#i feel the need to explore their backstory now before we get a backstory that ruins all my headcanons

[lyoneve]

The new crew member on Hornigold’s ship gets real flirty when he drinks and Izzy has finally stopped pretending to be annoyed by it

Young!edizzy anyone? 👀

#consider this my contribution to the babygirlification of ed teach #this was just an excuse to stare at pictures of young taika and con #ed cropped the t-shirt himself of course #ofmd fanart #ofmd #our flag means death #edward teach #blackbeard #izzy hands #edizzy #ed x izzy #ed/izzy #my art #i feel the need to explore their backstory now before we get a backstory that ruins all my headcanons #like them meeting pre blackbeard era #and izzy teaching him sword fighting #it might not make the most sense but it does make the most feels

[drabblesbyjubs]

Caress

Astarion x gn! Reader; your boundaries on where Astarion can touch you and where you can touch him have always been a little fuzzy, but he struggles to word what he means when attempting to simply tell you where he doesn’t want to be touched. He tosses out an idea, and the two of you explore your comfort zones. This could be seen at a pt 2 to Just Need Time, its very soft and fluffy, sort of building on that healing aspect.

Fluff, hurt/comfort, non-sexual nudity, some minor sexual content but no actual smut, trauma, Astarion’s backstory stuff, minor spoilers for Astarion’s story in act 3, minors go bye bye pls

I wrote this on my first day at my new job. This fic was born in the kitchens of a nursing home

Intimacy was always daunting to Astarion.

Emotional intimacy was close, it was vulnerable, it was a means to exploit. And it was terrifying. Physical intimacy was a task, something Astarion struggled to enjoy.

More than a few times he had feared you leaving him because he couldn’t provide the intimacy you deserved. He wasn’t always emotionally available, sometimes we was so apathetic he feared you would be disgusted with him, but there were some things he just couldn’t care about. Even if he wanted to, caring was vulnerable, and it wasn’t allowed. Survival of the fittest.

He was next to never physically available for intimacy; either he completely zoned out before you even got his pants off, the thought of a hug lingering too long sent shivers down his spine, or a hand on his hip pulled a fear response from him, making his whip around to face you, ready to push you away.

You were so understanding that it hurt.

Never once did you judge, never once were you angry or upset. That was almost worse than you being angry; just not knowing what you were thinking. The uncertainty was horrible.

Uncertainty over how you thought of him, uncertainty of where he even liked you touching. Sometimes your soft, romantic touches made his heart soar; they were safe, there was no fear, no ulterior motive, only you, at face value. He loved those times. He wished he knew them more. There were so many little places he was and wasn’t okay with you touching him, he couldn’t even keep track of them.

Maybe it was worth finding out.

..

“Darling?” Astarion approached your tent, and you looked up from the book you had been reading, smiling when you saw that handsome face you’d come to love.

“Astarion,” you greeted, setting down your book and standing to meet him. He hugged you, and you held him close. It seemed he was feeling a little touchy today, and you didn’t mind one bit.

“I wanted to talk. Is… now a good time?” Astarion questioned. You felt a pit of nervousness in your stomach; he looked serious.

“Of course, come with me.” You said, leading him in to your tent and shutting it behind you. “What’s wrong?” You asked.

Astarion grabbed your hands tenderly, and you felt nerves twist in your belly.

“I know I haven’t been the best to you.” He began, immediately filling you with doubt and confusion.

“Darling, of course you-“

“Please.. let me get this out.” He gently kissed the back of your hand, and you shuffled nervously.

“I haven’t been the best to you. I’ve been reclusive, and I know you deserve better. The.. the thought of losing you is terrifying. I want to be more open, give you what you deserve, I just… dont know how. I… have a favor to ask of you.”

You gulped nervously. This didn’t seem like he was trying to break up with you… but the way he spoke in such a self deprecating manner, it was so concerning to you.

“What is it, hun?” You asked.

“I.. want you to help me learn where I can and cant touch you. Where you can and cant touch me. I suppose I… just want to admire you. You tell me when and where it’s too much, and you do the same to me. Is… is that okay?” He looked up at you with those beautiful red eyes.

“Like… like what do you mean?” You asked. “Whatever it is, im alright with it, but.. you may have to take the lead, show me what you���d like. Is that alright?”

“I… want to touch you. And want you to touch me.” He hesitantly explained, a shadow of doubt cast over him now. “I dont want it to be… sexual. I… suppose I want to find where im alright with you touching me. And where youre alright with me touching you.”

“Oh,” you said, realization dawning on you. “Oh hun, of course we can do that. That sounds like a great idea.” You kissed the tip of his nose and you smiled seeing the way the tips of his pointed ears flushed.

He smiled, that slight uptick to the corner of his lip, and the way his smile lines showed and his ryes warmed just looking at you. He was so, so beautiful.

You gently cupped his cheeks in your hands, thumbing over the corner of his mouth.

“You’re beautiful,” you muttered, and Astarion rolled his eyes, though his smile didn’t fade for a moment.

“I know. And wonderful, don’t forget.”

You laughed. “And wonderful.” You pulled him in for a kiss, soft and tender. Astarion melted in your touch, his hands lifting to let one wrap around your chest under your arms and the other card through the hair at the back of your head and gently hold you close to him. His lips moved over yours and both of your relaxed in to the kiss.

You pulled away after a moment, saying, “How do you want to do this?”

“Maybe… here, come with me.” He took your hand and lead you to the bedroll in your tent, the two of you sitting on it facing one another. He gave an awkward pause, clearing his throat and saying, “Could… I take the lead, then you take over?”

“Of course,” you say. “Do you want me to take anything off, or keep this all over our clothes?”

“Maybe.. leave our undergarments on, but take off everything else?”

“That sounds alright,” you said. “I have a blanket right there if you need to cover up.” You motioned to the blanket next to the two of you. Astarion nodded in confirmation, and as you began reaching for the hem of your shirt, he asked you, “May I?” He reached your your shirt, pausing before reaching your hands and waiting before moving on.

You smiled, the care and focus in his expression warming your heart. “Of course,” you said. His fingers hooked under the hem of your bed shirt, pulling it up and over your head. The focus in his gaze was wonderful, so careful as if he would shatter you with one wrong move.

He let out a little sigh when he had your shirt off and tossed to the side, as of he had been holding his breath.

“Beautiful as ever,” he whispered, so soft you hardly heard it. You nudged his shoulder with a little laugh. “Gods, Astarion,” you laughed, and he joined you. His hands cupped your cheeks, and he gazed lovingly into your eyes. You had never seen him so… soft. So vulnerable. It was almost like you were looking at an entirely different man to the one you had found in the woods after the illithid ship crashed, the one who had held a knife to your throat and threatened your life. And maybe he really was a different man, after all you had went through.

But he would always be Astarion, forever your little star.

Calloused hands softly traveled down your neck, closely watching you for any reaction. Down your neck, over your shoulders, across your chest. Over your hips and up your stomach, then to your back, scooting close to feel down the line of your spine, to your shoulders, and down your arms, until his fingers tangled in yours.

“Was that alright?” He asked. You nodded, giving him an assuring smile.

“Of course,” you said. You leaned up to kiss him, a gentle peck to his lips before pulling away. Your fingers danced feather light at the hem of his bedshirt.

“May I?” You asked, to which he nodded.

You pulled his shirt up over his head, watching his gaze fall to the ground. It had always made him a little nervous to feel so bare in such an intimate way, but you didn’t let your gaze linger on his body, instead starting how he did, cupping his cheeks.

You moved to trace over the points of his ears, and he laughed softly, relaxing in to your touch as your fingers carded through his hair.

You hands moved to his jawline, before slowly moving to his neck. You watched his smile fade and a more focused expression return. You tilted your head, and he looked to you.

“I’m not sure.” He said, almost as if having read your mind. You nodded; he’d always been iffy about any touch on the side of his neck that Cazador bit him on. You moved on without another word, to his shoulders and his chest. Neither of which he had any complaint over, you noted.

Your fingers ghosted over the muscles of his abdomen, and you noted how Astarion watched your hand with an intent gaze. You thumbed over the top of his pants before gently resting your hands on the small of his back. You looked at him, waiting for him to return your gaze before you asked, “Your back. Is that a no overall?”

He pursed his lips and looked away.

“That… may be situational. I dont mind sometimes, but others…”

You nodded and said, “Don’t worry, my love. I’ll ask you before I ever touch you there, alright?” He nodded, visibly relaxing.

You moved to hook your fingers under the waistband of his pants, once again looking at him for approval before continuing. He nodded, hut you said to him, “Use your words, hun.”

“You can,” he said. He knew you always preferred he be vocal about his consent, instead of implying it. It made it easier for you to judge when he really wanted it.

Sometimes it was hard for him to know when he really wanted it.

Nodding, you gently pulled his pants down, him lifting his hips to help you out. You hummed, seeing him in nothing but his underwear. He truly was beautiful.

Starting with his hips, you pressed your thumbs against his hip bones, before moving to his outer thighs. You felt him grimace a bit, looking up to him.

“It’s alright,” he quickly assured. “Maybe move a little slower, if thats okay?”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” You responded.

Making a note to move more carefully, you moved down to his knees, then his calves. You ran your hands up the insides of his legs, stopping at his inner thighs. He shuffled a little, saying, “I think this is fine.. just let me know before you touch me here, please?”

“Aye aye, captain,” you said with a light hearted smile, moving in to kiss him.

It was slow and sweet, and you felt him squirming a little under you with you leaned over him and your hands on his thighs.

When you pulled away, his hands went up to the waistband of your pants.

When you nodded your approval, he removed the clothing, mimicking your motions with care and attentiveness. He was so gentle.

When he sat back on his knees, you noticed something you handn’t noticed before; Astarion was hard. You looked away quickly, not meaning to be rude, but he noticed your gaze and pulled back, sitting on his bottom and pulling his knees up to his chest to hide himself. Hurriedly, he said, his words coming out in one long string, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I think I just enjoyed seeing you like this but I dont want this to be sexual and I dont think I can handle being touched like that right now, but if you want me to touch you I can, I just-“

You hushed him, moving up to place a hand on his shoulder and gently thumb at the skin there.

“Darling, hush now. It’s alright. Its perfectly normal. I dont want anything like that right now either.” You assured him, the nearly scared way he looked up at you breaking your heart.

“You… you’re sure? Im still sorry I got… excited, I guess, I promise it wont happen again.” He seemed almost desperate to convince you he was truly sorry, and you gently cupped his cheeks, tilting up his head to look at you.

“My love,” you spoke, voice nearly a whisper. “I promise, it’s alright. We wont be doing anything sexual tonight, and I’ll pretend this didn’t even happen. Okay? There’s no need to be afraid.”

He nodded, his eyes shining almost as if he was on the brink of tears.

“Okay,” he breathed.

You kissed him softly, which he returned after a moment of hesitation.

You leaned back in the bed roll, saying, “Would you like to continue?” He took a breath and nodded, that signature smile returning to his face, even if it was a little forced. His hands crossed your thighs, calves, giving you a cheeky grin as he squeezed your butt, you swatting at him and rolling your eyes.

“You’re sure you’re alright with this all? You haven’t mentioned anything to me about anywhere you dont like…” he trailed, settling next to you.

“I’m sure. If its you, im alright with anything.”

