#but this isn't the idea presented here. this is addressed to people getting NOTHING in the way of feedback)
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I've come back to drop some Next Gen Nevermore lore, this time about Sora and Regine's parents 💕
Yukiko Toriyama


Because of my love for parallels, she's a doctor to match the adult characters in the show (Principal - Weems/Bianca; Sheriff - Galpin/Walker). She's a surgeon though, not a therapist like Kinbott, but still a doctor!
Yukiko's around Wednesday and co's age, so she was also in Jericho High when they were in Nevermore. She has a huge respect for Outcasts, thinking that they are very cool. In fact, she thought this one siren girl that she first saw during Outreach Day was especially cool. Soon she will find out that her name is Bianca Barclay and that her classmate Lucas Walker will end up dating her.
She met Sora's father some time after graduating from high school. She fell for his confidence, and was especially impressed that he was an Outcast. Unfortunately she realized too late that he's all talk. When she got pregnant with Sora, his rich parents essentially sent her hush money, which she accepted and used to pay for med school. Sora's grandparents helped raise her while Yukiko finished her studies, so she wasn't as present as she probably should have been during Sora's childhood. She tries her best though, really.
Hugo Schuyler


Sora's father. He came from a rich and reputable family of psychics that specialize in spirits, also known as Herons. Because of his family's reputation, he developed a huge ego and has delusions of grandeur.
He's a glutton for attention, a trait that Sora unfortunately inherited as she also always makes an effort to fit in with "the popular crowd" among her peers. However unlike Sora who is ashamed of her outcast status and prefers to hide her power, Hugo has a superiority complex and overcompensates for his weak psychic abilities by being obnoxiously loud about his outcast status and his family's name.
He ends up starting a YouTube channel as a paranormal investigator after Nevermore. When he finds out he has a daughter, he's quick to head over to Nevermore and rope Sora into his paranormal shenanigans. No, it doesn't end up being a cute father-daughter bonding activity.
He sees both Wednesday and Enid as rivals. Wednesday for her formidable psychic powers (and reputation!), Enid for, well, her more successful YouTube channel(which isn't even hers, it's the Wolf Preserve's). Wednesday does not remember him from their high school days though, and Enid purposely mixes him up with Xavier when addressing him.
Vega hates him because he thinks aliens don't exist.
Erica Gutierrez
(I don't have her design and personality fully conceptualized yet, sorry)
Erica is Eugene's ex-wife and is a famous actress who started out when she was a teenager. She used to be a celebrity crush of Eugene's when he was in Nevermore, and dating and marrying her was a dream come true that sadly didn't last.
Erica makes an effort to see Regine when she can, and she usually has her daughter stay with her throughout the summer. Her fame comes with its own cons, particularly the excessive attention she(and by extension her family) gets hugely contributing to Regine's overly reclusive personality.
Erica had nothing to do with Outcasts before meeting Eugene and is every bit of a Normie. She and Wednesday never liked each other. She gets along well with Enid because she thinks Enid is normal enough when she isn't wolfed out. Enid likes her for getting her Michelle Yeoh's autograph and a video message as a birthday gift once. (Wednesday hates that Eugene's ex wife of all people showed her up that year)
None of the Nevermore student knew Regine's mother was a celebrity until Erica decided to give her daughter a surprise visit during Family Day(coincidentally the same day Hugo goes to meet Sora. It was a long weekend for the girls)
(masterpost for my AUs here)
EDIT: I ALMOST FORGOT!
Partial credit to @whitebeltwriter for coming up with Yukiko's background with me. I no longer remember which parts were my idea and which is hers, but pls know that it was a collaborative effort
#next gen nevermore au#yukiko toriyama#sora toriyama#hugo schuyler#vega addams#erica gutierrez#my art
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Reality Check: Caitlyn & Vi
**Spoilers For Arcane**
Alrighty. This won't be too long as it doesn't need to be but I am seeing a lot of the same nonsense lately and it is bugging me. For anyone who hasn't seen me say so a million times already, Vi is my favorite character. She has been since the show started for a variety of reasons.
And in truth although I greatly enjoyed Caitlyn's story and she grew much more engaging to me in season two, I was never nearly as invested in her. But My. God. The amount of absolute nuclear grade bull-shit that has been used to try and demonize her has made me talk about her SO MUCH MORE than I ever intended. So I wanted to address something.
The Hit:
Okay. Let's talk about this real quick because people have really latched on to this. It it okay or acceptable that Caitlyn hit Vi?
Obviously Not
And Caitlyn doesn't think so either. Look at her face just before she turns. But there is an OCEAN of factors at play here influencing Caitlyn and Vi both and it is about a million miles from being as simple as that. I'm not getting into all of that here I have done it many times already. But to address a few points:
This is the only time she hits Vi knowingly in anger. The second time she doesn't have any idea who Vi is. The third time is part of a plan Vi is quite clearly on board with. Stop exaggerating.
Vi forgave Caitlyn way too easily for this!"-
Okay. Like I said it isn't about making this okay. And it isn't about some sort of trauma Olympics as I've seen it called. But we need to remember some things that Vi certainly would.
Even if at the time it was for her own purposes Caitlyn got her out of prison when she really had no hope of ever being free
Caitlyn saved her life repeatedly in Zaun when she barely knew her and owed her nothing
Caitlyn offered herself in Vi's place before she knew the firelights were friendly
Caitlyn gave Ekko the gemstone and was going to let him present it to the council
Caitlyn stood side by side with Vi and told the council to their faces they had failed all of Zaun
Jinx abducted and terrorized Caitlyn after nearly killing her, all for her proximity to Vi
Caitlyn spared Jinx when Vi begged her to and it cost her her mother
As far as we see and are made aware, Caitlyn never blames or tries to put that on Vi
Caitlyn apologizes to Vi for springing the badge, clearly feels guilty and is honest that she is afraid she or Jinx will die if Vi doesn't come
When they do see each other again, Caitlyn immediately is on board with helping Vi save her family
When Jinx surrenders herself into custody Caitlyn doesn't send her to Stillwater and doesn't immediately try and execute her when she could have. Instead waiting for Vi to wake up
Clears the path for Vi to free Jinx and escape if she chooses. Putting her love for Vi over her hatred of Jinx
Like I said. This isn't about justification. There is no justifying physically harming someone you love. But there is a world of difference between doing something terrible in a TERRIBLE moment and being a chronic domestic abuser like some of you are saying Caitlyn is. And as far as I'm concerned, Vi knows exactly who Caitlyn really is, and chose love and forgiveness.
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Addressing The Tinhatters: A Statement in Solidarity With @dtmsrpfcringe And Others
I've been active in this fandom for a little over a year, and in my time here I've kept my slate pretty clean. I try not to involve myself in drama and discourse, and when I see something I don't agree with online, most of the time I keep it to myself. I've been aware of the blogs I refer to in this post basically from the onset, but I've stayed quiet, partially to not come across as disrespecting others' opinions and preferences and partially to protect my peace and my own life as a creator. But what started as mostly harmless, if a bit unhinged and delusional, behavior, has turned on some fronts into unimaginable cruelty the likes of which I never imagined this fandom to be capable of. As someone who it seems people in this fandom have come to respect, I think it would be unfair and selfish for me to stay neutral any longer.
Fanfiction has been a genuinely transformative force in my life. It has helped me discover so much about my own relationships to love and desire, and I would never want to tell anyone that it is wrong for any ship to be that source of inspiration for them, including RPF. Nor do I think, as I've said, that it's inherently wrong to have speculative thoughts about David and Michael's sexualities. As someone who has been lucky enough to interact with David several times now, and probably will again, I choose not to do so myself in a public forum out of respect, but curiosity doesn't have to be invasive, and David and Michael being in loving partnerships with women certainly doesn't mean they can't be attracted to other genders too. There's nothing wrong with liking the idea of a relationship between David Tennant and Michael Sheen, or even, really, with believing they might have feelings for each other. If that's all you're doing, this post isn't about you. What I absolutely cannot excuse is the proliferation of hypocritical, nonsensical, and nasty rumors about the women in their lives.
Nothing Georgia Tennant or Anna Lundberg seems to do is ever good enough. Every expression of positivity is curated and phony, anything that could be perceived as negative vile and mean. I see these women attacked on a daily basis as partners, as mothers, as actresses. Georgia is simultaneously presenting a false ideal of a perfect, happy family for her own gains, while somehow at the same time being too irresponsible and incompetent to be a proper parent. Anna, a still young and up and coming actress herself, is expected to perform the ideal of an affectionate partner on social media, is perceived as unsupportive of Michael when she doesn't, when in reality she may simply be trying to make a name for herself in the industry without people solely associating her with the man she loves. Both of these women share in David and Michael's advocacy for marginalized communities, sometimes in different, more or less obvious ways. David and Michael are always brave and sincere, while Anna and Georgia's actions are always self serving and performative, though no evidence is ever given to indicate that the things they post or charities they support are any sort of cover or deflection. Nor are there ever any reasons given for their perceived lack of onscreen talent, other than that they're "boring" or don't have as many jobs as their husbands- never mind that both of them are in an extremely competitive industry and get perfectly respectable amounts of work, especially for mothers of young children. Worst of all, I've seen them accused of things as awful as child abuse and rape, all for the crime of simply being married to the wrong men. It's all so horribly gendered too, David and Michael often referred to as the "men" while Georgia and Anna are reduced to negative stereotypes of nagging, shallow gold diggers. As a fandom populated with so many queer people, many of whom, myself included, have found freedom from gender roles with Michael and David's characters' help, I thought we knew better.
I've been lucky enough to meet both David and Georgia now, and have witnessed firsthand the easy, joyful affection they have for each other when no one of consequence is watching, the way they giddily hold hands on the street and make each other laugh while tenderly looking into each other's eyes even and especially after sixteen years together. Georgia when I met her was incredibly kind, down to earth, and approachable, and my partner, who's met her several times more than I have, gushes about her constantly- how funny, authentic, and intelligent she is, and of course, how much she and David love each other, how they look out for each other and adore each other's flaws and quirks. David of course still gushes about Georgia every chance he gets in speeches and interviews, her strength and brilliance as well as her beauty, and Georgia, while maybe not always as effusive, shows her love for David in plenty of ways, the beautiful candid photos she takes of him, for instance. There's such a soft, painterly tenderness and fondness in them, for the man, not just the dazzling star everyone else gets to see. Her David, gentle, devoted, goofy, aging, melancholy, imperfectly perfect David. Where would we be without Georgia giving us these little glimpses of him? I suspect the same people who deride Georgia's social media presence as try-hard, cringeworthy, artificial, would feel a bit differently if one day they stopped coming.
I can't speak as clearly on behalf of Anna and Michael, but the accounts I've gotten of her and Michael's relationship from eyewitnesses have presented it as no less loving than David and Georgia's, albeit in slightly different ways. Even then, why should I have to? She doesn't owe me anything. I doubt anyone who's made the posts accusing Anna and Georgia of being nasty baby trappers has ever had children. There's no such thing as a perfect mother, and even one child is a massive task. It's normal to not be a shining ray of affection all the time, and Georgia I know more than makes up for it with her fierce love and support for her children in all of their endeavors. Georgia is also a diagnosed neurodivergent woman, and so many of the remarks I see directed at her are clearly discriminatory and often directed at women with her diagnoses. Everyone coos over how charming David is when he shows signs of being AuDHD, but the second his wife does too, she's careless and cold. And don't even get me started on when photos of Michael and David looking anything less than beatifically happy get interpreted as them being miserable due to their wives treating them so poorly. THEY'RE HUMAN BEINGS!!! NEUTRAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS EXIST!!! WOULD YOU BE A SPARKLING RAY OF SUNSHINE IF YOUR DISNEYLAND RIDE GOT STUCK!!!
I say all this now not even because I think I have any hope of stopping the people in question, but because one of the main fighters on the front of the opposition, @dtmsrpfcringe, has been both a wonderful online friend to me and dealt with even worse abuse than that which gets hurled at Anna and Georgia on the daily. When my blog was briefly overrun by TERFs in light of the Tennant/Badenoch/Sunak drama, Tori was the first person to stand up for me, and as she recieves more vitriol in one day than I've ever experienced in my entire life online, I think I've taken far too long to do the same for her. This woman has dealt with doxing threats, attacks on her character, and most horrific of all, wishes of death upon her and her baby. No one would blame her for stopping, but she has remained steadfast in her mission to call bs where she sees it, and she shouldn't have to do it alone. Tori, I think you are so brave, and I am proud to stand in solidarity with you against the misinformation, meanness, and misogyny that threaten to corrupt this fandom we call home.
Even after all we've been through over the past couple of months, I still believe the Good Omens fandom and David and Michael's individual fandoms to be places of kindness, empathy, and inclusivity. Which is why such cruel behavior (because there's no other word for it) is utterly disappointing and baffling to me. You should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. You're the exact kinds of people David and Michael speak out against on a weekly basis, and I guarantee that if you engage in the kinds of behavior I've highlighted here, they would be disgusted with you. Or maybe they'd simply pity you, because your lives are so empty that you've decided the only way to fill them is to sacrifice the reputations and peace of innocent women on the altar of a relationship that in all likelihood takes place solely in your own heads.
And if you read all this and find you still ship David and Michael, which even I do sometimes, well, there's always polyamory.
I'm sleepy! good night and kindly fuck off! - Lauren
#David tennant#Michael sheen#Georgia tennant#Anna lundberg#good omens#staged#rpf#anti rpf#tinhatters#sheenant#the sheenantbergs#the tennants
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Canto 8 and the Chinese language (and how to pronounce the character names + other words)
Long before this Canto started, I've felt the need to make a post about how the Chinese language works, at least on the basics that I've been taught. I feel like understanding at least part of the language also makes you peer into the hows and the whys of things...and you at least get an idea of how to pronounce them.
