#the death scenes needed to be slowed down and there needed to be more impact on the deaths

[kingmaximusboltagon]

ok so i know death of the inhumans is sort of. cruel. to basically EVERYONE there. but does anyone else think it specifically treated maximus like, really shitty??

hes the only member of the royal family shown dead, as triton is the only other one that dies, and triton's scenes happen off-screen. he also gets really limited screen time seeing how he "dies" in the FIRST ISSUE, and most of his scenes get immediately overshadowed and/or glossed over

(why is nobody that upset over him and triton? does karnak ever say ANYTHING about triton's death? does gorgon react at all to any deaths? why was there a joke played in the middle of their moment of silence for 15,000 deaths??)

additionally, in this first issue, where he gets,, maybe five pages before being "killed", he gets his arm shot off practically immediately.

so mark him down as also the only one who loses a limb. which leads me to my next point.

most of his scenes are grossly morbid in comparison to most of the others? gorgon does practically nothing the entire comic and only really fights anyone in the very final scenes, so obviously nothing happens to him. medusa gets stabbed but like,,, immediantly heals? karnak also gets stabbed, but he's also almost immediately better? lockjaw gets captured at the same time as maximus, but i guess they just sort of kept him locked up, because he has no wounds. crystal seems to similarly be more or less fine.

really, most of the bad shit just happens to blackagar, the guy the kree want to kill specifically, and maximus, who i guess is just kind of there for the writer to throw some more gore scenes in whenever he feels like it.

when crystal isn't controlled by vox anymore, even though she's clearly freaked out, she gets immediate comfort from lockjaw and medusa

and very quickly afterwards, she sees karnak, gorgon, and blackagar, and can easily assess that at least most of her family is safe. lockjaw has this same immediate comfort, as he awakens at the same time and same place. triton didn't have to deal with any of that at all since he was, ya know, exploded,, twice,,?

maximus gets out of vox's control, and is severely injured. he's bleeding, he's just been in a geniune fight, and he got a hammer to the face. looking at his bottom teeth and jaw, something is clearly fucked up there, to the point where im not even sure if thats bone or not. in some panels it seems significantly whiter than the top half of his face.

the first thing he would have heard is gorgon threatening to kill him! with that mask covering his face, he literally doesn't even know where he is, or who's around him. im not even sure if he realized his family were around him, or that he was coherent enough to even hear gorgon. his dialouge does not suggest he does.

when crystal approaches him, and he hears her voice, he immediately freaks the fuck out, panicking worse than i can recall maximus ever being written before

he seems geniuenly terrified for her, yelling at her to leave and run away. unlike most of the other characters, who go out quickly, most protecting someone or something, maximus doesn't get that at all.

karnak beats him to death, after maximus is surely convinced he caused crystal to either die or get teleported to a torture chamber. he doesn't get another chance to see his brother, or lockjaw, or any of the rest of his family. he dies painfully, and terrified, with no idea of what he's done or what's happened to any of the people he loves.

under the idea that somehow he survived or was cloned or whatever, he definitely would have died as a vox cyborg in that final scene, just as if not more painfully, forced to once again fight against his brother, who would have killed him there.

maximus gets severely mutilated, tortured, and then beaten to death by one of his family members. in the short few times while he's not under some sort of mind control, he's watching as lockjaw is harmed, and is unable to properly protect crystal, something he's clearly horrorfied over, to the point of trying to convince himself that what he was seeing wasn't real. if he was coherent at all after that blast, the last thing he would have seen is karnak suddenly killing him for,,, no reason, in maximus' eyes. while every other character it seems gets some sort of comfort or closure, maximus doesnt get any of that at all. he doesnt get a single scene with blackagar in the entire comic. he gets one panel with lockjaw.

it seems weirdly targeted, if you ask me. maximus wasn't even written as an antagonist in this series - he's exclusively fighting with his family, and blackagar requesting to speak with him doesn't suggest any animosity. why do all of this to the one character who's spent his entire life feeling neglected, putting him a setting where he subtextually seems happy, and then,,, torture the absolute fuck out of him, specifically?

he's barely even mourned.

#like i have a lot of out the gate complaints #but this is certainly one of the big ones bothering me #plus like. showing ahura and luna are alive but their parents never express concern over then #implying the inhumans are kree for some reason #vox never using maximus' powers. vox having bb and crystal's powers before encountering them in any way #bb's powers kinda flip flopping around in how they work. the fact that his other powers outside the voice is NEVER mentioned or used #crystal NEVER USING HER POWERS. the fact that they only get one guy for help against a mass genocide spree. #ok i have a lot of problems with it #i feel like maximus is never really written to his full potential but like. he was treated horribly. #the death scenes needed to be slowed down and there needed to be more impact on the deaths #it felt like nobody gave two shits about triton or maximus bc the story just moves on way too fast #theres no breathing room at all to digest anything?? its just one killing or torturing after the next?? #at least spread them out a bit. maybe have the characters be a tiny bit sad. or talk about it at all. #these were their FAMILY. after all. maybe more than one panel of bolt shedding a single tear?? #maximus boltagon #blackagar boltagon #medusalith amaquelin #lockjaw inhumans #gorgon petragon #royal family #inhumans #cw blood #cw death #cw violence #cw bones #cw torture #just u know. every warning i guess. this comic has a lot of. gross. #crystalia amaquelin #karnak mander-azur #triton mander-azur

[matan4il]

Buddie 613 meta

We now know that the man who risked himself to get Buck out of the line of fire during the shooting arc is Jeshan, which means ‘clear’ (if you’re interested, you can find more name meanings for 911 characters here). So let me just giggle for a second about the fact that 911 had once again reunited Buddie with a character who can be referred to as Captain Clear Me(h)ta. Coincidence? IDK. But I have to admit, it kinda made me reflect back and feel nostalgic. When I first started watching the show, I had no intention of writing meta for 911, but after going ballistic when 309 aired, I knew I would HAVE to use the s3 hiatus to write down all my thoughts about everything Buddie related so far. That’s what I did, I wrote and shared my baby, my first round of Buddie meta. That’s where it was supposed to end, but then people asked and encouraged me to write meta for the eps in 3b as they would air, too. I figured I could try, and that’s how my Buddie weekly meta posts were born. At the time, there was no one else writing proper weekly meta (I don’t mean a summary/review of the ep, or meta posts that stand on their own, but proper analysis on Buck, Eddie and those who matter to them, organized and serialized for each ep as it aired). And now, I’ve been writing them for almost 3.5 seasons. And I feel like they’ve inspired others to do the same. TBH, I can’t actually remember seeing weekly meta posts in other fandoms (maybe they exist and I just haven’t come across them, IDK). So I got all emotional, thinking about how these posts may be love notes to Buddie and the show, but most of all they’re a love letter to the wonderful people who have been supportive and encouraging, who’ve been reblogging the posts, who’ve been commenting on them and telling me that what I do makes a difference for them. Thank you so much, these posts wouldn’t exist without you. You have a much bigger impact on the fandom than you might have realized! So if Captain Mehta is indeed a nod to the meta, it’s a loving, appreciative nod that belongs to all of you. ~~

When Chim shows up to escort Hen to work, he ends up sitting down for a talk with Denny instead, and I really enjoyed this scene, it was lovely, but it also once again emphasized the difference between the firefam kids’ relationship with their parents’ colleagues and the r/s Buck and Chris have. Chim talks to Hen’s son when he happens to come across the kid, but he only sits down for a proper conversation because Denny implies Hen and Karen are up to something intimate, and Chim shouldn’t interrupt them just yet. Consider how different that is to how Buck intentionally looks to spend time with and dedicated to Chris! And then Chim is impressed by how smart Denny is. It’s cute, but it also reveals just how little they interact that this comes as a surprise to Chim. It’s so different to the intimate familiarity of a parent, which is what we know Buck has with Chris (and that Chris has with Buck, which can even be seen in the kid’s teasing, for example regarding the snoring in 414). ~~

You might have seen that, when the promo came out, I momentarily lost my sanity and posted this. I just couldn’t get over the fact that they actually had Eddie correct the chief on the duration of Buck’s death. It was such a spouse thing to do. It was a declaration about the anguish that each single second represented, when Eddie couldn’t breathe because Buck wasn’t. It was a confession of sorts, on how Eddie felt as he desperately NEEDED his husband to live (I’m not even joking when I ascribe him this title, Eddie said with his whole chest, “THAT IS MY IDIOT HUSBAND THAT I HAD TO WATCH DIE FOR THREE MINUTES AND SEVENTEEN SECONDS AND I WILL NEVER FORGET ANY OF THOSE SECONDS, NOR LET ANYONE ELSE DO THAT”). It was a glimpse into how time must have moved differently for him as each second etched itself forever into Eddie’s mind. And yes, it’s a clear parallel to 413, when we witness time slowing down for Eddie. And I mentioned in my post that in both scenarios, Buck is just out of his reach, so close, but simply not close enough. In one case, this forced Eddie to believe he must now accept his own death. In the other, he couldn’t accept the possibility that Buck would die, so he just fought harder, and if he couldn’t save Buck with one course of action, he tried another, Eddie just had to keep going, 'coz the idea of those three minutes and seventeen seconds turning into an eternity? Unacceptable. ~~

But notice in my unhinged post from that day, I used the word ‘counting.’ Eddie counted the seconds, and this is revealed to us at a poker game where Buck is counting the cards. I already noticed that when we saw the promo, but this connection was reinforced in the ep itself when Chief Williams vocalized what Buck was doing. The thing about counting is that it’s reserved for what matters, what’s crucial. Buck is counting the cards in order to win, and he wants to win because it matters to Eddie. Buck wasn’t the one who initiated the search for a poker game where he could use his newfound skills, Eddie was the one to take that initiative. And he could bring Buck along without telling him where they’re going (I would normally scream for a whole separate paragraph just about Eddie telling Buck to dress nice and there being no need for any further explanation or prompting, but we were so well fed, I’ll have to scream about it into my fist for just one sentence) 'coz Eddie was so sure his husband would go along with whatever crazy scheme he’d come up with. And he was right, even though Buck didn’t think it would end well, he still went along with what his husband wanted. Please let me reiterate: Buck’s counting cards because Eddie is so important to him, and Eddie was counting the seconds because Buck’s his vital sign. ~~

Another thing to keep in mind about the poker game is that the only other time we’ve seen Buck playing poker was in 312. In that ep, Eddie was off to meet Christopher’s school teachers (leading to his eventual lackluster r/s with Ana), so having a free evening, Buck spends it with Maddie, Chim and Josh (and is told he unequivocally sucks at Poker). Jokes were made about setting Josh and Buck up, and it was implied whatever Buck’s sexuality was, that was not the reason why Maddie abstained from making the match. What I find interesting is seeing how far our boys have come! In that ep, they were operating separately, and it led them down the wrong paths.

