#I’m just saying… he said a lot of nothing in those quotes beyond ‘people on the internet suck’

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

All I’m going to say I think now that my brain remembered part of what it was thinking is that Taylor and Joe went through a lot together (good and bad) and regardless of how it ended or what led to it they both seem to be determined to keep that private and not throw each other under the bus and in the end they’re just two very, very different people whose outlooks in the long term were just never going to align and never has that been clearer.

[starfacenix]

Dolus/Dolos, god of trickery, craftiness, and cunning deception

I’d say the majority of people that work with Greek deities have either not heard of Dolus or haven’t looked into him. Well, for the latter you wouldn’t find very much anyway so I don’t blame you.

I felt drawn to him when I had happened to stumble upon his name during some research with an unrelated project. Reaching out to Dolus was an easy thing to do, but what wasn’t easy was tackling how to exactly work with him or even worship him.

There’s basically nothing on this guy. Like next to nothing.

There is one main myth, but that is all there is on him which is incredibly unfortunate. I’ll put the Aesopic fable he’s mentioned in at the end if you want to skim it, but it doesn’t have his personality in it at all, or all too much about him. It does show off the “craftiness” title of his, though.

Some may not know if Dolus is a good fit for you if you’re interested. But from the little time I’ve known him I would say his expertise stretches way beyond what you may think. But, primarily he would be great for those of you who work with other trickster gods and the like. But also anyone that wants to try out types of divination that are a bit more niche and strengthening your intuition.

Depending on one of the two literature quotes you can find very easily on his theoi page, Dolus is either the son of Nyx or Gaia. Going forward and on any post I make on him (if it comes up) I’ll be addressing him as the son of Nyx, though.

His personality is one that may catch you off guard, as he, with me anyway, goes from such a kind and warm energy to one that has me wandering what the fuck I did to deserve him playing jokes on me I don’t understand half the time. (All in good fun I’m just terrible with social cues) But that’s the fun of working with him. I’m learning to let loose a bit more and find hobbies that actually tap into my more.. “craftier” side for lack of a better word that doesn’t sound like a really horrid pun.

I’m not great at tarot reading, or just that type of divination in general. Which is unfortunate since I’d like to be quite good at it. Dolus is someone that caught onto this rather quickly, noting my horrid shuffling and how long it took me to interpret cards and such. If you’re in the same boat at me, he’s your guy. The energy that filled my room was one of patience and understanding, but also an energy that wanted to push me to actually dedicate myself to learning the craft.

When I decided I wanted to help him set up more things to associate him with, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the warmth I felt from him. It was a moment that helped me decide that I’d love to do something like this for other gods too. Ones that are either buried or are too intimidating to reach out to because there’s such little knowledge out there. I hope this encourages others to do the same. It’s an incredibly rewarding task, as it also helps you develop a close relationship with said deity.

I’ll have a separate post I’ll link right here that gives you a nice idea for what you could put on an altar for him. In the future, I’ll be mentioning him a lot more, hoping to fill up his tags until it’s filled with people other than me lol.

His Theoi page.

Devotional activities and things to put on an altar: here.

I also have what he looks like to me here.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I know this isn’t super thorough, but I’ll update with anything else that comes to mind or make another post soon. 🩶

[womendeservehumanity]

I said I was gonna make one big mega post on those sysbm losers who make it their life’s mission to terrorize bw but honestly there’s too many and there’s too much to unpack for it to be in one post. So I’ll just highlight a few specific people. I honestly feel like I’m crazy bc it seems like only black women know about these weirdos. They dedicate so much of their lives EVERYDAY to degrading and arguing with black women. They truly do hate us. And all I can ever think of when I see these accounts is a black woman birthed these males. Imagine risking your life to birth very thing that hates you. What a slap on the face. And it’s not as though these men had terrible moms and they’re why they’re like this. Most of them talk about how their mothers are exceptions. Their sisters as well. How you could have black women in you life that you love (or love as much as possible bc some of these mfs are sociopaths) but justify you and other men like you, of which don’t see your mothers/sisters as one exceptions, hating black women to this degree is beyond me. these men mock black women dying during childbirth, due to femicide, due to policy brutality, etc. how do you conceptualize that when you have women in your life at risk of that same plight???

But anyways this is one of the accounts I’ve seen a lot on Twitter bc he’s insanely chronically online. This is a hobby for him. He’s one that has no problem mocking black women dying.

The likes…. Mind you the person that originally tweeted this is a gay man and all the quotes are a black woman hating jerkfest

I mean it’s not as though he would’ve been any nicer if he knew it was a gay man. Look how he regards gay black men. This is something I see a lot in sysbm circles. They’re insanely homophobic but especially towards gay black men. I guess because their existence “effeminates” them. They call them “dahmer’s lunch” or “dahmer’s nugget” because the serial killer and cannibal Jefferey dahmer primarily targeted gay black men and that’s funny to them. These men have nothing but hate in their hearts

One person in his replies after he falsely identified a young black girl as the poster of a rage bait account that was making weird racial posts when she was simply one of the many women and men that weird ass account was using to make tiktoks. I won’t show it because that girl who did NOTHING has been subjected to enough already and I hope she’s not aware of it. But this was his reaction to that false notion.

I mean what can you even say to explain this type of hatred. How does this happen?

Anyways his reprehensible tweets about black women aren’t enough to get him suspended because look at the state of twitter but I reported a tweet of him encouraging someone to “end it” and so hopefully that’ll do the job. I feel like I’m alone in all of this and in seeing this hatred. Radfems are always there to find posts targeting white women and talking about how people use them and the word “white” to get away with misogyny and while I agree am I supposed to believe they’re the only ones the internet targets or even targets the most? Where are y’all when it comes to shit like this? Because it’s not super niche

Also one of the many reasons why I’d rather 🔑 myself than birth a male. Imagine this being what he ends up doing with his life

[brainrawt]

Jordayla Proposal 5x20 - my (early) thoughts

I was not prepared for the proposal to be Jordan and Layla’s! That wasn’t what I had wanted for them. Jordan had a very long teen marriage plot, in which the show made it clear the whole time that it was a bad idea, even when Jordan was up for it. Getting married at 17: bad idea, wrong, shouldn’t happen; Getting married at 19: good idea (???) What, from the characters’ perspective, not ours, is different? I’ve been thinking about this all week lol, and I’m almost there, but I actually wish the show would explicitly tell me.

Obviously what moved me was Layla’s joy! I can’t get over it. She has opened herself to Jordan completely. There is no fear, she loves and trusts him enough to do something crazy with him. Layla wants someone to stay, and this is the biggest commitment ever, he will stay quite literally until death does them apart. She was missing a family for so long, and now she has one of her own. Not only does Layla feel that it’s a good idea, she believes it! In s3, she couldn’t bear to see Jordan go along with his plans with Simone because it wasn’t his path, and she speaks up, even when she had no stakes. If she thought they couldn’t or shouldn't get married, she would’ve said no. Saying yes is just so fresh for Layla’s character and exactly what I dreamed to see. 

Jordan saying “When I'm with you, I feel like I'm home.” is everything, given his entire life was uprooted recently. He chased an identity in his father, he was always uncertain and insecure, but now he feels at home. “You know who else makes a great pair? Jordan and Layla (…) Hashtag couple goals” - Cute moment but these are real reflections! He thinks they’re compatible, they were able to help their friends. He thinks of Layla as family already, she’s Liv’s sister and Laura’s bonus baby. 

Liv described Jordan: “He’s impulsive, he does things without thinking.” Yes, he is impulsive and he has still matured greatly. I have loved Jordan’s personal arc, and I don’t think he has to lose his character traits to be ‘complete’, nor do I think he needs to be ‘complete’ to get married. I see a lot of Joey/Pacey in Jordan/Layla and there’s a quote from them that goes: “Part of his recklessness is that he’s constantly surprising me and part of his rashness is that he’s intensely passionate.” This quote has never left me and I think it suits Jordayla well. These things about them can be true and make their love great. In a way, I think his decision is commemorative of his dad, but not because it's some product of his trauma. After a tortuous, life-long journey, Jordan and Billy ended in a good place, and football wasn’t their sticking point. They bonded over Jordan’s love and happiness with Layla. Jordan was robbed of more of those conversations but he knew Billy would’ve encouraged him. “Tell Layla she has my approval”, that’s what he’s doing. Maybe his father son prophecy isn’t to be a NFL QB, maybe it’s to embrace the love of his life. 

Jordan and Layla honestly do give me the vibes of a couple that would get married young. I have nothing against young marriage. I love young love in all its sweet, endearing, naive, full force, unprecedented glory. I just can’t stand when its young people trying to be grown ups lol. But in the proposal, Jordan and Layla seem so young and I LOVE it. From Layla's pigtails to the way they’re not super dressed up. They’re not at a bar or a record label event. How giddy they both are, Layla is giggling and gasping the entire time, and Jordan is just bustling around nervously. She lights up at the pretty ring and is excited to put it on, and they can’t get their hands off each other. Beyond obsessed at how he hugs her first, again so sweet and youthful, and a reminder that they are best friends! It’s like he wanted to share his joy with his best friend before he wanted to kiss his fiance, you know?! In general, they are very much a young couple in the way they flirt, get each other flustered, gossip, fight and make up, talk about each other to their friends, giggle and say hi. It's adorable and refreshing to the show, and the scene captured it well. I find the unbridled youngness of their love SO romantic and I like that the writers embraced it. I like that Jordan isn't pretending to be sensible, and I find it hilarious that he splurged on a ring and wanted to assure her before she answered that she deserved a fancy proposal with fireworks. Come on she’s a Material Gworl - they both are. And adorably well-suited, given that Layla is also a Wedding Girl! She knew what wedding dress she wanted like 10 years ago, and Jordan is absolutely a Groomzilla. Good for them, they enjoy weddings and they can have a great one together. It’s not something dutiful, it's not something otherly, it's something great and all theirs!

In developing their relationship, they’ve barrelled through it all. They could not love each other or want to be together, more. People say they haven’t been tested – just because you pass a test it doesn't mean you weren’t tested. Jordayla’s challenges have not been typical either, no break ups or other love interests etc, so it's cool that the next step for them is them figuring out marriage. It's not that they're going to just get whisked away this second and pop out babies. 

They have so much love to share. I love that throughout the hardship of Billy’s death, their love brought some love and light to their friends and family. Their relationship was the only thing that made Olivia smile, their coming out dinner allowed everyone to joke around and be happy for them. They were the light in those dark times. They have so much more love to give each other and everyone else! Asher said at his first wedding (lol) that Jordan was the glue for their friendship, I still believe this and putting this wedding at the centre of their vortex is good for everyone I think.

I enjoyed how it played out on-screen, your suspicions grew throughout the episode and yet none of us actually knew it was Jordan. So fun! I love how the scene cuts from Jaymee saying “...then who was the ring for?” to Jordan proposing. The immediate buzz from seeing them, and such an intimate moment, it was just gorg. It reminded me of 5x04 when their “I’m glad we slowed things down” scene cuts to them in bed. I know some people would’ve liked to see these events unfold but to me the gag of it all is just too good. The first watch experience is too perfect. They have other great slow rewatchable scenes like 5x03, 5x14 etc so there’s a great balance and I wouldn’t trade any of them. 

From a story perspective, I am excited about the potential of this. I think it will speed up our timeline. If we’re fazing out the adult stories now, I’d much rather see this! Definitely want to see all the character-focused stories, their bachelor(ette) parties, in-law scenes, all sorts of things. I’m excited to hear Layla’s voice re: their relationship. We did once in the Homecoming scene telling Simone that Jordan stayed, I want more!

The whole engagement is so unexpected and exciting that it gives me butterflies. I have no choice but to get on board because how is it that this same ship still gives me butterflies?! I felt this way in their “What are we?” era at the end of last season and yet again now in their engaged era. I don’t know how this will play out, but if it was up to me, they wouldn’t get married until late in the season, especially given that there’s likely more seasons to come. I want seeing them up there, having made it from the proposal to the altar, to feel suuuper earned. I hope they stay this fresh and exciting. I do get bored when ships get too far into being the “parent couple” so I hope I don’t live to see that day with my beloved Jordayla. I know the proposal is for a reason, the writers have a vision. By showing them at better and worse (5x11 onwards), in sickness and health (5x18), the build up was stunning and this couple has never failed me before.

[fleshing-out-fodlan]

When looking through some Hapi dialogue I noticed this interesting contrast in her first post time skip CF vs. AM explore dialogue about the state of the abyss. (The first picture is CF the second is AM)

vs.

This gives off the impression that the Empire was more concerned with the well being of Abyss than the Kingdom/Church. So I wanted to see if this was a consistent trend or just a one off line from Hapi the writers never expanded upon. In order to do this, I looked at the CF and AM explore dialogues of the wolves and abyss NPCs. (ignoring dialogue that shows up in both routes). Starting off, I’ll sum up the CF findings.

Crimson Flower

It’s important to note that, despite the Empire’s decision to maintain Abyss, not everyone in the army supports this idea. This can be seen in chapter 13 when a monk complains about the “Abyssian idiots” and says they should all be “purged.” Obviously no named characters share this sentiment, but I do think it’s important to highlight this perspective as it shows how Edelgard’s decision regarding Abyss is one that is being criticized. However, it’s hard to know just how common these criticisms are. Due to no named characters expressing a similar perspective, though, I would imagine it’s not the mainstream perspective and I feel most people in the army would simply not really care for the Abyssians. In the same chapter the Abysskeeper also comments that the “Imperial army hasn’t interefered much with [them].” At face value this statement does seem to contradict with what Hapi said about Hubert personally playing a role in keeping Abyss safe. I think the most likely explanation is that Edelgard is mainly having her higher ups deal with Abyss due to knowing it likely would not be widely supported. As we discussed earlier the Imperial army does have some anti-Abyss members although I feel most people in the army are pretty neutral towards Abyss. Because of this, they likely would feel it was a waste of resources to try and help Abyss and, as we know, it’s not beyond Edelgard or Hubert to get up to antics in secret, so I think the possibility of their work in Abyss being kept on the downlow is very likely.

Next chapter, we hear from an NPC that she “work[s] for lord Hubert [and was] stationed there” so the church would not attempt to use the Abyss. This again shows that Hubert is very involved in the Abyss, leading me to believe Hubert was the one placed in charge of this operation, meaning I don’t think Edelgard has much direct involvement. Hubert’s decision to station a spy here and also Hapi’s quote about him indicate that he views the Abyss as a valuable place, even if he does look down on the citizens. 

