though the movie might be cancelled, yuri on ice will live forever in our hearts. thank you yoi fandom, it's been real ♡

I'm Losing You

Having a family isn't always as easy as fairy tales make it seem.

Law x Fem Reader

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read these warnings before reading this fic. Genuinely, I implore you. I started writing this fic on a whim a few weeks ago, when I was contemplating my own experiences with reproduction-related health conditions such as the one that will be addressed later on in this story (endometriosis). Reproductive education and health is something that I feel very strongly about, and I feel that topics such as pregnancy complications and loss aren't addressed enough in media for fear that they're too taboo or shocking. Which, to be fair, is true, at least for the shocking aspect. Pregnancy loss is difficult, traumatic, and life-changing, for better or for worse, truly dependent on the person and the world around them.

Now you might be wondering... why would you drag one piece into this? well, i don't know. i felt like it, perhaps. Law is a character who resonates very deeply to me, his character is emotionally complex and layered, and imagining him in a scenario like this one became very interesting to me. Combine that with everything i stated above and taddaa, you get this fic.

this story does and will eventually have a happy ending (a very happy ending!) however it will take a bit to get there. this is a multi-chapter fic that i'm moving from my ao3 to my new blog, and the same warnings there apply here.

if this fic doesn't seem like your cup of tea, i encourage you to check out some of my other fics on my blog. i have a few law/readers that are tooth-rottingly fluffy and much more feel good.

with all that out of the way, thank you for reading.

Chapter 1

[Next]

The air in the room was as stifling as a sauna from the stress and anxiety filling the air.  It was so silent, the tiles surrounding the small area blocking any and all noise from outside.  The door was closed, caging you in.

You were sitting on the toilet lid, your hands rapidly perspiring and your whole body shivering with nerves.  Across from you, your husband had his arms crossed, his head hung low, his heel bouncing off the floor.  The tension was unlike anything you had ever experienced, however this had unfortunately become the norm for the past six months.

On the side of the sink sat a long white stick.  Neither of you wanted to look at it.

“Do you think it’s ready now…?” you asked, inwardly cringing at how pathetic and weak your wobbly voice sounded.

Law picked his head up, his golden eyes creased in profound concern and worry.  “It should be.  Five minutes, right?”

“I think so,” you replied.  With a trembling hand, you grabbed the stick from the counter.  Law watched your every movement with a close eye.  With a deep breath, you flipped over the test and gazed at the result window.

A single red line.

After the last failed attempt, you made a joke that you didn’t have any more tears left in you to cry, but clearly that wasn’t the case as fat, salty tears rapidly welled in your eyes and flowed down your cheeks.  Law immediately knew what the result was the second your lips twitched downward.  His heart sank into his stomach, immediately stepping toward you, grabbing the test from your hand and blindly chucking it into the small garbage can in the corner.  He knelt on the floor in front of you to pull you into his chest.

“Damn it…” you whimpered.  Your body forced you to take a shuddering inhale before sobbing an anguished, “FUCK!!!!”

Law’s heart broke.  He didn’t even know what to say to comfort you anymore.  6 months of failed attempts at conceiving a very wanted baby had caused nothing but pain to both of you.  You had both been scientific about the process.  All birth control and protection was ceased, and the two of you were religiously tracking your cycle to make sure you would try during your ovulation window, but nothing but failure after failure showed up.

You thought you were broken.

Law thought he was broken.

You wept into his shoulder, your body shuddering with each pained sob that crawled from your sore throat.  Law’s hands were frozen around you, firmly gripping your back.  You couldn’t see the tears that were forming in the corners of his stern eyes, biting his lip and forcing every muscle in his face to prevent those tears from slipping downward.  The last thing you needed was to see him cry, but he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to hold it in.

“Law…” you whimpered into his shoulder.

Law stayed silent.

“I’m sorry–”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” he quickly retorted, cutting you off.  He felt you lurch in his arms.  “This isn’t your fault.  It’s not anyone’s fault… it’s…”

Now you stayed silent.

Law took his own shallow inhale.  “I… don’t know.”

For one of the only times in Law’s life, he was rendered completely incapable of speech.  Normally calm and analytical, looking for every possible solution or reason for an issue, he was now left completely helpless to the crashing waves of sheer dejection.  As your quivering body clung to him like a lifeline, his entire brain was scrambling for some sense, any logical thought, for the current predicament, but it was starting to become glaringly obvious to both of you.

It was very likely one of you was infertile.

When you finally picked your head up from his shoulder, Law’s previously broken heart fractured into even more irreparable pieces.

Your eyes were puffy, swollen and bloodshot from your tears.  Your entire face looked bloated from the force of your crying, and you were clearly flushed.  You looked, for lack of a better word, completely miserable.  Law helped you stand from the closed toilet seat, keeping your eyes away from the trash can where the negative pregnancy test lay on top of discarded tissues and makeup wipes, to guide you to your shared bedroom.  Neither of you had to say a word, you knew he was going to put you into your shared bed and let you get some much-deserved rest after the stressful eternity (10 minutes) you had just endured.  It was almost 8:00PM anyway, and regrettably, both of you still had work the following day.

You didn’t fight it when Law eased you down onto the mattress by your shoulders.  You kept your eyes pinned closed, not wanting to let your husband see any more of your beaten state.  You rolled over onto your side and hid in your pillows.  You didn’t hear Law mention that he would join you after cleaning up, and you didn’t notice the overhead light dimming.  You simply begged for sleep to take you quickly and painlessly.

When Law finally returned after washing his face, he gazed dejectedly at your weary form.  Finally asleep, fortunately, but your cheeks were glossy with fresh tears.  The man carefully crawled into bed behind you, carefully pulling your body into his.  He wished more than anything that he could make your pain go away.  He ran through the many years you had been together, and struggled to find a time where your sorrow was as profound as it was this evening.  His mind was constantly at war- his analytical, doctor side beginning to list specific reasons why this could be happening, and his sincere, passionate, loving husband side breaking apart reflecting over the sound of your sobs.

It could have been either of you.  But it also could’ve been both of you.  The thought was enough to finally force the tears in Law’s eyes to break free and travel down his cheeks.  Some of them plotted into your hair.

—

You awoke to the sound of whispering in your hallway outside the bedroom.  The blinds covering the window above the bed you shared with Law were pulled shut, but the sunlight still beamed through them leaving patterns on the walls and floor.  The side Law slept on was empty and freshly made.  No surprise, he left for work early in the morning after all.  You slowly sat up in bed, your head pounding.  The events of the previous evening came rushing back to you, but you felt nothing but an empty melancholy, a dark fog that hung over your brain and clouded your vision.

The door to your bedroom slowly opened.  You looked up just in time to see a very large, very fluffy cloud with four legs and two beady eyes come sprinting into your room.  Its feet ripped across the carpeted floor as It hopped on your bed with a loud huff, immediately snuggling on top of your duvet and leaning into your body for some much needed cuddles.

You mustered a weary laugh, your hands instinctively moving to the back of the dog’s neck to rub his fluffy cheeks from behind, eliciting happy grunts from the large animal.  He had his tongue out, a tiny pink blep among the sea of rich white fur.

“Bepo,” you sighed.  “You know Law doesn’t like it when you get on the bed.”

“He missed you!” called a voice from the hallway.  Spiky red hair appeared in the doorway.  “So did we, actually.  I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

Shachi had, actually, woken you up, but you didn’t need to tell him that.  “No, not at all.”  You shook your head.  Bepo’s tail was wagging in your face, causing you to sputter out small strands of loose fur from your mouth.  The red-head entered your bedroom, leaving the door open.  The smell of French toast instantly wafted into the space, making your mouth water and your eyes widen.  “Is Penguin cooking?”

“Yee-up,” Shachi replied, popping his lips to enunciate the word.  “Law invited us over, if you couldn’t tell.”  He flashed a smirk.  “You got the day off, by the way.”

Your eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.  “What?”

“Law called in sick for you,” the man confirmed.

You frantically reached for the night stand and grabbed your phone, tapping the screen to illuminate it.  It was almost 10:00AM, and sure enough, your alarm had been turned off.  Three texts from Law sat waiting on your screen, as well as two texts from your coworkers.

Baby~~<3

Sorry, I broke into your phone to turn your alarm off.  You get to sleep in today, I called you out sick.  I didn’t tell them anything, just that you weren’t feeling good.

Baby~~<3

Shachi and Penguin might be there when you wake up.  I did tell them a little about what happened, just so they know to give you space if you need it.

Baby~~<3

Call me if you need anything at all, I love you.

Ika-chan

I heard you called in sick today!!!  I hope you’re alright, let me know if you need anything!

Nami Swan

How r u feeling?  If u caut the flu u can blame Usopp :P

You smiled, your heart beating in your chest.  “You guys are too much sometimes.”

Shachi proudly rested his clenched fist over his sternum as a display of pride.  “Nothing is ever enough for your best friend!”  The sight made you chuckle.  

You were caught off guard by Penguin entering with a much larger platter of food than you ever expected.  He excitedly approached your bedside with a wide grin, marveling at his own work.  A bowl of mixed fruits, a plate of French toast drizzled with maple syrup and dollopped with a swirl of whipped cream, a small portion of sausage on the side, and a single unopened bottle of apple juice.  You graciously accepted the spread, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t completely befuddled.

“You guys know I’m not actually sick, right?” you asked, glancing at your husband’s best friends with concern.  You shooed Bepo away from getting too close to the sausage.

“We know,” Penguin clarified.  “We can treat you to a nice breakfast even when you’re not sick, though!”

You smiled, forcing down the lump that formed in your throat.  “Thank you guys, I really don��t know what I’d do without you.”

“I know what you’d do,” Shachi stated.  “You’d eat your breakfast and savor every bite!”  He stood up from your bed and clapped his hands twice, beckoning Bepo off of the bed and over to his side.  “We’ll take Bepo for a walk around the neighborhood!  Take some time for yourself!”  The two men left with your dog in tow, leaving you to stare in awe at the spread of food.

Your mind was reeling.  Law’s text informed you that he had given his two friends a brief summary of what had happened, but you didn’t really mind.  If anything, it brought you some comfort to know that you and your husband’s two closest friends understood the predicament you were currently in and were more than willing to go out of their way to support you.  You also couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Law calling you out sick for the day, putting your passcode into your phone to turn off your alarm, and making sure his friends would be there for you when you woke up.  You were beyond grateful for such an incredible support system, but just to be on the safe side…

You grabbed your phone once more, opening your text messages with Law.

Good morning baby, thank you for calling me out.  Im feeling a bit better, Shachi and Penguin made me breakfast.  I hope you didnt give them too much grief ;3; Take care of yourself today, I’ll see you when you get home.  I love you!!! <333

With your breakfast completed, you slowly trudged to the bathroom to take a relaxing shower.  The sight of your negative pregnancy test filled you with nausea, but you pushed past the feeling and turned on the water.

I felt that post of yours about the Dracula fandom and the way it talks about adaptations tbh, like, I'm someone who was very involved in DD last year and I've written critique myself about Dracula adaptations bc I love comparative analysis and really thinking about the choices adaptations make, for good or for ill, but from my personal experience, a lot of fandom commentary on adaptations isn't really thoughtful analysis, and don't get me wrong, I'm a hater sometimes too and enjoying venting, but I noticed that this year, there were so many posts that started out as thoughtful commentary on the book, then launched into bitching about the evils of adaptations out of nowhere, and people can write what they want, but it got tiring after awhile to be in a fandom with so much angry energy, not to mention the divergence in canon vs fanon that was much starker this year that made me feel like I had read a different book.

Also, every time I see people point at re: Dracula to be like, see, it's so easy to do a perfect 1:1 adaptation of the novel, why can't other adaptations do it?, it's like, it's an audiobook, a movie can't be that long, even a television mini-series would have to make cuts. And I might dislike a lot of choices adaptations make, but creatives absolutely have the right to take a public domain work and put their own spin on things beyond book accuracy as the number one goal - and like, do we truly want a 100% accurate adaptation when the novel is still ultimately a xenophobic reverse invasion story? Like, I would hope modern directors would seriously grapple with those aspects of the original story instead of reproducing Victorian bigotry unquestioned.

Hi, thank you for your response! I'm glad that my post resonated with a few people!

I definitely also felt a shift in energy with this season of Dracula Daily, and I'm pretty sure it is a direct result of the phenomena that is Re: Dracula. Don't get me wrong, I am a HUGE supporter of RE: Dracula, and I found it to be absolutely delightful specifically because it was a 1:1 adaptation of the book, but I also think that it has skewed the way people engage with all the other adaptations of Dracula. You are so right when you say that Re: Dracula's media as audiobook is what allowed it to be so authentic. Even if it was a long-form series, there would have to be creative liberties taken to account for visualising certain aspects of the text. I am 100% sure someone would be able to do it, but it would undoubtedly be a labour of love and expense.

I think the biggest thing that got lost in translation in my post is that I was speaking specifically on the rhetoric of "bad adaptation = bad media." I don't even like to use the term "bad adaptation" because it feels inaccurate and gives the connotation of being holistically terrible; "failed adaptation" or "inauthentic adaptation" seems more apt when discussing how close an adaptation relates to the source material. I think it is unfair for any adaptation to be written off solely on the fact that it does not strictly adhere to the original text. This can be in way of narrative, characterization, theme, etc. I don't think it's fair to say "x adaptation is bad because it ignores x from the text" because that fundamentally dismisses all the other attributes that contribute to whether or not a piece of media is subjectively good (because honestly that's all it is-- subjectivity). Media, especially film and stage, has so many dynamic and moving parts. There are so many attributes that contribute to the success of any one given thing, especially adaptations (which can claim the title with even the loosest references to the source material). I feel like the black and white thinking when it comes to this doesn't really allow for a dialogue to exist between people who enjoy Dracula adaptations for what they are and, forgive me for saying this, book purists.

