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sailormoonandme · 8 months

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Mamoru is NOT useless in the Anime

Yes, yes, the memes are funny and all, but this is simply objectively not true and I'm rather exhausted of folks critiquing the character/the anime as though it were.

I will hopefully kill his BS once and for all.

"He just throws a rose and leaves!"

For those who have actually watched the anime (or even just the very first episode) to describe Tuxedo Mask as 'useless' is reductionist to the point of being outright disingenuous. In particular when this argument is made in such a way as to negatively compare him to his manga counterpart, who is put over as allegedly superior on this point.

The original 1992 Sailor Moon anime had 200 episodes, 3 TV specials*, 2 theatrical shorts and 3 films, with these latter theatrical releases being dubiously canonical to the anime. Mamoru appears in the overwhelming majority of those 208 entires, even accounting for the final 34 episodes where he was dead/functionally absent almost all of the time. Even if we seriously low balled things, the majority of those appearances feature him partaking in the following scenario.

Sailor Moon, often with her fellow Senshi, are fighting the monster of the day (maybe it's a higher ranking villain, or a general threat they are dealing with).

They get into a tight spot where either they or whoever/whatever they are trying to protect is in danger from whatever threat they are combatting.

Then, out of the blue, a rose slices through the air and imbeds itself into the scenery like a dart. Typically, this action saves the lives of Sailor Moon, her friends or whomever they might be protecting.

Tuxedo mask gives a speech and either leaves or else sticks around to see Sailor Moon perform her finishing move that effectively ends whatever threat she was dealing with, often with Tuxedo Mask being the one to prompt her into performing this finshing move.

For the sake of argument lets pretend that the above is literally the sum totality of what Mamoru does in regards to the superheroics of Sailor Moon. How could anyone describe the above as 'useless'?

If his interventions regularly save Sailor Moon's life then that is a zillion miles away from useless. For him to be useless, his actions need to be superfluous, pointless, contribute nothing. Even if he contributed a little bit he would by definition not be useless. And saving the protagonist's life is much more than 'a little bit'. If the protagonist dies then the story is over. Evil has won, the world is doomed.

And this isn't even considering all the ways Mamoru contributes OUTSIDE of the above scenario.

He has, whilst untransformed, stabbed a Lemures with a knife to save Sailor Moon.

He has willingly acted as a magical life support system for Chibi-Usa when her Pure Heart was stolen, an act that maybe anyone else could have performed but it is still a noble thing to do, in particular when it freed up the more powerful characters to go get her heart back.

He personally met up with the Outer Senshi to learn about them on behalf of the other girls, going alone which might have been dangerous, but the episode also gives the impression that he, as the oldest member of the team, was better positioned to get info from the older Outer Senshi who has a demeaning view of the younger Inner Senshi. In this same episode, he tried to convince the Outers to join forces with the Inners, acting as a diplomat.

He went 1-on-1 with Rubeus to defend an injured Sailor Moon who was herself acting as a human shield for Chibi-Usa

He has personally gone on a one man mission to infiltrate the Black Moon Clan's HQ to rescue Sailor Moon from being sexually assaulted by Prince Demande.

Mere episodes later he and Artemis went on a scouting mission to learn more about the Malefic Black Crystal

He formed a double team with Sailor Moon to tackle a tennis themed Youma, an encounter that involved more than a singular rose throw and a speech. One of the multiple times he got more directly involved in fighting the monster of the day

He literally carried Sailor Moon on his back to save her when they were both trapped in an elevator courtesy of Nephrite

He was prepared to willingly reveal his identity and hand both himself and his Rainbow Crystals over to Zoisite in order to save Sailor Moon and her friends

The love he shared with Usagi directly led to the manifestation of the Silver Crystal, to the salvation of Chibi-Usa when she'd been brainwashed into Black Lady & the creation of a new weapon and transformation brooch for Usagi in season 3

As Prince Endymion, he went against his own subjects and risked his life to infiltrate the Moon Palace and warn his beloved Serenity that his home planet was going to invade her home

He took not one, not two, but three impalements to protect Sailor Moon's life

More often than not he has acted as reliable emotional support for Usagi and Chibi-Usa, encouraging them, helping them with homework or just being there for them. i.e. he is an imperfect, but ultimately good husband and father. Which is particularly impressive considering he hadn't yet married his wife nor conceived his child.

There are those who might scoff at the latter. Is emotional support really useful? Well, putting aside how the Sailor Moon universe clearly demonstrates how magical power/energy is directly linked to emotions, this is categorically true in the real world as well. There are no end of testimonies from fire fighters, doctors, people who have serious illnesses, or soldiers that the emotional support of thier loved ones have kept them going and kept them alive. So, this is rather useful for our heroine Usagi who's job is that of a Sailor Soldier.

The Outer Senshi

Furthermore, there is an inherent hypocrisy in the 'Mamoru is useless' narrative because such criticisms are never levelled against other characters whose typical role in the narrative are similar to Mamoru's.

The most popular season of the original anime was season 3 (Sailor Moon S) and one of the biggest reasons for that show's popularity were the fan favourite Outer Senshi: Sailors Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn. Let's exclude Saturn as she wasn't active as a Senshi for most of season 3. Uranus and Neptune's role in the first half of season 3 typically amounted to

Attacking the monster of the day, usually to the same end that Mamoru's rose throws did, i.e. a distraction or last minute save

Swiping the Pure Heart of that episode's victim

Checking it over before concluding it wasn't a Talisman

Leaving, or else at least standing by as Sailor Moon administered her finishing move on the monster of the day

Golly...that seems just as 'useless' as Mamoru now doesn't it? In fact, maybe more so considering they weren't even trying to help Sailor Moon in the first place. In fact, during their second appearance, they unintentionally saved the lives of a powerless Usagi, her friends and an innocent civilian to check a Pure Heart, then uncaringly left them all in danger.

You know who then saved them immediately after that? Mamoru!

Later when he too was overwhelmed by the monster he directly contributed to saving the day as his emotional bond with Usagi generated the Spiral Moon Heart Rod, upgrading Sailor Moon and giving her the power to save everyone.

During the third sub-arc of season 3 (where the recurring villain was Mimet of the Witches 5) Sailor Pluto joined the Outer Senshi's ranks and their role in the typical monster of the day plots became yet more minimal. More than once, the trio literally appeared but did nothing, something that had also happened at least once before Pluto joined the team. Examples include (but are not necessarily limited to) episodes 97 (The Labyrinth of Water – Ami Targeted), 116 (Sunny Skies After a Storm – A Friendship Dedicated to Hotaru) and 118 (Battle Inside the Demonic Space – The Sailor Guardians’ Gamble). In some of these instances the Outers deliberately choose to do nothing.

Barring 2 of the specials mentioned above (one of which was a clip show), the Outer Senshi were wholly absent in season 4/Sailor Moon SuperS. In one of those specials, upon learning that a new threat had arisen Uranus and Neptune...choose to continue their road trip and leave the fighting to Usagi and the others...How...useful???????

They, along with Pluto and Saturn get much more involved during the course of the final season/Sailor Stars. Even then, Saturn only appears in the first few episodes and the last few. Pluto only gets involved in the monster of the day schemes once or twice and Uranus and Neptune three or four times, if that. Whilst Mamoru is barely involved at all in this season, he at least has the excuse of being dead for most of it.

So, the fan favourite Outer Senshi got far LESS involved and were LESS useful than Mamoru typically was in the course of the whole show. In fact, even if we exclude the first two seasons where (exempting Pluto) the Outer Senshi hadn't appeared yet, Mamoru overwhelmingly contributed MORE than the Outer Senshi did.**

The Other Senshi

Much the same can be applied to the Sailor Starlights. The Starlights more often than not actually got MORE involved in fighting the monsters of the day during season 5 than the Outer Senshi did in season 3; or at least they were interested in defusing a direct and active threat to innocent lives. But even they literally showed up and did nothing on at least one occasion.

Whilst the Starlights are nowhere close to the Outer Senshi's popularity, they are also never subjected to the 'they are useless' narrative Mamoru frequently is.

Nor in fact are the Inner Senshi of Sailors venus, Mars, Jupiter and Mercury. Now, whilst it's easy to argue due to their superior screentime, the fact that they often initiate combat with the monster of the day and are generally heavily involved in whatever crisis is happening, that they are obviously more useful than Mamoru is.

And you know what, even including the rare occasions they too show up and do nothing else (or do a last minute save like Mamoru is prone to do) this is perfectly true. It is also perfectly true however that the quartet have rarely ever defeated any monster of the day on their own. The overwhelming majority of the time the Inner Senshi act as a distraction to the Monster of the day or else sufficiently lower its HP so that Sailor Moon can actually beat the monster. That might be more useful than Mamoru's typical contributions, but, call me crazy, it seems like Sailor Moon is doing the lion's share of the work there. So, how 'useful' are the Inner Senshi really if we run by the 'Mamoru is useless' narrative?

If Mamoru is useless so are many if not all of the more popular heroic characters in the series.

But...how useless is Mamoru in the anime compared to the Manga?????????

*Well, one special with three segments, but go with me on this.

**They were mostly absent from season 4 whilst he appeared routinely in that season. Meanwhile, in the season he was mostly absent, they rarely helped out.

Obviously, there are real life writing reasons behind that difference, but my point is why is the fandom not treating the Outer Senshi as 'useless' too?

#tuxedo mask #tuxedo kamen #mamousa #usamamo #chiba mamoru #usagi x mamoru #tsukino usagi #usagi tsukino #Sailor moon #bishojo senshi sailor moon #bishoujo senshi sailor moon #pretty gardian sailor moon #pretty soldier sailor moon

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bxcketbarnes · 2 years

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I have another request from you! For dis one, can you do number 12 from fluff prompts of, “you promised you wouldn’t fall in love with me.” “I lied.” And number 34 from the kissing prompts of, cupping their face and pressing the softest kiss possible to their forehead and staying like that for a few seconds. With Steve Harrington! Thanks again love 🥰

Thank you for sending a request in, lovely! Much love to you <3

"Does Steve have a tell?" You ask your sister, Nancy, while folding your clothes.

She furrows her brows before looking over at you. "A tell? What do you mean?" She asks, her voice laced with confusion.

You chuckle and shake your head, turning your head to look at her. "Uh, like, how did you find out he was into you," you explain to her.

Nancy's eyes widen and her jaw drops. "Wait, do you think Steve likes you?" She asks you, ignoring what you just said.

"I think so. He's been getting touchy with me a lot these past few weeks," you sigh and run your fingers through your hair. "I-It's not like I'm opposed to how he's been, I just… I warned him."

"Warned him?" Your sister questions while getting up from your bed. "Y/N, if this is because we used to date-"

"It's not," you lie, waving your hand.

Nancy crosses her arms over her chest and gives you a knowing look. "You can lie to everyone else, but you can't lie to me," she says with a smirk.

"It's complicated, Nance," you mutter and plop onto your bed. "Sure, Steve is attractive and all, but who's to say he's not using me to get closer to you again."

"Y/N, Steve's not into me anymore. Plus, I'm dating Jonathan now. Everything has been settled and laid out on the table," she reassures you with a smile.

You chew on the inside of your lip, going to say something when the phone rings. Both you and Nancy glance towards the baby blue phone. You push yourself off of the bed and answer the call.

"Hello?" You speak into the receiver, pinching the phone between your shoulder and ear.

"Uh, h-hey, Y/N," Steve's voice comes through and your gaze shifts towards Nancy. "Are you busy today?"

You wet your lips and cup your hand over the receiver. "He's going to ask me to go over," you whisper to her.

"Go! Follow your heart," Nancy winks at you before leaving the room.

"Y/N?" Steve calls out to you.

You drop your opposite hand from the phone before speaking into it. "Hey, sorry. Nancy was asking me about something," you play off and tuck some hair behind your ear.

"That's alright. I was just calling to see if you maybe wanted to hang out?" He asks you, a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"Yeah, Steve," you giggle while turning to face your end stand. "I'll be over in a little bit, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's great. Okay," he rambles on before you bid him goodbye.

You pull into Steve's driveway, parking behind his BMW. You turn the vehicle off before stepping out of your vehicle. You grab your bag and slam the driver’s door shut.

The front door opens up and Steve appears on his front steps, a smile on his lips. "Hey, gorgeous," he greets you as you walk up the steps.

"Hey," you smile at him and walk through his front door.

Steve follows you into his house and shuts the front door behind him. Now or never, Steve. He thinks to himself as you plop onto his couch.

"So, uh, I've got a question," he mumbles while moving to sit down beside you. Your heart pounds against your chest, noticing the brunette fumbling with his fingers. "Do you- Would you want to go out Friday night? We've got a new movie in at Family Video-"

"Steve," you cut him off with a sigh, resting your chin against the palm of your hand. The words die on his tongue as his eyes meet yours. "You promised you wouldn't fall in love with me."

His shoulders deflate as he leans back against the couch. "I lied," Steve mutters and shifts his gaze to his lap. "It's hard not to fall in love with you, Y/N. You're just… so lively. You're so compassionate and selfless. I'm not sorry that I fell in love with you."

Your heart soars in your chest as you can't believe that's what Steve thinks of you. You suddenly lean forward, capturing his lips with yours.

Steve's eyes widen for a few seconds before they flutter shut. He kisses you back, moving to rest his hand on your cheek. You turn your body and straddle his lap, your lips never breaking apart from his.

The two of you pull apart, heavy breaths leaving your lips as Steve brings his free hand to your other cheek. "So, is that a yes to going out?" He whispers against your lips.

Stranger Things Taglist: @daisyxbuckley @jessalyn-jpeg @whiitee--sxxl @vanitysfairr @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @fangirlinganditswonders @ria132love @rissaisfandomtrash @omgdani17 @sadgirlhours247 @radicalbilly @lizziejean13 @thecurlsofgod @makeupbychio @lmm222 @juliettestyles1 @mishaphades-blog @eddiemunsonscereal @smilechannie @imsunsetboulevard @readinthegarden12 @reddesert-healourblues @thewxntersoldier

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leefi · 7 months

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The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere Read-through | Part 1: Chapters 1-14

Hi!!!! I've been reading through this webnovel after seeing @ot3's pitch for it and started writing down some thoughts on the characters and worldbuilding and imminent murdering. This story is very, very long and I only reacted up to about chapter 33, so most of my thoughts will involve the worldbuilding and less the murder mystery aspect -- so if you're looking for theorizing you won't find much of that here. Since I'll be continuing eventually, I wanted to post what I did make note of to revisit later!

