#but I really do think there are many ways they could execute this plot

[cryptidliker]

Just heard about Sonic 3 sorry for my loss

[uriekukistan]

i wanna talk about this thing gege said

i’ve seen a lot of people saying that this is a bad way to write a story, and i couldnt disagree more. from a writer’s perspective, there is no reason to kill off a character if it’s not going to have impact.

in any case, i think this reaction points out two things i’ve noticed about the jjk fandom.

i. jjk fans prioritize enjoyment of characters over the plot

which is fine, i guess. i’m not gonna begrudge any readers the space to enjoy their fav characters. however, what i disagree with is the constant trashing of gege and jjk as a story because the narrative doesnt treat the characters as you want it to.

i mostly talk about these things from the perspective of someone who has been writing for a while, so i will take a second to acknowledge from the reader perspective. it’s easy to get attached to characters and see them as real people in your life.

but they arent real people. they only exist for the author’s intentions. every time i see someone complain that “x character only died because plot” i just think “yes?” characters exist for the plot. they exist to serve the narrative. they live and die for the plot, and that isn’t a bad thing. this is a story. that is how stories work.

with characters like gojo or choso, it’s easy to look back and see their character arcs and how their ends fit their purpose in the story, but i think people get so caught up in wanting to fuck the character, or fanon, that they forget their original purpose is to do what gege wants them to do.

this is a war against the most powerful, most evil sorcerer in history. of course characters are going to die, and of course it’s going to be characters we love. it’s honestly unrealistic to expect anything else.

and i think it’s really disrespectful to say so many rude things to gege because he is thinking about the story he wants to tell, and not the story that best suits your favorite character.

ii. few people want to feel anything from what they’re reading anymore

which again, is totally fine, but maybe read something else?

tragic stories have existed and enjoyed immense popularity for millennia. and theres nothing wrong with that. there’s nothing wrong with authors intentionally stirring up their readers’ emotions.

i wanna bring attention to the origins of the words “tragedy” and “catharsis”

“tragedy” is a genre that stems from greek drama based on human suffering and the terrible or sorrowful events that befall the main character. the intention of of tragedy is to invoke “catharsis”

“catharsis” is commonly used to refer to the purification of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. in terms of tragedy, this refers to arousing a negative emotion with the intention of expelling it so the audience can walk away feeling relieved.

for all intents and purposes, jjk is a tragedy. it’s meant to make you feel sad. that’s gege’s intention. yet every time people feel upset by a specific event, they call “bad writing.” if anything, according to what jjk is, it’s good writing if you feel sad.

i have seen some people say that jjk wasn’t set up this way, and i disagree so strongly that it’s hard to comprehend.

jjk0 ends with gojo having to kill his best friend, his one and only. tragedy. yuuta’s story is tragic too, having cursed rika and accidentally isolated himself just because he didn’t want her to die.

jjk starts with yuuji faced with execution just because because he wanted to honor his grandfather’s dying wishes. within a handful of chapters, there’s yuuji’s “death” and junpei, and there’s a clear set up of tragedy and repeated loss, despite characters giving their best effort.

i could get into how this relates to my interpretation of the themes of jjk, and sharing burden/responsibility to be stronger together, but that’s another point.

tldr; the point of this post is to say that gege killing characters and making readers feel sad is not bad writing or a bad narrative choice. it’s true to his intentions and the essence of jjk. if you don’t like that, then don’t read. but there’s no reason to disrespect gege and his hard work just because it’s not your cup of tea

[genericpuff]

Are there any things you like about LO? Or is it all shit to you. Personally, I think it could be a great storyline with the right execution, but a lot of the stuff and plot is unnecessary (I.e. Hades being thousands of years older than Kore and making characters fall in love with people they are racist/classist towards 😨😨)

Oh there are LOADS of things that I liked and still enjoy about LO despite all the shit I've thrown at it. I love love LOVE a lot of the older art-

Like, damn, that shit is so charming! I swear I had that Tower 4 panel as my phone background for like, 2 years LOL

Rachel had a really strong understanding of shape language, composition, color theory, and expressive linework in a way that was really appealing and unique at the time, but along the way it was just lost, undoubtedly due to her taking more of a backseat in the character art process and leaving it to her assistants.

That said, there's a lot of... not so charming, too.

I think, on the one hand, there's a lot to appreciate in the old art that shouldn't be rejected as we criticize this series. At the end of the day, as much as we riff on it, many of us did love this series at one point in time, so we shouldn't cringe at what it used to make us feel or pretend like we were ever above it when we were very much lost in it for ages before it went down the tubes.

But there is a lot to be said about the effects of rose-colored glasses, and how LO was never perfect. The reality is that much of Rachel's work is exemplified by the odd beautiful thing that sticks in our memories, but when we actually go back to relive those memories, we find they're all strung together by some not so beautiful stuff that makes us go 'wait what???'

Case in point, with LO we remember beautiful compositions like this:

But then within those same episodes we get:

And it's like oh. Yikes.

Aside from the art, there was also the SA plot as well as the Act of Wrath. The SA plot felt really special to me at the time because I was someone who was once in Persephone's shoes, being pressured into sex that I wasn't ready for but wasn't capable of saying no to. I can appreciate what Rachel was trying to do with that plot, but over time it became clear that she wasn't committed to seeing that plotline through and so I kind of just dropped my expectations for it entirely.

That said, it wasn't the SA plotline that set me off. I had good faith in that one still that it would be addressed eventually. It was the Act of Wrath plotline that did me in. The premise of it was totally my cup of tea in the way of "quirky character has a dark evil backstory!" which is shit that I absolutely LOVE, but then when the "twist" happened that Eris was the one to give her wrath, that was literally when I had my almost "canon event" moment of realizing "wait... I don't think Rachel knows what she's doing." And then it was just all downhill from there. The S2 finale sealed my fate LOL

All that said, as much as my brain is often defaulting to "ew! gross! bad!!!" in all honesty I do still appreciate what LO meant to be back when I still enjoyed it. It meant enough to me that I just couldn't let it the fuck go when it started to go downhill, so much so that I started making my own version of it! And that's something that sets it apart so much more from other comics I really don't like anymore (or comics I never liked to begin with) like Down to Earth, The Kiss Bet, Let's Play, etc. where I really can't even be bothered to think about them let alone talk about them to the extent I do about LO. I may be full of beans when it comes to LO, but I'd still rather be talking about it and all its failings and what it used to mean to me than about any of those other works. I loved it enough to still want it in my life and that's what Rekindled has accomplished for me.

[birder-of-remnant]

A Story Done Right

Kill Bill, The Princess Bride, Blue-Eyed Samurai, Wrath of Khan. Our media is saturated with revenge stories. Even children's tales often have revenge as a sweeping premise (e.g., the countless Star Wars villains as a modern example, but older tales such as Cinderella were even more rife with vindictive messages). And to be honest, I have never cared for this plot type.

Revenge stories are usually violent, merciless, myopic, and pretty disregarding of 'collateral' losses. Not all, but most lack any type of interesting moral symbology and substitute dynamic storylines and complex character development in lieu of exciting action scenes and a prosaic fixation on bloodshed. There are certainly exceptions to this, many of the titles I listed above actually have a lot of great things going for them. But I would say that these qualities are in spite of their focus on revenge and not because of it.

And there are an endless number of animes, movies, books, and other stories based on revenge that simply do not appeal to me (not judging other people if they like violent action media, just not my personal taste). Most of the time, I am just left feeling empty at the end, like Neo after volume 9.

But there is one exception to this theme. One revenge story that leaves me feeling whole, not empty. From the banner image, I think it is pretty obvious which story it is. This is my own highly subjective opinion, but I truly believe that the fight with Adam represents the perfect revenge story. And here is my reasoning.

Revenge is Not The Hero's Purpose

In too many stories, the premise begins with douchebag 'X' killing damsel 'Y', leading to hero 'Z' killing a lot of henchmen and blowing up a lot of buildings all for the singular purpose of making Mr. X pay. Once they achieve this purpose, they look around aimlessly before wandering off to have a milkshake or play golf or something. Yeah well, this story does not do this. Killing Adam was never the objective for Blake and Yang, because they have actual goals that involve saving people and not just executing some vendetta.

Don't get me wrong. I love redemption stories, I find them so much more satisfying, especially when the character in question has to struggle to overcome the gravity of what they have done (note: a redemption arc does not mean instant forgiveness, it might never end with actual for absolution for what they have done). I love Emerald's story and think it has a lot of interesting twists that it can take. But there are some characters who are just too far gone to save. And Adam fits that perfectly.

He has a tragic backstory and I truly pity him. But he is also an abusive, murdering shitlord who manipulated and groomed Blake (I wouldn't be surprised if he physically or sexually abused her, which is somewhat implied by her frequently defensive body posture, but is not definite). He kills out of spite and represents Yang's demon, who she could have become. It was cathartic to watch him fall, but I am ever so grateful that his demise was not the purpose of Blake and Yang. Because killing him out of spite for what he did to them would not be much different than the way he lashed out at others for the traumas that he has endured. Some might call it justice, but justice and revenge are two sides of the same coin and the edges between them can be blurry.

The point is, Yang and Blake are so much more than Adam. They killed him out of necessity, not out of hate.

They Are Set on the Future

As I mentioned, I often feel empty at the end of a revenge story. When the villain lies dead within a pool of their own blood and the hero has achieved everything they sought to accomplish, what more is there really? Often, I feel like the story has reached its ending without really achieving anything of note. Often, without really making the world a better place. A plot about revenge is not the same as one about taking someone down to save other people. The former is what Adam wanted and it would have made the world a worse place. But Yang and Blake are protectors. The fight was exhilarating and satisfying, but it ultimately humanized these characters whereas most revenge stories do the opposite, treating human life as cheap entertainment to be killed in the most 'epic' way possible.

But more important, the fight left me feeling excited about the future, rather than feeling burn out from seeing the villain die. Adam was fixated on the past. He was a character of the past. He represented Blake and Yang's trauma, their old demons and fears. He had no further place in their character arcs, because they had evolved into something so much more. Killing Adam was not the end of their story as it is in so many revenge plots. It was simply a new beginning. It felt whole and wholesome. Past, present, and future.

Because it is the People Who Matter

Ultimately, the fight was never about killing Adam. It was about bringing Yang and Blake together. About having them overcome the demons of their past. About the importance of mental health. About their individual traumas (abandonment issues & PTSD for Yang and Blake's fear of hurting others). About the challenges that LGBTQ+ people face in finding security in a hostile world. It was about these two, fucking amazing characters and the ineffably wondrous relationship that forms between them. One based on actual fucking support, equality, and love.

That is all I have on this right now. Hopefully, I did not offend too many people by criticizing typical revenge stories. But I have been wanting to talk about my love and appreciation of this scene for years. I know there have been so many more people who have discussed these same themes and points before, probably more adroitly than my rambling mess, but this is my rambling mess. Thanks for reading!

Random side trivia 1: Mandy Patinkin, the actor who played Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, is famous for his iconic line, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Mandy felt that the scene was symbolic of feelings towards the illness that took his father. But regarding revenge against people, he actually dislikes his iconic line and how it idolizes revenge.

Random side trivia 2: I love Jeff & Casey William songs and I just love BMBLY (except or that creepy line about the birds and butterflies knowing, wtf). But as an ecologist, I should note that bumblebees do not make honey. Jeff was thinking of European honey bees. Bumblees are cute, fuzzy, chunky super pollinators that live in the ground, in hollow plant stems, or other obscure spots and are either solitary or have very small hives. They virtually never bother people and are super pollinators, actually much better pollinators than honeybees (which are super awesome cool in their own right, but also highly invasive in the western hemisphere and hurt our native pollinators D: And yes, I cherry-picked the ugliest picture of one that I could find). Many bumblebees are endangered, just like our beloved Bumblebees. Save the bees! AND THE BEES!

[tossawary]

Yes, I can be frustrated when plot tension seems to arise solely from characters communicating poorly or refusing to speak to each other at all. Sometimes, the reasons for it don't seem very good or even true to character when they pale in the face of some other threat. Sometimes, it gets drawn out too long and it feels like things would be more interesting if we just moved on to whatever could happen next; I do really like it when characters come together and attempt to solve problems as a team.