In this ep, Buck and Eddie were inseparable both as a couple (even sharing the winnings from Buck’s new talent, because what don’t these two share? And I was particularly chewing glass when Chief Williams asks Buck how he wanted HIS winnings, but instead of answering her, he looks at his husband. THEY ARE SO FREAKING MARRIED), and as a family unit with Chris (which is maybe a good moment to point out that all of the romantic couples were paired off in 613, and so were Buddie! Now, one could argue that Buck and Eddie were paired off because, well... who else is left for them to hang out with? But 312 is a reminder that when the show wants to, it can push the main cast and minor characters into the same orbit, so it still didn’t HAVE to pair Buck and Eddie off here. It chose to. On top of that, by showing them with Chris as well, 911 reminded us they’re far more bonded than just two best bros hanging out together ‘coz none of their other friends are single). In short, during 312, Buck lost and Eddie was about to be lost on a detour in his romantic journey. In 613, they ARE a family, they work as one throughout the ep, not just in parts of it, and they’re both winning. ~~

Something that gets to me is that when I first shared the BTS pic of Buddie at the poker game, it was clear that Eddie was just bursting with self confidence. He looked like he would be the star of that game. But when we got the promo, we discovered that it was actually going to be Buck who would shine that night. So what makes me slightly froth at the mouth is that all of that sexy confidence we picked up on in the photo? It was real. We weren’t wrong. It just wasn’t confidence that Eddie had in himself, it’s confidence he has in Buck. All of his swagger? Is a reflection of how much he believes and enjoys seeing his husband be a star. I am gonna need 3-6 working weeks at least to recover from knowing this. ~~

Speaking of things that destroyed me forever, everything about the Buckley-Diaz family in this ep falls into that category. I mean, not only did we once again have incredibly domestic scenes, we had one that was very reminiscent of the lasagna one in 601 (Eddie with Chris at the table, Buck fussing around them only to join in once he brings along something to be consumed), reinforcing that this is THEIR NORM, we also had Eddie and Chris being so cute and supportive when it comes to Buck’s new ability (Chris calls him a superhero, Eddie goes along with it, and when Buck’s upset he didn’t get a better superpower, naming some he would have liked to have, Eddie comforts him by saying those other options sound horrible). 

And then to top it all off, we had Buck and Chris cooking together. Bobby’s been explicitly acknowledged as basically being Buck’s dad by both of them, and we know Bobby’s been teaching Buck how to cook. Now we get Buck doing the same with Chris, clearly marking them as father and son, especially since this is done with just the two of them, this special time that’s allocated just to their bond together. Eddie is not needed as a middleman. I know that this isn’t news, but every single time the show reinforces this truth, that Buck is Christopher’s other dad, that their bond is that deep, I gain 10 years, so I have to mention it. ~~

For 613, I made my weekly gifset about Buck and answers, but I’d actually like to elaborate on what you see there. In 602, at the happiness center call, we see Buck looking to Lev in search for his own answers on what his happiness looks like. When he still can’t find any, he turns to Hen, because she always has them. Along this season, that’s been his theme. He’s trying to figure out what he wants in order to be happy, which is connected to the couch theme we’ve all been screaming about since 601 (and especially after he fell asleep on Eddie’s in 612). In 613, Buck suddenly finds that he’s the guy with the answers and he likes it. But has he really got them? Buck says these words to Eddie and Chris, and in addition to that, while he utters them, he’s literally captured in the same frame together with Eddie. But it’s also essential that we heard why Chris can’t just be given the answers. It’s in order to learn, Eddie tells him. That’s exactly what Buck has to do, he has to find his answers in order to learn from the search process. He’s not just there yet, but the framing of the whole scene coupled with the ongoing couch theme is very loud. ~~

What gets me maybe most of all in a whole ep of REALLY GOOD BUDDIE CONTENT, is the way the whole thing wraps up. The storyline on Buck’s new abilities doesn’t end with any commentary on those or on his recovery process. His last scene in this ep is the one with Chris. It follows directly the one with Hen and Karen, a scene which reminds us that we’re never surprised at either woman spending solo time with and caring about Denny, even though neither is biologically related to him, because they ARE BOTH his parents. In the same way, it’s only natural that we see Buck spending alone time with Chris, without Eddie around. It is so meaningful that the last shot of Buck in this ep is not about his story line at all, and neither his abilities, nor having died for several minutes is the point. Instead, the last, and therefore most significant shot of Buck in this very Buddie domestic ep, is him smiling at their son. I feel like that says everything about his trajectory.

~~ (my weekly meta posts) (my Buddie gifs) (all of my content)

~~ My tag list will follow in the reblog, please let me know  if you wanna be added/removed here.

~~ Thank you so much for reading and for any reblog, like, comment or supportive tag! Also, HUGE thank you to @whosoldherout​. On top of real life stuff, she makes her own amazing gifs AND helps make these posts so much better. She’s the one with the real superpowers!

#buddie #911meta #buddie meta #911 meta #9-1-1 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 spoilers #evanbuckleyedit #eddiediazedit #christopher diaz #wm #911edit #buddie gifs #buddieedit #911onabc #911 on abc #911abc #911 abc

[bestanimatedmovie]

Choose your favorite!

Either way, Puss is losing a life here

Vote in the other polls!

What fans say:

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish:

It has a very well done and mature depiction of serious topics (mortality) and mental health. My favourite scene is the depiction of Puss having a panic attack and Perrito comforting him. Also great animation and all the characters are amazing.

The trio of puss+kitty+ perrito was really fun and I loved Puss and Kitty’s relationship. The scenes with Death gave me chills when I saw it in theaters. The animation was gorgeous, the character arcs are very well done, every character is entertaining to watch and it's paced impressively well. Probably the best animated movie I saw in 2022

The animation, the characters, the details, the story, the comedy, the messages, the animation style, All OF IT!

I absolutely love the characterization, the fact that they managed to wrangle BLOOD into the movie was insane to me when I watched it in theaters. I was so entranced lol

It’s a fucking cinematic masterpiece. I nearly cried this film changed a part of my soul. The animation is incredibly stylised especially for the fight scenes, the locations are beautiful and the characters are all enjoyable in their own ways. The music is so good i recommended it to my music teacher on the basis of looking at it for leitmotifs. Genuinely one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

The opening scene is absolutely gorgeous + Kitty & pib's relationship is so important to me. they invented true love. <2

I've been fixated on this movie for five months now and it's not stopping; the animation is inventive and stunning, the characters are all in-depth and well-written, the antagonists are all a delight, the themes stay with you ages after you walk out of the theater, it has the most realistic depiction of a panic attack I've ever seen on the big screen in my entire life. It's all incredibly stylish, the music all goes hard, every single scene matters to the greater plotline, never is a character mocked by the narrative for their weakness or naïvete... I'm not a big movie person, but I've watched this over twenty times honestly, and it's impacted me for the rest of my life.

Shrek 2:

Shrek may be one of the biggest memes on the internet, but this movie legitimately SLAPS!!! This is the movie that most Shrek Conoisseurs agree is the best for the mostly great storyline and it's REALLY great comedy throughout. This is also the movie that introduced us to Puss in Boots! The ending is also INCREDIBLY iconic just saying. 10/10

"One of the greatest sequels of all time. Still holds up nearly 20 years later. It's got everything you could ask for. Diegetic music, a giant gingerbread man Godzilla parody, dancing, death/self-sacrifice, Puss in boots, and, most importantly, a banging song that mixes things up (Seriously, the cover slaps way harder than the original. The alternating highs and lows in terms of tempo and intensity really makes it).

Shrek is a good movie. But Shrek 2 is a great movie. It builds off of the world in the previous film, expands and make it more compelling, while still being a fairy-tale modern tale that critiques family relations. There's great jokes, like Shrek pretending to be from the union, the Fairy Godmother breaking her diet as a punishment for someone else, and a knight planting drugs on Puss in Boots. It's an absolutely iconic movie with THE BEST use of an existing song for a climax in any film (fight me) with the I Need a Hero scene, but also is able to slow down and perfectly capture the awkward first meal with disapproving parents.

#Puss In Boots: The Last Wish #Puss In Boots #Shrek 2 #best animated movie #round 2 #tournament poll #tumblr's favorite

[toskarin]

I agree that the movies mess up a lot of the story, but I always chalked that up to them not having enough time to include everything, and having to sort of "speedrun" the route, and I know this is probably an empty exercise, but given how much time they had, how would you include all those left out bits into the movies? because there's so much they just couldn't put in, especially illya and kirei's stuff, that the third movie feels incredibly hollow, but I just don't know how they could put in everything. I don't get why they decided to cram the longest route in the vn into a movie trilogy

three movies wasn't the ideal format for adapting heaven's feel, but it's shocking how much filler (and I'm using this to refer to actual empty content which doesn't progress the story or anyone's character) was added to reach feature length

free up maybe 15-20 minutes per movie by trimming dead air from the fight scenes that weren't in the vn. they can even keep them! just take about five or ten minutes of random back-and-forth from each one

scenes like the slow-mo walk to sakura are bewildering. literally just fade to black before shirou starts walking and then fade in as he hugs her. that's all that scene needed, and it's a perfect microcosm of the over-animation problem that the movies have

illya's conversation with shirou where she lets on that she knows someone has to die at the end of the story needs to be reinserted. otherwise illya has basically nothing to go off of and just kind of leaves the narrative emptily in the finale

somewhat controversially, I think Nine Bullet Revolver could be cut down to about a quarter of its length and still have the same impact. make it sudden and violent and intense. explain things less.

the school flashbacks in the intro are fine, but if it's between them and getting more content in the first movie so that we can hacve die lorelei later on, you know which one I'm voting to keep

if we have time for both, insert the conversation between illya and sakura about what it means to be a grail and keep illya overhearing taiga talking about kiritsugu's overseas voyages. that's a fine way to adapt the scene where illya looks for kiritsugu in the emiya household without relying too heavily on someone knowing the full context

changing none of the pacing, just have rider and rin in-frame during the final walk to the flower viewing. it's such a disservice to every character in that scene to tighten the scope like that. it feels so cold, utterly devoid of the cathartic warmth that scene is supposed to have

move kotomine's recollection of claudia's death forward. start it when assassin hits him with zabaniya, then reveal the missing heart as the story ends (in contrast to how it happens now, where the story ends right before assassin uses zabaniya)

get rid of the random ninja jumping shirou does in the angra mainyu finale. just have him walk towards her. it's startling how much the movies would be improved by just letting shirou walk normally towards sakura more often

and lastly, to correct for the fact that so much of everyone's characterisation in the vn comes from shirou's monologue being able to describe subtler body language, move the camera to rin once or twice. have a few scenes that are framed from her perspective which make it clear that shirou's acting weird to the outside observer. he comes off as too much of gigachad otherwise

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 2 ("I PROMISED YOU THE MOONSHINE") EDITION

Being a day late to watching and writing about Only Friends allows me a little airspace away from the gasps and dopamine of the collective community first watch of each episode, and lemme tell ya -- my dash yesterday was so hot, it was like melting Tupperware on a stove. Unfortunately for many in the fandom, the ships are going to sink. That shower scene got some folks wrecked. Many folks on my dash have a sudden disdain for Neo Trai (poor kiddo). For anyone who reads around here, you might remember my implored begging of the Tumblr family to watch Gay OK Bangkok before Only Friends premiered, and I still stand by it. The Only Friends team -- Jojo Tichakorn, Ninew Pinya, writers Den Panuwat and Best Kittisak -- are playing with a lot of concepts that I thought were just FABULOUSLY explored in this second episode, and these concepts ARE going to lead to further innuendos and endings that the shippers are just not going to like. (I think GOKB primed us for this.) And frankly, by the way this episode played out (as we were talking about a couple days ago, @lurkingshan) -- I think that's a hell of a point that the team is making in our faces.

I'm going to get to this more in a moment. Let me explain more, by way, of all things (!) -- plum wine.

So a bunch of us meta clowns (cc @ranchthoughts, @chickenstrangers, @lurkingshan) were talking about a theory I had on Friday regarding the theme of ephemerality in the first episode. How Cheum indicated to Mew that there's a lot in Thailand that'll bring them down, from pollution to radiation. She wanted Mew to nab Top -- she indicated that life is fickle, so what did her homeboy have to lose? Go get yer man, she said.

@ranchthoughts, @chickenstrangers, @lurkingshan and I took this conversation further yesterday (please read all the reblogs on this link, folks, it's a great conversation!), exploring the many more references to the ephemeral, fickle nature of time and life that Only Friends is referencing. @chickenstrangers clocked that Yo's bar is called YOLO. @ranchthoughts clocked that Sand's bag of plum wine read "you only live once." @lurkingshan noted that Jojo's played around with the ephemeral before -- in Gay OK Bangkok, examining the impact of HIV on Bangkok's gay male population.

