#disclaimer: the fact something is “brought up so frequently”

[liskantope]

Your point is well taken that, although I did lead with "Charitably speaking...", I was probably bending over too far backwards to be charitable and ignoring that a bunch of the up-in-arms parents are probably just super homophobic. And while that would imply that they must have been upset about the way things are going in schools for quite some years, it makes sense that they've chosen this moment to strike with everything they've got. (I'll suggest that parents/voters aren't divided into pro-gay people who are worried that things have gone over the top and hard-core homophobes who who've been waiting to strike with their anger for years -- there are probably moderately conservative people who were happy to let a bit of LGBT+ presence in schools slide until some of it appeared to get out of control in the last couple of years. Not that you probably disagree!) I think I have a tendency to underestimate homophobia in general, because of how very little of it reaches my radar anymore as opposed to 15-20 years ago.

While I think it's been clarified and sorted out satisfactorily in the replies, I think it's worth mentioning in a reblog that both you and someone else appeared to initially misunderstand the intent of my last paragraph, which suggests that maybe I really wasn't doing the best job of communicating (I don't know about writing like a high school debate student just trying to sound smart, as the other commenter suggested, though). So let me clarify.

I don't know much of anything about what's going on in schools of various geographic areas. It would be very hard to determine what's actually happening on a large-scale basis without conducting and sifting through a ton of very qualitative poll data. I only hear anecdotal reports, and as I tried to make clear in the second paragraph of the OP, I have pretty low confidence in any one of them being accurate, especially if (as is often the case) they come from a source pushing an anti-woke agenda.

My last paragraph was intended not to describe and argue against content I necessarily assume/imagine is prevalent in more progressive school districts, but (I suppose rather implicitly) to refer to the kind of thing that those on the conservative side seem to fear is going on, in order to say, "Look, under my proposal, you would get some LGBT+ content in schools but the content would be distinct from that."

Now that said, most of the individual things I listed in the last paragraph do strike me as quite plausibly going on in some schools, even though the frequency of such schools for each might be as low as maybe 1-5% and (particularly taken all together) they likely represent some sort of weakman or caricature.

The last thing I listed about "constantly centering everything around a scrupulosity-triggering activist mindset" is the vaguest but also something that (after possibly deleting the rather subjective phrase "scrupulosity-triggering") I'm almost certain does happen in a substantial number of schools in more liberal districts. I believe this not only because of occasional complaining anecdotes I've heard (like an actual friend -- not an IDW-ish podcaster -- describing how she pulled her son out of middle school due to a constant activist mentality being pushed on him, backed up with concrete stories about the in-class activities there), but because at least a couple of my most SJ-ish Facebook friends are themselves proudly "woke" teachers and frequently brag about how their classroom content is geared towards raising the kids to be activists (sometimes they even proudly use the word "radicalizing"!). To be clear, this is more about racial stuff than LGBT+ stuff.

The rest is based on reports that I don't put much trust in but also aren't particularly hard to believe; I just doubt that it's all that frequent. At least one of the activist-minded teachers I mentioned above does describe some of what she does as sounding awfully close to "enthusiastically pushing kids to analyze their genders and sexualities all the time"; also I heard an appreciative, non-complaining, non-anti-woke mother describe something that sounded rather like that on Arielle Isaac Norman's podcast. That along with "telling kids they can be whatever gender they want" is a constant complaint of anti-wokesters like Glenn Loury (and also it's certainly something that I increasingly gather a ton of other people would like taught to kids, framed in that kind of phrasing) but may very easily be a distortion of the statements actually uttered; I don't trust Glenn Loury / Sam Harris types to be fluent enough in the language to repeat these wordings fairly or accurately. The "what gender would you like to be now?" thing was an over-the-top adornment of mine that I probably shouldn't have included, but I think in the back of my mind I was recalling a report I heard referred to on one podcast of a preschool in which the teacher said on a daily basis, "Sit on this side of the room if you feel like a boy today and on that side if you feel like a girl today" which is most likely (and I certainly hope!) a fabrication. The activities where kids have to rate their marginalization statuses and/or be pointed out as oppressor or oppressed sound extreme but are brought up so frequently that I tend to imagine they must originate in some true story, hopefully from a tiny minority of schools; one of the reasons I don't find it entirely impossible to believe is that I actually took part in a similar type of activity run during a UU service (for the full congregation, mostly retirement-age adults but with children included) several years ago.

But yeah, I never meant to imply, and I don't assume, and others shouldn't either, that this depiction of "woke" content is anything more than a weakman. I meant to imply that I'm against it (even hypothetically) and that my proposal would exclude it.

Since the "LGBT+ content in schools" issue keeps coming up, here are some of my thoughts directly on it.

Charitably speaking, I think conservatives are afraid of a particular, narrow, modern, very SJ-ish social agenda and belief system being shoved down their kids' throats. I do have some sympathy with this concern, although I'm not sure the extent to which anything is actually being taught that I as a (more progressive-thinking) parent would object to: I do hear what I would consider disturbing stories but have little way of knowing how embellished and/or unrepresentative they are.

So anyway, a bunch of conservatives have whipped up a moral panic about it and are fighting back with legislating (what are, at least according to some) bans against talking about the existence of gay or trans people at all, or anything about race that might possibly make white kids uncomfortable in any way. Which is absolutely absurd, a "cure" worse than the (possible) disease.

(And disallowing gay/trans/queer teachers from, for instance, disclosing that they have a same-gender partner, even though it's been normalized for decades and is still permissible for a teacher to bring up their opposite-gender partner, is just outright homophobic, period. That shouldn't be too hard to see.)

I've tried reading the legislation (for instance, the so-named-by-opponents "Don't Say Gay" bill), and I'm bewildered as to what it actually adds up to or how it can even function as legislation. What a lot of it says amounts to moderate, common-sense-sounding guidelines that don't actually appear to demand that "gay" not be mentioned in any way, but it relies on phrases like "appropriate for their age group". Well, who gets to decide that? How is this legislation ever enforced or teaching ever policed based on it?

My only guesses as to what conservatives think they're doing is that (1) the laws are almost meaningless but serve as a grandstanding move meant to signal "Hey look, we're on the right side, we're doing something about it!"; and (2) since the wording of the law requires a ton of individual judgment and interpretation, perhaps in the most conservative school zones where all the people in power are sufficiently conservative it really could be used as a sledgehammer to ban ANY mention of anything they don't like.

Meanwhile, I think there could be some common-sense guidelines that allow teachers to bring up the existence of gay and trans people and allude to the issues and even (to kids above a certain age) discuss some of the civil rights battles surrounding them, without shoving any particular highly controversial political ideology down their throats. The idea is to stick with basic facts about social reality. Gay and bi people exist (at the very least, in the sense of people who choose to pursue same-sex relationships). Trans people exist (at the very least, in the sense of people who identify as a different gender than indicated by their sex at birth), and some of them choose to go on hormones or get sex reassignment surgery. Gay and trans people are people too. There has been and still is a lot of stigma against them, and there have been struggles to secure them rights for certain things -- for instance, same-sex couples couldn't get married in most places until last decade! By the way, kids, I prefer they/them pronouns. You're encouraged to think for yourselves about what that might mean and how to feel about it, but it's a preference I'm asking you to respect and you should respect such preferences among your classmates. Mr. So-and-so who teaches in the next classroom has a husband. You probably know several other gay and bi people, and they're people too. Some of you may come to identify or already identify as not straight or not cis.

Of course that won't satisfy everyone, and it can't be done in an entirely non- politically biased way, and conservatives may see plenty of reason to complain that these things are even being mentioned or that the teacher has gone as far as normalizing people who fall under the queer umbrella as human beings without at least criticizing them as having lost their way.

But it's, to my view, subtly but significantly different from very positive actions that go beyond neutrally describing reality with an underlying default of respecting others. That would include enthusiastically pushing kids to analyze their genders and sexualities all the time, telling them "You can be whatever gender you want; what gender would you like to be now?", teaching highly politicized lessons on social justice which involves students rating their degrees of marginalization and separating the room into "oppressors" and "oppressees", constantly centering everything around a scrupulosity-triggering activist mindset, and many more things.

[skufdaddyswansea]

Okay, I have a few more scattered thoughts in regards to Curly that either didnt fit or I just think are kinda weaker points. (and also there were a couple things i had to go back and get more screenshots for. ...again....)

Also I feel like I should add a disclaimer: I feel like I'm starting to sound like Curly's #1 Hater but I'm really not. I like him a lot! I honestly like all the characters, even if it's in.... different ways. Sometimes you like a character because they're likeable and fun, sometimes you like a character because they're interesting and deep.

(And sometimes you like a character because you want to put them in the microwave.)

Moving on.

At some point this scene really got stuck in my head. It seems pretty innocuous at first, but it actually says a lot.

Technically Daisuke is the one who screwed up here, but the fact that he was even able to mess with the vent long enough to set off the foam is on Swansea. This is his area, Daisuke's his intern (like it or not), he needs to be keeping an eye on him.

Curly can see that! And firmly but respectfully bring attention to it! He can in fact be a good leader, when he chooses to be.

So it's also interesting that this scene is followed by Jimmy's psych eval. While dealing with Jimmy so Anya doesn't have to may have been a good move, his method subtly enables Jimmy's dismissal of Anya and her work's value.

Now I want to pivot and talk about the code scanner a bit.

During Curly sections, it's always in our inventory, and as Jimmy we pick it up in the cockpit where he's... extracted from, so I feel like it's safe to say that Curly is usually carrying it on his person.

And yet.

This is another one of those things that doesnt really seem like a big deal. The Pony Express is pretty buckwild about the kinds of shit it keeps locked up with the code scanner.

But there is one glaring problem here.

Granted, this one is more of a stretch. I can't say confidently that anyone else on the crew had easy access to the code scanner. In fact, given their annoyance with everything being locked up I'd say it's pretty unlikely. It's just something that's been buzzing around in my head, but after writing it out it feels pretty weak.

But it does feel worth mentioning that if anyone other than Curly would have access to both the code scanner and the Pony Express Protection Kit (TM), it would have been Jimmy. Not to mention that if anything were to, say, incapacitate Curly, Jimmy takes over and gains control of the code scanner. Which is exactly what Anya was afraid of.

And he is pretty quick to grab it, isn't he.

Which leads me to my next point.

I touched on this a bit in my last post, but I want to elaborate on this exchange specifically. I think it's pretty revealing.

At this point, Curly thinks Anya is suicidal. He tells her she could have come to him. That he would have done anything to help her. That he should have considered that she doesn't undergo the psych evaluations, he should have thought of that, so that way he could have known.

But he did know. She told him.

Even still, when he saw Anya in this state, the only reason he could imagine for her distress was the company going under.

As long as Anya kept quiet and carried on as normal, he really didn't think it was that big of a deal.

You can see this again when he finally talks to Jimmy about it. It's simply a "difficult situation." But nothing they can't get through together.

Not to mention, Curly twice glosses over Anya's fear that Jimmy will try to kill her. Her second attempt to communicate this is followed quickly by the scene in which Jimmy attempts to kill the entire crew.

Okay, one last thing I want to touch on here. It's about the way Curly (and by extension Jimmy) use the phrase, "We can fix this." And its variations. Again, I brought it up pretty briefly before, but there's always more to say about it.

Now, Jimmy uses this phrase (or more frequently, "I can fix this.") to an almost comical degree ("Almost the entire crew is dead, but I'm going to fix this. With my gun! :)"). But they both use it it in pretty much the same way.

For others, it's an empty promise. "I'm on your side." "I'm looking out for you." "I'll protect you."

For themselves, it's a denial of reality, a self-soothing mantra they use to desperately clutch at the reins of a situation that has long since spiralled out of their control. Everything will be back to normal soon. I just have to fix it.

thanks KC Green

[ilongfor-the-arts]

Hi bestieeee! Love your work! Hear me out: can I get an Emi Martinez smut where you’re dating Ronaldo or Messi or someone and, while they’re away, Emi offers to do some lawn work for you and you end up screwing? Thankssssss

Cool for the Summer

Pairing: Emiliano Martinez x fem! Reader

Warnings: smut, shower sex, cheating, unprotected sex, fingering, mild size kink, pet names, praise kink

Summary: *in req*

Word Count: 4.5k

Disclaimer: changed it to pool boy but I think you’ll enjoy nonetheless;)

Taglist: @kawaikylian

The temperature that day was sweltering. Around me, the heat wave was raging. I cast my eyes out my window. The heat was causing the air to sway and contort. Many gardeners wiped the sweat from their brows due to the twisted mirage caused by the fever.

“God! When will this end?”

I said as I paced the kitchen, irritated. Summer days were usually spent relaxing by the spacious pool that was conveniently located outside Ronaldo’s and my villa. The anomaly, though, occurred this week. I quickly began to perspire the moment I stepped outside my front door. I could only stand to lounge for a short while before scurrying back to the air conditioning or jumping in the water.

I grabbed a glass from the collection of stunning mahogany cabinets and quickly filled it with tap water. I gulped the cool water graciously. I felt unusually thirsty despite having only gone outside briefly to retrieve the mail.

Typically, the summer heat was bearable. In fact, I enjoyed the heat. There was something wonderful about the sweat and sun that always got a rise out of me. It was sensual to take your lover on long beach walks while holding their damp palm as you both became sun-kissed. It was sensual to kiss in the pool while the sun raged on. On the other hand, this heat wave was unprecedented. There was nothing sensual about perspiring through every shirt you owned in a three-day period.

But the long, hot summer did have one very clear advantage: our pool boy visited very frequently. Due to the increased usage, the pool required even more maintenance. It was always enjoyable to observe him working. His shirt was off, and the exposed areas of his back and torso glistened with perspiration. On days like these, I wished for things that I knew were forbidden. Not prohibited due to circumstance, but prohibited because I was, regrettably, married.

I tapped my nails against the spotless marble of our island in the center of the roomy kitchen. I was in desperate need of something to keep me busy. My search turned up nothing, which was a problem. I caught sight of the pool boy's muscles flexing deliciously in the sun as I peered out the window. To be completely honest, I have no idea what he does to our pool. I only hope he’s as good as he says he is.

The phone rang. The still room reverberated with the piercing ring. My eyes were torn away from the tall, attractive pool boy as I was abruptly brought back to reality. I plucked my phone from the pocket of my jean shorts, glancing at the caller.

Shit, it was my husband.

I begrudgingly answered the call.

“Hello?”

I inquired.

“Hey darling. What are you up to?”

I was staring out the window, admiring the pool boy's toned chest glistening in the hot sun.

“Nothing much. It’s brutally hot here.”

“Have you been using the pool?”

“A little. The water is lukewarm, so it isn’t nearly as satisfying as taking a cold shower.”

“Hm. I see. Well, try to get out there. It took a long time to get that pool installed.”

“I know, I know. How was the business meeting?”

“Good! It was really good! I think moving to Saudi Arabia may be in the near future.”

My lips were pursed. Over the phone, Ronaldo noticed my quiet and apprehensive demeanor. He was aware of how much I adored our home. We chose it together shortly after our marriage, and we had always shared a dream of installing a large pool.

“I know you love the house, darling. Perhaps we can keep it and go there for vacation.”

My face drooped.

My gaze shifted to the swimming pool. When I saw our handsome pool boy strutting toward the sliding glass door, my heart leaped.

“Um- love you, darling. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

The increased urgency in my voice was not apparent to Ronaldo.

“Alright, sounds good. Love you.”

I hung up the phone and placed it face down on the marble countertops. Emiliano's head was thankfully pointing downwards. He was unaware of my frantic behavior.

He slid the glass door open with ease before striding confidently into the cool kitchen. As the air conditioning enveloped him, he exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Ah, that feels nice.”

Emi closed his eyes, enjoying the pleasure of the cold air. I took a moment to admire his unkempt appearance. His cheeks were flushed pink. The baggy tank top did little to hide his toned pecs. Drops of perspiration cascaded down his muscles, coating every inch of his tanned skin.

“I don’t mean to bother you Mrs. Ronaldo-”

I jerked awake from my trance. I cocked my head upward, concealing my excitement at the significant height difference.

“Please call me Y/N.”

A faint smirk played on the corner of his lips. Emi approached, bowing and resting his elbows on the marble. Our lips would meet if I could just reach my head over the counter.

“Right. Well, Y/N, I was wondering if I could trouble you for a bottle of water.”

He teased me by emphasizing my name. He knew I preferred to be referred to as Y/N. I returned his smirk.

“Of course you can. One bottle of water, coming right up.”

Our relationship had a history of flirtatious play. However, I never acted on it. It was difficult to tell if he was being dead serious or if my imagination was exaggerating my fantasies.

I spun around, opening the fridge and pulling a cold bottle of water from the shelves. I made an effort to hide my bright smile. I swiveled my body around, slamming the water bottle onto the countertop in a dramatic fashion.

“There you go, one bottle of water.”

I said, my tone soft.

Emi smiled. My heart fluttered.

God, it’s been forever since Ronaldo made my heart flutter.

Emi encircled the bottle with his large hands. As I watched his fingers wrap completely around the bottle, my jaw clenched. The object was dwarfed by his grasp. My gaze moved over the veins that adorned his forearms and hands.

Blood rushed to my core.

Don’t let him see.

I forced my eyes away from his gorgeous hands.

Shit.

Emi smirked. He definitely noticed my gawking.

He brought the bottle to his lips and hastily gulped the water. As the cool liquid slid down his throat, his Adams apple bobbed. A drop of water dribbled down his chin erotically.

Shit!

Jesus!

I closed my eyes and shook my head slightly to center myself.

“Are you alright?”

Emi inquired. The furrow on his brow and the concern in his voice indicated that he had most likely missed my second wave of gawking.

“Yes, I’m alright. Thank you for asking.”

The silence that descended upon us was dense and awkward.

Shit, strike up conversation, Y/N.

“Um. Are you done with work for the day?”

Emi nodded, his dark eyes glimmering in the midday sun.

“Yes. I’m all done for the day.”

Perspiration had blackened the majority of his gray tank top. An idea occurred to me. A horrible, horrible idea that should never have entered my mind, but once I had it, it was difficult to release.

No.

No, I can’t.

What would he-?

How would I-?

What would Cristiano do if he found out?

“Hey, Emi-”

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Emi's face brightened. He flashed me a soft look. The flirty nature of his demeanor had dissipated. His toned body would get me going, but his puppy dog eyes would be the death of me.

My heart skipped a beat.

A blush crept onto my cheekbones.

“Yes?”

I knew the breathy tone wasn't on purpose, but that didn't stop my heart from racing with glorious anticipation.

“If you aren’t opposed to the idea, you’re more than welcome to use our shower to freshen up.”

A look I had never seen before crossed Emi’s face. It was one of pure shock.

“Oh! Um-I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

I shook my head.

“No! You wouldn’t be overstaying your welcome. I know how awful it must be to work outside all day in this awful heat. The least I can do for you is allow you to take a cold shower.”

Emi swallowed, hesitant to accept my offer.

“Um.”

His voice trailed off into the still air. A brief pause occurred. I shifted my weight, trying not to reveal my true intentions.

His demeanor began to change. His nervousness subsided and was replaced by consideration. He scoffed, a small smirk on the corner of his lips.

“Alright, if you insist.”

He said smugly.

My heart began to race.

My palms began to sweat.

Shit.

What was he thinking?

Emi rose, maintaining eye contact as the height disparity became more apparent. He turned to leave the room, heading for the first floor bathroom. He came to a halt as he approached the door frame. With each steady breath, his shoulders rose and fell.

I gulped.

Emi glanced over his shoulder and met my gaze.

“Thank you.”

He stated. Emi turned and strolled down the hallway to the first-floor bathroom. I stood, staring at the empty door frame where he had just been.

His tone was... seductive?

Or was that merely my imagination?

I stared at the empty door frame. His aura lingered.

The faucet squeaked. The water began slamming against the tile. I awoke from my trance.

Oh my God!

Was I really about to climb in there with him?

I have a husband!

Despite the thousands of objections racing through my mind, I found my feet instinctively carrying me down the hall. I came to a halt in front of the bathroom and stared blankly at the painted wood.

Jesus.

I'll be honest; I thought this would be much simpler. I thought our flirtatious jokes would make the process simple and stress free.

I then considered what was hidden behind this door.

Emi.

Naked.

Covered in thick droplets of water.

A wave of heat rushed to my core. My face became cold. Ronaldo's memories had all but vanished. Fire took the place of my blood. Lust took the place of my guilt.

I wanted this.

I so, so wanted this.

I pushed the bathroom door open, being careful not to jar the hinges. The air in the room was thick with steam. I admire Emi's ability to take a hot shower in the middle of a heat wave. As I walked, I shed my clothes, lengthening my strides.