And yet, on the other hand, there are situations where I can't agree when someone says, "UGH, why don't they just TALK to each other?!" Because it's like... it's the trauma, bro. It's the shame and the fear and the desire for privacy and control. It's the violence of this world and the LIFE-THREATENING risks of vulnerability. It's potentially another character having a knife to their throat. It's the precarious situation of NOT KNOWING that you're a character in story and that this other character is a decent person who will react with understanding and compassion.

"UGH, why didn't this character just hand someone else their heart and the power to destroy them on a platter?" "UGH, why didn't this character confess to something that has been repeatedly shown to be murderously reviled by most people in this world?" "UGH, why didn't this character just TALK to people when they've been burned before and no one has demonstrated that they're trustworthy, and also they're being threatened to keep them silent?"

Again, miscommunication plots often drive me up the wall, especially when they seem so repetitive. Everyone has a limited tolerance for certain story elements and story elements can definitely be executed poorly. It can be fun to mix things up with characters who throw their issues on the table and demand that someone try to fight them on it, with characters who are open about previous issues but are struggling not to backslide, and with characters who are TRYING to talk it out but can't find the words or the right people to listen. There are many ways to do communication plots! There are many good reasons to complain about these plots! And it's all to personal taste anyway, so I don't begrudge anyone their venting! I can be petty too!

But... also... "UGH, why didn't this character suddenly overcome all of their personal issues in order to effectively spill their guts to someone they have good reason to think wants them dead?" BRUH, COME ON and put yourself in their shoes, PLEASE.

[absolutebl]

Top 10 Great BLs That Are REALLY hard to find (but worth tracking down)

You may want to go hunting anyway!

Seven Days

Seven Days: Monday-Thursday

Seven Days: Friday-Sunday

Japan 2015

Never doubt my ability to recommend this show. One of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes (rare in Japanese BL). The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses.

Cherry Magic AKA 30-sai made Dotei Da to Mahotsukai ni Nareru rashii

Japan 2020

The sweetest fluffiest magical realism BL, packaged as a pinning office romance, very low heat (practically chaste) but the cutest. It’s truly great.

Cherry Magic Thailand

Thai 2024

A soft charming warm hug of a show about crushes and mind reading and self worth, with no-fuss execution from a consummate team and an OG lead pair proving why they remain eternal and deserve to grow up. Look, here’s the thing, Cherry Magic is a great Thai BL in its own right not comparing it to any other iteration. But even when I do compare (and I've seen all the Cherries and read the manga) it still stands. I personally like it slightly better than the Japanese live action, but I think that’s because I just really like Thai BL and I LOVE TayNew. Also all the kissing was both present and better than any other iteration. As it should be from Thailand.

I Feel You Linger in the Air

Thai 2023

IFYLITA is an exquisite BL, from filming techniques to narrative framework (much like Until We Meet Again). Steeped in history and family drama it edges into lakorn (but no as much as To Sir With Love and with way less scenery chewing). This is an elegant and classy BL... from Thailand which normally doesn't even try for classy. The main couple (both as a pair and individuals) were excellent, particularly Bright (Yai) whose eye-work acting style is a personal favorite of mine. Pity about the ending. Oh it wasn’t that sad but it wasn’t good either. This show could easily have earned a 10/10 from me except that it fumbled the… erm… balls in the final quarter. Argh. Whatever.

All about the ecstasy and the agony here.

Restart After Come Back Home AKA Risutato wa tadaima no ato de

Japan 2020

Atmospheric study in rural Japan meets complex family dynamics built on a romance framework of city boy meets country boy, grumpy/sunshine. It’s beautiful and icy sweet. Slow moving in places but ultimately worth the patience, low heat, low angst, and stunning.

Given

Japan 2021

Boy joins band, falls in love with other boy. The singing is terrible, fast forward through that but with the possible exception of the hair styles, this BL could have been made in 2015 and no one would be surprised. As such, it wasn’t ground breaking, but it didn’t disappoint either.

Make a Wish

Thai 2023

A doctor who can see the dead strikes a bargain with a wish-granting irreverent tree angel - naturally they fall in love (from Sammon: Manner of Death & Triage). Stars Fluke Natouch opposite not-Ohm, but who tf cares because Fluke has chemistry with everybody. Once again the Thai afterlife is incredibly bureaucratic but I enjoyed the premise and the unfolding of the story (it’s not predictable but still satisfying and with nice little twist). I like that the doctor is just gay AF - fag hag bestie and all the swagger. The cast is excellent even if the comedic stylings are a bit overblown and tonally off. It had sad parts and did make me cry but is ultimately happy with a great sex scene, good smiley kisses, and all the agency. Definitely recommended.

2 Moons The Ambassador AKA 2 Moons 3

Thai 2022

A Thai pulp that felt like it came out 5 yrs prior, with many of the flaws inherent to that time and studio system, including manufactured angst and convoluted plot, but an ultimately sweet main couple that (as a pairing) feels a bit more modern and satisfying to watch than they started out. This will probably go down in history as one of the few BLs where I genuinely didn’t care about any of the side couples. All that said, I find this show oddly appealing and rewatchable and I have no excuses for that except, I enjoyed it probably more than it deserved. Nostalgia & d**k, it's what's for dinner.

I Want to See Only You AKA Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai

Japan 2022

This is a beautiful well acted piece of cinema, about two boys who are opposite personalities and grew up together. Gifted and serious Sakura pines after outgoing eccentric manic pixie dream boy, Yuma. It is very pretty and this is the kind of atmospheric elegantly performed BL that only really comes from Japan (complete with dead fish kisses - what you though Korea invented them? oh no). If you want something stylish, this is it.

Triage

Thai 2022

BL does Groundhog Day featuring a doctor stuck in a time loop who must save a poor little rich boy from death by seducing the stuffing out of him, then PLOT TWIST, poor little rich boy must do the same for the doctor! Unfortunately... stuffing keeps leaking. I thought the plot was engaging if a little redundant and occasionally exhausting. The pairs were all well done, low heat but with decent chemistry and the support characters were likable (or unlikable, as required). If anything, the romance arc detracted and distracted from the main plot, but that doesn't stop this from being a genuinely good show.

HONORABLE MENTION

Great Men Academy

Thai 2019

Bodyswap involving unicorns turning a teenage girl into a boy makes this questionable as a BL (because, ya know, gender). But the fact remains that James is killer in the lead, and I (who do not like bodyswap) loved this damn show. Look, there is actual plot, hotties at boarding school, "bully the one you love" trope, some weird VR shit, very bad CGI, and yes, the boys end up together... whether they boys or not, so to speak.

Some of these shows may appear on a smaller streaming service, like WeTV, or they may be on a legal platform in your territory. I hope it goes without saying you should check there first.

(source)

This list updated Spring 2024, not responsible for cool stuff that went missing (or was added to a platform) after that date.

It's it last in a series the rest of which are:

[prommytheus]

i love apollo and i love his ominous implying that he’s going to take advantage of his sick leave go do something deeply illegal to solve (and avenge) clay’s murder, but the way that got executed ingame was that he didn’t do anything. they. they cut off his plot thread entirely. because they needed to write him out so that nick could take the spotlight. even though it’s apollo’s trilogy. “it’s your story now apollo” MY ASS jkaksjdkjd

i think phoenix returning to law is fun and has a lot of potential, im very fond of his cute lil suit and his dlc case. but the final case? the final fucking case??? phoenix should have just weirdgirled. or better yet- peaced out of the main plot to go on a rage fueled excursion to the space center to FUCKING KILL AURA for holding his fucking daughter hostage. also miles im glad you’re back but wh. why are you prosecuting this case. why would aura choose you of all people. how much do you know anyway

….i dont really have a closing argument for this. i guess my point is that i fucking love aa5 because it introduces so many cool concepts, characters, and plot threads—

—and i also fucking hate aa5 because it drops all of them without hesitation to put those red and blue fuckers back behind the benches and then kill a man for shock value.

[susansontag]

studio ghibli ranking list let’s go

(will include nausicaä and the red turtle)

the these-are-actually-bad section:

24. earwig and the witch

actually the only one I haven’t watched so it’s cheeky to put it here. but I won’t be watching it and no one will blame me.

23. ocean waves

who sincerely cares about these teenagers they’re so annoying. if the boys had been gay it would have honestly been homophobic.

22. pom poko

this film is about shape-shifting raccoon dogs waging a war on humans and there’s copious jokes about their testicles. so on paper a perfect film. execution wise it’s so long and so boring and you care about none of them.

the cure-for-insomnia section:

21. tales from earthsea

hayao miyazaki was right to walk out of this one even though he probably is a terrible father for having done so. some of the animation was really nice but these protagonists made me yearn for the ocean waves cast because at least they have semi-personalities.

20. castle in the sky

proof miyazaki was judging his son too hard for earthsea because this is basically his version of the same thing: a nice idea with good animation and the most boring boy/girl protagonists imaginable. has got that whimsy he does so nicely however.

the passable-films section:

19. the cat returns

but should he have? was that really necessary? has a scene of cats walking in a procession on their hind legs though so that’s a plus.

18. arrietty

visually gorgeous but otherwise a very run-of-the-mill adaptation of the borrowers, which in something that should feel wondrous is less than ideal.

17. my neighbors the yamadas

some harmless and inventive fun that you can put on in the background whilst eating lunch or doing some light yoga stretches.

the don’t-harm-me-I’m-right section:

16. howl’s moving castle

yes I do in fact understand the intricacies of the plot and I still don’t care. this is one of ghibli’s messiest films for sure, it can’t decide what it wants to be or focus on and the plot just seems to happen and then not happen for no good reason. I also think howl’s a whiny bastard and hate that sophie has to mother him and endure his contemptible man tantrums. a shame because she’s actually cool.

15. grave of the fireflies

it was sweet but I’ve watched more moving animated films set in war-time, even. I don’t have much desire to watch it again honestly but maybe I will at some point.

the this-is-getting-there section:

14. the red turtle

I liked it! an acquired taste but I really felt the harshness of the elements and the cruelty and the love. it's also very beautiful to look at, one of the most visually arresting ghibli productions.

13. only yesterday

a tale of two films with this one. the parts where she's a young girl are much more interesting, but if this had stuck the landing and it'd been more even overall, could have potentially been a favourite. alas.

12. the wind rises

a genuinely weird one in ghibli's lineup, in which miyazaki meshes two different stories together (one of inventive 'genius' and a doomed love story, respectively) in a likely attempt to try and grapple with his having chosen his career over all else, including family (noteworthy is that his wife was not able to retain her career as an animator). as a piece of art it's less whimsical and more mature than many of these films, but I struggle to not let my distaste for what it potentially represents get in the way of my appreciation for it as a film, but it's so blatantly personal that it's impossible.

the that-was-just-a-good-fun-time section:

11. nausicaä of the valley of the wind

aesthetically one of the coolest films on this list but I don't remember the story as well. great protagonist too. must have been great to experience when it first came out in the '80s.

10. porco rosso

I love this film about a tomboy mechanic and some pilot guy who went off to war and was so changed he is now a pig. watching it feels like if the mediterranean was so small it fit into your back pocket and was also populated by all your friends all your enemies and your ex-lover also.

9. from up on poppy hill

I found this one boring the first time I watched it but it really grew on me with subsequent rewatches. I really like her predominantly female household and the community they share in the backdrop of the rest of the drama is sweet. the bit of drama midway through is still batshit though but in a loveable, disney-would-never way.

the near-perfect section:

8. the tale of the princess kaguya

probably takahata's magnum opus with the studio, if slightly overlong. folktales are tricky because they tend to feel moralistic and the characters one-note if you're not willing to build on them but kaguya herself feels very spirited and alive. the prettiest on the list too I'd say.

7. my neighbor totoro

cozy late summer comfort film. perhaps even more special now because I was able to see the london production. cute!

6. when marnie was there

surprised this one has ranked so high for me but that's the power of tomboy lesbians heck yeah etc. also the fantastical element of this one is so up my alley and touches upon a particular kind of childhood nostalgia I have of being in old houses and imbuing them with magical qualities. the image of anna facing the house across the marshland is burned into my retina.

the I'd-die-for-her section:

5. princess mononoke

aesthetically too cool for school and has one of the best ghibli villains and female characters (lady eboshi). they really said all the spirits of the forest are going to die in this one but well it was a nice thought.

4. ponyo

my comfort movie of all-time! heartwarming! with another great female ghibli character in lisa, sosuke's mum who is legally allowed to drive like that apparently. also one I actually watched for the first time in my childhood when I was around 7 or so at an after school club. the subtitles taught me the useful and now underused gem of a phrase "bog off".

