Thinking about... Goosepowers. As I don't really think we'll get a season 2, here are some headcanons:

- Something I love about them is how their relationship is actually... Very health lol. It's that thing about them canceling each other's negativity. Do you remember how soft Julie's smile is when she's around him? She doesn't do this with anybody else, I think. So, while they make everybody else's lives hell (for no reason), they're still quite sweet to each other, with all the pet names and stuff like this. It just makes everybody else hate them more.

- But do I think their relationship is perfect? Of course not. They're still Gideon and Julie, nothing would change that. And Julie truly, truly loves Gideon, but she would be lying if she said she could fully trust him. Gideon is unpredictable, and she pretty much dislikes how she's never sure if he's being nice because he cares about her or because he wants something *from her.*

(more below)

- Let's pretend for a second that the Glow exists in the anime. I imagine Gideon happily telling her about it. At first, Julie would be "yeah, that is very sexy of you, baby", a little proud of his mind. After thinking more about that, she would notice it was not good news. I mean, Gordon would never hurt her, she know this. He would never use that Glow thing on her, right? Most times, she believes on him. When she's upset about anything else, however, her mind goes back to the doubt stage. What if he already did it and her feelings and memories aren't her own? What if this dude sleeping next to her was never that nerd teen she once met in high school? She hates this feeling and how her stupid mind doesn't let her trust him.

- Gideon has his own issues to deal with, of course, and he's not good at this. Sometimes he feels bitter about the way Julie makes him different - in many ways. The fact he can never truly controls her is what makes her so interesting to him, but he's not used to that feeling at all. He's not used to even liking someone at all. Gideon realized things with Julie are very different from Ramona, but he always suspects the ending will be the same. That he'll wake up and she'll be gone. He doesn't only *think* that. He's sure. So he doesn't like when they fight. I can see him gently holding her arm, smiling while saying they should talk instead. The "okay, just don't leave" every single time that only ends up making Julie even more upset.

- Okay, now something more wholesome: after getting his money back - and fixing all the mess Matthew caused -, Gideon will be very excited to give Julie many gifts. He'll make sure that she knows she can get anything she wants at any store she wants. If it makes her happy, he'll give it, no matter what. Julie accepts it, why wouldn't she lol

- But she isn't dependent on Gideon, of course. She likes having her own space and her own better job. I still didn't decide what exactly she would work with, but it would be related to hosting parties or big events, I guess.

Hello! I suppose I would be curious, if you haven't already answered this sort of thing, is what is your take on the way the Band of Boobs raised Big Bev? Thanks!

oh man i have a lot of thoughts on this one that i've hinted at but not expressly said.

I actually don't think Bev was as involved with his upbringing as Moonshine and Hardwon. I think that for the formative years after the war, everyone made an effort to just let him be a kid for a while. He was absolutely Big Bev's fun uncle who took him on strange forest adventures that the Crick couldn't even provide and Big Bev was, of course, a cricketeer.

Early nurturing went to Cordone. He had the most experience with dragons and the Boobs still had some Akarot holes to tie up. But whenever Moonshine was in the Crick long-term, Big Bev was staying with her. And when they settled down there way more, as the reintroduction of dragons kept her more Crick-based, his home was in her stump.

Hardwon, by nature of being Hardwon, was always hanging around Moonshine when they were both at the Crick. Which was all of the time either of them was at the Crick. So in Big Bev's life, especially his early life, he was always around. And Hardwon fell in love with the kid so fast.

Parenting at the Crick, to me, seems like a community effort. But there would always be comfort coming from a specific person. For Big Bev, those people were always Moonshine and Hardwon. And this worked well for them, too. They weren't really chuffed on the idea of being parents. But they love him. And wanted to make sure he had a good childhood, a Crick childhood, so they were always there for him when he needed them. To help him when he was hurt, to celebrate his accomplishments. Hardwon made sure he knew he was loved for his entire childhood, because that was so important for him.

I imagine that, by nature of being basically Moonshine's kid, Big Bev was an angry kid. But with that righteous anger. Essentially, if you will, it's the righteous anger of his "mother" combined with the raw strength of his "father" (/being a dragon). So he got into scraps. Often. And a lot of the time, it was about defending a smaller kid from bullies. So they couldn't get mad at him. Not for long, anyway.

At the end of the day, I think that Big Bev was raised by the Crick as a community, but his main ties were to Moonshine and Hardwon. Which is why he says shit like "what they say in my family is 'bring it on, come on." and why MeeMaw calls him her grandson. And I do think that when Hardwon was back in the Crick, Big Bev visited him every day. Brought him food. Tried to talk. Broke in and sat with him, hugging him when allowed. Shoved Cooter at him because he knew Cooter could get through to Hardwon somehow. And Big Bev was the happiest out of anyone to hear that Hardwon had fought back against Glen's army.

is it possible for our mc to have an additional nickname?? like i named my mc Libitina (which is the ancient Roman goddess of funerals and burials. bc i love tragic names like that, Desdemona, Ophelia, and so on. it feels almost prophetic with mcs with backstories like these ♡) and the idea of Our One Good Sibling or any of the ros or even Barret The Better Dad calling my mc "Libby" or something as softly affectionate would make me (and Libby lmao) melt. adjacently, would the ros use/what would the ros use as pet-names while in love?? is there any terms of endearment, pet-names or nicknames, that would make the ros in question equally as soft?? im glad you confirmed in another ask that we can call Barret "dad" at some point, im sure thatd make his heart ache with love (i hope, in time, he refers to mcs as his child ♡) im shocked at your well-polished skill to make me adore your characters (or dread certain ones) so much with so little official content yet released. thank you so much for sharing this with us ♡♡♡

I will definitely allow a nickname like that! I will likely make it something the other characters just call the MC, without MC telling them what it is? If that makes sense? Something the MC can be shocked at.

