#I'm sure there is some commentary or explanation or something | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spoopyblues214 · 8 days

Note

Can I have the Rise boys with a reader that yaps constantly and dosent do a lot of touching other than small acts of hand holding, poking, and just being physically close-? Like can and will talk about anything under the sun, like cats, space, their toaster they named Bermuta whilst being next to Donnie while he’s working, or holding Leo’s hand whilst Helen he’s reading a comic, poking Raphs arms or cheek when he’s doing something, and their head on Mikey’s shoulder while he cooks/draws.

But on the rare occasion they’re silent, like dead silent, not even a hello or good evening just nothing. And they’ll sit down on the ground next to said turtle and lean their head on the turtles legs slash thighs and wrap their arms around them, looking really zoned out or just not there because they had been yelled at or got into an argument with someone else or their parents for being so animated and talking so much.

Also I really love your writing!! Small reminder to rest up and take care of your needs, have some roses for the road :333💐

I'm gonna take this as a headcanon request, and tysm for the request(s) and reminder! You're greatly appreciated. Yapper hcs here we go!

°•.•°

Raph

He doesn't mind one bit, your constant commentary reminding him of when he and his brothers were turtle tots

He finds it really cute, and is sure to listen just enough to keep up with what you're saying

Eventually he starts to prefer listening to you yap about your day over his music when he's working out

When you start poking him it makes him laugh, opting to lift you instead of the weights, which gets you squealing

The fact it brings him so much joy makes it all the more heart wrenching when you end up sitting on the floor in his room, quiet with distant eyes

When you grab his leg, his eyebrows knit together, confused even as he finds it a little endearing

He'd press for an explanation on what had you so quiet, voice quiet and gentle, and your answer would make him sad

If it was your parents, he'd offer a sleepover, preferring you stay at the lair then at home when things were turbulent

Leo

You and Leo could go on and on and on if other things didn't get in the way, he was just as talkative

That also meant he was especially attentive laughing and nodding and giving input

Even when he was reading or trying a new trick on his skateboard, he'd still have something to add when there was a pause for him to

He also rather enjoyed the little bits of affection youd offer, sitting right next to him when he'd read or on movie nights

The first time you're silent his beak wrinkles, as the quiet is the most unwelcome thing in the world

He's much more aggressive in asking what's wrong, refusing to drop it until you told him what happened

Once you would, he'd go off immediately, saying the person who told you to shut your trap was a loser and boring and all sorts of other things

Then, after getting through his own rant, he'd raise an eyebrow considering you're still attached to his leg, mischievous mind working before he'd start walking with you hanging on, trying to make you laugh

Donnie

He likely struggles with it the most, but the fact you speak so much means he doesn't have to worry about small talk

Even so, he mentally catalogues every topic of conversation, able to keep up with anything and everything you spew

He feels a little bit of accomplishment everytime he can add input based on things you've mentioned before

As for your less typical signs of affection, they matched him perfectly; he greatly appreciated being able to focus on his projects while you're nearby

But then one day you're not saying anything after a surprising amount of time

When he swivels in his chair, you're on the floor, and immediately he's set into a panic, asking what happened

He'd be pretty similar to Leo, insisting you tell him, and then scoffing and bad mouthing the plebeians who dared to raise their voice at you

As for your clinging to his leg, it's a little odd, but he never comments on it, just standing in place until you're done, maybe ruffling your hair

Mikey

Mikey loves talking to you, listening to anything and everything that comes from your mind

It makes him laugh, why wouldn't he enjoy it, especially when you hold his hands or sit in the kitchen while he cooks

Even when he's feeling creative, you still choose to sit with your side against his, more intent on whatevers caught your attention that day then what he's working on

When you started poking him, though, he'd do it right back, which would end in a tickle fight that he'd never lose

When you're quiet, it's a different story, and he's sensitive to your feelings

You hug his leg, eyes unfocused, making him frown and meet you on the floor, sitting with his knee up so you can keep hugging him

He wouldn't push on what's wrong, instead asking if you wanted to talk about it, and if you did he'd listen and offer his sympathies

If you didn't want to talk about it, he'd sigh but nod, and rub a hand over your back, talking himself to fill the quiet when you had nothing to say

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt x reader #raphael x reader #leonardo x reader #donatello x reader #michelangelo x reader #spoopyblues

88 notes · View notes

txttletale · 4 months

Note

could you elaborate on your thoughts on boom and 73 yards ( i agree with you i am just struggling to put into words why.)

boom was whatever. the initial conceit of the doctor being trapped and having to stay calm was really cool! i really like that. the ambulances that euthanize you if you're not deemed worthy of medical care and the tacky chatgpt hologram ghosts were both really cool ideas. it just doesn't stick the landing for me, the twists are contrived and fall apart given any thought whatsoever. like what the fuck were any of the soldiers Doing if there just straight up weren't any enemies. it's a twist that sounds cool to say more than it has any meaningful impact on the story or the stakes. i guess 'the arms manuifacturer created a fake conflict' is the intended emtional stakes there but that would hit like a hundred times harder if it was an actual conflict between two factions and people were dying, right? like if anything sending a christian militia to blow themselves up tae fuck on a nowhere planet instead of presumably killing actual living people is an improvement, surely?

also the resolution was dumb as fuck lol i am a huge hater of power of love saves the day shit not because i'm a cynical misanthrope but because it never fails to make me say 'oh so i guess nobody ever loved anybody before lol' and this is no exception like if one chatbot can shut down the whole operation beacuse he loves his daughter are we meant to believe that no other parents or hell nobody who loved anybody else for any reason died in this fake war before? it's cheap and schmaltzy and unearned. anyway the first twentyish minutes of this are all-time great doctor who and gatwa/gibson were incredible in it but it absolutely falls apart into a confused pileo f some of the worst Moffatisms at the end

73 yards on the other hand was incredible! obviously like it requires you to approach it with a different mindset to most of doctor who, right, doctor who usually furnishes you with the big explanation scnee where the doctor says 'well the ghosts were actually particle wave vectorforms created with the necros radiation from the god-king's techsceptre' or whatever--this is the usual narrative mode of sci-fi--but 73 yards is fantasy, right, this is the twilight zone, this is 'wouldn't that be fucked up?'. i interrogate the technical and logical specifics of boom so much when i think about it because that's the language boom is speaking, boom is framing itself within this logical, a-to-b worldview, the satisfying click-together puzzlebox. but 73 yards is a nightmare or a folk tale, right? kate stewart¹ says it herself, 'when faced with the inexplicable, we make up rules and apply them to it'.

so yknow reading it that way it all clicks together beautifully, right, (apart from russel t davies' embarassing swing and miss at Political Commentary in the middle. we get it davies you wrote years and years. we know. trust me we know). the doctor and ruby disrupt the binding circle, free mad jack, and are punished -- the doctor, as perpetrator, with being banished (perhaps in jack's place) and ruby with her worst fear coming true constantly, until ruby defeats mad jack, re-sealing him and fixing what she broke, at which point the circle rewards her by reversing the punishments. and the core horror i think is very effective and unsettling! the idea that there is something that someone could say to turn everyone against you, the closest people to you in your life, your own family, the institutions that are meant to deal with the exact problem you're having--that's fucking terrifying! and yknow i think especially as an autistic trans lesbian something that speaks to me a lot

so yeah. i think that boom establishes its logics and framework and then trips and falls onto its face while 73 yards does the same and then makes perfect use of them. that said i think in 20 years people who are autistic about doctor who will be like 'did you know in the 2020s there were two episodes in a row where the doctor caused the entire plot to happen by stepping on something' and thjatll be the main thing they're remembered for

#ask #doctor who

133 notes · View notes

calware · 6 months

Note

dear calware, I'm not sure how much you know on the topic of Doc Scratch, but I was wondering, why is the common consensus around him that he's like a creepy pedophile? after rereading his messages with Rose, he seems more tone deaf and weird than a fully on creep. is there something I'm missing?

scratch isn't "literally" a pedophile (or a hebephile, which is the accurate term for this situation) which we know because of this

but at the same time, that is still the Way he's written

(i'm sorry if this following explanation is confusing.... i really do not have the right wording to describe it) it's almost like a metaphorical representation. he's a child predator in every way but the actual sexual attraction. the way he's written references the behavior of actual child predators and is meant to signal to the audience that this is the Kind Of Character he is. it's a literary tool(?)to tell the audience that he is literally taking advantage of characters in various ways (as well as straight up abusing damara) while at the time comparing it to child sexual abuse

but if you do want literal actions on his part, he does Literally groom young girls and they are his targets for manipulation

also, directly from the author commentary (which. is not 100% serious at times. but i do think it sometimes offers some actual insight):

I know I just said a bunch of stuff about [DD] maybe being a creep. But look, this is just my OPINION here. I don't think he's actually being creepy about this. I think he has a genuinely parental attitude toward Aradia and wants to see her succeed in her violent and underhanded schemes. See how he wants them to conduct their business with efficiency? He's way too professional to go Full Doc on these girls.

Another peek at Rose suggests she's still at it with her creepy uncle, Doc Scratch.

Then you have a few beats of conversation which bring Equius to mind, such as the creep-factor

[Dirk and Equius] have this creepy-guy streak running through them, with strange or offputting interests, and seem to get a quiet kick out of making others uncomfortable through demonstrations of these fascinations. [...] I'd say these self-examined qualities are just drawn out, isolated, and inflated both for dramatic effect, and also as critical write-up of those qualities existing within many human beings in general, which I would like to think is grounded in a creative process involving a certain degree of humility about some of this bullshit. I like all these characters here, but that doesn't mean I think their unpleasant qualities are good. It just means I am harnessing and heightening those qualities for creating strong villainous portraits.

We start getting the sense that the entire purpose of this conversation, from Doc's vantage point, is just to passive-aggressively manipulate Rose into peering directly into one of his cursed testicles. Wait, my youth pastor is literally barking like a dog right now for some reason. Probably because I put him on a leash and tied him to a post in the backyard. I guess I fucked up again? I mean one of Doc's seeds.

Maybe it's fair to say I have a higher than average tolerance troubling content. But even I have to admit to shuddering a little when I read Doc's creepy lines toward Rose. I think Doc's creep factor toward girls is most likely channeling part of Caliborn's personality, which almost seems to revolve around his horrid attitude toward women. For Caliborn, this weird combination of wrathful misogyny, yet fixation and obsession with certain girls, is obviously central to the type of real-world profile he's meant to portray. But when his personality is more muted among the collective in Doc's head, those qualities come across as more "restrained," "polite," and "flattering," which arguably just makes it all creepier. The result is a creepy dude profile that also exists in the real world, sort of adjacent to the Full Caliborns out there. There seem to be many stripes of this kind of unfortunate male behavior, which all exists in a broader family of sub-Caliborns. The Docs, the Eridans, the Cronuses… They're all sketchy in different ways.

Doc sitting back just to "watch" is another creepy Equiusism. Remember that was a thing with him.

I wonder what Jade would think if she knew she had in her possession since childhood one of Doc's testicORACLES!!! Oracles. The word I meant to say was oracles, not anything else. Anyway, like I was saying, how would Jade react if she realized every time she played with one of her beloved toys, she was actually fondling this weirdo's plump, juicy oracle. I know you think my youth pastor may have something to do with this peculiar outburst, but you're wrong. I "dismissed" him recently, because he told me with great pride that I learned everything he had to teach me. I don't need anyone to keep me from shoving my foot in my mouth anymore, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know. Now let's watch this grieving teen receive a demonic message from an evil puppet's big fat nut.

bonus commentary from book 6 that has nothing to do with the post:

We're reaching a specific kind of story partition. Not the end of an act, but the end of a year. Also an end of "disc," which is a kind of meta-partitioning I just made up for the purpose of closing the book on two years of content, as well as being a good meta-device for introducing the Doc sequence we're about to get into in the next book.

