#I guess since that’s the bulk of the focus

[abtheb]

Haven't flexed for the internet in a while.

[hwsing]

I’m very curious about any NSFW Headcanons/takes you have for Canada. 👀

sex, eh?

notes: 18+, reader is gender neutral and i don’t think reader’s genitals are mentioned. includes: canada (matthew williams). as always, reblogs are appreciated!

cw: this is more babbling than anything else; verse! matthew, outdoors sex, hair pulling, dick description. wc: about 580. not proof read. not much comes to mind for this lad but please feel free to request anything about him!

it’s so interesting to me that so many people want this man because he is so unfuckable to me its hilarious. i have to really put on my thinking cap here, but, i do think matthew is genuinely quite a giving partner. i also get the impression of him that he does like to dom (soft dom lets be clear). its a bit of a stereotype these days i think, but he seems like the type to enjoy that sort of dynamic since he can often feel overlooked in his day to day life.

despite that, i feel like he has iffy feelings on brats. he’s not the most kinky guy out there to begin with, so declining/training/ god forbid punishing is a ways outside his comfort zone. he’d much prefer to just make you feel good. now, if you reallllllly want to experiment in the more brat side of things, he’ll try a bit, but again, don’t expect anything particularly hardcore. at best, he’ll be manhandling you. when it comes to how he touches you, though, he’d rather give you sweet, open mouthed kisses down your chest to stomach!

really really really likes when his hair is tugged on. whether it it’s when you’re kissing or he’s giving you head, he just loves the little tugs to his roots. it’s a bit grounding, really; the blond is prone to overthinking and getting lost in his own thoughts. in a way, you’re yanking him back down, forcing him to focus more on the here and now.

public sex is a no go, but… outdoors sex?? this is by no means a habit of his, but if you two are camping……….. he prefers to camp by your own means rather than just. use an overcrowded campsite, so it’s not like anyone is really going to be around. with the thick forest as your walls of protection, why not get up to a bit of fun? he honestly really likes it, even if you’re only willing to do it inside the tent. although, if you’re willing to fuck against a tree, he’s more than happy to oblige!

he’s got pretty good stamina. he’s worked in the outdoors most of his life — he’s very fit. not particularly bulking, but muscular and somewhat lean. eats a good diet too. he lasts quite a while to begin with, but can go a few rounds as well! usually caps off at max two though, unless you specifically ask for more. he has a hard time saying no to you in most contexts,, he can’t help it, he thinks you’re so cute :(

still a verse at the end of the day, and if you try to take the reigns, he’s not going to put up much of a fight. again, he has a hard time denying you; quite literally putty in your hands if you decide to dom.

i dont imagine him very noisy in the bedroom. mostly soft and small moans and groans, some whimpering when he’s close. he’s not silent but not talkative either. he’s inclined to sing your praises and all that, but quietly, only for you to hear. that, and he can get a bit embarrassed by speaking so intimately, so it’s just easier for him to say it softly lolol.

this feels kinda bland so here’s a small treat: i’d guess he’s about 6.8”, trims quite close and very hygienic. slightly thick but not so much so that it’s pose a problem. very sensitive.

[featherandferns]

daylight - epilogue

jj maybank x fem!reader | the final part of the daylight series | read part 12 here

content warnings: mentions of sex; alcohol

word count: 1.6k.

blurb: life is pretty beautiful in Kildare but nothing comes anywhere close to the beauty of your boyfriend.

An arm loops over your shoulder. You jolt, caught by surprise, and come close to dropping your camera. Thank God for neck straps. You’re so used to the feel of JJ around you that you don’t need the smell of his cologne to identify him. 

“Hey you,” you say, smiling up at him. 

“Hey,” he replies, smiling just the same. “Pretty good turn-out, huh?”

“I know,” you beam, looking around. 

With some help from the Pogues, you’d managed to organise a fundraiser for Barry’s garage. It came following the photos you’d posted on your Instagram gaining traction in the local community. They were shared in Facebook groups and around group chats, with people rallying to help Barry’s struggling business. It seemed the garage had been a staple in Kildare County for as long as most people could remember. Kiara was more than happy to organise the bulk of the fundraiser, having done her fair share for environmental clean-ups, and Pope had managed to rally his dad to provide food, free of charge. John B and JJ did most heavy lifting: they assembled stalls and tables and seating; strung lights and bunting; hung up balloons and signs; and carried crate after crate of soft drinks and beers. 

Your eyes fall on Barry, laughing with a local who you’d seen working at the docks. It makes you smile. For once, it seems he’s at ease. 

“This is a real nice thing you did for him,” JJ gently says. 

“Well, he’s a real nice guy,” you reply. 

JJ leans down and plants a kiss to your forehead. It feels nice, having him do it in front of others: even if nobody is looking. He’s unashamed to show you off and to show his affection for you. Interlocking your fingers with his, he guides you towards Barry. 

“Let’s go say hi,” he says as he leads the way. 

As you pass a group of local teens, JJ shares a quick word, accepting a bro-hug from one, but his hand never strays from yours. Perfectly timed, the fisherman who was talking to Barry departs towards Heyward’s stall just as you and JJ arrive. Barry turns to find you both and grins. 

“You kids having fun?” he asks. 

“Yes, sir,” JJ replies. 

Barry brings his beer can to his lips slowly, making a show to glance down at your interlocked hands. “See things are going good still.”

“I guess they are,” you return with a sheepish smile. 

Since the day at the Chateau, you and JJ no longer held back. There was no need to, the fear of being too much now gone. Movie nights were a weekly staple, with half of the film ignored as the focus switched to each other’s bodies. Hang-outs with the Pogues were riddled with teasing and berating from the group from the smallest signs of P.D.A. At work, JJ distracted you, finding any excuse to approach. Drives home were lengthened by sloppy make-outs and take-out stop offs. Mimsy was used to JJ’s company despite being back in Vancouver, thanks to him lying in your bed or lounging on the couch whenever you’d facetime. She’d once remarked ‘you might not be at the wedding, but I will’ in a gentle threat to remind JJ where he stood in the hierarchy of your affections. But you knew it was tongue-and-cheek. Thanks to Mimsy, he too had been educated on the serial killers and stalkers of America. What took you by surprise was how invested JJ was in it. 

You’re happy, though. JJ made you feel held, just like you’d asked and just like you’d always wanted. 

The squeeze of JJ’s palm against yours pulls you back to the conversation. 

“You enjoying yourself, Bar?” JJ asks.

“Hell yeah,” Barry jovially replies, making you both laugh. Tipping his beer can to you in thanks, he says, “your friend Kie really knows her stuff.”

“She’s pretty great,” you hum in agreement. 

“Your old man didn’t show up, I see,” Barry says to JJ. 

“He, uh, got wrapped up in something. He’d probably just cause a scene anyway, right?” JJ lightly says. 

Since starting your official relationship with JJ, you’d spent more time at his house. You’d gotten to know his history the same way he had yours, and you knew about his absent mother and nightmarish father. He’d got himself in trouble with prescription fraud and was serving a short stint in prison. JJ hauntingly joked that it was his ‘second home’. You’d held him all that night to help him fall asleep. 

“You know how much you’ve raised so far?” you ask, diverting the topic. 

“I’m told it’s somewhere around seven grand, so far,” Barry replies. “Shit. That’s enough to fix that damn roof.”

“That’ll save you a job after the next hurricane, then,” JJ notes. Hurricane Agatha had been building gradually. Everyone was preparing for her arrival in the near future, summer now in full swing. 

“Damn straight. Look, you kids go enjoy yourself. You don’t wanna be trapped with an old dog like me,” Barry urges with a tired smile. 

You roll your eyes. “I like being trapped with an old dog like you.”

He was used to your company at the garage. Surprisingly, you’d taken to learning some handy work in mechanics. Even more surprisingly, you weren’t half bad at it. JJ had also picked up extra shifts at the garage. You don’t think Barry liked when the two of you were there together though: the amount of work that got done seriously depleted. 

“Let me get a photo of you two, at least,” you add, lifting your camera. 

JJ sighs like it’s a burden but you know how much he likes being in front of the lens. Your memory cards were saturated with photos of the blonde haired boy, as was your pinboard and Instagram. He’d claimed the polaroid photos of you and shamelessly kept them by his bed, as well as a framed photo of you and JJ from the beach that Kie had taken with your camera. It was of the two of you, wading in the low waves, the mid-day sun high in the background, casting shadows on your frames. He was splashing you and you were screaming with laughter, trying to dart out the way. The moment JJ spotted it as you flicked through your gallery after a day at work, he’d begged for you to print it. Now it stood by his bed, proudly displayed like a Van Gogh original. 

JJ settles beside Barry and hooks an arm over Barry’s broad shoulders. The two of them smile - JJ’s brighter and beaming - and you snap several shots. Barry holds out his hand for your camera. 

“Let me get one of the love birds,” he gruffly says. 

You comply with a small roll of your eyes. JJ takes his spot by your side, his arm comfortably sitting around your waist. One of his calloused hands plants firmly at the top of your hip. You lean into his hold slightly, eased in his company like a reflex, and the two of you smile at the camera, squinting through the sunlight. As you go to move away and retrieve your camera, JJ’s spinning you around and dipping his head, planting a chaste kiss to your lips. Your eyes close on reflex, smile easily, and you hear your camera shutter click. 

Later that night, after the fundraising is long over, you and JJ are lounging on his sofa. He said something the other day about being home alone and how much he disliked it, when his dad wasn’t around. It was strange to you that he felt that way given the hell his dad brought, but then you’d remembered Barry’s comments from what felt like a lifetime ago. How JJ was loyal to the bone, even when it might not be in his favour. You suppose love is never lost when perspective is earned. So, instead of questioning it, you’d decided to stay with JJ. It was nice anyway, playing house. 

Your feet are in his lap, back lent against the arm rest, and one of JJ’s hands absentmindedly rubs at the palm of your foot. His other hand nurses a bottle of beer and his eyes are trained to the grainy TV. Every now and then he laughs, engrossed in a rerun of an old episode of The Simpsons. As you flick through the photos you’d taken that day, one makes you pause. A smile creeps onto your face. It’s one Barry had taken: JJ’s head dipped as he kisses you. You hold the camera out for JJ to see. 

“JayJ,” you mumble. 

He reluctantly pulls his gaze from the TV. “Yeah?”

“Look.”

He does as you ask, eyes flitting down to the camera. Taking it from you to see it better, his smile mirrors yours. 

“Cute, right?”

JJ nods, almost bashful, and passes you back the camera. 

“Send me that,” he says, looking back to the screen.  

“Why?”

“I wanna post it,” he shrugs, as if the answer is obvious. Your giddy smile that follows makes you drive your teeth into your lower lip. Nodding, you go about transferring the photo to your phone. Placing your camera on the dusty coffee table, you shift so you can cuddle into your boyfriend’s side. He gladly makes room for you, tucking you into his body, and you steal his beer for a sip. 

“Quiet you fool, it can be yours,” Homer’s inner thoughts say.

As JJ chuckles, his body shakes against yours. You look up at him, smiling to yourself at his beauty. Eventually he catches on to your staring. Looking down at you, his eyebrows raise. 

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” you mumble, “you’re just really fucking pretty.”

Chuckling almost soundless, JJ smiles down at you. Then he’s closing the gap, pressing his lips to yours in a kiss.

Two.

One more and - yes, perfect. 

The End

taglist:

@princessuki21 | @psyches-reid | @heybank | @avengersgirllorianna | @rrosiitas | @yourmumstoy | @jjsfavgirl | @void21 | @fictionalcomforts | @gsp420 | @redhead1180 | @wearemadeofstardust0 | @mrs-jjmaybank | @ifilwtmfc | @heybank | @lilyw1235 | @belle101200 | @maybankskiss | @lillell467 | please tell me if any tags aren't working - I've never done taglists before!

[fredwkong]

Himbo Maker: Jean

Jean was deep into muscle. Ever since he’d been the smallest kid in his class every year in school, he’d felt an intense need to someday become the kind of guy who could really dominate a room with his body.

However, even as an adult, he was still a little guy. He’d tried for years, but no matter what, his dark-skinned body stayed slender. So instead, he spent all his free time on forums dedicated to muscle growth, living vicariously through the experiences of others as they gained muscle and posted pictures.

One day he received an unusual message request from another guy on the forum. He’d never seen him in the threads before, but his username was Himbo_mkr so Jean assumed he was probably here for roleplay.

Techie_jean: Hey man. What’s up?

Himbo_mkr: Not much bro. Just been chilling and looking at pix of muscley dudes. I noticed you don’t make many posts. You good?

Techie_jean: Guess I’ve just never done the smart thing and gotten myself a plan.

Himbo_mkr: Brah, you don’t need a plan! I can help you get big in just a few minutes! Wanna give it a shot?

Jean chuckled. Yep, this guy was looking for some roleplay. He looked around his room. Well, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do this afternoon but play video games and build some Gundam. He may as well have some fun with this guy first.

Techie_jean: Sure! What do I have to do first?

Himbo_mkr: The first thing you gotta do is get dumb, bro! Muscles aren’t made with smarts, you need to have nothing in your brain but flexing, eating, and fucking to really build hot muscle.

