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[bisexualfbiagents]

And if given the choice between advancing my career by being blindly loyal to some faceless puppeteers pulling strings from the shadows, or to throw in with you two, make no mistake about it. I'd make the same decision every single damn time.

THE X FILES GIF MEME [1/4] DYNAMICS Mulder x Scully x Skinner

[sorobochi-eng-archive]

Memory of No.----- has now been completed.

Below are the last four chapters of the comic.

Chapter 31-32 (⚠ Warning for gore)

Chapter 32.5

Chapter 33

Chapter 34 (ENDING)

Story and artwork by sorobochi English translation by rassicas and trisloshr Typesetting by merrodi SFX Redraws by roachgore

We received permission from sorobochi-san to translate this splatoon fan comic. Please look through this blog if you want to read the earlier chapters. Out of respect to the original author, please do not repost any part of this comic.

There's also really awesome ending art for chapter 34 that will be released later.

Thank you for reading.

This multi-year team project has finally come to a close. I wanted to get everything done by the anniversary that sorobochi wrote their last letter, so I'm really happy that everything came into place. (past the last chapter credit art)

Special thank you to the team: Rassicas, Trisloshr and Roachgore, who go above and beyond in the quality of their work. They've been extremely receptive to my demands and without them this translation could not have been possible. And of course a thank you to you, the readers, for your unending support.

Since we first decided to start translating this manga, there's so much I've learned and such cool people I've been able to meet because of it. It's been a wonderful, terrific ride.

We still intend on translating more Sorobochi stuff in the future - I'll be getting to older chapters to update its quality. There's a cool Agent 4 comic I'm intent on typesetting. So keep an eye out. And get your friends to read this comic now that it's finished.

Okay, bye now.

[someone-will-remember-us]

Elton John and David Furnish have done it, and so have Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

There’s a bloke from Essex who recently joined the club via an undisclosed overseas location and a 72-year-old Scotsman has just been recognised as the legitimate owner of an American one he bought back in 2020.

What we are talking about here is surrogacy: the incubation and effective purchase of babies after the careful selection of their component parts.

The global market – already worth almost $18 billion (£14 billion) – is projected to rise to $129bn by 2032, according to the research firm Global Market Insights, with anywhere between 5,000 and 20,000 babies incubated to order annually.

This covers the whole caboodle in which you can DIY things with a friend at one extreme, or go for the full Lamborghini treatment where, in some countries, an agent will help you shop around the globe for the finest sperm, eggs and wombs money can buy.

For those opting for the international pick and mix route, there are BOGOF deals (two implants for the price of one), the option of sex selection and a pay-as-you-go plan.

And that’s because you, the customer, are always right. As one agency, New Life Conceptual Limited, based in Lagos, Nigeria puts it: ��…it takes four ingredients to make a baby: an egg, a sperm, a womb to grow in, and a family to go home to. You have the last ingredient, but you need a place for your baby to grow, and that’s why you’re here.”

Some companies even offer legal guarantees around defective foetuses that have to be aborted.

If you think I’m making this up, think again.

In the UK, where commercial surrogacy is banned but international imports are not, there are now between 400 and 500 new surrogate-incubated babies registered each year, while globally the business is more than doubling in value every two years.

Some call it a “miracle” and point to the invisible hand of the market creating a profitable multi-billion dollar industry in which everyone wins; a benign system of supply and demand the libertarian economist Leonard Read might have called I, Baby.

And while there is no suggestion that the multi-millionaire celebrities who have used surrogacy, like Elton John and the Kardashians, have exploited the surrogate mothers who bore their children, for others – including feminists like myself – the global surrogacy trade reeks of false entitlement.

It has been sanitised by the liberal “rights” agenda and the same self-serving logic that brands prostitutes “sex workers”. If it brings to mind a book or essay, it is Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel about social engineering and evil hiding in plain sight.

To what extent, for example, is the lack of regulation around surrogacy driving impoverished women into unsafe and unconsented arrangements, as it once did so extensively with domestic and international adoption?

And what do we really know of all those hundreds of Brits now shopping for children around the world.

Can it really be right that you can effectively buy a baby overseas but raise it in Britain where commercial surrogacy is supposed to be banned?

Just as in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, when we thought of adoption as a favour to unsuitable mums whether they be “wayward” teens or impoverished Mexicans, surrogacy is being sanitised.

Delve into the subject on the Internet and you will find that almost everywhere you look, it’s celebrated. These babies, magicked into welcoming arms, are seemingly a modern miracle for childless couples of every stripe. TikTok is full of it.

Here in Blighty, we have only “ethical surrogacy”, says Surrogacy UK, a leading non-profit “providing a safe, supportive environment for surrogates, intended parents and families”.

Such organisations emphasise the benefits to infertile couples, and the “great gift” bestowed by women (aged 16 or older) who are happy to “altruistically” lend their womb to another for nine months.

Whilst such arrangements do work for some, there is no reliable data on what is really going on in the UK. This is because the sector is governed by a bizarre mish-mash of statute and common law, and because regulation, where it exists at all, is opaque.

Echoing the words of a Tarantino script, surrogacy is legal in the UK but not a hundred per cent legal.

It’s legal to enter into an agreement with a surrogate, it’s legal to pay her “reasonable expenses”, and, if you’re the owner of a womb, it’s legal to grow a child (made with your eggs or someone else’s) and give it away once it’s born.

But it’s illegal to advertise you are looking for a surrogate in the UK or solicit for business if you want to become a surrogate. It’s also an offence to arrange or negotiate a surrogacy arrangement as a “commercial enterprise”, but that doesn’t really matter because, get this: “reasonable expenses” can stretch beyond the average annual wage.

If money is still an obstacle, you can always rent a womb from a woman in a country like California, Cyprus or Greece where for-profit surrogacy is legal, before bringing the child back home to the UK.

Another oddity of the UK system is that, while it is a criminal offence to advertise surrogacy services, there are “some exemptions for not-for-profit organisations”. It is not clear how these agencies are selected but they are organisations that officials at the Department of Health and Social Care deem trustworthy. It is how agencies like Surrogacy UK and Brilliant Beginnings are able to proactively recruit and advertise a willing pool of surrogates in Britain.

“All our surrogates benefit from being a part of our thriving community and can enjoy a range of events and gifts along the way,” says the Brilliant Beginnings website. “Surrogate retreats” and “milestone gifts” such as chocolates, flowers and even bellybuds - speakers that allow mothers to play music to babies in the womb - are all part of the service.

Brilliant Beginnings says “expenses” payments to surrogate mothers in the UK typically range between £12,000 to £35,000. It is not known how well off the typical UK surrogate is in relation to the intended parents check, but there is potentially a stark economic divide.

“For surrogates who receive means-tested state benefits, it is important to be clear about whether benefits might be affected by any expenses received,” says the Best Beginnings website. “We would always recommend surrogates are upfront with their benefits office”.

Evidence for the benefits and harms of surrogacy in the UK are almost entirely anecdotal.

Disputes do occur but no one really knows their frequency or what they entail because they are heard in the secretive Family Court, which sits mainly in private and from which detailed reporting is banned.

An obvious problem in the UK, is that the flash point for disputes typically arises after the fact - that is, after a child has been born. This is the point at which the intended parents (or parent) must apply to the Court for a “transfer of legal parenthood” and, in most cases, will be the first time the state even becomes cognisant of the surrogacy arrangement.

An application for such a transfer can only be made with the surrogate’s consent but the decision hinges on what the Court considers to be in the best interests of the child, not the surrogate mother.

“The parental order process takes place after birth and involves the family court, and a court-appointed social worker,” says the DHSC website. “This provides a valuable safeguard for the best interests of the child”.

There is a growing recognition that the regulation of surrogacy in the UK is inadequate but the agencies who run it want legislative reforms that favour the would-be parents rather than the surrogate mothers.

They are especially exercised about the fact that written agreements between surrogates and intended parents are ultimately unenforceable in the UK courts.

Others, including myself, want the practice banned – as it is in many countries across the world. Miriam Cates, the former Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, caused a storm in January when she said surrogacy was “just ethically not acceptable”.

“Of course adults have a strong desire to be parents, both men or women. Of course it’s a sadness if that’s unfulfilled for whatever reason – they can’t conceive, don’t have a partner, whatever it is.

“But to deliberately bring a child into the world in order to separate it from its mother at birth I think is just ethically not acceptable,” she said.

Alan White, chairman of Surrogacy UK, told a webinar hosted by the Royal College of Midwives in February that those of us who see the practice as unethical and exploitative were limiting choice and free will because we failed to properly understand the motivations of surrogate mothers.

“Surrogates don’t see themselves as mothers, they see themselves as extreme baby-sitters,” he said. “[They are] doing that wonderful thing of doing the part of having children women or gay men can’t do for themselves”.

To survive the psychological impact of giving away a child, there is little doubt that this sort of thinking helps.

As Helen Gibson, the founder of Surrogacy Concern points out, surrogates are encouraged to see themselves as a bystander – just the “the oven” or “the microwave”, as some describe themselves.

But this sort of psychological dissociation doesn’t always work, and perhaps seldom does.

I spoke to one UK woman who feels deep regret at her decision to enter into a surrogacy arrangement. Sandra, whose name I’ve changed, was 32 with two children of her own. She had escaped a violent husband, and was struggling to make ends meet.

A friend suggested she could make money by carrying a baby for an infertile couple. And, after approaching a UK agency she found via Facebook, she was told that in return for having the baby, she could enjoy “unlimited expenses, within reason”.

She was introduced to a gay male couple who wanted her to carry an implanted embryo, engineered with selected eggs to give them the best chance of a “tall, blonde child”. Sandra, by contrast, is short and dark.

The embryo transfer failed three times, and the IVF process made Sandra extremely sick. Eventually, the couple decided to go to California, but not before admonishing her for wasting “their time, and a lot of money.”

“I felt like a broodmare,” she told me.

If the UK surrogacy market is a classic British muddle, the global market is the wild west.  

And because no UK Court or Home Office official can possibly check the provenance of all the elements that go to make up a child (the sperm, the eggs, the IVF, or, crucially, the free agency of the surrogate mother), anything goes for the unscrupulous.

Although most countries around the world still ban the practice, there are more than enough who don’t.

In Greece and various US states including California, Washington DC and Arkansas, commercial surrogacy is fully legal. In many other countries it is either unregulated or very lightly regulated, enabling the trade to flourish. Countries in this bracket include Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Guatemala, Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia and Ukraine.

WFI Surrogacy, one of America’s biggest providers, offers its customers what it calls a “live birth guarantee” – the promise that a birth will occur once the process is underway.

“The high quality of our egg donors and surrogate mothers enables us to make this type of guarantee”, says WFI. “Our live birth guarantee programs are available for either: singleton or twins [or] one specimen source or two specimen sources”.

