#I'm not saying the context for this one or how it came to be sucks to be you

[running-in-the-dark]

oh - when my nephew was here he also told me that my mother said medication doesn't have any effect on hunger.

hahaha that's so fucking funny, I'm gonna scream :)

(was just reminded of this because I feel like I'm starving. because of my new meds. when without them... I don't really feel hungry until many hours after I should have eaten.)

[littlelightfish]

Holm nation... I have a heartbreaking announcement to make.

We didn't get to see this panels animated.

(I wanted to see Laios helping him, this one isn't the one this post is all about)

I feel it's important to his character enough that Kui decided to dedicate three panels about how he aproaches and resurrects Kabru.

He is used to resurrecting people, his party sucks at keeping themselves alive. He walks up to Kabru's corpse with a worried look on his face. Then he kneels besides him and takes a second to process what he is seeing. He is seeing a young man, Kabru, dead. It makes him feel unseasy, a bit of shock that he can't take the luxury of process at the moment. He doesn't want to look, so he closes his eyes and focuses on his spell. He is realizing he is the only one alive from his party (he doesn't know where Mick is or how he is). He is the last one standing. The reality of it all slaps him in the face.

The panel of him just... looking at the mess Kabru's corpse is was just... It was important. It talked about him as a character. "I'm not doing this because I want to, but because I have to". He doesn't has time for emotions. He has a job to do.

It's just three panels. But they provide lots of context between the ones that came before and after.

He doesn't just rubs Kabru's head because he's being afective. He does it because he cares. He does it out of relief. "As long as I'm here, any of you'll be dying soon. And I'll always be here. Don't worry." He is far from being OK after all this. Marillier died, Daya died, Kuro died, Kabru died, Rin died, Mick probably died too (but he doesn't saw it). He... By the time he was the only one standing, the fight was over, and he could alredy resurrect them. He wants to feel sad. To worry, to be concerned, to mourn. But he can't. It isn't necessary.

He is a cleric. He for sure has a notion of dead way different than anyone and feels a certain way about resurrection. "Dying is dying, even if you resurrect." It's a bug at the corner of his mind, he doesn't pay it any attention. He gets resurrected multiple times, he is gratefull he is alive. But seeing all his friends dead? And the most of them mutilated? Covered in their own blood? He has this desire to mourn. To cry the loss. To panic. "They are all dead."

He knows they'll come back. He has to make them come back. So he does. And they are alive. But they weren't a few seconds ago. And he just plays it off, he puts his calm face on as soon as there is another party member alive that could ask him what happened that it disturbed him so much. He throws all those sad feelings under the rug and focuses at the task at hand.

They're going to be ok, he just has to do his job: bring them back from death. They shouldn't even be dead. But they are. And he's going to fix it. No point on feeling sad about them dying if they can be alive soon!

I think the concern that the anime puts here it's something that could come close to what he feels inside. Those seconds are the only ones we see him looking something akin to worried for his friends.

But then...

His worry vanishes in seconds. The moment Kabru revives, he does it in such a "Kabru" way, that he tells himself: "This is fine, they're going to be back soon, nothing to worry about, I just have to hurry". He wants them all back to live. We know for sure that in his priority list there wasn't any "reviving Toshiro's party members first". He was going to make sure all his party, all his friends, were alive before even thinking of resurrecting other people if he still had the magic.

Those three panels they didn't animate are something that was there for a reason. To give depth to Holm. This last episode is definitely the one in wich he shines the most. He isn't the main character at all this episode, but he does the most important stuff on the background. He revives them all. This all lack of something if you don't show what Kuy drew on those panels.

Here he just... goes to work. He says: "lemme handle it" and he does. No concern, no worry, no, nothing. He just does. No thoughts.

It makes me sad. Those panels were important. :(

[sleepys-circus]

I keep seeing critics talking about the fnaf movie being poor but it literally isn't for them. I saw someone else saying the movie's a love letter to the fandom and i WHOLEHARTEDLY agree.

This is how i took it: We, the fans, are Anton Ego, the critic from Ratatouille; the ratatouille was special to us because it was our childhood. I hate ratatouille (the food), but to Anton Ego it was everything. Critics don't like the fnaf movie because they only have the movie as context, but to fans, the fnaf movie is everything and we love it even though it's a little cringey. In fact we love it BECAUSE it's cringey in some cases.

Like no new viewers would get the chica's magic rainbow part, or the MatPat reference, or the whole ongoing bit about Dream Theory sucking, or understand how hype the whole ending part was.

I was lucky to be in a cinema full of fnaf fans, and we were cheering and laughing, and screaming at the references. People got up when the movie ended and SAT BACK DOWN when the living tombstone came on. We shouted the letters of the code, and screamed when Matpat said his line. People clapped and cheered at the end, and people were crying at the parts where they were treating the animatronics with love and affection.

No critics would understand how much fans want to interact with the animatronics in a positive way, or understand how much importance the five seconds of its me on the mirror means in implications of the lore. They wouldn't understand because they haven't been waiting a good part of a decade to see this movie. They came, they saw, and that's it, it was a second of their life, but to us it was everything. This is our ratatouille, made to impress us, not the other people in the restaurant. This was our movie, a love letter to the fandom, not the critics.

I like the changes to the story, because it puts us back at square one. We're fumbling to rearrange lore and timelines. We have to rearrange names, and start with a blank slate, and it feels like a homecoming where to critics, it might feel a little messy.

We've been given a chance to start the journey all over again and i fucking love it so much. Because i'm an adult, and all of a sudden, i'm twelve years old again and we're trying to figure out if phone guy is chica, and struggling our way through whatever the fuck was happening in fnaf 3 to get the good ending. The critics don't get this.

They don't understand how hype the midnight motorists reference is, nor did they care about the references on the chalkboard. Or the code at the end, or the song choices, or the lore implications. They don't understand the sudden lore drop of william afton, or the way he's acting, but we do. They don't understand the vengeful spirit, but we do. Nothing is explained to the audience, because we don't need it to be explained.

This is our ratatouille, and we love the rats in the kitchen.

[svtiddiess]

Louder Baby

Synopsis: You're with Seungcheol again, but this time, you're putting on a show for someone.

Pairing: Seungcheol x afab!stylist!reader ft. Jeonghan

Genre: smut, mini-series, fwb to lovers?

Rating: mature

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: smut, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (don't do this!), mentions of body fluids, exhibitionism, voyeurism, oral (fem receiving), breast play, creampie, mean dom!Cheol, sub!reader, lemme know if I missed anything!

Note: This is part of a three part series, reading part 1 and part 2 will help a lot with the context!

@tomodachiii she's here, I hope the ending is to your satisfaction. I'll miss this couple ngl.

@brownsugarbaybee wasn't expecting a part 3 were you baby?

Click here to join my taglist!

Reblogs are appreciated ♡

.ᐟMinors/blank/no age indicator blogs will be blocked.ᐟ

Why am I even here?

Was the first thought that rang through your mind as you stood outside, waiting for him to open the door. You tugged your hat lower and pulled your mask higher, paranoid that someone might recognise you. You shouldn't be here; you're not standing in front of some random person's apartment; you're standing in front of Choi Seungcheol's apartment. You shift from side to side, getting antsy.

This is a bad idea. I shoul-

Before you can finish your thought, the door swings open, and your heart skips a beat. There he is, the man who lives in your mind rent-free, Choi Seungcheol. He's wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and a black fitted T-shirt, which makes your knees go weak. You almost moan at the sight.

"Hey baby, sorry to keep you waiting. C'mon in," he says as he steps to the side, flashing you a lazy smirk. You quickly shuffle in, keeping your head down. You look around his apartment and are pleasantly surprised to find everything so neat. You jump when you feel a pair of hands on your shoulders from behind.

"Calm down baby, no need to be so tense," he softly says as he rubs your arms in an attempt to calm you down. "I don't bite," he whispers as he shifts to move in front of you. He leans in close, his lips next to your ear. "Unless you want me to," he purrs, then leans back with a lopsided grin painting his face. You blush furiously and look away from him.

"You can ditch the hat and the mask. It's safe in here, promise," he says as he steps back, giving you room to catch your breath and remove the clothing items. You nod and slowly remove your hat and mask; you don't notice how Seungcheol's breath slightly hitches at the sight of you.

"Beautiful as always," he says as his eyes rake your figure, making you blush. "I'm glad you came. I didn't want our guest to be disappointed."

Wait, guest?

Before you could ask what he meant by that he leads you to what you assume is his bedroom. As you enter, your heart stills at the sight of the so-called 'guest' Seungcheol mentioned.

Yoon Jeonghan.

He's sitting on a sofa placed in the corner of the room, legs spread and a smirk on his face. You look towards Seungcheol for answers.

"Jeonghan said ever since he saw you that day he couldn't stop thinking about you," Seungcheol states as he gets closer to you and cups your face. "He said he wanted to watch you get fucked by me, so let's put on a show for him, shall we, baby?"

He waits for your reply, but when he doesn't get one, his smirk turns into a frown. "Hey, if you don't wanna do this, you can go back home. No one's forcing you to be here," he reassures you, gently caressing your cheek. Your eyes widen, and you shake your head. "N-No! I want…this," you shyly state, blush dusting your cheeks. Seungcheol smiles and gently guides your lips to his. His lips capture yours into a gentle kiss, different from last time.

The kiss slowly got rougher as you allowed Seungcheol to take control. His hands roam your body as he sucks on your bottom lip. You moan as you relax into his hold. He takes his time in savouring the kiss as, unlike the last time, he has all the time in the world to relish you. He separates his lips from yours and then attaches them to your neck, leaving marks as he starts guiding you to the bed. You couldn't help but let out soft whimpers when his teeth started digging into your skin, marking you as his.

He guides you to lie down on the bed with your legs hanging off. He grins as he shifts to kneel in front of you. Your breath hitches, and you instinctively close your legs together. Seungcheol stops you and pries your legs wide open with ease. "Uh-uh, I wanna taste you baby," he says, then starts undoing the button of your pants. You sit up, resting on your elbows, and bite your bottom lip as Seungcheol undresses your pants. You make brief eye contact with Jeonghan and couldn't help but blush and quickly look away which makes Jeonghan chuckle softly.

You let out a soft yelp and look back down at Seungcheol, who looks at you whilst biting your inner thigh whilst pouting, if that was even possible. He furrows his eyebrows as if to say, 'Pay attention to me,' and goes back to placing more marks on your inner thighs. You let out soft whimpers of his name and plead with him not to tease. You feel him smirk against your thigh, then shift to move towards your core. He hovers right infront of it but doesn't do anything; he just looks at you with a cocky expression. You let out a whine of frustration and buck your hips up, but he holds you down with a single hand on your lower stomach.

"Seungcheol, please," you whine, getting frustrated with his teasing. "Please, what, baby?" He cocks his head and pulls away even more frustrating you even further. "Please. I…I need your tongue," you mumble the last part.

"Hm? What was that? I couldn't hear you baby," he teases with a shit-eating grin on his face. "I need your tongue, please!" You almost yell, which makes Seungcheol chuckle.

He dives in and licks a stripe up your panty-clad core, moaning at the taste. You let out a moan at the feeling of some sort of relief. He continues to lick you through your panties, making your already wet panties even wetter. "Seungcheol, please," you whine.

"What is it baby? You asked for my tongue, and I'm giving it to you," he teases. You throw your head back and let out a frustrated whine, which only makes him laugh. "Maybe if you beg nicely…" he murmurs with a grin.

You start begging with tears of frustration pricking your eyes. You can hear him and Jeonghan laugh, which makes you blush hard but also makes you wetter. He then peels off your panties, making you squirm. "Make sure to scream my name out loud, baby," he says with a wink before diving in. You gasp and moan as you feel him suck on your clit. You grab onto Seungcheol's hair and tug, which makes him growl, sending vibrations through you. You moan his name out loud when his tongue starts prodding into you, lapping up all your juices. You make eye contact with Jeonghan and can't help but moan even louder; somehow, him watching you brings you closer to the edge.

Seungcheol noses your clit, and you cum, hard, legs closing around him, but he holds it open and continues to lap you up, driving your body into overstimulation. You whine at him to stop, and after a few more licks, he sits up; you almost cum a second time just looking at him, hair dishevelled and your juices dripping down his chin. He shifts to move on top of you and kisses you messily, making you taste yourself.

He separates from you and quickly discards any remaining clothing items separating the both of you. Your breath hitches at the sight of him fully naked. You run your hand down his well-built torso, almost drooling at the sight, making him smirk. "Like what you see, baby?" He asks cockily, causing you to blush.

