#also he goes through so much trauma and there's like. a whole entire war which he wins basically singlehandedly

[azems-familiar]

I am This Close to watching the untamed

So if you want to perhaps yell about it or something (since you’ve gotten me into stuff that way before) that could be cool idk

OH MY GOD PLEASE WATCH IT

okay to start with. the live action show is very good and a great place to start but it has some important differences from the novel and the donghua (animated show). i personally prefer a combination of cql (the untamed/the live action, that's the acronym i'll be using for it from now on) and the donghua; the novel suffers a lot of lost in translation effect and whatnot and i personally dislike the way the relationship is built in several places in it as opposed to how the adaptations do it, but it's definitely still worth reading. (dm me on discord if you want a copy of a pretty good fan translation of the novel and also like, a link to a place you can watch the donghua, btw.) other problems with cql: censorship hits the live action the hardest and their budget was i'm pretty sure basically nonexistent (they very clearly spent most of it on the costumes and the props, which you know what, the costumes are fucking stunning so great choice). so they changed the worldbuilding some and like.... the fight scenes? are really not good. they're really not good. also the special effects are universally pretty bad. it can make watching some parts of it difficult to get through, and there are some plot elements that are changed as well that i dislike, and a lot of the moral greyness of the original story had to get removed because again, censorship issues (if you want the most accurate, non-morally-whitewashed take first, you'll want to start with the novel, which is also what has the explicitly gay stuff). it's also not explicitly gay - but the actors played it as gay and there are multiple marriage metaphors and holy fuck like. honestly. there doesn't need to be a kiss or a confession or anything it's REALLY FUCKING GAY.

what cql excels in is its character interactions. the acting is absolutely stunning, the soundtrack is beautiful, and every single scene is just done with so much heart and emotion in it. so definitely keep that in mind going into it. i've watched it all the way through i think 3 or 4 times and i still keep seeing new fun details in the background that i hadn't noticed before.

the donghua, on the other hand, has an absolutely stunning art style, very very good voice acting, the worldbuilding and plot are more accurate to the book, and the magic and combat scenes are much more realistic for a fantasy and the powers they have. however, it, especially specifically the third and final season, is very rushed (and it has its own plot changes to fit how much they had to condense things, mostly just in the second half of season 3) and excludes some details, so it can be confusing if you don't know what you're seeing first. i recommend either watching cql or reading the novel first, then watching the donghua!

in terms of like, actual fandom stuff! so the main character of mdzs is, obviously, Wei Wuxian. i'm not sure how much you know but he's like. an incredibly ADHD man with horrible self-worth issues (despite being arrogant as hell) and a very strong sense of justice who is extremely brilliant and goes through a shitton of tragedy. he is known for inventing a viable form of necromancy, which is considered incredibly heretical and, among other things, gets him killed, and then gets him resurrected, so you know. pros and cons. he does magic by playing the flute. he is a disaster bisexual and also a bit of an alcoholic (okay a lot of an alcoholic) and i love him. his love interest is stoic and serious and incredibly autistic-coded and has been in love with him since they were teenagers and literally wrote him a love song. the two of them get trapped in a cave together and have to kill an ancient corrupted divine monster without weapons. it's very romantic. wei wuxian as a younger teenager is basically the epitome of a child pulling a girl's pigtails because he has a crush and is desperate for attention.

anyway, i'm not sure how much you know about the plot, but there's two timelines going on - the present and the past. the present is after wei wuxian is resurrected, and he and lan wangji (the love interest, in case you haven't picked up on the names yet - everyone has like two or three names and it can be hard to tell them apart at first) are basically going on a fun little murder mystery quest while also babysitting a bunch of teenagers which then abruptly devolves into politics, murder, more politics, and more murder. the past on the other hand goes from a high school definitely-not-a-romance to a goddamn war drama to politics and back to. hm. not exactly a war drama anymore but i'm really not sure how to describe everything that happens after a certain event. it's all very much a tragedy and the real "villain" of the story (which is less obvious in cql, again because of moral whitewashing due to censorship, though honestly i feel like they did a pretty good job of staying as true to the source material as they could all things considered, a whole lot of the scenes were word for word from the novel just slightly edited to fit the adjusted worldbuilding or plot changes) is the mob mentality, rumors and gossip and hearsay, and society itself!

lastly, because i am trying not to overwhelm you here, i am going to link you a couple great amvs i've found on youtube that will probably not make a lot of sense without context but will at least hopefully intrigue you?

and

and

the other one i really want to link i cannot because it definitely will make absolutely no sense without having watched the show and so you have to come talk to me when you've finished it so i can give it to you. also hey please feel free to come dm me on discord i Will ramble at length about this. especially about wwx he is my BLORBO and currently taking up residence in my brain. and also i need your live reactions if/when you start watching things oh my god

be glad it's almost 2 am and i'm still recovering from my covid booster or this would be even longer

#asked and answered #long post #i am not apologizing actually #mdzs #i want to yell more but i don't want to spoil things and i also don't want to sound totally deranged #i mean i am deranged but like. plausible deniability here #anyway he plays a FLUTE ginger. to do NECROMANCY. in the live action they didn't do this but #in the donghua you get to see his eyes go red when he does it and it is WONDERFUL #also he goes through so much trauma and there's like. a whole entire war which he wins basically singlehandedly #because of the necromancy. while having a prolonged fight with his not-boyfriend who he had a not-breakup with after he came back from #a three month disappearance (in which he did some Marinating in Spooky Hell Energy) after which he reappeared with a glowup #and a murder flute that he raised the dead with. so like honestly it's not unreasonable that lwj was concerned #wwx is just incapable of handling things normally. like ever. also has no emotional intelligence when it's other people's feelings for him #ANYWAY this man has like all of my mental illnesses but Worse i'm so attached to him <3 #wow i completely failed in not sounding insane huh

[daisynik7]

Iris

And I don't want the world to see me, ‘cause I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x f!reader

Rating: Mature – MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

Word Count: ~4.5k (I went way over than I was supposed to, lol)

cw: switching POVs (2nd person reader, 3rd person Eren), canon-universe, VERY canon-divergent, consider this a what-if scenario, major AOT spoilers up to season 4, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, smut – PIV sex (cowgirl position), fingering 

Summary: At the Battle of Fort Slava, Eren Jaeger, hell-bent on launching his ultimate attack on Marley, injures himself to pose as a wounded soldier, granting him admittance to the hospital to finalize his plans. You, an Eldian volunteer working at the hospital, start treating this new patient, nervous about his mysterious demeanor. Eventually, you learn that you have much more in common with each other than you think. 

Author’s Note: Thank you @ichinosejager13 for your second request for the y2k karaoke party! I did something totally different this time; I wrote a fic set in the canon universe. I thought it fit well with this song, so I hope you like it! While it’s set in the canon universe, it is very obviously canon divergent, so please remember I took a lot of liberties with this. I am in no way suggesting that any of this is what I wish happened in canon. I just think it was an interesting idea to write. Also, I understand that this will seem very out-of-character for Eren, but let’s just roll with it because it's all in good fun, lol. 

Like, reblogs, and/or comments are ALWAYS appreciated! Thank you for reading! MDNI banner by @/cafekitsune.

Fort Slava, huddled in the trenches. Blade through his leg, bullet in his eye. This is the last vivid memory Eren can recall as he stands in line outside the hospital, waiting to be admitted. Some asshole Marleyan imitates explosion sounds, causing all of those around him to fall to the ground, cowering in fear. They suffer trauma from the battlefield, and even Eren, with a clear conscious now, is affected by it. A kid, another Eldian dawning the same yellow armband as he is, steps towards them, kneeling down to help them up. He even assists Eren, correcting his armband to his left arm instead of the right. Luckily, it goes unnoticed by everyone else, which is exactly what he wants. 

It's all part of his plan; the attack on Marley. It’s been in the works for months now, starting with his infiltration of the army, fighting alongside Marleyans and Eldians alike. He thought he’d have better clarity of the situation, maybe get convinced to call the whole thing off after bonding with other solders through the tragedies of violence and war. Unfortunately, it’s only made him realize how much more he needs to follow through with it. Nothing will ever change in this cruel world unless he’s the one to do it. 

There are days when he gets cold feet. He’s tempted to re-evaluate, find a way back to his home of Paradis, reunite with his friends, devise a better plan and figure it out together. But in all the futures Eren can see, his current plan is the only one that will work. The only one that will grant him the freedom he’s been chasing his entire life.  

The process is slow to get a room in the hospital. Luck remains on Eren’s side when he’s assigned a private room. It’s barren; a single-bed, just long enough to accommodate his stature, withered sheets and rusted iron on the frame. There’s a small nightstand beside it with two drawers to hide his belongings, which is essentially nothing, and atop is a small lamp, illuminating the room in a dreary glow. It’s not luxurious, but it’s enough for the time-being. Because that’s all Eren needs right now: time. 

Eventually, Zeke will find him. They’ve been contacting each other for a while now, and Eren has a firm grasp on what his older brother is trying to convince him to do with the Founder’s power. While he doesn’t agree with his idea to euthanize the entire race of Eldians, Eren needs to entertain it long enough to manipulate Zeke into letting him use his royal blood. 

It's all convoluted and fucked up, he’s aware of that. Somedays, he wishes he could escape this curse without doing anything at all. That one day, he’d be gone from this world, liberated from his Titan power, saved from this burdened life. This isn’t what he imagined while reading all those books he and Armin would marvel at as kids. This isn’t the freedom he was hoping for. 

He rests in his pathetic, yet oddly comforting bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. His leg and eye are still wrapped in bandages, so a nurse should be coming soon to check on him. There’s a faint commotion out in the hallway, but Eren is too lazy and too uninterested to investigate. Soon, it subsides, and the door swings open, revealing a women around his age, wearing a nurses uniform and the yellow Eldian patch on her left arm. He recognizes the attire from battle; the army had a few nurses stationed at the fort for casualties. 

“Mr. Kruger?” she asks. 

It takes him a second to remember the alias he decided to use. He confirms it, nodding his head silently. 

She gives him a warm smile, introducing herself. “I’ll be helping you from now on.”

~~~

You started working at the hospital a few months ago. For Eldians, it’s nearly impossible to be accepted into higher education, so nursing school was never an option. With opportunities so scarce, your best bet was to apply for a volunteer position at the hospital in hopes of using that as a steppingstone for an actual paying job. You don’t expect a promotion any time soon, not even in the near future, but at least you’re spending your time helping others.

While it’s rewarding, it isn’t glamorous or pretty in the slightest bit. Because you lack the proper education, your tasks mostly include bathing, feeding, cleaning up any accidents or messes. Occasionally, if your patient is open to it, you spend time with them chatting, doing activities with them, listening to their stories. This is rare, though. Most that are admitted are Marleyans who refuse to speak to you because of your status. Some are even reluctant to have you help them in the first place. The Eldians, sadly, are usually too traumatized to open up, so you do your best to make them comfortable however you can. 

When you meet your newest patient, Eren Kruger, you don’t expect him to be any different from the rest. You are, however, surprised at how young he is; he can’t be any older than you, judging by his appearance. His records show nothing except for his name and his status as an Eldian, which isn’t unusual, so you don’t think much of it. “Mr. Kruger, I know you must be hungry,” you start. “Lunch will be arriving soon. If you need assistance, I’ll be here to help you.”

He acknowledges you with another curt nod, remaining silent. You can’t help but notice how brilliantly green his eyes are. Have you ever seen irises like his before? You let the inappropriate thought vanish quickly before you ask, “Would you like me to bathe you now or after you eat?”

At this, his brows tighten. “Bathe?” 

“Yes, Mr. Kruger. We can bathe you before or after lunch, it’s up to you – ”

“I don’t want to bathe,” he says, avoiding your gaze. 

You blink at him, unsure how to respond. “Surely you must want to be clean – ”

He interrupts you again, muttering, “How can I, when I’m like this?”

You understand his hesitation now, not needing further explanation. Sometimes, patients with missing limbs have expressed concern submerging themselves in a tub full of water, not wanting to get their bandages wet. Quickly, you clarify, “It would be a sponge bath. We can do that while you’re lying in bed, actually. And your bandages will stay intact.”

This seems to be the answer he’s looking for. His expression relaxes when he says, “After. I want to do it after I eat.”

You smile softly at him, noting it on your checkboard. “Understand. I’ll go check on your meal now. Is there anything else you need from me?”

A beat passes before he replies, “Pen and paper. For letters.”

You write it, reminding yourself to bring it when you return with his meal. “Got it.”

A few minutes later, you return with a tray of food along with a wad of paper and two pens. You set it on his nightstand beside him, waiting for him to move it. When he doesn’t, staying still, staring blankly at the foot of the bed, you clear your throat. “Mr. Kruger?”

“I’m not hungry,” he murmurs. 

“But you haven’t eaten all day. You need nourishment if you’re going to get any better.”

“And who says I want to get better?” He glares at you, startled by the intensity in his gaze. 

You swallow hard, nervous, but still resilient. “You have to eat. You owe it to yourself after what you’ve been through.”

“And how would you know what I’ve been through?” His voice is steady, a hint of venom, barely enough to sting. But you’re determined. You sit at the edge of the bed, careful not to touch him. Reaching for the tray, you set it down on your lap, sighing. “I don’t know. I have no idea what war is like out there. All I know is that it’s not great for us here. At least out there, you’re fighting together as a unit. Marleyan, Eldian, it doesn’t matter. You’re working to defeat our enemy. And who knows? If we ever win the war, maybe life will be better for us here.” You shove the tray towards him, glaring back at him. “So the least you could do is try to see it through and survive, right?”

He studies you carefully, contemplating how to respond. Glancing at the tray in front of him, he smirks, scooping a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. You ease up, tension releasing from your shoulders. 

After a few more bites, he speaks. “Who do you think the enemy is?” 

Just when you thought you were in the clear, he asks you another question. “It was the Mid-East Allies. That’s who you fought at Fort Slava.” 

“But who do you think the real enemy is?” He’s finished with his potatoes, now moving on to his meatloaf. 

“Well, I suppose it’s whoever the government says it is.” You’re unsure what kind of answer he’s searching for.

“And if they say that we’re the enemy, then what?” He points between you, leaving you confused. 

“We…?”

“Eldians. Devils.”

“No, no. The Devils are on the island. We’re…we’re not like them.”

“Are you sure?” He stuffs the rest of the meat into his mouth, chewing and swallowing it all down. “What makes you think you’re any better here than you are there?”

Your face feels hot now, and you start to stammer. “Because…because that’s what we were told. We’re on the right side. They’re on the wrong.” 

His plate is nearly clean now. He slides his fingers on the remnants, licking it off before chugging half a glass of water. “What if I told you there’s a place for people like us? A place where you wouldn’t have to walk around with an armband. A place where you were treated fairly. Would you want to go to a place like that?” 

You feel yourself drawn in by his words. The idea of it sounds impossible. Ever since you were born, you were taught to know your place in this world. That place was here in Marley, destined to be a second-class citizen. You were told that the island across the sea was full of devils like you, but because you’re here, you’re better. You can’t deny that you’ve been curious what life is like out there. All this time, you thought it must be worst, secluded on an island, hated by the rest of the world. 

But is this life any better? Secluded in your own community and still hated by the rest of the world?

You pick the tray up from his lap, muttering, “I’ll go get your sponge bath ready.”

He doesn’t add anything else, watching you silently. You walk towards the door, ready to leave. Before you do, you say, “And to answer your question: I would.”

