#feel like this post should have a big I AM AN ONLY CHILD disclaimer on it

[emilyaxford]

so in fall 2021 i binged succession so i could watch season 3 live and then it slapped so i told my parents they had to watch the show so we could talk about it. i was really hyping up the show. then they tried it and my dad hated it because he has no sympathy for spoiled rich kids and my mom didn’t really like it either. this deeply crushed my dreams because normally my mom and i have very similar taste (e.g. i got her into iwtv, ofmd, d20, etc.). i asked my mom to give it one more try and she did but still couldn’t get into it so i was like okay that’s fine i’ll deal with my disappointment. one upside was that she still let me talk about why i liked certain episodes and scenes so much (like logan’s death).

cut to today. it’s been a rough day because there is a serious wildfire happening very close to me but i’m like it’s okay because at least i get to tell my mom about the succession finale! so i call my parents. then my dad says don’t spoil the finale because his best friend was raving about succession so they’re going to try to watch the show again. i’m like sir you cannot get my hopes up again i was so sad the first time when you didn’t like it. he’s like no no we’ll watch the first three seasons before you come and visit in a couple weeks and then we’ll watch season four together. i’m like dad you’re literally pulling a logan roy here by dangling this possibility in front of me when all previous evidence indicates that it’s not going to be real this time.

#feel like this post should have a big I AM AN ONLY CHILD disclaimer on it #but consuming tv shows/movies/plays/music and then discussing them is how we bond and relate to each other #like i know so much about hockey even though i never cared much for it before because that was my dad's Thing just like succession was mine #i still think he's not going to like it though because i don't think he's going to get over his loathing for the siblings #he grew up poor so he literally views them like logan does #and i told him this show is not about characters changing or growing so if you didn't like them before you're not going to at the end #i'm just annoyed he decided they must do this NOW when my mom was supposed to use the next few weeks to get into six feet under

[icyg4l]

Pick-A-Poet: How Can You Heal Your Ancestral Trauma?

Paid Readings

Hello people, thank you for your patience. In honor of Black History Month, I am dedicating a series to Black American icons. This post is dedicated to Black American poets. Below, there will be a quote that was chosen from one of their poems to go along with the reading. The deck that will be used in this series is the Hoodoo Tarot deck. Without further ado, please pick the poet that stands out to you.

***Disclaimer: Some topics may be triggering to whomever is viewing.

Left-to-Right (1-3): Maya Angelou, Countee Cullen, Reneé Watson.

“Love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls” - Maya Angelou, Touched by an Angel.

Cards Used: Three of Coins, Dr. Buzzard, Dem Bones (RX), Mother of Baskets, Ten of Coins, Strength.

Pile One: For those of you that resonated with the quote from Maya Angelou, I have a question for you. You do know that you don’t have to be anyone’s ride or die, right? You are loyal to a fault. But it’s literally within your bloodline to be that way. There could be someone in your family who was scapegoated, falsely accused of a crime or could have went to jail for something that was easily avoidable. I heard, “Make it right. Do what’s best for you.” You could be in the process of making a life changing decision right now but the air is foggy. It’s okay to be selfish, if it means you’ll be led down the right path. You don’t need to follow what everyone else is doing. Your ancestors want you to know that you don’t need to be so hard on yourself either. Compassionate TLC is what you need to give yourself. I keep seeing images of quick weave hairstyles in my head & my head got itchy while I was doing this reading. I think you need to take a break from these & let your scalp breathe. Let yourself breathe in general. For those of you that are darker skinned, there is a female ancestor (grandmother or aunt) that wants you to know it’s okay to experiment with your personal style. I’m channeling Doechii’s energy. You don’t seem to be conventional, they respect it. So don’t be scared to look different. People will always have something to say but your beauty is admired by all.

“Death cut the strings that gave me life, and handed me to sorrow” - Countee Cullen, Saturday’s Child.

Cards Used: Black Herman, Ace of Knives, Nine of Knives, Eight of Coins, Aunt Caroline, Daughter of Knives, Three of Knives, Six of Baskets.

Pile Two: You do know that you don’t have much to worry about, right? Throughout American history, we have seen the documented struggles of Black Americans. With each generation, the next would have one less thing to worry about. Your ancestors want to tell you that you are more privileged than you think you are. You tend to worry about things that are out of your control. I feel that a lot of you could have dealt with unexpected death a lot in the past couple of years, specifically dealing with the lungs/heart. Your ancestors could have a history of heart disease/lung disease. This could have been a family member that you drifted apart from & you feel guilty for it. But there’s nothing that you can do to change the past, my love! What you can do is take care of your physical body. Join the gym. Drink lemon water. Eat when you feel like it & don’t label any foods are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I heard someone coughing; you should avoid smoking cigarettes & weed as well or really any substance intake. Eat bananas too! You can only control what goes on with I also feel that some of your ancestors could have been hypochondriacs, had OCD or suffered from religious delusions. I would considering talking to a therapist if you feel that you’re headed down that path. Make decisions that are beneficial to your freedom but remember to count your blessings.

“Our bodies, a mosaic of languages forgotten, of freedom songs and moaned prayers” - Black Girls Rising, Reneé Watson.

Cards Used: Big Mama, Miss Ida, Ace of Sticks, Mother of Sticks, Six of Knives and Three of Sticks.

Pile Three: You’ve been saying you’re going to move out of the city you’re in for too long. Get out and stop talking about your plans to relocate. Your ancestors don’t think that there is anything there for you anymore. Your family could have lived in this city for decades but it’s changed so much that you don’t even recognize it anymore. Some of you could be from the East Coast, specifically Philly or Baltimore. You need to get out before you talk yourself into circles again. Some of y’all could be in school about to finish up a degree; keep going. A grandmother spirit is so so so proud of you. Before you relocate, take some days off to visit so that you can see what this new city is like. Many of your ancestors were not able to make plans and go through with them because of unfortunate life situations. Teen/unexpected pregnancy, severe mental illness and/or murder could have been factors that prevented them from following their dreams. If teen pregnancy runs in the family, you should acknowledge this as a fear of yours so that you can make smart decisions in regard to sex rather than making costly choices. Also, practice safe sex with a partner that is equally as conscious as you. Your ancestors want you to know that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. You have bright ideas and you should share them with the world. Be confident in your spotlight. You deserve to take up space.

#law of assumption #manifesting #neville goddard #hoodoo #tarot #tarotreading #astro notes #pick a card #pick a pile #divination #pac reading #pick an image #spirituality #tarot deck #tarotcommunity

[olderthannetfic]

I hate to say it, but I think End OTW Racism is just Antis establishing a new front and hoping to wound the Archive that way.

Here's what I think the play is: they are going to cite the OTW not responding to their demands very "mea culpa, mea culpa,mea maxima culpa" publicly and not hiring a diversity consultant as PROOF that the organization is racist and loves racism and people should not donate to them anymore. And they are going to hammer hard on that come the next donation drive.

"Don't donate to the OTW, they are RACIST (and love child porn)."

And a lot of people who have not thought the whole thing through, and haven't connected the dots will fall for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Why do I think this?

First off, they cite Stich and Nerdlingwrites whose final comment in this very popular post, certainly seems very anti https://www.tumblr.com/nerdlingwrites/624303276296388609/seriously-im-going-to-delete-this-post-just-so ("What I'm saying, what black people and other people of color and trans people and PEOPLE WHO HATE CHILD PORN, are all saying is that AO3 needs to put on their big person pants and start asking themselves hard questions.")

Now, out of all the posts/metas that could've been chosen to illustrate the points that EOTWR could've chosen? Why those two bloggers?

Nerdling goes on to say: "Stop trying to act like AO3 is the be all and end all of platforms. They rise and fucking fall, just like empires. And if they can't get their shit together to fight racism that's rampant on their site? Then boo fucking hoo, they can go the way of MySpace. You'll live without porn, but plenty of my people are dying from racism, you'll forgive me if I don't give a shit about your masturbatory aids. Learn to write your own fucking stony diaper porn if that's what you're into, and stop being a shithead."

AS IF all of the AO3 is nothing but Pr0n. It's where many marginalized people find their voice and agency and finally finally finally see themselves reflected. (Also note the addition Anti sentiment.)

But this part in particular: "Then boo fucking hoo, they can go the way of MySpace. "

I hate to be this cynical and I hope I am wrong, but Nerdlingwrites' post being held up and endorsed through the linking is deeply troubling.

They could've harvested her screenshots and credited them, but no ... they linked her entire post with no disclaimer.

I know a fucking dog-whistle when I hear it.

--

Oh, I'm sure they're not all antis.

I think plenty of them are the kind of people who hear "I was harmed" and think you have to always take that at face value and always try to fix things. Telling someone to their face "No, I won't do anything about your pain" feels wrong to most people.

In reality, lots of people say "harmed" when they mean "I feel uncomfortable about something that is none of my business and that no one asked me to go look at".

They're not even lying. They're just bad at managing their emotions, and catering to them creates an environment where the only way to get treated well is to be performatively the most fragile.

My view is that, like jealousy, woobies are fun fanfic and not something to be tolerated in real life.

[detox2retox]

david and max's relationship through (mostly) david's pov: a camp camp post.

🚨DISCLAIMER🚨 as i am writing this, i have not seen the new special, so if anything is incorrect or outdated as of that release, plz disregard it. also, im writing this a bit late, so ignore any grammar/spelling errors. this is also transferred from twitter, as well as a bit headcanon heavy.

i believe david sees a lot of how he was when he was maxs age in max. yknow, stubborn and frustrated. david has also mentioned (or atleast implied) he doesn't have a very good relationship with his father (him referring to campbell as "the father he never had"). but then, of course, younger david had found a solace in camp campbell and started to look up at cameron campbell. david looked to campbell as a father figure the same way that he hopes max looks up to him; the difference though, is that campbell didn't care about david, but david really cares about max.

of course, david finds out how cameron really feels, but he didn't let that ruin how he felt about camp. so, he tries to be what he wished campbell was for him, but for max, in hope that max doesn't let his parents ruin his entire outlook on the world. he wants max to know that just because some ppl are bad, doesnt mean everybody is, and that he doesn't have to be bad either. he doesn't want max to completely change himself, he just wants max to be happy, and he knows that he never will be if he is stuck with his parents; so he's willing to be patient, for everything to work out for him and max, to help him.

throught camp camp, we can see the parallels of david seeing campbell as a father for so long because he was the only adult man in his life and he seemed perfect in his naive child eyes, viewing him as an idol and putting him up on a pedestal despite campbell only seeing him as a pawn to get him out of ordeals, because he knows that david trusts and praises him in his mind and how he is able to use this to his advantage (literally just watch szn 3) due to how he has the opposite attitude towards david that david has towards him; he is completely deattatched from david and couldn't give less of a shit about him than he already does. vs. david wanting max to see him as a father figure and max still being somewhat scared of trusting him, because what if david doesnt actually care, and just wants him to be some pawn for whatever sick twisted game he's secretly planning, because he thinks that everything and everyone is a bad person or thing at their core, because that's all he's seen from his parents; why should he believe anything else? (ex. max thinking david was gonna kill him for leaving camp in szn 1 ep 8, him consistently telling david throughout the show, specifically szn 1)

parents day (szn 2 episode 12) had been a big factor in david and maxs relationship, specifically how they viewed eachother. throughout the episode, we see max being adamant about how he knows that neither of his parents are showing up. on the contrary, david is constantly assuring that they will show up, assuming that max is just being negative like usual. its important to note, that at thus point, david is blissfully unaware of how maxs parents/homelife is, which becomes a contributing factor to the building of this episode.

before david reads maxs papers, he blows up at max over his attitude, thinking that he was just trying to ruin this for david. but, after he reads his papers, he realizes that max was likely telling the truth due to his parents lack of effort put into the forms, that they really weren't going to show up and that max hadn't been trying to get in the way of his chance to impress campbell. max seems to attempt to be dismissive of the whole thing, acting like he didn't care, but when david sees him genuinely cry, he is finally able to understand max, which we see when they have their talk in the restaurant. he doesn't berate him over his reaction, like max had expected, but he sympathizes with him, telling him that it was valid for him to be upset about what his parents did to him. he doesn't epexct max to be super mature over the whole ordeal, because he recognizes that max was a child. he deserved to be cared for in a way that they hadn't provided for him. thats why david had tried so hard to get max to enjoy camp, because that's what helped him as a child, when he was like max. he understands that max wasn't a jaded cynical overlord, but a product of the environment that he grew up in. david wants what is best for him because it's what he wanted for himself at max's age.

tl,dr: david sees himself when he's younger and that's why he tries to make camp fun for him and be the person that max can look up to (like campbell USED to be for him), so he can find the same enjoyment in it that david did, because he just wants max to be happy.

#camp camp #camp campbell #cc max #camp camp max #max camp camp #cc david #camp camp david #david camp camp #dadvid #camp camp dadvid #dadvid camp camp #camp camp headcanons #?? #camp camp anaylsis #rooster teeth #campcamp #this took forever to write lmaooo

[babyjakes]

〈 disclaimer: this blog posts content not suitable for individuals under the age of 18. minors are strictly prohibited from viewing, sharing, or interacting with this blog. for more information on this blog's commitment to protecting minors, read our full statement here. 〉

event | whumptember 2022

prompt | being protected

pairing | bf!ari levinson x reader

warnings | i wrote this while thinking about matilda by harry styles so automatically it's gonna be emo asf, reader has an emotionally abusive family (focus on father bc same <333), protective!!!!!ari, ari and reader’s dad face off a little, this is just me healing my inner child okay no big deal

word count | 898

i am just thinking about. this song. and like living it through dating ari basically.

maybe reader and ari have been dating for a while. and ari has come to understand the circumstances of her family life and how her childhood was. he is treating her different in every way from the abuse she endured and little by little she’s learning to love and trust with a safe partner that would never be so cruel and heartless to her.

she maintains a relationship with her family (her parents mainly) bc it’s the easiest way to keep the peace. ari supports her in this and knows it’s a complex decision to make. he would never want her to feel forced to cut them off by him, as he believes everything should be in her control and what she’s comfortable with. he knows trauma bonds can be complicated and that even though they’ve been horrible to her, reader does love them in the ways she’s learned to.

maybe there are minor conflicts or hiccups as time goes on but reader is mostly so distanced from them that she can just take space where she needs it and nothing ever becomes too much.

until a family gathering one evening when things end up finally going too far.

ari’s along with reader to visit her parents’ house, maybe her siblings are there as well and they’re all talking over dinner. the small talk is easy enough to navigate most of the time so it starts out civil and almost pleasant. but maybe reader’s father eventually starts going down a mean road, starting to pick on reader and criticize her, embarrassing her even.

ari’s face is stiffening as everyone but the two of them laugh. reader’s right next to him, her head hanging low in humiliation. he hates seeing how they treat her and how she sort of collapses into herself, not wanting to draw any more attention by calling out the harassment or defending herself. images flash in his head of pictures he’s seen of her when she was a little girl, so helpless against her abusers. it makes his blood boil to know she must be feeling so small still inside, so defenseless.

ari tries to shoot her father a look but maybe that only encourages him further and he says some really horrible, nasty things. aiming at her biggest insecurities, the places he knows will hurt most. as her father, he has the unfortunate privilege of knowing exactly how to break her down. and after one particularly despicable jab, ari’s had it.

his silverware rattles sharply against the table as it’s dropped. he rises to his feet and pushes his chair back out behind him with his legs. “that’s enough.”

reader is now looking up at her boyfriend with the biggest eyes, shocked and a little terrified; she’s never seen anyone stand up to her father before

the room is silent. no one knows what to do or say, not even reader’s loud-mouthed father himself

after a few moments the older man clears his throat and replies darkly, “excuse you, son?”