Me and Emi were only separated by a miniscule sliver of glass. Behind the foggy pane, his magnificent features were softened by the haze. I knew he had noticed me. I knew he was expecting me.

Despite being completely naked, the intense heat of the steam kept me warm.

I pushed the glass door open gently, revealing Emi's large, naked frame. With his back to me, he flexed and contorted his muscles as he ran both hands through his short hair.

“I figured you would follow me here.”

He hadn't turned to face me quite yet. My knees shook as he spoke in a deep and sultry tone.

Emi cast a glance behind him, his gaze moving along my naked body, taking in every curve and divot. He sighed softly, becoming further aroused as the situation unfolded.

I gulped, my heart pounding with excitement. I required time to mentally prepare myself if that brief glare was any indication of what was to come.

Emi turned, his torso now facing me. He had a lovely chest. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and run my hands over the planes of his skin. Emi hooked a finger under my chin, gently pushing my face upwards to meet his burning eyes. As he took a step forward, the breath caught in my throat. I could feel the heat radiating from his solid body.

Emi’s face contorted into a devilish smile.

“I knew, from the moment I laid eyes on you, that I’d make you my good girl.”

His large hand rose to cup my face in his calloused palm. He tenderly stroked my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. Despite being toasty warm, a chill ran up and down my spine at the gentle touches.

Emi smirked.

“You’re so gorgeous.”

He muttered under his breath. As he leaned down to press his mouth against my ear, my hands fidgeted at my sides.

“How long have you wanted this for?”

I shuddered. My knees shook. I fought the desire to crumble into his arms.

“A long time.”

My tone was pitifully meek.

Emi drew back slightly to stare into my lust-filled eyes. His cocky smirk remained plastered on his lips as he positioned his face mere inches from mine.

We were close, so close.

I could feel his warm breath cascading across my face.

But I fought the urge to close the gap between us.

Emi scoffed.

“I know… whenever I’m around you wear practically nothing. You love teasing me, doncha? You love the thought of me snapping and fucking you right in front of your husband.”

I exhaled a trembling breath. Emis eyes traveled to my lips.

“I’ll admit, it was difficult to control myself today. Maybe because you were wearing those tight little shorts… or-“

He met my eyes once more. His gaze was dark. His pupils were blown.

“Maybe it was because your poor excuse of a husband wasn’t around.”

His sultry tone fell an octave. I shivered.

Emi leaned in closer, closing the distance between us. Our lips fit together like two puzzle pieces. I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders and drew his strong frame into me. His hands instinctively reached for my hips. He turned us around, pressing my back against the wall directly beneath the faucet.

The contrast between the cool tile wall on my back and the hot water cascading between our bodies caused goosebumps to appear on my skin.

Emi's kiss quickly turned hot and desperate. What began as a composed moment quickly devolved into a clash of teeth and tongues.

“I’m gonna show you how a real man fucks.”

He mumbled against my lips. The vibrations from his words sent a wave of heat to my core. I couldn’t blush. All the blood in my body had rushed to my center.

Emi wrapped a large hand around my thigh, hiking it up to his waist. The new angle was perfect for grinding my cunt against his semi hard erection.

Emi groaned, my mouth swallowing his noises. He trailed a hand towards my center, gliding two of his fingers along my velvety wetness.

“Shit…”

He murmured breathily.

I moaned as he found my clit, instinctively bucking my hips against his calloused fingertips.

“You’re already soaked and I haven’t even touched you.”

His words were clouding my brain. There were no thoughts or feelings, just him. He delved two lanky fingers into my cunt, quickly finding my g spot. I convulsed around him, throwing my head back against the tile wall. A brief flash of pain bounced around my skull, but it soon dissipated as Emi began thrusting his digits into me.

“Oh my God… Jesus….”

I murmured incoherently.

His free hand gripped my hip, keeping me upright.

“If I knew you’d look this pretty with my fingers inside you I would’ve fucked you a long time ago.”

My eyes fluttered closed. I clutched Emi's shoulders. My knees were violently shaking. I'd be a puddle on the tile floor if it wasn't for his hand on my hip and our close proximity.

My walls fluttered around his digits. His fingers felt wonderful, even better than I could’ve imagined. They were incredibly long and somehow able to locate my g spot with every thrust.

The coil within my lower abdomen was tightening, yet Emi wasn’t moving nearly quick enough to bring me to my delicious release.

“Emi, please, move faster-“

I begged. Emi interrupted.

“Don’t be so greedy darling. You'll get to cum. I’ll make sure you cum.”

He stooped to rest his head in the crook of my neck.

“For now, be my good girl and let me fuck you with my fingers for just a little while longer. Can you do that?”

I nodded vigorously.

“Yes… I-I can do that.”

Emi began to place featherlight kisses along my jugular, occasionally nipping at my skin.

“Emi-please-don’t leave marks-“

Emi’s calloused thumb pressed against my swollen clit, silencing my protests.

“Don’t worry sweet girl, I won’t.”

He placed a tender kiss on the soft skin under my earlobe.

“Even though I wish I could leave a little souvenir for your husband.”

Trying to explain to Ronaldo why I have dark hickeys all over my neck would certainly be interesting.

I scoffed.

“If you fuck me really good I’ll let you put a few marks on my back.”

I stimulated his senses by running my fingers through his short hair. Emi drew back, our noses sensually brushing together as he pecked my plush lips. He continued a steady pace with his fingers, stimulating my walls deliciously.

“I'm disappointed. If I were him I’d see your back every day. I’d bend you over everything.”

I gasped as he began tracing shapes into my swollen bundle of nerves while simultaneously pumping his fingers into my core.

“Emi, please, can I come now?”

Emi placed a kiss on my cheek, an unexpectedly soft gesture.

“Yes sweet girl, you’ve been so good for me, you can cum now.”

He quickened his pace. I moaned pornographcially, my jaw falling to the floor as the coil within me rapidly tightened. The wet sounds of my cunt ricocheted between the solid walls.

“Jesus Emi!”

I knitted my brow together.

“Come on good girl, cum all over my hand.”

His words sent me spiraling. Black spots clouded my vision as the release I had been chasing washed over me. My walls hugged his long digits as they continued to thrust lazily within me, bringing my body down to earth.

“Holy shit Emi.”

I said once I had come down from my orgasm.

Emi drew his hands from my cunt, leaving me with a sudden sense of emptiness. He brought his digits to my mouth, pushing them past my lips as an invitation to suck on them. I obeyed his commands, hollowing my cheeks to increase the suction as the sweet taste coated my tongue.

“Oh baby, if you think that’s good, just wait till you get a taste of my cock.”

Emi tugged his digits from my mouth with a loud pop before reconnecting our lips. We kissed carelessly as the rain fell around us. His large hands relaxed atop the swell of my hips. My arms were thrown around his shoulders. I rose to my toes in order to close the height gap between us and fully enjoy the sensation of his soft mouth against mine. His hard cock pressed into my lower abdomen, sending a heat wave down to my center.

I chuckled against his lips.

“You’re awfully humble.”

His erection was pressed against my stomach.

Jesus, he really was huge, I’ll give him that.

Emi rose to his full height, smugly looking down at me. He cupped my cheek, tracing my bottom lip with his thumb.

“You wouldn’t have snuck in here if you thought the sex was going to be mediocre, sweet girl. I need to fuck you so good that you’ll be touching yourself to the thought of me inside of you for weeks.”

Wetness began to pool between my thighs once more.

“How do you want it, sweet girl?”

A devilish grin spread across my face. I pressed my lips seductively against his ear, rising to my toes.

“Bend me over.”

I whispered, smiling wider when I felt the goosebumps erupting along Emi’s skin.

I pulled back with the intention of igniting a moment of eye contact between us. However, I was interrupted by Emi’s strong grasp flipping me around. He placed a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved me downwards roughly until I was fully bent over for him.

I gasped audibly as Emi dragged the tip of his cock along my folds, collecting the velvety wetness that had recently pooled between my thighs.

“Jesus, I just made you cum and now you’re soaked again.”

His tip prodded at my entrance. I squeezed my eyes shut, fully prepared for him to rip me apart.

But that glorious sensation didn’t occur.

“God Emi, just fuck me already please!”

I begged, shoving my hips backward in the hope that he’d take pity on me.

Emi grasped my hips roughly, shoving me forward to undo my previous actions.

“Just hold on sweet girl, be a good girl for me and be patient.”

Piping hot water droplets slammed against my back and rolled onto the tile below. I watched them fall as Emi continue to torture me by running his swollen cock along my folds.

My arms and knees were shaking violently. My core was aching for him.

Be patient.

Be patient.

Be patient.

Be a good girl.

I cast a glance over my shoulder, wanting to catch a glimpse of his cock before he buried it deep within me. As I relished in the sheer beauty of his fully hard length, he finally gave in to my body's protests.

Emi jerked his hips forward, burying himself balls deep within my aching cunt. I groaned loudly.

“Shit!”

My head fell between my biceps. I stared blankly at the tile below as Emi quickly began a steady pace.

He was so thick, so deliciously thick. He stretched my walls so far that I swore if he was any bigger I’d rip in half.

The subtle pain that came with Emi’s penetration quickly dissipated into pleasure that was far hotter than the weather.

“Holy shit sweet girl, your pussy is so wonderful, so nice and tight.”

The praise was intoxicating.

Once he allowed me to adjust, Emi gripped my hips and began tugging me back to meet his brutal thrusts. I moaned loudly each time our pelvises smashed together.

The thick water droplets slapping against the tile was perfect white noise that wonderfully complimented the glorious sounds of our combined moans.

“Jesus Emi, you’re so big.”

I said, the words struggling to overcome the myriad of moans that were hastily spilling from my lips.

“This is how a real man fucks, sweet girl. Indulge in it before you have to go back to your pussy of a husband.”

He was right.

I’d never been fucked quite like this.

His hard cock was sliding in and out of my cunt perfectly due to my prominent wetness. He made me feel so incredibly full, yet the glorious sensation wasn’t overwhelming.

Every move he made was intentional and left me feeling completely euphoric.

With a particularly hard jerk of his pelvis, the tip of his swollen cock both my cervix and g spot. I moaned, my back arching. Emi knew I wouldn’t last long, so he made sure to milk the last few moments of togetherness. He leaned down, pressing his firm chest to my back.

His ragged breaths were now audible due to our close proximity. He was panting deliciously, unable to conceal his desire.

I’m glad to know he was enjoying this just as much as I was.

“You take my cock so well.”

His tone was completely breathy and fucked out. It was so incredibly sexy. I had never heard anything quite like it in my entire life.

“I knew you’d be a good girl for me.”

Oh God, he was making my head spin. I couldn’t take much more of this. My lower abdomen was so impossibly tight.

His cock was finding my g spot with every thrust.

My entire body was trembling like a leaf.

“Emi, fuck-Emi I’m gonna cum.”

Emi exhaled a shuddering breath.

“Not yet sweet girl, please, be a good girl for me and hold on. I wanna be inside you for just a little longer.”

I was powerless to resist him. I fought the desire to release all over his thick length.

My fingertips were filled with pins and needles.

Emi’s grip on my hip would surely cause bruising.

The bent angle of my body caused my back to ache.

Yet I was completely satisfied.

Emi was panting in my ear, the hot water was cascading down our warm bodies, and his cock was filling me to the brim.

Emi’s calloused fingertips found my swollen clit.

I moaned pornographcially.

“Who can make you feel this good? Hm?”

I shuddered, barely able to form a coherent sentence. My orgasm was seeping into the corners of my brain, threatening to spill over the edge.

Not yet.

“You, Emi, only you can make me feel this good.”

“That’s right, that’s my good girl.”

Emi placed a tender kiss on my jugular.

“Cum for me baby, cum all over my cock, be a good girl for me.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I came undone.

My orgasm slammed into me like a freight train. I squeezed my eyes shut as the euphoria completely overcame my brain.

My chest heaved as I regained my composure. Emi slowed, helping me come down from my post orgasmic gaze. When he was satisfied with his work, he pulled out.

The absence of his cock left me feeling empty, yet extremely satisfied.

I rose to my full height, making sure to keep a hand on Emi at all times in order to steady my trembling knees.

A bright smile was plastered on Emi’s face. His cheeks were flushed. His lips were plush.

I’ve never seen him happier.

“So, about that hickey…”

I rolled my eyes, giving him a playful smack on his chest.

Emi cocked an eyebrow.

“Really? It didn’t seem like you were joking. Come on, humor me, at least consider it.”

His tone was lighthearted and playful, a stark contrast from moments ago. I narrowed my gaze suggestively.

"Hm."

I placed my open palms on Emi's well defined pectorals. His muscles rippled under my touch as I rose to press my lips against his ear once more. The water continued to fall around us. We were like two lovers trapped in the sensual rain.

"Well, if you make me cum again I'll consider it."

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

(WAY PAST) Traintober 2023: Twins prt 2 + Bird

The VR's Scottish Twins R707 City of Melbourne "Cerberus" and R761 "Andri", with friend.

(Usual disclaimer, this is not a reflection on any person living or dead or the real life locomotives they are based on)

OK, its now November but so... I'm putting these up anyway. The VR's answer to Donald and Douglas, Victorian Railways R-Class Hudson R707 City of Melbourne/Cerberus and VR R-Class Hudson 761 Andri.

Both built at North British Works at Queens Park, Glasgow and brought to Victoria in the early 50's as part of a 70 strong fleet of R-Class Hudsons to replace the aging A2 4-6-0 express passenger fleet. The Rs were quickly superseded by the B-class diesels built at Clyde, Granville, NSW; and all of the class was withdrawn by 1964, with only R707 and R761 remaining in operational condition after their fellow Rs were brutalised by the VR.

Seven members of the class including these two made it into preservation. As these two were paired up frequently during the late and post-steam era on special trains, it was natural that they were close. And they cannot be any more different.

R707/Cerberus (originally "Choin Dubh", but renamed himself to something the Aussie humans could understand) is quite an intense individual, highly intelligent and obsessed with balancing the scales as well as preserving the rest of his family. He's mad as a cut snake that he was not particularly dealt a good hand initially (rust in the bearings kept him in the shop till 1954, STUG equipment fitted to him reinforced his idea of himself as hard done by) or was given the working life he was promised; he was fucked around by the VR in the final years of steam, moved from shed to shed and then left to rot for 6 years from 1974 to 1980; he hasn't forgiven them, even after they are long gone.

He's by turns manipulative, charming, calculating and scary. When he is not pulling his highly lucrative Grainlander and Riverlander trains, he's working out schemes with his underlings, his right hand engine being the Lancastrian English Electric built F-class shunting diesel, Dynon Donk.

R761/Andri (originally "Kelpie" but taunting by the local yobbo locomotives hurt her enough to change it; a particularly humiliating incident of taunting lead to one of them having a rude word scratched on their tender in meter high letters...) couldn't care less about balancing the scales. As a matter of fact, she doesn't care at all. All she want to do is continue to run like the Devil in engine form if she's allowed by the vollies at SteamRail, look at birds (her special interest is birds of all kinds) and sigh over Gordon the Big Engine, her favorite engine in the RWS series. Her particular special train is the Melbourne Snow train but she's taken plenty of other special trains. She's is pretty blunt and forthright when talking with others, but she means no offense.

Her working life was punctuated by long bouts being shedded, for reasons that are not entirely clear or explainable; which would explain why she was in such good condition compared to the other Rs at the time of her preservation.

Both these engines have a monster form, and a demon form like their Newport compadre, VR H220 Heavy Harry.

As a matter of fact, when they both attained a human form sometime around 1964, they ran in the same larrikin gangs as Harry did. And participated in his infamous scrapbreaking activities. To this day, they still live at Newport, at the old sheds in the West Block where the volunteer groups operate their trains out of.

The lil blue bird on Andri's shoulder is a Splendid Blue Wren.

Here's a video of the IRL R761 ripping up the track:

The VR were never that interested in breaking records for speed, but it is estimated the Rs could go as fast as 90/mph if allowed; VR regulations dictated that express passenger engines like the R, the S and the A2 were restricted to 70/mph and H220 60/mph.

[no-less-than-a-lambgod]

Warnings and Rules

Warnings/Disclaimers:

Content Warnings used: #violence cw, #suggestive cw, #bodyhorror cw, #cannibalism cw, #gore cw, #selfharm cw, #suicide cw

...and more depending on the situation. I will do my best to tag any sensitive topics, but I'm not perfect so just be aware of the themes that can come up on this blog.

My ideals and morals are not to be reflected in that of the expression/actions/and thoughts of my muse(s).

This blog is not made towards minors as it will most probably contain depictions of gore, swearing, NSFW topics and more.

Topics of death and mortality are likely to appear on this blog as Lamb is now the God of Death, that can involve the topic of suicide as well.

The character is surrounded by religious topics so it will be brought up frequently, viewer discretion is adviced.

This is an askblog/roleplay blog, and although some parts will be based in canon, I take a lot of creative freedom with headcanons. The game leaves a lot up to interpretation when it comes to the Lamb's personality after all.

Rules:

Before sending an Ask, please read About Asks

Before trying to RP with my muse please read About Roleplaying

Do not join or reblog threads that you are not part of

Spamming the inbox will not make me respond faster, in fact it makes me want to not respond at all

Don't try to romance my muse with yours before discussing it with me first

Being passive-aggressive, guilt-tripping or generally just rude OOC is a very fast way to be blocked by me

Don't take it personally if I don't want to RP with you or don't respond to your Asks, no it does not mean I don't like you or think your character/writing is bad, it only means I am not interested.

Generally do not control my muse. It works for some scenarios if it's something minor but please ask first. I will ask as well before my muse uses abilities on yours that can be OP (such as mindreading)

Suggestive scenes can happen in threads, but NSFW RP will only happen in private and only when I know both muse and mun are 18+

Don’t get angry at me if I haven’t replied to your thread right away.  I’m human as well, you know.

If you gotten this far and read this entire page: Let me know by sending “Where do marigolds bloom?” In my inbox then!

[mcuamerica]

What's with the Ring?

Pairing: Tony Stark x Fem!Reader

Requested by anon: "A request where tony stark had a college sweetheart for about three years... then many years later after ironman 3, pepper broke up with him and tony got invited to his college reunion. when he reunited with reader..."

Warnings: mentions of late husband, mentions of terminal illness (not for reader or Tony), mentions of past cheating. Age-appropriate alcohol consumption.    

A/N: PSA all Tony requests after this (and a couple more in my inbox already) will be declined. I don’t really like writing for him, but I made that decision after this request came in, so this will be one of my last ones for him. If I find any good Tony Stark content, I’ll be sure to recommend it!

Disclaimer: All my works are FICTION. Nothing pertaining to the characters and/or actors are to be taken as fact. I do not own characters (unless I create an OC, in which I will be sure to mention), actors, tropes, or titles. I do not agree to my works being reposted or published on any sites, even if credit is given. Enjoy!

You walked into the MIT arena where you had gone to plenty of basketball and volleyball games as a young adult. You loved being back at this school. You frequented the football games when you could, but it wasn’t easy since you had a full time teaching job in New York. 

You also felt that it was bittersweet. Last time you were here, you were with your husband. He bought front row tickets to a basketball game and you two shared an amazing time together. The next day, however, you found out he was terminally ill. You hadn’t been back since. It had been a few years since he passed but you couldn’t bear coming back to the arena. That was until you got the invitation to your college reunion. 

It would be good to see your friends. Sure, you talk to them every now and then, but with MIT graduates, the time to meet up is little to none. You took a subdued career, choosing to teach high school students in New York City. Still, you teach at a very prestigious high school and you are very happy to have your job but it was nothing compared to most of your graduating class. Specifically, nothing compared to Tony Stark. 

At the time of graduation, you could not stand him. Not only did he break your heart, but he cheated on you with some cheerleader for the school. You shouldn’t have been surprised: he was always a lady’s man. It was no excuse for cheating when you were in an exclusive relationship.

You were over it now. You had gotten married and suffered another heartbreaking loss, one so much more gut wrenching than being cheated on. It actually brought you some comfort when you turned around from your conversation and saw him - Tony - talking to another alumni. 

You excused yourself from the conversation and walked over to him. “Tony,” you spoke up to get his attention. 

As soon as his eyes landed on you, all the feelings came back. He hadn’t seen you for years. Not since you yelled and screamed at him two weeks before graduation for cheating on you. You were in different colleges, so he didn’t even get to see you at graduation. 

“(Y/N)... Wow… You look great.” He said, completely forgetting about the other man standing next to him. “What’s with the ring?” He asked, noticing the chain around your neck that held a gold ring that resembled a wedding band. 

