#despite them being NOTHING ALIKE IN BOTH SHOW AND COMICS

[xycuro-illuminati]

hey long time no talk. every time ive ever seen you talk about fratt its like im sitting here wide eyed + horrified like what? what? huh?

I'm not kidding it is legit like that NOW. And I guarantee you it probably hasnt change from it. Like I said before, I watched it go from a niche rarepair with a good amount of comics fans understanding how to make it fun and hilarious to all m/cu fans writing the most OOC and ableist bs ever written bc they know 0 about BOTH source materials

[fruit-salad-ship]

Hey, first of all, I really love your work!

I was reading some of the news stuff and I wondered if Peach ever gets a quiet contented moment for herself and what that looks like. And maybe for the extra challenge, we’re there ever moments during her training or adventures like that? Five minutes where she was just able to breathe?

Oh she gets them, it’s whether or not she takes them.

Peach pre Hisui is tightly wound, a workaholic, always stay busy so the stress and the panic doesn’t settle in. If she keeps working and training then nothing bad can go wrong. Her “down time” was spent painting for days on end in secret, and while she found joy in it, she also sold them under a pen name for cash so the labs can get needed upgrades and items. There was always a stressful background hum of needing to do well, to make money to help others. On the rare moments she got back then to relax, it was brief but pleasant. Fleeting moments where she could sit and take a breath, try to focus on the good for just one minute.

The readers of the current comic and various story lines get to watch her learn how to relax during Hisui in particular, it’s a huge part of her growth, and it’s all thanks to Rei, the boy who just happens to be there when she is, and destined to intercept her grouchy stressed out life. He shows her how to relax and enjoy more. The hisui arc is SO important to her unwinding, learning not to be a control freak, not to get hung up on her rage.

She gets plenty of opportunity to relax despite being thrown around in the past, and it’s that endless struggle to survive and win that makes her see that in fact the joys matter, they never did until she gets close to losing them all. She learns to laugh at jokes more, Rei gets her dancing even when she can’t much, but he teaches her what he can. They start to have inside jokes, start to laugh together. Their “training” turns into a more jovial activity, where both parts are actually having more fun than they’ve had in a long time. There’s plenty of moments where she can accept that sometimes you can sit back and relax. It’s ok to not always be ‘on’. Rei is her change, a teenager with no bad vibes what so ever, she needs him way more than he realises.

So when she's finally home and dry, with the people she thought she'd never see again, her loved ones, human and pokemon alike, Peach is a changed woman. Grey has never seen her demand a day off, but she's activly picking her schedule and allowing for time out (unheard of) and in that down time she's busy sure, but busy with things that make her smile, even takes a nap in the sun sometimes, or gets five minutes to stitch in peace for the hell of it. Plum will watch this once stoic and often serious woman crack more jokes, dance with her, she can kind of do that now??? They get to all see this person finally step back and do things for herself in a way that gives her time to rest and come back to do her job way better.

It's a huge notable change, she's much more fun, way more open, with a softer heart, and a calmer disposition. Once you fight a god, can you really be stressed out by the small stuff? She sure can't.

she even kicks a ball around with the oddish now, takes joy rides on Boa just for the fun of it, goes and wades around in the mud with donphan, is a sucker for taking a day to bake something she really likes, bonus everyone else gets to enjoy it. For a non traditional looking woman, her hobbies do slip into quite traditional areas, gardening, baking, sewing, art, and sport.

[comphetkoncass]

it’s hard being a feminist because once you notice misogyny in an industry you never really stop seeing it. i’ve been trying to backread through the 90s and early 2000s and it’s a 50-50 crap shoot with how women are written.

it’s just a constant stream of ‘why were all the women left out of this arc. why did she change her costume to this. why is she in full glam makeup under a fucking mask. why is she in full glam makeup with eyeliner on patrol anyway, it’s like wearing makeup to the fucking gym. why isn’t she in a leadership position despite routinely being the most level headed. nevermind actually why is she suddenly making out of character choices for no fucking reason. why was she written ignoring a man’s sexual boundaries. why are 4/5ths of rapists in DC (that fandom will acknowledge) badly written WOCs in a time when there were so few well-written WOCs. why do so many ignore the sexual violence perpetuated by male heroes and villains and it’s secondary to the other good or evil they do. why are women who are sexually assaulted somehow to blame for “getting themselves into that situation”. why isn’t she allowed to kill her rapist. why is a woman the one behind this woman’s assault. why does dc ignore all sexual assault statistics and make it more common for men to be assaulted when we all know goddamn reality, and that women (and men) are much more likely to be assaulted by men. why is her backstory routinely ignored by fandom and canon alike. why is she drawn with the villain in a sexualized way. why was she the one to kill off in this arc. why is she posed like that in a fight. why does she seem to not have half her ribs. why is she the emotional support character. why isn’t she contributing to any major arcs and relegated to space adventures with no legacy or market friendly characters. why is she in a one night stand with this rando and why is it just to show the audience how sexy she is. why is she making jokes about bondage and submission when the men never joke about sex on patrol. why does nothing she does seem to matter. why was she stripped of her agency here. why did her male teammate take over. why was she a damsel in distress for the 30th time. why is her backstory like that. why does fandom ignore female sexual trauma specifically to prop up male sexual trauma (this for quadruple for dick grayson fans). why is there zero body type diversity except occasionally in boob size. why did comics portrayal of women actually worsen from the 90s-2010s. why does superman get to be fully clothed but starfire doesn’t when both of them get power from the sun. why do we have women in cutout costumes say they actually feel super empowered but we never see a man “””empowered””” enough to wear almost nothing as his fucking uniform. (bear in mind these are fucking fictional characters written by men, they cannot be empowered, they exist purely for entertainment.) why is she on the cover posed sexily but does little to nothing in the comic itself. why are there pregnancy arcs that are the height of drama for women but the fathers to be aren’t fucking affected aside from shock. why do we write women as either the emotional support side character or as the most irrational emotional person on the team. why does the girl have to prove herself to the team when the boys didn’t. why is there a fucking panty shot on this cover and why is the artist who drew it still alive and in the industry.’

anyways. exhausting. i’m still driving to the comic book store today and i feel better about recent issues. but the back issues always make my skin crawl.

[countlessrealities]

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING || No longer accepting.

@advnterccs sent: 😙 for my muse’s reaction to yours being super affectionate. { To your Morty from my Morty !! }

There were a lot of things that Morty loved about spending time with his boyfriend. If asked to list them or even just to choose his favourite, he wouldn't have known where to start from. It was hard to pick, almost impossible, when just physically being with his counterpart made him feel good, as he had rarely felt.

He loved how they could talk for hours, about their shared interests but also about the ones they didn't share. He also enjoyed when they didn't talk much, but still gravitated into each other's space, playing videogames, doing homeworks, reading comics.

He had quickly developed a preference for group adventures for the same reason...and also because it was easier to call the Ricks out on their bullshit as a pair. Group not-adventures, like trips to space arcades or afternoon spent watching Interdimensional Cable, held a special spot in his heart too, both because his other self was there and because the Ricks tended to act nicer when they were together. Probably because they were too busy being lovey-dovey to be assholes.

And then there were the dates he and his boyfriend went on. He always had the best time on them, the elaborated ones and the simpler ones alike. The fact that they knew each other so well was a guarantee that they would have a fun time...even though it was also true that Morty would have been content with doing what his counterpart enjoyed. Seeing the other happy having a good time was the thing that made him the happiest.

That afternoon had started like one of their usual quiet ones. The two teens where in their room, just chilling on the couch with his laptop. Nothing had been too out of the norm, aside from his boyfriend sitting closer than he normally would when they weren't cuddling.

At first, Morty hadn't thought much of it, but then his counterpart had ended up plastered against his side, arms wrapped around his waist, alternating between nuzzling into his shoulder and planting light kisses on the side of his face.

"...Uh," the boy let out, unable to decide whether or not he should ask. The two of them got lovey-dovey with each other too, even if not as much and as openly as the Ricks, but usually there was some build-up to it.

It wasn't that he minded the affection, mind you. It was quite the opposite. It was pleasant and it made him feel good, despite the shyness that had risen inside him together with the warmth that made his skin tingle. Deep down, he knew that he craved it, that he was more than ready to soak up in it as much as possible.

Yet, on the other hand, he couldn't help wondering if there was something he wasn't aware of or that he was missing. What if there was a deeper reason than a soft mood behind his boyfriend sudden, bolder show of affection? What if this was a request for comfort and not just a request for physical closeness?

A small crease formed between Morty's brows as the last kiss lingered a little longer against the corner of his jaw. He didn't really want to ask, because he was afraid that t would have spoiled the mood and made things awkward, but at the same time he felt like he would have been a bad partner, if he hadn't tried to make sure that the other was alright.

So, after a moment of hesitation, he slowly turned his head on one side, catching his counterpart's eyes. His heart fluttered a little at the sight of those warm brown eyes, as it never failed to do, and he felt his cheek heating up, the lightest blush colouring his skin.

"H-Hey," he whispered with a little shy smile, leaning in to close the space between them.

His lips brush the tip of his other self's nose in a brief, playful peck, before capturing his mouth. The kiss was sweet and lingering and Morty's hand slowly made its way up along his counterpart's side until it came to rest on his chest.

"Y-You know that I-I'm always here for you, right? For...I-If there's anything you want o-or need...I'm your guy," he spoke in a quiet tone, resting his forehead against his boyfriend's. "A-Always and anyway. I..." The blush on his cheeks deepened. "I love you an-and I want to make you happy. I-In anyway I can."

[true-blue-sonic]

Silver says that he can't lie in his Sonic Channel intro story, I don't know if I agree that he's supposed to be gullible since he's been shown to be both paranoid and perceptive at times and even the specifics of Mephiles deceiving him and Blaze have been debated. Outside of comics no one has tried to deceive him since the Rivals games so I can't say for certain.

In '06, while I think a large part of Silver's actions can be explained by his desperation about the world being destroyed and his frustration about Iblis being undefeatable, I do feel that he simply is gullible there. A complete stranger shows up and rattles about chickens and eggs and origins, and what he says checks out and provides Silver the exact solution he's been looking for! And Mephiles furthermore never tells Silver any actual lies or direct misinformation! But Silver is not shown to question anything about Mephiles' motives, why he only shows up now, why he is interested in saving the world, and why he suddenly disappears when Silver and Blaze are sent to the past to strangely reappear later and not even offer them more help. And to me, that does indicate a sense of naivete and gullibility. It's what I described in this post as well: the way I interpret is is that Silver is so honest and straight-laced and direct, he expects everyone else to be the same, for no other reason than that he is and he wants the world to be just and fair. Because he wants to save the world and undo Iblis, he expects Mephiles to share those exact same desires, just simply... because. Because it's the right thing, for him, and his line of reasoning at that point in '06 seems to be that if he thinks it is right, it is right. And that comes off as naive and not at all grounded in reality to me.

As for whether Silver is gullible in Rivals 1 and 2, I'd say a little bit yes and a lot more no than in '06. I've remarked before that Silver in the Rivals games can definitely be shrewd: he deduced correctly that "Eggman" was actually Eggman Nega based on context clues, paying good attention to what got actually said, and "Eggman's" own strange behaviours that were too familiar to the Nega he knows. He does let "Eggman" goad him into unnecessary fights with the promise that he'll be given answers if he defeats his opponents, which is then not fulfilled when he wins. But, well, the entirety of both Rivals games is built around that premise, so it wouldn't be fair to blame solely Silver for it if the manner of excuses used to start fights is nothing much deeper than "Rouge tripped Shadow", lol. So for Rivals, Silver seems to be less gullible, but his straighforward honesty mindset is definitely still present. He enters agreements with people (heroes and villains alike) who promise him information if he can fulfil their requirements multiple times despite nothing ever coming from it, and a simple "I believe you" from Espio with no further clarification for this change of heart is enough for Silver to immediately suggest a team-up despite the earlier antagonising between them. So not outright gullible and definitely more on top of the facts than in '06, but still not giving some of the situations he's in the thinking-over they require, I see it as.

