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patchofgrey · 5 months ago

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Welcome to Part One of my head cannons for my OTP:

Nejiten Head cannons; Part two , Part 3

Tenten Head Cannons | Neji Head Cannons | Nejiten Family Head cannons

I have a few head cannons for these two that I wanna throw out there; Writing these two for like 10 years has made me realized that no matter what situation they are in (if writing in character) they are the idealistic couple. Sure, they argue and fumble the bag sometimes, but their dynamic is FIERCE. You cannot tell me that his most trusted friend, partner, and balanced scale IS NOT IDEAL? These are my head cannons that I base my stories on while writing them in character (which took a long time to do honestly, writing in character with characters who are not fully developed is hard as fuck. But you take whatever crumbs you get.)

Plus, I would’ve changed a bunch of things in this anime but that’s besides the point

😤

Follow me on my delulu because it’s the only solulu:

1. Neji started liking Tenten prior to the second round fights of the chunnin exams. It started as admiring her skills, but grew to an emotional level as time went on. He asked her specifically to train with him because he felt that she was able to keep up and offer him a challenge in a realm he was not skilled in; weapon handling and evasion. This is going off of the fact that in one of the video games, Tenten had beat both Neji and Lee in evasion training, which in my mind, means that Neji saw Tenten for her skills and held her in very high regard even if she got clapped by Temari (which he didn’t fault her for! It was a bad match up). While they trained, Tenten would push conversation with him to the point where they started talking about their personal lives and led to Tenten finding out about the curse mark, his father, and his blind spot. Tenten had shared her deep insecurities about never being able to match up to them, or to be good enough to be like Lady Tsunade (especially after she fumbled the medical ninja training). To that, Neji ensured her that she was a great match up to himself and Lee; which is why he asked her to help train him in the first place. Since then, Neji has made it his priority to ensure that Tenten did not fall into a deep depression and would always praise her with the “you are good enough as you are.” He would shower her with subtle affection by buying her sweets when she was in a bad mood and spending some of his days off with her. In fact, it wasn’t until Gai-sensei had pointed out that Neji was attached to her, and was doting on her to make sure she kept a smile on her face. Neji would roll his eyes (as most 13-14 whatever’s they were) but kept at it well into their late teens.

2. Tenten is oblivious as fuck to Neji’s affection. I used this a lot in my Sleepless Nights fic, and sprinkled it in for some oneshots as well as hinted at it in Frequency. Tenten is an over thinker and can get inside her own head very easily. She thinks Neji is just being a good friend; arguably, she considers him a best friend since they are with each other all the time. She’s been so focused on her work that she never even considered the possibility that Neji liked her in anything past a friend. To be fair, Neji doesn’t seem like the type to make it obvious when he likes someone. And we’re about to get into that…

3. Neji is awkward as hell when it comes to anything emotion related but his love languages are Acts of Service and Gift Giving. Neji is alright with quality time, but he is a protector before anything else. I see Neji more as a “how can I help?” Or “Let me know if you need me.” He probably also gets snapped at by Tenten when he instinctively helps her and does things for her without asking if she needs help. She very much “I can do it myself” type of girl. Like I said before, he dotes on Tenten by buying her sweets and things she likes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he followed her around different weapons shops while they were on missions and helping her add to her enormous weapons collection. We also saw the acts of service come out of him when he shadowed Hinata (which was really sweet honestly. It showed his softer side and he maybe felt a bit guilty for treating her like garbage after his father died and was trying to make it up to her).

4. Tenten started realizing her feelings when they retook the chunnin exams. C’mon we all saw the look on home girl’s face when Fuu grabbed Neji’s hand and asked him to be her friend. It screamed LET GO OF MY MAN. Tenten hasn’t seen or experienced Neji interacting with other girls besides herself and Hinata (excluding Sakura and Ino who they were all friends with, but only interacted with on occasion). She didn’t like the idea of Neji getting attention from other girls.

5. Both are the jealous type. I know, I didn’t think Neji would be either, but it makes sense to me; Why would she be with anyone else other than him? Was he not her best friend? Who they shared all their deep dark feelings and secrets with? How dare someone else look at her partner in such a way? How dare they talk to her like that in front of him! For Tenten I don’t see it running extremely deep, but maybe a touch of it like stated above.

6. Lee was in on it. He absolutely knew. There’s no way Lee is so oblivious to his rival’s feelings. Especially since Gai has VERY loose lips. I wouldn’t be surprised it Lee was there when Gai had pointed out Neji’s affections for Tenten when they were gennin. Lee wanted them to be together and wanted to see them happy; Neji found comfort in knowing Tenten was alright. Tenten found comfort in Neji by trusting him with her feelings and not being harshly judged for it. I can see Lee purposefully hanging back and watching the two of them spar.

7. Neji only genuinely smiles around Tenten. Sure, he would offer a small smile of a smirk most of the time. But, around her he can actually pull his guard down and feel happy. He does offer small smiles and half smiles around Hinata and Naruto, however those big cheesing moments are usually kept in the presence of his bunheadded teammate.

8. Neji struggles to keep his feelings towards Tenten in check. He feels as though he doesn’t want to ruin their deeply rooted friendship and tends to keep a straight face when they are with a group. Tenten-again being oblivious- thinks he is just being an egotistical jerk around everyone when he’s not really like that when they are alone. He keeps some physical distance towards her as well unless they are fighting together, to prevent any mistakes and obvious signs of his affections. Perhaps he’s not into PDA either.

9. They argue. A lot. But it never ends in them feeling unheard or disrespected; these two have strong personalities and are very opinionated anyway.

10. Neji confided in Hinata about his feelings on Tenten, and Hinata promised to keep it a secret. (more on that in part 2 of my headcannons)

11. Neji tries to encourage Tenten to use her Taijutsu skills for close combat more. There’s a post circulating right now about how Tenten’s close combat abilities surpassed everyone but her team’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tenten felt discouraged by the fact that both boys on her team were already close range fighters and struggled with her gifts of long range fighting; she overthinks and puts herself into a box. Neji probably has attempted to strictly train with her (think Shippuuden…17-18 years old?) on her taijustu so she could gain some confidence. In fact, he has brought up to her that she would have beat Temari years ago if she would’ve show cases her taijustu abilities.

12. Their fighting style is more like a dance in flow. Tenten is very flexible and since her and Neji have been training since they were gennin, it would only make sense that they are so insynch with each other it almost look graceful.

I have more but imma stop there lol. I have ideas on how they first kissed, slept with each other all that stuff; how he would’ve proposed; It’ll be a very long post especially if I get into the whole “if Neji survived the war” which I do have a fanfiction on right now 👀 look at my pinned post for the link.

Thank you for joining me in my delulu 🫡 Here's part two, and Part three

#nejiten fanfiction #nejiten #tenten #neji x tenten #neji hyuga #nejiten headcannons #headcannons

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the-chessboard-is-personal · 20 days ago

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ii s3 liveblog

I'm a bit sad rn so sorry if my reactions are bad this time

1 - I'm not supposed to relate to Balloon am I. y'know. the guy that did something bad in the recent past and now everyone hates them even though they're trying to change.. sigh. wHAT? h. how is he here?? HOW IS SHE HERE??? ...does MePhone look different from how he was in the first half of s2? it's been a bit since I watched that but I swear there's something different about him. oh, new intrthe island is alive. warp pipe.

2 - yup sure :) 👍 right okay BOW is glitching now. something to do with chairs and maybe she lost her memories? she was obsessed with chairs before she died, so..oh fuck I'm taking as many notes as Cabby huh

3 - oh I thought I had something to say about this one. sorry

4 - if the floor gets eliminated, how will that work? .yo WHAT is going on with candleMUMBO JUMBO CATCHPHRASE ... I. I don't think that's what polishing a screen does.?

5 - what if Box wins lol ..oh. wait there was no formal elimination, I guess that got replaced with Box being pulled this episode

6 - them ,,,,,they,both of them,, the cool(s) -> ☯

7 - well call me a camera because [screenshots the auras file]. . . . . . . . . . a. ..nobody knows about this joke yet but if I had a- uh. nickel. for every time a series I know about had a character named Bow with trigger words, I would have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice what is going on with Bow and chairs. HEY MARSHMALLOW TOO?? yes I will keep doing this strikethrough bit

8 - oh fuck I just realized. "iii" as in Inanimate Insanity Invitational but also as in 3 (roman numeral) because it's season 3. also just based on the title I have a bad feeling about this episode (<-half-right??) wait WHAT. MePhone what the fuck does that rnean. whhaaAAAA- oh. agdjhk s ghdclod damn it the commercial is pLOT RELEVANT. hhhhey quick question. how uh. how do we know that everyone's back in the right body..? like. there were some characters who weren't onscreen after they all died again. uhh

9 - th. this episode is probably not like. actually worse than the other ones or anything. but, with the bias I had already formed because I distrust people with the name of the one this episode is a collab with, some stress I was already feeling today before even starting this liveblog, something Balloon said at around 9:14, said pre-liveblog stress making me associate the whole "animation machine" thing (which is seen as bad) with something I like but everyone else hates, I personally have nothing good to say about it.

10 - why is Cabby gold. oh it's whoever has the Immunity Cookie. wait did Cabby forget about TBD because her file was burned??

11 - bat? pokemon. the game you're thinking of is pokemon. wait did he say backstab HOW DOES HE KNOW CANDLE SAW BETRAYAL?? ..yeah I was wondering how that would work

12 - I knew it. I knew Cabby would forget stuff that isn't in a file! urghhh can they Please vote out silver spoon already. he's not gonna WIN, right?? sorry. but I don't like him.

13 - oh the intro reflected Bot's change in appearance. neat! nononoononoNONOONNO GAUhokay. listen I know it's probably not going to happen but I really want YinYang to win. and holy shit that "for the rest of your life" was foreshadowing.

14 - okay off to a start that makes me want to punch something. okay. okay. it's not a real ad. good. HUH HE GLITCHED holy shit, damn uzumaki lookin rooms what is this /positive(?) ☯ 👈 GRIAN INSTINCT (which. to be fair, mood). p u r p l e . PURPLE ACKNOWLEDGED. WHAT WAS THAT! ohhh what the hell. you fuck off this INSTANT you silver shitface. ohh I hate him. I hate him more than I hate Cobs. ..does Cabby not have parents? SPLRINGY IS FAKE. SPRINGY IS A ROBOT OR SOMETHING MADE BY COBS I'M CALLING IT NOW. please please please kill the spoon kill the spoon plEASE- ARRGHHH

15 - seeing as the next episode has Blueberry in the thumbnail and is called The Great Bluish Bake Off, I have a slight prediction on who will win the rejoin. wait what. yeah I'm gonna be honest I don't think it was murder. NO NONONOONO DON'T NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAUGHHH,,,,,

16 - why....why am I finding Nickel so relatable. w h a t . now I've never had oatmeal raisin cookies, but I don't think they're the Number One Cause of global warming. I know it's a cartoon and awHAT THE HELL HE JUST DIED

(between 16 and 17) m. MePhone knows. MePhone knows what's going to happen when the season ends, doesn't he? that's why he doesn't want it to. that's why he's desperate. but the question remains, what does he know that the viewers don't?

17 - wait this episode is from 10 months ago. is- is the series not over? damn it! I prefer to binge watch stuff so I don't forget while waiting for new episodes. oh don't even fucking go there. 14:01 FUCK OFF.

(between 17 and 18) y'know I was trying to watch this to ESCAPE all the drama and discourse everyone hates me for. this just feels personal at this point. but hey, who cares about me, right? onto the next damn episode!

18 - there's another 4 under that 4. are they all 4s. ohhh noooo, what an inteeense moooooment. wow it's really fucking difficult to care right now.

