expected to extrapolate that from what veth’s said to him, and how can we expect that her re-framing every time she’s insulted him should be enough to make him feel better?) 

veth has been and continues, if a little less now, to be openly rude and hurtful to beau, and the instance where jester defended beau to her sticks out to me a lot for so many reasons. jester loves beau almost in the exact opposite way that veth loves beau, and i think it’s one of the biggest rifts in their relationship, especially because veth does the least to acknowledge how beau actually acts. veth calls beau abrasive-- she says beau is awful to talk to or look at--- but, you know, motherly love, right? and beau doesn’t argue. she just gets sad and angry, and lets jester defend her instead. that doesn’t really gel with what veth just called her, does it? and veth didn’t apologize to beau before the ritual, no, she specifically pointed to the fact that she appreciates beau protecting caleb. no apology for believing in beau the least. i think veth does care about beau a lot, i think they have an interesting mother-daughter dynamic in addition to their new dynamic as 2/3 of the chaos crew, and that veth really has the chance to explicitly care for beau the way beau’s parents didn’t, but boy howdy, she doesn’t take it too much, huh? how much have veth’s words, about beau not being pretty, about beau being rude, echoed what beau’s parents have said to her? that, i think, is why she feels the least comfortable pushing back against it. (more depressingly, it’s impossible to separate the way people in fanon just accept that the worst about beau must be true from the fact that she is a butch lesbian of color, and i wish there was any recognition for it. it’s really not cute. in character it sucks in an interesting and resolvable way if there’s acknowledgement that veth doesn’t understand beau and isn’t trying very hard and has the potential to do otherwise, but ooc it scares me. a lot.) things are easier between them now that she understands beau as incredibly important to jester, who she cares for in a different way, but they would not be close were it not for jester, and it doesn’t mean she’s apologized.

now, caleb. the line veth rides between seeing caleb as her son and being attracted to him is really fascinating (and, uh. really weird), and i think has to do with how veth views herself as either allowed or not allowed to experience attraction based on whether she’s nott or veth, but more on that in another post. as a mother figure, veth very notably doesn’t treat caleb as an older kid she doesn’t know how to connect to properly. she treats caleb as someone she needs to protect. caleb’s squishy, so it’s okay if she steals from other people to give him things that will help him, because he needs to be safe. it’s okay if other people get hurt if it means she’s keeping him safe. veth’s protectiveness of and love for caleb doesn’t provide an example of how loving she is to everyone. it’s an example of how much she can love a person, and what she’ll do when she does love someone to that extent. she loves jester in the same way, and what’s especially interesting is that this is what changes her perception of the people that jester or caleb are close to. essek’s nice and wonderful when he and caleb are getting along, but essek needs punishment now that he’s hurt caleb. (i already addressed this, but veth’s motivations for punishing essek aren’t, at least not primarily, because he committed war crimes, but because he put her and her kids in danger, because he obviously hurt caleb. she literally offered to keep the war going to isharnai, she offered to commit war crimes herself-- we cannot kid ourselves that her vitriol towards essek is somehow altruistic when this is the case). if caleb is veth’s kid, essek is the friend who came over for a playdate that now needs to go home because he pushed caleb over. beau, on the other hand, is a good example of what happens when veth does change her mind about someone because the person she feels protective of cares about them. chaos crew wouldn’t exist if jester wasn’t the glue connecting beau to nott, and nott’s eased off a lot in talking badly about beau because she knows jester loves beau, and it’s a combination of “beau can stay because jester wants her to” and “maybe jester can see something in beau that i haven’t, and maybe i should try to see it”. it gives me a lot of hope in how veth will come to view essek, but it’s not quite the same. moreover, veth has the potential to hurt caleb and jester the most by protecting them and pushing other people away or making certain decisions in order to do so-- she sees her drinking as something she needs to do to be on her guard, to be able to fight with the rest of them, and her long dialogue with jester about this and her eventual decision to try to break her habits is really indicative, to me, of how much she can change for the people she loves, but also how hard it will be for her. as for caleb, i think veth hurt caleb a lot by explicitly talking about how essek should be punished, because she loves caleb, and gets that caleb likes essek, but doesn’t realize the degree to which caleb sees himself as essek, and how her condemnation of essek can read like condemnation of caleb. i’m anticipating a conversation where caleb asks veth or otherwise mentions that if essek is a criminal who should be punished, why shouldn’t he, and i think he’ll get support in that from yasha, who clearly feels similar.

i don’t want to talk about veth as a character who can’t change-- i want to talk about veth as a character who hasn’t changed much because her goal this campaign until now hasn’t been to move forward, but to return, and some things she could let herself ascribe to the way she felt as nott but seem to have stubbornly persisted because they’re not things created in her by becoming nott, they’re things she actually thinks and feels. i think she’s a mother figure in the way that real people are mother figures: they mess up, they do wrong by their children in their attempts to do right, and it’s easy to devalue anyone who isn’t one of their children because their children need protecting first. veth’s maternal love isn’t an argument against her as a flawed character and as one whose view of punishment doesn’t quite fit with how she views her children. i’m of the opinion that it’s an argument for it.

The first thing a gay person should do is find a community.

So blue is the warmest colour.

First things first, Emma's outfits make me fall in love.

We oftentimes understand genres from superficial features. Horror for instance by threatening situations, death, etc.

But once in a while a radical author arrives into the scene and triggers all the emotions related with the genre, without actually repeating any of its tropes.

It is easy to classify lesbianism as girl on girl relationship. And the relationship with sex, and so lesbianism with a girl on girl sexual relation.

It is more difficult for a trans lesbian such as myself to understand what it means and why was I not satisfied with relationships with women who saw me as male, even disregarding penetration and the assumption that I should be the dominant partner.

So when I try to realize what it means, I try, like many of us, to reflect on lesbianism in media. And throughout the past few months it helped me understand what I was missing, even though I'm yet to theorize or put it into words.

The first hour and a half of the movie was all that for me. I connected what was going through Adele. Especially when she sees Emma for the first time. Having a confident butch wrap her hands around you as you walk in the streets, seeing it from afar and longing.

As for her sex with men compared to the sexual fantasy, that's also interesting.

Men tend to be very focused on penetration. What's more interesting is that they almost have no discussion about their own personal enjoyment in sex.

Think about it: the market for male sex toys is very poor, and men freak when you discuss penetrating them, even though the anal region is filled with nerve endings which guarantee enjoyment.