As for the ROs, what they would call an MC while in love:

Aleksander/Aleksandra: Likely nothing. I simply can't see them using one. They would speak the MC’s name like a prayer, though. They, at first, put a wall up by calling the MC by their title. When they finally allow themself to indulge and call the MC by name, that is just as special.

Rhys/Rhea: Very similar to A, quite honestly. They will call the MC by nicknames regardless of how long they've known each other. But there is something so, so intimate about using the MC’s name that they just can't resist.

Calix/Calixta: I’m sounding a bit like a broken record here, but they likely wouldn't call the MC by a nickname either. Perhaps, when MC is alone with them, they’ll say something. But not a nickname, really. My MC, probably.

Mestrn/Mestra: The only one of the ROs that would like using a nickname. Something like lovely, likely. The MC brings out something so vulnerable in them that it scares them, but also excites them. That makes them lovely.

As for what the ROs would like to be called:

Aleksandar/Aleksandra: The same with the fact that they would prefer not to be called by a nickname. If MC chooses to do so, it will make them feel close, but somehow it also leaves a barrier for them. They want MC to say their name. They have denied themselves allowing someone that close for long enough.

Rhys/Rhea: They are usually the one sprouting off nicknames for everyone. So, if MC turns it on them, it may very well fluster them. As for something specific, maybe precious? (They prefer to call MC that at first, you'll see it in the next update.)

Calix/Calixta: They don't really have a preference. But if they had to choose, something that begins with ‘my.’ In a, you are mine, I am yours sort of fashion, if you understand.

Mestra/Mestrn: Anything MC chooses to call them will be sweet for them. To be vague, their adolescence was not the most affectionate. They are starved—ravenous, even.

Trick or treat! 🎃 take the opportunity to share whatever you want!

Thank you! So as all you canon divergence AU writers out there know, one of the main things you have to figure out is what all the relationships look like in the new circumstances. Here's the thought process behind Ted and Jamie's whole thing, since it unexpectedly turned out to be one of the main plot threads.

From Jamie's side, the two main differences are that 1) Ted never shouted at him for skipping practice , and 2) he doesn't get sent back to Man City, which he canonically never finds out wasn't Ted's fault. The result is that Ted seems more consistent and reliable than he did in canon, and that Jamie doesn't have his time in Manchester/on Lust Conquers All to think about his relationship with his dad and how it's affected him as a person — which is generally an improvement, but it also means that he's suddenly surrounded by people who know about his dad and are treating the situation very, very seriously at a point where he's just barely starting to come to terms with the idea that those experiences were traumatic. He's not in a place where he trusts himself to judge how bad things really were (or even to make good decisions in general), and so he latches onto what Ted tells him as like, proclamations from The Person Who is Morally Right About Stuff.

Ted, meanwhile, still has all his usual trauma with his dad and the resulting tendency to prioritize maintaining familial relationships in spite of the abuse he knows is happening. The main differences from his standpoint are that 1) he's surrounded by people who are very vocally on team Fuck James Tartt (I am also on this team); 2) Jamie is very visibly struggling in a way that's clearly and directly tied to the prospect of having to see his father again; and 3) he and James (briefly) meet and have a conversation. Basically, he starts off in pretty much the same perspective he has in canon but is put into circumstances where it becomes increasingly difficult to justify it.

I like your post about gray morality in video games! On the other hand I wanted to add that the gray decision-making you're talking about can have its own pitfalls (distinct from the pitfalls of centrist/apolitical "both sides are bad" apathy). I'm thinking of gritty action heroes who are presented as morally gray because they're pragmatic enough to torture and kill in the name of Truth, Justice, and the 'Murican Way, or just in the name of a macho revenge fantasy. To be clear, this isn't an indictment of gray morality, which I love when done well. Hell, the stories I'm complaining about tend not to be THAT gray in practice, as the bad guys are often SO exaggeratedly bad that there's not a real question of whether the hero is willing to Do What It Takes in the end. My point is more just that that's what people often mean when they condemn "gray morality."

Hi! Sorry this has been sitting my ask box for a while, I got busy and didn't want to just dash off a response.

(We're talking about this post, for those who haven't seen it. RIP my notifications.)

Anyway I'll just say here for the record that yeah, gray morality in fiction can be done poorly! While the line for "done poorly" is going to be different for everyone, I can certainly think of examples I've disliked.

(This got long, sorry in advance. 😩 Also, spoilers for Fallout 3 and all the Dragon Age games, if anyone cares!)

