#anyone. is there an audience for this joke anywhere

[itsdappleagain]

jesus no

[eightstarr]

pacify — sevika.

summary: is it possible to miss a stranger, or does one thing negate the other? maybe you miss sevika because she isn't a stranger, because she stuck her claws far too deep in you and never let go— or just because she looks really fucking good sitting there, looking at you like she's waiting for you to say "hello again".

warnings: mild descriptions of violence, smut (mdni!), pre time jump sevika!

notes: my thesis with this one is that eating out a woman you love will revolutionize you in a way nothing else can and i'm joking but also dead serious. also dear god please me and who… okay bye i love you

・。.・゜✧・. ────

“You know, I’ve always liked this place the best.”

It’s the first thing you remember him saying, blue uniform to match his now slightly reddened eyes, vile alcohol in his breath. You’re at a different bar, not Vander's, the first actual job you ever had if you don't count what came before— the shiny rock of a stranger’s ring in your pocket, another’s gold coins in your bag, all from the quick trips to the city above with your father. “It’s not difficult to steal from a Piltovan,” he’d say, squinting at the engraving on the inside of a sparkly bracelet, a small bounty spread over the kitchen table, “they’re all show, all ego.”

Now watching the smirk on the Enforcer’s face after he downs his fourth glass without taking a breath, a laughable skill for an audience of no one, you find it hard to disagree with your father’s assessment. The well nurtured instinct to wonder what you’d get if you slipped your fingers inside the pockets of his tailored jacket grows loud and tempting in your head, but you shove it away and keep your eyes on the dusty floor you’re meant to sweep, determined to keep this job.

“The drinks are better than up there, I’ll give you that,” the drunk man continued, half empty fifth glass tipped dangerously towards the brooding barman, your only coworker tonight. There’s barely anyone left in the bar at all except a couple regulars. Tension has been brewing through the entirety of your shift, an argument in one of the booths during your first hour, a drink on someone’s face by the third, a wave of tired scoffs when the man in uniform walked in near the end of the night; the last nail on the coffin. In your head, you’ve listed all the possible exits you could use to escape enough times to memorize them.

The man takes a surprisingly controlled sip, thin lips furrowed in a grimace. “Wish it was enough to make up for that fucking stench.”

The air in Zaun is different to foreigners. You’ve never minded it the way they do. It's your air, the first to ever fill your lungs, the one you’re so used to that you can feel the way it shifts— the way it becomes a stench, as he called it, when blood is about to be spilt.

The barman does, to his credit, offer you the chance to leave. Or orders it, morelike, his sharp eyes meeting yours and then a tilt of his head towards the door. Maybe he pities you for the nerves splashed all over your face, or maybe he’d just find it a shame to lose an employee he hired barely a month ago. “You. Out.”

“Out?” the Piltovan repeats, turning his head, his voice grossly high pitched. “Why? What's gonna happen now?” he’s drunk enough that you notice the seconds that pass before his eyes properly focus. You remember the exact way his smirk faded, the deep-set wrinkles between his eyebrows when he recognized your face, a nauseating anger. “No. No, you don't move.”

Enforcers never go anywhere alone. Maybe the man had just remembered this, just now realized the true risk of his cockiness when it's not backed up by two or three of his colleagues. Maybe that's why he finds it easy to target you rather than the angry figures lurking in the tables behind him. Maybe that's why he draws his gun so fast.

“I know you, little thief—”

A woman approaches at the same time he does, and you don't know why exactly you decide to focus on her instead. A plea, maybe. You remember the dull gray of the brass knuckles on her fingers, the thick leather belt hung around her lower waist, the thump of her boots against the old floorboards. You've never noticed her before. How ridiculous it feels to think that she was there all night. How lovely that she could be the last thing you see. There's comfort in her being there, a morbid, sad thing that feels almost like company. At least you’re not alone in the room with the monster, at least there's someone to watch you die. 

Her hand falls on the Enforcer’s shoulder and she pushes him back with little effort, the quickest movement, almost without thought. The man stumbles (blame the well praised alcohol or Sevika’s strength), and the glass that had stayed in his hand shatters against the edge of the bar at the same time his gun fires a loose shot to the wall behind you.

Next comes a blur, a vague memory of hearing the Enforcer hiss in pain, a thread of red spilling down the open palm of his hand.

“You got somewhere to go?”

Her voice is the first and only thing that brings you back, the only sound louder than the heartbeat pounding in your ears. She sounds smooth, clear-headed, not like a woman who just stepped in the middle of the fastest paced violence you’ve ever encountered. Gray eyes move across your face, then the rest of you, and you quickly look down at yourself as if to check along with her that you’re actually unharmed.

Your lips feel awfully dry when your tongue brushes against them, enough air passing through to let you breathe, but not quite talk. You nod your head and remember in a rushed, distorted thought— somewhere to go, yes, home, now.

Sevika returns your nod, small praise, an odd way of saying something like good job. Less odd than the quiet satisfaction you feel for having earned it. She tilts her head towards the door, short black hair brushing her shoulder, her voice the kindest you’ve ever heard to this very day. Perhaps the thing you remember most. “Go on, love.”

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

Years pass, deaths and joys and new odd jobs, and you still think about it. She sits at the back of your head like a softly worded reminder. And then one day, as things go, you find her again. Her making a deal at the back of The Last Drop, you behind the bar serving drinks.

There's a chance she doesn't remember it. What are the odds that she thought about you at all after the incident? You were just a stranger on a random night. It's not often that people fully understand the weight of what they did for someone, the trickle down of an action, of a kindness. There's a chance for you to go home, alone and unchanged. Instead (and not for the first time) you work for an hour longer, unpaid labor for a chance to serve her a drink.

Sevika doesn't come every night. You see her maybe once a week, talk to her maybe once a month. You don't expect tonight to be any different, but—

“You gonna watch me all night?” she mutters it into her glass, swallows the last sip before she looks at you. The are tiny wrinkles beginning to form on the corners of her eyes now, along each side of her lips from her smiles. Watching her is entrancing, the easiest thing you do, as natural as drawing a breath. “What are you still doing here?”

You blink downwards at the washed glass in your hand, continue to dry it like it could ever be half as interesting as being under her spell. “Working overtime.”

“Vander can't afford to pay you overtime,” Sevika scoffs, the corner of her mouth lifting in a smirk. 

You frown, maybe a little flustered. “He—”

“She's right. Why are you still here?”

The man himself stands tall to your left, glaring at this one permanently stained spot on the bar, working at it with a rag like he hasn't tried the same thing a hundred times before. There are dark shadows under his eyes, a purple hair tie on his wrist— Powder’s, if you were to guess. You’ve grown close to Vander since you met him, even closer when he hired you to work here. “‘S not a favor,” he’d said, quickly catching the suspicion on your face. “Just a gesture to him.” Turns out a lot more people knew your father than you thought; Vander isn’t old enough to have grown up with him, but they still found ways to end up at the same places. If he hadn’t been so secretive about who he was beyond the man who raised you, maybe you would’ve met Vander years ago, became friends at some bar in your teen years instead of at a diner a few days after your father’s funeral. But gaining a friend is a timeless thing, it obeys luck, not sensitivities. One day he wasn’t there, and then the next he was.

You spray some cleaning liquid over the spot on the table, roll your eyes as he leans closer to wonder at how the stain begins to slowly fade. “I’m working,” you repeat.

He looks at you from the corner of his eyes, one eyebrow raised. “I ain’t paying you.”

“I know, okay? It's fine,” you cross your arms over your chest, embarrassed to have been caught even though neither Vander nor Sevika seem to know what the real reason behind you staying late is. “It's a busy night, take it as a favor.”

“I can't afford favors.”

“Good thing they’re free, then,” you deadpan.

Sevika chuckles at the banter, forever amused at your unreserve, how simple you make things. It makes no sense to her to be that generous, that open, but it makes even less sense to think that you’d be any other way. Sevika isn’t particularly trusting, but she is loyal— the more you talk, the more watching you becomes addicting, her thing. She fixates on learning new things about you, clings to your words like a cat to its owner’s scent and wonders, over and over and over, if you remember her. From all those years ago. From last week. With you, she’d take anything.

And when she does finally see you up close, finds a good enough excuse in asking you for fire or a refill, there's little you could ask that she would say no to. It's senseless and thrilling and above all, it's true. She feels it down to her bones, painfully clear, like it's written all over her face.

“What do you do, Sevika?”

Sit and wait for you, she thinks, and instead replies, “What?”

“For work,” you clarify, your hand against the bar, leaning slightly forward. “I see you every week and I still don't know.”

You do know what she does, at least as much as anyone else does— too little to run your mouth, enough to stay away. And if you didn't know, you know her enough to be certain that she wouldn't tell you. It's a pointless question. Unless, of course, you’re as infatuated as you are.

Sevika takes another gulp of her drink, her eyes tracing over the line on your waist where the apron ties behind your back, the soft curve that the pull of it forms. She needs a smoke. “Same shit as everyone else,” she answers, and palms her pockets for a cigarette case. “What do you do? Other than this.”

“This is it,” you watch her flick open the case and shrug. You don’t sound particularly sad or frustrated, just plainly aware. “I pour drinks for people who all seem to do the same shit.”

Sevika hums, sets the case down, a click of metal against well worn wood. An unlit cigarette sits between her index and middle finger. “Be honest,” she starts, and it's the same voice that's been talking to you this whole time, but the gruffness still manages to catch you off guard. “Am I just as bad?”

You chuckle, the same addicting shimmer of genuineness in your eyes that she chases everytime you speak. “Just as bad as what?”

Her eyes follow your hands where they go to pull a lighter from the chest pocket of your apron. “The drunks that flirt with you while you do your job,” she lets the cigarette hang from her lips and leans forward.

“Hm,” you hum. The reflection of the flame sparkles in her eyes before you pull it away, orange against gray, odd and pretty. “I don't know.”

You’re not sure if she looks amused or slightly offended. It's a nice view regardless, the way her eyebrows lift and her lips curve downwards for a second before she breathes out, spilling smoke from her mouth as she talks, “You don't know.”

“I guess I didn't realize you were flirting with me.”

Sevika chuckles, a tiny half moon of a smile line on her cheek when she smirks, smugly aware of the way your eyes are looking at her. “You’re funny.”

Sevika is loyal. It would be easy to say that she doesn’t get what this feeling is, that it’s meaningless, that she doesn’t understand it— but she knows. She knows what it is even if it goes unnamed, because she’s the one deciding to keep it, stubborn and tight gripped, close to her heart. It’s in her dreams, in her first thought of the morning, in the disappointment that sours her mouth when she doesn’t find you at the bar. It’s in her stomach, tugging with need, when she looks at your face and realizes that if she asks if you wanna go home with her tonight, you will say yes.

