#and it kind of turned into a narrative about boundaries and learning to take care of yourself first

[dreamsy990]

hey friend of mine said to call you dream the green smile man. do I have permission to kill

POINTING. MY NAME CAME FIRST. PLEASE KILL

[poppy-metal]

hi hello yes can I hear about what tashi's training sessions for art look like. I think if I don't hear more about this I shall explode

hehe - the thing is, arts kind of a natural at it. he just had the wrong view on bdsm as a whole - as most people who dont partake in it do - thinking it was all whips and chains and the more severe side of things and, and, art cant see himself wanting to hit you with things like a whip - or wanting to chain you up. but tashi is more than happy to teach him its much more than that.

"bdsm is mostly about mutual trust and consent." she states more or less plainly. and art kinda blinks because he hadn't thought about it that way. he likes the idea of trust and consent. its kinda his whole thing. "the sub has the power." that makes his eyebrows draw together.

"but. they're getting dominanted - isn't. doesn't that mean giving up power... to the dom?"

tashi shakes her head. he's so naivě. "its about the submissive giving that control over willingly. and having the power to retract that submission back at any point they desire. its a gift. they're trusting their dom to give them what they need. bdsm should always be about the subs pleasure. sometimes that pleasure looks different for different couples. a sub could find pleasure in being hit, sure, but they could also find pleasure in servicing their dom. in following rules. in simply being told to sit and look pretty. the doms pleasure should come from fulfilling that. a good dom, anyway."

when she puts it like that - its easier for art to hop on board. he hadn't thought of it that way, but he thinks about it now. about you trusting him, trusting him with what turns you on, gifting him your submission and trusting him to give you what you need. he likes that alot.

"you can practice on patrick and me." tashi tells him and he chokes.

its news to him to learn both patrick and tashi are switches. well, both of them lean more dominant, but sometimes they like the feeling of giving that power up. though she explains they both have more of a tendency to be a brat.

"i have a feeling you'll like brat taming. especially when it comes to your wife - she doesn't know it yet, i think. but she's definitely in need of discipline. its why she wants to be spanked."

and though art was initially against the idea of laying his hand on you, on anyone - tashi again explains it to him in a way that makes perfect sense somehow. like all the pieces of a puzzle sliding into place, fitting perfectly.

"brats usually just want one thing - attention. being brought to heel after acting out is your way of showing them you hear them. you care about them enough to correct their behavior and set them on the right path."

she also adds, "it's also a really high endorphin rush - challenging someone and having that challenge met. that's what i like about it. with giving and receiving. i like being challenged and coming out on top, and i like doing the challenging and meeting my match."

and suddenly he thinks he understands you better than he ever has before. he'd thought you cruel. spiteful and he'd wondered if you even loved him anymore countless times. through this lense though - a new narrative comes to light. one where you just want his attention. where you just want him to show you he cares. he thinks he's neglected you terribly in that aspect. he's always one to back down and concede. he didn't want to overstep your boundaries, but maybe you'd simply been issuing a challenge this whole time and he'd refused to strike back. he feels stupid for not realizing it sooner.

tashi sees him realize it, and puts her hand over his. "would you like to try? i know i said the submissive is the one with the power - but a doms feelings are just as important. you should both want it."

he does want to try.

its a different dynamic than he's used to with tashi. when together, she usually takes the lead. there hasn't been any..... bdsm elements to their sex, but he definitely follows her direction. in a way - its not that different. he's listening to what she tells him. and she's not shy about what she likes.

she doesn't like to be smacked hard - quick swats on her ass are what she likes best. alternating between cheeks so the burn isn't delegated to just one area.

she spreads herself over his lap in her little black panties and wiggles her butt. she smirks at him over her shoulder - "its okay to get into it." she tells him. "a brat wants to piss you off. they want a reaction. its no fun if you're being a pussy about it -"

art swings his hand down then - because a little spark of irritation does go through him - he hates being called names. tashi gasps and rocks back into it. art feels himself harden. bites his lips as he palms her ass.

"green?" because he'd learned the color system just about an hour ago.

tashi arches back against him - "green." she reassures him and he spanks her again. the moan she lets out is encouragement enough to keep going.

he's suprised by how much he likes it. he likes smoothing his palm over her ass after a smack, soothing her into a false sense of security before he's at her again. he feels the heat from her skin from each smack. feels the damp of her cunt against his thigh and he imagines you like this. spread out over his lap, but you're squirming, squirming away from the pain but you're still saying green everytime he asks.

you're not tashi though - so he reigns in the urge he has to suddenly hit harder. focuses in on tashi again.

but she smiles at him like she knows where his mind went anyway.

"i bet she'd like it harder." tashi goads. she's rubbing her pussy against his thigh. "knowing her - yeah, she'd want you to beat her black and blue. until she was crying. then she'd want you to kiss it better. coddle her like the baby she is."

his cock throbs in his sweats. he palms her ass. "tashi." he warns.

"c'mon you've had to imagine it. I know i have." she huffs and continues to rock back and forth against him. getting herself off. "god, she'd look so hot with her little ass turned red. you could probably slide right inside her after - she'd be so fucking wet - ah!"

art spanks her again. than again. again and again until tashi is panting and he's sliding a hand under her body to slip his fingers inside her cunt where shes hot and wanting

"yes, that's it." she gasps. "god you're so good at this -"

he takes the praise in stride, pumps his fingers aggressively into her until shes creaming around him. shuddering in his lap.

he runs a palm down her slick back. gentle. thinks about you again, and how soft and limp you'd be after he was done with you. how he'd get to just hold you after and pour his love into you and you'd be too fucked out to do anything but accept it.

tashi sits up. she palms his hard cock and art groans.

"now i want you to think of her." she tells him as she slides her hand into his sweats and grips him in her fist. "fuck my hand like its her mouth. show me how you'd make her take it -"

art thinks this'll be the end of him. he loses himself in the thought. its like tashi isn't even there. there's just the heat of her palm around his dick and he's punching his hips up into the tight circle of it - thinking of the wet tight heat of your throat. he thinks of all the harsh words you'd spewn his way recently - thinks of punishing you for them - for being a lying little brat - why couldn't you just tell him this is what you wanted - he would have learned sooner - he would have done anything you wanted - but you're so fucking stubborn. such a stubborn girl. more so than he is, because at least now hes trying. hes changing for you.

he'll come get you. and then he'll have a few things to show you - things will be different. you'll see.

[pridepages]

eARC Review: Napkins and Other Distractions

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

AMAZON SYNOPSIS:  On paper, they’re a disaster. In the sheets, they’re a perfect match.

Kent Lester is proud of the joyful, thriving learning community he’s created as principal of Lear Elementary School. But seven years after his divorce, he’s ready to focus on his personal life and spread his bisexual wings. Things get off to a rocky start when Kent’s first date is an uptight control freak — although that doesn’t stop them tangling some sheets.

Vincent Manda never seems able to move past the friend zone, and besides, he’s not sure anyone can handle his OCD. But that night with the bearded, older Kent revealed a side of Vincent he’d never experienced before. And he’s equal parts scared of and desperate for a repeat.

When Lear’s test scores take a nosedive, Kent finds himself under the microscope. Forced to implement new software to monitor and collect school data, he’s horrified to discover that Vincent is working on the project. With his last install ending less than ideally, Vincent’s job depends on this one succeeding — and butting heads with the principal won’t help.

Vincent and Kent need to view each other in a new light, but that could change their futures forever.

RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2024

See my full review under the cut!

The lead couple of Napkins and Other Distractions are unlikely romance heroes. They're both solidly middle-aged, separated by a fifteen-year age gap. One is divorced. One is perpetually single, isolated by the severe OCD that most people cannot understand.

But Kent and Vincent are about to discover that sometimes even the 'well-seasoned' could use a little spice!

Wardell is frank about his open-door sex scenes. He wants to be known as a 'spicy' writer, and with each new book he turns up the heat.

These guys are kinky! Even if that's not your personal taste...

...you have to love how open they are to self-discovery.

It's so easy to become set in your ways. As you pass those early, tumultuous years and start to settle into adulthood, you start to think that you've discovered everything there is to learn about yourself. But that sort of thinking sets boundaries--it keeps your world small. Being alive should be about experiencing everything you can: trying new things, meeting new people, and embracing change. Living is all about learning.

Learning how to love is the education in this book. Unlike the other books, the secondary storyline about what's happening in the school is...uncompelling. Part of the problem is that there's no heart in a storyline about data-gathering. There's an attempt to get us to care by injecting the stakes of Kent's job being at risk, but... My prevailing feeling was that this story didn't need to be set in a school the way Teacher of the Year and Mistletoe and Mishigas needed to be to serve their narratives. the more thoughtful lessons aren't set in any classroom--they're in the interactions between Kent and Vincent as they learn how to fit into each other's world.

I really appreciated how much nuance went into each of their arcs. The takeaway wasn't "Vincent needs to get better" or "Kent needs to change." Both of them had to learn how to make space for each other and how to fit together. Kent learns how to make Vincent's world feel safer in little ways like remembering his preference for even numbers and in big ways like sitting together through episodes of intense compulsion. In turn, Vincent learns how to ride out the chaos that comes with loving a messy, klutzy man. Watching them figure out how to communicate, adapt, and do the work of loving--the work that makes you feel more instead of less--is the lesson.

Napkins and Other Distractions is a chili pepper dipped in a sugar glaze--the kind of sexy book that feels accessible to real people not because it's tame, but because it invites the reader to see themselves in it. It's the kind of book that makes you feel good because you leave it believing that you too may contain multitudes. You too may still have adventures ahead.

You too may have a person.

Even if it takes you another decade or two to find them.

[lasirenedesiree]

Cosmic Goddess: The Divine Feminine

The divine feminine — a sacred balance between the light and dark energies. That can be translated as the gentle and protective instincts.

True feminine energy is not passive or weak, it is also not manipulative, cruel or controlling. We are taught either one or the other narrative in society today. Be passive, sweet and keep the peace, or manipulate others for your own personal gain. Neither help us evolve.

Real feminine energy is the balance of secure boundaries and self-assuredness, and having an extremely open, vulnerable heart. If you only choose one or the other, I can bet you will not feel fulfilled.

I know it's terrifying to open your heart and be vulnerable, to put yourself at risk of being hurt or let down. I know it's easier to turn to manipulation tactics disguised as "dark feminine energy" and "sprinkle sprinkle" methods. But real magic comes from the heart.

That being said, with your open heart and vulnerability, your softness and sweetness.. you must learn to hold that sacredness with boundaries, healthy decision making, and accountability. All at the same time. That's what makes the true Divine Feminine woman so powerful.

It's a delicate but brutal balance. To be the most loving, soft woman anyone you know has ever met, but also not take any shit or disrespect for even a second before you put your foot down. It requires an insane amount of consciousness and self-awareness.

Open your heart, let your guard down, trust people, but don't even for a second stay silent about something you are not happy with, and don't let anyone take advantage of your inner nectar. Be aware of your energy and how others hold it and respect it. Listen to your body.

Your feminine essence is just as wild as she is soft. It is just as raw and honest as it is understanding and compassionate.

But remember that your power is genuinely found in the loving, caring, intuitive, nurturing nature and oracle that you hold.

And the fact that your power is in that heart, that softness and that nurturing aspect of yourself, make sure to choose the environments and people where that part of you can actually bloom. That's where your boundaries and blunt decisiveness must come in.

The balance of the light and dark feminine in a woman is the exact thing that makes her so beautiful and powerful.

How soft and surrendered she can be, how accepting, compassionate, empathetic, kind and nurturing, sharing her wisdom and oracle because it's her gift with everyone she comes into contact with.

But at the same time, putting her foot down the second something is out of alignment for her. When something does not feel respectful or that it serves her heart or highest good. She is anything but passive. She does not settle. She does not stay silenced, she is open in every way of the word.

She is the divine feminine. An ethereal cosmic goddess.

