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marleyybluu · 5 months

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Thinkin’ Bout You

Spooky Diaz x fem!reader

Word count: 1.2k

Content warning: 18+, gets a little hot at the end, overall fluff and mush, everyone’s in love and high, reader smokes weed, reader described to have thick thighs (of course tf), pretty sure I'm missing some sorry

A/N: I took a break from my break to post this lol I was gonna leave this as a stand-alone(it can still be read as such) but honestly? it’s giving two and counting lore… so I’ll put it as a part of that series.

(not mine, got it off pinterest but awooogaa!)

Friday. What a glorious day to be off work. You slept in, hell you'd say you deserved putting up all those work hours at the hospital, and after finally crawling out of bed you rolled a small joint for the morning, and smoked it on the balcony outside your bedroom. The neighbourhood was quiet, the air was crisp and a bit cold but it's nothing one of Spooky's sweaters couldn't fix. You wrap your arms around you, the sweater is warm and it smelt like his cologne, you close your eyes and smile at just the mere thought of him. You always think about him it was crazy how one man consumed your entire being but you were so glad it was him.

You wished he was home, wished he was here to smoke with you but he got called into work earlier than usual, you didn't even get a goodbye kiss which you were missing right now, the vacancy of those lips— soft as a cloud and always on top of yours so delicately— depending on the context of course.

Without him here the day seemed to pass on slower, you checked the time what seemed like every ten minutes which also didn't help. To distract yourself you clean and cook, call your mom until she is ready to, quote, "Go and do her own thing." And hung up on you.

You lay upside down on the couch, feet crossed as they hang over the back of the couch and your head hangs off the seat cushions, Living Single reruns consumed your screen. You were well distracted until you heard a car door slam and various keys jingling together, you sat up and gripped the back of the couch for dear life.

The lock turns. The door opens. And there he is. You scream with excitement. "Hi, babyyyyy."

He chuckles, not even ten seconds inside and you already had him smiling. "Hola mi corazón."

You roll off the sofa and run over to your man, leaping and wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist. He squeezes you so tightly you swear he'd crack a few bones but in the name of love, you wouldn't care. You pepper his face with kisses before you finally land on his lips and you mould into him, his hands firmly grasping your ass that barely fits in your shorts.

He smiles in the middle of your kiss and it's an instant chain reaction. "Missed me that much?"

"You have no idea."

He gives you another small kiss before he puts you down and you fight the urge to pout and demand to be picked back up, you just want to live in his skin 24/7, but you let him catch his breath. Let him put away his things, grab a Corona while you ogle him and the way his enormous arms flexed when he twisted the cap off and the foaming bubbles sliding their way to the top... almost spilling over... but then he saves it with tongue. You lick your bottom lip and zoom in on the involuntarily sexual act, oh, and the way his Adam's apple bobbed with every sip... fuck.

"Bebita," He calls. You slowly nod, still in your love-stricken daze. "You're droolin' a little bit ma."

You rub your chin and frown at him, there is no drool. He winks at you and you turn your face to the side to avoid any more butterflies in your stomach. "You smoke already?"

You nod. "Wanna smoke again or you good?" He sat his blunt, which magically appeared from his jeans, between his lips and nodded to the back door. "Nah, I'll smoke with you."

"Good, vamos."

••••• Your head lays in his lap, his hand cupped your cheek and his thumb caressed your skin. After you two smoked, you ate and had a blissfully shared shower, now you were sprawled out on the sofa still high as fuck watching Bridget Jones's Diary, he remembered you uttered something about wanting to watch a rom-com for once. You were in the mood to watch a love story, "or something."

But you were hardly paying attention to the screen, so lost in your own world of love, you pinch his chin aiming his at an angle so he'd look down at you. Make eye contact.

"Do you think about me?" A question asked so innocently. "Course I do, baby."

You run your finger down the column of his neck, over the lump of his Adam's apple. "What do you think about?"

He pauses the movie and focuses on you. "What's this about?"

"Nothing."

"You pregnant?"

You hit him. "Spooky! No!" He was obsessed with the idea of a baby. "Just answer my question."

He sighs, nostrils flair, he hated telling his deepest feelings but, "I think about you... and me, and what our life could be like. We could get married, could have a couple of kids. I always thought about gettin' like a summer house or something. Hit it every summer with them."

You smiled. "You think about all that?"

"Fuck yeah. I see us dropping them off on their tío, he watches them... we still get to have some us time, dates, trips...whatever you want."

You swear he makes you fall in love with him all over again at least once a week. "You think I haven't pictured the wedding? I know what I'll say in my vows already."

"Liar," You teased.

"Mi amor, the day I saw you-"

You quickly cover his mouth it'd be like spoiling a movie you hadn't seen yet. He licked your palm but you were quick to wipe it on his face. "Puta." He muttered. "Bastardo." You retaliated. "So how many kids do we have?" You sit up and adjust yourself so that you are now sitting with your back against the support of the couch and drape your legs over his thighs, the cold metal of his rings hits your hot skin when his hand contacts your leg. "Five."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" You exclaim. "I've seen childbirth live and I think we can have one and a dog." He rolls his eyes. "Fine, whatever."

He leans over to kiss your forehead. "You think about me?"

"Once in a while." You joke, his jaw drops. "Once in a while!? That's how you feel? Ay, cariño, you're breaking mi corazón."

You place your hand over his and offer him a side smile before you kiss his cheek. "The way I jumped on you when you came home isn't proof enough."

He pulls you on top of him, your legs now sitting on each side of him with his hands gleefully squeezing every pound of flesh that makes up your thunder thighs that spread every time you sit and it makes him call them pancakes sometimes. "I might need a refresher."

"Oh, getting short-term memory already, Diaz?" You hum pressing your lips to his. "Just a little bit." He answers. Your hands fumble with the bottom of his shirt, he raises his arms and you break the kiss for just a second before you're back with tongues in each others throats and you're making out as if you're life depended on it, as if he's being shipped off to war and you don't know if he's coming back. Now it was your turn to pull back in need of some air. His smile is shaky, almost like a shy expression.

"Still kinda hazy."

You rid yourself of your top, with nothing under it.

"Oh don't worry," You lean in. "I'm about to make it real clear."

Not tagging anyone in this, I'm just testing something. if you liked this fic, feel free to like this fic, reblogs and comments are appreciated. peace and love, see you in the next one🤙🏾

#on my block #spooky fanfic #fluff #on my block fanfic #marleywrites #marleysfanfictions #spooky #spooky fanfiction #spooky x reader

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polichinelle · 2 months

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yeah fuck it i'm making this its own post. basically very long winded (but still not as extensively detailed as i'd like) thoughts on adam & ronan (sort of) & whelk & noah

i remember reading the raven boys back in 2014 (ten years of rot in my brain!) and being sooo disappointed that there was basically zero fandom interest in whelk & noah beyond "omg whelk is evil and awful and terrible, poor baby noah!" when that is not the narrative surrounding them, not really. i feel it's a disservice to both of their characters to do that, especially noah's:

there is nuance there. there are implications. like... it's ALL about the implications!!! we basically see nothing of whelk and noah beyond what's left after the carnage. and it's a theme in trc for characters to have irreparably changed before we ever meet them (gansey, ronan, whelk, noah). we don't know what they were actually like when noah was alive, when they were best friends. when they were tight as ticks.

what we do know is this: whelk was noah's gansey. whelk was cheating on his own girlfriend with noah's, which is a shitty thing to do for sure, but something we also have zero context for. we also don't know how true it is, because whelk has such a self-inflicted warped view of his past. he keeps rewriting his own memories to think lesser of noah, because his absence hurts that much! we know they were best friends, the same way adam & ronan are best friends with gansey. we know they did everything together

okay, changing gears a little.

i'll paste the part where adam is possessed, sorry for the amount of screenshots:

and this line from a bit further along the chapter:

then, from noah's possession scene:

compare this to whelk's recollection of killing noah, and the effects it had on him:

"red lines streaked in the corners of his vision" "in whelk's head, unearthly voices hissed and whispered, words blurred and stretched together" "dictated by something larger and more powerful than himself" "somehow invited into his body through czerny's death" yes i am going there, yes i am making that point. i think, to some extent, barrington was possessed when he murdered his best friend. neither noah nor adam get their own pov while possessed, so...

i mean, time is a circle. noah needed to die so that gansey would live. noah had already died, gansey had already lived. it needed to happen, and so it would.

