#I’d say it’s about 80% complete

[miss-conjayniality]

i am EXTREMELY EXCITED out of my goddamn mind to complete this crossdresser sub!jay drabble.

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

I always smh at people who dub Jason as “whiny” “and therefore ooc” in tt 29. If you died and all everyone did was taint your legacy, and not a single person remembered you fondly or deemed you worthy of commemoration after your death, wouldn’t you be a bit upset too?

[steddiehyperfixation]

don't you forget about me (part eight; final)

(part one)(part two)(part three)(part four)(part five)(part six)(part seven) (ao3 link)

It was an “if” if Eddie would actually be discharged today, but now, after some more poking and prodding, he's finally on his way home with prescriptions for pain meds and physical therapy. 

Wayne helps him up the three creaky, beautifully familiar stairs into the trailer, and Eddie collapses onto the old, beautifully familiar couch the second he gets inside. The weary groan he lets out is only slightly over-dramatized. “I feel like an 80 year old man,” he complains, entire body sore and aching to the bone already. “Now I know how you feel.”

“Oi, I ain't that old,” Wayne protests. When Eddie snorts derisively, Wayne rolls his eyes and chuckles. “Alright, fine, so we both got creaky knees now. You, at least, will be young and spry again in no time, though,” his uncle tells him. “Just get some rest, old man.” 

Eddie heaves a great big sigh, takes another breath to steel himself, and then does just the opposite of that. 

“What did I just say?” Wayne mutters as Eddie moves to stand again. 

“I said I’d call Steve,” Eddie says. Steve had to go to work, but he'd told Eddie that morning to call him if he ended up making it home today. “I’ll dip out of work and come hang out, help you settle in, if you want,” Steve had said. 

Wayne offers, “I can call him for you.” 

“No, no, I got it,” Eddie insists, words broken by a grunt as he hauls himself back to his feet. “I can make it to the phone, Wayne, I'm not a complete invalid.”

“Alright.” Wayne raises his hands in defeat and backs off. He’s never been one to hover. “You just shout if you need me.” 

Eddie limps - slowly, painfully, with difficulty - to the phone on the wall by the tiny dining table they never use, the surface littered instead with unopened mail and haphazard papers scribbled with notes and reminders and important phone numbers. He leans heavily against the table as he paws through the piles trying to find a note of Steve's number. Eddie finds it buried deep, probably long since memorized by now before his memory got erased, but there it is: a notepad paper with Steve's name scrawled on it and two phone numbers written underneath, home and work. 

“Bingo.” Eddie grabs the paper, takes the phone off the hook, and dials the work number. 

The phone rings a couple times, and then: “Family Video. How can I help you?” 

“Hey, Stevie.” Eddie smiles at the sound of his voice, as if he hadn't literally just heard it only a few hours ago. 

“Eddie!” Steve's bored customer service voice brightens. “Are you home? How are you feeling?” 

“Yeah, I’m home. I’m alright. I mean, I’m bone-fucking-tired and feel about a million years old, but it's really really good to be back,” Eddie says honestly. He adds, “I’m under strict orders to rest, though - gonna be bored out of my mind, so I could use the company if you were serious about ditching work for me.” 

“Of course I was serious,” replies Steve. “It's a slow day today anyways.” 

Eddie grins. “Get your sweet ass over here then.” 

A smile is evident in Steve's voice too. “I'll be there in ten.” 

Eddie hangs up, tries his best to wipe this stupid lovesick grin off his face. He stumbles his way down the hall to his room next, flicking on some music from the cassette player on his dresser and looking around. His room is just as beautifully familiar as the rest of the trailer, not much changed from the way he last remembers it. The same music and D&D shit clutter his surfaces, the same posters clutter his walls. His bed is unmade, clothes litter the floor, same as always.

The only differences: his beloved electric guitar no longer hangs on the wall by the mirror (he was told, devastatingly, that she hadn't survived her trip to the Upside Down), and there are photographs he doesn't recognize taped up around the corners of that mirror. Eddie staggers over to get a closer look, only to first be momentarily jumpscared by his own reflection. His face is pale, eyes sunken, and his hair frizzes out in a greasy, tangled mess around his head, unwashed and unbrushed for who knows how long. Gross, but whatever. He manages to ignore his sickly appearance and inspects the pictures he had apparently deemed important enough to stick to the edges of his mirror. 

There are photos of Eddie smiling with Hellfire and his band and the kids, in large groups and small groups, with old friends he remembers and newer ones he doesn't quite. But what catches his attention the most is a photobooth strip of him and Steve. The first picture shows the two of them grinning, arms slung around each other’s shoulders; the second, a silly face photo, Eddie sticking out his tongue and Steve crossing his eyes; the third, Eddie giving Steve devil horns while Steve laughs; and the fourth- 

Eddie plucks the strip off the mirror, stumbles, so taken aback he trips over his own lame feet until he plops down heavily onto his bed, and he stares. He stares at the last image in the row, which depicts - clear as day and undeniably real, immortalized in ink on photo paper - Steve kissing Eddie, tender hand on his cheek, both of them smiling against each other’s lips.

He stares and he stares and he stares. And the longer he stares the more he can almost feel it, taste it, see the events of that photo strip playing out in his mind’s eye like a waking dream. Like a memory. 

~ 

Steve pulls up to the trailer, the one with the metal music blaring from somewhere inside that announces to the whole park that Eddie Munson is back home. He smiles at the sound, gets out of his car and bounds toward it. 

It's Wayne who lets him in when Steve knocks on the door. “He's in his room,” the older man tells him as he steps aside to let Steve in. “Make sure he's stayin’ off his feet, will you? ‘Cause lord knows he won't listen to me.” 

“Yeah, I got it,” Steve says, and his tone and his smile say I got him. Wayne nods. 

Steve makes his way down the hall to Eddie’s room. He raps his knuckles against the door first, but he doubts that can even be heard over the music so he pushes it open without waiting for a response. “Hey, Ed-” Steve starts, only to falter when he sees Eddie sitting statue-still on the edge of his bed, eyes boring holes into a photo strip of the two of them together. “Oh.” 

Eddie blinks, expression unreadable as he looks up and over at Steve. “Why didn't you tell me?” 

“I-” Steve doesn't know what to say, what he should say. His veins buzz with a nauseating mix of hope and anxiety and it's making him feel a bit sick. He takes a deep breath, turns down the music so he can think. “I wanted to. I just- I thought it would freak you out. You didn't know me. I didn't want to force anything on you.” 

“So…we were together,” Eddie says slowly. “For how long?” 

“Since July.” Steve’s desperately searching Eddie’s face for something, anything, to clue him in to what Eddie’s thinking or feeling right now. “Are- are you freaked out? Because you look a little freaked out.” 

“I’m not freaked out,” Eddie says, and it's almost convincing. “I'm just…processing.” 

“Oh-kay…” Steve breathes out, leaning cautiously against the doorframe, still hovering by the exit just in case Eddie decides he doesn't want him there anymore once he's finished processing.

“I’ve, uh-” Eddie looks back down at the photo strip he holds in his hands and takes a breath. “I’ve been remembering some things, you know, little things - in dreams - about us. But I- I thought I just had a crush or something, because I thought if all of that was real, if we had really been that happy - that…in love - then you would've said something. You would've told me.” 

When Eddie's eyes meet his again, Steve realizes he'd misread his expression before. Eddie's not freaked, he's upset, hurt, not because of what he's learned but because it was kept from him. Of all the worst-case scenarios Steve's spiraling mind had come up with over the past couple weeks, he had not considered this one. So preoccupied with his own angst over being forgotten and fear of being unwanted, Steve hadn't thought to consider that him hiding the true nature of their past might make Eddie feel unwanted too. That's the last thing Steve wants; the ache of that trumps any other ache he feels. 

“Eddie, I’m sorry. I just- you didn't know me, and I panicked; I didn't think, or-or I thought too much, but I should've just told you.” Steve pushes off from the doorway and goes to sit beside Eddie, because he can't stand Eddie looking at him with those big doe eyes and not being close to him. He leaves a bit of space, barely holds himself back from taking hold of Eddie's hand. “Because it was real, all the things you've been remembering. It was real- it is real, and I’m so sorry I didn't tell you.” 

Eddie is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. His gaze flicks him up and down and across his face, and then Eddie grabs him, hands dropping the photo strip to instead clutch at Steve's cheek and jaw as he pulls him in and kisses him. As their lips slide together, familiar, the both of them sigh into the kiss. Steve feels a bursting in his heart, so similar to the way it felt the very first time they’d done this: the giddiness of reciprocation, the intuition that this is right. 

When Eddie pulls back after a few long moments, something is changed, something returned. Steve watches Eddie’s eyes flutter open; and when they do, for the first time since he'd woken up in that hospital bed, Eddie sees him, knows him, loves him. 

“How could I ever have forgotten that?” Eddie says, almost whispered, running his thumb across Steve's cheekbone. “How could I ever have forgotten you?” 

Steve could cry. Tears made of relief and joy blur his vision, because Eddie is looking at him with all the tenderness he'd been missing these past weeks, the painful emptiness of before now filled. It's all back. His Eddie is back. Steve pitches forward and hugs him bodily. Eddie returns the embrace; Steve sinks into his arms and it feels like coming home. 

He closes his misty eyes, buries his face in the crook of Eddie's neck and the tangles of his hair, and he breathes him in, clinging onto him like Eddie might just disappear if Steve ever let go. Eddie holds him just as close, one arm wrapped firm around Steve's waist while his other hand cradles the back of Steve's head and strokes his hair. Steve soaks in every touch, feels every place where they are pressed against each other, so warm and safe and loving after so long without it. He is whole again in the arms of the man he loves.  

“I missed you,” Steve mutters, lips brushing against the skin of Eddie's neck as he speaks, muffled. 

“I know, Stevie,” Eddie murmurs, “my Stevie, I’m so sorry.” 

“S’okay. It wasn't your fault,” Steve mumbles, and he thinks maybe they both need to stop apologizing for this. 

Eddie must think the same, because he says, “And it wasn't yours either,” like he knows every twisted, guilty thought that's been haunting Steve lately and he absolves him of them. He tugs gently at Steve’s hair to get him to lift his head and look him in the eyes. “You know that, right?” 

“Yeah, I know,” Steve says quietly. Eddie reaches up to brush from his cheek a tear Steve didn't even know had fallen, and as he wipes it away he wipes away everything - all blame, all fear, all pain. Eddie had forgotten him, and it sucked, but now he remembers again, and none of that matters anymore. Steve hangs onto Eddie's wrist. “Just-” His voice rasps with emotion, making it rougher. “Don't you ever forget about me again.” 

It's not a promise that can be made with any certainty - anything can happen at any time, just as unexpectedly as it had this time - but Steve doesn't need certainty, he just needs to hear the words, and Eddie gives that to him. “I won't, darling,” he vows, with gentle reassurance. “Never again.”

“Good,” Steve sighs, turning his head into Eddie's hand to press a kiss to the palm. 

The last of his heavier emotions drain out of him then and now he can feel the joy of Eddie's return in its whole entirety. As he rolls his face out of Eddie's hand and settles his eyes on the beautiful boy in front of him, a grin begins to spread across Steve's face; Eddie's smile grows in tandem with his, like he's smiling just because Steve is. Steve says, giddy in full now, “You're back.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, lovely and bright, ducking to bump his forehead against Steve's. “I'm back.” 

Steve lets go of Eddie's wrist to tangle a hand in his hair, and he tilts his head up to kiss him again, just because he can, because he's making up for lost time. They draw each other in close once more, lips and bodies moving against each other, easy and natural. Steve could stay right here like this forever, never wants to stop holding him or stop kissing him. 

But a thought - a question - tickles at the base of Steve's skull, and when he does pull back he asks, hopeless romantic that he is, “Just in case - I mean, just so I know - what was it that brought your memory back? Was it like a…true love’s kiss breaking the spell sort of thing?” 

Eddie laughs, gives Steve another quick peck like he always does when Steve says something endearing. “Not quite, Prince Charming,” he responds with a grin so fond Steve thinks his heart might burst. “It was more like…the things I had remembered were just dreams to me, shallow and unreal, but kissing you was like an anchor, a reminder that allowed those dreams to sink in as proper memories and become real.” 

“So…basically it was true love’s kiss,” Steve says cheekily, just to hear Eddie’s laugh again, just to receive another affectionate press of Eddie's lips against his. 

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie concedes, smilingly, never one not to indulge whimsy, “we can call it that.” But then he amends, with a little less levity, “It wasn't exactly a magic cure-all, though. It didn't bring everything back, there are still gaps in my memory.” He looks at Steve with eyes like pools of melted chocolate, soft and endless. “But I remember that I love you; I remember that much.” 

And Steve tells him, “That's enough," and he pulls him in for another true love's kiss.