[smilemuse]

NO FRIENDS ARE HIS PREFERENCE, BUT HE DOESN'T EXPECT THE CURIOSITY FROM DENJI. the two of them were having a small conversation, so he can divulge some details. yoshida is particular about the narrative surrounding him & the appeal that he gives off within the school. to a degree, yes he cares about his reputation but only in the sense that he would rather appear like an octopus. he's ready to retreat when the situation is out of his own control or when he knows he's met his match. he's aware of denji's teenage desires considering he wants the typical experience that involves getting a girlfriend. he has no concern for that, in fact he finds it to be too distracting.

there's a shake of his head considering he wouldn't hide the fact either. ❛ i'm rich. most people at school kind of talk about it. mostly my fan club. it doesn't matter to me, but in a way, i do have a sheltered life. ❜ this time he takes the moment to scratch his head as he leads denji towards the right. he listens in on denji's family situation, it was interesting & a lovely gesture knowing that someone was giving orphans a home. ❛ there's no rush to figuring these things out, but i'd like to help you graduate. a personal want of mine.❜ he feels the implications of denji's last phrase, almost like he's taken a bite of bitter chocolate himself.

❛ aki-senpai could never get sick of you. he's doing all of this to ensure you get your highschool education. i'm sure think highly of you despite everything. what older brother wouldn't want their younger brother to suceed?❜ there's the softer indication of a smile, a genuine smile on yoshida's face. he knows he might have overstepped his boundary between tutor & student, but it didn't sit right to see denji bring himself down like that. it was something to bookmark considering their conversation about his current way of learning things.

there's a part of yoshida that goes rigid considering his parents are more of a sore subject for him. the dark haired male makes no mention of them except they often travel leaving him alone in a larger home than most people don't know what to do with. ❛ i have a step-mother and a father. they are usually busy people since they travel a lot. they're business people.❜ it should suffice for an answer & hopefully denji doesn't decide to dig deeper than what he's already provided. the truth is, yoshida has a vague understanding of what having parents are like. to him they were just the title of two people who come & go like a revolving door. ❛ turn the next corner and we'll be there.❜

each new fact denji acquires about yoshida makes him wonder why he's most often spotted by his lonesome outside of the student council or when his fanclub isn't crowding his space. it would take a blind person to be unaware of who he is; yoshida remained a person who wanted to be purposefully untouched despite his popularity. denji wonders why; if he looked half as good as yoshida did, maybe he could get some dates and he would never reject half the letters he gotten from the female population of the school. he would have a new girl on his arm every week, grades be damned. it makes denji a little envious to say the least, but he keeps that tucked deep, deep down within himself.

his brows quirk curiously, “ya jus' got money ta blow like that on eatin' out?” he wasn't that curious, but since their school discourages kids from having real jobs, denji finds himself doing odd bits for scraps of coin and cash to spend on the gacha machines outside of shops. to his next question, denji's head shakes. “we have a little sister we adopted recently too. 'er name's nayuta,” he replies, a bit of a smile on his face. he felt close to both aki and power of course, but there's something about his connection with nayuta that is a little bit more special. the way she looks up to him means everything to him, somehow.

yoshida's words spark a bit of something in him, but not enough to ignite anything serious. he doesn't consider school to be his path at all, not wanting to struggle with it for another four or so years for a degree. he doesn't have any passion in the area. as for doing anything good, well... he has no leads there either. yoshida seems to have life all planned out, making denji pout a little bit. “must be nice to know what ya wanna do in life. i dunno what i'mma do once i'm really an adult, coz i don't wanna bother aki forever. i think he might get sick o' me,” he laughs a little bitterly.

an absent nod meets the sentence at first, “parents, eh? that sounds nice too. i've only lived with aki 'n powy for six 'n five years after i was adopted by ms. makima. howzit like havin' parents,” denji asks, gaze curious. he's not ashamed to speak of where he came from, although his time in the foster system and before is muddled with memories his brain doesn't want to remember.

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x11 thoughts

For an episode that ends with a journalist Ted trusts but has (understandably) recently lied to warning Ted that he’s publishing an article about his panic attacks, it was fitting that this episode seemed entirely about what all of these characters choose to tell each other. And after most of a season of television that Jason Sudeikis has described as the season in which the characters go into their little caves to deal with things on their own, it turns out they are finally able to tell each other quite a lot.

Which is good because, um, wow, a lot is going to happen in the season finale of this show!

Thoughts on the things people tell each other behind the cut!

Roy and Keeley. I absolutely loved the moment during their photoshoot in which they bring up a lot of complicated emotional things and are clearly gutted (“gutted”? Who am I? A GBBO contestant who forgot to turn the oven on?) by what they’ve heard. We already know that Keeley and Roy are great at the kinds of moments they have before the shoot begins, in which Roy builds Keeley up and tells her she’s fucking amazing. From nearly the beginning of their relationship, they’ve supported each other and been each other’s biggest fans. But their relationship has gone on long enough that they’ve progressed from tentative arguments about space and individual needs into really needing to figure out what they mean to each other and how big their feelings are and what that means in relation to everything else. Watching these two confess about the uncomfortable kiss with Nate, the unexpectedly long conversation with Phoebe’s teacher, and—most painfully—the revelation that Jamie still loves Keeley didn’t feel like watching two people who are about to break up. (Although I could see them potentially needing space from each other to get clarity.) It felt like watching two people realize just how much they’d lose if they lost each other, which is an understandably scary feeling even—or especially—when you’re deeply in love but not entirely sure what the future holds. Not entirely sure what you’re capable of when you’ve never felt serious about someone in quite this way, and are realizing you have to take intentional actions to choose that relationship every single day. I’m excited to learn whether Roy and Keeley decide they need to solidify their relationship more (not necessarily an engagement, but maybe moving in together or making sure they’re both comfortable referring to the other as partner and telling people they’re in a committed relationship) or if things go in a different direction for a while.

Sharon and Ted. I’ve had this feeling of “Wow, Ted is going to feel so intense about how honest he’s been with Sharon and is going to end up getting really attached and transfer a lot of emotions onto the connection they have and that is stressful no matter how beneficial it has been for him to finally get therapy!” for a while now. And Sharon’s departure really brought that out and it was indeed stressful. But the amount of growth that’s happened for both of these characters is really stunningly and beautifully conveyed in this episode. Ted is genuinely angry she left without saying goodbye, and he doesn’t bury it some place deep inside him where it will fester for the next thirty years. He expresses his anger. (I also noticed he sweared—mildly—in front of her again, which is really a big tell for how much he has let his carefully-constructed persona relax around her.) He reads her letter even though he said he wasn’t going to, and he’s moved. I don’t think Ted has the words for his connection to Sharon beyond “we had a breakthrough,” but Sharon gets it, and is able to firmly assert a professional boundary by articulating her side of that breakthrough as an experience that has made her a better therapist. And is still able to offer Ted a different kind of closure by suggesting they go out before her train leaves. No matter how you feel about a patient/football manager seeing their therapist/team psychologist colleague socially, I appreciated this story because IMO it didn’t cross big lines but instead was about one final moment in this arc in which both Ted and Sharon saw each other clearly and modeled what it is to give someone what they need and to expect honesty and communication from them. I liked that Ted ends up being the one saying goodbye. (The mustache in the exclamation points!) I like that whether or not Sharon returns in any capacity (Sarah Niles is so wonderful that I hope she does, but I’m not sure), the goodbye these characters forge for themselves here is neither abandonment nor a new, more complicated invitation. It’s the end of a meaningful era, and although the work of healing is the work of a lifetime, it’s very beautiful to have this milestone.

Ted and Rebecca. So, maybe it’s just me, but it kinda feels like these two have a few li’l life things to catch up on?! (HAHHHHHaSdafgsdasdf!) I really adored their interactions in this episode. I maintain that Biscuits With The Boss has been happening this whole time (even when Ted’s apartment was in shambles, there’s biscuit evidence, and I feel like we’ve been seeing the biscuit boxes in Rebecca’s office pretty regularly too), even if it might have been more of a drive-by biscuit drop-off/feelings avoidance ritual. It was really lovely to see Ted on more even footing in Rebecca’s office, joking around until she tells him to shut up, just like the old days. And GOSH—for their 1x9 interaction in Ted’s office to be paralleled in this episode and for Ted to explicitly make note of the parallel in a way Rebecca hears and sees and understands?! MY HEART. In both of Rebecca’s confessions, she is not bringing good news but it is good and meaningful that she chooses to share with Ted. In both situations, Ted takes the moment in stride and offers acceptance equivalent to the gravity of what she has to confess. And in both situations, he’s not some kind of otherworldly saint, able to accept Rebecca no matter what because he’s unaffected by what she shares. He is affected. When he tells her about Sam, you can see a variety of emotions on his face. Rebecca is upset and Ted is calm, and even if I might have liked for him to try to talk about the risk the affair poses to the power dynamics on the team or any number of factors, I also really liked that he just accepts where she is, and—most importantly—does not offer her advice beyond examining herself and taking her own advice. A massive part of being in a relationship with another person (a close relationship of any nature) is figuring out how to support that person without necessarily having to be happy about every single thing they do. It’s so important that Ted connects what she’s just told him about Sam back to what she told him last season about her plot with the club. These both feel like truth bombs to him, and he is at least safe enough to make that clear. These are both things that impact him, things that shape how he sees her and maybe even how he sees himself. He cares about her and is capable of taking in this information; he has room for it. But it’s not something he takes lightly, and neither does she. See you next year.

Tumblr user chainofclovers and the TV show Ted Lasso. My brain is going wild thinking about all the ways the next “truth bomb” conversation could go in 3x11 or whatever. Maybe they go full consistent parallel and Rebecca confesses something else, this time about her and Ted or some other big future thing that impacts him as much or more as the other confessions have. (The same but different.) Maybe the tables turn and Ted has something to confess to her. While the 1x9 conversation ended in an embrace and the 2x11 conversation ended with a bit more physical distance (understandable given the current state of their relationship and the nature of the discussion), the verbal ending of both conversations involved voices moving into a sexier lower register while zooming in to talk specifically about their connection to each other, so I have to assume there will be some consistencies in s3 even if the circumstances will be completely different. I don’t really know where I’m going with this and I obviously will go insane if I sustain this level of anticipatory energy until Fall 2022 but I have a feeling my brain and heart are going to try!

Sam and Rebecca. I know there’s been a lot of criticism about whether this show is being at all realistic about the power dynamics and inevitable professional issues this relationship would create. On some level, I agree; I like that pretty much everyone who knows about the affair has been kind so far, but you can be kind and still ask someone to contend with reality. But I also think that in nearly every plot point on this show, the narrative is driven by how people feel about their circumstances first and foremost. (It’s why the whiteboard in the coaching office and the football commentators tell us more about how the actual football season is going from a points perspective than anyone else.) This episode reminded me how few people know about Sam and Rebecca, and how much their time together so far has been time spent in bed. The private sphere. I thought this episode really expertly brought the public sphere into it, not—thank goodness—through a humiliating exposure or harsh judgment but through an opportunity for Sam that illustrates not only all his potential to do great things but how much Rebecca’s professional position and personal feelings are in conflict with that. Could stand in the way of that. I don’t have a strong gut feeling about where this will go, but I do think Sam’s face in his final scene of this episode is telling. He started the episode wanting to see Rebecca (his most recent text to her was about wanting to connect), and Edwin’s arrival from Ghana really exploded his sense of what is possible for his life. If he’d arrived home to Rebecca sitting on his stoop prior to meeting Edwin, he’d have been delighted. Now he’s conflicted, and whatever decision he makes, he has to reckon with the reality that he cannot have everything he wants. No matter what. And Rebecca—she has taken Ted’s advice and is attempting to be honest about the fact that she can’t control Sam’s decisions but hopes he doesn’t go, and even saying that much feels so inappropriate. And I’m not sure how much she realizes about the inappropriateness of the position she’s putting him in, although maybe she’s getting there considering she exits the scene very quickly. I’ve honestly loved Rebecca’s arc this season. I think it’s realistic that she got obsessed with the intimacy she thought she could find in her phone. I think it’s realistic that her professional and personal ambitions are inappropriately linked. (They certainly were for Rupert. It’s been years since she’s known anything different; even if she’s done some significant recovery work to move on from her abusive marriage and figure out her own priorities, she’s got a long way to go.) I know there are people who will read this interaction between Rebecca and Sam as a totally un-self-aware thing on the part of “the show” or “the writers” but what I saw is two people who enjoyed being in bed together and now have to deal with the reality that they’re in two different places in their lives and that one has great professional power over the other. If that wasn’t in the show, I wouldn’t be able to see it or feel so strongly about it.

