#OH AND IT TURNS OUT I WAS RIGHT THE WHOLE TIME. ORDER OF TERMS DOESN'T MATTER WHEN YOURE MULTIPLYING

[insertsickusername13]

something something in the endless battle between pressure and gravity, gravity always wins something something Jake Dillinger is breaking and Jake Dillinger can't stop himself from plummeting something something so it turns out even Jake Dillinger can't win every war

[personasintro]

Mutual Help | #06

𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭: @kithtaehyung

↳ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; in order for you to pretend to be his girlfriend, he helps you with your sexual desires ⏤ he calls it mutual help

⇢ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jungkook x reader

⇢ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: fake dating au, fluff, angst, smut, slow burn

⇢ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language

⇢ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.4k+

⇠ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯. | 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐱 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ⇢ 

Jungkook's mouth is ajar, a soft puff of breaths leaving his small pouty lips while his eyes are shut. He's topless, naked chest covered by the thin blanket but you still get a little peak of his  defined collarbones and bulged biceps that grips the soft material closer to his body.

Sleeping in the same bed as Jungkook isn't new, although it's been awhile since that happened. It feels fresh, yet still the same. You both stayed on each side of the bed, not touching each other at all.

The memories of Jungkook's lips and touch are still fresh, even when the alcohol finally washed out of your system. You weren't that drunk, but now that you're sober you can tell how bold you've become with him yesterday. Even those memories of yesterday found their way to your dreams, where you could feel him over and over again.

It's not the first time you've had a dream like this one, but this time you're not weirded out by it. He's still the same person, your best friend, but you got to see him in another light yesterday. But does Jungkook feel the same?

Won't he find it weird waking up next to you, knowing you humped each other like horny bunnies just yesterday? God, even that term makes you cringe and shiver in embarrassment.

Maybe you should just disappear, tell him that you got something important to do and act like none of this happened. You both agreed to help each other, so it shouldn't be weird. But still, you're worried what will happen once Jungkook wakes up. This is different from the other times when you both slept in the same bed, woke up and continued with your daily lives, not finding anything weird. You might haven't had sex, but you still made cum each other – that's a valid point. Different scenarios fly through your mind, each second that Jungkook might wake up, makes you feel sick even more. So, slowly and quietly, you stand up and grab your clothes.

Jungkook's old shirt feels too comfortable on your body, but this is the least concern you should be having. Your dress from the previous night smells awful, your perfume mixed with cigarettes and sweat is not a pleasant smell. But you don't have any other choice. You're not sure if Jungkook still keeps some of your old clothes you forgot somewhere around here, and you don't have time to find out.

There's a little bit of rustling behind you, and you don't have the guts to turn around to check.

"Are you seriously sneaking out?"

Oh, fuck.

His morning voice is raspy and low, thick with tiredness and amusement. When you turn around, you're met by his hooded eyes but awake enough, to have some sort of glint in them. The blanket slides down off his chest, revealing his naked skin when he stretches his arms with a pleasant groan.

"I was just about to dress up myself." you murmur, ignoring the way he raises a brow at you, clearly not believing you a word.

"You don't have to do a walk of shame. I'll drive you home, just give me an hour." he tells you, too busy stretching out to notice your reddened cheeks and awkward cough that escapes your mouth.

Well, the good thing is he doesn't seem to act weird or suspicious. In fact, he seems to be totally fine which leaves you to be the only one who's freaking out. "Sure, that sounds great." you tell him, giving him a tight smile that makes him snort.

"You don't have to be weird, y'know," he chuckles, sitting up as he eyes you up and down. "I thought we both agreed on this."

You've always admired how straight forward and open minded he is, acting way more mature about this whole thing than you do right now. But you've never done this and instead of being unsure about where you stand, you were just too scared to face him in fear it'd affect your friendship.

"I'm weird, aren't I?" you chuckle, dropping your clothes back onto his black chair before you sit on the edge of his bed. "I'm sorry, we were just both drunk and I thought it'd be weird once you wake up. I was scared that you're going to regret it or something."

It's nice to get it off your chest, and it feels even nicer to be able to talk about it with him so openly. He understandably nods, shifting towards you so he sits next to you. He drapes his arm over your shoulders, pulling you closer as you let out a surprised whimper.

"I don't regret anything," he tells you, poking you into your ribs with his free hand causing you to glare at him. "Do you?"

"No." you answer him, sure of your answer as he nods.

"Cool," he says, standing up as he stretches his arm and legs with the same pleasant groan.

Your eyes automatically drop towards his crotch, soft bulge visible in his boxers that causes you to blush at the memories of you rubbing against him. "Now can you make me your bokkeum-bap?" he asks, stretching his neck this time, luckily not noticing you eyeing him.

In other cases, you'd act annoyed that he wants you to cook early in the morning but you'd still do it. But all you can muster right now, is to ask him the first thing that crosses your mind. "With kimchi?"

He grins, crinkling his nose as he always does, at your lack of objecting. "Yes."

And you quickly scurry out of his bedroom, not letting him catch you staring at him and eating him out alive. Jeon Jungkook in the mornings is dangerous.

The smell of kimchi and eggs is filling Jungkook's whole apartment, while you hum a familiar melody and stir the rice. You're too caught up in your cooking that you don't notice Jungkook approaching you, standing behind you. The smell of fresh aftershave and shower gel gives him away, but before you can turn around, Jungkook's already looking behind your shoulder. He's so damn close, his face just inches away from yours as he loudly sniffs.

"Hmm, smells nice." he hums, lips smacking in delight at the sight of fresh food.

All you can focus on is the way he smells, not the food. The rice starts to hiss, and you quickly put it off the stove, glancing at Jungkook who's standing behind you in his sweatpants. You gulp at the sight, flickering your eyes between his abs and eyes.

"Put some shirt on for fucks sake." you scold him, pulling out two plates from his cupboard as you serve breakfast.

"Am I making you frustrated?"

You don't see him, being turned to him with your back, but you can perfectly hear the teasing behind his voice. You grip the edge of the counter, rolling your eyes as you look at him.

"Jungkook," you groan, causing him to laugh before he disappears and returns with a baggy shirt covering his naked torso. Thank God.

For the rest of the time that you're both eating, Jungkook is mostly the one who talks the most, even with a full mouth and cheeks puffed out with breakfast. You don't have the heart to scold him for doing that, hiding an amused smirk from his cuteness. He fills you up on the most random things which mostly involve his work, and all the stuff that you've missed out. It's another moment that you realize how much you missed him. Simple – eating, sitting and talking with each other like you've always used to.

When you're both done eating, you're about to stand up and wash your empty plate, when Jungkook waves you off and tells you to sit down. He washes dishes with his back turned to you and you take that time to watch the way, his back flexes with each movement. It's no lie that you're attracted to him, you've always admitted that. Maybe not to him, but to yourself for sure. There were times when the confident and cocky guy you knew, suddenly became self-conscious and started to work out even more. It all happened when he met Kiko, certain that he wanted to win her. You knew he'd, it was just a matter of time. It's hard to resist a man like Jungkook, especially when he's polite, charming and knows how to treat everyone.

He's not perfect. Nobody is.

However, even his – what you could describe as negative qualities – are nothing compared to his good ones. He gets jealous, not to the point that he gets angry but he becomes insecure, questioning himself. He's competitive, but it's nothing serious and you often joke about it. But there's no need for him to be competitive, because he wins every time.

"So," he speaks up, cutting off your thoughts. He turns around, wiping his hands with a dishcloth  before he slings it back to its place.

He sits down on his previous spot, eyes boring into yours while he rests his elbows on the table.

"I believe you wanted to talk about some rules."

"Yes," you nod, standing up before you walk up to the small cabinet where he has notepad and pens stored.

You smile when you find them there, feeling some kind of triumph over the fact that you've remembered such a ridiculous and minor thing. He watches you clicking the pen with a curious gaze, snorting when he sees you writing a huge 'rules'.

"Is this necessary?" he asks amused, watching you send him a glare.

"No, but we're going to have a better outlook on the rules if we write them down." you explain, satisfied when he gives you a nod.

"Okay," he drawls, resting his chin on his palm. "Any rules you want?"

"Hmm, no kissing." you answer and before you can continue, Jungkook cuts you off.

"What?!" he almost yells, looking at you as if you've just grown two heads. "How do you expect me not to kiss you? We're supposed to be dating. People will find it weird if we won't kiss in front of them, especially Taehyung and Jimin. They already seem to be suspicious, especially Jimin."

"If you just let me talk," you scold him, raising a brow at him, even though you just want to laugh at his frustrated face. He looks so funny with his chest heaving and widened eyes. "I meant no kissing besides when we're in public or doing... whatever the fuck you wanna call it."

"You mean your part of the deal."

"You could say so," you murmur, not really sure if that's the right way of calling it but you just go along with it. It doesn't matter anyway, you both know what you're talking about. "I think it'd be weird if we kissed whenever."

"I don't have any reason to kiss you," he says, eyes widening once again when he sees you frown. "I mean.. when we're not in public or having sex." he explains himself, his blunt words causing you to look down in mere embarrassment.

"We don't have to have sex, of course. That's not what I meant when I said--"

"Jesus, calm down, Kook. I know what you mean." you interrupt him, chuckling when he sighs in relief.

You talk back and forth, talking about the most basic rules which includes not saying anything to anyone. Nobody has to know the truth because for one month, you're dating each other. Even if it's fake. Next one is to be honest. Whenever one of you feels like it's too much, you talk about it and try to fix it.