THE END. taglist: @romanticdestruction @daydreamsandcrashingwaves @paintsplatteredandimperfect @hallucinatedjosten @mugloversonly @estrellami-1 @alongcomesaspider @thatonebadideapanda @tell-me-a-secret-a-nice-one @dragonmama76 @wxrmland @nuggies4life @sirsnacksalot @myguiltyartpleasure @lolawonsstuff @marklee-blackmore @vinteraltus @sebastiansstanswhore @0happyeverafter0 @scarlet-malfoy @hotluncheddie @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @emsgoodthinkin @alyelf @warlordess @stevesbipanic @lil-gremlin-things @rockandrolodex @badcaseofcasey @bat-outta-hel @fandomcartographer @manda-panda-monium @littlewildflowerkitten @giopandaonice @mightbeasleep @queenie-ofthe-void @krazyperson @worldofshea @marvel-ous-m @tartarusknight @a-little-unsteddie @xenon-demon @goodolefashionedloverboi @xxsky-shockxx @mc-i-r @bookbinderbitch @aspenshade88 @slowandsteddie @thedragonsaunt @daydreaming-mood @space-invading-pigeon @irregular-child @a-lovely-craziness (continued in replies)

[lemoncrushh]

Her Album

Summary: Harry has finished recording his album, and he wants her to hear it.

Warnings: Angst, lots of feelings

Word Count: 2.9k+

A/N: A short one-shot written in 2019 in first person from Harry's POV. While this is not necessarily a reader fic, the woman's name is never mentioned. This was written before Fine Line was out, so it's pretty wild to think about it now.

The album was done. I’d made a visit to the studio to hear the final mix and then had lunch with Jeffrey and Glenne. As I drove home, I listened to the songs again in the car, deciding not to stop at my house when I got there, but instead to keep going so I could give one last listen straight through.

I’m not sure how I ended up on her street. It used to be automatic, like taking my shoes off before my trousers, or putting the cap back on the toothpaste. I’d driven down her block so many times before, I probably knew it better than my own neighbourhood.

I sat in the car for a long time, staring up at her window. I wasn’t even sure if she was home. I couldn’t tell if a light was on, but it was the middle of the day and that window was her bedroom, so she could’ve been anywhere else inside. I let the album loop around to the first track again, the opening chords hitting me in the chest just like the first time I’d heard them.

I wanted her to hear them too. I wanted her to listen to the melodies and have them bring back the memories that had inspired me to write them. I wanted her to listen to my lyrics and know they were all about her, even the ones that weren’t as obvious. Songs about love and loss. Songs about sex and lust and forbidden fruit. Songs that sounded like they were about something completely different, hidden behind loose meanings and innuendos.

But they were all about her.

I scrolled through my phone and opened the contacts to her name. We hadn’t spoken in weeks, maybe even months. I’d lost count. Being in the studio had helped to heal my broken heart, and my pride, but it certainly hadn’t erased her memory. She was with me every single day, every moment that I worked on a song.

I almost tapped on her name, my thumb grazing over it. But I stopped myself, turning off my phone, and then my engine. Climbing out of the car, I walked around it to the pavement in front of her building, once again looking up at her window. For a second I considered being like John Cusack in Say Anything, holding up an 80s boom box and serenading her with my music so she’d notice. But I reckoned that was borderline stalking, not to mention disturbing the neighbours, so I made my way to the stairs and climbed them to the second floor.

I stopped in front of her door, staring at it for a good two to three minutes before I even lifted my hand. I took several breaths, wondering if I was making a mistake. She probably didn’t wanna see me, let alone talk to me. She didn’t give a shit about my album. She had moved on.

But I was there. I felt like something had brought me there for a reason, and that reason was to play her my music. Let her know exactly how I felt about her - how she drove me crazy and how she’d hurt me and how I’d hurt her. How in love with her I’d been. How I still…

Finally, I knocked, a little too softly at first, but I didn’t want to startle her. At least that’s what I told myself. When no one responded, however, I knocked again, much louder and with determination.

“Jesus, I’m coming!” I heard her yell from inside. “Hold your-”

She stood before me with a half-eaten apple in her hand, her mouth open and her eyes wide. She wore a t-shirt and shorts, her hair pulled back in a loose bun and no makeup. She looked beautiful.

“Hey,” I said, my voice not quite cooperating so I sounded like a frog.

“Harry.” She said my name in almost a question, though she knew it was me. She just wondered why it was me.

When she didn’t say anything else, I shifted my eyes up and down the hall and shrugged.

“Can I come in?”

I admit, I expected her to nod and step back to let me inside her apartment. But when she shook her head, my face fell.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she remarked.

“Um...why not?”

“Because…” she began, her tone hard as steel, “I just got over you.”

“Over me?” I gulped.

“Yeah. It’s taken me a while, but I finally am,” she explained, placing the apple on the table by the door. Then wiping her hands on her shorts, she leaned against the door frame. “You haven’t shown your face here in nearly three months. I can’t just let you waltz on in here and undo everything.”

“‘m not…” I stumbled, “‘m not undoing anything.”

“Then why are you here?”

Her gorgeous but stern eyes glared at me, piercing through my heart. I looked down at my feet, thinking I’d made a mistake by coming. She didn’t want any more to do with me. I’d waited too long and missed the window. Maybe there hadn’t even been one.

Lifting my head, I looked at her beautiful face again. It was then that I recognized the shirt she was wearing - my old AC/DC t-shirt.

“Looks like you’re not completely over me,” I pointed. I dunno why I said it. It was petty and juvenile.

“What?” she huffed, crossing her arms.

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

She looked down at the emblem on her chest, seemingly just realizing what she had on. With a sigh, she dropped her arms.

“I just like it,” she said, her head held high. “And you basically gave it to me anyway.”

“No, I didn’t.” Shut up, H, you’re making it worse, I thought to myself.

“Well, you left it here. And I ended up sleeping in it. And you never came back, so…” She crossed her arms again in defense.

She was right. The last time I’d been in her apartment, we’d had a massive fight, and I’d told her it was over and stormed out. She’d tried calling and texting me for a couple days, but I’d ignored her, stubborn with pride. When I’d finally agreed to talk to her again, I was only being a right twat, unable to see or accept her side. So, we only ended up fighting again until she said she needed some space.

“I was giving you your space,” I muttered, knowing damn well I sounded like a wanker.

“For six weeks?” she snorted and shook her head. “You have some nerve, Harry.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What was that?” she stepped closer to me, her brows furrowed. “Did you really just say you’re sorry?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Sorry for what? For breaking my heart? For being a dickhead? For not calling or texting or even saying one word to me for freaking ever? For telling me it was over in the first place? Or for showing up here now when I’m finally over you?”

I blinked. “All of it,” I admitted.

Her lips twitched, and for a second I thought she was going to smile.

“Fuck you, Harry!” she exclaimed.

Stepping back, she grabbed the door, ready to slam it. But I brought my hand up and stopped it.

“I want you to listen to it,” I said, remembering why I’d come.

“Why should I listen to you?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“Not to me. To the album. It’s finished, and I want you to hear it.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t be serious. You came here so I’d listen to your new music? You really are a douchebag.”

“No, you don’t understand, I-“

“You’re right, I don’t,” she interrupted. “But seems to me you had weeks to explain yourself, Harry. I’m done crying over you.”

She was about to shut the door again when I called out, “I’ve been crying over you, too!”

She stood still, her hand on the door that was opened only a crack. Leaning her forehead against it, I could tell she was holding back tears. I didn’t want her to cry now, at least not over this.

“Liar,” she croaked.

“It’s not a lie, ba-” I almost called her baby, but I knew she wouldn’t like that. Not yet. “Please. Let me in. You don’t even have to talk. Just listen to the album.”

I stood silent for a moment, watching her eyelashes flutter against her pink cheeks. Finally, she let out a sigh and stepped back, opening the door to allow me to step inside.

“Thanks,” I muttered low as she closed the door behind me.

She didn’t reply. In fact, she didn’t even look at me as she grabbed her half eaten apple and went into the kitchen. I stood in the middle of the living room, waiting for her return.

“Okay,” she gestured toward me as she plopped onto the couch. “Go ahead.”

Spotting her laptop on the coffee table, I pointed. “Do you mind?”

She merely nodded and I sat down next to her and opened it. Then sliding my hand into my pocket, I pulled out the USB drive and plugged it in, bringing up the files I’d saved in the studio. With a click of the mouse, the first track began to play, those familiar chords ringing once again. I sat back and watched her, waiting for some kind of reaction on her face.

But none came.

Not when the first track ended, nor when the second song started, the first lyric blatantly about her. I started to get restless, rubbing my palms on my knees and bouncing my leg. I ran my fingers through my hair, a habit she used to tell me was endearing, only now she didn’t give any indication that she even noticed.

Finally, during the third song, I saw her make the slightest move, leaning against the arm of the sofa and resting her head in her hand. We made eye contact for a second before she quickly looked away, her eyes hazy. I wondered what she was thinking. I wanted so badly to ask, to pry it out of her, but I’d promised she needn’t talk.

We were halfway through the album when I caught more movement out of the corner of my eye. I’d been sat with my head down, unable to look at her during track seven, the most intimate and personal song I’d written. My gaze lifted to her, and I noticed her shoulders were shaking. Her head was still in her hand, her cheeks now wet with tears.

I wanted to reach out, to hold her in my arms. God, I wanted that so bad. But I let her be. I knew she needed to cry without me giving false promises that everything was okay. None of this was okay.

I’d cried when I’d written that song. I’d broken down in the recording booth when I’d sung the chorus for the first time. I only just realized as I watched her body shake with sobs that I’d been an idiot for not telling her how I’d felt. But maybe...just maybe she could finally hear me through my songs.

By the time that track ended, I was in tears too. I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, sniffling as I tried to compose myself. I sat back on the couch again, my head leant back. I shut my eyes and listened to the next song, one a little more uptempo. I tapped my fingertips on the cushion at my sides, humming softly. This song was about happy memories, when we’d laid on the beach or beside my pool last summer. When we’d been so in love and hadn’t a care in the world. Before all the fighting and jealousy and…

I almost didn’t feel it at first, her hand brushing mine. It was such a light touch, I thought perhaps I was imagining it, lost in the song. But my eyelids fluttered open when I felt it again. I stared at my right hand on the cushion, her slim fingers over mine. She used to like to do that, when we’d be sat together watching a movie, or lying in bed reading. She’d trace my hand and knuckles with her fingertips, her delicate hand dancing over mine before I’d smile and thread our fingers together. It was an unspoken gesture of affection we’d had. I missed it.

God, I missed her.

I raised my head to look at her. I half expected her to be looking at me too, but she was focused on our hands. Her expression wasn’t one I’d hoped either. She looked sad, her cheeks still tear-stained. I wanted to kiss them, make it all better.

I opened my mouth to say her name, but nothing came out. I cleared my throat and she looked at me. I turned my hand over then like I used to, wanting to thread our fingers together. But she pulled away, her jaw set.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked, my voice a deep rasp.

They were the first words either of us had spoken since the music started, and I instantly regretted it, knowing I’d meant to stay silent until the end. We were on track nine now, a couple more songs to go. I still wanted her to hear all of it. I wanted her to know I still felt the same, even though I wasn’t completely over the anger, over the heartbreak. But I’d spilled my guts out in my songs. I was shit at communication, I knew that. I hoped that she could understand it all in my music.

“I...I don’t know,” she whispered.

She crossed her legs then, sat in the corner of the couch. She reached behind her head and pulled at her bun, letting her hair fall freely down her shoulders. She seemed comfortable, at least less resistant than she had when I’d knocked on her door. I could tell she wanted to talk, but she kept her mouth shut because I’d told her she could. I also felt like she was really listening though. And that was really all I wanted.

“That was a really good song,” she surprised me after track ten. But she didn’t say anything more.

Clearing my throat again, I sucked in my lips when the final song started. If track seven had been the most personal, this was the companion to it. This was me giving my heart, me asking forgiveness and giving it back. This was me wanting another chance to prove how I felt about her. I’d known as I was writing and recording it that the possibility of that happening was slim to none. But I had to take a chance. I was tired of keeping it bottled up, being a stubborn prat because I’d wanted my way and had to be right. I was all kinds of wrong. I knew I wasn’t fully to blame for our break-up, but I was taking responsibility and owning up to my part in it. I hoped she could hear that in my voice.

By the time the song was over, my head was in my hands. I perched on the edge of the sofa shaking. I’d already listened to it a handful of times in the studio and in my car, but it hadn’t had the effect it had now, sat in her living room with her beside me. I was sobbing like a baby.

“Harry…” I heard her whisper.

When I lifted my head this time, she was right beside me, her face so close it startled me. Her hands were in her lap, and she wrung them like she was either nervous or was trying to keep herself from touching me.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “For everything.”

“I know,” she nodded. “I heard.”

“Will you forgive me?” I asked, turning to face her. I wanted to lift my hand to touch her face but thought better of it. Instead, I hesitantly reached for her hand. I was pleasantly surprised when she let me take it.

“Only if you forgive me, too,” she said.

I let out a deep breath and leant forward. I wanted to kiss her but wasn’t sure if she was ready yet. Lifting my hand this time, I grazed her cheek and wiped a tear away with my thumb.

