#90s love triangle back from the dead

[stormandforge]

Reminder that Forge isn't on this variant cover because he's busy having a face-off with his 2 exes

(X-Force #6 variant cover by Carlos Gomez.)

(main cover by Stephen Segovia)

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

[agreeeeeeeeeee]

Hit Me Where It Hurts The Most p. 3 | S.B

feat. Sirius Black x Rowle!reader

SUMMARY: In an attempt to distance yourself from your brother, you inadvertently spend the afternoon with the Marauders, bringing you and Sirius even closer. Later, Rabastan extends an invitation you can't refuse.

CW: strong language, dark themes, kissing, failing love triangle, a whole lot of angst, toxic!brother, protective!Sirius, platonic!marauders, mentions of abuse, reader is traumatized and doesn’t know how to love or accept love properly (pls forgive her)

series navigation | part one | part two | part four | masterlist

You pushed past a gaggle of Ravenclaws into the library, only breathing when the door clicked securely shut behind you.

Thorfinn wouldn't be caught dead in the library. Especially since his face was still healing after Rabastan smashed it in four days prior.

The two days your brother had spent bed-ridden in the infirmary had been peaceful, quiet even, but it was short lived. He was back and surlier than ever, and you were desperate for a bit of respite.

The library was quiet, most students out enjoying the abnormally sunny day. It spilled through the stained glass windows, painting the floor and shelves watercolor, and creating delicious pockets of warmth while you walked through the aisles searching for a comfortable place to settle in.

“Y/n?” A male voice called, vaguely familiar. You turned on your heel, spotting none other than James Potter standing in the Spells section with you.

“Potter,” you said, dipping your chin in acknowledgment before turning to escape down a different aisle.

“Hey, wait!”

Shit.

James jogged after you, and you turned to face him, putting on your most disinterested scowl. “Yes?” You asked.

“Are you here to study?” He asked, glancing at the books in your arms, a few of the ones his very best friend purchased for you.

Does he know?

“No, I'm here to hunt lions,” you replied.

But he only chuckled, unperturbed by your attitude. Fucking Gryffindors. “Well, there's a pack of ‘em over here.” He nodded his head towards the back of the library. “Plus a snake. You should come, ah, hunt with us, yeah?”

“And why should I do that?” You quirked a suspicious brow.

“Because it's no fun to be alone.” He shrugged, oblivious to how hard his words struck you. “C’mon, we don't bite.”

You eyed him up and down, debating what you should do. Sure, you didn't want to be with your brother, but did that mean you wanted to be alone? You were always alone. Thorfinn made sure of it. You had no real friends that weren't hand selected by your parents, and you couldn't stand half of them.

Plus, there was a 90% chance that Sirius was there. You hadn't seen him since Hogsmeade, though you thought of him constantly, keeping his note stuffed in your pocket everywhere you went.

You longed to see him, apologize for how you treated him, how foolish you'd been. Tell him how much you wished it could be different, that it wasn't so…complicated.

But it was. Rabastan had kissed you, making his intentions crystal clear, and you had liked it. He wanted you. Sirius wanted you. And you had no idea what you should want, who you should want.

Your head pulled one way, your heart another, your soul being ripped in half.

“I know we don't know each other that well.” James said, interrupting your thoughts. “And I'm not going to push you. But, it could be fun, y’know, hanging out with nice people.”

You snorted despite yourself. He wasn't wrong.

“Lead the way, Potter,” you sighed.

His face lit up like he'd won the Quidditch Cup. “M’lady,” he said, offering you his elbow. You rolled your eyes, but looped your arm through his anyways.

Anxiety churned in your gut as he led you through the library, jabbering on about last week's Quidditch match, but you tuned him out.

Would Sirius be there? Would he be happy to see you? Angry? What would the rest of his friends think? Do they know who you are? Hate you already?

The two of you turned a corner into a cozy alcove, where several students sat around a large, round table surrounded by bookshelves.

Your eyes immediately locked onto Sirius’, who was perched on the edge of the table by the pretty, redhead girl that hangs out with Snape. His eyes widened, but he managed to school his reaction.

“Y/n!”

You turned just in time for Dorcas to crash into you, throwing her arms around your neck. You immediately exhaled in relief, leaning into her hug.

“Merlin, it's so good to see you,” she murmured, pulling back to cup your face. “Are you alright?” She whispered, and you forced a smile, nodding.

“Aren't you going to introduce us?” The redhead asked, her tone curt but not unfriendly.

“Oh! Everyone this is y/n Rowle,” Dorcas said, turning you to face the group.

You braced yourself for their negative reaction, but they only nodded, looking over you curiously.

“This is Lily Evans.” She gestured to the redhead, who gave you a warm smile. “And that's Peter and Remus.” Two boys sat to Lily's left, the smaller one waving shyly at you, while the other gave you a tight nod. “And you know my girlfriend, Marlene. And Sirius and James, of course.”

You nodded and smiled, waving at them. Sirius immediately clocked the bandages around your fingers, the bones still not quite set since you opted for the less painful treatment, and frowned.

You tried to hide them behind your books, but it was too late. You braced yourself for him to get angry, to start yelling and making threats, but his eyes only softened, laden with concern.

“Move, Padfoot,” Lily said, trying to shove Sirius off the table and shifting his attention. “Come sit by me!”

“Oh, uh, okay.” You walked over.

Sirius slid dramatically off the table and pulled the chair out for you. A giddy nervousness tingled under your skin at his proximity when you sat down, his fingers brushing against your back, his head leaned down by yours.

“Anything for you, darling,” he whispered while pushing your chair in. Before you could retort, he was walking back to his own spot between Remus and Marlene.

“So, what are you working on?” Lily asked, and that was all it took for you to welcomed with open arms. You and Lily talked for an hour about course work and other things while the boys bickered and teased in the background, Dorcas and Marlene too wrapped up in one another to pay mind to anyone else.

Sirius’ eye continually drifted back to you, assessing, but he never interrupted, or interjected. If anything, he seemed pleased that you were getting on with his friends, unbothered that he wasn't the center of your attention.

And you were surprised at how easy it was to talk with them all, how receptive they were to you and your opinions, genuinely interested in what you thought about things. James was right, it was refreshing to hang out with nice people who had no ulterior motive, nothing to gain from you.

With Thorfinn and Rabastan, all of them, really, you felt like a toy being tossed around. Theirs to play with until they got bored and cast you aside. Theirs to control, to mold. Even with Rabastan and all his charm, his tenderness, you knew he had something to gain from tying himself to you, and vice versa.

How much of it was genuine?

A chill raced down your spine at the thought and you shoved it away. You wouldn't let those thoughts ruin this afternoon for you, the first normal few hours you'd had in weeks.

You laughed at one of Peter's jokes, so loudly that you surprised yourself. A big laugh that made your head tip back on your shoulders, tears well in your eyes.

Merlin, when was the last time you laughed like that?

When you wiped the tear tracks away, giggling like an idiot, you noticed Sirius was smiling back at you, affection shining like stars in his eyes.

Your breath seized in your chest, butterflies rioting in your stomach. No one had ever looked at you like that before. Like your joy was their joy, and it turned your heart inside out.

A few more hours passed, everyone shifting around the table periodically until you ended up between Remus and Sirius, helping Remus decipher a text from his Magic History course.

Sirius was warm at your side, his spiced cologne tempting you to lean closer, but you resisted.

Watching the couples being openly affectionate, Lily stroking James hair while he talked, Marlene and Dorcas holding hands while they read, it made your chest ache. You wanted that, the easy affection, the simple gestures, and carefree vulnerability.

And when you imagined doing that with someone, holding hands, kisses on cheeks, mindless touches, it wasn't Rabastan you saw, but the boy sitting beside you, his long black hair hanging in his eyes while he worked on an essay.

How badly you wanted to tuck the hair behind his ear, place a kiss on his cheekbone before pulling away. Maybe his hand would rest on your thigh, knees knocked together. Or maybe he'd press a kiss to your inner wrist, a quiet ‘thank you’…

“Hey, y/n, what happened to your hand?” Peter asked, jarring you from your daydreaming, and the table fell silent.

“Oh, uh—”

Sirius’ eyes trained on the side of your face, his quill hovering over the parchment.

“I fell in the common room, caught myself wrong,” you said, shrugging a shoulder.

“And Pomfry couldn't just fix it?” Marlene asked, ignoring a warning look from Dorcas.

“No, uh, the damage was too severe for a spell, and I wasn't about to take Skelegrow for a few fingers,” you answered.

James grimaced. “How bad could a fall be?”

A hand landed on your knee, heavy and warm. Sirius.

“Drop it,” Sirius warned, glaring daggers at his friends, a stark contrast to the gentle way he was touching you.

They all went wide eyed and quickly turned back to whatever they were working on. Dorcas’ eyes flicked back and forth between the two of you, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards.

“Thank you,” you whispered to him and he squeezed your knee before releasing you, eyes dropping back down at his work.

“I'm starving. Are we ready for dinner?” Lily asked a few minutes later, clapping her book shut.

“Fuck yes,” James, Peter, and Remus said in unison.

Everyone shifted to get up, collecting their things and shoving them in bags, wondering aloud what would be served in the Great Hall.

“You joining?” Lily asked, stopping beside your chair.

“Oh, uh—” you glanced at Sirius, who was shelving one of his books on the other side of the table. “My brother is expecting me, but thank you,” you replied, hoping she knew you were being sincere.

It was actually Rabastan that was expecting you. He’d left a note on your bedside table asking that you eat with him around 7 pm. You hadn't seen him since he escorted you back to your room that day, but it wasn't uncommon for him and some of the others to disappear for days at a time, following orders you'd rather not think on lest you lose your lunch.

This entire time, you'd been trying to convince yourself that Rab was the logical, safe pick, but there was nothing normal or safe about that world. His world. The world that Sirius abandoned.

“Well, you're always welcome.” Lily squeezed your shoulder, following the others out.

“Pads, you coming?” James asked, pausing at the door. Sirius was still hovering by the bookcase, searching for something.

“I'll catch up,” he said, waving James away.

You almost laughed. For all his charm and smarts, Sirius was not great a subtlety.

But James didn't comment, winking at you before his girlfriend dragged him out by the collar. Soon, they were out of ear shock, and a reverberating silence settled over the alcove.

“Did you…did you tell them about us?” You asked, unable to bear the quiet.

“No, I didn't,” he said, shelving his book.

“Then why did they just…accept it?”

“Accept you, you mean?” He asked, turning to look at you. “James is still bent out of shape about the other day in Hogsmeade. He gets all worked up when he sees your brother in hall. And Remus and Peter don't care about your House, blood, or lineage.”

You mulled that over, trying to decipher what the catch was. What their motive could be.

It was like Sirius could see the gears turning in your mind. “Doll, they're just nice people. I know we aren't used to it, it took me ages to stop waiting for the metaphorical shoe to drop. But they really—they're just good mates, is all.”

“S’weird,” you mumbled, and he chuckled.

“It's normal, love. How we grew up…it's a far cry from normal. Or healthy.” He perched on the edge of the table beside you. “They're half the reason I left. I finally could see what else was out there.”

Silence fell between you, and you folded your hands in your lap, trying to hide your bandages. But of course, he noticed.

“I'll only ask once,” he said, lifting your chin so you'd look at him. His expression was deeply serious, jaw tight with tension. “Did Thorfinn break your fingers?”

You clamped your mouth shut, refusing to answer, but you couldn't stop the tears that welled in your eyes.

Evidently, that was all the confirmation he needed.

He eased off the table, lowering himself to his knees in front of your chair. “Does it hurt?” He asked, taking your hand in his and inspecting the bandages.

“Not anymore,” you sniffled, watching as he pressed a kiss to the back of your hands, your knuckles, your palm. Like his lips alone could heal you.

“I'm so sorry, love,” he murmured, meeting your eyes. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not unless you have some spell that can make me disappear,” you sighed.

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it, something mischievous sparking in his eyes. “Actually…come with me.” He tugged you up out of your chair, piling your books into your arms before steering you out of the alcove.

“Sirius, what are we—”

“You!” Sirius barked at a random Gryffindor boy. “I’ll give you ten galleons for your robes.”

“Sirius,” you hissed.

“Ten? Deal.” The student quickly shirked his robes and tie and tossed them to Sirius in exchange for a handful of coins. Then Sirius dragged you into an empty aisle and handed you the robes.

“What the fuck are we doing?” You asked, taking the robes from him.

“Going back to my dorm,” he replied, like it was obvious.

“That's very presumptuous of you,” you argued, fighting a smile.

“Not for that, unless—”

“Sirius.”

“Right, so James has something that might help if you ever need to make a quick getaway. I'll show you when we get there.”

You sighed. Leave it to the prank-masters of Hogwarts to have some weird, probably forbidden artifact. “Fine.” You tugged off your Slytherin robes, heat climbing up your neck at the way he was watching you with open appreciation. You pulled on the Gryffindor ones, a bit oversized, but fitting well enough to pass, and shoved your Slytherin ones into your bag.

Sirius smiled, his hands coming up to straighten your tie. “I like seeing you in my colors,” he hummed, shifting his weight to press you against the bookshelves.