Edwin and Sam. I really enjoyed all the complexities of this interaction. Edwin is promising a future for Sam that doesn’t quite exist yet, though he has the financial means to make it happen. He offers this by constructing for Sam a Nigerian—and Ghanaian—experience unlike anything he’s found in London. Sam is amazed that this experience is here, and Edwin’s response is to explain to him that the experience is not here. Not really. The experience in Africa. Sam has of course connected to the other Nigerian players on the team, but this is something else entirely. I’m really curious if Sam is going to end up feeling that what Edwin has to offer is real or not. That sense of home and connection? So real. And so right that he would want to experience that homecoming and would want to be part of building that experience for others. But at the end of the day, he went to a museum full of actors and a pop-up restaurant full of “friends,” and is that constructed authenticity as a stand-in for a real homecoming more or less real than the home he’s building in Richmond? (With other players who stand in solidarity with him, and with well-meaning white coaches who say dumb stuff sometimes, and an a probably-doomed love interest, and a feeling that he should put chicken instead of goat in the jollof, and the ability to stand out as an incredible player on a rising team.)

Nate and everyone. But also Nate and no one. Nate’s story is so painful and I’m so anxious for next week’s episode. For a long time I’ve felt that a lot of Nate’s loyalties are with Richmond, and a lot of his ambitions are around having given so much to this place without getting a lot back, and having a strong feeling that he’s the answer to Richmond’s future. But now I’m not so sure; his ambitions have transferred into asking everyone he knows (except Ted, of course), if they want to be “the boss.” But Nate is all tactics and no communication. When he wants to suggest a new play to Ted, he hasn’t yet learned to read Ted’s language to learn that Ted is eager to hear what he has to say. And while Ted has been really unfortunately distracted about Nate and dismissive of him this season, he clearly respects Nate’s approach to football and was appreciative of the play. Nate just can’t hear that. The suit is such a great metaphor of all the things Nate is in too much pain to be able to hear clearly. Everyone digs at him for wearing the suit Ted bought him (including Will, who’s got to get little cuts in where he can, because he’s got to be sick of the way Nate treats him), but when he gets fed up his solution isn’t to go out on his own and find more clothes he likes; he asks Keeley to help him. And then crosses a major line with her...and no matter how kind she was about it, she was clearly not okay. Everything is going to blow up, and I’m so curious as to whether Nate will end up aligning himself with Rupert in some way or if he’s going to end up screwed over by Rupert and in turn try to screw over his colleagues even worse than he’s already done. Or try desperately to make amends even though it could be too late for some. Either way, I’m fully prepared to feel devastated. (And there’s no way I’m giving up on this character. If he’s able to learn, I truly believe he could end up seeking forgiveness and forging a happier existence for himself. Someday. Like in season 3 or something.)

Ted and Trent. Trent deciding to reveal his source to Ted is a huge deal, and I’m torn between so many emotions about this exposé. I’m glad it’s a Trent Crimm piece and not an Ernie Loundes piece. I’m glad that Trent made the decision to warn Ted and let him know that Nate is his source. I fear—but also hope—that this exposure will set off a chain reaction of Ted learning about some of the things he’s missed while suffering through a really bad bout with his dad-grief and panic disorder. The things Ted doesn’t know would devastate him. I wonder if Ted will want to figure out a way to make Nate feel heard and reconcile with him, and I wonder how that will be complicated if/when he realizes Nate has severely bullied Will, gets more details on how he mistreated Colin, etc. I wonder if Rebecca, whom Nate called a “shrew” right before she announced his promotion, will be in the position of having to ask Ted to fire him, or overriding Ted and doing it herself. So many questions! I have a feeling it’ll go in some wild yet very human-scaled, emotionally-nuanced direction, and I’ll be like “Oh my GOD!” but also like “Oh, of course.”

This VERY SERIOUS AND EMOTIONAL REVIEW has a major flaw, which is that none of the above conversations include mention of the absolute love letter to N*SYNC. Ted passionately explains how things should go while dancing ridiculously! Will turns on the music and starts gyrating! Roy nods supportively! Beard shouts the choreography like the Broadway choreographer of teaching grown men who play football how to dance like a boy band. Everyone is so incredibly proud when they nail it. I love them.

I cannot believe next week is the end. For now. I’m kind of looking forward to letting everything settle during the hiatus, but I’ve really loved the ride.

[bbnibini]

Fall Again (Kaedehara Kazuha)

"On this mountain path, where the red leaves lifeless lie...my heart calls for a companion, echoing the deer's cry..." (based on this)

(ao3 version) gift for @lexsssu and kei. may this humble offering make you future Kazuha havers!

The summer we shared

Fades into a blush of leaves

Bringing with it fall

Your first memories with Kazuha started when you were little. You were but one of the many children brought by the Kaedahara retainers staying within the residence; frolicking about, living the best of your young life while learning of your future duties for the clan. The end of summer brought cooler winds, and the trees in the courtyard were like blushing maidens as their leaves were dyed in sunset colour. A maple leaf had fallen on your hair, and the steady sleight of his hand startled you when he brought it to your eye level with a smile.

"I'm sorry for startling you. It was stuck on your hair."

You weren't even sure if you were allowed to talk so casually to the young master of the house. Though perhaps your younger self back then knew that a boy your age like the young master didn't care for such formalities. He only ever watches from afar as you played with the other children. Sometimes, his gaze lingers at all of you while he was taking his lessons. But when his attendants will ask him worriedly if he wanted to drive you and the other children away(you must have been so noisy to distract him from his lessons), he would plaster on a smile and decline.

"Do you want to play with us?"

You practised saying it in your head many, many times...but they were never said. Not until this moment--this blurry middleground of summer and fall that seemed to dye everything in sunset orange.

"Do you want to play with me?"

It was his turn to look startled. The way his face flushed as he clumsily tried to hide the bashful look he had with the maple leaf had been futile.

"Can I?"

You nodded and took his hand.

"Don't worry, master Kazuha. I'll share the blame with you if they ever find out."

Thinking back, that must be the start of it all. Like maple leaves falling on the ground, letting him in your heart had been your downfall.

In the many days of sunset orange, when the adults were too busy to even bother, laughter from a certain pair would fill the courtyard. It was warm enough to quell the cold that accumulated as the orange faded into powder white; it had also brought an end to those precious memories you didn't know you were already making with him.

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

Cold and pristine white

Yet seeing you amongst them

Warms my freezing heart

He didn't do anything special. You understood that it was just him being him. His kindhearted parents raised him well to become the future heir, and you were merely basking in the fruits of their gentle guidance--an ordinary bystander. Even so, with every call of your name, with every smile given your way, with every look and every word, the feelings that scattered one autumn day only deepened, much like how the snow was doing right now to your feet.

You knew that they knew. You awaited the punishments to come your way, but they never did. The pang in your heart twisted and twisted; it wondered if your delusions were getting to you. What if you continued holding on? What if you got even closer with each other? Wouldn't it be more painful if this unlikely friendship would continue?

Or so you thought. You didn't have the heart to push him away--this lonely looking boy who never shared your luxuries of carefree childhood. Yet you knew you could never share these worries with him. What were you to him but some child his age? What could you know? No one seemed opposed to it, so why couldn't he enjoy his childhood, even for a little bit?

Your drifting thoughts matched the steady pacing of your feet. And it wasn't until the cold snow had reached your knees did you start to feel it through your clothes.

Where...were you? The firewood on your shoulders felt heavier every step, and the cold of winter was beckoning you to close your eyes; to rest under the pine trees a few steps away from you....just for a while--

"...!"

The call of your name coming from his lips felt like they were melting the snow on your feet. And as he brought you into his arms, the restlessness also melted away.

"Let's go back."

"Young Master Kazuha..."

You heard your name being called again--this time by your worried father who had just known that you strayed from the group of children gathering firewood in the forest. He brought the two of you in embrace, his broad and strong arms feeling unbelievably smaller than usual.

Even as the two of you were being scolded, it didn't feel so bad. His next words echoed your unsaid sentiments.

"We share the blame, after all."

He whispered the familiar words to you on secret, bringing warmth to the winter of your thoughts.

You didn't know what changed that winter. He now stood with you as you and the other children gathered around and played in the snow, laughing along. Gone were the longing gazes he sent your way, as he was finally there. The apprehension the other children had at first disappeared instantly at the brightness of his laughter.

From then on, you wished to stay by his side....

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

Your gaze of knowing

Melts away the cold of snow

Spring begins anew

...yet even with the strength of your resolve, you knew those fun winter days will come to an end. One winter passed. Two. Three, until you lost count--you have grown old enough for such days to be regarded as your long past childhood. Along with it came the responsibilities you had as a retainer's child. It wasn't like you were going away. You planned to uphold your promise to stay by his side until the day you die. Boundaries were only meant to be made. The lines you weren't meant to cross grew even more obvious as seasons passed, and you only intended to follow along its path.

Young master Kazuha was old enough to take in a wife. He could only delay such duties for so long.

"But I don't want to get married." He told you, admiring the pink mop of cherry blossoms giving you shade overhead.

"Young master, it isn't a matter of choice." you scolded.

He wouldn't say anything back but a sigh. This caused you to sigh in return.

"Even servants have a duty of marriage to sustain future generations, young master."

"Even you?"

The rustling of cherry blossoms awoken you from your trance. You pretended not to know the implications of his questions. The pounding of your heart shouldn't ever be known, not even to the whispers of spring breeze scattering pink petals that looked eerily similar the the ones scattering in your heart.

"Yes, even I."

Ignorance is the kindest gesture you can return to him--for knowing what he meant will only lead to a thorny path.

Spring was the season of beginnings, but even you know such beginnings were only possible if something were to end.

"Young master Kazuha?"

He looked at you with the same gaze you pretended you were numb from.

"Let's not see each other anymore."

...it was a beautiful spring day, but you couldn't help but long for the harsh winters of your gentler past.

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

Standing tall and proud

You, with gleaming golden crowns

Waiting for the sun

Eternity.

In the land of fleeting beauty, only she remains constant. She was the pinnacle of Inazuma's legacy, as well as its stronghold. With the Raiden Shogun's rule, Inazuma in all its transience will remain with her.

Yet, were all her actions at present excusable?

The Kaedehara clan had fallen--its tragic heir had gone missing. No one knows where he had went...or so that is what most of the servants' narratives were, but you knew. Perhaps silence is the only way to protect him; their kind and gentle young master deserved freedom in this eternal land.

You didn't want to dwell on what ifs. In the blaring heat of the sun, among the sunflowers looking up at its radiance, he stood there, even brighter than summer itself.

He called for your name as he took your hands, kissing its back.

"I will always remember you."

He was a free man, freer than he was in the confines of his samurai household. Yet, you knew his life of pursuit will always remain with him, and the eternity the Raiden's land had promised was far too comforting to even consider the thoughts in your head.

'Take me with you'

'I won't ever forget you too.'

'Ị̶̛̺̜̣̝̰̣͚̫̓̾̈́̆̈́̊̔̍͂͋͛͌͘͝ ̵̢̨͉̟͖̱͚̆̐̏̚l̷͖̥̃͋͒̉̈́̈̎̃͆̽̈͊̃̈́̆̓̕o̶̡̧̡͖͙̖̙͙̥̻͍̣̗̱͖̦͍̺͙̒̏̏͛͗̌̄͊̽̓͆͌̚̚̕͝ͅv̶̧͕͔̤͚̰̟͙̭̟̠̫̞̀͆̊͗͗̅̊͠ͅͅę̶̘̦̲͓͕͂̑̕͜ ̷̡̢̯̯͙̞̣̲̥̥̞̞̺͕̲͔̆̂͆́̋̑̀̆̃̀͐̀͜͝͠y̷̧̬̜͕͉̣͉̱̩͚̪͒̓͒ͅǒ̸͚̳̠͚̘̯̼̗̳͖͉̫͇͕͔̿͛̉̈́͌̈́͐̑͌͝u̵̧̡̖̼̺̼̯̖̙̲̺̰̮̩̯̜͛̑̃̐͊͛͌̌̓͋́̒̌̚͜'

So he waited and waited for the three words he uttered on your ear to return, and even then, promised of waiting even as you parted ways--even if orange dyed the world around you again.

