#I just want these discussions to be coherent

[stellamarielu]

ok so nobody asked for it, but here’s my take on a few of andrew “pope” cody’s kinks

content: nsfw, 18+, pope cody x female reader, breath play, choking, free use, somnophillia, edging (orgasm denial), p in v sex, oral (f receiving), handjob

authors note: someone could easily write a dissertation on this man, and the trauma he’s experienced in his life that has taken him to his very specific sexual disposition, but my job is to be horny on tumblr dot com so i thought it’d be fun to discuss a few of the kinks i think that man has if i talked about all of them this would be like 10k words. let’s get into it!

these are just the little made up thoughts in my brain, don’t come for me!

hypoxiphillia

you’re on top, riding him deep into the sheets with his hand at your chest.

The touch of his palm is heavy as he explores and gropes at your skin like it's the first time he's felt you in weeks.

The way he's holding you sends an instinctual desire bubbling through your veins as you grab his hand and pull it up to your neck.

The dip between his thumb and forefinger molds perfectly at your throat as you push his hand carefully against your jugular.

There’s something about his brute strength that you've always admired. Finding yourself in awe of the expanse of rippling muscle that forms beneath every surface of his body, you've always wondered what it would feel like to have him use his strength against you— to have you completely at his mercy.

But the sudden change in dynamic hits Andrew in a way he doesn't know how to process.

He's quickly yanking his hand from your neck, a bewildered look in his eyes as you immediately stop your movements.

He's still inside of you, your legs straddling his hips, but your body pausing above his.

"I'm sorry... that was- I was-" Your eyes are everywhere but on him as you whisper self consciously.

There's a wave of embarrassment pulsing at your chest making it nearly impossible to form a coherent sentence.

He's staring at you, brows furrowed, and his hand frozen mid way between your bodies where he'd snatched it from your grasp.

He can see you’re uncomfortable. A shade of humiliation pools in your eyes as he tries to piece together your desire for him to... choke you?

"You want that?" His tone is full of astonished curiosity, his gaze far from judgmental as you finally bring yourself to look him in the eyes.

Still feeling a twinge of self-consciousness turning in your stomach, you nod your head hesitantly.

A flash of uncertainty paints his features as he glances between your eyes and his hand, "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," your reply is quiet.

"I trust you."

He knows he won't actually hurt you, but the act alone is so threatening. He's never imagined inflicting violence on you, even in an entrusted manner. But the way you’re looking at him, with his dick still buried deep inside you, and your eyes wide with a spirited thrill of inquiry, he knows he could tap into the darkest parts of himself and you'd still be there on the other side to lure him back out.

He nods along with you, bringing his hand back to your throat, loosely gripping and rubbing his thumb along the carotid artery running down the side of your neck.

You pick up where you left off, rocking your hips against him at an even pace, causing his thumb to press harder. His hold on your throat tightens with every pass of your hips over his.

The restriction of oxygen to your brain shouldn't be causing your pussy to clench around him, yet you're trembling and desperately aching for more.

Andrew uses his hold on your neck to pull you down so you're almost face to face, his breath fanning over your parted lips while he thrusts up into you.

Your moans turn to breathless whimpers as they squeak through your throat.

He fucks you like that until you come. His grip on your throat playing with the oxygen traveling through your airway, letting up only when he needs to, and making sure you stay in the perfect state of almost sedated pleasure.

somnophillia

Having your body next to him in bed every night was a luxury Andrew never thought he'd grow used to.

The warmth of your skin absentmindedly touching his, the weight of your body sinking into your respective side of the mattress, the blissful sighs of breath that streamed from your lips in an unconscious rhythm; all reminders that you’re right there next to him— always. He'd never known a love so unconditional, so safe.

Perhaps that's why he found himself becoming aroused by your peaceful frame when you were fast asleep, limbs splayed out over the sheets late at night, your ease of relaxation a gentle declaration of your love for him.

You were always so comfortable sleeping there, it made him want to stay up all night watching you— protecting you.

And some nights he did.

His dick stirring every time you'd rustle under the comforter, your body changing positions with a content little sigh floating from your lips as your head buries deeper into the pillow.

It doesn’t help that you seldom slept fully clothed.

Most night's you'd climb into bed in nothing but one of his t-shirts and a pair of panties, making it nearly impossible for him to keep his wandering thoughts locked away in his mind as you dozed off to sleep.

He always started off tame— his hands tracing the skin underneath your shirt, or his fingers dipping into your underwear to slowly massage your clit— always a gentle request to touch you, as if you'd give him permission.

But sometimes you did.

Even half-asleep you would moan in approval or push your hips further into his touch, begging for more.

He'd venture under the covers, hungry to taste you as he buries himself between your legs. Lapping at your core, getting it nice and messy before pushing two fingers into your entrance, getting lost with his tongue at your clit when he feels your hands pull at his hair— evidence that you're awake— but he doesn't stop.

The sleepy whines tumbling past your lips only encourage him as he claims his spot between your thighs before coming up for air, and coaxing you back to sleep while he fucks you from the side, whispering about how you were made just for him as he holds you close.

orgasm control

It's important to note, that while Pope can be quite the dom, i fully believe he’s a subby man at heart.

The first time you test the limits of his control, you have him sitting at the edge of the bed, his shoulders back, posture nearly perfect as you sit behind him, your arms coming around his torso to pay nice gentle strokes to his cock that's sitting just as straight as him.

His breath is ragged and uneven the longer you make him sit like this, the same languid passes of your palm over his length, time after time, testing the discipline of his spine as he threatens to slump forward under your touch.

You know him well. You know the cadence of his nearly silent whimpers when he's about to come, so it makes it easy to keep him right on the edge. You tease his release, one, two, three times before you feel his body start to shake.

You pump his swollen tip, milking the head that’s now a deep shade of red as he falls back against your shoulder.

"Please."

He's peering up at you with a look in his eyes you'd never seen before, so vulnerable— full of total and complete desperation.

He's begging you to let him come, surrendering all of his power in hopes that you'll give him what he wants.

You smile down at him sweetly, one of your hands coming up to play in his curls as his head writhes against your shoulder.

"Ok baby."

That word. Baby. A nickname only Smurf had called him; but now, hearing it on your lips it held an entirely different connotation.

It sounded so sweet like this— so genuine.

There was no condescending manipulation lacing the word, only true protection. You really meant it. He was yours; to take care of, to hold, to please.

And with that, ropes of hot, thick release painted his chest. The uncontrollable groans ripping through him filled the room as his body melted back into yours.

honorable mentions: breeding kink, gunplay, cum play, voyeurism, body worship, mommy kink, praise duh

[lesbianisamu]

Why Isamu Being Queer Could've Benefitted His Arc Of Courage: A Semi-Coherent Ramble (and Criticism)

Disclaimer: I have zero intent to attack any member of the development team, my criticisms are untargeted and will remain unnamed. I encourage discussion about this topic. I (OBVIOUSLY) do not want disagreement in the form of homophobia. Yes I'm queer my URL is literally lesbianisamu what did you think I was? Not a lesbian? I'll start writing now.

The Mimic has a fairly substantial and fairly egregious history with misrepresenting mental health issues. This is relevant. While TMO (The Mimic Origins) is no longer canon (thank god), its influences still remain. While it is no longer explicitly canon that Futaba, or Futao, has bipolar disorder/bpd (unclear), the stereotypes, mishandling and frankly ridiculous storytelling are still present in The Witch Trials. This point has been done to death, but I will reiterate anyway.

Making a character with a severe mental illness an evil, abusive, disgusting individual is not GOOD(edit) representation, believe it or not. At first it seems that Futaba is aware of her struggles and how it affects her daughter, though I still don't like this. By the end, she completely contradicts herself by doing a 180 and claiming that she is not at fault for any of her actions and instead blaming the demon inside of her. Woah. Sure. Also the split-into-two representations of being manic and depressive with the depressive constantly humming a melancholy tune and crying, while the manic, or the demon (Mote) is constantly cackling with inhuman laughter. It's odd. Left a terrible taste in my mouth.

Yasu is a character who is objectively non-abusive. Pretty non-problematic too. I don't have much to say on the character himself as I've never fixated enough to do a full analysis (sorry to my Yasoomfs), but I can say that his resulting mental health was also handled poorly. So thoroughly traumatised by the events of Control that he apparently? Has PTSD? DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS. Either way, I'm going to disregard that, I just had to bring up the hearsay. Regardless of whether he did end up with a trauma based mental health disorder or not, the way he was treated and left after Control by the writing is nothing short of bleak. All of his friends being turned into butterfly spirits and then him being forced to sacrifice them simply to move onto a new room of horror? His parents being caught with his mother hanging in front of him, only to find out when he saves them that they don't remember a thing? Being hunted down by nightmarish mutants that are his long-dead family members, forced to save them all and carry the burden of the curse on largely unsuspecting shoulders? You might think he was put in therapy, or had counselling, or maybe sought out other people who had gone through similar experiences so he could start to heal.

We don't know anything after the knowledge that his parents are amnesiacs about the event. Like I'm not kidding, zilch. Second edition of a character with obviously poor mental health being mistreated by the direction the writing either took or didn't take.

Senzai. Jesus fucking Christ. The next edition we have of mental health representation is a guy who canonically is a terrorist, murderer and conspirator who flattened, and aided to flatten the densest city in terms of population on Earth. I don't think I need to say much more on this topic. If I do, I'll get angry. I hate Senzai and I wish he was written about ten million times better than he is.