~~~

It was supposed to be innocent banter, that’s what Eren intended. He figured he could chalk it up to the trauma speaking for him, that she wouldn’t even be remotely interested in what he had to say. He thought she’d be like all the other naïve, brainwashed Eldians, ignorantly believing everything that was told to them. He realizes soon enough that he was wrong to underestimate her.

She comes to him every day, fulfilling her volunteer duties. Their daily routine begins with breakfast, then a morning stroll in his wheelchair out in the courtyard. Sometimes they’ll play chess at one of the tables, sometimes it’s checkers. Lunchtime comes, and then it’s time for a bath, one of Eren’s favorite parts of the day. Her hands are always gentle, gliding along his skin with a damp sponge. They’ll do another stroll outside, this time on his crutches, where he practices how to walk. Dinner arrives when it’s already dark out, and occasionally, he’ll ask her to read the latest news from the paper. 

While all this happens, they talk. They talk a lot. 

As expected, she figures out that Eren is from Paradis, though he bends the truth about his true intentions for being here. She doesn’t know about his Titan powers, thinking he’s a refugee seeking sanctuary here. Surprisingly, she isn’t offended about it; in fact, she’s curious. They spend most of their time together sharing stories of their childhood. Eren describes life in Paradis, she describes life in Marley. While there are stark differences between their upbringings, there are also blatant similarities. And together, they come to the gut-wrenching conclusion: Eldians are terrorized wherever they are, whether it’s here, or across the sea. 

Eren has only sent one letter in the past two weeks, and that was to his friends back home, informing them that he is in Marley, safe and sound. He doesn’t disclose his plan to them yet. In all honestly, he’s not sure what the plan is anymore. Zeke still hasn’t found him, nor has Eren gone out of his way to be found. What Eren does know is that he enjoys spending time with the woman who helps him. So much that he’s losing grip on what he’s supposed to be doing here. He has to do something soon.

It comes to a head one night, three weeks after he was admitted to the hospital. Eren requests for another sponge bath after dinner; it was a hot day and he worked up a sweat during their afternoon walk. She helps him strip his shirt off, starting with the wet, warm sponge at his chest, massaging small circles onto his sticky skin. He watches her carefully, noticing her eyes lingering on his body more so than usual. 

He speaks softly into her ear, leaning in close. “I have something to tell you.”

She continues above his waist, hands gently scrubbing, not bothering to look at him when she responds. “What is it, Eren?”

He’s thought about this all day. The plan. “Would you like to visit Paradis?”

This time, she does look at him, confused. “What?”

Louder now, and more confident, he says, “Come to Paradis with me. See what it’s like there.”

She scoffs. “I can’t just leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is my home.”

“They treat you like nothing here,” he argues. “At Paradis, you’re somebody. We can be safe at Paradis.”

She stops, tossing the sponge into the bucket of water beside her, frustrated. “Safe? After everything you’ve told me? You said it yourself; you’ve been terrorized by Titans since you were a kid. Every nation in the world wants Paradis gone. How can it be safe?”

He swallows thickly, gripping her hand delicately in his. “I can’t explain everything right now, but I have a plan. We have a plan.” He recalls one of the last memories he has of Armin, his brilliant friend, suggesting a small-scale Rumbling, enough to scare the rest of the world from attacking Paradis for centuries. He dismissed it quickly then, but now, he considers it. Could this be their best option? Instead of the billions of casualties Eren had originally devised? “You just have to trust me for now. Once we’re there, I can explain everything.”

She stares at him, clearly in shock from his suggestion. He doesn’t blame her. Eren is asking her to give up everything she knows. 

“Eren,” she starts, squeezing his hand tighter. “I don’t know if I can do that.” 

He smiles at her, brushing his thumb across her knuckles delicately. “I understand. I know it’s a big ask, and I shouldn’t have expected you to say yes. I just…I just think I know what I can do for Paradis to make it safe for people like us. Somewhere we can be ourselves, where people will know us for who we are, and not for what they see on our armbands.”

“It sounds like paradise,” she says quietly.

“It does. And I think I could make it that way. I know I can.”

She sighs, retrieving the sponge again. “I want to believe you, Eren. But I don’t think I can throw away my life for something I’m unsure of.” She starts to slide his pants off, ready to wash below his waist.

“Please, just consider it. I plan to leave soon, within the next few days. I just have to send out a letter tomorrow, and I should be ready to go.”

“You’re leaving? Already?”

“I know what I have to do now. I can’t waste any more time when we can end this war now.”

She peers at him, tears welling in her eyes. “I…” 

“What is it?” He sits up, leaning in close to cup her cheek, brushing away her falling tears. 

“Will we ever see each other again?” Her voice is trembling, lips quivering. His heart sinks into his stomach, seeing her like this.

He presses his forehead to hers. “I’ll find you when this is all over. I promise you. Whatever you do, don’t go anywhere near the shore, okay?” The small-scale Rumbling should only affect the fleets, which will be in the middle of the ocean, far from the shore. Still, he can’t risk anything happening to her. Not when he isn’t there to protect her.

She nods, not asking for any further explanation. He presses a small kiss to her forehead. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to bring us peace.” 

~~~

Eren asks you to drop off a letter in the mailbox, addressed to someone named Azumabito. Apparently, she is an ally to Eldians who is stationed here in Marley, so she can arrange a ship for him to head back home. 

There are still so many questions left unanswered, though you decide not to ask them. Maybe it’s foolish to trust someone you’ve only known for a month. But Eren has given you more truth about this harsh world that anyone else the entire time you’ve been here. And he’s the only one who’s ever promised you a better life. 

Two days after you mailed the letters, you receive a response. It’s addressed to you, though you’re sure it’s meant for Eren. There’s a fancy insignia stamped to one corner of the envelope: a circle with a triangle in the center, formed by samurai swords. You keep it safe in your pocket as you head for the kitchen, ready to deliver Eren’s dinner. 

He reads it when he’s finished with his meal. You watch as he scans the letter carefully, mouthing a few words under his breath. When he reaches the end, he looks up at you, a small grin on his face. “She’s arranged a ship for tomorrow morning, before sunrise.”

You gasp, surprised at how soon his departure is. “Tomorrow?”

He nods, folding the letter and tucking it beneath his pillow. 

You let out a deep breath, unsure what else to say. Noticing your quiet demeanor, he reaches for your hand to hold it. “I know this is happening so fast. But I’ve never been more certain about what I need to do until now.” He interlocks his fingers with yours, smiling. “And you helped me with that.”

“Me? How?”

“By being you. By giving me a chance to explain myself. Even when you found out I was from Paradis, you didn’t judge me. You got to know me. It showed me that there are people, good people, on this side. That even in a ruthless place like this, there is beauty to be saved.” 

You don’t say anything, throat too heavy with emotion to respond. Blinking away your tears, you take his tray from his lap, walking quickly to the door. Before you can leave, he asks, “Can you please come back to help me shave?”

Without turning to face him, you nod, exiting his room, stifling your sobs on your way down the hallway. Your heart yearns for more time with him. For the past few weeks, being here has been an escape from your painful reality. You’re not seen as an Eldian, you aren’t considered a second-class citizen. With him, you’re just you. 

You know that you can’t keep him caged here forever. Like a bird, he’s ready to spread his wings. He’s ready to be free. While you’re heartbroken to see him leave, you’re thrilled for him to fulfill his destiny. All you can hope is that one day, you’ll be reunited in a better place than here. 

You return to his room a couple of minutes later with everything you need to give him a close shave. His facial hair has grown out quite a bit since he arrived. You lather his face with a small amount of soap, scrubbing the suds off with a warm, wet towel. He closes his eyes, indulging in your relaxing touch. After mindful preparation, you begin to shave his goatee with a straight razor, pulling his skin taut, gliding the blade carefully across his chin, cleaning it after every stroke. When you’re done with his beard, you focus your attention on his mustache, delicately moving the razor until his skin is smooth and shaven. You smile as you wipe off any remaining residue with the towel. 

With everything discarded into the bucket of water set on the nightstand, you take this time to admire his face, memorizing every detail. The flutter of his lashes, the bridge of his nose, the sharpness of his jawline, the plush of his lips. It’s only now that you realize how close to him you are. You’re kneeling beside him on the bed, noses almost touching, your fingers grazing his smooth skin. He opens his eyes to look at you, and his breath hitches at the intimacy, glancing at your mouth. 

Before you can move, he closes the short distance, kissing you on the lips. As quickly as it happens, he pulls away, blushing. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have asked first. I’m sorry – ”

You cut him off with another kiss, hungry for more. It’s his last day; in mere hours from now, he’ll be gone, and you’re not sure when you’ll see him again, if ever. It’s crossed your mind many times by now, how it would feel to be with him like this. The feeling of his lips on yours, the slide of his tongue in your mouth, the taste of his spit. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you’ve never thought about it. In fact, it’s been on your mind every night as you fall asleep, wishing you were in his arms instead of alone in your bed. 

He doesn’t pull away this time, sinking in deeper, slipping inside your mouth to swirl his tongue with yours. He’s just as sweet as you fantasized he’d be, luscious and rich in your mouth. His skin is smooth against your fingertips, tracing his jawline. One hand slides around your waist, tugging you closer to him, the other wraps around the nape of your neck, holding your head steady. You swing one leg over him, straddling his lap, hoisting the hem of your dress past your hips, revealing your panties. He moans, shifting beneath you in the bed to slip his trousers down, displaying his erection bulging in his underwear.

“Is this okay?” he huffs, catching his breath. His voice wavers, his only visible eye half-lidded with arousal, unable to keep his cool.

“Yes,” you answer, grinding yourself on him, kissing him sloppily. His grip is on your hips, guiding you to rut against his cock faster. The friction between you is enough to make you wet, your slick soaking through the fabric. 

“You’re an angel,” he whispers, dragging your bottom lip between his teeth. “I want to make you feel good.” His thumb teases the elastic of your waistband, hand slipping inside to rub your clit against his fingers. 

“Eren,” you moan, his sensual touch sending waves of pleasure through your body. He slowly slides two digits inside you, massaging your bud with his palm while he pumps his fingers into your sopping cunt. His cock is stiff beneath you, watching you ride his hand, cursing under his breath until you reach your climax, coating him in your arousal. 

You’re breathing heavily, in a daze from your orgasm. He removes his hand from you, slipping it past his underwear to jerk his cock. You reach for him, tugging his bottoms down his legs, replacing his fist with yours, stroking him eagerly. He whispers your name, bucking his hips in tandem with your movements. You’re aching for more, desperate to feel him inside you, feel him deeper. You position yourself correctly, pulling the crotch of your panties to the side to  tease the head of his cock up and down your folds. He sits up on his elbows, watching you with a nervous expression on his face. “Are you sure?” he asks.

You nod, smiling at him. “I’m sure. I want to be close to you, Eren.”

He swears, letting his head fall back into the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. You sink down on him, his dick stretching you out smoothly, still sleek from your previous orgasm. He moans, craning his neck to take in the lewd sight before him. “Oh my god,” he groans, thrusting his hips into you. 

You ride him slowly, his entire length filling you up to the brim. He plants his feet into the mattress to fuck you deeper, the metal frame creaking with every thrust. It doesn’t take long until you’re both coming together. He shoots his load inside you while you gush all over him, creating a wet mess between you that you couldn’t care less about in the euphoric state you’re in. You lift off him, rolling to his side, relaxing into the pillow with him beside you, cradling you in his arms. He gives you a smooch on the cheek, nuzzling his nose with yours. “I meant what I said earlier.”

“What?”

“You really are an angel,” he says, smiling at you.