19 - again final episode so I'll break this into sections. kinda

..,.Cabby..I think I understand a bit more about my own..situation because of Cabby. wait wait. "built" to? BUILT to?? HMMMMMM 4S is still here?? what ??? ? well at least the one that YinYang wanted to win won..!

and that's season 3 huh.

well. that was kinda filler? tbh?

and the message in episode 17 sucked- ..eh. hold on. I'm getting too angry over some discourse. I need a break from typing this.

okay after like half an hour I realized something. they were trying to win an award. I like AI art, but I don't think it should ever win any awards in competition with human art. the two are fundamentally different. I don't think there should be any competitions that have both, especially high prestige ones. that line at 14:0whatever was too far though.

my opinion is that human art and AI art are both art. but they're VERY different forms of art, and should probably be kept that way.

overall I liked the season. sure, YinYang didn't win and episodes 9 and 17 are...like that. but it's not that bad tbh.

probably gonna watch the rest of s2 tomorrow, but for now I just want to play minecraft.

#the fuck up won't shut up!#ii #ii invitational #inanimate insanity #there's a bit of a rant about #ai discourse #in here so I'll tag that.

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devildomwriter · 2 years ago

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Obey Me Simeon Birthday Special 100 Fun Facts

1. Simeon and Lucifer used to take naps together in the Celestial Realm

2. Simeon was once a seraph, for unknown reasons he was demoted to an archangel before the events of the game

3. Simeon’s favorite color is celestial blue

4. Simeon’s favorite animal is a sloth

5. Simeon owns a café in the human world called the angel’s halo

6. Simeon was close enough to Lucifer to be considered one of his brothers

7. Simeon is good at juggling, managing four clubs his first attempt

8. When Simeon is drunk he forgets words and easily cries

9. Simeon describes his job as middle management and cries to Lucifer about it when he gets drunk

10. Simeon makes the best pancakes

11. Simeon has a difficult time trying to act scary

12. Simeon claims he has a hard time getting mad but he’s seen getting mad many times especially as a play director

13. Simeon is the author of TSL

14. Simeon based the TSL characters off the seven brothers

15. Simeon thought it was cute when Levi shyly followed him around too nervous to ask for an autograph

16. Simeon and Diavolo do not get along because Simeon is so good at hiding his true feelings

17. Satan is curious to see what Simeon would be like angry, meanwhile Diavolo is scared to see it

18. Simeon loves making bento boxes for Luke

19. Simeon enjoys escape rooms

20. Simeon’s favorite Devildom food is Black Tapir

21. When a flame salamander became attached to Simeon he considered taking him back to the celestial realm

22. Simeon’s BLT sandwiches are popular among flame salamanders and Beelzebub

23. Simeon enjoys calling Lucifer, Lucy

24. Simeon’s motto is “Learning is a lifetime.”

25. Simeon keeps a daily diary

26. Simeon has been keeping a scrapbook of his and Luke’s time in the Devildom from day one. He claims to be very proud of Luke as he smiles more in each picture.

27. When asked what he’d do if the Devildom disappeared tomorrow, he said he’d take Luke back to the Celestial realm

28. Simeon’s a dog person, specifically chihuahuas

29. Simeon enjoys teasing Luke but prevents anyone else from doing it

30. Simeon and Lucifer used to have movie nights together frequently

31. Simeon is said to be the active one when it comes to love

32. Simeon wishes to “be bound” by his lover

33. Simeon cherishes relationship anniversaries and special dates of remembrance

34. For a relationship with obstacles Simeon states “I wouldn’t want to encounter that if I could avoid it, but I don’t think I’d give up for sure.”

35. Simeon is able to openly express his feelings but will still become jealous

36. It’s implied Lucifer avoids hanging out with Simeon because Simeon is one of the only people who can see through his prideful demeanor

37. Simeon gets along well with Cerberus

38. Simeon sees Luke as his grandson

39. Simeon saved Lucifer and MC’s lives by sneaking into a guarded celestial palace and stealing Michael’s ring of light to give to MC

40. Simeon is very bad with technology but as the game continues he slowly gets better

41. Simeon is so used to using his DDD camera that he’s forgotten how to use a regular camera

42. Simeon once got forced into a self checkout line and in a panic having no idea what to do, he called Lucifer to come save him

43. Simeon helps teach Luke how to do a handstand by holding him from his ankles

44. Simeon couldn’t figure out why he was bad at jump roping until Luke suggested he take off his cape

45. Teaching Simeon how to use his DDD is considered an exercise in futility

46. Simeon is the second-shortest side characters

47. Simeon enjoys cooking

48. Simeon says he can’t wink and is trying to practice

49. As an archangel Simeon is seen as a warrior by other angels

50. Simeon is a skilled musician

51. Simeon thinks horror movies are pretty fun

52. Simeon prefers sweet food over spicy food but likes both

53. Simeon’s human world outfit was chosen by Luke, he decided to go with it after seeing Luke’s cute smiling face

54. Simeon states that just because he’s an angel it doesn’t mean he’s all forgiving

55. As of season four, Simeon is a human after his angelic powers were taken as punishment for stealing from Michael

56. Simeon sees Michael as more of a friend than a supervisor

57. Simeon checks up on Luke to make sure whether or bit he’s actually gone to bed

58. When asmo had shocking pink hair Simeon states it hurt his eyes

59. Simeon believes the whip is an exciting expression of love

60. Simeon enjoys architectures digest

61. Simeon says the secret ingredient for his pancakes is love

62. Simeon was almost attacked by a giant jovial gingerbread man, all he did was smile at it and it shriveled into a fried cookie

63. Simeon taught Luke how to make pie

64. Solomon believes openly sassing the son of the demon king is a very Simeon thing to do

65. Simeon attempted to make solomon cry for his own amusement

66. Simeon once told MC he’d be okay with becoming a demon if it meant he could be with them

67. When Simeon was under a spell that showed him what he wanted to see, he was convinced that Lucifer and his brothers falling from the Devildom was all a long bad dream

68. Simeon says he wouldn’t mind if anyone caught him kissing MC and that they could even make it a point to kiss in front of them

69. Simeon didn’t believe in the exchange program until season four after seeing all the blood sweat and tears diavolo put into it

70. Simeon vents to Lucifer when he’s tired of Michael’s errands

71. Simeon once gave bangles to the brothers enchanted with a spell that would make them angelic. He didn’t place the spell but knew about it.

72. Simeon became an author after leviathan suggested it though at first he claims to be satisfied just reading them

73. Simeon would make up elaborate stories to tell the Cupids

74. Before season three Simeon never stayed in the human realm for a long period of time, though he says he has visited multiple times

75. Simeon enjoys cube puzzles

76. When a rumor about The Angel’s Halo spreads, Simeon requests Mammon and MC’s help to dispel the rumor that if you share a drink together you’ll be together forever. Mammon is unable to pretend to break up and starts crying so Simeon calls him useless

77. Simeon feels anxious seeing others work and not helping out

78. As a seraph Simeon was known to be the least intense

79. Simeon is very serious about his job even becoming very angry when the brothers disrupt him

80. Simeon adores rare books, during the first Christmas event when every swapped gifts he was excited to get the book Satan was hoping to get himself

81. Simeon once got detention in RAD

82. When Mammon created the Miss Em’ dolls, Simeon opted for the goth plushie

83. Raphael claims Simeon is much better at his job (the angelic one) after coming to the Devildom

84. Simeon is one of the only people who can calm down all the brothers

85. At the end of season four Simeon accepted that he’d become human and was okay wearing his celestial realm clothes again thanks to MC’s help and acceptance

86. At the end of season four Simeon decided to stay in the Devildom until Raphael’s year long exchange was over

87. After demotion to human, Simeon was confronted and asked if taking the ring of light is why it happened but he responds “something like that” hinting it could be for more than one reason

88. Simeon tells Mephistopheles he “smiles a lot by nature” when Mephistopheles accuses him of finding him caring for Luke as something funny

89. Simeon once escaped and left Luke to endure Solomon’s cooking by himself

90. Simeon will bribe Lucifer to hang out with him

91. On more than one occasion Simeon has snuck into events celebrating him (Christopher Peugeot)

92. Simeon gets a little embarrassed when he sees his books on store and library shelves

93. Simeon sends Michael sweets from the Devildom is exchange for sweets from the celestial realm

94. Luke claims Simeon is too fond of flouting the rules when it suits him

95. When there was a mess at the café Simeon scared the brothers into helping him clean up

96. As a director, Simeon was called a dictator by the brothers for how strict he was

97. Simeon says he prefers the hustle and bustle of the Devildom over the serene quiet of the celestial realm

98. Simeon is the first person to recognize and point out Levi’s degradation kink and tries to stop him multiple times

99. Despite Simeon always looking serious and seeming hard to read, he claims he’s not thinking about anything deep in particular, and that no one believes him when he explains

100. Simeon thinks it’s fun to cause a stir on occasion

#obey me shall we date #obey me simeon #obey me Simeon birthday #obey me birthday #obey me angels #obey me fun facts #obey me fun fact #obey me information

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aspecpplarebeautiful · 24 days ago

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I was identifying as asexual since I was 13-14 years old. I remember how everybody around me were sceptical and I was really tired of arguing with them. But recently, and it’s after 10 years, I started feeling like maybe I lied to myself? I never felt any desire or attraction toward anyone I knew and still don’t feel. But I want it? Does that make me not asexual? I also feel like it’s unfair that I don’t want serious relationship with woman, but I feel attraction recently only to them…I mean I get aroused by image of women, mostly to fictional ones or imaginary (not real people). Am I still in a-spec or not? I am confused. I always thought I only like opposite sex and only in romantic way.

First off, shifts in how you feel and experience these things, whether it's a real shift or if it was always there but now you're noticing it, don't mean you lied. And just because people around you were skeptical doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, or proving anyone who didn't support you right, by questioning again now, no matter what conclusions you reach. It's not always easy, but try your best to take that pressure off yourself that there's any right or wrong answers when questioning other than what fits for you.

So by wanting it, are you saying that you're interested in sex or experiencing sexual situations in general? Because if so that could be sexual desire. But if you're not experience that desire directed at any real people you know, I'd say it's likely that you're not experiencing full sexual attraction.

Similarly experiencing arousal towards fictional characters or imaginary people but not real people is not an uncommon ace-spectrum experience either. And being attracted to people who aren't real (if you think it goes as far as attraction), or being aroused by them, but not people in real life isn't an uncommon ace-spectrum experiences.

Some labels you might be interested in looking into:

Fictosexual: Someone who is exclusively sexually attracted to fictional characters or who's sexuality is influenced by fictional characters.

Proculsexual: Someone who experiences sexual attraction only with people they can never be in a relationship with, such as people who don't exist in real life or celebrities.

Aegosexual: Someone who experiences a disconnect between themselves and their sexual. That is to say someone who experiences arousal, and may have fantasies, be turned on by sexual situations, etc. but doesn't want to be a participant in those sexual situations themselves.

Don't worry if you don't relate to any of these labels, but sharing them just in case you might. But whether you do or not, I think you're still good identifying as ace based on what you've said and especially if that's still what feels right for you.

I'd also add if you're getting anxiety at the idea of changing labels than that's usually that that's not currently the right move. Sometimes it can mean someone's not ready, but it can also be a sign that the label helping you and useful for you, which is one of the biggest indicators that a label is the right one.

All the best, Anon! Good luck!

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badbatchposts · 2 months ago

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Quiet Corners of the Galaxy, Ch. 28

Relevant tags/content warnings: Crosshair/Original Female Character, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Periodic Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use, 18+/Explicit

Read the full fic so far on AO3

Read previous chapters on Tumblr: Ch. 1 l Ch. 2 l Ch. 3 l Ch. 4 l Ch. 5 l Ch. 6 l Ch. 7 l Ch. 8 l Ch. 9 l Ch. 10 l Ch. 11 l Ch. 12 l Ch. 13 l Ch. 14 l Ch. 15 l Ch. 16 l Ch. 17 l Ch. 18 l Ch. 19 l Ch. 20 l Ch. 21 l Ch. 22 l Ch. 23 l Ch. 24 l Ch. 25 l Ch. 26 l Ch. 27

Chapter 28 summary: Dara makes a difficult decision when preparing for the Partisans to arrive at the clone base.