Most of these are not marked by chapter/section because I was lazy and I'm not sure how easy it will be to follow as a result, but everything is chronological.

everyone here is hijabi mashallah

The visual I'm getting of the solar system/local system/dimension they inhabit is kind of a blend of steampunk and fantasy and uhh some secret third thing. With the walls of their "universe" painted in that puella dollhouse witch lair style. Does the sun bounce around like a screensaver. Does it orbit their earth or is it on a fixed axis flung out into “space”? Does “space” even exist anymore? I’m assuming they’re in an enclosed area that they've created. Do they actively use arcane resources to keep objects (ie star and planets) sustaining themselves, or have they made them self sufficient?

everyone is so mean to Ptolema leave her alone what the fuckk let a bimbo live i want to kill you all you’re so annoying. Ptolema I WOULD be your friend and not ask all these weird ass questions. and we would hold hands and skip and giggle

Yes shes an airhead nepo baby but you guys could try doing anything other than snickering and rolling your eyes whenever she says stupid shit. If she starts arguing back about government war crimes during the Revolution or something then you have my blessing to beat her ass!

I HATE kamsurepa i HATE her i HAYE Her and her stupid ass name

Ran and Su have no chemistry its insane that theyre always hanging out every conversation is like uhhh (awkward silence) (rude comment from Ran) *Su voice* wow she gets me so well. every time they talk im like what the fuck just happened.

Su’s internal narration is too self aware for me. it’s like she talks like she knows she’s a character? or something. it's self-deprecating in a very bizarre way

im sorry i don’t know if i can continue with this. i know too many med students irl and these characters are literally pissing me off. compliments to the author for realism you knocked it out of the park

Oh, thank you very much!" Kam said, reverting back to her smiley-diplomatic form for a moment before stepping away from the counter and continuing as she handed us the cards. "...as far as it seems to me, the desire to reproduce is essentially an immature form of pursuing life-extension - this idea that you'll 'live on through your children' that's patently pseudo-mysticism justifying what is ultimately an animal instinct." ⬇️ I’m going to grab her ginger head and swing her around like bowser in mario 64. SHUT UPPPPP SHUT UP please tell me shes the one that dies

You know," I mused idly, my eyes wandering. "I think this is actually the fourth glass ceiling I've seen today." "Mm, it's true that you don't see a lot of women working in Aetheromancy," ⬇️ I know this is a small nitpick but aren’t we really far into the future why do they keep using terms like this 😭 gendered stuff like this still exists billions? trillions? of years into the future?

Why has the disco elysium skill tree randomly started talking to su. Is this her future self nagging her. Is she pulling a han sooyoung. when do we get to the various utsushikome ego deaths

"prosognostic overlap"…do ppl repeat faces? Are most people cloned at this point? What triggered the need for cloning surely medicine is advanced enough that childbirth or test tube babies are feasible? Can bodies be cloned and reinhabited to inhibit aging? Is there some disturbing psychological element to seeing someone with the same face as you? Does it make your brain short circuit? Kam mentioned having children earlier which I assume means people still give birth or have test tube babies, so i don’t know if it’s the result of cloning…but it does sound like a sameface sort of thing. What else would it be if not that though?

Actually, if they’ve figured out teleportation (whatever it was called when they went up the aetherbridge) - let's say they can atomize a body and reforming it elsewhere (though we don't know for sure yet, could also be a fold in spacetime) - transferring consciousness to an empty clone of yourself (and therefore effectively doing away with aging or death wholesale) sounds a lot more efficient and technologically practical than maintaining an organic system that naturally decays. Why keep on finding ways to push the human body past its limits when you could simply transfer a person to a new, identical vessel?

I feel like the key to immortality isn’t maintaining an organic body, which naturally tends towards systems of entropy (being a biological thing, entropy=decay), but rather delineating and separating human consciousness from its host and replicating its original environment perfectly. I’m not talking about making a copy of consciousness, which is just glorified cloning - I’m talking about *transferring* a consciousness.

You could almost call dementia itself the mind's tendency towards its own kind of entropy?

Though if you transfer a consciousness to a younger body, the dementia issue could still potentially remain. Depends on if it the author sees it as a solely physical phenomena (atrophy/buildup of inhibitors of the brain) or there's some metaphysical anomaly about amassing too many memories/"existing" too long in general

The way spellwork is described is really cool and feels super believable. Optimizing multiple concurrent spells into one “function” is intricate and sophisticated, and you have to dedicate a lot of brainpower to doing the math in your head. It’s like they’re coding the real world. I love the way lurina describes this it's awesome.

#tftbn #woof #the flower that bloomed nowhere

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wettestnjaay · 1 year

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Hi, can u do a evan peters and black reader, where evan meets the readers family for the first time.

of coursee, i wanna say that, i love you and you evan peters requests ❤️.

BUT WERE ALMOST AT 400 FOLLOWERS, REQUEST SOMETHING THAT I CAN DO FOR A 400+ SPECIAL PLEASE, ALSO MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE TAGLIST AND GET @'D IN DIFFERENT FICS.

“SHE MUST HAVE KNEW YOU WERE THE ONE.”

BOYFRIEND!NERVES!EVAN PETERS x BLACK!FEM!GIRLFRIEND!READER FLUFF

2023-TAGLIST | REQUEST | WATTPAD

REQUESTED OR ASKED;

- YES. (ABOVE)

WARNING !

protective parents, black family thing?, talking about different races, talking about pass relationships, clinginess (little bit), making out, small touches, asking/talking about starting a family, little some about marriage, personal questions a little, but mostly dating questions and stuff like that or wtvvv.

_________

YOU HAD WOKEN UP QUITE EARLY; QUESTIONING THINGS A LOT OF THINGS, you and Evan have been talking about meeting each others parents for the longest, it felt like forever for both of you honestly.

You'd met Evan's dad once when you went to one of his awards as his plus one, he was very sweet to you, and hardly was harsh of the fact of you being a non-white girl.

He did leave you with a couple of questions such as "Is Evan your first white boyfriend?" and, "Do you normally date people out of your race?"

You brushed them off, and answered them with a simply no and yes, but after you answered Evan pulled you aside to make sure you were okay, and was embarrassed.

You'd kissed his cheek before kissing his lips and smiling as you look in his eyes and nodded as saying yes you were perfectly fine.

You answered calls from his mother whenever he wasn't in the room and he'd left his phone with you..

She was always a sweet lady, very calm and collective.

She didn't care about your race or anything, nor did she ask you stupid questions like his father did, but you didn't think anything of it because looking back at the first white boy you'd dated it was even worst.

But back to dis morning.

You turned facing the wall and moving Evans arm from around you as you sat up on the edge of the bed checking the time and letting out a loud sigh.

A text from your family group chat was shown on your screen as the time said, '8:34 am', and the messages started to pop up more as one said, 'We could have a family dinner around maybe 7, bring wasshisname.., Evan, right Y/N?' - Father

You slowly place your phone on your pillow and though about the messages and how this dinner would go calmly or horrible.

Before you could run into the bathroom and try your best to not wake Evan, he was crawling behind you placing his legs beside yours as he wrapped his arms around your waist and kissed your neck before traveling his hand to your breast and squeezing,

As a chuckle left his mouth as you let out a low moan.

"What's the problem baby?" he asked as you place your hand over his before kissing his chin and turning to look at him.

"Remember what we talked about last night?" Evan nodded his head at you as he let out a cheeky smile.

You explained that your mother and father were having a dinner and they wanted him to come with you.

You and Evan been talking about this sense maybe your first month of dating, and you guys were in a deep 7 months at this point and he'd only spoke to your parents on the phone but only short seconds.

You could tell that Evan was happy to finally get to meet the people who created and took care of you before he could even met you,

He just wanted to thank them and have them accept his request of moving on to the next step with their daughter,.

Shortly have you'd told him about the dinner, he picked you up from the bed and twirled you around with a big kool-aid smile on his face as he was so joyful and grateful for your fathers request.

"I must be the luckiest man alive," he cheered, you kissed his cherry red lips before pulling away and telling him to not get to excited right now.

You both walked into the bathroom, brushing your teeth and sharing both of you guys face-care routes with another and helping each other out.

Going on with you guys normal day things, you both making Bunch together and singing and dancing in the kitchen around 3pm, you notice how close it was getting to the time.

It only took a couple of minutes for you to find your clothes and about a good 30 minutes for you to take a quick bath and get dress with your makeup and lip gloss and all of your belongings.

You walked into the bedroom as you see Evan still in his clothes questioning which shirt to where.

You laughed to yourself as you walked over to him and held onto his waist as you laid your head on his shoulder and kissed it.

He let out a puff of his breath as he whined "I don't know what to wear, a dress shirt.. or maybe a you know-afternoon jog shirt.. sweat pants?" you rubbed his stomach before humming to him.

"You shouldn't be stressing about clothes."

He groaned and looked at you, "But look at yourself.. you look perfect I don't wanna look bad while look to perfect,"

You held onto his biceps as you kissed his cheek, "I don't look perfect, look at my hair.."

"Its perfect."

"No-my outfit isn't even-"

"Its all perfect baby.."

You both shared a loving kiss as he spoke against your lips, "Doesn't matter, you're perfect in anything.. me not so much."

You laughed and said softly, "You don't need to over dress as well honey, just wear something homelike but some such as if we were having guest come over, you never look bad in my opinion.."

That intended to help him a lot.

After all of this commotion you guys were at your parents door.

You stoped and turned to him giving him a nervous smile as he returned with a even more nervous one but kinda excited.

You knocked on your parents door just as you dad opens and greets you both with a big smile, he pulls you into a hug before kissing your forehead and pulling away,

"You must be the infamous Evan Peters, who's talking our girl to the red carpet and stages huh?" your father laughed and smiled at your boyfriend.

Evan let out a small chuckle as he smiled and replied with, "I couldn't accomplish any of this without her, Mr. Y/L/N, Im thankful you raised her to be the person she is today."

You dads eyes watered a little before smiling and pulling the boy into a hug which he kindly returned.

You smiled happily before patting your fathers back to tell him to aloud you guys in.

Just as you both took a step inside the fresh smells of your mothers amazing food hit you both right in the nose, "Jesus what's the fine smell?" Evan questioned looking around just as he stopped your mother coming from the corner of the room.

"That's my garlic butter steak with a side of shrimp and potatoes, baby" You mom called out as you rushed towards her and hugged her tightly.

Evan watched you guys in awe as he seen you and her mumble something to each other before laughing and you calling him over to met your mother.

You father was locking the door and placing your jackets and purses down on the coffee table in the living room.

"Oh goodness, such a pretty man." you mother called out as Evan walked forwarded with reddish cheeks.

"Thank you ma'am, but could I say that your food smells so good." you mother slapped his chess lightly before kissing his cheek and asking him to help her out.

Everything was going well, and you were happy to see your mother bonding with Evan showing him new species to use and mixtures that were perfect for different dishes.

You were with your Father setting up the table as you were giggling and laughing together.

He just said something out the blew, "He loves you Y/N"

You smiled at him before you asked, "Hmm...?, Really.. how do you know that?"

Your father pulled you into another hug as he kissed your forehead, pulling around a turning with his hands on your shoulder, letting you watch your boyfriend and your mother bond together he whispered to you.

"He looks at you the same way.. I look at your mother sweetheart." your eyes watered at your fathers word as you watched them closely until.

Evan turned around and see the look on your face with made him rush over to you, "Oh no.. doll what's wrong?"

Just as you looked into his eyes you seen that sparkle, those puppy dog brown eyes locked in with your and all you could see was your future with him, all of the happy, joyful and cheerful moment he'd brought into your life.. you were loved being loved, and falling right back into it all over again..

You mumbled to him, "Nothing.. just thinking."

He gently grabbed your hand bringing it to his lips to kiss it as he looks deeply into your eyes, "Stop worrying dollface."

you smashed you face into his chess as you got onto your tippie toes and kissed him heavenly as you parents hugged and hummed something you were to busy to here.

"Looks like we'll be see a lot more of you, son." which made Evan smiled into the kiss throwing up a thumbs up.

"I want grandkids too, by the way!"

_________

SO I HAVE A COUPLE OF REQUESTS THAT IM GOING TO START SOON WITH, BUT IM RLLY LOOKING FOR A 400 FOLLOWERS SPECIAL TO DO YOUKNOW, IM STILL WORKING ON MY GARETH/EDDIE/READER SMUT THAT I WANT TO POST SOON. MAKE SURE TO SIGN UP FOR THE TAGLIST AND GET @'D

ANY MISTAKES/MISSPELLS TELL ME.

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merlinbingo · 8 months

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The last fill from August worked its way through the queue this evening, so it's time for another one of these things.

We got 57 fantastic fills this month, created by 26 brilliant participants. Whilst I don't tend to comment on the ratings split, it is something I have a breakdown of each month, so I can safely say the 34 explicit rated fics are way, way more than any other month - thank you to all the wonderful kinkalot cross-posters, and to the mods that permit it!

In terms of format, we have 45 fics and 7 artworks. We also got one gif, a moodboard, a podfic, and then two glorious overachievers who used multiple formats for a fill (one gif + playlist, the other fic + moodboard).

How about ships? Well, Merlin/Arthur was predictably top again with 33, and then a pretty whopping gap until we get to gen in second with five fills. After that, we're looking at Merlin/Gwaine and Gwen/Morgana with three each, followed by Gwaine/Percival, Gwen/Lancelot and Merlin/Arthur/Gwen at two each. Finally, there's a fun handful of one-off ships (once again, kinkalot gets much of the credit here!) - Merlin/Knights, Arthur/Gwen, Gwen/Vivian, Elena/Morgana/Vivian, Arthur/Anonymous, Merlin/Arthur/Gwaine and Merlin/Arthur/Lancelot.