For like the sunflowers, you were his sun.

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

Many summers have passed, and you had left the comfort of eternity to seek out the world on your own. The Raiden Shogun and her eternity was showing its signs of fading in ironic tragedy. Yet you wondered why such fleetingness felt comforting instead.

They called the land you chose to reside in the City of Freedom. Their ruling archon was nothing more than myths and childlike wonder, yet Mondstadt thrived even in their absence.

Like the carefree breeze, its people were equally so. They did not mind your origins nor your reasons, and instead welcomed you in their land with kindness and hospitality. Often, you wondered if the Anemo Archon chose this path of rule to embody the freedom that he is--that perhaps, this might be even his wish.

"I received a vision! It's--"

You smiled to yourself as you stopped that train of thought. You knew your reasons for choosing Mondstadt as your new refuge. Deep in your heart, you were waiting too.

Rain was quite an unusual sight in Monstadt--you were far too used to sunlight and breezy afternoons that the sight of darker skies were comforting to you instead. You liked the sound rain made as it hit the roof, the smell of petrichor in the air--

"Hello?"

Such appreciative thoughts were brought to a halt at the sound of a familiar voice. But he did not speak again, so you weren't sure if you have imagined it instead. The knocks on your door however, reassured you that not everything you heard was imagined.

Your heart pounded at every step, silencing yourself from the hopeful yearning that keeps on resurfacing as you went closer to your doorstep.

But he was there. He wasn't only hopeful yearning. The orange hues of the trees from afar only seemed to deepen the sunset reflecting on his eyes. They widened as they gazed at you.

"I'm very sorry, but can I trouble you for refuge for the night?"

Laughter. You haven't shared one since that distant, summer day. You took the stray maple leaf out of his hair and echoed the words he had uttered to you on the day you first met.

"Did I startle you? You have it stuck on your hair."

..but this time, you chose to stay by his side.

That night, I listened to the hymns till dawn, not for serenity, but to seek a sliver of your soul;

That month, I flipped through all the scriptures, not for enlightenment, but to touch the pages where your fingers once lingered;

That year, I knelt on the grounds, my head embracing the dusts, not to pay obeisance to the Gods, but to feel the warmth you left behind;

That life, I wandered through ten thousand great mountains, not in search for an afterlife, but to cross paths with you – 

[sexyglances]

The Ways in Which Hyejin Moves Forward and Dusik Steps Back

The spotlight is often on Hyejin and how she keeps drawing lines in her relationships with others, but what is also narratively noteworthy is that even though Dusik rebukes Hyejin for stepping back (and her seeming lack of compassion because of her sometimes biting or harsh words), it's the very same habits he criticizes her for are also often the same ones he engages in with her as well. But since he does it with an air of hapless helpfulness, he's easily forgiven, or not seen as prickly as her own defensiveness.

Dusik tells Hyejin to cross lines freely, yot always keeps his own boundaries in all his relationships with people. He accuses her of being narrow-minded in how she deals with people, yet he is always trying to tell her to do this the way he thinks is best (and his way of doing things is not always the best! For example, Hyejin was correct about giving Juri space away from her dad for the night). For all the times that he has admonished Hyejin for drawing the line when lines aren't necessary, he takes just as many steps back when she moves forward. Of course, she is obviously emotionally guarded as well, but she does have the courage to take the lead when it comes to her feelings. It's only when Dusik doesn't meet her back halfway that she falls back as well and has her own bluster about lines and boundaries that should not be crossed. She is reacting to his own guardedness in kind.

Another thing Dusik says is that one should be direct and "apologize for spilling milk rather than avoiding [the people it affected]," yet he deflects and comes up with (*ahem* the dumbest) excuses as to why he lied to Hyejin about their kiss. For all his bluster, he too, is used to creating space and distance between him and other people. He may be capable in many ways of practicality and usefulness, and he may be the person who other people turn to when they need help or are in trouble, and he may be the go-to person to fix any issue someone else has, but the issue he needs to learn to fix the most is his fear of his own vulnerability. And the first step to doing that is getting over his own mental block of allowing someone into his life where he might want to rely on someone else as much as they can rely on him.

Dusik's most overarching dichotomy is how wants to be a savior but cannot accept the possibility of being saved himself. He is incredibly uncomfortable when he is the one being taken care of and being put in the position of being reached toward rather than him being the one reaching forward. If he reaches forward first then he can set the parameters and maintain control of the situation. He has the control to draw back whenever he wants rather than being at the mercy of the whims and desires of another person. Since he can only control himself, he only wants to rely on himself. We see Hyejin reach forward over and over again, but the power dynamic in which she reaches forward has changed as well, as she goes from being someone that needs him (when she first showed up to town and needed help), to someone that wants to spend time with him (looking for him, creating situations to see each other and spend time together), to someone that requires more of him (needs him to verbally recognize his attraction to her), and because she is the one trying to move things along then that is where Dusik starts to falter in response. She's not just reaching forward, she's pushing.

Hyejin is the one that directly confronts their feelings and asks if he likes her, she's the one that kisses first, she's the one who presumably moves from the bed during their drunken night to be next to him (hence why she did not have her own pillow on the floor). Even when she literally reaches forward to wipe the sauce off his mouth, he is taken aback and uncomfortable. Not that she did anything wrong, but he has a complex about being taken care of. He'd rather pull every relationship back into transactional territory as a way of keeping himself from looking (being?) too emotionally attached than admit emotional dependence in any way. If everything he does is a favor or has a price or is transactional in any way, then he can live in his self-reliant fantasy. He obviously does harbor a lot of feelings because he is often passionate despite his clear desire to maintain a cool outer demeanor, but it's not something he wants the world to see. It's his main defense mechanism--to separate himself from others and deny any deeper feelines that can't be explained away with whimsicality.

If Dusik keeps himself from being too attached to anyone else then he can live in denial forever never recognizing his loneliness or acknowledging the fledgling desire for anything more. Again, he has this compulsion to be the one that is needed, and not to be the one that needs. Companionship, equality, dependence--they scare him. He wants to be an island of one, creating his own ecosystem of reliability, providing anything he might need for himself. But a healthy ecosystem cannot thrive without the symbiosis that others provide. A person needs real, reciprocal relationships to survive, but Dusik is in deep denial about that. So he creates artificial distance between him and other people.

And not only does he create these distances, he also creates unequal footing between them. Obviously, this is visually illustrated by Dusik catching both Hyejin and Sunghyun from falling, but also how he carried the grandma on his back when she hurt her ankle, and even how he usually wears an apron when he goes to the café so as to literally illustrate how he is hired to be there, even though not even the owner wears an apron while working. Dusik instinctually creates this separation as a way to shield himself from emotional attachment. Now, does this work? Of course not! He is absolutely completely emotionally attached to everyone in Gongjin and also already to Hyejin. You can see it in how he always shows up to help even beyond the parameters he sets, how he runs to the dental clinic when he hears about the creep, how he finds ways to help Hyejin make up with the townspeople, how he jumps on stage as an impromptu backup dancer with her. Being smitten isn't enough. He wants to believe it is enough. He wants to believe treading water and pretending icy exteriors don't exist is the key to a happy life. But both Hyejin and Dusik's subconsciouses are demanding more from their relationship with each other.

But for now, Dusik is asking for more of Hyejin than he is willing to put up himself. She may be hesitant, but she is trying. And she is actually so brave! She may be prickly like a hedgehog at first, but she DOES take people in. She steps outside her emotional bubble over and over again. She opens her home to Miseon and has her move in with her, she takes in the kids the hedgehog when they ask her for help, she has a very personal conversation with Juri and relates to Juri (and learns from Juri as well! She is not so snobby as to not learn an emotional lesson from a child) when Juri runs away from home. These are all things that Dusik would not do. He insists on living alone, he says he does not take care of living things, and he wanted to drag Juri home right away without listening to her. Yes, these examples above illustrate how he and Hyejin differ, but also show how he has his own ways of keeping himself closed off.

However, what this episode ilustrated the most was that human connections are important, and how forging those bonds and nurturing those bonds make one's life vastly more fulfilling. Every instance where someone faced a situation alone was greatly improved by the support of others around them. The entirety of the concert had people in the community hyping the people on stage and making the performances more fulfilling in doing so. And then once again someone was saved from falling onto the rocks, but this time it was Dusik being saved. Even the doesn't want to, he is going to have to face being vulnerable and a person that reaches forward not just to help someone else, but who has to reach forward for help in order to move forward in his own life.

[thewillowbends]

There are two main arguments here going on that I feel are disconnected, so I’ll try to discuss them both:

1.) Tav doesn’t have to be a whiny victim is absolutely correct. There are lots of directions to take them. Not everybody can make good original characters. That’s a skill issue, but that’s fine because writing over time is how you learn.

However, even a good character is not necessarily protagonist material. You need room for the character to grow from Point A to Point B. If they stay in the same place and end in the same place, that can be thematically meaningful, but you have to give the reader a reason why they wind up there.

For a lot of people who are writers, the Ascended plot line with a spawn Tav spells out a story that’s already been written. They become their thrall, Astarion becomes a power hungry vampire, they decided to take the world…and then somewhere, somehow, their story is going to collapse. And that leads us into…

2.) re: the intent of the ending’s implication. Astarion’s arc has the same two endings of every other character in the game: they can either choose to fulfill a destiny dictated by their pain and trauma or they can break free of the cycle and redefine their destiny. This is the fundamental pathos of the game. Both endings are valid, but Larian is pretty blunt in its storytelling and in their commentary about the game that former option is not a happy one.

Both endings are valid. I’ve watched both. I find both satisfying in different ways. But the storytelling around the Ascension route is not subtle. It is telling you bluntly, honestly, that it is not the better route for Astarion as a person. It will not actually give him what he wants in the end, simply the illusion of it. It will not lead to he and Tav having a happily ever after because the bones of a breakdown are laid in the dialogue after.

The walk through Cazador’s palace isn’t put there just to tell us about Cazador as a character. Nothing about characters in good storytelling is wasted. Your antagonist inherently informs your protagonist. They are showing you Cazador was once in Astarion’s position for a reason. They are showing you he made the same exact choices (rebellion, caring about others) as a spawn and suffered horribly for it. They are showing us that Vellioth’s rules became Cazador’s rules, and the dialogue with Ascended Astarion reveals over time those roles are now HIS rules. He thinks he broke free, but what the narrative is telling us implicitly is that he fulfilled a cycle.

If you try to stay with Astarion after he ascends but refuse to become a spawn, he refuses you. (If you do it as origin Karlach, he can’t and calls you defective for it, immediately breaking things off.) He won’t have an equal and can’t. He resents you after, even says cruel, heinous things like threatening to turn you to prove “he can take what he wants,” which is a sharp and vicious contrast to all the growth he went through learning boundaries and trust and consent with your blood transactions. It’s a contrast that’s laid out in the dialogue with spawn Astarion when he extols how meaningful it is to have an equal in love, how much he realizes he would’ve lost himself in gaining power.

And if you do agree to be his spawn, of course, the insight tells you clearly: he sees it as degrading yourself. He may love you, even if it’s been twisted into a dark, possessive kind of love, but his attitude toward his siblings and the prisoners in his worst moments speak volumes: he thinks anybody is foolish to trust and give up power to somebody, and that is exactly what you’re doing…right after you validated all of Cazador’s ideas of power and domination to him. The cycle is in motion. Things will fall apart the moment Tav makes a move outside his own desires. He tells them as much in veiled threats with a velvet smile. A dark romance he may yet have, but it’s not going be with Tav. The only happiness they’ll have is if they remain completely submissive. Their fate is written between the lines.

That’s the story Larian gives the player. There are things to like about each. They are both valid because they mirror the reality that imperfect victims can go either way. But you asked why there isn’t more Tav and Ascended fic that isn’t tragic or where Tav isn’t victimized, and my answer as a writer with twenty years of experience is just that: there isn’t as much story to tell outside of that. They’re trapped in a cycle of power, domination, and cruelty. The conclusion is foregone.