This leads to their sexual interaction begging technique-driven. Very linear and centred on specific tasks in an almost mechanical way.

I obviously also talk from my own personal experience.

Maybe I'm not the right person to speak about it, but I couldn't find much pleasure when having sex as a guy. The experience was stale, repetitive and motionless. I was not driven by my sensations, rather by my imagination and the need to please the other. It reached to situations where I used to throw my used condoms as fast as possible since I didn't really climax in these interactions.

Which obviously also limits the other's capacity to enjoy the interaction.

The most affirming first experience in my transition was when I was treated as a woman in sex, and I actually reached orgasm for the first time in my life.

Having said that, the first actual sex scene with Emma also bothered me.

When I think of lesbianism and sapphic, I think of things I can actually do as a woman, and to what I relate. Which is obviously very gay scenarios, but rarely penetrative sex.

I imagine cuddling in the middle of the night, a dildo pulled out, we both climax and low key going to bed as if nothing.

I imagine looking her in the eyes as she plays with her fingers inside of me, her dominant eyes give me comfort.

Eating her up.

But having said all of that, vaginas gross me out.

I mean penises gross me much more.

I love breasts and buttocks.

But I really find it difficult being attracted to the vagina, playing with it, kissing it.

One time in the army, I sat with someone as she guarded the base entrance and she told me she usually finds the penis appalling, but when she has sex, it becomes the most beautiful thing in the world.

Dejana once made me insert my fingers to her in the shower, but I couldn't find joy in it.

Let's talk about Dejana for a second.

While she saw me as a hetero and despised lesbians, BITWC was one of her favourite movies. And I could see a reflection of our dynamic in that relationship.

I was stronger in that dynamic. I came from abroad, I had more money, I was her boss's daughter.

I read more, especially and of course philosophy.

Our relationship was a form of escapism.

She wanted the classical type of romance, that which doesn't exist in the rural parts of Serbja. Love, warmth, real human affection deeper than sexual lust.

I was looking for a simple relationship. Cooking together, travelling, I didn't want to think about the fact that I was a lonely outcast in an unfamiliar country.

We laid in bed. She was playing some game on her phone, I was reading for a philosophy essay. In truth, I was avoiding the need to interact with her. Because when we didn't do recreational activities, we didn't have a connection.

For someone who often speaks about the need to hear as many narratives as possible, to understand and relate to the earth, and to understand emotions rather than thoughts, I failed miserably connecting with her.

Dejana would have probably been content with such a relationship. She is used to male detachment, and she is very willing to deny issues in a dynamic, but I couldn't go on with it.

I didn't feel guilty when I broke it up. I felt relief.

Emma tried to change Adele, to educate her. But in so doing she clearly doesn't understand her.

Which comes to an analysis of the movie itself.

It is a classical rich-poor romance story. But instead of the American-dream infumed version of the story, we get a cynical, french depiction.

Emma tries to connect with the rural schick. Her last exhibit is presented in very oriental streets, that almost remind me of Jaffa.

Emma uses Adele to relate with this simpleton lifestyle. In all of her relationships, she is strong, in control, and she uses her girlfriends to tell her story.

Emma is open with her sexuality because her family is embracing, Adele hides her true identity because in her society she would be isolated and categorized.

Emma can study whatever she wishes, Adele needs to be practical.

She has the time to educate herself and discuss many worlds, Adele cannot, she has only her own experience to reflect upon.

And Emma doesn't understand why is she content with these lives, how can she live like that.

But is it better for Adele to dream big and see it get crushed?

Well sorta yes.

After all, when they break up, Emma bounces back but Adele is lost. Without anywhere to sleep, no one to love her or to understand her.

And yea, it is partially because of circumstances. Emma is far richer. But with these circumstances came the fact that Emma is groomed to live free.

And let's talk about grooming and praying in the gay community and why Emma is an awful person.

When I started to come out, I immediately joined the BDSM community.

When I had to move and lost my family, I digressed a lot.

I returned to my horse only when I met my rugby community.

A gay community gives you power, a place to discuss, to understand yourself better, friends to relate with and gossip who is dangerous within the community.

Two days ago I woke up a mess after 5h sleep and a lot of packing to do for my new flat.

Right in that morning, I received a message.

I met that girl in the philosophy common room.

She was an economics student. Like many other Bulgarians, she knew her way and got the code for the room from a friend to steal coffee, tea and food.

We became friends. She was always a powerful person, one of those Nietzchiens who understand everything as a power dynamic.

I told her my radical feminist theories and she was dazzled.

She graduated, moved to London, found a boyfriend and started dating.

It wasn't a common relationship.

That person was her feminized slave. I suggested to her that perhaps he was actually a she, but the person denied it. Until recently.

But she messaged me not to ask for help with her transitioning. The opposite, she was overwhelmed by the fact that her bae wants to transition and she wanted confirmation that her transitioning is wrong. I was horrified. That day, the Bulgarian convinced her bae not to go on hormones so she won't hurt her, and so the Bulgarian won't leave her.

In a society where people discover their sexuality and gender only in sexual surroundings, natural predators would abuse them as a means of gratification.

Adele could only discover her homosexuality in gay pick up bars. Emma naturally picked her up and raised her.

Adele, who didn't know anything gay other than Emma, relied on what Emma was willing to teach her.

Becoming Emma's toy, she was dependent upon her.

The first thing a gay person should do is find a community.

Although Emma tried to pamper Adele, pushing her to express herself in writing, she never introduced Adele to friends or to the community.

The only way Emma knew how to pamper Adele, was to try and make her a copy of herself. Which failed.

While the film attempts to escape the male gaze upon lesbians, it flirts very directly with the burgeois-gaze upon the poor and oriental.

Can that power dynamic be non-abusive? and if so, how?

We want to say that Emma should understand Adele's culture and embrace it as much as Adele needs to embrace Emma's.

But Adele's culture has unavoidable ugly aspects. It is grotesque, not refined, narrow-minded and closed. And it is a central aspect to her cultural as much as the other, beautiful, aspects are.

Do gays have any choice? Can you be gay and poor, gay and be part of the ethnic 'simpleton' culture? or are these aspects inherently negating?

My answer was to escape. I lived in poverty in the streets, away from my home, where I could define my own culture as a mix of orientalism, punk and classical beauty.

But not everyone is as lucky to do that.

