#or there are multiple characters in the background making up for his lack of everything

[sundrop-writes]

Meddle About

Sub!Spencer Reid x Dom!Fem!Reader

‘Cause it's not just a figure of speech - you got me down on my knees.

It's gettin' harder to b r e a t h e .

Summary:

You hate it when Morgan teases Reid. So when Morgan says that you are Reid's 'Mommy' - you verbally fire back without even thinking about it.

Reid vastly overthinks it.

So much so that he ends up calling you Mommy by mistake. And you definitely don't hate the sound of that word coming off his lips.

Sub!Spencer Reid x Dom!Fem!Reader. Co-Workers to Lovers. Smut. Set during Season One.

Word Count: 6,300

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: general smut fic - porn with some plot; dom/sub dynamics (but this isn't a pre-discussed dom/sub relationship, the characters just fall into these roles naturally), Spencer is submissive and the reader is dominant; the main theme is Mommy kink - Spencer discovers that he has a Mommy kink after a joke that Morgan makes, referring to the reader character as Spencer's Mommy; Spencer calls the reader 'Mommy' and the reader also refers to herself with that title; the reader uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina (and breasts); it could be interpreted that the reader has larger breasts/is plus sized (but I think anyone of any size could enjoy this fic); the reader is part of the BAU; this is meant to take place during season one (baby Spence my beloved) but there are no other major canon events mentioned and the case being discussed is one that I have made up; some very background typical elements of Criminal Minds - murder, killing, systemic vicimization of women/violence from men towards women (passing mention of bodies being consumed by wild animals); the reader and Spencer fuck while on a case (but they aren't endangering anyone's lives from lack of their attention, so it's fine); mentions of potential injuries from a car accident (theoretical - doesn't actually happen during the fic); very slight threads of Morgan x Reader (mentions of Morgan being attracted to the reader - it could be one-sided); very passing mention of Reid having breeding kink (doesn't take place during the fic, just one of his thoughts); for the actual smut section: this could be interpreted as virgin!Spencer but that's not explicitly stated here (at most, this is just inexperienced!Spencer) (the reader is definitely way more sexually experienced than him); praise kink (we all known Spencer is so eager to be praised); mentions of breastfeeding - Morgan makes a joke about the reader breastfeeding Reid, which later turns into faux breastfeeding kink (the reader doesn't actually lactate, but she lets Spencer suck on her tits and calls it breastfeeding); the reader calls Spencer: 'baby', 'good boy',; descriptions of subspace - but it's not specifically called 'subspace' in the text; thigh humping - Spencer humps the reader's thigh; cumming in pants (Spencer); multiple orgasms/overstimulation (Spencer receiving); handjob - the reader jacks Spencer off while he is sensitive after his first orgasm; using lube as cum; dumbification kink - the reader calls Spencer 'dumb baby' and generally enjoys seeing his intellect drop the more turned on he becomes (Spencer also likes being called this); technically the reader doesn't get to cum, but she gets turned on from treating Spencer like the good boy that he is (and this is more about him). I think that's everything.

A/N: This was directly inspired by the scene from Reid's birthday party, where Morgan says 'Mommy to the rescue!' (talking about JJ) and then Spencer says '...Mommy?' and it seems like he is discovering his Mommy kink in real time. Especially because he is then trapped between Elle and JJ and he makes direct eye contact with their boobs, and he just has such a look of scared kink realization in his eyes. I considered copying that moment exactly and just replacing JJ with the reader character, but this seemed like more fun lmao. I had so much fun writing this and I think this is one of my best fics in a while. I hope you guys enjoy it!!

...

Generally, you hated being stuck with grunt work. 

You knew that it was all part of the job - an important part of it. Paperwork, side interviews, background checks. Sifting through someone’s apartment looking for aspects of what kind of person they were based on their everyday life. 

But you thrived more on being right in the middle of things. You preferred interacting with suspects, chasing people down, harsh confrontation. 

Gideon said that you were overly controlling, impatient, brutally honest - that you had an ‘abrasive personality’ that put most men off. But that was why he often brought you into interrogations with male suspects. Many of the people you caught - men with superiority complexes who targeted the weak to make themselves feel powerful - they hated that you weren’t intimidated by them. That aspect of abrasion between you and the suspects often brought out a lot of information - things they spewed out trying to intimidate you. 

But you weren’t needed on that front today. 

No - instead, you were doing grunt work. The kind of work that made you impatient and generally aggravated. 

The only upside was that you got to do it with Spencer. 

He was one of the only men that voluntarily worked so closely with you so often, because he wasn’t intimidated by you. He took orders from you very well and naturally fell under your authority, bringing a natural chemistry to your partnership when you worked with him. Plus - his seemingly endless stream of ‘fun facts’ was like listening to the radio, which did help to soothe your boredom during these kinds of mindless tasks. 

You were on a case in Texas. Five women raped and tortured before having their bodies hung from a tree and consumed by cotoyes that the UnSub knew lived in the area. Since police had closed in on him, he had gone on the run. He had killed three more women since fleeing, while leaving no clues as to what his ultimate endgame would be or where he would be going next. 

Hotch sent you and Reid to find that out while the rest of the team worked victimology and profiled the scenes of the most recent murders, following the trail he was leaving. 

After spending hours sifting through the suspect’s house, looking for any small clue about where he might be going - you came up empty. When you touched base with Hotch, he told you that you and Reid would be going to visit the suspect’s ex-wife - who lived four hours away. You needed to interview her to see if she could give you any further insight to the man, and perhaps - beat him to the house if she was the ultimate target. 

(A lot of the victims looked like her, and it couldn’t really be a coincidence.) 

You knew that lives were at risk, and it was juvenile of you, but all you heard was: long, boring drive. Boring day. You hoped that Reid would be good company through it. 

Now, you were waiting outside of the police station in the bureau-issued SUV, waiting for Morgan to come and give you the file with the ex-wife’s address and contact information. 

“Did you know that over forty-six percent of Texans own a gun? Texas is second only to Montana in registered gun ownership, where over sixty-six percent of citizens proudly tote their right to bear arms.” Reid told you, continuing to look over the case files that were sitting in his lap. 

When you looked over toward him to reply to this odd factoid, your mind got caught up on something else. 

“Reid, come on, take your feet off the dashboard!” You told him, reaching over to gently smack his knee, trying to encourage his legs down from the awkward position. 

It bothered you for several reasons - the idea that he would leave shoe prints on the dashboard, which was minor and cosmetic, but still annoying. And the fact that if the car did happen to get hit head-on, the air-bag would explode out and push his knees into his chest, causing his shattered leg bones to pierce his organs and possibly kill him. (At the very least, he would never walk again.) 

Speaking of which: 

“And put your seatbelt on!” You barked, now noticing that he wasn’t wearing it past all of the files he had piled into his lap. “You of all people should know how many deaths are caused by not wearing a seatbelt.” 

Spencer opened his mouth to spout out this exact statistic, but before he could get the words out, another voice entered the conversation. 

“Aw, Reid, listen to your Mommy.” 

You were almost startled by Morgan’s voice coming from the open driver’s side window so suddenly. His appearance there as if out of nowhere was so jarring that you couldn’t get caught up on the way he had called you Reid’s Mommy. Your head whipped toward Morgan so quickly that you didn’t notice the flash across Spencer’s features - worry, dawning. You didn’t take note of the way he rushed to comply with putting on his seatbelt. As if he was rushing to please you, even unconsciously. 

“I bet if you’re a good boy, she might even breastfeed you when you get there.” 

Morgan then pursed his lips and made loudly suckling noises, clearly imitating breastfeeding in what he thought was a comedic way. 

Again - glaring at the muscled man through the open window, you didn’t see Spencer’s reaction. You didn’t see the way his large, glassy eyes flickered to your breasts (only emphasized by your own seatbelt crossed over the center of your chest) before he forced himself to focus on the files in front of him so that he wouldn’t feel so caught.

“Shut up.” You told Morgan, your voice so commanding and firm that his simple order was enough to get him to stop his antics. 

“And give me the address already.” You held out your hand expectantly, and Morgan handed you the file, which you placed onto the center console. 

Then, you turned back to him for one last point, determined to have the final word in the conversation. 

“Besides, we both know that you’re the one who’s got an obsession with my breasts, anyway. Just because you stare while wearing sunglasses, doesn’t mean I don’t notice. My eyes are up here, pal.” You told him sharply. 

He let out a scoff at this, and rolled his eyes behind his dark frames - but he made no clever comeback. 

You had successfully bested him. And with that knowledge, you rolled up the window and left him standing dumbly in the parking lot as you sped off. 

… 

You pulled over later to put the address into the GPS system, and you let out a long-winded groan when you found that it was more than four hours away. Four hours and twenty five minutes. 

So you pulled over again to get gas and stocked up on snacks, and you were surprised that Reid wasn’t giving you some lesson about the colloquial use of ‘soda’ and ‘pop’ (thinking that you hadn’t listened the other ten times when he had gone on the same rambling point about linguistics and how language evolves). 

He was being far too quiet for your liking. 

But he was keeping his eyes glued to the files, and you guessed that he was churning over something in that big brain of his, like he usually was. 

You were entirely surprised when the next time he spoke - it wasn’t about the case at all. 

“How - how do you know that Morgan likes your breasts?” He asked, his voice low and mousy, looking straight ahead as he fidgeted with his hands in his lap. 

“What?” You gaped, the word flying out of your mouth as your brain was utterly slow to process what he had just said. 

Hearing Spencer use the word ‘breasts’ was jarring, but somehow utterly adorable. You found it stirring a slight heat within you. Especially because he was still so shy. The whole thing made you want to pin him down and force the shyness out of him. 

Spencer felt the need to further explain himself. 

“When - when you were talking to him, you said: ‘we both know that you’re the one who’s got an obsession with my breasts.’” He said, repeating back what you had said, word for word, using that perfect memory of his. 

You wondered if that’s what he had been doing, sitting there in his seat so silently for the past hour of the car ride - going over the conversation again and again in his head, trying to make sense of it. And because he couldn’t make any sense of it by himself, now he was consulting you. 

Again, you found it so utterly adorable. 

“Morgan didn’t deny it. So - was it a hypothesis based on something, or did you just call him out hoping that you weren’t wrong?” Reid continued, sparing only a singular glance in your direction, a look that you caught out of the corner of your eye with your gaze still mostly focused ahead on the road. 

You found it intensely cute that he was using the word ‘hypothesis’ in this situation. You wondered if he ever turned it off - the textbook big words and the intellect that he always carried himself with. You wondered if you could make him turn it off. You wondered if there was any situation where Spencer Reid could be as stupid as any other man - chasing a bone, desperate to get his nut off. 

For the first time ever - you imagined Spencer Reid underneath you, blabbering nonsense, begging for release with your hand around his cock as you pumped him, red and aching, so slick in your palm. Desperate, empty-headed, beautifully stupid. 

(See, this was what happened when you were forced to do grunt work. You got bored. And when you got bored - you had to entertain yourself somehow.) 

“It was a pretty well-informed hypothesis.” You replied. Now that Spencer had brought the topic up, you certainly weren’t going to shy away from the discussion. “Morgan often brings up my sex life, and wants to engage in detailed discussions about my sexual encounters with me. So I assume that he spends a fair amount of time thinking about me in a sexual way.” 

Reid let out a choked-off noise at this. 

You continued. 

“Plus, he’s always staring down my top. He’s not exactly subtle.” 

“You - you actually notice that kind of thing?” He chirped, his voice becoming a few octaves higher as worry flooded him. 

You bit your lip, suppressing a grin. 

Of course, you had noticed the times that Spencer stared at your breasts as well. He was even less subtle about it than Morgan was. You didn’t mind it when he did it, because you knew that Spencer wasn’t exactly casanova. He didn’t have a different girl every other week like Morgan did, so taking a glance down your shirt when he passed you a morning coffee was probably about as much action as he got. 

Secretly, letting him get away with it was your gift to him. 

“Don’t worry about it, baby.” You told him, the pet name slipping out mindlessly as you reached over and gently patted his knee as a form of reassurance. 

This movement unintentionally drew his eyes toward your chest, especially in his desperation to look anywhere but your face, not wanting to make eye contact with you. But he found his eyes glued to the swell of your breasts once again - hating how perfect they looked, even through the simple cotton shirt and plain bra that you wore. 

“Sorry, Mommy.” The word slipped out before he could even consciously process it. “Sorry!” 

Spencer raised a hand to smack his own face at lightning speed, and slumped down into his seat in embarrassment. 

You bit your lip to suppress a grin. It stirred a filthy heat in your belly. But you knew that Spencer likely needed a while to sit with this and wouldn’t want to talk about it - not yet. So you reached over and turned on the radio, letting the music fill the space so that the silence wasn’t so awkward and gutting. 

…

Spencer didn’t talk for the entirety of the rest of the car ride, which didn’t surprise you. 

When you finally arrived at the ex-wife’s house, his hands were shaking with nerves as he tried to unlatch his seatbelt. You probably should have just left him alone to struggle, but an evil spark, likely fueled by the boredom of the day, flared up inside of you. You couldn’t resist the urge to lean over the console, very purposefully showing off your breasts as you gently pushed his hands away and undid the belt for him. 

“Here, let Mommy get that for you.” You said, distinct teasing on your breath as you mumbled the words into his ear. 

Spencer huffed out a deep sigh and collapsed back into his seat, and pushed his hair out of his face in frustration. But he didn’t say anything more as you gathered the files in preparation for the interview. 

He only spoke when you moved to get out of the car. 

“Look, I-” He began a half assed explanation, and you easily cut him off. 

“You let Morgan get in your head too much.” You told him with a chuckle, opening your door and getting out. 

But as he forced himself to follow you with numb limbs - he knew that this definitely wasn’t all Morgan’s fault. 

… 

The ex-wife didn’t know much. 

She described the marriage as hell - the suspect exhibited all the typical behaviors as a husband that they would have expected. He hated women, and he wanted full control over his wife at the time, which eventually led down the path of divorce. They had to sell the house they had bought together, but neither of them had moved out of Texas since. But he hadn’t contacted her in years. 

She had two young kids from a new relationship, and when the woman stepped out to take a call, you picked one of them up to soothe his cries, hushing him gently while you rubbed his back. 

Because of this, Spencer found himself even more dizzy and confused. 

He knew that it was Frueadian - some deep, misguided part of his psychology - something broken and missing inside of him because of his own fractured childhood. 

But seeing you being so sweet with a kid, especially after the day he’d had - he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be your baby, or if he wanted to shoot his cum so deep inside you that it would ensure he could give you one. 

(Ultimately, he knew that it was likely both - and that didn’t answer any questions for him. It just gave him far more questions.) 

… 

Even though the ex-wife couldn’t give you guys much more than you already knew, Hotch wanted you and Spencer to stay close by in case the suspect decided to make his ex-wife the end game. The two of you would be able to make it to her first if she called for help. 

So you and Spencer had dinner at a random local barbeque place off the highway and Spencer still didn’t talk much through it, other than posing some theories about the case. Even though he was a bit more talkative, he still refused to look at you - he stared down at his plate the whole time. Though whenever he did look up, you noticed that his eyes lingered on your chest - and he still wouldn’t look you in the eye. 

By the time the bill came around and the two of you were ready to leave, you knew exactly what you had to do. 