The only two attempts of someone trying to 'deceive' Silver in the more recent 2010s that I can think of are Sonic in Generations where Silver states he thinks Sonic might be an imposter trying to get the Chaos Emerald, and Infinite in Forces waxing about crushing heroes and hopelessness. The former is solved easily enough with a battle ending in Sonic's favour, the latter is shot down by Silver accusing Infinite of lying and going on to the attack. But I quite like how Sonic Channel says that Silver cannot lie in his story (I believe he even specifically says it himself, right?); it aligns very well with his honest mindset, in my opinion! But overall, I figure Silver has actually become less gullible over the course of the games; he's a lot less trusting of whatever Eggman tells him in TSR and goes to his friends for help immediately after gathering information. So I do think he's come a long way from that specific bit of characterisation in '06!

[kaypeace21]

I know I've mentioned it before and it's a total crack theory (don’t take this too seriously). But the possible hints that lonnie may be El's bio dad are kind of crazy.

ps: last point explains why I don’t believe Andrew is El’s dad. Long story short- i read all the novels and comics (they contradict the canon show in various plot-significant ways and are probably not canon). And if they wanted to surprise people- Andrew would certainly be a good misdirect. Let’s begin...

background: in s1 We see Hopper with his daughter (who is holding a tiger plushie). And in s3 we see Hopper attack a soviet in a carnival ride which has tiger decor. The ride warns the soviet of a tiger. Then the tiger growls as Hopper yells(aka Hopper is symbolically the ‘tiger’). So like tigers connect to him and his daughter. we even see Hopper’s hairband in the shot (another connection of father and child).

Ok... so what’s my point?

1.well lonnie has many name meanings.one is "lion". We see in s1 el and Will have lion plushies (similar to Sara's tiger plushie). Hopper sees Will's lion plushie and has a flashback of his daughter with her tiger. So... like... cat plushies maybe hint at paternity??!!!

Also Lonnie is lowkey the embodiment of lion-fathers lol...

2. A witness sees el, hopper asks "could it be lonnie's kid?". Witness: "it could have been . yeah that’s (pauses). I mean, yeah could’ve been". Suspish. But maybe nothing...  I know the literal reason for this scene is for Hopper to think El is Will. But it’s still weird verbiage...and also makes you wonder WHY they look so alike.

3. Jane is the feminine form of the name jonathan. But also... Lonnie and Elenor ( they called El this in  s1) have the same name meaning . Coincidence...maybe???

4. Lonnie is known for being a hunter. Teresa/terry (El’s mom) also means “huntress”. El is compared to princess Dianna (wonder woman): Diana is the roman goddess of hunting. Lonnie is also dating cynthia ( Cynthia means “the hunt”and  cynthia is another name for DIANA). So maybe he has a type (woman who have names associated with hunting)- and he had a kid associated with “hunting” too-via the Dianna parallel. I joke.But it’s another weird name parallel. 

5. El's storyline is heavily based on star wars and she's directly paralleled to Luke. Again luke has an estranged opposite-s*x sibling. The duffers are twins - so they prob loved that star wars plot twist that luke and Leia were separated siblings all along. Also them being related could explain their resemblance (and past parallels) . Thor ragnarock was also on the s4 inspo list- thor realizes he had a secret 1/2 sister.

6. Why is Lonnie always associated with yellow flowers?? talked about all the examples here, and the possible symbolism. But... bro in s1 even has a sunflower blanket (Which is also linked to Terry and her daughter El in s2). Also why was a car that looked like the Byers car in the Terry flashback... I want answers XD

7.Lonnie started flirting with joyce despite having a live-in gf (in her 20s) , that was half his age. Would I be surprised if , when younger,  he had an affa*r with a college student while married. Not really. He's at the very least... a d0uche.

8. Lonnie made jonathan hunt a rabbit. Jane/el is associated with rabbits. In s1 when she first escapes Benny's: the song "white rabbit " plays as she runs from her papa. And her room at Terry's is covered in the white rabbit decor (from the alice in Wonderland story).could just be a parallel of lonnie/Brenner being horrible dads. I mean both Brenner and Lonnie tried to make their kids k*ll animals. 

9. Also no I don't think Andrew from the prequel novel is her dad. I read all the novels and comics fyi. The novels and comics constantly contradict the cannon show. Max novel says she met billy a year before s2 and that's when they became stepsiblings : s3 shows they met as little little kids (when billy is like ... 12 at most). And not saying how, but i saw the S4 opening clip- it proves in very plot-significant ways that " 6 & into the fire" st comics are 100% NOT canon. So why do people blindly believe Andrew is her dad, cause the novel? Literally Andrew would be a perfect idea to get people to stop wondering about El's bio dad. 

And if there's foreshadowing for later seasons in the comics/books- it's probably little eastereggs they were told to incorporate . But , regardless, how convenient a random-normal, de*d guy, with no plot relevance (who is never mentioned in the show) is supposed to be her bio dad. And make everyone stop wondering about El's dad. It certainly stopped people from asking questions about el's paternity- i'll give them that. I wouldn't even be surprised if adding Andrew was an intentional misdirect. EVEN I DON’T 100% BELIEVE IN THIS THEORY, but please stop using the st novel as proof against it cause ... like I said it’s the books/ comics don’t really seem canon at all. XD

[corner-stories]

mornings together

Irey West. Rose Wilson. Bart Allen.

Eavesdropping. Sunlounges. Sketchbooks.

2227 words.

(ao3.)

From the day she was born Irey West had been vibrating through matter like it was nothing. Even after gaining a full connection to the Speed Force, walking through  chairs and tables alike was already second nature to her now. 

A habit she had yet to outgrow involved literally walking through doors, something she often did on reflex rather than laziness. Her father actually had to remind her how to use door knobs before her first day of school.

In the public eye Irey presented the image of a (mostly) normal twelve-year-old girl, but in the presence of heroes she saw no need to hide her powers and phased through walls as she pleased.

Her stays at Titans Tower were no exception. 

On her third weekend with the Teen Titans, Irey West woke up, got dressed in a flash, and immediately phased through the walls. 

Despite being a chronic sleeper, Irey often became an early bird whenever she visited the Tower. Perhaps the excitement of being a Teen Titan simply overwhelmed her desire to sleep, even if her father insisted that she was a ‘Titan-in-Training’ for the time being.

Irey moved through the walls without a sound. She knew better than to slip into anyone’s private quarters, but the public areas of the Tower were fair game. She phased into the computer room to see Cassie and Kon musing over a case, then phased through the gym where Raven and Kiran led Damian in a bout of meditation, then finally arrived at the rooftop pool of the Tower. It was there she stumbled upon a pair she was not expecting to see. 

Despite the morning air being more frigid than usual, Bart Allen was at ease as he laid on a sunlounge. He was sporting his blue and gold college sweatshirt and his usual messy curls. With his hands behind his head he looked up at the cloudless sky, taking in the sight like he had never seen the sun before. 

Next to him sat Rose Wilson, the designated swordsman of the team and Irey’s second favorite Titan after her beloved cousin. Like him, Rose was comfortably relaxing on a sunlounge. However, seemed less concerned with the picturesque view of San Francisco and more interested in drawing with the sketchbook on her lap.

Irey knew that the pair hung out sometimes, but she hadn’t heard of them ever spending mornings together.

Bart and Rose seemed to thrive in the silence, both taking in a moment of the early hours before the chaos of the day. Rose continued to sketch and Bart mindlessly ran his hand through his hair, a chronic habit of his that only served to make his mop-top even more scruffy. The fact that his hair had yet to gain sentience despite its resemblance to a shaggy woodland creature was the greatest mystery of the world. 

Before Irey could walk up to the pair, Bart let out a yawn and pulled his sweatshirt off his torso, causing Rose to frown.

Suddenly Irey’s instincts kicked in and compelled her to be as silent as possible, which was rather rare considering her status as Keystone Middle School’s resident motormouth. She hid behind a conveniently placed potted plant and watched the two closely. 

Rose narrowed her eyebrows at her teammate. “Hey, not cool!” Bothered, she scribbled harder on her sketchbook. “I was drawing you.” 

Bart looked amused. “Oh, were you?” He tossed his sweatshirt at the foot of the sunlounge and laid back with a little more dramatic flair than before, making sure to extend his legs fully and place one hand behind his head. 

“Make sure to get my good side then,” he smirked. 

Rose gave her teammate a stern, yet comically serious look as she flipped her page and restarted her work from scratch. By now the charcoal sticks she used were starting to show on her hands, tinting her fingertips with smudges of gray. 

Bart’s confident aura lasted until his phone buzzed. Quickly, he took the device from his pocket and read the message on the screen. Whatever it was caused him to knit his eyebrows in concern.

“Ah, shit.” 

Rose looked up from her sketchbook. “What’s going on?” 

“Tim needs me,” Bart explained. “Something about delivering a letter.”

Rose looked befuddled. “Who sends letters anymore?” 

“People who want messages to be untraceable,” answered Bart. “You can’t hack paper.” 

For a moment Rose paused, then let out an impressed hum. “Smart.” She scribbled in her sketchbook a little bit more, then looked up to take in the sight of Bart furiously texting. 

It was strange that someone who could break the sound barrier even felt the need to text anymore. Perhaps it’s one of those things he Bart did to feel just a little more human.

As  he texted and Rose sketched, she asked —

“You guys really look out for each other, huh?” 

Her gaze had moved up to meet his, so when Bart looked back his momentarily concerned eyes softened considerably. 

“We do that sometimes,” he soon answered in a simplistic voice. He gave his old friend a gentle, friendly smile. “I’m sure you’d do the same for… someone.”

Rose put her pencil on the corner of her lip and began to think for a second. “For the right person,” she quickly clarified.

Still hiding behind the bush, Irey found herself cocking her head to the side, confused. For a reason she couldn’t entirely comprehend, her mind began to question everything she had just witnessed. Bart was always playful and jovial to his friends, Rose was no exception, but looking at them now one would think that the Wilson girl brought out a different side of him, one characterized with fondness and warmth rather than the usual humor he carried himself with.

Irey was certainly beginning to think so. The few times Bart had commented on his teammate’s prettiness, or the occasions Irey caught Rose flashing him playful smirks during team meetings was only evidence to her hunch.

A lifetime ago the Titans had believed Rose to be the enemy — or so Irey was told — yet even then Bart believed in her innocence. Whether it be because of the few months they had spent shackled to Uncle Roy’s Titans roster or something else entirely, his belief still stood.

It seemed that what remained of that bond, even today, still stood strong. 

Whatever the truth may be, Bart was clearly comfortable enough with Rose to entrust her with certain details of his life. He slipped his phone back in his pocket and eyed his friend on the sunlounge.

“If Irey asks, tell her I’ll be back soon,” he explained. “I don’t want her to think I ditched her.” 

Rose didn’t hesitate to shake her head. “She would never.” For the first time in the morning she closed her sketchbook and looked the speedster in the eye for real. 

“You know she adores you, right?” 

There was a beat, then Bart seemed to tense up in the shoulders, perhaps a new form of nervous fidgeting. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Never figured out why, though.”

And with that said Bart got off the sunlounge and onto his feet. He took a single step and sped away, zipping away from the roof of Titans Tower and down to earth. Even from where she was Irey could see her cousin running across the the waters around San Francisco, gradually increasing speed until he disappeared into the horizon. 

Refocusing her attention back to Rose, Irey watched as the older girl sighed. She stood up and stretched, looking out at the world to take in the view for a little bit longer. She looked to the foot of Bart’s sunlounge and noticed he had left his sweatshirt there, a cliche memento for any college freshman. After gathering up her sketchbook and charcoal sticks, she reached for the sweatshirt and then turned towards the entrance. 

In the second it took Rose to look at the door, Irey took off with all her might. Her instincts told her to head to her room, since the older Titans were under the assumption that ‘Baby Flash’ was still fast asleep. Like before she phased through the walls, moving through layer and layer of the Tower until she arrived in her familiar quarters. 

And there stayed, wondering just when Bart would come back and when the other Titans would pick up on her little eavesdropping habit. 

…

…

…

Rose Wilson sat in the midst of the Titan’s kitchen, nursing a mug of coffee as she continued to draw in her sketchbook. In her own words she knew she was nothing special, just some person encouraged by their brother to pick up a hobby. But what Rose also knew was that drawing helped her feel at peace, whether it be the feeling of her pencil on the paper or the sense of accomplishment that came with a piece’s completion.

Plus, it was healthy to have a hobby that didn’t involve bladed weaponry of any kind. 

Rose’s style was far from photorealistic, much preferring a scribbly, impressionistic way of interpreting the world around her. Sometimes she pressed hard on her charcoal, thickening the lines of the piece to better create the way she saw things. 