The other one causes you to awkwardly cough, when he brings up the sex part. But he has a point. The two of you are going to be exclusive, if you ever decided to have sex. It's just to be safe. Honestly, you can't even imagine having sex with someone else while you're fucking Jungkook.

"Do you have, like, any list of things that you're willing to try out?" he asks, causing you to almost choke on your spit.

He looks so serious, eyes watching you with so much intensity that makes you want to hide from them. But you shouldn't be acting like this. It's stupid to be all shy about it and Jungkook is making sure he won't cross any lines in the future.

"I've never thought about it. I think I just want to find out in a natural and spontaneous way." you shrug, seeing him nod as he takes a mental note of your statement.

"Well, if you ever feel uncomfortable make sure to tell me. I don't want to hurt you in any way. Things in sex can get intense and since you don't know what you're willing to try, there could be a time when you'd want to stop. Just be sure to be vocal with me." he says, gaze filled with worry and certainty.

It makes you wonder what kind of persona he is in bed. What is he capable of? The unknowing of it causes a slight burn between your legs and you've to silently cough, thinking about something else.

"Don't worry. If you ever hurt me, I'll just punch you or something."

"Jeez, thanks," he rolls his eyes. "I think telling me to stop would be just fine."

You hide a grin, licking your lips.

"What else?" you ask, lips purse in thought.

You most likely talked about everything. There's not that much to be said and instead of making rules, you've just talked about how this is going to work.

"Don't try to fall in love with me."

Jungkook's cocky grin causes you to roll your eyes at him. "I'm not that cliche, buddy."

"It's hard not to fall in love with me. I'm charming." he says cockily, and you know he's just lightening up the mood and being his usual self.

"Oh, please," you exclaim dramatically. "I've known your ass for years. I'd fallen in love with you by now but sorry to break it to you, but I'm not interested." you joke, watching him gasp in return.

"A-are you using me?" he places his hand over his chest, mouth agape and you can't help but snicker.

"I just want your cock and you want... you need me." you nod, lips pursed as you make your point.

He licks his bottom lip, biting into it before he chuckles. "That's using."

"No, it's not," you disagree straight away, wanting to use his own words against him. "It's mutual help." you smirk, watching him do the same before you both erupt in laughter.

[alchemistc]

Thinking thoughts about Gerrard deciding, day one, that Diaz is his only ally amidst this group of degenerates. Diaz, with his dead wife and his disabled kid, close enough to be white passing if he ignores the Spanish phrases always coming out in between his sentences.

Eddie, who has Too Much going on to really notice the preferential treatment until he's having drinks with Tommy and Buck and Buck is just railing about what a fucking douche Gerrard is being, and what he'd say if his job wasn't on the line, and how Gerrard seems to have an extra squirrelly bug up his ass about Buck in particular because he's really the only member of the group that actually fits Gerrard's typical bill.

("Except, you know, the part where I really enjoy having a dick up my ass, like that's a personal choice I made just to piss him off, specifically."

"Well I sure hope not," Tommy says, cheesing when Eddie makes a face at the both of them.)

In the face of this realization, Eddie decides he's already torpedoed literally his entire life, so what's a little disrespect to his Captain gonna do?

Eddie responding to every order from Gerrard with an obtuse "Si senor, claro." Eddie listening to Gerrard's commands and then immediately turning to Hen or Chimney with a raised brow like "Sound right to you?" and just waiting there until he gets a head nod from one of them.

Eddie gentle-parenting his way through every homophobic, racist, misogynistic remark that comes out of Gerrard's mouth. "Oh, the preferred term is transgender, Cap." "Actually, Cap, that's a term that's been reclaimed by the community but I'm pretty sure you're not in the community so you shouldn't say that." "Well, Cap, I think you'll be very lucky if she doesn't file a complaint -- were you not around for the whole #metoo moment we had half a decade back?" "They/Them is actually really easy, we use it all the time without realizing it, like, remember when [...]" etc etc.

Clipboard!Buck doesn't get him. Out and proud Hen doesn't get him. "I will talk back I don't care how many times you write me up" Chimney doesn't get him. Ravi constantly serving him the biggest, burntest piece of casserole every time they eat doesn't get him.

Eddie "Baby Runs For President" Diaz is what ultimately does Gerrard in.

[echantedtoon]

Im just going to be doing this third installment for the rest of the most memorable demons (minus Rui's siblings, Spider Mother, Rui himself, Nezuko, Daki, and Genya again for VERY obvious reasons) on who I think is the best and worst dads/moms. No real order this time tho.

MUZAN:

-He would be a mixed up bag of good and bad traits tbh. When you first told him he flat out told you to stop teasing him. "Stop your childish games. It's a waste of time." You legit have to go get Kokushibo and have him look over your form through the transparent world and have him confirm to Muzan that you were indeed NOT lying or trying to prank him for Muzan to believe you.

-He's oddly silent for a long moment after just staring at you for a long while before going "Oh...Well this is a surprising turn of events."

-He can absolutely act like he's invested in his child and loves them. He's an asshole but a very convincing one to where even you couldn't tell if he was genuine or not. How he is towards the child is a mixed bag in of itself. He doesn't treat the child with harm or too much aggression. If anything he's actually more curious about seeing what a demon-human hybrid could accomplish.

-Look. Your child is either fully demon or fully human with your mixed genes. There's no in-between. If it's fully human then he's rather disappointed in the result. In turn he loses a lot of interest in the kid and just allows you to essentially raise them yourself without too much interference. He might change the child into a demon when they get older but overall wouldn't see much point in bothering with the tyke.

-If the child is demon THEN he will have a bigger interest. He's disappointed when you both find out that your child is in fact NOT immune to sunlight but he was already anticipating that anyways. He's very invested in making the perfect heir for himself.

-VERY strict perfectionist. Your child will be very smart, a good fighter, and as dangerous as a lower moon by the time they're eight because of their father's teachings. But at what costs?

-You wouldn't get to have a say in much of anything in their raising then.

-He plans out their schedule every day AND night for everything: Education, training, discipline, sleep, times they are to eat and who they interact with and when- He has very strict rules and if they aren't followed then they're training time is much more harsher. By default he also plans yours as the child's mother.

4½/10 Only because of the mixed bag of parenting style otherwise I'd score him much lower however an in between seems about right.

SPIDER FATHER:

-He's a good dad in Rui's opinion to Rui but no one else and honestly I hate how he treats practically everyone else.

0/10 for obvious reasons

YUSHIRO:

-Honestly not as bad of a father as one might assume. Whether the baby is between himself and Tamayo or himself and Y/n doesn't matter. He loves them all the same. Doesn't even care if they're human, demon, or a hybrid.

-Was shocked but not too shocked by the news of becoming a father, but it did take him a whole ass week to really come to terms with it.

-He's very skilled in medicine being Tamayo's assistant so he's able to help a lot with the baby's mother's pregnancy. Tonics to help her sore throat after they vomit, cures for aches and pains especially with swollen ankles, check ups to make sure baby's healthy. He's VERY attentive to his partner and their mental, physical, and emotional needs. Doesn't mean he's not a nervous wreck tho.

-Despite already knowing medical procedures including the birth, he still researches LOTS. Best educational toys, best fabrics to lessen the irritation of the baby's sensitive skin, etc- This man goes above and beyond so much it worries the mother. Tamayo has to get involved in order for him to be convinced to calm down.

-Is literally a nervous wreck when his child is born. Messy hair, bags under his eyes, nervous pacing- He doesn't faint but for a long while after the baby's born he'll just sit down and stare at the closest wall blankly and silently- "Yushiro, are you alright?" "Oh yes. Perfectly fine." "Then why are you just sitting there?" "Just...having a moment, Dear." Give him a moment. His brain is still processing the chubby sleeping mass in his arms after so long.

-Once reality finally slaps his brain into gear, he just cries. Good tears going down his face as he blubbers and holds his baby close to him on instinct. Praises mama too. Commenting on how baby is as beautiful as her and they have her eyes.

-Terrified and protective dad. He knows the dangers and keeps baby at home with mom safely tucked away in their hidden home away from danger. Only takes them out when both himself and Tamayo go somewhere. Strength in numbers.

-Loves holding his baby and sharing his painting hobby. Tamayo found him holding baby as they messily slapped hands full of paint all over a canvas. "Yushiro, what are you doing?" "Exploring their artistic skills of course."

-Man hangs all of his child's artwork proudly on the walls. Once nearly threw hands when one of Tamayo's patients said it wasn't that great.

-He can be very strict or hard on his child due to stress, fear, or stubbornness however and it has lead to some loud fights.

8/10 best father on this list no doubt

SWAMP DEMON:

-Have you seen how creepy he is in Kimetsu Gauken?? Absolutely NOT!

-0/10 Id rather take my chances with Muzan with a massive temper

TAMAYO:

-Is already an experienced parent having prior experience with her past family she lost. So she would definitely know what she's doing and what needs to be done. Already a good start.

-Is very calm and casual about the entire process as she's been through it before although Yushiro is practically worrying his entire hairline off fussing over her. Even though she tells him multiple times to stop worrying so much.

-Can really take care of herself through the entire process being a doctor and a previous mother before so there's really no complications outside of having to stay hidden for safety reasons.

-Has already prepared, planned, and set up a nursery with all the essentials on top of having an emergency bag in case they have to flee right away.