“I still love you,” I admitted. “I never stopped. I’m just so sorry I waited this long.”

She bit her perfect bottom lip, her big eyes blinking fast.

“I thought I was over you,” she said. “I thought you were over me.”

“Guess we were both wrong.”

She leant into me then, and I took it as my cue. I took her into my arms and kissed her, like I’d wanted to kiss her for months. She felt so good against me, and I quickly found myself shedding more tears.

“We still have a lot to talk about,” she whispered when I released her lips.

“I know,” I agreed. “I promise I’m not walking out this time.”

“Good,” she nodded before kissing me again.

We ended up listening to the album again together while we prepared and ate dinner. There were more tears, but also lots of conversation. We had a long way to go, but I was hopeful.

Something had made me drive down her street. I guess it was me.

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[moodymisty]

Hi, I’d like to request a (nsfw) Perturabo x reader where you’re about to have sex with him, but you’re slowly realising from the way he’s anxiously going about it that he’s never had sex before. Perturabo knows, anatomically speaking, where the clit is, but he’s probably got no clue on what to do with it. (Also he’s probably trying so hard not to be an ass about it but he’s anxious and you’re so pretty and eager and what if he disappoints you and what if you call his sexual ability subpar and what if-) (he’s nervous. Basically)

I just feel like we often forget that a good number of the primarchs haven’t had sex before, which in my opinion could have some interesting implications in terms of x readers. Especially considering who they are and the possible stigmas around sex that they could have learned while on their various planets

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

A soft sequel to this request

Author’s note: I always jokingly quote Bricky when I say Perty is an Incel, so it’s nice I get to defeat the meme. Makes sense that most of the Primarchs probably wouldn’t indulge in such a thing at least often though, physical issues aside most humans tended to treat them like they were above them, which would probably be frustrating.

Anyways, I made sure to stay as close to your prompt as I could with Perturabo. I imagine he would NEVER let anyone see he wasn't a master at something, sex included. But don't worry, he worries internally plenty for you to enjoy I hope.

Summary: Perturabo returns to his new beloved, and indulges in an act he once deemed pointless.

Relationships: Perturabo/Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, Massive size kink, Perturabo is a little awkward but he tries to hide it, The creampie to end all creampies, A teeny bit of choking kink if you squint, Like 80% smut

Word Count: 2739 ...oops?

“Lord Perturabo?”

Hearing his name, he looks up to see a fresh faced Iron Warrior looking at him between two other of his elders. He hums as a response that he heard them, but that only seems to confuse him further.

“Should I repeat myself?”

Perturabo had hoped the three would take his disinterest in the matter as a tell for that they should continue their current plan, but he suppose they need his verbal approval on the matter.

“No. Take whatever tech priests aren’t already working on the issue and have them assist. I expect this to not be a problem for much longer.”

Throne knows we shouldn’t be waylaid for much longer.

The fact that they even had an engine issue to begin with upset the primarch immensely, but he’s been holding his tongue while it’s fixed. His legion has done nothing but aggravate him this entire mission, even more so than usual.

The three Iron Warriors nod and leave to follow his orders, and let Perturabo enjoy the room in silence once again. Apart from the hum of machinery and the buzz of a projection on the holotable, the room is finally quiet enough for him.

With a soft grunt of exertion he leans forward and places his hands against the edge of the massive table, and shifts uncomfortably in his armor as the issue that had distracted him previous makes itself known once again. It arguably aggravates him even more than this entire waylaid issue has been, his gauntlets gripping the table's edge tight enough that he feels it give way and crumbles underneath his hands.

Perturabo has never had such thoughts of sex take over so much of his head before. Especially ones that were unsolvable on his own, and lingered like some sort of infection.

If rarely the desire struck him and kept distracting him he could take a moment to himself, angrily yank himself to completion in the quiet of his own quarters- usually at his desk- before returning to his work, distraction quelled. It was transactional, just a bodily need to be dealt with before moving along.

But that hasn’t worked this time. He’s already tried and you still occupy his mind- still distracting him. It's all your fault, he should've never allowed you to get your nails into him this deep, deep enough that he can't tear them free.

He’s never felt this way before. He’s never felt any real desire to actually bring another person into his bed; If he needed that sort of release, he did it himself. To touch another, desire another, is new to him.

He knows you're soft, but how soft will you feel in his hands? Not just your own hand, but your entire body? He's never touched a woman before, had no reason to add another variable into his life that would largely serve to only distract him.

He wishes he could just rip all this armor off. He won't, but it's aggravating that now he's distracted enough to find it all inconvenient.

Once they repair the Iron Blood they can return to Olympia. Then he can see you and finally relieve himself of the stress you've put him under, scolding you for things you had no control over.

Unlike the days earlier when you were still working on his puzzle boxes, your workload now is significantly reduced. You mostly clean Perturabo's workshop and most personal quarters now, partly to keep yourself busy, and because he doesn't wish there to be anyone in there he doesn't trust.

He would have someone else he didn't despise to do it if you got bored of the work, the only reason he hasn't is because you seem to do it to keep your mind busy; Especially now that he was gone. He understands the feeling. He too hates it if his mind wanders too far off the path, hence why his workshop is so filled with random things he made when he felt himself drifting.

You enter the workshop and with significant effort close the heavy door behind you, before walking closer to him. He sits at his main workbench, a few partly rolled up plans the only thing in front of him of note. His shirt is rolled up at the sleeves, showing the scars on his arms hands as he leaned them on the table.

"How did it go?"

You say to him with a cautious look. You more than likely know that the Iron Blood was waylaid for a decent while, and you know faulty machinery is a core trigger for his mood to go quickly sour.

"I struggle to imagine a way it could have gone worse." He says with a monotone voice and blunt expression, which makes your lips purse- though before you can come up with a response he speaks again.

"Come here."

He gestures with one motion of his hand, and you walk closer up until you're standing right beside his chair.

It's still a bit surprising when he picks you up however; He's done it before, though the feeling of being lifted off the ground so easily is not a feeling done away with easily. He sits you onto his lap and you ignore the odd feeling in your chest about having been moved around so easily by him, looking down to see his thighs wider than your hips by a significant degree. Your legs dangle unable to touch the ground at this height; You look so small.

Leaning forward you pull some of the scattered blueprints closer to you, looking at them curiously.

"What are these for?"

Perturabo decides to placate at least one of your questions and ignore the ache between his legs for a moment longer.

"Drafts for the auto-targeting orbital defense cannons."

You hum and look at them, fingers brushing over the parchment. Perturabo watches as you lean forward, accentuating the curve of your spine and hips; Even with how light you are, he can also feel the way you soft thighs and ass press against him. He doesn't placate your questions any longer.

“Take it off.”

You’re clearly confused for a moment, taking your eyes away from his plans to look around.

“What? What do you mean?” You utter, before your body tenses as you feel his massive hand grip your waist.

“Take off your clothes.” Your hands suddenly begin to fumble with your dress, shaking. Perturabo settles to quicken the process forgo removing your dress, and simply push up the hem and tear off your underwear instead.

His hand wraps around your thigh easily, swallowing it in the massive expanse of his palm. His index finger slides between the crease at the very top of your thigh, and the closeness puts your lip between your teeth as your thighs instinctively move to close.

But the entire time his hand is less so teasing and more so, explorative. He has no destination in mind, and only lingers if he hears or feels you react to his touch.

He doesn't know how to touch you beyond the simplistic, what makes you sing. He'll learn silently, his pride would never allow him not to.

Pulling it away he moves his hand underneath you, yanking at his trousers. You hold his forearm for support until you see him finally free his cock, and it lays between your legs. You can just barely grind against it at this angle; but your bigger concern is its size.

Perturabo notices it too, but refuses to vocalize such a concern to you. He’ll make it work, he has too. He’s not sure if he would be able to survive if he couldn’t fuck you the way he’s been fruitlessly imagining to the point of being aggravatingly pent up.

His hand pushes between your legs, sliding against your folds and using his thick fingers to push them apart. You clench your teeth and lean back against his chest, feeling as he slips one of his fingers inside of you. Your sitting angle forces him to curl his finger in order to slip it into you fully he quickly realizes, grasping onto his arm for support.

He hears you moan, cunt soaking wet as you sit in his lap, leaning against his chest as he teases you. He knows that you won’t be able to take him straight away, not with your difference in size. It doesn’t take much to realize your tiny, tight little cunt wasn’t meant for him.

“Can you take another?” He says, and you think he’s teasing, but you realize he’s asking a genuine question.

Perturabo slowly forces a second finger into you and you cry out as he stretches you further, but the burn quickly fades into a pleasurable ache that has your stomach feeling tight and legs limp and useless.

"I have been waiting since that pathetic excuse of a ship was waylaid," Perturabo hisses between his teeth and feels his nose wrinkle angrily. "You will take me no matter how long we have to sit here." The sounds of your breathless moans are more arousing than he thought possible, making his cock twitch between his own thighs.

“Lord Perturabo?”

Stirred from his trance watching his hand shift between your legs Perturabo turns to glare at the door, the deepness and distorted tone of voice queues him in that it’s one of his Iron Warriors.

“The Iron Blood is repaired, the tech marines wished to show you before officially declaring it fit for duty-“

Perturabo suddenly places his other hand over your mouth, continuing to drive his fingers into your cunt has he yells. The Iron Warrior shouldn't be able to hear the wet sounds of his fingers curling inside of you, but he would be able to hear your incessant mewling.

“I will advise it tomorrow. Now leave me be.”

Your thighs shake, hands pulling at the one he has over your lower face trying to catch a full breath though his palm doesn’t allow you.

“And do not bother me again this evening.”

The Iron Warrior, clearly confused as to Perturabo’s sudden shift in attitude, responds in understanding and quickly takes his leave. Once gone, he finally takes the hand away from your mouth.

“You liked that?” Your watery eyes can’t see his face, only barely through the reflections on the metal in front of you. “I felt your little cunt get tighter.” He pulls his fingers from you and reaches between your legs to grab his cock, shifting himself to press against your entrance. It doesn't take much for him to lift you up slightly and begin to lower yourself onto him, slowly slightly when he hears you gasp.

Even with preparation, it's still a tight fit, he quickly realizes.

As such it's a slow and arduous process to fit himself into you, feeling your nails bite into the skin of his forearms. When your bottom finally hits the fronts of his thighs again, you feel like you're so full that you won't be able to handle it. It settles not long after however, though the feeling of him being almost right into your stomach still prevails.

"Good girl,"

He mutters as your weight rests in his lap; It slipped from his lips unconsciously, but you seem to respond to it. He internally slaps himself for allowing words to tumble out of his mouth without thinking, and steels himself to hold others firmly within his head for the time being.

He raises you up and down on his lap, holding you firmly at the hips. To hold you but not bruise you is a fine line with his strength, though if he is bruising you, you don't seem to mind. Perhaps you don't mind if he's rougher with you. Your smaller hands grip his forearms to steady yourself, or simply to keep yourself feeling grounded.

You look tiny against his massive expanse of a chest, shoulders barely higher than his ribcage.

"Pertura- Bo,"

You stutter out his name, the hot palms of your hands desperately grabbing at him. He's using you almost like a toy, but it's the only way he thinks is safe; He doesn't know the line, how much a body like yours could handle before it breaks. He knows he hasn't reached it yet, your gentle voice cries for him, leaning back against his chest.

He watches your lips part in a pant, and he wishes to kiss them, but resists it. The angle would be impossible, and part of him feels, off about how much larger his mouth is than yours. He feels like he can't do it properly. Perhaps it's lack of practice; You were the first one he's kissed as well.

A lot of firsts, you were. Largely meaningless to him years ago, but now he finds himself caring a bit more.

He's silently thankful when you finally come, sharply inhaling and digging your nails into his skin enough to leave little crescent moon marks. They'll fade in a few moments, he doesn't care. What he does care about is the way you feel like a vice around his cock, his right hand pulls away from your waist, forms a fist and slams the table as his teeth grit together, unable to hold himself back any longer.

You thought your body felt hot before, but it's even more so as you feel him finish inside of you, so much of it that you feel it almost forced out by the size of his cock. It makes a mess on the tops of his thighs, though neither of you care.

He makes no effort to even pull out until your heart isn't audible to him anymore, and when he does, he hears your whine as your well abused cunt flutters at the empty feeling.

Part of him almost wants to get angry with you; He's never bothered with something like sex before but now after this, with you, he can already feeling himself want to get hard and fuck you all over again until you're limp in his lap.

A smarter part of him wishes he'd never done this, never met you, never kissed you, never fucked you. He would've never known what he was missing, and never loose focus.

However that part of his mind looses, when he feels you lie more against the expanse of his chest. He sighs.

"It is late. I will bring you to my quarters and you can sleep there."

He refuses to let you sleep in that tiny room you called home before. For his own selfishness, and your safely. Now that you're becoming so close to him, your safety is a must. Many will find you an easy target.

"My clothes Bo, let me-" You quickly shut your mouth when you realized you hadn't called him by his proper name. He doesn't comment on it.

