#and the comments on there making it seem like it’s a general crime problem

[iceyrukia]

Growing number of women report being punched on NYC

[actiniumwrites]

knots

synopsis: lyney has been head over heels in love with you since the two of you were only ten years old. the only problem? you're friends with lynette and not him. so he spends the next 8-9 years pining over you with seemingly unrequited feelings

characters: lyney x gn!reader

wc: 2.1k

warnings: angst to fluff, misunderstandings, happy ending, best friend's brother trope, an insane amount of obliviousness and pining, idiots to lovers pretty much, the ending is kinda rushed

disclaimer: i know character ages in genshin are a rather controversial topic of discourse within the community. i personally think of lyney and lynette to be around 18-19 years old and i do mention age in this fic as it follows a bit of a timeline. if this somehow bothers you, please just don't read or try to start an argument over it in my comments

notes: THIS IS SO CUTE IM SOBBING 🤧 i did throw in a lot of angst though i'm so sorry but i saw the opportunity and took it. the end is fluffy (and kind of rushed sorry) though‼️ the title is also inspired by lacy by olivia rodrigo as i think it's very fitting for this fic. thank you for the request! (this is my third time posting this cause the first time it didn't show up in the tags)

Lyney was jealous as a kid. It was hard not for him to be when him and Lynette were first introduced to you and you had barely even acknowledged him. He was only ten at the time, but he was so excited to make new friends outside of the House of the Hearth that he was stunned when you had only really talked to Lynette. You had only ever offered him a small wave and a smile to go along with it before running off with Lynette.

It wasn’t fair in his eyes. He was the one more interested in you anyway, not her. She had merely tagged along because he forced her too. Now here she was stealing his potential friends.

You’d clicked instantly with her. Both of you were more on the quiet and shy side, contrasting Lyney’s sunny and outgoing personality. You both liked the same foods, the same clothing, the same everything. Lyney wanted to share those with you too, but it was hard when his tastes differed from yours and you didn’t seem to pay much interest in him anyway.

And growing up, he’d always been around. You’d hang out with all of them, don’t get it twisted. It wasn’t like you’d ever told him he couldn’t spend time with you guys. In fact, you often spent a lot of time together. You were sweet. You loved helping them with their magic tricks, even though they normally failed since you were all thirteen by the time they really began taking it seriously. You’d pretend to be shocked when they guessed your card, despite knowing exactly how the trick worked. You’d be on standby when they performed more dangerous tricks. Hell, you were even an assistant for them nearly eighty-percent of the time.

Lyney was grateful for it all, but he still couldn’t shake the ever growing crush on you he’d developed three years ago when you first met. He wanted you to be closer with him more than his sister. It was selfish, he was well aware of that, but he was the one with a crush. Not Lynette.

Lyney was the one to pick you up and put a bandaid on your knees when you fell at the playground. Lyney was the one to always share his snacks with you, even when you usually said no. Lyney was the one to always sit next to you when you were feeling a little down and let his knee rest quietly against yours, hoping you wouldn’t pull yours away. Lyney was the one who was in love with you by the time you all turned 18.

When the fateful performance happened and they were revealed to be Fatui to the general public, he was sure you’d leave them for good. You had obviously known they were Fatui, but you didn’t know of the extent to which they acted, the crimes they had committed. In your eyes, they were only in training, because that was all they had told you. As close as you were to them, they could never let you know the full details. It was against the rules.

Lyney was so sure you’d up and leave that it was the second time he had ever truly felt anxiety in his life — his sister being taken was the first, but here you were making him feel that horrible pounding in his chest all over again. He was so sure that the ache in his chest would have to make room for more than just jealousy, but grief among heartbreak. That you’d look at them in fear and never speak to them ever again. That he’d never get to profess his love to you.

You proved him wrong, and rather unexpectedly so. You’d shown up to every second of their trial and helped the traveler out as best you could to exonerate them. You’d stuck by their side through it all and made sure they were alright. He was so surprised you almost made him cry.

When they were freed from it all and the crisis was solved, you’d only hugged Lynette and Freminet. That was the part that stung the most. But at this age, Lyney was too nervous around you. How could he not be? You were so pretty and sweet and kind that he didn’t know what to do, especially when he was confused as to where he stood with you. You were all of those things and more with everyone. Everyone but him.

So he pulls away.

He doesn’t want to. God, he’s so in love with you he doesn’t want to ever spend a second away from you, but you never reciprocate any of it. So perhaps, he decides one day, it’d be best to just move on and focus on other things. Lynette could have you to herself and he’d find someone else, no matter how much he wanted you the most.

And you hate it, because well, you’re confused. Which sounds unfair, and in some ways it is, but Lyney was a special light in your life that you couldn’t get too close to. Not because you didn’t want to. No. Of course not. He didn’t realize that you were too scared to. You were so different that you shied away from him, despite feeling all the same toward him. He was like the sun and if you got too close to him, you were scared he’d burn you.

Lynette pushed you toward him regularly. You never seemed to escape her late night gossip sessions where she told you all about how her brother was practically drooling over how good you looked or how sweet you were. You found it endearing while she found it disgusting. Despite it all, though, you had confided in her about your crush on him as well, but how terrified you were to try to actually approach him. She almost slapped you right then and there.

Lynette thinks you’re both stupid. And she’s right. Because now you’re both stuck in a huge misunderstanding. Lyney thinks you hate him and you think he hates you. Could anyone really blame her for being so annoyed?

“You need to talk to him,” she finally breaks one day, about to pass out in her chair from her social energy running out just from hearing about the entire situation nonstop for the past week. You stare at her mortified as she gives you an unimpressed stare.

You nearly choke on the drink you were sipping on just a moment ago, catching a few passerby’s attention as you do, “Why do I have to be the one to say something?! He’s the one that started avoiding me!”

“Are you dense?”

“No?”

She stares at you for a long minute and sighs.

“You’re both idiots. He likes you. You like him. You were too shy to say anything and now he’s decided to move on,” she explains, unimpressed. Did you really not see it after all these years?

“Move on? What?” you place your hands on the table in front of you, panic swimming in your eyes. It all hits you so fast you feel your heart practically about to burst out of your chest.

“I have to go, sorry!” you jump out of your chair, yelling a string of apologies from behind you as you run from the cafe.

It takes you an hour to find him after your conversation with Lynette ends abruptly. Freminet was nice enough to let you know Lyney had gone down to the outskirts of the main city to work on some magic tools by the beach. It was just an excuse to get away. All three of you knew it, but Lyney wasn’t the type to say how he truly feels in fear of being a bad leader.

You wished he had said something sooner. Though perhaps you should’ve been the one to take notice long ago that his advances were more than just friendly.

You suddenly feel regret build up in your stomach at the way you treated him all these years. You were so afraid of your feelings you sabotaged yourself in the process and unknowingly hurt him too.

You find him sitting in the sand, legs crossed as he quietly fiddles with a few parts for some magic props.

“Mind if I sit?” you practically whisper from beside him. Lyney doesn’t even look at you. It’s cold and and unlike him and must be exactly how you looked all these years. He nods anyway.

You watch the waves crash in front of you. Over and over again as they grow closer with the deepening hours of the night. The stars reflect gently upon each and every one of them yet you can’t get yourself to focus on them.

You fidget with a small flower in your hands. It was tucked away gently in your pocket, the petals sticking out to prevent it from getting crushed. It’s a vibrant pink and even with its petals closed for the night, it still looks beautiful in your hand. It reminds you of all the times Lyney had dropped the very same ones at your doorstep or somehow tucked away on a piece of your clothing without you noticing. You hadn’t bothered to look into the meaning back then. You never knew rainbow roses were a declaration of love.

Lyney still sits quietly next to you, now messing with the hat he had taken off when you arrived. His lavender eyes avoid yours, but you don’t hesitate to drop the flower gently into his hands.

“I never knew the meaning of these,” you turn to him and say softly. Your eyes match your voice and he knows you’re telling the truth, even if he doesn’t want to believe it. When he doesn’t move to touch it, nor get rid of it, you speak again, “It’s uh…it’s for you. I picked it on the way here. I thought you’d maybe like it.”

He finally picks it up and turns toward you, a mixture of emotions pooling in his eyes. You see the anger, the fear, the pain, and the love all at once. You wish you had seen it all sooner.

“Why are you giving this to me?” Lyney asks quietly. It comes off a little colder than he’d like, you see it in the way he winces after. You only stare at him with a sad, but hopeful look in your eyes. You couldn’t take back the past, but perhaps you could change the future.

Quietly, you take it from him and tuck it above his ear. He’d done the same to you one time, only it was part of a show and you thought it was just for the act. Oh how oblivious you were back then. “You know what it means to give someone one of these. Lyney, I…I never meant to push you away all these years. I was just scared because I liked you, and Lynette was easier to get closer to than face my feelings for you. Even if we were just ten years old. It was immature and for that, I’m sorry.”

It’s quiet for a moment before his face brightens a bit, “Do you really mean it? You’ve really liked me all these years? Or are you just saying all this to make me feel better?”

You nod, confirming your words and he breaks out into laughter. A sound you’ve dearly missed. Sadness doesn’t suit Lyney.

“Can I…?” He says scooting closer to you, eyes glancing in between yours before falling to your lips. You nod, a small laugh escaping you as you lean in to meet him half way.

Lyney’s lips are soft against yours as he kisses you eagerly. You reciprocate the feeling, matching his pace until you both pull apart out of breath. You laugh nervously standing up and extending a hand, “Wanna go home?”

Lyney jumps up, his hand in yours and nods. He interlaces his fingers with yours tightly, not letting you go after all these missed out years.

When you return to the House of the Hearth, Lyney turns and places one last kiss to your lips. It’s short and sweet and lets you know that he’ll definitely be seeing you tomorrow. You turn and walk away after, wishing him a goodnight as you do. But before you can walk away completely and turns and shouts, “7 PM tomorrow at the Hotel Debourd! I’ll pick you up!”

Lynette appears behind him suddenly, rolling her eyes and waving to you before shutting the door on her twin, “You’re hopeless, brother.”

[candycandy00]

if i am not too late, can we get geto in mafia town where he is the interrogator. congrats on the 2k!!! i'll look forward to reading everything ❤️🌻

The Sweetest Torture - A Geto Suguru x Reader Fanfic

Smut. 18+. Fem Reader. Mafia AU. Edging. Light bondage (handcuffs). Oral sex. 

Part of CandyCandy’s 2k Followers Event! Likes are welcome and loved but comments and reblogs make me all warm and squishy inside! Dividers by @benkeibear!

How did it come to this? An hour ago you were waiting tables at the small cafe you work at. Now you’re in some dank basement, sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair, your wrists handcuffed behind your back. 

You live in a Mafia town. The local Falzone Mafia family controls the whole area, and though they can be intimidating, they’re overall easy to get along with. They generally do more good than harm, helping the local economy by bringing in tourists to their casino and keeping all crime but their own practically nonexistent. A few of them come into the cafe often, and one of them in particular has caught your eye. 