Straight to the point, huh! Jean was about to type a message in character as a dummy when he felt a tingling in his head. His brain suddenly felt like it was full of cotton, he was having trouble putting thoughts together. Slowly, he made his fingers move. He had to really focus to string the words together.

Techie_jean: Bro… What’s happenin to me?

Himbo_mkr: You’re getting dumb, bro! When a guy gets really serious about getting big muscles, the power to do it comes from all of his useless brains! The smarter he was at the start, the bigger and dumber he ends up.

Jean… supposed that made sense? He couldn’t figure out how this guy could be wrong. He wasn’t really the smartest guy, after all. He scratched his head and looked around his room. It was like it was changing before his eyes, but that couldn’t be right either. No more video games, just a pile of gay muscle pornos. His gundam and other dolls replaced with sex toys and gear that he used to show off his skinny little body. Jean was definitely not smart by any means.

Dummy_jean: Yeah bro, I’m pretty stupid. What were we talkin about?

Himbo_mkr: Getting you swole, huhuhu! Now that you’ve drained your useless brain, your muscles are gonna get huge, bro! You’re a big thick muscle bro!

Jean gasped as an indescribable warm sensation overtook his whole body. With a crack, his back, arms, and legs extended, making him a towering beanpole of a man. His muscles started to vibrate, and then expand. His legs jerked as his quads and then his hamstrings inflated, and were quickly balanced by a thick, jiggly muscle ass. His pecs burst forth from his chest to form a sturdy shelf, and then his back thickened along with his lats, belly, and growing arms.

Looking around, Jean took in the changing space. There was a new dent in his dirty mattress from his huge body, and a weight bench and rack in the corner. Of course, he had to lift all day every day to keep up his bulk. The walls and ceiling were covered in pictures of all Jean’s favourite bodybuilders, his inspiration and his jerk material.

Dumbro_jean: Whoa, bruh, my muscles are gettin huge!

Himbo_mkr: That’s not all, bro! That thick Quebecois cock of yours is keeping up too!

Quebecois? Jean was a bit dumb, sure, but he was pretty sure he’d grown up in Atlanta… Quebec City, right. His dick lengthened and lightened at the same time, and the pale skin tone rushed over his still-growing body. A healthy layer of fat followed, leaving him looking absolutely enormous. Above the blond behemoth’s bed, a Quebec flag unfurled on the wall, showing his national pride.

Jean could barely remember who he’d been before. He knew he’d been smaller… smarter? He’d been American. The idea that he’d so quickly become this huge pale Quebecois stud had him grunting and palming his dick. Soon he was close, cursing quietly in his deep new Quebecois accent.

QC_jean: Calisse, bro, gonna cum!

Himbo_mkr: Yeah brah! Shoot that musky hockey bro load.

Hell yeah! Jean grabbed a used athletic jock that had just appeared next to him. He remembered: he’d worn it for practice this morning, and it was still warm and wet with his sweat. He loved being on the ice, and being around a whole team of big, dumb, sweaty Quebecois hockey players meant he was always leaking in his jock. He held the pouch up to his nose to inhale the musk of his sweat and precum permeating the jock.

His whole room was ripe with used hockey bro gear. Jean hated cleaning any of his equipment while he was on a points streak, and it’d been a few weeks since he’d failed to score in a game. The hockey stuff scattered on the floor was ripe with stale sweat. Being a hockey bro was so fucking hot.

Jean’s thick cock unleashed a torrent of cum as he continued to curse in Quebecois. When he came down, he gave himself a sniff and looked back at his battered old laptop. It was only good for porn and surfing forums, but a bro like him didn’t need it for anything else.

Right now, the browser was open to one of his favourite sports jock forums. He had a post all ready to go, a pic of him after the last game, half undressed in his sweaty gear with his hair stuck to his face, looking like a perfect dumb hockey bro. Quickly, Jean also snapped a picture of his spent dick and sent it to his friend.

Hockey_jean: Include this too?

Himbo_mkr: Definitely, bro! You love showing off your hockey himbo body.

Yeah, this guy was right about everything. No one loved to show off that he was a hot hockey bro for the bros more than Jean.

Inspired by a chat with a bot of my own creation. Format inspired by Codename: Bear_mkr by @biggerchanger

[scrumptiousstuffs]

I think it's because First isn't the one people care about. I don't mean that in a mean way, but more and more fandom prefers and talks about and pays most attention to Khaotung. I think that's why most of the "acts of service" everyone mentions are from years ago when the balance was more even or maybe even First was the more popular one and they cared enough to notice, but now that has shifted and people are way more focused on Khaotung and how adored he is because they adore him. It's normal in fandom and I'm sure every cp has the one everyone likes better, but I will admit it's rough on me since First Kanaphan is my bias and I want to hear about how adored he is. 🤣🤣

So, I guess this is in relation to a recent ask, where that anon wanted to know if there were moments Khaotung did the work to make his CP with First a reality because from the outside it seems First did the bulk of the work and staking his claim. Or perhaps anon, you are talking about the previous asks I have answered pertaining to some anti-First fans?

Either way, I'm not sure I follow when you said most of the acts of service "everyone" mentions were from years ago since it is as recent as the Busan trip? And most of the facts spilled by First (re: Khaotung) occurred in the last 12-24 months (i.e when they officially become a CP). I don't think we will ever know the depth of what Khaotung did for First and vice versa. All we know came out from First himself (and occasionally Khaotung).

I agree that there will be fans in the fandoms who have bias, and that's perfectly fine (personally, I adore both of them equally). We can have favourites as long as we don't resent the other person in the CP.

You can of course disagree with me, but I do not think First is losing popularity in the fandom or as you put in, Khaotung being the current focus and adored more by the fandom. First has more followers on Instagram (the boys have roughly the same on Twitter). However, there is Twitter account that keeps track on FK engagement every week - I can tell you, new followers for IG/Twitter for First always outstripped his bestie.

What you might be seeing is the fandom currently retweeting more about Khaotung because in the last 12 months he has been getting nomination for international awards (and really, there is not much else to retweet cause our boys have very little events in the last 12 months 🙃) - firstly, as Gaipa in MLC, then more recently Let's Try for Asia Contents Awards & Global OTT Awards and now, for the upcoming 29th Asian Television Awards.

Of course, we all will love to see First getting nominated too because he was (and still is) an amazing actor. Personally, First's characters in the last few roles are quite hard to nail because it requires restraint with only subtle changes in his eyes/facial expressions to convey his feelings (but he did it marvelously). Don't worry anon, I have no doubt his time will come sooner or later.

And anon, you don't have to worry about First not being adored. Every single directors and actors who have worked with him all want to work with him again because he is that amazing. He also has a loyal fanbase.

But no matter how much we adore him, it's safe to say, we will never beat how much Khaotung loves his bestie (so we just have to accept being second place in this instance! hehe). A different anon (in another ask) described First as Khaotung's sun. I agree completely.

19/10/2024

[forwhump]

a/n; I have to say, I’ve been fleshing out this little universe of mine for years & years and I genuinely forget how much content I have or what half of it is LIKE THIS ONE !!!!!!!!! I FORGOT ALL ABOUT THIS ONE & this is such a good one they were just little babies :’) awww my little babies

more early stuff & @ chi finally some caretaking 👀 better late than never 😚

word count: 4k, it’s long as hell

tw/cw: mentions of vivisection, grievous bodily harm, accidental grievous self harm, canon typical gore

living weapon whumpee, caretaking, the sort of blood and guts that come w taking care of a living weapon

Something Wren is starting to find almost helplessly endearing about Silas is just how intimidated he seems to be by the rest of them.

He cuts the figure of an old Hollywood movie monster, something that brings the word fearsome to mind. He has to turn sideways to fit through doorways because of the bulk of him, and all of it is muscle, genetically engineered or otherwise. Hal insists he has to be ten feet tall; Wren thinks, practically, he’s probably somewhere between eight and nine. His hair is long, almost unnaturally inky in colour, and there’s something sort of feral about the way he always lets it hang in his face, limp. His voice is just unnatural in pitch, a rumble, bass, but he doesn’t speak all that much, instead angling his head, grunting on a good day. He isn’t very expressive, but he makes a lot of eye contact. An intimidating amount of eye contact.

Frightful. And not just in bulk, but in what he’s capable of; if Silas decided he wanted to use the unit as his personal slaughterhouse, there isn’t a thing any or all of them could do to stop him. He’s frightful. But some reason, frightful as he may be, it really seems like the rest of them make him nervous. After weeks of trying to coerce him, like trying to befriend a stray dog, he’d started joining them in the common room but he’d never get too close, only ever just watching them. Wren’s always found something really wary about the way he’ll watch them, something nervous. It makes it hard to be frightened by him.

Robin’s the exception. For whatever reason, Silas is properly shit scared of Robin, and Wren can’t even begin to guess why but it makes him laugh. He tries not to, he doesn’t want to embarrass Silas, not when he’s already so skittish, but watching him full body react to something as innocuous as Robin turning his head is amusing in an almost painfully endearing way, and he just can’t help it, try as he might. The first thing that’s made him laugh, actually, since he got here.

The second is that Robin is weirded out by it. It creeps him out that Silas is creeped out by him. Their relationship is built on a foundation of very tense symbiosis and Wren couldn’t say what it is about it that tugs so firmly at his chest, but it does. It makes him smile if he thinks about it too hard.

He would dare say he’s charmed by it, but he has a sneaking suspicion it’s why Silas isn’t more tempted to spend time in the common room, time around the rest of them. Usually, though, he lurks more than he doesn’t, and he’s becoming a somewhat comforting fixture, so Wren notices, pretty immediately, that Silas isn’t his usual shadow in the common room. Even if he always just sits outside, watching, he always sits outside. Wren notices pretty immediately that he isn’t there; Silas is kind of a hard guy to miss. And Wren would be lying again if he said that, selfishly, he didn’t prefer having Silas around. Wren feels better in his company, even if he’s just a shadow. The soldiers are all afraid of him, so afraid of him, and they have less attention to focus on Wren when they’re scared.

June and Robin are having some kind of heated competition — push ups — and Hal is lying on the floor beside them, arms folded behind his head, eyes closed. He looks like he’s napping.

Wren doesn’t even bother to ask them. He crosses through the common room, mostly unnoticed, and peeks first into Silas’ room, where he’s usually hiding, where Wren has to track him down before coercing him out. Except Silas isn’t there, and his bedroom is empty.

And Wren is pretty certain Silas doesn’t have any of his field tests or his treatments, because it was always pretty obvious when Silas was being taken away for a field test or treatment — Wren got left alone, because Silas needed an escort of just about every armed soldier in the place. But Wren had been with Point, and Point had been his usual, deranged self, not the tense, colder version that impending Silas exposure seems to bring out in him.

He checks the common room again, just in case, but he isn’t there. He isn’t in the kitchen, either. The door to the bathrooms is closed. It usually isn’t.

Wren cracks it open, and he doesn’t know what he was expecting.

The smell is so overwhelming that for a second, he goes blind. It’s bitter, a sharp pain in his sinuses he hadn’t anticipated, the tang of raw meat. It makes him dizzy.

He takes two steps into the bathroom and has to brace a hand on the wall to keep himself from slipping. Looking down, the red mist had cleared from his vision but he doesn’t realize it for a second, because everything is still red. Redness is pooling on the floor.

Blood.

There’s so much blood.

He thinks first, stricken, that Silas must have died in the bathroom because he’s smeared on every wall and pooling on the floor. It’s an impossible amount of blood, so much of it in some spots it doesn’t even look like blood, but black paint.

But Wren rounds the corner, and the bathroom has been flooded, blood soaking through the canvas of his shoes, but Silas, somehow, is still alive, and he’s still standing. He’s shirtless, standing over a drain, and he’s been vivisected. His chest and his stomach had both been opened, a Y of a wound that yawns open, pulled wider with each of Silas’ breaths. It looks like it had been stitched together at some point, staples that tear chunks out of the already frayed tissue as they’re pulled, threads that tear ribbons out of his flesh.

Wren can really see it in him then, the widowmaker, the juggernaut. He can see why the soldiers are all so scared, so edgy around him; why they talk about him the way they do; why Point, in particular, is so weird about him. The rest of the unit, until Silas, save for Wren, had all been super soldiers — Silas is their weapon. Wren can really see it in him for the very first time.

But there’s something in the way he looks up, caught, the closest he’s ever looked to embarrassed, and the absurdity of it makes Wren forget to be scared of him at all.

“What?” is what he says. He doesn’t mean to. He feels lightheaded, like he’s started losing blood, too. Like the blood loss is contagious. “Are you okay?”

It’s a stupid question, because of course he’s not. Silas lifts his chin, sort of a nod, anyway.

“Um,” Wren says, because he’s is lying. He’s very visibly not okay. “What. Um,” he says, and even he’s surprised by how normal his voice sounds. A side effect of blood loss by proxy. “What happened?”

Silas just barely angles his head at him, dismissive. Nothing.

Wren’s a little irritated by it. Deflecting, probably, but he’s irritated nonetheless. “What happened?” He repeats firmly.

Silas heaves a broad shoulder, and Wren doesn’t mean to, but he watches as it pulls at his skin and the staple of a stitch tears a chunk out of his sternum. “S’fine.”