“What?” He said, looking at you. His expressing was one of confusion. “Why?” He propped himself on up his elbows, looking down at you next to him. “What makes me so special?”

You stared back at him for a moment, equally as baffled as him. “What makes you so- Astarion, love, everything. You’re the brightest light in my life, the reason I keep fighting, you’re my everything. I’ve seen the best and worst sides of you, and you’ve seen the best and worst sides of me. You’re the one constant in my life, and you’re absolutely wonderful. I-“ you trailed off a little, noticing the way Astarion stared at you with an unreadable expression; shock, maybe?

His bottom lip started to tremble, and he said in a shaky voice, “You… you mean that?” Before breaking down in to tears.

You stayed still for a moment as he cried, completely caught off guard, watching him shrink down in to the bedroll, but quickly moved to action and pulled him close, gently hushing him. “Shhh, shshsh,” you cooed, burying your nose in his soft hair and combing through the white strands. “It’s alright, hun, don’t worry. It’s okay.”

The way his shoulders heaved with every fresh round of sobs wrenched your heart, and you felt guilt swirl deep within you. “I’m so sorry, I-“

“Don’t,” he managed to breathe between sobs. “You mean it?” He sniffed, looking up to you with a tear stricken gaze.

“Of course,” you cooed. “I mean it all. You’re my everything.” You kissed his forehead, and he was wrecked by a fresh round of sobs, burying his face in your chest. You pulled him close and held him, rocking him softly as he cried. Your poor, sweet boy.

It may have been ten minutes, it may have been an hour. Eventually, Astarion’s breathing slowly began to even out, and his sobs became few and far between. Is a shaky, hoarse voice, he started to speak.

“Two hundred years. For two hundred years I was locked in that crypt.” Your fingers combed through his hair and his memories came back to him. “Cazador put so many horrible thoughts in my head. About myself, about the people around me. I never trusted anyone again until I met you. I never even trusted myself. A monster, I am, just a creature meant to feed off of the innocent. I haven’t been mine in so long.”

You started to speak, started to assure him that he wasn’t a monster, this wasn’t his choice, but you second guessed. Astarion being this vulnerable was… rare. So you gave him his moment.

“You’ve always been so trusting. I thought you were just stupid at first,” he laughed softly, and you rolled your eyes with a little smile. “But I realized that you are the only person whos ever put faith in me. Ever. At least within my memories. You’re… the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. So careful. So understanding. I dont understand why you care so much, but… thank you. And… I love you.”

Your heart was in your throat, choking you from the inside. You hugged him tighter, kissing the top of his head. “I love you too,” you breathed.

You placed your fingers under his chin to tilt his head up, giving him a warm smile when his eyes met yours. You leaned down to kiss him, pressing your lips against his and closing your eyes, feeling the way he relaxed in to your touch. Your lips moved together, in time as if this were practiced. You pulled away, and he gave you a little smile.

“You’re such a romantic,” you laughed. “It’s adorable. I love it.”

He clicked his tongue and looked away, though the little upwards tick in the corner of his lip gave away his stifled smile.

The rest of the night was filled with stolen kisses, little laughs, and sharing one another’s embrace. Astarion truly was something else, and he saw the same in you. You were the kind of dream he’d always held, a perfect lover who was kind and sweet. You were that. You had been next to him as he gained his freedom, encouraged him and trusted him even when you shouldn’t have. And he was so happy that you had made that choice, now.

.

.

Taglist

@adequate-superstar

@be-a-fish

#astarion headcanons #astarion #bg3 astarion #bg3 #bg3 headcanons #astarion fluff #fluff #hurt/comfort #soft

[deacons-wig]

I'd prefer if we never got to see the origin of Vault Boy and Vault Tec's branding in the same way I'd rather not get a canon answer of who started the War or how. That's the point of War Never Changes.

Vault Boy is a sinister figure in his cheerful embrace of Armageddon. Giving the Vault Tec brand a face and a name and a backstory feels so unimportant to what is actually interesting about Fallout. What's important to me is the big picture pre war, and the details of what comes after.

What is interesting to me is exploring how propaganda is designed to convince people how close they are to annihilation--or homelessness, unemployment, obscurity, or being The Other and therefore destined to suffer--in hell, in oppressions, being ostracized. Honestly insert any sort of marginalization or suffering here. Crony capitalism uses propaganda to market products designed to manipulate people into buying distance between themselves and that annihilation. Putting themselves "behind the thumb" of Vault Boy, so to speak. Buying a lifestyle. Vault Boy does it with a wink and a smile, inviting those who can afford it to buy their way to safety while using capital and fear to perpetuate the cycle. I don't need the specifics to understand this.

Some ghoulnaysis below the cut:

I'll admit, my initial reaction to pre-war Ghoulgins being the inspiration for Vault Boy was funny! Mr. Cooper Howard, washed up actor experiencing an existential crisis being shoehorned into corporate propaganda that then haunts him for the next 200+ years? Selling manifest destiny, racism, the Rugged Individual, the revisionist history that cowboys were a) white and b) more than a brief footnote in the history of the colonization of North America's west. The commodification of entertainers/creatives/public figures. Selling identities to be packaged into a product that will outlive them? Only to have that person live alongside that role they regret (?) playing... kinda tasty, if we have to give Vault Boy a backstory, though I didn't get a clear sense of his actual feelings about being used as a propaganda guy which I think is a failure of the show to commit to the narrative they set up, which happens with a lot of the show's (lack of) engagement with Fallout's larger themes anyway.

But The Ghoul (stupid name!!! weird and boring choice!!!) is just such an uncompelling and repellent character to me. I love a good bad guy or even anti-hero, but honestly he lacks any interiority. He's an evil karma character (eats people, waterboards and mutilates people, sells people to organ harvesters...like? that literally makes you evil in the games...) but the narrative pushes him as an antihero or someone with gray morality because he what..."likes" dogs? And isn't as decayed or unsettling looking as other ghouls (implying handsome=good or interesting). People aren't afraid of him because he is a ghoul, they're afraid of him because he's evil and will hurt them! Sometimes for no reason! I see the callback to the director telling him to shoot his co-star and Cooper saying he's "the good guy," but is that why he becomes so fucking evil post war? Really?

I don't know why he does what he does other than...the world sucked before and sucks now so he might as well represent the basest of human behavior? That seems to be the thesis of the show--unless kindness and community is engendered (by the vaults, by Management, by a civic government, by corporations) people will descend into chaos.

So why have this poorly executed anti-hero be the origin of Vault Boy? What are the narrative choices being made here? Is it just Rule of Cool?

Personally I would like a pathetic, rotting wet cat of a ghoul, some sort of carved out husk of a washed up movie star either trying to relive his glory days, or avoid them--having given up hope of finding his family after 200 years--being dragged into Lucy's orbit and being constantly reminded of his Vault Boy fame, that she is a walking Vault Girl with her Okey Dokey's and Golden Rule. He'd be a joke, a footnote of the old world. He'd be mean and snarky, even unpredictable and uncooperative--have a public persona of friendly curiosity and a private, cynical one.

Pathetic Ghoulgins would remind audiences of the cost of capitalism and imperialism without resorting to the thesis that war never changes means that people are inherently cruel and will resort to violence, rather than existent corporate and political power structures intentionally create the conditions in which people accept perpetual cycles of exploitation and harm for the sake of their own safety and comfort, despite knowing the cost of maintaining the status quo, and not seeing or believing that distance between the status quo and total annihilation is measured by the smiling thumbs up of a cartoon mascot.

I'm sure there are other ways The Ghoul could have been a successful character as well but.... That's satire. That's interesting. That's Fallout.

#fallout #fallout tv #fallout prime #fallout tv show #the ghoul #cooper howard #vault tec #“let people enjoy things” well i enjoy critical analysis #i dislike the big picture of the show but i love fallout enough to dig through the mess #fotv critical #fallout critical

[lovemyromance]

Antis: “Azriel only feels lust for Elain”

…

Ok. Yeah. Sure. Exactly.

Azriel only feels lust for Elain.

…

Azriel has been a side character thus far in this series, seen and understood only through outsider eyes (Feyre, Nesta, Cassian, Rhys).

According to all his friends/family, he’s absurdly in love with Mor. Or at least he was, until he seemingly moved on

But then in ACOSF, in the ONE POV we get from Azriel…he is showing desire for only Elain.

Now, keep in mind: This is after his interactions with Mor, after his interactions with Gw*n, the hordes of women in Velaris, etc. And yet… he is only showing attraction and feelings for Elain.

If this man just wanted a quickie, you really think he’d have to go to such lengths for that? I’m betting he’s everyone in the IC’s hall pass 😭 This is not a man that needs to elaborately scheme to get laid 😭

And if this man just wanted a mate, you think he’d be chasing after the one female he KNOWS is already mated? He KNOWS she is not his mate. With that logic, wouldn’t he be looking towards anyone BUT Elain?

You can’t be out here saying “Azriel only wants a mate” and then in the same breath saying “Azriel only feels lust”. Which is it? Is he looking for only his partner in eternal-everlasting love or is he just looking for sex? Those two cannot exist at the same time for the same person in one instance.

And before you reply all indignant and huffy, I should tell you that yes, I have heard the ridiculous other explanation from antis saying “well he has a lot of issues so he goes for unavailable women because he’s not ready to be loved and deep down he knows that” 🤡

Do I need to deign that with a response? Now you’re saying “He only wants a mate but he isn’t ready for a mate so he then wants only lust with Elain”. Make it make sense. Please tell me where in his POV it says any of this, and it might help me understand how you came up with all these words. You are making assumptions, on top of assumptions. We do not know ANYTHING about this man. He has ONE POV and in it all he does is dream about Elain and have some banter with his trainee. How are y’all coming up with such a complex, deep layered backstory and user guide for Azriel when we don’t know shit about him?? We don’t even know his last name ffs. How are you out here advocating as his personal therapist??

Just read the words on the page as they are. They paint a clear enough picture.

Call it lust. Call it love. Call it attraction. Call it whatever you want - but there is something worth acknowledging between Elain and Azriel. Something important enough that SJM published an entire bonus chapter about it.

People speculated they might be a thing throughout ACOMAF-ACOFAS, but then that bonus chapter came out and clear as day you can see them so down bad for each other, they’re ready to risk it all while everyone’s still snoring upstairs. You think either of them would’ve risked that for a one-night stand 🤡🤡?

….

And do we really think if the next book was Azriel x Other Character, SJM would start it off with him fantasizing about getting on his knees for another woman? Sure the very first love interest might not be endgame for SJM… but both Az & Elain have had other LIs (Mor, Graysen, Lucien even). They are not each others first, but they are certainly each others last.

They are the only pairing currently mutually attracted to each other. They aren’t fully in love yet (that we know of), but there is something there. That’s what their book will then explore. The idea that despite fate, despite politics, despite everything against them, Az & Elain will choose each other.

But I thought that was obvious 🤷🏻‍♀️

#elriel #azriel #elain archeron #elain x azriel #pro elain #acotar #elain

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Sandman fic recs for Underrated Characters and Ships: Lucienne Edition (part 1)

This is a non-exhuastive list of my personal favorite Lucienne-centric and Morphienne fics and series I've found so far. If you can think of any others I've forgotten don't hesitate to add on!