Just as Rose was putting the finishing touches on a sketch of a dagger, she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. When she looked up she was greeted to the sight of little Irey West entering the kitchen. For a reason that couldn’t be known, there was a nervous look on the young girl’s face. 

“Hi, Rose,” Irey greeted in an uncharacteristically timid voice. 

Rose raised an eyebrow, both concerned and amused. “Hey, Red. What’s got you in a funk?”

Irey was quick to shake her head. “Nothing! Nothing at all!” 

Before Rose could question things any further, Irey skipped to the kitchen central island and hopped onto a stool. Immediately, her bright green eyes looked straight to Rose’s sketchbook. 

“Whatcha drawin’? Ooooh! A knife!” 

Irey seemed strangely intrigued by the image of a dagger. Rose watched as the little one took in the drawing with utter interest, then reached over to flip the page of the sketchbook.

“Here, check it,” Rose said, rifling through the various charcoal-filled drawings until she found the one she was looking for. Eventually she settled on the blocky, cartoonish sketch of the team’s other resident speedster, something she had created that morning. She took extra care to emphasize his boyish prettiness and his untameable curls. 

“Doesn’t this look like him?” asked Rose, holding up the drawing of Bart. 

Irey looked at the photo and tilted her head to the side, her brows knitting as she took in the piece and thought things through.

“Sorta,” the little one soon said. “His hair’s not floofy enough.”

As Rose processed the mild implications that she had been subtly roasted by a middle schooler, she closed her moleskine and placed it back on the table. 

“Everyone’s a critic…” she muttered. 

Slipping out of her stool, Rose grabbed her coffee mug for another quick sip and walked to the kitchen fridge. “I’m starved, want some breakfast?”

Irey nodded with a smile. “Of course!” 

Without hesitation, Rose grabbed the eggs from the fridge and got to work. As she cracked eggs into a bowl with butter and milk, she put the little Speedster to work making some toast. They worked in tandem quite well, Rose cooking the eggs over a hot stove while Irey sliced up some sourdough. 

As Rose continued to cook, Irey came over to the stove and peeped into the pan, then glanced up to her teammate with a curious look in her eyes. 

“Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you and Bart together?”

Rose looked at Irey in surprise, then let out a lighthearted chuckle. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re wearing his sweater.”

Suddenly Rose became very aware that she had snagged her teammate’s sweatshirt off a sunlounge less than an hour ago. The garment fit her quite well and bore the colors of Bart’s university, but for the life of her now Rose couldn’t exactly explain why she picked it up in the first place.

“It was cold out,” she decided to say, focusing on the eggs in front of her. She took the saucepan off the heat and plated the food.

“Is that a yes?” asked Irey. In the corner of the kitchen the toast popped, and in half a second she had zipped over and brought it to the plates by the stove.

“It’s none of your business,” Rose soon claimed, handing a plate of eggs to Irey. “Besides, dating within the team never ends well.”

Irey smirked as she salted her eggs. “I was told that.”

Rose raised an eyebrow at the younger girl, both curious and cautious. “By who?”

“My Dad,” Irey answered simply. She then poured an absurd amount of hot sauce onto her eggs. “He tells me a lot about team drama.” 

Intrigued, Rose slipped onto the stool next to Irey and leaned her elbow on the counter. “What kind of drama?” she asked in a slightly kinder voice, perhaps hoping that her tone could endear her to the girl and give her some new dirt.

With a proud smirk, Irey took a bite of her eggs and said — 

“It’s none of your business.” 

[traincat]

I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!

I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.

So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.

To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.

But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.

(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)

Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.

(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.

Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.

(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.

Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.

(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.

In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.

I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.

Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.

(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.

Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.

Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:

It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.

As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.

Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!

[my-mt-heart]

I saw your list for the ask to your top 10 favorites. We are practically sisters. I won't touch on all of them because I know I suffer from "lengthy post-ism". I just want to say I definitely feel Shane was the best human antogonist with a compelling descent into madness. At times I thought he would be okay, but nope. So to me he was the most human antogonist. Most others who got around 2 seasons of an arc like he did just felt comic-y to me.

Merle, yes! He was such a strong character. If he lived and learned through his redemption arc, he would be nothing short of awesome. I think part of what made Shane and Merle great antagonists was because you could feel their conflict and fighting against their better angels. Other villians usually just felt like villians. I didn't feel their heart at all.

Girl, I am with you all day on Ezekiel and Beth too. Ezekiel has so much heart, like a king and he's got great social skills (except for when it comes to Daryl haha) but he's got an inner strength that goes deeper than the facade he was putting on when he had The Kingdom. And Beth, gosh. She was another great example of younger siblings really stepping up when the older sibling is absent (think Daryl with Merle, Mika with Lizzie (though Lizzie was present) Beth with Maggie, Kelly with Connie). There are dualities of strength that TWD has repeatedly chosen to have seen in the younger sibling that hits just right for me.

Yes, Kelly is amazing. And the fact that we know she looks up to Carol just melts me. Because who shouldn't look up to Carol? She's the best role model. Lydia is a whole topic in itself. But she is truly a favorite of mine as well.

Definitely not trying to stir the pot here. I am really just curious. I notice Rick is not on your list. And I was wondering if you were comfortable sharing your reasons? I am just interested in seeing if they align with my own. Because I will always love Rick but he ceased from being a favorite character of mine after he killed Shane. Not because I didn't agree with his choice. Shane had to go. But Rick literally turned into Shane. It reminds me of how the Roman Empire didn't "conquer" the Grecian empire? They just absorbed it. That's where they get the term Greco-Roman Empire from? I feel like that's what happened with Rick. That he just "absorbed" Shane. And from there he makes a myraid of judgments that are inconsistent and costly to the group. But that is just my opinion on him. I know he is fighting for the greater good. But still. Just curious on what you thought?

Well, great minds think alike as they say. Reading all your brilliant blurbs on the characters, I'm realizing I should have included those on my list as well, so here's me remedying that. I'll skip Carol and Daryl for now because that's probably a whole post on it's own. The first five I'm copying and pasting from a similar ask post about which other characters I liked on the show and why:

Michonne - Carol understandably gets labeled "the most transformed," but Michonne's growth as a character is pretty phenomenal too. She's always been a badass warrior, but I love that over time she allowed herself to show a more nurturing side and a great sense of humor. I think her relationships with Rick and Carl were integral to that.

Glenn - In early seasons, he was the adorable dork of the group, but his resilience made him the biggest asset. I think he might also be one of the only long-term characters whose morality never wavered no matter what they had to deal with.

Lydia - There is a strong possibility my investment in her character has everything to do with her having so much in common with both Daryl and Carol.  Despite a long history of abuse, she's stronger than ever with a heart of gold.

Kelly - I'm not saying I'm glad Connie went missing, but her absence has really given Kelly some much needed time to shine and shine she does. I love her rationality and youthful resilience. For being so young, she's one of the most mature characters on the show. I also love how loyal she is and how determined she is to make sure the people she cares about are safe (i.e. Luke, Connie).

Jerry - He may not be the most developed, but he always makes me laugh. I mean, how do you not love this guy? His relationship with Ezekiel is everything and I really hope they get to reunite. I also really loved his interactions with Carol in Diverged, and how perceptive he was of her relationship with Daryl. What he said about "a friend thinking you're perfect when everyone else thinks you're broken" was spot on and now I need to hear the words come out of Daryl's mouth. Ugh.

Ezekiel - He comes into the series a little too comic-y for me, though I think the CGI tiger has a lot to do with that. At the risk of sounding like a sadist, I want to say watching him slowly lose everything he holds dear helps me feel more drawn to his character. Underneath the facade, there's clearly a human being with noble intentions and a strong desire to view the world optimistically, which is beautifully challenged by the LOADS of shit the world throws back at him. Seriously, the man lost his people, his home, his son, his wife, his horse, and on top of all that finds out he has cancer. I mean, jfc, can he catch a break already?? This is why I love his relationship with Jerry so much. So. much. He's the one consistency in his life, the only person who has and will always be there for him emotionally. I don't think you can really say that about Carol. And look. We can't blame Zeke for falling for her. She's Carol. She's amazing. Why aren't more characters tripping over themselves trying to be with her? We can hold it against him for acting insecure about Daryl, but also why? It serves a purpose. It establishes the two of them as foils and even better, it validates the possibility of a romance between Carol and Daryl.

Beth - To me, she embodies the coming of age narrative that we missed out on with Sophia and are currently being deprived of with Judith. We get to see her change from naive and innocent to capable and determined in real time, and because of that, we get to see Daryl navigate mentorship for the first time. So yes, I enjoy their scenes together. Again, not sorry.

Shane - What makes him my favorite villain is the fact that he doesn't have the word villain tattooed across his forehead like literally every other showy and borderline cartoonish bad guy on the whole damn series. He's a human being with human feelings mixed with a defective moral compass. He's trouble, but still relatable. He's strong, but grounded. I really hope there are more villains like him on the Caryl show.

Merle - Characters do not have to be good, likeable people in order to be good characters. Merle is proof of that. In real life, I wouldn't want someone like Merle anywhere near me. He's racist, sexist, and as Daryl put it so eloquently, a simple-minded piece of shit. But I like that he has such a distinct voice and I also appreciate that unlike a stereotypical big oaf, he is rounded. He has a soft spot for his brother, and though it might be buried deep, DEEP down, he has a sense of right and wrong. Which of course Daryl helps bring out of him.

As for why I didn't include Rick on my list, I'm not sure I have a clear reason. I like him. I root for him. He's just not my favorite. Could it be because the white male protagonist who comes from an honest background and wants to build a future for his male heir just feels a little stale to me compared to some of the other really complex character narratives? Maybe. I don't know. Personally, the choices he makes don't really bother me because I can see why they're necessary for his personal growth and the plot. I will agree that he does stoop to Shane-level if not below it, and it could totally be argued that it takes away some of Rick's justification for killing Shane in the first place. But while Shane is written off as a lone wolf who has no one to pull him back, Rick thankfully has Michonne and a lot of others to keep him balanced because they want him to succeed. I know not everyone ships Richonne, but I think they make a great team.

[wiener-soldiers]

heal my soul with your lips - tommy shelby

request: “idea: tommy with a singer or just someone that's musically talented” from anon

summary: a melodic voice helped him through the depths of hell once. the same melodic voice finds him once more or tommy shelby recognizes the sweet voice of nurse that sung to the soldiers in france in a jazz club in london.

pairing: tommy shelby x fem!reader (race non-specific)

words: 3.9k

warnings: some themes of ptsd (it’s subtle), jealous tommy!

a/n: based off this head cannon. also, the song i used was “through the valley” by shawn james and IK it’s not period accurate; the song just fits the show so well i couldn’t not use it. also also, ik made the name of the club an awful combination of french and english. i speak french so ik it’s awful, but it’s intentional.

masterlist | add yourself to the taglist! | faq

Tommy Shelby heard you before he met you.

He was in a field hospital in God-knows where. Somewhere in France, obviously, but he didn’t remember where exactly. They were ordered to keep pushing forward, but with his days underground and his endless tunnelling, it was impossible to know how much ground they had covered.

As it turns out, he was closer to the enemy lines than he realized and a brief but bloody squabble in a tunnel under the gunfire left him with a stab wound in his leg.

He practically dragged himself to a field hospital before plopping himself on the nearest empty cot. His condition wasn’t terrible, a nurse had told him, as the knife had missed a major blood vessel. But the prospect of living another day didn’t excite Tommy, it was the promise that he would probably be one of the later patients to be treated and he could rest in an actual cot instead of the cold, wet ground, even for a few hours.

He laid in the bed, trying not to aggravate his wound further, and slowly shut his eyes. Strangely, he felt tranquil. Yes, he could hear the screams of soldiers, the cries of anguish, the gunfire and the shells dropping, but he felt at peace. Laying undisturbed at the Somme was a win for him.

Suddenly, he hears a voice cut through the violent sounds that filled the ear. It  was hauntingly beautiful, so much so that Tommy wondered if that the nurse who had spoken to him at first had been wrong and he was on the brink of death.

But the voice persisted. Soft. Unrelenting. Beautiful. He assumed that the woman singing was further within the hospital, closer to the more severe patients. The cries and screams of the men seemed to stop and even the battlefield seemed to quiet. It’s like everyone took breath to hear her voice, Allies and Central powers alike.