(but like let’s be real ari is bigger and stronger and just overall more beefy than him like if they were to fight… that would be really stupid on the old man’s part to accept such a challenge lol)

“i said, that’s enough. i won’t let you speak to her that way, not for another minute. how dare you? she drives halfway across the state twice a month to see you and keep the peace in the family, and this is what she gets? you don’t deserve her. and you won’t speak to her that way anymore; do you understand me?”

ari’s reaching down and taking her hand softly, his piercing gaze not leaving the man across the table for even a second. maybe the father curses and decides to stand up as well, starting off on some piss poor response, “you’re awfully bold, you son of a bitch. why i outta-” maybe he even makes the mistake of raising a hand at ari, and that’s when the devil really goes off in his eyes.

“i wouldn’t do that, if i were you,” he speaks so lowly, barely above a whisper but the room is dead silent so everyone can hear him. then he turns to reader, his voice much softer as he says, “c’mon, honey. we’re going home”

they walk out together, and no one dares to follow after them. when they reach the car at the end of the drive, ari pauses to hold reader’s hands in his own as he stands with just a few feet between them. it’s dark out but they can just make out the outlines of each other’s faces. reader’s eyes are full of tears. ari cups her cheeks and whispers through tears of his own, “i love you. i will never let them hurt you again.”

there’s a long way to go. i don’t believe that time would change your mind. in other words i know they won’t hurt you anymore as long as you can let them go.

you can let it go. you can throw a party full of everyone you know. you can start a family who will always show you love. you don’t have to be sorry, no.

my therapist will be hearing about this one 👍

#eun's writing #whumptember 2022 #ari levinson #ari levinson fanfiction #ari levinson x reader #ari levinson x y/n #ari levinson angst #ari levinson fluff #hurt/comfort #ari levinson one shot #ari levinson imagine #ari levinson headcanon #ari levinson blurb #ari levinson drabble #the red sea diving resort #chris evans #chris evans fanfiction

[wiypt-writes]

Rock N Roll People, In A Disco World

Part 17: Disco Dancing With The Lights Down Low Part 3:  Do You Wanna Play A Game?

Kinktober 2022 DAY 5: Sensory Deprivation.

Co-written with @spectre-posts​

Summary: You and Paul take an ‘adults’ only trip to Mexico. Sun, sea…and all the other things beginning with S…

Warnings: Bad Language, NSFW (18+)

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction. I do not own any characters contained wihting, bar the reader and any other OCS that may be mentioned. I do not give consent for my work to be reposted/translated to any other site. Reblogs are fine and are my jam, baby!

W/C: 4.1k

A/N: Okay, look… this is just one huge big smut fest and I’m not even sorry. 

Rock N Roll People Masterlist // Main Masterlist // Kinktober 2022 Masterlist

Part 2

Hand in hand, you walked to the main beach where the cabana thatches were and as soon as you found an open one, you took a seat and waited for someone to come see to your needs.

The whole time you felt Paul's eyes on you. Something feral about it, something raw and so very real that it gave you the cold chills. Chills that made you feel alive and tingle in all your areas of need. It came to mind the conversation you'd started having earlier about a third child. Neither of you had really mentioned another after Jack, but…could you? Should you?

Your thoughts were interrupted as one of the waiters came over and the pair of you ordered your drinks.

You sat there again still sun bathing, you led on your back against the comfy lounge chair. You head so filled with thoughts that you didn't hear Paul until he touched your arm and you looked at him. "Huh?"

He snorted, "back to Earth, baby. I said I'm looking forward to dinner tonight. I have a surprise for you after."

“Dare I ask?”

He just cheekily smiled, "all good things, all good things, but I think you're gonna love it."

“I’m sure I will,” you grinned. “And I’m looking forward to dinner as well.”

"Yeah? You dressing up, Sugar?"

“I’m thinking about it.” You coyly smiled.

"I'd love to see you dolled up," he smiled genuinely.

“Well, I know you packed that navy suit I like…” you grinned, “I will if you will.”

"I'm game." He smirked.

“Oh I know, you’re game for anything. Why do ya think I married you?”

He snorted then chuckled, reaching for your hand as he sat next to you on the oversized lounge. "I fucking love you so much, baby."

You looked at his fingers as they gently tangled with yours. Then, you raised your head and smiled. “I know. And I love you too, with everything I have.”

Paul kissed the back of your hand and lingered his lips there for a moment. "C'mere..."

You shuffled over towards him, rolling to your side so you were facing him. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. It was soft, gentle and he held you there for a moment. Then it deepened. His tongue licking every crevice in your mouth. For a moment, you completely forgot where you were and simply melted into him, your hand sliding up and over his chest to the nape of his neck.

He groaned as your nails bit into him. Then Paul pulled back. The two of you panting for a moment. "Let's get wet," he smirked.

"I already am," you quipped.

“Fuck, Sugar…” his eyes darkened.

"Let's play a game, huh?" You suggested, slowly sitting up.

“Nah ah, I saw that movie…”

You rolled your eyes and swatted at him. "All foreplay the rest of the day, and through dinner. That's touching, kissing, everything but physical contact between the hips."

“You tryina kill me?“ He whined. “Sadist.”

"C'mon, at least I didn't cuff you to a chair this time."

“Suppose I should be grateful…”

“Hey we got Jack out of it." You scrunched up your nose. "Now, are we going for a dip? Or are you going to be pitching a tent on the beach all day?"

He flicked a brow up and then, with a downright filthy smirk, he leaned forward and his lips softly brushed your collarbone. The whiskers of his short beard brushed against your skin as he kissed up to your jawline. You sighed, your eyes closing and then he suddenly stopped. You whimpered, he chuckled…and then you suddenly realized the game you just started might very well kill you.

You dipped in the waves, playing around and splashing one another. You curled around Disco as you couldn't touch any longer and hoped a shark wouldn't come for lunch. You rode the waves and you kissed in the salty sea. The day was ending but your fun was just beginning.

After a couple of more beers and making out in the ocean again, the two of you headed back to your villa for showers and to ready for dinner. With heavy risk and deep temptation, you suggested the two of you shower together.

Paul sniggered, “no chance, babe, that’s only gonna end one way and I ain’t about to lose…”

"Suit yourself, I'll just be a bit then." You dropped piece by piece of your string bikini you were purposely saving for today on the floor of your room as you padded toward the open bathroom.

You heard Paul groan. “Sugar…this game is stupid with two ‘o’s.”

"Don't lie," you shouted, "you love it."

“I’d love to stick my dick in you,” he grumbled, adjusting his shorts.

"You said you brought your cuffs, right?"

Another groan.

You knew exactly what you were doing, riling him up in a different way. You wanted to make him about as feral as you did that Christmas Eve when Jack was made.

“Fucking bullshit, Y/N!” Came the yell as you turned on the shower.

You smirked to yourself.

The teasing continued through your last evening. Your dinner was, frankly, amazing. Washed down with champagne and a few cocktails. Dessert was delicious local sweets before you walked along the sand back.

You took your time, the laughter and jokes flowing between you and it, once more, reminded you of your early dates. Both of you had been so young, living with parents on rookies wage as you saved for your futures. Futures, which became one thanks to that fateful cut you received on duty one day causing you to accept a lift form the man who was now your husband. Your relationship had been tested, gripped by grief and fear then soothed by love and tenderness, care and hope. Then you became parents and the foundation continued to grow. And you hoped that it would never stop.

"Paul...." You said softly as the two of your neared your villa.

“Hmmm?”

You stopped walking so he would stop. "I meant what I said this morning."

“Remind me.”

"I wanna try for one more." You peered up at him as your toes tickled in the sand. "Just one. And if it doesn't happen, then we have the boys. And I'm okay with that.”

“Okay, technically that was something you said in the afternoon.” He chuckled as his hands fell to your hips.

You sighed with slight annoyance. "Potato... Po-taht-o." You shook your head.

“I’m a detective…” he grinned, “my job to remember the details.”

Now you smirked. "And a damned good one."

“Well, I don’t like to brag…” he grinned, before he sighed. One hand reached up to brush a strand of hair behind your ear. “One more…”

You nodded.

“I’m okay with that too.”

You couldn't help the grin that spread over your lips. "Kiss me, Stud."

A flick of his brow was followed by that gorgeous smile that could melt you into a puddle. Both his hands gently cupped your face as he pressed his lips to yours in a soft, deep kiss. It made your toes dip into the sand, your stomach flutter and your breath catch through your nose. He deepened his motions and you whimpered. You knew that he knew he had you right then and there and he'd won the day. Having held out this long was a big win.

“So…sun’s gone, Sugar…” his breath was hot on your face as he brushed his nose against yours.

"Sure is." You trembled, your voice soft.

“Bet’s over…”

“It was a game.”

“Potato, potahto…”

"Take me to bed, Disco."

“Oh, I’m gonna…and I’m gonna fuck you so good you ain’t gonna remember your own name.”

“Mighty big claim there, Stud.”

"I come through."

“Usually.”

You smirked and slipped away from his touch, "you're gonna hafta catch me first."

He laughed, “oh, Sugar…it’s on.”

You booked it across the sand, the chiffon fabric of your dress flowing behind you as you ran up the beach toward "home". Your hair billowing behind you. You’d almost reached the steps to the door when a pair of arms circled your waist and you shrieked. He held you from behind as you teetered into the doorway. Quickly, Paul spun you around the second he kicked the door closed behind him.

“You still suck at running.” he teased.

“How do you know I don’t just want you to catch me?”

"I always do."

“Mmmhmmm,” your hand smoothed up his chest, “so whatcha  gonna do with me now?”

"I told you. Fuck you so fucking good you won't remember your name, Sugar."

You blinked up at him, your chest hitching a little at the tone of his voice.

With a bend of his knees he lifted you as if you were his new bride and carried you upstairs.

“Well this takes me back,” you giggled.

"Shhhh," he set you down at the top and what you saw stole your breath.

“How…I mean…we’ve been…”

You walked to the deck where your bed had been rolled out among the night sky and ocean sounds, turned down for the night. Tea lights were lit in surrounding. You felt Paul's presence behind you and his thick fingers pulled the tie and zip behind your neck.

“Paul…this…I can’t…it’s beautiful.” You sighed as his lips kissed the back of your shoulder.

“I told you I had a surprise.” His voice was deep, sending shivers up your spine. His fingers ghosted over your skin as he undid the zip on your dress, guiding it down to the base of your back.

When the fabric pooled at your feet, you felt his lips trail from the base of your neck and down your spine to the small of your back until his knees were to the deck. His hands reached up to your waist as he kissed the dimples at the small of your back before his hands slid slowly down to your hips and his lips pressed into the soft globes of your ass.

Fingers slid over the sides of your panties and he tugged them down ever so slowly, deftly. His lips trailing down your legs as he chased the pull of your panties. He’d done exactly the same thing on your wedding night and a hundred thousand memories flooded your senses as you stepped out of the lace.

As he stood, again his fingers moved but this time upward and around your front side.

"Do you trust me, Sugar?"

“With my life.” You soon felt something cool and silky cover your eyes. Your hands reached up and gripped his wrist. “Just…one thing.”

“Anything... "

“Take your clothes off…wanna feel you.”

"Every inch." He whispered in your ear.

You sighed as his hands squeezed your breasts and you lay your head back on his shoulder. “Yeah…please, baby.”

"I got you, Sugar." His lips grazed the shell of your ear. "It's gonna be so good."

You swallowed as his mouth moved down your neck, his hands softly caressing you. You could do nothing but sigh, soft little purrs of delight slipping from your lips. Gently he walked you forward, your eyes covered leaving you blind, and you giggled a little as your shins hit the edge of the bed

He chuckled in your ear. His hands directed your body and you were pliant to his touch. Now on all fours, you maneuvered yourself so you led on your back. It took him a moment, but you heard him speak lowly to you as he undressed.

“You look so beautiful there, Sugar. Just one thing missing…”

"What?" You spoke a little lighter than a whisper, the sounds of the night beach a nice background.

“Patience, baby…”

You licked your lips and bit your bottom lip. Butterflies of anticipation fluttered in your belly. You stilled a happy-anxious tremble with deep breaths. He was quiet, you sensed he'd gone. Then the edge of the mattress dipped and you felt his naked legs against yours, his lips gliding up your lower belly to your neck. One hand took hold of yours. There was a cool touch of metal around your wrist and a click that you had memorized in your career. He reached down and took your left hand, securing it too in the second cuff above your head. Your breathing was deep, a slight smirk curled on your lips and Paul chuckled as he kissed the corner of your mouth.

“Such a dirty girl underneath it all, ain’t ya?”

You couldn't keep quiet. You moaned at the assumption. "Yes," you answers.

One of his hands gripped your chin and his lips claimed yours in a dominant kiss that had your back arching, leaning into him for more. Paul used a gentle strength that had you entirely submissive to him. "Do I keep my promises, Y/N?" His breath was hot in your ear.

"Yes."

“So you know what I’m gonna do.”

"Yes."

“Tell me.”

"Fuck me so good I don't know my name."

“Damned right I’m gonna.”

"Please...."

His mouth claimed yours again, tongue licking in broad strokes into your mouth. His hands traced lines over your body as his lips followed. From your own kiss, to your jaw, that joint at your ear where he whispered complete filth. Down the column of your neck once, his hot tongue leaving its way back up. Again, lips traced every dot and freckle on your skin, across your collarbone and again a tongue between the valley of your breasts and up your sternum. Strong hands, that had seen many things, massaged your breasts while thumb and forefinger punched pert nipples.

The override of touch sense in your brain had your core nearly pulsing around nothing while you nearly melted into the sheets. You wanted to run your hands over his head, feel that buzz cut against your palm but you couldn’t thanks to the cuffs keeping them pinned to the headboard.

By the time his mouth took over from his hand, you were nothing sort of a quivering wreck. Down he went, his mouth having had its fill for now of your nipples and teeth that bit into the underside of your left breast.

He licked and nipped at your belly, the fact you couldn’t see him left you shaking as you could do nothing but wait and anticipate. And, when he reached his final prize, you were nothing short of a mess.

"Fuck, Sugar. Look at you." he groaned, his hands on your knees, holding you open.

“I can’t…” you panted, “my eyes are covered.”

He nipped the inside of your thigh and chuckled. "It was rhetorical, sweetheart.”

You squirmed a little, “do you interrogate all your suspects like this, Detective Diskant?”

"Officer..."

“Semantics.”

"Tonight," he kissed where your outer lips met your thigh, "tonight it's Officer Diskant.”

“Okay…okay…”

Either satisfied with your answer or merely bored with the small talk, he moved to your core and you felt the tip of his tongue give a flick straight at your clit. It jolted you a little, causing you to moan as he set to you. He kept a feral pace, flicks to your clit and long licks of his tongue dragging over your slit. His fingers stuffed you and he curled them into you as his palm twisted upward. A time or two his tongue slid in between his fingers and all three filled you.

You were done. His teasing alone had almost brought you off and the feel of his fingers and tongue inside you had you crying his name as you clamped around him, your body shaking, legs growing rigid.

It only set him into you further and faster.

You were panting, and normally you’d push his head away as you were so over stimulated but you couldn’t. Instead, you tried clamping your legs together in protest.