Okay first off: my friend @pratchettfan87 has written a lovely fic I'm helping beta where Lucienne and her comic counterpart meet and bond and you need to go read it rn You Are The Light That Guides the Way. It's also a great exploration of the events of Sandman from the perspective of both librarians. It's not complete but it's rapidly getting put together so pls go give her encouragement and feedback so you can keep seeing more if you want! I'm gonna try to roughly go in order from most to least nsfw as we go down. Part 2 will contain other ships like Gault x Lucienne and Calliope x Lucienne.

Gen fics

And the Darkness Hummed by @navigatorwrongway - one of my all time absolute favorite Lucienne fics in this fandom, period that delves into her backstory before she even met Dream and takes you on a Journey through her life and it's. Mwah. It's art

nosso amor (our love) by marveling_under_an_open_sky is an achingly tender exploration of Lucienne's trauma and her getting comforted for once.

For Morphienne

Literally everything @cosmictapestry (aka cosmicjourney on AO3) has ever written is an instant recommend from me. Seriously. I can't think of one single thing she's written I didn't like. Heed the tags, but if you're old enough to be interacting with the NSFW stuff and it's your thing, do yourself a favor and dive into their delicious Morphienne smut drabbles on tumblr and the longer stuff on AO3. Go do it right now. It can be emotional and painful but all very well written. And his We Divinity series is heartbreaking and beautiful and with all the characters spot-on and the writing poetry like you've never seen.

and take thee up thy nurse's fee by stellerssong, a selkie!Dream au with wonderful atmosphere

It's About Old Friends by JerseyDragons is sweet and funny and a spot on take on a queerplatonic/sort of romantic version of their dynamic.

Wingmanning for Fun and Profit by unseenbox - is an absolutely adorable look at a Morphienne love confession from Matthew's POV.

Jewel by @softest-punk is super lovely and sweet, pure quality fluff.

Stellerssong's red moon series is a really interesting werewolf au of not just Morphienne but also Corintheus. It's on a slow burn but it's definitely worth it imo.

Also stellerssong's OTHER series "through endless revisions" is just a fantastic take on Daniel!Dream adjusting to his new life and everyone who knew and loved him having to do the same, but the specifically Morphienne standouts are as follows: please come back and be (just a little bit), eutropic, a pillar I am upright , room for one more taste , and for just to suffer that hurt. All of these are well worth the read, most but room for one more taste have angst and smut involved as well as sharp writing and characterization. Seriously can't recommend these enough, these are some of the best of the lot and that's saying something.

Dreams Written in Sand by cunticuss very slow burn but lovely and feels very them.

Woolgathering by sunsorbit is ANOTHER slow burn series full of wonderful characterization and pining and includes the library as an observer and character in itself which I'm always a sucker for.

How Vibrant the Color by unnecessary - unfffff. This is peak poetic emotional therapy dream sex. One of my favorites.

Gold by MDWG aka the most tender sex imaginable.

Contrapposto by stuntmuppet - pure smut. My only complaint is how short it is.

#the sandman #lucienne #morphienne #sandman fic recs #lucienne appreciation squad

[drghostwrite]

Hey um… can we please get the Alex Vause x Reader from ages ago?? I’m desperate for new OITNB stuff…

My summer rewatch has me thirsty as hell.

Hehehe this is why I write... tbh I didn't think too many would be interested but I started it anyway just waiting for the right moment.

Summary: Alex Vause is the readers ex and reader is now a successful FBI agent married, with a baby on the way and they need Alex’s help with a case. what happens when two ex-lovers collide and now have lives of their own.

********************************************************************

You sat in the makeshift office of a conference room looking over the drawing boards and trying to make sense of the case at hand, your agents were out in the field and here you were reduced to scut paperwork because being 6 1/2 months pregnant doesn't coincide with proper fieldwork. You decided to stay back and look over the files one more time and hopefully pull out some leads, While looking over the files you got an idea, your ex-girlfriend, Alex Vause a glorified drug lord whom you met in prison.

Now to give backstory she made a deal that she could get on parole if she helped the prison with an undercover op but they told her only one agent was going in, happens that you were deep undercover and no one including prison staff knew about you. You quickly learned the rules of the yard and started to become pretty known as to not be messed with, at least one too many fights or turning the most sought-after advances away will do that. You took a liking to Alex quickly and she began to express feelings for you, when she got out and your operation was done you told her everything and she left Piper in the dust, you worked well for years until you got the offer to transfer with the bureau and work for the BAU and you took it and Alex didn't agree, resulting in a pretty bad break up.

---time jump---

Now you were watching as a uniform escorted her into one of the interrogation rooms, you saw as Emily and Reid quickly made their in and started the investigation but not five minutes later they were back out in the hallway, and Emily was bee-lining for you. You didn't tell anyone but JJ that you knew her and so you wanted to keep it that way.

"What's up Prentiss?"

"Our witness in room one doesn't want to talk."

"Lawyered up?" asked JJ.

"Nope she just doesn't want to talk to anyone, but ex-criminal and all I can see why."

"I'm sure I can sort something out, maybe me and Rossi or Derek." JJ offered.

"The tough guy act won't work on her," you said not looking up from the file you held in front of you.

"You sure because she's giving a pretty tough exterior in there." Emily explained.

"Trust me I know it won't work."

"Look Y/N I get that, and I get that you're in charge but I've been doing this longer, I'm sure one of us can get her to talk." Emily snapped back.

"Yea, Y/N can." JJ scoffed at Emily's response.

Emily and JJ exchanged looks, "Is there something there?"

JJ slowly looked at you as you nodded.

"Once upon a time....send her to my office instead." you trailed before laying the file down and making your way down the hall, pulling your jacket over your shoulders. You sat in your office at your desk and waited as soon as the door cracked JJ peeked her head in and allowed Alex to step through, at first you could see the tough exterior.

"I think SSA Sinclair has it from here so I'll step out."

"Thank you, agent Jareau."

You studied Alex as she explored your office, her back turned to you, "Unit Chief SSA Sinclair, so this is what you turned into, some big FBI hotshot, and let me guess Agent Jareau is your girlfriend, or wait is it Agent Emily Prentiss, the one that could pass for my sister." she said sharply

"Alex?" you gently replied, She turned at first her eyes were sharp until she looked at you and she could see your bump silhouetted by your tight tank and the jacket, the silver band that perfectly accented your tanned skin, immediatly her gaze softened almost showing hurt.

"You...You're pregnant."

"26 weeks..."

"And married?"

"Yea, she was great, you would've loved her."

"What did she do? ...would've?"

"She was a charge nurse at a local ER, she um passed away four months ago after I found out about the pregnancy."

"How?"

"She had cancer and the baby was a last resort, little did we know it would take two months before she passed."

"I...I...wow," she said speechless.

"Alex I'm sorry."

"For what, turning your back on me and getting everything you ever wanted... Y/N I never would've been able to give this to you."

"I wasn't asking you to..."

"Love, they never would've let you take the job if you were still with me. Director of an FBI task force and married to an Ex-drug lord, yeah right, a girl can only dream."

"Alex..."

"I'm sure that's not why you called me here though."

"No I need some help with this case, but please I want to talk."

"Okay, what's the case about?" you explained the case to her and talked over it for a couple hours before you figured out a lead and quickly alerted the team, you made sure they knew that you were still working on some things so even though they can go look into it you'd stay behind.

"So back to earlier, you wanted to talk?" Alex brought your past statement back up.

"Umm... yea I think we ended things roughly."

"I mean we did but what is there to talk about."

"Alex..."

"Y/N I'm still in love with you, I still think about you. You were one of the best things to happen to me, I had Piper yes, but we were so toxic to each other and I left her for you. You showed me a whole new side of myself one that I really embraced and I still do, you showed me how to love and I owe you everything for that."

"I... I don't know what to say." you looked into her eyes that filled with longing.

"Alex I still love you, I would've moved heaven and earth to marry you and be here with you today."

"See and that's the problem, you were so strong and driven, I knew they would take your career if you married me so I had to end things."

"You knew... how could you know that?!" you bit back.

"Because Y/N I lived in the real world not this protected career minded, innocent bubble."

"And you're saying I did... I would rather be happy then spend my life wondering."

"So you're not happy, with your big job and fancy office?"

"I didn't mean that." you stood to your feet.

"So what did you mean, you would've been happy living a life married to a criminal because that was our future, no promotions, no fancy offices or houses or cars, none of it."

"But I would've been with you..." you yelled back cutting her off, "God, don't you get it, I would've been with YOU, Alex." Before you could say anything else she stood over you and her lips were on yours, she placed her hands on your hips pulling you closer and deeper into the kiss. Your baby bump brushed against her waist and it sent shivers down her spine, if only that was her baby in there, she deepened the kiss more and backed you up laying you on the couch, she ran skilled fingers down your sides, as you arched your back pressing your bump into her again. You then pulled away, "Alex, I don't..."

"Oh My God You're wife... err ex-wife... or I'm sorry." she panicked.

"It's not your fault."

"No I shouldn't have done that, I mean Jesus you're still wearing the band." she placed her head in her hands.

"Alex, look at me," you held her hand, " I wear the band in remembrance she would want me to be happy, in fact, she told me on her deathbed that she wanted me to find someone to be happy with again."

"But Y/N the job, and the baby, you don't want me."

"I want nothing more than you. The job I can make arrangements with, the bureau is hiring ex-criminal consultants for some high stakes departments, and the baby, well it's going to need more than one parent to help raise it." You slowly grabbed her hand and lowered it so she could feel the baby move.

"Really?"

"If you're up for getting to relearn some things I think I'm willing to give it a shot."

"If it means I get to have you back then I'm willing to do anything," she said pulling you into a hug.

****************************************************************

Okay, my little peeps let me know what you think and if you want another part or maybe another Alex Vause x reader fic the inbox is OPEN!!!

For my other requests they are currently being worked on as fast as possible but I'm working on a pretty big one and it might be multiple parts.

#x yn #pregnancy #oitnb #alex vause #alex vause x reader #orange is the new black #fluff prompts #angst #angst with a happy ending

[cosmicjoke]

Alright, so, I wanted to write a little here about the new story from Isayama coming out, and address a few things. Before I get to that though, I want to say how special I think this is. Unlike some of the complaints I'm hearing about regarding the story being about Levi, and it being "unnecessary" because we supposedly already know about Levi's childhood, well, no, we don't. We don't actually know a whole hell of a lot about Levi's childhood. People don't realize that, in the main canon, we never actually get a real look at Levi's childhood Underground except through a handful of panels, all of which aren't from Levi's perspective at all, but from Kenny's. We get no insight whatsoever into Levi's mental or emotional state, into what he's actually thinking or feeling. Again, it's all from Kenny's POV, not Levi's. So how anyone could say that 'we already have Levi's backstory, we don't need more', blah, blah, blah, is beyond me. You're wrong if you think that. We're finally going to get a look at Levi's life growing up and finally get a look at how those events actually shaped him and affected him. We could only engage in extrapolation before, based off what little we did know. Levi's voice here is important to acknowledge and hear, because it's the voice of a child growing up in extreme poverty and violence. Levi was a victim of social indifference and disenfranchisement. He was a victim of persecution and poverty and violence. And we've never, before now, gotten the chance to hear him, or hear what those experiences did to him. We've only gotten to see the end result. So anyone saying 'we don't need' to know more about Levi's childhood, again, you're dead wrong. You might as well say that it's not important or necessary to hear the voice of any child who's suffered the things Levi has simply because you know the basic outline or generalized facts of that child's life. Get the hell outta' here. Yes we do. I can scarcely think of anything more important.