When I write that 'hetero culture is boring' I fully say that I find it difficult to relate to Dejana. And part of me is sad because there are some morals and beauty in her world which I couldn't connect to.

For while I was attracted to my representation of her culture, I was not attracted to her, she was just a canvas for me, a cynical tool beyond my comprehension.

I could have found beauty in her only when I painted her in my own likening.

Yukie Utsumi

How I feel about this character

Well, this has been a roller-coaster. I used to pretty actively dislike Yukie. It might have been influenced by how annoying I found her in the movie and the three mediums kinda blended for me in terms of how I saw the characters at first. I remember also side-eyeing her a little for ignoring Yuko’s paranoia and fear and taking in Shuya regardless, but I’ve realized that was a little unfair, since he was dying and it was the right thing to do, I guessss. I’ll give her tat one! When I became a bit more open-minded about the character, I found that I had probably been unfair to her in general, and written her off as one of those annoying know-it-alls who thrive on being in charge and telling others what to do. Instead, I started seeing her as a problem-solver with a positive outlook and mindset, who did her best to remain calm and not to mention, keep her friends calm (with mixed results tho lets be honest...) in a time of crisis. I appreciate how she’s clearly respected and kind but also able to be a bit “brash” with comments such as “Yeah, first time I ever touched a boy”. We like a bit of a perv (We = me). I definetly read her as funnier now than I did on my first rereads, and I respect her go-getter attitude to get that D even when everyone’s dying. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Yukie/Haruka: I love them, both romantically and non-romantically. I guess I ship it even more as a one-sided thing, with Haruka’s confirmed crush on her being both adorable and heartbreaking at the same time. My imagination fails me in picturing Yukie as anything than straight, sadly, but I really wish this wasn’t the case, because I do love a good friends-turned-to-lovers ship. And if there’s one thing lacking in BR, it’s lesbians (if there’s one thing NOT lacking in my personal BR HCs and fanfics the it’s lesbians).  Harukie have been best friends since Elementary school, played on the same volleyball team for years, trust each other 100 %...  My Haruka-loving-Yukie feels are so strong. I got Haruka’s name coming up so I’ll get back to this.

Yukie/Shuya: I mean, I guess? Kinda? Again, when I used to actively dislike Yukie, this was a ship I also couldn’t get behind. Now, like I mentioned, I kinda admire her dedication to him, fighting hard to convince the others they needed to take him in (even almost physically fighting for it), and her dedication to feel him up when patching him back together. Good for you, girl. Shuya also mentions to Nobu, even back when they were younger, that “Yukie on the volleyball team” was the kind of girl he could imagine himself being with. When he thinks about how she will make a fine woman and then corrects himelf, saying she already is, how can you resist? The moment in Elementary school when they worked out having to share the gym for their two sports team is something he mentions as being the moment where he first felt there spark, and he wonders if she maybe felt it too. And of course she did. Not to mention, finding her dead is the first time since the Program started Shuya cries. Come onnn. 

Yukie/Ryuhei: This is purely fan-based and it’s not a super important one to me, so i’ll be brief, but I really like the idea of the put-together, hard-working Class Rep with the loud, annoying, violent delinquent. It’s an odd mix and a very extreme “opposites attract”, which is why it’s so appealing to me.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Yukie/Haruka: I can both ship them and friend-ship them, I do what I want! Like mentioned, their friendship goes back years and years, and they know they can always count on each other. In the Program they find stength in each other and are brave enough to go back to the school together to gather all their friends. Yukie might be the “leader” of the group but I definetly consider Haruka to be as vital, as the rock she can always lean on and find strength in. In AB I think it’s so sad how Haruka actively tries to pull herself away when she notices her feelings for Yukie change into something other than friendship, and that whole thing just gives the friendship an unique and complicated dynamic too.

Yukie/Izumi/Chisato: I kinda see Izumi and Chisato as the two sweeter girls of the Neutral Group, and I HC Yukie as protective of them in almost a motherly way. I guess the fact that Izumi and Yukie were the only two from their friendship group to come to Chisato’s brother’s funeral in AB also inspires me to think the three of them might have a closer bond. I also imagine them (+ Yuka) to be the most boy crazy, and giggling about their crushes while eating ice cream and watching sappy romance movies. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

The fact that I haven’t always been crazy about her and found her pretty annoying for what, 10 years?, is probably unpopular. It took me a while to come around. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Obviously I wish she was gay and could reciprocate Haruka’s feelings. It would make my bi heart so happy.

I actually like how she kisses Shuya in the manga, so I would have liked that to be included in the novel as well.

Oh and you know, it’d be nice if the whole Lighthouse scene had played out a little differently. Maybe like everyone calming down and NOT killing each other. I’d like to see Yukie and the girls join Shuya in meeting up with Shogo and Noriko. Of course, I’d like all the kids to survive, so if i got my way, this would just be a novel about a weird yet lovable class going on a fun school trip.

Ship bias for your KH Muses! :D

i am a flawed human being. ll accepting.

Aqua:

Terraqua. This ship is part of the reason I kept crying so hard in KH3, now catch me admitting that on the internet. I love the way they are there for each other in spite of their stark differences, and that they have a lot of unexplored, threadable area in both their coming of age and post-KH3 timelines. Plus any ship I can draw a parallel between my fandom otp and another ship is a good ship.

Xemqua. Nomura was setting something up here and he dropped the ball and I will not take that lying down. You’re telling me they don’t even so much as look at each other during the DLC? Dishonorable, Nomura, truly despicable. There’s so much to work with there, what with the armor and the way you can read a lot of Xemnas’ closest allies in the Org being answers to Terra’s inner circle. If Nomura won’t give me their story, then I’ll write it with a partner.

Aqua/Larxene. There’s basically no other adult women in this series and I am a simple dyke seeking the wlw. I think it would make a fantastic opposites attract cliche with the added bonus of someone that won’t take Larxene’s attitude lying down while simultaneously being able to match her step for step. The Taming of the Nymph, coming soon to an AU near you.

Eraqus:

Xehaqus. This is my end all, be all OTP for the fandom. I have spent almost 100 dollars overall at cons commissioning art of these idiots. They are my phone background and lockscreen. I have an entire fic in my head of their apprentice days and frankly if Dark Road does not live up to the relationship development I have hyped up in my head I will go canon divergent. These fuckers are beautiful and heartbreaking and awful and wonderful and I love them. Bring me all the Xehaqus.

