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princessbellecerise · 11 months

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Pregnancy Headcanons

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summary | How the House of the Dragon characters would react before, during and after your pregnancy

warnings | Mentions of pregnancy and childbirth

this is a work of fiction. i do not own these characters

divider by @princessbellecerise

Jacaerys Velaryon

Finding Out

Jacaerys has the audacity to look shocked when the Maester tells him that you’re pregnant, like the two of you haven’t been fucking like rabbits ever since you got married

No seriously—he literally freezes and just kind of…stares with an unreadable expression on his face

Just sort of wide-eyed, in shock before he finally snaps out of it and briskly walks away without another word

He’s not really sure what to do, or how to react to be honest. And it might take a few days for him to come around, but he will eventually

Bonus: Rhaenyra sees his reaction and she’s like Jacaerys, what did you expect?

And he’s like: Not this

And then she’s like: Well did you pull out? Ask for moon tea? Something??

And Jace is just like staring at her like: No? Why would I do that?

Like boy what did you expect when you literally nut inside your wife every single time

During Pregnancy

Once he does come around though, Jacaerys will be so protective. I’m talking like he barely let you out of his sight, and makes sure that everyone knows you’re pregnant

Like they can’t already tell, he’ll constantly tell people that you’re carrying his heir and that they need to be careful with you

Even the Maesters who literally know what they’re doing get a scolding by the future king if he thinks they’re being too rough

No one is allowed to get too close to you and if they do, Jace will always have one hand on his sword just in case he needs to defend you

He will even better himself at sword fighting, pushing himself to the limits during the hours that he’s not with you so that he can always be prepared

For Jacaerys, you being pregnant is sort of like a wake-up call for him, a chance for him to finally rise to his responsibilities and become a bit more serious

He understands the weight of being king now and for Jace, he’ll want to put away all childish things so that he could become the man you and your child need

Giving Birth

Oh my god he’s so supportive

I’m talking like this is a man that will get behind you and physically hold you while you push

Despite what anyone says, he will be there for the birth of his child and he will be so soothing

Holding you, kissing you, kissing your neck to calm you down, taking the cloth from the Maester and wiping the sweat off of your forehead

Jacaerys’ support of you never ends and he’s constantly telling you how proud of you he is even while you’re screaming your lungs out

He’ll help you breathe and let you squeeze his hand till you break it if that’s what you so desire

Calling you his brave girl and letting out teary laughter when your baby is finally delivered

After Birth

When your child is born, it’s like fatherhood is something Jacaerys is born for

He’s a natural; knowing exactly what to say and how to raise your children even if you are still figuring it out

Seriously, it’s like he has a cheat code or something

If the two of you have a boy, then Jace won’t hesitate to start grooming him to be king and unlike most father’s, he is very involved in his son’s upbringing

Jacaerys will be the one to teach him how to hold a sword, how to ride a horse and a dragon. Jace will be there for his son every step of the way no matter how improper it may seem

Likewise, if he has a daughter, he will be entirely overprotective

If you thought it was bad when she was in the womb, just wait until Jace takes one look at his baby girl

Suddenly, he’s terrified to let her out of his sight; sometimes even holding her on his knee during council meetings. She likes to play with the marble and Jace tries so hard to keep a straight face while also wrestling it out of her hands

Everyone at the meeting will try and pretend like they don’t hear her babbling and like it’s not the cutest thing ever while they’re talking about literal war

Overall, Jace would be prepared to defend you and your children to the death if need be, and he would be such a stern but loving dad

Lucerys Velaryon

Finding Out

Luke doesn’t even notice that you haven’t gotten your moon blood for several months and neither do you, until one day a servant happens to say something and you’re both like: oh shit

Since you both are still quite young you’re not really supposed to be having heirs at the moment. Like Rhaenyra specifically told this boy to not get you pregnant just yet and now he’s terrified of telling her

So yeah, it was an accident and Luke is so nervous he’s literally shaking when the Maester confirms it

But sweet boy, he will do his very best to remain calm and will put on a brave face for you

He’ll act like he’s not scared as well at the prospect of having children so young but on the inside he’s freaking out. He’ll hold your hand tightly and give you kisses to calm you down, keeping his voice from shaking to seem brave

During Pregnancy

Even though it’s a little too soon for the both of you to become parents, Luke will slowly become excited at the prospect of becoming a father

Like he’s so proud, growing to love his child before you’re even four months along

He decides right then and there that he’ll do anything to protect you and his child and swears that no harm will ever come to either of you

While you’re pregnant, Luke will take on every single responsibility so that you won’t be stressed out. He always has you relaxing and content while he deals with all of the hard stuff

And yeah, over the course of the months he will find himself growing up a little

Maybe a little bit too fast, much his mother’s sadness, but Rhaenyra can’t help but love the look of pride of Luke’s face every time he touches your belly. And neither can you

You love when Luke rubs your son or daughter and you especially love when he blows raspberries on your stomach, giggling every time while he coos to the baby or talks to them in High Valerian

It’s a such a sweet moment to witness and many people, sometimes even Daemon, catch themselves smiling or smirking at you and the young prince

Giving Birth

Okay, so Lucerys is now back to being scared shitless

It all started on the day you delivered your child, with Luke sweating and pacing outside of your room while the Maesters attended to you

Your screams severely upset him and he kept pacing back and forth in the hallway, peeking in the room and desperately trying to get a glimpse of you before the Maesters pushed him out

He wants to be there for you so bad, especially since it’s your first pregnancy and you’re crying your eyes out for him

Eventually, he’ll just have to say damn it and force his way in, gathering his courage for his wife. And even though the Maesters tell him that it’s highly improper, he’ll ignore them and will hold your hand the entire way

Whispering sweet praises in your ear and stroking your back while Rhaenyra or your own mother loudly encourages you

He’ll be so worried up until the moment he hears that first cry, and that’s when everything just melts away for Luke and all he can feel is happiness when the Maester hands you your child

After Birth

After your child is born, you and Luke are the absolute best parents

You’re both soft and gentle with your baby, and you’re glowing in a way that Luke just absolutely loves

Both of you have immense pride for your son or daughter and you fall in love immediately despite not even knowing if you were ready yet

You just…jump in and honestly it’s not so bad for you and Luke once your bundle of joy finally gets there

Lucerys especially is thrilled, winning the best dad award for always playing with your child or making up silly games to make them laugh

You love watching him interact with your baby because he’s just so good at it and he doesn’t even realize it

Sometimes, he’ll confess his insecurities that he might not do a good job at raising your kid and you literally have to be like: hold up. Luke you’re doing amazing already

He’d be scared and terrified on where this new adventure would lead but honestly, Lucerys has never been happier and in the end it would all work out

Also, he totally gets so excited when you let him pick out an egg for the baby, just like he did for his brothers

It’s almost like it’s tradition, and every single time Luke knows exactly the right one to choose

Aemond Targaryen

Finding Out

If you’re nervous to tell Aemond, then don’t be

Nine times out of ten he’s so perceptive that he’ll put it together himself and Aemond will be over the moon

He will not stop smiling the entire time the Maesters confirm it, pressing a hand to your stomach and kissing your belly

His reaction kind of throws you off a little bit because you’ve never seen him so excited in his life, but he reassures you that he’s been waiting so long for this moment and now he’s just ecstatic that it’s finally here

During Pregnancy

While you’re pregnant, Aemond hardly ever lets you leave your bed chambers. Nor does he let anyone other than your family or Maesters near you

He’s just so protective and he’s paranoid that something’s going to happen so he wants you to be safe at all costs

He definitely does his own research because it’s not like he distrusts the Maester’s, he just wants to be sure that he knows what they know and more about childbirth in case he has to step in

God forbid your baby won’t come or is stuck upside down—two common themes for Targaryen children. Aemond reads all about it so that he knows different ways of getting the baby out or repositioning it without hurting you

He’ll also read about different birth techniques and decides to teach you to make your labor easier

Making you drink raspberry tea, take walks or stretch to lesson your pain when the time comes

You have to admit, you’re a bit shocked when your husband comes to you and makes you start doing breathing exercises with him

After all, who would have thought Aemond of all people would be so involved and so devoted?

It definitely warms your heart to see though—and no matter how much you want to wave him, you always end up letting him help you because you trust your husband you know more than anything he has yours and your child’s best interests at heart

Giving Birth

Aemond will respect your privacy and will wait outside during your labors, but you better believe he’ll be right there

Listening to every scream and every detail just in case he feels the need to step in

If you really want him to be there, he absolutely will be in a heartbeat. And if anybody tries to stop him he’ll venomously tell them to get out of his way before pushing them aside

As much as he loves his incoming child, majority of Aemond’s focus will be on you and your safety

He’ll make sure everything is going smoothly before he even thinks about celebrating and only then will he finally start to smile, a grin like no other taking over his face when your baby is finally placed in his arms

After Birth

Aemond is a caring yet trusting father

He knows that if his child came from you, they’ll already grow up to be exceptional so he allows them to grow into their own person

He doesn’t hover, but he does care. A lot

He may not show it in every way but if your child wants his attention, they’ve got it. If they want to play with him, he absolutely will. If they want to be comforted? He’s there. They tell him they want some space? Then Aemond is in the next room over, ready to talk when they are

In a way, your children are way for Aemond to heal his own self. To be there as a parent like his never were

Early on, Aemond already swore to you and your babe that he would never abandon you or ignore you when you needed him most

He swore to break the curse his parents placed on him so he is very involved with his kids

He’s also very protective, especially considering what he went through in his childhood. He never wants his child to feel left out so Aemond will go searching for a dragon egg pretty early on

You better believe that thing is burning HOT until the moment it’s ready to be placed in your child’s cradle

And Aemond swears

He swears by the old gods and the new that if they allow his child to have their own dragon he would never commit another sin again, if that’s what it took

And sure enough, Aemond is beyond relieved when your babies egg hatches—the widest grin ever overtaking his face as the baby dragon prances about

You swear—you sometimes joke that it was Aemond’s fiery gaze on the egg that hatched it and not nature

And while that very well may be true, Aemond is just grateful nevertheless that even if he wasn’t delt the best cards, he sure would find a way to rig the game for his children

Anything just to make them happy

Daemon Targaryen

Finding Out

You wish you could say that after having two children of his own, your husband would recognize the signs of pregnancy

But unfortunately Daemon is not a man that concerns himself with that kind of stuff so it’s the Maester that points it out to him

And at first, Daemon is stunned

Like okay—he knows that he never pulls out and that the two of you go multiple rounds a day but pregnant?

He thought that your tits getting bigger was just, well, a huge blessing for him

He can hardly believe his ears or that he’s going to have more children

Briefly, he jokes that he may as well start breeding his own army which causes you to punch his arm

Joke aside though, Daemon is really happy and he will shower you with kisses, laughing slightly at how his seed must be extra strong to stick so fast

During Pregnancy

Daemon is not really much help himself, expect for when it comes to massages or warm baths

Almost every night, to ease your discomfort, your Lord husband will bathe you which is oddly intimate for him, or he will massage your feet and shoulders to soothe some of the pain

Of course, your other activities will remain as well which helps a little the closer you get to birth

Mostly, Daemon will be ordering Maesters around or just simply asking you of your progress from time to time

He really hopes for a boy secretly, and sometimes while you’re sleeping or just barely awake, he will rub your stomach and whisper sweet phrases in High Valerian

Expect Daemon to also already have the names of his children picked out, boy or girl

He might even ask Baela or Rhaena their opinion and let them choose an egg from Caraxes

If he has to be somewhere else where he cannot physically look after you, he’ll also entrust his daughters to keep them informed and up to date on your condition

Giving Birth

Daemon is outside, on the balcony while your screams reach his ears

Truth be told, it’s too much. He can’t be there as much he wants to be—as much as you surely need him to be

After witnessing Laena’s death, childbirth has become quite traumatizing for Daemon so he prefers to remain outside, waiting until a Maester or one of his daughters come to fetch him

Of course, Baela—ever her father’s daughter—scolds Daemon a bit and reminds him that every lady wife needs her husband during such times

But Daemon will not budge, not until Rhaena comes to the balcony with an unreadable expression on her face

At first, Daemon is terrified. He stands, the breath freezing in his lungs as he tries to decipher what that might mean. Your screams had died down…perhaps…

Daemon stands, his heart clenching in chest as he begins to possibly grapple with another untimely death of the one he loved. He prepares himself, but then a wide smile grows on Rhaena’s face and Daemon knows all is well

“My sibling is here. It is healthy, father.”