You glanced down, a small smile coming to your face. “It’s my late husband’s. I always keep it on me,” you said as you looked back up at him. “How have you been?” You asked, not wanting to go into detail about your past marriage.

“Me? I’m surprised you don’t know.” 

There it is. The ego-booster laced with sarcasm. “Okay, Mr. Iron Man. I meant other than saving the world with your big suit of armor.” You quipped, raising your eyebrows. 

“I’ve been great, thanks for asking.” He asked and you blinked at him, waiting for him to ask about you. “Can I get you something to drink?” He asked instead, motioning with his cup towards the makeshift bar that was set up. 

“Sure, why not.” You said and gave a small smile before walking over to the bar with him. 

You spent the rest of the night chatting with him. On multiple occasions you had to correct people who came up to you and said they were surprised you two were together. Both of you denied it every time. Tony even told you about how he just got out of a few year relationship with Pepper Potts, the now CEO of Stark Industries. You thought you heard something about it, but you hadn’t paid much attention to Tony when he was in the news. 

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s always hard to recover from a break up. But I’m sensing that you had no issue…” You said and he smiled sheepishly. 

“Actually, it was a little hard. But I’m better now. And really happy that I ran into you. We should meet again, sometime. In New York.” He said and you narrowed your eyes. 

“I’m not sure how much I trust you, Stark.” You asked and crossed your arms, shifting your weight slightly. 

“I promise, I won’t make any moves.” He said, giving you a sly smirk. 

“Who said I didn’t want that?”

Main Masterlist

[lestwritewhilewaitingforajobcall]

Tamed Seas - Poseidon x Reader

(A/N)

This is the very first post I’m making on this equally new account and also the very first time I am ever using a second person POV for the reader. Let me know your thoughts!

The following story is just for shits and giggles. I do not own any of the characters, they are the property of Shinya Umemura and Takumi Fukui and Ajichika. I also do not own you, the reader.

Warning: Swearing from my disclaimer.

Tamed Seas

Poseidon x Reader

They were never allowed to stare.

If Poseidon never looked anyone in the eye, deeming them unworthy of even a simple gaze, then anyone other than himself were equally unworthy in looking at his wife.

Just before the meeting had started about a decision to be made on humanity’s fate, Poseidon had entered in his full regalia, his wife walking alongside him. Of course, such a prestigious couple deserved such a special entrance, as Hermes, per Zeus’ request too, played his violin most ceremoniously, a proud smirk on his face upon seeing the royal feet step perfectly on the red carpet he had immediately placed upon knowing of their arrival. Zeus’ older brother held a record of never attending meetings, much more any simple get-togethers unless they were of real utmost importance such as this one.

Shiva’s eyes grew at the sight of the couple. Even though Poseidon’s wife had originally been a mortal who had ascended to godhood, you were glowing and looked as ethereal as Aphrodite. Was he seeing things? He blinked and leaned forward in his seat. The last time he saw you was at the announcement of your wedding, then after the ceremony he never caught a glimpse of you ever again and only heard stories of your new and impressive conquests. Were you always this godlike?

As if reading his thoughts, he gulped upon finding himself at the receiving end of Poseidon’s cold and stoic stare. He shrugged his shoulders. Man, he had heard rumors of his sudden protectiveness towards his wife, but he never expected him to be this overly protective. He was merely trying to figure out if his wife was always glowing like this or not. Both figuratively and literally.

Alright, maybe he was checking you out a little bit.

Unlike the god of the seas, his wife greeted Zeus, and all the familiar gods with a warm smile. It had been ages since you had seen them all together, and the sight brought a sense of nostalgia to the days where you had first earned their favor, then their respect, and then their friendship. Although your story might not be as mighty (and as physically taxing) as Hercules’ was, you considered those ‘young’ days to also be one of your best apart from getting married to the man god who you had given your heart for and will continue to love and cherish for the rest of your life. Since you became Poseidon’s wife, you had not had much time to do leisure outside the palace, and correspondingly after heralding the title of ‘queen of the seas,’ you had taken it upon yourself to help your husband in matters concerning his own kingdom and the vast seas themselves.

“Master Zeus—” Zeus threw you a knowing look. “My apologies, Zeus, it’s such a pleasure to see you again!”

“Same here, little lady! Judging by the frequent calmness of the Atlantic Ocean, I trust you and my brother are faring along quite well?” The father of all gods chuckled, then wiggled his gray eyebrows. “Why, I must say, me and most of the other Olympians have been waiting for some new gods and goddesses to rule alongside us, if you know what I mean! Ehe he~”

Characteristic of your husband, Poseidon simply scoffed before muttering how gods such as themselves need not gossip. Blue eyes never left the Hindu god however, and unbeknownst to his wife, he lingered closer to you than usual whenever the both of you were in public.

This time, Shiva had had enough. He was sure he only looked at the direction of Poseidon’s wife only once, and admired you only once as well, yet he was being skewered by the god’s gaze for longer than what he had intentionally allowed. As if he had openly claimed you as his! He was the god of destruction for heaven’s sake, and would not allow this sacrilegious act, regardless of whoever he had to settle the score with. If it was with another prominent deity, then it would be a lot more fun. Golden eyes narrowed daringly, an equally challenging aura oozing from his form and startling the nearby gods.

“Lord Shiva, are you okay—”

“(Name). How many times do I have to repeat myself? You have no need to refer to other gods with honorifics.” Your attention whipped to your husband, who to your surprise, held a familiar, challenging stance. Unbeknownst to you but the other gods especially Aphrodite, Poseidon simply matched the challenge of the Hindu god. “You are the wife of the seas. All the other gods are beneath you, as they are beneath me as well.”

Upon hearing this, Shiva gripped his concrete armrests too greatly and it crumbled to dust under his strength. Pumped at where this interaction seemed to be heading−the thought of fighting, he stood up, arms on the ready to cause destruction. Despite being in the middle of the crowd and quite far away from the center of the stadium where the couple stood, he caught glimpse of the famous trident he would never be caught dead wielding. Now this was getting interesting!

“My rules are simple: you disrespect me, you die,” He pointed at Poseidon, which the latter found disgusting enough to scrunch up his nose.

“Should we put a stop to this, Lord Zeus?” Hermes asked behind a white gloved hand. Not exceeding any expectations, Zeus laughed after a stroke of his beard and clapped. He always was one to find entertainment in alike situations, especially after the fact that this was the only time, he and all the other gods had really felt Poseidon riled up. The expression on the god of the seas’ face remained calm but it was betrayed by the suffocating, dominating presence he emitted from where he stood.

“And after you die, your wife would become firsthand witness of realizing how your title betrays your strength,” Shiva stretched, but halfway through noticed Poseidon’s quick work of his trident. He took a stance and prepared for the parrying move.

Amidst the unexpected battle that was soon to happen, to everyone’s surprise, a whistling sound echoed along the tension-filled stadium. It was a tune most foreign to the gods, all except one. From your lips, a beautiful melody poured out as a soft gentle breeze seemed to have begun to blow. It was an old tune you had learned from one of your many lifetimes in the mortal world,

And the very same one you had sung to Poseidon that had sustained him in trying moments.

Poseidon came to a full stop, his muscles unmoving as he listened and slowly, put his trident down. What was he thinking? He should not have been swayed by a foolish taunt committed by a foolish god. He was perfection incarnate. His wife would never fall for a foolish antic, so why did he? Now he was both angry and confused with himself. How could he have allowed himself for even a moment, for others to see him angry over this? What even was this?

Without the need to look at you, relishing in your fine tunes reminded him of the initial catalyst to his reaction and an answer to his question. Whenever matters concerned his wife, his emotions, which he learned were out of his control, seemed to defy all rational logic, which, even at the very beginning of your courtship, bypassed his ego. Of course, despite these strong feelings, the one thing Poseidon had control over were his actions. Therefore, he had always had a grip on how he presented himself. Although it was still a slow progress to figuring out this foreign feeling with his wife, the only other being he deemed truly worthy to allow into his life, anyone else will never have a chance of being privy to this side of him−a sentiment that thankfully, his wife shared. Though he never admitted it, he was confused and left mulling over for some time when you had also told him before that you had meant a different thing.

“…Foolish. Gods have no need for wars, we are perfect beings ourselves. You are not the reason for my presence here and are not worthy of my time and attention.” Another long silence fell, finally broken by Poseidon, ignoring the mix of surprised and fearful stares. His legs started carrying him towards the direction of one of the high stage boxes in the stadium. “Come, (Name).”

Shiva, who had his fists out and ready to fight, blinked twice in confusion before grunting, scratching the back of his ear violently in frustration. “You Greek gods have always been boring! And here I thought I’d finally be able to cause some destruction again, this time in Valhalla…”

Other than the Hindu god himself, none would ever understand if he had riled up the Greek god on purpose for the sake of his own entertainment or, perhaps, for something more personal. Zeus, meanwhile, followed the sight of his older brother walking quietly alongside his wife. Aphrodite nodded her head in his direction, affirming his suspicions. He would never fully understand the concept of love, but hey, he did get the message that all would be damned if so much as a single hair went missing on (Name)’s hair. And it seems he was not alone in this thought, as despite Shiva’s aggressive taunting, he also managed to peak into the gravity of the god of seas’ feelings towards his wife.

After Shiva had been calmed down and more gods piled in along with the Valkyries, Zeus set his meeting in motion. From the stands, Poseidon and his wife occupied the two seats that closely resembled their thrones. Eagerly sitting beside the god, (Name) grinned. Every day she had to sit close to her husband or even at times on his lap, she always felt like her body fit snugly against his.

Blue eyes stared uninterested at the spectacle.

“Dearest?” Poseidon turned his head and met your gaze. Any dark smudges had disappeared beneath his eyes, and his mouth that was carved into a seemingly permanent frown softened. His lips went from a thin line to a gentle curve.

“Thank you.”

No more words needed to be said. Poseidon knew what you were thanking him for, and he responded by closing his eyes as though he was swallowing every ounce of serenity that emitted from you. And the taste was sweet…

Above the angry retaliation of the gods regarding the verdict of Ragnarok, Poseidon enjoyed an elusive peace. Even if it was just a simple moment like this, he set his features in calm lines and his shoulders sank−a truly rare sight, a special secret between himself and his wife.

“I don’t care about this. I am eager to go home.” Poseidon whispered under his breath.

A chuckle left his wife’s lips. “We’re going home soon, don’t fret.”

[youleavethetardisbrakeson]

What do you think about Corlys cheating on Rhaenys? It's something that I've never understood fully because they are so in love in both book and tv show

I've gotten a few asks along these lines and I've been thinking about it... spoilers ahead

First off, some disclaimers of biases: I love Rhaenys and Corlys, but if show!Corlys ever does anything along those lines, of course I'll be upset. (I also know that HotD is predominately trying to show how women suffer at the hands of men/patriarchy; I realize that Corlys isn't exempt from that.) I also like to analyze things from more of a narrative and film perspective, so I hope I am able to separate out my personal opinions on the matter. For instance, I made a post of a similar nature on why their argument in episode 7 and estrangement would be a good thing in the long run for Rhaenys' character development (even though it fucking HURTS).

Now to the question. The biggest factor here is that Fire & Blood is meant to be an INCREDIBLY biased history book. It's a lot of speculation, second-hand accounts, things lost to time, the winners of wars rewriting history, and gossip. House of the Dragon, while it has shifted some things around for TV, is taking the perspective of what actually happened. For instance, Aemond and Vhagar killing Luke and Arrax - the TV show makes it WAY more nuanced and interesting than just a killing.

When it comes to Addam and Alyn, the book explicitly says their "origins remain a matter of dispute amongst historians."

Other interesting quotes include:

"these bastards of Hull were both silver of hair and purple of eye" and other descriptions that they clearly looked like blood of the Dragon/Valyrians. It mentions that they had 'sea salt in their blood' (but they did grow up in a shipyard so... take that for what you will). And then when the call is put out for dragonseeds, only then does their mother "at last break her silence, claiming both boys were the natural sons of the late Ser Laenor Velaryon."

And then all the hot gossip of 'but wasn't Laenor gay???' etc etc

"...Lord Corlys himself, who brought the boys to Prince Jacaerys for the Sowing. Having outlived all of his children and suffered the betrayal of his nephews and cousins, the Sea Snake seemed more than eager to accept these newfound grandsons. And when Addam of Hull mounted Ser Laenor's dragon, Seasmoke, it seemed to prove the truth of his mother's claims."

And then Mushroom chimes in, ever the shit stirrer. He basically argues that Corlys has to be their father because he wasn't gay and also frequented the shipyards. He also thinks Corlys was afraid of Rhaenys finding out and that's why he told Marilda to keep the boys away and didn’t acknowledge them. And then the text says, "in this instance, it must be said, the tale told by the fool seems more likely than the versions offered by septon and maester." The boys become legitimized and Corlys' heirs. And that's about it.

As you can see we are working with a TON of speculation. Mushroom is an unreliable narrator, and none of this is based in fact. It could be any of these suggested events, or none of them.

Now as for the TV show, Corlys is a much more fleshed out character. He ADORES Rhaenys. Eve and Steve are always championing their dynamic and relationship. They are partners, in love, and 'have a good sex life.' Corlys' major flaws, and subsequent issues created in the marriage, are that he doesn't fucking listen to his wife and that he runs away a lot.

At the end of season 1, Corlys has two very important character traits:

1 - "History doesn't remember blood, it remembers names." That man is going around claiming white children left and right, not giving a FUCK if they're actually related to him. It's the name that counts to him.

2 - He is distraught and repentant over the loss of his ENTIRE FAMILY. See the quote above from the book.

With those two established things, plus all the other shit going on already in their marriage, do we REALLY think the show is gonna throw a 'oh and he cheated' plotline into the mix??? Or go with what has already been established, which is that he clearly doesn't care if these kids are related to him, AND he's clinging to some semblance of possible remaining family.

There's also the fact that Laenor is still alive in the show. AND there has to be some Targaryen in Addam and Alyn there because the boys fly dragons. Velaryons are not dragonriders.

So I don't know exactly how the show will frame things, but that's what I have to say on the matter.

[mercy-burning]

The 13th Hour

Part of Mercy’s 1k Celebration: A collection of Spencer Reid x Reader requests to celebrate 1,000 followers.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader and Spencer conduct a 12-hour sexual experiment Category: SMUT (this isn’t as hardcore as it could have been, but it’s still explicit, so 18+ only) Warnings: Some language, Sex (edging, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, female receiving oral sex, fingering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie, aftercare) Word Count: 3.8k

Full Request: “...Okay... Spencer running a little experiment on you, seeing how many times he can edge you... and then how many times he can make you cum, being all clinical and scientific about it, I just can’t get the idea out of my head! Congrats on 1k🥰🥰🥰” — @bluesunrise02

MASTERLIST | 1K MASTERLIST

NOTE: I know I’ve read something similar to this before, but I can’t for the life of me remember whose post it was, so if any of you remember, or know of another concept like this, please let me know! I hope this isn’t too similar, I did try to make it a little different than what I remember from the other fic. I hope you enjoy it! Also, DISCLAIMER! I’m... not really sure if it’s realistic for this to happen in 12 hours, so excuse me if that’s a little out there. I hope it’s okay!

***

HOUR 1

It was something the two of you had talked about before, but with both your crazy schedules, it was hard to find the time. But once there was a weekend where you and Spencer realized you both had off, there was no question about it. This was your time.

There was a notebook in his hands as he examined your body, laid out perfectly for him to do whatever he wanted. Though, seeing him writing things down now seemed strange considering he wasn't actually doing anything.

"What could you possibly be taking note of right now?" you questioned, verbalizing your minor concern.

He just looked up from his work and smirked at you, only for a few seconds before he went back, jotting something else down.

To experiment on your own, you closed your legs and rubbed your thighs together, hoping he'd get the signal.

The second he put his hands on your knees to spread your legs open again, you almost broke down right there. Because you finally realized why he was talking forever to get started.

He was making you wait for it. Getting you excited and antsy.

"Keep 'em open for me, sweet girl," he said softly as he ran the tip of his pencil over your bare thighs. The sensation admittedly made you clench around nothing, and he smiled, returning to write something down.

But then he was done teasing. He set the notebook and pencil down and sat beside you, making sure you looked him in the eyes before he spoke. "Are you sure you still want to go through with this? You know whenever you feel like it, you just say the safeword and we'll stop."

You smiled up at him with a slight nod and reached out to grab his hand. "I'm ready when you are, Doc."

He squeezed your hand and leaned down to kiss you sweetly. Though, the sweetness didn't last. After you started to get squirmy, his hands gently roaming your bare body as he kissed you for about a half hour—Yes, a half hour—he relented, trailing his kisses down to the insides of your thighs. By the time he actually truly touched you, you were already a whimpering mess.

If that was any indication as to how the rest of the day would go, you were in trouble. Good trouble, sure, but trouble nonetheless.

He took it easy, gently swiping his tongue out to tease your clit as his middle finger slowly—and torturously so—entered in and out of you. Whenever he could tell that you were getting closer to orgasm, he pulled back, pressing gentle kisses to the insides of your thighs again and then returning to his work sometime later.

This was a cycle that kept repeating until about another half hour had passed, and Spencer retreated to take more notes.

"You feeling okay?" he asked, brushing the hair from your face.

You smiled up at him, a little frustrated at not being able to get off, but blissed out nonetheless at all the build-up. "Mhm...

HOUR 5

By now he'd brought out the weakest vibrator you had, keeping it on a low setting as he alternated between pressing it to your clit and pumping it in and out of you. In between hours, you'd been drinking water and eaten a few decent snacks to keep yourself hydrated and fed.

You were nearing the end of the first half of the day, and after this next hour you'd be able to stop for an hour to eat lunch and take a break.

But you couldn't focus on that right now.

No, right now you were too busy gasping and moaning out every time Spencer's tongue flicked and swirled over your clit as his fingers worked the vibrator in and out of your body.

The pressure was building and building, and like it had become second nature at this point, you tapped his head to let him know you were on the brink. So he pulled away completely, leaving you whimpering and sweating.

He turned the vibrator off and came to sit next to you rather than in front of you. His hand grazed your cheek as he looked down at you, his gentle and caring nature instantly calming you down.

"Keep going?" he asked softly, rubbing his thumb along your bottom lip.

You kissed it and nodded, knowing you could hold out for another forty minutes or so. "I can do it."

"I know you can, sweet girl. Just a little longer, and then we can take a break."

He kissed you sweetly again before returning to his spot in front of you, and the sound of the vibrator turning on immediately set your insides aflame.

This time, he pressed it to your clit, and you jumped at the sensation. And as if that wasn't enough, he leaned forward and added his tongue to the mix, both of them completely overtaking your senses and sending you into a tailspin.

It didn't take very long for you to need to tap his head again, and he chuckled as he pulled away, leaning into your thigh. "So soon already, baby?" he mused.

"I can take it, I just... I need... more frequent breaks," you breathed, trying to look up at him and failing to keep your head up.

"Oh, that's gonna make the second half of this little experiment so much fun," he mused again, and then dove head-first back into said experiment.

HOUR 6

You were sitting at the kitchen table, and your legs felt like they might fall off. When you told Spencer this, he laughed and reassured you that you'd be fine, but let you know kindly that if you didn't want to go through with the rest of this and stop for the day, that was more than okay, too.

He made you toast and cereal for lunch, despite his protests to get you to eat something a bit more sustainable. But you insisted that you had to have Lucky Charms and toast, and really, who was he to say no to you?

It didn't take long for you to eat, so the both of you spent the rest of your hour-long break cuddled on the couch. You were wrapped in a soft new robe he'd just bought you for an anniversary present, snuggled into his side as he rubbed your head, his fingers brushing through your hair and almost making you fall asleep. And you probably would have, too, if not for the fact that you knew what was coming next.

Despite the slight exhaustion that was starting to wash over you, it kept you awake and alive with electricity just thinking about what the next few hours would entail.

HOUR 8

You'd ended up dozing off a little longer than expected, no doubt throwing off your experiment a little bit, but once you woke up on the couch to find Spencer taking more notes in his book, the feeling you had (relaxed and refreshed and ready to go again) let you know it was worth it.

"Can I see what you're writing?" you mumbled, reaching out to pull him closer to you.

"You can tomorrow. I want you to be as unbiased as possible, so you're gonna have to wait."

You kissed his neck and nuzzled into it, already feeling replenished and ready for phase 2. "Whatever you say, Doctor," you hummed into his skin.

About 20 minutes of making out on the couch, some water, and a bathroom break later, you found yourself perched on the bed again, this time leaning against the headboard and toying the hem of your robe, which you'd left on and open, per your boyfriend's request.