First off, the term "Chinese language" is fairly cloudy to begin with, and the reasons as to why are beyond the scope of this article. If you want to know more, here's a pretty good explanation. It's also the reason why, outside of this article, I only ever address the language with the word "汉语".
Note: I am a HSK3 graduate. My Chinese won't be perfect, and I won't be good as a native, and this post only describes the approximations to give a general idea of things. Please don't go "well ackshually assumptions based on translations are bad" or "you're inaccurate because xyz" on me, I don't intend to be entirely accurate, just to give a general idea of things. See my post as malarky if that suits you better and move on. Please.
Basics
When I first learnt the Chinese language, my first lesson didn't actually contain any new words. My first lesson was all about pronunciation.
It was also the furthest my mother and the other participants got before dropping out, so I will try and make this as concise as possible.
Chinese is a tonal language. Many people hear it and will say that it sounds as if they're singing all the time. The Chinese language has four ways in which a given syllable (I'm using the "a" as an example) can be pronounced, and then one loose toneless way.
The "flat" tone. This is shown in pinyin like "ā".
The "rising" tone. This is shown in pinyin like "á".
The "falling-rising" tone. This is shown in pinyin like "ǎ".
The "falling" tone. This is shown in pinyin like "à".
The "toneless" tone. Which is only ever used in words that end a sentence like question particles to indicate that the sentence is a question, like 呢 or 吗, or as the last syllable of a word in some cases. This one is also shorter than the others and you know it's this one if there's nothing above the letter in pinyin.
To get the best example of how these sound like (which is better than me trying to describe them vaguely) is to just listen to this guy pronounce the syllable "ma" in the first four tones in order here.
I will try to put an approximate English word/tone to kind of show you how it sort of is pronounced, though it isn't entirely accurate as...well, Chinese has certain things that English just doesn't have, like how they pronounce their "r" or their "ie" sound, which cases are a bit more difficult to transcribe. If you want to know exactly how the syllables and letters I use are pronounced, this page will be a large help since I also took a lot of it from there (in combination with my own experience of course). But below, the letter that I mean in the word is bolded.
A big part of Chinese wordplay consists out of "the same/similar pronunciation, a different word", i.e (near-)homophones. Think of how we have the word "bat" which can refer to a piece of sports equipment as well as to an animal. A large example of this is actually present - there are the families Jiǎ (賈/贾) and Zhēn (甄), where the aforementioned "Jiǎ" is a homophone with the word 假, which means "false" or "fictitious". Meanwhile - predictably - "Zhēn" can be written as 真, which means "real". And yes, the book has a Zhēn Bǎoyù.
This can even carry into social customs. It is considered to be rude and unlucky to give a clock or a pear on a wedding, since both of these relate to the pronunciations of the words "seperate" and "to leave". The likely reason why it's customary to give apples at the year's end in District 8 is probably because the word for "apple" sounds similar to the word for "safety".
One more thing - and this is purely about the written version of the language. You may have seen that sometimes, I use two iterations of the same word. In that case, the first one is the traditional, and the second one is the simplified version of the word. Somewhere in the long history of China which I won't get into now, they decided that, in order to stay with the times and to maintain ease in relationships with other countries, that they had to squish down all words that could not be written within 10 strokes. The country I hail from, Taiwan, however, still uses traditional (as well as Wade-Giles instead of pinyin - they basically just stuck to the old ways). This is why some words look wildly different, yet some are unchanged.
Funfact - there are currently two locations where pinyin can be found in the actual game with their tone tags. One is, of course, the name of the season, but it can be found way back in Kurokumo Hong Lu's passive name:
Names
For the sake of keeping this post to a respectible length, I will only include the names of the most important characters in the Canto.
Hong Lu/Jia Baoyu
鴻路/鸿路 hóng lù "h" as in Scottish "loch"; "o" as in "hold"; "u" as in "looking" meaning is in article text
贾寶玉/贾宝玉 jiǎ bǎoyù "j" is sort of like the English "ch" but a bit different (for the experts, it's called alveolo-palatal pronunciation) that's a bit difficult to describe, I personally stick with the "j" in "jade"; "b" is a hard "b" (sorta sounding like the English "p" in "spy"), see for more notes on the "u" in Xichun's name but here it is kind of like the "u" in "tune" literal meaning: surname Jia; "precious jade"
To start with the centerpiece, Hong Lu. Many people mistakenly pointed out that his name was directly taken from his source book's title. This is, however, not true. The translation note in his introductory video (in the English subtitles - note that said video also has subtitles for both traditional and simplified Chinese) states that it means "great jade". 鸿's secondary, older meaning (the first is "swan") is "great" or "grand", 路 refers to a "path" or "road" and in this context refers to a "path jade", a hollowed jade bead that's worn around the neck in a necklace. It is called that way because when the wearer walks, the jade will also "roll along" due to the friction; thus, wearing a path jade makes one's path as smooth as the jade.
It should be noted that this is the only name that does not have a "source" - all other Sinners minus one have names that are directly mentioned in their respective books, with the only other one, Yi Sang, being a writer. Hong Lu meanwhile, his name is not taken from a character, with his name just being the words "great (path) jade". This gives off a facetious vibe even before we get to know it is indeed a chosen alias - fitting with the book's theme of reality vs fantasy.
For your complete clarity: the name of the book is written as 紅樓夢/红楼梦/, and spoken as "hóng lóu mèng" (same h and o again; "ou" as in "loud" but more of an emphasis on the o, and "e" as in "understatement"). They are very much different words with different pronunciations, though I wouldn't entirely rule out that it could've simply been a pun - as the Chinese often do.
Jia Xichun 賈惜春/贾惜春 jiǎ xīchūn "j" as the hard j of "jade"; the "i" in "ia" is typically semi-silent and "ia" is uttered as "ya"; "xi" is spoken as "see"; "ch" as "chowing down" and "un" as in "under" literal meaning: surname Jia; "treasuring spring (as in the season)"
Many people think that the "u" in Japanese and Chinese must always be as in "you", similar how they use it in the place of "you". However, in some cases in Chinese, it can be just the "u". An example of the "u" just being "u" is the second word in Xichun's given name, "chūn". Another example of the "u" sound changing would be "Lin Yüxia", where the u is also in diaeresis (this is not always the case, but is more common where the u happens to end the syllable, like in this example where the syllable is "yü" (meaning "rain")). Funnily enough, her third skill's name "Crimson Spring" references her name. In the book, she and her sisters all have the word "spring" in their name, with the theming being that their names describe the spring as it passes. It's kinda like how several of the Kardashians have their names starting with the letter K, only a tad more poetical. Xichun, "treasuring spring", being the youngest, thus denotes the last days of spring as it goes to become summer.
Jia Huan 賈環/贾环 jiǎ huán "j" as the hard j of "jade"; the "i" in "ia" is typically semi-silent and "ia" is uttered as "ya"; "huan" is similar to "one" but with an "h" in front of it that is the same "h" as I described with Hong Lu literal meaning: surname Jia; "ring"
Funfact. 環 is pronounced "tamaki" in Japanese.
Jia Qiu 賈丘/贾丘 jǐa qiū "j" as the hard j of "jade"; the "i" in "ia" is typically semi-silent and "ia" is uttered as "ya"; "q" is like the aforementioned "j", just with aspiration; the "iu" is somewhat like "you", but as if one would add a "w" sound to the end of it literal meaning: surname Jia; "hill/grave" (short for Confucius in this context)
丘 derives from 孔丘, Confucius. Even though this character was never a character in the book, it is possible that he represents Confucian values that are also a theme in the book.
Zilu 子路 zǐlù "z" as in "cats" but without aspiration; the "i" in this case is nearly silent but kinda sounds like "uh"; "u" as in "looking" literal meaning: "child's path", courtesy name of Zhong You
Zigong 子贡 zǐgòng "z" as in "cats" but without aspiration; the "i" in this case is nearly silent but kinda sounds like "uh"; "g" is like "k" but unaspirated, like "scar", "o" somewhat like English "awe" literal meaning: "child's tribute", courtesy name of Dianmu Ci
Wei 卫 wèi you know the memes. "way". It's really as simple as that. literal meaning: "guard"
This guy's just really simple.
Jia Mu/Shi Miyin 賈母/贾母 jǐa mǔ "j" as the hard j of "jade"; the "i" in "ia" is typically semi-silent and "ia" is uttered as "ya" literal meaning: surname Jia; "mother" (arch-mother in this interpretation); "shi" is similar to "sure" (yeah, "i" following "sh" or "s" is pronounced differently)
It's a title. Even before she says that she took on the position of Jia Mu, you can figure that out if you know that 母 is the word used. I unfortunately do not posess the hanzi and pinyin over her original name.
Jia Zheng 賈政/贾政 jǐa zhèng "j" as the hard j of "jade"; the "i" in "ia" is typically semi-silent and "ia" is uttered as "ya"; "zh" is a bit similar to "chat", the "e" is actually a dull "uh" sound (which is often the case), "ng" as in "sing" literal meaning: surname Jia, "rule"
Jia Yuanchun 賈元春/贾元春 jiǎ yuánchūn "j" as the hard j of "jade"; the "i" in "ia" is typically semi-silent and "ia" is uttered as "ya"; "yuan" is similar to the aforementioned "huan" but with a soft "y" sound; same "chun" as in Xichun's name literal meaning: surname Jia, "first spring"
Yuanchun is the oldest of the spring group, and such her name denotes the start of spring. She starts the group that Jia Yingchun ("welcoming spring"), Jia Tanchun ("seeking spring") and Jia Xichun ("treasuring spring") follow.
Xue Baochai 薛寶釵/薛宝钗 xuē bǎochāi "x" is similar to "sh" but with an alveolo-palatal pronunciation; the "ue" is...uh, like the "wa" in "away" I guess, the "bao" is the same as in Baoyu's name (which is kinda relevant), the "ch" is the same as in "chun" used before literal meaning: surname Xue; "precious hairpin"
As you can see, Baochai shares one part of her name with Baoyu. Daiyu shares the other part of the name. This is on purpose.
Xue Pan 薛蟠 xūe pán "x" is similar to "sh" but with an alveolo-palatal pronunciation; the "ue" is...uh, like the "wa" in "away" I guess, and the "a" is an open one, like in "ah" literal meaning: surname Xue, "to coil like a dragon"
Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 lín dàiyù The "yu" is the same as in Baoyu's name. literal meaning: surname Lin; "blue-black jade"
Daiyu shares the other part of Baoyu's name. This is still on purpose.
Hua Xiren 花袭人 huā xírén The r is kind of weird in that it's similar to z in zoo in English, but with a retroflex articulation. I personally learnt it first in the word 热 (warm) and I still kind of have a bone to pick with it, "en" as "un" literal meaning: surname Hua; "assailing people", literally "flower assails people" facturing in her family name
She's not mentioned with her family name in the Canto, but in the story she has an original family name. In most translations of the story she is, like the other servants, given a non-human name like "Aroma" or "Pervading Fragrance"; the translation I had gave her (translated back) the name of "Charm". It's chosen by Baoyu himself due to her last name reminding him of a line of poetry.
Lei Heng 雷横 léi héng "lei" is similar to "lay"; the "e" and the "ng" are the same as in Zheng's name literal meaning: "lightning", "across"
So the funny thing about him is that his name's actually from one of the other three Chinese Literature Classics, Water Margin.
Concepts
The Chinese subtitle of Canto 8 不思觀望/不思观望 bù sī guānwàng "b" is a hard "b" (sorta sounding like the English "p" in "spy"), "u" as in "looking"; "s" is like an English "s" butwith the tongue on the lower teeth; "g" is like "k" but unaspirated, like "scar", "uan" sorta like in "one", "a" as in "palm" literal meaning: either "don't wait and see" or "witnessing without consideration" depending whether you factor in 思 or consider the phrase a 成语 and you don't. I'd say both of them can be intentional, knowing the Canto.
Daguanyuan 大觀園/大观园 dàguānyuán the "uan" sounds are like before but differ a bit due to the preceeding g and y literal meaning "grand view garden"
H Corp's full name 鴻園生命工程集團/鸿园生命工程集团 hóng yuán shēngmìng gōngchéng jítuán The "hong" is the exact same as Hong Lu uses ("h" as in Scottish "loch"; "o" as in "hold"); "y" is like an English "j" but it's semi-silent; "uan" sorta like in "one"; "sh" is like the "sh" in English but with a retroflex articulation; "i" is like the English "ee", "e" is a bit like "uh" literal meaning: The great garden's life sciences (biology) group
Keep this one for last, people.
But hey. You've made it to the end of the post. Which I think, in my opinion, deserves a treat. I made this some time ago and this pretty much describes the hardship of learning the language when you're starting out. (Includes subtitles translated by me)
youtube
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Season 5 worries me.
So recently, Tot explained to a Twitch streamer that the fifth season of Wakfu, a season that we desperately wanted ever since we learned it was coming, wouldn't turn out like we planned.
But first, if you understand French and want to see the snippet in question, then press here. (thanks @geographer746, for sharing the clip)
Here's what Tot said:
A need, for the record, is to tell the love story between two(?) monsters. That will be the main storyline for this season. They won't be our heroes, I should note, but I want to present some strong enough powerful characters who are not really beautiful, and try to make the people cry to a story where the characters do not look like them. I really went for some challenges a bit political and all but incredibly very human.
Apparently, and brace yourself for this, season 5 will explore the love story of two ugly monsters and the many challenges they will face. Tot specified that they won't be the heroes and won't look like we can relate to them, but feeling sympathy or even understanding may happen.
This summary alone doesn't bother me in the least because Tot did say that they wouldn't be the heroes of the finale. However, it made me question many things about what this season can hold.
But it also says a lot because we all expected something else entirely. We thought that season 5 would immediately continue with what happened after season 4, so it could be used as a good filler between season 4 and the Great Wave to explain some things that haven't been addressed or presented in the Great Wave yet.