“Fine?” Wren says, and it comes out a little weak. He looks up — up, up, up — into Silas’ face. “You’re bleeding to death.”

Silas finally lifts his head, looks at him properly, and he looks for a long time. When he speaks, his voice is its usual, flat bass, a rumble Wren would swear he can feel in his chest. “I won’t die.”

“What?” He repeats. It’s a little surreal, this whole thing. “Silas,” he tries. “What did you do?”

“Pulled my stitches,” Silas says.

“Yeah,” Wren agrees. He tries not to look at Silas’ chest, at the way flesh had been pulled back over meat and was starting to come apart again, like frayed ribbon. “Why?”

Silas rubs the back of his head and Wren doesn’t think he’s going to answer him. But he admits, after a beat of silence, “I didn’t mean to.” Another beat, and his voice is a little more tense when he says, “I was trying to change my bandages.”

Wren blinks, and then he’s overcome with a wave of sadness so heavy it almost knocks him on his ass. He was just trying to change his bandages. He was trying to change the bandages from his autopsy by himself, and he was going to bleed to death in the bathroom by himself.

Wren takes a step forward and Silas eyes him suspiciously. “Do you need a hand?” He offers softly. He shouldn’t have to bleed to death alone, not a few feet from a unit full of people that would help him.

Silas looks at him blankly. “My hands are fine.”

Wren cracks a smile, despite himself. Despite the blood loss. “Would you like some help?” He tries again.

Silas looks at him again, and he hesitates. He looks at him for another long time. Finally, he says, “no.”

Wren tilts his head. “I don’t mind.”

It’s impossible to tell what Silas is thinking. “Why?”

“Why don’t I mind?” Wren asks, angling his head again, curious. “Because you need help, Silas. You’re bleeding. A lot.”

Silas studies him intently. “You’d touch me?”

He says it with a skepticism that tugs at Wren’s heartstrings. “Of course.”

Silas looks at him with that same flat sort of skepticism, but he doesn’t say anything else.

Wren offers him a smile and holds a hand, expectant.

Silas angles his head, towards a bench mounted into the far wall. There are grey towels piled on top, knocked askew, blackened with blood splatter and a single handprint. Beside the towels, industrial rolls of gauze and strip bandages. On the cracked linoleum in front of the bench, an unwound pile of fraying, blood soaked bandages and gauze with chunks of meat woven through the mesh. Wren actually can’t look at them as he steps over them, and it has nothing to do with the gore — it makes him sad in a way he can’t articulate, in a way that makes him feel heavy.

He considers asking Silas to the bench but Silas is standing over the drain and that’s probably the best — the safest — place for him to be. The water in the district doesn’t run hot, but it runs lukewarm, so Wren wets a towel with lukewarm water and sidles into Silas’ personal space. He smells like a butcher shop, but Wren had expected that. The skin of his opened autopsy wound is threadbare, ruined, like whoever had cut him open had taken a cheese grater to the incision to keep him from ever being stitched back together again. It looks raw, and it looks so painful that it actually makes Wren’s skin hurt, which he hadn’t expected.

Exhaling softly, he twists his hair up tightly, out of the way, and tries his very best not to hurt Silas worse than he’s already been hurt. He can feel Silas’ eyes on him the whole time, watching him with a kind of intensity that Wren can handle from beneath his eyelashes all of one time, and then he can’t look at him again.

Soon enough, anyway, he forgets all about it, almost forgets that Silas is there with him at all. He’s meticulous, so careful that he keeps finding himself holding his breath, so focused he forgets about anything else. He picks all the most damaging staples and pulls all the most mutilating threads.

It isn’t easy work, by any means. It’s gory and it’s slippery and Wren’s always had a pretty strong stomach. He’d grown up in the south, and he’d done his time on a farm. His brother had been a cowboy once. There isn’t a lot Wren can’t handle, but there’s a lot of raw, bleeding meat before he covers it with bandages, and every so often his brain likes to remind him that it’s Silas, and it makes him sort of squeamish.

He cleans the wound as best, as gently as he can, and Silas is still bleeding when he finally starts to wrap his bandages. He isn’t quite sure how it was bandaged before, but he thinks mummifying most of his torso is probably the way to go, right?

Silas doesn’t complain or even twitch the whole time. Wren chances a look up at him as he winds a bandage around his waist; he’d forgotten how intently Silas was watching him, and it almost makes him jump. “I’m not hurting you?”

One of Silas’ eyebrows twitches. “You couldn’t hurt me.”

“Given my vantage point, I probably could,” Wren points out.

Silas doesn’t say anything, and it makes Wren just a tad uneasy. He knows his silence means it’s cute that you think so, and that’s a little unsettling. But when Wren says, “can you come down here?”, because Silas is pretty big and Wren can’t wrap all the way to his shoulders without contortion and strain, Silas kneels in front of him willingly, easy. He’s still taller than him.

It makes Wren smile. “Thank you.”

Silas bows his head, kind of a nod, and angles his head to watch him again as Wren more or less mummifies him in gauze and a wasteful number of bandages.

He swaddles him until blood stops seeping through the gauze and then he swaddles him still. He can’t look at him again, not as Silas watches him, not with so much less distance between them. Up close, he has really black eyes, the same unnatural inky colour as his hair, not dark, not really, but an absence of colour or light at all. Wren accidentally catches his eye and holds it for a beat too long, hands on Silas’ slick, bare skin.

When he looks away again, he can feel heat in his face and he isn’t quite sure what to do with that. Flustered, he flattens a bandage against Silas’ sternum and asks, softer than he means to, “what happened to you?”

Silas doesn’t answer him for such a long time that Wren has no choice but to look at him again, curious. Silas is still watching him, and when Wren looks up he raises his eyebrows, curious.

“What happened?” Wren repeats, trying to meet his eye. “What did they do to you?” He knows there are treatments and therapies and medications the super soldiers needed and need to make them and keep them super soldiers. It’s nothing like this. It’s never anything like this.

But Silas heaves his massive shoulders, a tense sort of shrug. “Surgery.”

He says it with a simplicity that makes Wren all too aware of the thickest, most raised scars — the inside of his arms, armpit to wrist; down his sides, from armpit to hip; the Y shaped scar of his torso, shoulders to groin. “Surgery,” he repeats softly. “Do you have a lot of surgeries?”

“Yes,” Silas says.

“Why?”

“Improvement,” he says flatly.

“Improvement,” Wren repeats.

“Mm,” he agrees.

Hidden behind the oil spill of his hair, there’s a ridged scar along the bit of Silas’ hairline that Wren can see and he can’t help but wonder how much of Silas’ hairline it spans. How much of himself he was allowed to keep and how much the district has taken away.

It kind of stuns him into silence, and he finds himself looking really hard at Silas’ bandages.

Silence stretches and Wren isn’t sure how to break it. He keeps busy; once his torso is mummified, Wren takes the lukewarm towel to the cover of gore on his skin. Tries to, anyway — Silas catches him quickly around the wrist. His hand spans most of Wren’s forearm.

He looks up at Silas, who looks back and doesn’t say anything, dark and intense. They look at each other so long Wren is kind of startled out of it. He says, “did I hurt you?”

His eyebrow twitches. Amusement, maybe? “No.”

“Then let me clean you up,” Wren chides gently.

Silas looks down at Wren’s hand, caught in his own. “You don’t have to do this,” he says.

He tilts his head. “Do what?”

“Touch me,” Silas says.

Wren frowns and gently pulls his hand from Silas’ grip. Silas doesn’t stop him, so Wren takes the towel to his skin again, carefully, carefully, carefully wiping away the carnage. He’s as gentle as he can with the burlap they get for towels, and he’s careful not to pull too hard at Silas’ skin. He cleans his shoulders, his arms, hands, under his nails. His throat and his collarbones. The line of his jaw before he finally asks, “why do you think I wouldn’t want to touch you?”

Silas answers him like it should be obvious. “I’m a freak.” I’m disgusting.

Wren stills. The flippancy of it actually upsets him, probably a bit more than it should. He looks up with a frown and says, “you’re not a freak.”

Silas angles his head down towards him slowly. It would probably be intimidating if Wren weren’t a little irritated with him, even if he doesn’t quite know why he’s irritated with him. Then Silas gives him this look, and he doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to — it’s the most expressive Wren’s ever seen him, and his expression says you’re an idiot.

He breathes out a laugh, despite himself. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re not a freak, Silas.”

Silas raises his eyebrows and doesn’t say anything.

Wren raises his eyebrows right back. “You’re not a freak.”

Silas angles his head, relenting, but there’s something Wren finds kind of condescending about it. Washcloth to Silas’ cheek, he uses it to tilt Silas’ face so he’ll look at him. “Stop it. You’re not a freak.” His eyebrow twitches and Wren’s starting to think it’s definitely amusement. “You should be kinder to you,” he tells him.

Silas snorts and there’s nothing amused in it at all. “I don’t deserve kindness.”

Wren can’t keep himself from recoiling. “That’s a horrible thing to say,” he tells him, and he’s mad at Silas on Silas’ behalf. The guy could stand to be a lot kinder to somebody that was bleeding to death in a dirty bathroom by himself. “Why not?”

Silas looks at him critically. “What do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Wren says. “What are you?”

“I’m a weapon,” he tells him.

Wren already knew that. “And?”

Silas looks only just barely baffled, but it’s obvious on his otherwise marble face. “You’re a soldier. You don’t know what weapons do?”

There’s something incredibly condescending in his tone but that’s not why Wren prickles. “I’m not a soldier.”

Silas angles his head back to look down at him, and Wren can see it in his face, that he’s really looking at him for the very first time. How much smaller he is than Silas, how much smaller he is than all the rest of them. “What are you?” He asks.

Wren’s shoulders tense. “That’s none of your business.” Silas studies him closely, all dark and intense, but he doesn’t say anything else, he doesn’t push, he doesn’t pry. Wren tries to roll the tension out of his shoulders and huffs out a breath, wiping the last of the blood splatter from his face.

“Wren?” Silas says.

Wren almost wrings out the towel, then thinks better of it. He looks at Silas, very close to eye level. “Silas?”

“Thank you,” he says, and there’s something sort of awkward about how he says it, tense, out of practice.

Like a surprising number of other things about Silas, Wren finds himself kind of endeared by it. He takes a hand to his chin and tips his face down. It surprises him again, how willingly Silas moves, and Wren smiles against the ridged scar of his hairline as he presses a kiss there. “You’re welcome.”

Silas looks at him, and he’s as unexpressive as he usually is but he touches his hand to his forehead, to the spot Wren had kissed. “What was that?”

“What?” Wren says, because it’s not what he was expecting. He has to stop expecting things from Silas, he thinks. “A kiss?”

“A kiss?” Silas repeats, and Wren can’t tell if it’s another question or if he’s just mimicking his inflection. He says it with Wren’s accent.

It kind of feels like a lightbulb going off, like a bunch of odd puzzle pieces finally forming a bigger, odd picture. Maybe Silas isn’t what Wren thought he was at all.

“Silas,” he says slowly. “Where were you before this? Before you were here.”

“I wasn’t,” Silas says.

And that can’t possibly be true, but it opens this yawning chasm in Wren’s chest that sucks all the air from his lungs. He feels so guilty for ever likening Silas to a stray dog that it actually might make him flush. It isn’t that he’s intimidated by them, it’s that he doesn’t understand them. Silas is their only weapon — has he known anything before this but violence? Is that all he can remember?

“You weren’t,” Wren says softly.

The corner of Silas’ mouth lifts and it’s the very first time Wren has ever seen him smile. It makes him smile, despite himself. “Freak,” he explains, and there’s something almost challenging in the way he says it.

“Stop that,” Wren tells him, and it makes Silas smile properly.

Silas has a very handsome smile.

Silas has dimples.

It almost makes Wren recoil again, but that would be rude, so he doesn’t. It’s close, though. There’s a particular scar on Silas’ face, thin and shiny, angled across his jaw and the corner of his mouth so when he smiles, it’s lopsided. It’s uncomfortably charming, and the dimples that carve out of his cheeks make it almost overwhelming. He also has great teeth, which is jarring, a stark contrast to all the rest of him, raised scars and messy stitches. He thinks Silas might actually be really handsome, and that feels jarring, too.

He smiles anyway. He can’t help it and he doesn’t know why.

Silas looks away, but he still has a dimple carved out of his cheek on one side and Wren presses the washcloth to it, an impulse he can’t quite control. “There you go,” he tells him. “Good as new.”

“Thank you,” he says again, and it’s still awkward, and he still won’t still look at him.

Wren smiles a bit wider. “Anytime,” he says, and Silas grunts. “I’m serious. Anytime. You’re gonna start being kinder to yourself and you’re gonna start by asking for help.” Silas grunts again and he adds, “don’t be shy. I don’t bite.”

“I do,” Silas says, and he doesn’t say it like a joke but he says it like a warning and Wren doesn’t think he’s kidding.

He isn’t quite sure why it makes him smile again. “I don’t mind.”