The reblogs of the post linked above also capture some common mentalities about the "future" for our current crop of young folks today (I... am not young, lol), particularly for the young queer community. That through climate change, the slow-snail-paced fight for equity (like the legalization of same-sex marriage in Thailand) (and even comparing it to the roll-back of rights for the LGBTQ+ community in the States) -- as @ranchthoughts wrote, there seems to be a stronger sense of "live fast, die young," among younger cohorts than when I was a young lass, born in the 1980s, when a middle management career could get you everything you needed, with a unfettered retirement in sight.

To me, the most wrenching references to the ephemeral in this second episode focused on death. "Do you want us to die?," Sand asked laughingly as Ray played around in the car. Top can't sleep alone because after a childhood trauma, he's afraid he'll die alone. Ray's deceased mom is shown with a glass in her hand.

And how are these young folks behaving? In the face of literal death, as they themselves are referring to it: they're living life very riskily. Top's a player. So is Boston. We hope they're playing safe. (Gay OK Bangkok had condoms all over the place. I haven't seen any yet in OF.) Ray's blood alcohol levels are clearly through the roof. Sand's committing a crime.

Say what now? Committing a crime?

I hope folks clocked that. What's REALLY making me shake my head is how slick the non-sexual commentary was in this episode.

Going back to my original post on ephemerality that I let loose on Friday: I talked about the metaphor of plum wine and the passage of time -- how plum wine tastes sweeter and better as you let it age.

Sand was pissed that his bottles of plum wine broke because he's making it himself. That's why he wanted Ray to pay him back for the lost supply. Sand lost both product AND time.

Making and selling plum wine is illegal in Thailand. It's like the selling of rotgut during Prohibition.

SAY WHAT? For real. Thailand's laws around alcohol are wild, y'all. The display of alcohol logos is weirdly regulated (I laugh at how bottles are often blurred out in Thai dramas), brewing alcohol within Thailand is insanely complicated (some people brew alcohol in Thailand, then bottle it elsewhere and import it BACK into Thailand to skirt these laws), and -- you cannot buy alcohol from 2 pm to 5 pm.

Remember we saw Ray sneaking some sips from a flask outside the hostel site? That's a major flag for confirmed alcoholism (drinking alone during the day). But also, if Ray wanted a drink during the hours of 2-5 pm -- he had to have the booze on himself to have a tipple.

We know Jojo does NOT shy away from political commentary. We saw it in spades during Dirty Laundry.

What I love about Jojo's work is that he's unafraid to call out the hypocrisy of these kinds of laws. The making of plum wine is ILLEGAL? In Japan, making umeshu is traditional. (It's also the easiest and most delicious thing ever, please try making it!). For many of us around the world, making umeshu is a hobby, and a perfectly safe one at that. Considering Thailand's economy is so dependent on tourism, and that Bangkok itself is a world-class city, you would think that the selling of alcohol wouldn't be so complicated, and yet... 'tis.

This leads me to what I saw as the second Big Theme of this episode, besides ephemerality: I saw a lot of hypocrisy in this episode.

We got the liquor laws bullshit. We got Boston. Boston strikes me as a hypocrite for setting up his friend Mew with Top -- all while Boston's still wanting to get with Top, to the point of sneaking into Top's shower.

And Mew strikes me as a hypocrite, too. He wants to "redo" the start of his relationship with Top?... on his own terms? So, they're not boyfriends anymore? After already....having dated? Believable, my dude. The guys are in a PatPran-esque battle of... something, and I don't think it's wits, because neither of them seem to have many wits about them. They seem to be more interested in just winning a goal that (except for sex for Top) seems wholly unclear. Does Mew not know that Top may very well NOT respect Mew? Is Mew aware that his read on Top may not be at all accurate? And.... does Mew actually care? I'm not convinced of it.

Live fast, die young. What does it matter to be a hypocrite if the future is unstable, if time is speeding by -- and if no one is holding these young folks accountable for their behavior, as I put into the tags of @ranchthoughts's post yesterday? As Nick says to Boston: "you're a rich guy -- you don't care much for things." What, exactly, would make these rich kids care about being ethical human beings?

Accountability is around the corner for this group. Nick is starting to catch feelings. Boston is wondering why he's getting rejected by Top. Sand's recognizing that Ray's sniffing out something between them (cc @neuroticbookworm) (and, who knows, as NBW first referenced in her post -- Sand might be catching feelings, too). All of these friends -- it's mindblowing! -- leave Ray alone, often, wasted off his ass, to get himself home, as Sand himself notes.

These characters are going to get hurt, and it's only a matter of time until we begin seeing it happen. At the micro-level, human to human, they will hurt each other. And society, Thai society, is doing these young people no favors by not helping to equalize the inequity between rich and poor -- as Sand has to take risks to sell illegal hooch, of all things, to just get by.

Wrapping this up with what I was mentioning up at the top about the jibbles that the fandoms are starting to feel towards the established GMMTV ships of this show slowly sinking. Isn't there a bit of hypocrisy there as well? This show is NOT going to be pretty for the ForceBook/FirstKhao established ships. What are we, as fans, going to do when that time comes? Will we condemn Jojo? Will we stop watching the show? Will we equivocate by way of blaming other characters?

This show should be celebrated already for the risks it's taking, and the risks it will take. (Remember: fans protested at the GMMTV building in 2019 when the KristSingto ship was broken for He's Coming To Me.) Only Friends deciding to take on the toxicity and hypocrisy of shipper fandom? Bring it on. We cannot only enjoy the performances of these actors when they're paired up with one repeating partner. As the life of Gay OK Bangkok depicted, as the life of Only Friends is depicting -- life is a whole lot more complicated than just a dreamlike, over-organized monogamy between two people (ahem, Mew). Life -- and TIME -- will bring complications and change, sometimes unwanted change, that we have to learn to handle and manage. I'm not colored surprised in the least that Jojo's making this experience for us jump out of the screen and into our own hearts, as we see our beloved actors take risks upon themselves by their breaking of their own ships. I am all here for it, and I hope the shipper fans can be, too.

(BIG UPS to the small meta army family -- @ranchthoughts, @lurkingshan, @chickenstrangers, @neuroticbookworm -- I'm so thrilled to continue being thoughtful with y'all!)

#only friends #only friends the series #only friends meta #only friends the series meta #jojo tichakorn #ninew pinya #den panuwat #best kittisak #first kanaphan #first khaotung #firstkhao #force jiratchapong #book kasidet #forcebook #neo trai #mark pakin #neomark #lookjun bhasidi #nonnie pitchaporn #liquor regulations in thailand #shipper culture #only friends the morning after

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” review:

Short review

“Uncharted 4” hit the same story beats, but better. I’ll give the movie a 6/10.

Long review

As the final chapter in Indiana Jones’ life, I have mixed thoughts. Is it because of the time travel? No, I was actually fine with that. Indiana Jones has always had some element of weirdness, ranging from the supernatural to literal aliens. My issue with this movie is that, as the final chapter in the series, it felt…underwhelming.

It’s strange because the movie was sorta hitting all the points it needed to hit. They had the emphasis on Indy being old, the passing of the torch to Wombat, the return of other classic characters like Sallah and Marion, bringing the Nazis back as the villains, and so on. James Mangold was hitting the points he needed to hit, which makes sense since this is the guy who gave us “Logan”.

But the problem is, Indiana Jones isn’t Wolverine. I think Indiana Jones, as a character, is unsuitable for the type of somber, deep character study that the movie was trying to do. This is a character who was made to represent light-hearted escapism, and you could see that by how the first three movies never went too deep or too serious with Indy. Even “Crystal Skull”, with all its flaws, didn’t do that. So now we have “Dial of Destiny” trying to shift gears into darker, more dramatic territory and it just doesn’t hit.

For example, the reveal that Mutt Williams got killed in the Vietnam War. It’s a reveal that’s too dark and sudden to really leave a lasting impact, especially since the next scene afterwards is a thrilling dive to a shipwreck. You just want the movie to slow down and let these moments sink in. But the problem is, if the movie slows down, it stops being a fun Indiana Jones movie.

So, we got a problem here. Was there ever a way that the writers could’ve solved this clash of conflicting tones?

Now I will say, I think there’s a version of this story that COULD HAVE worked. Like I wrote, James Mangold was hitting all the story beats he needed to hit. It’s just that the story needed:

Yup. I’m gonna say this with full sincerity; “Dial of Destiny” would’ve worked if it was centered on Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood going on one last adventure. You can keep Mutt Williams dying, because that would mean the story would be about Indy and Marion reconciling with each other. Going back to my short review, the more I thought about it, the more that “Dial of Destiny” felt like James Mangold’s attempt at making an “Uncharted 4” movie.

Just like “Dial”, the fourth “Uncharted” game centered on an aging Nathan Drake getting pulled out of retirement for one last adventure. That game managed to actually be BOTH somber and lighthearted. You’d have scenes where Nathan is riding around a motorcycle and spewing one-liners, followed up by Nathan having a deep conversation with Elena.

But here’s why I feel “Uncharted 4” worked while “Dial” didn’t. Naughty Dog knew that in order to bring Nathan’s story to a proper close, they needed to center it on the main cast. In fact, one of the best sequences in the entire game is literally just Nathan and Elena driving around the jungle talking about their lives.

“Dial” doesn’t work because the story is centered on Indy, his goddaughter who we’ve never seen before (and whose father is a new character), and this random kid who was pretty much Short Round 2.0. And it’s frustrating because the BIGGEST dramatic reveal of the movie was Indy talking about his dead son and his divorce. Sorry to Phoebe Waller-Bridge but that scene should’ve had Marion as the focus. In fact, it gets even more frustrating since Mutt’s death means little to Wombat as a character. She didn’t know the guy, the most she could’ve felt in that scene was, “Sorry for your loss, goddad”.

Even the presence of Wombat and Teddy are frustrating. Wombat could’ve easily been rewritten as Marcus Brody’s daughter (or if you wanna be spicy, she was Willie Scott’s daughter with Indy, making her Mutt Williams’ half-sister). Teddy could’ve been Sallah’s son. These may seem like small changes, but at least there’d be a stronger connection to the past. Since it’s Indiana Jones’ last journey, this movie should’ve been more rooted in Indy’s past adventures, even if the connections are more with legacy characters.

So, yeah, it’s a mixed bag. “Dial” is a movie that is supposed to be closing the door on Indiana Jones as a character, but doesn’t really accomplish that due to its detachment from the past movies. It’s a movie that’s too somber to be a lighthearted adventure, but too lighthearted to be a somber character study. And what does that mean for the end result? A movie that’s just okay, but doesn’t really justify its existence. Could’ve been worse, but you wish it was better.

#dial of destiny #indiana jones #indiana jones and the dial of destiny #james mangold #harrison ford #phoebe waller bridge #marion ravenwood #mutt williams #sallah #short round #Indiana Jones 5 #indy film #disney #lucasfilm #movie review #film review #helena shaw #mads mikkelsen #uncharted #uncharted a thief's end

[kaiijo]

genshin impact law drama au

characters: diluc, ayato, gorou, heizou, albedo, itto, childe notes: gn! reader, reverse harem, spoilers for childe’s real name, all legal knowledge comes from ace attorney (so it’s not going to be accurate but it will be fun), follows some ace attorney plot, non-graphic mentions of murder and death, brief non-graphic mention of an attack, very unedited

you

you’re a rookie defense attorney. you work at ragnvindr & gunnhildr, the premier law firm for defense attorneys. jean gunnhildr, one of the partners at the firm, directly mentored you.

the first few weeks of your job are kind of slow. the cases that you receive are pretty minor, defending people accused of small crimes like petty theft. you weren’t complaining — it’s good experience no matter what, but you will say that you wouldn’t mind something more exciting.

you immediately regret wishing for that because it’s a week later that your other boss, diluc ragnvindr, comes storming into the office, saying that you’ve been summoned to the detention center, specifically requested by someone being held there. you don’t have time to ask diluc who it is or what their crime is before he’s hurrying to into his car and you’re driving to the detention center

a guard leads you to the defendant, who you’re shocked to see is jean’s younger sister, barbara, a renown and beloved pop star

she’s sobbing and beside herself and diluc finally tells you what barbara’s being accused of — murdering jean in her apartment

through her sobs, barbara insists that she didn’t do it and both you and diluc (well, more you because diluc’s not great at handling tears) assure her that you know she didn’t do it and that you’ll get to the bottom of it and jean will be given justice

diluc ragnvindr

your boss and the sole head of ragnvindr & gunnhildr now

when you first met diluc, you thought he was kind of cold and sort of uptight. he’d avoid your eyes in the break room and in the first few days of knowing him, he spoke all of ten words to you

things shifted when you were working on a case and lost track of time. most people were gone, including jean, who usually stayed later, but you saw diluc’s office was still light. you peeked your head in to find him poring over evidence, eyes flitting across the page frantically

“sir,” you said and diluc jumped. “sorry, i didn’t mean to startle you. is everything alright?”