"next book"...... sad

#ask #jestinggenesis #feel the need to mention that. so much of this makes me cringe while reading it

171 notes · View notes

caligvlasaqvarivm · 4 months

Note

How do you analyze so good I'm really impressed and honestly wonder if I can learn from you

It's a skill, so the good news is, you can practice and get better at it!

Read A Lot/Gain Context

Analysis often means making comparisons or drawing from external context - one of the best things you can do if you want to be better at analysis is to try to cram your head with as much knowledge as possible. The time period, culture of origin, and where the author slots into those are usually major influences on a work (in Homestuck's case, much of it is a direct commentary on the internet culture it emerged from, and missing that part of it can drastically influence how the story reads).

Also important are the works the author themselves are inspired by. You've likely heard some variation of "nothing is original." We're actually really lucky with Homestuck in that regard, as the work is highly referential, and you can glean a lot by looking at what it references (for example, if you watch Serendipity, one of Karkat's favorite movies, which is titledropped during the troll romance explanation, you will understand Karkat so much better). This applies to things like mythological allusions - you'll hardly know why it matters that Karkat is a Christ figure if you don't know what the general outline of the Christ story is, nor will you pick up on the Rapture elements of Gamzee's religion or the fact that Doc Scratch is The Devil, etc. The key to picking up a lot of symbolism is being aware that the symbols exist.

And last, it helps to read a lot of media and media analysis so you can get a better understanding of how media "works" - how tropes are used, what effect language has, what other entries into the genre/works with similar themes/etc. have already done to explore the same things as the piece being analyzed is doing - and what other people have already gleaned and interpreted. I've mentioned before that many people seem to find Homestuck's storytelling bizarre and unique when it's actually quite standard for postmodernism, the genre it belongs to. But you're not going to know that if you've never read anything postmodern, y'know? I also often prepare for long character essays by reading other peoples' character essays - sometimes people pick up on things I miss, and sometimes people have interpretations I vehemently disagree with; both of these help me to refine my take on the matter.

Try to Discard Biases/Meet the Work Where It Is

Many will carry into reading media an expectation of what they want to get out of it. For example, one generally goes into a standard hetero romance book expecting a female lead, a male love interest, romance (of course), and a happy ending for the happy couple. If the book fails to deliver these things, a reader will often walk away thinking it was a bad book, even if the story told instead is objectively good and interesting. We actually see this a lot with Wuthering Heights, which receives very polarizing reviews because people go into it expecting a gothic romance, when it's really more like a gossip Youtube video spilling the tea on some shitty rich people (and it's really good at being that).

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this when reading for pleasure and personal enjoyment, but it presents a problem when attempting to analyze something. There's a concept called the "Procrustean bed," named after a mythological bandit who used to stretch people or cut off their limbs to fit them to a bed, that describes "an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced." Going into a media reading with expectations and biases often results in a very Procrustean reading - I'm sure we've all seen posts complaining about how fanfic often forces canon characters to fit certain archetypes while discarding their actual character traits, etc.

Therefore, when reading for analysis, it's generally a good idea to try and discard as much bias and expectation as possible (obviously, we are never fully free of bias, but the effort counts) - or, perhaps even better, to compartmentalize those biases for comparison while reading. For example, Hussie talks at length about what they INTENDED Homestuck to be, and, while reading, I like to keep Hussie's words to the side while I try to experience the comic fresh, seeing what choices were made in accordance with Hussie's intentions, or where I think Hussie may have fumbled the messaging. At the same time, I try to let the work stand on its own, set in its proper context.

I'd say this is the number-one problem in fandom analysis. For example, people hear from the fandom that Eridan is an incel or a nice guy, so they interpret everything he says and does to fit that belief, or ignore any contradictory evidence. Or they fall for the character's façade that's meant to be dismantled by the viewer. Some works are fairly shallow and accessible, wearing all their meaning on their sleeve (or are Not That Deep, if you prefer meme-talk), and problems arise when a work is, in fact, That Deep, because someone biased towards the former will discard evidence that a work is the latter. This isn't exclusive to HS - it's happened in basically all of my fandoms - which is a statement to how easy it is to fall into this way of thinking.

Even without knowing that Hussie had coming-of-age themes in mind, for example, characters will talk about being kids and growing up. Knowing that Hussie has explicitly said that that's one of HS's themes serves as extra evidence for that interpretation, but the work itself tells you what it's about - if you're willing to listen to it.

Even If the Curtains are Just Blue, That Still Means Something

This is the next biggest fandom stumbling block - thr insinuation that when things in a work are put into the work without more explicit symbolism, that that means they're a discardable detail. This one is more about making a mindset shift - details aren't discardable, even if they don't appear to have been made with the explicit intention to mean something. Everything kind of means something.

First of all, whether or not the curtains are Just Blue is often highly dependent on the work. For example, in something made in large quantities with little time, staff, and budget - say, for example, one of the entries into the MCU's TV shows - there likely isn't too much meaning behind a choice of blue curtains in a shot (although you'd be surprised how often choices in these constrained environments are still very deliberately made). In a work like Homestuck, however, so terribly dense with symbolism and allegory, chances are, the blue curtains DO hold some special meaning, even if it's not readily apparent.

However, even in cases where a choice is made arbitrarily, it still usually ends up revealing something about the work's creative process. Going back to our MCU example, perhaps the blue curtains were chosen because the shot is cool-toned and they fit the color grading. Perhaps they were chosen because the director really likes blue. Perhaps the shot was filmed at an actual location and the blue curtains were already there. Or, even, perhaps the blue curtains were just what they had on hand, and the show was made too quickly and cheaply to bother sourcing something that would fit the tone or lend extra meaning. These all, to varying degrees, say something about the work - maybe not anything so significant that it would come up in an analysis, but they still contribute to a greater understanding of what the work is, what it's trying to say, and how successful it is at saying it.

And this applies to things with much higher stakes. For example, Hussie being a white US citizen likely had an effect on the B1 kids being mostly US citizens, and there was discourse surrounding how, even though they were ostensibly aracial, references were made to Dave's pale skin. Do I think these were deliberate choices made to push some sort of US superiority; no, obviously not. But they still end up revealing things about the creation of the work - that Hussie had certain biases as a result of being who they were.

Your Brain is Designed to Recognize Patterns, So Put That to Use

So with "establish context" and "discard expectations" out of the way, we can start getting into the nitty-gritty of what should be jumping out at you when attempting to understand a work. One of the most prominent things that you should be looking for is PATTERNS.

Writing is a highly conscious effort, which draws from highly unconscious places. Naturally, whether these patterns are intentional or unintentional is dependent on the author (see again why reading up on a work's context is so important), but you can generally bet that anything that IS a pattern is something that holds significance.

For example, Karkat consistently shows that he's very distraught when any of his friends get hurt, that he misses his friends, even the murderous assholes, that he's willing to sit them down and intervene on their behalf, despite all his grandstanding to the contrary. We are supposed to notice that Karkat actually loves his friends, and that he's lying when he says he doesn't care about them.

Homestuck is very carefully and deliberately crafted; if something comes up more than once, it's a safe bet to assume that you're supposed to notice, or at least feel, it. Don't take my word for it:

Basically, [reusing elements is] about building an extremely dense interior vocabulary to tell a story with, and continue to build and expand that vocabulary by revisiting its components often, combining them, extending them and so on. A vocabulary can be (and usually is) simple, consisting of single words, but in this case it extends to entire sentences and paragraph structures and visual forms and even entire scenes like the one linked above. Sometimes the purpose for reiteration is clear, and sometimes there really is no purpose other than to hit a familiar note, and for me that's all that needs to happen for it to be worthwhile. Triggering recognition is a powerful tool for a storyteller to use. Recognition is a powerful experience for a reader. It promotes alertness, at the very least. And in a lot of cases here, I think it promotes levity (humor! this is mostly a work of comedy, remember.) Controlling a reader's recognition faculty is one way to manipulate the reader's reactions as desired to advance the creative agenda.

But this applies to less deliberately-crafted work, too; for example, if an author consistently writes women as shallow, cruel, and manipulative, then we can glean that the author probably has some sort of issue with women. Villains often being queer-coded suggests that the culture they come from has problems with the gays. Etc. etc.

This is how I reached my conclusion that Pale EriKar is heavily foreshadowed - the two are CONSTANTLY kind to each other, sharing secrets, providing emotional support, etc. etc. It's why that part of my Eridan essay is structured the way that it is - by showing you first how consistently the two interact in suspiciously pale-coded ways, the fact that a crab is shown in both Eridan's first appearance AND his appearance on the moirallegiance "hatched for each other" page becomes the cincher of a PATTERN of the two being set up to shoosh-pap each other.

A work will tell you about itself if you listen. If it tells you something over and over, then it's basically begging you to pay attention.

Contrast is Important, Too

Patterns are also significant when they're broken. For example, say a villain is constantly beating up the protagonist. Here's our pattern: the hero is physically weaker than the villain. In a straight fight, the hero will always lose.

And then, at the mid-season two-parter, the hero WINS. Since we've set up this long pattern of the hero always losing to this villain, the fact that this pattern was disrupted means that this moment is extremely important for the work. Let's say the hero wins using guile - in this case, we walk away with the message that the work is saying that insurmountable obstacles may have workarounds, and adaptability and flexibility are good, heroic traits. Now let's say the hero won using physical strength, after a whole season of training and practicing - in this case, we say that the work says hard work and effort are heroic, and will pay off in the end.

In Homestuck, as an example, we set up a long pattern of Vriska being an awful, manipulative bitch, and a fairly remorseless killer. And then, after killing Tavros, she talks to John and admits that she's freaking out because she feels really bad about it. This vulnerability is hinted at by some of her earlier actions/dialogue, which is itself a pattern to notice, but it's not really explicit until it's set up to be in direct contrast to the ultimate spider8itch move of killing Tavros. This contrast is intended to draw our attention, to point out something significant - hey, Vriska feels bad! She's a product of her terrible society and awful lusus! While it's shitty that she killed Tavros, she's also meant to be tragic and sympathetic herself!

Hussie even talks about how patterns and surprises are used in tandem:

Prior to Eridan's entrance into the room, and even during, the deaths were completely unguessable. After Feferi's death, Kanaya's becomes considerably more so, but still quite uncertain. After her death, all bets are off. Not only do all deaths thereafter become guessable, but in some cases, "predictable". That's because it was the line between a series of shocking events, and the establishment of an actual story pattern. The new pattern serves a purpose, as a sort of announcement that the story is shifting gears, that we're drifting into these mock-survival horror, mock-crime drama segments, driven by suspense more than usual. The suspense has more authority because of all the collateral of unpredictability built up over time, as well as all the typical stuff that helps like long term characterization. But now that the pattern is out in the open, following through with more deaths no longer qualifies as unpredictability. Just the opposite, it would now be playing into expectations, which as I said, can be important too. This gear we've switched to is the new normal, and any unpredictability to arise thereafter will necessarily be a departure from whatever current patterns would indicate.

Patterns are important because they tell you what baselines the work is setting - what's normal, what's standard, what this or that generally "means." Contrast is important because it means something has changed, or some significant point is being made. They work in tandem to provide the reader with points of focus in the story, things to keep in mind as they read, consciously or unconsciously.

Theme

I'm talking about this stuff in pretty broad and open terms because stories are so malleable, and so myriad, and can say so many things. There are stories where horrible cruelties are painted as good things - propoganda is the big one, but consider all the discourse around romance books that paint abusive/toxic relationships as ideal. There are stories where the protagonist is actually the villain, and their actions are not aspirational, and works where everyone sucks and nobody is aspirational, and works where everybody is essentially a good person, if sometimes misguided.