3. kiki's delivery service

asks the important questions such as: what if you were a young witch from a dying tradition who moves to a gorgeous town in sweden? what if your remarkable gifts were no longer appreciated due to rapid advancements in aviation technology? what if you could live in a bakery?

2. spirited away

when you're just a timid child who is scared of admittedly a lot and your parents manage to mess everything up spectacularly so now you're forced to work at the age of twelve for people who steal your identity. still one of the best honestly they may never top this as the peak of their artistic achievement.

1. whisper of the heart

have you ever been a struggling artist? have you ever been in love? have you ever been obsessed with john denver's take me home, country roads? in all seriousness love a story of two artistically inclined people inspiring each other and this has a unique feel compared to other ghibli films forever favourite probably. it feels like basically no one has watched it and that's a shame. rest in peace yoshifumi kondō.

[thatapologisttoyourantis]

You know who's stupid? The people who'd go below and beyond to justify every sh*t Rhys pulled, claiming he had "good" reasons and intentions for everything, while also claiming he's morally gray.

Sjm is one of those people. Write him off as the bad guy, make him do something very terrible to write him off as this morally gray character and then justify his bs and assasinate characters to make him look like the good guy. Wtf is he meant to be??? He cannot be the feminist king that cares for everyone and their mother while also have him be an asshole. Kaz and Carden don't need reasons for why they do sh*t. They do certain things for their own gain and they don't give a damn. They're clearly morally gray. Rhys? I don't fucking know.

Hi anon 👋🏾 again my apologies for only responding now😩

Couldn’t have said it any better myself & it further proves my point again that Rhysand isn’t written for the story let alone the plot!!

I’ve not read the shadow & bone series yet but the cruel prince series I have & to me Cardan is a perfect example of morally grey & executed really well! Ps I absolutely love Cardan! But with Rhysand & the things he’s done not just to Feyre but other courts/HL’s & the justifications are INSANE!!! Everything Rhysand has done has served NO PURPOSE or even benefitted anyone including himself and example of Rhysand doing shit that had the opposite effect of benefiting anyone including himself was when he went to the summer court & he, Amren & Feyre stole the book of breathing because he swore blind that Hybern was after it & if memory serves me correct Hybern actually stated that he was never after the book until Rhysand had taken it out of its home court…like wtf!! The actual big bad villain is telling you that your judgement was wrong & way off & somehow we’re still supposed to believe Rhysand did the right thing & is a “good person”?!!… when in reality if he had just listened to Feyre when she said perhaps asking Tarquin for the book & letting him in on what they think so many things could have been avoided including Tamlin thinking that Feyre was being controlled because now she’s out here lying, manipulating & stealing from other high lords and their courts.

Rhysand is only “feminist” to the women in his circle excluding Nesta & the irony is he never actually gives them choice just the illusion of it & yet for some bizarre reason people buy it🤷🏽‍♀️ he’s honestly just become a joke of a character that is so poorly written & executed. He’s not morally grey or even morally black he’s straight up horrible.

Not to mention ACOTAR is a legit watered down, YA, knock off version of Anne Bishop’s The Black jewel trilogy😩

[okaystoptellingmetomakeanaccount]

Guys. Scrooge McDuck already traveled the multiverse in 1995

Hey look, it’s the doors from doctor strange

-my dad

This year will mark a historical moment in Disney comics history. The first Marvel-made Scrooge McDuck comic. Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime coming up in June will have Scrooge travel through the multiverse to defeat an evil AU version of himself.

To some unfamiliar with Disney comics, this might sound like a lame idea in the trend of many multiverse stories that we are seeing in the cinemas today.

To some familiar with Disney comics, this sounded exactly like the plot of Zio Paperone e il predone dimensionale.

Truth is, the multiverse has always been a part of… just comic books. It’s now starting to slip into other mediums because of the many, many comic book adaptations just getting to that point of the lore, but the comic books themselves have had it for a long time now. Including Disney comics.

Though for Disney it’s less a case of: we wanted to explain continuity errors and then went a bit too far, and more a case of: if you have comics coming out literally every single day of the week then at some point you just get to the multiverse.

There are many of these to be found in Disney comics, which we might talk about later if someone is interested or I feel like it, but today we are going to go over the one most similar in premise to the upcoming Marvel release.

Because I just think it’s really funny how similar they are. Like at this point I would call it a reboot.

Oh oh, Scrooge and multiverse, look at this. I’m pretty sure the Loki tv series just copied their time doors from this comic.

Federico Povoleri wrote a pretty simple story. Someone is stealing from Scrooge again, and this time, the culprit turns out to be… himself!

‘Our’ Scrooge is signified by the red coat (and later the multiverse hopping suit). All the alternates will be clad in blue. DT87 Scrooge is just another AU that no one cares about confirmed

This stealing Scrooge is our ‘Scrooge above all’. He wants to be richer than all his other variants and steals from them for that or something. I don’t remember very well but why he does it doesn’t matter. It’s evil Scrooge and he steals that’s all we need to know.

As we have seen already, he escapes with an universe hopping door. As he always does within these kinds of situations, Scrooge calls Gyro who finds some kind of dimensional energy lingering around where the door used to be. He does the usual explain the multiverse bit.

Then Gyro does in a few hours/days/wedontactuallyknow what Red Raider has been trying for years. There’s a reason they kicked him out of PKNA he would be too overpowered.

Yeah altronave my nose.

Scrooge arrives in the bin of another him, and explains as well as he can. This repeats a few times and I would love to show it but there is a 10 image limit on tumblr mobile for some reason.

Finally he arrives at the bin of the Scrooge who steals and they have a little typical multiverse discussion (I am the real one. No bitch I am. But which one are you. A real me would never do this. That kind of stuff)

But he gets defeated by bad Scrooge. Oh no the only one who could defeat Scrooge has defeated him. What will happen now?

Exactly what you think happens. prime!Scrooge never closed the AU doors and so everyone he visited could just hop through and arrive at Scrooge above all’s office. Yay.

It is not a bad comic. It has the single idea, it sticks to it, it executes it well. The interactions with AU Scrooge’s are just plain fun. At the time of writing the story has place 6020 on inducks which is pretty dang high for such a silly comic.

It’s very much a multiverse story in a classic Disney comics way. It’s not used to bring multiple continuities together. No storia e gloria Scrooge VS life and times Scrooge. Nothing dramatic happening or high stakes. Just Scrooge going on another adventure, and for being one of the first multiverse comics involving Scrooge that didn’t pull random bullshit, it’s considered good by most of the fandom it seems. That the Comicup artists was pretty decent helped as well.

But now, what can we expect from what is totally gonna be a remake of this?

Infinity Dime is Marvel. It’s gonna take a Marvel approach. Assuming it’s not gonna be parody (which i kind of really hope it isn’t), then what will it be? Are we gonna see something similar to this, where Scrooge will just meet different versions of himself or will we see established AU’s? Both Ducktales and all his other animated counterparts (i heard the americans like christmas carol scrooge) seem like easy picks. Will they fight? Will it be Secret Wars? Or will they work together like in this comic?

Marvel has still given out zero information about the story (hell, they haven’t even made clear which artists aside from a few are drawing. “celebrated Scrooge artists” does NOT narrow it down) except for that super vague premise. So the best we can do is imagine this story but with the Marvel flavor. Not that I have read enough Marvel comics to properly understand what that means but ive seen some movies okay.

We can probably imagine there will be more ‘evil’ Scrooges. Some Scroogehenchmen. And they will fight. We gotta have action scenes. Which I trust will look good because Mangiatordi I believe his connection to the project alone will secure that the art department will be amazing. His existence is enough.

I’m also expecting DT17 Scrooge to at least cameo. He’s the perfect character for this type of story, fits way better than any other non comic variant. DT87 Scrooge could work as maybe a younger version? Who is not sure what he got caught up in. But then we would need emotional scenes between Scrooge and Scrooge and that’s probably asking too much from Jason Aaron.

Oh hmm actually. I can see when good Scrooge fights bad Scrooge in the climax he will do a big speech that will last a good 4 pages and will teach bad Scrooge what it takes to be a real Scrooge. That sounds stupid enough to be a Marvel thing but not so stupid as to become completely ridiculous.

I’m not expecting actual references to other established comic Scrooge AU’s. We will probably have Barks and Rosa references and that’s it. I’m not even expecting a Van Horn reference tbh. It’s all Barks and Rosa we gotta keep it beginner friendly. It might even just be Rosa. Which indirectly will result in a Barks reference because every Rosa reference is just a Barks reference but with extra steps.

I’m trying to make predictions okay? So I can go I SAID SO when it comes out. It’ll be really funny for me and annoying for you guys. You don’t even have to read this (yet). This is just for in the future so I can look like a wizard.

The scene where Gyro explains the multiverse might just get copied one on one. Maybe Gyro will be replaced by Ludwig? At least I don’t think they will have Scrooge just go: oh yeah ive seen this before. Maybe another Scrooge will explain it to him/secretly the reader. It WILL involve a big cosmic looking image that will represent the multiverse. It just has to. Even if just to show the Marvel audience how good these Italian Scrooge artists are.

I don’t think Donald or the nephews are gonna play a big role. Maybe at the beginning and end, maybe they will somehow stay in contact with Scrooge or he thinks about them a few times to remind us of hey this is Donald Duck. But I think most is gonna be a solo Scrooge adventure just like we have already seen.

Idk. I really want to talk more about Infinity Dime because it’s the most exciting US made Disney comic in ages. Idk why no one else seems to be hyped. Where is all the rambling and speculation guys?? Not about the covers, but about the actual story!

Anyways now we get to the most important question: do i think it will feature Magica?

Maybe. (Definitely not gonna play a big role if she even appears. Maybe a cameo when at some point there will be a dramatic flashback… Or she could show up in one of the AU’s. Maybe just a short scene in the beginning showing his usual life but that sounds lame. Probably not gonna have a role in the story at least, and I kinda hope it won’t have any Magica at all because I’m scared that they will go of off Rosa’s characterization lol.)

Ok Remember to infinity your dimes and uncle your scrooges gby

[anxiousdreamcore]

Frontiers of Pandora story review ✨

BEWARE! Heavy spoilers ahead.

Alright, since I don’t see people talking about this game as much as I’d want on my socials, I decided to put together a little review where I talk about the story, what spoke to me, as well as some critiques.

To summarise my opinion; I love it! The story knows where it’s taking place and takes advantage of it. It covers dark topics and succeeds in staying as serious in tone as the movie franchise, which makes the campaign feel like it truly belongs in the world of Pandora.

To speak more in-depth; the plot of a Na’vi residential school had me hooked from the first moment. I think residential schools that native children were forced into are a topic not talked about often enough, so I appreciated the developers and writers bringing awareness to such facilities, even if it’s in sci-fi form. reconnecting with Na’vi heritage that was stolen from the main character and their family is executed quite well, as playing frontiers lets you get immersed into the feeling of exploration and discovery. The player is as un-knowledgeable about the world around them as the protagonist, and being able to experience new connections, abilities, places, stories and traditions side-by-side with them has been an amazing ride.

The different Na’vi cultures shown in the game are written organically. They each possess an intricate fashion based on their values, environment and history, but that is not all. Every clan has a cast of characters, bigger or smaller, who bring further life into the western frontier, help expand on the lore and provide entertainment. My personal favourites of these characters have to be Nefika and Kin, both elderly Na’vi with a welcoming presence and charm. Second to them come Eetu and Okul!

Then there is the main cast, which is MC, their three found family siblings, a.k.a the surviving Sarentu children, So’lek, Alma and Priya. We consistently stay in contact with them, both as part of the campaign and as part of our explorations, sharing experiences with them. The protagonist character is righteous, brave and endlessly adorable in their reactions to the world around them, and the trio of Sarentu forever have a place in my heart. I liked the concept of each one of the Sarentu children representing a different reaction to their past abuse and toxic relationship with John Mercer.