“i’m fine,” he said.

“is that the livingstone case?” he confirm that it is and finally admits that he’s having a difficult time proving that your client is innocent. you sit down with him and the two of your work through the evidence until you hit a breakthrough at 2 am

diluc thanks you and drives you home, refusing to let you get on any public transportation that late. he brings you coffee the next morning, just the way you like it — you didn’t know that he had paid attention when you made it in the break room

you and diluc work together on clearing barbara’s name, going to the scene of the crime to investigate and find clues. you examine where jean’s body was found, the murder weapon, and other piece of evidence that help you build and strengthen your case

you and diluc work late into the nights on the case and something about toiling into the early morning hours brings you closer and closer

there’s one night, right in the middle of the case, where you’re both exhausted and drained and you both flop onto the couch in diluc’s office. you tell him you’ll close your eyes for a second and the next thing you know, you’re waking up an hour later with your head on his shoulder and his stacked atop yours. he stirs as well and springs back, apologizing profusely

the case takes five days of courtroom procedure, investigations, and interrogations until you finally uncover the true culprit: a businessman named pallad. jean had had documents that would reveal unsavory business practices, and pallad needed to swipe the documents in order to save himself from scandal. he had planned to break into the office and steal the documents, but jean and diluc’s workaholic spirits made it impossible to really find a viable time so he decided to invade jean’s apartment and look for documents there. she found him searching and he broke a vase over her head and framed barbara for her death

as pallad is hauled off and barbara gives you her thanks, diluc asks, “would you like to come to dinner with me?”

“as a date?” you ask teasingly and diluc sputters and scoffs and turns bright red at the suggestion

“no—! not that i wouldn’t want— it’s— dinner as a celebration for your winning your first big case”

you agree and he brings you to the fanciest restaurant in town, angel’s share, which he tells you this was his father’s restaurant and that it’s the place he always goes to after long and taxing cases. bashfully, he adds that he shares ownership with his brother, kaeya, who happens to be there that night too

kaeya is just as good-looking as diluc and you feel your face warm a little when he swaggers over to your table and offers you a charming smile. “diluc, you didn’t tell me you had such an attractive partner”

“they’re not my partner,” diluc replies but his face is that red shade again from before. you decide to put diluc out of his misery and tell kaeya that you work at the firm and that you really are just co-workers, to which kaeya responds with a drawn out, “sure…”

kaeya eventually leaves, saying that he’ll let you two resume your little date, and you and diluc eat your delicious meal. diluc’s face slowly returns to its original shade and he drives you home, walking you to your door like a gentleman

you two stand at the entrance for a second, quiet, and diluc breaks the silence, saying, “i had a nice evening. perhaps we could… do this again sometime…”

“i’d like that,” you say. “good night, diluc, i’ll see you tomorrow.” you give him a warm hug before entering your building and what you don’t get to see is diluc blushing again and smiling brighter than he had in a long time

kamisato ayato

ayato is your rival prosecutor. he’s known as a prodigy through the legal community and he and his sister, ayaka, inherited their father’s law firm

he’s the prosecutor in barbara’s case, and he’s just as skilled as everyone says he is. he cuts down each breakthrough you and diluc have with a surgical precision, and his arguments are always watertight and seemingly impenetrable

still, you and diluc manage to win the case and ayato loses for the first time… ever

after the case, diluc tells you that he needs to talk to barbara privately, and you wait in the lobby for him since you’re going to dinner together

ayato approaches you and congratulates you for a job well done. you’re shocked to say the least

you expected ayato to be cold and stand-offish given his reputation but he’s genial and kind as he speaks to you. he tells you that he thought that his first loss would feel worse but he finds himself content; the truth was revealed and justice doled out, and that’s all he ever wants. it’s why he and ayaka became prosecutors

you’re standing there, kind of gaping at him, and he laughs, saying, “i sadly have to be off now but i have a feeling i’ll be seeing you more in the future”

indeed you do

now that you’re taking on more high-profile cases, solo now, you find that ayato in your opponent very frequently. he performs just as well as he always does with every case, and just like he did after barbara’s case, he congratulates you when you win and even when you lose

your conversations get flirtier and fliriter with each interaction and it eventually leads to the two of you exchanging personal phone numbers. you talk frequently, never about upcoming cases that the two of you work on, but about everything else. you both have a love for boba and for a certain historical drama, and you actually set up a time to grab boba and watch it together

you eventually encounter ayato’s sister and their assistant and close friend, thoma

they’re both super sweet and ayaka says, “you must be the person ayato talks about so much!”

thoma adds, “he manages to work you into a lot of conversations. it’s not a bad thing, it’s pretty entertaining”

“yeah,” ayaka says, “i’ve never heard him talk about someone so much”

ayato shows up a few minutes later and ayaka and thoma quickly excuse themselves, continuing onto whatever they had to do, and ayato asks you, “what did you three talk about?”

“oh, just you”

he chuckles, “i hope only good things?”

“i should be saying that to you — i hear you talk about me a lot”

he moves closer to you and says, “of course it’s only good things. you’re quite… special to me”

gorou

cases seem endless. ever since barbara’s case, you and diluc have been receiving a high influx of them.

to combat this, you suggest hiring assistants for both of you but diluc is stubborn and insists that he doesn’t need one but “you can get one of if you want”

you’re not really sure where to start so you reach out to ayato to see if he could help, given that he has thoma, who is just such a sweetheart (and, as it turns out, is a childhood friend of diluc’s)

ayato tells you that thoma told him a good friend of his named gorou is looking for a job and would be perfect for the position

so you invite gorou in for an interview

thoma was right that gorou is an ideal candidate: he’s organized and diligent and he takes initiative, so you hire him on the spot. he’s so eager that you swear if he were a dog, you’d see a tail wagging rapidly

gorou helps you sort through cases and figure out which ones to hand off to other attorneys in the firm and which ones to prioritize. you two have a good rhythm going with each other, falling into it after a week or two — you run like a well-oiled machine

he also goes with you on investigations and you find that he’s great at uncovering hidden clues and evidence

you ask him, half-joking, how he’s so good at it and he tells you that he used to be in the military, working a job that required keen observation skills — it actually explained a lot of stuff about him, including his sky-high expectations for himself

one thing that you absolutely love is that gorou brings you pastries in the morning from your favorite bakery a few blocks away. they’re usually accompanied with a handwritten note with words of encouragement like It’s going to be a great day today!

gorou also cleans and organizes your desk when it gets buried under stacks of papers and empty coffee cups

as time goes on, you come to realize that gorou developed a crush on you. it wasn’t hard to figure out with his puppy eyes and the way he began adding small hearts to the end of your notes

you’re not sure if you should say anything, not wanting to make the relationship awkward and it doesn’t interfere with any of your work so you keep quiet for now, enjoying the little hints gorou gives, intentional or not

shikanoin heizou

the top detective in the police force

heizou works mostly with prosecutors like ayato but you see him a lot on investigations and he’s always very chatty, which you’ve heard drives his superior, a woman named kujou sara, nuts

heizou is very charismatic and a very smooth talker. you’ve seen him run verbal rings around officers at crime scenes, able to get them to agree to let you onto a scene you may not necessarily be authorized to be at before they know what they agreed to

he also leaks bits of information under the guise of “accidentally” letting it slip but you know he’s far too sharp for that

there’s a particularly tricky case you face where you can’t make any sense of the evidence and, more importantly, how you can use it to prove your client’s innocence

you and gorou keep going over the evidence at the scene, bouncing ideas off each other and wondering aloud until you hear heizou say, “you know, when i’m trying to solve a puzzle, i find that it’s helpful to look at it from a different angle to see where the pieces fit together”

he leaves it at that and gorou takes the photo in your hand that you’ve been staring at, flipping it around and everything clicks now. you feel stupid but you’re grateful for heizou’s assistance

when the case is done, you take a trip down to the precinct and see him bickering with the front desk lady over something. he stops when he sees you and he says, “this is a nice surprise! you have a new case i haven’t heard about?”

you shake your head and ask if you can talk to him in private. he brings you to his office and you say, “i wanted to thank you for all your help on this last case”

“i didn’t do anything,” he said, “just wanted to share a hobby.”

you both laugh at that and you say, “can i buy you lunch or something. not just as a thanks for this time but for all the times”

“i’m free right now,” he says and luckily, so are you.

as you two head out of the office, you hear officers shout after heizou, “where are you going? don’t you have to address those compla—”

“where are you taking me?” heizou speaks over the yelling, “or is it a surprise?”

albedo

you’ve never actually met albedo in person but you’ve heard of the genius forensic analyst that works for interpol. he wasn’t just a brilliant analyst but he actually created new tools and software that enabled easier and more accurate forensic analysis

your meeting with albedo is completely by chance, totally unrelated to your job

you run into him at the supermarket, where he’s buying groceries, accompanied by a little girl

you wonder briefly if it’s his daughter and then, albedo sees you. he gives you a polite nod and greets you by name, taking you by surprise. “how do you know who i am?”

“well, it’s nearly impossible to not hear about the rookie defense attorney who handed kamisato ayato his first loss,” albedo says. “plus, i’ve done quite a few forensics tests on evidence for your cases”

that’s right — how could you forget about all the samples that come back, signed by albedo

you feel your face heat up in embarrassment. you don’t get to wallow in it for long when the little girl albedo is with taps albedo. “how do you know this pretty person?” she asks and albedo says, “i work with them.”

she nods and turns to you. “hi!” she chirps, eyes bright. “i’m klee, ‘bedo’s my big brother!” ah, that makes more sense

you run into albedo again when you’re working on a case that has interpol involved. (you also unfortunately run into your ex-boyfriend, but that’s for later) albedo goes along with you and gorou on investigation for this particular case, bringing the famous handheld device he invented that allowed for forensic analysis on the go

it’s the most thorough investigation you do and because of how strong the forensic evidence is in favor of your client’s innocence, the case is also one of the smoothest that you have

because of all the time you two have to spend together, you learn a lot about albedo — klee’s not his biological sister but she’s the closest thing he has to it, he knows kaeya and diluc as they all used to work in interpol (you have to diluc about that later), he also knew jean

albedo also drops the fact that he’s single, which was so quick that you swear you misheard something and albedo’s nonchalance backs that up, but the subtle brushes of your hands and shoulders suggest otherwise

arataki itto

itto is the head of a small time gang, the eponymous arataki gang, as well as a frequent client of yours

you swear that he’s cursed or something to be in the wrong place at the wrong time because he’s always somehow caught up in a crime

he never actually does whatever crime he’s accused of but like you said, wrong place, wrong time, all the time

itto storms into your office one day, garnering a tired sigh from diluc when he sees him. itto beelines to your office and when you see him, you ask, “what’re you caught up in this time, itto?” you’re surprised they haven’t brought him into the detention center yet

he slams his hands on your desk and says, “you need to help me!”

