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kairiscorner · 10 months

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Helloo, can I request Miguel with an artist reader who draws him a lot? 👉👈 Like the reader has a secret crush on Miguel and he inspires them a lot, without even knowing it. And maybe there's a Gwen-and-Miles-like-situation where Miguel by accident discovers the drawings of him in their sketchbook?

AAAAAAAA ANON THIS IS SO CUTE !! tbh i wanted to finish the miggy fic i had for ate @binibinileonara bc i wanted to connect these two together, BUT I COULDN'T RESIST, I'LL MAKE IT SEPARATE BC WHY NOT !! thank you for the lovely idea btw (i also had an idea like this actually in my notes) THANKS FOR GIVING ME THE OOMPH TO DO IT !!

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

you always had this desire to capture all that interested you in its full beauty, in its unbridled greatness. that was, to you, the essence of all your art pieces; they always reflected how you saw the world, how you saw nature, how you saw people.

you never believed people had one or two faces to them, you believed people were multi-faceted, that every person was a kaleidoscope of beauty, skills, quirks, flaws, fears, hopes, and dreams. you loved capturing every bit of people who intrigued you the best you could, and you hoped that if you stood back and admired the big picture that was them, going over the details and fibers that made each person their own–from the good, bad, pretty and ugly details–you would finally see the whole, uncut image of the person you were illustrating; who you were painting in the colors you saw them in, the colors that stuck with you and filled the empty canvas of your mind with all sorts of shapes and splotches of hues and shades that formed the image of them when their name would come to mind.

and for some reason... that person to you right now was miguel o'hara. you had a lot of things to say about him, even words that many would argue don't exist. you felt a myriad of feelings when you were around miguel, and you knew there was more than just the dictating leader miguel that everyone was familiar with. like all people, miguel, too, was an explosion of different kinds of colors to you–colors that only you could see, because when he was around you... he was more than just the cool, calm, and collected boss everyone saw him as.

he was much more caring, much more funny around you. his smile when you told him a funny story illuminated a bright yellow and a warm orange to you–his eyes would twinkle and you'd see the hazelnut brown in his eyes, and a shade of what appeared to be coffee brown at the bottom of his irises. he exuded a commanding aura, a dark, cool blue–but when paired with you, and only you, he exuded a bright red; a color of fiery passion, intimacy, and most of all... attraction.

he was the subject of your affections, you, the soulful and emotional artist that admired him and all that he was from afar and up close. you admired the way he held your hand when you were scared on a few missions, you admired how gently he held you when you two were caught between a rock and a hard place; and how soft and loving his eyes were when they gazed at you. you knew he might have felt a platonic kind of love for you, what with being so comfortable around you and all, but you felt a different kind of love for him–and you hated denying your creative side the indulgence of capturing him in all his beauty.

hence, you began slowly filling the empty spaces of your sketchbooks and notebooks, or whatever other papers lay around when inspiration struck you, with images of him and only him. you caught his face in moments where he was nonchalant, disappointed, angry, grumpy, and... smiling.

when you witnessed his smile for the first time when you met him, that image was burned into your retinas, into your mind, into your heart. you saw that smile from the minute you went to bed to the minute you woke up, the only thing that saddened you was that you could never hold that man who smiled at you and made your heart beat a little faster–you could only watch him and be with him at a distance. but art was the bridge between you two that'd close that distance you wanted to cover so, so badly.

you did, at times, believe what you were doing was... a little creepy. you refused to let anyone see your sketchbooks even before you drew him, and that was out of embarrassment at your drawings. but now, it was a new kind of embarrassment, a feeling adjacent to guilt and disgust at how nobody but he could fill your mind and have you wanting to keep him in your mind by feeding yourself, indulging yourself in putting him on paper and coloring him in; to be with him at a closer perspective than how you two were in the real world.

you had to admit it–seeing him constantly in your mind, wanting to let thoughts of him out on paper as you wanted to be through with imagining him, but knew you couldn't the more and more you portrayed him–it meant you... wanted him. you really, really loved him.

you knew nobody should know, nobody had to know about this little crush you had on miguel. you'd rather die than have someone peek at your sketchbook that was filled with all kinds of drawings of him. but unfortunately, the man himself bore witness to your caricatures and illustrations of him when you left your sketchbook at his office.

you ran as quickly as you could, praying he hadn't opened it out of curiosity. he was always asking you what you were up to, and you'd immediately shut your sketchbook and laugh awkwardly, claim you were merely doodling. you always left out the part that you were constantly drawing him, and only ever him; and now, he'd find out.

as you entered his office, scouring with your eyes for your sketchbook, a figure emerged from the darkness behind you and gave a slight cough. "this is yours, isn't it?" that low, fluid voice was none other than miguel's. you turned around in fear of what he was going to look like–would any of the faces you drew seeing him as be one of the faces you'd see?

to your surprise... no. he had a different, completely new face that you had never drawn him in; a flustered state. he was blushing, his angled cheeks and high nose bridge were covered in a pink-red hue–and he was grinning. he handed you the sketchbook with a now sheepish smile. "i'm sorry, i wasn't sure if it was yours. i had to... look through for a name. and, um... it was very–" he wanted to continue, but then, he saw you were on the verge of tears.

"i'm... sorry..." you muttered, feeling incredibly ashamed of yours and busted for having indulged in drawing him without him knowing. guilt stirred in your stomach and elicited tears to well up in your eyes. miguel smiled, and as his eyebrows curved upwards together to form a look of reassurance, he placed both hands on your shoulders.

"listen, you have a wonderful talent. i'm sorry if you don't hear that enough, but that changes today. i'm so... wow, i'm so flattered you thought i was good enough to be drawn that way. it feels... amazing, to know an artist sees me fit to be their, what would you call it?" he asked as he wiped a tear rolling down your cheek away from you.

"a... muse." you whispered, wiping the rest of your tears away. miguel chuckled. "right, a muse." he said as he inched closer to you, with the sweetest smile on his face. "i might sound really crazy right now, but... i want to be your muse. i really, really want to be your muse." he said, with emphasis on 'your'.

your face lightened up as the tears that welled up gave your eyes a glassy look, and you saw the blush on his deepen as you became more and more flustered. you smiled and wrapped your arms around his chest, pulling him in for an embrace you needed to release. "and i want to be your artist. only yours." you whispered, to which miguel reciprocated your hug. and it was here that you witnessed him in a new color, a pinkish, reddish hue that made you feel all kinds of happiness and excitement.

a love meant to be captured and painted in with bursts of emotion and care for one another.

a/n: I'M SO SORRY IF IT DIDN'T COME OUT THAT WELL NGL I MADE THIS A LITTLE RUSHED 😭😭😭 BUT I LOVE MIGGY HERE PLSSS AND I HOPE Y'ALL LOVE HIM HERE, TOO <333

tags !! @thecoolerdor @miguelswifey04 @binibinileonara @luvstarrstruck

#miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara fluff #miguel o'hara fanfiction #atsv #atsv miguel #atsv x reader #atsv x you #atsv x y/n #spidersona

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mejomonster · 5 months

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Modu by priest was truly such a good read. If you like romance? It has a sweeping romance, with a well done bisexual and gay lead (and straight best friend) all written in ways that manage to feel realistic, it's got features people likely found it for when looking for a danmei - rich manipulative younger man, older investigator who's got a hero streak, and yet those categories don't really do justice to them (and of course tao ran is the more grounded detective story lead who keeps his theories to himself and worries about dragging others into his mess).

They're so much more... Fei Du is a traumatized young man who's worried he's as monstrous as the people who scarred him, who is preparing to take the leap and cross the line to become an even more terrifying version of himself if it will destroy the corruption poisoning this city and harming so many, Luo Wenzhou is a cop that used to want to be a hero and learned he will fail people and be unable to save people and holds onto Fei Du as someone who reminds him he DOES fail but also reminds him why he wants so hard to keep Trying to help people even when it seems impossible... why trying and putting in effort to care and help Even when its too late to fix things is Worthwhile. Tao Ran is a contrast to them both, Fei Du living in a world where there's only monsters and victims and Luo Wenzhou desperately trying to force the world to be a place where justice CAN prevail and win even as he sees it fail over and over, trying so hard to believe all people have the capacity for everything and are worth trying to save. Even though Fei Du doesm't believe that, being around Luo Wenzhou makes him want to consider it. Tao Ran, their contrast? Believing the world can go either way, and its up to people like him to create any justice at all, any structure at all, or else everything is just meaningless suffering chaos. As characters, the three of them serve to explore how the world works and views on it in terms of a detective murder mystery encompassing the whole city, the small scale version of the world. Modu is a romance, but its also fully commited to being a murder mystery that wants to tackle the kind of themes that come up in the setting it's created. Its characters are so much more than Insert Character Ship types here. These characters were made this way to explore these ideas (just as the villains are all made to parallel and contrast Fei Du to explord these ideas in comparison to our point of view Fei Du moments, our impressions of Fei Du from Luo Wenzhou and Tao Rans varied perspectives, all of them are different lenses to view humanity and how it works, if the world is just or if we have to make it good, if we can be inherently good and if good people will reach out to us if we just keep treading water to survive, if its luck and chaos, and how much... and much more frankly).

Modu is like. If you want a story about a corrupt city and its victims, symbolizing a corrupt world and all of us at its mercy, and you want to see the heart of the people doing something about it. First the main trio, but also every victim Fei Du recruits to help, every murderer recruited to the corruption, all the people in the cases swayed to some side. Thats what Modu is about.