Secondly, for anyone whining about the story being about him and not about one of the other vets, you have to understand, Levi is to the vets trio as Eren is to the EMA trio. He's the focal point. He's more than just a side-character, or a supporting character. Levi is, in many ways, an embodiment of some of the most core themes of SnK. He's representative within the story of some of its most essential messages. He's just as vital to the story as Mikasa, or Armin, or even Eren, in terms of understanding its thematic thrust. He's as much of a main character as Mikasa or Armin, in many ways. So a greater exploration of Levi's childhood, through Levi's perspective, is vital and important, I think, to further understanding the whole of SnK.

Anyway, with that out of the way, like I said, I think this is really special. I think it's amazing that we're getting more background on Levi, when for all intents and purposes, it seemed Isayama was done with SnK. People should be grateful, instead of whining as usual because they didn't get exactly what they wanted. Jesus. If the story had been about anyone else, I wouldn't have complained. But Levi is a special character. There's a reason he's so popular. And it isn't because he's "the strongest" or a bad-ass, or "cool". It's because he's an incredibly deep, layered and complex person, a character that connects with so many people because there's something intrinsically real about him. He is, in many ways, what we all wish we could be. He's a genuine hero. Someone who's suffered immensely, but who, despite that suffering, not because of it, is still a deeply good and kind man. He's someone who didn't let the cruelty of the world ruin him, or corrupt him, despite him personally experiencing more of that cruelty than really any other character in the story. And so Levi is in many ways representative of the story's hope. Of how goodness and kindness can still exist, even in the face of such overwhelming darkness. Even in defiance of that darkness. Levi overcomes in a way no other character in SnK does. He experienced and lived through the worst humanity had to offer and still came out the other side as the best humanity has to offer.

So that's why it's important for this story to be told. Seeing Levi live through the horror of his childhood, but within the context of knowing him to be a genuinely good and kind man, of him being a genuine hero, will drive that theme home. That the world's cruelty and the cruelty of other people doesn't have to end with us ourselves also becoming cruel.

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says. I can't wait. And I know the vast majority of fans can't wait either. If you're disappointed the story isn't about some other character, fine, fair enough, but don't shit on other people's excitement, and don't shit on Isayama because of it. We're lucky to be getting anything extra from him at all. Also, I don't know why anyone would be surprised that the story is about Levi, since Isayama said months and months ago, after he was asked if he had any plans to continue AoT, that he had a story specifically about Levi that he wanted to tell. This isn't out of nowhere, and this isn't just to capitalize on Levi's popularity. This is something Isayama wanted to do.

#Levi Ackerman #Bad Boy #hajime isayama #attack on titan #shingkei no kyojin

[argonapricot]

People accusing Shin of having no personality/characterization to dunk on her is so annoying... First of all, it's totally fine and normal to like a Star Wars character who hasn't gotten a canon personality yet (i.e. Darth Maul in Phantom Menace) based on their design / story / performance / vibes. It's normal for mysterious characters to exist, and it's normal for people to like those characters. But we do actually already know some cool stuff about Shin; she does have A Characterization and A Story even when the show is holding back with her.

I agree that for now there are many unknowns about her, and fans are having to speculate about her while we wait for the show to fill in the gaps and give us canon answers. (I agree that it would be nice to know more of what the showrunners undoubtably know but have kept hidden so far, like any information about her backstory at all. I am sure they are planning to explore more backstory in the next season, but it's a huge shame just bc Ray Stevenson can no longer be part of that exploration :( )

However, the information we do have about her is totally sufficient to make her cool and interesting. Imo.

"Baylan Skoll's feral, ruthless apprentice, who has a padawan braid, who is dark side-y enough that she seems eager for violence but still asks 'like me?' when Baylan is talking about Ezra being a Jedi." like yeah sorry that's all I need I'm sold! Sorry!

Seeing her make this facial expression before her first duel/encounter ever with another padawan:

Is enough for me! That's already something really interesting to work with! Or the dynamic between her and Baylan in this specific moment

For one moment he just suddenly beams fondness/pride at her and she seems so intense and excited when she bows back, as she goes off to try to murder some people. Then she gets so visibly upset later when Sabine tells Ahsoka to go get the map, thwarting the assignment she was given here of holding off the both of them.

That's an exciting and interesting master-padawan dynamic! I am going to be interested in Baylan Skoll's padawan who has this dynamic with Baylan Skoll as a foil to Ahsoka's relationship with Anakin and u Cannot Stop Me.

Sometimes I like to look at an actor's performance and observe what they seem to be feeling. Sometimes I like to wonder about things that have not yet been revealed to the audience, I find that an interesting experience... I am sorry that u cannot appreciate her Sublime & Unique Vibes....

The way she acts when she fights is part of her characterization! As with everyone in this show, her fighting style is designed and choreographed to be expressive of her character. The way she moves is expressive. She's so aggressive and excited and alive when she fights. That's information about who she is! It's fun information!

Look at this. Look at how she reacts when Baylan tells her to go up against Ahsoka Tano's ex-apprentice.

I admit I cannot tell u with 100% certainty what she is canonically feeling in this moment, but whatever it is she is feeling it SO INTENSELY. The fact that she reacts like this is interesting information about her character, bc every single conceivable explanation for why she is emoting this way is interesting and cool!

She seems kinda excited. She seems to find it significant and momentous. That's fun. We don't know why she feels this way, but it's too late she is already interesting sorry

Sorry for observing the facial expressions that a character makes and learning things about them that way

It's annoying that the show hasn't taken the time to reveal more things about her yet I agree but why are you being mean 2 her... Having mysterious characters is normal Star Wars procedure :/

Like yes we all know this is not Andor, the writing is not always brimming with deft characterization, that's a shame, but that doesn't mean the show hasn't given us a lot of interesting canon building blocks to work with.

tl:dr this is a skill issue and I love her very much

It's honestly kind of funny coming from the silmarillion fandom... some people simply know how to appreciate cool and unique characters based on limited information.

#shin hati #disclaimer i am kinda intoxicated #hopefully i will not regret posting this I'm definitely not trying to actually Start Shit with anyone #i just wanted to be excited about her for a little bit #because like lowkey i am Extremely Passionate about how good she and baylan are #the quality of their vibes is basically unmatched #they feel so Old Republic-y. they feel so tolkien-y. their soundtracks go crazy. i am sooo interested #they are Interesting To Me #ahsoka series #baylan skoll #i just have to assume that nobody who finds shin boring is a lesbian #i feel like if you are a lesbian you are Paying Attention To Shin #and if you pay attention to her she is actually::: very interesting and cool #anyway #this took me like two hours to write what the fuck

[trojanteapot]

The writing blindspots in Infinity Train with respect to race

To get this out of the way, I love Infinity Train! It’s one of my favourite shows! I started writing fanfiction because of this show, and it still inspires me every day. 

I really do think that Infinity Train as a whole is a very thought provoking children’s show and I applaud it for exploring darker themes relevant to psychology and psychological well-being, which are topics often overlooked not just in children’s media but for adult media as well. However, I do want people to acknowledge some of its shortcomings, especially because it is a show that is dealing with such heavy and complex topics, and also positions its human characters as coming from a world which is pretty much a stand-in for our own.

Now I know that the storyboard artists for Infinity Train were quite diverse, but I don’t really know if it’s the same for the writer's room. The reason why is that as a POC viewer, it really does seem obvious to me from the way that the POC characters were written pre-season 4, that their race was mostly an afterthought.

Okay and to be perfectly clear, this is NOT A BAD THING. This is just a neutral thing. Obviously we don’t need every single story with POC characters to have to be about their experience as a specific racialized person. There are experiences that are shared among everybody no matter what race they are. I am not saying that you need to do super in-depth research into every single cultural nuance of every ethnic minority before writing them. It depends on if you really want to delve into how their heritage or traditions or specific life experiences inform their character arc. Not every character arc is about that. And it shouldn’t be!

With that being said, I do think that perhaps the writers should have tried to consider asking themselves very basic surface level questions on how being non-white would inform the problems and conflicts their characters would face. They don't need to know the ins and outs of each culture for each of their characters, but they could have just asked “How would I feel/react to others if people made weird assumptions about me based on my race? How differently would my parents raise me if they were afraid of prejudice or discrimination?” I think they should have reflected on that before setting in stone the backstories for their POC characters, especially with respect to Grace.

Part 1: GRACE'S PARENTS

So I am not Black myself, but I have had many conversations about Grace with one of my friends in fandom who is Black, and we both do get the sense that Grace’s race was very much just an afterthought to her characterization. To be clear, this is NOT because she has very wealthy parents. I am well aware that there are Black Americans with generational wealth. However, knowing what we know about affluent Black people in the real world, how Grace’s parents treated her makes absolutely no sense.

For example, among extremely wealthy people of any race, networking and knowing the right people is of the utmost importance. This is why so many rich people send their kids to prestigious private schools so their kids can get a heads start on knowing the progeny of other one-percenters. If you look up famous people with famous kids, chances are you’ll see a list of all of the very exclusive private academies that they all went to (looking at you, The Strokes). This is the case for wealthy people of all backgrounds, not just white people. And honestly, I imagine that the pressure is at least double for the kids of wealthy POC parents to get to know the right people as early as possible to be able to open as many doors as possible, in order to mitigate the inherent disadvantage of being a racialized person.

But what did Grace’s parents do? According to her, they never sent her to school of any kind, only having private tutors teach her, and her ballet instructor only made her join the other kids in her class once for a recital or something? This is, for lack of a better term... buck wild.

In addition, her parents are American diplomats. Diplomacy is an extremely people-oriented position. If anything, her parents would want her to not only be in the best private school, but to be the best student in school, to know the best people, to join the school clubs that all the other diplomats’ kids are in, and train her from a young age to be a social butterfly. Yes I know that diplomats will often leave their home country and be stationed somewhere else for long durations, and yes their kids could be taken out of school then, but some diplomats just enroll them in a different institution in the visiting country, or not take them out of school at all. This is what the IB Program was invented for, actually. Her parents being diplomats does not justify never enrolling Grace in school. In fact, it makes it less justifiable. 

The fact that they did the extreme opposite of that is so illogical to me that I wonder if perhaps the writers just cobbled together a whole bunch of tropes that they think apply to rich people without actually checking if any of it makes sense, doubly so for rich people who are non-white.

I think the reason why is because they wanted Grace’s parents to stifle her growth and her natural social skills, but on the Train, she can be who she truly is. I definitely agree that Grace finding herself and being able to truly blossom into the girlboss she is on the Train is a great plot point from a characterization perspective. However, I do not think that it should be because she was being stifled by her parents. The solution is staring the writers right in their face, but they can’t see it because it’s a blindspot for them.

What they should have gone with is: Grace's inability to become a social butterfly and a queen bee in her daily life is because she is a dark-skinned Black girl!!!

Her parents have extremely high expectations for her socially. They could have pushed her to make friends with kids she didn’t like just because they wanted to be on better terms with their parents for networking or diplomacy purposes – which they could have shown with that one girl from her ballet class. Missed opportunity! But no matter how hard Grace tries, she will never be seen as the perfect girl because of other people’s assumptions about her just based on her race. 