In the case of both Senzai and Futaba, they are victims of abuse/generational trauma, which led to or exacerbated their previously present mental health issues. Both wind up as. I don't want to be yelled at again for my wording. Abysmal people. That's 3/3 so far on mental health, all awful, all harmful, and all bleak which is not really the tone mental health representation should speak with.

I promise you it was relevant to the title. Now that we know The Mimic has an, at best, shaky representation with mental health issues and illnesses, we could probably hope that their queer representation would be bett-

They decanonised Enzukai being genderqueer (fluid? or agender? not certain) when JC4 came out. They did this, I think, in an effort to lift the possible implications of a genderqueer character being. Evil demon creature. I get it, like I do. There's also literally everything else. Like Senzai being implied to be queer.

A character who is queer being a bad person is not inherently a poor writing choice. Just because someone is queer, they are not exempt from being awful, they are not exempt from consequence, and they most certainly are not exempt from being criticised for their actions in media, or in real life. However. Senzai is a genocidal terrorist who, I'm not kidding, killed upwards of NINE MILLION PEOPLE. Yes while under the cults influence, and Yes gave himself up to the authorities after (another can of worms) but holy shit. nine fucking million. It's not the best message to give off and I hope I don't have to explain why. Edit: I should have stated that this is heavily implied rather than explicitly canon, but my main point still stands.

Yes, fucked up evil queer characters are sometimes fun, but its less fun when so far (and continuing) its the only gimmick that the queer characters get. Then it's weird.

My biggest gripe is honestly with the Nagemi character in Halloween Trials. OOOO god. It's agender. Win for agender's right? WRONG. WE LOSE. AGAIN. It is, if you haven't actually seen the character, half a body. It is a decaying freakish torso that crawls behind you and kills you like all other mimic monsters. In an old. Insane. Asylum. AN INSANE ASYLUM. What the actual fuck.

There are no queer characters who are happy with their queerness, no queer characters that actually even have an arc that remotely includes their queer aspect, and all of them are fucking oddball freaks. I'm not including Kibo Edouji as a queer character, even though he pretty much objectively is as much as I detest the Kizai propaganda that gets pushed, because he's essentially a brick with a jumper, with no actual character arc, and exists purely to be in love with Senzai. (HEAVY IMPLICATION)

Overall. Not a good look. Time for the main event.

Isamu is a character that hides. While it's obviously not intentional, Book 2 gameplay has an extreme increase in hiding spots compared to Book 1. He was neglected by his father and mother, and definitely is a victim of their abuse I genuinely will not take any of that "we didn't see him get hit" bullshit. Go read my other post about this if you want to argue. Neglected for the first 15 years of his life and probably beyond, hiding in plain sight from care, and this is also shown in the way the C3 teaser shows him deflecting blame from himself, trying to remain hidden, and being caught off-guard when involved in a conversation only to act as the deciding factor in the result of the event, the result being Senzai hit over the head with a glass bottle. His only method of reliable defence was to hide, and he continued to do so throughout the book, hiding or running from danger instead of fighting it.

Giving Isamu a queer identity, or more likely a genderqueer identity would've fitted his character if shown, even briefly, alongside the display of his upbringing. He knows how to hide, it has been instilled into him from the moment he was brought into the world. He was also neglected, meaning the attention was away from him and on his older brother anyway. He could've gotten away with existing as a queer person in his early teens, though it wouldn't necessarily have been readily accepted by his peers. When thrust into the spotlight after the incident, and focus placed on him, likely to "marry well and continue the family lineage", he would've struggled with the conversations.

The UK is currently a shitshow with protecting queer and trans people, but even in school when it wasn't so abhorrent as it is now, the bullying was horrific, and I was incredibly lucky to have firm friends alongside me. I cannot imagine how difficult and isolating it would be in a country such as Japan where gay marriage is still not legal.

This, however, would contribute to him being isolated as an early adult. Isamu has no friends or partners listed in his "relationships" tab on the wiki. In a country where there is an ongoing "loneliness" epidemic, being queer would only further isolate you.

I think him specifically being some form of trans (transfem/neutral) would've introduced yet another parallel to Enzukai. Youngest siblings vying for the attention of their family and going to extreme methods for it (destructive in Enzukai's case and semi-self-destructive in Isamu's). Informal and crass, making (and keeping) them both genderqueer would've introduced a neat parallel, showing us again that Senzai turned from his brother to a version that could give him power, instead of accepting the power that came from Isamu's encouragement. But they decanonised Enzukai being genderqueer. So whatever.

It also gives us an aspect to Isamu's character that's a personal struggle, even if it's in the background and barely touched upon, and derails the focus from being entirely on Senzai and the antagonists for THE ENTIRE BOOK. He wouldn't be a person going through shit in a queer way, it wouldn't be a central aspect of his character. He'd be a character going through shit who also happened to be queer but ultimately is busy focused on saving the world. It humanises him a little and shows how things operate in the real world. Being queer is important to me, undoubtedly, but I also have a job, I have responsibilities, I don't focus on being queer 110% of the time, because it's just one aspect of who I am. It would add another layer to his character that makes him more intriguing when his arc is all about COURAGE. and supposedly acceptance but the execution of that was dubious at best

Isamu's courage. Growing up, becoming stronger, saving his brother and saving the remaining people of Tokyo that he could at extreme risk to himself. I have points to make but they're not totally relevant. Stay Tuned Maybe.

Actually fighting the monsters, fighting a huge dragon with the weaponry equivalent of a very bright candle and barely breaking a sweat. But also having the courage finally to actually show his emotions, show his feelings to someone who isn't himself, and actually break down a little bit even if it was for five seconds, he had the courage to not be okay for a moment. If Isamu had gone through the journey of queer self-acceptance before all this had gone down, it would've GREATLY increased his ability to become courageous and stay courageous, as it is such a hard thing for many people to do, and would show his eternal strength and bravery to keep existing despite the world being against you for who you're attracted to or what you identify as.

We would also finally have a queer character who is genuinely a good person, who before the events had a stable job he enjoyed and got along with his coworkers, even if he wasn't the best at making friends. We would have a queer character who isn't a terrorist, who isn't just a creature or an insane asylum resident clump of flesh. We would have a queer character who is the HERO of the story instead of being a direct antagonist. We would have a complicated, naive and slightly flawed in his thinking queer person who felt the most like an actual, real human from this game.

I have contradicted myself and been aware of it the whole time, as it fuels my own point. Isamu is not a happy character. Even if he was queer he would not exist peacefully, but it isn't due to his queerness. This is less of a point about how queer people rarely end up happy in media - although it's also one I'm actively making - and more about how Isamu himself was treated anyway. A punching bag, a scapegoat for the writers and the fandom intentionally or not, abused, belittled, refused genuine peace at every turn, his one supportive figure snatched away from him at the very last moment, and the last thing he sees being his brother flinching away from him in fear, confirming to him that his self-hatred was correct, diminishing any and all character growth that they barely acknowledged before ripping it away. He died alone and unloved, and being queer wouldn't fix that, a complete rewrite would, and should be done.

To conclude: I'm always going to be angry about the mental health mishandling that happened and continues to happen in this game. Isamu's entire character focus should not have been on his brother. Your only queer characters should not be fucked up evil insane 100% of the time. I miss Isamu. He's a transfem lesbian to me always and forever.

Edit: I've received a little criticism on this post, and have made necessary edits and changes, particularly in my wording or indication as to whether something is implied or is canon, or whether something is representation or not.

[chilling-seavey]

Lessons in Lust and Other Illicit Desires (gr63) —TWENTY-TWO

↳ A/N The penultimate chapter... oh boy

↳ Series Summary: Sensible, wise, and a hopeless dreamer, Rosaline was used to men not giving her a second glance. She soon discovered it was merely those mundane college boys who were nothing more than simply intimidated by her intellect. What she needed was a man — someone who could impart knowledge beyond the Classics and guide her in discovering her own confidence as a woman. The thrill of sneaking around with the ever-so-charmingly handsome Professor Russell was certainly a bonus.

↳ Pairings: OxfordProfessor!George Russell x Innocent!Student!OC, Max Verstappen x Charles Leclerc (background)

↳ Chapter Word Count: 4.0k

↳ Chapter Warnings: 18+, minor descriptions of smut, rash decisions, college clumsiness, minor body shame, angst.

“You’re quiet today.”

Rosaline glanced up from her laptop, her eyes drifting to where Lando sat farther down the length of her single bed, his back propped against the wall and his own computer balanced on his lap. They had planned this study date before everything with George had fallen apart, and though every part of her wanted to crawl under her duvet and disappear, she knew ignoring her schoolwork wouldn’t help. She wouldn’t feel better doing nothing.

Still, it was all a bit pointless. She hadn’t managed to write a single coherent sentence since Lando arrived nearly an hour ago; somehow he of all people had been getting more work done than her. From her spot against the headboard, Rosaline merely shrugged in response, looking back at her laptop screen with a mumbled, “Just been an insane week.”

She could feel Lando staring at her even when she looked away, almost as if he were trying to figure out what she wasn’t telling him. He hadn’t been there for Tuesday’s class so he didn’t know that Professor Russell had been replaced and yet she knew that she couldn’t tell him that without opening a whole other can of worms as to why she was so upset by it. Instead, she kept her focus on her laptop, trying to make sense of the words in her half-written document. 