Things like:
how the Sadida Kingdom reacted when they learned they had to share their lands with the eliatropes;
what happened after the wedding between Yugo and Amalia;
how did Yugo get used to his older body, and if he had any trouble controlling it after the adrenaline he just had from the Necrome war;
if Yugo communicates with his eliotrope children like the rest of Oropo's group besides Bouillon;
maybe we could see the unnamed male sadida and unnamed female eliatrope's relationship growing (the ones that got married in the Great Wave. I've explained it here);
or even just Yugo contemplating all the shit that he went through in such a short time.
Because Tot finally has the time to explore all those ideas now that he's been allowed to make 26 episodes. TWENTY. SIX. Do you remember when was the last time we had 26 episodes in a season?? BACK IN 2011.
Again, the problem with this future season isn't that we'll see these new characters being ugly monsters that we've never seen in Wakfu before. Because every season always welcomes new characters, it should be logical to think we'll see some new ones in this future season. The REAL problem is that I'm scared that that's all we'll see in this finale.
Granted, the clip where Tot summarizes the season was only a snippet, which means we've only scratched the surface of what this season has to offer.
But the thought still worries me nonetheless.
Wakfu, for many fans, has been here since their childhoods, and for people like me, it has been here for almost two decades now. Which is why I'm extremely worried that the finale of Wakfu will only be about new characters that have nothing to do with the Brotherhood we have come to know and love for many years.
The idea of ending it with two random people just doesn't sit right with me.
It's like saying you want to end a full nostalgic adventure with two ugly gobbowls falling in love 💀💀
What's worse in all of this is that we should have expected this coming. A few months ago, Tot released a tweet about a new character he would involve in the future, which was this dragon-looking warrior.


Here is the tweet in question 👇

The translation of the post is as follows:
Hello everyone, I'm in the middle of my writing period and as usual, I'm procrastinating between two lines (of text)... And one of the subjects of this procrastination is X, the most x social network on the internet. Even if it means spending time here, we might as well tell you some nice things rather than talking about the current shit. Right now, I'm seriously working on 3 projects that I can't wait to tell you about.
-Welsh & Shedar
- Wakfu Season 5
- Wakfu the great wave
I'm in the tough, in solitary mode, and these are really the best and worst times for me. As a wait, I present to you a future hero / protagonist of Krosmoz. I showed you a WIP sketch a few months ago, and the baby was done by the talented Vincent Nghiem. Enjoy.
At the time, we all thought this was going to be some minor character that was going to have a role in the fifth season, but knowing what we know now from the snippet, I'm guessing that this dragonic adventurer is probably one of the lovers Tot had mentioned (or maybe not since Tot tweeted that this character is a hero which was not what he said about the lovers. But then again, he could have changed that statement later on). THIS IS JUST A MERE SPECULATION AFTER ALL SO TAKE IT WITH A GRAINE OF SALT.
In addition, I recently saw a screenshot of Malec, one of Wakfu's directors, showing us the beginning of the fifth season's script. (thanks to @viridisgratia for providing the pic here) Below the first episode's title (which was hidden by a spoiler warning), it said version one.
This could mean two things:
either Tot is playing with some ideas and isn't really sure how to start the season or trying to find a way to improve the storyline;
he's just trying to figure out how he wants to start the show with the two monsters in mind.
Personally, I prefer the former.
I think he may be trying to discover things he wants to do when trying to test out what he likes and doesn't like. The story with the two monsters isn't going to be a story that he will eventually want, and maybe he will just ditch it because the character sheet that we saw in his tweet is just a character sheet at the end of the day. It doesn't mean it would be a fully canonized character. Maybe he's just playing with characters and seeing what fits and doesn't fit, but who knows? Perhaps I'm just being very optimistic or just very delusional, we'll see.
#tot youre scaring me#like whats going on babe#this better not be it#the new character looks like godzilla lol#i need answers#i dont feel so good#wakfu#ankama#krosmoz#wakfu season 5#wakfu s5#wakfu news#anthony roux#wakfu anthony roux
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Little Girl Gone Part 8 (Steddie X You)

A/N: Enjoy this final chapter. I have a couple more ideas I can write out later down the line but :)
Enjoy!
Warnings: Dom Officer Steve Harrington/Gangster Eddie Munson & Doctor Sub Fem Reader, SMUT, overstimulation (slight), DP, use of "Yellow" stop light system (nothing dramatic; just the reader feeling like Steve isn't present), FLUFF, they all love each other <3
ANGST, if you read the last chapter you know what to prepare for, Steve is undercover with Allen's side of the Munson gang, Eddie does punch someone and Steve shoots someone, Mentions of reader worried about both boys (Eddie is losing people he thought he could trust and Steve struggles with his dark persona).
There is standoff near the end and someone gets hurt. Allen is a dick and constantly takes about his hatred for his son.
Word Count: 5656
Series here/ Donate to Me <3
“Ok, um, so what do you think? Does it look real?”, you ask as you step out of the bathroom in Eddie’s loft.
Being a doctor, you knew what a knife wound would look like but you didn’t exactly have the toolkit to make it look too real. Steve glanced your way as he finished pouring the fake blood Wayne got for them online on the floor in the living room.
“It, um, looks good. Almost too real.”
Softly smiling, you cup his face in your hands and kiss the officer’s lips.
“Hopefully the polaroid aesthetic will help sell more of the illusion so he won’t look too deeply at the image. Also…he’s a cocky idiot so…”, Eddie sighs as he comes over to kiss your forehead. “Alright, baby, lay down.”
Guiding you to the floor, you position your body as best you can with Steve, seeing many dead bodies himself, comes in to assist.
“Ok, honey, turn your head just like that and, um, keep your eyes open but kinda off…don’t focus on anything…there you go.”
As soon as he steps out of the way, Eddie takes a few pictures quickly before showing them to his boyfriend.
“Yeah, that will be good.”
“Are you both sure you want to do this? I hate that you’re risking your lives for me.”
“No, baby. We’re risking our lives for each other so we can be happy.”, you gently smile as you rise to your feet and kiss his cheek.
***
Steve stands off to the side with his arms folded as he listens to one of Allen’s subordinates nervously explain that more of his men had been killed by his son.
“I-I-It seems, Mr. Munson, sir, that he found Dr. Simon and got him to turn over the addresses of the m-men, sir, that he had helped take care of on our team.”
Allen chuckles before angerly slamming his fist against the glass partition between them.
“Should have killed that little shit when I had the chance. Alright, thank you, Stuart. Let me talk to Steve here and then he’ll give you a ride back home so we know you got their safe.
After the man collects his things and runs out of the room, the officer takes his place with an annoyed glare painting his face.
“Seems Eddie has gotten bolder.”
“Aren’t you his best fucking friend!? Advise him to stop.”
“Or what? You’re the reason Y/N is dead and now he feels like he has nothing to lose.”
“No, Y/N, is dead because she fell in love with my son. If she had chosen you or literally anyone else she’d still be here today. Fuck!”
“What do we do? Are you going to try and send another idiot after him?”
“Maybe…I do know this one hitman. He’s expensive but worth it if he can take that little fucker out.”
“What about Wayne?”
“What about Wayne?”, Allen asked with a sneer as if the name left a bad taste in his mouth.
“If you kill Ed, he’s not going to stop until he’s made sure you pay for it.”
“I’m not afraid of Wayne Munson. If he wants to do something about it he can but I can’t have Edward continue what he’s doing.”, the criminal sighs before gesturing towards the man who had left. “Kill Stuart and then go back to my son’s place. Keep an eye on him and when I have something I’ll let you know.”
After nodding, he starts to leave before abruptly feeling someone at his side.
“Can I help you, Mason?”, Steve growls hoping to intimidate him enough to make the guard go away.
“I’m supposed to come with you. Allen wants me there just in case you need a hand.”
“I think I can handle one asshole.”
“Mhmm. You could barely handle a little girl, Harrington. I wonder why Y/N chose him over you. Personally, it’s because I think you’re twofaced.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I don’t think you’re as dirty as you want Allen to believe you are. I think you’re still on Eddie’s side.”
“If I was on his side, why would I kill Y/N?”
“Hm, that I haven’t figured out. I did find the death record and there have been no signs of her at her clinic—”
“Wow. Now I know why you became a guard…because you’re so fucking smart.”, Steve rolls his eyes.
“I’ll figure out what you’re up to, Steven. Sooner or later.”
##################
You figured you’d have gotten use to this by now; the sound of Eddie punching and torturing people to get more information. You’d been hiding for almost two weeks in his loft while he and Steve were doing their part in your plan.
The gangster had made a good dent in his father’s crew, taking out many of his loyal followers. Lately it had gotten hard for him because with every other man that was bound to his chair, a person he believed to be a friend would follow.
“You know, Randall, this would go a lot smoother if you just told me what I wanted to know.”, Eddie sighed as he inhaled a puff of the cigarette between his fingers.
“Aw…what’s the…matter, Munson? Exhausted?”, the man sassed.
“Of this back and forth, yeah, especially since I trusted you. I helped you get your fucking house so you and your family would have a safe place to be.”
“See, that’s part of the problem. You were to trusting and lenient.”
“I’m realizing that.”, he growls as his hurt eyes glance towards where you were sitting on the staircase. You offer him a soft smile that he returns with a small flicker on his lips before his gaze hardens again and he punches the man across his face. “Now, I already know about Craig and Lina. I just need to know what they’re planning.”
At that moment, Eddie’s door burst open and slams shut as Steve flies through with anger radiating from him.
“He’s planning to hire Corleone to kill you.”
“Oh shit.”, Randall laughs. “You’re fucking screwed.”
Without warning, the officer pulls his gun and fires a bullet into the man in the chair startling you and the gangster as you cover your ears.
“Jesus Christ, Steven. Was that fucking necessary?”
“Did you hear what I fucking said?! We need to leave NOW.”
Taking his face in his palms, Eddie tries to calm him but Steve just pushes him haphazardly to the side and runs past you up the stairs.
“Whose Corleone?”, you ask as you watch him throw a bag on the bed and start throwing some clothes inside.
“He’s a contract killer my dad uses while behind bars. My understanding is he’s been in relative retirement for a few of years.”, Eddie sighs. “He’s so good and kept well-hidden that the only people who know who he is are his victims who are dead.”
“Even you don’t know who he is?”
“No. I did try and research into it when I took over but I never found anything. The only commonality between victims were that they crossed my father while he was in jail. I assumed it was a friend but nothing ever materialized.”
Your eyebrows scrunch in thought as you absorb what he’s telling you.
“What are you thinking, sweetheart?”
“Is Wayne free?”
“Um, I can message him and ask. What’s running through your mind—”
“It doesn’t matter.”, Steve scolds sharply. “Because we are leaving. Here Y/N, put your things in this bag here. Not a lot though so we can move quick.”
“Baby, we have a plan—”
“The plan is done, Y/N! I don’t think you understand how serious this is. Even my department hasn’t found anything on this person but all we do know is he has a 100% success rate. And, what, you’re just going to figure out who it is with a hunch and a phone call?! No ma’am. Allen is done to the point that he wants to take out Eddie AND Wayne.”
“Excuse me?”, the gangster growled.
“Ok, let’s all just take a breath.”
Roughly, the officer pushed his palm against your chest and shoved you towards the nearby wall.
“Y/N, I’m done arguing. I’m done pretending your dead and that I hate the man I love. I’m done killing people and I’m fucking done being questioned by EVERYONE around me. I’m. FUCKING. Done! I will not come home to you both actually dead on the fucking floor. I can’t…I can’t handle that.”, his voice cracks before shaking his head and hardening his stance once more.
“Now… grab your shit because we’re going.”
As he tries to turn around, you run forward and wrap your arms around his waist as you press your head into his chest.
“We appreciate everything you’re doing, Steve. I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you both. You having to go into a headspace that isn’t you can be exhausting and I see how much it hurts Eddie with every ‘friend’ he loses. Even before I met you, Ed, I appreciated your ethics on the street than your father’s. Less people got hurt or worse… Sitting here day after day watching everything unfold… it seems like there were always two sides to that coin.”
That night you took care of them.
After Eddie and his team removed the body downstairs, you made a warm bath and massaged their shoulders as they calmly relayed the days information to each other. While making dinner, they both passed out in each other’s arms on the sofa reminding you of that first night they slept at your place. As quietly as possible, you made a call to Wayne who immediately got to work looking into your theory in regard to the hitman Allen was going to send.
Once their bellies were full, they didn’t even wait for the table to be cleared before they were on you. You allowed them to use you as they maneuvered around the open downstairs area. Giving you time to catch your breath, you watched with heavy eyes from your spot on the floor as Steve placed Eddie beside you on his back and placed one of his legs over his shoulder as he guided his cock into the gangster beneath him.
“F-Fuck, Steve.”
The officer didn’t waste a second, rolling his hips and pumping his length deep inside him. His humid breaths warmed Eddie’s face as he pressed his forehead against his own.
“God, baby, you’re so fucking deep.”, the long-haired boy whimpers as his palms run down the other man’s sides to his lower back. “I love you, Steve, so fucking much.”
“I love—mmm—I love you to.”
Chocolate eyes meet your own as Eddie turns his head and softly smiles. Your lips kiss his before gently trailing down his chin to his chest and along his tummy. With every scar you pass, you linger, giving it extra attention as you taste his skin. Allowing you space, Steve pushes up on his knees and watches you with lust fueled eyes as you tilt over one of Eddie’s legs to allow a long line of spit to drip onto his cock, lubricated him more as he thrusts his hips at a fast rhythm. The gangsters mewls turn to loud groans as your mouth wraps around his hard, leaking length and his fingers thread through your hair as your head starts to bob.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can’t… m’gonna fucking cum.”
Your eyes squeeze shut as you practice what they taught you as you allow Eddie to hold you still and your throat constricts around him. While his release spills down your throat, Steve grunts above you and you feel his body sputter as he cums.