Once she’s on the Train, Grace then uses her people skills and finds that they’re a lot more effective there, because it’s no longer Earth’s society, it’s a different world, literally! Plus this even allows her to be a little bit more mean, a little bit more honest, something she wouldn’t be able to get away with in the real world without being punished for it harder than her white peers. We already see hints of this with how she interacts with Simon, a white guy who is the same age as her. 

CAVEAT: The dialogue where Grace reveals that she never went to school was something that she told Hazel in a private conversation. So it could be that she did go to school, but lied about it to seem more relatable to Hazel, who had never been around other kids before. Lying is in character for Grace because she would pretty much do anything to get on somebody’s good side. But the way that they had her voice actress deliver those lines, and the way that her expression changes when she talks about how lonely she was indicates that she was telling the truth. To be charitable, I suppose we can land on the reading that Grace told Hazel a half-truth. She did go to school, but she was frequently taken out of class or skipped semesters because of her parents’ jobs as diplomats. So her loneliness in that instant is at the very least truthful. Your mileage is going to vary on this interpretation of course.

This points to a weakness that I can sort of see in Infinity Train in general, where they push societal problems into purely the realm of personal failings. “It’s not because of society that Grace couldn’t succeed, it was solely due to her abusive parents” being just one example. 

Never forget this monologue from a Black father to his daughter in Scandal:

Part 2: JESSE'S ARC WAS PRETTY GOOD THOUGH

The thing is they actually did write a POC character having to deal with a problem that was society-oriented quite well, at least in my view. Although, I am still pretty sure it was still coming from a race-blind method of writing the characters. Otherwise I feel like Jesse’s status as an Indigenous American would have come up more than a grand total of one time. That they could do this well for Jesse makes the fact that they didn’t do the same for Grace quite disappointing. 

Jesse’s main issue that he had to overcome was he kept caving to peer pressure and had trouble saying no to others for fear of disappointment. Now, this problem is universal, and it’s not solely something that is specific to Jesse’s race or ethnicity or cultural background. In fact, I am quite certain that they wrote Jesse as a character without even considering that this problem he faces is relatable to POC experiences. But I definitely know a lot of POC in my life who do take on more responsibilities than they can manage, or feel a higher pressure to fit in with their peers. Hell, I’m that POC in many cases! It’s kind of like background radiation to us as minorities that we just have to do more emotional labour in order to be seen as equals. That’s just the reality of the situation. You can understand and relate to Jesse’s problem without being Indigenous/Native American, but at the same time it feels like a natural problem for him to have, because he is non-white!

I will admit that a personal blind spot of mine is I don't know and haven't had the chance to speak to too many Indigenous people, so there could be aspects of Jesse's arc that don't really make sense. If you are somebody who knows more than me, please feel free to correct me! I would love to hear how you felt about Jesse's characterization and arc as an Indigenous person!

Part 3: SEASON 4, THE ASIANS 

Alright now it's time to tackle stuff that I actually could have any ounce of authority talking about? Which is how they wrote Ryan and Min-Gi in Book 4. I myself am Asian-Canadian. Specifically, I am a first generation Chinese-Canadian but I've been in Canada since I was six so I find a lot of the experiences of second generation Asian-Canadians more relatable to me. In addition, my partner is fourth generation Japanese-Canadian, so his dad would be the same generation as Ryan's dad. (I also am really really into rock music, but that's besides the point.)

What they got right:

So first off, I could tell that they really did consult Asian people in writing this season, so good on them! The difference in how Ryan’s parents raised him in contrast to Min-Gi’s parents felt very natural and realistic to me. Ryan’s family is more westernized and has assimilated more into broader Canadian culture. 

The fact that Ryan has an English name and not a Japanese name immediately shows that. Min-Gi’s parents not choosing an English name for him is a bit of a surprise; very few Asian immigrants go without an English name back in the 20th century. Even nowadays it’s extremely common for us to go by English or Western names that we, or our parents chose, instead of names in our native language. But there are good reasons to not choose an English name. Perhaps Min-Gi’s parents wanted him to have a closer tie to his Korean roots, or perhaps if they travelled back to Korea to visit family it would be easier for them. 

Also, Min-Gi’s parents not supporting his dream of becoming a musician and want him to get a stable job in… I think it was finance? Definitely true back then as it is today. I’m not entirely sure how Ryan’s parents feel about his life choices, and we’ll get into that later.

The character arcs for Ryan and Min-Gi are excellent. This dichotomy of wanting to do the good, responsible thing that your parents want for you because they want you to have the best chance at a good life, and doing what your heart tells you to do, is an extremely relevant character arc. It’s a life decision that is not just an Asian thing, but something anybody can relate to. However, in East Asian cultures that were generally influenced by Confucianism, which includes both Korean and Japanese culture, upholding your duty as a child to not disappoint your parents in any way is something that Asian cultures are prone to emphasizing to a great degree. We see this in other media centered on the Asian immigrant experience as well, such as Kim’s Convenience, Turning Red, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

What was a bit puzzling to me:

So I'll start off with the thing that definitely raised many many eyebrows if you were an East Asian or Southeast Asian watching the show: Why were Min-Gi's parents so friendly with Ryan's parents when they're Korean and Ryan's family is Japanese?!

So like, not to bring politics into it but… World War II happened. It affected, you know, the world and stuff. And in the Pacific Theatre (god I hate that term), the Imperial Japanese Army… invaded Korea?? Among many other countries??? And did a bunch of war crimes?????

Like, Japan was invading other countries well before WWII even started… This is common knowledge… for Asian people that is.

Yeah I know what you're gonna say. “But Ryan's family is Japanese-Canadian!! They wouldn't have done those war crimes! They would have been sent to internment camps!” Yeah dude, I know! My partner is Japanese-Canadian, remember?! And even if I didn't know him, we learned about the internment camps in history class. It's pretty common knowledge among progressives in Canada and the US. George Takei did a whole musical about it. 

But that's not how racism works. I can speak from personal experience that the scars of WWII trauma in Chinese and Korean communities run deep. Even my own parents needed a bit of convincing to be okay with me dating my partner, and my parents were born two decades after WWII ended. My partner said that one time when he and his grandmother got into an elevator with an elderly Korean woman, and at first she was friendly, but once she realized they were of Japanese descent, the elevator ride became deathly silent afterwards. 

So when you have Min-Gi’s parents, who were probably born during or slightly after WWII, immigrate to Canada, and then be like… totally okay and hunky dory pals with Ryan’s parents just because their kids were born the same day in the same hospital…? I mean sure, anything can happen. But it definitely speaks to how abnormally accepting, forgiving, and welcoming Min-Gi’s parents are. 

To be clear, this isn’t something that pulled me out of the experience, personally. Yes, it is strange, but it’s not impossible for a Korean family to be super okay and friends with a Japanese family. Maybe it’s because their small town has very few Asians and so they have to stick together due to solidarity or something. Maybe Min-Gi’s parents are the type of Christians that believe in the inherent goodness of everyone and giving everyone a chance. Maybe they are just extremely progressive and see Ryan’s family as Canadian more than Japanese (highly unlikely), or they know about the internment camps and that was enough to get over their biases toward them (also unlikely). I dunno, anything can happen.

The other thing that bugged me was that they really didn’t explore Ryan’s relationship with his family to the same depth as Min-Gi’s relationship with his family. 

They already set up the contrast of like, you have an immigrant who is more connected to their cultural background, and a third generation descendent who is less connected, and more alienated from his cultural background. That kind of stuff can really weigh on you as somebody who is a minority. You feel like you simultaneously aren’t Canadian enough because you aren’t white, and that you’re not enough of your cultural background because you had to assimilate, or were forced to assimilate. 

Yes it makes sense why Ryan would throw himself into his music, and be disconnected from his family. But they didn’t take the time to really explore why he is that way. Ryan barely talks about his family except randomly mentioning that they don’t care what he does with his life. I don’t even know if that really makes sense that they don’t care what he does? Maybe Ryan thinks they don’t care, but his assumption is wrong? Either way they don’t explore this point that much. Even if his parents were more assimilated they would still care if Ryan had a non-standard job, such as being a musician. There is a gap between Ryan and his family/parents that was alluded to, but not explored. Feeling like you come from two worlds but not neatly fitting into either is so quintessential to the immigrant experience of Canadians (and also Americans) it’s a shame they only paid lip service to it. 

I mentioned in a different post that Ryan would be monolingual while Min-Gi would be bilingual, and how this could cause tension between them. I imagine Ryan definitely feels inferior to Min-Gi in that sense of loss and disconnect with his heritage, just as Min-Gi is jealous that he feels he doesn't have the freedom to pursue his musical career in the same way that Ryan can. This is all stuff that can take a psychological toll on people, and is something which the Train as a metaphor for therapy should have been primed to tackle. But unfortunately we didn't really get that.

There is a term among the Chinese Diaspora known as “Hollow Bamboo (竹杠)” or “Rising Bamboo (竹升)” [more info]. It's an insult tossed at kids of Chinese ethnicity from judgemental adults for being unable to read/write Chinese or who cannot speak Mandarin/Cantonese/other Chinese languages fluently because they've been “too westernized”. They say we “look Chinese, but are hollow inside, like bamboo.” I don't know if there are equivalent terms for other Asian diaspora/immigrant communities but there must be. This term is controversial, and in my own opinion very unfair, because it blames the kids for this loss of cultural identity when there are so many different factors at play that makes them lose it, all of them outside of their own control. 

Again, I think this is a blindspot from the writers just not understanding how much this loss of cultural identity is such an integral part of the experience of being an immigrant, and that it's not only felt in first or second generation Asian-Canadians, but also third or fourth generation, and beyond. It's scary to go out there and redefine what your culture means to you, and how to pass it on to the next generation.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it, a summary of the strengths and the weaknesses in Infinity Train as it pertains to writing about racialized characters. Just want to restate that a lot of what I pointed out is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and I do overall think the writing is solid. I am not going into this to say that I expected the writers to do a good job, because generally my expectations for media and pop culture to portray POCs respectfully is quite low. At least they didn’t fall back on tired stereotypes, which is a low bar to clear, but it is where the bar still is these days.

If on the off chance Infinity Train does get uncancelled and renewed for more seasons, I hope they take these lessons and craft better narratives for their POC characters. Maybe hire some more non-white writers while you’re at it!

#infinity train #infinity train book 2 #infinity train book 3 #infinity train book 4 #infinity train book two #infinity train book three #infinity train book four #writing poc #writing black people #writing asian people #writing indigenous people #poc representation #black representation #asian representation #indigenous representation #grace monroe #jesse cosay #ryan akagi #min gi park #rymin #analysis #character analysis #media analysis #cultural identity #olivia pope #rowan pope #immigrant parents #long post #raceblind writing

[foxy-eva]

Milestone Masterlist

I want to thank everyone who participated in my second Milestone Writing Challenge! I had so much fun reading all those stories and I'm more than happy to share them with everyone else.

Fics marked with * contain smut, so minors DNI!

Spencer Reid x Reader

The Mother Wound by @imagining-in-the-margins

Prompt: Nobody said healing would be easy but they had no idea it would be this hard

Summary: Spencer and Reader bond over having emotionally absent mothers

The image of them as children making it through the dark is very touching. It's a beautifully written, bittersweet story with the ability to bring hope to those who need it.