He dives in, savouring your breasts, kneading and marking them, causing you to arch your back and moan his name. You moan and roll your eyes back when he slowly enters you. He gives you a moment to adjust to his huge size before starting to pound into you. You moan his name and grab onto his shoulders, digging into his skin and earning a hiss from him.

"Go on baby, tell Jeonghan how good I'm making you feel," he purrs in between thrusts. "So good, feel so full," you manage to whimper out, fuelling Seungcheol's ego.

"I'm the only one who can make you feel this way, right baby?" He asks, to which you attempt to answer but can only respond with broken moans.

Your eyes drift to where Jeonghan is sitting, and you can see his hard-on straining against his pants. You moan at the thought of the lewd scene taking place in the room, you getting ruthlessly fucked by Seungcheol as Jeonghan watches, the sounds of wet squelching and the smell of sex filling the room; it all brings you closer and closer to the edge.

"I'm close," you pant out. Seungcheol sneaks his hand down to your clit and rubs it in circles, tipping you over the edge. You squeeze around him, and your juices drip onto the bed. He continues to pound into you, chasing after his own high. He cums with a growl filling you up to the brim, your mixed fluids soaking the sheets below you.

You both take a minute to catch your breath. He looks into your eyes and gently caresses your cheek before leaning in to capture your lips into a tender kiss. You melt into the kiss, savouring the feeling of his soft lips against yours. He separates from the kiss and stares into your eyes, searching for something. Silence drapes the room; it feels as if the world has come to a pause to allow you to admire the man on top of you for just a little bit longer. You don't want to let go; you don't want this to end; you want to stay in his arms forever. Finally, he breaks the silence.

"Go out with me?"

[mattyriddlesbitch]

Journal

Lorenzo Bershire x Reader

Warnings: Kissing

Request from @helendeath

You became friends with the boys pretty early on in your time at Hogwarts. You all became really close, spending a lot of time together.

A few years ago, Theo had gotten both you and Enzo the same journal for your birthdays since they were so close together and you seemed to really like how Enzo's looked when he got his. It never really caused any problems or mixups, you both were pretty careful to keep it in your own dorms.

That was until you were in a rush out of your dorm and packed it in your bag with your class books. You decided to study in the library with Mattheo, Theo, and Enzo. You pulled all your books out and put them beside you, not realizing your journal was among them. Once you were done with your studying-more like the boys messing around and trying to distract you-you packed your books away and left with Enzo.

Mattheo noticed the journal that was left behind first. He knew how secretive Enzo could be of his, so he put it in his bag to give to Enzo later.

A couple hours later, in the common room, Theo, Draco, Blaise and Mattheo were relaxing on some of the couches and chatting when Enzo came in.

“You forgot your journal.” Mattheo called to him before tossing the journal to him.

Enzo caught it but frowned in confusion. “Thanks.” He said and opened the journal as he sat down with them, very quickly realizing it wasn't his. He was about to close it when he saw his name. He felt so guilty, but he's only human after all.

“We didn't touch it or do anything to it, if that's what you're checking for.” Mattheo said.

“No, no, that's not…” Enzo trailed off, too focused on your journal. His eyebrows raised as he read a specific sentence. One that said you have a crush on him.

“What's going on?” Theo asked, all the boys now looking at Enzo in confusion.

He closed the journal suddenly, very roughly. “I have to go.” Enzo said as he stood up, hurrying off to your dorm.

“I don't think that was his journal.” Mattheo said after a moment of silence.

You were in a panic at your dorm, looking for the journal. You searched through all your drawers, your bags, any hidden spots in your dorm. You didn't want anyone to read it. And if you misplaced it and someone decided to read it, you'd die of embarrassment.

Your dorm door swung open, revealing Enzo holding up said journal, breathing a bit heavily like he ran to you.

“Is that my-” You started.

“You have a crush on me.” Enzo blurted out, still in shock himself to even try acting casual.

Your eyes widened, blush spreading over your cheeks as you opened your mouth to say something, but closed it, unsure of how to respond. You could deny it, but it seems he already read it. You could confirm it, but the words didn't seem to want to come out of your mouth anyways.

Enzo closed your dorm door as he tried composing himself better. “I didn't mean to pry, I thought it was mine, but then I saw that.”

You stared at him for another second before even being able to say something. “I…That's really embarrassing.” You said, dropping your gaze to the floor. “You weren't supposed to read that. No one was.”

“No, no, no.” He said as he stepped closer, tossing the journal onto your desk before cupping your cheeks and making you look up at him. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have read it. But it's not embarrassing.”

“How is it not embarrassing? The guy I like read how I wrote about him.” You let out a frustrated sigh.

“Because maybe the guy you like likes you back.” He said with a small smile.

“‘Maybe’?” You repeated, a little annoyed, but also very hopeful.

“Yeah, you should ask him.” He teased.

You let out another sigh, fighting back a smile. “Fine. Lorenzo Berkshire, do you like me?”

“In what context?”

“Enzo!” You groaned and he chuckled.

“Yes.” He answered, smiling softly at you now. “I do like you.”

“Does that mean you wrote about me too?” You asked him.

“Mmm. Possibly.”

“You suck at answering questions.”

He chuckled again before leaning in and kissing you softly, his thumbs brushing over your cheeks gently.

“I suppose I can let you read mine and find out.” He said against your lips with a smile as he pulled back from the kiss.

“It's only fair since you read mine.”

“That was an accident!” He said, pulling back further so you could see his little pout.

“That's what you say.”

“You don't believe me?”

“Should I?” You smiled at him.

“I thought you loved me.”

“I said I have a crush on you. Big difference.”

“One day, you will.” He said before leaning in to kiss you again.

Taglist:

@jeannie-beannie @yourenogoodforme @mixvchelle @helendeath @evaslytherpuff

@soaked4abby @hpnsfwaddict @mayamonroem @brittney-121 @leovaldezsbitch

@dracoslovergirl @littlemadamred @mattheoriddlesbitch @acornacreacure @opheliamalfoy236

@demieyesore @akira1246 @queenshu @prettypinkprincess15 @starryslytherin0

Let me know if you wanna be added!

[andy-wm]

https://x.com/jmnberries/status/1817503692083396934

LOUD AND CLEAR

Said by Jimin himself. He's searching for the person he's meant to be with, the one his heart is waiting for. He passes one person after another thinking is it you or you. And guess what ? IT WAS ALWAYS A WOMAN.

You and your theory about WHO proven wrong for 975939488848th time 😛

My goodness Anon, are you telling me my theory has been discussed that many times? That's quite an achievement! I didn't know my theories - or I - had such a far reaching impact.

[basking in the glow of this proud moment]

Ok I'm done basking, now back to the ask:

For those of you playing along at home, here's the tweet Anon sent in, for context.

Anon, I'm going to quote you, since you said it so succinctly...

"He passes one person after another thinking 'is it you or you'. And guess what ? IT WAS ALWAYS A WOMAN."

Absolutely correct Anon!

It WAS always a woman

I'm glad we agree on this.

You also said "He's searching for the person he's meant to be with, the one his heart is waiting for."

Yes! We agree on this too!

He's definitely working hard to find the one his heart is waiting for - you said it yourself, he's searching. He's actively looking for them.

We're doing well so far...

Oh but context is important here, right??

We should probably clarify that he's actually describing the last scene of the MV - the one he's about to film. He's not describing himself or his own life.

Yes, to be totally transparent, Jimin is describing a scene he's shooting for the MV of a song - a song he asked Jon Bellion to write. A song he himself didn't contribute to beyond that. He didn't write the visual narrative for the MV either, that was the creatives at Lumpens. No doubt he gave a lot of input but he didn't provide the material.

Did you forget that part, Anon? Or did you think he was actually describing his own life? Or... were you sneakily pretending he was talking about his real life when he said those things, because that suited your argument?

If you were trying to make it sound like he was talking about his own personal lived experiences, that kinda sucks. Because we love Jimin for WHO HE IS. We don't need to make shit up about his life and pretend things are real when they aren't.

We don't need to pretend, Anon, we can just observe, write about what we see - honestly and objectively and without judgement - and then step back and look at the situation.

I guess you might be wondering how come I'm analysing everything if I think we should just be talking about what we see. Fair call. I don't mean that we can't read between the lines or make educated (substantiated) guesses that we can back up with facts (and cite our sources - I am a librarian after all). I also don't mean we can't look deeper than the surface. There are always layers of meaning and hidden messages in the art produced for BTS. I get right into it because I enjoy it - my background is in visual arts analysis so it's kinda my jam - but I'm not just making shit up. I have a wealth of learning and experience I'm basing my analysis on. I'm also not claiming that it's fact - it's an interpretation - It's my interpretation (and just quietly I am pretty good at this stuff so it's a justified and plausible interpretation).

What I'm saying is don't purposefully misinterpret what you see to mislead, or to fuel an opinion or argument that doesn't stand up otherwise. If you have to bend the truth to back up your argument, you might want to reconsider that argument. Theory is built on evidence, not the other way around.

But back to Jimin...

Of course it's perfectly possible that he did spend several years thinking he would one day find true love with a woman. Maybe he dated loads of women. Maybe he came close to finding a deep love with one or more of them. And if he did, I hope those were happy times for him (or at least meaningful times if happiness was elusive). I would never think of denying that if I saw evidence of it, or judging him for who he loves (or loved). I don't think there's any wrong or right here - whether it's heterosexual or bisexual or asexual or gay or queer or into kink or poly or whatever else he is or does. Who he fucks or who he loves or who he feels emotionally safe with - and for many of us humans those are not necessarily even the same people - that's his business.

His life, his body, his business.

I don't judge Jimin. I just admire and celebrate him for who he is.

And I wish him happiness.

I wish them both so, so much happiness.

That's the whole point of all of this, really.

That's why I watch Jimin and Jungkook together, Anon. Not because I want them to be together or because I think they should be, but because I see real happiness when they are together.

True happiness and true love are rare and beautiful things.

I think that's why most of us Jikookers are here, Anon. Because the joy we see and the delight we feel, just from witnessing these two beautiful people being happy, is real.

I'm not saying ALL of us are altruistic. Some Jikookers are full of shit. They covet one or both of them and they think supporting Jikook's relationship entitles them to make judgements or assumptions or claims about Jimin and JK. They get possessive, they objectify, they demand things. Some people who claim to support Jikook have spite and hatred in their hearts... yes, we have our share of nut jobs too.

But the majority of genuine Jikook supporters I encounter are simply here to celebrate the greatest love story we've ever seen. We're here to get behind two beautiful men who clearly love each other despite the odds against them. We're here to bask in the reflection of their glow and it's bloody wonderful.

But, I digress....

Let's go back to the making of the MV for WHO...

<and here I go again with the analysis>

Here Jimin describes the MV, just like when talking about the final scene. He says it's like a musical movie.

"Right now we're filming one of my favourite parts. It's like a musical movie." There's definitely a narrative here, it's the part where he joins 6 other male dancers, an obvious nod to BTS.

We already know there 's a narrative, but Jimin confirms it for us here.

So let's look again at the narrative:

Throughout this production we can see that the dance (not choreographed by Jimin) and the lyrics (not written by Jimin) have been created/chosen to show /tell us that Jimin (the performer) is searching among all these women for the love of his life.

THAT'S *PART* OF THE STORY THEY ARE TELLING.

But it leaves out a pretty big development ...

He was searching for love, looking at every woman just as he was supposed to, but someone (WHO?) crashed into his life and stopped him in his tracks. Yes, that someone fell directly into his path in a way that couldn't be ignored.

Jimin said

"I try to see WHO I'm meant to be with... is it you? Is it you?"

It doesn't sound like he was giving anyone much of a chance, does it? It sounds more like he was searching for someone in particular.

Maybe it was no accident. Maybe he was searching for WHO all along and he just didn't realise, until he found him.

Ok I am done talking (finally)

I'll finish responding to this ask so we can all go on with our lives.

To respond to your specific query, Anon:

Jimin doesn't say he's searching for a woman himself, does he? Not even in that quote you supplied.

He could have said "women walk past me" but he said "people walk past me".

He could have said he's trying to see which of these women he's meant to be with, but instead he said "who I'm meant to be with"

We can't ignore him saying WHO, Anon.

The song isn't called Which woman?

The song is called WHO

Anon, if you stuck with me all the way through this post, I commend you.

And yes, I was a bit facetious in the beginning, in my defence I had a shitty day at work. But I responded to you as the adult I imagine you to be, even though your language was a little on the childish side. I assume you were intending to piss me off but I enjoyed answering to your ask, so thank you regardless.

