#only to realize this is a quote from your character RIP

[nobuverse]

@yabokku said: EVEN IF LIFE IS PAINFUL & TOUGH, people should appreciate what it means to be ALIVE at all. ( For : Okita Souji. )

If the statement is supposed to be encouraging, she Okita doesn't find it to be so in the least. The once proud warrior can only meet it with disdain, giving a soul piercing glare in response.

She's on her knees, fingers trembling too badly to be able to properly hold on her tanto. She can still the old, decrepit cat she'd aimed to kill trotting away - proving to her how worthless she'd become.

Had she been trying to put the creature out of its misery?

No. She'd been trying to prove to herself that she could still kill. But it seems like she's fallen so far to this illness that she can't even manage to snuff out a life already half dead.

She coughs as she first opens her mouth in response, crimson splattering all over hands.

"And this..." she heaves, trying not choke on her own blood

"This is what you would call living...?"

#went through the meme tag trying to figure out what this was from #only to realize this is a quote from your character RIP #i imagined this happening near the end of her mortal life but this can be whenever really #sorry 'bout her being a stick in the mud though kajshfdkj #yabokku #cherry blossom saber [ okita ] #A man's Life is but Fifty Years! It is but a Dream! { Asks } #animal cruelty cw #stop trying to kill cats okita u suck

[pinguwrites]

Black Heart | Chapter One: Evening Cigarettes

Pairing -> Thomas Shelby x fem!poc!reader

Summary -> The year is 1920, and you have no idea how you got here. One moment, you were in your bed, and the next, you were lying in a field of grass, thousands of miles away from home. All you know is that you're in a small town called Birmingham, and you need money. Fortunately, the local gangster is in the market for an accountant, and you're in the market for a job.

Warnings -> swearing, mentions of racism, suicide joke, reader kinda has a dark sense of humor, tommy being a bit of an ass, sorry for the short chapter

REWRITTEN 9/29/23 - CURRENTLY ON HOLD

Word count: 1.8k

Disclaimer: Peaky Blinders characters, plots, quotes, etc. do not belong to me and belong to the rightful owner(s). This is only fanfiction and this is just for fun.

Series Masterlist

There wasn’t much to be said about Birmingham. It was a small city, located somewhere in England, filled with dirty streets and coal-stained men and nothing of any interest at all. For the past few days, you had been walking around the place in an almost dream-like haze, searching for food scraps and pieces of suitable clothing, wondering why the fuck you were here and how.

It’s all those movies you’ve been watching, your mom’s voice rings in your head. Too much fantasy and not enough reality. 

A part of you wondered if you should have listened to her words, if this world you were now a part of was the result of an overactive imagination and a desperate desire to escape reality. Maybe this was some cruel trick the universe decided to play on you, maybe you had passed out and all of this was a sort of long-term coma. Perhaps it was a mass prank and everyone here was just actors — but you thought that to be highly unlikely, given, you know, common sense. 

The only other possibility you could come up with was time travel. Even if it was probable, there were so many questions: Why you? Why this time? 

No, you’d just stick to the most simple and likely answer: you were fucking insane. Right now, in the real world, you were being locked up in some mental facility, strapped to a bed, and being monitored by doctors and nurses. Your mom was in tears, wondering where she had gone wrong with raising her daughter, and you were oblivious, wandering around in the year 1920, with no way to get back.

You kicked a pebble, watching it roll across the dirt ground. While that was the going theory, you still didn’t know what to do. Your instinct to survive was just as strong as any other day, and you were still plagued with hunger, pain, and fear.

So far, you had no proper shelter, no stable source of food and water (though the nearby well and some restaurant scraps were doing just fine for now), and you had nothing acceptable to wear except a dirty gray dress you found in some dumpster-like area. You had actually cleaned the damn thing yesterday, but it still had this nasty stench like foul body odor, and a couple of ripped holes. It was at least better than the clothes you were wearing beforehand — a white, loose, crop top and some fuzzy shorts, which had garnered nothing but stares of disgust and pity when you walked around in them. I’m naked to them, you realized, and that was when you made the endeavor to search for new clothing; as well as the fact that your modern outfit was doing nothing to protect you from the bitter chill. 

Not that this dress was doing any better. You predicted that you would die soon from the weather. Probably in your sleep. While you hadn’t found any shelter, you did find a little corner by the side of an apartment building. That’s where your body would be found, all frozen to death like meat in a fridge. But what else were you supposed to do? It was the best place you had.

You continued walking down the road, kicking that same pebble again. Your toes and fingers were numb and you were sure that you were going to get a cold, though that was the least of your worries.

The sky was a dark gray and it seemed like it was going to rain soon. You looked up from the ground and glanced over the area, a habit you picked up ever since you saw someone getting mugged here. The entire city of Birmingham felt like a small town, with its little businesses and shops along the side of the unpaved road. Occasionally a few people would walk past you. They would either ignore you and mind their own business, or stare at you like you were some exotic specimen. Fucking racist pricks.

You reached into your bag — thank god you had a bag on you when you were transported here — and pulled out your phone. It was dead, but you kept checking it out of habit. Not like you could call anyone even if it was charged, but it would have been nice to spend your last moments watching a good movie or scrolling through old pictures to reminisce about the past. 

Everything else in the bag was just hand sanitizer, a mask from COVID days (oh, God, what if I’m carrying COVID and spread it?), lip balm, and a small pocket knife. All things you were glad to have, but not particularly useful. It would have been nice to have a book on survival in the wilderness, or a lighter. 

You sighed, your breath coming out in a white smoke in the bitter air. You wanted to crawl into a ball and collapse. You wanted your mom to hold you, or your friends to lighten the mood with silly jokes. Why did this have to happen? Why me?

When you arrived at the apartment you were ready to curl up and sleep, but you noticed a flickering sound, and turned around to see a man, leaning against the wall of the opposite building. 

He was handsome, with a gray cap and a dusty black coat on. He seemed to be stopping only for a moment, lighting the cigarette between his fingers before moving on, but he noticed your stare and gave you a cold look.

“You need something?” he asked, in that same, strong British accent you heard everyone around here speak in.

“No.” You shook your head, feeling a little bad for blatantly staring. “My bad.”

The man took a puff of his cigarette. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so, I’ve never seen you before.”

His facial expression didn’t change. It was in that same cold stare. “Do you know who I am?”

“Well, I’ve never seen you before,” you repeated yourself, getting a little irritated. Your day was already going bad — scratch that, your whole week had been a fucking roller coaster, and now you had to deal with an arrogant prick who thought he was shit. “Are you some kind of celebrity?”

“You’re American,” he stated, ignoring your question. “Tell me, Miss . . .?”

“[Y/N],” you said.

“Miss [Y/N]. Tell me what a girl like you is doing in Birmingham?”

“I’m not quite sure,” you responded honestly. “What are you doing here?” you asked, not enjoying his attitude. “What’s your name?”

“You’re a cheeky lass, sweetheart.” He grinned a little, amused, like this was all funny to him. “My name is Thomas Shelby. And this is my town.” He paused, his grin dropping. A horrible feeling sunk in your gut. “I ought to know who lives in my town, eh?”

He took a puff of his cigarette. “Come here, sweetheart.” 

You hesitated but walked forward a little, ready to run at a moment’s notice. He had that dumb hairstyle every man here was rocking, but it fit him. It made him look nice.

You didn’t say anything. Neither did he. But then the man called Thomas Shelby offered you a cigarette and asked, “Are you a whore?”

You stood there, stunned, not accepting his offer. “No.”

He looked you up and down again. “How old are you? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?”

“Eighteen.”

He didn’t say anything to that or indicate that he was surprised.

“You have family ‘round here?”

You shook your head, thoughts running wild.

He must be a gangster. Like Al Capone, only British, you thought, feeling nervous. What was he going to do to you? He wouldn’t harm you, would he?

Of course he’s going to harm you. That’s what men like him do.

“Ran away, eh? Nice story.”

“I never said I ran away,” you said, thinking you ought to stop this conversation right now and bolt in the opposite direction out of this town.

“Then what happened?” He walked closer to you. His face was neutral, but you could tell he was suspicious, otherwise he wouldn’t be asking all these questions. “I’m not going to ask again.”

“Good. Now, will you leave me alone?” Your voice dropped to a more quiet tone. “Please?”

Mr. Shelby looked like he was thinking. “This isn’t a safe place for young girls like you,” he finally said. “You shouldn’t be out here,” he gestured to the streets, “alone, with no one to protect you.”

“I’m doing just fine” you retorted, but made an effort to sound as polite as you could. 

“Fine?” He took a look at your clothing. “Yes, very suitable. I’m sure you enjoy being homeless.”

“I’m not homeless,” you defended, even though you were, indeed, homeless. 

Being reminded of your hopeless situation made tears pricked at your eyes, and you felt silly for wanting to cry, especially in front of him, but it was all just so hard. You didn’t feel right getting upset, other people had and were facing worse, but all you could think about was how much you wanted to eat a hot home-cooked meal and a nice bed to sleep in.

“Are you going to cry?” he asked.

“Do you like it when people cry?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then you should leave me alone, because I probably will.”

You averted your eyes, feeling ashamed for admitting that to a random stranger, a stranger who was probably judging you right now, a stranger who was probably a fucking criminal.

Mr. Shelby walked even closer, to the point where you were now just a feet apart. You could see the freckles scattered across his face.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out some paper money, handing it over to you. “You see that building?” He pointed to the one beside you, the one you’d been sleeping behind. “This should be enough to get you a few day’s stay.”

You were stunned, hesitantly taking the pounds and blinking the tears away. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “Just doing a decent man’s work, sweetheart.” He looked into your eyes. “Last I remember, the landlady of this building is hiring a maid. Ask her about it, tell her that Thomas Shelby referred you here.”

You agreed, not wanting to say anything that would make him change his mind, but you were still wondering why he changed his mind. Did he like it when girls cried? Did it make him feel like a hero? Was he planning to use you later for something? You didn’t know, and no matter how many times you tried to guess, it was useless, because you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

“Thank you, sir,” you breathed out, feeling a little bad for your snippiness. 

He nodded his head at you, lingering for a moment before walking in the opposite direction. You watched him until he was out of sight, a warm feeling in your tummy.

You walked into the apartment, finally inside a building for the first time in a while. You told the landlady, an old Asian woman, that Mr. Shelby had referred you to this place and the job. She took the money and eagerly offered you a room to stay, though you noticed a fearful hint in her eyes.

She got you a warm bath, saying that you must tell Mr. Shelby that she was very happy to take you in — subtlety, of course, and lead you to your new room.

You laid down on the bed, taking in the comfort of the sheets. Very quickly, you fell asleep, drifting off into a slumber after a long day.

#thomas shelby #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby x y/n #thomas shelby x you #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfic #black heart #pinguwrites

[benkeibear]

☰ 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚 𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲

⧫ Character: Nanami

⧫ Reader: female

⧫ Wordcount: 0.8k

⧫ Summary: Nanami surprises you with some time off work over Christmas and gives you an early present

⧫ WARNINGS: sub!reader, oral (f! Receiving), fingering, praising, mentions of unprotected sex and breeding

⧫ A/n: this is my entry for @mekiza ‘s secret Santa event for my dear @villain-hotline - I hope you have a beautiful Christmas my love 🖤

Christmas season - your favorite time of the year and only one thing was missing - the love of your life spending time with you. He couldn’t yet again and you tried to understand that Nanamis work is important but sometimes you would like to be selfish and have him all to yourself for at least a few days a year.

Out of frustration and to keep yourself busy you decided to bake cookies and ended up making his favorites, scoffing to yourself once the realization hit you. After you pushed the cookies into the oven you began cleaning up the mess you created, singing along to whatever Christmas song came on the radio.

You didn’t even hear the apartment door open and close, too busy pulling off a little show for a nonexistent audience in the kitchen but Nanami watched you with a small smirk on his face. It was just too cute how you were singing and dancing while cleaning - something he didn’t see enough of in his opinion. The small heart attack you got when you saw him standing in the doorframe was enough for him to laugh, a sound you missed so much this past week in his absence. The fact that you were singing along to „Santa baby“ was far too amusing to him so instead of hugging you he sat down at the kitchen table and patted his lap „Who needs Santa when you have me, baby?“ he asked with a small smirk as you moved to sit on his lap. Once you were seated he wrapped his arms around your waist and kissed your temple „i guess Christmas came early… I will be free for the next few days“ he informed you and he was right, this was probably the best Christmas present of them all. The gifts under the tree were piling up but you would exchange them all in a blink of an eye for time with him.

When you moved to kiss him you saw the mischievous glint behind his eyes and before you knew it his mouth opened to speak „So tell me, princess. Have you been a good girl this year?“ he asked with a raspy voice, his eyes piercing right through you and you understood, nodding eager with big doe eyes. „Oh Santa Baby, I’ve been an awful good girl this year“ you giggled, quoting the song that just came to an end and without missing a beat Nanami placed you onto the kitchen table, smiling down at your beautiful self. „Then let me give you what a good girl deserves“ he hummed in delight as he loosened his tie and stood in front of the table.

With gentle hands your clothes were removed and he placed himself between your thighs once more, kissing every inch of your soft skin, getting closer and closer to your pretty pussy. „Such a good girl“ he purred against you, letting his tongue trace over your outer labia before pressing the softest kiss directly to your clit, his thumbs spreading you open for him.

As soon as he heard a small moan, he grinned to himself, deciding not to tease you since you were such a good girl, wasting no time to let his warm tongue move over your core with small strokes and long licks, eventually focusing on your bundle of nerves - focusing on your pleasure only. You completely lost track of time while he was eating you out, unsure if it were minutes or hours that passed, mind hazy as the third orgasm ripped through your body but he was nowhere near done with you, only now inserting two of his long fingers into you with ease, your slick already running down onto the table. „Can my good girl take one more?“ he asked with a smile, chin glistening from your juices and you nodded eager. You would give him as many orgasms as he wants you to have, having missed him so much. With expertise he curled his fingers right against your sweet spot and causing your back to arch from the overwhelming pleasure it brought.

The pleasure was short lived when the fire alarm started to alarm both of you, realizing that the cookies were now burnt and smoking heavily. With an annoyed groan Nanami got up to get the sheet outside, turning the alarm off right after. The mood has been ruined but he promised you to give you the good girl treatment so he simply picked you up to carry you to the bedroom „who needs cookies when I got the best treat right here“ he hummed amused, letting you cuddle up for a moment before his hands started to wander over your skin again. A good girl deserves to be pleased and filled up until she’s satisfied after all.

Networks: @tokyometronetwork

#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #nanami x reader #nanami smut #nanami x you #nanami kento #jjk Nanami #aurassecretkinkmas #kinkmas

[siren-serenity]

HI HI OMG i hope you're having a wonderful day so far!! i just read your azul angst that you just posted and it destroyed me :((( can i have some fluff with him and the quote "i love you in every form" ?? it makes me think of his merform and i just want to love him :((( thank you sm whether you decide to write this or not!! <333

no matter what (i will always love you)

characters: azul ashengrotto, gn!reader warnings: fluff, a bit of angst (self-hatred towards own body) a/n: - the azul ashengrotto fanbase is growing!! tbh i almost started to write angst until i realized u wanted fluff lmao (i'm sorry for making him cry in most of my works for him :( ) - thank you for sending in, @azulashengrottospiano<3 this is dedicated to you, i'm sorry for making you cry!!! - feedback is appreciated!

Azul Ashengrotto feels stares crawling up, like centipedes on his disgusting tentacles and resists the urge to full-on bawl. He hides in the darkest corner of the room and his tentacles react subconsciously to his feelings, wrapping around his indigo body to mimic a ball of yarn.

Of course today they were making a potion that ended up failing spectacularly due to a petty, jealous second year student throwing an unknown ingredient into his potion. Of course, he had to be drenched in it! And of course, he was turned into his detested marine form! Could this day get any worse?

"Azul?"

He hears you, calling out his name. Normally, he would have swooned at the way your accent rolled his name on your tongue, your tone filled with your love for him (he still couldn't believe that you loved him back, of all people). But now, it's like a nightmare come true.

Azul quickly scrabbles away, slipping through the screaming students and taking advantage of the chaos. He walks (slides? slithers? he doesn't know anymore) across the floor but unfortunately bangs himself painfully against somebody. He looks up, mouth open to brutally rip the person apart, and suddenly all his vocal cords fail to work. He didn't just bump into anybody, he bumped into you.

"A-Azul?"

Azul squeezes his eyes shut and looks away. He doesn't dare to face you right now, not when he is in such a hideous form. Careful fingers pry him from the floor; his suction cups make an embarrassingly loud pop! noises as you do so.

"Oh darling," He hears you murmur. He feels your gentle touch on his limbs and resists the shudder from the delight your simple action brings him. "Look at you! You're gorgeous!"

Yes, Azul knows he is hideous- wait what?

"You're so cute! Your purple is a gorgeous shade, I'm so envious of it! And look at your tentacles! They are so cute- urgh I'm at a loss for words!"

"Y-You don't hate me?" He musters up the courage to speak, opening one eye only to spot you climbing up the railing of Mostro Lounge's aquarium. His eyes sparkle at the sight of water, suddenly reminding him of how dry his skin felt. He gently slips away from your arms and into the water, relishing in the relaxation that the simple action brings him.

"Gorgeous. Absolutely stunning."

"Don't say words you don't mean," Azul murmurs, shaking his head. "Don't...don't bring up my hopes like that!"