-Yushiro becomes the de fault uncle/dad figure worrying over the baby and crying when Tamayo allows him to hold baby and help care for it while she's busy. He becomes very protective and attached to mini Tamayo.

-Very good parent. Rarely if ever raises her voice to her child. Teaches them everything she knows about medicine and other skills so her child grows to be very smart. Has Yushiro help train them with his attack mode in case they ever have to fight anyone.

-Only downside is that she is unsure if she should offer her medicine to baby if they were born demon in fear it might harm them.

10/10 best mother out of all the demons in kny

[natsglorifiedsimp]

Do you need something from me?

A/n: Hello everyone!! This is the long-awaited or not, wandanat x reader fic. I have decided that I will not write more frequently I mean I dont already but I guess I'm slowly stopping from writing fics. But if I get the inspiration then I will. My fics are poopies anyway😭

Anyways, ENJOYY !!

Taglist: @youralphawolf72 @madelineleong @diaryoflife @xxromanoffxx @lissaaaa145 @fxckmiup @mmmmokdok @sayah13 @karmasgxrl @meurgen @simp-erformarvelwomen @snowdrop1026 @ravensinthedaylight @karsonromanoff @aesthelicca

Wanda and Nat were very conscious when you are asleep. They walk more lightly than they normally should and always ALWAYS make sure to not make any noises. But today you were woken up by a distant noise from the kitchen.

You sighed heavily, they were arguing. Usually, you'd be getting up and cooling off the fight but today you decided to just take the time you need before you become the rational girlfriend.

After some long stalling, you finally decided to head to the kitchen.

"Stop making noises, Wanda," Natasha mumbled. She was holding an end of a banner and trying to reach for the tape.

Meanwhile, Wanda was cooking using her powers. The tray and the mixing bowl were floating in the air. "I am not making a noise. YOU ARE." Wanda irritatedly mumbled. "I'm not the one who's grunting because she can't reach the tape" Wanda rolled her eyes.

"If you're so powerful, why don't you use that damn powers of yours and help me get it." Natasha bites back.

You slap your forehead. They weren't arguing, they were bickering. Again.

"Hurry up Wanda!" Natasha ordered. "I'm gonna slip here." she pointed out.

"Can you slip when you do that tippy toes you're doing right now?" Wanda rolled her eyes again.

"Just help me!!" Natasha whisper shouted.

Before Wanda could use her powers to help Natasha, you handed her the tape. "Thank you" she sweetly said.

"I didn't even give it to you yet" Wanda rolled her eyes for the third time.

"Then who-" Natasha finally turned her head and saw you in your PJs and the morning glows you always have when you wake up.

Natasha ditched the banner and let it hang in there. She quickly grabbed Wanda and grabbed the tray of cookies.

"Wha- Natasha!! I'm not done with my cookies yet!" Wanda instantly complained. "Shush!" Natasha elbowed her.

Wanda looked up, "Oh, Hi" she shyly said. You rolled your eyes, it was like the first time you met again. "Don't give me that 'hi' we've been married for three years." you chuckled. "Whatchu guys up to?"

Natasha proudly presented the cookies. Extending her hand like it was a present. "We made cookies!" she grinned.

"The burned ones are made of Natasha"

Natasha huffed.

"You're made of the stove" she argued back.

"That doesn't even make sense" Wanda shrugged.

"Okay hush you two," you said.

"I thought we agreed we won't tell her I made the burned ones" Natasha still whispered.

"Tasha."

Natasha's attention was back on you.

"Now this is sweet and all, but there's no occasion today," you muttered. "And we didn't have plans for today" you pointed out.

Natasha and Wanda bowed their head down in defeat.

"So.." you prolonged. "Do you need something from me?" you asked with one raised eyebrow.

"Well," Natasha started. "We want to go watch a horror movie" she grinned awkwardly.

"No, we made this out of love" Wanda elbowed Natasha.

"Oh please," you snickered. "You won't last a whole minute with a horror movie."

What's funny is Natasha and Wanda fight with guns and have powers and unique talents in terms of combat. And why they're asking you you may ask? It's because they get so scared they are attached to you the whole night and morning until they forget about the movie.

"We promise we're not gonna get scared" Wanda whined.

"You fight aliens and other enhanced people and you two" you pointed your finger at them. "Don't even wanna go to the bathroom without me being in it cause you're scared a ghost will jump on you?"

"Please," they both said in unison. With puppy eyes and a fucking pout.

"Fine." you relented. "But don't you guys ever follow me around the rest of the day" you playfully warned them.

---

30 minutes into the movie and a jumpscare scene happened and Wanda quickly turned the TV off. Both of them jumped on you causing you to grunt out of surprise.

You cackled wildly. You knew this would happen. And you loved it. Now they're extremely gonna be clingy and you don't even complain.

"I told you we shouldn't watch the movie" Natasha mumbled, her eyes in between your armpits.

"What? You're the one who asked Y/n." Wanda also said in between your other armpit.

"You planned it!"

"Did not!"

"Okay, shush." you giggled. "That's enough for today" you get up leaving them on the couch. "Gotta pee"

"I'll go with you!!" they both said.

"Oh my god, you both are gonna be the death of me"

[david-talks-sw]

The fact that Dave Filoni called Anakin “the greatest Jedi ever” is proof that he’s bias AF. His anti-Jedi rhetoric is bupkis.

I wonder if he means "the greatest" in terms of in-universe fame...?

Dunno if this is the case in Canon (then again Dave Filoni blatantly ignores any *non-motion* transmedia elements in Canon so meh), but in Legends he's:

"Anakin Skywalker, the Hero with no Fear™, handsome, dashing, the face of the Republic's army during the Clone War, the only Jedi who tried to resist the nefarious Order's coup and was treacherously murdered for it".

And I seem to remember that, in Canon, he's like the Jedi Temple's superstar anyway, every Jedi recognizes him on sight. I mean, that line from Baylon about "Anakin speaking highly of Ahsoka" must have some meaning beyond artificial personal stakes.

So from a fame and a "power level" standpoint... sure.

He's the greatest.

I'm giving Filoni the benefit of the doubt.

While I've talked about why Filoni's entire headcanon about the Jedi doesn't track with what George Lucas' intended narrative, I think it's worth acknowledging that Filoni's bias comes from part of his duties while directing The Clone Wars was.

One of the goals of TCW was humanizing Anakin, expanding upon his character make him go from "a character whose only purposes is to embody the themes presented in three movies based on the matinee serial format" to a relatable person, a good man, the hero Ben mentions to Luke in A New Hope.

I think it's normal that he'll see Anakin in a more positive light.

Also (and full disclosure this is just me theorizing I am no authority on any of this so if turns out I'm wrong just come right out and say so)...

I'm pretty sure that Filoni, Lesley Headland and most of the recent Star Wars authors are all Gen X, raised by baby boomers forced to conform to society, obey authority and have proper decorum (boys don't cry!) all of which they strove to rebel against. Add to that the corruption they witnessed growing up and coming out of high school, and you see a kind of jadedness emerge. "The rules aren't as black and white, the world is grey."

So while most of them and the boomers despised the Prequels upon release, a few of them projected a more individualistic headcanon onto those movies that fit with where their head was, at the time.

As such: Anakin isn't interpreted by them as a cautionary tale about what happens when you're greedy. He's a misunderstood rebel, a non-conformist who has his flaws but is ultimately good at heart. Which isn't entirely inaccurate, but it is very clearly an embellishment of a character who will one day become a space nazi.

The fact is... the Prequels were made by a boomer. One with very liberal values and who was himself a rebel, but a boomer all the same. The whole point of his story is...

"we all must come together and fight as one, if push comes to shove; we must all be compassionate and selfless if we are to survive; don't be greedy, let people go when it's their time to leave".

And then he makes the Jedi say that, making them beacons of truth and good and compassion in his fairy tale, now aimed at Gen Z kids.

Gen X-ers hear/read that and project all the boomer BS they had been told onto the Jedi...

"oh, so the Jedi are saying you shouldn't love yourself, you shouldn't be yourself, you should give up on what makes you an individual to fit in, you shouldn't feel any emotions"

Because nobody is that good, realistically, right?

This happened in other mediums. The one that comes to mind on the spot is the relationship between Mufasa and Scar.

In The Lion King, Mufasa is strong and noble, Scar is weak and conniving. Simple enough. Around that same time, in A Tale of Two Brothers, young Mufasa is shown to be pretty nice with Taka (Scar), who is framed as a spoiled brat to begin with.

Skip to the 2019 remake, and it's hinted Mufasa gave Scar his wound, and in The Lion Guard they explain that Scar got his nickname from Mufasa mocking him for a misadventure.

He went from being a noble king to a bully who had it coming, Scar is an underdog who got picked on. Because again: nobody is that pure, right? Fairytales be-damned.

Nothing is black and white, it's all grey.

So yeah, long story short I do think that Filoni being part of the generation that wasn't the target demographic but was old enough to retcon the crap out of the Prequels also plays a role into his view of Anakin.

[remnantglow]

can you talk about how you made the costume please 🙏🙏🙏

:D sure!!! putting it under cut bc it's a lot lol

when i got the idea i had absolutely No clue as to how people even go abt cosplays like this, so step 0 was obviously One Billion Youtube Tutorials (this one - it's in polish but has eng subtitles - was my best friend <3 but there's really sooo many for every little aspect of making armor cosplay i owe them my life)

anyway. proceeding. assume every step takes a fuckton of trial and error and at least 3 failed attempts

REFERENCES:

collected all the covers where u can see mb's suit well, some fanarts that interpreted it in ways i liked, the 2 previous mb cosplays i found

PLANNING:

little to no planning (bad idea. btw.)