“All our surrogate mothers are medically and psychologically screened,” it adds.

This is Big Fertility, whose business model relies on the commodification of every aspect of pregnancy.

A healthy overall budget for a Brit using the US surrogacy route sits between £250,000 to £320,000, according to the UK agency Brilliant Beginnings.

Often freelance agents or “fixers” will shop around the world for their clients to increase choice and reduce costs. A surrogate mum in Los Angeles, California costs a whole lot more than one from rural Mexico, for example.

Denmark has long been prized for its sperm, its tall blond donors making the most of their viking heritage.

For eggs, there are also options galore – and all pushed with a good dose of fairy tale genetics.

Egg Donor number “241222_01” on the World Center of Baby website (motto: every person deserves to be a parent) conforms precisely to the modern notion of female beauty as defined by Instagram.

Weighing in at just 66kg, she’s also “an artistic soul with a flair for creativity”. If you would prefer a sporty one, just go for donor number 241222_02 – “an athletic enthusiast, deeply engaged in fitness and sports”.

Embryos can be made up from the customers chosen eggs and sperm in any number of IVF labs around the world. They are then frozen and shipped to wherever the chosen surrogate may be. Fixers facilitate the entire process, including the negotiation of complex legal agreements and the careful arbitrage of international and domestic laws and regulations.

The wording of commercial surrogacy contracts is telling, the text reflecting the economic disparity between carrier and client.

“If Gestational Carrier suffers a loss of her uterus as a result of the performance of her obligations under this Agreement, she shall receive $5,000.00 from Intended Parents”, stipulates one contract.

It continues: “If Intended Parents jointly request Gestational Carrier to terminate the pregnancy because of the Child’s medical condition(s), she will do so promptly. If Gestational Carrier refuses to terminate, Gestational Carrier will have materially breached this Agreement and Intended Parents’ obligations under this Agreement shall cease immediately”.

Natalia Gamble, a director at Brilliant Beginnings, says the agency made an active decision “to only facilitate people going to places that we felt were ethical, secure, and safe”.

Although Ms Gamble is adamant that her approach is ethical, she helps clients go to Nigeria, Cyprus, and Ukraine, where commercial surrogacy flourishes.

“We made the active decision at Brilliant Beginnings to only facilitate people going to places that we felt were ethical, secure, and safe – we have very much focused on the US, but through our law firm (NGA Law) we have helped people go into places like Nigeria, Cyprus, and Ukraine because our role is much more not to help them do it in the first place but to help them bring their children home and resolve all the legalities afterwards,” she said.

Northern Cyprus even allows sex selection, with several clinics there advertising the service on their websites.

“The cases that are happening in Nigeria or Cyprus where it’s very unregulated and there’s no legal framework are a very, very small percentage of the overall international surrogacy landscape,” she said.

“We do need to be very alert to the risks of exploitation and those risks are greatest in places where there is no legal framework regulating how surrogacy is run [...] but, it’s about not overinflating those risks when the majority of people are going to what you might call ‘good surrogacy destinations’.”

Ms Gamble is pushing for a change to UK law that would grant commissioning parent(s) legal rights to the child (embryo) at the point of conception.

“It’s in the best interest of the child,” she says. “If you speak to any surrogate mother they will say ‘Look, I am not the mother of this child, I’m always very clear that it’s someone else’s child that I’m carrying’ – no one wants the surrogate mother on the birth certificate, including her.”

But is that really true – are surrogate mothers really so detached?

I spoke to Liane, who said her own experience of surrogacy caused “a huge amount of grief and hurt”.

She described the market as being infected with a sort of “toxic positivity”.

She added: “It’s painted as a wonderful thing to do, a beautiful selfless act which can only bring joy when for me, I felt used, manipulated, and devastated”.

Ms Gibson of Surrogacy Concern says cases involving “coercion and regret” are not uncommon, even within the UK’s surrogacy model.

“Surrogacy prioritises the wants of the adults ahead of the needs of the child, and creates a societal sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies,” she said.

The practices of single men buying children abroad, white couples using black surrogate mothers, and the growing trend towards using cut price surrogacy destinations such as Mexico, Colombia, Kenya and Ghana are all on Surrogacy Concern’s radar.

Physical harms to surrogate mothers are real. Carrying a baby always involves serious risk but, for surrogates, those risks are often greatly magnified.

Linda Khan, an epidemiologist based in the departments of Paediatrics and Population Health at NYU, says surrogates run an “increased risks of all kinds of pregnancy complications, which lead to adverse outcomes for women and children”.

One factor, she says, is that the embryo is not biologically related to the woman and implanted via IVF. Another is that “many women are carrying multiples because it’s so expensive. They want two for the price of one”.

“Twinning is not safe, even when it occurs naturally. It is a huge burden on women’s bodies, it gets all the risks of complications sky-rocketing.”

Whilst it would be difficult (though not impossible) to ban or abolish surrogacy entirely – changing laws to ban the ‘womb traffickers’ as many campaigners refer to the brokers, should be a priority.

The marketing of surrogacy should also be made subject to tougher regulation, say some experts, although many others favour a blanket ban.

“Surrogacy is a trade that makes commodities of children, of embryos and of eggs, and reduces women to being seen as machines,” said Ms Gibson. “It should not masquerade as a progressive solution to the problem of infertility.”

Further, any legal protections introduced in the UK should be for the benefit of the surrogate mothers giving birth and the babies, rather than for the commissioning parents or agents, adds Ms Gibson. A commissioning parent should never have a legal right to remove a baby if a woman has changed her mind.

In March last year, experts from 75 countries signed the Casablanca Declaration, which calls for a global ban on all forms of surrogacy. And in April this year, an international conference was held in Rome with an aim to provide all States with a legal instrument banning the practice of surrogate motherhood.

Implicit within it is a rejection of the fanciful and dangerous notion that anyone, anywhere has an inalienable right to a child.

“The regulations of each country are not enough to stop human trafficking globally,” said Bernard Garcia Larrain, the Executive Director of the Casablanca Declaration for the Universal Abolition of Surrogacy.

“We need an international treaty to prohibit surrogacy because this is a global market that moves a lot of money and knows no borders,” he added.

[kallie-den]

Cobra's Kiss

Huntress is one of the greatest superheroes of all time, a divinely-blessed amazon who is all but invincible in combat. So, there’s no way one little mind-controlling kiss could immediately defeat her… right?

A commission for Xander!

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!  For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write - 4 pieces of hypno-smut a  month, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated <3

---

As Huntress leaped from the next building and crashed through the already-broken window of the seemingly disused warehouse, landing with enough force to crack the bare concrete beneath her feet, a wild, vicious grin was spread across her noble features - though it dimmed slightly at the bleating protests coming through in her earpiece.

‘Huntress! Please, wait for backup! Qualia is still out of action, Flamespout and Radiance are being held up by other villains, and Axehead is still a long way out. You’re on your own here. It could be a trap. You can’t go in the-‘

Huntress plucked the tiny device from her ear and crushed it to pieces underfoot. Farsight, the group’s coordinator, was always careful - but in this case, far too careful. After all, they had finally tracked The Cobra to her secretive lair. This was their chance to finally take the supervillain down, once and for all. What was Huntress supposed to do? Just sit on her hands until someone showed up to babysit her?

No way. Not in this lifetime. Not after everything The Cobra had done. This was personal.

“Sorry, ladies,” Huntress muttered, as she advanced towards the building’s depths. “This time, the glory’s all mine.”

What did she have to be afraid of? The Cobra was a mastermind and a diabolical manipulator, certainly. There was no telling who she might have turned into a mindless, fanatically loyal double agent with that power of hers. But here, now, in the flesh, all those plans and schemes would mean nothing. In a fair fight, The Cobra was little better off than a mere civilian.

Huntress, meanwhile, was a superhero with godlike strength - literally. She’d started out as a mere vigilante, hunting petty criminals and wrongdoers, but her will and determination had soon caught the attention of Dianae, the ancient maiden goddess of the hunt. Dianae had blessed her with many gifts: strength, stature, a hunter’s instincts, and her own divine armaments. Now, as the goddess’s avatar, Huntress stood seven feet tall, with an amazon’s body, clad in an enchanted, steel blue, leather bodice and cowl, with a colossal, heaven-forged war bow strapped over her back.

Yeah. The Cobra didn’t stand a chance.

Her resolve set, Huntress moved like a stalking wolf. For years, The Cobra had been a ghost. A curse, weaving her malign influence throughout the world without once leaving herself vulnerable to just retaliation. It was only through happenstance that Huntress managed to track her here, to what seemed like nothing more than yet another abandoned warehouse hidden deep within anonymous urban sprawl. It was the perfect place for a cunning supervillain to hide.

But The Cobra was about to learn that she was no match for the cunning of a huntress who had caught her scent.

The disused building was huge, and as Huntress headed into its depths, the open storage spaces gave way to cramped rooms and narrow, labyrinthine service corridors. Huntress moved quickly, faster than any mere mortal could have, but her senses remained keen to any danger and her hunting instincts guided her along a sure route towards her prey. She expected traps, tricks, maybe even minions - but there was nothing. No impediment to her progress as she made her way toward The Cobra’s lair.

Huntress let herself grin. It was so typical of villains. When you finally hit them close to their home, they were all but defenseless.

In turn, featureless, dusty corridors soon gave way to passageways that showed signs of recent use and renovation. Huntress’s superhuman ears picked up on the hum of electricity, and the walls were covered with wires; brand new fiber-optic cables, all of which seemed to lead inexorably towards a single point. Eventually, she came to a heavy, metal door, deep within the bowels of the building. Behind it was the nerve center of everything.

This was it. This was The Cobra. It had to be

Huntress swiftly unslung her bow from her shoulder, notched an arrow, and forced the door open with a single, mighty kick.

Inside, it was dark, even to Huntress’s enhanced eyes. Light spilled out into the large room only from a huge array of monitors arranged on the opposite wall. Before the monitors was a desk, and before the desk was a woman sitting in a chair, staring up at them. She didn’t look round, not even at the sound of the huge, heavy door to her lair crashing to the ground.

But Huntress didn’t need to see her face to know that she’d found her enemy. At last.

The woman was brunette and considerably shorter than Huntress; even from behind, Huntress would have recognized her anywhere. The true giveaway was what she was wearing: a tight bodysuit, so dark it was almost black, except that when it caught the light, it was possible to see a scaled pattern etched across its surface in the deepest shade of emerald.

“Cobra!” Huntress roared, as she stepped across the threshold. “It’s over! In the name of the goddess, I’m here to bring you to justice.”

There was no reply. The Cobra didn’t even turn. Information kept flickering across the monitors: maps, dates, statistics.