That was all I found that seemed interesting to me in Crimson Flower (I originally had a lot more before I realized that dialogue shows up in AM too :( ). Overall, it seems as if Hubert is the member of the Imperial Army responsible for Abyss and Edelgard’s involvement in these decisions is unclear. Hubert seems mainly focused on maintaining Abyss due to it’s ability to help the Empire. Therefore, while the quality of life in Abyss seems to be relatively good, all things considered, it also appears as if their freedom is being limited. While there is only one confirmed spy, I’m sure Hubert has placed other ones in Abyss. Furthermore, we are never told what happens to those suspected of working with the church (although if Hubert’s the one in charge I’m sure it’s nothing good) or what criteria one must meet before being deemed dangerous (meaning it’s possible innocent people who simply mistook are being punished too).

Azure Moon

In the first post-timeskip chapter, the Abysskeeper notes that it’s now probably “cozier” in Abyss than above ground. No improvements to he quality of life for the Abyssians are mentioned but turmoil above ground is, therefore it’s likely that the reason the Abyssians now enjoy a better quality of life than those above ground is due to the decrease in their quality of life as opposed to improvements in Abyss.

In the next chapter, a citizen states that, after the church fell, they “lost all hope of support from the church [and have been] barely scraping by” since then. This lends credence to the idea that the kingdom has not been very involved with Abyss. While the Abysskeeper in CF makes a similar statement about the Imperial army, we see dialogue from others that directly contradicts his belief. So while that statement in CF points to the Empire interfering in secret, we have not seen anything yet in AM to indicate that the kingdom is doing something similar. Instead, it makes more sense to take these words at face value. Furthermore, the comment about “barely scraping by” supports my above statement that the quality of life for Abyssians has not increased, but rather decreased due to the lack of aid form the church.

However, in the next chapter the Abysskeeper states that Rodrigue began feeding the army and even giving the Abyssians a “share of the provisions.” This is a contrast from CF where we saw food being with held to try and coerce them into joining the empire. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Abyssians once Rodrigue dies. Will the Kingdom continue to provide this support or was this a decision that will be overturned upon his death? 

For a few chapters, there’s nothing of note. Now, originally I was going to avoid dialogue that showed up in both routes, but there is some dialogue here that appears in both but follows up on the question I just asked so I’m going to break my own rule for a moment. Basically, a member of the Abyss mentions that he was offered “three meals a day” to join the army but he refused because he would “rather starve.” While this dialogue occurs on CF too, I think it’s especially important in AM because it indicates a change in the kingdom’s policies. For a while, they were receiving extra rations thanks to Rodrigue. The chapter this occurs in is afteer Rodrigue’s death, leading me to believe that the kingdom reversed Rodrigue’s decision and went back to mainly ignoring Abyss.

In a later chapter, a resident comments that the Abyssians and Kingdom soldiers have been getting on “a lot better,” stating that the kingdom soldiers were originally “aggressive [and] abusive” but are now “corteous [and] generous.” I believe this change in attitude likely resulted from Rodrigue’s decision making. Before that, it seems no higher ups in the Kingdom army cared much about the Abyss, making them seem like easy targets to Kingdom soldiers. However, Rodrigue’s act of kindness likely strengthened Kingdom/Abyssian relations, encouraging soldiers to take on a friendlier attitude that continued even after his death.

Conclusion

Overall, the Empire (or at least Hubert) has been invested in the Abyss from day one and attempted to use it to their advantage while the Kingdom (minus Rodrigue) largely ignored it. Hubert is known for being a strategic person so, while many people may simply overlook Abyss, Hubert was able to realize the ways it could help. Therefore, in order to reap all the benefits, he needed to keep Abyss “safe” (using Hapi’s words). However, his concern for Abyss’s well beign didn’t come from a place of kindness, meaning despite Abyss being given some level of importance, the freedom of the people there was limited. On the other hand, the Kingdom was originally very uninterested in Abyss, allowing the quality of life there to decline although they still maintained a similar level of freedom from before the war. The exception to this was Rodrigue, who tried to help the Abyssians. However, it appears as if his reforms mostly died with him, and while the soldiers overall maintained a more positive attitude towards Abyss due to his interference, on a policy level the Kingdom simply went back to ignoring Abyss.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Poked my head into some of @mysticdragon3md3′s thoughts regarding popularity with DimiClaude fanon and am happy to say I’m here to Talk (tee em).

I also saw the post from the user saying why they were falling out of love for the ship, and... yeah. The people they’re talking about, the generalized group of people who do certain things, definitely bother me as well.

I love that you pointed out Claude is not flirty and is just playful. It’s not the DimiClaude fandom alone unfortunately with that though - it’s the entire fanbase that views him as a flirt. And, according to Twitter, a slut. Yeah. Yeah. I know what they... “mean”... but it is still not him.

Them being annoyed with each other is also fanon and a very strange one. Never in Houses did Dimitri come across as being annoyed or bothered by him. In fact, they have friendly banter! Dimitri doesn’t get specifically exasperated at Claude, but that’s just more so how he is as a person and he sometimes doesn’t understand playfulness. That said, he does not berate Claude the way he berates others. There’s one instance I can think of where he berated Claude and that was in the DLC when they were talking to Aelfric for the first time.

In Hopes, same deal in AG. In fact, he’s quite fond of Claude in AG. GW itself was a well discussed mess in a lot of ways, and even then as a ship they didn’t have a lot of negativity. If nothing else it was an odd opposite, because even as enemies when Claude admitted he couldn’t defeat Dimitri alone, Dimitri just basically laughed, smirked and walked away. That’s like... the worst of their relationship in GW and it’s extremely mellow.

I think part of the problem some dmcl fans are facing are the fanon version of the ship rather than what they’re like in canon. It is definitely true that part of the dmcl fandom has absolutely warped the ship into being something it really isn’t and never was in canon. There’s also this whole thing about Dimitri being the dominant, feisty one with Claude being the uwu blushy one and it’s just... not them. Not as a pair canonically, and not individually. When Dimitri gets “dominant”, he’s, uh, not in a good mental state. It’s a mental illness that makes him like that and personally I’ve never appreciated seeing people use it for a kink for a ship. Normally I’d say people can like what they want, but I get the feeling a lot of dmcl fans have absolutely pushed their views onto others and driven fans away.

I will also say have absolutely, 150% come across those kinds of fans. The ones who refuse to listen to anyone else, but if your headcanons don't vibe with them then you’re just completely “wrong”. Not only do they portray the canon characterization poorly if portraying it at all, but they tend to also bring it down a racist route, which is... beyond ironic considering they should be the last ship that deals with that based on their characters and stories.

Engage kinda went wonky with a good few things regarding the previous lords, so I don’t see Dimitri being like that as some kind of definite canon. Actually, even in Heroes their interactions are friendly and calm. The “worst” banter they had was their swim alts, while on the opposite end we have the brave alts who apparently hang out together outside of the castlegrounds, and for so long that they can’t be of any help in a search for someone (which like lol how long you gotta be gone to have no idea and can’t help at all lmao).

I think people see outside-Houses canon scenes like those and just... decide it’s their actual canon. Dimitri is not, in any way, actually mean to Claude in canon. That is unfortunately a very popular fanon. In Houses especially, when Dimitri doesn’t know Claude well in the mock battle he’s more like ummm hey Claude your defenses are open what are you even doing, more than being like ugh Claude you’re so annoying. In the real version of that mock battle though, a good few months had passed and their battle quotes are significantly more approachable and they clearly have respect for each other. Dimitri knows Claude likes to fuck around and be goofy sometimes, and he picked up on that and played along with it in the JP version (in the English version he simply picks up on it, but there’s no anger whatsoever and it’s just more oh okay I get it).

As far as Engage goes, ultimately I just see it more as an extremely condensed version of their mannerisms, and yes, they for some reason, especially in the localized versions, try to keep up the whole rival shtick when Dimitri never even felt that way about Claude, and he never gets truly annoyed at Claude. Ffs, in canon Dimitri literally drops everything after retaking his home from the Empire/TWS, and runs to go save Claude. Literally. The next day. While Claude is a little tsun about it (!), Dimitri is just “come on let’s go hurry hurry no slowing down pick up the pace we are saving Claude”, and that’s basically him the entire chapter except with the Arundel specific stuff. When he talks to Claude one on one, there is literally not a single shred whatsoever in any plausible way or in any damn universe any tension from Dimitri to Claude. He just wants to know he’s okay and relaxes once he knows Claude isn’t hurt. I mean literally, no, like... that’s them, in canon, in their Natural Habitat together and I have no fucking clue how the portrayal of them in fanon got so insanely warped beyond recognition.

Also, Engage kinda dropped the ball with a lot of stuff with the other lords. Hell, they’ve been unable to keep Ike’s character consistent throughout all of his non-canon appearances (Awakening didn’t seem too bad, but Fates was pretty awful for example. They can’t seem to really understand the character they’re writing anymore, and idk if it’s just because the writers have changed and such/aren’t the same as Tellius’ games had, or they just don’t care to keep him consistent).

They also try to make Sigurd sound wise and super helpful in every single solitary iteration of him outside of FE4 which is honestly just obnoxious as fuck lmao. Sigurd was naive, foolish, overly trusting, and far too kind and gentle for his own good. It ultimately was what led to him following orders blindly, having blind faith that his king was righteous and would give him the right orders (without realizing the court was very much in disarray during his absence and with several other prominent court figures away because of the war). Sigurd was too quick to believe in the good in humanity and that things would work out, and it led to him not realizing how wrong he was until it was way too late and he had to take shelter in a foreign country to avoid having to fight the same people’s armies who had the court’s ear.

Basically Sigurd is nothing like they write him to be in every. single. solitary. iteration. outside of FE4. 

(SPOILER here just in case you care lol. Or anyone who is reading this. Or if you’re someone who somehow does not know about the biggest known spoiler in the whole game) He has one little section of potential dialogue (i.e. it’s triggered by a very specific condition) that shows somehow ghosty Sigurd has grown more wise and understanding ??? while being dead ??? and somehow learned while being dead that the world do be full of grief and Stuff. (END SPOILER)

So they pretty much took like, two lines of dialogue from FE4 and made it Sigurd’s entire fucking character forever in every single game he’s been in since. If nothing else, let that be your insight on never to trust content you see outside of a character’s original game. At that point it’s simply fanservice because they don’t even know their own characters. If they wanted to write even a semblance of Actual In Game Sigurd’s Personality And Not Two Lines Of Dialogue That Are Completely Optional And Quite Honestly HIDDEN, it would be very easy and reasonable to do so. They choose not to, and then we get what they did with Houses’ lords.

Another portrayal I see too often is that Dimitri and Claude... argue??? I won’t lie, their Heroes summer alts was the very first time they even seemed to “argue”, and it was mostly just goofy nonsense that means nothing because they’re literally alts in swimsuits, and it wasn’t really them being vicious at each other. Meanwhile in canon, they’re always very calm and able to talk through their problems - even in fucking Hopes in the GW route. Even in the worst possible circumstances for them to be in, that is, as enemies, they were still able to talk it through. Barring Claude’s written in idiocy so he could be a mouthpiece for Edelgard and do her bidding by invading the Kingdom (which was literally nothing but plot convenience because Actual Claude would’ve reasoned his way out of doing that), even in the worst possible situation, they still called a truce and still worked things out verbally, calmly and peacefully.

Point being, this whole cat fight dmcl portrayal isn’t even remotely close to their canon selves, and normally I’d say, you know, like what you want and enjoy your ships how you want... but it’s pretty much almost entirely the people who view the ship that way that uh, attack people who don’t agree with them or insult them/laugh at them for seeing the ship differently. These are the people who make you feel bad, for enjoying a fictional ship of two pixelated characters kissing, because you don’t like the concepts in their head more than the way you’ve interpreted the canonical characters.

To be totally frank, I have a visceral hatred for the fanon portrayal of dmcl because it makes Dimitri out to be terrible and makes Claude some kind of punching bag for Dimitri in various forms. There comes a point where it’s like, you ship something and then there’s the point where you ship two characters you made up in your head, who aren’t the same characters you first started to ship, because you’ve warped them so extensively that they became nothing but a person’s OCs with their faces and some similar backstory elements at best.

[shamelessrabbithole]

i love this topic, i’m pretty sure he doesn’t really like his fans cause back then he was more into talking with people on twitter or whatever but with how things ended with shameless fans i think he doesn’t want to repeat that ever again lol he always ended up fighting with people who had opinions on the plot, arcs etc. i remember this one said they didn’t like ian not being caring about mickey crying in s11 and he was very petty saying terry was abusive and you wouldn’t cry about that but adding they did have a softer line that they cut in the episode. that one made me realise he goes very defensive over it cause it was a decent discussion you know? they weren’t about to cut his head off they were just expressing how it seemed ooc and just not exactly something you would do to your other half! and dismissing someone pain bc their abuser was abusive (?!) wasn’t the nicest thing. but what i wanted to say is, im sure as soon as he sees someone is a shameless fan he just goes autopilot. he acts nicely when he has to but you can tell he’s trying hard not to let them cross a line. when he was in germany a fan asked if their photos could have been a meme and they refused (noel and cam) cause it was cam being jealous of the fan being with noel. of course they wanted the picture as a gallavich and not cam/noel thing but it shows how uncomfortable they got with having those fans interact and ask things of the sort. i’ve seen so many actors going for it and do some couple-ish photos even if it’s a same sex couple (or even fanon) the first one that comes to mind are the two from supernatural cause they’re always doing conventions but just like cameron there was one of the two (dean’s actor) that had a phase where he really didn’t like talking about his character only in relationship to his sexuality and his ‘love interest’ to the point fans thought he was homophobic for the longest time!

long story short i think he will need lots of time before he’s okay with seeing fans like people that aren’t going to go nuts over him for something related to a show that ended years ago and had no power on his character story. he also seems to wish to be seen as something more and not stuck to the ‘shameless kid’ so i suppose being asked about favourite shameless quotes over and over might be a pain for him cause he wants to move on and try to make a name for himself that goes beyond that (like he does on ig showing what he wants in certain moments and deleting so he has the control on how he’s perceived as an actor from the outside) and also he’s good looking and knows fans will have parasocial tendencies towards him and that’s surely a way to avoid leading them on when meeting irl. there were fans showing up at events with his shirts on hoping he would comment on that but he did the right thing by saying nothing about it or they would be more delusional (which ive seen happen to others)

i would say that maybe being ‘seen’ by his cool friends as the one who has immature/obsessive fans might make him feel like a loser or just out of place because it ends up with people reaching out to his friends and being awkward. like i enjoy gossip in general but if you think of it. the madison girl, she had her people from the dance world or whatever and never had anyone check on her like cameron fans do (like in this blog) having people take screenshots trying to understand where she is where she will be her family her friends etc. there’s a huge background check being done of her life and all she did was working for him and befriending (or dating, but that’s not the point). we could argue she’s in the industry and all that but wanting to follow your passion as a dancer or being in movies or whatever else doesn’t mean everyone is allowed to just dig and dig into their life and it can be quite upsetting especially if it goes from none to 100 in a go. one thing would be seeing his friends/coworker and thinking hey i’m enjoying what they do they got a new fan! but instead it goes beyond it. we might enjoy it and have a laugh seeing their life and interactions but if you were the one people check on constantly i don’t know if you would dig it? so until he’s gotten ridden of the obsessive kind and make a new type of fans/enjoyers i’m guessing it’s gonna be that way

Sorry, I'm curious. What did you mean by this part: a fan asked if their photos could have been a meme and they refused (noel and cam) cause it was cam being jealous of the fan being with noel. Did the fan want them to hug each other in the pic while they stood off to the side or something?