~~~

Eren wakes up alone, and he’s almost convinced that it was all a dream until he spots the small note scribbled on paper laying his nightstand. 

It’s too hard to say goodbye, so I won’t. I trust you to keep your promise. We’ll see each other again soon.

With daybreak approaching, Eren leaves for the docks quickly with only the clothes on his back and letters in his pocket, including hers. With sunrise teasing the horizon, he makes it to the meeting place just in time. He recognizes Azumabito and greets her, explaining the situation as they board the ship. She informs him that they are waiting for several other passengers, so he makes himself comfortable by a window.  

A few minutes pass and one of the crew approaches him. “Mr. Jaeger, there is a woman trying to board, claiming they are with you. Do you know anything about this?”

He glances out the window towards the docks and to his shock, he sees an angel with a suitcase in hand, talking to Azumabito. His heart races, overjoyed as he jumps out of his seat, sprinting out of the ship to meet her. 

#eren smut #eren yeager #eren jaeger #eren jaeger smut #eren jaeger x reader #eren jaeger x you #eren yeager smut #eren yeager x reader #eren yeager x you #aot smut #attack on titan smut #attack on titan fanfiction #eren fanfiction #y2k karaoke party #milestone event

[dangermousie]

Let's discuss hormones. Mine.

The way he comes in wiping blood from his hands btw is such a great character moment - small but so telling.

We get the general under Lord Ge complaining...and I lose my mind at how much I love this character arc for Di Lin.

Because he's a doomed character, watching Liu Yuning as Di Lin is the closest we will ever get to seeing Wei Shuo as he was in the novel even if somehow, improbably, Prisoner of Beauty leaves the NRTA jail. Because Di Lin - ruthless as fuck in battle and politics, ambitious, totally whipped for his wife - is very much book WS and no way no how will the censors let the protagonist of a drama who gets a happy ending do what book Wei Shuo or drama Di Lin does (and will do, if they follow the book.)

I mean, the man is executing his soldiers if they don't follow military discipline, killing captured enemies unless they surrender (and sometimes if they surrender too slowly) and if a city refuses to surrender and he takes it, he puts the entire place to the sword. Is this a man I want to chill (in a bath :P) with? Nope. Would I want a kid of mine to join his army? Also nope. Is this something an effective period warlord would do? HELL YEAH!!! Man only had 50K troops and went into insane odds and he's kicking butt extraordinaire.

In fact, he's a genuine sweetheart compared to some of the successful historical warlords in China and elsewhere. (And before the censors starting riding the dramas so hard, you'd see it reflected in dramas more often - see Three Kingdoms 2010, The Advisors' Alliance, The King's War etc.) God, I love that!

He throws this into the older man's face like a challenge but I get the sense that this is what he tells himself every night as justification to himself, so he can sleep at night. There is a certain unhinged desperation in his words and actions.

And then this scene! AAAAA! (Wasting food refers to the old officer smashing a bowl of porridge when he came in.)

The thing is - part of it is intimidation tactic for the man to leave and not to interfere again - but part of it is I think Di Lin is operating from serious trauma response freak out level and - I don't want to say he's not rational because he's obviously smart and capable and doing well in battle - but he's traumatized as fuck.

I mean, look at the scene after the old officer leaves. He's the supreme commander of his force and he kneels and starts trying to scoop up the spilled porridge into the broken shards of the bowl with shaking hands like his life depends on it. This man is not well.

We started the drama by slowly realizing that Xiu's sunny jokester demeanor conceals serious serious trauma and now we are watching Di Lin get traumatized in front of our eyes. And I love that the trigger is war for both but also that they were already under stress already before which probably facilitated that. Xiu had to be in the hell of border privation and battles for 7 years but he went in after losing his adoptive father, being betrayed and being kicked out of his life - so someone with trauma already there got a lot of war trauma on top and came back the way he came back.

And with Di Lin, he's had to be the spy in Lord Yang's camp for the last 7 years which is stressful as fuck and can end in sudden death at any moment and he has to live with everyone except his two bros and his wife thinking he's someone who he is not, at all - so that's already a "congrats on coping" territory and then he goes to war (and it's his first command; I am sure he's fought before but command is a whole different ball of wax) and he's outnumbered and has to actually work for two enemy factions (Lord Yang and Xiu's) even through his battle strategies and so he is now also falling apart.

Going to war is enough trauma for most people on its own and here - ugh. I love that Xiu is incredibly competent and functional and Di Lin is also but that doesn't mean they aren't super super fucked up.

#cdrama #liu yuning #eternal brotherhood

[pancake-breakfast]

We're already to volume 8? *incoming trauma panic intensifies*

Stream-of-consciousness thoughts for TriMax Vol. 8, Chapters 1-2 below.

TriMax Volume 8 Covers

Goshdarnit, that bird-man better not be losing his prosthetic again. Those things can't be easy to come by.

LOL, he looks so serene in the fake cover. I'm guessing he supposedly dramatically threw the rose, but I just wanna think Wolfwood is wearing a tiny rose on top of that overblown mane Nightow gave him here. They're definitely shojo characters now.

Knives, just kinda... peeking nto the back cover there.

Is it just me or did Meryl and Milly grow their hair out a bit again?

LOL, Legato getting eaten by a fish on the back cover. He deserves it.

Ooh, a spinoff chapter? I'm down.

Also, someone needs to update Kuroneko's flea meds, I think. She's scratching a lot. Do they have fleas on this planet? I imagine they're just more worms.

Chapter 1: Invasion

Oh, Nightow, with your angled horizon lines....

This guy with the beard reminds me of a badger for some reason.

Uhhhh... what's happening here? Is this the arc taking off?

But... like... wasn't the arc (and where they met Knives and all) somewhere deep in Eye of Michael territoriy?

I wonder who's invading what?

LOL, Vash wakes up and just... goes about doing his routines, I see. Not gonna let the whole LACK OF AN ARM stop him.

Oh, shit, no. It's Legato doing this. That's bad. That's very, very bad.

Thanks to Vash? Thanks to Vash?! Vash wasn't the one who crashed all the humans into a desolate planet, forcing the humans to rely even more heavily on Plants than they likely planned to. Vash isn't the one who murdered a bunch of Plants in that same Fall. Vash isn't the one assimilating them into part of his being with no thought for whether or not it's their will.

THAT'S RIGHT, VASH. YOU TELL HIM. STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, BABYGIRL!!!

Ohhh, that looks painful. Legato didn't care for Vash's line of talk, I guess.

And Knives, great brother that he is, allows it. Because Vash needs to be punished until he understands Knives' point of view, apparently. 'Cause that's how that works.

Wolfwood, buddy, you look like you need some serious shut-eye.

Knives says this is a war, but he's framing it like it's just gonna be a massacre of his own design. And he's way too happy about it.

What's this Federation now?

Oh, that's bad news for them. That looks like... Wolfwood, Livio, and the other guy who's name I can nemver remember. Although I'll honestly be a bit surprised if it's Wolfwood and not just some EoM rando. Can't imagine Wolfwood's gonna be quick to make friends with Wheelchair Guy again anytime soon.

Ah, no. It's Wolfwood. This could get interesting.

*sigh* Wolfwood...

This all flies in the face of everything Wolfwood's learned about himself fighting alongside Vash, and Wolfwood knows it. The real question is, now that he doesn't have Vash at his back, what's he going to do with that knowledge? We just saw him choose to distract rather than kill with his weaponry, but how long will that last now that he's back in the clutches of EoM?

Oh, honey. There's nothing convenient about what's going through Wolfwood's head right now. Nightow hasn't given is the slightest glimpse of it, but... you can just tell. His poise, his look, and his choice not to just murder-death those guys is plenty to show he's at a crossroads. He's fought to get here, and he knows there will nasty consequences regardless of which path he chooses.

Ugh, Livio's making his move first.

Bonus points to Stampede for adapting Livio's guns well.

Wolfwood is not happy about this.

"There are times where life is harder than death, and that time has just begun." Foreshadowing much?

Oooh, look at all them plants just... watching.

Vash looks so desperate and so sad here. He just wants his brother to listen.

And, of course, Knives just dismisses him. Because Knives.

Knives isn't entirely wrong. He's overlooking that there are ways he and Vash could probably mitigate this if they worked together instead of Knives being so genocide-happy that Vash basically has to dedicate all his life to mitigating that, but yeah.

Two wrongs don't make a right, Knives. You're also punishing a lot of people for things they may or may not have done, and may or may not have been content accepting, especially if another way presented itself.

Ohhh, that looks like Vash breaking free of Livio's control for a moment.

Vash spitting truth here.

Gods, I'm so proud of him. Seems like he couldn't keep the presence of self the last few times he ran into Knives to say stuff like this. Then again, Knives was too dedicated to setting off his angel arm to really listen much, so that might have something to do with it. Now that Knives has prioritized Vash NOT setting off his arm, he has to hear Vash say stuff.

I wonder if Nightow regretted giving Vash so many scars at this point where he suddenly has to draw them again and again for several pages?

GG twisting Vash's words there to avoid actually looking at your own issues, Knives. A+ avoidance skills.

Chapter 2: Silent Ruin

CW: Body horror, reference to chattel slavery

Livio's going full 80's goth here, isn't he.

Crybaby Livio!

Oooh, old man struck a nerve. Not good. Wolfwood's shit at hiding his feelings.

Ah, there we go. The orphanage isn't aware that their numbers are harvested as Eye of Michael recruits. I... could say a lot on a religious group grooming its children to become ideal soldiers, but one only really has to look at the correlation between the U.S. Military and the U.S. Bible Belt to get the gist of it.

Livio cannot betray this guy? That's strong words. It sounds like Livio was built up to "succeed" where Wolfwood "failed."

Ah, we have another player on the field.

Ok, who's saying this? I have no idea who's saying this. Is it Livio? Is it Wolfwood? Maybe one of the others present in this scene?

Knives, what the hell are you swan diving off to do?

Ohhh, here we go with Knives stealing the plants. Stampede really bumped this element up in the timeline.

Oof, these people have been dead for a bit. No worries; in a place like that, they'll likely mummify before they rot too bad. Kinda like a peat bog but dry.

I hope Knives has a good tank to keep all these plants in and isn't, say, stuffing them all in his arm like a madman.

Oh, would you look at that. He's STUFFING THEM ALL IN HIS ARM LIKE A MADMAN. Dammit, Knives.

From what I gather, impalement is a very painful way to die. You usually go from exposure rather than bleeding out unless some kind soul pulls you free.

Oh, ok, Knives is also shoving them all into some sort of mass tank where they're crammed together like.... Is this supposed to call to mind images of slave ships back when they were a major import to the Americas? Because that's the vibe I'm getting. I really don't know how this could be more comfortable for them than their bulbs.

Yeah, somehow I don't think their warheads are gonna be much of a match for Elandira.

Vash is not having a good... week? I guess it's been a while now. Legato's having a time of it, too, since I'm sure Vash is fighting him quite a bit.

Wolfwood is also not having a good whatever.

Did... did Knives really succeed?

Seven months???

Oh, this has to be our girls.

Yeah! And Luida, too! They look a little worn, but no worse for the wear.

Archive

Trigun Vol. 1: Covers + 1-3, 4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 || Vol. 2: Covers + Extras, 1, 2-4, 5-6, 7-8

TriMax Vol. 1: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 2: Covers + 1, 2-4, 5, 6-7 || Vol. 3: Covers + 1-3, 4-5, 6-7 || Vol. 4: Covers + 1-2, 3-5, 6-7 || Vol. 5: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 6: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 7: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Extra Credit: Trigun Vol. 1: Nebraska vs. Vash's Motivations, Vash's Loneliness, Vash's Depression (pt 2 of post), Soupy Brains || Vol. 2: Coin Factoids || TriMax Vol. 1: Lina, Vash, and a Haircut || Meryl, Vash, and the Pursuit of Happiness || Vol. 5: Knives, Vash, and Hatred for Humanity || Vol. 6: Coping Series: Wolfwood, Meryl, Vash

#trigunbookclub #trigun maximum #volume 8 #pancake thoughts

[atopvisenyashill]

What if Cersei was born a boy like she wishes?