“You’re finished.” Huntress advanced another step. “I’m going to make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars - and even that’s better than you deserve. You’ve killed a lot of good heroes. You killed my friend. Come on. Come face your reckoning.”

The Cobra still didn’t acknowledge her presence. She remained completely focused on the screens in front of her, and constant flickering as they chanced and scrolled. Huntress felt her choler start to rise.

“Face me!” she yelled. Another step. “I want to see the look in your eyes when you realize you’ve lost.”

Still, nothing. Huntress’s temper flared, and anger drowned out her more cautious urges. She’d had enough of this childish game.

“Face me!” she repeated - and as she stepped forward, she loosed an arrow from her bow. Thick as a spear, it flew through the air and hit square its target: one of the monitors to The Cobra’s left. Impaled, it flickered black and shattered, showering the supervillain in sparks.

But she still didn’t move

Huntress frowned. She stepped forward, reached out to put her hand on The Cobra’s shoulder, and spun the chair.

It wasn’t her. It was some stranger, a woman Huntress had never seen before, with a passing similarity to the supervillain, dressed in her costume and sat in her chair, a telltale look of glassy-eyed, insensate pleasure on her face.

Huntress barely had time to process the sudden, sinking feeling in her gut before the trap was sprung.

The superhero wheeled and instinctively raised her bow - but without a notched arrow, it was useless. Before she could prepare one, she caught a glimpse of a slender outline, darting towards her from the shadowy corners of the room, holding some kind of large weapon that was already trained directly at the superhero. Huntress braced herself - but still, she wasn’t worried. Her divine gifts made her bulletproof. She was ready to take a blow.

What she wasn’t ready for was for the weapon to launch a set of long, segmented, metal cables at blinding speed. Huntress made to dodge - but caught off-guard, she was just barely too slow. The cables slammed into her with the force of a speeding truck. Huntress was able to hold her ground even against that, but she had no defense when the cables started to wrap around her body, flexing with their own momentum and pinning the superhero’s limbs to her sides. She dropped her bow and stumbled, and, before she knew it, Huntress was wrapped up tight from her shoulders all the way down to her knees.

“That’s better,” said The Cobra, as she dropped the heavy cable-launcher. She sighed with relief. “You’re not an easy woman to catch, you know. Even faster than I’d thought. But maybe now we can have a civilized conversation.”

Huntress just glowered furiously at her. The sight of The Cobra’s face made other faces flash through her mind. People she’d lost. People The Cobra had taken from her. At last, she was getting the confrontation she’d long craved, and Huntress wasn’t going to let anything hold her back. She started flexing and straining against the coils of metal binding her, drawing on all of her righteous anger and all of her divine strength. The cables didn’t break - but they groaned from the strain.

“This won’t hold me,” Huntress warned. “Not for long.”

The Cobra just shrugged. “Adamantite. It’ll hold for long enough.”

“We’ll see,” Huntress countered. “Backup is almost here.”

Infuriatingly, The Cobra wagged a finger and tutted. She turned her head, letting Huntress see the earpiece she was wearing. “I’m tapped into your comms. Backup is not almost here. Backup is being misdirected away, on a wild goose chase. No, it’s just the two of us.”

Huntress flashed her a nasty grin. “Bad news for you, once I break out of these.”

It was strange that The Cobra didn’t seem frightened. She hardly had the look of a larger-than-life supervillain. Compared to Huntress, she was slight and slender, with nondescript brown hair. Only her scaled bodysuit and the dark glint in her eyes hinted at her true nature. Huntress knew better than to underestimate the woman standing before her. She knew full well how many lives The Cobra had ruined.

“We’ll see.” The Cobra started walking towards Huntress, preening like a peacock, her voice soft, with just a hint of an alluring, sibilant, hiss. “Actually, I was hoping that if we spent a little time together, you might realize that we really don’t need to be enemies.”

Huntress just laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Huntress’s hatred for the villain was so thick she almost choked on it as she spat out her words. The idea that they could be anything but mortal enemies was absurd.

“Now, now,” The Cobra chided. She was within arm’s reach, and Huntress hated that she couldn’t reach out and strike her. The hero redoubled her efforts to break the metal coils around her body. “You never know. I might just turn out to be your type.”

Humor could only stretch so far. “Listen here,” Huntress growled. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you do. No matter what, I will never, ever- mph!”

For the second time in as many minutes, the superhero found herself taken off-guard - this time, as The Cobra lunged forward and pressed their lips together in a kiss.

Huntress was no stranger to kissing women, but kissing a supervillain like The Cobra filled her with nothing but disgust. Moreover, she was entirely unprepared for the sensation of something long, slick, nimble, and foreign forcing itself into her mouth from The Cobra’s, exploring her mouth, dominating the kiss, and even beginning to push its way into her throat. Disturbed, Huntress tried to pull back, but with her limbs bound, there was no escape.

She was far more disturbed when, moments later, her body started to tingle and weaken, and a kind of strange, warm pleasure began to radiate from her lips.

“My, my,” The Cobra sang, as she finally drew back. “You taste good, Huntress.”

Her vision blurring, Huntress looked at her, and saw the foot-long, forked, tongue protruding from The Cobra’s mouth.

After a moment, her mind caught up with itself and she realized what had happened. This was The Cobra’s superpower, and the reason for her moniker. She had a very long serpent’s tongue, coated with a kind of supernatural venom that weakened the minds of those it came into contact with, drowning them in euphoric bliss and fostering a twisted sense of loyalty to the supervillain. It was the source of all her power: despite her lack of physical prowess, The Cobra could enact all her villainous schemes by using her tongue to turn people into kiss-drunk minions who would do anything to please her; she’d brainwashed civilians, government figures, corporate leaders - and even, at times, superheroes.

But not Huntress. Never Huntress.

“Your tricks will never work on me,” Huntress snarled. “I’m not like your other victims. I’m stronger than you.”

The boast came easy. It wasn’t a mere bluff. Beyond her superhuman strength and unmatched hunting skills, Huntress harbored another talent: her indomitable willpower. It was what had attracted the attention of her goddess in the first place: even as a mere mortal vigilante, Huntress had refused to let anyone or anything dim her spirit or distract her from her purpose.

Huntress was sure of it. Resisting The Cobra was a matter of willpower. And in a battle of wills, what chance did a mortal have against the divine avatar of an invincible goddess?

“Oh? Are you sure it won’t work?” The Cobra flashed her a smug smile. “Are you sure it isn’t already?”

“Of course I… I…”

Huntress grasped at her hatred like a blade, hoping to let it cut her, hoping to let its sting keep her sharp and clear-headed. Her voice faltered when she found that, to her surprise, her hate was dull. It was still there, certainly. All the reasons she should and did hate The Cobra remained perfectly easy to grasp. But it didn’t burn the way it had just moments ago. It didn’t inspire the same kind of biting rage. Her hate felt somehow distant; numb, like she was under anesthetic.

Huntress’s confidence suffered a hair fracture.

And the malevolent grin on The Cobra’s face grew wider still.

“R-ridiculous,” Huntress snarled. “You’re a fool if you think I can be beaten so easily.”

“I suppose we’ll find out.” The Cobra sauntered across the room and grabbed over another swivel chair, just like the one her double was seated in. After positioning it behind Huntress, she gave the superhero a swift shove. With her limbs bound, Huntress was unable to keep her balance and collapsed into the chair. “But you don’t look as confident as you did a few moments ago.”

Huntress was glad to find she still had enough hate to glower up at the villain. “You’ll pay for this. For everything. Very, very soon.”

She could feel the metal cables wrapped around her body beginning to stretch and distend from her efforts. They had to be just minutes from snapping.

“And then the big, bad Huntress gets me?” The Cobra mocked. She perched herself down delicately in Huntress’s lap; the weight was barely perceptible, but the frustration had Huntress growling. “You should remember something, darling. Cobras are hunters too.”

Huntress laughed in her face. Just a few minutes. “Let me tell you who I am. I am a hero. I am the divine avatar of Diana. I have been blessed with powers you cannot possibly comprehend. I have defeated foes the size of skyscrapers. I have defended our world from demonic entities and alien threats. I am Huntress, and I- stop, s-stop!”

As she delivered her monologue, voice booming, conviction in her belly, Cobra let her long, forked, dripping tongue drool out of her mouth again - and then drew it up the side of Huntress’s face in a long lick.

“What are you doing?” Huntress spat. She squirmed, trying to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. “That’s disgust… ing…?”

Cobra’s tongue came away with a wet smack, leaving the side of Huntress’s face coated with her thick, venomous saliva. This time, as it seeped into the superhero’s pores, she could feel it happening: the strange, pleasurable tingle that made her spine shiver in unwanted anticipation. The creeping, inexplicable euphoria that clouded her mind and stole the edge from her rage. Even with all her will and resolve brought to bear, Huntress couldn’t keep it from affecting her.

“Disgusting…” Huntress repeated, but she couldn’t fill the word with any force. The Cobra noticed at once.

“Wow,” she teased. “The almighty Huntress, weak to a little kiss. Who would have thought?”

“I’m nnnot.” The word came out slurred; Huntress tried again, but it didn’t help. “I’m… nnnnottt…”

The Cobra giggled maliciously. “Then what are you so afraid of?”

She licked her lips, and went in for another kiss, nice and slow this time, in a parody of romance. Huntress turned her head this way and that, trying to avoid the kiss, but her movements were already turning sluggish - and besides, The Cobra was on top of her. The villain pressed her lips against the hero’s, and with them coated in her venom, even that chaste peck was another to make The Huntress flush and heave with supernatural bliss.

“You know, maybe you’re not such a good kisser after all,” The Cobra remarked, kicking her legs against Huntress. “A little… limp. But maybe that’s what I should have expected, from the chosen of the maiden goddess.”

The sudden arrogance in the supervillain’s voice was like a red rag to a bull. Huntress tried to glare up at her, to prove her defiance with the fire in her eyes, but when she looked at The Cobra, she couldn’t help softening. Her vision was becoming hazy, and through the fog, The Cobra seemed strangely, undeniably beautiful.

"You…” Huntress gasped, suddenly full of awe. “What are… you…”

“Perhaps I just need to get you warmed up,” The Cobra mused, ignoring her. “Here.”

She leaned in for another kiss. Huntress was so dazed, only at the last moment did she realize the danger she was in. She jerked her head back, but The Cobra’s kiss still landed, just beneath her mouth. The supervillain kissed Huntress again, then again, then again, over and over, trailing kisses along her skin, before finally finding her lips and once again pushing her elongated tongue into Huntress’s mouth.

Huntress couldn’t help it. She let out a soft, faint, but undeniable moan.

“There we are,” The Cobra said, her voice a twisted mockery of affection. “Isn’t that better?”

