#Mal/Ami

[nooneherebutaghost]

"Can I kiss you?” There it is again, his breath catches. Ami doesn’t even answer, he just tilts his chin up a little and Mal meets him halfway. For a split second he worries if Mal will notice he has no idea what he’s doing, but they fit together so effortlessly, there’s no room for second-guessing.

@hurryupmerlin here you go <3

[hurryupmerlin]

Mal belongs to @riinoaheartilly and Mal's ass belongs to Ami

———

The doors slide open accompanied by a too loud "Am'ika!" and Fi enters the low-lit room just to stop dead in his tracks one step in.

"Ew, stinks of sex in here."

Ami pulls at the blanket with both fists until he's covered right up to his nose. The embarrassment paints his face a dark shade of red.

Mal on the other hand straightens up on his knees and not only becomes the center of attention with his movement but – and this fact does not escape Ami at all – he also further obscures the view of Ami, like a protective shield made of bare chest and pajama pants.

"Weird. Wonder why," Mal deadpans and Fi crosses his arms in response. The eyes of the two troopers are locked in an icy stare across the room. Sadly – due to a lack of Jedi powers – neither of them manages to push the other away by sheer power of will, therefore they just keep glaring at each other without so much as blinking.

"Fuck off," Mal snarls eventually when the unwelcomed guest still shows no intention to leave, and Fi makes a point of firmly planting his feet even wider on the threshold of their bedroom.

"Try and make me, asshole. "

Mal looks like he's gonna full-on attack the smug commando any second now, his body almost vibrates with held-back violence. And Fi grins like he can't wait to get his knuckles bloody.

"Um..." Ami tries and clears his throat loudly. That manages to get him the attention of the two men who finally break their stare down.

"Could you... please, maybe give us some space, Fi? We'll meet you outside in two minutes, okay?"

Fi might roll his eyes, but he can't deny Ami anything so he has to opt for retreat. He flexes his hands and everyone in the room knows that if it wasn't for Ami, Fi would be showing Mal the middle finger as a goodbye greeting right now. Instead he just jerks his head with a crooked smile and makes a 180 degree turn so sharp it would make any drill sergeant proud.

***

"Do you have to be like that to him?" Ami sighs later at the breakfast table. Mal didn't join them, with the feeble excuse of going on patrol.

Fi smirks in return. "Keeps him on edge. He should have to work harder for you, Am'ika. That bum takes you for granted."

"Fi," Ami outright whines now. "He's my partner, he doesn't have to prove his worth to you or anyone."

Both look at Ordo, but the man evades his freshly assigned role of referee by protestantly biting into his sandwich and keeping his eyes fixed on the datapad in front of him.

"What if he hurts you?" argues Fi.

Ami smiles genially and stands up, grabbing the plate with the breakfast ration he had prepared for Mal.

"He won't."

[cowboylikeyouu]

"ich geh nicht wählen, weil..."

HALT EINFACH DIE FRESSE UND BEWEG DEINEN VERFICKTEN ARSCH INS WAHLLOKAL DU EGOISTISCHER KOTZBROCKEN

[signorcerullo]

JO AND MAL AES IN TV AND FILM: 48/? Brooklyn Nine-Nine | The Golden Child

[goobergoobertin]

Total Antagonists!

Team The treacherous toucans

-Mal

-Duncan

-Max

-Scarlett

-Heather

-Scott

Team The raging bees

-Alejandro

-Lightning

-Courtney

-Amy

-Sugar

-Jo

[ewingstan]

What's the shylock dilemma you referred to in your last post?

That's not a standard term or anything, its just what I use to describe characters who I find interesting, but who are also horrible stereotypes, and whose interesting qualities cannot be isolated from what makes them a harmful stereotype. Shylock from The Merchant of Venice is a prototypical example of this, a character who's interesting because of his justified rage towards the bigoted society around him and towards the antisemitic protagonists in particular, but who only exhibits this in the course of his broader characterization as a greedy and bloodthirsty usurer.

Another example of the same phenomenon would be Tuco Ramírez from "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," whose characterization as a humorous buffoon, entertainingly sly trickster, and tragic figure are ultimately just extensions of the way he serves as a horrendous brownface caricature of Mexicans. He's only legible as part of a Western imaginary that sees Mexicans as brutes and rapists: savage, disreputable, and "ugly" by nature.

Wildbow has written several queer characters that fit into this mold, in ways the fandom comments on frequently: Amy's characterization in Worm as a tragic victim of family dynamics are ultimately in service to a story about the uncontrollable sexual urges of a homosexual deviant. Her use in Ward as a critique of offloading moral responsibility onto circumstances is motivated by a perceived need to make her less sympathetic, and is accomplished by doubling-down on characterizing her as a predatory deviant with uncontrollable urges. Tristan's backstory has been perhaps my favorite part of Ward so far, but at its core its the story of a man harming his brother in order to pursue homosexual relationships.