The romance is just one facet of exploring that, the personal debate about what these things mean about the world as told through two people who view this world incredibly differently. Yet find some way to exist in the same space, same mutual world, when together. It hooks you in and doesn't let you go and youre wondering right there with them, left to draw your own meaning in the end. Hopefully that its worth trying, that doing something is worth trying even when its just the trying you can do and not the succeeding, at least thats what I got from it (at least in regards to Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou meeting each other, unable to live up to the pillar they put each other on but trying anyway, is what I felt from them).

Then like? Modu gives you THAT story, which in its own right is enough to make you contemplate.

And if you're like me and care about people, about characters? Well it gives you, like I said, those big themes and a city's nightmares symbolizing the world, and brings them down to an individual level. You read from the mind of the little girl who grew up in this (one of my favorite scenes and when I felt this novel was going to not shy away from dark psychological moments and bringing them to you). You read from the mind of Fei Du when he knows himself, when he doesn't. You read from the minds of all kinds of people, and the heart of much of the investigation is peoples motives and things they'd gone through and how that shaped what they'd do next. Why they'd do it. Leaving you to wonder who's right. Jaded idealist Luo Wenzhou who wants to believe in the goodness of the people he loves, but also is willing to risk that strangers may have good intent? Fei Du who thinks theres only victims and perpetrators and everyone is going to fall into one in the right circumstance? Tao Ran, who feels the world is too messy to dare declare predictable, who thinks even your closest can betray you and even you can accidentally hurt them, nevermind strangers, and the only thing you can control and rely on is your own choices? Some mix? None of them? The side characters as they come up, grow and evolve, do they understand the world better or worse, and is the world they experience different than anothers and justify why their worldview is likewise different? Modu gives you that up close and personal, over and over. Im still thinking about it. And the way its done, they all get to feel like lived in people. Not structures to tell the themes only. But on their own, there's a personal struggle between Fei Du feeling like a monster who'll destroy Lup Wenzhou if he loves him, like his dad destroyed his mom, and Luo Wenzhou carrying the guilt he could never save Fei Du and desperate to believe in Fei Du (and keep trying to save him in that way if only that way) as person who can do good despite not being saved and despite Fei Du's fears. You could cut the entire city's plot away, all of the crimes and make the city calm, and still that core of their plot would be carrying a Lot of weight. Theyre playing a game of "enemies" to lovers sure, or whatever romance story structures they fit into. But they're also made to be deeply rooted into each other, their personal beliefs tied into the outcome of what they hope or fear happens if they are close together. Modu made me care about that. Its like the fears many people might have, abiut theur own flaws, about getting close to others, about trusting and being unsure if that trust is safe to give. Its that and magnified into bigger form, in this landscape of a fucked up city and the tragedy of Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou's meeting and former lives.

Its like. Id love to to read another danmei (Ive got a lot on my to read list). But what's going to give me roo

#modu #silent reading #lb #meta #like... modu was so fucking good.#it was 3 characters symbolizing their city symbolizing the world in terms of worldviews morality justice and if theres a point to #trying to help at all. like damn #i want to read ANOTHER danmei that makes me weigh those questions. that uses the characters this personally and intimately with the readers #because the Characters weigh the themes in their OWN lives so heavily.#like... i know priest can probably give me this kind of huge delivery in can ci pin and sha po lang (at least i estimate #priesr probably can as theyre very popular novels by priest)#and 2ha can (because ive read half and know its themes)#but like. what other danmei can? can thousand autumns? can peerless? can wu shang jie?#can Mistakenly Saving the Villain?#like... the only non priest danmei i read was svsss and i got supremely lucky #cause i personally LOVE satire and critique commentary affection for the topics it explores #and svsss AS a satire is incredibly well done. having read 2ha first? and seen Eternal Love?#svsss does an amazing job at critiquing webnovel culture and flaws. at the way capitalism effects writing #at the way some tropes have become staples of certain genres and when used well yeah you get 2ha but when used badly you get #the fake novel svsss was making fun of that there Are many real novels like

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hiddendruid · 10 months

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Willow Month - Day 2: Favorite Relationship

This one is so hard for me. There’s so many wonderful relationships, so I'm gonna talk about multiple. So here are my favorite relationships in Willow (in no particular order):

1. Kit and Jade

I’ve seen my share of sapphic relationships, but not that many in fantasy. And none that immediately drew me in as strongly as these two. Not just their chemistry, but also just how much they bounce off each other as characters, if that makes sense. Like Jade being a courtly knight wanting to protect Kit, but also wanting to make sure Kit gets her training and not wanting to “save” her. And Kit being super selfish and taking her friendship with Jade for granted until she realizes how much she loves her???? Incredible 10/10.

2. Kit and Boorman

I feel like the way these two interact with each other is not only hilarious, but extremely relatable. As someone with an older brother, I FELT the sibling vibes between these two right away. Also the fact that they are both so intrinsically tied to Madmartigan and his legacy, it’s so good! I also love how Boorman passes off the cuirass and its power to Kit, knowing that its her story and her bravery that’s going to save the day. Poetry!!

3. Graydon and Elora

Listen. . .I could write ESSAYS about these two. They are THE relationship. From the moment Graydon told Elora she was extraordinary, I was in for the ride. There’s so many facets of their relationship that I could peel back and examine from their shared growth in doing magic to the ability for both characters to be able to share their trauma and crap with each other. Also SO MUCH ROMANCE I COULD EAT THIS SHIT UP. Like???? Graydon helping Elora with her magical pronunciation then saying “Perfect” while looking at her with his puppy dog eyes? Elora helping Graydon tie his shirt and looking deeply into his eyes?!?!?!?!?!?!

“WHEN WE REACH THE IMMEMORIAL CITY, I KNOW YOU’LL SAVE AIRK AND YOU TWO WILL RUN OFF TOGETHER BECAUSE YOU LOVE HIM. AND WHILE I DON’T LOVE HIM I DO LOVE YOU. IT’S OKAY I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO LOVE ME BACK. I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW BECAUSE WITHOUT YOU I NEVER WOULD HAVE BECOME THE MAN I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE?!?!?!??!”

Deceased. Dead. Dead Deceased. Not to mention there’s still a whole other side of their relationship we haven’t been able to explore yet because Elora hasn’t fully grappled with her feelings for Graydon yet. (pst, this is one of the reasons we need a Season 2)

4. Kit and Elora

These two made me cry so much while watching this show. I’m a sucker for sister relationships. I love that Elora is such a big sister for Kit - giving her advice and helping her self-actualize - and then Kit is such a snotty little sister pushing Elora over the edge (literally) and getting her to be brave. Also the growth of their relationship over the course of the show is so fantastic. And it feels real. It doesn’t feel like forced drama. I just adore how Kit has to grapple not only with the fact that this kitchen maid is the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but also the fact that her life has been prioritized over hers. Their scene in “Beyond the Shattered Sea” at the waterfall was so powerful.

5. Willow and Graydon

Honestly, I could make an argument for every relationship between Willow and another member of the party. But there’s something so special about Graydon and Willow’s relationship. The little back and forth between them in episode 3 was so silly “Which one of us is the High Aldwyn? Oh yeah, it’s me.” and “Don’t say groin in mixed company.” Are some highlights for me. But then episode 5 really cemented it for me. The two of them talking about Elora felt very much like a dad talking to his daughter’s boyfriend. But then, by the end, the fact that Willow (truthfully I might add) told Graydon that he’s a good person. And then from then on, we got to see Willow become a sort of mentor and guide for Graydon. Like??? I got so teary-eyed in the finale when Willow told Graydon he was “on his way to becoming a great sorcerer, and an even greater man” then screamed “NO” when Graydon got shunted into the Wyrm realm. Like?!?! It’s so perfect.

6. Graydon and Boorman

OK, last but certainly not least, I adore these two. I feel like Willow really nails non-toxic masculine friendships so well. Boorman initially being the target for Graydon’s dad, but then becoming a sort of older brother figure for Graydon is such a perfect little arc. Also, Boorman does a great job of bringing Graydon out of his shell. He’s so supportive, but also is such a wonderful comedic contrast to Graydon’s ‘straight man.’ Boorman saves Graydon’s flute from the Immemorial City. That’s so fantastic, and such a great little nod to how much Boorman cared about Graydon.

Again, there’s too many to choose, so I settled for 6. There’s so many amazing relationship dynamics in this show and all of them are so fantastic I could go on and on and on.

#willow 2022 #willow series #willowmonth2023 #kit tanthalos #graydon hastur #elora danan #tanthamore #graylora #thraxus boorman #willow ufgood

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thehubby · 11 months

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Introducing Dextra

Like many gamers, it has long been a goal of mine to develop and publish my own game, to add a minute something to the fabric of our culture, but especially to the hobby which I have enjoyed for a very long time. At long last, through a confluence of self-determination, assistance from friends, and an environment more friendly to independent publishing than any yet, the time for that dream is now. It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the my first role-playing game, Dextra.

What is Dextra? It is a very rules-light narrative-focused tabletop RPG. It is designed for players who are most interested in a game system that helps them structure telling stories, not crunching numbers and trying to figure out optimal builds. In fact, telling a good story is the only objective and "win" condition in Dextra. Even if the land is ravished, the villain escapes and the heroes perish, if the table tells a satisfying tale, the table wins.

How does Dextra play? Dextra is designed for casual players (even if they do take their stories very seriously!), and is intended to address one of the biggest problems I personally have had with tabletop gaming over the years: rules bloat and accessibility. There is only one hard rule in Dextra: every facet of the game (including contributions of the players) must be subservient to the story at hand. Between the 15 pages of basic guidelines and 65 pages of support materials, there are many recommendations of how to proceed, but you are free and encouraged to ignore any and all of them as befits your need to tell the story.