… 

Spencer waited by the car with his bag while you checked in and got a motel room (needing to stay in town, you got a room for the night). When you came back, you handed him the room key and then moved to get your bag out of the car. 

“Do… you already have yours?” He asked quietly. 

“Hmm?” You hummed in reply, slinging the strap of your go-bag over your shoulder before you closed the back door and used the remote to lock up the car. 

“Your room key?” 

You suppressed another grin. 

“I only got one room.” You told him. “You don’t mind sharing with me, right?” 

You gave him a purposeful look - looked at him through your lashes, bit your lip slightly, and subtly squeezed your breasts together with your upper arms, emphasizing them. You knew exactly what you were doing to him, but hopefully it seemed subtle. 

“I - uh - no.” Spencer stuttered. “It’s fine. We can share.” He gave a grin, not wanting to appear upset, even though his entire body was racked with nerves. 

Spencer followed you to the room and he fumbled with the key with shaking hands for a moment before he sighed and then handed it to you. 

His insides quaked when he saw that there was only one bed. 

He wasn’t sure if he should say anything about it. The two of you had slept in the same room before, but you had never shared a bed before. Sure, you had slept near each other before. He had accidentally fallen asleep on your shoulder on the plane or vice versa. But you had never crawled into bed together with the intention of sleeping together. 

And yes, just the entendre behind it made Reid’s head spin. 

He had a heavy knot in his gut, and hatefully - a distinct stirring in his crotch. He could only imagine how embarrassing it would be for you to wake up and see him compromised in some way. Or god forbid, if you caught him moaning in his sleep because of unconscious dreams that he couldn’t stop - for you to think that he was some kind of dirty sex pervert because of it. 

He felt an overwhelming need to clear the air overtake him. He had no clue how to broach the subject, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to spend the night like this. He wouldn’t be able to sleep with this anxiety hanging over his head. 

He studied you carefully as you sat down on the edge of the bed, ditching your bag off to the side and heaving out a tired sigh as you began taking off your shoes. 

Spencer put down his own bag and then stood there, fidgeting nervously as he searched for words. 

“I - uh - I am sorry about earlier.” He mumbled out the beginnings of an apology. “What Morgan said was stupid, and I-” 

“I don’t think it was stupid.” 

You let out a chuckle, and reached up the back of your shirt. Spencer found himself frozen, his eyes tracing your every moment as you unhooked your bra underneath your shirt and then moved to maneuver the straps out from your short sleeves while you kept talking. 

“I think he had a point.” You added on. “Good boys should get a reward. And I think you were fairly good today. You didn’t eat all your veggies at dinner, but you kept your feet off the dashboard and you were quiet during the car ride. You definitely get points for being patient during such a long trip, baby.” 

Your voice smoothed into a soothing tone, that word - baby - melting like butter over your tongue in a way that made Spencer’s knees wobble. He hadn’t known it until right now, but you calling him a ‘good boy’ and listing off such mundane things he had done that made him worthy of a reward fired off sparks inside of his brain. 

A breath choked off inside of his throat as you stood up off the bed and peeled your bra completely out from under your shirt. Somehow it was one of the sexiest things he had ever seen, revealing the hard peaks of your nipples and the beautiful natural teardrop shape of your breasts to him through the cotton fabric. 

Spencer wanted to speak, but his tongue felt so heavy and dry inside of his mouth. He knew that he was staring at your chest so blatantly now, but he couldn’t peel his eyes away. He couldn’t even feel ashamed anymore. 

That dull tingle in his crotch had turned into a full on stinging interest, and he unconsciously pulled at the fabric of his pants, trying to loosen some of the tension that was growing, not even considering how it might look to you - him dumbly reaching for his crotch to make it look looser when his hardening bulge was becoming more obvious by the second. 

It was one of the most ‘caveman’ things he had ever done in front of you - standing there with his mouth hanging slightly agape, pulling at his crotch without caring how it looked. You definitely wanted more, wanted to see how dumb he could get. How far you could make him devolve. 

“So what do you say, baby boy?” You hummed, stepping close into his personal space now, causing him to get a whiff of your perfume - something that was only a dull trace after such a long day, but still smelled so good. “Do you want Mommy to breastfeed you? Do you wanna suck on my tits as your reward?” 

You gently ran a thumb across his cheek, and paired with the words, Spencer’s brain short-circuited. 

He knew realistically that you weren’t actually offering to breastfeed him. There was no evidence in your life to say that your body could actually support the production of milk currently - but you were offering to let him play pretend. To suck on your tits with a very sexual air, to call you Mommy without the teasing humiliation behind it that Morgan had hinted at (or maybe Spencer liked that humiliation, he wasn’t even sure). (He hadn’t even known before this morning that he liked the idea of calling you Mommy, but here he was). 

All he could conjure in response was the dumbest, non-human sound. 

“Nngh.” 

It was a grunt from the back of his throat - too much blood swelling to his cock all at once and too much direct attention from you making him dizzy. 

You giggled quietly. 

“Come on, baby. Just say the word. And Mommy will give you everything you need.” 

Spencer inhaled sharply. At this point, he was desperate to get some oxygen to his brain. 

His mind was racing, chanting out: 

‘Yes! God, yes! I want it so badly, Mommy! I want anything you’ll give me. I need you. I need you so badly.’ 

But all his lips could form in the wake of such dizzying lust was: 

“Please.” 

“Good boy.” You sighed. 

You used a hand on his chin to tilt his face up to meet yours, and you consumed him in a kiss - he was hungry and eager to meet your touch, moaning loudly into your mouth, his hands racing to touch you now, rushing up to grip on your hips in the most utterly needy way. He balled the fabric of your shirt in his fists, like he couldn’t get enough of you - like he was afraid you would dissolve away if he let go of you for even a second. 

It was cute, to say the least. 

You only let the kiss last for a moment, though. You pulled away to a disappointed whine from Spencer, which you quietly hushed. 

“Hey, it’s okay baby.” You soothed him. “Come here. Mommy’s gonna take good care of you.” 

You lead him toward the bed, getting rid of his tie in the process, and Spencer stepped out of his shoes along the way. You slid onto the bed and laid up on the pillows on your back, Spencer clumsily following you, crawling on all fours. The two of you had barely started, but he was full-on panting now, racing to catch his breath while his blood hammered through his veins. 

He watched on with eager curiosity while you got comfortable, fluffing the pillow under your head before you then reached down and pulled up your shirt. You pulled the fabric to sit up under your chin, finally revealing your gorgeous breasts to him. 

If he was lost for words before, then he had receded back to a total neanderthal now. 

His mouth fell open and his salivary glands started working overtime as his eyes raked hungrily over your chest - enjoying the pure beauty of the fatty mounds, striped with zig-zagging stretch marks and completed by your hard peaked nipples. 

“Here, come on, baby.” 

You had to remind Spencer what the goal was, guiding him into place with a hand on the back of his head. You helped ease his body to lay on top of yours as he relaxed into you - and his mouth finally found its rightful place on your breast. He became greedy, suctioning hard on your nipple as though he might actually get something out of it. 

Truthfully, he did get something out of this. 

It definitely wasn’t any form of nutrition, but it was something that drove him lustfully insane and made his head fuzzy and warm in the best way. This was the only time in his entire life that he didn’t have ten thousand thoughts running through his mind like the news blasting on television in the background. This was the only time since his first conscious memory that he had actually known his mind to be quiet. 

He felt intensely thankful for it. Intensely thankful toward you for giving him this feeling. 

In that moment, without all the noise, all he knew was the comforting feeling of your fat tit under his mouth, the heat of your body under his own as you cradled him. The soothing firmness of your hands through his hair and down his back - and the distant, sweet purring of your voice in his ears. 

“Good boy.” You hummed, loving the feeling of him moaning around your nipple - so constant and so greedy now that you were sure he didn’t even know that he was doing it. “Such a good boy for me. Such a good boy for Mommy.” 

Your cunt was humming between your thighs, aching so hard at seeing Spencer like this. The usually composed, intelligent, practically robotic Doctor Reid reduced down to a blubbering, moaning, needy mess just because he wanted to suck on your tits. 

Just because you had called yourself Mommy a few times in his presence. 

It was so utterly beautiful, and you wanted more. 

(You didn’t think that you could ever let him go after this. You probably wouldn’t be able to stand the idea of another woman touching him after this. But you would have to think on that more later.) 

You noticed Spencer canting his hips, unconsciously seeking friction against his hard cock while he continued to suck on your breast. With his eyes closed blissfully, drool gathering around his lips where they met your skin in the most utterly adorable way. You couldn’t help yourself - you scooted your knee between his thighs. You then used a hand to help his hips into place, adjusting him so that he was getting good friction against your denim-clad thigh. 

“There you go. There you go, sweet boy.” You hummed, feeling another jolt through your body when he let out a sharper moan against your tit, and began humping your leg in earnest. 

You were quick to encourage him, putting both hands on his hips and helping him along while he greedily hung onto you. He had on your hip, the other hand slipping up to cup fingers around the bottom of your breast, making sure you didn’t escape him while he moved his body against you so frantically. 

“That’s just what you needed, isn’t it, baby?” You moaned out, your voice wavering slightly as the pleasure of it all thrummed through you. “Just a dumb little baby who needed Mommy’s tit.” 

The term ‘dumb little baby’ came flying out of your mouth before you could stop it. Though you knew exactly why it happened. Seeing such a brilliant genius reduced down to this truly did something to your ego. And apparently hearing those words from you did something to him, too. 

He whined sharply against your skin and his hips stuttered abruptly. You knew it wouldn’t be long before he came in his pants, his cock throbbing against the friction of your thigh. And this thought alone caused your mouth to run off without restraint. 

“Such a needy little thing.” You sighed. “You love being Mommy’s dumb baby, don’t you? Not a single fucking thought between your ears, just sucking on Mommy’s tit without a care in the world.” 

Spencer moaned and it sent another jolt through your body - another harsh pang through your cunt. You loved how much he needed you. You loved how much he was clearly eating this up. 

You didn’t even care if you got to cum tonight; you just wanted to exhaust him for all he was worth. Because he was so fucking pretty like this. 

“You gonna cum for me, baby boy? You gonna cum for Mommy? Come on, baby. Cum for me.” 

These words were what ultimately sent him over the edge. Well that along with your strong hands on his hips, encouraging him along while he was mindless and busy mouthing on your breast.

His jaw dropped open, finally loosening that desperate suction on your now slightly sore nipple as he began to pant frantically over your now spit-soaked skin. He moaned hotly while he humped you in an entirely adorable, almost distraught manner - absolutely desperate to have the most friction on his cock while his orgasm overtook him. 

You could feel his needy cock throbbing against you, trapped inside of his pants, shooting off hot ropes of cum that quickly soaked into his underwear and even then, seeped into the fabric of his slacks. You grinned and bit your lip as you felt that wetness even beginning to soak into your jeans, knowing he must have set off quite a big load. 

Spencer soon collapsed on top of you, gulping in air as he tried to catch his breath. 

Any normal person would have taken pity on him (seeing as he was clearly nervous and inexperienced) and wound things down to end the night here. Anyone else would have likely let him rest. 

But again, you felt devilish temptation overtake you. (It was a feeling that seemed to be much more ripe around Spencer Reid.) 

You just felt thankful that your temptation and inclination toward chaos came in the form of lust, rather than something more violent, like the people you studied every single day. Everyone around you should be thankful for that. 

You used your leverage (and the fact that you weren’t nearly as exhausted from the experience) to flip him over onto his back. He let out a surprised sound as his back made contact with the mattress - blinking up at you with shocked, glassy eyes as you moved down his body slightly. 

“Wha-?” He mumbled out the question, only getting out part of the word before you reached for the zipper on the front of his now wet pants. 

“Hey, shh, baby. I just wanna see you.” You told him quietly, causing him to stare down the length of his own body at your hands as you worked. 

You got the button and zipper undone quickly and you let out a quiet ‘fuck’ as you peeled back the wet fabric of his grey slacks to reveal the sight of his simplistic (very Reid) white cotton underwear slightly transparent and stuck tight to his cock, coated in wet, sticky cum. 

“So pretty baby.” 

He only whined in response. 

You couldn’t help yourself - you reached up and pulled down the waistband of his underwear, feeling more lust pricking through you as he was truly revealed to your eyes. He was perfect. Glossy and wet with his own release, his cock pinky red from the exertion and friction, still half hard. You pulled the clothes down over his hips and he lifted his body to help you, clearly glad to be rid of the mess, and the second you untangled the fabric from his ankles and ditched everything aside, you were back on him. 

You skimmed the tips of your fingers oh-so-lightly up his shaft where it was sprawled across his pelvis, and his hips jolted. He let out a bitter gasp - as though cold water had been splashed across him. 

“You said-” He choked on the words as you ran your thumb right underneath the crown, gently pressing into the head, causing him to choke on a moan while his knees quaked. 

You sat on his knees to keep him still and his head became so fuzzy once again. 

‘You said that you only wanted to look.’ 

The sentence died off in his lungs somewhere, and truthfully - he didn’t want to protest. He didn’t want you to stop. 

“Sens-sensitive.” He whined. “Too much.” 

“But you’re so pretty, baby.” You replied, your voice turning smooth and warm like butter again, melting over his whole body, causing all of his muscles to go soft and pliant for you. “Your cock is so pretty. I need to touch you.” 

He let out another strangled noise when you cupped your hand and took him fully in your grip this time, giving one good tug across his cock from root to tip. When you did this again, faster this time, his lungs seized inside his chest - trying to take in oxygen so quickly, as though he were drowning on dry land. 

“You gonna be good for me, baby?” 

“Yes.” He gargled back in response. “Yes, Mommy.” 

He was already so wet from cumming in his pants, and he let out a pathetic dribble of precum as you continued to move your hand - so it was an easy, slick slide. One that sent harsh shockwaves through him from overstimulation. Against his own will, he soon ballooned back to full hardness - becoming painfully swollen in your hand while you sped up your touch and closed your fist tighter around him. It caused the most wonderful hurt between his legs, and made a downright filthy wet sound as you pumped your grip faster along his needy cock. 

Spencer heard wailing and felt the soreness against his throat before he realized that he was the one making those desperate sounds. He distantly wondered what it might sound like to someone else, if the rooms on either side were occupied, if the motel would receive a noise complaint about some frail woman getting fucked to death by her husband next door - because that’s what he sounded like in his own ears. 

But any of those half-thoughts were chased out of his brain the second you flicked your thumb up over the head of his cock and your dirty mouth filled his ears once again. 

“Gonna milk this pretty cock, baby.” You told him, your voice firm. “You gonna show Mommy how much you can cum for me? Gonna show me what a good boy you are?” 

Spencer let out another pathetic sound, his body singing with pleasure at his pure need to prove to you that - yes, he was a good boy. 

He felt tears wet on the side of his face before he realized that he was crying, but it was all too good to ask you to stop. 

You used your other hand to cradle his balls and you swooped down to capture his gasping mouth in another kiss (a very messy, open mouthed kiss that Spencer could barely pay attention to). Spencer screamed into your mouth while he painted his stomach with cum once again.

You only stopped jerking his cock once you had truly milked every last drop from him, his hips seizing up off the bed and your hand almost slipping off him completely from how sloppily wet it was with more of his cum added to the mix. 