“Goddamn, I need…I need a second.”, Eddie pants.
Without even pausing or taking a moment to collect himself, Steve crawled over his partner and roughly gripped your thighs in his hands as he opened your legs wide.
“S-Steve, baby, you just came.”, you giggle. “You’re not even fully hard. Take a break.”
Shaking his head, he spit into his palm and stroked himself as his eyes remained focused on your naked form.
“Don’t need one.”
“Steve…” Ignoring your worried tone, he placed himself on top of you and his eyebrows furrowed as he grinded his cock between your dripping lips. “Steve, wait. Steve…YELLOW, STEVEN!”, you shouted when your normal pleas weren’t getting through.
At the “slow down” trigger, he froze in place as Eddie rolled to face you both to make sure everything was ok.
“What’s going on, baby? Tell me.”, you coo.
As soon as everything stopped and he allowed his mind to move, his eyes became incredibly glassy as his bottom lip trembled.
“I’m scared.”, he whispered. “I’ve been tough and an asshole my entire life but…I’ve never cared about anyone the way I care about you two… and I’m scared I’m going to lose you…or myself.”
Your lips tenderly kiss his as the gangster reaches over to pet the man’s head.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you or hurt you—”
“No, no, Steve, you didn’t. We just need you here with us. We’re not going anywhere, right Eddie?”
“That’s right, sweetheart.”
Smirking, he kisses your lips and falls to your opposite side.
“I think you’re right, sweetie. I think I need a break. Ed, why do you make her come undone.”
“You have to catch me first.”, you tease with a devious smile of your own as you turn around and run up the stairs.
As soon as your feet touch the top floor, you’re lifted into the air by your waist by a strong, tattooed covered arm and you giggle as he playfully tosses you onto his bed.
“You weren’t even trying were you?”, Eddie grins as his lips attach to your neck.
“Nope.”
Biting your lip, you run your nails down his back as he picks up where his partner left off and subtly rolled his hips between your legs making you moan every time the tip of his cock grazed your clit.
“Mmm—fuck—I love you, Eddie. E-Everything’s going to be ok. You don’t have to be scared either.”
As he tilts his head to kiss your forehead, Steve lays his body gently beside you both with his palm casually stroking himself as he watched your faces.
“Are you ready for me, Y/N?”
“Y-Yes, baby, I’m ready.”
Clinging to his shoulders, his mouth fell open as he gradually slides his dick into your core.
“Shit, you feel so fucking tight. I love you to, sweetheart. You’re always—fuck—always safe with us.”
As Eddie thrust his cock deeper into you at a steady rhythm, you listened as the man beside you tried to match his pace with his palm.
“Fuck, I can feel you fucking clenching around me. Do…do you think you can take us b-both, pretty girl?”
After smiling down at you as you emphatically nodding, the gangster circles his arms around you and tilts you both onto your sides, lifting one of your legs higher up his hip. Steve grasped the meat of your cheeks in one of his hands and guided his length into your ass as your eyes rolled back in pleasure. As they pumped into you, they held you tightly in their embrace as they leaned over you to passionately kiss the others lips before finding purchase against your own.
“I’m…harder, please. I’m gonna…”
Their fingertips dug into your skin, sure to leave bruises as they did what you asked. Your own digits tangled into Steve’s hair behind you as your other arm pulled Eddie into a tight hug as you screamed and groaned into his shoulder till they felt you cum between them.
The gangster soon followed painting you walls before Steve did the same with a continuation of heavy pants against your skin.
After hastily cleaning you and getting you into clean pajamas, they held you to them as you slowly began to drift.
“We can still leave, sweetheart. We can follow Steve’s plan and run.”, Eddie whispered as he caressed your cheek with his fingers.
“People still need you here.”
“If this whole experience has taught me anything, it’s that I need you both more than anything. I spent a lot of my life alone especially after my mom died. When I took over, I thought ‘I finally have a family.’ Not that I don’t appreciate, Wayne—”
“I know, baby. I know.”
“Do you remember that story I told about my dad catching me smoking one of his cigarettes? He said if I told the truth everything would be ok.” When you softly nod, he continues. “That’s how I feel right now with all this. I thought if I was honest and ran my business with respect instead of fear I’d be ok. Turns out I’m still getting my ass beat for being myself.”
“Eddie…”, you exhale sullenly as you pet his head and Steve’s arm slides over your hips pulling him closer.
“But not with you two. You two are my family and like my Paladin said I don’t want anything to happen to either of you, princess.”
“I’m not afraid and I have a feeling tomorrow is going to go in our favor.”
On his bedside table, Eddie’s phone comes to life as his uncle’s display name flashes onto the screen.
######################
The building Steve had been pacing in for over 2hrs had long ago been abandoned which is why he assumed Mason and one of Allen’s other lackies were supposed to meet him here. He was growing impatient as he constantly checked his watch.
A black van suddenly sped around the corner, tires squealing as it came to a stop.
“Geez, Harrington. You look pissed off.”, the prison guard sassed as he jumped out of the driver’s seat.
“You were supposed to be here at 11.”, he grumbled.
“Yeah, well, we had to stop by and pick up something.”
After opening the side door, the officer’s eyes widened as you were roughly pulled out of the vehicle with your hands tied behind your back.
“Y/N!”
“Ah, ah.”, Mason tuts as he points his gun towards Steve. “You move like that again and she dies. It’s so funny because I was pretty sure you told us she was dead already.”, he sasses before shaking his head. “I knew you were a fucking liar. Now drop your gun and kick it over to me.”
After doing as he asked, the officer raised his hands in the air as he watched your eyes flick towards the van. When Allen stepped out, his jaw tightened as he straightened to his full height.
“Interesting. You’re not surprised?”
“I’ve seen a lot as a cop in this town.”
“Hm.”, he sighed. “Where’s my son?”
“Let her go first and I’ll tell you.”
You jump at the sound of gunfire before seeing the officer grab his shoulder and fall to the ground.
“Steve!”, you scream as you jerk forward before a rough hand pulls you back.
“I’m done playing games. Now where is he?”
“I’m right here.”, Eddie bellows with his hands raised to show he’s unarmed. His anger fueled eyes assess the situation before him as he comes up to place himself beside his partner.
“Well, you healed up nicely. That’s to be expected I guess when you’re fucking a doctor. I bet she’ll be able to get that piece of shit up and running in no time.”, Allen responds with sarcasm as he gestures towards Steve. “You let me down, son.”
“Story of my life. And I’m not your son. Wayne raised me.”
“Hm. Good to know. That will make this easier on me.” Roughly, he reaches for you and unties your binds before pushing you forward. “This is your last chance, Edward. Kill her and I’ll let you and your friend walk out of here.”
“Why? Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
“I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them…they talk when they should listen.” Eddie rolls his eyes as his father quotes The Godfather. “I guess there’s still some weak part of me like your mother that wants you to succeed and you can’t do that with her by your side. I became stronger after she died.”
“You became weaker, Allen. Mom kept you in check and helped hide a lot of the terrible things you did. She wasn’t even dead for whole year before you were arrested the first time. You thought you were an untouchable God but she reminded you that you were just a pathetic little man.”
Eddie’s father laughed under his breath, shaking his head before stepping forward and punching his son before tossing a gun on the ground beside him.
“It has one round in it. Either you kill her or she kills you.”
“What?”, you ask with a shake to your voice as you try to help the gangster to his feet.
“Save your own life, Y/N, and kill him.”
“Fuck you!”
“If you don’t, I kill all three of you and be on my way. No matter what I win but at least with the outcomes I’m offering two of you can walk out of here.”
“How do I know that?”, Eddie asked as he spit some of the blood in his mouth towards his father. “How do we know she can trust you?”
“Eddie, no.”, you plead as you try to take his hand but he pushes you back.
“You don’t but no matter what I want you to believe that I can kill you, her, and that cop and not think twice about it.”
As they starred each other down, your brain went into overdrive as you continued to try and talk him out of this.
“Eddie Munson, no! I can’t hurt you—”
“If you don’t then you’ll both die and I’m not allowing that. I told you, baby, you’re safe with me.”, he growls as he shoves the gun into your hand and takes a few steps back. “Please let them both leave here safely and you stay away from her. Tell this Corleone guy not to touch her or Wayne.”
“Oh don’t worry, son, I’ll make sure of it.”
At the term Eddie scrunches his nose before softening his eyes as he faces you again and stands up straighter.
“I love you both so much and everything’s going to be ok, alright?”
“Eddie, please…”
“Y/N, I’m not fucking asking! Now you do what I say, little girl! Do you understand me!?”, he shouts as he opens his arms wide giving you an open shot to his chest. His eyelids suddenly flutter and you glance down to see Steve gripping the end of the gangster’s jeans. “My Paladin and my Princess…”, he chuckles as the tears begin to fall. “Remember… that first night when you saved our lives? It’s time to save yours, Y/N.”
“I love you.”, you whimper.
As he gives you one final nod your way, you cock the gun and pull the trigger.
################
“Well, shit. I’m not going to lie, princess. I didn’t think you had it in you.”, Allen snickered as he stepped forward, stopping when you pointed the gun his way.
“Don’t call me that, you FUCKING ASSHOLE!” The man’s head tilted to the side as his face hardened. “Are you happy?! You got what you wanted! Now what?!”
“Now I continue to run my gang exactly the way I have been without anyone in the fucking way. I’ll make an example of him so people know what happens when you cross me.”
“What about Corleone? You promised him Wayne and I would be safe.”
As he takes another step forward, you point the weapon his way and without hesitation Allen grabs your wrist, bending it till it falls loudly to the ground. Shoving you against Steve’s cruiser, he leans in till his face is hovering above your own.
“Stupid, little girl. I’m Corleone.”, he grins as your eyes widen. “Come on. No one would suspect it being me since I’m stuck in prison. Since I met Mason, he’s helped me get out when I need to so I only save that for emergencies. Plus, people tend to listen when there’s a boogyman they can’t identify. Now…”
You watch him with disgust as he bends down to grab the empty gun off the floor.
“…I’m going to keep this as insurance. I imagine you and your little cop friend there won’t be making any more trouble for me but I have to be prepared.”
As the men turn and start to head back towards the van, sirens wail loudly as multiple police cars and SWAT members appear with guns trained on them screaming forcefully for them to get down.
“Sorry, Allen. I had to make a little bit more trouble for you.”, you sass as he glares up at you.
“Doesn’t fucking matter. Eddie’s gone and—”
As if on cue, Wayne pushes through the little crowd of officers to get to his nephew.
“Are you alright, son?”
“OOOOWW… that fucking hurt way more than I thought it would.”, Eddie groans as you both help him to his feet. Opening his jacket and tearing at the hole in his shirt, he reveals the bulletproof vest underneath that Steve had provided him with. “Are you ok, sweetheart? You did so good.”, he praised as he cupped your face and kissed your lips.
“Excuse me. Officer down here.”, Steve teased as he winced, taking Wayne’s hand and rising to his feet. Desperately wanting to smash your lips to his, you refrained as you hastily checked him over.
“You’re going to need surgery but you should be ok, Officer Harrington.”
“You’re still weak, Edward! No matter where I am people are loyal to me and will do exactly what I tell them!”, Allen shouted as they started to push him towards a vehicle.
Eddie’s fury filled eyes glare his way as he takes his place in front of him.
“You know, I think I only have one good memory with you growing up and that’s watching those Godfather movies. When you abandoned me with Wayne, I could rarely if ever bring myself to watch them again. That’s why I never made the connection but her…as soon as she heard the name she knew something was off. Your mistake was hubris. You were so selfish and cocky you named your alter ego after your favorite fucking character in your favorite fucking movie.”, the gangster shakes his head in disgust. “After that we figured you were such a showman that we knew you would ask either Steve or Y/N to kill me.”
Eddie’s voice lowered as he stepped towards his father so only he could hear him.
“Now Mason shooting the man I’m in love with as well was completely unexpected but don’t worry…we’ll make his punishment fit the crime. I have some friends to on the inside, old man. Enjoy solitary. You won’t be making any commands for a long time.”
As his father tries to attack him, the officer’s pull him away and shove him into a SWAT van.
“Good job, Dr. Y/L/N. We’ll get the wire from Steve at the hospital after his debrief.”, Detective Hopper congratulates as he shakes your hand and then Eddie’s. “You know it was really stupid of you and him to set this up by yourselves.”
“Y/N and I knew my dad was up to something and since Officer Harrington has been building a case against the Munson crew I thought this would be a good win for him.”
“Mhmm…”, the detective nods as his eyes scan him up and down. “With your dad’s confession, we can put a lot of unsolved cases to rest including a few you were a prime suspect in.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know why since I’m a businessman. I’m seriously surprised you’re a detective.”
Rolling his eyes, Hopper walks away from you two as you turn and beam up at the man you love.
“Come on, let’s head to the hospital to get you looked at and once everyone leaves we can check on Steve.”, Eddie softly smiles as he pulls you to his side and kisses your forehead.
#################
One Month Later
“Oh, oh I know, baby. I know it hurts but you’re doing so well.”, you praise as you help Steve with his physical therapy stretches.
“Jesus, that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”, he huffed as his palm reaches up to massage his shoulder.
“Some of the things you could normally do seamlessly may be a bit harder from now on but it could have been so much worse.”
As your eyes drift and the officer watches you fall into the memory of that night, he softly smiles before lifting you in his arms and spinning you around before placing a tender kiss on your lips.
“Hey, I can still sweep you off your feet so that’s all I care about.” After giggling at his antics, you turn around to grab his chart you had brought home with you from the clinic and began making some notes within. “When do you think I can go back out into the field?”
“At this rate, maybe a couple of weeks. Did they finish their investigation already?”
“Yeah. To be fair, the captain was more excited we were able to catch ‘Corleone’ to look too deeply into my connection with Eddie. He pretty much accepted the narrative that you and he came to me with information so I went undercover those two weeks. Hopper wasn’t happy but…”, he shrugs.