The juxtaposition between beauty and darkness was almost too much for Tommy as he felt his chest start to squeeze. He suddenly felt nostalgic for home, for his family, for his brothers. Instead, he was fighting in a war that wasn’t his.

“Sergeant Major Shelby,” a voice calls. It’s a new nurse this time and she looks as exhausted as he is. He notices the tray she’s carrying and how it’s full of medical equipment. He sighs; it was time to get his stitches and his moment of tranquility was now over.

---

Years later, he and his brothers are walking through the streets of London like the own the city. It was comical, really. Tommy had just started a war with Darby Sabini, one of the most influential men in London, and he had the confidence of a man who had just killed a hundred men single-handedly.

The Shelby brothers hopped from club to club, drinking in the lavish London lifestyle which paled in comparison to the more humble pubs back in Birmingham. Though his brothers couldn’t help but try their hands at some snow (and even something stronger), Tommy kept his distant, trying to stay aware.

Eventually, their energy began to die down and the brother stumbled into their final club for the evening. It was quieter than the others, Tommy notices, but perhaps it’s because the night was getting quite late.

The club was painted a deep red with gold decor to compliment, but what stuck out to him was the rest of the decorations: military medals, entire walls lined with them. Batered Union Jacks hung from door archways, ones that looked like they had been brought back from France. Finally, a wall full of photographs of men in their uniforms. Veterans, Tommy realized. The one’s that didn’t make it home, he noticed, as their birth and death years were on display. He then notices the vases filled with poppies on nearly every table and every spare ledge.

And then a voice.

“I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

and I fear no evil because I’m blind to it all.”

It feels as if the air from Tommy’s lungs had been sucked out. It was the same voice from the Somme. It was louder now and he could hear it more clearly...it was even more beautiful than he remembered.

“And my mind and my gun, they comfort me,

because I know I’ll kill my enemies when they come.”

His chest starts to squeeze again, just like it did when he was on that cot in the cramped field hospital. He froze, seemingly transported back to the warfront. His brothers paid him no mind however, as they stumbled to the bar to order a drink.

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me 

all the days of my life,

and I’ll dwell on this Earth forevermore.”

“You served?” a voice calls to him. It’s a man who’s slumped in a chair, staring at the medals on the wall in melancholy.

“Yes,” Tommy answers curtly.

“You have that look about you,” the drunken man says. “All soldiers get that look when she sings that song.”

“Said, I walk beside the still waters

and they restore my soul.”

“You see a lot of soldiers here, then?” Tommy asks the man.

He laughs, shaking his head sadly. He lifts he glass up to Tommy and says candidly, “Brother, I am one. This is where the soldiers with the Flanders Blues come. Too violent to fit back into normal life, too tired to fight another war aside from the one in our own heads.”

“But I can’t walk on the path of the right

because I’m a wrong.”

Tommy finally looks at the direction of the singing and locks eyes with you. You’re standing on a small stage at the end of the club, swaying to the haunting jazz tune of the piano. Behind you was a large Union Jack, soot stained in the fabric and filled with bullet holes. You were a vision, in Tommy’s eyes. You sung beautifully into the microphone, your satin red dress accentuating the dips and curves in your body. The men in the pub, most likely soldiers according to the drunk man Tommy spoke to, stared at you in wonder and sadness. You seemed to be an enigmatic cure for their sorrows. You sung of tragedy and sadness, but you seemed to be the light guiding them through the darkness. Tommy fell into your trance as quickly as the other men.

“Said, I walk beside the still waters

and they restore my soul.

But I know when I die,

my soul is damned.”

You held your final note as the pianist hit the final key and the crowd clapped in muted and bittersweet cheer. You still smiled, understanding that a large reaction wasn’t appropriate especially given the men in the room knew that death was nothing glorious. A few men walked up to you, sincerely thanking you through their unshed tears before leaving the club to return to their families. You conversed with the pianist as you sipped a glass of water when you noticed that his expression began to falter.

“Mr. Shelby,” the pianist stutered out, looking over your shoulder at someone behind you.

You turned to look behind you and noticed the man who had caught your stare approaching. His face was hardened and his aura was dark and dangerous, but you saw through it immediately. He was no different from the veterans who flocked to the pub every night.

“Evening,” Mr. Shelby replied. “You know who I am?” he asks, voice neutral but laced in curiosity. He had just come to London, even he was slightly surprised about his reach.

The pianist nods, “My cousin works in one of your factories, sir.”

Mr. Shelby curtly nods before saying, “You wouldn’t mind if I spoke to the lady then, would you?”

“Of course, good evening to you both,” he says respectfully before turning to leave.

“Mr. Shelby then, is it?” you say without the intimidation in your voice. You’ve been through and seen a lot in France and you know how the men acted when no one was watching when they returned home. It was going to take a lot for you to feel intimidated. “What can I help you with?”

“You were a nurse, weren’t you? You were at the Somme,” he says, though it didn’t seem like a question.

Your eyes widen, taken aback slightly by his forwardness and his accurate description of your time as a nurse on the front. “I was. Have we met?”

Tommy shakes his head no. “I was getting stitches in a field hospital when I heard your voice,” he explains.

You laugh lightly, though it feels strained. Tommy understands why. “The men find it easier to take the pain if I sing to them.”

“Is that why you sing here? In front of all these broken soldiers?” he asks. You can’t tell if he’s being condescending or curious. It was hard to read men like him, despite the practice you had every day.

You decide to answer honestly, hoping that it would allow you to see the man he was on the inside. “I was too hot-headed to stay a nurse after the war, but I still wanted to help because I knew most of the men were as broken, if not more, once the returned home than they were in France. So, here I am. The singing seemed to help them in France, why not let it help them here as well?” you say softly, still bravely staring at his face. You watch his facade crack, just a little.

“You think I’m like the rest of them, then? A soldier too tired to fight another war except for the one in his own head?” he asks, testing her.

You don’t falter and reach forward to flick his collar where blood had spattered from his fight in Sabini’s club. “I think you died back there. In France, I mean. So, you keep finding and fighting new wars to distract yourself from the one goin’ on in your head.”

You worry that your candor is too much for him, but Tommy stares at you in what you could only call as affectionately.

“Was this place always a pub for soldiers, then?” Tommy asks, hearing himself become more comfortable.

You laugh, eyes crinkling slightly, and Tommy finds the sound as addicting as your voice. “You’re definitely new around here,” you tease. “Before the war, this club was full of classist, elistist toffs who rejoiced the King. None of them faught. When the war was over, the soldiers basically drove them out with their horrific stories of France and their despise for the Crown. Turned it into the place it is today. The owner’s son served and he was more than happy for the change.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“So many questions, Mr. Shelby,” you continue to tease, hoping to get a reaction out of him.

“I find you very intriguing,” he remplies simply, pulling out a cigarette.

“You don’t even know my name,” you point out.

The corner of his lip quirks upwards and you find yourself grinning slightly at your success. “It’s Y/N. Reckon I should spare you from the pain of suspense,” you say, breaking out into a smile as you do so.

“Tommy,” he says, grabbing your hand and pressing his lips to it.

“Oi, Tom!” a thick Brummie accent shouts through the club. “Arthur’s piss-faced and can barely fuckin’ walk. We should go.”

Tommy sighs against your knuckles and you giggle slightly. “Your brothers?” you ask, making note of a younger man attempting to haul an older one with a moustache out of a bar stool.

“Hmm,” he nods, before taking a step back. “Can I see you again?”

“You know where I work,” you tease and he rolls his eyes in an amused manner.

“I was thinking dinner,” he says boldly and you grin.

“Come back tomorrow and ask me again,” you smirk before brushing past him and walking into the back room.

---

Tommy did come back the next night and asked again. You said yes, slightly shocked that he fufilled your request. He didn’t seem like the type of man particularly fond of taking orders, but rather the type of man who often gave them. If being around veterans every day taught you anything, it was how to read those who didn’t want to be read.

Your dinner date turned into two, then three, then weekly visits from Tommy, then weekends spent alone in your apartment, then you visiting Birmingham, then you meeting his family. Neither of you had talked about where exactly you stood in a relationship because it was seemingly obvious.

Tommy was infatuated with you and you easily returned the sentiment.

He had learned that you aren’t really from anywhere because you moved around countless times with your parents as they tried to find work. So, it wasn’t too hard to convince you to move to Birmingham to live with him after nearly a year of courting.

You had been slightly pained at the prospect of leaving your old club behind, especially since the owner was getting old and his son was involved in his own medical career to take over the business, so Tommy made a quick move to buy the club from him and began running it as one of his legitimate businesses in London.

It’s a gift, he had told you but that didn’t stop you from nearly burst into tears. That club meant a lot to you, as it was a safe haven for both you and the soldiers it serviced. Tommy had put you in charge, so you hired a few people—all veterans, most of them regulars who were eager to help keep the business alive—to manage the place while you were in Birmingham. Every few weeks, you’d make the trip to London for a few performances. Though you hired new girls to sing, the club was still filled like no other night when you were in town. You called it The Club Infirmerie, an ode to the field hospital in the Somme where Tommy had first heard you sing. More and more veterans flocked there to heal amongst the music and amonst their fellow soldiers, just as you hoped.

When you were in Birmingham, you involved yourself in business where you could. You had no problem with the kind of work Tommy was involved in, to his delight, but there was still a lot you didn’t fully understand. Polly did her best to groom you in the more complex side of business, but you still gravitated to a more manegerial role. So, Tommy put you in charge of most logistics of the factories and clubs he owned. Your favourite establishment, however, was The Garrison.

“Look’s a little like the Inifirmerie, Tommy,” you teased him as he showed you around The Garrison for the first time, arm slung around your shoulders as you gazed at the decor of the pub.

“I may have gotten some design inspiration from you, darlin’,” he hummed, pressing kiss to your temple.

Like The Club Infermerie, you had set up a small stage, piano, and microphone to have performers in The Garrison. When you were doing this, Tommy opened up and explained why there had been no singing in his pub before; the pub was void of singing becauase of Grace and her betrayal. You kissed him softly, a reminder that you were different and that were staying. Tommy’s heart swelled as you found another way to slowly heal his soul with your lips.

On that particular Friday, The Garrison was more full than usual, partly because there had been word that you were to perform a set that evening. The bar was bustling as men and women of all backgrounds ordered drink after drink. You, Harry, and Arthur had a hard time keeping up, so you inlisted the help of Finn and Isaiah who had been sharing a pint with some younger Peaky’s at the end of the bar.

“Oi! Finn, ‘Saiah, c’mere!” you shout, filling another pint.

“What is it, Y/N?” Finn asks as he approached you, Isaiah in tow.

“Hop ‘round the back and take over for a bit, will ya?” you ask quickly, wiping your hands on the skirt of your work dress. “I need to prepare for my set.”

"Course,” Isaiah says kindly and agreed to help right away, though you aren’t blind to the small crush the younger boy harbored towards you, which is probably why he had been eager to help.

Finn, however, groans. The effect of being seen as a sibling to him, you suppose. “’S what hiring more people’s for, Y/N,” he complains, dragging his feet as you approach him. “Why’d I gotta do it?”

You squint your eyes playfully at Finn before saying, “I’ll let you have a glass of whiskey.”

“And you won’t let Tommy take it away?” he says skeptically.

“I won’t let Tommy take it away,” you confirm.

Finn perks back up again and pecks your cheek before shouting, “This is why I like you better than Tommy!” You laugh to yourself as you slip into the snug to change out of your work dress into a fancy, silk one. It’s one Tommy had purchased on a business trip to London because he said it reminded him of what you were wearing when you first met. The dress was long, almost a gown, but it still abandonned the old, Edwardian silhouette in favour of a more modern one. In fact, the dress was more scandoulous than most, with the neckline and back dipping deep into your chest and back and a slit in the skirt as climbing as high as your thigh. The red of the dress was deep and luxiourious, matching the walls of The Garrison.

The moment you stepped out of the snug, it’s like the crowd had parted for you and allowed you to walk through the pub interrupted until you reached the stage. It’s not the awe of your presence that drawed you to keep singing, but the calmness and tranquility that followed. Throughout your set, the peaceful daze that fell over the pub persisted. Tommy had entered The Garrison halfway through the set, having just finished business, and he fell back into your spell just as easily as everyone else. He loved that about you—how easily you could calm a rowdy crowd. It meant you could just as easily calm his thundering and monstrous soul. He leaned on the threshold of the snug, watching you sing with a content smile on his face.