She takes the leap. Parts her lips, names herself yours. “You wanna get out of here?”

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

You rarely pour your own drinks anymore. It’s a funny thing— Sevika doesn’t ask about your preference, which liquor is your favorite, if you’d like for her to do it for you. She figures it out like she does most things, making a study out of it, watching you enough. Maybe a little extra, too. The cork slides up with a pop!, her fingers around the neck of the bottle. The warmth of her still lingers on your thighs, your own fingers sitting restless over your lap now that her hair is not close enough to play with.

It’s been months since the first night she came home with you. You wouldn’t yet say that the newness is gone, or that you’re as quick of a student as she is, but there are things you know about Sevika already. Vivid truths, bright like the visions of her in the sunlight that you dream about sometimes. Reassurance is one of the first languages you learn from each other.

For Sevika, it's almost always about touch— you notice it immediately at the core of most of her silences, the way closeness makes her demeanor shift to something calmer, more true to herself. Slide closer to her on the couch and her arm will find itself around your shoulders immediately. Pat the empty spot next to you on the bed and she’ll let out a heavy sigh of relief, join you in sleep instead of torturing herself about tomorrow’s line of business. Part your lips when she's kissing you late at night with no goal other than to kiss you and she’ll let out a sound that vibrates through you and changes her mind on what was once an innocent gesture; she’ll tug your shirt off instead. Brush your hand over her shoulder when she's resting her head on your lap and she’ll guide it to her face instead, a lazy hold on your wrist while your thumb brushes her cheek. Coming to love her is the warmest science. But it’s not always exact.

You watch her pour you a drink at the bar table that sits in front of your bed— watch the dark hair that sits against the nape of her neck, messy and loose, watch the waistline of her pants sitting low on her waist, watch the bareness of her back. If there’s a reason why you decide to say it now, you don’t yet realize it. The words just spill out of you before you have a chance to stop them. “I remember you, you know."

Sevika’s hand hovers over the whiskey glass before she hums, resuming the movement and bringing it to her lips. "You didn't say."

“You didn’t ask,” you rest your back against the bed frame, watch her carefully.

The air sits still and you see her shoulders lift, muscles shifting as she shrugs, a big gulp of golden liquor sliding down her throat. Her voice comes in a mutter, low and almost shy, "Thought I might scare you off.”

The idea is so ridiculous that it's almost laughable. A startled chuckle dies in your chest and leaves room for aching sadness, your back leaving the frame as you lean forward and pray for her to turn around. "He was going to shoot me. Nobody moved a finger but you, Sev," you shake your head, try to manage your expression from saying too much, from confessing to something that’s been inside of you for years. At the tip of your tongue sits a raw desperation for this exact unraveling, for her. "How could you scare me?"

Another moment passes before Sevika turns to face you, lower back against the edge of the table, holding her drink down by her side. She won't look at your eyes— can't, maybe. You wonder if she's considering leaving, if she's already decided that she will, as soon as this is over. A part of you, small but dramatic and loudly pessimistic, is surprised that she’s entertained you this long. Even more surprised when she asks, "Is that what this is?" a turn of her head and the gray in her eyes finds you in a second, mechanical and unforgiving, the snap of a bear trap. You don't think you could look away if you tried. "Are you here because you think you owe me something?"

Your reaction is something close to a flinch, your frown deepening, feet firm on the floor instantly. "You can't seriously think that."

Sevika feels the regret come instantly. It splatters on her face, the pads of her fingers rough when they're brushed over her cheek to wipe herself clean of it like she does blood, gunpowder, fear. She watches out of the corner of her eye the way you part your pretty lips and can hear it in her head, imagine it so clearly, you asking her to leave. 

She's already reaching for her coat to make quick work of obeying your wishes when, instead of that, you ask, "You wanna know why I’m here?"

Sevika lowers her hand and the glass hits the table with a thud. Her head tilts to make the slightest nod— and that's as much of an answer as you'll get, you think.

“Look at me,” your finger sits under her chin, a touch barely there, the rise of her head more her choice than your doing. “You’re good, Sevika,” she grimaces, feels like she's swimming in gross viscous shame older than herself and barely surviving it. You press your thumb into her cheek, firm but kind, and keep her from being swept away by it. If she used to find your openness sweet, right now she finds it fucking miraculous. How can you call her good and mean it, how can someone else know so deeply that she could be, that she will be, when most days she doesn’t even know it herself? How can she look you in the eyes and deny you that truth? Her face relaxes, grimace replaced by an aching need as she listens to you. “I see it better than most, but they all catch up eventually. Whatever you put your mind to, you’re fucking good at it,” you pause, try to read her expression and find yourself unsure, but calm. How lovely to think that there's still so much to learn. “You don't owe me and I’m not trying to change you… you don't need—”

Sevika rests her hand over your cheek, a warm hum from her throat to acknowledge what you're saying, a desperate shake of her head to say but I do. “I need you,” her forehead falls against your own, in her brain a chant of please.

You look at her through your lashes, nod your head and feel warm, warm, warm. Her hand guides your face closer, a needy pull of her fingers where they press against the back of your neck, your whisper of “me too” spilled into her mouth. Sevika kisses like there's nothing in the whole fucking world she’d rather be doing, nothing that could possibly distract her. She has kissed you in nightclub bathrooms even with someone's knocks shaking the flimsy door, in alleys with her knuckles still bloody from a fight, dangerously close to opening hours with your back against the very bar where she rests her drinks every night. She's hungry, insatiable, and every time you can't wait to part your lips and let her in.

It takes godlike strength to hold on for as long as you do, but there's power in making her wait too, a satisfaction that feels drunk and just as divine as it makes its way down your spine. A few more chaste kisses take seconds or a century, and Sevika indulges them for as long as she can before she breaks, falls to her knees at your altar and breathes, “Please.”

There's nothing you like more than hearing her beg, except maybe what happens after you give in— the relief, the sigh against your mouth, the wet warmth of her tongue and the desperation in the way she pushes her body against you like she hadn't til then realized just how famished she’d been. Her hands wrap around your waist meanly, pressing indents, and you're too busy soothing your own hunger on her lips to realize that she's switched your positions.

You feel the harshness of the table against your back and pull away to look down, catch up, your daze maybe a little too obvious judging by the curl of her mouth. She's panting as much as you are, though, tongue peeking out barely to brush over her lips, tingly and wet from your kisses. “Up,” she says with a tilt of her head, more a warning than a command, her hands already down on your hips to get you sitting over the wood.

Sevika is a sight, pretty and inviting and overwhelming— you reach for her waist and pull, entranced by the way she follows, the way your legs interlock. A thin layer of sweat glimmers over her chest and you've never found so much beauty in the undercity’s humidity, never felt yourself get wet as easily as she makes it, never been so desperate to find some relief from the aching between your legs. Your thighs squeeze into Sevika’s and looking up to meet her eyes feels like a punch, like the sweetest blood, a sea of glazed-over gray barely visible against the black of her pupils. A mirror of your wanting; how the hunger grows when it meets reciprocation this delicious. You lean forward to taste it from her lips and she meets you halfway, a hand traveling up your spine and ending at your neck.

You don't know when you started grinding against her, but you know you want more. And you know Sevika’s holding back, savoring the same power you’d tried before, a smirk against your lips when she feels you speed up, hears you moan from somewhere deep in your throat. It suits her, the way she holds control. Sevika likes to wonder if she’d ever hold on longer, make you really wait. Sometimes she thinks she might, and then (like now) your voice fills her ears and clouds every thought that says anything other than please, god, fuck, let me make you feel good. “Don’t be mean,” you say this time, breathy and achingly sweet. “Please, Sevika.”

The first grind of her thigh against your pussy makes you end a kiss with your teeth biting into the meat of her lower lip, rougher than you intended. “Fuck, Sev—” you say, cut yourself off with a gasp when she does it again. Sevika figures out the angle unsurprisingly quickly, a hand on your hip and another on your ass to guide you back and forth at a rhythm that matches the movement of her own hips, enough fervency behind it that you know she needed this as much as you did. Maybe more, judging by the groans she spills on your neck every time you press up into her.

Full lips kiss at your pulse, open mouthed, her breath cool against your skin when it meets the wetness she left there. Your nails rake over her shoulder, over her scalp where your fingers are buried in between strands of dark hair— and when Sevika groans it sounds raw, a broken noise, her hips moving desperately faster. You can feel her warmth on your thigh and you've never wanted so badly to have her undressed, laid out, rubbing her pussy against you, leaving a mess on skin rather than the fabric of your pants. She's getting carried away, you know it, chasing her high and barely giving you a chance to catch up. You've never wanted anything more than to let her use you.

“You feel so fucking good,” she grunts, wrecked with need for you to pacify when she lifts her head from your neck, her eyebrows furrowed. You watch her get lost on your lips and you can imagine what they look like, how plump she left them, how the pride of that must simmer in her lower abdomen. Her thumb brushes over them once, then again, and you barely register that she's asking for permission before your mouth moves on its own accord to let her index and middle finger inside. It's filling, just what you needed; how beautifully unsurprising that she knew it more than you did, or that she needed it just the same.

You're fully caged in now, your back pressed against the wall, Sevika’s free hand on your waist still steering you back and forth on her thigh. “Too— hm, fuck,” her fingers slide out of your mouth and press wet indents into your cheek as she holds your jaw, traps you in her eyes. She’s far too gone to warn you but she doesn't have to, it's so painfully clear. Her eyes two dark pits to swallow you whole, lips parted, the grinding brutal and so fucking good— she says it until she can't form the words anymore, her head tilted back, thighs stuttering and tightening around your leg as she comes.

Your tongue tastes the skin of her bared neck and you feel yourself get closer and closer, fed by the feeling of her nipple under the pad of your thumb, by the shaking moans she spills into your ears as you keep grinding against her. Sevika must feel it too, in the same way you did, notice the change in your breath or the speed of your hips— because she pulls away and knows to soothe the needy desperation on your face with a messy kiss before she gets down on her knees.

“Shh,” her shushing comes soft and agonizingly kind, your whines barely contained as she presses kisses to the inside of your thighs. “What happened to my patient girl?” she asks, a tilt of her head and a smirk, the meanest angel.

Your palms press onto the table to lift yourself up enough to let her slide your pants and underwear off in one motion. “Spoiled me too much,” you answer, your mind foggy, drunk on the sight of her kneeling in front of you.

It takes Sevika a moment to reply, the pads of her finger pressing into your thighs. Her eyes meet yours and she wants to tell you, how could I not? You’re not trying to change her, you’d said, but you do. These days, she doesn't think about anything else like she used to— I love you prefaces everything. I love you, so I’m winning this stupid fight and making some money. I love you, so I gotta get home alive. I love you, so I think we could change this city. I love you, you should have every-fucking-thing. But Sevika's not really a woman of many words, especially not when you're looking at her like this, especially not when she's this hungry, so she shrugs her shoulders and says (like it explains everything, and maybe it does), "Look at you.”