Her victim was too addled to reply. Huntress was seeing white. She struggled to grasp what had just happened to her. Faster than she had ever believed possible, her formidable will had started to give way and sink into quicksand. Each kiss made her weaker, more susceptible. Her face was burning with flustered pleasure, and it radiated out, filling her body. It was getting harder and harder to think clearly.

“My goodness,” The Cobra cooed. “I have to be honest: it’s quite the power trip, having a literal demigod quaking and shivering under my every… little… touch.”

She punctuated those three words with yet more kisses across Huntress’s cheek. The superhero moaned again. What was happening to her? She’d never felt like this before. So warm. So soft. So palpably malleable and weak.

It was wrong. She needed to fight it. Huntress just needed to keep that thought straight in her head.

“I’m… nnnot…” she slurred, despite how absurd the denial was. “I’m… gonna… get out of here… punish you!”

“You are?” The Cobra mocked. “That’s funny. But you’re not even trying to escape anymore.”

After a few moments of dumbfounded blinking, Huntress realized that the supervillain was right. Somewhere along the way, she had stopped straining against the metal cables binding her, succumbing to the warm, relaxing feeling The Cobra’s tongue offered.

Huntress blushed shamefully, and tried to start struggling again. But she found that her limbs had turned to heavy, iron bars and her muscles to sludge; try as she might, she couldn’t seem to apply much pressure to the cables. After just a few seconds, her strength failed her. The Cobra laughed as she watched Huntress slump, defeated.

“What was that you were saying?” she crowed. “You’re a hero? A divine avatar? Blessed with powers I couldn’t comprehend? To me, you look like nothing more than another one of my mewling little pets.”

Huntress thought back to The Cobra’s double, still sitting in the chair a short distance from them. She thought about the look of utter, mindless bliss that had been on the woman’s face. Was that what was going to happen to her? A fearful shiver raced down her spine.

She wanted to deny the very possibility. But hadn’t The Cobra already proven her wrong? Huntress’s sense of self-assurance was collapsing beneath her feet.

“And in a few more minutes, that’s exactly what you’ll be,” The Cobra went on. “Another brainwashed slut, addicted to me, doing anything I please just for one more kiss - even helping to bring those precious teammates of yours into the fold.”

That particular jab bit deep with Huntress - but struck iron. The superhero frowned, a fresh surge of anger lending her much-needed strength.

Defeat was one thing. Betrayal was another. Huntress had never once betrayed the principles by which she lived and fought. And she never would, not for anything. Certainly not for the hated supervillain currently perched in her lap.

Yes. Yes, she hated The Cobra. That was right, wasn’t it?

“I… will… never…” Huntress said thickly and slowly, enunciating each word clearly in turn, “do… your… will. Never. With… with all that I have… with all that I am… I’ll keep fighting. To the bitter end.”

She meant it. Every word. Even The Cobra seemed impressed. She cocked an eyebrow and whistled.

“Not bad,” she acknowledged. “But you still just don’t get it, do you? Watch.”

Huntress was braced for The Cobra to kiss her again, but she didn’t. Instead, the supervillain simply opened her mouth and let her serpent’s tongue hang lazily out of her mouth, slowly extending to its full length. That was all. The tips of her tongue’s forks twitched occasionally, tasting the air, and venom-impregnated drool formed thick, looping ropes beneath the supernatural organ.

Against all her wishes, Huntress moaned.

This time, it wasn’t her body, but her memory that betrayed her. Just the sight of The Cobra’s tongue held power over Huntress. It reminded her of everything that tongue could do, and made her throb with longing as memories of that warm, wonderful pleasure washed over her. Already, Huntress could feel her precious willpower once again starting to drain away.

“You see,” The Cobra cooed, her voice poisonously soft. “Don’t you want this?”

Huntress couldn’t help but let out a whiny, plaintive sigh as she realized that she did. That was followed immediately by a deep sense of shame. She shouldn’t want it. It was wrong. It was obscene. Huntress was a hero. She should be above such temptations.

Yet her body yearned for it. She knew, she just knew, that as soon as The Cobra’s tongue touched her skin, the sweet nectar of her venom would wipe away all of those shameful feelings.

“You do,” The Cobra pressed. “Don’t you?”

Huntress managed to shake her head, but the words wouldn’t rise to her lips. Every nerve ending in her body was screaming something else.

“I think you do,” The Cobra whispered to her. “And I think you’ll let me kiss you.”

She started to lean in for another kiss, this time moving tortuously slowly, giving Huntress all the time in the world to jerk her head out of the way. But she didn’t. Huntress couldn’t move. She was paralyzed by her conflicted desires. The superhero opened her mouth, hoping to protest, but the words still wouldn’t come, and her lips remained slightly parted and turned upwards, towards The Cobra’s approaching mouth.

Without resisting or even saying a word, Huntress let The Cobra kiss her. For just a moment, she hated how good it felt. Then, the oncoming pleasure obliterated even that.

Huntress couldn’t help it. As The Cobra forced her tongue into her mouth, she started leaning into the kiss. Embracing it. Kissing back with stupefied passion. It was impossible to do anything else when it felt so good. Every concern about her morals and principles, about the situation, about The Cobra’s schemes - all of them paled in comparison. The kind of euphoria The Cobra’s power inflicted allowed no room for doubts. As they kissed - as The Cobra started fucking Huntress’s throat with her tongue - Huntress was on cloud nine, and The Cobra herself was the object of all her newfound joy.

When The Cobra broke the kiss, Huntress whined. She wanted more.

“There we go,” the supervillain cooed. “That’s a nice dose. Isn’t that better?”

Huntress just nodded dumbly.

“Good.” The Cobra extended her tongue towards Huntress and licked her again. Huntress shivered in eager rapture. “See? Maybe we can get along after all.”

Again, Huntress nodded. That sounded good. She wanted to get along with The Cobra. Why wouldn’t she? The Cobra made her feel so good.

There was something else in her head. A different feeling that she felt towards The Cobra. Something spiky and bitter. Then, it slipped out of view.

“Excellent,” The Cobra told her, evidently pleased. “That’s my good little hunter.”

Huntress’s reward was another kiss. She accepted it eagerly. Each one felt better than the last. She looked up at The Cobra adoringly, panting for breath, a vacant, stupid smile spread across her saliva-slick face.

“Hey,” Cobra said. “Why don’t you tell me your name? Your real name, I mean.”

Alarm bells sounded in Huntress’s head. She had always kept her real name a secret. Allowing it to become public knowledge meant endangering all those who were close to her. She couldn’t.

And yet now, all those alarm bells were so far away, she could barely hear them.

“Susanna,” Huntress told the villain dreamily. “Susanna Callisto.”

“Susanna Callisto,” The Cobra echoed. “Incredible. But you know,” she added teasingly, “if we’re going to keep getting along, I’m going to need you to do some things for me.”

That gave Huntress pause. The Cobra’s phrasing was undeniably menacing. It made her cautious.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” The Cobra promised. Her face was twisted into an impossibly gleeful smirk. “I just want to get to know some of your friends, the same way I’m getting to know you. You can help me with that, can’t you?”

Huntress’s friends. It took her a long moment to understand what that was referring to. Superheroes. Superheroes like her. Didn’t being a superhero mean something important? She thought about what would happen if she brought them here, and let The Cobra work her tongue into their minds. It just seemed wrong, somehow, even if she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“I… can’t,” Huntress replied, more than a little apologetically.

In that moment, the reluctance was real. She longed to give The Cobra what she was asking for. But this was the final kernel of her willpower, buried so deep it had still yet to be touched by The Cobra’s venom. Even if she sacrificed all of her dignity, she couldn’t sacrifice this.

“You can’t?” The Cobra seemed surprised, even impressed, by any resistance even at this stage. “How amusing. Why don’t you let me change your mind?”

Huntress let out a groan, but there was nothing she could do as The Cobra started kissing her again. The kisses came fast and furious; passionate, almost, from the supervillain’s eagerness to overwhelm what remained of Huntress’s will. She kissed Huntress again and again, each one deeper and more dominant than the last, making the defeated superhero gag on her tongue and gasp desperately for each breath before the next kiss came.

“Are you sure?” The Cobra whispered to her, between kisses. “All you need to do is bring them to me.”

“C-can’t…” Huntress moaned, more out of instinct than true comprehension. “Can’t….”

It was getting harder and harder to refuse her captor. The more The Cobra kissed her, the more Huntress’s pleasure was starting to congeal into something else: into an instinctive, servile sense of obedience directed towards the supervillain. Disobeying was growing steadily harder and harder to conceive of.

It was simple. Pavlovian. Huntress had become a slave to her own pleasure, and the pleasure told her to listen to The Cobra.

“Bring them here,” The Cobra urged. “Whoever I ask you to. Tell them whatever lies I feed to you. Use that strength of yours to keep them nice and still for me.”

“Noo,” Huntress moaned, though she could already feel her will to resist fading. “Nooooo.”

The Cobra touched one of her fingertips to Huntress’s chin and used it to guide her, making the super stretch upward, begging with her body for yet another brainwashing kiss.

“Yes,” The Cobra said firmly. Compared to Huntress, she sounded so strong. So sure. It was impossible not to believe her. “You’re going to be my ultimate weapon, Huntress. You’ll subdue all those other heroes for me. You’ll bring them right to my bosom.”

“Nnn… mmrfff.” Huntress’s attempt to refuse collapsed into more moaning when Cobra extended her tongue along the side of her face, coating it in slick, wet, mind-warping saliva.

“Anyone who threatens me,” The Cobra insisted. “Anyone who opposes me. You’ll stop them. You’ll help me claim them. You’ll work to make them mine.”

Huntress thrashed and spasmed as pleasure tore through her. Her back arched. It was so easy to see herself doing it, and so very hard to disobey. She craved it now. Everything The Cobra was describing. She was about to break, and both of them knew it.

“Obey me,” The Cobra hissed. “Kiss me, and obey.”

As one final, desperate gambit, Huntress’s overtaxed mind seized upon the words that she’d used many times in moments of true hopelessness: a prayer, a plea, delivered up to the one who had made her what she was.

“D-Diana… s-save me!”

And, by a true miracle, the goddess did.

The Cobra was thrown out of Huntress’s lap and across the room by a sudden thunderclap. She shot to her feet, but found herself blinded by impossible, silver light. It was as if the moon itself had been made manifest inside her lair, but when the light dimmed and her eyes adjusted, she found herself looking not at a celestial body, but at a woman.

Not, not a woman. Diana, Goddess of the Hunt.