“Down, boy,” you chastised half-heartedly, pushing against his chest. If only you were one of those regular couples, and you could snog anywhere and everywhere. No hiding, no sneaking around, no secrets.

“Just one? Please, baby?” He asked, the tip of his nose grazing your cheek.

You smiled, heat spreading under your skin, and pecked the corner of his mouth. “Lead the way, Padfoot.”

He grinned. “Padfoot? Only my friends call me that.”

“Aren't we friends now?” You teased, swiping your lipstick from his cheek with your thumb. “Or are we still pretending to hate each other?” You could hardly believe the words were coming out of your mouth, but it felt so good to be honest, to be real. You were so tired of the song and dance.

With Sirius, you could be yourself. You always could, it's why you felt comfortable pushing his buttons so much.

Deep down, you knew he was safe. It was caring for him that was risky.

“I'll be your lap dog if that's what you want.” He leaned into your touch, his hands finding your hips through the layers of fabric.

“Guard dog, more like,” you said, baring your teeth in a fake snarl, a poor imitation of the spine-chilling one he gave Thorfinn.

He chuckled, the sound low and borderline sinful. “Whatever you need, love.”

“Take me to your dorm,” you said, nudging him backwards.

His brows lifted. “For…”

“For whatever illegal thing you and your mates are harboring.” You shook your head, smiling, and Sirius smiled back at you, a soft, sincere thing.

“I think I've seen you smile more today than the entire time I've known you,” he said, making you blush. “Now c’mon, think you can try to act like a Gryffindor?”

"Obnoxious and self-obsessed? Think I can manage."

Sirius snorted a laugh, and lead the way. You traversed the halls together without rousing suspicion, and Sirius led you into his House’s common room.

You scrunched your nose at the decor. “So garrish,” you ribbed, and Sirius rolled his eyes.

“You literally live in a dungeon,” he argued, and you burst out laughing.

He led you up the stairs and into his dorm he shared with others. It was very burgundy and lightly cluttered, smelling distinctly of mens cologne and chocolate. Even after that short time knowing them, you could immediately tell whose bed was whose.

James had his broom resting by the headboard. Remus had a pile of books and an open chocolate bar on the side table. Peters was the messiest. And Sirius’ had a leather jacket hanging on the bedframe.

He started rummaging through James’ trunk, and you sat on the edge of Sirius’ bed, brushing your fingers over his quilt.

“There you are,” he said triumphantly, withdrawing what had to be the ugliest brown cloak you'd ever seen.

“And what on earth is that?” You asked.

With a flourish, Sirius wrapped it around himself—and vanished. You gasped, jumping off the bed.

“Sirius?” You asked, mouth hanging open in shock.

“Boo.”

You yelped, whirling around to find Sirius' head floating behind you, snickering at your response. He shrugged the rest of the cloak off, becoming visible once again.

“It’s an invisibility cloak. Very handy for quick escapes and sneaking around.” He waggled his eyebrows, setting it on the bed.

You stared at him in awe. “And James won't mind if I…?”

“Not at all. I'll square it away with him tonight.” Sirius reached for your hands, drawing you back towards him. “Your safety is the most important thing, okay? I need you to prioritize that above anything else.”

You nodded, his words bringing tears to your eyes.

“You could take that and disappear forever and I wouldn't blame you for a second,” he murmured.

“Why do you care so much?” You asked despite knowing it wasn't a fair question, nor one with a clear answer.

Sirius was quiet for a moment, looking down at your joined hands. “I--I saw you, y’know, ten years ago when my father kicked Kreature during that dinner? You threw a massive fit. Thorfinn laughed at you for getting so upset, so you put half the damned shaker of salt in his pudding when you thought no one was looking.”

You blinked at him, the memory filtering back, shocked that he had noticed you at all that day. Remembered it after all those years.

“And I saw when you helped a servant girl clean up a mess of spilled champagne. When you buried that dead bird that felt into the fountain in fifth year. Tried to scare me off when you thought your brother would pummel me. Let him take you away in Hogsmeade so none of us got hurt.” His fingers rubbed over your knuckles, grounding you both.

“I see you, y/n, and you're not like them. You aren't vicious, or cruel, or hateful. I just wanted to help you and I—” his voice fractured, laden with emotion. “I didn't expect…” he trailed off, meeting your eyes. “I didn't expect this.” He squeezed your hands, the only thing keeping you tethered to the earth as your heart swelled, threatening to carry you away like a great, big balloon.

“You have helped me,” you said, releasing his hands to wrap your arms around his neck. “I know you want me to worry about my safety—and I am. But Sirius, you—I feel like myself again because of you. Like I’m somebody, and not just—someones.”

His hand came up to caress your cheek, drawing you closer. “You’re everything.”

You closed the remaining inch between you, tugging him forward by his robes and crashing your mouth his. He groaned low in his throat, tongue sweeping across your lower lip in a request for more. You parted for him, battling his tongue for the first taste.

Suddenly, he lifted you into the air, your legs instinctively wrapping around his hips, and he laid you down on the bed, his weight settling between your legs, never once breaking the fevered kiss. You melted into the mattress, clinging to him as a wave of desperation seized you.

Suddenly, his words from the other day made sense. You were running out of time.

You didn't know what you wanted with Rab, or for your future, but you knew you weren't ready to let go of Sirius. To extinguish whatever connection burned between you.

But the path forward was murky, rife with threats. We're you willing to drag him back into the world he'd escaped from? To put him in danger once again?

The air constricted in your lungs, your muscles coiling with panic, and Sirius pulled back.

“Hey, hey.” Sirius sat up with you and caressed your face, catching the tears you didn't realize were falling. “What’s going on?”

You shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut. “I don’t know what to do,” you admitted.

Sirius stiffened. “Do you actually…care about him?” He asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I can’t tell. I can’t tell if I actually do, or if I’m just supposed to. If it’s me, or them,” you answered honestly, and you felt him pull away, eyes flashing with anger.

“He's a cunt, y/n,” Sirius said, blunt as a spoon. “And he’s lying to you. He doesn’t care about you, he only cares about the potential pure-blooded heirs you can give him.”

You gasped at him, shocked by his crass words.

“M’sorry, doll. That's just the truth. The Lestrange’s are awful, the whole bloody lot of them are.”

“I don't want to talk about this,” you muttered, retreating back behind your walls, hurt by his cold response to your honesty.

Sirius sighed, guilt streaking across his face. “I know, I know. C’mere.” He opened his arms to you, and you were powerless to resist the temptation. “We don't have to talk about anything. I just want you to feel safe, okay?”

“Even if it isn't with you?” you grumbled, pettiness letting your tendencies towards hate seep through.

“Even if it isn't with me,” he replied without hesitation, and it stunned you silent, banishing the darkness spreading in your mind. “You could go get some little cottage in London and never see me again, so long as you were away from them.” He nuzzled into your hair, taking a deep breath. “I could live with that,” he said, though his voice twinged with sadness.

No one has ever put your needs before their own. You've always been a bargaining chip, not a priority. Not something to be loved, but bartered. Used.

You sat up on your elbow, studying his face. “You mean that? I don't have to…choose you?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. You can choose whatever you want.”

“But we—”

“Darling, I would love if there could be a ‘we’,” he admitted, his fingers ghosting along your cheek. “But you are under no obligation to chose me because we’ve slept together, or because you didn't chose Rabastan. Your life is your own.”

You shook your head, tears burning behind your eyes again. “I don't think it is.”

He held you a little tighter. “It is. You can leave, like I did. I can talk to James—”

“Sirius—”

“I know you're afraid, so was I. And I know Thorfinn has made you feel helpless, but you're not, love. You're strong as hell—”

You shook your head. “You don't understand, Sirius.”

“What don't I understand? I grew up in it too! I was crushed under their heel too! But I left. And so can you.”

“You aren't listening!” You cried, jumping out of his bed, and he snapped his mouth shut, teeth grinding together. “I can't just leave.”

He climbed out bed, reaching for you. “But I—”

“Sirius, you're a man!” You shouted, and he staggered back. “You’ve always had more agency than I have. I was passed from my father, to Thorfinn, to Rabastan like a cigar. They each took a little bit more of me every time. There's nothing fucking left! I have nothing left!”

“Love—”

You angrily wiped at your cheeks, turning away from him. “Don’t,” you hissed when his hands fell onto your hips.

“You know that’s not true.” He murmured against you ear. “You’re so much more than a fucking pawn for them—”

“I need to go,” you said, jerking yourself out of his hold and tugging the Gryffindor robes over your head.

“No, baby, please don’t leave—” Sirius followed you towards the door. He caught your wrist, pushing a bundle of fabric into your hand: the invisibility cloak. “At least take the cloak, please.”

You almost refused, but rationality won over your emotions. You threw it over yourself, casting Sirius’ heartbroken face in an obscured haze, and you slipped out the door, throwing it shut behind you.

The walk to your dorm was a blur of tears, everything muffled and fuzzy through the cloak. As soon as you got back to your room, you shoved it to the bottom of your trunk and collapsed into bed, a mess of hiccuping sobs.

The clock tower rang seven bells, but you just pulled your pillow over your head, determined to rot in the safety of your bed until the castle crumbled around you.

“Darling,” a gentle voice cooed in your ear, cool fingers stroking your cheek.

You jerked awake, your dorm dimly lit with candles, moonlight spilling over your quilt. Rabastan was crouched beside your bed, heavy brow knit with concern. “Rab?” You croaked, throat dry from crying. Merlin, you must look like a wreck. Guilt sat like a bludger in your stomach, tugging you down, down…

“Are you feeling alright, love? I was worried when you didn’t come to dinner,” he said, speaking so softly, like you might startle.

"Sorry for missing dinner," you mumbled, unable to meet his eye.

"No harm done," he soothed. “Though, Thorfinn was incorrigible. Going table to table, demanding to know if anyone has seen you, throwing dishes, yelling at ghosts and portraits.” Rabastan chuckled at the cringing face you pulled. “He got so out of hand at the Gryffindor table that Potter got in his face—”

“What?” You asked, interrupting him. “Why would he do that?”

Rabastan shrugged. “You know Gryffindor’s, always sticking their noses where it doesn't belong. Whinging about justice or something. My cousin talked some sense into him before Thor beat him to a pulp, though.”

“Sirius?” You asked, feigning surprise. What the hell were they thinking?

Rabastan nodded. “Seems he hasn't lost all of his sense.”

“Where's my brother now?” You asked, anxiety coiling in your cut.

“Outside the door, I imagine.” Rab caught the nervous twitch of your mouth and frowned. “Don't worry about him, love. It'll all be sorted out soon.”

Soon. Your freedom, vanishing like sand through an hour glass.

“Do I need to take you to the infirmary again?” He asked, resting the back of his hand against your forehead. “You've gone pale.”

“Sorry, no, I—it’s just a headache,” you whispered, pulling the duvet up to your chin.

“Fragile thing,” he hummed, smoothing your bedraggled hair. “First your hand, now this. What am I going to do with you?” There was no malice in his voice, but it still stung. You were supposed to be perfect, but instead you were a mess. A shell of yourself.

“I’ll be better,” you said automatically, a phrase you often used to placate your brother. Tears were collecting along your lower lashes.

He shushed you. “None of that. It's alright to be fragile, little doe.”

“I just—I think I need a good nights rest,” you said, taking his big hand and squeezing it. “But thank you for coming to check on me.”

He brushed a kiss to your knuckles. “Of course. But, before I go—” your heart tripped over itself “—my parents are hosting a dinner this weekend, and your family has been invited as guests of honor.”

You almost laughed at the image of your father receiving that news. He'll be smug for a year.

“And I’d like for you to attend as my date,” he finished, thumb smoothing over your knuckles.

“I'd love to,” you whisper, nausea churning in your stomach.

Rabastan beamed, kissing your knuckles again. “I'm glad to hear it. Now, get some rest, my love. And I'll see you at the train station Saturday morning.”

“Goodnight, Rab,” you murmured, lowering your quilt so he could press a kiss to your temple.

“Goodnight, darling.” He blew out the candle by your bed and slipped out of the room. You heard someone shuffle out of his way, muttering an apology.

Thorfinn. You would cringe if you weren't about to faint.

You needed to figure out what the hell your were doing, and you had less than 48 hours to do it.

taglist: @lovelykat001, @carmenschemtrails, @lolalleins, @fangirl-swagg, @batboysanonymous, @watchmerora, @iheartnostalgia, @simars3, @elizabethblood9

[iloveaustinelvisandmannymore]

Only him

Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x reader

Summary: You always had a thing for retro games. When you got a old dating game from a pawn shop for practically free, you thought you were blessed. how wrong were you.

Warning: Yandere!Toji, Fictional love triangle, Horror? Al!sentient!Toji, Angst, Panty smelling, A hint of somnophilia, Perv!Toji, Domestic abuse, Manhandling, Smut, fingering, squirting, cum-shot, cream pie, hair pulling, choking, this is a dark fanfic.

Today was the best day ever! You had a good feeling about this day, but you didn't know why until now!

You squealed loudly as you stepped out of the local pawn shop, unable to help it; you danced with happiness and began to walk to your shoe box of an apartment while ignoring the disapproving stares of those who watched the scene.