Also, this: there were fans showing up at events with his shirts on hoping he would comment on that but he did the right thing by saying nothing about it or they would be more delusional (which ive seen happen to others) What have you seen happen to others? Are you talking about other actors who've sold products to their fans?

I disagree with this: i would say that maybe being ‘seen’ by his cool friends as the one who has immature/obsessive fans might make him feel like a loser or just out of place because it ends up with people reaching out to his friends and being awkward. Many of his friends are famous enough that they have fans, huge numbers of them, who attend events in order to meet them and have stan accounts in their honor. Hunter Doohan and Liana Liberato to name a few.

Other than more people watching her stories, how do you know that Madison has any idea she's being investigated? Or that it's upsetting her? the madison girl, she had her people from the dance world or whatever and never had anyone check on her like cameron fans do (like in this blog) having people take screenshots trying to understand where she is where she will be her family her friends etc. there’s a huge background check being done of her life...it can be quite upsetting especially if it goes from none to 100 in a go.

And, finally, if he didn't post Madison at all, he could be dating her quietly for years and years before any of us would've realized it. He shares what he wants to. until he’s gotten ridden of the obsessive kind and make a new type of fans/enjoyers i’m guessing it’s gonna be that way

[velvetporcelain]

Dear Mr. President, do you come in peace?✌️

Today? Hmm. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. I let it go in my poetic manner, that was clear this morning.

I took a hit of my cannabis pen and I called my mother. Luckily I was on speaker phone and I was able to talk to both her and my brother, in hopes to connect them by showing them the unrealized ideas that they share between them!

Unrealized idea. Such a solid word set. Everything in us is unrealized isn’t it? So are we experiencing ourselves through life or are we experiencing life through ourselves via unrealized ideas.

Ideas come to realization with life experiences and knowledge. And I’m convinced we know nothing and everything is simply a hypothesis.

You know a sheer top can make you hotter than a regular top. Hotter in body temperature. The fabric is almost unbreathable it’s so tight knit. 🧶 I paired it with these aura blue velvet overalls and I feel bitchin. 👀💕 random, but necessary.

Lots of unrealized ideas going in to fruition today. Did I say that right? - anyways, again I do not feel hung up on old emotions, proving that my mentality is becoming wiser. I was able to see all the unrealized ideas in those past experiences or emotions. I think that is the entire point of memory. It’s some clue to the game of life.

This is in fact a change you can feel. A pattern, balancing love and war all while trying to find peace. You are the peace. You can’t find it and never will because you are full of unrealized ideas that balance love and war—- which IS peace. This is what we should be showing children how to do. NOW. establish themselves as peaceful beings.

Which reminds me what a close friend had said to me about JFK’s infamous quote in our many deep chats-

“Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you could do for your country”

And that really set some mechanical steam in my broiler type brain. Aren’t they suppose to serve the people? — ha anyways I think it should be modernized and more according the times. Like- like-

Do you see what we are/were doing for the country Mr. Kennedy? Are you guys so caught up in taking and eye for and eye that you’re all up there blind as fuck? How dare Mr. President. 🥺

Or - or-

“Ask not what your mind can do for you- ask what you could do for your mind” to make it a more interpersonal experience. Because what is the country doing for us? I will tell you- its fertility is beyond measures so it provides us sustenance. Its natural growing trees provides and automatic air filtration system but we seem to keep killing them to build big mansions in the white suburbs. Oh- and also it provides multiple seas, rivers, oceans, animal life, plant life. The government is not our country Mr. President.

So Mr. Kennedy- what the fuck are you gonna do for the country?

Still has the basics of establishing some mind fucking quality to it. But people were too arrogantly stuck in their victim mentality’s to smell the stupidity in this quote. No wonder people hated Kennedy. He was just doing cocaine and getting blow jobs from the hottest blonde in 1960s booming Hollywood. No big deal.

Wow. How realizing this journal entry has been. I love seeing where my mind takes me and I’m not boring my mother with talks about the war and government. She likes talking about womanly house pressure and psychosis. 😆 I get it, gossiping on the phone while filing my nails and telling my kids to scram- mommy is on the phone type vibe is how I always invisible a woman. It’s what we do best. Again, women are messengers. ���

I tried applying this idiotic quote to nearly everything in my life. It has tremendous perspective. It forces you to ask yourself questions you wouldn’t even think to ask. Or or view things in a way you’ve been trying to force yourself to view things. No, applying this ideology to people who struggle with lower level decision making can really help them feel like they have a choice in all there matters, and start to feel more and more in control of things, in control of their thoughts, control of their lives.

You know my thoughts on control in general. The control would only be an illusion because the mind learns to start truly regulating it self which looks and feels very much like control. Allowing ourselves to forgive ourselves when we try to control anything and the outcome does not feel very victorious, we label that as a failure, when in fact it is simply us just trying to control something. It triggers our inner child into unfairness, and Hines sight becomes salt in the wound, we start to dig ourselves a deep valley that eventually we begin to thrive from, never realizing we are surviving in the pit, aka self pity, self sabotage, rage, negativity. This can certainly be avoiding with practice.

You will find what is right for you, I don’t know if the strength really comes from the struggle, I am a bit fascinated on the struggle. I want to learn from it so badly that I put myself in idiotic and impulsive situations. Sadistic struggle but like emotionally. Am I addicted to the power that the struggle seems to give me? And it only becomes a strength if I use it in pure way, like love, understanding, patience, kindness, empathy, nurture, compassion. You can not abuse this power. Our government uses it for evil, muahaha——😆 don’t be like them when you grow up, please god be a doctor and make your mom happy. 😂

I told myself I was going to really commit to myself. And I am so proud of the progress I had made almost immediately. I was not afraid to be completely alone with myself and recognize all my unrealized ideas. I have really held myself accountable. There are things that I have done again like smoking cigarettes, and I realize maybe it gives me that laying in my own valley knowing exactly where I am at, and knowing exactly what the consequences are, and for some god damn reason I’m okay with laying in the valley right now.

I’ll run when it catches fire. 🔥

-x

[mci-writing]

Ghosty Ghostly Hauntings (Ghost!Midoriya Izuku x Reader)

Warnings: Smut, like full on sex smut; ghost!Midoriya x human!reader; heavily implied no quirk AU; uhhh Midoriya is dead? But like, there’s no explicit mention of how he died or any violence; Dom!Deku; they don’t know each other that well when they have sex; only partially proof read tbh

The quiet of your new room has your head pounding, thoughts of the past few hours keeping you wide awake. You’ve twisted and turned under the warmth of your comforter almost thousands of times, taking a moment to lay on each of your sides before deciding that those weren’t enough to keep you comfortable. Eventually, you fall back to the center of your bed with an exasperated sigh, “This isn’t working…”

Your wandering mind makes it pretty obvious why you can’t sleep, your senses heightened to a thousand and making you feel every single thing. You feel every thread and every bit of fuzz on your comforter. Your nose inhales every particle in the air, varying smells mixing with the few small portions of dust still lingering from moving in . The rays from the moon feel brighter than normal against your skin and the natural chill of the house contrasts the light in an uncomfortable way that you’re unable to ignore. Whether or not it’s the origin of your discomfort is beyond you, but it doesn’t take a genius to know it’s part of the reason why you can’t sleep. It could also be because you’re living in a new place, a big and old family home that had been abandoned for a couple years before you had initially bought and moved in.

It was already getting harder to make rent at your old apartment with the pay you had received from your job, but it became incredibly more difficult after being let off from said job. In time, you left and bounced from apartment to apartment before finally finding and settling with your new place that cost practically nothing.

Okay, practically nothing is a bit of a slight exaggeration. I mean, I’d say buying a jiko bukken (stigmatized property) for practically nothing at all is pretty fair when the tenant before you died in an unknown way and the house had become known for the supernatural happenings around it. Practically free house at the cost of a plausible, HEAVILY plausible roommate sounds pretty fair. Pretty, preeeeeetty fair, in my opinion.

You learned a few things about the house from the house’s seller, who was the original tenant’s childhood friend. His name was Bakugou Katsuki and he was… very rough around the edges. Kind of a bit of a prick, and you couldn’t tell if it was from his potential mourning or if he was just an asshole. You really wouldn’t be surprised if he was just an asshole, though…

The guy who owned the place before you was Midoriya Izuku, who inherited the home from his late mother. He was a “major fucking nerd”, quoting Bakugou, and had a lot of comic book memorabilia stored away in a corner of the home’s basement (more specifically of the hero All Might). A lot of the information you had received was conflicting, mostly through Bakugou’s colorful use of adjectives, but it was enough to paint the picture of a relatively good guy that seemed a little lonely in his final years. The loneliness idea is more of an assumption, seeing as how the few things still set up in the house belonged only to Midoriya and Bakugou never really brought up anyone else when you asked about people living there before you.

Speaking of Bakugou, the house was initially left in his hands, but he damn sure didn’t want it. Asking him why he didn’t want it and why he was practically giving it away is a bit of a sensitive subject. He explained that he didn’t want to keep the place due to all the memories associated and it would’ve been easier to just give the place away (and “Not because I’m fucking afraid of any damn ghosts!”). His words are a little more than jarring after hearing him refer to Midoriya as “Deku” when he doesn’t catch himself and the look his ruby eyes held anytime the two of you came across any of the guy’s old stuff only tell a story you’re probably not going to be told too soon.

Thinking about it all only made your head swirl in muddled ignorance, so you tried to avoid doing that. It managed to get you through most of the day while you focused on putting away your things after Bakugou had finally left.

Or, you did stop thinking about it until you actually ran into the tenant that lived there before you while you were trying to familiarize yourself with your new place…

You were initially a little bewildered to see the face of someone that you’ve been told is supposed to be dead floating past you in a seemingly supernatural glow. He didn’t notice you at first, seemingly muttering to himself as he floated from door to door and room to room, so you decided to ignore that and distracted yourself further into setting up your things. You acknowledged the confirmation of your actual, dead roommate and just kept on trucking.

The next time you came across him had you a little more curious, especially since you were mostly done with unpacking. He’s once again muttering to himself as he floats about the golden beige colored halls, not minding his surroundings. He never bothered to look where he was going, seemingly knowing where he was at all times. There was also this slight chill that would fill the room each time he was near, which only alerted you to his presence more.

“H-Hey,” The first time you called out to him had surprised you, not expecting the words to spill from between your lips. He doesn’t seem to hear you, though. You take in a deep breath, pushing the air out through your nose before you speak up louder than the first, “Hey, you!”

He pipes up at the call, freezing in place from how startled it made him. He slowly turns around to face you, seemingly shivering from head to floating toe, “Y-You…,” Your (e/c) eyes meet frazzled, emerald orbs, “Y-You’re… You’re a…,” He was only stuck for a moment, his cheeks growing a bright tone as he stood there, before he eventually jumped in acknowledged surprise that you were actually there and that he definitely wasn’t imagining you. He faded in and out before you in his ghostly glow, a shade of emerald green matching his eyes and a bright red filling the lost color of his face. It was almost like a mixed up glow stick that was losing its glowy liquidy stuff, “Human!”

It was almost like looking at a slightly altered alarm, flashing in a way that made you cover your eyes and flinch away. It takes it a moment to really dim down, but that doesn’t stop the frantic mutterings he made. His voice wasn’t severely altered like many movies make it out to be. There were no high pitched squeals or low groans many would expect a ghost to make like they do in the movies, but it was all jumbling together as he had tried to process the new information, which only made you suspect that maybe he didn’t initially know that he would be accompanied by a new housemate.

“Midoriya,” You attempted to call in hopes of plausibly grounding him into the situation, but the sound only flew over his head as the intensity of his rambling continued. You tried again a little louder, your hand now lowered, since the blinding light had faded, and stepped closer to the specter, “Midoriya! Midoriya Izuku!”

“Does that mean that Kacchan-,” Without much thought, you reached out and touched his shoulders, managing to feel something when your fingers didn’t phase through his form. You pulled him close to you, unintentionally getting lost in the light in his green eyes. They held more life than you’d expected them to, swirling with different shades of jade-filled emotion. They widened at the motion, obviously caught off-guard by it, but he didn’t pull away.

The close proximity doesn’t go unnoticed, but you found it hard to pull away, even if the apparition had quieted his mumbling out of surprise of the situation at the time. His cheeks had lit up once again, though in a warmer and more welcoming fashion as opposed to the earlier lightshow. He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing almost as if he were still alive, and he was a little more than speechless with how things were playing out. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, causing your eyes to flit down to his lips, a scene from a series you had recently read prior to the move came to your mind. The protagonist had more than happily kissed the ghost living in his new apartment purely out of curiosity (and because he’d also read about it in a manga series) and you’d suddenly had the urge to find out what the lips of a ghost would feel like.

When your eyes flit back up to his, they’re seemingly just as entranced with the whole thing. They glowed in confused anticipation, which only urged you to make your next move of taking a closer step and closing the small distance between the two of you. He tensed up against you, a strange warmth growing against the cold of his form as he began to process the unexpected action you’d enacted. If you were a mind reader, all the jumbled thoughts that seared through his mind would cause you psychic damage.

Just as you were about to pull away, he reciprocated the kiss, moving his lips against yours. They’re cold, as you would expect them to be, yet the softness of them held such an unexpected warmth that the cold seemed to disappear as soon as it came. It’s a little inexperienced for both of you, especially because you’d never kissed a ghost before this and he’d never kissed a human as a ghost prior to this either, but it left you feeling a little dizzy.

“Sorry, but I had to stop your rambling somehow,” You tease after you gain your bearings, a small smile playing along your lips as you take a small step away from him, “Nice to meet you, Midoriya. I’m the new owner of your home, (L/n) (Y/n). Please take care of me.”

After that encounter, you got to know him throughout the day. You learned more about his small obsession with comic book heroes and super powers, how he’d initially been living in the house by himself before his death, and his relationship with Bakugou, who he called Kacchan with the excitement of someone looking up to their idol. You explained your interests to him, explained why you’d decided to purchase a house with the knowledge of a plausible ghost, and apologized for the surprise kiss you’d laid on him. He’d been a bigger help in settling you in and you were even more comfortable with your new living situation by the time you’d decided to take a shower that night.