“i know, i just asked what—”

“it’s not me, it’s about shinobu!”

it’s certainly a shock to you that anyone could accuse kuki shinobu, itto’s right-hand woman, of murdering some in cold blood because she’s the only one who has their head screwed on straight in the gang and she’s pretty nice from what you remember

plus, the arataki gang doesn’t wheel and deal in murder. “gang” really is a ceremonial title, it’s mostly just a bunch of itto’s friends getting together for things like beetle fighting, whatever that is

anyways, you have to calm itto down since he’s getting hysterical and you tell him you’ll help shinobu. he throws his (very buff) arms around you and chants “thank you” about a thousand times before you get him to release you

it’s not a very hard case, the evidence against shinobu is all circumstantial and flimsy, and ayato’s not even the prosecutor on the case — it’s some guy named royce

you prove shinobu’s innocence and, as a thank you, itto insists that you come to their “super awesome, totally lit ‘congrats on your innocence, shinobu, and thanks for your help, attorney’ party”

you figure that it will be fun and you go, finally formally meeting the rest of the arataki gang

it’s actually a very fun night with lots of good food, drinks, and itto’s arm around you for most of the time

childe

ajax is your ex-boyfriend and one of interpol’s best agents

you guess he’s going by childe now

your relationship didn’t end on the best note. you broke up because childe was never honest with you. it wasn’t about his job at interpol — you understood the need for secret there — but it was like every part of childe was closed off. so many parts of him felt ingenuine like a persona

there was a lot of sharp, hurtful words flung around, some meant and most not, and lots of condescension on ajax’s part

you also had a sneaking suspicion that he was involved with some organization other than interpol, something darker and perhaps not wholly legal but you never asked because it really sounded outlandish

you see ajax — sorry, childe — for the first time since your breakup on the interpol case. he looks just as you remembered: tall, lean but toned, and infuriatingly handsome

he still wore that easygoing smile, winking at some of the other agents, who blushed and giggled

you’ll readily admit that you felt a bolt of satisfaction run through you as you see his face fall when he spots you. he quickly recovers, striding over in three fluid steps and a drawl of “nice to see you again.”

“you too” that’s the longest sentence to say to him

you thankfully don’t spend a lot of time with childe, who’s gathering intel and performing raids and stuff like that. most of the intel that he gets is passed through many people before it gets to you. you can’t even distinguish info from him from other agents’

there is one night where you’re heading back to your apartment and someone jumps you. you don’t have to attempt to fight them off for long before they’re being hauled off you and you see childe holding them by the throat against the nearest building

he arrests them swiftly and calls another colleague to come and collect them. when they take your assailant away, childe rushes to you and asks, “are you okay?”

“yeah, i’m fine, a little shaken up,” you reply. then, you ask, “were you following me?”

“agents have been assigned to keep an eye on individuals involved with the case as a precaution,” he tells you. you don’t ask if he requested to be the one to watch over you. “come with me.”

“what?”

“i’m taking you to my hotel room”

“why?”

“because i’m sending agents to check your apartment.” you feel a zip of cold, spine-chilling fear down your back and you nod silently, walking with childe for the next few blocks to the hotel interpol put him in

he uses the time to try and catch up and slowly, you open up. not fully but you let him in just a little. you’re worried about telling him more than what you have, worried that he’ll worm his way back into your heart

you ask about his younger siblings and his parents back in snezhnaya, he tells you that teucer and tonia ask about you a lot and that he hasn’t exactly had the heart to tell them that you broke up almost a year ago. you don’t know why that makes your heart flip a little

when you make it to his hotel room, you see there’s only one bed. you expect him to make some joke about you having to share a bed but he just says, “i’ll sleep on the couch.”

you insist that you sleep on the couch and he takes his bed (“it’s your hotel room!”) but he refuses. it goes back and forth for a while before you just resolve to sleep on the bed together — it’s should be big enough

he lends you clothes to sleep in and a spare toothbrush and when you climb into bed, your backs are to one another and you don’t dare to move an inch. you think about needing to have agents investigate your house to make sure no one’s going to hurt you and a barb of fear wedges itself into your chest. you shuffle a little closer to childe and at the movement, he turns around and wordlessly pulls you close

you don’t resist and you don’t say a thing, heart pounding. it feels too intimate, too familiar, too comfortable. you think briefly about scooting away from him but you let yourself be lulled to sleep by the rise and fall of the same chest you’ve fallen asleep against so many times prior

you wake up in the same position and neither of you can find it in yourselves to move away

#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #diluc x reader #diluc ragnvindr x reader #kamisato ayato x reader #ayato x reader #ayato kamisato x reader #gorou x reader #shikanoin heizou x reader #heizou shikanoin x reader #heizou x reader #albedo x reader #arataki itto x reader #itto arataki x reader #itto x reader #childe x reader #.𖥔 ݁ ˖ kaiijo writes

[bearhugsandshrugs]

Hi! I'm Em, or bearhugs for short, and this is currently a BG3 blog. I love writing fics, ficlets, doodles, and I do take requests! I also occasionally write character analysis pieces.

I'm also working on a Kinktober promptmeme for BG3. Here's the announcement and FAQ!

How to request

Please use the question form to send in your requests. I'll reply to that and will let you know whether I (can) take the request or not. It'll probably be filled as a oneshot or short doodle. All requests (and my fills) will be tagged #requests on my blog. How to submit: pairing, kinks, squicks, context. The more the better. Note: I prefer F/M, F/F, or Multi pairings, just because I'm honestly not the best person to ask about M/M pairings. No experience with that and little personal interest, so there are much better writers out there for that!

Character Analysis

On Halsin's trauma – long form of my feedback to Larian On Halsin's leadership Theory on Shadow Druids On Halsin's romance On Halsin's romance, specifically in relation to the Drow scene Halsin's breakup lines

Other Stuff

Halsin smut gifs

Last but not least: Check out The Little Grove, a sweet discord that formed around Halsin enthusiasts but also features special interest channels on Zevlor, Raphael, or Abdirak. We're quite chill :)

Fics

NSFW, so under the cut:

Til Death Do Us Part (Rated Explicit, smut oneshot but potentially a series) Gortash/Tav Tav enters an arranged marriage with Gortash in exchange for him to abandon the Absolute and give her the Steel Watch against their forces. In turn she supports the sham Archduke and lends him her hero credibility afterwards. But when their first night rolls around, she suddenly finds herself biting off more than she can chew. Tags: Dubious Consent, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex, Scratching, Public Sex, Power Play

The pleasure of doing business (Rated Explicit, smut oneshot) Gortash/Tav Gortash and Tav hate-fucking each other. That's it. That's the plot. Tags: Dubious Consent, Hate Sex, Vaginal Fingering,Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex

Keeping Score (Rated Explicit, enemies to lovers slow burn) Raphael/Tav Raphael has everything he ever wanted just ripe for the taking. Since Tav handed him the Crown of Karsus, his forces made significant progress against Zariel – and soon, all Nine Hells will be his. Until… Asmodeus, Archdevil Supreme and significantly more powerful than our favorite cambion could even comprehend, sends him back to Faerûn – as a human. Tav on the other hand isn't doing so great either. She hates her life after the events in Baldur's Gate. Most of all, she hates herself. So when Raphael comes knocking at her door, she sees a chance for hating someone new. They both hate each other almost as much as they need each other. But can there be more? Only one way to find out… Tags: to be added

Folie à Deux (Rated Explicit, pure smut, finished) Raphael/Haarlep/Tav and all variations of that trio. Tav makes a deal with Raphael: One night at his every desire, but no lasting impacts beyond first sunlight. But no matter how well you think you can prepare yourself – there's no winning a game against a devil. Tags: oral, vaginal, anal sex, dom/sub, degradation, double penetration, foot worship, rimming, orgasm denial, forced orgasm

(Re)Buffed Advances (Rated Mature, angst/fluff, finished) Halsin/Tav Halsin is the guy that watches your drink for you and then turns you down when you come onto him too drunk. Which is exactly what Tav did – she got wasted and tried to seduce the druid. Now they're navigating the aftermath. Tags: slow burn, angst, fluff, early access world state

Every Last Hour (Rated Explicit, slow burn with smut, wip) Halsin/Tav Tav just wants to survive, Halsin wants to save the world – but they say opposites attract. When their facades slowly crumble away while the two of them get to know each other through joint fights, shared laughter, and secret tears, it gets harder for them to ignore their feelings. What started out as a means to let off steam (in more than one way) takes both of them by surprise in its intensity. Can they move past their vulnerabilities and pursue something real? Or will they submit to the luring comfort of keeping an all too familiar distance? Tags: Oral and vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, rather slow burn, canon divergence as I'm rewriting Halsin's plot Note: this fic is currently on pause as I'm considering what to write next. Raphael brain rot is destroying everything else

#my writing #requests #new pinned and intro

[starlightbelle]

Infinity war death is better because he did it for thor. Tree loki never made amends with thor. Why cwnt loki have both his friends and his brother

Interesting

If you’re asking me if I think he deserves to have both his brother and his friends, then I would respond emphatically: YES

Without question or hesitation.

Loki deserves to live. He deserves happiness and satisfaction. Loki deserves to love, and to be loved in return. He deserves his brother, and he deserves his friends.

Loki’s sacrifice is valid in both. I don’t disagree with you there. But his death was badly written in Infinity War and thus the execution seemed a poor reflection of his character…or at the very least incomplete.

He sacrificed himself for Thor, yes, and that intent is such a worthy sacrifice. But the way Loki’s skills and abilities were so underutilized by the writing did such a disservice to his character.

In reality, Loki is probably more scrappy and definitely more resourceful than that. He’s smart/clever enough to know better than to reveal himself to Thanos without a backup plan (or more).

And Loki would NOT go out without a fight. A real fight. He would use every ounce of his power, every tool in his arsenal, everything remotely at his disposal to do as much damage as he could in what time he had. He would fight and fight and fight even if (and especially if) he knew he had no chance at making it out alive.

Thanos was intended to be menacing but Loki is far stronger than he was given credit for in that scene and his death was used merely as a plot device…they killed Loki off so easily in that opening scene as a way to demonstrate Thanos’ power and establish him as a real threat. That’s all.

They reduced what should’ve been a meaningful sacrifice to save the life of his brother down to a pitiable demonstration of the lengths he’s willing to go to to protect those he loves.

Thor’s life and countless others were at stake and Loki would fight tooth-and-nail to protect Thor’s life. If he knew he would die regardless, Loki would try to inflict whatever impairment he was able to the slow his enemy down or cause them as much of a handicap as he is able.

What I like about LOKI’s ending is how Loki was shown to withstand the time radiation without even the use of a suit. It was reminiscent of Thor taking the full power of a dying star. He’s able to do that because he isn’t human; he’s the only person on that Team (save for Sylvie maybe) who could make that play.

I think the point you’re trying to make is that Loki sacrificing himself for Thor is objectively more impactful to the audience than him saving the multiverse? Because at least that way he showed his brother that he loved/cared for him?

I definitely agree I wish we’d gotten to see Thor and Loki’s story get closure, but I knew having Thor make a cameo on the series was pretty much impossible. It would be more satisfying to fans of the characters to see them reunite/ make amends/ etc.

I don’t disagree. At all.

That’s part of what makes his sacrifice that much more heart-wrenching. It’s very Shakespearean and it’s tragic, and it’s not the happy ending I think Loki deserves…but it is fitting in the sense that Loki chose to sacrifice himself.

He does that a lot, actually. He’s a very self-sacrificial character

Loki’s desire to be loved/have friends/not be alone is constantly at war with his intense passion/ love and need to give and give and GIVE of himself to make that a reality.

It breaks my heart that Loki will never get reconciliation with his brother, that Thor will go on never knowing what happened to his brother, with the last memory of him being the Attack on New York. This hurts, it’s heartbreaking…but despite that, Loki ultimately did make the sacrifice play so those he loved (that includes Thor) would be able to live even if that means never seeing any of them again.