If you are still here I want to ask you a few genuine questions in return... I'd love to hear your honest answer.

Why, in the face of all the evidence, it's so difficult to accept that Jimin and Jungkook have a bond that goes beyond friendship or brotherhood?

They look like they're vey happy together, so why do you want them to not be together?

Why is it a problem for you if they love each other? Homophobia is learned behaviour. Who did you learn it from?

And probably my most burning question:

Have you ever experienced true, deep, lasting love?

[abowlofsourcream]

⏳💫Switch A Loop: Talking to Loop after Talking to The King!💫⏳

Context: “Memory of Loss” post!

*Isabeau was back at the Favor Tree…

*Hunched over on Dormont's ground.

*He feels like he wants to throw up…

*…

*He stands up and slowly walked to towards it, crossing his arms.

*Just a few moments later, Oldie came rushing to the foot of the tree and yelled.

Odile: LOOP. OUT. NOW.

*Isabeau grip tightened at the side of his shoulders.

Isabeau: We just want to talk... Please?

*There was a pause for a moment, and then a bright light under the tree. Loop wasn't looking at them, instead choosing to floor.

Loop: I told you that something bad would happen if you did that...

Odile: No, something bad happening would just have the King kill us. What happened in that loop was MUCH worse...

Loop: Then why are you yelling at me!? It's not my fault! I didn't know that king would kill them!

*Isabeau flinched at that line. Odile pressed in the middle of her temple, trying her best to keep her boiling anger aside.

Odile: But you told us that you would know what would happen in these loops, suddenly you didn't think of the possibility that something could happen to Bonniface?

Loop: I thought that it would be DIFFERENT! That YOU would be smart enough to make sure that wouldn't happen to them! That you do the SMART thing and let the Traveler be the one to-

*Isabeau snapped. He groaned at Loop, startling Odile and Loop.

Isabeau: Change, Is that LITERALLY all you can say? "Aw" That sucks! Maybe if Siffrin was the one who did this, blah blah blah blah blah-!" Like, that wouldn't change anything! We would be just as upset if it was Siffrin!

*Loop clenches their fist, but he didn't care.

Isabeau: Look, I get it. You seem to have some irrational hatred towards Sif. Let's agree to disagree, but that gives you no right to badmouth him or joke about him to us! He is our friend!Besides, he couldn't have known that would-

Loop: Yes he should have.

Isabeau: Hey, I wasn't finished-!

Loop: WELL, YOU DON'T GET TO FINISH!

*Loop jumps off the Favor Tree, and run straight up to Isabeau. Wow, they're a lot smaller than he expected.

Loop: YOU DON'T GET TO LECTURE ME ABOUT HOW I TALK ABOUT THE TRAVELER! IRRATIONAL HATRED? HA! IF YOU KNEW WHAT I KNEW, I BET YOU-!

Mirabelle: Guys!

*Everyone turned to see both Mirabelle and Bonnie staring at them. Mirabelle was holding Bonnie's sunhat for them.

*Bonnie slowly walks up to Loop, who anger seemingly dissipates when the sight of them.

Bonnie: Please... Please don't be mad at Frin... It was my idea to have him talk to the king. I tripped while trying to runaway. If anything, I'm the one that messed it all up..

Isabeau: Bonnie...

* Surprisingly, Loop knees down to Bonnie and gently holds their tiny hands.

Loop: No, No... It's no one's fault. Not you or your Traveler's... It just... Brought up some unpleasant old memories... It's a me problem, don't worry.

*It was silent for a while... The Loop spoke.

Loop: [Congrats, Everyone! You got "Memory of Loss"! Unfortunately, you will never forget this! With this memory, your Traveler will be able to read books from their country! Oh, but be careful! It's best if we leave the past behind. You won't want to worry your forgetful little friend, now would we?]

* Loop pauses for a moment, and looks Bonnie in their eyes.

Loop:.. I'm sorry, Bonnie...

*Just like that, Loop stands up and goes back to the Favor Tree. The others slowly go back to the Clock Tower.

*Isa was thinking about Loop still, weirdly about how short they were! He guessed he never really considered it, since Loop always at sat in the Favor Tree. And just now, they said Bonnie's name after almost never saying any of theirs.

*And their eye's!

*They.

*Were.

*Just.

*Like.

*...

* Maybe…

*…

* He should talk to Odile about it, first…

[nisuna]

Hiii, Helloooo. I'm back :^)

I've made a separate post about how much this idea means to me, and I hope I did it justice. This is like my baby, one of the very first scenarios I've ever thought of. Something that motivated me to start writing in the first place and made me want to share my writing at all, so yeaaahh, please be gentle♡. I've made a detailed post about it, so feel free to check that one out here.

The gist of it is: It all happened one evening when your best friend came to pick you up from a party for the first time, being tipsy and sexually frustrated one thing led to another and you slept together and from then on it kind of became your guys' thing

You refuse to call him by his first name, but he'd really like you to. Even worse, you even add -san to his last name whenever you're tipsy

Oh, and no kissing, bcs that's too intimate am I right ha ha

What's the worst that could happen this time?

he miiiighhtt make you call him by his first name and maybe just maybe you do finally kiss???! who knows hahaaa

Without further ado Fwb!Suguru x f!reader, let's gooooo

<3masterlist<3

~2,4k words~ Strictly 18+ MDNI

TW: fwb!suguru x f!reader, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, cream pie, marking, biting, hickeys, multiple positions, get fucked stupid, first times, teasing, dirty talk, tit sucking, nipple play, multiple rounds, leg humping, so much happening did I miss anything?? lmk xoxo

He never understood why you liked going out to the most shabby and stuffed clubs. It reeked of alcohol and smoke mixed with all kinds of bodily fluids. As he was making his way through the dancing crowd of sweaty people grinding against each other, he finally found you sitting at the bar while some guy was leaning in your direction way too close for comfort.

He had his usual fit, hair half up with a black over sized sweater and loose black joggers. Making him look so huge that if there were any guys bothering you, they would leave you alone as soon as they saw him.

"Yo~ y/n", he touched your exposed shoulder and gave you his signature eye smile, before staring down the guy next to you that was trying to get in your pants or in this context in ypur skimpy little dress. The guys' annoyed look turned into a worried one after seeing who he was up against.

"Aahhh Geto-saannn you're here early" you mused, leaning against his hard chest. That damn honorific, he cursed but still managed to squeeze out a smile.

"Haha "-san", so you aren't her boyfriend then." the stranger snarled but soon gave up as Suguru raised an eyebrow at him and snapped a "watch it". "Alright, alright, I give up", he put his hands up in defeat. "Maybe next time, sweetcheeks."

As soon as the guy left, Suguru took both of your hands in his and knelt down in front of you. "Y/n we've talked about this. If you don't want to call me Suguru, at least drop the honorific. We've known each other for years now, don't you think it's about time. Also, don't you think it's weird when you call the guy you fuck by his last name, hm?" He turned his head looking at you expectedly.

"But Geto-saaaan-"

"Ah ah, what did I just tell you"

"Okay, okay, Geto" you huffed, "You know I'm not comfortable with that", you whined, squeezing his hands.

"I just want to hear you say it at least once. Say it and I'll fuck you real good tonight.", he smirked.

You considered it, after a hard week you really needed a good fuck. "Sugu-", is all you could manage before snapping your head away, "Nope can't do it."

He let his head drop with a loud sigh. "It's alright, I was just pushing my luck. C'mon, let's get you out of here." And with that, he rose back to his full height, grabbed your hand, and pulled you from the bar stool. While making your way through the crowd and to his car, your thoughts kept wandering.

Suguru... that's such a pretty name.

The car ride was mostly quiet, but as soon as you stepped inside his apartment, you were shoved against the closest wall and found yourself underneath him soon after.

"What's up with you today? If you keep squeezing me that hard, you might actually snap my dick off.", he chuckled. He's way too cocky. You have to do something about that.

"Have I ever told you how annoying you can be. If you don't stop talking, I think I might have to shut that mouth of yours up myself.", you whispered, putting your hands on his cheeks and pulling his face close so that it was right in front of yours.

His usually narrow eyes were blown wide open, his hips stopped moving and you became uncomfortably aware how close you two were right now. So, instead of the kiss he was so desperately awaiting, you opted for blowing on his lips and hugging him close.

"Just kidding.", you hid yourself deeper in the crook of his neck. However, when there was no remark coming from him, you pulled away to look at his blank face.

"Sorry I didn't-"

"You're really cruel, you know that", you felt goosebumps rise as he whispered against your neck. "It's payback time."

Before you could react, he pulled out, latched his mouth onto your neck and began sucking.

"Wait, ah- you're gonna leave a mark.", in a futile attempt, you raised your hands to try and push him away, only to have your hands pinned next to your head.

"If I can't have your lips, I'll take everything else.", he pulled away to take a look at you. "Tell me if you're uncomfortable."

Nod.

In between licks from your neck down to your breasts, he encouraged you to touch yourself. "Want you to cum from me playing with your nipples.", he smiled, oh so sweetly, while rolling the hardened nubs between his fingers.

Cheeky bastard, but you would lie if you said that he wasn't pushing all the right buttons right now. So your hand made its way down between your legs while you rubbed yourself in sync with his twisting and sucking.

"What happened? You're awfully quiet? Cat got your tongue?" and before you could snap back at him, he dared to smirk and pulled on your nipples making you moan.

"Fuck, stop teasing.", you whined.

"Say my name and I'll make you cum myself" he whispered after pulling himself off of you with an obnoxious pop. "What do you say? Good deal right?", he mused while kissing the skin between your breasts up your neck and to your ear. His hot breath kept hitting you as you arched your back off the bed, but to no surprise you remained silent.

"So stubborn for no reason", he shook his head in disappointment. "Then you better work for it yourself."

He really made you work for it. You always came so quickly when it was his fingers rubbing your clit, when it was his long and thick finger dipping into your dripping heat from time to time. Once you go Geto you never go back huh. Your fingers just didn't cut it anymore, so it took a lot of sucking and encouragement from him for you to tip over the edge with a silent scream of his last name.

He kissed your sensitive skin through it as you desperately clung onto him.

"Good job.", he grinned with a kiss to your cheek.

"Shut up.."

"Aww, don't be like that, c'mere", he mused, pulling you onto his lap. You let yourself fall forward against his sweaty chest as you tried to catch your breath. In your delirious state, you kept nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck, giving him a few cheeky bites, smoothing the area over with your tongue afterwards.

When you deemed him marked up enough, you pressed your forehead against his. As you were staring into each other, you mumbled, "Now we're matching."

"How cute. You're so kind, thanks."

You basked in eachothers warm embraces, breathing in each other until your hips grew impatient and started to grind against him.

'Someone's in a hurry, huh?", he quirked an eyebrow at you. You shrugged and whispered into his ear. "Gotta take care of you, too."

He expected you to go slow, but to his surprise you took a hold of his cock and slammed your hips way down meeting him in an instant.

"Whoa slow down you're gonna hurt yourself ah-" he looked at you in disbelief, "Is it okay? Does it hurt?"

You took a few deep breaths before continuing with overflowing confidence, "No, it feels really good. I can feel you all the way up here", you smiled, leaning back and tracing your fingers from your pubic bone to just over your belly button.

"Fuck, you can't just say those things out of the blue" he mumbled sitting up, finally starting to pound into you from below.

"That's what did it, huh?" you chuckled, arching your back and clawing at his shoulders. "How naïve, men are so simple." you kept that thought to yourself, tho.

As he kept bouncing you up and down you felt yourself go stupid on his cock. Each thrust was hitting your sweet spot just right and the stretch was to die for. You couldn't keep your voice down.

It didn't help in the slightest that he was playing with your breasts all throughout his mean thrusts. You went especially crazy when he fondled the fat of your ass and spanked the reddening flesh in between thrusts. As he felt himself get close he snuck a hand between your bodies to rub your throbbing clit. Your mewls and loud moans, slowly but surely pushed him over the edge.

He had to hold down your squirming hips as your breath hitched with the intensity of your orgasm and with how deep you were feeling him right now. He pulled you off of him and hugged you close, trying to calm you down.

"Shh, I got you, calm down you did so good", with a kiss to the top of your hair, you felt yourself relax. But that relaxation didn't last long, as you started to desperately grind against his leg. With your ass rubbing against his cock so perfectly he just couldn't help himself.

"Fuck, I'm hard again.", he admitted matter-of-factly.