Silas looks at him, angling his head. Wren can’t tell what he’s thinking and it should be intimidating, daunting, but Wren’s been having a really hard time being afraid of him. His full body fear of Robin had started it, but having him kneel patiently in front of him while Wren swaddled him in bandages may have been the thing to cement it. “Okay,” he says finally.

Wren surprises himself with how pleased he is. His smile is bright. “Okay,” he agrees. “Good.”

Silas dimples on one side, just barely, and angles his head down towards Wren.

For a second, Wren doesn’t get it. Then he breathes out a laugh and leans up to press another obedient kiss to Silas’ hairline.

When they get back to the common room, Silas sits beside him, and a mountain has been moved. Wren isn’t sure why it feels so much like a win, but he preens, anyway.

[atla-confessions]

People engage with Katara’s role in LoK in bad faith.

Was it everything that we all dreamed it would be no, and I wish she had a fight scene as well. But dying that LoK Katara was side lined as Aang’s baby making factory is so grossly misogynistic it’s honestly disgusting.

Katara does a lot in LoK especially the first 2 seasons and the first half of the 4th. She’s the member of the gaang most featured in the entire show. She is the reason that Korra can even walk again and somehow that’s not comparative to Zuko’s one 30 second fight where he got his ass handed to him because…….? What? It’s a more “feminine” duty? When the decision on whether to send Korra away for airbending training is being made it is katara that everyone looks to for final say, it is katara’s opinion they respect more than anything to decide to forgo their own reservations. The white lotus looks to get for guidance but these things don’t count. Obviously

Katara is held to such esteem by the entire world and is a constant source of guidance to everyone else in the show. Katara is the reason the casualties in the civil war where no where near as terrible as they were. And all these things don’t matter because they are her more “feminine” side because Katara didn’t get a 30 second fight scene sprinkled in so you can say she still got it? Meanwhile she’s performing complex water bending and taught not only kya but Korra as well how to waterbend but all these things don’t count or don’t matter because she’s primarily healing.

Toph has one flashback where she doesn’t really do anything but be blood bended and then another flashback of her being a bad parent. She then mentors Korra for a bit just like katara did but in her own abrasive way. Next time she shows up she’s helping her family escape. And this portrayal is somehow better than Katara’s because toph got to actually fight…..?because she got a statue? Toph while still fun has arguably the most convoluted plot lines in the show.

This isn’t even mentioning the complete lack of Sokka or any of his descendants but I guess it’s all right since he got a statue?

The way people act you would think that katara spends her entire screen time barefoot and pregnant or moaning about Aang or even just being a mother. But actually she only brings up Aang twice and the bulk of her interactions are her acting as a source of guidance for Korra or performing healing. She does not act as aangs mouth piece, she gives advice from her own life experience and her own teachings. People regularly seek her out for guidance but she’s not important? Or well regarded? How? Compared to what? Zuko’s 30 minutes of fame?

And like I said there’s obviously more I wish we had seen, I wish we got a fight scene, I wish we saw a fucking statue of her if only so you guys will shut the fuck up. But this narrative that katara was nothing but a baby maker is grossly misogynistic and wildly misleading. And I can understand frustration with the writing or the heavy focus on one aspect of her character saying that Katara’s focus on healing and teaching essentially equals to her being nothing but a mistreated housewife/baby making factory is a brain dead take and the call really is coming from inside the house.

LoK has its problems but Katara being turned into a baby making factory is not one of them and it’s wild that that’s what some of y’all interpreted her as.

X

[one-of-many-journeys]

Day 15

Meridian

Dawn at the Hunter's Lodge

I spent the morning wandering Meridian. It was already bustling in the early hours. There were merchants of every sort: weavers, glass makers, smiths, potters, even mercenaries.

I met a few eager traders. First, a Carja envoy to the Banuk who was after relics, wooden figurines from a legendary hero of the tribe. I’ve found one already but she was only willing to shift stock in bulk. Guess I’ll just have to find more. She even handed me a map of suspected locations where Banuk rock paintings had been spotted, haunts of the old hero. 

Another Carja man was searching for ‘ancient vessels’. He was enamored with the mystery of their purpose. Highly enthusiastic. I’ve found a few and they seemed like ordinary chipped earthenware to me, though emblazoned with faded images and words. Finally, some vindication for all the junk I’ve been carrying around. Wonder if someone will be this enthusiastic about my excess stockpiles of ridge wood and blaze. 

Another merchant was after metal flowers, though unfortunately he didn’t understand their origin or purpose anymore than I do. Less so, maybe, since I’ve been able to read the descriptive verses that the flowers leave behind on my Focus. The trader just wants to sell them to rich nobles with more money than they know what to do with. Still, I took him up on the offer. 

The city is even more beautiful in the fresh light of day. I rode one of the elevators down to the village below the mesa, the sunlight glinting on the gold metalwork of the cage. 

There were somehow even more traders in the village. The open air did more for the smell, but it was just as loud, so many people vying for my attention.

A pair of bickering merchants wasted my time as they argued over which part they wanted from me, but it was entertaining enough for me to endure the distraction. I might as well pick up both if I come across them in the wilds.

I set out southwards into the jungle, making for Sun’s Climb to clear the site for the Banuk mourner to paint his mark. I rode my new Charger mount some of the way then climbed the rest, managing to clear the Glinthawks with my Ropecaster and spear strikes without falling to my death. Found a metal flower up there too. Another incredible view. The Banuk painted his mark. An abstract thing, but the colours were bold against the stone.

Further south along the path to the lake shrine where two Snapmaws were keeping the Utaru mourner out. I took them down by detonating their blaze canisters and striking the chill water sacks from their gullets.

I tried to comfort the Utaru as best I could, but she seemed far away, like she was still trapped in the moment she lost her friend. She spoke strangely, of new beginnings, memory living on in the sprouting of seeds. A sort of eternal life in the veins of the wilds, like the Nora’s belief in All-Mother’s stony memory. Whatever brings them comfort in the slaughter, I suppose. 

I rode up the mountain side to an alcove where a Sun Priest barred the way of an Oseram mourner. The statue of the Mad King Jiran stood defaced and headless beyond the blockage, a statue that the Oseram’s lost lover crafted in chains. These Oseram put so much meaning in the works of tools and hands. It makes a sort of sense, it’s something that wouldn’t exist without the maker, their mark on the world. They seem to believe that part of the soul lives on in its works. Even though his partner was worked to death building that monument to a murderous tyrant, the Oseram wanted to pray there. 

It took some convincing, but eventually the Sun Priest slunk away in shameful grumblings. A firm believer in the old ways, he saw the Sun King’s patricide as a shame and the establishment of peace between tribes as a sullying of what was pure. The fact that he spoke so openly about his beliefs, was standing there guarding a statue of the old king, speaks to the fact of the new king’s leniency. I’ve got a feeling that most men who live in golden palaces wouldn’t stand for that kind of slander. 

Stopping briefly at the camp outside Meridian, I rode further north into the desert to seek out Olin at the excavation site. Knowing it’d be a long night, I rested for a few hours at Cut Cliffs, a small mining town on the way. There were men at work blasting in a huge quarry below. 

I changed into Nora armour and painted my face with the mark of a seeker. I’m writing this now, waiting for sunset. Maybe I’d be better off disguising myself as Carja or Oseram to avoid attention, but part of me wants Olin to see me and know me. I plan to do my killing up close and personal, the way the dead-eyed man tried to kill me at the Proving. I won’t enjoy it though. This is simple reciprocity. Blood for blood. 

I rode out from Cut Cliffs at dusk.

I came across two killers near the place marked on Olin’s map and took them out from a distance. When I entered the site, I found the place crawling with more killers and two Corrupters. I heard their leader spouting some doctrine about taking Meridian with an army of risen machines. So that’s why they were digging them from the earth, letting their corruption bleed into the soil. Olin was there, horrified at the killers’ plan. Why did he help them then? Family threatened or not, helping these killers amass an army of machines could only lead to many more deaths, as it already has among the Nora. 

Before I could make my approach, my Focus glitched, sending a little burst of pain and noise through my skull. By the flinching of the killers below, they felt the same. Then I heard a voice in my head: a deep voice, cold and curt. He wouldn’t tell me who he was, but he disabled the killers’ Focuses for me, so I suppose I can count him as a potential ally. More importantly, he knows about Focuses, enough to disable all of them at once. What else does he know of Old World technology?

I snuck around the edge of the excavation site, keeping to the high ground and taking out their snipers, then picked off those below. Olin seemed to jump at the opportunity to help the stranger picking off the killers; too little, too late. He soon took a nasty hit from a rock flung by a Corrupter and was taken out of action anyway. I took the Corrupters out from above, dousing them with frost and piercing their ranged weapons, then rained down on the scuttling brutes until they both lay destroyed. 

I approached Olin in the dawning light. He didn’t put up a fight, and he was forthcoming, to his credit. He told me that the killers were called the Eclipse, and they were Shadow Carja, raising machines to mount an attack on Meridian and reclaim the throne. Helis was the name of the man who killed Rost. Olin also spoke of the cult’s true leader, a 'devil' who ordered the attack on me the night before the Proving. Its name is Hades.

Whoever or whatever this devil is, it must know the woman I resemble so closely. Olin said he found her image in an ancient ruin called Maker’s End to the far north west, and when he emerged the Eclipse were waiting for him with news of his captured family. Did they come for him because he discovered the image? Maybe this Hades is searching for the woman, hunting her down. Maybe that’s why she retreated behind the bunker door, if she really is my mother. Then why send me out? I need to go to Makers End and find the woman’s image for myself. 

As the sun rose over the excavation site, Olin got what he deserved. He begged me to rescue his family, and I will. They’re innocents in all this. Olin had a choice, and he chose to preserve his own family over the families of others—countless among the Nora and many across other tribes felled to the corruption and the risen machines. Knowing what the Shadow Carja long for—to reinstate their fallen king's empire of cruelty—how could he go along in silence?

Still, it was different to bringing down bandits in the pursuit of justice. Olin looked into my eyes, spoke to me. He was glad to see me alive and begged for the lives of his wife and child, his reason for soiling his name and heart forever. 

When I killed him, it felt good, but not because of a light fading in his eyes, as Nil once described, but because I felt the hands of those I was avenging with my own on the shaft of my spear, holding my grip steady and true. Rost’s hands, Vala’s, even Bast’s, and so many others. 

But when the moment faded, only my hands were there on the wood, shaking, and Olin lay there slumped in the pit, reddening the dust. I’d been waiting for this moment for days now, I’ve come so far…But no closer. On the way, more will fall. I can’t afford to go soft now. Survival requires perfection.

[utilitycaster]

Who is out here ignoring the messiness of Phineas/Jonas?? That's partly a rhetorical question but mostly a genuine one; most cases of Missing The Point with those two seemed to focus more on handwringing about the Problematic Potential of the ship + sometimes rejecting it wholesale on that basis, rather than deliberately casting aside all nuance so as to enjoy watching the blorbos kiss with a clear conscience or whatever

I mean, given that I'm not going to name names for a multitude of reasons, particularly since this was merely annoying to me, an easily annoyed person, I can't really answer this in a helpful manner.

Suffice it to say I found that most people who shipped it at all pre-season 3 ignored the many complicated layers of the relationship. I do not know their intentions, but I don't think it was ignoring problematic elements because they wished for a clear conscience - I think they were just going for an easy surface reading of an M/M ship and not bothering with the elements I found more interesting. I actually found that most people who didn't ship it until it occurred weren't concerned about it being problematic (I certainly wasn't); a romantic reading was just one of many, and until Trustfall made a very convincing case, I found other readings into the other aspects of the relationship infinitely more interesting than a romantic one.

If you're also a CR fan, I feel a good comparison here is Caleb and Essek. It's a romantic relationship I really enjoy! I also think most people who seriously shipped it prior to 2x97 were throwing darts at whatever M/M pairings they could without much consideration of what was actually going on, and happened to hit one that ended up being good by chance rather than by any sort of compelling analysis. That doesn't mean that after the fact you can't go back and find groundwork being laid - that's always true in good storytelling - but I think the bulk of the work was done in Season 3 and especially Trustfall, and anyone shipping it earlier (and without prior knowledge) made a lucky guess; just as Shadowgast actually began to be something interesting starting with 2x97.

[jillsandwhichs]

Valenfield OneShots/AUs Collection , Chap 12 , Risky

Masterlist

Pairing: Jill Valentine & Chris Redfield

Summary: Chris and Jill have some special alone time in her office

Status of their relationship in this one shot: dating

WC: 3.7k

Type: NSFW

Warnings: Imma be honest, I didn't write down the warnings when I did this. To guess, P in V, Dirty talk, Making out, Office sex, Semi public sex, Biting, No protection, He cums on her & more

A/n: Hi! Hope you all enjoy. Please check out my masterlist, there's a lot of stuff there. You can get to know me, you can see the rules of my blog and then you can see all of my fanfictions. You'll be able to find the previous chapters to this fic and upcoming ones. You'll also be able to find my Wattpad & AO3. Comments, reblogs & likes are appreciated. Thank you

Tag: @withonly-sweetheart POOKIE, I FORGOT TO TAG YOU, HERE!!!