My go-to example of one I think is a real stinker is the Fallout 3 DLC "The Pitt" where the critical decision is... whether to free a bunch of people from being enslaved in horrible conditions! But! in order to free them, you have to kidnap a baby from... the enslaver. Because something something the baby's genetics are the key to curing the illness that afflict the slaves from their horrible working conditions... you don't actually have to hurt the baby, though, she'll be fine. She'll just be taken away from her parents. Who are, again, slavers. I promise I'm not making it sound any stupider than it sounds in the game itself. :P Like the whole concept of putting an infant in your video game inventory and making a break for it is just a little too wacky for me to take seriously, but it feels like you're meant to take it seriously, and apart from trying to inject some ambiguity into the decision, I'm not sure why the whole baby plot would even be there. Honestly, Fallout 3 isn't a game about moral ambiguity. (I think both New Vegas and even Fallout 4 do that kind of thing better.) Most of its major decisions boil down to "Do you want to do the Good Person Thing or the Evil Bastard thing?" That's the game. No one is trying to inject moral ambiguity into blowing up Megaton. It's just a thing you can do if you want to roleplay an Evil Character. I love Fallout 3, I'm just saying, that's what it is. And I think "The Pitt" would have been both more thematically appropriate and less stupid if it had just skipped the whole baby plot and been like "Hey! Do you want to be the Good Person who frees the slaves, or the Evil Bastard who allies with the slaver?" It's morally simple, but the thing is the baby didn't actually make that story or the decision any more interesting to me, so it might as well not have been there at all.

But Fallout 3 isn't the kind of thing I was thinking of when I made that post. I was thinking a lot more about things like the decisions in the Dragon Age games, which don't usually fall neatly into The Good Option and The Evil Option, and are more likely to ask the player to make their own judgments. And a common criticism I see of those games is that they're "centrist" and try to "both sides" in-universe issues because the game doesn't explicitly tell you which choice is The Good One, or it doesn't explicitly reward one choice and punish the other, and that's... not really an interpretation that I generally agree with? But that's a much more involved discussion, honestly. At some point, I'd like to write a post about how I feel Inquisition presents the mage rebellion, because it's such a big topic and big game (and by "I'd like to" I mean... I already have a draft started, whoops). That's just more than I have time to get into today!

But I will say this: I find the plot decisions where you're given an obvious "best option" to be the least interesting choices in the Dragon Age games. The Redcliffe decision in Origins is the most obvious one to me, where I think the option to save Connor from possession should at least have been much harder to find, because in the lore, the fact that mages even can be saved from possession and not just killed is widely unknown because it goes against the templar party line, and the fact that Ferelden's First Enchanter is just like, "Oh yeah, sure, we can totally do that, pack up the lyrium boys" just doesn't really mesh with everything else we're told about the Circles and conventional wisdom on magic. Plus, the fact that there's no consequences for leaving Redcliffe for days with Connor possessed just... makes the decision too easy, for me, because in-universe it feels like it shouldn't be that easy. There's also the werewolf decision, wherein the Lady of the Forest just tells you straight out that Zathrian can break the curse with his own death, presenting you with a "best option" that it feels both stupid and sort of comically evil to disregard (like, from a purely pragmatic standpoint why would you fight the entire pack of werewolves or an entire clan of elves when you can just make Zathrian solve the problem here and now).

The ending decision of DA2 is an example that I feel has a really stark moral contrast to it (which I've discussed before), and one that I think does place certain constraints on role-playing, but in that case I think it's appropriate to the themes of the game, so I don't mind it.

But my favorite plot decisions in Dragon Age are things like the Landsmeet, the Winter Palace, and even the Orzammar quest line. Not just because I love fantasy politics, but because you have to work with what you're given in a way that feels realistic to the setting and the story. No matter how much of a hero you are, you can't waltz into Orzammar or Denerim or Halamshiral and brute-force a perfect solution. Unless you're a dwarf yourself, you're an outsider who doesn't know anything about dwarven politics and no one is particularly forthcoming about the situation because everyone has an agenda! and yet you have to solve this conflict in order to get aid against the Blight. You have to make a decision based on very little information and almost none of it concrete. At the Landsmeet, you may want justice, but it's your word against Loghain's with no proof of what really happened at Ostagar, and if you want to win you need provable charges, you need to show the nobles that you support their interests and not just your own, and no matter which butt you put on the throne, you're faced with the very real possibility of another succession crisis a few decades on so congratulations, you've just kicked the can down the road.

And oh, the Winter Palace, my beloved. You cannot make Briala the Empress, no matter how much you might want to! You cannot abolish the monarchy. You cannot force Orlais to relinquish the Dales and re-establish the Elven state. Your options are: keep the empress whose reign overall has been sympathetic to elves and commoners and relatively diplomatic toward her neighbors, but who also may have just done a good old fashioned massacre to crush a rebellion and maintain her power; let her be killed and put the militant expansionist on the throne; get Briala and Celene back together (maybe with the hope that Briala will continue to influence her); help Briala do a blackmail which surely will work out totally fine and not backfire in anyway; or force them all to shut up and play ball for now, basically just kicking the can down the road. None of these options are perfect by any means! There are interesting and believable in-character reasons you might choose to role-play any of them. And every one has the possibility of unforeseen consequences later on, positive or negative.

I made the original post, in part, in response to condemnations of the kind of decisions I enjoy in these games. And at the end of the day, it's okay not to like those decisions, to prefer more unambiguous choices or more room to indulge in the fantasy of fixing everything. But that's not always the kind of story a game is trying to tell, and I think that's fine, and personally I enjoy the complicated decisions more. And I feel like sometimes those complicated or ambiguous choices are read as if they're either presenting all options as morally equivalent when they're not, or that they're "punishing" the player for a choice if it has any kind of negative outcome, and I don't think that's the case! I think it's fine and good in fiction to explore the ways in which trying to change things for the better can be difficult and how a choice with some negative consequences may still be the best one available, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, I hope I didn't get too far afield here, and thanks if you read this far!

i saw that there’s going to be a new x-files series developed by ryan coogler and BOOKED IT to your blog!!! what do you think??! how do you feel??!!