He was purely exhausted then. His eyes blinked heavily, struggling to stay open. He vaguely remembered you cleaning him off and tucking him into bed - but he definitely enjoyed falling asleep curled up next to your warmth. 

…

The next morning, Spencer felt hungover. 

He wondered if that’s what good sex always felt like - the combination of endorphins rushing through your body and physical exertion tackling you over. His legs were sore, as though he had run several miles. (Which wasn’t even something he could make a bold comparison to anyway, because he didn’t exercise nearly as much as he should for someone with this job). He woke up starving, grateful when you drove to a diner down the road after checking out of the motel and planted him in one of the booths before going outside to call Hotch in order to touch base with the rest of the team. 

You came back with a small grin on your face. 

“Turns out that tip the ex-wife gave us about their first house in Arlington was pretty solid.” You told Reid. “They caught the guy on his way there. He had another girl in the trunk. They got her back mostly unarmed, and took him into custody.” 

Spencer nodded. “That’s good.” 

When he moved to grab another sugar packet out of the caddy on the side of the table, three of them already open and empty beside his cup of coffee, you grabbed him by the wrist. 

“That’s enough, baby.” You told him. 

His stomach curled, that distinct feeling running through him again. And against his will, that word slipped out - again. 

“Yes, Mommy.”

...

A/N: This is a standalone oneshot. There won't be a sequel or a continuation, so please do not ask for one. If you liked the fic, please comment about the body of work that has been written, or consider reblogging to show your appreciation. If you want to see more Spencer Reid fics that I have written, you can check out my Criminal Minds Masterlist, or you can check out my Masterlists for other fandoms to see if anything catches your eye. Thank you for reading!

#sundrop writes #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #sub!spencer #sub!spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #criminal minds x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic

[knight-says-rollout]

Would you mind telling us about more disabled Cybertronians?

Oh boy would I

For this list let’s focus on physical disabilities, both because they’re the most commonly dismissed by the fandom and bc if we try to cover everything we’d be here all day (that can be another list, maybe, if y’all want)

This isn’t going to be comprehensive bc I’m tired but!! I will aim for a broad variety of examples nonetheless

Bumblebee - You all know him, you all love him. He’s the most obvious and most well known example of a disabled Cybertronian character.

In many iterations he is mute

Not by choice but because he lacks a voice box. Bee physically isn’t capable of speech and depending on the version has different tools to work around that. Sometimes he uses his radio to repurpose song and radio dialogue into speech, in cyberverse he also makes use of the internet for clips. In the aligned continuity (tfp and connected media) he speaks in binary, a very simplified form of language using beeps and buzzes, but still lacks a real voice and can’t form words.

In IDW he has a cane

At one point in the comics Bumblebee was shot by a human protester and as a result used a cane for a good bit of time. I haven’t had the chance to read that far into IDW yet so I’m not sure how long he had the cane for but it was enough time that it’s a solidified part of the charcaters history. I’ve seen little models of the cane for sale, to be paired with bee figures.

TFP Ultra Magnus - everyone’s favorite awkward commander, despite his popularity he’s surprisingly overlooked when it comes to this discussion

An amputee, he lost his hand

During an energon raid with wheeljack, magnus’ hand was crushed. Ratchet couldn’t save it and had to amputate, replacing it with a hooked prosthetic. I call it a prosthetic rather than replacement part because despite him being able to move it, it’s not a hand. Not in the way he had previously, and he has to relearn how to use it at all.

I think that’s an important distinction to make when discussing disability and transformers. Some bots might have only ever had one hand, or no legs, or etc but that’s always been their level of ability and since they Are robotic. Yeah they might not have the same capabilities as another bot but that’s a hard metric to go by. Seekers can fly but a grounder isn’t disabled because they can’t fly too, it’s a different standard.

WFC Shamble - far lesser known than Magnus, and reasonably so, this background character is Also missing a limb

Amputee, leg edition

His prosthetic is a lot less fancy than magnus’s, it’s a simple peg leg. Put em together and you get a pirate. Not much to say about him since i don’t know how he lost the leg, just that he did.

Shadow Striker - Most awesome lady in cyberverse. Unlike the above two, she Was able to get actual replacement parts rather than prosthetics. Despite this, she is both shown throughout the show and implied to have

Impaired mobility

Chronic pain

She was able to get replacement parts yes but they were needed because she was blown up. The limbs she was given were kinda just what the others could Find and as such are mismatched and don’t fit her very well. Her motor skills took a blow especially when it comes to combat, something she used to excel in. Her new limbs are described as unstable and prone to malfunction. The loss of mobility and implied chronic pain that come along with her situation are rough, but she makes do.

SG Soundwave - my favorite little guy, he’s in a bit of a different situation than the previous.

Bad Joints ™

His body was entirely overhauled multiple times, successfully, but the latest frame change was done with conflicting metals. Earth and Cybertronian materials clash in his joints, making them prone to getting stopped up. The most affected hinge being the one on the door to his tape deck. It is so prone to getting stuck that his cassettes refuse to dock with him at risk of getting trapped. To work around this, Soundwave has the aid of a personalized case he carries around that they dock in instead.

IDW Sunstreaker - speaking of assistive devices, this guy was (for a time) a wheelchair user! Or,, hoverchair.

Temporary,,, paraplegic? Correct me if another term fits better

Taking this moment for an aside to say hey!! Lookit that, both canes and hoverchairs are things that canonically and casually exist on cybertron!! It’s not too wild to assume there are bots out there who use them long term!! Yes both characters on this list were repaired eventually but they’re also both very popular old characters from an action based franchise and hasbro doesn’t have the balls to make something like that permanent yet. We the fandom are not hasbro. We can do whatever we damn want with our OCs. It’s canon that ur little guy can use mobility aids.

Ok, PSA over, anyway yeah Sunny’s body was basically wrecked and alpha trion was able to repair all of him except his legs. This put him in a hoverchair for a good amount of time.

Finback - he’s a con, a pirate, who developed a “metal wasting disease”

He’s on permanent life support

The disease is going to kill him eventually, and it’s explicitly stated that he’s come to terms with the idea of his death. In the meantime he’s using pretender tech, kinda like fancy armor, to reinforce himself and boost his immune system

Perceptor - for a microscope, the fact he’s got vision issues in multiple continuities is kinda ironic

He’s fully blind in cyberverse

He lost an eye in IDW

Between the two we get to see both routes taken to work with this. Adaption and technological aid. In cyberverse he uses his scope to compensate for the loss of vision Toph-style. In IDW he built himself a monocle that basically replaces the pieces that are missing.

Now we get into the uniquely Cybertronian disabilities, one’s that don’t quite translate to human conditions

Transmutate - is a beloved bot from beast wars

They can’t transform, they don’t have an alt mode

I’m hazy on the details of their character but afaik they came from a damaged stasis pod. Described as deformed and handicapped for their both their lack of an alt mode and general appearance, they are probably the oldest explicitly disabled Cybertronian character

Xaaron - from G1 is in a similar situation

He can’t transform, it would kill him

Unlike transmutate he does have an alt mode, a tank, but after thousands of years without transforming he is no longer able to. The new stress it would cause on his body would kill him.

Broadside - continuing with the subject of alt modes, this clumsy boy is a boat! That’s not a good thing.

He’s very prone to motion sickness

As you can imagine, chronic sea sickness isn’t the most helpful thing when you are the boat. This brings in the entirely new element of mobility issues that are inherent to alt modes. A bot that functions fine in root form might not in alt mode and vice versa.

Trailbreaker - is another instance of this. He’s not a fast car by any means but that doesn’t stop the fact

His frame has a very high energon cost

Possibly the least fuel efficient autobot, he’s got an outlier ability on top of it all that only further increases his required energon intake. He needs to pay more attention to his energon levels and refuel more often overall.

G1 Knockout - yes that’s right the shiny medic himself is on this list, though not for the same reason as his tfp version, g1 knockout still lives up to his name

He’s prone to fainting

A knockout in the more literal sense, he faints when he gets too excited. Fully collapses and everything. Since he’s a fall risk, his teammates take care to keep an eye on him.

Annnnd Yknow he probably should’ve been earlier in the list along with the “human-ish” issues but I’m tired, it’s late, and I’m bringing this list to a close

Im sure there are more characters that I didn’t mention but I hope this helped! Thank you for the ask

#transformers #maccadam #bumblebee #sunstreaker #sg soundwave #shadow striker #tfp ultra magnus #WFC shamble #broadside #trailbreaker #transmutate #xaaron #finback #perceptor #knockout #cybertronian biology #cybertronian culture #disabilties #long post #Cybertronian disability

[onelinemanytimes]

The “Protagonist” of Underverse 0.7 (Part 1)

Now, this is an interesting one. This is also a hot take, potentially, and maybe a bad choice of words- “protagonist” typically suggests a main character and Underverse is a series where a true one main character is hard to pin down. I’d say Protagonist is definitely the wrong word actually, thinking about it- but I’m not sure how else to phrase this…

Maybe it’d make more sense to call them the battle perspective. That is, the person you’re meant to be rooting for in this battle, and the person who’s side is followed closest throughout the conflict once it gets rolling.

Let’s talk about why in the WORLD I would think the character in this role is FRESH, and not Ink. 

LET ME ALSO MAKE IT CLEAR NOW. I’m not about to suggest Fresh is the next main big character in Underverse or that he’s going to be saving the day or anything of the sort. If anything, I think now, he’s basically going to disappear until maybe the very end to show up in a final shot of some kind exactly the same as he was. (I would love to be proven wrong about that but I doubt it.)

I’m talking exclusively about the second half of Underverse 0.7 Part 1 that takes place in the Antivoid/Doodlesphere, specifically the conflict that happens in the doodlesphere. So just the parts Fresh is there for. Everyone clear on that? Yeah? Alrighty.

So, how could I possibly think FRESH is the main perspective on this battle and not Ink!?? Ink is present for all the conflicts much more directly as the focus, is the one who has a character arc in the episode, and has been super important for basically the entirety of underverse what with his connection to X Gaster and everything else. Ink’s TOTALLY main character material while Fresh is super background!! Surely this is me actually being out of my mind right?

Maybe. But hear me out, because I’ve got some interesting evidence for this.

Point 1: How Fresh arrives

Fresh shows up to the scene as one part of a duo with someone who is undoubtedly a main character, Cross. This still signs him up as a sidekick more than anything, on its own, but there’s more to this than that. Specifically; The Gift. AKA, Fresh’s Payment for the favor he did Ink, something Cross doesn’t know about, but has been used in promotion and as a symbol of this episode for a while now.

That Gift has so little to do with Cross that he didn’t even get told what it was in vague terms by Core, all Core said was “Don’t worry about it, just go,” even though Core could have answered that Cross was going with Fresh of all people because ink gave him a promise, or a gift, or a favor, or something of the like.

Cross is also kicked off into what we find out to be Aftertale within the first few minutes of showing up- I think it’s safe to say that for this episode, Cross is not a focal point for the part of the video I’m focusing on here.

There’s also what Ink is doing when they show up. Besides, y’know, being thrown around like a wet sock by Error.

He’s holding the gift and looking for Fresh.

He’s PROTECTING that gift very very hard. To the point of when error was throwing him around, his focus was on making sure he did not lose that gift, even despite losing his vials in a blast soon after this. Ink didn’t remember what it was initially! But when he realized that was singularly his focus; Get this gift to Fresh.

Error is obviously an antagonist here who is preventing Ink from delivering that gift to Fresh. Also not consistently present- definitely showing up multiple times, but not there the entire time. You love to see him throwing a fit about the lack of spotlight only to hilariously still be losing the spotlight to, of all people, Fresh.

We can tell that everything here is centered around Fresh and ceases to function without him here, but there’s a much more compelling reason why I think Fresh is meant to be the focus here and the lens through which we view these battles.

Point 2: The Vials

These are Ink’s Vials! Yes, I can hear the confusion starting again. These Vials, however, are what keyed me into the fact that Fresh is the one we’re watching, not Ink. If this graphic hadn’t existed then I wouldn’t have realized it myself- but they work in a very peculiar way in this fight/chase sequence.

Fresh, currently, has all the vials. He’s playing a game of keep-away with Ink, skateboarding away with them to keep them out of his hands, meanwhile Ink is trying to attack him to get them back, and drink them.

This graphic is pretty unnecessary if it was solid. You can know the colours of the vials if you look at inks design, so it’s purpose isn’t apparent until a few moments later, when Fresh tosses out the Green and the Yellow, which are then caught by Ink…

Who drinks them. Regular Ink behavior- but now we see what the vials are there for! Ink drinking them emptied them, marking them as no longer a piece in play, completely greyed out.

…That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

Ink is trying to get the vials back from Fresh. If the visual was trying to keep track of how many Ink had gotten back, then all of them should be unavailable until Ink has them. Especially given at this point, Ink is being actively taunted about a variety of things I’ll dig into more in other posts- but that needless to say are encouraging him to magically pursue Fresh. 

Perhaps they’re simply keeping track of how much material is in each vial..? But that would also be odd, wouldn’t it? Why would Ink need to keep track of which vials are full or empty? His magic isn’t tied to the colours he has access to, and the vials don’t change when magic is used by Ink, just when they’re drunk. Not to mention, Ink doesn’t have those vials yet- Fresh has them.

And you know who would profit from keeping track of their volume, and which ones have been consumed? Fresh would. It's VERY important that Fresh keeps track of which ones Ink’s drunk, for reasons that are made clear later. HE is the one that is making that visual matter- and it’s tied to HIS goal, not Ink’s. We’re seeing his side of this battle, the side where he has to know which vials are empty for the last part of this battle.

When the vials are no longer a checklist. They’re a timer.

These Vials, in the latter half of their fight, become a timer that goes down at a steady rate over the next few minutes. This timer is very very obviously for Fresh specifically, marking how much time he has to be in control of ink’s body. Anything he wants to do, he has to do it before he runs out of the material now in those vials- making this graphic undeniably one that applies to Fresh specifically, not Ink.

Why does this matter? What’s the point of knowing who’s perspective we have on this battle when we’re watching from the third person anyways? Well, for one it’s cool as heck to see this and ponder it, but for two; it’s so that the shift to Fresh!Ink isn’t that strange or jarring. Having Fresh take over the main character and perspective of the battle would be odd, and would mean forcing your main character to take a back seat. It’d mean Fresh was actively uprooting something planned and prepared before and causing a disruption.

That’s no good! But that problem goes away if Fresh was always the focus. No need to shift perspectives, no need to see how Ink feels while being possessed, none of that. Fresh is the one who’s in the spotlight- and this is further accentuated by how he acts while possessing Ink. He’s not talking to Error, that’s for sure, and he’s at best kind of talking to Ink, maybe.

That’s not actually it though. No, he’s talking to us, full on PSA mode, turned towards the camera and giving a guide on how he plans to win as he proceeds to. The spotlight on him makes overwhelming sense, with that- and it’s EXACTLY the kind of thing he would want, maybe even fitting payment that he decided to take for himself when Ink’s gift was so sub par.

He wants us to pay attention to him. He wants to be seen, to be remembered, to be adored and to exist without question. Because that’s what it means to be a character. That’s how you continue to be there, how you keep from fading away into irrelevancy- how you end up getting replaced, and written out of your own life.

