#While removing the context of how those got there

[verycleverboy]

Sure, you wanted TikTok back...

...but nooooooooooo not like this.

While TikTok has been known to censor some terms, particularly regarding topics like sex and murder, many see a noticeable and concerning shift taking place when it comes to how users are permitted to speak about politics. Since the app was restored in the States, countless TikTokers in the U.S. have spoken out about creator fund cutbacks, reported that videos and comments are being flagged and taken down, and warned Americans on the app can no longer use certain hashtags or see search results for terms like “fascism,” “Hitler,” or “Nazi Germany.” In searching widely censored terms myself, I got a full page of results for “fascism,” while searches for “Hitler” or “Nazi Germany” got me the same automated messages other have received, encouraging users to verify facts and use credible sources when seeking information about the Holocaust’s “legacy.” (Although “legacy” is a neutral term that can be used to refer to both the positive and negative impacts of an event, it does carry a largely positive connotation which seems notably off in this context.) Some users have reported that their own results have not been censored in this way. Meanwhile, others aren’t even getting search suggestions containing these terms. While it remains unclear why that is, TikTokers outside the U.S. say increased censorship seems to remain an issue specific to the app’s American user base. Perhaps the most jarring detail of all amid talks of censorship concerns is that some apparent changes started rolling out prior to the app’s “ban” on Saturday night. On the day of, posts containing critique of Donald Trump or Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in particular, were flagged and removed. Posts that have been similarly censored also began to trigger a pop-up when TikTokers attempted to send videos to multiple users at once, warning of the spread of misinformation and stating the video could not be sent to more than one user. Some say censored topics include those as benign as gay rights and abortion, and American users have continued to receive these warnings since the app’s return on Jan. 19.

There's more, of course. And even more beyond that.

All of it is yet another reminder that corporations can never be your real allies, because every relationship has a cash-out price. Use what you can while you can, but always have a plan B in your digital bug-out bag.

[hanasnx]

Indy! What kinks do you think Bruce would have ?

bruce wayne's kinks.

MINORS DNI 18+

! ── bondage + gags: it's a classic. tying you up and taking control from you is a huge turn on for him. if you have his complete trust, which rare ever do, you'll be able to do the same to him. unfortunately, those pretty silken ropes end up getting worn through way too quick, so you've upgraded to chains so you can ride him like a stallion. however, your headboard creaks a little more each time. when a 200+ man of pure muscle yanks on wood it splinters.

! ── edging + overstimulation + dacryphilia

! ── exhibitionism: part of his bruce wayne persona means public displays of affection are required. however, he enjoys it. getting his hands all over you where anyone could see means he elicits that cute reaction out of you where you hit him and scold him all the while his teeth are on your neck and he's groping you through your dress. the thrill of removing just enough to make sure he can get inside you makes him rip his belt open with fervor, and he's always a fan of a quickie. it's a stress reliever.

! ── breathplay: he's calculative when it comes to breathplay, but more specifically he loves putting his hand around your throat.

! ── size: he's an avid supporter. he thinks it's hot when you get all sheepish being reminded of how big and strong he is. he's got a powerful body he works day and night for, the least you can do is appreciate its every inch.

! ── food play: ever since strippers jumped out of his birthday cake in his twenties covered in frosting and edible bits that he was allowed to lick off he's had a thing for food play. at one point you feel like he's eaten entire meals off of you, he's completely nondiscriminatory when it comes to what he can lick and mouth as long as it's on you. if he's on a cheat day, he lets a scoop of ice cream melt on your skin just so he can clean you himself and watch your poor nipples pebble from the cold.

! ── impact play: chronic ass-smacker, tit-smacker less so, face-smacker even less.

! ── old school panty snatcher: if you put a pair of your used panties in his suit pocket before he goes to work he will play with it all day. stick his hand in there to meddle with the fabric between his fingers while he's talking to his board of directors with the presentation he's been preparing. he gets into the habit of inviting himself to your undergarments, and has been caught multiple times using one of your favorite pairs to jack himself off.

! ── bareback + creampies: condoms are fine he's not an idiot, but there's something about going in raw that draws him in. the extra edge of danger and the intimacy of touching the deepest parts of you bare.

! ── thigh riding: clasping your hands in his for balance while he watches you get off on his thigh. tells you it's like a personal show. he keeps those eyes trained on you with such an entertained grin it makes you whine in frustration, and that's hot too.

! ── threesomes/foursomes: he's done it all. having multiple partners is a testament to his endurance and he loves the praise, but since he's been official with you there is no room for that sort of thing and that's fine with him.

! ── light roleplay: you two have been known to throw the word "batman" around the bedroom.

! ── praise mostly very rarely a degrader

! ── daddy: as far as he's concerned, that's one of his names when it comes to you. in any context you call him that, he swells with pride. one time you visit him while he's in a meeting, not only did you turn every head in the room but when you called him "daddy" accidentally and out of pure habit, he didn't skip a beat. he glances at his companions with a knowing glint in his eye because they should be jealous that the girl they're gonna be thinking about for the rest of the day just called him daddy. he's got no shame about it.

[zosan-secondchances]

Vinsmoke Siblings Storytime!

The context about this new blog~

I'm working on a story where Vinsmoke Judge fucked up entirely after he realised that there's no one next in line to the throne after his children.

The last of his Germa scientists concluded that they're simply too machine-like to bear their own. Judge was getting old and sick, and he knew that he didn't have a lot of time left. He decided that desperate times call for desperate measures.

The Vinsmoke siblings were forced to go through some extreme emotional and physical changes to become more "human" which entirely lead to Judge driving them away after they realised how much of a monster he really was. The siblings flee from their old home in search of a better future.

Maybe Reiju, Ichiji, Niji and Yonji want to find dreams of their own, much like how their distant brother did. Unanimously, they decide that they reconnect.

Ichiji's greatest challenges lie in managing his own emotional growth while also holding his family together. He tries various ways to make sure they don’t fall apart. Over time, he lets his hair grow long, often taking advantage of Sanji's unexpected barber skills to keep it in shape. In reality, he just enjoys being "in the chair," where he can quietly seek advice from his blonde brother about handling his inner struggles and other matters of the heart.

Niji hangs up his sword and studies up on Vegapunk. He still has remnants of his ability to use electricity, which he uses to his advantage to invent new things, including a new type of Eternal Compass which works exclusively with him and his siblings due to the unique properties of their exoskeletons. Maybe all those painful augmentations weren't all for naught after all.

Yonji seeks Zoro's guidance on regaining his strength since his augmentations have either been forcefully removed or had gone completely dormant. Zoro also gives him pointers on how to become a successful bounty hunter. In return, Yonji protects Baratie and all the islands within the All Blue, and filters out any unworthy challengers who try to claim the swordsman's title, allowing Zoro more time to address more domestic concerns.

Reiju has a deep dark secret that she thought she could take to the grave. When her brothers found out that she got hurt, they're not having it. Shit's going down.

I don't know how this story will go just yet. But I do enjoy writing and drawing ideas down.

[bitchnojutsu]

okay HI i came back to this!! amazing work chandu i will be rereading this forever and ever and consulting it moving forward. you’re so right and should keep saying it; these are the things that stand out to me that i would love to scream about together:

- tenten def notices other people’s looks but is overall more drawn by what she thinks is cool about them. there’s another post about tenten’s style and characterization that i really like which emphasizes tenten’s lack of overt femininity, and i think tenten wants to be recognized - more than for her appearance; maybe more than anything, at some point, to a degree - as cool herself. tenten doesn’t want or have a ton of power (even socially, i’d argue), but she positions herself in the sphere of it. her icon is a “legendary kunoichi” and the fifth hokage. she bemoans her sensei and teammate frequently for being cringe in her vicinity. the one thing she can do that is really cool - carry any size or quantity of anything, anywhere - gets completely dismissed as “convenient” by lee and neji during their chunin exams in suna, and we saw how that affected tenten’s morale.

- on that point, hell, her entire friendship with neji: her bestie is a bully victim neglected child prodigy from a prominent and revered clan, set up in the first chunin exams as The Kid To Beat, and just like you pointed out, tenten was right at his side for that entire month between prelims and finals. also, i want to emphasize what you said about tenten being the mouthpiece during the finals: her whole interlude where she’s giving exposition to the viewers like us bragging on neji’s abilities? tenten isn’t speaking out loud to anyone. she’s just smirking to herself and staring down at the arena, thinking about how neji is so talented and so well prepared and so strong and so cool.

- re: tenten being one of those people you find yourself accidentally saying too much to. that has to be how her actual friendship with neji started tbh. and i think it was clan related, hence why we got tenten’s close up reaction among hiashi’s and hiruzen’s when neji started his lore dump. like you suggested, she already knew.

- tenten’s friendships with her teammates are notably different but consistent. like i think neji is her best friend and rock lee is her brother. (i’m getting a little ahead of myself, but tenten’s relationship to her teammates is what sakura’s would look like with her teammates if we removed sakura’s crush on sasuke and naruto’s crush on sakura)

- the databook stats have zero consistency but is anyone surprised lmao

- TENTEN DOES DID NOT LIKE HINATA. (we’re veering into headcanon territory, but especially after *certain events* toward the end of shippuden, regardless of everything else, y’all think tenten likes hinata now??)

- for reasons you already explained i also think tenten has complicated feelings about sakura. i’ve mentioned in a few of my own posts that i see team 7 and team gai as foils for each other, pairing tenten and sakura in that manner, which is giving me even more thoughts in this context. obviously they get along well enough, they seem to respect each other, but i’m considering tenten’s self esteem and mental health and her saying she wants to fight sakura and the goals she physically would never be able to accomplish while she had to sit back and watch sakura literally live out her dream…

- …which opens the door for a friendship between tenten and ino. hello, busybodies!

- while i’m talking about tenten and every other kunoichi, let’s go ahead and focus on temari. she handed tenten’s ass to her on a silver platter, publicly, without batting an eye, all while tenten was still confused because she uncharacteristically missed her mark. her disbelief is valid as explained, and the point of the fight was to poise temari as a serious competitor for the final round, but i’m also going to gripe at kishimoto here - tenten got done so dirty in this fight. if he wanted tenten’s error to be that she missed her mark, temari could have created a shadow clone for tenten to waste her time attacking, thus allowing tenten to show off her incredible skill while forcing her to “miss” her true mark and opening her up to an attack, and planting the idea to use a shadow clone in temari’s head for later purposes.

- you touched on tenten not liking people she perceives as weak, and how could tenten not perceive herself as weak after that quick defeat? in front of everyone? after waiting an extra year before signing up for the exams? the only member of her team to not break to the finals? and she missed her mark?! that’s a core memory. that’s ego-shattering, soul-crushing, reality-questioning, life-changing shit.