He watched you intently as your hands started to roam, slightly pushing the silk aside to expose your breasts and then gently kneading them. Under his intense staring you felt yourself grow wet again already, and it was... well, intense, for lack of a better word.

After being edged for five hours straight, even with a decent break in between, everything that was happening seemed to be amplified, every sense heightened so that with every touch and even every look, it likely wouldn't take long for you to start falling apart again.

And you couldn't wait.

Rather than tell Spencer this, you showed him, spreading your legs wide and pouting, running your hands down your front and then resting your fingers promptly at the crease of your thighs.

"Eager already?" he laughed, writing something down.

"Mhm," you whined in earnest, though you'd have been lying if you said you didn't do it to catch his attention, too.

Whether that's what did it or not, you were excited to see that he set the notebook down and was making his way to nestle between your legs once more. As he kissed the insides of your right thigh you reached out to run your fingers through his hair.

"You remember your safeword if anything gets to be too much?" he asked, pausing his trail of kisses to look you in the eye.

You nodded, repeating the word, "Raven." The day you walked into the BAU for the first time, the first time you met, he was reading The Raven, and the two of you had a decent discussion about it for hours once you'd had some free time.

And even that was before the both of you had realized just how compatible you two were. You shared a lot of the same interests, and where you didn't know about something, he'd teach you, and vice versa.

That philosophy also happened to extend into your sex lives.

You didn't even really know you were into edging and overstimulation until one night Spencer would not stop teasing you, bringing you to the edge just to pull back until you were begging for him to finish the job.

Now look at where you were.

His finger teasing your pussy and gathering the slickness that had unsurprisingly already started to form there brought you out of your fond daydream. You looked down at him, sighing out at the way he looked in that moment and the way he made you feel. And when his middle and ring fingers slowly pushed into you, his mouth dropping open and forming a small 'o' as he worked so curiously, you start to realize just how lucky you'd gotten.

HOUR 10

"Fuck, baby, please!"

Spencer came to a halt then, keeping himself buried deep inside of you as you gasped out for air.

"You wanna cum again, sweet girl?" he cooed, reaching down to cup your cheek.

You looked up at him and nodded, small whines escaping that closely resembled Mhm.

You'd already cum twice per hour since you'd started phase 2 of this experiment, but with only a few left to go, you pushed through the fatigue and focused on everything else. At first you tried to delay yourself again, thinking that maybe the payoff would be better and the overstimulation wouldn't be as bad, but you were sorely mistaken. After the third time you came, it was clear that there wouldn't be anything you could do unless you stopped it altogether, and you didn't want to. You knew your limits, and if there ever did come a time where you knew it was too much, you knew exactly how to stop it.

It also helped that Spencer was n absolute angel about everything. He always asked if you needed any water, if you were okay to keep going, if you wanted him to slow down or let you take a little break.

You had nothing to worry about.

He started drilling into you again, close to his first orgasm of the day, and you were more than willing to embrace it after having nothing but his hands, mouth, and a vibrator the whole time. Which, of course, was still a damn-near magical experience, but nothing ever compared to the way it felt when he straight-up fucked you. Especially now considering you were practically higher than you'd ever been.

When he did cum inside you for the first time that day, you yelled out, moaning obscenely at how... well, just good it felt. You couldn't think of any other words to describe it, especially while you were on the brink of coming undone yourself. Everything was just so high and sharp and good that you couldn't form proper words.

But you didn't need them.

You came shortly after he did, and Spencer still continued to slowly thrust into you. As his movements slowed, he tilted your head up to look at him, and spoke. "I think you can give me one more before our hour is up, yeah? Just one more, baby?"

"Uh... Uh huh," you breathed, giving him the best smile you could.

When he leaned forward to kiss you, his angle deepened, and you gasped out against his lips. He stayed there, taking sharp, staccato thrusts forward that kept his cum planted deep inside you and quickly started to give you another orgasm.

"You got it, baby, you got it. Let go for me, it's okay..."

His words sent you over the edge, your body finally shuddering with the effects of your sixth orgasm of the day. You clung to his neck, squeezing him until you were sure he couldn't breathe, but nonetheless, he kept at it, encouraging you with sweet words and running his hands gently through your hair.

When you were practically writhing around him in uncomfortable pleasure, he pulled out of you.

You breathed out a shaky sigh of relief against his shoulder, taking in all the sweet whispers he sent in your ear. Eventually your breathing slowed, and together you were both harmonious in slow, gentle breathing. You could have fallen asleep right there.

"I'm gonna pull back to look at you, sweet girl, is that okay?" he asked.

"Uh huh," you offered quietly, loosening your grip on him and allowing him to finally meet your eye again.

His gaze was soft, loving, everything that kept you going.

"Let's take a little break before we finish the rest of this, okay?"

HOUR 12

This was it. This was the homestretch.

After a half-hour break during which Spencer cleaned you up a bit, made sure you were rested and hydrated, and set up for this last hour and a half, he had you on your stomach. Your ass was up in the air, your cheek resting on one pillow while another laid under you for support. It was comfortable, and you knew that it was the best way to end off the experiment.

"You ready for me, pretty girl?" You heard Spencer's voice from behind you, and it made you smile.

"Ready whenever you are, baby," you offered back clearly. You were more than ready for this.

You could practically hear his smile when he said, "That's my girl." His hands ran over your bare ass, and to show that you were in good spirits, you wiggled a little, causing him to laugh as he brought his hands down to your pussy.

The contact made you clench, and a small moan left your lips as he ran his fingers through your wetness.

"I love how eager you are, sweet girl," he mused, continuing his slow back and forth motions from your clit to your opening. And you couldn't help it. You begged. You didn't even really know what in particular you were begging for, just that it was setting your soul on fire not being touched to the fullest extent.

"Please," you cried out, relishing in the way his fingers did touch you, and begging for more.

Thankfully he seemed to be merciful, not wasting any time asking questions and simply getting to work. Two of his fingers slid easily into you, and you moaned out at the sensation. Between that and the small praises you could hear falling from his lips, truthfully you could have fallen asleep. Everything was so high-inducing that it felt like you were floating.

But you didn't fall asleep. You made sure to stay fully aware of what was happening, even if it did feel like time and space were coming in and out of focus sometimes. Besides, that fuzzy feeling was how you'd come to know you were close to orgasm.

It rocked through you like water crashing onto the shore, each new wave of pleasure stronger than the next until it subsided altogether, leaving you with a clean slate in the sand. You were moaning out incoherently into the pillow as you tried to catch your breath, but then smaller, yet still prominent waves met your shore and left you humming as his hips stayed pressed into your ass.

You were coherent enough then to realize that he was coming inside you, and the fuzziness of your surroundings cleared enough for you to hear him calling out your name in sweet, blissed-out whispers. Each syllable was like a prayer, desperate and unwavering as your body relished in the feeling of his warmth flooding inside of you.

But you almost didn't even hear the last part.

"Are you okay, Y/N?"

Surprisingly to you, you found yourself unable to respond—the words were forming in your head, but your body and your mouth simply refused to do anything to communicate how you were feeling.

What did come out was, "How... much... time?"

By now Spencer had pulled out and away from you, and was now perched on the bed, beside you while his hand stroked the hair from your face. "Time's up now, sweet girl. You did so well."

HOUR 13

Time, as it turns out, had not been up.

In actuality, the last hour only ended up being fifteen minutes, and upon seeing how exhausted and almost incoherent you were, Spencer decided to call it quits. Not to mention he had been tiring, himself. It gave him ample time to clean you up and get you into a nice, warm bath, though. As you waited for the water to run, he jotted some quick things down in the notebook and then tended to you the rest of the evening.

He washed you up, gave your shoulders and head a nice massage while doing so, and after about a half hour, dressed you in your favorite, comfiest pajamas. Your legs were so weak that he half-carried you to the bed, where you almost passed out on the spot. He'd crawled into bed with you immediately after throwing on a pair of boxers and a tee shirt, and took the time to rub your head, your arms, anywhere that comforted you.

You barely registered them because of how weak you felt, but he whispered praises against your temple, alternating between gentle words and even gentler kisses.

And now, you were well into the thirteenth hour of your experiment, sleeping soundly beside Spencer as he wrote a few more things down in the notebook.

THE NEXT MORNING

He wasn't there when you opened your eyes. It worried you at first, but you saw a note on his pillow that read: Left to grab breakfast. Be back soon. I love you. —S

You smiled lazily, stretching out and instantly feeling how sore your muscles were. Through a wince, you stretched out some more before spotting Spencer's notebook on his bedside table.

And... Well, he did say that you could look at it after the experiment was over, didn't he?

So you climbed over, grabbed the notebook, and flipped it open, your stomach fluttering with butterflies at the thought of what he might have written.

Sure enough, the more you read, the stronger the butterflies got. Your eyes skirted over page after page, detailing in bullet points the filthy things he did to you and how you reacted, every hour a highlight reel of all that he tried and even some of the things you'd said. Some of it you didn't really remember at first, but it slowly started to come back to you as you woke up more, the blush on your cheeks deepening immensely as you read on.

You got near the end of the experiment, and that's when you noticed an added 13th hour.

More than curious as to what that could entail, you read a few paragraphs in Spencer's messy handwriting that sent a shot of warmth straight to your heart.

Y/N has finally fallen asleep. This is the 13th hour we've spent together today since the experiment started, and truthfully I think it's my favorite one. I find that even the intense fire I felt burning through me all day could never compare to the warmth I'm feeling right now, as she sleeps beside me, blissfully unaware of what I'm writing while her breathing softly threatens to lull me to sleep. I can't think of a better feeling, to be surrounded by her presence. It's comforting and warm and beautiful, and that's not even the half of it.

No matter what remarkably devious things I do to her body in the name of sexual experiments, what matters most to me is that at the end of the day, Y/N feels just as comforted and warm and beautiful as she makes me feel. Which is why I think I'll bring her blueberry pancakes tomorrow morning— they're her favorite. And while I'm out, I want to pick up some of her favorite snacks, some flowers, and maybe a stuffed animal or two. And... maybe that's a little much...

But as long as she knows how much I adore her, nothing is ever too much.

Your throat was suddenly tight, and tears threatened to escape, every muscle in your body tense as they tried their hardest to prevent you from actually crying. Maybe the physical intensity of yesterday was to blame, but deep down you knew that Spencer's heartfelt words would always be more powerful than any physical toll on your body, heart, and soul.

You hadn't even registered that he'd come home, his voice snapping you out of your little trance.

"You weren't supposed to see that yet," he said softly with an amused laugh. When you looked up, his hands were holding a bouquet of pink carnations, your favorite.

And with the soft, loving look in his eye, a tear managed to fall down your cheek. "I love you," you whispered through a smile, feeling your body start to break down after holding in all the tears.

"I love you too, sweet girl," he replied, striding over to you in a few steps.

When he reached the edge of the bed, you sat up on your knees and grabbed his face with your hands, bringing his lips to meet yours as the flowers tickled your chest over the thin material of your shirt.

"You're going to smush the flowers," he mumbled against your lips, and you laughed, pulling away to take them from him.

"Thank you, they're beautiful," you said, tilting your head down to instinctively smell them.

Spencer smiled back at you, and the sight made your heart beat a little faster as he said, "Just like you."

PERMANENT TAGLIST: 

@elldell1204 @muffin-cup @calm-and-doctor @slutforthegubes @s1utformgg @rainsong01 @yourmisosoup

tags not working: @takeyourleap-of-faith @emilyprentisslittlewhore

If you would like to be added to the taglist, feel free to message me or leave a comment, and I’ll add you!

[paradizetobefound]

Okay so I am trying to posit what separates demons from humans in arknights without (idk, I think there are people who know more) having proper idea wtf ak demons are.

DISCLAIMER: demons from tundra and from the south are not discussed there at length or on their own.

So there was this one piece of dialogue in Vigilo event, the difference between machine and human being "obsession". And I had a sudden thought about how this conversation could also map on the demon question.

We know very little about actual demons and what constitutes a "demon". But we have few implications, and there are creatures that seem "demon". Like Kaschei. Phantom troupe itself feels "demonic". And there are mentions here and there of witchcraft and of how it seems to affect the user.

But before we talk about the theory about demons and their relation to humans we shall talk a little about arts, and more specifically, witchcraft since it seems for some reason to have more dramatic manifestation. The second reason is how, at least within european thought, "witchcraft" is historically tied to demons, who are, in fact, a source of witchcraft. (we can talk about how more traditional practices were frequently proclaimed witchcraft under Christianity, though note that this is a shaky argument since while european culture is one of influences within Arknights, it is but one). But the connection is there.

First is the Wight King, who has a very colourful description of him. And this is said to be a consequence of his art practices. We don't have a proper explanation of differences between witchcraft and "normal" arts but still, it is fairly interesting how a "goat" ended up undergoing changes specifically due to witchcraft (something generally associated with the traditional Sarkaz), something that puts under certain question some things about Sarkaz-kind. Regarding the Sarkaz kind, who are frequently derided as "demons" (despite the setting having actual demons whatever they are supposed to be), we know that Kazdel has witchcraft still as a significant aspect of their culture (regarding other lands, one can wonder what "witchcraft" practices could have existed there in the past, idk if it was brought up anywhere) and... it seems to have a rather dramatic synergy with the bloodlines.

While in some ways Sarkaz could be argued as "different groups of people lumped together" and are stated to not having been a properly unified kind, a rather significant aspect of Sarkaz culture is the inherent tie with the Sarkaz Crown (Civilight Eterna). So I think a point I am going to make still stands. Bloodlines have their witchcraft they specialize in, and their inner culture, even some physiological traits (in case of vampires!!) are seemingly reflecting their arts and their psychology.

The vampires would be a good example to dissect as we have a) good representation b) Midnight vs Closure. See, the hypothesis I am about to make is "Vampires manifest more clearly pronounced "vampire" traits as they increase usage, intensity and potency of their blood arts". Exhibit a. Closure is a "Prince" and yet, due to her disintirest in vampire things, she likely doesn't use the arts much. She also shows little bloodlust. Exact status of Midnight as a Vampire is ambiguous but we have little indication of him being "deep" in vampire arts, though he seems to use a little of it in his skin art. Both of them are Vampire Sarkaz who seem to come from very different origins but both share traits of little bloodlust and not going deep down blood arts path. Warfarin meanwhile employs her blood arts (as we can recognize it being a case of her using vampire arts based on observation of vampire arts in chapter 9 and also, it being likely) with much more readiness and she is clearly very interested in blood. And finally, if we examine events in chapter 9, we can notice a further evidence to blood arts boosting bloodlust in a specific scene where Warfarin meets *spoiler*. the king of vampires can easily trigger her bloodlust with his own arts which may also give some implications about how inter-sarkaz connections work So, it is in fact possible that while sarkaz clans gradually grew "more in tune" with their preferred arts as they specialized in them over generations, the preferred arts also may be directly tied to either manifesting or developing specific traits.

To lesser degree we can also observe how Mudrock interacts with soil and also the entire deal with "cannibalism" (for all the issues the whole matter has) and Patriot's background (see his flashback).

Now this particular thesis is... not exactly on the most solid ground. But I think there may be enough food for thought here to post it so, carrying on.

Next are the Blades. The little Kal'tsit's dialogue says us is actually one of the core foundations of the entire theory. We know the bit used to create an Imperial blade comes from actual demons for one. But you see, when Kelsey talks about Blades, she implies a) the way the demon flesh changes not just body but also the mind of the host b) the effect may be considered as growing stronger over time. Now, the narrative links the fanaticism of blades with them gradually loosing their humanity in a manner that seems to suggest as if the demon bit actively interacts with the matter of ideas and ideologies, as if it parasitizes on the thought... wait, it does remind of something.

Originium. Canon information is such: originium stores massive amounts of energy and also, information (more specifically, it may store information of its consumed victims), with stones all but said to create a form of network between themselves, that almost constitutes a collective evil rock mind. Pretty much any cases where it is implied that an "entity" is originium-born, it was almost always single-mindedly obsessed with a certain "something" (and also frequently violent). Easy examples being Ifrit's demon (who is obsessed with burning things down), the voices in Ptilo's head (literally appear after she connects her brain to originium) that are rampant and agressive. Nightmare (in who's profile it is stated that personality disorders like this are one of possible symptoms of oripathy) who is... Nightmare. All of them are "emotional" and all of them are fixated. Less obvious example is Mephisto's bird form, which also seems to be stuck in its own song, hiding away from hurt. Even less obvious example is Rosmontis' brother, who may be the true form of her arts (as per what we get from her profile) and, surprise, after being killed in an experiment (all about creating a living arts-using war machine) with his consciousness "transfered", little we can glimpse about him seems to revolve around his sister remaining "safe". We can talk about it more (like what's up with the Frozen monstrosity and FrostNova) but it is already too long.

From this pespective another argument to be made is how originium's tendency to accumulate information like this and how it may be forming its "cognition" can be taken as "originium is parazitizing on the souls of living things". (kinda puts on the opposite scale of seaborn who are explicitly a rejection of "ego" and of "imagination", so kinda like, idk, if we go for bible metaphors, originium is all about fallout of eating a fruit of knowledge and seaborn are all about rejecting the very notion of tasting a fruit of knowledge and thus remaining "pure" and "undying".)

We have observed that witchcraft, or rather nature of a given witchcraft seems to steer the wielder towards embodying it more. We have observed what seems to be a direct parallel between arts and demons and originium and how it all in the end ties to "emotion", survival, and also, to certain degree, to thought and congnition.

So, the point I am trying to make is that, if humans differ from machines in how humans possess capacity for "obsession", we can argue that it also gives us an answer to what is fundamental to demons in arknights settings, that if humans have obsession, then demons is when "obsession" may as well be all that remains.

There are things I am not quite satisfied here as to the overall thesis, but I hope it makes sense.

[potteresque-ire]

Commentary ~ Little Red Little Green Episode 18, “Fruits & Found Family”

Link to original post in Chinese, posted 2021/05/23. Link to official English translation.

(Disclaimer / Notes + Commentary under the cut!) (TW: possible eating disorder)

Disclaimer / Notes:

While the posts by Little Red Little Green (LRLG) are among my most favourite candies, I’d like to remind everyone that they are fake rumours, and should be read and enjoyed as such. ie, all CPN below!

The English translation linked above is the only one authorised by the Fake Rumour House; therefore, please treat all content below as a very casual, very *unofficial* convo between fellow turtle friends! ❤️💛💚

With Chinese being a highly region-specific language, my reactions to it is necessarily filtered through my background, which is, admittedly, somewhat removed from Gg’s, Dd’s and LRLG’s. However, it is not uncommon for even c-turtles (and several times, LRLG themselves) to be lost with what they read / heard due to regional differences ~ which reflects the reality of communicating in the Sinosphere. In fact, the regionality of the dialects used by different “characters” in LRLG’s dialogues is among the most critical elements that make these posts so authentic-sounding, and so difficult to replicate. A fun activity of following LRLG is to watch c-turtles patch their regional knowledge together, from local slangs to food choices, to make sense of what’s going on. 

Okay, with that all said *phew* ... onto the commentary! “p. X” refers to the panel number in the official English translation (there are 7 total in the Twitter post). 

p1. “Fairy”

Likely referring to the similarity between Gg’s current role for 玉骨遥 (The Longest Promise) and LWJ. Dd was praising Gg for being “fairy-like”; Chinese “fairies” (仙) have a certain style especially in visual media, similar to ... LWJ’s ~ otherworldly, white robes that billow in the wind, peaceful to the point of distant, scholarly, delicate. In between the lines, Gg likely said he was simply playing LWJ (hence, the ”act another me” in the translation), which Dd protested... and said Gg was simply playing himself. Whether that means DD IS NOT LWJ!!!!! 😡😡😡 or something else, we’ll know what we get to watch the show!

p1-p2. “Heat”

Yes about the Chang’e 嫦娥 reference!! Despite Houyi 后羿 shooting down 9/10 suns and saving the day, his wife is, indeed, more famous (and therefore the star, the more powerful one), because she’s frequently featured in Mid-Autumn festival art, along with her pet rabbit 玉兔 (”Jade Rabbit”),:

(Chang’e with her bunny, traditional Chinese painting. Source.)

Below is Gg’s rendition of Chang’e / Jade Bunny pair ~ Chang’e being the superman in the drawing while Jade Bunny is crouching on the planet!! 

Guess of the missing convo from Gg’s side: Gg had wanted to bring something to Hengdian (where the filming of The Longest Promise was taking place) to cool himself down, and Dd had said it wasn’t necessarily. Hence Dd’s “My bad my bad” and the promise to send that something to Gg.