where the difference lies, i think, is in barrington's reaction to being possessed, versus adam/noah. for all that i'm arguing possession, i don't think barry's a stand up guy, he's a kid who's never had good role models (need i pull out the quotes about his shit parents) and who was raised by money and objects and reputation, which is why i think the possession worked. the idea to kill noah might've seemed like his own in the moment, an escalation of the situation he was already in, but unlike adam/noah there was no one to hold him back (not to mention barrington isn't as familiar with magic things(?) as they are). in that moment, whelk did truly lost it. he did the unforgivable. but there is no universe in which he doesn't.

for every time we see noah reenacting his death, we also need to imagine barrington whelk, seventeen and shivering. realizing as he's committing the act that he can't go back. perhaps realizing too that he couldn't stop his hands from gripping onto that skateboard, no matter how much he wanted to after that first hit. ("But instead, he remembered the sound Czerny made the first time he hit him.")

there's also adam in this. both him as a parallel to barrington, and as a strange sort of part of noah in a way. adam and noah interact the least out of the main group, arguably, but they too are a two-headed creature; they started out as one singular character and you can sort of tell. something something hands and eyes, something something sacrifice. ronan sort of parallels noah, in that he is not the same lively person we hear about, and he never will be that person again. both are cabeswater personified (although in different ways).

some more things:

"he once had been tight as ticks with his roommate czerny" "only whelk and czerny, treasure hunters and troublemakers" "it was possible that czerny's death wasn't for nothing after all" "[...] his days a ribbon floating aimlessly in water" (in relation to: "he had been a swimmer himself, once") "czerny, you're in a better place than me, i think" "whelk, standing in the wreckage of his life, didn't laugh this time" "the dry, half-eaten burger on the passenger seat / the first fast-food burger he'd had in seven years" "these days, when whelk was trying to comfort himself, he told himself that czerny was a sheep, but sometimes he slipped and remembered him as loyal instead" "[...] took him back to that moment, the skateboard in his hands, the sad question gasped in czerny's dying sounds "we were friends like —"

also, whelk dying in the same place noah did. these lines:

both noah and barrington look the same in the end. broken, rumpled, forgotten. noah's family will never know his bones were reburied outside of their family plot. whelk's mother, however distant she is, will never be notified that her son has died. i think in a way barrington died at the exact same time noah did; something something invited into his body through czerny's death.

basically what i'm getting at is, noah and barry could've been ronan and adam i think, had the circumstances been different. they never will be, but i think about it sometimes.

and there's so many more things i'm not even gonna TRY going into, like noah and whelk both being parallels to gansey (the three of them kings in their own right), or the disparity between whelk talking about czerny vs adele talking about noah, or whatever the fuck is going on with whelk's backstory in general (what's the deal with his mother? how the hell did he get the aglionby job? a random headcanon of mine is that his and noah's search for the ley line lead them to fox way, seven years before the events of the book, and that's partly why whelk refuses to give out his name to maura, because barrington is hard to forget, and easy to trace back)

there is so much to talk about here and i'm so peeved no one is doing it properly... why are we still talking about declan bringing his weekly girlfriend over to monmouth for no reason when we could be talking about whatever the fuck kinda soul-fate-destiny bullshit noah and whelk have!

#i know trc has its villain of the book thing but i am sooo disappointed whelk is never really talked about beyond #the first novel. like he's one of the only tangible links we have to noah's life... he was RIGHT THERE #he's so interesting to me. i rotate him and noah over and over in my head like they're in a microwave #trc #the raven cycle #the raven boys #noah czerny #adam parrish #barrington whelk #ronan lynch

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nisuna · 3 months

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Edit: I have since posted the fic, check it out here!!

hi hello, so this isn't my official "comeback" yet as I'm currently sick in bed 😭 so this is just a little teaser and explanation of what I'm planning hehe

So I've had this idea for a long time, so long that it was the first fic I ever wanted to write down on this blog and the idea that motivated me to start writing in general, but things happened so yeah I'm only now finding the time to finally write for it

so basically, it's friends with benefits geto x f!reader, simple enough, right? Well, not quite (if you're not interested in too much detail, feel free to skip my rambling and scroll down for some excerpts and quotes 😘 they'll be below the cut)

It all happened one evening when your best friend came to pick you up from a party for the first time, being tipsy and sexually frustrated one thing led to another and you slept together and from then on it kind of became your guys' thing

Whenever you were out and didn't end up with someone, you called him and he actually came to pick you up

You've known each other for a few years but you just couldn't get yourself to call him Suguru, it's always Geto this Geto that, even tho he would really like you to just call him by his first name, but you're like no no no nonono I can't

And if that wasn't bad enough, your tipsy self always added -san, so it's Geto-san whenever he picks you up haha

You've done a lot already, anything dirty you could think of, been there done that, but no kissing bcs that's too intimate duh, like having a dick shoved so far up it's rearragning your guts isn't yeah yeah sweet denial

So this time there wasn't anything unusual about it, he picked you up like always and you were down to fuck so what's the worst that could happen?

he miiiighhtt make you call him by his first name and maybe just maybe you do finally kiss???!

I'm also down for maybe a prequel to the first time it happened?? 👀👀

But in any case, enjoy an excerpt from the beginning as well as some of my ideas and quotes I plan to include :D

He never understood why you liked going out to the most shabby and stuffed clubs. It reeked of alcohol and smoke mixed with all kinds of bodily fluids. As he was making his way through the dancing crowd of sweaty people grinding against each other, he finally found you sitting at the bar while some guy was leaning in your direction way too close for comfort.

He had his usual fit, hair half up with a black over sized sweater and loose black joggers. Making him look so huge that if there were any guys bothering you, they would leave you alone as soon as they saw him.

"Yo~ y/n", he touched your exposed shoulder and gave you his signature eye smile, before staring down the guy next to you that was trying to get in your pants or in this context in ypur skimpy little dress. The guys' annoyed look turned into a worried one after seeing who he was up against.

"Aahhh Geto-saannn you're here early" you mused, leaning against his hard chest. That damn honorific, he cursed but still managed to squeeze out a smile.

"Haha "-san", so you aren't her boyfriend then." the stranger snarled but soon gave up as Suguru raised an eyebrow at him and snapped a "watch it". "Alright, alright, I give up", he put his hands up in defeat. "Maybe next time, sweetcheeks."

As soon as the guy left Suguru took both of your hands in his and knelt down in front of you. "Y/n we've talked about this, if you don't want to call me Suguru at least drop the honorific. We've known each other for years now don't you think it's about time. Also, don't you think it's weird when you call the guy you fuck by his last name, hm?" He turned his head looking at you expectedly.

"But Geto-saaaan-"

"Ah ah, what did I just tell you"

"Okay okay, Geto" you huffed, "You know I'm not comfortable with that", you whined, squeezing his hands.

"I just want to hear you say it at least once. Say it and I'll fuck you real good tonight.", he smirked.

You considered it, after a hard week you really needed a good fuck. "Sugu-", is all you could manage before snapping your head away, "Nope can't do it."

He let his head drop with a loud sigh. "It's alright. It looks like I was just pushing my luck. C'mon, let's get you out of here." And with that, he rose back to his full height, grabbed your hand and pulled you from the bar stool. While making your way through the crowd and to his car, your thoughts kept wandering.

Suguru... that's such a pretty name.

----------

"What's up with you today? If you keep squeezing me that hard you might actually snap my dick off.", he chuckled. He's way to cocky. You have to do something about that.

"Have I ever told you how annoying you can be. If you don't stop talking, I think I might have to shut that mouth of yours up myself.", you whispered putting your hands on his cheeks and pulling his face close so that it was right in front of yours.

--------

"Is it okay? Does it hurt?"

"No, it feels really good. I can feel you all the way up here", you smiled, leaning back and tracing your fingers from your pubic bone to just over your belly button.

"Fuck, you can't just say those things out of the blue" he mumbled sitting up, finally starting to pound into you from below.

"Wow that did it, huh?" you chuckled arching your back and clawing at his shoulders. "How naive, men are so simple." you kept that thought to yourself tho.

----

"Wait", you mumbled against his lips. "Don't pull out. Keep fucking me. Hurry up." How could he say no to you, even if he felt like he was about to die from overstimulation, he couldn't possibly deny you.

-----

"Fuck, I'm hard again"

"Then keep going."