Jill was on her laptop, typing up the final few sentences she needed for this analysis on her latest mission. If there was one thing she dreaded most about her job, it wouldn't even be the dangerous part, rather writing and typing for majority of the day. Luckily, it was getting later on in the day, considering it was around seven P.M currently, which just gave Jill more motivation to keep working so she could finally head back to her apartment.

The woman had her own personal office. It was miniscule but cozy, Jill loved the fact she got time to herself whilst working, it helped her keep a clearer headspace and you most definitely need one working this tank of a job. Her office was square shaped, just like any other stereotypical office you'd find. Her desk was all white, drawers stacked on the top of it, but leaving a decent amount of room for her extra knick knacks she needed for work.

It was overall hard to focus on her work right now, all she could think about was being able to go home. Jill is passionate about her line of work, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want a break, because she seriously does. Mental health breaks are important yet ever since she was young, she never necessarily prioritized her mental well being like she should. Her boyfriend, Chris, has definitely helped her with that though. He makes her want to be better.

"Fuck me..." Jill groaned out, rubbing her forehead, attempting to relieve the immense amount of stress she has been feeling. Jill was guilty of being a procrastinator. She would put work off and not touch it for a while, which is what causes her to have to sit through more meetings than usual, have more work to do and have to even stay back late to receive lectures from Clive, which when he's disappointed in a worker, oh, he'll most definitely make sure you know.

Overall, Jill doesn't wanna deal with that anymore, she wants to complete this course and just be done with all this work, and that starts tonight.

-

The woman had completed her analysis and was now typing up an email to Clive, letting him know of her accomplishment. Jill was inevitably getting more and more bored of typing, reading and scanning through all these documents. It was actually such a bore, but you reap what you sow, and Jill sowed his job. She literally helped form what the BSAA is today, it kind of gains her the authentic right to complain about it, or at least that's what she tells herself.

As she was finalizing the email, double checking for any spelling errors, there was a light knock at the door, before it then slowly creaked open, revealing a tall, bulk figure. Jill's eyes glanced up, capturing who was standing just before her. The door was only a couple feet in front of her desk, her office wasn't the largest. "Jeez baby, I didn't expect you to still be here." Jill exclaimed, placing her hand up on her chest as if you hold on for dear life. "Yeah, yeah, no, I wasn't going to be here this late, considering it's eight-thirty now but I wanted to see you before I left."

Chris and Jill worked together at the BSAA. While they technically aren't partners on missions, they always manage to weasel their way in to working with one another, which they both enjoy very much. "I'm glad, I was hoping I'd finish sooner but I literally now just finished my analysis... When did you do yours?" "Just about an hour ago, I've been with Jessica ever since, we went over last Mondays mission." Chris expressed, ambling to Jill's desk, twinking with her knick-knacks.

"I see... Let me just send this email and then we can talk, yeah?" Jill stated, aiming back down at her laptop and typing away. "Go ahead baby." Chris whispered, going back to fidgeting with the little stuff on her desk. Chris didn't have any at his but that's just for the best knowing he'd get distracted and mess with them twenty-four-seven.

The email she was sending wasn't too long nor too short. It was basically just her apologizing for never getting caught up and mostly focusing on hands on missions rather than the reports, analysis's and documents side of things, which is just as important. Jill just prefers the thrill of being out on a mission, it's just what she likes more. Ultimately, she sent the email, releasing a huge sigh and slumping in her chair before gandering back to Chris, smiling as she watched him fuck with her gadgets.

Soon, Chris caught onto the fact she was staring at him, it made him feel somewhat embarrassed, conveying him to convert the topic. "Are we staying at your place tonight? Or seperate? If you wanna be alone tonight, that's okay." Chris spoke, not wanting her to feel pressured. "We can stay at mine." Jill answered him, standing up after sitting down for so long felt great, her muscles stretched in all the right places.

"Yeah, sounds good." Chris spoke, putting the item down and letting his eyes advert to Jill, whom was heading towards him. "I don't know if I ever told you this but that shirt looks great on you babe." Jill complimented him. All he was wearing was a tight fit BSAA uniform shirt, it wasn't anything special. "Oh really?" Chris chuckled, watching as Jill stepped closer to him. "Yes." "Well, I'm glad you like it, but all it is, is my uniform." Chris stated, placing his hands on her lower waist, his hands resting just above her rear.

"It looks good on you though." She spoke again, her voice was awfully enticing. "You look good too, you always do." He replied. "I know." She said sarcastically, retrieving a laugh out of Chris. "Glad to see you're self aware sweetheart." Chris chortled, squeezing her hips firmly. Jill giggled and gandered her eyes up at him, their eyes locking as if the two were in a trance. "I love you." "I love you too baby." Chris whispered, moving his right hand up to her cheek and caressing it with ease.

"Did Jessica leave?" Jill asked aloud. "Yeah, why?" "Nothing, I just wanna make sure she won't come looking for you, you're mine for the rest of the night." She joked. "Yes ma'am." He replied with a tint of playfulness in his tone. Jill smiled to herself and leaned up towards his face, indicating she wanted to kiss him. Chris snorted and brought her face up to his, pressing his lips to hers and embracing the lovely feeling of their lips moving together.

Chris replaced his hands back onto her hips, turning her around and pushing her against her desk, causing it to shake for a moment, making her fidgets tip over. "Careful!" Jill laughed.

"Never." Chris teased her, going back to kissing her, the passion between the two was clear as day ; it's almost as if they were made for one another. Her hands rested on his lower stomach, his rock hard abs plundered through his shirt, which just so happened to be part of why Jill loves his uniform on him so much.

The way Jill's hands felt on his body was always beyond pleasant. Chris allowed her hands to roam wherever they pleased, he enjoyed the way she'd touch him, it was one of the best feelings in the world to him. "I love when you're like this." Chris muttered out, continuing to periodically kiss her. "I can't help myself..." Jill mumbled back, her fingers trailing as the end of his shirt, it intrigued Chris an insane amount.

Jill began to take off his shirt, it was somewhat hard though due to the tightness of it. Bit by bit, his torso was revealed to her, it honestly just aroused her even more. "You're so hot." Jill gawked, making Chris laugh. Seeing Jill vulnerable like this was rare and usually, it was only Chris who got to see her this way. He doesn't mind it though ; he loves it if anything, it's his sight to see and only his. "Says you." Chris snickered, gazing down at Jill.

After that, Jill fully removed his shirt, smirking at the sight. "Don't you think this is a little risky? We are at work honey." "I love me some adrenaline..." "Baby, seriously, what if we get caught?" Chris expressed his worry. "Babe, we won't, most people are gone and the others are either in their offices or outside, we're fine." "I'll take your word for it sweetheart." He sighed out, relaxing his nerves at her reassurance. She always knew how to calm him down in any situation.

Taking her cheek into his hand once more, he drew himself closer to her face, leaving loving kisses onto her lips, the moment felt so real and passionate, the two couldn't get enough of it, they relished in it. Chris slipped his hands down to the bottom of her shirt, lifting it above her head, revealing her dark blue bra, Chris couldn't help but get turned on further just by the sight. "You're amazing." Chris let out, latching his mouth onto her neck, leading to her releasing a soft, quiet noise, almost like a moan.

Throwing her head back slightly, Jill stood there, living for the feeling of Chris kissing and suckling on her throat. It was such an exlierating feeling, one that she's always cherished each time it happens. Her heart was pumping fast too ; the nerve wracking feeling that someone could knock on the door at any moment was flooding her mind. At the same time, it was adrenaline inducing, it felt good. "I love you." Jill whispered, tossing her head back even further. "I love you more, Jill." Chris replied, leaving hickeys all along her upper neck. "Oh you best hope those are visible by Monday..." "Let's pray hun." Chris snickered.

Releasing his threshold on her neck, Chris instantly went from that to picking her up swiftly and placing her to sit up straight on her desk, her body directly in front of him. "This is how we're gonna do it?" Jill giggled, placing her arms behind her to support her weight. "If you'd like." "Mhm." Jill mumbled in response, more than happy to take the position he put her in. "Do you have any condoms?" Chris questioned. "I don't... Can you just pull out?" Jill answered, moving her hands to be on his wrists. "I'll try." He cackled. "It'll be okay if you don't, I'll get the pill." Jill assured him, moving her hands to rest behind her again.

Luckily, Chris's pants weren't the ones he usually wears, these ones were much more casual and easier to slip off, especially since they were morely in a rush, not wanting anyone to come looking for them. He pulled down his pants, along with his underwear, revealing his erect length, Jill felt as if she could drool at the sight. "Take a picture, it'll last longer." Chris teased her. "I will." Jill said back to him, her tone sassy but in a attractive way, basically seductive.

His hands now shot to her leggings, pulling them all the way down from her waist to her feet, watched as she kicked them off from her ankles, leaving her in just her bra and panties. "Let's get these off." Chris spoke with concentration as he laughed, removing her panties haistly. "You always say that." Jill sneered. "Yeah, and? I mean it, I'm always quick to want you nude." "Of course." Jill giggled, gazing up at him.

Positioning himself right in front of her, Chris heaved as he stared at her gorgeous body, a warm pit was forming in his lower abdomen and his member only felt as though it was forming to become even harder - if that was even possible. "I'll never get enough of you." Chris admitted to her, taking in the view of her perfection. "Good." Jill whispered with a lustful voice. He snorted and grabbed his length, jerking it once or twice before aligning himself with her core. "Make sure you stay quiet baby." Chris ordered, wanting to be safe, no one needs to here what he's about to do to her.

Slowly but surely, Chris pushed himself inside of her, gasping to himself as he felt her immediately contract around him. It just went to show how much she had longed for him. "Fuck." Jill vocalized, biting her lip tightly, wanting to restraint herself from making any noise. "Shhh baby, be quiet for me." Chris demanded lovingly, moving his arms behind her and holding onto the desk. "I'm trying Chris." Jill pleaded, bundling her arms around his neck, holding onto him as he began to pump himself in and out of her.

As he pulled all the way out, Chris pushed back into her, going as deep as he could in this position. It felt so good, he was even trying to remain silent, Jill wasn't wrong, it's hard. His ass flexed as he pumped into her, making sure she felt him deep inside of her walls. "Oh my God..." Jill moaned out, once again throwing her head back, reveling in the intense feeling he was causing her to feel deep inside. "How are you so good at this..." Jill tittered, trying to maintain a soft tone, not to alert anyone in the HQ still. "It's all you baby." Chris responded, keeping the same decent pace.

Chris picked up the pace after a minute or so, he didn't immediately, allowing Jill to adjust to him inside of her. "Baby..." Jill whispered out, her head bouncing slightly from the movements of the desk, which she was still sat on. "Keep taking it." Chris muttered out, watching his length slip in and out of her, it was quite the sight to see and oddly enough, it turned him on even more. Jill's left arm was hanging off of one of his shoulders, her right hand resting on the table for stability.

Exhaling roughly, Chris began to slam into her at this rate, their skin slapping, Jill's moans and Chris's grunts were about the only sounds that could be heard within the room, sounds of a couple making intense love to each other, which the two loved to do together. "You're tight." Chris groaned out, tilting his head back and squinting his eyes, his mouth agap. He could feel his member twitching inside of her, her wetness coated his entire length, it was a sight he hungered for.

Tilting his head back to face her, Chris grunted as he pulled her closer to him, causing Jill to shriek at the sudden action. Their fronts were now pressed together, her breasts tucked into her bra were pressed up against his chest. "Surprised you haven't taken off my bra yet..." Jill soughed out, somehow being able to form words. Without saying anything back, Chris took his hand from behind the desk and to her back, unclipping her bra and groaning as he watched it fall off of her chest. "How about that?" Chris chuckled, taking his hand to her boob and fondling it, it felt so soft in his hand.

Jill gasped as Chris pounded even harder into her, the entire desk was now shaking and Jill actually feared it'd collapse beneath her. "Baby, baby, actually slow down, I can't have my desk breaking." "Heh, sorry hun." Chris laughed, slowing down somewhat but still keeping a pace that made them both weak in the best way possible. "Oh it feels really good..." Jill moaned out, her eyes locking with his. Her body felt as though it was floating as Chris stared back at her, he knew how to make her feel shy, even during special moments like these.

Ending the eye contact, Jill encased her arms around his torso, her nails digging into his back as he continued to move into her, sounds of pleasure emitting from both of them. Jill pressed her face into his shoulder, kissing it and biting down on it ever so gently, causing him to grunt at the pain, but it also felt great to him. "Fuck baby..." Chris groaned, his hands squeezing her waist as he thrusted into her unrelentlessly. "Oh..." Jill whimpered out, her voice cracking as she did so.

"You feel amazing." Chris expressed to her, admiring every aspect of her. Jill looked up at Chris, their faces inches apart. Chris smirked and kissed her, breathing in deeply as he did. Jill slipped her tongue alongside his upper lip, wanting entry into his mouth. He opened his mouth a bit, slipping his tongue to move with hers, their salvia mixing together. Their kisses were filled with complete love and care for each other - it was visible, just through their touches.

"You close?" Chris questioned, his mouth now near her ear. "Yes... Don't stop handsome." Jill pleaded, her hands resting on his back, her body shaking with ecstasy. "You're so beautiful, you know that? I love you Jill." Chris muttered out, pulling away from her, still pulling out and inside of her. "I love you so much." Jill said, her hands trailing up to his broad shoulders now, holding onto them firmly.