There was no mistaking her. In stature and beauty, she was even greater than Huntress, and her body still shone with a halo of moonlight. There was a great resemblance between Diana and her champion, The Cobra noted, although the goddess had the ageless quality of an immortal, and her hair was brilliant silver instead of platinum blonde. She did not have a weapon, but she clearly didn’t need one, either; her gaze spoke of immeasurable power and righteous wrath - and all of it was directed straight at The Cobra.

“Who dares defile my champion?” the goddess spoke, in a voice that made the heavens quake.

Every little hair on The Cobra’s body stood on end. She turned her head left and right, desperately looking for something, anything, that might save her. There was nothing, of course. This was a goddess. What did she have? A long tongue?

“I see,” Diana pronounced, even though The Cobra hadn’t spoken. “Your heart is black. I will deal with you in a moment. But first…”

She turned to Huntress, sitting slumped in the chair, still bound. Diana touched just one fingertip to the metal cables wrapped around the hero’s body, and they dissolved into nothing more than fading sparks.

“Be free,” Diana said to Huntress affectionately. “I have no doubt you will recover, in time. Your firm will has always been your greatest blessing.” She rounded on The Cobra. “Which is why I cannot forgive that you would tarnish it.”

The Cobra started backing away. Dread overwhelmed her. She was still thinking furiously, but she couldn’t come up with any plan or ploy that could help her. The sheer unfairness of the situation was almost comical. She was barely a supervillain, and this was a goddess in the flesh. A petty little trick like using a double wasn’t going to cut it.

There had to be something. There had to be. But what? Her venom was the only asset she had, but even that seemed like a stretch.

“Damn it,” The Cobra hissed to herself. “If I could just hold her still for a moment…”

It turned out, Huntress wasn’t the only one who could have her prayers answered.

And Huntress herself was the one who answered them. The superhero abruptly rose to her feet, seemingly shaking off whatever dim-witted pleasure-trance she’d sunk into. Diana noted her sudden recovery with nothing more than a pleased smile, and kept all her attention on The Cobra.

Until Huntress grabbed her goddess’s limbs and used all of her divine-given strength to pin them to her sides.

“What?” Diana exclaimed, confused. “My champion, what are you doing?”

But The Cobra knew. She could see it in Huntress’s eyes: the telltale, glassy glint of adoration and eagerness that marked those who had tasted too much of The Cobra’s venom.

Slowly, a grin started to creep back onto The Cobra’s face.

“Release me!” Diana bellowed. “My huntress, you must resist this witchcraft!”

The Cobra was already moving towards her by the time Diana started to struggle in earnest. It was immediately clear that Huntress couldn’t hold her for long. A demigod was no match for a goddess. But The Cobra’s commands had taken root deep in her mind, and the brainwashed superhero was every bit of her strength to keep Diana restrained for long enough for The Cobra to reach her.

The supervillain had no idea if her power would work. Her heart skipped a beat as she stretched up on tiptoes and kissed the goddess of the hunt.

The Cobra kissed her the same way she kissed all her victims: long and deep, pushing her tongue into her mouth to make her feel her presence and drink in as much of her venom as possible. She wasn’t sure what to expect from kissing Diana; fierce resistance wouldn’t have surprised her, nor, amusingly, would have prodigious skill.

What she hadn’t expected was for Diana to all but go limp immediately, after just a few clumsy, sophomoric attempts to dominate the kiss.

That gave The Cobra a little optimism. But she still didn’t dare to hope as she pulled back and inspected the formidable goddess towering above her.

Not until she saw the dull, dreamy, blissed-out look beginning to dawn on Diana’s face.

“Oh my god,” The Cobra breathed. “It… it worked.”

The goddess came over flushed, and it was clear that her struggles were weakening. Her eyes flitted back and forth in confusion.

“What…” Diana breathed. The Cobra couldn’t believe she was seeing a goddess look dizzy. “You… mortal… what did you do to me?”

The Cobra couldn’t help it. She started laughing. It came slow, building and building, until it came out as a manic howl that filled the room.

“Oh my god!” The Cobra cackled. “I can’t believe it - although maybe it’s exactly what I should have expected from the so-called maiden goddess. Not a lot of experience with kissing, huh?”

“I… don’t…” Diana bleated. She looked so lost all of a sudden, but The Cobra didn’t miss the hint of eagerness in her parted lips.

“Huntress,” The Cobra instructed, “why don’t you help our pretty little goddess take a seat?”

“Yes, Cobra.”

Huntress’s eyes shone hopefully at the mere prospect of getting to obey her new owner’s instructions. She guided Diana over to the chair she’d just been sitting in. The goddess didn’t struggle. Pathetically weak to The Cobra’s kisses, she was already beyond that.

“It’s OK that you don’t have much experience,” The Cobra hissed, as she poured herself into Diana’s lap and let her tongue drool out of her mouth once more. “I like girls that way, sometimes. And I’ll be more than happy to… educate you. Then, we can see what I can do to the world with a goddess in tow.”

She started kissing Diana again, and the supervillain’s lair filled with wet, smacking passionate sounds as she began to brainwash the goddess into nothing more than an obedient, pleasure-drunk thrall - just like her champion.

—

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[eggroll-sama]

Giorno Giovanna: The Agentic Protagonist

What is your opinion of Giorno Giovanna? Some say that he is a boring protagonist, others say he’s an inspiration, and his perfection was Araki depicting him as Christ-like figure. Others think he’s cold and ruthless, and then there are the multiple fanon personalities.

I perceive Giorno as a multi-faceted character that is often mis-interpreted by the fandom due to his Agentic nature. The idea of Agentic and Affiliative is explored in the book, Molecule of More, by Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long. Within the book they talk how Dopamine affects dominance within social settings and shaping our relationships with others. For the sake of this essay, I will only be speaking of simplified terms of Agentic and Affiliative cognition.

But first, we need to go over....

What is Agentic and Affiliative Relationships?

Agentic relationships are formed for the “sole purpose of accomplishing a goal…typically resulting in mutual gain” (p 75).

What relationship within Part 5 is an Agentic relationship? The main one is Giorno and Bucciarati’s. As much as the fandom likes to write them as friends or with a family dynamic, they are more like business partners, mutually gaining something within the relationship: Giorno wanted to become the Boss of Passione and Bucciarati wanted to end the drug trade. Giorno and Bucciarati's relationship is purely Agentic, and most dynamics that Giorno has in the story is Agentic because he has no pre-established relationship with the other characters.

In a character exploratory stand-point, this works as a dis-advantage for Giorno because we rarely seem him in an Affiliative relationship, which is a relationship based for the “sole purpose of enjoying social interactions” (p 76).

In Part 5, we see characters that have mix of Affiliative and Agentic relationships. For example, there is Mista and Narancia’s relationship; the two of them are close friends and are also teammates. "Most relationships [IRL] have both agentic and affiliative elements." Because Giorno is a newbie and needs to gain each member's trust there is a restriction of him represented in an Affiliative relationship, taking away any relatability points. Giorno also shows a preference for agentic relationships because of his goal-oriented, calculating nature. So as much as a Affiliative relationship would have elevated Giorno's character writing, it wouldn't have made sense. Araki probably realized that this is a disadvantage, so when he wrote Jojolands he made sure Jodio was already in a team with pre-established relationships.

What are the personality types of these relationship preferences?

Every person is different and people have preferences in the way they want to operate, be it agentic, affiliative, both, or neither. According to the book, "Agentic people tend to be cool and distant," while Affiliative people are "affectionate and warm...social, and turn to others for support." People that have both agentic and affiliative traits are amazing leaders, while people with neither are viewed as "aloof and isolated." If you lack agentic traits you are viewed as an "friendly, accessible follower," but if you lack affiliative traits you are seen as "cold and uncaring" and dominant (pg 76). Remember when Giorno drank piss to assert dominance? Very agentic.

You can categorize a number of characters in Part Five within the spectrum:

Affiliative: Mista, Narancia, Formaggio, Pesci, Doppio

Agentic: Giorno, Abbacchio, Risotto, Prosciutto, Diavolo, Cioccolatta

Both: Bucciarati, Polnareff

Neither: Carne, Ghiaccio (lowkey), Secco (Affiliative w/ Ciocco)

This is a rough idea on how these characters could be categorized.

Observing Giorno, he is definitely Agentic; goal-oriented, ambitious, self-directed, etc. He possesses slight affiliative elements which comes in the form of his charm, but mostly shows preference to agentic throughout the story.

You can see how Giorno's agentic nature shapes his relationships. For example, Mista's Affiliative traits are why Giorno and him have such great chemistry. They are able to affectively balance each other out, one able to manifest communication and support, while the other is intuitive, proactive, and self-reflective, serving as an anchor and motivator for the former. I think that's why Mista and Giorno is perceived as a more iconic duo than Bruno and Giorno, even though Bruno is the canonical JoBro of Golden Wind (still love him tho)

How does Giorno's Agentic traits influence our perception of him?

There are some who perceive Giorno as cruel because his motivations were the reason why half of the team were killed. Even in the light novel, Purple Haze Feedback, there are moments where Mista expresses resentment towards Giorno. It leaves audiences wondering that if Giorno didn't put his dream above the lives of others, than maybe they would've survived...

This idea of an Agentic person of being associated with "cruelty" is common. In reality, agentic relationships can "easily become exploitative" because it's purpose is to "dominate one's environment" and "extract as much resources as possible." For example, a scientist enrolling participants in an experiment without telling them the risk, or a manager exploiting an employee for their hard work, *cough cough* Cioccolata and Diavolo *cough cough* (p 76).

What sets Giorno apart from Cioccolata and Diavolo is that his agentic nature is also what "humanizes" him.

I said previously that Giorno operates in mostly Agentic relationships throughout the story and how a lack of affiliative relationships is a disadvantage for his character exploration. However, the Agentic relationships themselves isn't the problem.

In these agentic relationships, Giorno learns from the other members, like how he valued Abbacchio's self sacrifice in the Man in the Mirror fight. He says to Fugo, "If it wasn't for Abbachio risking his life and carrying the key, then [they] wouldn't have been able to defeat the enemy." In the White Album fight, Giorno learns from Mista's optimism, scrapping his previous self-sacrificial ideas, and was able to find the meaning of "true resolve."

We get physical proof that Giorno valued them when we see a tribute for Abacchio, Bucciarati, and Narancia.

A quote from the book that perfectly captures Giorno, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet:

"Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him"

So yes, Giorno’s action did get half of Team Bucci killed, but I wouldn’t say he’s evil and that he was using them as tool for his goals. He saw value and cared for the team and was actively against self-centered people like Diavolo and Cioccolata. Those two couldn’t give two shits about the people they’ve fucked over, be it Diavolo and how his drug trade ruined many lives or Cioccolata and torturing his patients. Saying Giorno as cold and calculating is saying he’s the same as those two and we all KNOW HE ISNT THAT.