The afterimage of your otherworldly roommate glowing like a firecracker spontaneously pops into your brain like popcorn kernels, the kiss itself replaying over and over like a never ending movie. You feel a wave of embarrassment wash over you, which you hadn’t felt when the kiss had originally happened. It’s like the secondhand embarrassment you’d feel for anyone else, except a little more personal and a lot less vicarious.

Your hands move on their own as they lift your pillow out from under you and shove the plush material against your face. It’s not enough to suffocate you, but it’s enough to shield yourself from the circumstances for a moment. At least now you can say there’s more to your insomnia tonight than the exciting buzzing of your nerves from being in a new place.

You roll over onto your stomach, sighing as you lift your face from the pillow, “I’m not getting anywhere like this…”

You sit up and decide that maybe a small walk and glass of water will calm your nerves enough to send you to sleep, but then you see it… One of the few things you hadn’t unpacked, a box with some special things inside.

You weigh your options in your head, tilting it as you think about your options. You could just rummage through the box, pick out one of your self-gratifying devices, and go to town long enough to wear yourself out, but there was the plausibility of having your new ghost roomie see all your goods on display while you pleasured yourself. Technically, Midoriya has very well had the plausibility of seeing such your naked body a few times today, but he didn’t necessarily seem like the type to peak, so you’ve assumed, but there was also the slim chance that he could very well be a peeping tom and has just been really cool about it.

After the initial kiss between the two of you, he seemed to calm down… Okay, maybe not immediately after, since he was very frazzled once the debacle was over. If someone could die twice, he definitely would’ve been deader.

Once the shock and flustered rambling brushed over, he was more open to speak with you and properly introduce himself. His cheeks had still held a red tint to them, but now they weren’t completely covering the honeydew in his cheeks or the small confidence beyond his jade eyes. His face was sun-kissed and covered in varying freckles, but you had been unable to tell how far down they’d go. You found him relatively cute for a dead guy, and he was gentlemanly enough to float from your room after you’d walked in when your shower was over wearing nothing but a towel for decency.

Even if Midoriya did happen to see, you were in the privacy of your own room and you doubted he’d be brave enough to actually help you let alone make his presence known. With that final bit of self-reassurance, you pulled out a toy, like countless other lonely nights.

You lay back and get comfortable, closing your eyes as your handles fondle at your own breasts. You sigh through your nose, giving them an encouraging squeeze before lifting your thumbs to flick your nipples. They erect with time, giving your fingers something else to focus your attention on.

The touching alone isn’t enough. Your eyebrows scrunch as you try to focus on something, the incident from earlier being the first thing to come to mind.

You allow it to play out as it originally had, the image of the innocent kiss seemingly staring back at you in your brain. This kiss, however, is less awkward and holds more to it. Midoriya’s scared hands find their places against you, one cupping your cheek and pulling you forward to deepen the kiss while the other finds its way to your waist. He presses your body flush against his, the kiss growing a little wetter and a little sloppier.

Your hand eases down to rub at your clit, the area starting to dampen. It’s not enough. You let your boob go, reaching into your sex box and rummaging around it for whatever shape interests you. Just as you grab hold of the toy, a familiar cool sensation comes over the room.

“(L/n)?,” You quickly sit up, covering yourself with the blanket, and find Midoriya floating in your doorway. There’s a concerned look on his face as he drifts in more, his head tilted by the time he stands beside your bed, “Why are you still awake? It’s getting pretty late, isn’t it?”

Your grip on your blanket tightens, your eyes trailing to glance at your window as you think about how to explain yourself. Technically, you were just suffering from some small insomnia, but you were just about to exhaust yourself by masturbating. The worst case scenario seemed like it was playing out before you and you were starting to really regret your decision.

Midoriya takes note of your silence, only growing more confused when a flushed hue comes to your face as the silence thickens between the two of you. He looks you over, taking notice of how the straps of your tank top were hanging loosely off of your shoulders. Your appearance made it obvious you had been tossing and turning, your (e/c) eyes holding both an exhausted look while being wide awake. He nods to himself, touching your shoulder to regain your attention as he speaks, “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“Y-Yeah…!” His cold hand makes you straighten, cooling your warmth skin and seemingly drawing you in. You stop yourself from pressing into his touch, growing even more embarrassed, “I-I was just going to… tire myself out a little…”

Your phrasing leaves Midoriya a little confused. He thinks over what you mean very hard, his facial expressions only making you want to bury yourself, until his eyes widen in realization for a moment. The realization turns into a look of dumbfoundedness, then followed by a bright blush filling the color of his face. Had he still been alive, you’re positive his hand on your shoulder would have burned instead of being as chilling as it was now.

“I’m so sorry!,” He falls to his knees beside you, bowing over and over as he continues to profusely apologize, “I didn’t realize you were- I-I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay! I swear I didn’t see anything and I just wanted to see if you needed anything, I promise-”

His rambling would be an adorably funny mess had this been any other situation, but it’s only making you feel a little bad for admitting he was kind of interrupting your personal time. You take in a deep breath, calming a bit of your earlier mortification. Your hand releases your blanket as you turn to face him better, resting a hand on his shoulder and running another through his curls to ease him back down. His emerald orbs meet your (e/c) ones, his face now a flushed red as his murmurings die down, “It’s alright, Midoriya. You had no idea what was going on. I’m not mad…”

“Ah-,”

“Just a little embarrassed,” You admit with a small smile, pulling away from him and leaning your side against your headboard.

You contemplate another solution to plausibly tiring yourself out, thinking back to your original plan of maybe walking down to the kitchen and making yourself a glass of water or something. The trip could help you calm your mind a little…

“I… Um… I could help tire you out…,” Midoriya speaks up, a little quiet but loud enough for the words to linger in the air. He freezes up when he has your full attention again, fearing that his eyes will linger down to the dip in your shirt and give him a full eye of cleavage once more. He decides to avert his eyes as he explains, growing hot under the attentiveness he was receiving, “I-I mean, I did say I would t-take care of you e-earlier a-and it is my fault you didn’t get to finish… It’s only fair I make it up to you, right? And take responsibility.”

His voice grows confident the more he speaks, determined and shameless by the end of it. He’s soon standing over you, a look in his eyes you're unfamiliar with from him. It makes you shiver, especially when his eyes look you over and undress you. They begin to glow a little, shining even brighter in the darkness, and you feel a little more self-conscious.

“R-Responsibility?” Your voice cracks a little when you finally manage to say anything, which he finds amusing. He nods, but he doesn’t make a move forward, very much waiting for your consent to anything before he does anything.

You did find him attractive, in a ghost roommate you just met kind of way, so you weren’t exactly opposed. You were also still slicked up, even after he had just walked in on you trying to touch yourself.

“T-Then, it is only fair, right?” He presses his lips against yours again, leading you to lay back against your bed. One of his hands lifts your thigh as he gets between them, caressing the skin with light touches. His other hand immediately moves to fondle your breast, giving the flesh a soft squeeze as he pulls away from the kiss.

He takes a moment to really take your appearance in, noting the way your breath becomes uneven and your skin flushes under his caresses, knowing that there’s no guarantee he’ll see this sight at his own hands again. Your nipples proudly strain against your top and he can feel the warmth radiating from your pussylips through your panties.

He phases his hand through your tank top, giving your tit another, testing squeeze. He enjoys the way it makes you shiver, lightly tugging on the mound a few times to draw more heavy breaths from you. He lets it go, not missing the disappointed look that flashes through your eyes when he does, before thumbing and circling at your erect nipples. His naturally cold fingers enhance the feeling, making your already sensitive body feel him playing with you more. He flicks and nudges, observing the small twitches and changes in your face.

His knee nudges against your clothes lower lips, grinding into the mound as he continues to tease at your nipple. You close your eyes, softly mewling from his ministrations, only to open them when his lips wrap around your other nipple. His tongue darts at the bud a few times, rolling it around before he lightly tugs it between his teeth. At the same time, his index finger and thumb have started tugging at the other one, neither being tugged and prodded at the same time.

“M-Midoriya,” You softly call, your hips pressing down against his leg and meeting the grinding he’s giving. It’s not enough to satiate the need, but it’s better than nothing at all. Your fingers reach up to run through his green curls again, raking and lightly tugging with each tug he makes to your nipples.

He smiles against the bud as you start to make more little moans, pulling away at the sound of his name. When you stare up at him, there’s a slight daze to them as they plead for him to do more. He moves his knee, his free hand moving to rub your folds through your panties. He makes an amused sound as he feels you drip past the fabric. He leans forward again, pressing stray, cold kisses along the warm skin of your neck.

“Call me Izuku, (Y/n),” He mumbles once he reaches your ear, the cold air making you shiver more. The sudden shift from earlier is almost unfair to you, but you're unable to complain when he’s already making you feel good. His fingers ghost over your clit a few times, “Come on, just try it, please?”

“Izuku…,” His first name rolls off of your tongue in a small whine. His hand moves away from your breast, lifting your other thigh and caging his body between them. His other hand phases through your panties, his cool fingers pressing directly against your clit before gathering your arousal and rubbing it against your slit, “Ah, Izuku!~”

The noise you make startles you, but you’re unable to dwell on it as he continues to rub your arousal against your swollen clit, starting out rather slow before slowly speeding his finger up over time. His eyes keep note of your face, keeping eye contact with you as he edges you closer and closer to the edge. Each soft inhale or noise guides his fingers and their movement, ensuring to run them along the small slit of your clit to hear your voice raise in height. His hand does ease back to your nipple, fingers teasing at the bud and drawing more cries from you.

“You’re close, right?” He mumbles once you begin approaching your high, prompting you to only nod in fear you wouldn’t be able to voice your response. A small smile graces his features at the confirmation, his head leaning down to press a reassuring peck to your lips before burying his face in your neck. Your breath hitches as you feel the high begin to rush over you, your back arching and your lower body presses and grinds more into his hand in an attempt to reach it faster. You hold your breath, the coils coming undone when his low words make their way to your ears, “Cum, then.”

As you come down from your high, he grabs your thighs as he eases between your legs, emerald eyes honed in and focused on the area. You feel your cheeks warm from the attention once you realize and you fight the urge to close your legs. You avert your eyes as another gush of arousal fills your lower abdomen from the contrasting temperature of his cold hands grasping your warm skin. You feel your arousal pool and drip past your panties, all of it on display for Izuku.

A firm squeeze brings your attention back to in front of you, determined eyes staring back at you. He presses your legs to lay against your body, keeping eye contact as he eases lower down. He presses a small kiss to your thigh, leaning forward and darting his tongue out to lick against your clothed lower lips. The feeling is foreign, but not unwelcomed as your hips buck into his touch from the sensitivity of having already orgasmed. His tongue runs over your clothed lower lips again and again, urging embarrassed whines from your lips as he spreads and smears your arousal against your twitching pussylips. You give a small cry of his name once he starts prodding at your clit.

When he pulls away, his chin is glowing brightly and dripping from the arousal and his saliva. His eyes begin to glow like earlier, emerald eyes glazed over as he looks your folds over. Your panties stick and trace your lower lips, showing him each twitch and pulse they make. His eyes slowly trace over your body before he meets your (e/c) eyes again, his hands giving your thighs another squeeze to ground you back down. He quietly states, “I won’t be able to restrain myself from fucking you if you don’t stop me now…”

He sits up, a noticeable bulge pressing against your folds. When you glance down, in all of its ghostly glory, his cock is laying over your lips, perfectly sandwiched between them. It glistens, already covered in precum, and glows a light green that contrasts with the tufts of curly pubic hair. A few, faint freckles are highlighted by the glow of, what you assume to be, ectoplasm and it curves upwards. His hips press him against you, each slight movement moving the base of his cock against your clit and stimulating you enough to tease.

“Fuck me…,” You manage out, making eye contact as your throat goes dry. You wet your lips with your tongue before speaking up again, attempting to sound a little more determined as you press your lower body more against his, “Please, fuck me, Izuku.”

He doesn’t need to hear it again, spreading your thighs as he pulls his hips back, thrusting them over your pulsing pussylips a few times to gather your wetness along his base. When he deems it enough, he aligns the tip with your entrance, pressing the head inside in a testing thrust before pulling out again. You whine at the small stretch, wanting more of him inside.

He slowly presses back in, pushing in halfway before inching to ease back out, but your leg wraps around his waist before he can leave you empty again. Your lips quirk into a pout as you tug him closer with your leg, managing to get a little bit of him back inside. He gasps at the bold move, getting the message and pressing the rest of his cock inside of him. He naturally hits deep from his size alone, prompting a moan from you, louder than your previous mewls. He groans from the tight squeeze of your velvety walls, the tightness making it hard for him to pull his hips back.

Izuku places a hand over your head as he begins getting into a rhythm, starting out a little slow and sloppy as he tries to set a pace. He picks up the pace after a while, each thrust causing his abdomen to rub against your clit and stimulate the spot. Each drag of his hips ends with the tip of his cock pressing deep inside of you, grazing your g-spot and pulling moans from you that even some of your higher quality dildos couldn’t get from you.

He’s not shy in pressing kisses to different parts of your skin, caressing here and there as he continues to take note of your reactions. The squeeze of your walls make it hard for him to focus, the slick of your arousal mixed with his spit and precum making loud squelching noises each time his cock sinks inside of you. He ensures he’s deep with each thrust, making sure to go deeper and deeper with each request you call out.

Your fingers grip your sheets under you as you try to ground yourself, the pleasure teetering you in and out of consciousness as Izuku’s hips continue to rock deeper and deeper inside of you, each of you becoming more and more engrossed with each other. All you can really see is Izuku, eyes opened or closed, green eyes staring down at you in deep concentration as a green light encases the both of you. He has high stamina for a ghost, managing to draw numerous orgasms from you before finally starting to reach his own high. You can’t tell if the stamina is from already being dead or if it’s an attribute that carried over from his living days. You’re too fucked out to care.

As his thrusts begin to grow more erratic and heavy, you’re unable to stop yourself from wrapping your arms around his neck and tugging him deeper inside with your other leg, latching on to him as you trap his hips against yours. He gets less and less of his cock out, his hand messily moving between you both and rubbing at your clit to speed up your release. He tries holding back, not wanting to cum before he can finish you off again, but you keep sucking him back in deeper and deeper in just the right way.

Your lips connect as he nestles his hips deep inside of you and cums, his release heavy and filling you enough to overflow and drip onto your bed. He swallows your moans as his release prompts another from your, coating his thumb as he continues to thumb at your clit. He ensures to ride your releases, keeping his dick buried inside of you even when he pulls away from your lips.