The loft door as Eddie comes through with a wide smile you hadn’t seen on him in so long.
“Princess.”, he coos as he leans down to kiss your lips. “Paladin…oh shit!”, the gangster shouts as Steve grabs his collar and tugs him onto the couch beside you both.
“Have a good day?”
“Yes ma’am. My father wanted to make an example of me but turns out he made an example of himself. Other gangs in the area have distanced themselves including the Carvers but Jason seems to have more respect for me now.”
“So does his father. George put more of an investment into my clinic and offered to help me expand to a bigger building.”
“How odd…because I have a surprise for you, sweetheart.”
Your eyes narrow when both men exchange a knowing look.
“You’ve already done enough for me.”
“Uh huh. Close your eyes.” He only gives you a split-second warning before lifting you off the sofa and heading towards the front door.
When he places you down again, your toes curl at the feeling of tile beneath your feet and after seeing you shiver, Eddie takes off his jacket and wraps it around your arms.
“Ok, open ‘em.”
Your cautious hues land on them first in front of you before taking in the environment around you. It looked like your clinic but bigger and cleaner.
“There’s an upstairs so I thought maybe that could be for your regulars like Kylie and Gareth. He swears by you now since you saved his life and all.”, Eddie chuckles nervously as he continues to try and gage your reaction.
“Plus, you’d be right next Munson’s building so he can come and check on you…make sure you’re safe. Of course, I’m never that far so you can always just call and I’ll be right here.”
As Steve gestures out one of the nearby windows, you look outside to find you are just across the street.
“You bought me a building?”
“We’d buy you the world if you let us.”, the gangster replied without hesitation causing a little hiccup to leave your lips as the tears started to fall. “Sweetheart, you not only saved our lives but you saved our careers. You put my father in solitary so now he’s away from everyone and can’t dictate or hurt anyone for a long, LONG time.”
“You helped us not only take down a notorious hidden hitman but you got Jason Carver under control. You think you only help people by being a doctor but, honey, you just saved half of Hawkins. That deserves to be rewarded… You deserve so much more but—”
You interrupt the officer mid-sentence as you tackle your body into his and hug him tightly to you.
“Ow, ow. Ok, not fully together yet.”, Steve chuckles as he lightly tugs your hair to tilt your head and kiss your lips.
As you turn to do the same with Eddie, he hisses as his face scrunches.
“Sorry, baby. I just…I had one more surprise.” Lifting up his shirt, he displayed his chest that now had fresh saranwrap around the tattoo he had on his chest. You had seen it so many times, the symbol of his gang with Steve’s initials nestled within but now your initials were right next to his. “It only took like five minutes but damn does it hurt.”
“You say that every time you get a tattoo yet you get another.”, Steve laughs.
“Fuck, yeah I do—”
Cupping his cheeks in your hands, you kiss him and his smiles against your lips.
“I love you both. You didn’t have to do this.”
“We know but we kinda love you to so—ow.”, Eddie laughs playfully when you lightly punch his arm. “Do you like it?”
“I do. Thank you so much.”
“Of course, baby. Now, it’s fucking freezing in here, I don’t have a shirt and you don’t have shoes. Let’s head back to the apartment and make Munson make us some Italian food.”
“I’m not that kind of gangster!”, Eddie yells after you two, rolling his eyes as Steve lifts you into his arms and carries you towards the door.
#################
@5tud10-54r4h @munsonzgf @eddiesguitarskills @supraveng
@lilaclazer @ima1986 @micheledawn1975 @foreverminliv @corkadymu
@lemme-slytherin-that-dick @joannamuns9n @dashingdeb16 @sashaphantomhive @corrodedcoffincumslut @aactuaaltraash @nailbatanddungeon @utterlyinsanity @misscaller06
#steddie#steddie smut#steddie fanfiction#steddie fic#eddie munson#steve harrington#stranger things#joe keery#joseph quinn#fan fiction#eddie munson smut#eddie fanfic#eddie munson fluff#steve harrington smut#steve harrington stranger things#steve harrington fanfic#stranger things fanfiction#mafia!eddie munson#officer!Steve harrington#steddie x reader#steddie x you#steddie x y/n#eddie munson stranger things#steddie angst
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Agree on the engaging with motogp as a Sport here part... But anyway what is your sporty opinion on the races we've had so far (if you've watched any?)
tbh i haven't kept up properly for various reasons, i just haven't really been enjoying it and it's a better idea to disengage rather than just constantly moaning about it. icl the fandom on here probably does play at least a bit of a role in that... so i've tumblr saviour'd that to shit and hopefully after a bit of a detox i can enjoy the sport itself more again. hence also the lack of motogp posting from me, my semi-regular apology for the many really interesting unanswered asks in my inbox. i have a bit of a mental list of the ones i do really want to get to when i'm feeling in the mood again, they had enough thought put into them i feel like they also merit a response in kind
anyway, i do also feel like i haven't missed that much lol. i watched the highlights from the race yesterday whenever it was which i think will have been comfortably the best of the four, but otherwise i watched buriram on replay and MOST of the other two and the racing quality has been. dire. my real sporting take is that pundits and fans will keep telling you that the alien era was so much worse than this and it's just nostalgia/og 4 alien narrative juice that makes people think otherwise and they are. wrong. they may be right about 2010-12, which i cannot really make any excuses for, but it just straight up isn't true for 2007-09 and whoever argues otherwise has not rewatched those seasons recently enough. it's an overcorrection and also those seasons for real long time fans suffer from such an immediate contrast to 2006, but like. the average race back then was just better. don't let them tell you it's not terrible right now
speaking of things that are terrible. i feel like sprints by now have been Normalised and there is absolutely zero point moaning about them, but they still fucking suck. they're only very rarely good to watch, they make the weekend too hectic, they're dangerous and they skew any championship fight. i appreciated casey bringing it up last november because barely anyone has a moan about it anymore these days. obviously for our present purposes it also doesn't exactly HELP that pecco is substantially worse at the sprint format, which ensures a sort of built-in deficit he really doesn't need. but even in 2023 when they were livening up the title fight i didn't like them, so i've remained consistent on this. just sort of dilutes the product, i still cannot for the life of me understand the problem sprint races are the solution to
another bad thing: tyre pressure shenanigans. no new ground being covered with this take......... it was farcical in buriram but after qatar it's just an intolerable situation. i understand WHY this has happened, i get the politics, but it's an absolute joke that they have not got a tyre that is suitable to aero yet. when this first became a talking point in 2023, when it was in danger !! of fucking up !! that title fight !! everybody in the sport should have panicked and worked to ensure that the situation would be at least somewhat addressed as quickly as possible. it is a year and a half on from that and they have done nothing. this one does actually make me a bit mad, like i just think it's inexcusable from the series and from the teams - i don't give a shit if they don't want to test the bloody tyres, this is ruining the sport both by making good racing so rare and by undermining sporting integrity. it is a joke that you will get penalised for having an unexpectedly good race. it deprived fabio of a sprint podium in jerez, it should have deprived pedro of a podium in indonesia without that extremely fugazi explanation ktm presented, and now it's massively fucked over vinales. you never know what will happen that's why you line up on sunday bla bla - but if you didn't think you were going to be in the lead and you then go into the lead then you'd better stop that right now!! what kind of racing is that? you're only allowed to win if you already thought you'd win before the race?? ridiculous
anyway. now that i've channelled my inner casey stoner. eh... what else. the competitive landscape... well, marc is barring injury or massive headloss going to win the championship, he's obviously a very good rider who is still good so nothing really new there. i didn't like what he did at cota, i'm pro people being clever and dastardly (or at least people thinking they are because they didn't read the rules correctly) but at a certain point there is a bit of a line for me. doing something that could be dangerous outside of races is just... yeah, it simply wasn't really necessary? but also it's not like i want to send him to the gallows for it, just someone very high on their own stock innit. it does really annoy me how nobody in the sport seems to have properly read the rules, i'm sorry but i would know that rule book off by heart, i have very little respect for that kind of thing. be serious. and the cota race crash was really daft, crashes happen but they exist on a spectrum and that one was not great and has artificially injected tension back into the title fight. moving on...
pecco's done a reasonably strong job thus far in the season, his worst misstep was the quali crash at qatar but otherwise there's no real complaints. he hasn't felt comfortable with this bike and has a very renowned title rival who started the season flawlessly but he didn't panic, he's kept chipping away at it. could easily have leaked far more points than this, which he had by this point in 2022-24 to his respective title rivals. obviously you can't wish away a fundamental pace deficit, especially with his sprint struggles - but i had the first three circuits at least marked as marc-leaning and my advice to pecco would have been 'try to weather the storm, don't do too much and bring the points home', which he's done. can't be doing quali crashes on what could have been a far better weekend for him, though, i get why it happened but. well. can't do it. can't do it!!
i do actually have a bit of a hot take here in that i think marc isn't faster than 2016-19 but To Some Extent he's cleaned up his game, and depending on how pecco does this season you can make the argument pecco's the toughest title challenger marc ever had to deal with. jorge/dani 2013 injury penalty, yamaha line-up post 2013 kinda washed and more often than not on worse bikes (especially ofc when those fuckers from michelin returned). and 2017-19 dovi ofc not quite at that consistently elite level, and the other challengers were ultra-washed valentino and 'maverick vinales'. like idk man i am EASILY taking 2025 pecco over 2013-19 yamaha line-up (or well post-2013 assen jorge) but i kinda feel like we're not ready for that particular conversation yet
i'll admit a. marquez did blindside me with his start to the season, obviously he won't come close to winning the title but it has been very impressive in its consistency. we'll see if the terrorism relapse was a one-off or the beginning of the end of that particular chapter. also i love my sibling more than anything and i would still kill myself in a. marquez's position so kudos on not doing that. i don't have much to say about either vr46 rider. the ducati situation in general though is obviously intolerable, like my god. in 2023 i kinda did self-gaslighting and went 'well you enjoyed 2003 and intra-manufacturer beef can be fun!!' which was true for maybe one season but.... not to this extent. not a complete PODIUM lockout. this is terrible!! it's not what motogp should be like!! every year we think it can't get worse and it does!! i guess i should have seen this coming because i was sniffing the 'surely at some point we've reached peak ducati domination' hopium but then every time i actually went through the manufacturers in my head to guess who might take the fight to ducati, i found all of them deeply unconvincing. this is another thing that has stealth made the racing worse... it helped back in the day to have two bikes with really different performance profiles and two riders with very different styles teeing it off, because you'd get more variation of performance in any given lap and then the speed differential means they can like. actually fight it out in different bits of the track. look, i don't need to explain this. modern poster child rivalry for this is obviously casey/valentino - cumbersome but lightning fast ducati vs underpowered nimble yamaha, wild instinctive casey versus precise calculating valentino. run it back! but yeah, homogenisation of bikes and riding styles is more of a long-term inevitable trend you probably can't really do anything about, but is still a shame
the other manufacturers exist on a spectrum of how pissed off i am at them currently. least pissed off is honda, then aprilia, then yamaha, and the prize for most pissed off is ktm. honda has obviously looked way better this season, though a part of me still suspects this is flattered by how aprilia and ktm have completely fucked it. i am historically not a honda fan but i am increasingly in the 'anyone but ducati' tent so i will offer my support to my allies in this cause. i have however given up on the joan mir revival cause, which deeply saddens me. zarco's been great, he's not been this good a watch since his early yamaha days. so so impressive
aprilia comes after that because it's not really their fault that their star rider has been cursed. it's just made the season SO much worse. obviously everything to do with jorge v scary and miserable and i hope he recovers well. could be one of those things where he's never the same rider again and i really hope that won't be the case. might have a pretty substantial psychological impact u have 2 say. bez has been appalling and i think it's increasingly clear which of 2023 or 2024 was the blip. i don't have anything to say about ogura that many others haven't already said, he's been truly fantastic and the star of the season thus far, i was already reasonably high on his stocks headed into this year but nowhere near this high. i hope his momentum doesn't fizzle out and he has a long and very fruitful motogp career, he reminds me a bit of 2008 dovi. raul fernandez needs to be fired into the sun and then fired, i still have no clue why he was given a two year contract extension. obviously this collection of riders makes it a bit hard to judge the aprilia, i don't feel like they've done... a great job in closing the gap to ducati? but also maybe it's the riders
yamaha has been. well. disappointing! i let myself sniff some hopium after the sepang test, which is a mistake that shall not be repeated. fabio's first few race weekends have also been a bit too patchy for my liking (but qatar's been better tbf). these fuckers are my team so i'd really like them to get it together. miller has adapted very impressively, fair plays i thought he was washed. i mean crucially idt there's more to come from him, like he was on the pace pretty much immediately on the ktm and if anything his best ktm stretch was right at the start of 2023. which speaks to his natural talent, he can adapt really well and clearly the yamaha does suit his style,,,,, but i still expect fabio to comfortably be the leading light in that manufacturer (he'd better fucking be). shout out to oliveira, still the most cursed rider. still have not forgiven the 2023 honda for essentially ending rins' career as a front running rider, miss u king
and ktm................................................................ i'm a ktm hater and i can't even enjoy this downfall. vinales being vinales and randomly deciding he's the second coming of jesus christ if he raced motorcycles one sunday per year is very funny, but obviously that shouldn't obscure how otherwise disgusting this start of the year has been. and like, i thought they'd decline in the second half of the year because of the whole bankruptcy situation, but the fact they're ALREADY struggling makes me think... idk man, i feel like there's enough of a lag in the bike development pipeline that they might just organically suck right now. ktm does traditionally have very strange early season periods, but i am kinda over it? and if they're going to suck late season too, then this hypothetical window where they don't suck to me feels rather narrow. maybe they'll get a bit better, but they have a generational talent on their roster who should be fighting for wins and preferably championships at this stage of his career. this sucks!! all the aliens were on machinery that could challenge for titles at latest by their second year in the premier class. acosta should be showing us what he can do on a bike that isn't completely fucked. all you can do is hope it doesn't end up completely derailing his career, i do sort of want him to escape next year even though i understand the reasons why that's unlikely. honda, pay the bill. otherwise... my takes on binder have not changed in the slightest since like 2023, it's everyone else who keeps flip flopping on him. i am withholding my bastianini verdict until a later date, but trust i am Watching and waiting and cracking my knuckles
anyway that's my hot takes on 2025 motogp, sports edition. not all of them but i feel like i've covered the major points. write in with your own
#and if YOU are feeling a bit disenchanted with motogp. may i say we are in for a truly fascinating women's tennis clay season#tune in NOW. tell all your friends. spread the good word#i do genuinely believe pecco is marc's toughest title rival by most metrics btw like i freely stand behind that take#again obviously it'd be a different conversation if mid 2013 had gone differently but#this is a situation where reputation blinds people like i feel i'm not being unfair to jorge when i say he was Not his best version in 2015#it is a shame idkkkkk pecco may well be his last chance at a Proper Rivalry.... kinda depends on what his body does ig#all of his just feel so... unfulfilled. so annoying. dani meh jorge no real arc valentino competitive mismatch dovi zero narrative juice#but well what can u do
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LANYON LORE TIME (YIPEEE)
I wanted to post some lanyon Lore for my Medieval Au because he's probably the most different to Canon-Lanyon. Jekyll/hyde stay pretty much the same, and they don't need much explanation, however lanyon does. so here it is.