first off: i love you omg??? i love that show so much--more than words can adequately express, as i'm sure you're aware--and im honored you want to hear my thoughts about this news.

at first i said that i wasn't going to say anything because admittedly not all my thoughts are great, and i don't want to shit on it before it even gets the chance to prove its worth. i'm not at all opposed to diversity being added into the x-files, or the show being developed by a person of color. in fact that's one of the things i'm most excited for regarding this. the entire time i watched the original show i noticed the startling lack of diversity in the cast, the plot, and the writers room. the original show does suffer at times from being written namely by white men and i think the x-files reboot probably will do better in terms of those things. at least i certainly hope

what i'm hesitant about is the fact that i don't see the x-files working in the modern day. when they did the revival back in 2018 (? i don't remember the exact year because i wasn't there yet, but i think it was around that time) it was obvious that they were all scrambling to make the plots work in the contemporary age. so much of the conflict in the x files is wrapped around the fact that fox mulder cannot prove that the government is doing all of these heinous shit, and that the paranormal and extraterrestrial stuff is real. he never could collect any tangible evidence that couldn't be ruined and he never could garner enough public support even if he did have it to build up to anything reputable before it was. they were always able to discredit him. now he could do that. we live in an age where everyone has a cell phone and an opinion and we can all get things to people faster than the speed of lightening.

but also there's the fact that every one has a cell phone and an opinion. it might not work, not because the characters can get evidence quickly and then, bam, the conflict is all gone, but also because conspiracies aren't what they used to be. we live in paranoid and tired age. our computers track us, companies own our data, and we see more ads in one year than someone in the 1960s saw in their entire lives. since 2020 i've heard the united states government twice confirm the existence of aliens and ufos. and then you've got shit like qanon and the campaigns of constant misinformation and no one is exactly sure what is real and what isn't. put fox mulder from the 90s on twitter or reddit for a week and you've got a terrible mess on your hands. in the revival scully literally tells him, "mulder the internet isn't good for you." much of the same can be said about the entire x-files in general. it simply doesn't have that magic that it did in the 90s when you translate it for the modern day.

my last complaint is the fact that i love mulder and scully so much, and the idea of anyone but these two characters doing the government work they did feels sacrilegious. i don't want other people playing fox mulder and dana scully, and i don't want other people playing remixed versions of fox mulder and dana scully. if they're going to start new i sure hope they start from scratch because these are two characters who are so beloved and cared about. i think it's almost disrespectful to tread on the paths they already walked.

having said all that i do think this reboot isn't without its hope. a lot of what i complained about can be solved with a simply putting this reboot in a different time period. i'd love to see what the an x files-like government sector would like in the '60s, '70s, or '80s. there's a lot to be said about the government in those time periods. it was all rife with reasonable conspiracy and i think they could very well do with making diverse storylines and all of that. i want this to succeed more than anyone. i'm just scared about it lol

hi twinnieee!! this is tofu :)) how have you been? i hope you've been well and happy!!

i'm just here to let you know that i'm applying for UPCAT since it's applicable for me now and i'm still planning on taking psychology, if not philosophy. although it's a pre-law for me now because i want to be a lawyer. haha crazy because i only planned on psychology because of you and had a full-length plan on becoming a forensics psychology ever since you mentioned that course ^^ i'm not expecting that i will pass since i know that the exams will be hard but i will try (iskolar ng bayan pls) (if hindi pumasa hello green school live jesus in our hearts forever na anthem ko hanggang mamatei)

anywayss, i just want to thank you because if not for you, i wouldn't dream of going to UP and i wouldn't dream of taking psychology ^^ i might be somewhere deep into doing something i don't even want so thank you a lot haha (im sorry im becoming sentimental its just that i was doing my applications earlier and then i thought of you and then stared at the wall) and also i'm turning 18 this year :')) the 18 plan has been out of the window ever since and i always remember your words, and i have more things to plan and look forward to <33

thank you again!! you were and always will be such a huge source of comfort and inspiration for me <33 i appreciate you and everything that you do. please continue on being a kind and good person that you are and i hope that you'll only have happiness and love !!

TWINNIE, TOFU, HOLY FUC

It's already been that long omayghad aldbdowkl it's finally here oh I'm so anxious and excited and so EVERYTHING for you right now! You're gonna do great, remember my points, and even if you don't it doesn't always mean you did bad! Make sure to add two choices for your course and remember that if you get in to your second choice, you can still shift - and if you don't get in, you can repeal with any of the campus but you CAN'T change campuses if that's the case. UPCAT is all about strategies and also a bit of chance with the slots, take it in stride whatever outcome you get!

I can't believe - I didn't know how much that meant to you and I had to take a bit of a break after seeing all of this because I've been just hit with the feels and couldn't form words, twinnie 😭out of all the things, a lawyer - actually you're a very strong-minded and willed individual that knows where their heart is and stands by it, you're going to do so many great things! Psychology or lawyer!

Thank you as well, you have no idea how much I love you as my twinnie and friend in my journey in this hellsite hgnhnghg gigil *ruffles your hair* thank you for remembering me in a good light and aaaa advanced happy 18th! Celebrate it however you like there will always be more birthdays and more chance for greater celebrations!