Crazy Ex by @c-m-stuff

Prompt: Person A needs to find B before it’s too late

Summary: You and Spencer are together. When you found strange pictures of the two of you, you knew, this wasn't good

This story depicts the emotions of Spencer's girlfriend really well. I also love the team dynamics, everyone is trying to do their best despite being terrified of losing Spencer.

Rumoured Nights * by @fortheloveofwonderland

Prompt: Someone has to unexpectedly share a hotel room with their favorite coworker - who apparently really likes to cuddle

Summary: A case in a small town in Alaska forces you and your favourite coworker into sharing a room and a bed. And according to Morgan, Spencer likes to cuddle.

This fic has everything I want for a prompt like this - mutual pining, a bit of awkwardness, everyone knowing except for them and then finally them acting on their desires. I also love the team dynamics you added to the story!

Emily Prentiss x Reader

Dar+ling by @leahseclipse

What a cute story! I really like how comfortable they are with each other. Even though Emily usually is more hesitant to show her feelings, she clearly feels safe around Reader here

Prompt: Person A finally confesses their feelings for B, who has wanted to do just the same for weeks

Summary: Emily finally gets the courage to confess their feelings to the reader, who has just wanted to do it too for a while

Emily Prentiss x Jennifer Jareau

The Way You Felt by @andiebeaword

What a wonderful story! I really like the way you describe their relationship without trying to sugarcoat it. I have a similar view on Jemily - they just weren't meant to have a happy end.

Prompt: Even though their love seemed to never be enough, Person A and B can't let go of each other

Summary: While on a flight to help Spencer, exes J.J. and Emily ultimately come to terms with their buried feelings

Emily Prentiss x Aaron Hotchner

Dance With Me by @pandorasdreamings

I really appreciate it when Emily's complex backstory is mentioned in fics. She is such an interesting person to explore further, especially in the context of her relationships with other characters.

Prompt: Person A thinks they are not worth being taken care of. Person B proves the opposite

Summary: Emily is trying to move on and be happy, but her past keeps creeping up on her. Maybe the solution to her sadness has been in front of her the whole time

Aaron Hotchner x Reader

4 AM by @hotchs-bitch

I absolutely love the softness and delicacy of this story. We rarely see Aaron's vulnerable side and you did a perfect job showing us just that in such a sweet way.

Prompt: Person A didn't know where else to go in a time of need, so they ring B's doorbell

Summary: When Aaron's marriage crumbles and he finds himself alone, there's only one person he wants to turn to

Aaron Hotchner x Haley Hotchner

Question of Timing * by @codename-mom

I always thought Hotch and Haley's relationship is very interesting but I never really considered what it would be like from her perspective. It's nice to get some variety!

Prompt: The couple decides to expand their family

Summary: Aaron finally agreed to make Haley a mother and she realised that the d-day is now. The issue is: how to convinced a husband afraid AF to be a father to do the last step? 

Aaron Hotchner x Derek Morgan

Drown in my Dreams by @masterwords

I was genuinely moved by your story and your writing style. The way you show how vulnerable both men are in a difficult situation like that is very touching.

Prompt: Person A has never shown any weakness until they can’t hold back their tears anymore. Person B is there to wipe them away

Summary: After dealing with Mr. Scratch, Derek just wants to put Hotch on his bike and get the hell out of town. So he does

Aaron Hotchner & Penelope Garcia

Nocturnal Wandering by @codename-mom

I like the way you described the dynamics between Hotch and Garcia. I always thought that their friendship was really special (and very underrated).

Prompt: Person A has never shown any weakness until they can’t hold back their tears anymore. Person B is there to wipe them away

Summary: Garcia was about to leave the sixth floor of Quantico, late at night, when she discovered that someone else was still there. Someone who was not into a good mood and clearly need some help. 

Please make sure to like and reblog these fics to show all those lovely writers some love!

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds smut #criminal minds angst #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid angst #emily prentiss #emily prentiss fanfic #emily prentiss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic

[doodlegirl1998]

I remember reading a post somewhere on Tumblr, I don't remember the exact one, I know it involved how Uraraka's plot was handled and how it could've been handled better.

One part is saying that Twice should've been her villain since they both dealt in poverty, one had support while the other had nothing.

And I think that would've been way better than what we got. Because if Uraraka and Twice were to have more genuine interactions with each other, she probably would've seen some of herself in him and how she could've turned out if she didn't had her parents or her friend's support.

Twice also probably would've been touched that a hero had suffered something similar but is able to keep moving forward despite the hardships and not having as much.

So what do you think? You think it would've worked better than the stupid love triangle that's happening?

Hi @theloganator101 👋,

Yes!! Twice as Uraraka's villain would have worked so so much better narratively.

In fact, this will be an unpopular opinion, I feel like because of how Toga and Twice were set up by Hori, their roles in the narrative being switched would also work better if one of them had to die.

Hawks killing a minor (Toga is seventeen) would be harder to excuse and brush under the carpet for him. So more consequences.

Twice would feel extremely guilty because now his worst fear has happened and his best friend has died because he trusted the wrong person.

Twice having a big moment of going full villain in the final battle would be more impactful and jarring than Toga who was honestly a full villain before she joined the LOV. Since he would go from a kind, goofy guy led into villainy and crime through his circumstances, mental illness, poverty to someone consumed by the need for revenge (rather like Dabi.)

Speaking of Dabi, there was more of a friendship between him and Twice and him and Toga. So having Twice fighting Uraraka getting more distraught because he was thinking he lost another friend while fighting her would be more impactful.

Also his fight with Uraraka would be more focused on his grief, his circumstances (that are rather like Uraraka's sans support) - the parallels between them both would be interesting to explore. Uraraka would have an easier time empathising with him.

Hawks would not have a fun time - could imagine Twice sending a legion of Toga clones his way, and only calling off the attack when Uraraka gets through to him.

Plus we would see more Twice asking the honest questions to her like "How do you keep going?" "How do you stay so positive and strong? I admire you, dude." "I was so stupid I trusted the hero who went and killed Toga-chan. How do I know youre not like the guy that killed my buddy? Toga-chan just wanted a place to belong like me..." Uraraka I could see providing him with the answers, support he needed as well as helping him forgive himself for what happened.

Toga (other than her sweet moments with Twice) was set up as an unrepentant blood yandere. Her friends? Her family? No mention of them (no build up of a mysterious past like Dabi either.) She's also a mass murderer prior to joining the LOV - so that's harder to redeem than Twice who wasn't and to my memory only committed burglary.

In my opinion, the Toga/Uraraka fight as it played out in canon was a mess. Hori seemed to try to do too many things at once and failed to give any of them real depth in the process.

Not only that by he failed to explore Toga's vengeance for Twice in more depth by distracting it with the love triangle B.S.

Hori doesn't allow her to really go all out trying to kill Hawks like she could have with the clone army.

He failed to explore Toga's backstory properly (I.e did her parents actually hit her? Her kissing her friends wound better - what happened there? Did she actually just press her mouth to the wound and suck? We don't know but she's covered in blood.)

Uraraka just her 'bond' with Toga, calling her the "cutest" and saying she wants to talk about romance now is all SO forced. Whereas the parallels with Twice were all already there.

TLDR - Twice should have been Uraraka's villain instead.

#mha critical #bnha critical #anti togachako #Anti Toga Himiko #Koala dont look

[not-so-rosyyy]

[TCR Episode 9]

had to check if this really was the second to the last episode of this show. because it felt like all hope is lost here, and if hope is gone, is there even anything worth looking forward to?

all those 50+ minutes of Episode 9 were devastating in its entirety. you spent the past eight episodes empathizing with this kid, learning about what broke him, who failed him--all in flashbacks. and at some point, you start thinking, at least it's not happenning to him now. he finally has people on his side and the chance to get the help he needs.

except you're wrong. and this time, you see it actually transpire: how everybody keeps failing him. again. and again. and again.

and you feel sick just thinking about how it must feel to be in his shoes. when everything and everyone has failed you, who would you even turn to for help?

anyway, I'm just very curious now about how they intend to wrap this up by Episode 10, especially how they'd pivot to a triumphant end. or will there even be any kind of triumph for Danny to begin with?

some random notes:

because the focus shifted away a bit from Danny, the other characters got to shine this episode. all A+ performances delivered by Emmy, Amanda, Christopher, Will and Carmen. WHAT. A. BRILLIANT. CAST.

which is why it's pretty disappointing that we only got to explore their characters now. I think the show could've benefited from expanded storylines for all of them (apart from Marlin, maybe). learning more about their backstories would've given us insight not only into their motivations but also into how they see and relate to or why they find it easy/hard to empathize with Danny. it could've also driven the "we're all responsible for each other" message further home.

for example, in that blink-and-you'll-miss-it frame showing Stan's fridge, we got to learn that he's apparently a veteran. which means he might've had PTSD, resulting in his failed marriage and his heavy reliance on alcohol and pills. the question is how does this affect his view of Danny and his condition? or his overall opinion on mental health? I think it's interesting to dive deeper into that.

with that said, I wish there were more episodes to do this. or at the very least, I wish the actual trial started at least 1-2 episodes before.

that montage of Candy, Stan and Danny coupled with Rya's monologue in the background about asking for help is a bit...contrived, ngl. the dialogue is a little...hnngg. although, I think it would've packed more emotional punch if, again, we'd already known and empathized with Candy and Stan a bit more before this episode.

the scene with Rya and Candy in that diner/bar was one of the highlights, imo. it was fucking heartbreaking, I literally had to pause because I was sobbing a little too hard. it was powerful in itself, but I think it got to me on a personal level because I'm also an only child born from a single mother who I'm very close with (much like Candy and Danny were when he was little, at least)

finally, I think talking about Candy's behavior especially what she did at the end should be more nuanced and should be treated with compassion. that is what the show is asking of the viewer, tbh. she was a victim, too. and I hope everyone who watches this episode remembers that.

#the crowded room #tcr #tcr spoilers #tom holland #amanda seyfriend #emmy rossum #post-episode brainfart

[aha-chuu]

I've seen some discourse about Fontaine Act V, specifically some posts discussing misogynistic characterisations and other such things, so I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and air out my thoughts.

Firstly: most of the game up until 4.0 had sexism rooted deeply within the writing. You can look to the actual character designs to see the mistreatment of the female characters most plainly, but it's a gacha game selling waifus - whatever, that's not pertinent. More pressing is the actual writing of the female characters; despite there being several more women than men, the male characters on a whole seem to get more screen time, story presence and deliver more narrative weight than their female counterparts.

Who are the characters who seem like they'll be relevant throughout the game? Which characters are awarded a greater diversity of personalities?

There have always been well-written female characters in the game, but so many are not given ample screen time to explore that. Even more get given interesting backstories with no personality to follow through on the obscure lore.

Even in Inazuma where the quest is dominated by feminine presence, it's Kazuha who has the most voice lines throughout the game out of the Inazuma cast, Ayato (who didn't even appear!) who gets retroactively awarded the title of mastermind. The writing in Inazuma does just suck in general, but still nobody thinks of Yae in the same way they consider Albedo, Scaramouche, Neuvillette. You can make ten million arguments for why Ayaka's demure disposition is relevant to her strength as a character in non-combative ways, but the game's narrative does not capitalise on that, leaving her to feel very samey to characters we've had before.