He’s from Japan, but he’s been with the Falzone family since he was a child, according to him. His name is Suguru, and he’s unbelievably beautiful. He has the sort of beauty that stops people dead in their tracks, forcing them to look at him until he’s out of sight. 

He stops in the cafe almost every day, always ordering a coffee and a pastry. He’s given you a few flirty, suggestive comments, and in response you let him know you were interested. But he’s yet to make a move since then. In fact he cooled off completely. No more flirting. To be honest, it’s been a bit of a blow to your self esteem.

A new employee of the family named Juliano has been coming into the cafe lately. He seems to be drunk on the power being part of a Mafia family gives him. He’s loud, disruptive, and often frightens the other customers. When Suguru has been in the cafe at the same time, he’s called Juliano down and made him apologize, but they don’t often visit together. 

Two nights ago, you were cleaning up the cafe alone before closing up for the night when you heard a commotion outside. Thinking it was the two alley cats fighting again, you stepped outside to shoo them away before they hurt each other. But when you stepped around the corner of the cafe and peered into the alley, you saw two men. 

One was Juliano. The other was a member of the Falzone family that you recognized as Antonio. You didn’t know him well but he never caused problems as far as you knew. They were shoving each other and arguing. Antonio yelled out a few words, most of which you couldn’t hear clearly. Except one: “Traitor!”

Juliano lunged toward him, something silver glinting in his hand. It only took a moment for you to realize Juliano was stabbing Antonio with a knife. As Antonio crumpled to the pavement, you tried to sneak away, to make it back inside before Juliano spotted you. But you didn’t make it. He was on you in an instant, shoving you against the outside wall of the cafe and holding his knife to your throat. 

“If you breathe a word of this to anyone, you’re fucking dead! Do you understand me?”

You nodded, too terrified to speak, your eyes becoming wet. 

Juliano’s breath was hot on your face as he said, “Not just you. I’ll kill everyone you love. Your whole family. So you better keep your mouth shut, no matter what!”

You nodded vigorously again. “I-I won’t tell anyone!”

He left then, and you slunk back into the cafe feeling exhausted and frightened. Antonio’s body was found the next day, and the Falzone family immediately began investigating to find out who killed one of their own. They questioned you at length, but you lied and said you’d closed up early that night and went home. That was yesterday. 

Today, a couple of Falzone members came in and told you they’d asked around. Turns out you didn’t close up early. Someone walked by later in the evening and saw you wiping down tables. So why did you lie? What did you have to hide? Were you in cahoots with the killer? You panicked and probably only seemed more suspicious by trying to add more lies. So they took you back to their base, dragged you into this pitch dark room, and handcuffed you in this chair. Someone turned on a light that hung over your head like a spotlight and said their interrogator would be in to talk to you soon. 

You’ve lived in a Mafia town long enough to know “interrogator” is a nice term for “torturer”. You have no idea what’s going to happen to you, but probably nothing good. Should you just tell the truth? They probably wouldn’t believe you at this point, and Juliano would definitely try to make good on his threat. No, you can’t risk your family’s safety. 

The door creaks open and you look up to see which member of the family will be spending the evening ripping out your fingernails. Most of these men are regulars at the cafe. You chat with them, know exactly how they all like their coffee, laugh at their jokes. You feel a sense of fondness for them, so whoever it is, this is going to hurt in more ways than just physically. 

Your jaw nearly drops when Suguru walks into the room. He’s their torturer?! Him?! You feel sick to your stomach as he closes the door behind him and approaches. You’d rather it be anyone but him!

He steps closer to you and looks down at your face. He wears a complicated expression as he sighs and says, “Can you just tell me what happened two nights ago?”

“I-I didn’t see anything! There’s nothing to tell!”

“Then why did you lie about closing up early?” Suguru asks. 

You hesitate, trying to think up another lie. “I don’t know… I guess I just panicked when I was being questioned.”

“You do see how that makes you seem suspicious, right? You talk to Falzone guys every day at the cafe. It just doesn’t make sense for you to panic unless you have something to hide.”

You look up at him, wanting desperately to tell him the truth, but too scared of what Juliana will do to retaliate. By this point the man probably has a plan in mind for covering things up even if you tell. 

Suguru steps even closer and leans down, putting his hands on the arm rests of your chair. A strand of silky black hair falls over his face as he says, “There are lots of things I want to do to you, but hurting you is not one of them. Please just tell me the truth.”

You can feel tears stinging your eyes. You really are in an impossible situation. “I… can’t.”

There’s a flash of something in his eyes, as if he just realized something. He lowers his voice to nearly a whisper and says, “Has someone threatened you? Tell me, and we can-“

The door suddenly opens, causing Suguru to straighten up and turn to face the newcomer. When he steps aside, your heart nearly stops when you see Juliano standing inside the door. He’s staring at you with dark eyes. 

“What do you want, Juliano?” Suguru asks, seemingly slightly annoyed by the other man’s presence. 

“Just came to observe,” Juliano says. “The boss okayed it. Antonio was a good friend of mine.”

You’re trying hard to control your expression, to not look at Juliano too much and make it obvious that you’re scared of him. But you can feel his eyes on you. He’s here to make sure you don’t talk. 

Suguru narrows his eyes. “I don’t work with an observer. You’re hindering my interrogation.”

From his tone of voice, it seems clear that Suguru doesn’t like Juliano. Figures. Suguru is too classy to be friends with such a brute. 

Juliano moves closer to you. “Oh come on. Just slap the little bitch around a few times and she’ll talk.” He raises his hand and swings it down toward your face. With the handcuffs on, you can’t even try to protect yourself, so you squeeze your eyes shut. But the impact never comes. You open your eyes again to see Suguru holding Juliano’s arm. 

“I have my own way of doing things,” Suguru says, a warning tone to his voice. “And I’m not going to let you interfere. If the boss really wants you in here, he can come and tell me himself. Until then, get the fuck out.”

Juliano jerks his arm free and gives Suguru a dark, angry look. Then he gives you a meaningful glance before storming out of the room. 

Suguru walks over and locks the door with a heavy bolt. “There. No more unwelcome distractions. Now where were we?”

When he steps back over to you, he leans over you again. “So? Is someone threatening you? Someone from a rival family? We can protect you.”

But could they protect you from one of their own? Could they protect your whole family? What if they just didn’t believe you? There were too many uncertainties. You lowered your head. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything.”

Suguru stands up straight and runs a hand through his bangs. “Alright. Looks like I’m going to have to force you.”

Your eyes shoot up to his face in alarm. 

He meets your gaze. “I have ways of making people talk. I like to tailor my methods to the individual.”

You try to shrink away from him but you have nowhere to go in the chair. “Please don’t hurt me!” you cry. 

He looms over you, looking down with a sultry expression. His liquid amber eyes seem just a little darker. His lips curve into a subtle smile. “I’ve found that for many people, the most effective torture isn’t inflicting pain. It’s denying pleasure.”

Suguru squats down in front of the chair, his thighs spreading deliciously. One warm hand rests on your knee. “I know you want me,” he says in that entirely too smooth voice. “You practically said so last week. I can give you everything you want and more.” His hand slides up your leg, under your floral sundress, caressing you with soft, sensual motions. “Just tell me the truth, and I’ll give you pleasure like you’ve never even dreamed of before.”

You squirm in the chair, squeezing your thighs together. He really is inhumanly beautiful, like someone from a fairytale. He’s right that you want him. You’ve wanted him from the moment you laid eyes on him, on his lustrous black hair and muscular shape. You’ve dreamed about him taking you, bending you over one of the tables at the cafe and having his way with you. 

But you have to resist! 

You shake your head as you try to pull away from him. “I can’t!”

He slides his other hand under your dress, then uses both hands to pull your panties down, under your hips, and all the way down your legs. After tossing them aside, he gently pushes your legs apart. Your dress is bunched up between your legs, still preserving your modesty. 

“You do want me, don’t you?” he asks, his eyes staring into yours. 

“Y-yes…” you mumble, closing your eyes. 

You feel his hands on your thighs again, creeping upward. Slowly, he pulls your dress up to your waist. The feeling of the soft fabric grazing over your bare pussy is so alluring, your breaths start to come quicker. Finally, you feel the cool air in the room between your legs, and you know you’re exposed. 

“You’re beautiful,” you hear Suguru say. “The things I could do to your body… the things I could make you feel… if only you would tell me what you saw.”

You open your eyes and look at him. God, you want him! “I… I didn’t see anything!”

His hands continue stroking your thighs, getting oh so close to where you want them to be. He leans toward you, almost close enough to kiss you, and says in a low voice at your ear, “You’re not being truthful. Don’t you want me to make you cum over and over? Don’t you want my tongue on your cute little clit? My cock inside you?”

Your chest is rising and falling rapidly with your fast breathing, your skin feeling heated and flushed. “Yes… I want that!”

One of his hands moves up and slightly brushes over your slick pussy. “I want that too,” he says. 

You have a sobering thought, and you can’t stop yourself from speaking it. “Now you’re not being truthful,” you tell him. 

He looks surprised. “What do you mean?”

“After I told you I’m interested, you backed off. You were just teasing me this whole time.”

A hint of sadness passes over his lovely features. “In my line of work, starting a relationship with someone is dangerous, for them more than me. I can sleep around all I want, but the moment I want something more, there’s a chance that person could be targeted.”

Wait, does that mean he wants something more with you? But he’s afraid you’ll be attacked in order to hurt him? The thought makes you feel warm, but it also makes the current situation far worse. Now you want him more than ever. 

You look him in the eyes. “I wish I could tell you! But I can’t!”

He gives a disappointed sigh. “What a shame. I was looking forward to taking you to heaven.”

The hand that had been ghosting over you between your legs suddenly stops moving, and you feel his soft fingers slipping between your folds to rub your clit. You nearly jump out of the chair. He smiles at you as your back arches. God, his touch is amazing! You almost spill every secret you have right then and there. 

You moan as he strokes you expertly, already on the edge. But just as you feel like release is getting close, he stops, pulling his hand away. You let out a whine, jutting your hips out as if chasing his hand. He waits for your body to calm down, then returns his hand, his fingers tracing circles around your clit again. He watches as you start to come undone, trembling in the chair, and then stops again. 

“Please… Suguru…” you breathe out, desperate for release. 

“Just tell me the truth,” he replies. “If someone is threatening you, we can protect you.”

You shake your head, tears leaking out of your eyes. He touches you again, bringing you so close once more. 

“My… my family…” you mutter. 

“They threatened your family? We’ll protect them too. You have my word.”

“You won’t believe me!” you cry as he pulls his hand away again. 

He leans his face in close to yours, looking you in the eyes. “Do you trust me?”

You hesitate for a moment, then nod. 

“Then I trust you,” he says. “I’ll believe whatever you say.”

He moves his face down then, burying it between your shaking thighs, and begins devouring your pussy. As his tongue runs over your clit, you finally give in. You couldn’t possibly bear having this pleasure taken away from you. 

“Juliano! Juliano stabbed Antonio!”

Suguru’s face tilts up slightly to look at your face, but his mouth continues pleasuring you until you finally reach sweet release, climaxing with a scream. 