I can't stop saying thank you - but thank you so much for this message twinnie, I really needed that. And as for you, I really do hope you get into UP so that you can focus on your studies while having fun in such an environment that I know you'll thrive and grow in, but my greatest advice is to just keep being you and keep moving forward towards the thing you love and believe in. Surround yourself with the people and things you love and your kindness and goodness I know and love will shine through naturally and just as much :')

Oliver Stark story about his brother’s birthday cake

+ bonus

genuine question: what is wrong with the peyton beachdeath lma trans thread? I know…too much about peyton himself so we don’t need to revisit that, but i’d love to see you rip into some shoddy scholarship and ways to (mis)understand historical queerness

oh god...

i mean aside from people taking the word of a notorious clout-chasing liar and conspiracy theorist at face value...peyton just doesn't understand or even really care about history when it does not directly benefit him. full disclosure i have not read the thread since it was first posted but it is burned into my memory unfortunately, i also don't know a lot about lma as a historical figure

aside from cherry picking quotes from lma's diaries there were no actual sources. nothing from her biographers, no secondary scholarship at all. it was just peyton presenting quotes purposefully stripped of their context in order to further a point that he wanted to be right.

this should be like. queer history for pre-schoolers but people in the past who were or may have been queer understood themselves and their queerness differently than people do today. peyton is incapable of looking at queerness outside of his very specific 21st century lens. could louisa may alcott have been a trans man? possibly! could she have also been cis and/or gnc? sure! could she have simply been writing in both her private and personal lives about how suffocating the experience of being a woman in the 19th century was? yeah. we have no way of knowing which of this could be true, and whether they overlapped at all. queer history exists in shades of possibility. in some cases (and we're going to use trans men contemporary to lma), like those of albert cashier and charley pankhurst, we can pretty definitely say that they were both men; that being a man was essential to their continued survival, that they would have wanted to be remembered as men. in other cases, it's more slippery because the taxonomy we use nowadays to classify ourselves and especially our differentiation of gender identity vs sexual acts is SO recent that it does a disservice to classify all historical queerness with it.

it's insane that there are MULTIPLE notable 19th century trans men in american history at the time lma was living and he still was like no this is not good enough for me i can only emotionally relate to something if i can force my own image onto it. that's really the problem here, not the shoddy history and the deliberately misleading language, but the fact that peyton is seemingly incapable of enjoying or relating to a piece of media or a person if he cannot find a direct comparison to his own life. he did the same oh "(x) was 100% absolutely a trans man if you tell me wrong you're transphobic" thing with katharine hepburn (iirc??) a few years back and this is a personal gripe but having read a 600+ page bio of hepburn that was very generous to several queer readings of her life: lol. lmao even. his insistence of flatting the experience of anyone with a moderately fucky gender into "you're either Like Me or your not" is so purposefully stupid.

like, do all the trans readings of little women you want! i myself made a deranged little women trans post a few weeks ago. but lma isn't a fictional character who you can apply different literary lenses to! she was a real human person whose relationship with her gender we will never fully understand because we were not there. at some point you just have to accept that it is not your business. why are you so desperate for any shred of historical representation that you are willing to exhume the dead in order to out them?

peyton relates to jo march, so he insists that reading jo as a trans man is the only (morally) correct reading. he likes little women but has to make it fit the public view of transness that he is made his personal brand. i actually followed him for longer than i'd care to admit, and it's a trend with any piece of media that he is publicly into that he has to make a character a trans man in order to relate to them.

he also has this deranged idea that any author writing with emotional depth about the """opposite sex""" must have been trans. see the article he wrote for the niche about how must have been a trans man because he gave dido's emotions and the collapse of her marriage to aeneas the same "dignified treatment as any sprawling, epic battlefield scenes." [direct quote] the article is literally called " vergil had a pussy and i'll prove it." no further comment.

one of his "proofs" is that lma was called "lou" by her family, which he then proceeds to call her for the rest of the thread. lou is....a very normal nickname for louisa both now and then. you know what else was a 19th century nickname for louisa? wheezy. imagine that same thread but he calls her wheezy alcott. thank you, good day.

Any way you’d be willing to summarize Rhett and Link’s convo from todays ear biscuits for us?? People keep saying they feel sad for Link and he’s my comfort person so I’m so nervous to listen to it and feel sad 😭😭

oh gosh, I don't know if I'm the best person to ask that, but I'm gonna try! So yeah, spoilers ahead!

the whole conversation started because of an awkward and embarrassing (for link) interaction he had with a person working at a ski lift on his spring break.

Rhett (and Jenna) tried to explain to Link what made this interaction awkward and how he could respond to it differently. And that moved to them analyzing together how Link behaves when he interacts with other people and especially strangers in some social situations.

He got a little bit defensive but he was very open to listen to the feedback. The thing Rhett pointed out is that when Link meets new people, he wants to make the interaction interesting and fun but usually just for his own entertainment and in some cases either Rhett and Christy have to come into the conversation and pick up what Link left or monitor situation or de-escalate it.

Overall Link was fine with the feedback and he said it's interesting conversation to have especially on Ear Biscuits and it's good content.

Also. They said that it's not about us taking sides, who's right and who's wrong because they are on the same side (!).

And sure Link wanting to get loose and interact with people might be fun but he recognizes it impact people that are with him and people he interacts with. And Rhett's message is not for Link to be less Link or less fun but I guess to be more considerate and have some filter.

And at the very end Link got emotional saying to Rhett: "I want me and you to be able to do stuff and have a good time." (without Rhett feeling like he needs to be nervous or protective when they enter a social interaction with other people together) 😭

you should gushpost about ibara. grabs you like a squeaky toy. wat drew you to him :] also also whats ur favorite card of him!!