Breaking the brief silence, Lando asked kindly, “Did you wanna talk about it?”

Rosaline didn’t tear her eyes away from her screen, fingers hovering dumbly over her keyboard, “I just want to work.”

“Okay, but like, you haven’t typed anything in, like, twenty minutes.” Lando countered with a concerned mumble, “You’ve just been staring into space.”

“Didn’t know you were so interested in what I was doing,” she grumbled under her breath. 

“Hey,” Lando frowned at her attitude, “I’m just worried about you, alright? Don’t need to be like that.”

Rosaline’s eyes flicked over to him again, taking in the furrow of his eyebrows and the slight frown across his lips. Her heart tugged. She hadn’t meant to be short with him—he hadn’t done anything wrong—but the emotional turmoil she had been in since that Tuesday was unrelenting and taking over her common sense. Not to mention the email she had received from Dean Stewart that morning with an update on the date he was scheduled to meet with the Board to discuss the situation was plaguing her mind. 

“Sorry,” she muttered. 

“We can just work if you want but…if you want to chat…” Lando offered softly. 

She pulled a tight smile in his direction, trying to be appreciative, “Thanks.”

They looked back to their laptops. 

Rosaline reread the last line she had written at least five times, trying to properly process what it was trying to say but to absolutely no avail. All she could think about was George and the fact that he wouldn’t be the one grading this stupid assignment he had given them. This was the very reason why she had been thankful that she had never been involved with a guy before; the heartbreaking aftermath would just get in her way of all that she had worked hard to achieve. Her brain knew that she needed to get into gear and get her project done, but her heart was broken and incapable of completing anything. 

George’s words rang in her head as they had been since their tense conversation on his front porch two days prior; how he made her feel like it was all one big mistake. She never knew it was possible to feel that awful until the mouth of someone she trusted more than anyone in the world spoke unthinkable things to her. Heartbreak wasn’t for the weak. But Rosaline was a smart young woman and she knew she needed to find herself a way to get over it and get her life back in her own hands. 

Looking up from her laptop again, she watched Lando’s focused expression as he typed away on his laptop across her dorm room bed. He had always been so kind to her and he wasn’t a bad guy by any means. Maybe all she needed was a distraction. 

She shut her laptop and leaned off the side of her bed to set it on the floor. Lando glanced up at her movement, his eyes following her as she shifted closer to him and in her fit of bravery, hurt, and desperation, she reached out to shut his laptop too. 

He smiled slyly and let her move his computer aside, “What’re you doing?” 

“Finding a distraction.” 

It didn’t take a genius to know he wanted it, as his face turned towards hers when she leaned in, tongue darting out over his lips for a split second as if readying himself for something he had been anticipating for ages. Rosaline hesitated only a moment before pressing her mouth to his in a tentative kiss. The first thing she noticed about the second man she had ever kissed was that his lips were more chapped than George’s had been. However, she had no time to dwell on that thought as Lando’s hand raised to the side of her neck and his lips parted hers to introduce his tongue into the mix almost immediately. 

Rosaline shifted beside him without breaking their kiss, her eyebrows furrowed slightly in near concentration as she tried to match his pace but it really felt like there was no method behind it. Instead, his tongue kept licking its way into her mouth like she was a cavern to explore rather than a partner to share intimacy with and she struggled to keep up. She focused desperately on him as anything was better than nothing in terms of a distraction; good or bad. Wasn’t it a good thing that Lando—a guy her age—was actually interested in her? Maybe it was just unfamiliar…maybe she needed to give him a proper chance. 

He leaned in front of her a little more while his hand helped itself to her chest, squeezing her breast over her shirt and bra. Rosaline gasped lightly into his mouth as her fingers tangled in the back of his hair, threading through the soft curls at the nape of his neck, trying to find the pleasure and warmth in the touch of man. Lando’s lips broke away from hers and he dipped his face into her neck to trail hurried kisses along her skin and Rosaline rested back against the wall, trying to focus on the feeling of his lips that barely felt like much of anything with how they rushed over her skin in all the wrong spots. 

It wasn’t his fault, really; he had never kissed her before so how was he to know? To save herself the discomfort, Rosaline took his face in her hands and guided his mouth back to hers, at least getting something out of the way his lips connected with hers. She could feel the faint splotchy scruff along his upper lip against her skin, feeling like just the slightest bit of irritation she wasn’t familiar with. George was always so perfectly clean-shaven. 

No; stop thinking about George. Rosaline scolded herself in her head, and, instead, she kissed Lando harder. 

He groaned into her insistent kiss, muttering messily, “Y’know how long I’ve wanted this?” 

She didn’t answer as she pulled at the front of his forest green hoodie, her fingers bunching up the embroidered golden yellow 81 over the left breast. Him and his damn Piastri merch collection…it was never ending. ‘Special edition,’ he had told her upon entering her dorm earlier that afternoon, ‘for his home race last year. Sick, yeah?’ Part of her wondered if he’d kiss Oscar Piastri like this if he had a chance. Maybe she was Lando’s second choice too. To keep from guffawing at the idea, she pushed at the bottom of his hoodie to encourage him to take it off. 

Lando sat back just long enough to yank the fabric over his head and he dropped it to the floor before pushing his lips on hers again. His hands were growing a bit restless, finding their way back to her chest to grope her breasts again under large palms and she arched into his touch with a slight wince, discreetly guiding his hands away to get him to ease up. Unbothered, Lando moved back down her neck while he started to push up her shirt and she let him. 

Dropping her shirt off the end of the bed too, he barely laid eyes on her before he was leaning down to kiss over her breasts while his hands cupped them over her bra, speaking lowly against her skin, “You’re so fit.”

“Thanks,” Rosaline muttered out…and then immediately internally cringed at how horribly awkward she sounded. 

Lando didn’t seem to mind, however, as his fingers worked to try and unclasp her bra around her back, fumbling just a little with the fastening before he got it undone and she wriggled her arms so he could pull it off her. He groped her breasts with two eager palms and then lowered his face to nuzzle between them, getting his tongue all over them and swirling it around her nipples; one and then the other. Rosaline tried to enjoy it, she really tried. 

Somehow they ended up tangled up horizontally on her dorm room bed, the bed frame creaking unattractively beneath them as they got situated in a mess of limbs and sloppy kisses. His thigh was between her legs, giving her something to grind against and she took the offer gladly, although all her mind was focused on was the fact that the last person that had been squished up with her in that bed was George. That was fine, she was allowed to have someone new. Or so she tried to tell herself. 

The feeling of his hands on her face startled her slightly but Lando just chuckled warmly as he carefully slid off her glasses, “Sorry…let me just…”

She blinked at him as he folded the arms and then rolled over to set them on her bedside table. When he turned back to her again, he was smiling a little wider, eyes taking in her face without the frames, and then his lips were swallowing up hers again. Despite the way her mind overthought why he took her glasses off, Rosaline let her arms drape around his shoulders to keep him close while one of her legs wrapped around his waist to rut against his thigh. 

His jeans were coarse against the supple skin of her inner thighs—not quite the luxe softness of George’s slacks that she had grown all too used to—and when he nudged his leg even higher between hers, it almost felt like too much. But it was fine because then his hands were working on the button of her pants and she draped herself out on her back to give him room to do so and then he was shoving his hand down the front as his lips were drawn back to her neck. Rosaline scrunched her eyes closed as his fingers rubbed over the front of her panties, hips bucking up a little against the friction of his touch. 

Lando hummed against her neck as he rubbed her clothed pussy, breath hot, “D’you wanna go down on me then?”

Rosaline hummed, unimpressed, “You’re not gonna go down on me first? Your hand is already there.”

“Well, it’s just that you didn’t shave so…” Lando muttered with a voice that almost sounded guilty to admit such a thing, “I, like, don’t want hair in my mouth or something, y’know?”

Rosaline could have curled in on herself and died on the spot, even if he tried to cover up the weight of his words with more kisses up the column of her neck and across her jaw while his fingers rubbed at her clothed clit mercilessly. He didn’t sound malicious about it but it still stung and it still made her think about how deliciously George had gone down on her on that very bed for the first time, regardless of how her body looked. 

As she laid there, watching Lando take his pants off between her spread legs with a condom packet between his lips, she wondered if this was what it actually was supposed to be like? Hooking up with someone her own age? Everyone was all talk; everyone was just trying to figure it all out just as much as she was. Maybe she cursed herself to a life of misery for jumping into bed with a grown man right off the bat. Maybe this was her real punishment—reality. 

He didn’t say much about her body once they were both naked and maybe she preferred it that way; nothing would compare to George’s literary wonders of words he so often showered her with. Instead, the silence of her dorm room was deafening, broken only by their shared breaths and the sound of Lando’s hand on himself as he tried to get himself hard. She found herself unable to even really look at him like that as she waited. It wasn’t that she was scared or disgusted by him…but he just…wasn’t George. Nothing he did or said or looked like could ever measure up and that was entirely her own hangup…her own fault. 

“Fucking hell,” Lando muttered sharply under his breath, a pink dusting across his cheeks from more embarrassment than arousal, “Could you, like, suck it a little maybe?”

Not particularly wanting to do that, Rosaline replied with a kind, “Maybe we should just get back to work.”

“No, shit, I’m sorry…” he huffed, fingers still stroking his cock to try and get it up, “Just…give me a second, yeah?”