This is, again, why outside context is so important, and biases need to be left at the door. For example, generally speaking, one can assume that the protagonist of a children's cartoon is going to be an aspirational hero, or at least a conflicted character who must learn to do the right thing. However, there are even exceptions to this! Invader Zim, for example, features an outright villain protagonist - a proud servant of a fascist empire - and for a lower-stakes example, the Eds of Ed, Edd, n' Eddy are the neighborhood scammers, constantly causing problems for the other characters with their schemes.

Thus, how do we determine what any particular narrative's stance on a given topic is? It's a difficult question to answer because every narrative is different. If I say something like, "the things that bring the protagonists success in their goals are what the narrative says are good," then we run into the issue of villain/gray morality protagonists. To use moral terms like "hero" and "villain" instead runs into the problem of defining morality within a narrative in the first place. But you have to draw the line somewhere.

So that brings us to themes.

Now, as with a lot of artistic terms, "theme" isn't necessarily well-defined (this isn't helped by the way the word is used colloquially to mean things like aesthetic, moral of the story, or symbolism). Wikipedia says: "In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative," but this is still very broad and hard to work with, so I'll give it a shot.

A theme is what a work says, beyond the literal series of events. Sometimes a theme is obvious - the theme of Boy Who Cried Wolf is that if you become famous for lying, you won't be believed when you tell the truth. Sometimes a theme is one of many - for example, Disney's Cinderalla says that kindness and virtue will eventually be recognized and rewarded, and that cruelty is interlinked with ugliness. Sometimes a theme is unintentional - for example, how Disney's body of work tends to villainize queer-coded characters. Sometimes context and the passage of time changes the theme - for example, Snow White originally held a message of hope for wartime families that domestic normalcy would one day return, but is now seen as anti-feminist as it appears to insinuate that a woman's place is in the kitchen, and her happiness is in marriage to a man. And sometimes a theme is not something you agree with.

In any case, a theme is a meaning to be gleaned from the text, more broad and universally applicable than the text itself. After all, we humans have traditionally always used story to impart meaning; our oldest epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh, contains within it several themes, most famously that of accepting one's mortality. It's startling, really, how applicable the story is to this day, even if specific details have become obtuse or unsavory to a modern reader.

This is, again, why it's so important to engage with a text on its own terms, in its own context, with as little bias as possible. A story's themes are not necessarily apparent, and commonly implied rather than stated outright, and approaching the story with expectations can easily lead to a Procrustean twisting of the facts to fit those expectations. A theme should emerge to the analyzer out of the reading, not the other way around.

Identifying theme gets easier with practice, and largely comes down to identifying patterns within the narrative (alongside looking at context and symbolism, of course). What does the narrative consistently touch base on? Are there any references; is there any symbolism? What does the story deem "normal," "good," or "bad"? How are ideas developed, and why? Why did these events happen, and are those motivations echoed anywhere else?

Homestuck is very complex and tackles many topics at once, and explaining why it's a coming-of-age would basically require a whole second essay, so I'll use a simpler and more popular example (like I've been trying to do) - let's say, Shrek.

The most obvious theme of Shrek is that beauty does not equate goodness, that one mustn't judge a book by its cover. The opening sequence is LITERALLY Shrek ripping out pages of a fairy tale book to use as toilet paper, and the movie ends with Fiona finding that her happiest, truest self IS as an ugly ogre. Shrek's main character conflict is that people immediately judge him as cruel and evil because he's ugly, and the characters' lowest points occur because Fiona is similarly insecure about her ogre half, considering it unlovable.

But there's other stuff in there, too. For example, if you know that Dreamworks and Shrek were founded after a falling out with Disney, then the beautiful, sanitized city of Dulac, with its switchback queue and singing animatronics add to this theme of a direct refutation of traditional Disney fairytale values, mocking them as manufactured, inhuman, and even cruel in the way that they marginalize those who don't fit an ideal of beauty. Again we see the opening sequence - defacing a fairytale - as support for this, but also the way that Dulac is displacing fairytale creatures. There's a moment where Gepetto literally sells Pinocchio, which can easily be read as a commentary on the crass commercialization and exploitation of fairy tales Disney likes to do.

And then, of course, there are lesser, supplementary themes. Love being a powerful positive force is one - Donkey is able to rally Shrek after he truly reciprocates Dragon's love for him (which echoes the theme of not equating goodness with beauty, as Dragon is still big and scary), and it's true love's kiss that grants Fiona her happy ending.

And then there's stuff that's unintentional. There's all this work done about how beauty =/= goodness, but then they made the villain incredibly short, which is a traditionally unattractive physical feature. So, does that mean that ugly things can be beautiful unless that ugliness is specifically height?

Sometimes, authorial intent does not match up with result - but in those instances, I think the most is revealed about the author. Modern Disney products tend to be very cowardly about going anti-corporation and pro-weirdness, despite their usual feel-good tones and uplifting themes - and that says a lot about Disney, doesn't it. That's why I think it's still important to keep authorial intent in mind, if possible, even if they fumble what they say they've set out to do.

Obviously, Lord Fuckwad being short doesn't REALLY detract from the overall message - but it's still a weird hitch in the themes, which I think is interesting to talk about, so you can see where personal judgement and biases DO have to be applied. There are two options here, more or less - either one believes that Shrek is making an exception for short people, who are of the Devil, or one believes that the filmmakers did a bit of an oopsie. Barring an outright statement from the filmmakers, there's no way to know for sure.

We can say a work has very complex themes when it intentionally explores multiple ideas very deeply. We can say a work has shallow themes when it doesn't have much intentional meaning, and/or that meaning is explored very lightly. The labyrinthine storytelling of Homestuck, with its forays into mortality, morality, and growing up, chock full of symbolism and pastiche and allusions, is a work with complex themes - especially as compared to the average newspaper comic strip, although they ostensibly share a genre.

We can say a work has very unified themes when these themes serve to compliment each other - the refutation of Disney-esque values, and love as a positive driving force, compliment the main theme in Shrek of not judging books by their covers, of beauty not equating to goodness. Ugly things are worthy of love, and those who push standards of beauty are evil and suck.

Similarly, we can say a work has unfocused or messy themes when the themes it includes - intentionally or not - contradict, distract, and/or detract from each other. Beauty has no correlation to goodness... unless you're short, in which case, you are closer to Hell and therefore of evil blood. To get a little controversial, this is actually why I didn't like Last Wish very much - there are approximately three separate storylines, with three separate thematic arcs, going on in the same movie, none of which particularly compliment each other - so the experience was very messy to me, story-wise, even though it was pretty and the wolf was hot. This is why we feel weird about Disney pushing anti-corporate messages, when they're a big corporate machine, or why it's easy to assume Homestuck was written poorly if you don't like Hussie - we want themes to be coherent, we want context to be unified with output.

Tone

Tone is somehow even harder to define than theme. It's like, the "vibe" of a work. For example, you generally don't expect something lighthearted to deal with the realistic, brutal tragedies of war. Maybe it'll touch on them in light, optimistic ways, but it isn't about to go All Quiet on the Western Front on the reader. By the same token, you don't expect fully happy endings out of the melodrama of opera, or frivolous slice of life from something grimdark.

Tone, too, is something people often wind up Procrusteanizing, which makes discussion difficult if two people disagree. If I read Homestuck as unwaveringly optimistic, with its downer ending the result of an author fumble, I'm pretty much going to irreconcileably disagree with somebody who reads Homestuck as though it's always been a kind of tragedy where things don't work out for the characters. Since it's even more difficult to define than theme, I'm not even really going to bother; I just felt like I had to bring it up because, despite its nebulosity, it's vital to how one reads and interprets a text. Sometimes I don't have a better answer for why I dislike a certain interpretation other than that it doesn't suit the work's tone. I generally try to avoid saying that, though, because it winds up smacking of subjective preference.

In summary... analysis is about keeping everything in mind all the time! But i swear, it gets easier the more you do it. Happy reading!

#homestuck #literary analysis #critical thinking

111 notes · View notes

trashquisitor-shirozora · 8 months

Note

*enables you* what happened with TLJ 👃

After all these years I still can't properly find words to explain how deeply betrayed I felt after the credits rolled and I shuffled out of the movie theater with everybody else. There was a TON of hype surrounding this movie, an absolute fuckton. I only saw positive reviews about it, the cast, the director, the plot. I got excited to see where Rian Johnson & Co. would take the ST.

The only remotely negative comment I saw before watching the movie was a fandom blog saying they didn't like what happened to Poe. Since this blog was about racism in fandom, I knew something was off. That was my only warning.

And y'know, it was like, five minutes in? Ten minutes? And Poe makes a "Yo mama" joke at Hux? I used to go into movies with an open mind and spent days gathering my thoughts about them because I was always slow to react, slow to gather my thoughts into coherent strings of words. It's how I enjoyed Michael Bay productions and JJ Abrams' love affair with lens flare. I never got actively angry with a movie I was watching, and I was fucking angry by the time the movie ended. I still remember texting a friend while standing out in front of the theater because I was so confused. The response to TLJ was so positive so why did I come out of the movie so frustrated and confused and dissatisfied with the whole thing?

It's been years and we all know how this movie divided the Star Wars fandom and just... broke Fandom Spaces in a way I never expected. We all know what TLJ did and didn't do, and how TROS provided the final nail in the coffin that was the ST experiment. But back then, all I saw was positive commentary about the themes and messages of TLJ, how it portrayed failure and the dangers of putting someone like Luke Skywalker on a pedestal, how the Force was female, how... important it was to see Poe get characterized as a hotheaded hotshot who needed to be demoted, slapped around, and stunned in order to learn some kind of lesson, how important it was to see Finn lose everything he gained in TFA so that he could relearn how not to be selfish or something while starring in a fucking incredibly tone-deaf B plot, how Rey... I'm not sure exactly what because she didn't need training anyway and then spent most of her time trying to bring Ben Swolo back to the light????? Rose was so promising as someone who grew up under the FO's thumb but she and Kelly were fucking abandoned by Disney so I don't know if Rose existing was actually a good idea if it meant giving Kelly unending trauma. Mark slipped up by calling Luke "Jake" and expressing his displeasure in front of cameras, and I was so fucking baffled and alienated by his character after knowing how his story ended in ROTJ that I couldn't connect with whatever lessons I and he are supposed to be learning. JJ set up Snoke like a mystery box and Rian just yeeted him off without so much as a fucking explanation so what was the point of that? Hux was a fucking joke. Phasma was barely there. The only character that Rian cared about was fucking Kylo Ren and Adam says years later that he was never supposed to get a redemption arc anyway.

Like, this was the movie everyone hyped up? This was the movie that didn't answer any questions left unasked by TFA and didn't bother to move forward with character development for any of the known characters? I spent money watching a slow space chase that ended on a planet made of salt and killed off Luke for Reasons? Am I stupid? Am I dumb? Am I a peasant incapable of understanding the masterpiece Rian directed, this so-called Best Star Wars Movie Since ESB?

But I couldn't say anything. I couldn't be dogpiled for hating such a empowering movie for women, a diverse and inclusive movie that had the likes of John and Kelly and Oscar. I couldn't be lumped in with the Star Wars dudebros with their raging misogynistic and racist takes on the movie, the cast, Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm, Disney, etc. I couldn't be seen as one of them just because I didn't like a movie that I should like, I'm supposed to like. So I sat in silence, read meta, witnessed the fucking catastrophic explosion around some wild ass AO3 fandom essays written by a racist OG member of OTW about Finn/Poe, saw hate piled on black and bipoc fans, saw r*ylo fans come for John and John clap back at them, just saw an absolute fuckton of hate, and so by the time TROS came around I just... checked out. There was no way JJ could salvage what Rian had done and I was right. TROS was a corporate-run soulless garbage end to the Sequel Trilogy, but it ended just as The Mandalorian finished its first season and regained a lot of good will with this small story about a lonely Mandalorian bounty hunter who encountered a Force-sensitive Baby Yoda.