Understandably, there is criticism against some adaptations that have claimed to follow the source text closely, but very distinctly did not (Ahum, Cappola). However, I think it does everyone a disservice to deny the impact of a lot of these (mostly) films. Someone in the reblogs of my original post did a good breakdown of the origins of the Dracula genre itself, and I think it goes to show that the story of Dracula has a life of its own outside of the pages of Bram Stoker's book.

The most annoying thing about the responses to my initial post was the refusal to believe that anyone was making these comparisons. I really would not have gone out on a limb to rant about this if I hadn't been consistently seeing vent posts in the main tag with mostly negative responses to a lot of different adaptations of Dracula based on the authenticity of them to the text. I admit I was frustrated when I wrote it, but it really was meant to just address the black and white thinking re: failed adaptations making bad media. This is not to say that criticism of adaptations isn't valid, but I think there should be more nuance to this conversation and that's what I wasn't seeing. It's not fun to dive into the broad Dracula tag and find post after post shitting on your favourite media because it isn't like the book.

Sorry this was a bit long! I am just really passionate about Dracula okay!! And I really really really like all the shitty little shows and movies and plays and comics and all other media that comes out of his name (because YES, a lot of adaptations really make vampire synonymous with Dracula and ROLL WITH IT). Vampires are really neat and the Dracula genre of film has been a huge influence on horror media. I think there is a lot to be said when analysing adaptations, but none of it can come from blanket statements against them.

@spider-xan

Dear listener, this will be my final musical post of this year and you know I’m gonna end it on an eternal banger. Godspeed to ALL my followers on Tumblr, happy holidays! Let’s have a great, and positive 24'. Fret thee not, I will be back with more tuneskis next year. That said, I’ve been commenting on classical music for the end of 23'. If you’re just joining me on my page I alluded to Bach and Vivaldi in previous weeks… along with a generous peppering of pejorative comments when I was describing myself listening to modern radio. Modern radio was the REASON I started listening to classical music again this year. Why? Because radio BLOWS. Actually, the programming blows and modern music SUCKS. Classical music on the other hand, for all its technological limitations and despite its clear crow’s feet, is at least quality music. Timeless even! So, for Christmas this year, let’s focus on the excellence of execution for music in the 1800’s, Johannes Brahms. Inventor of great individual and collectivized musical works, and the final exhibition in my three-part 23' classical showpiece. At the end of 24', join me for the likes of Mozart and Beethoven, but for now, smash play and enjoy the uniquely holiday and dream-time piece above. Recognize it? Thought you might, dear listener. For those of you who stay and read my little commentaries on these musical posts I really appreciate it. When you read them, you’re spending time with me in a way. Thanks for your time!

For his time, the mid to late 1800’s in Europe, Johannes Brahms became the tip of the spear in Germanic symphonies and sonatas. Writing something like two hundred songs in his lifetime, he started off in his young teens as a naturally talented pianist and played in inns and brothels around the docks of Hamburg to help his family generate money. For such humble beginnings, he also began composing his own music and performing concerts with other notable musicians such as Eduard Reményi. Through further networking, Brahms became closely associated with other virtuosos and composers like Joseph Joachim and Robert Schumann. Schumann helped boost Brahms’ career when his compositions were featured in a media periodical called Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Now, I’m not gonna lie, this guy is not my favoite composer and if I’m being 100% honest, I think his symphonies are a little boring. A lot of it is just too lite and plodding for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, the man was a God among normal humans, but when it comes to personal taste, I prefer orchestral symphonies by the likes of Bach and Vivaldi. However, where I think Brahms’ truly excelled was in his original solo piano works, as he was truly a master of vastly intricate mechanisms and capable of very technical applications with music. He invented harmonies with an almost entirely different kind of emotional resonance than other contemporary classical artists; often using instruments to create a warm and introspective noise rather than a lot of the LOUD AND GALIVANTING classical music that you can find a lot of in the 1700’s. In the 1800’s, the tail end of the Romantic period, concerts and festival overtures were the Taylor Swift venues of the time, and the music of Brahms sold BIG in an international way. He also held the Masters of Composition that came before him in high regard, attempting to cling hard and fast to the idea of ‘absolute music’ (the idea being that music should carry no specific or primary meaning) like composers before him. This conservative view of music put him at odds with composers like Wagner, who wrote program music (introducing literary ideas, a subjective drama, an actual scene, etc). Brahms never married but had a few flings. He was known as being prickly and reserved with adults, but kind-hearted and warm around children. He also died of liver carcinoma in Vienna in the late 1800’s after nearly three decades serving as a musical director, principal conductor, educator and perhaps one of the most influential European composers of all-time.

I should also be diligent and let you know that his most concentrated and vital works came along after he began visiting Vienna around the 1860’s. His mother passed in 1865, and he afterward created German Requiem, which is widely considered to be a mass for the living. His works such as Hungarian Dances, Violin Concerto, Wiegenlied (also known as Lullaby or the Cradle Song), and his Piano Quintet were all generated in his later years from 1860 to 1885 or so, gimme a break folks I’m not a historian. It’s all about subtle movements with Brahms, or just his harmonic movement in general. On Christmas this year, or every year, consider coming back to this post and clicking on the Best of Brahms. Spend time and mend with family folks! One more musical post and then I need a long break. Enjoy! Image source: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/best-looking-composers-musicians/johannes-brahms/

Hi Vivienne, I subscribed to your content a while back and its changed my life! However, reading and contemplating this information is one thing. Practically applying it consistently? That's a whole different story.

I realised I've been passively consuming your writing and other likeminded creators, spiritual texts etc. As a crutch to delude myself into believing I was changing, and to stroke my spiritual ego. Reading the works of the few individuals that speak the truth about the nature of this reality is like using crack to me lol. It feels exhilarating, electric and almost illegal to read.

I'm gradually implementing meditation, prayer and service to others in my daily life, though my mind naturally gravitates towards distractions in the material world and media. There is a constant fight between my higher self and my ego and lust consciousness. I know it's not easy because if it was everyone would do it, but this hardship leads me to believe deep down I'm just not willing or ready to dissolve the ego yet, or until I'm faced with enough Karma and suffering.

I would love to know more about the 'Coldest Winter of Egotism' and if there is an aspect of divine timing in regards to self realisation.

Thanks for all that you do <3

Hello Celest,

The fact that you're reading means you're looking for something - once you have found that something you resonate with you will act or store the information for the next lifetime :) lol. Most people enjoy having passive consumers; if people improve, that means they're going to level up and leave the content creator behind. Same thing with therapists and doctors who string along their patients with decades of sessions and prescription pills so they have a cheque. The answer is simple and it's God, but people truly believe it's has to be something more complicated because they want to try everything else out first which is how we got into this mess in the first place. There is no philosophy that will help anybody but living in the Present Moment.

You can get all the information you require from God once you start meditating. The internet, as well as every other piece of technology will seem archaic as its the consciousness of the masses that makes the internet valuable and right now there's very few people to place your attention on if one actually wants Truth. There will be a day when you're done with reading intellectual takes and you'r ready to start living. Living in reality and realizing that the world is already the best movie with the greatest storylines will push you to become the lead actress instead of the egoic filler character who remains passive all her life. I naturally lost interest in the falsehoods within reality and started putting all my effort in the Game of Life which is levelling up spiritually. I'm trying to see how good I can get at my role and if I can successfully complete The Game within this lifetime.

It's difficult to remain ego-driven when I compromised and allowed some egoism to please society, but it still wasn't enough for the ignorant to let me live in peace, so I'm demolishing their treasured egos.

⚬ "A constant fight between my higher self and my ego and lust consciousness"

One thing about people working towards sainthood is that since childhood, they had no interest in the material world, due to their experiencing this Drama countless times before. To start your meditation and prayers right now, regardless of what you think they will yield, will pay off in future lifetimes.

Life is only a zero-sum game for those who waste it on materialism, but for the selfless, it's increasing bliss and an optimism that has no physical source, but rather stems from the love of God built over lifetimes prior.

Since you have found my blog I'd say you were on this path before in some manner, as it has been retained in your soul's memory which is why it feels good for you to read. That's your Soul giving you the green light to burn up your karma by remaining on this path. Do your best, but when you are finally free from egoism and ready to take action, you will be able to overturn every stone on earth to embody Truth, and nothing will be able to stop you.

⚬ Coldest Winter of Egotism

The coldest winter is when it hits you that you have never experienced true love and can never love which is the lowest depths of egotism. Many people experience this and call it depression and believe there is no point in living if they cannot love. However, they do not know that it is because they do not love God.

Notice how former drug addicts are more calm once they're saved through Jesus Christ, and they just love life? Just a sunflower seed of knowing God implants lifelong happiness in an individual. For those people during this lifetime, it's enough to have those beliefs. If they were chaste, meditated, and loved God so much that they worked to unite with God, hence becoming God through meditation, the God-Ego would be created as I explained in another post. The God-Ego is one that decimates evil, and if more people obtained God-Consciousness, the world would become the utopia everybody claims they want, which would be the most pleasant summer day.

Thank you for reading. ❤︎

I was putting off making a very emotional and personal post about what happened with Ned Fulmer and the Try Guys. It has already been almost a month when everything was revealed and I was at work when I read about it which set me off so much that I hated going to work for the rest of the week. I went spiralling and when that came out, a week or so later, I find out about Rex Orange County. The continuous cycle of being broken because of people I looked up to turning out to be horrible people absolutely wrecks me to my very core.

Ned. As much as it is embarrassing to admit now, you were my favorite try guy among the four. I loved you all equally but you were my star. I talked about this to my friends already but it's actually because of your "My wife" personality. Having watched Friends, Modern Family, Brooklyn 99 - I have always wished to find my own version of Chandler, Phil, or Jake - the My Wife Husbands. Witnessing you from Buzzfeed to having your own company made me so happy to have proven that there were real life Chandlers, Phils, and Jakes - the example of you. Ariel is such an amazing wife and mother as well that I, myself aspired so much to be like her. Chandler lacks sometimes as well, Phil has his shortcomings, and Jake can also be unreliable at times; you have your own issues: the competitiveness, the anger problems, and the overall being a cocky person in the vlogs. But you all had one thing in common - you loved your wives so much and would do anything for them. So was I absolutely blindsided by this? I am. I was, absolutely. People saying that they saw this from a mile away breaks me so much because am I stupid? Was I oblivious? Was I trusting blindly about people who I don't know? But on the flipside, were people just waiting for their downfall? Were they selfishly hoping that he would fail and be proven correct? Was it that they wanted this to happen? I'm so tired of this back and forth. Ia was rooting for them as a collective because (up until the issue) they were some of the few men in media which felt completely safe to be around. They were the ally, the feminists, the healthy masculinity group of men that spoke so much about all the issues we face everyday and do it unapologetically so. I am still in shambles about this because I never saw it coming. I hate the outcome more because most of the past employees riding in on that virality of the situation pisses me off. This is real life and as much as we hate Ned so much, other people are affected. Ariel, the other guys, the kids are real people whose lives are probably in pieces after the news. And what I see from twitter are people trying to make a buck with it? I'm glad the entirety of The Watcher, Safiya, or even Adam as well were not trying to join in. While I enjoyed funny tweets as well, people who were actually tweeting about it to come back to relevancy was just pure disgusting. I gotta let this all out because I'm dying over here.

Rex. Never have I wanted to strangle someone so much through a screen. Fuck you, man. I genuinely have no words for you. Six counts? Six fucking counts? It's not even disappointment for you but just pure anger. You created so much songs that so many people resonated with only to fucking reveal yourself as someone who assaults? Fuck you, truly.

I've had enough of shit ton of people being the most lovable bunch of personas in the internet and ending up being shitty people. I fail to understand the audacity and the fucking guts to be disgusting creatures.

Read this post earlier today, and had a particular feeling about one bit:

Buffy fans are so fucking smart, y'all. They could combine academic rigor with unselfconscious fangirl squee. Squee was a hermeneutical method, a mode of interrogating the text--one we often dismiss and diminish, because if there's anything grosser than teenage girls getting goopy over a vampire they like, it's 30 or 50 or 70-year-old women getting goopy over a vampire they like. But it's similar to what I've seen called a "redemptive reading". You approach a piece of media specifically looking for its best parts, the pieces you love the best, and you allow yourself to fully embody the joy of liking something and caroling your joy to other people who like it too. In a perpetually burned-out time, squee can be like a desert oasis.

That really connected with my thoughts on how I’ve been watching and re-reading Ranma 1/2 lately. (Shout out to my girlfriend and enbyfriend for their part in this process, btw.)

Like - I’ve been diving into this text with full knowledge of the many, many problems in it. I basically left my manga collection incomplete and might have sold all my DVDs a few years ago out of frustration with how it...well, just gonna quote Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions, “regrettably, aged very weird, not surprising considering the entire premise.” (Red also had some really interesting comments on how it’s loved nostalgically by the demographics that the series is most offensive toward...myself included, let’s be real.) The Tsubasa Kurenai arc/episode is enough to justify a reading of Ranma 1/2 as a relic that’s just going to be deeply uncomfortable to revisit.