You can definitely get one shots and short novellas out of it, especially if you’re going with the Durge or an evil Tav. I have a few that I’m writing in that pathway. But a full fledged novel length fic or longer series? Much harder narratively within the confines of what themes the story left to us. Spawn Astarion is free, his future undecided. Vampire Ascendent Astarion is not. (And when paired with the consummate Durge, both are slave to their darker impulses now.) He’ll be forever trapped by his lust for power, and that key difference is why more writers aren’t tackling it. It’s not that there is anything wrong with liking or preferring the Ascended ending. It’s just that there isn’t as much story to tell from a thematic perspective. Astarion wrote the ending himself when he sacrificed 7000 souls to get there.

@thewillowbends Hope it's okay I moved to text post, it seemed like a better idea.

First, let me be clear: People can write whatever they want and I'm not saying they can't or shouldn't.

----

"If Tav is happily evil, then we’re back to the issue of limits in the narrative functionality beyond shorter works."

If Tav HAS to be a meek, regretful abuse victim in order for a story to be lengthy and meaningful, then that is 100% a skill and creativity issue of the writer. Either them not having the ability to see the story from another perspective, or them not having the creativity level to consider other canon-friendly manifestations of the Evil Tav x Asc Astarion relationship. Those "limits" you speak of are only limits if you allow them to be and don't let yourself grow as a writer.

"As it is, game is pretty blunt about how the story of spawn Tav ends"

The game is not blunt at all. The game gives us NO ending to that. It's up to the player. The closest we have to an idea of an ending for "spawn" Tav, is this datamined title card:

(read image description for transcription)

While this was cut from the official release of the game (like all the epilogue content), it still shows what Larian had/has in mind for the direction of the Asc ending. And it's got no hints about abuse.

Astarion tells you as much if you break up with him — “I would’ve ruined your love, used your trust.”

This is called metagaming. BG3 is not like a tv show where all the little dots connect and line up. BG3 is a "choose your own adventure" novel in video game form. It works just the same. So any choices or options you DO NOT select are NOT TRUE for your character in that playthrough. So nothing Spawn Astarion says in that ending matters in regards to a playthrough with the Ascended ending. Nothing Asc Astarion says matters in regards to a playthrough with the Spawn ending. In BOTH endings, he thanks Tav genuinely, fully appreciates the choice, is glad the opposite choice wasn't made, and wants Tav to choose what their next adventure will be. Both endings have to be worthwhile and feel satisfying for the player, and the best way to do that is to have Astarion genuinely appreciate what Tav has done, in BOTH endings. And he does.

"it’s a story about cycles and the destruction of life. It’s telling you what Astarion will become because Cazador used to be in his position."

It's telling who Cazedor was and his story. That doesn't mean Astarion is doomed to repeat it. Or that a specific ending IS him repeating it. There is no warning of such. It CAN go that way, but nothing in-game says it has to. Because breaking "the cycle" isn't one specific thing. And he breaks cycles in BOTH endings.

Astarion's story is about corruption and choosing to either become more corrupt (than he already is) or try to live by the rules of society and just accept how things are. In the Spawn ending he talks about the "cycle of power", meaning the cycle of vampire culture that thrives on a pyramid of power. He is free of that headache and appreciates that. As to the quote you mention, Astarion is speculating about ascension. He has no idea what would have actually happened, he can only guess. He is an opportunistic optimist so he'd more likely see the path he couldn't take as one he shouldn't have anyway. And having him say that in-game for that ending, makes that ending feel worth it for the player.

In the Asc ending, he breaks the cycles of loneliness, living in darkness, selfishness, hunger, and wants to treat his own spawn better than Cazedor ever did. Astarion hates the word spawn and chooses to call his future ones his "children" instead. He loves the sun, it's symbolic for him. Yet, he is fully willing, without hesitation, to give up something he loves so much, so that his "children" can thrive in a world that is shrouded in fog. He also takes on a consort (vampire bride/groom) and wants to share that power, something Cazedor did not do (as far as we know).

You can break away from Larian’s story, certainly, but a lot of fanfic writers are trying to stick to what was extant within the media itself. At some point, if you pull too far away from it, you’re just writing an original story, and the issue most writers then run into is…why not turn it fully original and publish it then?

Here's the problem with this: Larian's story IS BOTH endings. There is no metaphorical build up in the game that sets up *only* the Spawn ending as his "real" or "true" ending. It's a metaphorical build up that can have TWO different solutions. One being reject the power and accept life as it is. The other being usurp power and rewrite the rules. Ascension is never shown to be a truly evil or bad thing. The worst part of it is sacrificing the 7000 spawn. But if Tav/Durge rationalizes this, there are no real negatives. The only negatives may be if one does not vibe with his confidence boost and prefers him more docile. The whole last statement you've made and way of thinking makes it seem like his Spawn ending is the real one and his Ascended ending is just some "fun and sexy" alternative but invalid thing you can do.

His story arc is BOTH endings. They are both just as bad and as good as the other, it's just a matter of what works for your Tav/Durge and for you as the player. He does not have ONE TRUE ENDING. You choose the lesser of two evils. Which one is "lesser" depends entirely on the player and Tav/Durge as individuals.

If ANYTHING, writing Ascended Astarion as an abusive, uncaring, unloving monster is just writing an original story and not sticking to what is within the game itself. Not the other way around.

Also, as a last comment... a fanfiction does not have to be a 70 chapter epic. It can be 1-3 chapters and be a complete work. Or just one chapter. Or a few paragraphs. But Tav and Astarion being happily evil together shouldn't be a reason you can't write a lengthy and fleshed out story. That's just lack of creativity. Spawn ending fans outnumber Asc ending fans, and most Spawn fans have a negative view of Asc Astarion. So that's more likely the reason why we never see many happily evil Tav x Astarion fics.

[jayoctodot]

The Silent Patient vs The Maidens

I will start by saying that I understand the appeal of these novels as page-turners. They are easy to read and if you want a twisty reveal at the end, you will probably be entertained and satisfied. That being said, I am SO CONFUSED by the near-universal adoration of The Silent Patient and the reasonably positive reception of The Maidens. The weaknesses of the two are strikingly similar, as well, which doesn’t give me much hope of seeing improvement from this guy, though I am intrigued to see whether he keeps repeating the same (apparently successful!!) patterns. These books were at least super fun to hate.

(For context, I read The Maidens for a bookclub I'm in, because several of the members had read and loved The Silent Patient, and one of them gave me a copy of the latter to read on my own time. I loathed The Maidens and then read The SP for comparative purposes. And because I'm a masochist, apparently.)

SPOILER WARNING! Do not read on unless you've finished both books (or unless you care not for spoilers). Sorry if it gets a bit shouty.

Here are the similar weaknesses I noticed in both:

PSEUDO-PSYCHOLOGY

-> Weirdly similar “group therapy” scenes early on where a cartoonishly unstable patient arrives late, disrupts the meeting by throwing something into the middle of the circle, and is asked to join the group after the therapist(s) speechify on the importance of boundaries (HA! None of these therapists would know an appropriate boundary if it kicked them in the ass) and debate whether to “allow” the patient to join. Both scenes are so transparent in their design to establish the credibility/legitimacy of the narrators as therapists, but instead both Theo and Mariana come off as super patronizing. The protagonists are less and less believable as therapists at the stories progress (though at least Theo’s incompetence is explained away by the “twist” at the end; Mariana, on the other hand, is confronted in the opening pages of the novel by a patient who has self-harmed PRETTY extensively, and rather than ensure he get proper medical attention, she essentially throws him a first aid kit and tosses him out the door so she can pour herself a glass of wine and call her niece... and it devolves from there).

-> Ongoing insistence throughout the narrative that one’s childhood trauma entirely explains the warped/dysfunctional way a character behaves or views the world, which is why the books go out of their way to give EVERY potentially violent character a traumatic childhood; when Theo insists that no one ever became an abuser who hadn’t been abused themselves, I wanted to throw the book across the room. (That is a MYTH, SIR. GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGY.)

-> Female murderers whose pathology boils down to “history of depression” and “traumatized by a male loved one/family member.” Because, as we all know, depression + abuse = murderer!

-> The “therapy” depicted in both books is laughable and so so unrealistic, mostly because neither narrators function as therapists so much as incompetent detectives, obsessively pursuing a case they have no place pursuing (or skill to pursue - both just happen across every clue mostly by way of clunky conversation with all the people who can provide precisely the snippet of info to send them along to the next person, and the next… until all is revealed in a tired, cliched “twist”). Their constant Psych 101 asides were so tiresome and weirdly dated (also, the constant harping on countertransference got so ridiculous that at one point during "therapy" Theo literally attributes his headache and a particular emotion he feels to Alicia, as though the contents of her head are being broadcast directly into his mind... and I'm PRETTY SURE that's not how it works???)

CHARACTERS

-> Psychotherapist narrators with abusive fathers and pretensions of being Sherlock Holmes, which results in both characters crossing ALL KINDS of ethical lines as they invade the personal lives of everyone even tangentially connected to their cases (and, in Theo's case, violate all kinds of patient confidentiality. Yeah, yeah, by the end, that's the least of his offenses, but before you get there, it's baffling that NO ONE is calling him out on this).

-> All female characters are either elderly with hilariously bad advice, monstrous hulking brutes, or beautiful bitches (except for ~MARIANA~, who is Bella Swan-esque in her unawareness of her own attractiveness, despite multiple men trying to get with her almost immediately after meeting her. I'm so tired of beautiful female characters being oblivious to their own hotness. Are we meant to believe all mirrors and male attention have escaped their notice? If it’s to make them “relatable,” this tactic really fails with me).

-> All characters of color are shallow, cartoonish side characters, and most of them are depicted as unsympathetic minor antagonists (the Sikh Chief Inspector in The Maidens continuously drinks tea from an ever-present thermos, and his only other notable characteristic is his instant dislike of Mariana, whom he VERY RIGHTLY warns to stay out of the investigation that she is VERY MUCH compromising… the Caribbean manager of the Grove is universally disliked by her staff for enforcing stricter safety regulations at the bafflingly poorly run mental institution, because HOW DARE SHE. There's a very clear vibe that we're supposed to dislike these characters and share the protagonists' indignation, but honestly Sangha/Stephanie were completely in the right for trying to shut down their wildly inappropriate investigations).

-> "Working class" characters (or basically anyone excluded from the comfortably upper-crust, educated main cadre of characters) are few and far between in both stories, but when they show up, he depicts them as such caricatures. We got Elsie the pathologically lying housekeeper in the Maidens, who is enticed to share her bullshit with cake, and then a TOOTHLESS LEPRECHAUN DEALING DRUGS UNDER A BRIDGE in the SP. I kid you not, a man described as having the body of a child, the face of Father Time, and no front teeth, emerges from beneath a bridge and offers to sell Theo some "grass." I was dyinggg.

-> There are no characters to root for. Anywhere. Partly because they’re all so thinly drawn — and because we’re clearly supposed to view almost ALL of them as potential suspects, so they’re ALL weird, creepy, or incompetent in some way.

-> The flimsiest of flimsy motives, both for the narrators and the murderers. Theo fully would have gotten away with his involvement in the murder if he hadn't gone out of his way to work at the Grove and "treat" Alicia and his justification for doing so is pretty weak; his rapid descent into stalking and murder fantasy and his random ass decision to "expose" Alicia's husband as a cheater with a spur-of-the-moment home invasion and staged attempted homicide is ONLY justified if the reader hand waves it away as WELP, HE'S CRAZY, I GUESS (after all, he DID have an abusive father and a history of mental illness, and in Michaelides novels, that's ALL YOU NEED to become a violent psycho). I guess we're lucky Mariana didn't also start dropping bodies (because the logic of his fictional universe says she should definitely be a murderer by now... maybe that'll be his Maidens sequel?). But she especially had NO reason to randomly turn detective - and she kept trying to justify it by saying she needed to re-enter the world or that Sebastian would want her to (??), even though she had no background in criminal psychology... or even a particular fondness for mysteries (really, I would've accepted ANYTHING to explain her dogged obsession with the case. WHY were Sebastian and Zoe so certain she would insert herself into the investigation just because one of Zoe's friends was the first victim? WHY?). As for Zoe and Alicia, their motives are mere suggestions: they were both abused and manipulated, and voila! Slippery slope to murder.