- the idea of a lowkey one-sided rivalry between tenten and temari a la lee and neji is so funny to me, and also plausible given how much of an impact losing that fight had on tenten. (though the exact same is true for sakura and i think tenten would be ready to fight both of them anytime)

- i love your point about tenten applying her enthusiasm for research to her weaponry because of course she would! she’s a one-woman museum and proud of it! there are easter eggs of this in reliance, but i like to imagine that she falls down all kinds of research rabbit holes; she may not be a med nin but she learns everything she can about the human body, we see her consult kurenai while in her ultimate tsukuyomi world for advice about genjutsu and i believe she kept studying that back in The Real World™️, she has to know a thing or two about space-time jutsu by nature of the transportation jutsu itself. but we also know that in the naruto world, ��research” sometimes is a double entendre! a woman of many hobbies, truly

- you said the right string of words to trigger my activation phrase so now you get to hear me talk about one of my favorite venn diagrams in all of naruto: the overlap between tenten and shikamaru. she wants to be recognized so badly and works hard for it, he works hard not to be recognized so he doesn’t have to do hard work. / i would not be surprised if during that month between exam prelims and finals, shikamaru was constantly replaying and assessing tenten’s performance against temari in his mind, or if he straight up hunted down tenten (and neji by proxy) one day to ask about a few logistics and called his training done. / loud, strong women (like tsunade and temari) grate on young shikamaru while they’re everything tenten would want to be if she actually believed she could be like them. / re: tenten has chill vibes and can get people to open up. i think shikamaru opens up to tenten on purpose sometimes. perhaps on that one random mission they went on together; sometime approaching the war when naruto and yamato and gai etc. were on a boat for a long time and needed a supply drop (tenten’s mission), shikaku saw that shikamaru needed to take a step back from war prep and nominated him to accompany tenten. ironically enough for the both of them (considering shikamaru’s woes during the sasuke retrieval arc, the trap team gai encountered in the desert in their second exams, and the end of the upcoming war, unbeknownst to shikamaru and tenten at this time), the trap they fell into was a series of genjutsu creating perilous conditions for the boat. i think in the adult generation - excluding sasuke’s sharingan and the knack for genjutsu that sakura should have had - tenten and shikamaru are among the best equipped shinobi to encounter genjutsu.

i made your long post longer but i hope it was worth it <3

Just noting down some things about Tenten that influence my view of her characterization/personality. primarily for my own reference as i’m writing, as well as to kind of get a more mature and consistent characterization of her than i had before. this gonna be an extremely long and rambling post, (where I think I repeat myself a whole lot oops) and there’s not really anything profound, just some traits i’m pulling from canon and interpreting.

most of Tenten’s ’canon’ characterization comes from filler and databooks, which I then further interpret, so a lot of her characterization in this post is three degrees of fanon/headcanon, with some liberties taken where I dislike the interpretation.

We’re introduced to Tenten during the chunin exams, where she’s seen throwing kunai at a target dummy that Neji is sitting under. She casually throws her kunai and hits the target dead center, instantly showing her marksmanship skill, but also Neji’s implicit trust in her since he doesn’t even flinch and the target is pretty much right over his head. This ties in later but basically, he fully trusts that she will not miss.

We see Tenten again before the first round of the chunin exams, while Izumo and Kotetsu are blocking the door. The thing I find notable in that scene is Tenten not being immune to Sasuke LOL.

(Manga panel grabbed from @tentenarchive)

it's interesting to me that her thing is specifically that there's not a single scratch on him, and that he's "cool". Makes sense given that she's on a team with Gai and Lee and she desperately wants them to be cool too. And she dislikes weak people so yeah, of course it's cool to her that he's untouchable.

Actually on this topic, Tenten's taste seems to be "cool people"? In a filler episode (naruto 162) she thinks that the lord of a local land is really cute when she sees him get down for his palanquin. The lord's whole thing is that he's like cold and cool and pensive etc. so this seems to be Tenten's taste to some degree. He turns out to actually be a girl in the end so yknow. bi Tenten confirmed.

Here's her page from the first databook (screenshotted from The Narutoversity). She gets annoyed at Lee injuring himself for Sakura's sake, which I'm pretty sure isn't really out of care so much as it is that they're in the middle of the forest of death in like. the worst situation possible. Love how Ino's just standing there like "what the fuck kind of medical care is this".

I generally dislike the stats since I find that they’re inaccurate to what we see on-panel (a whole rant I could go on another time tbh), and Kishimoto tends to skew them egregiously in favor of characters he particularly likes. Ex: genin era Neji’s total is 21, and shippuden Tenten’s is 20.5. You cannot seriously be telling me that Neji as a genin is stronger than chunin Tenten three years in the future. Come on Kishimoto. There are a few things of note here though, so let’s go through them anyway.

Tenten’s highest stat is her speed, at 3, which is the same as Sasuke from the same databook. So clearly, she’s fast, especially since Sasuke is known for his speed. She's not as fast as Lee, but still quick on her feet and dexterous, with fast reflexes. Makes sense, since the second databook describes her fighting style as “dancing flexibly and firing speedily”.

Her strength is a 1 and her stamina is a 1.5, which is insane to me. Like she’s on Team Gai???? They do 500 laps around Konoha and 1000+ pushups every day???? I reject canon here, fuck u kishi, I know she’s actually buff as hell and has hella stamina.

Her intelligence is a 2, which might seem super low but it matches Sasuke's intelligence, and is only 0.5 lower than Neji and Temari's. I think it just goes to show that the scale for these stats is skewed as hell. But basically what this means is that she operates at a similar level to Sasuke, Temari, and Neji, where she picks up on the things around her, and while she isn't operating on the level of Shikamaru, she's still a good strategist.

Back to the actual show, we get to the elimination round and her fight against Temari (episode 43). I’m basing this part off the anime because their fight in the manga is like three panels long.

So technically, this is “filler” (as if any tenten fan really cares lol).

From the Hokage's commentary, her battle sense is pretty good. She positions herself a perfect distance away from the enemy. She's trying to bait Temari into attacking, to see what her power is and figure out how to counter it, and Temari calls her out on it.

Tenten isn't a 200 IQ genius strategist the way Shikamaru is, but she is still a smart fighter. We can see she thinks in a similar way to him (and Temari) feeling out the enemy's power and what they can do before counterattacking strategically. I need them to be best friends tbh.

Her first reaction when she throws her shuriken at Temari and misses is surprise. She is deeply confident in her own abilities, so it's genuinely shocking to her. She yells "I missed? There's no way!" and in the stands, Gai also insists up and down that Tenten never misses.

She has the utmost confidence in herself, and from the rest of her team. None of them have any doubt in her, and this also ties back to that introductory scene. No wonder Neji let her chuck kunai at targets near him. It's probably something she does regularly too.

Tenten loses to Temari, and is immediately down on herself. We see a lot of this in Shippuden 237, where she's lying in the hospital and loses all her confidence in herself and her abilities.

Shippuden 237 shows us that Tenten does actually have self-esteem issues, even before this fight with Temari. During their first year as genin, when Lee keeps getting defeated by Neji, Tenten tells Lee that he really should just give up on beating Neji, because he's a genius, and Lee is not. It's clear in the voice acting and the expressions that to some extent, Tenten isn't just speaking about Lee when she says this, she's also speaking about herself.

She seems to compare herself a lot to others, often in a negative light, talking down about herself when others are better than her, but still trying her best to surpass them.

But the way she talks after losing to Temari is much worse. Her match with Temari affects her deeply, and likely for many years to come. I think it becomes one of her primary motivations to become stronger, as she keeps holding that moment as her lowest point and vowing to never be that helpless against an opponent again.

Headcanons here. After her fight with Temari, Tenten also throws herself into learning 1) fire jutsu to combat Temari’s wind (this is why she develops that dragon bomb jutsu she uses during the Konoha Crush filler episode), and 2) seals that can absorb/store away opponents’ attacks.

I think Tenten’s primary chakra nature is actually lightning, which is also why she is so weak to wind chakra. I love this post by @/fineillsignup that goes into detail about chakra natures, and a lot of the traits listed under lightning nature fit with my interpretations of Tenten. I also am heavily biased toward the idea of Kakashi, who is basically student-less during the interlude period, teaching Tenten lightning jutsu since she's his husband's friend's student.

Going back to that scene in shippuden 237, I do think her talking down to Lee in their first year as genin is also interesting. Even though I love the idea of Lee and Tenten being besties before Team Gai and her standing up for him, I think the reality is that she probably didn’t really talk to him in the Academy, and once they were on the same team, she was kind to him, and learned to work with him.

Lee very specifically mentions in a flashback in episode 100 that nobody told him anything encouraging, sensei or student. This obviously includes Tenten. So while she wasn’t outright mean to him, she also didn’t have the greatest opinion of him.

She very quickly found herself relating with him, and that probably made her take out some of her own self-loathing on him at first. Eventually they become close, and form a very deep friendship, but things start out pretty rocky.

Kishimoto confirms that every day for a month between the second and final rounds of the chunin exams, Neji and Tenten train together in secret to help him reverse-engineer the 8 trigrams 64 palms and the rotation. It’s interesting that everyone else goes to train with a jounin and only Neji chooses to train with his teammate.

I think this implies Tenten to be a good secret keeper and evidence that Neji already told her about the cursed seal and all the clan drama. During Neji’s speech to Naruto, Tenten’s reaction is shown alongside Hiruzen and Hiashi’s, both of whom already know all about the curse mark and his father’s death. So Neji has told Tenten as well.

Plus Tenten is uniquely suited to help with Rotation, since she can throw a billion knives no jutsu.

During Naruto vs Neji, Tenten gets used as the mouthpiece to explain Neji's attacks, which also shows how well she knows him after training with him for the Chunin exams, but she's also genuinely impressed when Naruto wins, and even compliments him.

There's a brief scene during Shikamaru v Temari where Tenten comments about how she couldn't beat Temari. Also look at her arms. A 1 for her strength stat??? with those arms??? sure kishi.

Okay, we move on to when Orochimaru attacks Konoha, and there’s this filler episode (shippuden 192) where Hinata gets kidnapped by Kumo shinobi. This episode has some small Tenten moments, where you can also see how Neji thinks of her, and I like them a lot.

We start off with Tenten going to check in on Neji after his conversation with Hiashi, and he actually opens up and tells her all about what they had just spoken about, another sign that he's told her about everything with his clan.

When Hinata is kidnapped and the Hyuuga Elder makes Neji go get her, Tenten comes with him, not out of any particular concern for Hinata, but purely to back up Neji. I doubt she likes Hinata much at first (my eyes were opened after this post by @tentenismybitch), so she’s doing this more for Neji’s sake.