There was that familiar deep pit forming within Jill's stomach, she could even feel herself pulsing at the feeling of Chris railing her. "C'mon baby..." Chris grunted out, going extra fast now, wanting to finish himself and her off. Chris gripped her hips in his hands, pulling her into him as he pushed into her, making the experience feel even better and more pleasing. "Oh fuck..." Jill whined out, biting her lip to the point it turned into a faded white color, she was trying her best to keep herself quiet.

"That's it baby, you're okay." Chris spoke, he was talking her through it, he knows Jill likes it a lot whenever he does. He won't even lie, he likes when Jill does it to him too, but that's morely a rare occasion. Chris was absolutely enamored with the way Jill felt around him. She was perfect, every part of her, physically and mentally, she was just herself and Chris loved that so much about her. He basically idolized her, worshipped her. He cherished every bit of her well being.

The grip on her waist was still strong as ever, but he began to do deep, long, hard thrusts into her, indicating he was extremely close to finishing. "Just like that..." Jill expired out, her walls clenching around his member. Jill felt like she was going to explode at any given moment, she felt so alive, but that was also due to the fact they were fucking in her office at their literal workplace. "I'm about to finish baby..." Jill said aloud, her nails digging into her shoulder as if she was holding onto him for dear life.

When Chris heard her speak those words, he grabbed her chin, forcing her into look up at him and into his eyes. There was something about just her pretty face that could get him off ; he knew he'd finish alongside her if he just looked at her. She was ethereal. After he thrusted into her a few more times, she finally hit her peak, her back arched and her mouth opened wide, small vocal noises came out as she finished, her body was shaking too, it felt all too surreal.

Chris studied Jill's face as she finished, watching as she released her final moans and as her back arched from the immense pleasure he was giving to her. "My God..." Chris groaned out, pumping himself into her once more before instantly pulling out and releasing his cum all over her lower stomach, the warm liquid seeped down her body for a moment, there was a lot, Chris couldn't help but snicker at the sight.

"Jesus, that was good." Chris denoted, chuckling to himself. "Yeah, yeah it was." Jill sighed, breathing heavily as she stared down at her stomach, looking at his seed resting on it. "Grab me a rag baby, there are some in the cabinet over there..." Jill pointed over to the left side of her office, a few cabinets were lined up beside each other. "Okay sweetheart." Chris stated, walking over and opening one of the metal drawers, grabbing an old looking rag and treading back over to her, she was still looking adorable as she was sat on her work desk.

Taking the rag to her lower waistline, Chris began to wipe away his cum, not wanting to leave it on her. Chris felt so calm all of the sudden, as if their love making made it feel as though all of his problems were swept away into oblivion. He couldn't even describe the feeling - all he knew was that he was happy to be here, with Jill. "All better." Chris mumbled out, folding the rag and tossing it back over to the cabinets. "Thank you." "Of course babe."

"We should probably get dressed and head to my apartment." "Yeah, I agree, I'm exhausted now." Chris exclaimed, snorting to himself. "All guys are after sex." Jill teased, grabbing ahold of her clothing and putting it back on, along with Chris doing the same. It was moments like these that were so near and dear to them ; it's hard to live a romantic life whilst living your life to fight bioterrorism. Nonetheless, the two were just happy to get any amount of time together.

"I'll leave my car here overnight, let's just take your truck, okay?" Jill spoke, her tone timid. "Fine by me." Chris uttered out, adjusting his shirt to his form. The two tried their best to make it look as though they didn't just have some of the best sex of their life. "Let's go and act normal, yeah?" Jill giggled. "I'll try baby." Chris snickered, kissing her head before opening her office door, the two of them walking out and making their way to Chris's truck so they could finally go home.

[lover-of-mine]

Hi! This is long, but just some Inside Baseball-y theorizing/thoughts on LFJ... I don't have any insider info or anything lol but I know a bit about how the business side of the industry works.

So, he would have been brought back as either a recurring guest star or a recurring co-star (co-stars are usually minor characters who basically serve to push other characters to where they need to be, which is probably what he was in S2. Guest stars have a bigger role and are usually a little more central to the story they're being used in). The distinction is a little fluid and can be up for negotiation by your agent (guest stars get paid a higher rate), but I think Tommy lands pretty solidly into recurring guest category for S7, so that's my guess as to what he was contracted as. (The step above that but before main cast is series regular, which is where Karen and Ravi etc fall)

From what we now know, his original arc was only supposed to be 4 episodes, and he was there for Eddie. Then Natalia's actress became unavailable (I think she was doing a play?) and their original plan sort of fell apart, because if Eddie had his gay awakening in 704 and Buck was single (since Natalia wouldn't be there) the rest of whatever they had planned for the season would stop making sense... hence the switch, and imo you can see some traces of the original plan in the version that eventually made it to air.

And then they were renewed for S8-9, which realistically would have been very much up in the air at the time the season was originally being written. They'd just come off the strikes, they were on a new network, they had a shortened season, they were planning a BIG swing by bringing at least one of their long-term characters out of the closet, so I don't think it's a coincidence that the renewal news came in the wake of those eps airing. I think the network was probably waiting to see how they'd do in the ratings once that happened before they decided how to move forward.

So once they were renewed, they decided to slow down the pace of whatever story they had planned since they now had more or less guaranteed time to do it. The back half of S7 was a hasty rewrite and suffered for it – I think that's been made obvious in interviews and just from what you see on-screen lmao

LFJ was probably asked back for a handful of 7B scenes because of the rewrites – most of his "presence" was done without him actually needing to be on-screen. A couple references to him here and there and one or two scenes in an episode, and that was kind of all they needed story-wise to keep Buck busy while Eddie started down his spiral. I don't think his "popularity" or "fanbase" or whatever had much at all to do with him staying longer. BIG fandom pushes can sometimes sway things, but I think people generally overestimate their influence on these kinds of decisions. It ultimately comes down to money and viewership and story needs, and it made sense for him to stay longer than expected, so he stayed.

When it stops making story or business sense to keep him, he'll be gone, which might have already happened if they think he's caused more trouble than he's worth. There's also the possibility that he'll be promoted to a main on SWAT or get booked for something else and become unavailable just like Natalia's actress did. That happens super frequently.

Or maybe not! If they have a plan for the wrap-up of that storyline that requires him to be physically present, or even if they want to keep him around off and on all next season, then he'll probably be back for a couple episodes, but they're definitely not going to be writing full independent storylines for him. If you pay attention, he (and Buck!) stopped being the focus of any of the plotlines as soon as the bulk of that story was resolved (Buck realizing he's bi and coming out to the rest of the team). Whatever their plan, his function is/was to push Buck to where he needs to be for whatever's next in his story, because Buck is the one who's part of the main cast. He's the one who gets storylines written about him.

I agree with a lot of this, really. I say his approval made him stay, but I kinda mean in the sense that Buck being bi was well received and unlike other love interests, he was well received, so keeping him in the background wasn't creating problems as they set up whatever it was they wanted to do with season 8 using the remainder of s7 after the renewal. I don't think his purpose on the narrative is completely done yet, so I do think he could be back to further Buck in whatever way they need him to, because like you said, he exists to push Buck somewhere and they stopped using Buck on his own after he came out and that's definitely not something that's gonna transfer into s8, so whatever plan they have for Buck is probably going to use him. I think the question is if the chaos that's been going on lately makes it worth it to drag out his presence or if they'll choose to get over with it quickly because while he still makes sense narratively, he might be stopping making sense from a business perspective. But we don't know, this is all speculation at this point. There's a chance he's already written off and there's a chance they are planning on keeping him as a presence for longer. We'll have to wait and see I guess. But this is a very detailed view, thank you for sharing it.

[yuseirra]

Ch 155 review:

woke up in the middle of the night and wrote ANOTHER huge bulk of a post, I'm having so much fun with this but maybe I should return to drawing persona fanarts again because I.. I'm pretty hopeless regarding mysteries but!! Here are my sincere thoughts about the latest chapter in more detail! I should really keep quiet till things clear up more. I believe so, but it's been really fun to hop into an ongoing series

This was originally written in a different language, then later translated through chatgpt. Chatgpt is so cool; ah I'm really sorry about what it does to the environment though; I won't use it a lot;

I hope to write quality content for those who love this work. That's how I feel. Haha. Well, I find it difficult to write forcefully, so at least I can say that I'm writing based on my affection. I'm not writing to get recognition(although it'd be nice).

Ah~~~.. Hahaha. For this episode's development, I realized how foolish I am because I forgot about Nino! But honestly, how was I supposed to know? That character, broadly speaking, might have contributed to Yura's death, but there was no indication that they did anything related to Goro's death. I don't watch many mystery shows, so when I made a plot guess last time, I dug a hole for myself in another post:

What I can't predict is what's going to happen next. There are too many variables and too much undisclosed information. As new information that hasn't been revealed yet comes to light, it makes it really hard to know.

Just like that.

The first emotion I felt after seeing the chapter was "?". What is this?? What are they trying to do?? And then, I felt really sorry for Ai. There's no sane person around. The person who definitely contributed to her death is her ardent fan (though I think even the term "fan" is too generous for that person). The suspected instigator is her ex-boyfriend or a colleague from the same group... there's really no one she can trust. Even though Ai hid many things and didn't show her true feelings and lied, it seems understandable, doesn't it?

I don't have any major speculations about Nino, but what I've understood is that the character "worships" Ai with some very twisted feelings. If there's a character who wants only the good sides of Ai to be shown to the world, it would be this one rather than Kamiki.

When I delve into analyzing the characters' emotions related to the story, I felt the part that needs explanation is Goro's death. Since Goro's death happened before Ai's death, the interpretation can vary greatly depending on whether it was intentional or just an accident. While many might focus on Yura's death, which is indeed very important, at least you could attach some psychotic criminal's delusional reason to it later. For the case of Goro's, however, it'd mean that there might have been someone other than Ryosuke already working against Ai behind the scenes before her death happened. Whether there were more people dissatisfied with Ai and her children other than Ryosuke is significant in determining how much it contributed to Ai's death.

I've been watching all along, but it didn't seem like Kamiki was involved in it, so I was confused. So, I think we need to sort out this part. This character doesn't seem to have much aversion to the fact that Ai had children, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for him to. From the moment he referred to Ruby as "indeed our child" in his first appearance, I got the feeling that this character recognizes the twins as something resulting from him and Ai, something between them, and doesn't view it so negatively. In that short sentence, there was a faint sense of affection. He doesn't seem to dislike being connected with Ai in one sentence, and the fact that there are children between them doesn't seem to be a bad thing from his perspective. You might think I'm overthinking based on one short sentence, but it's not just that; overall, his attitude when he actually appeared in front of the twins doesn't give any sense of dislike. The clincher was when he casually mentioned in chapter 153 that he has a father's heart. I thought, oh, this must be right.

Therefore, if Goro's death wasn't just an accident, I don't feel that this character would have any reason to harm Goro, who tried to protect Ai and their children and ensure their safe birth. (It could be explained as him being petty and harming Goro because he didn't like anyone else being close to Ai, but I think that's highly unlikely.) However, it still feels a bit off to think that Ryosuke acted alone to hide the body and everything else related to Goro's death.

If Nino were involved, it might make things clearer in this regard. But I don't know how insane Nino is (though She seems to be in very bad shape). I think there was some truth to the psychology of Nino that Kana portrayed...

B-Komachi, which was her and Ai's group, was going to perform at the dome, right? Which means Ai's career is shining even brighter even further. So what would this character gain by harming Ai at that point?

Ai did have a desire to reveal things about herself, though. Maybe this character wanted to stop her because he knew she wanted to expose things about herself and stop being the perfect idol worthy of worship?

From Kamiki's perspective, I think Ai revealing things about herself, especially if it was before the dome concert, might not have been such a bad thing. When the children were about four years old, he still wanted to get back together with her. If Ai had said, "I want to try liking someone, and I have children," then his career might have been ruined by the scandal but he might have been happy thinking, "Oh, Ai had feelings for me to that extent." She's THAT important to him, I believe.

But for Nino, it wouldn't have been the same, would it?

What keeps coming to my mind now is this lyric from Mephisto:

叶かなわないならばあなたになりたい

"If I can't make my wish come true, I want to become you."

Could it be that Nino wants to be like Ai, or even become Ai herself?

She's the one who's expressed her desire to be her (as portrayed by kana in ch 136)

Even if you view Mephisto's lyrics from Aqua's perspective, it doesn't seem like Aqua would say, "I want to become Ai." Of course, it's a powerful lyric expressing longing, so it resonates strongly emotionally. But their genders are different, their fields are somewhat different, and while Aqua seems to have a longing for the entertainment industry, he also tends to deny it.

Or it could be this: Seeing Nino's erased all the other members except herself and Ai in the poster, (she didn't erase her own existence) perhaps she might believe the one to be beside Ai is her and her alone? That might be how she thinks. :/

Adding one more suspect broadens the possibilities, but it seems like Akane and Aqua will explain everything on their own, so waiting might be safer. My guesses probably aren't going to be correct anyway.