-----

Look forward to the whole thing as soon as I feel better🙈🙈🙈 and feel free to let me know what you think!❤️

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transrevolutions · 6 months

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@rex-and-regina

1) marat did not encourage "murder of innocent civilians" in l'ami du peuple. while he did sometimes use violent rhetoric (like in the "five hundred heads" quote that people love to throw around with no context), that was pretty much the norm for political journals at the time. they were sensational and emotional and dramatic and hyperbolic. that was pretty much the stylistic standard. if you compare marat's paper with, say, hebert's or even desmoulins's, you'll find he's actually pretty academic and straightforward for the era.

2) if you try to counter my first point with "but the september massacres", you need to know that marat was not directly responsible for those either. the narrative that he caused it stems from the fact that he put out an issue of his paper a little while before the massacres that said some stuff about taking up arms to defend the homeland from conspirators and traitors, etc. etc. except, y'know, a bunch of people were saying stuff like that in their papers (see above). it's true that he didn't explicitly condemn the massacres, but nobody in the government really wanted to talk about it because of how messy of a situation it was. someone else even said something like "we will draw the curtain over this event and leave its judgement to posterity".

3) robespierre.... did not cause the "reign of terror". in fact they did not even call it the reign of terror at the time (historians came up with that later). actually, if we want to get pedantic, the term terreur had a very different connotation in the 18th century than it does now, but I digress. robespierre was the subject of a massive smear campaign when his coworkers realized they couldn't make him shut up about various crimes that they were involved in and killed him to keep him from airing out their dirty laundry. they also killed a bunch of his political allies because they couldn't have them exonerating him, could they? look it up it's actually wild. so they blamed him for all the issues that the government had, even the ones he was trying to fix (he opposed the shitshow in lyons and nantes, cautioned against needless bloodshed, abhorred the practice of treating executions as a spectacle). also he didn't actually have nearly as much power as people seem to think now. he was a member of the national convention (the french republic's elected legislative body), and a member of the committee of public safety (a council elected from members of the convention to deal with the escalating war situation and some other stuff). he was not the leader of the CSP (which did not have a leader) or the convention (which had a presidency that was mostly ceremonial and worked on a rotating basis). he also never sentenced anyone to death because it was the tribunals that did that, not the convention or CSP.

4) the time period that is generally considered the "reign of terror" (as flawed a concept as that is) is usually placed after the assassination of marat. because a big reason for the paranoia that led to the escalation of security measures was the fact that marat was killed. marat was seen as kind of unkillable by the people of paris (won his own political show trial, etc.) so if you could kill marat, you could kill anyone. so it's kind of hard to say what marat would've supported or not supported after he died, especially since his death itself heavily influenced the next stage of the revolution.

5) charlotte corday wasn't even a monarchist. she was aligned with the girondins, who were moderate republicans in favor of the free market. she didn't like marat because marat was calling the girondins corrupt in his newspaper after a prominent girondin official turned traitor and deserted to the austrians (whom france was at war with). not entirely sure what she thought she would accomplish with this, because a great way to make your political faction seem really corrupt is to brutally murder a guy for criticizing it.

6) a bunch of people actually tried to stop marat through various means, legal and illegal. namely lafayette and brissot and capet and barbaroux and necker and... you get the picture. charlotte corday was just the one that succeeded.

a final point: why do you criticize marat for "encouraging" (but never committing) murder while you simultaneously praise corday for committing a literal actual murder? only one of the three people (marat, robespierre, corday) you mentioned actually killed anybody, and it wasn't marat or robespierre.

#discourse #marat #french revolution #frev #robespierre #I do not have the energy for this

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tadpolebobatea · 1 month

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Day 7 - A song you associate with UU

Oh girlies we're really in it now. its still the 31st somewhere right?

I never know whether to call something an animatic or not. like its kinda static? whatever!!!!

youtube

(Yep its billytella again. no apologies. i wont mean them)

i had a few other songs i was considering. i mean I have a couple songs that are A. more actively billytella or B. more actively Undead unluck.

specifically "the truth" by the front bottoms, its very billytella to me with its whole "i will believe in anything you believe in. i will do it for you" and "over at the frankenstein place" from rocky horror, its super sweet and uplifting but rocky horror is complete balls to the wall insanity, which i think suits undead unluck, like theres a quote thats lovely out of context but then the context is "the character is in the middle of trying to kill the anthropomorphic concept of spring with a card game." i think rocky suits that energy

in the end i couldn't get the imagery to work in my head. so maybe another time.

This thing really is my excuse t draw the blorbos in the most sappy poses possible. (oh and to make more people listen to will wood )

Images i think deserve special mention (there are 90+ in the thing btw)

this one of wet dog tella. it goes by super fast but i thought it was charming

i was possessed by something and had to draw tella like... giving billy water directly from his hands (oh and the visual of going bottoms up with an unbrella wasnt the vibe necessarily )

pretty proud of this detail, direct gunshot to the head from our dead eye billy and scattered body shots from tella, for flavour

(i regret the blue skin. i made billy look like the purple guy.)

drawing billy like a ditzy clumsy anime girl is deeply funny to me. cutie pie.

gently holds ughhhhhh (Tellla does not enjoy being known)

Im a total sucker for characters hugging in general. but i really love the whole; clinging to you as the only thing thats keeping me sane thing

They are married. to me. (this is the only time ive successfully drawn the back of tellas head. i wanted to highlight it. im really proud)

i did have an ounce of consistency in this whole thing regarding heights. was entirely based on vibes. I need actual measurements (ill ignore them. but theyd be nice to have)

this image exists because i was like "oh shit. i have a ton of "characters facing eachother and doing X" but no like... diverse profiles" so boop, moe over the shoulder shot

#undead unluck #uuweek2024 #uu tella #uu billy #billytella #undead unluck spoilers #god i just realised theres a mistake in this thing.#its like nearly 4am. ill fix it tomorrow Or never #ITS DONE CAT! I DID IT #Youtube

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leafykat · 2 months

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ATLA LIVE ACTION RANT/MANIFESTO

After watching it I started typing and couldn't stop. Sorry it's really really long and probably not very coherent.

(Since I wrote this, Big Joel put up a vid on his side channel talking about his thoughts on the first episode and he had a lot of points I agree with so watch that too if you’re interested) <- eta: ok jk sorry it already got taken off youtube it's only on his patreon now

I really dislike starting the story with the beginning of the war. It's like they don’t trust the audience enough to care about the protagonists without laying out all the Big Important World Context out right at the start, or they don’t trust us enough to understand non-linear storytelling. I’m trying really hard not to just hate on changes simply for being different than the show I grew up with, because god knows I have my own issues with it. There are scenes that are nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remakes of the original, which makes the parts they change really jarring and frustrating. I don't mind the way they combined some episodes or storylines or changed some details, like, June being the one who hits on Iroh instead of the other way around, but other changes just feel like they either miss something fundamental (to me) about the characters or the story or are just… arbitrary, which is almost worse.

One thing that REALLY frustrated me right from the start was that Aang wasn’t actually trying to run away. He goes flying to “clear his head” and gets caught in a storm coincidentally right as he says “ok Appa let’s head home”. Why? Everyone treats him like a coward anyway. Everyone is way meaner to him than in the cartoon about something that, in this version of the story, objectively was not his fault. Why? In the cartoon, he feels intense shame that he wasn’t there for everyone, even though he was twelve and about to be taken from the only person that wanted him to have a childhood, and he got so overwhelmed and scared by what the world expected from him that he tried to run away from it. In the live action, he gets to reunite with the spirit of Gyatso, who says, “you couldn’t have done anything if you had stayed. You just would have died,” (paraphrasing bc I can’t be bothered to give it more views just to get exact quotes) which is fine, I don’t think he needed a spirit world reunion with Gyatso but I can accept it. But if that’s what that gives Aang closure, what is the point of changing him to be less responsible for disappearing? In the cartoon Katara is the one who reassures Aang and helps him process his guilt, representing the people of the present who he can still help. The live action has the voice of the past, the people that he’s ‘failed’, reaching forward in time to absolve him of any sins. And remember that in this version he literally was trying to go home. It just feels like they’re trying to remove moral complexity from his character.

Less importantly (except to me maybe) I think that showing us the Air Temple pre-genocide removes impact of seeing it for the first time in the cartoon. I loved Aang hyping it up to Katara and Sokka, unwilling to believe that it could have fallen. It almost makes the viewer think maybe some of them could have survived in secret. Then, the contrast between his idyllic memories and reality start to sink in. It was an incredibly hard-hitting moment, dulled in live action by the audience having seen exactly what happened to the temple already (including an incredibly hamfisted “you can’t beat us while we have the power of the comet!” line from who I think was Sozin.) I think Momo is pretty cute though.