Caveat that I am well aware I am not the Cersei Understander and also I haven't read her chapters in literal years (but i'm getting there!!! like halfway through a storm of swords!) but-

She would have gotten the training she wanted wrt ruling and would be just as (in)effective as Tywin because she'd be 100% willing to be as brutal, to the detriment of the wellbeing of her family.

I imagine Tyrion has it much worse going up - Cersei can only disrespect him so much as first born daughter, but as the actual first born son? Some of her more sadistic tendencies are likely to be encouraged. Same goes for Jaime - would they get involved if they're both men? Certainly they can't have kids (bc we're going off of a cis swap here) but given the weird psychsexual stuff with Jaime's trauma re: knighthood and Lannisters being "worth more" it's entirely possible that a male Cersei would play into this idea of them being born perfect mirrors of each other, that they're meant to be side by side always, that Jaime is meant to follow and serve as Cersei's right hand his whole life, in a similar way that Daemon acts towards Viserys or how people theorize Aemon and Baelon may have acted around each other. Might not get overtly sexual but as a bisexual Jaime truther it might get very charged.

But...there's just sooo much plot that changes because Cersei being confined to a certain role because of her gender and deciding to deal with it by taking down her entire house and half the continent is pivotal to the story plot. So Tywin has no girl to marry to Rhaegar which means he isn't going to get in his feelings about Aerys rejecting Cersei. He's definitely going to still reject Elia for Cersei though, and Loreza Martell probably still decides to go for Rhaegar anyway. I know the initial marriage proposal between Lysa and Jaime was rejected specifically because of Cersei. If male Cersei marries Lysa that's...certainly a pairing that's going to cause a lot of damage, not to mention affect the war. With Tywin being a Targ loyalist until the end and Hoster very early on joining the rebels, does Hoster hedge his bets a bit more or keep Cersei as a hostage to get Tywin to cooperate with the rebels? Does Cersei herself decide to take charge (given she'd be around Robb's age, so it's not impossible they'd let her lead) and join her wife's side of the war? Does Jaime decide to sabatoge the marriage because "if we can't marry you can't marry anyone then" ?

However, the biggest change is actually Jaime - does he still join the Kingsguard if its his BROTHER he's obsessed with and not his sister? Does KL just go kaboom in this timeline because Jaime isn't there to kill Aerys, because Aerys didn't bother to attempt to steal Tywin's heir through the Kingsguard? Does CERSEI play Jaime's role instead? Because Cersei being the one in the kingsguard would be interesting but I'm just not sure HOW she would get there - it's not going to bring her closer to Jaime, there's no female Targ or Targ descendent for her to marry (because Rhaelle has a son and it's likely Daelle and Rhae both only had sons as well).

One things for sure - Cersei and Tywin would be happier about it but everyone else is gonna suffer big time, haha.

#asks #anons #valyrianscrolls #in case anyone wants to add their two cents #cersei lannister

[blazingblorbos]

Okay Genshin 4.1 thoughts dump because if I don't compile my thoughts somewhere I will literally implode. Anyways, spoilers for the Fontaine Archon Quest so far (as of Chapter 4, the Version 4.1 update) under the Read More (a couple paragraphs under, but you catch my drift)

So. Something I have always absolutely adored about Genshin's storytelling is the way it goes about presenting its gods as "Human too"...

At first, it was seen painfully obvious through Ei and her incredibly human response to grief and trauma (a lot of people thought she was being unreasonable, and yeah for a ruler of an entire nation, closing yourself off to the outside world certainly seems - and is - irresponsible. And then... you consider how easily any other normal person would have done the same thing, if not worse, if they had lost nearly everyone they loved in quick succession, while also being personally responsible for a handful of those deaths).

And upon further reflection on the topic, you can see blatant traces of it present in every archon. And I don't just mean their trying to blend into/ further their understanding of humans, human society, and human nature.

I mean, Venti is kinda hedonistic and aloof; Zhongli wasn't always as wise and so intricately-versed in his knowledge about so many things - before the Archon War, he was more of a brute who preferred to solve things head-on (literally) as opposed to thinking things through; Nahida- oh don't even get me started on Nahida. Her self-doubt and insecurity as a result of facing constant beratement and feelings of inferiority to Rukkhadevata; her constant desire to learn more (both for her namesake as the God of Wisdom, to prove herself, and for her own curiosity's sake); her child-like nature (as a result of her research and human observation ofc!!! but still adorable none-the-less; I mean "dook-dook" !?! come on!)...

But now with Furina, oh. I think we've entered a BRAND NEW level and it's part of the reason why I absolutely love her so much.

In classic good-story-telling practice, Genshin achieves all of this through "show-not-tell" and it's world-class ability of characterizing its characters (IN MY OPINION ! I love them so much, okay?). And from the second I MET this girl to the very last line of 4.1's archon quest, it has been made painfully abundant to me that

Furina is just a child.

She has. NO IDEA what she's doing!!! Now, the underlying reasons for this have yet to be seen, and will most likely be tackled in the very next Archon Quest chapter, but if you'll allow me to speculate right now... Knowing that Egeria also conducted trials for citizens who broke the law (meaning she should have also been a God of Justice), I believe whole-heartedly that it was her who built the entire system Furina and Neuvillette are running right now. Meaning, I'm confident Furina has absolutely nothing to do with it. The ONLY (and I think I truly mean ONLY) thing Furina did in the time since she inherited the role was: change the perception of what justice and its deliverance should be into something a lot more akin to a dramatic play, only enacted for people's enjoyment.

Which includes her lack of knowledge on the Oratrice. Furina didn't create it. How could she? She's so utterly ignorant on what it is, how it works, and dare I say what it's truly even for.

The moment I read this statement I convinced myself that it had to have been the previous Hydro Archon. And while I concede that: looking back on the wording of this statement now, it seems like its existence would only be beneficial under someone like Furina's ruling… But, I'm willing to just chalk that up to "Egeria had great future-sight" (or something more along the lines of: she trusted the machine to help keep her in check so false charges were less likely; and it just so happens that its decision making is carrying the court system now under Furina’s rule).

Like many things related to Fontaine's history, it would seem, Egeria being solely responsible for the creation of all these staple facilities and aspects of the nation's inner workings would shed light on why Furina is so unknowing. She had nothing to do with it. And while I'm no envoy from Celestia, so I have no insight as to what the hell happens when a new Archon is born to fill in the void that was left, I think that whatever that process is (IF THERE EVEN IS ONE) went completely awry for Furina. She probably didn't even inherit the Gnosis - ever ! I'm thinking it's stuffed into the Oratrice somehow/somewhere. I'm thinking the "curse" Arlecchino sensed has something to do with that process of inheritance (or... lack thereof) going so wrong.

It’s obvious that Furina is running from something. Ignoring something. Distracting herself from the realities of the world with the “spectacle of the courtroom” (as Dain put it). And it’d be easy to just chalk it up to her being a little bitch with no deeper meaning but I don’t think that’s it.

Genshin doesn’t make it gods “just human”. They spend their time trying to prove that they’re “Human too”.

The underlying reasons for it have to lie in whatever happened when Furina was born. Cursed. Whether it was a curse to end up alone (as per the prophecy), or to never obtain the powers becoming of a god in this world... Whatever happened, it overwhelmed Furina to an unbearable degree, and naturally, like any Human would... she resorted to escapism. She found entertainment in the trials headed at the court room, realized she could make people like her by being this mascot of justice, and upon learning that it's only a matter of time before all of her subjects turn into puddles and she'll be left all alone… she decided to just- NOT think about it!! Who would?! That is a horrifying! revelation.

THAT is why she's so scared to fight - literally anyone!! She doesn’t have the power (and if she does she’s never had to use it).

THAT is why she’s turned out this way - a brat with very little humility, never knowing when to stop the act - because for centuries she’s lived in this little Lala-Land of a bubble denying the inevitable. A fate she was cursed with from the moment she inherited the title of “God”. She wasn’t really given powers, she wasn’t given dominion, and she most certainly hasn’t received instruction, or… ANY!?! HELP!! it seems, in understanding what it means to be an Archon (perhaps even in spite of those other perks she was “supposed” to receive.)

Born to be a god, yet being set up to suffer the loss of your entire people with almost no power to change it? That would fuck anyone up, even an Archon.

And it’s the way that they’ve shown how it’s fucked with Furina that blows my mind.

She’s so disconnected that Arle’s assassination attempt shocked her to her core. She’s a GOD!! Who would try to assassinate her (aside from the Fatui)!? She’s never had to even perceive the notion of being a target of something like that. Stack that on top of her general sense of helplessness in the greater context of what’s happening to her nation, and it makes sense that she broke down crying later that night... :(

Girlie just needs some help </3

#LONG post #I just had to get it all down somewhere I'm sorry #Genshin #Genshin Impact #Furina #Genshin Furina #I am completely normal about Furina the Hydro Archon Focalors #this is a Furina-loving space #we love Furina here #I think the point I was trying to make here was: #Furina - like all the archons - is first and foremost a god #but in her godlyhood and ways of ruling - displays behaviors that are undeniably human #emphasis on the TOO in ‘Human too’ y’know? #I maintain that Furina is THE Hydro Archon #no one else #she just.. doesn’t seem to have the gnosis or powers #poor baby just overwhelmed :(( #she just wants to have fun with her people #but Celestia says: ‘nuh-uh. FLOOD BE UPON YE’ #I NEED them to drop more Celestia lore. #I NEED!!! more insight on the Archon process #EXPLAIN IT NEXT UPDATE HOYO! I'm counting on you. #Focalors #Genshin Focalors #Genshin Archons #Genshin Celestia #Genshin 4.1 #Genshin 4.1 spoilers #Genshin Archon Quest

[misswiener]

Review- Here's Looking at You Kid

Here's Looking at You Kid- MesserMoon (140k, E)

The only George Weasley/Blaise Zabini fic I've ever read. Beautifully written. Drarry is the side pairing, but the story also unfolds wonderfully. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves Drarry, or just wants to test the waters for something new.

Basically, George is hit hard after losing Fred in the war. Usually in Drarry fics, George gets over it and moves on with his life, gets married, has kids, etc. In this fic, he's haunted by the memories of his twin. Fred is not a ghost, but his presense lingers in the flat that they own together. No one really goes into detail about how George would actually feel after the whole war and dead other half situation.

In a spur of the moment, George accidentally visits a gay Muggle bar and runs into Blaise Zabini and his friends. Blaise tries to hit on him, George finds himself being attracted to him, thus fleeing back home to his and Fred's flat where he spirals into his own self hatred and contempt.

I really liked how the writer went in depth with George's feelings. He's messed up, and it's hard to change that, especially after losing such a big part of himself. The way the writer tackles his trauma is well written, and as a reader, I feel relieved how George addresses his feelings and thoughts to resolve his trauma.

In addition, Blaise's story is magnetic. He's ftm trans and I really enjoyed reading about his backstory. Especially about Theodore Nott. I find it funny how they always make Theo the bi, possibly gay, character who's also a homophobe due to self projection. I digress. The way their relationship is built is interesting, but the way it fell apart is as well. It tugs at your heartstrings and makes you wish you could help Blaise strangle Theo with your bare hands.

On the other hand, the Drarry is also great in this story despite being the side pairing. It's emotional and unique, which makes it stand out. Though I did find Harry and Draco's get together kind of underdeveloped. (But mind you, its been a while since I read this...)

The writer did a fantastic job with the characterisation. I found the characters believable and interesting, even Theo, who was an utter asshat through the entire story.

I don't have much to complain about this fic. It's exciting, domestic, despairing and emotional. Brilliant work from the writer. A well deserved 10/10. It's a fic I would want to forget so I can read it all again.

Thanks for reading!

#drarry #harry x draco #harry potter #ao3 fanfic #hpdm #george x blaise

[narcissa-black-supermacy]

Please tell me more about the whole generational trauma thing, cause its not talked about enough and I'm genuinely interested in what else you have to say about this <3

tumblr swallowed my entire reply :'') so i'm starting over and hopefully this time it will be shorter and more to the point

for the sake of this post, I am diving the characters into the following generations:

GT Gen (Golden Trio): Harry and his friends, Draco, the Weasley kids, Nymphadora etc

M Gen (Marauders): The MWPP, Black sisters, Snape, Lucius Malfoy etc

TR Gen (Tom Riddle): Riddle, Wal & Orion and their siblings, Abraxas Malfoy, Lyall Lupin, Effie and Monty Potter

E Gen (Elders): Dumbldore, Pollux and Arcturus Black, etc

There are several aspects to the kind of trauma I am talking about. There are more, of course, but I believe these are the main ones:

The Witch Hunts: often brushed off and disregarded as irrelevant due to how "old" they are. However, witch hunts in the UK haven't ended until the very end of 17th century/beginning of 18th. It was a literal genocide by the entire muggle population of Europe against a tiny minority of Wizarding families, so much bigger than all the wars put together. Considering we are told that the average life expectancy for wizards is much older than muggles (between 120 and 140 I believe, but in PS we are also told there are wizards as old as 500 and 700), the TR and E generations would grow up in families who still remember that. They are told stories how their great grandparents were burned at the stake. It's a lot of cultural and historic baggage for any family who lived through that and survived.