When the set was over, the crowd errupted into applause. Women flocked forward and gushed to you about your performance and men stared longingly from afar. You were Tommy’s girl and they knew you weren’t to be trifled with. 

Unfortunately, someone had not gotten the message. Rather, he got the message but simply didn’t care.

Tommy noticed Finn and Isaiah behind the bar and apporached them curiously. Upon seeing his brother, Finn grinned at him.

“Whiskey, Tom?” Finn asks cheekily. He knows the answer will be yes anyway, so he starts preparing his drink.

“What’re you doin’ behind the bar?” Tommy asks, accepting the whiskey from Finn.

“Y/N asked us to help because she needed to prepare for the set,” Isaiah explains, filling up another pint.

Tommy smirks at him. “I know why you’re helping behind the bar, Isaiah,” he jokes, referring to the crush the young Blinder has on his girl, “I was asking why Finn was.”

“Can’t I just be a helping hand?”

“She offered you whiskey, didn’t she?”

Finn groans. “C’mon, Tom! Just this once? She said she wouldn’t let you take it away! It’s been ages since you let me have a glass.”

“What about that time Y/N patched you up after getting into a pub fight, eh?” Tommy notes, teasing his brother further. “Nearly had half a bottle there ‘cos you wouldn’t stop fuckin’ wailin’.”

“I was in pain,” Finn defends himself, but with no malice in his voice. He liked that he could joke around with his brother again; that was all your doing. “’S not my fault the bloke stabbed me with a rusty fuckin’ knife.”

“Sorta is, Finny boy.”

“Uh, Tommy?” Isaiah interrupts with a confused look on his face as he stares in the distance. “Is he supposed to be doing that?” he continues, nodding in your direction.

Tommy turns his head in your direction and his jaw clenches.

“I’m tellin’ ya, love, your voice? Fan-fucking-tastic. Couldn’t have captured the sound of heaven betta’ meself,” the man talking to you chuckled, placing a large hand on your waist.

You tried your best not to get flustered, “I’m really glad you enjoyed it Mr. Solo—”

“Alfie.”

Both you and Alfie turned to face Tommy who was staring at the later with more distate than you’ve ever seen.

“Ah, Tommy! Good to see you, m’friend,” Alfie cheers loudly, sticking his hand out for Tommy to shake. Tommy’s doesn’t budge.

“I see you’re getting reaquainted with Y/N,” Tommy notes bitterly. You catch Tommy’s stare and you almost laugh at how jealous he’s getting.

“What can I say, Tom? She’s a sight to see. And hear for that matter,” Alfie jokingly puts his hand on his chin inquisitivley. “I wonder what she sounds like in b—”

“Right, that’s enough,” Tommy hisses, grabbing your hand and dragging you away. He can hear Alfie’s booming laughter in the distance as he pulls you into the snug. Luckily, it’s empty.

“Tom—”

You’re interrupted by a harsh kiss to the mouth, with Tommy’s hands wrapping themselves around your waist as he backs you into the table, forcing you to sit on it.

“Well, hello love,” you giggle against his lips. “What’re you doin’, handsome?”

“Didn’t like the way he was looking at you. Or touchin’ you,” he grumbles harshly, moving his lips to your neck.

“You’re not one to act like that in public. In front of him for that matter,” you note, letting your hands squeeze Tommy’s hair as he kisses and especially sensitive spot.

“Can’t help it,” you says against your neck and you snort.

“Yeah you can, darlin’,” you say, pulling away to look at him. “Everything alright?”

Tommy stares at you, mentally debating with himself, before saying, “That bastard was supposed to meet me today before I came here but he bailed. Came here pissed to the fucking moon ‘til I heard you sing. Turns out, he was here watching you up close while I was in my office waiting for his fuckin’ pompous ass.”

“Probably just wanted to rile you up,” you say ernestly. “Don’t let him.”

Tommy kisses you again before muttering against your lips, “If where this is going is me getting riled up, I wouldn’t be opopsed.”

You almost let out a moan, but choke it back and say, “Tom, someone’ll hear!”

Tommy pulls away, a mischevious smirk and a dark look in his eye forming. “He wants to know what you sound like, eh? Let him.”

[sapphia]

It’s only really just occurred to me that a lot of the people who say, “Harry Potter wasn’t even that big a deal, they were bad books that just got a bit of hype.” actually don’t really understand the effect that Harry Potter had because they’re too young. They’re born after 2000 and, to them, Harry Potter has just been another fandom like the Avengers or Twilight, that got a bit of a fanbase before publishers and production companies did what they always do and made a slate of movies for.

And I really need to emphasise that that’s NOT the case at all. Harry Potter was massive before things really got massive. Children’s books like Percy Jackson getting movies didn’t really happen before Harry Potter did it first (and the ones that did were often old classic books, or straight to DVD or got cheap BBC miniseries instead. Google Five Children and It trailer. That was the bar for children’s book adaption. Old, and cheap).

Hell, movie series weren’t even a thing back then. This isn’t entirely due to Harry Potter - Lord of the Rings also had a part in this. In the early 2000s, Peter Jackson had to fight tooth and nail in order to get the Lord of the Rings trilogy, three bricks of a book series, made into three whole movies instead of one. The studios were dead set on only having a single movie, thinking that a whole trilogy (THREE movies!) would be too long and commercially unviable. You would never get that these days - even when Jackson came back and made the hobbit, one much smaller book than a single volume of LotR, they split that into three because of how successful series like LotR and HP had been.

Harry Potter must have been one of the earliest books to get a series film deal while the series was still being written, and this is entirely because the books were so popular the producers knew they could get an audience for all seven. And that was so wildly successful that now all you see are series.

If Twilight created the modern day push for YA literature as its own genre, Harry Potter started the renaissance that allowed children’s literature to thrive so much it COULD be split into children and teen audiences. Before Harry Potter, children’s stories were simpler, more child focussed, and appealed only really to children - Harry Potter is one of the only books in recent years that has managed to appeal to both children and adult audiences. (His Dark Materials also does it to an extent but that’s more to do with its mature themes and the nature of fantasy). And that’s a large part of its success - Harry Potter wasn’t considered just a children’s book, it was considered a book. Adults were as invested in Harry Potter as kids. When I bought my preorder copy from a bookstore, after I read it I’d give it to my parents so they could read it too. My childless aunts and uncles had their copies, because it was a story that appealed to them.

This was unprecedented - not since the Hobbit. And that had had a full, adult-orientated series behind it to drive adult interest. Plus it was written 50 years ago when frankly the literature marketed was less genre-fied, and less competitive. The Chronicles of Narnia sort of managed to be considered literature despite being a children’s book, but you’ll notice that that is still classed heavily in the children’s category and not widely read by adults - and this only really happened with one of its books, not all seven.

Harry Potter is credited with getting an entire generation to read. And that’s not entirely an exaggeration - interest was high. I’ve still never seen the preorder hype for ANY book anywhere near that of each of the later Harry Potter books.

It also showed children - and publishers - that they could read and be interested in longer books. Again, twilight wouldn’t exist purely for length purposes had Harry Potter not published longer and longer books, showing there was a market for that even in children’s fiction.

One of my favourite authors is Tamora Pierce, who writes YA. When she took her original manuscript to a publisher, they made her cut it into four parts and basically rewrite the entire story because they didn’t think a lengthy fantasy book would be able to sell. Now, I love Alanna, but you can tell that originally it wasn’t meant as a quartet, even more so than her later books (also published in fours) which are a bit more cohesive. It would be almost fifteen years before she finally got a chance to publish a work as a single, full volume - and she only got to do that because Harry Potter showed publishers that long works can sell.

For a lot of “trends” in publishing, there’s an element of “right place, right time”. For example, witches are popular right now in fantasy, so if you’ve written a witch book, you’ve gotten lucky. It’s very hard to write to trend as books take years to get written and published, by which time the world has likely moved on.

Sometimes people and books create trends - the Hunger Games created YA dystopia, for example. This was a little bit “right place right time”, despite being a very good series, because YA was booming and people were searching for the “next twilight” (hence the focus on love triangles from pop culture - it was the one similarity it had to twilight). Twilight itself was another trend - the first series to do what Harry Potter had done ten years before. But again, it did this because it filled a niche that Harry Potter had left for it- people were looking for “the next Harry Potter” (and twilight appeals to the Harry Potter generation, who’d grown up into teens by this point- not a coincidence). It’s fantasy, it appeals to parents and children alike (even if that’s mostly female), and it has a raw appeal. It’s a story that can be enjoyed by adults despite being simply written enough to be understood by children, or in this case teenagers, it’s primary audience.

So Harry Potter created the niche that twilight filled. But you have to understand, nothing created Harry Potter’s niche. Sure, the tropes and concepts it pulled from had existed and been popular - it followed a long tradition of fantasy stories and was a “natural next step” to a genre that had gone from the Hobbit to Earthsea to Diana Wynne Jones.

But in terms of the publishing niche? Harry Potter created that all for itself. It was a revolution. It literally created a phenomenon in a way we’d never seen before, in such a massive industry and cultural shakeup that I don’t think we’ll see again, at least not on that scale, and not in the near future. It created a millionaire author in just four books. It created an author celebrity. Steven King has spent his entire career working to get a sliver the fame that JKR achieved basically overnight. Harry Potter remains the most successful series ever by a ridiculously large margin, and it didn’t get there by being bad. It didn’t get there by being average. It didn’t get there by being the right book at the right time to fill an existing niche, because that niche didn’t exist. Hell, the idea of niches didn’t really exist, not like they do now.

So that’s some context for you. When people say that Harry Potter revolutionised the book industry and had a huge cultural impact, they don’t mean that they personally read and liked the book. They mean exactly what they say. Harry Potter was a tossed rock into a lake, and all the media you’re consuming today, from 30-movie long comic adaptation universes to the new YA trend, are ripples created by just how enormously huge Harry Potter’s splash was.

[ryukyuan-sunflower]

Major Symbolism in Episode 20+21 (Another MugenxFuu Post)

Episodes 20 and 21’s series of images has been going through my head a lot recently, and I think that it is about time I rant about it.

I’ve written before, how Sara is a symbol of a maternal figure for Mugen. But today, I’m gonna go into something else…

Episode 20’s series of images alludes to Mugen and Fuu not only having feelings for each other, but also the concept of marriage, parentage and the idea of being abandoned. A lot of these details bridge and connect with multiple parts of the episode.

The Sad Bride

The woman upon the boat is dressed in a traditional uchikake wedding kimono. What is happening is “Yomeiri-bune”: a traditional Japanese bridal procession on a robune rowboat.

The robune boat carries the bride’s household possessions at the front of the boat. The bride sits behind the possessions. Behind her, the bride’s two parents sit, wearing black. This boat carries the bride across the canal, to her husband. This traditional procession is still held in one place in Japan: Ibaraki during “Suigo Itako Ayame Matsuri”, or the “Iris Festival”

Here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApIeJ384oDo

There are some key details about the bride in the scene of Samurai Champloo. While I think it could be a tale of Sara’s life...I think this is more related to Fuu’s future.

1.The bride has no household possessions. Fuu also has no household possessions of her own. The two women are incredibly poor.

2. The bride has no parents seated behind her. Fuu also has no parents to send her off and celebrate her marriage someday, as her father abandoned her, and her mother died of illness

3. There is a willow tree to the left of the scene. This one may not be major, but willows are symbols of grief, and in Japanese culture, are thought to attract ghosts. For such a sad symbol to be shown in a composition of a marriage seems intentional.

4. The bride is not smiling. Should a bride not be smiling upon her wedding day? It is supposed to be one of the most joyous moments of a woman’s life. She must be unhappy about the arrangement. This exact composition of Fuu’s unhappy face can be seen later, where Fuu is shown in front of glittering blue water. She must contemplate which of her bodyguards she will give up. But I’ll get more into that later.

Notice also, in the composition of the scene, how Fuu is on the far left, where the bride is. Sara and Jin are standing close together, where the parents ought to be seated. Mugen however, is a far distance from them all.

Sara is clearly a maternal figure in the episode, as her entire story concerns her child. Jin also has some parallels to the Sunflower Samurai, and plays a very fatherly role for Fuu throughout the series. I wonder if this position is intentional.

