#this all started because i was frustrated with using certain tropes too often

[abimee]

so tbh i was hard on nier:a while playing it cos i don't really like a lot of the anime tropes BUT i really like tragedies and i was promised some twists, and got some. but i wanted to ask you how you felt about the pacing. basically, did it feel like there was a solid line connecting plot points, or do you feel like certain things happened at random? barring the fact that yoko taro said he literally wrote the story out of order, is that how it felt to you? imo it felt really rushed through super cool parts and like things that were annoying or setpieces ran on for too long. ig i'm still fked up over how much it fell short of my expectations bc even after playing nier:a completely thru and h8ing how absurdly film-student its tone and ideology are, i was hyperfixated enough to read some of the side literature and learn drakengard lore. tl;dr, nier:a is cool and has some fun parts but i wish the android were more mature (or artificial) in physicalilty to avoid weird anime loli baiting in the fans and also they'd asked a writer to help revise and implement the og author's ideas okay bye thx for reading my rant ♡ i'm glad u had fun and ur fanart abt a2 and the indoor grill made me cough

ill gladly listen to people bitch about yoko taro ive had PROBLEMS with this man since a young age ☝️☝️☝️☝️

I was actually thinking about the pacing and insertion of certain scenes/plot points today because admittedly like. okay this might be all over the place but

The start of the game (Route A + B) was like pretty solid pacing I think due to being low risk, and I thought it was cool that the game let you see 9S' side of things --- but it really started to fumble when it got into it's moe complex storylines in C-D-E and went on to deposit a lot of information on it to the point where it felt like we were forgetting entire plots and characters because something new and shiny showed up

Like okay first off. Adam and Eve and the aliens. We never once got any sort of explanation WHY adam + eve killed the aliens, or why the aliens made the machines, but within that general thought we did learn that humans died before going to the moon (and possibly even before the aliens came?), and that YoRHa's only goal was to fight the machines until a specified amount of data was gotten and then they were to explode. Never did we get more elaboration on the aliens or adam/eve, and while we got some YoRHA spotlight stuff it also entirely just decided that explaining the true mission behind making YoRHa and why the androids had to die is beyond it. Which frustrated me because it Brings Up Ideas but doesn't specify if thats the true reason, like we learned that the machines fight purely because that was there sole reason, and so they made an enemy for themselves purely to enact that goal that the aliens gave --- but then it even goes ''haha okay but hear me out'' and introduces Red Girl and this vague idea of the Machine Ego and wanting to defy their masters of the aliens, but then DOESN'T ELABORATE WHY. Like we don't know WHY adam and eve and the machine ego wanted to develop enough to defy their machine logic and purpose because it wraps back around to ''theyre human just like us because they want to defy their masters because.... they're human like us?"

Like it often felt like some concepts or plots brought up walked itself in a circle, dog-chasing-tail style, where it's entirely contained within itself and refuses to expand upon it's existence, which then causes it to get sort of left behind when the plot finds a new fancy idea to latch onto. Like how quickly the story introduced, focused on, then discarded Adam & Eve is almost criminal because of the things it could've done with them literally as the closest approximation to what the Machine Ego/Red Girls wanted, since they defied their creator's orders to be their own selves. Eve especially feels wasted in this regard --- like if the plot spent a little more time focusing on Eve & Adam in a B-plot scenario showing Eve and Adam learning more from humans and even leaning into Eve's wants that we saw in his mind when 9S hacked him (the human home built around him and his brother, and his brother wanting to go somewhere peaceful with him). Like they even could've tied that to when they get on the Ark and leave and Adam is holding Eve, that's literally Adam bringing Eve somewhere peaceful, but because those two instances are so seperated from each other and their own sort of throw-away concepts it becomes hard to Remember the tether between those two thoughts

This is also my biggest problem with A2's writing, I can only assume she's meant to be a Kaine-type character (and boy did my eyes momentarily widen seeing Emil say ''it must be fate that we've met!" to her) where her reserved nature and somewhat limited character blends in with her personality, but they really could've just given us like at least 2 more hours-game to learn about her past rather than just infodump us with her lore in some logs at the Resistance Camp. This is another problem Red Girl had where I feel like the fact you get unit data on them that basically explains away the confusing parts of their involvement in the lore felt cheap because this game has over 40+ hours under it's belt but couldn't be damned to give us information on our main antagonist directly in the game instead of in a post-credit LOG?

Like okay. I love my baby boy emil. He is the most special boy in the world to me and I am so happy seeing him get a pretty decent character arc for himself in the sequel to his original iteration. But why do we learn information about Emil more easily than the Red Girls? No unit data paragraph, no document information to read, no external book needing to be sourced. You learn whats up with him, why his big event out in the desert happens, and how it ends. You even get TWO special areas involving him. Red Girl gets to speak for a little bit and then vanish. It just astonishes me a bit

And it's not like the game doesn't try to expand characters last-minute either, that entire cutscene where Pascal reads Nietszche and then gets surrounded by the baby machines before the events of the Factory/suicide felt so forced in suddenly that it felt rather obvious something was going to happen. And I say this as someone who was in tears seeing Pascal get called ''uncle Pascal'' and see him defend the children in the factory --- it was super obvious that they possibly didn't originally plan that scene but needed something to really show that Village acted just like a human community with children and babysitters and family. Like not to be like ''this couldve been something beautiful'' but i think giving us a little time between A2 and the Village more could've done something beautiful. A2 getting the necessities to build the slide definitely made me drop to my knees but I noticed even the LPer was confused why A2 had a crying child inside of her as her enemy at the end of the hacking (like how 9S had 2B at the end of his destroying his memories), but the game didn't do anything with that besides lightly imply A2 lets down her mean bit for children sometimes (and again. why is this Kaine behavior). And then the fucking laughing children sound at the end of the route where she hacks 9S and she looks to the sky like ? This is all very interesting but it doesnt mean anything.

NOT TO MENTION 2B BEING AN EXECUTIONER TYPE. COOL CONCEPT BUT IT DOESNT MEAN ANYTHING IN THE END. It's just another thing to tack onto 9S's migraine of learning everything is a lie but nothing gets DONE with that incredibly interesting though afterwards because we never see 2B after that because she's been dead for a while now. We had a brief hint at it when we heard that transmission of 2B being her new name but the payoff just doesn't work if you just state it and then not do anything with it.

There's many cases of this and I notice it with how much questions I have that simply have no answer in this game despite the fact we have nearly 5 routes worth of time that could've gone into either sticking to like 3 ideas to the end or bridging the gaps, Which the story Does Do Sometimes! Red Girl talking about fucking up its own network to make pacifistic machines that want nothing to do with the war, the lie of YoRHA

OH MY GOD ALSO. SPEAKING OF RANDOMLY PUSHING STUFF IN. OPERATOR 210. The fact that they wanted to pull the whole ''she was curt and distant with 9S but secretly saw him as like a son because she wanted a family :(" could've gone INSANE if they didn't decide they wanted to bring that idea in at the last possible second and make 210 randomly baby 9S (and then make him point out how strange she's acting), and then ignore that until we get to the cutscene that they wanted to make for it. Like they could've had 210 start out as curt and distant, but as 9S operations with 2B got more dangerous she could've started laying on the doting mother thing, but it just came so abruptly in Route.....C? That it felt forced and rather last-minute, like they finished writing A and B and someone walked in and went ''wait I want 210 to see 9S as her son :(" and this is how they crammed it in

oh this post isnt even about the pacing i'm just talking about dead end plot concepts. But I can definitely see where you're coming from there because we spent an awfully long time with the Resistance only to know so little about them, but it defos felt more ''a lot of stuff is getting brought up but we dont have enough time to give it developing room because we want to bring in the next concept asap". A2, the forest king, Red Girl, hell even Pascal and Adam & Eve all suffer this. the only person who really got a steady character Was 2B and 9S but 2B felt like she got cut short and just became a puppet for 9S' plot which is so tiring how often we get dual man/woman protags and the woman's story just becomes part of the man's story and she becomes a nebulous concept. that yoko taro brand Misogyny

I SPENT AN HOUR TYPING THIS? I haven't even gotten to how I feel like 9S' plot feels like it was destined for something more but got bottlenecked for time and cut off at the like 80% mark

I can definitely feel that though of feeling like Nier:a didn't meet expectations, when I finished all the routes and the playlist i was watching just Ended I genuinely sat up and bed and just felt a deep sense of ''THAT'S IT? THATS ALL?"

it's crazy too because I really, REALLY loved what it had going and im going to be thinking about this game forever but it also just left me feeling like i'm missing something so badly that when I try to think about it sometimes my mind just draws blanks like im left speechless at it.

Like that was nier: automata? that was just 40 hours of being asked what it means to be alive

#im not even gonna talk about what it tries to say philosophically because i can see its trying to say some stuff #but it sometimes get drowned out with the incessant need to do what mr taro games do and just make shit feel bad #and i love tragedies. but it can be heavyhanded when done by his devs sometimes #AGAIN THIS ISNT ME SAYING THE GAMES BAD. I LOVED IT A LOT BUT MAN. WHAT THE HELL

[mixelation]

comedy of errors and or fridge horror for the ask meme ?

give me a fanfic trope and i'll grade it

comedy of errors

I really like this one when it's done well, but it can get frustrating or just dumb when done poorly. I really like stories that can take a small event and then have it ripple out into big consequences, and to me a good comedy of errors starts with an initial logical or very small mistake that spirals out into increasingly ridiculous circumstances that forces more mistakes/bad decisions that are IC in the face of a stupid problem. To me this is a fun, silly way explore the canon setting and how characters approach problems. THAT BEING SAID, when not done carefully it can sort of just deflate into "everyone is an idiot" or a frustrating "everyone refuses to communicate to a degree that's both frustrating and OOC."*

The good version of this is hard to find in fic, so I'm giving this a B-: somewhere between B: Like it. Not one of my bigger cravings, but it can scratch a certain itch if I’m in the right mood and C: Neutral. A good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead.

*sometimes "bad communication" as a plot point can be funny if the POINT is that the character is just really, really bad at it-- e.g., a fic about Itachi doing a bunch of insane things to "help" sasuke which all blow up in their faces because it never occurs to him to actually talk to Sasuke. BUT if drawn out for too long or forced on characters that normally WOULD attempt communication, it just gets really frustrating.

fridge horror

Hmmm I'm not 100% sure how you mean this, since usually when I see this invoked it's to discuss horrifying implications the canon creator probably didn't intend? So I'll go over two scenarios for fic, but both are kind of "fun when implemented well but often used as cheap edgelord points":

exploring fridge horror from canon - These are fics that go "what if I went really HARD on the child soldier plot?" or "what if I took this one horrifying detail and really fleshed it out?" I'm usually wary of these fics because they tend to be, like.... not fun? LMAO. Obviously it gets done well sometimes, and Homemade Dynamite is arguably an ode the genjutsu fridge horror, but I wouldn't seek this out on its own. I'll give it a C: Neutral. A good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead.

character processing fridge horror - This trope is kind of fun. This would be like, a genin realizing waaaay after the fact that they would have 100% died on that mission if their jounin sensei had been half a second slower, or Sasuke coming to grips with the ~truth~ of the Uchiha massacre, etc. These tend to be either very brief (the former example) or character driven (the latter), and while there's still a danger of cheap drama or undeserved edginess, I am kind of a sucker for it. B: Like it. Not one of my bigger cravings, but it can scratch a certain itch if I’m in the right mood.

#ask meme answer

[asyouleft]

Thank you for the tag @happyaspie

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

- 89! I have a lot of other works that never made the move from LJ to a03 tho.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

- 1,100,235. I like to think this is an indication of how my mental health is, lmao.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

- Mosly MCU Irondad but I have caved and started writing Heartstopper lately. And I have some Our Flag Means Death fics in the works. I used to write a lot of McShep for Stargate Atlantis, as well as Supernatural, Harry Potter, Torchwood & Doctor Who.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

- Five Time Faculty Members Had to Call Peter's Emergency Contact + One Time He Shows Up Anyway 5,410 kudos

-Five Times Tony Stark's Fabled Intern Just Showed Up + One Time He Was Invited  2,824 kudos

- The Hero of Our Own Story 2,033 kudos

- There is Always One Last Light to Turn Out 1,854 kudos

- For We are Bound by Symmetry 1,730 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I like to say thank you to everyone who comments because I am forever grateful for it!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

If You Find That You Feel Lost, I'll Be Your Ticket Back which I think has a happy ending to it but others disagree. And Films About Ghost which also is a happy/sad ending. There's resolutions but it's not what everyone wants.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmm, I think they all end kinda happy? lol Maybe Operation: Graduation but it's very light hearted.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yeah, not very often but I think sometimes I like moving away from tropes and mixing it up a bit. For We Are Bound by Symmetry got some hate on how I handled the bio!Dad thing. We Always Walked a Very Thin Line got some unexpected hate! And recently there was an anon on Edges of Your Name that poked a little.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, I'm writing one now, lol. I mostly do slash but I've dabbled in het a few times.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah, not really.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope! I don't look for it anyway and I doubt anyone would want to steal my shit, lol.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! Oh my god, someone did two fics in RUSSIAN and I was so happy I cried! Honestly I felt so good about it!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A very long time ago, I did a Hanson shoebox AU with my friend, haha. And even before that me and my high school bestie cowork some Hanson fics but nope! I'd love to though. Someone cowrite something with me, please!!!