A gentle kiss on his forehead made his eyes widen dramatically and his skin flushed a shade of dark purple. His tentacles wiggle in the water as he attempts to regain his posture but fails miserably. You laugh before bringing his face closer and gently giving him a nose kiss - human nose to merman nose. He blinks adorably as you give him another kiss on the lips, unafraid to kiss him with so much love, so much passion. He freezes up before slowly kissing you back, his humanoid arms coming up to cradle your fragile human body.

"I promised you, didn't I?" You breathe out breathlessly. Azul's kisses always manage to do so, no matter what or when. "I love you in every form. Nothing will ever change that."

Azul Ashengrotto holds back tears of relief and gratitude before diving for another kiss. This time, his tentacles react to his subconscious will as they circle you before clutching onto you close.

He never wants this moment to end, Azul thinks as he kisses you. His mind is just overflowing with love, love, and love.

#azul ashengrotto #twisted wonderland #azul x reader #disney twisted wonderland #fluff #azul ashengrotto fluff #twst azul

[maxwell-grant]

So, as a lover of superheroes, supervillains, super-science ETC, i've had Venture Bros on the mind recently, for reasons that should be obvious, and my mind has run into an intersting question I kinda want to pick your brain on: Why does Venture Bros work. Like, it's a show that is absurdly cynical and dark and bleak. It's comedically dark, but sitll dark. Downright mean-spirited a lot of the time. And normally, I find that kind of cynicism very dull, but...For some reason, here it feels like it works. Maybe it's just the sense of affection, of real love for classic 60s cartoons and superhero comics sprinkled throughout, but...I don't know, it feels like it should make me as angry as something like Velma does but it just doesn't. I don't know why. ANy thoughts

I said as much that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the show stuck around, and the characters were developed so vividly, that the creators had to answer the "...okay, so now what?" process, that usually stops those kinds of mean dark parodies right on their tracks when they run out of cheap shots to take. But honestly, going back and rewatching it? Venture Bros was always going to go there, the whole Jonny Quest parody thing just did not last past Season One, hell you could argue it didn't even really last past the pilot or midway through S1. By episode one of Season 2, the show had gestated into it's own thing. The show was allowed to grow, and change, and develop. It got to move past itself and say goodbye to old favorite ideas and say hello to new ones, it got to breathe new life into itself with the soft-reboot of Season 6 and keep being so much more with every new season.

The artbook goes into this quite a lot, actually, with Jackson talking about how Venture Bros started as a one-off gag observation about how Jonny Quest ripped off Tom Swift, and then became a concept when he realized he could fit all of his unused ideas for The Tick and superhero parodies and weird comic ideas. He and Doc Hammer actually specifically address how the parody element faded and why:

I like the pilot. It isn't the show that we made. but I like the pilot. The pilot was made with a different concept. I can watch it and not tie it into Venture Bros. I can go, "Okay, here are these characters in their first bid for comedy,", and it had moments when we both said, "Yes, we will perpetuate these moments. This is who these characters are." And it had moments of single-beat pilot jumps. It was fine. It was not the show that we kept writing, because we couldn't.

There's something about a straight parody that I think has a cap. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people can write a parody forever, but I think you can only make so many jokes on one thing for a certain amount of time before you go, "We have to develop the world that these people are in.". It needs a revolving door.

You would need to approach it like Harvey Birdman, which said, "We're going to take every character we can get a license for, bring them onto the show, and have them do their thing in our world so we can demystify all the characters you remember from your childhood". It's a great straight-up parody. But if you take Sealab 2021 - that had nothing to do with the original. They took these drawings, and they said, "These are totally different people. We're going to give them their own different world, their own language, characters", and that worked.

We were leaning towards that. Venture Bros was even weirder because we said, "Let's make this world rock solid and deep and long and have just an abundance of information. Let's have the jokes come from everywhere, and the speed is hard to keep up with. You have to watch it twice". And that was nothing that Jackson and I talked about. Let's make this smart, rich and meaningful, and hope that other people have our sensibility and eventually get it. - Doc Hammer, Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros.

There's even this quote from Jackson regarding one of the earliest attempts made in trying to figure out the show's look and design where it was supposed to be animated in CG at Will Vinton Studios, and it was intended to look gorgeous as well as outrageously expensive and within six months everyone aboard had left and Jackson's time in The Tick was up so he had to get production on the new thing moving along. And he describes what wound up being a pretty effective summation of the show post-animation bump;

"Screw the bad-on-purpose sixties Marvel thing. Screw irony. Isn't it way more subversive to do this smart-ass, darkish comedy but have every aspect of it look gorgeous?

That's what got me thinking that it's way cooler to make things well and beautiful than to try to make them crappy on purpose - Jackson Publick, Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros.

Most if not everything that makes the show work, that makes it's character work, you can trace pretty directly from that process, of where the show started versus where it ended. It's Rusty Venture becoming a more complicated character and less of a mean caricature. It's Brock Samson needing things to do besides being the action badass who kills armies of disposable henchmen, and the show needing to move past him and make him so much more as a person. It's in how the show was originally conceived in a villain-of-the-week format and The Monarch was a throwaway gag character for the pilot, but The Monarch's defined personality and shtick worked well enough that it made it much easier and more rewarding for them to just go back to him for most episodes, until he wormed his way into becoming the show's other protagonist. It's Hank and Dean growing past literally and textually interchangeable and disposable Hardy Boys pastiches into actual people, distinct people, people who can carry their own plotlines and take center stage and actually be The Venture Brothers as something more than just a throwaway gag concept.

I'm certainly not saying it works for everyone, or that it works 100% of the time, again rewatching the show is putting a lot into perspective for me and a lot of jokes kinda did just age abysmally, but the show knows what it's doing enough to skirt by and avoid a lot of catastrophic pitfalls that usually happen with similar projects.

And really I'd say the main reason it works is, and it's never really just one reason, is because it was, and is, a painstaking labor of love founded on a marriage by two geeks (I'm not even exaggerating, that's how the two described their partnership at least a few times) shooting the shit at a treefort for nights on end, getting to do all these dumb voices that you only get to do with friends, laboring extensively for years on making this thing they'd created the best that it possibly could be, something they put all of themselves into again and again. It's them making a dozen different comedy duos voiced by themselves and finding ways to make each distinct so they can fit in all these dumb and lovely little conversations and skits, it's that combination of their skills and preferences and even disagreements. It's got that Asterix thing where the work is so inseparably intertwined with the partnership that made it, that the work's growth over time is tied to.

So honestly the best way I can summarize why I think the Venture Bros works is because it was 19 years of Jackson Pollock and Doc Hammer at AstroBase doing exactly this, just replace the cartoon sound effects with deep cut pop culture riffs and in-depth earnest extrapolations of why the comic books and cartoons they love and obsess about are deeply stupid on a fundamental level and why this something great that you can spin endless stories and scenes out of, actually no keep the over-the-top battle sound effects, those are equally important.

"Jackson and I, we'd go every day and talk and laugh and get to know each other and not even talk about the show, but just find out what our sensibilites were. It was like the process of falling in love"

We played darts and made up these little skits, much of it became The Venture Bros. It was all kind of based around this idea that Aquaman and Black Manta were not who they were but people that were much chattier and more social. It's almost like what The Monarch and Dr Venture became, actual people that have these bizarre jobs: chaser and chasee. This strange bureaucratic relationship with the paradigm of villain and hero.

I'm a goofball and name shit. Of course I named my studio. We took over the place and AstroBase as this entity - a really filthy fucking painting studio - became a creative tree fort. Owning the AstroBase is one of the things that made The Venture Bros.

A place where we could go at two in the morning and scream at the top of our lungs that had nothing to do with commerce. It was a clubhouse. A pure idiot invention. And if we wanted to stay up all night making costumes or rubber swords, we just did. - Doc Hammer - Doc Hammer, Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros.

#replies tag #the venture bros #the venture brothers #jackson pollock #doc hammer #adult swim #man that movie rekindled my fixation at maybe the worst time #or maybe the best idk

[rubyreduji]

Wildest Dreams — xmh [thirteen.]

summary: say you'll remember me, standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset

tags: smut (minors dni!), angst, movie star!au warnings: cheating, explicit unprotected sex, oral (f. receiving), fingering, choking, multiple orgasms, tub sex wc: 4.1k an: writing the characters to directly quote the song lyrics is kinda cringe LOL but also cringe culture is dead. anyways i am sorry for the angst, at least i didn’t make minghao an asshole like i was planning on so be grateful /hj

m.list

“Y/N-ah.”

You’re standing near one of the marble pillars in the ballroom. Around you there are tall walls that connect to intricate ceiling designs. The chattering of everyone around you drones on in the background. The room is warm from all of the bodies.

When you glance to the side you see Xu Minghao staring at you.

Minghao is your most recent co-star in the movie you just filmed. He’s tall and handsome and apparently very popular in China and Korea. He has been rapidly gaining a US following as well, making him the best candidate to be your love interest in your upcoming romance film.

“Minghao. Hello.”

You have a confession to make. Minghao drives you crazy. Not in the ‘I want to rip his hair out’ way but in the ‘I think I’ll die if I don’t rip his clothes off in the next ten seconds’ way. From the moment you met the chemistry was apparent between you two and you fell for him right away.

You’ve never been interested in your co-stars before but Minghao is different. You find yourself wanting him with every fiber of your being. The numerous sex scenes you had to film didn’t make it any better either. 

“What are your plans now that we’ve finished filming early?” Minghao asks you. He’s dressed up for the wrap-up party you guys are at. Known for his fashion taste his outfit stands out from everyone else’s with his silken black shirt and designer blazer. His hair is uncharacteristically styled back, unfamiliar to the long mullet he had during filming. You think he looks ethereal. The chandelier hits across his face and he glows.

“Probably go back home. Rest a bit. Talk to my agent about my next project.” You shrug before looking at one of the paintings that adorn the wall. “Wait for promotions to start.”

“Come with me.”

“What?” You whip back around to look at the man. He’s staring into your soul. For the movie he wore blue contacts but now his natural brown eyes are staring at you. They’re deep and intense.

“If you’re not busy, come with me.” 

He doesn’t explain more but you understand. 

“What if we just left.”

“Excuse me?” You look over at your co-star. You two are off set, waiting for the lighting or whatever to be fixed.

“I’m tired of this. What if we just left, got out of this down. Just kept driving until we were out of the city, away from all of this, all the crowds,” Minghao says, a bit wistfully. “Just you and me.”

At the time you just brushed him off, acted like he was just joking; being the same sassy, annoyed Minghao as normal. Now you understand what he wants though. What he meant that day.

Minghao is still staring at you and you realize you haven't answered him yet.

It’s a bad idea. You know it’s a bad idea. You should say no, but then again, when are you ever going to get this chance again? With the last thought that Heaven can’t help you now, you nod at the man and he grins.

The drive is fairly quiet as you and Minghao drive away from the filming location. He takes you up into the mountains to a secluded cabin. Despite only a few words being traded while you were driving, the moment you two get into the cabin your hands are on each other.

You press Minghao up against the door and even though you’re the one pinning him, he’s still very much in control. He has a strong grip on the back of your head as he pulls you deeper into the kiss. You melt into his touch. Kissing him like this is different than when you were filming. It was just acting back then, nothing but professional, but now it’s real. Real feelings, real emotions, real passion.

Finally you two break apart, breathless. Minghao recouperates first. “Go slip into something nice. I’ll make us dinner.”

You two break away from each other and you make your way through the house and to the master bedroom. Inside you run yourself a bath before stripping down and sinking into the tub. As you relish in the hot water around your body you think about your situation.

Xu Minghao wants to spend the weekend with you. Spend the weekend with you doing erotic and romantic activities. You can barely believe it.

When you decide you’ve soaked for long enough you get out and dry yourself off. You dig through your suitcase and pick out a beautiful slip dress and a pair of heels before doing your makeup and heading downstairs.

You find Minghao on the balcony. He’s set up a table with lots of food and he himself has changed into a suit. When you walk onto the porch he greets you with a long kiss before helping you into your chair.

You look over off the balcony to the scenery, where it looks down into the valleys. It’s a beautiful view as the sun starts to set. The oranges and yellows and reds mixing together to paint the sky golden. A warm breeze blows by as you hum.

“This is lovely Minghao,” you say softly, too afraid that it will all disappear if you’re too loud.

“All for you,” Minghao says. He reaches across the table and grabs your hand. “You look lovely Y/N.”

You two start to eat your dinner and as you do you fall into a comfortable conversation. It’s exactly what you’d imagine a date with Minghao to be like. His persona is different from the one he keeps while on set. He’s more open, more smiley. His giggles are music to your ears that you want to keep on repeat.

When dinner is finished Minghao grabs your hand and pulls you into him, swaying your bodies a bit. There’s no music but Minghao hums under his breath and you two dance together. The moment feels too real, too nice. You stare at Minghao and the way the golden sky shines against his face.

Without a word you cup his face and pull him into a kiss. Minghao reciprocates, pressing himself against you, deepening your kiss. When you pull away you stare up at him.

“Minghao…” He looks down at you, reading your eyes, and he understands what you’re trying to say. Trying to communicate. Trying to tell him your feelings for him. That you want this to be more than just a weekend, more than just a one time thing.

“I can’t,” Minghao whispers. “I- I have someone waiting for me, back in China.”

“O-oh.” You pull away from him, or at least try, because he won’t loosen his grip on you. “Minghao please.”

“No. I won’t let you go. I’m sorry Y/N, I really am. Don’t think I don’t want to, but there are just some things that can’t be helped. Arranged marriages and fame and parents and companies. Trust me, I wish it was different too.” Minghao slips a hand onto the side of your neck, his thumb brushing against your jaw. “Please, just give me this weekend.”

You feel like crying, wrapped up in Minghao arms as he stares at you expectantly, pleadingly. Something about this situation makes it even worse than if it was just a one time thing, if there were no feelings involved for him.

You swallow thickly. “Promise me one thing?”

“Anything.”

“Say you’ll remember me. Standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, just like this. That you don’t forget this moment. Say that you’ll hold this close to your heart, the same way I will,” you say, your voice trembling a bit, just barely above a whisper. “Please remember me. Even if it’s just in your wildest dreams.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to forget you even if I tried,” Minghao tells you back. He presses a long, slow kiss to your forehead.

You let the tears spill now. There are too many words left unsaid, but you both still know what each other means. You think about how you’ll have to see him again, after all of this, and pretend you’re not in love with him. That he’s not in love with you. That you’ll have interviews and promotions and screenings to go to and you’ll have to force yourself to not think about him in the way you really want to. Minghao holds your hand in his and brings it up to rest between your chests, right in between your beating hearts.

“No one has to know what we do. This is just you and me right now,” you say. “Nobody else.”

“I want you Y/N,” Minghao tells you. A part of you believes he means it in more than one way. You both know he can’t have you like that though, so you’ll just do your bests to have each other in the only way you can.

It doesn’t take long for Minghao to have your dress thrown onto the bedroom floor as you lay spread against the bed. Minghao’s mouth is on your body, pressing hot kisses onto your warm skin. He’s stripped down to just his pants now as he hovers over you. He presses another kiss onto your ribs.

“H-hao,” you gasp out, “please touch me.”

Minghao doesn’t respond, he just slides his hand up your bare thigh and presses his fingers against your clothed clit. He rubs gentle, slow circles into the bud, giving you some release, but not enough. He paws his free hand at your bra, pushing it up a bit to reveal your areola. He bends down to kiss at your nipple. He flicks his tongue over it and you gasp and buck your hips up into his hand.

“You make the prettiest nosies,” Minghao murmurs. He moves up your body so he can kiss you on the lips this time. His fingers still press into you as he kisses you. Your lips move against each other’s in sync, taking your time with the kiss. You savor the slow kiss, taking time to remember the way Minghao tastes.

As you kiss his fingers push your panties aside and he slips one into you. He swallows up your moan and starts to pump his finger in and out of you, his thumb moving up to play with your clit. When you gasp again Minghao takes this moment to grab your lip between his teeth, pulling gently at it. It surprises you how much you like the feeling of it. Enough that it gets you wet enough that Minghao can slip two more fingers into you.

He’s steadily thrusting into you now, his fingers curling up into your g-spot. Your body is thrumming with pleasure as he continues to finger you. You’re squirming a bit but it doesn’t deter Minghao from the task at hand. His mouth is now on your neck, sucking where you’re most sensitive.

“C’mon baby, let go for me,” Minghao mumbles.

With a slew of Minghao’s name on your lips you let that tight coil inside of you snap and you spasm against Minghao’s digits. He continue to fuck you through it until you’re panting and your body goes limp against the bed.

“So good for me. You look so pretty like this Y/N,” Minghao tells you as he kisses your forehead. “Do you need to rest, or can I eat you out? I wanna taste you so bad.”

“Please, eat me out Hao,” you say. Minghao hums and presses one more kiss to your lips before slipping down between your legs.

He spreads your thighs apart a bit more before leaning down and licking a stripe up your slit. After he attaches his lips to your clit, sucking at the bud and flicking his tongue over it. The stimulation is intense having just orgasmed, but it’s not overbearing, just enough to still be pleasurable.

Minghao’s hands knead at your thigh fat as he sucks on you. Your hands grip at the bedsheets and your legs tighten around his head. Minghao just pulls your thighs apart again and dives in even more, his tongue dipping into your entrance as he does. You can feel his nose bumping up against your clit as his tongue explores your insides. 

His lips work in tandem with his tongue, making out with your pussy and shooting bliss throughout your veins. Due to your sensitivity from your previous climax it doesn’t take you long to fall apart on Minghao’s tongue, your legs shaking as you do. Minghao coos at you the whole time, showering you with praise as you work through your high.