That’s it. I’m so disappointing. I have like one or two OC for him ships and I mean whatever happens in RP happens if relationships develop but oh my God. Xehaqus consumes me.

Invi:

Real talk my Invi is a lesbian and my take on the Foretellers is that she sees them all as her siblings underneath all of her posturing that it’s nothing personal, so I don’t even know what the fandom ships for her are. I’m not even sure who is available to ship with her. Throw whatever of age lady muses you have at her, mutuals, and let’s see where this goes.

Isa:

Isalea. Akusai is also good, but there’s something about their life together after the war ends when they are trying to rebuild and find everything they lost that speaks to my soul. I would never say that if I see an Axel/Lea it’s ‘on sight’ shipping because that’s shitty, but I will say I am that Saix/Isa that is always down to discuss your take on their dynamic and see what we can cobble together.

Xemsai. This will never be a healthy ship, I think, based on the fact my Saix is as likely to use his alleged loyalty and affection to try and get some form of control over his Superior, but there’s a lot that could be fleshed out here. Whatever heart he grows will always belong to his oldest friend, but he will do whatever it takes to see his ambitions fulfilled. He’s trying to use the creature that has used him for over a decade. God. The potential.

Xigsai. By the same card as above, I think if Saix clued into Xigbar being more than simply a bombastic menace, he could try and pull the same using sex and false loyalty to obfuscate his true means on Xigbar. The difference being that Xigbar is, at heart, far more deadly and aware than Xemnas is when it comes to the bigger picture. It’d be Saix putting himself in the mouth of the beast willingly, and not expecting how deeply those teeth can cut when they snap shut on him.

Roxas:

Full disclaimer: I am 25 years old and fleshing out the romantic drama of a teenage boy is not something that super interests me. That said, I do like the concept of Roxas and his brand new heart forming all kinds of bonds, and him eventually starting to register feelings beyond the platonic for certain people. So as far as character development goes, i can see him taking interest in the following:

Hayner. There’s something so coming of age adolescent aggression as a front for latent or closeted affection about them in the simulation, and in the real world they have endless potential. I think Roxas could definitely feel safe enough around Hayner to have something more develop feelings wise. Also Hayner has muscles and that makes Roxas 404 error sometimes regardless of shipping, just as a general Roxas thing.

Xion. It’s a cliche, to be sure, but depending on the Xion and their development, I can see Roxas starting to feel more at home in her presence after they’ve had time to heal and become their own people. This isn’t an on sight shipping thing, and in fact I am super selective about this even while shipping it, but there’s groundwork for a good dynamic and a sort of reunion between them as whole people who come to appreciate each other as more than their initial, shallow idea of friends.

Namine. Was not super hip on this as a kid, especially when I was less discriminating in my Xion tastes, but as an adult I can appreciate their bond. They have a lot of the same trauma in terms of being dehumanized and used by two separate factions in setting, and the two take a lot of risks for one another within the data Twilight Town. I think there’s something to be said for them both to have irrevocable individuality and come together and develop as more than friends over the years.

Riku. Is it trashy? Yes. Is Roxas still tied to Sora somehow? Yes. Would it be hilarious to see Roxas turn a would-be rivalry into accidental flirtation because he’s confused about his feelings? Yes. Riku just standing there suffering while Roxas demands they engage in a passionate battle of lips -- WITS. I don’t even know how serious I am in shipping this, but Riku being Roxas’ emotional training wheels amuses me.

Aaaaand you can’t really have biases for an OC because at that point anything with plot potential, chemistry, and aligning sexualities goes so instead I am just going to shout out Kokoro’s established ships + the muns for being so good to my little mary sue.

Xemkoro/Foxhole. I don’t know how me dipping my toe in the water of shipping with Lucky by saying ‘hey my OC and your Xem could have a cool dynamic’ became like... my entire shipping brand, but here we are. Their entire dynamic breaks me, the way Xemnas is clinging to a past that he wants so badly to have been a part of while Kokoro can’t afford to look back anymore, working too hard to meet future goals is... Everything. Especially in the fact she regards him as a person without hesitation or knowing how much that will come to mean to him. There’s so many layers to them, and they truly work to earn their happy ending, and that is everything to me. Here’s to successful risks and their payoff.

Aquoro.  Everything my gay little heart ever wanted: the dichotomy of childhood romantic friendship giving way to adolescent rivalry and a shell of what your relationship used to be that appears so often between girls. That they also represent the Responsible Daughter and Rebel Daughter in Kokoro’s secondary verse, furthering the gulf between them as Aqua continues to follow the Master’s teachings where Kokoro embraces her own ideas about what Eraqus preached is... Chef’s Kiss... And through it all, it’s still Aqua that Kokoro wants to find the most, the one for whom her heart breaks the hardest when she sees what became of her. I owe Lucky my life for giving me this phenomenal wlw content.

Koterra. Kleffy does spoil me. The difference between what Terra dreamed of as a boy and what their reality became, where she is instead his knight and protector while he calls the shots as part of reclaiming his identity is perfect. The way they grow from teenage misunderstandings and dick moves into adults that have a touch more kindness for one another is also good, because it’s all about the character development. Their bond is strong and their support for one another immeasurable. I am heterosexual for one (1) ship. All because Kleffy came up with it on the spot and then put in the effort to make it work, God bless em.

❝ being a pilot doesn’t make you cool, but if you’re cool, you’re probably a pilot. ❞

MATILDA LONGBOTTOM really is the spitting image of ODEYA RUSH, right? For someone only 21 years old, TILLIE has been forced to endure so much. Yeah, that UNKNOWN BLOOD STATUS has been scraping by at the sanctuary since SEPTEMBER, 2028, working as a HUNTER in the DIVISION OF FORAGE. SHE is a CIS WOMAN and is known to be TACTLESS and IRASCIBLE but also HUMANE and RESOURCEFUL. Best of luck surviving through this. ⊰ SAM, 24, EST, THEY/THEM ⊱ (Matilda is adopted.)