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Ngggh. This is hard because my brain is like MCSHEP BITCH (John Sheppard/Rodney McKay) and then immedatly followed by Nick Nelson/Charlie Spring, Aziraphale/Crowley, Ed/Stede, Jack/Ianto. And I just realized a majority of these are CANON which NEVER HAPPENS TO ME and I think I might die of happiness knowing my ships are canon. (Also wow my brain did not come up with a single het ship lol opps)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My WIP folder has about 49 fics in it, so yeah. There's a Richard Parker Alive but Terrible Parent fic that I was pretty far into before I gave up. I'd like to actually finish that but I've lost the plot bunny somewhere.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmm, I dunno, honestly. I think I can write certain characters well like the funny sarcastic ones (Peter Parker, Charlie Spring, Rodney McKay and even Tony Stark) because it's just me, hi, that's me.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Aside from spelling, lolz? I think I get too wordy sometimes, I have to cut paragraphs off in editing because I just keep going. I also think I can't end a scene to save my life sometimes and get frustrated when I don't think the end point works.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't think I really have? I dunno, Nick hasn't spoken French in a fic yet, damn I might just have to add that soon...

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OKAY if we're going to be for reals about this, most likely the Hobbit or The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I was writing fic as a kid (self insert no less) without realizing it. Later I'd write "episodes" of like Rainbow Brite, or Carebears, Inspector Gadget, Captain Planet. I'd also write one off Marvel/DC stuff with a self insert superhero (aka me with powers, usually I was an x-man lmao).

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Nhggh, that's hard. I like, act like I like what I write but I also end up like, hating it? I think I really love how Just an Intern turned out, from conception to finishing it, it was a fun write. And I quiet like how Edges of Your Name has come together too. But I think I had a little magic in me when I wrote There is Always One Last Light to Turn Out somehow. I wrote the thing in like 2 days and I think it came out rather well for something I mostly texted to speech as I was driving to work, ha.

And I'm terrible at tagging people so whomever!

#fanfic #asks #irondad fic #heartstopper fic #a03 #i like talking about my own writing if you couldn't tell

[bnhaobservation]

Do you think Enji's mentally ill?

Hum...

I hope it's okay if I take this as a request to dig into Enji's mental state instead than an attempt at giving him a diagnosis and, as usual, these are my two cents, I'm not Horikoshi and I don't know The Truth about his characters.

So let's start with a realistic approach first.

When I was studying psychology my teacher told us: "Don't get your hopes up, no one is psychologically healthy. No one is completely free from psychological problems. The real point is if one can live with his own problems in a way that doesn't make him or the people he has around himself or society miserable."

Is Enji okay with himself?

Not really, when he was younger he was plagued with frustration, envy and ugliness of his heart, feelings he can't overcome and that push him to think one of his children could help him overcome.

He's eaten alive by his inferiority complex, self-hate...

...and anger...

...which he believes is what is keeping him alive.

Enji is many things but clearly not okay with himself.

What about the people who has around himself?

Regarding the ones close to him... he ended up destroying his own family, causing his wife to fear him and 3 of his child to loathe him, which includes also the one who looked up at him the most.

Regarding society... he's a very good Hero but he's not really leaving a positive impression since he's also Number 1 in the Heroes who look like Villains and, despite all his solved case, he's 4th among the Heroes liked by the public.

He manages to get himself rejected by Yoarashi and when he becomes Number One people isn't really satisfied. He has the highest case solving rate, even higher than All Might and yet they don't consider him reliable.

So, yeah, he's not psychologically healthy and he could benefit of some help.

I've said I won't attempt to give a diagnosys because we've nowhere near enough elements to make one even if we were professionals... and the canon is contraddicting due to retcon... but even if there weren't retcons very likely we could never have enough elements because... Enji is a fictional character, one whom his creator didn't build planning to give him a mental illness, but merely created him around negative character traits, which, if he were to be a real person, he would have for a psychological reasons, but since he's fictional, he only has them for story purposes.

Many writers write characters who're not psychologically well or who has abnormal quirks but do not bother at all giving them a mental illness. Sometimes they don't even bother giving them something akin to a reason for why they're not psychologically well, or it's a rushed, tossed in one, or it's just a trope.

That's because what they want to discuss more often than not isn't a mental illness but a situation due to certain character traits.

Where will X's character traits lead him?

Or which of X's character's traits caused such situation?

Those are often topics they want to discuss, not character X has mental illness Y so he does this, this and that.

Character traits are general enough readers can identify with them, mental illness is more specific and, what's more, to be portraied correctly, it requires quite a lot of research and can end up being 'constricting' ruling what a character can or can't do, so that the writer can't have him do certain things that instead the writer is interested in having said character doing.

It's mostly us, readers who love to fill in the blanks, analyzing/overanalyzing the characters' behaviours and find out what in his psyche pushed him to act in such a way... because that's a rather interesting thing to do.

So where does this leave us?

I honestly doubt Horikoshi dug deeply into Enji's psychological state and problems to the point he named it, studied it and realistically depicted it because BNHA isn't, after all, this kind of story... and because, as said before, the Todoroki family history received too many retcons.

The really important things Horikoshi wanted to depicts were Enji is not psychologically well due to certain character traits and experiences he had, that due to this he destroyed his family, that his psychological problems were the reason why he hurt his family but weren't a good excuse to do what he did to his family and that he can overcome them and become a better person... and this is fair.

It's fitting of an action story in which characters shouldn't be characterized in a way that's too strict because their purpose is also to let readers identify in them, a story that focuses more on themes than on realism so that heartfelt speechs from teenagers can move scared/angry mobs and cause them to pause and revise their behaviour... which is generally... not something that's going to happen... but fits with the themes the story carry on so that you might even find okay to suspend your disbelief. Or not.

This sort of things are often pretty personal.

Long story short, Enji undoubtedly has psychological problems but I doubt Horikoshi had in mind a mental disorder for him as he clearly doesn't fit in those who're the most common and he didn't really focus that much on giving him a traumatic past (yes, he witnessed his father's death and yes, he might have frozen that time too and since this is 'his origin', it likely caused him to grow up the way he did.. but the whole thing is more a rushed, last minute thing than a real exploration of what made him the way he is, almost as if it were a throwaway line tossed in just to fill the blanks, nothing in common with the care Shouto and Touya's pasts were explored).

This ends up meaning whatever reader can interpret him as they see fit since canon leaves us with plenty of freedom.

So to sum it up, if you ask me Enji has psychological problems and could benefit from therapy, through it might also as easly get quickly cured by the magical power of 'the plot wills it' because that's also what stories are made for.

At least, that's what I think. Sorry if it's not exactly the answer you were looking for and thank you for your ask!

#boku no hero academia #Todoroki Enji #Ask

[99fandomproblems]

no one is reblogging my posts on here 😔 what am I doing wrong?!

Hi Nonnie! 

There could be several issues here. 

The first 'big' issue right now is that it's summer for a significant part of fandom. People are occupied with trips, family & friends, and more. They have less time to spend online. Since they aren't online, they likely aren't seeing your posts. 

Another problem is that, compared to the start of the pandemic, there are less active people in fandom and the people who are active have less time. People are back at work, have more social obligations again, and could also be doing other hobbies that got put on hold during lockdowns. Like with the summer problem, if people aren't online to see your post they aren't going to reblog it. It isn't personal, they just aren't online right now.

These first two issues are obviously something you can't control but it's helpful to know. Now I will mention some things you do have control over: 

You might be posting at the wrong time. There tends to be a sweet spot of when the most people see and share your posts. You can look at the activity on Tumblr and see during which hours of the day most people reblog from you: that's a good time to post. If you are asleep then you can use your queue!

Another thing you can control is making your post stand out. You can add an image to your post, that usually grabs people's attention. You can also do some reblogs yourself so it's on people's dashboard more often (don't do this 15 times in an hour, but a couple times per day is more than fine). 

If you post fics/long text posts directly onto Tumblr and don't use a 'read more' cut, that might be a reason people don't reblog. Long posts tend to take over someone's entire dashboard, especially on the app and that can be really frustrating. If people are frustrated, they are less likely to share your post. Consider a read more cut for long posts!

Something that can also be an issue is that you haven't put in enough effort. This sounds a little harsh but I will explain what I mean by this. Sometimes people show up in fandom with very high expectations. They post their first work and think everyone will immediately love and share it while they haven't made an effort to be part of their community yet. If you never reblog or comment on someone else's works, or if you only share posts from a select group of people (people who are already popular, for example) then others are going to feel less inclined to share your works (if they even notice your posts at all). 

Liking, sharing, and commenting on other people's fic/posts is not the only way to get people to read/share your fic (and you shouldn't do this just so people will share your fic) but it's a good way to become part of a community and to get people to know you are here. 

If you share fandom things often enough, others will share your works too.

Lastly, there could also be an issue with your tags and Tumblr's algorithm. The right tags bring your audience to you; the ship name or the character name, the fandom and the tropes, etc. Tag all of thsoe! Some ships have multiple name tags. Use more than one!

Other tags may work against you, such as tags Tumblr has banned for being NSFW. Having no tags at all is doesn't get around this because it means new people won't see your works, but try to work around NSFW tags that Tumblr hides.

Please also bear in mind that Tumblr hides/shadowbans posts its algorithm catches. Be aware of this and try to avoid getting caught out. Don't use NSFW images/gifs, and don't use external links use a Tumblr link instead, and avoid certain NSFW words. Use other similar words, or censor a word out if you can. Don't give Tumblr any excuse to hide your post.

#99 fandom problems #answered asks #tumblr rules #fandom #tag your blorbos #mod lilah

[featherssideblog]

Feathers Reacts: Motorcity - Episode 14 - Like Father, Like Daughter

Ohhhh yess here comes Julie + angst. I know it from the title, and I am so ready.

Episode 14 Thoughts:

Dutch: Kane! Ooh, if I had him here . . . Mike: Oh yeah? Go on, I wanna hear this. What would you do to Kane if you had him in your hands right now? >:) Ohhhh Mike, you've expertly distracted Dutch from his frustration with Texas, but this is a side of you I don't think we've seen before. Actively relishing in violent fantasies, while possibly cathartic in certain circumstances, is not something I expected you to encourage.

And how violent they are! Behold Texas's mildly horrifying fantasy of piñata Kane with his candy-filled guts exploded all over the place. Um.

And now we get a little Burners version of the superhero team shot, perfect!

Mike: staff (with plasma chainsaws?) Julie: plasma boomerang Chuck: plasma slingshot attached to his arm? Texas: gun-chucks, of course Dutch: a gun, I think? sci-fi gun, for sure, but just a gun

JULIE ACTION SHOT! YEAH!!

I know that cars=freedom is the whole premise of the show, but it still cracks me up a little bit. Car burnings. XD

Julie with the lethally cute puppy-dog eyes :)

Aaaaaand Kane is not immune.

I love that we get the comedy trope of "cartoonishly evil villain is a loving father," but it's being played straight by leaning into the perspective of the villain's child - so it becomes much more drama than comedy.

Julie flopping on the bed is a whole Mood

Mike: Nice duds. Red: New tailor. Goes by the name of . . . Kane. Mike: Sorry to hear that. :) You never struck me as a chump! The writers for this show have such a particular tone, or maybe its the voice actors imbuing the lines with a fun bouncy cadence - whatever it is, I love this so much.

Texas: Knock me out once, shame on you! Knock me out twice, shame on me! Knock me out three times, I BRING MY CAR!

Tooley is clutching his Kane doll and watching cartoons about caring father-son relationships. Um. Please don't make me think too hard about this, please don't make me think about how Tooley is an obviously inferior replacement for Mike (and he knows it), please don't make me start having emotions about the joke character oh goddammit what have I done??

Kane asking Julie "You think I'm a monster, don't you?" came way out of left field for me. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know how much Julie despises the way he runs things, right? It doesn't seem like she's ever pushed back against him before, so how would he know? Maybe he's using exaggerated language because he's trying to get Julie to deny it? I think that's something that people often do to manipulate others - center their own hurt, play the victim. On the other hand, maybe he truly interprets even the mildest criticism as utter betrayal?