He picks you up not long after, bringing you to his quarters at a much quicker pace than you could do on your own. A few of his men give him an odd look at having such a disheveled woman in his arms, but it only takes one look in return for them to right their gaze and move along.

"Are you not going to stay?" You say when he plops you onto his massive bed with a gentle toss that makes you smile, and turns to leave.

"Must I?" He says it laced in sarcasm, but he regrets it when he sees the smile he'd just put on your face instantly bleed away.

"I wanted to hear about your plans, for a little bit. It's been so long since the last time."

Perturabo had as of late shown you more of his private plans, many of them war machines. He'd begun talking a bit out loud, and his deep voice talking rumbled in your chest and always made you feel so warm and comfortable.

He enjoys that you just listen. You don't have an ego to protect like he does.

Perturabo steps closer.

"If I do, I expect you to stay awake." You nod and smile. "I'll try." He sits onto the bed, grips your cheeks, and forces you to look up at him gently. Your lips purse from his grip in a way he finds tempting, and he mentally blames you for the distraction once again.

"You will. I'll make sure of it."

[readerwithsalt]

Sun and the Star Review: (With snippets from the book)

Since I just finished The Sun and the Star I’m just gonna say the first thing I have a problem with is the TELLING and NOT SHOWING.

• And I was wondering if anyone thought that they made Will super lame and ooc compared to previous cooler depictions of him. Like he’s supposed to be Super Chill under pressure and the Calm Dude but he’s so WHINY the entire book. He’s constantly complaining, judging, screaming, crying or sleeping. The cool, chill vibe Will had before is gone which was one of the things I liked about him before.

• someone else said ‘Tsats Will thinks there’s something wrong with Nico, something wrong with his personality. Will thinks Nico needs to be “fixed” and “healed” and so he can be “normal” and then Nico will be actually appealing to Will. Tsats Will may love some parts of Nico (or at least thinks he loves some parts of Nico). But there are more parts of Nico that Will finds unsavory or unnerving or scary or unsettling or unsatisfactory or unappealing’ I agree sadly

• Like he tells Nico in the beginning of the book that he’s just as capable of survival as Nico (which I snorted at cause no) and then is the hugest burden I’ve ever seen on a quest EVER in a riordan book. Like Nico tries to lift Will up every time he passes out from ‘lack of sun’ (which is so stupid btw) and Nico can’t lift him up cause he’s not strong enough so he’s constantly WAITING on Will. And it’s really boring to read about how every few seconds Nico has to turn around and let his boyfriend catch up.

I think Will’s character could have shined and been more likable in a completely different plot and quest.

Like, I thought since they weren’t giving Will any weapons that his strengths would lie in being the fast athletic character that didn’t need a magic item in order to show off…

• the whole ‘role reversal’ caretaker thing made Will look completely useless. Nico did 80 percent of the work and Will sadly fell flat. I thought he was coming along to keep Nico safe and to heal him when he got injured but Nico was pretty much doing almost every job. It was like he was riding Nico’s coattails to become a ‘hero’ and prove himself. But he didn’t really prove anything except that he complains a lot when things get rough.

They didn’t give Will a character weapon (even Piper has one and she doesn’t fight that much. Neither does Leo and he at least uses a hammer) they made him exhausted the whole book so he didn’t have his normal physical strength, his backstory was also pretty boring.

• and Will keeps randomly getting irritated at Nico bc Nicos irritated at him. Like?? Your shitting on his underworld home every chance you get. I’d be irritated too.

• in previous books he’s described as an archer. Even tho Leo calls him ‘the archer dude’ in TLH he suddenly doesn’t know how to use a bow AT ALL. He only said he wasn’t as good as his siblings not that he was complete shit at it. Previously he used a bow and had a dagger in BOO. Also will randomly says he never wanted to be a fighter and loved healing but in previous books he’s insecure about just that. Also the book forgets Will is a BATTLEFIELD MEDIC. Like he can fight and heal just like Apollo.

• Will whines constantly. And it’s grating and annoying to read. Either about the lack of sun (you knew what you were getting into dumbass) or the dead people walking around or about Nico’s horrible ‘darkness’ that he has to heal. It’s like he never thinks of Nicos feelings when he says stuff. And there little ‘fights’ end unsatisfactory.

• The vibe of Camp-Half-Blood is nonexistent. It does not feel like camp at all. It feels like we’re in a 12 year olds fanfic mind. ALL of the campers are gone even though it’s been established MANY are orphans and we see no beloved background characters and background chaos that makes us smile like in the past books. It made me surprisingly more depressed than I thought it would.

• it’s also missing the mystique of a quest. Like going up to the big house to have the quest recited around a table full of cabin counselor demigods all fighting to be the third member to prove themself a hero (mostly the ares cabin) no matter how important a quest in pjo was for Percy Chiron ALWAYS enforced certain rules. Even if they broke later on.

• Loose Ends. Reyna is. Not. Mentioned. Once. It never comes up how Nico feels about his big sister friend joining the hunters like his other one did even tho in BOO he tore apart a courtyard cause they took her. The girl whose shoulder he cried into, the girl who was with him during his last quest. The girl who thought of him as a little brother and tucked him in her cape and said he resembled his surname as he slept.

Hazel is mentioned… but it’s literally just a couple shallow mentions that don’t have anything to do with the fact that he may not ever see her again if he revisits Tartarus. He mentions his beloved little sister who was the actual first light in his life (don’t know why the book says Will is) in a long time only once and it’s because he can’t remember something and thinks Hazel would?? It’s weird that he iris messages Piper at the end instead of Hazel. I thought that’s what he was going to do and then it was just a big cringe fest of Piper shoved in at the end talking about the label of her sexuality?? Like we actually care??

And It’s never stated that Nico finds out where Jason is even though HE SHOULD KNOW. He literally talks to Beckendorf and Luke when they die in pjo to find out where they went but he can’t figure out where his best friend is??

Also at the end of the book it says Nico still hasn’t redecorated his cabin even though he told Jason he was going to a YEAR AGO bc the ‘decor was disgusting’ (I think that was the worst loose end not fixed 😂)

Every other relationship of Nicos is thrown away so he can admire Will Solace’s mediocrity. who’s kinda a loser in this tbh….

• The Percabeth scene was weird. What relevance does sally jackson have to Nico’s story? Why did he have to go all the way to Percy’s bedroom to iris message him?? And the fact he uses the ship name Percabeth to describe them (which he’d never done in previous books) proves a cringe fan is the one writing this.

The fact that they don’t OFFER TO HELP Nico is ooc of them. Bc even if Percy wants to chill at college he would never want Nico to clean up his mess without offering his help. Also the fact that Percy turns to Annabeth and says ‘oh man I forgot about him’ is like… WHAT?? And they just say oh yea if anyone can get through Tartarus it’s you two.

To Will who’s never been on a quest and doesn’t fight (at least in this book) that’s a weird thing to say. Percy and annabeth only survived bc they’ve fought together FOR YEARS. And bc of Percy’s big three power. It was just a forced add in cameo. Would’ve been better if they didn’t know till the end that Nico got Bob out and then they suddenly see Bob in an iris message and start crying or something…

• it broke my heart that Nico gave his SKULL RING to Will. The last gift from Bianca Nico ever got and he gives it to someone that doesn’t even appreciate his element.

And what does Nico get in return? A coin. I mean, an engraved coin but still. It’s kinda symbolic of the relationship. Nico giving Will something of such RELEVANCE to Nico’s character, something he’s always described with wearing and then Nico receiving a token in turn.

• Will asks Persephone how he’s SUPPOSED TO LOVE NICO. Like I almost blew up my house with me in it at that part. It never feels like Will is as attracted to Nico as Nico is to him. Nico instigates every kiss (which is ooc of him and his reservedness to touch). It seems Will likes to look at others a lot because one of Nicos insecurities were of him staring at fucking Paolo. While being right next to his boyfriend, Will checks out other people… Like Nico deserves so much better. He at least deserves respect.

I would’ve appreciated Nico and Ghost Jason way more than this shit. At least Jason described Nico better and they weren’t even dating. And I liked Solangelo before this. Will never describes physical attributes that he likes about Nico the same way Nico does about Will. Like Nicos inky dark eyes and baby bat winged hair, and his smile that is apparently like winter sun breaking through snow flurries, and his hair smelling pleasantly of rain against stone (I think Apollo is more attracted to Nico than Will is). But Nico has to call Will hot every five min.

• Also I simply don’t understand the idea that Will being away from the sun would drain him to the point where he can’t keep up with NICO’S WALKING PACE within a couple hours. Like the super athletic, physically strong character that can lift Nico over his shoulders and run with him (and Rachel in TON) walks into the underworld and has to be healed by a stupid portable night light within five minutes.

• Don’t even get me started on his JUDGINESS. I always pictured Will as the guy at camp that thought Nicos powers were cool and stuff, right? And now he just judges every ‘dark’ thing nico does like darkness is synonymous with evil. And only his light can heal him. I HATED that trope and honestly thought they would make him more original. But I have to say it: he was so boring. Like in a way that made my stomach hurt.

• Wills kind of a jerk in this. Like it’s weird to read.

• The PACING. It was off the whole book. The only part i enjoyed was the part where they didn’t know they were dreaming (that part got me) but that was it. But like gorgras scene keeps overlapping with the rest of the story and I kept forgetting my place. The fact that riordan or oshiro or whatever 12 year old fan wrote this put the words FLASHBACK & DREAM SEQUENCE over the chapters gave it SERIOUS fanfic vibes. The pacing is simply not suspenseful enough for a place like Tartarus.

• And do NOT get me started on Tartarus. Okay I’ll say it anyway: it wasn’t scary AT ALL. LIKE ANY OTHER QUEST. Actually it seemed easier than other previous quests which is a big nope. Hades might as well have sent him to Target.

• And about the fact that is was HADES who gave him that prophecy is SO OOC of him. He loves Nico. Nico is probably Hades most favorite child ever as of right now and he sends him horrible nightmares, and a prophecy respouted 12 times to get him to save Bob (whom Hades could care less about btw) and go back to a place that he knows haunts Nico every day MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!

Also HOW did hades give Rachel that prophecy? He has no power over the Oracle of Delphi.

• Maria and Bianca MAKE NO SENSE! How in the hell is there any piece of thier souls left when Hades gave Maria ancient rites and was the one soul Nico was not allowed to see and Bianca reincarnated. WHICH WAS FORGOTTEN BTW. NOW SHES BACK IN ELYSIUM?? Like?? Like maybe I could see Hades letting Nico see a piece of Maria but Bianca is literally GONE forever.

Nico was ooc. Like not too badly but still bad. But the fact that Will didn’t let Nico shadow travel even once irks me. The fact Will didn’t let him summon Jules Albert irks me. The fact that Will kept brushing off nicos feeling about the underworld irks me. The fact that Will called Persephone the most beautiful PERSON he’d ever seen right in nicos face and then asked his (insecure) boyfriend if he was jealous irks me. The fact that Will is BORING AS FUCK irks me

• And the COMING OUT story. Horridly ooc. Nico shouting to the whole camp he’s gay and getting all the other kids to come out too is like??? and apparently he asked out Will before Will had even come out?? Nico would NEVER do that. Especially since not long before Cupid had done the same to him. And apparently Nico is like the first out character in a MODERN GREEK camp with DIONYSUS as a director. No.

In character Nico would’ve shadow traveled back to his cabin or the woods the moment he figured out what was happening.

• the nicknames are extremely cringe. Little ball of darkness is used to much and it made me itch. I think Will simply calling him babe or something would’ve been simpler and made them seem more like a real couple instead of a caricature of light and dark.

• ‘he’d always been the demigod who WOULDNT eat.’ ………..what the actual fuck is this. Nicos always been naturally skinny but being starved in jar is what messed up his hunger. Not that he WOULDNT eat. Why is everything always his fault in this book?

Like, he didn’t ‘LET’ himself get to the point of starvation over and over. I mean first of all he became homeless at ten years old, probably had to steal food items. And most recently he got KIDNAPPED by TWO GIANTS and starved forcibly. And then when he got out he was under so much stress of what just happened to him in Tartarus, the war with Gaea, his forced outing, and having to lug an enormous statue ACROSS THE WORLD. but nah, I guess he just LET all of that stuff happen to him

• the references are BAD. Out of touch bad. Unfunny and the joke never becomes a joke. It’s never explained how a kid from the 1930s knows how to use the internet and look up lil nas x in a camp that doesn’t use any technology. Doesn’t explain how Nico knows about Care Bear powers (I didn’t even know that) and the beginning scene with the Star Wars ‘joke’ set a weird tone for the book and wasn’t even funny.

• I hated the cocoa puff demons coming to live with Nico. Like I was fine they got created ig even tho it was weird and kinda dumb but the fact that Nico is so keen to have his worst memories and insecurities sleep in bed with him makes no sense once again. In character Nico would’ve burned them with hellfire.