♡ CHARACTER PARALLELS — Lisa Simpson ( The Simpsons ) + Bart Simpson ( The Simpsons. ) + Steven Hyde ( That 70′s Show ) + Seth Cohen ( The O.C. ) + Jess Mariano ( Gilmore Girls ) + Stitch ( Lilo & Stitch ) + Jessica Jones ( Jessica Jones ) + Janis Ian ( Mean Girls ) + Amy Pond ( Doctor Who ) + Arya Stark ( Game of Thrones )

( lil note: things might be changed regarding tillie’s family backstory and dynamics. )

CHILDHOOD

TWs: Adoption + Birth + Guilt + Parental Death

alright, so. i already wrote this intro, but lost it because i have minus ten brains, and i’m going to be honest with you: it was a pretty good intro, and i’m a bit bummed about losing it, so i can’t promise that this one will be just as good rip.

ADOPTION, BIRTH, PARENTAL DEATH TWS. matilda was the first and only daughter of an american immigrant who got pregnant at the age of nineteen. she died giving birth, never even getting a chance to name the child, and since no one could figure anything out about tillie’s other parent, she was put into the wixen adoption system. she ended up being adopted by the longbottoms when she was 3 months old, and therefore never knew much of anything but the longbottoms when it came to family.

ADOPTION, GUILT TW. the thing is, there has never been a single doubt in tillie’s mind that neville and hannah are her real parents; the ones she loves and who love her. still, she can’t help but wonder sometimes. what if her biological mother had gotten the chance to raise her? did her other parent even knew she existed and decided never to get involved, or were they always completely unaware of her existence? with an overactive imagination like hers, thoughts like that and countless scenarios constantly made their way through tillie’s head, and it made her feel unbelievably guilty. she was a longbottom, through and through. still, there was always this little “what if” at the back of her mind. it didn’t make her love her parents and siblings any less, of course, but she felt guilt for even just wondering. those are feelings she’s never talked about to anyone, though. i’m not even sure she fully realizes how present they are within herself. (this is heavily inspired by someone i know, and makes me feel very emotional, so i might not write it out all that much in paras and what not, but i thought it was important to include it in her intro, as it does matter and is part of her character development!)

she wasn’t a quiet baby, and definitely didn’t turn into a quiet child. matilda was always loud, and always aching to be heard and listened to. she was babbling from a very young age, and started talking before the age of one. she wasn’t reciting proust by heart, of course, but she talked the way some two year olds did before the age of one. she just!!!!! ached to communicate so damn much, and got very frustrated when she didn’t know the right word to express herself, and since she was quick to anger, being misunderstood by people led to a lot of tantrums. all in all, she wasn’t an easy child, especially not as a toddler.

still, she was a charming and bold kid, and tended to attract positive attention. really, it was mostly around her parents and/or whoever was taking care of her at the moment that she could be a bit... difficult. she loved putting on little shows (though it was a GREAT idea not to call them “little” in front of her), and always tried to drag her friends and siblings into doing various performances with her, such as dancing, acting, singing, etc. she always made a bit production of it, too, and would ask any and every stranger that she would come upon in whatever environment she was in to come watch her shows.

matilda adored making up stories!!!! she loved reading, and loved inventing stories and games based off what she read, but even before she could read, she was making up stories and like!!!!! she had a very vivid imagination and would tell stories to any and everybody who would listen to her. she was such a good storyteller (for someone her age), that, um, at one point, she realized she could also lie pretty damn well. she started lying left and right, just for the hell of it, and that might have been the thing that got her into the most trouble with people, especially her parents. she still has difficulties not lying nowadays. she just......... loves making stuff up? she tries very hard not to, but it seems to be an urge that’s too strong to constantly resist.

she had a lot of energy, and sometimes when she didn’t get to let it out, she got moody and angry and not as fun as usual to be around. to counter that, her parents signed her up to muggle kickboxing classes, after a few failed attempts at team sports. tillie was a bit of a bossy kid, and she didn’t do well at team sports back when she was younger. luckily enough, she excelled at kickboxing, and absolutely adored it. later on, she even dabbled in some muggle martial arts, and though she never used her training in a real life situation (not until the inferi, at least), she loved knowing she had the ability to defend herself and/or other people. 

her relationship with her parents wasn’t always easy in her childhood (and her teenage years either, but we’ll get to that later), but she never doubted how much she loved them and how much they loved her. of course, that can be changed depending on the people who play neville and hannah, but yes! with her siblings, i feel like the relationship might have been a bit smoother? or at least, i definitely think that for younger siblings. older siblings, i don’t know. we’d have to plot it out, but............... tillie automatically goes angry emoji face at any semblance of authority so just someone two years older than her being “in charge” when she’s 10 and both her parents go out would make her the fight me emoji just out of principle eogiergjeirjgeoirjierjg. but like!!!!! my point is!!!!! tillie loves her family so damn much!!!!! would destroy the whole wide world for them, and like????? tillie loves the world!!!!! she’s quite disappointed in it, but she wants it to do better!!!!! and for them????? she’d destroy it!!!!!!!!

HOGWARTS YEARS

ok, but.......... i’d love for tillie to have made like....... a nemesis tm on her first hogwarts express ride to hogwarts. we could even make it into a REALLY slow burn enemies to lovers like?????? them always being nemesis and now being stuck in the same place in such a complicated situation??????? amazing!!!!!! i’d love if they were tillie’s opposite, too, but this isn’t my wanted connections page (which is linked below) so egoiergoiejrgijer. i’ll refrain from babbling on and on about it.

matilda longbottom being sorted into gryffindor was a surprise to like, absolutely no one who knew her. she was loud, brash, brave, courageous, etc. and it was like....... expected for her to end up there. thing is, personally, i think she had qualities of all the houses? imaginative & creative for ravenclaw, ambitious & driven for slytherin, and loyal & all for justice and what not for hufflepuff.

tillie was always one to cheer for the underdog, and so i bet that she first made friends with all the kids who seemed to have difficulty fitting in before she made friends with the rest tm. honestly, i’m picturing her having been pretty popular during her time at hogwarts? not in a “mean girls” way, but rather in the fact that a lot of people just...... liked her. of course, she had (and still has) pretty strong opinions and is not easily swayed in her convictions, so the people who disagreed with her might not have liked her all that much, but still. eoijgeriojgeiorjgeiorjgoierjg and like ofc other people disliked her too like she has a pretty strong personality so i think!!!!!! it’s like hate or love; there’s very little in the middle. which i think still fits within the popular thing, because, really, most people would at least have an opinion about her.