The Burners sure are attached to these cars! If the cars got burned up, it's not like they're in a worse position than they were the moments before they found it. But wait, the cars are metaphorical freedom. XD

Behold Mike "I am going to run straight towards a speeding car" Chilton

If Kane wants Julie to be his successor . . . then worst-case-scenario all they've got to do is wait him out, yeah?

Julie's intense emotional response to the notion that she could be anything like her father is totally understandable, but - the safe play here would be to go along with his plans, right?

AAAAAHHH Kane is not dumb, if Julie's feeding information to the Burners right behind his back there's no way he won't figure this out oh geez oh geez oh geez

. . . And given some time to think about it, Julie is ready-set-go for plan: inherit the dictatorship in order to dismantle it. Beautiful.

Concluding Thoughts:

So Red is working with Kane now? His anger towards Mike always seemed a little misdirected, but actively joining the guy who supposedly ordered his home destroyed and set him off on this little revenge quest to begin with?? What is up with this guy???

I love Julie so dang much, you guys.

The word both Kane and Mike used to describe her, which she uses in her head to compare herself to her father, is "intense." But that's not precise enough, I think - I can't find the right word. It's almost "ruthless," but it's not as though Julie never has regrets. It's just that for a cause she believes in, she can get over them.

Kane is a bit of a mystery to me here. I don't understand why he would continue to indulge Julie with the father-daughter bonding day if he had such serious doubts regarding her loyalty, so I think I'm gonna interpret his comments about Julie "believing he's a monster" as part of 1) his incredibly short temper, and 2) an exaggeration from his perspective, meant to elicit denial and apology from Julie.

One moment he's screaming at her, the next moment he's calling her Julie-bear. He obviously has affection for her - loves her, even. But like many villains, his love is wholly possessive in nature. The minute he can't control Julie, she's completely within reason to doubt that his love will endure. :(

#motorcity #julie kane #abraham kane #mike chilton #red motorcity #motorcity episode 14 like father like daughter

[duhragonball]

Like Fanfiction

I just noticed I haven’t updated this blog in eleven days.  I’ve probably had longer gaps, but this just seemed kind of startling to me for some reason.  Anyway, I’m here today to talk about “Charmed.”

I finished my scheduled Fantastic Four comics for the month, so I decided to just completely waste the next weeks or so, and that led me to YouTube, where I found a series by Allison Pregler where she reviewed “Charmed” season by season. I think the whole thing ended up being ten hours long?  Anyway, I liked this because I never watched “Charmed” but it was on throughout my 20′s, and I was always aware of it, but never knew what its deal was supposed to be.  So it’s nice to finally get that settled. 

What I didn’t expect was that the main characters turned into such unlikable assholes as the series wore on.   By Season 4, Shannon Doherty left the series, and the other two leads, Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs, became producers.   Pregler notes this as a turning point in the series, where their characters, Piper and Phoebe Halliwell, became more self-absorbed and were almost never called out for any character flaws.  It sounds like something out of professional wrestling, like when a top talent gets booking power and writes himself as a world champion who never loses.   Anyway, much of Pregler’s review series is taken up with unflattering montages of Phoebe and Piper being heartless jerks. When a crisis unfolds, they make it about themselves.  When innocents are in danger, they want to ignore it.   Maybe Pregler is exaggerating, but she found a lot of clips for her videos. 

Occasionally, she would compare certain plot developments to fanfiction, and not as a compliment.   I felt the same way at times, and it struck me that a lot of the storylines in “Charmed” seemed to revolve around this sort of indulgent wish-fulfillment fare.   I don’t know what went on backstage, but it really does feel like Milano and Combs wanted to do stories where their characters were beloved and respected by those around them, but also blameless and beyond reproach, no matter how snarky or dismissive they were of their magic responsibilities.   I guess that is how a lot of fanfic goes down.   Someone watches a movie and doesn’t like how their favorite character got handled, so they write their own story where their fave gets better treatment.  

That, and fanfiction often skips to the good part, whatever “good” happens to be for the writer.   If they’re doing a story about a love confession, they’ll just go straight to that, and not bother setting anything up.   When I first learned about fanfiction, I was surprised by how casually the writers would just presume that the reader knows all about the characters.  I’ve seen X-Men fics where they just call him “Scott” and never mention that he uses the codename “Cyclops” and shoots optic blasts and wears blue tights.   It’s just taken as a given, and the time you save not explaining this can be used to hurry up and get to the sex scene. 

At a guess, I think that may have been where “Charmed” lost its way.   It was supposed to be this urban fantasy thing, I think, tapping into the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with three sisters getting witch powers and fighting demons.   So it makes sense for the characters to get frustrated with that, and wish that they could chuck the whole deal and lead normal lives.  You see that in every superhero story.   Spider-Man wishes he could be a normal guy again, or look the other way when shit goes down, but he knows he can’t.   It makes sense for “Charmed” to do the same thing once in a while, but I think somewhere along the way, they got a little too comfortable with that trope and fell into a rut.   When Phoebe Halliwell complains once in a while that these demon-of-the-week adventures are really screwing up her career and love-life, that’s relatable.   When she complains about it every week, and has to be convinced to take action every single time, then it starts to make her look like a real piece of shit.   There was one scene where she insists that they shouldn’t risk their lives to save a particular innocent, because if they got killed, then that would doom many more innocent people that they might be able to save later.  That’s kind of messed up.   Maybe there’s a more balanced interpretation to Phoebe’s character, but what I’ve seen looks pretty bad.

Anyway, it occurred to me that this incompleteness is probably what people mean when they compare things negatively with fanfiction.  When it’s in actual fanfic, I think it gets a pass, because the writer’s doing it for free, but when a TV show or movie does it, it gets people mad because there’s higher expectations.   For example, “Charmed” introduced a magic school, very similar to the one in the Harry Potter books, and they even went out of their way to point out the similarity, which seems pretty weak to me.   But the biggest letdown was that it was literally named “Magic School”.   Like, that’s what it says on the sign and everything.   It’s like they never bothered to improve on the working name, like how “Snakes on a Plane” ended up being the actual title of the movie.  They could have called “Merlin Academy”, or “Shadow Hall” or literally anything else, but they were like “Fuck it, ‘Magic School.’“  

For that matter, I never understood calling the main characters “The Charmed Ones”.   That sounds really basic, especially when the main thing about them is that they’re a trio.   Call them the “Witches Three” or “The Triune of Power” or just “The Halliwell Sisters” or whatever.   It’s just such a lack of effort for something that they were going to have to use for the whole run of the series.  On the other hand, they seemed to put a lot of work into the episode where Alyssa Milano played Lady Godiva to defend breastfeeding in public or something.  Which... yeah, sounds like a fanfic plot now that I think about it.

[naladot]

1. Age you started writing

2. Story that inspired you to write

3. First WIP title

4. First, second, or third person?

5. Fav time of day to write

6. Fav place to write

7. Most overused word

8. Most overused punctuation

9. Long or short sentences

10. Plain or purple prose?

11. Your first MC

12. Fav trope

13. Least fav trope

14. Least fav OC

15. Worst writing habit

16. Weird personal writing quirk

17. Notebook or computer?

18. Fav setting to write

19. Biggest writing fear

20. Biggest writing hope

Oooh hi anon, I will answer these :)

1. Age you started writing: I remember trying to make a picture book when I was about 7 and being very frustrated by how difficult it was to finish haha. (I would argue that all the playing we do as kids is a form of storytelling, too.) I think I have journals with stories going back to about 11-12 and I started writing fanfiction around then, too.

2. Story that inspired you to write: I started writing fanfic before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out—if that's what this question is getting at!

3. First WIP title: if this means my first ever story title... NO idea.

4. First, second, or third person?: I think they all have advantages and disadvantages! I usually write in third person, partly because first person fanfic is a tricky and often disliked approach, and I currently write more fanfic than original fic.

5. Fav time of day to write: I really like writing on my phone after I get in bed to go to sleep.

6. Fav place to write: Probably just at home, generally.

7. Most overused word: "moment." I'm always trying to think of how to convey pacing & pausing without using the word "moment" but sometimes I just give up haha.

8. Most overused punctuation: I mean—the em dash, right? I don't really think it's overused though lol. Maybe using "lol" as an end-of-an-idea marker.

9. Long or short sentences: whatever gives the best effect

10. Plain or purple prose?: see above

11. Your first MC: I definitely had a Mary Sue character for my earliest Harry Potter fanfictions hahaha

12. Fav trope: Not a trope exactly but I really enjoy writing conflicts where both/all people involved are at least a little bit right. For tropes, though, probably pining haha.

13. Least fav trope: There are a lot that I'm not that into but perhaps the surprising one is established relationship (but where there's no growth/change in any way).

14. Least fav OC: Lately most of my original characters serve a purpose within a fanfic narrative so I tend to like them if they can do that effectively haha

15. Worst writing habit: I need someone to read chunks of what I've written as I go along or I lose motivation quickly and second-guess everything lol

16. Weird personal writing quirk: I can't think of anything particularly weird but it's always kind of interesting to me how other people are emotionally affected while writing an emotional or stressful scene because I tend not to be. Maybe a weird one is that I need the font and font size to be a certain way or I feel like what I'm writing is bad.

17. Notebook or computer?: computer 100%

18. Fav setting to write: again, just at home haha. I love being home.

19. Biggest writing fear: That it's boring. That there's something I do that I'm not aware of which undermines the effectiveness of my storytelling. That I fail to connect with the reader's emotions.

20. Biggest writing hope: I want to write things that are interesting, meaningful, and memorable.

#answers #about me #writing

[kananjarus]

Fanfic Ask Game

Thanks @rogerzsteven for tagging me 😘

What is your total posted word count on AO3? (Go to your Works, then click Statistics.)

184253 😳

How often do you write?

In the past two years I’ve almost made it to the point of getting a chance to write everyday, but this summer just took off and I went Too Hard and burned myself out socially and mentally (I’ve managed to write maybe twice in the past week but it didn’t amount to much jdiaidjakdjkajs)

Do you have a routine for writing?

If I get an idea I think has potential, I start piecing it out in my notes app on my phone or jotting it down in my notebook. Usually it’s just a blurb or two that captures the mood of the fic, maybe an outline. Once it has more than a thousand words to it and an actual plot, I’ll open up a word doc and finally start writing it from the beginning. I’m trying harder to stick to writing things out in order because I was all over the place writing my biggest story (this must be the place) and it's been really stressful.

side note: I wrote the ending for that story months ago but now that I’ve written up to that point, I don’t think the original ending quite fits. I’ve been struggling to change it, so I am sorry to anyone who’s waiting on me to post the final chapter 🥲

What’s your favorite tropes/pairing?

Favorite tropes are obviously hurt/comfort, angst, friends to lovers, horror (basically the more intense the better)

My favorite pairing to read is silverflint or stevebucky but I like writing finnpoe and buddie more 😊

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

It used to be this must be the place but I’m so done with it right now fkakdbakbd

I always feel proud of my tsunami fic

Your fic with the most kudos?

end of the affair

I like this one a lot but looking back there are certain parts I cringe at reading lmao. I know for a fact it’s only the most liked one because someone with a lot of followers rec’d it last year

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

My style isn’t consistent sometimes. Often when I’m proof reading I notice how the flow kind of gets disrupted and I get frustrated very easily by it and abandon the story. I know I have other writing flaws but this has been my biggest issue lately. Also, I wish I was better at dialogue.

Now something you do like?

I’ve grown a lot as a writer which I’m very proud of! I like that I’m confident in what I write for the most part and that I have infinite room to grow more. And uhhhh that’s all I can really say hahaha

Tagging: @ashavahishta @mellaithwen @evandiaz @disasterdiaz tho idk who’s done this yet so feel free to ignore me!

#tagged #t

[lvnatiq]

Random Relationship Headcanons | Felix Escellun x gn!reader

a/n: Hey ! On todays menu I am serving you modern au relationship headcanons. I know for a fact that I can’t write headcanons AT ALL yet here we are, out of spite I will keep trying until I can manage to write good shit. I’m going through a chaotic time in my life so please be patient with me 😭

I’m currently working on tattoo artist! reader x Felix headcanons and college!enemies to lovers one-shot. Knowing that Felix’s fav trope is enemies to lovers, I will post it hopefully before his new chapter drops. I used most of the hcs that were sent to me but if you couldn’t see yours, then it will probably be used on the other works.

No beta we die like men.

warnings: curse words, nsfw under the cut, random sage moments, felix being a ‘the neighborhood’ song basically.