“Lando,” Rosaline mumbled, “it’s okay…another time, alright?” 

She knew it wasn’t fair to him that she couldn’t give her everything to him like he deserved. He was generally such a nice guy and he deserved someone who wanted to reciprocate his energy, not someone who was going to lay there and wish he were someone else instead. Besides, she’d do anything to give him an out from his embarrassment. 

It was almost funny how they hadn’t done much of anything and Rosaline still felt dirty as she got her clothes and glasses back on. The silence in the room was nauseating between them like neither quite knew what to say after all that and the bed creaked beneath their shared weight as they retrieved their laptops and returned to their spots like nothing had happened. Rosaline took a deep breath and willed her focus to return to her section of the project. 

Always a comic, Lando offered a lighthearted break of the ice, “At least now we got some more team bonding done if Professor Albon asks us how our work process went.”

He said it so casually, so unbothered, but a chill tore down Rosaline’s spine. She looked over at him, “Professor Albon?”

She hadn’t said a single word to him about the week from hell—hadn’t even told him that Professor Russell was gone. She’d been a vault all afternoon, and now the name slipped so easily from his mouth. Too easily. Lando glanced up at her. She caught the flicker in his jaw before he masked it with a shrug.

“Yeah,” he replied coolly. Too cool. 

“You weren’t in class on Tuesday,” she asked tentatively, “how do you know Professor Albon?”

There was a pause between them that lasted just a beat too long to be normal, and then Lando let out a strained little laugh and a shake of his head as he averted his gaze back to his laptop screen, “No, but, uh, one of the other blokes in class told me.”

It was clear he was lying. It was clear as the front page of the fucking newspaper that he was lying. There was something he wasn’t telling her.

“Why weren’t you in class on Tuesday?” Rosaline asked slowly, dragging out her words as if to make sure he could listen and understand the seriousness of each one.

Lando didn’t answer right away. He stared at his screen like it held the answer, fingers still on the keyboard but unmoving, a similar position to how she had been earlier. Hesitant and distracted. Something on his mind. Then, slowly, he clicked his laptop shut.

“I wasn’t feeling great,” he said, still not looking at her, “was up late streaming the night before and the weather was shit so…figured I wouldn’t miss much.”

“That’s your story?” she pressed back, shutting her own laptop with a bit too much haste, her eyes narrowing at him. 

Lando finally looked at her—really looked at her—and something shifted behind his eyes. Guilt, maybe. Or hesitation. Unspoken words that she wanted to reach into his mouth and pull out. 

“What do you want me to say?” he muttered, a little too defensively.

“I want the truth. You knew about Professor Albon and you weren’t in class. You’re acting weird. You’re clearly not telling me something.”

He scrubbed both hands over his face before letting out an exasperated, “Look, Rose, can we not—”

“No, actually, we can,” she cut in. “You’re lying to me. Why can’t you just tell me?”

Lando dropped his head back against the wall as if he were debating with a higher power on whether or not he should speak the truth. Finally, he relented, “I was asked not to come.”

Her breath caught. There it was.

“Who asked you not to come to class?” she asked quietly, voice flat, chilling.

With a heavy sigh, Lando shifted to set his laptop aside before answering, “Dean Stewart. He didn’t want me being there to possibly raise more questions or hostility. But I swear, I didn’t know it would blow up like this.”

She spoke slowly, firmly, “What did you do?”

“When we were out on Saturday,” Lando began, speaking gently as if she were prey at risk of spooking, “and you went to the toilet at the pizzeria, I saw that Professor Russell—George—had texted you and I read it and…it didn’t sit right with me. It made me feel pretty shit, if I’m honest.” 

If she had felt dirty before, it was no comparison to how she felt right then, as if his words were maggots crawling over her skin and she curled her arms around herself in disgust at the revelation. He had sat there with her all afternoon and pretended all was fine while he was the reason her world had been crumbling around her for days. Her mouth was stone dry. 

Lando continued in a firm voice, “You were on a date with me but, what? Using me to make yourself look innocent? I really liked you, Rosaline. That was a dick move, first off.”

Her voice raised slightly in quick reply, sharp and jarring, “So you reported us?”

“Yeah!” Lando met her intensity. 

“And you didn’t think to talk to me first?”

“Talk to you?!” he echoed, his eyes widening as if that were the most ludicrous idea she could have ever said, “You looked at him like he hung the bloody stars. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, I think our professor might be screwing you over in more ways than one’? You wouldn’t have listened; he had you wrapped around his finger!”

“He was not screwing me over! You screwed me over! You were controlling the narrative without even asking me what the truth is all because—what?—you were jealous? You not only ruined my life but you ruined his too.”

“He’s our professor, Rosaline! You know how fucked up that is?”

Sure, maybe from an objective outsider point of view, Lando had a point. She, too, would have once reacted the same way if she had heard that one of her classmates was sneaking around with a professor—it went against everything they were told was right and just. But George wasn’t just a professor, not anymore, and Rosaline was desperate for people to see that: to realize that she wasn’t a victim and their feelings for each other had been genuine and there wasn’t an ounce of maliciousness throughout the entire duration of their agreement. 

George was everything in her eyes; a kind man, an impressively intelligent literary, an incredible professor, someone who appreciated life and the little things and patience. And her. He had appreciated her and every little thing about her. He wasn’t just her professor; he was everything to her for their moment in time. And the idea that his life was virtually ruined because someone outside of their private relationship felt the need to share their secrets made Rosaline feel an anger she didn’t know possible. 

“You don’t get to decide what’s best for me!” Her words cracked as she raised her voice at Lando, but she kept going, “You don’t get to go behind my back and meddle in my personal business just because you want to satisfy your fucking saviour complex.”

Lando looked like he had just witnessed a car crash blowing up in his face, his expression pale and shocked, features exaggerated wide like he hadn’t expected this reaction from her. Rosaline had never once been someone to make a big deal of something; she had always sat quietly in class and simply did as told. Yet, despite how she appeared to her classmates and strangers, there was an unyielding sense of protectiveness buried deep within her, a fierce desire to protect those she cared about. Lando—barely a friend—hadn’t had the sense to ask before he assumed what she wanted or needed and he underestimated just how far she would go to have George’s back. Even after everything. 

Floundering, Lando struggled to find a reply for a few seconds before he stumbled out a, “It wasn’t…I didn’t…you used me!”

“So that’s all this was? Revenge? You didn’t like that a girl didn’t like you so you stabbed her in the back?”

“Woah!” Lando waved his hands in the air between them, “What the fuck?”

Rosaline didn’t flinch, “You heard me. You read my private messages without permission. You went to a university official behind my back. You helped get the only person who ever truly believed in me suspended, maybe fired. And got yourself removed from class to avoid the fallout. And now you’re sitting here, shocked, because I’m not grateful?”

Lando’s face twisted, “I was trying to protect you—”

“No, you were trying to control me,” she snapped, “You made yourself the victim in a story that was never yours and you painted George as the villain to make yourself look like the hero.”

Lando, silent, shut his mouth tightly, his expression narrowing but having nothing to say.

“You think you’re a good guy for this, but good guys don’t need to remind you they’re good,” she added quietly. “They don’t violate trust, or weaponize concern, and they definitely don’t burn someone’s life down just because their ego got bruised. I’m not saying I’m faultless here, but you crossed a line and you know it.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying right now,” Lando said firmly, “I get, you’re emotional, but—”

“No,” Rosaline said, deadly quiet now, her anger all too cool and composed, looking at him like he was the enemy, “I’m clear. You used what little access you had to me to ruin a man’s career, to make a point that no one asked you to make.”

“Oh, come off it,” Lando scoffed, “He’s a grown man, Rosaline. If one report ruined him, maybe he wasn’t that great to begin with.”

Her response was immediate, “Get out.”

Lando blinked at her, a small humourless laugh slipping past his lips, “What?”

She got up and walked the few paces to the door and she yanked it open, “Get the fuck out. I’m done with you.”

There was a brief pause as if he were waiting for her to say she was joking. But when she didn’t, Lando just scoffed and got up from her bed and started to collect his things, tucking his laptop in his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. The silence was heavy as Rosaline waited at the door for him to pack up. He didn’t look at her as he stepped out into the hallway.

She slammed the door behind him. Hard. 

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[taniahylian]

Chapter 9: Good idea, bad execution

Hi, everyone! I'm here to complain about the main story yet again because omg, is it bad. Not as bad as chapter 8 (I doubt anything can be as bad as that thing), but bad nonetheless.

But let's start with the things I actually liked, which is... honestly a surprising amount, but that only makes the subsequent disappointment all the more painful imo.

The good.

I really, really, REALLY liked the parallels and contrasts between the Panopticon inmates and the Aperion believers. It was amazing, I loved every second of it, and I wish they had done something better with it.

Think about it! The people in the island are compleatly free, technically, but they consider themselves prisioners of the phenomenal world and consider that only the Truth can free them. Meanwhile, the Panopticon inmates are prisoners in one of the most desolate places on Earth... yet they consider themselves free; free to think, to write and to say anything they want, since "no one can be imprisoned twice". Which is a great concept! A very philosophical discussion about what freedom even is and how each person attains it. Truly a fascinating idea.

Then we also have the fact that both Aperion and the Panopticon are ruled by numbers. However, while in Aperion they followed the strict methods of mathematics and believed in the existence of an Ultimate Truth that ruled everything, the Panopticon inmates use a dice with numbers to decide everyone's destiny, believing it to be truly random and therefore fair (spoiler: it's not, it's absolutely predetermined).