The thud of your purse colliding with the floor didn't faze you, either when you almost tripped over your toss shoes. Too absorbed to care.

Flopping onto your bed, you took in the details of the Nintendo game card. The picture on the front was a bit chipped but it was still eye-catching. A pink heart sat front and center, with tiny red lettering of the title in the middle, and a park with cherry blossoms trees was the background. Mr. Right, hmm? I see about that.

Grabbing your old Nintendo Switch from your bedside table, you popped the card in the side and waited. A cheerful, 90s tune sounded out as the picture on the card filled your switch screen. With a smile, you turned to lay on your back as you clicked play, and once the pink screen faded, a menu of different features graced you. Character list?

The first roll of characters was less than eye-catching, and although the designs were made to be attractive, none captivated you. The second roll appeared to be just the same when two characters that stood side by side caught your attention. Black ragged hair lay on his forehead and almost covered the beautiful green eyes of the first character; they were like a freshly cut emerald, shined to perfection. His lips pulled up into a smug smirk, and an old scar ran down the right side of his mouth. The black jacket and white button-up shirt did nothing to hide his muscular build.

You gulped as your core pulsed.

The other character was just as handsome. His hair was white as snow, styled in a half down half spiked hairstyle, giving him a boyish look. His eyes rivaled the older man before him, pure light blue. Unlike the other character, his build was slimmer but no less attractive, his playful, cocky grin did things no real man could do to you.

Well, you knew what characters you'd be playing with.

Days passed and you couldn't put down your switch. Every lunch break at work was spent playing Mr. Right rather than eating and at night, the only light in your apartment was the screen light of your game. You were like a dead girl walking, dark bags under your eyes and a slouched posture; you swore you heard a kid's small scream as you placed down his and his mother's food on the table of the cafe where you worked.

So when things begin to go missing, you blame it on your tiredness. Surely, you must have misplaced them. You mean, who would break into your home to steal a few of your used underwear, o-or like your old t-shirts? Right, that's insane! You didn't think you were too interesting to be stalked; god you need to take a break from reading Yandere stories.

You shook your head and scoffed at yourself as you left your apartment, locking the door before you walked to work.

The room was purged in an eerie silence until suddenly loud, unsettling static screamed out of your left open switch. The lights of your apartment flickered rapidly as the sound seemed to grow louder when everything turned off, pitching the entire apartment building into darkness.

Toji stood in front of your twin-sized bed, running his hand over the imprint in the mattress when the light flicked on. He inhale shakily as the tips of his fingers traced the slight dip as memories flood his sick head, the nights he lay behind you his hands on your tits, pawing and squeezing them in his palms before he abandoned one breast as he runs his hand down your body to your warm cunt but just before he touched you there. He stopped. He couldn't. He wanted you to be awake to feel his love.

Toji stepped back, pushing the memory away as he moved around the small place you called home.

Shamrock orbs tailed around the quiet space, taking in the half-clean and half-messy state until they found the object of their desire. Toji walked in the direction of his favorite item, and without much thought, he snagged a pair of used panties from the laundry basket and buried his nose in the worn fabric. A deep rumbling groan escaped his chest and his eyes flattered shut. The scent of your old musky still clung to it, and he inhaled it like it was the most intoxicating, sweet smell. To him. It was. It was the essence of his goddess, his doll. The one who helped him see the value of life.

Without you, he'd never have broken away from his cured reality, who always seemed so eager to see him and..that white-haired punk. Toji shook his head, disgusted at the thought of the other man, and instead filled his mind with you. Toji spent the rest of the time you were gone to learn more and, of course, returned to the game after picking some trinkets along the way.

The game was starting to get a little weird. At first, it was normal. You'd interact with Toji, your in-game father none the wiser of the relationship between his daughter and best friend, then you'd hang out with your college classmate and friend Gojo. When you begin to notice every time you played with Gojo, a small chibi in the form of toji would peek around the corner of the screen every once in a while. Then it became more disturbing. You couldn't find the blue-eyed male anywhere; almost like he was completely deleted from the game.

On top of that, the older man would say and ask things that were too specific and too possessive. One day, he'd ask you where you went and who you were with when you suddenly had to leave your switch at home because of a family emergency. He'd go on about how he was your true love, and you simply thought maybe he was programmed that way, but it was no less creepy. You eventually just decided to take the day off from playing.

You woke up with a jump and groaned. Your phone vibrated and pinged with your chosen notification sound constantly. "Ya gonna answer me dollface?" A guff, baritone voice spoke in the empty room, and with a small scream, you slammed your back against the wall your bed was pushed against. Scanning hecticly for any human form.

"Over here." The voice spoke, closer than you heard the first time and to your right. Looking to your bedside table, sat your phone, lit up with an unnerving light; you picked it up with a shaking hand, and a cold dread settled within your stomach as Toji stared back at you with a small smirk, his eyes dark with such intensity. "There ya are. Hi, doll." His smirk widens at your terrified expression. "H-how?" Your voice cracked with fear, how was this possible? This couldn't be real; this only happened in movies! But apparently fucking not.

"Don't know myself, but that not 'mportant. You thought you could just ignore me? Doll this doesn't work that way." his smirk faded, and without warning, your phone suddenly flew out of your hand, crashing to the floor, and a blinding light overtook the space, blurring your vision. Once your vision came back, the beefy man stood before you, his eyes bore into you.

That was only the beginning of the nightmare that became your life. You were trapped in a place you once thought that nothing bad could happen to you as long as you lived there. Toji never let you leave his sight, food and other stuff you needed were ordered and brought to your door. Your phone and other devices were completely contorted by the man who currently seemed to watch your every move like he was taking you in. Many times, you tried to escape, but you came to the knowledge that although Toji could sleep, the moment your feet would touch the floor, Toji's eyes opened and, in a sleepy voice, asked where you were going. He was a light sleeper, that's just your damn luck.

Maybe...there was a chance you could tire him out enough he was knocked out cold, giving you enough time to escape. Now you were no virgin, you had your fair share of sex, so you thought it would be a piece of cake. Oh, how laughable.

Toji's thick digits, curled and pushed against that gushy spot in your spongy core, and his palm smacked against your poor, rubbed raw clitoris as you desperately tugged at his cock. You cried out as your head was pulled back by the strands of your hair. "There she is. C'mon on, doll, look at 'er," He whispered against your ear as he forced you to look into the mirror, his grip tightening as your pussy clenched. In the reflective glass, you look just as wrecked as you felt. Lidded eyes stared back at you as you took everything in, your hair was pulled into a ponytail by the man behind you, three of his fingers thrust into your puffy cunt, and squirts of slick jutted out to cover your thighs, his palm, and the floor. One of your hands holds onto his arm, and the other slides up and down his cock.

"ain't she the fuckin' prettiest?" Toji bit your earlobe as he no longer thrusted but began to shake his digits rapidly against your walls. You screamed as you violently came, clear liquid spraying out, drenching Toji's palm that rubbed your clit as he continued to finger you. Your hips jerked, your legs shook, and tears cascaded down your face; you looked like a slutty mess in the mirror.

"Fuuuck!" You hissed in pain, your hands barely catching yourself as your knees sit the hard wooden floor; the only thing that held you up, that being Toji's arm, was ripped away. Yet you had no time to truly feel the pain in your kneecaps as your locks yanked backward, training your orbs onto the man in all his naked glory, his strawberry pink tip wept pre-cum and the owner of such a beautiful tip, fisted his dick as he growled and snarled until he let out a groan and pearly, spurts of semen painted your face, to your cheek, nose, and chin.

"Fuckin' hell, doll," Toji panted, "s' beautiful covered in me." He wiped his seed off your chin with his thumb and spread it on your lip like a gloss, and without thought your tongue traced your bottom lip, tasting his cum. Earning yourself a pretty groan before you were pulled up from the ground and onto your wobbly legs. "Toji-i can't." You stuttered, your back hitting the mattress, crawling up the bed in a fertileless attempt to worm from his grasp, but his hands gripped your hips and pulled your back til your ass laid on his thighs, "T-too sensitive. Please." You begged basically to a wall.

"ya can handle me, my doll can handle anythin'." He cooed, his thumb rubbing the dip of your hip as his other hand, took the base of his member and lined up with your cunt. "Toji-plea-" your words were cut as you screamed, his fingers dug into your neck and his thick length buried itself in your snug pussy

"Mmmm..Shiiiit babydoll!" Toji laughed as he stared down at where he disappeared into you, slowly drawing his hips back, "She's squeezin' me, nugh..think she's lovin' my dick." Toji's wicked green eyes glanced up, and with a nasty grin he snapped his hips, and your mouth dropped as you openedly moaned, tossing your head back against the pillow. Your thighs were pushed to the side as The older man put all his weight onto you and used it to drill you into the mattress. "You..mmfuck like this? Betcha do, takin' my cock like a champ." He chuckled, groaning at the end as your pussy clenched at his words. You babbled in denial and shook your head. You didn't want to give him an even bigger ego, but you couldn't help the mewl that left your lips as his fingers squeezed the sides of your neck and his other fingers entangled in your hair, "Don't fuckin' lie to me, girl." He sneered, his heaving chest against your smashed breast as his hips snapped, not missing a step behind him, "Jus' let me make that..fuck..pretty pussy cum." He lowered his voice, almost like he was begging you, as he gently kissed your chin, his hand letting go of your hair and his grip loosening around your neck.

You nodded desperately, you gave up on pretending like you weren't losing your mind from this pleasure, and the way it felt his cock felt was in your tummy, or the pleasurable stinging of his hefty ball smacking against the carve of your ass. The softness in Toji melted away like it was just a show, an act, and a wicked, nasty grin was your one warning. His beefy biceps wrapped around your thighs, and he stood up. Your shoulder was the only thing besides your head that stayed on the bed. The echo of your ass smacks against his hips, the wet, squelching echo as he rapidly pounded your slick drooling cunt, the cream of your sex and his pre-cum that framed his base, and the new punishing angle was all it took. You came, your slick gushing down your body.

"Mmfuc..you're milkin' me baby doll." Toji moaned, his cock throbbed as he stilled to a stop as his cum flooded your womb and walls. You had a second to catch your breath before Toji resumed his brutal fucking.

Your eyes slowly open, adjust to the darkness of the room and turn to Toji, the said man in question, lying beside you, sleeping peacefully after multiple rounds, and yet somehow, someway, you were conscious; maybe someone was rooting for you out there. Inhaling you softly planted your feet on the cool wood and lifted your weight. Not a single stir.

Hope gripped your chest as you quietly put on the clothes you wore that were fling when you seduced Toji. Every cautious step towards the door was like you could finally breathe, and once you touched the handle of the door and twisted it open, you could taste your freedom.

Burly appendages wrapped around your stomach, and you yanked away from the door, ripped away from your only chance at escape. "LET ME GO!!" You screamed and thrashed in his arms. "Ya thought I was stupid? Huh?" He grunted as he tightened his hold as you doubled your efforts. "DAMN IT LISTEN TO ME!!" Toji yelled, turning you around. "N-" you tried to scream, to call for help, do anything, but all you could do was stare up at Toji in shock after your body barreled onto the floor by the force of his slap. "You think I'm dumb? You showed no sign of sexual arousal to me until now. Ya thought I wouldn't have known you were gonna pull some shit like this after we fucked?!" He sneered, pulling you onto your feet by your arm, his other hand on your back.

"You ain't leavin' me," Toji vowed. The low static sound that hung in the background became louder as the light bulbs flickered. "I'll make sure of that." The screening static grew more deafening until it all stopped; the bright light of your switch faded away, and no later did it slam shut.

Locking you from the real world forever.

@ilovewriothesley, @scratkount , @tojishugetiddies, @shyartnerd564, @blobkvna, @1800imgay, @plsthinkabtme @karla91663, @pierrotandsam , @miau-ficreader, @tojispepperonis, @darkstarlight82, @crimbabyops , @verlhfghhy, @xxmaddhatter39xx , @grima4lurking, @littlesealpup

[kalinara]

So this post, by @rei-ismyname, got me thinking of how I see Logan with regard to the Logan/Scott relationship specifically. This was intended to be a reply, but it got away from me, so I thought I'd turn it into its own post.

This is going to get long and very incoherent. And possibly not all that flattering to Logan in parts. Sorry.

I don't know if I see Logan as quite so Freudian myself, though I think it's a fascinating analysis.

I think for me, there's an element of the Scott-Logan and Jean-Logan dynamics that start off interestingly separate. Maybe it's because, initially, Jean never really seemed to return Logan's feelings. But there wasn't as much of a sense of "triangle" back in the early Claremont issues for me.

Logan was attracted to Jean, went after her, was rebuffed, and kept going. He had moments with Scott, like when he was judging Scott for not grieving her enough in the Savage Lands, when she and Hank were presumed dead. But generally that seemed to be a separate thing.

Whereas with Scott, we had the sort of maverick vs. leader dynamic. Scott is younger, more uptight, less experienced (in a military capacity, anyway), less traditionally macho, and Logan clashed with the idea of taking his orders. But pretty quickly, they did fit into a sort of bickering respect - Logan threatening Hawkeye when the latter insulted Cyclops, going to Scott during the whole demerit thing in general.