That’s all Daemon needs. And suddenly, he’s tearing himself away and down the halls, straight to your room where he walks in on the sight of your smiling face and the glowing cheeks of his newborn child

After Birth

You like to give Daemon the benefit of the doubt and say that he spends an equal amount of time with his children

Of course, maybe a little bit more attention towards the baby since he or she does need Daemon more than his adolescent children, but as your child grows up pretty much everything is the same

Baela and Rhaena absolutely adore their new sibling and vice versa. They may be a bit older but you’ll always find the three of them playing together or one of the girls reading them a bed time story

It always warms your heart to see them bond, and Daemon’s too

Though he’ll never admit it, his favorite thing to do is spy on his children and eavesdrop as the girls help the youngest with their Valerian

Or when the three of them are together, somehow still fitting on his lap and Daemon teaches them the history of their house while you sit in the background, smiling

It’s special moments like those that remind you that while you may have married a morally grey man, his number one priority would always be his family

And you know more than anyone that with Daemon around, the five of you would never have anything to fear

#jacaerys velaryon #jacaerys velaryon x reader #lucerys velaryon #lucerys velaryon x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen #daemon targeryen x reader #hotd x reader #hotd fluff #house of the dragon #house of the dragon x reader #hotd

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sant-riley · 1 year

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[Random Task force 141 × gen z! member headcanons]

A/N: Reader goes by the codename Teddy in my writing! Along with she/her pronouns :) I am also extremely biased with Ghost so her main pairing is more towards with him compared to the others <3. I know absolutely nothing about the military so this is not accurate I am so sorry💀.

CWs: Dark Humor, Age gaps, Simping, crude humor, cursing. (not sure what else but lmk!)

Chances are, you're the youngest in the entirety of Task Force 141. Just a good couple of years younger than Gaz.

When Laswell brought her in to meet the group, they couldn't help but stare at her in confusion. A tiny girl who couldn't have been older than any of them. Soap couldn't help but chuckle while Ghost nudged him in the side to shut him up.

"This is your new rookie on the team, her callsign is Teddy. Treat her well."

All the men nodded, watching the younger woman shyly smile and wave towards them.

First they realized that her humor was, in Ghost's words, fucked.

Any minor inconvenience had her saying she wanted to be hit by a car or some type of bodily harm, Price quickly whirling around with eyes widened. "Now, I don't think that warranted that kind of response, don't you think?" "Oh it definitely did, Captain." And she'd walk away without another word.

He swears he gets gray hairs from everytime you make casual talk of you dying. He actively tells the others to check on you bc he genuinely don't know if you're serious or not.

Ghost is not up to date with shit, man uses no social medias oncesoever so everything she spouts is wildly out of pocket. References to basic things like tiktok, Twitter, Instagram? He just silently stares at you like you're on drugs. You can't really use your personal phone on base but you try your best to explain memes to him. He sighs and rubs his forehead with a groan of "I'm too old for this shit, teds." "Oh come on! You have to at LEAST know the meme about the marines eating crayons!" "What the fuck are you on about?

The only ones who know vaguely what the fuck you're on about sometimes are Gaz and Soap, despite them still being a few years older.

Granted, they are not caught up with everything but they actively make it a point on leave to try and be up to date bc of you and your mannerisms. Plus it makes you happy when they fire back a quote they learned.

Can yall imagine Soap on tiktok, what random shit he'd have on his fyp bc he doesn't know how the algorithm works 😭.

Teddy has made every single one of them a personal playlist when she does have her phone, Soap once caught her adding songs and hasn't stopped teasing her since. Price and Ghost pretend not to care and barks at Soap to leave her alone but they're equally curious. Ghost contemplates stealing her phone to see it.

Doesn't matter how serious or dark their job may be, you simp for fictional characters, loudly. Price has learned to tune it out, Ghost although slightly jealous, finds it endearing, Gaz and Soap indulge you and will actively ask about why you like the characters you do and how much you love them bc they like to see you excited. It's a nice feeling when they're always in life or death missions.

You're the smallest one in here okay, everyone can easily throw you without batting an eye so they all take turns training you! They all despite knowing you can take care of yourself, would still like to teach you all they know so should you come against a taller/stronger opponent, you'll be okay.

You are the most protected person in the entire squad, esp when going out for drinks, Ghost will put you in the middle between him and Price and basically make a wall of muscle around you. He says he doesn't care and that he just doesn't want to be pestered by creepy people coming up to you but he will literally stare down any man or woman who even tries. He is the creepy one in everyone else's scenario. Soap just laughs and tosses back his drink.

They all notice your ticks and tells, seeing your leg start to shake when you're anxious, when you start cracking your fingers when you're restless, how you will avoid eye contact at any cost. They start to find ways to soothe you in their own ways. Price will give you a pat on your shoulder, sending you a smile.

Gaz nudges you with his body to take your attention off the situation, or he'll simply start asking you random dumbass questions just to see your face change.

Soap will, if he has gotten permission before, just pick you up and throw you over his shoulder, running around with you while you scream for him to let you go. Is also not against tickling you straight up to get you to smile.

Ghost tried to be as subtle as he can be. If yall are sitting close to each other, he'll make sure some part of his body is gently pressed against yours. Whether it be his foot, thigh, hand, some part of him will ground you. You try and reassure him that you know he doesn't care for personal touch but he just says to shut up.

Meeting Graves was a trip, for everyone involved besides you and Grave. Absolutely having no control over calling him a irl Fix it Felix. You were on Graves shitlist and honestly you wouldn't be surprised he betrayed yall for that one comment bc of how angry it made him.

Constantly being told to be quiet, but you cannot help it and will make little quips over comms. Ghost takes after you and starts to say horrible "dad" jokes that make you choke trying to hold back. Soap hates both of you and calls you unfunny.

They realize you're impulsive, especially when you show the amount of tattoos you have.

"I joined the military to fund my tattoo addiction." "You know what? That's not even a surprise."

Going home on leave is always a bitter experience, you never look excited to go home. So one of the guys (usually ghost) will offer you to come with them. It helps 3/4 all live somewhere in England so it's easy to see them/ take trips to their place.

They're all attached despite knowing better. They can't help it and they know they care for you so much more than other force members.

Ghost and Soap bristle when Alejandro makes a mention that he'd offer you a spot in his team, impressed with how you can take opponents twice your size.

"¿Te interesaría quedarte en México?"

"The Hell she will."

If you'd like to be tagged in future works, please comment under my rules that are pinned to my blog!

#okay this got rambley real quick but hey its my blog i can do what i want #ghost <3 #soap <3 #price <3 #gaz <3 #call of duty #call of duty x reader #cod x reader #gen z!reader #simon ghost riley x reader #soap x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #john price x reader #headcanon #kayla writes <3 #fem reader

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yamujiburo · 5 months

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Some of this might sound intentionally hostile in text and I apologize.

I'm saying this as an abuse survivor mind you - don't throw "abusive ships" under the bus so easily - at least, so long as they're not actually glamorizing the abuse. I lived that irl and I personally find someone overcoming it, slowly having enough of that bullshit and getting out over time, and the other person having to wipe their own butt for once after they've made the damn mess, very refreshing. Maybe that's not a ship in the traditional sense. It's no happily ever after bc it shouldn't be, but I find stories like mine shyed away from so often because even the portrayal gets considered a "canon ship". ... that's just how media works now, I guess? I very rarely See a fictional relationship not called a ship in literally any context now so that's the definition I'm running on.

I wish more people were willing to portray the hardships of finding acceptance outside of "whoever you can find will accept you" very much, and finding the better things after. I wish people weren't terrified out of portrayimg situations like mine.

Jessie.. is not a good person in canon. You expect me to believe she moved into to hanamusa seamlessly, without falling on her ass? I never see you talk about Jessie's abusive tendencies in canon. You never talk about the inherent meanness she needed to get over to get there. She's quite aml lot like my ex in canon, actually.

What do you mean you're going to just remove from the character that she is abusive to those around her. Jessie hits people. She takes her own junk out on others all the time. Do you even like the character then, are you actually invested in her growing, or are you just making an OC at this point?

Idk. Do you, boo. But you are posting about a character who, whether you like it or not, is canonically abusive. I just don't buy that dating Ash's mom alone fixed her. That isn't... How that works. It would be excellent if it did. Part of my love of hanamusa is that it signals Jessie's change - but she could have changed for anyone before now.

What makes Delia different? How is she specifically a turning point for Jessie? Because Jessie's flaws go well beyond just bossing people around.

I would love if my abuser had the same outcome as your Jessie. I adore your portayals of hanamusa, where she's still flawed but still strives to do better. That's all I ever wanted from my ex.

What the fuck got her there tho.

Anyways I've been watching a lot of Bojack Horseman lately -

I agree with you! I don't think abusive relationships (or any tough subject matter in general) should be shied away from in media. It can be powerful when executed well and written by folks who are equipped to tell those kinds of stories. I do think it's sad when people treat it as off limits. But the ask I got was definitely more about which ships I have where I actually like the relationship between the characters. I think the semantics of the word "ship" are kind of vague or rather, over time, got so specific to only mean "absolutely love together and want them as endgame" (for most people anyways). So that's usually what I take the word to mean when people ask me about it.

I can 100% appreciate how an abusive relationship is written and handled, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna ship an abuser with their victim (that falls into the glorifying you're talking about). Love Bojack Horseman! Big fan! I think the way they handled Bojack and Sarah Lynn was beautifully and tragically well written. But does that mean I ship Bojack and Sarah Lynn? Absolutely fucking not.

I've talked about Jessie's character plenty on this blog and the way she's handled in earlier seasons specifically. This is kind of a summary: If we look at it on surface level, yes we can say she was abusive. But I think it's important to acknowledge and take into account the medium, time period and culture. Slapstick and cartoon violence was HUGE in anime and animation in the 90s (and prior to that too). Characters were always cartoonishly slapping each other around with giant mallets, folding fans, etc. Looney Tunes style. These slapstick bits were always distinct from real abuse and hurt (for Pokémon, Jessiebelle comes to mind). Mean slapstick wasn't a character trait exclusive to Jessie either. We saw it in Misty, James, Meowth, characters of the day and pretty much any character who got mad. It was a visual shortcut to show anger.

This type of slapstick has since (thankfully) died out and it hasn't really been a part of the Pokémon franchise since the early 2000s. However, Jessie was a notably special case. One of my favorite fun facts about the Pokémon anime is that there was a point in the series where Megumi Hayashibara (Jessie/Musashi's seiyuu) told the writers that moving forward, she no longer wanted Jessie to be violent or to be shown hitting James or Meowth (source: her memoir "The Characters Taught Me Everything"). She thought it directly went against the vision Takeshi Shudo had for Jessie, James and Meowth, when he created them, which was that they are good natured villains. If you watch from DP and on, Jessie never lays a hand on either of them. I think it was a such a good move on Pokémon's part to change her character like that and I'm forever grateful that Hayashibara said something! Whenever I write Jessie now, I always keep that in mind. She's mean, shouty and stupid but would never genuinely hurt those she cares about.

From then, her character becomes much more bearable. She's still bossy, mean and vain (typical cartoon villainess attributes) but I'd hesitate to say abusive. She'll still yell at James and Meowth, they all yell at each other, but in more of a sibling way (imo) rather than a "i'm actively trying to hurt your feelings way". The show makes a point especially in later seasons to show that Jessie, James and Meowth are not beyond being redeemed. From conception the whole POINT of the Team Rocket trio was that they are redeemable but their persistence and obsession keeps getting in the way of them seeing that there's a better life for them out there.