I find it a bit ironic that Aperion fell because they discovered that the ultimate truth didn't exist and the true nature of the Storm was Chaos, while the Panopticon fell because they discovered that the dice wasn't random (chaotic), but instead followed a fixed pattern. Nice little contrast there... but I digress.

I also liked that Urd took a slightly more active role and we even got to see some scenes from her pov; that was neat. Recoleta is also a pretty cool character with a good design, and I adored the Idealist's personality and manner of speech. Octavia was also pretty cool (wish she was playable), as well as the Jailer.

The bad.

Oh boy... where do I even start? I guess the most obvious thing first: the aesthetic. Omg, who was the freaking genius who thought that having a backrooms aesthetic be the best course of action for a story taking place in a mental asylum was a good idea??? It's not! It sucks, it's not immersive and it's stupid!

It feels like the devs are trying to say "see? We know what kids like these days *wink*" and it's cringy as fuck. It's not eerily deserted and mysterious like the backrooms are supposed to be, and it's also not a proper mental asylum. It's just an ackward, distracting amalgamation of both. Why is there water everwhere??? Even inside the cells? What's the purpose of all that water??? And wouldn't it be frozen, since they're almost at the Antartica? Ugh, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

But anyways, I could've looked past the abhorrent aesthetic if they had at least made a good story with a satisfying payoff and an ending that made sense.

They did not.

Ah yes, Aleph made an entire mental asylum and managed it for almost 15 years just so Recoleta could write her fucking novel that no one understands anyways. Well, he also mentions experiments and the Manus, but both of those are glossed over and not explained enough, to the point that they feel like they don't even matter.

Also... Recoleta being a ghost. What was even the purpose of that??? It couldn't have been just shock value, right? Right???

She tears the novel and "dies" and comes back in the next fucking stage for some reason that makes no sense at all. Bruh, just have her die for real, I wouldn't even mind having a dead character in my suitcase if at least the story would be more coherent and have more of an impact, but Bluepoch are cowards that can't kill playable characters for some unknown reason.

And don't even let me get started with what happens after that. Omg, I'm starting to wonder if maybe Vertin and Sonetto suffered a severe lobotomy that left them braindead after chapter 8 or something. Seriously. They saw that the Panopticon was collapsing and... instead of trying to evacuate the immates or even taking a minute to explain what's happening to the Jailer, they just... leave. Huh??????

I can kind of understand Vertin and Sonetto leaving, since they were just seaching for Urd and maybe they're hyperfocused on that, but imo it's out of character for them to leave without even trying to help anyone when the reason they leave is that the Panopticon is collapsing. Yes, I know they ask García if he wants their help to evacuate and he refuses, but he's just one inmate! There's hundreds in there, judging by the cells, so why just make a half-assed attempt to help one of them and then leave???

Meanwhile Recoleta... I really can't excuse her leaving. Later on she'll go back and be like "they're my friends, I have to help them". GIRL. Why did you leave in the first place??? If they're your friends and you can't just leave them to die, why the fuck did you leave them to die??? Is it just so we can have a "cool" scene of Recoleta walking slowly across a field while the asylum is burning in the distance? Because it really seems like it.

And there's yet another problem. Vertin and Sonetto take Aleph's ship to go to the Antartica and find Urd, which is fine, but then they just... tell him to wait there until Fundation officials arrive? COME ON! He's associated with the Manus, and you've seen him experiment on ppl! Even if he's just a human, he could do heinius things in the nearby town. YOU CAN'T LEAVE HIM THERE UNSUPERVISED! Couldn't they at least have called the local Police and ask them to keep him in custody while the Foundation arrived? Couldn't Sonetto have stayed behind, while Vertin embarked alone in her quest to find Urd? I find either of those situations much more acceptable ngl.

As for the Panopticon ppl... Ugh. What a fucking ending. Seriously. Did they run out of budget or something? We couldn't get a final scene with Octavia and the others explaining why the fire started and why they decided to stay? Because the way I see it, they just wanted to be free to express their art and hope maybe their art could help change Latinamerica... how would they do that from the freaking afterlife??? (No, García's lame "there's no better place for me than here" doesn't count; that's just one person's opinion, and he isn't even a leader, like Octavia).

Seems like a lame attempt at shock value, trying to replicate the amazing storm scene in chapter 7, just without an ounce of the emotions, meaning and phylosophical implications it had. I'm seeing a trend here, ngl, with both chapters 8 and 9 trying to replicate scenes from chapters 2 and 7 respectively and failing misserably at it.

Ugh, I'm starting to hate the main story ngl... which is a shame because the side events that have nothing to do with it are actually quite good, while the events that try to be main story are a hot mess (looking at you, 2.4).

In any case... I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it. It had some solid ideas and concepts, but it feels like they rushed the ending, added a bunch of things that didn't make sense just for shock value and compleatly underminded whatever message they were trying to tell.

6/10. Not terrible, but also not good.

[sweetlullabyebye]

Charles' thing is that he wants to feel alive and that's part of the reason why he decided to never move on to the afterlife right? Meanwhile Edwin thinks Charles will move on and that he'll be alone again because 'he isn't good with people'.

But then when the Night Nurse shows up a second time Charles is ready to go wherever -including Hell- as long as Edwin shouldn't have to go back there, meanwhile Edwin refuses that they be split up, and both are okay with being sent together to the Lost and Found Department to be sorted out later as long as they're together-

[velociraptorsaurusrex]

forgive me if this exact posts exists somewhere already I feel like it certainly could. but the thing about dtamhd is that the fantasy of removing the heart is not actually “violent.” he removes a man’s heart but does it with no great force; the man does not die or even react; there is a stillness and peace and even gentleness to that scene. I just do not believe Dennis engages with this fantasy on the level of “violence.”

by the same token Dennis does not see remaking & strictly controlling & criticizing the self as “violent” — he sees these things through a clinical lens, with a sense of cold necessity, and even with that gentleness — it’s what needs to be done, and it’s a kindness to do it. he additionally does not truly have a “beauty is pain/suffering” mindset because he perceives the control, restriction, & criticality, again, not as violence — but in this case a more neutral type of “effort.” he believes successfully performing this “effort” begets the “reward” of beauty/perfection.

in conclusion I ultimately do not believe dtamhd serves as definite evidence that Dennis relishes in the fantasy of or materially desires violence, because in his mind it is not “violence” the way we perceive it.

[luxaofhesperides]

Listen. I love the dcxdp crossover. It’s a lot of fun! There’s so much that can be done for this crossover, with all the characters and settings and the many plots that can spring up from them. But as much as I love writing for it and sharing my fics with the community, there’s been a significant uptick in things that are rubbing me the wrong way. Some of these things have to do with canon vs fanon, but others are more about the shifting culture of the community.

(keep in mind that I only see things on Tumblr and am not in any discords, so my experience will be different from others bc I have a more limited experience with the wider community)

(putting it all under a read more bc its long)

Let’s start off with a look at what we’re doing as a group:

Building off of completed fics on tumblr: I always thought the etiquette is to not build off of a completed work without permission. Someone had an idea and executed it, then shared it with us. It should end there. If you want to add to it, contact the author first and see if it’s something they’re fine with; some will say no, some will say yes, some will say yes but be sure to credit them for the original fic. A lot of what I’m seeing is a completed fic gets added on to in a way that completely takes it away from the original idea. Having experienced this myself (on a requested prompt from someone else, no less), I found it kind of rude. Maybe it’s just me, but a completed fic is not a prompt request or something open for building up another story around. It’s already completed. Leave the story as is and let the author know you liked it.

Expecting others to write for you: the prompts are what build this crossover fandom, in my eyes. Prompts are posted and people create something around them, either as a group by adding onto what other people are saying, or as individual fics that one person wrote. Now I’m seeing people throw out prompts that are basically fic outlines, then begging others to write something for it. Like, those prompts are already written! They have very specific details! Why not write it yourself? You’re already halfway there, you can just write the thing you want to see and post it. It’s not about being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at writing, it’s about crafting an idea to share to the world. Why ask others to write it for you when you’ve already practically done it?

But also, you are not owed fic. This might just be general fandom burn out talking, but being a fic author who has been treated like a machine? It sucks. I love writing, but I share what I write because what I wrote made me happy and I wanted to share that with others. I’m not a content creating machine who has to pump out fic after fic for other people’s entertainment. I just want to share what I love and having people pop up in my notifs only going “write more/tag me/sequel?/etc” is tiring. I get that it’s coming from a place of love bc you liked the fic enough to want to see more, but please actually talk about what I’ve already written instead of going “update? More? MORE????”

Hostility to DC canon: I get that DC canon is a mess, but it still is a canon and has a lot of cool stuff! I’m seeing a lot of posts recently about how dpxdc people refuse to engage with the comics, and I need to let yall know that this is not a new thing. DC fans also refuse to engage with the comics (it’s mostly batfam) and it’s very easy to tell who has and who hasnt ready batfam related stuff bc the fanon is incredibly wrong about characterisation and what happened in comics. But that’s for a different post.