But he held you open. A starved man he was no longer.

“Paul…please…it’s too much.”

"Okay... Okay," he said softly, gently kissing the inside of your thigh. "I'm sorry."

You let your legs relax a little as his soft kisses moves across your belly.

"Imma take this off now, baby." He spoke of the blindfold.

No sooner had he removed it, and left you blinking as you regained your sight, his right hand reached up and handled the quick release on the cuffs, your wrists still always able to fit in one of his hands. Gently, he brought both your hands down and rubbed them softly, coursing blood back into the rightful place.

"Such a good girl, Sugar."

You smiled softly as you took the gentle kiss he offered you, feeling his hard cock as it nudged against your stomach. "You want some help with that?"

“You offering?” He grinned.

"You want my mouth, my tits?"

“No, I want you…”

"Get on your back, Stud."

“Yes ma’am.” He grinned and rolled over, nestling into the duvet.

With what little feeling you had in your legs, you settled yourself over him. Your hands skidded upward from his Adonis belt to his chest. You leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his medallion, to his collarbone and then to his scar. Your bare nipples rubbed along his own and your soaked folds glided up and down the underside of his shaft as you did so. His pre-cum leaking tip kissed your swollen and overly sensitive clit. Two large hands came to rest on your hips, blunt fingernails digging into your skin.

You bumped your nose into his. "Whatchu want, Officer Diskant?"

“Sit on it, baby…”

A different tilt of your hips and you sunk down in him. It was his turn to choke, his neck straining as he rose his pelvis to meet you.

"Oh fuck," you whimpered as your head tilted back, your eyes closing all as if you were about to worship the moon. You steadied your hands at his forearms as you began to roll hips and Paul thrust upward into you.

He grunted as he felt that particular squeeze you'd give him as you hit the bottom of your roll. "Been waiting all day... fuck…to get you like this. Feels so fucking good, Sugar."

"Oh shit, that's...." Your body was responding wildly to his and your senses were on overdrive. "Oh Jesus, fuck Paul...."

"Fuck Y/N, right there…" He ground out. He was already pulsing inside you, that throb dragging along your g-spot.

"Mmm, yeah, right there, oh my fuck."

"Oh, baby girl," he coaxed. "You gonna cum for me, Sugar?"

"No...don’t wanna. Not... Yet."

"C'mon, sweetheart." Paul's body tilted upward and his hands splayed over your back as he settled deeper inside you. His lips covered your sternum and between the valley of your breasts while your hips did the work. He found the crook of your neck as his hands hooked over your shoulders from behind.

"Ohhhh fucccckkk." You were gone again, everything spinning and stars flickered behind your eyes like silver glitter.

"Oh baby, baby, baby," he purred into your skin as you came around him. With micro thrusts from his hips to ease you through it, Paul started dragging his blunt nails into your back and then again upward. You were on the cusp of the end of your orgasm when his left hand cradled your head at the base of your neck while his right trailed down your back to your left hip, his entire arm wrapping around your lower back to nestle you into him. His kissed the underside of your jaw and pulled you down with him as he led flat against the bed. He kissed you slow and deep, his tongue heavy on yours. All this while you were seated in his lap.

Your body was so pliant to his touch and moves that you easily ended up on your back while Paul caged you in with his wide and built frame. He'd refused to let his desk job wreck his beat job body and it was working for you. His arms were still bulky and he shamed every t-shirt sleeve he wore. His shirts for work were tailored as were his jackets. His chest was broad and thick, his back wide and cut. Abs that weren't as well defined as in his early twenties but still firm. And that cut at his hips, that Adonis belt, oh God did it get you.

But what you loved most, what you felt was your biggest turn on from him, was his eyes. Those gemstone blues that stared at you each and every day like you hung the moon. That would tear up easily in any sense of danger or wrong doing between you. Orbs that carried love and honor, pride and sometimes a sternness that came with his days of parenting or when you didn't exactly see eye to eye.

And a close second was that buzz cut you rallied to get those fingers in each night and that now thick beard he'd began sporting in the spring after your anniversary. Then there was that scar. That hole in his neck that healed far better than anyone imagined. The forever smooth pink skin that reminded you of the days that told of your beginning as husband and wife, the times you held fast and never gave up and now the future where love was plentiful and the opportunities endless.

The pad of your fingers on your right hand traced the lines of his face as you blindly felt around him while his lips and tongue still covered you. And, when he slowly pulled away, your eyes met his and yours flicked to that old wound. Soft and delicate fingers traced the vein in his neck, the hefty sinew of muscle, until the pad of your right middle finger circled the skin of that scar.

He swallowed, his eyes fluttering shut as he felt your fingers on his skin. And, for the first time that night, he became the pliant one, a soft whimper escaping him.

"Gimme all of you, baby." You whispered.

His eyes opened and he looked at you, a soft smile on his face. “You already have all of me, Y/N. You did from the moment we met.”

"I love you, Disco."

“I love you too, baby. So, so much…” his lips brushed yours as his hips slowly started to roll once more into you. And just like that, he had flipped. From his cheeky, slightly domineering self to this loving, almost needy man that was pressed in and against you, as if he needed to feel every single inch of you against him.

"Gonna give you a baby," he whispered, hovering over your lips. "Love on you every day until then."

You moaned at his words, tilting your lips up to kiss him. “Yeah…please…”

"One more, Y/N, one more," he whispered against your kiss.

You weren't sure if he was talking about a baby or the next orgasm you had building but either way, you couldn't disagree. His hips were rocking into you now as opposed to thrusting, his pelvis barely leaving yours as his arms kept you caged in. His face stayed where it was, inches from yours as his eyes were laser focused on your own.

The connection you felt there and then was quite literally breathtaking.

His hips kept their steady pace, your hands hooked up and round his shoulders. Lips kept kissing you; on your lips, your chin, your jaw.

"So beautiful, Sugar."

Your last orgasm built slow. Paul's rocking tempo and the pressure from him grinding over thrusting as he made love to you had your belly burning as your walls slowly gripped him with steady and long holds.

"Paul... S'close."

“Yeah, baby…c’mon…let go…”

He kept whispering encouragement and quickly enough your body responded, flooding your body in heat and pulling him in impossibly close. Your chin tilted back and you clung to his shoulders with your arms still hooked around him. Your thighs squeezed at his narrow hips. Your mouth formed an 'o' with a shuddering cry.

“Thassit…” he crooned, “oh, Sugar, you’re so beautiful when you cum.”

You heard him, heard his praise but you couldn't do more than allow your body to float away in pure euphoria.

By the time you came back to earth, he was still on top of you having emptied himself inside of you.

As Paul controlled his breathing, he kissed whatever skin he could reach on your shoulder and neck. Your hands started to move again, up and down his neck.

"Oh that was amazing," you managed in a rasp.

“Mmmhmmmm,” he mumbled against your skin. “Yeah…”

The two of you fell asleep under the stars, tea lights burnt out and the Gulf as your soundscape.

#rock n roll people in a disco world #kinktober 2022 #kinktober #chris evans kinktober #paul diskant x reader #paul diskant x you #paul diskant #paul diskant fan fiction

[familyagrestefanblog]

Me endlessly rambling about the morality of Adriens plot involvement in “Evolution”, bc DAMN!

In "Evolution" there is one aspect I haven't seen anyone talk about yet which bothers me in how tragic and unspeakably unfair it is: Gabriel is not the only person who missed his chance of being able to safe his family that day, so did ADRIEN.

And that's the core stinger of this show not letting Adrien/Chat Noir actually BE the villains son (yet?). It's one thing that Gabriel, the villain, has fallen so far that he is now unable to make the right decision on his own, but the same wouldn't apply to Adrien. And I also wanna talk about how horrible it is that Adriens father basically turned into a collapsing mess further descending into madness right in front of his sons eyes for the entire episode but Adrien isnt given the chance to maybe make the choice to TRY to reach out and help him.

Disclaimer: My post is NOT about me thinking that Gabriel is owed to have his son at his side to help and save him. No, my concerns and feelings regarding the morality of Adriens involvement are 100% about ADRIEN. Gabriel I only care for in this regard of him “being denied his sons help” in the sense that he is Adriens father. Thats it. My priority, as per usual, is Adrien and what all of this means for him.

Because my goodness if s5 continues like this I seriously have to wonder how Adrien is supposed to be able to life with himself after all of this.

Look, I’m going to take the matter seriously if thats not something for you than this wont be the post for you. I am allowed to talk about the portayed morality of a parent-child relationship in an international very popular family cartoon. I’m pretty certain this is all deliberate set up since the writing made way too many specific decisions regarding these two and the big picture in this episode (and in that case I’m gonna LOVE this) but I still wanna talk about it in the way that reflects the fact that we dont have the rest of the season yet. And in this regard this episode got morally questionable at times.

If this IS something you care about too though, dont let me stop you any further and “read more”

My "problem" ( not really problem since with the right continuation I will love ALL of this, so its a “inbetween-problem” right now. You get it) is not that the writing says that Gabriel doesn't have enough true goodness in him to actually safe his family, or that the Agreste family in the end is beyond saving and not worth it and Adrien will end up happy with the Dupain-Chengs. All of that is not my problem. It's that Adrien is denied every opportunity like this in his plot involvement to be allowed to make the choice of saving his family himself. To at least TRY to have the saving grace influence on his family's fate that Adrien embodies.

"Evolution" is actually the first episode where this problem actively crosses the line for me (which I strongly believe was the intention), cause up til the end of season 4 Gabriel/Hawkmoth (or whatever) wasn't straight up a hurting mess on the battle field who, yes, would desperately need his son on the heros side as a familiar and sympathetic influence when no other hero can or maybe even should, who can reach some of his last remaining humanity and possibly make the small but immense difference in how Gabriels and the Agrestes story ends.

Do not get me wrong, I don't care for Gabriel just for his own sake, I primarily care about his fate because he's Adriens father. I am NOT saying Gabriel deserves a happy ending just because he has a sympathetic reason to have started his villainous doom (I know alot of people will disagree here but respect that I absolutely LOVE these kind of morally complex family stories, about the humanity in inhumanity and abuse, even if it doesn't end in a happy ending. Fuck it, ESPECIALLY if it doesn't end in a happy ending!) but I AM saying that this episode did a phenomenal job at characterizing and portraying Monarque through almost all the very core reason of his fall and the horrible consequences he has brought down on himself.

I 👏Love 👏All 👏Of👏THIS👏

And I don't NEED this (or WANT it) to have an happy ending. But what punched me in the face the entire episode through were moments like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Because in the end of the day you can turn and twist it all you want. Condemn Gabriel, understand Ladybug and the other heros, Paris and the general morality of good and bad all you want; in the end it doesn't change the fact that this is Adriens father and Adriens fate and losses too. And that fact alone deserves proper respect.

Cause again, NOT for Gabriels sake but for ADRIENS.

Adriens father is laying motionless on the ground because Gabriel has fallen so far in his grief, madness and almost completely isolation that he is wrecking himself and frying his own brain with too many miraculous at the same time. And Adrien is narratively denied the opportunity to react like the SON he is in this.

Adriens villain father just gave up and therefore lost the opportunity to make everything right again, safe their family on his own accords but then immediately showed immense regret for the decision he made. And Adrien is narratively denied the opportunity to make the choice to reach out to his fathers very open humanity here and perhaps get to solve the problem in his stead.

Chat Noir was literally entrusted by Ladybug in this episode to wield the Rabbit miraculous. Chat Noir and the Monarque were in the same position. Adrien had just as much the power and the opportunity to go back in time and deliver the stick to his parents in the past (even if Gabriel had told him a different reason for why, fixing the peacock wouldn't have stopped Adrien from existing) as his father did.

But whereas Gabriel lost that chance because of his own actions and decisions, Adrien has lost that chance and even the choice to MAYBE save his own mother, his father, HIMSELF, his family, every victim and all of Paris because he is being kept out of the loop.

Adrien lost just as much as Gabriel in this episode if not even MORE, he just doesn't know it and that is the biggest tragedy of this entire show.

Because the thing is, Adrien loves his family. Adrien loves his father. Even if Gabriel has never and will never deserve his sons love or Adrien himself at his side. It doesn't matter, because this is about ADRIEN.

And ADRIEN has done everything he could in the last 4 seasons to reach his father, see the good in him, and forgive and support him. Reach out, see his fathers perspective and be as good of a son as possible to not make the situation even harder for his father as loosing Emilie already was for them. To grow closer as father and son, become a family again and get the chance of a better future.

Adrien LOVES his father and never wanted to loose him. And Adrien has made countless sacrifices too many to give their family a chance to heal through patience and understanding. Adrien is a PHENOMENAL son and the true saving grace of his family. But he never had the needed knowledge to understand the actual PROBLEM that kept Gabriel from moving on and getting better. To possibly help his fathers good side reach the light again.

No, as the kid this is absolutely not Adriens job, but in a family who goes through such extreme circumstances that shit legitimately gets ugly in too many ways as it happens in real life too, this moral ideal of leaving the child out of it becomes a luxury that sometimes just isn't realistic or affordable even for the kids own sake and can also be morally put into question depending on the context.

And in this context I'm absolutely putting it in question:

There is a difference between what happened here in the episode without Adrien knowing it and Adrien actively making the decision to NOT use the Rabbit power to right his fathers wrong and give their family another chance.

There is a difference between Adrien actively making the choice to distance himself from his villain father even as Chat Noir and leaving him to his self-made demise because that's what Adrien choose to do and sees as morally right in his unique position of having one foot on each side of the war, and Adrien not even getting that choice in the first place.

There is a difference between Adrien choosing to stay on Ladybugs side and stand so actively against his father as her partner when shit goes down so fatally for Monarque like this, and Adrien not knowing what siding with her means in the bigger picture.

There is a difference between Adrien making the choice to not save his mother before giving up the Rabbit miraculous, because unlike Gabriel Adrien actually managed to move on from that loss and does what Gabriel can't, and Adrien not even knowing that he had the power to resolve all of this and save his mother, his father, the miraculous and Paris in a way that wouldn't have hurt anyone (to our knowledge right now)

The difference is that in one case Adrien gets to actively make the choice that is right for HIMSELF, so he can properly adjust his role so he can actually LIFE with himself in the end, whereas in the second case he makes the choices while thinking himself to not be connected to Monarque at all and therefore acts only to the benefit of the general greater good and Ladybug.

And it's the SECOND case that rings true in Canon. Adriens actual position in this still remains completely neglected and he is going to stay without any kind of necessary closure and own moral adjustments to his role and actions in his family's demise. And this leaves Adrien in the position where he will/would simply life to regret his actions or at least beat himself up for it. And those are regrets and grief that no one can rationalize away for him, this kind of guilt stays for a life time. Because how THE FUCK could it not??

Cause for all it is, he is the only person for who the overall truth of the good and evil side of this war is not enough to justify or excuse his actions and behavior. Not in his own eyes. Because Gabriel wasn't just Hawkmoth, ShadowMoth, Monarque or whoever. He wasn't just the evil bad guy, he was his father too. And while Gabriel probably has always been difficult, he sure as hell wasn't THIS (Monarque) for Adriens entire life as we know from Adrien himself:

So everyone else has the luxury to, in the end, make peace with the situation through breaking the grey area down to basic black-and-white thinking, because they have the necessary distance to Gabriel and his motivations to do so.

But you can't just apply the same way of thinking and moral standpoint to Adrien/Chat Noir, he simply ISN'T in the same position as everyone else.