Another thing that pissed me off was the way they handled the Agni Kai: They combine Zuko's duels with Zhao and Ozai into one, where Zuko not only fights back against his father but gets an opportunity to deliver (presumably) a winning blow and hesitates. This choice weakens important aspects of his backstory and, to me, flattens his relationship with Ozai: 1) That he was never a prodigy firebender like Azula, feeding the inferiority complex that Ozai fostered 2) The Agni Kai was meant to be public humiliation, meant to teach Zuko ‘respect’. It was in front of hundreds of people, and it was a thirteen-year-old child against a full grown firebending master. Zuko prostrates himself and begs his father for mercy. His refusal to even fight embarrasses Ozai by exemplifying the 'weakness' Zuko's mother 'instilled' in him. In his duel with Zhao, Zuko makes a conscious choice to be merciful despite Zhao telling him to “do it” and kill him. Despite knowing how the fire nation views it as weakness, as cowardice, especially in this specific setting. It foreshadows his later choices, and shows his innate kindness. Combining the two duels doesn't allow us to see that parallel nor that growth. Reducing his act of mercy to a mere hesitation in the moment of victory, furthermore, reduces his agency.

In fact, the adaptation softens a lot of Zuko's role as an antagonist, giving most of his actually villainous actions from the cartoon to other characters. They keep him capturing Aang in the South Pole, but Zhao leads the attack on Kyoshi village, they remove the episode with the pirates (s1e9), combine aspects of episode s1e15 ‘Bato of the Water Tribe’ with ‘the Blue Spirit’ (s1e13) and ‘the winter solstice’ (s1e7/8) removing three instances of Zuko capturing or attacking Aang in favor of one with Zhao capturing and Zuko rescuing him. But I guess they add a fight in Omashu. Look, this is inevitable as a result of combining 20 episodes into 8. I don’t really mind streamlining a lot of these episodes, nor removing others (having episodes like ‘the great divide’ and ‘the fortuneteller’ only referenced as rumors Zuko hears in a bar is cute, to be honest), though the change to the Bato episode where Sokka merely has a flashback of his father implying he thinks Sokka is an incompetent warrior is a really unnecessary and bad change, to me. But they took out almost every instance of Zuko posing an actual threat to Aang and replaced it with one fight scene in Omashu. To me, what it feels like is the show runners know Zuko is going to become a Good Guy and thus they don’t want to make him act too Bad.

On the topic of Kyoshi island: giving Aang a reason to go there aside from wanting to ride the giant Koi, whatever. Removing Sokka’s chauvinism, okay, I guess. But it ends up replaced with extremely awkward flirting between him and Suki that feels motivated by nothing beyond each being the first non-relative young adult of their preferred gender either one has ever met. Whether or not you want to have Sokka start off sexist, and that could be a whole conversation on its own, him humbling himself enough to ask Suki for instruction was an important moment of growth for him that he doesn’t really have in this version. And they don’t even put Sokka in the dress and makeup!!! BOO! Also minor moment but I think it’s also sus for the show to have Suki remove her makeup as soon as it’s time for her to be a love interest and then just not wear it again. BOO!! She looked really cool though. It’s not like I think her first appearance in the cartoon is full of depth or whatever, and I think the cartoon turned her into a cardboard cutout as soon as she became a love interest, but it’s like the live action clipped through a wall straight to my least favorite parts of s3 Suki. It’s just disappointing. I also don’t like Aang being able to just talk to Kyoshi and his other past lives so easily but that might just be my cartoon-purist talking.

I didn’t mind putting Jet and Teo into Omashu, even though I think Danny Pudi’s ‘I had no choice’ justification for working for the Fire Nation holds up less well when he’s in a position of privilege in an Earth Kingdom stronghold as opposed to protecting a community of refugees in an isolated air temple. I don’t think they needed to add the Cave of Lovers plot from season 2 into the mix though. Not only that, but to rework that plotline so that 1) Aang isn’t even there, 2) it’s Sokka’s idea to put out their lights and follow the crystals, 3) that’s not actually The Solution 4) badgermoles can sense…. Emotions???????? Sorry that’s so fucking stupid it makes me angry. They include the legend where Oma and Shu learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so why would these giant creatures have learned to sense human emotion instead of the pre-existing explanation from the cartoon: sensing the world through the earth. You know, the thing that connects them to Toph’s earthbending. I guess setting up stuff as far away as… next season… isn’t important. They used the stuff from the season 2 episode “the swamp” for aspects of the winter solstice plot anyway, which is where Aang originally had a vision of Toph and thus was able to identify her as an earthbender in spite of her appearance. I guess they can come up with something else, but it’s just a decision that feels arbitrary. Sokka could have had his flashback without the spirit vision, but since this is before he meets and loses Yue they needed something, I guess. At this point I’m describing these changes not necessarily because I think they’re inherently bad but because I want to describe how fragile this jenga tower is getting, and how unnecessary they feel.

Ultimately it’s like… the things they’re the most faithful to are all the most surface-level easter egg references, while missing or changing the actual soul of the source material. Gran Gran gives the opening monologue word-for-word because Fans Will Get It. They include Bumi’s rock candy trick and lettuce leaf joke but make him resentful and angry at Aang for no reason I can understand. Sokka isn’t sexist anymore, he just has issues where his dad apparently thinks he ‘shouldn’t have lives in his hands’. Ozai is… wait- is he tearing up while he scars Zuko’s face?

I know we all love Daniel Dae Kim but we did not need Ozai so much this season, let alone Azula, let alone Mai and Ty Lee. We especially didn’t need a scene where Ozai praises Zuko to Azula while belittling her. For the record, because people defending this scene seem to think the issue is that the rest of us fail to understand that Ozai is playing his children against each other: That is not the issue. It’s that he did not play his children against each other in this specific way. He uses Azula to show Zuko how much he fails to measure up and threaten his position as heir, and he uses the example of Zuko’s failure to keep Azula in line. If she’s good enough and Zuko is bad enough maybe she’ll become heir. After all, that’s what happened to Ozai and Iroh. They are allowed to change this dynamic in adaptation but personally I think it’s a change for the worse, and the shot of tears in his eyes as he abuses his son lends credibility to an interpretation that maybe he does want Zuko to succeed. Lol. The cartoon focuses on Iroh’s reaction, his inability to watch, instead of Ozai’s… emotional conflict? Or whatever.

Katara and Sokka getting stuck in the spirit world as a replacement for their fever in The Blue Spirit is fine, I think condensing that plot and the winter solstice works decently. It’s fine that they changed Aang’s motivation for finding Roku to be getting info on how to save his friends instead of getting crucial info about Sozin’s Comet. After all, they clumsily introduced that in episode 1. It’s honestly fine (Read with as much cope in my voice as you want.) Combining that with Zuko’s half of The Storm is also…. Okay, even if I’ve already described why I don’t like how they adapted Zuko’s backstory. What frustrates me is that The Storm parallels Aang and Zuko’s backstories in a way that works really well with the events in The Blue Spirit. In fact, they’re back-to-back episodes. But the live action has moved Aang’s backstory to the beginning of the first episode. So instead of getting to see how they’re both constrained by the roles and times they were born into, and how heavily others’ expectations weigh on both of them, we have to have Aang explicitly spell it out for us. Rewatching these two episodes of the cartoon I was just really struck by how efficient the storytelling is. All Aang has to say after he’s saved Zuko is that he misses his friend from the Fire Nation, and that he wonders if he and Zuko could have been friends if they’d been born into a different time. All Zuko has to do is attack him in response. Because we’ve just seen why they can’t be friends in this time, in this world. The live action has to create some plot point about Aang having stolen Zuko’s diary, and Zuko having researched Airbender culture or something. They bond a little bit over brushes before Aang goes like ‘why don’t you turn against your family?’ The conversation (before that part) is cute, just like, not a good replacement for trusting the audience.

I guess once we’ve gotten this far it doesn’t matter much that Katara and Sokka have been captured by Koh, because of course they were. Yeah, they changed how it works, yeah, now he steals your face once you’ve succumbed to despair or something. Whatever. At this point it feels like nitpicking to point out that what made Koh so scary was that he would steal your face if you showed him any emotion at all. Who cares anymore.

^ok I wrote most of that before having seen the last two episodes, which cover the last three episodes of the first season of the cartoon. Dude it got even worse somehow. It’s been a couple days and my friends and I rewatched all of s1 of the original show in the meantime.