And now, the bit you're all here for... the actual fills! As always, they're sorted by ship and then by rating, and we encourage you to pay attention to any warnings the creators have given, including occasions when they've said they're choosing not to warn for anything (there's more of these than usual, so I figure it's worth a reminder)!

So hit that continue reading button, and if you love something, let the creator know!

No ships/gen

Bitter Nectar of Productivity by salted_popcorn Rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Coffee & Tea, Customer Service Agents, Night shifts, Fluff and Humour, Modern Era Summary: Arthur is fed up with the night shift at his new workplace, Merlin is disgusted with the way Arthur is making his own tea, and neither of them looks forward to answering the call of Customer Service.

Morgana ~ Lost Souls At Crossroads by willowsmarika Rating: General audiences Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: indie music, folk music Summary: Morgana's road trip playlist: Lost Souls At Crossroads

It's a kindness, highness by king ani Rating: General audiences Warnings: Major character death Major tags: hurt/comfort, grieving Summary: Uther dies of a heart attack; Arthur tries (and fails) to cope in the immediate aftermath. Luckily, Merlin is there to help.

Locked in a cage by HadrianPeverellBlack Rating: Teen Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, POV Freya (Merlin), Angst, Hurt No Comfort Summary: Freya had trusted them. She had hoped for the warmth of their embrace, and instead she had only the emptiness of hunger.

My Lady by meljayne Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply, Restraints Major tags: Art, Alternative Universe - Regency, bondage, Sub Morgana, Summary: A young lady finds herself restrained and blindfolded on her bed.

Gwen/Vivian

Brief Candle by Polomonkey Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: First time, kink discovery, wax play, bratting Summary: Vivian's being a brat. Gwen accidentally stumbles on a way to shut her up.

Gwen/Morgana

Fever-Dream Tangerine Sweat by lavender_spice Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Porn Without Plot, Light Dom/Sub, Goth/Prep Summary: There are a lot of pretty girls on campus, but Gwen is definitely the most beautiful one of them all. But really, that's not the only reason Morgana wants her.

Touch by Meljayne Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Boarding School, Lesbian Sex, Uniform kink, Smut, Art Summary: Morgana and Gwen have an intimate night in their final year of boarding school.

you turn me right round by Saurus Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: modern era, 69, face sitting, bisexual gwen, first date Summary: Gwen goes on her first date with Morgana and she simply cannot resist the woman.

Arthur/Gwen

invisible string by kairennart Rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: digital art, soulmates Summary:

Gwen/Lancelot

We could make a blanket forts by HadrianPeverellBlack Rating: General audiences Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Male-Female Friendship, Protective Gwen (Merlin), Protective Merlin (Merlin), Post-Episode: s01e05 Lancelot (Merlin), Episode: s03e04 Gwaine (Merlin) Summary: Gwen must deal with the awareness of Lancelot's departure and Merlin is there for her. When it's up to Merlin to awere Gwaine's departure, Gwen is there for him.

the lovers by kairennart Rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: fanart, digital art, tarot card Summary:

Merlin/Knights

The Lesser Evil by SauraUnderscore Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Abuse of Power; Morally grey Arthur and Knights; Alternative Meeting; Could be seen as Dub-Con; Gangbang; Please check other tags Summary: After the skirmish in Ealdor, Arthur and his knights get followed by a young peasant.

Elena/Morgana/Vivian

Princess Initiation by lavender_spice Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Porn Without Plot, Threesome - F/F/F Summary: This has got to be the strangest Princess initiation protocol, in Elena's humble opinion.

Merlin/Arthur/Gwaine

Charlatans and Ruffians art by kairennart Rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: fanart, digital art Summary:

Merlin/Arthur/Lancelot

the masquerade has come to define the night by SlantedKnitting Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: threesome, double penetration, trans Merlin, lace Summary: It’s masquerade night at the sex club, and Merlin and Arthur are looking for a third.

Merlin/Arthur/Gwen

Wrap by SauraUnderscore Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Threesome; Polyamory; Fuck or die curse; Sex with an unconscious person (Merlin); Could be seen as slight Dub-Con; Consent is presupposed; Consent is given at the end; Summary: Gwen finds Merlin in the royal bed, and nothing works to wake him up. When Arthur helps her get rid of his wet clothes, the only part of Merlin that reacts makes them think that maybe it’s that kind of a curse.

Dreams Upon the Dunes by s0mmerspr0ssen Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, Rape/non-con Major tags: Apocalypse AU, Modern AU, Morally Grey Arthur, Awesome Gwen, Abused Merlin Summary: On the day Arthur was born, it rained. It would be the last time.

Arthur/Anonymous

Sensory Deprivation by SauraUnderscore Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Sensory Deprivation; Blindfolds; Anonymous Sex; Oral Sex; Mentions of Multiple Parings; Summary: It's Gwaine's birthday and they celebrate it in a very especial restaurant.

Gwaine/Percival

Five times Percival was surprised by Gwaine, and one time Gwaine was the one surprised by Laevateinn Rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Remix, 5+1 times, Canon divergent, Gwaine pov Summary: People knew Gwaine as the fun knight. But like everyone, he was much more complex. Five occurrences where Gwaine wasn't what people expected him to be... and one where he was not the only surprising person.

A Bittersweet Taste by Laevateinn Rating: Mature Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Sexy Chocolates, Modern AU, College AU, Humour Summary: It was all Morgana's fault

Merlin/Gwaine

Surprise me by HadrianPeverellBlack Rating: General audiences Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Merlin, Gwaine Flirts, Modern Era, No Magic Summary: Merlin shouldn't have listened to Arthur. Now he found himself spending the evening in the hospital, again. At least the doctor was nice

Emrys' Island by HadrianPeverellBlack Rating: General audiences Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Angst with a Happy Ending, POV Gwaine (Merlin), Hurt Gwaine (Merlin), Merman Merlin Summary: Gwaine wanted to be free. He'd do anything to achieve that

Stay away from him by HadrianPeverellBlack Rating: Teen Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: BAMF Merlin, Protective Merlin, Gwaine being Gwaine, Gwaine knows about Merlin's magic, Captivity Summary: Gwaine is captured by bandits. Merlin doesn't react well.

Merlin/Arthur

No Flirting with Customers (Unless They’re Single) by sleepygecko Rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Flirting, Jeweler Arthur Summary: After Gwaine split up a third engaged couple by flirting with one or both of the partners, Arthur created the number one rule on the ground: no flirting with customers. On this particular day, however, Arthur couldn’t help but break his own rule.

castle's crumbling down by kairennart Rating: General audiences Warnings: Major character death Major tags: digital art, the diamond of the day but worse Summary:

A Conversation With The Sun God by willowsmarika Rating: General audiences Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: merthur, mythology, Sun God(s) Summary: N/A

"recreate a famous artwork" by Mischel Rating: General audiences Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: merthur, medieval art, digital art Summary:

So Close to Reaching that Famous Happy End by Robin_Fai Rating: General audiences Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: idiots to lovers, costume parties & masquerades, AU modern setting, co-workers Summary: "You are cordially invited to a fancy dress masquerade ball!! Attendance is mandatory. See you there!!" Where Arthur meets a Mystery Man at a masquerade ball and tries to find him; however, he's much closer than Arthur would think.

watch all my bridges burn by queerofthedagger Rating: Teen Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: The Diamond of The Day, Alternate Ending, Angst, Unhappy Ending Summary: His chest still feels warm, devoid of the sharp, hungry burn that has been eating through him for the last two days, almost as greedily as the sting of betrayal had. It’s good now, though, better. He wonders how Merlin had done it, in the end, how many lives could be saved if he possesses the power to pull Arthur back from the brink of certain death.

A Danger Forseen Is Half Avoided by Pearl09 Rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Pre-Relationship, Soulmates, Tournaments, Blood and Injury, Hurt/Comfort Summary: There's a tournament around the corner in Camelot, and Arthur isn't as ready for it as he would have hoped. He's distracted by the reoccurring feeling that his soulmate is in danger.

Engage your enemy by HadrianPeverellBlack Rating: Teen Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Open Ending, Alternate Universe - Spies and Secret Agents, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Female Merlin Summary: Merlin and Arthur have been together for a couple of months. Until they discover they are members of two opposing spy associations

all the city lights on the water by queerofthedagger Rating: Teen Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: College/University, Truth or Dare, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Fluff Summary: Five increasingly absurd dares, and one time they finally speak the truth. Or: emotionally repressed idiots will find overly convoluted ways to be earnest with each other; just give them some time to figure it out.

Wish I Stayed by mooonwaffle Rating: Mature Warnings: depression Major tags: making up, post-break up, emotionally constipated Merlin, happy ending Summary: Merlin has been living a nightmare since he left his boyfriend to move to New York. After seven years, he decides to return to England. He wanted to avoid his ex, Arthur, at all costs. However, fate decides to reunite them once again.

me for me, you for you by Sage_Owl Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Knotting, Sex Magic, Alpha/Beta/Omega, Omega Arthur Pendragon, Secrets Summary: Arthur Pendragon is the Golden Alpha Prince of Camelot, and he's been keeping a deadly secret since he was sixteen.

the stranger the better by jopzer Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Druid!Merlin, King!Arthur Summary:

Te Amans by SauraUnderscore Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Age Difference; Explicit Sex; Falling in Love; Fluff and Angst Summary: Everybody knows that Merlin is Arthur’s concubine. He should be warming his bed and not sitting at the Council table, as if he knew anything at all worth speaking of before his betters. Merlin feels the sneers like venom in his blood, and he doesn’t know if that is worse than the pity in the eyes of the knights that know him better. When Arthur does nothing, the fury mixes with the magic in his veins, creating a terrible combination for a young heart in love.

The Unspeakable Acts of Viscount Arthur Pendragon and his Valet, Mr Merlin Emrys by @ravenwilds Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Victorian AU, Smut with feelings but mostly smut Summary: In which Lord Pendragon is a terrible tease and then reaps the consequences.

Are You a Fan? by meljayne Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Public Sex, Band AU, Moder AU, No Magic, Smut, Summary: A girl hits on Arthur at one of Merlin's shows. He's a bit too enamoured to care. A band AU with a smutty conclusion.

with our lips we commit the greatest sins of all by Saurus Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: first time, implied sex, modern au, blowjob, handjob Summary: It's PWP. It's a short sweet, dialogue only smut fic. I cannot give you any more than that.

Sweet Cream by Meljwrites Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Frottage, Dom/Sub undertones, Public Sex, Food Kink, Sub Arthur Pendragon Summary: While on tour in Amsterdam, Merlin leads his boyfriend around the streets at night and makes an interesting discovery at a food stall. Or; Merlin buys a pastry and Arthur looses his mind.

A Confession Gone Wrong (Gone Right) by Sage_Owl Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Sex Pollen, Canon Era, Court Sorcerer Merlin, confessions, getting together Summary: Arthur's got it all figured out.

i'm something else when i see you by Saurus Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Voyeurism, modern au, office sex, masturbation Summary: waine wants a word with his boss, but Arthur is otherwise occupied. Gwaine can't help but stay and watch.

Baby Be Good by ravenwilds Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Phone sex, Dirty talk, Mild Dom/sub, lingerie, daddy kink Summary: Arthur's away on a business trip. Merlin's looking after his place while he's gone. They have dirty, kinky sex on the phone.

Catch Me (I'm Falling) by s0mmerspr0ssen Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dom Merlin (Merlin), Sub Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), BDSM Summary: With both Merlin and Arthur overwhelmed by their fateful meeting, emotions are running high, just as things at Pendragon Investment keep escalating, too. Cara Nimueh is not backing down and seems determined to ruin the firm, and it looks like it might fall to Merlin to fix both the mess at work as well as this thing between him and Arthur. (Part 4 of Avalon)

This Remarkable Season by s0mmerspr0ssen Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Bridgerton (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Regency, Historical Inaccuracy, Everyone is Bisexual, Romance Summary: Arthur Pendragon, Crown Prince of Camelot, must marry. King Uther expects him to choose a high-ranking noble, preferably a lady, from amongst the Camelot ton. But as fate would have it, the Prince finds himself drawn to Mr Merlin Emrys, an obscure gentleman from the countryside. Merlin, impoverished and desperate to save his family from complete ruin, must marry, too. Feelings are secondary, for the match must be an advantageous one. Soon, both Arthur and Merlin are caught between the pressure of expectations and what their hearts truly desire…

It Hurts So Good by TrebleMaker07 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Spanking, Established Relationship, Alternate Univers - Modern Setting, POV Arthur Pendragon Summary: Arthur finds out Merlin ate all of the biscuits, and must be punished.

Not So Holy Sanctuary by elirwen Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Porn, Dom/sub, Bondage, Dom!Merlin, sub!Arthur Summary: Merlin and Arthur are "taking care" of a bookshop of a certain angelic friend.

Rescue Me by s0mmerspr0ssen Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BDSM, Dom Merlin, Sub Arthur, Protective Merlin Summary: Merlin takes a liking to a sub on public display, but quickly realises something is wrong.

Do You See What I See by TrebleMaker07 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Mirror Sex, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Spit as Lube, Horny Merlin Summary: After a long day at work, Arthur comes home to a surprise.

Danced Into My Heart by TrebleMaker07 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Uniform Kink, Soft Arthur Pendragon, Established Relationship, Blow Jobs Summary: Merlin can't wait to tell Arthur some good news. The response is...unexpected.

Into the Mirror Verse by elirwen Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Porn, Bondage, Soul Bond, Ritual Sex, Bottom Arthur Summary: “I told you it was a terrible idea, but no, you had to touch the creepy dark crack in the air. And now we’re locking unconscious mirror universe versions of ourselves into a damn utility closet.” Merlin hisses under his breath as he piles wards and locking spells over the door. “There’s no time for your grumbling,” Arthur says. “We need to get out of here fast. Before someone starts looking for those two.”

I'd Get on My Knees for You by TrebleMaker07 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Choose not to use archive warnings Major tags: Role Reversal, Alternate Universe - Canon Summary: Arthur would do anything for Merlin.