As they're chasing after the man who kidnapped Hinata, they get caught in a trap, and Tenten tells Neji to leave her behind (strategic thinking) and Neji only hesitates for a second before agreeing and going on ahead. Neji expresses that this is because he knows Tenten can handle herself.

We see her using a new jutsu (the Dragon Bomb), which as I mentioned before, I think she developed with Temari in mind.

During the Hokage’s funeral we do see her in funeral attire looking sad but is she really? debatable. I think no, but it’s not entirely relevant. This is all personal headcanon here, not based on canon evidence beyond extrapolating from what I’ve seen.

Tenten doesn't strike me as someone burning with loyalty to the village and harping on about the “will of fire” and whatnot. She does her duty, and that’s about it. It doesn’t go further than that. She cares about the people dear to her, but not really about the village specifically.

After the Hokage’s funeral, Tenten doesn’t appear again until the end of the Search For Tsunade arc, which I think is her last non-filler appearance in the original series other than a few flashbacks.

She’s excited about Tsunade coming to the village, and tells Neji after he trains, and asks him to come with her to go see Tsunade. Neji tells her he’s not interested, and Tenten looks a little disappointed.

We see Tenten in some flashbacks to Lee's genin years (episode 100). As Neji is talking down to Lee, Tenten doesn't really say anything, which matches with what i said earlier. But, when Gai tells them that with hard work, anyone can be a shinobi, Tenten has a similar reaction to Lee, while Neji just looks annoyed.

What Gai says seems to give her hope. That with enough hard work, anyone can become great. She doesn't think of herself as a genius, and if anything, seems to group herself with Lee in terms of ability. This is also shown in Shippuden 237, which I'll discuss later.

After this we only see Tenten in the end-of-series filler, which will be part 2 of this post since it's already really long. We'll finish off by looking at data book 2, which came out after the manga for the first series had finished.

From the second data book (screenshot also taken from the Narutoversity), we see part of her personality is being a "busybody" LMFAOOOO. So yeah she's inquisitive and curious, being a research enthusiast, but also uses that same nature to get in on everyone's business too. We can assume she's also observant and detail-oriented, can probably read people pretty well.

I like this a lot! I think Tenten is a good people person, and many find her easy to get along with. She’s probably one of those people that you accidentally find yourself telling really important or deep stuff to without really knowing why. She’s just got this air around her that’s very chill and comfortable.

But I do think she’s nosy, and does wanna know about everything, just to be in the know. She’s a little detective LOL.

The research enthusiast part is a fun thing too. She strikes me as a tinkerer, messing with new weapon designs or seal ideas, constantly turning something over in her head.

The first and second databooks list her hobby as fortune-telling, which is also really cute. I think she knows palmistry and does readings for her friends, and has some knowledge of astrology. She isn't overly superstitious, but she does believe in ghosts, and gets fairly nervous when she sees or hears something that can be considered a bad omen.

She has pride in her weapons, clearly, and her arsenal is implied to be the largest and strongest of any ninja. I’d like to assume that some of her pride comes from the weapons in her arsenal that are of her own design.

Her 'carefree, smiling face' is also an interesting point. At first I was unsure how to interpret this, but to me it reads as her being rather laid-back and carefree, despite her power and lethality. Again, not very sure how to interpret this line and I'd love to hear how anyone else sees it!

It’s cute that Tsunade coming to the village and becoming hokage made Tenten train harder. I think aside from her defeat to Temari, this becomes another major motivation for Tenten. She wants to impress Tsunade, the kunoichi that she admires most.

She says she'd like to fight Sakura, so I think there's some kind of jealousy or something to prove there since Sakura got to be Tsunade’s apprentice and Tenten didn't. This goes back to her low self-esteem and those issues she’s been having since her fight with Temari.

Shippuden 237 touches on this but Tenten did actually try to become a medical ninja for a bit, she just didn’t have the chakra control necessary. Obviously this adds to her insecurities when Sakura turns out to be a natural at medical ninjutsu with unnaturally good chakra control.

I’m not a huge fan of the ‘trying to be a mednin’ part of this ngl, I think she’s a little too fixated on weapons to truly care about medical ninjutsu, and wants to emulate Tsunade just for the ‘strongest kunoichi’ part rather than trying to be her exact carbon copy. Plus, I think (headcanon) Tenten’s chakra control has to be at least decently good in order to do seals, but that’s a different rabbit hole. I tend to disregard this in my fics and will likely continue to do so.

I do like the thing of being jealous of Sakura in some way for being Tsunade’s apprentice, though. It’s some nice flavor and I appreciate the one-sided rivalry. I think it would be funny for Sakura to think of Tenten as the cool senpai and look up to her, meanwhile Tenten is struggling to not immediately challenge her to a duel, Gai-style.

Since this is already super long, I’ll do a part 2 for all the filler arcs she’s in, and then a part 3 for shippuden.

[serpenlupus]

About Wyll and his horns (and what they mean)

Let's say I was writing a part of my Tav's story with Wyll directly connected to the dialogue he has during the tiefling party, and while struggling with this bit, I've realized there's quite a few misconceptions floating around. I felt compelled to add information to the table that might clear them, so here we go.

First, what exactly happens to Wyll when he disobeys Mizora in act one? Well, he doesn't get turned into a devil, he certainly doesn't get turned into a tiefling, he's not a half fiend, not a demon, none of that. Wyll stays human, but he has horns and red eyes (and other features we can't see on his model as of now).

(Everyone has their race listed, Wyll's remains "Human")

This is because when a warlock fails to uphold some part of their contract they can suffer a certain number of consequences, Wylls is “The character grows horns, a tail, or some other devilish features that can't be removed by any means short of divine intervention. As long as these marks persist the character detects as a fiend when subjected to Detect Evil and Good spells or similar magic.” ( from Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, page 214)

And I’ve come across some people that think it wasn’t so bad of a punishment, that he was being racist towards the tieflings, or just not being justified in being upset after having his body forcibly changed against his will. I think they are missunderstanding just how insidious Mizora’s actions were, and here I just want to give some context to maybe bring a better understanding to the situation. Your conclusions are up to you.

Gonna start by using a not exact analogy, but I think it’s going to make the explanation easier. Stick with me for a minute.

Remember Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean? He had a branded “P” on his arm that marked him as a pirate. A murderer, robber, criminal, etc. in the eyes of the society he was a part of. What did Jack do to earn the branding? (if you don’t know this I suggest you look up the “people aren’t cargo mate” scene) He refused to transport slaves and later freed them, and Beckett had him marked as punishment.

Then, in the first movie, he saves Elizabeth, a woman he didn’t know, from drowning. Right after however, when Norrington sees he has a branded “P”, he’s like “alright, off to jail with you, and then hanging”, no other option crosses his mind. Again, Jack doesn’t know Elizabeth, isn’t indicated to think he is going to be rewarded for helping her, he just sees a drowning person, sees that no one else is going to help, and chooses to save them. That is a pretty selfless/good aligned thing to do, for no other reason that he was the one able to do it, yet the branding in his arm overrides any good action he could ever do, marking him as a criminal for execution and no further thought.

In a way, that’s what Mizora did to Wyll; she forever visibly branded him as someone that has made deals with devils, and that in the world of DnD is a VERY BAD THING. Personally I really like the mod that gives him more devilish features, but at the same time I think there was something clever about choosing to leave him looking more human. He can’t be confused with a tiefling, he doesn’t have the ears, the claws, the tail, all those features that characterize them. He looks kind of uncanny, and that would be like a red flag for anyone in that world. (Beyond the already existing hate for tieflings that I’m not gonna tackle on here because it’s a complicated thing that deserves its own post). And Wyll wants to do good, he wants to help people, to be a positive force in the world so, so badly. This dude got abducted by a nautiloid, got tadpole’d, and the first thing he did right after that was come across the Tiefling refugees and be like “Oh you need help? No worries let me teach you self defense. Oh you being attacked by goblins? Let me blast them real quick”. His way of saying fuck you to all the awful things that have happened to him is being aggressively good and kind. Mizora knows this very well, wants to see him suffer for her amusement, wants to remind him he can't escape her claws, so her choice of punishment was to forever taint his future interactions with mistrust and suspicion. Some people can go real fast from “oh thank God they saved me” to “oh no, are they gonna rob me, are they trying to trick me, are they in cahoots with the ones that attacked me first?” just because of outward appearances. Especially in DnD world. And that deserves its own conversation, but we're focusing on Wyll here.

(Mizora, when I catch you Mizora)

“Well, maybe he shouldn’t have made a deal in the first plac- - “ He was seventeen, alone, preyed upon by Mizora and put in an impossible situation. Please PAY ATTENTION to the story you’re witnesing.

Anyway.

About the tieflings. I know it’s easy to think his words can be derisive towards them, but it’s less about the horns and more about his body being changed against his will. Imagine instead that he got half his face burned, or something that disfigured him. I think his feelings at the moment were closer to that, and yeah they are pretty insensitive words to say to someone with a similar condition (horns or disfiguration), but when feelings are fresh and raw like that it’s easy to say insensitive things. Not saying it was ok for him to say them, but there was no malice in his words. I’ve also seen some people share that they think Mizora wanted to change him more to make him unrecognizable to his original self, the Wyll Ravenguard kid, and I think there is some truth to that too. She wants to make sure that Wyll remembers that he belongs to her, there's no question to that.

(MIZORA, WHEN I CATCH YOU MIZORA)

Whether the Tieflings refugees would feel unsettled by Wyll or not? Yes. In a way, they would. From reasons aside from the ones I explained above, remember that these specific tieflings come from Elturel. If you didn’t pass the History check or don’t remember, Elturel is a city that was literally ripped from the land and dragged to Avernus, First layer of hell (it left a hole on the ground and everything) because their mayor made a deal with the Archdevil Zariel some decades back in the timeline. He sold the souls of all its citizens and the city itself.

This was probably one of the worst times of their lives. Some even got captured and forced to participate in the blood War, like Dammon as a mechanic. And after Elturel got returned to the surface, the tieflings lost their homes because they reminded the other citizens of the literal Hell they’d just gone through, and they kicked them out. And remember, they met and saw Wyll as a human, and then saw him with horns. It’s not unreasonable to think that by looking at him they would be reminded of all the events that led them to the awful situation they’re in. Because of someone that was making deals with devils, just like Wyll. Even if his situation is completely different. And Wyll knows that, that’s why he tells you the tieflings are unsettled by him and chooses to stay away during the party.

It was never just about the horns.