Nor, who had most luxury of remembering his life before being taken by the RDA, tries to distance himself as far as possible from everything human, and progressively adopts an antagonistic mindset towards his human allies, as well as a growing feeling of resentment and vengeance. I do not blame him for it and I believe it makes sense. After him comes Ri’nela, who, during Mercer’s captivity, tried staying out of sight but protecting her siblings where she could. Without Mercer, she feels insecure, constantly stumbling and at first, regularly looks guidance from Alma. She beats herself up for things that happen to Teylan and A’hari, despite being unable to have fixed them, but eventually grows into a stronger person, being able to take on the role of a Tsahik in the clan. Lastly, there is Teylan and he has to be my favorite character in the game. His bond to Mercer is strong, as T.A.P is all he ever knew, so without John, he begins falling apart. Lack of constant control and lack of ""affection"" from Tey’s "father figure" leave him feeling ten times as insecure as Ri’nela. He has a hard time learning Na’vi ways, keeps lagging behind and ultimately sticks to technology and hacking, which is worsened by So’lek’s nagging, as he obviously doesn’t know how severe Teylan’s abuse was and simply assumes that he is "lost" in the new world. Eventually, Teylan does what many abuse victims do, and returns to his abuser. An action I kind of predicted, but which still really hit me. His voice actor did an incredible job of portraying this character and the rest of the campaign I spent praying that I’ll get to bring him back home. In the end, I’m happy he’s at home and safe. 🥹💖🫶

Now to the grown ups. I don’t have much to say about Priya, but I grew fond of her. I liked her development from an awkward girl that sparks horrific second-hand embarrassment in the viewer to a resistance member who actively puts herself in the line of fire to help her friends. I found myself getting worried for her whenever she didn’t respond or was in danger.

So’lek is a character who I was immediately fond of, and I liked his growth as well. He saw himself as completely separate from human resistance members, and his thoughts are often occupied by revenge, but he comes to care for MC, the Sarentu and eventually the humans. Seeing him protect Alma when Nor attacks her was a brilliant moment.

Lastly, there is Alma herself. A very grey character who did horrible things in the past, like leading the program side-by-side with John Mercer. I liked her development, from an aloof and seemingly supportive teacher at T.A.P, to a person that orchestrated the entire project. Her grief and guilt feel organic, and I found myself having a lot of difficult feelings about her as it is obvious she cares for the Sarentu children, but her sins cannot be forgiven. I’m happy Ri’nela made the choice to simply part ways with her in peace, instead of trying to build a new bridge.

Now, for what I believe was executed badly. It’s quite unfortunate, but the game suffers from the same problem as Avatar the way of water, only quadrupled and that is; we don’t get enough time with the characters.

It feels even worse because in comparison to the movies, games don’t have to worry about pacing or time limits. The campaign can be as long as developers wish, but it came out rushed anyway. Part of the reason I got as attached to the characters as I did was because I spent time getting emotionally invested into everything they said, their minor behavioural cues and voicelines, but not everyone is as dedicated, and those people should have the right to experience a good story as well. They shouldn’t have to seek it out between the lines.

The only characters who I felt were properly developed are Teylan and Alma. They had the most extensive arcs and their growth was tied into a nice bow. But what about Ri’nela, Nor and So’lek? Nor suffers from Metkayina syndrome gets completely scrapped shortly before the finale, So’lek only gets crumbs of growth and Ri’nela is at times forgotten about completely. Her development as a character is too off-screen and between the lines for most people to catch it, and I find that sad because she’s such a sweet character when you actually get invested into her.

In the end, Frontiers of Pandora’s story feels like a good joke with all the necessary setup but only half-delivered punchline. I had very reasonable expectations and a lot of them were not fulfilled. This project is definitely miles better than whatever Ubisoft has been releasing in these last years, but I really hope that the DLCs will expand on the story further.

Verdict on the campaign; 7 out of 10. The setup and the beginning of the story were just perfect, but in the end, the characters didn’t get the treatment they deserved. Thank you for reading.

[bisexualiteaa]

Burning Love

Benny x Fem Courier Six (Smut!! Also fluff and slight angst)

CW: NSFW MDNI! Mutual pining, slight OOC Benny, slight deviation from the game, black widow dialogue, established friendship, enemies to friends then friends to lovers, flirting, dirty talk, perverted thoughts, P in V, p0rn with some plot, unprotected seggs, 0ral (male and female receiving) praise, cursing, mentions of alcohol, briefly proofread, possible grammar/spelling errors

AN: Hey everyone! I’m back with some more content! It’s a little different than the usual Cooper Content ™️ I usually put out but it’s still Fallout themed. I wanted to try my hand at writing for Benny from New Vegas and allow some of my other character hyperfixations to have a moment in the spotlight to shine! I’m still rather new to Fallout in general, and especially to New Vegas so please be kind and patient with me if I have some things wrong, I’m still learning! 🥺 I know this wasn’t an ask from anyone, and I will be getting to those as I can! Writers block has been absolutely dreadful lately so I hope y’all can understand, I’ve only just started to come out from the hole and try to write when the days are good 😭 But I hope y’all dig this piece! Enjoy, and happy reading! 🥰

Taglist: @expirednukacola

This was bad. This was really, really bad. At least that’s what he proceeded to tell himself over and over internally as he paced around his room. Just what was it that was so bad? So bad that it left Benny Gecko, the head chairman, in a bind? You. You; the courier that he executed once upon a time for simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. You; who just so happened to somehow actually be alive despite a bullet being discharged into your skull. You; who had come to the strip months ago on your journey through the Mojave, siding up with him and becoming his business partner. You; who not only managed to become his best friend, but now held a place in his heart as something more. How could he let all this messiness happen? There was a rule in business where you never allow yourself to get involved with the people you work with, especially when you were someone who was as powerful as Benny. Yet you were all he could ever think about. You were his inspiration and guidance in trying and gain power over all the factions, you were the reason why the Legion no longer stood in his way. You were his right hand through everything, there for his every plan, there to help in the execution of them no matter what it could cost. You were loyal, beyond that, you were a confidant and a friend.

It took him ages to finally put the pieces together leading up to this moment. To finally understand why he would feel so disgusted watching Swank flirt with you, or so angry when someone would threaten you. He knew you could handle yourself, you were your own person, independent and deserving to live how you wished. Hell there had been many occasions where, had it not been for you, he likely wouldn’t have made it out alive. When you saved him from the Legion, that’s when he finally saw it. Seeing him down on his knees before you, giving you the perfect opportunity to take your revenge if you wanted to for him killing you back then. You could have murdered him in cold blood, leaving him to the radroaches and feral ghouls like he did to you once. But you didn’t, instead you showed him mercy. You *saved* him. Something he wasn’t sure anyone else aside from his body guards, would have done for him had they been in your shoes. Since that day, it’s been all he could do to pry the thoughts of you from his brain. By day, you were always by his side, and at night you were always on his mind. How was he supposed to be able to work like this? Fuck, how was he supposed to tell you? Should he tell you? He wasn’t sure. But he supposed it was too late to back out now seeing as you were on your way up to his suite.

His heart jumped in his chest upon hearing the knock on his door, a signal that let him know it was his people coming by. “Come in” he said, finally pulling himself from his thoughts to see who was at his door. Of course, to no surprise, it was you. He let out a breath of relief upon seeing you. You had grown to become his comfort, even in a moment such as this, he took solace in your presence. “You came” he said softly, just above a whisper but his tone held something akin to disbelief in it that you were here. You spotted a rocks glass in his hand filled with a drink that was likely just freshly made, wondering what it was that was bothering him so much that it had him drinking before bed. He watched as you stepped inside his suite, closing and locking the door behind you to ensure privacy. “You called” you answered genuinely, wondering why he seemed so shocked to find you here when he had asked for you to come. “What’s wrong, Benny? You doin’ okay? I’ve never seen you so many glasses deep in one day” You asked, noting that he had been drinking earlier too, growing concerned for him and the way he seemed to be so caught up in thought. “You’ll have to forgive me, my mind is a bit mixed up at the moment” Benny said before taking a swig of his drink, watching as you sat down on his bed. He wished you hadn’t, because despite being the well-mannered gentleman he was, he was still a man with needs. Even he couldn’t help the thoughts that started to race through his mind as you sat on his bed. Thinking of what you would look like splayed out on it, free of your clothes and him on top of you. Normally he would be able to keep such thoughts under control, but with the buzz of the alcohol running through his system, he was finding it hard to keep them from running rampant. “What’s on your mind? If somethin’s buggin’ you, you know my hands can make light work of it. All you gotta do is say the word” you offered, making him chuckle. Your hands could make light work of him. What in the god damn? “stop that” he told himself, cursing himself for feeling this way towards his close friend of all people. “Afraid what’s on my mind can’t be helped that way, baby. What’s got me in a twist is all my doing” he replied, and it left you rather confused, he could see it in the way your brows furrowed in confusion as you looked at him. Your head tilted sideways a tad like a dog who couldn’t seem to understand what their owner was saying. You were so fucking cute. “Well then what’s got you all in a twist? You called me here for a reason, Benny. I just wanna help” you replied, pleading with him to give you something to work with. He could groan at the way his name fell off of your tongue so melodically. You just had to show up in uniform too, with your dress slacks hugging your thighs, your blazer really showing off your curves, and your blouse that dipped low enough for him to get a peak of your cleavage. He was eating you alive with his eyes, he knew it. He couldn’t help it, you were a sight to behold. You could tell he was lost in thought at the way he was staring, leaving you chuckling before you waved your hand to grab his attention. “Earth to Benny, you still in there?” You asked jokingly with a grin as he snapped out of it. “Maybe it’s time to lay off the booze for the night” you added with a chuckle as his eyes met yours. Everything was screaming within him to tell you, but at the same time, everything screamed at him not to. He was at war within himself on what to say. Does he tell you and risk losing you? Or does he keep it and risk hurting himself when there comes a time you fancy another man? Neither sounded great to the conman, but between the alcohol in his system and the respect he had for you to always be honest with you, he knew he had to tell you.

“Fuck it, I’m just gonna bite the bullet and hope we can still keep this in the groove, dig?” He asked, and his words weren’t slurred and he didn’t feel drunk. So why was his head spinning? His heart racing? He was a certified mess, and it was your doing. “Oh c’mon Benny, we been runnin’ this show for how long now? You know you can always talk to me! Ya got girl trouble?” You asked with a devious grin, knowing he had a new flavor just about every month if not more than that. He was almost amazed at the way you figured out what was wrong, but thankfully not down to the specifics. It was reasons like this he called you not only his business partner but his best friend. But god how he craved for you to be more than that. “I wonder sometimes if you’re a damn psychic with that prime intuition of yours, babe. Girl trouble ain’t even half the start of it” he replied, sitting across from you in a plush chair as he placed his glass down on the small table next to it. You gave a chuckle. “Ya never did have good luck in choosin’ broads, Benny. Kinda funny to see that hasn’t changed since Vegas became ours” you quipped playfully, making him chuckle. “Very funny. I think I remember calling you here for help, not to take jabs at me, pussycat” he replied, making you laugh. “Aww c’mon you know I’m just yankin’ your chain. What’s got you all in a twist then? You didn’t get one of ‘em pregnant, did ya? Because I can’t help you there with that one” You asked, an eyebrow raised at him in suspicion. “Fuck no, the Ben-man ain’t nothin’ if not responsible. Have a little faith” he said, making you playfully wipe your forehead as if you were super worried. “Whew, that’s a relief. I ain’t ready to be an aunt just yet” you joked, making you both laugh. You always were great at helping him calm down. “Well then what is it? She do something wrong? Steal from you?” You asked, killing yourself internally with each question knowing that it was another woman he was speaking of. “My heart maybe” he said boldly as he took another sip of his drink, and it was true, you had his heart in your hands at all times. But you didn’t know that. You gave a smile that hid the pain inside from his statement, believing he was speaking of another woman. You wanted him to be happy, he deserved it, and you knew when you started working with him that it could never be you that would make him feel this way. But damn if he didn’t have a way of charming himself into your own heart, making you hope that it could work. “Awww, well ain’t that sweet” you replied, trying your best to coat the poisoned words with saccharine falsity, to disguise the ache resting in your chest at the thought of another woman stealing his heart. “I said smooth, baby doll” he said, making you both chuckle. “What? A girl can’t be happy for her friend who’s in love? Sheesh. She sounds like a lucky gal” you joked, making him chuckle once more. friend. God how that word killed you. A constant reminder of what will never be, especially now. Or so you thought.