EARLY LANYON
Growing up as a prince, meant that Lanyon was constricted to many duties and couldn't really live a normal life as a kid, this caused him to build up much resentment towards his father and in turn, made him a very reckless and rule-breaking, rebellious teenager. His name like Tgs (and novella) is also Hastie. Its very common for medieval royalty to pass down names [eg. Henry VIII] So robert would've been 'Hastie II' however little Babyon wanted to be nothing like his father and started going by 'Robert'. Lanyon never wanted to be King. Ever. He holds contemptment for his Royal duties and often dreams of running away from it all (but ever since a certain someone entered his life, he's found it awfully hard to leave...)
YOUNG-ADULT LANYON [PRE-HENRY]
Due to his rebellious nature, Young Lanyon would often end up sneaking out late at night go to the local pub, and let loose. He often wears a cloak so others don't recognise him. Lanyon likes to get very drunk and forget about all his responsibilities, (he's not one bit responsible) His Father disapproves and often reminds Lanyon that he is a 'disappointment to his family' (FUN!! SELF HATE?? ikr??) SO to address, Tgs Lanyon's playboi era, that doesn't really happen here, IN the Au as a part of finding his own freedom, he sleeps around alot, and has multiple one night stands but those involve both parties not expecting any strings attached. Lanyon still gets to be a slut but he also isn't a massive dick. He can also play the fiddle, he secretly enjoys this (but shh don't let his father know) and occasionally brings it to the pub. I headcanon that Lanyon has a really nice Singing voice, so in this Au Lanyon can sing, but he gets very embarrassed about it and never does it in public (unless incredibly drunk)
PRESENT LANYON
Present lanyon in the Au is in his early 20's (same with Jekyll) As part of His Duties as Prince, he must also be Knight and Fight in battles, this entail lots of training, Lanyon's been training since a young age, but ever sine Jekyll arrived, he always watches him practice so he can 'observe how to defend himself' and definitely NOT to see his cute crush/bff wear dashing armour, no.... Lanyon actually doesn't mind being a Knight that much but he doesn't Like Violence all that much and thinks there are better ways at solving disputes, however this does not mean he won't try to kill you if you threaten those dear to him (you can guess who)
In the AU, Robert is a bit more awkward around Henry, as they both are enamoured and always in Gay panic mode around each other, so there dynamic is a bit more 'cute' per-se compared to Tgs where Lanyon is Dom and Jekyll is Flustered mess. Lanyon gets to be a bit more a flustered mess in this Au too.
Yes, I know it's been a while, but no, the Au is not dead. I am going to do things with it I just haven't had a lot of time. Anyway thanks for reading, it means alot to me that people care about this, as always; if you have no idea what 'Au' I'm yapping about go to the Og post here (wow its kinda old... oooh old art) ...I think I'll do one of these with Frankenstein.
#the glass scientists#tgs#tgs medieval au#echo's au's#tgs lanyon#tgs robert lanyon#robert lanyon#tgs jekyll#tgs au
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I think that a lot of people take issue with the way the Spock/Chapel/T'Pring love triangle is presented in Strange New Worlds, but that sometimes this is dismissed as fans just being bitter spirk shippers. So here are a few reasons why I believe people are iffy on this plotline. (Disregarding the fact that we're disappointed that the showrunners didn't, and most likely won't, take the chance to do something really cool with Spock's legacy as a queer coded character...)
Firstly, it takes time away from other characters to address an element of Spock's story that has already been explored beautifully. (I will get into how this treats Chapel and T'Pring later...) Spock's struggle with his humanity and his anguish over the depth of his feelings for others (particularly Jim) is a focus in TOS and the movies, and if you're going to keep on talking about it, at least do it in a more creative way? This isn't to say that it shouldn't be acknowledged at all, seeing that it is a lifelong struggle for him, but by making it such a focus of the series they're not giving other interesting characters as much of a chance to develop.
Additionally, it has traditionally been understood that Spock coped with his inner turmoil by repressing his feelings. Over the course of his lifetime, he learns to embrace his human side more to become a more balanced and healthy person. SNW takes the approach of "young Spock was more human and horny!" which isn't necessarily bad, but they better be giving us an explanation for how he transforms so dramatically to the extremely repressed character he is in TOS. Maybe this is reaching too far, but this whole approach of young Spock just feels like an excuse to get hot ladies into his bed and to fulfill the fantasies of nerdy men who project onto him. This is the same Spock who scoffed at the idea of going to see dancers at a bar, who was immune to the charms of the sexy ladies in Mudd's Women, who only entertained women when drugged or when he needed to do so for a mission...
Furthermore, I believe it's a disservice to Chapel. On one hand, it does make her love for Spock seem more grounded in reality, which I appreciate. In TOS, it's pretty clear that Spock doesn't share her feelings and her crush is only really ever used as a means of ridiculing her. There goes silly Chapel again, trying to win over her unrequited love! It's not cool. But on the same token, making Spock the focus of her character yet again only further reduces her to nothing but that. Why can't we let the girl breathe and do other stuff? Sure, she does get some of the AOS Uhura treatment where she gets to be a generic cool badass lady, but this is in a way that is lacking in any real depth. Chapel deserves better.
I also don't love the way it treats T'Pring. Was it really necessary for her to be Spock's eye candy wife that he gets to bang and cheat on? In Amok Time, it's heavily implied that this was an arranged thing and that they hadn't seen each other since they were seven. If they really felt the need to include this relationship, it would have been so much cooler if they had explored it from that angle, with neither of them truly wanting to be together but being forced into it by societal expectation. Which of course, results in T'Pring using her intelligence to gain her freedom in Amok Time.
So yeah. Those are my main gripes with this whole thing. Overall, I think it's lazy writing that allows the writers to benefit from the nostalgia of legacy characters without developing them in actually meaningful or revolutionary ways.
#stange new worlds#star trek strange new worlds#star trek snw#snw#s'chn t'gai spock#spock#t'pring#christine chapel#meta#my post#spirk#k/s#star trek tos
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Anyways *deep breath* thanks @omalahsocs for making me think SO MUCH about this bcz of the prompt during stream. It's very late and I'm tired but I want to get the concepts down before I lay down and presumably forget all about it
So heres some Trans Girl Noctis ideas to ruminate on
I've said it before I'll say it again: her sculpted shoulders are one of her FAVORITE parts of herself and she is PERMANENTLY salty it means struggling to find dresses and blouses that fit
(Thanks to omalah) A? Corset?? You're galaxy brained
Corsets are just Gender it doesn't matter what the gender IS they're just Gender and wonderful. Tiss isn't sure about them at first but then she tries one on and it's like. A back brace that pushes her pecs up. She looks hot as FUCK
I'm probably going to draw this at some point gfdi
All of the chocobros are supportive in their own ways but absolutely nothing compared to how feral Prompto is. He hears a misgender and he is about to Throw Down. He hears "His Majesty" and Prompto is pulling out a gun
He goes through all of Tiss's mail and crosses out everything addressed Incorrectly with a sort of manic glee that Ignis doesn't even dare stop him
Ignis is so supportive in an Ignis way. He does All the research. He's that ally that knows more about trans experiences through research than most trans people do from personal experience. While they can't exactly do much for her transition medically on the road and technically being fugitives (and she's not overly concerned either) he still goes over every single potential option she has just so she Knows
Ignis is very annoyed that they actually Do Not Have The Funds to help Noctis like, socially transition in terms of clothing and jewelry and presentation. Tiss has to inform him that she is still perfectly happy dressing masc on the regular because they are, in fact, war fugitives and no, she does NOT need a new wardrobe
He still finds little ways to help her feel a little fem. Ignis is the one who starts to paint her nails for her and will on occasion just hand her a hair clip or small bits of jewelry she's not sure how he got
If Ignis ever gets the chance to find Noctis feminine formal ware he just about has a heart attack because instead of her usual grumping and groaning about how stupid formal wear is she is actually very tentatively excited. She definitely wants to wear the pretty dresses, Iggy. She doesn't UNDERSTAND a lot about fashion and shit but going over dozens of pretty dresses is a million times funner than going over dozens of suits.
She still gets bored after like an hour. But that's an hour of Noctis going through CLOTHES. Ignis is taking so many notes
Gladio isn't very like outwardly supportive or anything but he is so good at being the scariest thing in the room. He will Loom behind her and make people think twice about talking shit
He is the one who has to nearly tackle Prompto from trying to attack people at the SLIGHTEST hint of bigotry
He's not good at fancy shit. But while they're on the road, living out of the armiger and clothes bought from thrift stores and hunter depots, Gladio helps resize dresses and shirts and everything that won't fit her
He's not the one who'll give a nice pep talk or comfort her when she's down but he WILL be the first to pull her aside and ask very seriously if she needs a hug
Being the one and only one of them with a living female family member, Gladio also is the resident "Iris does X girly thing, if that helps?"
The day that Prompto and Noctis wear matching skirts Gladio calls them fucking ridiculous, ruffles their hair, and threatens to lock them in a closet together
#my stuff#my writing#I'm very tired#omalahsocs#princess noctis#Trans girl Noctis#noctis lucis caelum#ffxv#gladiolus amicitia#prompto argentum#ignis scientia#thanks for getting my brain revving#promptis#gnc prompto
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Okay so, I made a thread about this over on twitter, and thought I'd drop it here too. OFMD Season 2 spoilers ahead. An idea that I've seen a few times and felt I needed to yell about is the idea that OFMD is now ableist, and that it is wrong to like and enjoy it as a show. As a queer disabled person, it's something that pisses me off so, so much. I'm not going to defend everything that happens in OFMD. But I am going to say that it is one of the best shows I know for showing both a broad range of disabilities, and presenting those disabilities in a largely neutral light. We have multiple amputees, multiple people with chronic pain , multiple characters with mental health issues, and more. We have Pete's speech impediment, Wee John's back, Lucius' finger, Jackie's hand, Ed's mental health, Stede's mental health - and yeah, Izzy's leg. The way that these disabilites are presented is important to me - because they're just another part of the person, not good or bad. There are obviously impacts and things to work through - Ed's mental health being one, Izzy's leg being another - but they ARE worked through. Ed's suicidality - which spans over two entire seasons - is addressed. So is the moments of Izzy's. Izzy gets support and a prosthetic, Lucius gets support and a prosthetic, we see Wee John sitting down in most scenes which would support his back. Disability isn't just ignored, or played off for laughs, but neither is it made the entire plot point. Izzy is just as much of a badass as before. Lucius' finger doesn't stop his work. Jackie's hand doesn't make her less fearsome. Ed's mental health (and Izzy's, and Stede's) don't make them less deserving of love. None of the character's disabilities do. In fact, we see two disabled characters - Lucius and Pete - getting married at the end of the season. And that's important. It's so important!!
If you're sad and upset that Izzy died, that's incredibly valid. But to say that it "shows that disabled characters have nothing to live for" - when his death wasn't related to his disability at all - is so incredibly offensive. I am permanently disabled, to the point that I cannot work full time. I have seen posts about my disability saying that it would be better to die than to have it. But nothing - NOTHING - in OFMD suggests that it would've been better for Izzy to die than to have an amputation. Instead he is supported, encouraged, and loved. He is given a carefully crafted prosthetic, and given space to learn how to use it. He gets support, and his mental health improves. He is given a beautiful life. And then he dies. But his death is not about his disability. I'm going to repeat that - his death is NOT about his disability. Nor is it about being queer. It's shitty, random luck. I'm sure there are people who are going to say that the writers, simply by having a disabled queer character die, are ableist and queerphobic. But nothing we see in the show supports that. They show queer joy and delight and love and happy endings over and over again. They show care and support of disabilities, over and over again. And they specifically show queer disabled people living beautiful lives, over and over again. One character's death doesn't undo that. I'm sorry that your favourite character died. I really, truly am. It's a devastating feeling. I'm sorry that it hurts. But if you're taking it as a sign that the show is saying queer disabled people have no right to live? Then you're ignoring the rest of the show.
You're ignoring all the beautiful queer disabled characters we see, and the messages that the show tells us about them. You're ignoring the beautiful life and redemption that Izzy got. And yeah, you're being offensive as hell to queer disabled people. Sorry, you are.
And if you're queer and disabled and can't see a queer disabled character die - that's incredibly valid. I understand. However, that doesn't mean the show or writers hate you, or hates us, or wants you to die. They've shown us over and over again that actually, they love us.