I won't deny that Jessie was unsavory in earlier seasons, but when I write her, I choose to write the version that Takeshi Shudo and Megumi Hayashibara had envisioned from the get go. She's still incredibly flawed and makes plenty missteps but wants to be better as you stated! My favorite part about Jessie is that she's a piece of shit LOL and I enjoy writing the changes she goes through to be better (but then still showing her default so some of her evil tendencies). In this AU, Delia doesn't fix Jessie. Jessie fixes Jessie because she is with someone makes her want to be a better person. She's already in the middle of turning over a new leaf before even meeting Delia, after leaving Team Rocket. Writing Jessie as legitimately abusive I think could work, but that's not my story to tell and if someone who were more equipped to tell that story did, I'd be very interested to take a listen!

I hope this doesn't come off as trying to deny or invalidate your experience. If you see that in Jessie, I hear you! This is just how I've interpreted her character over the years, having watched every episode of Pokémon and reading Japanese interviews from the cast and crew. She's such a compelling character and I love how messy she is

#ask yam #long post #tw abuse

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iloveyouemanuelmarco · 2 months

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I don't understand how Vivziepop still has a fanbase anymore that unironically still supports her after all the scenarios of controversy where she brushes it off as petty internet drama from "petty envious antis" atleast before she runs off into her crowd of chronically online and discourse obsessed problematic adults on any social media platform(Mostly Twitter to be specific but still)who are just a group of yes-men for her to use to attack not even only children on the interwebs who just happen to be uncomfortable with the fandom she's cultivated over her career of a wannabe artist and animator, but other adults too who by the way are somewhat consisting of survivors of abuse, rape, are LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, neurodivergent/disabled and possibly more. It honestly makes me sad as it does angry because the concept of the show isn't that crazily impossible in my opinion atleast and it could of had so much potential to do way better if not only the obvious subject matters were treated with much more care in an attempt to rework the scripts but also if Viv didn't do half of the stuff she did just a bad person in general. Like...is that really the best you can do for your fanbase???You cannot be not-joking atleast a little bit when you're telling me that apparently not only are children not being stopped from engaging with an 18+ rated show(even though the amount of vulgar language is done so poorly that it could pass of as your average failed Newgrounds animation), but that they're literally being encouraged to interact with the fandom???Are you out of your mind???Don't even get me started on the other stuff that you all probably already know about such as the blatant mockery of S.A., abusive relationship dynamics, hypersexuality in victims of said scenarios that happen irl, having other such "jokes" including some sort of rapey scene at all and having someone who actively and openly supports "non-con" fiction???!!!! What is wrong with you people??And apparently I have to share the home of the beautiful planet Earth with these idiots choosing to have the cognitive dissonance and brain function of an almost-empty and dusty old peanut...Along with the fact that the woman herself treats her animators at Spindlehorse Productions(her studio I suppose)like utter dog-dung, she has proven to drag anyone who defies her problematic and dare I say dangerous behavior through the mud and gets away with it all because of her stans/fans making her the "face of independent animation/indie animators". I honestly feel so awful for those who may have genuinely looked up to her at one point, atleast not knowing how much of a horrible person she was behind the scenes of the computer screen but its whatever anyways I guess. If any aspiring makers of cartoons or comics(LGBTQIA+/BIPOC/Disabled preferred) would like to promote the stuff they male down below in my comments section than feel free☆. It's the least anyone can do under the storm that's being made and has happened for such a long time ughh. The project should have been attempted a little more to be prevented from the confines of those echo-chambery and gross parts of fandom-centric social media communities and It's so discouraging how long this has been going on too, but hey. She's the lady that unironically made a literal pedo character that she attempted to present as a villain while just having the original character end up as a sort of "cool af bad-girl aesthetic uwu" character. Oh my fucking God please stop at once I swear to the highest Heavens and the deepest, most darkest depths of Hell(Ironic).

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samwisethewitch · 6 months

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What Non-Pagans Need to Know About Fiction Featuring Pagan Gods

In light of Marvel's Loki show dropping a second season and a new Percy Jackson series on the horizon, I want to say some things about how fandom spaces can be respectful of real-life pagan religion.

Let's get one thing out of the way: literally no one is saying you can't enjoy fiction that uses pagan gods and heroes as characters. No one is saying, "Stop writing stories about our gods." In fact, many ancient cultures wrote fiction about their gods -- look at Greek theater or the Norse Eddas. The act of writing fiction about the gods is not offensive in itself.

But please remember that this is someone's religion.

The gods are not "just archetypes." Their myths are not "just stories." Their personalities are not a matter of artistic interpretation. For many pagans, the gods are very much real in a literal sense. I don't think Thor is a metaphor or a symbol -- for me, Thor is a real, autonomous spiritual being who exists outside of human perceptions of him, and who I have chosen to build a relationship with. Even if you are a hardcore atheist, I would hope you could at least be respectful of the fact that, to many modern pagans, the gods are both very real and very important.

When authors are not respectful of this fact, they reduce the gods, these very real objects of worship, to fictional characters. And here's the thing about fictional characters: they are fundamentally tools for authors to use to draw a desired emotional response from an audience.

Dracula's personality and behavior is wildly different depending on who is writing him, because different authors use Dracula to create different reactions in their audiences. In the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi, he's equal parts alluring and disturbing, a symbol of America's mixed desire and disdain for foreigners. In Nosferatu, he's more strictly frightening and disgusting. In Francis Ford Coppola's movie, he's a tragic, romantic figure clinging to the last scraps of his humanity. In Netflix's Castlevania, he's an incredibly powerful being who has grown bitter and apathetic in his immortality. All of this is Dracula, and all of it is fine, because Dracula is not and never has been a central figure in anyone's religion.

Let's take a look at what happens when authors give this same treatment to real gods:

In Hellenic polytheism, Apollo is one of the most beloved gods, both historically and today. Apollo loves humanity, and humanity loves him back. He is the god of sunlight and of medicine, but also of poetry and song. He is one of humanity's most consistent defenders when one of the other gods gets wrathful. And while he does have dangerous or wrathful aspects of his own (he's also the god of disease, after all), he's also kind and soft with humanity in a way other gods often aren't, at least in some historic sources.

In the Lore Olympus comic series, Apollo is a villain. He's characterized as an abuser, a manipulator, and a violent man child. LO!Apollo is downright hateful, because the author wants us to hate him. Lore Olympus is a retelling of a myth about an abduction and forced marriage. Lore Olympus is also a romance. In order to get the audience to sympathize with Hades and root for his relationship with Persephone, Rachel Smythe needed to make someone else the villain. Apollo is the most obvious and extreme character assassination in Smythe's work, but several other gods (notably Demeter) also get the asshole makeover to tell the story Smythe wants to tell.

Here's where this becomes a problem: Hellenic polytheism is a fairly small religious community, while Lore Olympus is a massively popular webtoon with 1.3 billion views as of August 2023, print books available from major retailers, a TV adaptation in the works, and a very active online fandom. Rachel Smythe currently has a MUCH bigger platform than any Hellenic polytheism practitioner. Smythe and other authors are shaping how modern culture views the Hellenic gods, and that has a very real impact on their worshipers.

This means "Apollo is an abusive asshole" is becoming a popular take online, and is even creeping into pagan communities. I've personally seen people be harassed for worshiping Apollo because of it. I've seen new pagans and pagan-curious folks who totally misunderstand the roles Apollo, Hades, and Persephone play in the Hellenic pantheon because of Lore Olympus and other modern works of fiction.

There are tons of other examples of this in modern pop culture, but I'll just rattle off a few of the ones that annoy me most: Rick Riordan depicting Ares/Mars as a brutish asshole hyped up on toxic masculinity; Rick Riordan depicting Athena as a mother goddess; Marvel depicting Thor as a dumb jock; Marvel depicting Odin as a cold, uncaring father; DC depicting Ares as purely evil; whatever the fuck the Vikings TV show was trying to do with seidr; the list goes on.

All of these are examples of religious appropriation. Religious appropriation is when sacred symbols are taken out of their original religious context by outsiders, so that the original meaning is lost or changed. It requires a power imbalance -- the person taking the symbols is usually part of a dominant religious culture. In many cases, the person doing the appropriation has a much bigger platform than anyone who has the knowledge to correct them.

When Rick Rioridan or Rachel Smythe totally mischaracterizes a Greek god to tell a story, and then actual Hellenic pagans get harassed for worshiping that god, that's religious appropriation.

Religious appropriation is a real issue. This isn't just pagans being sensitive. To use an extreme example: Richard Wagner and other German Romantic authors in the 19th century used the Norse gods and other Germanic deities as symbols in their work, which was a major influence on Nazi philosophy. Without Wagner, the Nazis would not have latched onto the Norse gods as symbols of their white supremacist agenda. To this day, there are white supremacist groups who claim to worship our gods or who use our religious imagery in their hate movement. We are still reckoning with the misinterpretation of our gods popularized by Wagner and other German Romantics almost 200 years ago.

Again, no one is saying you can't enjoy fiction based on pagan mythology. But there are a few things you can do to help prevent religious appropriation in fandom spaces:

Above all else, be mindful that while this may just be a story to you, it is someone's religion.

Recognize that enjoying fiction based on our gods does not mean you know our gods. You know fictional characters with the same names as our gods, who may or may not be accurate to real-life worship.

Do not argue with or try to correct pagans when we talk about our experience of our gods.

Don't invalidate or belittle pagan worship. Again, this mostly comes down to recognizing that our religion is totally separate from your fandom. We aren't LARPing or playing pretend. Our sacred traditions are real and valid.

If you see other people in your fandom engaging in religious appropriation, point out what they are doing and why it isn't okay.

Please tag your fandom content appropriately on social media. Always tag the show, movie, book, etc. that a post is about in addition to other relevant tags. This allows pagans to block these fandom tags if we don't want to see them and prevents fandom content showing up in religious tags.

For example, if I'm posting about Athena from the Percy Jackson books, I would tag the post #athena #athenapjo #percyjackson #pjo. You get the idea.

And if fiction sparks your interest and you want to learn more about the actual worship of the gods, you can always ask! Most pagans love talking about our gods and trading book recs.

If you are writing fiction based on real mythology, talk to people who worship those gods. Ask them what a respectful portrayal would look like. If possible, include a note in your finished work reminding audiences that it is a work of fiction and not meant to accurately portray these gods.

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darklinaforever · 16 days

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I don't understand some people's obsession with the age difference between Edwin and the Cat King.

Yes, Edwin is a perennial 16 year old.

But the Cat King isn't even human. He is literally a cat deity. And as someone @jaks21 pointed out to me in the comments, the Cat King has the overall behavior of a cat : "I think it's also being forgotten that the cat king isn't human. He can shift into human form, but he is essentially a cat. This is all cat behavior. They have absolutely no sense of personal space (unless it's their own), they like the thrill of the hunt and they like to play."

Soon people will talk to me about zoophilia maybe ?

Beyond that, the Cat King's behavior seems to be quite immature most of the time as well.

So why are people absolutely trying to categorize him as a straight-up adult when he's not a human being ? Who tells you that his brain works like a human's ? Who tells you he's not a baby compared to other supernatural beings ?

It's all well and good to judge Edwin for his reality on the show, but give the same courtesy to the Cat King in this case, otherwise it just seems designed to unnecessarily lower the ship.

Also, if we want to speak realistically... since the Catwin plot revolves around Edwin finally coming to terms with his sexual orientation through his attraction to the Cat King (even if we know that there is also an important emotional context involved ) well it seems to me that Edwin is exactly the age of consent required for sexual relations, namely 16 years old.

Sexual maturity is not the same as legal age making you an adult and I feel like people often confuse the two.

I also find it paradoxical to say that Edwin, who lived more than a century, is judged as not being able to date an almost immortal divinity (because yes, one day the Cat King will no longer have his 9 lives and will therefore die for of good) clearly outside human norms because he happens to be a Cat King and not having at all the behavior of an human adult, or even of a real human, under the pretext that Edwin has his brain blocked at age 16 years old.