The intensity of her makes your legs squeeze together, but you barely make it an inch before she’s pulling them apart and hooking them over her shoulders exactly how she likes.

Your face feels like it's burning, heat crawling up your neck, your grip on the table tight. “Please.”

Sevika barely manages to pry her eyes away from where you're open and glimmering, soaking her fingers after just one brush of them against your lips. Her voice comes out strained, drowned in hunger. “Please what?” 

You must sound worse, but the thought barely registers, hardly matters. “Please, Sevika, make me come.”

And she does— pretty nose bumping perfectly against your clit whenever her tongue is too busy inside you, her lips shiny and wet and relentless. Like everything else, she's fucking good at it.

[twilightkitkat]

Everyone knows that Deadpool can break the 4th wall. It's a large part of his charm: being able to directly address the audience and make popculture references that don't exist in the MCU.

It's a common gag in fanfiction for Logan to be slightly weirded out by this but to just let it go.

But can we talk about the implications of knowing about 4th wall? The potential?

Imagine Wade, knowing that he's trapped inside a story that nobody else is aware of. Knowing that his fate is in the hands of the storywriters and that if he doesn't perform well for the audience, his universe could cease to exist. Knowing that he's just a character and being completely alone in that knowledge.

Knowing that he's played by an actor. Knowing that nothing is really in your control. Knowing how your fate rests in the hand of corporations and money. (Knowing nobody is safe as long as they can be used to further your character development.)

He knows that there's a plot and the general rules of it. He knows that The Conflict can't be resolved that easily and when the end of the movie is coming. He knows how to tell narrative death flags.

He partially makes references to keep the audience engaged (to keep his existence renewed) and partially because it's funny to see everyone confused over a joke only he gets.

But every reference is trying to see if anyone else knows, too. He's throwing out the bait. (Trying to see if anyone knows that the world they're living in is fake.)

And everyone sees him as crazy for it. Schizophrenic, manic, insane. (And maybe he is. It's not like he can prove it to anyone.)

Wade assumes things about the world and they're generally correct. He knows the rules of the game, knows the writers, and has a razor-sharp intuition that has his allies questioning him sometimes (he knows popular tropes).

And so, when he realized that he was in a movie with Logan, he made a lot of assumptions. That they would have to work together. That they'd overcome their differences and grow closer.

But most importantly, he assumed the limits. Disney wouldn't make an openly gay character, would they? Deadpool is fine because he's a joke but Wolverine would never be seriously gay, even if he was queer in the comics.

So he sees it as safe to flirt and joke because it wasn't going anywhere. Being gay was funny to the target audience, but that was it. It'd never be taken seriously in a superhero movie. (Especially with characters as popular as Deadpool and Wolverine.)

Wade was either getting Vanessa or nothing. That was how the story was written.

So he never takes Logan's feelings seriously. He cared about him in a very family-friendly bro kind of way and that was it. He doesn't even consider the idea of romance. He jokingly flirts and spews innuendos, but they never went anywhere. Wouldn't go anywhere. Ever.

And Logan is confused because he thought Wade was attracted to him, yet he keeps brushing him off as friendly when he tries to be sincere. He one time legitimately shared a bendy heart straw with him by Wade's request and Wade just played it off as a bit.

And also, Wade keeps making references he doesn't understand. That nobody understands. And he'd chalk it up to saying random shit except Logan starting paying attention and it's all oddly cohesive and creates a singular story. It ties together in ways that complete nonsense doesn't.

And that's leaving out Wade's "intuition." How he makes comments about "tropes" and "cliches" like they're in a movie except that he ends up being right. Almost every time. It's like he can predict the future, but in a vague yet oddly specific way. Like he can see how things are going to go.

And sometimes, when Wade thinks Logan isn't paying attention, he notices how he mutters to himself in dread. And how something bad almost always happens after.

It makes him disturbed and painfully, achingly curious. What was Wade seeing that he wasn't? It could be that Wade was a secret prodigy, but that didn't seem to be the case? Some of this was too specific and far-fetched.

(All while Wade laments over the lack of agency in his own life, subject to the currents of the story while being painfully aware of it. He couldn't live a life of blissful ignorance like everyone else. It's like he saw a tsunami hurdling toward him—even if he ran away at full speed, the plot always caught up to him somehow.

Trust him. He'd tried to outrun it.)

[anotherfcknschlattsimp]

heyy! i was thinking about how schlatt is generally a private person, so could you please write about what it would be like trying to hide the relationship and the eventual reveal? thank you!

he's so absurdly paranoid

at home? always has to be touching you

holding your hand, sitting with your legs touching, little kisses all over your face, neck, arms, anywhere he can get to

but with the blinds closed and all cameras facing away from you two

date nights are either inside or with a third person so you can brush it off as three friends hanging out

but he plays footsies with you under the tablecloth because he can get away with it

would avoid flirting with you on camera, which leads to people noticing the different way he treats you, how he looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars, how he laughs genuinely at all of your jokes, how he just stares at you when he doesn't think he's in frame

and then one day you're both at let's say mizkif's house because when is that man not recording, you both think you're safe and out of view, but then another streamer decides to sneak up on you guys (shushing their audience and everything) and ends up capturing you two in a sweet kiss

schlatt holding your hip with one hand to pull you closer, the other used to lean against the wall and cage you in to keep you there

the cleanup for the slip was EXHAUSTING

took all of your mods about 3 weeks to finally calm down the angry simps and the obsessive shippers

couldnt take the clip down, you finally got one down and three more appear

he's still not comfortable with pda, but he does calm down a bit about how strict he is about it

finally having 2 person dates (rip Ted probably)

everyone calls you jambo and [ERROR]'s mom, regardless of your gender

speaking of gender

he has another mass purge of followers, but this time anyone who says anything bad about you being a woman/man/nb/cis/trans/etc.

minecraft wedding

the rocks in your background are all from him and his few trips outside

(lots from Japan)

NSFW

some people notice a little big something in schlatt's pants when he looks at you too long

everytime you two have to stream all day, or are otherwise unable to get a moment to yourselves to sneak a kiss, he makes absolutely SURE that he makes up for it

going for hours, making you cum at LEAST 5 times

every position you two can get in

he doesn't care how many times he finishes, or if he even does

he just wants to show you how absolutely LOVED you are

AAAAAAAA FIRST EVER FIC/HCs/ANYTHING, PLEASE LIKE IF YOU LIKE IT, COMMENT, SEND REQUESTS, ETC.

p.s. my keyboard doesn't have a caps lock cause im on a fucking chromebook

[tgcg]

yeah so whenever i was working on sbahj i probably would say what i felt about my shit was akin to like

whatever jrr tolkien felt when he was writing the hobbit

but i dont do that shit for fame yknow like im just putting my realness out into the atmosphere and if the hives are gonna swarm to that aroma like the crispest of fresh deepfried jpgs in the windows vista then who am i to argue

even bro said it was pretty good and thats fucking unheard of he was constantly scoping my site for new comics

i can sway any man slash woman

thing is

i never even showed him that site myself or any of them now that i think about it

he always just knew probably from the moment i set them up like he had some kinda dope-sensor thatd trip when i started being awesome

but my point is

i wasnt out here trying to get his or anyones approval with my art

he was just hip to everything on the web and i think my audience just has some kinda

sense when some absolute avant garde shit is afoot and a new media sensation is coming up on the horizon

geromy peeking his head up in the distance like a hella sweet baby infant sun

all giggling and shit

yknow i wonder if i couldve made it big with my stuff if i had the time to actually grow up and whatever

his smuppet business was multi-billion dollar shit karkat it was no joke

and we still never had space to store weapons anywhere that wasnt the fridge

he gave me the biggest room in the apartment but why couldnt we just-

[pyrrhiccomedy]

a collection of thoughts about Veilguard

it's pretty good! it's a fun, straightforward adventure story where you play the good guys, the bad guys are bad guys, and there's one morally ambiguous character but don't get scared, you have the whole game to decide what to do with him. the combat is fun, the cast is likable, and the world is pretty. if you like fantasy rpgs, you will probably like this one!

I said the cast is likeable. I didn't say they were interesting. everyone kinda comes off like they've been to therapy for at least six months, and have put in some effort to "do the work." Your party's character flaws are things like "people pleaser" or "rude (but still well-intentioned)" or "justifiably cynical." These are all more or less functional and mature adults who want to get along and experience very few obstacles to doing so.

The obstacles they do experience to getting along are pretty flimsy, and are sometimes resolved in under a minute.

Le wokisme is a problem with the factions, which is a problem with the game, because the game revolves around the factions. None of the factions are allowed to be - again - morally ambiguous. There's a faction of treasure hunters, but don't worry, they have experts to make sure they don't sell anything important to anyone's culture. There's a faction of assassins which in a previous game have been shown to be harsh mercenaries who traffic in slavery in order to acquire children to raise into professional killers, but don't worry, they've mellowed out a lot since then, and now they ~don't kill innocent people~ and all of the members are excited to be there. There's a faction of death-worshipping necromancers, but don't worry: they're pretty much treated as a joke faction, and they don't do anything darker than raising some friendly skeletons to do custodial work.

A lot of the game takes place in the Tevinter Imperium, which we know from previous games to be a racist imperial power built upon the labor of a mostly-elven slave force. I say we know that 'from previous games' because it really doesn't come up in this game. The Tevinter faction is a group of slave abolitionists, but you don't actually help them free any slaves. In fact, you never even meet any slaves. In fact, you never even see any slaves. In Minrathous, the capitol city of the slave empire.

We also never see any anti-elf racism, in Minrathous or anywhere else, or meet any elves anywhere who have much of anything negative to say about the current world state. I think it would have been interesting to engage with why some elves might actually support the Morally Ambiguous Guy Who Is Looking To Tear Down The Current World Order In Order To Restore The Elves To Their Bygone Glory, but then your protagonists might have been placed into an ethically dubious situation at some point, by opposing a guy, who is, among some more alarming intentions - let me be so clear - trying to free the elven slaves. And god forbid we make the player uncomfortable!

There are no titties in this game. You do fuck your love interest on the eve of the final battle, as is traditional, but there will be nary a titty in sight. That, like ethical conundrums or moral ambiguity, is evidently too grown-up for the target Veilguard audience.

Whoever it was on the writing team who was interested in the Qunari has either left the team, or is no longer interested in the Qunari. They are a non-presence, and the Big Grey Guys With Horns who you fight are just violent assholes who don't follow the Qun. They've also been redesigned again. They basically just look like tieflings, with even more awkward foreheads. RIP to a genuinely original fantasy race. We'll always have Sten and the DA2 Arishok.