There are no lists of classes, powers, equipment and such in Dextra, no codified character abilities, spells, races or anything else. It is a game truly limited only by the imagination of the players at the table. But you need not worry about your fellow players abusing this potential to create overpowered monstrosities, because they don't make their own characters. Each player provides a name and class -- any class, from fighter to fae emissary, wizard to werewolf hunter -- and character sheets are passed around the table where everyone else gives them the attributes, powers and abilities, equipment and items, and traits and quirks that make them who they are. It's a little like Mad Libs, except instead of dubiously entertaining jibberish, you're likely to end up with something cool like an Infernal Bloodline, a Ruggedness ability score, or Spear of Lightning.

Taking actions and overcoming challenges is done using 2d6 (two six-sided dice for any newcomers out there), adding the character elements that the player feels are appropriate to their roll, and comparing it to a predetermined difficulty that the Game Master establishes for the action. GMs don't need to look up any tables; they simply estimate the difficulty of an action (assuming it is one that carries a risk of failure at all) from 1 to 10, and add 5. There are guidelines for combat, hit points, character conditions and so on if desired, but Dextra does not contain realistic or complicated battle mechanics. If that's your jam, this may not be for you.

Is Dextra free? No, it is not free. Yes, it is. Though It took nearly a year to conceive, write, edit, format and ultimately publish the game, and I believe in fair compensation for myself just as for any other writer or creator, the market spoke after release and I determined it is more important to me that people be able to play the games I create than an occasional payout. Dextra and all of my other published games are free.

Where can I get it? Dextra is currently offered at Itch.io (link provided). It should be published on DriveThruRPG (link provided) sometime within the next three days after their review and approval. It is currently only available as a digital PDF download (preparing print-on-demand copies involves some software and expertise I do not currently possess). If you wish to obtain a copy of the game and have a preference between these two sites, by all means go with that. If you have no preference, then my recommendation is Itch.io, as they not only take a smaller cut of the sale, but have more features available (such as complimentary community copies and easier means to send free codes to users).

Where can I get more information? If you have questions about the game, send me an Ask on the Dextra-RPG Tumblr account. You can also check or follow that account for occasional posts of information and to find out how you can contribute to a crowd-sourced character creation project to be offered as a free download to potential players.

#Dextra RPG #Stage 99 Games

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animehouse-moe · 5 months

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You Should Read The Ephemeral Scenes Of Setsuna's Journey

Isekai light novels get a bad rap, and rightfully so. A lot are complete drivel that is strung together by overpowered characters that appeal to a power fantasy and very little else. Finding good isekai series is quite the challenge. Thankfully, The Ephemeral Scenes Of Setsuna's Journey promises to be a proper good isekai, and one that I think people should be picking up.

Yes, I'm terrible for not having posted about either of these volumes as I've read them. I've just been a little pre-occupied with mulling them over and really savoring the process of reading them. As a side note though, this post will only talk about the first volume in loose terms, completely avoiding any talk of the second volume.

Anyways, what's Setsuna about? To answer sort of cryptically, it's about a boy finding his place in a wide world where he can surround himself with family as well as experiences he could have never had before.

Setsuna was terminally ill in his original world. He wasn't alone or living a crappy life by any means, as his family was incredibly caring and loving, but being restricted to a bed for the majority of life is a soul crushing experience. So, imagine how you would feel if you were summoned as a hero to a land of magic and ability beyond belief, but were still crippled by that same illness. Only here, you have no family, you have no one that wants to care for you and ensure you live as good a life as possible.

Or so you thought. As a year passes and Setsuna is nearly "released" from his duties as a hero, a previous hero appears before the sickly young man, offering a promise, 'take my life'. In the most literal sense, the former hero swaps his soul with Setsuna's to give the young man a new lease on life in a new world, and our story begins from here.

It's such a great and emotional beginning to Setsuna's story. We see him hit rock bottom, saved by someone that comes to be an older brother to the young man in hindsight, giving Setsuna a push on the back and saying, "go out there and live.". It's very very strong sentiment, and it's what we see through the entirety of the first volume.

It's all about Setsuna making connections in the world, finding a family, finding people that care about him and will take him in and give him direction in life. A grandfather that carefully watches over his much too strong grandson for how naive he is. The father that struggles with his life decisions and if what he's doing is right for his family. Or maybe another father figure that brings Setsuna out into the real world, alongside a brother that's just a bit difficult to get along with. Maybe even the den mother that gives Setsuna a warm home and the push he needs to leave his home town.

The idea of a found family, and its importance in the development and direction of Setsuna's new life is just felt so strongly in every interaction, it's wonderful. Setsuna was originally bound to the confines of a bed in a hospital room. He hardly has an idea of how to live in the outside world, let alone on his own and in an entirely new world. The slower steps that the young man takes just really help you grasp the idea that Setsuna is groping around in the dark with the help of others to find his purpose and goal in this new life.

And while the story almost always frames it as Setsuna being helped by those around him, it's impossible to not understand that Setsuna leaves a lasting effect on those that come to favor him, and I think that's incredibly great. The idea that only one of the two strangers in an interaction will walk away better for it is silly. These are two individuals at two important places in their lives, it is not one lecturing the other, but the pair engaging with each other. Setsuna learns, but he also teaches.

There's just so many aspects like this that really sell just how great the character development is in the story. Even better is that it's just one facet of it. There is, in a fact, a greater story to be told in several areas, and the first volume is great at illustrating that scope and scale without detracting from the small community with which Setsuna begins his new life.

Similarly, all the little extraneous bits. The magic system is solid and complex, placing heavy focus on individuality and purpose. The guild system aims for chemistry alongside capability, and ties a strong political thread into it as a whole. Warriors and adventurers are shown to be strong and able, rivaling and evening outpacing Setsuna thanks to experience and knowledge. And so on and so forth.

The only thing I can think to complain of is that, much like a lot of other great isekai writers, they feel rushed to get somewhere. So many don't have confidence in the words they weave to form entire worlds that they end up leaving potential on the table. Not that it's something terrible and should be complained about, but just that even in a story as good as this, the author so clearly has more they could have given, maybe even wanted to give, but were limited due to uncertainty, time constraints, or something else.

At the end of the day, isekai is unrightfully a genre, and will force series like Setsuna into being classified as an isekai. But I think anybody that reads will immediately understand the differences. Like every other great isekai series out there, Setsuna uses the concept as a theme to set the stage for the exploration of a story that can use that theme to its fullest potential. And I think that's great, and that people should be reading this series so that we can see more like it.

Oh, and also, there's a beautiful 2 volume manga adaptation of the LN if you want to test the waters.

#the ephemeral scenes of setsunas journey #the ephemeral scenes of setsuna's journey #setsuna no yuukei #isekai manga #isekai light novel #isekai #light novel review #light novel recommendation #light novel #manga review #manga reccs #manga recommendation #anime and manga

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hopeymchope · 6 months

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Just me loving all over Fire Emblem: Engage

Years after being so thoroughly disappointed and even angered by Fire Emblem: Three Houses — which, it must be said, is deeply popular and incredibly successful because that's how it goes for me — I've found myself loving Fire Emblem: Engage. I put off playing it because the online reception was so "meh," but I needn't have been so worried. My deep affection for the series is back.

Play as Aquafresh OR Pepsi!

The two biggest reasons I'm happy? Well, FIRST, my biggest complaint about Three Houses has been... not cured, unfortunately, but still significantly alleviated. If you want to remain adequately leveled/competitive in taking on strategic battles, you still need to do a bunch of side chores that amount to "running around your home base doing boring shit" between each fight. BUT. 1) The sheer amount of those chores is significantly less now, and 2) all the blind guesswork has been removed from increasing Support levels. You'll never be trying to helplessly guess what to say at some fucking teatime or in some classroom conversation where every response seems valid, nor will be you making your best guess on what food to serve people. Because the game just fucking tells you the kind of gifts or food each person likes! (And tea events/random interstitial convos are blessedly absent.)

SECOND, however? It's the quality of the writing. Yes, I know people have complained a ton about the writing in "Engage," but in my experience, they're primarily complaining because they felt the story is so simplistic. And, sure — I get that. There's so much emotional drama built into the setups of the last three games (Three Houses, Echoes, and Fates) that this tale seems rather bog-standard by comparison. The overarching story of Engage can be boiled down to a tale as old as the franchise itself — essentially "Evil Dragon gonna Do Evil." There are also some aspects of the worldbuilding/subtextual implications that don't quite make sense. But I'm not talking about the overarching plot when I praise the writing here — I'm talking about how the characters possess more detail/facets than usual, and the dialogue/banter between characters is so damn fun.

A woman I feel completely normal about.

I don't even quite know how to explain it. Maybe the humor is just more to my taste, but I've laughed so much more at this one. And by the same token, maybe I'm just digging deeper into these characters because their dialogue is endearing them to me. But after playing the past four games before this one (yes, I started with "Awakening" like some Filthy Casual, I'M SORRY), I don't recall any other game featuring characters with so much detail to them. In Engage, many chracters possess more than the usual "two noteworthy personality traits/talents" that are typically found in FE's enormous casts. I'm talking about people like Citrinne, Lindon, Yunaka, Clanne, Ivy, Gregory... I can easily say like FIVE things about each of them. And yes, I consider this to be an important step forward.

Okay, so: I like the dialogue, I like the characters, I don't like all the side busywork, the overall story is bland. (The Fell Xenalogue's story is kinda sick though?) But hold up, what about the actual MEAT of the game — the core gameplay of having strategic battles? That's not usually a problem, mind you. But how'd it go this time around?