• Also Nyx is a unfathomably weak villain. A PRIMORDIAL GODDESS that even ZEUS fears is taken down in two seconds. Also she’s just trying to get Nico ‘accept his darkness’. WHICH HE ALREADY HAS DONE. The moment he called himself The Ghost King in battle of the labyrinth at eleven years is when he truly accepted his powers and who he was. So… why is she even in the book in the first place??

• Also Will STILL insists it’s Nicos fault he wasn’t accepted. And that it was all in his head….

Also Micheal Yew was simply never mentioned again. Neither was lee fletcher. If they were I missed it.

There were a COUPLE of cute parts and lines but really this is simply too weird (and bad) to be canon to me. This book is just not canon. I see it as fanfiction from a random author that riordan probably let write the entire book or at least most of it. I think sadly riordan put his name on this for money and for fanservice because the writing is first draft material.

(And it kind of feels like they got this version of Nico and Will from cringy meme posts about them. Like, you know the ones where Nico’s all like ‘I am darkness, i am a vampire’ and Wills all like ‘come on, my uwu baby, no more shadowtravel for you, doctors orders~’ 🤣😭)

just because they thought that’s what the twelve year olds wanted and not realizing that a lot of those posts are simply made as a joke and not actually taken seriously in canon…. And that most people in the fandom thinks those are bad cringeposts

[lxmelle]

Just some thoughts on 270

Yes the end is near.

Yes I almost threw up when I saw that unmistakable hairstyle...

Yes I was a bit disappointed that there were no visible satosugu crumbs - or are there? More on this later... and the it overall just felt a little bit 😔 empty 😪

Nevertheless, I want to just blab about a few things.

First, is it Geto/Kenjaku?

If we think about how Yuta’s copy CT works, Rika would need to consume a viable part of the sorcerer. The only part of Kenny left was his whole brain. He was the brain. The rest is Geto. We have not seen any evidence of Yuta having CSM, so it can be assumed that Yuta did not have Rika eat any part of Geto. Otherwise, it’s be Geto’s CT and not Kenjaku’s body-hopping technique.

Imho: The person with Takaba is not likely to be either Kenny or Geto. Geto cannot function without a brain, there was none “spare” either, so the theory of a spirit entering the body is going to make it alive again - no, it doesn’t. There is no other living sorcerer who can do that - Ui Ui maxed it out with the number of times and there is no other person to swap with. Just. Not. Possible.

And Kenny was seen to have told Mimiko and Nanako that he took Geto’s brains out to inhabit it.

So. My conclusion is that Gege is baiting. Just as he did with the “we have to help Yuta!” And the rude yelling that got so many of us wondering just who would speak to roughly to Yuta and what warranted it. We were all asking: who calls Yuta “Yuta” and not “Okkutsu-senpai” etc. I even thought it was Shoko, assuming that Maki was in the same hallway as the others, but the main culprit was of course the most obvious, Maki herself.

And that baiting thing with the clock theory about 2:21 pm linking with chapter 221 of Gojo’s unsealing - I theorised it’s about having presence (like how spiritualists, and in Shinto, believe that spirit is all around us) despite being dead and his soul with Geto.

And goodness know what other theories there are out there about time and Gojo revival. I’ve said before that I don’t buy into it, but it is interesting.

So is it Geto? Kenjaku? I 80% think not but... yeah, I am worried. To be completely transparent, I’m so scared that it is.

Because I’m in the camp of: please please Gege, please please please let Gojo and Geto be at peace in their eternal afterlife until they’re ready to be reborn and let them find each other over and over and over again.

So rationally, I doubt it is. But I’m worried. I’m worried for reasons like: why aren’t the bodies and resting places of Gojo & Geto still not mentioned?

Next thing to I have some thoughts on are about Itafushi. They’re really good friends and I think it’s also just one of those things Gege is doing because it’s JUMP and he doesn’t want to just pretend the Hana -> Megumi thing is forgotten. It also shows some character growth.

So overall, I’m rather neutral about the Megumi + Hana thing. They’re still kids, and Yuji + Megumi are compatible but they’re also not quite Satosugu, so their relationship will be undeniably different. Friends or otherwise.

It’s nice to see the Megumi is taking initiative and finding novel ways to make new meaning & connections. I wouldn’t read too deeply into it, especially since Hana obviously read too deeply into it and got it all wrong.

I will say that it feels cliche maybe. Again it’s maybe a JUMP serialisation thing shonen mangakas do, since a big portion of the fanbase are young boys too. Gege can’t be doing too much for lgbtq+ too obviously after all.

So it leaves me feeling it is a little reminiscent of the Sasuke and Sakura pairing in Naruto - as if it could become something seemingly out of convenience/settling/making do, but what do I know? Sometimes relationships in life are like that. I’d rather marry my best friend, but you know... different strokes for different folks. As they say.

Now it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t find a way to make it about satosugu. I’m imagining collective groans from people who may be reading this... so please skip if you’re bored of me now, lol. Or read on if you like to be in satosugu delulu brainrot like me.

One of the satosugu-related takeaways from this recent chapter is that it seems to reduce the possibility of interpreting Gojo not allowing Shoko to process Geto’s body as being out of consideration for her.

Her saying that the idiot should have let her process Geto’s body pretty much says Gojo took matters into his own hands. Not only was it protocol… but she also personally thought it would be a privilege. But Gojo did not let her.

We ofc don’t know the details.

So it leaves us with: He did it for his own reasons, or reasons at least relating to Geto. Kenjaku thought it was out of consideration. And Kenjaku is not a reliable narrator, nor was Geto... who tended to think he didn’t matter.

You know, as a person who can quietly just swallow vomit and shit rags without complaint. As a person who could practically transform the filth, negativity, evil, and darkness of the world into power that he could use for good - he was vessel of sacrifice.

Anyway, I digress.

It seems to indicate that Gojo kept his body to himself ... for his own reasons, breaking protocol.

And referring back to 270 again, for Shoko to talk about the afterlife right after preparing the body -> cremation is strange. Does preparing the body and cremating it have anything to do with the afterlife? 🤔 so somehow, prepare body -> cremate -> mourn/afterlife?

Interesting in that Gege is giving us yet another example of how everyone has a different reality / belief. If we believe what we saw in Gojo’s death, then there is one and Shoko will be proven wrong when her time comes like how Gojo was wrong about dying alone.

And it is also interesting in the sense that it’s familiar…

Something about how she said prior to Gojo’s unsealing, about “I couldn’t love either of you like you loved each other, but I was there too.” - am I reading too deeply? Probably. But it’s there for me to read.

Shoko prepared Tsumiki for cremation. She was made her beautiful for the afterlife - even if she was to be cremated, there was something about giving her something (dignity?) before she turned to ash. And those left behind can send them off into the afterlife feeling they did their best.

I think you’d need a certain level of trust for someone to hand your beloved over. Or at least feel like they would mourn the departed like you would. Or faith that your beloved would be happy with entrusting you with that decision. In some cultures, the family wash and swathe their dead in cloth with their own hands where possible.

So Shoko. Shoko could do it for Geto, for Gojo. She was there. She was willing. But. It was almost as if saying that Gojo 1. could not allow someone else to prepare Geto’s body, and neither did he seem to have mourned because 2. Geto was not cremated to be sent into the afterlife. As if he didn’t trust anyone. As if he could not let go.

Again, Rika kept Yuta’s body “alive” too. Parallels are paralleling.

I don’t know how Geto regenerated or if Kenny was responsible for it. Or if Gojo somehow did. But those are just unnecessary details at this point.

And again, Shoko was there but she could not be like what Gojo was to Geto and what Geto was to Gojo.

How complicated.

I’m reminded of that scene where he says to ichiji and Shoko: “There are just 3 of us remaining huh.”

In agreement to Shoko acknowledging that Geto’s body needed retrieving from Kenjaku, it was quite a pregnant pause from Gojo before he goes, “………yeah.”

He seemed surprised Shoko brought it up and decided to just gloss over it.

To me, it collectively implies that Gojo doesn’t let Geto be anyone else’s but his.

His friendship was his one and only. His loneliness was his. His dreams were his. His love was his. His life was his. His body was... his. And his soul was his too. As was his satisfaction.

I think Gege wants us to understand something here. By what he is showing and not showing us.

If I think about the exclusivity that they shared... the whole, “we are the strongest (together)” and “it wouldn’t be bad to be killed by you” or even “I’m jealous but if you were satisfied I’m glad for you.” and then “if you were there to pat me on the back I’d be satisfied.”

It’s a lot like... only YOU can be the one. And therefore I think Gojo kept Geto all to himself. Maybe thinking Geto would only want HIM to touch his body.

It was his exclusive right. And that was mutually shared... because Geto wasn’t really pleased with Gojo getting satisfaction from elsewhere (lol, you know, the “jealous” 妬けるね that got the fandom in a frenzy).

I’ve mentioned it in another post... link: https://www.tumblr.com/lxmelle/758015943938113536/i-love-the-idea-of-mutuality-that-is-deeply-rooted I really do like the idea of Gojo and Geto just teaching each other things. Like selfishness and love. Binding each other to the other. Selfishness and selflessness as part of being human.

Was this an act out of the side of Gojo that was “a little selfish, a little inhuman but a little too human”, and he wanted to keep Geto all to himself? Despite not giving his best friend a proper burial?

When I think about how he normally did what Geto approved of (you can dispute this if you wish) and I think back to how he might’ve really given Geto’s body back to his family- but what we saw in the manga seemed like they didn’t have much involvement either. Surely they’d have wanted Geto cremated?

So it leaves me with the idea that it was Gojo acting out his secret feelings.

Just Gege and how he shields Gojo’s privacy. Secret words. Secret thoughts. You know. Gege being Gege letting Gojo do Gojo things.

I think we might need to accept that Gojo and Geto just have this exclusive thing we aren’t privy to.

That’s all for now. Abrupt ending 🫡

Thanks for reading my rambling if you made it this far 🫶

Feel free to share your thoughts/comments/criticisms 😄

[blueikeproductions]

I just now noticed the ES Quintesson Judge has hands.

The Judges typically only have tentacles.

Except for the time the CV Quintessons had Appmon Plugs for tentacles.

So the judges having hands now is funny to me.

So what becomes of the Quintessons in EarthSpark going forward? Heck if I know as of typing. EarthSpark has been a poorly written slog that doesn’t know what to do with itself, just like everything else that’s defined the current crop of so called modern kids cartoons…

Provided it’s not another cut concept in the next batch, the Quintessons appear to be set up as the next antagonists. They have abandonment issues, an axe to grind with Papa Quintus, and seek to abuse the power of a Prime. Be it the Emberstone (which was their original target) or the Cyber Sleeves (as the Executioner rebooted with its power).

For all the people grumbly about the Quintessons being here and thinking they don’t fit/aren’t interesting; I’m sorry to say that they were an inevitability. Quintus Prime’s only defining characteristic is that he’s the creator of the Quintessons, as a reverse homage to G1 where the Quintessons created the Transformers. For a show themed entirely around Quintus and his relic, it wouldn’t make sense to NOT finally explore this idea especially in an era where the Quintessons are gaining more relevancy again.

The problem before is there wasn’t time or reason to explore this concept in Prime, WFC, or Cyberverse. WFC implied the 80’s cartoon origin, while CV instead made the Quints into Dr. Who meets The Matrix villains, completely dodging Quintus. I’d argue yet again you could’ve squeezed it into RiD15, with the Quintessons coming to harvest relics on Earth after the Great War for a future strike on Cybertron, with Bumblebee’s Autobots standing in their way. I’m not sure how the Emberstone or Quintus himself would factor into this off the top of my head, but I could see a TFA homage where the stone makes Wreck-Gar out of the junk in Denny’s scrapyard.

As for what ES could do. My guess off hand is such.

Quintus’ lesser known thing is he created Space Bridges, and IDW MetroTitans are depicted as having built in Space Bridges to travel around…

Ergo one plot could be the Quintessons trick the Decepticons into reactivating a potential space bridge already built into Terratronus, under a false promise it would take them back to Cybertron, but instead the Quints appear on Earth through it and take control of Terratronus.

In the end, Terratronus could also be as such.

She Transforms into city mode and becomes a new version of (IDW) Autobot City. Possibly this is functionally New Cybertron (or the Little Cyberton refuge town via IDW).

With this, she becomes the end goal of the human-Cybertron alliance with humans, Transformers and Quintessons (and any other aliens created by Quintus in particular) coming to live in the city founded by the Maltobots.

[alt-vera]

— fishin’ in the dark ⁀➷

────────────────────────

jj maybank convinces you to go fishing with him. he catches more than just a lousy fish.

────────────────────────

♡ | jj maybank | 2.5k | ❛ fishin’ in the dark - nitty gritty dirt band ❜

warnings: 80s!obx. drinking. weed. slight thigh riding. fingering. unprotected piv sex. praise. mdni.

note: obx in the 80’s, lowkey dazed and confused style 🤭

❝ down by the river in the full moonlight, we'll be fallin' in love in the middle of the night, just movin' slow. stayin' the whole night through, it feels so good to be with you ❞

────────────────────────

THE PONTIAC IDLED QUIETLY AS YOU SWUNG YOURSELF OUT OF YOUR BEDROOM WINDOW.