But...there’s value in a “redemptive reading.” There’s value, I think, in giving it another look, and seeing what was actually good, what I took with me from this text, what it had to say that was interesting and original. There’s also value in seeing how it was transgressive for its time period, and how a show made for a Japanese audience was an absolute sledgehammer of fresh ideas for an American audience when it was given one of the first truly good dub/sub releases stateside. 

And honestly, cataloguing the most interesting parts of the series, the things that still resonate and work and spark my imagination and enthusiasm? Those are the most interesting parts of it. I can see all the bad, and I would exhaustively catalogue it for anyone who felt they needed me to. But y’know...reading and watching can also be the active process of finding what’s good, because that is in itself a way to enjoy the whole process.

         𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘.

hello there, my lovely readers! today, i wanted to do something special & beautiful for my second reading. today we are exploring your main character story, featuring its genre, similar pieces of media that remind me of you & possible quotes or catchphrases that’d be featured.  i spent two hours on the graphics alone & a few more organizing and doing this spread, so it would mean the world to me if you could give a little feedback or simply reblog  & like! i am planning on booking personal readings very soon, please stay on the lookout if you are interested! ♡

𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔. do not choose more than two piles. a lot of the time, the energies are very contrasting. please follow your intuition & choose the pile that ignites a deep feeling or reminds you of yourself. stay grounded in the present moment while choosing your pile and do not fret if you can’t or if it doesn’t resonate! you can always come back to it later.

amourdivine.  ©  do not copy, redistribute or edit my content.

𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒.

cards: eight of swords, eight of wands, the fool, two of pentacles & knight of pentacles.

hello, pile one, my inspiring heroes and heroines. i think your main character story is a classic take on your self-empowering journey and freeing yourself / others from their limitations, their struggles and fears. i think you might have come from this eight of swords energy, feeling super trapped, controlled or restricted in your family or your life in general. i think in your main character story, you’d be the kind of character that goes on a journey to set themselves free. a little bit of tangled energy with the fool, since you’d probably want to go out in the world, explore, begin again and discover your own self. your main character story is to be such a curious spirit that much like this two of pentacles, you’d learn how to handle different types of problems and learn how to balance your time & energy. you’d become this natural, disciplined and resourceful knight of pentacles at the end: someone very hardworking and responsible. the knight of pentacles is persistent - he does not stop at minor inconveniences or the “boring”, “mundane” things. he takes his time, he works through everything because despite being slow moving, he knows he can get there. he knows where to put his time and energy, he knows how to get where he wants - and this is your main character story: the hero or heroine who’s found their path, themselves and has not been afraid to start all over again and work through their life to build a new one for themselves. some other scenes & movies that have given me this energy (apart from rapunzel’s journey in tangled) are disney’s brave, as well as disney’s moana, specifically the scene in which she leaves her island to travel and take action towards what will set her free. she is quite literally seen as a fool, but she’s not scared to learn new things and put herself through difficult paths to discover her truth. i’m getting disney movies, adventure and / or action movie that takes place in foreign lands or even fantasy worlds. in the end, you’d be able to bring more abundance for your community or family and to protect the people you love. i’m getting the latest jumanji movie vibes, as well as indiana jones and even tarzan, somehow?

your main character story would teach other people to stand in their power and truth, to be authentic and to start again despite all the expectations. it’d be a coming of age, inspiring piece of media that people would turn to when they felt controlled or restricted by their current circumstances. as a main character, you’d provide a lot of determination and prove that with effort and patience, people can slowly build a better future for themselves and not be confined by their problems and mental distress. you have such an unbeatable, unstoppable and beautiful spirit, pile one. truly the main character of your own life!

your quote: “some say our destiny is tied to the land, as much a part of us as we are of it. others say fate is woven together like a cloth, so that one's destiny intertwines with many others.” (brave)

𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐎: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍. 

cards: queen of cups, the lovers, strength, ten of pentacles, ace of cups.

pile two, can you please stop me from crying happy tears? i’m gonna need some tissues. your heart is so so big, pile two. i can feel you’d be the type of main character in a period drama or an adaptation of a classic novel like shakespeare’s romeo & juliet. except much more wholesome (lol). i think you’d be the type of main character people would instantly root for, kind of like sweetheart vibes. i think your main character story would involve making choices / sacrifices to find your happy place or even your person. i’m not sure why i’m getting such romantic vibes from this pile, so you’d probably share many of your scenes with a love interest. but don’t worry, pile two! you’d catch your readers / viewers’ attention thanks to your big heart and your loyalty. you’d probably be a little feisty, but always well-intentioned and pure at heart. your story would be not only about romantic love, but love for others, empathy, compassion and kindness (aw). perhaps the underlying message of your main character story is about the importance of relationships and the choices we make to nurture them. i’m feeling strong, classic disney prince / princess vibes, especially cinderella II where she teaches one of her step sisters about love whilst being on a journey to be with prince charming again. i’m feeling enchanted vibes as well when giselle falls into the real world and truly has to be strong to find her ace of cups.

your main character story would teach people to be kind and bold, to remain pure at heart and to nurture their loved ones, to share their goodness and abundance. i think it’d be a kind of comfort book / movie where everything sort of ends as a “happily ever after”, and whilst some people can find that unrealistic, a lot of others would feel fulfilled and heard by your story. i don’t think your story would have any villains, because even if it did, your radiance would outshine them and you’d probably be a fan favorite. i can see little kids, especially little girls looking up to you in a way and wanting to have that pure soul that you do. i am so sorry this pile has been a bit short, but to make it up to you, i’m giving you a song (don’t tell the other piles, okay?) that reminds me of your main character story: ever ever after by carrie underwood.

your quote: “have to tell you a secret that will see you through all the trials that life can offer. have courage and be kind.” (cinderella)

𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒.

cards: the fool, two of swords, five of swords, wheel of fortune, king of pentacles.

pile three, your main character story would be one of battle, of conflict and even possibly war. it could be a literal war towards your way to the top or a battle against your fate. you would ultimately fall into this king of pentacles energy, but not without some losses, even with the wheel of fortune: turning both against and in your favor. you could possibly be a prince / princess or a knight entering a war not knowing anything about the possible outcome, possibly without a strategy or without putting much thought into it and eventually facing many losses. i’m hearing bad blood by bastille. i think you’d be the type of main character that goes through a lot of anguish and battles to conquer your king of pentacles energy. you’d be successful in the end - but not without a cost. the wheel of fortune speaks of karma and everything that goes around comes back around. you’d be in a fighter mode throughout your story, but i think in the end you’d come to a higher position, like a literal queen or king, or someone with wealth and authority that has fought their way to the top - almost literally. i’m getting a little bit of war / period drama stories here, but unlike piles two and one, i think you’d face many adversaries and even a major villain or boss of some sorts. i’m also feeling like you could be a video game main character, for some reason? i’m getting a bit of chris redfield, leon kennedy vibes from resident evil, but also some underlying game of thrones energy. you’d make many enemies and also lose many battles along the way, but you’d conquer material wealth and power. i think you’d be highly looked up to, but at the end of your story, only you would know of the price you’ve paid to reach the energy. from the fool to the king of pentacles is a long, long journey, and there might even be some bittersweet memories or nostalgia at the end. maybe after losing so many battles, you’d end up where you wanted in a twist of fate, but your wisdom was not given to you magically. everything would have a price and you’d know this by the end of your story. 

your main character story would remind people of the sacrifices needed to be made in order to be successful, but i’m getting this feeling of “is it worth it?” because somehow, i keep picturing a very powerful king or queen sitting in their throne, very wealthy, powerful and leader-like, but also a bit lonely and materialistic. you’d be a great ruler, but you know what they say - heavy is the head that wears the crown. however, you’d be assertive and much more confident, much more self-disciplined and powerful than ever before. i’m feeling many people would write essays or even their own reviews about your story, maybe they’d look back at your character development / progression in awe of the depth and the richness of your soul. while the previous piles were less complex, i think your main character story could possibly be a war movie based on real life events. i’m getting heavy saturn and pluto energy, very developed and very wise.

your quote: “by three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” (confucius)

𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐓.

cards: page of swords, three of cups, the hierophant, eight of cups, queen of swords.

maleficent, is that you? i’m just kidding! however, i’m getting heavy villain energy from your pile. but don’t worry, for you’d be the main character and the villain. you might have been drawn to piles one and three as well, since this pile feels like a bit of a villain arc version of them. however in a much darker way, but not necessarily less interesting or worthy of being told. i think your main character story would speak of your innocent and enthusiastic page of swords energy turning into a more ruthless or possibly coldhearted queen of swords. she’s the most masculine of all the queens, but she embodies honesty, rationality and self-reliability. however, what makes it interesting is that you’d still have a lot of compassion within, hidden under your layers of coldness and even logic, i think your story would be very similar to maleficent’s, on how you might have abandoned everything, even your faith and old traditions with the hierophant to become powerful on your own. i feel that you’d start off in a very warm but naive energy and be pushed towards your eight of cups after realizing you don’t want to conform - or maybe you can’t conform any longer. your ascension to the top would not be the end goal, but the climax of your story: how you’d abandon a trusted place or even a position that’s highly looked up to (such as a priestess or priest) and end up in your own queen of swords energy, embodying your wisdom, your power and truth. perhaps after trying to fit in so much, you could feel burnt out from the expectations, the traditions and the beliefs you’ve been fed, so you’d come to terms with the truth inside you - and that truth might not have been as easy to swallow as you expected. you wouldn’t want flattery or lying, and that could even make you seem emotionless on the surface, but much like maleficent and other villains of descendant, you could have developed a sense of mistrust from old beliefs, even the church. perhaps you’d be the main character who leaves the church behind and abandons tradition or the status quo to embody power, truth and clarity. you could even become a bit of an outcast within your community then. i’m not sure why i have this energy, so i decided to pull three more cards (please don’t tell the other piles!) to clarify your story and i pulled the five of swords, the tower and the high priestess, so that explains why i was getting a bit of this “destroy the old” with the tower here. with the five of swords, i think you may have lost a conflict or a battle after becoming the hierophant and everything would be destroyed. what’s interesting is that you’d get in touch with the divine and the duality of life. you might even become a witch or a psychic in your story, but with the queen of swords, i think people would be a bit intimidated by your ability to see things clearly and even fear you.

your main character story would be one of self-empowerment and even redemption, such as in maleficent’s case. i don’t think you’d actually be a villain per se, but more so someone who’s misunderstood or even outcasted by your community, as i said. i’m hearing “mad woman” by taylor swift, so maybe you resonate with it. but on the inside, you’d discover how rich and beautiful your inner world is - and how you don’t need outside validation or to conform to your old beliefs to be happy. i just noticed your card is the hermit, so you could also be in a hermit mode for the majority of your story. i think people would love your depth and deeply relate to your story. kind of like people love loki, even if he was the villain for a very long time? your story would teach people to get in touch with themselves instead of sticking to what’s old and acceptable.

your quote: “it was easier to tell a hero from villain when the stakes were only life or death. everything in between gets harder.” (the raven king)

amourdivine.  ©  do not copy, redistribute or edit my content.

the paradox of emily prentiss’ audience perception and character design

some of y’all about to be real mad at me, but it must be said:

emily prentiss’ character design makes no sense: my personal opinion + an objective analysis

i think it can be challenging to separate the versions of characters we have in our little brains from actual canon content, but doing so is important for understanding what those characters are truly like, especially within the context of their environment and in contrast to others around them. plus developing a deeper understanding of the media we consume is super fun and interesting! with that being said: emily prentiss should not work for the fbi and here’s why (in three parts regarding who’s responsible: cbs, paget, and fans) (sit down and grab a snack i promise this is over 3k words)

quick disclaimer: i don’t dislike emily at all! that’s my girl, i just looked closer and realized some funky things the writers did and felt the need to analyze her of course: so let’s get into it

part one: what cbs did

cbs set the stage for emily’s introduction on the heels of the departure of lola glaudini as elle greenaway! lola has clarified that she decided to leave the show because filming in los angeles was not the best environment for her personally, and after one successful season on a major network (but not much established long term plot or drama beyond elle’s departure as a character) a consistent ensemble cast was required- particularly because the bau had been criticized for being predominantly male in the first few episodes of the show and not much development was given to penelope or jj yet. enter emily prentiss.

for the duration of seasons 2-3ish, emily was framed as a chip off the block that was elle greenaway, just slightly…richer? in her first few episodes emily was hesitantly polite but ambitious, clean cut, intellectually concise and held her own within the team. she seemed equal parts intimidated and frustrated by her male superiors (gideon, hotch) but certainly proves herself among other profilers. her childhood was explored only within reference to her strained relationship with her mother (which was only ever referenced once more after the fact) and we received a short overview of her educational and career history in her first few episodes. emily fit right into the hole elle had left, and didn’t have many major storylines yet.

seasons 4-6 brought a bit more development and depth to emily’s character! she begins dropping more snarky remarks, one liners, and socially deepening her relationships with the other team members. this seems more within the lines of elle’s design, but emily arguably took more time to grow into her place within the team. during the foyet arc she was vulnerable and supportive, and the doyle arc gave her some independence and agency she didn’t have previously. this era also solidified her appearance and persona as more edgy, which falls in line with general fanon perception of her character (especially when compared to jj or penelope). i can’t address this era or season 7 without mentioning that cbs was actively trying to remove paget from the cast, similar to how they did to aj cook as well. paget has spoken about this instance before, and i believe it slightly affected her portrayal of her character, and “lauren” was somewhat of a goodbye for both paget and emily (thus why she wished for mgg to direct since they were best friends).