He pulls away and stands up, licking his lips. “Juliano, huh? I can’t say I’m surprised. He’s a sneaky little rat.”

Catching your breath, you look up at Suguru. “He said he’d kill me and my family if I told anyone. Please don’t let him!”

Suguru gives you a reassuring smile. “I won’t let anything happen to you or your family. You can count on it.”

You sigh in relief, feeling tears on your face. 

“But before I confront him,” Suguru says, dropping down to his knees in front of you, “I believe I promised you a reward for telling the truth.”

You watch, enraptured, as he unbuckles his belt and opens his pants. He pulls out a cock that suits him perfectly: big, tall, and gorgeous. You can’t tear your eyes off it as he put his hands on your hips and slides you down a bit, so that you’re close to the edge of the seat, your hands still cuffed behind you. This position pulls slightly on your arms, but you can ignore some minor discomfort. Especially when he spreads you open and that magnificent cock pushes inside you. 

Ahhh, he fills you up so perfectly! He begins thrusting into you, slowly at first, deeply and intimately. He gradually picks up speed, the friction of his skin against yours making you moan and buck your hips. He leans over you, his hair falling over his shoulders, and kisses your lips. 

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he says. “I had to hold back every time I went to the cafe. I wanted to fuck you in your waitress uniform, right in front of everyone!”

You almost think you’d let him. He goes so deep, and he hits exactly the right spot within you. “S-Suguru!” you cry out, your pussy clenching him tightly as another orgasm slams into you. 

He keeps thrusting as you quiver beneath him, his hand stroking your hair. You can feel him twitching and pulsing inside you before he lets out a groan, then he absolutely stuffs you with his cum. 

You look up at him with dazed eyes. “Promise you’ll protect me?”

He’s breathing hard as he slowly pulls out of you. “With my life,” he replies. 

You watch him button his pants and then pull your dress back down, covering you modestly. He’s just stepping around you to unlock the handcuffs when there’s a banging on the door. He freezes and motions for you to be quiet. On the way to the door, he bends down and grabs your discarded panties, shoving them into his pocket. 

At the door, he says, “Who is it? I’m busy.”

You hear Juliano’s voice. “The boss couldn’t come down here, but he said I can observe. Look, I’m sorry I tried to tell you how to do your job, alright?”

You know what Juliano is doing. He wants to stay in the room as much as possible, to intimidate you and make sure you don’t talk. Little does he know he’s too late. 

Surprisingly, Suguru unlocks the door and lets him in. Juliano steps into the room, scowls at you, and asks, “Any luck?”

Suguru gives him a dark look. “What do you think, Juliano?”

Juliano, perhaps noticing the clear hostility radiating off of Suguru, suddenly looks at you again. “Has she been telling lies about me?” When no one says anything, he looks at Suguru again. “Are you seriously gonna believe this cheap little cunt over me?!”

Suguru punches him, so fast and so hard that Juliano has no chance to dodge or even bring up an arm to protect his face. He flops backwards onto the floor, unmoving. 

You stare at the man on the floor. “Is… is he dead?”

Suguru walks back over to you and finishes uncuffing you. “No, I just knocked him out. I’ll send someone to get your family and bring them here to stay for a while, just until we make sure Juliano doesn’t have any lackeys.”

You let Suguru help you to your feet, rubbing your sore wrists. “What’s going to happen to him?” you ask, nodding toward Juliano. 

Suguru smiles. “I’ll be putting him in that chair, interrogating him next. Though my methods for dealing with him will be very different,” he says, gently turning you around to see the wall that was behind your chair. It’s lined with hundreds of sharp, dangerous looking tools and utensils. 

“Oh,” you say, feeling a chill come over you. 

“I didn’t want you to see it while you were in here. I didn’t want to scare you,” Suguru says. 

You’re grateful for that. But you feel just a little bad for Juliano. He probably deserves whatever he gets though. 

Suguru holds out his hand to you. “Come on, you can stay in my room until all this settles down.” 

You take it, feeling like the safest person in the world. 

[musicalmoritz]

Good Femslash Fics Already Exist

With the whole push for more femslash in fandoms, I’ve never understood the amount of hate I see femslash “fans” direct towards existing creations. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more variety, I do too, but every time someone brings up the fact that femslash fan fictions are already being written someone opens their mouth to say “yeah but those suck.” And then they proceed to read 300+ atrociously mischaracterized mlm fics. They complain abt plotless fluff and then read the exact same pwp scenarios over and over again

And hey, if you don’t want to read femslash that’s totally fine. You don’t have to pretend it interests you. I’m someone who actively looks for femslash and my only problem has been a lack of content in smaller/male-dominated fandoms, the fics themselves are cute af. Ya’ll are missing out on some real masterpieces by labeling all existing femslash fics as “boring,” some of my favorite fics ever are femslash. If an mlm ship invades the tags just filter it out, filter out every mlm pairing in the fandom if you have to. AO3 gives us that option for a reason

I’m not saying we don’t need more variety, but we’re not going to get that by shitting on writers who actively put in the work to make more femslash. When I started writing femslash consistently it was very discouraging because I’d seen soooooo many people online saying they want more femslash fics, yet nobody was reading mine. Then I looked at the stats on other femslash fics and they were the same, really great fics were barely getting any hits or kudos. It kinda sucks knowing that an mlm fic I wrote in 3 hours got more kudos than a wlw fic I spent months on (for pairings of relatively equal popularity). This seems to be the biggest roadblock for people wanting to write femslash, no one supports it. Even tho fandoms claim they would support it, they never do. It’s something I’ve learned to stop caring about but not every writer is gonna push through

This brings me back to a comment I saw about “boring, hair-braidy wlw fics.” That description really stood out to me, and to this day it makes me feel a little self-conscious about my old femslash fics that were “boring” and “hair-braidy.” But then I came across a fic for this one pairing that had actual hair-braiding. It was incredibly well-written and meaningful, exploring how both characters struggled to ask for help but they were able to recognize each other’s dilemmas and help in subtle ways. They did this, of course, by fixing each other’s hair when they both felt helpless to do anything with it. Such a simple way to express a very deep bond. This made me reassess the way people talk about femslash fics, and the way I’d been thinking of them myself. Is fluff really that much of a crime?? Do all cottagecore-type fics really have no substance?? Do femslash fics have to copy exactly what slash fics are doing, or are they allowed to have their own tropes??

My attitude towards the overload of plotless fluff wlw fics is “this is a good starting point.” We need more people writing femslash, more variety in what is written, but that doesn’t mean what we have is bad. I critique wlw fic tropes a lot but I always give the disclaimer that I actually love the fics themselves, I just want to see more of a different thing. And I comment on every femslash fic I read (every fic I read in general but especially femslash), I try to leave something thoughtful to let the writer know I appreciate the effort they put into their work. You’d be surprised how many writers said they were encouraged to update a fic or write more femslash because of a positive comment I left them. Engaging with fics will give you more of a good thing. It has so much more influence than that video you’re about to make talking about how there’s no good femslash fics. When you say things like that it actually discourages people from writing, and makes them feel bad about things they’ve already written. Support femslash writers guys, it’s sexy

[damnfandomproblems]

https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/768147269164892160/fandom-problem-6500-im-trans-its-fine-if-i?source=share

Ways to fight for Trans Rights:

❌ Reporting a hate crime. Holding actual transphobic people responsible. Warning others of potentially violent people in their area.

✅ Guilting an ACTUAL trans person from playing a video game by an author who already made bank on the series.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

Since this generated several responses, I'm going to include a compilation below.

Anon:

I hope y'all know not everyone is aware of all... that. Some buy the game cause they like the universe but dont follow all that is happening on social media. Some of them are not british/english speaking prople and just... don't know. You can either try to, politely, make them aware of what is happening, but if they already purchased it, no need to be agressive. I do not condone jkr, i do not play/entertain anything related to her anymore; but i still have my scarf or books or movies. Does that make me a bad person? Lets take a seat back from HP I am able to understand what is problematic in media/art; i enjoy HOTD and GOT, am i a bad person because i like the serie despite how problematic it is? No. If you refuse to talk to people buying anything HP related, then block them. Don't call someone a bad person without knowing them. Your opinion means nothing.

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Anon:

1. You can enjoy a piece of media without agreeing with the author/artist/developer etc. 2. Way to make Trans people seem like a hive mind. "You can't play this game, even if your trans. Virtue signaler." How about let people play the media they decide to play and decide for themselves it's controversial or not. Like, do you expect people to just follow your cause blindly? 3. THERE IS A TRANS CHARACTER IN THE GAME.

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Anon:

I get this may have been submitted prior to the Oct 7th attacks, and the dramatic rise in antisemitic attacks everywhere, so I won't go off like I wanted to. But to just get to my point, as a Jew, we kinda have bigger problems right now. I'm barely concerned with HP fans.

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Anon:

Here we go with the reading comprehension again. At least one person is the comments is going on about "buying" the game when OP never specified buying it. They just said "playing" the game. Huge difference. One monetarily supports the creators and such, the other doesn't.

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Anon:

This is WILD. The op makes a dozen assumptions, none of which may even be true. For starters the "you are not immune to propaganda" thing might be true in a sense, however OP is using it to imply people are all but guaranteed to fall for propaganda in media. And we all know that isn't true. A person who reads Hitler's shitty book (Mein Kampf) is not going to close it being a step closer to a Nazi sympathizer if they have basic information dissemination skills. A person who goes looking on Kiwifarms for information is not going to be radicalized if they have proper information dissemination skills. So OP is really telling on themselves here and saying the quiet part out loud: they have little or no ability to engage with questionable media without fearing they'll get affected by it in a negative way. They can't go plumbing like that. And they're saying others can't either, which just shows bad perspective. Their quote says the person was talking about playing a game. Playing it. The implications that come with "playing" a game are as follows: the person played it. That's it. If OP can't exercise one brain cell to understand that while yes, people have bought the game, playing it could easily mean they got it from a library or downloaded it illegally via torrent, that's on them. "You're a bad person" is beyond comedic given the above. Dare I say even if someone does buy the game, which I'm wholeheartedly against, saying someone is a "bad person" is still insane. Anyways, OP is basing practically their entire complaint on the premise of someone buying a game when that wasn't even what the quote says. Boo. Do not pass go.

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Anon:

Nooo, we're not bringing Scottish independence into your crusade against people who play a video game, leave my family out of this you keyboard warrior weirdo.