They do fall pretty quick into that "I'll follow you to hell, bitching all the way" sort of dynamic. And most of that seems to develop without Jean present (she wasn't, after all, officially part of the team at first, then she was presumed dead, then she was actually dead.)

In the 90s, things get a bit murkier, because the love triangle heats up and becomes a little more reciprocal on Jean's part. But Jean and Scott had gone through all of their real emotional turmoil in X-Factor, when Logan wasn't around, so by the 90s, they were pretty solid. Then you get things mashed together a bit.

And also during the time apart, Logan's had his own shift from stab-happy wild man to that more noble drifter cowboy meets Kurosawa type. So we get a shifted dynamic, where Logan's attraction to Jean becomes a lot more overtly romantic, in a certain courtly way. We get a lot more emphasis on the "she makes me want to be a better person" element of their dynamic here too.

Meanwhile, the 90s also give us Scott at what's probably his most emotionally and morally stable place. He's past his trainwreck stage (and Logan didn't get to see most of that), and has settled into a confident upright leader.

So we essentially end up with a kind of Lancelot, Guinevere, Arthur thing. (Honestly, I've always thought Jean made the better King Arthur, but we're talking Logan's perspective. And honestly, I've always thought that Logan has a bit of an issue with toxic masculinity and overly-rigid gender roles.)

So while there's still the sparky bickering between Logan and Scott, for the most part, it's comfortable. Any attraction Logan feels gets sublimated into respect (kind of like his dynamic with Captain America. I tend to assume most people are at least a little in love with Steve Rogers, and Logan's no exception.).

But it all sort of melds together into Logan being romantically in love with Jean, sublimated attraction-into-respect for Scott, and then ultimately idolizing their relationship on a whole. Which has the awkward effect of putting Scott on a pedestal, because he's the man Jean chose over Logan. So of course, he must be a paragon of virtue.

(The fact that Scott's trainwreck tendencies are still there pops up occasionally, but generally goes unnoticed.)

But then we get Apocalypse - and a Scott stripped bare of his illusions. But still possessed of his moral code. Mostly. He's wounded, but still pretty forthright. Then we have the situation with Emma. And Jean's death. And that's when things get a lot...sparkier. The bickering starts getting a bit more heated again.

Honestly, they're probably the slashiest they've ever been during that period between Jean's death and the Schism. And Logan seems to have a weird sense of judgmental entitlement over Scott during this time. He still respects him though, but things are starting to fray with Utopia and X-Force, and everything crashes down in the Schism, when the last of Logan's illusions about Scott shatter.

I've said before, I think that their whole dynamic would have been a lot healthier if Logan had realized that Scott, beneath the facade, is a lot more like Laura Kinney than he'd ever been like Steve Rogers.

But he didn't figure that out and now he's heartbroken, angry, and can't sublimate the fact that he kind of wants to fuck him into that whole Captain America/Paragon of Virtue veneration anymore. Nope, dude, that stirring in your loins doesn't come from the fact that you're in the presence of one of the Truly Good Men. You just want to fuck that trainwreck.

And honestly, I think Hank has a bit of the same thing. But Hank/Scott is a whole separate essay topic. I think Hank and Logan kind of fed off each other at this time. So we get things like the Cyclops-dartboard. When we both know that's not the penetration they really want to do.

What? I was talking about claws? What did you think I was talking about?

(Okay, that too.)

I think the post Schism/pre AvX dynamic is fascinating adolescent on the part of Logan (and Hank). I can't help but maybe conflate this a bit with the fact that Logan only relatively recently regained the full memories of his life, while Hank has that whole arrested development child soldier thing that most of the O5 have deep down. And they both start acting a bit like the bitter dorks in high school, watching the Homecoming King and Queen.

Which is a little bizarre considering that Scott and Emma are holding Utopia together by the skin of their teeth and intentionally trying to present it as a lightning rod for anti-mutant sentiment in order to keep the school safe. But things aren't necessarily rational there.

But then we have AvX. And everything goes from hilariously adolescent to absolutely tragic.

Because no one makes it out of that mess okay or whole. And Logan, in particular, has to go full on aggressor, because if he stops and thinks about it, he might well realize that if any one person could be the cause of this mess: it could be him. HE's the one who went to the Avengers, after all. Scott's plan with the Phoenix was batshit, but it might have been resolved differently if the Avengers hadn't gone in there all OOC heavy handed, guns blazing.

Scott, meanwhile, has lost some of his Utopia edge, and found a new easily romanticized role as suffering martyr. We start to see events that might lead to a resolution: Kitty and the O5 switching sides, a lot of realizations from a lot of people that Scott isn't the villain he's playing on television, and so on. (There's also the O5 putting a human face on the man that Logan's convinced himself he hates. And a version of Jean that's completely horrified and disgusted by him...)

And then Logan dies, and his role's taken by a dude from a side comic with no connection to any of these characters of events. And no, I'm not bitter about Old Man Logan at all.

(Sure, he was fun in his OWN comic. But there's shit going on here and he's not a part of it!!!)

Then there's the fucked up weirdness of Scott's death, his unspoken terrible acts (that eventually amounted to destroying a cloud), and so on.

Once both characters have resurrected, we get an interesting return, almost, to that post Jean's death dynamic. They're again in a foxhole, desperate. Scott's relying pretty heavily on Logan at this time, even as they rebuild the dregs of the team for their last stand.

Then Rahne leaves, dies. Logan skips the funeral to go after her murderers. And then when he returns, covered in her murderers' blood, he and an angry Scott have it out and he storms off, with the unfair accusations all over again. (This time, it's more apparently that Wolverine's lashing out because of his own wounds, but it's not very pleasant to experience.) He does make up for it a bit by coming back for their last stand. Which is, maybe, a bit romantic in its own right.

And then...Jean and the original team reappear and Jean immediately shoves her tongue down Scott's throat while Logan and Emma both look a little bitter.

And then we have Krakoa, and I know I've bitched about not seeing the foundation of the Throuple. But in a weird way, it does kind of work for me. The euphoria of their new sanctuary, the realization that death is no longer a thing, the return of lost loved ones (like Alex, who'd died recently in Rosenberg's run), and so on - it made a place, and a moment, where the sublimation can just be the truth.

Scott and Jean are Scott and Jean. They have their family again. Logan is welcomed into the family as occasional partner. Nate's "Uncle Logan". He gets to come on family vacations.

Logan still gets to be Logan, though, and do his own thing. As much of a romantic as he is, I'm not sure I buy him ever actually settling down to domesticity. But this works out fairly well.

There are still some hints of tension though. I like bringing up the "Scott in a Speedo" scene, not just for the expression of attraction - I've seen it dismissed as a "joke", but I still don't see how that works as a joke either of them would tell - but also for the actual scene.

In it, we see Scott, conflicted over the Crucible and his mixed feelings about the more...religious elements of Krakoan society, looking for something from Logan - maybe reassurance, maybe just commiseration? That the latter isn't willing or able to give him. "Go find a priest." He says.

Everyone's going to have their own interpretation, but my read on it, in the context of their complicated relationship, is that Logan's happy to enjoy the idyllic interlude that Krakoa's given them, but he doesn't want to go deeper. He doesn't want to talk about their underlying issues or be the support that Scott needs at this time. It's an emotional commitment that he's not ready to make.

In his own comic (or possibly X-Force, they blur together for me), Logan expresses dislike regarding Krakoa, feeling like it's fostering a false sense of safety and security.

I feel like that might be why Logan is the way he is in this scene. They haven't resolved their issues, and where Scott's overture might indicate that he'd like to, Logan isn't open to that now.

And I think that's the Watsonian reason that we don't see very much with these two beyond a couple of Pride issue panels of the trio having a good time together.

I don't think the Throuple really lasts that much beyond this either. We have that funny bit where Teen Nate has called in a favor to have Logan comfort his parents after his departure. We have a few Jean/Logan moments in X-Force, but they're pretty shallow, all things considered. Some light making out. A single scene of sex in a hot tub.

Beyond that, we have that bit where she's trying to help him telepathically in X Lives of Wolverine, but she'd have done that for him even if they weren't banging.

And then, nothing. Scott and Jean are doing fine in the X-Men (eventual Brood argument notwithstanding), Logan is doing fine in his own book. But the Throuple seems...done.

Oh, maybe that bit in AXE where Jean is having issues for failing her test and Logan's all "anyone who'd fail you and pass me..." bit of reassurance. But again, that's the sort of thing he'd have said even if they weren't fucking. (I also wish he were able to comfort her without making it all about HIS issues, but that's a separate essay!)

There are a few parts that annoyed the shit out of me though. In both X Lives of Wolverine and later toward the end of his own comic, Logan lists Xavier and Jean as members of his found family. Saying shit like how their broken edges come together to make a more profound whole.

Scott, who is Xavier's son, Jean's husband, and the man whose house Logan STILL LIVES IN, doesn't get a mention.

(Doylistically, I theorize that maybe Marvel wanted to downplay the Throuple implications already. But I don't know.)

Nor does Storm, Kurt, Kitty, Jubilee, or a lot of other people who'd fit into that category too, including his actual children, mind you. But this isn't an essay about them.

And then there's Fall of X/Fall of the House of X. We do know at one point, Logan was involved in a rescue mission for Scott which fell through because Xavier called Rasputin away to go help him kill a thirteen year old.

Then there's nothing but a mostly civil exchange in X-Men #1, where Logan decides to go off on his own to run with wolves after he's rescued, and then that snide comment in Uncanny.

Scott's not really mentioned Logan either, except maybe that bitter little "everyone likes HIM" as a response to Magneto's amazing accusation of "logan behavior".

So...I don't really know how I see their relationship dynamic now. I was hoping for some interaction in Raid on Graymalkin, but the closest we got was Logan saying to attack if Scott touched his temple.

(Doylistically, that may be all we get. If Marvel thinks interaction might fuel the Throuple implications, we may not get anything else for a long time, which sucks.)

Watsonianly, I think maybe it's as simple as the idyllic Krakoan interlude being over. Jean's in space and unable to smooth things over. (Also, I'm not actually sure how I think Logan will take the whole Phoenix side of Jean's personality. They'd been considered two separate entities by the time the triangle really started up...). And whatever attraction that Scott and Logan have for each other is back to being sublimated in unnecessary antagonism and bitterness.

It's a shame, really.

(I do think if the Throuple does end up rekindling, Logan shouldn't get to join back up until he actually apologizes though. Hmph.)

[aroaceleovaldez]

thoughts on leo valdez? headcdanons? i

[stares at own url] ...I'll give you one for free, lol

Aro/ace Leo.... listen. He explicitly states that he plays up his false persona in aspects that he feels are lacking in his actual personality in an effort to make people like him more, and in his POVs we get a lot of him doing acknowledged-as-nonserious joke-flirting as part of his false persona. Guy who doesn't realize he's aspec trying to overcompensate for his lack of attraction by excessively hitting on people to hide that he doesn't feel attraction towards anyone? Him wondering if he's broken in a whole bunch of ways and trying to make up for it externally while having an identity crisis about that? Something something metaphor about him wondering if cause he's a Hephaestus kid he's a little too much like a machine/robot and can't feel love or The Right Emotions In General™ because of that cause he doesn't know about aspec stuff yet (or that he's autistic)? Can anyone hear me.

Related to that: Leo landing on Ogygia (island of unreciprocated love) and meeting Calypso, who (probably through love magic) actually seems to be attracted to him? And him trying to force himself to reciprocate because he figures that's just how it's supposed to go and maybe for once he's actually experiencing romantic love? And he's so desperate for someone to like him and to feel useful to someone (re: 7th wheel)? But it fizzles out almost immediately after they leave the island, because the heart-eyes wear off for Calypso, especially once she technically no longer needs him, and Leo can't keep up trying to make himself reciprocate (and can't keep up trying to put his mask back up for her, especially now that Calypso seems to actually care about it). I am literally always thinking about this.

Short king,,, I don't care what anybody says he is NOT 5'6" that is way too tall for him. My guy is 5'5" absolute maximum. I usually place him at 5'3". Tiny guy. Made of pipecleaners. Built like Bilbo Baggins...

I've mentioned it before in a couple of places (i know [here] at least) but I did not like his fake-out death in BoO. Also I'm just mad about his dropped character arc(s) in general. My ideal substitute is that instead of dying and being revived, Festus just crashes in the woods nearby and Leo has overexerted his powers too much a la Nico's shadow stuff and is nearly dead but once they get him to the infirmary he recovers and can start working on recovering from his whole depression arc too. Also maybe he loses a leg in the crash so he can match his dad just for funsies, and so that there's some amount of consequence to his sacrifice to make up for him not dying (not like in canon there were any consequences to him dying and being revived anyways...). Also something something accidental Hiccup HTTYD joke. Leo with a prosthetic is always fun. More Hephaestus kids with prosthetics.