Your mind is fuzzy as your body relaxes against the mattress again. You feel Minghao move around and even clean you up a bit before moving to lay beside you, bringing you closer to him so you’re bundled up in his arms.

“Hao,” you whine, “let me take care of you.”

“Not right now love, okay? We have all weekend. I just want to hold you right now.” And well, you can’t exactly turn that down.

“Y/N.” You feel someone shake your body a bit. You crack an eye open to see Minghao standing over you. He doesn’t have a shirt on and he’s holding a tray in his hands. It takes you a few moments more to fully wake up and sit up but when you do Minghao is placing the tray in your lap. On the tray is an assortment of breakfast foods and drinks.

“Minghao, this is so sweet. Thank you.” The man leans down so you can give him a kiss. The traitorous part of your mind reminds you that you can’t have this everyday, no matter how much you yearn for it. Luckily the optimistic part of your brain shoots the thought down, wanting to just enjoy this moment while it lasts. “I can’t eat this all by myself though. Will you help me?”

And that’s how you and Minghao spend your morning, feeding each other and trading kisses as you do.

After breakfast you two take a shower together. Nothing funny happening, just genuine showering and enjoying each other’s presence. Minghao helps you shampoo your hair and you wash his back. The moment is sweet and domestic and when you go to dry off Minghao wraps you up in a big fluffy towel and kisses you before wrapping himself in a towel as well.

You two get dressed before heading down to the living room. Minghao grabs a handful of blankets while you pick a movie for you two to watch. Watching movies as a movie star is difficult because every movie either has you in it, or someone you know. Not to mention all of the drama you know about each movie. Luckily you settle for a film that has neither of you in it and is old enough that it’s out of your generation of movies.

Not that it matters much though because about twenty-five minutes into the movie Minghao is pressing kisses against your neck and shoulder. His hands trail up and down your stomach, under your shirt, as he does.

Instead of berating him you just tilt your head to the side to give him better access. Minghao takes the hint and starts to put more intention behind his actions. His hands slide up to your breasts and he squeezes your supple flesh. You don’t have a bra on so you can feel his long, thin fingers digging into your skin directly. His thumb brushes up against your nipple and you release a low whine.

You can’t take it anymore and you climb into Minghao’s lap, straddling his thighs. You connect your lips together and Minghao kisses you back. You two slowly make out as Minghao’s hands continue to play with your chest, making you damp between your legs. 

“Hao, I need you,” you say, a bit breathless.

“I’ve got you baby.”

Minghao reaches between you and helps you pull off your shorts and panties before removing his own pants and underwear. You’re wet enough that Minghao can just line himself up and have you sink down onto him. You both groan at the feeling. Minghao’s cock is long and you can feel it reaching deep inside of you.

“You feel so tight around me,” Minghao says. “Feels so good baby.”

You take a moment to adjust fully before you press your hands onto Minghao’s shoulders and start to move up and down a bit. You take your time as you roll your hips against his. Minghao’s hands are planted on your hips, helping you move.

You two are fully entranced in one another. Nobody else exists let alone matters right now as you two take pleasure in one another.

You start to get impatient and you can tell Minghao is too so you start to pick up your pace until you’re fully bouncing in his lap, his cock hitting deep inside of you in all the right places. You’re panting as you fuck yourself on his dick. Minghao doesn’t look much better, his eyes hazy as he stares up at you.

“I’m so close,” you mumble. “So, so close.”

Minghao takes this as his time to start touching you between your legs. He rubs at your clit quickly, bringing a whole new sensation to your body. It doesn’t take long for you to clamp down onto him and release. You whine loudly as you hit your high. Your lover isn’t father behind as he quickly pulls you off of him so he can spurt his cum against your stomachs.

You bring Minghao into another kiss that you two continue until the cum gets to gross you and move to clean it up. When you’re done cleaning up Minghao pulls you back onto the couch and you two take a nap, cuddled up in each other’s arms.

When you wake up in the morning you realize it’s your last day to spend with Minghao. You stare at the man sleeping peacefully next to you. His face is fully relaxed and his black locks frame his face gently. He looks like an angel. You want to touch his face, to rub your thumb over his cheek, but you don’t want to disturb his slumber. Instead you just stare at him, trying to commit everything to memory.

Last night you and Minghao made dinner together but didn’t eat much before you two were heading up to the bedroom. Minghao ate you out again before fucking you gently against the mattress, laving you with praise and euphoria. You’re sure that you now have marks littering your skin where he kept nipping at you. Not that you mind, even more to help remember him bye.

“Good morning,” Minghao mumbles. His eyes are still closed but his arms wrap around you tighter.

“Good morning.” You can’t help the small twinge of sadness that hints in your voice. 

“Stop thinking. Just enjoy this.”

“Okay,” you whisper and allow yourself to enjoy the moment.

“M-ming-minghao,” you cry out. Tears are falling freely from your eyes.

Minghao is pistoning into you, his hand on your throat as he does. He’s already made you cum three times now and it doesn’t seem like you guys are going to be stopping any time soon, trying to make the best of your last night together.

You’re sweating and crying and you have cum and slick all over you but you don’t care. Your mind is buzzing with bliss and that’s all that matters. 

“Are you doing okay baby?” Minghao whispers. His voice is raspy and low and it makes you squirm even more. You nod and dig your fingers into his back even harder. “That’s my good girl.”

You feel like you’re on Cloud 9. Minghao’s hand tightens around your throat as his thrusts get more pointed, slamming into your g-spot over and over again. It only takes the pad of Minghao’s fingers touching your clit to have you falling apart.

You whine high and loud. Minghao works you through your orgasm as you let ecstasy take over your body. You feel spent but so good and you don’t even realize Minghao is pulling out and cumming over your stomach as you try to catch your breath. 

Minghao falls onto the bed next to you, out of breath as well. He lays on his side and pulls you into him. He kisses the side of your head two times before kissing your neck once. He rests his head onto the pillow when he’s done.

“Let’s take a bath,” Minghao murmurs after a second.

“Yeah, okay,” you respond. “Can you still get me a rag first?”

“Of course.”

Soon you and Minghao are settled into the bath with Minghao sitting behind you, his arms wrapped around your middle. You two rest together in silence, just enjoying each other’s presence and the warm water.

“Y/N,” Minghao murmurs. His lips ghost your shoulder as his hands move up to cup your breasts.

“Oh, Hao~,” you moan. Despite already having him multiple times earlier, you still want him more. Your body is teetering on the line of overstimulation but it feels too good to tell Minghao to stop.

“Want more baby?”

“P-please,” you beg. “Want you Hao. Want more.” A part of you also is trying to have Minghao as much as you can in the short amount of time you have left.

“Don’t worry love, just let me do everything.” Minghao pulls you more onto his lap and his dick settles between your thighs. You grind down against him and Minghao groans. “Ah, not yet baby. Let me focus on just you.”

Minghao’s fingers slip down between your thighs and runs over your slit. He teases you for a moment more before slipping two fingers into you. He slowly builds up his pace until you’re writhing under his touch. Minghao is cooing at you as you gently thrash around.

“H-hao, need you in me,” you say. “Please, please, need it.”

Minghao pulls his fingers out of you before lining his cock up to your entrance and pushing in. His arms wrap around your torso and he guides you up and down as he presses kisses to your bare back. The warm water adds to the heat of your bodies and your brain feels completely shot, no thoughts other than Minghao.

It’s barely a few thrusts of Minghao’s cock and you’re climaxing. You don’t stop your movements though, determined to get Minghao to cum as well. You don’t have to put in too much effort though, because it only takes a couple more moments and he’s pulling out and cumming onto your back. You both take your time to recover before you’re draining the bath water and washing yourselves off.

After you two get out of the shower you crawl back into the bed. You sidle up to Minghao’s side and rest your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. You can feel his chest rise and fall as he breathes, his fingers drawing patterns on your arm.

“Y/N I-”

“Please,” you beg, “don’t. I just want to remember this moment right now how it is. I don’t want to think about anything else, even with tomorrow just around the corner.”

“...Okay,” Minghao relents. “Then just, can you kiss me?”

You nod before moving up the bed and cupping his jaw. You cover his lips with yours and swing your leg over his waist. His hands sit on the small of your back and pull you in closer.

This kiss has no fire in it, no rush or desperation. Your lips move slow and sweet against each other’s with no end goal other than just savoring each other.

The moment feels too comfortable, too domestic. You can’t allow yourself to fall into the false illusion of the moment no matter how much you want to.

Finally after what feels like a long time yet still not long enough, you and Minghao pull away. You rest your forehead against Minghao’s and just spend a moment breathing in each other’s breath. When the moment is over you slide back down his body, holding him in your arms. With your limbs tangled together you start to let sleep take you over.

“Y/N, say you’ll see me again,” Minghao whispers into the dark room, his words just barely registering in your exhausted brain, “even if it’s just pretend.”

The next morning you wake up to an empty bed and the news of Xu Minghao’s engagement.

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join my taglist: here!

#seventeen #seventeen fanfic #seventeen smut #seventeen angst #xu minghao #the8 #minghao fanfic #minghao smut #minghao angst #minghao scenarios #minghao imagines #minghao x reader #svt minghao #kpop fanfic #kpop smut #kpop angst #rru.writes #rru.fics #★ taylor swift #★ mdni

[ashes-writing]

How about headcanons about Spencer Reid falling for a new team member who's very passionate about books?

Oooh, this one is a really, really cute one. Thank you for sending it to me, babe! I had fun trying to come up with this, you have no idea. Sorry it took so long. I'll be honest, my brain got hijacked by ahem.. stranger things, oops rip.

tag list babes || req rules + fandoms/characters || got a req or a ? || masterlist

WARNINGS;

Just lots and lotsa fluff here.

TAGLIST;

@EmyTheGoth is the only person on my taglist for Criminal Minds. If you'd like to be on it, please click the link above this.

-- You both love reading. When you join the team and he realizes that you share the same hobby, it's a little bit of a bonding experience. At first, it's just the two of you talking about whatever book you happen to be reading. A lot. At length. This man is a genius, so expect him to give you an in depth analysis for anything. He really opens up to you over this and the team definitely takes notice. The fact that you like books so much is one of the first things he falls in love with about you aside from your mind, tbh.

-- Talking books is his foot in the door. But that memory of his, it's what really makes you fall because one of his love languages is gift giving I believe it in my heart. He loves to give thoughtful gifts that make other people happy. Or something practical that they don't realize they need. In your case, when he realizes that a) he's falling for you and b) your birthday happens to be coming up, he remembers this one book you mentioned having as a kid. maybe it got lost in a move, donated to a library at some point, but you're hanging out one night talking about it and Spencer not only remembers the name, but he remembers your description of the cover and this man.. He spends weeks scouring any place he can think of and he finally finds you a copy of the book. When he presents it to you at the BAU, your stomach goes all fluttery inside.

-- You two tend to spend weekends going around to bookstores or libraries just to find new books. And you'll spend all day hanging out at his place or yours just reading together, content to be in the same room. Usually, this ends with your head in his lap as he flips through his own book and his other hand cards your hair. Sometimes, you'll sit in his lap -after you're a thing, and you'll let him read whatever your reading, his chin propped on your shoulder.

-- This man will read you to sleep, no questions asked. And his voice, oh my godddd. Who wouldn't love that. You read him to sleep too, no doubt. He loves it, puts him right to sleep.

-- The house he lives in has books all over. Most of them are started and yet to be finished. Stacked everywhere, but organized. So he can get to one whenever he wants to read. When you add to this your huge collection of books, it's like living in a library.

-- He loves fantasy or sci-fi. He got you a copy of Lord of The Rings and this was your gateway into fantasy genre. You got him into historical romances, but he also likes to point out that some of them are really cliche. We won't talk about the fifty shades of red his face turned when he caught you reading fifty shades of grey, either. You swap books with each other a lot, so you've both opened each other up to new genres. The one he doesn't like is horror, but I mean.. Understandable given what you guys work with daily, right?

-- The fact that he loves books and has the memory that he has means that often, he quotes random and relevant things from something he's read and this is really, really helpful. It's also helpful when he can remember the recipe as if the books in front of him and you're struggling to remember whether it's a cup or half a cup when you're cooking together.

#spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid headcanons #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x reader imagine #spencer reid x reader headcanons #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds

[joyflameball]

I’d like you hear your rant on the encore cuz my feelings on it are mixed

I'm really, really conflicted on Encore, because like. There's a lot of stuff that I like about it. I like the insight into Charlie and Maxwell's relationship. I like seeing the eighth William Carter puzzle animated. I like Wilson (the survivor who knows maxwell best) realizing something's not right at the end. I like seeing the other survivors worried about Maxwell. I like Maxwell having to confront his past.

And I don't hate Maxwell being a double agent. I don't hate Maxwell going bad again for a bit. It makes sense for Maxwell's character. He absolutely has guilt over what he did to Charlie. He hurt her deeply, got her killed, and is the main reason she was transformed into the Night Monster.

And hell, I'm not against there being a double agent! I'm not against showing Maxwell's guilt! I'm not even against Maxwell going antagonist again at some point! I'm not against Charlie being manipulative! I'm not against a lot of the individual choices in Encore!

I just... don't like how it all came together. And my main complaint is that I really dislike what this did for Charlie's character.

Because like. Okay. Charlie hates Maxwell. In the game files, there used to be these quotes from her showing her resentment towards him. "Pride... Arrogance... Conceit... / This was your fault... / You did this..." And in her play, Maxwell is cast as a cruel monstrous tyrant hoarding magic for himself. She despises him for what he did to her, for dragging her into the Constant, for ripping her away from her home, her life, her family.

So here's my question. why in fuck's name is she dropping all that hate to team up with Maxwell again?

And like- you can say she's just using him to get to the team and get them out of her way, just using him as a double agent for now. You can argue that. Okay. Yeah. She's being clever and manipulative to get a double agent in the team.

But if that's the intention, it fails, because she's... really not being clever at all. Maxwell is literally the only one with a checkered history with the survivors, the one who dragged most of them here. He literally put Wilson through horrible trials and Wilson tried to beat him up for it. He is literally the least trustworthy of everyone there.

If Charlie made her choice of a double agent out of pure calculated logic and not out of an emotional place, then this is just bad writing. Because they'd have been trying to make her smart, when Maxwell is literally the stupidest fucking choice possible. Wilson immediately realized some shit was up with him. It's not clever of her, it's just. GIRL WHAT???

Okay, but you could also argue that her emotions towards Maxwell are clouding her judgement, because she's got conflicted feelings towards him. After all, she's implied to have been in love with him at some point. She loved him once, but at the same time she resents him for what he did.

Which, yes, that is also interesting and wonderful and I wish that was actually explored. Because from what I've seen, Charlie goes from "I fucking hate Maxwell so much I hate him I hate him he DID this to me he got me KILLED" to "Hey Maxy <3 Quit the survivors :3 Join my emo band :3"

Her being conflicted about Maxwell is never shown. We've never seen a moment from her where she's torn between love and hate for him. The closest we see is when she appears to him in Encore, and her face goes from this furious glare to a calm smile. That's it. That's all we've got. She doesn't even appear conflicted when putting the Maxwell chesspiece on the board, she just grins evilly. We see no conflict behind her, no depth. Just her being an evil queen.

(This is also a problem I have with base adventure mode, that Maxwell has no depth until the final chapter, and up to then is just a pure evil overlord tormenting you, making Maxwell's depth in Checkmate feel kinda out of nowhere, OSP has a video where she covers this problem for a minute, but we're not talking about that. What we're talking about right now is Charlie.)

In my mind, at least how I'm reading it, it feels like this choice wasn't really made considering Charlie's character, it was just made considering Maxwell's. Because it makes perfect sense for Maxwell to join her, but not much sense for Charlie to offer him to join.

Which isn't how you do character shit. If you want one character to offer another a choice, you need to consider if it makes sense for both parties.

To be completely honest, this writing choice flattened Charlie down for me, from "ruler of the Constant who despises the man who put her here and has this deep, painful love for her sister" to "evil manipulative queen."

I don't like it. I don't like what it did for her. Charlie I'm so sorry Encore did that to you you deserve so much better

Overly Sarcastic Productions has a video on plot twists where she lays out her criteria for what she considers a bad twist. One of them was "The plot without the twist would be more interesting."

And to be honest, that's how I feel about Encore. You could do so many more interesting things in the story without Encore. I feel like you could explore Maxwell's guilt further without the twist, and it'd feel more interesting. You could show Maxwell trying to fully gain the survivors' trust, since ya know, he dragged them all into the Constant (and for several of them, it was when they were emotionally vulnerable), and it would be far more effective without Encore.

And you still do everything good Encore does, just different, and better.

Showing Maxwell's guilt: You could do that in a myriad of different ways. And they HAVE done it well so far! His quote for the Codex Umbra in base game fills me with this deep, intense sense of grief! And you could do it more!!

And hell, his quotes about the Comedy and Tragedy statues have a far more interesting insight than Encore- "She's still in there somewhere. I know it." and "Her tragedy does not define her."

That's far more interesting to me! He wants to find some way to bring Charlie back to how she was, and he can't!! The Charlie he knew is gone!! Have him pursue the fruitless endeavor of trying to save the person Charlie was despite that girl being dead because he killed her!! Please!! God!! Explore that!! That's incredibly interesting!!

Showing Charlie and Maxwell's relationship: Buddy this could be done in so many different ways. Hell, it could be done in a way similar to Encore, minus the "Quit the survivors join my emo band" part.

If done right, it could reinforce Charlie's hate for him (which has been a consistent trait). If she showed Maxwell all their memories together, and showed him what happened to her afterwards, to hurt him for hurting her. To effectively tell him This is what you did to me. You hurt me. And I will never forgive you.