WELL. I'd argue we've got some of the best maps and best ways to optimize characters that we've ever had. There are still some lame straightforward corridors in here, but by and large? You get a lot more freedom in how you lure enemies to you, how you can split up and flank them while simultaneously attacking from the front, how you can now disarm (or "Break") them during one turn so other allies can attack more easily/do more damage — it's pretty rad!

One of the earliest maps to make me go "Oh cool."

There's even a main theme with lyrics, and although it's never gonna be the inescapable earworm that "You are the ocean's gray waves" became, it's not shabby either.

I've put over 80 hours into Engage so far, and although I'm finished with the main story, I'm not yet finished unlocking stuff. There's a lot to love here. I'm just happy to be back.

#fire emblem #fire emblem: engage #video games #fire emblem engage

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daakjenaar · 8 months

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Manic creativity in the best cRPG

I’m not doing anything else with this Tumblr account, so I’ll post my inane ramblings instead.

There is a fine line to walk when trying to fit so many ideas into one video game. Walk too far on the side of serious, realistic content, and you’ve brewed a modern Larian Studios game where an insistence on being down-to-earth is utterly destroyed by a comic-relief encounter with some sort of whimsical chicken in between body horror and misery. Or to a lesser extent, have an otherwise mostly serious story get derailed by something lighthearted but altogether harmless, as is the experience with so much of Fallout 2. Walk too far to the side of cartoony, goofy subject matter, however, and watch as your writing becomes the wrong kind of laughable the moment you try to get mature. See the Borderlands series for a fine example.

I just made someone angry with each of those takes, so moving on.

There are ways to maintain a balance. The simplest way is to stick to one side and cut out everything that doesn’t fit, to curate a game to be a cohesive experience. As much as it’s a shame that so much of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 was forced to be cut, for all its faults, the game is a serious take on a classic, perhaps overdone franchise with a clear thesis. The balance between comedy and maturity can be achieved, of course, but that is easier said than done. As much as I hate to praise the works of Chris Avellone, I must cite a second project he worked on, every terminally online person’s most formative roleplaying game. Fallout: New Vegas is by no means a flawless game, I’m still amazed that the same quest can jump between the absurdity of helping a bunch of zombies piloting prop rockets to their holy land, and genuinely feeling conflicted about their treatment of their non-ghoul scientist ally. Of course the ghouls need these model rockets, that makes perfect sense, but did they need to gaslight this poor human into helping them? The quest I’m citing is the go-to for anyone singing the game’s praises, but any number of the game’s regions are host to the same kind of mix of the two tones. With high-enough quality in your writing, even the most disparate vibes can mesh.

But that’s a high bar. Saying to “just write good enough to make it work, lmao” is useless advice. Writing is exceedingly difficult, and good writing even moreso. So what if you try doing everything at once? Every idea, regardless of cohesiveness, coherency, sometimes even quality, all thrown into a bizarre soup of raw creativity.

If that sounds like a good time, then I urge you to get yourself a copy of Wasteland 3. All at once, it is one of the most engaging, fascinating, and baffling video games I have ever played. A point where it crosses the threshold from ‘a few weird ideas’ to a display of sheer, manic creativity. The kind of game where I encountered a weaponized statue of Ronald Reagan and the robot anarchist commune said statue is fighting. Where many quests center around a society of people named the ‘Monster Army’, who wear outfits taken from an off-brand Spirit Halloween and inhabit an old, buried mall. All the while, this Monster Army is under constant threat from a bunch of crazed clown-themed bandits who bring pain and destruction wherever they go. A partially-mechanized army of well-organized raiders seek to pillage and claim the post-apocalyptic snow-swept lands of Colorado, lands currently led by a man who wields a comically large warhammer wrapped with an American flag, sitting upon a throne of guns.

Wasteland 3 is a truly, genuinely bizarre title. At every turn, the game has some new idea to throw at you. The tone is so erratic that there really is no tone anymore. In its own way, it is such a strange and incoherent game that it comes full circle into making perfect sense. The most faithful attempt at recreating a classic psychedelic film in a game format. The game’s own drug imagery aside, every facet of its story seems to be focused on baffling and throwing off the player. The gameplay itself is quite good as far as cRPGs go, but the story is why the game has stuck with me so strongly for well over a year after playing it. Even when the game gets serious, there’s still an air of delirium. Sure, everything seems to be making sense now, but when is this important character going to do something fucking weird? I know it’ll happen, I’m just waiting. On paper, Wasteland 3 should be a mess, incoherent in all of the worst ways, and a cautionary tale. In contrast, though, it broke the idea of coherency so hard that it makes perfect sense. You just need to be in the right mindset to pick up on it, the kind of mindset you get in after clearing out a clown-bandit circus camp or watching a (good) Ralph Bakshi movie.

There are absolutely points being made, satires to be found among the bizarre vignettes, and moments that justify the game’s strangeness. I’m sure that the murderous Reagan statue’s saying something witty about America, and I can’t help but look for some meaning in the Patriarch of Colorado and his throne of guns. A game written by a more self-serious writer might try to add a few more layers of abstraction, but Wasteland 3 dares to ask the most important question.

With a sufficiently large gun, can I kill Ronald Reagan? If you know anything about writing essays and wish to malign my sloppiness here, please direct unto me your rage in great detail. I am a failed arts student, and thus too lazy to properly structure arguments.

#wasteland #crpg #video games #short essay #am i doing this right #how do i tag posts correctly #fallout #ronald reagan i guess #the s blade has a hackblood charge

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shitboy96 · 1 year

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I think that the people who dislike Abby solely because she killed Joel are a minority. There is no denying that Joel was a flawed character. Never was Joel portrayed as an innocent character; at his worst, he was downright cruel and was selfish to deny Ellie of what she believed her purpose was in life. Since the announcement of Part II, it was clear that he was living on borrowed time and would reap the consequences of his actions. Ellie is also not an innocent character, illustrated by her actions in Part II. She does things unforgivable and indefensible.

I think that the majority of the hate Abby receives is a product of poor writing, rushed storytelling, and her overall portrayal. Abby starts off at a deficit. She’s a character we don’t know and is introduced as Joel’s sadistic killer. It also doesn’t help that she’s surrounded by an unsympathetic supporting cast who, aside from Mel and to an extent Owen, seem to take pride in what they did to Joel. I don’t think that the story ever affords her a sincere opportunity to crawl out of the hole that Neil Druckmann started her in. Over the course of her story, she takes the inverse route of Ellie in which she is supposed to become a more sympathetic character while Ellie descends to new depths of depravity. On the surface, I think that this is a really compelling idea for a story that at its core is about all facets of love. That said, every moment in which Abby is shown “growing” as a person feels insincere while the attempts the story makes to tear down Ellie portray her as a comically evil villain.

Even the gameplay, which I agree is a lot of fun and really strong, goes out of its way to push a narrative that leaves no room for nuance or deeper discussion. Every enemy Abby encounters is a religious zealot with a hatred of trans kids and dogs. They don’t even speak to each other, instead communicating with whistles. Killing them, it’s hard to feel any sympathy when they’re barely portrayed as human outside of Lev and Yara. Every enemy that Ellie kills cries out for their fallen companions and displays emotion. The game also forces the player as Abby into bonding with Alice, Abby’s canine companion through not one but two fetch mini games. As Ellie however, the player is made to kill Alice in an unavoidable QTE. The inclusion of Alice and the other NPCs dogs feels like the game bashing you over the head saying “Don’t you see? Abby LOVES dogs so she’s GOOD but Ellie KILLS dogs so she’s BAD.” This comes off as not only an extremely simplified take on morality but also vapid and insincere.

Key moments in the story that were supposed to illicit sympathy for Abby failed to do so as well. At the best of times, many felt weak and at the worst, had me rolling my eyes. The scene in which Jerry saves the zebra is the most egregious example that begs the viewer to feel something for them without doing any heavy lifting. It feels like a carbon copy of Joel and Ellie’s scene with the Giraffe from Part I but has far less impact. Again, it’s a cheap depiction of Abby as a friend to animals and is therefore a good person.

After Abby, Lev, and Yara work together to narrowly escape the Seraphites, we start to get a glimmer of Abby’s better side. She’s able to put aside her prejudice and saves two kids who were previously her sworn enemies. That glimmer of goodness is immediately detracted from in the next scene when we get an extended cutscene of her getting railed by her intoxicated, expecting father, (ex?)-lover. We see her knowingly cuck somebody that she calls a friend and at no point in the story does she show any remorse for that. You could argue that this is a small facet in the grand scheme of things and I don’t expect Abby to be a perfect person but at the same time, that doesn’t really garner much sympathy for her.

Abby’s relationship with Lev is one of her strongest points and does the most for her character. She herself is a victim of factionalism and through her relationship with Lev, is able to overcome her biases and ultimately in the final showdown with Ellie, he’s the one that encourages her not to continue the cycle of violence. Even so, it felt rushed to me. While the kids did save her life, she’s able to put aside her long history of learned hatred for the Seraphites and risk her life numerous times over to help them in a matter of days. When next we see duo in Santa Monica, it’s jarring to see Abby joking and jovial when we didn’t get to experience any of that growth with her.

Ellie’s spiral is portrayed in a way that is much more believable than Abby’s growth. Even in some of her worst moments, I still felt more sympathy for her. After her brutal torture of Nora, she returns to Dina clearly shaken. She doesn’t gloat or take pride in any of her actions. Upon discovering that Mel was pregnant, Ellie is overcome with guilt and nearly becomes sick. Contrast this with the final showdown in the theater when Ellie reveals that Dina is pregnant, Abby callously remarks “Good.” While Abby obviously has no way of knowing that Ellie felt remorse for killing Mel and Owen, we as the audience know, so it makes it really difficult to see Abby’s response as anything but cold and uncaring.