Extra content warnings for this chapter: Smut! Unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, jealous Crosshair, biting, breastplay, handjob, oral sex (m receiving), dirty talk, borderline degrading language, slight dom/sub dynamics

Dara wasn’t sure how long he had been fucking her up against the console, the locked buttons biting into the skin of her breasts, when she finally thought to ask.

“Wait—whose ship is this?” she panted out.

Crosshair answered with a particularly hard thrust and a harsh tug on her hair. “Howzer’s,” he grunted.

She rolled her eyes at him over her shoulder. “Seriously?”

He nudged the side of her face so that she was once again looking forward, watching their reflections in the darkened transparisteel of the viewport, and didn’t deign to elaborate, just nipped at her shoulder and redoubled his efforts.

Dara had spoken to Howzer for maybe five minutes earlier that day, finally getting a chance to take him aside and apologize to him personally for her deception. The clone captain had received it politely but distantly, but apparently that brief conversation had been enough for Crosshair’s jealousy to rear its head. When she had found the sniper that evening, arms crossed, leaning against the empty ship, and he had jerked his chin in the direction of the ramp, she hadn’t hesitated to follow him—both of them desperately tearing off clothes and armor before the hatch had even fully closed—but she also hadn’t realized, when he bent her over the dashboard in the cockpit, that he was looking to prove some sort of point.

She should have known. Honestly, she wasn’t completely sure whether Crosshair was actually attracted to her or just couldn’t stand the thought of someone else having her when he didn’t.

Of course, that wasn’t to say that she didn’t think he enjoyed this; he had made abundantly clear what he wanted from her, and since that first time on Xagalus she had felt his eyes on her even more than usual. And though she had to admit that she herself had been thinking about it almost nonstop, after the second time it had happened, she had resolved—again—to stay away from him.

Then she had found herself with a spare minute and with his gaze no longer burning into her, and before she knew it she was on her hands and knees on a rooftop getting absolutely railed.

And then there were all the other occasions since…

At least this time, with the privacy afforded by the ship, they could strip fully. Crosshair’s skin felt hot against hers, his well-muscled thighs pressing tightly against her ass at the summit of each thrust and his chest flush against her back, his stubble rubbing along her shoulder as he tongued every bare inch of her that he could reach. His free hand massaged at her breast, and his cock was angled perfectly, drawing her higher and higher.

Crosshair must have felt the way she was tensing and knew her climax was approaching. Dara’s eyes fluttered closed, but he yanked at her hair again and they shot back open.

“I want you to watch, cyar��ika,” Crosshair growled. “Watch yourself cum for me.” Their gazes met in the transparisteel, the intensity he aimed at her almost unbearable, and Dara couldn’t stop the orgasm from rocketing through her. Her face contorted with pleasure, and Crosshair smirked, that arrogant kriffing asshole, but she felt too good to care, every muscle in her body relaxing all at once. All she could do was pant through it as Crosshair’s brow tensed before he released inside of her with a groan and one final, hard drive of his hips.

He held her by the waist for a moment, stroking gently with both thumbs, before pulling out carefully. Dara pushed herself up and watched for a moment as he pulled his boxers back on—skin-tight black ones, she imagined GAR- or even Empire-issue, which hugged his ass so deliciously she wanted to take a bite—and settled into the pilot’s seat with a toothpick. He was sweating a little with exertion, looking extremely satisfied with himself, and he ran a hand through his hair to smooth it down. His gray locks, so closely cropped when they had first met, were growing out a little, beginning to curl chaotically around the burn scar at his temple. She liked it a little longer, selfishly wanted something to run her fingers through and pull hard like he always did to her.

It was too bad, really, that she couldn’t let this continue.

“You’re distracted,” Crosshair observed as she began to pull her own underwear and breastband back on. How it was that he always knew what she was feeling, she could never tell, and not for the first time she wondered if his genetic enhancements had something to do with his powers of observation, though even keen eyes shouldn’t have made him read her so well. She looked away, searching for wherever her pants had gotten to while they’d been frantically undressing.

She kept her voice flat, unaffected—he couldn’t think she was angry, her stronger emotions were like a beacon for him, only drawing him in further.

“This can’t happen again,” Dara declared firmly.

Finally managing to locate her trousers, she perched on the edge of the co-pilot’s chair to pull them on and glanced up to find Crosshair staring intently at her. When she met his gaze, he sneered and shrugged, indifferent.

“If you’d told me before, I would’ve drawn it out longer,” he drawled. Dara rolled her eyes and stood to begin searching for her shirt, but he stopped her by curling his long fingers around her wrist. “Give me five minutes, and we can go again.” He raised an eyebrow. “If it’s the last time.”

She scoffed. “It’ll take more than five minutes.”

Crosshair smirked and relaxed his grip ever-so-slightly, stroking along her forearm. “I’m an enhanced clone. Better stamina, better recovery… you can’t compare me to other men you’ve been with. I’ll always be better.”

Dara snorted. “You’re so full of yourself.” But she sat back down all the same, feeling tingles on her skin from his touch even after he released her. Another round tonight couldn’t hurt, she told herself. One last time.

Outside the ship, the base was quiet and calm, and she closed her eyes, savoring the companionable silence. This had gone better than she’d thought it would, perhaps proving her suspicions correct—that, whatever strange compulsion had led Crosshair to pursue her almost incessantly since they’d met, now, with his curiosity sated, he would rapidly lose interest.

For a moment, on the rooftop, she’d begun to doubt it, confused by his strange reaction to her scraped knees (hardly her first or worst sex-related injury, but Dara didn’t think he’d appreciate that bit of trivia). She’d been unconcerned until the moment she’d caught sight of him, looking so sullen he inexplicably reminded her of a wet tooka, and wasn’t that a strange image for someone she knew was so deadly, so ruthless. It was difficult to parse where that morose vulnerability had come from. Whatever it was, it was clear that he wanted—needed, maybe—to feel in control, and didn’t take any slips lightly.

She wasn’t sure if her steadfast refusal to allow him that was what kept him coming back for more, or if it was steadily driving him off. Not a rotation had gone by since the rooftop where they hadn’t managed to find themselves sequestered in some dark corner of the base, but he was more closed off since then, all growls and posturing in response to her prodding and stubbornness. They hadn’t spent much time together otherwise, one or the other of them always strolling casually off the moment they were dressed, practically radiating satisfaction.

Crosshair’s voice disrupted Dara’s reverie. “Why?”

“Hmm?” she responded. She glanced over at him lazily, trying to retrace her thoughts back to the last thing they had said, but his expression was blank as he stared out the viewport.

“Why can’t this happen again? You can’t tell me you aren’t enjoying yourself.” The last sentence came as a seductive, self-confident purr, a tone she was now all-too-used to hearing in her ear as strong hands explored every inch of her. Crosshair met her gaze in the reflection, eyes smoldering and a familiar smirk on his lips.

Dara rolled her eyes. “That’s not it.” He raised an eyebrow, patient, waiting her out, and she sighed, resigned. “My people arrive tomorrow. There will be a lot to get done. I can’t afford to be distracted.”

He scoffed, folding his arms and turning to look at her directly. “Didn’t realize I was such a distraction.”

“You know what I mean.” Dara schooled her features, willing herself not to take the bait. This had to be done, and the less of it turned into a fight, the easier it would be to move on from.

Of course, nothing with Crosshair was easy.

“I’m not sure I do. If you ask me, it’s been good for you,” the sniper remarked. He looked her up and down, gesturing with his toothpick. “You’re less tense.”

The worst part was—he was right. She’d known, long before her breakdown on Xagalus, that she was too tightly wound, liable to snap at any moment, her life a constant stream of paranoia and risk management and death and atrocity, and none of this fixed any of that, but it sure made it easier to forget. It opened a release valve on the pressure.

“That’s not important,” she objected anyway. “I need to be focused on the mission. The cause takes priority.” It was the reason she hadn’t had even had a one-night-stand since shortly after she’d rejoined Saw, and if she hadn’t really had a repeat partner like this since before the war—well, she didn’t have the cause as an excuse, but that was her business.

This situation was rapidly deteriorating. Already, Dara could tell that Crosshair wasn’t prepared to accept that as an explanation, his expression too keen, searching for a gap in her armor where he could strike home.

“Really? Or are you just worried your Partisans will find out you’re fucking an ex-Imperial?” he spat out, and yes, that thought had vaguely occurred to her, but he was still probing for his plan of attack, she should get dressed and get out of here before things escalated even further— “Or is it Saw?” he tried. His eyes flashed with recognition, certain he had spotted a weak point. “Is that it—you and Saw, then? Planning on going back to sleeping with your leader?”

“Oh, fuck off, Crosshair,” she exploded. At the back of her brain, a logical but entirely ineffectual voice pointed out that, yet again, she had let him goad her into a reaction, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop her. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since you still won’t let go of that thing with Howzer.”

He sneered. “This isn’t about Howzer,” he countered heatedly, as though they were arguing half-naked in some other man’s ship.

Dara considered him a moment, deciding on a different tactic. “How old are you?” Crosshair scoffed, beginning to roll his eyes, but she insisted, “No, I really mean it. The clones have accelerated aging, right? So how old are you?”

He crossed his arms and glared back defiantly. “Younger than Omega.”

“Dank farrik, that’s—”

“What does it matter?” he interrupted, and she would have to just tuck away her reaction to that troubling bit of information for another time.

She sighed. “What it matters is that I’ve been having sex for as long as you’ve been alive. If you’re going to bother being jealous of every person I’ve ever slept with, it’s going to be a long and frustrating battle.”

Crosshair chewed on that for a moment, and Dara wondered if, like her, he was struck by the enormity of it—that she’d accumulated a lifetime of experiences in comparison, had the luxury of living slowly, collected pleasures with meaning and without, nights remembered with fondness and some hardly remembered at all.

It didn’t matter—and he didn’t need to know—how close he was to the best she’d ever had. How much her body wanted this to continue, even while her mind insisted she was asking for trouble if it did.

Whatever Crosshair may have been thinking, it was tamped down quickly beneath a familiar veneer of snide cruelty, his suspicions confirmed. “So you are fucking Saw.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” Dara huffed.

Crosshair smirked and flicked his toothpick across the cockpit. It bounced against the viewport before disappearing amid the buttons of the console. “Hmm. Didn’t think the great Saw Gerrera would make it a habit of sleeping with his subordinates.”

“I’m not his subordinate,” she snapped.

“Then what are you to him?” He was regarding her seriously now, and she realized that, beneath the smug, irritating prodding, the question was genuine. It was an impressive interrogation, one she could hardly believe she had fallen for, but as usual, he’d played her emotions like an expert.

Dara sighed again, feeling herself giving in. “Saw and I have been friends a long time.” It was the truth, though a complicated one, the strands of their shared history far too difficult to untangle here, now.

Crosshair only hummed mockingly. “Hmm. Is that what you call it?”

She stood, and closed the short distance to the pilot’s seat to tower over him. “Listen. I’m only going to say this once, and then you’d better back off. Saw and I slept together twice, and neither time was a good idea.” And what a bad idea it was, both times mired in grief and a quiet desperation to acknowledge they were still alive, the silence afterward a durasteel wall between them. She shook her head to free herself of the memories. “It won’t be happening again, and it has nothing to do with this.”

His piercing amber gaze held hers a moment, but Dara struggled to read its significance.

“I know it won’t,” he crowed quietly. He placed his hands on either side of her waist and stroked his thumbs over her hip bones, a smug expression coming over his features. “Not now that you’ve had me.”