"Then keep going. Give it to me until I pass out."

"Shit, you little minx." he cursed in his head but eventually gave in.

"Y/n?"

"Hmm?"

"Turn around for me."

You reluctantly got off his lap and got ready, face down ass up.

He really wanted to take you like this, but curiosity got the best of him.

"Fuck that" he thought as he flipped you and pulled your back flush against his chest, sitting down. After hooking his hands under your knees, he he picked up his pace as his hungry mouth ravaged your already sensitive neck.

"Feel good, yeah?", was the last thing you heard before he wrapped his huge hand around your neck.

Your mind went fuzzy as his hand was skillfully restricting your airflow from time to time. Which is exactly why you didn't register the next few words that tumbled from your mouth.

"Kiss me."

You made him stop dead in his tracks.

"What did you just say?", he had to make sure he heard you right.

Your hand was already at his nape, pulling him close.

"Kiss me..."

"Kiss me...", he gulped, "Who?", he was pushing his luck, and his heart rate picked up, afraid he might've pushed you too far. But the gamble paid off as he heard the words leave your mouth, that he had been waiting to hear from the moment he set his eyes on you.

"Kiss me, Suguru."

He wasted no time as he grabbed your jaw and smashed his lips against yours. It was so messy, so so nasty, teeth clashing against each other, but it was everything he could've ever wished for. He was on cloud nine. It was embarrassing how excited he got from just kissing you, but he couldn't care less at this moment. Your mouth fell open as you felt him spill inside of you. His tongue dipped into your awaiting mouth, while he fucked you through his second high.

He had to catch his breath while holding your limp form. He was sure you needed a break but when he tried to pull you off of his sensitive cock you stopped him. "Wait", you mumbled against his lips. "Don't pull out. Keep fucking me. Hurry up." How could he say no to you, even if he felt like he was about to die from overstimulation, he couldn't possibly deny you.

Which is how you ended up on your side, leg held up by his strong arm as he pounded into you from behind. Your sweet moans had him riled up impossibly more as his hips went to town on your pliable body. Even in this position, his eager mouth never left yours. The fat of your tummy and thighs kept jiggling so deliciously with each thrust that he just couldn't get enough of you. He soon felt you tighten around him and knew you were close, so he spurred you on.

"You feel so good like this, god you're so tight. Shit. About to cum?"

"Yeah, feels so good."

"Who makes you feel this good?"

"You do, Suguru. I love this so much. My god I'm gonna cum again."

"Yeah, yeah good, cum on my cock."

With a few delicate swipes of your fingers over your nub, your back arched as you came all over him. And he was there to swallow all of your moans with his greedy mouth.

When the heat of the moment subsided, you were a huffing and puffing mess. He held you close throughout and rubbed your lower back reassuringly.

After a while you were the first to break the silence.

"Holy shit, best sex we've had so far."

"Can't agree more.", he kissed your lips and continued. " Sooo, I assume you won't be calling me Geto anymore, right?"

You turned your head avoiding eye contact, but he stopped you, squishing your cheeks to look at him and raising an eyebrow. " Riiight, y/n? What's my name from now on? C'mon, don't break my heart."

"Suguruuuu....", you trailed off, but before he could celebrate, you quickly added, "-san.."

"Aah, so close", he chuckled, disappointment evident in his voice. "But it's a good start, so I'll take it.", he said truthfully, squeezing you tight. It was a huge step for your relationship. He was incredibly happy. He will make you drop the honorific no matter what. Now that he's got a taste, he will never let you go. Heck, he might even ask you out now that you're on a first name basis.

But he won't rush things. He's more than content with the current development of your relationship. You've come a long way, and only time will tell what it'll evolve into. The only thing he cares about right now is making you call his name over and over again, in one way or another. Life is good.

-----

I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing this 🙆🏻‍♀️❤️ Please let me know your thoughts. See ya next time<3

[aj-thegreatest]

Fame and Paparazzi in LO: An Underdeveloped Picture

So this is gonna be less of a "formal" essay, and more of a...ramble unfortunately. Stay around if you still wanna read lol.

I've always been interested in stories where the public eye, media, and/or paparazzi become one of (if not, the only) driving forces in the story. Or stories where the main character is always on guard, protecting their image against the people who twisting it for their own means. See also: any story set in Hollywood, or any story set in a royal/high status environment.

So you could only understand my disappointment on how it's used in LO. Because ideally, this should be a straight shot! And it started off fairly decently.

Persephone, a complete nobody, gets thrusted into the spotlight by meeting an influential powerful figure. And we do see the negative effects of this through Tori and Alex (I can't remember which one got their eye snatched but I honestly kind of don't care about their characters I'm sorry). Persephone can't readily make friends because of Hades' actions. For a moment, she's isolated among her peers. And it's good! And then...

It...barely gets mentioned for like, a majority of the series (Don't worry I will get to that part near the end) There are other moments mentioned (Hera disguising herself as paparazzi as a "test" for Persephone, this notable visual from Minthe's POV)

And it's not anything...substantial? The audience doesn't get to the emotional/mental effects from this. Especially directed at Persephone, who'd ideally be the perfect person for this. It encourages the audience to sympathize with her, which I know the narrative wants. Like, desperately. One of the main rules in LO is to be on Persephone's side, 24/7. And we know what happens if people aren't:

But I also know one of the secret rules of LO, is Persephone cannot suffer/go through genuine hardships. She can't get slandered (rightfully or wrongfully) by the press, because it'd be too hard for her. She can't have a truly unfair trial, because it'd be too unfair. And, if the ending of LO means anything, she can't even have her long distance separation with Hades.

It's why Persephone doesn't get this overall treatment from the press. In the context of the world, she kind of skirts by and doesn't get recognition for it? It's a bit like Retsuko Post S2, where she should probably start getting noticed more but it just doesn't happen.

Even after the trial and her punishment, she can freely walk down the streets of Olympus like she's the most hated goddess around (I'm not even saying this to be mean, if I had a family in the Mortal Realm and I couldn't see them for a decade? I'd be pissed).

I'm going to take time to mention the video that inspired this ramble, Lindsey Ellis’ “Yoko and the Beatles,” which goes into the history of the Beatles and Yoko Ono. It also touches on other famous women, like Courtney Love, Britney Spears and others, who were slammed by the media and press. There is/are a lot of elements at play, to misogyny and racism (in Yoko Ono’s case) that effected their treatment in the public eye. And a lot of this came in the late 90s/early 2000s, which was a very bad time to be in the press. No sympathy at all.

I’d highly suggest watching it for yourself if you haven’t, because the treatment in the video did remind me of an LO character, but not the one the narrative wants us to think of-

Minthe got dumped on in the story, in WT comment section, and by its own creator! It’s no wonder people give her more grace/sympathy, because she’s barely standing up by the time she gets planted. But back to Persephone because it’s always about her:

So. the only time Persephone gets slammed like that is near the end…where the narrative decides to input all the criticism to the evil scary villain who sucks sooooo much:

And it’s like…ok. So. Typically, when a character is getting mistreated in the press, the claims are usually sensationalized and inflammatory. Borderline slander. We, the audience, should not be on the press’s side unless we’re supposed to take validity in those statements.

The best example is the 2nd interview in Bojack Horseman, where the audience is expected to see Bojack as a deeply flawed and messed up person who, when things get really bad, will throw people under the bus to save his own skin (I.E, him mentioning Sharona in relation to Sarah Lynn drinking for the first time). 

And there’s obviously situations where it’s a lot more morally grey, when it comes to the media and press. It’s all about who’s telling the “real” story and which one is the “fake.” But in this, you as a writer need to make a decision: how is your audience supposed to take it? Should we be on the press’s side, like in the case of Bojack, or should we be on the character’s side?

Now. In this moment with Persephone, it’s clear we the audience are supposed to sympathize with her. But everything Apollo (and the other citizens) are saying is…correct. Persephone is responsible for this, and she hasn’t really owned up/done enough to manage it. She’s sitting there in her ivory tower, pulling the “woe is me” act like she did in the trial. And somehow, we’re supposed to be on board? When we haven’t been given enough evidence that Persephone genuinely cares and they’re wrong about her?

And this could’ve worked! If Persephone owned up to her mistakes and wanted to change, we’d be on board! Look, she’s actually developing! But because Persephone can never be in the wrong, the narrative bends itself like a game of Twister for her to always be right. And that’s boring in a story that’s supposed to have stakes.

I’m actually gonna end this off on a positive note, and talk about the best use of the media in LO. While Persephone is at school, after she’s spent the night at Hades place, she comes across this in the bathroom:

This is genuinely perfect! We see how the press/media defame Persephone, and how people are reacting to it. We see her being affected by this in her day to day life, with the Cherry on top being the “Goddess of Sluts.” It’s so bitter and borders on Highschool levels of petty, and it works. This is probably my personal fave moment in the LO Pilot!

And I will forever be shocked on why this wasn’t included in the WT version. It’s so simple to put in, but it’s almost like the press was sprinkled in…instead of being baked into the story. A dash of media slander here, a scoop of cliffhangers, and another sprinkle of SA, and that’s all it is, really. Or just a plot that didn’t spend enough time in the dark room

[lamogene]

Bubble pop electric

Context warning. Cucking , p n v, oral,

Pregnancy , unprotected sex, cheating

and a slight breeding kink

Chad wants to make sure his new best friend Ethan isn't still a virgin at age at so he asked his girlfriend his huge favor...but it didn't go as planned.

"Man don't worry I'm sure you'll find someone to lose your virginity to soon you're a total stud." Chad said nudging Ethan's shoulder.

"I don't know man , I feel like I'm hopeless. You're so lucky you have someone as gorgeous like y/n" Ethan mumbled out.

Ethan had a thing for you since you guys were in highschool, he would jerk himself off thinking about you and still did occasionally. He tried not to though since he felt guilty for thinking about his friends girlfriend in such a way but whenever he saw you in your short skirts and short dresses he couldn't help but think about him pleasing you. Pushing your panties to the side and licking sucking on your clit while you moan his name out in pleasure.

He low-key had a bit of resentment and anger towards Chad for being in a relationship with you. He would literally see red whenever he would kiss you , hold your hand and the thing that made him wanna murder Chad was when he would grab your ass. It would make him sick to his stomach thinking about how Chad was the one making love to you, the nights that Chad would kick him out but the thing that really angered him were the nights when you'd sleep over and Chad would have his way with you when Chad thought Ethan was sleeping. He would jerk himself off listening to your moans and imaging him having his way with you. 

"You aren't hopeless man we'll figure something out , you won't turn 19 a virgin I promise." Chad said and then gave his buddy a fist bump and said that he'd see him later.

While Chad was walking to your dorm he had an idea , a really dumb one but an idea nonetheless. What if he let Ethan have sex with you. Ya it isn't ideal and no man wants to see girlfriend be fucked by another man but it was Ethan , it wasn't like he was gonna be some sex god. He was probably gonna last maybe 30 seconds and then cum all over your tummy and then he gets to say he's not a virgin anymore. 

You heard a knock on your door and excitedly ran to open up it to see your hunk of a boyfriend Chad. 

"Hey baby!!" You said smiling at him.

"Hey honey bunny" he said leaning in for a kiss.

You leaned into the kiss and continued smiling out of pure happiness. He smiled at you too but also looked like he had something on his mind. 

"What are you thinking about love" you asked him still smiling.

He hesitated to say anything but then decided to ask. "So what are your opinions on Ethan Landry do you think he's attractive?"

"I mean he's good looking but he's not you" You said with a smirk. "Why are you asking?"

"I was just wondering because I had this idea and it's crazy but hear me out. You know how Ethan's a virgin right?" He looked at you and noded.

"Ya…." You said, raising your eyebrow.

"What if you helped him with that problem…..it would only probably last 30 seconds anyways." He awkwardly chuckled when asking.

You thought about it for a second. The thing is you'd have sex with Ethan if you and Chad weren't together. You always had a bit of a thing for Ethan's nerdy charm but he never made a move when it came to you so you assumed he wasn't really into so you stopped thinking about him past being friends.

You sighed "Fine but only if you're in the room with me and hold me while he has sex with me."

Chad sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Ethan's so lucky he's my best friend…fine I'll do that for you but is it okay if I close my eyes?"

You chuckled. "Sure love" you pecked him on the lips 

Later that night Chad came home after having some adult fun time with you before Ethan potentially does. He saw Ethan at his desk stressing out over his math homework. 

"Hey buddy I have a little surprise for you...I've found a way to cure your virgin problem" Chad said in a jokingly seductive voice. 