[theprismyyy]

Honestly, I read on several different platforms, both here on Tumblr, and on Wattpad, ao3 and others... and so, in general, they are all great apps with great stories to read, but there is one thing that bothers me about all of them, mainly and especially on Ao3, and the amount of disgusting content involving serious subjects like incest, rape and others that I won't bother mentioning here; What irritates me most about this is the lack of filter in the app.I'm only saying all this because the following happened, I was simply reading some stories about Gwen Stacy on the said app (ao3) when I came across atrocities like a fanfic whose plot was literally an incestuous relationship between Gwen and her father....man , I just wanted to read some fluffy fluff and not come across unnecessary and unsolicited material, I didn't bother opening this (obviously) and I didn't even want to, I was honestly disgusted... Also, I came across another whose plot idea was even more horrible... I don't know, it all just made me think that maybe these apps need more serious and firm rules and punishments in the face of these things; such serious and criminal topics being written in a sick manner to normalize and entertain more disgusting and sick people is still dark, it's even darker how little we talk about it and how little the developers seem to care, I imagine dealing with demands so big ones must be extremely difficult but we don't even see a movement to deal with these things...IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT'S JUST A CHARACTER, IT DOESN'T MATTER HE OR SHE DOESN'T EXIST, FUCK YOU AND YOUR SICK SHIT THAT USES THIS AS AN "ARGUMENT" TO WRITE CRIMINAL THINGS AND FEED YOUR FANTASIES DISGUSTING!!!! WHAT WE WRITE AND CONSUME SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE TYPE OF PEOPLE WE ARE AND IF YOU CONSUME IT AND DON'T SEE A PROBLEM WITH THIS TYPE OF CONTENT THEN PLEASE FUCK YOU

Anyway, this was just me venting because honestly I was extremely uncomfortable, I just wanted to read some nonsense and I had to come across something so sickening.

Edit: Apparently this is necessary as I may not have been as specific on some points and some people don't seem to understand (or don't want to understand)

It wasn't a personal "attack" on the Ao3 platform, I just used it as an example because that's usually where this type of work ends up appearing more.

2. Yes, I know and use the filtering system, Still, I think they are very often very flawed... besides, many of the people who write this type of content use tags that have nothing to do with the plot of the story to achieve greater visibility.

3. Yes... teenagers have sex 😱 wow what an incredible discovery!!! I know a lot of movies, shows, etc. portray this openly, I personally don't feel comfortable writing smut in general and everyone has their own opinion about it, but I understand there are a lot of writers who do this normalization and trivialization of a CRIME!

4. I know that many people use writing as a coping mechanism, but I think it is very unlikely that a person who has been through a situation, such as rape, for example, You'll write about it like it's something sexy or the best experience you've ever had in your life, like a lot of these types of writers do.

5. Yes, one of the joys of writing is that we can explore the deepest, most complex aspects of humanity without directly hurting anyone, and I love that, but we need to take responsibility for that.

6. There was a guy here who literally said that it's because of people like me that you can't have porn on Tumblr anymore...but why would there need to be porn here? Why just not open on an adult site like pornhub or xvideos?

7. I was indirectly called a facist through a Hashtag.... not supporting the normalization of rape, incest, etc. apparently makes me a facist😍

(I really am completely willing to hear opinions and comments, but I will not tolerate disrespect in the comments. That's it and thank you)

[rei-ismyname]

The X-Men vs X-Men Beef feels inorganic

From The Ashes has begun in earnest, and we're being told that the Uncanny X-Men have irreconcilable problems with Cyclops' X-Men. However, we're not really being shown that. Spoilers for all From The Ashes books released so far.

We've had 3 issues of X-Men and 2 of Uncanny X-Men so far, plus answers promised for why Wolverine doesn't want to be one in the first issue of his solo (the reason is trauma, it turns out but he's still wearing his uniform ten pages in. Not especially satisfying.) From The Ashes (henceforth FTA) has had a scattershot approach to plotting so far, but one unifying theme has been that mutants in general are a scattered diaspora as well as interpersonal issues that I'm just not seeing.

Here's Gail at the end of Uncanny X-Men #1.

Let's break this down a bit. 'Recovering from grief' absolutely makes sense. They lost Krakoa only months ago and different people deal with that in different ways. Except Rogue seems pretty happy tbh, aside from select moments when the Big Picture is being discussed. The rest of the time she's talking loudly about sex and generally seems in high spirits.

'Rogue and Cyclops has replaced the relationship between Xavier and Magneto.' For one, that relationship has been a close one for years at this point. Secondly, I'm not buying that at all because it's not on the page.

They seem to be on great terms here, working together for mutual goals. Zero animosity. Friends, family, obviously. Why wouldn't they be? This is issue 1.

This is issue 2, like 6 hours later in universe. The Jubilee comment confirms they're sharing information, and Scott's team are very publicly being X-Men. The reader doesn't have perfect information here, but obviously these kids have said something that spurs Rogue into action immediately, fuck Scott/Hank/everyone else's plans.

Here's the moment just before the call. 'Last guy I want to talk to.' What the hell is that about? It's very at odds with either phone call, which were friendly and collaborative. As you'd think they'd be, you know having been family for decades now.

'Are there even going to be X-Men anymore?' You know there are, you're working with them. 'We almost had Xavier's 'dream'. No, you didn't. You had a nation, and it was great. It was the opposite of The Dream, because the Dream is solving bigotry. You should all know this by now. Also, aren't you all super mad at Chuck for his war crimes? I know Wolverine tried to kill him a few months ago - is he over that?

They discuss heading up to join Cyclops, in the former sentinel factory given as part of a settlement for six months of torture and being readied for a Kangaroo court and execution - you were all there for that. 'Imagine a community run by Scott Summers... I ain't going back there, it ain't the X-Men...'

Dude, you've been living with him, Jean and their family for the past 4 years in a polycule. Why are you talking like you're Schism era Wolverine? Your beef is ancient history, you're family. He definitely wasn't 'everywhere you turn' when you were banging his wife. Y'all are about to go break into a government sanctioned prison to retrieve your war criminal mentor that one of you tried to kill very recently - so I'm not seeing a difference in methodology or ideology. In fact you're doing that and he's compromising his team's plans around you!

Here's Scott's side of that conversation. Looks like she hung up on him for some reason, but this dude is being polite and trying to collaborate with his peers. When he gets hung up on and ignored he changes his plans, with the primary concern being everyone's safety. There's nothing in any of these issues indicating otherwise, aside from Logan shooting down anything to do with Scott and Gail Simone kinda saying so in editorial.

So why is this conflict happening? Logan has been running naked with wolves since Krakoa (despite being in ten different books) so there's been no opportunity for an incident. Everyone else is talking like they're friends. Sure, there's the grief and trauma, but everyone is making 'back to work' choices. I'm definitely not seeing an ideological divide, just being told that in editorial.

Even Kitty Pryde is telling everyone to fuck off, except we know she's in Exceptional X-Men on a team. Little hard to believe she'd turn away from all her family, except Emma Frost. Their relationship was in a good place on Krakoa, but why a team with her and refuse to even see anyone else?

It's really not that hard to give characters goals and beliefs, and ideas on the best way to achieve them. At the moment it just feels like they're apart because writers/editorial want them to be, while giving us the kind of disagreements teenagers would get over quickly. I'm not feeling it as a good start to FTA, and the implication that 'we're the X-Men now' implies Scott's team isn't. We've been here before, idiot plots leading to needless divides amongst a people in severe crisis. I have to ask - is that really the best Marvel can do?

I really want to like or even love this reboot, but nostalgia and forced conflict is the definition of old hat. There's so many ways to use nostalgia in fresh ways, but this isnt it. Worse, I'm being told otherwise. I know you don't hire Tom Brevoort as editor to take risks, so I'm really hoping this is just a slow start with everyone finding their feet.

I've definitely noticed that Magneto has been sitting in a chair doing nothing for 3 issues too. I want to know how his ideological awakening is going to be paid off, and I'm wary it's just going to be ignored. I'll be coming back to this topic when there's actually something to talk about, and perhaps foolishly being cautiously optimistic.

Maybe this kind of stuff isn't for everyone, but at least make it make sense, yo. How are you finding it? What are you loving? What are you looking forward to? I'd love to hear.

[qaraxuanzenith]

on moral equivalency

I've seen a lot of comments, most recently from one of the most well-intentioned people, listing hamas and hezbollah and the Israeli military all in one sentence as parts of the problem, and here is why that is not remotely okay or acceptable:

hamas and hezbollah are terrorist organizations that actively invaded civilians homes to torture, assault, murder, and abduct; who beheaded babies and paraded mutilated bodies through the streets and actively celebrate these atrocities.

the israeli military is the military of a sovereign country acting in what is a war situation, to counteract the threat of atrocities and war crimes being actively perpetrated by terrorist organizations, in order to restore safety to the citizenry.

and whether one is a pacifist who disagrees with the existence of militaries in general, or whether one disagrees with specific choices taken by the israeli military in particular, it is devastatingly misleading and unacceptable to phrase a sentence that makes it seem like accountability here is evenly divided between the israeli military, and the terrorists actively perpetrating AND CELEBRATING atrocities and war crimes against civilians.

and, with respect*, no matter anyone's perspective on the israeli government's attitude and actions toward palestinians, by no stretch of the imagination can those attitude and actions be described as war crimes, let alone gleeful celebration of war crimes.

there is a difference between "this is negative and i don't like it" and "these people are actively celebrating the mutilation of bodies, the torture of disabled, elderly, and children, the murder of hundreds including slaughtering an entire cohort of teens enjoying a concert as a holiday."

i respect not liking war and not liking militaries in general

but it's naive to be like "i don't like war and therefore the military that is responding in self-defense to the slaughter of hundreds of citizens and the wounding and abduction of hundreds more is also in the wrong."

there is doubtless nuance to every situation, but in this SPECIFIC case, statements that equate the two sides are misleading, insulting, and frankly dangerous inasmuch as they seem to offer some measure of justification to the actual war crimes being perpetrated and glorified on one side

all the things i alluded to are things that hamas has actually done, AND PUBLICIZED, in the past 72 hours.

right now, hundreds of people have literally been murdered in their homes by hamas, and hundreds of people have been literally dragged from their homes by hamas, assaulted, paraded through the streets, and abducted

including a good friend of my uncle, who is still missing.

i hope she returns home safely. i hope she is able to return to doing peace activist work.

but the israeli military ATTEMPTING TO ENSURE HER SAFE RETURN HOME is not part of the problem in this specific scenario.

in fact, when the IDF does operations to take out hamas targets, they actually notify the area through several methods in advance, and ask all civilians to go somewhere else where they will be safe.

whereas hamas has been known to store weapons in the basements of schools and to shoot rockets from hospitals, and to prevent civilians from leaving

*with respect to the very well-intentioned if naive person whose comment initially sparked me saying that; no respect at all to people who definitely know better and are still trying to frame this in moral equivalency terms on purpose

[shyrgyrryn]

One thing about Catra’s writing in season 5 that sticks out to me is that the writers genuinely don't seem to know how to write her personality now that she's a no longer a villain and that they don't view certain behavior as something she needs to unlearn but rather just how she is.

A lot of Catra’s personality relies on her being snarky, mocking others, being petty, and easily annoyed at times. She seems to be the SPOP writers' attempt a "little shit" type character. And it seems like the writers didn't want to change her personality too much, so they just had her continue certain behavior so that she's still a funky "little shit." Which led to her making comments about buying property in places the princesses aren't welcomed and commenting about how weak they are. These scenes are written as if they're supposed to be endearing, but these scenes completely contracts her redemption as well as make her no different from how she was before (same person, less war crimes). Bullying your enemy tracks when you're being a villain, but Catra isn't a villain anymore, she shouldn't be treating them that way. So, writing her make fun of the princesses when she has...