In the Santa Monica section, the game makes one final attempt to make Abby come across sympathetically by literally enslaving her and Lev then hanging them up on the beach to die in an agonizing display. This was so over the top and carried a lot of weird connotations. Ellie’s continuation of her quest for revenge in this sequence felt very out of character for both her and Tommy who initially tried to persuade her not to go to Seattle and go down this path in the first place.

For a story about how revenge an unending cycle without any winners, the game ultimately seems to portray Abby as victorious as she sails away with Lev into what is hopefully a brighter future having taken away Ellie’s last connection to Joel: her fingers to play guitar.

I don’t hate Abby because she killed Joel. I hate Abby because I was never given a sincere opportunity to know and see her redeeming qualities. The game so obviously demonizes Ellie while placing Abby on a pedestal. Every attempt made felt insincere and beat the viewers over the head with an agenda, giving them no room to form an opinion for themselves.

What a well written essay? Did you have that prepared lol

I do agree with your takes on Abby’s clumsy and over the top writing. It did work on me and got me to like her but I get that was a bit forced in places.

I don’t know how this could really have been rectified unless the game spent more time being more delicate with Abby’s writing? I feel like writers have this balance between creating a character that’s nuanced and believable in subtle ways but at the same time it has to be big and obvious for the players less able or willing to interpret the smaller things. Maybe they went too far that way with Abby’s character.

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burtalvarez5 · 2 years

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ostrich birkin 23

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selectlan09 · 2 years

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Maldives Or Bali For Honeymoon? An Honest Comparison Allow You To Choose!!

Additionally, Bali has a plethora of Indian, Chinese, and American eateries. Without hesitation, select Bali over Maldives should you or your partner take pleasure in exploring new cultures. Bali, as an southeast Asian nation, has a wealthy historical past and tradition influenced primarily by Indian tradition.

The period between November and April is referred to as the Maldives’ dry season, and it's the greatest time to go to Maldives.

You won’t have a problem discovering family-friendly lodging in either island destination as there are numerous resorts that cater to households in both places.

Today, it seems that Bali is the closest thing a traveler can get to “paradise,” or a minimum of the journey trade has made it seem so.

You can even board a cruise ship from India to get to Bali.

But for couples looking for peace and fairly, it's a different story.

However, you can also discover native guesthouses that provide simple lodging and amenities for as little at $60 a night. It’s value mentioning that Bali is a big island with its own worldwide airport. When you arrive you’ll switch to your accommodation through taxi or personal automotive. Most accommodation in Bali is within an hour or two drive from the airport. If you’re travelling from the east coast of the United States, the journey time and cost to succeed in Bali is much much less (about 20 hours and around $800). best places to visit in thailand , you’ll be in for the long-haul, with around 25 hours, a quantity of stops and will set you back around $1000.

Okay, I Think I Know Which Destination Is True For My Fiance And That I For Our Honeymoon Now What? How Can We Plan Our Trip?

Bali is a province in Indonesia and the westernmost Lesser Sunda Islands, an archipelago constituting of many smaller islands together with Bali Island. And while we dream of visiting each, it’s that fixed tussle of the place to go first or which one is better. If someone takes a flight, Bali is situated at a distance of two,953 miles from Maldives. Maldives is taken into account to be a place which is filled with an abundance of beautiful coral reefs and likewise the rich marine life. Rice, seafood, and rooster are all staples in Maldivian and Balinese delicacies. But with influences coming from one of the most favored food cultures in the world, the Maldives’ bold and spicy Indian-fusion food steals the win.

Is Bali Cheaper Than Maldives?

Real property costs, exclusive resorts, excessive taxes, and the fact that nearly every thing is imported is what makes the Maldives so dear. Both dreamy vacation locations are particular in their very own right, the Maldives and Bali are sometimes placed facet by side. With seemingly identical pristine white seashores, crystal clear waters, and palm-fringed shores that hug their remote coastlines, it’s easy to see how these two honeymoon hotspots get blended up. But these tropical isles are vastly totally different, from the culture and the landscape to the issues you can do. It’s no secret that the Maldives has a few of the most stunning seashores on the planet and magnificent marine life. This means you solely have the choice of consuming on the eating places on the resort and taking part in the actions they provide.

Is Auli Good For Honeymoon?

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wheelsup · 3 years

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coffee is the sixth love language | part two

Summary: Over three cups of coffee, Spencer realized his feelings for you. And over three cups of coffee, he acts on them. gn!Reader.

A/N: the italicized this time indicates Spencer’s thoughts, not reader’s. part of this story is inspired directly from these comments made by @doctorthreephds on the reblog! thanks for letting me incorporate them :)

category: fluff, sfw

warnings: technically none, but the “profiling” part is kind of a reach.

word count: 3k

Once Spencer was firmly resolute on asking you out, he knew he wanted it to be special in a way that only the two of you could appreciate. He realized that he had yet to be the one bringing you coffee, and so it felt only right that it should be how he makes his first move. He woke up extra early on a weekday morning to stop by your favorite coffee shop on his way to work because he knew you loved their banana nut muffins and double-brewed coffee. It was an extra twenty-five minutes out of the way for work each way, so you only got to go there on the rare occasion that you had a day off and were not out of town on a case. It might have been ridiculous to drive fifty minutes for a single damn muffin, but Spencer wanted to make this perfect for you by any means necessary. This was one of the special times that Spencer drove his car, needing the extra speed in order to complete his mission.

He picked up your regular drink order and the muffin and was anxiously on his way back to Quantico. As per his plan he arrived at the office before you did, though not too much earlier because he wanted to make sure your coffee was still hot by the time you got it. If Spencer’s calculations were correct - which they almost always were - you would arrive within a two to four and a half minute window from when he did. Spencer took out a sharpie from his desk drawer and delicately scrawled a message onto the top corner of the pastry bag holding your muffin. He thought it felt like something out of a cheesy romance novel, the kind of novels that you could find in the fifty cent clearance bins, but dammit if Spencer didn’t deserve a little cheesy romance in his life. The other benefit of this was that he thought he would almost certainly choke on his words if he had to ask you himself. He set the two items on your desk and returned to his own to sit and observe. Spencer hoped it would be the first of many coffees he could buy you.

It wasn’t until you had already walked into the bullpen and were halfway to your desk that Spencer realized he had forgotten to sign his name to the bag. How were you supposed to react to him asking you out if you didn’t actually know it was him? And oh God, he left unsealed food on the desk of an FBI agent, with no indication of who had put it there. That is infinitely more suspicious than it is romantic. He wouldn’t be surprised if she took it straight to the trash can. So long for cheesy romance, Dr. Reid.

But Spencer was absolutely elated when your first reaction was to peek into the bag and gasp out of joy at what was inside. He watched you break off a piece of your beloved banana nut muffin and chew it gleefully, and all he could think of was how cute you looked when you were happy. Shortly followed by concern that a federal agent would so readily eat unmarked food that could have been tampered with. That’s something I should bring up to her on the date.

Spencer’s stomach was in knots not knowing if you would pick up on the message. You swallowed that chunk of the muffin and turned the bag over to find an almost illegible black script that you had nearly missed: Would you like to have coffee with me? It just felt like all of the air had been knocked out of your body.

It didn’t even take you half a second to know who this was from; there were so many tells it was Spencer. Before you even noticed the note, you knew it was from him when you saw what was inside the bag. The whole team knew what your favorite coffee shop was because you had talked about it enough times. Hell, you even owned a oversized tee with their name on it that you kept in your go bag as a sleep shirt. But nobody knew what your favorite muffin was because you never mentioned it. In fact, if you thought about it there were maybe only a handful of times over the six months you’d been at the BAU that you even elected to eat this pastry in lieu of a real breakfast. But if anyone was going to detect a pattern, it would have been Dr. Reid. Of course he would pick up on the fact that you only picked those out at cafes when you felt like having a sweet treat, or that when Penelope brought in baked goods for the office you would only indulge if you saw your favorite item in the lineup.

You already knew it, but in case you had any doubt, the note itself confirmed your theory twice. One indicator was the phrasing choice would you as opposed to will you. Use of would posits a hypothetical, as in hypothetically, would you have an interest in drinking coffee together, rather than a hard, come with me to get coffee. The hesitance in the tone came off as if the sender were testing the waters, wanting to put the idea out there without coming off as too strong. Because it was reserved, it gave you room to think if you would genuinely enjoy doing so as opposed to making you feel like you should oblige. That level of respect screamed Spencer to you. And though it was so glaringly obvious, if you needed some concrete evidence it was the fact that nobody else had such endearingly atrocious handwriting like Dr. Reid. It was something you always found hilariously ironic for a man who often analyzes other people’s writing styles for work. You wondered what his way of scribbling said about him, and hoped he could tell you on that date of yours.

You looked straight at him, finding that his eyes were already fixed on you.

“Yes.”

One word was all you had to say to make the lump in Spencer’s throat disappear, replaced by the sensation that his heart was leaping out of his chest. He was going to keep that memory stored in his brain forever, just to replay the moment when the future of your relationship changed with a simple word. Little did he know that when you finished that muffin, you neatly folded the pastry bag and tucked it into your desk drawer, saving it for the exact same purpose.

_____

Spencer had gotten to see your favorite coffee spot already, so for your date you requested that he take you to his to make it even. It was small, but incredibly cozy under the soft ambiance provided by string lights and charm of their mismatched furniture. There was one exposed brick wall adjacent to another that was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf; it housed copies that loyal patrons left behind for others to pick up. All of those books had different colors of post-its peeking out from the pages. It was almost too eclectic and disorganized for what you would expect Dr. Reid to be into, but at the same time it made perfect sense to you.