At the end of the robune procession, the boat delivers the bride to her husband. When a woman is given away to her husband, she is also saying goodbye to her father and mother.

There seems to even be a symbol of this.

But it is not to say Fuu wanted to give up Jin. It is clear that after Jin leaves with Sara, how upsetting it is for Fuu. She breaks down into tears. Though, it is important to note how childish these tears are. It is a comical scene, where Mugen gets frustrated and stomps off. It is nothing like the painful moments that Fuu cries when she thinks Mugen is in danger/dying (In episodes 14, 21, 25 and 26).

This seems to be Fuu clinging childishly to the closest thing she has to a father figure (Jin), similar to how this whole journey is her trying to find her father: the last remnant of her past.

The Mother and Child

While walking, the four travelers pass a mother carrying a child. The father is nowhere in sight. Again, this is an allusion to Sara and her son. But it is noteworthy that the only character to look back at the mother and child is Fuu.

The mother has light brown hair, like Fuu. The son has black, wild and unruly hair and orange clothes. More on the orange later.

The next symbol shows how this is not only about Sara...but about Fuu contemplating a future: the fear of being abandoned by a husband and left with a child alone, the same as her mother was.

The fear of being abandoned by Mugen.

The Pinwheel

The mother and child have a yellow pinwheel.

I’ve talked in other posts how pinwheels seem to be a symbol of childhood innocence, and of rebirth. However, we have seen a pinwheel in only one other scene in the series. And it is almost the exact same color. They could have chosen any color for the pinwheel, but I cannot help but feel this color choice is deliberate. Mugen flicks the pinwheel in Episode 1, just moments before meeting Fuu for the first time. 

Rather than childhood innocence, this pinwheel flick could have another meaning entirely. In Chinese culture, the flicking of a pinwheel means to “turn one’s luck around”. Why this is notable, is, in Episode 1, we find out Mugen is not Japanese at all, but Ryukyuan. The Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary state of China, before being invaded by the Satsuma Domain. For that reason, there is a blend of both Chinese and Japanese culture in the Ryukyuan Islands.

Perhaps Mugen flicked the pinwheel, as a way to wish himself good luck in getting some food. Little did he know, this meeting would greatly change his life.

Furthermore, the pinwheels start to shift into sunflowers. Fuu’s face pans across the scene, as if a symbol that she has come to a realization, or is pondering something important.

This could be a symbol of Fuu coming to a realization of her feelings for Mugen, her fear of the future, and the fear of being abandoned by him, the same as her father abandoned her mother. 

This fear and realization is reinforced throughout the rest of the episode.

The Boy with the Monkey Mask

During the festival, Sara asks Mugen and Jin to pick out a gift for her son. Mugen proceeds to grab a small child, and asks what he wants.

1. The child responds that he wants Mugen’s sword. He’s a little fighter.

2. The child is wearing a monkey mask. This is important because in the previous scene, Mugen, Fuu and Sara bathe in the hot spring. When Sara asks Fuu what Mugen looks like, she gets extremely flustered and proceeds to say: “Honestly, he’s less than human. He’s more like a monkey or a gorilla.”

However, we know Fuu is lying, because when Sara asks, “What?” Fuu sinks into the water and blows bubbles.

The fact that the line and the mask is a scene apart, seems intentional yet again.

3. The boy is wearing orange, similar to the orange of the boy on the woman’s back earlier that only Fuu looked at. Also, Fuu in her childhood, is seen wearing orange...and was abandoned by her father.

This boy is a symbol of Mugen and Fuu having a child together. To reinforce this is the thoughts going through Fuu’s head, Mugen asks Fuu what they should get for a boy. Fuu remembers Sara’s request of taking one of them with her. It is at Mugen’s words and her own thoughts, that Fuu suddenly runs away in tears.

We know that she is pondering the choice Sara gave her: Mugen or Jin. We know that she knows Mugen will willingly leave her. We also know that she chooses Mugen to stay, despite this.

And this is where we see that previously shown picture of Fuu’s sad face, emulating the face of the sad bride. Fuu is afraid Mugen will either abandon her, or will not love her.

Jin is the one to chase after Fuu and appears behind her, not Mugen. He is far more reliable, and would seem to be a better husband. Fuu could very easily marry a man someday that she does not want to be with, because Mugen is not the type to marry. But  despite all of this, Fuu still chooses Mugen to stay and complete her journey.

The two episodes’ composition largely features Mugen and Fuu, while Jin plays a more minor role.

Not only does she give up Jin, but also the entire Episode 21 barely features Jin. It becomes about Mugen facing Sara twice...and it also becomes about how Fuu’s love for Mugen stops Sara from killing him,

Sara’s words to Fuu

She chooses Mugen.

Sara’s Words to Mugen

Sara tells Mugen they are alike, and mentions the closest she came to happiness was having a child. It also zooms in on Mugen’s face here. 

Having a child with Fuu could be his first shot at happiness.

This dialogue completely emulates Mugen’s dialogue with another woman: Koza in Episode 14, in which she asked Mugen if he is happy now. He tells her he hasn’t thought about it. Koza then went on to say “Fuu is happy because she gets to be with you. I want to be with you, like she is.”

A Distance in Episode 20. A Closeness in Episode 21.

Throughout the episode, Mugen and Fuu are barely shown next to, or across from each other. They are always near Sara or Jin instead.

There is is a sense of a distance forming between Mugen and Fuu. But by the end of Episode 20, Fuu still chooses Mugen to stay with her. And Episode 21, they are finally close again, stuck alone together.

She throws herself on top of him to save his life and tends to his wounds which are close, intimate acts.

Other Blatant Hints

Aside from the visual symbolism in the episode, there are other clear indications of the character’s developing feelings for each other during these two Sara episodes, but not expressing them.

Fuu and Mugen see each other naked in the hot spring. This is a painfully common romantic anime trope.

Fuu gets jealous of Mugen’s attention to Sara.

Mugen gets jealous of Fuu crying over Jin and comically stomps away. He agrees to stay with Fuu, even though he clearly could’ve abandoned her, and only claimed to stay to fight Jin. Now with Jin gone, he has no excuse as to why he’s sticking around.

Fuu’s Declaration of Love

Fuu throws herself in the way of Sara’s blade, in order to save Mugen’s life. This action was committed only mere seconds after Sara’s haunting words to Mugen: “It’s as if you’ve never been loved by anyone.”

Fuu throwing herself in the way is proving Sara’s words wrong. Mugen is loved. This is why Sara gasps and stays her blade. Like her previous words, she is unable to read people’s feelings.

Throwing her own life in the way for Mugen’s life to be spared could have easily gotten her killed too. To me, this seems to be an allusion to “Shinju” or “Double Suicide”. Lovers’ suicide was surprisingly common in Japanese history, and there have been famous Tokugawa plays written about the subject such as “Love Suicide at Sonezaki” and “Love Suicide at Amijima”. 

Conclusion

The symbols of a sad bride, a pinwheel, a child with a monkey mask, Fuu’s choice and Fuu’s sacrifice all allude to her feelings for Mugen, and her fear of an uncertain future with him.

Now, combine this giant list of symbols, with the numerous amounts of far more major MugenxFuu scenes, blatant dialogue, interviews of the voice actors and Shinichiro Watanabe, etc...and what you have is a canon subtle romance. 

[maxwell-grant]

On Lord Hawthorne

A lot of what makes Lavender Jack special to me is the way it’s so masterfully able to create engaging, modern material out of it’s influences, and it’s creation of a genuinely timeless pulp icon that I think should serve as the ideal baseline for any and all creators who want to create stories based on pulp characters, old and new alike, in the future. 

As I make my way through Season 2 and eagerly await Season 3 I’d like to take the time to talk a little about the often overlooked half of the villain duo of Season 1, Lord Hawthorne, and what I think is interesting about him. Out of the many ways pulp heroes have been reimagined into villains over the decades, Lord Hawthorne stands out to me as easily one of the best ones, as a thoughtful take on the Tarzan character.

Spoilers before the cut

The first thing everyone immediately picks about Lord Hawthorne is that he’s Tarzan, with hardly any ifs or buts about it. He’s Tarzan, and we quickly learn that he’s the villain, part of a villain duo with Lady Hawthorne, the real mastermind and kingpin in pearls behind the story’s events. Having Tarzan as the villain n a story that draws from pulp and Edwardian fiction is already an interesting start, as three of the most popular molds from which are pulp heroes are based on, three of the most popular characters as icons, are Tarzan, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Sherlock Holmes, all three of which exist in some capacity in the world of Lavender Jack. The Gentleman Villain, The Great Detective, and The Wild Man.

Lavender Jack, as I’ve mentioned, is based on the Pimpernel, as well as other figures such as Spring-Heeled Jack and Bertie Wooster. Jack draws from icons that largely predate the pulp heroes because, in Schkade’s own reasoning, if you’re going to try and create an authentic pulp hero, it only makes sense to use as a base the characters that largely inspired them, and clearly that worked out very well. Jack is a Pimpernel remodeled and recontextualized into modern sensibilities, into an era of superheroes and webcomics.

In the Great Detective’s case, we have the figure of Madame Theresa Ferrier, who is called into the story by the Mayor to try and solve the mystery of Lavender Jack’s identity. Schkade describes Ferrier as a character that pulls from elements of detectives like Hercule Poirot and C.Auguste Dupin as well as Sherlock Holmes, in particular Jeremy Brett’s later year performances. As he describes:

In the series’ final years, Brett was getting older, sicker, hindered by bipolar medications that sapped his energy and caused him to gain weight, and he used it. His Holmes became a fading, melancholic shadow of his younger self, but with the spark of his brilliance showing through when it counted. I always found that so compelling

Ferrier is repeteadly described in-universe as “The Great Detective”, and she is both the oldest as well as the most brilliant character in the comic. Despite her age, despite her physical complications, and the tragedy that surrounds her love life, she is nonetheless incredibly skilled, strong and resourceful, able to unmask Jack and survive a confrontation with Lord Hawthorne and even nearly beat him. Ferrier draws from the Great Detectives of old, but this is a character that could never be mistaken for any of them. She’s not specifically based on any of them because, as Schkade puts it: “I wanted her to be someone I’d never get to draw in a leading role in most of my work-for-hire jobs”. 

Her role in the comic ends up being one of mentorship to Jack, and despite her age being emphasized as well as the idea of her belonging to an older generation of great heroes that now gives way to the younger and hot-blooded Jack as well as Ferrier’s new partner in Honoria Crabb, Ferrier is very much another great example of where the old meets the new in Lavender Jack. Pulling from the great old archetypes but very much recognizable as her own thing. 

Thing is, when it comes to Lord Hawthorne, we don’t really get that, because Lord Hawthorne isn’t really combining the idea of Tarzan with a splash of something new and outstanding and modern. He really is just Tarzan, and not a terribly layered character at that, for much of the story he’s largely just a voiceless bulldozer who exists to do the dirty work of Lady Hawthorne no matter how dirty. This isn’t at all a criticism, because I think Hawthorne being just Tarzan, with little to no bells and whistles and twists on it, is central to what makes him work not just as a great physical threat Jack must overcome (in a similar way to Bane as both a monstrous powerhouse and also having a strong connection to a powerful pulp hero), but also someone whose tragedy comes to light as we finally learn more about him. The fact that he is monosyllabic and largely devoid of any personal interests or life outside of being muscle for Lady Hawthorne is something deliberate, as outlined in a speech given by another character in Chapter 39

Her world's been changing for years, now. She's taking her place in a wider game. A more nuanced game. And you're still...Why, you're only good for one thing, aren't you? Well, maybe two, you old hound, you.

I know why you spend vast stretches of the year off in that jungle. It's not for sport, it's not to keep your edge...it's because when there's no need to fight, no struggle to win, no enemy...there's just...you.

And you know there's not really anything to you, underneath all those scars and muscles.

No dreams, no warmth, no depth. Nothing to love.

So you stay away...and that way, you can come when she calls you. You can sweep back to Gallery and show up all filthy and draw her into your powerful, savage embrace....and maintain your novelty.

All of this so you'll never have to endure a silent sunday afternoon where there's nothing to do, any no one to kill, and your lady simply...doesn't...need you.

You do know this word, don't you, Hawthorne, old fellow? "Novelty?"

And how does he respond?

Not with a denial, but an affirmation that this is ultimately all personhood amounts to, in his worldview. Just one more thing to be conquered and then used as a club to batter others with. 