First of all, the changes to the dynamic between Hahn, Sokka, and Yue were completely inexplicable to me. Yue gets nominally ‘empowered’ in the sense that she’s no longer trapped in an arranged marriage to a total shithead, but at the same time they made Hahn seem like a… genuinely good guy? He’s humble, asks Sokka for his expertise, and nobly accepts that Yue broke up with him. When asked about it, Yue says ‘he’s great, he’s just not the guy of my dreams’, before kissing Sokka. (They also reveal that she was the sexy fox spirit that flirted with Sokka in the spirit world —I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t think it mattered at the time— so I guess we are meant to believe that Sokka is the boy of her dreams. Which we know from these two and a half conversations that manage to be way less cute than the awkward/shy flirting from the original show.) Even if they wanted to completely change Hahn’s character, Yue’s conflict in the original show was between her heart and what she saw as her responsibility to her people. They could just as easily have kept that element: that she isn’t in love with Hahn, but that for Political Reasons can’t just break things off. That’s way more interesting! But I do love a forbidden romance, so maybe that’s just me. The adaptation does say that they were at one point betrothed, which raises more questions than it answers. If both of their parents were anticipating this marriage so much that they set it up years in advance, why were they okay with her just breaking things off because she didn’t like him like that? Are arranged marriages in the Northern Water Tribe (I’m so sorry I forgot the name they gave it in this adaptation) purely meant to be love matches? There’s no financial or political element at all? Even for a princess? Whatever. Hahn still dies, this time it’s just offscreen. This time I’m actually a little sad for him, if just for his wasted potential.

They actually take out the engagement necklace stuff altogether, including the history between Pakku and Katara’s grandma, and the story of how and why she fled. I don’t really know why but maybe they thought “you lost the so-called love of your life to backward practices” was a weak reason to change his mind. So instead they have it that he doesn’t change his mind but it turns out Katara doesn’t need a master anyway because she’s already good enough to be a master! Despite not having been able to waterbend ‘more than a thimbleful’ before meeting Aang, and us not really getting to see her train at all. Gran Gran gave her the waterbending scroll she stole from the pirates in the cartoon, so I guess we can assume that contained everything you’d ever need to know. She loses the fight but wins the hearts and minds of the people. The women of the tribe support her when she goes against Pakku and go “we want to fight too!” Oh, did I mention this is all after they realize the Fire Navy is at their doorstep, so it’s less a fight about the right to learn waterbending than about the right to fight in war. And then again the issue of Katara needing to learn from Pakku is sidestepped by her magically being good enough now on her own. I don’t actually mind the change to include other women from the North standing up against sexism but to be honest I don’t understand taking out the betrothal stuff. It was a deliberate parallel in the cartoon- women trapped in loveless arranged marriages and also forbidden from learning any waterbending aside from healing. But whatever, it’s a choice. I can live with it.

What I don’t like is the way they’ve undermined Katara’s journey in season 1. Aang teaches Katara how to waterbend at first, and she also doesn’t learn to heal on her own before an elder shows her how to do it. In the cartoon, she’s been trying and figuring things out on her own all her life. Her hunger to find someone to teach her is a major motivator for why she wants to go to the North Pole. We see her struggle, get intensely frustrated and jealous that Aang picks up waterbending more naturally than she does, and work really hard at it. Her dedication and hard work are what Pakku eventually praises about her when he teaches her. He compares her to Aang, who is naturally talented but distracted. This is after an indeterminate amount of time, but whatever, condensed timeline, 8 episodes, whatever. We don’t even see Aang waterbend at all this season, which is kind of wild to me. I guess if you take out the Summer Solstice Comet deadline to master all four elements (which they did) Aang doesn’t really need to rush. Instead they kind of just have Aang have a thing of like “I have my friends to help me” which is….. ok….. Oh wait, is this why they don’t care that much about foreshadowing Toph? Are they just not gonna bother having Aang learn the elements and just have her show up and join them for whatever reason? Is that why they just totally removed ‘The Deserter’? Wait sorry, I’m assuming they’re planning that far in advance at all, my bad.

Okay also like I have to talk about this because it bothers me so much. Zhao was handled so badly. Whatever, have a Fire sage just give him the moon/ocean spirit exposition in a flashback instead of the way it unfolded in the cartoon (I guess we’re already not bothering to set up the great library since the gaang already met wan shi tong, I guess that’s… fine… Appa can get captured a different way, if they’re even going to bother with that plotline in season 2. If they’re even going to do a season 2.) Sure, the moon and ocean spirits are only in the physical realm and vulnerable for ‘only one night’ now as opposed to permanently. Zhao knows this but not that they’re fish. Okay. Whatever. Blah blah blah. Those are personal nitpicks. But what really gets me is that in the end, Iroh and Zuko kill Zhao. Or rather, Zuko doesn’t finish him off, Zhao tries to attack when his back is turned, and Iroh finishes him off (similar to the way their Agni Kai in the cartoon plays out.) In the cartoon, Zhao and Zuko are fighting, Aang-as-Ocean-Spirit grabs Zhao, and Zuko reaches out to try and help Zhao, which Zhao refuses. He chooses to meet his fate at the hands of the spirits he provoked rather than swallow his pride. This is such a good conclusion to Zhao’s character! The live action also fails to set Zhao up as a formidable firebender, which is also not strictly necessary but I think complements other elements of his character well. His first episode in the cartoon includes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko, establishing Zhao both as a firebending master and as someone who values his ambition and pride above all else. In s1e16, ‘the deserter’ we see him as the embodiment of fire’s destructive hunger: he is baited into destroying his own ships in his desire to “win” his fight with Aang. He gloats of how his siege of the North Pole will earn him a place in the history books, and to win he is willing to kill the moon, against Iroh’s exhortations. In the live action, we get a weird revelation that he was working with Azula, and she was the mastermind behind a lot of his plans? Huh? He also “reveals” that Ozai was only ever using Zuko to “motivate his sister”, which is both incredibly heavy-handed and completely redundant. I guess I should mention that the finale has a couple scenes thrown in where Azula is doing firebending training to pass some kind of arbitrary Test Ozai has set for her, while Mai and Ty Lee watch and tell her that her dad is like, being way too hard on her and she knows he’s manipulating her right? Thanks girls!

Anyway, I guess since the live-action completely removed the golden child/failure dynamic between Azula and Zuko we needed something to replace it. The “my father always said Azula was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born” line summed up that relationship dynamic nicely. Oh well, who needs it. Instead Zuko is good enough to have beaten Ozai in a duel at 13, but Ozai decided he was weak for hesitating. Meanwhile Azula is struggling to meet his expectations. He banished his heir on a mission that, for the last hundred years, was considered a complete dead-end, so that he could, uhhhhh, Motivate her when he miraculously started succeeding. Masterful gambit, sir. Okay sorry to harp on that again. Back to Zhao. Actually, what else is there to say. He has a couple funny lines but he’s just not the same guy at all on either a superficial or deeper level. It’s so disappointing. It’s also just a really weak choice to make Iroh and Zuko responsible for his death. Maybe they couldn’t figure out how to make the special effects look good when the ocean spirit picked him up. It just misses the point of Zhao’s ultimate tragedy, to me. The man so lacking in self-control, so ambitious, so assured in his own superiority, that he saw the spirits themselves as his prey. To be destroyed by the forces he tried to destroy is so poetic! Instead let’s water down Zuko’s mercy and Iroh’s pacifism.

This is all I can remember at this point aside from nitpicks. Do I think the Koh vs Kuruk backstory needed to be spelled out like that? No. Did we need to almost have Momo DIE to get Sokka and Yue to the oasis? Not really. I don’t think the way Zhao “assassinated” Zuko in the live action made as much sense, but we took out the pirates so oh well.

When you get to a certain point I guess the question becomes ‘how much can you change in an adaptation and still call it an adaptation’. What do adaptations owe to their source material? Where does the spirit of a story reside? If the same plot beats happen, does it matter if characters are different? If the characters are faithful, does it matter if events are moved around? If the destination is the same, how much does it matter how you get there? What do I personally want to see in a ‘live-action’ adaptation of Avatar, this show that I loved so much growing up? Well, assuming that “don’t make one” isn’t a possibility, I would have preferred they follow more in One Piece’s footsteps. That adaptation wasn’t perfect either, and it condensed around 100 chapters of manga into 8 hours, but it really felt like it got the characters right. Avatar had a tough job too, but it condensed 7 hours 40 minutes of cartoon into 8 hours of- wait. No. Well at least we got the cabbage merchant.