In my opinion it always was Miraculous biggest loss that Chat Noir/Adrien is not allowed to actually BE the villains son with all the amazing character and plot potential that comes with it. But "Evolution" was the first episode where this unused connection actually made me grimance while watching.

Adrien deserves the chance to at least TRY to help his father when its already happening right in front of his eyes!

All of this had a chance of being resolved in peace through Adriens best and defining character traits: his compassion, love and loyalty even in the darkness hours. You have to do a FUCK TON to loose him and there are simply too many moments in this episode where I think Adrien would have tried to help his father to do the right thing for me to not talk about this.

And again, I'm not asking for this to actually have happened this way and have a nice sunshine ending. I'm not saying that Gabriel would have absolutely had listened to Adrien and that things would have turned out fine if only Adrien and Gabriel had found out each others identities somewhere in the borrows. No, I'm not giving Gabriel that much credit, neither as a person nor as a father. We have watched the show til now and what happened when Gabriel found out under different circumstances:

No, I'm never bringing this up for GABRIELS sake, in all of this I care with all of my heart for ADRIEN. And what HE goes through in everything going down on both sides, what HE looses and what this means for HIM because he is the one in the almost agenciless and inescapable position. He is the biggest victim in all of Miraculous and season 5 right immediately started off with an event where Adrien is even more wronged regarding his fathers villain backstory comeuppance than Gabriel himself.

Adrien is the actual tragedy in this very episode and entire show and I can only hope that the show will treat his loss with the respect it deserves. "Evolution" actually gave me alot of hope in this regard because of how it treated Gabriel, the Ladynoir moments, Chat as a hero character in general and of course:

Alix family moments paralleling the Agrestes with another father-hero child bond whose family is being seperated (also interesting to remember is that back in s1 people suspected Alix' father to be Hawkmoth as a second option to Gabriel)

These things are intentional, but I'm still anxious, because DUDE

Adrien being left out of the loop in everything is reaching beyond BRUTAL extends. The Ladynoir and father-son sides of his life have now collided in the most painful way with undoable consequences yet (and on both parts he is still kept basically entirely oblivious to the secrets and offenses being done to him). The morality in all of this is beyond questionable at this point, and simply in particular regarding his damn father. This is fucked up.

I really have to ask how Adrien could ever be able to forgive himself for his family's fate, his mother and especially FATHER'S fate, once he looks back on it concidering how actively INVOLVED he was in all of it. Without getting a choice, proper agency or much needed closure while going through this. Adrien isn't doing nothing here, "Evolution" in particular, the episode of Gabriels villain backstory commupance.

You know what? Screw it, this is theoretically speaking just as much of a damnation backstory set up as the one Gabriel has, just so much worse. His fucking father would be the core reason of why Adrien could never forgive himself for what happened to his family while he himself (unknowingly) took huge active actions in making his father go this far (again, THIS episode for example) when in Adriens eyes his father was in desperate need of help through his grief no matter how inexcusable his actions became. Because Gabriel needed and NEEDS help (and not the one Nathalie gave him, you know the person Adrien gave his father his blessing for to MARRY) and COULD have turned back to the light at some earlier point. And Adrien saw that potential the entire time. And tried to help and reach out over and over again. But he was never able to do it "right".

He would think himself a failure of a son when he only finds out about this when it's way too late and he has to let his father behind who is too far gone. Or a failure of a hero all together for not having noticed and stopped it earlier and to his family and the citizens, when he was in the position to all along. How is he supposed to just let that go when Adriens noose has always and forever been his loyalty and LOVE?

This shit is so messed up on a morality level for Adriens position because Adriens situation just gets worse and worse and he is hardly given any chances to chose to adjust his behavior/actions in a way to his actual circumstances or get any true closure with full context to be able to properly DEAL with this. Because he doesn't know what his actions are causing/ influencing! It wouldn't even be Gabriels abuse or bad influence that would be the core of his tragedy, it's the fact Adrien was denied to get closure of not being able to properly help his father and family. That everything went so catastrophically far and hurt so many people and loved ones and he could have helped "but didn't".

How is Adrien supposed to life with himself after loosing his father like this while he was Chat Noir? In a way that is actually in-character for him and his core principles? Adrien, who is taking the blame for his loved ones in too dangerous degrees just so they have to suffer less? If Adrien knew he would react differently, in ways he wouldn't life to regret or at least hold against himself for how it went down. Fuck, let's go with the scenario: If Adriens love would stop him from being able to let this go he would actually become and have the motivation that Gabriel THINKS he is and has!

Have this go wrong and Adrien will step into his fathers footsteps no matter what any third party (including Ladybug) will say that it wasn't his fault. He will just not be evil while doing it, but just as desperate, lost and haunted by the past. Maybe even more so than his father because Adrien is actually a good person.

Seriously, I know Miraculous has pulled some morally questionable stuff by now (hello season 4), but this episode really made me shallow hard in how far Adrien being left out of the loop is being taken and what the consequences of his actions symbolize. Adrien literally left his father back in the past and he didn't even know it.

I know for most people this is hardly a factor they think is important to concider, but for me it is. The episode put Adrien in too specific of a position, take too consistently brutal actions regarding his fathers backstory comeuppance here, and made him be the one to take the lead and therefore alot would fall back to in Adriens mind if he found out in this one particular episode now.

The writing of the episode made deliberate morally beyond questionable choices regarding Adriens position between Ladybug and his father that just... gut punched me.

Because fucking Christ, Adrien is still being kept in almost complete obliviousness and it made him do things and act in ways I cannot imagine him doing like this if he knew, in way too crucial of a situation regarding his entire civilian familys fate.

And therefore: Fuck, he. Should. KNOW. But he doesn't. And I don't know how Adrien is realistically suppose to life with this. This goes against everything Adriens characters has ever been.

Really, we are entering some seriously messed up moralities now for Adriens position between Ladybug and his father...

#ml spoilers #miraculous #miraculous ladubug #ml season 5 #keeping up with the agrestes #adrien agreste #Gabriel Agreste #Emilie Agreste #ml Evolution #ml 5x01 #ml analysis #Family Agreste fate #Gabriel Agrestes villain backstory comeuppance #somehow managed to wrong HIS SON even more than himself in this episode

[zucchinibread777books]

ACOTAR Book Review Pt.1

For my first post in my new book blog, I'd like to discuss the book that I was so passionate about I wrote 7 pages on it just for fun. A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Disclaimers: I did not like this book much. There is a difference between good and entertaining, while I found this book a little entertaining I did not think it was particularly good. These are just my opinions, feel free to disagree. This will be long I'm going to break this up over multiple posts, this one will focus on general issues I had with choices in world-building/writing. 1.Point of View. This is something I noticed immediately that became a huge problem in her storytelling. Authors who write in 1st person pov tend to have a very specific reason for doing so, often to create an unreliable narrator so that their bias can be revealed later as impacting the plot. However, it is clear the author did not have a reason for choosing 1st person pov in this book, and a lot of the plot would fit better with 3rd person pov. The random thoughts such as the ones about paintings would have fit better if they weren’t portrayed as her thoughts in the moment, but as a narrator referencing previous themes. It also would have fit better for big reveals such as the one included, because a 3rd person narrator can comment more on how the other characters expressions and movements might hint towards information we don’t know yet. This is a common issue I find in YA. 2. The naming of the characters. Feyre is far too close of a word to Fey/fairies. I understand the pun but realistically the victims of generations of slavery would not name their child after the race of the enslavers. Also Amaranth-a. May not be general knowledge but amaranth is just a basic edible plant, if it were a poisonous plant it would at least be a nod towards her characterization. (Lucien also seems to be a play on Lucifer but I have not confirmed that) 3. The made up religion surrounding the Cauldron. She just replaced god in modern phrases with cauldron and called it a day. Biblical hell still exists in this book (pg 333“go to hell”, pg 235 “the world has gone to Hell”) and the description of the afterlife is eerily similar to Christian heaven. 4. Worldbuilding with creatures. The author created this world where faeries have to be separated from humans due to this treaty they created. Does this apply to all magical creatures, despite faeries being the slave-keepers? She continues to introduce more and more types of faeries, but they do not all follow the laws of the high fae and she doesn’t put much thought into how they work with the world overall. She then introduces this giant worm with teeth later, which is not a faerie and can be killed without the ash wood that only faeries can be killed with. Its introduction is so random and does not fit into this world she built at all. If it is not a faerie, it should also exist in the human realm, thus explaining why Feyre knew it could be killed with materials other than ash wood. Especially as Feyre compares it to normal worms upon figuring out that the mud is actually its waste. 5. The reveal of information. Quite frankly, the way she hinted towards the twist made it feel as though she decided after the main romance plot to add in an entire other plot, and then went back through the book and added a few sentences here and there to make it seem as though it was planned the whole time. Alis’s huge info dump over halfway through the book felt like a poor, unplanned way to put in the information she needed to make this plot work. If this was truly going to be the plan all along it should have happened MUCH sooner, and her getting into the mountain would have been drawn out much longer than being captured immediately. (I am linking an interview at the bottom because the author discusses the fact that she did not plan out the plot and just figured it out as she went. This was clear to me throughout the book and I looked up interviews in the first place to see if she had anything to say about it.)

TLDR: I thought the writing was a bit lazy and poorly planned (not planned at all) https://blog.mugglenet.com/2015/05/author-interview-taking-court-with-sarah-j-maas/

#acotar #acotar series #a court of thorns and roses #sarah j maas #book review #book club #bookworm #books #reading

[poppywrites41]

Kingdom of Lilies Ch. 10 (King! Eren x Fem Reader)

Hellooooo! I'm back! Sort of lmao. Sorry this is a short chapter but I really needed to do at least a little bit of writing and I felt bad for saying I would get a chapter out when I didn't. I'm currently working full time for my parents and my mom won't let me have my space at home bc I'm the oldest and she misses me when I'm at school. sooo ill probably be writing and posting at times like this again💀😂

Anywhos, even though it is short, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

MDNI 18+ ONLY

The artwork is mine

Masterlist

Previous

Next

Chapter Warnings: Language?, preggy time, a LOT fluff, Eren ranting about a book

Disclaimer: I do not own any character from the AOT universe

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Eren didn’t expect his wife to be so fast. By the time he made it to the kitchens, Y/N was sitting at a small table, humming in glee as she at some warm oatmeal.

“What happened to the cheesecake?” Eren huffed as he sat across from her.

“Well, I was about to ask for some when I saw the kitchen staff eating oatmeal and it just smelled so good,” she sighed, taking a bite, and smiled, “Eat with me.”

Eren chuckled at his wife’s silliness and went to grab a bowl of oatmeal from the staff. Two ate in silence, Eren happy that Y/N was eating something more fulfilling than dessert.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“I’m fine,” she hummed.

“You didn’t seem fine yesterday, with everything that happened.”

“Well, I’m fine now. What are your plans for the day?”

“I sent a message last night before I arrived back to Eldia requesting that Pixis bring some of his troops and come to Marley so that we can leave tomorrow. It’s the week of my anniversary as king so you and Armin still have some planning to do and I would like for us to be home for that. We heard back from him so I am going to see about his response, then I’ll probably take the Scouts and secure the perimeter around Marley.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Y/N hummed, “I’m going to take it easy today and relax.”

“I’ll have Mikasa be with you. Just in case.”

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“Hey Y/N?” Mikasa said, pausing her painting. Y/N insisted that Mikasa also relaxed with her, hence she had them painting together.

“Yes?” Y/N replied, still focused on her art.

“Eren told me that you refused the breakfast he gave you this morning.”

“Oh yeah,” she chuckled, “It tasted weird.”

“And that you wanted cheesecake.”

“Now that I think about it, that sounds ridiculous!” Y/N said with a laugh.

“Y/N…” Mikasa hesitated, “Have you seen a doctor recently?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you think you could be…pregnant?”

Once the words left Mikasa’s mouth, the brush fell out of Y/N’s hand, paint spattering all over her canvas. Y/N stared wide-eyed as the paint from the brush seeped into the colors of the flowers she made. Pregnant? Could she really be pregnant?

“Y/N?”

Y/N looked up at Mikasa, eyes still wide, “I need to see a doctor.”

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Y/N waited impatiently, hands fidgeting while the royal physician checked her body and asked her questions about how she was feeling. When she was done, she looked up at Y/N with a smile, “Congratulations, you’re highness! You are indeed pregnant!”

Y/N gasped. She didn’t know what to think. She was pregnant with Eren’s child. Eren, who she loved and he who loved her. She looked over at Mikasa who gave her a big smile, “Congratulations!”

“Shall we tell the husband?” the doctor suggested.

“No,” Y/N said with a shake of her head, “I think I should surprise him with the news at the ball.”

“That would definitely make his day,” Mikasa agreed, “And it would take his mind off Zeke for a while.”

“Please don’t tell anyone else,” Y/N told the physician.

“My lips are sealed,” the physician smiled.

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By the time Eren got back, Y/N was reading a book in bed.

“How was your day? Relaxing?” he asked, shedding his clothes, and changing into more a more comfortable attire.

“It was indeed relaxing. Mikasa and I went for a walk in the gardens, read some books and even did some painting!” she smiled.

“Mikasa painted with you?”

“Yep! I accidentally spilled some paint on mine so that was ruined,” she huffed.

Eren chuckled as he got into the bed next to her, planting a kiss on her head, “What are you reading?”

“It’s a book about humanity struggling to survive against giant monsters called titans who try to eat them.”

“That’s morbid.”

“It’s so good though! The people think that they are the last of humanity, but they really aren’t. There were two kingdoms at war in the past, you see. One conquered the other with the power of a titan. The titan was a slave who made a deal with the devil to inherit those powers. She brought the kingdom who enslaved her so much wealth and power. She and the king bore three daughters who ate her when she died, inheriting her powers. Then their children ate them and so on. There were nine titans all with their own special capabilities. But soon the people of the kingdom were driven out by those who they took land from and exiled themselves on an island. 2,000 years go by and no one remembers anything. That’s because the original titan, the Founding titan wiped the island peoples’ memories. Then- am I talking too much?”

Eren smiled at her fondly, kissing her arm, “No, not at all. You look so happy. Keep going. Tell me all about it.”

Y/N blushed at his words “Okay. So, the book is mainly about a boy and his three friends…”

--------------------------------------------------

“And that’s how the book ends!”

“Wait so the drunkard that was in love with his mom the whole time sacrificed himself to save both of them? Then he can control titans all of a sudden?! And the small titan leaves with the Armored and Colossal Titan, leaving the girl she loves behind? What about the basement?! All they talked about was the fucking basement!” Eren ranted.

“That’s in the next book, silly!” Y/N laughing at her husband’s frustration, “There’s four books. This was the second one.”

“Ugh” he huffed, “Why not just make one book?”

“You seem so invested now. You can read them if you want to find out what happens.”

“No. It’s not the same as listening to you.”

“Then you’ll have to wait until I finish them.”

“How about you read them aloud and I’ll listen?”

“Will you be able to stay awake?”

“To your voice? Yes.”

“Alright. I’ll grab the other books before we leave to go back home,” Y/N said as she placed the book on her nightstand.

“Oh yeah. We are leaving tomorrow. Pixis said he will come watch over Marley. He should arrive in the late morning.”

“That’s good,” Y/N yawned.

“Tired?”

“Mhm” she replied as she snuggled under the covers.

Eren smiled, placing another kiss on her forehead before he got under the sheets. He pulled her body close to him.