Ethan snapped his head back at Chad, becoming immediately interested in the conversation. "So-so who is she?"

"I can't say , it's a surprise. Just come here tomorrow at 8pm and she'll be here waiting for you." Chad said with a smirk.

"Alright…" Ethan mumbled.

The night passes and it's tomorrow evening.  Ethan sat in his econ class wondering who the hell Chad set him up with. A bit of him was hoping It was you but he knew it wasn't since Chad would probably rather die than let another man shake your hand let alone stick his dick in you. After econ Ethan started walking back to his dorm room stressed , he texted Chad letting him know he was on the way home since Chad had asked him to knock on the door before coming inside. 

Ethan knocked on the door anxious about what was gonna be behind that door when all the sudden you open the door wearing one of Ethan's flannel which was unbuttoned and had your vagina and breast exposed. 

"Hey Ethan how are you doing today , I heard you had a really big test today? You asked while grabbing his hand and leading him to his twin sized mattress that Chad was sitting at the top of. 

"Ya-ya very stressful test" he said, stumbling over his own words while his pants became tight. 

"I'm sorry to hear that sweetheart, but I'm here now if you wanna have some fun with me" you said in a seductive tone.

You then made your way to the bed and  laid half of your upper body on Chad starting to feel a little nervous but also a little excited you started to wonder what his cock looked like. Surely it's not bigger than Chads. You're also just hoping it isn't since Chad's size is already too much for you to handle most of the time.

"Do you wanna touch me Ethan , you can touch me anywhere you'd like." You said In a sweet and comforting tone.

"Could I uh play with your breast please y/n" he asked with his face red.

"Sure , let me help you out Ethan" you said while putting his big hands on your breast. 

His face turned red as he started to massage them causing you to let out small moans  from how cold his hands were. He then took one of your nipples started to suck on it while playing with the other one. You continued to let out soft moans. Despite his virgin status his hands were magical. You felt yourself becoming wet just from him playing with your nipples. 

"Oh Ethan that feels so good" you moaned, face turning red forgetting your boyfriend behind you was right there watching.

He smirked when hearing that approval and looked up at Chad seeing him rub his head in a stressed out manor. He then started leaving a trail of kisses from your breast to your vagina. Ethan started feeling his cheeks turn red while looking at the beauty that was your vagina. He couldn't believe that his dick was gonna be in it tonight hoping it brings you pleasure so he could hear your beautiful moans. Also the thought of getting Chad's girl off made him his brain go feral.

He trailed his finger on your heat slowly pushing his long skinny ring finger into you. Chad looked down at you seeing you bite your lip making his stomach turn. He started to feel himself get angry. Ethan continued pushing his single finger in and out of you curling his finger up hitting your g-spot causing you to let out a loud whiny moan. You started to hold Chad's hand for comfort. You could see Chad was getting uncomfortable which made you feel bad , especially since you didn't want Ethan to stop. He then slipped in another finger which caused you to let another moan while he continued to push his fingers in and out of you picking up the pace making you squeeze Chad's hand tighter. Chad felt like he was gonna vomit seeing you feel such pleasure from a man he thought would make you laugh from how bad he would be at pleasing you. He then brought his tongue to your vagina swirling his tongue around your clit. Picking up the pace with his fingers making you almost moan out his name et-mmmmm." Ethan felt his pants getting tighter than he thought was possible. 

He took his tongue off your clit and pulled his finger out. "Mmm fuck.". He then got up and started taking his belt off and pulled his pants off. He was nervous but took a deep breath and pulled his boxers down. Causing your eyes to widen. His cock was so thick and long. He was at least an inch longer than Chad your eyes widen.

You looked at Chad looking mad as hell. He then leaned down to your ear and whispered "is it okay if I go out for a bit I don't think I can watch this." he said  in an upset tone. "Sure baby , do you wanna maybe go out after this" you asked him.

"Sure." He quickly got up kissing your head which caused Ethan to roll his eyes. y/n was supposed to be his tonight but it was okay since he was about to be up in Chad's beautiful girlfriend and the women he's been in love with since he was in high school. He then tapped Ethan's shoulder and then left the room.

"Are you okay y/n your eyes look pretty wide. We don't have to do this if you aren't comfortable." He said in a concerned tone getting closer to you and caressing your face. Which caused you to melt and look at him with soft eyes like you were in love with him. "No I want to do this with you Ethan….promise you won't tell Chad I said that…he'd never be able to look at me the same way again if he heard me say that…".

"Of course y/n , I'd never tell him that."

He laid a kiss on your check until you pushed his face onto your soft lips. His face turned red but he gave into the kiss , he felt like he was dreaming.

You then pulled him off. 

"My eyes were just wide because…. you're a bit bigger than Chad, so be gentle with me please Ethan."

He smirked hearing that but then quickly stopped. "Of course y/n whatever you want I'll follow. "Do you have any lube y/n?"

"Sadly no Chad kind of usually just spits on it and puts it in." "God you deserve better than that." He said planting a kiss on your neck." You felt his dick go in between the middle of your folds making him leak pre-cum.

"Are you ready y/n or do you need more prep.". 

"Ya I'm ready." you said kissing him again.

"Alright love.". 

He spat on his cock and started rubbing his spit all over his cock. He started to slowly push his thick tip inside you. "Mmm Ethan fuck just that for now.". You whined out. 

"Okay baby." He said pushing your hair behind your ears.

"Okay , you can thrust in just a little bit.".

He started to slowly thrust into you only pushing his 8 inches into you half way. 

"Oh my God you're so big…kiss me please to distract me from the pain.".  You said while stroking the remaining inches of cock that he didn't put into you yet. He let out a moan and then bent over and started making out with you accidentally pushing himself in you more. You let out a moan. 

"Mmmm Ethan." You groaned out. "You're so fucking big Jesus fucking christ. i think I'm ready to take all of it…". 

He nodded in response and lifted himself up off of you and started slowly thrust in and out while he watches you let out such sexy noises. "God you're so fucking tight , I'm so lucky to have sex with you , I've loved you since highschool y/n.". He moaned out. "Ethan….I wish you told me that , I always liked you…..I used to masturbate to the thought of you having sex with me." You said while you started to play with your nipples.

He started to blush while picking up the pace while put his hands on your waist. 

"Ethan……". You said while moaning out.

"Yes love.". He groaned out. 

"Tell me you love me still….". You said holding his hand that was on your waist.

"Y/n…. I'll always love you….". He said pulling your hand up to kiss it. 

He then lowered him onto you and continued to thrust himself in and out of you while making out with you as you started caressing his cheek.  You've never felt so loved. Chad was a great boyfriend but he never made you feel this special during sex. "Oh Ethan….I love you too…". 

You felt him twitching inside of you. 

He then started to pick the pace up fucking you faster and harder. Making you let out loud moans , you repeatedly kept moaning  out his name loudly. You didn't care if anyone heard you. You loved Chad but started to not care if anyone knew you were fucking someone who wasn't Chad. You don't know what it was but the infidelity of the situation made you wetter. You started to clench onto him tighter feeling your sex starting to on and off tighten on him. 

"Fuck I'm so close Ethan…". You looked at him with lustful eyes. He continued picking up the pace even tho he knew he was so close to cumming but he was nervous about him cumming to soon. You moaned out more and louder feeling him hitting your g-spot. 

"Oh my God , I'm gonna cum! I'm gonna cum Ethan!!!!" You scream out releasing all over him. He continued thrusting in and out of you while looking into your eyes.  He then felt himself release inside you pushing himself deep inside you letting out a loud groan.

You let out a soft moaning feeling the pleasure of himself emptying his warm cum inside you until you feel your eyes widen. "Ethan…I'm not on the pill…". You said with your face turning red.

"I-i I'm so sorry y/n.". He said quickly pulling himself out of you". 

"I had no idea Chad told me you were on the pill awhile ago…so I thought..". 

He said this feeling bad because he knew was lying to you. He wanted to cum in you hoping to get you pregnant and trap you. He felt a little guilty but he knew if it worked it would be worth it if you decided to keep it which he knew you might decide to keep it since he heard you talking about how much you wanted to be a mother someday. 

You looked at the time "Oh shit.". 

You kissed Ethan and quickly got up throwing you underwear and threw a dress on that you wore while walking to the dorm. And then planted a kiss on Ethan's lips. "I…would love to do this again if you can keep a secret…". You said smirking at him. 

"If would be an honor to make love to you again.".

It's been a month since you made love to Ethan and you guys continued to hook up at least 3 days a week you continued to let him cum inside you. The thrill of him finishing inside you while you were with Chad made the sex so enjoyable and exciting.

You were also extremely delusional and thought it was impossible for you to actually get pregnant since you were told a few years ago that you were 70 percent infertile so you threw away the idea of wanting kids but you fantasized about it. You would fantasize about it every time you had sex with you Chad or Ethan.

It was weeks later and you started to feel sick and started vomiting everyday. You were nervous and ended up calling Mindy crying. "Mindy I think I'm pregnant…can you come over while I take the test and please don't tell Chad…". 

"Of course y/n I'll be there soon.". Mindy said in a rushed tone. 

Mindy came over within 30 minutes with a pregnancy test. She hugged you while you continued to cry. You felt scared because you knew it was definitely Ethan's and you couldn't lie to Chad about it.

You took the pregnancy test anxiously waiting for the results while in the bathroom with Mindy while she hugged you. The alarm on your phone started going off you. You took a deep breath and looked at the test. When you read the test you started crying. It was positive. You were screwed. How were you gonna tell Chad that it wasn't his and tell Ethan that you're pregnant. Mindy hugged you. "It's okay y/n Chad will support any decision you make." She said running her hands through your hair. 

"I'll figure out a time to tell him…." You said in a scared tone with your eyes wide.

You knew your life was about to change depending on whatever decision you made.

[genericpuff]

Idk if my addition will matter.

I've been following Hanza since back when they were making my deepest secret, so I've seen the development of the guy upstairs first hand and how hanza writes it. Even back in the concept stages, it was so blatantly clear that it was supposed to be a thriller/cat mouse vibe where Adam (killer) was horrible and not to be rooted for. They've compared him to irl serial killers and how those guys will often use women as shields to hide their true selves from the public and how that's messed up and bad to do.

They've shown Adam as a horrible irredeemable person and honestly there's little to no nuance with how they handle it, but that makes sense because how else can you handle an audience like what they've gotten without beating them over the head with the facts. How many ways can you outright show your main character despising and wanting to yank their best friend out of the jaws of a murderer before the audience realizes its not foreplay.

I think them going from an actual romance to a fully thriller non romantic story meant that the residual audience expected some kind of messy toxic romance, but Rozy to me has always explicitly read as Queer so idk why people aren't getting the hint.

I get their frustration and it seems like they might be shifting into a potiential issekai romance about a grandad and a middle aged woman who got reincarnated as his grandson's fiance (hard to explain but its hilarious if you want to check it out) without any thriller elements from their recent non comic posts. Whatever they do I hope they can find something to be passionate about again.

your addition VERY MUCH MATTERS actually because I don't read TGU and have very little context to the situation as a whole aside from what I've seen people talking about, which makes me reluctant to speak on it because I don't wanna go spreading misinformation in any regard. So I appreciate you taking the time to lay it all out for me, thank you!!! <3

And yeah, I've seen posts shared in the /r/webtoons sub from other blogs claiming that Hanza was being an awful person for "taking people's money" and "baiting them" into reading a dark romance story when that's very obviously not what it is? Even one excerpt that was literally like-

And I just... since when is any romance plotline that ISN'T abusive and problematic at its core (such as between a serial killer and a victim) considered "super conservative" and "pure"? It's really baffling to me how people have gone so far in the opposite direction of "purity culture" that they've started arguing on behalf of legitimately harmful and toxic relationships. It's extremely concerning especially when you know the majority of people saying this shit are between the ages of 16-21. IDK what the fuck we're doing anymore when it comes to the romance genre (and TGU isn't even a romance ffs).