And I know Wyll calls himself a devil but I think it’s because it’s the closest thing he looks as; devils are a whole different race with their own intricacies, although humans can be turned into devils ONCE their souls go to Avernus and they start climbing the power hierarchy there (Mizora and Raphael are cambions/ half-devils btw, which is a different thing,  there are plenty of videos exploring those details more in depth).

Do I think Larian should have made some of this information clearer/easier to access? Maybe? but to be fair, it's a game focused and dedicated to a crowd that was already somewhat familiar with the source material, that blew up waay out of what they originally expected to reach. Hopefully they’ll add some clarifications like they did to other quests. 

Anyway these are my two cents to the conversation, have a nice day, and don't hesitate to add your two cents if you feel like it!

[vashtijoy]

Something I've noticed for a while is that Akechi doesn't appear to say that he was in foster care in the Japanese script.

Akechi おかげで僕は、色んな所を転々とさせられて、まあ、今じゃ気ままな一人暮らしだけどね。 okage de boku wa, ironna tokoro o tenten to saserarete, maa, ima ja kimamana hitori kurashi da kedo ne Thanks to him, I was passed from foster home to foster home. But, I do quite well by myself these days. After that, nobody would keep me for too long, so I got moved about a lot. But now I'm alone and free to live as I choose.

There are a few interesting points here:

おかげで okage de, "thanks to"

Akechi does not specify what or who he's crediting here; the translator has glossed in "thanks to him". IMO it's more likely to be "because of the death of my mother"—the thing he was just speaking of. Shido is responsible, but (at least according to Akechi's flow of speech) he is slightly indirectly responsible.

転々とさせられて tenten to saserarete

tenten to suru, in this context, means moving around often from place to place; living at a lot of different addresses. But note the passive-causative on suru here, saserareru. This is something that was done to Akechi, something others inflicted on him, something he experienced as a profound negative. This was bad. Looking at what he goes on to say later—"so someone would want me around!"—I've tried to capture this with "nobody would keep me".

Also note that tenten to suru, while not usually violent in this "moving about" context, is also a term for e.g. kicking a ball around, which again makes it an interesting choice of words.

気ままな一人暮らし kimamana hitori kurashi

This is a set phrase, essentially meaning "a free and carefree life alone"; it's used, often with a little irony, to describe the joys of living alone, or of being single. Note that Akechi does not mean this—he sounds (JP audio) miserable as fuck, and he's brought this up, rather ineffectively, to try and lighten the mood.

It comes across as "I was alone, and I'm still alone, but at least now I'm alone on my own terms and can do as I please"—which he knows is untrue, and we know is untrue, and Ren and Futaba can surely tell is untrue.

By the way, this quick use of a throwaway stereotype, as if it explains everything—ima ja kimamana hitori kurashi da kedo ne—is one of Akechi's verbal tricks; he becomes laconic in this way when he touches on things he doesn't want to discuss, things that are sensitive to him.

This is how he explains to the others in the engine room that he's illegitimate, for instance—tsumari kakushigo sa, "In short, I'm his secret child", kakushigo ("hidden child") here being a popular term, with no real English parallel, for the secret or unacknowledged child of someone famous or powerful.

You could maybe render his line here as a detached-sounding "but now I'm footloose and fancy-free", for the same effect.

色んな所 ironna tokoro

This is what has been translated "foster homes", but it just means "all sorts of different places":

Akechi 色んな所を転々とさせられた ironna tokoro o tenten to saserareta I was passed around from pillar to post.

So: he was passed from place to place, from pillar to post. Like a pebble rolling on a beach, or a ball being kicked around a field. Do we know what any of those places might have been? No; he doesn't tell us. There's IMO nothing here to suggest that he was in the care of the state—but equally, there's nothing that excludes it.

But Akechi returns to this in the anime, in Proof of Justice—and he is far more specific:

Akechi だから、母が死んだあとは、親戚の間を転々として行ったね。 dakara, haha ga shinda ato wa, shinseki no aida o tenten to shite itta ne After my mother died, I was passed around my relatives.

Anime Akechi gives us more detail, again with tenten to suru, but he removes a lot of the emphatic force—we gain the detail that he was with his relatives, but we lose that outraged passive-causative, that makes it clear this hurt him—what I've tried to capture with "nobody would keep me for long" up at the top. It's possible, of course, that the difference in tone is to do with the different tone in the two scenes—game Akechi is at a very low point, while anime Akechi seems reflective and chill.

But is this canon? Well, usually when the game and the anime contradict, I prefer the game for its lack of adaptation drift. But there are a couple of occasions when the anime seems to clarify things that were not clear in the game text—and IMO, this is one. Per the game, Akechi was passed from place to place; the anime clarifies that those "places" were with his relatives.

TBH, even the localisation's "foster home" doesn't necessarily imply state foster care; a relative who takes you in is a foster parent. Of course, if you want a backdoor here (which is in no way required, I'm not your mum), he never suggests how long he stayed with his relatives....

does anything in-game support this?

Well, there's one thing in the game that supports this reading, and it's actually on 8/28 itself. Immediately after Akechi says he was passed around after his mother's death, Futaba does this:

Remember, Futaba already does not like Akechi. She resents him for his pursuit of the Phantom Thieves, even before she suspects him of killing her mother. Yet when he mentions his sad past, she connects with him.

Why is that? It's because Futaba, too, was passed between her relatives—with the results we all know: they were abusive, exploitative and cruel, leading to her being rescued by Sojiro. The game draws an explicit connection here between Futaba and Akechi—suggesting that they have this backstory in common, of being passed between abusive relatives. It suggests we can glean a little more about Akechi's past by looking at what we learn about Futaba's.

And she was rescued; he was not. They both turned to crime to work off some of what they endured—but Futaba retained her moral centre, while Akechi fell off the edge. This is why she tells him what she does in the engine room: "You thought [being alone and not trusting anyone] was enough, right? That part I totally get."

but isn't he just lying his ass off here?

BTW, as to whether Akechi is just trying to ingratiate himself with Futaba (or with Ren) on 8/28—I don't think so; I think he tries, and then gives up after his performative cut-in. We just saw him trying to ingratiate himself with Sojiro—his failure there, at the start of the scene, is what upsets him and opens him up. So far, so good.

Is he trying to get in with Wakaba Isshiki's daughter, to continue his pursuit of her research on Sae's behalf?—the reason he was at Leblanc in the first place? No, because he never mentions it to Futaba, ever again.

What Akechi will do later is stand up for her, on 9/13, protesting Sae's threat to remove her from Sojiro's custody:

Sae: There have been frequent occurrences of mental shutdowns surrounding Okumura recently. Sae: If only there was a clear connection between him and the Phantom Thieves… Sae: Well, it would be problematic if there wasn't one. Akechi: So you're jumping the gun here. Akechi: You really told a man you would terminate his parental authority based purely on your speculation?

... and notice what he's doing here. Akechi clearly already knows about Sae's threats to Sojiro; she does not explain them in this scene. And Akechi has clearly not questioned her on it, as long as he thinks there's a reason for it. When it turns out there isn't one? He calls Sae out. Because Akechi knows what's it's like to be a child with nowhere to go.

Sure, it's not beneath him to throw Futaba to the wolves—or, ultimately, to try to kill her in the engine room. But he views it as distasteful, as unjustified, and as wrong. He knows gratuitous cruelty when he sees it—and it repels him. He knows the difference between right and wrong—he's just elected to ignore it.

And he expects far better than this from Sae.

revision history

click here for the latest version.

v1.2 (2023/11/21)—typos, plus extra context for the game and anime scenes.

v1.1 (2023/11/20)—reblog w/ additional commentary.

v1.0 (2023/11/20)—first posted.

[cowboywithacunt]

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CONTENT WARNING ;

This blog is an 18+ only kink/nsfw blog. I'm going to be posting explicit text and images. Please be aware that some of my kinks may be triggering to others! A full list of my kinks and limits are under the cut.

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RULES BYF ;

🐄 DNI: Men DNI blogs, detrans/misgendering/trans fetishization blogs run by cis people, cishet men, weight loss/thinspo blogs, feederism blogs, MAPs, minors and ageless blogs

🐎 My asks and dms are open to anyone! Please respect my boundaries, and don't send me stuff that involves kinks I list as a limit. Also be aware that I might not always respond! Sometimes I just ain't got the energy, don't know what to say, am offline, or just aren't interested at the moment. I'm fine with sexting, pics, and roleplaying. Do not message me several more times if I don't respond to your first message.

🐄 I block liberally! It's nothing personal, just how I curate my experience. Please don't circumvent blocks for any reason.

🐎 Feel free to claim an emoji, but I will remove you from the claimed emojis list if you don't send anything for a long while. It's nothing personal, just a way of keeping organized! If you start sending asks again I'll put you right back on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INFO ABOUT ME ;

🐎 I'm Harvey! 22, transgender (FtM), he/him, bisexual, country boy who's learned to embrace it as a thing people are into lol. Currently living on the west coast, originally from Georgia. I'm fat and hairy and masc, take it or leave it. 5'5". Deer boy tbh 🦌

🐄 I'm strictly masc, have been on T for about 4 years, and I got top surgery done last summer. I don't have bottom surgery, and probably never will.

🐎 I'm happy to be a dom or sub for any and all genders! I enjoy both roles equally. Same goes for topping and bottoming. I'm about as versatile as a guy can get!

🐄 Asks and dms are open to anyone who's interested!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

KINKS, FETISHES, ETC ;

🐎 CNC; includes rape play, dubcon, somnophilia, intoxication, primal play, and kidnapping.

🐄 Fauxcest; may include some ageplay elements, such as MILFs/DILFs, cougars, etc.

🐎 Humiliation and degradation; includes exhibitionism, voyeurism, pet play, free use, force fem/masc, misgendering, and detrans.

🐄 Monster fucking; werewolves, vampires, tentacles, you get the picture. May include non-human genitalia references.

🐎 BDSM; mostly pertains to bondage, but some light impact play might also be present. Nothing beyond spanking or slapping!

🐄 Overstimulation and understimulation; too many orgasms and not enough orgasms. Edging included in this.

🐎 Breeding; including impregnation of others, not of myself.

🐄 Misc; wilderness sex, cowboys/rednecks, putting city assholes in their place, T4T, bears, butches, sex toys, fighting for dominance, light gun/knife play, medical settings, older men/women, trans supremacy, furries, leather. Open to trying new things!

🐎 I do not tag any of these on reblogs! If you genuinely cannot stomach one or more of these things, just do your mental health a favor and don't follow me. Keep yourself safe!

🐄 Please keep in mind that all fantasies I post about are in the context of consensual roleplay between adults.

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LIMITS ;

🐎 Heavy blood, gore, death, necrophilia.