OH HEY ummm i'm usually shy to gush about him + i'm afraid to spell anything wrong bc my english sucks but i'd love to do it more :((( he makes me so happy i want everyone to know that (long ass gushing under the cut)

anywayy he was one of the first enstars characters i put my eye on and my first thought was like "ohhhh little guy look at him smiling" then i watched the anime and he was so much more than that (even if the anime doesn't show much details about the story i was happy i could find more about him) but that was just the start

he has always been my favorite eden member, not my favorite character overall but i did a lot of research about him and his stories, search fanart and etc because i have a friend who liked him a lot at that time so i was always sending ibara content to him (@fushigina-daiarii IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT👁️ /pos) and that made me even more interessed!!

also at that time i was having a really hard time especially because my ex was being kinda toxic to me?? she kinda stalked me and stuff and the end of our relationship made me feel very guilty and y'know... ibara was one of my main sources of comfort (if not the main one) and seeing anything related to me always made me so happy... he really helped me during this fucked up situation and it may sound silly but i'll always feel grateful for that

since that time i couldn't see myself anymore not giggling with his cards and art and well every single thing about himJDBDKDBKDH and it's been 2 years and 6 months i'm self shipping with him he'll always be important to me

now speaking about my favorite cards... i think i'd choose those three (winter live unbloomed, summer snow unbloomed and his fs2 unbloomed. yes. specifically the unbloomed versions of them)

the thing is... i love how soft his expressions are there (he looks especially silly in the first one tbh)!! the way he smiles so softly on his summer snow card... it actually made me so very happy when i got him instead of fs1 yuuta when i pulled for him that was the card i wanted the most on the game at that time

ALSO!!! his expressions during the fs2 motion... it always gets me...

i also have a soft spot for his valentines card i've waited so long for his center event so it really caught me off guard (i was literally crying three days straight after the release of melting rouge soul mv because i was proud of him /srs)

so much (for) destiel

aka my favourite destiel coded lyrics from so much (for) stardust by fall to boy

Hi!! What are some of your fave books you've read recently? I'm really curious pls feel free to ramble

Hello! I got really excited when I saw the notification, so thank you.

I've read "This is how you lose the time war" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, and let me tell you, it was a short book also a ride! A ride mostly because not a lot is explained, you are dropped in a scene, in a world you have limited informations about despite it being our world, you have technology, a war between the past and the present/future.

BUT! It's also a love story, some kind of enemies/rivals to lovers between Red and Blue, two women who belong to different timelines, different sides. And it's epistolary in between the scenes, and the ways the letters are made/found are explained and it's genius.

I become bored quite quickly when the romance is too much, but it was subtle and sweet when the feelings realization happened. It was definitely worth the read and I recommend it if you haven't read it.

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I was in a bit of a reading slump for a few days and because it was becoming frustrating I read a book I already read a few times. It's called, "Quand vient la horde (when the horde comes)" by Aurélie Luong, book that came out last year so there is no translation (something I hope will happen because this book? 10/10)

A little backstory you didn't ask for, I had never heard of the book or the writer, but one day I went into my favorite bookstore and she was there, so curious I asked her to tell me about her book, and the passion in her voice when she did convinced me to buy it. It's also her first book being published, so I hope she goes far and gets more of her work published.

It happens in a medieval Korea with some Russian touch, as they have invaded the country years ago. The main character, Ivan, survives daily. He is poor, lives with his childhood (and only) friend, when, one night, he gets kidnapped by the white horde. The soldiers of the White Whore, a beautiful woman with white hair who has a goal, avenge her little sister and is not afraid to draw blood. Ivan is the bait. He wants to survive, he wants to get back to his friend and for that he has to play the horde's game. He doesn't have a choice. He does what he is told, get money, and plans his escape.

So it's also a enemies to lovers, but with vengeance being the main point of the book.

I think I could talk for hours about this book as I left a big part of my heart inside. The ending is heartbreaking honestly. The book is dark, touches sensitive subjects but it's nicely written.

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I have to talk about Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. It was a book I wanted to read for so long. (and the author is extremely funny, I follow them on social medias and it's always very fun to see them)

The book has as inspiration for the main character Wu Zetian, the first and only female Emperor of China in the late 600s.

The book is science fiction, lgbtqia+, feminist, with pocs, disabled main character, poly and big robots and aliens, another enemies to lovers (trigger warnings to definitely check before reading)

It's hard to explain the book, so let me copy and paste the summary:

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

I'm not that into science fiction, but I was curious. I do have to admit I was lost a few times with some terms used for the robots, and also had a hard time imagining things in my head, but I liked the way her relationship with Shimin changed, and there's also her complete opposite with whom she is friend, a rich man who wants to protect her.

The ending had me on my ass! The second book was supposed to come out in April but it was changed to 2024 and I can't wait.

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Other than that.. I recently started Caraval by Stephanie Garber. The reason is funny, I saw a book at the bookstore "Once upon a brokenheart" and loved the cover, but then I saw I needed to read the Caraval series first, so here I am. I'm currently on the second book and it's pretty okay. I like the universe of Caraval.

I read "The Invisible Life of Addie Larue" by V.E. Schwab at the beginning of the year and it became one of my favorite pretty fast. It was so nicely written that I can't help but recommend it.

I usually only read horror and thrillers but I haven't been able to find much good ones so I've been trying my hands at other books.