I wouldn't necessarily group Alec in as an example of this; rather than being a necessary aspect of his story and what makes it interesting, the detail of him raping both women and men men as a child could've been removed without needing to change anything else in his story. Ditto for Kenzie specifically attempting to force a relationship between herself and another girl. They're both incidentally bisexual, and their characterization wouldn't lose anything if they weren't written as bisexual—certainly, they didn't need to have their bisexuality revealed in the course of recounting their acts of sexual violence.

The same can't be said for Amy and Tristan: Amy's intense shame and repression as a closeted lesbian is an important aspect of the way the Guts and Glory plotline critiques the expectation parents impose on their children to conform to the idealized nuclear family dynamic. It intensifies her feeling of being an outsider, of not fitting the blond, presentable, heroic ideal they represent, of not being able to happily be paired off with the rich or influential boys her family pushes her to pursue. And its an aspect of her worries that she's intrinsically a bad person: The fear that her villainous parentage determines her character, that she ultimately just can't fit into her heroic adopted family, is a major component of her dogmatic early view of heroes as good and villains as evil, and her downward spiral when she realizes that being a hero can't protect her from being a bad person (I go into more detail here). Her sense that something is inherently wrong with her as a product of her shitty upbringing, and the way it leads to tragedy, is her story. You can't just snip out the homophobia by having her not be a lesbian the way you can with Kenzie.

Similarly, Tristan's interesting in part because his is the story of a guy who's denied getting to pursue the happiness afforded to his brother, because forcing someone to live through a "normal" romantic straight relationships is seen by the Vera siblings' corporate handlers as less unreasonable than forcing them to live through a "wilder" gay sexual-and-romantic relationship. And the text does actually criticize this viewpoint, at least in places. Byron making Tristan sit through dates with a person who absolutely hates everything about him, whose mutual attraction is based in part on their shared disdain for Tristan's "peacock" qualities—its horrible, and the text does a good job selling it as horrible despite Byron framing things differently in his narration. The desperation fueling Tristan's actions being, in part, a realization that society will let Byron trample over Tristan to pursue his felicity because it sees it as "safe" but wont let Tristan do the same—its one of the strongest aspects of their plotline for me (more details on this reading of Tristan's reaction to the Byron/Moonsong coupling here). But having it be part of that plotline necessarily means having another story where a gay character hurts their straight sibling to pursue their deviant urges. Again, you can't just snip out the homophobia while keeping all the interesting thematic stuff, the latter only follows from the former given the story's setup.

This isn't to say wildbow couldn't have written stories that cover the same thematic ground without being homophobic. Its just to say that he couldn't have done so while still telling anything resembling the story of Amy Dallon or the story of Tristan Vera. And to be clear, as much as I love Amy and Tristan's stories, I don't think they're merits "make up" for their homophobic writing—no more than the famous "Do we not bleed" monologue makes up for Shakespeare writing the most infamous antisemitic caricature this side of The Protocols.

[ronispadez-art]

Happy New Yuri to all who celebrate (everyone cheers 🥂)

I usually do an end of the year wrap up where I draw all the fandoms that gave me brainworms this year but I wanted to draw girls instead. So this'll count!!

There WAS only supposed to be 9 but I couldn't decide on the last one ... So I did ... Another grid. Sigh

Commissions+tipping

[clock-loves-rajbow]

This took a little longer than I thought it would but here’s some tdi characters!! I ran outta room so I couldn’t draw Wayne, but if I got some more requests I could do another six :3

For some reason Lindsay was the easiest to draw and Amy was the hardest?? Idk if it’s because I drew her first or what but I struggled w her for awhile..

[starleska]

i am extremely normal about the roach man. anyway here's every time Maxime Le Mal laughs in Despicable Me 4 🫠💖

[nyatbinary-81]

@vulpixisananimal sifstem art jumpscare!! more specifically i got bored and decided to mess around with sif and mal's outfits.

[nooneherebutaghost]

Been wanting to post this here for a while now but always put it off for some reason. Today I'm shoving that reason into the trash because I do miss these two precious boys. As always, Amiss belongs to @hurryupmerlin.

[hurryupmerlin]

My beloved Mal belongs to @riinoaheartilly

_______________

"How many sex partners did you have?" Mal asks while his hand draws lazy circles on Ami's bare shoulder.

It's a good time to ask things that would otherwise never be addressed. Heads still woozy with happiness and systems flooded with cuddle hormones so soon after their interlude makes for loose tongues.

"You tell first."

"When I was younger, a couple guys in the showers,” Mal muses. “Nothing serious; we had no idea what we were doing. After the war started I had a guy I met up with every now and then. Hated his guts but he knew how to get the job done."

"How could you sleep with someone you hated?"