20th Century Wars: The Global Wizarding War (1910 to 1945); the First Wizarding War (1970 to 1981); the Second Wizarding War (1995 to 1998 on paper, but in reality the fear in tensions never really disappeared between 81 and 95). This goes beyond just terror and murder, this is persecution of followers (think of DEs knocking on every pure-blood's door like ding dong do you have a minute to talk about our Lord and Savior), this is living in constant fear that your loved ones might not return home, and certain generations (like Gen TR) literally knew no peaceful time at all, they were just tossed from one war to another.

Bloody Purity Culture: Stems from point 1 - witch hunts. This is the most by-the-book, typical, generational trauma response on a larger scale. When a minority group gets persecuted to the point of near genocide, the most natural reaction is to be hostile to the "oppressor" group and to distance yourself as far away as possible. The obsession with blood purity is deeply routed in the fear that if they let muggle-born kids in and muggles find out about the Wizarding World once more, history might repeat itself. Gens like E and TR have actual living relatives who still remember that.

Physical and Corporal Punishment at School and at Home: as I talked about it more deeply in the original post, it is mentioned by Filch that just like in the muggle world, Hogwarts had a corporal punishment system for a pretty big chunk of the 20th century. Phineas Nigellus Black was actually the Headmaster up until 1925, so it is likely that he either enstalled these laws, or enforced existing ones, which hints that the situation at home for most families like the Blacks was not any easier.

Use of Unforgivables at Home for Punishment/Training: The Unforgivable Curses actually were not categorized as such up until early 18th century, so the parents and grand parents of Gen E grew up with Unforgivables being used freely at home if not for punishment, then at least for resistance training. This kind of practice does not just die out upon being outlawed, it usually takes several generations, so we can safely assumed that Gen E and TR both grew up with curses like Cruciatus and Imperius being used at home at least for durability training, especially considering they were growing up in times of war.

So since I am a big fan of visual data, I even made an Excel table for you:

As you can see, Gens E and TR are the peak of generational trauma in this timeline. Especially TR, who lived through all three wars, fought in two of them at least, and also witnessed living memory of witch hunts, corporal punishment at schools and use of Unforgivables at home. It is no coincidence that Tom Riddle came exactly from this generation.

The thing about generational trauma that most people don't realise, is that when you grow up in a war, it's not just you - it's everyone, so nobody ever gets treated. When everybody has PTSD, then nobody really has PTSD, right?

These things leave lots of issues in people, each reacts in their own way to it, and this does not go away with one generation, even with lots of hard work and treatment, which neither generation ever got, except for maybe GT when it's finally all over.

This is why I'm so against painting characters like Dumbledore or the elder Blacks as strictly bad - these are deeply traumatised generations that carry previous gen's burdens as well as their own, they never had the chance to get treated, and it reflects on their kids as well.

#i will stop talking now #before tumblr decides to reload once more #asks #generational trauma #hp meta #marauders meta

[bookofmirth]

At the beginning of acotar, the sisters’ relationship was well established. Feyre wasn’t coming home shocked to find Nesta a changed person, so it’s reasonable to assume that her behavior had been going on for long enough that Feyre knew exactly what to expect. It wasn’t a vendetta against feyre specifically, or anyone specifically. It’s how Nesta handled her feelings, which takes me back to my point that Nesta needed to look inward for healing, not point fingers at other people.

I addressed my comment about atoning in another ask but to clarify further - Nesta has done important, useful, helpful things when the shit hit the fan. There is no disputing that. Just to reiterate, in my opinion, the important thing moving forward is that she doesnt resort to pushing people away again (when we know she doesn’t actually want to do that!)

I don’t understand why people keep saying Nesta is 24. Or calling her a girl. That’s a whole ass adult where I come from. Nesta was around 22-23 when the series started. A lot of these issues began much earlier, when she was a teenager, but… she’s still an adult. I don’t think it does her much credit to infantilize her character in order to excuse her behavior. She can vote, and drink, and rent a car in the US. She could be married for a few years, be a parent a couple times over. (You didn’t call her a girl anon, obviously, I’m just commenting on things I’ve seen in the fandom.)

Re: Elain, that’s the difference I was referring to before. Elain doesn’t look to intentionally hurt people with her words or actions, so I wouldn’t talk about her journey in the same way I would Nesta’s. Elain has some accounting to do, which imo she is. She apologized to Feyre already and acknowledged that they should have done more to help her. Your ask actually made me wonder if that’s why she’s doing what she currently does - cooking and serving food at her home, rather than relying on servants to do it. Helping other people rebuild their gardens after the war. Either way, Elain’s story is not going to be about reconciling with how she has behaved towards other people in the way that Nesta’s was. That’s not to say she’s been perfect, but she didn’t go about trying to hurt people. Her journey is different.

Same anon from before!

I brought up Nesta's age because the way you worded "lifetime of cruelty" made it appear that Nesta hopped out of the womb ready to make people's lives difficult. I just disagreed with the argument that Nesta has led this crusade of cruelty her entire life. And pointed out her age to signify just how short her life has been.

Also, I don't think it's fair to compare a 24-year old in ACOTAR with a 24-year old raised in 2023 USA. Besides not having voting systems, Nesta was raised very differently due to the time period ACOTAR is in. Though she is 100% an adult, she is also a product of her circumstances and environment. It isn't an excuse, but rather an understanding.

I place a lot of the blame on Nesta's mom for the distance between Feyre and Nesta. Since Nesta wasn't receiving any love from her father (who was even written to be afraid of her), it's natural that she gravitated towards her mom and wanted to please her. For reasons, SJM hasn't explained yet, Feyre's mom hated Feyre and Nesta probably distanced herself from her sister so she doesn't get lumped in. Elain was probably the only "safe" sister.

Such ingrained behaviour isn't something that goes away overnight, but I think Nesta had always loved Feyre, she just wasn't used to showing it both out of fear if her mom found out and because of the distance that had already grown so large between them.

Nesta 100% moves through her world with her guards up, and it's a safety mechanism borne from her traumas and environment. But I don't think she resorts to cruelty as a first measure. Like Azriel said, he never picks a fight with her because she treats him the same as others. In that she "unflinchingly assesses" everyone she meets. For threats, weaknesses, strengths, e.t.c.

But considering how easy she befriended Amren, Gwyn, and Emerie, I think her way of interacting is largely attributed to whatever she gleans from people in her assessments. And how she communicates is receptive to those that can handle it. I remember Gwyn being delighted at Nesta saying something along the lines of "oh, your good".

Overall, I'm glad she's healing and making new bonds with people.

As for Elain, I can't remember where in the books she apologizes to Feyre? Unless you mean that she does so by her actions? I'm interested at how SJM plans on writing the dynamic between Elain and Nesta. I liked what you said in your other post, about how Elain has always put Nesta in a position to fight while she retreats to the background. I wonder if that would get fleshed out more.

Hello again!

(To clarify for everyone else, the first part of this up to "her journey is different" is my words that anon is responding to.)

I think if we were to try to compare cultures and technologies and society and such between our world and Prythian, it wouldn't come out in favor of Nesta being young/not mature. The world building in acotar is meh at best, but given the fact that they have arranged marriages and lords and such, if we were to try to put a timeline on entering adulthood in that world, it would be earlier than our own. That's impossible to quantify imo, mainly because the worldbuilding isn't really clear, I just wanted to point that out. Nesta is absolutely an adult, and she has been an adult since acotar began. She was engaged to be married in acotar, when she was 22(ish). But either way, saying she's young doesn't matter to me because age has no bearing on extending people basic respect and courtesy.

I think you have a point about Nesta and her mom! In acosf Nesta thinks every now and then about the things that her mom said to her, and things she said about Feyre and Elain. It seems like she wanted to shape them all into certain types of people who would further their ambitions as a family, and never took into account who any of the sisters are. They were all treated with the same sort of pragmatic eye, considering how they were useful, rather than what would make them happy. And by all accounts, their father was too busy making (and losing) fortunes to do anything about it, if he noticed. I assume we will hear more about her when it comes time for Elain's story, and I think that will be included in Nesta and Elain's reconciliation.

And how she communicates is receptive to those that can handle it.

I get what you're saying here because Gwyn, Emerie, and Amren definitely approach Nesta differently than some other characters. I don't think there is anything wrong with people saying "no thanks" when encountering her behavior, though. Perhaps that's not something we need to disagree about! Because perhaps Nesta is just not meant for everyone. She notes that she doesn't have the easy way of socializing with and smiling at people as Mor (I can't remember the exact quote) and I think there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't think it makes a lot of sense to say that one way of being is more or less right (when comparing the way that Nesta and Mor interact with other characters) when it's just part of who they are.

Re: Elain, I can't remember if she said the word sorry, but I know that she says that she and Nesta should have done more when they were at the cabin. I do think that her actions are a reflection of that as well. She's a high lady's sister, she could sit on her ass all day the way she used to, but she's not. She's out helping people and doing housework that she never would have done in acotar.

My hot take about Elain is that while she is genuinely kind, sometimes that kindness is a shield to keep people from looking too close or asking too much of her, and now it's biting her in the ass because no one is looking or allowing her to do much of anything.

#ask #anon #acotar

[neomedievalist]

as someone who hasnt experienced fate route yet it is really astonishing just how similar shirou and saber are. this is just going to be a general post of my thoughts so far with just random comments not really a thesis or anything, i have many thoughts of running themes to analyze that i want to do justice once ive finished the whole thing, so look forward to that.

ive said before the interpersonal conflict in fate is one of my favourite things about it. it is so incredibly realistic and emotionally moving every time even when its insignificant. every time characters argue you see where theyre coming from and what made them think that way and how theyre projecting and assuming things about the other. every single time anyone in fate says anything they are saying that because of 10 years of built up regrets and trauma and projection and avoidance and assumptions and it just leads to the biggest interpersonal mess in existence and i love it. one thing that is excruciatingly clear in fate route is shirou's hypocrisy. from his forced sexism (i'll probably make a whole post analysing this, which is probably really funny to someone who doesnt know fate, but i genuinely find it fascinating) to his whole ordeal of trying to protect saber. no one can have a satsifying argument with shirou because they refuse to believe he truly is that fucked up inside, and he never accepts what they say because he doesn't think he's capable of change. on the other hand, saber is in a similar position. i'm so glad i finished watching zero before this because WOW. you can see kiritsugu in her every action and how she overlays the image of him over shirou in every instance and is both pleasantly surprised and deeply disturbed with what he became...

saber saying this trying to make sense of his actions psychologically but also push the spectre of kiritsugu on him but also projecting her own regrets about the way the 4th grail war ended but also her own desire to see that never repeated again because of HER guilt over HER actions and her frustration at kiritsugu and not being able to tell him about it and then shirou in response hits us with THIS WHAMMY

and naturally. saber does not know how to react to that.

no one likes to hear "you are irreparably fucked up!" the thing is is that the wording really. i couldnt help but be reminded of

i find this so fascinating. the two characters who've done the deepest digs at shirou's character and saw through him the most were the ones that knew kiritsugu personally. not only that, but the ones that were directly present at the grail fire that shapes his entire being.

this bit was so fascinating to me. of course this gets resolved with the threesome, lol, but shirous conflict over having saber kill someone is so. this is the first time you can really see him disregard kiritsugu's utilitarianism. he doesnt even consider it or weigh the lives, its literally not an equation that goes off in his brain. he does not work like that but hes still forcing himself to fit in a mold that was not made for him. it goes without saying that kiritsugu would not have hesitated to make saber kill someone to restore her mana, as she is just a tool to be used first of all, and a tool must be in top working order, but also all deaths are insignificant when weighed against the lives saved by him winning the grail. saber KNOWS this and she is CONSTANTLY thinking about this while weighing shirous motives

weigh that against this. he says similar things all the way through the story but this one is astonishingly blatant. he is still weighing the cost of lives in his head but the scales are always tipped to make himself insignificant as if that would mean atoning somehow or making things right. ill get into this much later when i end up finishing reading ubw lol i have so fucking much to say about his self sacrificial tendencies and how he views himself and his body and the disconnect...

anyway this is just a fraction of what i read today ill make an effort to post more of my thoughts and im sure ill have plenty more once ubw starts

#data #fateposting

[andromeda3116]

So let's talk about the Lost Generation.

This is the generation that came of age during WWI and the 1918 flu pandemic. They witnessed their world collapse in the first war that spread around the globe, and they -- in retrospect, optimistically -- called it the "war to end all wars". And that war was a quagmire. The trenches on the Western Front were notoriously awful, unsanitary and cold and wet and teeming with sickness, and bloody battles were fought to gain or lose a few feet of territory, and all because a series of alliances caused one assassination in one unstable area to spiral into a brutal large-scale war fought on the ground by people who mostly had no personal stake in the outcomes and gained nothing from winning.

On some of the worst-hit battlefields, the land is still too toxic for plant growth.

And on the heels of this horrific war, a pandemic struck. It's often referred to as "the Spanish flu" because Spain was neutral in the war, and so was the first country to admit that their people were dropping like flies. By the time the warring countries were willing to face the disease, it was far too late to contain it.

Anywhere from 50 to 100 million people worldwide would die from it. 675,000 were in the US.