He is incredibly selfless by resigning himself to an eternity of isolation to sustain the lives of those he loves.

Despite the tragic nature of his ending, I think it’s also kind of beautiful.

#loki #loki series #loki spoilers #loki season 2 #that’s my take on it at least #Loki is my favorite Marvel character and so I do have a lot of thoughts on this #so much more than what I’ve written here #but thank you anon #you gave me the opportunity to express some of my thoughts after that emotional finale #as well as some pent-up thoughts I’ve had since Infinity War #MCU #marvel #my post #loki meta #marvel meta

[silentsockfeet]

tlou hbo s1 ep2 thoughts (w/ spoilers)

the opener for this ep was honestly scarier than the first imo, seeing the woman inspect the dead body and find all the signs of infected were SO creepy, and then the slow dawning of fear in her throughout the scene, the quickness with which she both proposed bombing the city and accepted her death. such a good building of suspense throughout

and then also the way her bomb suggestion was a lead into the later conversation with joel tess and ellie about how the cities were bombed. i love that we don’t actually know if jakarta was bombed or not, the idea that everyone came to the same conclusion without following from example is even more harrowing of a reality

ellie all curled up in the grass comfy and asleep i would kill for her i would die for her i want to hold her in my hands and protect her from the world

“fine i’ll just throw a fuckin sandwich at them” I LOVE THIS GODDAMN KID

joel and ellie’s back and forth throughout the ep is so fun i think it does such a good job of setting up their chemistry without getting them to connect to early

the little giraffe toy in the weeds :’(((

tess basically immediately adopting ellie im obsessed. i love that we get to see a bit more of their dynamic than the game bc it really highlights that tess is a good person at heart even if she says otherwise. she connects with ellie quickly, and the way her empathy and hope slowly starts shining through as the ep progresses (and even as she begins to accept her fate) really says so much about her character

“there’s no boyfriend that’ll come after you?” “…..no.”

the foreshadowing of ellie guessing at the infected types is awesome, i love the fact that she technically got them both right. related but i wonder how they’re gonna do infected types like the shamblers if spores aren’t gonna be a thing

that little frog vibin on the piano what a talented little guy

THE HOTEL SCENE IS TOO EARLY i wonder if they’re gonna have a hotel basement scene now?? probably not which kinda makes sense, it’s a scene better played than watched. but it would’ve been cool to see how they did it

love the expansion of the fungus lore, the interconnected-ness of the tendrils is so cool and so goddamn creepy

the entire clicker sequence was SO GODDAMN GOOD. the way tess and joel don’t tell ellie (or the audience) anything about what’s going on really forces us to put ourselves in ellie’s shoes so that we’re as terrified as her. and the fact that there doesn’t need to be a word of dialogue said to get us to figure out how the clickers work is so goddamn impressive, a shining example of ‘show don’t tell’ i think

am sad that no bricks or bottles were thrown tho

the rooftop scene. i could cry with how faithful this show is

the change in dialogue at the capital building,, “i never asked you for anything… not to feel the way i felt…” i am in so much pain.

on that note it’s scenes like these that really make me love this show bc there really is something for everyone. connecting back to the infected lore from earlier was so fucking cool and felt like such a natural change and the changes to tess’s dialogue make the scene so fresh and still impactful for people that already know the game

i love the specific line “save who you can save” because i feel like it does the perfect job of emphasizing how much tess buys into the cure while also setting the stage for joel’s decision down the road. like at the end of the game, joel really does save who he can save, it just isn’t in the way tess intended. it’s a way for him to still hear her words and connect with them but also have the intention twisted

okay bear with me but i actually liked the inclusion of the cordyceps kiss, it takes something that is so normal and even beautiful to us but then perverts it like that’s textbook horror baby!

general overview: how in the hell was this ep even better than the first

#tlou hbo #tlou spoilers #the last of us #my posts #goddamn yall i really am losing my mind ITS SO GODDAMN GOOD #I CANT BELIEVE WE GET THIS #tlou hbo notes #tlou 1x02

[dirkygoodness]

watched hazbin hotel! basically my opinions are; it wasnt a BAD show, but it felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be, was rushed, and a lot of the show as a whole felt immature to me despite it not being the first show the creators have ever done. my two biggest issues with it were 1) we got way too many characters and not enough time with any of them. i liked the characters that the show just Let Exist more than ones they tried to make me like. the emotional impact of angel's story didn't hit home to me because i wasnt even remotely invested in angel by the time it tried to give me his story arch. they really, REALLY needed to slow down and let everyone in the audience be introduced to, learn of, and enjoy their characters BEFORE shoving their traumatic backstory down our throats because it ended up feeling like a cheap emotional ploy to get us to keep watching. and because of this a lot of the songs/emotional epsiodes/scenes didnt feel deserved and ended up making me annoyed lol 2) the writing as a whole felt very inconsistent, flitting between moments of almost really good writing and character moments, ruined by south park esk style humor, with the tone of a children's show moral slog akin to mlp. instead of showing us characters are learning from mistakes, we get direct dialog stating that word for word. instead of taking the time to focus on one specific thing they dipped their toes in far too many generas and ended up with a weird mish-mash of content that doesnt know if its trying to be silly, slapstick, camp comedy, or a serious look at serious topics for adults in animated format. whatever the show was trying to be i really just dont think it landed on it, or on anything at all. there were a TON of moments that were ruined by badly placed comedy (the finale's main 'death', for one) or dialog that felt pulled right out of a kids show akin to 'can YOUU spot the emotionally traumatized cast member?!'. there were just a bunch of small, inconsistent, weird, or just bad things that made the show as a whole feel strange and out of place ending up with in my opinion a show that was almost, but not quite, a good show. it had the potential to be REALLY good, but i think it missed the mark by trying to do too much too fast and just hoping the audience would care about the characters because ~reasons~. its not terrible, in the end i think its more meh than bad, and i really do hope in future seasons they give it the time and care it deserves and settle themselves into a style and delivery method that does their story justice, rather than sometimes trying to say something, sometimes trying to be edgy, sometimes sounding like a disney plus show. tl;dr it could be good, but right now its just too sloppy and badly written to be a good show, so its just meh.

#hazbin hotel #review #feel free to disagree #this is just my opinion lmao #hazbin hotel spoilers #spoilers

[smooth-boob]

2023 Fic Year in Review

Thanks @penny-loaf and @hydriotaphia for tagging me!

List of Fics Completed this Year

Excluding the WIPs and stuff started in 2022:

To Tell the Truth - https://archiveofourown.org/works/46747165

The Bustle in a House - https://archiveofourown.org/works/47126467

From the blood of the wound, a flower sprang - https://archiveofourown.org/works/48305152

Overcome - https://archiveofourown.org/works/46083325

Doing The Voices - https://archiveofourown.org/works/47976274

The Morning After Death - https://archiveofourown.org/works/50856436

Running Toward Running Away - https://archiveofourown.org/works/47131885

Number of Words Written

47,530 (only those that are posted; my WIP word count is a very different number lol)

Your Most Popular Fic

To Tell The Truth. That one was a real rising star.

Your Personal Fave

The Bustle in a House, but tbh whatever I've most recently finished is most likely to be my favorite because I'm riding that high of having said what I wanted to say.

You Fav Scene

Don't make me choose!!! Right now I've been thinking about the garden scene and its aftermath from Chapter 3 of The Bustle in a House. I find it difficult to read, and I think that says something about its emotional impact!

A Fic or Scene that Challenged You

Chapter 3 of To Tell the Truth sent me into a creative spiral because I was working to figure out how to make the scene feel as honest and raw as the first two chapters and go really deep and emotionally soft and also get my Barbie dolls to just kiss already! 1000% worth it. That's my other favorite scene.

A Line of Writing You’re Proud Of

From The Morning After Death:

He spends the morning with his youngest siblings (his brother’s children), sharing stories and allowing the memories to crest and break over them in waves. In this family there are so many of them, siblings and stories, that they sometimes tell the same ones, some remembered differently, at different ages, or they confuse each other’s memories for their own and retell those stories, as if all the ways they remember him are true. In a sense, they are true. After all, memory is the only thing they have left.

A Comment that Touched You

Anybody who said my work felt honest, real, and/or special to them, and special shout-out to @andthebubbles for commenting along their journey reading Bustle because it let me know somebody else was out there wanting to read exactly what I wanted to read and to write!

Something that Inspired Your Writing

A fear of grief, Emily Dickinson, watching The Crown, these lines from Richard II that live rent-free in my mind...

For you have but mistook me all this while. / I live with bread like you, feel want, / Taste grief, need friends—subjected thus, / How can you say to me, I am a king?

Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

It felt really amazing to get properly back into writing in general, and to push the boundaries of emotion I can convey. 2023 was something of a breakthrough year.

Do You Have Any Writing Goals for Next Year?

To actually work on my novel...haha.

As far as fanfiction goes, I really want to finish my Kathony fic that's basically season three for them, which I'd love to put out there before season three comes out. We'll see about that. I'd also like to finish my Bridgerton Phantom of the Opera AU.

In terms of skill development, while I love the precision and brevity of my work, I am trying to slow down more and know when to give scenes space to breathe.

Tagging @andthebubbles, @hyperesthesias, and anyone else who would like to do this!

#.braindump

[the-diabolist]

Dear Heart

Reposted from my main blog.

c.w: fem reader (gendered terms used), lemon | lots of pet names, predator/prey dynamics (short chase scene), size kink ran a little rampant oops, restraint, biting (not enough), oral (f receiving), praise, overstimulation, creampie, smut with feelings (related: soft!Mason). 2.3k

“Well, this wasn’t very clever of ya, now was it honey?” he rumbles, low but still loud enough to carry up to your altitude.

“To be fair,” you call down from high in the branches, with more dignity than a person in your position has any right to possess, “you weren’t supposed to find me, dear.”

You don’t hear his resulting chuckle, but you see it cross his features. It’s almost enough to send you out of the canopy and into his arms… but that would ruin the game.

“Can’t stay up there forever,” he taunts, but there’s not a hint of impatience in his voice. He’ll wait all day if he needs to, and you know it. He knows you know it.

“You’re not supposed to guard home base, that’s cheating,” you shout. He shakes his head, chuckling again.

“Sorry, darlin’. This ain’t a kid’s game.” That smug smirk is on his face - as far as he’s concerned, he’s already won. “Do yerself a favor and c'mon down - sun’ll set soon and you’ll be pleadin’ to climb into my coat.”

He’s right; you can’t light a fire up here, and you’ll freeze to death without one. You’re going to be forced to leave your lofty citadel sooner rather than later.

You scramble to think of a way down that doesn’t end in immediate capture, but nothing feasible comes to mind. A few minutes pass as you weigh your options. Eventually he shrugs and starts making camp at the base of the tree.

Your leg starts to tingle unpleasantly, so you shift your position on your branch - your foot slips, and you end up having to catch yourself rather clumsily to avoid falling to the ground. Your movements send a shower of leaves and branches to the ground; he turns to look at the sound, half rising from his place near his small fire, ready to give chase.

He looks a little disappointed when he realizes it isn’t you, and sits back down. It gives you an idea.

You wait until he’s relaxed, and then you creep slowly lower, moving from branch to branch without making a sound, collecting twigs as you go. He had the decency to face away from you, at least, giving you a sporting chance (though not much of one).

Once you’re not too far from the ground, you quickly throw the twigs in quick succession, mimicking the sound of footsteps running away.

Mason shoots up, darting toward the sound - and you take that opportunity to jump from the tree, feet hitting the hard ground with jarring impact before taking off in the opposite direction.

You hear him stop short and change direction, heavy gait following after you like thunder, but you don’t turn to look; you can’t afford to waste the time.

You zigzag through the trees, using them as pivot points to swing yourself suddenly in different directions, but you can’t seem to get any distance on him - at least, certainly not enough to earn you a breath of relief.