You persuade him to start an Instagram account, and because of his family's popularity, he quickly gains followers. His account is practically empty because he would rather spend his time stalking your account on Instagram. You noticed the emptiness and wanted to take him out and take some photos for his account, which turned out amazingly. He is a little camera shy, so be patient with him.

You like to watch him apply his eyeliner but he finds it so stressing to do under your gaze.  He used to be able to do it easily, but it has now become one of his most difficult tasks. You wanted to ask for his assistance in applying eyeliner to you in the hopes of making it simpler for him; he agreed but quickly regretted it when he realized how near your faces would be. You with your eyes closed, waiting for him to drag the line as he was only thinking about how bad he wanted to kiss you. 

Felix has a Polaroid of you and stella in his wallet I said what I said.

When it comes to himself, he can be a pessimist, but when it comes to you, he is the most loving and positive boyfriend you could ever ask for. You have a dream ? He is ready to help you achieve it. Do you want to change in your life ? Go for it, He’s more excited than you are.

He can be quite insecure at times when it comes to your relationship because he feels like you deserve the world but the world is too big for his tiny hands. Will his cuddles be enough ? God he hopes so.

He almost cried when you told him you loved him for the first time. He's also baffled as to how you might feel the same way about him.

Drunk Felix is really clingy and honest. Whatever he can’t say sober drunk felix can and definitely will.

“May the stars let my death be between your glorious thighs amen-“ “Felix-”

Felix is weird but it add to his charm. It’s not unusual for you to wake up in the middle of the night and find the pillow besides yours empty. In the dead of night, you will find Felix munching on some weird ass food combinations.

He also has a habit of doing things that are extremely adorable without even noticing it. Like walking around the house in his oversized shirts, his hand clutching at the cuffs whilst the other one sheepishly rubs his eye.

“Can I lay on your lap ? I promise I won’t fall asleep. I just need to rest for a little.” His voice is so soft and hushed. “Of course, come here.” He throws himself onto you as he comes hopping on his tip toes.

He falls asleep on his desk too often, so you have to carry him back to his room, where he snuggles against you while you lead him there. Once he's in his room, he insists that you stay with him, so you wait until he falls asleep as you play with his hair, and he wakes up thinking it was all a dream.

I firmly believe that Felix’s love language is acts of service. Like making you coffee and bringing you random snacks as you work or wrapping you up in fluffy blankets whenever he catches you slacking on the couch.

He's been romanticizing anything and everything since he met you. When he sees beautiful flowers, he wants to bring them to you, but he also believes that their beauty stems from the fact that they are alive, so he argues and stresses a lot when deciding what to do in simple situations like these.

His edginess belongs to his impulsiveness and his style only at any other situation he's a complete softboy.

And I'm certain he knows a variety of card tricks. He enjoys showing off, and he enjoys it even more when you become fascinated and beg him to share the trick.

If you're a morning person, you'll probably spend your mornings alone in solitude, finishing work before the day begins, but if you're a night owl, you and Felix will go out for night walks and Felix would go out for night walks, sharing headphones to play some music, enjoy each others presence and develop a habit of watching the sunrise together.

Felix makes you playlists at the most random times and with the most random names. Until one day he sent you a playlist at around 4 a.m called “you”, filled with his favorite music. He usually sees music as a safe space for himself and now that you are his safe place too it’s only appropriate for him to do so. This only further proves how he spends his time thinking about you.

I feel like Felix would have what most would call "attachment issues" but it’s mainly because of his protective tendencies. This is not to say that he’s this "overly jealous toxic" character; rather, he has never had anyone to truly call his own in his entire life so he would do anything to protect it.

Felix is also big on astrology, so if you want the perfect birth chart, he'll give it to you. Also he owns a lovely deck of tarot cards, and if you ask him for a love reading, he can't manage to keep his words and feelings to himself so he modifies your reading according to him and his desires. Let the boy abuse his powers for the sake of love.

His style could be described as dark academia, his wardrobe mainly consists of dark colors, lots and lots of blazers and a lot of oversized shirts. He also loves jewelry so he owns a lot of rings and chains. Just so you know, if you're wearing any of his rings, his heart is doing cartwheels.

Is it obvious that he loves it when you place your hand in his and play with his rings with your fingertips.

Spoil him. Buy him that baby blue hoodie with cat ears.

“Ah, you look adorable.” “Isn’t it a bit too b-big ?” “You could say that. Do you mind ?” “No, I like it that way.” “I would know.” You smirk followed by felix’s gasp. “If you so desperately wanted a cat boy you know you have me right ?” Nudging your shoulder, Sage leapt into the conversation. “What is he talking about ?”  Felix grumbled, only to notice two fuzzy triangular fabrics on top of his head as he brushed his fingertips over it.

He’s obsessed with your hands, kissing your knuckles, drawing circles in your palm. At a certain point it became an involuntary gesture he does it quite often without realizing.

He’s also canonically extremely blushy but he would never admit it. You’re convinced he uses some sort of make up because it is not possible for the pink dusting his cheeks to look this good.

He insists that you’re cold even in the warmest weathers because he wants to see you in his coat.

Sage forces Felix to take his thirst trap Tiktoks.

He really appreciates it when you add to his herbal tea collection without him noticing and he considers it a sign of affection because he takes his tea very seriously.

He loses it when you call him baby he gets flustered and frustrated but it’s all because it rolls off of your tongue so nicely that he can’t get enough of it.

Felix owns a broad collection of scented lip balms some of them are tinted. You didn’t hear this from me.

He never once took anything the Sage says seriously until he saw how well you two got along. He never thought that he would be standing there taking relationship and flirting advice from the frat boy.

Felix is a complete asshole when he wants to. He’s very verbal about it too. Consistent sarcastic remarks and eye rolls. I mean it runs in his blood, look at Escell.

You love it when he suddenly whips out the confident Felix, it’s not a daily occurrence you know.

When Felix is concentrated, he’s lost and there’s almost no way you or anything else can distract him. So it’s time to grab some colorful hair clips and ties to fuck around with his hair.

Felix is not the best at verbally expressing his gratitude towards you. He doesn’t know what he would do if you weren’t there for him at the lowest points of his life where normally he would close himself and bare the weight of his family problems and personal life issues that he can’t seem to get out of. Now he has you, someone who’s willing to listen to him and offer him a warm embrace when he needs the most. 

While you to play games together, when he wins he wears that iconic shit eating grin of his with pride looking at you through the corner of his eye. “Shit, what do you want me to say to that felix ? Perhaps I should call you master now that you won ‘one’ fucking round.” He is praying that the screen light is covering the fact that he is a blushy mess after hearing you say that.

NSFW

I cannot stress this enough but he is extremely vocal in bed. Whining, trying to restrict himself from making too much noise but failing miserably.

Muffled pants, choked sobs and lots of pleasure infused tears.

He loves getting praised during sex but what he loves more is to get praised after it’s all over. Like you telling him how great he was, how well he behaved, how good he made you feel. He experiences sub drops a lot so please assure him that he did well :(

He’s into power-play but not in a submissive or dominant kind of relationship, it’s more of a psychological thing where the fact that he can see how good he makes you feel gives him a rush of confidence and adrenaline.

I believe that this motherfucker is a masochist, pain makes him more excited than getting an update on his favorite author who went on a year long hiatus and that is saying a lot.

Bite him. Scratch him. It is so stimulating for him he can reach his high just from those actions.

Fuck do anything to his ears bite, lick, pull, blow on it. He is extremely sensitive so anything you do will basically drive him out of his mind. It will most definitely lead to him trembling beneath your fingertips.

You must think that you are the only one who is such a tease but you’re wrong. Felix teases you quite often mostly to direct your attention towards him or to keep your attention on him. He’s quite greedy when it comes to you and your hands on his body. Unbuttoning unnecessary amount of buttons on his shirt to show a little skin that he knows you’ll notice. Playing with his necklace placing the chain between his lips dragging it towards the inside of his bottom lip teasing the metallic charm with the tip of his tongue. He definitely ain’t oblivious he knows exactly what he’s doing and he makes sure that you know exactly what he’s doing.

When he’s in the mood he will tug the hem of your top meanwhile his eyes are glued to the floor or graze the temples of his glasses between his lips, his teeth lightly nibbling the pointy edge. He loves to play dumb too. When you question him, he acts like he doesn’t intend anything and that you need to get your head out of the gutter.

At the end of the session Felix looks divine. Drool leaking down from his bottom lip to his jaw line towards his neck, his bangs sticking on his sweat coated forehead, his chest rising up and down quickly. His eyes rolled at the back of his head, his hands still clutching tightly to the sheets. Faint whimpers and deep breaths filling the air.

Leading up to the after care, his shy self returns. He buries his face to your chest hiding his blushy cheeks beneath the palms of his hands.

He likes to experiment a lot and you are his favorite subject.

It shouldn’t be surprising to find random kink definitions or role-play ideas on the search history of your laptop. After all Felix just asked for it to write an email, that’s all there is to it. That’s until you offer to try them out.

He doesn’t act upon his jealousy, what he does instead is that leaving marks on you especially around your neck and your chest where he knows it will show. Don’t cover them up if you don’t wanna deal with him.

“People just don’t appreciate art anymore.” “Felix these are, hickeys.” “Oh so now you are judging my art medium ?” “Since when proving Sage that I got railed by you is a form of art ?”

I didn’t see anyone point this out but whenever he is in the sub space he tends to be more on the bratty side. He starts of shy but his confidence builds up as the tension rises. Meaning that you should be ready to get your patience tested.

When you two are in separate places your suggestive words and tone leads up to phone sex, which Felix secretly fantasized about a lot. What made everything even more dirty was the fact that you didn’t know that he was laying on your bed surrounded by your scent and humping your pillow. Once you come back home you are greeted with a fresh pair of sheets on your bed. Apparently Felix decided to do you a favor and clean your room as well as the the whole house. He’s crossing fingers that you don’t notice because he knows that he’ll never hear the end of it.

Felix knows a lot about sex but his knowledge is based upon fiction rather than experience. So, naturally, he is more interested about learning specifically how your body responds to certain actions, what you enjoy and what you’re interested in so teach him. He’s a good student and oh well he’s a quick learner.

Pull his hair pull his hair put his hair pull his hair pull his hair pull his hair pull his hair pull his hair.

When he settles between your legs as he ties his hair, he places the hairband between his lips and looks up at you with half lidded eyes. It’s his definition of torture.

Even though he doesn’t give off that vibe, he is very freaky if you would’ve known what his AO3 tags consisted of you would agree.

Tag list is open

#felix escellun #felix #fictif felix #last legacy #fictif #fictif last legacy #nyx hydra #felix escellun x reader #felix x reader #mc #felix fictif

[burning-omen]

Mutations and pleasure headcanons

Characters: Kurt Wagner, Scott Summers, Warren Worthington III, Peter Maximoff

Warning ⚠️: N*fw

Kurt Wagner:

It’s not part of his mutation but it’s worth mentioning, he’s flexible. To the point that it might be unreasonable.

He can fold himself into so many goddamn position and he’s strong enough to hold them for however long he needs to

Anyways, he has 100% just disappeared durning sex.

One moment your railing him into the mattress the next the entire room is covered in blue smoke and Kurt is nowhere to be seen.

About 10 seconds later he’s back with an extremely flustered look in his face.

Before you could question him about where he went he told you he was going to bed. He climbed in next to you and faced the wall for the rest of the night

The next morning he practically begged you to forget that it happened but to also say away from Logan for a few days.

And that’s how you figured out where he landed.

Your avoidance didn’t last long because at some point the next day you ran into Logan, who just let out a long sigh before patting you on the shoulder and walking away.

A few days later Kurt’s over it, just a freak accident, right?

Nope, happened again the next time you had sex with him.

After this kept happening he, begrudgingly, went and asked for help from no other than Logan!

The conversation was basically “hey Logan you fuck a lot right? Can you help me with my sex-teleporting problem?”

And he did, pretty much told him he just needed to be more in the moment mentally so his body wouldn’t take him out of it physically. (whatever that fuck that mean)

After he re-figured out how to stop teleporting spontaneously he decided to use this to his advantage.

I would like to introduce you all to a concept that I like to call “teleportation as a form a teasing”

Intentional teasing wasn’t one of Kurt’s strong suits so he figured that it might help

The first time it happened you were not prepared at all.

You were watching tv, as one does, your mind wandering off as some show played.

Then BOOM

There’s Kurt, looking determined but you could see he was nervous.

Carefully he climbed into your lap, staring down at you for a moment then leaning down, pressing a quick kiss on your lips, he kept going, kissing you over and over again.