I’m seeing both sides of the argument (this is for fun, reading comics isn’t required, don’t like don’t read vs it’s tiring seeing people butcher my favorite characters into ocs with their name/face, I want to share my love for comics but there’s so much pushback, it shouldn’t be weird to expect people engaging with a media to have actually engaged with that media). And I think you should engage with comics! DP is a unique case in which fanon is for the most part better and more interesting than the original show (also death to the author/butch hartman), but DC comics shouldn’t be engaged with in that way. If you like the characters you see in dpxdc, you should read about them in comics! The whole point of a fandom is that you’re a fan of the original media. That’s why you’re engaging with it in this way, writing within the world and characters and canon.

I don’t know how people write for fandoms when they’re not familiar with the source material. I wanted to write dcxdp so I started rewatching DP. I’m reading comics. I want to know the characters and their stories so I can have a foundation to write from, and also to better understand the media so I can share my love for it. The refusal to engage with source material while engaging with its fandom is so strange to me.

Also dc fans who love the comics are great! In my experience, they’re very kind and willing to help you jump into comics! Don’t know where to start? Pick a character or team and follow them! Want a reading guide? We’ve got TONS. want thoughts on a specific character or comic run? Just ask!

Now to more specific points about what I’m seeing in dcxdp works:

Mischaracterized batfam: this is a group of people who are disasters and have complicated relationships with each other. They’re kind, wonderful people who bring out the best and worst in each other. Why is Batman always adopting people. Why is this a running joke with the batfam. I get it being a joke the first few times, but I’ve seen it so often and done like it’s accurate characterization that I just. I can’t. I leave that fic immediately. I can’t do it anymore. Batman is paranoid and tried very hard to keep kids away from him/away from being a vigilante. Unfortunately all the kids he got are stubborn and smart so he was doomed from the beginning.

Superman and Kon: you guys are pretty much only pulling from Young Justice Animated which I think is a terrible adaptation, but that’s my own taste. But seriously. Clark is kind. That’s an important part of his character! He’s the strongest man in the world and he’s kind. He was also dead when Kon first appeared as a experiment from CADMUS in Hawaii. They’re not father-son, but they are family and they do care for each other, once they get to know each other. Also Kon is not an angry broody boy, he’s funny! And annoying! pls read kon comics guys, i promise youll like his actual character

Chronos??? Guys. Chronos is not a god in DC canon. He is in Greek mythology, but in DC he’s a Captain Atom villain and he’s literally just a guy who got obsessed with having perfect timing. He’s themed around clocks. He has nothing to do with time travel or time gods. The Speedforce is Time, basically, and it is not human. It is an eldritch being beyond our comprehension that can eat people. If it chooses to have a human form, it’s going to choose to look like Bart. Please read Flash stuff, it’s interesting!

Lazarus Pit Madness lasts like 5 minutes in canon. Jason having it, and being affected by it for years, is a purely fanon thing from the dc side. Not going to say anything more on this because it goes into Jason Todd discourse.

Repetition: I’m sorry but I’m tired of seeing the same things over and over. I barely see anything out of the dcxdp tags thats new and fun to engage with. Everything is the same variation of “Danny helps Pit Mad Jason”, “Bruce insta-adopts Danny”, “Superman is mean to clones”, etc etc. Think of any popular dcxdp trope and that’s all you’ll see. I get why these are fun and popular, but the way it’s being engaged with now? It literally makes me exit Tumblr and put my phone down.

Not every prompt has to go down the same routes as the other prompts. Please explore more options, branch out, twist those tropes around to do something new with them. And also stop going onto other people’s fics and saying “what about [dcxdp trope]? Cant wait to see [dcxdp trope]! You should have [dcxdp] trope.” If I didn’t include it, it’s not included for a reason. There are hundreds of other fics that write specifically about those exact tropes. Read those, or write your own. (im being super bitter here but please just let me write what i want to write without trying to pull the story into another direction for a trope you like. Im writing for me, but sharing it for you. Not every fic needs those tropes in them.)

Tumblr specific things: this is less about the content and more about general posting etiquette. Please put long posts under a read more. If it’s more then three paragraphs, consider adding a read more if there is significantly MORE than three paragraphs. Tag appropriately. Content warnings and trigger warnings should be at the very top of the post and in the tags so they can be properly blocked. If you’re posting fic/prompt, please double check your spelling and fix any typos you find because posts that are filled with excessive typos are difficult to read.

There’s probably a lot more to talk about, but just getting this much out is tiring and, frankly, I don’t want to think on it any more today. If you reply/add comments, I won’t get to them in a while bc I will be writing ghostlights and yhk fic to lift my mood :)

[airenyah]

Hard agree on your and anon's take on JoongDunk's platonic dudebros vibe and that is actually the reason I like JD. Have you seen the vid of Joong introducing Dunk as "small and easy to carry" and Dunk one-upped him by calling Joong "big and easy to ride" and Joong reacts like "Oh dude, you got game!?". It's obvious it's performative fanservice aimed to entertain audience, but at the same time it's playful banter, seeing if they could match or one-up each other's jokes and that dynamic of being able to have fun while keeping it playful and unserious is probably the one I'd want if I were a bl actor. I cannot enjoy fanservice when actors act like they're in a real relationship, too cringe and toxic *cough* mg *cough* and if it's real, I'd feel like a creep intruding on personal lives. I can freely enjoy JoongDunk for their neonsign "platonic friends being playful", along with their sheer force of social media marketing. Joong obviously a pro with his longtime experience in the industry and even majoring in university, while Dunk somehow maintaing that level of engagement when he doesn't even dance or sing is a mystery to me (tho I think he found his niche in cooking vids which had good views that Joong actually imitated him), but I think both working hard on social media promotion also makes them a good match for maintaining the same level of engagement. And I heard that's how they built their popularity even though SIMM was lackluster? Kudos to them.

yep, i saw that clip at the time!

i said this before in another ask, but i do think their "flirting" and fanservice does very much come from a genuine place. i think they just play it up for fun and not necessarily even as a "service" for the fans but also for their own enjoyment, either because they enjoy the other's reaction to whatever cheesy thing they say or do or because they enjoy one-upping each other (as you mention in your ask) or also because they simply just enjoy the fan's reaction as well. i think they're as entertained by us as we are entertained by them (mostly, at least kjkjsdfgdkg) (maybe not when joong is asked "WhErE iS dUnK" for the 43943945th time that day)

like, they are clearly also getting something out of their flirty banter, not just us. they're clearly having a blast with it while at the same time it's so obvious that it really only is a joke and that they really are just friends, nothing more, and that makes it so enjoyable to me to watch them and to follow them. they're clowns and i'm right here riding their clown car with them

and i agree with you, i can't enjoy it either when it seems like a cp is trying too hard to seem "real". it's like. why? why are you trying to sell me a lie? and if they are dating, then i'd feel even weirder for the exact same reason you mention, like... i don't know them. i'd very much feel like i'd be intruding

i much prefer knowing exactly where i'm at and so i very much enjoy the "we are strictly bros who just happen to say the flirtiest shit for fun" energy that joong and dunk bring. i'm super seated for that

and i just find it extremely fascinating how that bro-energy that they have in private just completely disappears when they're on camera playing characters. when i watch joong and dunk in private i'm always like "ain't no way these two are in love" (like delulu stans would like to believe) whereas when i watch any of their bls i'm like "ain't no way these two are NOT in love". love it when actors do actor things <3

and yeah, i wasn't really following them back during simm era (though i watched the series live after ep2) but i do remember that a lot of people said that they didn't enjoy simm but they very much enjoyed joongdunk "in private"! idk how active they were on social media bc yeah, i only really started following them more closely outside their series at the end of 2023, but i wouldn't be surprised if their social media activity helped them become popular

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I might be interested in that “Sherlock writers/producers power trip” stuff 👀

Calling it a power trip was a bit dramatic of me XD but I do think the creators of Sherlock had a... weird relationship with the character of John Watson. He gets two different and incongruous characterizations, and I don't understand the rationale behind it.

The most clear example of this for me is how this changes between the Unaired Pilot and A Study in Pink. The Watson of the UP is self assured, practical, intelligent, competent, moral (if somewhat grim and with a veneer of darkness lurking beneath the surface) and mature. The Watson of ASIP is insecure, impractical, rather dumb, extremely loyal to a person he just met for no reason, a failure of a petticoat chaser, and essentially an adrenaline junkie. And these are two versions of the same story.

On the UP, the first meeting between Sherlock and Watson is marked by Watson's curiosity and earnest admiration about Sherlock's deductions; the same scene in ASIP shows us Watson being taken aback by Sherlock's behavior. When they are at the scene of the crime and Sherlock asks Watson if he's aware that he's speaking his appreciative remarks out loud, UP Watson just calmly asks if that bothers Sherlock; ASIP!Watson hurries to apologize. And in general he hesitates, apologizes and feels out of place much more across the latter version.

In the UP, what "cures" Watson's limp is that he notices that something has gone wrong with Sherlock's attempt at dealing with the cabbie, and he jumps to go help/save him. Watson is a doctor, his vocation in life is centered around helping and saving people; his psychological symptoms are caused by a sense of purposelessness, as he's been discharged after being wounded, and lives on a military pension. Now that he has met Sherlock and realized the ways in which Sherlock is self-destructive, he has found new purpose. ASIP, by replacing this for a foot-chase, replaces this element of characterization (intelligence, moral fiber, decisiveness) with... John is just an adrenaline junkie -and doubles down upon this through Mycroft words, and by removing from the ending scene the lines where Sherlock calls Watson "my doctor", and Watson tells Lestrade off by reminding him that Sherlock must eat if he is to be useful in future. In both versions we have the set-up of the gun Watson keeps in his drawer (that he may come to use to kill himself) and the payoff (that he ends up using to save Sherlock's life); but whereas in the UP it is of a piece with the characterization I mentioned above, in ASIP it feels like a leftover they couldn't remove because it was so deeply baked into the plot.