A Taste to Rimember by chaosgenes Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragon Rider Merlin (Merlin), Dragonoid/Humanoid Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Rimming, Top Arthur Pendragon/Bottom Merlin (Merlin) Summary: Merlin may be the lord of taming dragons, but Arthur is the one who tames HIM.

mermaid by radioactivesunflower Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/non-con Major tags: dark merlin, extremely dubious consent, kidnapping, modern with magic, god merlin Summary: emrys is older than time itself and get a gift of once a year. the ability to come onto land to hunt for the heart of mortals. he meets his mark for the night and feel's a pull when his target turns out to be the son of uther pendragon that man who has been hunting down this kind for years. it will be a great pleasure to steal away the son of the man he hates. this was the best night he's had in a long time

Thursty for Uniforms by chaosgenes Rating: Explicit Warnings: No archive warnings apply Major tags: Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Uniform Kink, Police Uniforms, Clothed Sex, Top Merlin/Bottom Arthur Pendragon Summary: It was two years ago when Arthur met Merlin at a Halloween party. Merlin, in a black and white striped prisoner costume, had taken one look at his uniform and badge and drunkenly threw himself on him. “Why officer,” Merlin drawled sweetly, breath smelling of alcohol as he draped his arms heavily over Arthur’s shoulders, “whoo have you come to arrest?” OR How hacker Merlin gets into Officer Pendragon's pants/good side.

Cyntefin by s0mmerspr0ssen Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence Major tags: Alternate Universe - Canon, Druid Leader Merlin, Merlin is Emrys, King Arthur Pendragon, Prophecy Summary: King Arthur seeks out the druids to make peace, but is soon haunted by strange dreams of a masked man, set on killing him.

#bbc merlin #merlin bingo #round up #round three #august round up #so many beautiful things #take a look and leave some love

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residentmara · 2 months

Note

a little context for smth, the Astral Express Crew is this train of ppl, not really many ppl keep that in mind (ha, mind), that travels on the path of The Hunt, but the path they travel on isn't important, but they are following in the path of this Aeon (basically like, gods in the game but they're also not gods ?) who had died (I personally believe that the Aeon of The Trailblaze, the one they're following the path of didn't die, because there is nobody who knows how they died, it's unknown if it was at the hands of another Aeon even tho thats a popular theory in game, or if it was killed by a human or what) and they're just following in that guy's path and stopping at worlds when they can't pass, usually bc of a stellaron (cancer of all worlds) on the planets, and they help those planets and continue on their path

Mind (March and Dan Heng)

Mind would be March because of more like her backstory, she was found floating through space in a block of six-phased ice (I believe it was that or it was some 'eternal ice' but I am p sure it was six-phased) which Welt spent ages to get her out of, and I did get my facts a little wrong when I was being autism in dms earlier, her name is March 7th because that's the day the Astral Express Crew (which at the time I believe consisted of Himeko, Welt, and pom-pom (? for Pom-pom)) freed her from the ice, and she didn't even know who she was, so they took to calling her March 7th since that was the date, she canonically puts out this happy, bubbly, personality to cover up this like anxiety and sadness I believe is what Himeko says when you ask about March, but she puts on that personality and smile to cover up those feelings

and Dan Heng because he's smart.. and he also has things in his past that he's running from, he's generally a mysterious kinda guy (HELP IM REACHING DISCORD LIMIT ALR,, THE PRICE OF TYPING THIS ORIGINALL ON DISCORD WTF) theres not many lore rooted reasons that I'm saying Dan Heng for, though he does live in the file room (I think it was called.. words aren't wording but it is like 8:34 at night) and keeps things nice and filed n stuff for the express, he knows a lot about it, he also joined it because he was running from people from his past life / past (I say past life because even though he normally looks human, he's from this dragon looking species I can't spell the name of for the life of me who goes through this rebirth process) and he refuses to really talk to anyone about it, and if you in game ask Himeko about him she doesn't give you much information

Heart (Kafka)

I won't go deep into lore because I don't think we know much of Kafka's lore or she doesn't have too much to go into ig, but Kafka is one of these Stellaron hunters who's goal (you'll never guess it) is to get stellarons, Kafka can appear as this nice person but really she's kinda violent and slightly manipulative (though it is kind of for the 'greater good' in some sense depending on where your morals lie when it comes to lore of the entire game) also she uses a gun canonically when you use her ultimate.. enough proof there /silly

Soul as Himeko or the Trailblazer

tbh I'd mainly say Himeko, we don't really know too much about Himeko, only what you can get from asking Welt, but she found the express when she was a kid blah blah that's not imporant to why Soul would be her, she was there from the start, she knows like everything about everyone on the express, at least all there really is to know, she's the real owner of it, but she is generally who keeps things kinda calm on the express, she's who you trust (which when you put hms as pathos, logos, and ethos, we know who is what, Heart is Pathos, Mind is Logos, and Soul would be Ethos, and if you were to characterize Himeko as one of those, she'd be Ethos because you know you can trust her) + she has red hair

I'd say Soul as the Trailblazer (the Main Character) because that is also the only character you can be 100% sure of in the whole story, also I can kind of draw a connection from the Stellaron that is inside of the Trailblazer (they are generally supposed to just be a storage for it, we don't know why yet because that lore isn't rlly out yet) to the void seen on Soul in like the videos, they both have something that can like 'take over' them in some sense

and Whole as Welt

Welt is someone who also knows a lot about people on the express (not as much as Himeko though) but he generally is like this character that is like the 'dad' of the express, at least in my eyes (that I totally have shh I'm not a Heart fictive what) this is smth you can argue that Welt would be Soul for but he is in and out of the Astral Express this like peace keeper, there is a lot more of lore to Welt because he is a reoccuring in like another Honkai game (I think there is only one other ? but if not he's in the two others, but I cannot remember how mant there is) and I remember seeing something about a comic, but basically if you were to put a face on the express it'd probably be Welt or Himeko, Himeko because she is the actual owner but Welt because he is this powerful figure that has this cohesive story if any of my reasoning for Whole as Welt makes sense

Boom autism explosion pt 2, now I’m very sleeby so goodnight !! -💕

this is unironically the direct reason i got into honkai: star rail

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callsign-joyride · 2 years

Text

30/90 | J.H.S

Summary: Since you were 16, you completely loathed your birthday. After some tension in the air, you let it slip to Bob and Phoenix that it was your 30th birthday. Bob who, after some drinks and slight intimidation, let it slip to Hangman.

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x fem!afab!reader (callsign: Dice)

Content warnings: Slight age gap (reader is 30, Jake is 33-34), SMUT (minors DNI), unprotected p in v, reader is on birth control

A/N: You don't want to know how long I've had this in my drafts.

"Okay, what the hell was that about? You could've gotten us killed if that wasn't a training exercise!" Phoenix yelled.

"It won't happen again."

"You know Mav is gonna be up your ass about telling that to our families, right?"

"There's nothing to tell, Phoenix! We're all fine!"

"Dice, take a breather," Bob said.

"Yeah, whatever," you said. You put your stuff down and tied the sleeves of your flight suit around your waist before walking out of the hangar.

You walked around base for a few minutes before heading to your room. You used the time to yourself to put your laundry away and change out of your flight suit. You knew that that was your last exercise of the day, so you slipped into a Navy shirt and running shorts. There was a knock on your door right as you finished getting dressed.

Phoenix and Bob stood outside of your door, so you let them in, grabbing a book to prop the door open.

"We're not gonna yell at you. I just want to know what happened out there today because you were completely fine yesterday and I'm a little worried," Phoenix explained. You sat on your bed and sighed.

"It's my birthday."

"Um, happy birthday? I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"I'm turning 30. The two of you are the only ones who know and I'd kind of like to keep it that way because I don't want to be treated like a baby."

"We won't tell anyone. I think everyone's going out for drinks tonight. You want to come with us? You can ride with me and Bob."

"No, I think I'll stay here. Maybe watch a couple movies and do some reading."

"Okay. Well, let us know if you change your mind."

"I will. Thanks, Phoenix."

"You're welcome."

Hours passed and all you did was watch Netflix on your laptop. As you checked your emails, Phoenix texted you saying that she was about to leave with Bob to go to The Hard Deck. You told her to have fun before going back to your computer.

It was almost one when you realized that your water bottle was empty. Just your luck that it was also past lights out, so you had to sneak out of your room and into the kitchen quietly.

The door to Hangman's room opened right as you walked by it, and he started to follow you to your room.

"Dice! Dice, wait up!" He kept on whisper-yelling. He eventually caught up to you and gently pushed you against the wall that was right next to your door.

"What's this about?" You asked.

"Little birdie told me it was your birthday."

"Bob? I'm gonna kill him."

"No, it's okay. I kinda hounded him about it, anyways."

"Why? I don't see why it matters to you. Hell, we're never in the air together."

"Listen, Dice. We might not be in the air together but that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to care about you. You could've died up there, and we would've all been left to clean up the mess. I don't know what I would've done."

"What's that supposed to mean? You barely know me."

You glanced down and noticed that his hands were on your hips. You didn't expect your heart to start thumping at the feeling of how close the two of you were.

"We can continue this conversation right here or we can go to your room. Up to you," Jake whispered in your ear. It clicked. You grabbed his hand and pulled him into your room before quietly shutting the door.

You barely had a moment to think as Jake lightly pushed you up against the door and started kissing you. Your arms instinctively went around his neck as his hands roamed your body. He tapped the back of your thigh a few times, a motion signalling for you to jump.

He walked around the room with you in his arms before pushing you against the wall by your desk. You let out a soft moan as you started to feel him grind into you while kissing your neck. He finally laid you on the bed when you tugged at his shirt a few times.

Clothes were being lazily thrown around the room as the eagerness took over.

"Okay, you gotta be quiet. Are you on birth control or...?"

"It's fine."

Jake nodded his head before slowly kissing you. You groaned into the kiss and wrapped your legs around his waist as you felt him ease into you. After giving you a minute to adjust to his size, he started to pick up the pace.

"I'm so close. Fuck," Jake whispered into your ear. He reached down and rubbed your clit in tight circles. Your walls tightened around him and you had to bite your lip to suppress a moan as both of you came at the same time.

It took a few minutes for you to catch your breath, and it wasn't long before Hangman got up and started to look for his clothes. You stretched before putting your pajamas on, and he waited until you were done getting dressed to sneak back out of the room.

"This was nice," he said.

"Don't make it awkward, Bagman."

Taglist:

@luckyladycreator2 @cycbaby @idontcare-11 @blue-aconite @shawty-fenty @justanothermagicalsara @caitsymichelle13 @smoothdogsgirl @katieshook02 @rosiahills22 @littlemisstopgun @adoringsebstan @cherrycola27 @alexxavicry

#hangman smut #jake hangman seresin #hangman x reader #jake seresin #top gun maverick #reader insert #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin x you #hangman x you #jake hangman seresin x reader

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ultramarine-spirit · 2 years

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Athanasia's canon age

The age of WMMAP's characters is something people often wonder about, as we don't have much information on the matter. In this post I'll try to give the most accurate approximation possible of Athy's age, using canon facts both from the novel and manhwa. Maybe I'll do the same for Lucas and Aeternitas in the future, since they are also... complicated.

We know for a fact that LP!Athy was killed at exactly 18 years old (on her birthday, December 3rd...).

On the other hand, It's not explicitly stated how old Lee Jihye (Athy's first or second life, depending on the canon) was when she died, but the novel does gives us some facts:

Athanasia recalling her first life. Who Made Me A Princess (novel), Plutus, Chapter 1. Source: woopread translations.

Both novel and manhwa have the following scene from chapter 34, in which we (or rather, Lucas) find out how Athy used to look like back in Korea, but the novel gives us some more insight to what Lucas was thinking at the moment.

Lucas looking at Athanasia's original body. Who Made Me A Princess (novel), Plutus. Source: Lithi.

Panels from chapter 34 of the manhwa.

So, we know that Lee Jihye left her orphanage when she was about 18, and died in winter some time after that. She most likely worked for a couple of years before dying, so Lucas' impression of her being 20 checks out.

And finally, we have to account for wmmap!Athy's age. The novel ends on her 18th birthday, so no questions there. But what about the manhwa?

Athy's birthday is on December 3rd and Claude's on February 28th. Her debutante probably happened just a little after her 14th birthday, and Claude mentioned Kiel's dance with her 6 months after the debutante on chapter 43, which means that chapter 50 had to happen when Athy was already 15.

Because there are at least 6 months between chapters 86 and 121, Athy is also at least 15 and a half, but most likely about to turn 16 as she spent "a while" running away during the amnesia arc.

(Then again, she could already be 16, since there wasn't any mention of her 15th birthday in the manhwa, it could be the same for her 16th birthday.)

So, to answer the question of how old is Athy, we have to take these facts into account and decide if we are talking about her novel self or her manhwa self. Novel!Athy is not LP!Athy, so we can only add her years living in Korea and in Obelia after her reincarnation, which gives us a total of (at least) 38 years. On the other hand, Manhwa!Athy is LP!Athy after reincarnating twice, so she's (at least) 56 years old.

We could get into semantics, saying that it's only her soul that's 56 and that she doesn't remember much of LP for it to affect her mental age, but if we count the years Athanasia is 100% aware of living, we still reach a total of 38 mental years.

Okay, but does Athy consider herself to be that old? Well... yes, kind of. Throughout both novel and manhwa she comments about how embarrassing it is to act as a child at her age, she thinks of the noble ladies as "average girls" (the novel mentions Athy feeling like a mother watching them at their tea parties), and of Jennette as "just a 14 year old girl" (when she had doubts about Jennette having some sort of secret agenda). And finally, Lucas -aware of her whole situation since the beginning-, also comments multiple times about how Athy should be mindful of her age. Her being mentally an older adult is pretty indisputable.

So, there you have it, Athy is a 56 years old granny.

#Athy is both a granny and my daughter #or at least both an adult and my daughter #i hope this helps to end the age debate i see every so often lol #who made me a princess #suddenly became a princess one day #i suddenly became a princess #wmmap #sbap #sbapod #athanasia #athanasia de alger obelia #athy #edit: she would be 54 by chapter 125. If you consider the end of the story to be Athy's 18th birthday then she's 56 #wmmap meta #wmmap novel

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keef-a-corn · 1 year

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Dat’s right, People, it’s time for ‘Keef watches TFP and you just get the notes!’