stood up to bullies a bit too intensely, and probably got in trouble for it. she didn’t give a sh*t about the fact that her dad was a teacher and she’d get in trouble at home as well as in school; she had no patience for people who picked on others, especially not people who had it more difficult than others. she saw things in black and white, and didn’t really get the whole “the bully might have had a super hard life too” side of things. if you did something bad, and didn’t apologize, then you were a bad person, and that was it. she’s a bit less, um, intense about her way of thinking nowadays, but not by that much ergoierjoigjeroigjerojger.

does not forgive easily, and never has. like, she saw someone steal a candy bar from another kid in her first year, and she still hasn’t forgiven them. she “hates” them and it’s eorigjeirojgoeirgjeoirgjer. she needs to relax a bit. which is funny, becausse generally she’s really chill, but there are some things that get her blood BOILING.

she couldn’t exactly do kickboxing at hogwarts, and so she became a reserve beater in her second year, before becoming a complete (tm) beater in her fourth year. she stopped after sixth year, though, and in her seventh year, she began a secret, not-so-sanctioned-by-hogwarts, Muggle Martial Arts & Other Fighting Techniques Club for people who wanted to either practice it, like her, or simply wanted to learn. would it have been sanctioned if she had asked? maybe. but she loved feeling like a rebel egoieroigjerjgoer.

probably came out as a lesbian in her fourth year. tillie liked girls, and she didn’t want to hide it. she’s always acted like she’s super confident, though, but in fact she’s kind of insecure when it comes to relationships? she’s scared of not being enough, and has always been. it’s eorgjeriojgeoijgerijo sad.

AFTER HOGWARTS

tillie had zero clues whatsoever about what she wanted to do after hogwarts. she hadn’t chosen her n.e.w.t. classes with any specific career in mind, and she kind of panicked the summer after her seventh year, clueless about what she was supposed to do. then, she decided to work for a year, and then travel for the next. she knew it wasn’t the most “valid” choice, long-term-wise, but it was what she wanted to do, and so she did it.

she worked for a year at flourish & blotts, which was quite challenging for someone who preferred debating and helping others to selling books, but she was somewhat of an avid reader, after all, and so she did enjoy the discounts and discussions that inevitably occured about books.

and then, she went on to travel. she decided that, having explored a bit of europe with friends and family in the past, she’d go to another continent. and, very maturely, she decided to choose by closing her eyes, spinning a globe around, and stopping it at random with her finger. that method led to her deciding to visit north america, central america & south america. she started in canada, and finished in brazil. on her way, she visited all the countries on the continent, though, of course, she stayed in some for longer than in others. her favourites were mbolivia, argentina & belize. she did also enjoy a couple of cities in canada and the usa as well, but those were more reminiscent of home, and didn’t make as much of an impact on her.

she, uh, sucked at keeping in touch with people back home when she was travelling, so that could definitely be a starting or middle point for a plot? i think she may have taken the time to stay in touch with people if she knew things were more difficult for them, but otherwise, she kind of didn’t feel the need to contact people every day or so. and whilst that worked for her, whether that worked or not with your chara(s), if they were the kind who’d have stayed in touch with her, is completely up to you.

she came back and was like!!!!!! this is boring!!!!!! she started working part-time as a clerk at the ministry of magic, and was like :( because she missed travelling and meeting new people and just!!!!! she felt like something was missing. finally, someone told her of a non-profit organization that helped wixen refugeess that had escaped muggle and wixen wars in other countries, and she was like :o and decided to try and help out! she became a part-time volunteer with them, and adored it. she didn’t know if she’d spend her life doing what she was doing, doing two part-time things, but at the moment, it worked for her. 

INFERI CRISIS

the reason why she only arrived at hogwarts in september, and towards the end of september at that? she was trying to save as many people as possible. tillie cannot stand seeing people suffer, and when she becomes passionate about something, it’s the one thing she thinks about, and well...... she got REALLY passionate about saving people. 

i don’t think she’s fully processed what is happening yet, to be honest. like, she gets it; she’s not unaware, but........ in a way, it still feels fake, somehow. i think it’s because she’s been on a huge adreline rush since it first started, and because she’s been focusing on others rather than herself. everything’s been happening so fast that the facts just...... haven’t had time to settle into her mind.

she decided to finally go to hogwarts because she missed the members of her family who she knew were most likely there, and she wanted to make sure they were okay. and after getting there, it felt like leaving just wasn’t an option. not when there were so many people she could help in one single place.

she decided to be a hunter because, whilst it’s not her absolute favourite thing to do in the whole wide world, she’s good at it and it doesn’t bother her to do it when necessary. thing is, she knows it’d be way harder for some other people to do it, and so she does it so that they don’t have to. she really, really respects animals and creatures, though, and so i get like? lowkey artemis vibes from this side of her?

FUN FACTS

lesbian!!!!!!!!!!!! 

loves social justice!!!!!!!! like anyone who doesn’t care about it automatically goes in her “ew” list bc!!!!!! it’s so damn important!!!!!!! probably a big fan of the concept of socialism, really. 

loves aliens so damn much and is FASCINATED with all things related to them!!!!! she thinks it’s downright SILLY not to believe that aliens exist, and her biggest dream in life is literally to meet an alien. takes ufos very seriously.

loves muggle comics, artsy french movies & junk food. also! art! she loves art so much?????? wishes she knew more about it, though, because she feels quite , well, not exactly knowledgeable when it comes to art, and tillie hates feeling like she doesn’t know enough. 

was actually good at history of magic bc she tried seeing it through more social justice lenses and it was like, eye-openning to her!!!!!!!

SUCKED at herbology like honestly she wouldn’t have done great at it anyway bc she unconsciously and consciously was trying to rebel against her parents in her teenage years, but she LEGIT sucks at taking care of plants!!!!!! coul probably kill a plastic succulent, tbh. like, that talented at killing plants. and she doesn’t do it on purpose; she TRIES to keep them alive, but alas. eogejrgoijergiojerjogerg

USEFUL LINKS

about page.

connections page.

pinterest board.

I mean, since I’m talking about this, I just want to say that Moffat simply can’t write relationships unless they’re very vague and in the background. I believed Clara not hating Missy because as much as we were told that Danny and Clara were in love with one another, all we really saw of them was a few awkward dates, them lying to each other, them fighting, and two brief instances of them working together (which led to fights and lying). If that relationship had been more believable--or even if it had gotten less screentime, honestly--I wold have understood Clara’s reaction at the end of season 8. As it was, I was never given a reason to think that was a relationship to root for. Clara’s reactions to Missy also undermine what happened at the end of season 8 and the Christmas special. But this isn’t an isolated incident.