“You know, I think I just learned something about you.” You leaned gently into his side to tell him, both hands wrapped around your coffee cup because you were too nervous to know what else to do with them. Spencer was the kind of guy to sit adjacent to you at a table, rather than across, and you loved that about him. You loved having him as close to you as possible.

Spencer’s lips pulled at the edges to form a perfect, lazy smile. “What did you learn about me?” The team had an agreement not to profile each other, but under your gaze, Spencer never felt the kind of scrutiny that came with picking people apart. He trusted that whatever you had to say was going to be kind.

“I think this place says so much about you. Something about how all those books are donations passed on from locals, and that people feel comfortable taking a book off the shelf and opening it up to read what others recommend. The fact that they leave little notes in it for the next reader to share what those stories meant to each of them. Nobody asked those people to do that, but they all chose to take part in these small actions that ended up creating an entire community.” It was one of the most beautifully human things you’d ever witnessed. A group of people engaging in understated and innocent gestures of love between perfect strangers, completely unprompted. “I think you value simple acts, the kind that can take on profound meaning without even intending to. Like when silence feels so comfortable when you’re with the right person.” You paused to take in his reaction as a gauge for how right or wrong you may be. He gave no objection to what you had posited, eyes simply glued to you in intense focus. Spencer was hanging on everything you said, wordlessly encouraging you to divulge more theories you’d developed on him.

“And, visually, this furniture reminds me of a family home. The kind where some items were handed down for generations, some bought new, and others gifted by a distant relative who has no idea what the family likes.” Spencer’s soft laughter mirrored your own at your very accurate description of the shop’s decor. The room truly could not be more disjointed in its aesthetic, but that was entirely its charm. “It probably reflects that there are some aspects of your life that just don’t make sense to you, that almost seem to conflict with each other. For a guy so smart, I’m sure it’s scary to feel like you don’t understand something, and there are probably dark spots in that brain of yours that you try to hide from the world. But in this room, these things that don’t seem like they work together actually amount to something so lovely. And just like the charmingly hideous suede couch and the oddly fur-covered armchairs, every facet of you deserves appreciation because without them you wouldn’t make up to be the beautiful person you are overall.”

Neither of you could pinpoint the moment which your hands had drifted together, fingers loosely intertwined in gentle embrace. There was too much to unpack in what you had said for Spencer to know where to begin. The only thing he could say for sure was that he was astounded by how deeply you understood him without him ever saying any of those things. He considered that maybe you understood him better than he did himself and wished that he could spend his whole life observing the world through the same rose-tinted lenses with which you viewed him. At a loss for words, Spencer chose not to say any right then. The silence I have with you is the most comfortable I’ve ever had.

_____

After each of you consumed one too many caffeinated beverages, you still were not prepared to let the date end. You were willing to sit there and have as many espresso drinks as you could to keep talking to Spencer.

The universe must have been in support of your romance as the overcast skies broke and began to rain just minutes after the two of you had left the shop. Spencer was walking you back to your apartment, clearly forcing his long legs to slow down their naturally fast stride so to extend how long it took to get there. He could get an extra thirteen minutes with you this way. Spencer was given his perfect excuse to keep the date going in the form of heavy downpour; his apartment was far closer than yours, and he proposed you two should seek shelter together until it stopped. I hope it never stops.

Spencer held tightly onto your hand as he ran with you through the rain, giggling all the way to his apartment. He may not like wet, cold climates, but he sure did like holding your hand. Being next to you made him feel incredibly warm somehow when the temperature outside was very much not. And you felt completely at peace sitting on Spencer’s couch wearing one of his sweaters that he lent you. Truthfully, your own clothes weren’t so wet from the rain that it was necessary, but you both pretended it absolutely was just to be able to experience this.

It was clear that the rain would be going for a while and all you wanted to do to pass the time was continue listening to Spencer talk. You discovered that when he’s not interrupted, he loves to go on runaway tangents, often bouncing between different trains of thought as one idea sparked him to remember another. It was almost a sport to keep up with him, but it was perhaps the only one you’ve ever enjoyed. It was so easy when everything he said interested you. You loved that Spencer taught you something new every day, but no matter how niche a piece of trivia or shocking an unknown fact was, it could not beat the things that he taught you about himself. He was letting you in on so many unseen dimensions of himself whether he knew it or not, the explicit ones revealing implicit ones.

You had happily stayed in his home for hours, absorbing every word he spoke. What entertained you the most was the ability of your conversation to jump from deep, serious places to lighthearted stories filled with jokes and teasing and back again in a way that felt completely natural. Your favorite anecdote of his was the story of how he got addicted to coffee. It was the BAU’s favorite inside-joke that Spencer liked his coffee sickeningly sweet and you always wondered how he could tolerate it. Just looking at it made your teeth ache. When he told you why, you thought that the backstory was even sweeter than the coffee.

As a twelve year old college student, Spencer found himself experiencing sleep deprivation for the first time in his life. The course load was more rigorous than he had in high school and even the boy genius needed to readjust to the new expectations of college. More importantly, he needed to cope with pulling late nights at the library if he wanted his first degree by the time he was eligible for a driver’s license. The Red Bulls that the other kids seem to gravitate to seemed far too aggressive for Spencer, their potent smell of chemicals a huge turn off. They were definitely not for him.

He remembered how often his mom used to drink coffee, always in the morning while Spencer got ready for school. Being at CalTech and away from his mother, who remained in Las Vegas most of the time due to her condition, made him so homesick that he took up a coffee habit as a reminder of her. He loved the way it smelled like every comfort he had ever known.

Though he appreciated its smell, Spencer, of course, was not ready back then to love the way it tasted. He was still after all a twelve year old boy who had a sweet tooth like any other kid. The bitter drink was almost offensive to him, so he always made his coffee with extra, extra sugar. He was a menace to the baristas at the campus coffee cart because they would have to refill the shaker every time he stopped by. As it turned out, Spencer was actually a little troublemaker in his youth.

You utterly adored this story and the way it humanized Spencer in a way that other people did not consider often enough. Yes, he was the genius in incredibly advanced classes for his age, but he was also a little kid who behaved as all little kids did. He also experienced struggle and had to cope with it just like everyone else. He was not, as some chose to believe, a complete anomaly beyond understanding. Those many misunderstood idiosyncrasies Spencer had started to feel grounded as you learned more about him and could appreciate how and why they came to be.

But the night was dwindling down and two of you had gone through many stories since the start of your day together. Hitting a caffeine crash, you found yourself unable to keep some rogue yawns at bay. It was only eight o’clock in the evening, not an unreasonable time for you to ask Spencer to drive you back home. The rain was letting up to a mellow drizzle. Spencer was running out of excuses to keep you here.

But you thought about how still hadn’t heard about his first pet lizard, which he caught in his backyard, and you didn’t yet know what kind of music he listened to when he was fourteen. And you no longer thought you needed to make excuses to stay with him longer, so you told him honestly that all you really wanted was to stay the night with him and keep hearing his stories. So you asked him if he would set on a fresh pot of coffee, just so you both could sip at it, staying awake all night together.

He happily did so, and while he set the large coffee pot on and took out two cups from his cabinet, he thought, this is the first of many wishes of yours that I’d like to make come true.

______

PART THREE

Tag list: @rexorangecounty @rachel-voychuk @snitchthewitch @spencer-blake-supremacy @happyreid187 @rainsong01 @librarymagic

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fluff #mgg #matthew gray gubler #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds imagine #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfic #fluff #my fic #criminal minds self insert

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elise-jupiterstyle · 3 years

Text

this is a very cynical bomb that i’m about to drop with absolutely no context but they really did just fetishize rio to gain viewership without actually ever giving a shit about his value as a character, and i’ve gotten myself into a bit of a spiral stewing about it.

tw: my opinions again

like i didn’t want to think about my favorite show so negatively before it ended so i tried to steer clear of any posts that discussed it for the sake of my own enjoyment but after how short the finale season fell from my expectations, it’s hard not to be pissed off. because ever since they had beth shoot rio in season two i’ve been waiting for them to reconcile such a gruesome choice by developing the characters further, their relationships, their knowledge of themselves, but it just didn’t happen. beth never took accountability for the shooting, rio never took accountability for kidnapping and pressuring her, and dean never took accountability for his infidelity or faking cancer, which were the three main points of conflict that the writers should’ve focused on resolving before ever even thinking of introducing new conflicts.

i’m not saying i wanted rio to forgive beth, or that i wanted beth to forgive dean, or that i wanted any of these resolutions to happen immediately after their conflicts took place. and sure, you could say that beth’s character compartmentalizes and that beth and rio aren’t good communicators and didn’t have a strong bond of trust to begin with so it wouldn’t be in character for them to discuss what happened, but that’s where character growth is supposed to come in! you’re supposed to write characters with these flaws so that they have a better version of themselves to work towards that is slowly developed as they encounter each conflict. they’re not meant to make them into worse people until the show is entirely unbearable to watch because all of that old resentment and tension is just rotting away beneath the rug it’s been swept under.

it’s not a creative choice to have characters directly create conflict and then never address it again while they move onto the next big thing -- it’s lazy writing, and it makes it crystal clear that they were written in solely to shock the viewers and create tension between the characters, not to cultivate growth, and that is very frustrating when you have a group of characters whose inherent morality is constantly insisted upon.

what’s especially frustrating about this is that it not only means there is a lack of depth to all the characters, but there’s a lack of value to the ones that the writers did not favor. based on the season one storyline that culminated in rio shooting dean and letting beth live -- essentially getting even with her in a way that didn’t involve killing off the protagonist, even though that would’ve been the most likely course of action based on the consequences that other disposable characters suffered (i.e. eddie) -- it’s my belief that the writers didn’t expect to keep rio on the show past season one (honestly, it kind of feels like they didn’t even expect to get another season, based on how messy the storyline felt as the seasons progressed), and therefore didn’t value rio’s character the way the audience came to by season two.