And he is terrified of being replaced. He would do anything to keep himself important enough for us to care about.

Maybe the gift was the funniest thing in the multiverse after all. An opportunity for Fresh- ridiculous, overshadowed, often misunderstood and ignored Fresh- to temporarily take the biggest spotlight possible from one of the main characters of the series, asserting himself in legendary, radical fashion as an essential part of this otherwise very serious high stakes story that cannot be overlooked or replaced. Because you have to admit, THAT is hilarious.

#fresh #fresh underverse #underverse #underverse 0.7 #ink #error #cross sans #fresh!ink #truefreshinfo #This one is very speculative I'll admit #but it's cool to speculate on #and also I feel like I have something here #Surely it's not just me

[robinreflects]

Hi, I want to ask you what are your thoughts on the "mentor/mother figure" tropes that surround Eda and how the show handled them, because to me it fell flat. Sure, Eda does count as a mother figure to Luz and King, and my disinterest in this found family, could be writen off as just that - me being disinterested in them.

I have a small gripe with how the show calls the tropes Eda has in the story itself by the characters naming them, that I get the feeling the writers are telling me how to view Eda and to love her character.

And this more fandom related, but am I the only one who doesn't get the whole "Eda is a Mama Bird" thing? Because outside of Luz and King, the only child she has this mentor/parental dynamic with would be Edred.

She doesn't have many moments with Willow and Gus, even back in season 1. I would say, Willow and Gus have more of that "parent/child" dynamic with Camila.

Eda and Amity do go on a dventure together for the Titans Blood, but nothing about their dynamic screamed "parent & child". The same goes for Hunter, but I will acknowledge that their lack of interactions is because of the cut on season 3.

I know my criticism mostly stems from me not clicking with Eda's character like many fans of the show do, so my view on Eda will differ from theirs.

First off, I totally get not clicking with Eda as a character, even if I liked her. I also know most of my liking of the character actually comes from Wendie Malick's performance, I think she did a splendid job, especially in the more emotional scenes (like the fight scenes in s1 with Lilith). I also knew her as Beatrice Horseman before I watched The Owl House, so seeing her play a good mother figure was very engaging to me. 

THAT BEING SAID, the moment when Luz and Eda’s relationship didn't feel as special to me was when the show was trying to portray Eda in a motherly way with any other kid. I don’t mean just the main team, I mean, if there was a child character, they’d find a way for Eda to mother them. I think this started in season 2 when the show already had a decent-sized fanbase and was making their own interpretations and headcanons for Eda. Mainly the one you mentioned, her being a “mama bird”. Multiple (even background) characters call her “Mama Eda”, which seemed like excessive fan service. Many things like that were done in excess or amped up because the show's fans were responding to it well and a lot of those amped-up/excessive moments felt out of character for Eda. She didn’t even want to take care of Luz in the beginning, that alone would be enough for me to believe she wouldn’t be willing to adopt everything that lives and breathes. 

Willow and Gus definitely have more of a "parent-child" dynamic with Camila, which I think was very nicely done, same with Hunter. I see him having more of a "mother-son" dynamic with Camilla than Eda. The season 3 being cut short is an argument I see a lot, however, if they managed to create this dynamic between Willow/Gus/Hunter and Camilla within the first episode of season 3, I don't see how them not doing that with Eda can be attributed to the shortening, precisely because they had either 2 or 1 season (Hunter I believe met Eda in season 2) to write this dynamic, unlike with Camilla who only became an interactable character with the main cast in season 3, while Eda was there from the beginning.

The "self-aware", breaking the fourth wall-esque humor you mentioned, is one of my biggest pet peeves with the show. Pointing out tropes in the most fandom way imaginable will never fail to make me cringe. Show, don't tell is one of the most basic, easiest ways to make a story interesting, and somehow, for the sake of "incorrect quotes" type of humor, they keep failing at it. A few quotes that instantly come to mind are the "cool aunt vibe" from Collector and "What are those stupid kids doing? Wait, those are MY stupid kids" said Eda herself. Most of the characters are written very quirky, almost falling into the MPDG territory. Often reducing them to one character trait for the sake of, as I said before cheap jokes.

I also have an issue with Luz and Eda’s narratives, in that the writers can’t seem to decide if Eda is the character Luz relates to or Camila is. Camila’s speech about understanding Luz in season 3 felt very haphazard because we’ve spent 2 seasons of Eda and Luz’s narratives paralleling each other in the points Camilla is bringing up. Being unaccepted, feeling isolated, having no one understand them, being seen as dangerous at times, messing up all the time, and not liking conventionality. These points are a big part of Luz and Eda’s characters and are parallels to each other. Camila’s speech would’ve been so impactful, if it was Eda instead, not only because of the fact their stories parallel each other (and this scene was exactly what their storyline was going towards) but also because of the fact that we know Luz looks up to Eda, seeing her as weirdly perfect, exonerating her at times even. Luz, not seeing Eda for who she really is, realizes they are much more alike after the speech, and that Eda understands her.

Thank you so much for the ask! I love talking about this! So if you want to hear my thoughts on anything else, just shoot me an ask! <3 I also just woke up so this might be a little over the place and I apologize for that.

#i also dont know how to tag so if I cross tag I'm so sorry #please let me know #toh critical #toh criticism #robin reflects asks #robin reflects on toh #the owl house criticism #eda clawthorne #luz noceda

[legendofzoodles]

LOZ Character Analysis/Rant

Ravio, The Hero of Lorule

“I’m a coward at heart. There was no way that I had the courage to stand up to you and Yuga.”

A very curious fellow. He’s very much a chosen hero like his Hyrulean counterpart Link, yet he’s nothing like him, prefering to coordinate from the background rather than charge ahead with a blade. He’s a strategist, not a fighter. A merchant, not an adventurer. An advisor, not a leader. 

He may not be one to pass up the opportunity to make a profit but he’s a pure soul. And he believes himself unworthy of being called a hero, despite the courageous and righteous acts he took to save his kingdom.

~~~

So I’ve heard people call Ravio “the hero without courage”, and I have to say I don’t agree with that. He’s a very proactive character, helping out in small but important ways.

His problem is that he lacks strength (as in literal strength, not inner strength) and power. He had the will to act, but his poor physical ability prevented him from acting in a way a traditional hero would. Unlike Link he didn’t have access to his piece of the Triforce, he didn’t have a Master sword and he was going up against Hilda and Yuga. 

Ravio’s weakness only highlights his courage and makes him an even more selfless and righteous hero than some of the Hyrulean heroes. Every Link in the series has some amount of power to back up his actions, whether it’s the might of the Master sword, the faith and guidance of the princess, a powerful companion, items that enhance their strength and much more. Aside from having copious amounts of stuff in his possession Ravio had none of that to work with. 

By the way, all of Ravio’s items and relics must have come from somewhere. Sure he may have traded a few of them, but the majority must have come from years of raiding dungeons. If he was able to escape Lorule without getting caught, then he for sure had the skills to sneak in and out of dungeons to collect their treasures. 

Ravio had only a little bit of magic left, he had no weapons and was likely very afraid, yet despite that he did what he knew was right and went to Hyrule to find help. He knew he was going against Hilda, a person he cares deeply about, and knew there was a possibility he’d never be able to return to her, but that didn’t stop him. He basically risked everything to save his people and free Hilda of her obsession with Hyrule’s triforce and herself. 

If he didn’t do what he did, both Hyrule and Lorule would have fallen into chaos. 

In his journal, there’s a three day countdown (MM reference?) to the day he leaves Lorule where he documents his thoughts and feelings:

“3 Days to go She wants to do the right thing. I wish I could help her. But leaving is my only option.”

The “I wish” is pretty powerful here, it shows how much this weighed on his mind. He probably came up with multiple scenarios in his head about he could help her, some more idealistic than others- but in the end he was resolved to leave. “only option” is an interesting word choice. Clearly Ravio didn’t see any other possible way, and even though he didn’t want to leave he felt he had to. 

2 Days to Go She's being duped. Doesn't she realize that? He's just a leech. There's no choice but to go.

“duped” he used the word “duped”, oh my days that’s adorable. I’m going to say now for the record that Ravio has the most delightful lines of dialogue. His manner of speaking is so charming!

But back to serious analysis, he was clearly heartbroken that she didn’t see in Yuga what he saw. And left to find help because at the time he had no hope of convincing her. The use of “leech” is interesting. Ravio knew what was up and recognised that Yuga was relying on Hilda. But since he couldn’t get through to her and didn’t have the power to confront her and Yuga directly, there was nothing he could do but leave.

He said that there was “no choice”, like he had to keep repeating that to himself otherwise he’d get cold feet and wouldn’t go through with it. Really emphasises just how scared and conflicted he was.

1 Day to Go I have so little magic. Enough to go there—maybe not to come back. But tomorrow must be the day. I may never see her again, but I vow to save her from all of this."

“I have so little magic”- ok this is irrelevant, but I hate that HW made his main weapon a huge hammer. It goes against the established fact that he’s, physically speaking, a weakling and that part of his character is centred around him not using weapons. He does use magic, but it seems like he can only use it with the help of items. I guess I’d just prefer it if he was trickly a merchant who dabbled in magic and never carried weapons.

That dash in the second line is heartbreaking- like he had just thought of that while writing this and it pulled him short. Again the use of “must” show he was mentally preparing himself for what had to be done and “vow” reflects how much he wanted to help her. Hilda is the subject of the last line so clearly his thoughts and motivations were mostly about her. 

Ravio’s treatment of and subsequent friendship with Link has led to them now being one of my favourite dynamics in the series. 

Straight out of the gate Ravio calls Link “buddy”, which isn’t wholey genuine since it’s their first meeting, but it suggests an easy-going and friendly personality, which wasn’t something I expected when I first got to know his character. You could argue that his boisterous mannerisms are a front to mask his insecurities for lacking power and in his eyes courage- but I don’t think it is. 

Sure, he may not believe he’s worth much as a hero, or have faith in his own unique strengths, but he’s still comfortable with himself. He has the sort of charisma only a seasoned tradesman would have, and that confidence very much comes naturally to him when he’s in his element, i.e. negotiating trades, whether it’s making a sale or convincing Link to let him crash at his house. 

Also another sidenote, Ravio is a shrewd little cinnamon roll. I get the feeling he was planning on living in Link’s house the moment he entered it, calling it “vacant” to justify moving in. After he learns it’s Link’s he says it “Looked empty-ish”, as it to imply that there’s more than enough room for another person to move in while also hinting at the idea of redecorating. 

Which he ultimately ends up doing, basically to the point of taking over. This mad lad even moved Link’s bed. The nerve of this kid! For a self-proclaimed coward he’s really brave when it comes to pushing people’s boundaries. 

Ravio was an important ally to Link. He gave him access to many useful and powerful items, such as the bracelet that allows him to turn into a painting. If Link didn’t have that, he wouldn’t have made it past the first dungeon. It’s not that Ravio stays in Link’s house and lets Link do all the hard work because he lacks the courage to do it himself and is afraid. It’s because he recognises that Link is an experienced adventurer who would be able to use the items better than he could. Besides, Ravio is always happy to make a profit help out a pal.

Plus there’s nothing wrong with being afraid, it’s only a weakness if it dulls your decision making and makes you shy away from taking action. That doesn’t apply to Ravio who’s very proactive despite his fears. 

Speaking of pals, he seems to consider Link a friends pretty early into the story and like him a lot. Not only that but he almost idolizes Link for being a hero, saying, “A real, live, genuine hero!” during their first meeting with the word choice and punctuation showing his excitement. This admiration may come from a place of wishing he was more like Link in that sense. He also calls Link “Mr Hero” rather than his name, which from Link’s point of view would become very annoying since it is pretty objectifying. Like buddy, there’s a person attached to this sword y’know?! 

I like to think that Link likes Ravio too eventually.

Ravio’s role in the story was perfect. Hilda needed to realise the error in her plan to take Hyrule’s Triforce, not be defeated in an epic battle- not that Ravio would do that even if he could. As for Yuga...ok fair enough that jerk needed to be taken out, but Ravio wasn’t strong enough to stand a realistic chance, and he knew that. 

The situation was pretty hopeless, with the other two holders of the Triforce against him, and he needed help. Thus he had to think outside the box and come up with a plan to save Princess Hilda and Lorule that didn’t involve any direct fighting on his end. He was wise enough to recognize that he couldn’t have won the fight alone, but worked hard to make sure his side did.

Ravio finally convincing Hilda to do the right thing was his moment to shine. It was something only he could do and he’d wanted to do it since the beginning. With Yuga out of the way and all the pieces in place he was able to persuade her to give back Hyrule’s Triforce and make her see the error in her ways.  

He definitely became part of her council again after this, there’s not way she wouldn’t want and need his advice.

Ravio, Hilda and Yuga all differ from their Hyrulean counterparts. Ravio had courage and inner strength but he went about doing the right thing in an unconventional way. Hilda was smart, having helped come up with the plans to obtain a new triforce, but lacked true wisdom for she allowed her judgement to be clouded by a desperation to save the kingdom. Yuga was still a power-hungry monster, but he relied on manipulating Hilda rather than his own strengths. 

~~~

Thanks for reading!

I have not played A Link Between Worlds, so I’m not very familiar with it’s lore and story but I hope I did Ravio justice with this analysis. At the very least, I’ve now got a newfound appreciation for him.

Also I’ve always believed the colour green to symbolises the Hero’s spirit, it’s the colour that links every hero. Ravio may not have it on his clothes (save for the green gem on his belt), but his eyes are green. The eyes are the window to the soul so...