Crosshair’s fingertips moved slowly upward to tug her breast band over her head, his eyes drinking her in as her breasts tumbled free. It occurred to her that this must be the most they’d ever actually seen of each other, the soft lights of the cockpit exposing what had been, in their earlier encounters, partly hidden in shadow or beneath clothing hastily tugged aside. She let her own fingers stroke lightly over his torso, tracing the lines of his tattoos—a skull over an Aurebesh 99 on his left pec, a target on his right, an impressive likeness of his rifle along the crease of one hip, a two-headed snake slithering across his ribs—and felt the way his muscles twitched at her touch. It was unfair, really, how perfect his long, lean body was, how tempting it was to follow the salt and pepper trail of hair down his abdomen to where his cock was already hardening at her attentions, tenting the fabric of his boxers.

But she was giving into temptation already, wasn’t she, and so Dara slid her hand beneath his waistband and took his length firmly in hand. Crosshair groaned and squeezed her breast, pulling her closer with his other hand at the small of her back. He rolled one nipple between his thumb and forefinger as he enclosed the other in his hot mouth, sucking lightly at first, then harder when Dara began to stroke him steadily. She sighed in contentment, the feeling of velvety-soft skin against her palm and his tongue working her nipple to a peak sending waves of arousal to her core. Crosshair slowly slid his hand up along her spine until it rested between her shoulder blades, pressing her even tighter against him, as though he couldn’t taste enough of her, needed more and more even as Dara straddled him in the pilot’s seat.

When Crosshair finally released her nipple to take a sharp, gasping breath she gripped his shoulder, pressing him back against the headrest, and captured his lips against hers. Their tongues battled ferociously for a moment until Dara picked up the pace at which she was pumping his cock, swiping her thumb against the sensitive head and using the pre-cum she collected to torment him further. Crosshair broke away from the kiss with a groan.

“You’ll be the death of me, burk’yc,” he murmured, resting a hand against her cheek. The gesture was oddly affectionate, and Dara found she couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Should I stop?” she teased. She trailed her lips down his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, sucking and nipping as she felt the urge, greedily tasting the salt of his skin. Crosshair didn’t reply for a long moment, mesmerized as she tongued the lines of his tattoos and scars then sank onto her knees in front of the pilot’s seat. She paused at the end of a long lick over the Firepuncher at his hip and toyed with the edge of his waistband, looking up at him coyly.

Dara could tell he was close to losing control, jaw clenched and hands curling into fists at his side, eyes ravenous and predatory like a starving nexu, but he quickly recovered his composure, disguising his insatiable need under an insufferable smirk.

Crosshair settled a possessive hand at the back of her head. “You don’t want to stop. Go ahead, mesh’la—take what you want.”

She felt a twinge of annoyance at how he still insisted on pretending like he was the one in charge even as she practically had him eating out of the palm of her hand, but it was competing with a purring part of her that agreed wholeheartedly, that felt the gentle pressure of his long fingers petting through her hair and wanted to lean into it. That wanted to give in.

And if it was going to be the last time, well, she might as well enjoy herself.

With one smooth motion, Dara slid Crosshair’s boxers down his slender legs, eyeing his erection hungrily as it bounced back against his stomach. His cock was as beautiful as he was, really—also incredibly unfair, he had a big enough ego already—all golden-brown skin and a dark head, long and a little thin like the rest of him, curved just fucking perfectly like it was designed to make her see stars. As eager as she felt, she went slowly, sucking marks along the inside of his thigh, tonguing the crease of his hip, then just breathing gently on his cockhead as she made her way to the opposite side to do it all again.

Crosshair tightened his grip in her hair a little in warning. “Don’t tease, brat,” he growled.

Dara grinned up at him mischievously. “But you said I could take what I want,” she protested, her tone all faux innocence, and before he could snarl at her she was already mouthing at his shaft, kitten licking her way to the head where she swirled her tongue around the sensitive glans and swallowed him down. It had been a long time before Crosshair, but she had always been kriffing good at this, so she relaxed her throat easily and took him far enough that she could press her nose into the coarse gray hairs at the base.

“Karking hell,” he hissed through gritted teeth. She could feel him twitch at the back of her throat and held him there a moment before she eased up a little, breathing deeply through her nose.

Maybe she would be the death of him.

She dedicated herself to putting on a bit of a show, alternating bobbing up and down while gently tonguing the thick vein at the bottom of his cock, only to then suck hard, or take him down to the root, or press the head to the inside of her cheek so he could see it protrude a little. Whenever she looked up, he was watching, nearly unblinking, unwilling to tear his eyes away from the sight.

He was breathing hard, chest heaving, unable to hold back his groans. “Fuck. Look so good… on your knees for me…”

Dara hummed around him, and he tightened his grip in her hair, maybe resisting the urge to make her take him deeper, faster. She liked this, liked the taste and feel of him on her tongue, liked seeing him nearly out of his mind with pleasure. His eyes finally drifted shut, and his head tilted back for a moment before he eased her off of him.

“Ride me,” Crosshair rasped, demanding, and his tone brooked no disagreement. She considered disagreeing anyway, just for the sake of it, to push him, make him finally lose control—but then, she did want to ride him.

Still, “Say please,” she goaded, even as she shed her pants and underwear and straddled him once again, hovering her wet pussy over his rock-hard length.

Crosshair seized her by the hips hard enough to bruise, eyes glinting dangerously. “You don’t want me to say please. You want me to split you in fucking half. Ride. Me.”

Then Dara was choking out a cry as he sank into her. When he withdrew a little, she chased after him, craving the feeling of him inside of her, unable to resist her own need any longer. She held tight to his shoulders for stability and he let her set the pace for a while, watching from under heavy lids as she fucked herself on his cock.

So perfect, it was so perfect the way his cockhead stroked against the sensitive spot inside her, making her feel impossibly full, the way the friction against her clitoris when she grinded down against him sent pleasure tingling through her veins. Her thighs burned with effort as she rose and fell against him, helped only by his hands against her hip and ass guiding her up and down, but it was easy to ignore as she focused entirely on the promise of ecstasy that awaited her.

Crosshair was always uncharacteristically talkative during sex, and now was no different, though she wasn’t sure he even knew what he was murmuring. “That’s it, meshla. So good. Getting so close now, keep going. Can’t decide which I like better, your mouth or your cunt, they both feel so kriffing good for me. But you don’t need me to decide, do you? You’re happy with any way you get to take my cock.”

Dara cried out, her orgasm finally spilling over her, though she was careful not to let her cries and moans transform into words, fearful they would say too much, the voice in her head echoing, it’s true, it’s true, she wanted him, would take whatever he gave her, and now she had him and it felt too good and this couldn’t be the last time, she didn’t want it to be the last time.

Unable to keep moving through the force of her orgasm, Dara had half-collapsed onto Crosshair, who was thrusting slowly, almost gently, while she put herself back together.

She kissed the skin of his shoulder lazily where she had landed, panting, “I’m— I’m done, you can go ahead and—”

“No,” Crosshair interrupted, speeding up his pace only marginally. “You’re going to give me another one.”

Dara furrowed her brow into his shoulder. She had blown him to within an inch of his life earlier—he had to be close enough, and she wasn’t sure why he was holding out now. “What? You haven’t had enough already?” she managed to snark through her post-orgasmic daze.

Crosshair nosed his way down to her mouth and captured it with his, teasing her with his tongue and sucking on her bottom lip. “I could make you cum every morning, noon, and night for a tenday straight and it wouldn’t be enough,” he growled.

She shivered, his words sending electricity straight to her core, riling her up all over again, but before she could even think to reply he was back to thrusting hard, rough and demanding, marking all over her neck and breasts with lips and teeth. His strong hands at her waist helped her keep bouncing on his cock despite it feeling like all the strength had fled from her limbs, and soon she could already feel another climax barreling toward her like a railspeeder.

By the looks of it, Crosshair wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer either, his furrowed brow and nails biting into her skin betraying how close he was, and all she wanted was to feel his warm spend leaking out of her again. He gripped her jaw and held her pressed tightly to his chest, pistoning up into her relentlessly, forcing her eyes to meet his.

“Say my name. Tell me who’s making you feel like this.”

And Dara no longer had the wherewithal or even desire to resist, crying out, “Crosshair!” as bliss, sweet bliss, invaded every one of her senses. She was just barely aware of him burying his face in her neck, releasing his own moans, and she felt the telltale twitch of his cock as he came inside her.

It took her a few moments to come back to awareness enough to realize she was shaking. Crosshair still held her tightly, his arms wrapped around her waist and hands rubbing soothing circles against her back. She breathed deeply, trying to regain control of her body, and moved to extricate herself.

“Hold still. Too sensitive. Just—wait a minute,” Crosshair murmured. Dara took pity on him and stopped wiggling. He kept his forehead resting against her shoulder, just breathing for a long moment. It was warm and comfortable, resting in his lap while he softened inside of her, and she toyed unthinkingly with a stray curl at the crown of his head and let herself relax. Kriff, that was amazing. It was always amazing.

She didn’t want to stop.

If she didn’t stop now, she might never be able to.

“You good yet?” Dara asked. When Crosshair finally nodded, she slipped off of him, quickly pulling on her underwear and trousers before too much of his cum could leak out onto her thighs. They dressed in silence, though it took Crosshair much longer to retrieve the scattered pieces of his armor and fit them back into place. Dara stood uncertainly when she had finished, feeling like she should say something, but not sure what.

Crosshair glanced up at her from where he was still working on securing his vambraces. His eyes were hard, his expression cold. “Go on. You got what you wanted.”

Dara grumbled in frustration. “I thought we both did.” Sure, now he was angry, and she would be able to make sense of that, if he hadn’t also gone from indifferent to jealous to smug to disdainful to fucking her brains out all in the past forty minutes.

He didn’t reply, just looked away dismissively.

Rubbing her eyes where she could already feel the tension coming back, Dara made her way to the hatch, pressing the button to lower the ramp before turning to him one final time. “Listen… really, it’s been…” She sighed. “Just, know that— This isn’t about you.”

Crosshair waited long enough after she left to be sure she was too far to hear the clatter before he chucked his helmet against his reflection in the darkened transparisteel of the viewport.

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reluctantjoe · 11 months ago

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‘Baddies are my new type’: Mathew Baynton on Ghosts, Wonka and wicked villains

He is about to say goodbye to his role in beloved spectral sitcom Ghosts. But dastardly turns in Wonka and the a festive Agatha Christie drama suggest the actor’s future is bright – if somewhat nefarious

“I feel like I’m moving into really wanky territory now,” says Mathew Baynton, looking a little anxious. We are talking about Ghosts, the much-loved comedy about a gaggle of spirits consigned to spend the afterlife in a crumbling country mansion, which Baynton co-writes and in which he plays a deceased Regency poet. After a triumphant five seasons, Ghosts officially breathed its last in October – except there’s now a Christmas episode on its way. (Last year’s Christmas special drew 5.9 million viewers, making it the BBC’s biggest comedy of 2022.)

When I ask Baynton what it is about Ghosts that struck a chord with viewers, he worries he might sound pretentious. “But here goes,” he says. “I have learned that, as a writer, you don’t always know what you’re writing. There are the quite boring times where you have an idea and it comes out as you imagined, and there’s no mystery in that process. But when it’s exciting, you have an idea and it leads you to places you don’t expect.”

With Ghosts, he and his co-writers initially imagined hundreds of spirits haunting Button House, which would have allowed them to tell different stories with a new set of characters each week. “But when we looked at the taster tape we made, we all went: ‘Hang on, there’s something much richer here,’” Baynton continues. “We realised it was a show about people being stuck together, potentially in eternity, and how they find ways to get along. All of which is to say that I’m enamoured with Ghosts too because, right from the get-go, we had absolutely no idea what it would become.”

Baynton, who is 43, is talking from his study at home in north London where he lives with his partner, the film historian and film-maker Kelly Robinson, and their two children. He is self-effacing and thoughtful, choosing his words carefully and, at intervals, wondering if he could be expressing himself better. “I think it’s partly the writer in me,” he says, “but I do come away from conversations thinking how I’d like to rewrite things I’ve said.”