Jenny and Vastra are a good example of how Moffat’s side relationships work until we learn more about them. In the first episode of season 8, we learn that Jenny actually is Vastra’s maid, that’s not just the front they put up. It adds an uncomfortable dynamic to the relationship, made more uncomfortable by Vastra’s consistent flirting with Clara. (this is compounded by the fact that Moffat doesn’t really understand how to write women, much less queer women, and Vastra starts to slide into the predatory lesbian trope, which is AGAIN a case of “interesting character, written poorly”). I would say Sophie and Craig are a nice example of a relationship, but they’re not the focus of an entire season (it’s a nice relationship, just don’t watch the minisode for “Closing Time”)--and Moffat didn’t write the episodes that Sophie and Craig are in.

Once you start to focus in on relationships that get a lot of screentime, or a lot of hype from the characters themselves--they start to fall apart. Amy and Rory, the Doctor and River, Clara and Danny. The Doctor and River is probably the one that receives the least amount of on-screen development, and what we see isn’t ever very concrete. We see yelling and slapping, a few daring rescues, and characters telling each other that they’re in love or that one day they’ll be in love with one another. There is affection, certainly, but a lot of it just feels like we’re being told “River and the Doctor love each other because they just do”.

Amy and Rory--again. Yelling, name-calling, but certainly a lot of physical affection, with hand holding and kissing. Retconning Amy’s long-term crush on Rory in “Let’s Kill Hitler” certainly helped their relationship seem more believable, though admittedly there were no traces of that in season five, which seemed to imply that Rory liked Amy much more than she liked him, and seemed like Amy felt she was settling. (and River and Amy’s lack of a relationship is certainly unfortunate--even just a line here and there about how Amy just got a letter from River, or that she sent them a vortex manipulator so they could see her get her space PhD or whatever--but then, Moffat’s stated that he doesn’t think the inner lives of women are particularly interesting, so that’s par for the course)

And, as mentioned above, Clara and Danny’s relationship seems to consist mostly of lying and arguing.

What’s the kiss rule, again? If a couple has to kiss for your audience to know they’re in love, then you’re writing it wrong? If the audience has to be told “they’re in love” in order for you to know it, then maybe you need to reevaluate how that relationship is being written. 

This is not to say that relationships are without struggles, or that no couple ever argues or lies to one another--but saying “I love you” is not a panacea, and just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Particularly in the case of Danny and Clara, who seem to be written not simply as an opposites attract relationship, but as people who have nothing in common except a profession, it seems that a romantic subplot was shoehorned in so we’d have an excuse for an overly emotional series finale--which begs the question: why did Clara need a romantic attachment at all? The dead not really being dead would have been a fantastic way to explore Clara’s family--what about her dad? Or the family she was staying with in season 7 that disappeared without a trace? Or, hell, even her mom? If the dead aren’t dead, if all the dead are coming back to life as cybermen, why not explore Clara’s relationship with her mother? (because Moffat doesn’t know how to write mother/daughter relationships, I know). We already had a bit of this with the Brig and Kate, and it would have been an interesting exploration of grief and how sometimes it doesn’t matter how long someone has been gone from you--you’d do anything to get them back, to see them again, interact with them, ask them for advice, anything. (again, I know. Moffat can’t do this). There was no need to introduce a new character for a romantic subplot that was going to be poorly executed and end in a character’s death when something else would have sufficed. 

Making Moral Choices II: Sex, Romance, & Nudity

This is the second of five posts to help you think about setting appropriate standards for your children, based on your family morals. In this post, we will look at the sexual aspects of anime.

In Japan, many adults watch anime, and some anime do feature sex and sexual situations. The most extreme examples are explicitly hard-core pornographic anime and manga, which are called “hentai.” Hentai is the Japanese word for pervert, and these anime feature graphic depictions of intercourse. They often are also brutally sadomasochistic. These anime would easily earn an X rating if they were movies. It is a simple decision to absolutely ban all hentai for your children. The stories have no redeeming value and differ in no significant way from Western pornography.

Be aware that some hentai are homosexual. There are three main divisions within this category: bara, yaoi, and yuri. Bara is male homosexual pornography mostly created by and for men, yaoi is male homosexual pornography mostly created by and for women, and yuri is lesbian pornography created mostly by women for both men and women. While bara and yuri are small niche markets, yaoi is popular with many teenage girls. Many girls share yaoi manga, and it can be difficult to monitor their reading, particularly when they are away from home. This is a situation where open communication with your daughter and mutual trust are essential. I recommend explaining that yaoi is unhealthy for them for several reasons: First, this material can interfere with the normal development of relationships with boys. The vast majority of teen boys react very negatively to yaoi, and girls who are openly yaoi fans tend to drive boys away. Second, the behaviors depicted are extremely unrealistic and create false expectations about how boys and men act in the real world. Third, the relationships in these stories are often physically and/or psychologically abusive and can negatively affect your daughters’ ability to form healthy relationships in the future. Finally, yaoi depicts boys with extremely feminized features and can create unrealistic expectations about normal body types in the same way as photoshopped images in pornographic magazines create false standards for female beauty.

Anime that are one step down in explicit sex and nudity are called “ecchi.” Ecchi is the Japanese pronunciation of the English letter “H” which is the first sound in the word hentai. Ecchi often show nudity and sexual situations, but are not as explicit as hentai, and rarely include violence or sadomasochism. The predominant form of ecchi is sex comedies, and the characters are usually high school or college students. Just as with hentai, some ecchi are homosexual. Male gay ecchi are called shonen-ai, which translates as “boy love.” Similarly, lesbian ecchi are called shojo-ai, or “girl love.” The sexual content of ecchi is similar to movies like American Pie and Porkies’ and would generally earn an R rating.

It is an easy decision for parents to ban ecchi for young children and tweens. There is no need to expose them to sexual content, and they are generally not interested in such content anyway. We move into a gray area when we are dealing with teenagers. On the negative side, most teens do not need any encouragement to think about sex, and ecchi can be expected to increase their desire for sexual activities. On the other hand, just as video games can provide a substitute for real world violence, ecchi can provide a relatively benign outlet for sexual frustration. I would recommend applying the same judgment to ecchi as you would to R-rated Western material. Certainly, most seventeen and eighteen year olds can handle ecchi, while most thirteen and fourteen years old cannot.