This is for season 1, episode 20: Partners

Please reblog or comment on this with your thoughts! I really want to know what your opinion of the episode was!

I write down the timestamps, but I watch Transformers Prime on Stan (an Australian streaming service) so they may be slightly off.

ALSO! I try my best to note points for every character, but tend to get a little caught up by Bee (although I think I do a pretty good job with the notes regardless) so do be warned.

Little confession, this is one of my favourite season 1 episodes. It’s up there with Sick Mind. There’s going to be a point where I write down a scene deconstruction that carries on across multiple points, so I highly recommend reading this!! You'll be able to tell what part I'm talking about because it's got the most continuous screenshots.

~~~~Transition~~~~

00:03 - A r k + the clouds tho

00:09 - 2016 YouTubers apologising for being literal criminals be like:

00:16 - I would like someone to make a fic about Soundwave’s inner dialogue during moments like these.

00:46 - Kinda surprised that he actually w a s talking to Soundwave. He would be aware that Starscream’s just sucking up t get Megs off his aft, right?

01:20 - this is actually a very good set up. Rather than the Autobots and Decepticons just coming upon it, they actually establish a quick explanation to it.

01:26 - all that movement makes Starscream look like he’s in a video game

01:29 - NO. That zoom, the way the camera follows her, The background. Airachnid is 100% supposed to be in a video game rn.

01:32 - I like that shot. I wanna redraw it.

02:00 - Starscream, my dood.

~intro~

02:50 - So beautiful

02:56 - Ignoring how out of place Arcee looks, she’s absolutely right.. expect that there’s no body there.

03:10 - the lighting makes Arcee’s face look beautiful.

03:24 - she gives ya whiplash here doesn’t she? Doesn’t give you enough time to be sad.

03:29 - I don’t understand why she looks so out of place.

03:33 - Oh no… all the flashbacks from ‘Predatory’

03:45 - pardon?

03:47 - Preen: devote effort to making oneself look attractive and then admire one's appearance.

04:01 - I think they gave Starscream the wrong face in this scene.

04:07 - Lore

04:25 - as apposed to doing it… with Mercy?

04:34 - of course he would!

04:36 - obviously.

04:36 - height difference my beloved. I also laughed a bit too hard for a bit too long at the shot. It’s just.. she’s so short, but then there’s also her arms XD

05:07 - I’ll be honest, I’ve never understood people who got flustered when a character says something cruel. Then I heard the way Starscream said idiot and I’m a little flustered.

05:12 - MM DELICIOUS. Explanations and a setup.

05:22 - A cut away of just Ratchet and Optimus, which also proves Starscream right? Sign me up.

05:29 - I feel conflicted. On one hand Optimus talks. On the other he used a metaphor that is not effective. ‘The past always catches up with the present’ is talking about decisions (eg actions or words). + This is Optimus’s first line of Dialogue since Operation : Breakdown.

06:24 - This is what Starscream said to Soundwave.

07:02 - LOOK AT HIM. HOW DOES HE HIDE! ANSWER MEEEE!

07:05 - I just realised.. this is the first time we’ll be seeing Airachnid interact with Optimus and Bee (although he shows up in Predatory, she runs away rather than attempting any confrontation.)

07:21 - 1. The way he says 'wait' is such a fatherly pronunciation. 2. O0O she doesn’t listen. 3. She does a backflip. (IYKYK)

07:44 - *sigh* and here we have Arcee being an idiot. Going against Optimus’s orders, fighting Airachnid and doing a scrap job at it.

08:01 - *falls over* *dies* Optimusssssss yessss

08:05 - unlike Arcee, Airachnid listens to Optimus.

08:13 - this is a parallel to Operation : Breakdown. In Operation : Breakdown, Bulkhead took on Breakdown alone. Optimus hadn’t given instructions, so the decision was made by Bulkhead’s judgement. It was not a good call and Bulkhead got hurt, so Optimus had phrased it ‘Engaging the enemy on your own was foolish, Bulkhead’. In this episode Optimus gave instructions but Arcee didn’t listen. She didn’t get hurt, but the risk had no reward. Airachnid escaped regardless. Because she wasn’t hurt and technically did delay Airachnid, Optimus wouldn’t have been as harsh but is obviously still upset.

Operation: Breakdown

Partners

08:29 - I’m so done with Airachnid and Arcee’s rivalry. I will forever repeat this. They have one of the worst rivalries in the show. Arcee has a reason to be mad at Airachnid, but Airachnid has no reason to be mad at Arcee. They don’t have respect for each other and they can’t manage to put aside their differences for anything.

08:35 - Hoooo mama… His voice has me shaking fr fr.

08:45 - This shot lives in my head rent free

09:27 - For everyone who wants to right a fic about TFP Starscream swapping sides, I recommend using this moment as the point where your fic should start. + Although Starscream’s logic seems flawless, the Autobots are just as in the right to not accept him in/do it with much skepticism.

09:35 - This gives off ‘when the adults are talking’ vibes.

09:39 - ‘When you have to sit at the kids table, but you realise that the 12 year-old is more mature than you’

09:51 - there’s something so perfect about this conversation and Arcee’s beliefs specifically.

10:14 - Kinda forgot she existed for a bit.

10:34 - I’m just gonna.. lie down for a minute.. He’s so cuteeeee.

11:04 - MMM MMMM BEAUTIFUL. When the leader has genuinely good moral coding✨

11:10 - Damn do I love Optimus.

11:16 - The nickname, the drag, the everything. I laughed for a full minute.

11:46 - there are a lot of parallels between this and Operation: Breakdown.

13:37 - Oh do I love a proper fight scene.

12:41 - Bulkhead getting caught first makes sense. The hardest to fight hand to hand, but also the least agile. Naturally Airachnid would get rid of him first.

13:09 - He sounds a bit like Scar talking to baby Simba.

13:15 - you can see Arcee’s conflicting emotions. She hates Airachnid, but she also hates Starscream. Then there’s that little bit of delight in Starscream’s misery (and a part of me wants to say feminism)

13:32 - to quote Miko from Masters and Students.. ‘whoopsie’

13:49 - Kinda glad that she worked it out so quickly.

14:37 - he’s not even looking in the right place

15:23 - oh damn.

15:33 - MMM YES. THE GOOD FIGHT.

15:51 - he ran over to his father ;0; though the smarter move would’ve been to stay apart.

15:52 - then he just stares at a rock-

16:04 - then there was one.

16:08 - No! Go back to the good fight.

16:32 - *clears throat* Arcee’s an idiot. She’s fighting in revenge and anger. Her judgement’s clouded already. Decepticons get their advantages by getting into the heads of autobots. They’re more likely to win the more clouded and chaotic their opponent’s mind is.

16:35 - and now we have the opposite side of the coin.

16:43 - Airachnid’s trying to get into Bee’s head. Exactly what Starscream was doing. If she gets into his head, Bee’s hiding and fighting will be worse. Once he gets hit the autobots will loose. Airachnid cannot win in combat against Bumblebee. They both know that. What she also knows is that, unlike with all her fights with Arcee, Bee isn’t fighting for a personal gain, he’s fighting for a cause. If he was fighting with his emotions, he’d be aiming for her to loose, but because he’s fighting for a cause his goal is to win. (It’s trying to kill someone vs trying to stay safe. One has a higher chance of succeeding than the other)

16:58 - 1. HAH. SO THEY CAN SEE HIM! 2. She knows she’s found a weak point because Bee revealed himself slightly. She made an impact on his thinking as his emotions became slightly involved at the prospect of Bulkhead and Optimus being in danger.

17:17 - As much as her confidence is expected, if she didn’t believe she had gotten into his head, I bet she would’ve been more cautious to provoke Bee. Thinking that she is in his head is why she’s continuing to taunt him.

17:40 - in actuality she didn’t get into his head. Rather she got into her own. She became sloppy and less aware of her surroundings.

17:54 - Bee was still fighting for a cause, rather than with his emotions. By Bee not being effected by decepticon mindgames, Airachnid fell victim to her own tactics and lost.

18:05 - She had no advantage physically, mentally, nor emotionally. Bee had the complete upper hand.

18:06 - Now we have the opposite. Arcee’s fighting with her emotions while Starscream’s fighting to win.

18:12 - Starscream’s got nothing to lose, while Arcee was acting out of rage.

18:18 - exactly.

19:11 - Now Arcee absolutely could win and that we be thanks to fighting with her emotions. I agree 100% by that idea except-

19:13 - for the fact that her emotions got in the way once again.

19:14 - Bee, my sweet baby child, is another variable in Arcee’s emotional charge. Arcee fought for Cliff, fell for Cliff, and was about to win for Cliff,

19:17 - but couldn’t bring herself to kill for Cliff. When it was just Starscream’s words and her unbridled rage, Starscream was Cliff’s murderer. When it was just her and the bot that took away Cliff, she would’ve 100% killed him. When she realised it was now her, Starscream, and Bumblebee, another bot that lost someone close, but would never deem that enough to snuff out their spark. That is when she couldn’t kill for Cliff.

19:27 - this is about to give you guys whiplash because of the stuff above but… There’s something so beautiful and smooth about that slide.

19:35 - wtf is up with this shot. It’s so pretty.

19:45 - now we all should be laughing at Airachnid, the con that failed completely. She got in her own way and lost miserably.

19:52 - that’s a little fruity ngl.

20:03 - mmm pretty

20:04 - that was a pun-

20:08 - I totally forgot that Bee was the only one properly functioning… Which one are you taking?

(Red pill- Fic where Bee actually did get hurt during the episode and is just hiding it.(Physical pain).

Blue pill - Fic of the mental toll that dragging two paralysed teammates and another badly injured teammate through the ground bridge can have.(Angst))

20:16 - for a two-wheeler? I’m trying to think what the human version would be. It’s not so much ‘for a girl’.. maybe?

20:26 - If only TFP writers took that advice. *looks at the episodes that have no recovery arcs for certain characters, then looks at the the episodes that have no recovery arc specifically for Bumblebee*

20:42 - *falls over* *dies* *again*

21:13 - now imagine he followed that line up with ‘a little bicth’

- rip/g

———————

That was Partners.

Honestly I like this episode. It brings out the capabilities of Starscream and Bee, as well as bringing out the worst of Arcee and Airachnid in a much better fashion than before. It shows us what happens when a character has the upper hand in all aspects of a fight vs when the do not. Fighting to win vs fighting to make the other lose.

It’s one of the episodes I think best displays just how bad (as in not well put together) Airachnid and Arcee’s rivalry is, while also putting in a bit more perspective to Airachnid’s side of it. She fights Arcee because she knows she can win. Anyone else and she’s gonna lose. Arcee’s always in over her head and let’s her emotions get in the way.

The episode is a bit of a roller coaster for Starscream, but in the end the conclusion is ‘Starscream’s a manipulator and a really good one too.’ Not because he got into Arcee’s head, but because he managed to convince Optimus that there was hope for him.

Then there’s Bumblebee. Ah~ Sweet little Bumblebee. A bot of few beeps because he gave him nothing to say. He carried his team during the episode. Being the only one to not get hit by the immobiliser, the one that managed to fool Airachnid leading her to turn his back on him, which lead to her defeat and snap Arcee out of his murder daze in time to not kill Starscream (regardless of if he deserved it or not) and to conclude the episode there was not a word or gesture of gratitude from anyone.. really makes your blood doesn’t it?. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t one of the eps that fuels my angstier fics.

Generally though, I like this episode.

Now like I said at the top please reblog or comment on this with your thoughts on the episode and of my points!

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thecrownnet · 2 years

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THE CROWN EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PREVIEW

Photo 1-6 Keith Bernstein/Netflix via The Sunday Times (Original Caption: Elizabeth Debicki as Diana with Dominic West as Charles, A hard reign: Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, Jonathan Pryce with Natascha McElhone as Penelope Knatchbull, Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Fayed, Dominic West as Charles and Elizabeth Debicki as Diana with Teddy Hawley as Harry and Timothee Sambor as William, and Queen of hearts: Debicki as a downcast Diana.)

Photo 7 & 8 Keith Bernstein/Netflix were published earlier.

Why The Crown’s new season is the most controversial yet

Benji Wilson Saturday October 15 2022, 6.00pm BST, The Sunday Times

***SPOILERS***

Elizabeth II gets jealous, Prince Charles plots to depose her and Philip finds a young female friend. Series five of the Netflix drama tackles the royals’ nightmare 1990s

In the new series of The Crown we see Diana, Princess of Wales sitting on the sofa at Kensington Palace watching an ITV special called The Monarchy: The Nation Decides. The host, Trevor McDonald, poses the question: “Do you want a monarchy?” for the public to phone up and weigh in on — Diana picks up the phone and is seen voting no, again and again.

The programme really did happen — the result was 66 per cent in favour of the monarchy, 34 per cent against. But Diana voting is dramatic licence. This is what The Crown does, artfully blurring fact and fiction — and attracting millions of viewers. The fifth series of the Netflix hit comes out on November 9, nine weeks after the death of Her Majesty the Queen. Even if the series were a fawning biopic there would be accusations of insensitive timing but this one is set to stoke more fires than ever. The Sunday Times has seen all ten episodes — the first publication to do so — and as with previous series it makes for uncomfortable viewing for the Palace.

The Crown may be a drama, but it has an impact on our views of the royal family. The new series begins in 1991 with Charles and Diana’s doomed “second honeymoon” in the Med, takes in the Queen’s annus horribilis and stops before Diana’s death in 1997. No shortage of drama then.

The series was written at least a year before the Queen died, and filming was completed many months ago. It was to have been most noteworthy as an inauguration for The Crown’s third new cast, with Imelda Staunton taking over from Olivia Colman as the Queen, Jonathan Pryce from Tobias Menzies as the Duke of Edinburgh, Dominic West succeeding Josh O’Connor as Charles and Elizabeth Debicki following Emma Corrin as Diana.

What this series does is remind us how quickly public opinion of the royal family as individuals and an institution has changed over the years. Wherever you stand on the monarchy, The Crown is going to provoke heated discussion. Spoilers ahead . . .

Prince Philip’s new friend