But many people will also say that Edward in Twilight cannot love Bella, a teenager, on the pretext that he has lived several centuries due to being a vampire, even if this type of vampire in this universe mentally stops evolving at the age where they were transformed, making Edwin an eternal teenager of 17 years old. Yet he is considered disgusting for wanting to be with a human teenager of almost the same age mentally ?(Be careful, I'm not saying that Twilight is an excellent and brilliant story, I'm just talking about the context of the age difference between the protagonists and the ridiculous discourse around it)

The battles over the age difference in fiction featuring supernatural beings are almost never consistent. And for good reason, I find it useless !

Because most of the time, the supernatural creature does not meet human standards in order to be associated with the younger person (at least if this person is actually younger, in the term of non-majority, because otherwise, as long as everyone is an adult we don't care). Or if it is not the creature that follows a particular pattern, we are for example transported into a universe inspired by a particular era, where the legal age is then different.

So, we must stop judging imaginary beings as if they were human adults, it makes no sense.

Yes. Edwin has been a 16 year old ghost for a very long time and technically cannot mature beyond this age. Tragic. But in the show, which is not the comics, it doesn't really matter. Edwin remains a character with an arc and evolution. So he has undeniably experienced things as a ghost that allow him to change and evolve in his own way.

Of course, it can be confusing, but Edwin's case aside, the Cat King does not meet human standards. And he clearly doesn't behave like a human. Even less that of an adult human. So stop judging him as such.

Essentially the Cat King resembles in his behavior a mixture of... well, a cat, since that's what he is, and a form of immature teenager.

That the Cat King is older than Edwin doesn't matter if he doesn't have a maturity greater than Edwin.

Once again, the Cat King clearly doesn't have the mentality or maturity of most healthy adults of our world. So why absolutely try to judge him as such ? Again, that doesn't make sense.

The Cat King is a being to be judged outside of our realistic standards.

Plus, being uncomfortable with the Cat King & Edwin relationship because Edwin is 16... seems ridiculous again.

Although I would love for the show to make Catwin canon in the future I doubt that will be the case (but good if it happens !), as things stand the Cat King only seemed to be a tool to allow Edwin to open up a little more about himself, in particular about accepting his sexuality, even if not only that. So, since the sexual aspect is very much emphasized in this relationship, it must be taken into account. And Edwin is a 16 year old teenager. Not only do adolescents inevitably have a period of trouble linked to sex, but in fiction the treatment of sexuality is sometimes done through a creature outside the norms of reality, therefore fanciful, often morally dubious.

It’s a classic trope in the world of fiction !

And if that makes you uncomfortable... well I don't know what to do for you.

Again, as I said before, Edwin is of the required age of consent in terms of sexual relations.

So how does it shock you to see someone old enough to explore their sexuality find themselves in a sexuality-related scenario with the classic trope of a fantasy creature to do so ?

This kind of controversy is beyond me! We're talking about fictional characters of a supernatural nature !

#catwin #cat king #the cat king #edwin payne #edwin x cat king #cat king x edwin #edwin and cat king #cat king and edwin #edwin x the cat king #the cat king x edwin #edwin and the cat king #the cat king and edwin #the dead boy detectives #dead boy detectives

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winter-sol · 1 year

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leviathan vs. leviathan?! (or an idiot's internal struggle)

word count: 2,4k

pairing: GN! reader / Leviathan

contents: ! nsfw minors DNI. pathetic and jealous levi, begging, praising. handjobs. a light crossover with what in hell is bad? featuring its Leviathan as a fictional character.

Leviathan, as the pathetic demon he is, gets terribly jealous over WHB!Leviathan while you play that game. You are willing to reassure him he's the only one for you.

also at ao3 here 🖤

There was a limit to how long he could endure watching you so engrossed in that damn game. The game with the fictional -and inferior- versions of themselves, the Seven Rulers of Hell. How could you be so interested in that when he is right there?!

He could guess that, in some way, it’s a compliment, considering it would mean your attraction to him transcends the limits of reality and made you want to install the game and meet that Leviathan.

…That Leviathan.

Blond, light-colored eyes, a sensual and mysterious gaze that leaves on their knees anyone who has the bliss to look at his graceful and erotic figure, wearing a tight and elegant black suit. He looks nothing like the disgusting and socially awkward otaku he is, the real one.

“Mmm… So, if I level this up I can get that skill… I see.”

While he observes you from the floor cushion, he thinks immediately you’re only pretending to be interested in the gameplay instead of the demons, his insecurity and envy overflowing and shamelessly escaping his control. He should pretend as well, pretend he’s fine with it. But in that moment, he simply doesn’t care.

“Ahhh, there it is! Hey, Levi, you wanna take a look?” You ask innocently, thinking that he also feels curiosity at it when in his insides he only wishes that shithole of a game never existed in the first place. Fuck them. Fuck that… sexy imposter, he bets he could never summon Lotan and destroy the entire Hell or Celestial or Human Realm.

“Nope, pass.” He says in an indifferent voice as he pretends to focus his attention in an allegedly more engaging game in his console. His pout still goes unnoticed by you, so you insist.

“You gotta be kidding, you really don’t wanna meet your alter ego? He even has completely voiced lines! His voice actor apparently has experience doing these kinds of things, hehe.” You say as you stare at your phone’s screen, with your arms propped on the edge of the bathtub, poking out slightly, while you await your demon’s answer.

“Nope, not interested. I’m grinding so leave me alone.”

His curt tone now actually grabs your attention back to him, and there’s no way you can ignore his expression. He’s literally huddled up in a ball, sulking and avoiding at all costs looking at your direction. You find it hard to contain your laughter in that moment, but making fun of him may not be the best decision. This is the Avatar of Envy.

Smiling to yourself, you get out of his bathtub and move closer to him, laying down behind him and draping your arm around his waist, pulling him into a hug. Without expecting the sudden physical contact, he makes a little jump at your action. “H-Hey! What are you doing?! Get out and stay over there with your little game, since he clearly is a better Leviathan than me, right?”

He must be joking… Is he really that obvious? Now you can’t hold back the laugh, but you do the effort to make it look like a silly, flirty giggle.

“Levi~ What are you saying? No matter what, I only want you,” you tell him in a sweet voice while you nuzzle your cheek against his shoulder, his back still turned on you.

“Don’t lie. Deep down, you’d like me to be like that, don’t you?” A tinge of sarcasm is found at the end of that sentence, jealousy fueling his words as he keeps going. “He’s sexier, his voice is more attractive and deeper, and he looks absolutely dreamy. Aaand he totally must have a better body, obviously, ‘cuz he was created for that. Oh, and he doesn’t have this horrible tail I grow in my demon form. Does he even have demon traits or is he just a pretty boy with horns? Hmph.” He scoffs and continues, “And I bet he wouldn’t info dump you or make you all bored with my stupid animes all the time. And he doesn’t have a 2D waifu or husbando since that’s totally disgusting and unattractive, right? Also-.” You can’t help interrupting.

“What the fuck, Levi” You feel like cringing at his rant a little bit but now you’re entertained. “Have you really been staring at him that much? Wow, I mean, I thought you didn’t care about him at all.” You finish that sentence with another giggle, knowing you could be entering more dangerous territory with the teasing, but deciding to test your luck and see how he takes it.

“N-No!! Don’t be ridiculous! Aghh, you normie,” he says grumbling. Mmm… You figure you’ll have to convince him otherwise before he sinks in his bad mood even further.

You reach your hand to his chest, caressing lightly above the fabric of his hoodie, and you get your lips close to his ear. “You seriously believe those pixels are better than you? When you’re this amazing, Leviachan~” You purr his name while you press your fingers over his thick muscles, wanting to emphasize his body’s appeal. “No one makes me feel like you. No one ever will. You’re the only one for me.” You finish with a kiss directly on his neck, sensing how he shivers at the gesture.

“H-Hey! You’re trying to make fun of me?”, he says with a confrontational voice, but you know it won’t last long if you play your cards well.

“No, love. I mean it. You want me to prove it to you?”

You embrace him from the back with both of your arms, sneaking your hands below his clothes. You rub your palms over the hot skin of his torso, fondling him without any subtlety in your intentions, desire starting to flow through you while you cover him with pecks on his nape, his neck, and his shoulder.

“Ngh!” Leviathan responds immediately at your ministrations, air escaping through heavy, ragged breaths while you delight with his reactions. His sensitivity is adorable.

One of your hands travels to his v line, sensing the hard muscle there in direction to his crotch. Expectant, you follow the trail and slide your hand under the hem of his sweatpants that are already flaunting his quickly growing hardness through the fabric. An exciting sight, indeed, that you only want to put your hands onto. And as much as he tries to play difficult to get, he’s easy when you know what to say, where to touch, how to fire his own want too.

You decide to continue with the sweet nothings. “How am I supposed to look elsewhere, hmm? Please tell me because I couldn’t if I tried.” Your hand palms his length through his underwear as he gasps, trying to fight his urges and wanting to prove you wrong even though it’s almost impossible for him now, not when he can feel your touch so vividly, so irresistible.

“A-Ah…” A moan comes out finally as you reach under the fabric and fully grab his erection, your own composure faltering at the sensation of his scorching skin of his long, thick cock.

“Levi.” You say in a low voice while you circle your hand around it, gripping it greedily and dragging it down in a slow, tormenting movement. Your voice is almost a whisper, deviously teasing him “I bet you’re bigger than him”. He shivers at the touch, gasping as your grip goes down, then up, torturing him in a delicious, slow pace. You always enjoy taking your time when it comes to feeling all of him, as much as you can. No one else can have the honor of touching the Third Ruler of Hell like this.

As if awakening something feral in him, a growl comes out while you keep working him with your hand, desire pooling in you as you feel his frame stiff. Before you can continue, he grabs your wrist and turns his head to your direction.

“Prove it”, his voice is hoarse while he looks at you from above with serious, lust-filled gaze that fails at hiding his true desperation. The sunset in his eyes almost nonexistent as black engulf his aching stare. “Show me I’m the only one you need.” You notice him gulping, and conveying his own longing, he gives up his dignity in a low, weak voice “...Please.”

You smile viciously at the display, grabbing firmly the base of his cock and pulling a grunt out of him.

“Of course, love. You’re the only demon for me, Leviathan.”

You kiss under his jaw, licking that sensitive spot for him while you start a quicker pace. A sweet groan echoes through the spacious room, and his body tenses as your grip twists, giving a circular motion that only makes him fall deeper into delirium, a touch so delicious he melts into it, resting his body against yours while his legs spread giving you more access to anywhere you want.

“That’s it, sweetheart, you like this, don’t you?” Your sultry voice makes him shudder, completely surrendering himself to you. In this moment, he couldn’t care less about the other Leviathan, fuck him, he doesn’t even exist but he does, he does and he’s right here for you to take as you please.

“MC…! Yes, yes, I like it, please,” he cries out, feeling his toes curling at the buzzing ecstasy that fills him violently, your other hand rubbing his nipples under the hoodie, pinching one and gently fondling it after, turning him into a bigger, hungry mess.

He suddenly wonders if you’re even comfortable, his weight resting more on you as he squirms, but any thought dies when your thumb rubs the slit of his dick, eyes watering at the pleasure that defies his own self-control. “Fuck, MC, ahh!!” he whines while precum comes out, making your movements smoother as the strokes only grow harder and faster.

You are delighted by his sounds, possessiveness and power clouding your mind with the desire of him to beg you more, to beg for you to own him and show him he’s the only one. He still gets like that, insecure and jealous over the most stupid things, but you’re ok with it. You’ll reassure him as much as he needs. If that’s the kind of partner he needs, you’ll gladly be that.

“C’mon, baby, tell me, what do you want from me?” You sound playful and delirious yourself, marking your words nibbling his neck again afterwards, starting to abuse the red skin in there. He cries at the bite, closing his moist eyes and his hips moving with increasing frenzy.

“MC… Please, keep saying it… Say you love, say you need me, ah! As much as I need you… please…”

There it is. More begging. It sends electricity through your own body, and you let him fuck your hand as he cries out. You’re as desperate for him as he is for you, and you can only obey him.

“I love you, Levi.” A hungry adoration can be heard in your words, your whisper loud enough for his ears only. You bite his shoulder while he erratically rocks his hips into your hand, searching his own selfish pleasure and bringing himself at the edge of his release. “Come for me, love. You’re mine, mine, mine… I need you, only you.”