Fans of previous games will, however, be pleased at how generous the writers have been with answering outstanding questions! You will learn what the titans were, what happened to them, what the Blight is, what caused the Blight, what the Golden/Black City is, why breaching it unleashed the Blight, who the Tevinter old gods were, what the deal was with the elven gods, and (not that anyone was in doubt of this after Inquisition anyway) that the Maker is fake for sure for sure.

Every religion in Thedas is proved to be fake by the end of the game, though, so it feels a bit less like "kids raised evangelical stick it to Big Church" this time.

Morrigan is back! Isabela is back! Dorian is back! Welcome visitations.

People are being shitty about there being an explicitly non-binary character. Fuck those people obviously, but I do wish they'd found something better to call this character than "non-binary," such a modern term that it slingshot me out of my fantasy world full of dragons and magic into a corporate diversity and inclusion training module.

Being a mage doesn't matter anymore. Sorry if you were hoping it might, but honestly that's on you. If they chickened out of doing anything with the mage conflict set up in DA:O and DA2 in Inquisition, I don't know why you expected they'd find a renewed interest in engaging with it now.

You can't be a blood mage. You can't actually do anything evil. Your PC is a Hero. I don't have a problem with this, exactly, but it contributes to the feeling of the series having moved to the kiddy end of the pool over the years.

Overall, I think this is almost surely going to be the last Dragon Age game, and I think that's almost definitely a good thing. It's a fun send-off that takes you on a whistle-stop tour of nearly all the places left in Thedas you haven't seen yet, ties up nearly all of the loose ends, and lets you hit an ogre with a warhammer so hard that he goes flying like he's full of packing peanuts.

Time enjoyably, but not meaningfully, spent.

[katiemccabeswife]

Necklace

Katie McCabe x Reader || You lost your necklace and you need it back.

The final whistle sounded throughout the stadium and the girls on the pitch almost simultaneously dropped their chins to their chest in defeat. The game went alright but Liverpool ended up getting a goal just after halftime and you, nor the girls, could find the opportunity to equalise it, let alone go one further.

After shaking hands with the other team and the refs, you did your routine of clapping the audience and taking photos with fans.

This wasn’t your first game and this wasn’t your first loss, you understood that sometimes you don’t play as well as you could have and sometimes the other team is just better so you understood the confusion on the girls' faces when you started crying.

Whilst you didn’t get any goals, you did have a blinder of a match. You successfully saved 5 balls from going into the box and won a few tricky challenges, anyone with 1 working eye could tell you did well. 

A necklace that normally sat around your neck was always a comfort, whether you lost or won, it reminded you of the hugs you used to get from your mother and holding it between your fingers was the closest you could get to that now. So when you reached for your neck and found that it was bare, tears instantly sprung to your eyes.

You looked around you briefly before the tears started to pour. You had been all over the field and fell over on all sides, it literally could have been anywhere. One hand had gone to your mouth and the other over your heart, you were trying not to hyperventilate but you needed to find that necklace.

You jumped slightly when hands settled on your shoulders, “It’s ok love, losses happen, we’ll get ‘em next time.” Your girlfriend, Katie, soothed.

You shook your head and let out a breath, “No, no, no,” You were trying to catch your breath and couldn’t express that you didn’t care that you lost.

“It is though love, you played beautifully, player of the match if it were up to me.” She tried to joke.

You took a deep breath and swallowed, “My necklace is gone,” Katie’s face dropped and she pulled you into a hug.

“Alright, do you remember if you had it before the match?”

“I did, I always make sure it’s on, and and,” You had to take another deep breath, “I always kiss it when the whistle sounds. I definitely had it.”

She moved to be an arm's length away and nodded, “Right, did you have it at halftime? On the pitch and in the room?”

You tried to think back, “Umm…” You shook your head as you couldn’t think.

“It’s alright love, it won’t be far and it won’t walk away on its own. Take a deep breath and try to think.”

You put your arm over your eyes and tried to even your breathing, “Um. I-I had it when I went to the bathroom at half-time.”

Katie clapped her hands, “Great! I’ll go look in the toilets. You go look it the room and then we’ll meet in the tunnel and look there, alright?”

You nodded and Katie took your head between her hands and kissed you on your forehead before pulling you, jogging slightly towards the tunnel. You looked everywhere in the room, high and low and Katie did the same in the bathrooms.

When you saw Katie waiting for you in the tunnel, talking to Jonas, you knew she hadn't found it and began to cry again.

"Hey, Y/N, we will find it, I've already got the girls looking on the pitch," Jonas spoke calmly although it did little to console you. You nodded and left with Katie, who wrapped her arms around your shoulders, to look for the necklace on the pitch.

The sight of all the girls looking warmed your heart. You were close with all of them so they all knew the history of the necklace. It had been passed through 3 generations and whilst your mother never got to physically hand it down to you before her premature death, it was a little piece of her with you all the time and it bought you solace before games and after losses.

Your heart melted a little bit more when you saw that a few girls from the other team were also looking. You heard your name being screamed from the crowd and when you turned around and saw a bunch of fans pointing at the floor you ran over to them, trying not to get your hopes up.

“Hi Y/N! After you took a photo with me, I noticed that a necklace fell on the floor, is it yours? Is that what you guys are looking for?” A girl no older than 16 asked you. You bent towards where the girl was pointing and found your necklace. You hugged the jewellery to your chest before hugging the girl in front of you.

“Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this necklace means to me,” You said while hugging the girl. 

“You're welcome, thank you for being you. I love watching you play and it encourages me to play my best. I wish to become you someday.” The girl spoke.

“Oh my gosh, aren’t you the sweetest, here,” You took off your shirt and gave it to her and called out for a sharpie. Someone ran over to you and you signed the shirt before hugging her once again.

“Thank you,” She said while crying.

“No, thank you,” You said.

You turned around to tell the girls that the necklace had been found but you saw them watching you. You made your way over and hugged Katie who then gave you her jacket. 

“Turn around, I'll put it back on you,” She smiled. When you turned around you were facing all of the girls.

“Thank you guys so much for looking,” You were still crying but you laughed as you wiped your tears. A round of ‘no worries’ and ‘your welcome’ came from the group before they swarmed you and hugged you.

After the group dispersed Katie came up and gave you another hug, “You alright now?” She spoke calmly.

You nodded into her neck, “Thank you for looking. And for getting everyone else to look, I love you.”

“I love you too,”

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

How to Use Absurdist Humor

I will often excuse away the “worst” of Marinette’s behavior with a very dismissive, “It’s an obvious joke, so there’s no point taking this as a serious character beat. Let’s not waste our time here.”

While I stand by that statement, I can see why some people struggle with this approach. Miraculous has made the unfortunate choice to tie the humor to parts of the narrative that have actual meaning to the audience. This undercuts the power of the humor, making it hard for some people to separate the humor from the actual character beats, so let’s step back and look at a show that did this right to show what I mean.

That’s right, folks, it’s time for more gushing about Kim Possible!

For today’s case study, we'll start with episode 17 of season one: The Twin Factor. In this episode, Kim is stuck babysitting her little brothers while on a mission to stop her arch nemesis. You may be thinking that Kim's "flaw" in this episode is the fact that she brings two 10-year-olds on a dangerous mission.

You would be wrong.

This is the lead-in to Kim bringing the twins along:

Kim: Er, speaking of forgetting, I totally spaced on the baby-sitting. Mrs. Dr. Possible: Kimmy, you made a commitment. Kim: Two commitments, actually. I'm suppose to go on a mission today. Mr. Dr. Possible: You'll just have to take the boys. Kim: Mom, can you please tell Dad that's a bad idea? Mrs. Dr. Possible: Oh, Kimmy. I'm sure Jim and Tim would love to visit a secret lab with you.

This is how you do absurdist humor. Is this technically horrible parenting? Yes, but there is no way that anyone is taking this seriously. It’s just so over the top that anyone trying to criticize the Possible’s behavior comes across as completely missing the point.

The other important factor is that Kim’s parents are played as genuinely loving and supportive parents, just in a really absurd way. This is a very natural bit of loving family dialogue about a totally ridiculous version of a normal family conflict. None of these three characters show off flaws that we expect to see address here save for their complete lack of concern about Kim’s life-risking adventures.

If Kim’s parents were shown to be genuinely neglectful or if Kim’s adventures were played more seriously, then this humor wouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it does. It would still be an obvious joke, but it would stumble the landing if you knew that the episode would go on to see Jim and Tim die. (They don’t, btw. The absurdist humor carries on, I’m just giving an extreme example of a plot beat that would kill – or at least weaken – this humor.)

Another example of Kim Possible doing absurdist humor right comes from the next episode in season one: Animal Attraction. In this episode, Kim is up against Senior Senior Senior, an eccentric billionaire who pursues villainy as a hobby, leading to exchanges like this one between him and his son:

Jr.: Did we not leave Kim Possible on a conveyor belt to her doom? Sr.: Yes. A proper villain always leaves his foe when he's about to expire. Jr.: Why? Sr.: Well, it would be bad form just to lull about, waiting for it. Jr.: Why? Sr.: Tradition!

This episode has a lot of moments like this. Moments where Jr asks why they don't do the obvious, more easy/effective thing and his father blows him off because that's not how villains do things! It's totally illogical logic and it's great. I love it! Perfect example of absurdist villains and a great way to keep the show from getting too serious. The writers never wanted you to feel like Kim was in over her head.

If you look at these two examples and compare them to Miraculous, you'll notice a big difference. While Miraculous does occasionally pull off good absurdist humor, a lot of the absurdist humor is more questionable because it's tied to the show's central conflicts.

As an example, let's talk about Marinette's inability to confess to Adrien and all the nonsense tied to that. Her many failures and attempts to know him better are clearly jokes, but they have this serious edge because the show has not set up the love square as nothing more than a source of humor. This is our end game couple. The audience expects to see their romance developed. The longer the show goes on without doing that and the more absurd Marinette's attempts get, the less the comedy works.

Another good example is Lila's lies. There is a solid argument to be made that the writers are trying to be funny with Lila's extremely obvious lies, but it doesn't work because the lies are a source of serious conflict. Lila is working with the villain! She gets Marinette expelled! We want to see her outed! Every obvious lie she tells just grates on our nerves because this is not the time for jokes!

To be fair, you can use absurdist humor in more serious shows. Another of my personal favorites is The Good Place, which relies heavily on absurdist humor, but has a very serious and heartfelt overall plot. The humor works there because the show knew when to use the humor and when to be serious and also because The Good Place is not a formula show. It's a serialized show. One big story told in 20-minute chunks. This meant that the humor had more room to breath and could be more closely tied to serious conflicts. When every story has to stand alone and be finished in 20-minutes, that blending rarely ever works. You're trying to do too much.