Your chest heaves as you regain your breath, Izuku sitting still inside of you while he looks your body over. He presses his cool hands against your skin, this time trying to cool you down rather than warm you up. He’s careful once he does pull out, softly caressing your skin and mumbling small little nothings as you begin to doze off in his hold.

~~~~~

The sun’s rays pour into your room the next morning, tugging you awake. You groan as you sit up and yawn, a soreness between your thighs reminding you of the prior night’s experience.

You first notice the sheets on your bed, which are now a very different set than the ones you’d put on yesterday. Another difference is the robe adorning your body, which is very much not yours. It’s plush, but not obnoxiously so, and it’s a dark green color with black accents.

The next thing to catch your attention was a sweet aroma coming from downstairs. Out of curiosity, you make your way to the kitchen to find a certain specter floating about.

“Izuku?,” His movements cease, a plate resting in his hands with a few soufflé pancakes and rolled omelets on the side.

“Good morning, (Y/n),” He turns around, a small smile on his face as he sets the plate down on the table as he passes it to get to you, “Did you sleep okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Your face warms as he leads you to the table, helping you get seated. You take a bite, your face lighting up at the taste, “These taste great!”

The two of you continue peacefully conversing like that, joking around and letting the time pass. For the first time in a while, you’re not worried and you even feel a calmness wash over you.

Yeah, you’re sure this arrangement is going to be just fine…

[codenamesazanka]

I feel like I can’t stress enough how important Spinner is to the ‘My Villain Academia’ arc, and how badly I need BONES to give him the attention and care in portraying him that he deserves. BONES have been pretty faithful to the manga, they’ve followed the story and brought each scene on the page to the screen... Except for some reason not when it comes to the Villains. Maybe it’s because arguably the Villains wasn’t the focal point of the show and they weren’t what most viewers watched the show to see; fine, but that was the case in the beginning and no longer.

Shigaraki Tomura, his exploits, his character, his story *is* the manga: the Heroes and protag react mainly to him and his actions, his past and motivations is one of the main factors that caused the current central conflict, and resolving his character arc is what will probably bring the whole series - to its end or near end. Yeah, imo I argue that everything about him moves the plot along.

Unfortunately(?), I think Horikoshi-sensei realized/decided/planned this a bit too late in his pacing. He said himself during the Stain arc or so that at first, he wasn’t planning on doing villain profiles - he wanted the villains to be scary.

But for the time being, I have no intention of writing about [the villains]. I do the introductions because l personally like those sorts of behind-the-scenes things, and also because I want my readers to feel a connection to the characters. But with villains, I decided I can't have them too likable. They're supposed to be terrifying.

Often it’s what we don’t know/understand/predict/expect (and therefore can’t get a grasp on) that makes things scary/uncomfortable/dislikable. The Villains were strange, seemingly erratic and incomprehensible in their behavior and motivations, malicious without rhyme or reason. Even now, I think a lot of people still think they’re just ‘completely evil crazy psychopaths’.

Anyways, the quote from him is from Volume 7. A whole bunch of volumes later in Vol. 23, he decided nvm: “The story has evolved beyond that point, so I'm ready to start doing villain profiles.” As he said himself, the profiles are to help the readers connect with the characters, make them relatable and likable. That’s what My Villain Academia is all about in the meta sense - to demystify Shigaraki Tomura and his ragtag chaos friends, to give them depth, and to induce interest in their stories, if not sympathy. Hype them up for the rather major roles they play in this ‘final arc’ of the series.

Enter Spinner, the lizard ninja guy.

Besides his unusual looks, Spinner is really, truly nothing special. He’s got a weak quirk, he holds no title of being the strongest or smartest or whatever member of the League, he’s not related by blood or thematically to any major players in the main conflicts, and his ‘tragic’ backstory is completely mundane compared to his allies - he was bullied as a child, and so is fueled by resentment. In the events leading up to the start of the arc, Spinner is the most moral and understandable of the Villains - has a ‘good’ reason for his crimes (eradicate corrupted Heroes), has standards on who he’s willing to fight (questions attacking the police and anyone with a ‘true heroic spirit’), and wants a concrete game plan instead of aimless discord the rest of the League seems alright with.

Once the arc starts, we immediately learn the basics of his character - he’s got a heteromorph quirk that makes his appearance a humanoid gecko and it’s something he was born with that he can’t control, and yet he faces discrimination from literal KKK-type cultists who refuse to see him as human. This was more or less his life in his small, rural hometown, harsh enough that his heart had become ‘completely empty’. It’s simple, it’s relatable and an realistic analogy anyone who has faced prejudice and harassment and been hurt by it can understand.

All this is so Spinner ends up being the most normal and typical sympathetic of the League of Villains, which sets him up to be a sort of ‘gateway Villain’. It’s why he’s narrator. He doesn’t understand at all the crazy All For One shenanigans, he’s thinks Shigaraki is an incompetent weirdo, and he asks what we were all thinking: “Shigaraki Tomura, what the fuck are you doing.” Quite obviously, Spinner’s meant the audience surrogate and so he is. That being a core of the way the story of My Villain Academia is told means it needs be followed by the anime adaption.

This core sets up the rest of the arc - sets up how we will come to view Shigaraki Tomura and his backstory, alongside the rest of the League Villains, their relationships and dynamics with each other, and who they are at heart. Shigaraki’s telling of his distorted origins in Chapter 222 is horrifying as it is already; but it’s Spinner’s worried-facial-expressions reactions littered throughout the chapter that adds to it by telling us one major thing: Spinner’s an empathetic guy, because he immediately feels a kindred spirit with Shigaraki when the latter talks about the hollowness he feels. So begins the audience surrogate’s change of opinion and us readers going along with it, and also: that Shigaraki Tomura now has Spinner’s concern and attention - and is deserving of it.

Pardon the sudden heavily edited quote, but CS Lewis says,

Friendship arises...when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common...which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique [burden]. The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." ...And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.

That’s almost word for word Spinner in that moment, suddenly realizing he’s no longer as alone as he thought. He’s no longer as alone, and this means perhaps neither should Shigaraki. Because established in that very chapter, too, is the hate in Shigaraki’s heart fueled by his grief and despair, the loss of his family, past, and faith in others, his misery of thinking he’ll never feel good again. Yet - there’s Spinner, willing to extend some empathy and care, the very antidote to all that Shigaraki had revealed. Because the desire for companionship (or at least the lessening of the pain of loneliness) is universal, even among villains - maybe especially among these villains - we probably love to see it. Want to see it.

On that basis - friendship borne out of empathy - Spinner puts his faith his leader, puts his trust and support, and the rest of the arc is us following the tension of whether he was right to do so. Whether Shigaraki would live up to what Spinner expects of him, whether Spinner will side with Shigaraki despite their earlier conflict. Whether they could become friends, or something like that. And once they do, the consequences of this as things spiral more and more out of control, beyond this arc - that Spinner would know Shigaraki well enough to do something crucial at the turn of a battle later, that Spinner would stick by Shigaraki’s side when he’s in danger, that Spinner is loyal enough to Shigaraki to help him as a friend should.

Through Spinner, we come to see Shigaraki, originally incomprehensible and terrifying, as someone beyond a Villain or a leader, but rather someone valued as a person, a friend, a fellow silly gamer nerd. He’s still scary, of course - just less so, with a seed of doubt of his doom that Spinner - and only Spinner, by virtue of his specific narrative and emotional role in this arc - planted in their characters and the story.

It’s because of Spinner that MVA works, by itself, and as a stepping stone towards the rest of the series. So he really needs to be everything he is, was, and more in the anime adaption please BONES oh my god please

[the-ghost-king]

About the cupid scene, Nico was forced to come out, but its also made very clear that Cupid is the bad guy. So is Aphrodite to an extent. They have a twisted and fundamental misunderstanding of love and how it works for mortals. I get that people could be mad about how Nico was forced to come out and putting him through more emotional trauma, but I also think its very realistic in showing how callous and cruel the gods understanding of love is.

I am reminded of the quote by Madeline Miller, "There is no law that gods must be fair..."

I also understand why the scene might be traumatic for other young LGBTQ+ readers, I've seen a lot of people talk about the fear of being outed in regards to them reading that scene as a kid. I completely respect their feelings on that, and I understand that as well. However, as someone who had been forcibly outed once before reading that scene, that scene really helped heal me. I don't think the Cupid scene is inherently homophobic, and I'm often bothered by the lack of nuance regarding around how it's handled.

I recognize it's a very emotional scene, and that people may have a hard time fully separating their emotions from that scene, but at the same time if there's a group of people saying "hey I understand why you disliked this scene but it was really helpful to me as a child because of the different experiences I had" maybe slow the breaks and hear what others also in the community have to say before determining if the scene is homophobic. You don't have to like the scene, and yeah maybe the scene did hurt you but that doesn't make it homophobic.

I want to specify on my word choice there a little closer, because of course outing someone is an act of homophobia, and the scene is homophobic in that sense. However often times the conversation about homophobia in this scene goes to "Rick was homophobic for writing this" where personally I would say this scene toes the line at being too far without ever crossing it. Some people may think this depiction crosses the line into "Rick was homophobic for writing this" which is fine, but just because something depicted homophobia and hurt you doesn't mean it was homophobic. Something doesn't have to out rightly be stated to be bad, in order to be read as bad*, and the Cupid scene does a wonderful job of depicting this.

I talk here about how Nico is shown what love is, and how love is treated by Nico, and how it affects his character. I think it's important to note that Nico's entire storyline can essentially be encompassed in an Orpheus-like or Odyssey-like tale. Nico's undergone this huge emotional and physical labor all in the name of having some form of unconditional love. I think that post is a really important read in the context of this one because I very carefully outline how love shapes Nico and how Nico shape and chooses his own definition of love, but I want to specifically dig into the Cupid scene on this post.

The big criticism often seen is "it's homophobic" which I covered above, and I want to clarify I'm not upset with or mad at or trying to tell anyone they can't dislike it or even say you can't say it's homophobic (my words on my one post are a bit off I'll admit) but the problem I have is when people believe they hold a moral high ground for thinking it's homophobic, or they remove all nuance from the discussion with "it's homophobic". Which is frustrating and annoying because it's a very complex scene, and it really changes Nico's arc and personality and it does help characterize him.

The big reason it shapes him so much is because of the other largest reason the scene is criticized, Cupid's behavior. What often fails to be recognized in those scenes is that Cupid is intentionally painted as the villain, this is very important to the scene.

In the context of this scene Nico makes an unspoken choice, a choice of "what is love to me?". I talk about how Nico claims his narrative in BoTL when he overcomes Minos, and he partially peaks that arc by convincing Gods to join the final battle of TLO. Following that arc however, Nico falls into his second arc, his crush on Percy was important in PJO, but not as important as it is in HoO.

By HoO Nico's entire character revolves around Percy, how to help Percy, how to aid Percy, etc. All of this has to do with Nico's crush on Percy, but also as an act of repayment because Nico hurt Percy- Nico lied to him about knowing him at New Rome in SoN, and he goes to Tartarus shortly after... This mirrors what Percy did after Hades tricked Nico... Percy choked Nico because he was upset with him, so Nico tried to win back Percy's affection by bathing him in the river.

The Cupid Scene is the resolution of Nico's arc, he is essentially given a choice- Cupid or Jason?

For this reason, we do see Nico recognize love for what it has been vs how it could be.

Cupid is there to represent what love is, to Nico love is brutal, and painful, and a lot of hard work... Nico has made himself utilitarian in love simply because it is the only way he can find any affection. Love to Nico is about flaying yourself for the benefit of others, to trample any and all parts of yourself simply to appease those you care for, because you want them to love you so much as you love them. The parallels I could draw between Nico and Orpheus, or Nico and Odysseus... I'd be here a long while...

In that scene Jason represents the alternative form of love which Nico chooses after his interaction with Cupid.

Jason says during the scene that he "preferred Piper's idea of love" which has to do with kindness and caring, etc, and then Jason becomes the embodiment of that idea during the scene- which showcases the alternative of what love can be, thus making Jason a personification of love in the context of that scene.

Jason looks to Nico, he doesn't ask for more, he simply looks to Nico with understanding and acknowledges him for who he is, and he does the exact opposite of what Nico expects:

Jason loves Nico where he is, without conditions, without forcing Nico to become something more. Jason didn’t force Nico to say more than what was necessary for him to understand, Jason looked at Nico and he called Nico brave.

Cupid is a more volatile form of love than Aphrodite, Cupid shoots arrows that makes people animals, that can make a god grow insane, but Aphrodite's form of love is about acceptance and humanity (think to how she picked Ares over Hephaestus even if it was perhaps "wrong")- both are about truth but one is about force and the other about acceptance.

When Nico walks out of there, he makes his choice- he is forced to come out yes, Cupid is wrong for doing this, but Jason again stays a figure of love in Nico's life. Jason basically says, "Good job, I know that was hard, thank you for sharing and let me know if you need anything, people will care about you and understand you," again and again and again to Nico, he doesn't tell Nico he has to come out, and he agrees to keep it between them for now. Jason is love as acceptance, Jason is the first person who unconditionally loves Nico, and that's the choice.

Will Nico accept unconditional love? If the answer is no, then Cupid wins and Nico is denying himself. If the answer is yes, then Jason and Nico win, and Nico no longer needs to make himself utilitarian in love in order to be loved.

The choice is made with Reyna and Hedge, most specifically Reyna.

When he accidentally comes out to them, and they accept him without making a big deal of it, without show, just that acknowledgement and "thank you for sharing" and Nico accepts their words and friendship still- Nico made his choice then to accept the love he was being freely given.

“He carried so much sadness and loneliness, so much heartache. Yet he put his mission first. He persevered. Reyna respected that. She understood that. She'd never been a touchy-feely person, but she had the strangest desire to drape her cloak over Nico's shoulders and tuck him in. She mentally chided herself. He was a comrade, not her little brother. He wouldn't appreciate the gesture.”

This is where we see the slow and steady, and healthy, end to Nico's arc in regards to love really grow into itself, and he begins to heal. He no longer sees such an intense need to make himself utilitarian for love, and he begins to heal from his internalized homophobia too.