#u guys dont even know how much the original shaped my adolescence....#for that reason i was probably the most annoying person possible to watch the remake with #thank u to my friends

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asteria7fics · 2 months

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I got tagged by @1moreoffkeyanthem to share a little ~something something~ from my current WIP, and though I don't usually share parts of a rough draft I couldn't ignore the call.

So here's a snippet from my current, still untitled WIP, with quite literally zero context! Enjoy!

(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

CW for some strong language and weiner talk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh God, oh fuck!” Kenny held his head in his hands. Poor Butters. No wonder he was looking at Kenny like that. He must have been crushed.

“Dude, keep it down!” Kyle pleaded in a hushed voice.

“I-… I have to go,” Kenny sputtered, “I can’t be here.”

“Kenny, I wouldn’t-…”

There was no stopping him. Kenny was already out of Kyle's bedroom, flying past Ike and Gerald as they were just coming through the front door, both clearly confused to see this random teen fleeing their home in such a hurry.

“Jesus, what was that about?” Gerald muttered under his breath.

“Probably got scared off by Kyle’s deformed dick,” Ike mused as he pulled his shoes off.

“Ike! Don’t make fun of your brother’s penis, he can’t help that it’s misshapen.”

“Gerald!” Sheila came through the kitchen doorway, frowning at her husband, “Kyle’s penis is perfectly fine!”

“No,” Gerald scoffed, “it’s definitely not. Have you seen it lately?”

“It’s so weird,” Ike confirmed, passing them to get a snack from the kitchen.

“Would everyone stop talking about my fucking penis!?” Kyle screeched from the top of the stairs, having intended to follow Kenny but lost track of that mission the minute he heard Ike mention his name. “Goddamnit!”

“Kyle!” Gerald scolded loudly, appearing at the bottom of the stairs, “language!”

“Gah!!” Kyle threw his hands up and stormed back into his room, slamming the door behind him.

“Kyle! The door!” Sheila called after him, which produced another loud, frustrated exclamation from her son.

“That kid seriously needs to lighten up,” Gerald muttered to his wife, who frowned at him when he turned to her, “what?” She rolled her eyes and waved him off, turning to go back into the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This particular section was selected by my roomie, who doesn't use Tumblr otherwise I'd tag her! I quote Kyle's 'would everyone stop talking about my fucking penis' at her constantly, she's such a trooper.

I'm very bad at tagging people, so I'll just throw @shhh-secret-time into the ring and see myself out.

ʕ •ɷ•ʔฅ

#it had to be this part #sorry guys i only feed crumbs #rough draft is almost done though #im so ready to actually edit this thing #south park #fanfiction #kenny mccormick #kyle broflovski

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sublieu · 1 year

Text

𝙎𝙢𝙪𝙩𝙩𝙮 𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙮

✖- this is a continuation of my previous smutty friday fic. For more context I suggest reading it first. - 【sublieu】

wc - 1.0k words

cw - Interspecies, biting, overstim, marking, [semi] ABO dynamics, humping, unprotected seggs, blood [mentioned], [semi?] dirty talk, begging [mentioned]

ref - ⚉ ⚆ ⚇

moots - @yellowaxol @mortal-mayhem @zmzsnakes

music - Get You/ Daniel Caesar, Kali Uchis

copyright: "All quotes, wording and editing belong to ©sublieu 2022; Do not attempt to claim, steal or copy this post as your own"

"They're not gonna believe me after this" He groans and starts his car before driving off. He may have to come over sometime...Probably every other day.

And so he did, every other day or when he's not busy he comes around. Which was typically every few weeks rather than days, but you were happy that he came back after that incident. From watching you create helper bots to huddling with you to watch tv, things were going great.

Until it came again, a few days before you expected time and whilst Redson was still here. You hid away from him for days until he forced himself into entering your home, not really knowing what he's putting himself into until he caught whiff of your sugary sweet smell and putting two and two together before you could attack him again; Holding you back and keeping his eyes closed as he tries to reason with you to no avail.

Your tail slowly starts to wrap around his legs as you gained more strength until he forces your head upwards and bites on your neck in a quick maneuver. Making you stop in your tracks and go limp the rougher he bites on your neck as his teeth were right near your scent gland and lie down on his shoulder as your tail rattled, His clothes were slightly tatter but he could fix it back anytime.

The way how he stares away and tries to process what exactly was happening he heard you start purring and huddling closer to him, still in your dazed trance to be bred as your hands started taking off his clothes.

"Hey easy now, remember I'm unprotected." "I don't care~"

You purr against his neck as your tongue trailed up to his ear before kissing it, gently pulling him down to your carpet as he grabs your butt. Leaving kiss marks and hickeys all the way to his chest, giggling when he lifts your shirt up to touch your boobs; His hands trailing ever so closely to your pussy.

Until he stands up with you in hand and lifts you up, his pressing in between your legs and pressing right on your clit, moaning about how warm and slick it feels from just the outside alone. So desperate to put it in, but refusing out of fear that you could be pregnant, his hip thrusting in between your warm, squishy legs; Wrapping your arms around his neck to support yourself.

"There we go, see was this so hard hm?" He whispers to you, if only you had legs you would've collapsed already from just his dirty talk alone. Trailing his hands down your body, whispering how he loves every part and curve on your body, from your stretchmarks to your face; It was as if the world stopped and it was just you and him, alone and enamored with each other.

You couldn't help but whimper and beg 'please', 'I need this please Redson', but he only coos you down and hushes you quietly by rubbing faster, giving you the feeling you so desperately wanted and thanking him as your tail rattled happily against his leg. Thanking him by kissing him even deeper.

He couldn't help but chuckle in the kiss the longer it got, to the point where your hands couldn't detangle from his hair as wet, sloppy kisses left a drooling mess on your chest. Now sitting you down on your coffee table and putting your tail over his shoulder as he rubs even harder, His hair acting as a curtain and covering you as you held onto anything close by. His rubbing feeling too good to even register it as fucking as a tear slipped from your eyes; Your hands now wrapping around his neck again as you shared a final kiss before cumming on his cock. Your juices coating and leaking your back and onto the table.

But he doesn't stop, if anything he goes even faster and coaxing you to cum even more whilst being extremely sensitive. You nails digging into his back to the point where it was bleeding, but he couldn't care as he was trying to cum himself; Putting a leg up on your coffee table and near your chest, his cock throbbing harshly at the speed he was going.

His har lit aflame and his leg pressing so hard against the table you could heard the wood breaking. But you didn't care, not when you wanted another release. Your eyes starting the change color into a drippy, hazy effect as your mind was starting to fog.

Till he finally cums, most of it landing on your stomach and just a little under your breasts as you came again and sunk your nails deeper inside his back as you came again before slowly going to sleep. Your hands going limp as he lifts you off the table right when it broke.

"Well damn." He mutters and hears his phone ringing and looks on the caller id to identify who it was. Groaning when he saw Mei's face pop up on the scree and putting you down on the couch before answering.

"WHERE ARE YOU?! WE HAVE ANOTHER SITUATION WITH THE PI-HEY PUT IT BACK!"

She starts and cusses off the random monster touching her stuff. He scratches he head and shows her the marks on his neck to explain better. Not wanting to explain through his lips.

"Damn she did a number on you! anyways are you free now or nah cus we can call up Wukong to help?"

"Yea I'm kinda busy at the moment, I'll come over when I'm done" "Aight hurry up! I need my belt for this thing." She hangs up and he pretty much imagines what she'll be doing with her belt and cringing out how much pain the thing'll be in. Looking back and carrying you to your bed and cleaning you up before putting you to rest and lighting a cig. Trying so hard to ignore the extreme pain his back was in.

#lego monkie kid redson x reader #redson x reader #redson smut #lmk redson x reader #lego monkie kid x reader #lmk x reader #lmk x y/n #lmk smut #lego monkie kid smut #lmk redson smut #lmk redson #lmk red son #lmk red boy

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gayofthefae · 3 months

Text

Here it is. The Mike Wheeler Playlist Post.

So I finished it. What seems to be the end of season 4, at least. I am avoiding spoilers for myself. All 28 songs from Smalltown Boy to Mad World. Here is what I have deduced:

Mike got over El after she left and started liking Will, but when she came back, he got with her motivated by the grief of “what could have been” but once they got together he felt that the relationship was aimless, only staying because it was familiar. He pursued getting back together with her because he didn’t want to lose her, despite feeling that the spark wasn’t there anymore. His fight with Will makes him question their relationship again but he ultimately doesn’t believe Will reciprocates and regrets even going back down that path. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when Will moves. He can’t get Will out of his head and, though secrecy is the only safe thing, he’s getting worn down with it and is increasingly considering taking action in his relationship with El because his feelings for Will make him happy and don’t seem to be going anywhere. He’s getting anxious as it gets closer but Will talking to him in the van gives him a lot of security, but then the moment comes and he lies and feels absolutely horrible about it. He feels like he’s just running in circles. More inaction. Over a year now of just inaction.