Actively worked with the dictator government that had attempted to destroy their homes countless times, fully aware of the government being evil.

Tried to kill one of their friends on multiple occasions

Is responsible for one of their friends' mom being trapped in a portal dimension for eternity (which is far worse than death in my opinion)

Helped lead an attack against their friend's kingdom, resulting in their kingdom being completely destroyed.

And countless other war crimes the show failed to mention.

...doesn't feel like the "little shit" behavior they're going for, it just feels like general shitty behavior. It's like the writers don't know how to make her "funny" without making her be an asshole. Somebody in that writing room either doesn't like Catra or everyone in that writing room shrugged and said, "eh, she's just like that," then put zero effort into her character because for some reason they can't seem to find any problem with the way she acts. (which is a major problem)

[antebunny]

as a huge fan of the original ACD canon, I desperately want to hear your elaboration about why you don't like BBC's Sherlock :D

hi OP I hope you're ready for a monster essay in response because that's what I ended up with!

For ease of reading I've divided up my answer into four sections: 1) explaining Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock with historical context, 2) analyzing BBC Sherlock/Moffat's Sherlock using a cross-section of Watsonian and Doylist techniques and sheer spite, 3) my thoughts on Johnlock, 4) comparing & contrasting Doyle's Sherlock with Moffat's Sherlock. Disclaimer: I'm not a historian, although I do I have some understanding of the history of detective fiction. Mostly I'm just an avid reader/fan.

Part I: Original Sherlock

To start with! I will talk about the characterization of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Here's something which people who have never read the stories don't seem to know: Sherlock is kind.

He's not particularly nice, I'll give you that. He tends to think he's the smartest person in the room, and you know what? He almost always is. He has plenty of dry and sarcastic comments for the London police, for clients who don't bring any evidence, etc. But he goes out of his way to be kind. My favorite example of this is the Boscombe Valley Mystery.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery is far from my favorite Sherlock story in terms of mystery-solving, but one of the best in terms of characterizing Sherlock. To summarize: two wealthy, widower landowners, John and Charles, are next-door neighbors with one kid each–John, a daughter named Alice and Charles, a son named James.

Sherlock gets called in when Charles is found murdered, and everyone suspects James of doing it. Of course, it's not that easy. It turns out that twenty years ago, John was a highway robber in Australia, and he robbed Charles but left him alive. John then left the life of crime, started a family and settled in England a wealthy man. Then Charles moved in next door, recognized John, and proceeded to blackmail him for money, land, etc. This escalated until eventually Charles demanded Alice's hand in marriage for his son James. John refuses, and eventually kills Charles to protect Alice and to free himself from Charles' blackmailing/tyranny.

(The problem is that James is actually a decent person, and he and Alice are secretly in love, but there's also a bar maid involved and it's complicated and not relevant. Anyways).

Of course, Sherlock being Sherlock, he figures out that John is the murderer. But here's the thing: he defends John. He doesn't turn John (or his signed confession) over to the authorities. In fact, Sherlock goes to court to protect James by arguing that there's not enough evidence to find him guilty. Sherlock catches a murderer, goes "you know what? He was kind of right tho" and looks away.

Do you understand how radical this is for Victorian England? This is the 1890s. People still believe in God over gravity. The idea that a criminal isn't a criminal for life? That a highway robber can turn over a new leaf? That a murderer can be in the right? [Now would be a good time for a source] Like this is so new, I can't think of a way to translate it to the 21st century.

And it's key to who Sherlock is. He puts his reputation on the line for this case. He says that he didn't manage to solve this case, even though he did. His professional pride and reputation is worth less to him than protecting John, a MURDERER, and James, his son who admittedly is a nice guy whose worst crime is making dumb decisions in college (see: the bar maid).

Because here's the thing about Sherlock's "professional pride:" it's not "I'm the smartest person" or "I'm always right." Sherlock genuinely believes in his deduction method, not as a superpower which he alone possesses, but as a tool which anyone can use if they apply themselves. Which brings me to my second example: Irene Adler.

If you (general audience) only know Irene Adler from BBC Sherlock, I'm gonna ask you to forget all of that right now. Arthur Conan Doyle's Irene Adler is an American opera singer who used to be in a relationship with the future King of Bohemia. The king asks for Sherlock's help retrieving an incriminating photograph that Irene Adler has threatened to send to the king's future wife (a Scandinavian princess) and her family. (Irene Adler is currently in England, getting married to some guy named Norton).

Sherlock promptly gets outsmarted by Irene Adler. She leaves for America with Norton and the photograph, though she promises not to use it against the King of Bohemia, and keeps her promise. Because here's the thing about Irene Adler: she's not a criminal. She's not a bad guy in any way. She doesn't blackmail the king. She had a fling with the King of Bohemia, eventually moved on with her life and married Norton. When Sherlock came sniffing around for her private property, which she was under no obligation to return/give up, she got the hell out of England.

Despite this, Irene Adler is often framed not only as a criminal but also as Sherlock's love interest in adaptations. (And I'm not even talking about BBC Sherlock, trust me, we'll get to that). I think this is due to a fundamental failure or refusal to understand the nature of Sherlock's interest in Irene Adler. He explicitly states that he is not romantically attracted to her. (And neither is she to him). He is impressed by her intellect. It is rare enough for Sherlock to be outsmarted; I think Irene Adler may be the only example in the original stories where the person/group who outsmarted Sherlock was not a career criminal or other type of evil-doer (such as the KKK, in The Five Orange Pips, yes that KKK).

For all intents and purposes, Irene Adler is an ordinary woman, trying to do an ordinary thing (get married to Some Guy), who just so happens to get one over Sherlock in a case where he is arguably in the wrong. That is what makes her so special. Sherlock believes that his deduction methods can be implemented by anybody, but here's somebody, actually implementing them! And she was trained as an opera singer, not as a detective or some such field! And she's not using it to systematically murder or blackmail or anything else, she just wants to live her best life away from this Bohemian nonsense!

Sherlock is excited when someone outsmarts him. And it is so rare for there to be no horrific crime taking away from that excitement.

In summary: Sherlock Holmes is a perfectly well-mannered English gentleman (the social class, not polite descriptor) with shockingly progressive morals for the 1890s, a need for brain puzzles and adventures, and a non-debilitating addiction to crack cocaine.

Some other notes about original Sherlock before I move on to the next section:

Sherlock indirectly caused someone's death in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and does not feel at all broken up about it. Honestly? I respect that.

Doyle was not perfect. Irene Adler was smart "for her sex." All of the stories mentioned above contain examples of foreigners importing struggles to England. Violent Americans from Five Orange Pips, armed robberies from Australia in Boscombe Valley, loose(?) Bohemians(???) in A Scandal in Bohemia, a mercenary and violent "doctor" from Calcutta (though English by birth) in Speckled Band, etc. I could go on. And I am sure that he made some claims later proved to be scientifically inaccurate.

Aside from Doyle's biases, the Sherlock Holmes stories are also prone to the same real-world changes as any other famous series. Doyle famously killed off Sherlock only to bring him back due to the public outrage. The many, many short stories vary quite a bit in quality, and a little in consistency. Sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and go with the Doylist (heh) reading. We'll get back to this.

Sherlock would not be caught dead in Buckingham Palace wearing only a bedsheet. He often disguises himself in the short stories, as a grandfatherly figure, faking a Cockney accent, as all a manner of (typically older, and therefore less threatening) men. Part of his strength as a detective is his awareness of social circles and the workings of society. He uses it to his advantage, he doesn't provoke public scandal.

He's a private person. He didn't ask to be famous, or to be memorialized as a genius, and again, he doesn't go around looking for adoration or outrage.

Sherlock scorns romance, yes, but not in an internalized aphobia, "I'm suppressing my emotions/desire for the sake of The Case" kind of way, but in an "I'm the only reasonable person here, the rest of you are just weird" kind of way. We'll get back to that one.

Sherlock did have Moods. He also did drugs. But drugs didn't have the social context of drugs now.

Sherlock was superhumanly strong, for no particular reason? There's one story where someone threatens him (in his own flat, no less!) and he remains very polite and unflustered by it. Once the man leaves, he picks up the metal poker that the man bent and straightens it.

Honestly the disguises and the hand-to-hand combat made original Sherlock so OP. I'm not projecting modern values onto old characters, you are. Send Tweet.

Doyle was a spiritualist?!?!?! Like a committed believer in ghosts. Like so committed it ruined his friendship with Houdini. Yes, Harry Houdini. This is not relevant, I'm just impressed that an author so spiritual could write a character so famously and firmly rational.

Okay that's the important bits for original Sherlock. I could easily double the length of that section, but I hope it's clear enough now why I consider original Sherlock to be Very Cool and Interesting.

Part II: BBC Sherlock

Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Where to start with this one. Well, here's hbomberguy's 2-hour video essay on why BBC Sherlock is trash, to start. It's been a long time since I watched it but I recall it focusing more on its creator, Steven Moffat (and what that man did to Doctor Who as well, God sometimes I just lay awake thinking about every precious thing Moffat was allowed to put his slimy hands on). So I will attempt to focus on a few key things I don't remember hearing in that video essay.

First: The Trope of the Autistic Genius. I'm sure you (general audience) have seen this in some form of media: a socially awkward or unaware character, perhaps outright on the autism spectrum, perhaps just Weird™ who is a genius in a particular field. It's related to the Idiot Savant trope, thanks TV tropes, and portrayals range from a cute fictional romance with an autistic lawyer in Extraordinary Attorney Woo to the somewhat real-to-life story of John Nash, a real mathematician who made incredible contributions to the field of economics and also had incredibly difficult personal relationships due to his schizophrenia.

For some reason, Moffat decided to use this trope for Sherlock Holmes. I say "some reason" but it's pretty clear why: Sherlock is a genius. And there's a long tradition of "genius as a curse" characters where their intelligence comes at a cost: their ease of relationships with other people. Sometimes this is an explicit curse where the character traded power/intelligence/money etc. for the ability to feel (romantic) love (see: Howl's Moving Castle the movie). For the autistic genius, usually the price of their ability to grasp concepts (usually math or some type of science) beyond the understanding of Mere Mortals is their ability to understand people and social cues.

The thing is, the way Moffat does this with Sherlock makes no damn sense. He's a detective. His whole ass job is to understand social cues, human behavior, motivations and generally what makes people tick. There's probably a good way to make Sherlock autistic. However, the way Moffat does it creates this inherent contradiction, where Sherlock swings wildly from totally missing social cues to perfectly understanding people's desire and motivations. Make it make sense. Make up your mind. Is your Sherlock a tortured genius who cannot understand or relate to normal Molly Hooper, or is he a brilliant detective who Gets how people work? You (Moffat) can't have it both ways. It doesn't make any sense.

Second: the Reading People as Superpower thing. Moffat fully subscribes to the idea that you (general) can just look at somebody and deduce their whole backstory. This one pisses me off personally because it leaks to real life all the damn time. The phone charger is probably the most infamous example of why this doesn't work. (Fun fact, if the area around your phone charger is scratched from you repeatedly failing to plug it in, that doesn't mean you are an alcoholic!)