Also - would you be this pissed if it was any other disabled character who died? Probably not.
I think it's also really important to have stories where disabled people are treated like people. And yeah, that means that sometimes we die. Because that happens in life, too. Same with queer people.
I don't really have a satisfying conclusion to this. I'm just queer and disabled, and really tired of seeing it said that it's now morally wrong to like this show. It's not. I'm queer, disabled, and I see more disability pride and support in this show than most others.
So yeah, thank you to OFMD for beautiful representations of disability, and queerness. It's a show that makes me feel seen - and that's really important.
#ofmd#ofmd season 2#ofmd season 2 spoilers#ofmd s2#ofmd s2 spoilers#wouldn't even tag this but i don't want ppl to see spoilers if they don't want to
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Viktor sighed quietly and popped his self-described "crunchy bones" not so quietly by tilting his head side to side slowly and rolling his shoulders in turn, gently. He grabs his cane and uses it like an oar to steer his wheely-stool towards the part of the lab that housed the coffee maker, sweetmilk, and food. Viktor had been idly jabbing his own brain inside of his mind to get up and eat since he hasn't eaten in at least 6 hours and it's already 2 pm. He relaxed somewhat when his body finally decided to listen to his mind's demands. Once he was in the makeshift kitchenette, he grabbed a box of instant grits, filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove, and poured the serving size he wanted into the bowl and waited for the water to boil.
He loathed that he didn't bring something with him while he waited, because scooting all the way back to his part of the work surface felt like a chore. It's not like the water was going to boil instantly, but when it did he'd have to scoot all the way back to put the enrichment away, then go all the way back to the kitchenette. Logically it wasn't all that far, logistically, it was. "Using the stool as a mode of transport was a blessing and a curse" he thought to himself.
What's worst of all, Jayce had two back to back meetings from this morning and after lunch. Viktor pursed his lips in a half scowl like the water had been rude and the reason for Jayce's absence from the lab thus far. He'd probably be free later in the afternoon which isn't too far away, but it was still annoying, as much as silence is a blessing.
This inter-network that many brilliant minds at various academies were convergently working on was certainly an interesting thing. A mix of radio waves, electric magnetism, and gumption, really. Heimerdinger had been given a letter that was addressed to Piltover's Academy looking for "an oddly similar signal", he immediately figured Viktor might have some ideas. He and Jayce had been working something related to the Hexgates, trying to find a way to more easily replicate the technology. The far away pipe dream was to not need an entire city block sized cooling system for the portal and batteries. But something had kept interfering with their signal. Jayce had wondered if "we were creating the signal" and about the people who sent the letter if "they're what's causing the interference". Viktor had asked indignantly how such a thing could come from far away. Jayce genuinely thought about it curiously, Viktor's eyes scanned back and forth across the flow of his thoughts before both of their light bulbs went off at the same time. "The hexgates!"
Many months, several letters, a couple of explosions, and only one (non-lethal) electrocution later, the inter-network system was created. Skipping back to the present, Viktor had created a digital journal that would mostly be seen by other people in Piltover Academy as well as other top schools with brilliant minds with far too much time and not enough self-preservation on their hands. But it still felt good to be able to share his thoughts, even though it was mostly "screaming into the void", with other like minded... minds. Even if Nfiti from Noxus said sweetmilk was an "abhorant use of anise" and Viktor nearly tackled him. To be fair, the group of scientists from the varying selection of schools had been up for the past 2 days during one of their collaboration meet ups.
Now, here Viktor was eating a bowl of plain grits at 2:15 in the afternoon. It wasn't a lot, but it definitely better than nothing and it was satisfying. It was easy on the stomach and didn't taste horrendous, unlike many "easy" foods.
Now he just had to focus on work until Jayce came back from his work.
@councilor-talis
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Saw your one post about Azul. I have one correction to make. Azul isn't male Ursula. Think of him as an official OC inspired but her. He also has elements of Tiana in him as well. Same goes for the rest of the cast. Ursula is still idolized hy the characters and shown as a fat woman.
As for why he's skinny, he used to be fat as a child and was bullied for it. In order to get back at the haters, he went on a diet and became a powerful mage out of spite.
Granted, there are some things about him that I criticize. He has an eating disorder, which goes completely unaddressed. There's also this fucked up scene where everyone stands there and laughs at Azul's fat picture for no other reason than he used to be fat. I'm still surprised the player character didn't punch Leona in the face for that. But the game didn't do what you're accessing it of.
Thanks for the message! I still don’t like it, and I still think it’s justified to accuse them of fatphobia, because that’s exactly what’s going on here.
Their only way of including the character’s weight was as an element of his past that was deemed shameful and worthy of mockery. And while losing weight isn’t a bad thing, there’s a persistent and systemic idea that losing weight is something all fat people need to do, so it being a part of his backstory is bothersome to me. It’s also weird that he chose to get back at the people mocking his weight by…doing exactly what they wanted him to do?? Good on him for being a mage tho. Throw a fireball at their houses if they give you any more shit, Azul.
Also the ED thing not being addressed is still representative of systemic fatphobia. Because skinniness is more socially acceptable, EDs aren’t talked about as much and aren’t treated as seriously - conversely, extreme diet cultures are heavily promoted on social media.
Sorry if I’m coming across as mean to a game I’ve never played lol. I just have a lot of opinions on Disney villains and their designs, and Ursula is one of my favorites so I get very aggressive when I think about this game’s design (your comment about them not necessarily being 1:1 characters did clear up some things even if it still bugs me). I do have one positive thing I’d like to say about the design tho! I’m not sure if it’s what they were going for, but his outfit and general gender presentation feels very much like a drag king outfit, and that’s perfect for an Ursula-inspired male character! Her design was famously based on the drag queen Divine.


The thing about doing a genderswap of any character, even if it’s as detached as Azul, is you want to look at how the base character presents their gender, and how it would translate if you flipped it around. Hypermasculinity can be turned into hyperfemininity or the other way around, androgyny can be played with to suit the character, etc.
(These aren’t hard and fast rules that every genderswap needs to follow but they’re ones I really like. A lot of good genderswapping is digging deep into the character and how they perceive their gender)
With this in mind, it would only make sense for Azul’s design to go the other way around, based on drag kings instead of queens. Now I know nothing about Azul’s actual character so I don’t know the lore or character reasons for why he dresses and presents the way he does, but from the pictures I can find on google he gives a very queer and drag kind of vibe!






Sorry if I was a little dramatically harsh before lol. I like the outfit I really just wish the character designers made him fat. It really doesn’t look good to take a canonically fat character and get rid of that detail, and only keeping it in a way that’s rooted in many years of societally encouraged mockery and false ideas that all fat people need to lose weight in order to be successful and happy. It’s also taking away representation from audience members who are of a similar body type.
Hope you enjoyed my improvised rambling! I know so little about this game and a cursory google search tells me it’s a gacha game, so I’m not super interested in playing to get any more answers 😅 Thanks for sending me the info, tho!
#I get so few asks. this feels like christmas#twisted wonderland#do I still tag anti?? its like only half that#ursula#the little mermaid#azul ashengrotto#yeah I’ll tag him why not#fatphobia#tw fatphobia#terrified to tag this as drag. I’m so disconnected from the scene I’m afraid I might say something wrong#also drag kings aren’t limited to suits. you can find many pics on google and there’s a range of styles
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okay, thoughts on 3.3 below - here there be spoilers
the first thing i wanna say is that music went hard. that's one thing i (usually) really enjoy with hsr's story bosses - the music is always on point. that whole moment was fire, tbh, and i think that's my favourite boss design so far in amphoreus
now... it was obvious what was going to happen. we've had that 'all shall bid farewell to one' prophecy kicking about for a while, so i went in expecting everyone to slowly get picked off one by one, which is essentially what happened. didn't make it any easier, of course, but it also wasn't a surprise that everyone died (although i'm fairly certain castorice isn't dead, but considering she stays in the nether realm she may as well be?? i guess?? she's the only one we didn't see die/get confirmation of the death - although we also didn't see hyacine either, but she's also kinda... fixed up in the sky rn??). some of those 'endings' were quite emotional and i'm going to be thinking about one in particular for a while. three guesses as to which one ;__; all those prophecies coming true........
overall, i enjoyed the story - the pacing felt right for this patch, and whilst i didn't intend to play it all in one go i never once felt like i was rushing through it, so it all felt very natural in terms of story pacing & the content was engaging enough to carry it forward. i'm sad that herta only got a tiny bit at the end but i assume, given where we are in terms of plot for the rest of the cast of characters, she'll feature some more in the next chapter.
my immediate thoughts when phainon's name was blocked out: who the fuck are you, dude-
the big "reveal" at the end....... was predictable, incredibly so, so it didn't have the kind of impact i suspect it was supposed to. don't get me wrong, still curious about how that plays in, but let's be real... people have been theorising about this for a while now, it's nothing new.
cipher........ okay, listen, i'm thrilled she had more depth than what we were initially presented with, because i was hoping there'd be more to her than just "sexy mischievous catgirl trope" and, thankfully, there is... but i'm still not a fan. AND DON'T GET ME WRONG, please, i did love her reveals and her story is very clever, i just personally don't vibe with her personality even if it is very fitting for the character. she's written well for who she is, i'm just.... bored of it, y'know? it's just a shame bc i was so hyped to find out more about her when the heirs first dropped and sneaky thief types are definitely my thing and it just feels like hoyo did her a little dirty bc that depth is gonna be lost under another oversexualised trope. but anyway, that's my only negative really.
and i'm gonna address the va thing because honestly... i'm so out of the loop with current news that i only learned they were being changed literally yesterday. i'll miss caleb's voice for caelus, it felt very fitting for the character, but i don't hate the new voice. it sounds more... mature, i guess?? which isn't a bad thing. (i have no comments on stelle's voice bc i don't think i've ever heard rachel's and i haven't heard the new one yet either. every playthrough i've watched in the past has chosen caelus like i did).
-
and separate from the patch bc i did the first part of the new event as well before i stopped gaming, but... whose idea was it for the text speed in those boxes to be so fucking slow???? me here mashing the x button bc they keep insisting on putting lengthy (and often unnecessary) dialogue/story in silly game events and i really don't care.
i love how they gave options in the actual story to skip some of the dialogue (presumably for a more condensed summary version) but they force you to sit through slow text in an event. please, hoyo.... please let me skip the shit that doesn't matter-
#;forever yelling into the abyss (ooc)#( this has probably been one of the better patches for me in terms of pacing )#( i didn't once feel like things were dragging *or* that i was rushing through parts )#( felt like there was a good balance )#// hsr spoilers#/ hsr spoilers
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the barbie movie like. ok so [spoilers and long paragraphs under the cut]
yeah it was really basic ideologically it didnt cover all the various intersections and theories of feminism but i think when people saw conservatives flipping their shit people expected it to be like, a manifesto. its a film, and more importantly, it's the Barbie Movie. i think expecting a gender and womens studies class from it would be silly, and while i get why people are disappointed in how much sympathy it lends to the men in the movie, i dont think like, once again, that was ever something to not expect?
furthermore on that point i think showing misogyny from a place of defining the self around a sense of loneliness by men isn't...far off. theres never an excuse for misogyny but thats rhetoric that radicalizes a lot of incels and shit i would rather that than they treat it like some mysterious miasma.
also, i think, once again while it was pretty basic in the ideas it presented... how often is it show that explicitly in broad-audience film? like stated directly to the audience in that manner? theres no flirting with the feminist theory in the movie; it says it outright, which is something a lot of films shy away from out of fear of alienating men once it becomes too "girl power"-y. im not usually for the use of a lot of buzzwords in film and discussion of issues but these buzzwords are never said with cheapness or to obfuscate. it could be heavyhanded at times, but that heavyhandedness wasnt ever really obnoxious? it walked the line of "haha silly" but still took its point seriously enough that you could appreciate the use of that heavyhandedness for comedic effect without being mocked
i also think the fact they just like "solve" the patriarchy in the barbie world isnt meant to imply that you can just fix the real world with a woman president or by being aware of misogyny. in fact a lot of the movie is dedicated to showing how the barbie world and real world are different. the conclusion of the movie is that barbie wants to become human, even though the human world is messy and unsolved and nothing like she assumed it was. she believed barbie had solved misogyny forever, which is a direct jab at the idea that any "one thing" or "girl power" movement can just suddenly whisk away the very power structures that created that sort of oppression.
its very much coming from a cis/heterosexual/white basis. they flirt with further intersection but dont commit, which im really not a fan of. my friends after the film were like "it was more homoerotic than i expected haha" and...yeah, it was, but it didnt do anything to address gayness or what that means in such a heavily gendered heterosexual society. you could read that subtext through allen and his thing.... but allen is a joke. his story is never resolved. hes one of the guys but he isnt, hes one of the girls but he isnt, he benefits not at all from "kendom" but conversely is not oppressed the way the barbies are and vice versa. he's just allen, and the only allen there is. when sasha and her mom want to go back to help barbie, the fact he just goes "God im never getting out of here" and thats just like, left was kinda. well. it was something for sure.
still. i know i just wrote like 200 words on the ideology of this movie but first and foremost its a pg13 comedy meant to be shown to broad audiences in theaters for money. its meant to be an enjoyable watch, and it is! its a gorgeous film, its funny, the songs are fine, and the way it makes its side comments arent distracting nor meanspirited. it knows when to take itself seriously, and i like that. i was actually expecting it to be a general audiences like, kids movie i was so fucking surprised when barbie said penis.
i also think saying the line at the end about the gynecologist is like "saying you need a vagina to be a real woman" is disingenuous honestly. one its meant to be a bit of a shock quip to get a giggle but two i think a lot of people who need gynecological care (which can include trans women) are afraid when it comes to that first visit and finally sitting down and talking about those areas because of the shame and lack of proper education. maybe its bc i grew up mormon but i dont think its meant to imply thats what MADE barbie a real woman or that its fundamental to being one.
once again it definitely isnt a perfect movie. i think the way the ken and barbie talk happened at the end was still a bit coddly and the scope of the ideology underneath the movie was, once again, still very much centered in white cishetero society and thought with only passing mentions of intersectionality that felt both shallow and (especially with the gayness and racial dynamics) occasionally like it was being turned into a joke
still all in all it was a pretty good movie. weird barbie #1. allen get behind me i will protect u
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Chapter 6, part 1: Elint the wingman
It's going to be another long one, gang.