season 7: in my opinion, one of the best seasons for emily. she was wisened and deeply wounded by her experiences with doyle, which was understandable of course. she returned to the team she loved and learned to appreciate life in a different way, remaining mature during this time period as well! though her departure was a bit less than graceful and sudden at the end of this season, it made sense compared to some other exits the team had seen.

now *sigh* all the rest.

paget as emily appears in two separate guest appearances (once in s9 and once in s11, and she is referenced offscreen as well) before permanently reprising her role as unit chief of the bau. these appearances were most likely to boost ratings and get the team back together (i.e. 200) or just to pepper in international cases (tribute). emily’s personality remains pretty consistent here, just more mature and comfortable in leadership positions (seeing as she is running an entire branch of an international law enforcement organization). then season 12 hit.

upon the departure of thomas gibson as hotch, cbs reached out to paget to see if she would be interested in fulfilling her role as emily within a longer term unit chief position. i’ll get into why this is wack in a few paragraphs, but the remainder of her time on the show is spent on a mature portrayal that seems very distant from her previous versions. emily is more authoritative, gives orders with ease, and has no qualms about leading a team of agents or even receiving promotion offers as director of the entire bureau.

thus concludes a general summary of the canon content cbs gave us as viewers. now let's talk about what they didn’t give us, regrettably

the primary aspect of emily’s design that comes to mind for many is her queer coding. though not much was to be expected from cbs, a prime time cable tv network, each of her relationships on the show (all with men) seemed oddly forced, and without much chemistry as compared to the SOs of other main characters. rumors of scrapped plotlines have floated around about what may have been, but the ultimate lack of acknowledgement of any queer characters in the main ensemble still leaves a feeling of disappointment to audiences, and leaves more to be desired as for how emily navigates social bonds.

part two (sidebar): what paget did

i think it could be agreed within audiences that paget brewster’s portrayal of emily made the role what it was! her dry witty delivery and emotional prowess combined with sitcom acting experience made her performance a mainstay for years. i think she did the best she could with a confusing and at times flat characterization, and brought the role to life.

paget also heavily contributes to fanon indirectly with her comments outside of the show (press, cameos, twitter etc). her general continued interest and fondness for the role post production affects fan perception, particularly in what she chooses to elevate and comment on. she and aj have both spoken about viewing jemily content, and paget and thomas have both also commented on hotchniss. most cast members feel free to comment on their characters in the appropriate timing, and seem open to discussing fanon ships and theories outside of canon!

part three: what fanon did

as we can tell from this fan space as well as the presence on insta, tik tok and twitter, fans LATCHED onto emily super quickly. she’s remained a favorite over the years, and this fan persistence is what brought her back so many times after leaving (so many times). in my opinion, queer coding and a bolder female trope (in contrast to her female counterparts) are the main pulls because they resonated with so many fans- new and old. with that being said, newer fans of the show in the past year in particular have been heavily influential in fanon, solely because of the large influx of fan content and popularity of it.

fan content began to take coding and bite size moments and snippets from the show as canon, and cemented it into much of the content and discourse they created. these small pieces of emily’s character are significant, but have become magnified by how easily they are to share and edit. for example, a collection of catchy one liners from emily over the seasons makes for a great video edit intro, or gifset! there’s absolutely no problem with this content, it just all combines to create a certain fanon perception no character escapes (this isn’t a phenomenon limited to emily or the cm fandom!)

these droves of content also solidified emily’s personality as much more defined, but at the same time, simplified it in a way that’s slightly harder to explain.

fanon: more emo/goth than canon basis

fanon: more introverted/anti social than canon basis

fanon: more violent/chaotic when canon emily is relatively well mannered and doesn’t start many conflicts (particularly in the workspace)

fanon: much less maternal when canon emily displays desire on multiple occasions (even crossing professional borders) for children, particularly teenage girls (possibly projection)

(again, nothing wrong with this interpretation at all and it still varies! This is just a generalization based on most of the popular content i have seen)

part 4: why it doesn’t work

let me start with this: emily prentiss does not like her job.

we don’t receive much in depth information about emily’s internal feelings and thoughts towards her mother beyond resentment. this stems from wanting to make it on her own, as a professional and as an individual (cough cough college deposits). this makes emily’s insistence on proving herself to authority figures in her earlier seasons is interesting to watch in different circumstances. she cites her experience and denies help from her mother when justifying her placement in the bau to hotch, she is extra vigilant about being helpful on her first case with gideon, etc. nevertheless, emily forges her own path outside of diplomacy and becomes a successful profiler and agent, with the help of her privilege, wealth and name whether she likes it or not. but if we read between the lines and fill in the blanks cbs neglected, these ambitions may subconsciously be oriented towards pleasing her mother.

example one: emily’s authority issues go further than just “rebellion” or “anarchy”, she frequently questions the ethics and sustainability of the work that the bau does. every team member does this, but emily much more so than anybody else.

in “amplification”, emily almost breaks federal protocol to inform civilians of anthrax threats. she butts heads with both hotch and rossi on this front, and ends the episode with having a conversation with rossi about the ethics of lying in their line of work. emily resigns to a solemn “it be like that” and moves along, accepting this reality.

on multiple different occasions emily laments to derek about the darkness she sees on the job, and it’s shown that this gets to her quickly on particularly bad cases. this is another contradiction of the design that she can supposedly “compartmentalize” better than others on the team, when she cannot unless the lives of others are at risk (doyle arc, s7 finale).

emily also responds in this way to many cases involving children, a similarity to jj many don’t notice upon first watching the series. “seven seconds” and “children of the dark” come to mind, during the latter in which emily is prepared to cross multiple professional lines to adopt a teenage girl left orphaned by the case, until hotch stops her and establishes that her emotions can’t rule her judgement on the job. regardless of hotch’s thoughts about her attempted caretaking abilities, these actions and impulses deeply contradict the typical bureaucratic pathways of the work the bau does.

the looming reputation of her mother’s diplomatic history hangs over emily, and after going to law school and working for the cia, she most likely did want to forge her own path as far away from being a socialite: being a spy. her inner nature doesn’t always reflect this profession, and leads me to believe that with her knowledge of psychology, law procedure and care for children: emily prentiss might be more inclined to working in social work, placing suffering children and teenagers in homes they deserve.

and finally, the hill i will die on: emily prentiss was an bad unit chief

this wonderful post touches on my general sentiment, but there were many reasons as to why emily prentiss’ career arc makes little to no sense (plot holes included).

first: her background. emily attended chesapeake bay university as well as yale and achieved a ba in criminal justice. keep in mind that though timelines evidently don’t exist in the cm universe, emily prentiss is ONE YEAR older than aaron hotchner (for context). in her first episode, she professes that she has worked for the bureau for a little under ten years in midwestern offices- something the audience laters knows to not be true. emily worked with the cia and interpol as a part of a profiling team and undercover agent up until roughly TWO YEARS before her canon introduction. plot holes and time gaps aside, this makes me wonder, why didn’t she just say the cia was a backstop without revealing the highly confidential nature of her work with doyle (similar to jj’s state department backstop and cover story)? penelope or hotch could have easily accessed her file and seen that she did not in fact have experience with the bureau in midwestern offices recently, and given the fact that erin strauss set up her bau placement, i’m presuming these formalities or references were overlooked.

second: her experience within the team. emily worked as a part of the bau with the bureau for roughly 6 or 7 years. after this, she is invited to run the entire london branch of interpol, one of the most renowned international law enforcement organizations. i’m surely not the most knowledgeable on requirements or standard timelines for such matters, but with the fact that emily had never led a team in her life (not in the bau or interpol previously) and had roughly 10 years of field experience, i don’t believe she would have ever realistically been considered eligible to run the whole london department.

third: her return to the bureau. fanon depiction of their relationship aside, if you believe aaron hotchner’s last wish before going into witsec was to entrust his team to emily prentiss, you’re dead mistaken. bringing emily back was clearly a pull for ratings after the loss of two main characters (hotch and derek), but logistically a bad decision. let’s suppose emily has had 4 or 5 years of experience in london now, this established authority position would be unlikely to change at the drop of a hat, even for old teammates or friends. also considering how close they were after a decade of working closely in bureaucratic and field contexts, i firmly believe hotch would have referred jj for the job of unit chief but that’s another discussion for another time.

emily’s reign as unit chief is odd, because of the many chaotic storylines crammed into it. but amidst bad writing and viewings plummeting, emily’s character is completely flattened. completely. emily is unrecognizable, both in appearance (that god awful wig) and personality. at times she acts as a complete wise authority, giving orders and delegating local authorities as hotch did. but at other times she makes multiple illegal, emotional, and incorrect judgement calls based on personal circumstances that lead to further chaos (deleting the recording of her and reid’s mexico conversation and reprimanding luke in “luke” for the exact same thing she did in season 6 even though she enabled her to do so come to mind).

i’m not sure if this is due to paget trying to find her footing in the role again, or the writer’s bad decisions towards the end of the show wrecking any previous design for their ensemble. then, there’s the infamous “wheels up” scene in s13e1. notoriously cringey, this seems like a vague caricature of something rossi would say many years in the past (the same goes for her pep talk in “red light” in the hunt for diana reid). these moments are meant to mature emily in the audience’s eye, but instead completely removed her from who we understood her to be, and made her an unreliable leader.

part five: and why it does

in theory, emily was a bolder foil to jj, similar to elle who she arguably replaced at first. she came into her own, and stands as a more uniquely developed character than almost any other in the main ensemble. she isn’t as maternal or domestically inspiring as canon jj, less bright and sunny than penelope, not quite as stoic or intimidating as derek or hotch. And yet at the same time, she’s a fairly blank slate. stripping fanon content away entirely, canon emily has few defining traits (all of which are constantly changing), and that may be the key to why we love her so much.

(WLW anon) I really don’t like the “bad rep is better then none at all”. I hate that. We should want good rep, because bad rep has been used time and time again by homophobes as to say we shouldn’t get representation. To me it’s not “gay can have the same flaws as het”, it’s “fix the flaws in the het”. Also I know Renora being independent was a good, I was just saying in comparison BB. Also, yes, they were separated, but also didn’t stop thinking about each other. Especially bad with Yang.

Indulge me for a moment because I want to take a trip down memory lane and list some—just some—of the queer rep that has been important to me over the years:

Ellen comes out both as herself and as her character… years later, she’s a hated millionaire who is criticized for how she treats her staff

The wildly influential Buffy gives us two women entering a loving relationship… except then Tara is killed off, Willow goes evil for a time, and Buffy comes under fire for Joss Whedon’s everything

The beloved and respectable headmaster of one of the most popular book series ever published is revealed to be gay… except it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in the text and now all of Harry Potter is cancelled because JKR is transphobic

Kurt is an unambiguously gay teen in a hugely popular TV series, acting as one of the first overt representations a generation has seen… except he’s way too stereotypical and Glee is a joke now

Orange is the New Black gives us a number of queer women, including one of our first trans characters… but isn’t it problematic that they’re all criminals?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine hosts an out gay captain and gives us a bisexual coming out story that resonated with many, myself included… except now we’re supposed to hate all the characters on principle because they’re cops

Korra and Asami walk off into the spiritual sunset together… but they never kiss or anything, so that doesn’t count either

Steven Universe gives us a queer relationship and a wedding… but it’s an issue that this is just a kid’s show and, really, does it count when the rep is embodied by space rocks whose entire species only creates a single gender? Feels like a cop-out

Same with Good Omens. Yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale clearly love each other… but you never see them kiss or declare their intentions. It’s great ace rep though! Unless you want to level the criticism that asexual characters are always nonhuman

A character intended to be a minor guest becomes a show staple and eventually declares his love for one of the two main characters… except then Castiel immediately dies, Dean doesn’t respond, and they never meet on screen again

I finished Queen’s Gambit the other day and the main character had a one-night stand with a woman! … but everyone is talking about how bisexuality is used to represent her lowest point, so that’s bad too

I could go on for literal pages. Some of these arguments I agree with (Dumbledore), others I’ve pushed back against quite strongly (Crowley and Aziraphale), but all of them are valid criticisms depending on what part of the queer community you’re in and what your expectations are. My point here is that it’s all “bad rep.” I mean that seriously. If anyone reading this is scrambling for the comment section to say why [insert media title here] is actually fantastic rep, I guarantee that someone disagrees. Or if they don’t, give it some time. Just wait until the characterization becomes offensively outdated, or another part of the story ruins the relationship, or it comes out that the author did something truly horrific, or the terminology changes and it’s labeled as “problematic” now… just wait. At some point, any rep we feel is good rep now will be criticized, cancelled, and dragged through the mud. The rep that I personally haven’t seen much push-back against—like the beloved Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, or Schitts Creek that just won a ton of awards—is wrapped up in the criticism, “So it’s all just about able-bodied, cis, (mostly) white dudes, huh? :/”  Even the argument that queer characters need to be written by queer authors doesn’t hold up. I absolutely adored Sense8. “Wow, a gay main character in a loving relationship with another gay man, both of whom enter a loving poly relationship with a woman, another lesbian trans main character who marries the love of her life on screen, an entire cast arguably queer due to them sharing orgy scenes centered around the emotional intimacy they share, everyone survives, and this was written by two trans women! Great, right?” Well, not according to the wealth of opinions explaining how Sense8 is horrible rep, actually. Every piece of rep we’ve got is either currently flawed or will become flawed in the future.

So what do we do with that?