(Internalized homophobia discussions with Nico also bother me too often times, people too often assume you can't date while struggling with internalized homophobia or at least very heavy handedly imply that which is just not true... You may have some issues in your relationship, but you can work through the internalized homophobia while building a new relationship and be just fine. Also to assume someone has an unhealthy relationship because of internalized homophobia is weird and lowkey reinforces the idea that "broken" people don't need love, but also does a huge disservice to so many LGBTQ+ people who are happily married/themselves but still struggle with these feelings, and to see a healthy relationship depiction despite someone in that relationship struggling with internalized homophobia is fine and good actually. As long as the individual can recognize what they're dealing with, and work through it in a healthy and constructive manner, then there's nothing wrong there...)

When I started this post to be honest I thought I would have a lot more to say, it's a scene that touched and changed me so deeply as a person, and beyond that in a more objective experience it completely changes Nico's character, by turning his arc around and beginning his healing process. To be honest, there probably is more to be said on it, I just haven't found the words yet... I know parts of this post are clunky and in a year I'm going to read this and see all the places it could be better but for now I'm content with it.

Whether or not someone considers the scene homophobic is a subjective experience, but I think this is a very well written scene purely for the characterization and symbolism, intentional or otherwise. I don't really care that much to debate if it's truly a homophobic scene or not, I can see both why people say it is and why people say it isn't and that can be culminated into "people have different needs" and "minorities aren't a monolith". Personally my much larger complaint is the complete lack of nuance and insight scenes like this are handled with, not the matter of personal opinion an individual reaches on the scene.

*the post uses the word "adult audience" and yes, fair point, children should not be able to decipher symbolism to the extent adults can. But older children and young teens, which the RRverse series are sold for, is when critical thinking skills and media analysis do begin to become parts of classroom curriculum. The scene does an excellent job of not outright stating Cupid is evil, but of depicting that in a very clear cut way.

[unhealthyfanobsession]

cassian, mor and nesta 🙃

Ohhhhh hunni. H U N N I. I really was being nice with my unpopular Mor opinion yesterday because a lot of my thoughts have been said but now the gloves are coming off.

I don’t even think this is that unpopular of an opinion but the vehemence with which I feel that Mor needs to absolutely fucking get her fucking ass the fuck out of Cassian and Nesta’s relationship is beyond caring about the rules.

Point the first, Ms. “My gift is truth” (whatever the fuck that means, it sure isn’t being HONEST WITH PEOPLE), 100% clocked Nessian mate bond in ACOMAF during the whole “I’ll die protecting your people Nesta” scene and basically spent the next several books not wanting Cassian to be with his mate because she was… “mean”.

Point the second, if I have to hear from one more damn anti about that F U C K I N G dress scene in ACOWAR I am going to LOSE MY MIND!!! People be going off saying Nesta’s a slut shamer (the same people who then one book later, yknow, slut shame Nesta for sleeping around despite the fact that Feysand is fucking in the sky and Cassian apparently used to screw people in back alleys behind Rita’s) when literally all she said was that she didn’t like Mor’s dress. They were literally joking about Mor tearing Nesta’s dress off of her while Mor was just grabbing at her.

Point the third, Mor is so “defensive” of Cassian, snapping at Nesta not to talk to him after he’s injured and trying to convince him to let her rot in ACOSF but as a WOMAN who spent the first 17 years of her life UNDER THE CONTROL OF MEN she is completely incapable of maybe seeing how Cassian purposefully goading Nesta, who is a new Fae and terrified that her sister has gone insane. Mor should have told Cassian to leave Nesta alone. Point blank. Yes I love the banter. Yes we all love to read Nessian rip into each other but you CAN NOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Either it is unacceptable that Nesta is “rude” to Cassian (which btw he has NEVER complained about before ACOSF) or it is unacceptable that Cassian literally seeks Nesta out to rile her up because it’s fun.

Cassian is a big boy who likes to play with silver flames and that gets him burned.

Point the fourth, there is literally nothing more fucked up in the series than Mor wanting to throw Nesta in the CON/human lands/prison. As if these people have ANY leg to stand on judging someone for *checks notes* sleeping around, drinking too much, and gambling with Rhys’ money….

Those are literally the IC’s only pastimes.

Comparing Nesta spiraling to the people who PUT NAILS IN MOR’S STOMACH BECAUSE SHE HAD SEX IS ABSOLUTE INSANITY.

Also, a while back I wrote a one shot where Nesta DOES go to the Court of Nightmares and in that I talked about how fucked it is that the IC literally only cares about Velaris and how they think the CON is so horrific but then just… let’s all of the people there suffer??? Like yeah some people are bad but we are supposed to believe that every single person in the history of the CON is evil except for Mor???

And Yknow what I’m going to leave you all with a quote from the description of that one shot because it really sums up all of my feelings:

“How easily this inner circle dismissed people. Judged amd condemned and sentenced them without a second thought. As if shining golden hair and royal blood were required to be a dreamer born into the Court of Nightmares. As if every mutilated female under this cauldron forsaken mountain did not dream of a better life. It was hard to look up at the stars and wish when one had never seen the night sky.”

(The one shot is on A03 and it’s called Nightmare Dressed Like a Daydream for anyone requiring some ANGST that was really my most snapped fanfic moment after that whole *ACOSF* thing happened.)

[icedflames]

Hello beautiful, can you list all the reasons why Elriel is not toxic and why it won’t be a toxic relationship. I’m tired of hearing people say that Elriel is toxic.

Alright, hang on... This is a long one. 

“Azriel just wants Elain for sex.”

False. Until ACOSF, we had no indication that Azriel had sexual feelings for Elain. Based on his thoughts in the bonus chapter, his actions throughout ACOSF, we can infer that Azriel has romantic feelings for Elain. His friend. 

The following scenes, read together, imply that Azriel has feelings for Elain beyond platonic or sexual feelings (I have only included my favorites for the sake of brevity):

ACOWAR

But Azriel asked softly, “What about Elain?” Something cold went through me. (Chp. 63)

From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.” Nesta slid her gaze to the shadowsinger. Azriel’s hazel eyes glowed golden in the shadows. Nesta said, “Then you will die.” Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.” (Chp. 64)

The gray light of morning had broken over the world, mist clinging to our ankles as we headed into that camp, Azriel still cradling Elain to his chest. (Chp. 65)

She let out a sob at the sight of Elain, still in Azriel’s arms. (Chp. 65)

Cassian gawked at Azriel, and I wondered how often Azriel had lent out that blade— Never, Rhys said from where he finished buckling on his own weapons against the side of the wagon. I have never once seen Azriel let another person touch that knife. (Chp. 69)

ACOFAS

Azriel strode to the lone window at the end of the room and peered into the garden below. [...] “Azriel remained at the window. [...] Azriel said, turning from the garden window at last. (Chp. 16)

Az said nothing. No, he just moved toward her. Mor tensed beside me. But Azriel only took Elain’s heavy dish of potatoes from her hands, his voice soft as night as he said, “Sit. I’ll take care of it.” (Chp. 12)

I made to move toward her, but someone beat me to it. The shadowsinger was clad in a black jacket and pants similar to Rhysand’s—the fabric immaculately tailored and built to fit his wings. He still wore his Siphons atop either hand, and shadows trailed his footsteps, curling like swirled embers, but there was little sign of the warrior otherwise. Especially as he gently said to my sister, “Happy Solstice.” (Chp. 19)

Azriel mastered himself enough to say, “Thank you.” I’d never seen his hazel eyes so bright, the hues of green amid the brown and gray like veins of emerald. “This will be invaluable.” (Chp. 20)

ACOSF

“Because of the shit with Elain?” Azriel stilled. “What happened to Elain?”

Cassian waved a hand. “A fight with Nesta. Don’t bring it up,” he warned when Azriel’s eyes darkened. Cassian blew out a breath. “I take that as a no regarding the meeting topic, then.” [...] Cassian surveyed the shadows gathered around Az. “You all right?” His brother nodded. “Fine.” But shadows still swarmed him. (Chp. 20)

Azriel stiffened. “I know. I helped rescue Elain, after all.” Az hadn’t so much as hesitated before going into the heart of Hybern’s war-camp.” (Chp. 22)

He was still happy to be Mor’s buffer with Azriel, but there’d been a change lately. In both of them. Mor no longer sat beside Cassian, draped herself over him, and Azriel … those longing glances toward her had become few and far between. As if he’d given up. After five hundred years, he’d somehow given up. Cassian couldn’t think why. (Chp. 22)

“No. But we need to summon Lucien,” Azriel said, just a shade tightly, as if he didn’t like it one bit. (Chp. 31)

Elain just linked her arm through Nesta’s and led her toward the family room, where Azriel stood in the doorway, monitoring them. As if he’d heard Elain’s sharp laugh and wondered what had caused it. (Chp. 58)

I also want to add... That the notion that Azriel only has sexual feelings is immediately disproven by a close reading of the bonus chapter:

Rhys bared his teeth. "So you will leave Elain alone. If you need to fuck  someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her." 

Azriel snarled softly.

Azriel snarled in response to Rhys’ suggestion that his feelings are only sexual. The entire scene was Rhys not understanding that Azriel actually had feelings for Elain. Rhys even suggested that Azriel still had feelings for Mor when Cassian had noted that Azriel no longer pined for Mor. 

To add, Azriel is not going antagonize Rhys and potentially kick off a feud between courts if he only wanted Elain for sex. 

ALSO!!!!

AZRIEL IS NOT GOING TO DECLARE HIS LOVE FOR ELAIN IN A BONUS CHAPTER. NO AUTHOR WILL EVER GIVE AWAY A MAJOR PLOT POINT/TWIST IN A BONUS CHAPTER. THAT WILL BE IMPORTANT AND WILL BE SAID IN THE NEXT BOOK!

Cassian never admitting his feelings for Nesta in Wings and Embers. Hell, Nesta kicked him in the balls. But we don’t doubt Nessian, now do we?

I answered another anon here comparing Wings and Embers to Azriel’s bonus chapter, comparing the themes and overall feel. 

“Azriel feels entitled to Elain as the third sister.”

False. Azriel began to show interest in Elain prior to Nesta and Cassian getting together. Please see the quotes above if you don’t believe me. Also, please see my post on the progression of their relationship here. 

Azriel is the first person to figure out what Elain’s powers were. He pulled her from her trance. Immediately after the seer reveal, we start to see Elain revert back to normal. 

Azriel is the one who defends Elain against scrying, a very dangerous thing in ACOTAR may I remind you, when she is not there to defend herself.

Azriel is the one who would sit with Elain outside in the gardens. 

Azriel lent Elain his most prized possession to keep her safe during the war. 

“Azriel coddles her.”

False. Azriel gave Elain truth teller to defend herself. I’d hardly call that coddling.

Let’s take a look at that scene that misguidedly causes people to think that Azriel “coddles” Elain.

Azriel stiffened, an outright sign of temper from him as he said quietly, “There is an innate darkness to the Dread Trove that Elain should not be exposed to.”

“But Nesta should?” Cassian growled.

Is Cassian coddling Nesta? No. They both have the same reaction. 

The coddling Elain experiences is from the Inner Circle constantly thinking she’s meek and reduces her to a simple girl who likes to garden. 

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Go back to Feyre and your little garden.”

and then when Nesta refuses to let Elain scry for the trove:

“Why?” Elain demanded. “Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

Very different scenarios. It’s one thing to be protective (one of SJM’s  favorite trope for romantic love interests). It’s another to belittle a person and then not let them grow. That is what Elain is referring to. That is the coddling she cannot stand. 

“Azriel is too messed up mentally to be with anybody.”

False. This is demonstrably false. It is fanon. When this argument is used, it’s used to discredit Elain as a love interest and prop Gwyn up. If Azriel is too messed up to be with Elain, he’s too messed up to be with anybody. Period.

Nesta parallels Azriel in a lot of ways. And everybody loves Nesta and Cassian’s relationship now. Azriel does not have any of the mental illnesses the WebMD doctors come up with every other day. At the most, he has issues with his self worth and possible depression. At the most. 

Saying that a character cannot be in a romantic relationship due to his mental health directly implies that individuals who are suffering with mental health issues cannot get into romantic relationships. That’s wrong and that’s mean.

In Conclusion

Elain and Azriel went from being strangers, to friends, to now possible lovers in a span of two years. 

Their relationship is the most realistic one SJM has written. Nothing about them is toxic. They are kind and considerate of one another. Their feelings have slowly progressed and there are barriers to their relationship (namely, Elain’s mating bond to Lucien). 

There is a difference between not liking Elain and Azriel together (an opinion) and saying Elain and Azriel are toxic together (a falsehood). 

[gotnofucks]

Choose

Written for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor Halloween Challenge! This is my first time posting here, so be kind 😊

 Character pairing: dark!Steve x Reader

Summary: Steve realizes he can’t let you go when you’re stuck in a safe house with him.

Quote: I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched

Words: 4.1k

Warnings: Non-con (implied), non-con touching, blackmail, coercion, 18+ only. Please don’t read if you don’t like.

MASTERLIST

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 The rain was falling in torrents and how you made your way through it you would never know. It was only September, but the rain made it much colder and you were so glad that you were in a car with heating on. Steve was driving almost blind and if it were someone else, you would be scared, but it was him and so you let yourself sink into the seat and relax.

 “Take my jacket, you look cold” He said as he shot your slightly shivering form a sharp look.

 You nod and reach behind to take his jacket and wrap it around your body. You do it without hesitation and with no question. Always so trusting and obedient, at least, when it came to him. You were small, in fact positively diminutive when it came to the super soldier sitting beside you and seemed to drown in his jacket. He smiled when he saw you, and you smile back at his cheeky look.

 “How long until we get to the safe house? I am hungry.” You asked, wiggling in your seat.

 “Not long. It’s right in the middle of this clearing. Maybe 10 more minutes”, He answered, reaching over to pat your knee in assurance.

 “You’ve been there before?”

 “Twice. Nat and I set it up just after we took down Shield and then later crashed here with Sam and Buck around 2 years ago. It’s safe and cozy.”

 You hum and played with your fingers. It was only going to be the two of you this time. It didn’t bother you all that much. You would rather it be him than anyone else. Well, maybe Tony, but after him you liked Steve the best. You were one of the younger avengers, having been recruited only two years ago by Clint Barton. You used to work for a covert government organization IMF where Clint was undercover for a few years and seeing your talent with a gun and a computer, he had once asked your help in one of his Avengers missions where you met Tony Stark who immediately took a liking to you and trained you under him.

 You worked as Tony’s tech girl, helping mostly with recon missions for a few months. Then Natasha started training you for field missions and low and behold, you were kicking ass with them for nearly 6 months now. You haven’t done very difficult missions yet, and not a single solo. Mostly you’re paired with Nat and Clint or, as this time, with Steve. Tony assured you he’ll let you do a solo soon, but always lamented that ever since you got outside, he missed his lab buddy.

 You loved these small missions with Steve. He was always patient with you and taught you the drills but didn’t hold back. He would let you take the lead at times and was always proud of even the smallest achievement. At first when you had met, you had been kind if intimidated of his aloofness, but it didn’t take long for you both to bond over cheesy 40s music and your mutual love for art.

 “Y/n, we’re here” Steve announced and got out of the car. You followed, grabbing your small bag and ran through the rain to the porch. It was like a getaway cabin and you were so glad you didn’t have to stay in some dingy hole. You wanted warmth, food, and a comfortable place to sleep.

 Steve shut the door behind you and took off his wet shoes, putting them upside down near the door. You take off his jacket and your shoes too, grateful to be away from the squelching soles.

 “There’s no fireplace” You observe with a pout, and Steve chuckled.