Character analysis posts:

Hero of the Sky, Hero of Time, Hero of Twilight, Hero of the Wild, Hero of Warriors

Masterlist

#legend of zelda #loz #loz albw #a link between worlds #link between worlds #loz ravio #ravio #princess hilda #loz hilda #loz character analysis #character analysis #ravio my beloved

[comradekatara]

ID: Four screencaps from “The Siege of the North (Part 1)” of Sokka and Yue in conversation while walking along a bride in the Northern Water Tribe. Yue asks Sokka, “So they don’t have palaces in the Southern Tribe?” to which Sokka responds sarcastically, “Are you kidding? I grew up in a block of ice. It’s not exactly a cultural hub.” Yue laughs at his remark like he just said something absolutely hilarious, and puts a hand on his shoulder. 

this is a very brief exchange, only two lines altogether, but I’ve seen it singled out by multiple people who take issue with the writing here. “why would sokka feel shame about his tribe?” they ask. “what messages about indigenous communities/societies is this sending?” but I don’t think that sokka is actually communicating disappointment at a lack of a monarchy in the south. despite his admiration for the infrastructure and resources of the city, he also expresses disapproval for a lot of their traditions. while he does clearly find yue’s status as a princess intimidating (recall, ”you know, i’m something of a prince myself”), it’s clear that what he’s really ashamed of is his poverty (”you’re a princess, and i’m just a southern peasant”). 

these episodes set in the northern water tribe illustrate a stigma they hold against the south through sokka’s involvement with princess yue. the contrast between the tribes is clear enough. sokka’s village, the remainder of the southern water tribe after being decimated by the fire nation’s systematic genocide for the past century, is tiny and defenseless. he was the oldest man in his village at age thirteen. meanwhile, the northern water tribe is (in my opinion) the most beautiful and interesting location we see the show, all the architecture masterfully crafted by countless waterbenders, allowing for a thriving society that the southern water tribe was categorically denied. any sort of cultural identity was utterly destroyed by imperialist forces. but is sokka going to communicate that grief and devastation to yue in an honest and vulnerable way? no, of course not. he does what he always does: he deflects with sarcasm, he minimizes his pain. 

yue is genuinely curious about how sokka grew up, because she’s interested in him as a person. she doesn’t care that the southern water tribe is considered lesser than the north, but it’s also just unlikely that she’s aware of what the southern water tribe has been through. no one from the north came to aid them (with the exception of perhaps kanna) in the past century, and their isolationism and ignorance of the outside world has protected them from the war. the fact that the southern water tribe isn’t in the same condition as the north genuinely surprises her. it’s not like she’s going to learn the truth – the depths of his trauma – from sokka, king of repression. so she laughs. he said something mildly funny (i’m being generous here) and she uses it as an excuse to flirt and show affection (she’s down bad okay). 

yeah, it’s kind of fucked up that sokka is sublimating his pain for the sake of making the princess of a nation that looks down upon his people laugh, but it’s also not remotely out of character. for one, yue isn’t judging sokka’s background, she’s just laughing because she thinks everything he says is hilarious. and sokka isn’t expressing the desire to live under an isolationist monarchy, but let’s be real, he does clearly wish he lived in a “cultural hub.” he loves innovation, technology, architecture, culture, science, progress. even in ba sing se, a city he immediately recognizes as fucked up and terrible, he expresses admiration for its architecture, its abundant culture, its technology. yes, sokka is proud of his home and his heritage, but that doesn’t mean he likes what it’s become in the war. and in his circumstances of abject poverty and constant threat of total annihilation, who would? 

#sokka #yue #sokkaxyue #analysis #in which i overanalyze every single shred of conversation between sokka & yue #i am spinning them around in the blender that is my brain #these scenes are so wild though..... literally everything sokka does and says yue is like 😍😍🤤🤤🤩🤩🥰🥰 #keep it in ur pants girl !!

[yanderecandystore]

I was reading about Azir and MC who either given up or not playing his games. With Azir being controlling, I thought about something. What if there is something that Azir can't control, like death? Because what if he made one scenario with MC who has given up that causes them great harm or worse death. Either MC is still young and doing shit, or maybe they are old that inevitability of death is near.

Stress is sometimes good, but too much is bad and may cause some.... Unfortunate accident. :)

Be mild, Azir

In today's episode of Choco not knowing how to goddamn read: Another request where I fixate on only ONE aspect of a request! Hwrqefjegjq I'm so sorry boo ;-;

I just realized something… he isn't a player… he is a craftsman 💀 he spends too much time taking pieces of different planets and realms to make into snow globes… I don't know why I named him a player lmao

I decided to be mean and make Azir's life worse by shoving another person to take care of you.

TW/Tags: mentions of reincarnation; death; complete obviousness/disregard for human life // the depiction of the afterlife is vague and based on nothing that I'm aware of(?); Subconsciously, it could be based on something that I don't remember // Multiple reader deaths (someone keeps killing you)

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Guardian Angel [Yandere!Eldritch!OC x GN!Reader - Headcanon]:

Oh Azir, how I missed playing with you just like how you miss playing with your darling-

I think he never really bothered with getting humans back from the dead, especially since they just tend to be born again. They always go back to Earth, of course, so he never bothered searching for specific people to put back in his little games.

But an essential character like you can't be easily replaced and you have too much potential to be forgotten by the universe like that- So, he would absolutely violate your natural born right to have a peaceful eternal rest.

What? It's not unheard of for entities to simply revive their favorites, although his brethren aren't really allowed to do that, he simply wishes to continue the plot you were previously following.

Which one? Well, all of them. All of them in their right times. Think of it as resetting a game and starting all over, but the mechanics slightly shift through every playthrough.

You're the same you as you always will be, maybe with a different appearance, a different mentality molded by the variety of environments and backgrounds he can put you on- Oh, but you're just his favorite actor in each of them! How is he NOT expected to bring your soul back regardless of the trials and errors?

The first time you died was the only time he slightly felt, well, worried? It wasn't exactly guilt nor grief, but it was something like a sense of emptiness especially if it was his fault… Making you overly stressed, be it at a young reckless age or at your last moments standing- He probably wouldn't feel your loss in the same way mortals do.

His favorite toy broke, his game feels incomplete without it, and although reanimating your body was quite easy… hm… pretending to be you was fun at first but it lacked the spark of something natural and random.

He liked to be in control of everything, yes, sometimes watching but most of the time finding ways to implement himself in the lives of others- He didn't want to pretend to be you forever though, nor did he like the idea of using your inactive body as a skin puppet, the flesh was a fun but not so intriguing part of the mortal experience.

He needed to find your soul, wherever it was. Searching the different realms for it was easy, and quite boring actually, but getting you to come back was something else.

He wasn't really allowed here. None of his kind was, they were powerful and followed no "rules" but had some limitations when it came to the simple task of bringing someone back from the dead. It's not like they couldn't do it, it's that they shouldn't.

Would he really taint the afterlife forever and snatch you away just to keep himself entertained for longer? Yeah, yeah he would.

In the mix of different voices, a colorful sea of different souls collectively sleeping and awaiting their return, one of them screamed while being forcefully dragged back to their already rotting corpse.

Ah dear… A rotting corpse isn't suited for souls to stay in, although you looked adorable as a living-dead variant of yourself, you didn't seem to be cooperating with the vision he originally had in mind.

His first experiment to bring you back was a failure, as your body was no longer suited for a soul- But with just a few adjustments he got to bring you back with your same appearance and memories intact! Your body was healthy again, aren't you glad to be back?

… Ugh… Why can't you stop complaining to him about your death? People die all the time, shouldn't you be glad he brought you back from that boring afterlife?

Sleeping peacefully for eternity sounds absolutely tedious, he can't imagine why anyone would consider it a good choice to spend their time.

Considering no normal person would feel good about being brought back to life by their killer (directly or not) especially knowing this person has the power to keep you bound to them forever, it is understandable that you would be quite pissed about it.

So maybe keeping your memories wasn't a good idea, but he knew a quick way to fix it.

As long as you belong to his simulations, living inside them you're not going to go anywhere else, dead or alive… He "could" try to take a piece of the afterlife and shove it in a snowglobe, but truly, that's something that he doesn't have any control over.

It was too tricky to try to trap it there, whenever he would come back the globe would be empty. It doesn't matter what arcane dark magic he uses, he can't ever keep that "terrain" fixated in one location.

But, he could maybe make his own..? Oh, wouldn't that be lovely? Instead of having to constantly take you back by force, he can just make a self-sufficient system of afterlife and reincarnation, he could make it so there was no other choice than to keep the cycle going as much as he could!

Or he could make something special for you for once, how would you like a smaller snow globe just for you? Every fantasy your heart desired could be real if you just behave a little more.

Ah but there was also one small thing he didn't really consider… So, remember how he isn't welcome in the afterlife? Yeah, he is also not "allowed" to take a soul and force it back to the realm of the living, especially not a soul that is screaming and begging to be left alone already.

Someone is responsible to keep these souls intact, perhaps there are multiples like this entity- But only he came to fix the job.

Think of it this way, you have a being that is almost like a guardian angel, with a grim reaper mentality that keeps chasing your soul to bring you back to the afterlife (the correct version of it). And on the other hand you have Azir, a being that keeps bringing you back and who although "lacks authority" over your little "angel", won't ever back down about doing what he wants whenever he wants.

And then there's you, being brought back for a certain period of time, perhaps decades in your lifetime before having to die again and again by a safekeeper of souls. One wants to play with you like a toy and the other sees you as some sort of sheep that got lost from the herd.

If there's Hell, I would bet you it's more pleasant than this existence. Hah, wouldn't it be hilarious if you got them both to fall for you? Hah, as if that would happen.

I like to imagine your little "guardian angel" and Azir have to be passive aggressive when interacting- As any small fight could lead to a war between realms and let's be honest, the ones getting the short end of the stick here would be you and all of the mortals of every other planet and realm.

Everyone is fucked except the ones that can withstand the existence after existence itself has imploded, and no one really wants to see the age of nothingness and darkness return, life as fragile as it is, brings light to those that don't understand it's real value- But miss it dearly when it's gone.

What I mean is that congratulations, I'm giving you another mythical boyfriend who will try to restore order to your peaceful afterlife while the other one keeps bringing you back out of spite at this point.

It's not just about you, it's also because he is well aware that shiny looking asshole is probably spending time with you in that calm, "wonderful" place that only hosts exclusively mortal souls.

Well… But now that I think about it, technically this whole process of reincarnation is technically working inside the laws of the universe. You are born, you live, you die, you get sent to the other side and then get reborn again. It is also sort of very beneficial for both parties despite their mutual hatred towards one another.

You really need to find a cosmic lawyer or something like that though, this work practice is really unethical since you're very much aware of why and who keeps you inside this vicious cycle, it's hard to live a life you're constantly getting reminded of your previous one.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

I just wanted to draw the three bois in human disguise, Diph being angry at Azir for being reckless and getting unwanted attention from an "angel" (and also for letting the human die like that, like bro, you have so much power yet you did nothing?).

And then reader have to deal with this bs.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

#choco stuff #yandere oc #yandere x reader #special delivery headcanons #special delivery request #yandere eldritch x reader #yandere eldritch #yandere eldritch oc #yandere oc x reader #yandere oc drawing #ibu's wife took care of his hair for once #also sorry but I made Azir's hair flare up because I thought it reminded me of a peacock tail XD #I'm so sorry for making you wait;-; #I go through phases like the fuckin moon

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ep.2 thoughts

[Getting the Shaft]

(Contents: Animation, ch.2-3 comparison, OP/ED analysis)

So I found out that a number of people employed at David Productions were formally members of Shaft, and dang does it show. Fuuko practically did Shaft's signature head tilt like three times! I wonder if they weren't allowed to go all the way with it specifically because it's iconic to Shaft so they have a copyright or a trademark on it?

Admittedly, I don't think I ever considered Shaft as a possible studio for UU, and in certain respects I kind of wish I weren't seeing that future come to pass. The excessive use of negative space and the lack of background characters makes the world feel lifeless, and the occasional full-body shadows literally drain the color from the frames whereas I feel based on the volume covers and color pages is the opposite of the blinding neon vibe that I would have expected. I also worry that using the trappings of a Shaft production's visuals will result in UU looking like any other Shaft work rather than having its own visual identity, though I suppose we'll have to wait and see on that

However, this is the future we got, and all in all, those are just gripes. The combat has exactly the energy that it needs to, the comedic moments are given a lot more gravitas than they had in the manga, and once again David Pro loves to add in fun details. My favorite in this week's episode was Andy realizing what the source of the Unluck was going to be and slowly inching closer to Shen and Void so they'd be more likely to get caught up in it. I don't believe I saw the almost electric trail of blood from Andy's finger as he prepped his Parts Bullet against Void, but maybe i just missed it. If I did, let me know, I'd love to be wrong about this one

As I (and many others) predicted, episode 2 covered chapters 2 and 3, and I think it did it quite well. I'm not sure if it's because I read the manga, because it's an anime, or because the director specifically was trying to do this, but I felt like the anime made the exposition and details a lot easier to absorb than the manga did. If I had to attribute that to something, I would say that a panel can cram in multiple details and layers that the reader needs to be active to pick up on while an anime has to show everything individually and any deviation can be detected through movement. I don't know that for a fact, but it's the impression I get

The difference between Unavoidable and Shen's ability was pretty difficult for me to wrap my head around at first in the manga, but I feel like this iteration will make it a lot easier to differentiate them, hopefully. I wouldn't say that UU is obtuse in general, but I imagine a lot of it is going to be clearer going forward

We also got the opening and ending themes, both of which had great songs and animation. Both were definitely odd, though; they were kind of subdued compared to a lot of other shonen anime openings, with the OP spending about half of it on abstract fractals rather than establishing the characters or setting as one might expect and the ED being extremely somber and heavily symbolic. Even as a manga reader, both of them gave me a bit to chew on, which isn't something I usually expect from OP/EDs

I'd really like to read over the lyrics, but I don't think they're up anywhere yet, and even once I find them I imagine they won't pertain to the story and instead will just match the vibe more than expounding on the themes

Without going into spoilers, my favorite part of the ED animation is Andy waking up under the sakura tree with Fuuko after drifting along the River Styx and passing under dead trees; it's said that under every sakura is a corpse, so the idea that Andy is, in effect, burying his past and leaving his previous life behind him for a brighter future with Fuuko is extremely poignant and touching

If there's anyone worried about Andy and Fuuko's relationship based on the first two episodes, just know that that one bit right at the end of the ED is a better representation of their ongoing relationship than the first couple of episodes are. They are easily the best romantic couple in shonen manga, at least that I've ever seen, so just know you have that to look forward to

I'm particularly excited for next week's episode, cus I really like the Union member they're going to meet. I only recently came to like this character as much as I do, but they make a strong first impression at least, so I hope everyone out there enjoys them too. See ya then!

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews

[yoonalgc]

( ❀ Hello, everyone! ...What a surprise, right? It's me again... attempting to bring a girl into this world. WIll I succeed? Let's see. It's Sera here to introduce to you my character! She is brand new so I'm expecting her to grow as I write her. I've listed some plots at the bottom but I prefer to do brainstorming. I'm open to plotting in either Tumblr IMs or over Discord, whichever you prefer. Without further ado, please read my rambling. ( I'll have a pinned I'll post later. ) Like this post ♡ and we can plot! )

◡ profile / plots / pinterest / playlist

BACKGROUND !!

Born october 4th, 2001. ( 1004, she asserts reflects her — it is an angel number after all )

Grew up in Gumi which is a smaller city just outside of Daegu.

Parents were high school sweethearts who waited to start a family until he finished his military service and she finished school. Mother was a flight attendant. Father is a former professional choreographer.

Family used to be fairly well off before the drastic change and her mother's medical bills became increasingly more expensive.

They eventually moved to Seoul in 2016 when her father got an opportunity to choreograph for an entertainment company.

Father gave up his career after his wife’s passing in 2019 to attend to a portable convenience stand by the Han River once owned by his own father. Their formerly close relationship grew estranged and tense rather quickly.

Used to be a competitive archer. Failed to make it on the national team multiple times, nevermind the Olympics. Became easily discouraged and decided to quit after an argument with her father. She even threatened to drop out of school unless she could join a company to focus on her dancing.

Before lgc, she joined an entertainment company while in high school only to get scammed into a trainee program and drained of almost all her money via their training debt scheme.

Waited until she graduated to audition for Legacy Entertainment. Somehow, she got in... and from there, she begins to change a bit as a person.

PERSONALITY & MORE !!

Works at an arcade/PC Bang for now. She likes to sneak in a nap in the dinosaur safari VR machine.

She uses the nerf gun and water gun from the prize table to ward off unwanted guests or customers who overstay their welcome. Careful, she has great aim.

Oddly good at fixing things ( to a certain extent ), a trait she picked up from her brother who has a penchant for inventing. Being practical helps quite a bit, though.