“Goodnight, my love.”

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Hope you all enjoyed. Again, i apologize that this one was short again😫😫

#attack on titan eren #eren jaeger smut #eren yeager x reader #eren smut #eren x fem!reader #eren x you #eren yeager #eren x reader

[kiwikipedia]

So its moon knight time again and I think I should start with a disclaimer that I’ve never read the comics so I really only am using the show and mythology as my refrence

Anyways.

As per my last post, I mentioned that I was odd that instead of Anubis, it was Taweret who was there to greet Marc and Steven in limbo/the after life. I had maybe hoped for a bit more or maybe Marc to realize something was weird— or maybe even just a complete erasure of Anubis. But that wasn’t the case.

We see the Scales are designed to be like Anubis, meaning that Anubis was the Arbiter originally. But now it’s fallen to Taweret to do so.

I won’t go over everything again, but we do get confirmation that Taweret is ‘new’ at the whole judgment thing— she really isn’t sure what she’s doing, to the point where she has notecards on everything. Meaning she likely hasn’t been the Arbiter for some time. To really look into why I think more on why Taweret and not Anubis again, we sorta have to go backwards to another theory I have.

We’ve already gone over the gods associted with death, and again I do find it odd that Osiris was still so flippant about everything. 

Which brings up a theory that perhaps the Osiris we see isn’t actually the ‘real’ Osiris— either by Corruption, or something else.

Big Name Gods (gods like Ra, Osiris, Ptah, Toth, the ones who deal with creation of life and balance) wouldnt be so careless about all of this. 

And Osiris, being a god of death, would have no reason to not go extra lengths to keep the world in balance if someone was trying to bring back something that was already deemed corrupted— as Ammit was deemed that. There is a lot of emphisis on balance and peace, from what I can tell, but you know who doesn’t really care about that shit?

Set.

Now, in myths Set is the brother of Osiris, and Set kills Osiris— there’s a number of possible reasons why, one of which was because he was furious because his wife, Nephthys, had conceived a child, named Anubis, by Osiris, others are because of jelousy, etc. 

Some other shit happens, Set and Osiris’ son— Horus— fight for the throne of the gods, and somewhere along the line, Osiris comes back to life through the help of a bunch of other gods including Anubis, but what if it wasnt just that?

Set, in myths, would go to great lengths to protect Ra. In fact, before the Osiris Myth, Set had a positive role where he accompanied Ra on his barque to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos.

I might have said this before, but, I do also think something happened to Ra— we don’t see Ra when the gods met, which makes little sense to me considering how the actual, principal ennead was the Great Ennead of Heliopolis. This was headed by the sun god and creator Re/Ra or Re-Atum, followed by Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, and Osiris, Isis, Seth or Set, and Nephthys. Notice how Osiris and Tefnut are the only gods who are actually part of the Ennead of Heliopolis who appear in the summoning of the gods. 

Now, I do feel as if the faith of people has some sort of impact on the gods— as the people pulled away from Ra and towards Osiris, Osiris could have usurped Ra’s power. Depending on how many gods followed Osiris, he could have had him sealed away, or possibly killed him. Osiris’ wife already tried to kill him once so that Horus could bolster his royal authority, who is to say that Osiris wouldn’t try the same thing?

Whatever the case is, what happened to Ra caused Set's spiral into a being of Chaos— Set was not always seen as an Evil God, just like how Ammit was not always seen as an Evil Being either.

So, what if instead of Osiris being resurrected, but it was Set assuming Osiris' form? I did go back and look at the wall of imprisoned gods again, beacuse of course I did, and compared some of them to other statues. One of them looks a lot like Osiris. Osiris got sealed away post death so he could not be resurrected or at least not fully and when Anubis ‘killed’ Set, Set fully assumed the shell of Osiris’ corpse.  

Of course, After doing so— Set as Osiris could then systematically started to remove all the competent death gods for the sake of chaos— perhaps as revenge for Ra. Death and life are a balance, after all, and if he starts to remove one, he throws the other off.

Anubis, perhaps, was first. Both because of him being a cornerstone of the Afterlife and, almost because of revenge. Again, Anubis might not be Set’s son. Set seals Anubis away because of a duel reason, and because Anubis is gone now Ma'at and Toth have to focus on the under world instead of their usual duties. 

Take Thoth away and Ma'at has to run the whole show and shes under suspicion because Thoth is her husband— and vice versa.

That allows for Set to start whispering things to Ammit, for her to start being manipulated, to start sowing chaos. And perhaps it wasn’t exactly in his plans to get Ammit sealed away as well, but whichever one of the judgement gods remains can’t just rule the underworld alone— they have other domains, after all.

And, if Set can put a god who has zero experience into the underworld, cases that require a delicate hand would be brushed off. The whole no exceptions rule like this case, for example. 

Anubis, I believe, would likely see that something is wrong— and honestly, there's probably a procedure for DID souls that is a different from what Taweret is doing. Not only that but the whole incomplete thing I feel is like a "One can survive or all can survive" and Anubis would notices that there's one heart missing without fail. 

Taweret’s inexperience with actual judgement when it comes to souls that arent as straight forwards like Marc and Steven’s case, would allow for improper blanace even in the underworld. And, it would allow for obsticles that would make things difficult to be claimed before anything could get settled as Taweret would have no idea how to hold off the process like I’m assuming Anubis might be able to. 

TL;DR:

We know now that Taweret is inexperienced and likely hasn’t been the Arbiter of the Dead for very long in comparison to the other gods of judgement. 

The lack of proper judgement and her being in place could be a choice made by Set, who could possibly be in control of or acting as Osiris due to myths and how strange it is that Osiris, a literal god of death, is not really doing much in regards to things that would be happening in his domain.

Granted, this is all just insane ramblings and theories, me stringing up pins and yarn because I just think that it is intersting. Hopefully the final episode clears shit up too

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight Spoilers #egyptian mythology #I WANT TO SEE THE DOG GOD DAMMIT #Anubis #Set #Seth #Thoth #Ma'at #Maat #Taweret #Orisis #Kiwiki Speaks

[thegirlwhowritesfics]

PART ONE:

Alright, I am thinking I am going to break this into two posts. This one will be about Mayans as a whole, my theories of where its heading and just general thoughts. Part two will be the rumours and gossip you’ve asked for my opinions on.

Disclaimer: These are my own opinions, and if they hurt your feelings, I am not sorry, it’s the internet and people are going to hurt your feelings if you choose to engage in discussion. And this is a discussion piece, it’s not gospel and its not an argument, I am not going to fight people in the comments.

This has been a long time coming and in preparation for this post I have re-watched season 3, granted I was sick, and I watched it on double speed, but I still watched it.

We can all agree that s3 was a hot mess, right? Not only did we have massive drama with Kurt being fired, Elgin taking over and then covid. Writing covid into the storyline obviously changed a huge direction of how the show was heading.

Overall, there were two many storylines, if you want to have that many active storylines you need to either A) have more than 10 episodes or B) have the episodes alternate between the storylines. Which Mayans did not do well.

I am going to break this into two parts, Mayans, and the Cartel.

Mayans

Dudeeeeee, this was brutal. The storylines were all over the place, between episodes there was a lack of flow of the storylines. I could see where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do but it just did not hit the mark. It was sloppy, its my belief the sloppiness comes from too much at once. I feel like Elgin was trying to provide himself and it didn’t work. The ratings took a huge hit this season and the two reasons are, its not flowing well and the PR around the show is non-existent which I will talk about more later.

My biggest issue with this season is the writing is weak. There is so much potential with these characters and their stories and nothing from s1 and s2 was built on. I honestly felt like I was watching a different show.

The ‘One King to rule them all’ storyline was good, Bishop was *chefs kiss* this season as a broken man grasping for power and control? I love to see it. This storyline should have been the main focus this season and while the drug trade plays into it, that storyline was too messy to be having both running at the same time. I would have made the drug trade a smaller role building up, instead of the big attention grab they tried to use in the first few episodes.

On to everyone’s favourite soft serve Ez, I hated this storyline, my hate from it comes from Gabby. The purpose of Gabby was to show Ez a soft side, but it didn’t work. I feel like they are trying too hard to make Ez the next Jax and instead of having kids he has Gabby. And it doesn’t work Ez is a character in his own right and he’s not Jax 2.0. The flipping from gentle Ez to brutal violent Ez didn’t really resonate with me, it feels so out of character. I am feeling its too quick of a descent into darkness and he flip flops too much. I am hoping that if they want Ez to be dark he just completely goes down that path and doesn’t look back.

Also side note, the amount of blood he lost he should have died OR been stuck in hospital for longer than a few hours.

Angel, Nails, and that hot mess. There seriously was no need for this. Besides losing his son Angel’s storyline didn’t add anything in my opinion. Angel didn’t handle Adelita coming back well, and honestly not surprised he is a giant man child who cannot deal with his own emotions let alone supporting those around him. Look at him and Coco, Coco is your best friend, and you don’t even try and help him? F you. I know you’re going through some sh#t but you could have helped. Angel is so self-absorbed, and his storylines aren’t adding to the overall storyline. Nails is a POS for how she treated Hank, and I don’t believe the baby is Angel’s either, I guess we will see.

Adelita was an incredibly well written storyline, the grief, the emotional cycle she went through? *chefs kiss* she actually had some character development and growth and a good storyline. I have no complaints around Adelita. I actually liked her much more this season than last. I hope we see more of this strong writing in s4.

Coco, oh my poor sweet Coco. I don’t know how I feel about this storyline, I do like Hope, but the meth mountain storyline made my heart hurt, relapsing is never pretty, and I am annoyed at how the sad bois handled it and Letty, Letty was pointless this season. Their relationship had so much potential, and the writing fell short.

Taza’s storyline, honestly I BARELY followed this I actually don’t really remember what happened. Besides the final episode and the scene with him and Bish.

Cartel

I know everyone hates Emily; this is not an Emily hate blog.

I get that Miguel is grieving but the affair seems out of character given that last season him and Emily were so in love and moving forward as a team. I hate affair storylines with a passion too, so this really irked me. Also, the lack of beard on Danny Pino hurt my soul. I also feel like that the lack of focus on his legit business ventures is also out of character, we saw in s1 that the kidnapping didn’t impact his ability to do his job, his rage fuelled him to be even more focused, to go legit so that he can protect his family.

Emily was a pain this season, we saw her go from delicate wallflower (almost) s1 to a badass cartel wife in s2 and now she’s a giant crying mess who cannot handle her kid? I don’t believe it. I am glad that she left Miguel BUT I SWEAR TO GOD IF THEY WRITE HER AND EZ TOGETHER IN S4 I AM GOING TO BURN IT DOWN!

I don’t see Miguel taking it well that Emily has taken his heir, so we will see how this all plays out. I hope she runs, changes her name, and moves to Canada or something. She needs to get out of all of this, but its also the only life she’s know so you know she’s going to get sucked back in somehow.

Alverez and Nestor, I am liking this little twosome, I hope we see more next season. There’s not really a lot to discuss around this, because there was not much screentime.

The Cartel need to fix their issues ASAP or else Miguel is going to get taken out the Galindo Cartel by an enemy and its going to dissolve.

Now let’s talk about the non-existent PR around the show, the serious lack of engagement with fans, promotion of the show on socials, cast posting etc. its ridiculous. This is also contributing to the low ratings and the fact that fans are leaving the fandom. Pretty much every show on the air right now has social media engagement. Look at the new Hilary Duff show on Hulu for example, Hilary herself has posted so much about the show, behind the scenes pictures, live videos, sharing what she can share and just building that hype around the show that starts next year on Hulu. S4 is filming currently, and we’ve had 1 behind the scenes photo? B#llshit. There is no hype, its really disengaged.

FX posted about Mayans on their Instagram and twitter 18 times this year, that’s it. 12 of those posts were the weekly episode posts. AHS has one every second day. While I understand that AHS obviously makes way more money than Mayans, the lack of promotion is what isn’t helping boost viewership or money. The last bit of press I saw was from May when Mayans was renewed, there was a brief mention in an article on Kurt’s new show and how he was fired but that’s it. If FX and Mayans don’t fix this, I don’t see there being a s5.

Overall, I think s4 needs a big shake-up, if they are going to stick to the 10-episode format than we need less storylines and better writing. It’s that simple. I think that Angel needs to die, maybe at the hands of the club, this would drive Ez’s story so much further, the way that would question his loyalty, push him over the edge? Or would it make Ez more focused because he doesn’t have to worry about Angel anymore.

Mayans can make a comeback if they fix their issues, do I see it happening? Absolutely not, it’s the same writers as last season. Maybe it was too soon for Elgin to take the reins, maybe he needed a more experienced voice to help him for another season as a co-pilot before he went solo. I feel he could have done amazing things with this but its just fizzled.

I know for me personally, and a lot of people they are unhappy with the storylines, the writing, the inconsistency around characters and the lack of character development. I don’t know if I will watch s4 or if I will just skim it. I have no interest in s4 because there is nothing to make me want to watch.

#Mayans mc #mayans #mayans mc #nestor oceteva #mayans imagine #Angel reyes #Ez reyes #Ivy rambles #coco cruz #bishop losa

[sineala]

Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you  would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good. 

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference. 

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

#posts i actually wrote

[werenotadulting]

Routine Procedure pt. 2 & 3

(Hello friends. Before we continue, a disclaimer. This story is intended for mature, 18+, kink-friendly audiences. This post contains sexual content.

This story may seem, uh, pretty fucked up. The product that caused Mike's incontinence is purely fictional, but the story can still seem plausible within the realm of reality. Which makes the actions of the characters....well, pretty fucked up. I don't want to spoil the story, but I will leave with this.

Aren't we all, in our own way, a little fucked up?

I'd woken up as we turned onto our street.

"Hey sweetie. We're almost home."

"Huh, wh-...where are we?" I blinked a couple times, my eyes adjusting to the light.

She took my hand in hers. "You're in the car, on the way home from the hospital. There's something I need to-"

Suddenly I was wide awake.

"Oh man, I had the weirdest dream. I was in recovery and all the sudden the doctor is going on about how something went wrong, which is crazy, right? Like it was the easiest of surgeries, so it's not like something could ever go wrong."

Kate just stared straight ahead as she pulled into our driveway.

"Let's talk inside."

────────

"You have to remember to check it every couple of hours, Mike. I can do it for you if want me to."

I glared at her.

"Jesus Kate, don't you think I know that? It's bad enough I have to wear this stupid thing, but you don't have to keep reminding me like I'm some kind of child!"

Was I overreacting? Maybe. Did I have every right to be upset about what I'd woken up to in the hospital? Absolutely. Did Kate deserve me taking my anger out on her?

No. She didn't.

I took a deep breath, counting to ten in my head.

"Okay, listen. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you, I just...I feel like my life just got turned upside down. You're only trying to help and....I'm sorry," I finished lamely.

Kate, noticing my shirt had become tucked into the back of my pull-up, pulled it out.

"I understand, Mike," Kate said, looking at me with sympathy. "You didn't ask for this, plus that whole thing with the clause in the paperwork. There's not much we can do but move on and learn to cope." She stood up, smiling at me. "But on the brightside, no medical bills, plus they're offering to cover the cost of whatever supplies you need. I'm going to be here every step of the way, helping you out however you need it."

Despite her positive outlook, I wasn't swayed. "Oh, sure, great." I laid the sarcasm on thick. "I get to spend the rest of my life peeing myself. The brightside is oh so blinding."