As an actor, Baynton has cornered the market in ultra-sensitive men who walk a fine line between pathos and silliness. Along with his lovelorn poet in Ghosts, there was his turn as a Victorian psychiatrist in 2017’s Quacks, who masterminds a new treatment for patients called “talking”; his lute-playing bard in the 2015 film Bill, about the early life of Shakespeare (“London is not going to know what hit it!”); and good Samaritan Sam in The Wrong Mans (2013-14), which he co-wrote and starred in alongside James Corden.

But this winter heralds a new set of projects that Baynton has dubbed “my Christmas of villainy”. In Murder Is Easy, based on the Agatha Christie novel about a spate of killings in a sleepy English village, he plays a doctor who, he says, “is an awful person with some very awful views”. Next year brings A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, based on Holly Jackson’s bestselling YA novel, in which a young true-crime enthusiast investigates a five-year-old murder case; Baynton can’t reveal too much, although he confirms his character is a far cry from the puppy-eyed romantics for which he is known. And in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel, Wonka, released in cinemas earlier this month, he plays the devious Fickelgruber, Wonka’s Brylcreemed rival in the confectionery business.

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Baynton can’t account for this sudden pivot into treachery beyond the fact that “a few [casting directors] had the same idea at the same time … Acting is strange like that. You do one notable thing early on and you are put on a track that for 10 years that can be hard to get off. Perhaps baddies are my new type.”

Wonka was co-written by his friend and Ghosts compadre Simon Farnaby (who also co-wrote Paddington 2) and was filmed at Warner Bros Studios in Hertfordshire. For Baynton, it “felt like you were with the same kids but in a plush playground … Even though you’re working with this huge Hollywood star [Timothée Chalamet, who plays Wonka] and you’re on a set that probably cost the same as an entire series of Ghosts, it’s still a comedy with a big heart, so for me it felt like home.”

Baynton and Farnaby first came together on the set of Horrible Histories, the anarchic children’s sketch show that recreated history’s most ludicrous and bloodthirsty moments, alongside Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond. Shortly after it finished its decade-long run, the six of them wrote the madcap puppet comedy Yonderland, largely because “we couldn’t bear that we weren’t going to get together for more mucking about in front of the camera”. This was followed by Bill, and, four years later, Ghosts. They have even given themselves the collective name Them There, mostly for production credits, though “no one actually calls us that”. Aren’t they more Britcom’s answer to the Brat Pack? “I don’t know about that,” Baynton says, bashfully, “though it depends on which of them you think I am.”

The youngest of three children, Baynton grew up in Southend on a diet of sea air and his dad’s Monty Python cassettes. He reckons being lowest in the pecking order at home contributed to his desire to perform and be noticed. In his teens, he went through a morose period during which he was overtaken by self-consciousness, but then he discovered theatre via a production of Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles by Theatre de Complicité “which moved me to tears in ways I couldn’t understand and ignited something in me. I knew I wanted to be in that world in some way.”

Baynton went on to drama school, where he studied directing, but when he got there he realised acting was his calling. He spent a summer as assistant to Cal McCrystal, then director of the physical theatre group Peepolykus, who pushed him to join in with improv games. Later he went to Paris to study under the renowned clown Philippe Gaulier, which cemented his love of slapstick. Upon returning home, McCrystal gave him his first break on the stage in a production of Joe Orton’s Loot.

But it was Horrible Histories that really opened doors for Baynton, both as an actor and writer. On being offered the job, he nearly turned it down, fearing that he might get stuck doing nothing but children’s TV, but his agent persuaded him to take the job by telling him: “No one will see it.” In a talk last year at the Oxford Union, Baynton remarked how, were they making it today, they would do certain things differently, such as not using white actors in tanning makeup to portray Egyptians.

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“I think it’s important that we examine where the line is [around portrayals of other cultures],” he says now. “It’s a murky area where intention sometimes doesn’t match reception. Certainly, no one had bad intentions making Horrible Histories and none of us at that time, in the culture as it was, hesitated and thought: ‘Hang on, maybe I shouldn’t play an Egyptian.’ But times have changed and I would hesitate now.”

If the odd Horrible Histories sketch hasn’t aged well, it is worth observing the sensitivity and inclusivity that runs through Ghosts. Baynton notes how throwing together characters from different historical periods allowed them to “highlight wrongful attitudes and interrogate how they had arrived at them. At one point, there’s a gay wedding at Button House and [the ghost of] Lady Button is appalled and goes on this journey in which she faces her own homophobia. When we were writing that story, it felt like I was having a conversation with my homophobic nan.”

Baynton is content moving between acting and writing, not least because “if I’m between acting jobs, it means I get to dream up new projects for myself and my friends”. Keen to avoid any signs of egotism as his career soars, Baynton keeps his feet on the ground by recalling the “pure dystopian hell” of his time as a school leaver working in a call centre. There, every second of the day was monitored and he was once upbraided by a manager for taking too many toilet breaks. “So when I’m on set in a scratchy costume or I’m feeling a bit tired and thinking what a terrible time I’m having,” he says, “I remember that time, and what a privilege it is do what I do.”

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rewatching-sam-and-dean · 7 months ago

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Random Musings on Sam and Dean: Relationships and Hunting

There is something about Sam starting out the series as the one with friends, and Dean being this loner who essentially tells him he shouldn’t even try to have relationships with other people when they are hunters. Dean sees his immediate family and hunting as the absolute most important things, and everyone else are outsiders.

Some of these things sort of stay the same over the course of the show, but others change in a pretty significant way.

Random, not super well-organized, and potentially off-base, thoughts under the cut. (If anyone actually reads this, please feel free to weigh in.)

Then, as the series goes on, Sam loses or let’s go of almost all of his relationships, until he has pretty much only Dean. He’s afraid to truly get close to anyone out of fear they will be hurt … except for Dean, who is already embedded too deeply in his heart to cut out.

Meanwhile, “Loner” Dean is collecting friends, or extended “family”. Yet, he still doesn’t want them around most of the time, seeming happiest when it’s just him and Sam, with Castiel and Bobby as tolerated/appreciated additions to the family, yet not quite full-family. I’m not including Jack here because no one will ever convince me that Dean fully let him in (and this isn’t a criticism).

The relationships differences between Sam and Dean are like an extension of how they fit into hunting.

Sam befriended normies in the past, but doesn’t fully connect with many new characters out of fear of losing them, while Dean befriends hunters and the supernatural adjacent. There is something about this … like, Dean fits the hunter life in a way Sam doesn’t, even in terms of relationships or how those in the hunting life relate to Dean vs Sam. I’m not saying Dean always likes hunting, or that he bares his soul to everyone he calls friend/family, but he fits it, even socially, better than Sam (and Dean isn’t even that friendly). Sam, with just a very few exceptions, doesn’t make himself at home in the hunting life, including not opening himself up to the people they meet… at least until much later in the series (if then). It’s like he’s afraid to fully live or engage as a hunter in some ways. This is like him refusing to see the bunker as a home until long after Dean has already thoroughly nested there.

Even Sam’s reactions to the hunting life are never quite proportionate, they are often too big (Demon blood, saving Dean from the MOC and risking literally everyone else) or too little (running when he loses Dean Season 7/8). Sam is the Goldilocks of hunting, except I don’t think he ever finds “just right.” And this doesn’t mean he isn’t good at it, or doesn’t learn to “love it,” but I don’t think it ever quite fits him fully.

Sam got close to Jessica and makes friends at Stamford, but he had fully turned his back on hunting at the time. Sam gets close to Amelia, but it’s because he’s running from hunting (and losing Dean). The only time he feels really settled in as a hunter (when it’s not a connection to Dean) is when he’s soulless. It’s only when he’s missing a crucial part of himself (or he has a revenge mission) that he fully embraces the life.

Dean, on the other hand, feels like purgatory is pure: kill the bad thing, rinse and repeat. Even when Dean is living with Lisa, he has an eye and ear open for monsters, and can’t fully shut off those instincts. Unlike with Sam, Dean melds life and hunting and family into this co-existing thing that he’s able to settle into. Again, this isn’t all Dean is, and it doesn’t come without personal/emotional/mental consequences, but Dean is a hunter, and he even suggests in Season 14 that he’s content.

Sam, in Season 10, tells Charlie he loves hunting, but he adds the caveat that he wouldn’t do it without his brother. And even getting into the weeds of Dabb era, Sam tells Mary he hunts because his family (Dean) does.

Speaking of Mary, Sam doesn’t even let her fully in. He provides a shoulder for her at times, respects her autonomy, and eve tries to make her proud, but he never fully opens up to her, not like Dean does. And we know how Sam got along with John who trained the boys to hunt .. or, you know, didn’t.

Dean is Sam’s exception. He’s close to Dean even though Dean is associated with hunting, is basically the best hunter. Sam says several times that he hunts because Dean does. He doesn’t get close to anyone in the hunting life, except for Dean. Dean is Sam’s tether into hunting after his revenge quest for Jess and guilt from losing John wear down.

Bear with me on this one, but the long-term, or big characters, associated with the hunting world are largely closer to Dean or exist to hurt Sam. John (Mr. Hunter Parent) was disappointed in Sam’s lack of both commitment to hunting and obedience, and favoured Dean (not that it did him any good). Bobby considers Sam like a son, but Dean is his clear favourite (and Sam rarely turns to Bobby for personal help, if ever). Castiel considers Sam a friend/family, but as an extension of Dean. The angels hate Sam because he’s lucifer’s vessel. Ruby was able to manipulate Sam into embracing his power (and hunting) and was closer to him than Dean, but it was because of his initial grief for Dean that she was able to get in his head. Sam is tormented by the devil himself when he’s in the hunting life. Sam never thaws towards Crowley w who tries to take Dean away when he becomes Dean’s frienemy. Mary (Mrs Hunter Parent) comes back to life and basically ignores Sam out of her own guilt and bonds more with Dean (at least at first). Rowena bonds more with Sam than Dean, but they bond over shared trauma not really hunting (though she does teach him spells, so she’s a bit of an exception). Jack, Sam actually bonds with more than Dean, but it’s over shared “freak” experience, and Jack actually becomes the new god, so while he starts as a part of hunting life, he is actually beyond it.

Even the junior hunter girls are arguably closer to Dean: Krissy, Claire and Charlie. And we have the part-time hunters. Jody is pretty close to both boys, maybe even leaning towards Sam, but she’s a cop as well as a part-time hunter. She isn’t fully in the life. Donna, the other cop and part-time hunter is definitely closer to Dean. So, the rule mostly holds true even for the more minor hunters. Finally, even a lot of the random hunters we meet hate Sam (Gordon, Walt and Roy, Girl in Episode 2 of Season 9, etc).

Anyway, my point with all of this is that there might actually be a reason that so many chracters in the hunter world, or associated with it, are closer to Dean than Sam. And it isn’t just writer favouritism or “Everybody just loves Dean” ( 🤷🏻‍♀️). I mean, it makes sense that chracters are drawn to Dean because he’s got that charm, while Sam tends towards introverted. But it actually makes sense to be more than that within the story. Sam is never quite at home, or settled in, or fits in to the hunter society or hunting world.

And yet, while most chracters are out here preferring Dean, Dean couldn’t care less because Sam is his world. And in return, Dean is Sam’s exception to everything. He stays in hunting for Dean (in the long run). He gives up many of his morals for Dean. He risks damning everyone in the world with the darkness for Dean. He learns to love hunting because it’s part of his life with Dean. And he gives it up again when there is no Dean alive on earth (assuming he quits in the finale).

I know there is more to their relationships than this little summary, and this didn’t cover Deans also complex relationship with hunting and John and Mary, etc., but it just stuck me as interesting how so much of the show truly points to Sam not fitting in the hunting world. It’s almost like he paused his regularly scheduled programming to be with Dean for the rest of Dean’s life, before carrying on.