She is no stranger to putting on an act to get something for free. a convincing & skilled liar. she even stole someone’s phone once to sell but will never admit this. jokes about needing a glucose guardian but never say never.

Tendency to be flirtatious. offers compliments — sincere & underhanded.

Only actually been in one serious relationship that she considers was worthwhile & lacks the motivation to pursue anything else. Often finds herself leading people on but falls for people easily as she's rather susceptible to romantic gestures, then forces herself to lose interest when things get a little too spicy.

Good listener. Purveyor of gossip. Collects many rumors, rarely spills to anyone. Tell things to her at your own risk. She will hardly speak a word about her own background ( and will even lie sometimes ) but is content to know everything about everyone else.

Has a good sense of humor and able to laugh at herself.

Actually kinda lazy about everything unless it's dancing. She just likes to say she's just laid back.

Speaking of dancing, she is especially into the art of waacking/tutting/vogueing, as she finds the elegant precision to be appealing and especially fun to do.

Very opinionated & can come across judgmental for her willingness to speak her mind, Notorious for reacting with her face ( ie. side eyeing ).

An introvert. Also claims to really hate people but is naturally social despite this.

Often plays a vain character, usually an exaggerated version of herself ( channeling Goddess Gyuri & Mijoo ) — perhaps to compensate for or conceal… something. Part of it being that she enjoys entertaining people with her antics. It is not rare to catch a glimpse at her "real self" but it's hard to even say what that even is.

Calm but when she's memeing and being crazy, she becomes unhinged. Like so.

A bit fickle & indecisive, sometimes allowing her impulses to take control of a decision ... or out of pure spite.

Had a time where she was so desperate for money, that she was willing to lie to get freebies or sympathy discounts. But we don't talk about that time anymore. It was just a phase.

Not malicious by any means but it is easy to interpret her actions as such. She desires attention and love in this aftermath of her life plummeting, and just goes about it in a rather unconventional way.

Hates people who smoke. Her mother's lung cancer being the main cause. If you smoke any substance, prepare for to be side-eyed and judged.

Lastly, she is @lgcxnoeul's weirdo cousin.

CONNECTIONS ??

anyone who comes to the arcade/pc bang. she's almost always there. bonus points if you're a bit of a menace or you want to challenge her to a game. the possibilities with this one are pretty endless!

flirtationships a plenty. applicable to any gender; she certainly does not discriminate. she is the type to unabashedly flirt, compliment people, or make flirtatious jokes. ( however when the heat comes, she usually resorts to aloof behavior and runs away. )

obviously people will be put off by her antics so frenemies and antis alike are welcome! antagonistic or toxic relationships are welcome in general.

gossip friend. what is said between us stays between us ... of other people's rumors, of course. but it's best to be careful who to trust with secrets.

fake friends. speaks for itself. mutually beneficial, forced laughter, eye rolls when the other looks away. she's been entrenched in this fake friend group just for the laughs

an ex. she's only dated one person in a serious way before and it didn't turn out too well... or it ended amicably. who knows? was a rather innocent relationship but it broke her heart. happened shortly after she joined lgc in 2020 or overlapped. discussion is required!!!

that being said, she most likely had a couple flings here and there that lasted a short time. she's prone to running away or getting "bored".

jokingly, she always says she wants a "glucose guardian" and you are the perfect candidate. she constantly convinces you to buy things for her ( mostly bubble tea ) or you might even do so willingly. either way, it makes her happy.

she has a "dark past" ( not so distant... maybe 5 days ago is considered the past ) in which she tried to fleece people out of money just to get by. don't look at her if she might have pretended to fall in front of you for sympathy, too.

this is vague but... people she can assist with dancing in any way or their overall confidence.

people who know her real personality and are tired of her putting on this strange over confident persona.

went to high school together ( Hanlim gang )

for the lgcu event, she is in younggong. i'm still figuring out what she will be doing but i will need one person from there to do a thread with.

#❀ ◡ reality speaking! ( ooc. ) #hi #lgc:intro

[bird-inacage]

So this show had the making to be something really decent but veered off-track pretty sharpish. If you don’t mind hearing some constructive criticism, please read on. I want to find out if others felt the same way.

The story follows Uea and King’s navigation from being bed friends (aka friends with benefits) to being a bonafide couple. The overwhelming feeling I felt after watching this series is that there was a ‘let’s include everything’ mentality. The writing lacked cohesive focus and restraint in what plot points would best serve the telling of this story.

One example of the shaky writing is the poor use of conflict. There is no clear objective in why certain conflicts are included. We get multiple villains to the same effect whose only purpose is to pile anguish onto our lead and little else: Uea’s mother, stepfather, ex-boyfriend and boss all come across as caricatures with no distinction or redeemable qualities to speak of. When such components are used all too frequently, they feel less consequential - thus drastically reducing suspense, stakes, and emotional investment from the viewer. No depth results in no impact.

Episode 9 was particularly guilty of this and I’ll use this as a case study. It opens with Uea’s stepfather being arrested (this is quickly set up at the end of episode 8) and is not referenced again. Then a colleague confesses their love for Uea, which sets up a potential love rival for King. We’ve never seen him even interact with Uea before so it feels completely out of the blue. This poses no threat because we know Uea will turn him down for this very reason. Surprise, surprise, he does. Then we see King’s mother display disapproval of King/Uea’s relationship. Other than just one brief, prickly confrontation - by her next appearance - she quickly accepts Uea.

Quality over quantity is the key lesson here. Be selective. Ensure your story beats are set up and fleshed out with enough breathing room, delivered with a satisfying payoff, rather than throwing everything in and hoping something sticks. If you are ever in doubt if a scene is superfluous, always ask the why. Why include this? Does it add value (to either the story and/or characters)? Bed Friend had me questioning this a lot.

I like the nod to blood testing that both Uea and King get done after their first night together. I give kudos whenever a show makes the effort to feature and normalise concerns around sexual health.

Main Leads: Despite suffering a huge amount of hardship, Uea is a surprisingly put together human being. He knows what he wants but is reasonable when he needs to be. I really enjoyed Uea’s confidence in his sexuality. He knows his own allure and how to harness that power. King can be downright sweet and charming but sadly didn’t have a strong sense of his own personhood. There was little backstory or context given to help you understand him as a individual and his motivations outside of Uea, which left me confused sometimes as to his decision-making. As the other main lead, I’m extremely disappointed by how badly his characterisation was handled. For example Uea coins him as a playboy, but we never see evidence of King excessively flirting with other people. We need to understand why Uea perceives him so negatively, to act as a comparison for when Uea changes his opinion later on. Show, don’t just tell. Overall, it’s their situation which develops (their relationship status) rather than their characters. They are more or less the same people they were at the beginning, just together.

Other: As the series unfolds mostly around Uea’s point of view, the remaining cast do get a raw deal. Give your secondary characters more to do than just be there. Please. More creative decisions could have been made in how these smaller characters could have played into the narrative (such as Jade, Uea’s sister or King’s parents), so that their roles don’t feel relegated to being background noise.

Acting Performance: I did fall in love with Net and James as the series progressed. They have incredibly fiery and exhilarating chemistry which translates especially well in their love scenes. They manage to balance heat with incredible levels of tenderness. I would even argue that as soon as they have any physical interaction on screen, that’s when the show comes alive. They are very adept at creating sexual tension, that’s for sure. It’s the dialogue driven moments that tend to be a bit hit and miss (but I think editing has a big part to play in this). You can tell these two are still newcomers and aren’t quite as layered in their acting abilities yet but that’s understandable. Net has a habit of doing a lot of heavy breathing when he’s conveying anxiety or worry. This can be remedied with more coaching and better direction. Note: I did also watch some of their acting in 'Catch me Baby' for context. Net has noticeably improved since then but James actually felt more natural in his performance in that series than here.

Pairing Rating: [HOT + TENDER] If you want to get hot under the collar, and still maintain softness, this two have got you covered. Sizzling sensuality in buckets.

For a show that clearly has high production values, this is where the series really suffers. A myriad of issues become apparent beneath the show’s glossy exterior, and the biggest sin here is it detracts from the actor’s efforts. I really do feel for the cast because production didn’t do them justice.

Editing: There are some very odd editing choices across the board.

Excessive uses of slow motion in places where it doesn’t belong. Some border on absurd (I laughed out loud during the first NC scene *above* where King somersaults onto Uea’s lap). I don’t know about you, but kung-fu matrix style choreography is not warranted in love scenes.

Sound-mixing choices can completely kill the mood. I cringed during the cat NC scene when comedic ‘yowls (meows)’ played in the background. Just why?

Instances where conflicting shifts in mood would take place within a single scene, particularly in how music was used. This would cause me tonal whiplash.

Flashbacks are superfluously added into scenes we saw only moments ago, occupying precious run time.

The passage of space and time can feel abrupt and therefore jarring. Establishing scenes need to be better utilised to anchor the viewer in the where and when things are taking place.

Fans have noticed really lovely scenes that were cut short or completely. No clear reasoning as to what made the cut/uncut versions or not at all.

Ultimately, the show feels like its trying far too hard to be distinctive, which can discredit the gravity of the scenes or draw your attention away from the performances. Now believe it or not, I can see what they were going for (cue sultry music video with dramatic quick cuts). I’ll credit that many of the shots and way they use camera work is certainly eye-catching and fresh. But flashiness for the sake of it is not a good thing if it adversely impacts pacing or comprehension of the narrative. Some editing styles only work best in short form rather than in a series, which is a trap they fell into here. It made the direction feel clumsy, lacking consistency and finesse - a kid in a candy store discovering PowerPoint transitions for the first time.

Styling: I do love the styling and palette of this series. All the costumes and environments looked really beautiful and rich - from our two leads’ apartments to their design office. They successfully manifested a more mature feeling to the series overall.

>>>

FINAL THOUGHTS: Now don’t get me wrong, I have grown to love this pairing. I think they have fantastic potential, and this is why the production issues irk me so damn much, because it spoils what could have been. If you’re willing to ignore the more glaring problems, there are some lovely moments sprinkled in there. I personally found the issues increasingly distracting as the series went on, causing me to skip portions. But why I saw this through was because I could tell Net and James tried their best with what they were given. If less time had been spent on stylistic choices, and more energy on Net and James’ acting, we might have a different story. I still believe they are a very promising partnership that could flourish with a better script, and I pray that ‘Love Upon a Time’ showcases them better.

(Disclaimer: These are just my own opinions. It goes without saying that one still can enjoy a show for all its successes as well as recognising its shortcomings.)

#bed friend #bed friend series #kinguea #ueaking #king x uea #uea x king #netjames #net siraphop #james supamongkon #bird-inacage reviews #bed friend review #thai bl

[set-wingedwarrior]

I wanted to make a big-ass analisys on Tai, but I kinda don't feel like it. Have a summary instead.

In a few words, I think people on both sides are taking a very complex situation and giving it a black or white interpretation, which doesn't sit right with me.

My opinion, explained as simple as possible, is that Tai has been a bad and neglective parent not for lack of love, but for lack of ability in the given circumstances. He was a broken man who did the best he could, and still badly hurt his daughters in the process, sometimes by making terrible mistakes.

Taiyang was absent and Yang took over as the caretaker role for her baby sister, and that's not good for a child. That is indeed a textbook parentification case, which very often do take place when one parent passes away and the other is frozen by grief, but I wouldn't consider this a case of abuse as well.

Abuse to be called that has to be pretty extreme and consistent for a long time (honestly, internet is ruining the word by using it every time someone makes a mistake or when your friend treats you badly once), and let's be honest: we don't know how long Taiyang has been shut down. Yang doesn't specify it in Burning the Candle, nor is it ever mentioned by writers or such (at least to my knowledge). Considering what we saw of the relationship he has with his daughters though, I'd argue that it wasn't for the long time that people believe and that he stepped up at some point (I'm pretty sure their relationship would be much more ostile if he didn't).

"Why does Ruby say that Yang raised her then?" because she already had formed an attachment to Yang as parental figure. You can have multiple attachments as a child of course, but that also means that Yang simply couldn't step down from that role, even with Taiyang being back, because Ruby kept treating her like one (that's not to blame on Ruby of course, it was a natural response from her).

Now, let's not forget about intentions: it is true that abuse isn't always made with conscious ill-intent, but it's also true that not all forms of hurting are abuse. Considering everything from the little we know, I'd say Tai falls more into the neglect category, which can but doesn't always allign to the point of abuse (see again the point about consistency).

That's what I think but, truth to be told, none of us has enough information to make a proper analysis or statement. It is a very complex matter that in real life would require a deep study/analysis and lots of therapy sessions. Meanwhile Tai is a fictional character we barely see in the show he's a part of.

It is fine to speculate and discuss (in a civil manner please) and share our opinions. I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me or text me about how I changed their minds; I just wanted to share my opinion. But let's not pretend that there's some sort of real final answer or interpretation when we get so little to work with. Maybe not even the writers know clearly, and just had his character as a tool, who knows!

Maybe some day we'll get more information that will make me go "damn, I was completely wrong!", o maybe not. Honestly, I don't particularly care. But I'd like for people to chill, stop treating this as a trial, and recognize that different interpretations from different people with different experiences and backgrounds aren't a bad thing.

#should i tag discourse? #let me know #for a summary it still came out pretty long #but it could have been worse #you have no idea how much stuff i got from my major lmao #i could have pulled out so many examples and course of actions that are used in real life #anyway don't be rude please #It's fine to disagree #It's not that big of a deal

[hopeymchope]

True confessions from an RE:Zero convert

This might be more of a ramble than my better-organized reviews, but I have a lot to get off my chest.

Personal Backstory: The stuff you skip when reading a recipe

For a long time, I avoided isekai stories. They were so pervasive in anime/manga that I found them quite annoying.

When I first caved, it was only for comedies. I figured that, hey, they're taking the piss out of the genre; that sounds up my alley. So I felt it was safe to enjoy Konosuba. After that, I fell in love with Trapped in a Dating Sim... and to my surprise, it wasn't solely engaging for its overarching comedy. There was more characterization and interpersonal relationship stuff that grabbed me in that one.

That's probably what made me feel more receptive when I saw a couple of people call out Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion as an underappreciated anime highlight of 2023. I gave it a shot one afternoon with only mild expectations for it, and guess what? I adored it.

Yet despite ALL THAT? My expectations for RE:Zero were close to the floor. Raeliana had opened the floodgates, leading me to try some other isekai stories... yet I repeatedly found the ones I tried quite lacking. Furthermore, almost everything I'd read about RE:Zero over the years had been resoundingly negative in spite of its seeming popularity — a real "Sword Art Online" situation, basically.

But eventually, I was curious enough about why some people are invested in these characters that I started giving it a watch. These low expectations left me perfectly disarmed when it began to weave its spell over me.

Storytelling and Worldbuilding: Returning by death

You can neatly divide the show into story arcs, each representing a unique event/hurdle that the protagonist has to get past using his unique power.

The first arc of the story is mostly just setup for some of the important characters and the basic conceit. Our freshly isekai'd Japanese protagonist, Subaru, meets and bonds with a half-elf girl named Emilia, only to soon get tragically murdered. However, he just restarts his life from roughly one day earlier. He can go back in time by dying, giving him a new chance to take new approaches to situations and to accumulate knowledge via loops. Eventually, his "save point" advances to a new point in time... but what causes that to happen is left unknown for now. Making matters even worse is that if he tries to tell anyone about this superpower/curse, he feels intense chest pain as though he's about to be killed... so he has to keep this under wraps. (Though I still wish he'd try to tell people that he can't tell them. We never see if that'd work.)