Those final words are too much for him, a loud moan resonating as he spills his orgasm on your hand, flows of cum leaking and making the last drags thicker and strained, as he finally collapses. His mind is still on the clouds, vision white as he slowly starts regaining his consciousness. His body starts relaxing, still in your tight embrace, and his breathing is gradually becoming steady once again.

You kiss his jaw, his lobe, and his cheek while you wait for him to recover his senses, soft pecks tenderly awakening him from his intense climax.

“…MC… You’re amazing… hehe.” The light chuckle that decorates his voice at the end makes you smile at his sincerity.

“You are amazing. Now give me a kiss, love.”

He shifts and gets on his side, finally facing you properly. He complies and kisses you gently, a wave of affection and unreleased want filling you as his soft, moist lips presses against yours. You smile into it, letting it grow more passionate in an intimate moment of calm and blissfully quietness. The movements of your mouths are languid, lazy, as you enjoy tasting each other.

After a while, you both part and regain your breathing. The tension between your legs is starting to rise as your own hunger remains unattended. You decided to tease him some more in order to get what you want from him.

“Levi… I need you…” You lock your eyes on his, eager arousal filling your thoughts of getting to claim him one more time.

He widens his eyes as he gets the meaning of your words, smiling and pecking your lips once again. “Yeah… Let me do it for you.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you two hide under the cozy blanket, he admires the way the voice actor seems to be giving his all in the porn scene of the game happening in that instant. “Wow… this is hot, I give them that.”

You enjoy how he’s finally open to try the game and share this… unique situation with you. You chuckle, “I told you, you wouldn’t hate it. Besides, take it as a compliment, you’re so cool you inspired this little guy to exist!” You scratch the imposter demon through the screen, red lines appearing on his skin as the sound of a breathy moan comes out. “Look, he’s into pain like you sometimes.”

He gives an exaggerated noise as a complain. “H-Hey! That’s… Wait, how would they even know?! It’s just a coincidence… Right?” You laugh at how he ends up admitting it.

“Yeah, but an incredible one.” You say as blond Leviathan whines while you keep stimulating him. You try to give your Levi the phone. “Here, do something to him too.”

He looks at it for a moment, contemplating his options. “Mmm, I don’t know. Wouldn’t that count as some type of masturbation?”

You burst out laughing at that.

“Hahahaha! Holy shit. Maybe? I don’t know, you aren’t him, so...”

“Yeah, I don’t know, it’s kinda weird? Doing these things to this 2D version of myself?”

“…You’re really saying that as if you haven’t jacked off to multiple hentai games before. The audacity of this pervert.”

He looks at you with a horrified expression. “Shut up!! That’s totally different! It has nothing to do with myself! It’s with other characters.”

He really has no shame anymore.

#obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me smut #obey me x reader #obey me fanfic #leviathan smut #leviathan x mc #leviathan x reader #whb leviathan #what in hell is bad #hope i'm not spaming their tag but well since it's part of the plot...#winter writes #guess who's back

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graceshouldwrite · 7 months

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How to Write Political Intrigue (with book recs)

POLITICAL INTRIGUE! Intrigue in general! What is it?

For the purposes of this post (as well as how it's usually used in the writing/reading community), think: scheming. Plotting. Conspiracies in the shadows, bids for power and survival, secret plans, masterful illusions, all of that stuff.

It could be on any scale that you'd like, from a duel of wits (think Light's and L's game of cat and mouse in Death Note)

...to a large-scale plot involving entire countries and their people (like any espionage networks during any major wars, such as the American Revolutionary War to World War II, and so many more)

...or even medium-sized conflicts (families, like in The Godfather, or smaller national disturbances like the Watergate scandal).

Below are 4 core tips on how you can successfully write (political) intrigue plots:

1. Read + Research

Despite how hard it may sound, it's actually pretty easy to craft a realistic yet thrilling intrigue plot—with so many examples in real life and fiction, you can easily base your plot on an existing one and just change a few things like the characters, setting, and maybe a few plot points.

History and current events are always great places to look to, but here are some books that are chock-full of great politics + intrigue:

Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes): one of the most famous treatises of politics + human nature and their intersection. The book is an in-depth exploration of human nature, government, politics, and all of the root causes of why they exist. While it does take a specific philosophical angle (you might not agree with Hobbes' ideas), they are detailed explanations of how things work + why they are required from one perspective.

48 Laws of Power (Robert Greene): GREAT BOOK for helping you plan out the means by which you want the intrigue to happen. There are lots of simplified rules that tell you why people plan and scheme (e.g. "control the options; get others to play the cards you deal," or "pose as a friend, work as a spy"). There are LOTS of really great small stories of when a rule is applied in real life that are also general plot inspo!

The Godfather (Mario Puzo): very very good, intricate, and more emotional because it deals with the intrigue surrounding families

Joseph Fouché: Portrait of a Politician (Stefan Zweig) (biography): Fouché is absolutely insane. A genius at political intrigue. His life is literally one of the craziest stories of scheming, betrayals, survival, and a general vying for power, especially behind the scenes.

The Prince (Machiavelli): obviously, I can't leave out the original tips + tricks book with explanations of WHY intrigue matters as a means, especially in terms of protecting your power.

Trust Me, I'm Lying (Ryan Holladay): a large part of intrigue plots (you need to cover up the actual game you're playing) is the manipulation of information, creating illusions and spectacles for other people to believe. This book goes in-depth about media manipulation and information wars.

Empire of Pain (Patrick Raden Keefe): takes a rather different angle, through the personal/corporate manipulation of government, as well as how wealth dynasties (especially within families) are established. Remember the opioid crisis? This book explores the generational politics of money and power that led up to that.

Prince of Thorns (Mark Lawrence): Look! Fiction! Anyway, I'm biased because it's one of my favourite works of fiction of all time, but it explores political intrigue not only through an actor participating in it, but through the lens of the common folk. I.e., the consequences all that power play has on the populace due to a lack of actual good governance...

A Song of Ice and Fire (George R. R. Martin): I haven't personally read/watched anything GoT, but it's pretty much obligatory to put this series down in a post about political intrigue. It's famous for doing it well.

2. Plan. Like, meticulously

First of all, decide what scale you want your intrigue to be on: large-scale government/international affairs type, a corporation thing, something between two people, or even within a family? There are so many possibilities.

Intrigue plots are like mysteries; they must be tightly logical to be satisfying. One of the best ways of ensuring this is through analyzing each involved party—the actors.

Each actor has their own motivations, goals, and psychologies. After you establish what they want OUT of their intrigue, think about how they'd go about achieving it: a naturally hot-headed person might try to intimidate their way into getting what they want, or they might learn through the course of the story to cool down a bit.

A naturally imaginative and analytical person might come up with all sorts of scarily genius plans, and near-flawless execution. Of course, they would also react in different ways, depending on personality. Character consistency alone will make your plot seem that much more logical.

However, cracks in logic will happen because humans are inherently imperfect and not always rational. These cracks must be DELIBERATE and realistic and must seem planned out; they can't seem more like the author forgot a detail, or didn't know how to explain something (e.g. something happened and the writer never included the consequence of it because they forgot). It must be clear that it is a flaw on the character's part.

3. Never write intrigue for the sake of the intrigue

The incentive of all scheming comes down to mainly two things: gaining power and keeping it. Of course, you could choose to explore more unusual things, such as characters exercising intrigue to satisfy boredom... (think Light and Ryuk from Death Note).

But, the bids for power, security, and survival can be used to highlight things about human nature. Themes to explore include ambition, sacrifice, the pursuit of happiness, the corruption of character, the preservation of innocence in a cruel system, etc.

4. Explore through a narrow lens

Most intrigue plots are full of complex motivations, characters, goals, and the means they use to achieve said goals.

You should gradually let your intrigue plot unfold through the POV of a few characters, preferably one or two. An omniscient narrator for this type of story is INCREDIBLY difficult to pull off without confusing the reader.

However, more POVs work if you use all of them to focus on ONE or a few intrigue plots only—it can provide a multi-layered effect, exploring the same line of action and consequence through different perspectives. But, if everyone has their own intrigue plot, it's too easy to create a tangled mess where readers can barely delineate one plot from the next.

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

Sorry for the massive hiatus—I have officially started college!! I've been pre-occupied with settling in, classes starting, a social life, extracurriculars etc. etc...life has been super busy, but great :)

I've started working on my books as well as poetry more recently, and I'm glad I'm getting into a new workflow/lifestyle. It certainly is different, but I'm starting to enjoy it.

Anyway, I'm surprised it took me this long to do a post about this topic, considering the fact that it's basically my writergram niche and my entire personality IRL, but I think it was mainly because I was trying to find a good angle to approach this massive topic. But, stay tuned for (probably) a part 2 because there's SO MUCH MORE to cover.

Hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated :)

Happy writing, and have a great day!

- grace <3

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scp230kinnie · 1 year

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Hcs for the titans mcs pls (Dick, Gar, Rachel, & Kori)

Lowkey gonna marry whoever sent this 😜

TITANS RELATIONSHIP HEADCANONS

I assume you meant relationship, so here’s that

Characters: Dick Grayson, Rachel Roth, Gar Logan, Jason Todd, and Koriand’r

Genre: fluff 😜 relationship hcs

Warnings: SPOILERS ⚠️ mentions of death & injury. Slightly suggestive. None of the characters mentioned are mine, all Headcanons are made up by me, not canon whatsoever. Everything said/mentioned is fictional.

On with the fic

Dick Grayson

He a baddie

He tries actually so hard to keep you out of danger

I feel like he would try to hide the whole titans thing from you if you didn’t know about it, but realistically finding out would be inevitable

He can always tell when you’re lying. It’s like a sixth sense to him

As a matter of fact, he can tell when anyone lies to him

He probably likes it when you help patch him up after a fight (not that he would admit it)

If you’re expecting a man who’s open about anything (his past, etc) you have another thing coming

It would take a lot for him to actually open up

Even if he does open up, he doesn’t like telling you much about his time with Bruce.

Dont bring it up either lol

Man is so touch deprived omggg

It’s not exactly that he never got it, it’s more that he never wanted it

He would like flinch if you ever touched him, but he would get used to it

He has a fat ass I wanna slap it

If you do that, he’s probably gonna slap yours back

No PDA. Holding hands at the MOST. Unless you’re upset or hurt, then he’ll give you a quick hug or something

He likes to stay serious generally, but sometimes he’ll be silly and it’s so cute ong

He wants you to stay away from the crime fighting scene.