And you could really use a breath right now, unfortunately; yours are currently short, shallow gasps into burning lungs - bellows struggling to stoke the dying fire in your exhausted muscles. You feel his fingertips brush your jacket more than once… you’re slowing down.

You give one last, big push, forcing your legs to pump harder, hoping to reach the clearing fast enough to duck behind cover and hide from him.

Despite everything, he catches you. You can’t help but scream as he grabs you, but it cuts off abruptly as you hit the ground following a rough tackle. The fight is stunned out of you for a moment, along with the air in your lungs, but then you’re bucking, rolling, flailing, and clawing - trying frantically to throw him off of you, fighting like a cat fleeing a bath.

“Wild, as usual,” he says, and you’re sure you hear amusement in it, though he’s breathless enough himself that it’s not easy to tell. He doesn’t usually have to run to catch his prey, but you tend to give him a workout.

Somehow, you always forget how strong he is until he reminds you. Giant hands close on your wrists, controlling them effortlessly. He brings them up above your head, using one hand to keep them there as he sinks down, pinning you completely with his body.

His large frame is so heavy, pressing you tightly between himself and the hard, leaf-strewn ground - you can’t move an inch.

“Gotcha,” he teases, smirking, as you pant beneath him. “Now, I reckon it’s time I pay you back for your little tree stunt.”

You brace yourself… but he withdraws. Despite your surprise, you waste no time trying to jump up. He catches you before your feet can fully plant on the ground, throwing you over his shoulder with a hearty laugh.

“Take it easy, little doe, it’ll just be a minute,” he rumbles, carrying you over to the nearest tree and plopping you back down against its trunk.

“I’m not a doe,” you complain, planting a boot on his shoulder and shoving him away… or trying to. It’s almost embarrassing how little he moves.

“Mm,” he acknowledges, digging around in his pocket, “yer right, but ‘little bobcat’ just ain’t got the same ring to it, deer hart.”

It’s the kind of joke you have to see written out to understand, but it’s one you’re well-acquainted with by now. Sometimes you remind him that a hart is technically a male deer, but he just says not to ruin a good turn of phrase with technicalities.

He chuckles to himself over the wordplay, as he always does. It’s familiar and endearing - enough so to melt you. When he leans back in - now holding a coil of rope, you realize - you grab him by the collar and yank him closer, into a long, deep kiss. He growls into your mouth as you finally start to pull away.

“Gonna make me impatient,” he purrs harshly, then holds the rope up in front of you. “Wrists together.”

You follow his instructions readily; you’re caught, completely and undeniably, and there’s no point resisting now. The aftermath is your favorite part anyway.

He takes your hands in his, gentle despite his size - the way his fingers slide across your skin is almost worshipful.

Once your wrists are comfortably bound, he leans in closer, brushes his lips over your forehead, then your cheek, then your jaw. Simmering, you tilt your head, and he takes advantage of the extra exposure like the opportunist he is - rough, fervent kisses trail up and down the column of your neck, mingled with scraping teeth and an occasional firm bite.

A hand comes up, cupping your jaw, large digits wrapping around to thread in your hair - holding you steady, pulling you closer, keeping you at his mercy, delicate touches replaced with barely-restrained passion as he tastes and marks and adores your skin. Finally, he sinks his teeth into the muscle of your shoulder with a low groan.

You’ve learned some things about him in your time together, including the best ways to drive him wild. He loves it when you bare your throat to him. Judging by the way he proceeds to practically manhandle you into position, you’d say you were successful in riling him up - though whether that was a good idea remains to be seen.



Less than ten minutes later, your hands are stretched above your head and tied to the tree behind you as he devours you like a man starved.

“Ah – slow down,” you whimper, flexing and bending your arms, arching your back, trying to get any distance you can between yourself and his oppressive tongue.

He doesn’t heed your plea, doesn’t allow your retreat - his hand tightens on your hip, pulling, keeping you snug against his mouth, while his other one kneads the thigh pressed to his ear. You have no recourse - he’s on his knees with your legs thrown over his shoulders, your hips are in the air, your hands are bound, and his grip is like iron. There’s nothing you can do except take whatever he decides to give you.

“Nnn. Mason.”

His name drops from your lips in a half-sigh, half-whine, and he groans low against you at the sound, hungrily, sending pulsing vibrations through your oversensitive skin. You’ve already come on his tongue once, and you hadn’t expected this kind of… persistence. You figured he’d want a turn by now, especially considering how worked up the hunt makes him. Apparently he’s feeling either generous or petty.

You’re going to go with petty, based on his breakneck pace. You come again with a full-body tremor and a raw cry, turning your face to the side, fruitlessly trying to hide it in the crook of your elbow.

As you move, his scent, heady in its familiarity, rises to meet you from the large coat laid out beneath you - as usual, he’d taken it off before undressing you, providing a warm, soft, and clean place to lay you down.

Also in the spirit of keeping you comfortable, he’d left your top in place (though rumpled and slightly shifted from the repeated, rough slide of his broad hands underneath it as he caressed and kneaded your breasts at his will).

He was still fully clothed, barring the coat, himself - he tended to run warm, but even so the autumn chill in the air had enough bite to make too much nudity inadvisable. (You were looking forward to summer, when you’d once again be able to rut completely bare beneath a lush green canopy.)

Once he’s lapped up your release to his fill, he finally drops your hips as you try to control your ragged breathing and twitching extremities.

Every nerve in your body felt overwrought and sensitive. Your core was still throbbing; somehow, where you should be utterly satisfied, you only felt maddeningly empty.

“And now that yer good an’ wore out,” he says, then pulls out a knife and cuts the rope, freeing your hands. They instantly thread into his hair as you surge upward to press your lips to his. He grunts, startled, before wrapping his arms around you with a chuckle.

“Want you,” you pant, in between staccato kisses. “Please?”

“Insatiable, are ya?” He teases gently. One hand finds the back of your head, pulling you into another kiss, as the other slides beneath the hem of your shirt once again, tugging down the cups of your bra to roll your nipple between his fingers.

You arch and moan into his mouth. He nips your lip as he pulls away. His hands leave you in favor of unbuckling his belt; the sound sends a pavlovian bolt of excitement through you.

“Well,” he starts, dark amusement coloring his tone, “if you’re gonna act like a bitch in heat, I might as well fuck you like one. Flip over.”

You roll onto your elbows and knees, shamefully eager. Cold air wafts between your legs and makes you realize how incredibly wet you are - and you’re not the only one who notices.

“Drippin’ for me,” he purrs, sliding a finger through your slick, “good girl.”

A shaky sigh falls from your lips at the praise, shifting into a whine as his hands first pull your thighs further apart and then grip your hips.

He moves closer, and then you can feel him between your legs, sliding his length back and forth through your folds, coating himself in your arousal.

You’re well aware of his size, but it takes your breath away all the same when he finally starts pushing into you, sinking slowly but steadily, filling you up just how you were craving.

You arch your back further, guiding him deeper, and he’s sliding in so easily - you’d be proud of yourself if you had the presence of mind for it. As it is, a lustful haze has replaced practically all of the coherent thoughts in your head.

You’re already trembling beneath him, breathing hard, whimpering and gasping and shuddering, by the time he bottoms out.

He immediately retreats again, rocking his hips slow and shallow at first, building up momentum until his strokes are deep and hard; your body jolts with his thrusts, hands scrabbling for purchase as your forehead drops to the plush lining of his coat.

“Mm, you feel good,” he rumbles, hands kneading your hips.

“So -” you begin, breathless, but you cut yourself off with a gasp at an especially rough thrust - “ah, so do you. God,” you moan, buckling under the onset of another climax.

You cry out once, and then again and again - he groans as you tighten and pulse around him, but he doesn’t stop, barely even slows as you go boneless in his hands, relying on him to hold you up - which he does with no trouble.

Your orgasm wanes and suddenly everything is too much; you whine in protest, reaching back to weakly push at his knee, but he only increases his pace.

You start squirming wildly and he leans down, pressing against your back, pinning you down as you helplessly writhe and whimper beneath him, clawing at the ground for a relief that you know you won’t find until he’s done with you.

Luckily, he likes it when you struggle (it’s on the list of things you’ve learned about him) - the rhythm of his hips starts to stutter, and his breathing is harsh and heavy over your head, and his grip on your hips turns bruising - and then you feel him release inside of you with a deep groan, hips gradually stilling against yours.

He stays where he is as you both come down. You don’t complain; his weight is comforting and warm.

“I think you’re going to have to carry me back,” you mutter, sensing the weakness in your legs. He chuckles.

“Anythin’ for you, honey.”

#the price of flesh #rune writes fanfic #mason heiral #tpof mason

[zalrb]

Overall thoughts on KOTFM? Do you think it lived up to the hype?

OK well what I'll say first is I'm not ignoring what some Indigenous people, some Osage people have said about the movie, like Christopher Cote and how he left the premiere feeling conflicted

and the issues that have arisen around Ernest being too sympathetic and the film not really being from an Osage perspective and needing an Osage director to truly do that and finding the violence gratuitous and the Osage characters underwritten

and I'm not going to contradict that or devil's advocate that because their views are what matters here.

I'm just going to talk about my experience with KOTFM, which is what you asked but I would be remiss not to put the criticism of the movie by people who are actually Indigenous first.

So, I have been thinking about the movie since I watched it yesterday and I can't remember a movie in the last two, three years that has had that kind of impact on me except for maybe Across The Spider-Verse and EEAO.

I watched it like this is fucking cinema. I was geeking out in the theatre. Those shots,

those gorgeous shots

that are almost like portraits

had me in awe.

It's modern, there is clearly a lot of money behind this movie that also feels very intimate but it also feels like watching history, like watching the life of those black-and-white photos you see which from a technical perspective they did through the cinematographer using current technology/lenses to replicate the same kind of look and colour that would've been around in the 20s and then 30s and then using the Western genre to showcase how white people, the heroes of Westerns, systematically oppress through violence, murder, the law...so many layers.

I watched it with someone and we had very different perspectives on the movie and on Scorsese as a director because he thought Scorsese moved really quickly and I said you are the first person that I've met who has said Scorsese is quick. The criticism I get from people who can't get into his work is that he's incredibly slow. And he said, he couldn't keep up with certain things like when Lizzie Q dies and is taken to the afterlife because he said it was abrupt and it seems so unintentional. And I had to calm myself down lmao and was like OK, Scorsese is incredibly intentional. In that scene, he is aligning us with Lizzie Q's experience in the moment. She was alive and then she wasn't and she went to the afterlife and we experience that with her, when we go back to the let's say earthly realm, it's to confirm her death by see the living mourning her passing. And he was like, well when you say it like that, it makes sense.

And we talked for a while after the movie and it kept being the same conversation, where I was like if you pay attention to more than the dialogue, which quite frankly I found pretty heavy-handed, and to the way the scenes are set up, it says a lot about the themes of the movie. So he asked what I meant and we ended up talking about King because he didn't understand what was happening with King in like a very basic way. He was confounded that King had acted friendly with the Osage and was also responsible for so many of their murders and I was like, OK barring the fact that I really think you need to educate yourself more on how colonizers colonize, within the context of the movie, it is made very clear relatively quickly that King doesn't see the Osage as people. It's clear in the dialogue but also in the way things are shot, like when King and Ernest talk about Henry, it's almost as if they have Henry mounted on the fireplace like a prize

which in concert with the dialogue where King refers to Henry as a dollar amount -- a $25,000 insurance policy -- speaks to the overarching themes of settler colonialism, capitalism, genocide, racism in this one conversation, one shot with these characters and he was basically like

and having this conversation just really solidified how much the cinematic language of the movie spoke to me and how his choices as a director, like not just having a voiceover that intermittently let's us in on Mollie's thoughts while we watch her expression but actually seeing things from her point of view elevated the movie and of course, that brings us to the acting. I mean we've discussed this but Lily's performance was so powerful, she does so much with her physicality, with her expressions

her scream when she finds out that Rita was murdered was hauntingly good, she 100% made this movie.