I am very amused by the concept of Leo never having any romantic attraction to Hazel at all, possibly even negative romantic attraction once he finds out she dated his great-grandpa (especially since in canon like 90% of his thoughts about Hazel are just kind of appreciative and genuinely thinking she's really cool, if a little confusing at first), and Hazel pretty quickly gets over her side of things once she gets used to the fact that this is Definitely Not Sammy, he just Looks Like Sammy (and does not actually act like Sammy, that's just a fake persona that is eerily similar by coincidence. Real Leo is actually quite reserved and not so much of a vocal goofball most of the time). So they're just besties after their mutual weird Sammy vision and understanding the deeper sides to each other and are each other's person they're most comfortable letting their guard down around cause they've formed that level of trust. Except Frank's over in the corner seething cause he thinks this is a love triangle but he's the only one who thinks that. Leo just thinks Frank hates him for the general reasons he thinks everybody hates him (which is just an assumption he's kind of used to and expects from people, so he does not question it at all). Hazel knows Frank thinks Leo is trying to steal her from him but she's having trouble trying to keep the two of them from nearly killing each other. It's a very homestuck auspistice dynamic.

Leo and Frank eventually work out their stuff and become very good friends to meeee... let them bond over their mutual fear of fire and dead mom trauma! they have so many parallels and I want the two of them and Hazel to be a funky cute little trio!

Dragonkin Leo! That boy is a dragon!!!! I usually say his stuff is kind of spiritual origin (he doesn't really know how to explain it other than his soul is just a dragon) versus like Jason being a wolf therian with a more psychological origin (being raised by an immortal wolf pack rubbed off on him) (rip Piper being the only non-alterhuman in their trio LMAO). I imagine whatever type of dragon he is probably is very similar to Festus, which is part of why Leo clicks with Festus so quickly - he just sees himself in Festus and it's very comforting to him. He definitely makes himself some fun 'kin gear, like a nice weighted tail and wings and claws to try and help his phantom shifts feel a lil less wonky. Also him having dragon talon weapons just sounds cool. He also totally makes gear for any other alterhuman demigods.

[bluginkgo]

Alright, people help me out. I think I'm losing my mind with how ridiculously closely I'm looking at this. Cause I'm probably scrutinizing this too much, and it's simply a design choice.

But what is up with the diamond/triangle cores that all drones have?

Ramble and spoiler warning I guess

Every worker drone has their WD picture on their core. As seen on multiple occasions where it's peeking through clothes and on dead bodies in Doll's apartment.

Granted, we don't see everyone's cores peeking through. Braiden, for example, is wearing a whole suit. So is Khan, who wears an extra shirt and a jacket over. But the thing I'm looking too closely at is Uzi.

I love her design, it's probably the most fun to draw honestly. But it infuriates me on this one occasion. The shirt/top she wears under her jacket is just high enough to hide her core. In the concept art Liam gave us though, her shirt is sagging much lower and exposing the diamond core and still not showing the usual WD symbol. But then again, the rest of his concept art does lack some of the usual things we see in the show.

Like here, Lizzy is missing her core. (But my god, do I love his style. It would have been awesome to see Murder Drones as 2D show.)

Back to my ramble, though, what infuriates me about Uzi's design is that it's very teasing. Or to me at least, who looks at tiny details and says "Hmm is this a clue?" When 90% of the time it isn't. The design teases my mind to think that something is up with her core. From the amount of the core that's showing, we ought to see maybe like the top part of the hat from the WD symbol showing, like with some of Uzi's classmates. But it doesn't? So of course my mind goes to, could have the Absolute Solver done something that affected her core?

Very unlikely and I'm just looking too deep into this. Why? Well, Doll, that's why!

Doll has been using the Absolute Solver way longer than Uzi. And her core is still the usual WD symbol. Not to mention, both Yeva and Nori still had the WD cores present after the core collapsed.

But what makes me still rather suspicious is the drones that were in Cabin Fever labs, have a very specific outfit. A tattered dress, with the v cut suuuper low. This cut exposes the core symbol, and makes me suspicious if the Absolute Solver can in fact affect the cores. The humans that were in charge of the Cabin Fever labs needed to watch and examine every part of the drones that were infected with the solver string, so that might easily explain the design choice for that.

I don't know, what do you guys think. ^_^

[atopvisenyashill]

9, 12, and 25?

9. worst part of canon

okay let me dig into the dothraki thing - what annoys me the most is that he compares the dothraki to is ~great plains horse riding tribes~ but there is NOTHING of them culturally in the dothraki or even in their setting!! the apache comanche navajo and other plains nations have such a rich history and i get george probably didn’t have access to that sort of information in the 90s but god he doesn’t even try!! i don’t know a lot about mongolian history but i would hazard a guess that the dothraki bear no resemblance to the actual khans that existed in the mongolian empire. there’s like an attempt to characterize dorne. there’s not even a tiny attempt to flesh out the dothraki or the lhazareen as cultures.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

okay i think this series has been around long enough that there’s not really unpopular characters bc everyone has their own mini fandom. i think you can find like a good hundred stans of every character in the series atp and i think that’s a fun change from when i first entered the fandom and people would make metas with lines like “sansa the bitch in the north begging for scraps” and this got reblogged by ~serious people~ in this fandom without comment. i think the fandom blowing up in size made some things worse, bc sometimes the h particles in this fandom go crazyyyyy but i also do like that when i say “i think sansa and theon are gonna be in love” while at work, i get taken seriously now.

that said, obviously it’s joffrey. idk what it is about this kid that makes people unable to see his complexity, despite his death being seen through the eyes of arguably his two biggest victims in tyrion & sansa, and both of them only feel grief and anguish at his death! he was born into an awful situation and it turned him into an awful person and he is dead before he’s had two decades of life.

i think cersei also gets this treatment, this refusal to engage with her complexity, which is why you get so many people who will call her ~jaime’s abuser~ when it’s just so much more complicated than that, or the guys on reddit who think robert should have beat her more. i think they both make people uncomfortable bc a lot of people know if they were in that situation, they’d absolutely crack up under the pressure too. they would not stay good people and they don’t wanna think about it so joff & cersei must simply be born evil! i feel like in the Fandom Right Now, they’re the two that really get that the most in several places and i think it’s crazy, cersei should be winning “best character in all of history” awards man!!!!

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

don’t love the idea that brienne shouldn’t fuck jaime bc shes ~too good for him, i think this is flying too close to madonna whore stuff and the jaime/brienne/cersei triangle is RIFE with this it’s like catnip for people, and this is bc jaime himself idealizes both women as madonnas and whores BUT for brienne it’s like. her story is about learning she’s allowed to be a woman in however way she wants to be, and she can be a knight and also crave sex and romance, she’s not a freak in a dress for desiring fine things like any other woman of her station. finding a sexual and romantic partner who looks at her and feels LUST and feels LOVE is imo a very important part of her character arc and i think the idea that she has to settle for someone like connington is crazy and also like, mean 😭😭 it just forces her back into that mold of the madonna to cersei’s whore and i don’t like it!!

[lost-inanotherlife]

Lost Rewatch S3 - Random Thoughts

As I've stated before, in stops and starts season 3 was quite cringe-y. Of course, we're still navigating high-quality storytelling waters but you know there's something a little wrong when writers admit to being in shortage of creative ideas by episode NINE (the much-talked about "Stanger in a Strange Land"). As a result this post might sound a bit S3-negative although, as I've just said, I'd never question the writers' command of the narrative. It's just that some stuff didn't really work out for me this time, that's all. I'll sprinkle-sprinkle some positivity too 'cause this season gave us all some mind-blowingly intense and beautiful moments, too. We can never forget those.

Starting off strong with our lovingly island-made love triangle: Jack/Kate/Sawyer that's not so slowly becoming a love square. Not a fan of how Kate and Sawyer got together, I'll be honest. Yes, the trauma of being kidnapped, forced to haul rocks and live in cages makes a human do crazier things, still... They put on a pretty dress on Kate and all of a sudden everybody goes "woa" (very 90's "chick flicks", didn't they have EYES before?), Sawyer is smashing rocks under the sun, sweating his own weight off but can't seem to resist the urge to look at her ass and kiss her, Kate herself is working her ass off (sorry for the pun, couldn't resist haha) and, well, the shots very much highligthed that by focusing on her ass... Guys, it was cringe to watch. And yes, the kiss was a distraction and blah, blah, blah. Again: cringe. All of a sudden Kate's madly in love with Sawyer which, you know, I'd have dug if they'd continued to show how their flirty relationship evolved instead of going from their sarcastic banters to extreme "I love yous" desperately screamed at gun point. Same goes for Jack by the way: for most of S2 Jack and Kate are on looser terms compared to the closeness of S1. after their kiss Kate's way closer to Sawyer because she chose him. Jack and Kate are not together and don't speak very much for, possibly, the whole duration of s3 and all of a sudden Jack's all "I love you". I don't see the crescendo of this love, therefore I don't fully buy it. Not gonna lie, the scenes were beautiful and very well-acted but these guys have spent weeks without talking to each other lol. They did the same exact thing in S2 as I've said before and I didn't particularly enjoy it in S2 so it's not like I wasn't gonna see it repeating itself in S3.

The majority of the flashbacks shown in this season are... how can I put it? Not au pair with the usual Lost-esque quality. Particularly not excellent, let's say, were the already mentioned "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Enter 77" and "I Do". Also, please but Desmond's and Kate's wigs in their flahsbacks are plain awful. Please stop.

Conversely, "Left Behind" was a fucking good flashback story. Kate-centric episodes are either meh or extremely good for me. I think she's one of those characters that when you find the right vein to write her, you write an incredbily layered, unbelievably complex character. When you don't, her character feels quite flat and it's a pity.

I might be in love with Juliet?! When I watched S3 for the first time in 2007 I deeply disliked her. Maybe I was too young to appreciate her character, she's not a clear-cut archetype like the other main characters are: more lived life helped me understand her better and now I'm deeply in love with her. I love how you can never predict what her little cute smirk means, she's a bit of a mystery but, unlike Kate, she's as such not because she has something to hide from her past (at least until now lol): she's enigmatic because that's who she is, she's very "torn-in-two" character. Love it.

I'm not liking all these dead women on my screen. Locke couldn't kill his father, couldn't kill Jack but he could sure as hell plant a knife in Naomi's back. The two persons guarding the submarine hatch had to be women and they had to die, didn't they? Of course, the mothers are dying on the island, of course the mob in "The Cost of Living" had to shoot just a woman, of course Bea Klugh had to be killed by Mikhail, of course "Tricia Tanaka is Dead". I was quite growing fond of Tom and was saddened by his death but I ultimately think that if they kept sparing white guys while killing off women and black people in general in the blink of an eye they'd have a real problem. Well, as a matter of fact they still do. They should've done better.

John's "shamanic journey" in "Further Instructions" is very offensive. Shamanic practices are serious things that must be done seriously. But hey, here's our "connected-with-the-island-lazarus-rising" white old man, let's have him enter a sweat lodge, prepare a slop of something so that he can have a vision and resolve this knot in the plot. No, thank you.

I don't agree with people bashing on "Exposé": I think it's a good episode. In fact, I appreciated the Other Losties' POV (Arzt you won't be forgotten!). The real problem is that it's just that: other, plot-unrelated people's pov, nothing really new was added and the characters were eventually killed off so what's the point lol? What I want to say is that it's a good filler episode and I enjoyed it but at this point in the series, filler ep for filler ep, I'd have preferred one that was "-centric" to one or more of the main characters. But hey, I get what I can and, all in all, good ep.

Now, I know that one of the main themes of this season is the impossibility of going back: it was very artfully written to lead us to the season finale's big reveal. Fine, good, intellectually I love it. Instinctually when in a story I see characters going from point A to B and then going back to point A in the span of the same episode or the following I... well, I don't take it well lol. It's a pet peeve of mine, really, but COME ON. It's a way to milk a narrative thread for all its worth. It's a way to buy narrative time without resorting to fillers. But sometimes you just need to let it go and come up with a better idea presto. I'm talking about Kate going back to find Jack as soon as she arrives at the beach. How in hell did Kate know that Jack was on the main island and not still on Hydra? And how did John connect the dots between the writing on Eko's stick and Jack's whereabouts? And why did the Others just leave their barracks, in which they had lived for years, instead of just killing Kate, Sayid and John? Come on. These guys have killed for way less.

The best fucking line of the whole season is Charlie's: "It's the five best moments of my… sorry excuse for a life. My greatest hits. You know, memories. They're all I've got." Chills, literal chills.

"Flash Before Your Eyes" is a totally cringe episode. Everything feels exactly what it is: a set, a prop, a wig on the actor's head, lol. Twenty years ago I was still a naive girl fangirling over Desmond and Penny's relationship but now I know better. Des was a lot of a dick toward Penny, let's be real. He was obsessed with this "honor", with feeling "worthy" and totally took it out on her. She was right, he was indeed a coward. I wish they had given a different backstory to Des. Maybe it's because it's so similar to (re it's the same as) Jin and Sun's story but it didn't land for me this time. I don't see the same "epicness" in their love story that I'd first seen back in the 00'.

Eko's "Redemption-Not-Redemption" arc is the best thing of this season. I have no words to describe it so I'll just leave his final speech here. INCREDIBLE.