He grinds himself against your thigh, groaning softly as sped up. The fabric of his underwear somehow hits every nerve just right.

You watched him as you gently kissing his neck and the bit of exposed chest just above the collar of his shirt.

“You’re bold today, sweetheart.”

“I-i know.”

And just like that, he was gone. A cloud of blue smoke left behind.

You knew this was different from the other times he’d disappeared, then he’d been so absorbed in pleasure that he just POOFED away. This was different, you barely even started, you hardly even touched him and he was gone. And even if it was an accident, he told you he had that under control now.

You just hoped that he hadn’t lied to you.

A few minutes later you wandered into Kurt's room, watching him from the doorway as he frantically arranged and rearranged the things on his desk. A nervous habit of his.

He tries his hardest not to look over at you, focusing incredibly hard on all the stuff on his desk.

He refused to look up even when he heard you close and lock the door, or when you walked up behind him, pressing your body against his as you wrapped your arms around him.

“Kurt..”

“...”

“I know you can hear me sweetheart, you wanna tell me what happened earlier?”

“Nothing..”

“Really? Nothing? Didn’t feel like nothing..”

Feel a little bad for him, he doesn’t know how to tease correctly.

You’re going to have to make him admit to attempting to tease you through the ultimate means of fucking him into the mattress until he’s seeing stars.

Scott Summers:

And now, a list of things you couldn’t do with Scott before he got some semi-permanent glasses:

Roughly fuck his face, because if you did and you knocked his glasses off you’d, at the very, very least, have your entire dick cut off.

Fucking him too hard. Period. It sounds fun but who’s going to pay for the holes in the ceiling or continuously replace your mattress when giant holes are inevitably burned into him?

So if he doesn’t have some semi-permanent glasses by the time you two start having sex everything’s going to be extremely soft and gentle

But the moment he shows you the new glasses it’s over for him.

He’s getting railed on/in/against everything you could think of, because you can do that now without bodily harm or thousands of dollars worth of property damage.

Have y’all been caught having sex in a place y’all shouldn’t be? Yes.

Do you give a flying fuck? No!

No Scott can’t do anything on his own the next day because moving hurts but hey, he had fun.

Warren Worthington III:

Hey Siri, define wing kink

For y’all’s that don’t know “Wing Kink is a related trope which often appears in wingfic (or in fanworks where a canonical character has wings), in which the character's wings are an erogenous zone and caressing them produces pleasurable feelings.” - the fanlore wiki

His wings, when you first started having sex with him, were completely off limits.

He made that undeniably clear to you.

Not because he didn’t like having them touched, but more because he didn’t think you’d like touching them.

All of that went straight out the window a few months later.

He was drunk, which had recently stopped being a normal occurrence for him. He tries to break out of his alcoholism, but it’s a slow and painful process. Instead of just outright stopping all at once he decided it would be better for him to just slow down. It works, he’s not drunk every minute of every day anymore so that’s better. He’ll drink on the weekends, and maybe take a shot before bed but other than that he won’t drink too much. But tonight he was drinking with Logan and in his attempts to keep up with him he’d ended up drunk out of his mind.

He cut himself off, he knew that if he drank more he’d blackout and he didn’t know what he’d do if he did.

So he stumbled all the way back to your room and tripped on literal air.

The sound of him hitting the floor woke you up.

Sitting up you saw Warren laying face down on the floor, giggling like a fool as he made multiple attempts to get up only to end up right back on the floor.

“Warren, it’s 3 in the morning, come lay down.”

You wanted to go over and pick him up. But you knew how he was about his wings and being touched in general.

After a few minutes of coaxing and encouraging him to get into bed he finally did.

Basically plopping down on top of you with a tired grin spread across his face

Burying his face in your chest, he closed his eyes.

After a few minutes you thought he was asleep, but you were proven wrong when he let out a long sigh and looked up at you.

“Fucking hold me..”

No, he doesn’t know how to ask for things nicely he’s a little bastard

You try and avoid his wings at first, gently draping your arms around his shoulders.

But that very quickly frustrated Warren, causing him to grab your arms and forces them around him and his wings.

Before you could try and say anything about it you could hear him snoring.

You sighed, deciding to deal with the breakage of limits could be talked about in the morning.

When you woke up Warren was already awake, still laying on your chest, just staring at you. His cheeks turned a light pinkish color when you looked down at him.

He wouldn’t say anything. He just stared at you for a solid 10 minutes before rolling over onto the other side of the bed.

He’s afraid that in his drunken state he’d made you uncomfortable, which led him to the never ending spiral of anxiety that made him say his wings were off limits in the first place.

Asking him what was wrong just led to him apologizing without actually saying what for.

Throughout the rest of the day he avoided the subject which made him ultimately avoid you.

You see? This is why you should talk to your partners, guys.

It took him awhile but he eventually said what he needed to say.

NOW ONTO THE SEXY BITS

Lightly running your finger through his lower feathers can be a way to get him in The Mood or to calm him down after a particularly rough sex (it helps with his sub drop)

This ones a bit more romantic but kiss his wings, especially the little part where they connect to his back.

He’ll melt, just straight up die on the spot because it’s just so nice and soft and feels so good.

Try not to be to rough with them, it hurts a fuck ton.

His wings are still off limits in certain aspects.

No using them to overstimulate him, he doesn’t like it. No pulling on his feathers, it hurts in the Not Good way.

But do kiss, massage, pet, and run your fingers through them.

He was very nervous when he first let you touch them, unintentionally flinching away when you reached for them.

Run your hands through his feathers while he rides you, he won’t last very long if you do.

praise him and call them beautiful, it took him a long time for him to learn to love himself and his mutation and he needs to be reassured sometimes

STILL BE CAREFUL

HIS WINGS ARE PRECIOUS AND MORE PRONE TO BAD PAIN THAN ANY OTHER PART OF HIS BODY

Just be careful with him stg I love him so much

Peter Maximoff:

Zoom zoom bitch

He fast

He has the nicest ass because of how much he runs

He can and will grab you and take you back to his room if he’s feeling especially needy.

And then he’ll act extremely bratty despite the fact that he brought you there.

He vibrates.

Most of the time unintentionally.

It’s his version of shaking, so he definitely does it when he cums

“Peter, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Just...give me a moment..”

He’s gotten too eager before and fallen off the bed while trying to change position.

When I say this man gives the best blowjobs in the history of blowjobs I mean it

His tongue vibrates too. That added with the fact that he has no gag reflex AND no shame? Rip

Quickies, anywhere anytime.

Cameras can be covered in less than a second and he can have both of you looking relatively decent before anyone comes in.

You have to guide him while he rides/fucks himself onto you because he might hurt you or himself by going too fast.

He’s not aloud to use his speed when given sexual orders

Usually after being punished he’s much more shy and nervous.

Making him do things slowly only adds to that.

Make him get on his knees in front of you? Gone, he’s so blushy and embarrassed at just being in that position.

Make him strip and prep himself while you watch? Ceases to exist

Will beg and cry for you to let him speed up, but he’s just putting on a show.

Grinding against pillows or folded blankets with some kind of plug up his ass is his preferred method of masturbation because he can go as fast as he wants without worry.

He’s ripped holes in a few blankets and pillows and has very unsuccessfully hidden.

“So are we not going to talk about the hole in my brand new blank?”

“No we are not.”

#kurt wagner #scott summers #warren worthington iii #peter maximoff #Kurt Wagner x male!reader #Scott summers x male!reader #Warren Worthington III x male!reader #Peter Maximoff x male!reader #x men x male!reader #x male reader #male reader #male!reader #cinnamon #X-men headcanons

[shihalyfie]

@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I’ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.

#digimon #shiha's ask box #sage-striaton #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon tamers #digimon frontier #shihameta

[nashibirne]

DESPERADO - 3

Helen and August are back. Sorry it took me a while to write the next chapter but our holidays got in the way of writing. Anyway, here it is and it's getting a little steamy. I somehow struggled with writing the smut this time, it was somewhat hard to find the right balance in their dynamics but I think it turned out fine in the end. I hope you like it, too. As you know, writers live off validation, so comments, reblogs and likes are very much appreciated 💜

Pairing: Augut Walker x OFC (Helen Nichols)

Summary: August has survived the fight with Ethan Hunt and the fall from the cliff. A few lucky coincidences saved his life and he ends up with a woman that saves him and gives him shelter in her little hermit hut. He is at a turning point in his life. What is he going to do?

Word count: ~ 3.1 k

Warnings: Description of injuries, smut, NSFW, 18+, unprotected sex, oral sex (f and m receiving), vaginal sex

NO BETA! English is not my mother tongue, so expect bad grammar, wrong spelling, chaotic punctuation and clumsy language. All mistakes are mine…

Credits: I don’t own August Walker and anything related to MI:Fallout. Pics for the moodboard from pinterest, face claim Helen: Rooney Mara

You can find parts 1 and 2 and my other fics on my masterlist.

Taglist (please let me know if you want to be added or removed)

@lunedelorient @inlovewithhisblueeyes @willkatfanfromasia @hell1129-blog @mis-lil-red @agniavateira @kebabgirl67 @omgkatinka @legendarywizarddetective @summersong69 @taebfada @xxxkatxo @artandotherdelights @notabronte @littlefreya @luclittlepond @eldarwen333 @meowpurrbooks @marantha @liliumdream @enchantedbytomandhenry @greensleeves888 @witcherfan @margauxmargaux07 @radaofrivia @m07belzen @a-little-counter-esperanto @starstruckkittyangel @mary-ann84 @sillyrabbit81 @emelinelovesjc

Let's go...

***************

Desperado

Oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger

They're drivin' you home

Freedom, oh freedom

Well that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone

From Desperado by The Eagles, Lyrics: Don Henley, Glenn Frey

"She's dead. She died in an accident. She was gone. I stayed."

No matter how hard August tried to find out more about Allison, there was no way to make Helen tell him anything else but these simple basics. She'd worked hard on building a protective wall around that part of her heart and her mind, she had closed off the grief and the feeling of guilt and she wasn't willing to hand over the key to her memories to a random stranger who was lying about his identity.

Besides August's futile attempts to pry into Helen's past the next two weeks were quite harmonious. While Helen had decided to ignore the fact that Austin Peters was a fake persona to avoid any kinds of complications, August had decided to accept the inevitable and to be a nice houseguest and he grudgingly let Helen take care of him. They soon got used to the fact that her help made them share pretty intimate moments and August had a hard time granting her access to his personal space, letting her literally touch him everywhere when she had to treat his wounds or help him get dressed and undressed, but he also watched her blush and shy away from him with fiendish joy.

It made him feel better about his face that his body obviously still had a significant effect on Helen and he couldn't deny that seeing her running around in her underwear or imagining her standing in the shower naked had a certain effect on him too. And it wasn't only physical, he really started to like her. She was smart and tough but also witty and cheeky sometimes, and it was hard for him to admit to himself that he enjoyed her company. Stockholm syndrome for sure, he tried to tell himself but in the back of his mind he knew the truth.

He had no idea that Helen felt the same and that her aloof manner was mostly facade. Behind the mask of indifference she was growing warm feelings for him. Warm, foolish, irrational feelings for a man she actually knew nothing about and who was involved in an FBI investigation. She blamed her hunger for interpersonal interactions and warmth that resulted from her self-chosen isolation for these surfacing emotions and did her best to ignore them.

What was really bothering Helen most after only a few days was the sleeping situation. Despite the fact that the there-is-only-one-bed-trope was everything from hot to romantic in theory it was only leading to back pain in reality. August kept on offering to sleep on the couch but she wouldn't let him. He needed a comfortable place to sleep and her sofa was hardly big enough for her. A tall man like him wouldn't be able to get a wink of sleep on it. So after 14 nights she decided to do something about it. She had made a call in the morning, August had heard her muffled voice from the kitchen when he was in the bathroom, and now a car was driving up to the hut. He started to panic.

"Who's that?"

He looked at Helen and she gave him a shrug.

"A friend. He's bringing me a folding bed, called him this morning. I'm not going to survive another night on the couch."

A car door was slammed shut with a thud and foot steps were coming closer to the front door.

"He can't come in, Helen", August whispered, giving her a pleading glance. She raised an eyebrow.

"Why's that?"

"He mustn't see me. Please."

Helen eyed him up and down and when it knocked August held his breath, his heart racing. She turned to the door without another word and August grabbed a large knife from the knife block before hiding in the corner of the room that wasn't visible from the entrance. Helen flinched when she realized that he'd armed himself but after taking a deep breath she opened the door with a nonchalant smile.

"Naseer. Hi. That was quick."

"Hi Helen. Yeah, it sounded urgent on the phone and you can't sleep in a broken bed so I thought I better bring you the folding bed as soon as possible."