MATERIALS:

regular long-sleeved shirt+pants+cycling gloves+fanny pack. (sorry murderbot. but the armor piece over its crotch literally looks like a fanny pack)

the armor's made out of smth called EVA foam (similar to yoga mat in terms of texture/stiffness), had to order it from a cosplay-specific online shop

heat gun (i was lucky bc my dad's an amateur handyman and turned out to already have one) bc EVA foam's much easier to form+less absorbent when heated

contact glue (also known as contact cement) for glueing the armor pieces whole, superglue for details here and there

straps (the kind u use in backpacks etc)+plastic buckles+velcro. so much velcro. i'm never hand-sewing thru velcro again

wood glue+smth called glossy universal lacquer (p sure it's just car paint.) for painting

transparent plastic mask + rit dye for dyeing it (bc i couldn't find one that was already dark 😔)

tape+cling wrap for patterns

MAKING PATTERNS FOR ARMOR:

okay so. you wrap [Given Body Part] in cling wrap (yeah just regular kitchen cling wrap). put tape (i used duct tape at first but switched to masking tape bc it's cheaper) all over. draw, roughly, the shape you want the armor piece to be. cut urself out, cut away the excess edges, bam! pattern. like these:

(the chest piece was the tough part. i wanted the characteristic rounded shape so i didn't use cling wrap there, it was a lot of trial-and-error with cutting shapes out of paper, putting them against my chest, adjusting things, rinse&repeat.)

(also, the helmet - for the face shield i got these v cheap plastic masks that were advertised as lawn mowing masks (???), then tried to dye them black with Rit Dye for synthetics. that was a Whole Ordeal & my best try still turned out too see-through & more orange-tinted than i liked, but i was out of time so (shrug emoji). & for the pattern, i put on the mask + a beanie before wrapping my head in cling wrap dkjfgn)

i cut the patterns into shapes that could be flattened & copied them onto paper (to be able to transfer them onto foam more easily):

ACTUALLY MAKING THE PIECES:

the annoying part: outlining all patterns on the foam and cutting them out with a box cutter. This Sucks. then, shaping them with the heat gun. This Doesn't Work As Well As It's Supposed To. then, glueing the pieces together with contact glue. This Takes Ages.

(& it's like. near-impossible glueing them so the seams don't look terribly obvious 😭 i'm sure there's a way to cover it up well, but the method i tried (foam clay) worked Eh at best)

oh right also the. thingy around the neck. that's just a tube made out of some leggings i was gonna throw out. filled with a bunch of cotton i stole from a pillow. improvise adapt overcome

ATTACHING IT ALL:

That's Velcro, Baby 👍 it's either glued onto the foam or sewed onto the straps Everywhere. it's how the forearm & thigh & lower leg pieces close, how the chest & back pieces connect, how the face shield's made removable. Velcro All The Way Down.

the 2 exceptions: the thigh pieces are attached to a belt with some straps bc they kept sliding off; & the tiny armor pieces on my feet have a loop of string glued on the inside that i just pulled my shoelaces through

PAINTING:

the issue with EVA foam is that it absorbs stuff v easily, so before painting it i had to prime it (aka cover it in 2-4 protective layers of wood glue). then for actual painting, i sprayed all the pieces with 2 layers of universal lacquer (outside on some cardboard ofc). here it is all drying in the garage (bc it stank 💀):

and that's it!!!! done!!!! a bit over a month of work in total :]

[meowsgirldrawing]

Small idea for my Fellow Sebastian Lovers! Hear me out!!

So we all know that Sebastian from Stardew is the famous emo marriage option, a very popular one at that if media doesn't fail me.

So during the time him and the farmer are starting to get to know each other, like see each other more, hang out more, all that fun definitely platonic pinning stuff

Its all nice and sweet, like Sebastian is starting to get somewhat comfortable, not a whole lot, but definitely better than before.

So much so that hes seen sometimes lingering just a little longer outside or inside when he leaves his room, kinda hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the farmer.

Doing little actions like these while he doesn't even realize it!

But someone does 👀

Not only Abigail and Sam- Not only the other two of the ASS squad- The two who share knowing smirks and small nudge nudges all while Sebastian is too busy talking with the Farmer infront of them.

More like stuttering and flustering about-

Who am I talking about?

Maru? Ehhh, not exactly.

The frogs? Yes but also no-

Demetrious?...HAHAHHAAHA-

No.

Robin? Nohoho- Oh wait, your right!

HIS OWN MOTHER-

Robin, the beloved only Carpenter of this amazing town!

She notices after witnessing Sebastian cross by the hall, taking a tad bit longer glance at the door before leaving. Multiple times!

Shes like "Hm. Is he waiting for someone? One of his little buddies?"

But she never says anything cause she thinks its probably nothing, y'know?

Until one day it occurs-

Sebastian stays long enough for the farmer to waltz in, at the right time, at the right place.

Instantly she notices a change-

Sebastian sticks near the doorway, waiting for the Farmer to finish their order for a new addition to the farm, and once their finished, he greets them.

Robin stays near the counter, counting through whatever blue prints for the commission, but keeps glancing up.

We just love mothers, dont we?

Her jaw nearly hangs when Sebastian gets offered a crystal but gets a bit flustered at it, taking the gift with such gentle hands as he thanks the Farmer.

He ducked his head a little, gave a small chuckle, and grateful nod- all while giving the Farmer all his attention without an inch of seeming like he wanted to be or hide somewhere else.

She knows. She immediately knows.

But she doesnt say a word-

Not to Sebastian at least-

She does tell Demetrious a bit of it, the more she notices.

What can you say? The woman, who thought her son just wasn't interested in just about anyone or anything besides his room and computer stuff, finally sees her little man find someone he's clearly interested in.

Demetrious is all like "Thats great, honey :)"

....We know you were just thinking of your work, Demetrious, you dont gotta lie. 💀

Anyway! Robin feels satisfied, knowing her Sebby will probably-

Wrong, she knows that man will never confess on his own terms.

She starts planning like its the Egg Festival and she got put in charge of hiding all the eggs- aka, the clues for Sebby to figure out

First- Find out if the Farmer likes him back!

Shes not just gonna do it if she knows theres a chance the Farmer will reject Sebastian. If that were the case, she would let Sebby handle it the way he feels is just.

The next times the Farmer comes around, she asks subtle questions.

"How's the Farm doing? It doesnt feel too lonely, does it?"

"I seen you met my son, Sebastian! Hes treating you good, I hope!"

"Do you like my son-" (Robin no-)

Little stuff like that until eventually- she gets her answer. The one shes been hoping for!

The Farmer, despite their usually calm persona, turns a wee bit heated at the cheeks, scratching their neck and giggling/chuckling nervously while answering yes, Sebastian is a good guy!

HOOK LINE SINKER-

Boys, we got em.

Robin-

Now Robin can do what mothers do best, interfere

(Mom, if you are ever reading this cause whatver reason, I love you and promise that isnt the truth-") what I said, y'know, like a liar.

Now that we think about, Robin probably cant do too much in the position shes in. She doesnt want to overwhelm her son, nor does she want to accidentally scare the Farmer away. Hmmm.

Maru, the beautiful genius comes in with, "What if you sent Sebastian to help the farmer ?"

So she does.

Anytime she can, Robin asks Sebastian if he can either go drop off something or help the Farmer bring something into the shop, or plain and simple like "Sebby, I need you to run this fish down to the Farmer."

"Why do (they) need a fish? Cant they just get some-"

"Go talk to your crush already-"

"MOM-"

He does so.

She doesnt just do that, whenever they're at the Saloon, she'll ask Sebastian and the Farmer to help her bring drinks to their table even if they arent sitting with them.

Maru even pitches in sometimes with asking Sebastian if he can ask the Farmer to bring her something for one her experiments/robots.

Anything and every chance is given directly to Sebastian to talk to the farmer when hes free.

And it pays off- On calls Sebastian takes for Robin from the Farmer, Robin can hear him laughing a bit with them after getting their order in.

Maru catches them jokingly nudging each other as they walk to the table with drinks.

And Sebastian seems to take a good bit longer to come home even though they have a shortcut to the Farmer just a little higher up the mountain.

Even Demetrious commented about one time seeing Sebastian snuffing out his smoke as the Farmer immediately came into view, and quickly striking up a conversation as they were walking through.

The girls were giddy with excitement and Demetrious was.....there.

Listen, I dont hate him but he isnt exactly my favorite either-

Then it came!

The day the Farmer walked into the shop, grasping a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a Tear Drop in the other.

Robin had to hide the large and practically beaming grin on her face with a handbook of what you guessed? Carpentry, infront of her.

Maru noticed the Farmer walking past with a handful wave and waved back so fast and so giddy like.

When the Farmer came from the basement, you could tell no one can wipe the smile cemented onto their face. The items were gone and they were basically skipping in their walk out.

And that ladies, gents, and nonbinary boos, is how Robin (noname), Pelican Town's only Carpenter earned her rightful spot upfront for her son and new in-laws wedding in the future.