The very act of a character questioning their own worth and depth of personality usually tends to be a telling sign that they, in fact, have those things even if they are out of touch with them, but Hawthorne doesn’t particularly rebuff anything Van Lund’s saying. He just reaffirms his title as Lord while threatening him with violence, because violence is all he knows. 

As we later learn, Lord Hawthorne isn’t, in fact, the real Lord Hawthorne, but instead he and his wife usurped the title from the real one as they escaped from the jungle, where he was only known as “the wild man”. A man who’s been forced his entire life to live in a kill-or-be-killed world, to live as an animal in constant conflict with humans, was then captured and then brutally tortured every day for over a month, and then found for the first time someone who treated him with something resembling affection, someone who ultimately turned him into a tool for her evil designs, and he readily accepts this because he has no life, no identity, outside of her. He doesn’t even know his own name.

In fact, for all we know, he might as well be John Clayton himself, except he was born in a world where being Tarzan is not the greatest thing ever and there was no Jane or ape mother to guide his malleable heart into something resembling good, and there was only Sarah to mold him into an instrument of murder at his lowest point.

I argue that Tarzan is a character that’s all about freedom and vitality, as a heroic take on an archetype that’s long been the missing link between superheroes and monsters, where the dual nature of mankind between person and ape acts not as a disorder or source of conflict but instead as the ultimate power fantasy in a character who gets the best of both with none of the downsides. Lord Hawthorne isn’t necessarily a return to form, because there is no dual nature to him. There is no gentleman, no Lord Greystoke descendant of nobility, romantic hero and great adventurer and leader of men and whatnot. There is only the ape, and what little façade has been grafted onto him by his master so he can pass off as a person, only long enough until he takes his shirt off and starts murdering people for her. While we get long extended close-ups of the icy cruelty in Lady Hawthorne’s eyes, there is none for Lord Hawthorne, because he is not cruel, he is an animal. He’s not a fighter, he’s a survivor. He lives to kill and serve the person who tells him who or what to kill. 

Lord Hawthorne is what happens when you strip the Tarzan legend of the romanticism of fiction and you look at it for what it would likely result in: the tragic story of a child forced to grow in the jungle, where the concept of personhood and human decency are utterly meaningless and there is only survival, where his existence is at odds with the worlds of man and animal alike, and what happens when that sort of being receives a first contact with something resembling decency and love. Even if said first contact wasn’t with someone as evil as Lady Hawthorne, there was little chance Lord Hawthorne’s life was ever going to be anything other than just an extension of his life in the jungle, or end in anything other than tragedy, and ultimately even the characters start to pity the wild man.

Jack: All that power and stamina and fighting acumen, but yet all you seem to get to use it for is...this. Another laborious climb to another locked-room murder.

Ferrier: You've long passed the point where human lives hold any meaning. You are detached from our species, a...a stranger, loose among us. I thought the sight of you would stir distain in me, or even fear...but as I look at you now...I feel for you only the strangest sort of pity.

What I like most about Lord Hawthorne as a take on Tarzan is that, far too often, we see intended “deconstructions” or reinterpretations of the classic pulp heroes, or even superheroes, that largely just make them villainous by extrapolating the worst possible interpretations of the character’s traits or real-life circumstances around them to villainize them, or outright invent faults and problems that weren’t there in the source material, usually to put one character over the other. The entirety of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is built on this, as is a lot of Superman parodies built on getting the most graphically shocking results possible. 

I'll admit it’s somewhat hypocritical of me to criticize this entirely, because it’s an impulse that I sadly admit I myself have fallen into in my own writings on characters not my own, as anyone who’s ever talked with me about Doc Savage, a character I do not like and cannot bring myself to like, can testify. I get why this happens, even if I understand why it’s shitty. Ultimately, the best “deconstructions” or reinterpretations will always come from people who are best familiar with the material they are using and know exactly the best ways to twist it, like with Mark Waid’s Irredeemable, an Evil Superman comic written by a huge Superman fan who knows exactly the absolute worst ways a Superman character can go sour, and was leagues ahead of works like The Boys and Brightburn who largely just take the “easy” pot shots. 

With Lord Hawthorne, we get a character who’s an evil take on Tarzan, but whose evilness isn’t made from exaggerating or adding faults to the source material character, which could very easily be done. I never got the sense that the author hates Tarzan and wants everyone to hate Tarzan and is willingly to sacrifice immersion just to get across how much he hates Tarzan (again, something LOEG does way too often), in fact it really doesn’t matter how the author feels about Tarzan, because those feelings are irrevelant to what’s on the page. 

Instead, Lord Hawthorne is an evil take on Tarzan whose characterization is largely based on just looking at the source material, the character’s origins, and extrapolating the circumstances in which that could go sour. What would a “wild man” forced to grow up and fight for survival every day in the jungle look like, what would that person look like when making it’s first contact with human affection, how could that person be twisted and manipulated into becoming a villain, what’s even left to that person outside of violent action scenes. How little it would take to twist a childhood hero into a brute that murders old women in their hospital beds, just by tweaking a few details about the context surrounding him. 

He is not a caricature of Tarzan, he’s not a parody, he is just Tarzan, but no longer the power fantasy. No longer the center of fantastical adventures. No longer getting the best of both worlds, but instead having to contend with the worst of them. Ultimately only finding some dignity in death, with his nemesis expressing hope that, maybe somewhere else, he’s going to have better luck than what this world afforded him.

[raiseyourcups]

I’m going home

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader Warnings: none just fluff and Poe falling on his pretty face (also please don’t fact check me on anything that wasn’t featured in the movies because I haven’t read any of the novels or comics other than what I could quickly glean from Wookiepedia thanks) Word Count: 1.3k

Summary: You and Poe are "forced" to take a vacation after the war and he takes you to the one place he's been both dreading and missing: Home.

For @mixtapes-books for guessing the show right on Battles won & Soldiers down

Some Poe fluff with BB8 being a cute little family because all that sadness got my heart hurting for my poor flyboy

“Poe, it’s beautiful,” you couldn’t keep the wonder out of your voice as you stared at the sight before you. 

The war had been over for a few months and even though there was still a lot of work that needed to be done, you and Poe had been told to take a vacation. Finn had pulled rank and everything while Rey stood at his side barely hiding her laughter. Poe had argued but eventually he caved when you placed one hand on his shoulder and gave him that look.

And now you two were back home, well back on Poe's home moon. Yavin-4. A place he hadn't been back to since he had left years ago. Hadn’t even spoken to his dad since the last time they argued. 

"It's okay," Poe said, shrugging his shoulders and helping BB-8 out of the ship they had taken from the base. His X-Wing wouldn't have had enough room for the two of you, well it would but it wouldn't have been a very comfortable trip after the first hour.

"Poe Dameron!" You exclaimed as you spun around to face him. "You grew up surrounded by all these trees! That's not just okay, that's amazing!"

Poe looked at the awe on your face and felt any argument die on his lips. He almost forgot that both you and Rey had grown up on desert planets. The only difference that you had grown up on Tatooine with your parents while Rey had been alone for so long. You two had still bonded over your shared hatred for sand. Finn and Poe tried to stay out of those conversations. 

Looking at you being in awe over his home, even one he hadn't stepped foot on in over a decade, he couldn't stop himself from whispering, "Maker, I love you."

"What was that?"

"Nothing, let's head down." 

You stared at Poe suspiciously but moved on when he didn't say anything else. BB-8 let out excited beeps as he sped past the two of you. 

"BeeBee, you don't even know where you're going!" Poe shouted after his droid knowing full well that it wouldn't stop him.

"Sounds like his dad," you quipped, giving Poe a side glance and a smile playing at your lips.

" I always know where I'm going, sweetheart." Of course that was when the universe decided to punish Poe for being so cocky and he tripped over a tree root. He mumbled against the ground, "Not a word."

You lasted all of three seconds before you burst out in laughter. You were still laughing as you moved to help Poe up from the ground. "You should have seen your face!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah laugh it up."

Even BB-8, who had doubled back at the sound, let out a few beeps that sounded suspiciously like him laughing at his dad as well. Your giggles waned as Poe led you through the trees and they died down when you finally came to a clearing.

The house there was modest aside from the massive tree, one you had never seen before, near it. There was a man standing outside the front door, blaster at his side, and waiting for them. "Who's there?" 

"Hey, dad," Poe said awkwardly, hands in the pockets of his flight suit. You stood beside him taking in all of the similarities between father and son. For all that Poe had always said he looked like his mom, you thought he looked like his dad. They had the same eyes and you could see where Poe had gotten his smile from.

"Poe?" Maker, Poe and Kes even sounded alike despite the age difference. You watched as Kes walked forward to his son and after a long moment pulled him into a tight hug. "Don't you ever scare me like that again."

"I'm sorry, dad." Poe said, his own emotions getting the better of him before he pulled away and reached out for your hand. "There's someone I want you to meet."

“Well I hope it’s the beautiful person you have in your arms and not the droid,” Kes joked as he looked at you, his gaze meeting the glint of the ring around your neck. A smile crossed his face before he pulled the both of you into a hug. "Come on in, I'll get something for us to drink."

                                                           XXXX

Later that night, after you had all retired to your rooms (you were sharing with Poe obviously), you and Poe finally had a chance to talk. BB-8 was charging beside the bed while you and Poe laid down. The little guy had all but worn out his battery rolling around the entire house more than once, taking in everything. He had even spent about ten minutes in front of Kes just scanning him for his files. 

"This is nice," you said, laying your head down on Poe's chest, head underneath his chin. He let out a hum and brought a hand up to run it over the top of your head. The feeling sent little tingles down your spine and you snuggled deeper into him. Poe smiled. Worked every time. 

"I guess Rey and Finn were right," Poe replied, his eyes already getting heavy. It had been so long since he'd slept on a decent bed, years of cots and military-issued mattresses all but ruining his back. 

"They usually are," you hummed, shrugging a little. "Must be a Force thing."

"I still want to know if Rey has ever done that mind thingy on us." Poe would never get over the time Rey used the Force on those Storm Troopers. For someone who spent years fighting for Leia, he still had no grasp on how the Force worked. There was something about it that you found adorable.

"She would never. Think about it, yes. Actually do it, no." You said before pausing for a moment and smiling. "I'd use it on you though."

"You'd what?" Poe's hand paused his ministrations.

"I'm kidding," you laughed out. 

"Ugh, you tease," his hand trailed down to your side to tickle you for your comment. He stopped once you started squirming. 

"You love me," you said, a little breathy from laughing.

Poe let out a deep sigh, nuzzling his cheek into the top of your head. "I do. I don't ever want to live without you."

"Neither do I." You had always been scared when he left for missions, especially ground ones. You knew it was selfish to hope Leia would keep him on base more often. But it had always been hard. You were overjoyed the war was over. 

"How about we get that in writing?" Poe asked nonchalantly, reaching down to lightly tug on the chain around your neck. You both remembered the day he gave his mom’s ring to you with a startling amount of clarity. 

He had just come back from a mission, not even a scratch on him but that hadn’t stopped you from falling into his arms, tears in your eyes. He had been gone for two weeks that time and no one had received any communications from him for a week. He pulled you out of the hangar for the privacy of his room and once you had calmed down, he gave you the necklace. You hadn’t known what it meant at the time but later on, when someone pointed it out, you cried all over again. 

But right now, you were confused with Poe and you looked up at him with a furrowed brow. "What are you talking about?"

"Marry me?"

"Poe Dameron!" You exclaimed, pulling the pillow from under his head to smack him in the chest. Both of your voices filled the room and you hoped you weren't being too loud for Kes. Eventually you two settled down, the peaceful quiet falling over you both. There was nowhere you had to be nor anywhere you would rather be other than in each other’s arms and with the First Order defeated, you would never have to be apart again.

[legoshi-plz]

Cynic (Legoshi x Reader)

Legoshi x Canine! Reader

Warning: NSFW (+18), minor mention of Rape/ Sexual Assault

Summary: Maybe you and a certain Grey Wolf are more alike than you thought.

A/N: So I decided to change up these requests just a little so that I could combine them ! I hope you guys like it! These started off as Headcanons but i got a little carried away lol also Characters are all over 18 in this fic

/////////////

You weren’t exactly what people would call a ‘happy’ animal.