Kim Possible's writers knew this, too. The two tie-in movies (Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time and So the Drama) are still comedies, but they both have far more serious tones because they had the time to do that. While the episodes run about 20 minutes, both movies run a little over and hour which meant they could be more serious than in a standard episode.

So why did I write all that up? Because I was watching Kim Possible and thinking about how much better the humor generally was and I suddenly realized how easy it would be to be confused by Miraculous' humor if you didn't have this kind of background. I've seen enough absurdist humor to identify it with ease and even I struggle with Miraculous at times. Like I'm still not sure if Lila's lies are supposed to be a joke or not.

If you're new to absurdist humor or struggle to interpret less overt humor? Then I can see how you'd take Miraculous way more seriously than the writers intended because a lot of the absurdist humor simply isn't absurd enough. That doesn't change the fact that it's humor and I'm still going to treat it as such, but I can see why it goes right over some people's heads and leads to complaints like, "Marinette has his schedule for the next three years!!!" That was a joke, but I get why you're missing it.

[spotlightlowlife]

manipulating the audience hazbin a helluva easy feat

I will stop these titles one day

Anyone notice how Lucifer behaved a chauvinistic dude bro when faced with Adam, made worse that he was in the presence of his daughter.

So did Lucifer cheat on Lilith?

Or was this yet another sugar sugardaddy x sugarbaby power x pov exchange only with the inclusion of the most liberal woman ever?

Adam didn't initiate the gotcha girl and gotcha girl again mockery and gave no impression of caring about this, why was this the only thing Lucifer had to rub in his face? Adam would actually go on to open up about his envy of the sinners not appreciating him for being their ancestor.

Lucifer simply thinks sinners suck and agrees to the exterminations happening.

He is welcome to be smug.

This is just fine.

This franchise has a pattern of this, it gives the impression that this is intentional knowing full well that along as the audience backs the right horse, they can do no wrong, insert anything anywhere and loyalty or silence prevails.

We witness Angeldust, after persistently S harrassing Husk opening up about how he isn't as comfortable or confident about the world he's in. We see for ourselves that as sex positive as he tries to portray, he's nowhere near in control.

We then in a later episode witness Sir Pentious get SA as a gag, made worse that he was inebriated but still managed to do nothing but resist. This same episode Angeldust gets a serious scene standing up to his S predator.

Valentino is the prominent sexual predator of these stories, because Angledust is unhappy.

Elsewhere his royal, prehistoric 'good twin', Ozzie the prince of lust isn't to blame for the sexdolls he puts out of his lover Fizzoroli, the prince of greedy who shows no interest in sex outside of adding it to a checklist of things that sell is to blame, we are abruptly told this and guided to accept it because 'cute ship', even though that ship has moved into not so fun sugardaddy x sugarbaby territory, edging towards that of the awkward transactionship of powerful, bored prince Stolas and reluctant, disadvantaged little imp Blitzø, a predatory setup that's ok because both characters get the positive spotlight and Blitzø benefits and doesn't behave like a textbook victim.

Pentious didn't and did...

Stolas backstory is very significant, there is no sex positivity with his character, he was forced into a betrothal when he was a little child, forced into marriage as a teenager and made to have a child. His elders are to be honoured.

Who else found themselves in this exact same situation? Stella. They have an identical backstory.

Notice how, simply by switching some known characters around, Mammon and Fizz's interactions were a diluted spin on Blitzø and Moxxie? Fizz has a whole life away from Mammon, whose pageants chooses to compete in yearly, joint venture merchandise he promotes and phone calls he takes. He has a lover, a palace to roam around in and a day job. Blitzø works full time with Moxxie, breaks into his home, voyers on Moxxie and his wife, follows them on dates and has screwed their mutual ex for that reason.

Both Mammon and Blitzø push Fizz and Moxxie into work when they don't want to, however we have no evidence of Fizz always being reluctant, on the contrary we once saw him look forward to going to pageant rehearsal. Unlike Fizz however, Moxxie has shown open resistance to doing things in the form of crippling fear, reason and angry argument, it all makes no difference. Mammon commented on Fizz appearing to have gained weight however fat jokes aimed at Moxxie have been plentiful, something Blitzø has partook in.

The tone is that Mammon is the villain because Fizz is sad, Fizz who had not been shown to be another Moxxie previously but when it come time for him to be a victim, he was places into a Blitzø Moxxie relationship which this time around wasn't funny.

The tone alternatively is that Blitzø is eccentric, excusable and a fun lead to follow and Moxxie is the punching bag.

Notice how striker is a "supremisist" for wanting to bring down those at the top but it's perfectly ok for Blitzø to kill nobodies like himself.

elsewhere it's ok for Alastor to do the same to those like him with the reluctan support of Charlie who's goal it is to save these people.

Despite there existing an actual cannibal town, pimps and selling of souls being something she is acutely aware of, we are swayed to take Charlie's side as she sits in a position of power with her select besties at her hotel, that may have hard dr ugs on the premises, doing very little outreach even though we see community among extras, who does deals with literal lesser devils, in a world her dad created, her dad who allows exterminators to deal with who he sees as nuisances but she sees as 'family' and there's no conflict of interests, who do we see as the black and white baddies from day one? The angels.

Those who don't even sit at the top or know how things work to be specific.

Not Vaggie though.

Your favs are allowed to be dbags too, it doesn't make you reprehensible to see this and still like them!

[a-book-of-creatures]

What notable books (or author) on folklore and/or mythology would you consider to have reliable info, and which ones definitely don't? It's a broad ask, but what are the first names that come to mind?

Very good ask! I'll try to see if I can put my thoughts in words, but if you need any further examples or evaluations let me know.

Here's a general rule: primary sources are Good. Books that directly reference primary sources are Good. The more distance between a book and the primary source, the less reliable it gets. Always ask yourself, where is this book getting its information from? How does it present this information? If you're not dealing with primary sources, always check to see how information is presented and where possible errors could creep in.

For example...

Books like these are the gold standard for reliability. If I was handing out ratings, they would score a perfect 5 out of 5. Everything is extensively cited (the second book is practically all citations). You can't go wrong with these.

In general the more specialized a book is, the more reliable it is. So the excellent Meeting With Monsters gets a very respectable 4.5 out of 5. Very detailed info just about Icelandic monsters. Why not 5? The authors engage in some speculative creature building where they treat the monsters as real animals and invent features for them (the hrosshvalur has dorsal spines teeming with bacteria that infect the wounds it causes, for instance). But these are restricted to marginal notes and do not interfere with the actual information.

More general books generally get less reliable. Again, ask, where are those sources? What are they?

This one is often held up as the encyclopedia of mythical creatures currently in print. It's a decent starting point to start looking for things. It has sources and each entry is linked to its sources. The entries are written in a dry, concise encyclopedic style. But it relies far too much on second and third (and fourth, etc) hand sources. Scratch a little past the surface and you start finding weird mistakes, errors, inaccuracies. Snowballing misinformation. I would consider this to be of average reliability at best. A 2.5 out of 5 or so. Best used as a suggestion to dig into deeper, better things.

This one is a broad introduction to dragons, but instead of an encyclopedia, each "entry" (chapter?) is presented as a retelling of that story. And with that comes very low reliability and heavy use of secondary sources. The retellings make stuff up that isn't anywhere in the originals and miss a lot of the point of the stories - and spread misinformation that continues to propagate online. Also there's plenty of cryptozoology in there so eeehhhh.

This one is obviously aimed at a younger audience, but I'm mentioning it because of one amusing detail. It seems to be a good introduction for children to dragon mythology. Except it presents with a straight face the marsupial dragon as a dragon from Australia. The marsupial dragon, you know, which was written into Dragonology as a joke? And Dragonology wouldn't even have made my primary-source-reliability anyway! Some due-diligence was not duly diligenced, if I may say so.

Then there are books that are just... confusing.

Like anything by Pierre Dubois. On the surface they seem well-researched. But the references and cross-references are more opaque than... uh... a very opaque thing. He clearly has a lot of them, but it's anyone's guess where the information he got came from (no cross-referencing, you see). Combine that with him just making stuff up to pad page numbers and it's never clear what is "true" and what he wrote (and some of it is distasteful, not going to lie). Sometimes he even misses the interesting part of legends just to write his own stories. The most charitable take is that this is literary fantasy, and maybe what he's said can be traced to actual reliable folkloric sources, but after having used him as a source of information I cannot recommend him. You could also argue that Dubois never does claim that this is a scholarly reference, but it sure is presented as one.

I have so far restricted myself to books that claim (or seem to claim) to be references on myth, legend, and folklore. Books that engage in speculative "creature building" (e.g. Dragonology, The Flight of Dragons, etc) would not be reliable as references, but they're still great books. You just wouldn't use them as sources of information.

... or would you? Sometimes non-reference books get treated as such, and then the information they made up gets reified by being parroted uncritically by later books. Like Woodruff's book above. A fake "long-lost expedition journal" by Pliny the Elder, it's an excuse for (gorgeous) art and Latin practice. Except that some of the made-up stuff in there found its way out of the book and - uncited - ended up in supposedly serious works. Like the Pyrallis being a dragon, or the two-headed Hyperborean frogs. Confusing. It even got a minor news mention because people were taking it seriously!

Anyway, how about you? Any books you find reliable or unreliable?

[secretmellowblog]

I hope tumblr doesn’t die because No other social media site is as good for long, thoughtful, nuanced analyses of media. Yeah tumblr is also full of dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts, but you can make dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts anywhere —-there are no other popular social media sites that let you easily format and share long essays on the media you enjoy, and then have conversations around those long essays.

Fandom on all the other big social websites just seems so utterly …shallow. And it’s not because people on other websites aren’t thoughtful or don’t have deep things to say, but because these sites’ formats do not allow for any kind of long nuanced conversations.

Tiktok? Things have to be crammed into a super short video with an attention grabbing headline, and you can’t hyperlink sources. Instagram? Everything has to be in an image format with strict limits on length, and nothing will be shown to your followers anyway because of how Instagram’s algorithm works, and also no hyperlinks. Twitter? Strict character limits, and if you split it into threads it means someone can retweet a part of your essay completely out of context, and also very little freedom with formatting.

It frustrates me so much. If I go into the Tumblr Les Mis fandom I’ll find really compelling long essays on the original novel (including essays being written for the ongoing book club) on the story’s historical context, or the parallels between different characters and their narrative foils, or the way the politics were defanged for certain adaptations, or the way Victor Hugo’s personal life and failings affected the novel. But on tiktok I’ll get the same five shallow stale jokes from 2013 over and over, or maybe the same “DID U KNO THAT IN THE MUSICAL JAVERT AND VALJEAN SING THE SAME LEITMOTIF” style of basic Intro To Les Mis 101 For Babies media analysis (which is what Tiktok considers deep media analysis), or stale “LOL JAVERT ACTS GAY” style jokes as if we’re living in the early 2000s and calling a character gay is still a funny punchline. And it’s impossible to have any kind of deeper thoughtful discussions than “DID U KNOW <x Kool Fact>” or “lol <shallow observational joke>” on tiktok because the platform just isn’t built for building niche communities around in depth conversations. it’s built to churn out bland generic content for as wide an audience as possible, which means pointing out a small detail like an Easter egg and calling it “cool” is deep media analysis, because you cant have longer more in depth conversations without alienating people. And I hate it. Bc like, it’s not because there aren’t smart clever thoughtful people on Tiktok— there are—it’s because Tiktok isn’t built for these conversations, and anyone who wants to have them has to really fight against the things the website encourages or prioritizes!