 “Y/n, it’s a safe house. The smoke would let people know someone is living here. We don’t want that now, do we?” He gave you an indulgent smile and walked through to the kitchen, starting to unpack the supplies and food.

 “But I am cold!” You whine, and for that moment Steve realized your age gap. He gestured for you to come to him while he put the water to boil and you slowly approached him with small steps. Once you are in front of him, he looked at your damp hair and clothes, thankful that his jacket had prevented you from getting too wet.

 “You cold, huh?” He asked, hooking a hang around your waist to pull you against his chest. You stumble and steady yourself with both hands against his massive shoulders, your head a couple inches below his shoulder.

 “Yeah” You moan, wrapping your arms around his body. “How the hell are you always warm, eh?”

 Steve chuckles again and continues to cook while hugging you with an arm around your body. This closeness isn’t new. He would never admit it, but Captain Steve Rogers is a serial cuddler and you are his favourite cuddle buddy. He would cuddle you on the couch during movie nights, he would cuddle you after returning from a tough mission and he would cuddle you when you get your period. Steve Rogers was your best friend, and you felt safe with him. But you didn’t know Steve Rogers wanted to be more than just your friend. He wanted you with him when he went to sleep and when he woke up, he wanted you when he cooked and when he took a shower. No, you had no idea that the National treasure of America was in love with you.

 It wasn’t like he was hiding his feelings. He just never came out and said them out loud. Steve often believed that actions spoke louder than words and so he tried to tell you his feelings by doing little somethings for you. He learnt to make your coffee exactly the way you liked, he watched the movies you liked and read the books you read. He learnt to cook vegetarian dishes since you despised any kind of meat. More than anything, he tried to get along with Tony. Tony was your protective big brother/father, and he loved you enough to scare off every man who ever looked at your way. You were the only one in the team to have rooms on the same floor as Tony and you both shared a kitchen. Steve knew that if he wanted you to himself, he needed to get on Tony’s good side. So, he bit his tongue when he wanted to snap and gave his go ahead to things he deeply disapproved of, just to have to build back the old trust. It worked out, since Steve was one of the only people who were allowed a mission with you.

 “Will there be hot water for a shower?” You asked, body being warmed by Steve. He looked down at your face, full of childish innocence and stripped off every hardness after a tired mission.

 “Maybe, but definitely not enough for both of us” Steve commented. The vegetable stew needed to simmer for a while, so he sat you both down on the worn couch in the living room, your head on his shoulder and his arm still around you. He had hoped you would pick up on his feelings, since having you this close did things to him. Your soft body fit so perfectly into his large one that he never wished to part from you. Maybe tonight would be that night.

 “I’ll call Tony and eat. You take that shower and save me some hot water if you can.” You said and took out your phone to let Tony know you were safe and would leave for compound in the morning as planned. Steve looked at you walk away, speaking softly to Tony and wished more than ever that the rain outside would turn into a storm just to prolong your stay. He didn’t get to have you alone a lot at the compound. There were always other people around, always Wanda wanting female company or Peter following you around asking how you impressed Tony. He liked it here in this little cabin, cooking a meal for you after a hard day of work.

 “Tony says to leave early tomorrow so we can reach home by lunch. He wants to take me to meet Stephen Strange” You say suddenly, breaking out Steve from his domestic fantasy.

 “Stephen Strange? Why?”, he asked, frowning.

 “Tony and him and doing some weird wizard-avenger collab in that Nepal place- what is it called, Kamartaj- for a few weeks”, you answer.

 “What’s that got to do with you?” Steve asked, slightly irritated and hands curing into fists.

 “He’s taking me along. Says he doesn’t want me away for so long. Also, this wiz, Dr. Strange, he’s apparently some kind of genius. Tony says I can learn a lot from him. But I think it’s just a ruse. I’m pretty sure they are dating, and he just wants me to meet him”, You say with a fond smile. Steve doesn’t smile or say anything.

 Weeks? You’d be gone for weeks? That too in another country without him. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

 “You wanna go?” He asked in what he hoped was a normal voice. He wanted you to say no, wanted to see that hesitation in your eyes as you thing of being away from him for weeks, maybe months.

 “Sure, I think it would be fun. I wanna see the Himalayas and maybe I’ll visit India too. I’ve got a pen friend there who I’d love to meet.” Your reply was so nonchalant that for a moment Steve just stares, and then he is angry. Here was a perfect chance for you and him to spend time away from the overbearing presence of Tony Stark, but you would rather see snow covered mountains and meet a pen friend in India? He’d only thought you were being a little oblivious of his feelings, maybe deliberately trying not to acknowledge them as you wanted to take it slow. But it seems like you…it seems like you felt nothing beyond friendship for him at all. After all those months spent hugging and laughing together, and yet you would rather choose Tony over him. A rage settled over him and he needed to clench his jaw and curl his arm tight around the back of the couch to stop himself from grabbing you and…and doing things he had rather not do.

 “Take that shower. Leave your wet clothes outside, I’ll see what I can do with them” Steve said suddenly.

 “You sure you don’t want a shower too? We’ve got layers of grim from crawling through that tunnel.” You asked.

 Steve looked at you for a minute, eyes rowing over your small face. He took in the little acne scars you were so self-conscious about, your slightly chapped lips and those beautiful eyes that reared him in. He nodded.

 “Yeah, you go on. I’ll see if I need one” He said and went to the kitchen while you left for the bedroom with the connected bathroom.

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 The bathroom was nicer than you had hoped, probably Nat’s doing if the products where anything to go by. You’d removed your wet clothes outside and stood naked under the stream of warm water, sighing with relief. It was a small mission but brutal on your body. It would have been heaven to have a tub in here, but safe houses were meant to be quick and effective, and this one was way better than others, so you didn’t complain. You were just going to wash your hair when the bathroom door opened, and Steve entered.

 “Steve!” You shouted, hands covering your breast and turning so your back was to him. You looked at him with wide eyes, expecting him to sputter and leave but he stayed, eyes lingering on your ass a bit before meeting your eyes.

 “Got any of that hot water left or have you finished all of it?” He asked, taking off his t-shirt and leaving his chest bare.

 Your mouth opened in surprise as your backed yourself into the corner, trying to make sense of what was happening. Your best friend had just barged into your bathroom while you were showering and showed no signs of leaving.

 “W-what are you doing, Steve?” You asked in a small voice, still covering yourself with your hands the best you could.

 “Taking a shower. I told you we didn’t have enough water for two, so I thought I’d join you. You were right anyway, we are grimy.” He said and fumbling a bit, dropped his pants down too. You panicked, not understanding what was happening as Steve stood in his boxers, taking steps towards you.

 “No. No no no no” You almost chanted that as a mantra, eyes going here and there, not knowing what to do. Steve reached your small body crowded into the corner and slowly, very slowly raised a hand to wipe away the dirty on your cheek. You started at his touch and quickly sidestepped, running towards the door. You didn’t know what had gotten into Steve, but you needed to get out of here. Now.

 You’d taken only two steps before a hand wrapped around your waist and brought you back screeching to a hard chest, back against front.

 “Stop. Steve, let me go. Please.” You said, your tears mingling with the water on your skin, one hand across your chest and other on his wrist trying to pry it off.

 “No sweetheart, you need to take this shower. You’re dirty and tired. Come.” You hated his voice for being soft and soothing still, showing no indication of what he was doing to you. His voice was still your Stevie’s voice, calm, cool, a little commanding and full of affection for you.

 “I- Steve, I don’t want a shower. Not like this, please.” You tried to break away, wiggling and crying but Steve didn’t listen and dragged you back and turned on the water again. You both were bombarded with hot water and stood under it for a minute before Steve turned it off again.

 “Gimme that shampoo, I’ll do your hair.” He said, releasing you from his hold. But it wasn’t any good as you were blocked by the wall on your back and Steve at your front. You hadn’t turned around yet, but now you did. Sobbing, with thighs squeezed tight to hide you down there and hands inefficiently covering your breasts, you looked at him with betrayed eyes. You didn’t try running again. You knew his strength; you have trained with him. He could take you down in seconds.

 “Why are you doing this? What is happening?” Your voice was small and broken, sending a pang through Steve’s heart. He loved you and didn’t want to hurt you, but you needed to see his feelings for you. He couldn’t risk you going away for months. He just couldn’t. His eyes slowly moved down from your face, taking in every inch of your body exposed, not touching, only looking.

 “We’re taking a shower after which we will eat our food while we watch some stupid movie on that laptop of yours. Then, we’ll cuddle and sleep with you on my chest and tomorrow morning you will call Tony and tell him you won’t join him for his trip to Nepal.”

 He was mad. He was insane, you were sure of it. Face burning with humiliation under his gaze, fire began sparking in your eyes. How dare this tall buff blond muffin think it okay to invade your space and demand such things from you? Just who the fuck did he think he was.

 “No. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but you need to stop. Get out, or if you want to shower, let me go out. I’m done with whatever game you are playing.” You sneered at him. Steve had to smile at this, his little spitfire. He didn’t really expect you to give in easily, that’s not the girl he knew and trained. You were with the avengers because you could handle stuff others would wet themselves with. You were strong and he knew that. But he was stronger.

 “What’s gotten into me?” He asked, closing the distance between you so you were against the wall and caged by his arms on either side. His face was inches away and your breathing sped up. He looked cruel and menacing, the blue eyes you loved so much taking on a much darker hue. “You have gotten in me. You got under my skin and in my thoughts and in my heart. Now I want you under me.”

 He bent down and you were sure he was going to force a kiss on your mouth but he surprised you by pressing his lips softly on your forehead like he did when you had nightmares or right before a mission. It was a kiss of reassurance and love, and somehow, that just scared you more. Whatever Steve thought he was doing, he believed it was driven by love. And when Steve loved someone, he loved them without abandon. If he went against everyone to save his friend, what would he do to have you?

 “Steve…please…” You didn’t know what to say or what to do. You wanted to get away from him and cover yourself up to get some control back. You wanted to talk to him and forget this ever happened and get back your best friend.

 “You have two options. First, we both take a bath right now. I won’t touch you where you don’t want me to, we eat, and sleep and you go back with me to the compound like a good girl and tell everyone we are together. Or..” His eyes narrowed here, “Or, I could take you right here, right now and make you mine with little option. I could rail you deep and hard so you will feel me deep inside you for days on end. I know you’re not on birth control and I have no condoms with me, so if you get pregnant, you best believe I’ll have you tied down to myself with a ring on that finger by the end of the month. The choice is yours.”

 Your heart sank. You looked into his eyes, your whole body shaking and knees ready to give up. He was serious! He was absolutely serious, and you had no idea what the fuck happened. Just an hour ago you were sure he was the person who made you feel the safest, but now that sanctuary had been torn apart and some possessive stranger had taken its place.

 “You’re insane. You’ve lost it!” You cry, sliding down the wall as your knees collapsed, folding your knees to hide your nakedness. Steve followed you down and wrapped his arms around your small form.

 “I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched. You own me, my heart and soul. And soon, I’ll have you too. How that happens is your choice. Choose.” His tone bore no argument. You had just one card to play.

 “Tony would never stand for it. He’ll find out, I’ll tell him and then you’ll be done.” You made your tone harsh and full of venom. You don’t know what you expected him to do, but it definitely wasn’t laugh. It was an amused chuckle, like a daddy who was indulging his silly daughter, full of patronizing hilarity.

 “Sweetheart, you don’t think I have a plan for that? Even if I spend months bringing you flowers and singing love ballads from your window, he wouldn’t exactly be convinced. He isn’t exactly fond of me, is he? I had a plan in place for months. I didn’t want to have to use it honestly, I wanted you to come to me of your own violation. But I just thought as a back up plan…” You screamed as he suddenly scooped you up in his arms, still wet and naked and carried you out to the bedroom. He deposited you on the bed and gave you a towel that you hastily covered yourself with. You looked behind you and the door was locked. It wasn’t any use anyway; he could outrun you in his sleep.

 Steve got his phone out and showed you the screen, making your heart drop. There were numerous pictures of you with your family and friends from the past two years. Not just those, pictures of you with your previous team, the IMF, Ethan Hunt, and others. How Steve got these pictures you didn’t know, but it scared you.

 “Everyone, every single person in these pictures has a target on their backs. I have had a sniper after all of them for over a year, mostly just to keep an eye on you and to make sure you are safe. But don’t think for one second that I will hesitate to take them out. There is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to keep you with me.” He sat beside you on the bed and putting a finger under your chin turned your face towards him. “It doesn’t need to be nasty, sweetheart. I don’t want to be the bad guy. I have never been one and you can keep me from doing anything drastic. All you need to do is convince Tony that you are the one who wants me. You are the only person he actually trusts, so you need to make it believable. He has denied you nothing, and if you come to him yourself and tell him you want me…well…no one has to die, do they.”

 This was a nightmare. Everything that has happened to you today is a nightmare. You didn’t want to believe Steve would hurt anyone, but then you didn’t think him capable of forcing him on you either. If there was even the tiniest bit of chance that he could harm anyone of your friends and family…no. You couldn’t let that happen.

 “Option one”, You whispered softly, eyes downcast and lips trembling.

 “What was that?” Steve asked, turning your face up again so he could look in your eyes.

 “I choose option one. We- We eat and sleep and I call Tony I won’t go with him. Then we can tell everyone we are together.”

 Steve grinned, his happy grin that everyone said only you brought out in him. It unnerved you that a man you loved and respected so much was doing this.

 “My good girl” He praised, and then he leaned down and pressed his mouth on yours. The kiss was gentle and soft, his mouth lazily moving against yours. If it were happening any other way, you would have enjoyed it. He broke away and looked at you with eyes that sparkled. “You’ll love me too, one day. I am yours, and you are mine.”

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 True to his word, you guys ate your dinner and watched a movie as you cuddled like you usually did at movie nights. Steve held you close, sometimes brushing his nose against the side of your neck or rubbing his hand along your sides. Afterwards, he laid down beside you, spooning your small body and holding it snug against his. He was warm, and you didn’t have anymore fight in you for today. The day was too fast and weird for you to process. You vowed to sleep now and to think of a way to get to Tony without arousing Steve’s suspicion. You weren’t ready to give up now.

 You’d been asleep for only a couple hours before you felt cold air around your body. You woke up with a start and found yourself on your back, your t-shirt removed and Steve hovering over you, placing open mouth kisses along your bare chest.

 “Steve! Steve stop!” You screamed, pushing against his chest. He looked at you with eyes blown wide with lust and taking your hands in one of his, he held them up while he tweaked your nipple with his other making you squirm. He bent down and swallowed your protests with a deep kiss, his tongue forcing its way inside your mouth and tasting you while he moaned.