In Jojo's where there are several entertaining characters, Giorno may come off as too passive and even feel like a background character in his own story. However, Giorno is simply a character with predominantly agentic traits, his social interactions unable to be fully explored due to the fast-paced, action-packed nature of Part Five.

❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。

If you read this far, congratulations. Here is the third slice of strawberry short cake 🍰.

[briefhottubcoffee]

Hello! I figured it was time to make a master-post of all my writings and such. Thank you to all my new followers! I am always available if you'd like to talk spyxfamily theories, headcanons, fic ideas, etc., or if you'd just like someone to chat with. I am honored to be a small part of this amazing and talented fandom! I made a personal goal to write and gain confidence with it, and to make some fandom friends. So thank you for making this an enjoyable journey so far! 💛💐

My Fics:

~ For you, I can't contain my love: an ongoing multi-chapter fic centered on Loid and Yor going at it in semi-public places. I'm having a ton of fun writing it, and I keep thinking of random places they should bang at. 😅There's four chapters so far! Updated sporadically. Obviously NSFW.

~ And I am lost in the icy stillness: my lamest title. But it's a smutty fic about Loid and Yor post-retirement, enjoying a secluded getaway in a wintery cabin in the mountains. Lots of established sexiness. NSFW.

~ If I kiss you now, will I come undone?: my version of events that take place after chapter 79. The one where Yor comes home drunk and tries to get a welcome home kiss.

~ Those who can't love: Rated M. I think about Loid and Yor and their complicated feelings as they fall in love about, oh I'd say.. 500 times a day. So I wrote a fic about it!

~ Warm in their arms: a while ago I was sick in the hospital and a very kind person made this artwork to cheer me up. This fic tells that story, poor Anya is sick and needs her parents love and comfort.

~ Exposure: a short one-shot of Loid confessing to Yor after they find out each others secrets. It's probably my favorite fic I've written so far. Loid is very vulnerable here, and I love making my sweet boy a sensitive cry baby over his wife. 😇

~ Help me, I'm in love: I had so much fun writing this fic about Franky asking for dating advice from the Forgers. Yup! Loid, Yor, and Anya give out dating tips.

~ I'm a wallflower, watching you be: this fic is literally just Yor and Loid watching the other get ready for the day and being horny about it. I was inspired by a great fanart reminding us of Yor's affinity for sharp objects.

~ Pining: a short drabble (under 500 words) about Loid pining for Yor. And I mean PINING. Again, I love when Loid goes through it because of his wife.

~ The in-between: another short and sweet fic about how much Yor loves laying around with her husband and listening to him talk. So sweet I'm gonna barf.

~ Refrigerator Magnets: my very first fanfic ever was a silly story about Anya and Loid finding animal magnets and the family adventures linked to what they tack on the fridge.

My Meta Posts:

~ Twilight/Loid Forger should declare his love first. Because he’s a hopeless romantic!

~ I really really cant stop talking about how I think the Twiyor relationship should play out.

~ A little story about Anya and Becky taking dance classes and getting Loid's help for a recital.

~ Yor is obviously stinking rich, thanks to her assassin job.

~ My theory on the twiyor kiss agenda in the manga.

~ The manga shows us Anya's comfort level with Loid and Yor as her parents and I love it.

~ Endo hints about Project Apple in the manga, and I often wonder what that may mean.

~ "Agent Twilight is a hopeless romantic!!!" I shout from the rooftops as I reflect on a moment in the series that hints at his growing feelings for Yor.

~ Anya's stickers!

~ Here I point out all the sweet smiles Twilight saves just for his family.

~ My thoughts on the possibilities of a twiyor kiss.

~ There are a lot of loose ends and possible story hints that may tell us how the spyxfamily story is going to go.

~ My rambling feelings about Anya and her secret.

~ Twilight is the most hopeless of hopeless romantics! He loves love but never thought he would experience it for himself. But he's falling for his family. I can prove it!

~ I love Becky Blackbell! She is so supportive of Anya, and I love their friendship.

~ This isn't anything special, but I feel like it's right to end this on my thirst for Loidy-boy and the iconic shower scene.

If you've made it so far, thank you again for being here! I hope you and I can experience the best parts of our lovely spy family and their fandom for years to come!

[smirkingkitten]

Reading list November 2023

It's December and that doesn't just mean the Christmas season starts and it's the time for cozy evenings with candles, blankets and a hot chocolate, but also: it's time for another reading list.

It feels like it's been so long since Loki graced us with a new episode every week. I'm still not quite over the ending, although this interview did heal my poor heart a little, if only just a bit. I hope you're coping well with the ending. And now, happy reading.

✨And don't forget to reblog the storys you read to support all these lovely writers.✨

My other Reading lists can be found in my Fanfiction Bookshelf.

Series | Collections | Multi Parts

The Redbridge Hunts @fanficshiddles

8 Chapters (on going) | Vampire!Loki | fluff

prev. | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8

Summary: Claire moves to Demsdale to take up a new job as an assistant teacher for one Loki Laufeyson. She's also very intrigued with all of the rumours within the borough of Redbridge. However, as she starts to fall for Loki's charm and good looks, she also learns that all of the rumours might not just be rumours after all.

Double Cross @gigglingtiggerv2

12 chapters (on going) | Jaguar Villain!Tom | dark, smut

Summary: In Dante’s inferno, the Eighth Circle of Hell was reserved for liars, panderers, thieves and murderers.  For the criminal underworld it is an opulent London club, representing neutral territory where deals can be made, grievances aired and scores settled.

For the owner, Thomas Cross, it is his own private kingdom, one where he makes the rules and wields absolute authority. Recently, however, that authority has come under threat.  In order to maintain his standing and the Club’s ruthless reputation, it is imperative he find the perpetrator.

In this violent place, where lies are currency and everyone has their own agenda, who can he trust? Certainly not Verity Williams, the talented thief who has her own reasons for infiltrating his organisation. 

Neither can deny the sparks that fly whenever they’re together, but if he’s not careful, will those sparks burn down everything he’s created?

Déchiré @ijuststareatstuffhereok89

7 chapters (on going) | Loki, Bucky, Captain America | smut

You are a HYDRA agent sent to infiltrate the notorious Avengers, to tear them apart in the worst way possible in order to make them vulnerable to attack. In the midst of the wild heat you generate, three suitors take your bait.

One Shots

Firestarter @delaber

4,2k | AvengersMovie!Loki | smut, hatefucking

Rule Number One @just-the-hiddles

medium | Jonathan Pine | smut, dom/sub, daddy, spanking

Gorgeous @ghostofskywalker

1,2k | Avenger!Loki | fluff

Heavy Petting @wheredafandomat

800 | Loki | smut

I gave your girlfriend cunnilingus on my couch @wheredafandomat

short | Loki | smut, oral (f reserving)

Aftercare @sarahscribbles

680 | Loki | fluff, spicy

If I was your best friend @wheredafandomat

medium | Loki | smut

Worshiped by a God @sarahscribbles

1,1k | Loki | fluff, smut

Best of Friends @just-the-hiddles

long | Actor!Tom Hiddleston | fluff, friends to lovers

Duty of Care @muddyorbsblr

1,9k | Jonathan Pine | smut, fluff

Winter Warmers: A Winters Night on Asgard @lokischambermaid

930 | Asgard!Loki | fluff

The Sandwich Incident @holdmytesseract

1,2k | Tom Hiddleston | fluff, humour

My Girl @lokisgoodgirl

1,8k | Avenger!Loki | smut, man-bun

Lactation @viviluvssmut

1k | Loki | smut, oral (f reserving)

Drabbles

Don't Move, Darling @sarahscribbles

1,1k | Loki | smut, teasing, edging

Time slipping @wheredafandomat

600 | TVA Loki | smut, hurt/comfort

praise kink, gagging, hickies @ragnarachael

short | Jonathan Pine | smut, daddy kink

Headcanons

Loki and the Watcher @benevolentgodloki

✨Happy reading 😊✨

Back to my Fanfiction Bookshelf

Many of the fanfictions are 18+, so if you're under 18, don't read them.

[roseganymede95]

hey! I was just kind of wondering why 'Closed Telemark' isn't part of the codependency world cup series? It seems to be in the same continuity but it's kept separate - is there a reason for that? it's currently one of my emotional support tabs, as is the series page, so I keep wondering lol

Honestly it’s just hanging out on its own because I thought it was intimidating for all of my works to be tied up in the same series. The multi-chapter fics go in the series, but the one shots are free agents. They do keep continuity with the others, but they should stand alone as well.

I’m gonna have to think about how I structure things when I get going with the post-canon longfic, though, so who knows. Maybe I’ll stick it into the main series anyway.

[hoursofreading]

In a segment preceding their conversation, the host carefully defends her decision with welcoming Kamala Harris on her show. With an awareness of her mixed audience when it comes to political affiliations, Cooper reassures that the goal with the interview isn’t to influence or to lure people to the left. She recognizes that she doesn’t usually discuss politics and preemptively suggests that she wants Call Her Daddy to be considered as a place where everyone feels comfortable tuning in.

That very last statement signals something to me.

Believing that as a host of a sex-positive podcast, the platform that you’ve spent years building and the experiences you’ve shared online are apolitical signals something. And as a member of the Daddy Gang, perceiving a young woman speaking candidly about sex as apolitical, say it with me now, signals something.

Those beliefs, seemingly shared amongst Cooper and her membership, inherently point to a fear of politics, which is addressed by Michaele L. Ferguson in Choice Feminism and the Fear of Politics. Ferguson introduces choice feminism as a soothing agent to three principal critiques of feminism: feminism as too radical, feminism as exclusionary, and feminism as judgmental. Therefore, choice feminism seeks to embody a nonthreatening approach and becomes a “capacious movement that welcomes all supporters —however discordant their views — while demanding on the thinnest of political commitment.” Cooper’s expressed desire for her platform to welcome all, while engaging in discourse about agency and autonomy, which are political and yet, hoping to maintain apoliticism exemplifies the host’s fear of politics.

It baffles me that Alex Cooper hasn’t considered her platform to be political, knowing that sex, agency, autonomy and womanhood do not exist in a vacuum. They are lived personally, but additionally, politically. When societal and political discourse around women’s bodies focus on men’s entitlement to women and their wombs (I bring your attention to the following headlines: JD Vance Agrees “the Postmenopausal Female” Exists to Raise Grandchildren, Andrew Tate wanted to turn women into slaves, Romanian prosecutors allege, and finally, Gisèle Pelicot's husband is accused of inviting men to rape her. She wants you to know her name), it expeditiously becomes political. When, as a podcast host of an enormous audience, benefitting from multi-million dollar deals, you engage in conversations about sex, abortion, health care and relational dynamics to men in dating and through sexual intercourses, this is at the very least political. Hence, this reluctance for being perceived as political as Kamala Harris sits across from you is at the very least ironic.