The framing of Watson's killing of the cabbie is also different between UP and ASIP: in the UP, we only see Watson leaving the restaurant, then the cabbie dying, and "realize" with Sherlock who the shooter was. It is implied that he guessed where the cabbie was taking Sherlock, called the police, made a detour to pick up his gun, and then headed to Baker Street where he chose the vantage point of a house across the street, from which he watched the cabbie and Sherlock, and waited till the last possible moment to shoot, in case bloodshed could be avoided. This shows that he can keep a very cool head under pressure, that he underwent military training and it stuck, and that he is moral and practical, grounded and efficient.

ASIP!Watson picked up his gun after his interview with Mycroft -the implication that he means to use it as protection/defense for Sherlock and himself from... MI5/6. Now that does give some credence to Mycroft's insult that Watson is brave, but bravery is what people say when they mean stupidity. You were in the army, Watson! You should know better! (the Mycroft subplot also includes two painfully awkward attempts at hitting on one of Mycroft's underlings, a woman clearly much younger than him. As I was saying, Watson loses maturity between the UP and ASIP). Watson then only follows Sherlock and the cabbie because of the phone setup that had been previously solved by Sherlock (so no application of intelligence here), does not think of calling the police, and then we watch him desperately searching for the room where Sherlock and the cabbie are, then when he casually lands on the room across that one, he screams Sherlock's name to the top of his lungs, and as he is not heard, he ends up shooting the cabbie as a last desperate effort. No planning here, no cold head, and some very stupid decisions (had the cabbie been armed for real, and he had stumbled into the room or been heard, chances are one or the two would have ended up injured or dead).

I think the contrast between the two versions of this other scene showcases this really well:

ASIP: Sherlock: are you alright? Watson: Yes, of course I'm alright. Sherlock: you just killed a man. Watson: Yes, I... That's true, innit? (pause) but he wasn't a very nice man.

UP: Sherlock: you are alright? Watson: of course I'm alright. Sherlock: you have just killed a man. Watson: I've seen men die before -good men, friends of mine-; 'thought I'd never sleep again. I'll sleep fine tonight.

The unaired pilot plays more with setting up a "dark side" to Watson; his profession as doctor makes him mainly caring and helpful, but it can also make him clinical and detached at points; I don't think it is a coincidence that Donovan tells Watson to take his distance from Sherlock because "One day just showing up won’t be enough. One day we’ll be standing round a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there", but by the end of the episode the police is standing around on a crime scene for which the killer was... Watson. This last thing, again, carries over into ASIP because it couldn't be taken out without breaking the plot, but has been removed from the rest of Watson's characterization in the episode. Mind you, I don't think "exploring the dark side of John Watson's personality and maybe turning him into a villain or a conflicted antihero" is a good idea, but it was set up in one, discarded, and not replaced in the other.

I could write another post with the differences in the characterization of Sherlock between the two tellings of the story, but exploring that here would make this answer way much longer than it needs to be. I'll summarize it by saying that UP Sherlock is written to have some complementarities with UP Watson: Sherlock is rather juvenile/childish, too focused on "the game" to take care of himself, assess risks or evaluate how his behavior affects others. He has a hard time understanding the feelings of others, and that coupled with an enjoyment of tricks and disguises and games is what makes him difficult for other people to deal with. Basically, Sherlock is very intelligent in a rather theoretical, detached way, whereas Watson is a grounding presence because he's full of common, practical sense. ASIP Sherlock is... an asshole. It's not that he doesn't understand the emotions of others, he despises them. It's not that he's reckless, it's that he's super cool and dangerous (and suddenly is a master of combat what). He's basically a sort of pop culture übermensch?

The ASIP characterization for both characters dominates series 1 and 2 of Sherlock, and develops through two main dynamics: one is the "Watson as a silly wife in a bad 1950s sitcom", that is particularly intense and weird in The Blind Banker (which, in all fairness, was not written by mofftiss).

The first Sherlock-John scene in TBB is a juxtaposition between Sherlock having a skilled fight at the flat, while Watson is failing miserably at... checking out groceries. The following scene is poor silly woman Watson with her his silly little homemaking problems cannot understand the huge work and problems her husband Sherlock tackles when she's not looking. Watson is worried about having money to pay the necessities, Sherlock cannot be bothered to mind such pedestrian things.

This depiction of Watson as """"feminine"""" (derogatory) pops up here and then. He gets kidnapped three times for just being... careless (again, doctor, yes, but war veteran and human being that has been kidnapped before). It may not sound like A LOT, but when you consider the whole series is just 14 episodes, of which one is a short and another happens exclusively inside Sherlock's head... well...

Magnussen literally calls Watson Sherlock's damsel in distress in His Last Vow. His feelings upon discovering Sherlock is alive in The Empty Hearse are treated as over-reaction by Sherlock, Mary and the narrative. In general the whole Mary arc is filled with this sense that Mary and Sherlock relate to each other and understand each other and cooperate with each other on a level that Watson can't reach, and he's therefore relegated most of the time to a figure to be protected from both truth and evildoers, and then to give Rosie to, because man carrying a baby emasculating or something? (Sherlock's single interaction with Rosie is about his trying to reason with her, but he never touches or holds her, and she virtually disappears as a being once Mary dies).

This concept of Sherlock as idealized pop culture übermensch and Watson as a failure of a man takes the rest of the time a strange tone of aggressiveness, not only in the occasions in which Watson beats up Sherlock (A Scandal in Bohemia, TEH, The Lying Detective), but in smaller ways in Watson's pointed acting like he's not interested in the case or in explanations... and his dating women for apparently no other reason that to try and stick it to Sherlock (which makes it extra out of nowhere when he's not only so deeply affected by Sherlock's death, but that he tells to his grave "I was so alone and I owe you so much". Wait, what? You've spent most of your time being annoyed and feeling threatened by this guy).

Watson's relationships with women is also part of the weirdness of his characterization. He dates several of them one after the other in what seems an effort to show Sherlock that at least in this he's more competent than him; he doesn't seem to really care considering he mixes up their names and neglects them. However, the series also wants to make him also a very awkward and poor flirt with no standards (like trying to get the therapist in The Hounds of Baskerville, starting an emotional affair with a woman who just smiled at him on the bus, gets very mad at a tabloid calling him confirmed bachelor), and that the women that DO actually get into stable relationships with him think him beneath them one way or another (the series makes a pointed joke about how his girlfriend in The Great Game won't have sex with him or make him breakfast, Mary uses him first as a cover and then calls herself the best thing that happened to him as a joke while he's very seriously trying to propose to her). It rounds up again to that subtle "not man enough - feminine" undercurrent.

Then there's Watson's general incompetence. On my first draft of this answer I had written a list, episode by episode, of all the times Watson is being sent on wild goose chases, makes mistakes that no one with his background should, stumbles upon clues by sheer dumb luck, is generally useless, and his ideas are treated as extremely dumb, but it was very long and boring. So here are the ones I found to be the most notorious examples:

In TBB, he does not comment that left-handed people do in fact learn to shoot with their right hand (he is himself a left handed person who does that as established in ASIP); on that same episode he daftly stands by with a paint can and gets caught by the police and can't say anything to defend himself despite the high unlikeness of his being.... a street artist (his worrying about the charges is, again, framed as silly.)

He leaves the witness they need and who is in danger, alone, so he can go "help Sherlock" (which meant just... running out of the scene so she could get killed).

Watson's date is better than him at the brawl that happens at the circus somehow. He cannot tell a delivery guy from a ninja and gets kidnapped. He's scared witless because an old lady is pointing a gun at him (HE'S AN AFGHANISTAN VETERAN).

In TGG, Watson has kept the gun with which he killed the cabbie (against UP, and also, you know, incriminating evidence). Watson, a doctor whose CV specifies surgery, is jumpscared and upset by a head in the fridge.

In ASIB, he doesn't even know how to punch properly. The guy who is an ace with a gun in ASIP, is reduced and held at gunpoint like nothing here, and contributes nothing while badass Sherlock and Irene kick the goons asses. Falls for a dumb seduction trick because he's an idiot. Cannot tell apart real shock from Mrs Hudson just pretending.

In The Sign of the Three, Sherlock realizes Mary is pregnant before Watson, WHO IS A DOCTOR does.

These characterizations I have been talking about are very dominant through series 1 and 2, but then something curious happens on s3: without any warning or connection, the series starts acting like the characterizations of the UP have been the show's characterizations all along.

It begins with Sherlock's characterization; he's back and itching to see Watson, not realizing that he would have moved on in two years. Mycroft tries to warn him to break the news softly to him, but Sherlock doesn't understand; all he can think about is what a lark it will be to show up out of nowhere! There's no real meanness in it, just childish joy. This goes on through TsotT, with his anxieties about his speech, his difficulty to prepare and deliver it and following through the ceremonies, his surprise and emotion at being chosen as best man and called Watson's best friend, his promise to keep Mary safe and his efforts to save Watson in s4, and even his realization about Eurus' emotional needs in the series finale.