With Subaru and Emilia established, the second arc introduces the most important supporting characters — Beatrice, Roswaal, Rem and Ram — and also puts one of them through a significant stretch of development. And finally, the third arc takes up the bulk of the series' first season, dealing with... frankly, a LOT. There's a lot crammed into it. You could even argue that it's got multiple smaller arcs stacked inside of it, and that would make complete sense. The third arc definitely does the bulk of the world-building/stage-setting for the future of the series, but there are details and background provided all throughout to get you up to speed on how people think here, how the government works, some of the existing races, etc.

I was initially taken aback by now blasé Subaru is about being transported to another world. This isn't a "death and reincarnation" thing like I've seen in most isekai stories; Subaru just blinks, rubs his eyes, and suddenly he's in a fantasy world just like that. And he... is completely unconcerned and unimpressed by that? It's a weird choice. Combine that with a point late in the first arc where he literally talks to the camera, and I thought maybe we were getting some kind of Deadpool-esque comedic commentary on isekai conventions.

It's the severity of the violence and related agony that makes me take it more seriously than that. I still find animated blood and gore extremely affecting — moreso than fake blood in live-action. That's probably because I was raised on Western animation that contained little to no sign of such violence, whereas Western movies and TV are full of corn syrup and other blood stand-ins. I'm just saying that when the deaths/kills come around in RE:Zero, they hit hard and often quite intensely. They're not showing entrails hanging out (even if they talk about it), but you can expect to see snapping bones and arterial spray. It's still a minority of the time, though; this is NOT a gorefest, and it's better off for that fact. When you suddenly get two minutes of ultraviolence after four episodes of relative peace, that makes it feel all the more effective.

It's not lookin' good there, chief.

I'm an easy mark for this stuff. Some of my primary entry points into anime were horror anime, so playing up this kind of horror gets me to sit up and take notice. It's not going to be anywhere near enough to keep my attention, though. I've certainly watched AWFUL horror anime that had nothing to boast about beyond their gore levels. That's where the quality of RE:Zero's character writing really saves the day.

What's really important to understand is that, through the strength of its gradual buildup of intensity helped along by showing the repeated consequences of failure Re:Zero manages to make some of the big anime shōnen  battles EXTREMELY hype! And yet, thanks to the great characterization? One of my favorite episodes in the whole show is an ep where two characters are just talking the entire time from a single location. THAT is the mark of something I love: If two characters holding a discussion for nearly half an hour has me COMPLETELY GLUED to it.

I've glossed over season two here because, although it still has some excellent moments, it's just not as good as the first. A big part of that is because it's just one giant-huge arc that covers all 26 episodes... and that's a LOT of time to spend on a single ongoing challenge/hurdle. It not only becomes exhausting and kind of boring to be confined to this problem/situation for so goddamn long, but it also makes it extremely obvious when Subaru is going to reach his final time loop and succeed. So once you piece together that the entire season is going to be stuck on this one arc, you realize you're stuck just waiting for him to get close enough to the season's end to finally achieve real progress. Once he does, though? It weirdly manages to feel like it's too soon -- like he didn't do enough to prepare all the problems at hand and somehow just won this time around because he tried super duper hard. There's also the fact that my favorite character from the first season is entirely sidelined (and apparently won't be in season 3 EITHER) — and nobody new manages to step into any similar shoes to pick up the slack.

Sounds like a good time to talk about that that character... as well as the rest.

Characters: The value of growth and change

One of the reasons I got into this so much is because the characters have flaws, go through changes, grow and develop. Rem is an early standout of this. As is apparently a common opinion, she quickly became my favorite character. Her shift from being suspicious and disdainful of Subaru to being 1000% supportive of him is EXTREMELY well-handled, and her sympathetic backstory is also one that we get before most other characters share their own. But when you get down to brass tacks, the main reason I think she's great is because she flips out and goes into violent combat mode whenever anyone she cares about is threatened. :D That's always a favorite archetype of mine. I love me a bloodstained hero or heroine who will march through hell and take any measure of punishment to save someone. Honestly, it makes it hard to understand why he'd so hooked on Emilia when Rem is so peak. And as I mentioned above, a big downside of season 2 is that Rem is completely absent past the first episode. In fact, she won't even be in the upcoming season 3!!! Alas, there is no "person who absolutely tears shit up and covers themselves in the enemy's blood to protect the ones they care about" character who steps in and picks up the slack, so I'm missing my favorite archetype after the first season. TSK.

She's not a princess (a lot of anger in it). Not your cutie girlfriend, oh no, don't you know?

I find it literally depressing that, to date, Rem is STILL not truly back in the cast of the source light novels - not in any way that matters. She makes her cameos via illusions or flashbacks or what-have-you, but she's not really there until she's physically AND mentally present once again. So until she returns to the team with all her memories (and therefore, her all-important character development) intact, I must legitimately ask: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, NAGATSUKI?!

Enough about Rem: We need to talk about the lead protagonist. Subaru is pretty brave throughout all this but really has to grow over the course of the first season and learn to be less self-serving and invest a lot harder into self-improvement. It's nice to see someone who clearly has blatant personal flaws but also is never a detestable person. I actually first saw him when I watched a few episodes of Isekai Quartet a couple years back, and frankly? I found him pretty loathesome over there. I was fully prepared for him to be a shitheel that I was inexplicably expected to like. I'm so glad that this isn't the case. In fact, I love having a character who wears his heart on his sleeve. He's not too manly to weep openly, and he's not afraid to act like a total doofus... or maybe he’s not smart enough sometimes to realize when he does. And although he may be frequently selfish and kind of stupid on multiple occasions, he never becomes one of those perverted male characters or too egotistical. Well... he gets a bit egotistical at times. Too much for someone like me, but... still not overmuch compared to many, many anime protags.

Panic! After Repeated Trauma

And yet... he does get a bit exasperating by the end of season two, imo. Partly because he doesn't grow too much in season two. At least he gets to confront his bottled-up feelings over leaving his homeworld behind, so that's nice. But otherwise, he's pretty much treated as this perfect man whose only major remaining flaw is a lack of combat skill. By the time you've got him convincing yet ANOTHER long-lived character to never give up and put all their faith into him personally just like he's done multiple times before, and it yet AGAIN works? The swelling music and the emotional reaction of the characters to him speechifying about how he'll always be there for them and needs them... that lands well maybe two times, but by this point — when he's talking to a character who has mostly treated him with disdain/avoidance and whom he's only hung out with maybe five or six times — it's pretty hard to swallow, honestly. But I'll try not to hold that against Subaru... I just want him to show some more flaws in future stories that go beyond just "He's not good at fighting." I want him to lose more arguments again. Besides, one of the best things in season two is when his mind starts to crack under the stress and pain of all the deaths he's endured. I think we should dig deeper into that.

I honestly love seeing a hero begin to crack under the pressure.

I kinda cheated by talking about Rem before Emilia. Emilia's the main female lead, after all, whereas Rem is a supporting player. The thing about Emilia, though, is that she's good and noble and pure-hearted from the start. She doesn't grow at all during season one, though at least she does show us a different side of herself when she questions Subaru's behavior during their argument. Season two sees her face her past and gain new inner strength, but she still undergoes far less change than Subaru or Rem in even just the first season. I'm glad they took the time to show her failing and then needing to learn in order to move forward, but Emilia's maybe just a little too perfect, y'know? One thing that garners her a lot of sympathy is that most everyone who meets her dislikes her just for being born a silver-haired half-elf. So many people associate that with one of the gravest threats to ever exist in this world that Emilia has to endure a lot of racism, and honestly? Confronting that racism is when the character is most engaging. So while Emilia is clearly likable and not totally uninteresting, she's not as interesting as a lot of the other players in the story. Most of the characters run deeper than her or have more mysterious goals. Compared to them, Emilia is an open book who rarely changes. The author of the books has said that Emilia is his favorite character, and maybe that's why he never sees much need to develop her. I think it does her a disservice.

On top of being beautiful and kind and intelligent, Emilia is also a powerful combatant. Because of course she is.

Her relationship with Subaru is a major focus, but it seems sort of hollow at first. Subaru admires her kindness/helpfulness and thinks she's beautiful, so he follows her around and dotes on her as much as he can. It's easy to see why he'd admire someone so good-hearted, but it starts to become a little cringe just how obsessively he dotes on her... and that cringiness peaks right around the moment when the two have a big argument and a falling out. It's an important scene that helps both characters, because it shows us Subaru's flaws on full display and also makes him confront just how cringey his devotion to Emilia can come off. Emilia, meanwhile, walks away to spend time without him for a while... though she never really rejects him, either. She really struggles with being independent. She keeps thinking about him and wishing he'd come back and make up with her. Clearly, she's gotten addicted to having a Hype Man around... and goddamn, I can't even blame her. Subaru looks at Emilia the way Stilgar looks at Paul Atreides. Who doesn't want that level of positive reinforcement available 24/7? By the end of season two, although both of them have grown, Subaru's still relentlessly hyping her up. He did criticize her (softly) in one major season two moment, but despite his claims otherwise, he still acts like she's an angel on Earth. And so, although he pool of their romance has grown deeper, it still feels like we've stepped out of the kiddie pool and into the shallow end. It means a lot more to see a character and their feelings grow and change over time, y'know? I suppose part of why we don't see that happening much is because Emilia is treated as so flawless to begin with.

Something I love in a long-running story is when a minor background character slowly starts to appear more frequently until - surprise! - they become a major cast member and full-time supporting player. Season two does this very successfully, and I love the character they expanded and brought into the cast. I feel like I shouldn't say too much about them for anyone who's a newcomer, because the gradual increase in their presence is so enjoyable. But it's a character who first appears in season one and has to wait numerous episodes of season two before they become important enough to get a front-row seat. It's very satisfying to watch them shift slowly from "fifth-tier supporting character who shows up for two scenes" into "major player."

Other characters? Ram is Rem's sister, and she's... not exactly a wealth of depth. Not yet, at least. She's mostly there to act tsundere. Her exact relationship with Roswaal remains hazy by the end of season 2, but she's clearly devoted to him and he's clearly doing... something for her? Roswaal and Beatrice both get by on acting mysterious. We learn a lot more about them in season two, and what we learn makes it hard to tear your eyes off Roswaal especially — he's a fascinating and weird bastard. Puck is a cat-like spirit with a lot of power and a very mischievious attitude. There's a surprising darkness lurking within him that keeps him from being some cute mascot-type. Season 2 also brings us some new characters whose long-term presence among the cast is still in question, but Echidna (not an Australian monotreme) is a standout. She really made me question everything I thought I understood about the moral good-and-evil situation in this reality.

Get those eyebrows under control. We ARE on television, y'know.

Serial Killin'

The series a whole is SO serialized and SO intense that it's really hard to watch it with gaps in-between episodes. Even taking one day off from the show mid-viewing proved too agonizing for me, so I was really grateful I could tear through seasons 1 and 2 in a rapid binge. I say this because... yeah, I don't see myself watching season 3 as it airs. Maybe I'll do a binge for each story arc it contains when they wrap up, or maybe I'll just wait for the whole season to conclude. But either way? This is something that demands to be binged in rapid succession.

I guess you get my point by now. I'm pretty hype about this series in spite of it holding some noteworthy flaws. I'm surprised I can still get so invested in something that dates back as far as 2016 that I haven't seen yet... and that gives me hope for what else I might discover going forward with my anime viewing.

#re:zero #re: zero #rezero #anime reviews #anime #isekai

[exoticalmonde]

So me and my bestest friend @notanegrill began playing a game about making stories. It's called Storybook, and as the title suggests we're coming together to create the most legendary story of them all.

V: *Opens first page*

Me, normal voice: "At the end of this book lies a crown-"

V: "NO! STORYTELLER VOICE!"

Me, using that one voice from the Theatre scene in 'We Were Here': "It is bestowed only to the finest storytellers of the realm."

V: "Hehe, way better."

Spoilers Ahead:

So we start the world as any world begins, with a tale as old as time - Adam and Eve. Which is... Me! Me and V because I will pick his ribs clean if he doesn't 100% the achievements (he enjoys it, ok)

And we were both excited for 0.7 seconds before V hits me with the important questions of:

V: "Who is Adam, Eve?"

Me: "It's you, silly goose!"

V: "Oh, okay." c:

And like with every story that has Eve in it:

:)

It's adorable to see Bernard getting some love though!

This game just flies by so fast when it's the two of us thinking, taking turns on what gets to be where so we push the other forward where our own ideas fail us. Playing games like this with a buddy truly beats playing it alone.

It's tagged LGBTQ+ because you can put two guys or two girls in love in some of the frames and it's adorable. They interact well.

Me: "Oh look! It's the tiers of regret whenever I decide to open up."

Can't believe this whole story is about how Edgar dies and forgets he's dead while being dead so he ends up shocked that he's dead when he sees himself in the mirror.

It's such a good plot for a fanfic not gonna lie... It's Genshin related and not meant to be here, but /I/ am the one who is writing this 'review' and I am the rat that makes all of the rules.

V: "These... Two pixels, why are they so hot...?"

Me: ".... Yeah."

V: "I know you want her dress."

Me: "Oh I want to BE her."

Us two: *GASP*

V: "Are you ready?"

Me: "VAMPIRE TIME."

V: *Accidentally does this because he randomly drops characters on the map after figuring out what to do.*

V: "My brain (is so big)... I'm singing up in Harvard."

V: *Struggles with the simpler map later*

Me: "I think we have to sign you off Harvard now."

AND THE ENDING IS SOOO CUTE IT'S SO SUBTLE I BARELY NOTICED BUT IT MADE US SO HAPPY TO GET TO THE ENDING.

Like giving two kids a paper crown and calling them 'champ'.

Someone in STEAM was asking how to solve the Maid and the Knight story and someone commented under it with 'God bless you'. Seriously, we managed on our own and it's all because it was 50/51 and we HAD to finish it to get to the ending.

During our reviews:

Me: "I think the graphics are beautiful. For a game that has a simple idea of making stories via characters and places being put together, everything is very well animated, interactive and apparently, given the achievements, it also has MULTIPLE options to work with."

V: "I agree. Also, there is an update in September."

Me: "Overall, it's a game I'd get if it's on sale. It's 20$ and in comparison to a visual novel with 40K words, a couple scenes, art etc. If that was 20$... I'd still think twice, but the point is - for what it is and it's original, a game I have never seen before, I think it's pretty good. It also doesn't have any background music, it could probably set the mood for some chapters. But the sound was totally good. No sounds overlap no matter how quickly you click around so it doesn't create a caccophony."

V: "Yeah, the music, or the lack of thereof is still fixable."

Me: "Well, there's the update. Might as well wait and see."

V: "Overall ranting?"

Me: "Hmmm..."

V: "On the count of three?"

Me: "Ok."

V: "Ugh I'm stuck between two... Ok, one... Two... Three!"

Me and him at the same time: "Seven."

V: "Why am I not surprised."

And that's it! It was truly a wonderful experience. Big thank you to developpers and the entire team that came up with the game. Can't wait to see what the updates may be and thank you, V, for sponsoring our gameplay.