WRITING STYLE

-> Incessant allusions to Greek tragedy and myth, apparently to provide a sophisticated gloss over the bare-bones writing style, which opts more for telling than showing and frequently indulges in hilariously bizarre analogies. Credit where credit is due — the references to Greek myth are less clunky in the SP, and I liked learning about the Alcestis play/myth, which I hadn’t heard of before - but OMG the entire characterization of Fosca, who we are meant to believe is a professor of Greek tragedy at one of the most respected universities on the planet, is just absurd. His "lecture" on the liminal in Greek tragedy is essentially the Wikipedia page on the Eleusinian Mysteries capped off with some Hallmark-card carpe diem crap. The lecture hall responds with raucous applause, clearly never having heard such vague genius bullshit before.

-> Super clunky and amateurish narrative device of interludes written by another character; Sebastian’s letter reads like a mashup of Dexter monologues and Clarice’s memory of the screaming sheep, but by FAR the worse offender is Alicia’s diary, where we’re supposed to believe she painstakingly recorded ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS, BEAT-BY-BEAT DIALOGUE, even when she’s just been DRUGGED TO THE GILLS with morphine and has mere moments of consciousness left… and even before that, she literally takes the time to write “He's trying the windows and doors! ...Someone’s inside! Someone’s inside the house! ETC ETC” when she thinks her stalker has broken in downstairs. WHO DOES THAT?)

-> Speaking of dialogue, the dialogue is so bad. Based on his bio, Michaelides got a degree in screenwriting, which makes his terrible dialogue even more baffling.

-> HILARIOUSLY rendered voyeur scenes where the narrators spy on couples having sex. Such unintentionally awkward descriptions. First we had Kathy’s climax sounds through the trees and then the bowler hat carefully placed on a tombstone before the gatekeeper plows a student. Again, I died.

PLOT/"TWIST"

-> The CONSTANT red herrings make for such an exhausting read. Michaelides drops anvils with almost every character that are so obviously meant to designate them as suspects in our minds. There is absolutely no subtlety in his misdirections.

-> The “crossover” scene between the SP and The Maidens makes no sense - when in the timeline does Mariana’s story overlap with Theo’s? They confer just before Theo starts working at the Grove, obviously (though Mariana appears to be the one who alerts Theo to the job opening there? Whereas in the SP, Theo has been obsessively tracking Alicia since the murder and had already planned to apply to work there?), but then are we supposed to believe that while Theo has been psychotically pursuing his warped quest to “help” Alicia, he’s also been diligently treating Zoe, so invested in her case that he repeatedly reaches out to Mariana to get her to visit Zoe and even writes Mariana a lengthy letter to convince her to do so??? And then a couple days after The Maidens ends, Theo is arrested???

-> But the thing I really did hate the most is how Michaelides treats his female murderers (who are both also victims themselves) as mere means to deploy a “twist”; there’s no moment spared to encourage our sympathy for Zoe, who was groomed and manipulated by the only trusted father figure in her life, and even after spending a decent amount of time getting to know Alicia via her ridiculous diary, where it’s so apparent that she’s been demeaned, objectified, manipulated, gaslit, and/or used by EVERY man in her life, she’s sent packing to spend the rest of her days in a coma… HOW much more satisfying would it have been for her to succeed in exposing Theo and reclaiming her voice? But no, she basically rolls over when he comes to finish her off (SPEAKING OF — ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THERE ARE NO SECURITY CAMERAS IN THIS INSTITUTE FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE????), writes one last diary entry, and drifts off forever. And then a couple pages of nothing later, the story is over. GOODNIGHT, ALICIA!

Both books kept me rolling throughout (by which I mean eye-rolling but also rotfl). Maybe I will check out his next effort — I’m morbidly curious what he’ll turn out. It does leave me wondering whether I should give up on thriller novels entirely, though. Are many of the weaknesses of these novels just characteristic of the genre? Maybe I'm just holding these books to unfair standards? I'm mostly only familiar with thriller films — many of which I think are amazing — but maybe you can get away with more in a film than you can in a novel.

...I really only intended to write a handful of bullet points, but more and more kept coming to mind as I wrote, to the point where subheadings became necessary. Whoopsie.

[elevatorladylady]

Series Analysis: The Folk of The Air

I went through this series a couple of times before setting it down and I wanted to break down some of the things that really worked with this series and what didn't.

The Pros

Morally Grey Characters

This series does a really good job of introducing a lot of morally grey characters. Madoc is a murderer and puts his daughter and eventual foster daughters through a huge trauma, but he is also the only kind of parent these kids have after that and more or less treats them with love and respect in the household.

This sets up some really interesting dynamics as well that just have to be complicated and weird for everyone. Vivi is the priority when Madoc comes to Jude’s parents, but she’s also the oldest and is least interested in following along with Madoc’s interests. Jude and Taryn end up being more interested in the life Madoc has forced them into and they have to grapple with the guilt of actually enjoying any parts of their life with him.

There is also always a bit of grey morality when the culture is more or less okay with cruel and murderous acts whether it’s used as a way to dispense justice or if it’s just because the people in power cannot be held accountable for their actions. 

But despite this wonderfully nuanced set up, I have some complaints about the way a lot of these things get simplified.

Humans and the Folk

I really love that we get to explore the differences in the cultures and biological differences between these groups. The inability to lie presents a lot of interesting moments between Jude and Cardan that really show how that kind of difference can impact the words you choose and the ways people can use language to put on a front with or without lies.

The differences between the two worlds is a really interesting juxtaposition and I  think it’s great to get to see our main characters navigate both spaces. The folk have an advantage in the human world and can more easily inhabit it than a human can inhabit the faerie world. We see how Jude has been hardened by her experiences and can’t easily just take up a normal human life.

Vivi and Heather are such a great dynamic to explore the power dynamic between humans and faeries. Vivi has good intentions with her human girlfriend but by ignoring the ways fae can and will harm humans, she inadvertently puts her human girlfriend in danger, and uses that power against her.

Jude and Cardan’s Character Arcs

I do have some complaints but I love the way these arcs unfold. Jude is a powerless girl and then she becomes as powerful as she possibly can when controlling cardan and has to grapple with the cost of having this power and how the power didn’t end up protecting her in the way she thought it could. She learns that at some point she cannot control everything in her life through sheer will and force, and that she is going to be more fulfilled and potentially safer by learning to put her trust in others.

Cardans arc is more about finding himself. He is not respected or appreciated by his family and friends unless he’s being awful, but we start to see change almost immediately when he’s removed from that. He can just be with the court of shadows and he can be more open and honest about his desires and motivations with Jude. As king he is once again forced into a role, but this time he gets to try on different variations of being king. He’s one of the spies with the court of shadows, he’s his old self with his friends minus the cruelty with his friends, he’s a king in front of his subjects, and he’s a more open and vulnerable version of himself with Jude. He’s still being forced into a lot of these roles, but this gives him a chance to find his footing and decide who he might want to be when Jude isn’t forcing him into things. And he ends up choosing to be a better person in those roles than before.

The Cons

Black and White Ending

Jude and Cardan are morally grey earlier on and we get a lot of Jude questioning her own decisions, but by giving the ending giving her ultimate power as king and queen and the narrative affirming this as good takes away the complex morality of these characters.

By the end they are considered benevolent leaders by the land and the people, and Madoc and those that followed him are bad people who deserve punishment. Jude gets to hand out punishments as she see fits without anyone but Cardan being able to check her (and we know he probably won’t). Jude is even encouraged to treat everyone as if they are beneath her. These two have ultimate power and they will likely be harmful to some of their people regardless of their efforts otherwise and even more so if they aren’t proactive about how they lead.

The book ends with a toast to schemes, but they aren’t scheming anymore. They are fully embracing their public facing roles and enjoying their personal roles. While Oak is still technically supposed to take the throne there is zero indication throughout that he wants it and they are also clear that they won’t force him into it, so it no longer even feels like a temporary thing for Jude and Cardan to rule.

I would have preferred an ending where we see Jude map out a new ultimate scheme to dismantle the monarchy or distribute power to lower courts or something more radical to show that shes not just going to be another person with unchecked power.

It also squarely puts Madoc as bad and everyone on his side as bad with the punishments Jude hands out. Madoc is the main antagonist here, but is Jude really better than all of the people that were willing to follow Madoc? Do those people deserve to have their hands stained or live as birds when Jude will be shown deference by every person in their kingdom. Jude made a play for the crown too, and the only reason she doesn’t get punished is because she was successful. And then we’re supposed to joke about the idea of Madoc’s punishment in the human world and he’s just reduced to the blundering bigot in the family that you just accept as such.

And Vivi’s dynamic with Heather also gets simplified to just caring about the betrayal of the glamour instead of the ongoing dynamic that Vivi has to be an advocate for Heather in the faerie world and she has to always be mindful of the power dynamic.

The final scene really just feels like the end of a rom com even though these dynamics have really serious and troubling elements. 

Taryn’s Redemption

This dynamic also suffers from the shift to a black and white but it starts even earlier. Taryn’s betrayal with Locke is horrendous. It’s so personal and it cuts really deep compared to the political betrayal with Madoc.

I don’t believe the level of acceptance and forgiveness Jude gives Taryn at nearly every step. Her initial interest into wanting some kind of relationship once she becomes hand of the king is understandable, but it quickly turns into Jude doing quite a lot to preserve Taryn’s feelings. Jude wants Cardan to keep Locke in check, Jude doesn’t want to bother Taryn before her wedding with her almost murder, she doesn’t want her to know her husband tried to kill her, and she threatens Locke to keep him in line multiple times. It just doesn’t make sense that she would care so much to protect Taryn’s feelings from the guy that she chose over Jude especially when Taryn’s only kindness to Jude is designing great clothes for her.

All of this sets up even more problems for how things go in the final book. If Taryn’s only betrayal had been the political one, I could see Jude getting past it, but she does it when hasn’t even remotely atoned for the deeply personal one. Jude is rightfully angry but forgives her almost immediately when she learns about the baby. Jude has maybe one line about whether or not she can trust her sister again but her actions suggest she’s completely over it and eager to have a nice sisterly dynamic.

This could have been a really interesting dynamic about dealing with someone you love but can’t trust. It could have been more interesting if Jude had actually killed Locke when he came after her and Jude had to grapple with the guilt despite him being awful. Or even Taryn realizing her mistake earlier and pleading for Jude’s help to get out of it.

And Locke also just becomes a full on villain. Maybe you need that, but he was more interesting when he seemed to have a boundary with the physical violence.

[melonisopod]

@fledbeast578 Okay maybe I never went over anything beyond ranting in the tags a couple of times but basically:

I don't completely hate Morgan for what she's done, and I can't chock up her wish to just "wanting a kingdom." She wanted a place to live, she did not want to see this beautiful place die, even if she hated everyone living there, she could not accept that her world would be destroyed and so fought against destiny to keep Fairy Britain alive. I still think some of her actions were selfish, and especially with PHH Morgan she clearly could not accept that she wasn't fit to be queen.

Barghest is introduced brutalizing a bunch of human slaves attempting to escape, even turning one of them into one of her hellhounds for speaking out of turn. Later she carries out Morgan's order to burn down the Autumn Woods. This all carries into her philosophy that "the weak serve the strong," only later we see her ruling Manchester where this philosophy is actually more "the strong protect the weak," but now this makes her look like a huge hypocrite. So the weak are to be protected if it's your sickly human lover or the one (conveniently not very insectoid) Welsh pixie but any randos not under your care you will happily cut down? Yeah I wasn't exactly shedding tears when she started going Beast Mode.