“Well, c’mon, don’t spare me the details. Who is it?” You asked, not really wanting to know the details but you could put your feelings aside for the happiness of Benny if that’s what it took. However that’s when his face turned red. He should’ve known you’d ask that question. His heart slammed against his sternum as he tried to think of what to say. He couldn’t just straight up tell you, not when he didn’t know if you felt the same way, and he’d be royally pissed at himself if he managed to scare you off. He couldn’t just not tell you either, you deserved to know. “Is it one of the broads over at Gomorrah?” You asked when he didn’t pipe up with an answer right away, making him scrunch up his nose in distaste at even the inquiry. You laughed at his response. “The Ben-man’s got taste. Didn’t know you thought so little of me, babe” he replied, making you giggle at him. “Alright I admit, bad guess there” you responded. He wondered if you would ever guess it, if you would either seriously or jokingly say yourself and then maybe it could be laid to rest easily. “Some of the frequent fliers here are a little questionable Benny…I’m starting to second guess on if I wanna know” you said with a joking grin, wishing you’d figure it out already and save your heart the pain. He shook his head no at all the ones you knew off the top of your head that frequent the casino, leaving you nearly out of options already. “Quit pokin’ around Benny and just tell me already! You got me hangin’ on the edge of my seat here” you said, making him take another swig of his drink to work up the proper courage to tell you the truth. It was now or never. “I ain’t got no other way of sayin’ this sweetheart, but the Ben-man has gone and caught a fever for the fine looker layin’ on his bed” he said, making you blink a few times as you registered just what he said. He was caught up on you? Was he drunk? Surely this was a joke, he couldn’t actually be serious…could he?

“Me?” You asked, sounding taken back by his answer. “You sound shocked, baby. Weren’t expecting to be the broad to catch my eye?” He asked, making you blush. Now this was suddenly going to be difficult on you. How do you tell a man who shot you in the head once that you’re in love with him? “Honestly no, I didn’t think I would. I figured out of all the women out there, the last one to catch your eye would be me” you replied, and how it broke him to hear you talk so little of yourself. To share in a vulnerable moment that wasn’t hidden behind false confidence and bravado. He always respected the way that you were a different woman outside of work, that you could detach yourself from the persona you had to carry with you in the casino and around the other chairmen. He wished he could be more like you, more in touch with his humanity, but he was a conman, and a good one. His work is all he’s really known until you came around. “You’re the prime article baby, ol’ Benny here ain’t ever met a broad like you” he replied, making you blush as your stomach started doing flips with excitement. It was everything you’d been dying to hear from him for so long now. It felt as if fate herself was shining down on you in this moment. “I certainly ain’t met a man quite like you either, Benny” you said with a growing grin, making him chuckle. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s a real good thing I got a case of Benny fever then, huh?” You asked with a far more confident grin as you looked at him, sat across from you with his legs spread to help ease the growing tightness of his dress slacks. “Benny fever, is that so?” He asked with a mirrored grin of excitement, making you bite your bottom lip as you shook your head yes in response. “That bullet scramble your egg? Or have you always been a naughty broad?” He asked, finding himself more and more intrigued. Not to mention hot. The laugh you gave in response was breathy, and he wasn’t sure if it was just because it came from you, or the alcohol toying with his mind but he found it sexy. “What can I say? Girls like bad boys, and you have been downright awful” you replied, sensuality dripping from your tone as you flirted with him. “You’re one sick pussycat, baby. There’s quins and then there’s…I don’t even know what to call you” he commented, making you giggle playfully as you crossed your legs in front of him. “I’m saying I dig you too Benny, have for a while now” you said, making him grin even wider at your admission. Thank god, now he could no longer worry. “If I heard “dig” from you back then, I’d have told you all I can think of is a shovel. But you got a real twisted up way of showin’ the Ben-man your forgiveness” he replied, making you giggle once more. “I can think of another way to show you my forgiveness” you suggested, making him raise a brow at you and let out a sound of intrigue and excitement. “Oh yeah?” He asked, watching you bite your lip in excitement as your body language screamed for him to get closer. “And what idea is on that wild mind of yours, baby?” He said, making you hum. “How ‘bout i put my past profession to good use and I show you how well I can…handle your package? If you let me?” you responded. Oh, he definitely wanted you to.

You weren’t sure when it all began, but the next thing you knew, you both were down to your underwear. You made a show of stripping yourself of your uniform, being sure to be slow and teasing as you slipped out of your blazer, blouse and dress slacks for him. You made a show of bending over when you took off your slacks, then moving to your bra that soon found its way to the floor to be forgotten about until the next day. “You are the prime article baby. Nice Charlie’s too! Give ‘em a shake for the Ben-man, would ya?” He asked, making you giggle as you shook them and made a show of fondling them and feeling them up in front of him to tease him. “Hellooo!” He responded as you straddled his lap, taking a seat and pulling him into a heated kiss. He relished in the way your lips tasted like the sweet bourbon cherries that rested in your drink from earlier that you shared with him while you were both still downstairs. He tasted of vodka and cigarette smoke, a mixture you’d have never found appealing had it not been upon the lips of the addicting man you were tasting it from. You hummed into it in delight as his hands rested on your hips, softly moving your hips to grind against his. You moaned softly as you felt your clit bump and rub against his clothed length through your panties, effectively working you up even more than you already were. As you opened your mouth to moan, he took the chance to slip his tongue in to dance upon yours, needing more of that sweet taste of you. Your hands rested on his shoulders, using it at leverage as you continued to grind your hips into his before trailing their way up to tangle in his hair. He moaned at the blissful feeling of your nails scraping his scalp and the occasional tug of his hair. “Fuck baby, got me all kinds of worked up and you haven’t even taken those cute panties off yet” he said, making you giggle as your lips started to migrate down his neck in search for a sensitive spot to suck on and nip at. “Gotta make you as crazy for me as I’ve been for you, baby” you replied with a grin, leaving small but dark hickies in your pleasurable wake. He groaned in response, making you giggle as you felt it rumble from his chest and in his throat as your lips were pressed to his pulse point. “Oh trust me, I’ve been just as crazy for you, pussycat. No doubt about that” he responded, making you grin as you worked your way down his chest and stomach before you were on your knees in front of him.

Your fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxers before pulling them down, watching as his dick slapped his stomach just below his naval as it was freed from its confines. You bit your lip at the wonderful sight, and it was like a dream come true in his eyes. Seeing you here, on your knees in front of him, looking up at him the way you were right now was the fuel to so many of his fantasies he had nightly of you. “Like what you see, baby? I saw those pretty little eyes light up just now” he teased, making you chuckle while your lips littered kisses along his inner thighs before working your way to where he needed you most. “Sure do sugar, wondering if you taste as good as you look” you said before licking a fat stripe from base to tip of the underside of his cock. He groaned, his fingers digging in and clenching tightly the sheets beneath him in his fists from your hot, wet tongue. You made direct eye contact as you did it, one of your hands coming up to cup and fondle his balls as you brought him into your mouth. “Shit…can’t believe this is what I’ve been missin’ out on this whole time” he said, tipping his head back some as you worked his balls with one hand and what you couldn’t fit in your mouth with the other as you started to bob your head up and down on him in a pleasant rhythm. “Can’t tell you how many nights I’ve pictured this baby. Mmm and I gotta say- fuck! You’re a dream come true, honey- oh fucckk…” he moaned, tilting his head to look down at you between his legs on occasion. If he wasn’t careful, he’d find his release too soon and he couldn’t have that. Not when the fun’s just getting started between you two. It was when he felt his tip hit the back of your throat, making your watery eyes look up at home through your lashes that he had to call it quits. “Oh baby, stop, stop, stop. Shit, you keep going like that and I’m not gonna make it to the fun stuff” he said, unashamed of admitting just how much you turned him on. You let off of him with a pop before standing back up.

“Treated me so good baby, least I can do is return the favor. Sit up here and give the Ben-man a taste” he said, lying on his back and motioning you to sit on his face. “Shit Benny, I haven’t done that before. Are you sure? I don’t wanna hurt you…” you said bashfully, making him chuckle and slip you a grin. “If it’s between these pretty legs? I would die a happy man, baby. Don’t be shy c’mon, promise I’ll take good care of you” he insisted, and you had to admit, you rather liked the idea of having such control and trying something new. He watched as you removed your panties, tossing them to the side where they too would be forgotten until the next day, then as you crawled your way up his body. Your legs straddled his head as your core hovered just over his lips, his hands soon resting upon your hips and ass to pull you down and onto his face. You threw your head back with a pornographic moan as his tongue explored your cunt. “Fuck, oh Benny, baby…” you moaned almost breathlessly as his tongue trailed your slit before coming to dance along your clit. “When were you gonna tell me you’re such a tasty treat, doll?” He asked, and it was a whole different sensation receiving pleasure this way, one that left you bucking your hips in rhythm with his tongue to feel more of that wonderful friction against your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Benny! Oh my god, just like that!” You moaned, getting lost in the feeling of his tongue swirling and fluttering against your sensitive bud. Your hand came down to rake your fingers through his hair once more in appreciation of the way he made you feel. “Keep moaning my name like that baby, tell this whole joint how good I make you feel” he egged on before wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking gently, making your body jolt in response before letting out a pleased yet surprised moan. “God yes! Oh I’m so close, please don’t stop…” you begged, looking down at the sight of him between your legs as you fucked yourself on his tongue. He gave a chuckle and a moan into you at the way you were riding his face, using him for your pleasure. It made his dick throb almost painfully. “Keep using me babe, fuck your pretty self on my face. Wanna feel you cum on my tongue baby, give it to me” he begged, drilling his tongue in and out of your entrance and then back up to your clit. “Oh fuck I’m gonna cum…oh god, yes! Benny!!” Was all you could get out before his head was squeezed between your thighs, your body spasming and shaking as your eyes rolled to the back of your head from the sheer force of pleasure your orgasm sent sky rocketing through you. If he had no restraint, he’d have cum just from the sight of you, paired with the way your pussy fluttered on his tongue and the way you moaned his name like a sinful mantra.

“Holy fuck…oh my god. Oh shit!” You said breathlessly, realizing you needed to release him from the tight grip your thighs had on him as you made your way off from his face to straddle his lap instead. “Are you okay?” You asked, trying your best to catch your breath and climb back down from cloud nine. He made a show of licking your slick from his lips as he sat up before wiping his mouth. “Better than okay baby, you’re fucking delicious. How do you feel? You look like you high-fived the heavens there, baby doll. I make you feel that good?” he responded with a confident grin, pulling you into a heated kiss once again, loving the way he made you feel so damn good. “Better than good, you’re fucking dangerous with that tongue of yours” you replied into it, making you both chuckle before seating yourself on his hips once more, gliding your soaking cunt along his throbbing cock as you kissed. “Insatiable little thing, you’re right up my alley baby” he said, making you giggle and moan into your shared kiss as he fondled your tits, lavishing them with kisses and hickies. “And so gorgeous, I’m a damn lucky man” he said, making you bite your lip as your fingers laced in his hair once again, your eyes fluttering shut in bliss as he brought your nipple into his mouth and sucked. “Damn right you are- fuck…god I need you so bad Benny, please” you pleaded, making him chuckle as he flipped you both over, your back against his mattress as your hair fell around you like a halo.

“You ready, baby? Benny’s gonna show you the Tops! Hope you’re built sturdy you crazy broad” he said, lining himself up to your entrance. You hissed at the painful stretch of his length sliding into you, as wet as you were, it still burned with the way he spread you open. He felt like he had the wind knocked out of him when he slipped in even just half way, you were a tighter fit than any of the girls he fooled around with. “Almost there baby, doing so good for me. Feel so good wrapped around me like this” he complimented, leaning down to kiss you softly and sweetly to distract you from the pain as he tried to fully slip the rest of himself inside you. You both moaned in unison as the last of him slipped inside you, his hips stilled, waiting for your signal that told him he could move. “Doin’ okay, baby doll?” He asked, checking on you to make sure you were okay and not in too much pain. It had certainly been a long while since the last time you had sex. You’d go as far to say that the last time might have been before you were shot in the head. You shook your head yes in reply, scared that your voice might betray you if you tried to speak. “I won’t move until you tell me it’s alright. Wanna make sure I’m making my girl feel just as good, if not better, than she gets me feelin’, dig?” He responded, making you bite your lip as you tested a roll of your hips to feel if it was okay for him to move. He took that as his sign, but just to make sure he wasn’t going to hurt you, he slowly slipped nearly out of you completely before slowly working his way back in. He watched as you laid your head back against his pillows, your eyes fluttering shut in bliss as you covered your mouth to keep you from moaning too loud. He wasn’t having that. “None of that baby, I wanna hear you. Wanna hear how good I make you feel” he replied, pulling your hand from your mouth and testing another thrust, making you moan in response. “That’s it baby, you moan so pretty for me. Love hearing you” he said, starting to set a slow but nice pace, enjoying being able to watch your expressions and the way your breasts bounced with his movements. His hand grabbed one of yours from beside you, pulling it up by your head and intertwining his fingers with yours as a sweet show of compassion. You smiled up at him, feeling him lean forward to close the gap between you before his lips connected with yours once more. It was gentle yet passionate, just like before. Your free hand traversed the expanse of his back, needing to feel every inch of him you could against your own skin. It was intimate, intimate in a way he hadn’t been in quite a long time. One could even say there was love put into it with the way he cared for you. You weren’t just any run-of-the-mill broad, and this certainly wasn’t just any night in the sack for him, no. He wanted to show you how much he meant it when he said all the things he did, how much he cared for you and wanted you. He wanted to make it apparent that he wasn’t fucking you, he was making love to you. And that wasn’t something he did with just anybody.