And you can just imagine the look on Sebastian's face when he realized how his mother had a hand in getting him and his now S.O. together HAHA💜💜

[bengiyo]

Marahuyo Project Eps 7 & 8 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last time, the kids struggled to pick a name for their LGBTQIA+ organization while discussing their strategy before the school board. They eventually decided to focus on connecting their hopes for the island's future with its past, and set about researching. Archie gave Venice some files from the church, Lorie looked through files her dad had, and Ino suggested interviewing people after providing equipment. We learned that Archie is struggling with the path to holy orders (manifested in his neck scratching), Ino said aloud that he was gay and kissed King, and Lili is probably intersex. Each of our our kids is holding confidence about this. Lili read Marco for filth, read him for blood, but unfortunately we left at Marco outing her.

Episode 7: Aswang

You know King isn't the violent type, because some of my people would have curb stomped his ass by now.

Oh, Ino. I understand.

Okay, Lili's story is so sad and lonely. I'm glad she told Lili before this.

Oof, Lorie was not ready for the friends to lovers kiss.

That was difficult, but King is right. He shouldn't ask Ino to come out, but it doesn't stop him from getting hurt.

King's grandmother is great. It's making me sad that Ino has no one else to talk to after that.

Wow, Marco is really doubling down on being an asshole.

I appreciate this show now disguising the kinds of casual homophobia you run into.

It's hard to recognize when you need to give someone you love space when you want to help.

I do like the idea of them reclaiming the balagtasan as a way to present their ideas to the island.

I knew it was Ino who graffitied the mural.

Gay people really will turn their relationship problems into a public spectacle.

This poetry is beautiful.

Oh, Ino, I'm proud of you.

My boy is bleeding!! Marco, it's on sight!!

Man, what a concise breakdown of how it feels to know your truth and have your caregivers try to stifle that in you for the sake of appearances.

Episode 8: Babaylan

Ino and King opening up old wounds.

Yes, King, tell your mom. Shame is learned at home. A kid can face the world if they're safe at home.

I love King so much for not sugarcoating how bad public scorn can get.

Swimming at night is very dangerous, but I'm always happy to receive an underwater kiss BECAUSE IT STILL BELONGS TO THE GAYS.

Oh good. Lorie and Lili are finally talking.

See, this is the thing about doing queer media versus making QL sometimes. Apologizing for loving someone is such a queer experience. Your love isn't something that you should be ashamed of, and you shouldn't have to apologize for caring a lot about someone.

This feels like the right place for these two as friends to possibly more.

Oh shit Lili got me when she held back tears at getting best friends.

It really is exhausting how hard authority works constantly to police and enforce heteronormativity. There are so few of us. Why is it always this constant bullshit?

Oof, I actually like this choice to have Archie vote to impeach Ino, become the new president, and then immediately return to the site where they honored Christina to cry about it. Venice understands that taking care of other queers is a long term project. At least Archie said her name.

Many of my beloved elders have passed. I wish I could talk to them sometimes. Especially Barry.

I love that Venice is eating in almost every scene.

Hey! They finally picked a name!

I love how homophobes talk about history, and then storm out when confronted with uncomfortable truths.

Crying over these outfits. They're so right. Formal acceptance by the status quo doesn't erase our existence, or the bonds between us. We will make space for ourselves and those like us.

Oh, Archie. I understand you, too. I hope you find peace with yourself and others.

I love Sue Prado, but does the mom really deserve to be here? I'll accept them trying to extend grace to struggling parents since Grandma has been with them the whole time.

This march works though. Before it was only three of them. Now look at them.

A post credits scene! Wait, I love the idea of Juvy and Jose going to visit them!

Final Verdict: 9.5, Finally Some Good Fucking Food. I am just so relieved to have another show from JP Habac. It's clear he and his friends have such strong ideas about where queer people fit in our society today, and I love that his work is never about defeating homophobia and is instead about connecting others to queer joy. Despite how this show stirred up all sorts of old hurts in me, I feel so much love for these characters, and I'm so thankful that I can point to a show with a wide spectrum of queer experiences delivered in such a beautiful package. It's so rare to see a show treat the closet seriously, and I will be thinking about this show forever, alongside JP's previous work: Gaya sa Pelikula (aka Like in the Movies).

[invested-in-your-future]

the fact that blake, who was alluded through volumes 1-4 to be this outcasted, thief on the street, possibly an orphan with no hope in sight, so she turns to the white fang in order to change things before leaving when things get too heated, and then SNEAKING into beacon, only for it to turn out she’s literally a princess(chieftains daughter), up there with weiss in terms of power and money, and had very loving parents??? and everyone just thought that was? cool? like she is NOT one of the little guys c‘mon now 😭

I mean, if I were to play devil's advocate, you can absolutely write a character who is interested in progressive reform and change and "fighting for the common folk" and yet is a hypocrite surrounded by wealth.

The issue is that that shouldn't be Blake, and the show STILL doesn't treat her that way even though they had inevitably ended up writing her like that. Especially since the show wanted her to end up the one who is "in the right".

Remember all the times she lectured Weiss about how Weiss just doesn't understand her plight and suffering and is so privileged? How Blake would have had to fight to get any modicum of respect or anything while Weiss lived cozily in her palace? When their standing would likely have them in the same cocktail parties, lmao.

The character whose whole story arc is supposed to explore the idea of discrimination and prejudice ended up being a rich girl who had a spat with her parents and then joined ISIS (and her parents just shrugged and ignored her for years then, which is another can of worms). But it's okay because, in the end, she realized her mistakes and delivered a speech about how it's actually minorities who are at fault for all the racism!

Sure feels silly in hindsight.

Her getting into Beacon with her own name is even dumber - oh look, the daughter of the (former) leader of the White Fang and the current head honcho of The Menagerie is here, trying to hide who she is by... wearing a bow?

They really didn't think it through.

Blake never should have been that character nor was she ever intended to be one.

Blake should be our window into the discrimination that exists in the world - a different point of view that contrasts with how other leads might view things - someone who didn't grow up having everything given to them or being able to rely on support systems and social structures.

How she views even the simplest things in the world around her should, by all means, clash with others - especially since each of the four leads has fundamentally different experiences growing up.

Would she view same towns, same locations, same historical facts, same interactions the same way as her teammates? Would she get treated the same way as they do? Would some characters behave fundamentally differently around her than around others?

Likewise, Blake would have a completely different approach to a lot of the same issues than the others - IF she grew up on the street, struggling for survival and dealing with prejudice, then she would have developed fundamentally different methods of achieving what she wants and have completely different lines she's willing to cross than others.

And on top of that she's a survivor feels constantly stalked and threatened by her past.

It's such a fascinating angle to tell the story through - to deliver world-building through - and the show just throws it away.

[empressofmankind]

Things I enjoyed about writing my Crocodile/female!OC smut, in no particular order:

If you had to imagine the walking, talking embodiment of all Buggy's insecurities (imo), I feel like you'd get Sir Crocodile, and that's pretty much how I went into writing him. I set out to absolutely maximize Buggy's: "Oh no, her ex is (insert self-deprecating qualifier) than me". You know, tall(er), confident, masculine, accomplished, infamous, intimidating, actually scary, redundantly rich, pretty conventionally attractive and the scar just adds to the sex appeal. He has a voice like that, and no doubt a way with women? He's even near perfected his control over his devil fruit powers! Absolutely aces the whole Bounty Hunting business thing. Rolls in and out the Grand Line like it's his backyard. He's even better at being Disney-levels of evil! Complete with a better villain laugh. How dare. How dare he absolutely nail most of everything Bugs covets? Poor Buggy. The fact that his girlfriend is technically still married to the jackass is just an extra kick in the gut while he's down, tbh. Basically, if Bugs were a piniata, this is currently my stick of choice to go at him with. I just keep finding new aspects for Bugs to be insecure about and it doesn't matter how often Shivs tells him not to worry about it.

As you know, I wrote the whole thing first in three sits, ignoring most of the limb logistics. And then I went in and revoked hand privileges. That sucked? But it was also kind of fun to then try and either make it work with one hand and/or integrate his hook. Some of the instances actually got far better with it: neck pulling, ahoy! is a big one, hitching up clothing for a close second, but also being casually threatening for no apparent reason (and then for a really apparent reason, omg). Croc seems to lean towards preferring to use his hand, and sometimes he misses having two of them for this and I tried to show that. I mean, I get it - hands have tactile sensation. Plus, we wouldn't want to kill her. Not at this point in the timeline.

God tier banter, if I may say so myself. I specifically enjoy writing (sexual) banter, but I feel like I've outdone myself here. Their beats are also pretty even-handed and so well attuned to eachother, like this isn't their first verbal rodeo, this is the end stage mega evolution of years of practise.

The way Shivs walked into her ex's office with the intention of manipulating him with sex, but did so while explicitly and recognisably wearing her current boyfriend's clothes. Balls of steel, this girl. But, she knew who she was confronting. If he turned out at all amenable to her scheme, he'd want her out of these rags stat. And that was five free steps in the direction she was meaning to go. In addition, I am a firm believer of him being a high-key closeted bisexual and we all know what they say when boys excessively pick on you. All it takes is squinting just right and imagining her with a different hair colour, and that just made me chortle. I am probably the whole target audience for this, but yolo.