I do like how my approach to chapters can be summarised as:
DRAFT 1 - chapters that are pretty long
DRAFT 2 - new chapter every time a character blinks!
DRAFT 3 - chapters that are WAY too long
We open in media res.
“I have to swim?” “Well, we can’t take the boat too close to the island, I don’t think it’d survive the collision,” Elint said, laughing.
I like how I've realised that a tiny, unmarked island in the middle of the ocean presents logistical difficulties, but I haven't realised hard enough to do anything about it.
It's the early hours of the morning (exactly ten to three, if you're interested). Apparently Elint woke Layane up to tell her they needed to go, so she got up and ran into the shower before he could say, "Hold up, you're about to go for a dip in the ocean!"
She then returned to find him putting her belongings into plastic bags.
I have no idea why I didn't open with Layane about to swim, nor why Elint didn't try to stop her, nor why she didn't just ask what the plan was.
Also, didn't she have a crazy long shower before she went to bed?
When [Elint] finished bagging up Roen’s things, he walked over to him and shook him. He groaned, and slowly sat himself up. “Time to go?” he said, yawning. At least he looks sober, Layane thought, sighing.
I also have no idea why Elint didn't wake Layane and Roen at the same time. Maybe he somehow foresaw Layane's weird shower thing?
Roen rubbed his eyes and stood up.”You’re not coming, are you?” he said, addressing Elint. “No. But G-slur already knows everything. A message was sent ahead, we thought she would act kinder if she knew what had happened before seeing you.” Elint looked over at Roen, who looked shocked. “The message does not blame anyone for what happened, it simply states what did happen, and that Layane is turning up.”
Uh.
Don't worry Roen, it's okay, we just told G-slur that Layane and Clemant were kidnapped under your watch, not that you were at fault!
I guess Roen isn't at fault for the same reason Elint wasn't at fault for telling Roen to go off on an eleven month jolly and then repeatedly lying to HQ about it.
(I'm still unclear on what exactly happened there.)
“I am really going to die,” Roen said, lifting one of the plastic bags. “I hope I get a painless execution.”
At least Roen sees how serious this is.
Elint laughed a little, but his expression was serious. “She won’t kill you,” he said. “Your death would anger too many people.” “That’s good to know,” said Roen. Layane stifled a laugh.
His death would anger soooo many people, but G-slur sent him out into the world at fourteen, so unprepared he nearly died of hypothermia, and has let him drink himself to death repeatedly since then.
I guess G-slur could argue that Roen drinking himself to death is slightly different from her pulling the trigger, but it's still a hell of a choice.
Anyway, there was literally no reason for this entire section to be included, so the chapter opened with 500 words of nothing.
They head outside with the bags. It's five a.m. somehow, which according to the timestamps means their short conversation lasted over two hours. It's raining heavily when they reach the deck.
I'm don't know much about cruises, but feel there must be a less conspicuous way to secretly disembark than jumping off the deck. And, you know, a safer way. I know the Gever can fly, but Layane certainly can't.
Maybe Elint will fly her down?
Elint turned to Layane. “It looks further away from up here,” he said. “It’s a lousy day but you’ll be fine. Remember to land feet-first. I’ll save you if you get stuck.
Maybe not.
I'm pretty sure Layane could very easily die doing this. It's freezing. She had swimming lessons years ago, according to the narration, but she's never swam outdoors.
Elint is clearly meant to be a kind, paternal figure, but... he's kind of a dick, right?
Elint did defend Roen to G-slur, tried to get G-slur to replace Roen as Protector after he almost died, and gave Roen a bunch of money to swan off into the sunset, yeah, yeah.
But... Roen has been a Protector for years. Elint seemingly enabled and covered up Roen's issues all that time, and now he's thrown Roen to G-slur's mercy and is acting like nothing is wrong.
Also, he fully admitted that he assumed Roen would die in Spain.
Layane treats Elint as an authority figure that she can go to for help, but I have no idea why. When Layane came to him for answers, Elint spent several pages defending Roen's (and his own) actions before anything else. He dismisses Layane's concerns and acts like Roen's tragic backstory absolves him of blame. He could probably accompany Layane and Roen to Geviria, but chooses not to, essentially leaving Layane alone with the dude who's been stalking her for years and who got her sister kidnapped.
If this is the only other option, I'd try my luck with the police.
The below continues directly from the last dialogue I shared:
"(...) Just hold onto Roen or something.” Disgusted by that idea, Layane decided that the [swimming] lessons would come in useful after all.
You're the adult here, Elint! Why don't you fly her down?
And why are you pushing her towards Roen this hard? You spent pages and pages in the last chapter trying to convince Layane she shouldn't hate him, made them sleep in the same room, and now you're telling her to 'hold onto him' in dangerous situations? Are you acting as his wingman?
(Pun intended.)
They strap their bags to their backs and Roen climbs onto the railing. Layane asks Roen if he's going to fly down, to which he responds no, because he has the bag it would be easier to swim.
Okay. Surely gliding down with the bag in your many arms would be way easier than dropping down into the ocean and then swimming? This chapter has me questioning more stuff than most of the other chapters combined.
Without responding to Roen, Layane climbs onto the railing next to him. The water looks very far away, and she hesitates.
“You’ll have to get off soon,” said Elint, who had returned to the railing to look at the island. “It’s not as bad as it looks, really. Once I broke my wing and I had to drop down, it wasn’t bad.”
Be honest, Elint, is this some creepy wingman shit? Are you trying to do the fear-is-an-aphrodisiac thing to get Layane to like Roen? Would it ruin Roen's game if you came along too?
Layane tightened her grip. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, but from her angle, it certainly looked it. He turned to Roen, to try to catch a sign of worry on his face, but there was none. When he realized she was looking his way, he held out his hand for her to hold. “No!” she said, taken aback. “I’m fine…”
There must be some pronoun typos in here, or it doesn't make sense at all.
I now firmly believe that this is some wingman shit. Roen fell in love with the girl he was stalking, told Elint, and Elint is trying to find a way to push them together because he's Team Roen all the way.
She lifted her arm to push away his hand, when she felt something force her forwards, hard. It was only when she was falling that she realized Roen had pushed her.
Layane has milliseconds to recognise that Roen pushed her with one of his invisible arms before she freefalls into ice cold water. Initially she cannot move, and it reads like she's gone into shock. Then she manages to find some momentum and drags herself and her bag to the shore.
If you are misguidedly trying to romance this girl, Roen, you could have at least pulled her out of the water into your big, strong (four) arms.
Then, she noticed Roen. He had just left the water, and was looking through one of his bags at the edge of the island. “You pushed me!” she shouted. She dug her foot into the soft ground and kicked a lump of sand at him. “You weren’t going to jump off,” he said, pausing his search to flick the sand off his legs. “I was.” “Well, you were taking too long.
Lovely.
Roen throws her a towel, which feels like the time he threw her a first aid kit when the narrative made it sound like Layane had a serious head injury. Layane wants to change into the dry clothes in her bag, but doesn't, because that would mean changing in front of Roen.
Look. I get that this isn't a great situation. I get that it's weird Roen has been following you. But given you must be freezing, why the fuck don't you just ask Roen to turn around or stand on the other side of the cave while you change? He probably wants to change, too!
Instead, Layane explores the cave. There are symbols carved into the back wall, and Layane asks Roen what they say. He says that the symbols are super old so he can't read them very well, which is a cool detail. He does know the gist, though.
“A lot of it is about how it took millions of years for the Gever to come up here. This part says that they were worried that the surface of the world was on fire, and this part says that it had been the Prophet Shafinah who had convinced us to tunnel upwards.”
Shafina is now a Prophet and has the Gever H at the end of her name, I guess.
This is possibly also a flaw of the previous drafts, but I'll flag it now: is it really 'tunnelling' if you're building a corridor through the sea?
Layane remembers they are here to save Clemant - even though it's unclear how going to Geviria will help Clemant in any way - and shouldn't waste time reading old words carved into a cave, so she tells Roen to get on with whatever he needs to do to get them inside. Roen wordlessly puts his hand through the back wall of the cave, which disappears into a dark, stone corridor.
Wanting to see more, she took a step forwards... and slammed into the rocky cave wall. With a flicker, it reappeared. “What... happened?” She held her hand up to her nose, and found that it was bleeding. “Great,” she muttered, holding the towel up to her nose to prevent blood from going everywhere. “Would you like to explain...?” “Humans can’t walk through unescorted,” said Roen.
You could definitely have warned her, Roen.
“But you’re right next to me!” He held out his hand. “Yes, but it will only be recognised if I’m happily leading you in. And that means holding your hand or something.
Clearly this is because I'm dying for Roen and Layane to hold hands, but I have questions about this.
Does the cave sense if a Gever is being forced to bring a human inside against their (the Gever's) will?
If yes, surely it doesn't matter if the pair are holding hands, and it wouldn't make sense for Layane to have walked into the wall?
If no, couldn't a human just drag a Gevirian towards the wall to get inside?
I guess maybe it depends if the Gever is thinking, 'I want this person to enter Geviria' or 'I do not want this person to enter Geviria'.
If it does, that means Roen canonically made Layane walk into a wall so he could hold her hand. Ah, romance.
Layane holds out her arm, and Roen drags her into the tunnel, which seems to go on forever. There's no boat on wheels this time, so I'm not sure if they're going to walk or slide down, but I'm excited.
Once inside, Roen immediately starts smoking. Layane looks at pictures of a Gever woman carved into the walls, because she's trying to distract herself from the boredom of walking down an endless corridor with someone she is giving the silent treatment to.
“It’s Shafinah,” said Roen, who had noticed her looking. “She is a prophet, and one of the current Four who I think Elint told you about. After she persuaded the Gever to build this tunnel, they carved her likeness into the stone.” “What?” Layane laughed. “Elint said that was six hundred years ago. She can’t be alive now.” “Yes, well that’s what we all think, too. But she is. She’s just been – around forever. We call her a Prophet.” He sounded breathless. “Some Gever reckon… that she’s been around from the beginning.”
He also mentioned all that half a page ago, but I guess you (or more likely I) forgot.
They've been walking for a while when Layane finally asks the question she probably should have asked back on the surface.
“How long does this take?” Layane said, irritated. “I don’t know,” said Roen. “Something happens in the middle. You’ll see.”
How cryptic. I love that my Magic-Aware characters never bother explaining anything to Layane, and for some reason, Layane never asks them to elaborate.
The tunnel gets narrower, and Roen has been chain-smoking the whole way down, so Layane stays ahead of him.
It started to get warmer as they went down, but it didn’t help. At first Layane hoped that the now-hot air would dry her clothes, but it quickly became humid and made her feel sticky and horrible. She turned when she stopped hearing Roen’s footsteps behind her, to see him sat on one of the steps and drinking from the large, plastic bottle.
This is one of the more realistic choices I've made. By which I mean Roen not having the stamina to endlessly walk down a corridor, not the magic corridor heating up the closer they get to the centre of the earth, or whatever I was going for there.
Even though Roen told her 'something happens in the middle' with no elaboration, Layane decides to press on without him. She walks down the corridor, entertaining herself by trying to read the Gevirian writing.
Yes, really.
The symbols captured her interest again. While she walked, she entertained herself by spotting characters that looked like Latin ones. She had been looking to the right at something that looked like an ‘f’, when the temperature dropped. She turned. The corridor had vanished from in front of her, and all that was in its place was shadow. “Roen?” she called up the corridor, not taking her eyes off the strange phenomenon.
Here we go.
Layane doesn't move. She calls Roen's name several times to no response. For some reason, she doesn't walk back up the stairs to look for him, but opts to wait around for him to catch up.
A chill passed down the back of her neck. She slowly turned around, and the darkness clouded her vision. A sickly-sweet smell filled her nostrils, which gave her the immediate instinct to run. “Roen, something’s happening!” she yelled up the stairs. Her feel scrabbled at the stairs, but they couldn’t find a flat edge for support. Her attempt to stand left her winded and flat on her stomach. She was helpless as the black fog completely engulfed her. Something was scratching her stomach, but she had little time to contemplate this. After a few breaths of the mist, she felt dizzy.
THE MIST!!!!!
I was wondering when magic mist first showed up! Had no idea it was this early! The story is now called Into The Mist and has been since around 2016, and I'd forgotten that I used magic mist this early on!
Maybe I'm getting hyped for no reason. 'Magical knockout gas' as mist is a trope, so who knows if this is what inspired the later drafts.
Anyway.
No, I have no idea what's scratching Layane's stomach. I hope it isn't Shafinah.
She threw her hands in front of her mouth, after realizing that she could be breathing in a poison. What if the Gever had put up precautions against humans breaking in - and this was one of them?
Or... maybe it's the 'something' Roen mentioned? You know, back when he said that and you made absolutely no attempt to get him to elaborate?
Furious with herself, she realized she should have stayed with Roen. This was probably happening because she abandoned him. Then, she realized what was happening. The thought rushed into her head the moment before she slipped into unconsciousness – the stairs had smoothed into a rough slope, and she was gently sliding down it.
My characters love to realise things.
Layane is probably right. She should have stayed with Roen, because he could have explained what was happening.
Or, you know, she could have asked him what the fuck he meant by 'something happens', so he could tell her, "There's a slide so rad you need to be knocked the fuck out before you ride it."
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