I ask for no forgiveness, Father. For I have not sinned. I have only done what I needed to do to survive. A small boy once asked me if I was a bad man. If I could answer him now, I would tell him that... when I was a young boy, I killed a man to save my brother's life. I am not sorry for this. I am proud of this. I did not ask for the life that I was given. But it was given, nonetheless. And with it... I did my best.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 1)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon!

…sigh. Buckle in, kids. This one is going to be a bumpy ride.

Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 1)

I mean, where do I even start with this one? Over its 23 year long run, there were sooooo many different fetishes that popped up in the comic at one time or another. I’d even go as far as to say that if you have a particular favourite fetish that it probably showed up in ArchieSonic at some point.

Are you into magical girls?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Are you into furry love triangles?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Are you into feet pics?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

But maybe you’re more into cannibalism.

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

How about tickle torture?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

What about leather and whips?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Or maybe asphyxiation and/or drowning?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

How about vore?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Whatever the f*** this was?!

ArchieSonic’s (clap) got (clap) you (clap) covered (clap) fam.

But hey, no kink shaming here. I’m all for encouraging the kind of things you sick, twisted readers are into. 😀 But what about the writers themselves? What kind of weird stuff are they into? Well… look, I’m not going to say that Ken Penders has a fetish for tickle torture, but I will point out that he wrote that Tails scene I showed you earlier, and also drew this... “political statement.”

I’m just going to let you come to your own conclusions with that information. 

There is other stuff we could look at as well though. I’m not sure whether or not the rest of this stuff technically counts as “fetishes”, but considering the number of times it got written into the comic, I don’t think we can completely rule it out. For this section I’d like to concentrate on the three writers who contributed to ArchieSonic the most: Ken Penders, Karl Bollers, and Ian Flynn.

Ken Penders is first up, and there’s a lot to explore here during his time on the comic from 1994 - 2006. First of all, he had a habit of introducing zillions of new characters (usually echidnas). But as was pointed out by former ArchieSonic writer and colourist and current awesome person Aleah Baker, that topic might be a little too broad. So let’s break that down into several smaller categories. The first one is “Introducing secret family members that no one knew about and/or were supposed to be dead.” There were so many instances of this!

Sonic’s long-lost parents!

Sally’s long-lost brother and mother!

Antoine’s father!

Knuckles’ father!

Knuckles’ mother!

The League of Extroadinarily Racist Grandpas!

This is in stark contrast to both post-reboot ArchieSonic and the current IDWSonic run, where very few of the cast have family members making appearances.

Another one Penders loved to pull out was introducing unnecessary new characters who were there for the single purpose of replacing already established characters, usually those that were introduced in the games or SatAM. ‘Wait, who did Penders want to replace?’ you may be asking. Quite a few people, actually. For starters, he wanted to get rid of Princess Sally. Do you remember this infamous moment from the Endgame saga?

Sally eventually recovered from that fall, but Penders’ original intention was the death fake-out to be for realsies. Ken wanted Sally gone, as he felt that having King Acorn back gave us a character that served the same purpose as leader of the Freedom Fighters, and that Sally, in Ken’s own words, “cramped Sonic’s style.” Fortunately SEGA intervened and demanded that Sally live, partially because they were using her for marketing SEGAWorld Sydney. I got to visit that place as a kid, fun times. 

It wasn’t long after this that Ken pulled Sally’s long-lost brother Prince Elias out of his hat, whom I can only assume was also designed to serve a similar purpose to Sally.

Is that not bad enough? Well then how about the time when Ken killed off Dr. Robotnik and planned to replace him with this guy?

Meet Dr. Ian Droid (ugh, I hate the pun), a guy who basically boils down to “Dr. Robotnik but cooler because he was made by me, Ken Penders.” Who is this guy? What are his motivations? Buggered if I know. He was supposed to be the villain of Ken Penders’ original series, The Lost Ones (which only ever had a single issue released), and Knuckles: 20 Years Later (which was scrapped and replaced with the Mobius: 25 Years Later storyline).

Dr. Droid was implied to be a time-traveller who had fought Sonic and Knuckles in the past… or future… or whatever! We didn’t really find out anything else about this guy in the single issue he showed up in - a crossover with Image Comics. We should all be grateful that this bland knock-off never showed up again.

Lastly, whether or not he intended this, Ken Penders largely replaced the Chaotix. With whom? Why more echidnas, of course! The Chaotix may be an independent team nowadays, but back when they were first introduced ArchieSonic established that these guys were Knuckles' crew. I’ve talked about this before, but as the Knuckles series progressed the Chaotix tended to make fewer appearances, often becoming background characters whose page time was eaten up by Julie-Su, Constable Remington, and the League of Extroadinarily Racist Grandpas. Even in a three-issue arc called “The Chaotix Caper,” the Chaotix spent a large chunk of it hospitalised while Julie-Su and Remington investigated the case they had been working on.

Penders even used this arc to write Charmy out of the story for the next few years aside from a few brief cameo appearances.

Were there any other “fetishes,” Penders constantly wrote about? Well yes, and it’s a big one: daddy issues. There was King Max of course, a jerk mostly known for making typical boomer calls such as demanding Sally agree to an arranged marriage with Antoine or lose her right to the crown, or calling for all the robots who used to be Robotnik’s mindless slaves to be disassembled.

Obviously, Sally’s relationship with him was rather strained. But it was Knuckles’ father Locke, introduced and mostly written by Penders, that was quite possibly the most controversial character in the entire series. On the one hand, he was something of a guardian angel (pardon the pun) to Knuckles, watching out for him from afar and secretly helping him in his most desperate times. But wow, did he ever go about it the wrong way. Locke took Knuckles away from his mother at a young age to train him to be the next guardian of the Floating Island, and when that training was complete Knuckles had to watch his father yeet himself into a wall of fire, leaving him completely alone.

Obviously Locke didn’t actually kill himself but instead took up residency in a secret base called Haven where he could spy on his son all day long. But Knuckles didn’t know that and was left alone to suffer. When Knuckles finally reunited with him and wanted to know everything he’d been kept in the dark about up to this point, Locke was surprisingly forthcoming and finally came clean with the big secret.

Before Knuckles was born Locke had a vision of him in battle against forces he couldn’t comprehend, so Locke decided the only way to ensure his future son’s survival was to pump himself full of steroids before impregnating his wife and then blasting Knuckles’ egg with radiation from a Chaos Emerald. You all know the meme:

Penders was famously upset by other writers’ interpretations of Locke, especially when Ian Flynn became head writer of the comic and killed Locke off.

Penders had already previously written Locke’s death to take place during the future events of the Mobius 25 Years Later arc - and dedicated the story to his own late father - but despite his insistence otherwise, this was not considered to be the canonical future of the series but rather and "elseworlds" or "what if?" story.

It’s quite possible that this incident was the reason Penders decided to copyright all of “his” characters and start writing The Lara-Su Chronicles. But no matter what Ian wrote for Locke, nothing can be as bad as what Penders himself wrote for him:

Ick. I’m sorry, I thought I got all the gross stuff out of the way at the start of the post.

Tumblr has a limit to the number of images you can put in a single post, so I’m going to have to save Mr Bollers’ and Mr Flynn’s fetishes for next time. I’ll try to have that one out for you tomorrow. 🙂

[maewvelous]

[Master Post] Maewvelous's 100 Themes Art Challenge - Revisited

(Taken from from 100challenge.cjb.net . The site is dead. I used Wayback Machine to enter the site. )

I decided to bring back my very first drawing challenge I did from 2006 again. It has been already 18 years back then. When I look back to my old drawings from this challenge, it reminds me of the very first years at DeviantArt. Some of them were misinterpreted as well. So I would like to see how will I interpret those prompts in 2024 - 2025. 😀 That's why I added "revisited" at the end of the title.

And, no, the prompt list is not mine. I know this prompt list had been already spread around the Internet now. But I would like to credit a deactivated DeviantArt user called “AngieChild” whom I brought the prompt list from when I took the challenge in 2006.

One of the things about this prompt list that is different from the drawing prompt lists nowadays is….

It is not a daily challenge, so there’s no need to draw in consecutive days.

Also, no need to draw in order. ( But I want to, since I’m gonna post them on IG and keep them organized.)

Original arts, OCs, and fan arts are allowed.

I will use the hash tag #maewvelous_100tac when I post a drawing from this challenge. And I will add the links to the drawing here as well.

1. Introduction 2. Love 3. Light 4. Dark 5. Seeking Solace 6. Break Away 7. Heaven 8. Innocence 9. Drive 10. Breathe Again 11. Memory 12. Insanity 13. Misfortune 14. Smile 15. Silence 16. Questioning 17. Blood 18. Rainbow 19. Gray 20. Fortitude 21. Vacation 22. Mother Nature 23. Cat 24. No Time 25. Trouble Lurking

26. Tears 27. Foreign 28. Sorrow 29. Happiness 30. Under the Rain 31. Flowers 32. Night 33. Expectations 34. Stars 35. Hold My Hand 36. Precious Treasure 37. Eyes 38. Abandoned 39. Dreams 40. Rated 41. Teamwork 42. Standing Still 43. Dying 44. Two Roads 45. Illusion 46. Family 47. Creation 48. Childhood 49. Stripes 50. Breaking the Rules

51. Sport 52. Deep in Thought 53. Keeping a Secret 54. Tower 55. Waiting 56. Danger Ahead 57. Sacrifice 58. Kick in the Head 59. No Way Out 60. Rejection 61. Fairy Tale 62. Magic 63. Do Not Disturb 64. Multitasking 65. Horror 66. Traps 67. Playing the Melody 68. Hero 69. Annoyance 70. 67% 71. Obsession 72. Mischief Managed 73. I Can't 74. Are You Challenging Me? 75. Mirror

76. Broken Pieces 77. Test 78. Drink 79. Starvation 80. Words 81. Pen and Paper 82. Can You Hear Me? 83. Heal 84. Out Cold 85. Spiral 86. Seeing Red 87. Food 88. Pain 89. Through the Fire 90. Triangle 91. Drowning 92. All That I Have 93. Give Up 94. Last Hope 95. Advertisement 96. In the Storm 97. Safety First 98. Puzzle 99. Solitude 100. Relaxation

[anewkindofme]

Globbing on to your Damon analysis and mention of how men can’t form a bond without fighting over a woman, I always find it off-putting when it’s the brother love triangle trope. I love familial relationships and struggle with rooting for either couple due the strain in the sibling dynamic, same goes for two sisters fighting over a guy. It’s just icky to me. I think Supernatural does a really good job of depicting a well-written sibling relationship, especially between two guys. Although Dean and Sam have their issues, you can clearly tell that they love one another and would do anything to protect the other—regardless of who gets hurt. Especially the parentification of Dean and how he views Sam perpetually as a child is awful but so interesting to see. Their codependency and Defan’s codependency are very different forms but also entirely similar. Should’ve had a cross-over😮‍💨

I loathe that the 2 brothers/neighbor girl love triangle has grown over the years. It's just ridiculous that siblings would risk their relationship, over someone who's not even that important. And I say that as someone that not only loves Elena, but ships Stelena. I just think that they could exist or even if the writers wanted it to be Delena, they could exist, without coming between the boys.

It's why I'm glad the Nathan/Peyton/Lucas love triangle in One Tree Hill was so short-lived. Lucas and Nathan had their drama, but it was never a girl that kept them apart. They had one of the healthiest brother dynamics I've seen on TV.

Dean and Sam are truly one of the best sibling relationships in all of media history. It's not always the healthiest. They are both pretty possessive over one another. Dean treats Sam like a 5 year old 90% of the time. But the love is there. They'd do anything for each other. And a lot of it can be explained by how they were raised. Dean falls into "dad/mom mode" (I think there can actually be an argument that Dean is more of a mom than a dad, but that's a whole other thing) and Sam falls into "baby that needs his parent mode". Given all they've been through, of course they can't be separated for very long.

The Salvatore brothers are equally codependent, in different ways. Damon spends a good century vowing to cause Stefan nothing but eternal misery. He easily could've hurt/killed him after it all happened and move on. But he didn't. We see there are several times they attempt to rebuild that bond but something goes wrong. They love each other and can't quit one another, no matter what happens in life. Because they're brothers. The only family each other has.

Dean is a far better brother than early seasons Damon, but I think he'd be proud of the brother that Damon becomes. Especially when Lily is back in the picture. I think they'd bond over moms coming back from the dead and not being how they once were.

[starkstruck27]

First line of ten fics game!

Rules: Share the first line of the most recent fics you've written! (Rules can always be bent)

I was tagged by the always wonderful @oopsiedaisiesbaby. Much love, bestie!! <333

(Also, I'm gonna cheat a little bit and skip over some because they were the ones I wrote for Harringrove Week and they're already posted on here too, so... We're gonna go for ones that I haven't talked about on here before lol)

I Need You Like I Need A Broken Leg - (Steddie - T - Found/Secret Family AU - 36,562 Words - 10/? Chapters)

Steve wasn’t used to getting knocks on his door at 8:00 in the morning on Saturdays, or in general, and he was all set to just ignore it and go back to sleep, but whoever it was wouldn’t let up.