The loveliest line in this segment for me—and for many c-turtles— is the one about white hair. Turning grey a common, but very old-fashioned way of expressing worry and poor Dd, who hasn’t even turned 24, is claiming he was turning white because he got so worried every time Gg complained about the heat (Aww). 

Turning grey with worry isn’t limited to romantic situations — it may happen to doting parents with wayward children, for example, or to ancient patriots over their crumbling kingdom. However, it’s also one of the more (very!) dramatic ways to communicate tragic love in Chinese fiction before Western influence allows “love”, as a term / word / character, to be used explicitly in writing romance. 

Here’s a little example, a little diversion that may be of interest. Those who are familiar with the Wuxia classic Return of the Condor Heroes 神雕俠侶 by Jin Yong 金庸, whether it’s the book or its numerous visual adaptations, may remember how the hero, Yang Guo 楊過, went white at his temples overnight after his Shifu and lover, Xiao Long Nv (小龍女), didn’t show up at the cliff at the end of his 16-year wait for her.  

Set photo from a TV adaption of Return of the Condor Heroes, 1995. Turtles may find the actress playing the perenially white-wearing, calm-to-the point-of-aloof Xiao Long Nv, Carmen Li 李若彤, familiar ~ she also played Lan Yi in The Untamed. 

The 16-year wait, the invitation to Carmen to play Lan Zhan’s ancestor (when the two shared similarities in aesthetics and personality), were two of the three references from Return of the Condor Heroes I picked up from The Untamed (the last one was more specific—WWX mentioned Yang Guo’s master 獨孤求敗). This tribute is unconfirmed, but MXTX did say before that Jin Yong’s works were her inspiration. I also read a (small) discussion on whether LWJ’s hair carried a few pieces of white in the final episode, or if the lighter strands in it were a trick of the sunlight. (Here’s a screenshot of the approximate place to look!!) 

While I lean towards the latter (the sunlight), turning white with worry, with love, is a tradition in Chinese storytelling. Here’s a little something I’ve noticed too, on this note ~ both in the actual interviews and in these fake rumours, Dd’s word choices, the way he conveys emotions are sometimes surprisingly traditional. It can be because of his background (which would require a study of how Luo Yang people and Koreans talk); it can be because the traditional way of talking allows for fewer words to be said, fewer things to have to be explicitly explained (example: LWJ), but the effect is that Dd has supplied the most romantic lines in LRLG’s posts because of that ~ romantic because it harks back to the rhythm, the themes of old poetry, of ancient stories that, as were true everywhere in the world, were about love. 

Okay, back to the rumour (and hoping Dd won’t look like Bad Wig Yang Guo in a few more summers!) ....

The line after the one about white hair ... the way I understand the original Chinese sentence is “Heat is The Reason”: ie, anything Dd wants Gg to do and Gg disagrees, Gg would use heat as The Reason (R) to not do it. This anything may be eating, for example, which also has a strong possibility as conventional Chinese wisdom says that heat causes people to lose appetite. Dd’s worry would therefore be: Gg refusing to eat because he claims it’s too hot to do so.

“Corny joke” ~ the Chinese for this is, literally, “cold 冷 joke 笑話”, which becomes a pun as the gzry (team members)’s joke was about the (cold) winter and black hair. So... Dd threw a corny joke to combat a corny joke :D .

p3. “Apple”

The first half I also had to rely on c-turtles to help me interpret what it meant! Regional dialects aside, LRLG has captured dls’s very quick wit, the way his ideas freely hop from one concept to the next and this hopping carries traditional + popular cultural references that I know only a fraction of, not being a local after all. 

I’ve read an additional interpretation of this segment: “big fruit” 大果兒 (as in dls: “Those are all big fruits, all big fruits”) is a Northern Chinese, traditional slang for women—dls might have connected that with the previous line in the convo about being Guowang, as explained in the translation, and “big and juicy” + “touch to feel” being suggestive phrases. Then, given the rare usage of the big fruit = women slang, dls expressed surprise that Dd understood what he meant, went on to say he expected Gg to know it (implying Gg could’ve taught Dd the meaning) ... 

Which led to the entertaining part of this segment. Dd was like “You guys (= Gg + dls) talked?” Dls appeared to have thought of the scenario customarily inviting this question (scenario: someone on the verge of catching their spouse cheating) and began playacting that scenario, started to stammer ... as if he had just been got caught trying to chat up someone’s spouse  ~  ”I-I-I....how to say it ...”. Dd caught on dls’s playacting and went along, continued with the “accusation”: “You’re stammering”. Dls then noted that Dd’s accusation was scary and Dd smiled, ending the playact ~ so, ah, readers, never mess with Dd’s spouse!! Dd gets scary!! 

(BTW: ”nijia na kouzi” 你家那口子 was explained in the translation for a reason ~ It’s a warm, friendly term for a dear friend’s spouse. 😊)

p4. Lychees

Lychees. Has everyone tried them? It’s important not to over-eat them though...

In which the “Feeding Gg” saga continues! This segment is one of those that are wonderful for fic writers who wish to capture Gg and Dd in words. Gg, like many brought up in traditional families, has trouble saying “no” outright, which is often considered rude. As such, he resorted to delay tactics, something he had also done with the fried noodles in The Makeup Room BTS. 

In the BTS, his delay tactics had been to argue that Dd hadn’t eaten his box of noodles and therefore, he couldn’t start (~2:35 mark)—as proper manners indeed dictated. In this dialogue, his delay tactics was to say he’d eat the lychees later, that the lychees would make him too full for the proper meal (rice). 

A cute thing about this convo is that rather than pouting and grumbling his only being LWJ’s replacement (as he had hilariously done in the BTS), Dd had, apparently over the last three years, become an expert on countering such delay tactics. He peeled the lychees, which not only removed a major obstacle for eating, but also set a timer as peeled lychees get dry quickly (and Gg, despite being a picky eater, didn’t seem to like to waste food). He said the fruit could make appetiser. He got the help of their team members, who assured Gg that two lychees would be all right.

Gg’s response to the assurance... takes a little time to explain. 

The original Chinese line for “Great, great, you’re so awesome” was 絕了絕了你們絕了。 “絕了”, a popular phrase used by Chinese netizens, was repeated three times.

絕, literally, means the extreme, the absolute, the end. 絕了 means pretty much the same ~ a thing that is 絕了 is standing en pointe at the edge of the cliff that is The Absolute End of a spectrum. It is the Ultimate. It can't be surpassed. It’s unbeatable. 

絕了 is usually used in a positive sense, as in the English translation, with the positive being implied. If I say the LWJ photo above is 絕了, for example, I don’t need to specify that the extreme in 絕 stands on the good end. It’s understood given the audience of this post are mostly turtles (HELLO *waves*). We’re all heart-eyes here. We agree, without saying, that this photo is The Top, The Pinnacle; it can’t be better. 絕了 is higher praise than Excellent; it’s so good that there are no adjectives for it. Its own presence defines How Good It Is. 

But 絕了 doesn’t have to be positive. If my audience is Su She ... he’s likely to take the same “This LWJ photo is 絕了” to mean the Mariana Trench kind of Absolute—the bottom of the bottom, the Unbeatable, Adjective-Defying Worst. 

絕了 allows for that understanding too.

In this scenario, I interpret Gg’s 絕了 as taking the meaning of both extremes (which make it a fantastic phrase choice!): that Gg thought Dd and the team members were being both the Absolute Best (for thinking of Gg, caring for him) AND the Absolute Worst (for going against his wish to not eat!) Gg’s 絕了 also signals defeat; if Dd and his team members were The Absolute ... Whatever, then poor Gg had no choice but to yield to their wishes. I can already imagine his “I can’t believe I lose this way” Look (see: every rock-paper-scissors he lost, which was ... pretty much all of them), mixed with, perhaps, a healthy amount of bunny tooth warning (how dare Dd et al banded up against him)...

Those bunny teeth had to be taken care of, right? And so Dd went on to say lychees being good omen that ensure things would go smoothly for the eater... targeting Gg’s being a, as c-turtles call it, 小迷信 (literally, “Little Superstitious”, a young + adorable + superstitious person). Dd said that to help Gg justify the choice to eat, to make Gg feel better about his defeat. 

(Of note: I had actually never heard of lychees being associated with good luck before, and a quick search online also didn’t yield any result. This could be a relatively rare association Google failed to catch ... or something Dd made up on the fly to make Gg happy.) 

(Lychees have, however, been associated with romance. If Emperor’s Smile 天子笑 was The Love Drink in The Untamed, then what is Concubine’s Smile 妃子笑? Answer: it’s the RL name of a type of lychees, lychees being the fruit very much adored by Yang Yuhuan 楊玉環, the consort of the Emperor Xuanzong (685-762 BCE) of the Tang Dynasty and one of the four most beautiful woman in Chinese history. Since lychees had only been grown in southern China, the emperor had had the fruit couriered, in express mode involving many horses, to the palace up north to please his favourite wife. Lychees had become a symbol of love from that historical tale.)

Did Gg get Dd’s message then, the love and care packaged in those peeled, sweet fruit awaiting his bite? Yes, but not without a little more fight! “Eat eat eat, (I’ll eat) until you go bankrupt” is a literal translation of his final line. Tonally, I can see the following as being an alternative translation: 

“Fine fine fine. I’ll eat, it’s not like I can bankrupt you by eating anyway!”

If it sounded a little sulky, that’s because it did ... a little sulky AND fiery. As expected from our favourite Chongqing Big Pepper 😂😂😂 (Poor Gg).

Dd smiled at that, needless to say. He won!!! He got Gg to eat!! The world shall rejoice!! 

p5. “Showtime”

There’s a show coming up for Dd (the YH concert maybe?), and Gg offered suggestions. 

The sweet point of this segment is about half-way down the conversation, in the piece of paper 📄 Gg gave to Dd (after “This is for you.”). Dd took the paper, noted the many words on it, and started saying 我把我整個靈魂, translated as “I bring my entire soul”.

c-Turtles have, based on these words, hypothesised that Dd was about to read out a quote that Gg had written on the paper, with the list of items Gg thought Dd should take, before Gg stopped him with a call of his name (“WYB”). The quote was included on the translation (”I give you my entire soul...only, a little good, love you.”) I have also talked about the same quote, in more detail, here.

I’m equally stumped on the final line of this segment. (Sorry!!)

p6. “Found Family”

It’s a heartwarming segment. While LRLG had previously noted that the TTXS bros had communicated with Gg, this segment made clear that they care for him like they do for Dd ~ as family.

* dls mailed Gg a lot of fruit for sharing with the film crew. “Family member needs to be impressive” is a rough translation, but this line does defy simple translation because 排面 a highly cultural concept that has much to do with the equally complex, Chinese concept of face (which this article explains... somewhat adequately). The message to take home is that dls cared enough about Gg that he wanted to make sure Gg wouldn’t lose face in front of the film crew; that, by having enough gifts (fruits) for everyone, Gg wouldn’t be viewed as cheap or inadequate or stingy, or whatever adjective that wouldn’t befit his top idol status. Because dls saw Gg as a member of his family. 

* The prescription from hg had been mentioned in a previous LRLG rumour. 方子 is a Chinese medicine prescription, which, unlike Western formulations, is individualised both to the discomfort / ailment and to the “body constitution” of the person who'll take it, the latter deciding the kind of ailments the person is susceptible to, and which ingredients are expected to be more effective. Chinese medicine also places a strong emphasises on long-term conditioning, whether it’s for recovery from a certain condition or for general good health. A good 方子 is therefore a far more complex and personal thing than, say, a scribble of “paracetamol” / “acetaminophen” on a piece of paper. :D

* fg’s gift for Gg (xx) is something for the waist. A brace support, maybe? For example?

My favourite line in this segment is when hg asked what will Gg and Dd do when they reach hg’s age. Given that the last two items (the prescription and xx) were health-related, I interpreted it as hg worrying about Gg and Dd’s health when they grow old... with all the health problems they already have. It’s the kind of thing a worried parent say to their children ~ my mom has said the same thing to me as well. 😢

p6. “The Cat Paw”

Not quite sure what’s happening here ... not sure what the cat paw is. (Sorry!!) But that é in the translation is Dd’s signature laugh (collection here), which is written as 鵝 (”Goose”) in Chinese 😂.

p7. “The Cat Toy”

Dd appeared to be shopping for a cat’s toy (something that can “hook the cat” in the translation, such that the cat can entertain itself and not rely on human companionship as much). Gg had already bought the toy though and sounded quite proud of it, told Dd to return the toy. The implied cat was, of course, Nut (堅果 Jianguo)... which had been repeatedly referred to in LRLG’s posts as Gg’s daughter.

p7. “Cool vs Cute”

Gg is often viewed as cute, and Dd as cool. Did Dd dislike Gg taking cute pictures for public consumption? Were they scheming an exchange of image? :D

And that’s it for this issue! Ooh, this took unexpectedly long ... I apologise for the ridiculous delay between the original post and this commentary! 

(I wrote half of it, then RL struck and I forgot about it.) (I’m hopeless.) (I need a 方子 for poor memory!!)

[rivalsforlife]

Phoenix Wright: The Truth Reborn: Oh No We’re Doing This Again

hi.

Nearly two months ago, I wrote an essay summarizing and making very wild conclusions about the second Takarazuka Musical. I did this about two and a half years after watching the first Takarazuka musical. As such I did not have the full context for many things from the musical and was relying mostly on my memory, which blocked many things from this musical for my own safety. However, just this week, I decided to rewatch it, because I enjoy tormenting myself. I said I wouldn’t write anything on it. Here I am writing something on it.

Here’s the youtube thumbnail so that you know what you’re getting yourself into. And here, of course, is the link. This is the HD version which may be slightly more pleasant to watch. Maybe.

It was not quite as cringe in a funny way as the second musical to me, and therefore this essay may be less funny, but I feel like I’m doing a disservice to people by providing a summary of the second musical while completely neglecting the first. Quite possibly doing this is even more of a disservice. I just eagerly await the day that the third musical is translated because *that* will be the day that I finally shuffle off this mortal coil. Either way, I want to write this stuff down so that I never have to watch the musical again out of curiosity.

The following essay will contain major spoilers for both the first and second Phoenix Wright Takarazuka musicals, as I will be using many points from this musical to argue my thesis of the second musical. ... like you were going to watch them anyways. 

This one broke 8k. I’m dead inside.

Introducing The Director

Again another disclaimer that I don’t have anything against the actresses or the theatre troupe. I DO have something against Suzuki Kei, who I recently learned is the writer and director of all three of the Ace Attorney Takarazuka musicals, and is quite possibly my mortal nemesis.

This man is the one who brought this monstrosity into the world.

This man, allegedly, cleared the first four ace attorney games *seven times* before sitting down to write these musicals. He played these goddamn games seven times and did not take in a single word. The man clicked through them mindlessly while watching a badly written legal romance drama in the background and got them completely confused. I genuinely have no idea how this man could have played these games more times than even me and yet managed to get so many characters (MAYA!!!!) completely and utterly wrong. This haunts me every day, truly.

This man played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seven times. SEVEN TIMES EACH!! and was told to create a musical based on the series. He played these games seven times each and you know what he said?? You know what he said?? “This sucks, I’m getting rid of all of Phoenix’s backstory, butchering half the characters, and writing Phoenix/Lana fanfiction, but also rewriting all of Lana’s backstory so that she was Phoenix’s childhood friend, and you know what, I’m changing her name for good measure.”

I think this man played the games seven times each and then hated it so much and was so sick of it he tried to write something that destroyed as much of the series as possible while still being vaguely recognizable. And then somehow it became a massive hit because people like me see this and go “what the actual hell” and watch it, or people who haven’t played the games see this and go “wow what a great musical!” and then he wrote TWO MORE, destroying EVEN MORE every time in his wake, until finally, finally, he stopped after making Edgeworth straight and time traveling into the past to face off against a corrupt Gregory. I guess that was the last straw.

I have to issue a disclaimer here that for legal reasons this is a joke. I don’t actually hate this man and would not punch him in the face if I met him because that would be rude, and he is entitled to his wrong interpretation of the games. I don’t know what his thought process was. But allegedly he did play the games seven times according to the wiki. This whole essay here is satire and not slander and I don’t want to offend this guy if he somehow stumbles across my nonsense tumblr post. At the same time: Suzuki Kei blink twice if you need help.

Anyways half the reason that I’m making this essay is because I want to share my fake ao3 page for this musical. The other half will become apparent later.

Sorry if that’s illegible because of tumblr quality it’s not really important. All you really need to know is that it’s a fake ao3 screenshot for the musical. Also in the author’s note I said he played the games four times but it was actually seven I just remembered wrong because I didn’t want to believe it.

at this point you may be like “Grace shut up and get to the actual musical” and okay, fine, let’s start this nonsense. Also note that I may be referencing things from my essay on the second musical very frequently; I’m not going to force you to go read that though because the fact that you’re reading this is enough of a torment already.

The Musical Begins

Unlike the second musical, this one opens with some narration from Phoenix.

Transcript:

Phoenix: I’m reviewing a particular case at the moment. To me, this case... is one I’ll never forget.

Immediately I think this is important because it establishes that this whole musical takes place in a flashback that Phoenix is reflecting on. Why is this important? Because we know, by the time of the second musical which takes place three years later, Leona is dead.

Knowing that Leona is inherently doomed to die of her Sad Woman Disease paints this whole musical in a different light. It’s not Phoenix reflecting on how he got back together with his lover; it’s Phoenix dwelling on their past together, and the opportunities they had, before her life was so cruelly and inexplicably taken away. We don’t know if Phoenix’s reminiscing takes place before or after Leona’s death... but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was after.

Phoenix, still in the present, starts to sing. “A wave appears on the horizon like a mirage, it trembles, then vanishes. Your voice, carried upon the waves, fades upon the shore, erasing the splendor of the past.”

This line actually shows up in the second musical, sung by Lucia about her imprisoned fiance quite possibly. It’s kind of hard to tell what the meaning of these songs even are. They’re too abstract for me I think. But this line appears very frequently in the first musical when Phoenix is thinking about Leona.

Then we enter the flashback time.

Phoenix inexplicably yells at a newspaper saleswoman. This is not relevant to anything whatsoever. Then Larry barges in to the office, looking for Maya. Phoenix describes him as “A real trouble maker, but you just can’t hate the guy”, the latter part of which I think many people would disagree with. 

Well, afterwards, Maya comes in. Phoenix describes her like this while making exaggerated “can you believe this shit” gestures.

Transcript:

Phoenix: She’s as ditzy as they come. Oh, and about the outfit... Apparently she comes from a family of spirit mediums. Try not to make fun of her, okay?

Suzuki Kei personally has it out for Maya and I can never forgive him for it. Maya in these musicals is here for pure comedic relief but it’s not even comedic because I just get so angry. How can you play the trilogy seven times and think this about her?? The girl who figured out DL-6?? The girl who told Phoenix to sacrifice her life in order to find the truth?? The girl who put on a brave smile in order to try and cheer up her younger cousin even after she saw her own mother murdered right in front of her eyes?? That Maya Fey?? Ditzy as they come??????

Ugh. Moving on.

Maya and Larry run off, leaving Phoenix to watch the American Broadcast.

Important things to note here are the Godot mug, the little line up of what I think are the messed up little ace attorney figurines beneath the screen, and the fact that while this broadcast is supposedly from and to America the screen is actually not at all showing America. Like literally almost everywhere in the world except North and South America.

The broadcast says that Leona Clyde, age 24, was arrested for murdering the senator Robert Cole! Leona Clyde -- that’s Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend! He runs off to the detention center.

She is not happy to see him.

Leona: Mr. Wright... I’m not the woman you once knew.

Let’s Play A Matching Game

Sorry for the abundance of screenshots that are going to be throughout this section. Phoenix convinces Leona to let him defend her. Some of the conversation seems... familiar.

Leona: No one would defend someone who admits to killing a senator. I’m waiting for a court-appointed attorney.

Edgeworth: Every defense attorney I’ve talked to has turned me down.

Phoenix: In that case, let me defend you.

Game Phoenix: Let me defend you.

Leona: Don’t be ridiculous!

Edgeworth: Don’t be ridiculous.

Phoenix: I’ll never accept that you’re a murderer. Let me prove your innocence!

Game Phoenix: Huh? Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to prove that Miles Edgeworth is innocent.

Leona: I’ve already confessed my guilt.

Gumshoe: He confessed that he did it! In court!

Leona: It’s foolish to think you can win this case.

Edgeworth: My case is near hopeless, Wright.

Leona: (in response to phoenix offering to defend her) No you won’t! Don’t ever come here again.

Edgeworth: Look, just go away, and leave me alone!

Phoenix: You of all people should know. Once I decide to do something, I see it through to the end.

Edgeworth: Once you start on something, you always see it through, don’t you?