And then TBOBF/Season 3 of the Mando Show happened, just like how TLJ happened. All the promise, all the unanswered questions of the previous movie/season, all fucking dropped or provided with the worst, most unsatisfying answer. I'm sure others have found better answers and can live with what Star Wars gave us, but I haven't been able to. TLJ came out years and years ago, and I am still so bitter today. I'm still so bitter because TFA had such an incredibly compelling setup with such promising characters, and then TLJ Did That.

I got so heated while writing this. I'm still so mad. I'm still so bitter. I bury my head so deep in the sandbox I built for myself so that I don't have to think how Disney is twisting and contorting all these Mando'verse shows so that they all eventually lead to the ST, their precious hot potato child that just... didn't have to end the way they did if they actually had a fucking plan and fucking stuck the landing. I'll give the MCU this - their Phase 1? They fucking stuck the landing. I fell off the train tracks and haven't really watched the MCU since Captain Marvel, but at least they had a fucking plan and didn't fucking derail themselves like Disney did with the Sequel Trilogy.

I could be nice to people who like this movie but I'm not going to be. They can be nice on their own blogs.

Man, I can't even watch Knives Out or Glass Onion because my blood starts boiling. Just. TLJ did a lot to ruin what I hoped would be a positive and creative connection with Star Wars, and it took the Mando Show and the 2 minutes where Din and Luke locked eyes on the Imperial light cruiser to bring me back.

I'm gonna stop before I get way too heated for sleep.

#shirozora awkwardly responds to asks #anti TLJ #this is 100% a TLJ hate post and blog #i spent so many years holding in my thoughts about this cursed movie #when I say spite fuels me this is what I mean #this is how I find comfort in 'love star wars. wish it was good'#anyway this was the movie that made me feel crazy for years because how could i hate this movie if everyone said it's good #how can a movie be good if all i got from it was confusion and betrayal #time to go art something and calm down before bed

85 notes · View notes

an-actual-attack-helicopter · 2 months

Text

Book 6, Episode 2: Love, War, and Mushrooms Analysis/Commentary

"You certainly didn't go to any of my Crownguard Bonding Barbeque game Night Extravaganzas"

I am adamant that Soren mostly threw these hilariously named parties so Corvus would come. As far as I know, there are only two Crownguards it could be referring to. Or maybe he just made that name up in this scene to make a point. So actually I'm not quite as adamant as I suggested in the beginning of this paragraph lol

This scene follows one where Janai expresses frustration with the Six Horns' masks. She sees Karim in her crown's reflection; she's associates her crown with Karim's obsession with tradition. That's just my interpretation.

lol sorghum. apparently that is a type of plant. ig i can see how they got the words mixed up.

beep beep beep gaydar

Still waitin' on a explanation for Ezrans animal telepathy. We all know the dragon prince doesn't have such a soft magic system lol.

mushpal stimmies. seriously they are like the Autism Creature's cousin or something.

"no homo" my ass

No, I'm not transitioning to male, or female. I now identify as THIS ⬆️

Janai is down below her subjects in a small theatre while Karim is elevated far above.

Janai begins her speech by acknowledging the struggles and mistakes her and her people have made. She is humble and empathetic. Karim, however, speaks of violence, supremacy, and of course, faith. He's like the equivalent of an abusive priest, using faith to justify his actions. Meanwhile, Janai states that Karim uses doubt - or rather, fear - to his advantage. Just like how politicians will convince people to fear a demonized "other" to be seen as a messiah.

Bro really said "sure, more people disagree than agree with me, but like...I'm right." Bro just destroyed democracy with the power of Because I Said So.

Still trying to figure out this one. Guess he is rolling the Key of Aaravos and marking stuff. When it landed on Sky he marked Duren territory. The crown lookin thing is on Katolis, triangle for Southeast of Lux Aurea, rectangle for the Storm Spire, and circle for Umber Tor. Is this some sort of game I don't know?

#the dragon prince #mostly commentary this time but here #yeeting this into the void #tdp meta #tdp spoilers

25 notes · View notes

maniculum · 3 months

Text

Bestiaryposting Results: Dirubael

This entry happens to be pretty clear on what the animal looks like, so there's a strong similarity between the different depictions this week -- the main difference is how each artist interprets what the hell is going on with these horns.

If you're not sure what this is about, you can find an explanation and the rest of the series so far at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

The entry people are working from this week can be found here:

And if you want to join in for next week, that creature's entry can be found here:

And now, art in chronological order as it was posted:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has designed an antelope-like creature that almost passes as normal if you're just scrolling past... and then you look at it properly and see that it has horned eyestalks. That is wild and I love it. (Fencing with those horns must be a challenge since its eyes are also moving around, but I assume it's adapted for that kind of thing.) More commentary to be found in the linked post.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) went more of a rhinocerous direction, resulting in this nifty-looking creature. The thick, sturdy build here plus the tusks probably make this one pretty formidable in a fight even if it didn't have long, mobile horns. Dangerous beast. Also take a moment to admire that background, and consider clicking on the linked post for more details on inspiration & sources. (And thank you for providing alt text.)

@pomrania (link to post here) has another creative interpretation of what these mobile horns might actually be -- they're actually clusters of quills that can tense up into horn-like structures when the creature needs them. I think that's quite clever, and I really like the choice to show it fencing on the left there.

@ectocs (link to post here) has something that looks kind of like a boar and kind of like an ungulate... I'm getting "dog", too, mostly from the legs, but that might just be because that's the type of quadruped I spend the most time around. Solid Nonspecific Mammal either way. Anyway, the stand-out here is the interpretation of its mobile horns -- they're a set of mantis-like forelimbs, which happen to rest against the sides of its head to give the appearance of horns. I like this interpretation a lot. Check out the linked post for more information, sketches, and (I enjoy this) a recreation of this creature in Spore.

@citrvsdrake (link to post here) has also given us a very solid Nonspecific Mammal that's a kind of of boar / buffalo / horse blend. This one has traditional horns, but the way they are positioned communicates quite clearly that they are mobile. Fairly threatening expression, too, so let's scroll away quickly. (Welcome, Citrvsdrake!)

@wendievergreen (link to post here) notes that their interpretation has ended up going in the direction of "necromantic experiment", which... yeah, it definitely does look like that. We've got a few different animals blended together for the shape of its body, then a boar's skull with some additional spikes for the horns, and a spiky, exposed spine down its back. Honestly, if your necromancers aren't making stuff like this, what are they even doing with their time?

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has joined a general consensus of "boar-like creature with long legs like a horse", which really is a sound interpretation of the text. Traditional horns, and the linked post talks a bit about the difficulty of such an anatomical feature (as well as other things, go check it out). That's a pretty good boar's head, in my opinion. Also impressed by the fact that CheapSweets is doing this with a brush pen.

All right, to the Aberdeen Bestiary:

As I'm sure is completely obvious from this picture, this creature is the Yale.

(Unrelated to the U.S. university as far as I know -- I checked, and the university appears to be named after Iâl in Wales, while the creature's name probably comes from the Hebrew word for "ibex". Though according to Wikipedia, the university does feature some decorative yales in various places, presumably as an obscure pun in a "canting arms" sort of way.)

This is another one of those mythical creatures that didn't quite make it into the modern consciousness -- an ibex that fences with its horns is maybe a bit too low-key to compete with manticores and dragons for attention.

Also, I have to note that I think it's interesting how the medieval artist decided "jaws of a boar" didn't include tusks. The only visual indication I see here is maybe those jowls?

#maniculum bestiaryposting #dirubael

29 notes · View notes

copperbadge · 1 year

Text

So I had therapy yesterday and I was kind of holding off on responding to all the very welcome and helpful commentary about therapy on the "what do you even do" post, so that I could just have the meeting and then process all the data when I'm not quite so sleep-deprived. Which was a good plan, that went fine. This morning I thought I'd answer the emails I got and the asks I could answer privately, and then do a writeup of the rest as a response (there's a long explanation for why I would do it that way but it's in the writeup so I'm not going to replicate it here just yet).

Upshot is I did the writeup but I realized it's mostly just me talking about me. Yes, I do break down the various reasons people have for attending and benefiting from therapy, but mostly as it relates to my situation, and I'm not sure that's something people want to read, like I'm not sure what the point is. The desire is to acknowledge you guys, to say thank you and that I appreciate all the information, especially because it's hard shit to talk about, but I don't know that it does that either. I suppose in a sense it provides people with a kind of closure because they were speaking To Me and presumably have an interest in my response, but I'm not sure if dumping all my thoughts on therapy back at you is optimal.

In any case it could use some proofing, so I've got some time to think about it, but if I don't end up posting it I do want to say thank you and I appreciate the time everyone took to share their thoughts. And I did get homework for this week so at least there'll be something to talk about next week. :D

128 notes · View notes

evilfloralfoolery · 7 days

Text

Daggers and Deception- Part 6

Shit gets weirder and weirder. This part is already over 2k, so I'm gonna cut it in half.

*This is plotfuckery. There will be much more snzfuckery in other parts. As always, if you enjoy my writing and writing of my fellow plotfuckers, we kindly ask for reblogs or commentary. In particular, I wanna thank @undersixskies for being SO motivating and listening to all of my bullshit lol.*

____________________________________________

Indigo paces the perimeter of the overgrown courtyard in quiet observance. Amongst the patches of dead grass are distinctive patterns of nocturnal creatures, the small footprints of raccoons, the familiar stamp of buck’s hooves.

And something dreadfully familiar that has no business being there. A myriad of prints, some recognizable and some not. A cacophony of haphazard footsteps, restless and agitated. Indigo furrows his brow, glancing over the rims of his glasses. The threshold did not appear to be crossed and yet, it had most certainly happened. Had the time come for more assertive measures, to ask for permission?

He tugs his phone free of his pocket and thumbs through the contacts, finger hesitating just above Reginald ’s number. No. Not yet. He would handle this himself.

For now.

The walk back to the house is a short one, the blustery wind doing a number on his unbound hair as he navigates the creaking porch and makes his way into the library. Within its confines is comforting familiarity, the scent of weathered leather and paper, the varying colors of dull brown and blues easing his mind into a greater clarity. He walks the edges of the shelves, reading titles, tracing fingers down aged spines. Dickens, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald. All of which he knows and has read. Some of which he’d very much like to toss into the crackling fire.

He chooses a volume of Whitman’s poetry from the shelf and settles himself into the wingback chair near the fireplace under the pretense of relaxation. But his mind does not allow him to completely immerse himself in the text. He glances towards the window, ever vigilant, unable to unwind.

Vacation, indeed. Hmph. Nonsense.

In the doorway, the hulking shadow of a frame he has come to know quite well in the past few days approaches and Indigo flicks his gaze back to the text on the page to create the illusion of an in-depth study of the words.

“Hey.”

“Good morning,” he says cordially, turning the page with a careful sifting of fingers without looking up.

“Look,” Grimm says. “I’m sorry I barked at you last night.” He runs a hand through his unbound hair with a sigh. “But you were acting fuckin’ weird, okay.”

Indigo closes the book with a gentle thump of leather and sets it aside, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair, legs crossed, back straight, hands clasped atop his knee. An interesting way to begin an apology, but he suspects such is the norm for this man. “I explained myself and acted upon that explanation.”

Grimm has managed to dress himself in a black T-shirt with some kind of emblem stitched atop the right pec, the fabric stretched tight across his chest and arms. The pants are equally as fitted, worn denim that has become ripped in spots, frayed at the bottoms and tattered at the seams. And no shoes to speak of. The man looks disheveled, yet comfortable.

Ruggedly attract---

Mind your thoughts, Solaris.

“A bit cold to go about barefoot, is it not?”

Grimm glances at his feet. “You know how hard it is to tie boot laces with one hand?”