when i say the writers didn’t (and honestly, i still think they don’t -- not in the same way they value the girls, dean, stan, or even fucking boomer) value him, i mean they didn’t see him as being worth the effort of giving a character arc, a background story, personal relationships, etc. they threw in marcus at the start of season two to be like “he’s a dad! that means he has depth!” and then never really touched on it again. there was like, one other scene with marcus that i can remember, and then he, too, was sidelined until they needed to humanize rio again after he got shot. all of the other kids -- the bolands, sarah, harry, and ben -- are regularly featured because they are a driving component of the women’s motivation to survive and succeed. with rio, his kid is only used to relate him back to the women, to make him seem human for a moment, but marcus’s real value as a character lies in how he makes beth feel as she grieves rio, not how he contributes to rio’s behavior, motivation, and overall character.

and yes, i know that rio is technically a side character, that the children of the protagonists are going to have more development, but if they actually wanted to add depth to rio’s character through the facet of parenthood, they would’ve shown more than one interaction with him after he spent supposed months away from him without a word. that kid would’ve been traumatized by that, and seeing rio’s reaction to his kid mourning his disappearance would’ve provided a much more real and interesting angle than them all smiling and happy, like we’ve seen in every other scene with him and marcus. it would’ve showed that the writers care about rio’s pain, about how his absence affected those he loves, but to be blunt, they don’t. they showed beth grieving him when she shot him, but we didn’t see him recovering from that traumatic event. they didn’t even care enough about him to give him fake scars, for christ’s sake.

everything that happened to rio throughout the show was either done to further the other women’s development or appease the viewers, and they made zero effort to hide that. they walked his characterization backwards so many times (him threatening beth’s family when it had been insinuated thus far that that was the only line he wouldn’t cross; him touching her and making suggestive advances on her in exchange for bail money when she was clearly uncomfortable; him returning all of her stuff and happily accepting her as his superior when there was no development in their relationship to suggest he’d forgiven her or would be receptive to her having power over him) and almost every single instance of them using him to promote the show exploited his outward appearance and the fact that so many viewers have fetishized him as this “exotic” bad boy without any regard for how minimizing and insulting that marketing tactic is.

looking through their instagram, i saw no other instance of an actor’s picture being posted next to a bunch of thirsty tweets or captioned as being “another reason to watch good girls.” it’s fetishization disguised as playful, well-intentioned endorsement, but if they were really referring to rio’s character rather than his appearance as a reason to watch the show, we wouldn’t be seeing his face on nearly every episode promo and highlight with him only occupying about five minutes of screen time every 50-minute episode.

there’s not really a neat bow-tie conclusion to this, but what i’m getting at is that the writers wanted it both ways. they wanted the viewership and fan engagement that manny’s character garnered, but they didn’t value him enough to give him the screen time and characterization that he deserved. this resulted in all of the revelations that were made about his character -- his son, rhea, his dynamic with turner, his backstory, his hobby, his grandma, nick -- feeling pretty underwhelming because they were never touched on again. they were there because they had to give us something, but they weren’t important enough to the writers to be expanded upon, to be used for personal growth or connecting with the other characters. i think that’s why it felt like such a hollow victory -- we got exactly what we wanted in theory, but there the foundation of it all was too weak for it to feel truly meaningful.

we wanted rio to be acknowledged and written as a permanent fixture on the show, but instead the rest of the characters were hell-bent on getting rid of him and his primary aspect of redemption was what he meant to beth, not what he meant to the show. even in the finale when she finally came to the realization that she won’t ever be able to give up crime, rio’s role in contributing to her self-actualization was passed over by a character who has been in seven episodes, and i think that really spoke for itself the loudest in terms of how much the writers truly valued him.

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snackhobi · 3 years

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how we interface ;

part of the human touch verse (masterlist here)

pairing: android!taehyung x f!reader / word count: 1.7k / genre: fluff, established relationship, light smut (NSFW) / warnings: none?; this is set after the main story

a/n: so here I am, revisiting the human touch verse, finally. thank you to my beta readers @hobi-gif and @morndas, I love and appreciate you both so much 💖 to the anon who suggested a ‘naughty scene’ with android tae, there’s a lil something in here for you!

The first time it happens, you think Taehyung is malfunctioning.

You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve held hands by now. You never thought you could be so familiar with someone else’s hands: how their fingers entwine with yours, the warmth of their palm against your own; how their thumb feels rubbing across the back of your hand, tender and soothing and so full of love. But here you are, your hand in Taehyung’s, his in yours, like it’s meant to be there. What once was new and exciting is now a motion of comfort—as practiced as blinking or breathing.

But this? This is new, this sudden sensation of smoothness where Taehyung’s soft skin had been moments before. You glance down. You haven’t been looking at your joined hands, focused instead on the film that flickers across your TV, and there’s a beat as you take in what you’re seeing: the bare white of Taehyung’s android body, normally hidden away underneath the synthetic skin that covers him. You know what androids look like under their skin, the smooth white plastic bodies, but you’ve only ever seen a glimpse of Taehyung’s—a slip of white on his temple when he’d removed his LED, that under skeleton you haven’t seen since.

“Taehyung?” You’re uncertain what to think, equal parts confused and concerned. He doesn’t seem to be in pain; barely seems to register it at all, even, only turning his attention away from the screen at the sound of your voice. Like he hasn’t noticed anything amiss. “Are you okay?”

His eyes fall to your joined hands. “Oh,” he says. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry.”

And just like that you watch as the skin shifts back into place, creeps from under his sleeve to cover his ivory hand; in mere moments everything is back in place and Taehyung seems unperturbed. As if nothing important has happened. He lifts your hand to his mouth, presses a fleeting kiss across your knuckles, an easy touch of affection that still has you melting, snuggling as close as possible to watch the rest of tonight’s movie.

Maybe it’s an android thing, you think. If it’s important and Taehyung wants to tell you about it, then he will. Until then there’s nothing more to do than to lean into his side and watch as Sophie and the Witch of the Waste toil up the stairs to the palace. You shift, resettle, drape yourself across your love; you feel the way a laugh rolls in his chest, contained, a smile bleeding out across his lips.

“Comfortable?” His voice is so quiet, so low. So achingly soft.

You can’t help but smile back. “With you? Always.”

The second time it happens, you barely notice it at all.

Too caught up in everything else to really notice the way Taehyung’s arm has gone white, skin receding from his fingers and rolled back, from hand to wrist to elbow and up to his shoulder; too busy gasping for air, eyes blown wide and skin sweat-slick, Taehyung above you and around you and inside you, all heat and pleasure. Both hands pinned to the pillow beneath your head, his fingers entwined with yours as he rolls his hips, watches the way you arch your back and tilt your body towards him, needing more, more, more.

It never gets any less amazing, how easy it is to lose yourself in each other’s bodies. How love can be expressed through lust. How even as you’re losing yourself, you’re kept grounded by Taehyung’s presence—he knows you better than you know yourself, knows your body, knows how to touch you just so, how to throw you deep into the ocean of sensation and pleasure, kept tethered only by his skin against yours. It never fails to leave you breathless, speechless, the only words from your lips a lilting refrain of his name, stuttered and sobbed, a melody of choked whimpers and keens.

Once your body is spent, you’ve all but forgotten that moment where Taehyung’s arm had turned blindingly white—too distracted by the way your peak had been building, entire body clenching hard and tight before you’d tumbled over the edge just seconds after, cumming hard and wet around Taehyung’s unrelenting thrusts. You don’t think about it, how Taehyung’s android arm had been bare to your gaze, unimportant when the two of you had been intent on something else. When he reaches for you, pulls you close, both hands and arms look just as normal: all elegant lines and honeyed skin, reverent as he touches you, drags the pads of his fingers over the tremble of your thighs. There’s no naked metal and plastic. No stark whiteness set against your skin. Just Taehyung’s familiar hand smoothing up and over the curve of your hips.

“Angel.”

You lean towards the pet name, ease into the deep softness of Taehyung’s voice, as warm as the palm that traces across your waist. Too focused on his still-simmering gaze to think about anything else right now. There’ll be time for that later.

The third time it happens, you decide to ask what’s going on.

It’s been a long day, one that leaves an ache throbbing just behind your eyes, your entire body weighed down with it all. But Taehyung is kind and gentle, just like he always is, and it’s easy to unwind in the way he folds himself around you.

(You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to this. To the knowledge and comfort of someone’s love and support, no matter how exhausted you are, how burdened and tired. It’s not something you thought you’d ever find, and even though you have it now—have had it for long enough that you know it’s here to stay, that Taehyung is here to stay—sometimes it feels like a dream. A wild-winged flight of fancy that’s somehow touched ground in your life, become real, and is so much better than you ever could have thought.)

It’s just the two of you in the kitchen, in your own world of soft quiet as Taehyung makes you tea; something warm and soothing. You watch as he moves, meticulous and smooth, and you can’t help but smile and reach out, fingers brushing across his wrist. Wanting to feel, always.

He turns at the touch. Angles his body and his smile towards you, turns his hand palm-up so you can lock your fingers in place, every inch of you gone mellow, ochre yellow sunlight. Taehyung’s smile is subtle in his lips but obvious in his eyes—set deep in the dark of his gaze.

It’s easy, this time, to feel the way his skin subsides from his fingers. His hand is still warm (it always is) but it’s smooth and unyielding, now.