But it occurs both in BBC Sherlock and IRL. Usually IRL people are nice enough to only say out loud something that they think is positive. But here's the thing: they're almost never right. I've had nice little old ladies tell me "I can see that you are XYZ type of person" in the most well-meaning of ways and be completely off the mark. Not a single person who has guessed my race (out loud) has gotten it right. But I'm not just saying "don't make assumptions for the big things like race/sexuality/religion etc." I'm saying, we all make those assumptions when we first meet someone, whether we like it or not. But we have a choice whether to act on those assumptions. Reading people is not a fun thing smart people do in media, it's a common thing all of us do despite not having a higher chance of being correct than Moffat was with the phone charger thing.

The "you can read into anything because there's secret meanings behind everything" that BBC Sherlock encouraged led to one of the funniest and most pathetic phenomena in fandom: The Secret Good Sherlock finale. There's a good 1.5 hour video essay about it and how a portion of BBC Sherlock fans deluded themselves into thinking that the horrible, horrible ending of BBC Sherlock couldn't be real, and that there was a real finale coming if you just followed the clues where Johnlock was canon (more on that later). Because they just couldn't accept that this show which portrayed itself as so clever and Moffat as a 4D chess-master always fifteen steps ahead, was just Not Good.

(Side note: I missed all of the BBC Sherlock fandom experience despite watching the show, because I watched the show with my family. We all knew Doyle, you see; my father read those stories to my siblings and I as bedtime stories when I was little. I still remember his reading cadence and the character voices that he did. So when we heard about BBC Sherlock, we thought "hey, we know that guy!" and settled in to watch it as a family. I distinctly remember thinking that it was…fine? Like, just okay. But nothing about it was better than the original, and I would how much worse it was years later).

Third: Sherlock is just weirdly mean? All the time? In BBC Sherlock. I can only assume this is some sort of power trip fantasy, where the author self-insert (we'll come back to that) Sherlock is the most perfect boy who is always right and correct and so much smarter than everyone else that he just doesn't have to put up with their stupidity.

Like many of the gripes I have with BBC Sherlock, what I hate the most is how Moffat's portrayal seems to have influenced the general public's perception of who Sherlock is. Would this type of Victorian Sherlock exist without the type of arrogant monologuing that Moffat favored? I mean, maybe. I can't prove it. I just feel like they're related. (To be clear, I like Sherlock in that scene. I just think it's inconsistent with original Sherlock's interactions with the police, but to be fair, original Sherlock didn't have a little sister in jail for murder).

Fourth, IRENE ADLER MY BELOVED I WILL AVENGE YOU ONE DAY I SWEAR.

So Steven Moffat cannot for the life of him write a female character I'd feel bad for him if it wasn't so painful to watch in Doctor Who, Sherlock, and basically everything else he's ever done. Moffat, like many adaptors of Sherlock, was dead-set on making Irene Adler a femme fatale. She's not only a criminal, she's also sexy and very weirdly interested in Sherlock (again, the author self-insert strikes again. All the women must be interested in me I mean my most perfect boy!)

I am far from the only person who noticed this. Here's a Reddit post which calls Irene Adler out for basically sexually harassing BBC Sherlock throughout that episode. I don't disagree with the substance but I disagree with the reading. That post takes a Watsonian approach: Irene Adler repeatedly expresses sexual interest in Sherlock, who does not reciprocate. Despite this, the characters around him assume he reciprocates and at the end of the episode his brother Mycroft blames his nonexistent/unconfirmed interest in Irene Adler as the reason why she got one over him. When he does his dramatic "I am Sherlocked" reveal, he is saying 1) that he's really not interested, 2) that she didn't get one over him, and 3) that her emotional/sexual investment(?) in him is why she lost.

Here's the Doylist reading: Moffat's fantasy is the sexiest/coolest woman (Irene Adler) chasing after his author self-insert (Sherlock) who remains coolly aloof despite her advances, because he's cool. Everyone else's assertions that he's secretly interested stems from society's need to smash two dolls together and say "now kith" regardless of what the dolls in question are saying. At the end of the episode Sherlock makes the points that I made above, yes, but Moffat's also reaffirming that no one is allowed to outsmart his most special, most perfect boy (/self-insert), not even the character that CANONICALLY OUTSMARTED HIM. (Although to reiterate: original Irene Adler was not a criminal, did not blackmail anyone, and was not interested in Sherlock. Also she was American lmao).

There's one key scene (which I loathe with all my heart) that demonstrates how Moffat sees Irene Adler, and that's her introduction scene. Why? Because she walks in naked. Why? Because that way Sherlock cAn'T rEaD hEr. (Which brings us back to point #2, Reading People as Superpower).

This is mind-bogglingly, mind-bafflingly stupid. If Irene Adler really wanted Sherlock to """"not be able to read her"""" she should've just stolen the clothes of the first woman she saw that was her size. Or men's clothes, not her size, and not hers. That way any traces of character left on the clothes (i.e. coffee stains, hems worn down from constant worrying, cat fur, etc.) would've belonged to someone else, thus throwing Sherlock off even more.

And it's not like the body lacks marks unique to the person. Jesus Christ. Surgeries leave scars, as do accidents and injuries. Birthmarks, bite marks, stretch marks, scar marks, people drawing reminders or hearts on themselves with sharpies, tattoos, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Bodies are not blank canvases.

There is no good Watsonian reading for why Irene Adler walks in naked. There is only a Doylist reading: Moffat thought it'd be hot for his femme fatale to meet his self-insert butt-ass naked. That is why I disagree with the Reddit post I linked which I assume you (general audience) read. Irene Adler's actions don't make sense when framed as "she's smart but obsessed with Sherlock despite never having met him before." I mean, it's possible? But it makes her far less intelligent from the very start than the show tells you she is. Her actions only make sense when framed as "Moffat thought it would be hot." (Dear Moffat: it's not).

Fifth, and finally: The Big Bad. This is not Moffat-specific: the need to have one main villain, to have everything in a series building to the big showdown with the Big Bad exists all over the place. Episodes are getting longer and longer while seasons get shorter and shorter. Sherlock, originally a series of short stories (with some long-form stories, my favorites <3 thrown in the mix), is perfect for the 30-45 minute 12-16 episode seasons. Instead it got…BBC Sherlock. With Moriarty as The Big Bad. Who Irene Adler is working for? For some reason? And has come back to life maybe? It's dumb. Bring back my case-of-the-week type stories :(

There are plenty more gripes I could list about BBC Sherlock, but those are the main ones. This is already getting much longer than I intended, so onto part three: my thoughts on Johnlock.

Part III: Do I ship Johnlock?

No.

Part IV: Just kidding!

Well, I don't not ship them. A friend asked me recently if I shipped them, and I thought about it for a minute and eventually said: "Honestly? I am so thoroughly neutral about them."

You could convince me of Johnlock. However, I remain unconvinced by the vast majority, if not all, of BBC Johnlock. It essentially feels like a derivative form of a derivative and vastly inferior form of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Basically: the Johnlock that you (general BBC Johnlock shipper) are a fan of are just two people who happen to share names with the characters I know as the great detective Sherlock Holmes and the good doctor John Watson. But they're not actually Holmes and Watson, thus what you're shipping isn't even "real" Johnlock.

There are two parts of Johnlock's dynamic that I think are missing from the broader conversation (which is not to say that they're not talked about, just that they should be talked about more).

First, we're back to Watsonian vs Doylist readings, this time with the origin of the term in mind! (My literary analyst heart cackles in delight). You see, the Doylist reason for Watson's existence is to chronicle Sherlock's adventures. Genius characters are near-impossible to write from their perspective. The mystery and ingenuity vastly improves when explained by Sherlock to Watson after the fact. We, the audience, need John Watson to exist for the stories to be enjoyable. He is a plot device.

Now, I'm not saying that because John Watson exists for plot purposes, we can't consider the emotional connection between him and his flatmate. The Watsonian reading, according to Johnlock shippers, is that Sherlock and John live together because they are gayandinlove.

Which brings me to part two of their dynamic: the QPR-ness of it all. I think there's a lack of conversation about anything between "straight" and "gayandinlove" when there's so much gray area to discuss. Johnlock, in both the original and in my preferred version, strike me as a very comfortable queer-platonic relationship. It feels wrong for Sherlock to have a wife, husband, boyfriend, lover, etc. because it is so contradictory to who Sherlock is. I just can't picture him engaging in any modern or Victorian-era dating or courtship ritual. And not just because he explicitly derides and expresses his lack of interest in romance in the originals. After all, it's impossible to separate Sherlock's bachelorhood from the part where it was obviously impossible for him to marry a man in the 1890s; the institution of marriage simply didn't mean then what it does now. He certainly never and would never speak about sex, or his sexual preferences. I am sure they were assumed to be Good And Heterosexual. Which isn't to say that Victorian times were less queer than modern times. Doyle's contemporary, the Irish poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was very famously (/infamously) gay. The author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is also rumored to have cheated on his wife with her brother/his publisher.

No, I've always seen Sherlock as aroace just because…he comes across as very aroace? I don't know how to explain it other than "read it and tell me I'm wrong." And Johnlock always came across as very comfortable to me. Like there was a total lack of yearning. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand projecting into characters, so if you (general Johnlock shipper) add yearning to your Johnlock I'm not criticizing you. (And no, I'm not getting into Mary Morstan and her differing characterizations because then we'd really be here all day).

I also don't subscribe to the idea that Sherlock is aromantic because of his genius, his detective career, or his suppression of natural instincts in favor of the aforementioned reasons. It's aphobic and it's not how Sherlock works. The man is not judging himself for his lack of interest, he's judging you (aphobe) for thinking there's some deeper cause or something wrong with him for not being interested in romance.

And I can't fathom him engaging in sex except as an intellectual exercise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I always thought BBC Sherlock was so weird about the concept of being gay. I mean, there were gay jokes galore but They Were Not Gay and Moriarty was gay-coded but John was definitely not into Sherlock and Sherlock was not gay but he wasn't into Irene Adler either, but that didn't make him asexual either, just…a genius?? Apparently??? Like he's straight but he's also too smart to be fooled by Irene Adler's wily wily feminine wiles. Like Straight 2.0 where they make you pay more for the same product with ads this time.

Which finally brings me to the last section: comparing original Sherlock and BBC Sherlock!

Part IV: We all know where this is going

Honestly most of this section has written itself already.

Original Sherlock Holmes was remarkably progressive for its times; BBC Sherlock was somehow less progressive despite being made centuries later. Its portrayal of women was somehow worse than the thing written in the 1890s. I'm a big believer in judging things with historical and social context in mind, which makes original Sherlock all the more astounding, and BBC Sherlock all the more regressive.

Original Sherlock Holmes was an excitable bloodhound who believed in his rational method and was genuinely delighted when he met his match. He was irritable and moody and indirectly killed a man with no remorse. BBC Sherlock is an arrogant, self-obsessed jerk who constantly belittled and mocked the intelligence and achievements of others. He, despite not understanding people, popularized the "you wear that sweater to remind you of your dead mother. You feel lost without her and are seeking a substitute in Macys Mother's Day line products" type of armchair psychoanalysis.