Okay that was an understatement, you could be downright depressing at times. It’s not like you actually meant to be such a downer, you just considered yourself a realist and being a Carnivore in today’s society was the farthest thing from a ‘happy’ existence.

People profiled Carnivores wherever they went, always quick to see your kind as natural aggressors and when they weren’t clutching their purses ready to call animal control on you all for just being alive, they were quick to go over the top to prove they saw “all animals equally”, which usually was just a ploy for ‘progressive points’.

Being a Domesticated Dog, you recognized your privilege was a double edged sword in one of the worst ways possible. You had Herbivores constantly in your face telling you “You’re one of the good ones” while other Carnivores mostly saw dogs as ‘sellouts’ who were willing to whore themselves out (socially and in... other ways) for even the slightest scrap of attention. It was infuriating just living in such a society and you constantly felt on the verge of snapping but if you did, you’d just prove to be everything they already thought you were.

So needless to say, you kept to yourself. You just couldn’t bring yourself to put on the false pretense of cheerfulness that domesticated animals were expected to uphold so you tried to keep to yourself. No one understood you nor did they try. They were too caught up in their own charades and you were beyond the point of explaining how screwed up this world was. They knew, they didn’t care.

You were convinced you would spend your entire high school career in the shadows, not making an impression (good or bad) on anyone or anything and for a while it seemed that way. Until your final year.

For the most part, keeping to yourself gave you a lot of time to observe others, rarely were you the one technically being ‘observed’. Which is why you couldn’t understand why a certain Grey Wolf couldn’t keep his eyes off you.

He was painfully obvious, his awkward attempts to hide his little obsession whenever his eyes met yours was almost comical.

You chalked it all up to him probably being another sick fuck with a fetish for submissive animals. It was more common than most people like to address and Domesticated female dogs were the leading demographic of rape/ sexual assault victims from wolves. It was mainly the close proximity of their biology that made it so hard for wolves to control themselves (if you could say they had any control to begin with.) They preyed on smaller dogs because in comparison to them it was the closest they could get to defiling a Herbivore without the internalized shame and disgust. Also female Carnivores were often not believed when it came to these crimes because they were perceived as stronger/ more aggressive and should have been able to defend themselves. Yet another flaw in this fucked up animal judicial system.

You decided to ignore the Wolf and hope he just moved on. There weren’t many dogs at Cherryton but there were a few others who would probably be more than happy to tame the beast that lie within him. Or between his legs.

But weeks turned into months and his interest in you failed to cease. You decided to confront him. You decided to do so after class once the rest of the class filed out. He usually drug his feet so it wouldn’t be hard to catch him. Best case scenario, he was embarrassed about getting caught and promised to stop. Worst case scenario, he can’t control himself and takes you right then and there. You were apathetic either way, there were worst things out there than fucking a Wolf right?

You approached his desk as he was scrambling to shove his things into his shoulder bag, the rest of the class had long filed out by now.

“H-Hi,” he said looking up at you, his ears tilted downwards.

“You got a problem with me or something?” You can tell by the way his ears tugged down even further that your voice came off a little harsh but that was just the way you were.

“W-Why would I have a problem with you, YLN-san?” He was avoiding your cold stare. He was a Grey Wolf for crying out loud, what was wrong with him? Wolves were a lot of things but skittish wasn’t one of them.

“Drop the formalities. You stare me down day in and day out but now you’re afraid to look me in the eye? What are you playing at?” Okay maybe you did sound a little harsh but you didn’t believe in skipping around the topic.

“I just... noticed we were kind of... the same, y’know....” he grimaced. You left out a dry laugh. He knew nothing about you but he thought the two of you were the same? This definitely had to be some sort of ploy. He wanted something from you and sooner or later you’d find out what that something was.

But that later never came. He began to explain himself, explain how he was pretty bleak too and that he couldn’t help but notice that someone else seemed just as paused in life as he was. At first you thought he was just churning out bullshit but the more you sat and listened to him, the more you hung around him, you began to see the undeniable similarities between you two.

He would express the struggles he faced with his own existence as a Wolf, how he felt like he could never truly be himself, or even know what being himself actually meant because he was so busy trying to make people unafraid of him. It was like you had met your other half. He understood what had been gnawing at you from inside for years now because he was going through the exact same thing. And so the two of you became fast friends, nearly inseparable from one another.

You tried to deny it but you were slowly becoming more and more infatuated with the Grey Wolf every day. Legoshi was so kind and reserved at times but you found those traits all the more endearing. He showed such vast wisdom and maturity despite his own social awkwardness and you found yourself overwhelmingly comfortable in his presence. Comfortable and safe, his naturally huge physique and protective instincts which should give you every right to fear him actually proving to do just the opposite.

Speaking of Physique, you had to admit that Legoshi was undeniably attractive. Tall, beautiful coat, all lean muscle, a thick healthy tail you had found yourself drooling over near-constantly. He was any Canine’s kryptonite and you couldn’t believe you hadn’t noticed it before now. Maybe it was just because you were so enamoured by his mind that your attraction to him physically was inevitable. Either way, you found yourself daydreaming about mounting him more times than you’d like to admit.

You thought that perhaps what you felt for Legoshi might be mutual until you found out he used to date a tiny Herbivore . And not just any Herbivore, a rabbit. The daintiest of them all. So he was just another sick psychopath with a fixation on innocence. You were heartbroken to say the least. What probably hurt the most was that you were no where near his type if Rabbits were his thing. You never stood a chance. But then again that wasn’t a surprise. You were nothing special prior to meeting Legoshi so why would yo expect anything to be different now.

That being said, it didn’t make you want Legoshi any less physically. You might not be his ideal mate but you knew there was still a part of him in there that had a desire for sexual release, a desire that Canine felt especially compelled to with other Canine, and you were going to capitalize off of that.

You found him in his usual spot in the art department after dark. He was always the last to leave.

“Y/N! Where’ve you been? H-have you been avoiding me?” He asked his tail tucked between his legs. You hadn’t seen him in about four days and giving the nearly inseparable friendship the two of you had over the past few months, it was out of character.

“I was,” you said bluntly. His ears lowered immediately.

“O-oh... did I do something wrong?”

“Yes,”

“... what was-”

“You fuck rabbits, Legoshi.” You saw his fur visibly stand on end and his eyes turn wide as saucers.

“Y/N I-”

“Look I’m just gonna cut to the chase,” you deadpanned, stepping forward, “I wanna have sex with you.”

“You WHAT?!”

“I’m attracted to you Legoshi. I might not be your type but I am small and I can make you feel good.” You didn’t wait for his response as you dropped to you knees in front of him.

“Y/N wait please,” he was tense all over but you were already unbuckling his belt and unzipping his trousers. Surprisingly, he went commando.

You pulled him out of his pants to see his knot was already beginning to swell at your touch and he was painfully hard. You licked your hand and began to stroke his impressive length. Guess it was true what they say, the thicker the tail, the thicker the-

“Y/N please just give me a second!” Legoshi asked cupping your face between both his large hands. You craned your neck up to meet his gaze but continued to pump his aching cock.

“Just relax, Legoshi. It’s okay if you have to pretend I’m a rabbit, I don’t really care. I know I’m not much to look at anyway,” you said, wrapping your mouth around his angry tip that was currently streaming out pre-cum. You moaned at the flavor as Legoshi shuddered above you.

“Y/N please stop, this can’t happen like this, okay.” He said slightly more forcefully as he pulled you off of him and began to tuck himself into his pants, his cock straining against the fabric defiantly creating an enormous bulge.

“Really? That unattracted to me, huh? Well, I guess it is what it is,” you said in your usually monotone voice while standing up and brushing off your skirt. You turned, about to make your exit when Legoshi grabbed your arm.

“Wait, Y/N, look I didn’t- it’s not that- I just-” Legoshi was flustered and looked as if he was ready to pass out at any moment.

“Spit it out, Wolf boy,” you said , trying to hide the fact that your feelings were pretty hurt.

“I just- I like you Y/N, really I do but-”

“You just don’t like me in that way. I heard you loud any clear. It’s whatever, Legoshi. Don’t stress it,” you said attempting to shrug out of his grip.

“Hold on, can we talk about this?!”

“There’s nothing to talk about, I wanted to have sex and you don’t.”

“I- I do w- of course I want to have sex with you, Y/N. I like you, a lot. You’re actually all I’ve been able to think about for a long time. But you’re so.... so.... indifferent towards even the slightest romantic implications, I didn’t think I had a shot in Hell...” he sighed.

“If you like me then why’d you stop me?” You asked evenly. You weren’t about to get your hopes up, that just wasn’t your style.

“Because I like you. If there’s even a chance you feel how I do then I wanna do this right. Ask you out properly, ask you to be my girlfriend, ask if I can kiss you, y’know the right steps before...”

“I suck your dick?” You offered, a small smirk playing at your lips. His still very much present hard-on twitched visibly at its mention.

“God, Y/N,” Legoshi groaned attempting to cover himself. You fought back the urge to giggle at his shyness despite the fact he was in your mouth less than two minutes ago.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I want to do it. Don’t you want me to?” You bit your lip in what you hoped was a seductive way.

“So fucking bad,” Legoshi groaned again unable to avert his eyes. You took this as an opportunity to step forward once more.

“Then why don’t we let this one slide, huh? And then we can do things your way?” You whispered palming him through his pants. He unconsciously began to grind lightly against your hand.

“Y/N, I’m in.... Male mode.... if we start, I might not be able to stop,” Legoshi voice was straining from trying to keep his own pleasure at bay. You dropped back down to your knees, once again pulling him out.

“Then don’t. Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to ride you, Legoshi? Let’s allow this one free-pass then you can start all the courting processes you want,” you said before taking him into your mouth. Legoshi felt his eyes roll back into his head as he thrust softly into your warm, wet throat.

“W-Wait, one more thing” he moaned, once again taking away what was quickly becoming your new favorite treat.

You were about to protest when he kneeled down to your level, again cupping your face in both his hands in order to place the sweetest kiss imaginable on your lips. He rested his forehead against yours for a moment, before pulling away to see you with the dopiest grin on your face.

Yeah, you were definitely going to be the death of him.

[true-blue-sonic]

Silver generally has a problem with being too OP that the writers feel like they have to nerf him. Forces is I feel even worse in this regard than the comics are.

Though now that I think about it, the comics do seem to nerf most everyone besides maybe the villains. Even Sonic seems to be weaker than he should be at points.

Though Silver is definitely the worst off considering we see him almost singlehandedly take care of the Metal Virus after they got the Chaos Emeralds.

In Forces, it is indeed highly strange that Silver just... does not try to grab Infinite or throw anything at him or the like, yes. Especially since the former then is seen in the final battle! And similarly, Infinite never tries to death-beam Silver to hell like he did with the Avatar's companions in one flashback. Infinite is a powerful foe for sure, but I feel that the battle between him and Silver did not really show that very well. Still, I find it impressive Silver managed to last so long against him! With a diss against what Infinite is preaching on top, nice.

As for the comics, I haven't thoroughly reread any in some time, so I cannot say with certainty how nerfed everybody has gotten. I do think it's stupid that, when Eggman crashed their victory party at the end of the Metal Virus arc, NOBODY could defeat him until Sonic came along and did it in like... seconds. But in the same vein, Forces suffered that exact problem with the Resistance over the 6 months Sonic was captured, though there they have as defense that they were with less people and the entire world was overrun, not just one party. Still, I think the franchise at large might have an issue that Sonic and friends alike indeed are just so powerful, it becomes difficult to write a story wherein any of them really struggle with what Eggman throws at them. There is nothing wrong with powerful characters because Eggman can match that power, but I feel that making everybody suddenly struggle with what is, for all intents and purposes, a menial little dozen-people-against-one-robot fight amidst many others in their daily lives is not the way.

And indeed, in IDW Silver is powerful when the plot needs him to be and not powerful also when the plot needs him to be. I'd forgotten about the Metal Virus resolution for a second, where he indeed just changes people on a molecular level despite never having given any indication he can do anything like that, haha. And then for an entire planet at basically once! It's a creative solution for sure, but then indeed it becomes a bit baffling that Silver in his base form struggles with catching ten people in freefall, holding up a handful of tools simultaneously, or catching someone stuck within a whole slew of other items Silver was holding up already (if he telekinetically placed Duo on the chair, wasn't he already holding him in a grasp?). So yeah, I dunno. All I can say is that to me, it lacks consistency between the various issues of the comic itself and the franchise at large both.