Cooper does not want for her audience to feel like she is challenging them. However, speaking about womanhood requires challenges and bringing forth the idea of women as autonomous, in terms of their reproduction, their finances and their sexuality, as both Harris and Cooper did on the podcast, in today’s world is still a matter of political resistance. When confronting choice feminism, Ferguson offers these thoughts that echo my concerns with Cooper: “Yet judgment, exclusion, and calls for change are unavoidable parts of politics. What is ultimately being expressed in a choice feminist position is a fantasy of a world without politics: a world in which we are never called upon to defend our views to those who disagree, in which we never offend anyone because we tolerate everyone, and in which we do not attempt as a collectivity to bring about structural changes. This is a vision of a world in which we all get along not because we agree, but because we studiously avoid conflict. What good is a political consciousness if we are afraid to use it?”

[ashleywool]

"I LOVED THAT SHOW"

I wore my How to Dance in Ohio hoodie to church today. It's Palm Sunday and we did our customary palm procession from Duffy Square into the building, which is nice and all except winter decided to come back and bite my skin off again...so that sweatshirt seemed like the best choice as warm enough for the weather + can fit under my choir robe + won't get swelteringly uncomfortable once we're inside at the service. It did the job. Truly the ultimate transition piece. Get yours today while supplies last.

At fellowship afterwards, someone from the congregation that I didn't know--she's only in NYC part of the year--pointed out my sweatshirt and said "I LOVED THAT SHOW!"

It took her a moment to recognize me (she initially confused me for Madison, which, yeah that happens, I'll never be mad about it), and we had a lovely chat about the show. And what I noticed after walking away was...the subject of autism, or me being autistic, didn't come up at all.

I love and cherish the advocacy aspect of my work on HTDIO. I love and cherish the opportunity it gave me to be the autistic representation I wished I'd had growing up. But I have to say, it was SO nice to have someone, a total stranger, talking about the show and loving the show independent of The Autism Part.

It was wonderful being part of discussions about diverse representation, and I will never turn down opportunities to eagerly participate in those conversations. But I really wanted us to stick around long enough that the "novelty" aspect of "autistic characters played by autistic actors" (or even "canonically nonbinary/genderqueer characters") would wear off sufficiently for more people, so they could focus on the story and the characters and the music and all the other things that make our show great irrespective of the Representation aspect.

I've had a ROUGH few weeks, y'all. Truthfully, I've been going through one of the worst depressive episodes of my life. Aside from the obvious grief factor and logistical stressors, it turns out that post-operative depression is absolutely a thing. While I'd like to think I'm cognitively and emotionally mature enough to handle this level of change, especially considering how lucky I am to have robust support systems in family, friends, and healthcare practitioners, my very autistic nervous system has had a difficult time letting the sympathetic part cooperate with the parasympathetic part. So I've been a ball of tension, exhaustion, and worst of all, that soul-sucking apathy where nothing seems enjoyable or interesting, but maybe it would be if I had the energy to be interested.

It's helped to find a great physical therapy clinic that is giving me comprehensive, multi-pronged care and NOT charging me copays (because apparently my insurance pays them excellently--thank you, Equity-League and Cigna). It's helped that I got back in touch with a therapist I had seen years ago on BetterHelp (she's since left the platform and honestly, GOOD FOR HER). It's helped that I have parents with the means to help me out financially--and, crucially, the means to keep me accountable without resorting to pressure and guilt-tripping. It's helped to still live in a city where financial assistance isn't excruciatingly hard to come by if all else fails (at least compared to other states). It's helped to have agents submitting me for tons of exciting projects, and having several cabarets and readings to look forward to in this time of transition. It's helped to have a really chill, supportive church community keeping me spiritually grounded without buying into the yt American evangelical toxicity. It's helped to have my cats.

But sometimes, what makes me the happiest of all, is hearing "I LOVED THAT SHOW!"

I'll never not be proud to be known for How to Dance in Ohio and everything we stood for. I'm proud that the love was real, and the quality of the material reflected and reverberated that love. I'm proud of the representation aspect, and I'm proud that it wasn't just about that. And people who saw it, saw all of that.

It's so comforting to know that we shared this show with enough people that it's going to continue to matter.

People aren't going to forget.

I love that for us.

By the way, it was too cold to really show it off, but this is the shirt I wore underneath the sweatshirt. :)

[justsomekpopstuff]

stray kids as a hockey team - part 2

A/N: hi everyone! Hope you enjoy these as much as I did! If you are a kpop/hockey fan, or if you want to learn more about hockey, feel free to reach out! I am also working on Skz as D&D characters, but its taking me a bit longer. Keep an eye out!

current masterlist | fic recs

part 1

stray kids team colors are black, grey, and electric blue based on vibes and vibes alone

the team mascot is a feral fluffy bright blue monster, lovingly named Maniac

one time during the playoffs, the team had to go into double overtime, which means they played through the team's usual meal time

Defenseman!Changbin, of course, was officially starving and going into "hangry" mode. The team switched out starting goaltender!Lee Know with backup goaltender!Seungmin to preserve Lee Know's energy for a potential future game. Lee Know heard Changbin getting hungrier, so he went down the tunnel, and 10 minutes later came back with a full-on sandwich with all the fixings for Changbin to eat on the bench. No one knows how he made the sandwich or where it came from to this day.

starting goaltender!Lee Know has a running Weird Goaltender™️ bet with the entire team, all based around his love for his cats

He got teased one too many times and said "okay, payback time". Now, he regularly sticks little cat stickers over all of his teammates and their gear without them knowing. Whoever accumulates the most cat stickers by the end of the season gets to wear a tutu during the final regular season warm-up. Forward!Felix, forward!Han, and defenseman!Changbin lose regularly.

The team keeps a running tally of how many times everyone falls into and out of the bench during the season (it happens more often than you think)

They honestly try their best to be so careful, but because everything is so fast-paced its easy for them to just completely flop off of and on to the ice. 99% of the time everyone gets a good laugh out of it. At the end of the season they give an award for the best bench-fail of the season. Starting goaltender!Lee Know won one season with an incident just like THIS.

forward!Hyunjin once got a very big modeling contract offered to him when the team was out for a group dinner on an off day

He had to turn it down at the time because they were still in-season, but as soon as the agent left the entire team burst into (supportive) laughter. And, of course, without his knowledge, they called the agent back and told them to get him during the off-season.

when he was first brought on to the team, defenseman!Bang Chan let the managers know that as long as he was on the team, everyone would officially have a no-trade clause in their contracts

They brought him on because of his skill, and allowed him to form the team how he wanted. But that was something that he would not budge on - whoever he picked, as long as they wanted to be there, would be part of the team, no matter what. The higher-ups tried to sneak by him, which led to a multi-day protest where the rest of the team, led by Bang Chan, refused to get on the ice until everyone was brought back and present. Whoever is on the team, Bang Chan will always have their back (and that is why he is the captain).

one of the team's most iconic memes comes at the hands of forward!Han and defenseman!Jeongin

A player from the other team was getting chirpy and decided to ram into forward!Hyunjin as he was starting to skate towards the bench. In perfect unison, Han and Jeongin stood off the bench leaned over and started yelling every ridiculous insult under the sun at that player like two feral raccoons. Some particular highlights included "your hair looks like it came from a halloween store" and "you have the IQ of a preschooler" as well as many other more colorful insults. Fans made merch of feral raccoon Han and Jeongin that have become more popular than some of the team's regular merch.

when the three stars of the game are announced after each game, they come out and throw a plush version of Maniac into the stands for the fans

best tape job: backup goaltender!Seungmin, who uses taping his goalie sticks as a form of meditation before each game, and will sometimes volunteer to do some of his teammates tape-ups as well

worst tape job: forward!Felix based on nothing but pure vibes and energy

the whole team are close friends with hockey team!Ateez, but when they play each other all bets are off and it will be the most chaotic game anyone has ever watched

[intoxicatingimmediacy]

Where Have You Seen Loki Season 2's X-5 Actor Before?

This post contains spoilers for the season premiere of "Loki."

"Loki" is back this week, and along with the return of Norse trickster god Loki (Tom Hiddleston), agent Mobius (Owen Wilson), and the rest of the Time Variance Authority, the show's premiere also sees the introduction of a few new key characters. Among them? Ke Huy Quan's helpful, tech-savvy Ouroboros (or O.B.) and X-5, a mysterious new TVA agent played by Rafael Casal. And it's the latter who is particularly intriguing.

So far, we haven't seen X-5 do much besides question whether jet skis are part of the sacred timeline, but the character already seems to be an agitating force within the organization. He's also quite possibly poised to become a recognizable Marvel villain. After all, a featurette for the second season had a couple bits of footage from behind the scenes that showed him in a TVA jumpsuit, as if he was being held prisoner. So that should be interesting to watch play out. But there's more.

As /Film's Sandy Schaefer pointed out back in July, the trailer for "Loki" includes a poster for a movie called "Zaniac!" which fans have tied to Casal's character via leaks and speculation. Zaniac is a noteworthy character in Marvel Comics, though he bears little resemblance to X-5. The character was an evil entity that possessed the man who would become Jack the Ripper, and later took over slasher actor Brad Wolfe.

Ahead of the show's premiere, Casal has been credited by several outlets as Brad Wolfe, not X-5, so it seems likely that he could play out some form of the Zaniac plot this season. Regardless of Casal's true role in the show, though, he's an excellent multi-hyphenate artist whose past works deserve attention.

If X-5 looks familiar, it's likely you recognize Casal from "Blindspotting," a fantastic 2018 musical comedy-drama that he co-wrote with longtime creative partner Daveed Diggs (yes, of "Hamilton" fame). "Blindspotting" was a labor of love for Casal and Diggs, who also produced the film about two best friends living in Oakland, California whose lives are disrupted by the broken policing system. As serious as that sounds, "Blindspotting" is also laugh-out-loud funny, and Casal is a totally charming standout as hot-headed Miles.

The performer reprised the role for Starz's "Blindspotting" TV show, which ran for two seasons and was recently canceled. A criminally underseen hidden gem of a series, "Blindspotting" takes place after the film and puts the focus on Miles' girlfriend, Ashley Rose (Jasmine Cephas Jones), as she parents the pair's young mixed-race son in a racist world, all while Miles is behind bars. Despite his character's incarceration, Casal still appears in the show frequently and his hilarious, soulful character is a fan favorite. If you're looking for a thoughtful, entertaining, dynamic watch – or just want to see what Casal's made of – you can't do much better than either iteration of "Blindspotting."