He even gets scared for your health in case one of his enemies decides to go for you

He would try to teach you some self defence

If you are a crime fighter, he helps you train, and stays close to you on missions if he can

His favourite part of your body is your face. He loves looking into your eyes or kissing your lips or cheeks

Next 😜

Rachel Roth

She’s probably so sweet and understanding

You are always her main priority

All she ever wants is to keep you safe

Sometimes, she gets very distant because she can’t control her abilities and she doesn’t want to accidentally hurt you

If you didn’t already know the titans, she would absolutely introduce you to them as soon as she can

She can’t help but smile when she looks at you

She gives you her clothes if you want <3

She’d only open up after a while, it wouldn’t take too long, but she would still be a little distant

She loves being close to you and like hugging you or holding hands

Very up for PDA

No making out or anything, but will hug you and hold your hand in public

She just thinks you’re the most interesting person ever

She remembers every word you tell her

She would probably get matching piercings with you omgggg

She loves painting your nails to match hers

Like Dick, she can also tell when you’re lying. (But that’s just a side effect from her abilities)

She always posts pictures or videos of you on her social media if she has any

Will always offer you an earbud if she’s listening to music, will be very happy if you do the same

She loves learning about what music you listen to

Loves getting matching anything (hoodies, rings, even online profile pictures)

Her favourite part of you is your eyes or your hands

Garfield Logan

When he sees you’re upset, he will say the worst jokes he can think of to make you laugh

Even when you’re not upset he does that anyway

He just loves hearing your laugh or seeing your smile

He thinks it’s the cutest thing ever

Absolutely LOVES playing video games with you

It’s literally his favourite thing in the world

If he notices you’re cold, he might give you his jacket for a bit

Will defo turn into your favourite animal for you

Especially if it’s a dog or a cat so he can cuddle with you

Opens up so fast tbh

It’s good tho that means he trusts you

Little spoon fosho 😜😜😜

He loves holding or touching you in some way

Loves PDA sm

Just loves proving you’re his

The titans probably knew about you the first day he saw you💀

He’d get you guys matching white shoes and get sharpies to Color them together <3

Would draw a wiener somewhere on em tho

PAINT HIS NAILS

He would make you do some stupid ahh tiktok dances with him

Would give you some stupid nicknames

His favourite thing about you is 100% your hair. He would absolutely adore touching it/playing with it, no matter the length

Jason Todd

He a little cute patootie

IDC WHAT HES DONE

Everyone he talks to knows about you tbh

He’s just so proud of you

He makes so many sexual jokes it’s wild

Also always grabs your ass 😢

Gives you some cringe nickname

He doesn’t like opening up, I can understand that

He prefers hearing you talk, rather than him

Would protect you with his mf life

Also would teach you to fight

He wants to know that you can protect yourself when he’s not there

Adores it when you clean his wounds or rub his shoulders after fights

He’s pretty secretive but would probably break down one day and tell you everything

Would definitely give you his hoodies/sweaters

Into PDA

He just likes to prove to everyone that you’re his tho

Loves to hold you

His face part of you is ur nose

Easy to kiss

Koriand’r

She’s gorgeous my wife

She seems more stoic, but she really cares about you, more than anything

She loves to talk shit with you tbh

Only abt people who deserve it ofc

She loves when you make her laugh, it makes her feel more comfortable with you

Matching jewelry 🔛🔝

Loves it when you play with her hair

She can’t really use words to express how she feels about you, prefers to use her actions instead

She doesn’t want you to think differently of her because she is a princess or whatever

She’s had plenty of past lovers, but she knows you’re her favourite

She’ll take a while to open up, but she will eventually

Doesn’t do PDA

Or very much physical affection as it is

Will still hug you tho <3

Like everyone else, she will do everything she can to protect you and make sure you don’t get hurt

Will k word anyone who looks at you the wrong way

She’s very protective

And kinda jealous

She loves every part of you lowkey

The end guys idk what else to write

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not-poignant · 3 months

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Raphael has a very poetic and grandiose way of speaking that is absolutely not the norm for day-to-day life. How do you get in the mindset to come up with his dialogues? They're perfection and I just can't even imagine how long it would take to do one paragraph of the way he talks, but you're writing an entire story with him...

Oh I love this question because I can answer it, lol sadlkjfsda

Okay so, Raphael's character is tough for me.

Normally I do a lot of dialogue research before starting to write a character in fanfiction and original fiction, but Raphael actually gets proportionately very few lines that really show his full emotional range (compared to say, Astarion), and he's got an incredibly specific way of talking that sounds similar to Astarion but at the same time is very different.

They share enough similarities (calling people darling and dear for example) that it's easy to fall into the trap of giving them the same 'voice.'

I find Astarion's voice a lot easier to 'get' and I feel like I can hear him better when I'm writing him. But Raphael I'm taking into emotional spaces we simply never see in the game, and then I have to really guess how he'd sound (like coming up with the idea that the theatricality vanishes when Raphael is genuinely panicking).

I ended up listening to a lot of interviews with Andrew Wincott, the Voice Actor for Raphael who is an incredible actor and extremely articulate. He was very clear in one of his interviews that one of the reasons he was selected to play Raphael was because, in part, he already sounded like him. Obviously there's differences / skill in changing cadence and more, but for the most part, Andrew Wincott uses similar vocabulary and talks in a similar manner to Raphael naturally, so I had an abundance of interviews that I could then listen to in order to get a feel for Raphael's voice. I picked the things that felt more 'Raphael' and added them to my dialogue notes.

I often have to go back and edit Raphael's dialogue. Sometimes it's very simple things, I had him say 'much more' in the chapter I'm editing right now, and I edited it to 'far more' because I think he'd just phrase it like that. Sometimes I expand a sentence into an entire paragraph.

I've also leaned a lot from Korilla's transcripts in the game, which have been super useful. They really cement, more than anything, how much he loves lullabies, nursery rhymes, children's tales and more.

HOW TO DO DIALOGUE RESEARCH:-

If you're new to dialogue research, it mostly involves listening to - and watching a character and then literally taking notes of how they talk. The things you observe are:

The tone of their voice - Fast or slow. Loud or soft. Musical or flat. Theatrical or matter-of-fact. High or low. Questioning or complete statements. Considered or hedging (i.e. very well constructed sentences, or a lot of pauses, ellipses, broken sentences). Rambling or concise.

How often they talk - Some characters actually say a lot with very little. Raphael is actually a lot of observation and facial expressions and eyebrow movements in between his dialogue. Little smirks, hand gestures and more. Do they interrupt or let people finish their sentences? Are they comfortable with silence? I find Raphael oscillates between long theatrical paragraphs, single sentences or words, and then a lot of silence. He's actually not very conversational, in that you can have a conversation with him, but I doubt he'd see the point of two hours of small-talk. (At this point you might be realising that dialogue research is also character research, how a character talks tells you so much about a character.)

The words (and metaphors/subjects) they use - This is a big one and I'm going to break this down a little bit more:

How they pause if they don't know what to say. Is it 'um' 'uh' 'ah' 'hm' 'mm' 'mn' or nothing at all (or something else) because they've mastered self-control over their dialogue? If Raphael says 'ah' he does so on purpose.

Filler words. Things like characters saying 'like' in a sentence. 'He was like, 'I can't believe it'' etc. This is very similar to how they pause, but it's the things people say to get from point A to point B. People who don't do this have often had training or think very hard about what they're going to say before they say it. But people say 'like' or 'and then' or 'well' or 'i realised that' or 'i thought that' etc. to carry them on. Some are more acceptable than others (people do just have realisations for example).

Profanity. How often do they swear, and how intentional is it? Some characters only swear when they get hurt or stub their toe or get angry. Some characters swear all the time for fun. Some characters only use some swear words and not others. Be specific. Be aware that some swear words are cultural! This includes blasphemy. In Faerun they use 'gods' and 'gods damn it' more often than we use 'god' or 'oh my god.'

Vulgarity. This is useful for Raphael (and Astarion) because he's very happy to be vulgar. This is like... how comfortable are they talking about sex, about sexual subjects, being crude, being seductive, flirtatious? And if they use it, do they use vulgarity to shock, seduce, scare, threaten, or for humour?

Salutations and farewells. How do they greet people? Silence? A calm hello? (A lot of greetings are omitted in dialogue but this is still good to know). How do they say hello, goodbye. How does that change between friends and enemies and strangers?

Single word sentences. This might sound weird, but sometimes when a character hears something that shocks them, or needs to acknowledge something, they may say anything from 'huh' to 'yeah' to 'fuck' to 'okay' to 'all right' to 'sure' to 'go on' to 'indeed' to just laughing out loud. The list goes on. Raphael is team 'indeed' lmao.

Sentence structure. Raphael's sentence structure is - when he's most comfortable - gently provoking, teasing, vaguely threatening, and makes liberal use of simile, metaphor, fairy tale, rhyme, sayings, colloquialisms and more. Raphael talks like someone who knows someone could quote him at any moment lmao. But from here, how a character structures their sentences can be helpful to know. Go back to 'the tone of their voice.' Those notes will give you an idea of structure.

Emotionality. How emotional are they? Do they have rage rants? Joyful giggling dialogue? Do they infodump with little emotion? Or with sheer excitement? Does their dialogue feel fake or real? Opaque or transparent? Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, and others will never be able to say 'I love you' in anything other than actions. Raphael's emotionality in dialogue is more present in his anger and irritation, and also when he feels triumphant and/or turned on.

The symbols, sayings, colloquialisms and metaphors themselves. Not all characters use these. But some people/characters will talk through analogies, colloquialisms. This is actually Raphael's biggest dialogue departure from Astarion, imho, aside from the fact that Astarion is a lot more emotional with his dialogue.

Take into account their culture, ethnicity, conceits, upbringing, education and the people they're close to:

This one is vital. Firstly, some people tend to 'absorb' elements of those around them. A person raised by affluent people will often 'sound affluent' and a person raised in poverty will often have dialogue that reflects this and if they don't there will be reasons for that. It might be a conceit (some people self-teach themselves different accents), it might be education, it might be training, it might be the subculture/s they've entered into, and so on.

When doing this research, you'll end up with a kind of master-list of actual words and probably some sentences you've written down, along with a lot of notes. You can also do this for any original characters you're making at all, you're just then making it up based on the character, and this research will also give in many ways the shape of the character.

It's a fun exercise and I highly recommend everyone tries it literally for people who don't exist and also observe your friends and family, and do a dialogue cheat sheet for some of them. It's pretty eye-opening! Even one page will teach you more than nothing at all. You can go deep and write many pages, or you can do what I do and keep it lean at 2 pages. Anyone who struggles with characterisation I suggest at least try this exercise, because anyone can put on a YouTube video and/or streaming service or even a favourite Tiktoker and start doing dialogue research! It's a way of building a character from the top down while also getting information about their foundations.

#asks and answers #pia on dialogue #pia on characterisation #pia on writing #reference #on writing #writing techniques #writing advice #dodgy advice #i might just take the second 'how to' part and make it its own post #but anyway here's how to do it!

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x-liv25-jamieswife · 14 days

Text

unpopular(ish) tig opinions/mostly just me ranting

a few people have done this so here are mine (also just me ranting)

this one isn't super controversial but i don't really like alisa. she's nice and all, but the way she treats libby is just so weird to me and i can't bring myself to love her.

most people in this fandom are grayson stans but my fav is jameson. i love grayson, don't get me wrong, but i feel like his character is sort of overdone. i mean, almost all love interests nowadays are moody, broody, i never smile except when im with you. im happy avery ended up with jamie not just cause they fit together, but bc, for once, the love interest isn't the broody type (like i said, love grayson dont hate me)

i commented this under a post, and i don't think this is super unpopular but im lyra neutral. i literally cannot love a character unless i know them (i dont hate her either, i just don't have an opinion)

ok, this one might get me some hate, but, although grayson had the right to be mad in tig bc avery inherited the money, i do think he did go too far sometimes. there's this one time, where he was just unnecessarily rude to avery, telling her she didn't know what it was like to suffer (midway through to book, don't remember the chapter but its there and it makes no sense bc she grew up with no money while this dude is a privileged white man, like all of his brothers (except for xander cause he isn't white)). like i said, he had the right to be mad, but avery did nothing to him, and, so, he had no right to say some of the things he said to her. he does get better, and he does apologize (i think, but even if he doesn't idc cause hes nice to her now). like i said, he had the right to be mad cause i mean he did grow up thinking he'd inherit and he didn't, but he shouldn't have taken out all of his anger on her. he had the right to doubt her and think she had ulterior motives, but he had no right to accuse her of being a gold digger when she had done NOTHING to gray for him think that (dont take this as me not liking gray, he's one of my fav characters ever (but no one beats jamie (and nash)))

idk if this one will make sense and ik some people will agree with me if this does, but the way avery is treated in this fandom is really shitty. she's pretty much only mentioned when people are talking about the love triangle. she's bashed bc she didn't choose grayson (which she had the right to bc jamie was made for her and gray wasn't), her trauma is super overlooked. i wish people would pay more attention to her. also, i mentioned this earlier, but some people (not many but some) let other people (like gray and thea) get away will at the mean things they said to avery bc they're their favorite characters. (obviously, they can be your fav characters. my best friend's fav character is gray, and, when i first read the books, i liked gray over jamie for a small period of time, but its wrong to let them get away things just bc you like them.

people will agree with me, but jameson and grayson's trauma should NOT be compared. trauma is trauma no matter how "bad" it is (note the quotation marks around bad). ive mostly seen people compare jamie to gray saying that gray's trauma is worse which is so fucking mean. they both have trauma. they both have it bad. no one should be comparing. i will make a longer post about this bc this is smth i'm very passionate about and it pisses me off. (ive lost count of the amount of times ive compared my trauma to others thinking i had no right to complain bc others had it worse, so don't do it to fictional characters plsss)

the tiktok/insta fandom sucks. the amount of averygrayson shippers ive seen bash avery on those platforms is too much. the only healthy part of the fandom is on tumblr.