Or like, if I go into the LOTR fandom on Tumblr, I’ll find tons of extremely long analysis and fanfic, and analysis of queer readings of the story. On Instagram people will still shriek in terror if you suggest the characters are gay, and most of the popular lotr posts are stale memes recycled from like 2007. There’s really no room for thoughtful media analysis, and even if you did create it, instagram’s algorithm would make sure no one saw your post anyway.

And everyone’s going to say “the algorithm shows you what you’ve seen before so maybe it’s your fault ~” or whatever but i do look for things I want! I do! “The algorithm” doesn’t know me or what I want or value or care about beyond this meaningless surface level.

The only thing that was worthwhile about these sites was the great visual art people were creating, but now the websites are overwhelmed with meaningless soulless machine-generated AI glurge, and it sucks. It just really, really sucks.

I’m honestly confused about why people don’t use tumblr….There’s no character limits! You have freedom with post formatting, and can insert images throughout textposts to illustrate specific points you’re making beneath the paragraphs where they’re necessary! You can add hyperlinks, linking to your sources! People can reblog your entire essay and share it, and then add on with commentary that then becomes part of a larger conversation! People can find your stuff through the tagging system! Reblogging means posts stay in circulation for years instead of being dead 30 minutes after they’re uploaded! If you want to have genuinely interesting text conversations about a piece of media, there really isn’t a better social media website for it anywhere.

To be clear, I’m definitely not saying Tumblr media analysis is *always* clever and thoughtful or etc etc. there are shitposts and nonsense here too (plenty of which I’ve created lol.) I’m saying that Tumblr gives people the tools for in-depth insightful analysis to happen. Whether people choose to do it or not is their own decision XD. But the reason lengthy in-depth conversations and book clubs are even possible here is because Tumblr is built for allowing these conversations to happen, in a way other sites simply aren’t.

It’d really suck if it died, because it’d be a huge blow to…being able to easily find long insightful in-depth media analysis written by fans. I currently don’t think there’s anything that could replace it.

[rescue-ram]

Hawkahy opinion: I don't think Hawkeye has a priest kink.

Obviously a big reason people would be into shipping the priest is because they're titillated by the concept of priestfucking more broadly, and of all the weird stuff people project onto their blorbos a benign and relatively common fetish is fucking nothing lol.

But tbh it does scan as kind of out of character to me. Like I just don't buy that Hawkeye would be into priest fucking, and if anything I think it would be a bit of a turn off.

When I was first mulling on this, I was kind of like "Well maybe he'd be turned on by the priest thing not because of the priesthood specifically but just the general naughtiness of breaking taboos..." but then I realized that Hawkeye almost never expressed genuine sexual interest in anyone who isn't a conventionally attractive, single, and uncomplicatedly sexually available woman- and the few times it is complicated he's legitimately squicked out and put off. I just think of he was going to be turned on by the idea of breaking vows he'd be into adultery at least as much as Margaret is lmao.

Plus, he's not Catholic, he wasn't raised Catholic, we have no reason to think he was even raised in a "high church" liturgical Protestant tradition. How and why would he have the life experiences to form the associations that make up a priestkink?

Hawkeye likes Mulcahy and respects him, but I think that has 0% to do with him being a priest. Mulcahy could be literally anything but if he conducted himself and related to Hawkeye in more or less the same way, I think he'd still like him just as much.

I will say that I think on both a Watsonian and Doylist level, the fact that Mulcahy is a priest frees him up to flirt with Hawkeye in a way that's a little different from other characters. Generally, Hawkeye flirting with men is treated as a joke in itself, but there still needs to be a little "no homo" at the end of it. This usually comes in an annoyed rebuff or outrage, or the joke being ignored and not commented upon. If the person flirts back, it has to be very obviously a joke. With Mulcahy, any flirting at all is a joke because of the implied taboo of the priesthood- the characters and the audience both know this ain't going anywhere. There is a different quality to their flirtation, because they don't have to immediately defuse the joke, so there's several scenes I can think of that have a warm or sincere vibe, where Hawkeye's teasing is a little gentler than normal and Mulcahy seems genuinely amused or flattered.

But again, that vibe kind of hinges on nothing actually happening. I think if Mulcahy was genuinely interested, Hawkeye would be totally thrown off, and tbh I think he'd find sexual inexperience to be a turn off as well- his taste in women would suggest he prefers partners who are sexually confident. I don't imagine it would be a completely insurmountable difference, but I do see it as an obstacle for a hypothetical relationship to overcome rather than an incentive for it to exist.

But really, all of this is a preamble to my TedX talk on why "Hawkeye gets turned on by roleplay emphasizing Mulcahy's priesthood" is overshadowing the underrated high camp potential of "Mulcahy gets turned on by roleplaying being a frat boy with Hawkeye"-

[secretlywritingstories]

no but seriously imagine it | phan one shot

Summary: It has been 15 years since Dan and Phil met. They wake up on the Terrible Influence tour bus in Las Vegas on their anniversary with plans to see My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy later that day.

Word count: 2.5k

Tags: 2024!phan, reality, tour bus, sleepy cuddles, introspection, anniversary

No warnings

A/N: Happy phannie day! I hadn't planned to write something but I woke this morning with so many feels and they had to go somewhere! Despite the name, it only references the tumblr post.

Read on AO3 or below

Phil had called it fate. Dan had countered that it was a coincidence.

Yet, they formed their schedule around it.

Phil had reminded him of the meme that had been going around. Of them, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco. Back when the bands were never likely to be active at the same time again and the two of them had yet to leave the closet. Clearly, just some tumblr shitpost, an emo multistan wanting to shove all of their interest into one singular moment for the heck of it. But well… all except P!ATD, they’ve kind of got a lot of cards lined up to be knocked down rather neatly.

Down to a festival with MCR and FOB being held on the anniversary of the day that him and Phil met. So, if they made sure to have that date free and be on tour right around Las Vegas, could anyone really blame them? Besides, they’re still emo and fanboys at heart too. It’s one of the reasons that they get their audience like this. They know what it’s like. They also just wanted to be at that festival for the music. A blast from the past.

Yet, it’s something strange to wake on the tour bus, assumably safely arrived in Las Vegas after the drive from Los Angeles. The two of them had stayed up late, wired from the LA show and the crew has clearly been letting them sleep in, even if they’re going to check into a hotel now.

The bed is surprisingly comfortable for a tour bus. Big enough that him and Phil can fit easily, even with their long limbs. No pretending to sleep anywhere but next to each other.

Phil is usually the first one to wake up back at home, but he’ll happily spend at least half an hour right upon waking to scroll TikTok, phone right up in his face to see without his glasses. He’ll only drop the phone if Dan snuggles close and distracts him. Lazy mornings are good.

This cannot be too lazy a morning. They need to be on the move. They’ve got plans for today. It’s a special day after all. A decade and a half. Holy shit, how is that real?

Dan snuggles close to Phil, uncaring if he wakes him. He kind of wants that to happen. Sleeping Phil is beautiful but it’s not just Phil’s appearance that Dan loves, though it is a nice bonus. It’s the mind inside of the man. The personality, the way he jokes, the way he smiles, the way he creates art, the way he holds onto Dan.

Dan was 17 years old when he clicked on an AmazingPhil video for the first time and it had felt like something clicked within him in turn. An instant obsession, he’d thought at the time. Binged all of the videos on his channel. Sat ready for the new ones to drop, so he could watch them immediately. Waited for a few months to tweet at Phil directly. Shoot his shot with this handsome emo boy with a mind so fascinating that it made Dan curious to learn more.

Because the fascination hadn’t lessened, only gotten worse. And now he knew it would only grow and grow.

Back then, he'd dreamt up scenarios of Phil replying. Scenarios of them getting together and living happily ever after. He was a lonely teenager who’d never had a best friend, and he was yearning in a way that felt like it consumed his whole being. He had seriously imagined it.

The vision he’d had ended up coming true in many ways. Maybe Dan should pride himself the psychic one instead of Phil.

Phil stirs a little as Dan pulls him into his arms. Little grunts of half-awareness, not enough to be fully awake, but he still moves closer on instinct. Arms heavy with sleep but reaching for Dan all the same.

Dan couldn’t have predicted this reality for them though. Not in his wildest dreams. YouTube had been a silly hobby for the both of them. He’d only started because of Phil. Wanted to be like him in every way back in the beginning. It was a good excuse for arranging a meet up, when it felt too big to admit that he just wanted to hang out. Be friends, lovers or maybe even something more than just romantic.

It’s because of Phil that Dan got to create so many things that he is proud of. This career that he’s not sure he’d ever have had, if it wasn’t for Phil deciding to turn on that camera back in 2007.

The career that they’ve built together is important. It has made them this life. But it’s not Dan’s favourite part. It could never be, especially when he has got Phil gradually waking up in his arms like this.

His breathing changes slowly, sleep clinging to his body as Phil clings to Dan’s, but it’s a lost cause. He’s been disturbed enough that he’ll wake now. He blinks up at Dan’s face, undoubtedly mostly seeing a blurry outline.

Yet, he smiles, because he always did have an uncanny ability to look right into Dan. It’s got nothing to do with his vision.

“You’re up early,” Phil says, only to close his eyes and snuggle closer to Dan again. Hiding his face in his shoulder and letting out a low hum.

“It’s our anniversary according to the internet,” Dan says instead of acknowledging what Phil said.

Honestly, it’s a day that they’ve just let go by without much fanfare most years. It’s a time where their audience loves to make edits and art of all kinds to celebrate the moment that Dan took the train up to Manchester and they met for the first time. That first selfie in the Apple Store where their much smaller audience was excited to see them together. Oh, the thousands of selfies that have followed after that first one.

You couldn’t have told those two kids. They couldn’t have known. Even if Dan had been hoping. For something long-lasting. For forever.

Iconic, when he struggles with commitment in so many other ways.

But never about Phil. It was strange how he was so certain about him, right from the start. Maybe he was just a hopeful adolescent, so full of yearning, but even back then, nothing had felt like finding Phil. Of meeting him, of loving him.  

“Blessed day,” Phil mutters, still clearly tired.