Aaaand yeah in relation to where the Hanza topic came up, that's really why I'm moving away from WT as an audience and why I don't consider it a "loss" to not use WT anymore. Once upon a time I wished for Time Gate to be a contracted series, for it to have thousands of readers and be my job. But seeing what's going on with Hanza's work just informs me that I'd be dealing with a lot of the same shit - people expecting Uzuki and Mitsuhiro to be the endgame of the romance when they're literally NOT good for each other, which is the POINT. Like sure, unlike the main duo in TGU, they actually are a couple with a 'relationship' but it's not meant to be healthy and the last thing I need are 15 year olds thinking they're "couple goals". If you ship them in fanfic or w/e the fuck that's fine but please don't get mad at me when they don't wind up being the endgame couple, they're both terrible people and make each other worse when they're around each other (・_・;)

Either way yeah, I don't blame Hanza in the slightest for getting so frustrated with it all that they'd rather just be done with it. It sucks for the more loyal and sane part of their audience that the series is gonna be ripped out from under them like that, but at the end of the day if the creator is being harassed and decide they're done as a result of it... why should they have to keep putting up with bullshit just for a comic? I don't even blame Rachel if she was ending LO by choice due to the noise of the fandom, and unlike Rachel, I don't have anything in the slightest against Hanza or their work LOL But I also don't have the full picture on it all so maybe my opinion will change if I find out more about it. I just don't think any of this shit is worth directly harassing a human being over.

That said, can't get any better than someone who's read their work since before TGU, so again, thank you !

[sophieinwonderland]

It sucks to want to support your posts because when you get told by your supporters that something you did hurt them or didn't help or hurt a whole group of people it always has you saying "I'm sorry you felt that way" or "I'm sorry it came across like that", it never feels like you're sorry for what you've said, it's always that you're sorry people took you, someone who says they speak facts and wants to disprove lies, as being truthful when you say things. You basically blame your supporters for thinking you mean something fully when you often do.

It's hard to even believe you didn't just say sorry because it upset a fan, I like your stuff, I really do, but when the ONLY reason you "realised it was hurting people" was when a supporter told you, it's a bad sign. People were telling you there were issues before that, both anti-endos and people who had NO part in system-topics at all, you were told it triggered and upset people, you ONLY listened when it was someone who said they were a supporter, no one else got the point across to you? How does that happen? and the most you can give was "it was meant to upset anti-endos"? How is that a good excuse? If an anti-endo can disprove something you say fully (like even you can see you were wrong, by mistake or something), is that to be ignored because you dislike anti-endos? Even if they disprove something totally unrelated to endos? That is bad. Awful actually. It makes me not want to trust you when I can't even know if you even look at both sides in any way, now I look at your posts and wonder if you've cut context or made something up just to "upset anti-endos" like everyone says anti-endos do to endos, instead of because you can actually prove they're wrong. This isn't how I want to feel, but you make that SO hard when you won't even agree wholeheartedly that what you said was actually just wrong and it wasn't people "feeling the wrong way about it".

Like that's not even a hard thing to agree to, it never had to be a long "I'm sorry, I'm an awful person" kind of thing, you never even had to say sorry to anti-endos at all. But the fact you wouldn't say "I'm sorry" without an "that you felt that way" really just sucks dude. It sounds like you don't mean it at all, because you're passing the blame to people for being upset at you, not because you did something wrong.

This clearly isn't an attack, it's a fan who truly wants to see you actually learn that, although saying "sorry" IS good and what you should do, how you say it says a lot about you as a person and makes people feel ways when it isn't done with the respect that they think should come from you.

I like your stuff, it's good, it's well-researched and well-written, and I'm sure MANY of your other fans feel the same, but the part that makes us love your stuff so much is why we were so disappointed in your apology; it wasn't even well-written, let alone well-researched.

If none of that gets to you, just think about how you actually upset and hurt people, anti-endos, endos, people who are trying to learn, people who don't even know what an endo is, and so on, you upset tons of people, for what? A "gotcha" at anti-endos? Why would that ever be worth the hurt? Why can't an actual apology be offered? That's stuff I was wondering when reading your apologies, and that sucks.

Overall just hope you can learn, because this never should have happened in the first place, let alone ended with such a poor apology.

I wish you luck and I do hope to be able to keep supporting you, just wish an effort could be made to make your fans feel like they're not even allowed to tell you when you fuck up.

Tell me, do you ever get sick of it all?

How long have you been involved in syscourse? For me, it's been close to 3 years. Practically since the first time I got posted to r/systemscringe for making a post on r/tulpas about how we used kissing to trigger me to front. (We stopped because a happiness trigger was too unstable and I started switching in when we weren't wanting me to.)

3 long years of watching people I care about be bullied and harassed. 3 long years of facing that myself. Maybe that doesn't sound like much but for me it feels like a lifetime.

I thought coming to Tumblr, I could share information and be compassionate, and change people's minds.

Did it work?

A little bit. Here and there. Between all the harassment campaigns and hate sent my way, I know I changed some minds along the way.

But there's been so much hate directed at us. I've watched so many people get hurt. And I've tried to stop it. Tried to fight back. But it always keeps coming.

We get some wins. We change some minds. We make a difference. I don't want to minimize our successes because there are plenty.

But more anti-endos keep coming. More keep spreading hate.

And more of us keep getting hurt. Over and over and over again.

So we go through years of this, culminating into Aspen's invasion of our tags and them passing posts around literally calling for death to the endos of Tumblr. And the anti-endo community largely did nothing. They said nothing.

And it wasn't a small post nobody saw either. It was a huge picture with 60 notes. It was posted in their tag. How messed up is that, that so many anti-endos liked and shared that, passing it around, and the community remained totally silent?

And while I wouldn't advise going into people's DMs to try to get them to change their minds by telling them anti-endos nearly bullied your friend to commit suicide, the fact that their responses when someone has done that have been come variation of "we don't care actually, LOL" has been disheartening to say the least. Because it drives home a central fact... that many of these anti-endos simply don't care if we die.

Many, I think, would genuinely be happy if I was dead.

And then there was the SAS drama. I definitely would never claim to have done this for SAS. Even without asking or seeing their opinion, I'm sure SAS would hate what I did. But it's more that the whole incident showed me just how few morals this current batch of anti-endos have. That they would dox an account that's not connected to being a system at all, one that's followed by people who know SAS in real life, and when called out they ALL defended it and stood by AEV. IIRC, AEV's own response when called out was saying that some people don't deserve privacy!

All their followers stood by this. All defended them. I looked so hard in this current batch of anti-endos to see even one who would condemn this. One who might restore a bit of faith that their community wasn't just assholes and bullies. And I found nothing.

So... I forged my words into a blade. Because after 3 year of fighting with people, you get to know their insecurities. Their fear of abandonment. Their desperate need to cling to everything and terror of it being ripped away from them. Their self-loathing, because a small part of them does know they're the bad guys. You can't hurt people constantly and spread hate, day after day, without that doubt slipping into your mind.

So I took all of that and forged it into a blade that was meant to... maybe... make anti-endos feel a fraction of the pain they've caused our community. Or at least turned a blind eye to pain their friends were causing us.

The reason I won't offer a full apology is because... I don't want to lie like that.

You say you can't trust me to be honest. But if I told you right now that I regretted my entire post and wish that I could take the whole thing back, that I was deeply sorry for it all... that would be the real lie. I would be saying it to make this whole thing go away and placate people who are mad at me, but I wouldn't feel it.

In my apology, I believe what I said was that I'm sorry it came off that way. Maybe this sounded like I was blaming them, but I was trying to apologize for phrasing it in a way that was interpreted like it was, when that's not how I meant it.

I do regret that the way it was worded triggered delusions. If I were to reforge my blade, I would have made it differently to be more clear and hopefully avoid that. Because my blade was designed to cause a specific sort of fear and hurt and pain, and that wasn't it. And so for that one part I really am truly sorry and feel it went too far.

But... I don't regret telling them that their loved ones would leave them. I don't regret telling them that their therapists will turn pro-endo. I don't regret telling them that they would be pushed out of their fandoms and communities.

I was even grateful to endogenic-cringe for delivering and swinging my blade for me, because it wouldn't have been able to reach as many anti-endos without their help. So many of the anti-endos who were affected by my post only saw it because of them. They made such a great accomplice.

Maybe that makes me a bad person.

But I'm what I've been made by dealing with three years of hate. And worse, three years of watching other people endure it and be broken down by it. I hate, so much, watching people in this community be constantly bullied and abused just for their system being different. Or even just being inclusive to different systems.

You know... I can finally sympathize with Hyaena-Bites. (Wonder who all here has stuck around since that drama?) I mean, I still think the blog was too close to harassment and I don't like that it targeted non-syscourse-related positivity posts. And I don't like that it reblogged those posts just to say horrible things, thus promoting the hate they pretended to fight against in the tags. But I understand the impulse behind it.

There was a girl who had faith in people and made a blog with a big dream, who was convinced that anti-endos were just not educated and that with enough sources, enough evidence, she could change their minds. And the bits of that girl that believed those things have died bit by bit every day.

They've systematically killed all the parts of me that were stupid enough to believe in them.

So seeing the sysmeds get hurt... I'm satisfied. There have been small moment where I start to feel a shred of guilt, but then I remember every system I've seen bullied by them. The systems who have been sent into derealization spirals from fakeclaiming. The systems who have been constantly told to kill themselves for being different. And at this particular moment... I'm thinking of the corpse of my naive faith in anti-endos to be decent people. Because I do mourn for that part of me they killed. Even if its death was necessary to make me see things more clearly.

So this is my vengeance for it all.

Is it productive? Probably not.

Is finally giving anti-endos a real taste of their own medicine for once going to result in blowback because they can actually have a real reason to pretend to be the victims? Maybe.

But their harassment only seemed to be ramping up anyway even before this.

You can do with this what you want. If you don't think you can support me and want to unfollow, that's totally valid. Especially if you think following this blog might be unhealthy for you. I completely understand that and respect what you decide.

But I'm not going to lie and apologize for something that I truly don't regret.

I'm sorry that I worded my post, that was meant to hurt anti-endos by preying on their deepest fears and insecurities, in a way that accidentally triggered delusions. And that's it. That's the full extent of what I can honestly say I'm sorry for without lying to you.

If you do decide you can no longer support me and the person I've become, I sincerely wish you the best on your way. I appreciate all the support I've gotten from my followers over the years but I would never ask any of them to stand by anyone, including myself, if you thought they were bad for you or unsafe.

[heartbeatbookclub]

I think it's sorta weird how the Protagonist (MC, Y/N, Stinky, whatever you wanna call him) is treated within the context of DDLC's meta.

That sentence came out weird. What I mean is that on terms of DDLC playing with the 4th wall (in other words, on terms of its actual existence as a visual novel in universe), the nature of the Protagonist's...well, entire existence, is up in the air.

Dan Salvato literally stated that he doesn't actually see him as a character in the same way as the girls. He's a "blank slate that says whatever is convenient." In a different statement, he's described as the "nameless, faceless self-insert character that you find so commonly in romance games", which I think is a good way of putting it. It's a good way of justifying why he kinda...sucks, because he's meant to be a typical VN protagonist. He's shallow, and responds with little more than what makes sense in context, because he doesn't have much character on his own, which is what makes him pretty bad at dealing with delicate issues like with Sayori.

In DDLC+ (spoilers, I guess?), it's a little bit vague about it, but in one of the mails, it states that Monika has literally "manufactured" a new character to "force interaction between her and the user". This character is heavily implied to be the Protagonist of the main DDLC visual novel that we know, and he is, as stated, noticeably absent from the Side Stories, because Monika didn't actively create him to be there.

Except...he isn't.

He doesn't physically appear, but in Trust, though he's obviously not mentioned by name, it's implied that he does exist, because when asked to act like a "normal person" responding to the Literature Club, she imitates a friend of hers who says "Literature is stuuupid. I'm joining the Anime Club."

...Remind you of a certain someone?

I feel like I'm overexplaining this, but my point is, it suggests that the Protagonist as a character isn't just something Monika invented out of thin air, or at least he's heavily implied not to be.

I think there's a larger conversation on the vague way the game itself treats the world outside of what is defined within the limited scope of Doki Doki Literature Club. Fans have filled gaps of different characters and events, but it's important to acknowledge that they're gaps filled by fanon, not canon. I think those gaps are left very intentionally empty, mostly to play into the conceit of the world, being that literally nothing actually exists outside of its boundaries, because it's a visual novel. It's a limited, constricted reality, where things are implied to exist outside it, but they actually don't.

In other words, Monika did apparently generate all that makes up the Protagonist as a character and vehicle for the player in the main game, based off the limited concept implied by their interaction in the Side Story. Or, rather, probably by something else, since the side stories are inherently a "Control Simulation" where Monika doesn't have any sense of meta awareness. It's a prequel set before the main story, but...well, if you really think about it, it's implied to tie into the main story, but they don't directly link up, do they? If it's not explicitly shown on screen in the main line Doki Doki Literature Club, did it even happen?