"It was a really long day, babe," Kate said, hushing my attitude and moving behind me as she started to rub my shoulders. "What do you say you take a couple of those sleeping pills, zonk out for the night, and see what kind of fresh perspective tomorrow brings, huh?"

Sleep did sound like the only brief respite I was going to get from this hell.

"If you'd like, I can check you during the night to see if it need changed. That way you can just sleep and not have to worry."

"Umm no, it's fine. I just put it on, so it should last me overnight. You'd probably only wake me up anyway. Thank you though," I said, giving her a small smile. "I'm glad at least one of us is handling this well."

────────

It wasn't until around midnight that Mike finally got comfortable enough to sleep. As Kate looked in on him, she could see that he was still a little restless, tossing and turning as if having a bad dream.

For a brief second she had second thoughts, but quickly shoved them aside. No, she wanted this. Mike needed this. She had waited so long. It was for the best. She looked down on him lovingly.

"Sleep well, my sweet boy. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be just as interesting as today was."

Even when he took sleeping pills, Mike was notoriously a restless sleeper. And she may or may not have poked a couple holes in the pull-up. Mike didn't bother to check, and why should he?

After all, accidents happen.

----------------------

Part 3

Cold.

The first thing that hit me was how cold I was.

That didn't make any sense. I'm in bed, I shouldn't be cold. I grabbed the covers to push them back and immediately realized why I was cold.

The bed, the sheets, the comforter, all of them, were wet.

"Shit."

I saw then why the bed had gotten wet. No. Soaked.

Tossing and turning in my sleep, the pull-up, I presume, had not stayed in place. Meaning the bed had gotten soaked. Meaning I had gotten soaked. Hence...

"Shit."

Kate walked out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel with a second around her body.

"Hey babe. I had to get up to get cleaned off, because I was covered in...well, yeah. Are you okay?"

I got up and began balling up the sheets and bedspread. "Oh I'm just peachy. I pissed all over myself like a baby last night, so that was fun. I also will continue to piss all over myself no matter what I do, and I'll be stuck doing laundry every day for the rest of my life!"

I threw the bedding on the floor in disgust. Kate took my arm, tenderly, and stopped my tantrum.

"Hey, listen. Strip down, and go take a shower. Take that stupid thing off, get out the loofah, and scrub. I don't want you coming out until you're good and relaxed, you hear me? I'll wash the sheets." As she was saying this, Kate was already moving to take the mattress protector off of the bed.

"No, Kate, stop. You don't have to-"

"Get. In. The. Shower."

"But..."

"NOW!" I can only describe the look she was giving me as domineering. I'd never seen her like this. "Don't make me ask again."

Sheepishly, I began to disrobe.

Kate's voice returned to its normal, caring tone. "Once you're all washed up, meet me in the living room, please. I want to talk to you about something."

────────

Kate was sitting on the couch when I walked out. She pat the cushion next to her, indicating she wanted me to sit down.

"Mike, sweetie. I want you to listen to me without interrupting, okay? And please remember that all I'm saying comes from a place of love and wanting you to be happy," Kate said, her big hazel eyes looking at me imploringly.

"Umm...okay, sure yeah. What's up?" I sat down next to her.

"First, I wanted to reiterate that I understand how frustrated you must be right now. But I don't want to be the target of your outbursts. It's not fair." She paused, looking at me, and I just nodded that I understood.

"Second, I think we both can see that the whole pull-up thing isn't working. I don't want another surprise like last night." Here she stopped again, turning to grab something from behind the couch. She pulled a plastic package out and set it on her lap.

"The hospital gave us these to try if the... if we wanted to try something different," she said, pulling a white rectangle out of the package. It made a rustling sound as she grabbed it.

"Is that a....I am not wearing a diaper!"

"Mike, please, stop. Just listen. You said you wouldn't interrupt." She moved the package back to the floor, keeping the diaper on her lap.

"I'm just asking you to try, for both my sake and yours. Please?"

She didn't continue, so I took that as my cue that I could speak, but I didn't know what to say. I sat in silence, thinking, for what felt like hours.

She had a point. I had slept terribly, which was likely to make me even more irritable. But on the other hand, could I really stand to go through the embarrassment of wearing a diaper? Although I suppose it is preferable to having wet pants. I couldn't imagine the humiliation I would feel if I were to leak all over myself in public.

Finally, I broke the silence.

"I've....I've never had to put on or change a diaper before..." I said finally, hanging my head.

Kate perked up, that smile I loved hinting on her lips.

"I can help with that, babe. Just at first, until you get the hang of it. And if they don't work, we will move on to the next thing, okay?"

"Are you sure d-diapers are the best option?" I had to struggle to get the word out. "How do you know they will help?" I said, unable to take my eyes off of the plastic object on her lap.

"For one, pull-ups are pretty much already diapers. We'd just be changing them even more often."

She picked up the diaper and stood up, pulling me by the hand.

"Second, judging by the fact that I'm going to have to clean that couch cushion, I'd say we need to at least try something."

────────

"Lift up so I can slide this under you."

I obliged, holding my butt up in the air as I lay on the freshly cleaned sheets. I tried to look anywhere but at Kate.

Kate unfolded the diaper, fluffing it slightly. She positioned the diaper under me and I lowered down onto it.

"You know, this doesn't have to be all bad," she said, as she picked up a bottle of baby powder. Why did we even have baby powder? Where did that come from?

"Oh, really? Explain to me what about having my girlfriend change me into a diaper isn't all bad." I continued to stare pointedly at the ceiling.

"For starters," she said, dusting powder on my groin, "there's this." Suddenly, she reached down and began slowly stroking my cock.

"Whuuuuu-oah boy. Um just w-what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm rubbing in the powder, clearly," she said, and I finally looked to see that devilish grin back on her face. "You don't seem to be protesting that...hard," she giggled. "I figured since I'm down here, I might as well make myself useful." Without further preamble, she lowered her mouth and took me inside of it.

"That's..uhhh....o-okay...." I trailed off, lost in a mix of confusion and pleasure. It wasn't long before I was finished, and Kate was sitting back up. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and swallowed.

"Wow, you must have enjoyed that, I don't think you've ever cum so quicky."

I was too stunned to speak. My gaze had returned to the ceiling, but I wasn't focused on anything.

Kate started to move again, and I heard that crinkling sound. She pulled the diaper up and taped it snugly in place, securing me into the first of what would soon become my all-too-familiar thick and crinkly underwear.

"So tell me, Mike," she said, patting the front of the diaper as she looked over her handiwork, "was that all bad?"

#werenotadulting

[purpleyellow]

Industry (un)locked

Seventeen 14th member

Hayun’s masterlist

“The interview that never got posted”

Requested by: anon

disclaimer? I’m obviously not an idol nor have any relation to the kpop industry. all of this is purely made up :) idk if this was needed but its here just in case

a/n: Feel free to share your thoughts with me. Requests are open! 💙

*italics represents actions*bold and italic is the person leading the interview*

Hayun steps inside the white studio and heads to the chair in front of all the cameras. She signalizes with a thumbs up to the producers that they're good to start.

“Kim Hayun. Born on June 15th, 1996. Debuted on May 26th, 2015. Current member of co-ed group Seventeen”.

“That's me” Hayun points at herself and then at the camera, making finger guns and getting some staff members to laugh.

“We'd like to remind you that whatever is said inside this room is fully confidential, so you may speak as much as you want to and as freely as you can”

“Well, I like to talk a lot, so you might regret telling me that”

“Simple question to get started, if you could go back and meet fifteen/sixteen-year-old Hayun, would you talk her out of being an idol or encourage her to do so”

“That's not a simple question, and you know it” Hayun laughs getting herself comfortable on the high chair. “I remember as a kid always asking for my parents to give me siblings, and especially missing them as I grew a bit older and didn't have anyone to keep me company after school. You can say being around people my age, or anyone who I can connect with is my number one source of energy. So I would encourage her to do it, because I know she really needs the thirteen brothers she's getting after that. But maybe I'd tell her she's not the amazing inspiring celebrity she thinks she is”.

“What would you say your relationship with Pledis Entertainment has been like, since you joined the company to now?”

“You're sure this isn't going to get leaked, right? The trainee period sucks for everyone, you have to dedicate a lot of time, energy, and discipline in order to be able to reach this insanely high standards. And I guess we're all aware of how though Pledis is with their trainees, so it's safe to say I didn't have much in me back then to develop any kind of relation with the higher ups. I do remember they used to decide most things behind my back. Like one day I arrived at the building and the CEO said 'You're moving to the Pledis Boys side' which was fine, but I could have used that information a few days prior or something. And even after that, when I brought something up to them, they would tell me they would think about the topic. And if they ever decided something, they would set one of the boys aside and tell them what they decided, so that boy could come and tell me”.

“That got better over time, though there's this weird relation between the group and the company, where we're completely free when it comes to the creative side of business. Yet the moment something more serious needs to be decided it's like they forget who makes up Seventeen. I understand from a corporate point off view they can't have a bunch of random kids in their 20s deciding what to do on a crisis. But they also can't push aside what Seventeen's message is and the picture we're trying to create. At the end of the day, I can't shake off the feeling that inside those big offices, some of those men only see us as a product they're trying to sell”.

“Would you think of leaving Pledis Entertainment?”

“I'm staying wherever the boys are, I don't really care where that is”

“How do you deal with hate?”

“Nowadays I'm one of that kind of people who simply doesn't care. After being bombarded with hundreds of comments from people who didn't know me but shared an opinion on where I should be and what kind of behavior I should have, I learned how to ignore everything and not engage in any conversation surrounding my work. That sucks, because I also don't have access to most of the nice and constructive things people say about me. But honestly it's something I decided to let go after I realized that negativity was getting in the way of how I communicated with other people, and how I saw myself as someone who always had to prove being better at something”.

“So you don't read what's being said about you online?”

“Most things I don't. I usually engage in conversations on Weverse which is slightly more controlled, and sometimes the boys show me some nice comments left on YouTube videos. Besides looking at cat videos, I'm pretty much dissociated with most social media”.

“Do you think that's something being an idol took away from you, or were you never that into technology?”.

“It's definitely something I had to adapt to due to being on the spotlight. As a kid I always enjoyed going on random spaces and making online friends, even if we only talked to each other once and that was it.”

“You don't look for what people have to say about you. But do you ever feel like you're not totally free to do whatever you want?”

“Honestly, yes. There's always going to have that little voice in the back of my head telling me how many young adults and even children are watching me and by association I'm helping them form their own view of the world. That's pretty scary to be honest because who am I? You know? Sometimes I want to do dumb things and less frequently I simply do dumb things because what there is to lose? But if a child comes and asks to do the same things I want to, I'll tell them no, because their life is too precious for me to let them do reckless activities”.

“What kid of dumb things are you talking about?”

“Sometimes I wake up and feel like bungee jumping. Or like, taking my car and driving without any coordinates for a really long period of time. Getting really drunk and smashing some plates around. Trying out parkour and busting my knees up because I don't know how to do that. I guess the best way to describe it being random rather than dumb”.

“So you're scared of what people might think of doing after you grant your personal wishes?”.

“I guess so. Since I'm not a parent, I shouldn't take responsibility over what others think and do. But part of me will always think about those kids alone in their homes, watching our content to pass their time and being shaped by the things we say and do. I also feel bad sometimes because I'm not the smartest person in the world, so I can't give them a detailed philosophical thought of how much their lives are worth and how they are the ones that make their own future”.

“Do you feel unprepared to be an idol when it comes to this topic?”.

“Well, yes. I'm just a twenty six-year-old who acts mostly over her instincts and fears of letting life pass by her. It's scary to think about children wanting to be like me. I remember during our training, we also learned a lot about how to behave and all of that, but it never sunk in how much responsibility it takes to be someone's 'Idol'. I try not to think about it too much to be honest, my wishful thinking brain likes to imagine that everyone knows how to draw a line between Hayun working her idol job and Hayun living her life”.

“Lastly, do you regret being in the kpop industry?”

“No, just because it gave me the family that I need. I sound really dorky talking about them, but that Hayun, before meeting Seventeen, had no future in mind and no support system strong enough to carry her around. I would not be able to face all of this alone in a million years, and I hope I never have to”.

#Hayun #seventeen 14th member #seventeen oc #svt au #seventeen au #Seventeen Additional Member #seventeen addition #seventeen female addition #seventeen female member #seventeen female oc #kpop female member #kpop female oc #kpop female addition

[plut00nline]

Fuck it im doing it

My 2020 top 20 movie list

(Disclaimer that most of these weren't made in 2020 but I just watched them this year. These aren't also really in a very particular order but they are lowkey ranked) (i also had to be choosey with the images i out cause of the limit, but yeah dont mind that)

20. The perfection

The plot twist in this movie is *chefs kiss* there was no way for me to predict the ending, bug as far as thrillers goes, it is brilliant. And also, lesbians. It can be a pretty triggering movie for ab*se and general gore, but really I love the pacing and the thrill of it.

19. The shining

Ah yes, a classic horror, and though I may feel iffy about Stanley Kubrick, this movie was pretty good. But I am saying this as a person that didn't read the book. The blood rushing down the hallway was really my favourite visual on the movie. It was a movie that made me felt genuinely scared while watching it, like hiding behind my blanket but also sweating scared, the suspense was pretty thrilling though

18. Doctor Sleep

Man do I love Danny Torrance, and Abra, fuck I love them both. Again, I never read the book, but my ignorance keeps me in bliss. The visuals of this movie are also great, and the emotions this movie puts through? I'm just glad headcanons exist, but really I did enjoy this movie even if it wasn't what I was expecting.

17. Birds of prey

Harley deserved a movie, and the fact that it was directed by a woman makes me love it so much more because we just got to see harley doing the things that she fucking wanted. This movie is wlw solidarity, from Margot robbie to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, women with crossbows? Sign me the fuck up. And from all the DC films I've seen, it's so much brighter, in the visual sense, there's colour! There's character! And not everyone is just brooding in darkness, its the type of movie that would make me actually watch and enjoy DC films.

16. Charlie's angels

Firstly, lesbians. Thank you. But really, its a good action comedy and really I'll jump at the chance to see women kick ass.

15. My octopus teacher

I've never cried over an octopus before, so that was an experience. And even though this is technically not a movie, I still wanted to put it on here cause it was really just a great documentary, especially since it happened in my home country and im very oddly proud of that fact.

14. Knives out

Murder mystery and chris evans go so well together. I have made a longer post, but to sum it up, like most of the movies on this list. The colours and the pacing and just the atmosphere of the movie was spectacular, and even though I couldve guessed the ending, I was still on the edge of my seat for most of it

13. Ready or not

I love this new wave of eat the rich media. Samara weaving is a great actor and I am in love with her and this whole movie. It really was something that I hadn't actually seen before and the fact that the whole curse thing at the end was true was really just wow. Along with eat the rich, I love the feral female energy lately, and the whole white clothing slowly but surely being covered in blood.

12. Geralds game

The line "youre only made of moonlight" lives in my head rent free. This movie, was really an experience and for a movie with only two people in it for the majority, it is really well done. I'll always feel iffy about a man writing a woman's experience (specifically) but I do love the way this movie went, yeah I hated the "Hand" scene, but I still enjoyed the after math of it.

11. The old gaurd

Again, more lesbians, what more could I ask for? The concept for this movie is brilliant, immortal mercenaries is the only trope I want from now on, and found family.