Original Sherlock loves a good case but sees his clients as human, at the end of the day. BBC Sherlock cannot stand to be wrong.

Original Sherlock and John are companions, comfortably; not normal/regular friends, though I would never say "more" than friends. Maybe, in a modern era, they'd be romantic partners of some sort, maybe not; I don't really care. BBC Sherlock and John are…friends but you gotta believe Moffat when he tells you that they are Definitely Not Gay. Like Not At All. Not Even A Little.

In conclusion: I loathe BBC Sherlock with all my heart. It is an insult to the legacy of Sherlock Holmes. A regression in the face of how radical Arthur Conan Doyle was. i genuinely feel sorry for all the people who have watched that show but never read the originals because they have no idea who Sherlock is, and original Sherlock is so damn cool.

[crown-of-roses-thsc]

I got an overwhelming amount of positivity towards sharing the familial lineage of our AU’s cast….so allow me to share these two!

Meet Valentine Galeforce and Gold Copperbottom

Gold Copperbottom was born and raised a Toppat. Though not interested in crime, he greatly valued the feeling of having a loyal community of fellow Toppats that would have his back. He was rather high ranking due to his hard work and problem solving skills, and though the leader at the time- Sir Wilford IV- knew he was too hesitant and fearful to ever lead the Toppat Clan, he had a soft spot for him. Randy Radman was the Right Hand Man at the time, though Wilford also made it painfully clear that he would never be leader either- as he was too airheaded and reckless. The only reason he had his position was because Wilford acknowledged that his strict, uptight attitude needed a young spunky soul to balance it out.

Terrence Suave was friends with both Randy and Gold, and began to suggest to Randy that they kill Wilford and have Randy take his place. Randy wasn’t sure at first, but was quickly sold on the idea and was greatly encouraged by it- as Wilford’s comments did sometimes ruin Randy’s self esteem. Gold, who respected Wilford greatly, discouraged this plan- but always hesitant and endlessly afraid, he kept his mouth shut. Wilford loved to drink, and so Suave and Randy devised a plan to sneak poison into Wilford’s drink. They succeeded, and Randy took over with Suave as his right hand.

Gold, in the meanwhile, met a government agent named Valentine Galeforce, daughter of General Hubert Galeforce, when she imprisoned him for interrogation. He was eventually freed, but continued to meet up with her in private. When Suave discovered his best friend’s actions, he accused him of being a traitor and reported him to Randy- but Randy was always an airhead and was, of course, also Gold’s best friend- so he did nothing.

Randy Radman would eventually die by what was alleged to be suicide….but whatever happened scared Gold so greatly that he finally fled the Toppat Clan. He went on to marry Valentine, and the two eventually had a child- Reginald. A couple of years later, Valentine’s sister would pass away- leaving behind her young son Charles, who Gold and Valentine quickly took into their home. The two kids grew older together, with Reginald- neat, serious, quiet- growing to resent the boisterous talkative Charles, who could do no wrong. Their parents did not favor either child, nor give one more attention that the other- but due to Charles’s circumstances, they could often be a little too soft on him.

Gold and Valentine loved Reginald deeply, but perhaps he needed it expressed in a different way- or he felt as though no one took him seriously due to his parents’ sweet and happy attitudes, something Charles ironically seemed to inherit more than their biological child. Gold had seen many, many things- and he wanted to make sure his kids never had to. …and Reginald couldn’t stand being around a family that never seemed to be sad when he himself did not have that endless positivity.

Reginald was not evil, nor necessarily resentful- just frustrated.

Suave eventually met a 16-17 year-old Reginald….seeming to know a lot about him and his father. He was promised respect, a community, people who understood him….and he eventually accepted. Gold and Valentine didn’t know where their son went, and were absolutely devastated.

A few months passed, and Suave decided that Reginald needed one final test before he could officially become a Toppat…..there was a masquerade ball taking place in a large venue in the city, and he wanted Reginald to blow it up. Reginald was hesitant- scared- ….so much like his father. But he eventually agreed to it.

Valentine and Gold, among many others, passed away that day.

Suave knew they were there- Reginald didn’t. Charles would spend the rest of his life under Galeforce’s care, the two of them growing more and more resentful towards the Toppat Clan….

…..and the Toppat who killed Gold and Valentine.

[etoilesombre]

hi! this is maybe very out of the blue, but - i'm reading 'our feast is but beginning' on ao3, and in a comment on part one you write something about the urca gold being a cursed symbol and that it makes zero economical sense. idk really what i am asking but maybe - do you have posts on hand that deal with that? or would you write down some of your thoughts on that? it sounds really interesting! thanks (:

OOOH I'm so excited to talk about this -- it is actually going to come up more in the final chapter of that series, and it comes up as a major plot point in longfic, because I think its a really great example of how in some ways Black Sails is Just a Story. Which is also to say: none of what I'm saying here is a criticism of the show. The Urca Gold is Pirate Treasure writ large, it serves its function in the narrative, we don't actually need to think about the real world implications of stealing it.

But IF, for instance, you were a fanfic writer and kind of a history and econ nerd, and inclined to 'well actually' stuff, then you might see a couple problems with the gold as a solution for a free and independent Nassau. I think of them basically as problems of scale and form.

Let's talk about scale first. Basically, if you are going to steal and not die, you have to make a few calculations.

If you can steal something big, run away and live anonymously ever after, good for you! No problems. (This was Silver's initial plan. He was smart.)

If, however, you are going to steal openly, and maintain some sort of defended home base (see: bandits, organized crime, pirates) you have to ensure it is not worthwhile for people to come get their stuff back. This is why, as a pirate, it behooves you to have a reputation for extreme violence, and also a remote hideout. Merchant ships have insurance, the right people quietly profit from the fencing of pirated goods; nobody actually wants to die, so piracy is cost of doing business, and the world carries on.

The Urca gold is in a completely different class of stealing. This isn't holding up a truck; it isn't robbing the bank. It's robbing the Federal Reserve. Five million Spanish dollars, in today's money (yes, there are issues thinking of it this way, but the point holds) equals somewhere around 250-300 million US dollars.* There is simply no way that it is not worth Spain's (or England's) time and resources to go get it back. The cache they were fighting over at the end was one share and it was enough to cause all that trouble. The full amount would be worth sending a good chunk of your navy for, and the fact that this did not happen immediately requires some suspension of disbelief. Anyway.

Flint's theory seems to be that it's enough money to allow the pirates to defend Nassau against that threat, and basically establish themselves as a rich colony the empires won't fuck with. This is treated by the show like a reasonably serious proposition. So why does it fall apart? You can buy anything with that kind of money, can't you?

Now we get to the problem of form. Gold is only useful if you can exchange it for stuff you need. This is a problem for the pirates on two different fronts, defense specifically and trade in general.

In terms of defense, the pirates would need, very quickly, enough ships and guns to fight at least one imperial navy. But only the major powers were capable of manufacturing those ships and guns. Even if the pirates bought up all they could in terms of well-armed merchant ships/found a corrupt governor or two to buy guns and powder from, it would always be a losing battle because no matter how much money you throw at them, the powers that make warships are absolutely not selling you any. Why would they, when they can use them to come take the gold instead?

So, if the pirates aren't going to live long once they have this gold, can they at least spend their last months being filthy rich and enjoying themselves?

Not really.

We see Jack's crew members getting huge shares, everyone else on the island taking payment to help with defense when the time comes, as well as Jack paying laborers exorbitant amounts. So there's plenty to go around right?

This is how inflation happens. If we all suddenly have twice as much gold, but there is no more actual physical stuff, almost instantly the stuff will cost twice as much. This problem at least theoretically could be corrected by increasing trade. [Also, realistically, people would leave. But let's say they're staying for belief in the pirate republic reasons.] Because in the wider economy of trade in the Atlantic money is still valued normally, you can just import what you need.

And, maybe. This is more plausible than the rest.

But that sort of correction takes time, and given the whole 'war with civilization' situation, there can't be legitimate and sanctioned trade. It's pretty hard to get enough illegitimate goods in for an economy to prosper --- especially because if you're relying on black market trade during wartime, notoriously there ends up being price gouging and then you're back to square one with inflation.

In conclusion: the show does not get bogged down by this, as it shouldn't. It's fine. But yeah, the gold is fake and makes no sense, and Flint and Jack especially are borderline delusional about what it can achieve for them.

*This is actually not as impressive as I wanted it to be, once I started looking up reference points, eg, how much outstanding student debt is there? how much money does besos have? how much is defense spending? Did y'all know we should fight capitalism and eat the rich?

[paragonrobits]

today's hot take is that the people on sites like Quora and Twitter that constantly praise Kyoshi as the best Avatar for being ruthless and willing to kill, and phrasing it in a way that they consider Aang's refusal to kill in cold blood as a moral weakness, have failed media literacy because the tone of AtLA strongly lands on 'not only is Aang objectively correct in this decision, the best decisions are the spiritually harmonious ones that will not be frowned upon by history'.

I think part of it is that the mentality you see in people that say stuff like this is like something I call One Size Fits All thinking.

This is the idea that specific actions or mentalities are the best solution in ALL stories and media, and deviating from those mentalities is incorrect and leads to bad events.

sometimes these are wistful thinking for a darker series where people could just talk out their problems; the jokes about Warhammer 40k being a setting where things would be less screwed up if they bothered talking to each other. This can't happen because it is a tabletop war game, above anything else: it is specifically designed from the ground up to facilitate any army being able to fight any other army. If they didn't have at least a base amount of wariness, hostility or willingness to fight, it would inhibit the entire purpose of the game, and its stories reflect this.

However, children's animation is often hit hard by this idea, as do most idealistic stories in general, and essentially any story where the heroes do not going smashing anything that slows them down. This is when you get a lot of internet smart-asses going 'everything would be resolved if they just killed every villain', and further more, imply that the heroes are weak for not just killing people without hesitation or remorse.

This comes from a place of conflating ruthlessness with effectiveness; you see it a lot in websites like Quora, which are answered by volunteers, and there is an overwhelming amount of people who praise Kyoshi for her effectiveness and willingness to kill, in a way that implies they think one leads to the other. Furthermore, they judge Aang harshly for not wanting to kill someone deliberately (in Aang's culture, and in the real world traditions he is based on, the most serious of crimes and will permanently damage you) or for running away as a child despite being... well, a young boy who found out he was going to be separated from his guardian during an already deeply stressful part of his life when he was becoming ostracized and isolated from everyone around him, and panicked.

You don't get, say, any of that kind of criticism of Zuko impulsively yelling at a general for a cruel but equally pragmatic decision of the sort that these commenters would praise or at least see value neutral, based on what they said.