That’s where my “I’d rather have bad rep than no rep at all” comes in. For me, that’s not waving the white flag. That’s not an oath that I won’t expect better rep in the future (I do) or that I won’t criticize the rep we get (BOY DO I), but rather just an acknowledgement of reality. The vast majority—if not the entirety—of rep is “bad rep” in one way or another, but I’d still rather have it than nothing at all. Because I’ve lived just long enough and studied media just enough to know what nothing looked like. It was watching all queer characters meet untimely deaths. Before that it was watching queer characters be derided and treated as jokes. Before that it was nothing but coding, where queer characters didn’t exist except in our own headcanons and interpretations. Obviously “bad rep” covers a very large range of issues and “They haven’t even confirmed this relationship yet” is a bigger issue than “This queer character embodies one or two, mild stereotypes,” but ultimately I’d take any of it over nothing at all. And enjoying what we’ve currently got doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for it indefinitely.

To use an iffy analogy, imagine there’s a factory. This factory makes plates. So. Many. Plates. Big plates, small plates, plain plates, decorative plates, plates for every possible occasion in your life—and everyone with a steak for dinner is pleased as punch. You though? You’ve got soup. You need a bowl. Your entire life you’ve been struggling to eat your soup off a plate (it doesn’t work) and listening to friends and family claim that the plate with a slightly raised edge could be a bowl if you squint (it’s not). To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

But then, one day, the factory starts producing bowls too. Hurray! Except as soon as you get your hands on one, you’re told you really shouldn’t be using it, let alone praising it. Look at the state of that bowl! It’s cracked right down the middle, ugly as hell, shoddily made all around… you’re not really going to settle for that, are you? And no, you obviously still want the factory to produce better bowls, but at the same time, this is a bowl. You’ve never gotten one before and you can finally enjoy your meal, even if the soup leaks at times. Sometimes a lot. But you’re still feeling better about your meal than you ever have before. And what you then begin to realize is that lots of the plates are a mess too. They also have cracks, they’re also ugly, many are also shoddily made. The difference is that the factory is producing so many plates at such a rapid pace that every steak eater is able to get by. One plate breaks completely? You’ve got a thousand fallbacks. Don’t like the look of this one? A thousand other options. You disagree about what “shoddily made” means? Luckily there are enough plates that everyone can find what they prefer! But the bowls… there’s only a few. Some are really expensive. Others are only available for a limited time before they suddenly disappear. Your bowl breaks and you have to wait months, years sometimes, to get another one. You’re constantly told to go buy this one obscure bowl no one else has heard about and yeah, you like it... but you’d also like to buy one of the bowls everyone is already enjoying. You find yourself looking at the plates and thinking, “I’d like that. I’d like to have so many options that the flaws, while still a problem, are much more bearable.” You’re still going to demand that the factory get its shit together, you’re still going to (rightly) complain about the awful quality of your bowl… but it’s still nice to have a bowl, period. There are still things you like about it, even if it’s a mess: the color, the size, the beauty of the shape of it. Its potential. You’re still pleased you have something to enjoy and that helps serve the need you’re looking to fill, even if that something is imperfect.

That’s “bad rep is better than no rep.” To bring this very long response back to Blake/Yang, I don’t think their problems negate their benefits. Is their relationship currently non-canonical and filled with a number of writing issues everyone has a right to be angry about? Yup. I express that anger a great deal. Are they still half of a team on a very popular show that is (presumably) set to be canonized as queer? Yup. I’d much rather live in a world where big shows like RWBY try to include queer rep and fail in a multitude of ways—with the expectation and hope that they’ll continue to improve—rather than in a world where authors a) don’t care or b) are too scared to try. Because that’s where a “good rep or no rep” stance leads. The danger isn’t homophobes because they’re, well, homophobes. It doesn’t matter if the rep is good or not, they hate it on principle. But if queer authors writing for other queer identities, or allies writing queer identities, or even queer authors writing their own experiences (like in Sense8) continually come under non-stop fire for their attempts… there’s a good chance that many people won’t ever try. We’re already seeing that here on tumblr with young authors admitting that they wouldn’t touch [insert topic here] with a ten-foot pole because just look at what happens when you get it wrong. And authors will get things wrong because authors are fallible people forever unlearning their own ignorance. So though it might sound strange coming from a blog that has turned into such a RWBY critical space, I am glad that RWBY’s queer rep exists, despite all the frustrations that I share about it. I think a RWBY with various types of “bad” queer rep is better than a RWBY with no queer rep at all, particularly when “bad” or “good” is so intensely subjective. There’s a middle ground between passively accepting whatever we’re given, and tearing into rep with such ferocity that we end up rejecting it all. There’s a space where we can be critical of rep and embrace the parts that work for us, simultaneously.

I hope and expect the het rep will get better too, but… that’s never going to happen instantly. To quote RWBY, there’s no magic wand we can wave to fix all our problems. Rather, it will take slow, plodding, meandering, lifetimes’ worth of work to see that change occur and I personally don’t want to spend the one life I have waiting for that perfect rep to show up. Because it’s unlikely that it will. While we work, I’d rather find the good in what rep we’ve already got.  

Bogwater’s Guide to Writing Platonic Relationships

Have a seat, dears, pour yourself a mug of cocoa, and let’s talk about writing for a bit. Specifically, writing emotionally intense, compelling relationships that are completely devoid of any romantic tension.

“Niki, those don’t exist! The only relationships that are truly intense and compelling are the romantic ones! Everybody knows that!”

*gently bonks you on the head with my magic scepter* NO. This is a common misconception that is perpetuated by media and especially fandom culture. And it stems from this bizarre idea that emotional intimacy must always equate with romantic intimacy. I have no idea where this idea got its start, but if you ask literally anybody who has experienced real, genuine friendship in their life, they will tell you it’s absolute nonsense. Just because you’re not doing the kissy-kiss with someone, that doesn’t mean you’re not emotionally intimate with them.

“But I don’t want any emotional intimacy without the kissy-kiss! It’s boring!” 

Yeah, so, there’s a reason platonic relationships in modern media often feel less interesting than romantic ones, and it’s precisely because of what I said above. Media producers and many fic authors are skittish about showing platonic love with the same level of depth and emotional intensity as romantic, so it often ends up being somewhat watered down and simplified, to the point that it becomes a less interesting relationship. The only thing this does is perpetuate the idea that any and all emotional intimacy immediately implies romantic attraction (it does not) while also devaluing the very real importance of genuine friendship/familial bonds. 

“Okay, but what if I just like romance better?”

That’s your personal preference, and that’s okay! Everybody has their favorite genres and tropes that resonate with them more than others. My personal favorite is Family, Found or otherwise (with a healthy dose of Hurt/Comfort on the side), but I can totally understand if romance speaks to you more. HOWEVER. This does not excuse writers and other content producers from low-key asserting that romantic relationships are objectively “better” than platonic ones. Hard fact of life: Nobody needs to experience romance, and even those who do experience it do so in different ways. But everybody does need to have emotional connections with other people through the bonds of friendship and family. Believe it or not, romantic love is not a universal experience. Platonic though? Everybody knows that one, and everybody needs it to be happy. To devalue it as a whole is to impose a toxic mindset that forces people to experience relationships in a very narrow and restrictive way.

Okay--*steps off my soap box and kicks it to the side*--now that we’ve established that friendship is important and should be given the same value that society gives to romance, let’s talk about a few ways to write intense and compelling platonic relationships!

Emotional Intimacy:

I’ve talked about this a lot already, but just in case some of you are confused, emotional intimacy is just when two people have a very deep familiarity and understanding of each other. They understand how the other’s mind works, and feel comfortable opening up to each other about their own stuff. Obviously, this is very important for any relationship, platonic or romantic, but writers will often limit such familiarity between characters to the romantic relationships. The first step to writing an interesting friendship is to not do that. Show that your platonic soulmates understand each other and are vulnerable with each other. Here are some easy ways to do that:

Character A knows all of Character B’s personal preferences--likes and dislikes, including small things like food, flowers, music, etc. 

A can finish B’s sentences for them. 

A is willing to talk about their feelings when B asks if they’re okay.

A and B trust each other and know the other always has their back

A and B will occasionally reference events in their shared history and even have inside jokes

A will seek B out for comfort when they are upset.

A and B almost never miscommunicate--they know what the other means when they say something, and will immediately notice if the other is acting strange.

A and B can communicate with each other silently, via subtle looks, eye movements, or gestures.

Selflessness:

To quote a grossly over-marketed Disney franchise, “Love is putting someone else’s needs before yours.” This is the simplest and also most accurate definition of love I’ve come across, and it is universal to all kinds of relationships. So in order to make your platonic relationship compelling, you need to show that the characters are willing to make sacrifices for each other--even big ones. Make sure this is a mutual exchange between both characters, because otherwise you risk making the relationship look a bit toxic. Here are a few of my favorite examples of selflessness between friends/family:

Character A willingly puts themselves in harm’s way in order to protect Character B.

A is always ready to drop what they’re doing and come to B’s assistance. 

A and B regularly do small favors for each other without being asked. 

A is always mindful of B’s needs and makes sure they’re taken care of.

A and B always do their best not to hurt each other, either physically or emotionally. 

A is openly very worried whenever B is in danger and stops at nothing to help them.

Affection:

This is the part where most writers balk when writing platonic relationships. “They can’t touch each other!!! That’s sexy and weird!!!” No, it’s not. This idea that any and all signs of affection are exclusive to romantic relationships is toxic, and we need to wipe it from existence. Obviously there are different levels of physical intimacy, and some absolutely are exclusive to romantic relationships. Here’s a list of No-Gos if you want to keep a relationship completely platonic:

Kissing on the lips/mouth/neck.

Gazing deeply and silently into each other’s eyes for long periods of time for no other reason than to simply Gaze.

Doing the Do or otherwise touching each other in an explicitly sexual way (I feel like this one should be pretty obvious. Also wth guys, that stuff is grooooosssssssss 🤢)

Honestly those are the only ones that I can think of that are always exclusively romantic. Everything else requires pre-established context in order to be taken as such. So here’s a list of affectionate gestures that are totally safe for established platonic relationships!

Little forehead/cheek kisses.

Hugs--yes, even prolonged ones. Sometimes friends/family just want to hold each other for a while, and not in a sexy way. 

Holding hands.

Leaning on each other.

Playing with each other’s hair or gently petting it in order to offer comfort.

Sleeping next to each other when circumstances require it (and neither of them makes any fuss over it)

Saying “I love you.” STOP MAKING THIS AN EXCLUSIVELY ROMANTIC THING, PLEASE, FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS PURE IN THIS WORLD!

Touching foreheads (my personal favorite of the lot!)

Maintaining prolonged eye-contact during moments of sincerity and communication, especially if Character A is trying to tell B something important.

Sweet little smiles, or other such soft looks of fondness

And many other gestures that I don’t have time to go over in this list.

Tip the First: When writing platonic affection, be sure to bear in mind your characters’ personalities and physical differences. For example, if Character A is significantly bigger and heavier than Character B, they probably wouldn’t be tackle-hugging B, because that would risk seriously injuring B. Different personalities also have different levels of comfort when it comes to physical affection. If you’re writing fanfic, it helps to revisit the source material and observe how the two characters interact with each other. And remember: just because two characters aren’t physically affectionate with each other, it does NOT mean they don’t have a deep and meaningful friendship. Also bear in mind that many people have different dynamics with different friends simply due to the way their personalities fit together. Not all of my friendships look the same, and it’s not because of insincerity on my part--I just have different interactions with different people.

Tip the Second: If you want the gestures of affection to really pack a punch, use them sparingly. Save your long, warm embraces for when the two characters finally reunite after a long separation. Have Character A take B’s hand only when they can sense that B is frightened and in need of reassurance. A “First Platonic Hug” scene can be just as sweet and feelsy as a “First Kiss” scene if you do it right! Also, don’t be afraid to talk at length about how a gesture of affection makes a character feel. Describe the warm fuzzies that bubble up in their chest when their friend/family member gives them a hug, wax poetic about how grateful they are to have said friend/family member in their life. Taking time to explore and dwell on a certain feeling should never be strictly reserved for the ones associated with romance. 

And when in doubt:

Observe the professionals. Here are some fantastic platonic relationships from various pieces of media that I take tons of inspiration from:

Frodo and Sam from Lord of the Rings (especially in the books)

Jim and Toby from Dreamworks’ Tales of Arcadia series

Din and Cara from Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Lilo and Nani from Disney’s Lilo and Stitch

So in conclusion:

Listen, I get it. Romance is exciting and cute and sexy and very important in its own right, and society likes to beat us over the head with it these days. But I cannot impress on you enough just how vital platonic relationships are to living a good and fulfilling life. I am who I am today because of the family and friends who have helped me grow. Please don’t disregard it, whether in your writing or in your own life. Cherish friendship. Acknowledge the depth of your platonic feelings for someone. And writers, please don’t be afraid to express those feelings in your work. If we let friendship and family die, I can assure you, any potential for healthy romantic relationships will quickly follow suit. 

HELLO.

I just wanted to say that I love, love, love your tags on that character/tool post a lot! Some of my favorite shows/books involve characters that can't keep it together and just barely make it to the end of the story or make it there in an "inconvenient way" and tbh I find that usually the narratives that follow these characters don't really work away from them either--the narrative is just usually more questioning instead of fully formed.

Like, 'what if/how would', y'know? There's less of a clear meaning and more just 'what if they hadn't done that. what if they had done that. what if all that meant nothing. what if that struggle was all there was'.