🐄 Scat, watersports, emetophilia. Very light omorashi stuff is fine.

🐄 Choking, beating.

🐎 Detrans/misgendering directed at me.

🐎 DDLG and similar kinks that focus on infantalization.

🐄 Race play; if someone wants to call me a stupid little white boy or something, that's fine, but anything even edging towards white supremacy isn't cool with me

🐎 It's okay if you're into the above things! I won't yuck somebody's yum. You can follow and interact. Just please don't send me asks or dms involving those kinks, and be aware that I may not follow back if you post a lot of one of these.

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TERMINOLOGY FOR ME I'M OKAY WITH ;

🐎 Sir, mister, bitch, faggot, whore, slut, masc terms, sweetheart, darling, buck

🐄 Dick, cock, t-dick, clit, cunt, pussy, chest, hole(s)

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TERMINOLOGY FOR ME I'M NOT OKAY WITH ;

🐎 Daddy, puppy, fem terms

🐄 Tits, boobs, vagina, front hole

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If you're not sure about something, just ask! I don't bite!

[anothermansjeans]

Ok but imagine spencer seeing a tiktok of youtuber reader and him and crying a little because its so cute

Or a slideshow on tiktok of her looking at spencer with the song : back to the old house by the smiths on the background

Also he only has tiktok to save edits of reader

UM YES YOURE SO RIGHT!!! also i may be insane for posting 3 blurbs in less than 24 hours... but keep the requests coming besties 🫶

cw: fluff, spencer is a sap who loves reader

wc: 434

youtuber!reader masterlist

++

Spencer didn't mean to go down a loophole on TikTok, but once one “Y/N and Spencer” edit came onto his “for you page”, he had to see more. There were some funny ones, those respectively titled Y/N and Spencer Out of Context, or 3 Minutes of Y/N Saying Wrong Facts and Spencer Correcting Her. He got a kick out of those. The cute ones though, well, they made him shed a tear once in a while.

One in particular made him tear up the most. It was a slideshow, the first picture being of you looking towards the right. It was clear there was admiration written on your face, and when he swiped over, the next photo was of him, looking towards the left with a mirroring expression. The song playing in the background was what really did him in. Back to the Old House by The Smiths. The lyrics “and you never knew, how much I really liked you” caused an unwanted ache to appear in his chest. He was so caught up he didn't realize you were coming into the room and looking at him in concern.

“Spence?”

His phone fell to lay beside him, the song replaying itself. When you walked over to him, he quickly wiped whatever tears made their way to his cheeks and fiddled with the screen of his phone with one finger until the sound stopped. “Hi.”

“...are you okay?”

Your voices mimicked someone who’d be talking to a small child. Spencer slumped his shoulders and leaned his body over, resting his forehead on your stomach as his hands loosely wrapped around your waist. “Yeah… I’m uh, still adapting to TikTok, but I came across some videos of us together with music and they're sweet, and I really love you.”

The small laugh you let out caused Spencer’s head to shift ever so slightly on you, and he moved his head so his cheek was now resting above your navel. “I love you too. There are a lot of video edits of us on TikTok… I hope that doesn't bother you?”

Your voice turned insecure, and once again, Spencer shifted his head so that his chin was resting on you, and he could look up. “It doesn't bother me! I actually enjoy seeing the creativity from your followers. There's this one song that people are using a lot, it equates the relationship she's in to a high school one and says something about balling and Aristotle… it's fitting.”

“Mhmm,” you smiled and brushed his hair back, “tell me about the other ones you saw.”

++

youtuber!reader taglist: @im-a-ghost666 @lyd14k4y

let me know if you would like to be added or removed!

[ns-games]

2024 CrowdStrike Incident

I just wanted to document my day today. Since I feel this is a pretty major historical event in the history of computing.

From my understanding, the update that CrowdStrike pushed occurred last night, but I wasn't made aware of it until this morning.

I heard the notification for Microsoft Teams go off on my work phone a couple of times while I was still in bed. I decided not to answer right away since employees are supposed to call me directly if there's a production issue. However, around 5:30 this morning, I got a call from one of my team leads telling me that a CrowdStrike update got pushed earlier that has now "BitLockered" a bunch of computers.

For context, my team uses the term "BitLockered" for any time a computer crashes and requires the BitLocker encryption key to recover.

In any case, I was asked if I could run over to our local distribution center right away to start mitigating the damage. I immediately got up, got dressed, grabbed my work laptop and bag and left. I skipped my morning coffee and shower so I could get there ASAP.

When I finally managed to get inside the building, I started taking a look around the front office and saw several computers stuck on the Windows Recovery Mode screen. Already starting to look like a bad sign. I started booting up my work laptop, which I thankfully did not leave turned over overnight, and headed upstairs to a bank of production computers. As soon as I got up there, I saw a sea of Windows Recovery Mode screens.

By this point my Microsoft Teams notifications started going off non-stop, and I started running the recommended fix on one of the computers. Basically I was trying to make sure I understood how to perform the fix. At this point, it became apparent we were going to have to touch every endpoint in our network at every facility.

Around 6:00AM, I got a call from a manager from a separate facility asking me about what was going on. This is someone that's constantly just called me instead of submitting a help desk ticket, and I've tried to be patient with. Today I had to be a bit more blunt and state that I couldn't drop what I was doing to come over and help, but that someone would be there later today to assist. This manager continued to try and call me throughout the day, but I had to keep telling him that I was not going to be available all day.

Around 6:30AM one of my co-workers made it to the distribution center to help. I ran the fix on his laptop and we started working to fix each computer one by one. A bit later I noticed my mom texted me that she heard about this in the news. So I looked up "CrowdStrike" on Google and found that not only were we affected by it, but many other major companies were.

As we started getting workstations back online, it became apparent that was only going to be half the battle, as this issue caused most of our servers to crash as well. But at this point, we figured it would be best to continue to get as many workstations back up and running one by one. But because the servers were down, I kept getting asked if I could restore a connection, which unfortunately we couldn't do until the server team could run the fixes on our servers.

Eventually I was asked to join a Zoom call so I could start providing other facilities with BitLocker keys so they could start running the fix on their own computers. Some machines we determined could be fixed by reverting to a restore point. Others we had find a way to manually remove the "C-00000291*.sys* file by booting the computer into Safe Mode with Networking. Those devices ended up costing us a bunch of time to get back up and running.

By the time 5:00PM rolled around, I asked if I could go home and continue to work from there. So I took the opportunity to go home, get myself cleaned up, and continue to work. By 8:30PM it seemed that things had died down to the point we could stop for the day. I'm sure we've got a few machines we still need to apply the fix to, but we managed to get our core business back up and running within the matter of a few hours.

So yeah, long story. But I just felt like documenting it, given that this is an event that's probably going to be pretty well remembered in the history books.

[david-talks-sw]

When a Star Wars writer engages with the material but not the narrative.

I'm writing a long post about the Jedi and the clone troopers and there's a whole section that I had to remove because it was too long:

Karen Traviss' take on the Jedi and the clones.

I already wrote about why Karen Traviss' take on the Jedi and Yoda doesn't track with what George Lucas had established in his narrative of the Prequels. Since then, I've been able to do more research.

It's no secret that one of the reasons Traviss listed for criticizing the Jedi in the Expanded Universe books she wrote is their treatment of the clones (or at least what she understood it to be).

In 2008, she wrote a now-deleted blog post about it (it was really long, so I'm only including the part relevant to my point, if you want the full context you can look it up, this is old stuff).

So if you ask me, in the above quote, Traviss is essentially doing the equivalent of saying:

"Batman is a psycho elitist who beats up the mentally ill and indoctrinates kids, turning them into child soldiers for his unending crazy vigilante war on crime, and if you can't recognize that then you scare the living crap out of me."

Like... you can argue that, and a couple of comics have argued that.

But by and large, the general consensus is that Batman is a superhero, the Robins are his sons and daughter, and the "mentally ill" are in fact the Joker and Two-Face aka mass murderers.

So if you make that argument, that's you applying your real-life values and conclusions to a narrative that deliberately doesn't acknowledge those points, in-universe, in order to tell the story it wants to tell.

It's counting on your suspension of disbelief, defined as "the avoidance—often described as willing—of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality, such as something in a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for the sake of enjoying its narrative."

The Jedi accepting the clones and the clones being slaves isn't a "delicate point". It's barely a point at all!

It's never addressed in the film (because of course it isn't, the Prequels are about Anakin and the Republic, not the clones).

It's only addressed once by Slick, an unreliable narrator, in The Clone Wars.

That's it. Hell, in 2008, when The Clone Wars writer Henry Gilroy was asked to comment on the relationship between clones and Jedi, he explicitly said he'd "rather not get into" that particular point.

I recently got Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of 'Attack of the Clones' and nowhere is that detail touched on by Lucas at any point.

Nobody wants to touch on that point with a 10ft pole, because it's not relevant to the story.

So while Traviss acknowledges the Jedi are fictional characters, she doesn't follow that thread through to the end by acknowledging that fictional characters don't have free will, they must abide by the story and the whim of the writer.

She's engaging with the material, but refusing to engage with the narrative. She's having her cake and eating it too.

My reason for saying all this is that in the book Star Wars on Trial, she elaborates on her thought process upon discovering this detail.

Shortly before to this, she acknowledges twice that she knew nothing about Star Wars, beside seeing the original films in her youth.

Another writer who saw the new films and saw Mace Windu argue against there being a war...

... the worry on his face at the prospect of the Jedi being thrown at the Separatists...

... and the sheer melancholy on Yoda's face upon announcing the Clone War had begun...

... might have instead wondered how the Jedi, so opposed to war, could've ended up being generals.

Because while we don't see the Jedi openly protest the use of the clones in the film... they're not exactly giddy about it, either. All they can do is watch powerlessly as it gets voted by the Senate.

"The Jedi are there. But the Jedi aren't really allowed to be involved in the political process. They're there, but they can't suddenly step up and say, "No, no. You can't do that." They have to let the political process go." - George Lucas, Attack of the Clones, Commentary #2, 2002

We also don't see them take on the role of generals, either.

We only see them begrudgingly lead troops on Geonosis, specifically.

But they're not referred to as "generals" yet.

Another writer might have imagined a scene where after Geonosis, Mace Windu talks to Palpatine thinking the Jedi will go back to their roles as diplomats, and that what we saw in Attack of the Clones was a one-time thing to save Obi-Wan, but Palpatine politely goes:

"Ha! No. Didn't you hear? The Senate was so impressed by your performance on Geonosis that they voted to make you all generals in the GAR. Now, get back to the front."

Another writer might've elected to write them having that "big moral debate" she mentions.