Natasha McElhone joins the cast as Penelope Knatchbull, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, a close friend of Prince Philip’s until his death. Penny is the daughter of the Angus Steakhouse founder, Reginald Eastwood, and became part of the royal inner circle through her husband, Norton Knatchbull (it is a small royal world; Norton Knatchbull was Philip’s godson and a year above Prince Charles at the boarding school Gordonstoun).

Penny was 26 when she met Philip, then 58, and we see them becoming close friends, bonding over a shared love of carriage driving. When Penny’s five-year-old daughter Leonora died of kidney cancer in 1991, Philip stepped in to offer support.

Their friendship endured — Penny, now 69, was the only non-royal to attend Philip’s funeral service at Windsor Castle when it was scaled back because of Covid restrictions. The Crown speculates whether Penny and the duke were ever more than close friends.

When Philip meets Penny, as The Crown tells it, he is feeling useless and wanting interests outside the royal bubble. In The Crown Penny — a young, chic countryside countess — becomes a confidante for Philip. We see them alone discussing how he and the Queen have “grown in separate directions”. While out carriage driving together they touch hands — the camera zooms in and lingers on the touch — and he gives her his private phone number.

Knatchbull at Prince Philip’s funeral MAX MUMBY/GETTY IMAGES

At the end of the episode the Queen asks him if he thinks husbands and wives should keep secrets from one another in a marriage, intimating that she is aware something might be amiss.

This is familiar territory for The Crown: series two dramatised several allegations of the duke’s infidelity, including with the Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova, and this will only heighten speculation about Philip.

Penny’s beauty is readily acknowledged by the duke and the Queen in a bedtime discussion. He tells his wife that he has given up his autonomy and his career to be married to her and points out that they have different interests and passions — he wants companionship and the carriage-driving gang provide that. The Queen snaps back that his carriage-driving companion is his godson’s wife, half his age. “It’s friendship, Lilibet,” the duke says. “It’s not that sort of companionship. That would just make me even more lonely.”

Nevertheless, the Queen does feel compromised. In a key scene Penny is summoned to the stables at Windsor Castle for a reckoning. She has concluded — at the duke’s prompting — that Penny should be brought in to the royal family, not pushed out. “Should people happen to see the Duke of Edinburgh out and about with a beautiful younger companion it would be an irritation if they felt at liberty to jump to any wrong conclusions,” she says to Penny. “So why don’t you come in the car with me to church this Christmas at Sandringham? Nip all that in the bud.’”

Was the Queen a bad mother?

In 1992 Charles came to Windsor Castle to persuade his mother that he and Diana should separate officially. This was the Queen’s annus horribilis —three out of her four children were having marriage breakdowns, with the Duchess of York’s affair with her financial advisor revealed in the papers with a photograph of John Bryan sucking Sarah Ferguson’s toe. In The Crown this prompts a testy discussion between Charles and the Queen. “I’ve done as you asked, Mummy,” he says. “I’ve tried to make it work for 11 years. But there comes a point . . .”

It leads to a wider discussion about the marital difficulties of the Queen’s children’s and the whole role of the royal family as a moral example to the nation. At one point Charles says in exasperation that “if we were an ordinary family and social services came to visit they would have thrown us into care and you [the Queen] into jail”.

The Queen is later shown talking to the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey (played by Richard Rycroft) and conceding that such a run of broken relationships “begins to look like parental failure of the most awful kind”. As with most private conversations in The Crown, there is no verbatim record of either of these conversations. But in his 1994 authorised biography Charles did describe himself as “emotionally estranged” from his parents, while craving the “affection and appreciation” from them that they were “unable or unwilling” to offer.

Tampongate

Charles’s call to Camilla in 1989, recorded and sold to the press by an amateur radio operator, is featured here, and although the tape has been doing the rounds on TikTok since King Charles’s accession, our new monarch won’t thank Netflix for dredging the whole thing up again. In the tape, the full transcript of which was published by Sunday People in 1993, Charles says he wants to “live inside your trousers” and would therefore like to come back in another life as “a Tampax”.

In context, however, the tampongate episode is part of a more measured assessment of Charles’s character — the call is shown as part of a touching, private moment when Charles, on his own at a shooting weekend with friends, calls Camilla at her home to tell her how much he misses her. They bat ever more risqué suggestions back and forth about precisely what they would do were they with one another, but throughout it is a scene of genuine affection rather than lewdness.

The same episode also takes great pains to show Charles as a moderniser and champion for youth through the creation of the Prince’s Trust. He’s even shown attempting to breakdance at a Prince’s Trust event in 1985 where he is invited to the dancefloor. This may be more embarrassing than tampongate (highly recommended — it’s available on YouTube); our new King is willing but ultimately lacks rhythm.

Did Charles want mum out of the way?

For years Charles’s longing for the top job has been a running joke in Private Eye, but The Crown says unequivocally that he was indeed a frustrated king-in-waiting. Charles is shown summoning John Major (Jonny Lee Miller) to Highgrove for a secret meeting and effectively pitching to replace his mother. “What makes the Conservative Party successful? Its instinct for renewal and its willingness to make way for someone younger. For almost 60 years my great-great-grandfather Edward VII was kept waiting in the wings. He longed to be given responsibilities but his mother refused. And yet when his time came he proved his doubters wrong and his reign was a triumph,” he tells Major. Charles asks that Major, when he comes to Balmoral, judge for himself “whether this institution is in safe hands”.

The angriest he gets in the whole run is when confronting Diana with her comments from the Bashir interview that he was “unfit to be king”. “The expectation, the waiting for it [being king] to happen — look how miserable it’s made you,” she says over tea at Kensington Palace. “It’s not the waiting that’s made me miserable,” he counters. “It’s the years spent rotting in a marriage to someone trying to destroy me.”

Waltz with Bashir

The tell-all Diana interview in 1995, in which she said there were three people in her marriage, was watched by nearly 23 million viewers in the UK, or39.3 per cent of the population at the time. It isn’t recreated here — although the BBC says it will never air it again, you can find it on the internet — but Netflix and the writer Peter Morgan are pretty clear who is to blame for it happening. Martin Bashir (played by Prasanna Puwanarajah) is shown forging documents then lying to Earl Spencer. Ironically, given all that followed, Bashir then assures Diana that she should go with him, and not Oprah Winfrey, for example, because then she would be “protected by the best brand name in the world for integrity — the BBC”.

Diana v the deep state

Was Diana bugged by MI5? The Crown says indisputably that she was. There are numerous scenes of Diana roaming a deserted Kensington Palace, phoning friends and staff. Often the calls end with her hearing strange clicks and screaming down a crackling line at whoever might be listening in. In one incident the brake cables on her car appear to have been cut, leading to a dangerous near miss. The implication in The Crown is that Diana’s butler Paul Burrell’s “dark forces” were very much at work and that the Palace was behind them. Debicki’s Diana is superb, portrayed as lost, isolated and paranoid — but with good reason.

Fayed, Dodi and Diana

An entire episode is given over to Mohamed Al Fayed (Salim Daw, Oslo), his son Dodi (Khalid Abdalla, The Kite Runner) and their obsession with the royal family. Both actors, in particular Daw, are terrific, breathing life into figures portrayed so often as pantomime villains. For Fayed, the royal family was the golden ticket to entry and acceptance into British high society. The suggestion is that by spurning Fayed’s attempts to buy his way into royal circles (sponsoring a horse trial that he thought would get him to sit next to the Queen; buying and refurbishing Edward and Wallace Simpson’s French villa, then returning the contents to the royal family), the monarchy drove Diana towards the family of a fellow outsider.

Britannia for the scrapyard?

Episode one sets up the Royal Yacht Britannia as a metaphor for the Queen — “a floating, seagoing expression of me” is how she describes what she also calls her favourite home (before even Balmoral). The problem is that others, namely Charles, Philip and the British public, see “the boat” as outdated: “She’s so obviously past her best.” Should millions of pounds of public money be spent to keep the edifice afloat or should it be scrapped? Spot the metaphor — the relevance of the monarchy is a thread. Discussions take place just as a Sunday Times poll reveals that the public would like the Queen to be replaced by Prince Charles.

Series five of The Crown is on Netflix from November 9

Source: Why The Crown’s new season is the most controversial yet Benji Wilson, The Sunday Times October 15 2022

♚

#the crown netflix #the crown #imelda staunton #elizabeth debicki #natascha mcelhone #the crown spoilers #khalid abdalla #dominic west #jonathan pryce #the crown season 5 #the crown cast #annus horribilis #richard rycroft #prasanna puwanarajah #salim daw #timothee sambor #teddy hawley #thecrownnet

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love-the-purple-cat · 3 months

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God tumbles down and the characters it references

You may have noticed how the characters and situations in God tumbles down in chapter 3 are references to certain Bleach characters and situations. Of course, I have allowed my bias to colour how those characters are portrayed.

Characters

Kou – is a direct reference to Ichigo, which is one of the reasons why he is uncomfortable at the beginning reading the story. He sees their similarities and attempts to run away (taking a break from reading the manuscript) and then getting emotional as he reads along. This is why he wanted it to be published – so that his story (though modified/doctored) can be heard and known.

Fuyuhiro – he is what I remember Kuchiki Byakuya being like in the early chapters – cold and aloof, a sticker for rules that would let his sister be executed and stop others from rescuing her. Fuyuhiro does not get better and dies after his fight with Kou.

Fuyume – Kuchiki Rukia, though more refined and not in the tendency of calling others fools/idiots, and later her role is similar to Inoue Orihime. She is aware and accepting of her role and position, and after inheriting her brother's position she becomes colder. I ended up showing some of my dislike for her in Chapter 37: Eyes of the Victor.

Shino – Abarai Renji. I'll be honest, after what happened after the Winter War (and maybe before that) I do not like either Renji or Rukia. Don't try to change my mind. Shino is how I remember Renji being when Rukia was to be executed – he is hot-headed and arrogant, but tries to stick to the rules, even though he later may rebel.

Blue-eyed man – Grimmjow

Natsu – inspired by Nelliel Tu Odelschwanch. He is a hard worker with morals.

Rin – no one specific. I don't know if they would have allowed for a book featuring two men kissing to be published (back then, i.e. 2002), so I purposely avoided using pronouns and chose a unisex name.

Chapters

Chapter 5: False promise is a reference to Bleach chapter 7: The Pink Cheeked Parakeet and the ones following the mini-arc or episode 4: Cursed Parakeet.

Chapter 6: Arrows references Ichigo meeting Ishida Uryū, the words making him reframe their friendship and circumstances.

Chapter 9: Winter – the first time Ichigo met Kuchiki Byakuya (and by extension Abarai Renji)

Chapter 14: Rockrose – when Byakuya and Renji leave Ichigo after defeating him and taking Rukia. Kou is angrier and more insulted by being left for dead than Ichigo was. Kou uses his anger as motivation to become stronger, not just to save Fuyume, but also to defeat Fuyuhiro.

Chapter 17: Flower – When Abarai Renji decides to help save Rukia and switches sides. I can't remember if Ichigo was as angry as Kou at that. Kou sees the world in black and white and a few shades of grey, so he is rather pissed at Shino for doing nothing. Ichigo sympathises with the man in those moments.

Chapter 19: Beautiful night – Though sooner and with a different outcome, this is a reference to Ichigo and Byakuya's fight. From what I have seen, Byakuya grows to respect Ichigo after it and Rukiya's near execution, while Fuyuhiro dies feeling derision for Kou after their fight.

Chapter 23: Negotiation – When Inoue Orihime was kidnapped and held in Hueco Mundo and the Shinigami refused to do a rescue mission.

Chapter 27: Blue – Ichigo's fights with Grimmjow and the tension (I'm sure we can all agree) we felt.

Chapter 32: Shield and chain – When party members of the Orihime rescue team are left behind to fight the enemies. Kou is genuinely distressed by Natsu being left behind.

Chapters 34, 35 and 36 – Nothing specific (Read: No clue). Just the regular war things.

Chapter 37: Eyes of the Victor – the war is over and my dislike for Rukia (Fuyume) and Renji (Shino) rears its head.

Chapter 39: Pendulum – the war is over and Kou is forgotten. I know Ichigo gets back his powers but in God tumbles down, Kou is left alone – a sword that has done its duty and ended up breaking. Life goes on, his friends don't bother visiting him after everything he did for them. Fuyume and Shino marry, having already forgotten about the man who saved her. Their world never needed him but it was nice (easier) when he helped.

A would-be Bad End for Ichigo, if you will.

#TheCatMeows #The Past Is Never Dead AU #Bleach AU #Bleach #fake book #would like to have done a more in-depth analyses but this the best I can do #for now at least

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ali-annals · 10 days

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Is this Hope just a Mystical Dream? (i)

Pairing: Jason Todd x Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Rating: T+ | WC: 2.7k | CW: Discussions of death/murder, dark humour, temporary character death, mentioned permanent offscreen character death (it's the villains it's fine/hj), morally grey MDC >:) | A/N: For the loml @sarcasticbambi <3 | ao3 | PART TWO (final) |

Did you know that some soulmates' souls are literally connected, meaning that when one half dies, the other follows them soon after to a personalized deathscape? Marinette and Jason sure did.

3…2…

Bruce wasn’t coming. Jason squeezed his eyes shut.

...1…

“Dad.”

Kaboom!