not controversial but thea is not a girl boss, she's just a mean girl. she's not iconic.

people should not bash people for their favorite characters. i've seen this mostly on older posts (like before tfg was released) but some people will go 'xander's my fav' or 'avery's my fav' and people in the comments would go 'but grayson exists' or 'but jameson exists'. let people like who they want to like. all characters are great (mostly, i hate thea and all of the bad guys).

i couldn't care less about eve's redemption arc. she ruined toby's life, and as someone who loves toby and avery's father-daughter dynamic, i will never forgive her. she also treated grayson horribly, basically got alisa kidnapped (cause alisa wouldn't have gotten kidnapped if eve hadn't gotten toby kidnapped), and more so if she ever does get a redemption arc, i will be throwing hands.

if i see people complaining about lyra's character when tgg comes out bc 'they were expecting someone different' i will be pissed. im sure lyra will be great (hopefully). it doesn't matter if she's a girl boss or more like rebecca.

grayson is not 'the most misunderstood character in the fandom'. he's literally the most popular character. people are constantly gushing about him and his trauma. other characters like avery, jameson, and xander (and others) are so much more misunderstood. no ones takes the time to understand them like they do with grayson. people are constantly talking about his trauma, and how people shouldn't hate him bc he's 'misunderstood'. people have the right to hate him, and his trauma isn't overlooked as the fandom's most popular character. he is a complex character, and i will be making in depth posts about him bc i find him interesting and i really like his character, but he's the most understood character in the fandom. i've noticed that people tend to say he's misunderstood right after coming up with the most nonsensical take defending all of his actions saying that he has trauma (trauma is not an excuse its an explanation)

even if grayson would've gotten up to help avery after the bombing 1. he would've never gotten there on time and 2. he might have gotten more hurt.

i said this earlier while talking about gray but trauma is not an excuse its an explanation. do with that what you will. i just have to repeat it.

people who claim jameson was not affected by emily are the bane of my existence (yes, they exist, i've seen them)

ik i mentioned gray a lot in this and it might seem like i don't like him, but i swear i LOVE him. i find his character very interesting and complex and i really wanna analyze his character once i'm done rereading. i just hate toxic grayson stans (most of yall aren't, but they exist)

#the inheritance games #jameson hawthorne #grayson hawthorne #avery grambs #nash hawthorne #xander hawthorne #libby grambs #averyjameson #averygrayson #alisa ortega #thea calligaris #eve laughlin

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fangirltothefullest · 8 months

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hey! i’ve seen you reblog a few posts from proshippers/posts tagged as proship and i just wanted to let you know in case its not on purpose!

I need some of you youngsters to please listen carefully to what I'm about to say because it might open your eyes to a very important concept- when I say ship and let ship I mean I don't give two fucks about what people read in fanfiction because it's all fake. Made up characters in a made up scenario with made up things happening.

Your christian-based concept that thought is equal to action isn't true. You can THINK whatever the hell you want do long as your actions don't cause a problem. A creepy old man can look at a young lady and THINK all the nasty things he wants. So long as he does not take those thoughts and turn them to actions, he's fine. He might want to go see a therapist but at the end of the day thoughts are just thoughts. Standing on the edge of a cliff and thinking "wow if someone pushed someone off this they'd die" doesn't mean you want to push someone off a cliff.

PLEASE separate the concept that thought and action are the same thing.

Even if the topic is a taboo topic, even if it's something you would never in a million years agree with, it's still fake at the end of the day.

I don't personally want to read about canibalism, but its not my job or my right to force other people to never write about that stuff. Policing other people's writing and policing the "goodness" or "badness" of the content they write is not my job and it's not anyone else's. Your morality is yours and yours alone. What you find taboo and never want to think about might just be a weird enjoyable read to someone else. Just like kinks or even random topics, you cannot cater to everyone and trying to force a moral purity in written fiction is just ailly. They're made up. No matter how much you want Azirphale and Crowly to be real no matter how much you are desperate for Percy Jackson to have real feelings, they aren't and he can't. They're not real and they never will be so nothing that happens to them, no matter how fucked up, really matters.

And that's all it is and all they will ever be. A bunch of taboo topics and events done to made up people.

I don't want to read about incest but I'm not going to stop people from writing fanfics about the supernatural brothers doing the nasty. I'm also not going to go out of my way to look for it or tell people to stop because it's all fake. Its not supporting it. It's made up pretend space.

I sit here throwing made up characters into Bad Situations that would be horrible if they were real people. But they're not. They're fake people with fake things happening to them and it's fun to write and fun to read. I torment my characters all the time. I made Virgil go through so much emotional trauma in APP and no one bats an eye because it's fake. Please apply the same critical thinking to the rest of written everything.

Proshipper literally means that a person should have the freedom to write what they want and read what they want because morality has nothing to do with fiction. It does not make you morally a bad person to enjoy a taboo subject in written form. This goes for ALL taboo subjects. People reading greusome murder mysteries don't go out and murder people. The same thing applies to the other taboo subjects. People writing about weird incest ships aren't going to go out and do the incest thing.

If they are it has nothing to do with the fiction and everything to do with that specific person.

Thought and action are not the same thing.

Allowing everyone to write what they want without gatekeeping based on morality is a good thing. We would not have lgbtqia+ stories if the morality policing of Christian values dictated what we are allowed and not allowed to write.

Please understand that I saying all this as a teaching tool. You might be super icked out by certain topics and that's natural and normal and ok. I am too! Everyone is! But what we have to do is be tolerant of the ideas that writing taboo subjects and being a proshipper isnt a bad thing. Also enjoying taboo subjects in written form doesn't make you somehow evil, ok?

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lime-bloods · 10 months

Text

Homestuck's Gnosticism: The World / The Wheel

Everyone knows Homestuck is "a Gnostic story".

Wait, why does it feel like we've had this exact conversation before...?

AH. SO NICE OF YOU TO JOIN ME.

If you followed along with the first post in this series, you'll be familiar already with the Gnostic nature of Homestuck's central conflict between the spirit world and the flesh. And even if I say so myself, I think that post is pretty definitive; if you're ever unsure what a particular character's motivations or end goal are, the Conflict will tell you. But what's conspicuously absent from the post is any explanation of what actually happens in Homestuck. We've covered the why, but very little of the how.

I left us off on the "synonymous goals" that spring naturally from this conflict between flesh and spirit; attaining ultimate knowledge, and escaping the confines of Homestuck itself. Eagle-eyed readers probably spotted what was lying between the lines, there: the comic is called Homestuck because it's about being stuck in a house, so the ending is about escaping the house. But what does that really look like? And how did they get in that house in the first place?

Let's return very briefly to a quote I used in the previous post. "[Y]our ultimate self [...] unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal". Two assumptions naturally grow out of this fact. First, and probably most obvious: when John dies, he's not really gone. The idea of him still exists out there, somewhere, and in our minds, so he still exists. Second, though: if the idea of him is eternal, John obviously didn't start existing when he was born. So again we ask, where did he come from?

How did John get here? Where does he go? The answers to these questions are like the four sides of one hypercoin, in that Homestuck is a time loop... of a sort.

To begin to understand this, we need to reiterate what was basically "the point" of the first post: Homestuck operates on two distinct levels, a spiritual plane consisting purely of ideas, and a "literal" physical dimension. What happens on these two planes often mirrors each other, and because Homestuck itself is a work of fiction which operates in the realm of ideas, they can even intersect. But ultimately, what "literally" happens to the characters in Homestuck is not the same as the ideas the comic is expressing in its spiritual metanarrative.

The fact that a physical time loop is impossible is something Homestuck inherits from real-life physics: to put it simply, John being born can't be the physical John from the end of his timeline, because that John would be way too old to be a baby! But ideological time loops are not only something sanctioned by Paradox Space, but essential to its very being; they are where it gets its name, after all! To repeat another lynchpin quote from the comic: there is essentially nothing new in paradox space. Any idea that seems new necessarily must have just come from somewhere else.

"SbaHJ has the distinction of being the symbolic language of [Dave's] subconscious." (Homestuck: Book 3: Act 4, p. 282)

Frequently we see this expressed in the rooms representing characters' dreams, which, as discussed, sort of transcend the character's physical form and represent the broad ideas that characters are made of. Dave's dreams (pictured above) are covered with drawings of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, characters he seemingly invented as a child after being inspired by a drawing Terezi sent to him. But Terezi's drawing was based on Dave's own illustrations she saw later on in his timeline; so which of them truly "invented" Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff? Neither of them did; SBaHJ exists as pure subconscious ideological matter floating through Paradox Space, only sometimes being picked up by a character's conscious mind. Similarly, Gamzee tries to manipulate this subconscious realm when he uses his psychic powers to place a terrifying effigy of Jack Noir in John's dreams, as punishment for the destruction of the trolls' session. But as we know, Jack Noir only took that form because of the nightmares this doll caused! So again; neither John or Gamzee thought up the demonic clown "first". It existed in the realm of ideas before either of them ever had the chance to invent it.

These kinds of ideological loops are the bread-and-butter of jujus. We're told their origins are untraceable and that they can't be destroyed, but neither of these things is really true; these superstitions exist only to obfuscate the true rule that jujus "emerge spontaneoUsly from the void." Rather than be erased from existence, a juju can only be banished to that same void of nonexistence where disembodied ideas live, and then pulled back into the world of dreams by a prospective psychic.

With these rules established, now we can really delve into with appreciation the ideological time loop that underpins all of Homestuck. And like all good time loops, the best place to start is at the end.

ACT 7 (Are you tired of seeing it yet?)

Let's not insult anyone's intelligences here: you know and I know that Caliborn's little house juju looks like the Homestuck logo because it is Homestuck; when he wins it from Yaldabaoth, he takes control of it, and when he sucks the heroes inside, he's trapping them in the confines of his material world.

What's essential to keep in mind here, though, is that the power of a juju is the power of the idea itself. It's easiest for us to think of the word juju in Homestuck as a concrete noun, referring simply to a magical object. But the word's real-life origins, referring more abstractly to magic or enchantment, are still relevant in this fictional framework. Lil Cal isn't just "a juju", but is "FILLED WITH BAD JUJU." Magic in Homestuck has always really been about the idea that believing in something can make it real, and the purpose of all Homestuck's dealings with chucklevoodoos and jujus is to evoke the anthropological concept of the "fetish"; an item whose power comes from human beings ascribing supernatural qualities to it. Jujus are all part of the "game" the cherubs play, with all its rules and quirks; breaking an enchantment is like breaking a rule, in that it changes nothing about the real world: you've just infringed upon an idea. The juju isn't the object; the juju is the power, good or bad, ascribed to the object.

All of this is really just to say one thing: Caliborn's home juju can't trap the flesh versions of John and his friends; as we established, you can't send old John back in time to become young John. But what a juju can trap is something far more important; the ideas of John and his friends. This is why it doesn't matter if the heroes who travel back to the beginning of everything to beat Lord English while he's still a kid are the "main" timeline versions of those heroes from some point in the future, or if the Epilogues' version of events is truth and they're some "irrelevant" offshoots: because all of those characters are represented by the same idea, and that's what Caliborn puts in the box. No matter what timeline John is from, he's from Homestuck, to Homestuck he must return, and as such Homestuck is what he must be forced to escape. Refer again back to the previous post: Caliborn can't create or destroy, only take pure ideas and alchemise them down into a form he can control.

And that's why Act 7 so enigmatically features two different white home-doors (above), seemingly so interconnected yet effectually unrelated. Because Act 7 takes up the hefty role of concluding two storylines simultaneously: allowing the "real", flesh-world versions of John and his friends to escape Lord English's reality through one door, while also concluding Homestuck's metanarrative by setting the ideas of John and his friends free of their prison through another door.