Hope we get to play much more in the future.

#storyteller #video games #games with friends #puzzle #cozy #funny #review #steam games #co-op with a friend #interactive fiction #adventure #point and click #IT'S HAND-DRAWN #lgbtq+ #Youtube

[gayemeralds]

OKAY SEASON THREE OF TITANS: 7.5/10

probably giving this too high of a rating but man. if i put blinders on and only focus on jason’s story it’s actually not bad (this review is unfortunately long)

pros: JASON. look tbqh i don’t think this was a good adaptation of jason as a character or the utrh storyline. HOWEVER as it’s own seperate thing i think it was actually pretty good. they set jason’s character up in a way for the events to happen the way they did, and while i could easily nitpick, the core idea and relative execution was pretty good. jason was clearly suffering from ptsd and wanted so desperately to stop being afraid, which steamrolled all of his self worth issues and being outcasted by the titans into culminating as a really fucked up villain arc. also jason’s actor CARRIED the entire season on his back his acting was fucking insane i hope they compensated him for the back problems he has from carrying an entire season. also he killed hank and that’s a solid additional point from me. i really like how much they hammered home just how YOUNG jason is… like he’s just some teen who’s been casted aside by every form of familial support literally all his life, intentionally or through misunderstandings. and it’s so clear that he has problems but no one wants to take the time and help him. and then that leads to him getting easily manipulated by multiple people throughout the show who give him the slightest bit of compassion.

cons: where do i start. didnt like the scarecrow characterization… leaned way too close into being a joker rip off. a lot of the conflicts were dragged on and on. barbra and dick being thieves was stupid. somewhat disdained by the lacking moral complexity of the red hood as a character. the morals within the show and of the main titular characters are insanely flimsy, often hypocritical, and downright superficial, but their hypocrisy isn’t ever pointed out and they’re still painted as “correct” which is really annoying. there was seemingly little lasting consequences to everything that happened? like the lazarus pit was used as a deus ex machina to bring anyone who died back from the dead. tim was nice to see but he was RADICALLY different and also kinda unnecessary. everything about the handling of Bruce Wayne was fucking insane and badly done- he killed the joker and then fucked off for the rest of the season????? Donna troy coming back to life would have been FINE but they managed to somehow make it the most convoluted thing ever when they literally had a) raven’s magic or b) the lazarus pit to use as an excuse to bring her back. how did the entire city get tricked into thinking the titans poisoned Gotham when batman/justice league is an established part of canon and the titans, both new and old, have been also clearly established. crane’s defeat was entirely underwhelming. kori’s b-plot for the season could/should have quite literally been an entire season on its own. SPACE ARC IM JUST SAYING.

the biggest issue this show had was TELLING instead of SHOWING. like they managed to make jason’s death LAME. they didn’t even show him actually dying because they didn’t bother hiring a joker actor. some of the best story beats (jasons death, alfreds death, jims death, barbara’s stint as batgirl/being paralyzed, bruce killing the joker) just aren’t SHOWN but are explicitly mentioned. and the story definitely suffers for it. they very obviously had no idea what to do with batman, gar, or raven so they just kept disappearing into the background. batmans batcave is raided by scarecrow and his police force army but aparently his secret identity is still somehow a secret. the lazarus pit was WAY over used and dick shouldn’t have died.

the first half is definitely better than the second half, with episode 5 being the best one tbh. i think they just really paced this badly and the relationship between jason and the titans suffered a lot from the titans own hypocrisy and that quite literally never gets addressed, which is kind of annoying since they’re supposed to be “heroes”. however when the story wants to hit hard they really can start swinging- the scene between jason and bruce where Bruce benches jason from being robin but can’t communicate how much he loves jason and jason thinks that Bruce is firing him because jason couldn’t live up to the mantle of being dick’s successor, because he wasn’t good enough, was so fucking good. the scene where dick confronts his guilt about pushing jason away and away until jason spirals so badly he gets killed by the joker- how dick subconsciously or otherwise wanting jason dead manifests as dick beating jason with a crowbar in a hallucination. fucked up cinema. anyway i would actually watch this season again but i would not recommend it to anyone ever.

#1 million thoughts about this version of jason. he was so fucked from the start. #yeah yeah doomed by the narrative but jason was definitely doomed by the meta narrative #my biggest complaint is that i think jason should have killed crane and then stepped into REALLY being the main antagonist #that was a complaint i had with arkham knight. like despite this season essentially being about him #it still managed to Not Be About Him #jason todd speedrun

[alexlaurybooks]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars

The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.” Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into a wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite. But they don’t laugh.

Where to begin…

This book follows five different characters from their own individual points of view (a seemingly common theme in the books I pick off the shelf to read). Caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, the five characters find themselves escaping together when their base is under attack. The zombies (or “hungries”) are a unique take on the otherwise overused horror trope. The defining difference? They’re conscious.

M. R. Carey does a phenomenal job at giving a unique voice to each of the main characters. I always fear that books with multiple POVs will end up with characters that all sound the same. This is absolutely not the case in The Girl With All The Gifts. Each character has their own personal motivation to everything they think do, say and think.

Melanie, a little girl who is unaware of the fact that she has contracted / been infected by a zombie virus, lives and breathes for knowledge and for the person that gives it to her, Miss Helen Justineau. In the beginning, her life consists of two things, Miss Justineau and the soldiers that strap her into a wheelchair to take her to a classroom from her locked cell room. She has no idea why people around her fear or dislike her, but is glad that Miss Justineau treats her kindly. To say that Melanie loves her teacher more than anything would be an understatement; she worships her.

Miss Justineau is not only Melanie’s teacher, but also the psychologist at the base that is holding Melanie and all the other hungries. Her genuine care, and compassion not only for Melanie, but for the others stuck in a hellish journey with her becomes very apparent as the story unfolds. Miss Justineau is a beacon of hope for Melanie and a great example of human kindness.

Dr. Caroline Caldwell is a scientist determined to study the infection in search of a cure. Her medical knowledge is a noteworthy difference from the other characters when reading her point of view. She conducts basic experimentation on the hungries in the name of science. Her determination to discover the truth sometimes makes her apathetic, or rather unwilling, to acknowledge the more human attributes that Melanie retains. Her true ruthless character is further revealed as the story continues.

Sergeant Parks is a military man with a long experience in hostile territories. He has a very “no B.S” attitude. His ingrained military background is most apparent when reading from his perspective. He is definitely an action man, to say the least. Being able to read his doubts and insecurities about the situation was eye-opening. It reminded me that even the strongest man questions what’s around him. I can’t say I like them all that much though.

Last but not least is Private Kieran Gallagher, a young man, at the beginning of his military career. I feel bad for his lack of experience as a soldier. He was definitely not prepared for the dangers that the outside world held. I don’t think any of them were.

 Although the gore depicted is kept to a minimum for a book in the thriller genre, the horror is chilling. I found myself heavily invested in nearly every scene, action, or otherwise. I cried. More than once. And after taking the journey alongside each of these characters, I can honestly say that I didn’t know who I wanted to win at the end. It is safe to say that the movie did not do it justice and I cannot wait to get my hands on the prequel.

#book blog #book review #books #alex laury bookshelf #the girl with all the gifts #m r carey #m. r. carey

[urlocallesbiab]

ok the initial post for brotzly fake couple's therapy au has already gotten way too long, so i take this as a sign i should start posting things separately and establish a new navigation tag

so, either way, a lil background on the characters

todd: exactly the same shit as canon, just imagine that instead of the seer-of-universal-truths syndrome there's some regular non-magical neurological disease running in the brotzman family.

farah: mostly similar to canon, just a bit toned down. she's not exactly an one-woman army, but she is freakishly physically fit, combat-ready, and proficient with common types of firearms — significantly more than you would expect any random person to be; she had always wanted to become a part of the police force like her brothers and father, but never passed the screenings due to debilitating anxiety, ocd and autism (never tried to join the fbi or the military tho; both her skills and her family expectations aren't That high).

her father had gotten terminally sick when she was a teen, and that significantly cut their income and added to their spendings, usa healthcare system be damned; old family friend, successful enterpreneur patrick spring, had stepped in to support them both financially and morally. farah ended up being halfway raised by him, always hanging out at his house and playing with lydia; out of all her family, save for her father, farah was the closest to patrick.

some time before the main timeline events, maybe half a year or a year ago, farah, patrick and lydia were having a nice family outing — up until patrick had been shot to death in broad daylight. his history of rising to success hadn’t been exactly pretty, you see, and the organized crime eventually took what was due. farah still blames herself for letting that happen despite her training and her worrying habit of never leaving the house without her gun; but if you asked her, really asked her how would she go about preventing that, she wouldn't be able to give you a good answer — it's just that one second he was alive, and the next he was not.

lydia, as both the key witness and the fortune's inheritor, had been taken into the witness protection program; farah hasn't heard from her since. she misses her like crazy, possible even more than patrick. therapy was meant to help her cope with the ruinous ptsd from those events, and she's been slowly, slowly making progress. that day she was having an especially Bad One — after which she and dirk got shit-faced — was soon after her father's death.

dirk: he grew up in the foster care system, and as a pre-teen was adopted by a kind and soft-bellied, if a little strict, ex-military man on a good pension, scott riggins. dirk had always been a bright kid, fascinated by complex mathematics (oh, the patterns! the beauty chaos and order! the language of the universe!) and some strains of physics (especially quantum studies; it all started with an article on shrodinger's cat and went downhill from there), quickly picking up on underlying logic within numbers (way quicker than his little undiagnosed autistic brain picked up on most social cues); teachers always promised him a bright future, even with the chronic lack of resources. scott had made sure dirk would get access to the best education possible, be taught by best tutors available, enroll into the best school imaginable; he gave dirk everything, and all the boy had to do is put in some effort. and he tried, oh god did he try; but he didn't do it hard enough. the new schoolwork load was multiple times bigger and harder than the worst he had ever experienced before, and he would often grow exhausted, distracted, unfocused and loose-minded (the adhd never got diagnosed either). some days a new and curious configuration would catch his attention and he would crack down on it with fervor, but some days he would just sit there and chew on the same three problems for hours on end to no avail. on those bright days scott saw his potential, his true and exciting and wonderful potential, and wanted the kid to live up to it; on the brain-foggy days, when he failed to do so, scott grew dissappointed. and whenever he felt disappointed, dirk felt it tenfolds on his skin. scott wasn't violent, godforbid, he's not a monster — just a little strict: it's just that he frowned, and tutted, and shook his head, and told dirk off, and didn't kiss him, and said things that dirk deserved to hear no matter how it felt, and took his books away (if there was anything the kid loved as much as math, it was thrilling detective stories, and sci-fi, ans fantasy, preferably all at once, read in one sitting) so that he wouldn't get distracted, and sometimes wouldn't call dirk down for dinner until he was done with the homework.

it hurt terribly to have the only person who'd ever cared about dirk, who had chosen him out of everyone else, who had chosen him and stuck by him, the only person in the world who loved him, be upset with dirk. for the longest time, dirk was convinced that he simply was lazy, and awful, and ungrateful, and hopeless, and the worst person to ever live, with how he let his father down time after time. but over the years, his self-hatred got so large he couldn't carry it anymore, and it spilled onto the mental image of scott, just so that he could breathe again; over the years, he grew bitter and disillusioned. as a young adult, he still couldn't tell if scott's demands and ambitions were fueled by simple materialistic hopes of fame and monetary grants, or a vain desire for glory, or some weird roundabout way of achieving personal fulfillment, but he knew for sure: scott riggins wanted himself a pet boy genius, not a son.

when the time came to attend college, dirk picked cambridge over harward, mostly because he would take any excuse to get an ocean away from scott. and he passed the exams — with flying colors! he was, after all, exceptionally smart. the teachers were delighted to have him; three months later he got booted because he missed half the classes and didn’t do any homework: drunk on the newfound freedom, stressed out by a trans-atlantic move, and lacking the only accountability system (however flawed) he'd ever had. he didn't tell scott, of course — he wasn't ready to go back home, he would do anything to avoid going there. so he took the college-student-allowance his foster father kept sending him, none the wiser, and set out backpacking across britain and then the rest of europe. soon it turned out that travelling cross-country is slightly more costly than living at the dorms, and there were only so many plausible excuses he could use to cajole more money out of scott, and coming clean about his strategical-omissal-of-crucial-information-that-wasn't-tecnhically-outright-lying was out of the question, so dirk had to cut some costs: skip a meal here, sleep on a train station bench there, get chased out by foreign policemen once or twice, a few times of staying overnight at some shady moldy place with some shady people whose language he didn't speak too well — nothing any other travelling young person hasn't seen, truly. he was coping alright. eventually scott caught wind anyway, and dirk, not that dirty and scrawny, had been forcibly dragged home. from there it's been a steep decline in the relationship: more harsh demands and more desperate pleading, more affection followed by more coldness, threats and promises from scott, and a few failed attempts at coninued education, a few move-outs followed by a few move-back-ins, plus a few ultimately abandoned career choices from dirk, who never seemed to grow out of whatever it was that was wrong with him, even as a decade slowly passed and gave way to another one.

when todd meets dirk for the first time and asks the inevitable "so what do you do for a living?", dirk introduces himself as a writer, which, combined with his rather frivolous spending habits and impressive disposable income, leads todd to assume that dirk must be some literary genius, top-nyt-bestseller, author-of-future-classics madly successful type of guy — but in reality, he sits on his arse and writes experimental-storytelling-style sci-fi/fantasy/whodunnit fusions that no agency interested in commercial success wants to look at, he's been published only once by a tiny indie house that paid him jack shit and a penny in royalties, and half his money still comes from scott. that financial dependence is the main reason dirk's in the us at the moment — he's been pulled from his latest bout of doing volunteer work for a queer nonprofit in eastern europe by the threat of cutting his whole goddamn allowance off. as a compromise, he returned to the country but not to the city, claiming that he needed fresh scenery to inspire his creativity and maybe actually write a profitable book for once; really, he just hadn't been mentally ready yet to be in the same town as scott so soon. so, settle, washington it is, why the hell not.

by the way, "dirk gently" is his pen name — legally, he's still dirk riggins. also, in the skype calls he's sometimes talked into having, dirk still calls him "father", but behind his back it's been "scott" for almost two decades now: at some point growing up he felt the need to put some mental space between himself and that man in order to stay sane.

after his fateful Big Talk with todd, where dirk admitted the less pleasant parts of his childhood and youth in most detail he had ever did in his whole life, todd convinces him to start looking for a better job to support himself, change his legal name, and someday cut riggins off for good. also get some therapy, for fuck's sake, god.

#fake couple's therapy brotzly au #vikarambles #vika's personal dghda tag #gun violence mention #dghda #dirk gently's holistic detective agency (tv 2016) #dghda au #farah black #dirk gently #child abuse mention #......silly fake dating au innit? #farah black 🤝 dirk gently: ptsd 🤝 cptsd #colonel scott riggins #long post #.... im so glad ive decided to make this a separate post. yesterday evening i thought 'oh ill just jot down some thots' #but it grew into a monster of 1.5K words that ate most of my time today #if you catch any typos pls do let me know im not rereading All That #kp as this thang's main fun i hope you enjoy this generous serving of. uh. angst