But the kicker is, even though Sam (seemingly) gets out of hunting, the normal life can no longer fit him either because it doesn’t have his big brother Dean in it.

It is undoubtably sad that Dean dies young, but Sam is also still living out a tragedy at the end of Supernatural.

The fact that we got reunited brothers on that bridge is … everything.

#supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #sam and dean #spn meta #my thoughts #hunting life

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darkleysgarden · 2 years ago

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Asmodeus Facts!

As a lore person and Asmo lover, I present this.

I am willing to add more as I think of them or as they are suggested (with proof).

13+

1. As most people know: Asmo has canonically given Solomon hickeys before.

2. His favorite animal is a resplendent quetzal. (A bird)

3. Asmo unintentionally was a huge factor in the Trojan War starting.

4. Raphael used to scold Asmo a lot, causing him to dislike Raphael. He doesn't feel this way anymore.

5. He sleeps naked.

6. Asmo's biggest fear is turning ugly and essentially loosing all of his worth.

7. He can smell if people are romantically interested in each other.

8. He has had a face lift before.

9. A lot of fan mail is sent to the RAD suggestion box for him.

10. He is *surprisingly* not very flexible.

11. Has referred to Mc as his 'Bestie'. He and Lucifer have also said that he was madly in love with them. So... why not both?

12. *TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDER*

He panics over gaining the slightest amount, down to a kilogram of weight or a millimeter more onto his waist. He also goes on diets and refuses to eat frequently. Satan has also stated that he's seen Asmo sneak snacks in the middle of the night. All of this implies that he struggles with an eating disorder.

13. Mammon once found a 'crazy provocative' outfit in his room that was 'FULL of holes!' (Turns out it was one of his favorite outfits chewed up by moths!)

14. In the Celestial Realm he was known as the 'Jewel of the Heavens'. Simeon states that Asmo is still constantly trying to live up to that standard.

15. Y'know how some people can tie a knot in a cherry stem? Well Asmo can tie a butterfly knot!

16. Asmo's dyed his hair pink before and presumably still does on occasions.

17. Asmo is the one who paints all the brother's nails. And this is typically done with a paint brush, not the average nail polish brush.

18. He always puts on a face mask right before he goes to bed.

19. Asmo prefers smooth red bean paste over chunky.

20. He hates being cold and the downsides of winter, like dry skin. Yet, he does love the aesthetic of winter.

21. He doesn't like carrying people as he believes it will cause him to gain muscle. He believes he's more desirable thin.

22. When he first met Solomon, he was in the middle of crying alone at a bar. Solomon came up to him to ask if he was okay. This, and the rest of their conversations that night, eventually led to their current relationship.

23. He enjoys gossiping with Satan.

24. While most demons dislike uses of pacts, Asmo finds them heavily thrilling.

25. He admits to admiring Lucifer the most.

26. Asmo believes that he can always rely on Satan.

27. Asmo enjoys hanging out with Mammon and becomes proud of him for his accomplishments. Though, he likes teasing him because it keeps him on his toes and he believes that Mammon acts the most foolish out of all of them.

28. Demon's have to give their human pact mate something to allow summonings. Asmo gifted Solomon a gigantic oil painting of himself. It was notably his favorite 'selfie' at the time.

29. He is a dog person. He prefers big dogs to little ones.

30. He's never read the student handbook despite being on the student council.

31. Is actually pretty good at juggling a ball with his feet. Good enough to score 5th place out of the 15 characters.

32. Satan has allowed him to copy off of his homework before.

33. His birthday is May 15th, making him a Taurus.

34. He put together Levi's human world outfit.

35. He hates his true demon form, something Mammon often jokes about.

36. Asmo is the weakest brother in terms of strength. He gets worn out incredibly easily. (Maybe because of fact 12 and your refusal to gain muscle or weight. What am I going to do with you, love?)

37. A large amount of his fan base calls him 'daddy'.

38. He frequently teases Levi about having no friends.

39. Really good at rock-papper-scissors.

40. Doesn't really care what happens to him as long as he looks cute during. Even if it's a terrible curse.

41. He is an extremely emotional drunk. He will start sobbing when intoxicated in the slightest.

42. He is not ashamed about his own dirty mind. He even calls out Mammon for having one too.

43. Ass or Tits? Asmo chooses ass.

44. Doodles in textbooks. He even left a kiss mark in Solomon's once when borrowing it.

45. Lucifer practically goes, "Keep the door open" Whenever he catches Solomon, Mc, or anyone else hanging out with Asmo.

46. Isn't good at silly faces. He ends up looking gorgeous instead of silly.

47. Can be horrifying when angry. Beel is more scared of an angry Asmo than an angry Lucifer.

48. Mc is practically the first ever person to like him romantically and not sexually. He has said that no one before Mc has ever complimented his personality before, only his looks.

49. Loves bonding with his brothers even if they're completely opposite of him. He remembers more about Ruri-chan than any of the other brothers (hinted at) just because he actually cares to listen to Levi and bond with him.

50. What part of his body does he wash first when bathing? Well, you'll have to bathe with him to find out~

51. He held his first Asmofest/Asmo gathering 7 days after his birth. These are now held several times a month. He spends time with people he likes, usually drinking. Lucifer is present at most of them.

52. Asmo once wished to have 8 heads. His brother's made him give up on this dream.

53. Asmo requested that Levi write him a novel. This novel was called Space Pajama Party: The Great Beauty War. The hero of the stories name was 'The Hero'. The Hero is based off of MC and the character Atan is based off Levi.

54. According to Asmo, he looks best shot from the left at about a 40 degree angle.

55. It's highly likely that Asmo was the main designer for the guest/Mc's room. Comparing his room to the room, his influence is obvious.

56. He owns an absurd amount of clothes, beauty products, and bathing products.

57. He is terrible at remembering stuff about other people. He even failed a quiz about Solomon, who he considers himself to be insanely close to (This, presumably, does not apply to MC).

58. He works as an influencer on DevilTube and Devilgram. He also does designing. He designs products, clothes, etc. These designs are most notably shown at Majolish but can be seen all around the Devildom. He usually doesn't get paid in grimm for designing, receiving products, and samples instead. He says he prefers that in all honesty (He'd just buy the stuff with grimm anyway).

59. He used to be close to Belphie back in the Celestial Realm. Beel even said that Belphie was practically glued to Asmo's hip.

60. Asmo is the one who came up with the name 'Team Solomon'. Barbatos wasn't a big fan of the name.

61. He was implied to have fucked Santa Claus

62. Even though he is the shortest brother, he often looks taller because he wears heels.

63. Asmodeus knew of Solomon's horrible cooking skills before any of the others. When Solomon tried to serve everybody at the Demon Lord's castle, he purposefully didn't eat any of Solomon's cooking.

64. Asmo is really sensitive about his brother's compliments. One compliment from any of them could bring him to tears easily.

65. During the retreat to the Demon Lord's castle, Asmo becomes heavily affectionate for MC. One of the things he first does is inspect them head to toe, checking their ears, teeth, fingers, etc. This supports him saying that he wishes to know EVERYTHING about MC and potentially any other lover.

66. He doesn't like washing the dishes because it makes his skin rough.

67. To some peoples surprise, he is really good with kids. He even worked with them in the human world. Though, Satan commented that he wouldn't trust his kid with Asmo. He also often makes inappropriate jokes in front of Luke. But, he just shrugs them off and tells Luke that he'll understand when he's older.

68. Asmo enjoys "healing music"

69. (😏) He's a switch. He's quoted to have said, "I'll make you squeal for me!" As well as, "You wanna try some other spots too? Go ahead, I'm all yours." These are two of many lines that help imply this.

70. Despite what many think, he does have standards. He also is not appreciative of randomly being used as an object of beauty or sex. Though he's admitted that he can easily see the good in everyone and finds everyone a little bit attractive in their own way. He also says that he flirts with people so often because his happiness spreads to others and ends up making more people happy. So many people like him, because he likes so many people. Simple as that. But, this doesn't mean he will appreciate just anybody.

71. He didn't have an Asmo gathering for an entire year after the fall. His first one was held with MC as an honorary guest. Solomon couldn't make it.

72. He's implied to like fortune and horoscopes.

73. He doesn't like shopping with 'drab' shopping bags.

74. Asmo tends to photobomb and photo taken around him because he believes he is the most photo-worthy person/thing in the area.

75. He's seen to be unapologetic to any exes he has. He may even flirt with them despite them being annoyed with him.

76. Asmo is seen to heavily miss the Celestial Realm after falling. He repressed most of the feelings for awhile, but they overwhelmed him the first time he saw Simeon and Luke after everything happened.

77. He listed his pronouns on his FabSnap account as Fab/ulous

78. Asmo had trouble calling him and his brothers 'demons' instead of 'angels' for a while after falling.

79. He frequently calls Solomon 'his'.

80. He has a pair of flower earrings that he wears all the time.

81. Asmo, along with his brothers, have all experienced hate for being angels, ex-angels, and demons in different contexts.

82. He has an entire photo album dedicated to photos of himself as an angel.

83. Asmo is not only lustful, but has shown many signs of bloodlust. He even brings up ripping out MC's heart and tearing it open to see if they were telling the truth.

84. He openly admits to being turned on at random.

85. While his brothers fight over bathing order, Asmo likes to go have a nice long bath in his own bathroom just to taunt them.

86. Asmo is pansexual. Good for him.

87. He gets insecure if he doesn't get reassured of MC's love constantly. He texts demanding 'I love yous' and demands compliments.

88. Asmo likes to wear what Mammon calls 'skimpy underwear'.. (And more lingerie!)

89. He very rarely gets more than annoyed. Very rarely even gets annoyed. He isn't seen transforming into his demon form at all during the main story out of anger (And so far from what I've played in Nightbringer). Though, I have seen him transform once in a Devilgram, but he quickly calmed down in seconds.

90. Asmo thinks that drool is unattractive on a man (probably any other gender too, he didn't clarify). He often tells Beel this as a life lesson. (This also presumably does not apply to sex.)

New On May 15th:

91. Solomon has a very hard time saying no to Asmo

92. When giving out gifts, they frequently feature his face. If you're lucky, you may even find yourself with a nice new set of lingerie.

93. Asmo is good at singing, writing, and composing songs. Anywhere from a ballad to hard metal. He even sings live!

94. Solomon once gifted him bath salts made by an incubus. The affect of the charm was SO STRONG that Asmo had to drink an antidote made by Solomon. (It tasted surprisingly good)

95. Asmo is insecure about the fact that he is unable to use his charm ability on MC.

96. In Nightbringer, Satan says that Asmo is the brother he hates the least.

97. Asmo's favorite way to spend his birthday is with people close to him, not with big parties.

98. Asmo really dislikes bugs.

99. Asmo has gathered so many products that he can find something in his collection that works for people with completely different hair and skin from him.

100. He loves flowers, candles, soaps, whatever smell-filled things he can find. (Me who takes allergy medicine on the daily: bro you're gonna murder me the second I step foot in your room.)

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me one master to rule them all #swd asmodeus #asmodeusobeyme #obey me asmodeus #om! asmodeus #obey me lore #fun facts #obey me asmo #asmo <3 #asmodeus #miscellaneous facts #facts

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cosmerelists · 1 year ago

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If Cosmere characters had mundane hobbies...

And by “mundane” I just mean “non-extreme” (aka, no base jumping, no paragliding); we’re talking, like, doing puzzles or going for a pleasant hike. If all these hobbies existed and Cosmere characters weren’t busy fending for their lives all the time, what might they get up to?

1. Szeth: Frisbee golf

We already know that Szeth is great at paintball; I just feel like he’d be weirdly good at frisbee golf as well.

2. Renarin: Speed Rubik’s Cube

Renarin likes to fiddle and have something for his hands to do--I think solving a Rubik’s Cube would be fun for him. And I threw in “speed” (aka, trying to do it as fast as possible) because Renarin loves to jump into things wholeheartedly.