What about you? Tell me everything!

this is my essay on the rapture if you were ever interested in reading <33 one of my top 4 movies of all time!!

first off mikaela, i just want to say this to you: you are delightfully big brained, and its a treasure to be able to walk through a movie this brilliant with you. you have a fantastic knack for analysis (one that i envy and i hope all of your english teachers complimented you on), with an eloquence that makes you an easy voice to follow.

secondly, i just want to say: you really captured what drew me to this movie, and described it beautifully along the way. this paragraph especially:

Where The Rapture thrives is in its dichotomous approach to religion as both maniacal desperation and delicate salve, as something that harms and something that you just can’t help but cling to. When talk of being called to Heaven began, it was in visions of rivers and pearls. At its culmination, it’s in inability to cope with grief, about wanting to see a loved one that’s been lost. By the time Sharon stands in a tent with her dirty and starving baby girl, jumping at any sound, waiting to be called to God, you start to feel she might’ve been better off taking her chances with the heroin.

i'm an english major, but on my way to getting that degree i've taken a fair share of religious classes too. it fascinates to me learn about religion as someone who was once really good friends with it, and now feels sorta at odds with it at all times. one of the classes i most enjoyed taking posited the idea that religion, along with all things, is a complex organization, neither completely good or completely bad as a whole. we had an entire unit on the benefits of organized religion -- how it offered a sense family, and a sense belonging to immigrants when they came to america; how it played into the civil rights movement; how it put women in novel positions of power (allowing them to organize events before they were allowed their own bank accounts). other classes i took, like latin american history and native american literature, showed the ways that religion allows for preservation of native cultures, even as they are being threatened. catholicism in mexico is saint-heavy and the religious holidays align with indigenous ones, because the indigenous people refused to commit to a religion that resembled nothing they understood to be true. the catholic priests had to adapt and now mexican catholicism is a blend of what was and what came to be. in america, there's so many different strands of catholicism, each a little different, because people who came from ireland and people who came from italy both needed something different, something wholly familiar.

what i'm trying to get at, and what you probably already know is: religion can be great. it can be visions of rivers and pearls - a delicate salve, as you put it - but it can also be horrid, desperate, needy. the rapture does a good job at representing this, and its probably why i like it so much. i haven't honestly sat down and collected all my thoughts on this film before today. i watched it late one night and have continued to be haunted by it, but until reading your essay i never really pinpointed why it has followed me like it has. i think the paragraph before your concluding one offers me up an explanation:

In the end, having given up her daughter out of hope in God, it’s that very loss that breaks the faith that Sharon has filled her emptiness with. Tolkin could have grounded his theme in Sharon’s theological accuracy, and told a story about a woman who was resolute in her convictions, and rewarded with being correct. Instead, he leaves the audience with something much more resonant, and cruel: what if you were right, and it didn’t matter?

what if you were right, and it didn't matter? i think this is a fear that follows both those who follow the church of god and those who subscribe to nothing at all, and maybe that's why its such a terrible gut punch. what happens when do everything you were meant to do, and you come to the other side and find it all doesn't matter? its a terrible, daunting notion that has been stuck in my throat until today, when i read this.

thank you so much for sitting down and writing this essay, and also for taking the time to send it to me. it was a delight to read and i'm so happy to find someone else who enjoys this movie as much as a i do.

kybow headcanons because i miss them

LOTS of forehead kisses

both of them are pretty touch-starved, especially kyle

they both have pet names for each other

what bow calls kyle: sweetheart, my love, koala

what kyle calls bow: bowbear, my prince

bow writes love letters to kyle and would send them by attaching them to his arrows and shooting them at a tree near the horde

they would secretly meet up in the whispering woods to see each other and be gay

bow would love and compliment kyle so much to the point kyle starts sobbing

not because he's sad; kyle never got this much love and attention when he was living at the horde

bow would panic, thinking he did something wrong

bow felt terrible when he left kyle at the horde, so he went on a solo mission to bring him to the rebellion

kyle appreciated and felt touched when he came back for him

bonus: orrr kyle was still salty and hurt that he thought bow cared for him when he didn't so bow had to earn his trust back

bow cooks for both of them

kyle tries to cook but fails miserably, but bow would still eat what he cooks despite it tasting bad

kyle has a lot of interests (reptiles, book series, etc.) so bow is always happy to listen to kyle infodump on him

cuddles!!!!!!!

bow does all the loving but kyle would dedicate whole entire days or weeks to smothering bow in the love and affection he deserves

kyle was very nervous to meet bow's dads but in reality, he had nothing to worry about because they both immediately love kyle

lance definitely showed kyle bow's baby pictures

they can be pretty cheesy but it's okay <3

bow and kyle were in a secret relationship till glimmer and adora found out about them after the both of them were searching for bow when he had sneaked out from a mission they were on

adora was extremely happy and supportive of the both of them while glimmer didn't trust kyle

she believed that kyle was getting information from bow + he was from the horde

adora defended kyle because she has known him her whole entire life and he wouldn't harm a fly

add the fact that adora was from the horde as well and they accepted her

glimmer does eventually warms up to kyle and approves of him

lonnie has known about them for a good while because it's pretty obvious and she's seen kyle sneak out a couple of times

she doesn't really care but she is glad that kyle is happy and promises not to tell anyone else in the horde, especially catra

bow and kyle have matching necklaces, bracelets, or just something!!!!

oooo could I please request "Soulmate AU" + "Character in Peril" for...your choice of ship! <3

oh this is the webster/webster letter writing AU for sure.