Because like. Yes Charlie has become more powerful than she could've ever dreamed. Yes Charlie is now queen of an entire world.

But shockingly enough, dying and being turned into a shadow demon and having the compulsion to murder anyone who steps into the darkness is traumatic.

Maxwell ruined her life. Maxwell pulled her into the Constant and got her killed. Charlie should have gotten a normal life on Earth with her sister, and had a normal job and normal hobbies as a normal girl. None of this ever should have happened. She became powerful, yeah, but at a horrifying price. Like bitch I'm arguably more mature about setting boundaries while still being a good friend after my trauma, doesn't mean it's good that it happened!!

(yeah thinking about it, this is another thing i really fucking dislike abt encore. that she's coming across as kinda grateful to max for. you know. getting her killed. maybe i'm reading too much into it and that 100% wasn't the intention, i'm not accusing klei of anything there, but. that's honestly just kinda weird and slimy to me like in what world)

Have Maxwell confront his past: See above, but also you don't even necessarily need Charlie for this. A fact Klei is shamefully neglecting storywise is that Wendy is Maxwell's fucking niece. She's the daughter of Maxwell's fucking brother, who he hasn't seen in ages.

That could be another confronting-his-past moment for him, and something incredibly interesting to explore! Because Wendy's the last piece of Jack that Maxwell has left- and arguably, the last piece of William Carter he has left. And Maxwell is an uncle Wendy never knew who vanished when she was like two, and the last surviving family member she has right now.

Would she latch onto him, having lost everyone else in her family and not wanting to lose him too? Would Maxwell try to bond with her now that he knows she's the last piece of his brother he has, or would he try his best not to, since she also serves as his last connection to the man he was before? Would Maxwell even tell Wendy once he realized? How would their dynamic be altered? How the fuck would Maxwell feel learning that he dragged his own niece into the Constant when she was in that desperation to get her sister back? Good god, can you imagine the emotional baggage there that could be unpacked?

Klei PLEASE give me Maxwell and Wendy interactions!! PLEASE!!! I'M STARVED OF ALL THE INTERESTING FAMILY INTERACTIONS BETWEEN YOUR GUYES!! EXPAND ON THE INTERESTING ELEMENTS YOU'VE INTRODUCED PLEASEEEEEE I'M BEGGING YOU PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

The Compendium desc for this short implies Maxwell may have joined her out of at least a little power hunger: YOU CAN HAVE THAT HAPPEN WITHOUT CHARLIE. DST has introduced a myriad of different ancient powers to tap into. Maxwell being tempted by one of those could be done!

And it could be more interesting too- showing how he really doesn't want to be powerless, like he was before he had the Codex. He needs power, he needs to be The Amazing Maxwell. He can't ever be powerless, like the man he was before. That's something that hasn't been explored with Max, but could be! And this could be strengthened if like, he was losing touch with the Codex, and felt a sort of panic about it.

Maxwell going evil again: See above!! Maxwell being like "HEY GUYS I GOT THIS COOL POWER" and everyone being like "MAXWELL FOR FUCK'S SAKE WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME YOU GOT AHOLD OF ANCIENT POWERS" and Maxwell being like "OKAY FUCK YOU ALL, I'M NOT GONNA BE POWERLESS LIKE EVER AGAIN" that would work!!! It would work!!!

Double agent storyline: Okay. I am gonna do a whole ramble about this. Because I think Charlie having one of the survivors working for her would be a cool plot point. Charlie having someone on the inside so she could spy on them more effectively, that would be cool! And it makes sense, since they're trying to do a whole chessmaster thing with her, and having someone on the inside would help her a lot!

But it shouldn't have been Maxwell. And I've explained in depth why.

It should have been Winona.

Now, this is partially a me thing, because I find Winona and Charlie's relationship far more fascinating than Maxwell and Charlie's, and I think Winona and Charlie's relationship has been shamefully underexplored. Klei you bastards you're neglecting all the interesting stuff and instead either introducing more interesting stuff or making cute shit

But like- Think about it! It absolutely makes sense for Winona's character, first of all- she searched over ten years for Charlie, she would do anything for her sister. And from what we have seen, she's fairly selfless- she singlehandedly repaired the portal to save Wagstaff, and she immediately moved to save her coworker in her short.

So having her betray the team because of her intense love for her sister would be so incredibly interesting! It would show that yes, she is selfless, she wants to help her friends. But she wants to help her family more. If she has to choose between the survivors she's known for some number of months, and the sister she searched for over a decade to find, she will choose her sister. In a heartbeat.

It would hammer in that at the end of the day, Winona would do absolutely anything to help and protect and be with her sister, including backstabbing her friends. Because she loves her sister, loves her so much it hurts. She just got her back, only to discover she'd been turned into a shadowy monster. She can't lose her again. She can't. Never again. No matter the cost.

(Her triumphant skin having the rose on the back hurts me personally btw and could serve as foreshadowing since no other triumphant skin has a rose on it. you get me)

And to me, it makes more sense for Charlie as well! She does love her sister, she loves her a lot! Her quotes in the game files about Winona are painful! And one of those quotes is "I should like to speak, face to face." So there'd be a level of foreshadowing for it- and best of all, it's not super dramatic foreshadowing, it's that type of foreshadowing that hits more on a second viewing.

Charlie wanting to ally herself with her sister again would be so interesting. She hasn't seen her sister in god knows how long- decades, centuries. And she's so different, she's changed so much. Charlie's different too- they're effectively strangers to each other. And her sister, who was always a bit overprotective with her, loves her still, after however long it's been. Despite what she is now.

So Charlie could want to bond with her sister again, to become sisters again, and figure, hey, why not kill two birds with one stone? Get a double agent, and be able to talk with your sister again. She gets her sister back. At last. And they both have to learn who the other is now.

And if ya wanna show the new Queen Charlie having a manipulative streak, you could still have that with Winona! And in my opinion, it would hurt more! Because this is one of the first times Winona's seen Charlie in years! And it would also make things more complicated on Charlie's side- despite the fact that she does love Winona deeply, she is still manipulating her, because love and manipulation aren't mutually exclusive. You could ask why is she manipulating her sister, and there could be an incredibly interesting answer to that, while still being like Don't Fucking Manipulate Your Sister.

This would also strengthen Charlie's chessmaster vibe, since- picking MAXWELL as her double agent is fucking stupid of her, pretty much everyone has SOME distrust/annoyance towards him, EXCEPT WES. So like. Yeah no shit someone noticed right away Max was acting off and had a creepy rose on his lapel

But Winona? That would be far smarter of Charlie in-universe. Everyone on the team at least likes Winona. She's one of their friends. She builds machines to help them. WX trusts her enough to let her repair them. So Charlie picking Winona as her double agent would be smarter of her, since not many would suspect Winona.

Except maybe Maxwell, the only other person who's had as much experience being around Charlie as Winona has. Which- more interesting stuff! You could use that to like, see how much the team trust Maxwell at this point. We've pretty much only seen him team up with Wilson at this point.

You could show him trying to team up with someone else to figure out why Winona's acting weird. Illustrate how the team are starting to fully trust him, and what he's doing to make up for his Crimes. Show him teaming up with his literal fucking niece. Show him teaming up with Willow, who we KNOW once worked for him. Hell, show him teaming up with Wilson again, to show how their friendship has grown since Cyclum! That could help bring Wilson back into focus as the protagonist, and actually give him more depth through his friendship with The Guy Who Tried To Feed Him To Hounds. god wilson needs depth so bad him being just silly makes him work fine enough but goddddd

This brings up- another reason I feel it'd work more for Winona over Maxwell is like. We all know Maxwell is gonna go good again. Like that's fairly obvious, at least to me. I highly doubt DST is gonna make him evil again permanently. Like yeah you get that sinking sense of dread as he takes the rose and becomes a shadowy chess piece on her board, but like. That is in no way gonna be permanent and we all know it.

But if Winona was the one betraying the team, there would be a lot more uncertainty about it! Like- think about it! Winona feels far more like she'd fully switch allegiance and become an antagonist, at least to me! She has more reason to! She JUST got her sister back, she ain't letting her go! It feels more tense and heartwrenching, at least to me, that Winona would become an antagonist. MAXWELL'S ALREADY BEEN AN ANTAGONIST, WE'VE GOT THE ENTIRE BASE GAME FOR ALL THAT. LET WINONA HAVE HER TURN FOR CHRIST'S SAKE WE NEED MORE WOMEN'S WRONGS HERE

And if ya wanna have an emotional gutpunch through a betrayal, than tell me, what's stronger and more interesting: Maxwell falling back into old patterns and joining Charlie for a chance at redemption and power again, or Winona backstabbing the survivors out of the love that drove her to search for her sister for ten years? In my opinion, the second one wins. (And the first one could have elements of it executed in the second one.)

Like... there were so many other, better ways to achieve what Encore achieved. And it just annoys me. Encore had so much potential to be far far better, but it just feels weird as a plot development. There's so much I like, but what I don't like outweighs it for me. heartbreaking: piece of media you like made a plot decision that is so fucking stupid I should be allowed to write Don't Starve I'd do so much better than those cunts

#asks #don't starve #UGH WHATEVER. encore isn't canon to me #i have my silly little fictional scenarios in my head and that is all i need #cassie rambles #i'm so mad about how underutilized winona is #SHE HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL PLEASE GOD USE IT #SHE'S CHARLIE'S LITERAL SISTER #THAT'S SO INTERESTING TO EXPLORE #EXPLORE IT #PLEASE #KLEI PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU HERE #sigh. i love don't starve so much but god damn i also hate it sometimes #dst

[transkingcobra]

Okay I got this idea while trying to sleep last night and then proceeded to write most of it until 3am instead of just noting it rip

Finished this scenario and I actually mostly like it for not having written in ages and I never feel like I capture others’ characters correctly

Halsin x m!named!Tav

(x2 but mainly focusing on one in this)

Diex finds himself jealous and then proceeds to panic about it. Halsin snaps him out of it and talks him through it.

Mainly angst I guess, ‘tis sfw, moment of jealousy not aimed at other current partner if that matters to anyone, anxiety/panic attack, going nonverbal for a bit, I think that is everything?

A little background/explanation before the lil fic because I know I’ve shared not a damn thing about these two but it should be completely skippable, just know that Diex is a changeling in his tiefling persona to start this. If you’re confused you can always go back to read it after and/or send asks, was trying to keep it short I’m already rambling

Background info:

First and foremost, Nix and Diex are changeling brothers who both fell for Halsin. I want to emphasize there is nothing between the brothers other than being brothers, no incest, they do not share Halsin in those moments.

Nix (ranger) is mute and solely communicates via signs or writing (I think I wrote it understandably but the quotes that are italicized are signed). Diex (druid) is with him 99% of the time so he’ll translate signing to spoken language for ease/speed of communication to others.

They’re technically not “Tavs” as in neither of them is the leader and they’re not worm-wielders, another bean is in the “Tav position” but I didn’t even mention him in this. They were hanging out to help out with the tieflings in the grove (as their tiefling personas) before joining the group.

Context for slight mention of their past, Diex was on the run for 10 years where both brothers were completely alone before finally finding each other again.

The brothers usually use their tiefling personas to travel with the group since that is the one the party knows and met them in, and drop it at camp since they prefer to just be themselves.

I think that is all but let me know if something feels missing?

————

Today was a prep day, everybody gathering potions and ammunitions, sharpening weapons, preparing spells. Halsin and Diex wandered vendor stalls together in the city, looking for anything the others had need of. The two became lost in their own worlds and drifted a few stalls apart before the changeling started to notice a woman’s obnoxious flirting.

“I’ll bet those strong hands of yours can do far more than that.” The woman’s advances earned an amused hum from the man she had her sights on. Wait. Diex lifted his gaze and turned to where the voices had come from and, sure enough, there she was standing and staring at Halsin. He didn’t hear anything else that was said; his feet took him over to his bear immediately. Arms wrapped around Halsin’s waist, Diex flashed the woman a dirty look, made worse by his morphing face but angled so the much taller druid couldn’t see.

“Well, I should uh, be getting home!” The woman grew visibly uncomfortable at his show and left in a hurry. He didn’t move, just watched her leave as his tiefling tail swayed behind him.

“Diex?” Halsin’s voice is all it takes to snap the clingy changeling out of it. He’s suddenly out of his head and in the market again, clung to his large elf. Embarrassment and shame hit him like a tidal wave. Halsin isn’t only his.

His arms fell away from the other druid and he took a step back, not sure he wanted to look Halsin in the face.

“I- I am so sorry- …Halsin I-“

“Calm, my heart. I am not angry.” A gentle hand found Diex’s chin and lifted his gaze. Halsin’s face was that of gentle concern, not anger, although Diex wasn’t sure if that was better at the moment. “Are you alright?”

“I…” He couldn’t hold the eye contact anymore, couldn’t form words, and suddenly he realized his heart felt like it was ready to escape his chest. He wanted to run, but he knew he couldn’t. Or well, shouldn’t. Not this time. He wasn’t doing that again. Not again…

The caress on his chin left only to take his hand with a gentle squeeze.

“Let us go back to the tavern.”

Diex nodded silently in response, letting Halsin guide him through the city. His mind spun like a hurricane only to crash and fall completely blank, then spin again.

Halsin was being calm, gentle, concerned even. Yet, Diex had just gone against what he had agreed to, to let the bear roam. He acted a clingy, possessive teen to their first love. Well… Halsin was his first, but he’s no kid. He should’ve known better. Been better. Halsin didn’t deserve to deal with this. Diex should’ve just said no before. Let Nix lie with Halsin in camp alone. The quiet brother was more level-headed. Mature. He thought before he acted, didn’t make stupid mistakes. Some days Diex still wasn’t quite used to living around so many people, but Nix adapted well. He lived the way he hunted, patiently with no missteps. Yes, he should’ve just said no. The minor ache of losing a crush would’ve been far more manageable than what was going to happen when they made it back to the tavern.

The Elfsong… Diex’s stomach twisted as they entered the establishment. The noise of the tavern’s crowd barely felt like it reached his ears. The stairs felt like far too many to climb yet not nearly enough to keep him away from what was to come. The common area around the main fireplace and hallway felt like he had only taken two steps before they made it to the room Halsin was using. The one he usually shared with one or both of the changelings. Diex heard the door close and felt it in his heart. He dropped his tiefling persona and stood feeling bare in front of Halsin.

The room felt suffocating. The first moments felt like hours. Every fiber of his being wanted to run again. To leave the room, the tavern, the city, the people behind. Instead, two strong hands found his shoulders, gentle but steady, and a low voice brought him back to himself.

“My love, you’re shaking…”

Halsin was right; Diex had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts he didn’t notice how unsteady he was. Did the others see? Was anybody even there as they passed the common area to get to the room? Was Nix there? Although the shaking wouldn’t have made a difference for Nix, the two knew each other far too well. The elder brother would have known something was wrong anyway.

Halsin gently sat them both down, holding Diex close but gently enough he could pull away easily. They had fought countless foes on this journey and had more than a few terrifying encounters. Diex had never flinched at those dangers yet here he was a near mess and panicked.

“My love, speak to me…” Hands left Diex as Halsin signed a broken “Please, what are you thinking?”

Bless Halsin, the man had taken up learning as many signs as he could during their travels and the brokenness pulled Diex a little more out of his own head.

“I’m stupid.” Diex couldn’t remember teaching that sign, Halsin is far too kind to need use of it, but maybe Nix did for whatever reason. The larger druid wiped a newly fallen tear from the changeling’s cheek before signing a request for Diex to spell the word he signed. “…stupid.” His voice cracked and was barely a whisper.

“I disagree.” A warm kiss graced the pale man’s head. “But you do have yourself worked up terribly, so when you are able I hope we can talk about where your mind is right now.”

By the gods, how can a man be so gentle? Diex leaned into Halsin’s chest, letting himself be held once more.

“I just… sorry I chased her off.” A low hum rumbled in Halsin’s chest.

“I am not angry, my heart. And I was not returning her advances.” A chuckle lightly shook them. “You and Nix keep me very occupied in that regard.” Diex couldn’t help the faintest hint of a smile start to form on his lips, but it quickly faded.

“…but if you did? Want to…return them? And I ruined it…” As much as he was certain it was over, Halsin felt safe. He curled himself into the bear, wrapping his arms around Halsin’s waist.

“I would still not be angry.” Halsin’s answer was soft, steady. Patient.

“But I-! We agreed that-“ Calloused fingertips hushed Diex’s onslaught of worry. He finally lifted his gaze to meet Halsin’s, those hazel eyes obviously choosing his next words.

“Nix told me I was his first in every way, and that I was more than likely yours as well. I do not expect either of you to know exactly how you are going to feel and react to a new lover. Nor do I expect you to hold yourself to that agreement should you discover it doesn’t work for you. But, I do, however, expect and ask you to be honest with yourself and with me.” Halsin’s hand lowered to caress the changeling’s cheek. “I do not wish to see you so worried. I would not want to lose you as a partner, but I would hate to see you go against your nature for me. If you ever find this does not work for you, please say so.”

“I…” For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Diex’s mind was calm. Halsin’s words comforted him but those eyes soothed his very soul. He was allowed the space to just be. Love and learn, wherever that took him. “Thank you.” He realized he’d honestly not put much thought into sharing Halsin beyond his brother, or even beyond the tadpole party just outside the door. Gods know they’d each bed him in the right situation. Though, now he’d really need to consider Halsin with a complete stranger, however odd a thought that felt to him at the moment. But he didn’t have to figure it all out immediately.