In spite of himself, Indigo chuckles. “Yes, well. I suppose it would present some difficulty.” He nods to Grimm’s arm, which is currently sans sling. “How is your shoulder, then?”

“Actually feels pretty damn good,” Grimm says. “Not sure how, but I’ll take it.”

“Perhaps,” Indigo says, “it was my ‘poisonous’ pasta dish?”

Grimm winces. “Yeah, okay. I get it. Like I said, you were acting weird.”

Clearly.

Indigo adjusts the height of his glasses with an unconscious push of a finger and regards Grimm through the lenses. The man is agitated, clearly uncomfortable with whatever he might truly wish to say. This was more than difficulty with a simple apology. This was something altogether different.

“You seem troubled,” Indigo says at last.

The words are more invitation than observation and the desired effect is achieved when Grimm runs a hand through his dark hair, glancing at the rug upon which he stands.

“Not enough sleep, I guess. Still fighting this fucking pseudo-cold bullshit that can’t decide if it wants me to be sick or not.”

“And yet, you just said you felt quite well.” Indigo clasps his hands together. “What ails you?”

“Fuck if I know,” Grimm says. “It’s--- nah, it’s stupid.” Grimm waves a hand. “I was probably tired as hell. Hard to sleep much with this damn arm.”

“Indulge me,” Indigo says. “I do promise not to judge you.”

Grimm hesitates, runs his hand through his hair again, and stares into the distance beyond the window.

Indigo nods encouragingly. “Do continue.”

Grimm looks as if he would rather not, both agitated with himself and at odds with was probably a code of sorts.

“Please.” Indigo softens his tone to a more compelling manner of coaxing. “I wish to hear what you have seen.”

The other man contends with the urge to speak for several more moments before sigh-growling in defeat.

“Must be some PTSD shit because I thought I saw something . Someone. Standing in the corner. The shadows and shit were just right and I could have sworn--” Grimm shakes his head. “Forget it. It told you it was stupid.”

Except that it wasn’t. Indigo sits in false expectation, poised and calm, as if he hasn’t the slightest idea what Grimm might be speaking of. If it is as he fears, lecherous lasagna shall be the least of his neighbor’s concerns.

“Did it speak to you?” Indigo’s voice is quiet in comparison to the crackle of the fire, a coaxing gentility that seems to soothe Grimm’s concern over how ridiculous his claim might be.

“No,” Grimm says. “It laughed.”

Indigo’s eyes narrow to slits of blue-green. “Is that so . . .”

The conversation has grown precarious, but there is no sense in ending it now. If it as Grimm says, discretion will become difficult, if not impossible. But where to begin? How much is allowed for discussion? The phone in Indigo’s pocket vibrates with an insistent buzz and he slides it free, glancing at the screen.

What timing. Then again, his mentor was uncanny with nearly all things.

“A moment, please,” he says to Grimm.

Not that it matters if Grimm will grant him permission or not. Indigo rises to his feet and strides to the nearest exit before the other man can contemplate an answer as he thumbs the “receive” icon with a swipe.

“Solaris,” he says.

“Ah, Indigo.” Reginald ’s robust voice is as clear and cheerful as ever. “Have you managed a bit of rest?”

“I’m afraid not,” Indigo says. “There have been . . . complications.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Indigo nudges the door to the sunroom shut, closing off the curious confusion of Grimm’s face.

________________________________________

“Where you going now?”

Grimm has managed to put on his boots somehow between the 20 minutes of conversation with Reginald. He follows him out of the library and down the decrepit steps, out past the dreary fountain full of stale water and leaves and into the overgrowth of the mockery that has the nerve to call itself a “garden.”

Indigo huffs a sigh. Despite Reginald's encouragement, Indigo is reluctant to involve Grimm in this nonsense. It is too soon to reveal that which should be tested and cultivated slowly, but time and circumstance have not allowed for these things. And honestly, why would they ever? Indigo grumbles to himself. Well, the gods certainly had a peculiar sense of humor.

“Hey!”

Grimm is now in front of him, having moved faster than Indigo could track. He blocks the way with the entirety of his frame, imposing and immovable as any wall, shoulders squared and chin lifted.

“You gonna stop for a minute and explain to me what the fuck is going on with you?”

Indigo comes to an abrupt halt and fixes his gaze on the other man, a hand upon his hip, lines of irritation creasing his brow.

“Whatever I might be doing is of no concern to you,” Indigo says. “You needn't understand. Why must you be so damnably persistent?”

“Because something smells like bullshit,” Grimm says.

Indigo adjusts the fit of his glasses with the push of a finger. “Perhaps that might be your mannerisms.”

Grimm grunts. “You’re a mouthy fuck, you know that?”

“And you are a tiresome meddler,” Indigo retorts in his best icy, dismissive tone. “Now, if you will excuse me--”

“Wait.” Grimm’s voice is fraught with defeat and weariness. He steps aside, posture assuming a more neutral stance, the flare of his energy dwindling to normalcy. “You know what was in my room, don’t you?”

Indigo pauses, gaze steady. “I do.”

A rolling gesture of the other man’s hand. “Well?”

The fact that Grimm’s awareness had been keen enough to hear as well as see “him” was troubling. Or enlightening. According to Reginald, it had been a sign. The sign.

“Come on, Indy. If there’s some weird-ass dangerous shit going on here, don’t you think I oughta know about it?”

“Indigo,” he corrects sharply.

It wasn’t as if Indigo hadn’t the permission to speak of such things. The opportune moment was now his choice, but he had not expected it to rush upon him quite so swiftly. Barely 72 hours had passed. Hardly enough time to acclimate. Within the tree line, wind rustles the dying leaves like a clatter of skeletal fingers, the intrusion of biting cold a warning of impending unpleasant weather. Or something altogether different.

“I feel it is my duty to warn you that all is not as it seems here,” Indigo confesses.

Grimm cocks an eyebrow. “Well, no shit, Sherlock.”

Indigo rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Grimm.”

He pauses, takes a moment to remove his glasses, and slips them into the pocket of his shirt. “Very well. I haven't the time for ruminations. Before I begin my tale, I must ask for your patience while I secure a few things. We cannot speak before it is done. And you mustn’t interrupt, Grimm. Allow me to do as I will, no matter how peculiar my actions may seem. Do you understand?”

A slow nod is not exactly the firm confirmation he had hoped for.

“Your word, Grimm,” Indigo says. “And your silence.”

“Okay, “Grimm says with a shrug. “Whatever.”

“Not ‘whatever,’ “ Indigo says. He fixes Grimm with his best serious gaze and extends a hand. “Your word.”

Fingers engulf his own, rough and warm, and give his hand a firm, gentle squeeze. The protective energy of Grimm’s grip crackles through his blood, sweeps a chill from his skin, and Indigo uses far more exertion than necessary not to gasp aloud.

No. Surely not.

Not this crude, yet astute behemoth with tattoos covering every inch of his arms and crawling up one side of neck. Not this abrasive, blunt, and entirely uncouth man. There must be a mistake. It had to be a mistake.

But no matter how he wishes for someone, anyone else, this was the hand that had been dealt. The hint had been present upon first sight, but when coupled with a vow of sincerity for such a simple task, it is undeniable.

And this man hadn’t the faintest idea about any of it.

Indigo very much wishes he could extricate himself from the possibility of what might be coming.

“I give you my word and my silence,” Grimm says.

“So it is, then,” Indigo says. He releases Grimm’s fingers with a slow relaxation of his hand. “Now. Close your eyes and turn your back to me.”

Grimm opens his mouth as if to protest, but a raise of Indigo’s eyebrows sees it shut again and he does as he asked without question or protest, eyes closing and presenting Indigo with the broad planes of his back and shoulders.

“Do not react,” Indigo says. “No matter what you hear or what you might wish, remain as you are.” His voice drops to a softer pitch as he taps Grimm’s left shoulder. “Be silent.” And then his right. “Be still.” He presses a palm to the center of his back. “Be invisible.”

It is not until Grimm’s breathing slows to a steady, rhythmic pulse that Indigo walks around him to the tree line. He pockets his glasses and tugs the cuffs of his sleeves to his elbows. Things must be in proper order before any sort of explanation can begin.

(TBC....)

#Eff writes #Grimm and Indigo #I hastily edited this shit lol #So excuse the mistakes #Because I'm excusing them ha ha #Shit is about to get REALLY weird very soon #And yes #Grimm is actually still sick #There's a reason he's not “as bad” as he could be

16 notes · View notes

doublesunsets · 1 year

Text

Experiment 003

Tech x Reader PWP - NSFW - Explicit Word Count: 4.4K

Summary: It’s time for your experiment, but even if Tech encourages your scientific curiosity, can he let you take control?

Warnings: female reader POV, smut, oral sex male receiving, vaginal sex, brief mention of scars (Tech's), I'm going to say it: unrealistic expectations of sex (really, this is purely indulgent, real sex is not like that)

Author's note: I wanted to write something else, but it didn't work, and it blocked me in such a way that it took me a month to finally be able to finish it. No beta. I hope that at least you enjoy it a little bit, please have mercy with this autistic ace girl that doesn't remember how sex works but likes to pretend she can write about it. -Sunset

part I & part II 💜

✩ AO3 link to the whole fic

The galaxy is a vibrant never stopping place, with dangers lurking in every corner, so if someone had told you a couple of rotations ago that you would be able to pass your time sat inside the Marauder’s cockpit, listening to Tech latest obsession, you would have laughed. Mostly at the Tech part, because you were still wrapping your mind around it. After his experiments, his behaviour towards you had drastically changed. It was obvious to everyone that he felt more at ease with you, small touches were now common, and he actively sought you out to tell you facts or show you his new cool gadgets.

For that reason, while everyone was around town enjoying their free time you had felt like it was perfectly reasonable to stay with him, just for the sake of it, no need for excuses or ulterior motives. As you suspected, he had been pleased about it, and accepted with a small smile your kiss to his forehead before seating next to him in the copilot seat. As soon as you were seated, he started talking about his topic of the day: gravity, and you listened to him eagerly. Contrary to Hunter’s belief, you didn’t think that Tech filled your head with useless information, you enjoyed learning new facts, and he always captivated your attention. The sound of his voice and being able to look at that pretty face was a pleasant bonus, of course.

For your utterly dismay this time though, after almost an hour of intermittent info-dumping, you were as confused about this topic as you were at the beginning. At first, you had managed to follow up, but at one point he had beamed at you and touched your knee because of a particular sharp question, and as he began explaining, illustrating it with his hands, your mind short-circuited like a faulty droid. He had moved one hand in front of you, while the other had stayed on your knee, fingers splayed, and a shiver had gone down your spine remembering what those fingers could do, and how they looked inside of you. By the time he finished his explanation, you were so flustered by your thoughts that you didn't dare to open your mouth in case some inappropriate sound escaped.

The issue kept happening, no matter how hard you tried to focus on what he was saying, you kept getting distracted by who was saying it. His voice, his eyes, his hands; your body reacted to him like a well-trained soldier, and apparently today it could only think about Plan 69.

“Therefore, there will be only insignificant forces of friction, and dynamic force acting on the system. It should allow me to–” his legs fell open at his sides, and your mind disconnected again, or at least the rational part of it. The only functioning one was the one capable of focusing on those ridiculously tight blue trousers which hugged those obscene long legs in such a sublime way, besides that, he was not wearing the plastoid armour which made the temptation of kneeling in front of him impossible to ignore.

Your mouth watered at the image that formed in your mind, and by the time you managed to stop daydreaming, he had already finished his commentary and was back at looking down at his datapad. You were sure that even if he obviously found you attractive, he wasn’t as obsessed with you as you were with him. Every time he put his hand on your back, or moved your hair off your face, an aching filled your chest. You haven’t stopped thinking about that bulge you glimpsed after he touched you that first time, but couldn’t find the way of bringing it up again. It was clear that you had reached your limit today.