a quick catch up for everyone who isn't shosh: georgie writes for the radcliffe review and publishes an open letter to the men of harvard calling them to burn their draft cards/refuse fight in the vietnam war, and she gets a letter to be published from one david webster, a harvard man, basically pushing against all of her arguments. they write back and forth, all of their dialogues getting published in the review.

adding the soulmate AU and characters in peril on top... i'm thinking a world in which you can feel your soulmate's pain and get bruises/scars from their wounds.

georgie's a smart girl, so it doesn't take her long to figure out her soul mate is a writer... at least, she hopes so. she's deducing from the callus that formed on her middle finger, the constant stinging slices of what have to be paper cuts, and the bruises they pass back and forth from jamming their fingers on their typewriters. (her soul mate also has a typewriter? match made in heaven.)

the morning of her 21st birthday, she wakes up sorer than she's ever been in her entire life. everything hurts; she feels like she got hit by a car. as she stretches in front of her mirror, she catches a weird yellow tint on her side and pulls her shirt up to expose a bruise that runs from her right hip to her shoulder blade. and her heart stops.

she honestly hadn't given her soul mate that much thought at this point in her life. some people take out personal ads, some people get specific injuries in order to compare them to others, some people lightly scratch names and addresses into their skin to get the whole thing over with. she'd never felt the need to do that--she was at a good place in life, at a good school, doing good work--and apparently, neither did her soul mate. she'd always assumed she'd find them when she'd find them and not think about it until then.

but a bruise that covered her entire side, aches that made it hard for her to walk down the stairs... what was going on?

it gets continues. a burst of pain from her ankle while walking across the radcliffe review offices caused her to fall and hit her head on a desk, probably giving her soul mate a rough go of it wherever they were. a rip of searing pain across her spine made her cry out during a lecture, embarrassing, then terrifying when she saw the strip of skin that had been ripped diagonally across her back. her right thumb was almost consistently bruised, and the pain from it getting jammed against something faded into a part of her life.

it wasn't until david writes, describing a common thumb injury that soldiers have from getting their hands jammed in their rifles, that it clicks. bootcamp injuries--falling from a climbing wall, a sprained ankle on a run, an ammo belt getting caught while climbing a fence and peeling the skin off your back.

she held david's letter, shaking, then threw up in her bathroom.

she wakes up in the middle of the night, blinding white pain behind her eyes, ringing in her ears, and figures it's from being too close to an explosion. her achilles tendons are rubbed raw from boots that don't fit. she tries to keep up with the fighting obsessively for a fortnight before she realizes it's futile to try to pinpoint where her soul mate could be. there are hundreds of thousands of men over there, from multiple countries, too.

the best she can do is hope that he's okay. petition for peace. protest. fight for them to come home.

the skin on her forearms is red and irritated all the time, hot to touch and peeling, and when david writes about the sun burn soldiers get from holding their rifles out in front of them while they walk, georgie thinks maybe.

he's a writer, he told her about the time he cut his foot on a rock while swimming in cape cod--and she has a scar running along the bottom of her right foot, he went through boot camp, he's in vietnam now. maybe.

she runs to the bathroom and throws up, again.

she wakes in the middle of the night screaming with a white hot pain burning under her ribs on her back. a week later, one of david's letters says he caught shrapnel in the back in the a shau valley, and she was becoming quite acquainted with her toilet.

she doesn't tell him because she can't. part of her has too much pride; she published all of their letters, and she didn't want to get that vulnerable in front of all of their readers. it would be a conflict of interest as well, attempting to engage with good faith in intellectual debates on war and government with her soul mate.

she loses sleep, can barely eat, and thank god school's out for the summer because her grades would've undoubtedly slipped. she's worried all the time, grateful when she's not in pain but always worried about when the next hit will come.

she'd come to care about david, before concluding that they were soul mates. she loved writing to him, hearing his thoughts, talking with him despite some of his infuriating ideas about justice and war. she loved when they debated, when his arguments were hard to pick apart or when he came at her from an angle she wasn't expecting. she loved hearing about his life, their parallel existences as new yorkers who moved to boston. she loved sending him books and getting them back with his hastily scrawled annotations and thoughts. (those didn't make the letters. that was just for them.)

she's walking through the radcliffe review offices one morning, on her third cup of coffee at 7 am because an explosive headache woke her up at 3 and she knew she wouldn't fall asleep again, when it feels like someone took a two-by-four the back of her leg.

she saved the coffee, but the feeling was so disorienting that she had to sit on the wood floor for a moment before it dulled to an ache. she hobbled to her desk then to the bathroom to vomit, because she remembered an account from a marine that got published in one of the harvard magazines.

gunshot wounds don't sting, they don't burn... they feel like getting punched. it's a dull, bruising, ringing pain, like getting hit with a baseball bat.

he wasn't dead, she'd know if he was dead. but she leaves before anyone else gets to the office, and spends the day in nauseous hell, and the next day, and the week an a half after that before she gets a letter saying that david indeed had been shot, and that he was coming home.

bonus scene:

She's sprawled out on her bed in nearly nothing as his lips roam her skin, his hands finding where he wants to kiss next. I'm sorry, he says, brushing his mouth over a horizontal scar across her shin.

You never explained that one, she says.

He laughs. I don't remember it.

It's from bootcamp.

He laugh again and shakes his head. Still don't remember.

His big hands wind their way to her calf muscle, where two circular scars sit on either side of her leg. His lips press so gently, yet so warmly. I'm really sorry about this one.

Hey, she shrugs. It brought you home.