~~~

A soft white light surrounded the cloudlike bed he lay on, surprisingly not hurting his eyes when he opened them.

This was clearly not his room and he was not dressed as Robin. Maybe someone got him out of there in time after all? Maybe Sheila came back for him?

He didn’t feel hurt and wrapped in bandages or high on painkillers like the beating he’d received warranted. Had he been in a coma and was fully healed now?

“Bruce? Alfred? Dick? B?”

When no one answered his calls for his family, he edged out of bed, feeling as spry as ever, and cautiously stepped into a hallway.

This was definitely not the Manor, but it had a similar appearance. He wandered around, taking in the kitchen, living room, and a few other rooms eerily similar to the Manor’s. Then he saw the library.

Shelves full of his favourite volumes, plus his ever-growing list of books he wanted to read. A couch that looked like he could stay there for days, getting immersed in a thousand fictional worlds. Steaming tea just the way he liked on a table next to the fire, a bookmark in place at Chapter 34, where he’d paused his reading to disembark the plane in Ethopia.

A scuff drew his attention away from the setup of his dreams. He looked up, expecting Bruce or maybe Alfred or Dick, but it was a stranger. A girl with black hair and blue-grey eyes and a worried smile, around his height.

“Bonjour. J’mapelle Marinette.”

He eyed her carefully before deciding she wasn’t an immediate threat and relaxing from his defensive stance. “Hi, I’m Jason. Where am I? What is this place? What happened?”

The girl–Marinette–sighed and plopped onto the far end of the couch he was standing beside. “What’s the last thing you remember? Before you woke up here?”

“Um…I was in a warehouse, a bomb was about to go off. Joker beat me and left, but I managed to free m–my mother.--Do you know who saved me? Where B is?”

She smiled sadly, placing her hand on his knee in a confusing gesture of comfort. “I’m sorry, Jason…you’re dead.”

He gaped at her. “What?! Why are you here, then?”

“I’m your soulmate. We meet here, in this deathscape of ours. You know how some soulbonds manifest through dreams?”

“How do you know so much about this? How…long have you been here?”

“I just arrived, but I’ll be leaving soon, I think. I’m Ladybug, one of Paris’s heroes. Our team is powered by magical jewellery, which house tiny gods that lend us their powers to fight. Mine, the Ladybug Kwami of Creation, Order, and Good Luck, is one of the oldest kwami, and she explained the deathscape concept to me after the first time I died and ended up here.”

Jason shook his head. “That’s a lot to take in. Paris has heroes? And magical jewellery? The Justice League has seen weirder, though, so I guess you make sense. But you shouldn’t go around telling people your secret identity like that!” he scolded suddenly, straightening. “You could end up…”

Like me. Apparently, dead.

Ah wait, she is already.

She smiled sadly as he trailed off. “You’re my soulmate, if I can’t trust you, who can I?”

Jason sputtered, unused to such easy reassurance. “Still, you only just met me. Why did you say you’ll be leaving soon? Scratch that, why did you say ‘the first time I died’?!”

She grimaced. “My kwami has the ability to restore any damage that happens during a fight. Now that I’m dead, my teammates will pass my Miraculous on to one of them and continue the fight. Once it’s over, Miraculous Ladybug will cover the city and reverse any side effects of the fight, which includes my death. I’ve been in and out of this deathscape several times.

“I must say, this is a new look for it, though. It usually looks like a mix of my favourite places and my home, but this time it’s quite changed. I guess you influenced it since you’ll be here a while longer than me.”

“What?”

“Deathscapes are tailored to the soulmates’ lives, or so my kwami tells me. You must be well off, huh?” she glanced around the poshly furnished room.

“My dad is pretty rich, yeah,” he shrugged. “Er…how many times have …”

“Have I died? Mmm…28,379 I think. Will you throw me a party if I hit 30,000?” she blinked innocently at him.

He stared at her incredulously. “How are you so blasé about it?”

She shrugged. “Dark humour helps…and it makes others uncomfortable, so it’s not just me. And death is a social construct, y’know? So far, it hasn’t stuck. I’m sure you’ll un-unalive too. But a lot of these deaths, like 27,000, were in a now-erased timeline. So only 1,379 belong to other timelines.”

Taking pity on his confused look, she explained. “Two of the Miraculous have time abilities. We often spend hundreds of loops on one akuma, and until we figure out the correct sequence of events to take it down, we have to keep replaying the fight. Sometimes the collateral is a little higher than we’d like. But don’t worry, only a couple of us team members remember the timelines. The civilians are blissfully unaware.”

“That’s great for them but it must be tough for you, not being able to talk about it or get sympathy for it, Marinette.” Jason could feel his heart squeezing in sympathy for his new-found soulmate.

Taking a leap of faith (he was dead, what more could happen?) he told her his biggest secret. “I’m a hero too, so I understand how that feels, though I don’t have powers.” Being Robin gives me magic! “I’m Robin. From Gotham.”

“My ex-best friend loves superheroes; I think I heard her talk about you before. You work with Batman, right?”

“Yep. Can...I ask how you died?”

“The battle’s been going on for 24 hours. I was slow. I missed a piece of metal and got impaled. Can’t say it was the nicest way I’ve gone. You?”

Crowbar. Which hurts more? A or– ”I went looking for my biomom. Found her working as a doctor in Ethopia. Joker, one of B’s Rogues, was blackmailing her. I offered to help her and she sold me out to him. He…beat me with a crowbar, then turned on Sheila and left us in the warehouse with a bomb. I untied her and she escaped but I couldn’t…B didn’t…didn’t make it.” I hope he kills the clown.

Marinette winced. “I’m sorry.” After a pause, she added, “the piece of metal that impaled me was a crowbar, too. Kinda poetic, both of us dying by crowbar, huh?”

He snorted. “Crowbar buddies. Cool. When you get resurrected, do you think we can stay in contact somehow? Phone, ghostly apparition or haunting, telepathy, something?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll ask my kwami, Tikki. Try anything you can think of, I’ll be listening. While we’re waiting, do you wanna play 20 Questions?”

“Sure, but we have to answer our questions too, to get more mileage out of them.”

“Sounds good to me! Okay, when is your birthday? Mine is July 9–I’m fifteen.”

“August 16 and I’m fifteen, too. Oh–I can’t answer this one. What day is it?”

“April 27th, why?”

“I thought I lost time. Still the day I died. Do you like to read? I do.”

She looked around the well-filled library in surprise. “You mean these books aren’t mine?” she gasped sarcastically. “It’s not my favourite hobby, but I like classics and well written books.”

The game continued, the two traumatized teenagers bonding over mutual interests and mocking the other when they disagreed.

Finally Marinette looked at Jason. “I’m leaving now. I’m sure I’ll be back–hopefully not too soon. Is there anything you want me to look up to tell you when I return?”

“If Bruce killed Joker yet. Where I’m buried. Don’t come back for 80 years!”

“No promises! I’ll see what I can find. Au revoir, soulmate!” With a shimmer, she disappeared.

Jason collapsed lengthwise on the couch, suddenly feeling incredibly lonely. “Now what?”

~~~

The first time Marinette died, she’d woken up in a strange bed in a huge fancy house that was much nicer than Adrien’s. It definitely had a more lived-in, home-like feel, for one. She’d just finished exploring its vast premises when she woke up again in Paris, to her teammates’ relief.

Later, she’d asked Tikki about it. “You must have a soulmate, Marinette,” the kwami decided. “Some have dreamscapes, and a very few have deathscapes. They’re usually involved with the Miraculous or magic or supernatural forces of some kind. Both sides of the soulbond end up in the shared ‘scape when they die. They tend to join one another fairly soon…the Miraculous must affect it some. Your deaths are temporary because of the cure, so I do not know how that will affect your ‘mate’s bond and life. Your death must not be long enough for your soulmate to join you.”

The next several times she ended up there, Marinette took note of the things familiar to her from her life, such as the extensive sewing room. Other things hinted at aspects of her ‘mate’s personality, such as the large tea collection, the vast library, the well-equipped gym that has many types of equipment she wasn’t familiar with.

The deathscape appeared to have been shaped around more of their life than hers, leading her to suspect that they would be in the ‘scape longer than her.

And then she was fighting a metallokinetic akuma, and got impaled by a shiny crowbar. And there was someone else in the ‘scape with her–a boy with blue eyes and black hair, a little taller than her (but still pretty short) and scrawny but muscled, sipping tea and reading Pride and Prejudice.

“Bonjour, J’mapelle Marinette.” Does he know he’s dead, he’s my soulmate, this is our deathscape? That it’s my fault we’re here right now?

He took the news fairly calmly, all things considered, and appeared to tolerate her, though it could just be loneliness and shock keeping him so subdued. She liked him, like she knew she would–he was funny and smart and well-read and had a nice smile. It was relaxing to get to know him, knowing he was her soulmate for a reason and she could trust him. Besides, they were dead, who was he gonna tell she was Ladybug?

She was a little sad to feel the now-familiar tingling signalling her return to the land of the living. She only hoped that her return would somehow work through the bond to revive Jason as well, so he wouldn’t be stuck in their ‘scape alone for who knew how long. He knew enough he could look her up if he revived, she was pretty sure.

Once she’d reassured her team that she was fine, she zipped home as fast as she could, desperate to talk to Tikki alone about her soulmate.

Tikki hummed thoughtfully when Marinette asked if there was any way for her to contact Jason. The kwami told her to contact Adrien and get him to bring Plagg over so they could discuss a possible solution.

While the miniature beings confabbed, Marinette told Adrien about Jason.

Finally, Tikki turned to Marinette. “You should be able to communicate in a manner similar to telepathy.” The two kwami placed their paws on her forehead. “You can try to contact ~Jason~ now.”

“Jason? Can you hear me? It’s Marinette, your soulmate.”

“I can hear you loud and clear, Marinette. Can we contact each other? Is it telepathy?”

“Sort of…it’s like souls talking instead of our minds talking, because we’re uniquely linked?”

“Cool. Are you okay?”

“Of course, I’m alive now. The cure heals everything.”

~~~

Jason and Marinette talked to each other often, especially during school and fights, where he would coach or distract her as she wished (he was an invaluable help during her English and literature classes).

But even with his help during akuma fights, Marinette started dying more. Tikki said it was their bond trying to balance each other out, bringing them together once again.

In October, Marinette appeared beside Jason yet another time. “Hi.”

“Hey. What happened this time?”

She flopped on the couch beside him, tilting his wrist so she could see the title of the book he was reading. “I have the Miraculous.”

The non sequitur made him blink until he remembered her telling him her plans to retrieve the two abused Miraculous from Hawkmoth.”Really? That’s great! Wait, why are you here then?”

She sighed. “Our bond. I think I’m gonna be here for a while. Anyways, I was with Adrien at his dad’s–’cause he’s Hawkmoth and that’s why Nathalie had a heart attack so young, she was using the broken peacock Miraculous–and we were all transformed. We fought and I got the Grimoire and Miraculous. Then Adrien and I switched and I cataclysmed Gabriel. Then we detransformed after we said Hawkmoth and Mayura were gone for good. I went home and apparently died again.”

“You cataclysmed Gabriel?!” Jason’s voice went up an octave.

“Yep. He deserved it. He ruined Adrien’s, my, my team’s lives, terrorised Paris for years, abused Nooroo and his powers…he absolutely had it coming.”

“I just can’t see my sweet pixie Marinette cataclysming someone,” Jason shook his head in disbelief. “You’re so longsuffering. Everyone has a limit, I guess–and I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it, I’m just surprised you did it.”

Marinette gave him a shaky smile. “I hold one of the two kwami of balance. I’m perfectly capable of balancing the scales where I need to.” She promptly burst into tears.

Jason panicked for a second, bewildered, but recovered quickly, scooting closer and wrapped his arms around her, letting her sob on his shoulder.

“I’m so confused, Jay,” she wailed. “I’m glad he’s gone, but he was Adrien’s dad. I just killed one of my best friends’ parents! How can I feel so relieved to know everything is over? It’s not over for Adrien, I just made him an orphan! Yeah, he’ll be better off with his aunt, but that was still his father-”

Jason patted her back soothingly, understanding the sudden outpour of emotions coming from his soulmate as she was coming down from quite an adrenaline rush, being in a safe place to feel freely for the first time in years. He wouldn’t be surprised if she acted erratic and was extremely emotional for the next little while. He didn’t mind–he much preferred her to be her entire self, emotions and tears and all.

“It’s okay to feel relieved, Marinette. It’s okay to feel sad, too, or angry, or guilty. Feel it all. You’re safe now.”

She breathed out a shuddering sob, squeezing her arms even tighter around him.

They sat there for a good while, Jason’s shirt absorbing all of Marinette’s emotions. Finally she wiped at her face, scrubbing the sleeve of her shirt over the tear and snot tracks.

“Thank you, Jason,” she said hoarsely.

“You’re welcome. Anytime, okay?”

She shot him a watery smile. “I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you that I portalled over to Gotham before the fight and cataclysmed Joker.”

His jaw dropped. “You what?!”

“He definitely deserved it.”

“You’ve got no arguments from me, believe me, I just–you killed him? Why?”

“It was about time. He killed and hurt hundreds of others and he killed you.” She cupped his face in her hands. “I’m thrilled I got to meet you and know you, but I’d far rather you alive than with me right now, if it meant Joker never killed you.”

“Thank you, Marinette,” he whispered, leaning his head against her shoulder.

“You’re welcome. Anytime.” She repeated.

After a while he laced their fingers together, staring at their entwined hands. He looked at her. “I’m glad you’re my soulmate.”

“I am too. That you’re mine, I mean.”

“I know,” he snickered. “I…really like you.”

“Like, like-like?” she frowned. “That was too confusing. I like-like you as well, Jay.” Her gaze met his as they slowly leaned in.

Her eyes fluttered shut as his lips brushed over hers, so soft she barely felt them, and disappeared. She cracked one eye open.

Jason…wasn’t there.

“When I said I’d rather him alive than with me, I didn’t mean for him to resurrect before we even properly kissed for the first time!”

Taglist (open): @jennifer-rose123 @questioning-blob-of-fog

#jasonette #dcxmlb #ali writes #fic

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gch1995 · 2 years

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That is funny. All Jedi are actually slaves. They don't have a right to own property, they can't marry whoever they want and they obey the Council. They are even recruited like slaves, taken from their families without any choice.I don't know how Ahsoka even can leave the Order when a jedi needs to be watched closesly and not build up ties with the rest of the people or he/she may fall to the Dark Side.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but as they are written as an overall institution in canon, I honestly think that force-sensitive humans and beings in the galaxy of Star Wars would generally be better off if they never got involved with the Jedi Order at all. Like, it’s tragic to realize that the most consistently happy, secure, and well-adjusted point in Anakin Skywalker’s horrendous life was when he was living on Tattoine in physical slavery with his mother. Then, afterwards, that happiness was far too brief and fleeting for the next 34 years of his life. Sure, part of it is his own fault for committing all those crimes he knew were wrong out of anger and fear of the unknown, but not all of it is. The fact that his agency was constantly compromised to ever be able to find healthy support or feel safe doing any better by all of these deeply abusive, arrogant, corrupt, hypocritical, manipulative, oppressive, self-involved, and willfully negligent authority figures within these two space soldier cults for their own ends certainly wasn��t his fault, but he did have his own selfish and vindictive motivations, too.