Mal shrugs nonchalantly.

"We weren't allowed to stab each other. Had to find a way to resolve our conflicts differently."

"But you liked it?"

"Admittedly." He smirks. "What about you, what's your body count?"

Looking up at the ceiling, Ami answers after a few seconds of reflection: "Sex partners... Just you."

Mal's hand stops its monotonous circular movement and withdraws. He exhales audibly through his nose. For a moment he considers ignoring the statement and moving over to the next topic, but then he speaks out loud what he had been thinking way too often since he met Ami:

"Why do you always lie to me?"

He's used to Ami avoiding the truth, but he can't stop the disappointment from dripping from his every syllable.

In Ami's ears, the accusation rings even worse. He avoids Mal's gaze.

"I'm not lying," he asserts.

But maybe he should've lied. Should've said any number worthy of a nod and a chuckle. Should've made something up about a girl back home or another slave in the camp. Should've let Mal think that he had learned taking dick like everyone else did and that he'd just always been blessed with so little gag reflex, no story behind that.

A tight knot forms in his stomach. He doesn't want to talk about it, but he doesn't want to lie to Mal either. Now he regrets that he didn't stop the question in the first place. He wanted to know more about Mal and that lured him in. Perhaps Mal would have been ready for the second round already, that certainly would've distracted him enough from digging any deeper. Anyway, it's too late now.

Mal just shakes his head.

"Thought we were over hiding our pasts from each other. My mistake."

"Mal...," Ami tries again, struggling for words.

"Never mind," Mal says dismissively and straightens up. The worst thing about it, Ami figures, is that he doesn't even seem angry. Just done.

Mal swings his legs over the edge of the bed, about to leave and Ami sits up quickly, rocks forward and presses his face against Mal's back, wrapping his arms around his lover's hips.

Mal stills and hangs his head.

"I'm sorry," Ami mumbles against Mal's warm skin. "It's– I– I don't want to talk about... It's hard for me to talk about some things."

"That's okay." A cybernetic hand tenderly comes to rest over Ami's. "Don't worry, I still love you."

Being able to hide behind Mal without having to look him in the eye helps.

"I know what you think." Ami can't help the tremor in his voice. What he says next feels like chewing glass. "But lying on your back crying, while someone forces themself in... that isn't sex. Sucking a dick because you're so hungry you already fainted twice that day and desperately want to earn a treat isn't sex."

His voice breaks.

"But Mal, I love you. When I'm sleeping with you it's because I want you. Your kisses make me hard, and I can't get enough of your hands. And the way you say my name... makes it sound like an endearment instead of an insult."

He had hoped he could finish his monologue with a bit of dignity, but no. The tears find their way out and Ami's words crumble into sobs under the strain. The way he's crying now, he's too distraught to filter what comes next as he rambles on:

"And... sometimes you make me laugh while we're at it, how insane is that? I never even knew that was possible. Gosh, when– when you touch me, it feels so right. In my book, that is sex. And I only had sex with you, Mal. No one else."

Mal doesn't move or speak for a whole agonizing minute, just squeezes the hand under his.

He finds it difficult to unpack and sort everything that Ami has served him. The meaning of what he has just learned creeps into him like smoke into lungs. It constricts his throat, sharp-edged and indigestible.

Eventually he says a quiet "I'm sorry."

A multitude of grief and shame hangs in the air, heavy and dark. After all of Ami's words, he feels as if he's supposed to say more, balance it out, and do some healing. But words fail him.

"Only you," Ami says weakly, like a mantra, as his lips graze over the ridges of Mal's spine.

Mal's reply is quiet and soft: "Only you."

[cowboylikeyouu]

my german ass wishes y'all a Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!!!!

[signorcerullo]

JO AND MAL AES IN TV AND FILM: 66/? Brooklyn Nine-Nine | Captain Kim

[lilacerull0]

MAL'S 3K CELEBRATION

DAY ONE (Monday, August 7th)

favourite character | quotes/song lyrics | single-color focused

[ewingstan]

On 14.5. Don't really like how much focus is being put on whether or not Amy "isn't well." I could say that this framing of how to consider Amy fits with Vicky as a narrator, but the amount of focus the question is getting feels like the text itself considers it important. The idea that there's some ethically-relevant metaphysical difference between "normal" harmful actions and harmful actions resulting from mental illness, such that we should assign blame to the former but not the latter—its certainly common. But one of the strengths of Worm was that it poked holes in it, that "everyone's actions are a result of the circumstances they're placed in" was one of its central themes.

Call me a filthy Hard Determinist, but t feels like we've taken a step back. We went from "people behave in ways that harm others when put in certain circumstances, and society should focus on preventing those circumstances rather than punishing people for their reactions" to "there's a type of person that does bad things because they're bad, but be careful not to confuse them for someone who's just neurodivergent and a minor!"