He makes no mention of the fact that it took them a little while longer to put a label on it, but it hadn’t mattered. Not really. Labels have always been one of Dan’s enemies. He felt like nothing could quite capture him well enough, and even now, he feels like nothing can quite capture his and Phil’s relationship still. Perhaps that’s why he’s so prone to spin so many tales and metaphors of it, still grasping for words that can finally encompass all of it.

He is not sure he’ll ever find it, but he doesn’t mind.

Not as long as Phil stays right here, while he weaves each declaration into existence.

Dan reaches down to play with Phil’s hair. Still quite pristine blond in its current condition. The bleach has been a little harder on the hair, but Phil is doing a good job not letting it get too damaged. Takes care of it with that purple shampoo and all that.

Back when they met, Phil was dying his hair black and now he dyes it blond.

Back when they met, Dan straightened his curl into submission, now he allows them to live their best hobbit life.

Dark to light, constraints to freedom. Growth even in their appearances, like all they’ve matured couldn’t help but shine out of them.

“I’m excited for the show tonight,” Phil says, eyes still closed and breathing heavy. He could slip back into sleep if Dan would let him.

“We’re not performing tonight,” Dan says, hand still moving through Phil’s hair. Petting him. He knows that’s not what Phil means but he loves to tease.

Sure enough, Phil pinches his hip. Hard. Enough to hurt really, but no touch from Phil truly hurts. It just makes Dan laugh.

“The festival. It’ll bring me back to my youth.”

“Sure, old man,” Dan says.

It earns him another pinch, this time to his thigh and fair enough, this one does hurt a little. But it stings in a nice way. Grounds him and just makes his smile widen. Phil’s hands all over him is always a good thing.

Before Phil, he was touch-starved. Still feels it creep in when they’re apart for too long. Last time he was in USA doing We’re all doomed, they had gone the longest ever without seeing each other. The touch-starvation came back full force then. Dan was pretty sure he tried to live inside of Phil’s skin when he got back.

He’s so glad they’re back on this continent together for Terrible Influence. He loved doing his solo tour, but this feels right. Not like when he kept turning around with his eyes searching for Phil on instinct.

“I will bite you,” Phil threatens.

And he would. If Dan asked real nicely.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Stop being horny, I’m trying to threaten you,” Phil says but his voice is dancing along the words. Way too amused for them to have any effect.

“Do you think you’ll cry? Hearing the music?” Dan asks, pulling Phil even closer. They’d be fused together soon, but he feels the chill along his spine, remembering the month where he couldn’t touch him.

The only way to starve it off is bringing himself back to this moment. Phil in his arms. Dan might never let go.

“No,” Phil says, and his voice is flat. Deadpan. But then it softens a little. “It’ll be very cool though. To have those two sharing the stage.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees, but his mind is drifting again.

That’s the thing with collaboration, isn’t it? If you have two people, you really like, it’s only natural to want to bring them together. To see what would happen to have them side by side. Maybe they’ll enhance each other.

Like him and Phil did.

Dan is under no illusion that the two of them would be here if they’d decided to keep their private life entirely private. If they’d never done another video after that first pinof, the interest would not have grown to what it had been.

No, they bound themselves to each other in every way a human really can. Professionally, emotionally, romantically, sexually, reputationally, creatively, socially, physically.

Their very souls could be mates, if you believe in such a thing. It’s hard to remain a cynic about soulmates when you live a life like Dan does. But he will die on that hill. Maybe his and Phil’s souls are made of the same stardust, or whatever, but they are the ones who took fate into their own hands.

Dan saw Phil and reached out. Phil heard him and reached back.

He’ll not let some cosmic force take all of that from them. The cosmic force was not there when they struggled with privacy and uncertainty and all of it coming so close to boiling over. How they weathered the storm and found calmer seas again.

Even when those calmer seas made Dan was to visit land for a while. To feel the ground underneath his feet again. To have Phil be the one on the ship, and after a while, hand stretched and tempting with just a short voyage. To see what would happen.

Dan hadn’t been sure. He hadn’t trusted his own brain. But he’d trusted Phil. Believed him when he said that it would all work out.

And now they’re back on that ship and it’s faster than ever. Gliding through the waves as easily as nothing. Made stronger by all that its endured. Fifteen years on the sea.

It’s Phil’s fingertips on Dan’s chest that brings him back. Pressure, right where his heart is beating. His eyes are open now, and he’s propped himself up on the elbow. Still no glasses, so he can’t see shit, but he looks at Dan like he can.

“What are you doing?” Dan asks.

“Checking your heart, but it’s not racing. Thought maybe you were panicking.”

He can do that sometimes. In the existential crises, when the thoughts spiral too far, too deep, for him to make head or tails of it all. Phil was always the best person to bring him out of it.

“I wasn’t,” Dan answers honestly. “Just thinking about us. Nothing can panic me about that.”

Phil’s snort is telling enough.

Dan reconsiders. “Nothing can panic me about that anymore.”

“Good,” Phil says and then it’s his whole palm on Dan’s chest. Warm and alive. Steady, like the beat in Dan’s heart. “We should get up.”

He lets go of Dan to roll over to the other side of the bed and put on his glasses. He’s just thrown them on, and they’re crooked. Dan sits up and fixes them for him. Phil lets him. Habit.

He still looks sleepy and like he could melt back into Dan’s embrace. Dan might let him, if he didn’t know that soon they’ll find a knock on their door and be told they can check into their hotel room for the night.

It’ll be good to take a shower. Phil still doesn’t let anyone take a shower on the bus.

“We’re got the whole day until tonight. What do you want to do?” Dan asks.

He sees it, the way an idea flickers into Phil’s eyes. Something funny or sentimental. Dan perks up a little before he’d even opened his mouth.

“Starbucks.”

One word. Oh, so simple. But a reference all the same. That’s sentimental. And fun.

They do love a good memory. Hoards them in boxes and store them away safely to be revisited. Their history is special to them. And to their audience, who embarrassingly sometimes know the history better than themselves. They’ll never admit that though, and the audience will never see everything. Just the glimpses that they allow.

But sharing is fun. Having so many people care used to scare Dan but it doesn’t anymore. He and Phil know that they know. It’s been acknowledged and it’s only made things better.

“Sure, we’ll get you Starbucks with Dan,” Dan says and pulls the face, lips pulled taunt and just the barest hint of lifts in the corner. As square as he can make it to mimic the emoji that accompanied that tweet.

Phil tries to shove him off the bed. Fails and just falls into him instead. It ends in laughter, and tangled bodies, because of course it does.

They’ve never been able to resist getting tangled up in each other.

And it’s fitting to start the day with an old reference. Maybe it won’t be the only one today.

[a-humble-bagel]

i could be wrong, but i’m pretty sure that “Wednesday” is the first form of The Addams Family that isn’t satire (I haven’t seen the 2019 and 2021 movies and idk if I ever will).

This just leads to some interesting new perspectives because now a lot of people are trying to rationalize/moralize some of Wednesday’s actions which is interesting because no one’s ever had to do that before. 

I think the lack of satire also makes some of the Addams’ actions in the show a little confusing, like how they seem to love all things dark and murderous but then when Gomez gets accused of murder they act as though it’s a terrible thing (I know this can be rationalized by saying that they were scared of the consequences he’d face, but honestly it would’ve been nice if it didn’t have to be rationalized in the first place). 

The thing with satire is that their actions never had to be rationalized because it was funny. Sure, it was dark humour, but you could tell that it was a joke. It was obvious that the point of those dark jokes was to entertain, and those weren’t the morals the story was preaching. Take this scene in “The Addams Family Values” for example where Wednesday sets Amanda on fire: 

It’s obvious that the movie isn’t telling you “set the people who bully you on fire”, because it’s obviously satire. To find the actual message, you have to look deeper into the dark campiness to find the heart of what the story is about. Satires are exaggerations of real life problems, and The Addams Family looks at the flaws within the “ideal American family”. This scene is telling the audience to stand up to bullies, that adults can be blind and part of the problem, not to bully outcasts/people who seem weird, that history is often sanitized, and that colonialism is bad. It’s also a badass moment that feels great because Wednesday and the other “weird” kids are finally getting revenge on a bunch of rude and horrible people.

Now compare that to the scene in “Wednesday” where Wednesday tortures Tyler. True, the scenes take place in very different contexts. Tyler is someone who has physically hurt people, including Wednesday’s friend, so it’s more personal. In this scene, it isn’t just justice she’s after, it’s cold-hearted vengeance (that may be mixed with some feelings of being hurt).. With Amanda, it’s more lighthearted as Amanda never killed anyone. Nevertheless, in both scenes, Wednesday gets violent revenge on someone who’s wronged her, but the message in the TV show is that torture is bad. The Nightshades turn their backs on Wednesday, and she faces consequences for her actions. And that brings me to my next point: consequences.

In “Wednesday”, The Addams family has to face actual legal consequences. In the 90s movies, they only had to face social consequences. Even though they did all those horrifying terrible things, the only repercussions they got were disdain and annoyance from the other characters, which isn’t much of a repercussion. Even in “The Addams Family” when Tully throws them out of their house, the police are never involved, and the thought of the Addams’ going to jail doesn’t even cross the audience’s mind. This is partly what allows them to wholeheartedly engage in macabre and murderous things: the narrative doesn’t punish them for it, and they never face serious consequences. 

After all, if the Addams’ in the 90s movies faced serious consequences, the narrative wouldn’t go anywhere. If the storyline allowed the Addams’ to be arrested, then the judge at the start likely would’ve called the police when Gomez kept hitting golf balls through his window. Gomez would’ve been arrested, and the story couldn’t progress. As a satire, the 90s movies require there to be a lack of police in order to convey the messages of the films. That way, the Addams’ can do all of their usual spooky and dangerous things, which convey the deeper lessons of the story. However, “Wednesday” took away the satire and added in the police.

From the start, the Addams’ are treated as not “ordinary” people, but they no longer exist outside of the law. This is shown in the very first episode, when Wednesday puts the piranhas in the pool. Morticia later mentions that “the boy’s father wanted to press attempted murder charges”. That is a huge difference from the 90s movies. If this was a scene in one of the 90s movies, Wednesday likely would’ve still been expelled, but it would’ve been something she was smugly satisfied about, and there would be no the threat of legal actions. 

In other words, the previous versions of The Addams Family were all treated as satire characters, which allowed them to get away with things that they wouldn’t be able to do in the real world (playing with death/dangerous activities/torture) without the narrative punishing them for it, and without them facing real consequences. Satires require exaggeration, so extremes had to be allowed. However, “Wednesday” treated The Addams’ as regular characters, and had them face consequences like being arrested and jail. This makes it feel like they’re all bark and no bite: it seems like they talk about death and violence but deep down, they abhor it.