The world of Avatar, however, takes this seriously. Long-term consequences and spiritual matters are important. As much as people praise Kyoshi (sometimes even referring to the Dai Lee as such, despite them becoming secret police that vanish people in the night), she is fairly blunt about her own regrets and failures in additional material, having been traumatized by the first time she took a life and regretting the Dai Lee at all, despite it seeming like a good idea at the time. One thing that consistently comes up time and time again is that hasty actions meant to solve a problem in the short term wind up creating significantly worse problems down the road because of their consequences. Iroh gets flack from this side of fandom for declining to the one to face Ozai and citing that history would view it as a brother killing a brother for power, and that history would judge it poorly, and these people react by going 'who gives a shit? Just kill him, problem solved', despite the show frequently showing that just makes more problems.

Not only is this a dismissive approach incompatible with the themes of the series (there's always the point of 'that sounds like Sozin's logic for genociding the Air Nomads, and in turn suggests these commenters don't think actions like the Fire Nation's brutality is actually INTRINSICALLY wrong, it just depends on who you're doing it to), it also misses the point that what works in one show doesn't apply universally to everything.

[secretsofthewilde]

Sorry to hear you have a shitty brain day :( but I'm glad my little comment helped! I'd love to hear your thoughts about Marie.

Oh you mean Miss Marie cheekbones Winter?

She came, constantly served looks, was that bitch (derogatory), and yet somehow had me distraught over her final episode. Basically; Marie hot. acquitted of all crimes.

Actual critical thoughts on her below - I went on much longer than intended, whoops!

Okay like all characters in this show there is just so much I could talk about when it comes to her, but I think I’ll just try to do a general overview of how I felt about her while watching the show and how it makes me view her now.

Full disclosure: I haven’t rewatched her seasons yet so this is based off of my memory of those seasons and how I feel about them now.

Marie is an interesting character to me because (much like Kaz) I couldn’t stand her during her first two seasons. While I was able to acknowledge how great Susie Porter was in the role (and how gorgeous she looked) in her first two seasons, I just struggled so much to empathise with or even really care about her due to her unhealthy relationship with Allie and my utter disdain for the Marie/Will subplot – which I still think could have been handled better as it comes across as somewhat lazily written imho. Season 8 however very quickly changed that for me, and now I’m able to look back at her previous episodes with a lot more grace towards her.

I think Marie is a really complex character that gets a lot more hate than I think she necessarily deserves. Susie Porter herself has even said that the amount of hatred her character got ended up really getting to her, and I can understand why when I see the way some people speak about her.

I think it would be fair to say that I hated her in season 7, but I think that’s the intention of the writers. While we have moments of seeing her be tender and caring for others, it's really hard to tell what is genuine and what's more manipulation on her part during those first seasons. While I am now of the opinion that Marie does genuinely care for and love Allie, at the time I remember hating seeing any moment with her reassuring or comforting Allie because it all seemed to be just self serving on her part. And the thing is on retrospect a lot of her actions during those seasons still is self serving on Marie's part. Understanding that she loves Allie now doesn't change the fact that she absolutely was still manipulating the people around her during those two seasons.

Essentially during seasons 6 & 7 the only positive-ish attributes we can really assign to Marie is that she has a very strong maternal nature, will do anything for her son, is obviously intelligent and adaptive (which makes her good at manipulating), and is good at social networking/climbing. The problem is that these also work as reasons why we might hate her in those seasons; her son is most-definitely a rapist so we aren't made to sympathise with her grief over him, and the other traits all double as reasons why she's a threat/why she's able to rise so quickly as an antagonist.

Season 8 absolutely surprised me with the way they handled Marie, by having her go through a redemption arc that occurs separate from the characters who have history with her, and I think it was the right choice to make. If we had spent significant time with Marie going to Allie and trying to make amends to her then it would feel like she was trying to be forgiven without having actually earned it. It would make it feel like whenever Marie did something good it was insincere, and only done for the sake of her appearance/manipulation. Instead we get to see her interacting with other characters and constantly trying to do the right thing, without seeking or expecting validation or approval from her past victims because of it. Season 8 also clearly shows us that her maternal side isn't just a manipulative persona, but a key part to her identity. She consistently aims to soothe and comfort those in her unit when they're upset, and it feels like she does genuinely care for them. In the past seasons you wouldn't see her interacting with someone like "Kath" without assuming she is doing so for some personal gain/future plan, but in season 8 their interactions and the care she expresses are obviously genuine. We also get more of an understanding of her relationship with sex imho and while I still think her relationship with Will was written a bit sloppily, seeing her with Lou does at least help solidify that Marie's relationship with sex and grief is very warped.

I love that Marie was able to grow and become a better person in season 8, even if her ending was gut wrenching for me. While her death definitely falls into the category of redemption/self sacrifice tropes, the reason it doesn't come across as cheap or poorly executed is because we saw her throughout season 8 make choices to try do the right thing by the women around her, and not for the sake of being forgiven/redeemed by them, but for her own sense of self. A lot of the time now we have to see in film/tv writers deciding to do a last minute redemption by having a villain sacrificing themself at the end and revealing actually they were just misunderstood this whole time. With Marie it's a slow process that feels real - while certain characters are upset about her death we don't suddenly see them praising her as a misunderstood hero. She was a flawed individual, who spent her last year trying to make amends for her past sins and I think that's really beautiful. It's not up to the audience to decide if she had earned or deserved Allie's forgiveness prior to her death (as we should leave the victims to decide that for themselves) but we are of course able to decide if we believe that she did enough to redeem herself to us viewers. And for me personally? She did.

I think Marie is a great example of the key message of the show – every person is flawed and is capable of both good and bad actions, and instead of condemning people for their past mistakes we should give them an opportunity to learn and try to do better. Because at the end of the day the prison is meant to be a place of rehabilitation through found community, not punishment.

I hope you enjoyed this raw brain dump brought to you by poor sleep and task avoidance. As always, everyone may feel free to drop an ask related to something I've said in this reply, this show in general, or anything you think I might wanna yap about.

[daenerysstormreborn]

Guess I’m making this post in this blog after my accidentally posting my last one here but I just watched the Todd in the Shadows video on Somerton and that combined with the hbg video make it so clear that Somerton is a misogynist. Todd says he can’t speculate about an agenda for James’s lies but I can!! It doesn’t account for all of them but his sexism is clearly driving some of these claims.

The way that many straight women treat gay men is atrocious. But are they more homophobic than straight men? No! Absolutely not! This publication from the UK reports that perpetrators of sexual orientation based hate crimes of all levels of severity are 82% male and that the more severe the crime, the greater the male dominance. However, these data from the US report that 95.7% of offenders committing hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender were male, although the sample size is more limited (N = 171) and with the caveat that this category includes anti-female attacks, which, of course, are going to have male perpetrators.

Actually, little tangent, the previous data set is weird.

It’s kind of weird that the fact that the crimes were overwhelmingly committed by men isn’t commented on. It seems like this is hidden on purpose based on the fact that they use female as the characteristic instead of male. Then they don’t note this in the “significantly higher rates” panel even though being male is OVERWHELMINGLY the greatest predictive factor in committing a hate crime with dominances of 95.3% (sexual orientation, gender identity, gender), 93.3% (race, ethnicity, nationality), and 91.5% (religion). The next highest numbers (not including the “violent” characteristic because that’s a characteristic of the crime and not the offender) are for attaining a max level of education of high school or lower, and they’re 69.3%, 72.8%, and 53.3%. So why is the overwhelming male dominance not highlighted? In fact, the male dominance of offenders isn’t mentioned AT ALL in the document. I’d chalk this up the fact that most violent crime is committed by men but these data also include non-violent crime. Plus, these numbers are higher than the % male for general violent crime and for most specific categories of violent crime, save for sexual offenses. The exact numbers vary from year to year but this overview from 2012 (which is simply the first result that came up) indicates that 80.1% of arrestees for violent crime are male. For some reason the app isn’t letting me paste the link but the source is the FBI UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) report on crime in the US in 2012, table 42. Like, hello? Rather low sample size nonwithstanding, if we take these data at face value, they tell us that men in the US are overwhelmingly more likely to commit hate crimes.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about James Somerton. Many of his lies involved things that he claims straight women do or did. Sometimes he even specifies white women, as if he is not a white man. He’s mad about the injustices gay men face and have faced throughout history, and rightfully so. But instead of going for the men who are actually violent, instead of talking about the actual ways straight women do perpetuate homophobia, he makes up straight women to direct his anger at. It seems as if the only times he does discuss real problems with straight women’s homophobia or the homophobia of straight men, he’s just plagiarizing! He could have just said that it makes him uncomfortable that there are straight women who write gay porn about Jeffrey Dahmer and left it at that! But he lied instead to make it seem more outrageous!! Aaahhhh!!!!

[ridenwithbiden]

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether a Texas man under a domestic violence restraining order has a Second Amendment right to own guns. We’re in this hell because the court decided in June 2022 that modern gun laws are unconstitutional unless there’s a historical basis for them—meaning, would a bunch of 18th-century white guys agree with it or not?

United States v. Rahimi is one of the biggest cases of this Supreme Court term and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito sounded very concerned that courts are stripping away a fundamental right from men who judges agree are abusive, while the other justices sounded very skeptical of the argument. But since it’s a blockbuster case, we likely won’t get a decision until late June 2024, which is when the court typically rules on the biggest appeals—regardless of when they were first argued. So we have a good seven months to worry about it.

Domestic violence groups have made the stakes crystal clear with their amicus briefs, noting that removing guns from domestic abusers saves lives. And according to gun safety group Everytown, 70 women are shot and killed every month by current or former partners. In her opening comments, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar—the person tasked with defending the law—made the same point. Prelogar said that the court recognized in a 2014 case that “all too often, the only difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun.” Prelogar said the U.S. does have a long tradition of disarming people who are considered a danger to society. She also noted that domestic violence wasn’t considered a problem at the time of the founding, but that shouldn’t prevent governments from passing laws against it now. After all, modern laws ban guns in schools even though there isn’t a historical analog.

The three liberal justices all seemed like they’d vote to uphold the law and even Justices John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorusch sounded like they disagreed with the arguments that Rahimi’s federal public defender was making.

But Justice Thomas and Alito were concerned that it’s too easy for state courts to take guns away from people accused of domestic violence but not convicted of a crime. “If this were a criminal proceeding, then you would have a determination of what you’re talking about—someone would be convicted of a crime, a felony assault or something,” Thomas said. “But here you have something that’s anticipatory or predictive, where a civil court is making the determination.” Justice Alito then posed a hypothetical showing he’s much more worried about people’s right to possess a gun than the dangers that gun could pose to others. “If the person [under the restraining order] thinks that he or she is in danger and wants to have a firearm, is that person’s only recourse to possess the firearm and take their chances if they get prosecuted?” Alito asked.

It’s horrifying to think about these arguments coming from the same Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade—and Alito wrote that opinion himself. Homicide is the number one cause of death for pregnant people. Domestic violence hotlines have seen a spike in calls since the fall of Roe. We’ve seen stories in the last year of men shooting their partners because they did or didn’t get abortions.

If the Supreme Court eventually rules against Rahimi and strikes down the appeals court decision, it will be a win—but that doesn’t mean the court is suddenly reasonable, it just means their 2022 Bruen decision was so nuts that they have to put guardrails on it. It’s still absurd that this case even made it to the court in the first place.