August tried to imagine the man who belonged to the pleasant, warm voice. His English was very good but he clearly wasn't a native speaker. Someone from the village he guessed. From the village he would have erased without batting an eyelid just two weeks ago. His stomach twisted at the thought and it filled him with anger that he seemed to evolve something like a conscience lately.

"That's really kind of you."

He could hear the smile in Helen's voice.

"Let me help you unload it."

"No, I'll go and get it. Just tell me where to put it."

"Just put it here on the porch. I'll take care of it later."

Naseer gave Helen a funny look and she knew he was thinking she was acting strange but she could hardly let him walk inside the hut where August was awaiting him with a knife. She watched her only friend walk to his truck, grabbing the bed from the loading space and carrying it to the house.

"It's no problem to carry it inside", he said when he was standing in front of Helen again. "I could also fix your bed. I built it, it shouldn't be hard to replace a broken part."

He built it? The guy built Helen's bed? August started to wonder what kind of friend he was and why the question bothered him so much.

"No! No, that won't be necessary, Naseer."

Christ, woman, don't talk so fast. Her nervousness was showing in her voice and August was worried he might really have to use that fucking knife.

"Really, it's fine...I'm quite busy right now. In the middle of a creative phase...you know...kissed by the muse."

Good girl, back on track. August's heart rate went back to normal.

"You're working on your book again? That's great, Hel."

Hel? He rolled his eyes, annoyed and impatient.

"Yeah, it really is. My agent is pretty relieved too, my writer's block made him quite nervous. But I'm working almost non-stop on it...so yeah."

She shrugged with a sheepish grin, feeling terrible for lying to him.

"Is that why you needed all those supplies? Because you don't want to leave for grocery shopping in the next few weeks? Your truck was loaded when we met the other day."

"Exactly."

"I see...well…"

"Yeah…"

"I better get going then. Let you work in peace…"

"Thanks for stopping by, Naseer."

"Anytime. You know you can always call me when something's wrong or when you need help, right?"

"Of course." Her laugh sounded fake and nervous and for a moment she thought Naseer was going to ask her what was going on but he only gave her a worried look before he left. Helen let out a long sigh of relief, turned around and closed the door behind her.

"He's gone. You can put that away." She pointed at the knife August clung to, her eyes shooting daggers at him.

"What?" He looked at her angrily, putting the knife back in the knife block. "I just wanted to be prepared."

Helen let out a snort. "For what? Naseer attacking an injured stranger?"

"I don't know him."

"But I do. He's a friend and you made me act rude without a reason."

"A friend, huh? Hel?" August said in a mocking tone wiggling his eyebrows. He tried to be cheeky and make her laugh to ease the tension but he knew it was a stupid move as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Yes. A friend. Austin."

She was still being deadly serious and stressed his false name pointedly crossing her arms in front of her chest. August didn't know what to say or do to keep the situation from escalating so he just shrugged.

"Fine."

"Fine? That's all you have to say? For fucks sake...tell me why you didn't want Naseer to see you. Explain to me why you armed yourself with a knife, hiding in a dark corner of my house. My fucking house, goddamn…in which you found shelter..." She was furious now and he made a step towards her, his hands raised up in surrender. "Okay, listen, Helen."

"I'm all ears."

"As I said, it was just taking precautions. I'm a mistrustful person, made some bad experiences in the past and got hurt too often."

"Bullshit." She shook her head. "Don't try to tug at my heartstrings. Just tell me the truth."

August took a deep breath, he was getting frustrated and annoyed by her insistence.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I just can't, okay? Let's just leave it at that or…"

“Or what? Are you going to kill me?”

Her voice was full of sarcasm but her eyes showed him that a part of her was scared of him, wondering what he was capable of. The logical answer to her question would have been yes. His answer should have been yes, but when he said no, when he denied it, August meant it. He wasn't going to kill her nor would he ever hurt her.

“No, but I still can’t tell you.”

She could tell by the expression on his face that he was torn. He wanted to open up to her, but he felt like he couldn't.

“Just give me something. A little part of the truth to help me understand who you are, where you’re coming from and what you`re up to."

“That’s not so easy, Helen. You might not like what you’re going to hear.”

He gave her a shrug and something that was supposed to be a smile.

“I don’t care. August.”

He blinked repeatedly. “Sorry?”

“Yes...August.” She rolled her eyes. “I know that you've been lying to me from day one."

He got up and started to pace the hut, still hobbling a little, though his ankle was much better. He wasn’t really worried just debating with himself. After a while he stopped by the window, staring outside. “You're right. My name is August. August Walker.”

"Thanks, but I already know that much", Helen snapped.

"How did you find out about my name?" He asked as calmly as his fluttering nerves allowed it, turning around to look her in the eyes.

"Why did you lie to me?" Helen threw him a challenging look.

"How much do you know?" August was not willing to leave his questions unanswered.

"Why. Did. You. Lie. To. Me?" Helen shouted at him.

"It's none of your fucking business", he yelled back.

Helen laughed out loud.

"It's none of my business? Are you kidding me? I saved you. I let you stay in my house, sleep in my bed, I treat your wounds, I take care of you, give you shelter, I've helped you in every possible way, no matter how many of my personal boundaries have been transgressed and now you're seriously telling me that it's none of my business that you've lied to me all this fucking time?"

"I've never asked for your help."

His voice was calm, his facial expression blank and stern but his eyes were blazing with emotion. His stare was so intense it made Helen shiver.

"You ungrateful ass", she whispered, stunned by his audacity. "You took all I had to give without saying thank you only once. And now you're…"

He was right in front of her with two big strides, his lips crashing on hers with unexpected passion. Helen was too surprised to think about her reaction. She instinctively kissed him back, granting him access, letting him deepen the kiss, allowing his hands to explore her body. 60 seconds later she was in control of herself again. She pushed him away, staring at him dumbfounded.

"Shit. What are you doing?"

"Expressing my gratitude."

He gave her an outrageously sexy smirk and it took Helen just a split second to grab him by his shirt and pull him close again to kiss him feverishly. She wanted him. She wanted him badly. She wanted him now.

August pressed her against the wall with his huge body, caressing her tits through her clothes while kissing her neck. She moaned and started to tug at his shirt. He took it off in a hurry and Helen got rid of her top and bra. When they kissed again she let her hands run over his chest gently, making sure not to hurt him. She pulled away and looked at him, at his scarred face that was still so handsome now that the wounds were healing and the swelling had gone down around his eye. August averted his eyes, burying his head in the crook of her neck again, withdrawing from her gaze.

"Turn around", he mumbled, taking her by her waist.

She did what he asked her to do but when she heard him fumble with his belt and the sound of his pants hitting the floor behind her back, when his hands tried to pull down her sweatpants impatiently, she turned around again. She reached up and cupped his face with her tiny hands, running her thumb tenderly over his burnt skin.

"Listen, August. This is not going to be a quickie, okay? You want to express your gratitude? Great. I like this. But do it properly. Fuck me rough, if you want to, fuck me hard, but don't you dare to hide from me. Look at me. Kiss me. Give me the feeling of being wanted. Pretend it's more than just some kind of job."

He looked at her with an unreadable expression, hesitating for a moment. He opened his mouth but instead of saying something he pressed his lips together with a nod. Helen smiled at him before stripping naked slowly.

When he kissed her again he took his time, enjoying the sensation of holding her naked body close to his now. She was surprised by his tenderness, by his gentle touch and the delicate kisses he covered her body with and blown away by the passion that soon erupted from deep within him. It was just a small step from long, slow kisses to making out like two hungry predators.

He lifted her up easily and carried her to her bed where he laid her down on her back carefully. He climbed between her legs and looked at her.

"Ready to get fucked like never before?"

She smirked. "Big words. I hope you're not all mouth."

"You don't like my mouth?" He started to kiss her belly, licking her skin, leaving a wet trace that led down south where his tongue met her soft pubic hair.

"I love your mouth."

Helen moaned when he kissed her pussy and parted her folds with his tongue.

"Yeah? You like my tongue too?"

He started to tongue fuck her and she grabbed his head, pressing his face closer to her sex.

"Shut up and eat me out."

She threw her head back when sucked on her clit.

"Oh fuck…" She moved her hips slowly to the rhythm of his actions, rolling them with intense motions, burying her fingers in his thick, curly hair. "Just like this...yes."

Her moans got louder and louder and his dick was so hard it hurt, leaking precum. He knew she was about to come but she stopped him before she climaxed.

"Lay down", she ordered and so they switched positions. August had always been a dominant lover but being bossed around by her was a great turn on. He loved how determined she was, it was incredibly sexy how she was chasing her high, not even trying to hide that she wanted to fulfil her own needs most of all. She was starved, desperately in need of this, of him. In this moment she needed him, she wanted him, she allowed him to give her what she was craving.

Helen was kneeling between his legs now, grabbing his dick. "I love your cock too." She grinned at him before she started to suck him off with a devotion that was new to him.

She turned him into a whimpering, panting mess soon, her lips and her tongue working their magic on his dick, and just like her, he grabbed her head to have some kind of control over her actions. He made her take him deeper and she took him deeper.

"Good girl. Taking me so well."

His voice was raspy and she locked eyes with him, her gaze telling him that she liked to be praised. August groaned when she slowly pulled back, licking his length one last time.

"Fuck, Helen...I need to feel you."

"I'll make you feel me."

Saliva was dripping from her swollen lips and he almost got off just by the sight of it. His saviour, his saint had turned into a shameless whore and he was willing to worship and adore her for being his dirty, little slut.

"Yes, you will."

He grabbed her by her waist and pulled her onto his cock. She sighed with pleasure when he entered her tight cunt, stretching her wet pussy and as soon as she got used to his size she started to ride him, rolling her hips slowly in a rhythm that was giving them both the greatest pleasure. August stroked her tits, caressed and kneaded them and she supported her body with her hands on his chest. She picked up speed and when August pinched her nipple she came with a hoarse shriek, her whole body trembling with ecstasy and lust.

Helen bent down to kiss him and he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly while thrusting his hips. He fucked her without restraint now, his thrusts hard, fast and deep. He railed her mercilessly until his intense orgasm swept him away. He let out a long, satisfied moan and loosened his grip on her body.

He kissed her again but she seemed to be in a rush suddenly and rolled off him and went to the bathroom. August was kind of surprised and sobered to a certain degree when he heard that she was taking a shower. She either couldn't stand after-sex-cuddles in general or she really thought that he had just done her a favor to thank her for her hospitality.

He wondered how many times he would have to fuck her till she was willing to fall asleep in his arms afterwards.

*****

#henry cavill #cavillry #henry cavill fandom #august walker smut #august walker #august walker fanfiction #august walker x ofc

[azurevi]

Ehhhh. I love your rivals to lovers trope! Can I request another trope for you? How about some second chance trope where the octa boys + lilia broke up before but he wanted to try a chance again? Hehehe. Angst go brrrr. Thank you!

I'm quite foreign with the break up trope so I hope this is along the lines of what you wanted!

Octa trio + Lilia wanting a second chance

Azul

Azul may seem rational while doing business, but when it comes to love he can be inclined to follow his emotions instead. That's what led to you breaking up -- him blurting out the wrong words during an argument because the frustration was clouding his mind.

Azul regretted it the moment you walked out the door, and he still does. There are days when he finds himself lingering outside your classroom during recess for the slim chance of seeing your face. Some people say time can wash the feelings away, but for him each day brings more emptiness and discontent. You've taken such a big part of his life, so it's only natural that his world comes crumbling down when you leave him.

Despite all this, Azul does have a bit of an ego himself. It can be hard for him to come to terms with his struggles. What if you don't take him back? What if you see him as frivolous? But ultimately the loneliness will propel him to approach you again. No matter what your answer will be, he's not going to chicken out and idly watch as you sway further away from him.

Jade

Out of the Octa trio Jade is probably the most sensible one, so it's very rare for him to make mistakes.

But love is not something he experiences very often, and there really is no correct answer to it, so he's bound to make mistakes. There have been times when he messes up in your relationship, but they were never anything serious. So when an argument breaks out one day and you tell him you want to break up with him, he's too shocked to say anything in return.

Without you around he uses most of his time reflecting on what he's done wrong, or is it something about you instead. It takes some time for the weight of reality to sink in, then he'll start to understand what it really means to break up with someone. One thing he feels the strongest is that he misses having you by his side, bringing some smiles and laughs into his somewhat mundane routines. 

One thing is for certain -- he does want to get back with you, but he's not sure if he's supposed to. He has no idea what goes on in your mind, or if you are feeling the same thing as he is. But if time goes by and his longing for you still doesn't cease, he may just have to call you up.