Leona: I never thought that you’d be representing me.

Phoenix: Ah, who could have guessed this day would come?

Edgeworth: Not me.

Phoenix: You believed in me. You saved me. And this time, I swear... I swear I’ll save you!

Game Phoenix: Edgeworth believed in me, and I believe in him. I’m the only one who knows the real Edgeworth. I’m the only one who can help him.

I could’ve done a few more, but tumblr is already threatening to murder my laptop.

So long story short, Phoenix manages to convince his lover to let him be the defense on the case. Then immediately after swearing to save Leona, he starts singing a song, which I’m not screencapping because this is enough:

“As long as there are people in this world, there’s only one path I will follow! As long as there is love in this world, there’s only one path I will believe in!”

Edgeworth sings this in the second musical after saying that he returned to California because of Phoenix. Phoenix sings it now after swearing to defend Leona. You draw your own conclusions.

And then we finally get the opening credits. Eleven minutes in.

Just Pretend This Is Narumitsu Fanfiction

Following the credits, we see a beautiful beach. Couples (exclusively heterosexual, of course,) dance and embrace in the background for some time, before revealing Phoenix and Leona, in the Even Further Past, before the LSATs or whatever the ace attorney universe’s excuse for law school exams are.

Phoenix establishes his absolute hatred of change, an important characterization moment.

Phoenix: The view here never changes, huh?

Phoenix reminisces on when they were kids. Leona’s parents were both lawyers (they’re both lawyers) and sometimes they would be like lawyers with her when she was a kid. This inspired her to also become a lawyer after their tragic death of Sickness. They never specify what the sickness is that caused two people who must be relatively young to die while Leona was in her early twenties at the latest. It may be whatever sickness claimed Leona’s life later. Sad Woman Disease. (Sad Man Disease for her father, I guess?)

Phoenix also talks about why he’s becoming a lawyer.

Phoenix: Watching you chase your dream inspired me to become a lawyer too.

So, it’s not “my childhood friend looked sad in a newspaper” because I guess that makes no sense or is too gay or something. But this is another important piece of Phoenix characterization. His entire life so far has been focused around Leona. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and then Phoenix decided to become a lawyer solely because Leona was becoming a lawyer. Not even to try and get back into contact with her after she moved away or anything; just because he’s so obsessed with her that he wants to have the same career as her, then they can run a Mom & Pop Law Firm or something, years in the future, after years of happy marriage and a few children or like whatever the hell.

Well, there’s a few steps they’ll need to get to that. At this point Phoenix still hasn’t confessed his feelings for Leona. He does so here, on this beach.

Leona tries to protest.

Leona: But I’m pushy, selfish, and only care about my goals... You’d get fed up with me.

Phoenix: That’s what I’ve always admired about you. That’s who I’ve been chasing all these years. That’s the only person... I love.

Sooo, Phoenix, your type is pushy selfish people who only care about their goals...? In the first, older lower-quality video translation it was “only care about my work”, too. Hm. Things to think about.

They sing a little duet together. Then we go back to present-day of what’s technically still a flashback. Whatever. Murder is happening.

Back To The Murder

So some plot things to establish: Leona is the legal counsel of Governor Miller, who is running for president in the AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. After the flashback so that Phoenix has some time to change clothes, they show an interview of him talking about the murder.

Governor Miller: I vow to forge a peaceful country with my own two hands, and to prepare myself for whatever may lie ahead.

Reporters: Through thick and thin, he’s a friend of the people!

The Takarazuka musicals are not very good at hiding their killers.

Phoenix: Oh yeah... It’s almost time for the presidential election, isn’t it?

NEVER FORGET, WRIGHT. THIS IS AMERICA. LAND OF THE FREE! god what even was that line.

Anyways, we meet Gumshoe, who is incompetent once again. Maya runs around the crime scene, picks up the murder weapon, puts her fingerprints all over everything, moves things around, all while Phoenix is like “lol get a load of the world’s stupidest girl” or whatever. But who cares about that.

It’s time to get to the only valid part of this musical.

Edgeworth’s Gay Little Villain Solo

You may have seen this one before.

Edgeworth arrives, but not really. It’s like Phoenix heard Edgeworth was prosecuting and immediately entered a dream-like state, where Edgeworth is heralded by the sound of trumpets in Great Revival. He’s played by a different actress than in the other two musicals, since I think she retired in between the six or so months from this musical to the second. She still plays the role well, though, or as well as can be when you’re written in an ace attorney Takarazuka musical.

Shrouded in scarlet solitude... it’s Edgeworth.

Yes, those are six Edgeworths. Yes, they pick Phoenix up and carry him around and dance with him. Yes, it was probably not meant to be at all homoerotic.

He sings a song that’s called “My rule”. I only figured this out later, but it’s loosely based on a “catchphrase” of his in the Japanese version - in game 1 he says something along the lines of “All I can do is get every defendant declared guilty! So I make that my policy.” In DD in his dramatic anime introduction before the trial, he says “I intend to question the defendant with all I have. For that is a part of my creed.” “So I make that my policy” and “For that is a part of my creed”, to my understanding, are both translated from the same line, which I think is like, “sore ga watashi no ruru”, “That is my rule.” (If I’m wrong, please correct me.) In this song he sings about how he’ll reduce all criminals to ash and such, basically talks about his game 1 prosecuting strategy as “my rule”. 

It’s very fun and probably if you want to only watch one number of this musical, it can be this one. It starts about 26:10 in the video I linked.

Once the musical number is done, Phoenix and Edgeworth stare at each other, and the background fades into the courtroom, so court begins. I feel like I should note that Phoenix has not picked up any evidence or talked to any witnesses in this investigation except for Gumshoe, since Maya just moved some things around and then Phoenix had some weird fever dream about Edgeworth which presumably took up the rest of the day.

The Trial, Day 1

Edgeworth: Consider it a prelude to the poignant Greek tragedy that’s about to unfold.

Maya: The real tragedy’s your pompous attitude!

Those are the only screenshots I took of this trial day. Here’s a summary, though:

The trial starts off with Leona confessing, Phoenix says “no I think she’s innocent”, and since ace attorney doesn’t care about the defendant’s wishes he’s allowed to proceed. For some reason Leona lets him do this without complaint. 

Gumshoe is the first witness, he claims to have caught Leona red-handed at the scene of the crime, standing over the corpse. Phoenix tries to claim that since Gumshoe didn’t see Leona committing the crime, he didn’t actually catch her red-handed, to which Edgeworth responds “What do you think being caught red-handed means?” 

Once Gumshoe is dismissed, Lotta takes the stand. She has a photo of the actual moment of the crime, where Leona is holding a knife in the air in front of the victim. 

The Takarazuka musicals like to do this thing where the image is blurry and zoomed out, but then Phoenix will go “I’VE NOTICED A CONTRADICTION” and it zooms in really far as the resolution increases drastically in order to show you the contradiction that is impossible to spot for yourself, because they don’t want people figuring out the mystery in this musical based off of a video game where you have to solve the mystery yourself. Anyways Phoenix zooms in on this photo and sees that there’s blood on Leona’s hand, presumably before she stabbed the victim. How did it get there?

Edgeworth suggests the victim was stabbed multiple times. Phoenix says the autopsy report contradicts that. Edgeworth, uncharacteristically, does not update it to suit his argument. 

Phoenix concludes that this photo is not showing the moment Leona stabbed the victim, but the moment Leona removed the knife! ... Which somehow casts doubt on her having been the one to stab the victim. Because as everyone knows, anyone wanting to kill someone would never remove a knife, it’s not like they’d bleed out faster that way, or anything.

And this whole contradiction is confusing because presumably if the victim was stabbed and then the knife was removed, they’d know that happened, because then the knife would not be found stuck in the victim’s body, since the victim was only stabbed once. So this shouldn’t be news to the prosecution that someone removed the knife after stabbing. But the investigation was headed by the most incompetent version of Gumshoe ever, so. sure. I guess no one knew.

That at least manages to extend the trial another day.

This Totally Has To Be Illegal

After the trial, Phoenix goes to talk to Governor Miller, aka Mr. Totally The Real Killer. Phoenix asks him why he decided to hire Leona as his legal advisor.

Basically, it’s because her parents were both renowned lawyers. Her father was a Chief Prosecutor, and her mother was a defense attorney. ... a prosecutor and a defense attorney couple... who does that remind us of...

Phoenix points out that just because her parents were good lawyers, it doesn’t mean she’d necessarily be one. Miller says that, sure, but she is actually really talented, and her law school marks were spectacular. Phoenix says “WHY WERE YOU LOOKING AT HER LAW SCHOOL MARKS”, like it’s somehow? suspicious? for a government official hiring legal counsel to look at their law school marks?

Apparently it IS suspicious because Governor Miller freaks out and asks if this is an interrogation. Before Phoenix can press much further, he gets a phone call, and leaves Phoenix alone in a big room.

So naturally Phoenix behaves like a fully grown adult running a law firm.

If all he did was sit in the chair, lift up a desk lamp, and poke his finger on a pen, that’s one thing. But then he leans over, OPENS THE GOVERNOR’S DESK DRAWER, and finds a knife that’s just sitting there casually. It looks like a butter knife. It’s not anything major. Maybe the dude just wanted to butter his toast?

I mean I know Phoenix will dig around in stuff whenever in the games, but he has no reason to suspect Governor Miller at all, much less dig through his drawer probably full of confidential government documents to lift up a knife that he thinks is suspicious. It’s not even covered in blood or anything?

Naturally Governor Miller’s assistant comes in just then, and Phoenix puts the knife. in his breast pocket. 

bud. It may look like a butter knife, but putting knives up against your chest is not a great idea. Much less stealing a knife from a governor? 

Well, in his panic, he accidentally knocks over a bunch of books on the desk. The governor’s assistant helps him pick them up, and they find a photo. Look a little familiar?

The photo has the assistant, the victim Robert Cole, Governor Miller, and the victim’s brother who died in an incident two years ago. He’s the “Neil Marshall” of this musical, and he died in what was essentially the SL-9 incident. Same general premise, except it occurred in the courthouse, and the names are different.

AND FINALLY WE REACH THE END OF ACT 1. They do a musical number here which is a weird sort of mashup of the main opening credits song, Edgeworth’s Villain Solo, and the love duet between Phoenix and Leona. They are all such different songs that it sounds a little weird.

ACT 2, FINALLY

The act begins on a sour note with Maya playing with the knife and showing off her characterization, which is one of the most infuriating Maya characterizations you’ll sometimes see around the fandom by people who don’t like Maya.

Maya: Let me whip up my special spirit channeler hamburgers!

sigh.

But then we’re saved (?) by the arrival of EDGEWORTH, who is presumably just here to chat. He asks Phoenix if he’s defending Leona in hopes of winning her back, then says to keep out of it, since it’s a very important case and he can’t understand the gravity of it.

Then Phoenix says this.

Phoenix: Would you be saying that if you were the one on trial? The defendant is in a dark prison, reaching out for hope... Can you imagine the loneliness and sorrow of being ostracized?

CAN YOU IMAGINE IT, EDGEWORTH? CAN YOU IMAGINE IF YOU WERE ON TRIAL AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD DEFEND YOU AND BELIEVED IN YOUR INNOCENCE??

Edgeworth responds to this by essentially rehashing his speech in Turnabout Sisters about how he needs to find all defendants guilty because he can’t guarantee their innocence and all that. Maya gets upset and leaves so that Phoenix and Edgeworth can talk about their childhood in private.

Phoenix once again complains about how people change since nine years old.

Phoenix then says that he has something Edgeworth doesn’t: the POWER TO BELIEVE! Then Maya comes in and tries to spike Edgeworth’s coffee, so he leaves.

The Class Trial

Phoenix explains a bit about Edgeworth and his backstory to Maya. Namely, the class trial. Phoenix was accused of stealing lunch money, Edgeworth stood up for him, but instead of Larry, Leona stood up for him. I guess Suzuki Kei thought “oh the class trial, if Leona stood up for him, it would be so romantic, because she’s a woman, and he’s a man”, or something like that. 

Edgeworth wanted to become a Great Lawyer Like His Father! But then he turned cold as ice.

Phoenix: His father got too deeply involved in a case... and paid for it with his life. Edgeworth saw him murdered. He was never the same again. I bet he couldn’t forgive the criminal.

Yeah I bet he couldn’t ever forgive the person he thought killed his father all these years, Phoenix. I bet he really hates that person, Phoenix. I bet he has nightmares about that person killing his father or something, Phoenix.

Phoenix: He vanished, then returned without his mercy or compassion. He had become a monster. When he lost his father, he also lost the ability to believe in others.

So like... one of the most chilling things about this musical is that they never actually solve DL-6. This probably roughly takes place 15 years after DL-6, since they were about the same age when the class trial started, and at least Leona is 24 now. The next musical takes place three years from now, and in it, Edgeworth refers to von Karma as his mentor, implying he’s still around and doing things.

So, in addition to everything else going wrong with this musical, DL-6 still happens, but von Karma never frames Edgeworth for it fifteen years later. The statute of limitations runs out, and von Karma forever gets away with his crime. And Edgeworth has no idea.

What changes did they make to DL-6, though, you may ask? I’m desperate to know as well. In the third musical, which I’ve watched because I hate myself but am unable to fully understand because I don’t know much Japanese, there is a scene where Miles flashbacks to DL-6. It’s abstract, but he makes gun-throwing motions at Gregory, followed by a gunshot sound.

Therefore, in this musical’s internal canon, either Miles Edgeworth shot his father, or he believes he did for the rest of his life.

... moving on.

Phoenix: But he still has his humanity. It’s still there, deep down inside!

At least, if nothing else, Phoenix still believes in him. Even this Takarazuka Musical couldn’t touch that.

The Feenie Sweater

Right after this, Larry barges in, and Phoenix leaves him alone with Maya. The musical tries teasing Larry/Maya, but fortunately, Maya’s having none of it.

Maya: You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Props to this musical for not being as bad as it could have been.

After this, the two sit down on the couch, and Maya asks for more gossip on Phoenix and Leona. Larry launches into a story, which turns into a flashback that ends up being narrated by Phoenix halfway through. This one’s about Phoenix and Leona’s relationship.

This is an interesting line in here, “I’ll guide you to the future”, for it loosely referencing the sort of love ballad Phoenix sings with Lucia in the second musical which is about “I’ll take you to that radiant future”, and he later sings to the memory of Leona right around the time of his big spiral into despair.

I’m sorry if you haven’t read my other essay and just said “wait what” to what I just typed.

Leona was getting ready to move to New York to defend the weak “in the big city”. This is rather strange wording because it implies that California does not in fact have a big city. She says some things in her conversation with Phoenix that probably plant some of his later issues.

Leona: This is the first time we’ll be apart since we were kids.

Leona: We promised we’d always be together.

Leona: I’ll be waiting. Waiting for you to come to me.

Haha. Sure would be a shame... if something were to happen... and they wouldn’t be able to be together anymore...

So some dancers wearing black come in and take off their outer jackets, to symbolize the passage of time. They circle around Phoenix and Leona. In this, you can just barely see, Phoenix is wearing a pink sweater beneath his jacket.

“Oh,” I think to myself, “Is that the Feenie sweater? Are they including it here as a reference to the games?”

Then the dancers keep moving.

THAT IS NOT THE FEENIE SWEATER. That is a pink sweater with a sexily drawn woman on it.

This is the other half of the reason why I decided to go through with making this essay. 

This is so incredibly funny to me. Suzuki Kei Who Has Played The Games Seven Times has seen the hand-knit bright pink sweater with a giant red heart on it seven times. The sweater Iris, Phoenix’s girlfriend, lovingly knit for him that he wears all the time even though it is one of the tackiest, cheesiest items of clothing to ever exist. And so, when the costume designers were designing the clothes for College Phoenix Wright, they asked themselves: “Should we include the Feenie sweater?”

and “NO,” someone must have shouted, “NO, we can NOT include the Feenie sweater, it is PINK and it has a HEART on it and it’s TOO GIRLY. Phoenix Wright is a MANLY MAN. He would not EVER wear something PINK with a HEART on it.”

“BUT,” someone else said, “it’s a REFERENCE to the original games, where he DID wear a pink sweater with a heart on it! We MUST include it to pander to the fans!”

“WAIT,” a third person interjected. “I have a BRILLIANT IDEA. We can keep the pink... But to make it VERY CLEAR he is a heterosexual, masculine male... we put a sexy woman on it.”

And Person Three Got A Raise.

Thank god we’re finally halfway done this musical.

We Just Have To Go On With Our Lives Now

There’s plot or something happening. Leona breaks up with Phoenix inexplicably over the phone. Probably because of that freaking sweater. Imagine wearing that. God.

Eventually we go back to Phoenix talking to Leona, and he asks about the Jack Lyon case, which is the rip-off version of the Joe Darke case. Leona is pretty cagey about it, but Phoenix proves that she was there in the gallery that day. Leona refuses to answer, claims again that she killed the victim in her case, and leaves.

This makes Phoenix sad, so he starts singing.

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the part where I started absolutely losing my mind in the second musical because this line had never shown up before then, I’d forgotten it was in this musical, and Phoenix was screaming it alone in a red room, so I thought he was like desperately resorting to a necromancy ritual in hopes of bringing Leona back to life.

Instead, this line actually has CONTEXT, though it does just end up enforcing my theory. This is Phoenix mourning what he used to have with Leona, wanting to bring the “old her” back, because he’s devastated that people sometimes change. There are several flashbacks of their college days where he’s wearing his Sexy Woman Sweater. He does succeed in winning her back at the end of this musical. Before she dies, of course.

Phoenix in musical 2 still believes that he can bring back what he used to have with Leona... even beyond death. That’s something affirmed by this musical. I’m very grateful to it for somehow managing to enforce my nonsensical theory.

Doctor Ema

After this, Phoenix returns to his office, and meets with someone new.

That’s right! Only now, halfway through the musical, do we actually get to meet the Ema-equivalent to Leona’s Lana-equivalent. Her name is Monica Clyde. She has little rainbow heart stickers on her briefcase, which is the closest thing this musical has to acknowledging that gay people exist.

But what does this little briefcase contain, you may ask? Scientific investigation tools? No.

A full surgical toolset. Because you never know when someone’ll get sick, or when someone will need an entire operation in front of you. I guess.

So yes, Monica Clyde is not a forensic scientist in training, but a doctor! She decided to become a doctor because of her parents, who passed away of The Sickness, and so became a doctor in order to save lives like theirs.

Once more this has much darker and deeper implications than the musical is even aware of, because Monica is so anxious about treating sick people that she carries a full surgical toolset around with her at all times, scared to lose someone like she lost her parents... and then sometime in the next three years, Leona, her big sister, is going to die.

Of what? The strange Sickness that claimed her parents? A car accident? A botched spur-of-the-moment surgery? Whatever it is, Monica was unable to save her, even when she’d been training her entire life for it.

Monica is not mentioned at all throughout the second musical. It’s as if she does not exist.

Because unlike Ema of Rise From The Ashes, Monica is not at the heart of this story. She is, primarily, a plot device here to make Leona not trust Phoenix so that he can angst about their relationship. 

What a mess this world is.

The Trial, Part 2

Rather than try to prove Leona’s innocence, Phoenix wants to link the current case to not-SL-9, the Jack Lyon case. He does this by showing this picture.

Senator Cole, the victim, is in this picture. His younger brother whose name I’ve forgotten, the victim of not-SL-9, is also in this picture. They are brothers. It is apparently novel that they are in the same picture, and somehow makes their cases linked.

As well, Governor Miller is in the picture. I guess you could say like... Governor Miller’s legal counsel is the defendant, so that’s another link? Even though the Governor would presumably know a Senator, so this isn’t an unusual group. Right now Phoenix has absolutely nothing to prove that these two cases are linked other than “hey, these two victims are brothers”, but apparently it works. So they spend a lot of time talking about not-SL-9, since Leona has confessed to the murder on day 1 and there is absolutely nothing indicating that she can’t be immediately declared guilty.

They hid the fact that Monica was a hostage in this not-SL-9, meaning that some of the case records were forged. Here’s Edgeworth’s reaction when this comes out.

Edgeworth: This is an outrage! I’m the most influential prosecutor in America! There’s nothing I don’t know!

In RFTA, when Edgeworth learns he’d been using forged evidence to give a man the death penalty, he is devastated, his entire worldview is shaken, he sees himself as a monster who could end up becoming horribly corrupt if he isn’t stopped.

Musical Edgeworth goes “I DIDN’T KNOW SOMETHING???”

It’s certainly strange characterization, but I guess Edgeworth is further behind in his character arc than in RFTA, so... ugh. Fine. 