Either way, the Protagonist is a character independent of Monika's creation, he's just given absolutely nothing, and technically doesn't even exist outside of what's implied of him. Technically, the character Monika creates as a vehicle for the Player has no real relation to him, outside of being Sayori's friend and wanting to join the Anime Club. Or, depending on your view, he does! Since he's the literal manifestation of that character concept where it didn't exist previously, it's fair to say that he is that character given life!

I don't know, I think it's just kinda fascinating in context. I don't really like a lot of the extra lore surrounding the whole thing in +, but there are plenty of interesting things like this which have been given just enough flavor to be interesting.

Obviously I don't think this means the Protagonist is a complete non-character and any & all fan interpretations of him should be defenestrated (quite the opposite actually, reality can be whatever you want, I have a few concepts with him floating around my head which I find fun to play with), but I think this sort of thing is probably important to keep in mind on terms of actual investigations of canon.

[copperbadge]

I am so close to being done with Royals/Ramblers I can taste it, and it's one of those frustrating situations where the last remaining work to be done is just annoying. I have to write one damn scene, which of course is the most emotionally fraught and difficult one, and then pick from the *counts on fingers* three separate versions of the epilogue I wrote, none of which are very satisfying. I'll probably slam them all together and then sort it out somehow.

And then I definitely have to give the whole thing one more pass before I think about posting, because it's going to clock in at right around 150K words, and I already have notes on continuity issues that need fixing.

Anyway, please enjoy this scene, in which I realized at the same time Gregory and Eddie did what a great joke their names make. (Some brief context -- Joan uses she/her but doesn't like the word "princess", so she chose the gender neutral Princeps as her title.)

Friday evening, when Gregory came on the air for the address, Eddie was sitting next to him, and Joan was leaning on Eddie's shoulder. Her excitement was almost a visible thing; she'd been fussed over that afternoon, Gregory helping her pick out clothing followed by Jerry doing her makeup for camera and Eddie doing a slightly less clumsy job of braiding her hair than she generally did. 

"Good evening, Fons-Askaz, Askazer-Shivadlakia, our neighbors, and our viewers abroad," Gregory said. Behind the camera, Jerry mouthed the words along with him absently. "I'm pleased to greet you all this Friday evening and I hope you're well. I find myself, for the second time in a year, setting aside the usual issues of the day and questions from citizens to talk to you about family...."

His idea had been to talk about Joan's history just a little, then introduce her as the newest Royal, their daughter the Princeps. He could use that as a platform to present to the country his new funding package for adoptive families, meant to encourage adoption and support children coming out of the foster system. Each half of that would hopefully make the other half seem less random.

It went pretty smoothly; Eddie chimed in at all the right moments, and Joan got to say a few words of introduction at the end. After he signed off, he gave her a hug and a forehead-kiss and told her she'd done a great job. 

And then Noah, standing with Monday and Jerry behind the camera in the little studio, said, "Well, you crashed the internet again."

Gregory sighed. "Can't blame Eddie this time, can we?" 

"It was only the tourism website, and it wasn't on purpose," Eddie said. 

"He was always breaking my stuff when we were kids," Monday said.

"Nope, this one's all Joan," Noah replied. "As soon as you introduced her as your daughter, traffic started spiking -- palace website, tourism website, and every royals' Photogram."

"Katie in Communications says told you so," Jerry said, already on the phone with her.

"Joan's Photogram is down, looks like bandwidth-suck. And there goes mine, and yours," Noah said, nodding at Gregory. "There's two hashtags trending, PrincessJoan and PrincepsJoan." 

"Let me call my guy at Photogram," Eddie said, taking his phone out. 

"You have a guy just like, at Photogram?" Monday asked.

"Yeah, he handles my requests, I send him sausages," Eddie answered. 

"How is it you simultaneously live in the 22nd century and the 14th?" Monday asked. 

"Have him kill the Princess hashtag," Noah suggested.

"It's fine," Joan said. "They can use it for now, it'll keep things, um." She narrowed her eyes, searching for the word. "Segmented. Spread out the discussion a little."

"Someone's been reading my data analytics memos," Gregory said. 

"You leave 'em out," she pointed out. 

"Good news is people seem excited," Noah continued. "The hashtag's glitching, it's moving so fast, but overall pretty positive," he added.

"Well, we knew this would be intense," Gregory said. Joan, studying her own phone, squeaked. "Joan?" 

"Mas Corbin tagged me," she said, with possibly the most excitement they'd seen from her, at least since her first trip in the Jaguar. 

"The footballer?" Gregory asked, confused.

"Who?" Noah and Eddie chorused. 

"He's a Shivadh footballer, I think he's playing in Ireland right now," Gregory said, and his voice took on a slight edge as he considered some of the reasons a football player might mention his daughter. "What did he say?" 

"Dedicating my next game to my new Princeps JoanMac, long may she reign," Joan read, and Gregory relaxed. "Congrats to Gin&Tonic, she's cute as a button. Mas Corbin thinks I'm cute!"

"Gin and Tonic?" Gregory asked, and then said, "Gregory and Theophile," right as Eddie and Monday both began to laugh. "How did neither of us think of that before?"

"You get used to it," Noah said to Joan. "All kinds of famous people are going to have opinions on you."

"What do I do?!"

"Gram him back," Noah said. "Comment and say thanks and that you're a fan and you'll be watching the game."

"I'm gonna have to do a video with some gin and tonic recipes," Eddie said, as Noah and Joan debated the best wording for her response. Gregory leaned back in his chair, exhaling, and let the chaos happen around him for a minute. 

[girlactionfigure]

I had to backup quite a ways, because understanding the Arab Israeli conflict without the wider context of the Cold War makes no sense. 

Yeah, so, after World War 2, the former big swinging dick countries of the world were too stressed out to manage any of their colonies. So they threw up their hands and walked away. Power hating a vacuum, the US was prevailed upon to take over, though having an empire seemed like a lot of bother to us. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was sucking countries close to them into their stupid-ass idea that if we all pool our resources and sing Kum-By-Ya, everyone will get rich. This idea was invented by a Joo, Karl Marx, number one crime of the Joos of all time. 

I could go on for a bit about how stupid this idea was, but let's just throw out the tidbit that they didn't have any weekends for 11 years. 

One of the things the British "owned" was this area formerly "owned" by the Ottoman empire, that had about 17 different names. Because the British Foreign office was a hot-bed of the flavor of anti-semitism that believes Joos were secretly running the world, they felt if they proposed this area as a "homeland" for the Joos, the secret masters, the Joos would favor them. (See The Peace to End All Peace, a boring ass book, but explains a lot of why the Middle East is all screwed up.)

So after WW2, there were a bunch of Joos and some Arabs living in this area. 

In the meantime, the Arab nations in the Area, annoyed at the presence of these Joos on their doorstep, looked at their own Joos and said "See Ya, oh and leave all your shit behind, so we can give it to some of the Arabs after we take our cut". Some more Joos came from Europe, but not as much as you might think. They said See Ya to some of their own Arabs too, but the Arabs got to keep their stuff, and got some of the Joos stuff (I'm a little fuzzy on where the Palestinians came from exactly, but it seems like everyone is.) It was sort of the reverse of Exodus where the Joos are leaving Egypt and the Egyptians give them a bunch of stuff to get them to leave faster, except this time it was the Joos giving stuff to the Arabs. 

The Joos and the Arabs didn't like the British being in charge, so they started doing shitty things to each other, and the British. The British had at that point decided that "owning" this particular patch of dirt wasn't worth it, it was a bunch of desert with no resources, except this one spot that had a magic rock that someone touched, but you had to leave the magic rock there. 

So they went to the UN, the newly formed revision of the League of Nations, and said "Hey, get us out of here". So the UN came up with a plan that gave most of the Arabs in the area most of the land. The Arabs in the area didn't like the deal, because they figured they could kill all the Joos when no one was looking. Except at this point, the local Joos were pretty stubborn and pissed off at being robbed by Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabic, etc., and they had an influx of Joos from Europe, so you can imagine that "pissed off Joos, willing to die where they stood" versus a bunch of spoiled Arabs who had been told "Just go over there, and we'll give you free stuff", didn't go so well for the Arabs.

So the British leave, the Joos take over after killing a few Arabs, and they declare independence. The US got on the Israel side early, because we're suckers for folks that say "Hey, we want to be a democracy like you, you're our hero.". Israel gets invaded by all the Arab nations around her, and fights them back, because they're all pretty grumpy, and they feel cornered. 

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, they want to get people on their side. They don't really care about truth, because if they cared about truth, they'd have to admit this idea of Karl Marx, the Joo, wasn't working out so well. Turns out when everyone pools their resources, well, who decides how to divide it up? Also, they didn't believe in God, so they were obviously not very observant. 

So the Soviets want the Arab nations on their side, so they went up to the Arab nations and said "Hey, the US is on Israel's side, we want you to be on our side, we'll sell you weapons and stuff, those US folks are colonialist, they just want more colonies." This sounded good to the Arabs, not realizing that as hard core atheists, the Soviets had no shame about lying. So the Soviet Union traded some obsolete weapons to the Arabs, told them they were the best weapons ever, and got the Arabs to give them cash. 

Ironically, in the meantime, Israel starts transforming large swatches of the desert into usable land, by organizing farms around a system very similar to that Joo Karl Marx's idea, but it was local, tied to a single extended family, and didn't extend to the whole country, just one farm. The Joos from Europe who went to the US instead of Israel send them money, which helps, though that's strictly voluntary and unofficial. But American's like people who work hard so they even get some money from non-Joos in America. 

The Arabs get some money too, from the other Arabs, but mostly their leaders steal it. 

Time passed, eventually the Arabs got bored or something and decided to invade Israel again. Or maybe, the Soviet Union encouraged them? I dunno, never made much sense to me. I was a baby, don't remember. 

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had recruited a prominent Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, living among the Arabs in Israel. Having a real sense of history would be too confusing to get the Israeli Arabs to rally behind, so the KGB, past masters of making shit up, came up with this whole imaginary history for the Palestinians so that Arafat, despited being from Egypt, could claim history in Israel, and so the Palestinians could whine about how mistreated they were.  

The Arabs learned the hard way "buy American" when their fighter planes wouldn't work because the planes the Russians had sold them actually needed a part they stole from America, because they couldn't make it themselves. So after 6-days, the second war was over.

The imaginary history the KGB had written stuck around, even though Arafat eventually died as we all must someday. It's taught to Palestinians so they can feel properly victimized and oppressed. Though its easily disproved if you browse around Wikipedia for a bit, with a skeptical mind.  

Did that help?

[positivelybeastly]

Hi, new here, but very interested in what you've got going on-- I don't know a lot of active X-Men readers I can discuss things with, let alone any who are actually interested in Beast, so I wanted to ask, how do you feel about the writing for him over the last decade, taking into account the awkward situation X-Men as a whole has been in over that time (Schism+) but particularly, I suppose, how his character's been treated from then through Krakoa, and this "fresh start" we've got with From the Ashes not having memory of... really this entire time period highlighted?

Hello there, welcome! Hope you enjoy the experience, because it's liable to be a rambly one.

So . . . man, this is gonna be a long one, because I actually have to dial it back a little further and talk about Beast on Utopia if I'm going to talk about Schism and everything that came after.

I don't like Matt Fraction's X-Men run. Aside from the Greg Land art, which is an obvious problem, I'm not massively in love with what I kind of end up reading as a justification for black ops kill teams and militant, isolationist statehood, to say nothing of just. Poor pacing and messy storytelling and a lot of really confused storylines that just feel weird and jarring and full of really strange character choices.

I think that Fraction did mean for his run to be more critical, that when you read Hank and Scott arguing about preserving the soul of the X-Men vs. saving mutant lives, you're meant to come away conflicted, but I think that Fraction's Hank just kinda sucks and that he comes across as very whiney and self-centred.

Like, in the end, I don't think that a lot of what Cyclops did in this era, a lot of morally repugnant shit, actually really cost him anything, because history validated him and he was elevated to whatever the big general position was on Krakoa.

It wasn't a great feeling to see the guy who literally, textually abandoned members of his teams to torture, used bioweapons as a first resort, and basically told a kid to just kill people to solve the problem, have all of his actions be whitewashed and ignored post-Schism.

Like, Bendis' Uncanny and All-New act like the only bad thing Scott ever did was kill Charles Xavier while under the influence of the Phoenix, and I'm just over here like, nnnnnno he did a lot of bad things before that, very much in his right mind, and he never paid for any of that. He got to be the black ops kill team leader and the saintly revolutionary, and I don't think that the narrative really interrogated that contradiction all that much, it was just #CyclopsWasRight.