What I can talk about more is Kamiki's reaction. Although it was a very quiet reaction, in some ways it was stronger than I expected because he accepted Ai's words completely. From his perspective, he was receiving a message he couldn't have imagined for fifteen years. There was no negative reaction like "No way, she's lying." He simply accepted, as in "I didn't know this," and remained silent.

In another post, I wrote my predictions for him like this:

If the songs are clues and there will be some kind of conflict in the future,

Just as Aqua has been doing things for Ai for years, this character might have been doing things too, and it's probably almost complete. His mindset is that as long as he accomplishes this, it doesn't matter what happens to him. He was planning to meet Aqua and see his daughter once before turning himself in.

But when he realizes that Ai, whom he truly loved, actually loved him back, he might feel like he's losing his mind.

There was a line he couldn't cross, thinking, "Okay, let's not do this," but now, having seen the video, he might cross it. Because he misses Ai so much and she's so precious to him, now he really wants to save the person he loves who also loved him (it seems like he's doing something to save her/see Ai again. Otherwise, the songs wouldn't be like this).

If he thought Ai didn't love him, his feelings (assuming he didn't intentionally kill her) would be guilt, obsession, and love-hate, so he wouldn't have any energy left. Because he has no attachment to himself, he'd have a resigned attitude like, "Alright, let's do this and die," and that's why he easily decided to turn himself in and show up in front of his children.

But if Ai loved him and actually wanted to be with him all along? Then if he was doing something for Ai, he wouldn't be able to give it up. So while he still has no attachment to himself, he might suddenly gain the energy for more extreme actions.

(I'm a bit disappointed that I couldn't accurately predict all the emotional reactions.)

Instead of "losing his mind," it seemed closer to sinking and submerging... It looks like he was someone who could have understood Ai well if only he had the right opportunity.

But I did get it right that he wants to do something for Ai.

Actually, the speculation I wrote above was a bit extreme, thinking that, since it's a manga, the development might be more intense. So, it was a scenario that I didn't really think would happen! Considering the character's personality, I thought he would suffer greatly. That's as far as I thought (with the current information revealed, I'm still withholding much judgment about this character).

But he seems so precarious. I'm worried he might be found dead somewhere... I'm still questioning whether he's someone worth worrying about,

But I don't think it's zero possibility that he'll end up being a very pitiable character.

He's saying he'll do something for Ai, but what could that be? He himself is determined, but Ai is already dead.

Even if Ai has become a star and is watching over him, would she want him to struggle? If he really killed her, she wouldn't want him to do anything invoking her name as a murderer. But if it's truly a misunderstanding, then she wouldn't want him to suffer anymore.

The video Ai left contained a message asking Aqua and the others to help this person, so I think the latter is more likely. Although the video was recorded a long time ago, this is a manga. The timing of when a message is revealed is important to the development. Since this story has come out in the final chapter, I think there might be a situation where the main characters end up helping him...

No but, if Aqua just let this person go, and if Kamiki turns out to be a murderer, that could be extremely irresponsible, right? Even if he let him go, shouldn't he have recorded the conversation and reported it? He should have recorded it and reported it, but maybe he couldn't report it because it happened when Kamiki was a minor? But wouldn't he have been around nineteen when the kids were about four? Is it something too ambiguous to report? Still, the next story that gets mentioned involves at least three deaths. How can he calmly, perhaps leisurely, discuss with Akane that Nino(and him) was involved in the deaths of three people? You never know what a criminal might do if they're cornered mentally.

He said he was going to do something for Ai. If that something is killing people, then it's dangerous for Aqua to just let him go. But since Aqua did let him go, it seems like he doesn't think that's the case.

So, the theory that he committed serial killings to ensure no one surpassed Ai is probably incorrect.

Additionally, there's no mention anywhere of serial killings actually happening, right? It could just be those three deaths. That doesn't mean he's not a murderer. If there had been serial killings of celebrities, it would have been mentioned in the story, right? There should have been some hints, like someone saying, "Hey, this actor who was doing well suddenly disappeared," but I don't recall anything like that. It would have been better if there had been at least some hints. Everyone naturally speculated that he might have committed serial killings to ensure no one surpassed Ai, and based on the way the scenes were portrayed, it did seem that way. But since it hasn't been mentioned so far, it could be that such events never happened.

The mention of bearing the weight of lives came up when the Uehara couple died. Kamiki was very distressed, saying, "Do I have to bear even that?" He seemed to be thinking that because of him, Ai died, and so did the Uehara couple, and now an actor has died too. He seems to be self-deprecating, thinking, "Yeah, someone else died because of someone like me." His way of speaking is really strange though... Is there a reason why he feels he needs to elevate the value of his own life?

When I saw the lyrics of "Fatal," I thought, "This is it," because it hints at "something that needs to be filled." What can fill the void? As the lyrics suggest, "a lack of Ai", it seems to be Ai. If you look at the song alone, it’s about wanting to revive someone he really wants to see, right? "Mephisto" is the same, and since it's a double hit, I thought, "Ah, then that's it. That's why he's moving."

あらゆる望のぞみの総すべてを叶かなえたら　ああ果はたせたら

"If all wishes are granted, if they come true,

あなたに会あいたい

I want to meet you.

星ほしに願ねがいをかけて

Wishing upon a star"

Anyway, stars are important. I noticed that stars appear quite often in the manga.

When I first heard "IDOL" and sometimes when I hear certain songs for the first time, I feel an overwhelming rush of emotions. It's a really amazing and exhilarating feeling.

However, if I listen to the song repeatedly, that emotion dulls, and I become less sensitive to it over time.

When I first heard "Fatal," I felt an immediate and intense sensation. It was as if someone was desperately searching and longing for something immensely significant. As soon as I felt that emotion, I instinctively thought, "This must be it," and it struck me so strongly that it became the reason I've been writing a lot lately.

The songs from Persona 3 were like that too. However, while Persona 3's songs had a warmth that supported the heart, a sense of resolve and determination, the songs from this manga feel like they are heavily spiced with MSG. The intensity of the emotions is incredibly fierce and strong. So, I often find myself wondering, "Is this okay? Is this okay?" But then I realize, yes, this is the kind of emotion being conveyed. It's raw but in a different way.

Considering the emotions that have been flowing so far, I felt strongly that Kamiki must be the one that's being depicted. Does anyone else feel similarly to me? Haha. So, I was just observing till that point, but then I couldn't help but dive in, thinking, "This has to be it."

These days, there are so many horrifying, disturbing, and distressing news stories, and it feels like the sentences given to offenders only add insult to injury for the victims(it's very short and light here). I hate it so much. I wish the term "dating violence" would disappear; it should be replaced with another term because that's not love.

So, while watching the developments in this manga, I feel like... I really don't want to empathize with or sympathize with the perpetrator, even in fiction. I understand that fiction can be separate from the reader's morals and I respect that, but when I think about the emotions between the characters in this manga, it doesn't feel like it's the same as those horrifying real-life cases. I really hope it's not. I'm not looking for it to not be like that on purpose; it's just that something feels off...

When watching the scenes with Ai's video, at first, my heart ached, but as time went on, I kept thinking, "Kamiki, you better get your act together." If this character has done things worthy of criticism, I absolutely don't intend to condone those actions even a bit, and I believe they should pay for their crimes!

But I think it's okay to wait and see for now? Am I really the type to get easily fooled? Haha. Still, I believe I have a good sense of understanding when it comes to emotions... I got Aqua and Kana right, and maybe that's why I got excited and gained momentum. It was exactly as I thought, for their case.

Well, we'll have to wait and see. I'm going to stay quiet for now. But if I'm going to draw fan art, I need to have a clear understanding of the emotions, which is important to me. If I can't predict what this character is feeling, I can't touch it.

Kana is really great in this regard. She's a character who doesn't need to overthink, so it's really comforting. While everyone else is complicated and holding secrets, leaving me to wonder "when the heck did you find out about that?" having new conversations among themselves, Kana is relatively easy to understand... what you see is what you get.

Or Ai, since she's shown almost everything (there's one video left), I might be able to do something with her too.

I liked the character Akane because of the profiling scenes. It didn't feel entirely like someone else's business because I do some degree of psychological analysis on the characters I handle. So that could maybe be why the range of characters I can manage isn't that wide depending on the genre. I usually focus on less than 5 characters and examine them REALLY deeply. The types I can understand and handle well are quite distinct for me. However, I want to dive deeply into the characters I do handle.

To create proper fan works, you need a lot of pieces of the puzzle. I might end up being off the mark, but I'm still doing it seriously when I make fan work!

I'm very happy when I hear good comments regarding such area :) I really want to do a good job. For now, I will stay on watch and see how things play out for now.

+

I thanked chatgpt :) :) aw they're nice (although they don't have feelings they've been helping me from rewriting things twice)

[nestingtendencies]

Hello, my lovelies!

For some reason I don't post here often as just... me - the person behind NestingTendencies. I'm not quite sure why this is; I guess most of my crafting needs are catered to by Ravelry, as a platform. But I do realise that I have many, many wonderful followers, who have been regularly reblogging both the patterns that have piqued my interests and my own creations. And for that I am very grateful!

So I'd like to try and be a bit more social here; get to know you a little, learn what projects you're working on, and show you what's on my own hook!

First up is the Mariposa Sweater which has been the bane of my existence sole focus of my work since January!

You see, one of my new year's resolutions was to grow as a crafter beyond shawls, which are my specialty, and make sosme sweaters and jumpers! I've been having urges for those since last autumn and by now the craving cannot be ignored any longer.

So this is my first ever crocheted sweater, right? Do I bother with a gauge swatch?

No. Gauge swatches are for the weak.

Pretty soon I realise that my crochet is much, much tighter than the author's. Do I go back and try a size bigger? Do I increase the hook size to obtain the right gauge?

No. I decide that I know better, and I understand enough about how raglan works to just wing it. The joy of making a garment yourself is that you can make it fit your personal body contours perfectly, right?

So long story short, I am now on Mariposa the Second (First one is here) and I have frogged SUBSTANTIAL NUMBERS OF ROWS (like, all of the yoke for example) - wait for it - upwards of 20 times. Yes, 20. Not an exaggeration. If I hadn't done that, I could have probably about 4 completed Mariposas by now.

But no. The Gods have cursed me with a perfectionist streak. So we live and we learn and we carry that burden with us.

The photos in this post are the latest of the most correct version of this top that I currently have. My New Hope. My baby. I'm going to be sharing more WIP photos in the future.

The only good news is that as soon as I figure this sweater out, I'm going to have meticulous notes, which will give me the exact stitch sounts for my measurements and unlock the door to other jumpers like this one, of which I want to make at least 3.

And then there are other sweater patterns. 74 of them currently in my library. At least a dozen literally burning a hole in my consciousness - I want to start them immediately right now yesterday!!! Look look!

Elara Pullover - This is want in gradient purples, like an autumnal sunset

Chevie Sweaer - This I want in greys and golden ochres. I love the stitch used.

Don't Scrap That Raglan - Aaaah, Moss Stitch my favouritest stitch ever and I've almost improvised a sweater like this before!

Cosmopolitan Sweater - This I want in solid teal. Alpine stitch could well become my new mistress. It's also probably THE sweater I should have started with as my first project...

Peony Tee - I am in love with the funky-coloured contrasting sleeves and the raglan concept

Bridgette Ballet Neck Pullover - Ballet necks are my weakess...

Cap Sleeve Top - This I had a little romance with before, oh, about 8 years ago and it was shaping up beautifully in navy - I have all the yarn that I need for it.

Isop Sweater - I really want to learn this fair isle technique of making yokes, because I saw this pornographically beautiful set of 2 knitted sweaters in just the perfect colours and I'd like to do equvalent crochet versions, no I'm not at all trying to run before I can walk, why you ask?

Many of them much easier than Mariposa. Many of them not so tailored to the figure.

But no. Mariposa.

I have been buying up yarn in bulk again. This is how I know I'm in trouble.

But what about you guys? Do you have a Nemesis Project that has been kicking your ass for ages? Do you get overly ambitious like me? Or do you make your gauge swatches and avoid pissing off the Gods of Yarn, like sensible people?

[majachee]

I am so tempted to make an entire post about my design decisions for the MMPC cast... Do not tempt me....

{*poke*} [I do like to hear monologues about design choices.]

GRINS... ALRIGHT... LET'S START!!

Some are more coherent than others, but these are most of the Thoughts I've had when designing... will be continued later....

Noah's Design Notes and Rambles

Both for his upcoming redesign, and his current design.

His hairstyle is a choppy, layered mullet with sideswept bangs, the bangs being exaggerated to the MAX. Mainly to give him an interesting silhouette and because I thought the bangs would look cute. He has thick hair, imo, and based on my experience layers help A LOT. His hair is pretty heavy, that's why he chopped it off. Easier to maintain when you have less to work with!

His eyes are very, VERY dark, almost black, brown. In the show, they're the same color as his hair iirc, but I decided to darken them dramatically to enhance the bored/smug look he has. Also as an added contrast to Alejandro and Justin, who I draw with much more noticable pupils!

In art, people tend to put focus on the eyes when demonstrating that a character is looking intensely at an item/person, typically with a noticable glint or the pupil changing dramatically in size... Noah doesn't get that. He furrows his brows, puts a hand on his hip, widens or squints his eyes, but no matter what the pupils are indiscernable.