The way his pet name use corresponds to his emotional headspace, apparently. I wasn't doing this intentionally, but I noticed during editing. He says 'doll' a lot (a grand total of 14 times, jfc), uses it the way guys tend to use 'babe'. I felt doll suited him, perhaps because I strongly associate it with Noir films, older Bond & Mafia movies, and crime bosses in general. Showing my age there, maybe. Then he also uses 'sweetheart' quite a few times (9 iirc), and I am pretty sure he does so in an endearing manner. Lowering those emotional walls a teeny tiny bit as fondness seeps through. And then, like, once or twice, he uses 'honey'. And, again, I feel like he uses it in an older manner, the way stereotypically a husband fondly refers to his wife. It feels intimate. Like he briefly forgets all of this is dust? I think about that a lot.

Did you notice how she doesn't use any terms of endearment? I did wonder if she had any, but I felt like she wouldn't use them. Not at this point. Not any more. She loves Bugs. She did slip up once though, did you notice? She is the queen of mildly awkward nicknames.

It may not seem so at first pass, and it's certainly not super obvious, but it seems to me like he's trying pretty hard to put Shivs' relationship goals bar somewhere on the roof. He wants nothing and no one to be able to even remotely compare to him, especially not the clown. So he throws everything at this that he can? Which, arguably, is mostly material because that's in his nature and fundamentally how he interacts with and relates to the world and people around him. But you saw how fast he was to gtfo that couch the minute she alluded to any part of this being cheap (Mediocre? Sub-standard? Blasé?). Does he genuinely not want to cheapen the whole thing? Or can he just not stand the idea of her thinking this whole thing is cheap? Or both? I suppose these aren't mutually exclusive.

I like that she can make him laugh, and vice versa. They've got really solid chemistry, dammit.

Two people that just really enjoy smoking. Like, they are Smokers with a capital S. That's a whole relationship dynamic unto itself. I am really pleased with how I managed to actively integrate it into their shenanigans. It was a lot of fun and something unique to them.

The way he just repeatedly fails at trying to engage her in a little girl dynamic. Was that a thing in the past? They had (and have) a fairly notable age difference (7-8 years, give or take). And he takes it so well when she just, doesn't play along or only does so for like five entire seconds, or blatantly wields it against him. Poor guy. Just spank her already, I know you want to.

The way Shivs goes from being mildly nervous and quite determined to: 'Oh fuck, I'd forgotten how good this actually used to be'. Like, been there, done that, didn't end well. But man, it's a mood.

Press F in the chat for the fact that she only had one orgasm in this whole thing, and it barely took the edge off. Jerk knew what he was doing. It's a power play, of course.

Sneaking in background information and then doing absolutely nothing with it. Like the comment he makes regarding both their facial scars. But also every time either of them alludes to their past relationship but doesn't actually tell us anything.

Mihawk is a wine aunt. Even Crocodile seems to think so. I am sorry, I don't make the rules.

The part where he just happens to have things on hand that she either likes (i.e. that specific brand of cigarillo's his company makes) or that fit her way too precisely (i.e. that outrageously swaggy negligee). This dude is not OK. My man, if you still know your ex' dress sizes this well after several years, you need to do some introspection. And maybe see a therapist.

The infamous fancy panties were originally a gift from him, and she evidently kept them these past years? I am not sure what makes me frown deeper: the fact that she still has them, or the fact that he immediately recognised them. I don't think she was necessarily wearing them on purpose? She does really like them and wears them often. RIP those undies. I think she's way more upset about losing them than she lets on. I wonder if she'll accept new one(s)? I suspect she may, something about gift horses. Maybe he figures? Maybe that's the point. A renewal of something. A visual reminder of the casual control he can exert over her when he wants to. It may seem insignificant (she will definitely not overthink it), but underwear is very private and intimate. He's staking a claim even without particularly saying so. But I am sure every other man in the room will figure that one out. (Counting on Mihawk to say it out loud in that bored drawl of his. The Bisexuals Straights Are At It Again.) Doubly so if they're particularly prone to feeling insecure. Poor Bugs. Just take this one lying down, you silly clown. She wants them because she thinks you'll like them and she knows neither of you can gdamn afford anything remotely like it.

Did you notice she isn't truly naked at any point? Partially undressed, yes. A little exposed, also. But not naked. Meanwhile, he's stomping around in his bare ass half the fic. I like how he gave her something nice to wear and then didn't take it off.

At this point, I feel like he gets pants problems the minute she calls him 'sir', no matter the context. Some things just get sexy tainted forever, and there's no going back, lmao.

The unnecessarily expensive details. I had so much fun with those? The layout and details of his office and bedroom, for one. Both their smokes are implied to be well out of Shivs paygrade. Any brands come to mind? Or take the wine, for example. Can you guess which one I am referencing? And the lace - I am from a traditional lace-making area. Handmade lace was and is hella expensive. Don't even start about lace featuring custom tailored designs. There was absolutely no need to throw this much Beli at the nearest wall. But he did it anyway, because he does it all the time.

The way he keeps verbally reminding her of how different things used to be. For the better, in his opinion, of course. Like, are we casually trading favours here, or are you trying something?

On that count, did you notice how often Shivs is actually thinking about Buggy in this? At no point is he far from her thoughts, it seems.

I didn't set out with this mindset, but based on how the whole thing came out - I think Crocodile might miss her (or the idea of her) ? At any rate, I don't think he's OK. You stupid dick. You self-marooned on this island of misery and now it's too late. No changies, no takebacksies.

I came up with the title post-fact. Maybe it's his thoughts, not hers?

[thegeminisage]

star trek update time. i'm WAY behind. friday we watched voy's "tattoo," saturday i finally womaned up and agreed to watch ds9's "the visitor" and then we also bravely soldiered on to "hippocratic oath," and last night we did ds9's "indiscretion" and "rejoined."

tattoo (voy):

it's a real shame about (waves vaguely at racefaking "expert" on voy's writing staff) because, due to my own lack of education, i never know which stuff is based in fact and which is just wholesale bullshit. i remember one time i googled something about chakotay's culture because it seemed so obviously fake, and it turned out to be Kind Of True But Not Like That. it sucks because not ONLY was it a huge missed opportunity for Representation And Education (tm) but chakotay is a really interesting guy and i'd like to know more about him and see him get to do more stuff without him getting buried in the like. mysticism and racism of it all. it's no good for him and it's no good to sit through either

bc like. at this episode's core. if you could somehow remove the racist panflute and the whole thing where we portray people from THE SPACE TRAVELING FUTUREEE as primitive savages, you could have had a good story. chakotay struggles with not feeling at home where he lives/in his own culture, goes to space about it, then has an emotional crisis when his dad dies while the two of them are on bad terms. i know that's a good story and i know star trek can make that a good story because do you know who else has that story? SPOCK.

LIKE. IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO EASY. WHAT WERE YOU DOING!

anyway, chakotay naked. i know he was naked for the wrong reasons but that man had his whole ass out. bold moves heretofore only taken by sir patrick stewart himself. GOOD FOR HIM!

oh yeah the b plot of this episode sucked. we have to give the doctor a cold because of his lack of compassion? since When has he ever complained about sick or whiny people? been gruff with them, sure, tough-love kind of guy definitely, but no one would program a doctor who hated serving patients?? i did like that kes gave him an extra hour to be evil though. i love her so much

the visitor (ds9):

i don't want to talk about it.

or, no, i actually already talked about it, and i don't have anything to add, except that 1. christopher nolan can still suck it 2. every episode of ds9's 4th season so far has made me feel like i need to give it a "must see" on the spreadsheet. i almost can't believe i'm watching star trek. i have to start grading the damn things on a curve

hippocratic oath:

THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. stuck with the jem'hadar and julian is like "i can fix them" and o'brien is like "i have been racist my whole life and i'm not about to stop now and also you cannot fix them so i am going to condemn them to a horrible death in order to save your life" because he did at the beginning of the episode say out loud with his mouth that he wished his wife was more like julian bashir and then promptly refused to examine that thought even a little bit

like this had EVERYTHING. gay people. ethical dilemmas. twink with a spine of steel. worf forgetting he's no longer in tng. my best friend odo disguising as an inanimate object. and i'm supposed to just give it a WATCH?

like, i was right there with julian. fix them fix them fix them it's so easy they CAN be weaned off of it this could change everything i was so livid with o'brien for condemning those guys to a painful and undignified ending and for repeatedly ruining julian's attempts to help with all his attempts to escape and then he was like. yeah. i did all that to save YOUR LIFE because i saw that YOU were in danger.

and it obviously doesn't excuse anything and you get the feeling julian COULD have helped them with enough time and the right tools and and and...but he didn't have all that, and obrien KNEW he didn't have all that, and he wasn't willing to risk his friend's life on a gamble when it came to helping enemy soldiers

like, it's his fucking cardassian ptsd. note how he didn't speak when they were captured but bashir did because the gun was on his friend. note how he had to explain why the commander couldn't escape with them. IT MKAES SO MUCH SENSE FOR HIS CHARACTER. who hasn't done horrible things for the people they love? if his wife doesn't get back soon he's going to be asking for julian's hand in marriage by season 5

indiscretion (ds9):