This is what made Gomez’s arrest seem somewhat contradictory. The Addams talk so much about how they love death, so why did Wednesday and Morticia have to go to such lengths to prove that he didn’t kill anyone? And Wednesday’s comment at the end of the episode about how she knows Gomez couldn’t really kill anyone just reinforces the idea that the Addams’ are all bark and no bite.

 Besides, whether or not the Addams’ themselves actually disapproved of Gomez murdering someone, the narrative disapproved of it. The story punishes Gomez for potentially being a murderer, just like it punishes Wednesday for torturing Tyler. Since the Addams’ aren’t satire characters in this interpretation, it can’t allow them to go to the same extremes as satire characters, it has to punish them, otherwise it would convey the message “torture and murder are good”.

This isn’t a criticization of how the show interpreted the Addams’, it’s just a neat thing I started thinking about and then decided to write out. 

tldr: The Addams’ aren’t satire in “Wednesday”, so while they still have the same values/talk the same way as their 90s movie counterparts, the narrative has to have them face serious consequences so it doesn’t convey the wrong message.

[semi-imaginary-place]

Why Sukuna is interesting

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

vii. the monster stands at the threshold… of becoming

(https://counttwinkula.tumblr.com/post/734263414967484416)

Sure there's the power fantasy cool aspect, Sukuna is designed by Akutami to be a cool character this is why we all joke that the author is Sukuna's biggest simp. He gets 3+ character designs, he's designed to be very distinctive and visually striking between the blood red eyes, the tattoos, the painted nails, or 4 arms. Like Gojo, Sukuna is hyped up to be super powerful and given cool visually stunning powers. Shrine looks really cool, that's it. Narratively Sukuna is presented as powerful, most of his fights are Akutami showing off how cool he is, defeating opponents like Jogo or Makora in epic battles or showing how powerful he is to the major antagonists of the series like Mahito. Sukuna has some of the heaviest symbolism surrounding him (again along with Gojo), everything from his philosophy and hedonistic lifestyle form a sort of anti-Buddhism imagery. He has such heavily religious imagery I mean his technique is Shine. Sukuna stands out with his archaic and poetic speech patterns and religious imagery in an otherwise very modern visually series. There's this striking contrast between elegance and visual brutality with Sukuna. It is difficult to find anywhere else, it makes him memorable.

Major villain

But from a trans perspective he's especially interesting. His body is freaky, he's got 4 eyes and 4 arms and a tummy mouth. His form invokes both fear and awe (and really isn't that the goal). And the important part is that he has control over it, Sukuna can manifest an additional mouth on Yuji's body, he can from body parts at a whim, he can morph and stretch his body however he wants (whatever that was with angel). He has a very strong body motif though out the series even on to the end his final domain expansion held together with duct tape a hope and a prayer has the form of amalgamated and warped body parts. Even as he's ripped from Fushiguro he struggles to form a body out of nothing but will power, melting into a fleshy blob. The body motif is so strong, he's a fleshy visceral character. And who doesn't want to shape their ow flesh to their will.

I keep thinking about Sukuna in regards to Cohen's Monstery Theory which is just so incredibly trans already. Sukuna is monstrous both in universe and to the audience. He is the epitomy of calamity to jujutsu sorcerers, mythologized and raised the the deified status of natural disaster, an inhuman force beyond reason and human comprehension. He is turned from human to curse and Sukuna embraces this choosing to the end of his life to be seen as a curse rather than a human sorcerer. "Being the odd one out became unbearable so I just became what they feared" and all. In this way I find it extremely important that Akutami and the narrative recognize Sukuna as undeniably human in the end even if the vast majority of characters never do. Unlike Mahito who will dissolve and the fear of other humans reform into a new curse, Sukuna rejoins the reincarnation cycle of souls. Sukuna was not a cursed spirit in the technical sense but he made himself in a Curse through his own work and power, something dreaded as a spectre by sorcerers something more than human. People cursed a deformed child so he threw away his humanity (jin) and lived as the monstrous. Sukuna is presented as a cannibal because it's true but also to vilify him yet he doesn't eat anyone during the manga, but you know who does? Yuta. The thing that made Sukuna monstrous is revealed to be jujutsu society hypocrisy and cannibalism is a recurring thing in jujutsu.

One of the first lines in jjk drawn is that between curse and sorcerer. Sukuna blurs this line as for much of the series the audience is made to believe he is a curse and even after revealing him as another reincarnated sorcerer, he continues to blur the line between curse and sorcerer and exist ambiguously between the two. In this way Sukuna acts as a disruptor of social norms, threatening sorcerer society just by existing. He isn't what a sorcerer should be he isn't what a human should be, but still he exists. He exists as an Other both inside and out of fiction, to be envied, feared, hated, fought against, and desired. But what of Sukuna himself? So I have empathy for the Monstrous, the Other.

[let-me-be-an-egg-toast]

redesigns your PLA (irida, ingo, arezu)

genuinely sorry to arezu fans

Why I redesigned them/unhinged angry misspelling rant/commentary (dont read further/skip this post if u don't wanna see my absolutely disrespectfully takes fr)

Read all of this in a joking and unserious manner, or basically take with a grain of salt

Now before I start this absolute rage rant, I shall say

GAME FREAK.

GAME

FREAK

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST

WHO THE FUCK WAS YOUR CHARACTER DESIGNER FOR PLA???

DID YALL JUST GIVE UP ON MOST OF THE CHARACTERS?? BECAUSE YALL RLLY JUST SLAPPED AN OBI BELT, HOODIE, AND/OR KIMONO TOP PART ON CHARACTERS AND CALLED IT A FUCKING DAY

ONLY A FEW MADE IT OUT ALIVE, and no VOLO WASNT ONE OF THEM

CHSRACTER DESIGNS R LITERALLY SUPPOSED TO COMMUNICATE TO US HOW OUR CHARACTER IS LIKE + THE WORLD AROUND THEM

YOU ALREADY FUCKED THE LATTER PART UP BECAUSE 1800s

EIGHT 👏 TEEN 👏 HUNDREDS 👏

And then look at what clothing we have.

Time to officially get into the designs, part 1.

Irida

.

..

WOW. REALLY? REALLY??? WELL I DDINT FUCKING KNOW THAT. YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I WAS BUSY THIKING IRIDA'S APPEARANCE MEANT SHE WAS IN WARMER AREAS

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST WITH THAT HOT PINK, BLUE TUBE BRACE/ANKLETS, AND SHORTS I WOULDVE THOUGHT SHE WAS A SUMMER GIRL FROM MODERN TIMES

THE BELT DIDNT EVEN SAVE HER ASS, IT MADE HER A LITTLE UNIQUE BUT IT DIDNT SAVE HER ASS

so I made her iridescent

Like a pearl, y'know? Cuz....pearl clan...pearl clan leader...

her pink is gonna be a little more desaturated + faded, also some lighter pink, some hints of purple, also the fact white and silver is now gonna dominate and her hair is platinum blonde

I made her side hairs spiky to mimic glaceon's ear things, also made irida's headdress a spiky thing cuz icicles yk and the bracelets are now thinner and metal

Also FUR. FUR. INSULATION.

I want irida to willingly wear some hypothermia-inducing clothes because maybe she wants to truly feel the cold or some shit but ofc have insulation in order to tell the audience she belongs in cooler climates YK YK???

I do think as a clan leader who's literally living near the mountaintops and cold areas she deserves to at least have some calloused hands or scars

I tried to keep her young look, but because I'm absolutely shit at drawing anything young, she looks a bit older, so sorry folks. Ik the looking older thing might be good but I thought it was interesting if I kept her youth to contrast her personality and role

Also don't mind that weird thing on her obi belt it's gonna be where the symbol of the Pearl Clan is now

me when I think I've finally calmed down, but my rage gets back up, because I have no chill

SCREAMS

DONT YOU LOVE HOW THE MOST IRONIC THING EVER IS THAT THE PIECES OF CLOTHING FROM THE MODERN ERA MAKING THE LOOK OLD FITTING BUT THE CLOTHES OF THE PAST MAKES IT LOOK MODERN?

CRYING

THEY GAVE MY BOY A GLORIFIED HOODIE AND CALLED IT A DAY

WHAT IS BRO DOING WITH SLACKS AND DRESS SHOES IN THE FREAKING MOUNTAINS???

THAT SHITS GONNA RIP UP/SCRATCH IMMEDIATELY BRO

I GET YOURE CONNECTED TO THESE PIECES OF CLOTHING BUT DEAR ARCEUS INGO HOLY SHIT

sighs

so I gave him an actual kimono which he tied up the ends like what irida did, and gave him more fitting clothing

that's for the mountains

Also he wears the belt outside of his coat because I personally think he does NOT want to go anywhere WITHOUT his coat no matter how hot it is so he ties to him using the belt

He only has fur cuffs because I also think he didn't let anyone massively change his coat because ofc it's precious to him

Also I made the white parts of his coat dirtier and grey because I tried putting fur on it and it looked like shit

Something something the white of emmet being forgotten and lost and the new white of ingo's design being given by the pearl clan

out of the three he's actually the better design, which isn't really a high bar to pass but still, that shit underclothing needed to GO

...

Do you ever just

Look at a character

And you immediately know it's a "discreetly sexualized" design?

Yeah

And this was before I saw the character concept sheet

OH MY GOD BRUH

JUST A GLORIFIED HOODIE AND LEGGINGS AND MODERN ASS BOOTS

SHE COULD FIT IN THE MODERN WORLD AND YOU WOULD HAVE NO IDEA

SAY IM WRONG - SAY IM FUCKING WRONG

GAME FREAK

GAME 👏 FREAK 👏

THE FUCKING 1800S MY GUY

and the fact I didn't even get anything about her actual personality from her looks? Like she looks smug?? AND THEN I FIND OUT ABOUT WHAT SHES ACTUALLY LIKE??

IDC IF U WANTED A TWIST GAME FREAK (SINCE U LOVE THOSE SO MUCH) DO IT RIGHT

MAKE HER LOOK CONFIDENT SMUG, NOT SLIGHTLY SULTRY SMUG

HONESTLY IDC IF SHES KINDA DISCREETLY SEXUALIZED, SHES SUPPOSED TO BE CANONICALLY ATTRACTIVE AFTER ALL - DO IT RIGHT

MAKE HER LOOK LIKE SHES FROM THE OLDEN TIMES, NOT MODERN ERA

SIGHS

Hayst (filipino)

ik I posed her like shit but basically

I kept the mars hair, but added more tufts to try and connect her to liligant

Her red hair is also gonna contrast the green tones of her new clothing (the symbol is now at the back), and she's gonna be a little more tomboyish, and she's gonna look all confident smirk to cover up how she actually feels

Anyways that's it I just might re-pose Arezu later but if you made it this far have a pinap berry for being able to go through my pathetic rant

THANKS FOR READING!