Instead, Traviss immediately jumps on the "Jedi are elitists" train.

Because her personal experience with the military makes her sympathize with the clones and her personal belief is that - while the story may frame the Jedi as "the good guys" - nobody is that good a guy, real life people aren't that pure and selfless. There's gotta be something off about them and aHA! That's what it is!

That's her choosing to take that line of thought instead of one more in-line with the story, because she perceives it as unrealistic. But like... Star Wars isn't real life, it's a fairy tale.

That's like saying:

"The hunter in Little Red Riding Hood commits animal cruelty by cutting the Wolf open. He should've let nature take its course, the wolf earned that meal fair and square. If you think the hunter should've saved Red Riding Hood and her Grandma, then clearly you're the kind of monster who thinks one life is worth more than others."

... no?

The story's narrative clearly portrays the wolf as the villain of the tale and frames the Hunter saving Red Riding Hood as a good thing.

Disagreeing with that narrative is absolutely fine, but anybody who acknowledges the wolf is the bad guy in the story isn't automatically an animal hater and/or a bad person. Just because you say "the wolf is the villain" doesn't mean that you think that, in real life, killing wolves for shits and giggles is good.

Conversely, the narrative of the Prequels asks you to suspend your disbelief and not consider the implications that having a clone army entails. Because the use of clones doesn't have a direct impact on either Anakin or the Senate's stories.

Edit: I finished the post this one here originally spun out of!

You can find it here:

[bugsbia]

THE DRUNK SCARA FIC!! SORY I MEANT TO SAY THAT ^^

Anything for you anon.

ʚ This is a part 2! part 1 [here].

ʚ BEFORE READING: Fem reader. Read part 1 for context, but it isn't absolutely neesseecary.

ʚ WARNINGS: Praising (good girl), degrading (slut), Oral (reader receiving), pussy slap, little possessiveness.

After your encounter the previous night you fell asleep within minutes, the mixture of alcohol in your system and the exhaustion sending you into a quick and deep slumber. Luckily Scaramouche decided to be nice, he cleaned you up himself and let you sleep cozily in his bed instead of waking you up and forcing you back at home at 4am. By the next morning you were much sober, and awfully confused as you woke up in the arms of the man you met last night and with little recollection of what happened beyond some foggy memories.

You sat up in his bed slowly, trying not to wake him up as you looked around the room, taking note of the fact that you were both naked, your clothes were strewn about the room and the ache in your head from your slight hangover. Carefully you attempted to pry yourself from his arms but you ended up accidentally waking him up, his eyes fluttering open with a slight scowl upon his face as he looked up at you with those piercing indigo eyes.  “Trying to run already?” he said in a hoarse and sleepy voice, rubbing his eyes as he too sat up.

You quickly pulled the blanket up to keep your body covered, feeling embarrassed and shy at being seen naked by a man you hardly knew. Now that you were sober the drunken confidence had worn off, and the memories of last night flooded back quickly causing a deep blush to cross your cheeks as you remember the absolute pleasure he brought you. “No.. uhm, I just wanted to get my clothes..” you quickly stammered out.

“No need to lie to me, darling. I could see how confused you were for a moment.” He said as he smirked, leaning closer to you, his lips mere inches from your own. “Maybe I should allow you a round two so you truly never forget how good I make you feel.” he added as he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you back down onto the bed as he pressed his lips to yours.

A gentle kiss ensued, but it quickly became more heated as his tongue entered your mouth, exploring your mouth once again but now with the added enjoyment of your sobriety, knowing he had you under his control without needing to lower your inhibition. Slowly he trailed his hands up your waist and to your breasts, teasing your nipples which elicited a soft moan from your lips and oh did that send him wild. 

He pulled back from your lips and moved to your neck, peppering hungry wet kisses down your neck which hastily became bites as he began marking you with hickeys, wanting to make you his and only his. “Let me make you mine” he whispered between his kisses and bites, “You’re too perfect to be anyone else's” he added as he removed his hands from your tits and trailed them down to your thighs.

Pulling away from your neck he looked up at you, looking for a sign of approval or agreement to his proposition, and he got it when you slowly nodded. With your agreement he eagerly moved his hands up to your waiting pussy, immediately finding your clit and rubbing gentle circles around it while using his other hand to keep your legs spread for him.

“Good girl” he murmured, absolutely relishing the way your face contorted with pleasure, thinking about how utterly gorgeous you looked like this. “You’re being such a good slut for me” he praised as he pulled his hand away and pulled the blanket off of you, moving between your legs. lowering his face to your soaking cunt, his hot breath fanning over your sensitive flesh sending shivers down your spine.

Without hesitation he trailed his tongue through your folds, licking up your wetness with a satisfied groan “god, you taste so fucking good” he added with a shaky sigh. He began sucking and licking at you sensitive clit while keeping his eyes glued to your face, taking in every little reaction you made, every little gasp and moan that may escape your lips as he continued to tease your clit and lap up your slick.

Once you were truly soaking wet he pulled back, licking his lips clean and savoring the remaining taste as he pulled the blanket off himself completely. Kneeling between your legs and stroking his cock slowly while smirking down at you “you look so pretty beneath me like this.” he added while biting his lip slightly.

He moved his free hand to your thighs once again, spreading your legs wide as he positioned himself at your entrance, rubbing the tip of his cock up and down your folds. The way you squirmed drove him crazy, he couldn’t hold back anymore as he shoved his cock into your awaiting pussy. A single quiet moan falling from his lips in pure pleasure as your warmth enveloped him so perfectly. 

“Good girl” he breathed out, his voice becoming hoarse and dark, “You feel so fucking good”. He gently caressed your hips for a moment, letting you adjust to his size, but he couldn’t hold back for too long. The way you looked like this, sprawled out and so vulnerable for him sent him absolutely reeling, he just needed to hear you cry out his name.

The grasp he had on your hips turned harsh, his fingers digging into your soft skin as he finally lost all restraint, beginning to thrust his cock in and out of your pussy, making you gasp out in pleasure. You could see the way he smirked with delight upon hearing your gasp, that sickly sadistic smile that made you feel butterflies in your stomach.

His quick thrusts elicited moans from you that you quickly tried to muffle with your hands, but he wasn’t having that, “No. I want to hear those pretty noises of yours.”  he said while grabbing your wrists and pinning your hands above your head. The combination of his harsh thrusts and behavior was like ecstasy, making you moan out and whimper beneath him.

“That’s it, being such a good slut for me.”, he wanted to hear more, he wanted to hear you scream his name over and over again until you couldn’t anymore. He wanted to bring you over the edge and then some more, till you couldn’t think or speak, until you were a babbling mess beneath him, and he intended on doing so as he released his grasp on your hip, moving his hand to your clit, rubbing rough circles around your clit. Your back arched almost instinctively at his touch, pure pleasure taking over your mind and body as he found all your most sensitive spots.

“Scara!” you cried out, feeling that tight not in your stomach as he slowly brought you closer to your orgasm. As you called him so sweetly his thrusts grew faster and deeper, rubbing your clit with abandon “gonna cum” you added between moans and whines, writhing beneath him and losing control of yourself as you tried to chase out your release.

“Cum for me, slut. Cum all over my cock.” he demanded, slapping your clit gently before going back to rubbing and teasing it. Your legs trembled, your moans becoming desperate as the knot in your stomach finally snapped, your orgasm washing over you as you loudly moaned his name and arched your back.

He too chased his release, the way you moaned his name sent him reeling as he sloppily thrusted into your sensitive pussy, his hands grabbing at your hips tightly. “Fuck! That’s it baby” he moaned out as he came, releasing his warm sticky cum inside of you with one last hard thrust, filling you completely as he looked down at you, admiring your fucked out face.

“You look so perfect like this” he murmured while panting lightly, reaching out and brushing some hair out of your face gently as a satisfied smirk spread across his lips. How gorgeous you looked to him like this, so messy and all because of him. He intended to keep you to himself, so only he would get to see you like this.

Pulling out of you he rolled over beside you on the bed, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you tight to his chest and kissing your forehead. “You’re mine now.” he whispered into your ear in a dark tone, in a way that sent chills down your spine but also made you feel excited for what was to come.

[strawberrymochin]

Springtime Fushiguros♪

Context-: exploring the memories of childhood of fushiguros, marking the spring time of you and satoru gojo.

Dentist :- Gojo suggests going to the dentist to pull out Megumi's loose tooth.

A lot of things bother Megumi fushiguro. The zenin kid has beef with pretty much everything, such as socializing, loud people, and gojo satoru.

He recently developed a new ick for anything sweet, after gojo's repeated attacks on his candies.

From the past few days, this list of megumi's discommodes has added a new hassle to deal with.

One of his teeth from his upper jaw has been annoying him for quite a while. First of all it was mild, almost not noticeable, thus he shrugged it off. Then, it got slightly inconvenient, the tingly sensation he would feel while eating or having a cold drink was irritating.

Though he still didn't inform anything about it to you, he thought the pain would go away naturally and it's maybe because he ain't brushing that hard.

And as the thought process of a 7 year kid suggests, last night he brushed his teeth extra hard thinking it might help and subsequently this morning he woke up with a pain even more worse.

Megumi came out of his room, which he shares with Tsumiki, he has been in his room for half of the morning pretending to be asleep, debating with himself whether he should go and inform you or maybe wait a bit more for the pain to magically disappear.

And when he finally couldn't handle it anymore, wanting you to get his of his problem he couldn't find you.

'Whatcha doin' kid?' asks gojo, closing the refrigerator, after taking out a bottle of water to sip. He had been noticing megumi for a while, going in and out of your bedroom. He assumes Megumi wants breakfast, opening the refrigerator once again to take out the carton of milk, the loaf of bread and the jar of jam.

'brush your teeth if you haven't, till then I will get your breakfast ready.' he says, winking at the kid proudly, thinking he's such a good guardian, picking up on megumi's necessities. After all he had spent $531 on buying all those parenting books aren't worthless. So what if, he had only read 6 out of those 57 books? He would have scoffed at toji, teasing him how he knows megumi better than him.

'I don't want breakfast.' said Megumi plainly, what? An invisible arrow passes through gojo's heart, how can he be wrong? He turns around with a swift motion, discarding the breads on the counter, which he was about to put in the toaster.

Megumi isn't even looking at him, he's busy staring at the clock. 'why won't you have breakfast? Are you implying that I can't even toast a bread?'

'maybe. Where are y/n san and tsumiki?'

'out for grocery—wait don't change the topic, what do you mean by mayb—' he was about to ramble on when he noticed megumi a little more clearly.