　JJ’s glorious shitbox hummed as you dashed into the awaiting passenger seat, twilight hued sky covering your sly tracks of sneaking out.

　“Thought you wouldn’t make it,” The car owner mused, and you turned your head to look at him with a grin on your face.

　JJ’s blonde hair was tinted an alluring indigo from the midnight sky. He had an adventurous smile plastered across his face, and a healing cut on his lip that made him even more attractive.

　“Yeah right,” You hummed back. “As if i’d miss a creek party. You got the stereo?” Your eyes flicked to the empty back seat.

　“Trunk,” Was all JJ said. He then pulled a tightly rolled blunt from behind his left ear, passing it to you before popping the already lit cigarette lighter just below the radio. You were on the exact same page, sticking it in to get a good light before taking a drag.

　The weed gave you a slight head buzz as you passed the joint, still grinning. The dizziness made you all the more excited.

　Being high made JJ a better driver. This was a fact, no matter how much their friends tried to argue it, so it wasn’t a surprise that he graciously took the blunt you passed to him, his fingers tapping together in excitement to grab it as if he were a little raccoon. The action made you laugh, which made him smile in return.

　“Are we picking up Pope too?” You asked, rolling your window down the rest of the way with the crank and blowing the smoke into the humid summer air, watching it disappear into the wind.

　JJ shook his head, “No ma’am, he’s riding with John B in the Twinkie.”

　You ignored the way your heart picked up when he said that. It’d be just the two of you on your way to the creek, which wasn’t completely unheard of, but usually you’d have a third person and it’d relieve the tension between the two of you. It wasn’t the bad type of tension, because you two were close as could be, but it was the type that lingered between friends that had the possibility of becoming more. The kind of tension that resided on those nights where, when everyone else had gone and it was just the two of them, they’d have to resist leaning in too far or placing hands where they shouldn’t be placed between friends. Nights like tonight.

　“Oh well,” You sighed with a smile, “I guess he’s missing out on the shenanigans!”

　“Right on,” JJ encouraged. “All we have to do is grab the booze from my cousin Ricky and we’ll be on our way to that sweet sweet creek party.”

　Creek parties weren’t nearly as popular in the OBX as the beach ragers because these were for locals only. No tourist traps, hardly any kooks, just pogues doing pogue shit. Plus, it usually lead to a small group at the end of the night going skinny dipping—You knew from experience. Creek parties were fun, honestly one of your favourites, but the fish being so close to you in the water tended to freak you out when you thought about it too much.

　As more and more buildings passed it wasn’t long before the two of you pulled into the side of an almost empty gas station. You could see JJ’s cousin leaning against his jacked up truck, cigarette in hand and box of beer at his feet. JJ left the car running as he jumped out, and you watched the two of them talk for a minute.

　Ricky looked at you, then said something to JJ. You watched JJ shake his head and then say something. Ricky looked at you again before he grinned and gave JJ a smack on the back of his upper arm and winked at him, and JJ just rolled his eyes with a smile. It was pretty obvious that they were talking about you, but you didn’t have a clue about what they were saying. A second after that JJ dapped his older cousin up and hoisted the beer over his arm, giving you a smile as he approached the car.

　He threw the beer in the backseat and climbed back in to be met with a stare from you.

　“What?” He asked, with the grin still on his face.

　“What’d you guys say about me?” You asked, straight to the point.

　JJ laughed with an eye roll. “What makes you think we were talking about you?”

　You gave him a pointed look and he went silent for a moment before saying, “C’mon, it couldn’t have been that obvious.”

　You nodded with a playful smile as JJ turned the wheel and got you guys back on the road. You watched him intently as he kept his eyes trained on the road, but you saw him sneak you a side glance before he sighed.

　“He just was asking who you are and.. well.. if we—Y’know what, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He just wanted to know who you were.”

　You knew that wasn’t the whole truth, but dropped it anyway with a quiet “Alright,” so that JJ wouldn’t get awkward. Before silence could settle you turned up the radio, Aerosmith blaring through JJ’s beat up speakers.

　The farther you drove the less houses appeared and the more dense the forest got. That’s how you could tell you were almost at the creek.

────────────────────────

　It was around 2 when the party wound down enough that only your group and their hookups for the night were left. Sarah was sat in John B’s lap on a blanket in front of the bonfire, Kie was macking with the boy she’d brought, and Pope was pointing out constellations with a chill kook girl you knew from middle school. That left only you and JJ, who were taking turns flipping a coin and calling sides, making the loser drink.

　“Wanna go fishing?” JJ asked all of sudden. You looked at him through the brown glass of your beer bottle, brows crinkling as you swallow.

　“You wanna go fishing?” You asked, confused. He nodded, grinning.

“Yeah. Don’t know you that the best time to go fishin’ is in the dark?” He asked as of it was the most obvious thing in the world.

　You rolled your eyes but stood up, grabbing your beer. “Yeah, okay. Fine then, lets go.”

　You walked with JJ to his car where he pulled a ratty plaid blanket and a beat up fishing pole out of his trunk. You followed him down the creek to a secluded spot, ignoring the whoops of your friends as they watched you two head off alone together.

　He laid the blanket out along the creek edge and waved his hand for you to sit as if it was the most gentlemanly thing he could do for you, which made you laugh. You watched him cast into the bubbling water, and soon the silence settled between the two of you, save for the distant echoing of the stereo back at the fire. You took a sip of your drink to distract yourself from overthinking everything.

　“Y’know,” JJ broke the silence as he picked at the peeling label of his beer. “This is my favourite spot to fish. I always catch something out here. I don’t think i’ve ever brought anyone but John B to this spot.”

　“So i’m officially on the same level of bromance as you and John B?” You grinned, and JJ rolled his eyes.

“I wouldn’t call what we have bromance,” JJ replied.

　You laughed, “So, then what do we have? Bromance without the B?” You meant it teasingly, but JJ’s silence made you think that maybe, just maybe, you had hit the nail right on the head.

　“Y’wanna know what Ricky asked me earlier?” JJ prompted suddenly, breaking the silence that had settled like a thick fog. You nodded curiously, eyes meeting his own that swirled with anxiety and tinge drunken-boldness.

　Even over the loud buzzing of the cicadas that surrounded you, you could hear JJ gulp, swallowing the lump in his throat.

　“He was askin’ if you were my girl,” He said, “Asked if you were my current hookup.”

　His eyes bore holes into your skin as you struggled to find something to say. Finally you settled on, “So? What’d you say?”

　“Told him you weren’t,” He let out a huff of air, and it hissed through his teeth.

　“Is that what you want?” You pressed further, “For me to be your summer… thing?”

　“You’re sayin’ it like it’s a bad thing,” He muttered sheepishly, eyes leaving yours to continue picking at his beer label with blunt fingernails.

　“No i’m not,” You replied, and you couldn’t help the airy laugh that escaped your lips. “I’m sayin’ that, if you want that, Maybank, then you better say something.”

　His gaze snapped to yours, brows furrowing under the moonlight that reflected off the water in front of you.

　Instead of waiting for his reply, you stood up, creeping closer to the waters edge before lifting your shirt up over your head. Your shorts followed shortly afterwards, hitting the ground with a soft thud. A cloud passed by overhead, darkness shrouding the two of you, and the next thing JJ knew he was hearing a splash of your body diving into the water. As the light returned he glanced to your pile of clothes, noticing how your bra and panties had joined the assorted pile of discarded clothes.

　JJ swore he couldn’t breathe as he realized that you were completely naked in the water.

　He could see the beads of water cascading down your face and slipping through your soaking wet hair, and he watched as you gave him a welcoming smile. “Well?” You prompted, “Are you gonna join me?”

　He swore he’d never stripped faster. Boots being haphazardly thrown onto the dirt with a soft thud, tee and board shorts joining then quickly, boxers coming to land on the branch of a nearby bush.

　The water engulfed the two of you, a chill setting in your bones as he swam towards you. You both treaded the water beneath you, eyes meeting lustfully as the moons wanton gaze coated your bodies. JJ could barely make out your naked figure beneath the rippling current.

　“JJ,” You whispered as he came close enough that you could feel his hot boozy breath fan your wet skin. “I need you to say something if this is what you want.”

　“Is this what you want?” He whispered back, and you rolled your eyes at him attempting to make the conversation go in circles. When you whispered his name again, this time more sternly, he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his sun kissed face.

　“I want this,” He confirmed breathlessly. “I want you.”

　With that, he kissed you. Two mouths became one, tasting of booze and weed as he licked at you, his arms wrapping around your bare shoulders and entangling you with his body.

　“JJ!” You laughed between frantic kisses, “You’re gonna drown me.”

　The height difference between the two of you was significant, and as JJ pulled you towards a more shallow part of the creek where he could touch the sandy floor and you couldn’t, he opted to raise you into his arms with his muscles wrapped around your waist as he held you up, balancing you on his thigh in the water.

　“Better?” He asked cheekily, and you answered by kissing him again.

　His movements grew more hungry, his thigh moving against your bare cunt in the water. You let out a whimper, and JJ smiled into the kiss, pleased with himself. He plunged one hand into the water, easily finding your seam as two of his fingers entered you, his thumb coming to circle your clit deftly.

　“JJ,” You whispered, “Don’t stop. Please.”

　He didn’t. He kept his fingers in that perfect spot inside you, curling until he felt you shaking beneath him as you came on his hand. “Atta girl,” He praised, removing his hand from your gummy insides and stroking himself. He lined himself up at your slicked entrance, the water making him easily slide into you.

　The stretch around him sent a sharp pain shooting through you, but you fought the urge to grimace, instead being thankful that he was giving you time to adjust. You laid your head on his shoulder, nodding into his skin to let him know that you were ready for him to move.

　He moved his hands to rest on your ass so that he could comfortably hold you up, his fingers gripping the soft flesh as he began to thrust inside you, your walls engulfing him and making him experience a euphoric sort of pleasure that he’d never felt with any other girl before.

　“Fuck,” He groaned out, never losing his pace. “Knew you’d feel fuckin’ amazing. Suckin’ me in like this.”

　You moaned into his collarbone, peppering kisses along his freckled neck, sucking and biting at him in pleasure. You called out his name after a particularly rough thrust, the knot in your stomach quickly unraveling once more as you tightened around him.

　“C’mon,” He encouraged, moving one hand from your ass to your clit again, circling the sensitive bud. “Y’can be a good girl for me. Keep goin’ for me.”

　He fucked into your faster as overstimulation took over your senses, until finally he pulled out. Thick ropes of his cum disappeared into the crystal water around you.

　You both fought to catch your breath, JJ panting in your ear as his vice-grip remained on your ass. He subconsciously kneaded the flesh, and you couldn’t help but laugh, the sound spreading through the night air.

　He leaned his forehead against yours, his breath warming your cheeks as the coolness of the water set in once again, a chill travelling through your body. “Jeez, if i knew that all i had to do was say something then i would’ve done it a hell’v’a lot sooner.”

　You rolled your eyes, smiling into his shoulder as he carried you back onto land. Your clothes became damp as you threw them back on, but that soon became a thought in the back of your mind as JJ patted the spot beside him on the blanket, pulling you into his arms and warming you up.

　A sound distracted the both of you from your peaceful state, and you watched as JJ’s forgot to line jerked in the water. He scrambled to catch the rod, reeling in the line as quickly as he could. On the hook laid a small mouthed bass, wiggling.

　“See?” He said as he proudly held up the slimy fish attached to the line. “I told you that i always catch something while i’m here. Who knew it’d be a girl and a fish.”

[omgthatdress]

Fun fact: back in 2012, on this very blog, I made a post about American Girl dolls I’d like to see. One included a Black girl growing up during the civil rights movement and listening to Motown music. So yes, I’d love to take credit for Melody. But her actual creation goes back to a tweet someone made that I can’t find a link to right now. AG and the civil rights/motown era is SUCH a natural match, it’s kind of baffling it took until 2016 for Melody to finally come out. Being that she was a part of the “BeForever” line, it’s beyond infuriating that she only got two books.

THE GOOD NEWS IS BeForever was kind of a disaster for AG and they’ve done away with the brand. Claudie was released with Meet Claudie and her next book is Travels with Claudie so she definitely looks like she’s returning to the six book format. I doubt that the other girls released under the BeForever line (Nanea, Maryellen and Courtney) will get their full six books, which makes me so angry. I mean, given that Nanea is kind of specific to JUST pearl harbor, I can sooort of understand her having just two (even though I DEFINITELY think she should have gotten six. Hawaiian history and culture deserve a full six books). Given that Courtney is in the 80s, and a lot of what was controversial in the 80s is still controversial today, I can see how AG would be very very very hesitant to seriously dig into 80s history and politics, although six books in which Ronald Reagan and The Moral Majority are the bad guys would fucking rule. But for Maryellen and Melody it is bullshit of the highest order that they only got 2 books, especially when you consider that Maryellen’s big story is super bland bullshit about her struggling to stand out in her big family and not so much about confronting the sexist and racist cultural bullshit of the 50s. BUT she gets massive bonus points for covering the Salk vaccine (a major turning-point in history that doesn’t get NEARLY the amount of love and attention it deserves) and for having an amazing collection.