There are 19 songs left which feels like a lot for one season as I've said before but in defense of that on top of just the consistent alignment with plot points in the playlist this far, season 5 is going to go back in and reveal a lot of this stuff with some very complicated emotions and much more focus on him, his feelings, his trauma, and his overall relationship with Will. So there IS a lot there to fill songs with. If you would like to read my original semi-chaotic notes from the past 5 hours(you read that correctly. You're welcome. And yes I know the full playlist I didn't even finish is only 3.5 hours) listed by song and including bits I skipped over so that it wouldn't be horribly long, lyric quotes, and one link to a cover analysis, you can do so under the cut.

Scared closeted gay kid in a smalltown in the 80s (confirmed by the songwriter, widely known in this fandom)

He sees Will everywhere.

This girl’s really cool and knows about things I don’t

Alien abduction - ET Parallels.

This song is an instrumental but the title “In The Face of Evil” is self-explanatory

El heroically sacrificed herself for everyone. She is a hero because she is the type of person to make that choice.*sweet that his love isn't hero worship, that's just how he conveys it.

He’s haunted by the memories of El, seeing her face everywhere.

Over time, “absence makes the heart lose weight” and his feelings for her fade

He’s starting to experience a new and scarily tempting, intoxicating kind of love. (based on context…for Will)

This song is an instrumental but the title is “Beta Girl Lost in Forever”. There is a great cover art analysis by @digestionsack at #20 of the post linked here but I could not find anything on the original meaning of the song or album. I couldn't find like anything else on Google of this one's meaning there were under 300 results when I searched in quotes.

This song is a duet that looks back on the relationship of a boy who helped lift up a girl from a very low and helpless place but the girl is now gone and he wants her to need him again and a girl who always had ambitions not dependent on him from the start and appreciated the time they spent together but needed independence now.

He feels an uncontrollable love that’s taking all his focus that he “can’t shake” but “makes [him] feel so blue” (for Will given the last love song)*this is to say nothing of his self awareness. (though could have convinced himself he got over it as opposed to never having known? *consistent with the s3 fight words)

A song about teenage love. Kinda horny.*He's in love and a little bit horny in the season checks notes...without El?

It’s “Ghostbusters”. It makes sense in a literal context but for the record this song is actually very 80s-under the radar-horny like “Barbie Girl”. Probably literal in this case but I’m sure the Duffers know about the second meaning and so maybe it shouldn’t be put right after Teenage Kicks if they aren’t trying to make me at least consider the possibility that they’re meaning to say Mike is jerking off to Will, possibly while he’s possessed. I didn’t need that, Pete Duffer. (Although 13-year-old boys definitely do. I remember the back of the bus conversations on middle school jazz band trips. I'm all for openness and sex education but I know too much about your masturbatory habits, Ben.)

El comes back and he reflects on how their relationship ended so suddenly and she branched out into independence but now that she’s back he’s not gonna let her get away again.*seems like he wants to fix the past vs take action in the present. What could have been. Acting on behalf of his past self.

Their relationship feels aimless to him, but he stays because it’s familiar. “I’ll carry on with what I know”.*her dumping HIM was an important push for him.

Making mistakes is human and a natural part of relationships. He stays in the relationship despite the spark dying out of a larger, more general love for her and because he doesn’t want to lose her. “If not so in love, it’s not so wrong, we’re only human after all.”*feeling an obligation to get her back because while not dating, she's gone completely (at first)?

He left Will/his feelings for him behind but he’s reminded of them by their fight (“little deals and S.U’s”) and he questions the nature of their relationship again but he doesn’t think that it means to Will what it means to him. “A sly touch at times; I don’t think it meant anything to you”. He regrets even going down that road again. “And I should never have tried”.

He’s going to miss them when they move, seeming to specify Will with “seven years went under the bridge”. He doesn’t know what to do without him now.*this song might sort of also explain why he didn't call if he didn't but it's not sure and there are no other songs about it, so he still could have called("if you leave don't look back, I'll be running the other way" but not every lyric has to apply and it could mean something else)

He’s now set/stuck in his desire for Will and can’t get him out of his head. (I considered an angle of this being for El, but the constant thinking about the lover + the interpretation of unreciprocated a love/a pursuit didn’t fit)*one of the interpretations I read also said they think it's about a gay guy which is a great addition, though not an "official" interpretation.

He feels safest in isolation/secrecy (car=closet?) “It’s the only way to live” but he’s wearing down and feeling lonely/alone in this state so he’s starting to consider “leaving” it.

He definitely still has feelings for Will that don’t seem to be going anywhere. They’re kinda…baffling “You got me so I don’t know what I’m doing”. He’s losing sleep over them. But…he’s not mad at it “don’t ever set me free”.

He criticizes himself for his inaction and starts to seriously think about making decisions for himself.

He’s in love. (very simple lyrics: “I saw your eyes, and for a little while/though it took a while, I was falling in love” repeatedly with minor variation)

He’s worn and broken down but still wants love. He’s holding onto Will in the chaos of his mind and the world and trying to keep out of preying eyes. Also it is apparently written as tribute to Stranger Things after season 1, which is cute. “Just stay close” “You can’t stop this feeling.” “They won’t pull us down”. This song is also called “Vale of Shadows”.

Instrumental Synth called “Dead of Night”

He’s full of uncertainty as seeing El gets closer but Will talking to him in the van comforts him and gives him more security; Will’s love makes it all better. “And she pulling the strings” definitely fits this idea of the situation with Will (especially if he is aware)

He feels horrible about lying to El (The song is “Mad World”). He feels like he’s just “run[ning] in circles”.

Notable lyrics:

[pre-season 2-season 2]

When Love Breaks Down "Absence makes the heart lose weight yeah, til love breaks down, til love breaks down" "When love breaks down, the things you do to stop the truth from hurting you. When love breaks down, the lies we tell, they only serve to fool ourselves." I really thought it would say “grow fonder”, which fit and was cute and I was fine with, but nope. And my jaw went slack and it made me want to write this whole thing.

Love is a Stranger "Love is a stranger in an open car to tempt you in and drive you far away." "Love is a dangerous drug. You have to receive it and you still can't get enough of the stuff." "Comes in like the flood and it seems like religion" "And I want you so, it's an obsession. It's guilt edged."

[season 3]

Something About You “If not so in love, it’s not so wrong. We’re only human, after all.”

Are ‘Friends’ Electric “A sly touch at times. I don’t think it meant anything to you.” “And I never should have tried.” “For you see, it meant everything to me.”

[season 4, volume 2]

Mad World “When people run in circles, it’s a very, very mad world.”

#mike wheeler sexuality analysis #my life #for that one gory detail about jazz band #byler #stranger things #haven't done a full show one of these in a while #i used to do them like every other night in 2022

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zeldahime · 3 months

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Highway to Pail Day 6

[Day 1] [Prev] [Next] @do-it-with-style-events

February 6: I used to hate facial hair, but then it grew on me.

Adam was doing something new with his corporation—no, body, on humans they were called bodies—and Aziraphale didn't like it.

In the Garden, Adam had used a sharp stone to shave the hair off of his head. It itched, Aziraphale had heard him tell Eve, and he liked feeling the warmth of the sun on his face.

But that had been weeks ago, and Adam seems to have stopped using the sharp rocks to shave and certainly couldn't use the flaming sword to do it. Now, hair had completely overcome his face. Tight dark coils covered the top of his head, much like Eve's curls, but unlike Eve, more covered his cheeks, his chin, even the little bit of skin between nose and mouth. He was nearly unrecognizable, save for the fact he was the only human man in existence; it was as though his face had changed completely, the hair obscuring most of it and changing the context of the rest.

It was deeply unsettling, looking at someone he knew and not recognizing them. It was creepy enough when the person was a demon, knowing that it was supposed to happen with them. It was completely unnerving with the new humans. God's new children were made in Her image, which was of course Ineffable; but so had angels been, and angels did not change like this. Aziraphale wasn't sure they could. (No, he knew they could. They could by Falling and becoming demons. That wasn't supposed to be the fate of her new children... right?)