KIRA PULLING THE THORN OUT OF DUKAT'S ASS. sorry i'm good i'm normal

something about dukat...at first he was very boring and flat, and then he was funny but still pretty 2-dimensional, and then he was funny AND gay with sisko but still 2-dimensional, and now he's got all kinds of depth. i completely wrote him off as generic cardassian villain at first but i am genuinely thrilled to see him every time he shows up

like, the bajoran lover and the daughter is such an amazing plot twist, but also, sorry to say this, he and kira have q and picard energy. as in, q wants picard to fuck him so so so bad, and picard has zero interest in doing this, and somehow that interest gets even lower the more q wants it, and the lower his interest gets, the more rabid q is for him, and it's probably the only thing i really enjoyed about either character, a few of sir patrick stewart's better speeches aside. dukat is exactly like that with kira. he is GAGGING for her strap and she finds him vile and rephrensible and the closest they got to fucking was when she pulled the spine out of his ass cheek and laughed at him and he probably is going to put that in the spank bank for the rest of his life. and she will still never fuck him

really fun when she told him to shut up and he shut up <3

i just love episodes that deal with the fallout of the war...it's always such incredible character work. i was worried that with the dominion threat these kinds of episodes would go away and i'm glad that's not the case

also, hi, sisko fumbling things with his gf for the b-plot. dax and julian giving him romantic advice and then mocking him when he leaves. jake being the only one who can talk sense into him. incredible. 10/10

ALSO, not only did capt yates make him work at that apology she did NOT kiss his ass goodbye. and he deserved it.

even quark was funny in this episode, despite the misogyny. he was nice to jake in "the visitor" so i think i've forgiven him because i've made at least two quodo jokes since then. my first love will always be kiraodo (kodo?) though

rejoined (ds9):

LESBIANS IN STAR TREK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as previously stated about 600 times on this blog i DID NOT KNOW there would be a gay kiss happening. i thought btvs held the honors for the first gay kiss and that this was going to be like an allegory or a metaphor like in tng. and i did like the tng ep for what it was! but holy shit this blows that out of the water.

i think it's so important that this would have been absolutely NO different whatsoever if either half of the couple had been a man. for the time period especially it's very much like. Queers Are Just Like Us which i think is an important step 1 to reel in potential bigots who are still on the fence. i cannot believe my mother is going to watch this episode someday

also, hi, the allies in this episode...? julian sitting through that WHOLE dinner without the first word of complaint. sisko telling dax it's a bad idea but he'll back her tf up. kira bewildered that any of it is any problem at all. sisko's moment was especially nice bc at first you think he's being a dick which is out of character for him and then you realize 1. he's scared for her 2. he loves her 3. he would probably fight the homophobic (recursionphobic...?) trills with his bare hands if he had a good excuse

it's also nice that zero people in this episode were weird about the idea of two women together. it was SO NORMAL. god i can't believe andor let those two women touch hands for a single shot and called it progressive between that and spn my standards are through the FLOOR!!

TONIGHT: ds9's "starship down" and "little green men," and then we're finally back to voyager.

[canmom]

i was going around thinking neural networks are basically stateless pure functions of their inputs, and this was a major difference between how humans think (i.e., that we can 'spend time thinking about stuff' and get closer to an answer without receiving any new inputs) and artificial neural networks. so I thought that for a large language model to be able to maintain consistency while spitting out a long enough piece of text, it would have to have as many inputs as there are tokens.

apparently i'm completely wrong about this! for a good while the state of the art has been using recurrent neural networks which allow the neuron state to change, with techniques including things like 'long short-term memory units' and 'gated recurrent units'. they look like a little electric circuit, and they combine the input with the state of the node in the previous step, and the way that the neural network combines these things and how quickly it forgets stuff is all something that gets trained at the same time as everything else. (edit: this is apparently no longer the state of the art, the state of the art has gone back to being stateless pure functions? so shows what i know. leaving the rest up because it doesn't necessarily depend too much on these particulars)

which means they can presumably create a compressed representation of 'stuff they've seen before' without having to treat the whole thing as an input. and it also implies they might develop something you could sort of call an 'emotional state', in the very abstract sense of a transient state that affects its behaviour.

I'm not an AI person, I like knowing how and why stuff works and AI tends to obfuscate that. but this whole process of 'can we build cognition from scratch' is kind of fascinating to see. in part because it shows what humans are really good at.

I watched this video of an AI learning to play pokémon...

over thousands of simulated game hours the relatively simple AI, driven by a few simple objectives (see new screens, level its pokémon, don't lose) learned to beat Brock before getting stuck inside the following cave. it's got a really adorable visualisation of thousands of AI characters on different runs spreading out all over the map. but anyway there's a place where the AI would easily fall off an edge and get stuck, unable to work out that it could walk a screen to the right and find out a one-tile path upwards.

for a human this is trivial: we learn pretty quickly to identify a symbolic representation to order the game world (this sprite is a ledge, ledges are one-way, this is what a gap you can climb looks like) and we can reason about it (if there is no exit visible on the screen, there might be one on the next screen). we can also formulate this in terms of language. maybe if you took a LLM and gave it some kind of chain of thought prompt, it could figure out how to walk out of that as well. but as we all know, LLMs are prone to propagating errors and hallucinating, and really bad at catching subtle logical errors.

other types of computer system like computer algebra systems and traditional style chess engines like stockfish (as opposed to the newer deep learning engines) are much better at humans at this kind of long chain of abstract logical inference. but they don't have access to the sort of heuristic, approximate guesswork approach that the large language models do.

it turns out that you kind of need both these things to function as a human does, and integrating them is not trivial. a human might think like 'oh I have the seed of an idea, now let me work out the details and see if it checks out' - I don't know if we've made AI that is capable of that kind of approach yet.

AIs are also... way slower at learning than humans are, in a qualified sense. that small squishy blob of proteins can learn things like walking, vision and language from vastly sparser input with far less energy than a neural network. but of course the neural networks have the cheat of running in parallel or on a faster processor, so as long as the rest of the problem can be sped up compared to what a human can handle (e.g. running a videogame or simulation faster), it's possible to train the AI for so much virtual time that it can surpass a human. but this approach only works in certain domains.

I have no way to know whether the current 'AI spring' is going to keep getting rapid results. we're running up against limits of data and compute already, and that's only gonna get more severe once we start running into mineral and energy scarcity later in this century. but man I would totally not have predicted the simultaneous rise of LLMs and GANs a couple years ago so, fuck knows where this is all going.

[fivie]

There's a thought about umw that I've had for a long long time and since I didnt exactly have anywhere else to out it I thought I'd share it here.

It's about Montparnasse, or rather, the apparent lack of him and where oh where is he.

Now, obviously, there are many les mis characters who aren't in the story, it makes perfect sense, eg. javert who is implied once or twice but isn't actually mentioned.

But anyway, while thinking about umw my thoughts often turn to R's life before the story. I mean, it has been many centuries and while I can imagine it Nit Being Much, there had to be Events to fill the time, right? Some people he met, some historical events he's witnessed, etc etc.

I've always imagined imagined Grantaire to have met Floréal some time in the 1600s or 1700s and them being very loose sort of friends. Acquaintances is a better word maybe.

But the one concept that cannot for the love of everything leave my mind is Montparnasse sort of being there, throughout the ages. At first I thought, a fallen angel maybe? But that doesn't seem to fit him at all, and the idea that I arrived at was that Montparnasse was a Reaper. I'm going to be serious, I haven't been keeping up with spn for several seasons now and my memory of the lore is very fragmented so I'm not sure how it holds up canon-wise, but it seemed neat to me. He accompanied R during the worst of times, when he witnessed the most deaths, wars, revolutions, massacres, the sort of atrocities that made Grantaire so cynical and distrustful and That Way in general. Maybe they became sort of friends. Maybe Montparnasse was the Reaper intended to bring the kids from Smoleńsk across. Who knows. Maybe the whole theory is bullshit and he's either some rando doing Crime around Lyon or he doesn't exist in the universe at all, but it's still fun to think about.

Anyway that's all I hope it's at least a bit entertaining 🙌🙌 + tysm for all the hard work on the fic it's taken up at least 85% of my brain at all times for thr last 2.5 (maybe more?) years<33

Ooh that's a cool idea! It would have been fun to have a Reaper character in UMW, especially since humans can't see them (unless they're dying or, y'know, dead) so it would be someone only Grantaire could interact with. Or maybe Jehan can perceive Reapers too, which would add a tasty Romantic quality to his abilities – he sees dead people and also the embodiments of death itself 💕 also I imagine a Reaper, a keeper of the Natural Order, would have a thing or two to say about resurrected-ghost-Feuilly 😂

I actually do have my own UMW version of Montparnasse, since he was originally meant to feature but got cut due to the story already spiralling madly out of my control without me adding even more characters and plot threads. I think I wrote about him in a post once but it was like a bajillion years ago so for funs let me tell you about him here:

He IS some rando doing crime around Lyon!! (Or possibly Paris, I never 100% decided.) He's sort of like a dark mirror of Jehan; he's human and also a psychic, but much less naturally powerful, and has started dabbling in witchcraft and other unsavoury things to enhance his abilities. He's wildly jealous of Jehan's powers and also considers Jehan to be an idiotic waste of those powers because he won't use them for his own gain. He comes from a much bleaker background than Jehan and had to fend for himself from a young age, and so has become very adept at using his abilities to manipulate people and is now a very successful and wealthy con artist. He's not 'evil', which is a pretty strong term in a world with demons etc, but circumstances have molded him into a person who does not trust others and is very out for himself, and his psychic abilities make him somewhat arrogant and he considers ordinary people to be inferior and fair game for him to mess with.