Not that the original ASIP characterization doesn't show up here and there again and again, through things like Sherlock's edgy comments about religion, his complete distraction and lack of attention at Rosie's baptism, his mysoginy and use of Jeaninne in HLV, etc.

Same happens with Watson. The narrative keeps doing its mockery thing, and will lay VERY THICK the whole "Watson is just an adrenaline junkie" with Mary's secret and how Watson married her because he's attracted to danger and that makes it all his fault somehow... it will also show Watson being bored by his job at the surgery. BUT the main storyline of the Sherlock-Watson relationship only makes sense through the UP characterization. It is, in fact, spelled out loud in TsotT: Sherlock solves puzzles, Watson saves lives. The back-cases of the episode show Watson being intelligent, competent, and helpful, specially as a doctor. Sherlock believes that he's been saved by Watson through their friendship. The case at the end is solved through both Watson's saving of lives and Sherlock's solving of puzzles (we are even shown that Watson has another friend! who is also a recluse!). Watson is at peace in his relationship with Harriet. We are even shown that Watson is secretly drinking more alcohol during his bachelor bender, to not disappoint Sherlock's calculations about his alcohol tolerance, and so "ruin" his fun and the work he put on it.

This goes on through HLV as well; Watson gets some PTSD flashbacks, then manages firmly and competently the "rescue" of Isaiah Whitley, and even shows some of that colder and a tad cruel side that was hinted in the UP. He has authority enough to make Mycroft leave when he tells him to. He's in on the plan to reveal Mary's past as a spy, and even later on is the one to suggest Sherlock puts a tracker on her before she drugs him and leaves, which shows both practicality and foresight. He even jokes with Lestrade about Sherlock being like a baby!

Even though The Abominable Bride only happens in Sherlock's mind and therefore doesn't really count towards Watson's characterization, it is worth noticing that in it Watson is so much more involved in monitoring and containing Sherlock's drug problem than he has proven to be till that point (sure, Watson got Molly to test him in HLV, but nothing came of it, and the treatment of the matter in TLD is even worse).

The only way to make some sense of The Six Thatchers and TLD, Watson-wise, is to play along with this idea of Watson as supremely practical, competent, and mature. His being rather checked out about Mary (he spends the whole morning (9 hours) of what seems to be one of his free days just proving with a balloon that Sherlock doesn't need him, while his wife is dealing with a very young baby, for example), and his emotional affair are to be understood not as part and parcel of the character we've seen through series 1 and 2, but as a moment of weakness of the character they say he is in s3.

It's not just the only way to understand not only his intense guilt, but the way the narrative tries to present the infidelity as "well, it is what it is, we are all human" down to Sherlock telling Watson that even Watson is human. That's not what Watson actually is, though, through most of the series. He's a callous, violent, horny idiot, which the narrative calls human, and that's the resolution of the opening scene of TLD about things being wrong and being able of calling them wrong. They are just what they are and we are all human.

The finale is all about Sherlock and Eurus, and so Watson's development ends here.

And the thing is, that I would have liked to see much more of the potential the characterizations in UP showed. That would have been an interesting dynamic. I think the casting of Martin Freeman for Watson was great, and that he elevates whatever he's in (yes, even The Hobbit movies), but was ultimately wasted, and for what?

Maybe it is that the BBC demanded those changes to bring in a lighter tone and comedic relief. Maybe they really wanted a sort of loose remix of House M.D. (which is what the Sherlock-Watson dynamic is most of the time in this show) instead of the Sherlock Holmes adaptation Mofftiss wanted to make. Maybe only after the show became wildly popular they were allowed to do what they wanted that way. But it was too little, too late, and mixed in with a steep decline of the quality of the writing of everything else.

Even within the limits of that generous reading of what happened, it is still stories they wrote and signed, where what could have been a compelling character with many interesting things to explore, from an actually accurate portrayal of PTSD (and not the "actually it is civilian life that is giving him PTSD because he's an adrenaline junkie, surprise!), and a war injury and physical disability being taken seriously, to his grounding role in Sherlock's life, a development of his deductive abilities, a more equal and complex relationship with Mary... we got an idiot whose function in the plot most of the time was narrative punchbag and high contrast to Sherlock's übermensch.

And that's such a pity.

[deeism]

transmasc chardee epic scissoring ok wait yes

[lycanr0t]

voxval to me isnt "they love each other and are soo sweet and fluffy" and it isnt "they don't care about each other/are just using each other"

its love and caring being messy and cruel. its that they may care but that doesnt make them good people, doesnt change their willingness to hurt each other. its love being expressed via a power struggle, via hurting each other but having each others back. its the "i trust you not to kill me" AND the "you will die by my hands only"

intense and conflicting and at every turn fucked up but not uncaring per se, theyre not indifferent they CARE it's just that caring when youre an awful person whose concept of caring is cruel and fucked up can be. well. cruel and fucked up

[fictionadventurer]

Of course the sequel to Out of the Tomb would be a vocation story. Tanza's let go of sin and embraced virtue. Naturally, the next part of her story would involve her figuring out what she's going to do with her particular gifts and interests. Especially if what she should do doesn't necessarily line up with what she'd want to do if given the choice. With all the crazy political stuff bringing in questions of duty and image and danger, it's the perfect fit. I can't believe I didn't figure it out before.

[wildshapedruid]

reminder that we should keep researching and staying up to date on new dogwhistles and propaganda because it's occurring to me that there's been posts related to current events that were very popular and that I've reblogged myself in the past where I've missed the fine print because I wasnt actively keeping up to date and staying aware and, understandably, have lost friends and mutuals. because it's literally no one's job to babysit you at all times, and you gotta put the work in yourself when it comes to being an ally to anybody, especially jewish people. you can't expect people to always hold your hand. and to my jewish mutuals and followers I want you to know I intend to do better because making you feel unsafe on my blog is the last thing I want.

[greyedian]

i honestly have a lot of thoughts about gender in regards to league Viktor bc like... he is kind of the trans headcanon of all time to me ngl

[vitos-ordination-song]

Another great review: excerpt from Supreme Lemon’s take on Tar

[star-anise]

Disclaimer: I like Anita Sarkeesian.

But also, I just saw a writeup of a Youtuber whose content has come a long way from his Gamergate days, and to explain that, the wiki says, "Anita Sarkeesian is a radical feminist who created a webseries about sexist tropes in video games"

AHAHAHAHAHA ANITA SARKEESIAN, RADICAL FEMINIST

HOO HEE EXCUSE ME THAT'S A GOOD ONE

Radical feminist. Feminist extremist. Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita Sarkeesian did her Master's Thesis in Social and Political Thought in 2010 on the trope of the "Strong Woman" in fantasy and science fiction TV shows, and produced Tropes vs Women, a series of online videos breaking down her work in a way that was accessible to a lay audience. She found a ready audience in geek feminist circles, since this was exactly the kind of thing we wanted and needed right then.

Tropes vs Women was extremely bog-standard cultural critique, what you'd find expressed in discussion between scholars of literary theory or media analysis anywhere, and exactly what 99% of feminists were saying at the time. It certainly talked about patriarchy as the complex system of sexism fused into our cultural matrix, so it's not like it wasn't radical feminism from that viewpoint, but it wasn't "radical" by way of being especially militant. Sarkeesian frequently pointed out how individual occurrences of a trope weren't harmful in themselves, but that a media landscape completely saturated with only that trope and nothing but that trope is, in the aggregate, a big feminist issue.

And the internet

HAAAAAAAATED

her for it.

Like, geek feminists got flak a lot anyway, especially when we wanted things like properly enforced policies against sexual harassment at science fiction conventions. And yeah, there totally were toxic keyboard warriors who said stuff about all men being scum - but Sarkeesian wasn't one of them.

It's probably because of her succinct, matter-of-fact, "this is not a debated issue, feminists have decades of theory and research to back this point up, sources abound if you google for thirty seconds so I won't stop to baby you through all the fundamental concepts" approach that she got such a big reach. She was calm, concise, coherent, and rational, everything feminists are told we need to be.

Unfortunately that just made her seem... attackable, I think. A good target, not actually scary or impassioned, unlikely to respond to violence with violence. The perfect kind of person to play five seconds of, and then spend the next five minutes yelling into your mic because IF ANITA IS RIGHT ABOUT VIDEO GAME SEXIST YOU MIGHT AS WELL SAY THAT EVERYTHING IS SEXIST AND SEXISM IS SYSTEMIC AND ENDEMIC TO ALL OF WESTERN CULTURE AND OTHER CULTURES TOO, WHICH IS CLEARLY RIDICULOUS, ANITA LADY BAD.

She literally spent five solid years as Enemy #1 in online geek spaces. It was completely insane. I am so sorry she had to take the brunt of it, and yet grateful that she did. She held the line and took the shit and kept doing good decent feminist work for years after, though she did admit to burnout and closed up shop on her nonprofit org Feminist Frequency in 2023. I hope to hell she's having a good day.

But even now, more than a decade later, dudes talk about her as though she were Geek Feminist Godzilla, the biggest baddest woman in the universe, off to lay waste to downtown Video Games and cut everybody's balls off.

When people (mostly dudes, but not all) talk like this, it's just very funny and unintentionally revealing because of the absolute averageness of her third-wave, trans-inclusive, western-centric, intersectional feminism. It makes them look absolutely pathetic.

Because it just makes it clear that she is probably the first and last self-described feminist the speaker has ever paid attention to.