2. When I Come Around - (Harringrove - G - Prom Night and Secret Relationship - 2,121 Words)

“Come on! You have to tell me before it actually kills me,” Robin begged as she followed Steve around the store, not even trying to help him put the tapes back.

3. Cards on the Table, We're Both Showing Hearts - (Harringrove - M - Hurt/Comfort - 10,368 Words)

Max didn’t like the feeling coursing through her veins as soon as she got home from hanging out with El and the guys.

4. Whenever I'm Alone With You - (Harringrove/Mungrove/Steddie - M - Twin AU and Swapping Partners - 6,937 Words)

When the Hargrove twins rolled into the tiny town of Hawkins, Indiana, most people expected a Western Standoff between the two of them.

5. Anytime You Feel Danger or Fear, Then Instantly I will Appear - (Mungrove - T - 90s AU - 10,373 Words)

Eddie could hear the murmurs coming down the hall before he could see the thing that started them.

6. Yippee-ky-yay, Motherfucker - (Harringrove - G - Romantic Fluff - 2,435 Words)

Billy sighed as Hopper handed him three tickets to the movie Max and El had been begging to see, shoving them in his pocket and taking his keys from the hook by the door.

7. I Heard the Cry of What Might've Been - (Harringrove - M - Unrequited Love/Not Actually Unrequited Love - 10,152 Words)

Billy opened his locker on Friday afternoon with the same amount of enthusiasm as he did everyday, which is to say none at all.

8. And I Dream of Angels That Make Me Smile - (Harringroveson - T - Coming Out and Matchmaker Eddie - 8,321 Words)

“I don’t see what the big deal is, guys,” Eddie said to Robin, Billy and Steve as they sat around his living room, just hanging out and talking.

9. I'm Too Much - (Harringroveson - T - Christmas Fluff and Love Triangles - 22,066 Words)

This was the most humiliating thing Billy had ever done, which is certainly saying something.

10. Am I Alive and Well, or Am I Dreaming Dead? - (Harringrove - E - Suicide Attempts and Hurt/Comfort - 10,976 Words - 2/2 Chapters)

Earthquakes.

That’s the first thing Billy noticed when they moved to Hawkins, the lack of earthquakes.

I'm not gonna tag anyone because everybody who I normally would tag has done it already (I think?), but if you'd like to take part or you haven't done it yet, feel free to consider yourself tagged! And if this intrigues anyone enough to read any of my fics, I hope you enjoy them!

[rainydawgradioblog]

10 most underrated Joni Mitchell songs

Joni Mitchell’s surprise return to Spotify marks the first day of my life. Two grueling years of mp3 downloads, YouTube video playlists, and Apple Music temptations took quite the toll, but we’ve made it. To celebrate, here’s a list of 10 criminally underrated Joni bangers that deserve your streams. Now!

“Refuge of the Roads” (1976)

The ultimate highway soundtrack, “Refuge of the Roads” is an escapist hallucination with some of the sexiest bass you’ll ever hear. Joni’s on the run, hiding from the critics and her deep-seeded feelings of love that keep her from being the picture of independence she longed to be. The song details her miraculous recovery from cocaine addiction thanks to a Tibetan Buddhist master in Colorado and the insignificance of her emotional existence. It’s also one of her favorite songs she ever recorded!

“Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune)” (1972)

A piano tribute to Beethoven, “Ludwig’s Tune” is Joni finding solace in another legendary musician’s experience of being misinterpreted. Just like Ludwig, her art was deemed “too raw” at a time where no one was trauma dumping like Joni was. The song is a peak in Joni’s orchestration skills, with glorious winds and vocal runs, plus some of her best poetry to match. 

“Talk to Me” (1977)

I never thought the same woman who sang “A Case Of You” would be literally chicken squawking on record, but we’re blessed to live in that reality. Joni’s sense of humor on “Talk To Me” is on full display, dodging punchy acoustic guitar and raging fretless bass, begging “Mr. Mystery” (presumably Bob Dylan) to talk to her. “You spend every sentence as if it was marked currency / Come and spend some on me” is lyrical brilliance, not to mention one of the most iconic opening lines, period.

“Harry’s House/Centerpiece” (1975)

Joni’s storytelling skills fly under the radar way too often, despite her pointed observations in “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” being one of the greatest critiques of gender roles in music. Her blend of jazz fusion and a jazz standard adds to the traditional versus modern views of gender roles she’s observing, and her top tier crooning sells it hard. Not to mention Harry Styles named a whole album after the song!

Borderline (1994)

Not many of Joni’s songs match the intensity of “Borderline,” with a drop dead gorgeous steel guitar/organ combo and insightful 50-year-old cynicism. I think of “Borderline” as her 90s version of “Both Sides Now”. She makes sure to remind us that no one really knows life at all, and pretending otherwise only builds the borderlines between us. A brutally honest queen!

“Love” (1982)

For someone who allegedly doesn’t know love at all, Joni seems very well-acquainted with it on this song. Her insightful takes are a lot to digest, but they’re paired with winding early-80s production that work seamlessly. Think Leonard Cohen-level poetry and Steely Dan-esque funk with just a touch of 80s cheesiness.  

“People’s Parties” (1974)

Even Joni has social anxiety, and “People’s Parties” is very that. Her descriptions of the posh social climbers and dramatics at the exclusive events she attends is strangely relatable to your average introvert, while also serving up a juicy critique of elitism in showbusiness. “People’s Parties” is some of her most charismatic musical phrasing, and her lower register in the outro scratches every itch in my brain. 

“The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” (1979)

Charles Mingus pulled something so specific out of Joni that is not talked about enough. On “TDCFDM,” Joni’s practically playing the part of every instrument next to bumbling bass, skittering drums, floating saxophone, and razor-sharp horns, and sounding next-level doing it. If anything Joni’s made proves her supernatural abilities, it’s this song.

Conversation (1970)

“Conversation” is the original love triangle song, and Joni is feeling chaotic. She’s helplessly flirting back and forth with a guy who’s taken, bringing him apples and cheese and listening to him rant about his relationship issues. Sonically the song is the perfect encapsulation of obsessing over someone new, and her signature soprano is perfection as per usual. 

The Last Time I Saw Richard (1971)

Holding a candle to ballads like “A Case Of You” and “River” seems unthinkable, but Blue’s closer makes it look easy. Richard and Joni play two sides of a spectrum; Richard being chewed up and spit out by pain and heartbreak, while Joni is fighting for optimism amidst the emotional devastation we hear on Blue. Joni’s pissed and panicked that someone could give up on happiness, so she’s “gonna blow this damn candle out,” refusing to let life get the best of her. 

Here's my comprehensive guide to Joni in playlist form including influences, influencers, and more. Happy listening!

Mead Gill

[mogwai-movie-house]

The Best of The Noughties

The 100 most-perfect films of the first decade of the 21st century, in loose order of merit, ranked and rated high-to-low:

1. Memento (2000) ★★★★★★★★★★ 2. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) ★���★★★★★★★★ 3. Lost in Translation (2003) ★★★★★★★★★★ 4. Mulholland Drive (2001) ★★★★★★★★★★ 5. The Dark Knight (2008) ★★★★★★★★★★ 6. No Country for Old Men (2007) ★★★★★★★★★★ 7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) ★★★★★★★★★★ 8. Adaptation. (2002) ★★★★★★★★★★ 9. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) ★★★★★★★★★★ 10. Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) ★★★★★★★★★★ 11. Lars and the Real Girl (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 12. Let the Right One In (2008) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 13. Tropic Thunder (2008) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 14. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 15. Zoolander (2001) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 16. Shaun of the Dead (2004) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 17. The Piano Teacher (2001) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 18. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 19. The Prestige (2006) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 20. The Departed (2006) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 21. The Darjeeling Limited (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 22. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 23. Timecrimes (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 24. Amélie (2001) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 25. There Will Be Blood (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 26. The Village (2004) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 27. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 28. Gladiator (2000) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 29. Cold Souls (2009) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 30. Hannibal (2001) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 31. Hot Fuzz (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 32. Ratatouille (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 33. Monsters, Inc. (2001) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 34. Up (2009) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 35. Atonement (2007) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 36. The Chaser (2008) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 37. Finding Nemo (2003) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 38. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) ★★★★★★★★★☆ 39. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring  ★★★★★★★★★☆ 40. Secretary (2002) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 41. X-Men (2000) ★★★★★★★★½☆ 42. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 43. The Bourne Identity (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 44. Songs From The Second Floor (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 45. Zombieland (2009) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 46. Collateral (2004) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 47. Malena (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 48. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 49. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 50. Moon (2009) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 51. Cast Away (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 52. Burn After Reading (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 53. Unbreakable (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 54. Brick (2005) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 55. Snatch (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 56. Donnie Darko (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 57. The Way of the Gun (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 58. Death Proof (2007) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 59. Chopper (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 60. Intacto (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 61. Interview with the Assassin (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 62. In Bruges (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 63. Intolerable Cruelty (2003) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 64. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 65. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 66. Hellboy (2004) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 67. Red Dragon (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 68. Apocalypto (2006) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 69. Gosford Park (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 70. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 71. Triangle (2009) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 72. The Hangover (2009) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 73. Shrek (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 74. The Quiet American (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 75. Enemy at the Gates (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 76. Spirited Away (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 77. The Incredibles (2004) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 78. The Rules of Attraction (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 79. Minority Report (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 80. American Psycho (2000) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 81. World's Greatest Dad (2009) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82. The Lives of Others (2006) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 83. Kung Fu Panda (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 84. Oldboy (2003) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 85. The Life of David Gale (2003) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 86. 11:14 (2003) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 87. Bolt (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 88. Dogtooth (2009) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 89. Paranormal Activity (2007) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 90. Catch Me If You Can (2002) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 91. The Centre of the World (2001) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 92. Iron Man (2008) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 93. Fermat's Room (2007) ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 94. The Cuckoo (2002) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 95. A History of Violence (2005) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 96. Gangs of New York (2002) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 97. School of Rock (2003) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 98. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 99. Inside Man (2006) ★★★★★★★½☆☆ 100. Something's Gotta Give (2003) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

[bigskydreaming]

Tom is already rehashing some things, like too many homages to the nineties run, Zucco's daughter plot point, Beatrice had ideas for societal reform he's taking that and giving it to Dick. It'll probably be half hearted, but it stings that Beatrice left just a few issues ago and she's already completely forgotten for the sake of DickBabs or a love triangle.

Like the thing about the nineties runs is I mean, as much flack as we give various elements of them, there’s so much from that time period that was good? Great, even! Just....myself and the writers seem to have very different opinions on what the most interesting elements of the nineties comics were, oh well.

And omgggggg I’m still so mad about Bea, and its literally Shawn Tsang all over again. The writers keep introducing new, interesting characters, investing just enough time and focus into them to have us interested in them and wanting to see more.....and then they toss them aside to go back to drawing from the same well as always.

And the thing is, this isn’t even about me not really being a Dick/Babs shipper, because honestly, I’m not enjoying the Dick/Kory stuff in what I’ve seen of Titans Academy either, and for the exact same reason:

When they create new characters like Shawn and Bea, they KNOW they’re starting from scratch and need to build interest in those characters from the ground up. So they’re forced to put their best foot forward. There’s no short cut there, if you want people to care about a brand new character you have to give them REASONS to care. You have to make those characters likable, you have to make people WANT to root for them, you have to hook them with intriguing backstories that don’t feel formulaic and new angles that don’t feel just derivative of older characters, and that’s how we got stuff like Shawn’s history as a former sidekick to a villain and now running a support group for rogues trying to turn their lives around, and Bea’s work in societal reform.

But then the second they stop having the patience to build the new characters up enough that the interest in them can actually start to reach the levels that lets older characters last and grants longevity....they just toss them aside and move on....except they never really move on, just backwards. Because the problem with so MANY superhero couples, far from just Dick and Babs or Dick and Kory, is just....how lazy it seems to make so many canon writers. They just fall back on rehashing the same old tropes and just updating popular moments that resonated with fans in the past, now just recreated with a slightly more modern twist but without ever really being anything new. 

Even with ships that I’ve never really been sold on in the past like Dick/Babs, I’ve always said, there’s usually nothing stopping me from GAINING interest in them.....its just....the writers have to GIVE ME A REASON TO. And so many of DC’s writers just aren’t even trying. They’re just moving parts around and pushing characters together in various arrangements like everyone’s just a puzzle piece that you can mix and match however you want......and then just basically expecting readers to be interested purely because of who the characters are, or because it hinges on a nice moment that they then milk the hell out of without ever expanding that into building actual STORY around these moments but rather just squeezing each one til they get everything they possibly can out of it and moving on to the next as though its all just about chasing the next soundbite...because it is! LOL.

And honestly, this problem extends far beyond just the Nightwing title or the Batfam or Taylor’s run or writing in particular.....its a company wide issue right now. In fact I would bet just about anything that its a matter of editorial edict, that even before Taylor started his run DC said okay here’s the approach we want everyone taking with their stories right now:

And that’s like.....its all about banking on nostalgia and the comfort of the familiar right now. I think Taylor is drawing all these elements straight from the 90s Nightwing comics, like Blockbuster and Dick having been a cop, etc, because these are the elements of past Nightwing stories that are so well known. Its the same reasoning behind why they put Tim back as Robin and so many of their new characters are just new spins on old faves like Punchline and Harley Quinn, and why they’re pushing all these older ships that haven’t been together in ages and why specific team lineups are reappearing....its because nostalgia is the name of the game for DC right now, and all their writers are just pulling together threads of classic stories that have stood the test of time, figuring anything that landed particularly well with fans in the past will sell with people here and now, and weaving these threads together and brushing over them with a modern social issues veneer. 