He felt your legs wrap around his hips, keeping him close to you. He groaned at the feeling, how your legs pulling him into you made him hit deeper inside, pulling a delighted moan from you. “You play a dangerous game there baby doll” he said playfully, making you giggle and bite your lip as you looked up at him. “Maybe it’s a gamble I’m willing to take, sugar” you said, and it was mighty tempting for sure, a thought that grew more and more enticing the closer he was to reaching his end. “Benny…” you moaned breathlessly as you felt him nudge your sweet spot inside, making you keen and dig your nails into his back each time he hit it. “That the spot baby?” He asked, making sure to angle his hips where he would be able to hit it repeatedly, even with his slower pace. “Yes…fuck, just like that honey. Feels so good” you replied, looking up at him with your brows furrowed and lips parted as your moans filled the room like a sinful symphony. His lips trailed down to your neck, littering your neck and chest with kisses and playful nips at your soft skin. “Fuck baby…feels like this pretty cunt was made just for me with the way you’re huggin’ me all nice” he said through a groan. “Just for you baby” you replied, feeling the coil in your stomach growing tight. The mixed melody of your shared moans and the sounds of skin slapping against skin filled the suite. With the way the bed seemed to creak and squeal beneath you in time with the movements of your bodies, you wondered if anyone in passing could hear what was going on behind closed doors. “So close Benny…please, don’t stop” you pleaded, looking up at him, watching the way his eyes drank you in beneath him like this. “Cum for me baby, wanna see that pretty face all twisted up in pleasure” he encouraged, using his free hand to slip between your bodies, rubbing gentle circles against your clit.

It wasn’t long before stars filled your vision, sending your back arching from the mattress as you tipped over the edge into sweet bliss. Your nails of your one hand dug into his back, your other gripping his hand, that still lay entwined in yours, tightly as you cried out his name. You couldn’t care less about those who may have heard you in passing, all that mattered to you right now was this moment, spent with Benny. He wasn’t far behind you, pulling himself from you to spill all over your stomach with a groan. You giggled as he collapsed next to you, but not before grabbing something to help clean you both up. You turned and looked to him with a dreamy smile plastered to your face. “That was a nice bit of hey-hey girly. You’re a real ring-a-ding broad” he said, making you laugh at his compliment. “Not so bad yourself, handsome” you replied through your grin, feeling his hand come to rest along your hip as you both settled in beneath the covers. “Did ya really mean it when you say you dig me, baby?” He asked, wanting to make sure it wasn’t just something said in the heat of the moment, and that if it was he could properly detach his heart and move on. He wasn’t usually the type of man to show his hand, but now all his cards were out on the table for you to see. He wanted to be sure he hadn’t mistaken your words. “Of course I meant it, Benny. I ain’t a fink” you replied, your hand coming to rest against his cheek softly, your thumb rubbing his skin gently. His hand came up to rest against yours, smiling back at you. “I know you aren’t. I can always rely on you to be real with me, just makin’ sure I’m not betting a losing hand” he said, making you scoot closer to him. “Far from it. So long as you’re the cuddling type, and that this ain’t a one time thing, I’m here to stay” you replied, making him chuckle. “I’d be a dunce to quit you, baby. You’re as addicting as a gambler chasing the high of a winning streak” he complimented, making you giggle as your faces rested rather close to each other now. You smiled as you looked into his chocolate brown eyes. “What’dya say we give this a shot, you and me? Be my dame” He asked, and you couldn’t have been more delighted by the idea. “I’d like that” you answered softly with a smile, your eyes flickering between his and his lips, making him smile happily at your answer. “Yeah? You’d be mine, honey baby?” He asked. “About time you asked me, we’ve been dancin’ around each other for long enough. Don’t you think?” You asked, making him chuckle as he leaned in to kiss you. “See that right there? That’s what I like about you. I knew I made the right call” he said into your kiss, making you giggle once more. “Good. Now hush up and kiss me, would you?” You said playfully, making him hum in amusement as he kissed you like it was his last day he’d ever have by your side.

As you both pulled away for air, he couldn’t help but get lost in your eyes as he looked at you, feeling his chest grow warm with joy. Finally, he no longer had to worry about the way he felt, or wonder if you felt the same. He had you, and you had him, and to Benny that was the way he felt it should be. Like this, all felt right in the world. When he laid here in your arms, head resting against your chest, he felt at peace. He only hoped he could do the same for you. “Hold me, will ya? I swear you wore me out” he said, breaking the peaceful silence and making you giggle as your arms wrapped around him, your fingers carding through his dark hair. He let out a sound of contentment as you did, making you smile happily as you continued until you too fell blissfully asleep.

It was earlier that next morning, about the normal time the chairmen would meet up to discuss plans and all things business for the day. Swank, who normally stopped by your room to have someone by his side to talk to for the trip up to the thirteenth floor to Benny’s suite, was left rather confused when you hadn’t answered his knocks at your door. Normally you were either already out the door and waiting on him, or you’d be out the door the moment he knocked. He’d tried for a good ten minutes to get to you. He stood outside your door knocking at least five or six times, not knowing that you weren’t inside your room before finally giving up. He assumed you were either dead asleep and going to be chewed out by Benny later for being late, or up and there already and for some reason decided not to wait for him. Needless to say, it came as a bit of a shock when Swank knocked on Benny’s door, came inside, and didn’t already see you sitting there. Where were you? Had Benny sent you out for a personal errand maybe? Something didn’t feel right. “What can I pour you to drink, baby?” Benny asked as you were still in the bathroom, leaving Swank confused. He must have invited another girl up to his room, something he hadn’t done in a few months now that he came to think about it. You gave a chuckle, and soon his question about where you were was answered. “Interesting way to start off the morning, sugar. I can think of a far better way to start it than liquor could” you said suggestively, completely unaware of the added person in the room and only earning a chuckle from Benny in return. Swank watched as you walked out from the connected bathroom in nothing more than Benny’s dress shirt that looked as if it nearly swallowed you whole, clearly just fresh out of the shower. It was as you were drying your hair with a towel when you padded into the room to see Swank sitting in the chair across from Benny, leaving you wide eyed in surprise and red in the face. “Shit, Benny! You didn’t tell me you were having the meeting now!” You said, and both Benny and Swank gave a laugh from seeing you so flustered. “Busted. Now I know why I didn’t get an answer when I knocked on your door earlier” Swank said with a grin, eyeing the hickies adorning your neck that gave away what you were up to last night. His eyes soon dragged to the exposed skin of your legs, before coming back up and delighting in the slight peek of cleavage from the dress shirt you were wearing. His eyes soon came to the few hickies that seemed to peek from Benny’s collar, further answering his suspicions. “Warn a girl next time, would ya?” You asked, tossing your towel at the back of Benny’s chair before going back into the bathroom to change into your uniform and hopefully hide your embarrassment. “Have to say, rather jealous of you Ben-man. Been chasing her for a while. She seems like the real deal” Swank said after blowing his cigarette smoke out after a drag of it. “I take it you two had an…eventful night last night from the looks of it” he added, Benny chuckled with a grin that told Swank all he needed to know. “You sly dog you” he replied with a grin of his own and a laugh as he poured himself a drink. Once you stepped back out, this time in uniform, you made yourself a drink before sitting next to Benny, a dusting of red still lingering on your cheeks from embarrassment. “Been wondering why you’ve been holding off on your monthly flavors the past few months there Benny, guess I know why” Swank spoke, wiggling his eyebrows in your direction before taking a sip of his drink. “Don’t sound so jealous Swank, the girls over at Gomorrah got you wrapped around their pretty little pinky” you bit back playfully. “He’s just mad I stole a prime article from right under him” Benny teased back, making Swank laugh. “Well unless you’re just here to cock-block me from having a good morning, I suggest we get this meeting started” you spoke, making Swank grin at your sass being thrown his way as business ensued. But not to worry, you and Benny had your share of fun once you were alone again.

[quasi-normalcy]

Why Deep Space Nine wasn't as popular as the other 90s Star Treks when it aired

So I keep seeing this one kind of conspiratorial text post circulating around which asserts that Deep Space Nine wasn't as popular as the other Star Trek series from the 90s because Rick Berman hated it and deliberately sabotaged it, and also (somehow) marginalized references to it in canon even decades after he stopped having absolutely anything to do with the franchise and just...no. Like, I have no idea how Rick Berman personally felt about Deep Space Nine, but what I do know is that he co-created it and executive produced it and basically ran the entire Star Trek franchise during the 90s, so if he *really* hated what it was doing, he could have just put his foot down and stopped it. Moreover, he didn't marginalize references to Deep Space Nine in canon; Voyager getting into contact with the Alpha Quadrant and learning that the Maquis had been exterminated by the Dominion (something that happened on Deep Space Nine) was one of the very few plot points on that series to have repercussions for more than an episode; First Contact featured the Defiant; both Insurrection and Nemesis have references to the Dominion War. The post is reacting against a problem that doesn't really exist.

But it does raise the question: why *wasn't* Deep Space Nine popular when it aired? And I think that the answer might be difficult for people who weren't alive and conscious during the 1990s to understand, so I'm going to try to lay out the reasons:

Serialization was only just becoming a thing on adult American television: I know that this might sound a bit difficult to believe now, but there was a time when networks really hated serialization and, with context, it's not too hard to understand why. In the 1990s, there was no streaming; there weren't even any DVD sets. Any given episode aired once at a designated time. If you missed that time, then your options were to wait until it was rerun a few weeks later, or again during the summer (and the networks would often air reruns out of order, so good fucking luck with that), or to hope that one of your friends had recorded it on a VHS tape. Otherwise, you just couldn't see it. Even worse than that, networks could arbitrarily pre-empt their own programming. Like, "Oh, you wanted to watch Star Trek? Well a baseball game just went into overtime and it brings in ten times as many viewers. Hopefully you won't find it too jarring if we just begin half an hour into the episode." So you can understand why this would have a knock-on effect on serialised storytelling; if you've missed one episode, and the subsequent stories depend on plot points from the episode, then you're just going to be confused. But even beyond that, if you're not used to serialization as an audience, then you're not going to be on the look-out for context clues. "Oh, that alien just told Quark about something called 'the Dominion'? Oh that sounds important--oh, wait, no, they got to the end of the episode and nothing happened with it. I guess it wasn't important after all."

The Star Trek name: This one seems a bit counterintuitive, because of course the name should be a draw to fans of the other series, but you have to remember that, at the time in question, the franchise consisted only of the original series and movies and the first six and a half seasons of TNG. Now, these differed in several ways, but what they had in common is that they were all about a bunch of moral paragons who flew around in space in shiny starships, having episodic adventures. That was what Star Trek was. And then you got a new series about a bunch of morally compromised characters who sat still in space on a gungy old space station having serialised adventures. It's not the same thing, and so a lot of people who wanted the first thing tuned out (which was, in fact, why Voyager had to be created), whereas a lot of people who wanted the second thing might not have tuned in because they figured it would be the first thing. And this of course brings us to the third reason:

Babylon 5: So stop me if you've heard this one before: it's a serialized drama from the 1990s all about a bunch of humans and aliens having to coexist on a space station as they navigate diplomatic crises and gradually become enmeshed in an elaborate space opera story arc. It features a race of aliens who can be called "highly spiritual", a race of aliens who have recently overthrown a decades-long brutal occupation of their homeworld by a crumbling and overstretched empire, a race of aliens who are often mistaken for gods (and who cultivate this misconception), and a mysterious new threat emerging onto the galactic scene, eventually culminating in a seasons-long war arc. I am of course describing J. Michael Straczynski's science fiction masterpiece Bablyon 5, which he, and a great many of his fans, regarded (and not without reason) as having been ripped off and pre-empted by Paramount in the form of Deep Space Nine. Now, looking at the evidence, I personally think that most of the similarities between these series are a sort of convergent evolution; but, whatever your opinion on the matter, the fact remains that these two fandoms hated each other during the 1990s. And the net effect of this was that a bunch of SF nerds who would probably have really liked DS9 if they had gotten to see it never watched it at all as a matter of principle because as far as they were concerned, its very existence was a corporate ploy to bully an upstart rival out of business.