Maybe you didn’t have to bring it up, maybe you could just take a scientific approach. Because, scientifically speaking, what would Tech do if you just kneeled in front of him?

Only one way to find out, you told yourself.

“I want to do an experiment.”

“That’s great, darling. I highly recommend you follow your scientific curiosity, please let me know if you need my assistance.”

“Well, I do need your assistance,” you chuckled, “you are the experiment I want to do, Tech.”

He put his datapad down and looked at you, shifting his focus from the gravitational rotatory forces of outer rim planets, to you. His eyes roamed your face, he studied your expression, noticed your small smile, and the flustered look of your cheeks, and seemed to catch up rather quickly, “Oh. That kind of experiment.”

“Yes, that kind,” your smile only grew at seeing him wet his lips and squirm on his seat.

“There were some things I would like to–,” he put aside his datapad while starting to stand up.

“Oh no, you didn’t understand,” you cut him, and put your hands on his knees, forcing him to sit back again, and looked at him through your eyelashes. “You are going to be the subject today.”

He audibly gulped and took a deep breath through his nose. It wasn’t easy to render him speechless, and pride filled your chest and encouraged you, making you bolder than you would be otherwise.

“You don’t have to do anything at all, just allow me to explore, is that alright?” As you spoke, you leaned towards him until your lips were a breath away from his, using your hands on his legs to balance yourself.

“It seems acceptable.”

You moved your lips to his neck, trailing your path with the tip of your nose, and gave him a small peck under his jaw, carrying on down until his turtleneck blocked your path.

“Tech? Would you be so kind as to pull down your shirt? My hands are busy.”

To make your point, you gave his glorious thighs a firm squeeze. He raised his hand and pulled down the turtleneck, and as he was about to comment something very pertinent, you had no doubt, you bit down on the tender flesh of his neck and his witty remark turned into a strangled moan.

“Were you going to say something?” You licked the spot and continued with small kisses up again, towards his ear.

“Not at all, please continue,” his voice was steady, but the hand holding down his shirt was trembling slightly under your chin. His other hand was clenched on a tight fist, and you smiled against his neck. It just occurred to you that he was not used to being the one staying still, moreover, he was not used to relinquishing control in any situation, you were mildly surprised he was not telling you how to kiss him.

You gave a last bite to his earlobe and dropped to your knees between his legs in a smooth movement. He raised his eyebrows and his chest expanded in a deep breath that he let out slowly. Oh, it was so hard for him. Speaking of which. You shifted your attention to his crotch and let out your own breath shakily at the bulge you could outline through his trousers already.

The rough fabric felt stiff under your fingers as you moved your hands up his thighs until you reached the button, which popped open easily. The utility belt was next, and judging by the squirming of his owner, or he did not agree to your actions, or you were being excessively slow undressing him. By the time you finally opened his trousers wide enough, he was fully hard and a wet patch was visible where the tip was. So probably the latter.

“I’m going to suck you off, would you like that?”

“I believe I would, yes.”

You hummed, laughing internally at his oddly polite answer but chose to not make any comment in favour of getting closer to mouth his cock through his underwear. It was warm and solid under the fabric, and you slid it down with your fingers until your lips were no longer feeling the rough material, but the velvety softness of his cock. The musky smell of his pre-cum hit your nose, and you stuck out your tongue flat, dragging it up his member until you reached the tip and could taste the saltiness as well.

Tech’s voice got you out of your reverie, and you looked up at him without moving back, your lips softly resting on the tip of his cock. He was mumbling something, but one of his hands was covering his mouth and you couldn’t hear him properly. He caught you staring and stopped, removing his hand from his face and bringing it down to yours, brushing the side of your mouth with his thumb.

You opened your mouth and let the head of his cock pass through your lips, until you could feel the ridge with your tongue. His thumb stayed on the corner of your mouth, feeling it stretch around himself, and his eyes were fixed on you behind those tinted lenses. He looked as if he wasn't breathing and the intensity of his gaze was too much for you, so you closed your eyes and focused once again on your task. Breathing through your nose, you let it slide further into your mouth and out again repeatedly, the weight of it in your tongue making you moan, and you wondered if he could feel the vibrations. At the back of your mind, you also noticed the wetness gathering between your legs at finally having his cock in your mouth, and your left hand crawled down to your inner thighs, resting it there and pressing the back of it into yourself to relieve some tension.

When your jaw started to ache, you reluctantly moved back and let it slide out, taking it in your hand, rubbing your spit and his pre-cum all over it. You were being carefully slow, trying to make it last as much as you could. Now that you finally had the courage to do this, you were going to enjoy it. He was rock-hard and flushed, and you might have been biased, but it was the prettiest cock you’ve ever seen. His hand was still holding your jaw and didn’t allow you to move too far back.

“Are you afraid I will stop? Is that why you won’t let me go?” you asked him teasingly, looking up again. You kept pumping him, enjoying the smooth feeling of his hardness, his breath hitched in his chest every time you twisted your hand when reaching his tip.

“On the contrary, I ah– apologies,” his leg had started bouncing at some point, and it kept brushing against your shoulder. “I am stopping myself, darling.”

His statement was followed by a deep moan, triggered by your hand clenching on his cock at hearing his words. Unconsciously, your left hand pressed more insistently against your cunt, starting to rub slightly up and down.

“Stopping yourself?” your voice wavered when you finally paid attention to the man above you. His flushed face had an almost crimson shade and sweat pearled on his forehead, which, paired with his laboured breath, made him look absolutely wrecked. All because of you. You licked your lips and pushed yourself up, on the movement your breasts ended pushed against his balls and Tech closed his eyes while his hand gripped your jaw tighter. “Stopping yourself from doing what, Tech?”

“It is being excruciatingly hard to not push you to the floor of my ship and fuck you right there.” You gasped loudly at his words, and he reopened his eyes, completely black, and focused on you with an intensity that made your left hand move faster. “It was hard enough to ignore the way you were looking at me earlier.”

“Did you notice that?”

“I notice everything. Particularly if it’s about you, always if it’s about you. By how you were biting your lip while looking at my hands, I could assume exactly what you were thinking. Which, I must confess, made it impossible for me to focus on anything that wasn’t your flustered look.”

“Do you find me that irresistible?”

“I assume that’s a rhetorical question.” You had to laugh at his answer, but it came breathless and short, punctuated by a small moan when your knuckles brushed against your clit at your movement. This caught his attention and followed the motion down your body. “Are you— you are touching yourself, that’s unacceptable.”

Before you could process what he had said, he dropped to the floor with you and brought you both down, until you were laying down on your back with Tech looming over you. His arms encased your body and a thrill went down your spine at the look on his face, dark eyes, furrowed brows, he looked determined and dangerous. A soldier with a mission. Same as yours, you hoped.

“I was restraining myself because there’s nothing I respect more than the desire for knowledge, I didn't want to take control again, I was going to behave and let you do it your way,” he started to remove your clothes swiftly while talking, and you hissed when your back came in contact with the cold floor. “I was behaving, even though you were driving me crazy, but I am nothing if patient. But dank farrik, seeing you touching yourself and not doing anything? I don’t think so.”

By the time he stopped rambling, all your clothes were gone and you laid naked in front of him. He kneeled on the floor between your legs, and the vision was almost as good as before. His cock was forgotten, but still out, hard and leaking, his chest rising with every breath, the light that came from the window framing his silhouette, and he was looking at you again like the most fascinating creature in the whole galaxy. You reached for his vest and pulled him to you hastily, smashing a hard kiss to his lips. Your hands scrambled for the hem of his shirt and tried to pull it off unsuccessfully, until you realised that for that you had to stop kissing him, so reluctantly let him go and finished taking it off. When his head emerged again, you couldn’t resist giggling at seeing his goggles askew.

“Goggles stay on?” You asked, fixing them, and holding his face with both your hands.

“I would rather prefer that, yes,” he turned his face and dropped a kiss on your palm. “I prefer to see your face at the same time I hear you moan.”

You gave him one, as a treat, as he gave another open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your wrist. He lowered his head to your chest and started peppering kisses, and you tried to reach the last piece of clothing covering him, but it was too far, so you tried with your legs unashamedly, pushing his trousers down. You had managed to get them past his ass, when he lifted his head, a smirk on his face.

“Someone’s in a hurry.”

“Oh, shut up, you were just now rambling about how much you wanted to fuck me on the floor of your ship,” you lifted your hips, still trying to get leverage to keep pushing his trousers down, but his knees won’t let you go further. “You cannot say that to a lady and not expect her to become a little desperate about it, Tech.”

His smile turned sweet, and he stood up to finish lowering his trousers and removing his boots. You pushed yourself up on your elbows and enjoyed the show, those long legs looked good from every angle, and you were tempted to get to your knees again when he crouched and came back on top of you, this time completely naked. You kissed him, opening your mouth and letting his tongue in, while your hands explored the expanse of his back, his muscles shifting beneath them as he started dragging his whole body against yours, skin against skin in the most delicious friction.

He shifted and started kissing down your neck, leaving small bites, same as you did before with him. His hands moved down your body, and while one of them stayed fondling your breast, the other kept going until reaching your inner thighs. His dexterous fingers found your cunt, and he groaned deeply at how wet you were already.

“All this for me, darling?” He introduced one finger, and your hands grabbed his shoulders, trying to get him to get closer. “I think it is safe to say that you enjoyed your experiment.”

“I did, but please, now I need you, I—” your own moan cut you off when he inserted a second finger, and started to move them inside you, crooking them. “Please.”

He placed a kiss to your cheek and kneeled again between your legs, removing his fingers from inside you with an obscene wet sound, and took his cock, smearing it with your wetness. In your haze, you made a mental note to ask him to masturbate for you at some other moment because the show looked glorious, but right now you needed him inside you as soon as possible.

Tech grabbed your hips and lifted them with his other hand until your ass was on his lap and your legs fell open at his sides. He positioned his cock at your entrance, dragging it through your slit up and down, gathering more of your wetness. Every time he pressed your clit, you tried to chase it, but his grip on your hip was firm enough that wouldn’t let you move.

“Are you ready?” His gaze was focused on your cunt, or on his cock dragging through it, you couldn’t be sure, but the image had to be good enough for his usually steady voice to sound low and breathless.

“Like a rotation a—aah.” Before you could finish your clever answer, he moved his hips and his cock penetrated smoothly inside you.

“Were you going to say something?” he repeated to you, but you were too busy enjoying the feeling of him filling you to actually appreciate the joke.

He stopped when he bottomed out, his pelvis fitted between your thighs, and took a moment to collect himself. You could see the sweat dripping down his face and the deep scowl of his eyebrows, his eyes were closed and both his hands were gripping tightly your hips now, keeping you in place and completely at his mercy. He took two deep breaths, in and out, and you let him took the obvious time that he needed to centre himself, but you also needed him to move, and soon. He felt the same way, because by the third breath his hips made a short thrusting that had both of you moaning, and he opened his eyes, as black as the void of the galaxy, and an unhinged expression crossed his face. You could almost hear his brain analysing what he was experiencing, and for a moment you thought that he was going to grab his datapad and write it down as he always did to process things, but his hips had not stopped, couldn’t stop it seemed, and his thrusts were growing in intensity, the pleasure overwhelming him.

“Tech, look at me, hey, look at me,” you grabbed his wrist and caught his attention, trying to make your voice firm, even though it came more as a desperate plea, “focus on me, don’t try to control it, it’s okay. Let it go and give it to me, I’ll take it.”

Your words seemed to snap something inside of him, his fingers digging into your flesh and the next thrust drove into you with no hesitancy, hitting a spot inside of you that made you mewl. He kept thrusting firmly against you, in powerful short lunges, and your nails scratched his forearm, trying to grab at something. There was no finesse on his thrusts right now, just an overwhelming power, but the position allowed him to go deep inside you and left your clit exposed to his blows and to the friction with his pelvic bone, making the knot inside you grow hot.