He walked up to him, bending himself to his level, pulling at his blindfold, eyeing him as he removes them completely. Megumi's one hand is cupping his cheek, while the other is curled into a tight fist.

'You've got a teeth problem?'

'how do you kno—ah—hurts...'

'yes! I knew it. My days of reading those books aren't useless.' he felt pleased at himself, wanting to perform a ballet right now. However he calmed himself, taking a look at megumi glowering at him.

'open your mouth wide, lemme see. Which one? This?' megumi nods at him, as he figures out, he has a loose teeth.

The first one.

'you've a loose teeth. It will fall out on its own.'

'HUH?!'

'it's normal. A new one will grow out from the bare spot.' He said pushing a bit at the teeth to see how loose it is.

'ahh hurts!'

'can't do much about that.'

Megumi tucks at his sleeve, it's only been 15 minutes since gojo announced his teeth will fall out. 'what now?'

He stays quiet for a while, head low, then slowly murmurs, 'it hurts, can't you do something about it?'

'well then, open your mouth, lemme pull it out.'

'what! No!'

'you want it out right? This is the only option then.' gojo shrugs.

'.....'

'or else....'

'or else?'

'we have to go to the dentist. They will take it out with a tool, like an big sized tweezer. Let's go, shall we?'

'Hell no.'

'then lemme pull it out. Won't hurt much i swear. Open your mouth wide.'

'aaa—' Megumi opens his mouth hesitatingly, unsure what his Sensei might do, but he definitely doesn't want to pull it out with a tweezer.

'Megumi, what do you want for lunch?' gojo asks diverting megumi's attention, and before he could answer, gojo slowly pressures his index and thumb on his teeth plucking it out with little effort and a 'ow' from megumi.

'see here you go.' standing up proudly handing up his teeth in the air in victory, when megumi kicks him, 'ahh, what was that for?' he asks.

'you said it wouldn't hurt. Moreover it feels weird and blood is coming out.'

'you will get used to it. There's still a whole set of teeth to fall.'

Megumi's mouth fall wide open, at his sensei's words, he wishes the next time its you getting rid of it gently, like you do for other things. And not gojo coming up with more ideas to pluck his teeth off.

You came home to a proud gojo, flexing megumi's first loose tooth, he pulled out. He even suggested preserving it with raisin as a memory. You chuckle as Megumi shows you the gap between his teeths and how weird it feels.

'hey babe! You know what, the next time he gets another loose tooth lemme use my cursed energy to get it out.'

[adarkrainbow]

Since I am on the topic of these people that get a lot of criticism for their take on fairytales but still deserve to be kept around due to their influence, I want to briefly evoke Bruno Bettelheim's book "The Uses of Enchantment", known in France as "Psychanalysis of fairytales".

Note that I will not speak of the book itself or the reception of the book in English-speaking countries, but I want to talk about its reception in France and an impact it had on France. Today, numerous elements of the book have been debunked or criticized, coupled with many people misunderstanding the intentions of Bettelheim or misinforming about the context of the book or how it had to be read. As a result, today there is a tendency to crap on this book or laugh about it when we talk about fairytales analysis. However this book had a great importance in France when it came to "save" fairytales.

Before going into the general, as a brief piece of personal experience - which isn't exclusive to me, as others also shared this. This book actually was what got me into the analysis and study of fairytale. Or rather, when I read it as a pre-teen, it made me discover that... fairytales could have depths. Fairytales could have hidden meanings behind being simple children stories. It made me consider how these stories could be taken and reinterpreted as so many allegories and metaphors, it opened my eyes to a certain visceral, psychic, social aspect of these tales, and without this book I certainly would not have been into fairytales as I am today.

Not that this book is the ultimate resource of fairytale analysis - and the entire process of a psychological reading of fairytales is someting that exists but should not be taken into account when trying to explain them (fairytales being the produce of the encounter between literature and folklore). However, this book stayed a door-opening key for me, outdated maybe, overthinking stuff I guess, but that at least allowed me to glimpse into the "great beyond" behind these stories.

And now for my actual point... How Bettelheim's book saved fairytales in France. This is something I learned when studying the life and work of Pierre Gripari - in a book called "Pierre Gripari, un passeur d'écritures" by Inna Saranovska.

When Bettelheim's book reached France in the late 70s, fairytales were in a bad spot when it came to cultural authorities. Already fairytales had been reduced in people's mind to simple, naive children stories only good for making American cartoons (cough cough, Disney). But those of Perrault were still evoked and studied in schools (little schools for little children) because it was part of the heritage of France, of French culture, and the evolution of French literatue...

However what happened in the 70s? The very serious project of just burying fairytales was brought forward. The talks by politics and school authorities were simple: let us stop teaching fairytales to children in school, let's remove fairytales from school libraries, we do not have any use for them anymore, let them be forgotten. On one side, as I said, there was a discredit due to them being seen as silly children story, and thus no real pedagogic or "useful" chilren literature. But on the other side, there were very concrete and serious political business involved - fairytales were seen as antithetic, and opposed, to the principles of the modern Republic of France. Fairytales were seen as backward antiquities that went against what a great democratic nation should be. For example, people really did took issue in the fact that fairytales depicted monarchies, with kings as absolute authorities, and where a happy ending meant to end up prince or princess. For them, it was literaly teaching children to favor and idealize monarchy when they should rather learn about democracies and republics, and while it might seem silly today, it was serious back then and what almost led to the complete erasure of fairytales from school programs.

But then came Bettelheim's book. A book which proved to these folks that fairytales could be of a deep, psychological, social use to children. A book which taught these authorities to see beyond the "silliness" of these children stories or the "backward social message", and which told them how these stories could contain and express the deep fears, the secret desires of children, and help them grow up and deal with familial, social relationships. The book was a best-seller in France, and it completely changed the higher-ups opinion, and convinced tem fairytales should indeed be maintained in school - because fairytales were now "serious" due to being part of the very serious and praised domains of psychology and psychanalysis (which was all the fad and rage in the second half of the 20th century France).

And as such - no matter what you might say about the book's uality today - it can still be thanked for actually "saving" fairytales in France.

[chirpsythismorning]

WSQK Update

The Twitter account for WSQK Radio has reached 100(ish) songs! And while it's currently unknown whether or not this account is in any shape or form associated with Stranger Things, I still want to give a breakdown about it as well as some reasons why this account intrigues me so much, because there are actually quite a few.

For some context about when and how this started, it might be helpful to know that the first (un)official leak regarding the existence of the WSQK filming location occurred on January 18th, the day prior to WSQK making their first post.

That same Friday when WSQK made their first post, fans also got official 'Week 2' BTS from Ross, which more openly acknowledged the existence of the radio station location in comparison to his previous posts for s5.

What then followed was a rocky start in terms of this Twitter account’s approach at making posts. Initially, they only made posts consisting of lyrics, followed by another post with a short clip of the song those previous lyrics came from.

After less than a week of the account being sporadically active, they became very consistent and continued their roll-out of lyrics + video, and then adding in + dialogue, every single day. There are a few outliers, with them not making a post on March 14th and March 20th, but the first time they had a big break in between posts was from March 22nd-March 24th, notably with their March 21st's post being related to Will's birthday:

After the March 21st post, and with their return on the 25th, they officially switched it up from posting every day, to every other day, and more recently with a consistency of every 2-3ish days.

But still, over 5 months later (roughly 156 days), they remain active.

When it comes to the type of posts this account interacts with, they stick to strictly liking and sometimes retweeting/replying vaguely to posts regarding the WSQK location, along with liking the posts of anyone that replies to their posts.

After some time though, I noticed they began posting songs that they already posted before, just with different lyrics and lines from the show along with them. This actually makes sense given that they are acting as a radio station, where songs are known for playing and replaying numerous times.

Which brings me to the most interesting aspect about WSQK, which is that while a good chunk of the songs posted have featured on the show at some point, there are also a decent amount that have not.

Here is a playlist of the songs for reference:

Here are some songs specifically that pique my interest. Some I will elaborate on, while others I might just share and let you figure out for yourself why I think they're worth mentioning.

This song was originally the third song they posted, though it was removed about a week later. Hard to tell why exactly they removed it. Maybe since it was still early on. they mixed something up and decided to get rid of it? Regardless, lyrically there could be some significance to this song choice.

Since we've obviously heard Kate featured on the show already, I don't think it would be too hard for a fan to include this. Though, it being added this early on is an interesting choice to me. Lyrically a song like many on this playlist that I think have a specific meaning which could fit quite well with a potential storyline in s5. It is also one of quite a few songs that have been posted at least twice.

While this song did feature in s3 and s4, this song is one of many that are unlisted for the show. It doesn't feature on any official soundtrack or playlist and so you'd have to already know it to recognize it or go out of your way to search it for yourself. And the meaning is also ummmm... yeah.

I actually got barely any results when looking into this song and its lyrics. Though I did discover that it is most known for featuring in an episode of Miami Vice in 1986.

I could only share 10 songs here, so if you want to look at more or even all of them, I highly recommend taking a look, even if it's only out of mere curiosity. I do plan on going through and confirming all the songs one by one again because I probably mixed up or missed one or two (or more). Scrolling down a Twitter account until their first tweet is not exactly fun, but this should be accurate for the most part!

Something else I want to mention is that @erikiara80, who also keeps an eye on the account, noticed a while ago that they have always followed 11 people, some fans and some connected to the show. There was one time they unfollowed some accounts and then instantly followed some others, keeping them at 11 follows, which means the number could be an intentional choice.

A while ago, it hit me that, if this is a hypothetical radio station, wouldn't they also take requests? So Erika helped me with that by requesting two for them to post, getting this reply:

And they did in fact eventually post those two songs requested... I'll let you guess which ones :)

Basically, I felt the need to bring this whole ordeal back to the conversation now, not because I am convinced that it is run by someone connected to the show, but because the eeriness around it persists.

Keeping something going on this long would not only require someone to be very consistent, but to also have the willpower to not go over the top interacting with fans (which I don't think most fans have the self control to not take advantage of). This account doesn't seem to have any bias towards anything. In fact they remain completely impartial, sticking to their script. They seem fine with remaining in the shadows with fans assuming they are insignificant or otherwise, all while keeping the act going almost a half a year later.

With s5 getting no promotion outside of Ross's (sometimes) weekly BTS photo-dumps, this season's roll-out has been almost non-existent. Usually we would get phone numbers to call and obsess over, even 1-2 years out from release, and yet nothing.

I find this approach interesting because it does honestly resemble something I could picture the show doing to hype up s5. If the radio station is going to be a prominent location, then it offers up a really creative way to interact with fans as a way to promote the show.