As you can see my personal take on Montparnasse is a bit darker than the pure neutrality of a Reaper-type character 😂 In this AU I envisioned him as kind of the same type of character as Spike from Buffy, in that he starts out as a legitimate threat and thorn in the protagonists' sides but reluctantly develops into an ally as time goes on.

However I know that fandom interpretations of Montparnasse vary wildly and all are valid, and since he's almost definitely never going to actually show up in UMW, please have fun imagining whatever version of him you enjoy most!! I just also have a lot of thoughts with nowhere to go and will take any opportunity to share 😂

[kokitschi]

ok ok i know the 4th chapter is fucked up but. u gotta appreciate the way kokichi set this whole thing up. like, it's kind of beautiful, actually.

one thing kokichi repeats several times during the game is "the process of elimination" and that's exactly how this whole case is build up.

every domino piece has been set up so they could all perfectly fall over in the trial. and kokichis the one who did the pushing nonetheless.

like. look at it like this.

(aight uh so this unintentionally turned into a canon compliant fanfic...? don't ask me how that happened.)

you have made yourself isolated and generally disliked by most of the group for various reasons. you've already been stressing about the situation and then you (most likely) see something that just makes you freak out (the card key motive). so, you've admittedly become a bit erratic. there isn't really anyone to reel you in either.

your almost-ally is very doing worse than you though. she's clearly losing it. it doesn't take long for you to figure out that she's planning to murder you. you wouldn't call eachother friends but this still probably feels like betrayal. or maybe you're just frustrated that despite everything - the remote control, the electro hammers and bombs, the bugvac - everything you've trusted her to build and she still thinks that murder is the better option. okay, fuck you too then.

most of your classmates are stupid or complacent or both. they've mostly stopped thinking for themselves and would rather leave everything to the detective. who, to be fair, isn't incompetent but it has been incredibly frustrating to watch how easily he's swept up in that one idiots empty platitudes. logic alone should get them through these trials - acting on emotions is dangerous. (the irony probably isn't lost on you but you've always been upfront about being a hypocrite. so whatever.)

you want to teach those idiots a lesson. blindly believing in people will get them killed. so, you come up with a plan that could perhaps be compared to a bowline knot - very sturdy but also very easy to unravel.

you've already decided on your main piece - in fact he's been begging, genuinely begging to be used since the beginning but especially lately. so, befitting to your title, you shall make use of him.

(it's his own fault for being so gullible and kind. you've been telling him - everyone but especially him - that he's gonna get himself killed like this. this is a killing game, why won't anyone accept this reality already?? why won't anyone heed his warnings? but most people are unable to seperate the words from the person who's saying them.)

her plan is easy to usurp - in fact it takes care of the important things. the other pieces are set up in a way that would make it impossible for them to commit the crime you are planning. you and your sacrifice are the only pieces left. her intended advantage over you is ironically what will protect you.

things go smoothly. for the most part, anyway.

you might've underestimated just how much the detective dislikes you, is what you think as he doesn't give your proposition even a single thought before he leaves. oh well, you've never been one to easily give up.

you force yourself into the role of his partner. your nerves are definitely strung high at this point but you tell yourself that it's all just part of the game. so you continue to push everyones buttons. you needle and twist the knife wherever possible. (it's just a game. it's just a game. it's just a game.) nobody has any sympathy left for you at this point. it's okay, it's all part of your long term strategy anyway. (perhaps one could argue that you've been dealt awful cards from the beginning but is that really an excuse?)

you lead the trial, you make sure that they're doing things in the right order and that they won't miss a thing. it needs to be uncovered in this way because otherwise they won't listen to the evidence anymore. if they shall act like children, then you shall talk to them as if they are.

the first part of the trial moves along sluggishly but atleast all the facts of the crime are now laid open. all they need to do at this point is to use the process of elimination, really.

the detective looks at you uneasily. time for the fun part! questions and accusations fly around the room, it's about what you expected.

and then the detective lies. he's done this before. everyone believes him over you. that's to be expected. but something inside you cannot forgive this hypocrisy today. so you decide to be cruel and rip off the band aid.

chaos. disbelief. objections!

it could've been so fun. if it wasn't for your unwilling partner in crime to be completely dumbfounded - not because he's been betrayed but.. because he doesn't seem to know what you're talking about? huh? huh?

you thought at first that maybe this was just his last effort to try to get away with it. but he seems so genuine. you can't detect a lie but clearly what he is saying cannot be true. it cannot be. he's got to be lying. which means that you've underestimated him. you've been played. your classmates are clamoring to defend him. he will get away with this. he can't- it wasn't supposed to go that way. they will all vote for you. all because they believe in him hahahhaha no no no no nonononononono

he doesn't remember. ah. that makes sense.

you're still agitated and you feel as if you're about to snap.

you and the detective leave no holes in the explanation. it's a simple process of elimination - you've made sure of that after all.

the despair on your classmates faces is apparent. your sacrifice accepts his fate. you can't handle this. it's all too much. why did you do this? why? why? why? everyones badgering you. the look on his face- his voice- and despite everything he still cared about you. you stupid awful disgusting horrible miserable monster. nobody will ever forgive you for this. you knew that. perhaps you didn't think it would hurt so bad though.

gontas last wish will never come true. the very least you can do is to not let his death go to waste.

so it's double down or nothing.

[oldsargasso]

That is absolutely when Kim realized how gentle Kenta is! That he hates seeing people be hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a similar “I told you to run” conversation like Kenta did with Jeff, to which Kim probably laughed. (I also still fervently believe it was Kenta who dropped Kim off with Jeff) (grumpy patient Kim would get at my heart so quickly good god)

Oh no nonononono you are putting thought into my head about clueless hottie Kenta. I am going to get back to you on that later.

VERY occasionally Winner is not the worst LOL. (Kenta knows how to endure, more than anything—I’M HURTING THANKS) And yes I agree, it’s not Winner’s thing, it’s just something he’s doing for his boyfriends (very occasionally not the worst)

Oh god Dean really is that desperate for acknowledgment isn’t he AHDJFJSJ. It may have been why he stayed in the background for so long—he probably was more than eager to do any odd little jobs to help out the team, thinking it would get him somewhere because he always got little pats on the head so he must be doing something right, no? If you do write more fic for them I’ll be on my KNEES

The first time Winner says something genuinely appreciative to Dean, Dean lights up so brightly that it kickstarts Winner’s entire character development arc.

ME TOO, YOU GET ME, I want all the details 😭 how much do they get as prize money, how is it split amongst the team, how much does gas cost etc etc. 

(took me forever to reply to this because I keep reading your other ask oh my godddd)

exactly!! like Kenta is violent when necessary, but he doesn't revel in causing pain (unlike SOME PEOPLE*). I can never be convinced otherwise it wasn't Kenta who handed Kim to Jeff (I actually wrote it in one of my wips:

There’s no order beyond release him, then but there wasn’t an order not to call Jeff, so Kenta does. Mr Tony didn’t tell him to come back quickly, either, so once Kenta’s undone the ropes around Kim’s wrists and ankles, he waits with him. “Do you need anything?” Kenta asks and doesn’t flinch when Kim turns an incredulous look on him. “No, thank you.” Even beaten up, bruised and ill-treated, Kim remains polite. It makes Kenta’s fingers twitch. What would it take for Kim to snap?

(*I keep thinking about like. guilt and penance re: Dean's actions v. Kenta's v. Winner's. I think Kenta is easiest absolved by Kim, and everyone else, because while he did choose to stay and perform Tony's orders, in Kenta's eyes there was never really a choice. whereas the other two consciously choose to do bad things. but the other layer is that Winner was actively brutal towards Kim, whereas Dean was against Babe. idk I just think there's a lot to explore there in terms of how they all move past it but it's probably a bit heavy for the fun polycule chat lol)

see!! Winner can be selfless sometimes you know. he's just going along with things for his boyfriends' sakes. he gets NOTHING out of watching the way Kenta easily (gratefully) sinks into subspace, or how Kim sounds confident and assured and his hands move the same way, or how Dean shivers and bites his lip every time Kim points out how well he's done at certain placements of rope. Winner just reclines next to them and watches and doesn't do anythinggg, he's practically a saint by these measures.

he IS he's soooo pathetic about it. god I cannot handle the idea of Alan and co. unconsciously/unintentionally fulfilling the absolute bare minimum of Dean's praise kink, and probably Dean didn't even realise because like? Alan's whole thing is family and that's what you do for family, you help each other out and you try to make things easier for the people you love, and if it felt like Dean was always the one doing all that...it's not like the others were unappreciative, it's just that they didn't reciprocate because to them it was just Dean doing what he wanted to do! he loves all those little jobs, look how happy he is when he finishes something. I honestly can't think too much about Dean and Alan's mismatch of the family ideal or I will. explode.

The first time Winner says something genuinely appreciative to Dean, Dean lights up so brightly that it kickstarts Winner’s entire character development arc. screaming!!! that is EXACTLY it. honestly we NEED to discuss how the polycule forms in the first place. (but I need to know everyone survives the final ep first 😭 the only one I'm 100% confident will survive is Dean because he won't be there 😭)

(re winnerdean fic... I have the opening scene mostly written and the final line! just gotta...write the rest...)

RIGHT like Babe's rich as hell just from racing. Way has a car dealership as a ...side hustle? does Winner have family money for all those jackets or is that what he spends all his winnings on. WAIT HE NEVER WINS. also I think there should be more exploration of the fact that everyone seems to go to the same gym.