Anyways, for all of these reasons, it's not remarkable to me that Deep Space Nine never became as popular as TNG and Voyager; and because it wasn't as popular, it makes sense that Paramount would be more circumspect about greenlighting Picard-style sequels or Lower Decks or Prodigy-style spinoffs to it (and indeed, I'm not convinced that all of the writers have even seen it). But I think that it is a testament to just how good DS9 was that it still managed to get the same seven seasons, even if it never drew in the same audience

[anneapocalypse]

Why I Love the Hinterlands

The Hinterlands in Dragon Age: Inquisition get kind of a bad rap, and for kind of understandable reasons. For anybody who doesn't know the story, some context. The Hinterlands are the first open world area that unlocks for the player, a vast and highly explorable map full of quests, worldbuilding, and NPCs. So what was the problem? The problem was that the Dragon Age series had set two games' worth of precedent that the player could get locked out of an area and lose access to sidequests and other content—and the devs seemed not to fully realize they were fighting this precedent, or how strong it was, until the game came out and completionist players were getting exhausted and annoyed running around this huge map trying frantically to knock out all the side content before moving on. We still make jokes about devs on twitter trying to tell players that they could leave the Hinterlands. Lines were later patched in for the starting companions urging the player to go to Val Royeaux and advance the plot; you'll hear those lines if you play the game today, but they weren't there in the beginning.

The game's executive producer Mark Darrah has even spoken about this problem in his Dragon Age: Inquisition Memories and Lessons video on YouTube. From a game design perspective I do not dispute this issue. It definitely represents an oversight in the way the area is presented to players and the context they are given for what they should do next.

All that said… I love the Hinterlands, and with every replay (I have beaten the game four times at this point) my appreciation for this area and what it brings to the story has deepened. And as recent polls have raised discussion about the merits of various maps, I've felt moved to rise to their defense, so... here's why I think the Hinterlands are Good Actually.

Every map in Inquisition has its own overarching story, introduced by Scout Harding when the map unlocks and revealing itself through exploration and completing the quests within. Crestwood has the story of the flood during the Blight. The Exalted Plains have the story of the Orlesian Civil War. The Hissing Wastes have the story of Fairel and the surface thaig. And so forth. For this reason, I've come to feel that once you've progressed far enough in the main quest to have collected most or all of your companions, the most rewarding way to experience each area is at one go, as much as possible. Popping in and out of maps to complete one quest at time is, in my opinion, really detrimental to exploration and makes it harder to see the big picture. This is also one place where I really appreciate the invisible approval meter, because it discourages me from always stacking my party to game approval, the way I pretty much always play DA2.

At first glance, the story of the Hinterlands is the story of the ongoing war between the rebel mages and the renegade templars. This is one reason the Inquisitor may go there: to make contact with the rebel mages. They have been offered refuge in Redcliffe and are presently entrenched in the castle and adjoining village; the templars continue to attack the mages' position, and thus there is concentrated fighting in this region. Splinter factions of both mages and templars are also entrenched elsewhere in the area.

But this is just the setup. What the Hinterlands is about, its real story, is the common people.

The Inquisitor is first sent to the Hinterlands to make contact with Mother Giselle, in hopes of gaining some Chantry support. Seeking her out requires the Inquisitor to fight their way through the conflict to reach the Crossroads, where many refugees have gathered.

In these big, sweeping stories about heroes and villains, I think it's easy for the perspectives of common people to get kind of lost. One thing I do appreciate about the Dragon Age series is that every game does make a real effort to give voice to the commoner perspective. Origins has its city elf and casteless dwarf origin stories, and the player encounters many commoners throughout the game and gets to hear a bit of their perspective. Dragon Age 2 wouldn't be Dragon Age 2 without Darktown and Lowtown and the elven alienage and our interactions with the people who inhabit those parts of the city. Oddly enough, though, every human character we've ever had the chance to play in Dragon Age has come from a noble family; sure, Hawke starts out living as a commoner, but doesn't stay that way for long.

In Inquisition especially, we don't have the option of a commoner prologue to really drive home that perspective and carry it through the story. And while a Dalish elf, a Carta dwarf, a qunari mercenary, and a Circle mage certainly live very different lives than a human noble, they also live very different lives than Giles the farmer—not necessarily more privileged, but still different, with differing priorities and different stakes in this conflict. Bron the farmhand has no reason to be at the Conclave; he's here mucking out stalls, knowing the horses still need to be fed even if there is a rift spewing demons over there in the middle of the neighbor's pasture. Elaina the farmer is putting away cabbages for winter and hoping the barn doesn't get burned down by a stray fireball. And Elaina is one of the fortunate ones: her family's home and livelihood are still intact, for now. The Crossroads now hold many ordinary people who through no fault of their own have lost their homes, their crops, even family members.

Theirs is the perspective we get in the Hinterlands.

You don't have to stick around for all that. You can take Mother Giselle’s advice immediately, go to Val Royeaux, go deal with bigger and more important things and people. You will need 4 Power to go to Val Royeaux, but Power is easy to come by. Close a few rifts, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to care about these refugees and their problems.

But you know, something I notice is that the founders of the Inquisition spend a whole lot of breath talking about "the people." How they have to restore order for the people. How the people are looking to us—to you, Your Worship. The people need you. The people need to believe in you. That’s why we’re raising an army and building a cult around you! For the people.

Well, here are the people.

And if you talk to the people at the Crossroads, it turns out that what they actually need is less faith in Andraste’s chosen, and more blankets for the cold nights, medicine for the sick and injured, and food so they don’t starve. They need the war ended and the Breach closed so that they can return to what’s left of their homes and salvage what crops and livestock they can.

It is easy to feel a bit smothered by the Inquisition’s overwhelming Andrastian-ness, especially when playing a character who has their own religious beliefs, or none at all. We have a lot of characters trying to tell us about the importance of faith—their faith, specifically. We’re told that the people need to believe, and that’s why we have to play the role of this figurehead. And you can run with that idea and play it straight, if you want to. But there is, in fact, a different story to be found here, if you want to look for it—a story told in the world itself and the people who who inhabit it: people cannot eat faith.

And Mother Giselle, the person we are sent to the Hinterlands to find, knows this. She is certainly a devout Andrastian and deeply influenced by a life in the Chantry—but she also chooses to be on the ground helping people in need rather than arguing with her fellow clerics in Val Royeaux. After the attack on Haven, Mother Giselle and the Inquisitor have a conversation about faith, in which the Inquisitor points out, in one way or another, that faith may not be enough. Giselle may seem to disagree. Yet it is she who then leads the survivors in a song that does not mention the Maker or Andraste even once. The much-maligned “The Dawn Will Come” is so frequently assumed to be a Chantry hymn because it is Mother Giselle who starts it; even the fan wiki lists it as such. But I hear something much more akin to a folk song, a marching tune—not a high holy chorus for a cathedral choir, but a song with a simple tune and repetitive lyrics, about hope in dark times.

Perhaps she was rather more persuaded than she appeared.

When you ask your ambassador Josephine, “What do the people make of us?” she tells you how many noble allies you’ve gathered. And that’s not unimportant; this boots on the ground shit costs money, and most of that is coming out of noble coffers. But when you ask Mother Giselle, “How are the people?” she speaks of the terror and suffering of the people in the Hinterlands, and warns of mass starvation if the farmers cannot return to their fields.

This is the story of the Hinterlands.

And the density of side quests on this map reflects that. In addition to aiding the refugees with food, blankets, and medicine, there are so many more opportunities to help people in small but meaningful ways. An elven widower who cannot reach his wife’s grave through the fighting asks the Inquisitor to bring flowers there as is his custom. A grieving widow asks for the retrieval of her husband’s wedding ring from the templars who murdered him. A beloved ram has gone missing. A mage mourns her templar lover and the war that has come between them. A note speaks of two brothers, templar and apostate, torn apart by the war. A son has gone off to join the cult in the hills (no, not our cult in the hills, another one), and his mother needs the special remedy for her breathing problems that only he knows how to make. And so many more. Even the Winterwatch cult itself asks us to consider what it is the people truly need: the Inquisitor can enlist them as Inquisition agents, or ask them to aid the refugees.

Are all these sidequests vital to the plot? No. You can skip them if you want to. Are they relevant to the plot? Absolutely. Are they meaningful? To me, yes. Maybe they didn't change the whole world, but they changed something for these people.

It is so important to me that we get to actually meet the common people whose lives are depending on us. Whatever you think of the Inquisition itself, people actually are dying because of both the rifts and the war, and many more will die if these problems aren’t resolved. Meeting them, giving them names and faces and side quests dealing with their more mundane needs is so much more meaningful to me than standing around back at base being told “People are starving in the Hinterlands.”

It's understandable that the Hinterlands had to fight the precedent set by Lothering getting locked off, because in many ways the Hinterlands serves the same narrative purpose as Lothering: showing the effects of the present crisis on the common people and what's at stake for them.

I should note that the Hinterlands are not the only part of the game that addresses the impact on common people—far from it, in fact. The Exalted Plains give us a taste of how many have died for the Gaspard's attempted coup; Emprise du Lion shows us commoners kidnapped and tortured by Red Templars; the Winter Palace puts the bloody reality of the "Grand Game" in stark contrast to its gilded veneer with the indiscriminate murder of servants for expediency.

But it’s important that we are introduced to the suffering of the common people early in the game, when the Herald—not yet the Inquisitor—may still feel pretty shaky on their motivations for even sticking around.

While I've mostly been talking about non-mage commoners here, I do want to say a few words about the rebel mages as well, since they too are a part of the story of the Hinterlands. I hope that no one reading thinks I am blaming the rebel mages as a whole for what's happening in the Hinterlands, for what the common people here have suffered. The templars, notably, are not entrenched in the Hinterlands. Their present stronghold is Therinfal Redoubt, an old Seeker fortress, which is a significant distance from Redcliffe. The fact that the bulk of the fighting is taking place near Redcliffe, while we've no evidence of a mage offensive against Therinfal, makes it pretty clear that it is the templars who are pursuing the mages at this point, not the other way around. Certainly some in the region may not bother to make that distinction while their crops are on fire, but let's be clear about the story the map is telling us: it is the mages who are under attack here, not the templars. It is sometimes said that Inquisition deliberately draws a false equivalence between the mages and templars in this war. I would like to point to this piece of environmental storytelling as evidence that that is not entirely true.

Sometimes, it seems like pointing out that collateral damage happens is read as condemning an oppressed people for defending themselves. I want to make it clear that this is not what I am saying. I simply feel that those characters who have lost homes and livelihoods in this conflict are also worth seeing, and talking about. But I also don’t think it’s an accident that this is the map whose story is all about the suffering of ordinary people, and it is also the rebel mages who have their base on this map; the templars do not.

So, that’s why I think the Hinterlands are Good Actually! They contain an absolute wealth of worldbuilding, and their story frames the game’s central conflicts around the people suffering for them, early in the game when that perspective is most needed.

[coraniaid]

OK, so, for context:

I don't like Agent Riley Finn, at all. He is one of my least favorite characters in Buffy, by quite some distance. I hated him even before the events of Season 5, and I only continued to hate him afterwards. I think the show would be significantly improved if his character had never been introduced. I think Whedon's idea that Buffy and Riley represent the show's one "happy and healthy relationship" is nonsensical.

I don't like As You Were. It's arguably Doug Petrie's worst episode (well, worst so far, anyway: let's not forgive him for his Season 7 episodes just yet).

I don't even really like Season 6 much (certainly not as much as so many people on Tumblr pretend to do). I think the concept of the season is very good but the execution is often decidedly lacking. It is not a season I often feel the urge to rewatch.