Them humbly leaving hints about the final season through songs via a ‘radio station’, could parallel similarly to easter egg like approaches they've presented in the past. Only this time (the last time) it would have existed and built up for months with most not knowing about it, offering up a sleuth different songs fans could dig into if it was ever revealed to be promotion for s5.

With their being whispers that we could get something revealed in regards to s5 very soon, and with this playlist finally reaching 100 songs, I thought I would celebrate and remind ya'll it still exists in case you need an excuse to overanalyze something new.

[scapegoated-if]

How did the band come up with the name “Voyeurs” and why did they choose it? Would the name itself have been controversial in-game at that time, due to the sexual connotation?

This also comes up in the story but I will spoil it because it’s not majorly significant in the grand scheme of things. There will be a scene that explains all of this again, so read at your own discretion.

In the group, their initial idea as a band was ‘The Spectators’, which I got from a 1970 Jim Morrison interview where he said something along the lines of ‘a spectator is the most dangerous thing you can be’—I will reblog this with the specific quote and interview when I get home later (I have spare time on my hands so I’m replying to this at work).

Léon, however, suggests the name ‘The Spectators’ in reference to Oscar Wilde’s Preface from The Picture of Dorian Gray:

‘All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.’

Léon also sees “spectating” as the act of baring witness to the world around him at the time and writing what he’s baring witness to, more so than having anything to openly say about it. He doesn’t see himself as a writer but a vessel.

I imagine Vince thinks it’s too pretentious and, although Léon doesn’t agree with this sentiment, he does agree that the name in particular isn’t right for the band because it’s too on the nose.

Shiloh then suggests ‘The Voyeurs’ as a synonym, without knowing that the actual sadistic meaning refers to sexual voyeurism as well as in a sense enjoying pain inflicted upon others.

Vince would shut it down, interpreting the former. Leon would be open to it in the context of the latter—he would elaborate that he is specifically referring to watching those who suffer at the hands of progression and transgression from capitalism and the discriminatory systems currently in place at the time.

Eventually MC would decide to remove ‘The’ altogether from the name because there are many examples already of groups that have ‘The’ in their names: The Beatles; The Rolling Stones; The Velvet Underground; The Lovin’ Spoonful; The Byrds; The Who; The Doors; and etc, but I could go on.

I have the scene written down for the sake of myself contextually (it was one of the first pieces of writing I did for Scapegoated to grasp a sense of the dynamic between the band), but I’ll share it with you guys at a later time because I want to include space for coding so your MC can decide where she stands in this discussion.

The name is received negatively for a while by others and has a lot of discourse around it. Many record labels receive it negatively in the fear of a lack of marketability. But your label is open to it and loves it for the discourse it can create and the image of your band as very much so a product of your “angry” and “subversive” generation. At the time your band takes this well, especially because it’s a very famous and successful label (evidently), but bad publicity isn’t always good publicity…

I offered a different name to my best friend when I was planning Scapegoated: ‘Pitstop’. It would have been a literal reference to the QE2 and the fact you met Léon on a pit stop along the ship’s schedule. But I didn’t feel that it had the same impact if the MC was from France because you would both be getting on the QE2 at the same time, rather than experiencing the journey without Leon for a day, and then picking him up at the South of France terminal where it massively turns around what the trip is like for you. On the other hand, metaphorically it was meant to be allusive to the fact your group are passing by—you’re dropping an album and then disappearing, which felt too on the nose on my part in terms of the hiatus. The band wouldn’t know they’re going on hiatus when they start it, otherwise it’s like what’s the point in the first place?

Also, I associated the name ‘Pitstop’ as less ‘70s and more ‘00s heavy metal for some reason—maybe I’m subconsciously rhyming it with ‘Slipknot’ or something.

Sorry for how long this has become! A lot to unpack!

Stay groovy!

[bisexualiteaa]

Finding out you have an ✨intimate✨ piercing

CW: suggestive themes and light mentions of smut so 18+ content! Reader is written in a more AFAB orient. Also thank you all for such great receptions on my CoD works, it means the world to get my silly little writings and ideas out and that you all like them so much, so a million times thank you. 🥹🫶

John "Soap" MacTavish

- It was a secret you held from him for a while, having spent years in the force together before finally dating, he hadn't known til now that you had nipple piercings.

- He had seen a few of your other piercings when you would wear jewelry outside of work, like your earrings, a nose ring, even having your eyebrow pierced and a belly ring when you were out and about on a day off, none of those things phased him, they were just a part of you.

- It was when you two had finally taken the next step in your relationship to get intimate for the first time that he had found out, this was the first time he'd ever seen you without a bra.

- As soon as you removed the material from your chest, he was excited to see what laid beneath, and soon shocked to see you had your nipples pierced. He gave a whistle at the sight of your titties that had just grown even more alluring to his eyes.

- "When did ya decide to get that done, hen?" He asked with an intruiged grin, making you look down to see what he was referring to. "Oh these? God it was so long ago, I got them on a stupid dare back in high school. My friends at the time said they'd give me fifty bucks to get it done to prove my pain tolerance" you admitted, making him laugh. "Only fifty bucks?" He asked. "Well originally the bet was I'd only get one done, but mama didn't raise a bitch, so I got both done. The piercing itself was only thirty, so I made twenty bucks out of it. Twenty bucks and friends who'd never question my nuts of steel ever again" you replied making him laugh at the response that seemed sounded so completely like you.

- You on the other hand, couldn't help but see the way he was looking at them, oggling at them as if he was admiring them even more, seeing the look on his face that practically read "wonder what it'd feel like to have them in my mouth."

- "You like them?" You asked with honeyed seduction in your tone, a cheeky grin on your face as you made him snap out of hid own thoughts. "I do, like 'em a lot actually" he answered, stepping closer and placing one of his hands to your breast, his thumb brushing over your pebbled nipple, making you give a sigh at the sensitive feeling. "Heard they can make ya more sensitive" He started to say, his accent thicker now as his own voice took on a deeper octave, lascivious intent laced in his tone. "Care to find out?" You asked with a grin, making him loop his other arm around you to pull you close. "You bet I fuckin' would" he answered before leaning down to wrap his lips around the other nipple. You gave a moan, leaning your head back as he started to suck on it, earning a plethora of lovely sounds from you.

- Needless to say, he was definitely a fan of these piercings too, enjoying this new information about you and the things he could do with it, he loved the way they were so sensitive and made you make such beautiful sounds for him.

König

- You knew this little stunt would definitely shock König when he came home from his mission in the next couple of months, giving the jewelry ample time to heal before he was able to catch sight of it in action.

- "got a little surprise for you when you come home~" you'd text him one day, giving him absolutely no context, but reading the message alone was enough to make his mind run rampant. Had you bought a new outfit? Some lingerie to surprise him in when he got home? Did you get him something he told you about? Oh how this poor man's mind was reeling from all the possibilities.

- So when the couple of months passed and he finally made it home, he'd almost forgotten all about it, happy to just see you after going months out in the field without getting to hear from you except for periodically.

- That was, until you were on your knees in front of him, his dick heavy on your tongue as you circled it around his tip before taking him in your mouth, that he felt something a little different.

"Maus? What- Scheiße...what is that?" He asked through moans, making you giggle as he looked down at you. "Your surprise, liebe" you answered sweetly, sticking your tongue out to show him the jewelry before you gave a long lick up the expanse of his cock, teasing the sensitive spot under his tip with your piercing. "You like it?" You asked with a cocky grin, knowing by the way he was moaning and practically melting at your every touch that he did, but you needed to hear him say it.

- "Ja, I like it a lot liebling" he replied, his hand carding through your hair, keeping it away from your face as your lips wrapped around him, taking him in as deep as you could as your hand wrapped around what you couldn't fit.

- He definitely made it clear how much he liked it, from the way he would kiss you with far more tongue now just to feel it against his own, to the way he would get more excited than before when you would get on your knees to please him, or even anytime you'd run your tongue along his skin, he swore it was his new favorite feeling.

Simon "Ghost" Riley

- You were embarrassed when he found out that you had a clit piercing, knowing the reason behind why you had gotten it done, even though he hadn't known yet.

- You had it before meeting Simon, having been in a couple of relationships before meeting him. The jewelry was a need for you after your previous relationships, due to your former partners and their lack of abilities in making you finish.

- You and Simon had sex before, so you knew thankfully, even if you hadn't had the jewelry, he was finally the one to break the cycle. But anytime you knew you were going to get intimate with him, you'd take it out beforehand and pray he wouldn't be too observant of the area so he wouldn't know.

- So when you forgot to take it out one day, caught by surprise by him coming home early from the field without telling you, your anxiety began to get the better of you as things turned intimate.

- It made you incredibly nervous and embarrassed the moment he went down on you and found the jewel peaking from your clit, and had he not been between your legs, you'd have shut them if you could.

- "What's this you've got here?" He asked, knowing damn well what it is, but he enjoyed teasing you too much, especially when you were in a more shy and submissive mood. "A piercing..." You let out, hiding your face as you admitted to it, and by the tone he knew he needed to let up and check on you.

- "What's wrong, love? Do you not want to do this?" He asked, worried that perhaps he had pushed things when you weren't in the mood, or maybe misjudged your signals. "No, no! It's not that at all, I want this I just.." You started to say before giving a sigh and trying to collect your thoughts and courage. "I'm just embarrassed to have it" you admitted, making him come back up to be level with you. "Why?" He asked, genuinely curious as to why you'd get something like that, then be embarrassed of it. "Because...if I'm honest, the people I had been with before you, weren't good" you started, feeling a little more at ease to open up to him. "So I got it when I was single, before I met you, to help me finally have a chance to experience an orgasm for once in my fucking life when I'd have sex, instead of having to fake it and take matters into my own hands later" you admitted, making him chuckle at your admission that he felt was completely valid. Little did you know, you'd just sky rocketed his ego in telling him he's the first person to make you cum.

- "You don't need to be ashamed love, I'd be pissed too if a shit back like that didn't make me cum" he said, making you giggle at his blunt words of reassurance, but that was Simon, and you took comfort in knowing he didn't hate it. "You don't mind it? I can take it out if you'd prefer" you asked. "I think it's a good look on you" he replied honestly, his fingers gently circling your clit, making you moan and clutch at the sheets beside you as you delighted in his touch. "I'd say I feel sorry for the poor bloke you got this for who missed out.." he mused, trailing his lips down your stomach, then all the way down until he was once again situated between your legs, mouth just centimetres from your aching cunt. "But I don't" he finished, placing a light, open mouthed kiss to your clit, making you buck your hips in reaction. "Legs open for me love, let me show you how much I like it, yeah?" He asked, watching you nod your head yes before devouring you like you were his last meal.

- He made damn sure that after that night, you weren't ashamed of it anymore.