So far, most of this is probably stuff you'd have either figured out on your own or at least heard from someone else already. And if we set aside such distractions as run-ins with radioactive imps and omnipotent dog-gods, the "whats" and "hows" of the heroes' story are probably the easier parts of Homestuck to figure out. What's more difficult to fully comprehend on a first pass is how Lord English himself fits into all of this.

If you've been following me for any stretch of time, you'll notice in my analysis of Homestuck I've returned to the topic of black holes frequently. I've lost track of how many versions I've published of what I call "Black Hole Theory". And I won't link to any of them here, because ultimately Black Hole Theory was a corkboard to which I could pin the evidence that would eventually, piece by piece, lead us to where we are right now:

If the home juju is a white "hole" leading out of the confines of Homestuck as a story, then black holes are the doors that lead back in. An early clue to this comes in the form of Calliope's stage in the heart of a spiral: these spirals are Calliope's visions of black holes, which she uses as "dark pocket[s]" from which "no information can escape" - a literal description of a black hole - and that stage is the very same one Caliborn stages his story on when he takes full control of Homestuck's narrative. The meaning here should be clear: Calliope creates black holes, and it's the center of these black holes where stories can take place.

But for all the evidence we need to suggest that Lord English's fall into a black hole leads to something more complex than just his destruction, we need not look further than conventional science:

In the quantum world [...] information cannot be created nor destroyed.

Lisa Zyga, on the conservation of quantum information.

This rule that "ideas" are truly immortal, and that any time an idea seems to be destroyed it must have merely been transported somewhere else, holds true even in the scientific world of black hole physics. This has been played with in MS Paint Adventures before; theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's take on black holes was that some stuff could in fact escape a black hole, contrary to Calliope's assertions, in the form of Hawking radiation. But Hussie's own version of the story was always a lot more to the point: something gets sucked into the center of a black hole, it gets shot out somewhere else. In hypothetical physics this is called a white hole - no doubt you can see where this is going.

So Lord English's final moments in Homestuck see him not destroyed, or killed, or defeated in combat in any traditional way, but sucked right back into Homestuck. What exactly does that mean?

Homestuck, p. 8105

As long as we're talking the power of ideas and symbols, possibly the most blatant a symbol can get is in the form of a gesture; and the thumbs-down is possibly one of the most ancient gestures there is. Dave gets one, Tavros gets one, and, so they say, even the Roman gladiators got them. This precedent makes the meaning of the gesture clear: "you're going down." And it makes sense, too, that Hussie, the "good author", would signal the "evil author's" demise in such a way. But some might question the effectiveness of the power of gesture at such a pivotal point in the comic. Are we really to believe that English's defeat was, even in part, the result of another author merely willing him away like a tyrant doing away with an entertainer who has fallen out of favour? Or did the Hussie-character actually have some kind of plan to deal with his Hulk-like alter ego?

Of course he did.

...now Caliborn has hijacked the property of his experiential continuum which he has reason to believe is called "the narrative". Little does he know you recently made the shrewd decision to purchase(?) the ACT 6 ACT 6 SUPERCARTRIDGE EXPANSION PACK! Just plug it into any in-universe console port to unlock a variety of exciting new gameplay features and proceed through remaining canon unfettered, while Caliborn muddles through six new sub-sub-acts of infantile "subversive parody" targeting the very tale he inhabits, none the wiser!

To allow our heroes the chance escape their narrative prison, English isn't just to be trapped in their old cell; it's to be trapped within an infinitely-recursing cell, not just reliving one story over and over again but forced to live out infinitely many different stories. Not just a narrative loop; a narrative spiral. That's what being sucked into the black hole means for Lord English.

When Roxy - the Hero of Void whose very symbol is that of the black hole - banishes Caliborn-as-Cal into the void, he becomes one of the very wandering ideas with which English plays like dolls. "Instances of [Doc Scratch] have spawned in countless universes", and they have "never once failed to complete [their] objective": whether he wants to or not, Lord English will always be born again. In a new universe, perhaps, maybe even in a different shape, but his role always the same. Caliborn thinks that by filling the supercartridge with special stardust and corrupting the story, he's won, but looking at the bigger picture the truth is clear: he's only playing by somebody else's rules.

Just as Skaia uses lotus "seeds" to store items away for later use, and employs meteors as "Seeds" to send important elements back in time to set up the beginnings of new stories, so too are English's cue ball "seeds" only a means of transporting his essence from one place to the other; the black hole and the Rapture are, after all, only Skaia and the Reckoning sized up to a truly macrocosmic scale. The cue ball is able to be a font of endless knowledge because it is the "white hole" at the other end of the black hole! No information can escape a black hole, and therefore there is no information that escapes Scratch's attention -- he is limited only by his "pockets of void", which exist only to, in time, be filled, as more and more falls into these black holes like a multiversal game of billiards. Not only is this a transparent allusion to one of the most fundamental representations of the paradoxical time loop as a concept, but it is also the ultimate insult to injury: despite having lived an infinite number of lives, and being cursed to live out an infinite number more, Lord English cannot know what his fate will be until he literally falls into it. This is what forces him to lose, over and over again for eternity, while our heroes triumphantly escape Homestuck onto greener pastures.

#homestuck #analysis #lord english #black holes #metanarrative

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avelera · 8 months

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OFMD really said, "Pursue the things you love, not the things you fear."

I'm still turning this idea over in my head like a microwave but I'm thinking about Stede's line to (the picture of) Ed, "I'm afraid that your life is better without me."

From @blackbbonnet's gifset here.

Whew, what a doozy of a line!

And what a curious line!

Because the reason Stede left Ed at the end of Season 1 was in the hopes that it would improve Ed's life if he took off.

Despite the fact that Ed chose to be with Stede. Despite the fact Ed was content with folding socks if he was by Stede's side. Despite kissing him and declaring, by somewhat obliquely, that a life anywhere was fine as long as Stede was there, Stede just couldn't hear it over the sound of the Badmintons and his own trauma in his ears telling him he destroyed beautiful things, like his family, and Ed.

Ok, so what does this have to do with my thesis above?

Stede failed, he messed up, because he saw his worst fear of Ed being happy without him and decided that the painful thing was the right thing. That the voices in his head telling him he was worthless were correct. That it was better to listen to those voices, and to make his greatest fear a reality.

I've argued that the narrative morality of OFMD, the actions that give you plot armor and allow you to save the day, are when characters pursue what they love.

This is in contrast to many other adult-aimed works of fiction that say we should do things out of duty. We should do things that are painful but necessary. OFMD said, "Fuck that noise."

Because Stede left Ed out of a sense of duty. And he fucked over every single person in his life by doing so, including Mary and his kids, though he was able to fix that eventually specifically by resolving to return to his own happiness so that they could have theirs.

But then we've got this quote above! This quote saying that Stede is afraid Ed's life is better. Fascinating! Absolutely fascinating! Because that means the thing Stede was ready to self-sacrifice for at the end of the Season 1 was the thing he feared most: a life for Ed that was better without Stede in it.

I suppose there's no better definition of duty, huh? Then the resolve to do something that will be personally painful to us for some higher goal. And again, OFMD said fuck that noise, pursue your happiness, and do so proudly.

But there's an extention to this too, the more I thought about it. The show literally even said that even for matters of survival, the better motivation is joy not fear or duty.

Think of the storm in S1 ep. 4. While trying to think of a way for everyone to survive because it's his duty as a captain, Ed is distracted, disinterested. Izzy's frustration with him mounts. The tension rises. His heart is really not in it, we know Ed's actively suicidal...

And the plan Ed comes up with fails.

It was born out of duty as a captain and it failed because he messed up the dates.

But what plan succeeds? The plan born out of joy. The Ed that works with Stede to become a lighthouse is acting out of an active, joyful desire to live, he chooses life out of the joy of being with Stede, of partnering with Stede.

The you flash forward to the scene where Ed is drowning in his Purgatory fever dream and the simple motions of struggling to stay alive are not enough. The duty of staying alive is not enough. The thing that actually works is when the choice he makes to live is joyful, it's a positive choice to go towards the light and be with Stede. Stede, embodied as a beautiful gold fish of a merman.

And just to be clear, I don't at all think that OFMD is saying, "If you don't have a joyful reason to move forward, just give up." Not at all.

What I think it's saying is, pursuing your happiness will succeed. Even when it's scary. Even when it means confronting fears. Even when it's hard. Duty alone isn't enough to live on. It's not enough to motivate us when things are hard. It has diminishing returns. Pick and pursue what gives you joy, choose a shining target to move towards, and you'll not only be true to yourself, but good things will come out of it. Just like Ed finding Stede, and Stede finding Ed, because they pursued what made them happiest in life.

#ofmd #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #tw suicide

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littlerosetrove · 12 days

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If. IF the show, for whatever reason, decides to stick with Eddie being (assumedly) straight, then boy will that be fuckin weird, disappointing and boring. And a disservice to Eddie considering how he’s been written thus far.

If I may attempt to lay this out in the simplest terms.

The entire time Eddie was married to Shannon he literally, metaphorically, and emotionally kept running away from her. As far as we can tell, not once did he ever truly allow himself to be vulnerable with her. Not in a way that matters for the health of a relationship/marriage. When Shannon tried to be vulnerable, Eddie shut that stuff down.

Eddie was never vulnerable with Ana until literally when they broke up. He was never really invested in Ana or their relationship. His main investment was “get a new mother for Christopher.”

Same for Marisol, but somehow worse. He’s never been invested in their relationship nor Marisol as a person. He’s clearly been shown to be disinterested in her, actually. One way to avoid getting to know Marisol was using sex as both an avoidance technique (which he often did with Shannon), and using it as the only way for Eddie to accept any kind of closeness with Marisol.

Hell we can even mention Kim. He’s not seeing her as her own person, but merely someone he can project his dead wife onto.

When it comes to sex, frankly, Eddie does not seem to have a healthy relationship with it. Again, he’s predominately used sex as a combination of avoiding arguments, avoiding getting to know someone, and out of a sense of duty/obligation. The sense of duty plays into Eddie’s very heteronormative and frankly backwards/toxic stereotypes he has of what a male/female relationship in a marriage or otherwise should look like. ← This was inspired by both this fantastic 7x7 meta post by @sevensoulmates, and conversations I’ve had with @elvensorceress. I genuinely question and wonder how often, if ever, Eddie had sex because he wanted to and not because he felt like he had to. I don’t think it means Eddie’s disliked every time he’s had sex, in part because let’s be real and keep in mind sex is biologically made/designed to feel good, but really. How often has he ever had sex because he actually wanted it?

Important side note, I’ll always think that Eddie, out of the many reasons he needs to go back to therapy, is that he needs to learn healthy consent. He needs to know that if he doesn’t want sex he’s allowed to say no. He does not have to have sex because he’s a man, and “men should want and want to provide sex for their wife/girlfriend.” That it’s “a man’s duty to satisfy his wife/girlfriend.”

Even with Shannon, Eddie’s relationships with women have been performative. He’s only been in and settled into relationships with women because it provides a comforting facade of “This Eddie guy here is a respectable man in a relationship with a woman and has a kid who he provides for, as he should.” ← Society, his family, his Latino catholic upbringing, and heteronormativity has taught Eddie this is what’s good and proper for him. That he should have and want to have a nuclear family (and that he must suppress what his heart really wants).

Three times (four if you include Kim) Eddie has consistently kept every woman he’s been romantically involved with at arms length. IF the show were to keep him straight, well they’ve been doing a shit job at making it look like Eddie even wants to be in a romantic relationship with a woman at all. To me Eddie very much comes across and reads as a repressed gay and demi man.

Now if you have different views, perhaps you feel that I’m wrong in my interpretation and understanding of Eddie and Shannon’s relationship, or hell, maybe you think Eddie is bisexual, that’s fine. Neither of us are stupid for our thoughts and opinions on this fictional character. But please do not comment or reblog this with “well actually” or anything like that. I have my opinion in my corner over here, and you can have yours on your own, okay? Thank you.

#911 spoilers #911 discourse #not really but I'll tag it as such just in case #9-1-1 #Eddie Diaz #while I do think the show will eventually make Eddie queer #this is still my thoughts about IF they back out on that #and also these are my thoughts of why I #read Eddie as a repressed gay man in any case #my thoughts

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