Diex stared into those gorgeous eyes a moment longer before pressing his lips to Halsin’s, soft and knowing, a promise he’d keep. Halsin gently rubbed a thumb over the pale cheek.

“Your eyes are beautiful.” Halsin spoke with a sense of gentle awe, and the comment caught Diex so off guard that he felt a blush rise to his cheeks. His eyes were beautiful? They were but a blank slate; Halsin’s eyes were beautiful. The way they glimmered as he chuckled only proved the point even more.

“What?” Diex huffed half a laugh, not seeing what his bear found funny now.

“Your eyes turned hazel. Mine, I presume?” Oh. Well, if he wasn’t visibly blushing before, his face was red now, quickly turning away and actively dismissing his unintended eye color.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.” It’s been a long time since he’s morphed unintentionally, and never had he mimicked someone, even purposefully.

“You’ve nothing to apologize for, my heart.”

“Gods… that’s twice today I’ve felt like a child.”

“Perhaps I could read you a bedtime story and tuck you in tonight?” Halsin chuckled as he teased, although something in Diex said the bear would do so if he genuinely asked.

“No! If you must read someone to sleep with bedtime stories, I’ll sleep alone and let Nix have you to himself tonight.”

They laughed and held each other close. Halsin was content Diex had settled back into himself, reassured in his arms.

There was a knock at the door, a pattern familiar only to Diex. He returned it tapping on the wooden floor, loud enough for Nix to hear outside. The ranger walked in, closing the door behind him before sitting next to the druid pretzel.

“I didn’t interrupt, did I? Are you alright? The expressions the two of you had got Karlach pacing.” Ah, so they did see. Diex habitually released Halsin to sign his response.

“Yeah, I’m good now. Do I have to let Karlach squeeze me so she doesn’t burn down the Elfsong?” The younger changeling’s smile and soft chuckle at the thought seemed to relieve Nix of some concern.

“It wouldn’t hurt. Well, maybe a little for you. Maybe wildshape first.” The two druids laughed at Nix’s idea, who let out his own amused breath.

The three of them eventually joined the rest of the party for dinner. Karlach got her hug, of course, after much assurance that Diex was fine. Most of them were confused about what she was even concerned over, much to his relief. He knew Shadowheart and Astarion could be nosy, but even they let it drop when he said it was between him and Halsin. Although, Nix’s blank stare from behind his younger brother may have pushed them to stay quiet.

The three would talk more later, if not just the brothers. Nix might have advice for how he’s been navigating the relationship. Then again, he may not know what he’s doing either. But that was for later. Right now, he had good food to enjoy and even better company to enjoy it with.

————

I hope Halsin felt like Halsin, I never feel like I write characters correctly anyway and trying to write about a relationship where one of them literally says that word is “unfamiliar to [his] lips” feels weird, but also a friendship is a relationship so 🤷‍♂️ and some shit just felt weird using any words, fanfic wiggle room I guess. Hope I did him justice in any case lol.

I do wanna write/draw more about these guys, funny enough I have more ideas about Nix with Halsin than Diex, but the writing demons possessed me for this specific idea last night lmao. Their dynamics are fun in my head plus the idea of exploring the brothers running into another changeling who is very not nice and everything they avoid being is something I wanna do as well cough even if orin has bs abilities for a changeling cough Nix was my first dnd character I made without help and a few years later played his brother, while now bringing them into bg3 has been living in my head rent free lol

#if I manage to actually write more I guess I need to make an ao3 finally #casually introducing Diex at his (probably) worst within the bg3 timeframe #sorry bby boi #now what are the tags again #bg3 #halsin #halsin x tav #halsin x oc #halsin fanfic #cw panic attack #cw jealousy #I literally almost triggered myself writing this because my brain took halsin’s words out of the context #I was so tired #and was like oh hey that’s what I should’ve heard years ago #instead of bs #fun times #cw angst #weirdly enough I’m not one to read angst #yet my first blurb is #oh well

[aemiron-main]

reposting one of my mike analyses

ok so this post/writeup/reblog of mine is tied to a reblog by @laozuspo that can be found here & references quotes from it but i’m also putting it here in its own post because of all the recent discussion of mike’s mental health.  You can also find the google doc version of this here and I’m going to put the full post below the cut as well. This post centers around Mike’s mental health, his suicidality, the quarry, and the way that fans and in-show characters perceive mike through the lens of other people/characters instead of seeing him through his own lens & compare him to other people instead of comparing him to himself & how this results in people either accidentally ignoring or intentionally ignoring and dismissing his struggle and how some people are falling hook, line and sinker for the exact lessons about silent suffering, invisible queerness (gay men specifcially especially), and confronting one’s own personal biases and worldview that the duffers are trying to setup via mike’s character. so much of mike’s character is directed towards people who don’t see themselves as outwardly bigoted/judgemental/biased but still have those biases (as we all do) and people almost like ted, whose ‘neutrality’ and ignorance results in suffering much in the same way active hatred/bigotry does and the notion of being queer in the ‘right way,’ or suffering mentally in the ‘right way’. 

(the italicized/blockquoted sections are quotes from a reblog by @laozuspo that can be found here) 

 SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP YOURE SO RIGHT WITH ALL OF THIS!!!!! SO TRUE SO CORRECT AS ALWAYS!!! i have so fucking much to say about all of this so buckle up because i have had some Realizations including more about the quarry.



Literally, Mike's behaviour to the shootout is so tied to this pattern of behaviour that we've already seen with Mike. Something that interests me that I noticed about the shootout is not only do we have Mike defending Will, but Mike is also leaning pretty far out from the wall to the point where Jonathan has to pull him  back in. He's not just defending Will, he's also putting himself in a position where it's easier to get killed, and he may not even be doing this intentionally, it just may be that his own safety isn't even a thought for him, he's not even considering it.

"no mentally healthy child does that. no one who values their own life highly does that. there are other ways to protect your friend that don’t involve putting yourself in mortal danger.



he doesn’t care, though. he didn’t look for other ways, he just places himself in shielding positions over and over again even as the house is literally being ripped apart by bullets. he jumps in front of Will, hangs back so he can be the one behind Will/let Will run first, etc.



it could be argued that “he just loves Will that much, it has nothing to do with his own mental state and perception of his self worth”, but knowing what we know about him, his mental health, and the value he places on his life…unlikely."

YEP YEP YEP YEP THANK YOU!!!!!! HE DOESNT LOOK FOR OTHER WAYS HE USES HIMSELF TO SHIELD WILL, LETS WILL GO FIRST, AND LITERALLY ALSO JUST FORGETS/DOESNT CONSIDER TO PROTECT HIMSELF AT ALL. and if it was just about his love for will imo, we wouldn't have seen the way that he leans out past the wall and jonathan has to pull him back in. he didn't need to do that in order to protect will. it doesnt make any sense when just viewed through the lens of protecting will because mike leaning out like that did literally nothing for wills protection. what it is, is it's the result of mike's lack of consideration for himself and his own life and wellbeing.

 "people are always like “wahh we want s1/2 mike back”, but we see Mike displaying the same behavior here that he has across all seasons." 

 SO FUCKING TRUE AND I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT MIKES INVISIBILITY AND HOW BOTH FANS AND IN-CANON CHARACTERS ARE IGNORING MIKES BEHAVIOUR BECAUSE IT ISNT SOMETHING LIKE THE CLIFF ANYMORE!! like just because he's not stepping of a cliff right not doesn't mean that his issues magically disappeared?? like what i'm saying is that mike has set a suicidality bar so high with his behaviour that then when people feel that he's not meeting that bar, not walking off of cliffs anymore, that he must be fine or not suicidal. people want s1/s2 mike back because his actions and motivations were more obvious, his struggles aligned more with their preconceived, biased notions about suicidality and mental health,  s1 and s2 mike is easier to see through a Will Lens or a Dustin Lens or an El Lens or a "My Own Experiences As A Person Lens" instead of a MIKE LENS because god forbid they have to consider subtext instead of choosing to ignore it even when people point it out. its one thing to miss subtext i do that constantly 24/7. its another to willfully ignore it and not even provide a counterargument when people point it out. 

  and going back quickly to s1/s2 mike and how his behaviour aligns more with peoples' preconceived notions about suicidality than s3 and s4 mike's does, mike's actions in s1/s2 align more with that 'romanticized' view of suicidality, the literal dramatic 'stepping off of a cliff to save his friend but also because he has such little regard for himself' and that WORKS to have the effect that the duffers want, that 'romanticized' approach to it WORKS. it's fucking painful and evokes emotions in the way that 'romanticized' versions of things often do. but as soon as they shift away from that romanticization, people stop believing that it's there. just like mike's sexuality, as soon as it's shifted away from being able to be seen through an external lens, as soon as it has to be viewed through a Mike Lens, people start dismissing it. just like how canon characters dismiss mike. People are falling hook line and sinker for what the duffers have set up here and hell i dont blame them because it's a brilliant setup that forces people to confront their own biased notions about suicidality and mental health and internalized homophobia and sexuality as a whole. it's the epitome of 'people who are drowning don't look like they're drowning.' people are so focused on how will is splashing in the water, they see him and his attempts to keep himself afloat, they see his splashing and his struggle and mistake it for drowning. and while it IS  a struggle, while hes not OUT of the water, he IS staying afloat. but then they overlook mike entirely, because he’s not splashing! They don’t see his struggle in the same way that they see will’s struggle: but that lack of splashing SHOULD be what they’re looking for. They’re looking for the splashing to indicate drowning but they SHOULD be looking for the lack of it, because the splashing means that somebody is still keeping themselves up, still fighting, hasn’t drowned yet. And so people pay attention to mike when he splashes, when he walks off of a cliff, but they STOP paying attention to him once the splashing stops, once he’s ACTUALLY fucking drowning. Like again going back to seeing things  and mike’s experiences from an external lens vs a mike lens, when it comes to the drowning analogy, from mike’s pov/lens, when he’s splashing in the water, he’s safer, he’s less likely to drown, he’s STRUGGLING but the struggle is GOOD because it means he’s still alive, he hasn’t drowned, whereas when he stops struggling, from his pov, it’s hopeless and he’s drowning and dying.  JUST like how hopper said to remember the hurt, because the hurt is good, because it means you’re out of that cave. Will is out of the cave/goes in and out of it but always comes out because people around him help pull him out. And as a result, more people SEE WILL and SEE his struggle because they see him out of the cave and going in and out. People don’t see mike’s struggle as much because he’s still IN THE CAVE MORE THAN WILL IS THEY CANT SEE HIM BECAUSE HES IN THE FUCKING CAVE. and the cave is like the closet, too! Will is out of the closet in the sense that he’s out to himself, has admitted his sexuality to himself, and so when we get his pov, he’s out of the closet, he’s out of the cave, his head is above water. Sure, he’s splashing! That closet door is still open, he could go back in! He could go back into the cave. But he doesn’t, and it’s reflected in his POV and how his struggles, his splashing are more obvious to the audience, how his sexuality is more obvious because he’s out to himself, his pain and IH is more obvious because he’s ACCEPTING IT more and ADDRESSING that pain. Mike on the other hand? Mike comes out and goes back in and this is reflected in his pov. Mike comes out of the cave, out of the closet to himself more in early s4, with hellfire and that whole section of the show, but then he goes back into the closet, literally goes IN THE CLOSET AT RINK O MANIA, he goes back into that cave. And so people assume his struggle is over/doesn't exist/is less than Will’s because we aren’t seeing the splashing, we aren’t seeing Mike, we don’t see him out of the closet or out of the cave. 

 But the thing is, the lack of splashing is what indicates his struggle, that he’s losing the fight, we can’t see him or his sexuality as clear anymore because it’s his pov and he’s in the closet to HIMSELF, not admitting it to HIMSELF. We can’t see him because he went BACK IN THE CAVE, not because he just wandered far away from it and out of our view and getting away from his pain scott-free. People say that they don’t see Mike’s struggle and use that as evidence as to why it doesn’t exist. Setting aside the fact that we DO see it sometimes, we DO see him splashing in the same way that Will does, the thing is, the fact that we don’t see the struggle or the splashing, those moments where we don’t see it should actually be the BIGGEST indicator that it exists. The lack of splashing means he’s fucking drowning, not that he just magically rose out of the water and walked away. like some sort of pseudo-jesus. Just like how Ted is the epitome of the bystander effect, the epitome of ‘’welp! The splashing stopped, the rebellion stopped, the outbursts stopped, so Mike must be fine,” and how that’s affected Mike and resulted in him feeling like he might as well not fight because he splashes and splashes and fights and fights and people like Ted and the audience start to notice but as soon as Mike starts losing energy to fight, as soon as the REAL danger sets in, people stop noticing. But Will doesn’t stop noticing, at least not permanently, which is a whole other fucking topic I need to talk about at some point. Like that’s another fascinating thing about the rink o mania fight and how it ties into mike’s mental health AND sexuality and IH: will isn’t upset because mike said some mean thing to him over the phone over the last few months. Will isn’t upset because he got hit with ‘its not my fault you dont like girls 2.0’. Will is upset because Mike didn’t talk to him. He’s initially upset because Mike stopped splashing and so Will initially assumes, like Ted assumes, like other people assume, that Mike is fine. But throughout s4, we see Will realizing that Mike ISN’T fine, that Will was WRONG and that the lack of splashing is WHAT indicated how much Mike was hurting. We see Will realize that Mike tried to call him, tried splashing, but nobody saw him, that Will didn’t see him or realize that Mike had tried calling, that Mike was drowning. Will didn’t realize until rink o mania that maybe HE should have picked up the fucking phone and called instead of assuming that the silence mean that Mike was fine and didn’t want to talk to Will, Will realizes that he was looking for the splashing but instead should have been looking for the stillness!! Will realizes that he himself is out here splashing and struggling but that he’s still staying afloat, still had hope for his relationship with Mike, still made the painting. Will realizes that Mike stopped splashing, went silent, because he lost all hope for his relationship with Will, just like how Mike acts weird at the airport because he’s stopped splashing, he’s stopped trying. We see Will noticing this!! 

 Whether you believe that Mike has an ED or not, it is 100% canon that we see Will staring at Mike’s plate repeatedly during food scenes, and not just a single side glance in a big shot, but a focused stare in an intimate, close shot like the s4 breakfast scene. We see Will’s expression when Nancy mentions Mike’s bedroom at the end of S4. He looks CONCERNED, not amused. We see how Will gives Mike a speech and a painting to try and make Mike feel better right after Mike starts talking self-deprecatingly about himself. We see Will try and take the blame during the bedroom apology, say that ‘he deserved it,’ BECAUSE Will is coming to realizations about Mike’s actions and why Mike’s acting the way that he does. Will didn’t actually deserve it, but he does feel like he did because now that he’s seeing that Mike DID try and reach out and that Mike felt like their relationship was beyond saving and was devastated by this, now that he’s seeing that Mike IS drowning, Will feels like he deserved what happened at rink o mania, because he was operating under biased assumptions about Mike and not seeing Mike through a Mike Lens. But now, Will is seeing Mike through a Mike lens, at least way more than he was before, so why can’t people on here?? If WILL HIMSELF can get past his own experiences and biases and see Mike through his own lens and not a Will Lens, why can’t other people? Oh right, because unlike many other people, Will is willing to let go of his preconceived conclusions about Mike’s behaviour and character and sexuality, whereas many other people analyzing Mike would rather draw conclusions first and then analyze around that conclusion. Hell, Will still struggles with seeing Mike through a biased lens, which is why he codes his confession as being from El, because he’s not quite seeing through the full Mike lens, he’s not aware of Mike’s feelings for him and thinks that the painting/speech being from El is what will make Mike happiest. But even though Will is still struggling with seeing through the Mike Lens, he is trying SO FUCKING HARD to see through it. And don’t even get me started on how this ties into the themes of ‘normalcy’ in ST and how it ties into Henry and your posts about him and how he’s the ‘big bad’ and not the mindflayer and how the people who seem ‘normal’ are the ones that we should be watching out for the most in terms of being dangerous predators, but also how the people who seem ‘normal,’ who are trying to seem ‘normal,’ like Mike are the ones who we should be watching out the most for in regards to suicidality. Everyone thinks Mike is ‘normal’ because they’re comparing him to OTHER PEOPLE, seeing him through EXTERNAL LENSES, esp in s3 and s4. But when you compare Mike to HIMSELF, when you use the MIKE LENS, it’s OBVIOUS THAT HE’S NOT NORMAL!! Like if the s4 airport scene was our first introduction to Mike? If we were a bystander witnessing it? We would think he was ‘normal’ for the most part, we wouldn’t be able to draw conclusions about his feelings and sexuality and internal struggle from it- and that’s the flaw of seeing Mike through an external lens, because it compares Mike to other people and makes him seem ‘normal’ and erases his struggle with both his sexuality and his mental health, whereas Mike HAS to be seen through a MIKE LENS, an internal lens, compared to HIMSELF, you have to compare hellfire Mike to Lenora Mike to see the differences!! You can’t just compare Lenora Mike to Lenora Will!!

S4 especially is forcing people to see mike through the mike lens and  yet they still try to resist it. im gonna talk about it more later but this ties into mike's behaviour in s3 and s4 and being an 'asshole' and how people are so quick to write him off the moment that the show tries to make them see him and his struggles through a MIKE LENS rather than any other fucking lens. like part of the genius of mike's character and how hes written and portrayed is that he lends himself easily to being viewed through other characters' lenses and experiences BECAUSE HE values himself and views himself relative to other people and relative to his value towards them and because we're shown less of his internal struggle that will for example. but you have to look past that. you have to look through the mike lens. (when i say 'you' i mean a general 'you,' not you specifically tumblr user laozuspo because i KNOW you see through the mike lens 100%.