But oh boy, when they DO work away from the narrative. *chefs kiss*

I mean, most of my favorite Bleach characters are narrative nightmares who either hinder or cut off lines of theme in the story entirely. And, in general, I think there are A LOT of characters in shonen--a genre known for very long narratives that can't possibly complete every thought but also can't just abandon all those characters introduced ESPECIALLY the fan favorites or personal favorites--work in the way you described.

Tbh i think your tags really highlight why so many ppl get drawn to these characters/why they're so fun to play with in fanfiction.

If you have more to add or more thoughts about this you want to lay down I am here, eagerly awaiting and ready to pick them up.

Also, who do you think in Bleach is the most fun characters who sort of drop kicked the story, in your opinion? Who's the one you like the most? And who's the one you dislike the most?

[For posterity the referenced post is this one.]

Aww, thank you! That’s really lovely to hear. I was anxious about even putting it in tags because I don’t think I presently have the capacity to explain it well—and even if I did might still sound bananas to many. Or at least the bit about negotiating with characters and how *they* feel about being subjects in stories. Because as much as that really is my practice saying it out loud takes me back to like… FFN in 2003 where every store was prefaced by extensive chat-form back-and-forths between the fic author and their character "musies" and that is not something I think fandom would benefit from bringing back in force, hahaha. But anyway.

Here’s the part where I disappoint because I don’t think I actually know Bleach well enough to speak to it in this context. WHICH SOUNDS DUMB EVEN AS I TYPE IT BECAUSE LOL WTF IS THE NAME OF THIS BLOG WE ARE CHARLATANS AND POSERS FOR CLAIMING AS OUR NAMESAKE NOT ONE BLEACH BUT THREE BLEACHES but truly, my experience of Bleach has a shallow depth of field. I feel like I have weirdly intimate knowledge of some severe rabbit holes but a non-existent to uneasy sense of the gestalt.

Like idek man, in my "slow re-read where I am actually paying attention" Ichigo hasn’t even met Byakuya and Renji yet. ToT

I'm gonna put this behind a cut because it spidered all over the place, but in summary:

characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure

the charm of longform serialized series and their invitations to imagine stuff

me attempting to talk about Hitsugaya and feeling a fool, as usual

I guess in general terms, I’m really interested in characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure. Not failure as in 'bad' but failure as in things that break form or are circuitous or are actively detrimental to a narrative arc. All my strongest examples of what I’m thinking of are from a different fandom and therefore not relevant to this blog, alas. By comparison I think anyone in Bleach can keep it together better than the characters that are immediately coming to mind, lol. But I think this idea dovetails often with trauma narratives, or depression narratives, because these things are often… non-narrative? Like, there’s no fourth or fifth for minor fall or major lift. Sometimes it’s the same thing over and over again, or maybe nothing. Maybe it’s the exact same self-sabotage narrative dictates could have been avoided. Maybe it’s some act that emanates forth but cannot be explained because it cannot be explained and will never be explained. That’s a version of what I’m talking about, in any case, though not the only version.

Your note about longform shounen definitely resonates with me, too. In my mind I don’t like long things and I prefer series that are more self-contained but whenever I have ever landed in a long-term fandom, with a piece of media I felt obliged to carve out chunks of my life for, and to interact with at that level of creative fannishness, it’s always been something stupid long and serialized by the seat of its pants. I know plot holes or dropped threads bother a lot of people (makes total sense, don’t get me wrong) but I find these things incredibly attractive. I see them as invitations to join in the fun. Especially when it’s so much a part of the form and genre to have this, as you said, lack of real expectation that every thread will be followed to its conclusion (or that it would be worthwhile to do so) and every thought completed.

There’s this piece by David Grann that was published in The New Yorker in 2004 that I really love that speaks to part of this idea, albeit in terms of fictional universes versus fictional characters. But Grann is talking about Sherlock Holmes (Doyle original) and the ways that Sherlockians would like, approach apparent lapses in narrative and then solve them according to the established rules of the universe. I just love that. There’s also the line, "Never had so much been written by so many for so few," which LOL if that ain’t fandom I don’t know what is!!

I feel like I’m actually talking about three distinct but related facets of these thoughts in this post, except all at once and without clear transition, uhhhhh.

Gah, I am broken and now can ONLY think of examples from my not-Bleach fandom, but to try a different tack and add yet another facet to this already funhouse-mirror post, my various attempts to write Hitsugaya often feel like they come up against a version of this. I think Hitsugaya has aggressive side character energy, and I find it difficult to make him the center of a story and have it feel right to me. He feels different to me than writing other minor characters, where they can be the center of their own stories even if their story is not the main story. Like, two of my fave characters in my other fandom have literally like… three lines in 350+ episodes and it feels easier to imagine THEM at the center of their story and I think what it comes down to is that Hitsugaya probably prefers what he not be written. And when he does become more narrative I think he’d prefer that none of it was happening in the fist place. But at the same time he always seems to be…around??? whether there is really a good reason for him to be present or not. XD So while, say, he and Bartleby "would prefer not to" (because THAT'S what this post needs, a Melville reference), Bartleby actually opts out and Hitsugaya out here volunteering.

He also often feels non-narrative to me because he feels very declarative, if that makes sense? Like, the coming-to-decisions or coming-to-realizations parts of existence happen pretty quick, or are approached perfunctorily. I feel like I find narrative in the "coming" part of that equation and instead Hitsugaya will be like, well, I’ve already done that part without you, and/or plan to do that part in the future and it will still be without you, the audience. Anyway, here’s the determination I’ve made, here’s what I’m going to do, and here begins the long and probably tedious process of my doing that thing (off 2 go train in a cave for a bit). I don’t think he actually believes the world is that simple, Tab A into Slot B, but I do think he’s already made that assessment and can see coming to terms with that as a horizon, if that makes sense. So even if he doesn’t know the answer to something, or is completely at a loss of what to do (what to say to Hinamori? how to productively address the number Aizen’s done on him) there’s still not necessarily a story there. Maybe the answer is you grind, and it is repetitive and boring. Maybe you just hold things. There’s not even the act of learning how to hold things, necessarily, just the practice of doing so.

Wow, that probably doesn’t sound good! I feel like I need to suffix this with the assurance that Hitsugaya is my absolute runaway character in the whole series and this was true 15 years ago and it is still true now (truer, even) and everything I just said are reasons why I love him.

8/8/2021 - New Moon In Leo Rituals & Horoscopes For All Signs

The New Moon is here again to remind us to let go of ideas that no longer serve us. It's about wiping the slate clean and setting intention on the rest of the month. Are you excited to start a new chapter? Each sign is going to experience new heights of happiness, emotional security, and financial bliss. It might not always be easy, but it will always be worth it. This is a great time to show off your confident side and get into a deeper level of Self-Expression. You are called to feel more confident in your own skin and as the amazing individual you are. There is truly only one you on this entire planet – embrace that! Those that are going through quarantines again, or just find themselves in the house more often, wear those fancy outfits in your closet that has been catching dust! Get it out, dust off your nicest shoes, and get dolled up. You don't need an excuse to feel good about yourself, Darling. Now is a great time to take pictures for social media as well, as the sign's physical attractiveness will be heightened during this Leo New Moon. Follow your passions and hobbies too, as it's important to express your creativity.

Working on manifestations will be amazing during this time as well, so make sure to be utilizing the Law Of Attraction! This could be through Manifestation Journals, Meditations, or Vision Boards. Making a Vision Board by cutting out images and pasting them onto a piece of paper or a literal poster-board will help you manifest easier as it will focus your mind each day on visualizing your goals and desires. You got this!

Rituals that you can do during the Leo New Moon:

Along with the upcoming changing of leaves (depending on where you live), us too are going through a change during this New Moon to leave behind what no longer serves us. Yellow and Red are really important colors during this New Moon, as it symbolizes Confidence, Self-Fulfillment, Expression, Self-Comfort, and Joy. You can wear these colors throughout the month leading up to the Full Moon for added luck.

A Spiritual Bath might be something that would be wonderful to be implemented. You can add flowers, herbs, essential oil, bathing salts, and/or crystals to make the perfect spiritual cleanse. Sunflower scented candles are going to be very important as well – so if you're needing a new smell for the month, this will be a great time to utilize Sunflower Candles for manifestation! There are other scents as well that are just as important over this time.

Scents / Flowers You Can Utilize:

Lemon

Sunflower

Lemongrass

Dandelion

Crystals To Charge During The New Moon in Leo:

Yellow Aventurine

Citrine

Honey Calcite

Golden Hematoid

Amber

Carnelian

Tigers Eye

Leave these on a towel in a windowsill on the night of the New Moon to charge in the energy. The next day, place the crystals near your bath as you take it – or near your bed / in your purse for added optimism and comfort throughout the month. Remember that not all crystals can be put in the water, so make sure to look it up before you dip them in! If your crystal is water-hardy, you can place it directly into the bath as you soak.

For those that have gardens, consider planting wild flowers, sunflowers, gladiolus, etc. (Depending on where you are!)

Horoscopes for Each Sign and Element over the New Moon in Taurus:

Please make sure to check your Sun, Moon, Rising, and Venus Signs as you might resonate more with their energies. :)

EARTH: Ace Of Wands – Earth Signs are going to feel renewed and as if the fires of their passions are finally alight again. You're going to be receiving a lot of messages and ideas during this time, so trust what you come up with as creativity is going to be through the roof. If you have craft supplies that you haven't touched in a while, Earth Signs, get ready to start crafting. The energy this Leo New Moon is bringing in for you will help you to soar and reach greater heights within your hobbies, workplace, and imagination. Others will feel compelled to pick up an instrument that has been laying around catching dust for a while. Express yourself! Some Earth Sign's might start feeling compelled to play the field and date around a little to see what's out there – go for it! Remember to wear protection though if you aren't planning on getting pregnant during this time of reignited passions!

Virgo: The Star – Virgos are going to be feeling more hopeful over this New Moon in Leo. You might have felt a bit downtrodden or as if everything were spoiled, but now it's finally coming back together. It's a relief in so many ways, because after being told for so long that you'd be okay, you're finally starting to see things 'Getting Better'. It was something that took a while, but peace of mind is here to stay for the rest of the year, Virgo. Rest assured on THAT. Clarity will also be coming to those that have asked for a sign recently in regards to a situation you're stuck on. It's as if the Universe is finally handing you the new pair of glasses that you had ordered and had been waiting on. You'll be able to see things crystal clear, and in a way that you might not have before. Can we say Perspective Shift? Virgos, remember to take care of yourself too! Spiritual baths are SO important during this time period! Drinking coconut water and bathing with coconut scented washes will be vital right now as it will cleanse you.

Taurus: 10 Of Wands – You're overworking and overloading yourself with chores and things to do, Taurus. Over this New Moon in Leo you're trying to take on too much. I keep hearing Spirit saying, “You're Biting Off More Than You Can Chew”. As proud as Spirit is that you're wanting to conquer the world and take on as much as you can – They want you to remember that the name of the game right now is to pace yourself and take your time on the tasks in front of you. Rome wasn't built overnight, so stop making yourself go on endlessly like a workhorse. Yes, you're in the homestretch, but that is even more of a reason to take your time with tying up those loose ends. Work Smarter – Not Harder. For other Taurus that are taking on their friend's and family's responsibilities – you're being asked to focus on yourself as opposed to trying to fit in one more task to appease someone else. Instead of taking on those side missions right now, why not follow your main story-line for a bit? There's no harm in saying no every now and again; especially with all that you already do for those around you. For one Taurus in particular, you cook and clean for those around you constantly without praise or recognition. It's almost expected of you to drop your entire life just to do that. Again – it's okay to say no, or just to decide to order take-out for the night.

Capricorn: Queen Of Wands - Capricorn's are being asked during this New Moon period to use your passions wisely. Now is the time to really put your mind to what you want to accomplish as it's going to fall into your lap quicker than you expect. The World really IS your Oyster, Capricorn, Remember that! Some are embarking on brand new business ideas. I'm seeing for some starting a new Bakery, a local Shop in your town, or an online store with products unique to you and your calling. There is something very niche about what you do, Capricorn, and you're excited to corner the market with your ideas. You might be looking into business licenses, copyright, and trademarking. You're deciding what the best way to tackle your dreams would be – and if anyone can do it, Capricorn – it's you! Your business oriented mind will focus brilliantly at the task at hand, so make sure to trust your instincts here. It really is a case of You Knowing What's Best. Trust that you have what it takes to achieve your goals. You're brilliant, you Sea Goat, you.

AIR: 8 Of Pentacles – Wow, Air Signs! You're focusing on getting to work right now, as you know that whatever you're putting your mind to is going to be abundant and successful. You're feeling energized to get to work, which is a welcomed change compared to the last few weeks where you have been feeling tired and drained. So long to energies of exhaustion or frustration – you're headed towards smooth sailing now! And rightfully so, if you ask me! You're ready to put in the work! I keep hearing Spirit saying, “The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Oil”, so you might decide to focus on things that you feel have been put off for way too long. They can no longer be ignored, they have to be taken care of now. For some this might have been projects that you procrastinated on, a cabinet you never fixed, or a leak in a pipe ; now is the time to attend to these things! Putting yourself on your grind is going to be incredibly influential during this time, so make sure not to hold yourself back!

Gemini: Death – Wow, Gemini! Things are changing for you on a molecular level. You might have felt it coming for a long time now, but you're starting to become more open to the idea of endings and change. You're deciding what you want to stay in your life and what you know needs to go. For some that are leaving a situation, perspective, or relationship behind, you're feeling excited to be starting on a new chapter in your life. It's as if you've grown tired of reading that same story over and over again and you're ready to take on another book entirely. You're the main character and now you're really starting to recognize it. Take those risks and go on those adventures, Gemini. I'm hearing, “Life Is Too Short To Not Do What You Love”. Make sure that you're taking that into consideration today as you go forward, Gemini! Only go towards the things that you know feel right to your story-line!