With that context . . .

I don't have a problem with Hank being a conscientious objector and leaving the X-Men. He's done it before, and I think he was right to do it, and it fits his character.

That being said, he was then pushed straight on to the Secret Avengers, which was, while not a kill team, very much a black ops, deniable operations organisation with team members who did kill people, and while I like some of the stories from his time with the Secret Avengers, overall, I think it was an intensely stupid move that made him look like a massive hypocrite and damaged his credibility, making it look less like he was taking a moral stand and more like he just didn't like Scott.

Which is a bad thing!!! Hank loves Scott! They've been best friends since fucking forever! Not only do you damage Hank's character by doing that, but you also reduce what was a moral conflict with nuance and dimension down to petty bullshit! It's a disservice to both characters! God!! It frustrates me SO MUCH when this conflict is boiled down to that!

God forbid that these characters actually stand for something and have actual intellectual, moral problems with one another that they can have compelling conversations about, why not let's just make them petty assholes who snipe at each other for drama?

You can do this conflict and make it good! It's possible! I promise!

This is what Schism should have really been about! And Hank was, at least before the dumb move to push him to the Secret Avengers, a character with moral legitimacy who could have made Schism work! I think there's a lot of mileage to the idea that Wolverine has progressed to the point where he wants to protect people from violence, where he wants to save kids from being turned into weapons like he was, but that's a personal motivation, and it's really, really, really hard for him to have the moral high ground.

But, in the end, Wolverine sells comics, not Beast, so Wolverine became the figurehead of the less militant side of the X-Men comics. Fine. Okay, we'll deal with it.

Wolverine and the X-Men is . . . good. It has problems, but on the whole, I like it more than a lot of what came after. I especially like Jason Aaron's moves to keep Hank and Abigail together, as well as fold Broo into a growing family unit. That's a good progression for his character, and it makes sense.

Then there's Avengers vs. X-Men, and it's. Like. Garbage, but. Whatever. I do appreciate that Hank is at least occasionally in character during it.

But then we come to All-New X-Men, and I just . . . ughhhhh.

UGHHHHHHH.

I hate it, man. I hate it. I hate Bendis' bullshit garbage characterisation of Hank McCoy, and I hold it directly responsible for everything that came after it, because it functionally replaced his prior characterisation.

Hank is a character obsessed with consequences in the 00s, he's obsessed with making the right choice, he's already learned that there's only so much that he can do to fix the world. Endangered Species (which I think is an amazing Hank story) shows us that Hank will only go so far, and that, honestly, in the grand scheme of things, he will stop himself.

And then Bendis was just like, well, fuck all that bullshit, Hank blew up the space-time continuum because he doesn't like Scott Summers.

And I hate it.

It would be one thing, if Bendis were actually interested in Hank as a character, if he was willing to examine his character and his choices and his reasons and his personality, but he isn't. He flits in and out of All-New as and when required, to be castigated for a decision made while he was dying, depressed, and dealing with multiple brain aneurysms. Ostensibly, we're meant to buy that Xavier's death was the tipping point, but we don't even see Hank react to it. It's not considered important.

Hank's grief, Hank's isolation, Hank's horror, all of it is just ignored.

There's no real emotional dimension here, there's no 'what is Beast thinking, why is he doing this, let's have him talk with characters that are his friends and try to work out where he's at mentally,' because Bendis doesn't care. "Why is Beast like this? He just is. He's just a morally hypocritical asshole who judges other people and does things without thinking." He just makes Hank look like a goddamn lunatic, and it all culminates in this.

I just. I fucking hate this issue, man. It's a long, excruciating character assassination that casually wrecks Hank's long running relationship with Abigail Brand, torches his legitimacy as an intellectual or moral individual, and portrays him as a sad, lonely old man who might as well just leave because no-one actually wants him around. It's fucking galling.

Hank just straight up would not wreck the space-time continuum to teach Scott Summers a lesson. He just wouldn't. I fundamentally reject the premise. I reject it just as much as I reject the shitty attempts to make Hank/Jean Grey a pairing.

I reject the idea that Hank is a loose cannon with no regard for rules or others, who just believes in his own moral authority and says fuck everyone else, I do what I want. That is NOT who he is, and I really do just have to wonder what everyone was smoking that no-one looked at this and went, wait, when did Hank change into this? Everyone just accepted it.

It really does just feel like people got tired of Hank complaining on Utopia, so when it came time to pile on the blame for all the problems that happened after it, no-one really cared when it all became Hank's fault. No-one was willing to point out that Bendis' characterisation of Hank doesn't make sense.

Does Hank hate Scott? Why? "He's going to cause a mutant genocide" = based on what? "He killed Charles Xavier" = under the influence of a cosmic force. I don't understand these characterisation choices. Hank knows Scott better than this.

Bendis just. Does not like Hank McCoy. I really can't come up with another explanation for why he went out of his way to do two bumper issues, All-New X-Men #25 and Uncanny X-Men #600, that are just a round robin of everyone telling him that they hate him and that he sucks and he should go die.

There are glimmers of better characterisation during this period.

Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers is - complex, and you'll often hear people gesture to that as the point at which Hank became full on amoral, but I reject that hypothesis entirely. It's a conclusion come to by people who haven't actually read it.

Hank spends most of that series being wracked with guilt, trying desperately to find another way to solve the problem that doesn't involve blowing up planets, and refusing to take a life. Which tracks with Hickman's characterisation of Beast.

"Broken him." Implying that it's not his natural state, and that there are other factors are at play. This is important to keep in mind.

For most of this time period, Hank is in a very rocky state. He's not quite with the X-Men, he's not quite with the Avengers, he's got a reputation for being a chronic screw-up, people regard him as unstable, and yet they'll still call on him to fix their problems for them.

Like, the amount of times that the X-Men call on him to help them, despite the fact that he left after their failed, garbage intervention, and he still goes back to them, is just so very tiring. Either the X-Men should stop relying on someone that they seem not to like or trust, or Hank should stop going back to a 'family' that seems not to value him or have his best intentions in mind. The halfway house they settle into is just weird and inconsistent.

Like, which is it? Do you guys actually want him around or not? Because you're kind of being massive assholes to a guy who primarily wants to help. And we're meant to be knee deep in his turn towards moral ambiguity by now, but he's still just kinda being a good dude!

Anyone who tells you that Beast's moral downfall has been a consistent slide since Threnody is a fraud, because there is nothing consistent about this period of history for Beast.

If these panels show you anything, it's that there are two Beasts running around - a guy who makes problems for other people to solve because he's an idiot, and actual Beast, who occasionally makes mistakes, but who has pure intentions, a good heart, a joke at the ready, and he's fundamentally a nice person. It's getting to be impossible to tell which one is going to turn up to your story.

The only really good writing comes in fits and spurts, and usually when he's under the care of a writer who seems to have some affection for him. Especially if Simon Williams is around.

Whenever I write this version of Hank, his tag is getting by, because it feels like his life is just perpetually on the skids and there's no real rhyme or reason as to why. He just oscillates between two extremes as and when the story wants him to be an asshole or not. Even he seems confused as to what's going on.

And then we get to Krakoa, and . . .

It's just fundamentally not the same character. It's not even the same as Dark Beast, it's just Mr. Sinister in blue fur with less jokes. Benjamin Percy just expects you to accept that Hank woke up one day and was like, y'know what? I think killing countries is fine, actually. I want to head up an intelligence agency. I should cut off Wolverine's head. Maybe torture some innocent aliens for fun.

Why?

Eh, he's just evil.

Why are you bothering to question it?

And people don't question it, because Hank is a horrible hypocrite who will do anything that falls within his narrow view of morally acceptable actions, and he's an awful person who people barely tolerate being around.

Except. He isn't that. Or is he? Because Bendis said he was like that. And as everyone knows, Bendis is the true arbiter of characterisation and continuity. Just ask a fan of Wanda Maximoff, and they'll tell you how happy they are with his definitive version of the character.

Like, I just don't buy it. Not for one bit. You can't make this character this and pass a spot check. The only reason people are fine with it is because they never particularly cared for Beast to begin with, and so this new, more 'interesting' characterisation is better. It's 'truer.' Meanwhile, people who actually have been following the character for years remember when other X-Men were saying stuff like this.

Which is it? Has every single nice thing an X-Man said about Hank McCoy been a horrible, hilariously off base misjudgement, or is Benjamin Percy a hack who can't write? Iunno, man. Jury's out.

And then we come to From the Ashes, which is . . . a little too early, to make a judgement? I'm tentatively optimistic, now that we have a Beast who isn't just. The worst. I don't love the fact that he's missing 40 years of memories, even if the storytelling opportunities of such a character beat are interesting.

I'm also on the fence about this.

Idk, I'm hoping that it'll be born out by the rest of the issue, and that Hank's characterisation here makes more sense with context, but I don't love the idea of bringing back the single most heroic version of Hank McCoy that ever existed, then side-jumping him straight into a redux of the Legacy Virus 'I can't leave the lab/I have to make moral compromises' storyline from the 90s.

I have faith in Jed MacKay, and I'm willing to give it a shot, but I'm just so used to being disappointed by Marvel and X-Men by this point.

To come back to how I feel about it all? This isn't what I would have wanted for Hank. Not even close. Bendis threw out everything I liked about Hank back in 2013, and it set us down a path that has even a hint of Hank being anything less than perfect seeing comments sections explode, saying that he's well on his way to becoming evil again.

His name is dirt in the fandom, and the reason it isn't considered more of a problem is because he never had that big of a fan base to begin with, which is mostly a result of the fact that he's not a character who gets big flashy 'I'm so cool' moments - he's a character whose storylines are often sad, morose, dark, and unhappy. People like Beast, but they won't generally go to bat for him.

The revisionist history bugs me, a lot. No, he wasn't always evil, and no, it's not been a consistent slide to villainy ever since 1993. He's just as liable to be written badly as any other character, and frankly, I think he's been a victim of it a lot more than a lot of other characters during the same time period, but whereas other characters will have that bad writing forgiven by both fandom and the writers (Emma Frost), it just. Hangs, over Hank's head, like Damocles' sword.

It's been disheartening, honestly. I left the fandom in 2015, after Bendis' runs, because I just didn't want to deal with it anymore, and when I came back a year ago, I found out it had only gotten worse. Everyone else got to enjoy Krakoa, with its big mutant pride storylines and their stories of redemption and deepening bonds and political machinations, and my character got stuck in the shitty black ops corner, acting like a James Bond villain with none of the charm. It really didn't make me feel welcome.

If it hadn't been for a good few other fans who have stuck by me since then, I probably would have left the fandom again, and while things are looking up a bit more now, I don't know if I'm ever quite going to be at a point where I'm not jaded, expecting another heel turn from Marvel.

It sucks, because Hank has always meant a lot to me. He's a character about ethical science, about body dysmorphia, about mental illness, about triumph through adversity, about second chances, about maturity, about nuance and conflict and complexity, and he just got bulldozed into being the war crimes guy.

I got invited to join an O5 X-Men Reddit the other day, and the only posts that even mentioned him both were like 'lol war crimes lol Beast killed someone,' and it just made me think, why in god's name would I want to be part of that?

Like, I have stuff to contribute. I have a lot of thoughts about Hank, and his friendships and relationships and his meaning as a character, stuff that people often haven't considered because they don't think about Beast as deeply as I do, stuff that could elevate and deepen people's enjoyment of stories they've read a hundred times before - and I just.

Why would I share it? Why would I go into a space where I don't feel welcome? Why would I share my thoughts on the deeper meaning of Hank's tendency towards performance and how it changes over 60 years of comic books, when I know that the first comment is gonna be some variation of 'lol war crimes'?

It'd be one thing if the story we got was any good, then I could at least say it was worth it, but it wasn't. That's the thing that bugs me the most. The story of Hank's heel turn could have been amazing, but the lack of care and thought to consistency extended so far that even his villain turn was bad. We sacrificed this

for this.

And it's just a straight up downgrade. There's none of what Hickman or Morrison talked about being the point or the appeal of Beast. There's no sweet man, there's no heart, there's no humanity. It's just edgy. It's just the ends justifies the means, and that's it. That's the final thesis. There's nothing more to it than that. It's just so. Simple. Undercooked, really. It feels like a disservice to the complex character that Hank McCoy is meant to be.

Final thoughts? Uh. It mostly all kinda sucks, go buy a copy of S.W.O.R.D volume 1 instead, it's really good.