10. Parasite

Again with the eat the rich. This movie was mindblowing, and just, the imagery!! And im glad they didn't dub it in English cause fuck that, I enjoyed it perfectly with subtitles.

9. song of the sea

This movie, this movie! Is so precious and I had that song stuck in my head for days.the name Saoirse is also so oddly pleasing to hear. This story is so beautiful, the music is amazing and it makes me want to be a fae.

8. Scott pilgrim vs the world

This movie really did pass what my expectations for what I thought it was gonna be, the music was amazing, the transitions and editing style was *chefs kiss* and even though I felt like I was in a fever dream the whole time, it'd be a fever dream I'd gladly rewatch.

7. The imitation game

Thank you Alan Turing. This movie recked me, like emotionally, I was a mess when I was done with it, but damn was it good, like I really just felt something while watching it, I mean most.of the movies on this list did, but this one just really hit me in some way.

6. Klaus

At least there are still good Christmas movies being made. Actually, I was a mess for this one too, the second that child got that sleigh thing it was over for my emotions. The whole sirge of turning Santa into this big macho dude really is working out and that's how Santa should always be depicted. I could gush about the animation style of this movie all fucking day, I love it so much (and the shadows!!! Ahh the shadows!) It really is just incredible.

5. I'm thinking of ending things

Hey man, I knew this was gonna fuck me up just by looking at the trailer, but there was absolitley no way to prepare for whatever was about to happen. Even after watching it, I have no idea what happened. But I still found it great, I love movies that give me an existential crisis.

4. Spirited away

All I wanted to do, was eat everything in that movie, even if it would turn me into a pig, holy hells this movie is good. There was just this satisfying appeal to it that I can't quite put into words. Its beautiful like everything studio ghibli movie ever.

3. The Willoughbys

I never knew I needed a found family movie with a bunch of kids that were already family. I've made a longer post about this movie, and I dont think I could really say more, this movie is so fucking touching and I love the direction it went in plot wise.

2. Howl's moving castle

Again, I may not have understood wtf was going on, but I'll be damned if I didn't love every second of it. There is no doubt that this movie is stunning, and I really am a suckered for early 2000's 2d animation, because!!! Look at it!!! Studio Ghibli films always just floor me with how good they look. I really wanna read the book, because I would absolutley love to see a feral Sophie giving howl shit for crying over hair.

1. Us

This movie will always be my no. 1 it is amazing and I love everything jordan peele has done with his movies. Especially for it to have a full black cast, and those black people have darker skin than what is normally shown in media. The feral but also calculated nature of each character is beautiful and nothing can ever make me hate this movie

I hope you enjoyed this incoherent "review" of my favourite movies I watched in 2020, its been a shit show and movies really have been a place of comfort for me. But stay safe and happy new year!

#film review #ghibli films #studio ghibli #us jordan peele #the willoughbys #howls moving castle #doctor sleep #the shining #scott pilgram vs the world #the perfection #birds of prey #the imitation game #spirited away #geralds game #im thinking of ending things #klaus #charlies angels #knives out #song of the sea #the old gaurd #my octopus teacher #ready or not #parasite

[lucemferto]

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT PH1LZA (or Why Philza is a Victim of Narrative Circumstance)

Heyo! Per request I am posting the script to my video of the same name here on tumblr. I must warn you that just reading the script will probably not give you the full experience, so I would encourage you to watch the video (linked above).

There might also still be a lot of grammatical errors in the text, because I don’t proofread.

Intro

LAST TIME ON LUCEM FERTO

Okay, so! I don’t want this to turn into a reaction channel OR a Dream SMP channel for that matter! [echo]

Well, I lied.

[Intro to “Luc is pretentious about the funny blockmen. Episode 2”]

I swear, I’m working on other stuff. It’s just that my dumb lizard brain has only capacity for one interest at a time!

So, something you might not know about me, is that I am on tumblr – who am I kidding, most of you will know me from tumblr. Before starting this whole YouTube thing, I thought that website died years ago – but as per usual reality proves me wrong. I’m also on Twitter and Reddit, but I get the most engagement on tumblr – by far! – and I need those sweet, sweet numbers for the serotonin!

Anyways, one of my favourite past-times on tumblr is to razz Philza Hardcore Minecraft – that’s his full name – for being a frankly awful father [clicking away] – wait, wait, no! Philza fans, this isn’t a hit piece on him, I promise! Please come back!

This is video is meant to be a companion piece to my previous video about Technoblade and the Doomsday event – you can tell by the shared nomenclature – so you should probably watch that one before you proceed. Unless you don’t want to, which is also perfectly understandable.

DISCLAIMER: This video is mostly about the character Philza plays on the Dream SMP. Whenever I talk about the content creator Philza, I will say so properly. Also, Spoiler Warning for Dream SMP Season 2.

… What is that? You’re wondering what the Dream SMP is? Well, if you had just watched the other video like I told you to do, you would know, because I explained it pretty well there. But in case you don’t know, here’s the cliff notes.

Dream SMP is the hottest New Media Series on Twitch right now! It has it all: gaslighting, child soldiers, Machiavellian political intrigue, Hamilton roleplay, desecration of the dead, shounen protagonists, SO! MUCH! AMNESIA! Filicide, furries, a red egg that’s definitely homophobic and teenagers inventing nuclear warfare. And it’s all done in Minecraft – yes, the funny block game where the only way to emote is to crouch.

And you say the perfect brief doesn’t exist!

Now, you might be wondering, why do I want to talk about this? Well, it’s because Content Creator Philza is one of least controversial internet personalities that I can think of. That man exudes pure comfort. So, it’s just very, very amusing to me that his character became one of the most controversial figures on the SMP, only outshone by Tommy and Technoblade.

And it’s not just amusing, it’s also extremely interesting! I want to dig deep to uncover and discuss the dynamics behind why that is. How did it come to this point? How did a man who appears genuinely so pleasant create a character that inspires so much discourse!

Now, if you watched that Technoblade video – like I told you to twice now! – you might know, that I am the resident character analyses hater of fandom! And that impression is false and slanderous! Don’t tell other people that I hate character analyses! I love them!

It’s just that, in the Dream SMP in particular, there is an abundance of character analyses! Every streamer has at least two very good essays written about them, exploring every possible angle to view their characters and backgrounds and everything. All I’m saying is: I don’t have anything to add on that front.

So, instead I want to pursue a different approach – something, that I feel is a bit underrepresented in the fandom! And I’m not just talking narrative analysis – that’s right, this episode we’re going even more pretentious! – I’m talking Transtextual Analysis!

Now, what is Transtextuality? Well, unfortunately it has very little to do with actual Trans people – #transrights, just in case that wasn’t obvious – but instead describes a mode of analysis with which to put – to quote French literary theorist Gérard Genette – “the text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts”.

Basically, you know how the L’Manburg War of Independence heavily quotes and borrows from the hit musical Hamilton? That’s transtextuality! A lot of the analyses surrounding how Tommy mirrors the Greek hero Theseus, who was invoked by Technoblade multiple times in the series, are already doing transtextual analysis! So, it’s really not something that’s new to the Dream SMP fandom.

But how does this apply to Philza and how he is looked at and judged by his parental skills? Well, there are multiple forms of transtextuality, two of which we will discuss today.

But before we continue, I gotta do that annoying YouTuber thing. I know these videos don’t look like much, but I spend a really long time making them. I work fulltime and I try my best to keep up, but sometimes I can’t. So please, like, subscribe, comment to give me some algorithm juice – I really need it – and most importantly share it! Share it with your friends, share it with your family – I’m sure Grandma is very interested in what I have to say about Philza Minecraft.

And I’m trying to be better! If I sound at all different for this video, it’s because I finally bought a new pop filter, so I can hit my plosives without it sounding like there’s a thunderstorm in my room. I hope it makes a difference; it was a very cheap pop filter, so maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it sounds worse – that would be bad!

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, CHILD NEGLEGT!

 Intertextuality: Why is Dadza?

You know what’s really interesting about the Dream SMP – aside from, you know, most things about it? Very few of the characters have concrete, fleshed-out backstories – and that’s pretty weird! In no other medium or genre could you get away with something like that – at least for long-form storytelling!

So, how does Dream SMP get away with this? Well, it’s because every character on the Dream SMP is basically a self-insert – and I don’t mean that in the “This character is based on me”-kinda way, but in the “This character, for all intents and purposes, is me!”-way. This, like many things that are fascinating about the Dream SMP, is owed to the fact that this series didn’t start off as a continuous drama – it started off as a Let’s Play.

And while we can talk about how someone’s on-camera/on-mic persona is in some ways a character, it’s still miles off of being an actual, fully-realized, separate character in a storyline.

This is where Intertextuality comes in.

Intertextuality is a subset of Transtextuality. It describes how the hypertext, which is the text, you’re currently engaged with, uses another text, the hypotext, to supplement itself. The interconnection the hypertext establishes with the hypotext, through stuff like allusion for example, uh-hum [Hamilton], can colour how an audience interprets the hypertext. Basically, Hamilton and Theseus are the hypotexts; the Dream SMP is the hypertext.

So, what does this have to do with backstory? Simple: The backstories of the characters in the Dream SMP consist basically of nothing but intertextual references. Through intertextuality their content effectively substitutes their character’s backstory.

You can see it everywhere. Wilbur’s and Schlatt’s relationship and rivalry is hugely enriched, if you are aware of their shared history like SMPLive, for example – I think anyway. I haven’t watched SMPLive, because … there’s only so many hours in the day and I cannot keep up with the Dream SMP and catch up on SMPLive and live a healthy life – which I already don’t do, so…

BadBoyHalo’s and Skeppy’s relationship, which has become the crux of the Crimson-Storyline of Seasons 2 and 3, is hugely supplemented if you know that they’re also very close as streamers and in real life.

Another great example of intertextuality is basically Technoblade’s entire deal. If you just look at him completely within the text of the Dream SMP and try to transplant his entrance to any other medium: It would be extremely weird! Like, he’s just this guy that comes in in the middle of a very climatic arc, no build-up, no explanation what his deal is, and he’s treated like he has always been there. In any other medium that just wouldn’t work – at least not without a flashback or some sort of exposition!

But because of stuff like Minecraft Mondays, the Potato Wars, his Duel against Dream and SMPEarth, we understand that he is a Big Deal!

Anyways, to bring all of this back to Philza Minecraft: What kind of hypotext informs how the audience sees his character? Well, this is where I will have to talk about SBI.

SBI is an acronym that stand for State Bank of India, the 43rd largest bank in the world and…

It also stands for Sleepy Bois Incorporated. Sleepy Bois Incorporated is a loose assembly of content creators, consisting of Philza, Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit and Technoblade. It is most well-known for its very endearing family dynamic – a dynamic that is frequently acknowledged and played up by the creators involved. Tommy is the youngest brother, Wilbur and Techno are the two older brothers and Philza is of course the dad. And when I say, it’s played up, I really mean it! Wilbur seems to be especially enamoured with the idea and leaves no opportunity untaken to bring it up – which we will come back to.

And I’m not saying that they’re faking this and this is somehow an act. While I know none of these people personally, it appears to me, that this is genuinely how they interact – if a little exaggerated for the streaming experience. Even when they’re not consciously playing into the family dynamic, their interactions still very much lend themselves to that interpretation by the viewers.

Philza especially just radiates Dad-Friend energy – so much so that it has become a huge part of his brand identity – yay, I can bring that back (check out my Christmas video if you want to hear me ramble about that). The nickname Dadza stuck even before SBI was a thing.

So, even if we completely disregard SBI – which we shouldn’t for reasons I’ll get back to – Philza has cultivated an image of strong paternal guidance. He is, in my opinion completely deservedly, regarded very positively. He is highly respected and in turn seen as a voice of reason.

All of this would eventually inform the hypotext of the character Philza within Dream SMP.

 Interlude: Before Dadza & November 16th

Okay, so now we have established that a) Dream SMP heavily hinges on intertextual readings by the audience to supplement character backstory and b) that Philza’s entire deal is that he’s the dad-friend – more specifically that he’s the dad of SBI (not the bank). I think you know where this is going.

So, yeah, ever since it was on the table that Philza could join the Dream SMP, it was immediately assumed that he would take on the paternal guardian role all these traumatized people on that server so desperately needed – and with good reason! Like I said before, the audience at this point was trained to take intertextual interpretations as basically canon or at the very least canon-adjacent.

I want to emphasize that this is most likely not done deliberately. I’m sure content creators Wilbur and Philza didn’t sit there and said: “Yes! We will rely entirely on the audience’s inclination to interpret our characters intertextually to define character Philza!”. Like, obviously that did not happen.

But it’s also important to remember that unlike with traditional media and the fanbases cultivated there, the separation between the Dream SMP and its audience is almost non-existent – and purposely so. The story events are streamed live, Chats are acknowledged in canon and even outside of livestreams creators are extremely involved with the fandom. So, the weight of fan-expectations is equally amplified and will more likely be incorporated into the writing process. Case in point:

[Wilbur “I miss Philza”/Philza about Wilbur]

During Wilbur’s villain arc, even before his official involvement, Philza became a prevalent point of discussion. The hope that he would be the one to snap Wilbur out of his downward spiral was not only wish-fulfilment on behalf of the fans; it also very much played off of the intertextual reading of the SBI-dynamic in relation to the Dream SMP.

Of course, this still doesn’t make Philza and Wilbur canonically blood-related – but it definitely used the “paternal”-dynamic of SBI to build-up tension and drama.

And that ultimately brings us to November 16th. The Grand Finale of Season 1 and Philza’s first canonical appearance on the SMP.

Now, for this I want to pull back from the transtextual analysis and talk about simply narrative analysis: What is Philza’s narrative purpose on November 16th?

Philza serves as the last threshold on Wilbur’s Villain’s Journey – to appropriate Vogler’s version of the monomyth for a minute here – he is what Vogler calls the “Threshold Guardian”. He is the last enemy the Hero faces before completing his quest – in this particular case Wilbur’s quest is to blow up L’Manberg. Multiple people have at this point tried to dissuade him from this course of action: Tommy, Quackity, Niki and others. So how come this Philza moment is not redundant in terms of dynamics compared to these prior scenes?

Well, it’s through our intertextual understanding of Wilbur’s and Phil’s relationship. Because Philza does not just occupy the role of the Threshold Guardian – he is also implicitly the Mentor. Before Phil there was no character in the storyline that held a higher position of moral authority than Wilbur – Dream and Schlatt, while at points more powerful in terms of actual authority, were never positioned by the narrative as Wilbur’s superiors in the same way as Wilbur was to Tommy, Tubbo or even Niki.

Before November 16th all challenges Wilbur faced were from people narratively subordinated to him. But that trend is broken with Phil. That is why he is the Threshold Guardian, why this confrontation is at the climax of Wilbur’s arc. Because Phil is the last thing tethering Wilbur to whatever morality he held before his villain arc; Phil is the last, moral obstacle Wilbur has to discard before gaining his reward.

And, just a quick sidenote, because I’ve seen it around the fandom a bunch: When I’m referring to Wilbur denouncing his morality, I’m using that in terms of narrative analysis. I’m mentioning it, because Wilbur’s character can very easily be read as mentally ill or neurodivergent and some people have – rightly! – pointed out that the excessive vilifying when talking about his character is … problematic, to say the least.

So, I just want to make clear, this isn’t a character analysis, I’m being purposely broad when talking about Wilbur and Phil.