Just to make life more complex, many ecchi are intentionally censored to reduce the nudity. Steam, lens flare and strategically placed barriers and placed to make the shows less objectionable. These visual blocks move the shows from an R rated level to a PG-13 level, which can make them more acceptable. Crunchyroll (www.crunchyroll.com) is the largest free internet streaming sites for anime and has many ecchi anime that are filtered in this way. Censored ecchi becomes problematic because in many cases, the stories are appropriate for many teenagers and their parents while being completely unacceptable for others.

Let’s examine a show that falls in this difficult gray area, where different parents can legitimately come to opposite decisions. The show is called A Bridge to the Starry Skies (Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi) and is available for free streaming on Crunchyroll. The story is an example of a “harem” story. The main character, Kazuma, attracts the attention and affection of six girls in his high school. The story follows the development of these relationships, which are complicated because the girls are all friends with each other and have very different personalities.

From a parent’s perspective, the story is undesirable because these high school students are actively pursuing partners in a way that is clearly intended to lead to sex. There are many sexually suggestive jokes and comedic situations throughout the series. The show also has a great deal of fan service, where the characters appear naked or near naked, although private parts are masked. Finally, both the students and their parents are aware of and comment on the sexual and romantic dynamics.

On the other hand, this story has some very positive aspects. First, Kazuma and the other characters are good people. They are kind, thoughtful, helpful, and upbeat. They watch out for each other and for others. Kazuma is sometimes oblivious, but never takes advantage of the girls who are trying to win his affections. Although important, romance has to take its place within day to day life: school work and homework take up a significant chunk of time, some characters have part time jobs, etc. We also see the typical fumbling and awkwardness of teenage love, with embarrassment, confusion, and mixed emotions presented in a far more realistic manner than most American teen comedies. Most importantly, we see resilient characters cope with disappointment and rejection in surprisingly mature ways.

So, do you allow your children to watch A Bridge to the Starry Skies? It’s a tough call and depends on your standards, your child’s age and maturity, and your best judgment. If you’re in doubt, I’d recommend prescreening the series and discussing the series with your teens to make sure that they are learning the right lessons.

When stepping down from ecchi, the decision making process becomes easier. Nudity associated with bathing is common in many anime these are aimed at younger audiences simply because bathing is such a central part of Japanese culture. In these shows, there are no sexual overtones to the nudity. Romances in shojo (girl) and shonen (boy) anime are also more innocent and sexuality is downplayed or completely absent.

I am going to suggest some general guidelines for parents based on your moral standards and the emotional maturity of your children. Naturally, you have to decide on the appropriate content for your family.

Children are tweens or younger: eliminate all hentai and ecchi material regardless of your personal standards.

Children are young to middle teenagers: eliminate all hentai and the vast majority of ecchi unless you personally screened it for objectionable content. Discuss content with your children to be sure they are learning the appropriate messages.

Children are high school age: If you routinely allow your children to watch R rated material, you can simply ban hentai. How much ecchi is acceptable is up to you. However, don’t be surprised if you see negative behavior in your children if they are sexualized at too young an age.

Alright I've been seeing a lot of this lately and i would like to finally acknowledge it: people frequently ship 'straight' characters in a gay relationship and others ship established gay characters in a straight relationship. People who ship 'straight' characters in gay relationships typically get mad at people for shipping gay characters in straight relationships but the people who do call this hypocritical. I can see why you would think that, however this is why it is wrong to ship an established gay character in a straight relationship: First off, I am basically assuming most people who ship gay characters in straight relationships are straight themselves. Pardon me if this is incorrect but I just can't see someone who is queer doing this. Here's why: Let's say there is a male character. He is gay. This has been established. He is in a relationship with another guy. By shipping him with a girl, you are erasing his sexuality. You are ignoring the established fact that this male is only attracted to other males. Now this is where people who do this call us hypocrites. But here's the thing about that: 9 times out of ten, if a character is 'straight,' it is never directly stated that this character is straight. Everyone just presumes this because they have been in a 'straight' relationship before when they could be bi, pan, ace, etc. However, this is a very minor reason compared to the others. I have 3 fictional otp's. Two of them are cannon. All of them consist of only males. As someone who is bisexual, it is very easy for me to fall for these ships. Not just because of the dynamic and chemistry the ships hold, but yeah, because they're queer couples. Which some (straight) people may think is shallow, but it's not. For hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, you've had straight couples to ship. You've rarely had to worry about your otp's becoming cannon. You never had to worry if they were going to fall in love because the story always went the same: "boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy confesses feelings for girl. Girl reciprocates. They date and fall in love. Problem arises. They break up. Boy/girl realizes no problem is big enough to separate them. Dramatic kiss in the rain, reunited, in love and happy. Boom, the end." I had about a dozen different stories in my mind while typing that. You've had this since literature became a thing. But us? What do we have? Only recently did gay characters start to make appearances in literature. And not even as the protagonist or even just the sidekick. No. No they appeared as very minor background characters that appear once, maybe twice in the whole novel. Just to make the book and author seem 'diverse' and 'accepting.' I'm gonna make a guess and say only in the last 10 years have gay characters even started becoming the sidekicks and occasionally the protagonists. And even this is seen as 'widely diverse' but it's not. Still, the most we get is one book about a kid struggling with his sexuality or a fantasy series with one queer couple that still holds the backseat to the straight protagonist couple. Or three straight protagonist couples. I still don't have a series where the protagonist is a lesbian slaying monsters with her killer bisexual girlfriend. I don't have my books about a transgender boy kicking serious ass with his asexual boyfriend. I barely even have a white gay guy fighting with his white gay boyfriend as the protagonists and society thinks 'diverse' means throwing in one black character for comic relief and one white skinny gay guy. That's not what diversity is and that's not what's going to please me. So think about this: for every cannon queer ship I have, you've got at least a hundred cannon straight ships. At least. If you still don't understand, try reversing it: every single cannon ship in the world is a queer couple except one. There is one cannon straight couple. But even that one everyone is trying to make gay. And you have nothing. Not a single character like you. Not a single character to represent that you exist too, and that you're sick of being ignored. So by shipping a gay character in a straight relationship, you are ignoring the already extremely limited representation we have and you are being selfish. You're not satisfied with the thousands and thousands of straight couples you already have and want to crush the ones who aren't. So me shipping a presumed straight character in a queer relationship isn't going to make you lose much. But you doing the opposite is taking away pretty much everything from us.