Libra: 2 Of Wands – Libra's are going to be faced with a choice over this New Moon. Do they embark on something different than they've always known? Or do they decide to stay the course and continue down the path that might have not worked out so well in the past? Regardless of what you choose, this is a time of starting over fresh. The New Moon will bring brand new energies your way that will feel brilliant, vibrant, and uplifting. You'll be inspired to go down the route less traveled, but give yourself the space to do so. Be brave, Libra! Some of the best things are worth the risk! For other's, you're deciding to go down a new career or academic path that you know will bring you to your ultimate happiness. Don't put yourself on the back burner and go towards it! Regardless of what others have to say, you know best. (AKA don't listen to your Great Aunt Linda saying, “But you were supposed to be a Lawyer!” If you weren't happy in that field, that's all that's needed to be said.)

Aquarius: Strength – Aquarius, you're really channeling your inner strength right now to go the distance. You might have been applying yourself more recently to your career or the environment around you, which has been making you feel as if you either need everything on a time constraint or you need to take every little thing seriously. Spirit is telling you it's okay to lighten up and let your hair down. For some I'm also hearing, “Comfortable And Functional Can Still Be Fashionable”. Other Aquarians are feeling more comfortable expressing their emotions too as you're letting yourself be more vulnerable during this time. You're feeling affectionate and sentimental, craving more attention and love during this time. You might find yourself craving connection with others – and wanting to meet new people. Those in relationships are going to take their time more to understand their partner's and their own individual feelings, which will lead to more common ground. Now is the time for emotional healing and understanding!

WATER: The Magician – Water Signs you are being asked to trust your natural abilities as they are a gift. You have all the resources that you need in front of you to accomplish your aspirations. For some I am sensing that there was competition in a workplace environment. Spirit is showing me someone starting a candle business, only for another person to then follow suit. It's out of jealousy and spite, and not something you need to concern yourself with. Copycat energy is really strong here. Water Signs are manifesting right now on such a high level, that they can be expected to have a harvest in soon. For some you might be bringing in a romantic partner, new financial growth, or new opportunities. You'll be excited to see things that you wished for coming true. I keep hearing someone saying, “This Is Exactly What I Asked For, But Better!” Things are working out in your favor, Water Signs. Keep putting in intention and give it some time – it will pay off.

Cancer: The Emperor – Cancer's are really harnessing their Divine Masculine energies and feeling determined to take the bull by the horns over the Leo New Moon. Leo ignites your need for self-expression and freedom within your passions at this time. You're not letting anyone hold you back or put you down any longer – you know what you deserve and need. You're really starting to feel in your element, and you're wondering why you didn't realize you could accomplish this sooner. (“There's Nothing Holding Me Back” by Shawn Mendes energy here strong!) With the number 8 being so strong and prevalent within the month and the day, it really emphasizes the fact that there is a lot of forward movement going on. You're tired of playing it small and not going home with a good prize. “Go Big Or Go Home” is what I keep hearing for you, Cancer.

Pisces: The Empress – Pisces, you're going to be embracing your Divine Feminine energies in the most beautiful of ways. You'll be nurturing both yourself and those around you. You're giving yourself room to grow and consider other avenues of creation. Pisces, you might start to notice that your peers and new acquaintances want to open up to you and tell you their entire life stories. Let them – you never know where you might gain a little bit of insight on your own life while helping another. Trust your intuition during this time too, because your spiritual abilities will be heightened during this New Moon. Pisces might notice seeing more shadows, shapes, or spiritual messages. Don't fear; you're protected, loved, and divinely guided. You might feel guided towards getting more plants for your home – go for it! Bring nature in!

Scorpio: Ace Of Pentacles – A prosperous new beginning is yours, Scorpio! This is going to be the stable, firm, and financially free foundation that you always dreamed of. This is something that you have been manifesting for a long time. You might have had blockages in regards to money, but your luck is changing now. For some Scorpio's you'll be receiving a job offer from a friend. This friend could have a short, brown bob haircut, and they're going to be very excited over the idea of working with you. Take this offer seriously as it will provide so much excitement and comfort into your life! Other's will notice that there are going to be an influx of interviews and job offers over all. I am also hearing that while you work at your new job, you will be provided with more chances to travel as well, Scorpio. Go for it! You deserve it for how much work you've put in.

FIRE: The Wheel Of Fortune – A lucky period of time is coming into your life, Fire Signs. Are you ready to embrace this exciting turn of events? It's going to be a wild ride, so buckle in! You're going to notice that your luck is changing for the better. This is going to make you feel inspired to take large leaps of faith into a brand new lifestyle. No more small potatoes, Fire Signs. You're ready for the wheels of fate to finally turn in your favor after a long period of feeling shut out in the cold by the Universe. After a perspective shift, you're understanding how lucky and talented you are – and gaining a new perspective of gratitude for life. I keep hearing as well that Fire Signs are going to have the Mitas Touch, where everything they touch will turn to gold. Now is a brilliant time to focus on academic and financial goals. Why not make a Vision Board of everything that you want to bring in over the next year, Fire Signs?

Leo: Judgment – You're closing up Karmic Cycles and breaking Ancestral Curses, Leo. It isn't always easy to have to do this, but it is something that has to happen in order for you to get to the next level. It's okay to feel frustrated, angry, or overwhelmed during this time. Feel your emotions and express them to those around you as they are your Soul Family, and they genuinely want to help you in any way that they can. Leos are also going to be realizing who is actually in their corner. I am hearing that for a few Leos, you're going to understand that someone you thought was there for you no matter what, never really had your back to begin with. Process the pain, grieve the loss of a friend, and continue forward knowing you are doing your best every day. Some Leo's are understanding and identifying longstanding self-sabotaging energies and are deciding to nip it in the bud. Good for you, Leo!

Sagittarius: The Devil – Sagittarius might be dealing with some mental worries and anxieties. The Universe is wanting you to lighten your mental load and decompress some. It's okay to have some alone time just focusing on your relaxation. You don't need to always be on the go or doing something, Sagittarius. Even in different Mythologies and religions the God's took rest – set aside this idea that you don't deserve some rest and relaxation. Other's might be struggling with addictions, but you're going to find it easier over the next few months to distance yourself from self-sabotaging tendencies or toxic patterns. Good for you, Sagittarius! I'm proud of you for recognizing what in your life isn't fulfilling you anymore – and for wanting better going forward. Some in toxic relationships are being asked to take some time to travel or be away from this person to get a clear head on what it means to be healthier by yourself. (You will feel a LOT lighter without this individual around)

Aries: The Tower – There is a major shake-up in your life emerging, Aries! Don't feel scared or intimidated by this, as it's actually a great thing! This is to realign you with where you actually have to be. Spirit is showing me an image of a dog on a leash, getting wrapped around a tree while running while it's owner is frantically trying to unwrap them and saying “No, This Way, Honey!” The Universe is untangling you from a messy situation, and it's going to be for the better. Whether this be through an unexpected job or opportunity loss, a move, or something that you see as unfortunate; it might just be a new opportunity to start over fresh. Now's your chance to turn a new leaf and go towards a firmer foundation for yourself. Some Aries might realize the connections (both platonic and romantic) aren't the healthiest for you. A friend might decide to betray your trust or kindness. You're being asked to let this rug be pulled out from under your feet, so a newer one can be set in it's place. After all, when one door closes – another one opens.

Ian Mathers’ 2020: We’re stuck inside our own machines

I’ve had a song I loved in high school and haven’t thought much about since stuck in my head. The song “Apparitions” by the Matthew Good Band is a fine example of the alt rock of the late 90s; if you grew up then but somewhere down in the states (or elsewhere) instead of my southern Ontario you may well have your regional equivalents, and like this one they may not resonate terribly strongly outside of their time and place. It popped back into my head after a long time recently and of course 2020 has changed it a little. A song that as a teen I felt keenly as about loneliness (albeit also about how technology can feed into that) of course now plays on my nerves as another small piece of art about the way that most of us (those scared and/or responsible anyway) have only that relatively narrow, technologically mediated connection to the people we love. All of us, artists and listeners alike, are trying to fit our feelings and art and selves down these little connections, with some success.

On a personal level, 2020 wound up being stressful in ways we couldn’t have predicted even after the pandemic hit. In circumstances that could have seen governments on this continent support those unable to work (and those who shouldn’t have to), support those workers who are truly essential, support workers and renters and even landlords and small businesses, instead we got a near-total abeyance of those governments using the resources we provide them with to save any of us. On a personal level my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home (not that it didn’t come with its own forms of stress, and now that I’m off until January I have several work/stress-related illnesses to recover from) but still saw friends and loved ones lose good, used-to-be-sustainable livings overnight, saw family businesses succumb to a near-total absence of effective government support after months of trying to keep above water, etc.

It is probably no surprise that this is not a situation conducive to listening to music, let alone writing about it; I have deliberately and happily kept busy on behind the scenes stuff at Dusted that I could still manage but looking, at the end of the year, at the amount I managed to actually create is demoralizing if not at all shocking. I’m not sure I think next year will be ‘better’ in many important ways, although at our job there is a growing feeling among coworkers that next year has to have some work/life balance because 2020 was, maybe more than anything else, unsustainable.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time and emotion on music this year, and if nothing else constant sleep deprivation, stress, and panic meant I was probably open to being deeply moved by all sorts of art even more than normally (it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even read a sad or moving twitter thread out loud to my wife without getting teary, which is kind of… nice?). Funnily enough the band that did the most to keep me sane didn’t really put out anything in 2020. Personal favorite, Low, instead started, in early April, getting on Instagram with something they called on whim “It’s Friday I’m in Low.” With one brief break they have now done by my count at least 35 shows (catalogued here, by the way), every Friday at about 4 my time.

Admittedly it’s easier for Low to pull this off than some bands, since the 2/3 of the trio that sing are a married couple (they’ve had a couple of socially-distanced backyard shows with bassist Steve Garrington, but he’s mostly been isolating elsewhere). These shows have seen the band’s Alan Sparhawk take a mid-set break to do follow-up phone interviews with the acts featured in the COVID-curtailed touring bands series Vansplainingthat they started on YouTube, or just to give a tour round their vegetable garden and talk tips. It’s seen Alan and Mimi Parker draw on their impressive, 25+ year body of work (averaging 4-5 songs a set, I don’t think they’ve repeated themselves yet) and talk a bit between songs about pandemics, politics, song choices, and whether Alan should grab his bike helmet this time.

They’re not the only musicians out there speaking love and sanity (and playing music) into the strange digital interzone filled with hate and disinformation where we’ve all been forced to gather while locked down, but they were and the most consistent and steady signal being emitted each week. No matter how tired I was from work or what new symptoms I’d developed or what horrific thing I read into the news, even if I had to take an emergency nap while it was actually airing, every Friday the show was there. Once things do return to something more like normal, it’s one of the few things I’ll unambiguously miss about this weird-ass year.

So if that makes an argument for Low as my band of the year (admittedly again… it’s not like Double Negative has aged poorly, either), that does a disservice to those 2020 records I did connect with; even if there are still literally dozens I have to go through, many of which I expect to love, my top picks this year (if as unrankable by me as always) hit me as hard as any top pick in recent years did. So here I present a quick and informal top 5, which the rest of my top 20 following in alphabetical order. Here’s hoping for more time and space in 2021 for music, and even more than that, for more support for those who need it from those who could have been providing it all this time. (The Matthew Good Band, incidentally, always did best with their ballads. “Strange Days” is another I’ve had in my head these days; the image of moving “backwards, into a wall of fire” has stuck with me since the 90s and it’s never felt more grimly appropriate.)

Greet Death — New Hell

New Hell by Greet Death

This one is, in some sense, cheating; it came out November 2019. But that just means it’s the latest winner of my personal Torres Prize for Ian Being Late to the Party (so named because becoming slightly obsessed with Torres’ Sprinter just after I sent in my 2015 list was the first time I noticed that one of my favorite records of each year tends to get picked up by me just after I call it quits on the year, no matter how long I try to wait). This very doom and gloom slowcore/metal/(whatever, just know it’s heavy) trio at first felt very much like my beloved Cloakroom (whose Time Well has also won a Torres Prize) but sure enough nuances revealed themselves. Back in February it felt almost a little too negative, but then the rest of 2020 happened. And the extended burns of “You’re Gonna Hate What You’ve Done” and the title track remain searing.

Holy Fuck — Deleter

Probably the record I’ve been trying to write about the longest in 2020, and the one I’m most disappointed in myself that I just couldn’t get the requisite paragraphs together. It’s a wonderful effort from the consistently great Toronto resolutely human-created (and —mediated) dance music quartet, one that both feels like a summation of everything they do well, and with the addition of some outside voices (including strong turns from the singers of both Hot Chip and Liars) a step forward at the same time.

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

As the year got worse, this roar of defiance only got more crucial for me to hear every so often; I was a big enough fan of it, even after writing it up for Dusted, that when they solicited fan footage for a subsequent music video you may just be able to get a glimpse of me in it. (I’m the one in a “No Tories” t-shirt.) My punk rock-loving twin brother was the one who introduced me to Spanish Love Songs and we were supposed to spend an evening in June screaming along to them live in a packed, sweaty room. I need that in my life again.