Leo was good as well, I particularly liked the moments where he didn't feel reigned in -- I liked his subtle performance, I think it's the least ... Leo of his performances -- but when he gets to be emotional

it's like a dam bursting.

I thought De Niro was good as well, between him and Leo, his accent slipped the most, it was a little fun for me to watch him and Leo and see when I saw their signatures come out and their roles couldn't hide certain things so for Leo when Ernest and Mollie are flirting at her house and he does his smile, I'm like oh there's Jack Dawson and with De Niro when he'd do the frown and nod I'd be like oh, there you are.

I was also quite taken with Tatanka Means,

he's barely in the movie but I found he had such a presence.

This isn't to say that I thought the movie was flawless.

Despite appreciating the ending -- i.e. rather than doing a typical text on black screen at the end of the movie to educate the viewers on more facts about the real people and instead making a commentary on how the genocide and exploitation and marginalization of this community (and other communities) becomes entertainment to a white audience and then including himself in the show to acknowledge that aspect of KOTFM and then ending it with the Osage people --- the third act is definitely when I felt the fact that the movie was made for white audiences the most because that is when we get to Ernest grappling with whether or not to testify, with his epiphany after his daughter dies, when we get to King trying to keep control, when we get to the other people involved in the murders turning on each other and I didn't find any of that necessary. Scorsese said that when he spoke to the Osage about doing this movie, they said he had to remember that Mollie and Ernest loved each other,

"We realized that was really the heart of the film. And having met with the Osage so many times and heard from Margie Burkhart, who was the great-great-granddaughter of Ernest, she knew them. She kept saying, “Don’t forget it isn’t as simple as villains and victims. You have to remember Mollie and Ernest were in love.” And that always stayed with me when we were still working on the other version of the script. I said, “Well, if they’re in love, we got to show that too.” And then that became difficult in terms of showing all the machinations of the Bureau investigation. Plus, this love story, it was getting unwieldy."

and he said in the transcripts he saw, the FBI questioned why Mollie stayed with him after learning about him conspiring to murder her family while also poisoning her since she only divorced him after the hearing and instead of trying to answer that question, instead of really digging into Mollie's perspective, Mollie's emotions about this, he aligned with Ernest and kind of reverted to the procedural that the entire movie was originally supposed to be but that they scrapped and it's a flinch, I found it to be a faltering of commitment. From what I remember, Mollie is the only Osage character with a voiceover but John gets one and while I understand why Scorsese would make that choice, it shows his limitations when it would've been more compelling to get one from Henry, and this is also to say that I know Scorsese hired Osage consultants, hired Osage actors, had an Osage costume designer etc.

All in all, I found it to be a flawed but powerful, technically masterful film and I think of what Lily said “Nobody is going to hand an Osage filmmaker $200 million,” Gladstone said. “There’s a level of allyship that’s absolutely necessary" and within that context, Scorsese did things that Nolan, for instance, in Oppenheimer didn't even try.

[detectivewoof]

I said I was gonna do it and I did it. It's really fucking nasty down here.

‘Records of the cursed dogs in South America are few and in between, but the general consensus seems to be that they are an impossibility.’ 

He’d been lying on the floor for what felt like the longest ten minutes of his life, arms clutched hard over his midsection. Or maybe those were his intestines? It was hard to tell when the feeling of flesh seemed to blend together with the way his head swam from blood loss. 

The caliber had been large, the fucks, but they didn’t lace it like they usually did. No silver, or the blood would’ve started smelling like rot and mold now. No silver, which meant this wasn’t a hunt. Sadistic bastards wanted something... 

Manny was sure of it anyways. That Cult of the Sun or whatever they went by these days wouldn’t have tracked him for no other reason.  

‘A theory that commonly gets raised is why and how. Many figure that it’s the notion of this... beast that seems to guide them in extreme times of need and others, but where does it come from?’ 

He could feel his breathing slowing to a labor, the squelch and pain of trying to pack the important bits back where they needed to go was almost too much. It was probably a miracle he didn’t vomit or shit himself from the initial convulsion of shock. The rest of the bodily functions weren’t as lucky. 

Words were being spoken somewhere above to him. Maybe. Something about studying, of course it was, and the boot that tried to step on the mess of internals he didn’t have the energy to push wasn’t helping any. 

The snarling echoed in his ears was the last thing Manny could hear before letting himself get swept away in the cold. 

‘We’re not sure where it comes from, but one thing’s for certain: if you’ve downed one of the beasts then you need to make sure you finish it off. Leaving it to die on its own is not enough.’ 

The hunter watched in horror, a scream left dying in her throat at the scene. Her mentor caught by a massive claw that jutted out from the new hole in their captive’s body. Panic, orders, she scrabbled for the silver tips on her belt but a new noise made her drop them and the gun. A sickening, meaty snap. She didn’t want to look, but curiosity got the better... 

She really wished it hadn’t. 

Another thick, muscular, fur covered arm broke straight out of the mouth of their victim. The jaw was unhinged and broken clear in two places, hanging only by the muscle. The throat bulged thick and struggled around the mass. Wet, gagging sounds like being choked, oh God was he still alive?-- 

Her mentor yelled about his leg and screamed at her to fire, but she couldn’t. God, she couldn’t stop watching... 

The skin stretched until it tore, the mouth seemed to unhinge impossibly more. The gagging got louder, like a struggle to breathe. God, just die, please it’ll be kinder.  

Except there wasn’t any kindness when the freed claw was able to finally reach and tear. Flesh and muscle gave way with little difficulty not much different from clothes, she watched in horror as it tore into what was left of the shoulder as well. The injury that impacted was still there but somehow less. Smaller. 

Or maybe it was the size of the beast that stood before them that made them think that. 

It roared, she screamed, her mentor yelled at her to run. 

‘Stories say that their God will not accept them until their purpose has been fulfilled. Experience says that these creatures will die as long as we make sure they’re dead once they are down. This is why we call them Los Que Esperan.’ 

‘They are the ones that wait for death.’ 

#file intel on display «¤» ( factoids #body horror tw #gore tw #monster biology go brrr #so does monster bullshit #uhhH #is loss of bodily functions a tw? #idk but there's that in there too so #yea #i don't think there's enough tags that can cover all basis so yell at me if you need it #but its under a cut for a reason so its on you if you peak :V #its also LONG AS FUCK

[liminalpsych-in-teyvat]

Notes for A Matter of Duty - Chapter 17 - Like a fish to water

The patron had kissed him—hesitant at first, then sharp with yearning. Lost in the memory, Thoma drew a finger across his lower lip. Softly, gently, like the patron’s first shy fumblings. He traced his upper lip too, remembering the touch of a stranger's on his own, and wondered. Wondered about the texture of a beauty mark, and the taste of his lord's mouth.

Thoma has twenty days to get information out of a prisoner before Ayato takes over the interrogation. Twenty days to spare Ayato from losing more of himself. He throws himself into the investigation with a desperate will.

- - -

Aaand we're back! I give up on estimating how long things are going to take; I should know better by this point. However, my frantic writing deadlines are done. I was writing every spare minute for the past 2-3 months for a project that finished up in late Feb/early Mar (and went really well!) and it's finally over, so I can put my focus back on Genshin fanfic.

Any guesses as to who Thoma's patrons were? The Liyue sailor and the Liyue merchant are both actual Genshin NPCs.

This chapter was a bit of an experiment. I'm not sure if it worked or not, but I needed to get through a lot of plot points very quickly and didn't want to spend *tons of chapters* doing so.

(I might write out some of the more interesting Sakura-za scenes in a spinoff at some point. You know... this fic was originally meant to be kinky porn with some angst, and some handwaved plot in the background. Now I keep cutting out the porn because it'd bog down the plot. Siiigh.)

Back to a more traditional format next chapter. Thanks to: PancakeBeast for beta reading, and the Hidden Akasha Records discord for all the general support!

Notes and references:

Characteristics of Japanese block-printed books in the Edo period: 1603-1867: This is mostly for block-printed books, though I don't see why blank journals would be constructed any differently. (Also some nifty stuff on a particular book binder's books.)

Sugoroku: Probably dice games were more popular by this point, but board games have a certain sedateness to them that's valuable for conversation—yet I didn't want to use something too cerebral like shōgi or Go, so sugoroku it is.

My math. Conversion rates grabbed off of... some forum thread or another; fees for actors sourced from The Great Mirror of Male Love by Ihara Saikaku, a collection of m/m short stories published in 1687.

- Sleeping with apprentice actors cost 1 bu of gold (1/4 ryu of gold, about 25k yen or 170 usd) - $1 USD = 297.52 mora. So 1 bu = 50k mora - 5 ryō of silver = 66,665 yen = 455.98 usd or 423.10 euro = 135k mora for a night with a full fledged onnagata actor of no particular stardom

Studies in Kabuki: Its acting, music, and historical context - Specifically page 46 talking about dance (but I've referenced this whole piece heavily).

Summary of the fic itself with content warnings, tags, etc so you can decide if you want to read it or not before you click on the link.

A Matter of Duty

A year after the death of Ayato and Ayaka's parents, the clan succession is contested from within and without. Kamisato Ayato will do anything—_anything_—to ensure the safety of his family and the stability of his clan.

But powerful supporters come at an unimaginable price. When Ayato's own sacrifices aren't enough, he is forced to involve Thoma in a web of intrigue and exploitation that will push them to the breaking points of their bodies, their minds, and their very hearts.

or: Kushiel's Dart meets Genshin Impact in a quick-scorch-to-slow-burn romantic drama of court intrigue, sexual politics, and sacrifice.

Note: Mind the tags. More specific content warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter, and the story tags will be updated as needed. All characters in sex scenes are adults.

Rating: Explicit. It's porn with plot. Porn as a vehicle for plot, or plot as a vehicle for porn, you can interpret it either way. (I prefer: porn and plot as a vehicle for ~feels~)

Tags that I'm not actually turning into tags here, but it gives you an idea of what you're in for: Kamisato Ayato/Thoma (Genshin Impact), dubious consent but not between Ayato and Thoma, slow burn, sex ed, first time, self-sacrifice, humiliation, exhibitionism, oral sex, anal sex, bdsm, bad bdsm etiquette, rough sex, breath play, impact play, bondage, service kink, abuse, sadism, codependency, shame, guilt, jealousy, possessiveness, trauma, ptsd, dissociation, political sex work, or sex work for political maneuvering, or political survival sex work if that’s a thing, exploitation, blackmail, political machinations, political intrigue, no aftercare, maybe someday some aftercare, hurt/comfort, mostly hurt for a long time but eventually comfort, oblivious disaster gays, for such socially savvy people they are terrible at personal relationships, dominant Ayato, submissive Thoma, top Ayato, bottom Thoma, Ayato is incredibly parentified, Thoma has no sense of self-preservation, self-sacrifice isn't a contest but don't tell Ayato and Thoma that, it's like the snipe-the-check game at restaurants but with sex and politics, Kushiel's Impact, no really this was in my drafts for the longest time as Kusheline Thomato Fic, everyone's an adult in this timeline except Ayaka, she gets protected at all costs, original characters out of necessity, finding appropriate existing Inazuma npcs for some of these roles was impossible

Full fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47604337?view_full_work=true

Chapter 17 - Like a fish to water

Thoma has twenty days to get information out of a prisoner before Ayato takes over the interrogation. Twenty days to spare Ayato from losing more of himself. He throws himself into the investigation with a desperate will.

Chapter contains: sex work, bdsm

#a matter of duty #my writing #Kamisato Ayato #kamisato ayato/thoma #thoma #ayathoma #Thomato #ayathomato #amod #amod chapter 17 #Kushiel’s impact #Wakathoma #ayato/thoma