3. Kaladin: Indoor Rock Climbing

Kaladin has already gone rock climbing in two books--he makes his own rock wall in the chasms in Book 1 and climbs down Urithiru in Book 4. He even knows that he should be using “rock dust” for his hands. I think some nice, non-extreme, indoor rock climbing would be good for Kaladin. Bonus: he’s not afraid of heights!

4. Shai: Stamp Collecting

(I’m sorry)

5. Eshonai: Hiking

Eshonai loves to go out into the woods and explore, see new places and people and things. I can see her getting into hiking.

6. Raoden: Coding

Before he even had powers, Raoden already liked to memorize Aons--and from what I understand, AonDor is basically coding.

7. Tien: Rock Collecting

I mean, this is literally just canon. I have to imagine that he’d also enjoy whittling since that is again, simply canon.

8. Shallan: Crochet

Okay, so Shallan does already have hobbies in canon: like drawing, for example. But I think she’d also enjoy crochet--all those patterns coming together, her Spren humming excitedly...

9. Adolin: Sewing

Even while trapped in Shadesmar, Adolin is able to sew himself a new outfit. If he had time and materials, he could definitely make some cool clothing.

10. Mare: Gardening

I mean, she loves flowers. If she were alive when her planet could support flowers, I think she’d love to grow some.

11. Sixth of the Dusk: Birdwatching

If he wasn’t, you know, desperately trying to survive at all times, I feel like Sixth of the Dusk might enjoy some nice, relaxed birdwatching.

12. Wax: Puzzling

Normally Wax is putting together the pieces of deadly mysteries that will impact the fate of his planet. Maybe he’d find it a nice change of pace to just put together colorful cardboard instead!

13. Rysn: Extreme Couponing

Listen, Rysn once leapt off of a cliff to talk to a god to make a deal. Clipping coupons would at least have the advantage of being safer than that, no matter how “extreme” she gets.

14. Rlain: Amateur Radio

Amateur radio tends to use morse code, which is a form of communication Rlain might find comfortingly rhythmic. Plus, amateur radio lets you connect with people, but no one can see you or judge you for being a crab person.

15. Vin: Parkour

Even without powers, I can see Vin running across buildings and climbing things she’s not supposed to climb. I think she’d have a good time.

16. Jasnah: Crossword puzzles

Yes, I am basically calling Jasnah a nerd here, but also, I think she’d probably really like crossword puzzles--knowing things, understanding obscure trivia, solving puzzles that aren’t about the end of the world...

17. Dalinar: Tunnelling

I dunno if this is just a Reddit phenomenon, but apparently some people just really like to dig long tunnels underground? And Dalinar sure had a great time digging out that latrine that one time. Perhaps that was a sign that his true love is burrowing deep, deep underground.

18. Taravangian: Fantasy Football

I don’t know a whole lot about Fantasy Football, but I believe it involves creating your own imaginary team of players and then using their actual, real-life performance to get points. So you have to be good at predicting how people will act, skilled at long-term planning, and have a deep desire to win. It’s like Taravangian’s diagram, only nobody (hopefully) dies!

#cosmerelists #cosmere #Szeth #Renarin #Kaladin #Shai #Eshonai #Raoden #Tien #Shallan #Adolin #Mare #Sixth of the dusk #Wax #Rysn #Rlain #Vin #Jasnah #Dalinar #Taravangian

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jinglejingleclown · 3 days ago

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Just watched venom 3: the lasst dance, and so I've got. Commentary. I discussed most of it with my saint-like friend, so now I'm just left puzzled rather than vaguely upset. Spoilers be upon yee, be warned.

1. Those alien xenomorph things were honestly pretty tame. They didn't kill humans unless provoked. They couldn't see shit besides the codex. Straight up they didnt even attack eddie so long as venom was semi-under wraps. So why was it so deeply necessary for venom to sacrifice himself and kill them? I don't get why, based off what the movie had shown us, eddie and venom couldn't have just straight up walked out of the situation and everyone couldda been chill while they calmly called in reenforcements. This was like a really weird way to raise the stakes, those aliens were genuinely like very pleasant for killer-alien standards from what was shown

2. The area 51 scenes were the most inefficient lore dumps ever. I got the stakes within the first 3 mins of the movie when sephiroth was just explaining paragraphs of lore i didnt need scientists to reexplain it over stretches of 40 minute nothing-lore dumps

3. Now not to say that any venom movie has been the wittiest quipiest smartest movie ever, but there was a lot of just. Dumping lore on the ground. Tell dont show type beat. Like it was impressive how they were fumbling that bag. Not like ive ever had high standards for marvel movies but wow that was tough

4. Why were the symbiotes nice? Based off of venom's coworkers and son, symbiotes are not nice. I find it hard to believe all the symbiotes were chill at the end and saving nearby families n shit. Eddie is still teaching venom what the word "morals" mean, granted venom isnt the smartest symbiote but still im pretty sure symbiotes dont give a shit abt humans, and nothing explains why theyre nice and helpful suddenly

5. Venom did not need to die deadass i dont know why he and eddie didnt straight up walk away. Deadass. Like i get it maybe they have enoigh scraps of morals bt the two of them to put together one good decision, but even still like it was a weird way to raise the stakes and kill venom. Im not mad that venoms dead in general, i think it sucks but like that was a decision they could make and that id be reasonable abt. But he didnt have to die like this, yknow? That was a really weird set of circumstances to make him go out on. Id have believed him dying to carnage more than thos, the emotional and physical stakes just werent high enough for me to feel anything or be invested while it happened. And btw i loooooove venom and im not the strongest willed person if they had hammed that shit up i would have been sniffling and sobbing at the end. But i left dry eyed and like ??? What was that bro

6. Maroon 5 amv? Dog what. And i've also seen tiktok edits do better montages btw

7. Lot of weird editing/timing/cutting decisions made for this movie that made it kinda drag, even during action sequences

8. Hippie family was cute at first, then got annoying, genuinely felt tortured alongside eddie during that super long song sequence

9. Why were venom and eddie not like more of the main focus of the movie

10. Why didnt the symbiotes just kill venom and eddie to get rid of the codex. Then they wont be hunted too. That easy. I would have believed venoms death more and been more amused if the symbiotes had turned this into like a total fucking massacre

11. Deadass the area 51 part of the plot generally jist didnt need to happen i didnt need to know any of those character or their motivations

12. Eddie had no emotional weight during the death of venom, venom carried the emotional scene hard but eddie didnt even do the standard minimum screaming wailing crying why god why. No. Maroon 5 montage.

13. Didnt fuck nasty on screen :(

14. Why was eddie let off the hook by the government like that, that was crazy why are tbey letting him loose and after they let him loose why isnt he going nuts trynna get venom back. I get they were like muts together and visually eddie was NOT doing fine during their symbiosis, but the other movies made me believe they were both ride or die abt each other. Venom sure as fuck wouldnt just like be chill after eddie died, hed be going crazy trying to bring eddie back. This isnt a one way street. Wheres the fire in eddie. "I'll never forget you" eddie "fucking nuts dogged journalist whos forever trembling like a neurotic chihuahua" brock would never. But no. Maroon 5.

15. Just a lot of generally hand-wavey stuff. And im not a cruel watcher, if i recognize plot holes, especially in a silly movie like this, i could be like oh okay well ill ignore it or come up with some reasoning for it. But deadassssss the monsters couldnt fucking see eddie and venom so long as they didnt COMPLETELY transform. Venom could literally still be doing his shit they just couldt transform completely. Easy. Thats fine bro. They couldda waited it out until they figured out a solution. With the stakes as they were, there was no reason for venom to die in this movie. The stakes were so high and it was so easy to avoid triggering them, venoms a lot of things but hes not That stupid. I deadass think that venom and eddie couldda just walked away from the area 51 situation with the last like 3 living scientists in tow and been like fine

16. He just straight up didnt need to die in the scenario they gave him. He could have escaped unscathed. Deadass. Im so confused why he would choose to die in that situation. Bc he'd be forever hunted so long as the codex existed? Dog I dont think venom gives a shit abt the other symbiotes he cares abt himself, eddie, and like 4 other ppl from LA and thats it. He ate three peoples heads at the beginning of the movie, hes not like, captain moral

17. Didnt fuck nasty raw on screen :((((

Conclusions: i really enjoyed eddie and venoms road trip, and only those parts of the movie. Every other part was not only a drag, but unneccessary. Venom in the movie verse isnt built like captain america, they raise the stakes too high for a dude and his gay tapeworm. Eddie and venom should be fighting like, joker-scale enemies max. Villain of the week type shit. I genuinely wouldda been happy with just like a singular symbiote-eating alien invading thats like low stakes enough for their buddy-cop schtick. The fate of every symbiote was a lot, and also most symbiotes dont even fuckin like venom lmao. "The black one" had me snorting in theaters tho, what a nickname damn. The horse and river montage was great. I liked some of venoms mannerisms i thought he was really cute this movie.eI dont know why this movie couldn have just been explosioms, macbine guns, and venom on the run from the government, that wouldda been great dumb fun. 3/10. I'm gonna go read fanfiction and dream up a better way to end this trilogy. There wasn't even a french kiss. Not even a normal kiss. Damn they didnt even hold hands deadass. Im not trynna be mean its more like i cant beliebe they fumbled the ball this hard rather than using a perfectly acceptable cliche villain of the week approach, kicking back, and raking in that fangirl dough. It didnt have to be a weel written movie, it just had to be okay and coherent and it was somehow neither

#venom 3 #venom spoilers #venom: the last dance

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twistedtummies2 · 1 year ago

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Top 15 Portrayals of Peter Pan

A while back, in 2021 - in celebration of the 110th anniversary of “Peter Pan” - I posted a list of my favorite portrayals of the villain of the story, Captain Hook. Earlier this year, I updated that same list. I said then that, even as a kid, I always liked Hook more than his nemesis, the titular Peter. While this is true, I do think it’s important to state that, as much as I may love the dastardly pirate Pan battles constantly…this does not mean Peter is a bad character. I think that Peter Pan gets a bad rap a lot nowadays, mostly because, if you read the original book…Peter is kind of a little psychopath. He’s sort of a little tyrant, threatening to kill or banish anybody who doesn’t do what he wants, and refusing to listen to reason when people try to help him or keep him under control. And that’s the entire point: Barrie’s story originally didn’t HAVE Hook. The original idea behind what would become “Peter and Wendy” was that Pan was a representation of both everything good AND everything bad about childhood: he is not necessarily EVIL, but he is stuck perpetually in a state of infantile, underdeveloped youth. He’s brash, cocky, and has a LOT of power that I don’t think even he is fully aware of. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Peter, which actually makes him more fascinating to adults than I think many might realize. Peter’s arc in the story is one of coming to grips with emotions he’s never experienced before, and taking up a kind of responsibility he’s always tried to deny in the past. He’s much more dynamic and more interesting than many people give him credit. I’ve been in a Peter Pan mood lately, so I decided…what the heck? I might as well give a bit of a spotlight to some of my favorite portrayals of the Boy Who Never Grows Up that have come around over the years. (On that note, there has long been a tradition, particularly in stage shows, of women playing Peter, so there will be some ladies included here. Don’t you dare whine about it, they’re absolutely awesome.) Some of these versions stick to the ambiguity of Barrie’s original, while others make Pan either more heroic or more villainous depending on interpretation. There’s a lot of ways you can go with the idea of an eternal child, both idealistic and cynical. So, think Happy Thoughts, everyone, and don’t forget the pixie dust! Here are My Top 15 Favorite Portrayals of Peter Pan!

15. Sandy Duncan, from the Styne-Charlap Musical. (The most famous stage musical version of the story; Duncan first played Peter in a 1979 Revival of the show on Broadway.)