As an approach, its basically all just about repackaging previously successful story moments and elements with just enough changes or in just new enough a configuration that readers aren’t likely to complain en masse that like “hey we literally already read all this. We’ve already BOUGHT these issues. When we were kids.” Its minimizing creative risk while maximizing monetary profit. Spend as little creative capital as possible outside of anything that’s already been successful in the past and as such is a relatively proven quantity, instead of testing new material that’s an unknown and runs the risk of falling flat and thus not being profitable.

And see, I’d almost guarantee that all THAT, that whole line-wide approach to DC’s storytelling, is because the powers that be looked at the last several years of stories and how many of THEM fell flat with readers, and decided that the problem was they’d BEEN trying too much new stuff and readers just didn’t like it. Because they WERE concentrating on presenting totally new stories and building up new ideas throughout their books.....but readers have been pretty vocal for years now about being disenchanted with most of DC’s major stories. And so DC I think looked at that and came to the conclusion that okay, people just don’t want new right now, they want the familiar.

But like.....DC’s problem IMO was never that they were trying new stuff? The reason so much of their new and original storylines weren’t gaining traction or bringing in readers and kept shedding old readers had absolutely NOTHING to do with them being new and previously unseen storylines, which makes falling back on nostalgia very much a non-solution to entirely the wrong problem.

No, DC’s problem for years has been that they’ve been all about spectacle instead of story. There’s ZERO emotional pay-off to any of their biggest plot twists or character beats, and emotion is LITERALLY what people read stories for. Its all about racing to the climactic action packed finish of every storyline and then immediately resetting everyone back to square one and jumping straight into the next big story, without ever giving the events of any of their stories time or reason to MATTER to the characters.....and if they don’t matter to the characters, our proxies that we’re viewing these stories through, then why should any of it matter to us? Why should any of it linger, dig in roots, resonate with us as moments that left an impact and that we accordingly want more of?

And again, like because I’m a Dick Grayson focused blog I’ve obviously largely been focused on how much I dislike the SPECIFIC reactions or non-reactions to so many of the major beats in his stories.....but it was spread throughout their entire line.

Bruce and Selina almost got married....but why should anyone care outside of Tom King’s title when nobody else seems to, no other characters feel anything about this, and Bruce in none of his other appearances seems the same as ever without any reminder that he just almost got married but then didn’t.....and if the characters don’t ever seem to be affected by or feeling a need to revisit or reflect on recent stories, why should we bother remembering them either? 

Jason was dramatically and fucked-upily (yes its a word, I totally looked it up and everything) exiled from Gotham....and then all of that is undone in a single issue with one low-stakes awkward conversation between him and Bruce. Damian quits as Robin and goes off the map and everyone in his family is like “hey don’t we have a littler brother, I feel like we did maybe” for one panel per story arc, and that’s it. Roy’s back from the dead and everybody’s like oh hey cool instead of the kind of return we used to get like when Donna came back and everyone was like oh shit, this MATTERS, because we MISSED you....just like Dick’s death never mattered to anyone but fans of his character because much like I was just saying earlier with them not really giving me a reason TO emotionally invest in Dick and Babs’ relationship if I wasn’t already, same thing with the aftermath of Forever Evil. They didn’t give anyone else reason to emotionally invest in that as something that HAPPENED to Dick and that he was AFFECTED by....because the writers didn’t bother writing him as all that affected by it and it was just like oh he’s a spy now, all that was last year’s content, we’ve moved on, keep up.

And on and on it goes. Ric Grayson was the same problem all over again. Rinse and repeat down the line with everyone from Wally to Donna and etc etc etc.

THAT’S why DC’s stories have been falling flat. It has nothing to do with people not being interested in new ideas, characters or directions, its that’s ALL they were giving us, but it was like just reading wiki summaries of events just alongside pretty art, but no real emotional weight or substance to anything we were reading....and thus, literally nothing that we couldn’t get much the same outcome from if we just...stuck to reading wiki summaries after the stories were over, with no real need to follow along with them. For years most fans have basically just been about keeping up to date with changes in the characters’ lives, but without feeling any real need to watch those changes unfold and play out.

And so honestly I worry we’re just gonna be subjected to a company wide rehashing of old and familiar storylines, directions and character beats, but repackaged and delivered in the exact same way DC was delivering us their new stories and ideas these past years....and its basically going to have the same results, because its the same problem. They didn’t actually fix anything by switching gears, they just shuffled around the actual issue.

And DC’s just gonna be like well now wtf are we doing wrong, we were so sure this would work, everyone LOVES nostalgia right? Did we pick the wrong stories and character beats to bring back?

When really its like......it honestly doesn’t matter WHICH stories and beats they rehash, because its not about them picking the ‘right ones,’ the real keepers, the stories that everyone really WAS eager to see brought back or made new again.....

Its about like, the only reason any of those stories or beats or dynamics stood the test of time and are still familiar and well-known....is because the stories AROUND those moments and ideas gave us reason to emotionally invest in them and retain them as crucial to our view of the characters and things that would resonate and stay with us for a long time.

It was never that any of those ideas or stories were just so innately brilliant that they couldn’t help BUT linger in the overall reader consciousness...it was the fact that we CARED about what happened in those moments and stories.

*Shrugs* But I mean hey, what do I know? I’m just a dude on the internet lolol. 

[aimoosh-blog]

BERSERK: A MASTERSTROKE IN VIOLENCE

Berserk is a series that is both influential and overlooked. This might sound pretentious to fans of the gory medieval anime, but hear me out. Despite having a long-running manga which was originally released back in the ‘90's, after two anime series, a trilogy of movies and various video game adaptations, Berserk still remains somewhat niche and obscure.

The series is known for its gruesome imagery and I would strongly advise that if you've experienced abuse or are easily affected by violent and distressing material, that this series simply isn't for you. However, it's this cycle of violence that makes Berserk so compelling. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the Soulsborne series doesn't shy away from this. Hidetaka Miyazaki has openly discussed how Berserk inspired games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne and you don't have to look far to find Berserk's influence spread throughout the Souls series.

But when you think of your favourite hefty sword-wielding himbo, I'm sure Guts isn't the first to spring to mind. Before we get into the debate of who wore it better, let's talk about Berserk's creator.

The most distinct and memorable aspect of Berserk is the apparent pleasure the series takes with relishing visceral imagery which is brought to life by Kentaro Miura. Berserk's first volume was released in 1990 when Miura was twenty-two years old. At this point in his life, Miura was already experienced within the industry after having written his first manga at the age of ten and eventually self-publishing in 1982.

With his experience and indisputable style, Miura's abhorrent rendition of the numerous satanic beasts and mythological creatures that populate the bloodthirsty world of Berserk, are both horrifying and captivating. The series manages to succeed in simultaneously being horrendously violent and strikingly beautiful. This parallel is prominent throughout the story and feeds the reader/viewer with a morbid curiosity.

The first and most obvious juxtaposition can be found in Guts' and Griffith's appearance. If you put Berserk in front of a newbie, they would most likely assume that the androgynous Griffith was the series’ main hero.

With his petite frame, feminine features, and charismatic charm, he certainly looks the part of a typical anime protagonist. Especially when set side by side with Guts who's hulking physique, stoic disposition, and hardened exterior is a stark contrast to the Hawk of Light. But scratch the surface and you'd find something entirely different.

Once you pull back the curtain and look beyond his angelic façade, you'd uncover Griffith's selfish, almost sociopathic personality which is accompanied with an unyielding ambition to stop at nothing until he achieves his dream. In contrast, Guts’ intimidating appearance and seemingly aloof attitude are a front concealing a lonely and tormented individual.

Shrouded by death, Guts was born from the corpse of his executed mother and eventually discovered by a group of mercenaries, who find the infant beneath a hanging tree covered in blood and entrails. The baby is presumed to be dead until he begins to cry, to which prostitute Shisu immediately rushes to comfort the child and is permitted to keep the newborn by leader Gambino. The baby is given the name Guts after the gory manner in which he was found. However, many members of the group are unsettled by Guts’ arrival and consider it a bad omen. 

Shisu had been deemed mad following her miscarriage and quickly became attached to Guts as a result. The pair seemed destined to meet but their happiness is tragically short-lived as three years later, Guts’ adoptive mother contracts the plague and dies while Guts watches over her. Unfortunately Shisu’s death only strengthens rumors about Guts’ reputation as a source of bad luck.

Guts promptly begins practicing swordsmanship and joins Gambino on the battlefield in an effort to gain approval. However, one night while Guts is sleeping in his tent, fellow sellsword Donovan, sneaks in and forces himself on the young boy. Guts later lures his abuser away and forces his sword down Donovan’s throat, killing him. No longer feeling safe, Guts begins to sleep clutching his sword.

Guts’ relationship with Gambino rapidly deteriorates following Shisu’s death. Gambino resents Guts for the subsequent loss of his leg and fixates on the misfortune that seems to have followed the boy. Gambino soon begins to verbally and physically abuse Guts, and consequently makes an attempt on Guts’ life. It’s in this moment that Gambino confesses that he had sold Guts to Donovan for the night. 

Horrified by this revelation, Guts is forced to kill his paternal figure in an act of self-defence and is hunted down by Gambino's men. After narrowly escaping with his life and defending himself against a pack of wolves, Guts eventually falls unconscious. The cycle begins again as he is discovered and enlisted by a separate mercenary group where he becomes a child soldier.

After surviving battlefield to battlefield, Guts eventually crosses paths with the Band of the Hawk. Impressed by his skills, leader Griffith, openly expresses that he is eager for Guts to join the Band of the Hawk. Guts agrees to this proposal but only if Griffith defeats him in a duel. Much to Guts’ disgust, he is defeated and begrudgingly joins the new group of mercenaries. But soon finds himself at home among his companions within the Band of the Hawk and is swiftly promoted to Captain of the Raiders.

It is clear that Guts is conflicted in the first arc of the story. After years of coping with isolation and abuse, he is torn between carving his own path or sticking with the Band of the Hawk. It's safe to say that whether you read the manga or watch the anime, the series doesn't sugar-coat the trauma Guts is forced to endure. But despite everything, Guts still carries on and it’s his mental fortitude that makes him such a sympathetic character.

But after forming strong friendships and concealing an unrequited love, it's Guts' decision to leave the Band of the Hawk and break free of Griffith's control that ultimately leads to The Band of the Hawk's downfall.

Amidst this complicated bromance you have Casca. A seasoned warrior who commands the respect of The Band of the Hawk and is Griffiths right hand – that is until Guts steals the spotlight. This setup may sound like a clichéd love triangle but Casca plays a crucial role in Berserk. Without her, Guts would've likely given up following the aftermath of the eclipse. She is the driving force in the story, feeding Guts' lust for revenge.

If you're considering checking out Berserk, I can highly recommend the manga as the best way to consume the series, as you are able to see Miura hone his craft over the years and create some truly remarkable panels. Another benefit is that with over 300 chapters, you'll have more than enough content to keep you occupied. But if that's not your style you have a few options to choose from.

The Golden Age Arc Film Trilogy concisely summaries the first narrative arc, if you want to get up to speed quickly. The larger budget in the subsequent movies allows for less 3D animation and more stunning hand-drawn sequences. However, if you have the time and patience for it, the 1997 adaptation spares no details and has an alluring nostalgic 90's aesthetic, if you can forgive it being a little rough around the edges.

Whichever version you decide to pick if you still can't get enough, I would advise saving the 2016 Berserk anime for last. Not only because it takes place after the first arc and follows the aftermath of the eclipse, but fans of the series have openly criticised this version's cheap animation style that fails to do justice to Miura’s concepts.

As previously mentioned, Berserk is unashamed in its cruelty and some might say the series renowned violence is needlessly excessive. Although this may seem off-putting, Berserk also has it's softer moments. It's in these more subdued scenes that you're drawn deeper into the fascinating narrative.

If asked how best to describe the series, I would say that it's the love child of Japanese horror artist, Junji Ito and fantasy author, George R. R. Martin. The medieval-fantasy setting allows for breath-taking architecture and scenery which often resembles Salvador Dali's surrealist paintings, but inhabited with monsters from Hieronymus Bosch's famous works such as The Harrowing of Hell. It's this contrast that makes Berserk so bewitching, in the thick of all the violence, gore, and carnage, you have a tragic story bursting with drama, rivalry, betrayal, lost love, and most importantly, revenge.

But if The Last of Us Part 2 taught us anything about seeking revenge, it is that it comes at a high price. However, the story remains largely unfinished with the current hiatus and recent chapter having been released as far back as 2019, it's uncertain when we'll see how this revenge story will play out. Nevertheless much like the A Song of Fire and Ice series, having no ending has its positives...