The point being: the argument for Fontaine being a misogynistic hell hole does have a backbone in how Hoyo has previously dealt with their characters. However, in my opinion, this is yet another case of "trying and falling short is a worst crime than making no attempt at all".

Fontaine has a huge diversity of women characters who all feel distinct. You could read an unmarked line of dialogue by Lynette, Navia, Charlotte, Arlecchino, Clorinde, Sigewinne, Skirk, Furina or Foçalors and you could pretty accurately distinguish who has said it. Now, a lot of these characters are written to be victims - Lynette being child trafficked, Navia having her whole family die around her, Arlecchino an abused orphan, Foçalors doomed to die and Furina is cursed. But in no way does this diminish their individual strengths or leave them without agency.

There's a misconception that a "strong female character" has to be, basically, an 80s male action hero but with boobs this time. If she is feminine then it better be in service of her badassery. In reality, the mark of a well-written female character is her agency in the story to change it - agency here is important, because throughout fiction female characters have often shaped entire stories... By being doormats that you could replace with a sword the hero really wants.

So in terms of Fontaine, how do these characters stack up? Not just in terms of their diversity of personality and depth of story, but also their power and relevance in the Archon quest itself?

Furina is presented as being trapped in suffering, but the reality of the situation is that she has the option to give up at any time. You cannot replace Furina with a cool treasure that the Traveller really wants; she makes active decisions in service of the plot constantly, in spite of her torture and fear and weakness. That weakness is never portrayed as some huge flaw that we the player must fix, it's in fact evidence of how strong Furina has been for centuries.

Navia too - though (by virtue of what the story is about) she has less to do, Navia thrusts herself into the quest in our defence, rallies our team and, yeah, needs saving along the way! Just like Freminet in the primordial seawater in Act IV or Lyney on trial in Act I.

Arlecchino maintains many feminine traits while also twisting them on their head. She is the "Father" of the House of the Hearth - obviously gendered - but she is most defined by her maternal love (feminine). She is never placed into a position of weakness in the Archon quest, always in control and saving others.

I think looking at Neuvillette's ascension to the position of leadership in Fontaine and labelling the whole ordeal "misogynistic" is insanely reductive. If every nation were ruled by a man despite 5/7 "archons" being women, sure. But Mondstadt is presently led by Jean, Liyue by Ningguang, Inazuma by Raiden (& Yae?) and Sumeru by Nahida. If the problem people have is instead that in this process Furina becomes more meek and emotional, then I point again to the wide variety of personalities the female characters in Fontaine display. If every woman is meek and emotional that's a problem, but those are literally only adjectives you would use for Furina (who is severely traumatised). Navia would be resolute and kind-hearted, Clorinde reserved and courageous, Charlotte curious and assertive - the list goes on.

And to pretend like Neuvillette doesn't bow down in many instances to the whims of other characters is a frustrating take. Yes he gets a cool cutscene of fixing all the problems of the prophecy, but that's only surface level; he did that after Foçalors explained that it was all her plan and her sacrifice. He takes Skirk's advice to give Arlecchino the gnosis. Even back in Act II, Neuvillette admits his own weakness of understanding to Navia - in that moment she is grieving and upset, but the narrative never treats her as unreasonable for her feelings. In fact, Neuvillette (who is supposed to seem wise and level-headed) admits his own wrongs and apologises to her!

Anyway. Please try to look at Fontaine with a bit more nuance.

#genshin impact #critique #fontaine archon quest

[nobodysdaydreams]

What's going on with Daniel Jacobi and the ducks. does he have a duck for a nemesis like me and the turkey. please I need to know

Words cannot express how much this question delights me. I apologize in advance for the ensuing rant.

Let me give you the backstory.

So first off, a little about the man in question, Daniel Jacobi. (Disclaimer, I have not consumed all Wolf359 content so this is just based on what I got so far).

We don’t know much about his background except the following:

He specializes in making bombs, weapons, and in his words “things that hurt/break other things” especially humans. He feels little to no remorse for this

He at one point was in the army but never served and so far it’s been implied something happen there that he doesn’t want to talk about that might have involved blowing up a hospital and disappointing his Air Force father (he has severe daddy issues)

He agrees to work for an evil company that kills people knowing full well that they are an evil company that kills people (even and often their own employees). Not everyone working for the evil company knows that they are working for an evil company that kills people, but Jacobi does (because he does a lot of the killing). Like most who are in the know about this, he believes that the evil company would either A) never kill him or B) that if they did kill him, it would be okay because his work would be used for the greater good (though Jacobi is more option A here. Hilbert, who you may have seen me rant about before, falls more into the B category).

More facts about Jacobi later, but first, a word about the evil company and what he actually does for them. The evil company (Goddard Futuristics) focuses primarily on evil shady space exploration that involves killing all the crews they send up when they’re done using them (and for some reason, no one on earth seems to find this suspicious at all. I mean, they do choose people with criminal histories and/or people who don’t have a lot of friends or family who’d miss them, but still someone should have caught on by now). Goddard Futuristics also does a lot of AI development, where they create AI with fully human consciousnesses, personalities, and pain responses, only to enslave them to serve their evil purposes, even forcing them to torture the human crews they’ve come to consider their friends. The folks who run the company also seem to enjoy torturing the AI and their human employees for fun. For context, the company is run by an evil smooth talking business guy and his behind the scenes evil science girlfriend. Think Curtain and Garrison but if they were more evil, sadist, cruel, and the nature of their relationship was 50x more weird and confusing. They run the company like an evil pyramid scheme, with everyone thinking they’re essential personal who are in the “inner circle” and don’t have to worry about getting killed off (but that the people below them on the pyramid do) OR they understand that they are expendable but are in way too deep to back out now, so they keeping doing what their bosses want so they don’t get killed or because they delude themselves into believing their murderous bosses actually have good intentions that couldn’t be accomplished without all the murder.

Directly below evil business man and his evil science girlfriend in the pyramid of evil are Rachel, evil business man’s mean assistant back on earth who I don’t like, and Jacobi’s boss Kepler, who is somehow even worse. All he does is monologue about Whiskey and act like an ominous supervillain (even though it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about half the time and his bosses are intentionally keeping him out of the loop).

So by now you’re like: “okay Bods, so why does Jacobi kill people for this evil guy Kepler, who is also on his own level of this evil murder science business pyramid scheme? And what does any of this have to do with your passion for torturing Jacobi with ducks?” So glad you asked. After Kepler sweet talks Jacobi at a bar, he agrees to work for Kepler and the evil company he represents because Kepler entices him with an offer he can’t refuse: a chance to have a job where he gets to make things go boom! for a living. While at the company, Jacobi befriends someone on the same level of the evil pyramid scheme as him: Dr. Maxwell, who was enticed by Kepler into working for Goddard with a similar offer he gave Jacobi: a chance to have her dream job working on AI for a living. To Maxwell’s credit, unlike other characters, she treats the AI as human equals. Unfortunately, Maxwell doesn’t treat a lot of the human characters very well so this doesn’t mean much, and when some of the humans and AI turn on Kepler (for justifiable and obvious reasons), Maxwell and Jacobi don’t hesitate to betray, hurt, and enslave the AI and attempt to kill the humans.

This is where things get interesting. During this uprising, the rebels win and Jacobi and Kepler are taken hostage. Maxwell is killed. Jacobi does not take her death well. Jacobi starts freaking out and slowly puts together a ton of obvious stuff we already knew: Kepler is a bad leader who only looks out for his own self interest, he actually doesn’t know what he’s talking about 90% of the time, he was stupid enough to gamble the life of their AI expert and doesn’t care at all that she’s gone, and Jacobi and Maxwell were expendable the whole time just like everyone else at the evil company.

So he has a whole crisis about that, but I know you’re dying to know: what does any of this have to do with ducks?

Honestly, not that much.

You see, one day, the crew finds out that the evil company knows oddly detailed deeply personal embarrassing and incriminating information about all of them. One of these personal secrets is that Jacobi, Mr. Murder Man, Mr. Explosives, Mr. Bomb Expert, Mr. “I kill for a living and don’t lose a moment of sleep”, is highly afraid of ducks. They never explain why he has such an intense fear of ducks (to the point where he freaks out if people make quacking noises) and it’s never brought up again, at least not so far. So I have no idea if he has a specific duck nemesis like you do with your turkey because the show never addresses or explains it.

So then why do I mock him relentlessly for something mentioned so briefly that has little or no bearing on the plot? Well, I’ll tell you, Milk. You see, despite discovering the evil company is evil and losing faith in his horrible boss for letting his best friend get killed, Jacobi STILL doesn’t decide to join the good guys and even insists that Goddard has “done some good things too” and that there really is no good or bad just “progress” and that people like him are necessary so people like Maxwell can do their jobs. The redemption arc is right there for the taking, the bar is on the floor, but instead he decides to completely overlook the very obvious facts that no, actually, good science can in fact be done without murdering tons of people, and being okay with murder until it’s you and your friends that are getting murdered is hypocritical, and I don’t care how much good the evil science company did for the environment, if a successful environmental activist was found guilty of murder, they would still go to jail. You don’t need to do bad things to do good things, and doing some good things once doesn’t give you a free pass to kill whoever you want. In addition to this highly frustrating failure to see the obvious and conscious choice to bury his head in the sand (though to be fair, he’s not the only character that does this), Jacobi also followed his boss’s orders and murdered my favorite character: Blessie, aka The Blessed Eternal aka Specimen 34, aka The Plant Monster aka Percy the Plant aka a bunch of other names. He was iconic, a legend, likely the biological son of Commander Renee Minkowski (and we love that for him), and now he’s dead. He was born in the darkness of space and built himself a night light because he didn’t have any sunlight. 🥺 All he wanted was to go to earth so he could see the sun and plant himself in the soil, where he could live with the other plants. Now he can’t. 💔 Oh. And also, Blessie at one point took over the mind of a Russian scientist, named himself “The Blessed Eternal” and tried to enslave the entire crew, but that Russian scientist did some evil messed up stuff and also it’s okay that Blessie did that, because he was just scared and it was funny and he apologized for it later in his own way so we forgive him 💕 (also God forbid a mutant plant monster does anything 🙄).

The point is: For his crimes, most notably the execution of Blessie’s murder, his lack of remorse, relentless stupidity, and intentional rejection, suppression, and mockery of any feelings of empathy or compassion, Jacobi must pay. So I have decided that an appropriate punishment is to mock him and his fear of ducks relentlessly whenever the opportunity arises.

I hope this explanation is sufficient, sorry to rant so much about the evil murder science company’s pyramid scheme and backstory, but I hope you enjoyed it!

#daniel jacobi #Bods answers #bods wolf359 reactions #wolf 359 #wolf359 spoilers #wolf 359 spoilers #wolf 359 podcast #Blessie #the blessed eternal #specimen 34 #w359 #w359 spoilers #alana maxwell #renee minkowski #warren kepler #rachel young #ducks

[cursedvibes]

To be completely honest, I am kind of hoping Megumi is gone for good along with Gojo. I know subverting the trope where the protagonist is always the main focus of the story and everyone else is never on their level is cool, but I think Gege kinda overdid it with Yuji to the point it has pratically stripped him of protagonist status in the eyes of the general audience. People hardly take Yuji seriously or acknowledge his development.