If we’re going by Luke Skywalker’s new Jedi Order, particularly in Legends (Disney canon keeps screwing up his character), I don’t think it would necessarily be too bad as an optional day camp or law-enforcement job for training with the force and helping out the galaxy on the side. As long as they are old enough and well-adjusted enough to be handling weapons, they get to have a fair choice in the matter of being a Jedi or leaving any time they want, I don’t think the Jedi Order has to be unhealthy.

However, for the most part, I think most of the force-sensitive characters we meet in the canon series do so much better in their lives without ever getting involved in either the Jedi Order or the Sith at all. They often end up becoming deeply dysfunctional adults who develop serious behavioral/impulse control issues, dangerous ends justify the means type morality, poor critical thinking skills, and poor self-awareness because they have been groomed to have little to no self-confidence in their own moral integrity and personal agency, and rarely break out of it.

It’s not just Anakin and the other fallen Jedi who grow up to be deeply problematic tragic living disasters with those toxic mindsets in the series either. Look at Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. They are supposed to be the “ideal” Jedi of their time, but they’re still pretty awful and broken people as adults, anyway. They can never can take true personal accountability for fucking up. They are always in the right, the “blameless victims,” or the “noble failures” who were taken advantage of because they were too nice in their minds. However, we repeatedly see them deliberately betraying, controlling, deceiving, endangering, harming, manipulating, murdering, neglecting, and/or oppressing anyone who either acts a potential threat to or can be of use to “greater good” of their cause or desire to fit in for security without much concern for the potential consequences of their actions and decisions or remorse for the individuals they are sacrificing for their cause.

Even their moments of self-awareness suck because they still can’t admit that they followed a fucked up system that cost them a lot of people because they became too afraid to do the right things under pressures of corrupt authority, facing the unknown, and war. Anakin dies with more self-acceptance and self-awareness than either Obi-Wan and Yoda do throughout the entire series in the last 15 minutes of ROTJ, and he became one of the main villains of Star Wars.

#star wars anon #let’s be honest though they are better than Sith most characters in SW would probably be better if they never encountered the Jedi order too #at least as they are written in canon SW in both the present and past #like I could see Luke Skywalker’s new Jedi Order in legends that is a healthy system that allows for freedom of choice working out #and that was supposed to be Luke’s legacy after the OT movies for the new Jedi order which Disney has been ruining #but for the most part as they are written in CANON the Jedi order are only ‘good’ because they are the lesser of two evil military cults #the Jedi institution generally sucks as a whole in canon and aside from Luke skywalker most of them cause more problems than they solve #it’s sad when you realize that Anakin would have probably turned out a far better person if he had never recruited him as a Jedi at all #I mean the galaxy would still be fucked because of the Jedi Council the Republic Senate the Sith and Palpatine anyway #and Anakin’s life would still suck because Tatooine wasn’t the Republic’s interest #but at least he would still have his mom and have a better chance of growing up to be a good and well-adjusted adult #at least he would be happy if he never encountered the Jedi in canon #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #darth vader #obi wan kenobi critical #Yoda critical #Jedi order critical #no their entire order didn’t deserve to be mass murdered in response #but those enabling and/or enforcing the system of the Jedi are generally portrayed as the lesser of two evils next to the Sith

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or4cles · 1 month

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𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘕𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙 𝘎𝘖 𝘉𝘈𝘊𝘒 ! 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘕𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙 𝘎𝘖 𝘉𝘈𝘊𝘒 ! 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘉𝘐𝘛𝘌 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘚𝘊𝘙𝘈𝘛𝘊𝘏 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘉𝘌𝘎 𝘉𝘜𝘛 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘕𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙 𝘎𝘖 𝘉𝘈𝘊𝘒 !

FULL NAME . edita otero NICKNAME(S) / ALIAS(ES) / TITLE(S) . edie, oracle, agent moirai MERCY STATUS . intel agent, active AGE . thirty - four ( 34 ) GENDER + PRONOUNS . demi woman, she + her ORIENTATION . bisexual, kinsey 2 RADIANCE . precognition

trigger warning(s) . kidnapping, imprisonment, ambiguous death, implied torture.

when you are a child you learn suffering as a marker of safety. pain not as a threshold to something worse, but a barrier against it: we work to the bone, father says, so we do not bleed. the same principle applies to the ice that surrounds your home, tenuous and unforgiving: traversable only under the conditions that hurt. only when the cold bites can you trust that the ice will not swallow you whole. you misjudge this bargain when you are seven years old, trapping you onto cracking ice metres from shore. your father stands five feet away, out of reach. like god, he keeps his hands at his side as the world breaks under you. whatcha gonna do, little shadow? you gonna cry, or you gonna live?

raised by a survivalist zealot in a makeshift cabin in the wilds of the french-swiss border. edita, born REDACTED, is brought up under harsh and exacting conditions, learning to hunt and trap animals, create shelter, and navigate wilderness from a young age. she has no extended contact with greater civilization until age eleven, when her father is hunted down & arrested under suspicion of involvement with the disappearance of REDACTED: a woman edita knew as mother. a mother she had known as staying willingly, dying naturally. she will never know the truth.

too difficult to place in foster, they say. too clever, too sharp. too clever with sharp things. aggressive, reeling from the trauma of her whole upended. she'll run at the first open door. perhaps it's the reverse sales pitch, more likely it's the fight she puts up when caseworkers attempt to corral her into a van, but edita is adopted by the lead agent involved in the case. while edie's mouth never fits around the word father again, her heart does.

not so much a transition but a pipe on a decline, edita follows her guardian's footsteps into DGES, france's intelligence agency. by now she bares none of the feral nature of her upbringing, but the shadow of her father lingers somewhere in the foreground, a tie that cannot be severed. when complications from fieldwork result in her adoptive father's palliative hospitalization, edita is approached by mercy. she enters the program to train as a field agent.

agent oracle, as she is coined after four years and solaris induction, completes two missions as a graduated agent. the third results in her death. ⸺ no, that isn't right. it results in something like death.

PAIN NOT AS A THRESHOLD TO SOMETHING WORSE, BUT A BARRIER AGAINST IT.

that's the lesson you recall, trapped in those cement walls. the ice that you hear breaking is your bones. suffering as a buffer. hurt as a railing, a barricade. something must come of this. and then it does.

they hold a funeral for you. you see it. a ceremony wrapped up in marble, as silent as the empty coffin they put into the ground. as quiet as the phone calls made to your next of kin: none. ORACLE, the voice inside you howls, the sound of beasts you once knew, lurking in the woods. DOOM - SAYER, FUTURE - SEER. HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THIS COMING?

you see your funeral: cool, pristine, silent within four marble walls. you see the wrong flowers on the casket, your peers lined like so many dots of black ink. the signature of grief. so you fight to fill the coffin. if you are to die, it will be with a body back home, the impressions of teeth in your wrists.

while mercy believes agent oracle died in action, she is in fact targeted and captured by REDACTED. singled out for her radiance, they seek to utilize her precognition to stay a step ahead of mercy. after receiving a vision of her funeral, edie does not realize the casket is empty: she believes this a sign that she makes it out, if only to die in the process of survival. she resolves to die on her own terms. the escape comes months and meticulous planning later, fleeing the compound into the woods.

they come for you in droves, not realizing that this makes them one sort of predator, and you the other: men who go hunting with guns will find a tiger. in the frozen taiga, you are the animal. not them.

the teeth of edita's childhood is what saves her. attuned to the wilds, she picks off her captors one by one, buying enough time to find an outpost to transmit a vague message back to mercy. in ensuing weeks, the message is decoded, her location found, and a ghost is recovered. mercy brings edita home.

resurrection comes with a cost. between extensive injury and ptsd, edie is not cleared to return to field duty. after thorough psychological testing and several rounds of bartering between old friends and mercy leaders, she is accepted back to begin intelligence training. upon completion, edita requests one more thing.

a new name, but a legend as old as time. moirai, the one who pulls strings. keeper of fate, who has destiny wrapped around her knuckles. the girl who died, and the woman who lived.

HEADCANONS .

often signs notes with an angular spiral, a mimic of the inner design of a spiderweb ( ex ). this is a reference to the moirai, the reference for her current agent name, who control fate through weaving.

has a great dane named achilles.

her divining is, for reasons not fully known to her or biomed agents, more potent while under the influence.

has come to avoid sleep as much as she can. between nightmares and insomnia, edita outpaces the night hours as best she can. largely working out is her balm, though anything will do: liquor, clubs, people to fill her bed.

physicality in general is her form of therapy for her; edie has done both aerial silks and pole for years.

generally incongruous with the other intel agents. while she's completed training, her greatest asset is her radiance: applying visions and precognitive impulses to steer field agents away from danger and into the proper path.

previously, she excelled at using precognitive combat as a field agent - similar to 'spidey sense,' she was able to see/predict how an opponent would move, rendering her nigh untouchable. with years having passed since her time in the field, this ability has dulled. she has instead received increasingly potent longer-term visions.

WANTED DYNAMICS . former field agent she was assigned to as a junior, on duty with edie when she was taken (could be current field agent or tactical agent). those involved in the rescue mission that took place to recover their agent. friends/peers from her days as a field agent in training. a little shit currently under her wing irl/outside of mercy (inspo: selina & jen from tdkr). the tactical agent that refused to clear her for active field duty upon return to mercy. fellow intel agent in which things are consistently sassy/competitive, but beneath that blubber, full of fondness (inspo: bond and q).

CHARACTER / MEDIA INSPIRATIONS . cassandra, greek mythology . helena, the marsh king's daughter . the other lamb ( 2019 ) . sally owens, practical magic. abigail hobbs, hannibal . madeleine swann, spectre & no time to die. james bond, skyfall . selina kyle, the dark knight rises.

#i absolutely gave up on this i am so sorry #too excited to keep it in the drafts !#mercyorg:intro

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mozart-the-meerkitten · 1 year

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Time for me to ramble about The Wingfeather Saga to try and distract myself from my depression and the fact that I’m sick and miserable!

~*Spoilers*~ for all the books

Okie so in the 3rd Wingfeather show episode Tink calls Peet old and I just. I just wanna address that for a second because it’s been poking around in my mind ever since. xD

So here’s what I think the ages of the adults in the Wingfeather Saga are as based on the kid’s ages, how long it’s been since Anniera fell and logic:

Let’s start with Esben and Nia. Since their kiddos were very little when Anniera fell (Janner was only three) it follows that they were also quite young, I’m gonna say mid-20′s, around 24-25. Nine years later that’d make them 33-34 years old, which seems logical.

I headcanon that Artham and Esben have the same age gap as Janner and Kal, so assuming Artham is only a year older than his brother that’d put him at about 25-26 (my age ;-;) when Anniera fell and 34-35 during the events of the series. That’s. That’s not old. Even if you headcanon him as several years older than Esben (say 3 or so) he’d still be in his 30′s.

(I’m not knocking Tink btw, he’s 11 and everyone’s old when you’re a little kid, especially weird guys with whitish gray hair that you don’t know are related to you.)

I don’t have any concrete idea of how old Podo is and it bothers me, Leeli in book 4 keeps saying he’s like, really old, but she’s also 9 so that’s probably not reliable. Assuming Nia’s in her 30′s during the books Podo is probably(?) in his mid-late 60′s. (Especially since we know he did a LOT when he was young, he ran with the Stranders, he was a pirate, and when he came to the Hollows he said he never sailed again until he traveled to Anniera for Nia’s wedding). I feel like Wendolyn was younger than him by maybe 5-6 years since she isn’t married when they meet, despite being an attractive and well-to-do young woman.

Mentioning grandparents, has anyone else ever wondered where the HECK Artham and Esben’s parents are? Like, they’re barely even mentioned in the books, I think we actually learn their names from a genealogy Janner gets from Oskar/the Great Library. And this is especially weird when you consider that Podo and Wendolyn are actively helping Nia and the kids escape when Anniera falls. That, and Esben is king already when Anniera falls and unless their parents had kids when they were older (which is possible) they won’t be that old and Idk why his dad wouldn’t still be ruling. Like, why pass the throne off to your 20-something son if you don’t have to? Why not train him more?

So here’s what I think happened to Jru and Nala Wingfeather: I think Bonifer killed them. Not Bonifer himself, of course, but I think he arranged their deaths in some way. It would be pretty easy, tbh, to have an “accident” where they died. All you’d need to do would be hire some pirates to attack a ship they’re sailing on, or sabotage the ship so that it sank once it set sail.

Bonifer would have several good motives for this, I think. First and foremost, it’s going to be much easier for him to trick Esben, a brand-new, very young, king into believing his lies than an older, more experienced, king and queen. Not that I think Esben (or Artham) was an idiot, but Bonifer has had a really long time to learn how to lie and be a terrible person, and the younger you are the more likely you are to fall for stuff like that (generally speaking, there are always exceptions. like, I don’t think Maraly would have been easily tricked by Bonifer’s shenanigans because she grew up with the Stranders who are a bunch of lying tricksters. Meanwhile, Janner was tricked because he grew up among trustworthy and loving adults. Same thing with Esben and Artham).

Second, it’s possible that Jru and/or Nala had learned something that made them suspicious of Bonifer or were close to finding something about Gnag/the Fangs that would have ruined their plans, so Bonifer had them killed. Again, it’s really easy to set up an “accident”, especially when sailing is involved.

And finally, Bonifer just. really hates the Wingfeathers. Because he’s got issues. So of course he’d try to cause them all the suffering he could.

So, yeah, that’s why I think Esben and Artham’s parents aren’t around/aren’t mentioned in the books. Also my headcanons about ages.

#the wingfeather saga #wingfeather saga spoilers #esben wingfeather #artham wingfeather #nia wingfeather #podo helmer #bonifer squoon #headcanons #rambling

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