But, that being said, I'll confess it is somewhat bizarre to see so many people reblogging a post that says As You Were would have been improved if Riley showed up contrite and humble and openly ashamed of his [yes, unquestionably terrible and indefensible] actions in Season 5, or that the episode is one last attempt by the writers to force the audience to like him. To me, that is just ... obviously not true. I don't even see how it could be true.

As You Were is barely about Riley Finn at all. It's about Buffy. Specifically it's about what most of Season 6 is about: Buffy being miserable and depressed, struggling with bills and a soul-crushing mininum wage job, resenting her friends for having brought her back to life, romanticizing her past and (wrongly) convinced that she somehow 'came back wrong'. Riley is only in the episode to further that aim.

So, yes, the episode ignores all of Riley's [very real, very irritating, very hard to forgive] flaws and past failings and instead presents him as a dashing and attractive ex-boyfriend; as the perfect guy who somehow got away. Yes, it focuses on how much Buffy's own fortunes have declined since they broke up. Yes, Buffy is meant to find him attractive and be sad that he's married to somebody else already. Yes, the show deliberately sets up Riley as being competent and put together and high status while Buffy herself is none of these things. But this isn't because the writers are somehow trying to trick you into liking Riley (it would obviously be a very stupid and ineffective way to do that if it were! it demonstrably doesn't actually make anybody who didn't like Riley change their mind! why assume that it is trying to?). It is because this is how Buffy sees things herself.

The episode is about Buffy first, and Riley ..., not even third. He is a plot device. Just as in Season 3's Gingerbread (when Joyce is possessed and tries to burn Buffy at the stake as part of her campaign to cleanse Sunnydale of all things supernatural), or Helpless (when Giles puts his loyalty to the Council above Buffy's own safety and well-being), in As You Were Riley exists primarily to tell us something about Buffy. In Season 3, Buffy was afraid that being a Slayer would ruin her relationship with her mother and that Giles didn't really want to be the replacement father figure she clearly wanted him to be, and those episodes have her fears come true. Both Joyce and Giles act in pretty repellent (and arguably out-of-character) ways in their respective episodes, but those actions are justified in that they are consistent with Buffy's own view of the world. You could replace both of them with nightmare versions of their characters (like Hank Summers in Season 1's Nightmares) and both episodes would play out the same way (and have the same glaring lack of follow-up in later episodes).

So too in As You Were. The writers are probably more sympathetic to Riley than the average Tumblr user in 2024, but they don't particularly care if you like Riley or not. He's not been in the show for a year and after this he's never going to be in it again. This isn't about him. What is important is that Buffy herself misses Riley and her relationship with him: not necessarily because Riley was so great [again, he wasn't: Riley sucks] but because he's a part of her older life that she wishes she could go back to. A time when she had a 'normal' relationship and was still in college (and doing well academically!) and her mom was still alive and things seemed to be going well for her. Because she misses the version of Buffy that she used to be. (Who exactly are we supposed to think the 'you' of As You Were refers to? I don't think it's Agent Finn...)

Sure, I'd personally think better of Riley Finn as a person if he showed up looking sheepish and told Buffy he was sorry for how badly he behaved in Season 5 and he said he'd fund all her future bills and help her get back into college before dedicating the rest of his life to campaigning against both missionary work and US-backed (para)military actions in South and Central America. I'd think better of Joyce if she'd ignored the two demon kids only she could see and supported her real daughter better, too. Or of Giles if he hadn't ever gone along with the plan of hypnotizing and drugging a teenage girl he'd sworn to take care of and protect and who, less than a year earlier, he'd promised his unconditional "support and respect".

But Riley being a decent human being and making Buffy feel better about herself wouldn't make As You Were a "better" episode. It would make it a completely different episode, one that belonged in a completely different season. It would make it something that was utterly at odds, tonally and thematically, with the version of Season 6 that actually exists. This is not a season where nice things happen to Buffy, and if you think it should be I honestly don't think you like the story the season is trying to tell very much.

As You Were is not primarily "the episode where Riley comes back" (in which the writers then decided to talk about how great Riley was with the aim of making the fans like him while Buffy ends up feeling like shit and being embarrassed about how her own life is going as some sort of collateral damage). It is an episode where Buffy continues to feel like shit and be embarrased about how badly her life is going (and, in order to further Buffy's arc, this time Riley is there too to make her feel worse).

Do I think that it works to have Riley fill the role he does in this episode? Well, no, not really. Like I said at the top of this post, I don't like Riley and I don't enjoy seeing him on my television screen. Into The Woods' awful ending makes me pretty angry and it is a shame we never got any pushback on the idea that Buffy "letting Riley go" was a mistake. Riley wasn't ever the perfect boyfriend As You Were has Buffy remember him as. This isn't one of the better episodes of Season 6. But an improved version of the episode wouldn't have Riley act like a better person. That more palatable, more fan-friendly version of Riley just isn't compatible with the story the show is telling. An improved version of the episode that was still trying to tell the same fundamental story wouldn't have Riley Finn in it at all.

[blackbat05]

Unexpected Refuge

Detective! Joaquin x Bookstore Owner! Reader

Plot: Your book store is a place of refuge for those seeking knowledge, and shelter?

Genre: PG-13

A/N: K-drama giving me ideas once again. Also SDCC 2024 announcements?!!! Just blew my mind🤯 Excuse me for the poor execution, really wrote this on a whim. Also realized that Joaquin was a character I wrote before I went into a mental health crisis😂 How time flies~ (Tag update because I am a nuisance: @tom-whore-dleston)

The man pants heavily as he darts into the nearest alley. Shouts of anger and thinly veiled threats were getting closer. He’s proud of his stamina but he can’t keep running away from them. He needs to recover his energy.

But where?

A light shines up ahead and without a second thought, the man races towards what could be his potential temporary safehouse.

Bang!

There were no customers inside. Just plenty of books, and a wide-eyed woman blinking at the hurricane of a man that just stormed her store.

He hurriedly digs into the inside of his coat, showing his credentials.

“I’m so sorry, my name is Joaquin Torres. I’m a Detective and it may sound crazy to you but I’m being chased by a group of Gangsters and I could really use some shelter.” His plea comes out in rapid fire.

The poor woman takes a quick look at his badge and for a brief moment, Joaquin believed that she was going to toss him to the dogs.

“This way.” She leads him further into the store and opens a latch on the floor that leads to storage. “In here!” She commands with urgency.

As soon as Joaquin is safely tucked away, she locks the latch and places stacks of books on top of it. The door flies open and the same Gangsters rowdily burst into the store. Joaquin feels a tinge of guilt. He can’t imagine how her store must be tossed upside down thanks to him.

What he didn’t expect was the woman holding her ground and demanding the Gangsters to leave as they apparently ruined one of her newest books that was just bought in.

“And stay out!” She screeches before flipping the sign to inform customers that they were closed for the day.

“Um…” The woman reverts back into her bashful form that Joaquin was amazed at her acting skills. “They’re gone. You can come out now.” The door opens and she helps Joaquin out.

“Thank you.” Joaquin doesn’t know what else to add. His shoes are suddenly very interesting.

“I thought you were lying about being a cop.” Her voice is soft and gentle, causing the insides of his stomach to do a couple of flips. “I guess not. Those guys were scary.” The tension breaks and Joaquin grins at her becoming flustered at the attention he was giving her.

“You can stay here for a while more. To make sure.” She offers.

Joaquin really wanted to. But if he didn’t get back to the precinct. Sam will have his ass.

“I would love to but my partner’s waiting for me. I should probably go.”

She nods in understanding, “Of course. Be careful.” The two walk to the door and she pops her head out to make sure that the coast was clear. She smelled like berries and vanilla.

“Coast clear, officer.”

He liked the way it sounded on her lips. He didn’t want it to be the last time.

“Um… would you like to have dinner sometime?”

She raises her eyebrows in question and Joaquin hurriedly explains, “It’s not what you think! I just wanted to thank you for today. Really. You saved my life. Not many people do that. I usually do most of the saving- I guess I should shut up now.” He observed her amused expression as he continued to ramble.

“Sure. I know a great steak place.”

***

“Hey Barnes! Torres here has a date! Any tips?” Captain Sam Wilson, loud as ever whenever he felt like heckling his best friends follows Joaquin around like a wart on his foot.

“Leave the man alone, Sam.” James Barnes gives him the middle finger. Cool blues turning to Joaquin, “Just be yourself. Everything will be fine.”

Yeah, not exactly reassuring either.

The old fashioned way it is.

Joaquin finds himself standing in front of your bookstore with a bouquet of roses in his hand. He catches your eye and you give him a sign to give you a couple more minutes as you cleaned and locked up the place for the night.

“Thanks for waiting!” You rushed out in sunflower colored dress, looking radiant. He swears his heart thumped loudly against his chest. “I was surprised to get your call.”

“Well, I made a promise.” Joaquin leads the way to the Steak Restaurant where you had the absolute time of your life chatting with the boyish detective in front of you.

“Oh my god! That really happened?” You laughed, tears forming in your eyes. “It seems to be like a recurring thing going on in your team.”

The two of you headed down the street after that sumptuous meal. Your hair is tousled all over the place and you feel like you’ve just ate a whole cow, but Joaquin doesn’t take his attention of you for a second.

As he recounts another mishap during a undercover mission with Sam, a wolf whistle rings through the air and a figure, no- three of them appear from the dark alley, each looking more menacing then the other.

Joaquin’s mind kicks into overdrive instantly and feels you tense up against beside him. He instinctively moves forward to shield you from them. But they’re not blind.

“Look who we found… Detective Joaquin Torres and oh! I see you got company.” The middle one leers at you and Joaquin has the urge to punch it off his face. You give his hand a squeeze, as if to reassure him to do whatever he needs to do to get these suckers.

As quickly and quietly as possible, you take out your pepper spray and ball your fist to conceal it from them.

“How is it that you three assholes show up at the most inconvenient timing?” Joaquin distracts them.

They smirk at each other and Joaquin lunges forward to take the middle and left man onto the ground, leaving the last as easy prey for you to pepper spray him to your heart’s content.

What you didn’t expect was the man to wildly brandish a pocket knife, nicking you in the process as he swings it around.

“Ah!” You hissed loudly, clutching your left hand. Joaquin immediately turns his attention to you and swiftly takes the third man down with ease.

He dials in a number and police cars arrive in no time to take the men away. Joaquin jogs over to you while a uniformed policewoman helps to bandage your hand.

“Let me.” He smiles and thanks his colleague for the efforts and works on finishing the job in silence. You can’t read minds, but you could guess.

“Hey, it’s not your fault.” You reassure him.

Joaquin doesn’t say anything. He lets out a small exhale. So you try again.

“In fact, I feel pretty badass. Don’t you think?” You gently pry your hand away and show him your now bandaged hand proudly, grinning from ear to ear.

“Torres!”

The Captain jogs over, giving a pat on his back. “Came as quickly as I could. Everything alright?”

“Yeah. Thanks Sam.” Joaquin reassures. Sam nods, his gaze falling onto you.

“This is the girl you couldn’t stop talking about?”

“Ok, Sam. Stop.” Joaquin pleads, trying to push him as far away from you without much success.

“He was asking me how to impress you! Hey? I didn’t get your name though!” Sam yells over his shoulder, making you laugh at their antics.

“Y/N! I’ll see you around Sam!”

“Oooh I like her already, don’t fuck up Torres.”

“Leave!” Joaquin has to push Sam into the car and makes his way back to you, looking sheepish.

“Sorry, about that. Sam can’t seem to keep his mouth shut.”

A pocket of silence fills the air and you have to know.

“You were trying to impress me?”

Joaquin blinks. He momentarily opens his mouth and comically looks like a fish out of water. “Did it work?”

“Well…” You pretend to tap your chin carefully and Joaquin squirms in his shoes a little. “You impressed me the moment you came bursting into my store seeking for shelter.”

You laugh at Joaquin’s groan. “Not the answer that I was expecting.”

You give him a peck on the cheek and Joaquin momentarily freezes. “Is that a better answer?”

He holds his hand to the cheek that you just left a kiss on. For a moment, you’re scared that you’ve fried Joaquin’s internal circuits to respond coherently. But he breaks into a foolishly but adorably big smile.

Joaquin holds you by the waist and brings you closer to him and gives you a kiss of his own that leaves you spinning senseless.

“One hundred percent.”