But once it was finally contained -- anywhere from a year to a year and a half later -- the 20s had begun, and they began roaring.

Hedonism abounded. Alcohol flowed like water in spite of Prohibition. Music and dance and art fluorished. It was the age of Dadaism, an artistic movement of surrealism, absurdism, and abstraction. Women's skirts rose and haircuts shortened in a flamboyant rejection of the social norms of the previous decades. It was a time of glitter and glamour and jazz and flash, and (save for the art that was made) it was mostly skin deep.

Everyone stumbled out of the war and pandemic desperate to forget the horrific things they'd seen and done and all that they'd lost, and lost for nothing.

Reality seemed so pointless. It's not a coincidence that the two codifiers of the fantasy genre -- J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis -- both fought in WWI. In fact, they were school friends before the war, and were the only two of their group to return home. Tolkein wanted to rewrite the history of Europe, while Lewis wanted to rebuild faith in the escape from the world.

(There's a reason Frodo goes into the West: physically, he returned to the Shire, but mentally, he never came back from Mordor, and he couldn't live his whole life there. There's a reason three of the Pevensies can never let go of Narnia: in Narnia, unlike reality, the things they did and fought for and believed in actually mattered, were actually worth the price they paid.)

It's also no coincidence that many of the famous artists of the time either killed themselves outright or let their vices do them in. The 20s roared both in spite of and because of the despair of the Lost Generation.

It was also the era of the Harlem Renaissance, which came to the feelings of alienation and disillusionment from a different direction: there was a large migration of Black people from the South, many of whom moved to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Obviously, the sense of alienation wasn't new to Black people in America, but the cultural shift allowed for them to publicly express it in the arts and literature in ways that hadn't been open to them before.

There was also horrific -- and state-sanctioned -- violence perpetrated against Black communities in this time, furthering the anger and despair and sense that society had not only failed them but had never even given them a chance. The term at the time was shell-shock, but now we know it as PTSD, and the vast majority of the people who came of age between 1910 and 1920 suffered from it, from one source or another.

It was an entire generation of trauma, and then the stock market crashed in 1929. Helpless, angry, impotent in the face of all that had seemingly destroyed the world for them, on the verge of utter despair, it was also a generation vulnerable to despotism. In the wake of all this chaos -- god, please, someone just take control of all this mess and set it right.

Sometimes the person who took over was decent and played by the rules and at least attempted to do the right thing. Other times, they were self-serving and hateful and committed to subjugating anyone who didn't fit their mold.

There are a lot of parallels to now, but we have something they didn't, and that's the fact that they did it first.

We know what their mistakes and sins were. We have the gift of history to see the whole picture and what worked and what failed. We as a species have walked this road before, and we weren't any happier or stronger or smarter about it the first time.

I think I want to reiterate that point: the Lost Generation were no stronger or weaker than Millennials and Gen Z are today. Plenty of both have risen up and fought back, and plenty have stumbled and been crushed under the weight. Plenty have been horribly abused by the people who were supposed to lead them, and plenty have done the abusing. Plenty of great art has been made by both, and plenty of it is escapist fantasy or scathing criticism or inspiring optimism or despairing pessimism.

We find humor in much the same things, because when reality is a mess, both the absurd and the self-deprecating become hilarious in comparison. There's a reason modern audiences don't find Seinfeld as funny as Gen X does, and many older audiences find modern comedy impenetrable and baffling -- they're different kinds of humor from different realities.

I think my point accumulates into this: in spite of how awful and hopeless and pointless everything feels, we do have a guide. We've been through this before, as a culture, and even though all of them are gone now, we have their words and art and memory to help us. We know now what they didn't then: there is a future.

The path forward is a hard one, and the only thing that makes it easier is human connection. Art -- in the most base sense, anything that is an expression of emotion and thought into a medium that allows it to be shared -- is the best and most enduring vehicle for that connection, to reach not just loved ones but people a thousand miles or a hundred years away.

So don't bottle it up. Don't pretend to be okay when you're not. Paint it, sculpt it, write it, play it, sing it, scream it, hell, you can even meme it out into the void. Whatever it takes to reach someone else -- not just for yourself but for others, both present and future.

Because, to quote the inimitable Terry Pratchett, "in a hundred years we'll all be dead, but here and now, we are alive."

#politics #us politics #optimism #history #humanism #gnu terry pratchett #(i suppose. i do think that i wouldn't be able to think of this in this way without - for example - having read small gods.) #which also sort of illustrates the point? i mean sir terry has been dead five years but his words live on to inspire even now #i've gotten a lot of humbling responses to 'such selfish prayers' that echo that sort of sentiment - and more recently - that just reiterate #to me how important art is in connecting to others #i mean.... i wrote that fic four years ago when i was myself going through a tough time and it may seem like i Had I Together but really #i was writing out what i desperately needed to hear; what i wanted to be told #that's why it is on occasion a little... unfair to aang perhaps (although i think that's more in the writing than the intent) #i was dealing with the end of that kind of relationship - where he wasn't evil and it wasn't bad but we were just *wrong* for one another #and he wanted to get back together and i may even have said to a friend at the time what katara does to iroh about 'i thought he was ready #to be frienda again. *i* was ready to be friends again.' #and especially the last chapter was me writing out what i needed to believe. i distinctly recall thinking 'maybe this is too idealistic.' #before deciding that if ever there was a time for ideals it was that moment. i *needed* the ideals. i *needed* that katara. #and that's clearly resonated with a lot of people and that makes my heart so full i don't even know how to respond #art is how we connect with one another; it's how we survive these trials and help each other through #art is always valuable if only for its sake #i'm trying so hard to get into writing again but mostly what i've been finishing is essays like this. and i suppose that's enough for now #but i need to create again; to express. i have this scream swelling in my chest and it needs to get out and be heard.

[musclesandhammering]

Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

#antisylki #loki meta #kinda #loki series critical #loki series negativity #anti loki x sylvie #anti loki series #anti sylvie #frosty bby #loki deserved better #I don’t even like TVA!Loki tho so I guess it doesn’t matter with him lmao #tva loki #loki laufeyson

[maulusque]

Clone genetic enhancement ideas

So the clones were genetically enhanced, but i don’t really see any writers (in fanfic or in published stuff) really exploring what that MEANS beyond “clone very stronk”. Here are some ideas that would actually make clones significantly different from just a regular-ass human in peak condition. 

-enhanced senses: eyesight, hearing, etc. I’m talking eyes like a HAWK

-better reflexes

-quicker information processing

-can hear sounds of higher and lower frequency than standard humans

-can see light of a broader spectrum than human standard

-learn quicker, retain information and skills better (potential problem: if you learn something the WRONG way, that way might stick really well)

-photographic memory (really useful for memorizing layouts and maps)

-immunity to various diseases

-can tolerate a wider range of temperatures and environments

-increased stamina and strength baseline. Clones can just run full-tilt for hours and hours and be like “ah a nice stroll”. Over long distances, they can out-pace jedi in the same way that humans can out-pace horses.

-higher tolerance of certain poisons/toxins (clones can straight-up drink ethanol, and get maybe a little tipsy)

-bodies respond quickly to physical stress, and slowly to the absence of it (basically, this means that physical conditioning results in stronger muscles and a stronger cardiovascular system really quickly, and it takes MUCH longer for a clone to lose strength and conditioning due to not exercising than standard humans. Think how much valuable training time is saved if they only have to go on a run like, once a month in order to stay in shape)

-increased ability to function through intense pain and acute injuries. Basically, semi-disabling the pain system so it’s less distracting. Probably not good for the survival of the individual in many situations, but an advantage on the battlefield. 

-heal faster and better, with fewer long-term complications. Clones can dislocate their shoulders and NOT have the joint be permanently fucked up, because the Kaminoans re-designed the whole damn thing to suck WAY less.

-actually, unique internal anatomy. There’s probably a lot about the human body besides the shoulder joint that is actually just really stupid, and something no intelligent designer would actually build. So the Kaminoans can fix a lot of that stuff. Better knees, maybe. Stronger ribs. Maybe Cody punches droids not just because he’s a mad bastard, but also because his metatarsals are literally as strong as steel. 

-Hearing loss/hearing damage? No problem, your ear can regrow those little hair-thingies that help you hear. 

-Of course, it takes energy to maintain muscle mass, which is why human bodies lose it if we’re not using it. Clones need significantly more calories than standard humans. However, their digestive systems are enhanced to extract calories and nutrients from food much more efficiently, so food goes much farther. Potential weird side effect: maybe clones only have to poop like, once a week?

-You could probably extend that into increased ability to tolerate long periods without food/on low rations, despite the increased need for calories. 

-wouldn’t it be NEAT if the kaminoans somehow designed self-repairing DNA. This would mean that others couldn’t take a DNA sample from a clone and modify it to create their own clones (basically, it protects their product. It’s like DRM for clones). This ALSO means that clones couldn’t get cancer, and that they’d be immune to radiation poisoning. So a clone could just walk up to a sphere of uranium at critical mass and pick it up. Maybe with oven mitts on if it’s hot. (this would also make it harder for a rapid-aging cure to be developed, but uhhhh fanfic writers find a way)

- “bred for obedience” I think most of this would have to be accomplished through tightly-controlled messaging and cultural norms as the clones grow up- basically, enshrining obedience as a desirable and almost sacred trait, to be prized higher than anything else, including the lives of your brothers. In the same way that we hear stories of people sacrificing their lives to protect their loved ones, the clones would grow up hearing stories of soldiers sacrificing their brothers’ lives to obey an order from a superior. 

-SOME of the “obedience” thing could be engineered, though. Humans are already super social, but it would probably make sense for the clones to have an even greater need for social bonds. This would make for greater teamwork and coordination, and better unit cohesion, since the clones would be more inclined to prioritize friendship/agreeing with someone over winning an argument. It would also make it so they’d bond with their natural-born generals more easily, so they would obey them not just because they’re supposed to, but because they’d be much quicker to see them as a friend, and someone who’s trust they want to earn, someone they want to incorporate into their group and make happy.

-consequently, clones who find themselves alone do NOT do well. Isolation has a much more profoundly negative impact on clones than on regular humans.

-Originally, clones designed to operate alone or in small teams would not have the social enhancement- ARC troopers, spec-ops teams, etc. There wouldn’t be much of a noticeable difference in everyday interactions, but they’d also be vaguely weirded out by what they interpret as aggressive friendliness from their brothers, and their brothers would think they’re a bit shy and standoffish. 

-actually this social modification would make it MUCH harder for clones to kill people. REGULAR HUMANS are already super bad at killing people- i remember reading this article about how as soon as soldiers have to point their weapons at actual people, their aim gets mysteriously much shittier. Even when compared to situations that are exactly the same, except they’re not shooting at other humans. So reconcile this how you will, idk.

-I imagine a lot of these enhancements would be accomplished not through DNA, but through microorganisms. Retroviruses could explain the DNA resistant to modification, and the increased healing speed, and possibly some disease resistance (do i know anything about retroviruses other than a vague concept of what they are? no i do not. will that stop me? also no.) Their metabolism can be partially explained through specially engineered gut microbes.

-not sure how they’d go about making clones “resistant to any stress”, because you can’t exactly turn off the trauma response in the brain without breaking a bunch of other things. They could probably do a bit of fiddling to make clones more resistant to chemical imbalances, and therefore more depression-resistant. I think most of the “stress-resistance” would have to come through training. Either they train the clones to basically suppress everything, which might work alright in the short term. OR they actually have systems in place that help prevent the development of things like PTSD and help treat trauma. Meaning the clones are literally trained in self-care, positive self-talk, talking about their pain with their brothers, and having community rituals around things like death and grief. I don’t think that’s super likely because one thing that’s integral to those concepts is the concept of “i am a person and i have worth, and if i feel angry about something bad happening, that is ok and valid” and considering that a whole lot of bad things happen to the clones all the time and their childhood is a whole boatload of bad all happening at once, i don’t think the kaminoans would want the clones realizing “hey wait a minute i’m a person and i don’t deserve to be treated this way and it’s ok for me to be mad at you”. 

- the clones were supposedly engineered to be “less aggressive” but i think there was literally nothing more to that than a cover story for the control chip. The clones wouldn’t be raised with a lot of the aggressive western concept of masculinity, where anger is the default reaction to like, everything, and your personal pride is extremely important and also fragile (no offense lmao). So you wouldn’t have clones posturing and getting angry over perceived slights and fighting each other all the time, like everyone in-universe apparently expects to be the case. Anyway, why would you want your soldiers to be less aggressive? they’re literally supposed to fight and kill the enemy. You want them fully capable of getting angry, anger is the human response to fear and danger that lets us DO something about it. 

-obviously the biggest component in how they behave would be how they are raised, but that’s an entirely different post

-Specializations! I imagine that initially, the Kaminoans had different clones with different traits engineered specifically to fill certain roles. However, as the war went on, they struggled to keep up with demand and had to start shoving clones into whatever roles were needed (hence Fives and Echo becoming ARCs, despite not being engineered as ARC troopers). 