  Like people were shocked when Mike walked off the cliff but then continue to ignore the very behaviour and patterns and thought process that lead him to walk off of that cliff. they're surprised because they keep ignoring it. just like how a lot of people are going to be surprised in s5 when mike is shown to still struggle with these issues- they're going to be surprised by the outcome because they've been ignoring the signs and symptoms this entire time.

  And i need to make another post abt this at some point but i feel strongly that the 'invisibility' of mike's struggle in  s3 and s4 (even though it's not actually invisible it's just not being literally point blank stated to our faces) is intentional because it's meant to demonstrate how people ignore his struggle until he's at his breaking point and then act surprised when he lashes out or steps off of a cliff. it's meant to demonstrate how people ignore the signs of suicidality, even when theyre SO OBVIOUS, because the signs dont fit their preconceived notions of what a suicidal person is like.

   And this goes back to my other post about people viewing mike's sexuality through a Will Lens: they do the same with his mental health and suicidality. mike is less able to cope with that suicidality than will. because mike is invisible. he doesnt have that family support. people in-canon (nancy making jokes about the state of mike's room whereas will looks concerned about it, mikes family ignoring his obvious lack of appetite/food issues whereas we see will staring at mike's plate repeatedly with concern and dont even get me started on how mike was the one to make the 'real food' comment to el back in s1 and how 'real food' was tied to family and happiness for el via mike's comments but now we only see evidence of poptarts and cereal in the basement and literally NEVER see him eat 'real food' of his own volition etc) ignore the signs of his failing mental health, and people in the fandom watching the show do too.

  Hell, i think that people around Will, his family, have likely worried that will would be suicidal at some point in his life because of all the shit he's experienced even going as far back as lonnie, and so while i don't think that they had a 'hey Will dont kill yourself' talk point blank, i DO think that people like joyce and jonathan made it clear that they're there to support will and that he can talk to them.

  (like the 'i feel like a mistake' speech is directly connected to the scene with jonathan and while YES it is a 'coming out' scene for will, it's also a 'jonathan letting will know that he's there for will and not wanting will to feel like a mistake for ANY REASON' scene, it's BOTH)

  "imo Mike is clearly openly depressed in s4. The state of his room, the lack of eating, the dark circles under his eyes, the excerpt from Lucas on the Line…not a pretty picture."

 YEP!!! GOD I NEED TO MAKE A BIG POST ABOUT HIS MENTAL HEALTH BECAUSE YEP!! like imo its unlikely that the dark circles are an accident like sure people like finn and myself and other people can just have them naturally but if the makeup dept didn't want to show them, they would have covered them up?? and not emphasized them the way they seem to?? and they wouldn't have lit him in a way that emphasizes them for mike but doesnt emphasize them for will or any other characters in so many scenes??

  and god i need to make my full post abt mike's lack of eating because the fact that we see apple jacks/poptarts, things that are similar to eggos and therefore are deemed not 'real food' by mike and the 'real food' conversation between mike and el in s1 and what that represents for mike and how imo a fair few of his eating issues stem from his family especially considering the tension and fighting that we often see at the wheeler table and how we often see mike just picking at his food in those scenes and how we also see him turning to not 'real food' (doritos etc) in season 3 when he's stressed/upset and we don't see him eating 'real food'  (no shame over anyones food choices im just picking up on patterns of mikes behaviour w food and how 'real food' is defined in the context of the show).

 

"He’s been prone to suicidality since s1, when we realize that to him, his life has very little value, and he was willing to throw it away. He knew the rocks were there, he just didn’t care, especially in the wake of Will’s death." 

  YEP!! THANK YOU!! and oh my god i have so much to say about how mike cares about other people and centers his own life and value around others and his ability to help for others and care for others so when that 'fails' (when el leaves in s1 and when he thinks hes lost will forever) his perception of his own value is literally reduced to zero. ffs the cliff was even more tempting to him when considered through this lens because not only did he feel like he failed will and el and therefore had no purpose/value, but he was also able to HELP DUSTIN by stepping off.

  He gets hit by both sides because his lack of feeling useful/helpful to others makes him want to step off AND stepping off will make him useful/helpful to others?? the cliff was literally a carrot being dangled in front of mike's face. the cliff wasn't a challenge for mike so much as it was a literal dangling 'help others and punish yourself for failing to help others AND for actively hurting someone like el' carrot in front of mike's face. he barely had to be verbally pushed to do it. dustin was begging him NOT TO. hell I think part of the only fucking reason he hesitated at all was because dustin was begging him not to and again dustin is another person that mike doesnt want to hurt or disappoint either but then mike imo ends up weighing dustins hurt of seeing mike jump vs dustin's hurt of losing his baby teeth and deems the hurt of losing mike as a lesser pain for dustin to bear.

   Mike literally, canonically, in the show, values himself less than dustin's baby teeth, thinks that the pain of losing mike and watching mike kill himself is less painful than losing some baby teeth, because mike struggles to conceptualize of himself having value, of his loss hurting someone, he see himself as so insignificant that he thinks that his death is something that dustin could more easily get over than the loss of his baby teeth. like literally i cannot get over the fact that the reason that mike hesitated was likely only/99% because DUSTIN begged him not to and he didnt want to hurt dustin. the cliff and walking off of it isn't a threat or a challenge for mike. it's a fucking dangling carrot treat for that self-loathing part of his brain. the cliff and stepping off of it isn't a problem to him, it's the SOLUTION to his problems, in his mind at least.

  This is what i mean when i say that people need to see mike through his own eyes and himself and the world through mike's lens rather than seeing mike and the world and the show through will's lens or dustin's lens or any other external. because we can only understand mike and the depth of his character and mental state via his lens, by seeing things and himself the way that HE does.

  'Mike's room isn't that bad lol it doesnt look like the depressed rooms I'VE seen, it doesn't look like MY experience with depressed rooms and neither does the basement, mike isn't depressed because it doesn't meet my standards/experiences or the standards and experiences of other characters' ok well try comparing it to the previous presentations we've seen of mike's bedroom and the basement. start viewing it through MIKE'S lens. not yours. not will's. not nancy's. MIKE'S. compare how neat and tidy his bedroom was in s1. compare how  neat and tidy the basement was in s1 and s2 and how even though it did get messy in s3 that's because the basement is a reflection of his mental state and mike is struggling again in s3 especially during the scenes with will in the basement. Compare mike to HIMSELF, not to others, just like how i already talked about with hellfire mike vs lenora mike. 

  'Mike's food habits arent that bad, i just don't see him struggling with food because it doesnt align with MY experiences and preconceived notions about food issues or with other characters' experiences and therefore i dont think him struggling with food is actually a struggle/that its shown in the show'

  Don't just compare it to your experiences or other characters' experiences or your interactions with food or other characters' interactions with food: compare it with MIKE'S previous interactions with food too. Outside comparisons can totally be valuable but should not be the sole/main lens for a perceiving a character. Compare that character to THEMSELF, to previous versions of themself, previous seasons, ages, episodes, etc. Look at how Mike talks about ‘real food,’ in s1, look at how often we see him eating ‘real food’ in s1 compared to s4, look at what the dynamics are like at the wheeler table during meals in s1 vs s2 and how it becomes more tense by the end of s1 and ESPECIALLY in s2. Look at  how we didn’t GET a wheeler dinner table scene in s3 and s4, look at how we got Mike putting poptarts in a toaster in s4 but don’t even see him eat them and how that contrasts to the wheeler family breakfast back in s1 where we see them all sit there and see Mike eating eggs, and how even THEN, Nancy was making comments about Mike’s food choices and there was other tension at the table too. Look at the s3 dinner table scene at the Holloways while “american pie,” plays in the background, a song about loss of innocence and deep cultural changes and a farewell to the american dream in the grand scheme of things, sure, but ALSO a song and a SCENE that narratively creates that tie between dinner tables/nuclear family/american dream dinners like the Wheelers versus stress and tension and death. And then think long and hard about how that scene is very much a dramatized version of the Wheeler dinner table and how Heather’s dad treats Heather’s mother in a harsher way than Ted treats Karen, but the conflict between them is still there in both cases. 

  Look at how the dinner table is turned into a place of fear and anxiety and literal death after the Holloways are knocked out and kidnapped, and then look at how we see Mike in that house in a later episode, look at how Nancy seems to be the one who figured out what happened, because both of them HAVE that association with dinner tables and conflict on a subconscious level. Look at how in S3, we see Mike eating not ‘real food’ in the basement but don’t see a wheeler family dinner scene like we did in previous scenes. Look at how we don’t see those nuclear family dinner table scenes for the Byers, they rarely eat together, but in S3 we do see Will peacefully eating at the table, having breakfast, because the Byers aren’t dysfunctional in the same way as the Wheelers, Will doesn’t face that same ‘sit down at the dinner table and eat while also being emotionally neglected and dismissed about your clear mental health struggles the moment you start splashing so then you just go back to drowning while you watch your parents fight and feel like its your fault which feeds into your suicidality in terms of not wanting to  hurt other people and how your perception of your value is tied to how other people treat you and how you impact them’ that Mike does. Will is able to eat at his own schedule, but he’s also not totally alone/left to fend for himself!! And that’s all another reason why the S4 breakfast scene between Mike and Will is so interesting to me, in addition to Will clearly staring at Mike’s plate like I already talked about: because we get visual callbacks to the wheeler table! We get the fancy syrup and people sitting around a table and being expected to come down (El, who doesn’t show up, just like how Nancy doesn’t show up earlier in one of the seasons and Ted comments on it to Karen, yet another El-Nancy parallel), we get the syrup. We get the tension, the emotional tension between Will and Mike and Mike and El just like the tension at the Wheeler table. Mike is reminded of the Wheeler table in that scene and imo that’s part of why he looks SO uncomfortable and BARELY even plays with his food. Like in the Murray’s Dinner scene, it was actually a bit LESS like the wheeler table despite being more of a ‘family dinner,’ because the DYNAMIC is different, murray and joyce are different from Mike’s parents, and so, Mike is just a LITTLE bit more comfortable, he’s still deeply uncomfortable, but he’s MORE comfortable than he is at breakfast the next day! And this is reflected in his behaviour! Risotto Dinner mike still sips at his drink, plays with his food more. Breakfast Mike? Breakfast Mike doesn’t even fucking touch his drink, barely plays with his food. Will stares for a fairly long glance at Breakfast Mike’s plate.

 We DO see Will glance at Mike’s plate and stare at it for a second and look concerned during the Risotto dinner too (and imo Murray also noticed Mike’s lack of eating and I feel that his ‘I sense tension. What’s wrong? Everybody hates the risotto’ comment had a double meaning because a.) the tension is there but Murray clearly sees people eating the risotto?? He watches Will literally talk with his mouth full of risotto?? So him picking up on the tension cant just be based on that and b.) The opposite too, Murray commenting on people not eating the risotto/hating it can’t just be based on the tension. He’s noticing that Mike isn’t eating and is wondering why, if it’s because of the tension or the risotto or what). But even though the risotto dinner is a bit less like the wheeler table, just a bit, the tension is still there. Mike still directly parallels his father when making a comment about El the way that Ted makes a comment about Karen during that one ‘what did i do” dinner scene.

And this and the discussion of Mike's eating problems as a whole goes back to what I said about Mike's struggle being erased and how people want s1/s2 mike back because his actions (walking off of a cliff) align more with the stereotypical and 'romanticized' version of suicidality and dare I say, lots of people are viewing Mike’s eating issues through a romanticized lens of what eating disorders/problems are like and what they’re defined as and how they develop and present. They’re not just viewing him through an external lens, but a romanticized external lens at that. A few people wanted to accuse ME of 'romanticizing' mike's ed/food issues by pointing it out. But THOSE people are the ones with a romanticized viewpoint of EDs because they can't see Mike's because it doesn't align with that romanticized viewpoint. Take off the biased, romanticized goggles, and IMO his struggles are clear as day. 

   'mike's self isolation isn't that bad, we can't rely on what's in lucas on the line, it's not the show and in the show we see him at hellfire and smiling, right? so clearly he isn't isolating himself or struggling in the way that you guys think he is!” again quit seeing him through an external lens. Look at how Mike was previously, look at him being around his friends and social and defending them literally to the fucking DEATH versus s4 Mike struggling with a simple DND argument with Lucas and letting it pull them apart. Look at S1 Mike who clearly not only FELT deeply guilty about his fight with Lucas but also fought to resolve it. Now look at S4 mike who feels the SAME GUILT but is pulling away and isolating himself and feels almost as if Lucas is better off without him. Mike and Dustin were being dicks about DND, I’m NOT excusing their behaviour towards Lucas, but I AM trying to understand it. Explaining and understanding is not the same as excusing. Even then, during that scene, DUSTIN takes the lead more than Mike, we see Mike look to Dustin for approval during that ‘maybe I don’t want to be a freak/nerd’ scene with Lucas, And I’m gonna talk abt this more at another time/in my analysis but I also think that part of Mike’s response to that scene and why he’s more willing to withdraw and isolate from Lucas in s4 than he was in S1 is due to the fact that Hellfire works as an allegory for queerness and the clear ties between ‘freak’ and ‘fag,’ and so when Lucas starts talking about not wanting to be a ‘freak’ anymore, and not wanting Dustin or Mike to  have to be ‘freaks’ either, and then ALSO ties that to attraction to girls because he’s ‘sick of girls laughing at him,’ Mike starts panicking and isolating a bit because unlike Dustin and Lucas (to an extent because I saw some great posts about the racial connotations of ‘freak’ too and Lucas not wanting to be ostracized for who he is esp considering how much racism he’s faced in Lucas on the Line and how he can’t change his skin colour), Mike can’t change the fact that he’s a freak. Because ‘freak’ is paralleled to ‘fag’ in ST and Mike can’t change his sexuality. 

  So unlike Dustin, who doesn’t roll over as easily and takes the lead and argues with Lucas a bit more (Mike starts out the same way but once Lucas talks about not wanting to be a freak/talks about girls laughing at him, mike’s demeanour totally shifts and he gets anxious looking and quiet and starts look at dustin for reassurance/to take the lead), Mike stays quieter and resigns himself to his fear that he might lose Lucas over being a ‘freak’/queer. Because from MIKE’S POV at least Dustin can change the fact that he plays DND, at least Dustin can change whether or not he does nerdy things. He shouldn’t have to, but he CAN. Mike, on the other hand can’t change his queerness. But with that said, I have something important to say in regards to ‘Lucas, Dustin, Mike and the concept of being freaks and whether or not they can change it,’ because Lucas and Dustin CAN’T change it either, but Mike hasn’t quite clicked onto that because he’s so fixated on his own queerness and coming to terms with it and his own internalized homophobia. Mike feels like Lucas and Dustin are able to make a choice not to be ‘freaks,’ but doesn’t realize that Lucas is labelled a ‘freak’/outcast in hawkins as a result of being black, and Dustin is labelled a ‘freak’/outcast in hawkins due to his Cleidocranial dysplasia. Both of those are things that they can’t change. 

  I am NOT saying Lucas is homophobic. At all. He is 100000% not homophobic he is my son and he is brilliant and kind and wasn’t fully in the wrong at ALL and I adore him. I am NOT saying that lucas can ACTUALLY change himself/make people see him not as a freak. I’m saying that Mike THINKS that lucas can change himself and doesn’t make the tie between Lucas’ race being a large part of why he’s treated as a ‘freak,’ and doesn’t understand that racial targeting that Lucas has faced and why Lucas wants to try and get away from anything ELSE that labels him as a freak/puts a target on his back (see: hellfire) because he already faces so much targeting and ostracization based on being black. Mike thinks that it’s about him, that Lucas is rejecting him when he doesn’t ‘want to be a freak,’ but that’s not the case. It’s about LUCAS and how LUCAS has been treated and how it’s not about Lucas not liking Mike or being homophobic- it’s about  Lucas not wanting himself or his friends to be targeted anymore. Lucas even says that ‘WE wanted things to be different in highschool,’ he wants Dustin and Mike to join him and not face that ostracization, not realizing that a.) Lucas himself cannot change the fact that people judge him and see him as a freak, no matter how much he tries to fit in with the basketball team and b.) That Mike also has an unchangeable albeit different aspect of himself that gets himself labelled as a ‘freak’ (mike’s sexuality, which Lucas doesn’t know about). So if Mike sees Dustin and Lucas as the ones who can change from being a freak (ie ‘freak’ for Mike is seen relative to his sexuality, that’s how he centers it from his pov, and he sees Dustin and Lucas as straight and doesn’t take into consideration Lucas’ race and how he’s been targeted for it and Dustin’s CCD and how both of them get labelled ‘freaks’ for those unchangeable aspects of themselves). And Lucas sees Dustin and Mike and the ones who can change (Dustin and Mike are both white, Lucas’ targeting/’freak’ label has been centered around his race, and he doesn’t take into consideration Dustin’s CDD and doesn’t KNOW about Mike being gay and sees Mike’s freak label as being about his appearance (and hellfire but thats a choice) due to that being what he was bullied for in S1, but then rationalizes that Mike’s appearance has changed since S1 and people don’t call him frogface anymore, so Mike must not have anything unchangeable anymore that makes him a ‘freak’). And Dustin sees Lucas and Mike as the ones who can change (his ‘freak’ label is centered around his CDD, that’s what he’s bullied for in S1, and so he sees Mike and Lucas as not being affected by that, doesn’t take into consideration Lucas’ race or know about Mike’s queerness.) We’ve set ourselves up for miscommunication and misunderstanding and futility soup here!! They each think the others are making a choice, but the reality is that NONE of them are. 