“Steve please,” You were sobbing now, and trashing your legs which he held down with a strong thigh. “You…you promised. You said I get to choose. I chose option one”

 Steve looked at you for a moment then kissed your cheek softly. Moving his hand between your thighs he murmured in your ear, “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t wait anymore”

[sketching-shark]

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.  

 I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends  that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading. 

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.  

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you. 

  But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens. 

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona. 

[jackoshadows]

what i don’t understand is sansa stans who insist that she learnt from the best (cersei ans littlefinger) and so she’ll be an amazing ruler and player. first of all, when did she learn about the game from cersei? she was a hostage in kings landing, she wasn’t sitting in on small council meetings or anything and cersei definitely wasn’t telling her about all the moves she was making. the only time cersei really gives her ‘advice’ is during blackwater when she says that ‘tears/sex is a woman’s weapon’. regardless, cersei isn’t someone you want to be taught from, she makes terrible decision after terrible decision in affc. (since we’re on this topic, dany is the younger and more beautiful queen who foils cersei).

as for littlefinger, he’s definitely not a leader or ruler. he subtly manipulates things here and there and gets away with a lot of it because he stays under the radar. he’s not someone who inspires devotion for sure. nothing about the vale arc in affc puts sansa in an actual leadership position.

I agree it's best that no one learns how to be a ruler from Cersei Lannister, considering how much she messes up in AFfC.

And yes, it’s my opinion that Sansa's arc is leading towards outwitting Littlefinger and understanding how to play the game rather than ruling. And with two books left to go, she still has a lot of learning to do and being able to process the information available to her, analyze it and connect the dots and use the data to her advantage.

I just finished my ADwD and TWoW sample chapter re-reads so a rather long essay under the cut.

Sansa did acknowledge early on that unlike Cersei, if she were to become queen, she would prioritize getting the people's love over their fear - like the Tyrells did. But unlike the majority opinion of fandom, I think that this points to Sansa giving more importance to PR than to actual ruling. That it was better to be a loved monarch than a feared one.

It’s funny that Sansa stans often point the finger at Dany as being narcissistic, entitled and arrogant, when the few comments that Sansa makes about being queen revolve around her.

“Go ahead, call me all the names you want,” Sansa said airily. “You won’t dare when I’m married to Joffrey. You’ll have to bow to me and call me Your Grace. ” - Sansa, AGoT

“ If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me.”  - Sansa, ACoK

Compare her quotes to those of current leaders/rulers in the books:

A good lord protects his people, he reminded himself. - Bran, ACoK

“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?“ - Daenerys, ASoS

“And I know that a king protects his people, or he is no king at all.” Davos, ASoS

I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne."  - Stannis, ASoS

“I am the shield that guards the realms of men. Those are the words. So tell me, my lord— what are these wildlings, if not men?”  - Jon Snow, ADwD

The other leaders in the quotes are putting the people first, prioritizing the people’s needs first no matter how much it affects the rulers themselves. Jon’s decision to let the Wildlings through the wall is necessary, but highly unpopular among his men. And ruling is more than just being beloved by the people -

"Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel,” the old man had said, “the same council that I one gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took the ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill boy and let the man be born.” The old man felt Jon’s face. “You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.” - Jon Snow, ADwD

This is the hard part of ruling be it in the middle ages or now. It’s not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler. It’s complicated and it’s hard.  How do I resolve this thing? Do I do the moral thing? But what about  the political consequences of the moral thing? Do I do the pragmatic, cynical thing and kind of screw the people who are screwed by it? I mean, it is HARD. - GRRM

In this context, Sansa’s quote about being queen comes off as naive, ignorant, fairy taleish, like the queens in her stories - where everyone loves the queens and that’s all that’s necessary to be one.

It’s easy for Sansa stans to nitpick and criticize each and every one of Dany’s decisions and then praise future best queen Sansa - who has done absolutely nothing as a leader and has instead thus far served as an uncritical narrator to events around her. We don’t know what kind of leader Sansa would be because she has never been put in those situations or even shown an aptitude for strategic thinking.

Let me use an example I came across while recently re-reading ADwD and TWoW sample chapters. TWoW spoilers - if you don’t want to be spoiled on TWoW, please read no further.

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In ADwD, Jon is confronted with food shortage if they let the Wildlings through the wall:

“If we had sufficient coin, we could buy food from the south and bring it in by ship,” the Lord Steward said. We could, thought Jon, if we had the gold, and someone willing to sell us food. Both of those were lacking. Our best hope may be the Eyrie. The Vale of Arryn was famously fertile and had gone untouched during the fighting. - Jon Snow, ADwD

I have already written extensively on Jon’s political know-how of the North and using it in his strategizing and planning of Stannis’ campaign. But here we see that his knowledge extends to the south, where, knowing that the Vale stayed neutral during the WOT5K and it’s geography of being fertile, he sees it as a possible source to buy food for the Wall.

Now let’s go to the Vale in book 6, TWoW, Alayne’s sample chapter. After being called a bastard by Harry the Heir, a hurt Sansa goes looking for Littlefinger and chances upon a scheme of price gouging:

Near the bottom, she heard Lord  Grafton’s booming voice, and followed.

“The  merchants are clamoring to buy and the lords are clamoring to sell,”  the Gulltowner was saying when she found them. Though not a tall man, Grafton was wide, with thick arms and shoulders.  His hair was a dirty blond mop.  “How am I to stop that, my lord?”

“Post guardsmen on the docks. If need be, seize the ships. How does not matter, so long as no food leaves the Vale”

“These prices, though,” protested fat Lord Belmore,” 

“These prices are more than fair. Wait. If need be, buy the food yourself and keep it stored. Winter is coming. Prices must go higher.”

“Perhaps,”  said Belmore, doubtfully. “Bronze Yohn will not wait, ” Grafton complained. “He need not ship through Gulltown, he has his own ports. Whilst we are hoarding our harvest, Royce and the other Lords Declarant will turn theirs into silver, you may be sure of that.”

“Let  us hope so,”  said Petyr. “When their granaries are empty, they will  need every scrap of that silver to buy sustenance from us. And now if  you will excuse me, my lord, it would seem my daughter has need of me.”

“Lady Alayne,” Lord Grafton said. “You look bright-eyed this morning.” ” You  are kind to say so, my lord. Father, I am sorry to disturb you, but I  thought you would want to know that the Waynwoods have arrived.”

We are now in book 6 territory, this would be the point where a future queen/leader Sansa reflects on what she just saw - Littlefinger is hoarding grain and letting Royce and others sell theirs so that he can later increase the prices for demand from a starving populace and have the rest of the Vale Lords be dependent on him and with winter coming, there is currently much demand for the grain.

This would be where, if GRRM is writing for the future leader of the North, Sansa would wonder what is happening in the North with respect to the food situation since she just heard that merchants are clamoring for grain and winter is coming. Or she would think on LF’s scheme - is it a good plan or a bad plan? Does she think that Yohn Royce is right to sell his grain? What is her view on hoarding all the food for price gouging while people possibly starve elsewhere? What does she think of starving the populace for profit? Does she approve? Or does she think it’s ethically wrong?

We get no answers to these questions to give us a hint of what kind of ruler future best queen Sansa will be. It’s a blank slate because while Sansa acts as a narrator here and describes one of LF’s little schemes, she herself as no opinion on it. Instead Sansa’s immediate concern when speaking to Littlefinger is that Harry the Heir called her a bastard in front of everyone. Meanwhile Dany in ADwD:

Skahaz had been named Warden of the River, with charge of all the ferries, dredges, and irrigation ditches along the Skahazadhan for fifty leagues, but the Shavepate had refused that ancient and honorable office, as Hizdahr called it, preferring to retire to the modest pyramid of Kandaq.

Mounted men were of more use in open fields and hills than in the narrow streets and alleys of the city. Beyond Meereen's walls of many-colored brick, Dany's rule was tenuous at best. Thousands of slaves still toiled on vast estates in the hills, growing wheat and olives, herding sheep and goats, and mining salt and copper. Meereen's storehouses held ample supplies of grain, oil, olives, dried fruit, and salted meat, but the stores were dwindling. So Dany had dispatched her tiny khalasar to subdue the hinterlands, under the command of her three bloodriders, whilst Brown Ben Plumm took his Second Sons south to guard against Yunkish incursions.

The most crucial task of all she had entrusted to Daario Naharis, glib-tongued Daario with his gold tooth and trident beard, smiling his wicked smile through purple whiskers. Beyond the eastern hills was a range of rounded sandstone mountains, the Khyzai Pass, and Lhazar. If Daario could convince the Lhazarene to reopen the overland trade routes, grains could be brought down the river or over the hills at need …

The sea provides all the salt that Qarth requires, but I would gladly take as many olives as you cared to sell me. Olive oil as well."

"I have none to offer. The slavers burned the trees." Olives had been grown along the shores of Slaver's Bay for centuries; but the Meereenese had put their ancient groves to the torch as Dany's host advanced on them, leaving her to cross a blackened wasteland. "We are replanting, but it takes seven years before an olive tree begins to bear, and thirty years before it can truly be called productive. What of copper?"

Sansa does not come anywhere close to Dany and Jon in terms of leadership and that she’s so often pushed as this future queen in fandom, including by bnfs and so called asoiaf experts, is baffling, frustrating and hilarious.

What, if any, attributes does Sansa have to even be a peacetime ruler? After the war means rebuilding from scratch, making deals, hard bargaining, strategizing, using political tools, rebuilding the economy for war torn lands, get in the food, grow the food - precisely the kind of thing Dany is doing in Meereen. Or Jon thinking of building green houses in the Gift to grow food.

But Sansa building a snow model of Winterfell means that she’s the best qualified peace time ruler? Reddit dudebros and so called tumblr feminists united in wanting female characters who wield soft power and uphold the patriarchy as future rulers.

Even when it comes to personal growth, while Sansa has come a long way from her AGoT days, she still has some catching up to do with her peers. After getting hold of LF, Sansa complains that Harry is a horrible person for calling her a bastard.

Come,” Petyr said, “walk with me.” He took her by the arm and led her deeper into the vaults, past an empty dungeon. “And how was your first meeting with Harry the Heir?”

“He’s horrible.”

“The world is full of horrors, sweet. By now you ought to know that. You’ve seen enough of them.”

“Yes,” she said, “but why must he be so cruel? He called me your bastard. Right in the yard, in front of everyone.”

Now, personally, this is the point where I would like some introspection from Sansa. Remember when Sansa called out Jon as a jealous bastard in front of her friends in AGoT and Arya defended him?

Sansa sighed as she stitched.  “Poor Jon,” she said.  “He gets jealous because he's a bastard.”

“He’s our brother,” Arya said, much too loudly. Her voice cut through the afternoon quiet of the tower room.

“Our half brother,” Sansa corrected, soft and precise. - Arya, AGoT

Considering the way Sansa ignored Joffrey’s attack on Arya, it’s a good bet that if Harry the Heir had called out Jon Snow as a bastard in front of everyone in AGoT, Sansa would not have an issue with it. Now that she is being insulted as one, she gets to experience the hurt that Jon felt everyday growing up in Winterfell as a real bastard.

But even here, she refuses to scrutinize the situation more than simply getting angry at being called a bastard. Sansa is often held up as this compassionate, kindest person, ‘beacon of hope for the future’, a queen who cares for the masses etc. But where is her questioning why the classist prejudice against bastards is in itself wrong?

She is angry that she is being called a bastard, she is not angry that bastards are treated as less than. She doesn’t question the societal prejudice against bastards, only angry that she has to pretend to be one and be insulted as one. She doesn’t spare a second reflecting on her bastard brother Jon Snow or question her low opinion of bastards:

Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. And Jon’s mother had been common, or so people whispered. Once, when she was littler, Sansa had even asked Mother if perhaps there hadn’t been some mistake. - Sansa, AGoT

And that’s the difference I see between Sansa and characters like Dany, Arya, Jon, Brienne and even with Tyrion and Penny. While GRRM interrogates Westerosi society prejudices, feudalism, classism, sexism, slavery, ableism, bigotry, the effects of war on the small folk etc with these other characters, Sansa rarely reflects on these issues. That’s why it makes no sense when epithets like ‘embodiment of hope for the future’ is used to describe the character. Hope for whom? The small folk? The patriarchy? The feudal lords?

Sansa being nice to people like the stuttering Ser Wallace is held up as her being the kindest ever. But Jon is nice to Shireen, Arya is kind to Weasel, Jaime is kind to Tyrion. Why is kindness and compassion only highlighted for Sansa, like some unique feature of hers when many characters, even the villains, exhibit kindness?

This is Jon Snow in ADwD

“I see what you are, Snow. Half a wolf and half a wildling, baseborn get of a traitor and a whore. You would deliver a highborn maid to the bed of some stinking savage. Did you sample her yourself first?” He laughed. “If you mean to kill me, do it and be damned for a kinslayer. Stark and Karstark are one blood.”

“My name is Snow.”

“Bastard.”

“Guilty. Of that, at least.”  - Jon Snow, ADwD

This is Sansa Stark in TWoW:

Ser Harrold looked down at her coldly. “Why should it please me to be escorted anywhere by Littlefinger’s bastard?”  

“Yes,” she said, “but why must he be so cruel? He called me your bastard. Right in the yard, in front of everyone.”  - Alayne, TWoW

Sansa in TWoW is as hurt by the bastard moniker as Jon Snow was in AGoT when addressed as such by Tyrion. She’s emotionally where Jon Snow was in AGoT, while Jon has matured enough to not care for such insults anymore. And this is book 6! I guess it makes sense considering Jon is 16 -17 and Sansa would be 13 - 14 years old, making her younger than him in AGoT. But this is why the whole ‘Jon should take Sansa’s advice to rule because she’s the smartest ever!’ trash the show pushed to hype up Sansa is complete nonsense.

I don’t know how many chapters GRRM will be devoting to Sansa in the Vale in TWoW, but there’s still a lot of growth and character development pending for book Sansa. As I have always said, Sansa has a lot of information but she rarely if ever introspects on what she has heard and seen. She knows that LF last had Jeyne Poole but at one point wonders where Jeyne Poole is... Just ask LF dammit! She knows that Lysa had Jon Arryn poisoned on LF’s say so and knows that SweetRobin is being dosed with dangerous levels of Sweetsleep and that LF is banking on his death and yet thinks that SweetRobin will be okay. She needs to start putting two and two together to come up with four and I suspect that in itself will take up the whole of TWoW.

So will Sansa become any kind of queen or ruler? No. If she survives the books, I can see her being Lady of the Vale and be moving the chess pieces around. I can see her gaining agency and maybe even be the real power in the Vale aka Littefinger. Just like Jon, Arya, Bran and Dany I think Sansa will be a darker character in TWoW. The game of thrones cannot be played honorably and she will need to get her hands dirty to outwit LF and take him down at his own game.

The point where Sansa simply stops narrating what she sees and actually starts analyzing what she sees in her POV chapters is when the student will become the master and I am excited to see that happening.