14. Greg Tannahill, from Peter Pan Goes Wrong.

13. Petermon, from Digimon: Ghost Game. (Yeah. Peter Pan as a Digimon. That weirdness speaks for itself.)

12. Mia Farrow, from the 1976 TV Musical.

11. The Version from “Peter and the Starcatchers.” (I’m referring specifically to the books; there is a stage version based on the first book, but I haven’t seen it for various reasons. I love the original books, though. This is probably one of the “nicest” versions of Peter on the list, for lack of a better description.)

10. Robin Williams, from Hook. (Come now, you all knew he had to be here somewhere.)

9. The Version from “Alias, Hook.” (Without going into detail, this really shows how scary a Barrie-accurate Peter can be without much real change.)

8. Charlie Rowe, from SyFy’s Neverland.

7. Betty Bronson, from the 1924 Film.

6. Robbie Kay, from Once Upon a Time. (By far the most evil version of Peter Pan ever made, at least that I've discovered.)

5. Mary Martin, from the Styne-Charlap Musical. (She originated the part on Broadway, starting in 1954.)

4. Cathy Rigby, ALSO from the Styne-Charlap Musical. (She’s been playing the role off and on since the 1970s - no joke, look it up - with her most recent stint being in 2015. She was in her sixties then! Talk about Never Growing Up!)

3. Jason Marsden, from Peter Pan and the Pirates.

2. Jeremy Sumpter, from the 2003 Film.

1. The Disney Version. (Originally played by Bobby Driscoll; this one wins out mostly just because this is the first version I think of when I think of Peter as a character, and because I think the various spin-offs and such have really helped to make him a more likable protagonist over time, while still keeping him true to his established persona.)

#list #countdown #best #favorites #top 15 #peter pan #j.m. barrie #actors #acting #portrayals #literature #tv #animation #film #movies #musical theatre #broadway

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they-lived · 2 months ago

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20 questions for writers

@theblueeyedfirebender THANKS FOR THE TAG FRIEND I LOVE YOU LOTS 💙💛💙💛💙💛

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

41! (And an additional 37 on ffn 🤪 for a total of 78 just cause I was curious what 11 years of a hobby produces)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

782,267… holy crap 😅

3. What fandoms do you write for?

On my page you’ll find fics for Dragon Age (2 fics), Resident Evil (3 fics), Baldur’s Gate (2 fics), Until Dawn (2 fics), Critical Role (1 fic), Fullmetal Alchemist (6 fics), and Yuri on Ice (25 fics)!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Bloom in the Dark (Yuri on Ice)

Сонечко - Sunshine (Yuri on Ice)

What I Wouldn’t Do (Yuri on Ice)

Truth (Yuri on Ice)

Four Hidden Talents of Yuri P (And His Hidden Achilles Heel) (Yuri on Ice)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I used to not respond because on ffn you pretty much had to dm people to do so which felt weird (especially because I was 11-17 on there and did not want anyone knowing that fact even tho it was pretty obvious in hindsight) but now I respond to almost every comment I get! Fandom is a shared experience and I want to communicate more!!!

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

Lessons I Learned From Loving You Alone (Dragon Age) ~ Loghain’s wife had a really tragic life in my brain and I leaned in HARD

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

I almost always do angst with a happy ending but I think the happiest is a toss up between Сонечко or As The World Begins to End (which is my resident evil meets pride prejudice and zombies mash up)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I wouldn’t call it hate necessarily but weirdly I get a lot of discourse around Yuri P being Ukrainian but like… I have always written him this way and I always will lol. It’s a part of my brand at this point. For the most part they’re pretty tame comments tho

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

Yep! Most of the time I use sex as a way for characters to express their indescribable inexplicable connection or just to explore a couple in their most intimate moments. I love smut with funnies too so I try to throw that in there… also yes I do write porn without plot just because I want to lol.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not really. Closest I got to was As the World Begins to End, which is Resident Evil in a similar world as Pride Prejudice and Zombies, but the zombies and lore were still RE based. It was more inspired by than anything else.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Back in the day someone wrote a fic “based on” one of mine but they just changed the names and nothing else. I still laugh about it because like… what an odd thing to do.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup! Into Portuguese, Japanese, and Russian! It was very cool and they were so nice!!!!

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

Nope but I’d be down!

14. What is your all-time favorite ship?

Don’t ask me that my stomach hurts (it’s probably Everlark or Jasper or Otayuri or Royai don’t make me choose~)

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

I never say never but golly it’s been hard to keep writing I Will Carry You idk why I really lost steam on it. I also have a fic I’m literally 25 pages deep into that was supposed to be a bit fic that I have not posted but WANT TO FINISH SO BAD

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I’m super good at eliciting the specific niche emotion I’m looking to express and hitting the exact topic I want to address. When I want something to be heightened and funny I nail it, when I want something to be bone deep nostalgia I’ve got it. That part is really fun for me personally.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I. Hate. Describing. Scenes. And. Action! My theater of the mind is pretty garbage so when I have to exposit what something looks like I cannot for the life of me enjoy it. My brain shuts off and on autopilot I go.

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

Even though I am bilingual I still get nervous doing this. Mostly because I’m smol and embarrassed but also because I really have to decide what the purpose is. I love having multilingual characters I grew up on the border between the us and Mexico and I have constantly been surrounded by multilingualism and generally think it’s dope. But I prefer to write the dialog in italics if it’s in another language so my audience can immediately understand what’s going on and have the full picture. If I don’t want them to know what’s being said I simply gloss over it lol

19. First fandom you wrote for?

*Glances wearily at my self insert Harry Potter fic I wrote when I was 12 and had the audacity to post on ffn* … uh… Hunger Games

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Changes by the day honestly but the top 5 are as follows in no particular order:

- As the World Begins to End (p&p will ALWAYS take me out you guys)

- Сонечко (the way I trauma dumped in this one is still so raw and so relevant. The fact that family and love really does win OUCH)

- An Ode to the Daughters of Darkness (first and only attempt at a more poetic style and some of it really holds up)

- Idioms and Idiots (idk I feel like I could turn this into a whole novel it’s wholesome and funny I smile the whole time I’m reading it I love her)

- Long May You Reign (I have reread this bitch so many times since she’s been posted I love the chaos the funnies and the feels. Idk man I just have an insatiable craving for Royai to be parents and this makes me laugh while writing it)

Tagging @masterdisastre @lou-is-lurking @kaleidodreams @weeheilandcoo and anyone else who wants to ✨✨✨✨

#fan fiction #writers ask game #this was very fun!!!#I love word vomiting #I love being silly and over sharing genuinely!!

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longitudinalwaveme · 3 months ago

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Flash vs Rogues: Who Appears More in a Given Issue

I stumbled upon an old blog post (from 2006!) that tripped one of my OCD triggers. (Don't worry; I'm okay now. My OCD is fairly mild and I am on medication for it.) I'm not going into great detail because the blog appears to still be active and I don't want to get into an Internet debate with the person who does the blog (not least because obviously they didn't intend to trigger the OCD), but part of the article was basically about how Geoff Johns spent too much time focusing on the Rogues instead of Wally, about how giving supervillains sympathetic backstories is a bad idea (because all supervillains must be 100% evil? Because supervillains are/should be inherently unsympathetic?), and about how supervillains are inherently unrealistic and superheroes should just fight random criminals instead (since superheroes and regular criminals are realistic, but supervillains aren't?).

Since I am a person who is a bit of a sucker for sympathetic villains, but am also constantly afraid that this makes me a bad person, my OCD was set off, and I had to talk to my sister about it. Luckily that (and doing some praying) helped. It also helped to realize that the person who wrote the blog post in question hadn't even actually read the comic issue that the blog post was partially based on (Flash vol. 2 #214).

The blog post also mentioned that they thought that the Rogue War storyline in particular was too focused on the Rogues at Wally's expense, and that this was a sign of how modern comic writing has gone downhill since, I can only assume, part of Geoff Johns' run. This made me wonder: do the Rogues actually appear substantially more in Rogue War than they do in older comics?

Here's what I found:

In Rogue War issue #1, the Rogues appear in 10-13 pages (of a 21-page story, and counting all the villains and reformed villains, including Zoom, as a conglomerate). Wally appears (or is narrating) in 6 pages of that same story, Jay Garrick appears in another 2, and there are an additional 4 pages that focus in whole or in part on heroic supporting characters. It's also worth noting that the 10-12 pages of Rogues stuff is being divided between 4 reformed Rogues (James, Hartley, Magenta, and Mick), who probably shouldn't be counted as villains as far as the narrative is concerned, Hunter, and the 5 non-reformed Rogues (Len, Mark, Axel, McCulloch, and Owen). This means, at most, that each villain is getting, on average, roughly 1.8 pages to themselves (and remember that this count is including Hartley as a villain, even though he's 100% reformed through the whole arc). Wally and Linda, who are in most of the 6 pages together, each have roughly 3 pages, or nearly twice as much page time as any individual villain. Furthermore, taking all the good guys together, there are at least 12 pages that focus, in whole or in part, on our protagonists, which is at least equal to the page time that the bad guys are getting. If you take into account the fact that the reformed Rogues should technically count as protagonists, then the good guy page count jumps to 14 and the bad guy page count is 10, which means that the true villains are in less than half of the comic. Granted, some of the good guy panels are them discussing or thinking about the bad guys in some capacity, but since they're trying to stop the bad guys (as heroes do), this doesn't seem like it should count against their totals. Even if you want to get extremely technical and not count any pages where villains physically show up in any capacity, there are at least 10 pages where it's all heroic characters.

Flash vol. 1 #174, published in 1967, is 23 pages long (including the opening teaser page and the half-a-page last page). Of these pages, there are exactly 2 that feature only heroic characters (and one of those two is the half-a-page last page). Conversely, there are 9 pages that feature only villainous characters (or hapless civilians, but if they change the count then the number of pages with just villains drops in the other story too)---which means that over 4 times the pages are focused on just bad guys compared to those focused on the good guys.

(Interesting side note: Sam Scudder, the main villain, appears in or narrates over 61 panels, while Barry only appears in or narrates over 46 panels (though some of these panels do overlap and feature them both). Since there are 110 panels in the story, this means that Barry (the main heroic character) is in 42% of the story, and that Sam alone is in 55% of the story. Even in terms of just page count, Sam has like two entire pages all to himself.)

In terms of the pages that exclusively focus on unambiguous heroes, then, at least 48% of Rogue War is exclusively or near-exclusively focused on the protagonists and their thoughts, while in the story from Flash vol. 1 #174, 8% of the story only shows heroic characters. So while the bad guys get more exclusive page time in Rogue War than they do in Flash #174 (62% of the page time vs 39%), so do the good guys...and the increase in page count for the good guys is much larger than the increase for the bad guys.

Or take Flash vol. 1 #243. Do you want to know how many panels the Flash appears in in this issue that aren't being narrated over by a villain? Three. He appears in three panels, out of 61 in the issue as a whole. That's 5% of the whole issue, and of those panels, only 1 of the 3 isn't technically part of Roscoe's wider narration. Close to 77% of the story is told from Roscoe's POV, and then another 12 to 13 panels (20-21%) is from the other Rogues' perspective. Combined, basically 97 to 98% of the whole issue is arguably just Rogues---and Flash doesn't appear in any capacity for half the story. Granted, this is a bit of an extreme case, but it definitely proves the notion that a story that focuses heavily on the antagonists is not new in Flash comics.

Similarly, Flash #266 is only about Heat Wave (and other villains) for 4 of its 17 pages (roughly 24% of the comic as a whole); Barry only has 2 pages to himself. The rest are split between them. In Flash #306, which has 18 pages, there are 2 pages that only show Mirror Master and 1 page that only shows Barry; the remaining pages are divided between them both. In Flash #307, while the Pied Piper isn't narrating the story as such, a solid 2-3 pages of the story are entirely focused on his background and backstory; this is roughly equivalent to the amount of solo page time Flash gets in the same story.

There are more examples, but I think you get the point. "Story that features the Rogues almost as much as the Flash himself" is not a recent development in Flash comics and definitely predates Geoff Johns.

#flash comics #flash rogues #math

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