Baobhan is introduced as a cruel and selfish fairy who happily tortures and kills random people. She is madly in love with Beryl Gut because...he gives her new exciting ways to torture and kill people, basically. But THEN we learn she was actually a nice fairy only PRETENDING to enjoy torturing people! Morgan just told her she had to be mean to survive and she misunderstood this, you see! (She doesn't act like a nice fairy who plays at being mean, she acts like a mean fairy who is just very easily duped and only feels bad when things start affecting her personally)

I guess I feel less angry over Melusine because...she at least knew what she's doing is wrong? She doesn't try to excuse or justify herself and her rationale feels a lot more believable to me (she just wanted to win the approval of the one fairy who was kind to her, even though she knows it'll never happen she keeps hoping and wishing for it). Her actions felt *consistent* at least, like there is never a sudden swerve to where we have to forget a bunch of stuff she's done before, and that made her feel more sympathetic.

Then you get into NPCs like Boggart and Aurora where I can't really tell if you're meant to feel bad for them. Boggart came off extremely creepy to Mash especially where he tried to force himself on her, only stopping when she pushed him out the window. So the narrative treatment of him from then onward is kind of weird cause now suddenly he learned boundaries? And towards the end he's said to be charismatic and good with women even though at the beginning he's called heartbroken and only takes human slaves as wives because they can't say no to him? Idk his whole character is *weird* I couldn't mourn over his death.

I think it's hard, because if Nasu was trying for a narrative of complex morality, where ultimately the fairies didn't necessarily deserve their fate, but could never avoid it in the end, it's very back-and-forth in showing that through the story. And added to this is Fate fans' own limited reading comprehension further muddying the waters. The ultimate Original Sin of the first six fairies is that they simply were lazy one day. Should we fault them for this? If so, why should we just excuse the actions of a few characters who were allowed greater focus in the story?

(I could go into a big rant about Beryl and how he is so insultingly one-dimensional. I never really expected him to be good or woobified but man he is like Shinji but with all the worst qualities of Kirei shoved in, it's so painfully clear Nasu had no love for him as a character and just reduced him to "rapey hentai villain" that Guda is meant to beat up and kill. I'd rather not though).

(Also Pepe, I'm SO bitter about Pepe, his arc in Lostbelt 4 was an obvious parallel to Arjuna Alter, a whole chapter about how toxic it is to try and erase anything deemed "evil" from the world because all humans have some level of evil, and to erase that is to erase one's own humanity, and to be able to forgive oneself and accept yourself rather than constantly condemning and erasing. That was all thrown out the window with his death, where he goes on for whole paragraphs insisting this was his karma, and then Castoria herself looks at us and says "I don't feel bad for him, I saw all the evil that he did so I think he was a bad person," (basically) and just okay, wow, we've really thrown his whole character arc out the window because we didn't need him in the plot anymore. Cool! Also not very happy at the occasional jokes of him looking like a Nightcall because of his goofy exaggerated expressions)

That was most of what I was initially going to say.

I saw your reblog on the Morgan post, and just wanted to say you described my thoughts towards her better than I was able to. ‘Let off the hook’ for a lot of things honestly feels like it applies to a lot of lostbelt 6 characters, but I can definitely agree it’s worst with Morgan.

Okay I wrote and erased and rewrote an answer to this ask like five times now I want to be brief and not repeat the things I've been saying already now but I guess the basic points of this are:

Lostbelt 6 was originally going to be a more classic "good vs. evil" story, but when Nasu rewrote it he wanted to make his characters more morally complex. And I think that came with some complications, doubly so where some characters are allowed more focus within the narrative and others are more bit part characters.

What really makes it especially glaring to me is this: you, the player, are actively encouraged to call out Oberon on his bullshit. You are even rewarded for doing so, with an added cutscene that gives you further insight into his motivations. This would automatically make a lot of characters who've similarly done wrong feel kind of unbalanced for how you're just supposed to ignore or excuse their actions in favor of sympathizing with them. It's more frustrating to have to choose between seeing other characters as either irredeemable scum or blameless woobies when there is a character right there, who is both sympathetic and deeply, deeply culpable for multiple atrocities.

[messengerhermes]

Being Abused Doesn't Mean You're Stupid

You're not stupid for not realizing someone is abusing you. I feel like that's a frequent narrative around abuse, this idea of "how could you (the survivor) not know you were being abused? Why would you accept this behavior? Are you dumb?" Abuse has nothing to do with intelligence, though to be honest, even if it did, it's some victim blaming bullshit to dismiss someone's trauma on the basis of their perceived smartness. It's also, fucking ableist and I'm tired of it. When we're reckoning with being abused, we'll often hunt around for reasons "why" this shit happened. We'll often try to find reasons to blame ourselves, because if it's "our fault" we can theoretically change our behavior to avoid ever experiencing something like this again. Or, if someone confides in us that they've been abused, if we pin the abuse on some flaw in them, then we can draw a nice little moat around ourselves and go "that will never happen to ME though, because I'm not Like That." If wishes were fishes, we'd all be well fed. If abuse only happened to naive little lambs, then we wouldn't live in a culture where most of the population has experienced some form of violence (emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual, intimidation, economic, manipulation) in at least one aspect of their life (family, dating relationships, friendships, workplace, religious community, extracurricular/social group). Someone abusing you is never your fault. You aren't "falling for" anything. You aren't "deserving it" for any reason. You shouldn't have "known better." The other person should not have been a shithead. Yes, we can learn about the dynamics of abuse, we can access support groups or therapy, we can practice boundaries and understanding ourselves all in order to increase our odds of having healthy relationships and reduce the risks of missing signs someone is abusing us. But it is called risk reduction for a reason. We can never become insulated against abuse, no amount of knowledge or experience can prevent us from ever being taken advantage of and mistreated. There are people who set out to be abusive shitheads as a continuous habit and if you have a lot of experience with those kind of people you can spot and avoid them. But, the reality is, under the right horrible circumstances, a lot of us are capable of some pretty heinous shit. And it can be very hard to spot when someone in your life is taking a turn from being a pretty good person to be around, to someone who is pulling bullshit as a way to gain power and control you. Even when we realize someone's behavior is not okay, if that's a change that has happened in that relationship, it can take a long time for us to acknowledge that something is wrong and demand change. It can take even longer to make the choice to leave if that person is unwilling to change and continues to hurt us. That doesn't make you stupid. It doesn't make you naive. It doesn't mean you deserved it. And, you can believe someone is abusing you unintentionally and still acknowledge that as unacceptable and leave. You're not a bad person for deciding you are done trying to show your abuser how they are hurting you. You're not a bad person for packing you bags and leaving.

Your abuser doesn't need to agree with you that something is abuse in order for you to skedaddle. If they feel misunderstood that's their problem. You're not abandoning anything, you're not giving up, you're taking care of yourself.

[ginger-and-mint]

Hey, I'm wondering if you have any advice on writing kink stuff? Basically, it feels like I'm writing the same story repeatedly. Coming up with stuffing scenarios that both make sense, and aren't just retreads, is really hard. It probably doesn't help that a) I don't have much writing experience, b) my interests are really narrow, and c) I have no imagination, lol. How do you keep stuff fun and interesting? (Jsyk, I sent this to Tiny as well, I love both your blogs 😊)

Hey, anon! Thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoy my and Tiny’s content and I’m flattered to be asked for advice! ♡ I have a lot of thoughts about this, so I’ll do my best to boil them down into something useful.
 ^^

Since you mentioned being pretty new to writing, I broke up my advice into a few different “stages,” starting with things that are easy to implement and moving to things that might feel more manageable as you get more comfortable with writing. Under a cut because Real Heckin Long.


Stage One — Don’t Sweat It

This might sound corny and unhelpful, but I genuinely think that especially when you’re first starting out, it’s best not to put pressure on yourself to write the world’s most original stories. Write to please your inner fiend and nobody else! If repeated versions of the same story continue to light your fire, there’s no shame in embracing that.

Doing this will honestly help you with originality in the long-term anyway, because you’re giving yourself the freedom to learn more about what specifics you really enjoy in kink writing. Later on, you can use that knowledge to put new twists on those specifics and invent new scenarios.

Stage Two — Stuffing Scenario Cheat Sheet

I completely agree that believable stuffing scenarios are really difficult to invent. What’s realistic is a matter of opinion of course, but for me, this is a quick breakdown of logical reasons for a character to overeat. If you’re getting tired of using the same justification in your fics, try picking something new from this list:

Accidental stuffing:

Character is distracted by something during the meal

Character eats so fast they don’t realize when they’re full

Character has been hungry for awhile and overdoes it when they finally get to eat

Reluctant intentional stuffing (motivated by external circumstances):

Character feels social pressure to keep eating **

The food will go to waste otherwise **

Eating contests / challenges **

The character is trying to bulk up

Enthusiastic intentional stuffing (because the character wants to):

Character just enjoys the feeling of being full

Character and/or their partner(s) have a stuffing kink

Character has temporary access to good food and is indulging while they can

Fantasy Shenanigans:

Side effects of being a magical creature (e.g. a werewolf eating too much for their human form to handle, a vampire needing to feed all at once, etc.)

Magic that causes a character to overeat (e.g. enchanted food, curses, potions, etc.)

Magic that requires a full stomach and/or extra energy to work (e.g. my di-mage spell mechanics, the antidote in this fic of Tiny’s, etc.)

[free space because fantasy lets you set the boundaries of what’s realistic, so your imagination is really the limit!]

** If you’re aiming for realism, I would be careful of these scenarios. In my opinion, they can be done believably, but often are not. Some things I would look out for:

Most foods can easily be stored for later, so if you want to use the “avoiding waste” trope, make sure that you’re either in a setting without access to refrigeration or that the food is something that genuinely wouldn’t keep until the next day (or at least would be way less tasty after a night in the fridge.)

Social pressure works best in scenarios with people that the to-be-stuffed character 1) doesn’t know very well and 2) wants to impress or keep face around (e.g. formal events, business dinners, first dates that involve food, meeting their partner’s family, etc.)

Loving friends, family, and partners don’t pressure or guilt people into overeating! Characters stuffing themselves because their loved ones are really insistent that they have to taste-test everything or act so disappointed because they went to all this work on some extravagant feast always ring at best false and at worst abusive to me. What kind of loving relationship is it if you don’t feel safe to say “no thanks, I’m full?” That’s not to say social pressure with loved ones can’t be done well, but it usually indicates some kind of character flaw (i.e. an inability to say no and/or a steamroller-y personality) that in my opinion, has to be acknowledged by the fic’s end if you want the tone to stay light and fluffy.

Again, this may just be my opinion, but eating contests only come across as realistic with certain character personalities and in certain contexts. Like yeah, I can believe that a himbo with YouTuber Energy would take on a hot wing eating challenge in front of all his bros, but not so much that an otherwise self-respecting character would drop everything to eat themselves sick because a friend randomly challenged them.

Stage Three — Change Up Other Elements When Using Similar Tropes


Especially if you have narrow interests, it’s probably inevitable you’ll write same basic story structure over and over. I know I sure do! However, I would say that changing other elements of the narrative can give your writing an entirely different feel, turning it into a whole new story that will not feel like a simple retread to a reader.

One thing you can change up is setting. A lot of times kink writers will just plonk characters in the comfort of their own homes, which is valid — but setting hugely influences the atmosphere of a story, so the same Kink Plot will read really differently if it happens, say, at a campground or on a boat. Providing a rich setting can even become a feature of the kink itself. For example, setting your story at a lavish buffet could introduce an element of indulgence that hits you and/or readers differently than a story that involves casual takeout in the living room, even if the rest of the story is similar. Try bold settings! They’re fun!

Another element to vary is context. For example, the basic trope of “stress eating” would play out really differently if a character is about to go on an important mission vs. if they’re recovering from an emotionally difficult day; a story about about a character intentionally stuffing themselves will have a completely different flavor if they’ve been going hungry for awhile vs. they’ve been overeating all week; and so on.


Finally, consider changing up the focus. An easy way to do this is to switch up whether you’re writing from the POV of the stuffed character or a caretaker. You can also focus on different details of the stuffing — for example, lingering on how delicious the food looks and tastes vs. how the character feels as their stomach fills vs. physical details like whether they’re getting bloated or grumbly.