Melody being only two books is unforgivable. COMPLETELY UNFORGIVABLE. You cannot fit the enormity of civil rights and Motown and the 60s in general into just two books. All that being said, however, the two books they gave her seem to do a massive job with the tiny bit of space they were given. First of all, the advisory board for Melody is STACKED. Secondly, the trailer for Melody: Love Has to Win is the shit of Ron DeSantis’s nightmares:

A LITTLE BLACK GIRL REFUSING THE SAY THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE AND SAYING THAT AMERICA IS UNJUST?! That’s the sound of millions of pearls being clutched all across the nation. I’m honestly shocked Moms for Liberty weren’t burning Melody’s books in the streets. I am hereby a Melody stan now and forever. I still SINCERELY hope she gets a re-release with her full six books and a much bigger collection. Because for real Melody may be my new favorite doll (although that could change depending on what kind of collection Claudie gets).

[talxns]

Characterization Disparities in the Adam West Batman-Verse: 1960s vs Now

I’d like to talk about something I found interesting and revealing about how differently certain characters from the Batman franchise are portrayed in this cinematic universe, particularly how the characters of Catwoman and Batman (and his relationship with Robin) are shown behaving and how their modern interpretations differ from their original.

The comparisons I’d like to draw are from the original TV series Batman (colloquially known as Batman 66), made in the years 1966-1968 and the modern animated films based off the same versions of these characters, Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016) and Batman vs. Two-Face (2017).

Despite being set in the same universe and depicting the same characters (who also retain their original voice actors), the way the characters are written reflect an extremely modern interpretation, making the two animated films feel out-of-character particularly for the characters of Batman and Catwoman.

Catwoman has a varied history of characterization in the comics, going from complete villain to reluctant hero and eventual ally of Batman. However, Catwoman’s characterization in Batman (1966) is that of her original imaginings, a remorseless villain. This Catwoman will murder to get whatever she wants and has never gone out of her way to help Batman. She very frequently expresses to Batman her desire to kill Robin to get him out of the picture. In all of her appearances in the show, she attempts to kill both of them.

In both modern animated films– Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016) and Batman vs. Two-Face (2017) –Catwoman is characterized as a reluctant hero/ally. She almost immediately chooses to fight for Batman and Robin’s side against the other villains in both films. The animated modern version's reluctance to make Catwoman a complete villain is a reflection of her modern (softer, yet more complex) characterization, but goes against her character in this universe. West-Verse Catwoman would not go out of her way to help the heroes, especially not Robin, whom she despises.

What I feel is most egregious in terms of inaccurate portrayal, however, is a particular moment between Batman and Robin. Prior to Frank Miller’s reconstruction of Bruce Wayne/Batman’s character as we know it in the 80s, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson did not have a fraught relationship. They had their little spats, the occasional bonking Robin on the head to knock him out for his own good moments, teenage Dick being insecure about his position in Bruce’s life, etc., but the relationship between Bruce and Dick was not at the level of devastating angst that it was until the 80s and seems to be continuing further and further as time goes on, leading to the modern portrayals of Bruce and Dick’s early relationship being cold, neglectful, harsh, domineering, etc. (Thanks Frank Miller I Hate It).

Being made prior to Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Batman (1966) relies on the portrayal of Bruce and Dick from the inception of their relationship in 1940 until the creation of the TV show in 1966. Because of this, there are not really any dark or cold tones reflected in their relationship on screen.

In fact, Adam West-Verse Bruce Wayne is one of the sweetest Bruces to exist. He is exceptionally kind and attentive to Dick, incredibly patient, and would never lay a violent hand on him. I repeat. He Would Never Lay A Violent Hand On Him. I can say this with confidence. I have proof.

There are two instances in the TV Show Batman where a fight is instigated between the two heroes: Season 2 Episode 23 and Season 2 Episode 40. Both times, Robin is injected with a mind-altering drug and attempts to fight Batman at the behest of the women who have drugged him. Both times, Batman refuses.

In the first instance, Robin attempts to sword fight Batman. Batman refuses the fight and surrenders to capture. In the second instance, Robin attacks him with his fists. Batman raises a hand as if to counterattack, but cannot bring himself to deliver the blow. He lowers his hand and lets Robin continue beating him until he is called off.

In both instances we see something very important. This Batman won’t hit Robin. He would rather be beaten or captured than even attempting to fight his old chum, even when Robin is in a mind-controlled state and beating him mercilessly. That is the dynamic these two have in this universe.

Alright, so now that we have that acknowledged, what happens in Batman vs. Two-Face? Robin gets infected with a mind-altering substance and begins attacking Batman. So what does Batman do?

He fights back. This is waaaaay out of character for this Batman. But it is because we live in a time where Batman physically harming Robin is considered the norm, and so it infects even this originally companionable, secure dynamic.

I think another reason they did this was because modern audiences think that the Robin of the past is gay (derogatory) and they really wanted to see Batman do a violence on him for it.

It is interesting to see how a return to this universe carries with it modern interpretations of the characters, perhaps without even meaning to. It is frustrating to see dynamics that have come to the forefront of these characters' stories that you don’t like (for me I don’t like the new dynamic modern stories given to Bruce and Dick’s earlier years) and yet they are treated as the accepted and anticipated versions now.

[sunshine-and-moonshine]

Cod Men at a Slumber Party

Requested: God himself told me that this was what I needed to write, but otherwise no

Warnings: Pillow Violence

A/N: Rudyyyyyyy

Ghost - The one who stays up and pulls pranks

Soap’s hand is going in some warm water. Alejandro is getting whip cream on his hand and tickled with a feather. Rudy has cocks and balls drawn all over his face in neon glitter permanent marker, and König is covered in clown makeup (complete with the rainbow wig which he cannot get off thanks to Ghost using some pretty expensive wig adhesive). They wake up and instantly everyone is yelling at each other, accusing each other despite the fact that they are all victims of these heinous pranks. No one looks at Ghost who is quietly watching on, hiding a look that was very much “cat who caught the canary”, self satisfied as he video taped the fight that ensued between the others.

Soap - The Pillow Fort Builder

The minute Soap steps through the door he’s scavenging for each and every pillow within the house, as if he doesn’t have a wagon full of them dragging behind him. Doesn’t matter how lumpt or old or stuff they are, he’s making this pillow fort and it will be the most comfy place you’ve ever slept in your whole life. Seriously, man deserves some type of reward for being able to make such an amazing pillow fort. Not to mention that it just looks cool from the outside as well, almost like a castle of some kind. Soap takes great pride in his pillow forts and if anyone (including himself) is ever dissatisfied with one then he’s tearing it apart and rebuilding it from the ground up til he feels like he’s gotten it perfect.

König - The one who falls asleep first

König is always so excited to have a sleepover, talking about all the different movies you all could watch and games you could play. He comes in in his softest pajamas and with his favorite pillow and blanket, arms full of board games and dvds and vhs tapes, only to fall asleep the second he finishes setting up his makeshift bed on the floor. It’s kinda cute in a way, snoring and drooling in his sleep, splayed out like some sort of giant starfish, his pillow clutched to his chest like some sort of plushie. And he’ll always feel guilty about it when he wakes up, feeling like he missed out on something important or like he was rude.

Alejandro - The Pillow Fighter

Alejandro will 100% be trying to carefully thief some of Soap’s pillows so that he can sneak up behind someone else, smack them HARD AS FUCK with one of the pillows, and shout at the top of his lungs “*PREPÁRATE A MORIR!!!”. Literally hits people so hard with these pillows that its a wonder that no one has actually died (though some people HAVE lost teeth, which was unfortunate to say the least). Yes he will do this at every slumber party. No, you will not be able to successfully hide the pillows from him. Doesn’t matter where you put them, he’ll find them. And then you’ll be the first to be hit with one of the pillows, just because you tried to stop it from happening.

Rudy - The Snack Bringer/Maker

Rudy arrives to the slumber party carrying about 80 different boxes and bags of popcorn, cookies, chips, drinks, and so much more. He also has a lot of homemade stuff as well, though that’s primarily for him since he doesn’t like a lot of sugar. That doesn't mean he won’t share though! He’s more than happy to, and will bring more homemade stuff than store bought if it’s demanded by more than just one other person. And not to brag but that man is SO good at cooking. Absolute house spouse material. (I’d wife him anyways)

*PREPÁRATE A MORIR!!! = PREPARE TO DIE!!!

[alien2835]

My thoughts on TMAGP 27 - Driven

These points are recorded in order as I was listening to the episode for the first time. I actually pulled up the transcript this time, since last episode I completed misinterpreted that sex scene.

Huge spoilers ahead, obviously.

- I am 80% sure this statement was given by Jonah Magnus: “If such were not the case, the Institute would not have been founded, nor would my fellows have selected me for its leadership, much less its name.”

- It also happens to be voiced by Augustus—who we believe to be Jonah, trapped inside of FREDDI.

- This coach seems to be a manifestation of the stranger, or tmagp’s equivalent of such. This incident seems to map surprisingly well into the fears we know from TMA.

- This subject seems to be quite similar to Gertrude Robinson, he does What Has To Be Done, without remorse. He sent an assistant into the “Growler” despite knowing that it would be fatal.

- HE SAID IT, HE SAID “vital to the Magnus Institute’s work.” Which means that this is most certainly a Magnus, most likely Jonah.

- “…may yet prove as important as any transmutation taking place within an alembic.” An alembic is an old type of flask used in chemical experiments. These bitches are doing actual alchemy.

- Sex is officially canon now. This episode is the TMAGP equivalent of TMA’s Worm Sex Statement.

- The Hilltop Center was mentioned by Celia. This is the only time it’s been mentioned (that I recall) other than the related statement in TMAGP 7 - Give and Take. We now know the location: “just off Cowley Road.” It was built in the 80s, after the Magnus Institute burned down. But, I cannot stress the importance of this enough, the Magnus Institute owned the Hilltop Center. And, they still own it. I think it goes without saying that this is connected to Hilltop Road. Pure speculation here, but maybe every reality has its own crack that connects it to the other worlds. If so, I’d reckon this is the crack in this world.

- Alice says “I swear, if I hear one more word about Trevor-bloody-Herbert MP I am going to blow up parliament.” Firstly, based. Secondly, another name drop? Really Jonny? So Trevor the Tramp is an MP now. And not just any MP, but the one inspecting the OIAR. I firmly believe that every name drop is going to be important, but I struggle to see how this will connect to TMA. The minister is definitely important in some way though, or the show wouldn’t be hyping him up for so many episodes.

- Alice explicitly says that the room she and Sam messed up in the institute ruins was labeled “Archivist.” This seems to concern Celia.

- Celia does not seem to think the name “Hilltop Center” is particularly relevant, or she would have made a big deal about it. I don’t think Jon, Martin, or Basira ever actually told Celia about Hilltop Road. Although she might have heard the name Annabelle Cane from Jon or Martin. I’d have to check. (Please let Annabelle Cane make an appearance, I love her so much. Jonny please I will do anything.)

That’s everything, do tell me if I missed anything obvious or misinterpreted something again.

[jeannereames]

Hephaestion seems to have a big fanbase. How did it develop? I ask this because not much is known about Hephaestion historically. How did this interest in Hephaestion grow despite lack of enough information? Has Oliver Stone's "Alexander" contributed to it?

He does have a fanbase, which I discovered by accident. It well predates Stone’s Alexander, although the movie certainly enlarged it. I suspect much has to do with Mary Renault, at least at root. Even Oliver Stone’s film is an homage to her. I hope I’ve shed a little light on his career as well, but freely admit she started it, even if I didn’t come to my interest through her. I may be one of the few, at least among people my age.

I wrote a little about his fanbase in my article “The Cult of Hephaistion,” published several years after the film. If the bulk of the article is about Hephaistion’s military career, the opening discusses his public-facing reputation, and I got to use “fangirl” in an academic article. LOL.

As the chapter explains, I discovered his fanbase after I completed my dissertation in (late) 1998. While still at Penn State (e.g., before mid-2000), I began to receive email and even a few snailmail letters asking for a copy of it.

Let me point out something: nobody, much, reads a dissertation. It’s a niche market if there ever was one; in the normal run of things, only other scholars and grad students read dissertations. God alone knows how people found out I’d written mine on Hephaistion, but within a year, word had spread and I was getting requests for it. To say I was floored would be an understatement. And it wasn’t just one or two. For a little while, I was getting queries every few months.

(PLEASE do not go buy a copy! I’m working on a major revision, and large chunks of the dissertation are already in print as articles anyway [HERE on academic.edu]. The dissertation is no longer up-to-date and parts are simply wrong. I did the best I could at the time, but now have 25 more years of academic work under my belt and a whole lot of very good material has been published since that I’m consulting for the book.)