Julianna Barwick — Healing Is a Miracle

Healing Is A Miracle by Julianna Barwick

It’s a sign of what 2020 has been like here that even just this album title leaves bruises, and while I privately worried Barwick would have a hard time following up 2016’s sublime Will (probably my favorite record that year), it seems that continuing to take whatever downtime she needs to keep focusing and refining her particular muse has once again yielded amazing results. Anyone who thinks they know what a Barwick track sounds like should really check out, say, “Flowers”, but much of this record absolutely sounds like Barwick, just even better than before. She also boasted my wife and I's favorite streaming concert of 2020, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of this album with Mary Lattimore showing up.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

I joked on Twitter recently that I have far too nice a dad (and far too good a relationship with him) to be as obsessed as I am with Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, but here we are. Like most of her generation, Bridgers’ social media presence ranges from shit-posting to inscrutable, but even though things are often just as hard to figure out in her beautiful songs (as they often are in life), there’s an emotional clarity to them that can just grab you deep down. Couple that with seriously impressive songcraft and the progress from her already astounding debut Stranger in the Alps and more than anyone else in 2020 I’m excited to see just where the hell Phoebe Bridgers is going to go, because it feels like she’s talented and hardworking enough to go just about anywhere and drag a lot of our hearts with her.

Other Favorites

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II

Anastasia Minster — Father

Deftones — Ohms

Hum — Inlet

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Mesarthim — The Degenerate Era

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Rachel Kiel — Dream Logic

The Ridiculous Trio — The Ridiculous Trio Plays the Stooges

Sam Amidon — Sam Amidon

Shabason, Krgovich & Harris — Philadelphia

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Five Reissues/Compilations/etc.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII

Charles Curtis — Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Coil — Musick to Play in the Dark

Hot Chip — LateNightTales

Ian Mathers

Just some fic recs (part 2)...

It’s been a while since I’ve made a rec list and that seemed tragic to me as I’ve spent most of my quarantine surviving off fic. So here we go! The popular fics are hidden away for today and there is more Wangxian on here than I’d care to admit, but I Hyperfixated. Still, the ships are numerous and various.

Promises We Make -- Mayarene Rose; Wangxian Lan Zhan has taken to visiting the Yiling as often as he can, bringing as many rabbits as he can carry. It is not against the sect rules so there's no reason for him to feel guilty about it. And after all, he made a promise. Or the one where Lan Zhan sneakily moves into the Burial Mounds and this may or may not have helped stop a lot of bad things from happening. **If you’re feeling sad, this is the fic for you. It can take any bad day and make it better. Lan Zhan brings every goddamn rabbit in Cloud Recesses to the Burial Mounds a few rabbits at a time just as an excuse to visit Wei Ying. Then he kind of just stays? And everyone loves him? And Wei Ying is an absolute dumbass about the whole thing? Which tracks.

Screw Poetry, It’s You I Want -- intertwiningsouls; Pynch Adam tries to navigate a crush on his best friend, his first time having a group of friends during the holidays, and the mysterious notes that keep showing up in his locker. **Fair warning this fic is not finished and on hiatus, but I still think it is absolutely worth reading anyway. I reread it often and then get sad it’s not updated, but, you know, fic writer’s lives are hard. I know this deeply. Anyway, it’s soft, it’s cute, and Ronan is perfect.

apastron -- kissmesexybatman; Shatt "This was the mission: three people were set to travel half a year out to the edge of the solar system, traversing space no human eyes had ever seen, to explore the possibility of life in the most extreme of conditions." The first six months of the Kerberos Mission. **This fic is quiet and meditative and a little lonely, but it is so, so beautiful. I loved it the first time I read it and I love it now. There’s some very good ace representation and love just pours from this fic. Love for people and love for space.

How Fragile We Are, Between the Few Good Moments -- nineandthreequarterrs; Wolfstar By the time it’s dark, there’s a fire crackling before them. The tent is set up. There are two chairs propped up by the fire. They have cooked and eaten dinner, and they are sitting in silence. It reminds Sirius of the dinners at home after he got sorted into Gryffindor, or after his mother found the letters from his friends, or lately, whenever he dares to show his face around the house at all. What lives in that space isn’t actually silence. Silence is absence. This thing that hangs between him and his mother, now between him and Remus, is the presence of something suffocating and cutting. It doesn’t serve as a placeholder for noise, it serves as a punishment. It cleaves him to the bone, flays him until he wants to cry. The soft, knotting feeling in his chest he feels when he wants to let tears out but can’t is rising in him. Sirius doesn’t know how to kill except to hiss, “Well if you’re mad at me just fucking say so.” **This takes the moment where Sirius lures Snape to the Shrieking Shack and nearly gets him killed by Remus in his werewolf form-a scene that should be utilized like this more frequently-and creates something absolutely lovely with it. The fic is quiet and subtle and deals with the abuse Sirius suffers and Remus’ rightful anger in a delicate and true way. I adore it.

Likewise Variable -- ssstrychnine; Wolfstar James has plans, Peter is the nurse, Sirius keeps fake blood up his sleeves, and Remus just tries to stay alive. **One of those classic Marauders fics where everyone is batshit crazy except Remus, who ends up doing batshit crazy things because he loves his friends. And Sirius. Especially Sirius. He ends up playing Romeo and Sirius plays Juliet and the pining and angst is unreal. A trope I’m trash for and very well executed.

flowers boldly blossoming over withered grass -- LilyMaxwell; Wangxian It’s in the dawning years after Jin Guangyao’s death that Wei Wuxian learns what it’s like to live and love without a second thought. **The first fic I found in my endless search through pages and pages on ao3 where I saw a characterization of Lan Zhan that resonated with me in the same way he did in the show. I have a thing for soft and quiet fics and this one is no exception. Lovely and beautifully written. 

Like Knives -- All_My_Characters_Are_Dead; Bakushima Bakugou was disappointed in him. Bakugou thought he was weak, thought he was useless. Bakugou knew he’d broken, and Bakugou was mad at him for it. **I love this fic a lot. It takes Bakugou’s anger and uses it to full angst advantage. Kirishima overhears Bakugou and misinterprets Bakugou’s intense worry for anger. And then emotions happen.

Garden War -- Cibee; Drarry Harry and Draco are quarantined in their houses, a lake across from one another. What better ways to spend this time than to annoy each other with letters and attempts to prove that their garden is better? **I did my best to avoid quarantine fics, but you know, easier said than done. This one is super cute. Mostly epistolary, Harry and Draco just make fun of each other and garden and then get together. Like, what the hell else do you want?

light fires at night (to push back the void) -- inthesea; Andreil The first time Andrew realizes he wants to hear the words, Neil isn’t even doing anything. He’s just sitting there, staring at the horizon with that stupidly dramatic faraway expression of his, and letting the cigarette burn down between his fingers all the way to the filter — an outrageous waste of good nicotine, if you asked Andrew. (Or: 20+ times Andrew and Neil say I love you, and one time they say it out loud.) **One of the two truly popular fics that shows up on here. This fic changed my life. It killed me and then brought me back to life. It’s essentially a series of vignettes starring Andrew and Neil and like...it hurts and it heals and it loves. I would die for this fic to continue existing even when I don’t.

the hidden source is the watchful heart -- sombregods; Wangxian Wei Wuxian comes back to the Cloud Recesses for the winter months. He and Lan Wangji learn that emotional intimacy and physical intimacy are not (yet) quite synonymous.They have time to figure it out. **I have the biggest soft spot for relationships where sex and romance aren’t intrinsically intertwined and take some time to navigate. And in my mind, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying have exactly that kind of relationship, so this fic was all I ever needed. If that’s your thing, this is a must read.

A Heart’s a Heavy Burden -- idratherhaveyou; Wangxian There was fire and magic and death, screams and blood, but rage was Wei Ying's song at night, the beast he became taking control, protecting what it could and destroying those that did harm.Years ago, when Wei Ying had newly discovered this particular power of his, when he’d picked his side—to simply fight everyone who didn’t fight for those weaker than themselves—he’d remembered more.To him, this was better. Better to forget things best forgot. **A Howl’s Moving Castle AU **A shameless self-promotion, but I love this fic to pieces, so I thought it seemed fit to add. Not quite finished, but I promise it will be. I just take two of my favorite pieces of media and have a real good time. There’s magic, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying love each other a lot, and A-Yuan does god’s work.

Siren Song -- Becky_J_1022 When Damen is cursed by a Siren in exchange for the revenge his heart desperately desires, his life is thrown into chaos, and betrayal lurks around every corner. Despite his better judgment, he allows a beautiful young man to seek berth on his ship, not knowing that he has granted refuge to the one man who has every reason to want him dead. Laurent may be the key to breaking Damen's curse, and Damen could help restore Laurent to his throne—but if they have any hope of helping each other, they will have to untangle their bitter pasts first. **Listen, man, this fic is balls to the walls fun and also everyone should read Becky’s fics. Not enough people do. She makes sentences beautiful. Just so beautiful. And she loves to and you can tell.

Hi!  First off, don’t worry about being rude or poking at me a bit over this, I’m still grappling a bit with being ready to talk about being aromatic (mostly in terms of that it takes me awhile to figure this stuff out in a way that I feel truly settled on) and I think there are probably more aro people than we realize, it’s just hard for some to figure themselves out, especially in fandom culture, where shipping/romance is such a huge part of it. I think that probably made me take a lot longer on my journey, because I love shipping so much, I love characters being in love, so obviously I’m not against the concept of romantic love, which meant that the idea of being aro didn’t really sink in for a very long time.  I thought maybe I was just demi and hadn’t met the person I was in love with yet. But I really just don’t feel any lack for not wanting romantic love for myself.  And that gravitates me towards characters who are on the ace/aro spectrum (I had such a moment of clarity like OH that’s why I like Tolkien’s Elves so much, they spend like 99% of their lives as ace and I was like #MOOD even before I realized it)(asexual/ace and aromantic/aro are separate things, but as someone who is somewhere on the spectrum for both, I take what I can get where I can get it). So, I’m assuming that some of us came onto the idea and view of the Jedi as an aromantic culture separately for separate reasons, some of us are aro ourselves, some of us just see that in the Jedi culture, but for me it really started coming together about nine months or so ago because I remember this post coming on the heels of me just starting to be ready to talk about being aro myself and navel gazing about why that drew me to the Jedi in such a resonating way. And the more I think about it, the more it really, really resonates for me, as someone who prizes other connections--family and friends and projects are so fulfilling to me, in a way that romance just exhausts me, it doesn’t charge me up at all.  Seeing a group of fictional characters that prizes those same things, who don’t seem interested or lacking because they don’t seek out romance, who enjoy their connection to this big energy field and the light of the people around them, as somewhere in the nebulous area of family that’s not defined by traditional blood family structure?  It resonated a lot with me and made me feel finally seen even in just a small way. Romance and shipping characters aren’t bad, fandom is a place where people come to it for fun and to enjoy what they enjoy.  I clearly love shipping, I have my OTPs and I’m constantly thinking about them smooching, it’s not like I’m trying to shoo it away from my precious aro babies.  Instead it’s that I want some space to enjoy one of the incredibly few cultures in media that I can feel connected to through this lens and would like to encourage people to step a bit away from the “romance is a fundamental part of the human condition” mindset because it’s not. Being human can come in so many, many forms and they’re all genuinely just as valuable.  That Obi-Wan chooses the Jedi over romance, that the narrative approves of his and Satine’s choices, that they loved each other, but found more value in other things.  That Mace Windu is a sympathetic, empathetic character who has never expressed a need for romantic love in canon.  That Ahsoka may have genuinely liked Lux romantically or she may have had tangly feelings for someone who resonated with her psychic abilities that we don’t really have a box for other than romance because that’s what we’re used to and she went on to not really be that interested in romance, even when Kaeden was practically all over her, Ahsoka wasn’t really thinking about that or feeling like a piece of her was missing because of it.  That Yoda has lived almost 900 years and never actually needed a girlfriend because he has so much other stuff to connect him to his people. That Plo Koon and Luminara Unduli and Aayla Secura and Shaak Ti and Agen Kolar and Ki-Adi-Mundi and Depa Billaba and Adi Gallia and Even Piell and Kit Fisto and so many more don’t need to have romance to make them human, to make them empathizable, to make their stories worth being told. Yeah, some Jedi do have romantic feelings, but even then (with the exception of Anakin) they tend to put their duty before their own feelings first and are fulfilled by this, it’s a choice they are satisfied with making.  Or else they leave because that’s not the choice they wanted to make, and that’s fine, too. But the majority of the Jedi we see are ones that resonate on an aro spectrum for me, that the culture of the Jedi that prioritizes purpose before feelings, that puts adopted family feelings before romantic feelings, that finds fulfillment in these things, is pretty wonderful. That the Jedi express love and care in ways that aren’t inherently romantic--touches to the shoulder are constant, that Obi-Wan shows his care by telling Anakin he’s proud of him or showing up to talk if Anakin’s ready for it, that Mace and Yoda share these hilarious looks of people who have been through some shit together, that Luminara smiles so brightly to see Barriss alive, that literally almost every single Jedi Master would lay down their lives to save their Padawan, that we see that with Depa dying to save Caleb, that we saw that with Jaro Tapal dying to save Cal, that we heard the echoes of another Master dying to save their Padawan in JFO’s Sense Echoes, that Yoda constantly makes time to talk to anyone who comes to see him, that literally every Jedi we see is practically jumping at the chance to help Ahsoka with her lessons or help teach her something she needs, that these are forms of love being explicitly expressed through these gestures and they’re wonderful.