-Command clones would have better abilities in the executive function parts of the brain that deal with extrapolation, planning ahead, spatial reasoning, etc. They’d also have increased visual pattern recognition (like a pigeon)

-search-and-rescue troops would also have the pigeon pattern recognition abilities. The coast guard literally strapped pigeons to helicopters who would tap a button when they saw orange in the water, because they were better at spotting it than humans. Pigeons can detect cancer in microscope images of cells, because they’re that good at pattern recognition

-Pilots would have hella reflexes, excellent spatial awareness and spatial reasoning skills, much greater ability to process visual information, stronger hearts and blood vessels (to resist greater Gs of force), and they’d also be much shorter, to better fit into a cockpit. Which reminds me of Axe, that poor bastard from Ahsoka’s squadron over Ryloth who was almost eight feet tall. rip poor Axe, how did you even become a pilot, you long bastard.

-medics who can smell certain diseases. If you want to get a little bit out there, make the medics able to purr so they can sooth stressed-out patients. 

-infantry would have even greater endurance than everyone else, as well as greater tolerance for, and ability to, remain constantly on alert.

-ability to fall asleep at will? that would be super dope.

-maybe more efficient sleep, so to an adult clone, 4 hours of sleep is genuinely sufficient.

-concept: clones can sort of turn down their bodily functions- slow their digestion, heart, lungs, the whole nine yards- to last longer in adverse conditions. Sort of a half-hibernation (or quarter hibernation- they’d still be able to talk and think, but they’d feel very lethargic). They wouldn’t be able to function very well, but it would be great for things like enduring intense cold, periods without food, low-oxygen environments, and it would be especially useful if you were wounded and waiting for help, since you could slow your circulation, meaning it would take you a lot longer to bleed out. This state could be triggered by a combination of physical actions such as sitting or lying still, breathing slowly and deeply, and focusing on slowing the heart down (humans can actually slow down their hearts consciously if you practice at it, this is basically that, but turned up to like 1100).

-one thing that never made sense to me was the whole “we’re running out of jango fett’s DNA, all the new clones won’t be as good, and we have to stop ventress from stealing the original DNA” because like, can’t they just, get the EXACT SAME DNA from the clones?? you know, the exact genetic copies? With all the enhancements already done? But now my idea is that the kaminoans have engineered the clones so their DNA straight up can’t be copied. The clone’s own body can obviously replicate it, but if you take a sample and try to extract the DNA, it just self-destructs or something. This is to protect their intellectual property, but also means that they literally have to use a couple of Jango Fett’s actual human cells for every single clone they make (and the fact that they then have to do all the above enhancements to every single embryo helps explain why there’s so many small mutations, such as hair color and height). So they kinda shot themselves in the foot with that one. 

-of course since things like ADHD and autism have a strong genetic component, the kaminoans could theoretically engineer those out of the clones, but actually FUCK THAT so for whatever reason, that’s just not something they are able to do, and neurodivergent clones are absolutely a thing

#maulusque's stuff #meta #clones

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Graveyard Siblings (5)

[Masterlink] (PART 1) (PART 4)

-----

Mari and Cass sometimes switch their suits as they have the same body type. Cass would sometimes go out in full Hellbat gear and give the appearance that Hellbat is out more often than she actually is.

So Orphan/Black Bat also sometimes uses guns.

This also helps with concealing secret identities. Maria was rescued by Hellbat from Joker’s Henchmen. (Vicki Vale was getting sus of the new Wayne and Hellbat.)

Unfortunately since Hellbat rarely comes out and she had already made all of her appearance for the month and it wasn’t a busy weekend, the public had come to the conclusion that Hellbat has a crush on the newest Wayne.

Basically everyone thought that Mari has a crush on herself. Which led to some teasing and escalated to Mari announcing that Jason had a crush on Red Hood on live TV.

It didn’t help that a video of Red Hood and Jason re-enacting Romeo and Juliet with Jason on his apartment balcony and Red Hood on the roof was posted on the internet a few days later. (Thank you, Trixx and Tim’s awesome video editing skills)

Sadly, it was taken down 24 hours later. (Tim and the others have multiple copies of it, on the cloud or hardware, hidden around in the manor and their respective safehouses in the US.)

Some people kidnapped Jason to hopefully gain leverage over the Red Hood and to their dismay and nightmares for years to come, Hellbat came instead.

One lucky and incredibly brave reporter asked why she was there instead of her brother.

Mari being a little shit, “Red Hood may be a tough and scary guy but when it comes to his feelings, my brother is a chicken.”

Pictures of Jason tackling Hellbat somehow never made it into any papers.

The criminal underworld hasn’t taken a hint and Jason has been kidnapped a few more times.

Other times Jason was kidnapped:

Robin: Red Hood made a fool of himself in front of Todd recently and he doesn’t dare to show his face.

Spoiler: He was taking too damn long checking his hair even though I told him that no one was going to see it under his helmet and he was so offended that he is currently sulking in the bathroom.

Red Robin: Red Hood can’t think straight when he is around Jason. I mean have you seen the dude.

Arsenal*during a rare visit to Gotham*: Red Hood owes me one now.

Dick finally ends it by going out as Red Hood and rescuing Jason. Gotham is happy that Redson (Red Hood x Jason) ship has finally sailed.

-------

Kate, Babs, Cass, Steph and Mari were out on Mari’s first girls’ night since her move to the manor.

This is set a little after she came back from Paris with Jason.

They watched rom-com movies, did hair and nails, gossip about the superhero community and bitch and vent to each other.

Marinette off-handedly mentioned the crazy shits she had done during her stint as Ladybug. It started with asking about the T-rex in the Batcave and she mentions jumping into the mouth of a live one before.

Everyone in the room was shocked and after a few more questions, it was obvious that she was very reckless and self-sacrificing. Yep, she was going to fit into this crazy family just fine.

And Holy Shit. There is so much trauma packed into this kid. She needs lots of therapy.

Babs finally decided that they all needed to get out and have some fun. All in their respective suits and they went out.

Joined by Harley, Ivy and Selina.

Plagg came along because I want Plagg to meet Selina.

It was a chaotic night and it was a miracle that Bruce didn’t find out about what the girls did.

-------

Batman and Red Hood were on patrol together when Selina jumped in front of them.

“Hello, Boys”

“What do you want, Catwoman?”

“I want to meet my new prodigy, Kitty Noire.”

Cue Marinette jumping down from her hiding spot, transformed with the Black Cat Miraculous. “Hiya.”

Red Hood carries her like a potato sack and points his gun at the other two.

“Nope, she’s my sister and I called dibs. I adopted her. She’s off limits.”

“Legally, she’s mine.” Batman coughed out.

“I did it first. Emotionally. She’s my emotional support sister. You have plenty kids already, B and Selina, get your own.”

“Hey, I am still here and can hear you.”- Maria

-------

Alya was worried for Lila. She had been acting weirdly for the past month.

She looked very out of sorts. Her clothes weren’t in order and her hair was in disarray. She had bags under her eyes and her eyes looked wild. Lila didn’t look like herself at all.

She jumped at any sound and flinched at really sudden movements.

Alya tried to find out what was wrong with Lila and received vague answers.

One time Lila said that Marinette is to blame.

Alya reaches the somewhat right conclusion that Marinette was haunting Lila and hurting her because Lila used to come to school with bruises and claims that Marinette did it.

Alya goes to Marinette’s grave to desecrate it. (Yeah, go anger the ghost that is haunting someone.)

Unfortunately, the moment she tries to do something, the sky turns dark, clouds appear and the wind begins whipping. A Lightning strike near her and there was a cloaked figure beside her with a scythe.

All Alya saw from the figure was the blood-red lips in a very sharp grin and glowing blue eyes, raising the scythe high before she ran away. The scythe swiped the air where her head once was.

Alya didn’t get far before she tripped and blacked out.

When she woke up, she found herself in the hospital with no idea how she got there.

She was told that somebody found her with a concussion in the park and took her to the hospital.

------

The next one on Mari’s hit list was Natalie.

She wasn’t as involved in the whole thing like Lila, Adrien or Gabriel but she still did it anyways.

Her punishment is a little mild compared to the others and was more of a warning to Gabriel.

Natalie woke up in the middle of the night to see a not-so-dead Ladybug sitting on her vanity chair with the moonlight from the windows illuminating her body and her neck. Her suit was torn exactly like the day of that battle with blood dripping down her arms and from her open wounds. The shadows kept her face hidden but glowing blue eyes stared at her.

Natalie was scared at first. But she regained her normal cool composure.

“I assume you are here to extract your revenge for aiding in your unfortunate demise. But before you kill me, I regret my part in my entire thing and I apologize for everything I have done against you even though I knew it was wrong.”

“At least you show remorse over what you have done. Visiting my grave when even my parents didn’t and leaving flowers. I love those purple hyacinths by the way. Did you know that they mean sorry in the language of the flowers?”

“Why are you stalling my death? Just kill me already.”

“Madam Sancouer. You just played a minor role in my downfall compared to what Adrien and Lila Rossi did to me. And you showed more guilt over your actions than they ever did and Adrien claimed to have loved me. And like I have told the Bats, Death is too swift of a punishment.”

“Who are the bats?”

“None of your concern. You should be more concerned about yourself.”

“Lila sees the ghosts of her past and they haunt her. Adrien is in a living nightmare and has no control over his actions and is despised by everyone. What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, since you show some guilt over your actions, let me tell you a little secret. I am not dead. Not really. I mean I did die. But there was a spell in the grimoire that revived me. It took a few days to work.”

Marinette changed to her normal form. It was a little jarring to see an older Marinette Dupain-Cheng sitting on her vanity chair like it was a throne. The Ladybug suit and the wounds were gone. She looked a little familiar.

“Why are you telling me this? What was the point?” Natalie faltered as she wondered why the girl looked familiar. Marinette moved closer and her face was fully illuminated by the moonlight.

“I intend to take everything by which I mean everything from Gabriel Agreste for what he did.”

“M. Agreste just wanted his wife back. You just gave him your Miraculous, you would still have everything.”

“What difference would it make? Sure I had friends and family before but they turned out to be disappointing. I might have become a famous designer like I dreamed of and can't achieve because I died. Besides, he never said about wanting his wife to come back in his tedious monologues. For all we knew back then, he wanted them for world domination. He showed that he would end the world for them. For kwamis’ sake, he nearly started World War III, just for a pair of earring and a ring. He was willing to kill me to have her back. No wait, he did that too. If he actually read the translated grimoire or asked the Guardian or at least someone with magic for help instead or maybe used his head and made some who can heal as his champion using the Butterfly, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Face it, Mme Sancour, your boss is a power-hungry and very controlling maniac who is also thankfully an idiot.”

“But- he- he just-. You are just a child, what do you know? M. Agreste knew what he was doing.”

“A child who had a normal life up until he tried to ruin it with his idiotic schemes and hiring Lila to do it. A child who had to fight a war on her own.”

“I am sorry you had to go through that but I doubt you and your little revenge rampage is going to solve anything.”

Ghostly Chains wrapped around Natalie’s body, squeezing tight like it was squeezing the life out of her.

“I was all for sparing you, you know. If you had actually listened to my side of the story, you would have spared from my ‘little revenge rampage’. This is going to be a little painful. Sorry about that.” In a tone that was definitely not sorry.

Pain coursed through Natalie’s body. Her skin crawled and itched as pitch back feathers grew out of it. Her bones turned to dust and reformed.

Where Natalie Sancour once was, there was a raven.

An omen of death and destruction for one Gabriel Agreste.

Marinette leaned down towards the raven. Natalie tried to peck her eye out but Marinette held the beak in a firm grip.

“Ah. ah ah. Luckily for you this is temporary. Mostly. Every night, you will assume this shape and each night the longer you will stay in this form. Slowly counting down the days until Gabriel’s downfall. Since you love helping him so much, you are going to help him know how long he has to live. The night you are a raven from sunset to sunrise, that sunrise starts the day Gabriel Agreste will be utterly destroyed.”

She released the beak and headed towards the window.

"Send him my regards."

With that, she was gone.

(Part 6)

#platonic jasonette #graveyard siblings #maribat #ml x dc #marinette meets the sirens

[theseerasures]

a yearning nation’s blueeyed pride

honestly there is just like. no point as of Witch (if not earlier) in thinking about Marrow and Winter as following along the same defection path, and downright facile to compare the two in terms of who is “closer” to defecting and therefore “less problematic” (even setting aside that making value judgments along those lines in fiction is...never that straightforward), when the narrative has emphasized REPEATEDLY how they are on entirely separate tracks in terms of character and role in the Atlas military.

seriously, it’s like saying “this orange is bad because you can’t eat the peel like you can eat an apple skin”

so like, yes, Marrow is the one who has verbally expressed his misgivings, and has clearly articulated scruples (as opposed to just the dial-up noise) and will blurt them out any second now as soon as he gets a word in edgewise. but also: Marrow HASN’T gotten a word in edgewise (except with Winter, fancy that), and has done approximately fuck all to actually subvert the system that he is growing to hate. both his theory and lack of praxis are tied into Marrow’s relatively low, overlooked position in the Atlas system, and feed into the fact that for Marrow the project of Atlas is not personal.