His outer layers are quite loose on his body. Adds bulk to his silhouette without changing his body-type, in my opinion. He's got a slight frame, not helped by his aversion to fitness, so I'd imagine sweaters and such would hang off him a bit. This also allows me to introduce more squares into his design!

OH YEAH, SQUARES. He's a pretty neutral character in the show, and I like adding in his canonical blockiness to other aspects of his design.

Bulky, woolly socks, blocky shoes. Again, square motif and loose clothing. He wears like 3 layers of shirts, one being a DAMN SWEATER VEST, so why not go all out with the more "warmer" clothes, yeah?

I also extended his shorts into capris. I'm pretty sure they're meant to be capris in the show itself, but most people call them shorts. But yeah, he wears bulky cargo capris that — you guessed it! Hang fairly loose off his legs but are tight and secure around the waist.

He's pretty covered up! Not a lot of skin showing! This is because I think he likes to feel a bit toasty. Not warm, exactly, but he's definitely not prone to mid-Autumn chills when dressed up. The cold, northern breeze nips at his exposed ears and shins a comfortable amount and that's how he likes it! Hopefully I can successfully portray that through vibes lol

90s prep influence... sorry... 💔

Due to his interest in planes in Dramarama and interest in Kosmic Kaos in the main series, I plan on giving him an aviator jacket that he wears during the colder months.

And since I HC that Kosmic Kaos is a multiplayer sci-fi/fantasy game that takes place in space (I mean... come on... KOSMIC...), he has a simple yet baggy backpack with a pixel art-styled airship pin on the main flap. The pin is IMPORTANT to ME. We must acknowledge the fact that he is a GAMER.

Also, KK is OBVIOUSLY an MMORPG, fight me on this. I'm thinking World of Warcraft mechanics but with sci-fi alien aesthetics. RuneScape Classic aura.

Short. In Gen 1, he's one of the shortest males on the Island (Cody and Ezekiel being shorter than him), so I made him shorter than he realistically is in canon to make that height difference more obvious. Also as a way to contrast Harold's "gangly nerd" schtick.

Speaking of Harold...!

Harold's Design Notes and Rambles!

His body is the hardest for me to draw, but I am dedicated to the tall, gangly nerd thing he's got going on! I think it's charming! Especially in contrast with Noah.

I HATE his outfit in the main series, specifically because of his T-shirt.

I DETEST that stupid hamburger design. I'm sorry, but genuinely what the fuck is that?? It feels so random, so incoherent. I changed it to an alien to tie back to that one schtick in World Tour, and to also mesh better with his green-tinted glasses and shoes. I also added orange to his pink undershirt, not only to give it a more 90s vibe, but also to tie it back to his orange hair.

Also overalls because cute! ... What? It's a thing in 90's shows, and it's cute! What more reasoning do you want from me? 😈

Gave him more stubble, and I plan on going back and adding freckles and faint acne scars. Due to the wonky colors, my electronics tend to make his canonical freckles fade into nonexistence 😭😭😭 I'm so sorry Harry Styles.....

Elaborating on the stubble: it's very much meant to be patchy, like it's just growing in. When it comes to facial hair, I'm digging through my memories of highschool for reference, mostly. The classes I shared with juniors and seniors during my senior year had kids with barely there/patchy stubble like Harold's to full on thick beards.

ELABORATING ON THE ELABORATION... It comes down to genetics and hair thickness, and Harold has thinner hair methinks. The lighter color would also make his facial hair seem thinner than it actually is.

His eyes were directly inspired by this little cutie from Little Witch Academia!

Along with vague memories of "Doraemon" ... back when the English dub was on DisneyXD or smth. <- only saw clips of it fyi 💀

Despite Noah being the Blue Ranger in this AU, Harold takes the most inspiration from the character Billy Cranston in the OG 1993 show.

Billy, for those unaware, is the Blue Ranger's real name/identity. While he does participate in martial arts like the rest of the PR friend group and is quite fit, he's also the nerdiest. He uses long, complicated words and likes explaining things using very technical/scientific terms, to the point where he's sometimes asked to rephrase what he just said. Though, unlike Harold, this quirk of his isn't really treated negatively. Billy's friends find this charming, and so do the people who interact with him for the most part! (Exception of Skull and Bulk, obv.) You can see where I drew the similarities, lol ... I also find this trait charming in a majority of fictional characters... 😭 is it obvious Billy is my second favorite male power ranger

I made his face more round, to better contrast with Noah and Duncan's faces. It's also rounded out a bit with stylized sideburns.

I plan on adding scrapes and bandages to his arms and legs sporadically. He's pretty accident-prone... and "accident"-prone.

I like to think his bangs are really light compared to the rest of his (already pretty light) hair. Very easy to get them all tossled up!

Had the most fun stylizing his nose tbh. Just a general fun fact.

He has some muscle in there! Mainly in his abdomen and biceps. It's subtle, but there. He's a pretty active guy, and nunchucks can build up decent arm muscle and grip strength! Maja lore, I used to take martial art classes as a kid lmao

Fair bit of lore behind this guy!

Anyways!

Heather's Design Notes and Rambles!

Saw a lot of fanartists giving Heather a jacket, so I did that. Thought it looked cute, and added to her silhouette.

I changed her wedged sandals to simple slip-ons for convenience sake. Since I'll likely be drawing her a lot, especially in group pics, I wanted to make her shoes easier to draw.

As you may already know, due to being subjected to my ramblings, Heather had a Carrie moment in late Sophomore year that lead to her Baldening. Tis why her hair is short.

The scrunchie in her hair is a direct reference to Heathers.

I also gave her some hella subtle muscle! You can see it because she's showing a lot more skin than the rest of the cast.

I added tears and such to her shorts, giving them the distressed denim look. I remember them being trendy for, like, my entire life, and I think the less clean look also reflects her personality. She is, quite literally, rough around the edges.

I gave her scrapes and such on her legs for the same reason. Also to add more "clutter" to her design. She owns a cat as well, and my cat always bites my legs after I shave them. Projecting that onto her.

Inspired by Buffy and Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I DO want to change her outfit a bit, though, and give her a more 90s style crop-top and a higher waist on her shorts. And a belt.

Rather than taking inspo from a specific niche, trope, or subculture, I'm looking at trendy/pop-culture fits to reflect her "Queen Bee" title.

... wow not a lot for Heather... Sorry! She's easy for me, tbh.

Duncan's Design Notes and Rambles!

Leaned towards 90's grunge rather than 90's punk, but with obvious punk influences thrown in there.

The stains I gave him on his black skull tee are meant to be bleach stains. I wanted his outershirt to look abused like his HELLA distressed jeans!

His hair is yet another nod to punk culture! Thick, long mohawks and dyed hair were part of more loud/rebellious scenes, and I can imagine Duncan absolutely VIBING with that aesthetic and appropriating it.

The mix of aesthetics is intentional, he uses them to feed into his tough-guy persona but doesn't really embrace the themes/values/beliefs both aesthetics carried. I mean, he's a bully, and punk is all about non-conformity. Bullying people who don't fit the "status quo" is the opposite of punk.

I gave him more piercings because I love drawing piercings and I think they look cool. He says he did them himself, but that's not true at all.

The hems of his pantlegs are also all stained and distressed, due to natural corrosion. This is the grunge inspo talking!

His jaw structure is meant to be a lot sharper than Noah's and Harold's, he's also the most muscular of the entire group.

He's often chewing on gum, an edible plant stalk, lolly stick, etc. He feels very fidget-y to me, and I want to portray that.

It's 11pm... I grow tired...

I believe I rambled on about Courtney's design elsewhere... remind me tomorrow tho! Xoxo

[writing-for-life]

Thank you for an amazing 2023!

About metas, fics and sparkly things…

This won’t be short, but you wouldn’t expect that from me, would you? 🤣

I’ve been on Tumblr for just a bit over a year because I needed to get off my family’s back after my three decades long Sandman brain-rot got worse again due to the Netflix series. I hovered around a handful of followers for months until things exploded (I still don’t know why tbh, I think it was one particular meta that kicked things off a bit), and I somehow ended up with hundreds of followers, which might not be much to some, but it’s a lot for me.

So to all of you I’d like to say: Thank you for being here. I don’t always manage to stay on top of things because my notifs are a mess and I lose track, plus I have a rather busy life and can often only write in batches and then queue, but each of you is appreciated, even if I accidentally forget to get back to you or if we aren’t mutuals.

I’ve made such lovely connections over the last year—my interest in The Sandman definitely does not align with the main focus that shan’t be named, and I’m glad that you folks are out there. You probably know who you are.

Now to the obligatory “your posts wrapped” thing—and I’m only doing it because I need to make a point (of course I do 🤣).

News and art

My by far most successful posts have been casting/shooting news and pretty pictures (two examples are linked). And I’m grateful for all the reblogs and likes of those, but apart from curating them, they’re not really me. They’re someone else’s work.

Meta analysis

Then you have my metas, which make up the bulk of the other posts that are doing quite well (you can find all of them in my pinned post).

Even if it wasn’t my most “successful” one (what does that even mean?), this one meant the most to me:

I love writing metas, whether they cover literary concepts, psychology, music or art because I’m a permanently brain-frazzled multi-hyphenate who has to talk about everything that won’t leave her alone.

I also love when you’re sending me asks btw. For the latter, I hope they pick up again in 2024 because they really nosedived since I switched off anonymous asks (which I won’t change, soz) after some people just thought it’s good sport to be an arse about my not being here to pray at the altar of the ship. I guess we have briefly covered the ugly side of Tumblr, too, then.

Writing

But what I'm most proud of when I think of all the things I've done in 2023 is my fiction and poetry. And that's both a happy and slightly sad thing to address.

My 31 Haikus for Sandtober started as a bit of fun, but they’ve developed a life of their own, and people seemingly liked them. The post also contains a bit of my fan-art:

I still intend to turn them into a hardcover at some point, but I won’t be able to create all the artwork myself, so if you’re a fan-artist and want to know what I’m thinking of, please get in touch (I’ll still talk about this in more detail at some point though).

The other thing I’m incredibly proud of is “The Light of Stars”.

I started it as a NaNoWriMo project in 2022 (I always use NaNo to do something that is less stressful than my professional writing projects), wrote it in a bit more than a month—and then did nothing with near 80,000 words until June 2023.

And then I thought “Fuck it,” and published it on Ao3. It’s a canon x OC fic, and this is where it gets a bit sad. Because for most of us writers, these are never the posts that get most engagement (the ratio is really something like 100 : 1 — 500 for a shitpost, 5 for an average writing post).

On Ao3, it gradually picked up because I published chapter after chapter, and I think I can say that it’s done fairly well over there in terms of engagement for an OC fic, and above all how people engage with it. Because it’s a bit deeper despite being romance, it deals with heavy topics like grief, and I’m so glad to have touched a few people’s hearts with it, and that it was meaningful to them. So much so that you all convinced me to write a sequel.

But here’s the thing: The general engagement with writing, especially non-explicit, non-ship, non-readerY/N on Tumblr is very, very low.

Writers who write canon x OC are still struggling to be heard through the noise (it’s not just me, I’ve had many conversations about this, so I’ll just say: I’ll speak for many of us). There are basically hardly any events for us to participate in (most of us only ever do so if we shift to canon one-shots, poetry or metas. If we don’t: Again, no one cares), and fandom often actively chooses to ignore us because “all OCs are self-inserts, ew.” Which is patently not true, and I could go on a long rant now why many canon x canon fics are very obvious self-inserts, which I won’t.

But even if all OCs were self-inserts, even if all characters were—so what? All writing is to a degree based on self-insertion because it comes from our brains—it’s not a bad thing. But apparently, it becomes a bad thing if the character is an OC, heaven knows why.

So if I had one wish (I’m allowed one, right?) for 2024, it would be that people engage more with OC fics and include them more in community events. That fandom, which prides itself in community, includes writers who don’t write for (the main) ship/s a bit more, especially if they don’t write smut (which I personally even do professionally, but I don’t want to have to do it in fanfic just to get engagement). I’m not holding my breath because I know that’s not where fandom’s oft single-minded focus lies, but a girl can dream, right?

And with that, I want to get to my proudest accomplishments of them all:

Being the curator queen of the sparkle realms:

Being one (arguably the main) instigator of the maddest crack ship that has ever graced (?) the face of the earth, spawned the most unhinged discussion (much truth in it though 🤣) and even NSFW fanart. I promise I’ll write that fic about Murphy and his Cool Hat:

Have a lovely 2024!

[dannybobany]

WHY IS HE IN THE GARBAGE 😭

Also props to whoever’s rewriting this for finding a way to completely skip over the mixtape quest- honestly it’s impressive how much they’re cutting out-

Although I guess this is less egregious then other omissions since it’s not story relevant, the bulk of the junkyard is gameplay focus- so it wouldn’t make sense to keep it in when you could write around it… still - this also paints a different idea of what’s going on with spaceboy and doesn’t really introduce him in a proper way…

And on a more personal note, no space pirate chief :(

Gimmie my bird <- has stupid + very specific headcanon about this character