  And similar with Dustin, and Mike may FEAR that Lucas and Dustin would reject him for being queer. Again esp considering the ties between hellfire and queerness and the media rhetoric around both at the time, Mike is likely fearing that his friends are changing from the accepting friends that he knows and possibly falling for that rhetoric. 

   it's all 'not that bad,' its all 'i just dont see mike's depression, people are reaching' up until mike walks off of another fucking cliff. such a key part of mike's character and the way that his mental health AND sexuality are presented is his invisibility and how people can't see him unless he's loud and boisterous and in their face and snarky and then they still get mad at him for BEING THAT WAY. it's all 'mike's just a loud asshole and thats okay we don't have to tie it to his mental health,' up until you realize that mike's loudness and assholery isn't the cause of mental state and him being the way he is, it's the RESULT of it. he's louder because he's used to not being heard.

  So fucking much of the sheer dismissal of mike's mental health (and his sexuality like i already talked abt in another post) comes SOLELY from comparing him to other characters, comes solely from 'well mike isnt struggling in the same way as will so therefore he isnt struggling' and comparing mike to will instead of comparing mike to HIMSELF. It's the wolf-arrow internalized homophobia analogy from my other post all over again!! Sure, mike and will don't struggle in the exact same way/to the same extent, but again, will is more able to OVERCOME that struggle, will is able to take more hits.

   if youre saying that 'well if mikes mental health is bad we would see him be more like will when will starts showing signs of bad mental health,' you're not realizing that because will has more of an ability to cope, something that devastates Will would absolutely fucking obliterate Mike. Even things that don't 'devastate' will, the single arrow, those minor wounds are again, a KILLING BLOW for mike, let alone what the final killing arrow for Will would be for Mike, let alone what the sum of all 50 or whatever arrows in the big wolf's back would be for mike. the single arrow is a killing blow, the 50 arrows would just be beating the corpse that is his mental state (and possibly his LITERAL, physical corpse considering his clear struggle with suicidality and how people keep fucking ignoring it and falling for the same trap that the characters do and the duffers KNOW that people are ignoring it because theyve set it up in a way that LENDS ITSELF to being ignored so that fans' actions/perception of mikes mental health DOES sort of actually affect mike in that way because the duffers are more likely to make him succumb to those issues because they KNOW that they've set it up in a way that would be a surprise to much of the audience  but also not totally out of nowhere).

  Mike Wheeler is a brave, strong, wonderful character. At the same time, though, Mike Wheeler would not last a second if faced with what Will dealt with from Lonnie, would not last a second if faced with Will's connection to Vecna or experiences in the upside down. If we want to compare mike and will and see mike through will's lens the way that some people are so keen to do then let's DO IT, it's fair to do for the sake of comparison but should not be the MAIN THING that drives your conclusions about mike. it should be a supporting factor if anything.

  Mike isn't 'weaker' by any fault of his own persay, he's 'weaker' because he doesnt have that a.) longtime experience of dealing with this shit that will has in terms of homophobia and abuse and upside down trauma  and b.) even less than the experience, because imo will's experiences would make things WORSE for him, make him weaker, not stronger, if it wasn't for the people that support will, his family and the way that they support him, something that mike lacks. Will is strong but even he says himself that he relies on other people like Mike to make him not feel like a mistake.

 

"it also crops up in the s2 tunnel plan. He knows “his hub” is likely to be swarming with demodogs, he doesn’t care. He'll throw himself in to protect El and Will, even at the cost of his own life."

   YES YES YES YES THIS IS SO TRUE. HE WILL ABSOLUTELY THROW HIMSELF INTO IT AT THE COST OF HIS OWN LIFE. Like he was willing to walk off the cliff for dustin’s baby teeth, deemed the pain of losing them as greater than the pain of losing mike/mike’s death. So protecting Will and El from losing their lives/getting grievously injured is a WALK IN THE PARK in terms of decision making for mike because he IMMEDIATELY feels that their injuries would hurt THEM more than his death, he sees himself as having so little value that he doesnt even realize how his death would devastate people. Which is part of why I think he’s gonna die and come back in s5 and how it would fit in perfectly with his arc as a character. 

  "and the s3 sauna test fight/battle of star court. he knows Billy is far stronger than him, he doesn’t care. He’ll throw himself against Billy to protect the party twice, even at the risk of his own life."

   YEP!! smthn smthn mike has been largely ignored/neglected by his family smthn smthn his warped perception of his own value smthn smthn helping others is the only way he sees any value in himself smthn smthn el rejects mike’s attempts to be himself, rejects his hobbies and his singing and the silly things about him that could’ve made mike see value in himself/that he thinks El could’ve seen value in him for, and so then Mike figures that he can only get El to value him and therefore can only value himself as long as he’s protecting/helping her and other people smthn smthn mike’s suicidality is NOT el’s fault, she saved him at the cliff, but their RELATIONSHIP and incompatibility and the way that she dismisses him is contributing to it JUST like he’s contributing to that pain for HER. they are hurting eachother. 

And also thinking about the sauna battle and how the original sauna scene CLEARLY shows mike displaying internalized homophobia and self-loathing and then in that SAME LOCATION we get mike effectively trying to kill himself by going up against Billy and how this represents not only Mike’s struggle with his internalized homophobia and how it’s intertwined with his suicidality, but also how Mike is starting to face EXTERNAL homophobia as he starts to branch out towards his attraction to men and being framed around his attraction to men (which we see even more of in s4). Billy is outwardly attacking him, representing that external criticism and homophobia, but Mike runs into the attack willingly, representing that internal criticism and internal homophobia.

And okay disclaimer I loathe Billy he’s a racist, abusive POS and I think people baby him WAY too much. At the same time, though, I feel like we can acknowledge the homophobia that he dealt with from his father, REGARDLESS of whether or not he’s queer, and how Billy attacking Mike represents Billy continuing the cycle of that homophobia and throwing it onto Mike. None of this absolves Billy, but the subtext is there for a reason, Billy was the one to attack Mike in a place (the sauna) that is already tied to Mike’s sexuality and internalized homophobia. Billy was the one trapped in the sauna, and the sauna does represent internalized homophobia, and so I do think that Billy may have dealt with it to some extent, and even if he didn’t, even if he wasn’t queer, he���s still continuin that cycle of homophobic abuse that he learned from his father. 

 "Even now, it’s the same thing repackaged in an older body. He’s depressed and his life has little value to him, so he’s willing to throw us away for someone he perceived as having more value." 

  Completely fucking true. Completely true. It’s repackaged in an older body AND is now being shown through the MIKE LENS, not a romanticized/external lens like it was in s1 and s2, which makes it harder for people to grasp because it forces them to confront their own preconceived notions about mental health and depression and suicidality and forces them to see things from MIKE’S perspective, not their own. It forces people to confront their own lens, and that’s the genius of the way that his character is set up and presented. And there’s something to be said, too, for the capitalist nature of the wheelers and the idea of the ‘value’ of a person and how that value is determined. 

 

"Mike’s suicidal tendencies have been an open secret since day one. No one talks about them in the show, but they’re painfully obvious." 

  YES!!! Okay I want to talk about ‘no one talks about them in the show’ because I feel like it’s true to an extent, but people do TALK about the signs of his suicidality, like Nancy talking about his room, but what they DON’T do is make the link of those topics and behaviours to Mike’s suicidality. Nancy comments on his room but doesn’t understand or care why his room is the way that it is. Ted comments on Mike’s falling grades in a roundabout way ‘highschool dropout club’ but doesn’t make the connection to Mike’s mental health/suicidality. Dustin also comments on Mike’s falling grades (the C in spanish), but doesn’t make the link to Mike’s mental health. Because they’re not seeing him through a Mike Lens. WILL is the only one seeing Mike through a Mike Lens, just like I already talked about. They’re comparing Mike to OTHER PEOPLE, not to HIMSELF. Nancy compares Mike’s room to the cabin, not to the previous state of his room in past seasons. Dustin compares Mike’s grades to his own, not to Mike’s previous grades. Ted talks about the ‘highschool dropout club’ and compares Mike and his slipping academic abilities to the other members of the hellfire club rather comparing it to Mike’s previous grades and academic tendencies. Even back in S2, Karen talks about Mike plagiarizing work and graffiting the bathroom stall and Mike says “everyone graffitis the bathroom stall,’ even MIKE is comparing himself and his struggles to other people, because like I said earlier, he’s a character that lends himself heavily to that, AND it results in him invalidating his own struggles. Even Ted says ‘if your friends jumped off of a cliff, would you?’ meanwhile mike IS the one who jumps off of the cliff, the comparison of him to his friends relative to the cliff doesn’t work for him because he IS the cliff friend and can therefore only be accurately compared to HIMSELF. 

  (I absolutely agree that his grief is paralleled to Joyce. They both love Will so much, and many of their reactions are in sync. They’ve both been on the edge for a while, all it took was a push.) 

  THANK YOU!!!! IM GLAD YOU AGREE BECAUSE YOU LITERALLY NEVER MISS!!! And okay so this is probably semantics but the phrasing of ‘all it took was a push’ is SUPER interesting to me and im going to use this as an opportunity to talk about  it. I already mentioned this, but Mike didn’t so much get a push as he did a dangling fucking carrot in the form of a cliff. 

When Hopper talks about Will’s ‘accident’ at the quarry and the idea that it could’ve been a hatecrime, he implies that maybe Will was pushed/had some external force/person put him off that cliff against his own free will. But when it comes to Mike, Mike wasn’t pushed in the same way. Mike was LURED towards the cliff, like I talked about before,  it’s a dangling treat for that self-loathing part of his brain, but he wasn’t pushed. But he was pushed TOWARDS make that decision, towards taking that step, if that makes sense, but he wasn’t pushed off of the cliff physically or even 100% emotionally. He STEPPED OFF physically and mentally and emotionally. He CHOSE TO. We see the bullies literally PUSH MIKE to the ground physically in s1. They’re not afraid to push him. But they don’t push him off the cliff. Mike steps off out of his own free choice. But the bullies have INFLUENCED that choice, everything that’s happened to Mike has influenced that choice. The bullies DID literally put him a ‘few steps from the edge’ when they grabbed him and Dustin, but Mike was the one who chose to walk off even though he was being pressured, he still made that choice and made it terrifyingly easily. It’s like how people will bully others, especially queer or outcast kids to the point of suicide but often don’t catch murder changes for it because they technically didn’t kill them. 

 Joyce is the same. She didn’t get pushed off of the cliff into her mental decline, she STEPPED OFF. She  got pushed towards it by Will’s death and Lonnie and Hopper not believing her. But at the end of the day, her and Mike both took that final step. They may have been pushed to the edge, pushed to being those few steps from the edge, but they weren’t pushed off of the edge. They stepped off. They chose to. And YES that choice was absolutely totally influence by others’ and the ‘push’ from others, but the push wasn’t the final blow. The final blow was self-inflicted. 





LIKE GOD YOU ARE SO FUCKING RIGHT AS ALWAYS!!!!!!! SO TRUE AND RIGHT!! And as a final note, something that’s funny to me is it’s all ‘max and mike are the same person different fonts’ until people like you and I point out mike’s suicidality and how MAX has it too. They're the ‘same person’ until their characters and similarities don’t align with peoples’ preconceived notions about them. Mike is the ‘same’ as Max up until somebody points out he’s suicidal too, and then they immediately can’t see it because it’s not framed the exact same way as Max’s despite the numerous parallels in their suicidal tendencies. People will put an El Lens, a Will Lens, a Personal Experience and Bias Lens, a Nancy Lens, a Max Lens and literally any other fucking lens onto Mike before they even CONSIDER a Mike Lens, and even then it’s like they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to see things through the Mike Lens because the Mike Lens doesn’t align with their preconceived notions and conclusions about him. (can you tell im a bit annoyed ™ about the erasure of mike’s issues and misinterpretation of his character?? People who refuse to see the signs in mike are likely going to refuse to see the signs in their IRL friends and THATS why im so passionate about this.) 

#stranger things #st analysis #mike's mental health #mike wheeler analysis #byler

[vellichorom]

I don’t know if someone has asks this before, but what is your favorite ending from The Stanley Parable?

nobody's actually asked me that before, so thank YOU for being the first!

i think there's something to like in EVERY ending, so this was. hard. HOWEVER, my's indisputable, all-time-favorite, you-can-quote-this-in-my-biography TSP ending is... 🥁

The Countdown Ending.

( closely followed by the elevator / confusion / apartment ( w/ the bucket ) / any games ending / the vent ending / the sequel/new content ending + pretty much any ending regarding the sequel )

& let me tell you why!

this ending HITS in EVERY way.

this ending is such an immediate SWERVE from what a newer player might expect from the game, especially since THIS ending stems from one of the first you can get just by playing as you're told to. in fact, though dependent on how one chooses to play, this could be your introduction to the underlying plot of what's ACTUALLY going on here, & it's very much- at least to me, the best way TO introduce it all.

you do the menial thing of deviating from the path at the last minute, devastatingly deciding on stanley's behalf that he wants to take control of everything, & you get RIPPED TO SHREDS for it, the world unravelling at your feet, you are punished & laughed at for panicking; you are CHASTISED for trying to act on your own accord, first treated like a sin ( because of the implications of stanley activating the facility ) & then having it rubbed in your face that you don't even HAVE control & your choices seemingly don't matter.

& the best part? new players wouldn't know this, but the seasoned ones would: the narrator is JUST as helpless as you are beyond being able to direct the game. it's chilling to figure that, look back, & simply realize.

speak of the devil; this introduces a WHOLE new light to your trusty narrator, him going out of his way to teach you a lesson, executing your character, explicitly, DELIBERATELY making you sit there for every painstaking second of this ending - rather than nullifying it to a cutscene, for his own enjoyment in milking your horror, at that.

i don't think we talk about that enough. & i don't think we realize how shocking that must be to someone just getting into this game blind.

i remember LOSING MY MIND seeing this ending for the first time, & to this DAY i'm still chilled each time i watch it, especially the more i think about the ever-expanding list of implications.

BEYOND said list of implications, as well as the plot itself, the environment & visual setup GETS me; running around a darkening facility, desperately trying to find anything to reverse the clock while everything starts shutting & breaking down around you. you are alone, nobody's coming to help you & you are assured of this fact SO many times over. everything is a reminder that you have a limited time left to play. oh my god i'm dying thinking about it

not to mention, you've got red lights of doom swirling around the room, harmonizing with the music- WHICH HEY, I COULD TOUT THIS AS MY FAVORITE ENDING BASED ON THE MUSIC ALONE. the ' countdown ' track is DAMNING, a haunting melody that feels like you're waltzing with fate itself, glimmers of hope in the belting choir, only to fail & die by it's unforgiving, cold hands. you are aweing at the scene as the helpless player, & the music will highlight that MERCILESSLY. it's so good. that's one of my favorite tracks in a game ever.

...........& yeah the narrator's growl here is something but i feel like this ending gets hyped up TOO much just for that / the narrator being seen as wildly attractive for trying to kill you. YES, he is, we know, that's not the point though, i'm gayer for the music

I COULD GO. on & on, but I'm going to stop myself here, because I think you get the idea.

& i think the funniest thing here is, i love the countdown ending for being such a massive nail in the coffin of the narrative here, but the rest of my favorite endings are much more silly, dare i say domestic, even. my range. is immense. feel free to ask about those too if you like!

BUT YEAHHH i really like the countdown ending. 10 cookies out of 9!

#anonymous #inbox #TSP blogging #ough it's now i realize how little i actually get to talk about the base game.... u should ask me more opinions about it hee #ALSO IT'S SO HARD TO PICK A FAVORITE ANYTHING IN THIS GAME BECAUSE I LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT #but for you i must try <33 #dances cutely as i give silly opinionated analysis

[artemisandhersilverbow]

Ok, if you, like me, were in the minority of people who didn’t immediately fall in love with One Dark Window… like, the consistent rave reviews popping up on various algorithms have been simultaneously confusing and making you feel very left out? Well, I’ve got news!

In my humble opinion, Two Twisted Crowns (book 2) is mostly a total knock out. I obvi gotta sit with it longer (I just finished at 3am)… revisit some exceptional quotes that left ya girl blushing (dresses were almost ripped).

Duologies can feel like such a mercy in the fantasy space and looking at the series as a whole, i’d now happily recommend it to anyone not looking to tackle a new 3-6 book series/investment at this time. Also a good one for newbies to the genre. It also isn’t just another copy-paste SJM variant and that almost feels like a rarity with the big new releases.

Book one, I really struggled with the messy (albeit cool on the surface) magic system, the constant rhyme thing felt really hokey and made me struggle to get into the writing (which is mostly very good), the MCs were outshined by the side characters and just weren’t really my type, and the pacing is so odd like - sometimes so slow and sometimes so fast - it’s like, “Wait hi, I need more info please.”

25% into book 2 I genuinely thought, “I think more has already happened in this book than in all of book 1.” And that’s when I realized I was hooked and in for a late night.

Book two is action-packed and the plot is operating on so many levels - thanks in part to more povs. Ironically, part of me was like so grateful I had read book one, even if I didn’t like it, so I “knew the rules,” and could run along this faster-paced, more ambitious book 2.

Obviously I think the magic system, and general world building, was infinitely more successful in TTC. Gillig just used the framework and the lore with a higher level of craft and focus. We scaled back on the goofy rhymes - tho not entirely lol. But I credit the attention paid to the world/magic as a big part to why I read this whole thing in an evening! It felt like a really unsatisfying missing piece from ODW and, clearly, with that amended I more than liked it! I got that unmistakable all-consuming euphoric rush that only binging a great fantasy can give you.