Floyd

Floyd can be unstable sometimes. Even when you're in a relationship, he can be hot one second and cold the next. So there are two possibilities -- either he broke up with you without properly thinking through it, or you suggested splitting because the relationship was too rocky.

He probably broke up with you just because he was feeling down that day and you happened to say the wrong thing, but a few days later he starts craving your presence again. Almost immediately he will go back to you and ask for you to forgive him. He can be indirect with his words as he doesn't find it easy to just be honest with his feelings, but he will show how much he regrets it by his actions, which may include buying you gifts or passing you tiny silly notes.

If you're the one breaking up with him, he'll react more or less the same, but he's going to need more time before asking you for a second chance. Aside from pining for you, he also feels a little angry at you for ending things with him. His pride can be quite an obstacle for him, but eventually he'll miss you so much that he throws it all behind.

Lilia

I imagine Lilia would break up with someone due to fear. In his long, long life he's had a handful of relationships, but none of them ended well. (His past lovers most outgrew him.)

He loves you a lot, probably more than he's ever loved anyone, but with this affection comes the terrible realization that one day you'll be too far gone in life, and that he won't be able to stay with you forever. He claimed that to end things before it becomes too hard is for the best, and thus your relationship ended with a bitter taste.

He expects himself to grow out of his love for you like how he's forgotten people from his past, but whenever he sees you around campus, even just at his peripheral vision, he feels the fire in his heart being rekindled again. Fate seems to enjoy toying with him, as he constantly runs into you and you're forced into awkward greetings.

How is he to move on when he's somehow still growing more smitten with you each day despite your absence? Night after night he stays awake pondering about whether he really made the best decision. Eventually he decides that it's more important to enjoy what he can have in the present instead of worrying about the looming future, and he's going to fix things with you as soon as possible.

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twst headcanons #azul ashengrotto #jade leech #floyd leech #lilia vanrouge

[geminisholland]

Hi! What would you think about writing a fic where Tom and reader are both working on a show or movie or something, and they have feelings for each other, but they're too nervous to do anything, and then they both end up in a prop closet or something alone, and then ✨stuff✨ happens? If not that's fine!!

a/n: uhhh i got really carried away with this, and am really obsessed with the idea so thank u for sending it over!! also actress!reader is like my favorite trope to read so it really was no shock this was my favorite to write! i also did my best to portray tom as the gemini man he is. also, my inbox is open, send over requests!

warnings: cussing, sexual tension u could cut with a knife, an intense make out sesh (no smut)

word count: 2211

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the long nights on set were beginning to catch up with you and your costars. every day you felt more delusional, surviving only by the caffeine that tom would bring every morning. it was really a routine at this point, you’d sit down in the chair of the hair and makeup trailer, and one minute later tom would stroll in with your exact order.

“and an iced matcha for the diva,” he liked to joke. that was his nickname for you, diva. he thought that maybe you’d pick up on his flirting if he started calling you names like diva, and princess. you payed no mind to him, because you thought he was making fun of you. that he didn’t take you seriously, and that was frustrating, because, well, you had feelings for him. you weren’t entirely sure how he felt about you, though, and it was driving you insane. you’d convince yourself you would be okay without him, that if he didn’t like you back, you’d survive it. but then he would walk in to the trailer, holding your matcha, and calling you diva. you couldn’t push aside the euphoria that rushed through your body every time he called you that. you actually really enjoyed it, but tried to ignore that as the embarrassment of him making fun of you settled in.

tom was really cocky too, but you assumed that came with being an excellent actor, and being quite successful. you’d talk to your friends about him, because when were you not talking to him? when were you not thinking about him?

“he’s so cocky, maybe i don’t actually have feelings for him,” you’d explain. “he walks around calling me names, who does he think he is?”

your friends would groan, because they heard this everyday. they would go from “yeah he sucks” to “aw, you should tell him how you feel, you two would be so cute together.”

you just felt so stuck. you’d act in scenes with him, and would feel the connection, but as soon as the director yelled cut the connection would turn to a code that you couldn’t decipher. you really couldn’t figure him out.

he would abruptly open your trailer door, and yell, “hey princess, let’s get going they’re ready for us!”

you’d roll your eyes, but walk with him to set anyways, because you enjoyed his presence. you were friends, at this point. he would invite you to his place for game nights, and take you out to dinner during particularly hard days. he would show up to your place, unannounced, with a pack of truly’s- just cause. you would give him rides to set, and get him his favorite food when he’s filming. you tried not to think about how often he would send you the “you up?” text, because you didn’t want to convince yourself this was something, when there was a possibility it was nothing.

but, you really liked him. he was tom holland, your celebrity crush. the person you’d call when you’re sad. the person who you’d run scenes with for hours on end, and never get tired of being around him. the person who you could just look at, and feel safe. he was home to you, you just didn’t know he felt the same. so, when the electricity went out during a particularly bad storm in Atlanta, and you and tom were in the supplies closet alone, you weren’t exactly prepared for what was about to happen.

“you really ordered an iced matcha while there’s, like, a borderline hurricane happening outside?” tom exclaimed. he stared at you as you stood up, and grabbed the drink from his hand.

“yes, i really did,” you shot back. “what are you gonna do? call me a ‘diva’?” you smiled at him, and his eyes slowly moved down your body than back up to meet your eyes. yes, he really did just check you out, but you were sure you only imagined that in your head.

“i might,” tom replied, then sat in the chair next to you. “it’s still early, though. there’s time to catch up on the name-calling.”

“i’m looking forward to it,” you teased, rolling your eyes at him. sometimes pushing tom was fun. tom shot you a glare, and you smiled to yourself as you sat back down.

“weather is crazy, huh?” tom observed. “i’m not the biggest fan of big storms like this.”

you looked over at him, noticing the concern on his face.

“i think they’re fun, i absolutely love just sitting at the window, and watching rain,” you confessed. the two of you were looking at each other, the only noise was the rain outside the trailer. your heart was beating so hard, you were certain tom could hear it. just the two of you, alone in a trailer. nothing new, yet something felt wildly different this time. perhaps it was tom’s vulnerability due to the storm happening outside.

the feelings you were marinating in were disrupted by the trailer doors being opened, and the makeup artists walking in.

“so sorry we’re late, the storm is insane,” one of them apologized.

“no need to be sorry, tanya, we’re just glad you got here safely,” you replied. tom nodded his head in agreement, and they started to work their magic on the two of you. while in the makeup chair, you and tom decided at the beginning of filming that you would switch who plays the music every day. so, your day to play the music was today, and even though the two of you agreed on this, tom complained.

“why can’t i just play the music today? you always play the same songs,” he whined. you rolled your eyes at him, trying to ignore him.

“oh god not taylor swift again!” tom groaned. you loved that even though you were the one who was perceived as dramatic, tom was actually the diva.

“tom, shut up,” you said back. “you are so annoying when it comes to this shit.”

you looked over at him, and he was looking at you. his eyes sparkled in the light, and you felt your stomach flutter at the way he stared you down. you looked away, staring back down at your phone to try and recover.

a few moments passed, and the two of you were done with hair and makeup. now was the real challenge, getting to the set during the insane storm.

“where’s the umbrella, tom?” you asked while you looked around.

“i have no idea,” he answered. you looked up and glared at him.

“didn’t you bring it over here? i could’ve sworn you were holding one when we walked here twenty minutes ago,” you mocked. tom smiled.

“it’s right here, i’m just messing with you,” he replied.

“you’re so annoying,” you remarked.

you grabbed your script and the matcha, then made your way over, talking about the scenes you were shooting today. this was something the two of you did almost every day, you liked to rehearse your lines before getting on the stage. when the two of you arrived, you set down your script, but kept drinking your matcha as you and tom started blocking. this was something you did before every scene, and was what made your days so long. you had to work out every detail of the scene you’d be filming before actually filming it; which was time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating. you and tom were set up at a table for this scene, sitting across from one another.

“y/n, if you could just move your head more towards the right, we’d get a better shot,” the director called out. so you did, and in doing so, your hand moved with you, and knocked the matcha off the table.

“oh shit,” you said, looking back at the director with an apologetic face. “i’ll clean it up, don’t even worry!”

tom sat across from you, laughing at you as you scooped the ice off the ground, and put it back into your cup.

“that doesn’t sound good,” the director replied.

“no, don’t even worry! i’m totally cleaning this up, it’s gonna be spotless,” you breathed out. you were extremely worried, though. the green liquid covered the floor of the diner set that was built. tom eventually started helping you.

“this is ridiculous, y/n, you can’t scoop the liquid with your hands,” he observed. “let’s go get some paper towels, okay?”

you looked up at him with watery eyes, you were worried that you had just ruined a set that took a while to build.

“okay,” you agreed. the director walked up to the two of you, looking at the spilled drink then back at you.

“i’d think paper towels would be more helpful than your hands, y/n,” he joked. “don’t you think?”

you nodded, “yes, tom and i will be right back with those.”

you and tom walked in silence over to the supplies closet, where they kept the paper towels.

“so embarrassing,” you let out under your breath.

“what was that?” tom asked. he opened the door to the closet, and turned the light on. the closet was huge, so both of you went in to look for the paper towels.

“it’s so embarrassing, doing that in front of everyone,” you admitted. “i shouldn’t have had my drink there.”

tom scoffed, “oh please, we all bring our drinks with us when we’re blocking, anyone could’ve done that!”

you nodded in agreement, uncertain of your voice at the moment, so you opted to stay silent. the lights started flickering right as you found the paper towels.

“that was weird,” tom announced.

“yeah, that was weird,” you replied.

the lights flickered again, and within seconds you were in pitch black.

“wow,” you let out. “tom, where are you?”

“i’m right here,” he said. you laughed, because you thought it was a ridiculous answer. you put your arms out, and tried to walk towards him.

“do you have your phone? i need a flashlight,” you asked.

“no, i left it out there,” he replied.

“shit, me too,” you noted. “put your arms out, i can’t find you.”

“okay,” he said. you walked for a few seconds, then ran into him.

“there you are,” you commented.

“here i am,” he said. the two of you were standing so close, his hot breath was felt on your face. your eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and you could see his features now. you could see his lips. oh my god, you could almost feel his body against yours. you felt butterflies in your stomach as you realized just how close he was to you. you could just touch him, you thought. you could, you really could just grab his face, and kiss him. right here, right now.

“should we try looking for the door?” you asked out loud. the silence was killing you, you had to escape it. tom stood still, breathing harder with every second. “tom?”

“you talk too much, you know that?” he breathed out. you were so taken aback by that statement, your breath grew shaky. “every time i try to make a move, you talk. you just-you talk too much.”

you stood there, in the dark, in absolutely disbelief.

“oh,” you let out. you didn’t know what to do, you were frozen. your eyes were completely adjusted now, and you could see tom more clearly. his face, his arms, his hands, everything. his hands moved up your body, starting at your hips then making their way to your face. you brought your hands around his neck, you were breathing so hard you felt as if you could pass out.

“you are so beautiful, y/n,” he revealed. “so fucking beautiful.”

you smiled, although you weren’t sure he could see that. your hands moved to his face, you cupped his cheeks into your hands. tom moved his face closer to yours, cupping your cheeks as well. he placed his lips onto yours, then started to kiss you. like, really kiss you. not a cute, little peck that you would see in the movies. a rough, passionate kiss. the kiss you had been waiting for all this time. one of his hands dropped to your lower back, and he pushed your body onto his. your hands started to move under his shirt, as your tongues started to swirl together. your cheeks flushed as the warmth of his tongue and body encapsulated you. his hand moved off your cheek, and started to move under your shirt to take it off.

the door abruptly opened, and a bright flashlight made you and tom move your hands up to your face. your bodies broke apart, but the damage was done.

“tom, y/n, we need you back on set, they’re about to turn on the generator,” one of your costars said. “oh, don’t forget the paper towels.” they started laughing, as well as both you and tom.

the three of you walked back, and you wiped your mouth, then looked at tom. he smiled at you, then put his hand around your waist.

you leaned into him, then whispered, “we’ll have to finish that later.”

he shook his head in agreement, “okay, diva.”

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@zspideyy @lilhoodhippie @th45 @lmaotshollandd @hollandfanficlove 

#tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland one shot #tom holland imagine #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x actress!reader #geminisholland

[duhragonball]

Variations on a Theme

My fanfic is long enough that I start to worry that I may be repeating myself in places.   In particular, I feel like the villains sort of run together, although that’s arguably true for any long-running story.   Lots of people get the Joker and the Riddler mixed up, for example.   Your standard Batman villains are all going to play off the same themes: fear, chaos, power, dual-identity, genius, etc.   Some of them are bound to overlap eventually.  