"Aziraphale!" Eve called when she saw him. Adam turned and they both waved, inviting him over to join them.

He accepted a seat by their fire and complimented their clothing, which they had made out of something called "leather" by using a small bone and plant fibers to "sew" bits of dead animal and leaves together. They talked about the world, the wondrous and terrifying and strange things they'd seen, the beautiful and terrible things that were becoming normal. Eventually, there was a bit of a lull in the conversation, and Aziraphale asked:

"Adam, whatever are you doing with your head?"

Adam raised his hand to his head self-consciously, flexing his fingers against the hair covering his cheek and temple. "It just grows like this. I don't know why I have more than Eve, but now that it's not so short it's really comfortable, and it's less work to leave it than to take it all off with a rock every day."

Eve leaned over to him and rubbed their cheeks together. "It's like snuggling with a lamb, or maybe a very black cloud." Adam laid his hand over hers and they sat like that, sharing space and palpable affection.

Aziraphale smiled as his heart melted a bit at the sight. It would have been so easy, he thought, for Adam to have blamed Eve for the apple, to repeat the mistakes of the War without knowing better, but he didn't. If anything, they seemed even closer now, eyes following each other and hands reaching out, while in Eden they had often been content to spend hours or days exploring and playing on their own.

"It's also pretty warm," Adam said, snapping Aziraphale out of his thoughts. "If it gets any colder, maybe I will pray to God to cover the rest of my body as well!" He and Eve laughed, and Aziraphale smiled politely, unsure why this was funny.

"Ah, well, you see, the schematics for human 'bodies' were very clear on this point actually. 'In general, humans will grow very thick hair on the tops of their heads, above their eyes, and their pubic areas; thinner hair on their armpits and legs; and fine hair everywhere else. Many humans, mostly males, will also grow thick hair on the face. Hair will be removable without pain in many cases,'" Aziraphale quoted. "It was made quite clear that the basic outline of the body was final and closed to miraculous intervention early on, you see, because you are made by God in Her image and She was very insistent that Her schematics not be edited."

"Well, I suppose that prayer will go unanswered," replied Adam, unbothered. Eve, on the other hand, looked like she had just discovered mathematics and was attempting to fast-track directly to calculus.

"What about angels?" she asked. "You look more like us than anything else. Are you also made in God's image?" Aziraphale opened his mouth to answer. "The demon was an angel once, he said." Aziraphale's mouth snapped shut. "Was he made in God's image too?"

Yes, Aziraphale wanted to answer, we were, and we are, and I don't know what it means that he was and he isn't.

Instead he panicked and changed the subject back.

"Well! Perhaps I should activate my own hair follicles sometime, if it's as warm as you say! I do think I like it after all, Adam, it's very, oooh! Makes the eyes stand out, you know. Yes. Mm."

Adam gently guided the conversation away, though Eve never quite dropped the subject.

Always full of questions, Eve, and Aziraphale suspected many of her questions were originally Adam's, questions that Adam never quite could bring himself to voice but wanted to know the answers to just as badly.

He'd eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge too, after all.

#my writing #do it with style events #highway to pail #aziraphale #adam and eve good omens #good omens #good omens fanfiction

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suzannahnatters · 4 months

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2023 In Books!

Due to mild fatigue, 2023 was a bad reading year for me - I did not reach my yearly 2-books-a-week goal for the first time since I began logging them, and many of the books I did read did not agree with me. But I still found ten fiction and 7 (!) non-fiction books I had to shout out for the end of the year.

Top 10 Fiction THE RED PALACE by June Hur A historical murder mystery set in Joseon Korea, featuring crystalline prose, a painstakingly evoked historical setting, and an understated romance in a dark atmosphere of terror, secrets, and palace intrigue. Despite being written for a young adult audience, this book impressed me with its complex picture of a deeply flawed real historical context.

TOOTH AND CLAW by Jo Walton A Victorian style comedy of manners in which every single character is a dragon, from the dragon parsons and spirited young lady dragons to the crotchety old dragon dowagers and feckless young dragons-about-town. All of them wear little hats. Sheer cosy perfection.

DRAKE HALL by Christina Baehr My bestie surprised me this year by spontaneously producing four whole novels pitched as "cosy Victorian gothic, with dragons". I haven't read the final edition of DRAKE HALL yet but it's sunshiney, summery, cosy goodness. With dragons.

CRIMSON BOUND by Rosamund Hodge (re-read) A dark and bloody fantasy full of lifegiving female friendship, ride or die siblings, theology, guilt, and stabbings. This one also contains gratuitous St Augustine quotes, a one-page retelling of the VOLUNDARKVIDA, and a love triangle that exists to present the heroine not so much with drama as a proper ethical dilemma.

EMILY WILDE'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett The story of a mildly autistic lady academic researching faeries with her flamboyant rival professor, who is probably secretly an exiled fae king…but the annoying part is his habit of making his students do all his field work. Cosy, thrilling, hilarious.

THE LAST TALE OF THE FLOWER BRIDE by Roshani Chokshi This gothic-infused psychological thriller was dark, creepy, and sometimes heavy, but it's also a tale that flips the roles of innocent maiden and Bluebeard, engages in valid Susan Pevensie Discourse, and ends on what I found to be a genuine note of hope and healing.

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black This book tackles vampirism as a metaphor for the evil hidden in the human heart, and it's epic, bloody, twisty, and monstrous. I couldn't put it down. Not sure I'd recommend it for the target audience, but it's mature and well-crafted enough to be enjoyed by grown-ups as well.

THE WITCHWOOD KNOT by Olivia Atwater I've read a number of Olivia Atwater books, and this one is head and shoulders above the rest. The best blend of gothic and fae, like a grown-up LABYRINTH, with one of the great fae butlers and so many subtle yet walloping feels. It felt like an old fairytale in the best possible way.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN by WR Gingell The WORLDS BEHIND series is about trauma and healing and repentance, and in this, the fourth book, everything comes decisively to the boil as our favourite twisty knife uncle pits his wits against an enemy who very uncomfortably mirrors himself.

Top 7 Non-Fiction (because I couldn't get it down to just five)

TWO VIEWS ON WOMEN IN MINISTRY by Beck & Gundry (eds.) Four New Testament scholars from a range of complementarian and egalitarian perspectives debate the question of women in ministry, with a lot of detailed scholarship. If nothing else, this book proved that this is something orthodox Christians can honestly disagree about, because there are significant exegetical strengths and difficulties with each position - it's time to stop seeing women holding ministry positions in the church as tantamount to heresy.

REFLECTIONS: ON THE MAGIC OF WRITING by Dianna Wynne Jones This collection was magical - funny and sad tales of her life, many good and passionate thoughts on books and writing, and one absolutely marvellous study of narrative structure in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Absolutely delightful and highly recommended.

PATERNAL TYRANNY by Arcangela Tarabotti A 17th-century nun takes aim at the misogyny of early modern Europe, wielding razor-sharp logic to argue boldly for the equality of women. But it's Tarabotti's passionate faith, which somehow managed to survive moral injury and spiritual abuse, and even came to see hope and encouragement in scriptures which must so often have been used against her, that will stay with me.

THE GOLDEN RHINOCEROS: HISTORIES OF THE AFRICAN MIDDLE AGES by Francois-Xavier Fauvelle A series of bite-sized essays on the medieval history of Africa from approximately the Islamic conquests of the 7th century to the arrival of Portugese colonists in the fifteenth. Each essay offers the most fleeting glimpse of a long-vanished, half-imaginary world of often breathtaking sophistication and splendour. I loved them.

ONE HOLY LOCAL CHURCH? by Bojidar Marinov This short book, which draws very solidly on past luminaries like Rutherford, Gillespie, Spurgeon, and Hodge, helped me think through some of the questions I've been asking myself about ecclesiology and the role and authority of elders, particularly as I've been rethinking women in ministry. Terrific.

TEN DAYS IN A MAD-HOUSE by Nellie Bly "People on charity should not expect anything and should not complain." In 1887, the American "girl reporter" Nellie Bly got herself locked up in a New York lunatic asylum, and this shocking expose was the result. Sometimes, nineteenth century attitudes towards women and the poor were beyond parody.

A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes Some aspects of this book have aged poorly - the unthinking acceptance of Russian imperial aspirations, for instance - but apart from that, this is a sweeping, epic picture of the Russian Revolution, covering three decades and every level of society, from daily life in the village commune to the political rivalries of Lenin's declining years, without ever becoming dull or bogged down in detail.

#my year in books #2023 wrapped

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