*spoilers ahead*

I would also be fully lying if I said that what made this book work for me wasn’t just… the big focus on Elm and Ione. Yes, I had to google that name pronunciation for my own sanity at a certain point. But within their plot, in particular, I was like “ok, now this is what I call a magic system.” I have no idea why this same concept was just utilized and pulled off so much more successfully in their narrative arc… but it was. I still liked the odyssey into the woods with Ravyn and the Nightmare, but I fully credit Elm and Ione for making me love this book. Did I miss Elspeth a lot… I plead the fifth.

The Elm-Ione romance had everything I was missing in ODW! Like hot, hot tension. Sexy build up. And idk their growth and stories and strength genuinely made THIS tender little reader shed a tear. Their dynamic felt really honest and fresh and different. I’ve been getting a little burnt out by copy and paste romantic plots, in fantasy in particular, so these two took me by surprise. Yeah, I was just kind of floored by their romantic journey.

What can I say, I’m weak for an emotionally intelligent boy who can communicate his need to be topped (and like traumas and other things). Some of their build up tension scenes had me blushing the hardest any book has made me blush in 2023. RIP OFF THAT DRESS BABY!!!

Anyway, if you felt gaslit by the hype around ODW, but you already read it, I’m hear to say that TTC is more than worth it. You’ve already made it that far, what do you have to lose?

Unless your me who is going to be feeling that decision to not go tf to bed!

#book review #two twisted crowns #one dark window #rachel gillig #some spoilers #fantasy romance #gothic fantasy #duology #elm Rowan #elspeth spindle #Ione hawthorn #Ravyn yew

[mabinogifantasylife]

For the writing meme

F, I, N, V ✨

omg cenn! 😭😭😭 I’m still gagged that you read my mess

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I have a folder in my notes app dedicated to rough outlines and right now I have *maybe* 7 WIPs in there. One of them is is called 'BB's Delivery Service' which is a semicrack fic about Balor as a maid and — yeah I know, I know. Classic Maid gacha a did number on me.

Also Loiscneach!!!!!!!

YES I have Talvmillet WIPs, BUT those are gonna have to marinate for a while until I know what I want out of them. That dynamic is more involved than Vaynemillet which is always a combination of 1.) arguing 2.) fighting and 3.) fucking to me

I. What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

It would have to be Pleasure in the Glare. Believe it or not, I was initially disinterested in Vayne because G22 came on the heels of G21 especially considering how long the wait was between G20 -> G21. I took the finale personally 😭 I knew Vayne was no good from the jump so I spent my first play through of G22 + 23 wondering what the hell he wanted. Then I got to G24 and that was where I was pushed over into BeimHive territory. Finally realized the guy just wanted some ass then die; that earned my respect. IDC how many times I say this but Dissonance in the Void is Vaynemillet gospel. Writing about fighting and fucking is so much fun!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

I feel like anything I really wanna write will come out in its own time, but this is never gonna see the light of day.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks. 

Okay right now it's a tie between Pleasure in the Glare and Sweet Honey Sin. I like porn with plot; I could never dish it out raw like that. I have an entire Twitter circles (RIP) thread dedicated to the making of Sweet Honey Sin. For my followers - if you're nosey and not weird I've moved to a private Twitter for quote-tweeting nasty mabi fanart and talking about whatever I'm currently working on + snippets. Anyone can DM if interested.

As for narrative kinks per se, the only one I can think of is that I will always mention or reference “honey” or “gold” at least once in a fic in relation to my millet or something she’s doing. One day I might talk about her in depth, but honestly, I’m not the type to sit down and say “oh Adah likes such and such and only does this and that”. I’m her PR manager, not her biographer, if that makes sense. I’m learning more about my own OC with every story 🌸

On a broader level, if you've been following me for all these years (sorry), then you might have seen my various 'The Signs As' posts for whatever hot new characters are around. Towards the end of 2022 when I started writing, I began thinking seriously about character sun signs and now that I have more free time for other hobbies, I've gotten *really* into drafting natal charts for whatever characters I'm writing about. It helps SO much with characterization. It gives me a framework for their personalities from which I can cook up whatever behavioral nuances I want without making them feel OOC to the reader.

Thank you for the ask!

#Mabinogi #asks

[monsterwithasweater]

Monster Replays the Truthful Route: Part 2

Just realized that the end of this month marks the anniversary of Digimon Survive's release, so I wanna finish this playthrough just in time!

Warning: The following post contains spoilers for Digimon Survive. Viewer discretion is advised.

Thoughts:

Professor 🥺🥺🥺

Weird glitch I noticed: When someone's talking, sometimes the voice over doesn't play, and then they 'talk' in sync with the next characters lip flaps. It usually happens whenever somebody's talking to Takuma.

Ryo: Is your brain broken or something?

There are multiple different people in my life that this quote describes.

I love that humans are considered to be myths in the Kemonogami World, while the Kemonogami are considered myths in the Human World. They are parallel worlds fr fr.

Agumon in this conversation is a whole mood.

Agumon: Heh heh! Yeah, I'm amazing! I guess?

No, Agumon. No "I guess." You are amazing!

Miyuki 🥺🥺🥺

While writing this post, my phone died, and a good chunk was deleted because of it. So there's probably gonna be an odd skip between the beginning of Part 2 to the middle of it.

Labramon: You're drooling, Agumon! That's disgusting...

Falcomon: And yet you're drooling too, Labramon.

Fun fact: Non-playable Dracmons make li'l puppy noises.

This is probably the only playthrough where I don't have Minoru with the highest affinity in the first few chapters.

Ryo: The past two days almost killed me!

And if I don't raise my affinity with you soon, you'll really get killed.

Relationship goals: Being brothers in arms with your talking bird friend

I don't like how high my Harmony karma is...

RIP in Paildramons, Professor Digimon Survive 😔😔😔

I also don't like how they use 'all right' instead of alright.

Minoru and Falcomon 🥺🥺🥺

I find it interesting how Diatrymon is like, "What is this!?" when he first evolves.

For this battle, I decided to go Perfect level instead of straight to Mega, with the exception of MetalSeadramon. I just started feeling nostalgic for them.

Agumon: What's he mean, "friendly ones"?

Falcomon: The allies, who are nice to everyone.

Labramon: I'm Aoi's friendly one! I'm nice to her!

Gomamoooon!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍

Falcomon: I'll be your wingman!

More like you'll be his wingmon, but okay.

Decided to go Champion level this time around.

Saki: There's no way you guys can know me! We just met, didn't we?!

Floramon: I know everything about you, Saki!

Saki: Really? Amazing!

I don't know why, I find this kinda amusing.

Jealous much, Floramon?

Shuuji: AAAAUGH!

The game: Exploration time! Everything is fine! :D

Agumon: That's Floramon, and Lopmon!

Takuma: You know them?

Agumon: Nope, first time I've ever seen 'em! Nice to meet you!

Agumon 🥺🥺🥺

Can't believe they killed off Professor Digimon Survive twice in the same chapter 😔😔😔

Fangmon: I was after that little one, but my hand slipped.

You call those hands?

Aoi and Labramon 🥺🥺🥺

In all seriousness, though, the Professor's "death" feels very tragic. WhiIe it's obvious from previous playthroughs that he's not really dead, the group's reaction to it, as well as the music playing in the background, really make it hit hard for me.

The same goes for Fangmon's death as well. While it's true that he was meant to be a bad guy who straight up tried to kill the Survive gang, the way his death played out just felt gruesome, even if no actual gore was shown.

Or maybe I'm just a big wuss.

This post took me hours to make. I wish I was joking. It's 11:59 PM as I'm typing this.

Anyways, tune in next time to see me 🥺🥺🥺 at more characters!

#digimon survive #monster rambles #monster replays the truthful route

[joanna-lannister]

[Another old ask I've drafted that I can't edit so I'll reply to it that way.]

i love when they use the "she slept with other men, she doesn't love him" card, the underlying slut-shaming behind it is at its finest here 😍 

But seriously, it shows the lack of comprehension they have for her character. She doesn't do it because she wants to, she does it because she sees it as the only way to gain power or protect herself and her family. Lancel? Used him to kill Trashbag Robert before he learned the truth about her and Jaime. The Kettlebacks? I don't remember quite why, but it's for the same reasons said above, to have some power thus protecting herself and her family. And those scenes are borderline rape.

And we have also Euron in the show (pretty sure he will have a role in the books too), she does it because she has no other choice to keep him as an ally, and she was COERCED into having sex with him. —I could honestly write a big post about how she starts to realize after S7 how power doesn't give her what she wants but whatever...— Anyway, Cersei uses her sexuality as a weapon, she said it herself. That's what she has been taught as a woman in the patriarcal society that is Westeros: men fight with swords, women fight with their good looks. Yet, this is not something that she truly enjoys, "It's only good with Jaime." from the books. Cersei doesn't equate sexuality with romantic love.

Now for proof that she loves Jaime, I'm not a books specialist so I'm not the best person to reply to that question (and I don't have quotes in mind right now so RIP), but when she dreams of her husband, she dreams of Jaime. When she is held captive by the High Sparrow, who does she ask for help? Jaime. He is her knight in shining armor. He is also the father of her children. She actively chose to bear his children, despite the risk for their lives. Also, she mentions how her twin is the only one to whom she shows her weaknesses.

As for the show, oh lord, her protectiveness and concerns about him shine more than in the books imo. When he is held captive by the Starks, she tells Joffrey, voice full of worry, "His life is in danger." (2x01). She asks Tywin if they are doing everything they can to get him back (S3, I'm not sure which episode). And then we have the famous scene in 6x06, where Jaime threatens to kill the High Sparrow, and Cersei replies, "But if you kill the High Sparrow, you won't leave the sept alive. And without you, this is all for nothing." She is actively trying to protect him here. (And I'd argue she was trying to protect him by using Lancel to kill Robert and also by not telling her plans with the Golden Company.) We have also their reunion in 8x05, the world is crumbling around them, Cersei has lost everything yet, she only cares about the fact he is hurt. Seeing him hurt and bleeding is the apex of those concerns. She has failed somewhat to protect him.

Anyway, all of this to say, Cersei loves Jaime. She is just more subtle than him because she knows the risk for their lives and their children. And when she is finally Queen Regnant, when she has somewhat power, she lets go of those fears and let the world knows about them (7x03).

I'm not sure if it replied to your question, but I hope it helped a bit!

Oh, and I'm sorry for the very very very LATE answer. 😔 I promise I try to do my best to reply now.

#anon #answered #slowly but surely replying to those drafted asks 😭 #rape tw #<- just in case

[bi-demon-ium]

YoudidaskforitandI'msorryifitgetsannoying.

🌺 favorite poetic quote from a published work

🍌 favorite funny quote from a wip

⚡️ wild card: dealer’s choice of quote from a completed work

🫐 a line from a published work that you’re proud of, but no one’s mentioned yet - or if you can’t think of one, an underrated line in general

🌈 asker’s choice of wip: request a quote from a wip (a certain wip? a certain character? a certain emotion or trope if it’s there? up to you!) Do you have any Executives stuff?

No pressure at all! But I love when people are confident enough to do Ask Games, and, as I said, it's neat to see what they think of :)

no no please i promise it won't get annoying i love asks so much

favorite poetic... hmmm i have so many published works that this will just be off the dome probably but.. okay this is a big one but it's what came to mind so rip

(One night Milligan quietly, slowly asks him do you think I was a bad person? and he looks so honestly shocked, surprised even at the idea.

Milligan looks out the window after that, won’t meet his eyes, and continues, what if I was? I can do so much harm, and I don’t know why.

Quiet.

And then even softer: What if I hurt people?

And Mr. Benedict says, equally softly, you have a gentle soul, Milligan. I doubt you have ever been a bad person. But even if that were true… he sighs. It matters who you are now, and what choices you make now. We aren’t defined by our pasts.

He winces at that, realizing what he’s said, but Milligan only chuckles slightly. I do need to know mine, he says, after a moment. And he finally looks back at Mr. Benedict, at Nicholas, who watches him with dark, sad eyes, and says, But what if it’s something I regret learning?

Mr. Benedict looks sad—understanding, but sad—then after a moment, rather abruptly, says, You know, you’re also an excellent cook.

Milligan blinks at him, slowly.

And yes, you are exceedingly adept at martial arts, but I’ve noticed, Milligan, you only ever incapacitate.

I could do worse, Milligan says, before he can stop himself, and Nicholas smiles.

Yes, you could, he says. But it’s not your first instinct. But you don't.

When Milligan only stares—unsure what to say—he sighs again, softly.

You are who you are now, he says. And you, Milligan, my friend, aren’t a bad person. And your hands, whatever you think—he lays his over Milligan’s—aren’t only for hurting.)

-- from "keeping out the cold"

funny wip quote... im pretty sure ive posted this somewhere before but its so funny im gonna do it again

the onyl context im giving you for this is they are all literally kidnapped rn mr benedict has launched himself out of the kidnapping to attempt to murder his brother with a pillow

“The whole buff lumberjack thing, wow—”

Milligan blinked, utterly not expecting this turn in the conversation, and Mr. Benedict launched to his feet, and, having snatched a pillow, threw at him as hard as he could.

Curtain dodged it, cackling.

“SHUT UP,” Mr. Benedict all but screeched, grabbing another pillow, “You jerk, I was literally hypnotized, you jerk, you absolute dick—”

“Tall, long hair, bisexual fisherman chic,” Curtain crowed as Mr. Benedict all but charged him, swinging the pillow with the force of someone trying to smash through a brick wall. Behind them, Milligan self-consciously looked down at his hair. “Like the cover of a ro—”

His sentence was cut off by a loud OOF as he was walloped extremely hard with a pillow directly to the face.

“STOP HITTING ME,” Curtain shouted from the floor. Mr. Benedict did not stop.

“YOU! JERK!” he said, punctuating each word with another hit. (“stahppit!”) “I’M! GONNA! KILL YOU!”

i just thnk them activating each other's cain instinct while they're still like. fully enemies. everyone else is tied up at metaphorical gunpoint rn and nicholas is just like IM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU YOU JERK YOU SHITHEAD YOU ABSOLUTE GODDAMN BASTARD [ATTEMPTS HOMICIDE VIA PILLOW]

dealer's choice from published work

this bit from "kind cruelty" (written before or during s2 so speculation for the hypnotism without seeing how it worked in canon yet) still kills me

also im just doing super long quotes for this one rip everyone reading this

"I'm not--I'm not guilty. I'm not sad, or angry--" his voice broke a little, but he continued, "I'm not tired all the time. I can sleep, and I can sleep without nightmares. It doesn't hurt. Please, Milligan. I'm so tired of hurting."

He sounded so small, the confession soft and tired, and Milligan desperately wanted to either hug him or shake some sense into him.

"Why should I give that up?" he asked. "Why?"

"Because it's not real," said Milligan quietly, and he stepped closer, nearly chest to chest with him now, and squeezed his shoulder just a little. "It's hurting you, Nicholas."

Nicholas's lips trembled a little at that. "...What if I don't care?" he said at last.

Milligan exhaled softly through his nose, and gave in. He pulled him into a hug, and Nicholas didn't fight it, but didn't return it, either.

"Then I have a cruel answer for you," he said finally, soft and low and resigned, staring past him at the wall. Nicholas said nothing, only waited. Milligan squeezed him a little tighter, and said quietly, "Because I've asked you to."

Nicholas didn't move.

"Please," Milligan whispered over his shoulder, fingers curling to rest between his shoulder blades.

Nicholas let out a breath and leaned forward, forehead resting against Milligan's shoulder. "Okay," he said, voice tiny and thin, breathing shuddering out of him. "Okay."

underrated line/line no one's mentioned yet

this one's always hard bc sometimes you have the perfect thing in mind but if you dont youre fucked lmao. i don't so i'm just going to go with something from an underrated work, "the midnight waltz"

Milligan spun him around, and although he wasn’t thinking of it, that thrum of joy was ever-present in the background, disbelief and love and joy, and he felt happier than he’d felt in a very long time indeed.

He, of course, at that very moment, tripped, ankle twisting as he stepped on a stick at the wrong angle, and a surprised yelp escaping his lips rather involuntarily.

This could have been an unpleasant knock to the head, or even just something else to laugh at, but—well, when he wasn’t getting pulled down with him, Milligan had quite a lot of practice in catching a falling Nicholas.

So instead of lying on the ground, whether bruised or giggling, he found himself instead in what very much resembled a dip.

Milligan, whose face was very close to his, blinked. “Can we say I did this on purpose?” he asked.

hmmmm i don't think i have any executives stuff on hand but. well i do have a little martina? somewhere? or i did, i'm not sure if lost it to the Great Hard Drive Implosion of 2023.

.....okay i can't find it so i'm just. here hang on. [ten minutes of loud sustained offscreen construction noises and unfaltering weeping]

Jackson and Jillson are really more like Jackson-and-Jillson, a unit, a pair in the way scissors is a pair. They’re really one thing, not two, for neither feels whole without the other.

This front they present is not entirely a lie. They are a pair, a unit, an inseparable creature; they are a fearsome and unnerving Orthrus.

But despite being platonic soulmates in the purest, most traditional sense (Platonic, not so much platonic) they are, in fact, two people, whether they like it or not.

okay i just spent like fifteen minutes writing some jackson and jillson content bc i love them and most of it is garbage but i liked the opening so here it is

#i might eventually run out and start recycling quotes but im pretty sure some of them are old enough you wouldnt have seen them anyway #askbox #long post #RIPPPP LMAO #wip #the mysterious benedict society