“Tae? How come your hand keeps doing this?”

A soft pause. Taehyung unravels the weave of your fingers so that you’re not holding hands any more but instead are mirroring each other, his palm and fingers against yours, held in the air in front of you. A mirror’s reflection in position.

“It’s how androids interface,” he says. “We can share information and memories like this.”

“Oh,” you murmur.

Now that you get a chance to look, really look, you notice the level of detail in Taehyung’s android body. The little dips of his joints, the darker lines that cross the unblemished white; the flush of blue across his knuckles, the soft glow of the thirium that powers him; his entire arm is alabaster apart from that blue glow at his knuckles and elbow, so pretty. Still beautiful, of course. Every part of him.

“I can’t help it.” Taehyung’s still smiling at you, at the way you’re staring at your hand against his, how they’re both similar and yet so different all at once. “It’s an intimate thing, I think. Wanting to share with you and let you see everything. It happens without me even realising.”

You hesitate as a small breath catches in your throat. Then:

“Does it bother you? That you… can’t interface with me like this?”

Your voice comes out small. You know that Taehyung’s been concerned about his android nature, that the fact he’s a robot and not human might one day become something that bothers you. That you might find him lacking. You’ve felt the same, though, even if you might not have put a voice to it—that being human might become a barrier, that it means you might not be able to connect with him the way he wants.

(That your two experiences in life and living are fundamentally too different and that it might all fall apart because of it.)

Taehyung’s smile doesn’t falter. “Does it bother you that I’m an android?”

“Of course not.” The answer is immediate and honest, even in the midst of your uncertainties. You’d love Taehyung whether he was an android or not—because he’s him.

“There’s your answer.” He’s looking at you with such an aching fondness, and his response is easy; relaxed. “Being an android or being a human doesn’t affect how I feel about you. I love you.”

He says this often. Reminds you daily of that unrelenting love for you. And no matter how many times you hear it, your heart swells—full to bursting with so many more emotions than you think you could ever put a name to, but with love the resounding echo throughout it all.

He pulls his hand away from yours so that he can cup your cheek, and though the sensation of his android body against your bare skin is unfamiliar, the adoration behind the touch isn’t. Just because you interface differently doesn’t make it any less fulfilling, you think. Doesn’t make it any less real or amazing (because you are amazed, every day, that someone like Taehyung could ever love someone like you).

“I love you too.”

The words don’t feel like enough to express every glittering facet of love you hold in your chest, but you hope that Taehyung feels it anyway. You hope that everything you do expresses that love, that it shines through, always. He deserves it. He deserves everything.

And when he smiles even wider at your words, uses the smooth hand against your cheek to tilt your head into a kiss—android or human or otherwise, you’ve never been happier.

taglist: @beyoncesdragon @vensulove

#titles are hard. 'how we interface' sounds so clunky but iunno i feel like the extra parts/drabbles need names right? hhh anyway #taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #bts x reader #taehyung fanfic #bts fanfic #taehyung au #taehyung scenario #joy.masterlist #way too lazy to tag this properly! oops!

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

#tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: disfigurement #replies tag #dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #robert louis stevenson #two-face #batman #monster tag #universal monsters #horror tag

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docgold13 · 3 years

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365 DC Comics Paper Cut-Out SuperHeroes - One Hero, Every Day, All Year…

Suplemental - Villains Who Are Sometimes Heroes

Often times, the best villains are those who do not necessarily seem themselves as such. They are the heroes of their own stories and believe their villainous actions are in the service of some form of a greater good. As such, there are numerous instances in which a villain will come to act in the role of hero or antihero, where the bad guy is actually the good guy, or a former nemesis becomes a sudden ally. Following the jump are some of my favorite villains who frequently end up playing a heroic role…

There can be no doubt that both Deathstroke and Bane are bad to the bone. Yet each have acting in the role of antihero more times than can easily counted.

Poison Ivy is less villainess than ecological warrior. Her actions may be evil in the minds of many, but for her she is merely defending the wellbeing of plant life and attempting to stave off mankind’s thoughtless efforts to make the planet inhospitable to both flora and fauna alike.

The Flash’s Rogues, especially Captain Cold, HeatWave, The Pied Piper and The Trickster are most certainly cads… yet they all abide by their own particular code of honor and conduct. As such, they have been many a time where these rogues have fought along side heroes as opposed to against them.

The Shade has been one of the Justice Society’s most formidable of adversaries. And yet it was later revealed that he isn’t that bad a guy and it was the malignant possession of the devious Culp who was responsible for most of his villainous deeds.

Both The Star Sapphire and Goldface each began as villains but ended up heroes.

Knockout and Scandal are wonderful and I’ll hear no bad words about them.

Brainwave Junior‘s turn as a villain was initially attributed to his difficulties with mental illness, but it was later revealed to be the machinations of the evil Mr. Mind. Once the little creep was expelled, Brainwave Jr. became good again. whew!

The second Tattooed Man started off a villain but later became a hero, only to be killed in Heroes in Crisis (hopefully he’ll get better like most of the victims of Sanctuary). As for Harlequin, she only acted as a villain to get the attention of her crush, Green Lantern (Alan Scott)… boy was she barking up the wrong tree.

Bizarro is not necessarily bad, rather he’s naive and easily manipulated and the majority of his evil acts have been the result of coercion by way of more purely evil villains. And under the right direction, Bizarro can very much be a force for good, such as the time he served as a hero among The Red Hood’s band of Outlaws.

Anarky is a political extremist and Thorne suffers from some sort of psychological malady. Sometimes their on the right side of a conflict, sometimes on the wrong. Are they bad guys… whose to say?

This guy… where do I even start? Lex Luther certainly does not see himself as a villain; he’s out to save the world. And there have been many a time where he has achieved exactly that. He could have been hero on par with the greatest in the DC Universe… if only he hadn’t stolen all of those pies!

Plastique began as a terrorist and villain yet spent a brief time as a hero, a result of her romance with Captain Atom. Alas the affair between the two proved to be short live, and so time did Plastique’s time as a hero. As he Deadshot, he’s a stone-cold killer, yet his time with The Suicide Squad and Secret Six has hoisted him into the role of antihero… a role that proved a surprisingly good fit for the deadly marksman.

Cheshire is a deadly assassin who has proven formidable nemesis of The Teen Titans. When he daughter’s wellbeing is on the line, however, the killer is quick to aide her one time rivals.

Painkiller started off as a villain yet has recently turned to the role of antihero; mostly a result of the character’s involvement in the Black Lightning television series. As for Manchester Black, I’m never going to be convince to trust this creepy peet… yet Superman has decided to do just that, recruiting the cad into his new team The Elite.

Both Fataly and Bleez have very good reasons to be as angry and vengeful as they are. And though both have battled the Green Lanterns on multiple occasions, they have also assisted the corps in joining forces against common enemies.

Thomas Blake made for a rather lousy super villain during his early years as Catman. After a much-needed Gail Simone make-over, however, he became a truly terrific antihero. Plus, anyone who likes cats as much as he does can’t be all that bad, right?

Although technically villains, I wouldn’t classify Jenette nor Black Alice as necessarily bad… They both just have a different way of looking at the matter of morality.

Don’t mess with Lady Shiva… let’s just leave it at that.

Polymath’s tenure as a villain was merely a result of her desperation to save her father. Once the Wonder Twins helped her do just that, she resigned from her villainous ways. Shado‘s deal is a bit more complicated. The devious archer has proven a formidable adversary to Green Arrow, but there has also been many a time where the two have fought side by side.

So Dex-Starr is a rage-filled murder machine possessing awesome power. Yet that is pretty much the case for all house cats, so I don’t see what the big deal is…

Both Killer Frost and Magenta fell into the antiquated trope of powerful women becoming evil due to some sort of hysteria. Sure they’ve been bad guys plenty of times, but they have each also acted as heroes as well.

Just like his father, Icicle Junior has taken the road of villainy, becoming a member of The injustice Society of America. When The ultra Humanite took over the world, however, Icicle joined forces with The Justice Society and played a pivotal role in saving the day. As for Junior’s baby-mama, Tigress, she remains a villainess… in the DC Animated Universe of Young Justice, however, Artemis is very much a hero. Feels like only a matter of time before the comic book universe follows suit, turing The tigress from villain to hero.

Both Clayface and Man-Bat are less villains than they are victims of circumstance. And while each have battled Batman more times than can be counted, there has also been times where the pair have aided The Dark Knight.

Once heralded as the greatest of The Green Lanterns, Sinestro’s path to villainy came as a facet of his quest to bring order to the galaxy. His tyrannical notions aside, there has still been plenty a time where he has once more joined forces with his former allies among the corps.

Both The Rubber Band Man and Major Disaster began as villains, but switched over to being heroes. Major Disaster even served for a brief while as a member of The Justice League International.

Lobo is a genocidal trashbox who has most likely had inappropriate relations with space dolphins. Yet people seem to like reading about this jerk which has foisted him into the role of antihero. I still think he’s garbage, but will admit that his daughter is super cool.

These three don’t even require particular mention. Catwoman, Black Adam and Harley Quinn’s roles as hero/antihero have been enough that they receive placement on both the 365 Villains list as well a the 365 Heroes list. Quite the accomplishment!

A rarity on this list… Terra started out a hero but it was later revealed that she was a double agent, a villain sent by Deathstroke to infiltrate and betray the Teen Titans. She perished but later returned again, either cloned or resurrected or something like that. In any case, she’s a hero again so yay…

So there you have it, a collection of scum and villainy who have, on occasion, acted in the role of hero. Have I missed anyone important? Let me know.

#365 DC Comics Heroes #cut-outs #paper art #DC Comics

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