Phoenix calls Monica out as a witness to prove she was involved in the case. This causes Leona to panic, and try to dismiss Phoenix as her attorney, like Lana in RFTA, but Edgeworth interjects to call Monica in anyways. He and Phoenix have a little moment.

Edgeworth: You said to believe in others. I suppose I’ll try believing in you. Try to keep up.

Phoenix: Edgeworth!

So Monica comes to the stand to testify. We get to see this picture of Monica being held hostage, and not-Joe-Darke’s incredible eyeliner.

Lots of it is very similar to the actual RFTA, except instead of the victim being stabbed on the knight with the giant knife, he’s instead stabbed with a regular old knife. Leona still refuses to admit to what really happened, until Edgeworth convinces her to believe in Phoenix.

Edgeworth: Your attorney is a runaway train with a one-track mind. Yet he placed all of his faith in you. Believe in him. You owe him that much.

Leona testifies, and says that when she found the victim, he was stabbed with a scalpel.

Here is where things get weird.

Scalpels Can’t Kill People

So basically earlier in this trial, they talk about how Leona knew that the knife that stabbed the victim was double-edged despite being buried in his chest. The judge questions if this means Leona killed him, but Phoenix is quick to say no, she was searched when she entered the courthouse and couldn’t have concealed a knife.

Yet, Monica was able to bring in her surgical toolkit which contains several sharp knives, scalpels, scissors, etc.

This is the first major contradiction.

Leona continues to say that when she found Monica, and the scalpel stabbed in the victim, she also ran into Governor Miller, who if you haven’t been able to tell yet is the Gant-equivalent of this musical. He offered to help her with the cover-up, etc.

The next bit goes a lot like RFTA. Phoenix accuses Governor Miller, who barges in, says Phoenix has the decisive evidence in his pocket. This is the “butter knife” that Phoenix took from his office when he dug around in confidential documents and stole it for no particular reason. It has Monica’s fingerprints on it! ... And Phoenix’s and Maya’s too probably because they were handling it without gloves, but they don’t mention that part.

Leona cries about how she shouldn’t have trusted Phoenix because he was apparently now blaming Monica, Monica looks terrified, she and Leona have some good sister moments but it’s not as good as it could be if the story was actually about Leona and Monica like how RFTA was about Lana and Ema. But Phoenix has the decisive piece of evidence that can turn this around.

It is this:

Phoenix: Scalpels are made for medical incisions, not stabbings. So how did it stab the victim?

...

...

...

... What?

So like. Yes, scalpels are made for medical incisions. Medical incisions often involve cutting through flesh, very easily. As a result, they are sharp. Extremely sharp. As in: their purpose is literally to stab people, very specifically.

Yes, they’re easier to control, so that surgeons don’t regularly stab people how they’re not supposed to be stabbed, but it’s not like, impossible to stab someone in a killing way with a scalpel? Admittedly, I have never tried to kill someone using a scalpel. And I do not have experience using a scalpel for surgeries because I am not a surgeon. But I’m pretty sure, if you take a sharp scalpel, and you stab someone in the chest with it with a reasonable amount of force... they die.

Like, is this a particular kind of scalpel that is not very sharp? Is the problem that the blade doesn’t match up with the initial wound? But even then, we don’t have the original unforged autopsy report or even a picture, so how would Phoenix know what the original wound looked like to say it didn’t match up? And even then why wouldn’t Phoenix say that instead of SCALPELS CAN’T STAB PEOPLE???

This is his decisive contradiction and it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME!!!

Well Darn I Guess Scalpels Can’t Kill People

This is such a decisive piece of evidence, that scalpels can’t kill people, coming from the man who thought “caught red-handed” does not involve being caught standing over a corpse with blood on your hands, that it causes Governor Miller to confess.

Unlike Gant, who created the murder with Neil Marshall both to ensure that there was decisive evidence to convict Joe Darke, a serial killer who had not left any decisive evidence behind, and gain control over the prosecutor’s office in order to pull similar stunts to get criminals convicted using false evidence, Governor Miller does not have that as his motive. After all, he’s not a police officer. Instead, he ended up accidentally killing not-Joe-Darke, and then set up the incident in order to get Leona on his side. As her parents were both influential lawyers and very respectable, having her and her parents’ reputation on his side could help him become President of America Where This Takes Place.

So, let’s just take a moment to run over some of the things that made the original Rise From The Ashes great, in my opinion. Just for fun.

1 - The heart of the story between the Skye sisters. Lana closing off to protect Ema, Ema wanting to get through to her sister and get back to the way things used to be. Phoenix, in this story, is more of a bystander to this plotline rather than in the heart of it himself.

2 - Edgeworth’s Character Development. Basically RFTA creates an interesting transition between Turnabout Goodbyes and JFA. It causes Edgeworth to re-evaluate everything he knows about being a prosecutor. So quickly on the heels of Turnabout Goodbyes, it crushes the last bit of hope in him. It compares him to Gant, who also hates criminals, and forces him to wonder if his hatred of crime will one day lead to him being a criminal himself. He’s already convicted one person on forged evidence; how many others could there be?

3 - The Ends Justify The Means. ... wait come back, don’t leave. What I found neat about this case was also Gant’s motive. At one point he was presumably an honest person who hated crime and wanted to stop criminals. But over time in the police force, he became corrupted. He wanted to have all criminals convicted. So what do you do when you don’t have the evidence to convict them? Joe Darke was a serial killer who has killed several people and may have killed more if he’d gone free. The only way to stop and convict him was by using forged evidence. Other criminals could hide evidence to get away with their crimes, so people like Gant would make it up to catch them; but then when do you stop? What happens if there’s no evidence because someone is truly innocent? When does the line between “this person is a criminal and I want to stop them” and “I just want to convict everyone I’m dealing with” become blurred? This is also something he shares with Edgeworth and helps to advance his character.

All three of these things are either lessened or outright ignored in this musical. Leona and Monica’s story takes a backseat to Phoenix and Leona’s Love Story, with Monica only showing up halfway through, and mainly as an excuse as to why Leona is withdrawn. Edgeworth doesn’t seem to blame himself for the forged evidence he used, and doesn’t have a crisis questioning his morality over it. And Governor Miller’s motive is purely power. Unlike Gant, who would have become Chief of Police whether he solved SL-9 or not, Miller needed Leona to win the presidency. And instead of asking her to help him with his campaign like a normal person, he just blackmailed her instead.

... How do you play the games seven times and miss this much?

The Case Finally Ends

god. we’re almost there.

The case ends, Leona is declared not guilty but will still face trial for covering up murders and such. Probably less of a sentence than Lana because she was not involved in ongoing police corruption? Either way she’s dead in three years, so she’s got something a bit more concerning coming up.

She’s led away. Phoenix sings a bit about Leona before being interrupted by Edgeworth... who has something important to tell him.

Edgeworth: You awakened within me those once-cherished emotions I had discarded. I see visions of a distant, nostalgic past.

So basically this is the unnecessary feelings of the musical. Something along the lines of “seeing you again and fighting for my former ideals is making me question many things about myself.”

How does Phoenix respond?

Phoenix: Edgeworth... Try talking normally for a chance.

Sure, we were all thinking it, but that’s a little cold, Phoenix.

Edgeworth tries a smooth recovery.

Edgeworth: I don’t do... idle chit-chat.

This doesn’t accomplish much. So he leaves to allow Leona to visit with Phoenix alone. He’s got to go change for something more important coming up.

Leona and Phoenix decide that they’re going to get back together once Leona is done her sentence! They make a promise that is very funny if you know she’ll be dead in three years.

Phoenix: I’ll be waiting. For you.

There are a lot of hugs here, I’m not screencapping them all. There are also several moments where their faces get very close together and like, their nose brushes the other’s cheek or something, but they never actually kiss. Is it because the actresses weren’t comfortable with it (valid), or they thought kissing would be too much for the musical (sure, whatever), or since both characters are played by women the show staff did not want two women kissing on stage (probably the real answer)? I don’t like watching kisses, but I kept bracing myself for one and then it never happened, so.

Phoenix ends the main part of the musical with one last musical number starring my personal favourite piece:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I like to think that at this point, this is present-day Phoenix, after finishing his reminiscing, still desperately wishing he could bring Leona back from death.

But alas, he cannot. And so, after one last daydream of them dancing together on the beaches of California, singing about their love, the musical ends.

Dance Time!

This starts at exactly the two hour mark, if you’re interested in watching what is, once again, one of the only fun parts of this musical.

Seriously, Edgeworth’s actress kills it here, when I first saw this I went “oh, this is why I saw so many people being gay for her on twitter.”

Edgeworth’s song is an encore of “My Rule”, so it’s lots of fun. Afterwards Phoenix gets another fun piece.

Then we get to the love ballad part, which I can probably overanalyze, I feel like I haven’t done enough ridiculous over-analyzing in this essay in comparison to the other.

Uhhh so the fog represents how Phoenix feels lost in this world without Leona. You can see it in the second screenshot separating the two of them, representing the barrier of death between the two of them. Idk it’s midnight I’m getting worn out from having to think about this musical for so long.

But his mourning over Leona’s death becomes even more apparent in the credits, where Phoenix sings that one line again:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I’m not fixing that screenshot, I think it’s oddly fitting, in a way. That’s me right now.

Then at the very end, he sings this song.

Phoenix: I’ll spend... this eternal life... soaring through... the heavens!

Technically, this refers to his name Phoenix, but let’s dig a little deeper. He spends the rest of his life soaring through the heavens... the heavens that Leona went to after her untimely death, perhaps?

Overall, the musical becomes much more interesting when you just see it as a prequel to the second musical. This musical establishes many core concepts of Phoenix’s character: his refusal to believe in the concept of things changing, for one, and also his extreme dependency on Leona who he was never separated from since they were kids and where he based his entire life around her dreams and ideals. All he can think about is her. And in the end, he promises to wait for her in California.

Yet, to paraphrase Miles Edgeworth, all that is waiting for him is her death. Their dream of opening up a Mom & Pop Law Firm will never come true.

Thanks again for bearing with me even though this wasn’t as funny!

[costellos]

❥ ┋ ❝ nanami, itadori, fushiguro & the things that make them flustered!

@babyyuji said: for your valentines day event can i request blush with itadori, megumi, and nanami? thank you so much!

a/n: you sure can! thanks for the suggestion 🤍🤍

tw: none.

ask game:💌 15 valentine’s day questions (closed!)

disclaimer: I’m anime-only outside of the prequel, so apologies if my character interpretations aren’t accurate.

nanami kento.

Nanami gets flustered when you fix his blazer.

fashion and sorcery aren’t a good combination. it’s a shame really, because if you’re going to be stuck in a job that you hate, you can at least make a statement. and Nanami does try to make said statement. the Tokyo Stock Exchange has a very strict dress code. since he’s left it, he’s tried wearing things that make him feel as far apart from it as possible.

key word: try. again, fashion and sorcery aren’t a good combination. he still finds rips and tears in his clothes despite how careful he is.

hence, he has a good relationship with his tailor. she’s a grumpy old woman who knows she’s good at her work. but Nanami always tips her well, and that’s enough to keep her thoughts to herself (especially when she finds dried blood on his blazers’ lapels). although her work is affordable, even that piles up over time.

so before Nanami can bring his next set of blazers to her, you take it upon yourself to fix them. you’ve taken home economics. you know how to work a needle. so much so that when Nanami comes home and he sees that his favorite’s sleeve has been reattached to its shoulder, he asks when you brought it to Mrs. Fujimoto.

his face suddenly feels warm when you beam you did it yourself. all this work? for him? a small part of Nanami is annoyed you didn’t tell him sooner you could fix it, but... most of it is pride. pride that he has someone like you, that knows him so well, and cares that much to help him. ↳ “you didn’t have to go through all this effort to do this. but... thank you. I... I really appreciate it.”

itadori yuji.

Itadori gets flustered when you make him a playlist.

it’s cheesy. even he’d admit it. but he’s a sucker for cheesy antics, and this is just one of many. it’s not his fault that mixtapes are such a personal gift, made with nothing but love for the receiver. maybe it was from watching too many John Hughes movies during his training or maybe it’s just his being a romantic, but he’s always wanted one.

no he hasn’t thought about standing outside of your window with a stereo.

it’s something you’ve known for a while now. cassette tapes are a thing of the past and other than his laptop, Itadori would have no way of listening to a burned CD. so you opt for a Spotify playlist.

you fill it with a variety of songs. songs that remind you of him, songs that you’ve danced in the quad to, the song that played during your first kiss — all little moments shared with him, all the perfect summary of your relationship. of course, it being Itadori Yuji, there’s a handful of joke songs thrown in there, too. romance and humor mesh well with him. it’s a fact you’ve become very familiar with.

and Itadori just lights up the moment you show him the playlist from your phone. the cover photo is an ugly selfie you’ve taken together, with the title being something like “heat beats 2 play on repeat.” it’s something so stupid, but something that matches your relationship so perfectly. he’s unbelievably giddy. he honestly can’t believe that you remembered such a small thing he mentioned in passing. ↳ “you’re joking. all of this is for me? I’m... agh— this is perfect! ...wait, did you seriously put Chug Jug on here...?”

fushiguro megumi.

Megumi gets flustered when you stand too close to him.

he gets embarrassed far more easily than he’d like to admit. it doesn’t help that you have this peculiar habit of coming into his personal space. it’s not that he minds, it’s just something that you do frequently.

like when you’re studying together. you always bump shoulders with Megumi, peering over his work in a desperate attempt to see what he wrote for number 12. he always covers the answer and looks away, mumbling for you to do your own work. he’s thankful it’s just the two of you in the quad today. it’d be embarrassing if anyone could see how red his ears are.

there’s also when you go out to watch movies. every damn time you do it: you get settled in your seat, nestling yourself in the plush chair with a smile on your face. and when the movie starts, you always hook your arm with his. it’s customary for you to lean your head on his shoulder at the 30 minute mark. again, Megumi doesn’t mind. he’s just glad that you’re watching an action-packed thrill ride. the beating of the film’s percussion help deafen the beating of his own heart.

his favorite habit, though, is when you take the train home after missions. Gojo’s gotten into the habit of sending you both on grueling tasks. Megumi’s starting to think that these are really the missions his teacher is too lazy to take on himself. but he isn’t complaining. he loves it when you rest your head on his shoulder, eyes closed, breathing soft. he won’t wake you until it’s time to get off. besides, he doesn’t want you to see how much his hands are shaking.

you decide to ask him about it. you’re not stupid. you know how embarrassed he gets. does he mind, though? because you could always stop... ↳ “why would I ever want you to stop? all of these things are things unique to you. if you stopped, it wouldn’t be you.”

like this piece? here are similar works! 🌑 🌒 🌓

[faeriejukyung]

True Beauty’s Gaping Mother Wound

*disclaimer*: I understand that all the listed traits are things which are often very common in Asian households, and it may seem that rather than being concerning, these are just a part of Asian culture. That is why, I feel that it’s necessary for me to make it clear that I am, in fact, Asian (Indian to be specific), and parental abuse is something that is extremely normalized here. As someone who has experienced it firsthand, I want to say that just because something is common/normal, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is correct. If you or anyone you know is in a situation like that, it’s very very important to speak out. And it’s not your fault, i know it’s easier to believe that way but it’s really not. We deserve to be in a loving environment, regardless of what culture we are born in.

Throughout the drama, Jukyung’s mother shows many traits of an abusive mother. I have been able to outline 4 of them. I don’t mean to write her off as an evil character,, because overall she is well intentioned, and just like any other mom, she does love Jukyung. This is shown in episode 8 too, where she shows remorse for her actions. That however, doesn’t justify her abusive behavioral patterns in any way. Because we can see how badly it affects Jukyung, her self esteem and her overall view of herself.

-

Act 1: “I’m going to kill you today and go to jail” -- Physical Violence.

Throughout the series, we see Jukyung's mother being very violent. But one scene which particularly stood out to me was the scene where she finds out about Jukyung's dad getting scammed. (in episode 1). While it is true that her dad caused a huge financial loss to the family, and anyone would feel angry in a situation like that, it is also true that there is never a good reason to physically abuse someone.

After hearing the news, Jukyung's mom is overcome by anger. It's completely okay to feel frustrated, but the way she violently jumped at her husband, clearly intentioned to hurt him, and the way she needed to be held back by juyoung and heekyung highlights her abusive nature. And this isn't a one time thing where she momentarily lost control of herself. She constantly shows similar behavioural traits throughout the drama.

In the scene where we see Jukyung's mom and dad together properly for the first time, their relationship dynamic is established. He's meekly massaging her shoulders while she orders him around. Their is an obvious power imbalance in the relationship, and the way Jukyung's dad cowers in fear around Jukyung's mom is a proof of that.

-

Act 2: "Why would you kill my precious son?" -- Conditional Love.

We see examples of Jukyung’s Mom’s conditional love in the kdrama AND in the webtoon. Conditional love is when a parent or a parental figure makes their child compete for love. They withhold their affection until the kid acts in ways that are desirable to them, and if the kid fails to do so, the parent often punishers them through different methods. This is their way of maintaining control over their children.

Jukyung’s Mom’s conditional love manifests itself in the form of favoritism towards her eldest daughter Heekyung, who’s not only conventionally beautiful but also very smart and has a high paying job, and towards her youngest child and only son, Juyoung, who is also written to be very attractive. Both Juyoung and Heekyung have gifts that Jukyung does not posses -- beauty and brains. The conditions that are established in order to attain their mother’s affection are getting good grades at school, and being conventionally attractive, which is why Jukyung often gets the shorter end of the stick

In the scene where we are first meet Heekyung is the drama, their mom’s affection towards her is very evident.

This is shown in the webtoon too.

She displays this favoritism towards Juyoung too, and even more so. In episode 1 where Jukyung tries makeup for the first time, and gets ridiculed by him for doing a bad job at it, she naturally feels angry and yells at him, “do you want to die?!”, but instead of telling Juyoung to stop, their mother yells at Jukyung for yelling at Juyoung (”why would you kill my precious son? why?”). It’s already very evident that Juyoung has picked up the habit of constantly taunting Jukyung for her face from his mom. In the webtoon, when Jukyung decides that she wants to pursue makeup arts and asks for her mom’s support and fees for academy, her mom flat-out refuses, saying that they don’t have enough money. However as we find out later, money wasn’t the problem, because she had enough money to send Juyoung to a cram school for acting.

I find it hard to believe that any good parent would constantly compare their children and pit them against each other like this. In the webtoon and the kdrama, it is made clear that Juyoung doesn’t have particularly good grades either, but he doesn’t have to face his mother’s wrath by the virtue of being good looking. Jukyung on the other hand, does not have any redeeming qualities.

-

Act 3: “I’m going to throw all your makeup away” --Excessive Anger.

Another sign of parental abuse is display of excessive anger. It’s usually used as an intimidation tactic to keep the child in line. Sometimes, it can simply happen because they lose control of themselves. Either way, parents who get angry more often than what is supposed to be normal, and hurt their children (physically or verbally) in the midst of their anger, repeatedly, are abusive. I feel like I don’t even need to elaborate on this one. Jukyung’s Mom is angry during half of her scenes. And the way she acts upon that anger crosses the limit too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to express your the way you feel, but the way Jukyung’s Mom does it, is extremely unhealthy and hurtful to others around her. Whether she’s jumping on Jukyung’s dad or talking down on Im Jukyung, she’s very inconsiderate of how her anger affects others. She almost always expresses herself in an extremely volatile way.

Jukyung described makeup as a hopeful light opening up a new life for her. There’s even a whole music segment of her discovering the powers of makeup, characterized by pastel and bubblegum tones, and the segment has a magical feel to it. Suffice to say that makeup brought an almost magical kind of hope and optimism to her life. In episode 6, Jukyung's Mom goes to her school to get her report card. When she sees her low grades, she gets so angry that she threatens to throw away her makeup, without once considering why Jukyung is so attached to it. In my eyes, she's actually very similar to Soojin's dad who also uses intimidation and physical violence to keep his daughter in line. If we put the same background music for the scenes where we see Jukyung's Mom threatening her, as the ones where Soojin's dad abuses her, they'd practically be identical. The only difference is that the show often plays Jukyung's Mom's behavior as a joke.

In episode 7, after seeing that Jukyung didn't improve as much as she wanted her to, she actually threw away all her makeup. Even though Jukyung did try, and did improve, it still wasn't enough for her mom. Jukyung's restlessness after not seeing her makeup on her table was palpable through the screen. Finding out that her mother threw all her makeup away sort became her breaking point. We see her yell at her mother and express her feelings for the first time.