In the end, Wilbur takes that final step and gets his “reward”: As his final request his mentor takes his life and vanquishes the evil – the dragon of Wilbur’s story slays the dragon of L’Manburg. It’s very Shakespearean in its tragedy – but beyond the larger theatrics it’s not really used to further characterize Phil – at least in the context of Season 1. There’s not a lot of focus on his characters internal conflict during November 16th.

Phil, like Techno, is very utilitarian in how content creator Wilbur writes him: He serves as a moment of hype; an obstacle Wilbur has to face; a participant in the tragic climax of Wilbur’s character and ultimately takes on his implicit and expected role of mentor and guiding figure to the rest of L’Manburg.

I think not a lot of people talk about how Philza does not join Technoblade during November 16th. He takes the side of L’Manburg – he fights against the withers and he joins Tommy, Tubbo and the others at the L’Mantree, thus framing him as loyal to the L’Manburg administration – even though Season 2 would make his loyalty to Techno central to his character. But more on that later.

What’s also important about November 16th is that this is the day when the general intertextual interpretation became canonized text.

[You’re my son!]

Wilbur is made Phil’s canonical, biological son. The intertextual interpretation of SBI as it pertains to these two characters on the SMP was completely reinforced by the narrative. Or to put it in Fandom terms: The headcanon became actual canon. At least when it came to Wilbur … but what about Philza’s “other” children?

Well, that leads to our second form of transtextual analysis:

 Paratextuality: Is Dadza?

These titles are just getting better and better.

The Paratext is defined as all those things in a published work that accompany the text. It comes in two forms: One of them is the Peritext, which are non-diegetic elements directly surrounding the text – like chapter titles, author’s notes, and stuff like that. Translated to the medium of the Dream SMP, it would be stuff like this:

[Examples]

And, trust me, I could make a whole separate video about how people on the SMP use their peritext as a tool for storytelling – I’m looking at you, Ranboo – but that’s not what we will talk about in the context of Dadza.

Instead, we will focus on the second form of Paratext, the Epitext, which consists of all authorial and editorial discussions taking place outside of the text. That’s stuff like interviews, private letters or J. K. Rowling’s Twitter Account – you know, before she decided to become a full-time asshole.

[Wilbur: Transrights]

After Season 1 ended, Wilbur indulged pretty heavily in providing epitext for the Dream SMP, something he had not done prior to November 16th. His paratextual additions ranged from the playful, like assigning DnD alignments to various SMP members, to the extremely impactful, like the whole three lives system!

You probably think, you know where this is going. Wilbur provided some epitext about how Tommy and Techno either are or are not biologically related to him … and I have to be honest I thought that too. But then I began looking into the impenetrable web that is the SBI-canon on the Dream SMP and found this!

[Ghostbur explains family]

So, it wasn’t paratext, it was just straight text. Said in character, in canon, without any implication that we the viewers should question this. The text of the SBI family dynamic was explicitly linked to Dream SMP-exclusive lore, namely Fundy being Wilbur’s and Sally the Salmon’s son. This is as clear as Philza’s anguished declaration on November 16th in establishing the intertext as text. And because Wilbur also had a very heavy hand in the discussion of paratext around that time, it gave his character’s words even more “canonical” weight. Metatextually speaking, this very much read like the author giving exposition through his character – exposition that we should understand as reliable.

And, by the way, before I continue, I need to give a huge, huge shoutout to kateis-cakeis on tumblr, I hope I pronounced that right, who was just so quick in providing me with these crucial clips. Without him I would have looked for days because these people don’t archive their shit! And the Dream SMP Wiki was NO help, by the way! I love what you guys do, but stuff like this belongs in the Trivia section on characters’ pages!

Anyways, basically during the entirety of early Season 2 the SBI family dynamic was basically canon to the SMP. Sometimes it was only alluded implicitly, again letting the intertext fill out the rest.

[Philza clips]

But just as often it was just explicitly talked about – both in the text and in the paratext.

[Fundy clip/Wilbur “Twins” clip/Tommy clip]

So, I know what you’re thinking: “Why is this part called paratext, if the entire family tree is just textual”. Well, that last clip might give you a hint, as to what I will talk about. Notice how Tommy, one of the people most directly impacted by the canonization of SBI lore, is both unaware of and seems generally unenthused about it, to put it nicely? Well, that would soon turn out to be a much bigger deal than anyone could have imagined as he wasn’t the only one.

[Technoblade decanonizes SBI]

Yeah …

This happened on 20th of December. Regular viewers of this channel will remember that I put out a 90-second joke video, where I complain about this very development. And while I was mostly kidding around, the core idea is still true. The paratext provided by Technoblade and established text were in direct contradiction with one another – and that brought a lot of confusion into the fandom. Confusion, that would soon be followed by frustration.

Because Techno only decanonized himself as part of the SBI family dynamic – but what about Tommy and Tubbo, the latter of which was incorporated into the dynamic exclusively within the lore of the Dream SMP. Was this still canon or wasn’t it?

What followed was a muddled mess of contradictions, intertextual implications, text and paratext in conflict with each another. It was for the most part inscrutable to figure out how Tommy and Philza related to one another. I’ll spare you every comment made about this – mostly because I want to spare myself from looking for all of them.

In the end, the current status is that their familial relationship is … unclear. Philza said, again in paratext, that it’s ultimately up to the writers to decide, whether or not Tommy is his son … which, I personally think he and Tommy should be the ones to establish that, but I’ll come back to that later.

But why is all of this important anyway? Why would this ambiguity create such an uproar, such controversy – especially when it comes to Tommy’s character? What makes Tommy’s and Philza’s relationship such a target for discussion in the fandom?

Well … this is where we will have to talk about the storyline of Season 2.

Interlude II: Tommy’s Exile and Dadza in Season 2

Okay, Season 2. This is where the spoilers are, so I will just sneakily drop this again. It took me five seconds to google this gif and I will milk it for every penny it’s worth!

At the beginning of Season 2, Philza’s narrative role has not changed much from where Season 1 ended. He is in L’Manburg dispensing earthly wisdom, being a paternal figure to Fundy, Ghostbur and Tubbo, helping with the nation’s rebuilding efforts; just generally occupying the role of the mentor.

[clips]

And then came … the Exile. The Exile Arc took place between December 3rd and December 15th during Season 2 of the Dream SMP. It revolves around TommyInnit getting exiled from L’Manburg and slowly getting psychologically tortured and broken down by Dream. It’s a really great arc, at least in my opinion, that explores and deepens a lot of Tommy’s character relationships, whether that be Tommy and Dream, Tommy and Tubbo or Tommy and Ranboo. One relationship, however, is noticeably missing.

So, yeah, Philza spends basically the entirety of the exile doing pretty much nothing of consequence. And that’s not a problem specific to him – One big criticism I would levy against the Exile Arc is that a lot of characters are left spinning their wheels. Which is why we get zany stuff like El Rapids, Drywaters, Eret’s Knights of the Roundtable, Boomerville – anyone remember Boomerville, that was a thing for 5 seconds, wasn’t it? – basically a lot of storylines are started and then unceremoniously dropped. Now, I will talk more about this, when I make a video about Season 2 of the Dream SMP … in ten years, look forward to it.

In the case of Philza, this inaction was especially damning, because at this point it was still a considered canon that he was Tommy’s dad. So, the fans were left with a situation, where just a few weeks prior Philza was occupying a paternal role for Fundy and Ghostbur … but now, that his youngest son was in a very concerning predicament – to put it lightly – he was nowhere to be found.

So why is that?

Well, the most obvious answer is that Dream and Tommy didn’t write him into the storyline. We’ve seen that Tommy wasn’t particularly interested in exploring a familial relationship to Philza, at least at the time. And it would just not fit in with what Dream and Tommy tried to do with the Exile Arc: they wanted to tell the story of Tommy being isolated, completely under Dream’s mercy, slowly worn down and manipulated. If Philza had been constant presence for Tommy during that time, it would have definitely shifted the narrative focus. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have done that, it’s just a matter of fact that they didn’t.

This also reveals another truth about content creator Philza’s character work, that I think is extremely crucial: He takes what the writers give him. Outside of a few choice moments, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in expanding or even solidifying his character on the SMP.

What I’m saying is that he is very go-with-the-flow: Wilbur wants to enact a Shakespearean tragedy? Philza’s up for it. Fundy wants him as a parental figure and mentor? Philza’s here for him. Tommy, conversely, doesn’t want him as a paternal presence, even though it would make sense for Philza’s character, as it was established so far, to be there? Philza will oblige.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because, while Tommy and Dream were unwilling to utilise Philza in their storyline, someone else was more than happy to. Which leads us back, like it always does, to everyone’s favourite Porky Pig-kinnie in a crown: Technoblade.

Technoblade and Philza, from everything I’ve seen of them, seem to be very good friends – and they share a lot of history even outside SBI. So, it’s commendable that they would collaborate on a storyline together.

A consequence of that, however, is that Philza’s narrative purpose shifts completely with very little transition. His entire character changes from being the Mentor-figure of L’Manberg to being pretty much exclusively defined as Technoblade’s ally; his man on the inside. It is a very sharp turn from the end of Season 1. Their relationship is once again informed via intertext – this time the Antarctic Empire on SMPEarth serves as the hypotext – but there isn’t a huge effort made to smoothly integrate that aspect of Philza’s character into the larger narrative framing around him.

How much the narrative utilisation of Philza has shifted can be very easily observed through the Butcher Army event on December 16th, a story event that I like less and less the more I think about. Here Philza is used to show just how corrupt and violent Tubbo’s administration has becomes. He is no longer the respected mentor, he is now the stand-in for the oppressed populace, similar to Niki’s role in Season 1. On a narrative level, he is here to prove a point.

If you’ve seen my Technoblade video, you know how I feel about … just that entire storyline, so I will not reiterate too much on it. I just want to make clear that I’m not principally against this development – if they wanted to truly explore Tubbo going down a dark path and getting corrupted by power, so much so that he would even treat the person who effectively raised him like a prisoner, I would be extremely here for it, I cannot stress that enough.

The problem I have is that it’s just so sloppily done. It is not coherent with how these characters behaved and, more importantly, how they were narratively framed prior to the Butcher Army event. Fundy gets one token line about Phil being his Grandfather – a far cry from the very emotionally complex relationship they had established at the beginning of Season 2 – and Phil then callously disowns him.

The major problem simply is that we don’t see how Philza changes from Mentor-figure to embittered, oppressed citizen. And there was enough time to build to that. During the entirety of Tommy’s exile Tubbo was pretty much spinning his wheels and Quackity and Fundy were opening up plot cul-de-sacs that didn’t end up going anywhere. This is time they could have spent on developing their relationship to Philza and the dark path they were going down – but again, Season 2 video.

There is not much to say on Philza’s narrative purpose and framing beyond the Butcher Army event. He remains pretty much exclusively Techno’s consigliere with his role as Mentor to L’Manburg a distant memory. He has some cute character moments with Ranboo, because content creator Philza is just big dad-energy whether he wants to or not, and whenever he and Ghostbur share a scene suddenly the narrative remembers that there are people other than Technoblade that should exist in Philza’s inner world. But aside from that, Philza’s storyline in Season 2 remains … pretty definitive is the nicest way I can put it.

Most importantly his relationship with Tommy continues to be completely unexplored – whether by chance or choice – and that combined with ever vaguer paratext leaves “Dadza” in a very peculiar situation.

 Conclusion: Is Dadza a Good Dadza?

So, the question to end all questions. The big, obnoxious text, that I will probably have put in the thumbnail – I haven’t made it yet, but I know myself. The honest answer is: I couldn’t tell you.

I have, in the past, been expounding the virtues of narrative analysis. That is because I feel that Narrative Analysis and Textual Analysis, like in this video, can provide certain tools that Character Analysis lacks. Often times I see people trying to get at a writing problem or query and getting frustrated because they’re not using the toolset, they need to figure out what they want to figure out.

But I’d be a hypocrite if I pretended like everything could be solved through the modes of analysis I prefer. And I think the Dadza-issue is exactly such a case.

I set out to explore why the Philza-Tommy-“Dadza”-relationship has become so controversial. It’s a combination of expectations build up through intertextual readings, that were partly canonized – something that is very common for the Dream SMP – conflicting pieces of paratext, which only serve to muddle the issue further and a text that is not only completely uninterested in actually exploring Tommy’s and Philza’s relationship – as it stands right now they might as well be strangers, narratively speaking – but also completely changes Philza’s narrative purpose as it relates to characters like Fundy or Tubbo about half-way through with little to no transition.

That is why I say, that Philza’s character is a victim of narrative circumstance. Because unwittingly, through all of these factors and decisions, there is not coherent reading of Philza that frames his parental skills in a particularly kind light.

The question of how we can judge Phil as a paternal figure ultimately falls within the purview of the character analysis – and that’s a very multifaceted issue, highly dependent on which POV you focus on and how you interpret the other characters in that POV’s periphery.

To put my cards on the table, I think that Philza is a very flawed father/father-figure – and I find that absolutely okay. Flaws are the spice of character building. He is not Cinderella’s Evil Stepmother – but he’s also definitely not Mufasa. If we were to read Philza as a paternal figure, then he would have made a lot of mistakes and decisions to the detriment of his “children” – least of all everything that happened on Doomsday.

But I also have sympathies for Philza fans who are tired of the Dad-Debate and would like to have his character judged independent from his relationship to Ghostbur, Fundy, Tubbo and Tommy.

Ultimately, to bring it all to a point, I’d like to end with saying, that I think that Philza, out of all the characters on the SMP, has the potential to be on of the most intriguing, multifaceted ones. There are all of these different patches of story, character moments and narrative and transtextual implications, that, if brought together, could create a beautiful tapestry of the character Philza.

You have his relationship with Techno, which holds the potential for so much emotional conflict and vulnerabilities, you have his time as mentor of L’Manburg, which is just criminally underused; the complex relationship between him and Ghostbur/Wilbur; and – for me, personally – most intriguingly this weird, almost uncomfortably distant non-relationship with Tommy. That last one is intriguing to me, because it contrasts just so much with our intertextual understanding of the characters and streaming personas – and it just holds the potential for so much conflict, so much drama, so much angst. Which I live for!

And, yes, I do believe that most of this is narrative happenstance, that this was largely not intended by Philza or really any of the writers. It’s just what happens when hybrid-roleplay-improv a long-running, livestreamed storyline in Minecraft.

But I want them to realize the potential they have on their hands, because it could – with barely any adjustments – turn Philza from a victim of narrative circumstance to a champion of it!

 Outro

Thank you so much for watching this video. Usually, I don’t record outros this standard, but after this beast of a video I felt it necessary. I hope that whether you’re a Philza fan or a Philza critical or just completely uninvolved in the whole thing, there is at least a little entertainment you could get from this.

I want to take this opportunity to say that my next few videos will probably not be Dream SMP related – a sentence which undoubtedly lost me a bunch of subs – simply because I don’t want to burn out on it. I genuinely enjoy watching the SMP and being exhausted by it would be something I wouldn’t want to force on myself.

But who knows what will happen? The Karl Jacobs video was something I did spur of the moment because the idea just came to me – so I can’t guarantee that the next video won’t be a three-minute joke about Purpled or whatever.

Anyway, my concrete plans for future Dream SMP videos are essays on Season 1 and Season 2 as well as one for Tales from the SMP.

Before that I have a longer video in the works, which I’ve already teased a bunch, so I hope it will finally be finished sometime. And I also may be working on something … eboys-related? Maybe. I’m not making any promises!

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