And I agree, the real cathartic moment would be a fight between Yuji X Kenjaku with all the juicy drama it would ensue. Specifically because that means the focus will be on Yuji, and we are probably gonna get some flashbacks as Yuji regains some os his childhood memories.

Although I do like the focus is on Sukuna nowo. Not sure how I feel about giving him of all people a sad backstory with the "I was an unwanted child" thing, but meh. It gives me the impression that he is an illegitimate child, also it does give theory fodder to the people who think the Itadoris are a distant relative of Sukuna through his potential brothers or cousins or smth.

I think that's the problem of those people and their expectations for shonen. I don't have trouble taking him seriously or acknowledging his development. These people are probably just not interested in his kind of character and that's fine, as long as they don't make generalizing statements about him. If he doesn't stand out to them even on a reread, that's their issue. I can't remember a moment where I thought "this should've been about Yuuji". The Gojo fight could've been much shorter and more time given before the time skip, but those are general issues not ones specific to Yuuji. Gojo's character suffered way more from that than him.

I highly doubt Megumi is coming back or if he's coming back, he will be in a catatonic state. Besides the trauma (that was pretty badly explored, I mean I was sad about Yorozu dying as well, but it didn't submerge my soul), he also suffered severe brain damage from Gojo's Unlimited Voids and even if Sukuna healed most of the brain tissue itself, we saw the mental consequences of it with the people in the Shibuya train station. and that was just one domain for 0.2 seconds. So yeah, it's not looking good for him. I think he's not completely gone, his soul is still there somewhere and could likely only be brought fourth by someone like Yuuji my agenda coming through but he won't have any major influence anymore, much less get back to how he once was. If he does, that's just unrealistic. He has been dealt too much damage at this point. My only issue with all this is the lack of focus his mental decline gets. Sukuna and Yorozu are having a blast fighting and then we just get a cut away to Megumi crying underwater because Tsumiki dying supposedly traumatized him this much. Despite Tsumiki not being a focus at all and most likely dead from the beginning (we never see her, so who knows). Same in the Gojo fight. Gojo hurt Megumi instead of Sukuna and now he's even more of a vegetable than before and that's the only update we get or the time the consequences for him are mentioned. There needs to be more on how he is mentally affected by this, how it affects Sukuna and the protagonists. Still hoping Yuuji joining the action will give some depth to this beyond MegumiSuffering.png

Lastly, I don't think the unwanted child thing means Sukuna gets a "sob story" or is being redeemed. Knowing the Ryomen Sukuna urban legend, which I'm happy to see Gege seems to be leaning into, Sukuna was always going to have had a brutal childhood and was likely used by Kenjaku and/or Tengen. He's human, there's no way he's born evil, that doesn't exist. The backstory is just there to give him depth and explain how he became who he is now. He's still a mass murderer, cannibal and sadist, that doesn't take anything away from that.

Also, the phrase he uses is 忌み子, which is a rather old word specifically referring to twins getting abandoned because of the belief that they will bring misfortune upon the family. There's a long tradition of superstitions revolving around twins and them either being divine beings or a curse. That's what I think this will lead into because also fits with the urban legend where Mononobe Tengoku (Kenjaku and/or Tengen in this case I think) picks up conjoined twins believing them to be divine, putting them through a rigged kodoku ritual and eventually threw the surviving twins into a chamber to starve them to death and turn them into a sokushinbutsu mummy (similar to ,manga Sukuna's mummy), which he tried to destroy Japan with. Obviously Sukuna became much older before he died and turned into a mummy, but I still think certain story beats like the kodoku ritual might still come up in his past. Not to mention that Sukuna being older and not imprisoned (in the Heian period) means he had much more agency than the conjoined twins from the urban legend. I have a lot of headcanons surrounding his origins, but I don't think him having gone through some shit woobiefies him. Of course it's inevitably gonna happen in the fandom, people were already making excuses for him before we got any sort of reveal of his background. Many find him hot and that's enough of a reason. I also like the implication that contrary to Gojo or Kashimo he wasn't born insanely strong and worshipped by everyone, he had to work to get there and he had to work to get this evil. That's one of the things that differentiates him from them and part of the reason they seek for his answer to the whole strength=loneliness thing.

#asks #jjk spoilers #jjk 237 #ryomen sukuna

[hannawinchester03]

IN ANOTHER GALAXY..

This is a regular imagine, as if you're part of the guardians of the galaxy! Mostly backstory but pt2 coming soon with more romantic and erotic scenes for sure!

Enjoy!

Here is the part 2!

Chapter contains: some flirtation, baby groot (obviously) , mom figure, death, family loss, drunk father, childhood trauma, and sarcasm

Word count: 1587

The year was 1989, Chicago Illinois. (Y/N) was 9 years old, she already was learning how to drive. "You gotta know your way around, who knows when you'll get lost, you always gotta find your way home." Her dad always told her, meaning this meant learning to drive earlier than most people and take care of what needed to be done.

(Y/N) didn't have much of a childhood, grew up faster than she would have liked but hey stuff happens.

It was a casual Friday night for (Y/N) same routine as usual, her dad goes out drinking and partying it up with his friends at the local bar. (Y/N) was used to it by now, it's been 3 years since her aunt passed away, her aunt was like a mother to her, her real mother passed away in child birth, but her dying wish was that her sister took care of (Y/N) like she was her own. Which she did, she took care of (Y/N) while her father drank to get over her mothers passing, but to them it seems he has never gotten over it, probably didn't help the fact that (Y/N) looked exactly like her mother.

(Y/N) remembers her aunt telling her stories of how the two sisters were thick as thieves together, always going out exploring the abandon houses, going to the woods, running through malls together when they were younger, even doing normal things like spending time with each other, like listening to music while they watched their parents dance. (Y/N) always wished that she had a sister or another sibling to play with and share memories with like her mother and aunt did.

"Your mom always wanted to have twins, she'd tell us she has a feeling that you were gonna be a twin, like Luke and leia.." (Y/N) was always told which made her sad at times that she was her mothers one and only child. There was a lot on the 9 year olds shoulders to say the least. (Y/N) always had vivid dreams of what is would be like to in space watching down on the world, making sure every child didn't need to go through what she did, it could have been much worse she always thought but the last 3 years for sure proved her wrong. It was worse, eating only once a week or not for weeks at a time.

It was around 10 pm on Friday, she was waiting for the house phone to ring, and hear the same words she heard every Friday night, the way the bartender would always call her asking to pick up her dad or call him a cab, they had little to no money so the only option was to learn to drive and pick him up herself. Little 9 year old (Y/N) who could barely see over the steering wheel driving at night listening to "my sweet lord- by George Harrison" was the last thing she remembered of her past life.

That was 15 years ago, "I really wanna see you, I really wanna be with you.." was the last thing she heard from the radio before the disaster struck, she watched as a child not much older then she was running through the main Street, then the child was gone only a light shinning down where they were last seen, causing (Y/N) to slam on the brakes and get out running after the light.

15 years later here she stood in the middle of platform floating the in the middle of the sky, standing next to a talking raccoon, a miniature tree that somehow talks but only could speak the three words "I am groot"and the only other person she knew of who was also from earth. A place she once knew so well and now it was just a fuzzy memory.

"Okay we gotta work fast, the others are going to meet us with the other materials. We just need that things heart.." Quill spoke as he looked around at the group mainly looking at (y/n) making her raise an eyebrow at him about to say something back but she was distracted as she heard a small. "I am groot" making her look down and smile softly as her attention was then quickly pulled away as rocket spoke up translating for them. "He says '(y/n) knows what she's doing' he's right, she wasn't born yesterday..like some people." Rocket stated as he lightly nudged (y/n) leg and gave her a small wink with the wrong eye as usual making her chuckle.

Quill rolled his eyes and was about to speak up but quickly got interrupted by the smaller aliens started bursting through a door running in their direction, He quickly stood in position in front of (y/n) to protect her making her roll her eyes as she moves around him grabbing groot propping him up on her shoulder so he wouldn't get stepped on as she held up the gun rocket had given her quickly shooting as many aliens as she could, as she reloaded she took over watching as the others took turns killing the monsters as they seems to keep coming.

"Look out, here comes the big one!" Quill shouted as he was reloading his weapon, (y/n) watched as an alien got to close to him so she quickly shot it and turned her attention to the bigger alien, she couldn't help but stare as it was almost double the side of the other aliens taking a step back as she focused on the multiple arms and hands the monster has, and how it had multiple eyes, she couldn't help but think about how she got into the situation.

"(y/n) just distract it! Whatever you do don't shoot its heart." Rocket called out as (y/n) nodded quickly running towards one of the higher platforms standing on top of it watching as it tried to grab her, shooting its hands away every-time watching as it stumbled back and quill got behind it shooting its head making the monster stumble back falling onto its back crying out in pain.

(y/n) watched as rocket threw a shock wave close to it stunning the alien so it would be in place for a minute or two, she nodded her head at rocket as she jumped down off the platform knowing the plan from here. She got out the laser that rocket has gived to her, she always though it looked kind of like a light saber, but always thought to herself since no one's from earth and they'll know what Star Wars is, she always told herself.

She got next to the beast and sliced clean across the aliens torso watching as it stopped breathing from the clean cut she had made, she watched as rocket climbed on top of the beast slicing its flesh and reached his hand in ripping out the heart. (y/n) couldn't help but stumble backwards as she could smelt a awful smell coming from monster as rocket held the heart up in the air.

(y/n)'s eyes lit up a bit as she now was able to see the heart, the thing they were going after. She could help but stare at it as it looked breath taking, it looked like a solid chunk of gold making her eyebrow go up as rocked stood up holding it proudly. "Great now we have the final part, let's go the others are probably already there." Rocket stated as he began walking back to the ship.

(y/n) let out a small huff still shocked, not that they had killed the monsters, she's used to that by now, considering she's been around it for the last 15 years. She snapped out of her thoughts as she still felt groot on the shoulder playing with some of her hair making her glance down at him.

"I am groot". He hummed out making her chuckle softly and toss some hair over his small head. "Maybe you need to grow out some hair. A nice green to brighten you up." she said back to the small plant making him smile and reply with a simple nod.

"I don't understand how you understand him.. doesn't it freak you out? A talking tree." Quill spoke up as he followed next to (y/n), she let out a small chuckle as groot continued to play with her hair wrapping small vines around her hair and she shrugged. "I mean he's still a person, he talks and has feelings why would it freak me out.." She stated back.

"Well maybe because you're from earth, how is this all normal to you." Quill responded as he walked up onto the space ships loading ramp. "Maybe it's because i wasn't born yesterday, after 15 years you learn to accept everything." She says as she followed behind him, once on the ship she sets groot down and smiles softly at him.

"We're in another galaxy, nothing surprises me anymore Peter." (y/n) states as she passed by quill heading to the main control room to meet up with rocket. "It's Star lord!" He cries out behind (y/n) making her and rocket laugh as they settle into their seats buckling up and (y/n) hums happily as groot comes and sit on her lap for the ride.

Hope y’all enjoyed, please feel free to leave comments, like and share with your friends!

I’m always open for suggestions or ideas so feel free to comment!

#peter quill #peter quill x you #peter quill x y/n #peter quill x reader #peter quill x fem!reader #peter quill fanfic #peter quill imagine #peter quill headcanons #fanfiction tips #guardians of the galaxy #marvel #fanfic #writing #female writers #writers and poets #writers on tumblr