Stage Four — Connect to Character or Plot

The most surefire way to make kink stories distinct is to give the story an additional purpose besides just being kinky. This doesn’t have to be some big, extravagant plot (although it certainly can be) — it can be a simple as writing a kink story the way you usually would, and just finding something within it that you can use to reveal an aspect of your character.

Start with an ordinary kink scenario and try to dive a little deeper. For example:

Say you want to write a story about stress eating. Okay — what is the character stressed about?

Maybe you come up with something relatively simple and generic, like school. Okay, what about this character makes them so likely to be stressed out by school? Are they a perfectionist? Are they facing a lot of pressure from their family? Do they have a goal that requires excellent grades? Have they struggled with this subject in the past?

Let’s say you decide to go with perfectionism. Now, what scenes can you use to show this struggle? And optionally, can you give the character some kind of resolution by the story’s end?

And there you go! Your fic now not only has kink, but also shows how your character reacts in a certain situation.

Character especially is a treasure trove of uniqueness, in my opinion, because well-developed characters react differently to the same scenario. Stories feel more original because even if a reader has read this exact same plot before, they will not have seen how this particular person handles it. So one of the best ways to make fics distinct is to spend time developing your characters!

If the goal is to simply write solid distinct kinky stories, trying to create detailed plot is more work with lower return than investing in your characters, if you ask me. You have to enjoy the process of creating plots itself for it to be worth it. If that’s something you’re interested in, I have a whole load more thoughts about that -- but since this is already incredibly long, I’ll save that for a separate ramble if anyone is specifically interested.

---

I hope something in this huge infodump is helpful to you! Some of it may sound intimidating if you’re just starting out with kink writing, but it’s absolutely all something that can be worked up to. Please feel free to ask any follow-up questions if stuff I’ve written doesn’t make sense. Good luck with your writing, anon, and thanks for giving me an excuse to just go off. ^^’ ♡

[mallowstep]

first go at making a cat development chart

been writing mothkit, hawkkit, and frogkit (my beloveds <3) so. cross-referencing several sources on both cat and human developmental milestones, here goes.

this is totally something i'm likely to revise and adjust as time goes on. this leans on accuracy, so i haven't smooshed anything for narrative convenience, but i find for kits you usually have to.

newborns

like human newborns. the first week is actually a little bit: so newborn kits can't see or hear, which is different from newborn humans. but you know. it's roughly the same.

week one

week one is when ears are opening. so far, human infants are still ahead. that won't last. but kits still can't do much more than take in info.

week two

eyes are opening! their vision isn't great but when you couldn't see anything, something is always good. i like to pin the earliest baby speech here. of course, from the pov of kits, i tend to write them speaking big proper sentences. babies are so sure they are saying stuff. it's adorable.

so we're up to about a month old child.

week three

kits start to toddle. they're going to be investigating the nursery, and, weather and parents permitting, outside the nursery. their senses are still not great, but they're much better. they look more like cats and less like beans, but still are solidly bean shaped.

their caregivers are going to be able to put together most of what they're saying, even if the kits are still speaking in mostly babbling.

four to six month old infant. maybe closer to a year? you can't draw great direct comparisons really because humans and cats get skills not in the same order.

week four

kits start to be weaned. their teeth come out. we're up to more or less understanding and being understood, although they're still children.

they look mostly like cats, and start to act like cats. they still can't groom themselves very well, but they're trying, and their movement is much improved.

they play! their play looks like cat play, even if it's a little clunky. riverclan kits are first introduced to water, although they're not taught to swim yet.

about three years old. from now i can start to make better direct comparisons.

week five

kits can take care of their own basic needs, although most won't be fully weaned at this point. and "take care" by which i mean they can, not that they should. just because your kid can make a sandwich at three doesn't mean you leave them alone in the kitchen.

their social structure as a litter is pretty developed, and they're beginning to get the deeper social structure of clan life. this is when they stop being annoying to warriors who don't like kits. (mostly.)

they're speaking in full sentences, and starting to play more complex games.

about five years old, although again? direct comparisons still aren't amazing, just roughly trying to give myself markers to hang dialogue and memories on.

weeks six and seven

not much changes! i'm shooting for six years, roughly.

this is about when permanent memories start to form, although they'll still be pretty hazy, and not well remembered.

week eight (moon two)

kits are cat shaped! their eyes are filled in, and their baby teeth are all out.

solid permanent memories form from now on. stories transition from fun to educational (but still fun). windclan kits start to learn hymns. riverclan cats start to learn how to swim.

kits are growing up! their human age equivalent starts to slow down. they're around seven or eight.

moon three

not a ton of super interesting developmental milestones at this point. they're kids.

they do start to have more and more unsupervised time (unless you're in riverclan), and they start to get excited about being apprentices. they might "help" with camp chores, from helping take old bedding out of dens to running messages across camp.

kits have a lot of energy and they don't have a lot to do with it, so they get into the most trouble around this age. they also tend to be irritated by their younger denmates.

we're at around nine.

moons four and five

kits start to direct their energy into more focused activities. things like practising hunting, sneaking out of camp, or playing with younger kits. they might start to play with apprentices again (if the apprentices are young and have energy), and they can irritate warriors by being very energetic.

a lot of kits start to do things like take food to the elders and queens, and thunderclan and shadowclan kits are learning how to tell stories. riverclan kits might start to weave flowers.

kits might go on short excursions outside of camp. thunderclan kits might sneak out of camp, but stay in the ravine, with warriors turning a blind eye.

windclan has the easiest camp to leave, and so kits racing games start to push that boundary. riverclan and shadowclan medicine cats might take kits on close to camp herb/flower/moss/etc. gathering trips, provided the kits are sufficiently responsible.

many queens start to return to warrior duties, provided there are enough eyes in the nursery.

still around nine or ten year old child, but a mature one.

moon six

brief break from the pattern: apprentices! i use 12yo as a rough guideline for this because it feels appropriate. that said, some kits are going to act a little immature from being in a fully structured environment.

while cats play in the worst of conditions, training burns a lot of energy, so the troublemaking that kits get up to starts to fade.

moons eight and nine

apprentices continue training. they start to develop their own specializations, here. a cat inclined towards the nursery might start offering to kit-watch, etc.

crushes transition from kit crushes to more "adult" feelings, although serious courting behaviour won't start for a few more moons. still, some childhood romance tropes are going to start pairing off.

social drama gets more complex.

around 13yo, 14yo.

moons nine to twelve

warriors finish their training. as apprentices, they're now allowed to go on solo missions. courting might get serious, although the clans don't consider cats capable of being serious mates until they have their full names.

by the end of this, we're roughly 15 to 17yo. i say roughly because (a) larger cats physically mature slower, and (b) cats are physically and mentally a bit out of sync. they're almost fully grown, much like an older teen: they don't expect to get much larger, just maybe put a bit more muscle on.

but mentally, they're still fairly young.

year two

i end this with: by the end of year two, cats are considered "full" adults, responsible enough to have an apprentice, or their own kits. it's typical for mates to demonstrate serious courting activities, something that varies on the clan.

medicine cats get their full name about halfway through, six months after their littermates. they're given a lot of autonomy in their final six months, much like the residency of a human doctor.

(altho not quite as residents are technically full doctors. kind of. but for that to be a perfect analogy, medicine cats would get their full name with their littermates, but still not have full autonomy.)

by the end of year two, cats are around 25yo: fully developed, physically and mentally.

(albeit, larger cats take longer to finish growing. thunderclan cats might continue to grow subtly until three or four years, and riverclan cats might for three years. while they lose the designation "junior warrior" at two years like their smaller compatriots, they're less likely to have kits until they're three or four years old.)

the rest of their life

maturation slows down a lot at this point: cats will stay "young adults" for most of their life. warriors will be called senior warriors usually around 4yo, but the specific marker for that can vary on clan and the warrior's maturity.

around eight, they might start to slow down. they've accrued some battle injuries, maybe long-lasting ones. queens might have one more litter, but that's probably it.

cats who get a major injury around eight are likely to retire: they're old enough that relearning skills is difficult, and they've given a lot in service of their clan.

most warriors retire around ten, although it's always a personal decision. nursery queens might not retire until they're twelve or older, since they tend to have less injuries, and they're not necessarily doing the most active part of child rearing.

medicine cats have a tendency to work to death, but they typically retire around fifteen.

and then it's the elders den, and they start telling kits stories, completing the cycle.

[bestworstcase]

I don't want to turn into a salt flinging factory, but the fact that one of the leading Tangled BEA tumblr commentators outright boasted about cheering when Rapunzel shouts "Enough, Cassandra!", and goes on repeatedly about how Rapunzel should cut Cassandra out of her life, embodies the issues with the pro-Rapunzel bias when discussing the series. In a conflict between a known and loved character and an OC, I have a feeling that fans will always gravitate towards the former, and that's quite frustrating in a show where Rapunzel should have to come to terms with her least desirable features. Rapunzel's Kindness and compassion are not character flaws (in fact, they are her greatest strengths), and the most irritating thing about S3's writing is that the repetitive structure makes them feel that way...

... is this a bex take because it sounds like a bex take

the problem is a multifaceted one i think, and while rapunzel being an established character vs cass being a newer introduction to the series is part of it--bias in favor of older and better-known characters is very real--it's also about--well,

1. a significant contingent of the tts fandom does not want to engage in any meaningful way with the class dynamic and how the staggering degree of power rapunzel has over cassandra shapes their interpersonal relationship, which is how we get completely off-the-wall bonkers takes about cass being "controlling" or "manipulative" towards rapunzel + things like the "enough, cassandra!" moment being seen as rapunzel asserting herself instead of rapunzel abusing her power over cass to shut down an argument out of anger

2. this same contingent tends to perceive cassandra's discomfort with servitude and desperation to be on a level playing field with rapunzel as cass wanting to tear rapunzel down rather than cassandra wanting to be treated with the same basic human dignity that everybody else in the core cast gets. from this frame of mind, of course, rapunzel putting cass in her place is a good thing, because cass shouldn't be having ideas above her station in the first place.

3. rapunzel is a sweet, sunny person who is sometimes kind and always superficially nice and cloaks her worst behavior--that is, the boundary-pushing and controlling approach to her interpersonal relationships--in wanting to "help" people, whereas cass is a blunt-spoken person who is willing to state outright what her boundaries are and also very much wears her heart on her sleeve, meaning that when she's mad or upset she does not make any secret of being so--and, frankly, in fiction as in real life people side with the person who smiles and acts nice over the person who gets cranky and loud when her boundaries are violated. a lot of people care more about the appearance of niceness than about actual decency.

4. likewise rapunzel's response to trauma (appeasement and placation and hiding her bad feelings except when someone she gets teary and sad and needs to be cheered up by her boyfriend) is a lot more palatable than cassandra's response to trauma (getting angry and lashing out because she is in unspeakable pain and does not know what else to do) so rapunzel's trauma gets treated like a free pass to be...the way she is whereas cassandra gets "ugh why is she so AWFUL just because ONE BAD THING HAPPENED TO HER doesn't give her a right to be so MEAN"

5. a considerable contingent of the tts fandom takes the entire text completely at face value whilst ignoring even the slightest whiff of subtext, and because of course the story of tts was a) told through rapunzel's perspective and b) sharply constrained by disney execs who said the princess couldn't outright be wrong, s3 had to leave a lot of things unsaid, such as "cass is angry at rapunzel because rapunzel mutilated her arm" (which IS directly hinted at in the text of s3, btw--in big bad wolf zhan tiri touches cassandra's withered hand and says "remember what she took from you" there is a whole beat where we SEE zhan tiri using that injury as a focal point for cass's anger, it's just not spelled out verbally because again, rapunzel was not allowed to be wrong due to executive meddling in s3) and "the way rapunzel treated cass in s1-2 was wrong and learning that her own mother abandoned her for rapunzel was just the last straw" and because the narrative doesn't clearly and carefully hold our hands to explain these things the No Subtext contingent of the fandom just sees cass lashing out with disproportionate because she's victim blaming rapunzel for being kidnapped by gothel.

6. and then of course we have the new dreamers who view cassandra as a threat to their ship and get weirdly intense about her being ~*~toxic~*~ for rapunzel as a way of defending their otp, lmao. shippers are weird

7. the "do you think margaret thatcher had girl power?" phenomenon