Marrow joined the military on ideological grounds. he clearly does want personal connection, but that has been denied him at every turn, largely by his teammates, largely by his partner, all of whom use him to enforce their own struggles with the clash between political duty and personal grief. he has been alienated by the system he upholds, which started even before we meet him. this makes it much harder for him to rebel in deed, because he doesn’t have a lot of power to begin with and he knows the system will not protect him if he does; at the same time, that relative powerlessness and isolation keeps his investment in Atlas abstract, uncomplicated, and much easier to dispel. Marrow is still with Atlas because he has a job to do, because it’s his duty, because he is still clinging to the Atlas military’s illusory altruism. he wants Penny to come with them so she can save Atlas. his protestations at seeing Team FNKI, that they are “just kids,” comes from the belief that it is categorically wrong to send children into battle. what is keeping Marrow from defecting is belief, and once the belief is shattered--like, say, when his boss’ new ingenious plan is to Nuke the Poors--there is nothing keeping him around.

and once his path is set he will not waver, because Atlas, by design, has no hold on him materially or personally (outside of his own life, which he was already happy to dedicate to a cause). Marrow then, is the limit case of Atlas being hoist with its own petard: an exemplar for how it gives its people nothing while demanding everything, but also an exemplar for how quickly the entire system folds in on itself when the veil is lifted. when Marrow defects (and it IS when) it will represent Atlas as a whole defecting from itself, even if we don’t see it visually--from the civilians, to the enlisted soldiers, to perhaps even members of Marrow’s own team.

NONE of the things i just mentioned really apply to Winter, because there is nothing about Atlas that is not personal for Winter.

i have no doubt that Winter is in some ways invested in same abstract principles that swayed Marrow, but that is constantly overridden by the fact that Winter has family at all sides of this, even before everything fell to shit, and the narrative will not stop reminding her.

“what about your sister?” “would you say the same thing if it was your sister inside?” her father was gunning for a seat on the Council. the man who took her in is essentially Head of State. Penny has made herself Public Enemy Number One, and Weiss is actively abetting her. even Whitley has now thrown himself into the fray, unbeknownst to her. and another person might be better at compartmentalizing all this the way Winter clearly wants to, and stick to the party line, but Winter cannot, because the more i watch her the more i’m convinced that the current crisis in Atlas is just a microcosm of the real issue, which is to say: everything is personal in Atlas for Winter, because everything is personal for Winter.

at a moment-to-moment level, and especially when backed into a corner, Winter defaults not to ideology but her tightly coiled lattice of personal relationships. and this makes perfect sense, because Winter grew up in a household where she had to perpetually crisis respond, and then she never stopped. Marrow does what he does because he believes in the dream, in making the world a better place, and therefore it is more difficult in some respects for him to defect, because it involves taking a long hard look at and then rejecting the structures he bought into and made himself complicit in. once lines are crossed and he DOES do that, though, he’s home free. for Winter, there are no lines to cross, because all Winter wants in the end is to throw her arms around everyone she cares about and drag them to safety. to keep them there, closely held, where she can see them and make sure that they stay safe.

but what’s tricky about Winter--what’s fascinating to me, what Jacques tried to beat out of her, what James alternately capitalizes on and tries to quash, what she resents about herself--is that in times of crisis (which for Winter is again ALL THE TIME), “everyone she cares about” becomes everyone, so that suddenly she takes a shine to the General’s war machine, so that she’s risking her life to give Penny and Fria a few more seconds of time, so that she’s stepping in front of Elm’s incoming fist, so that she’s letting JYR go rescue Oscar. Marrow has ideals he values, but at her core Winter has nothing but the people, who are real the moment she sees and feels them--real enough to defend, or defend against.

Winter jealously protects her web of people, but that web will also spiral out to infinity if she lets it--so she doesn’t. she has adamantly refused to move out of the mode where she lives present-by-present, only reacting to what is right in front of her, what she has been told, weighing her own life against the people who are closest, and no more. this is unquestionably a trauma response, but it’s also reinforced by 1) her choice to become a career soldier, and 2) the fact that Winter actually HAS quite a bit of power, and she knows that. but she has never trusted herself with any of it, largely because her hypervigilant response to situations has only ever been chastised instead of rehabilitated. Winter knows the weight of her name and her position, but she constantly tries to ignore it, or run away from it, so that she is only ever the heiress, the second-in-command, and never the Queen. she cannot be a leader until she is Good (that is to say, perfect and rational), so she tries to obliterate her power the same time she obliterates that pesky personhood: remaining still for as long as possible, avoiding situations that she knows will prompt action and choice, and when absolutely pushed to think through her power, moving the pieces around with extreme caution, hoping that the world won’t be burnt black by it.

Marrow and Winter are fundamentally at opposing ends of the personal-political bleed, and the story could NOT telegraph it any more clearly than their conversation in Witch, where Marrow makes a personal plea to Winter so that she can make a call far beyond just that, and she refutes him, by reminding him of his obligation to Atlas in the form of impersonal duty.

i’ll conclude by pointing out that there is something very interesting happening with Winter right now, that exceeds her power in-universe. because even as a Schnee, as Ironwood’s protege, what Winter can do is limited (partly because she limits herself), except for how the story has resolutely centered her actions and MADE them significant. in the course of this war Winter has let herself make exactly two choices--both of them noninterventionist, easily justifiable, and not meant to take any ideological stand--and they ended up altering the entire fabric of the war with Salem. all because she loved her sisters more than her duty. all because she was shown a slim chance to save the kingdom and a fourteen-year-old boy, and she thought just for an instant, what’s the harm

(and James Ironwood will never know. that even with his plan, his bomb, all his ships, all his soldiers...he was no match for her. his loyal lieutenant. the only child he will ever have, who has only ever called him “sir.”)

it is not about what Winter COULD have chosen in those moments, if she had the ability to stop Penny and Weiss from leaving, if JYR were even Oscar’s rescuers, in the conventional sense. it is about the fact that she DID make those choices, and the story has made them reverberate, in spite of the fact that she did not mean for them to. Marrow’s story is about being neglected and overlooked by the system, the moment of recognition that it needs you more than you need it, that there are so many more of you, and together you can stop chasing the dream and make your own. Winter’s story cleaves to the heart of not just Atlas, but the RWBY monomyth, which goes something like: stars are like us. the world was created because two brothers could not get along, and sundered because a woman could not cope with her grief. just because you move closer to the elite, to the center, to the top, to the sublime, it does not mean that you move farther from the fallible. we are all, at our deepest layer, people.

but the world does not tremble any less for it.

#winter schnee #marrow amin #rwby #helen writes meta #there is something like. gallingly poetic to the point where it's just shy of kitsch #about the throughline of winter letting penny go and then penny letting emerald go #(and then emerald helping free oscar with JYR and hitching a ride on the other strand winter left trailing behind) #it's not about causation. it's not that simple #it's about the ways that penny is both winter's apotheosis and (dare i say it) mirror #as maidens so often are for each other #so that winter's desperate compromise becomes in penny's hands a transcendent mercy #winter would not have spared emerald. and penny is not there solely because of winter #but they constitute and echo each other even apart in the kingdom of creation #winter might call that being 'human' but penny would call it something else #me yesterday: teehee i think i will make a leetle joke #about how winter has done more for the war effort than ironwood by basically doing fuck all #HOURS AND A ZILLION WORDS LATER #listen. do i regret it? yes. do i wish i'd done something more productive? absolutely. do i wish i could hyperfixate on anything else? ye

[beepboop358]

Donnie Darko & Stranger Things: Clocks, Memories, Time Travel, Fire & ST4 Clues

(ST movie DNA series: 3)

This movie is seriously like a goldmine of ST references and clues I was geeking out the whole time xD

Summary: A teenage boy named Donnie Darko sleepwalks out of his house one night and sees a giant, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world will end in 28 days. When Donnie returns home, he finds that a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. The movie makes us question what is actually real; is Donnie living in a parallel universe, is he suffering from mental illness like everyone says he is, or is he seeing things everyone else cannot and the world is actually going to end?

What's Real?:

Donnie Darko depicts a "mentally insane" character. Donnie is seeing a giant bunny rabbit named "Frank" who he says tells him what to do, mostly bad and dangerous things, and that the world is going to end in 28 days Donnie takes medication and goes to intense therapy and everyone in his life is convinced he is insane and unwell. This idea of mental instability is a running them in Joyce's family, and I discuss that and the idea of Victor Creel this disturbed character in this post here.

We also see this same theme of "what's actually real?" in ST:

Mike to Will in s2 regarding the mindflayer: "Is this all real? Or is it like the doctors say, all in your head?" (this basically summarizes Donnie Darko LOL)

Joyce to Will in s2 regarding the mindflayer: "These episodes that you're having, I think Dr. Owens is wrong. I think they're real."

Donnie does have telekinetic powers, just like El does. Donnie can also talk to Frank, an "otherworldly monster". Reminds me slightly of how Will can sense the upside down monsters.

Clocks, Memories, Time:

In the opening of the movie, we see a clock. The clock in this movie indicates an impending catastrophic event and "time is running out" to stop it, specifically in this movie, it's the world ending*.

The clock is striking midnight, in the Donnie Darko shots and the ST4 sneak peek clips. *It's a reference to the significance of midnight on the doomsday clock, most prevalent during the Cold War when U.S. and Russia were both building up so many nuclear weapons that mass destruction was possible at literally any moment. Schools did bomb drills frequently in both countries, and people were on edge all the time worrying about if they were going to be bombed or if one was going to malfunction and accidentally go off.

There are a lot of war movies on the st4 video store Fridays list, and we know the military is being brought into Hawkins this season, so there's our idea of war this season, and ofc the show takes place during the Cold War so double jeopardy LOL.

When we see the clock, the words are referring to a memory, a past event.

I think the grandfather clock shown in the st4 sneak peek (rumored to be in Vecna's lair and also Creel's house but unconfirmed) is going to be a portal to past memories like a way to access memories and past events through the powers of the upside down.

(time travel "flashbacks" theory and clocks = memories/past times low-key confirmed LOL 😆)

Portals Through Time/Worlds & Water:

The film also deals with direct time travel and portals between worlds/times: Donnie opens a time portal, from water..... and ends up causing this jet plane to crash into his room.

My jaw literally dropped when this happened guys, my mind was exploding xD

Water in the show is surrounded with the upside down monsters/dimension along with those cryptic water tweets from the stranger writers and the clip of Steve underwater in the st4 sneak peek, so there's the origin of water surrounding the portals to other dimensions (the upside down) in stranger things.

And then ofc we know time will be a big theme in s4, and we have seen tons of clock imagery in the st4 promos, and there are some references to time travel in s3 with Back to the Future, as well as plenty of other shots of clocks in the entire show

Fire:

Frank tells Donnie to burn down this motivational speakers house, so he does. Donnie sets this huge fire, and we know Will is commonly associated with fire in the show. But because Donnie burns down the house, it sets off this other chain of events that result in several other characters deaths, indirectly cause by Donnie following Frank's instructions.

I'm 99% sure the person in front of the car is Will, because the shirt he's wearing looks like the shirt of a teenager, his hair looks similar to that one leaked peak of his photo double, and that image is the 7th of the st4 clips shown. Maybe this is another hint to Will's storyline in s4.

The idea of Will going "mad" or "insane" in s4 is actually likely. The Opera in the HNL control room video that came out one day before the 002/004 "Eleven are you listening?" teaser, where it appears that Noah (Will) is one of the lab subjects in the room, hints to this idea of Will going "mad" and developing "dissasociative amnesia" due to psychological stress and trauma. I recommend you read my post about the opera linked above^ because it explains this concept with way more detail than I did here, and I think it's going to be really relevant for s4.

Causation & Control:

Throughout the film we see the idea of causation; Donnie does something (because Frank tells him to) that causes something else. It's like a chain of events or dominoes falling, one thing causes the other to happen, so now we're playing with the idea of how much control individuals really have, do we really have control over things or does someone else.

(My mind goes to Tess of the D'urbervilles, which is famous for exploring themes of free will, determinism, and the domino effect)

Which makes me think about how this idea may be in ST:

1. Will is controlling things through the DID theory

2. A character we haven't met yet, (my guess would be Victor Creel) is controlling things in the upside down because of a deep connection to it (maybe he created some version of the upside down)

^That idea also fits into the theory that Creel is an evil father/grandfather with special abilities who is pulling the strings from afar which would complete a Star Wars parallel (discussed here.)

Hmmm much to think about!

#st movie dna series #st movie dna series 3 #st movie dna series donnie darko #stranger things #stranger things analysis #stranger things obsessed #stranger things speculation #stranger things spoilers #stranger things 4 #st4 #stranger things theory #stranger things season 4 #stranger things 4 spoilers #stranger things 4 clues #stranger things 4 theory #stranger things season 4 theory #stranger things season 4 video store fridays #stranger things season 4 spoilers #will byers #will byers has powers #the opera in the hnl control room video #st4 spoilers #st4 theory #st4 speculation #stranger things 4 sneak peek #st meta #stranger things meta #st analysis #victor creel #victor creel theories