I think it's important to note that Jukyung, who's already finds it very tough to reach out to her courageous side, was inspired by this incident to stand up to her mom, to express her outrage. Saying that makeup meant a lot to her is an understatement.

-

Act 4: "What's the point of looking beautiful with all that makeup on if you're ugly underneath?" -- Verbal Abuse.

We all get into arguments with our parents from time to time, and I’m sure we’ve all been yelled at by them at some point. Verbal abuse however, is not something that is normal, and the two shouldn’t be confused. A parent who constantly humiliates their child, yells and screams at them, talks down on them is in simple terms, an abuser. 

In episode 1, when Jukyung tries makeup on for the first time and goes to school, she gets ridiculed by her bullies and her classmates. Crestfallen, she returns back home after school and goes to her mother for reassurance. Instead of providing that, her mother ridicules her even more and calls her makeup “Ghost Makeup”. This is something abusers often do. Under the guise of teasing the victim, they often attack the victim’s self esteem, appearance etc, to make them feel insecure and to maintain their position of power over them. Jukyung’s mother isn’t very different from those bullies who told Jukyung that she was ugly and made her feel like she could never amount to anything. 

Another example that irks me a lot is from episode 3, when Jukyung’s Mom is chewing her out for being late, and suddenly the conversation turns to cosmetics and makeup. This is also one of the traits of verbal abuse. Instead of arguments surrounding the basic issue, they branch out and turn into character assassination. Her mom accuses Jukyung of wasting all her time on makeup instead of studying, even when Jukyung clarifies that she got late because she missed her bus, not because she was out buying cosmetics. But her mom doesn't listen and says to her, “What’s the point of looking beautiful with all that makeup on when you’re still ugly underneath?” 

Jukyung’s face after hearing her own mother say that was heartbreaking. Unfortunately, this type of mother-daughter relationship dynamic isn’t something  that is rare. Mothers frequently project their own insecurities on their daughters and put them down. Jukyung’s Mother’s behavior explains her self esteem issues, it gives an insight about where her insecurities really stem from. Sometimes our abuser’s thoughts and image of us start maligning our own self image. Frequently hearing them tell us that we are worthless, and that no one will ever marry us or love us, makes us believe that we are in fact, worthless and incapable of being loved unless we change something about ourselves. We frequently get an insight into how Jukyung thinks of herself throughout the drama. 

“It’s not my fault that I was born dumb” (In episode 7, after finding out that her mother threw away her makeup.)

“You know that I’m messed up” (In episode 2, referring to her face, while asking Lee Suho to keep her bare face a secret)

The drama is yet to end so I don’t want to completely write Jukyung’s Mother off as an abuser. I hope she becomes a better mom in the show, I really do. Because Jukyung deserves a loving mother. And Jukyung's mom does in fact have a few redeeming qualities, however, simply love and caring isn’t enough, you need mutual respect, reassurance and effort in each every relationship. We know that Jukyung’s mother is also often labelled as an ugly woman, and she believes that she could only get by through studying well. (“It’s going to be okay as long as you study well” - episode 1). In a world where a woman either has to a exceptionally beautiful to be considered worthy, or be exceptionally intelligent and professional lest she isn’t blessed by beauty, it’s very easy to internalize self hatred and direct it on to other individuals (especially if those individuals are your children). That is why i genuinely find myself rooting for Jukyung’s mother and hoping for a character development arc -- because i understand where she comes from, and because i can empathize with her. 

-

Fin.

[stormysapphic]

Hi! So since you said you were okay with it I wanted to ask you what is a conversion disorder and how it's affected your life maybe? Have a nice day!

yes, ofc! i'll give you sort of an overview of what conversion disorder is & how it affects me - if you or anyone else want to know smth more/more specific, just ask! 💙 also, i’ll be abbreviating conversion disorder as “CD” for convenience. and for ease of access & sort of a tl;dr, i’ll write the main points of this post in bold! CD is a neurological & psychiatric disorder where the nervous system doesn't function properly - the brain might not send (correct) signals and/or other parts of the nervous system might not receive them (correctly). CD is characterized by the fact that the condition doesn't have a clear physiological cause such as a stroke or epilepsy. it's usually classified as a dissociative disorder, but that varies based on who/what your source is (more on that in the last passage). instead of having a physiological origin, CD is caused by stress, psychological distress, or trauma. my CD is linked to my (c)ptsd. the symptoms get worse when my trauma is triggered & i even get mild symptoms when i just talk or think about my trauma in enough detail. non-trauma-related stress or anxiety can also cause them & as people with (c)ptsd know, trauma can be triggered by seemingly random stuff, and therefore my CD symptoms can also flare up pretty unexpectedly. the neurological symptoms themselves can vary a lot from person to person & situation. for me the most prevalent ones are muscle twitches all over my body (myokymia), muteness, sensory issues (such as partial blindness/deafness/numbness), paralysis, disorientation/delirium, and chronic exhaustion/lethargy. out of these, paralysis and exhaustion/lethargy are definitely the ones that come in the way of my daily life the most. wanting to get up/move & do things but physically not being able to is a terrible feeling. i’ve missed out on stuff i was rly looking forward to because i just couldn’t lift my limbs no matter how hard i tried. severe combinations of symptoms can also manifest in the form of an attack/seizure, usually caused by some major trigger. i stop responding to stimuli, go mute, can't move normally/at all (if i'm standing up when it happens i fall to the floor), twitch and tremble, and don't know where or when i am (especially if i’m also having a (c)ptsd flashback). these attacks can last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours & they are another one of the ways in which CD most affects my life. having an attack is exhausting both mentally and physically & therefore my symptoms are also worse over the few hours/days following an attack (and i’m more susceptible to having another one). and in general it’s just scary to lose control of your own body. from what i've read, my symptoms seem to be pretty typical, but like i said, there are a lot of ways CD can manifest. common symptoms i've read about but don't experience myself include inability to control the bladder, difficulty swallowing, and seizures that are more epilepsy-like than my attacks. the severity of symptoms can also vary a lot - for example, some people need to use a wheelchair because their legs are too unreliable or rarely work at all. other ways to manage CD include physical therapy & relaxation techniques for the symptoms, psychotherapy to combat the triggers causing CD, and medication to help with comorbid depression/anxiety/et cetera. the general consensus is that CD can’t be completely “cured”. CD is relatively rare and scarcely researched, even controversial. due to the lack of info & physiological cause, some doctors still don’t even think it’s real and is instead feigned by the patient. “faking it” is a common accusation people with CD face, especially bc stress flares the symptoms up. for example, i’m definitely more likely to experience paralysis before an exam i’m dreading than a fun party i’m looking forward to, which people can interpret as me just not “wanting” to do difficult or unpleasant things. but that’s not the case & the symptoms also frequently prevent me from doing the fun stuff, especially if it’s preceded by something even menially stressful. you want to go to the party, but your body refuses to move because going would require you to walk 5 minutes to the bus stop, which is “too taxing”. some doctors, on the other hand, see CD as a misdiagnosis for other neurological/psychiatric disorders. this theory has its roots in the fact that CD was previously known as hysteria, the infamous diagnosis given to women who showed basically any symptoms doctors just wanted to dismiss. as the medical field & attitudes towards women's health evolved, most hysteria diagnoses became obsolete/replaced by other, more appropriate diagnoses. CD took the place of hysteria in describing neurological symptoms brought on by a psychological cause. and nowadays we obviously also know that the symptoms in question aren’t exclusive to women. last disclaimer: because of the lack of info & evolving research, the exact classification of CD varies. DSM classifies it as a somatoform disorder, while ICD (which was used for my diagnosis) has it under dissociative disorders. furthermore, some people experience neurological symptoms that seem to have neither a physiological nor psychiatric cause, and because CD generally requires the latter, people without one are sometimes given the diagnosis of functional neurological disorder (FND) instead. CD and FND are also sometimes used interchangeably, or CD can be classified as a subset of FND - basically a functional neurological disorder with a known psychiatric cause.

[freddiekluger]

Why Cap Being Internally Closeted Is Not Only Possible, But Valid Representation 

i wrote this to a lot of mitski and onsind, so you can’t blame me for any feelings that bleed through

now i don’t know if it actually exists, but i’ve heard of there being a lot of discourse surrounding the captains story arc regarding his sexuality- i believe the general gist is that having a queer character that remains closeted to themselves is either unrealistic or ‘bad’ representation, and as someone who really treasures the captain and relates to his story so far a lot, i thought i might break this down a bit. 

i’ve divded up every complaint i’ve heard about this into four main questions which i’ll be covering below the ‘keep reading’, because this is gonna be pretty comprehensive. full disclaimer i reference my experiences as an ex-evangelical non binary butch lesbian a couple times, and i spent a year studying repression and the psychological impacts of high demand sexual ethics for my graduating sociology paper, so this is coming with some background to it i swear

the big questions:

can you EVEN be gay and not know it????

but isn't this just ANOTHER coming out arc, and aren't we supposed to be moving beyond those?

but if cap can't have a relationship with a man because he's a ghost, what's the point?

since cap's dead, isn't this technically bury your gays, and isn't that bad? 

1. "but is it really possible to not know? Isn't that bad representation?"

short answer: no and no.

before i get into the validity of the captain's ignorance about his own orientation as 21st century rep, let's break down how the hell the captain can be so clearly attracted to men and still not even consider the possibility that he might be gay, as brought to you by someone who literally experienced this shit.

the captain's particular situation is both a direct result of the lack of information around human sexuality he would have had (aka clear messaging that it's actually possible for him to be attracted to men. i don't mean acceptable or allowed, i mean physically capable of happening- the idea that orientations other than heterosexual exist and are available to him, a man), and a subconscious survival mechanism. the environment in which he lives is outright hostile to gay people, while the military man identity he has constructed for himself doesn't allow for any form of deviation from societal norms, let alone one so base level and major. as a result of this killer combo of information and environment, instincts take over and the mind does it's best to repress the ‘deviant’ feelings until a. one of these two things changes, or b. the act of repression becomes so destructive and/or exhuasting that it becomes impossible to maintain. the key to maintaining a long-term state of repression of desire is diverting that energy elsewhere, and a high-demand group such as the military is the perfect place for the captain to do this (this technqiue is frequented by religions and extremist ideologies worldwide, but that’s not really what we’re here to focus on). 

while the brain is actively repressing ‘deviant’ feelings (aka gay shit), this doesn't mean you don't experience the feelings at all. when performed as a subconscious act of survival, the aim of repression is to minimise/transform the feelings into a state where they can no longer cause immediate danger, and something as big as sexual/romantic orientation is going to keep popping up, but as long as the individual in question never understands what they’re feeling, they’ll be able to continue relatively undisturbed. you know how in heist movies, the leader of the group will only tell each team member part of the plan so they can’t screw things up for everyone else if they get caught? it’s kind of like that.

this is how the captain appears to have operated in life AND in death, and it’s a relatively common experience for lgbtq people who’ve grown up in similar circumstances (aka with a lack of information and in an unfriendly-to-hostile environment), and accounts for how some people can even go on to get married and have children before realising that they’re gay and/or trans. 

personally, while i can now identify what were strong homo crushes all the way back to childhood, at the time i genuinely had no idea. there was the underlying sense that i probably shouldn't tell people how attached i was to these girls because i would seem weird, and that my feelings were stronger than the ones other people used to describe friendships, but like-like them in the way that other girls like-liked boys? no way! actually scratch that, it wasn't even a no way, because i had no idea that i even could. i even had my own havers, at least in terms of the emotional hold and devotion she got from me, except she treated me way less well than cap’s beau. snatches of the existence of lgbt people made it through the cone of silence, i definitely heard the words gay and lesbian, but my levels of informations mirrored those that the captain would have had: virtually none, beyond the idea that these words exist, some people are them, and that's not something that we support or think is okay, so let's just not speak about it. despite only attending religious schools for the first couple years of primary, until i got my own technology and social media accounts to explore lgbtq content on my own- option a out of the two catalysts for change- the possibility of me being gay was not at all on my radar. don’t even get me started on how long it took me to explore butchness and my overall gender, two things which now feel glaringly obvious. 

when shit starts to break down, you can also make the conscious choice to repress which can delay the eventual smashing down of the mental closet door for a time (essentially when the closet door starts to open, you just say ‘no thanks’ and shut it again by pointedly Not Thinking About It). in the abscence of identifying yourself by your attractions, it becomes quite common to identify with a lack- in my case, this meant becoming proud of how sensible and not boy crazy i was, and in the captain’s case, this means becoming proud of how sensible and not sensuous/wild (aka woman crazy) he was, identifying with his LACK of desire for women and partying (which, even in the 40s, involved the expectation of opposite sex romances and hook ups). i’m not saying that’s the only reason he’s a rule follower, but i think the contrast between About Last Night and Perfect Day pretty much support this. (the captain getting on his high horse about general party antics that he inherently felt excluded from because of underlying awareness of his difference & his tendency to project his regimented expectations of himself onto others, vs. joining in the reception party, awareness of how the environment supports difference in the form of clare and sam, and relaxing his own rules by dancing with men- the captain doesn’t mind a party when feels like he has a place there.)

so the captain was operating in a high demand, highly regulated environment (primarily the military, but also early 20th century England itself), with regimented roles, rules, and expectations. working on the assumption that he wouldn't have had out/disclosing lgbt friends, he would have had little to no exposure to lgbt identities, and what information he did receive would have been hushed and negatively geared. while my world started to open up when i started high school was allowed to have my own phone + instagram account, resulting in me realising something wasn't quite 'right' within a few years (making me a relatively early realiser compared to those who don't come out to themselves until adulthood), in life the captain never had that experience. he didn't receive the information he needed, his environment didn't grow less hostile. with the near-exception of havers related heartbreak, his well disciplined and lifelong method of repression never became destructive/exhaustive enough to permanently override the danger signals in his mind and allow him to put his feelings into words. neither of the most common catalysts for change happened for him, so he continued as usual, even after his death.

BUT, and here’s where we come to why this is actually great representation, arrival of mike and Alison represents the opening up of new world. for the first time, the captain is actively made aware of the fact that his environment is no longer hostile, and better than that, it’s affirming. he’s also getting access to positively geared information about lgbtq people and identities, so option a of the two catalysts for change is absolutely present, and resoundingly positive. 

the captain’s arc is also relatively unique as it acknowledges the oppressive nature of his environment, but actually focuses on the internal consequences, and the way that systems like those that the captain lived in succeed because they turn us into our own oppressors. for whatever reason, we repress ourseslves, and often can’t help it, and i find that the significance of the journey to overcome that is often overlooked in more mainstream queer media. perhaps it’s just not very cinematic, or it remains too confronting for cishet audiences, but ghosts manages to touch on it with a lovely amount of humour and hope. Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader is another favourite piece of queer media for the same reasons.

not only does it show this, but as the captain continues to get gayer and lean into some of his less conventional traits (like an interest in fashion and the wedding planning), it shows lgbt people who have been or are going through this that there CAN be a positive outcome. it takes a lot to unlearn all the things that have painted you as wrong, especially when a massive institution is desperate to continue doing so, but you can do it, you can be happy, and it's never too late. (i've been meaning to say that last point for ages for ages, but a mutual beat me to it here)

2. not just another coming out arc

i absolutely support the demand for queer stories that don’t center around coming out (it’s like shrodinger’s queer: if you’re not coming out on screen, do you really even exist?), but i don’t align with the criticisms that the captain should already be out. for the reasons mentioned above, the captain’s particular story is fairly different to the ‘young white teenager who mostly knows gay is fine, it’s just everyone else that’s got the problem, but have a unremarkably straight sounding soundtrack, a trauma porn romance, and a cishet saviour’ that we keep seeing. the captain’s ongoing journey with his sexuality emphasises the overaching theme of the show: recovering from trauma and humanity’s endless capacity for growth, and i think that’s worth showing over and over again until it stops being true.

additionally, while the captain’s journey regarding his gayness is a big part of his character and story, ghosts makes it clear that it’s not the ONLY part, and being gay is far from his ONLY characteristic or dramatic/comedic engine. the fact that i’m even having to congratulate ghosts for doing that really shows how much film and television is struggling huh.

while all queer media is, and should be, subject to criticism, i think if it helps even one person then it absolutely deserves to exist, and i can say i’ve found the captain’s journey to be the lgbt story i’ve found that’s closest to my own, which says a lot considering he’s a dead world war 2 soldier who hangs out with other ghosts including a slutty Tory, a georgian noblewoman, and a literal caveman. 

3. if captain gay, why he no have boyfriend???? 

another complaint that’s been circulating is that since the captain doesn’t, and likely won’t, have a boyfriend, that makes him Bad Representation because it follows the sad single gay trope. i kind of get the logic from this one, and a lot of it is up to personal interpretation, but part of me really enjoys the fact that the captain’s journey towards accepting himself is separated from having a relationship.

coming out is often paired with having romantic/sexual relationships (either as the reason or reward for doing so). my own struggle with repression didn't end the second that came out, and i still struggle with letting myself develop & acknowledge romantic feelings as a result of actively shutting them (and most other feelings in general) down for years, and statistics show that lgbtq youth in particular tend not to live out their 'teen years' until their twenties. by not giving cap a relationship straight away, ghosts separates the act of claiming identity and sexual orientation from finding a partner (two things which are, more often than not, separate), and also provides some very nice validation to folks who have yet to have the relationship they want, especially when lots of mainstream queer media is now jumping on the cishet media bandwagon of acting as if every person loses their virginity and has a life defining relationship at sixteen. it’s essentially a continuation of the earlier theme of “it’s never too late”, and who’s to say the captain won’t get a gay bear ghost boyfriend to go haunt nazis with??? people die all the time, it could happen.

(also, i think him and julian will have definitely shagged at least once. it was a low moment for both of them and they refuse to speak of it.)

lots of asexual/ace spectrum fans have come out to say how much they’ve loved being able to headcanon cap as ace, and while that’s not a headcanon i personally have, i think it’s brilliant that ace fans feel seen by his character- we’re all in this soup together babey (and sorry for cursing everyone still reading this with that cap/julian headcanon. i’m just a vessel)

4. “okay, but cap’s a GHOST- doesn’t that make this Bury Your Gays?”

this is a bit of a complex one, but i’m going to say no as a result of the following break down.

Bury Your Gays (BYG), aka the trope where lgbtq characters are consistently killed off (and often with a heavy dose of trauma, while cishet characters survive) is probably one of my least favourite lgbt media tropes. BYG has two main points:

1. the lgbt character is killed, thus removing them from story entirely- hence the use of the phrase ‘killed OFF’ (killed off of the show/film)

2. the character’s death reinforces the perception that lgbtq people’s lives must end in tragedy, instead of being long and fulfilling, or are inherently less valuable. bonus points if the character is killed in a hate crime or confesses same-gender love right before they die (that one implies that queer love genuinely has no future!)

not every death of an lgbtq character is bury your gays, and i personally feel that the captain is an example of an lgbt death that isn’t. 

first of all, while the captain is dead, so are the vast majority of characters in ghosts. the premise of the show means that death is not the end of the line for its characters- for most of them, it’s the only reason we get to see them on screen at all. as such, the captain being dead doesn’t remove him from the story, so point one is irrelevant.

at the time of posting, we don’t know how or why the captain died, but we've had nothing to suggest his death was in any way related to his latent sexuality, so his mysterious death doesn’t actively play into the supposedly inherent tragedy of queer lives, nor the supposedly lesser value. that’s as of right now- since we don’t know the circumstances of his death it’s a little tough to analyse properly. while the captain’s life absolutely features missed opportunities and it’s fair share of tragedy, hope and growth (which seems to be the theme of this post) abounds in equal measure. the captain may not be alive, but we DO get to see him growing and having a relatively happy existence, that for the most part seems to be getting even better as he learns to open up and be himself unapologetically- that doesn’t feel like BYG to me.

while writng this, it’s just occured to me that death really is a second chance for most of the ghosts, especially with the introduction of alison. from mary learning to read, to thomas finding modern music, they’ve all been given the chance explore things they never could have while they were alive, and hopefully grow enough to one day be sucked off move on.

in conclusion,

i love the captain very much and i hope his arc lives up to the standards it’s set so far. i don’t know where to put this in this post, but i’d alo like to say i LOVE how in Perfect Day, the captain wasn’t used as an educational experienced for fanny at all. i am very tired of people expecting me to be the walking talking homophobe educator and rehabilitator, so the fact that it’s alison and the other ghosts that call fanny out while the captain just gets to have fun with the wedding organisation made me very happy.

here’s a few other cap posts that i’ve done:

the captain’s arc if adam and the film crew stayed

a possible cap coming out 

the captain backstory headcanon

if you’ve read this far,

thank you!

also check out @alex-ghosts-corner , this post inspired me very much to write this