Anyway, what struck me was the truly international nature of the interest, even before the Stone flick. Many requests came from Anglophone countries, but not all. Yet—as I discuss in the book chapter mentioned above—they did share one common characteristic: over 80% came from women. 2/3rds of the rest were from gay or bisexual men. From my chapter (you can download it to read further):

What struck me most about Hephaestion’s fans is that they compose subsets of society who have traditionally occupied disempowered social positions: women, and gay or bisexual men. If I were to say, “Hephaestion has fans,” the instinctive reaction to that pronouncement is rather different than if I were to specify, “Hephaestion has female and gay fans.” The clarification transforms him from Alexander’s right-hand man and chiliarch into a romantic hero—a Brad Pitt of the ancient world. (Or a Jared Leto, as the case may be.) All of which says perhaps more about our unconscious assumptions and automatic ordering of value than about the fans themselves. Enthusiasm for Hephaestion seems to be suspect and uncomfortably suggestive of motivations emotional and romantic. Yet is any intense interest ever devoid of emotional content? Perhaps the biggest fans of all are those of us who have devoted our careers to the study of Alexander, his court, Macedon, and related topics. Certainly no one goes into academics purely for the financial compensation.

I DELETED THE POLL. Going to redo it with a better list of options.

[sapphire-weapon]

Leon Kennedy’s wiki page is filled with lies and bullshit

And whoever is running the wiki is so afraid of being told that they’re wrong that editing on it is currently disabled -- so I figured I’d just compile a list of errors on my own.

This isn’t fully comprehensive, because my eyes started to glaze over at a certain point, but. It is color coordinated and fully explained.

If you need to reference Leon’s wiki for any reason, please make sure that you have this post up also as well, so that you’re not pulling bad information. Most of the wiki is fine, but there are some things in here, man. People really do just be going on the internet and telling lies.

Notice how there's no citation for this. The source that's actually being pulled from is an offhanded comment the RE2 concept artist made in an art book that Capcom released called Capcom Design Works. It was only ever released in Japan.

Concept artists don't have access to the script and aren't involved with the actual creation of the character. Concept artists are given a general description of what a character should look like and what their general demeanor is. The devs told this artist specifically to make Leon look tanned, so the artist wondered if maybe Leon's heritage was from somewhere in southern Europe — maybe Italy?

It is important to know that Leon's character was conceived and had art drawn of him back when Resident Evil 2 had a completely different story. A different version of RE2 reached 80% completion before being scrapped and completely redone from the ground up. The story changed dramatically. Claire Redfield wasn't even in this original version of RE2; it was a different character entirely named Elza Walker. (source one, source two)

Ergo, even if the intention was to give Leon an Italian background originally, that story no longer exists and has nothing to do with the version of Resident Evil 2 that actually released.

This isn't a big deal, but "offered" is a really funny way of saying "threatened into."

Leon also was never in USSTRATCOM. That's a bullshit lie based on an old build of RE4 that never got released and was, in fact, turned into the game Haunting Ground instead. The wiki says that the proof of this is in a file in Darkside Chronicles. No such file exists -- and, even if it did, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi (who's been a producer and writer for RE since the original REmake) said recently that Darkside Chronicles is no longer canon anyway.

None of this is ever stated in the games. This is pulled from a promotional marketing interview from 1997 — so, before RE2 was even finished or released. There's a decent chance that this interview was done right after 1.5 got thrown out and 2's final story wasn't even fully realized yet.

Capcom has actually given Leon several different backgrounds throughout the years, and none of them have ever made it into the games.

The official Resident Evil 2 novelization has Leon fresh out of college and moving to Raccoon City from New York.

Welcome to Raccoon City wrote that Leon's dad was a cop, and that's how he got into the force, too.

But there's no indication of any of them being true for Leon as he exists in the games. There's no reason to think of the crime background as any more or less canon than the other two, except maybe that someone just likes it better?

In fact, part of that crime backstory is outwardly and explicitly contradicted in Resident Evil 2 itself:

So take that for what you will.

The wiki cites "Official GuideBook" as the source for this. No book with that title exists.

What they're actually referring to is The Resident Evil Archives, which is a book that is filled to bursting with factually incorrect information about the games. Here's the full excerpt of the passage containing that backstory:

Is this really what we're taking as canon fact now? Claire and Sherry being Leon's "single focus" in RE2, with absolutely no mention of Ada at all? Leon being mad about Claire "making her own decisions"?

Here's something else fun from the RE Archives:

I don't see anything on this wiki page about how Leon willingly gave Sherry up to the US Army, nor anything about him reaching out to the federal government himself in order to willingly join their ranks. It's very interesting how only the "drunk at a motel" part made it in.

Citation needed???? The citation is the Resident Evil 2 Remake. This is something that's actually stated in a game — and the wiki is treating it as fanfiction, listing it as secondary to whatever bullshit the RE Archives book is spouting.

This is also the single only glimpse we have ever gotten into anything Leon was doing prior to the intro of RE2. The games do not go any further back in time to explain anything further about where he's from or what his life was like.

This is straight-up not true. It's just an out-and-out lie.

So, Leon and Benford only started working together ten years prior to Benford's death in June of 2013 — making the genesis of that partnership land in 2003. 2002 at the earliest. Neither of those years are 1998, which is the year that Leon was coerced into government custody.

It also makes no sense as to why Leon would like, trust, and respect Benford so much if he was the man responsible for threatening Sherry and ruining his life. It also makes no sense for Benford to be a child-threatening piece of garbage and then also be described as having integrity and being a man of his word.

The only thing that RE6 actually says about who Benford was prior to becoming President was that he was "in the military." 2002 makes sense for Leon and Benford to have met, then, since 2002 was the year of Operation Javier. Leon's status in the government isn't exactly clear during the events of Operation Javier — Leon isn't sent in as a federal LEO; he's sent in with military special forces.

The likeliest explanation is that Adam Benford was the lead commanding officer overseeing Operation Javier — who, upon suspecting he might be dealing with B.O.W.'s, went "Hey, get me the Raccoon City guy. I want him going on this one."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

This is all purely conjecture on my part and cannot be proven or disproven either way — but it, at the very least, makes more sense than just assuming that this one particular file in RE6 got the year of the Raccoon City incident wrong. It also makes more sense than assuming that Leon has some sort of weird Stockholm Syndrome concerning Adam Benford, when he (Leon) is so angry and cynical and jaded in literally every single title after RE4 about his career and about being shackled to the government.

Adam Benford being the guy behind Leon's kidnapping is so beyond the pale and absurd, and the only real basis for it is an advertisement for an airsoft gun, and I'm not joking. I don't know how anyone tries to argue that that ad is more canon than what's both stated and shown in the actual series, but here we are.

This is something that is only true in Resident Evil 4 Remake. Originally, Operation Javier was the first time that Leon and Krauser ever met, per Darkside Chronicles. It is very weird that this detail exists in the wiki, but then the wiki goes on to only describe the DSC version of Operation Javier, with no mention given to the complete overhaul that that story got in RE4make. You wouldn't be able to even asspull a "Krauser only started training Leon after Operation Javier" explanation, either, because in OG RE4, Leon is under the impression that Krauser actually died almost immediately after returning home.

There's no citation for this, but the source is the box art for the Wii version of RE4. However, no other version of RE4 ever makes mention of what school Ashley was going to. The only hint we have ever gotten in a game as to where Ashley was going to school is actually in RE4make, because the sorority stickers on her phone correspond with a sorority out of New York.

There's no citation for this, because the source is RE: Umbrella Corps, which has no provable basis in canon.

This isn't true. Here's the citation that the wiki uses:

There's no year given there, and there's no indication that this happened at some sort of TerraSave reunion. In fact, them meeting in 2010 makes no sense, because this file establishes that there were no open lines of communication between the US government and the BSAA prior to this moment — so how the fuck would Chris have gotten his hands on Leon's report outlining the events of RE4 back in 2009?

Considering the fact that Lost in Nightmares took place in 2006, and that explicitly involved remnants of Umbrella via Oswell Spencer, chances are that that's probably closer to the time that this meeting between Leon and Chris actually happened.

Or, if you wanted to be cheeky about it, you could say that this happened in 2008 so that Hunnigan's "hadn't seen each other in ten years" thing is actually at least a little bit true — since Leon and Chris actually first spoke back in either late 1998 or early 1999, per Code Veronica and Darkside Chronicles.

But there's really no canonical indication of it either way. You can't even use Benford as a benchmark, because Hunnigan could've been reporting to him as POTUS or as a military officer. There's really no way to know.

So, that’s that. I hope we all learned something today. For future reference, don’t look outside of the actual games or movies for information about the series, because it is constantly being contradicted by either other supplementary material or actual game canon. This is the formula you should be following:

numbered game entries are the most canon. numbered game entries will always have the final say. period.

spinoff games starring the recurring cast* (Revelations, Code Veronica, etc) are the second highest tier canon.

CGI movies starring the main cast are the third highest tier canon.

spinoff games not starring the main cast (Outbreak, Dead Aim, etc) are the fourth highest tier canon.

anything else should be ignored.

*spinoff games that have a story, that is. things like The Mercenaries 3D and RE:Verse clearly don’t count and are there for fun gameplay purposes only.

In an instance where things on the same tier contradict each other, the most recent installment wins out.

So, Sherry’s age in RE2 is 10 because RE6 said so – even though OG RE2’s manual had her age listed as 12. Her age of 10 years was then also reaffirmed in RE2make. So, she was 10.

And Gaiden’s not canon, despite it starring Leon and Barry, because RE4, RE6, and Revelations 2 do not acknowledge it as such.

It is very easy to follow this canon if you follow that recipe. 

I also have an essential canon list already typed up and ready to go. These are the only titles you should ever have to even think about committing to your brainspace.

Please don’t let bad faith actors lead you astray, and stop leaning so hard on the wiki until it fixes its problems.

My inbox is always open for questions.

[sebastianswallows]

I want to talk a little bit about Frank Herbert and the Bene Gesserits, because it's something that's been on my mind for a while and I haven't seen anyone looking at these characters from this perspective yet (not that I looked very hard, but I check the tags occasionally and just haven't seen it, and this would be the first place I'd expect to).

It's strange in a good way seeing Dune become popular, and people actually reading the books, and it being cool to do so, not it being a niche and nerdy thing. But what's equally weird is to see all the praise Frank Herbert's getting, especially from women readers 😂

Because at any point between, I think, the 80s and the 2000s, if a guy said he liked Frank Herbert that was considered by women to be a red flag. I remember women chatting about this in online forums back in the day. It was the equivalent of a guy saying he likes Jordan Peterson now.

It's an analysis of Dune that doesn't seem to have come through again. Audiences have caught on to the homophobia inherent in how the Baron was represented, but nobody is talking anymore about the blatant sexism of the books.

And I say this as a long time fan, because I was super inspired by most of the female characters in the novels and in particular the Bene Gesserits, so to hear that Herbert was supposed to be a misogynist took me by surprise. "What do you mean it's sexist? This is great!" The idea of a group of women who fully dedicate themselves to their own intergalactic girl gang, who follow their own plans, who use their femininity to their own ends, who live through discipline and self control and are fully empowered to face down any threat, that was so inspiring to teenage me.

But I guess the sort of women I most admired were the ones who were terrifying to men.

I mean, the only "good" female characters are either not Bene Gesserits, like Chani, or are Bene Gesserits who go against the order, like Jessica. Moreover, the only "good" female characters are those who betray their group for the sake of men. Like Jessica going against the word of the Reverend Mother because Leto wanted a boy.

Irulan's only redeeming features are her complete dedication to Paul and being basically in love with him and being the author of glorifying history books about him in spite of the fact that he deposed her father and is keeping her in a loveless marriage and constantly publicly humiliates her by treating Chani as his wife.

Even Chani, an otherwise bland and marginal character compared to the film, is at her most poignant when dying in child birth for the sake of giving birth to Paul's children. A death which happens because Irulan had been secretly poisoning her out of jealousy. Frank Herbert just has women clawing each other's eyes out for the sake of Paul's affection. I don't care how good that dick is, it's not worth poisoning another woman over. Poison him instead and take the throne, girl.

But oh yeah, in this intergalactic empire tens of thousands of years in the future, they seem to have discovered neither the concept of divorce nor of female inheritance of titles and property. It can only be a man inheriting the throne, not the Emperor's biological daughter. And once Irulan is married, well she's just stuck there. Pretty incredible.

And however great the Bene Gesserits are, they still need a man to "see where they can not see". No matter how empowered a group of women becomes, they still need a man. Only a man can see into the future. Women can only see into the past. Therefore, only a man can save the world.

I get that they tried to conceal some of this in the recent film, and they managed to do so to some extent, but it's mostly been with Chani. You still have the problem of Jessica and Irulan being just servants for the whims of the men in their lives, a fact which gets them into a lot of trouble. And you have the Bene Gesserits portrayed as scheming witches who are evil to have their own plots and designs, and are dependent on a man to see into that place which terrifies them.

I mean, enjoy the books by all means. I always did in spite of all of this, and I still like the story and the world. I still love the characters too. But man if the author didn't have some unflattering ideas about us 😂