The performer has also made a name for himself in other projects, including several collaborations with Diggs. A poet and rapper in addition to his acting creds, Casal appeared on three seasons of "Def Poetry Jam" on HBO, released a mixtape with Diggs in 2010, and contributed to the soundtracks for "Blindspotting," including in the catchy (and foulmouthed, fair warning) song "Easy Come, Easy Go." He reunited with Diggs in the acclaimed 2020 miniseries "The Good Lord Bird," a wild historical fiction series led by a fiery Ethan Hawke. Casal and Diggs even started a public theater project called Bars Medley, which remixed classic literature into musical performances.

Other on-screen works of Casal's include a supporting role in the 2019 Hugh Jackman flick "Bad Education" (he played the love interest of Jackman's closeted character) and a multi-episode turn in the "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" revival. Casal played a ringmaster named Mr. Tophat in the reboot of the classic, kid-friendly horror series. Next up, Casal is appearing in "Wildcat," a biography of Southern Gothic author Flannery O'Connor that's directed and co-written by Hawke. The X-5 actor plays a character in one of O'Connor's short stories in the movie, which premiered at Telluride but hasn't been released to the public yet.

Whether X-5 is a frustrated TVA employee, a secret evil entity, a movie actor, or something else entirely, it's exciting to see an artist as talented and versatile as Casal take the stage in a major Marvel series. You can catch his next moves on Disney+, where new episodes of "Loki" stream Thursdays at 9pm ET.

[theineffablecon]

🎙We have SIX special guests (so far!) joining us for The Ineffable Con 4! 🎙

You can find out more about Gavin Finney, Rory Kurtz, Sandy Higgins, Colin Smythe, Peter Anderson and Colleen Doran below and ask your questions of our special guests here:

Gavin Finney, cinematographer, will be joining us to talk about the marvel that is Good Omens! In his own words, Season 1 had "over 1,000 VFX shots seamlessly integrated into six hours of high-energy story telling"...we cannot wait to hear all about it!

Rory Kurtz, the illustrator and artist responsible for the official artwork for season 2 of Good Omens! Rory describes his work best on his website: Individualistic yet share a sense of fantasy in a modern reality.

We agree - absolutely ineffable!

Sandy Higgins from Vintage Stitches will join us to delight all crafters - and all fans of Jim (short for James)!

Sandy created Jim's jumper, among other items for Good Omens 2 and will be sharing her passion for vintage knits with us!

We're going to Ireland! Virtually! We're delighted to be linking up with Irish Discworld Con to hear from Colin Smythe.

Colin published Sir Terry Pratchett's early work, before becoming Sir Terry's agent. A real treat - two Cons in one, and the ineffable Colin Smythe, to boot!

We also have Peter Anderson joining us for the third time!

Peter is a huge fan favourite and will be talking all things title sequence-in his own words, it delivers surprises with every view, and we'll get taken through it all!

Can we hear a wahoo?!

Colleen Doran, the multi-award-winning illustrator and creator of "Good Omens: The Official (and Ineffable) Graphic Novel", which has set Kickstarter alight and smashed through several records, will also be joining us!

Check it out 👀

If you're ready to get your tickets for The Ineffable Con 4, and hear from all of these fantastic guests (and support Alzheimer's Research UK!)... 🐍

[siancore]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💜

Thanks for thinking of me @cobrafantasies

Strictly Professional | SamBucky | MCU | E | 9,465 words

Synopsis: Bucky Barnes is an adult film star. He has booked a job with his sometime-scene partner, Steve Rogers’ friend as a favour to Steve. He checks out some of Sam Wilson’s work and finds himself attracted to the other man. Will he be able to keep it strictly professional when they begin to film together?

Why I love it: It was all fun and heat and chemistry. I love writing Soft Slutty Sam.

The Boys of Summer | SamBucky | MCU | M | 84,227 words

Synopsis: Sam Wilson returns home to the small town he grew up in to complete his med school residency. He hasn’t been back for an extended amount of time since he left for college. While he only consistently kept in touch with childhood friend, Steve Rogers, he was keen to see the people he had grown up with. With the exception of Bucky Barnes. They had a falling out the summer before Sam left for college. What happened between them? Can they move past it now that they’re adults?

Why I love it: It's the best thing I have ever written. It's close to home. Touches on queerness; race; self-acceptance; letting go; coming home; family; friendship; and love.

Red Dirt Road | Richonne | The Walking Dead | M | 99,123 words

Synopsis: Teenager, Michonne, spends her summers in rural Georgia with her family. She meets fellow teen, Rick, down Old Route 3 and a surprising friendship blossoms.

Why I love it: I just loved the pace of the story. The way it reminded me of summer breezes and dirt sticking to the lotion on my skin. How everything felt new and exciting, but scary, too. Just loved writing this world.

Sous Couverture | Richonne | The Walking Dead | E | 133,261 words

Synopsis: Rick is a crime boss. Michonne is the agent who is tasked with bringing him in. Instead, she must work with him to bring down a larger criminal network. Can she keep her attraction to Rick from getting in the way of her doing her job?

Why I love it: I always wanted to write crime stories. SC was that story for me. It was a lot of fun to write these versions of Rick and Michonne. It was a lot of fun to talk to other shippers about this story. I started to make a lot of fandom friends because of this story. Then my mother passed away while I was writing SC and I sort of used it as a crutch to channel a lot of painful feelings. I was also able to lean on the fandom friends I made at that really shitty time. I know to read the story, you wouldn't think it, but it saved my life.

Under Her Watch | Attoye | Wakanda Forever | E | 6,572 words

Synopsis: Wakanda and Talokan are allies. Okoye, Wakanda's greatest warrior, is tasked with overseeing joint training exercises. She is also responsible for keeping an eye on the Talokanil warrior, Attuma. Without his express support, the alliance may fall apart. If he keeps looking at Okoye like that, she may fall apart.

Why I love it: It was the first multi-chapter fic I wrote for Okoye x Attuma. I love this pairing. The enemies-to-lovers potential is there. The chemistry is there. Okoye getting to let loose is something very important to me. I had a lot of fun writing this story.

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Demons (4x23)

Amy gasps, jolting awake and upward in darkness. The ear piercing buzz of the drill slowly fades into the void of her subconscious. Oh God, another black out? Where is she? Her heart beats frantically through her chest as she fumbles for the bedside lamp. Flowered wallpaper, cream-colored curtains, David snoring beside her… right: her bedroom. Not back there.

Another nightmare. No, a memory.

Her teeth clench, thinking about the thousand ways she may have been hurt, violated years ago. Then she thinks about how many ways she was but doesn’t remember. Her stomach twists. Flashes of unseen hands poking, prodding, pinning her down haunts her in the light of day. But it’s during the dark of night when the remnants of bone deep pain and fathomless fear soak her sheets with sweat. Like always, her hands tremble when they instantly clutch her stomach and palm her face, soothing an invisible ache. When her tongue swipes instinctively across the arc of her soft palette, somehow anticipating the warm tang of blood pooling in her mouth, tears sting her eyes. 

Every night it’s the same. Every night it’s worse. 

Amy gets out of bed and walks downstairs, careful not to wake David. He too gets little reprieve from his own hellish abduction memories he’d much rather forget. A luxury Amy simply cannot fathom. Frustration at living like a blindfolded prisoner inside her own body is at an all-time high, amping up her anxiety and desire for knowledge of the unknown. She has never needed the truth more. But when her brain fails to provide details of her hijacked agency she yearns to recall, her body’s muscle memory built upon the bulk of buried trauma does it for her. That scares her more than any truth ever could. Because at least now the truth will not remain buried. At least she will finally know. 

Amy swipes the sweaty tendrils of gray from her forehead and hisses when her finger nicks the fresh scab forming at her hairline. 

Dr. Charles Goldstein and his innovative method of treating memory repression has been a true revelation. David refuses to dive any further than surface level into their murky past of bright lights and missing time. But, as her psychologist, Dr. Goldstein suggested she consent to this multi-session treatment to regain pieces of her memory, and Amy has reveled in it.

She enters the crowded sunroom full of her recent artwork of her childhood home by the lake. A place where she used to feel safe and happy. Where she’d spent her wedding night with David and woke up six weeks later on life support. 

Amy settles in front of her half-painted canvas and presses play on her answering machine as the saved message from last night whirrs to life:

“Amy Cassandra, my name is Fox Mulder, I’m a Special Agent with the FBI. I’ve read the recent article in Abductee Magazine you were interviewed for about your experience years ago—in fact I’m looking at it now, and I’m interested in speaking with you in person. Uh… very interested, actually.” 

Amy stares thoughtfully at the machine as the younger man on the other end clears his throat. His tone is soft, reassuring, and Amy can’t help but wonder if a child of her own would be as understanding about her past as this Agent Mulder is. If she could’ve had children, that is. 

“…You mentioned a certain therapy you’d started that involved recovering repressed and buried memories. If you’re willing, I’d like to know more. I need to know more. For personal reasons. And Amy, I want you to know I’ll listen. Really listen. I’m sure many others haven’t before, but I will...”

Amy waits as the agent leaves his number and hears the desperation in his voice. She nods, her decision made, shouldering the corded phone attached to the wall as she dials. It’s either too early or this FBI agent screens his calls the same as David. Leaving a message, an olive branch is all she can do.

“Agent Mulder? This is Amy Cassandra, and I think I can help you…”

A predawn haze shines just enough light on her palette for her to dab out an array of acrylic in a rainbowed arc. Her hands itch to paint.

“Please delete this message after you hear it, but it’s true I’ve been slowly recovering flashes of voids or gaps within my past with the help of my psychologist. My husband and I— well, it’s been a tumultuous road to reclaim what’s been taken, but there’s so much more I must know…”

Amy anxiously grips a wooden brush and dips the bristles in vibrant green, thinking about what to say next. She paints her childhood home because it’s been the only place other than her resistant mind that holds the truth. As she speaks, the deep wound in her skull throbs, reminding her that that was true, until weeks ago when she’d traded the nightmare of one penetrating drill with the reality of another. 

“And you’d think willingly having a hole drilled into your head would be crazy, until realizing crazy is your only option to be sane,” Amy huffs into the phone at the irony. She’d apologize for her eccentric ramble but she doesn’t feel sorry for the warning. 

“Anyway…” Amy squints to shape the bend of the wind-blown tree just right along the canvas. Detail matters. It’s the details that complete the whole picture. The whole truth. The bad, the worse: all of it is what will save her sanity. “If you’re serious about knowing more, meet me at Dr. Goldstein's office in Rhode Island for my next session and you’ll see. Maybe he will help you remember your own truths...”

Art has always been therapeutic, but ever since the experimental therapy, painting has become momentous in bringing forth the evil lurking within her darkness. 

“Maybe, Agent Mulder, it’s time to exercise your demons too.”

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

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