I thought about how this works with Dragon Ball’s villains.   In general, I feel like the major bad guys manage to be pretty distinct from each other, even though they’re basically all doing the same things.  I guess I should make a list.  Note that I don’t really have a firm definition of “major bad guy,” so if your fave didn’t make the cut, I wouldn’t read too much into that.

Emperor Pilaf: Wants to use the Dragon Balls to wish for world domination.   He seems kind of lazy and unfocused at first glance, but when you think about it, he puts a lot of time and effort into his goals.   It’s like he thinks Dragon Ball hunting is the quickest, easiest way to get what he wants, but it never actually works out that way, and he never seems to notice.  

Red Ribbon Army: I’m sort of lumping General Blue and the other RR officers into this one.   They’re all cruel and ruthless in their search for the Dragon Balls, but they’re only doing it in service to a larger cause.   For most of the Red Ribbon Saga, it’s assumed that the Army wants to wish for world domination, just like Pilaf, because what else could they possibly want?    But you have to figure that a guy like General White wouldn’t be much better off before or after that kind of a wish.    He’d still be assigned to some Red Ribbon outpost, carrying out the will of his superiors.   He’d probably be richer and more powerful in a world ruled by the Red Ribbon Army, but in the end he’s doing it all for espirit de corps. 

Mercenary Tao: He’s just in it for the money, and I suspect the money is really just a way for him to keep score, since his rates are so high that he’s he’s probably already a rich man.   Besides, he never pays for anything, so what does he need with money anyway?  Tao’s the first bad guy who’s so strong that he can just do whatever he wants.    He’s like a one-man Red Ribbon Army in that sense.   As an individual, he doesn’t have to worry about angry superiors or unruly subordinates.   I suppose his only real overriding motivation is his pride, as he refuses to accept defeat at the hands of Goku, even though he has no particular reason to keep fighting him.

Commander Red: The big twist of the Red Ribbon arc is when Staff Officer Black finds out that Red only wanted the Dragon Balls to become taller.   You’d think he’d rather have his right eye healed, but nope.   This is where we find out all the RR guys have been fighting for a completely meaningless objective.   The Army is already rich and powerful, and one could argue that they practically rule the world anyway, since they can more or less do as they please.   I think Red’s quest to become taller demonstrates that they’ve already peaked as a world power.   With nothing else to accomplish, Red’s applying his accumulated power on selfish desires.  

Tien Shinhan: Essentially, he’s just a patsy for the Crane Hermit, who in turn is out to avenge the death of Mercenary Tao, who in fact isn’t even dead.   I suppose Tien’s character arc in the 22nd Budokai is really just him waking up to the fact that his whole life is pointless.    He’s just stealing and killing for other people’s benefit, not unlike Tao’s mercenary career.    His power was impressive, but his victories over Yamcha and Jackie Chun were empty, and his victory over Goku would have been empty as well if he hadn’t repudiated the Crane school during the fight.  

King Piccolo/Piccolo Junior: I guess the big difference with King Piccolo is that he already ruled the world fifty years ago, and now that he’s been unsealed, he’s going to pick up where he left off.   Also, we eventually learn that he’s the evil side of Kami, and if one dies the other will cease to exist.   That puts an interesting spin on his villainy, since his greatest enemy can never truly be defeated.  Not unlike the Biblical Satan, his plan is to just to defile creation as much as he can until his inevitable end.   Like Tien, there’s a certain pointlessness to his brand of evil, which probably contributed to his reform.   I like to think that when Piccolo Junior became a martial artist, he began to appreciate the discipline and sportsmanship of it, to the point where he began to think of Goku an company as peers to be respected, instead of enemies to be destroyed.   And, as Kami observed, training Gohan was a way for Piccolo to leave a legacy behind, something he could never do as a Demon King.

Raditz: Really, Raditz only came to Earth to recruit Goku for a battle on some other planet.  What sets the DBZ villains apart is that they don’t even care about the Earth at all, and only see it as a stepping stone to some larger goal.  Upon learning about the Dragon Balls, he believed that his comrades would use them to bring him back to life.

Nappa: Not unlike Raditz, in the sense that he probably would have used the Dragon Balls to wish him back to life.  Nappa’s thought of breeding a race of Saiyan-Earthling hybrids suggests that he had some lofty dreams of his own for the future, but he was happy to put them aside when Vegeta suggested something more selfish. 

Vegeta: The first guy to think of wishing for immortality.   The key difference between Vegeta and past villains is that he’s not just looking for a way to conquer a particular empire, or to kill lots of people.   He’s thinking ahead to battles he wants to fight in the future (i.e. Frieza), and he wants to keep conquering and killing forever.   I don’t think Vegeta ever truly wanted to be immortal for its own sake, but he saw it as a way to hedge his bets, in case he ever bit off more than he could chew. 

All of Frieza’s henchmen: In a nutshell, they serve Frieza because they see that as the only way forward in a universe where Frieza is the strongest mortal in it.   There’s no freedom from Frieza, only freedom through Frieza, and your Zarbons and Captain Ginyus thrive in the organization by doing their jobs very well.  They think the universe is an extremely simple equation because of this, and they’re always shocked and horrified to learn that they’re mistaken. 

Frieza: Basically all of the previous bad guys rolled into one.   He already rules the universe, by virtue of being the strongest guy in it, so he’s a lot like Red, Tao, and Piccolo on Earth.  He seeks immortality like Vegeta, but it almost feels like Red’s wish to become taller.    Frieza doesn’t really have anything else to wish for, you know?   He also planned to destroy Namek after getting his wish, just as Piccolo did when he got his youth restored, and he became a revenge-obsessed cyborg like Tao. 

Garlic Junior:  Okay, he’s filler, but I still think he’s cool.    Garlic sort of doubled down on the whole “evil-for-evil’s-sake” gimmick that King Piccolo represented.   Unlike Piccolo, he’s not the evil half of anybody, and he’s not just looking to torment everyone on Earth.   Instead, his plan is to convert everyone on Earth to his cause, using the Black Water Mist.   I get the sense that none of this was really headed anywhere specific.    He spoke of resurrecting his dead father, but I have no idea what the purpose of that would be when he had already conquered the Earth and overthrown his enemies.   He reminds me a lot of Pilaf, and I almost wonder if Garlic is supposed to represent what Pilaf could have become if he’d tried a little harder, or stooped a little lower.

Dr. Gero: Revenge personified.    Akira Toriyama later established that Gero lost his son in the destruction of the Red Ribbon HQ, and that’s why he wanted revenge on Goku so badly, and that’s fine and all, though I liked the original implication that he just really, really liked the Red Ribbon Army as a concept, like a middle-aged wrestling fan who really misses WCW.   You could argue that Gero is the most nihilistic villain of the set, as his revenge plot involves multiple long term schemes, some of them arranged beyond his expected lifespan, and none of them were particularly concerned about the fate of the Earth.  

Androids 17, 18, and 19: I’m assuming that 19 had some semblance of free will here.   None of these three had any stake in Gero’s plot, but they didn’t really have anything else going for them either.   I’m pretty sure 19 stuck with Gero because he wanted to be on the winning side, and maybe because Gero was the more powerful of the two.    By contrast, 17 and 18 turned on him at the first opportunity, and wandered around for a while before turning good.   Their counterparts in the Future Trunks timeline never reformed, which I always assumed was they were driven mad by boredom.    Of course, they were always designed to be fodder for Cell, so in a sense they were trapped in Gero’s vendetta whether they wanted to be or not. 

Cell (The Best Villain): He’s a lot like Frieza if he had actually wished for immortality.   What would Frieza have done next?   Well, he’d probably sip wine and gloat for another hundred million years, so maybe this analogy doesn’t hold up.   The point is that Cell was designed to fulfil a very specific set of objectives, making him stronger than everyone, and then he just sort of had nothing else to do.    It’s very similar to Tien and Mercenary Tao’s lack of purpose, but since Cell is an inhuman monster, there’s no guarantee that he’d eventually  get sick of killing and destroying everything.  

Babidi: He’s a lot like Commander Red, Frieza, Garlic, and Dr. Gero, in that he relies on others to do his dirty work.   You know, that’s actually a pretty long list.  All five of these dudes use different forms of manipulation to control their underlings.    Babidi uses mind control, and I suppose Garlic does too, though the Black Water Mist isn’t quite so well-defined.   Gero seems to be able to program his cyborgs to varying degrees of complaince.   Frieza uses on intimidation and cult of personality, and Commander Red seems to rely on military hierarchy and a sense of “we’re all in this together”.       Babidi is more direct about it.   If he wants someone on his team, he just uses his magic and makes them join his team, whether they would have shared his objectives or not.  He also wants revenge like Dr. Gero, and he has dreams of ruling the universe like several other past villains, but all of that seems to take a back seat to reviving Majin Buu.    That seems to be what makes him stand out.   Mind control is a bit cliche, but the real hook to Babidi is what he’s trying to use it to accomplish.   Each guy he brings to his side is just cannon fodder for winning the next guy, until he can finally get Buu on his team.   I’m pretty sure he could conquer the universe and kill the Supreme Kai with Dabura and Vegeta alone, but he can’t stand the thought of not having Buu on his team.  Except Majin Buu’s the one bad guy he can’t control.   If he had just left that one go, he would have been unstoppable.  Instead, he pushed too far and lost it all.

Majin Buu: This guy gets a lot of criticism for being short on personality, but I think that’s the point.   He’s a weapon, like Cell, and he’s even more devoid of purpose than the Crane School guys, King Piccolo, or the Androids.   He’s basically a walking natural disaster, practically begging the universe to stop him.   I never really thought about it before, but he’s a lot like Tien’s run as a villain.  Like, Tien met Majin Buu in the middle of that arc, and you’d never make that connection during that encounter, but it really is a similar kind of situation.  They both needed somebody to slap some sense into ‘em.

I thought about moving on to the villains from GT and Super, but this is pretty long already, so I’ll just call it here.  I think I’ve seen what I needed to see anyway.   A lot of these guys have similar power-sets and motivations.   Babidi and Dr. Gero are very similar in the sense that their revenge plans end up summoning an unstoppable weapon and unleashing it upon a defenseless Earth.  

But the difference lies in the details.   For Gero, Perfect Cell was Plan C or D, a failsafe he never expected to live long enough to see in action.    Plan A was to tackle Goku in person by becoming an android himself, and everything else that happened was because of his initial failure to accomplish this.    Majin Buu, on the other hand, was Babidi’s first and only goal.    As much as he wanted to get revenge on the Surpreme Kai, he seemed much more fixated on Buu.   Killing the Kai was just a way to clear a path to Buu, or a fun thing to do with Buu once he got him. 

This also puts some parallels in stark contrast.   When 17 kills Dr. Gero, it’s superficially similar to Buu killing Babidi.   The difference, though, is that Gero never trusted 17, and he was only activating him out of desperation.    Babidi really thought he had Buu figured out, and then he lowered his guard for just a moment and paid the ultimate price.    Which is ironic when you think about it, because we don’t usually think of Buu as being treacherous or sneaky.    17 comes across that way sometimes, but he’s pretty up front about his intentions.   Gero wasn’t exactly surprised when 17 turned on him.

And this is why I get pissed off when people who don’t watch the show try to dismiss it as the same thing over and over.   It’s not the same thing over and over, but the only way to be convinced of that is to take the time to sit down and experience Dragon Ball in depth.    I don’t like football, but I’m not gonna buy into the tired old joke of it being a bunch of guys running around in tight pants.   I have no idea how football works, but I’m not gonna pretend that there isn’t some deeper appeal, or that there’s no tactical or athletic contest going on, simply because I don’t like it.  A lot of people enjoy it, so there must be something to it, even if it’s not for me.   I just haven’t taken the time to study it.

Anyway, I’m concluding from this that I should probably take the time to study my own work, and maybe that would help me to shake some of these confidence issues.    I can talk myself into believing that my writing is better than I think it is, but maybe I need to analyze that in detail, and actually write the analysis down instead of letting it swirl around endlessly in my head.    I’ve always resisted this sort of thing because it feels like an ego trip, but maybe it’s been the opposite all along...

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #writing #dragon ball #this all started because i was frustrated with using certain tropes too often #or at least i *thought* i was using them too often #but maybe i'm not #i mean magic is kind of a universal concept when you get down to it #in the broader sense of the term #i like bill nye's definition that it's a part of science we don't understand yet #he was actually defining space ghost but i think magic fits as well #point being that it's all magic when you don't have a full explanation for it #goku's tail is magic #his ki blasts are magic #spaceships are magic #interstellar politics are magic #so having an actual wizard or three in my story is just a drop in the bucket #my protagonist is like a wizard who specializes in punching magic #'abracadabra!' *schmack*