A particular hard thrust made you gasp loudly and lose the grasp you had on his arms. Eager to do something with your hands, you grabbed your own breasts, which had been bouncing with every hard push from Tech, and started kneading them, playing with them and moaning at the added sensation of your hard nipples between your fingers. A wet and lewd noise engulfed the cockpit, the metallic walls echoing back your own moans. Tech’s movement stuttered, his gaze locked on your hands playing with your breasts, so you dropped one and motioned for him to come closer. With no hesitation, he let go of your hip and leaned towards you, your right leg dropping to the floor on the movement, while his mouth attached itself to your breast and sucked. You cradled his head, entangling your fingers with his hair and pulling softly, his moan vibrating through your skin.

The new position made him falter and for a moment he just kept thrusting superficially, out of inertia, his focus in devouring you. One hand was supporting his weight on the ship floor, while the other had travelled up, replacing your hand with his. While he was distracted, you grabbed his shoulders and flipped you both, putting yourself on top. You straightened your back and almost laughed at the offended expression on his face, if because of the switching positions or because you took your boobs away from him, you didn’t know. His face quickly changed when you spread out your hands on his strong chest, allowing your arms to push your tits together on display, and circled your hips.

“Oh,” he breathed out, his hands flying to your thighs, but only resting them there.

He seemed content with the show, so you focused on chasing your pleasure. Using his chest as leverage, you rolled and circled your hips, rutting against him at an increasing pace. The build up had you already so close that it didn’t take you long until you were panting, the edges of your orgasm present on every cell of your body, almost within your reach.

“You are almost there, aren’t you, darling?” Tech’s deep voice only pushed you closer, he sounded breathless, clearly enjoying this as much as you. “I think you would be able to bring yourself to completion just by fucking yourself on my cock, would you like that or do you want me to help?”

You clawed at his chest, your now jerking motions increasing speed, and some of the gasps leaving your throat might have sounded like a call for help because suddenly Tech’s fingers were firmly against your clit, pressing and circling in a rapid movement. Your orgasm crashed onto you, the force of it doubling you over, and collapsed against his chest, while he continued circling your clit, helping you to ride it out. Still not completely back from it, you noticed Tech’s small thrusts against you and lifted your head.

“Fuck me, don’t stop, I want you to cum in me, now.”

Your permission was all he needed, he planted his feet on the floor and started fucking you with a strength you didn’t know it was possible from his position. He surrounded your body with his arms, locking you in place, with his cock pounding against your pussy in a relentless pace, his delightful grunts reaching your ears mixed with the wet slaps. You were so sensitive from your recent orgasm that your moans turned into screams, but your body surprised you, and you felt another one rapidly growing and hitting you again. Your second orgasm dragged Tech with you, and he came with a deep and long moan that made you shiver.

You were exhausted and would have happily laid down on his chest for a nap, but the mess you both made was leaking out of you and Tech didn’t seem comfortable about it. He gave you a soft kiss and manoeuvred you back onto the floor, grabbing his own shirt, and started cleaning you methodically.

“How are you? Did I hurt you?” He anxiously inspected your body, noticing the faint marks on your hips.

“No, but I did.” Your fingers grazed his forearm, where your nails had left your mark. There were angry red lines down his chest, as well, and they looked glorious.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, darling, these are hardly the worst injuries I have sustained,” he raised his arm, the blaster bolt scar that decorated his left side on display, and playfully hummed, inspecting closing his forearm and chest. “I rather like them.”

You chuckled, and not without effort sat up to give him a kiss on his cheek that made him smile. “I’ll keep that in mind,” you whispered cheekily, before kissing his lips this time, and putting your head on his shoulder.

For what seemed like an eternity, both of you stayed there, sitting on the floor, your fingers drawing patterns on his skin while listening to the steady rhythm of his heart against his chest. The sweat was cooling on your skin, and you were starting to feel cold. Now that you were not distracted, the floor was not exactly comfortable. But even though, it was the most perfect moment you could think of.

“Gravitational pulls,” he said, startling you.

You lifted your head and found him already looking at you with that glint in his eyes that signified that he had had a brilliant idea.

“Are you about to lecture me about what I didn’t pay attention to earlier?” You wouldn’t be surprised if that was his idea of aftercare, to be honest. You wouldn’t mind, either.

“I could, if you want, it is a fascinating topic, and very useful during interplanetary travels,” he pointed out, finger raised. “But actually, I was talking about us.”

“Us?”

“Indeed, I have been trying to find a suitable way to explain the way I feel about you. Simply saying that I love you does not suffice. It just came to me, it has to be a force of nature, I believe that scale does it justice. It is not a figure of speech, though, I do believe that physics might be the only way of explaining you and me.”

“Tech, I—“ you looked at him, confused for a moment, but then you thought about everything that had happened and smiled.

“Yes, darling?”

“I gravitational pull you too.”

“I know.”

Thank you for reading! Reblogs and comments are appreciated because they keep the Dark Side at bay ✨

Taglist: (let me know if you want to be included or deleted from it)

@motte-the-goblin @fenharel-enaste @nahoney22 @stunkbiggu

#smut #tech x reader #tech tuesday #tbb tech x reader #sunset writes #star wars smut

129 notes · View notes

captainofthetidesbreath · 2 years

Text

I feel like this moment from episode 6 where Imogen talks about Relvin might be a useful one to think sbout right now, especially with all the commentary on their relationship and what they think it means and what happened between him and Imogen:

[Laudna asks Imogen about giving Relvin's name to the Corsairs as collateral. Imogen assures her that it is fine.] Laudna: Do you think he's doing well? I know we left in kind of a hurry. Imogen: Yeah. I think he's, you know, it was probably a long time coming. He was probably happy that I'm gone, and he might be doing a bit better now that I'm not there. FCG: What the fuck's up with that? Ashton: I feel like there's some context necessary for this. FCG: What happened? You have a falling out with your pa? Imogen: No, no, no, my dad's great! He tried, you know, when things started happening, and it wasn't like that growing up, you know, I didn't have all of this. I don't know why it started. It was hard for him, you know? Because I didn't want to be around very many people, and... he just kind of— distanced himself because he knew it made me more comfortable, and... you know, the people in town started talking, and I think he tried to distance himself socially as well for a while to try to, you know. Not his fault, totally. FCG: From you or from the people in town? Imogen: A little bit of both, you know.

Personally, I find it noteworthy just how different "he was probably happy that I'm gone, and he might be doing a bit better now that I'm not there" sounds after her explanation that he distanced himself from others in the town too, that it was motivated by a desire to make her comfortable (and that she knew this was the reason), and that she suggests his attempt to make considerations for her comfort around people was just as isolating for him as it was for her (and it seems there is a suggestion she believes distancing himself from her was difficult in both directions).

Imogen said he dislikes having his thoughts read.* This is interesting alongside another comment about Relvin having never spoken about Liliana from episode 12, one also useful to keep in mind right now:

Imogen: Talk about her? Never. Any time I tried to bring her up, it was like he just turned off. Part of me thinks that's one of the reasons he stopped coming around me. Once everything started changing, it's almost like he knew that he'd give something away. I just thought he was uncomfortable. I didn't know— I don't know.

In addition to the first remark, Imogen speculates that Relvin refused to talk about Liliana to stop himself from giving anything away and wonders if part of the distance was to better keep information about Liliana secret. This seems to mesh well with how he dislikes having his mind read. (Generally, outside of keeping secrets, not wanting your thoughts read is always a valid desire as it is a right to privacy.)

Generally, I think these moments are really useful for and important to understanding their relationship as it is and help contextualize and frame the interestingly very little they both say.

———————

*She says this is why she believes he wouldn't want to see her, but that didn't strictly turn out true, at least from what it seems in the latest. He wasn't thrilled to see her, sure, but he wasn't upset or unhappy either, which feels different from what she seemed to expect. He notably expressed apparently sincere concern that people angry with her would notice she's here and find her. This worry is explicitly the motivation for advising her to leave town quickly, so it therefore seems to be the primary motivator for his asking who saw her enter town—that he's worried people who still harbor ill will against her may come for her if she is seen and lingers too long. At least, that's what it seems to me when taken all together.

#Critical Role things #CR spoilers #Critical Role #cr meta #Relvin Temult #I do warn I don't really tolerate anyone trying to flatten this and I'm not super interested in any thoughts that make him worse than he is

170 notes · View notes

rin-and-jade · 6 months

Note

Hey there! I've been researching information about DID, OSDD and partial DID because while I have bpd and PTSD, my experience cannot be fully explained by those alone. Recently I found out about partial DID and it fits my experience incredibly well but there's one part I'm not sure about. In the ICD11, they mention something at the end of the diagnostic requirements:

"The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning. If functioning is maintained, it is only through significant additional effort."

This isn't really specific enough for me, since my other disorders can be used as explanations for many a "significant impairment" I have in daily life. So I was wondering if maybe you guys had an idea of how this impairment would look?

I still have a month left before I see my therapist again (in a clinic) and I get scared of bringing up things that turn out "wrong", so I'm trying to figure this out without him for now until I see him again. That is why I wanted to ask someone else for their insight and opinion on this. Thank you so much in advance

When it comes to impairment in dissociative disorders, it would be two main things i can see;

Memory, and sense of cohesive self:

In some form or another, amnesia is prevalent for systems, and there are signs like incomplete memory, lacking the emotional aspect of a memory (such as, a friend threw me a party, i seem to react X but i can't feel it personally) Or frequent forgetfulness, that's not normal but sadly it is for us.

And the other one when i mean sense of self, we're made of different facets, it was supposed to be integrated but instead compartmentalized. So this means systems are having a hard time being consistent, especially for p-did where switching fronts are rare or to none you are still going to feel a lot of passive influence from the others. Socially, this can confuse people because one day you'd hate broccoli and the other day you'd like it,, or even picking choices, big or small.

Also lastly, bpd and p-did can look very similar because both have multiple selves that seem to chit chat, but the clearest sign i have seen is if its more to normal commentary (can't really be talked like a separate person), still recognized as a part of you, and do not act very different like alters im pretty sure this has a high chance it belongs to bpd. But if it has different names, different looks, wants, and all those system stuffs, high chances it doesn't belong to bpd and instead more to a system thing.

Hope that answers it, let me know if it's still not clear i'd be happy to add more on the comment later on.

- j

#did #actually did #did community #did osdd #did system #dissociative identity disorder #sysblr #plural #system stuff #janswersask

18 notes · View notes

oodlyenough · 3 months

Note

Re:DW, I liked the final well enough but I agree with you that the shorter series really hurt the development of team Tardis. I wish they kept Ruby as the companion for two series, would have solved a lot of issues I had.

I also have so many questions still? I absolutely don't understand why it keeps snowing around Ruby? That's just...a normal thing that happens?

Also did the grandma not mention to the Doctor that their neighbour was acting real weird?

I'm also very intrigued by Roger ap Gwillam returning - is that going to be an ongoing thing or just a nice throwback to 73 yards?

Anyway. I've enjoyed reading your commentary because we feel very similar about this show in that the way RTD writes just works for us.

Yeah, I know we're getting some Ruby in the next season, but she's at least sharing the screentime as companion, so it doesn't quite solve it. I don't mind a break over the holiday special I suppose, lmfao esp because it's Moffat writing it so whatever he can write some one-off idc... but with how little development the team TARDIS got in s1 I worry that the problem will be compounded when you've got three people in s2. I don't want Ruby to finish an arc at the expense of Varada getting one y'know.

I'm not entirely sure what the scifi answer about snow etc was meant to be. I think something about the communal belief that the woman MUST be mysterious (incl. Sutekh) infusing it with godlike power or something... I mean... it's all a bit conjecturey lol. I like the idea of "surprise, it was just a normal woman" but I think they could've offered more explanations around the supernatural stuff like the snow or the "shifting memories" the Doctor mentioned. I've seen a number of fan answers and even RTD joking in commentary "time shrouded her" (re: her cloak) like, just pick any one of those and give a couple lines to Ncuti.

(Somewhat related -- an explanation (of sorts) for the pointing, to me, was that she didn't point in the original timeline and did point when the Doctor was there, bc he was the only other person around, she's pointing for him. (Whether or not pointing at the sign makes any sense is a different issue to "but no one was around anyway".) So I thought that basic fact (didn't point in timeline A; did in timeline B) works. But it wasn't explained in the show, it's just how my brain connected the dots, so.... ?)

Not sure about Roger! I didn't expect we'd see him after 73 Yards, or for 73 Yards to be relevant in the finale at all, which was a really nice touch I thought. I liked that this episode explains what happens to Roger in the regular universe (the Doctor being part of the "overthrow") VS in Ruby's universe where she did it, since that was a question people had. I also loved the idea that the 73 yards is the perception filter distance... I don't need an explicit explanation, just that connection (and the camera with the mother) works once you add in fae magic imo.

Overall, as a big RTD fan, not my fave finale. His scifi nonsense and handwaves are always saved for me by the great character stuff, and the character stuff in this season was only so-so. Moments of brilliance (Ruby and Louise in the cafe!) and some great performances (Millie is SO good) but... in a way this season felt to me like he tried to get out of his regular wheelhouse (huge emphasis on the mystery box stuff) and then the finale was like, a return to his roots (who cares about the mystery! ordinary people 4 ever, etc), but the two don't quite jive. And an extra four episodes would've done wonders.

#dw spoilers #anon #you've got questions we've got answers #doctor who

12 notes · View notes

lightandfellowship · 2 months

Text

KHDR Cutscene Titles In The Game's "Theater" Menu, A Full List With Some Commentary, Part 1

So, if you weren't aware, most Kingdom Hearts games come with a "Theater" menu that let's you rewatch the game's cutscenes whenever you want without having to replay the game, and these cutscenes are given titles for organizational purposes. Sometimes these titles are pretty self-explanatory, while other times they can shed some light on the contents of the cutscene.

Below the read more will be a list of all the cutscene titles for Episodes 1-4, organized by episode, and with a brief description of what the cutscene is about. The titles I find to have something worth mentioning will have an * next to it along with my commentary.

Note: The cutscenes aren't separated by episode in the menu; it's just a big, uninterrupted list. But for your benefit and mine, I'm organizing them by episode.

Prologue

A Recurring Dream: The game's intro. On Destiny Islands, Xehanort dreams about Player's memories, and then meets Brown Robe.

Across the Ocean: Flashforward to present day, Scala. Xehanort hangs out with Eraqus before class. Title refers to Eraqus asking Xehanort what it was like "across the ocean".

One Step Forward: Xehanort and Eraqus meet their friends in class. Ends with a flashback of Xehanort entering the dark corridor on Destiny Islands. Title refers to Xehanort's narration over this scene: "Your world can change in an instant. Sometimes all it takes is a single step." After this line, the title of the game appears in a white font against a black background, marking the end of the prologue and the beginning of the game proper.

Episode 1: Unexpected Departure

*An Unexpected Task: Odin informs the underclassmen about the missing upperclassmen and then gives them their mission. Fun bit of trivia I've mentioned before, I'm pretty sure the title of this episode and cutscene is a reference to The Hobbit, both the first movie's subtitle and the title of the first chapter of the book. When you look at Odin's design, the inspiration is clear I think, lol. Note that this isn't a reference only made in the English localization of the game; the title is exactly the same (still in English) in the Japanese version of the game as well. So I think this was an intentional reference straight from the writers/devs.

The Worlds Outside: The underclassmen discuss the unstable state of the outside worlds, and prepare to leave for their first world. This is the first cutscene in the list that lets you choose your party member for the cutscenes. The underclassmen split up into groups of three.

The First Encounter: Xehanort, Eraqus, and your chosen third party member land in Agrabah and face the Heartless for the very first time.

*Where Monsters Roam: Xehanort and the party go into the city and find it deserted. It seems there are only Heartless in this world, no people. Eraqus theorizes: "Until [the world is fully rebuilt and the people restored], monsters roam as free as can be." This seems to be a light explanation for why the Heartless are prominent in the worlds the underclassmen visit, though not an explanation for why they're here in the past in the first place, as the characters directly discuss in this scene. Nomura has implied that the Heartless' presence in KHDR will be explained in KHML.

A Rough Battle: Xehanort and the party fight more Heartless, this time Heartless that are slightly tougher than the last. This sparks a conversation about whether or not the upperclassmen faced super powerful Heartless themselves, and whether or not that could be the reason for their disappearance.

A Dangerous Mission: The underclassmen regroup in Scala to discuss the Heartless and how tough they were to fight. It's clear that the underclassmen's mission is far more dangerous than they originally thought. At the end of this cutscene, the underclassmen split up once more and go off to their next world, though it's worth noting that the underclassmen are all in the same world by the next episode.

The Departure: Flashforward to four years after the events of KHDR. It's raining, and Xehanort is placing flowers at the graves of his friends (notably, the cutscene only shows four graves with flowers, but this is misdirection to hide the true number of the fallen; there are many more graves off-screen.) Eraqus arrives and they have a discussion about Xehanort's imminent departure from Scala once more.

Episode 2: The Presence of Darkness

*What Am I?: Title refers to Xehanort's narration as he ponders his life up until this moment: "I never really thought about who I was. Not until I began to wonder who others were." Extremely interesting to me that the title is "What Am I?" rather than "Who Am I?". Is this meant to foreshadow his empathy abilities/status as a potential Child of Destiny? Is this an indication that he's dehumanizing himself? Fascinating title choice given how clearly contradictory it is to the actual line of dialog which uses "who" instead of "what". Like, it's surely intentional and not a mistake, right?

Strange Order: Xehanort, Eraqus, and your chosen third party member wait around in the Wonderland forest for the rest of the underclassmen to show up to their meeting spot. They run into the Cheshire Cat, and shortly thereafter some Card Soldiers, who reveal that the other underclassmen are being put on trial at the Queen's court.

Ruler of the Court: Xehanort and the party confront the Queen of Hearts, fight a Heartless boss, and save their friends from losing their heads (literally). Right before the Heartless boss manifests in front of the underclassmen, Xehanort looks back at the Queen and notices a dark mass looming behind her.

Unknowing Darkness: The underclassmen regroup in the Wonderland forest and discuss what happened at the trial. Title refers to Xehanort and Eraqus' discussion about darkness burrowing so deep into someone's heart that the afflicted is unaware of what they've become. The end of this cutscene has Vor begging to be your party member for the next episode, and you can choose to refuse or indulge her based on who you pick.

*Dark Presence: Flashforward 4 years after the events of KHDR (this appears to coincide with the timeframe of "The Departure".) Xehanort is dragged by Card Soldiers to the court and meets the Queen of Hearts once again, though she doesn't remember him (Nomura has said in an interview that her not remembering him isn't significant to the plot, that's just a symptom of her disregard for others.) Title refers to the dark presence the Queen is still harboring after all these years, and Xehanort confirming its existence after he sees a dark mass looming behind her. "I knew it." he says, as the scene ends.

Episode 3: The Purpose of the Journey

Corridor of Darkness: Flashback. Xehanort traversing the dark corridor on the way to Scala from Destiny Islands.

Not Too Curious: Xehanort, Eraqus, and your chosen third party member explore Wonderland, while the third party member inquires about why Xehanort and Eraqus wanted to stay behind in Wonderland alone. Party also runs into the Tweedles. Title refers to the Tweedles warning the party against being too curious by recounting the tale "The Walrus and the Carpenter".

Tea Time: The party hears a commotion at the tea party and investigates. The Mad Hatter and Hare do nothing but confuse and unsettle them, and so they leave shortly thereafter.

To The Truth: Your third party member correctly guesses Xehanort and Eraqus' "secret plan" to investigate the Queen of Hearts and her darkness. Afterwards, the party goes to confront her.

*Darkness's True Form: The party confronts the Queen and inquires about her heart, her darkness, and whether or not her heart/darkness is her own, or something being influenced by an outside force. After Xehanort recalls a flashback where Odin explains the origins of darkness to the underclassmen, Xehanort notices a dark presence behind the Queen, and it lets out a distorted laugh before forming into a Heartless that attacks the party. Is the title of this cutscene a reference to the True Darknesses? Unsure. Might just be a red herring, along with the laugh sound effect and visual appearance of the dark presence which match the Darknesses from UX as far as I know.

Journey's Purpose: Xehanort and the party defeat the Heartless and return to Scala to regroup with the others. They explain what happened, and the underclassmen decide that the best way to locate the upperclassmen will be to pursue darkness itself. I believe this is the "journey's purpose" the title of the cutscene is referring to: the underclassmen's first big lead.

*Before the Departure: Flashback to a week before the events of KHDR. Eraqus and Baldr discuss Hoder, the upperclassmen's Mark of Mastery exam, and the trip that the upperclassmen are currently on. Baldr voices his concerns about Hoder's safety and the strange circumstances of the trip. I find the title of this one interesting, because it has me asking: is this implying that Baldr leaves Scala shortly after this scene? Or is the "before" a much larger span of time? It would make the timeline kinda weird if it was the first option, I think, so maybe not.

Episode 4: Cruel Clues

From now on, you cannot choose your third party member for the cutscenes; the game decides for you.

The Gambit: Flashback a year before the events of KHDR. This is the intro chess scene between Xehanort and Eraqus from KH3, now in chibi mobile game form! The KH3 version of this cutscene appears to be titled the same.

Magic Mirror: Vor comes across the castle in Dwarf Woodlands and discovers the Magic Mirror inside. She voices her intent to ask the Mirror a question, but the scene ends before we get to hear the question.

To The Mine: Xehanort, Eraqus, and Vor regroup, and overhear from some of the dwarves that a cave-in happened at the mine. They go to help.

*Seven Friends: Vor helps the trapped dwarves by picking up the boulder blocking their path. Title refers to Vor commenting on how the dwarves are kinda like the underclassmen, both being close friend groups of seven. Vor getting a little sappy like this I think foreshadows her soon-to-be-revealed concerns about her and her friends staying together.

In Search of Clues: Vor reveals to Xehanort and Eraqus her discovery of a Magic Mirror that knows everything, and suggests they can find the upperclassmen with it.

Asking the Mirror: Xehanort and the party approach the Mirror with the intent of asking it some questions. They don't get very far before being interrupted by the Queen, who throws a potion at the mirror, causing it to whisk the party away into its domain where it attacks them.

*A Bitter Clue: The party escapes the mirror, and the Queen is nowhere in sight. They go to ask the mirror the whereabouts of Vidar, but then Vidar just shows up in the flesh. We get a flashback to the question Vor asked the mirror at the beginning of the episode, and Vidar convinces Vor to join him. Title refers to how Xehanort and Eraqus learned more about the upperclassmen's whereabouts, but at the price of losing Vor.

*Different Directions: Flashback to Vor asking the underclassmen why they decided to become Keyblade Wielders. Title refers to both the variety of life trajectories the underclassmen are striving for, and Vor leaving her friends to take a different path. Then we return to present day. Xehanort and Eraqus leave the castle glumly.

*Former Friends: Flashforward 64 years after the events of KHDR. Old man Xehanort approaches the Magic Mirror once more and inquires about the whereabouts of his dream friends. Title refers to three things, actually, because Xehanort is thinking about not just his dream friends, but also Eraqus (and maybe Yen Sid?), who he is now estranged from, and the other underclassmen, who are dead. "Former friends" indeed.

Last four episodes will be in Part 2.

#rambling about dim path #ch tag: und #ch tag: upp

7 notes · View notes